Outlaw in Paradise

  Doc Mobius finally agreed, after about two dozen men begged him to, and in no time Jesse was ensconced in the corner table by Chico's piano, hoisting a beer to himself and then one to Joe. Doc Mobius said, "I've got to stitch up that crease in your head, though," and Jesse said, "Fine, do it here." Somebody ran and got the doc's medicine bag, and with about forty men looking on and offering free advice, he sewed up Jesse's head. Willagail made a good nurse. Cady wanted to do it—assist the doc, hold Jesse's hand—but at the first prick of the needle she had to leave the room.

  Eight

  Chico was playing his version of "The Gypsy's Warning," which meant pounding it out three times faster than normal and racing through the lyrics:

  "Trust him not, O gentle lady,

  Though his voice be low and sweet.

  Heed him not, that dark-eyed stranger,

  Softly pleading at your feet."

  Sheer velocity had the oddest people on their feet. Nestor Yeakes, who as far as Cady knew had never danced in his life, was two-stepping with Willagail; and those two old coots, Floyd and Oscar Schmidt, were prancing around the floor with each other. It was a sight to see.

  "Dance with me, Cady," Jesse begged with a grin, trailing his hand across her back as she passed behind him, on her way to a side table with a tray of beer glasses. She laughed at him and tossed her head, flirting like a girl. She kept going, but she was tempted. There was such liveliness in the air tonight, some kind of innocent gaiety that was hard to resist. Part of it was the size of the crowd—enormous, she even had Wylie's customers; his saloon must be stone empty, she gloated—and part of it was Jesse.

  He had a way about him. And it wasn't only that he was standing round after round of drinks for the house, either. It was him. He made people feel good. Even Doc Mobius—she wouldn't have believed this if she hadn't seen it—Doc Mobius, who never even smiled, had actually laughed at Jesse's cracks about not cutting his head off by accident, his jokes about inept doctors and idiot patients. Who'd have thought? Everybody else was as surprised as she was—pleasantly surprised, though. Jesse Gault wasn't only an outlaw gunfighter; it turned out he was also a comedian.

  Finding out he had a first name, a regular one like everybody else, not "Diablo" or "Serpent," broke down another barrier. He just wasn't the same man tonight, that was all. Cady couldn't take her eyes off him, and neither could anybody else. Was it the alcohol? No; he made a lot of toasts, but he'd just take a sip afterward, not chug down the whole glass like the others.

  But the most amazing thing was the way he treated Joe. No—the most amazing thing was the way Joe treated him. This was something else she'd have had trouble believing without seeing. They'd become mates, buddies. Great good friends. Right now they were singing "Hell Among the Yearlin's" with their arms around each other. Along with everybody else, she'd heard the story of their horse race a dozen times already—how Jesse had led all the way to the river when Joe's mount caught up with him, how they'd both flown like birds over a huge fallen oak tree lying in the road, how Jesse's stallion had slowly, slowly narrowed the gap between them, how a low-lying maple limb had almost killed him but hadn't slowed him down, and finally, how he'd overtaken Joe on the home straightaway, with blood blinding him and dizziness threatening to unseat him. If he'd told it by himself she wouldn't have believed it; he sounded too heroic. But Joe backed up every valiant detail and even threw in new ones Jesse either forgot or was too modest to mention. The terms of the wager had long ago flown out the window; nobody even mentioned Joe leaving town.

  "He don't even look the same anymore, do he?" said Levi as he filled glass after glass from the beer keg and set them on her tray. "Look like a whole different fella."

  "Yeah. You ought to hear the stupid things Willagail and Glen say about him these days."

  "I do hear." He made a disgusted face, and they both laughed. "He don't pay them no min', though. Not like he min' you."

  "Me." She snorted, started to say something smart. But she caught Jesse's eye, and he smiled at her over the heads of twenty men, through the cloudy cigar smoke and the strains of "In the Baggage Coach Ahead." A little tickle in her chest made her forget what she was going to say. Lordy, Lordy, he was a good-looking man. He'd put on his shirt but he hadn't buttoned it, and he never had put his shoes on. All he had to do was stand there, an unlit cigarette in the side of his mouth, laughing and swapping yarns with his new pals, and she was a goner. What made her think she was any better than Glen or Willagail? The only difference between them was that she knew enough to keep her mouth shut.

  She likes me, Jesse gloated. She's crazy about me tonight. If he'd known a horse race was what would turn the trick, he'd have challenged Joe or somebody else a long time ago.

  "C'mon, Cady, have a seat," he invited the next time she floated by with a tray.

  "Can't, no time." She said it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye, though, and he knew she would've if she could've. The boys were running her ragged. She was just a waitress like the other girls tonight, with no time to talk or flirt or deal blackjack. She hadn't even changed into one of her slinky saloon dresses. Not that Jesse minded. He liked her in her daytime clothes just as much. Maybe better. Right now she had on a black skirt and a black-and-white-checked vest over a plain white blouse, and she looked pretty as a picture. The blouse had a little black tie around the collar, but she'd untied it because she was hot, and she'd unbuttoned the buttons down to her bust. Not far enough so you could see her bird tattoo, but enough to remind you in case you forgot, fat chance, that it was there. He liked the way her hair was coming down in thick hanks from that neat daytime bun on top of her head. Pretty soon, unless she did some fast repair work, it would all be down around her shoulders, shiny and dark brown, sexy as hell. He couldn't wait to see that. Trouble was, he didn't want anybody else to see it. Just him. When had this happened?

  "Paradise used to be called Coquin," Sheriff Leaver was explaining to him. "Which means 'rogue' in French. That's what they named the Indians around here—Rogues. They didn't have much use for 'em back in the olden days."

  Joe, who had been deep in conversation with Sam Blankenship, the insurance and real estate man, turned around at that. Any talk of Indians always got his attention. "No," he said, "the French didn't have much use for them. So they stole their lands and trapped the animals that sustained them, and then the English came and finished the job they'd started."

  The sheriff groaned and rubbed his face with both hands. Sam Blankenship slid down in his chair. "Christ, Joe, could you let that go for one night? Tom here's trying to tell Jesse the history of our town."

  "Go ahead," Joe said with dignity. "But do not forget to tell him of the massacre of my people at Gold Beach."

  "Your people," scoffed Stony Dern. "Joe, you're whiter'n I am."

  "I am one thirty-second Tu Tu 'Tun, one thirty-second Nez Perce, on the side of my great-greatgrandfather."

  "Yeah, well, I'm a hun'ert percent Irish," piped up Shrimp Malone, "but you don't see me goin' on about beer and potatoes and singin' 'Katie Me Darlin'.' "

  Everybody laughed. Even Joe.

  "Anyway," said the sheriff, "as I was saying. They discovered gold here in 'Coquin' back in 1852. I mean to tell you, this was one thriving little town for about four years."

  "What happened?"

  "The gold dried up. That emptied the miners out, and a smallpox epidemic drove off everybody else. Place turned into a ghost town."

  "Is that right? I didn't know that," Jesse said politely. "I thought it was always here, always called Paradise." Sheriff Leaver's pride in the town surprised him slightly. It was an all right town, nothing wrong with it, but nothing really special as far as he could see. And Leaver wasn't the only one; Stony and Sam, the two coots Floyd and Oscar, Gunther Dewhurt, even dirty old Shrimp, they all seemed genuinely fond of the place, and anxious to tell him about its semicolorful past. "What happened then?" he asked obligingly.

  "Well, in—"


  "They done found gold again," Shrimp declared gleefully, cutting Tom off. "North o' here no more'n a mile. You done raced by the ol' Well Head Mine, you and Injun Joe—didn't you hear the stamp mill? Course, it ain't the Well Head no more. Now that Wylie owns it, it's the Rainbow." He leaned over and spat on the floor.

  "Shrimp, what is that spittoon for?"

  The prospector jumped guiltily. "Sorry. Forgot."

  Cady kept going, didn't even break stride on her way to the bar with another empty tray. But Jesse caught her eye as she passed, and she sent him a private smile that blinded him. Made him go deaf, too; he missed the next part of the history of Paradise.

  "... big boom's about over now, though," he caught the sheriff wrapping up. "People who came here for gold fifteen years ago and fell in love with the land are finding other things to do now. Farming, cattle. Logging. Sheepherding. Some folks say the railroad's coming to Grant's Pass one of these days, and then you'll really see some growth."

  "I hope it don't come," Floyd said.

  "Now, why would you want to say a fool thing like that?" complained Oscar.

  " 'Cause that's what Wylie's countin' on. When the Rainbow dries up, and Clarence Carter's mine, and the Sarena, and the Eagle, and the Pickaxe—which you know they are all gonna peter out sooner or later, just like Shlegel's mine, Cady's now, done two years ago—I'm sayin' when they all go, Wylie'll be the only one left standin', on account o' by then he'll own everything in the whole goddamn district. And everybody."

  Silence.

  "Shit, Floyd. Talk about a wet blanket."

  Halfhearted laughter. Jesse looked around at the suddenly dour faces of his friends—he was starting to think of some of them as friends. Floyd wasn't the wet blanket, Wylie was. Just the mention of his name brought people down, he'd seen it happen a dozen times. He caught himself about to say, "Why don't you do something about him?" That was a sore subject, he'd heard, between the sheriff and the towns- folk. And besides, what if one of his brand-new buddies snapped back, "Why don't you?"

  He changed the glum mood the only way he could think of. "Hey, Levi! Another round!"

  The gay evening wore on. The pendulum clock over the bar chimed ten; some men got up and staggered out, and some men started drinking in earnest. Jesse fell quiet, content to watch Cady at work, cool and efficient, sharp-tongued sometimes, other times sweet as your little sister. But gradually he began to notice things about her—the fatigue in her ready smile, the droop in her shoulders, the hand she pressed to the small of her back while she waited for Levi to fill another batch of glasses. She was flagging. Willagail and Glendoline looked whipped, too, but he didn't care about them.

  When she turned from the bar, he stood up, blocking her path to a back table. She smiled, lifting one shoulder to rub against a damp cheek, waiting for him to move. Her mouth fell open when he took the tray out of her hands and stepped around her. "What are you doing?" She followed him back to the bar, laughing. "Jesse? What are you—"

  "Listen up!" he called out in a loud voice, and the saloon instantly fell silent. "From now on, any man who wants a drink on me has to get it himself."

  "Jesse, that isn't—"

  "Got that? Because this lady's through."

  She started to protest. He cut her off by dipping suddenly and plucking her up off her feet. She shrieked, and the whole room erupted in laughter and good-natured applause. "You're drunk," she accused, locking her hands behind his neck. Her breath smelled like lemons. Lemonade.

  "Not a bit." It was true. He'd drunk enough to make his head stop hurting, not enough to cloud it. In fact, he'd never felt better in his life.

  He carried her back to his table. She started to squirm, thinking he was going to sit down with her on his lap. He surprised her by saying, "Get up, Malone," and kicking the prospector's chair leg. Shrimp scrambled up as nimbly as he could with a cast on his leg, and Jesse set Cady gently down in his vacated chair. He pulled his own chair up close and sat. And then he bent and hauled her feet up onto his lap.

  "Hey! Now, what—"

  "Shhh. Quiet." He tucked her black skirts and white petticoats around her ankles, very modest, before he started pulling on the laces of her high-heeled boots. She gaped at him. Joe, who was, as usual, talking to no one in particular about the Rogue Indian wars, stopped in mid-atrocity to stare. So did everybody else. Ignoring them, Jesse wriggled off one boot and then the other, tossing them to the floor. "Mmm, feet," he said, leaning over, pretending to sniff her stockinged toes. She squealed, trying to yank her feet away, but he held on. "Hold still." He cupped all the toes on her right foot in his hand and began to bend them all the way back, then all the way forward, back, forward, using a strong, firm pressure. Cady let her head fall back and groaned in ecstasy.

  The men looked away, or laughed, or shifted with embarrassed amusement. Jesse knew what was in their minds. Same thing that was in his. Funny—he'd seen men get dangerous in situations like this, but nothing like that was going on here. He'd have sensed it if it was. Not a one of them didn't wish he was in Jesse's place right now, but nobody meant him any harm. Or Cady.

  And that was all her doing. Touching her like this wasn't allowed—as long as they'd known her, she'd made just this kind of thing off-limits. And yet tonight she'd given permission, and Jesse was the lucky man. They envied him, naturally. But they didn't despise him, and they respected her right to choose. Because they respected her.

  Conversations started up again gradually. Jesse kept Cady's feet as long as she let him, massaging her insteps, grinding his knuckles into her heels, doing his best to drive her crazy with how good it felt. But eventually she drew away. She didn't get up, though. She said, "Thanks. That was great. You've got good hands," and stayed where she was. Neither of them said much. They sat and listened to the talk, the singing, the jokes, the drunken horseplay. They smiled and nodded at the others, throwing a word or two in occasionally. For cover. So nobody would realize how completely wrapped up they were in each other.

  Joe Redleaf stood up, holding onto the table for balance. Staggering but dignified, he approached them and made a wobbly bow. "Good night. Goodbye. Until we meet again, my friends."

  Jesse got up to shake hands. "You don't have to go. I mean, you know. Leave town. That was just talk."

  "Yes, I know. But I was going anyway."

  That cracked them up; they slapped each other on the shoulder, chuckling and laughing.

  Cady stood, too. "I'll walk out with you, Joe." They moved away together. At the double doors, she turned her head to look back at Jesse. Her expression calmed him. Wait, it said. I'll come back. He sat down, feeling peaceful. No jealousy. You're the one, she might as well have said out loud. He knew it as well as he knew anything. Tonight was the night. Inevitable. It couldn't have happened sooner or later, only now. Everything that had happened on this long, perfect day had led up to this night.

  Cady came back. Moving toward him, she looked calm, too, he thought. Calm and sure. She came straight to him.

  He said, "Want to go for a walk?"

  She bent and picked up her shoes. "I'll just tell Levi."

  Jesse told his friends good night, and went outside to wait for her.

  He looked tall and lanky in silhouette, backlit by the moon. Cady paused just outside the swinging doors to look at him. He had his weight on one leg, hip cocked at a loose angle, one long arm braced against the upright porch post. He was watching the moon. Its platinum face had that openmouthed, anguished look it took on at three-quarters full. He slipped his hand in his pants pocket; his shirt opened, and the white of his ribs, his side, flashed for a second. Then he turned his shoulder a fraction of an inch, and he was covered up again.

  Cady shivered. Just that quick whiteness, that gleam of pale bare skin, silver-on-black, Jesse's skin, had her chest tightening, her heart pounding. Anticipation. Such a deep-boned lust, and so fast: she could hardly believe it. I'm not like this.

  He turned. Had she made a sound? When
he didn't smile at her or say something funny, the breathlessness inside her grew fuller, harder to bear. She came toward him casually, as if nothing was happening. "Doesn't the air smell good?"

  He nodded. "You smell good."

  She blew a laugh. "I smell like cigars."

  He shook his head. Facing her, he finally did smile. She grinned back, relieved, keeping her eyes away from his naked chest. She'd seen it off and on all night under his open black shirt, but that was different. Now it was just them, standing by themselves in the moonlight. Jesse without his shirt felt as intimate as... as her without her blouse.

  She said, "Joe told me what you did." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he couldn't recall, didn't quite know what she meant. "You gave him money."

  "Ah." He looked slightly annoyed. He must have told Joe not to tell.

  "That was awfully nice of you."

  "Oh, yeah." He dismissed it, turning back to squint up at the moon.

  "He's so poor, you can't imagine. It'll help him so much. And you don't even know him. Jesse, that's just... so..."

  He gave a rough laugh, not wanting her to finish. "Yeah, well, I'm rich, so I won't miss it. Plus I was drunk when I gave it to him."

  He was not. But she only lifted an eyebrow at him. If that was the way he wanted to play it, fine with her. He touched her fingertips with his, just a gentle clutch of knuckles, and they stepped off the sidewalk and into the street.

  The hard dirt felt cool under her bare feet. She looked down, watching Jesse's white feet flash under his dark trousers, her white toes swish out from under her skirts. How companionable, being barefooted together. Playful. Like two kids, holding hands while they headed for the swimming hole.

  But they turned together, without any hesitation, into the path that led through the blueblossom bushes to her back door, and her childhood-playmates image disintegrated. Adult games, that's what they were going to play tonight. The pent-up, breathless feeling returned. She couldn't get enough air.