Liz Ireland (21 page)

“I don’t know what else you’d call it,” Will said, an edge to his voice.

Paulie thought about the strange weightlessness she’d felt just having a man shower her with empty compliments. “All right, maybe I was mooning just a little,” she admitted. “Is that so strange after being around a bunch of heathens all my life who don’t know how to relate to a woman except to make love to her or slap her on the back?”

Will stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I didn’t notice you minding lovemaking so much when we were doing it,” he said. “Or do women naturally prefer empty words to real kisses?”

She wriggled in his grasp, to no avail. Even with the bum shoulder, the man was strong as an ox. Now that she thought about it, she
would
have preferred Will’s kisses over a lifetime of sweet words from a no-good gambler. But she didn’t like his tone. And dress or no dress, she hated to lose an argument.

“I just prefer someone with a few manners!” she said, giving him a mighty shove that, when he loosened his grasp, sent her reeling backwards. She caught herself from tripping and smoothed her skirts down in a calming gesture. Will Brockett was not going to best her this time. What in tarnation was wrong with him?

“Anyone would think you were jealous, Will,” she said.

Every rugged wrinkle fell out of his face. “Jealous? Of whom?”

Paulie shrugged. “Of Mary Ann and Oren Tyler, I guess. He’s stolen your old sweetheart, and now you can’t stand to hear a good word said about him.”

He looked at her long and hard. “I don’t care about Tyler one way or the other. I just don’t see the point in chasing after a woman who doesn’t want to be caught.”

What a turnaround! Paulie marvelled that her arguments had finally sunk through Will’s skull at precisely the wrong time. “What if something terrible happens to her? Won’t you feel responsible?”

That hypothetical scenario gave Will pause, and Paulie watched as the possibilities played across his eyes. At last he shook his head. “We should concentrate on getting you back to Possum Trot.”

“Me?” she asked. “What’s the matter with me?”

“The city air seems to be giving you strange notions. Or maybe it’s a lack of air from that corset you’re wearing.”

Though angered at the implication that she had gone addle-brained, Paulie felt some of the fight drain out of her. She gaped at him in amazement. “How would you know what I’ve got on under my dress?”

Will lifted his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Uh…just a wild guess.”

She shook her head uneasily. The notion of any man being conscious of her underwear was unsettling. Having that man be Will made things a thousand times worse. Could he also tell that she had a gun in her drawers?

Lord, right now she would have given anything to have things back as they were in the good old days back in Possum Trot, before everything started getting so complicated. What were they going to do now? They just couldn’t give up and go back home. Or at least, Paulie wouldn’t feel right doing that. Maybe Will had ceased to feel sorry for Mary Ann. But having suffered from unrequited love herself, and now understanding firsthand the appeal that the gambler might have for a susceptible woman, Paulie actually
felt sympathy for Mary Ann. She didn’t accept that they could just let her go.

Maybe some of Will’s craziness had finally rubbed off on her.

Besides, Will had been absolutely right about one thing. It
was
her fault that the Breens were now probably on their way to San Antonio. If they showed up and discovered that she had simply allowed Mary Ann to run off, she would feel like a damn fool. She had to do something, even if she did it by herself.

“Are you going down to dinner?” Will asked her.

Paulie’s head snapped up, making her realize how deeply she had already been immersed in plans. “Oh…I don’t think so.” She feigned a yawn. “Actually, I’m a little tired…and I have a headache. I might try to sleep it off.”

Will looked at her curiously. “You want me to have Maudie bring something up?”

“No—no, I’ll get something later.”

At the store on her way out of town, she thought. She gazed at Will for a long moment, then forced herself to turn and go back across the hall to her room to pack.

In his room after dinner, Will felt a little guilty. He hadn’t heard a peep from Paulie’s room. Most likely she was angry for his seeming to dismiss her notion of running after Mary Ann. But he just couldn’t see chasing Mary Ann anymore. Instead, he thought perhaps they could try to do things right for a change, and wire ahead to Oren Tyler that he was being followed. Let Mary Ann be the gambler’s headache.

Will was amazed. In a few short days, Mary Ann had completely turned herself around in his esteem, only to have her place filled by the last woman on earth he thought he’d ever fall in love with.

He stopped in midstride as abruptly as if someone had hit him on the head with a log.
In love?

He tried to think for a moment, to test himself. But what was the proof of love? It surely hadn’t been what he’d felt for Mary Ann. The minute he’d met up with her in San Antonio, the protectiveness he’d mistaken for love had turned into impatience and mild disgust. What he felt for Paulie was completely different…deeper, as though it had always been a part of him. There was nothing forced about the tenderness he felt for Paulie. But even so, how could he be certain that wasn’t just a passing emotion, too?

Shaking off the perplexing question, he crossed the hall to Paulie’s room, eager to talk to her, and to ask her if she wanted to go with him to the telegraph office. Hell, he’d send Tyler a telegram in every city between here and Denver, if that would make Paulie feel better. Tyler was a rake, but he wasn’t a demon. He would try to convince Mary Ann to go home. And if he couldn’t, she would probably just stay in Austin or Dallas or Denver until her money ran out.

He smiled, knocked once on Paulie’s door, and deciding to give her a dose of her own medicine, walked right on in. “Say Paulie, think you’re up for a trip to—?”

He stopped, sensing immediately that something was very wrong. The room was dead silent. No room this quiet could have Paulie in it. He looked around. Paulie wasn’t sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, or standing by the wardrobe next to him, or lying on the bed. But something else was. A note.

At first Will thought the note was Mary Ann’s; they were written on identical paper. Then he remembered that Mary Ann’s short letter was still folded in his pocket, where he’d tucked it away while talking to Paulie before dinner.

He walked toward the white envelope, dreading the bad
news it was certain to contain for him. Already he was cursing Paulie, cursing himself for letting her out of his sight, cursing Mary Ann for getting them all into this mess. Practically no one he’d ever met escaped his mental castigation in the few seconds it took to reach that darn note, which he ripped open and read without delay.

Will,

Since you don’t seem interested, I’m going to fetch your horse back myself. Please wait here for the Breens, and explain to them that Mary Ann will be back as soon as I can persuade her to return. If I can!

Yours,

Paulie

He stood in the middle of the silent empty room, reading the thing over and over, but the words never changed as he prayed they would. They never delivered more information, or better news, or delivered it in a tone that would have given him any sort of comfort. If anything, her little letter was shorter and more curt than Mary Ann’s!

His vision snagged on the greeting.
Will.
Not “My Dear Will,” or even a plain “Dear Will.” Just
Will.
There was little more satisfaction to be gleaned from the closing, either. She would have sounded more affectionate, he thought, if she had been writing the note for Maudie.

But no matter how the letter sounded, it still translated to the same meaning: Paulie was gone.

And what choice did he have but to follow her?

P
aulie rode far and fast, and as dark night fell, she realized she’d ridden long enough to land herself in a place she was unfamiliar with. There was a road, but she suddenly began to doubt its ability to take her in the right direction. Peering ruitlessly around the hilly countryside, she could see no ecognizable landmark that would answer her question. But hen, she’d never been at her keenest in the pitch black of right, which is why she’d decided to stop riding and get a few hours of shut-eye.

Now, staring sleeplessly up at the stars, her old revolver lugged tightly to her chest, she wondered whether that was he wisest decision. For one thing, she’d never been out by herself at night, and so had never noticed the innumerable, disturbing noises that could keep a body from getting forty winks. There seemed to be a whole slew of critters whose sole purpose in life was to come out at sunset and keep unfortunate souls like herself from nodding off.

Then there was the din sounding off inside her own head. Worries. What if she never found Mary Ann? It was a big state, and now that she was out in its vastness, she could see how easily she could miss spotting someone, even if they were travelling in the same direction. And there were
also fears to contend with. Fear of running into unsavory characters. Night Bird.

That name sent a shiver through her, and she bolted up, just like Oat had done so many times. At the time she had laughed at the old man’s antsiness, but she wasn’t laughing now. Sometimes fears, like a child’s cries in the dark, were caused by ignorance. But this, unfortunately, was the fear of experience. Oat had probably known that all along.

And now he was gone.

Cal was gone, too.

The world around her dimmed a shade. She repeated Will’s words to herself—hundreds of people travelled the roads unmolested every day. Of course, from her vantage point now, those hundreds of people were just fools. How sure of herself she’d been when she’d galloped out of San Antonio—how full of herself, she realized now. It never occurred to her that maybe she should have listened a little harder to Will’s argument for staying put, and that she could be galloping off toward her doom.

After they buried Oat, Trip had decided that life was too short to waste. How true that seemed to her now—now, when she might very well never see Will again. The possibility seemed horrible, unthinkable. And yet not a few hours before, she’d thrown a few things in her saddlebags and run off without stopping to tell him goodbye. Instead, she’d only written a note. And in writing it, she had been too self-conscious to say what she really felt. She’d given him only the barest of facts, and had taken pains not to make it sound like she was in love with him. Of course anyone could see that she was. Anyone, that is, except Will.

Now, it was too late to let him know.

Somewhere in the distance, an animal let out a long howl. A wolf, maybe. Or was it a coyote, or some animal she had never even encountered before? She began wondering
about bears—an animal she’d previously never given much thought to. No one she knew had come up against one, but that wasn’t saying much. Back in Possum Trot she was generally concerned with more mundane animal life like skunks and mice and snakes. From where she was sitting, an encounter with a snake would be far preferable to meeting up with a hungry wolf, or a bear. Bears were probably more ferocious than any other animal she could think of…and hadn’t she heard somewhere that they travelled by night and liked especially to prey on small campsites?

In an instant, Paulie was on her feet, shaking the dirt off her blanket and herself. There was no sense in stopping if she was just going to huddle in wakeful anxiety. She began quickly packing up her horse again. Luckily, she hadn’t really made much of a camp. It was a relatively warm night for November, and she hadn’t wanted to bother with a fire. So all she had to do was gather up her things and…

At the sound of a twig breaking nearby, Paulie whirled away from her horse and squinted into the darkness. She couldn’t see, but she didn’t have to. She knew immediately that she wasn’t alone. Her entire body froze, except for her heart, which was beating violently. The night sounds that had so occupied her thoughts suddenly evaporated, replaced by the rushing of blood in her ears and the faint but unmistakable rustlings of something trying to sneak up on her camp. She dismissed the possibility of its being a bear. An animal that big would have made more noise.

Indians. Night Bird’s approach wouldn’t have been quite so noticeable, of course, but he wasn’t the only Indian in the state. Maybe some of them were clumsier than others; in any case, she wasn’t going to stick around and find out.

Unfortunately, she had loosened the saddle on her horse, and so would have to waste precious moments tightening
the girth before she could mount up. Or she could simply run for it. She was wearing a dress—Maudie had never returned her britches and shirt to her—but she had managed to retrieve her old boots from beneath Maudie’s bed, and knew that she could run fleetly if she had to. And when she detected the sound of a footfall not twenty feet away, she decided then and there to run. Maybe leaving her horse behind would throw her pursuer off for a short while, allowing her a head start.

Not bothering to strategize beyond the need to run for her life, Paulie did just that. She ducked under her mount and took off at a sprint, amazed that she could keep her footing at all, her legs were shaking so. Then there was the problem of the darkness. She expected at any moment for her foot to land in a hole, or to come straight up against a bramble or even a tree. She was running blind, but she didn’t care. If she hit a tree, that would simply give her something to hide behind. Until then, she wasn’t going to waste precious seconds searching for cover, when she felt instinctively that her pursuer was gaining on her.

He was so close she could hear his breathing—heavy breathing. Whoever was chasing her was practically wheezing with the effort it was costing him, which gave her hope. If the rascal was tiring out already, maybe she could outlast him. Maybe she could circle back around even, and return to—

Her ankle caught on something and turned, sending her flying forward. For a split second in midair it felt almost as if she were going to soar away from her attacker. She couldn’t have picked a better time to sprout wings. But inevitably what went up had to come down, and she fell to earth in a heavy, painful thud that knocked the wind clear out of her. Worse still, the man behind her lost his footing,
too, and landed practically on top of her with a raspy
humph!

Only sheer panic could make her lungs draw in air again. Gasping for breath, she turned on the ground and started pushing herself back with her elbows, freeing her legs and feet to kick the man if he so much as crawled toward her. Poised with her booted foot tensed inches away from her pursuer’s skull, she discovered precisely who had been chasing her. Not an Indian, and certainly not a bear.

Will!

She nearly shouted for joy—until the sheer absurdity of their predicament hit her full force. “Land’s sake, Will! Were you trying to scare me to death?”

“I didn’t know you’d be so jumpy.”

The comment smarted. She
had
been uncommonly frightened, and hated for Will to know it. “What are you doing here?” she asked, covering her embarrassment.

“Oh, just thought I’d do some fishing.” He caught his breath and looked up at her with some amusement. “I’m following you, what did you think?”

“You could have saved us both a hard sprint and countless scrapes and bruises if you’d just announced yourself.” Even as she said it, she began to feel the palms of her hands, which had attempted to break her fall, begin to sting like the dickens.

“I couldn’t be sure it was you.”

“Well I sure as heck didn’t know it was you!” she retorted. “’Sides, who else would it be but me?”

Even in the darkness, she could see him lift his shoulders in his familiar shrug. “I didn’t know until you started running.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me to
stop
running?”

“I did. I called your name several times.”

Paulie thought back, and suddenly realization dawned.
“That was
my name?”
she asked in amazement. “Lord, I thought you were some wheezing devil about to get me!”

His lips formed a scowl, and he began to stand, wincing as he worked his shoulder. Paulie felt bad about that, but she had her own aches and pains to take stock of. Besides, if he hadn’t snuck up on her like that…

“What were you doing running off half-cocked to begin with?” he asked, his impatience all too evident.

“I told you, I heard you coming and I—”

He waved a hand dismissively, almost disgustedly, at her. “No, I meant, what made you run off after Mary Ann this way? I would have come with you, you know.”

Of all the exasperating people she’d met in her lifetime—and there were quite a few of those just in Possum Trot alone—she was beginning to think Will topped them all. “You told me point-blank that you
wouldn’t
come!”

“I didn’t know you’d go running off by yourself.” His eyes pinned her in the darkness. “Maybe you didn’t want me to come with you.”

“Land’s sake, why wouldn’t I?” she exclaimed, thinking about the dull hours she’d spent riding, and the fearful time she’d passed attempting to go to sleep.

Her question was met with a snort, but the set of his lips held little humor. “I reckon Oren Tyler might have something to do with that.”

“Of all the silly things!” In irritation, Paulie began to slap furiously at the dust on her skirts.

“Is it silly?” he asked. “I see you still dolled yourself up for this little trip.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Only because Maudie hid my pants!” she brayed in her own defense. Why did Will persist in saying she had a weakness for the gambler? Was it just to irritate her? “I couldn’t very well ask
her for my britches without rousing some kind of suspicion.”

He appeared to accept this answer, though he clearly wasn’t through needling her. She supposed he’d accepted it as his life mission to point out how harebrained she was. “I don’t understand what all the secrecy was for,” Will said. “If you’d just tried talking to one of us, we might have told you how foolhardy it was to go chasing after a no-good gambler.”

Paulie thought she might shriek in frustration. “Aren’t you listening to a word I’m saying, Will? I’m
not
running after Oren Tyler. I have no interest in that man whatsoever. I just decided it was my place to try to fetch Mary Ann back.”

He harrumphed his disbelief.

“It’s true!” she cried. “What you said about my being responsible for the Breens coming to San Antonio was right, so I decided to make myself responsible for seeing that Mary Ann was there to greet them when they arrived.”

He looked at her skeptically. “I don’t know if we’ll make it back by then. I told Maudie to keep an eye out for the Breens and to tell them to sit tight till we got back.”

Paulie was comforted by his use of the word “we.” He was with her for the long haul, it seemed—an idea that warmed her more than she wanted to admit at the moment. Lord knows, she loved him. If only the man weren’t so darned difficult!

Paulie turned and began to tramp back to her little camp. Now that Will was here, maybe they could build a toasty fire. To this end, she began picking up anything that looked combustible as they walked. But she hadn’t given up on letting him know how idiotic some of his notions were.

“I can’t believe you’d think I’d go chasing after Oren Tyler,” she said scathingly. She tried to make it sound as
if that would be the same thing as running after a skunk, which actually wasn’t quite the truth. Oren Tyler was a good-looking fellow—but not nearly as handsome to her as Will was. She stopped a moment, just to drink him in. Lord, she was so glad to see him she wanted to yip for joy.

But for some reason, he wouldn’t stop snapping at her. “What else was I to think, after the way you were sighing after the man this afternoon?”

“You must not have a very high estimation of my character!” Paulie said with a sniff.

He shook his head. “You have to admit, you’ve been acting mighty peculiar lately,” Will said. “Running around when Night Bird’s on the loose…”

“You didn’t seem to care so much about that this afternoon.”

“You didn’t tell me Cal Tucker’s murder took place near San Antonio,” Will said bitterly. “I had to learn that myself from the man at the telegraph office.”

Paulie frowned. “I’d have told you if you’d asked me.”

“There are some details a person shouldn’t omit.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”

“You couldn’t have tried very hard then.”

Will, too, began wandering and scooping up firewood, which became more plentiful as they neared the tree where she had snubbed her horse. “That’s not true. It seems I’ve been thinking of nothing but you lately, Paulie.”

She laughed. “Thinking of ways to annoy me, I reckon,” she clarified. “You always were best at that.”

For the first time that night, he smiled too. “You’ve got it exactly backwards.
You
were the expert on badgering me.” He entered the clearing and dropped the wood he’d gathered. “I never did think you’d get under my skin this way, though.”

The rough tone in his voice sent a little shiver through
Paulie, and she too dropped her wood, although not entirely voluntarily. Her limbs felt suddenly unsteady somehow, and her head seemed a little foggy. Sort of like in a dream when familiar people start doing unexpected things. She’d had a dream once in which Trip had turned into a bird. He hadn’t grown feathers exactly, but perched on a bar stool at the Dry Wallow, he’d begun chirping just like a bluebird. That had been startling; yet not as startling as being full awake and sensing this strange shift in Will.

She looked up at him and swallowed hard. “What have I done to you lately?”

He shrugged wordlessly a few times before finding his voice again. “I don’t know. This afternoon…all that business with Oren Tyler calling you silly things like sugar lump…”