A change came over Calder. His stance altered and his palm once more went to the butt of his pistol, as if he were preparing for a fight. “Baron, that’s enough.”
The big man apparently respected his anger, for he turned to his partner. “We’d better get these hosses took care of, then I could use something to eat myself. Course, if we had some funds we might could have more than johnnycakes and beans. If we had some funds, that is.” Grumbling, he unfastened the leather strap under the horse’s belly, and Deke did the same.
They dragged off large, heavy saddles, so unlike those in the tack room at Fairhaven. The English rode on tiny patches of leather with stirrups that drew their knees high, while these western men preferred burdensome equipment. There must be a good reason, though she was not familiar with riding, either here or in England. Unless you counted today’s experience, which had left the inside of her thighs sore and chaffed. The legs of her drawers gave little protection against the stiff, sweaty horse hair.
Her stomach grumbled, distracting her. The thought of eating the unknown johnnycakes and beans left her reluctant to say she was hungry. She wondered what they had been talking about earlier, the “other thing” they were going to do.
“Let’s go inside, I’ll see if I can find you something to wear,” Calder said. “My stomach is touching my backbone, but we don’t have much to eat.”
“Johnnycake and beans,” she said, and let him steer her across the tumbled-down porch and inside the shack.
For an instant she was blind in the dark interior. He fumbled about and lit a lantern. Its golden glow illuminated the room. In one corner were several bedrolls, a slanted table with some tin plates and cups piled about, a pot-bellied stove with a coffee pot and a cooking vessel from which steam rose. Several guns stood against the wall. The place smelled of unclean bodies, unclean clothing, unclean sleeping accommodations.
“I’ve got a pair of Levi’s here somewheres, and a spare shirt.” Calder rifled through the bedrolls.
“I cannot wear a man’s clothes.” She glanced down at her petticoats, dusty from the trail. “I need a dress.”
“Well, I don’t happen to have a spare one around. It’s these or what you’re wearing.” He held up the disgusting pants.
Before she could object, he tossed them at her. “Put ’em on, I’ll make us a plate, then we’ll be gone. You might remember, you asked me to do this. It was all your idea.”
Holding the wad of unpleasant clothing against her chest, she gazed about the cramped, dirty quarters and thought of the lovely room back at Fairhaven that she had so blithely deserted. “Where am I supposed to put them on?”
“They go on your legs.”
“That is not funny.”
“Yeah, it was funny. Get dressed right there. But you’d best hurry. Deke and Baron will be in here shortly.”
“I cannot dress in front of you.”
He bent down and busied himself building a fire in the stove. Slid a pan over the fire. Then he pulled the gun from its holster and she let out a squeak. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”
Slamming the weapon on the table, he said. “No, I’m not going to shoot you. Not yet, anyway. Might if you don’t get into them pants. Now I got to clean my pistol. It took a bath, if you remember. Now get to it. It’s practically dark in here.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll turn my back.”
“Why are you being so mean to me? Earlier you were nice. I think you regret bringing me here.”
After hanging the leather holster near the stove to dry, he fetched some items off a shelf, struck a match and lit the lantern in the center of the table and sat down with his back to her. “Could be I do. I can’t figure out quite what to do with you, now that I’ve got you. Got any ideas? I’ve never exactly kidnapped anyone before.”
“No, I do not have any ideas, and you do not
have
me.”
Head bent over his task, he continued. “Well, I don’t know what you’d call it. I can’t exactly walk off and leave you, can I? And we are here, aren’t we?”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Aw, hell. I guess cause we—”
“The boys. Your gang.” She couldn’t help but taunt him.
“Yeah, the boys and me, well, we have other plans and I let you get in the way of them. You and your pretty face and th-that hair all hanging down around your…and…” He waved a hand in circles in the air. “I felt sorry for you, like I know better than to do, and now I’ve messed up everything by bringing you here.”
From outside came voices raised in heated discussion, and he flicked his gaze toward the sound, then back at his task. “You got those pants on?”
Standing on one leg, she tried to pull them over the drawers, but there was too much material to stuff inside, so she slipped off the unmentionables, then quickly stepped into the Levi’s, pulling them up under her petticoats. They were too large and were not going to stay up.
“I need a belt or something.” She clutched the folds in one hand, noticed the hole high up on one leg. These were the pants he’d worn when he robbed the train. Touching his bare body, now touching hers, between her legs where she wore nothing else. She swayed and shivered, though the room sweltered from the hot stove.
After he finished cleaning his pistol, he reloaded it, then turned toward her. He started to laugh, she knew he did, but managed to muffle it, picked up the drawers she’d discarded and ripped a wide strip from one leg. “Twist this into a belt and put it through the loops. Tie it like a sash. That’ll keep ’em up.”
She turned her back to him, lifted the front of her petticoats and fashioned the sash through the belt loops with fingers that trembled. Though the idea worked, it made her appear ridiculous.
At that moment, the two men stomped up the steps, crossed the porch and came inside. Calder had filled two plates with beans from the bubbling pot and laid a johnnycake atop each one.
“You feeding her, too?” Baron asked. “She part of the gang, now, is she? She gonna help us rob the bank?”
A rapt stillness fell over the men. Calder, Deke and Baron stared at one another. The three words, “rob a bank”, clamored in her ears like a thousand bells.
“Dammit, Baron,” Calder said.
The big man shrugged. “It just came out. You hadn’t ought to have brought her here. She’s gonna mess everything up.”
“I know,” Calder said. He didn’t look at her, but she could not stop staring at him.
Deke filled his plate from the steaming pot and stomped out without saying a word.
Baron dipped out beans, spooned up a big bite, chewed and swallowed. “We’ll have to kill her, then.” He bit into the johnnycake, as if what he’d said was passing the time of day.
Terrified, she cried out, gauged the distance to the door and contemplated flight.
Calder shot her a quick glance, meant to calm her fright, she was sure. “Don’t be stupid. Of course we aren’t going to kill her.” To her he said, “Come over here and eat your beans. He ain’t gonna kill you.”
“Maybe not, but I ought to.” Baron followed Deke outside, leaving the two of them to sort things out.
“Eat.” Calder pointed with his fork. “And take off those skirts. You look just plain silly.”
So relieved her knees wobbled, she did as he asked, leaving only her chemise which came below her knees, the corset, its cover, and of course, the disreputable pants. Then she approached the table and he glanced up.
“Oh, that’s truly much better. What is that?” With his spoon he pointed toward the long tail of white cotton.
“What?” Ravenous, she grabbed up the plate he’d filled for her and began to wolf down the beans. They weren’t so bad, but the johnnycake was dry and hard to chew. The crumbs almost choked her.
“Mash ’em up in the beans. Goes down better.” He gestured at her with his fork. “I don’t know, looks like another slip to me.”
“Well, it’s not. And I am not taking off one more piece of clothing.”
He shrugged, took another bite. “Suit yourself, but you look very unusual.”
She ate a few more bites of the odd tasting food, then fetched the shirt he had given her and slipped into it. It was long, almost covered the chemise, but not quite. A wide strip trimmed in lace, hung out from under the shirt’s tail. The cuffs hung over her hands, and she dared not think what a mess her hair was in. She was sure she did indeed, look very unusual. Not at all the Victorian lady who had left Glasgow, Scotland a year ago.
Tears filled her eyes. How had she come to this? Quickly, she turned away from him and fingered her cheeks dry. Once again, she felt like the scrub maid at St. Ann’s. Weary, hopeless and quivering with desires she knew would never be fulfilled. And she already missed her sister Rowena and cousin Tyra. All too soon she would miss her soft, clean bed. What would become of her? What would become of them? She had been a fool to leave Fairhaven. Surely she could have learned to tolerate Blair Prescott and his priggish, dominant ways. It would have been better than ending up in an outlaw’s hideout dressed like an urchin, hungry, tired and terrified of what would happen next. Was she doomed to forever make the wrong choices?
Feeling more than a bit sorry for her, Calder wiped his mouth on the back of one hand and wished for a cup of hot coffee to wash down the dry corn meal cake. But they had none. He glanced again at the woman’s heaving back. She was crying, and he didn’t much blame her, but he sure as hell didn’t know what to do about it. Sometimes he would like to cry too, had he not been a man. It must be some relief to just let go and blubber like that.
It was clear they couldn’t remain here. He had to find someplace to take her where she would be safe from that English toady. Then he and the boys could get on with their plans to rob the bank. He regretted that Baron had blurted it right out like he had, but hoped he could convince her it wasn’t true. If not, she might not squeal on them. After all, she hadn’t turned him in to the law when she recognized him in Victoria City.
Sighing, he rose and moved to touch her shoulder gently. She flinched and turned, gazed up at him, blue eyes brilliant with tears.
“Take me back if you want to. I do not wish to cause trouble.”
“Don’t be silly, you can’t go back there, you said as much yourself. I’m just trying to figure out what to do.”
“I could help you, you know,” she murmured.
“What? Help me what?”
“Rob the bank. If I helped you, then everything would be all right. And your friend…he would not have to kill me.” Her throat clogged.
She looked so pathetic he wanted to take her in his arms. “No, absolutely not. You wouldn’t know. I mean, you can’t break the law.”
“Why not? You’re going to.”
“Yes, but I’ve already done it. Lots of times.”
“Robbed a bank?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But I have robbed every other thing I could think of.”
“Like trains? And what else?”
“Stage coaches, freighters, foreign travelers.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Why?” He scratched his head.
“Why not get work? There appears to be plenty here to do, work people are willing to pay for.”
“I can’t take money from foreigners and Yankees.”
“Not unless you steal it from them, is that right?”
Startled by her logic, it took him a moment to reply. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. Make me understand.”
“There’s not time right now. Besides, why do I have to explain the way I live to you?”
“I guess you don’t…do not.”
Baron burst through the door. “Someone’s coming.”
“Here?”
“Well, no. Some riders coming along the other side of the river.”
“Tracking?”
“It don’t look like it.”
“They won’t find this place,” Calder said, and picked up his Colt. “No one ever has.”
“Not unless you led them here,” Baron said, and stabbed an accusatory look toward Wilda.
Calder glanced at her. “Stay here, I’m going to take a look. It might be your intended.”
She grabbed his arm. “What will you do to them? You surely will n-not kill them.”
“Well, you’re right, I ain’t gonna kill them, not unless they try to kill me first. I just want to see if it’s them. Might just be some travelers.”
Baron snorted. “We’re awful far off the beaten path for travelers. Ain’t never had none here before she come.”
“Where’s Deke?”
Baron indicated with a toss of his head. “Out there keeping an eye on them. Making sure they pass on by.”
“Okay, you stay here with her. I’ll be right back.”
He figured she’d pitch a fit, but she didn’t. Her eyes went wide and wild like a cornered deer, but she didn’t say a word. Even in that funny garb, she was a true beauty. Briefly, he wished for another life, one in which he had room for such a woman, but the road that stretched before him was too rocky, too perilous for a woman to travel. And then there was the road behind, stuff he’d done he could never tell anyone, least of all a gentle woman. So he left her behind with Baron and hurried to a vantage point where he could keep an eye on the intruders without being seen.
The hostile Baron aimed flinty dark eyes in Wilda’s direction. She hugged herself and glowered back at him. Without speaking, he went to the door to peer out. At last he turned, pinned her again with that harsh stare.
“What’s one of them fancy la-te-dah ladies from Victoria City doing with our Calder? Nothing but a two-bit outlaw.”
“He . . .I asked for his help, that’s all.”
“Help? And what are you paying him for this…help?”
“Paying? I do not—don’t understand.” Perhaps he would stop treating her with such suspicion if she tried to communicate with him in his dialect.
“Giving him a little poke, I reckon, if there ain’t no cash involved. Calder does like to poke the ladies.”
She had no trouble translating that concept. The vile man. How could the English language have come to such a state of disrepair in so short a time? Poke, indeed. The colonists had rewritten huge parts of her native tongue to suit themselves.
He made a crude gesture with his fingers that she had no trouble understanding.
Her face grew hot and her heart thumped until she feared he would hear the terror. “No, sir. I would do no such thing, and furthermore, he did not ask.”