Paint the Wind

  The townspeople would think McAllister had fled out of cowardice. With a little luck it would be quite a while before anyone found his body up at that deserted mine shack and when they did, time and the wolves would most likely have taken care of any evidence about how he'd met his end. If not, there was always a drifter passing through who could be blamed.

  He pulled the flap of his coat back to free his gun hand, and flexed it twice convincingly over the holster. Fancy wasn't the only one in town with a flair for the theatrical.

  With mounting fear, Hart searched Leadville for his brother. Baffled, worried, he made his way toward the Crown; he'd remembered that Jewel's room, where he'd once painted her portrait, was the most strategically placed spot to view the fight, and there was no time to search further.

  Jewel was already crouched at her window, rifle propped on the sill, when Hart slipped the lock on her door. She spun around like a professional shootist, raised wide, intelligent eyes to his, and nodded, understanding all she saw in his face. God Almighty, but he looked like a man who'd seen a lot of wear since leaving Leadville. He was lean as leather and moved pantherlike as a redskin.

  She pulled the curtain aside with a meaningful nod, just as Jason's men stepped back from his side and left the man standing alone and unchallenged on the dusty street. She didn't ask what Hart intended to do, just moved out of his way so he could do it. He wondered fleetingly if she'd intended the same fate for Jason as he did, if Chance were vanquished. He glanced around and saw the woman bolt the door behind him and plant herself in front of it, as if it would take Sherman's army to move through her to where he crouched at the window ledge.

  Down below on the street, Madigan waited in the full knowledge that Chance McAllister would never come.

  Minutes ticked by with maddening slowness; the wind blew dust and tumbleweed down the deserted street, but nothing moved beyond that.

  "Something's wrong, Jewel," Hart said, his voice tense as iron. "Something's real wrong."

  "When did you see him last?"

  "A day or two ago... but Fancy saw him last night... they had a big row over the divorce and her leavin' Leadville."

  Hart frowned, and Jewel could see he hadn't known about the dissolution of the marriage.

  "Sorry, Hart. There ain't no easy way to tell this to you. That marriage was dead as Kelsey's nuts, except for the paperwork. You know how it's always been for them two—cain't live with each other, cain't live without. Things've been real dicey, but she'd decided to leave him long before this stupid-ass fight cropped up."

  Hart scanned the empty street—people were beginning to peer out of their hidey-holes. He could imagine what was being said about Chance; only the worst kind of coward would duck a gunfight.

  "He's hurt or dead, Jewel," Hart said, low and strained. "Nothing else would keep Chance away. My brother's a lot of things, but coward is not one of them."

  He rose from the crouch by the window and headed for the door. Jewel grabbed Hart's arm as he passed, saw the worry and the strength in his eyes, and other things she couldn't put a name to; she put her arms around him and held tight for a long moment, before letting go.

  "Take care of yourself out there. If anybody got the drop on your brother, he was either damned good or damned treacherous."

  Hart nodded, understanding. Next to Ford and Geronimo, Hart had never seen a better shot than Chance.

  "Take this," she said suddenly, grabbing a handsome repeater from the gun rack and pushing it into his hands. "It's Ford's, the stock'll fit you." He kissed her gently on the forehead and without a word left her standing in the doorway, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Hart tried the mine office first, but Caz said he hadn't seen Chance in twenty-four hours. He turned to go, but Caz pushed back his chair to follow. "Arf a mo', mate," he said, picking up a Remington from the corner. "I'll come with you. Your brother was a good friend to me, once." Hart nodded acceptance and both men mounted, with Hart riding out in the lead. Caz watched Hart ahead of him on the trail; he saw that the huge shoulders were drawn downward like a man expecting a terrible burden to be placed upon them.

  They checked the area around their own mines, even the Rainy Day, before the notion of the old cabin flashed into Hart's head. Could it be that Chance would seek refuge from a crumbling world back where it all began? He said as much to Caz, and they headed up the overgrown and winding trail.

  Chance's black horse stood tethered outside the old shack; his head was low and flies buzzed around the blood on his saddle. Caz caught Hart's eyes with his own, and saw the terrible understanding register. Hart ran to the cabin, the door gave way on its old hinges and creaked back with an eerie sound.

  Chance McAllister lay crumpled on the floor; his handsome face was gray as dust and strong in its repose. The massive groin wound had congealed, as had the puddle beneath him, into deep burgundy.

  He had come home too late. Hart sank to his knees in despair beside his brother's body and brushed the black hair back from the beloved forehead; he pressed his lips against his brother's face in farewell, but the flesh was cold and he knew the spirit had long fled. He reached beneath Chance's back and lifted him, cradling head and shoulders in loving arms, as he once had held his father long, so long ago... the terrible memory from the past swept through him.

  Caz stood, silent as the grave, in the doorway. He saw the big man bending low over Chance, crushing the dead body in his arms, shaking with silent, racking sobs. The tears that filled his own eyes blurred the scene before Caz, and he felt compelled to turn away, for the grief within the cabin was so palpable, so private, it seemed to him even the eyes of a friend would profane it.

  The minutes ticked by as Hart held the cold, still body of Chance in his arms and remembered their dreams. With infinite tenderness, he laid his brother's head to rest, cushioning it with his buckskin jacket. He saw that his hands were sticky with blood and he stared at them, unwilling to wipe it away. Blood is thicker than water and brother's blood the thickest of them all. He clenched his fists as if to hold this essence of his brother's life-force back from death, and clasped Chance's hand in his own one final time, but the once dextrous fingers were cold and hard as the marble on a tomb.

  Hart strove to stand, staggered from the dizzying grief, then wordlessly pushed past Caz and trudged off into the woods.

  Caz took a long, deep breath, struggling to control his own emotions, and entered the cabin. Reverently, he knelt beside the body. "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost..." he blessed himself and prayed for the soul of this foolish, lovable man who'd been his friend.

  Caz would never have noticed the letter inside Chance's shirt if he hadn't sought to compose the dead man's limbs into some semblance of repose for Hart's sake. The paper rattled, and wonderingly, Caz tugged the scribbled note free, and read what Chance had written with his dying hand.

  Dear Bro,

  I'm leaving this in hopes that one day you'll find it in your heart to forgive me what I've done. Truth to tell, I'm pretty sure you will, for I know you always loved me. And maybe Lady Luck owes me one last good throw of the dice for having deserted me at the end.

  The gunfight I never made it to wasn't over Fancy, whatever they may tell you. It was over the fact that Jason screwed us to the wall—you, me, the mine. I guess my head for business wasn't all that good, bro. But I figure you know that, too, by now.

  He planned it all... the cave-in, the financial ruin of the mine and me. He's got his eye on Fancy, too. Don't let him have her, bro—she's the best there is, even if I haven't always taken care of her like I should have. She always loved me, you know. She loved you, too, of course. Can't say that even seems odd to me now, that she loved us both, I mean. I'm not so poor a man I don't know a better one—I can't help but wonder what would have happened to us all if you'd been the one she chose, all those years ago. Does God laugh at us mortals do you think, bro? Or does He weep for our stupidities?

  What else is there to
say, I wonder. That I've been a fool—I know you'll forgive me that, you always did before. Take care of Fancy, will you... I know she's in better hands with you than she ever was with me. Don't be surprised if she misses me a mite, though. We were cut from the same bolt, she and me. And what a time we had of it for a while.

  I don't regret much, Hart. I wish I'd been smarter and that I'd never hurt you or Fancy. But we are what we are, and I know you both loved me despite my failings. As I loved you.

  Well, so long for now. I'll give your love to Mama and Daddy, when I see them. They'll be waiting for news, along about now, I expect.

  Never started out on such a long trip without you before, bro —can't say I'm not a little scared. Remember that night on the mountain when we were kids? I guess I've stood on your shoulders in more ways than one over the years, haven't I, Hart? It all seems so clear to me now...

  I want you to know one thing before I go. Through it all, you were the one I trusted. Relied on. Just this once, I'm glad I got to be reliable, too. I didn't go sniveling to Fancy with my failures and I didn't try to find you to fight my battle for me. Although, God knows, I've missed you sorely. I would have killed that bastard in a fair fight, if he hadn't bushwacked me like he did.

  I love you, bro, more than I ever loved anyone in this world, I guess. Have a good life and remember me to Fancy. She'll know what I meant to say.

  Chance

  Caz took a long, audible breath. "God forgive me," he whispered into the silence. "I can't let him see this letter now. He'll kill the bloody bastard and swing for it."

  He hastily stuffed the damning letter into his shirt and left the cabin to look for Hart.

  Hart and Caz brought Chance's body down off the mountain. Hart staggered up the steps of the McAllister house with his terrible burden in his arms, and Fancy met him at the door. Caz saw their eyes meet above the dead body of the man each had loved so well, and he thought that never in his life had he seen grief so palpably shared.

  Fancy went nearly insane with grief and guilt; she raged and cried and blamed herself for everything... she refused to let anyone tend Chance's body for burial, but drove them all from the room, saying no one but she could touch her husband.

  In a trance of bereavement, Fancy bathed the ghastly wound as if to punish herself for all past sins, by sharing this death in whatever way she could; she washed and dressed Chance for the undertaker, but when the man came with his funeral wagon to collect the last remains for embalming, she clung to her husband and wouldn't let him be taken away.

  Jewel, Hart, and half a dozen others tried to talk sense to her, but Fancy just stared past them into space, such crazed determination on her face that they soon realized nothing they could say or do would move her.

  It was Hart who thought of Magda; Hart who sent a fast rider to Denver to fetch the Gypsy woman. Late that night she arrived and found Fancy lying on the bed beside Chance, her arms around him, crying pitiably. No one, not even Hart, ever knew what Magda said to her, but whatever passed between the two women, Fancy, in a stupor of sorrow, left the room where Chance lay and Magda sent again for the undertaker, and went with him to see to his gruesome task, as she had promised Fancy she would do.

  The body, prepared for burial, was returned to the McAllister home for waking. Fancy, dressed in black taffeta, her ravaged face veiled whenever anyone was near, never left her husband's casket for the three days it remained before their drawing room hearth.

  Hart kept constant vigil at her side. Sometimes they spoke of the best of times, sometimes they simply sat together in heartsick silence.

  Sometimes Fancy wept and Hart, too anguished to speak words of comfort, simply held her in his arms until she slept. Fancy would not leave Chance, Hart would not leave either of them. Magda, knowing more of the ties that bound the three than anyone else, guarded the door and forbade the world to interfere with the shared and terrible grief that ran its course within.

  The coffin with Chance's body in it made Fancy feel she would suffocate, as it stood on the hill beside the fresh-dug grave.

  Closed in. Trapped! she thought, insanely. You were so restless, my love, how can they think you could ever sleep like this? How could a simple wooden box contain the body she'd loved so desperately, the body she'd made all the most hideous mistakes for. She'd loved and hated him so long, there seemed to her never to have been a time when Chance hadn't tormented her. Now he was gone but the torment still lingered.

  "May a merciful and loving God give understanding of the violent manner of this man's death..." The minister's voice was a relentless, useless drone.

  Oh, shut up, you fool! she thought savagely. There is no mercy for the likes of us. We'll go hand and hand into hell for all we've done and all the fun we've wrestled out of life. Just hold my hand wherever they send us, Chance my love, and we'll make a rollicking good time of it, won't we? She stood staring at the coffin lid and thought she might have gone mad.

  People could go mad from grief; everyone knew it. Even as a child, she'd heard the servants at Beau Rivage speak in hushed voices about poor Mrs. Benton, who'd gone crazy when her husband got thrown from his horse and died in the cornfield. The woman had lived for forty years, somewhere on the upper floor of the great Benton plantation house, with servants who never abandoned her.

  The casket began to be lowered on stout ropes into the ground. Fancy heard the squealing timber and the obscene scratch of earth on wood. Soon he would be beyond her reach forever, the last of Chance laid low, while the best of him still rampaged through her soul.

  "No!" she cried, reaching forward, and she felt Hart's hands on either arm.

  Why didn't I ever know how to make it right? Why was it only in our bed that we had it all? she longed to make him answer. I'd sell my soul to touch you one more time.

  "Don't leave me, damn you!" she whispered, meaning the words for her husband, but it was Hart's voice that answered, "I'm here."

  The irony of it maddened her, or was it the loss, and the noonday sun and the gaping townsfolk taking obscene delight in the fallen mighty.

  Even at the end, there are three of us instead of two. Damn you for being brothers! Damn you for never being what I needed, only everything I wanted.

  The casket thumped to rest, a dreadful sound. Hart, his face contorted with anguish, stepped forward and thrust aside the shovel handed him by the gravedigger. Instead, he filled his huge hands with earth and knelt at the very edge of the grave. Slowly, so slowly did he let the dirt trickle from his clenched fingers down upon the coffin that held his brother, it might have been the wind alone that had blown it there.

  "Forgive me..." he whispered so softly that none but Fancy heard him. Then he turned and looked into her face, his own streaked with tears, and the pain that was in his eyes was fathomless and for all time.

  Fancy turned her head away...for she loved Hart too.

  Chapter 110

  The widowed Fancy was a different person from the Fancy who had lived apart from her husband through the past months. This parting was final, with so much left unsaid. Images crashed about her like waves against a seawall. Why had she not listened when Chance came to her that last night? Why had she let her vindictive heart drive him into the path of a gunman's bullet, just as she'd once driven him to other women? She could have saved him, if only her pride hadn't gotten in the way... if only she'd been kind instead of righteous... if only...

  She would never have taken him back as a husband, she knew that, despite her grief. Too many bridges had been burned, too many heartaches had been etched in stone for that. They were flint and tinder together, a hopeless conflagration, and their marriage had bled to death from too many wounds, too great to stanch. But she could have saved him from this final disaster, if only she'd been more generous, and that was a terrible guilt to carry.

  Fancy sent everyone away so she could cry aloud; the lingering sounds of her sorrow echoed in the stillness of the big house. Chance's lifeless body kept appearin
g before her vision in the fire's glow... the elegant long limbs she'd once caressed with skill and longing, constricted by the hours he'd lain alone, dying in the darkness. Alone and misunderstood.

  "Oh, Christ, there are such ghosts alive in me, Hart," she told him in the endless hours they sat together, holding on. "Will they never be still?"

  Hart was no stranger to grief. It seemed to him, sometimes, that he'd borne all possible losses now... that Chance had died long ago, with the others he had loved...

  "Would you have stayed married, if he'd lived?" he asked her once.

  "No. It was a danse macabre we did together. I didn't know how to make it right and neither did he."

  "What would you change, if you could?"

  "Oh, Hart... I don't know if I'd give anything back. Maybe even the mistakes of youth are better than any wisdom age brings with it. Maybe it's a sacrilege to regret even one minute of your precious life."

  Hart had put his arms around her then and held her.

  "Where do we go from here, I wonder?" he asked, but it was two full months before she answered him.

  Chapter 111

  Hart and Fancy stood together near the entrance to the Rainy Day. Eight weeks had passed since Chance's funeral; Hart had ordered all his brother's affairs as best he could, and made arrangements for his trip to Europe. He thought she'd brought him there to say good-bye; she seemed troubled and oddly distant. When she finally spoke, her words were so different from what he'd expected that he had a hard time taking them in.

  "If I asked you to stay with me, Hart, just for one week," Fancy said to the strong and gentle man she'd so long taken for granted, "would you do it?" Hart stared at her in confusion, trying to fathom what on earth she was really asking.