"Lovely." She tied a third one, pink, purple, and orange, around his left wrist. "My dear, you are quite fetching."
"I'll fetch you if you don't cut it out."
"Oh, I'm so scared." She had a hat hanging on her wall, floppy straw with a bunch of yellow flowers and ribbons. She went and got it, then came toward him grinning, purposeful.
"Oh, no, you don't." He ducked and caught her by both wrists, yanking her on top of him. She shrieked, and he couldn't resist tickling her. They had a wrestling match that didn't last long, only until he rolled over and pinned her. Giggling, snorting, they panted in each other's face, and it was so good, so perfect, he started to tell her the truth—that this was the best day of his life, the best day, he could still hardly believe it. But before he could say it, she said. "Jesse, why do you wear black?" And then she said, "Jesse. Why do you shoot people?" It broke the mood.
He closed his eyes rather than examine the urgency, almost a desperation, that flared in her beautiful face for one unguarded second. "I don't shoot people. I don't just go around shooting people. Jeez, Cady."
"Oh, that's right. They always deserve it." She pushed him up and scooted out from under him, tugging at her robe, going all modest on him.
He could see a fight coming on if he didn't head it off quick. "Listen to me, because I'll only say this once." He put Gault in his tone, took out all the Jesse. She stared at him, arrested. "We can talk about anything you want, anything under the sun, except for one thing. My business. Which," he pointed out, "you knew all about before you invited me in here tonight."
He reached for her hand. "Cady," he said in his own voice, working the stiffness out of her fingers. "Cady girl. Let's not spoil this." He brought her hand to his mouth, pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist. "Everything is just right. Isn't it? It's perfect." She didn't speak, so he kept on nibbling her, wooing her, teasing her soft, strong, thin-fingered hand with kisses. He lifted his head. Her brown eyes resting on him were melancholy and distrustful and fond. He smiled, trying to make her smile.
"Okay," she said at last. But he hadn't wooed her, he saw, hadn't changed her mind or made her forget anything. She'd made a decision, that was all. For right now, this night anyway, it was in his favor.
"I still think you should wear colors," she said lightly, pulling her hand away, stretching out beside him, and plumping pillows at her back. "You'd still scare the hell out of everybody, if that's what you're worried about."
Not as much, though. He'd given the subject a lot more thought than she had. "Think so?" He sat up, scarves flying, and reached for the straw hat he'd wrestled away from her. He set it on the back of his head. "Listen, sidewinder, one wrong move and I'll plug you."
She doubled up with laughter, leaning against his shoulder, helpless with it. Ah, she was back, his Cady girl, just the way he liked her best—loose and laughing. He put his arms around her, and pretty soon they were kissing. "How's your head?" she asked, carefully avoiding his sewn cut as she stroked her fingers through his hair. "It must hurt. That was quite a whack."
"Nah, it doesn't hurt." Big man. "Feels funny, is all. The stitches." He touched them gingerly with his middle finger, following the thin, jagged, prickly line along his tender scalp.
"Let's see." He bowed his head and she leaned over him, barely grazing the stitched wound with her fingertips. The warm, mingled scents of sex and Cady's soft rosewater cologne rose from her half-open robe. It made him dizzy. He slipped his hands inside, cupping her luscious breasts. She stopped exploring his head wound and held still, breathing slowly and evenly. The freedom eagle or whatever it was still soared for her nipple, and would still be soaring toward it when she was eighty years old. "I don't like this bird," Jesse revealed, then scowled, surprised at himself. He toyed with the idea that he was jealous of the bird, then discarded it. He was jealous of the big brave Italian freedom fighter she wore it in honor of. The fact that he was dead was only marginally consoling.
"You don't?"
"Oh, it's okay," he said, backtracking. Nothing she could do about it now, so what was the point of bitching.
She sat back, looking down at the vivid blue tattoo on her bare bosom. She fingered it lightly, idly, and his body tightened. He was reaching for her when she said, "I told you a little fib about how I got it." He paused. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. "Actually, I lied. Is what I did. Do you want to hear the real story?"
"Yeah, sure." He sat up straighter, interested, ready to be relieved. "I never liked that story anyway."
"Ha," she said without smiling. "You probably won't like this one any better."
"Let's hear it. Come over here." She looked so un- comfortable, even a little woebegone, he put his arms around her and made her sit close, tucked up against his side. "Okay. Out with it."
"I told you I wore it in memory of my lover."
"Right. The Red Shirt. He helped liberate Naples."
"And you believed that?" She looked him in the eye, amazed.
"Well, sure. Sort of. Yeah. Why wouldn't I?"
"Because it's..." She started to laugh. "It's ridiculous."
He laughed, too, to humor her.
"It's not even an eagle."
"It's not? Let's see." She pulled the lapel of her robe open and twisted around toward the light. Her breast was such a beautiful distraction, he'd never examined the bird closely before. "Hmm." It had wings, an eye, a beak, a tail. "What is it?"
"It's a... Can't you tell? It's a..." She didn't want to say the word.
"What?"
"Jesse, it's a damn seagull."
"A seagull. Ah, so it is. Now I see. There's its—" She shut her robe, ducked her chin, and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked mortified. He felt bewildered. "Okay. Well," he said carefully. "How did you happen to get a seagull tattooed on your bosom?"
"I was young," she said sullenly. "Really young."
"Ten? Twelve?"
"Eighteen."
"Uh-huh."
"I was going out with this—well, first of all, my father had just... no, before that my mother died, and I was..."
He slid down in the bed a little, patient. He looked at the ceiling, not at Cady; sometimes, he knew from experience, that made it easier to talk.
She sighed. "I grew up in Portland. My father came and went a lot. He never stayed too long."
"What did he do for a living?"
"Different things. I guess mostly he was a fisherman. But he drank. A lot."
"Your mother?"
"Died when I was fifteen. So then I stopped going to school and started working. In the salmon canning factory. Have you ever canned salmon, Jesse?"
"Can't say as I have."
"Don't ever do it. No matter what happens, how low you sink or how poor you get, don't ever do it."
"I won't," he vowed solemnly. He could feel faint tremors of revulsion shudder through her body where it touched him. "So then what happened?"
"Well, then my father disappeared for good. I'd just turned eighteen. I met this man. Boy, really."
Now they were getting to it. "What was his name?"
"Jamie. Jamie O'Doole."
"Jamie O'Doole." He smiled, making the connection.
She laughed softly. "Not James Doulé. I don't know what made me say that." She picked up his hand and began playing with his fingers. "Oh, I do know. The true story is kind of, well, sordid. Tacky, as my mother used to say."
"But your mother thought life is duty."
"That's true. She sure did. Sometimes I didn't even blame my father for leaving us. I wished I could leave." He gave her hand a soft squeeze. "So anyway. Where was I?"
"The man-boy."
"Jamie. He was a sailor. I thought he was so handsome. Shall I tell you what he looked like?"
"Not unless you have to."
She shifted, facing him. "Why not? Because you'd be jealous?"
"I'm afraid I'd have to kill him."
She smiled, but sadly. "Maybe he's already dead. I used to
tell myself that's why he didn't come back for me."
"What an idiot. Him, not you."
"Oh, I was an idiot, too. And if I ever forget it, I've always got this to remind me."
Now he could guess, but he asked anyway. "How did you get it?"
"Exactly the way you think I got it. And I don't even remember. I was too drunk."
"Poor Cady," he murmured, smiling.
"Poor Cady." She clucked her tongue scornfully. "It was his last night in port. He asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes. I hadn't—we hadn't... done... oh, you know. We hadn't had sex yet. So that night we drank a lot. Celebrating our engagement," she said with a combination of amusement and bitterness. "He said I should get a tattoo just like his, and I thought that was absolutely the most romantic thing I'd ever heard. I was wild to do it. And I did—obviously—but I don't remember any- thing about it. Maybe I was unconscious by then. I do remember afterward, though. Vaguely. I lost my virginity to him, and I can't even call it lovemaking. It was definitely not a memorable experience."
He hugged her, gave her a soft kiss on the temple.
"The next thing I remember is waking up in the morning. Very sick. Alone. I had a tattoo and no lover, and I never saw Jamie again."
"And now you don't drink."
"Beer every once in a while. Hard liquor"—she shuddered again—"never."
They lay quietly for a time. "That," Jesse ventured, "is a very sad story."
"No, it's a very stupid story. I've never told it to anyone before."
He thought about that. "Why did you tell me?"
"I guess... because I thought you'd understand. I don't know. I just wanted to tell somebody. I've kept it a secret for eight years. It embarrasses me, but it's not so terrible, really. I mean, I didn't kill anybody or..." She broke off.
He lay still and didn't say anything.
"So anyway. That's it. The story of Cady's tattoo. And if you tell anybody, I'm afraid I'll have to kill you."
He laughed with relief, grateful to her for turning it into a joke. Serious talk about killing people didn't have any place between them tonight. "You can call this lovemaking," he promised, just before he wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her. Her response, eager and immediate, thrilled him. He'd never had a lover quite like Cady. He slipped her arms out of her robe, got her flat on her back, her head off the pillow. He used his knee to prod her legs open, relishing the sound she made, a kind of gasping hum, when he did it. God, she liked this almost as much as he did. He started telling her what her skin felt like, and it wasn't even a stretch to say words like "warm silk" and "cool water," and when he caressed her between her legs, "hot, slick glass." She began to moan—he loved that sound—and clutch her hands at nothing but the air. Her hair looked black against the sheet, curling and falling and twisting, twining through his fingers. How many lovers had there been between him and her faithless sailor? He wanted to know. Didn't want to know. He tickled the damn bird with his tongue, slowly, followed its flight path to her nipple, making her arch and groan. He felt her small hands on his back, the sharp bite of her nails. He did something then, he wasn't even sure what, that made her climax. Her thighs clamped around his caressing hand and she rolled toward him, face contorted, forcing a low, grinding sound through her clenched teeth. She drew her knees up and hunched her shoulders, and he could feel, actually feel the soft, rhythmic pulsing of feminine flesh around his fingers.
When it subsided, he gently unrolled her, beguiled by the pink flush on her cheeks and her chest, the way her damp hair stuck to her throat. She looked ravished. And when she opened her eyes there wasn't much to see—they were still vacant, still back there in the mindless pleasure. "Your freckles are standing out," he said tenderly. Maybe not the most romantic thing he'd ever told a woman, but it made Cady laugh.
"I wouldn't be surprised." She pressed a soft, dreamy kiss to his shoulder. "My God, Jesse, how did you do that?"
"It's a secret." He didn't have the faintest idea.
She sighed. She smothered a yawn.
He couldn't keep his hands off her. He ought to let her rest, get her second wind, but if he didn't have her soon—no, now—he was going to explode.
Murmuring to her, calling her baby, whispering to her to come on, honey, come on, he nudged her onto her back again. She smiled and opened her legs for him, and he thanked her and told her that's right, that's it, hovering over her and using his hand to push himself into her slowly, slowly, ready to die from the way she felt, so tight and hot around him. Knees bent, feet flat on the bed, she set that deep, rolling rhythm that drove him out of his mind. He lost all finesse. He forgot to be gentle, forgot everything except how it felt to be inside Cady. And she was with him all the way. And then slowly, imperceptibly at first, she began to stiffen under him, arch her back and grit her teeth. She was coming. She was so beautiful, and he wanted to savor her fierce, silent climax, but it was impossible. Gathering her close, he let himself go, pumping, driving into her with strong, powerful thrusts, not silent at all—he heard his own groaning huffs in amazement. In the middle of it he halfway blacked out, it was just so damn intense.
He rolled away, and they fell against each other. She looked as done in as he felt—more so; she didn't even have the strength to return his grateful kisses. He picked her hand up and dropped it, to see what would happen; it fell on his chest in a boneless heap. "Cady?"
"Mmm."
"Cady?"
"What."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Go?" She opened one bleary eye.
"To my room." He gave her a little shake. "Honey, do you want me to leave now?"
"Leave now?" She yawned on his chest, a big, wet, wide-mouthed yawn, graceless and endearing. "Oh, no, I want you to staaaay. Stay all night." She went limp. Almost immediately a soft snore woke her up, and she twisted around, away from him. She stuck her hand up, twitched her fingers. Bemused, he took it, and she pulled his arm around her, tucking his hand inside both of hers. She fell instantly asleep.
Across the room, the oil lamp sputtered and went out. Good timing. The perfect end to a perfect day. Maybe the best day of his life. He buried his face in Cady's dark, wild hair. His Cady girl. He fell asleep like that, trying to remember if he'd felt this happy before..
****
In the morning, he was coming back from Cady's outhouse—not the one Rogue customers used but her own neat, clean, private one, down the path from her back door, hidden from casual view by the blue-blossom bushes—when he heard voices coming from her room. Hers and somebody else's. He halted, listening. Then he relaxed—the second voice was Ham's. He ambled on up the steps and through the door, catching the tail end of a story Ham was telling.
"They only got till Tuesday mornin' to git shut o' the sto', Poppy say. Don't even got two weeks. Got till Tuesday mornin' on account o' that the first o' the month." He saw Jesse and grinned. "Hey, Mr. Gault."
"Hey, Mr. Washington." As was his habit, he grabbed Ham around the waist and turned him upside down. A lot of hollering and laughing ensued, but Jesse noticed Cady didn't join in. She rested her back against the bedpost and hugged herself, rubbing her arms in the loose sleeves of her paisley robe. A sure sign she was worried about something.
"Anything wrong?" He righted Ham and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"It's Wylie. Who else?" She gave a chilly laugh. "He's called in a note he owns on Luther Digby's general store. Luther can't pay it. It's so damned unfair." She kicked the post with her bare foot, wincing.
"They got a baby," Ham said shyly, wary of Cady's anger. "Poppy say what they gonna do with a new baby an' all this trouble."
"Luther saved and saved to buy that store, and then he worked like a dog to make enough so he and Sara could marry. It's cruel, that's what it is. It's just cruel."
"How come Wylie's got the note?" Jesse had been in Digby's store once, to buy black handkerchiefs. He remembered the woman who had waited on him, a pretty, thin-faced girl wi
th wheat-colored hair. She spoke to him softly and pointed, smiling, to a sleeping infant in a basket on the counter.
"He must've bought Luther's mortgage from the bank. That's how he got the Sullivan ranch. Until Lyndon Cherney disappeared—you didn't know him, Jess, but he was one of the vice presidents at the Mercantile—before he disappeared, he and Wylie were thick as thieves." Ham was leaning against her, looking up at her face worriedly. She put her hands over his ears and said a bad word. "Who else's mortgage does he own? Who'll be next? Isn't there some way to stop him?"
"You could fix it, Mr. Gault," Ham said confidently. "You could make him quit."
"How would I do that?"
"Go down there with your guns an' shoot 'im!"
"Ham," Cady said sternly. "Go on out now so I can dress." The boy said, "Aww," inching toward the office door. "Go on, and maybe later we'll go out for a ride."
That brightened him up. "Okay!" he agreed, and slammed the door behind him.
Watching Cady, Jesse could see his plans for a long, lazy morning in bed going up in smoke. She couldn't sit still, and when he reached for her hand, she pulled away, prickly as a thistle. "Well, couldn't you do something?" she finally burst out.
He'd been expecting it. "Go down there with my guns and shoot 'im? Sure."
She waved her hand impatiently. "Of course not. Couldn't you talk to him? Jesse, there's nobody else. Wylie's killing our town, and the sheriff can't stop it. Couldn't you do something?"
That was how he found himself slouching down Main Street on Sunday morning, church bells clanging in the distance. He looked as mean as it was possible for a man to look, with his black Stetson pulled low over his eyepatch, spurs jingling, sun glinting on the pearl handles of his six-guns.
Unlike Cady's saloon, Wylie's was open on the Sabbath, and doing a moderate business. The sweet, nauseating stench of stale smoke hung over the place, reminding Jesse of every hangover he'd ever had. Wylie favored a lot of brass and purple plush; there was dark red paper on the walls, and a red carpet, stained with booze and cigarette burns and God knew what else, on the floor. The joint was bigger and fancier than the Rogue. Also darker and uglier, and a whole lot more vulgar.