It seemed to be coming from the front. She put down her dressmaking shears, got to her feet, and approached the now sparkling windows.
A boy of about ten, clad in clean but patched dungarees, was swinging on the front gate.
Squeak.
"Well!" She supposed he must belong to their other neighbors, the Rikers, since the Shaws" two children had grown up and left home long ago, according to Zee.
Creak.
Zee had told her not to expect any neighborly treatment from the Rikers. "Hymn-singing hypocrites the pair of "em. Adah"s one of them Temperance Union busybodies. I ain"t exactly their flavor of the month since I stopped "em smashing up the Last Chance Saloon." She grimaced. "Ernie"s just as bad. He"s president of the bank."
"Banking"s not necessarily a bad thing," said Christie.
"It is if you call in the loans of folks who are desperate and steal their homes off "em."
"That doesn"t sound very Christian."
"It ain"t." Zee hugged her. "There"s more charity in your little fingernail, darlin", than in their whole sorry carca.s.ses. My guess is they"ll give us a wide berth, which suits me just fine."
Zee hadn"t mentioned the Rikers had a son.
Squeak.
Christie tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, smoothed her ap.r.o.n, and went out to talk to him.
Creak.
"h.e.l.lo, young man. Would you please stop swinging on our gate?
You"ll have it off its hinges."
The stare he gave her was disconcerting. "No."
Squeak.
She blinked at him. "I beg your pardon."
"No."
Creak.
She frowned and considered what to do next. "Do your parents know you are not in school?"
Squeak.
"You"re the Rikers" boy, aren"t you?" She folded her arms and waited.
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Creak.
"I said you"re the Rikers" boy, aren"t you?"
"And you"re the h.e.l.lcat"s wh.o.r.e."
She sucked in her breath. For a child to even know such a word . . .
"Don"t speak to me like that."
The boy stopped swinging and stepped down from the gate. He fixed that unnerving gaze on her again. "Why not? It"s true. You"re the h.e.l.lcat"s wh.o.r.e," he repeated. "And everyone knows it."
Her face felt hot. "I"ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, young man, or I"ll put you across my knee."
He smiled and she was suddenly reminded of boys who pull the wings off flies. He was trying to goad her, she realized. Sticks and stones, she told herself. Sticks and stones. She kept her breathing slow and steady.
"A killer and her wh.o.r.e, living as man and wife," continued the boy, watching her closely. "It"s disgusting."
Now Christie"s dander was well and truly up. Where"s a broom when you need it? A good swift smack will have to do. She marched toward him, raising her hand, but he stepped back and darted off.
He had run barely ten yards before he turned and yelled at her, "Why don"t you go back to the brothel where you belong? You"re both going to h.e.l.l anyway."
Still boiling with angeran unfamiliar sensation and one she could do withoutshe shaded her eyes and watched him hare off down the road.
Christie marched indoors and headed for the kitchen. There, she shucked her ap.r.o.n and grabbed her bonnet. She had barely finished tying the ribbons under her chin before she was outside again and on her way to the Rikers" place.
It was smaller than the Shaws" rambling old spread, but larger than the Old Barn. Its inhabitants clearly had moneya nice porch ran across the front of the house, which was painted white with a green trim, and the roof was shingled. As she crunched up the stony path toward the front door, between the tubs that someone had planted up with bay trees, she could hear dogs barking.
She knocked at the ornate front door and waited. The parlor"s lace curtain twitched. Moments later, a stout woman was standing in the doorway, staring down her prominent nose at her.
"Mrs. Riker?" Since the boy was about ten years old, Christie 167.
supposed his mother couldn"t be more than thirty, but the staid dress of black broadcloth added ten years to her age.
"Yes."
"I"m Christie Hayes, your new neighbor. Pleased to meet you."
Adah Riker stepped back and began to close the door.
"Hey, wait a minute!" said an indignant Christie. "It"s about your son."
The door paused, seemed to think about what it should do next, then opened again.
"Joe?"
"Is that his name? Small boy, about ten years old, curly hair, brown eyes, freckles, wearing dungarees."
"What about him?" Adah"s tone was stiff.
"He"s been round at my house, damaging my front gate and insulting me."
"When was this?"
"Just now."
"Can"t be our Joe. He"s in school."
"He should be in school but he isn"t. He insulted me and Deputy Brodie."
Mention of Zee made Adah blink. "What did Joe say?"
Christie"s cheeks grew hot. "I . . . it"s too upsetting to repeat."
"If he said you should be in a brothel and the deputy should be in the jail not running it, then it was the simple truth."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me. If that"s all, I have better things to do than talk to the h.e.l.lcat"s wh.o.r.e." Adah stepped back and shut the door in her face.
Shock rooted Christie to the spot. She stared at the door, finding the wood"s grain oddly fascinating and noticing that a fly had been caught in the paint.
"Told you." The hateful voice jolted Christie out of her paralysis.
She twisted and saw Joe Riker peering round the corner of the porch at her. Then the parlor curtain twitched, and the boy ducked out of sight again.
She didn"t remember walking back to the Old Barn, but somehow she found herself back in her own kitchen. She tore off her bonnet, hung it up, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Leaning one elbow on the table, she rested her chin in her palm and stared unseeing at the 168 wall. If everyone felt as the Rikers did, her dreams for a normal life with Zee were only so much smoke and mirrors.
The ticking of the clock seemed deafening in the silence, and she could hear the logs crackling and shifting inside the stove. She felt oddly detached. The numbness would wear off soon, she supposed, and then would come some other emotionhurt, anger, sadness . . .
maybe all three?
A little while laterten minutes by the clockChristie realized with a start that she had better begin preparing Zee"s dinner or Zee would go hungry. Mechanically, she peeled some potatoes and put them on to boil, then she got out the salt pork from the pantry and began to slice.
Chapter 3.
Zee whistled as she strode along the boardwalk toward the Wells Fargo office. She had been in the jail, leafing through the bundle of bulletins and Wanted posters that had come in during her absence, when she heard the hoofbeats and rumble of wheels that meant the stagecoach was here. With a little luck the package she had ordered should be on it.
A crowd of pa.s.sengers and pa.s.sers-by had gathered next to the stage. She broke into a run as she realized that they were watching two men fight.
"Out of the way." She elbowed her way to the front, took in the situation at a glance, then grabbed Jim Marlin by the back of his collar and hauled him off the stage driver, Cal Unger, who was half his size.
"What in tarnation"s going on, Jim?" She gave the big man a shake that clapped his jaws together before releasing her grip on his collar.
He glowered at her from beneath bushy eyebrows. "No call to treat me that way, Deputy. I"m within my rights." He kicked a wooden crate that lay on the ground behind the stagecoach, and she heard the tinkling of broken gla.s.s. "This ain"t no use to me."
Blood had spattered the front of Unger"s shirt. Zee pulled off her bandanna and shoved it at him. He gaped at her then accepted it and pressed it to his bleeding nose.
"Says I damaged his gla.s.sware." The cloth m.u.f.fled the driver"s voice. "But it was like that when I took possession."
Unger had always been honest in his dealings with her, so she was inclined to believe him. She turned to Marlin. "Reckon your beef"s with the Stage line, Jim, not Cal here."
Unger nodded carefully, so as not to exacerbate his nosebleed.
170.
Marlin cursed under his breath, but his shoulders slumped and Zee knew the fight had gone out of him. Sensing the fun was over, the bystanders began to disperse.
She watched the big man pick up his crate and carry it inside the office with the green painted shutters. Moments later came the sound of raised voices. Zee sighed and hoped she wouldn"t be called on to break up yet another fight.
Unger fingered his nose and decided it had stopped bleeding.
"Thanks, Deputy." He offered Zee the sodden bandanna.
She grimaced and declined it with a quick shake of the head. "Just doing my job. "Course, I might have to whup you myself if I find you"ve given the same treatment to my package."
He blinked at her. "No, no, your stuff is just fine and dandy." He hurried round to the stage"s boot and pulled out a burlap sack. "Here it is, safe and sound." His hands, she was amused to see, were shaking.
She took the sack from him, hefted it to a.s.sess its weight, then loosened the drawstring around its neck and peeked inside. The contents looked unprepossessing, but then, she was expecting that. She tipped her hat at him and grinned. "Looks all present and correct, Cal.
Thanks."
While he breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to his unloading, she swiveled on her heel and headed back to the jail, jiggling the sack as she walked and whistling the chorus from "Come into the Garden, Maud." Hope Christie likes "em.
"Hey, Brodie." The familiar voice made her stop whistling and glance round. Red Mary was across the street waving at her, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s threatening to spill over the top of her low cut pink dress.
"You coming to the Palace for a bite to eat?"
Zee shook her head. "Thanks for the invite, Mary, but Christie"s making me dinner," she called. "I"m on my way home now." Home.
She tasted the word and found it good.
The wh.o.r.e wasn"t quite quick enough to hide the scowl that mention of Christie provoked and Zee covered her grin with a cough. It did a body good, she decided, to have two women fighting over "em.
Not that there was any contest, of course. Christie had won her heart and the sooner Red Mary accepted that the better. She tipped her hat to the disgruntled wh.o.r.e and resumed her progress.
Her mare was tethered to the shady hitching post outside the jail.
171.
She tucked the burlap sack into a saddlebag and patted the horse"s neck. "Won"t be long, girl," she murmured in one twitching earthe cells were empty today so no prisoners needed feeding. "Just got to leave a note."