Taming of Jessi Rose (15 page)

“Then we should play sometime.”

“So you can watch my face crumple?”

Jessi's smile was her only answer.

Joth returned with a small cloth sack in hand. He rolled the multicolored contents out onto the ground and began to pick out his choices for today's battle. Jessi went into the house for her own small cache of stones, and upon returning, spent a few moments picking out her choices for the game.

As the game began it was easy to see that Joth faced an uphill battle. His aunt, braced on her hands and knees in the dirt, was just as good as she'd bragged. After Joth's first two tries failed to gain him any of her pieces, she proceeded to claim four of his. Even though Griff was rooting for Joth, he found himself concentrating less on the contest and more on the arousing sight of
Jessi's behind as she bent low to execute her shots. He never knew he could be aroused by a woman playing a child's game, but being around Jessi was beginning to make him rethink many things. Take for example his chosen profession—he knew without a doubt that he'd never rob another train again, mainly because first, after tasting freedom he'd never go to prison again, and second, train robbing had no future. In the old days, gold-carrying express cars had been ripe for the picking.

When the Reno Brothers up in Indiana pulled off the first train robbery in U.S. history back in '66, they'd needed nothing more than a few pasteboard masks and their own strong backs. The agent in the express car had even been accommodating enough to leave the door unlocked so they could help themselves to both safes traveling on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad that day. Back then, safe manufacturers placed wheels on the bottoms of their models to ensure easier rolling and also provided thick, sturdy straps on the safes to make it easier for men like Griffin to haul them away. Train robbing had been a thinking man's profession; you relied on good planning, good men, and a good helping of luck. Creativity helped, too. He'd once robbed a train by sequestering himself in a casket and posing as a corpse. Once the train left the station, Griffin rose from the dead. His resurrection scared the agent in the car so badly the man fainted.

But now things were changing. Planning no longer seemed to be a factor today. Gangs were simply derailing trains by tearing up lengths of tracks and sending trains and passengers plummeting off mountain passes and bridge spans. Men like the Texan Sam Bass were setting trains on fire. People were dying as a result of such reckless acts and the railroads were retaliating. Security had become the primary concern. The express companies were now protecting their gold with armies
of armed agents. The hated but crafty Pinkertons were being employed more and more, making it increasingly hard for men like Griffin to make a living. No, he needed to find something else to do. Modern times had taken all the fun out of robbing a train.

When Griffin's mind drifted back to the present, the contest had just concluded. Jessi was crowing and declaring herself the best little marble player in Texas while a grinning Joth tried to maintain his mock pout. He'd lost to his aunt again.

That evening Jessi sat on Joth's bed and listened while he said his prayers. As always he asked the Good Lord to say hello to his mother, grandmother, and grandfather. He prayed for Buttercup, his aunt Jessi, Griffin, and Marshal Wildhorse. After he said his amen, Jessi helped him into bed. Marshal Wildhorse was a new name on Joth's prayer list, so after he settled in, she asked him about it.

“I'm praying for him because the marshal sent us Griff.”

“Griff told you about that?”

“Yes, today while you were inside talking to Mr. Trent. He says I have to keep it a secret for now.”

Jessi caressed his brow and he pulled back just a tiny bit. She knew it was his way of tactfully letting her know he was getting too old for her to baby. She understood his reaction, but it was hard to let go. “And can you?” she asked.

“Yep.”

She leaned over and lightly kissed his forehead. “Good night, Joth.”

He gave her a hug, rolled over and burrowed in. “Night, Aunt Jessi.”

She blew out the light and headed out the door.

“Oh, Aunt Jessi?”

She looked back. “Yes?”

“I love you, even if you do beat me at marbles.”

Joy filled her heart. “I love you too, Joth.”

Jessi found Griffin out on the porch.

“Is he tucked in?” he asked her.

“Yes, and he added Marshal Wildhorse's name to his prayer list tonight.”

“Dix'll be glad to hear that. Joth's praying for one of the best.”

Jessi had never met Griffin's marshal friend but hoped she would sometime in the near future. “He said you told him about the marshal sending you here.”

“I did. Was I wrong to tell him the truth?” Griff sincerely hoped not. He found he liked pleasing her.

She waved off his fears. “No. What you did was fine.”

He sighed. “Good, you had me worried for a minute.”

“Why?”

“I prefer to stay on your good side. That's the reason I didn't shoot Darcy the other day when I had the chance. I knew you'd throw a fit if his dead carcass wound up on your land.”

She laughed. “You know me well.”

The first bullet exploded against the porch post only a few inches away from Jessi's head, and sent both her and Griff frantically scrambling for cover. The second volley tore into the door, hitting wood, glass, and screen, the sounds awakening the night. Jessi kept her head down as more blasts hit, one of which shattered the pane in the parlor window. Moving on her belly, Jessi tried to get to the rifle she usually kept on the porch, but the incoming bullets kept her pinned down. She wanted to raise up to see if she could determine the location of the snipers, but because of the hail of lead she could do nothing but hug the floor of the porch and pray she didn't get shot.

Then the firing stopped and the sound of fast-moving horses riding away from the house faded off into the night.

“Jessi are you okay?” Griff asked anxiously.

“I think so,” she said, rising slowly, her heart still beating fast. She checked herself to make sure she was still in one piece. The night was now as quiet as it had been before the shooting began.

“I need to check on Joth.”

He nodded.

Jessi didn't bother viewing the damage to the parlor's window. Seeing the broken glass would only add more fire to her rising anger. She'd look at it in the morning.

She found Joth at his window with a rifle in his hand. The sight of him all set to defend his home tore at her insides. No eleven-year-old boy should have to grow up this way.

“Are they gone?” he asked.

“Yes. They're gone.”

Joth placed the gun back beneath his window and crawled back into bed. “Was it Darcy's men?”

“More than likely.”

“Will he ever leave us alone?”

Jessi stared down at the little boy with her sister's eyes and told him the only truth she knew. “I hope so.”

When she caressed his forehead this time, he did not pull away. “Go on back to sleep, now, I'll see you in the morning.”

He burrowed down beneath his sheets and she quietly withdrew.

Jessi stormed out onto the porch. “This has to stop,” she told Griffin. “Joth shouldn't have to live this way!”

“I know,” he replied softly. “It'll end soon. I promise you.”

Jessi dearly wanted to believe him, but she was by nature a skeptic. Stopping Darcy was going to be akin
to stopping a flash flood. Tonight's visit was only the beginning. If Darcy were indeed as desperate as Auntie believed, all hell was about to break loose, and she and Joth would be in the center of the storm.

“How many do you think there were?” Jessi asked. It was impossible to verify anything at this point, but she thought she'd heard at least one rifle and one shotgun.

“No more than two or three, I'm guessing. In the morning, we can take a look at the shot in the wood and see. Auntie told me Darcy asked you to marry him.”

Jessi turned and stared. This was yet another subject she didn't wish to discuss. “Yes he did, and once I stopped laughing, I told him no.”

Griff could sense that she didn't want to discuss Darcy. “Didn't mean to pry. Just trying to figure out all the angles.”

“I understand, but I don't want to talk about him.”

Griff nodded, but her continued stubborness made him a bit frustrated. “Are you going on to bed?”

She shook her head. “I can't. After all the excitement, I'm still too wound up. I'm also too angry.”

She wanted to go into town and give Darcy a dose of his own medicine. It apparently didn't matter to him that a child slept in her house, but it mattered to her.

“Then come sit awhile. I promise to be on my best behavior.”

Jessi didn't believe him for a minute, but went to sit beside him on the porch steps. Being near him made some of her tension drain. This man was good for her, she'd come to realize. Even though she knew he would not be staying, having him around made her feel stronger.

Griff was as angry about the attack as he knew Jessi to be, and in the morning, he planned on going into town and expressing it, but there was nothing they could do
about it until then. He looked over at Jessi seated beside him and even though she seemed to have calmed a bit, he could still feel the anger rising off her like waves of heat.

“You ever think about going back to teaching?” he asked, hoping to distract her enough to get her talking about something else.

Jessi knew what he was doing and she blessed him for his efforts. “I think about it, yes, but it'll have to wait until Joth is old enough to run the ranch by himself. The state's established colleges for members of the race, so I believe I may see if I can teach there when the time comes.”

Even though Jessi's father had been cool to the idea of her leaving the ranch while he was alive, Jessi never gave up on the idea of returning to the classroom. The race needed teachers in order to counteract the illiteracy mandated by slavery.

“Was your husband a teacher, too?”

The question brought her back. “No. He had dreams of being a politician, but never got the chance.”

“It's always hard losing someone you love.”

She thought about her mother. “Yes, it is.”

“Do you think you'll ever marry again?”

“At my age the offers aren't exactly pouring in, so I doubt it. What about you, will you ever marry?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, if I can find a decent woman who won't mind my past. Not many mamas approve of their daughters bringing home a once wanted man.”

Jessi understood that fully. “It isn't easy being an outcast,” she said quietly.

Griff knew she was talking about herself. “It has its advantages sometimes, though.”

Jessi looked skeptical. “In what way?”

“You find out who your true friends are when you're an outcast.”

Jessi had never thought about it in those terms, but she supposed the theory made sense. Very few people had stood up for her during the Calico Bob years. In fact, she could probably count them all on one hand—folks like Gillie and Auntie. They'd loved her her whole life and hadn't deserted her when times got rough.

“What do you plan to do once you get to Mexico?” she asked, turning to look at him.

“Enjoy being free of the life, I suppose. It'll be nice not having to look over my shoulder all the time for cinder dicks and Pinkertons.”

Jessi chuckled at the strange word. “What in the world are cinder dicks?”

“Train police.”

“Ah.”

“They don't have the power to arrest you away from train property, but they can sic a Pinkerton on you.”

“Why did you start robbing trains?”

He paused a moment before answering. “Wanted to pay the railroads back for breaking my mother's heart.” Slowly, hesitantly, he told her about his mother's dying. He finished by saying, “I still think about her a lot.”

“Do you think she's resting easy, knowing you've spent your life on the wrong side of the law?”

It was a question Griff had been asking himself more and more lately, but he knew the answer, always had. “Probably not…definitely not. She was a churchgoing woman who tried to live her life by the Good Book, but the Book didn't feed us and it didn't stop her from dying poor.”

Jessi could hear the bitterness in his voice. Griffin Blake also had dark places in his soul. In that way they were very much alike.

“I still have her Bible, though,” he confessed. “It's the only thing she owned when she died.”

Jessi felt a kindred sadness echo within. “All I have
left of my mother is the clock sitting on my nightstand. After she died, my father burned just about everything she owned. He let Mildred and me pick out one thing of hers to keep to remember her by, and the rest, every picture, her dresses, hairbrushes, combs, shoes, everything went into the bonfire he set in her rose garden behind the house. I hold Darcy responsible for that too.

“He'll pay Jessi, don't worry.”

“But even if he does, it won't bring her back. Nothing will.”

Griffin dropped his head sadly. Nothing in his life equaled the pain this lady had suffered. A less strong individual would've broken under such weight, but she hadn't. She'd given up much, but she hadn't broken. And because she hadn't, he wanted to take her in his arms and offer her what solace he could, but she wasn't the kind of woman to be coddled or protected. She wanted justice, plain and simple. In that way she was very much like him. “You're a very strong lady, Jessi Rose Clayton,” he told her softly.

“I'm just playing the hand I was dealt, Griffin, nothing more.”

 

The next morning Jessi used a knife to pry the bullets out of the porch. She pocketed six that were fired from a rifle and numerous remnants of small black shot that could only have come from a shotgun. The more bullets she pried free, the angrier she became.