The Mavericks (22 page)

“I won't be satisfied until I know what's wrong. Isabelle taught me to be polite to a woman, never take advantage of her, and never assume anything until I was sure of my facts. I haven't had a problem doing that until now.”

“Sounds like you think a lot of Isabelle.”

“If it hadn't been for her, I'd be dead. Hawk, too. I'd kill anybody who laid a finger on her.”

“I never had anybody good like that in my life.”

“What did you have?”

Josie turned away from him, but he knew she wasn't interested in the vista of the distant Galiuro Mountains set against a backdrop of a deep blue, cloudless sky, or the taller Rincon Mountains with the orange-yellow rays of the setting sun shimmering around
their tree-covered peaks. A pair of gray hawks circled lazily overhead, while somewhere along the river a woodpecker banged out a staccato rhythm on a hollow trunk. Bees buzzed around a paloverde tree covered with bright yellow blossoms, while an oriole watched their passage from his perch atop a fragile-looking ocotillo branch.

Josie sighed, and Zeke waited expectantly for her explanation, but she remained silent, the stillness of the desert broken by the grinding sound of the wagon wheels, the thud of dozens of hooves hitting the ground, and the occasional clink of harness chains striking each other. She sighed again.

“If it's that much trouble, don't bother. I can last a few more days.”

Josie cast him an exasperated look, but there was no anger in it. “My father was a white man,” she said, resignation in her voice, “my mother his slave. After the war, my father married her and brought her out West.”

“That wasn't good?”

“My mother worshiped him, but he still treated her like a slave. She cooked and cleaned for him, took care of the garden, and worked with him when he needed help. I don't know why he treated her so badly unless it was that I wasn't a boy and she couldn't have any more children. She trained me to cater to his every whim. When I was slow or questioned him, he'd slap me. The two times I tried to defy him, he beat me.”

Zeke tried to imagine what it would have been like to have a mother and father, regardless of what they were like. He'd been sold as a baby. He'd always wondered who his parents were, but the woman who
owned him would only say she'd bought him from another plantation owner. When the war came too close to her home, she sold him to farmers, who nearly killed him. He'd tried to find his owner again after he grew up, hoping she'd finally tell him something about his parents, but she'd died. He knew he had been incredibly lucky to end up with Jake and Isabelle, but the ache of never knowing his family had never gone away.

“My mother died when I was fifteen,” Josie continued. “I missed her terribly and cried myself to sleep for nearly a month, but my father missed her more. He was always in a bad mood, would get drunk, couldn't sleep, would often stay away from home all night. Then after about six months, he seemed to recover all at once. He sobered up, stayed home, and started attending to the farm. He even started being nice to me. I didn't know what was happening, but I was glad because he was finally treating me like his daughter rather than his slave, like he might even love me.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Sometimes I'd catch him staring at me like I was the only thing in the room. At first I thought I reminded him so much of my mother that watching me was making him sad. Most of the time he'd get up, go outside, and not come back in for a while. The one time I tried to ask him what was wrong, he yelled at me to go back inside and leave him alone. I did until he tried to get in my bed.”

Zeke had sensed what was coming, had made sure he wasn't looking at Josie when she finally put it into words. He could only guess how difficult it was for her to tell him about this. He didn't want to make it worse
by looking at her with an expression she would probably interpret as shock or pity.

“The first night he stared at me from the doorway without saying a word. The second time he sat on the edge of the bed, telling me how much he loved me and appreciated how hard I'd worked since my mother died. I was so happy that when he told me he wanted to love me the way he'd loved my mother, I didn't understand at first. But when he touched me, I did.”

“Did he . . .” Zeke couldn't put his fears into words.

“No. He left when I pushed his hand away, but I was frightened of him after that. His eyes followed me with that look all the time. And he would touch me. Not in the wrong places, but it felt wrong because I knew what he wanted to do.”

Zeke felt cold anger well up in his belly. He couldn't understand how a father could do something like that to his own child. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

“When he started to drink again, I was so frightened I locked my bedroom door. Many a night I heard him try the lock before stumbling off to bed. One night I didn't lock the door properly—I don't know whether I didn't check it or if he jammed the lock—and he came into my room after I was asleep. I woke with him kissing my arms and neck. I pushed him away and yelled at him to go back to his own room or I'd tell the sheriff.”

Zeke didn't realize how tense he had become until the mules started tossing their heads. Fear of what Josie's father might have done had caused him to clench his fingers around the reins and pull them too tight. He forced himself to relax and let the reins drop.

“Next morning, my father told me he'd decided to sell the farm and was sending me to live with my uncle.
I hadn't been there a week before my uncle told me he'd been disgusted when my father married my mother, that the only way he was going to let me stay was if I did all the housework. One night he didn't like what I cooked for dinner and he took a stick to me. He'd have beat me real bad if one of his boys hadn't stopped him. I ran away that night.”

“Where did you go? How did you take care of yourself?”

“I went to the nearest town and took any job I could get. None of them lasted very long, because the husband, son, or boyfriend would become interested in me, and I'd be dismissed.”

Zeke couldn't imagine how any man could look at Josie and not want her. It was easy to understand why a woman wouldn't be anxious to have her in her home.

“I soon discovered I could make more money in a saloon than working in private homes. The men still wanted me. I had to endure being touched, but they couldn't do anything more in public. Then one night I got to sing and dance in place of a woman who got sick. I was such a big success, men started promising me anything I wanted if I would let them in my bed. One man swore he'd marry me, that he couldn't live without me. He even set the date for our wedding. Only problem was, he was engaged to a woman in another town.”

The mules were tossing their heads again. Zeke had to ease up on the reins.

“It would have been better if my father had been black,” Josie said. “Nobody wants a mixed breed. White women think I'm after their husbands, and white men hope I am. Black people don't trust me, because they believe I think I'm better than they are.”

Zeke had no problem understanding that. That was how Hawk had felt all his life.

“Every man I've known has tried to use me for his own pleasure, has lied to me at every turn. Men don't care what they say or do as long as they get what they want. If I gave in, lost my reputation, and fell upon hard times, people would say it was my own fault, that I deserved what had happened to me.”

Zeke had no trouble believing that, either.

“So I made up my mind to avoid men completely,” Josie said. “I work hard, save my money, and keep to myself. When I get enough money, I'm going to retire and open a boardinghouse for women.” For the first time since she'd started talking, Josie looked at Zeke. “Now you understand.”

“Then why did you flirt with Gardner?”

“I've had to learn to use my skills as a woman to survive with men like Gardner.”

“But you didn't use them on me.”

Josie's smile was faint, unsure. “I didn't need to.”

“I still don't understand. Why are you so angry with me? Not all men are like the ones who've misused you,” Zeke said. “I'm not.”

Josie looked away. “That's what worries me.”

“How are we going to work this?” Josie asked when they made camp for the evening.

“If you and Zeke will see to the cooking,” Suzette said, “Hawk and I will look after the horses and the prisoners.”

Josie turned to Gardner, who had lapsed into sullen silence most of the afternoon but had recovered his
temper once they stopped for the night. “I need to use your supplies,” she said. “We didn't plan on having three extra people to feed.”

“If your friends had left us in Redington, you wouldn't have to worry about us.”

Josie wished they had left the prisoners in Redington. She didn't think there was much chance Gardner would be convicted, but she wasn't going to oppose Zeke any longer. He'd kept Gardner from kidnapping her. The idiot had tried to coax her into running away with him with promises of beautiful dresses, fabulous jewels, and life in a luxury hotel. Did he think she was a fool who didn't know what he was really after? The dresses would be flashy but cheap, the jewels would be fake, and she would live in a hotel until he got tired of her or found someone he liked better. Zeke had made sure that wouldn't happen.

“If I had my way, you wouldn't get anything to eat until Benson,” Josie said, “but Zeke doesn't want you to have an excuse to tell anyone you've been treated badly.”

“You don't think being tied to the back of a horse and paraded through Redington as a horse thief is being treated badly?”

“Maybe that'll remind you, next time you take a fancy to a horse, to offer to pay for it.”

Suzette returned with an armload of wood. “If you'll start the fire, I'll get the water.”

“Where are Hawk and Zeke?”

“Hawk's taking care of the horses. Zeke is taking the men, one at a time, to answer nature's call.”

“When can I go?” Gardner asked. “I've been miserable for the last hour.”

They'd had to stop during the afternoon for him, so Josie had no sympathy for his alleged discomfort. She'd long ago decided he had no thought of anyone's comfort but his own. “You've been once. The other men go first.”

Gardner continued to fuss about being bound hand and foot, tied to the wagon wheel, treated like a common criminal. Josie ignored him and concentrated on building her fire. With plenty of twigs, dry leaves, and Zeke's sulfur matches, she had a blaze going before Suzette returned with the water. “If you'll bring me the coffee beans, I'll put the water on to boil,” Josie said to Suzette. She had decided to fix a stew made of jerked beef and dried vegetables. If Zeke was in a good mood, maybe she could talk him into making biscuits. She was a capable cook, but she had to admit Zeke's biscuits were better than any she could make.

She got a large pot from the wagon and filled it half full of water. Using rocks to keep it off the coals, she placed it in the center of the fire. She shoved some mesquite and ironwood branches under the pot. Opening the several saddlebags Zeke had left her, she began to assemble the ingredients for her stew.

“Do you know how to cook?” Gardner asked.

“I've been cooking since I was tall enough to reach the stove.”

“You two women are too beautiful to be traveling in a wagon through the desert and cooking over a camp-fire. There are trains in the Territory now. And hotels that will serve you fabulous meals.”

“There's no train from Globe to Tombstone,” Josie said, wishing Gardner would be quiet so she could
concentrate on how much of each ingredient she needed to feed seven people. “Do we have enough bowls?” she asked Suzette.

“Hawk said we should feed the prisoners first and get them settled.”

“Stop calling me a prisoner!” Gardner shouted. “This whole thing is a mistake. I didn't hire those men to steal your horses, and I wasn't trying to kidnap Josie. Why would I do that when I'd already offered to give you jobs in my theater?”

“
If
you have a theater.” Suzette was setting out cups for coffee.

“You'll find out when you reach Tombstone.”

“But you won't give us jobs now, will you?” Josie said.

Zeke returned with the other three horse thieves. “It's about time,” Gardner growled at Zeke. “I've been dying over here.”

“Too bad you didn't,” Josie said. “It would be a lot quieter around here.”

She was certain she heard Zeke chuckle, but she didn't look up from her work until Zeke and Gardner had disappeared through the thick brush that grew on either side of the river. “Do you want coffee?” Josie asked the three men.

They nodded their heads.

“You'll have to wait until Zeke or Hawk returns,” Suzette said. “We aren't allowed to untie your hands unless one of them is here.”

Josie poured the coffee beans into the boiling water. Ironic that she, who refused to cook for any man, was now cooking for horse thieves. And what surprised her almost as much was that she was only mildly irritated by it. She would have to spend some time tonight
trying to figure that out. Along with a long list of—

A rifle shot followed by a yell snapped her train of thought.

“You'd better pull your pants up,” Zeke said to Gardner. “I expect both women to come bursting through that thicket in about twenty seconds.”

“You shot me!” Gardner shouted.

“Just the heel of your boot.”

“You're crazy,” Gardner said as he clutched at his pants.

“
You're
crazy if you thought I'd fall for that trick of telling me you couldn't take care of your business with me watching.”