The stranger ran his hand up Agatha’s ribs, squeezing. “Feels too good to let it go.”
Gandy was over the bar so fast he kicked two glasses off and beat them to the floor.
“I said let her go.” He grabbed the wandering hand from Agatha and flung it back. “She’s not one of the girls.”
“All right, all right.” The cowboy raised both palms, as if Gandy had pulled a derringer. “If she’s your own personal property, ya shoulda said so, buddy.”
A nerve jumped in Gandy’s cheek. Agatha’s stomach trembled and she blinked at the floor.
Gandy plucked a bone-colored Stetson off the bar and shoved it against the cowpoke’s belly. “There’s plenty o’ whorehouses down the street, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for. Now, git!”
“Jesus, man, you’re touchy.”
“That’s right. I run a clean saloon.”
The cowpoke slapped his hat on, pocketed some change, and flashed Agatha an angry glare. She felt other eyes probing her from all directions and turned away so Gandy couldn’t see the tears of mortification in her eyes.
“Agatha.”
She stopped, squared her shoulders.
“What do you want with Collinson?”
She glanced back at him. “His little boy’s outside waiting for him to come home.”
Gandy’s resolution faltered for an instant. A vein stood out on his forehead as his eyes locked on hers. He nodded toward a table in the rear corner. “Collinson’s over there.”
She turned away.
His hand caught her elbow again. She looked up into his displeased eyes. “Don’t rile him. He’s got the temper of a wild boar.”
“I know.”
This time Gandy let her go. But he kept a close eye on her all the while she worked her way through the throng past a surprised Ruby, who stopped her to say something. She nodded, touched Ruby’s hand, then moved on. Collinson glanced up in surprise when she stepped to his elbow. He listened to what she had to say, glanced toward the swinging doors, scowled, then threw down his cards angrily. He nudged her aside rudely when he lurched from his chair. She wobbled and, across the room, Gandy took one quick step toward her. She caught her balance against the side of the table and he relaxed. Collinson elbowed his way through the crowd, leaving her to fend for herself.
When she started working her way toward the door, Gandy did the same. He wouldn’t put anything past Collinson.
Outside, the son-of-a-bitch was laying into his kid. “What the hell ya mean comin’ up here when I tole ya to keep outta the saloon?” He pulled the boy off the step by one arm. Agatha’s hands closed over the tops of the swinging doors. Her body strained toward the boy, tensed with uncertainty. Gandy silently came up behind her and gripped her shoulder. Her head snapped around. Without a word he moved in front of her and led the way onto the boardwalk, already reaching for a cheroot.
“You winnin’ tonight, Collinson?” he inquired, forcing a bantering tone. He lit the cigar with deceptive calmness.
“I was till the twerp comes badgerin’ me t’ git home.”
“Who’s this...? Well, howdy, son. Kinda late for y’all t’ be out, isn’t it?”
“I came to git Pa.”
“Boy, I tole you, I come home when I’m good and ready. Now, I left a winnin’ hand layin’ on that table. How come you ain’t at your Aunt Hattie’s?”
“She ain’t my aunt, and I don’t like it at her place.”
“Then git on home to bed.”
“I don’t like it there, neither. It’s scary there alone.”
“I told you, boy, that’s bullshit. Chickens is scared o’ the dark.”
Gandy stepped forward and spoke to the boy. “Oh, I don’t know. I recall times when I was a lad, I used t’ think I heard voices behind me in the dark.”
“Butt out, Gandy!”
The two men stood nose to nose in the deep shadows. The little boy looked up at them. Agatha moved beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Take the boy home, Collinson,” Gandy advised in an undertone.
“Not while I got me a winnin’ hand.”
“I’ll cover your bet. Take him.” Gandy reached for Collinson’s arm.
The larger man shook it off and pushed Gandy back a step. “I cover my own bets, Gandy. And the brat lays off me when I’m havin’ a good time!” He took a threatening step toward Willy. “Got that, kid?”
Willy huddled against Agatha’s skirt.
Gandy answered for him. “He’s got it, Collinson. Go on back inside. Enjoy your game.”
“Damned right I will.” He plucked Willy away from Agatha and aimed him toward the street. “Now quit snivelin’ and git home where ya belong.” He gave Willy a shove that sent him scuttling down the steps.
Willy ran a short distance, then turned to look back at his father. Agatha heard his soft, muffled crying.
Collinson spun and stomped back inside, muttering, “Goddamned kid could give a man liver trouble...”
Willy turned and ran.
“Willy, wait!” Agatha struggled down the three steps, but she was no runner. She hobbled after him but made it only the length of the hitching rail before she gave up the hopeless pursuit. “Willy!” Her anguished cry blended with the noise drifting out of the saloon as she gripped her aching hip.
Gandy watched her struggle, heard the boy running off, crying in the dark.
Agatha spun around and appealed, “Do something, Gandy!”
In that instant he began to see too clearly what it was this woman wanted of him and he wanted no part of it. But he answered the tug of his own unwilling heart.
“Willy!” He tossed aside his cheroot, leaped to the street, and took off at a run, his heart already pounding. A five-year-old’s legs were no match for Gandy’s long limbs. He caught up with Willy in less than a dozen strides and plucked him from the middle of the street into his arms.
The child clung to Gandy and buried his face in his neck.
“Willy. Don’t cry... hey, hey... it’s all right.” Gandy had no experience with comforting children. He felt awkward and slightly terrified. The child weighed next to nothing, but the skinny arms clung to Gandy as if he himself were the boy’s father. Gandy swallowed hard, twice. The lump in his throat refused to budge. He carried Willy back to Agatha and stood before her, feeling out of his depth.
She touched Willy’s shuddering back, rubbed it reassuringly. “Shh! Shh!” Her voice was low and soothing. “You’re not alone, little one.” She smoothed the cowlick on top of Willy’s head. Gandy’s hand spread on the child’s rumpled shirt, over the thin ribs that heaved in rhythm with his sobs. Her hand moved down. Their fingers touched briefly. A spark of good intentions bound them in that instant and they each fought the urge to link fingers in their joint effort to help the boy. Together, they turned toward the steps and sat side by side, with Willy on Gandy’s lap.
“Willy, don’t cry anymore.”
But the little boy could not be silenced. He burrowed into Gandy, who helplessly looked over the blond head at Agatha. He saw the glint of tears in her eyes as her hand rubbed Willy’s thin arm.
“I’d take him myself if I could, but...” During her brief pause he remembered the pitiful sight of her trying to run after the boy. “Could you carry him up to my place?”
He nodded.
They went through the dark millinery shop, out the back door, and up the back stairs. It had never taken Gandy so long to make the climb. With Willy in his arms he adjusted his pace to Agatha’s, watching her shuffling two-step as she clung to the rail. All the way up, he found himself recalling his youth at Waverley—healthy, hale, and surrounded by all the love and security a little boy could want to allow him to grow up happy.
At the landing Agatha unlocked her door and led the way into total blackness.
“Wait here. I’ll light a lamp.”
Gandy stood still, listening to the two of them—Agatha, shuffling away; Willy, sobbing against his n
eck.
A lantern flared halfway down a room with the proportions of a stick match. Gandy barely had time to form the quick impression before she spoke again.
“Bring him over here.”
He set the boy on the tiniest gateleg table he’d ever seen.
“If I could impose upon you one more time, it will be the last.” She handed him a white enamel pail. “Could you fill this for me?”
He hurried back downstairs and filled her water bucket from the barrel beneath the steps. As he headed back up with the weighty pail, he thought of Agatha instead of the boy. If it was that difficult for her to climb the stairs empty-handed, how did she manage it with a bucket of water?
When he returned Willy was calmer. The two of them were quietly talking. He set the bucket on a low stool beside her dry sink and turned to find Agatha wiping the boy’s lower eyelids with her thumbs. Gandy moved to stand beside them, looking down on the blond head and narrow shoulders. Willy was undeniably dirty. Hair, clothing, fingernails, neck—all could stand more than a bucket of cold water. Gandy’s eyes met Agatha’s and he saw she was thinking the same thing.
“Now, let’s take care of that bump on your head.” She turned and grabbed a cloth from a towel holder on the wall, slung it over her shoulder, and scooped a dipperful of water into a basin. The water sloshed close to the brim of the basin as she brought it to the table. Gandy stood by, feeling oversized and useless as she dipped and wrung and applied the cloth to Willy’s forehead.
The boy pulled back, whimpering.
“I know it hurts. I’ll be gentle.”
Gandy braced one palm on the table beside Willy and talked. “I remember once when I was about your size, maybe a little older. We had this river where I lived. The Tombigbee, it was called. My friend and I used to swim there durin’ the summer. That was down in Miz’sippi, and it gets mighty hot in Miz’sippi ‘round about July.” He accented the “Ju” in July. Agatha glanced up and smiled. “So hot, in fact, that sometimes we wouldn’t wait t’ shuck off our britches. We’d jump in clothes and all. Time I’m talkin’ about, Cleavon and me—” He glanced at Agatha and told her, “Cleavon is Ivory’s real name.” He returned his attention to the boy. “Well, anyway, Cleavon and me went runnin’ down to that river full tilt. Head first in the water we goes, and sure enough, I hit a rock and put a goose egg on my forehead the size o’ your fist. Y’ got a fist, don’t y’?”
Willy proudly displayed one puny fist. He had stopped resisting Agatha and sat entranced. From the corner of his eye, Gandy saw her pick up the iodine. He rambled on.
“Knocked me out colder’n a clam, too. My friend Cleavon fished me out and went yellin’ for help. My father came down to the river himself and carried me back up to the house. We had this old dictator called Leatrice...” Agatha smiled at the name: Lee-att-riss. “She was black as an eight ball and shaped about the same, only much, much bigger. Leatrice scolded me. Told me I didn’t have a lick o’ sense in my head.
“Well, now, Willy, I figured I was smarter than her.” Agatha applied the iodine and Willy scarcely flinched. “After all, I went down to the river swimmin’ when it got up to a hundred degrees in July. Leatrice, she stayed in the hot kitchen.”
“How come?” Willy asked.
“How come Leatrice stayed in the kitchen?”
Willy nodded vigorously. Gandy’s eyes met Agatha’s briefly. Had she been for the North or South? he wondered. And fifteen years after the war, did it still matter to her, as it did to some?
“B’cause she worked for us. She was our cook.”
“Oh.” Willy was blessed with a child’s ignorance of overtones. He went on with undisguised interest. “What happened to your goose egg?”
Gandy laughed. “Leatrice put a foul-smellin’ marigold poultice on it and made me drink basswood tea for my headache.”
“Did it go away?”
Gandy laughed. “Most of it.” He leaned forward, touching a finger to his hairline. “Still carry a little scar right here to remind me never to dive into rivers without knowin’ what’s beneath the water. And my father had a swimmin’ pool dug after that, and that’s where I did my swimmin’ from then on.”
When he straightened, Agatha studied his hairline, searching for the scar.
His eyes roved in her direction. She dropped her glance.
In the lull, Willy asked, “It still hurt?”
“Nah. Don’t even remember it’s there most times. Yours’ll go away, too.”
Willy gingerly tested the bruise on his forehead and declared, “I’m hungry.”
If Agatha had had her way, she’d have had a pantry that was a child’s delight, filled with tasty treats to make him forget his bumps and scrapes. If she’d had her way, she’d have stuffed Willy until his belly popped. As it was, all she could offer was, “How about some rusks?”
Willy nodded enthusiastically.
She found the dry cinnamon toast and left Willy sitting on the table edge with the entire tin.
“I wish I had a kitchen,” she told Gandy. “I’ve always wanted one.”
For the first time he took a good look at her lodgings. The apartment was half the size of his—and his seemed cramped. There was a stove, the dry sink, but no other signs of the domestic trappings necessary for cooking. Her furnishings were old and sturdy. A sampler hung on the wall, lace curtains on the windows. It was almost painfully neat.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Thirteen years. Since my father died. We lived in Colorado when he was alive. After he was gone, Mother wanted to make a new start, get away from bad memories. So we came here and she opened up the millinery shop. I’ve lived here ever since.”
“But you don’t like it?”
Her eyes met his. “Does anybody like what life doles out to them? It’s where I live. It’s where my work is. I stay, just like hundreds of others.”
He’d always felt so free to come and go where he pleased, to pull up roots and plant them somewhere new. He couldn’t imagine staying in a place he disliked for so long. He himself didn’t think Proffitt was the Garden of Eden, but he intended to stay only long enough to make a killing. Then he’d move on.
While his gaze roved around her dwelling, hers rested on him. “Your collar is soiled.”
Gandy came away from his musings to realize she’d spoken to him.
“What?”
“I said, your collar is soiled.” He dropped his chin but he couldn’t see. “A little of Willy’s blood,” she clarified.
Gandy spied a tiny oval mirror above the dry sink and went to peer into it. He had to dip his knees to do so. He rubbed the collar.
“I could try to get it out with a little cold water.”
He turned. “Would you?”
No, she wanted to reply, sorry now that she’d made the offer. Whatever was she trying to prove, fussing over Gandy’s clothing? It was having the little boy here, and the man—almost as if the three of them were a family. She’d best not carry the pretext too far.
But she’d offered, and he was waiting. “Let me get some fresh water.” She took the washbasin to the dry sink and stopped before him. He stood directly in front of the doors. “Excuse me.” She glanced down.
“Oh... sorry.” He jumped and stepped back.
She poured the dirty water into a slop pail, closed the doors, and refilled the basin. When she turned to him with a damp cloth, their eyes met briefly, then flashed apart.
“Perhaps you should loosen your tie.”
“Oh... sure.” He gave it a yank, worked it free with a finger, whipped it off, then stood waiting.
“And the collar button.”
He freed it.
Her hands lifted and his chin shot up. Oddly enough, she sensed that he was as uncomfortable as she. She inserted the corner of a clean towel behind the collar and soaked it from the front with a wet one. It was the first time in her life she had ever touched a man’s neck. It was warm and soft. The whiskers on the unde
rside of his jaw grazed the back of her hand, sharp but not unpleasant—another first. His beard was inordinately heavy and black. He nearly always appeared to need a shave. The scent of his tobacco clung to his clothes. In lighter doses it became distinctly pleasant.
Gandy studied her stamped-tin ceiling. What in hell’s name’re you doin’ here, boy? This woman is trouble. An hour ago she and her infernal “drys” were harassin’ your customers and tryin’ to get them to go home! Now you’re standin’ with your chin in the air, lettin’ her mollycoddle you.
“You know, it’s funny,” he commented, still studying her ceiling.
“What?”
“What we’re doin’ now, and what we were doin’ an hour ago.”
“I know.”
“I have mixed feelin’s about it.”
Her hands dropped and so did his chin. Their eyes met. Hers wavered away.
“So do I,” she admitted softly. Again she lifted her face and met his gaze. “This wasn’t exactly our choice, though, was it?”
He glanced at Willy, then back at her. “Not exactly.”
“And just because I’ve sponged your spiled collar doesn’t mean I’ve joined your camp.”
“You’ll be back with more ammunition.”
A tiny sting of regret coiled within Agatha as she answered, “Yes.”
“And I’ll keep sellin’ whiskey.”
“I know.”
While Willy sat on the table eating rusks, Agatha and Gandy stood looking at each other. They were enemies. Or were they? Most certainly they were not allies! Yet neither could deny, through some mysterious means, that they had become friends.
There was something on her mind that she simply had to say. She lay the wet cloths over the edge of the dry sink, half turning from him. “I want you to know, I was embarrassed by what Evelyn Sowers did in your saloon tonight. She’s turning into a radical, and I’m not certain if I can stop her.” She swung around, revealing a troubled expression. “I’m not even sure if it’s my job to try to stop her. I didn’t ask to lead the W.C.T.U., you know. Drusilla Wilson finessed me into it.”
In the narrow, quiet, lonesome-looking room, Gandy suddenly became aware of how clearly the sounds of the music and voices filtered through the walls into her apartment. She opened her shop early in the morning. He supposed many mornings she opened it tired and grouchy, while he and the gang slept soundly on the other side of the wall.