An amused Jessi linked her arm with his and rested her head against his shoulder. “Did he tell you his story?”
“He did. It was easy to see he was still grieving for her, and those green eyes had a glow in them that made me glad he wasn’t hunting me. He said he was headed downstate and since I was going that way too, we rode together. We found Bivens in a whorehouse outside of Reno and Preacher marched him out of there at gunpoint. Didn’t even let him put on his clothes. It was the last time anyone saw him alive.”
“Did he kill him?”
Griffin shrugged. “Can’t really say for sure, but Bivens’ buddies found him on the trail outside of town. He’d been castrated. He bled to death, just like Preacher’s wife.”
“I hope he’s found peace since then.”
“He rarely speaks about her now, but I guess he loved her very much.”
Jessi now had a new understanding of Griffin’s solemn green-eyed friend. She could only hope that one day a new love would enter his life to heal the hole in his heart.
The next night an unknown arsonist set fire to the Darcy Hotel and burned it to the ground. Doyle rode out to the Clayton spread to relate the news the following morning.
“Was anyone hurt?” Jessi asked, as she stood with him and the others on the front porch.
“No, everybody got out safely, but folks in town are saying you ordered it done, Jessi.”
“I would’ve liked to, but I had nothing to do with it.”
Jessi looked over at the Twins.
They shook their heads. “We had nothing to do with it either. Wish we’d thought of it, though.” Shafts spoke with a light in his dark eyes. “Darcy’s living on the street, I hope.”
“Naw, he’s moved in with Roscoe for now.”
Roscoe and Minerva lived in a large house not too far from Gillie. Jessi was fairly certain Ros had not been given a choice.
“Do they have any idea who might’ve set the fire?” Griffin asked.
“Not a clue,” Doyle replied, “and since there’s no sheriff now that Cap’s gone, Reed doesn’t have anyone to look into the matter. I hear he’s fit to be tied.”
It pleased Jessi to know that Reed’s world was tumbling down. First, he’d lost his financial hold on Vale, and now his hotel had been reduced to rubble. She thought it couldn’t’ve happened to a better man.
Griffin asked, “Is there going to be an election for a new sheriff?”
“Yep, early next week. Supposedly your friend Percy West is Reed’s hand-picked choice this time and will probably win since no one is loco enough to run against him.”
“Percy as a sheriff?” Jessi asked incredulously.
“What do you have to do to be a candidate?” Griff wanted to know.
“Just go to the bank and place your name on the ballot, as far as I know.”
“I wonder if you can be a marshal and a sheriff?” Griff asked speculatively.
Jessi could see the light in his eyes. “Why?”
“I think I might want to run against Percy. That’d give Darcy a fit or two.”
“Or three,” Neil said, grinning.
Doyle had trouble holding in his smile. “Are you serious?”
“I think I am. What do you think, Jessi? Do you want to be married to a sheriff?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Griffin, if you want to be sheriff, you have my blessing.”
He turned his attention back to Doyle. “Do you think I can be elected?”
The big barkeep shrugged. “Darcy bought a lot of votes last time around and folks were real scared. This time, though, his pockets are lighter, and you did fix it so folks were able to get their land and homes back. So who knows, maybe they’ll be less afraid now. I know I’d vote for you.”
“That’s one,” Two Shafts cracked.
So Griffin and Jessi accompanied Doyle back to town. The sight of still smoldering rubble on the spot where the Darcy Hotel once stood brought them up short. The scorched and blackened remains bore little resemblance to what once had been Vale’s fanciest landmark. A crowd of curious townspeople were gathered around the ruins, peering and pointing at the piles of debris and ash.
As Jessi and Griffin rode on, the onlookers turned their way. A few met Jessi’s gaze and gave her an almost imperceptible nod of greeting, which she returned.
The bank was quiet and shadowy. The two small windows in the front wall let in as much light as they could, but it wasn’t enough. The only person inside was the clerk who’d delivered the deeds to Griffin the night of the poker game. His name was Alfred Cooper and he was a short thin-boned man. When they walked up to his desk, he gave them a disdainful glance and went back to the ledger he was viewing.
Griffin turned to Jessi Rose. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get elected sheriff is teach this town some manners.”
Hearing that, the clerk looked up and his eyes were wide. “You’re going to run for sheriff?”
“Yep, that’s why I’m here. Where do I sign up?”
The clerk became very agitated. “Why, you can’t do that! Mr. Darcy has already decided who the sheriff is going to be.”
Jessi retorted quietly, “In an election the people decide.”
The clerk looked from Jessi to Griffin and then from Griffin to Jessi, then stood nervously. “Wait here.”
A few moments later, Darcy came out from behind a closed door. His opinion of them showed plainly on his face. “Did you come to gloat?”
Jessi met his gaze squarely, “About what?”
“Burning down my hotel.” Darcy looked disheveled. His suit was rumpled and it appeared that he hadn’t shaved in days. He seemed to be paying a heavy toll for his sins.
“We had nothing to do with it.”
“I’m supposed to believe that, but you won’t believe I had nothing to do with your father’s death.”
“It isn’t the same, Reed, and you know it.”
“Jessi, I’m in love with you,” he told her pleadingly. “Why won’t you marry me?”
Jessi didn’t believe this. “Why in the world do you keep asking me that? There isn’t a chance in hell that I’ll say yes-you know it and I know it.”
“But to marry someone like him?” he said disdainfully, pointing at Griff. “That doesn’t make sense, when I can offer you so much more.”
“You caused the deaths of both of my parents. You’ve given me more than enough.”
“How can I convince you that I had nothing to do with their deaths? I loved your mother. Violet was the most beautiful and precious thing to me in the whole world. Her death left me devastated.”
“And my father’s?”
“Dex and I didn’t get along, I admit that. I think we came out of the womb hating each other, but I never wanted him to die like that.”
Jessi wondered how many lies one man’s soul could hold.
“Jessi, let me give you all the things I couldn’t give your mother. Please.”
“And what about Minerva?” Jessi asked, wanting this conversation to stop once and for all. “I doubt she’d take kindly to being replaced by the likes of me, even if I were of a mind to agree.”
His eyes grew wide with outrage.
Jessi continued, “Ros may be a drunkard, but he isn’t blind. He knows that you and Minerva are lovers.”
His face turned ugly. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing?”
“I’ll dare anything I damn well please, including fighting you with my last breath. I may look like my mother, but I am not her.”
“You’ll regret this,” he promised with cold eyes. “I won’t ask again, Jessi.”
Griffin drawled, “I know you like to pretend I’m not here, Darcy, but before you stomp off, I want my name placed on the ballot for sheriff.”
“I don’t care what you want, Blake. This is my town,” he snarled.
“Not anymore.”
“The sheriff will be who I say it will be,” he said pointing at his own chest for emphasis.
“Okay, Darcy. I guess I’ll just have to be a write-in candidate.”
“No one’s loco enough to vote for you. They know better than to buck me.”
“Tell that to the person who torched your hotel.”
Jessi smiled. “Are we done here, darling?”
“Yep.”
Griff then turned to the steaming Darcy. “After I get elected, I’ll look into that fire for you. So don’t worry.”
“Get out!”
So they did.
Chapter 12
Back out on the street now, Jessi and Griffin split up. He’d promised to pick up a new razor for Neil, so he had to go by Abe Thomas’s store; she wanted to stop by Gillie’s to check on the progress of her wedding dress. They pledged to meet up when their errands were done.
Jessi found Gillie inside, working on a new hat. The old woman smiled as Jessi entered.
“I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Griff and I rode in so he could place his name on the ballot for next week’s sheriff’s election.”
“Griffin’s going to run for sheriff?”
“He says he is. Darcy refused to give him any of the papers to sign, though, so Griffin’s going to have to be a write-in candidate.” She was quiet as she thought about her exchange with Darcy. “How could my mother have turned to such a snake?”
“Things are not always as black and white as they seem,” Gillie voiced sagely. “Your mother was lonely and Reed took advantage of that. Violet had no business coming out here from England. She was too delicate and fragile for life here. When she married Dex, I’m certain she’d no idea he couldn’t love anything but the land or that she’d spend most of her time alone while he went on drives for months at a time, or rode fences at night. Once you and your sister were born, she had the two of you to love, but she never had the love of her husband.”
Jessi found the story sad yet enlightening. “I knew my mother came to Texas as a mail order bride, but was she truly that unhappy? It doesn’t seem that she was. I remember how beautiful she was and all the lovely clothes she wore, and how wonderful she smelled.”
“You were young, Jessi. Children don’t often see the true light of things. As I said, I believe she turned to Reed out of pure loneliness.”
“But why Reed?”
“Reed had charm and back east manners and he knew how to treat a lady like your mother, but he and your father always seemed to hate each other, even before Violet.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was everything Reed’s father Vale wanted Reed to be, and he threw it in Reed’s face every chance he got. Your father could ride, shoot, brand. He was a true son of Texas and Reed was never any good at any of it. Do you know why Reed always travels by carriage?”
“Because he thinks he’s a Caesar?”
Gillie grinned. “No. It’s because he’s afraid of horses.”
“Really?” Jessi chuckled with disbelief. “Reed Darcy, afraid of horses?”
“Yep, one day when he was young, oh, he couldn’t’ve been more than six or seven, your pa and some other boys tied him in his saddle, stuck some firecrackers under it, and set them afire. That horse must’ve bucked for ten minutes with Reed holding on, screaming and crying the whole time. The horse came right up Main Street. Everybody in town saw it and started laughing. My late husband Virgil was the one who finally grabbed the horse and put poor Reed out of his misery, but his pa never forgave him for embarrassing him that way, and Reed never got on another horse.”
“I never knew that.”
“Yep,” Gillie nodded. “His pa wanted Reed to be rough and tough like your father, but Reed wasn’t cut from that kind of cloth, so he sent him back east to live with his mother’s kin in Pennsylvania, until he was oh, fourteen, fifteen.”
“What was he like when he came back?”
“Bookish, learned, charming, everything your father was not. Drove his father crazy, and the women around here too. Women like that Lydia Cornell worshipped the ground he walked on back then.”
“Lydia Cornell?”
“Well, suffice it to say, she wasn’t as chaste then as she claims to be now. She hated your mother for catching Reed’s eye.”
“Is that the reason she’s been so especially hateful all these years?”
“No doubt.”
When Jessi had come back to town after her time with Calico Bob Winston, she’d been unable to return to her position as Vale’s schoolteacher due to what the school-board described as Jessi’s lack of good moral standing. Lydia, president of the board at that time, had been one of the loudest voices raised against her.
Gillie peered at Jessi. “Are you okay, little girl?”
Jessi came back. “Yes, Gillie, I’m fine.” The story had given her food for thought, though.
They then spent a few more moments looking at the three sketches Gillie had chosen as finalists. Jessi studied each closely. Her decision made, she handed Gillie sketch number three.
“I like that one, too,” Gillie declared. “So I will get started. When I need you for fittings, I’ll send word.”
Jessi gave her former teacher a kiss on the brow and left the shop to meet Griffin. She found him peering through the glass of the now vacant sheriff’s office. “What’re you doing?” she asked.
“Just window shopping.”
“Are you really going to run for sheriff?”
“Yep. I’ve a wife and a nephew to provide for. I’ll need something steady. Besides who would know more about catching criminals than a former criminal?”
Jessi supposed he had a point.
There was only one thing standing in the way of Jessi’s happiness—her past. The need to tell Griffin everything had begun to weigh on her heavily. She very much wanted to rid herself of the burden once and for all, but she was afraid, afraid that it would change her in his eyes and in the end alter his feelings for her. She didn’t want to lose him, not after all he’d given her. Joth would be heartbroken too, should Griffin decide he didn’t want to marry her after learning the truth, but she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. He loved her and she loved him, she’d just have to rely on faith and hope everything would come out all right.
To that end, she walked over to the barn and knocked on the closed door. “Griffin, are you in there?” she called.
Since they’d agreed to marry, he’d been spending most of his free time working on the bed he’d seen in his dream. He promised she’d get a look at it but not until it was finished because he wanted it to be a surprise.
He came out and closed the door behind him. She stood silent while he dusted the sawdust and wood shavings off of his shirt and trousers then asked, “Can you walk with me a moment? There’s something I need to tell you.”
Griffin thought she looked unusually serious, even for her, so he said, “Sure, Jessi.”
As they began to walk, she spoke. “They came here in the middle of the night. There were six of them, including Bob Winston.”
He realized what story she was about to tell. “Jessi, you don’t have—”
“Yes, I do, Griffin, because now is the time. If after I’m done you no longer wish to continue as we’ve been, you are free to stay, finish the work with Darcy, and then move on. If you decide to stay, we will face the future together.”
Griffin loved her more at that moment than he’d ever thought possible. “Then continue.”
“They were drunk, all of them, and they rode up to the house yelling and shooting. When I came out of my room they were holding my father at gunpoint. Neither my father nor I had ever seen Winston before, so he introduced himself. He said he’d come to claim his son and for me to get him or he’d send my father to hell. I asked him if he knew anything about raising a three-year-old child. He admitted he didn’t, but said it didn’t matter, he wanted his son.”
The awfulness of that night came back to Jessi like a bad dream. “My father offered him everything: money, land, cattle. He kept sa
ying no. The other men were urging Bob to go ahead and shoot so they could ride on.”
She stopped walking and turned to Griffin. “My father then offered him something he did want. Me.”
His eyes widened. “You? Jessi, no.”
“Yes. He told Winston that I could be his for as long as he wished, if he’d let Joth remain.”
“You didn’t protest?”
“What was there to protest? There were six of them, my father’s hands had been given the night off so they could go to the Juneteenth celebration in town. Had Winston wanted to he could’ve just taken Joth and killed us both and no one would’ve been the wiser.”
She quieted.
Griffin wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her until the memories of that night no longer brought her pain. He fully understood the dilemma Dexter Clayton must’ve faced, but Griffin was still appalled that he’d sacrificed his own daughter.
Jessi went on in a toneless voice. “You have to understand, Joth was the first male child born in the family in many years. When Mama was alive, my father often berated her for giving birth to two useless girls. A man needed sons to keep the land, he would say, so he absolutely adored Joth.”
“Surely your father loved you and your sister.”
“My father loved this land—he didn’t have room in his heart or time in his day for much else, but I tried to win his love anyway. As a young girl I learned to hunt, trap, brand cattle, even went on the cattle drives north. I did my best to be as good as the son he always wanted, but after Mama’s death, he was so filled up with anger and rage, I guess I gave up. I turned to my books. Mildred turned to men, the more unsuitable the better. She left home a few months before I went east to school, and she vowed never to live under my father’s roof again, but she must not have had anyplace else to go because she did return, carrying her unborn child.”
When Griffin first began falling in love with Jessi he knew that this would be a story he wouldn’t enjoy hearing, and he’d been right. He wanted to dig up Calico Bob and kill him again.
“I rode with Winston and his gang for eighteen months. I cooked for them, washed their clothes. I learned to make a smokeless fire, a dozen ways to prepare beans, and how to disguise myself as a man.”