He smiled to himself, keeping his eyes veiled and showing nothing. But he didn’t have to rely on his instincts, did he now? He looked casually at the door to the bedroom. The nail hole was still clear, no warning sign of pink flesh to tell him there was danger.
Everett was dealing. He flicked Joshua his final hole card. Joshua let it lie until Everett had dealt his as well. Both hesitated for a moment, then by unspoken consent they both picked them up together.
The ace of diamonds!
It took every ounce of willpower Joshua had to keep his face impassive and his eyes hooded. It would be a good time to lie back a little, throw Everett off guard. “Queens still lead, so I’ll bet a hundred,” he murmured.
For a long moment Everett eyed him, his mouth pulled back slightly, giving him a somewhat feral look. Finally he leaned forward and began to count his remaining money. “Should we make this interesting, Steed?”
Joshua felt his heart leap. It was so much better when the sucker made the offer. “What you got in mind?” His eyes flicked to the door and back. The nail hole was still black and clear. Slowly, as though just flexing his hands, he closed his fingers, all except the small one, which he left extended. It was the prearranged signal. I
got my third ace, Jess. We did it!
Everett looked up. “I’ve got almost three hundred left. I’d guess you’re a little shy of that?”
Joshua looked down, then back up quickly. “Maybe a little, but I’m good for it.”
“I’ll see to the difference,” Clinton Roundy said quickly. He too was sensing that this was it. The one they had been waiting for.
“Then, what say we toss it all in?” Everett said. “Winner takes everything.”
Joshua pulled at his lip, then finally nodded slowly. It was no less than he had hoped for. One last time he let his eyes flick to the nail hole. It was dark and clear. He finally nodded. “Agreed.”
A spot on Everett’s cheek began to twitch slightly. Joshua had agreed too quickly. He looked at his cards, then at Joshua, then at his cards again. But he couldn’t back down now. He had called for the offer. Quickly he shoved the remaining three hundred into the center of the table. “What’ve you got?” he growled.
Joshua grinned, then reached down and turned over his three hole cards. “Full house, aces and queens.”
The breath rushed out of Everett as he stared at Joshua’s cards. Then, slowly, like the sun peeping over a hill, he smiled. He flipped his three hole cards over. Two of them were nines. “Sorry, Steed,” he said, fighting to control his jubilation. “Four nines.”
Chapter Sixteen
J
essica walked along the dusty street in a stupor. It was past midnight, and the streets of Independence were deserted. The storefronts were dark and shuttered. There were only one or two windows in the whole town showing any light, and those lights were dim, barely glimmering behind the drapes that shut the world out. It was as though she were walking through the remains of some ancient city where all the inhabitants had long ago either died or fled.
There were no tears—she had passed that point much earlier—but the sorrow clawed at her, stripping off every defense she had tried to erect. And the guilt. That was a burden that made every part of her ache with the carrying of it. She had betrayed Joshua. In the hour of his greatest need she had turned her back on him. And why? She taunted herself with the answer. Were her feelings so easily hurt? Was her ego so easily bruised? She kept trying to push her feelings away, as if they were an obnoxious drunk pressing her for a handout, but they wouldn’t be pushed.
There was anger too. Was a wife required to become a thief in order to prove her loyalty to her husband? At what point did a man take responsibility for his own stupidity? She had not asked him to gamble with Wilson Everett. It was not her ego that had brought them to the brink of financial ruin. If you wanted to talk about betrayal, what about what Joshua had done to her?
And all of this was mixed with a third emotion. The enormity of what she had done now lay upon her. She didn’t know how long it would be before Joshua or her father realized she was no longer there. She prayed fervently that it would come quickly, before he lost too heavily. Joshua was already drunk. He was still functioning, but she knew him well enough now to know that when he drank that heavily it left him teetering on the brink of losing control. Crossing the line into rage would be as simple as stepping off a porch step. Coming to that realization just before she reached her home, she had felt real fear. She could not go home and simply wait for him to find her. And so she walked—numbed, lost, forlorn, afraid.
“Jessica!”
The shout spun her around. A dark figure was across the street, coming in her direction. In one instant her heart leaped and began to pound, so hard that it hurt inside her chest. Her initial impulse was to bolt, to dart between two of the darkened buildings and hide somewhere, anywhere.
“Jessie? You slut! Is that you?” The voice was heavily slurred, jumbled even as he shouted out at her.
She fell back a step, her eyes wild, her panic almost complete. Then suddenly she stopped. Her chin came up. She would not run from him. She clasped her hands together to stop the trembling and waited for Joshua, determined not to flinch in the face of his anger.
He broke into a stumbling run, almost falling as he jumped off the boardwalk and hit the softer dust of the main street. He was waving something in the air, and Jessica felt a second, even more desperate lurch of panic as she realized it was a pistol. But still she held her ground.
“You...it
is
you!” At closer range, even in the darkness, she could see the whites of his eyes, wide and frightening. His chest was heaving up and down, his face jutted out toward her. The smell of whiskey was so strong that she guessed he had spilled some of it on his clothes as well as filling up his insides with it.
“Yes, Joshua,” she said quietly, “it’s me.”
“I knew you were trying to run!” He screamed it at her, his face inches from her own.
“I’m not running, Joshua. I’m right here.”
“You witch!” He fell back, half sobbed, and one hand came up to rub at his eyes. “I’m ruined. Ruined!”
It was as if he had stabbed her. “Joshua.” She reached out toward him, not daring to touch but beseeching. “We can rebuild, Joshua. I’ll help you. We’ll work together. We can go somewhere else if you want.”
Behind them a window screeched as it was lifted. Joshua jerked up and Jessica turned around. A woman in a nightcap stuck her head out.
At the sight of her, Joshua’s face went livid, and he waved the pistol at her. “Get out of here!”
The woman jerked back inside, her eyes wide.
The pistol dropped to his side, and for a moment it was almost as though Jessica weren’t there. “I had him. I was so sure. It would have been all right. I could have won everything.”
“It still can be,” Jessica soothed. She finally touched his arm.
He jerked back as if she had touched him with a hot anvil iron. “You left!” he yelled. “Why did you leave? I could have won!”
“Joshua, I couldn’t. You had no right to ask me to cheat for you.”
His hand flashed out so swiftly that she barely saw it coming. He struck her across the cheek with the flat of his palm. It cracked in the stillness of the night, like the branch of a tree shattering in a cold frost.
“Had no right?” he shrieked. He struck her again, knocking her backwards. “Whore! Slut! You’re my wife. I have every right.”
This time she saw his fist double. “No, Joshua, no!” The blow caught her high on the cheekbone. She slammed back against the storefront, then fell to her knees, lights flashing crazily in front of her eyes.
“Do you hear me?” He was screaming at her, his eyes like a wild animal’s, the rage unleashed and untamable now. He raised his fist again. “You’ll do whatever I say, whore. Daughter of hell! Do you hear me?”
“Don’t, Joshua, please.” She raised one arm, but it was like putting out a hand to stop a charging bull. He swung again. She spun away, and his fist caught her a glancing blow alongside the head. It knocked her flat, dazing her for a moment.
“Hey!” It was a man’s voice from above them.
Joshua swung around. This time a man was leaning out of the window. He was holding a lamp up high, trying to see. “What’s going on down there?” he yelled.
Cursing, Joshua stepped over Jessica. “None of your business! Get out of here! Go back to bed.”
From behind the man a woman’s voice sounded clearly. “There’s a woman down there. He’s hitting her.”
“Get away from her!” the man shouted.
“I said get out of here!” Joshua was past any point of reason. He lurched forward, raising the pistol toward the open window.
“He’s got a gun!” the woman screamed. The man jerked backwards.
Jessica stumbled to her feet, staring in horror as Joshua tried to steady the weaving pistol. She jumped as the blast of the pistol shattered the night.
“Get outta here!” Joshua screamed, nearly incoherent now. He fired at the window again.
Blind with terror, shocked beyond thought, Jessica had only one impulse. She turned and began to run. The pistol roared again behind her, then she heard Joshua’s cry of dismay. She darted into the narrow passageway between two stores, catching a glimpse of him swinging around toward her as she did so. It was so dark that she could see nothing. Throwing up a hand to ward off any obstacles, she ran blindly. Behind her, Joshua was screaming her name. She didn’t stop, only ran all the harder, into the darkness, into the safety of the blackness of the night.
Clinton Roundy grabbed the front of Joshua’s jacket and shook him out of his stupor. “Joshua! Listen to me! There’s no time for this. You’ve got to get going.”
“She ran, Clint. She cheated me, then she ran.” His head dropped on his chest. “I hit her.”
Clinton Roundy’s eyes hardened, but he just shook his head. They were in the small room above the freight office, where Joshua had sometimes slept when he and Jessica were fighting. The door opened and Obadiah Cornwell, Joshua’s foreman in the freight company, slipped inside quickly. He peered outside for a moment, then shut the door again. “All right, everything’s ready.”
Clinton picked up the mug of strong, black coffee and jammed it into Joshua’s hand. He then forced it up to his mouth. Joshua drank, then winced as the hot liquid seared his tongue.
“Listen, Joshua,” Clinton said urgently. “You’ve got to get out of here. The man you shot at has gone for the constable. They don’t know who it was yet, but as soon as they find Jessica you’re going to be in one heap of trouble. And if she tells them about our little deal with that nail hole and Wilson Everett, we’re both gonna end up in jail.”
“That or with a slug in your gut,” Cornwell said. “Everett ain’t gonna take kindly to you trying to slicker him.”
Joshua nodded dumbly.
“I’ve got a horse saddled in the yard,” Cornwell went on. “There’s some clothes and food enough in the saddlebags to hold you till you catch up with that wagon train heading for Santa Fe.”
“Santa Fe?”
“Yes,” Roundy said. “You remember, it left four days ago.”
“But my business...”
“You ain’t got no business no more!” Clinton had lost any patience he had. He snapped it out sharply.
“That ain’t true, Clint,” Cornwell said. He turned back to Joshua. “We’ll have to sell off a bunch of the stock and wagons, but even at worst they can’t take those wagons and teams you’ve got on the trail. I’ll try and hold things together here.”
“But don’t you be comin’ back until you hear from us,” Roundy said, softening a little. It galled him that Joshua had struck Jessie, but he still had an anger of his own at his daughter for denying them of their victory. They were so close! “We’ve got to let this die down first,” he said.
Cornwell reached out and took the cup from Joshua’s hand. “You’ve got to get moving. If they find you it’s gonna be too late.”
Joshua nodded, then staggered to his feet. He clutched at his father-in-law’s shirt. “I wish I hadn’t hit her, Clint.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t mean to hit her. If only she—”
“Joshua!” Cornwell grabbed his arm. “There ain’t no time for this. Go!”
Joshua stared at him for a moment, then straightened his shoulders. “Right,” he said.
Roundy opened the door. “You’re gonna have to circle around town. Don’t be riding down Main Street.”
Joshua sighed. The foreman handed him his hat. “We’ll write you in Santa Fe,” he said.
For a moment, Joshua seemed cold sober. “Right,” he said again. He jammed his hat on his head, and stepped out of the door.
As Cornwell shut it behind him, he looked at Clinton Roundy, who just shook his head. “I think we’d better be gettin’ to our beds too,” Cornwell said. “Wouldn’t be good to have someone find us here either.”
Roundy nodded. They stood together for a moment in silence. There was the sound of a horse’s hooves below them, which quickly faded away. Roundy reached over and blew out the lamp, and they left without saying anything more.
It was shortly after sunrise when Jessica knelt down by a small stream. She took a kerchief from her dress pocket and wet it. She began to sponge the swelling under her eye with one hand, letting the fingers of her other hand gingerly explore the damage. The side of her head ached abominably, and the cheekbone kept shooting pain up into her eyes and temples. She felt below her nose and felt the encrusted blood which had now dried. In her flight, she had not even been aware that her nose had been bleeding. She knew she must be a sight. If the eye was not already black and blue, it would be shortly. The skirt of her dress was torn in several places and muddy from where she had stumbled across a swampy area near a pond sometime during the night.
She stood, careful not to move too fast and send the explosions of pain rocketing through her head again. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Since first light she had been following a wagon track. The sun was at her back, and she was pretty sure she had been traveling in the same direction for much of the night. That meant she was west of town. Behind her was a line of trees, and she remembered that an hour or so before, she had crossed a small river. That puzzled her for a moment. Some distance west of town the Kansas River joined the Missouri, but the Kansas was a big river in its own right, much bigger than the one she had crossed.