Liz Ireland (4 page)

The thought of something happening to Will nearly drove her to distraction, but she faced him, holding back tears.

Will stared evenly at her, his expression softening. “I’m not going to get killed.”

He appeared so determined, so sure of himself and of what he had to do, in that instant even Paulie couldn’t imagine Night Bird getting the best of Will Brockett. But Will was a cowboy, not an Indian fighter! Sure he was good with a gun, but so were plenty of army men who had lost their lives to the Indians.

“Can’t let Will ride off alone,” Oat said out of the blue. Clearly, he’d been off in his own daze struggling with this moral dilemma. “Me being her husband and all.”

Will stood. “Come or don’t,” he told Oat. “I’m leaving in an hour.” And with that, he turned and strode out of the saloon, headed for Dwight’s mercantile.

“Guess he’s going to get provisions,” Trip said.

Paulie felt like running after him, but what purpose would that serve? She wasn’t going to change his mind. Once Will Brockett got it into his head to do something, that something always got done. She caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar. Her face was worried and pinched. And suddenly, she looked unbearably silly with her wild hair and her mother’s white dress. She didn’t want Will to ride off remembering her like this.

She didn’t want him riding off, period. “Watch the bar for me, Trip.” She went back to the narrow stairwell that led to her room above the saloon. Her mind was racing, trying to think of some way to get Will to stay. As she was halfway up the stairs, she heard the sound of Oat gulping down his fourth glass of tequila.

“Gol-darn it!” he hollered decisively, bolstered by spirits. “I’m a goin’ with him!”

Poor old man, Paulie thought. Poor Will, too. Oat wasn’t going to be much of a help. She’d feel a lot better knowing Will had somebody along who would really watch out for him.

Paulie froze for a split second as an idea began to hatch.
Why not?
Why shouldn’t she follow along with Will? She would be as much use to Will as Oat would!

As decided as Oat was himself—only more so, because she was sober—Paulie ran the rest of the way up to her room, a blur of white frills and lace, smashing her hoop skirt close to her body as she took the stairs two at a time. Maybe it was a good thing that she looked silly in dresses, she thought, her mood picking up. They sure were a nuisance!

When Will finally emerged from Dwight’s mercantile, he was nearly flattened by Paulie on her way in. He almost didn’t recognize her, though she had changed back into the shirt and breeches that should have been most familiar to him. For some reason, he couldn’t get the thought of her in that white dress out of his mind.

“I’m going with you,” she told him in passing.

By the time the words registered, Paulie had slapped the door shut behind her and disappeared inside. Will stood on the porch of Dwight’s building for a moment, sure he’d heard wrong. Or seen wrong. That
was
Paulie he’d just bumped into, wasn’t it? He pivoted and went back inside to check.

Sure enough, there was Paulie, her crazy hair braided and smashed under one of her pa’s old hats, moving along the shelves of Dwight’s, scooping up matches, pointing to
dried beef and fruit and quickly calculating the amounts of corn meal and coffee she could take along with her.

Will strode toward her. “Never mind, Dwight,” he told the store’s short, balding proprietor. “You can just put all that stuff away, Paulie. Unless you’re buying it for Oat.”

His words barely fazed her. “I’ll be more of a help to you than Oat will,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she turned back to the store owner. “I guess a pound of coffee will do, Dwight.”

Will rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paulie. For heaven’s sake. I can’t be hauling a girl along with me.”

“Why not? You can haul an old boozy whiskey trader.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“He’s a man, that’s why.” He’d be damned if he was going to spend precious minutes explaining the facts of life to Paulie. “Now be reasonable, Sprout.”

She put her hands full on her hips and glared up at him. “You can’t go out alone, and if you go with just Oat, you’ll be as good as alone. Now I’ve told you my opinion on the matter. You should call out the proper authorities. But since you won’t take my very sound advice, you’ll just have to put up with my company.”

Will looked away from her, annoyed. Dwight still had his hand in a large sack of coffee, not certain whether he should start scooping it out or not.

“You’ll slow us down.”

Paulie hooted at that idea. “I can ride better than Oat, and I can shoot better, too. And see better.”

“Leave Oat out of this. As far as I’m concerned, adding you to the crew will be travelling with two handicaps instead of one, only you’re a different kind.”

“What kind?”

“The female kind,” he said.

She screwed her lips up wryly.
“That’s
a fact I suppose you’re just apt to notice when it suits you!”

“You’re not going,” he repeated, more forcefully.

“You can’t stop me,” she said. “If you don’t allow me in your party, then I’ll follow you. And that would be even more dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Darn it, you know chasing an Indian is no job for a girl.”

“It’s no job for a cowboy, either, but that isn’t stopping you.”

He sighed, then appealed to Dwight for assistance. “Will you please tell this stubborn girl that she can’t just pick up and chase after Night Bird?”

Dwight had been standing in blank confusion, but now that he understood exactly what they were up to, the wrinkles disappeared from his endless forehead and his mouth dropped open in awe. “Night Bird!” Dwight exclaimed, in the same fearful tone that everybody used when referring to the infamous criminal. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s chasin’ him—as long as they chase him away from these parts. I haven’t slept a wink for weeks.”

Thanks, Dwight,
Will thought with disgust.

Paulie beamed at him triumphantly. “See?” she asked, taking her purchases up to Dwight to tally up. “Even Dwight wants me to go.”

“What I
don’t
see is why you feel so all-fired determined to tag along with me and Oat. Don’t you think we can find Night Bird ourselves?”

“It’s the part
after
you find him that’s worrying me—and it would be worrying you, too, if you had the sense God gave a garden slug.”

“She’s right, Will,” Dwight put in. “Night Bird is one mean hombre to mess with.”

Paulie paid for her purchases, and they left the store. She was headed straight back across the way to the saloon, but Will stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

She flinched under his grasp, and two splotches of color appeared on her cheeks. Funny, he couldn’t remember the old Paulie blushing before—except occasionally when he’d teased her. Now she was turning pink all the time.

He chalked it up to nerves.

“Look at you,” he said. “You’re already skittish. Have you considered how you’ll feel when we’re that much closer to finding Night Bird?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.” She ducked her head, and lowered her voice as she assured him, “I’ll take care of you, too, if you’ll let me.”

Something in her tone, in her gaze, made him assure her, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He squeezed his hand more firmly on her shoulder. “Honestly, Paulie. There’s got to be some reason why you’re willing to risk life and limb by going on this expedition.”

She looked up at him for a long moment, studying his face. He could see his own concerned reflection in her green eyes. And then she glanced away. “You might find this hard to believe, but while you were away, Mary Ann and I got to be friends.”

He
did
find that hard to swallow. Not that Paulie wouldn’t befriend Mary Ann—Paulie would talk to anything that talked back. But what would delicate, feminine Mary Ann have in common with a rough ragamuffin like Paulie Johnson?

She licked her lips, then looked up at him again. “Pretty good friends,” she continued. “So you see, I’ve got my own reasons for wanting to go. I’m just going to look after somebody I care about, too.”

He nodded curtly, touched by her words. Somehow, her claim of friendship changed things. He had a respect for friendship, for people looking after one another. Maybe it went back to the way Mary Ann’s dad had always looked after him. “I admire you, Paulie,” he said. “Not many people feel the bond of friendship so strong, especially for someone as different from themselves as Mary Ann is to you.”

She shrugged modestly. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any number of people.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Will. “What you were saying before, about Mary Ann going to San Antonio…she didn’t confide any such scheme to you, did she?”

“No,” she replied, “it was just a hunch.”

They crossed to the old lean-to Paulie used as a stable and she began readying her saddlebags with the things she’d bought at the store. Will did likewise. As they stood side by side, Paulie finally piped up, “Are you sure you aren’t going after Night Bird just to prove something, Will?”

“Prove something? Like what?”

“Well, maybe that you were the man who truly deserved Mary Ann.”

He felt a muscle in his tense jaw twitch. For a moment, he considered confiding in her, telling her how guilty he felt for sending that letter, for not just waiting till he got home to explain to Mary Ann why he just couldn’t see them getting married. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gone off and married Oat, and then been kidnapped by that madman.

But he couldn’t think about that now. He just had to concentrate on his responsibility toward her. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to find her. It’s not right for people to sit around and do nothing when a renegade is snapping innocent young women out of their beds.”

They saddled up Paulie’s horse in silence and then led their mounts out to the front of the saloon. “I’d better go in and get Oat,” Will said.

But Trip was already pushing the older man out the door. “Don’t forget this,” he joked as he presented Oat to them. He looked over at the sight of Paulie’s own saddled horse. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “Are you goin’ too, Paulie?”

She nodded.

Trip looked from Paulie to Oat. “Then it looks like I’m settin’ out again.”

“No, you can’t,” Paulie insisted. “Who’ll mind the bar?”

“Heck, Paulie, I’m your best customer,” Trip argued. “Besides, you don’t have anything to sell.”

Will let out an impatient sigh. “This is beginning to look like a posse.”

Well, he thought, trying to keep his spirits up by turning to more practical matters, if he was going to search for Mary Ann and Night Bird, posses weren’t actually such a bad idea. After all, there was safety in numbers—even when that number included a cranky geezer, a switch of a girl, and a man who couldn’t stay upright.

P
aulie whistled four notes of “Oh! Susanna,” keeping her eye on Will’s ramrod-straight back. For the past four hours he’d been riding ahead of them, and was wound tighter than a pocket watch. Though so far their journey had been completely uneventful, Will was ever-alert, tense. She was just waiting for some part of him to snap.

“’I Gave My Gal a Penny Candy!’“ Trip guessed.

Paulie sent him a sidelong glance. “Honestly, Trip, you’ve got a tin ear.”

He looked offended. “It’s you that’s got a tin whistle.”

She whistled again, this time five notes. Their old game cut down on the endless monotony of the day-long ride, but every once in a while she thought she caught Will glancing back at them, annoyed.

He looked close to madness already, in Paulie’s opinion. “Land’s sake, Will, don’t get your dander up. It’s just a song.”

“Well, it’s a damned irritating one.”

They stopped long enough for Oat to catch up with them. For the past few miles he had been trailing farther and farther behind. Paulie had begun to wonder whether the old man might be hoping that they would leave him so far in
their dust that they would forget about him entirely and he could then go back to his safe house and warm his old toes by a fire.

Right now, he just looked startled to find the three of them huddled together. “Night Bird?” he asked anxiously, trying to guess the reason for the holdup.

“No,” Trip answered. “Just ‘Oh! Susanna.’“

Will’s exasperation was bumped up another notch. “We need to be concentrating on the landscape—not some damned song. Now let’s get going.” He whirled and spurred his horse into a canter.

Paulie exchanged glances with Trip and blew out a breath impatiently as Will rode ahead of them once again.

“I wonder what’s eatin’ him,” Trip said.

As if anyone had to guess! Paulie felt angry just thinking about how torn up inside Will must be over Mary Ann’s disappearance. Frankly in her opinion, Mary Ann just wasn’t worth all this fuss. She still had her doubts about Mary Ann’s being spirited off by Night Bird. It didn’t make sense. For one thing, they said Mary Ann had always been scared of being abducted by Night Bird, and in Paulie’s experience, the thing you’re afraid of happening hardly ever does. It’s the things you didn’t expect that sneaked up and changed your life for good.

She kicked her horse into a gallop. In no time at all, she raced up alongside Will and skidded her little bay gelding, Partner, to a quick stop.

Will didn’t appear glad for the company. “Don’t you ever stay quiet?” he asked.

Paulie tried not to take the remark to heart. In better days, Will had always seemed to enjoy jawing with her. “Don’t you ever plan on acting civil again?” she shot back. “I swear, you roam around for months at a time, clear off to
Kansas, then you ride back in and start barking orders at us like you’re paying us money to take them.”

Her tart response brought a sheepish shrug.

“Maybe I do stay away too long,” he said. “I know I did this time. But I’m back now, and I’ve decided to settle down.”

Paulie didn’t know if she felt like dancing or weeping. It all depended on
where
Will planned on setting himself up. “You thinking of staying in Possum Trot?”

“Probably not.”

“Well then, where?”

“That depends on Mary Ann.”

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him. What was he talking about? He didn’t look at her as if he’d said anything odd; he wasn’t looking at her at all, in fact. Just staring straight ahead, his expression faraway yet strangely determined.

“Mary Ann!” Paulie cried. “Have you gone crazy, Will?”

His face remained stony. “Nope.”

“She’s married, Will!”

“Oat doesn’t love Mary Ann.”

“Oat, Mary Ann’s
husband,
is riding just in back of us, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“He didn’t want to come,” Will insisted.

“But he did.”

“He had to talk himself into it.”

Paulie rolled her eyes. “So would anybody with any sense, Will! It’s because we’re going after a killer.”

“A killer who has Mary Ann. His wife.” He turned his dark eyes on Paulie, his expression softening.
“You
were more resolute than that old toothless husband of hers, Paulie.”

“That’s because—” She was about to say,
because I was
so worried about you.
But she couldn’t. She’d already lied and told him that she was only coming along because she and Mary Ann were friends. And he’d believed her! Which just proved that something in the man’s mind had shook loose.

“Because you care about Mary Ann,” he finished for her. “You see? That proves my point. Oat doesn’t care about his wife even as much as her friends do.”

“Oh, Will, you can’t be sure of that.” Although
she
felt fairly certain that Oat wasn’t a head-over-heels newlywed, she hated to see Will eating his heart out over a woman who didn’t deserve him. And even more to the point, who wasn’t even available.

And, she admitted to herself shamefully, who wasn’t herself.

“You heard him talking, Paulie. He said he just lost her—the way a man would talk of misplacing his fountain pen. And it was almost as if he was
hoping
that she was lost.”

Paulie had sensed the same thing. But she hated to think it. Because if Oat gave up on Mary Ann…Oh, it was selfish of her to want Will for herself—not to mention hopelessbut she couldn’t help it. As long as Oat was married to Mary Ann, Paulie at least stood a tiny chance of making Will appreciate her. “He’s
married
to her, Will.”

“Marriages don’t always last,” he said tersely.

Paulie couldn’t believe her ears. “Will, you’re talking crazy!” She’d thought all along that he looked half-crazy, but even so she’d had no idea that thoughts like these had been running through his head. And as he spoke, it didn’t even seem as if he
wanted
to wed Mary Ann; instead, it was almost as if it were something he
had
to do.

He shot her a look that had a hint of desperation in it. “You can’t imagine what I feel, Paulie.”

If only he knew! Maybe she would never work up the nerve to tell him about her own experience with unrequited love, but she could keep him from hatching these unrealistic plans.

“You know what your trouble is?” she asked him.

“No, but I’m sure you’d love to tell me.”

She ignored the barb. “You’ve got an overworked sense of responsibility. When you’re sheriff, you feel responsible for the whole town. I bet when you’re out on the trail, you feel like you personally have to account for the fate of every one of those beeves. But I’m telling you, Will, Mary Ann is not your problem.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. When Gerald was dying I told him I’d look after his daughter.”

“Things are different now. Gerald couldn’t know that Mary Ann would one day up and marry Oat and you don’t know that the two of you would be any better off together than Oat and her are,” Paulie pointed out.

“What do you think I should do—leave her with a toothless old man who obviously makes her unhappy?”

“How do you know they’re unhappy?”

“Oat himself said they fought all the time,” he insisted, his jaw set stubbornly.

“So do all married people. I think if you respected Mary Ann at all, you’d trust her to make her own decisions.”

Will shot her a keen glance. “You’re Mary Ann’s friend. Has she ever spoken to you about me?”

Paulie hesitated. “No, she hasn’t.”

“Not even before she ran off with Oat?”

Paulie couldn’t help feeling a sharp stab of guilt. “She doesn’t tell me everything, Will,” she admitted, though even that was a pale reflection of the truth. Mary Ann could be thinking about Will twenty-four hours a day, and she wouldn’t know about it.

He let out a ragged sigh, then looked at her, his brown eyes full of kindness. “1 guess it’s good you came along after all. You always did know how to put me in my place, Sprout.”

She revelled in the pet name almost as much as she resented it. Why couldn’t Will think of her like he did Mary Ann, not just as a kid?

He shook his head. “I suppose I’m still a little confused over why Mary Ann would marry Oat to begin with.”

Paulie remained silent. The whole world was confused on that point

He shot her a patient glance. “I guess it’s a little silly to be discussing all this with you,” he said. “I doubt you’ve ever fallen in or out of love.”

The words rubbed Paulie’s fur the wrong way. Why was Will blind to the fact that she’d been crazy about him for years?

Probably because he was so stuck on Mary Ann he couldn’t see anything else!

Or maybe because he just didn’t have the slightest interest in her. That was an annoying—though highly likely—possibility. Paulie knew she could never even be a substitute for Mary Ann. She didn’t know the first thing about batting her eyelashes at a man, or flirting. Heck, the only time she’d ever worn a real grown-up long dress in front of Will, he’d said she looked like she’d been sick.

Sick!
At the mere thought, she felt her dander rising all over again.
Never been in love?
How could he just assume such a thing?

“That just shows how smart you are!” she said tartly. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Will!”

He turned to her, his eyes wide with surprise. “Well, have you?”

Now that she’d started, she wasn’t going to back down.
“If you must know, I have,” she said, tossing her head back defiantly. “Deeply in love.”

“Who?” he asked.

She blinked. “Who what?”

“Who is the object of all this love you claim to have stored up?”

This wasn’t something she was prepared to confess. Especially not to Will. Especially not when he asked her using that sarcastic tone. “None of your business.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Is it somebody I know?”

Clearly he didn’t believe her—a fact that made Paulie spitting mad. Men had so little imagination! Just because she owned a bar and wore men’s clothes, was it impossible to comprehend that she had feelings just like every other woman in the world?

“I’d say you know him pretty well, Will Brockett,” she said. “In fact, sometimes I think it’s the person you care most about in the world!”

She tapped her horse’s flanks and wheeled around. Will attempted to stop her. “Paulie, wait—”

She kept going, though, hesitating only long enough to holler one parting shot over her shoulder. “And for your information, I’ll whistle whenever I want to!”

Will sat apart, with one eye on the others and the other watching for signs of trouble. Trip and Paulie were splayed out near the glowing warmth of the fire, rattling on as usual. Oat was close to them, sitting up but half-asleep. Occasionally the old fellow would jolt awake again, especially when Trip or Paulie happened to mention something about Night Bird.

“I wonder if we’ll ever find him,” Paulie said.

Trip shook his head. He was always more sure of himself when he was on the ground, where there was nowhere to
fall to. “I imagine if’n we do, it’ll be down in Mexico. They say that’s where he lives, ‘cause the law won’t follow him there.”

“What about the Mexican law?” Paulie asked. “Mexicans can’t like having a renegade Comanche running loose any more than we do.”

Trip scratched his head. “They say Night Bird is pari Mexican himself—the son of a captive woman from a border town.”

Oat’s eyes snapped opened and he bolted upright, his hand reaching down for his gun. “Night Bird?”

Trip chuckled. “We were just talkin’, Oat.”

“We’ve haven’t seen or heard anything,” Paulie assured him.

Oat shook his head with such force that the bulbous end of his nose quivered. “When Night Bird comes, you won’t hear him.”

The three exchanged anxious glances.

Will decided to put his two cents in. “If that were the case, then we might all just as well go to sleep.” They looked back at him quizzically. “No man is invisible. If Night Bird comes, one of us will see him.”

“Those three railroad men didn’t see him—they were all three armed and none of them looked like they had even had time to reach for their guns,” Trip said.

The story of the three men who had been ambushed by Night Bird had been through so many versions that it was hard to know exactly what had happened. Most people seemed to want to believe that Night Bird silently appeared and disposed of his victims as easily as an owl swoops down on a mouse.

“I wonder what would turn a man so mad that he’d take up thievin’ and murderin’ that way,” Trip said.

“Having your land stolen out from under you would
make you a little bitter, too,” Will told him. He bore little sympathy for Night Bird, but he thought he could understand what could turn a man so wrong.

“What land did that Indian ever own here?” Trip asked.

Will nodded toward the horizon. “We fought a war to win this land from the Mexicans, but we just took it from the Indians and expected them to be happy about being nudged up to less desirable parts.”

“We wouldn’t have nudged anybody if they’d just left us be,” Trip argued.

“But we were the trespassers, and then we expected them to abide by our laws—not their own.”

Trip looked disgruntled, but said nothing more.

“I guess Will’s right,” Paulie said, turning back to the fire. “Maybe we’re lucky there’s only one Night Bird, not thousands.”

“Thousands!” Oat cried, startled by the very idea.

Will kept his eyes on Paulie. He was surprised that she would take his side after their scene earlier in the day. She had seemed so annoyed. In fact, since he’d come back, she’d been more moody than he could remember her ever being. Especially with him.

Of course, he’d been moody, too, but he knew the reason for his own odd behavior. He was perplexed and torn up over all that had happened with Mary Ann. But could what Paulie said be true? Was she really in love? And with whom?

He’d been pondering those questions all afternoon. He had to hand it to her; her little revelation had completely distracted his mind from brooding about Mary Ann.