"Jesse..."
"Yeah?"
"Oh... nothing."
"What?"
"No, nothing. Never mind." She wasn't going to spoil this day with questions she knew he didn't want to answer. "Can I have a piece of pie? Or were you going to eat it all by yourself?"
After lunch, she took him on a walk through the old orchard. "Altogether it's three hundred acres, but only about half of that is fruit trees. The rest is mostly pastureland. And fir forest on the hillsides. It's right smack in the middle of the valley. La Vallée aux Coquins."
Out of the blue, Jesse said, "I'd have horses if I lived here."
She leaned against the smooth trunk of a pear tree and turned down the brim of her hat, shielding her eyes from the sun. "What kind?" she asked carelessly.
"I don't know, but purebreds. Arabians and racers, Tennessee walkers, Cleveland bays. Ponies." He looked down, grinning self-consciously. "Guess I'd have to narrow it down."
"You like them all."
"Yeah."
"Like your cousin Marion."
He frowned. "Marion? Oh—right. Yeah, Marion's crazy for horses. We're both like that." He took her hand and they started to walk again. "What's down there?"
"A meadow. Want to see?"
"Sure."
They matched their steps to each other, and swung their arms between them the way sweethearts did. Cady's heart felt high in her chest, too full or something, some thrumming kind of excitement. "What a beautiful day," she cried, turning her face to the sky and inhaling a lungful of the clean, sunny air.
"Glad to be out of the saloon?"
"God, yes!"
"But you like it, don't you? Owning the Rogue?"
"Oh, sure. Yes, I really do. But this is so nice. Away from the smoke and the spittoons and the— oh, you know, all that. And the men," she added, laughing. "Sometimes the men are just a bit too... manly." She decided to tell him something else. "It's nice to get away from the women, too."
"The women?"
"In town. The respectable ones who turn their shoulders to me in the street. Or pull their children away if I say 'Hi' or smile at them. It's good to be away from that for a day. I love the country."
They had walked out into the center of a wild-flower meadow. Thigh-high asters and wild sweet william spread out on every side, nearly as far as they could see. The air smelled so sweet, it almost made her dizzy. "Let's sit," said Jesse, and they dropped down right where they were, surrounded by blue and purple flowers. He put his arm around her, and she didn't realize it was for comfort, not just pleasure, till he said, "To hell with them, Cady. They're not worth two minutes of your time worrying about 'em."
"I know."
"What have they got against you, anyway? You're a businesswoman."
"Right."
"They're jealous, that's all."
His indignation warmed her like sunshine. "Well," she was moved to admit, "they think I'm a little bit more than a businesswoman."
"Do they?" He stuck his deer bone toothpick in his mouth and squinted at her. "How come?"
"Oh. You know."
"You mean because of Shlegel?"
She went stiff. "What do you know about Mr. Shlegel?"
"Nothing."
"Who have you been talking to?"
"Nobody."
She pushed away so she could see his face. He had only been talking to one person who would've put doubts in his mind about her and Mr. Shlegel. "Wylie."
"The hell with him, I don't care what he says. Cady—"
"What did he tell you?"
"Nothing. Okay, okay, he said you used to be together. You and Shlegel. That's all."
" 'Be together.' I'm sure that's exactly how he put it. Did you believe him?"
"It's none of my business."
"Thank you very much."
He put his hand on her arm when she started to get up. "Wait, now, wait. What I'm saying is, it wouldn't matter."
"What wouldn't?"
"If you had or you hadn't."
"It wouldn't matter?"
"Shit." He needed both hands to keep her from streaking away. "Hell's bells, I'm not saying this right. Cady, don't be mad."
"I'm not mad."
"Yes, you are. No, stay still, don't go leaping up like a damn grasshopper. Hold on and let me explain."
She quit straining away from him and said. "No, let me explain. Gus Shlegel was the kindest, best-hearted man I ever knew. He was something Paradise hasn't seen since he died: he was a gentleman."
"Okay."
"I wish we had been together."
"Okay."
"I wish he'd married me."
"All right."
Why was she so riled? She sat there and fumed for another minute, then let it go. "Sorry." She glanced at Jesse. He smiled at her hopefully, but she saw something else in his eyes. Hurt? "Jess..." He put his hand flat on the grass, next to hers. Their fingers touched. "What do you think of me? You must have made some assumptions about me. My past. Men—I'm talking about men."
He looked at her, but didn't answer. She didn't doubt he was thinking thoughts about ten-foot poles.
"I run a saloon, I deal blackjack, I sell liquor to drunks. Sometimes the girls I hire take men home with them. I tell them not to, but they do it anyway. So—most people have an opinion about me. Given those facts. What's yours?"
"Cady." He started shaking his head, laughing. "No way."
"No, it's all right, you can tell me. What do you think of me? How many men do you think I've been with?"
"I don't care."
"Yes, you do."
"Okay, I do, but I'm not asking."
"How many? Ten? Fifty?"
"Cut it out."
"Come on, guess."
"Would you quit?"
She heaved a sigh. "Well, if you're not going to even guess, I'll just tell you."
"You don't have to tell me. I don't even want you to—"
"Two. Before you, I mean. One was Jamie, and the—"
"I don't need to know this."
But she couldn't stop. "And the other was a schoolteacher. He lived in Monterey. That's where I ended up after I left Portland. I met him when I was twenty. He wanted to get married—just like Jamie," she said with a shrill laugh, "but he neglected to mention his wife in Oakland."
Jesse lay back, pulling her down beside him. He didn't look at her, but he brought her hand to his lips and pressed it there, over and over, and he murmured, "Okay, baby. Okay."
She wilted against him, and all the prickliness and the strange, unwarranted hostility drained away to nothing. Tears burned behind her eyes, but she willed them away. "There was a minister, too," she said tiredly, "but we didn't really do anything. I might've, but I made the mistake of telling him about Jamie and the schoolteacher, and that was the end of that."
"Good riddance."
"Yeah. Imagine me a minister's wife." He kissed her wrist.
"Jesse," she whispered. He turned his head, and she kissed him on the mouth. "Let me tell you. I'm almost finished."
"All right."
"I don't know why I want to tell you."
"It's okay. Go ahead."
She looked up at the high, streaky clouds scoring the blue sky. "After that—after the minister—I decided to go home, back to Portland. I got as far as Paradise, and Mr. Shlegel offered me a job in his saloon. Since I was broke, I took it. I figured I knew what he really wanted, and I figured I could handle it. But I was wrong on both counts. He turned out to be a gentleman, and I ended up... halfway falling in love with him. What he knew and I didn't was that he had a bad heart and a year to live."
"Ah, Cady."
"He was a big bear of a man, Jesse. German. He had a heavy accent—at first I could hardly understand him. And such a beard—he looked like Saint Nick. Toward the end, I took care of him, nursed him. And when he died..." She swallowed. "I took it hard. I'd made him into my father, I think, after he wouldn't let me be his lover."
"He
wouldn't let you?"
His incredulity made her smile. "Nope." She could tell him the truth, that Mr. Shlegel's illness had made him impotent, incapable of being anybody's lover— but Jesse didn't need to know that. And Mr. Shlegel had revealed that to her in confidence, with great sorrow and shame and disappointment. Nobody knew it but her, and nobody ever would.
"Of course everybody assumed we were lovers. Everybody in the whole damn town. Well, except Levi."
"I like Levi."
"I love Levi."
They rolled their heads together and touched foreheads, smiling
"Are you through now? Is this the end of your life story?"
"I guess. Mr. Shlegel left me everything he owned, and here I am."
"Here you are."
"You could tell me your life story."
"Read the Reverberator, it's all there." He rolled onto his side and put his hand on her stomach. She knew him now: when he put his hand on her stomach, he wanted to make love.
"Jesse. We're outside. We're in a field."
"So?"
"So—"
"I thought you and Wylie used to have something. Together."
"Wylie! And me? Wylie? Are you crazy? I wouldn't—"
"I was wrong," he said calmly. "It's just that you two hate each other so much, I figured somebody must've broken somebody's heart."
"Oh.' She relaxed again. She could see how he might've thought that. Why did she get so mad at him for thinking the exact same thing a hundred other people had thought before about her? With them she shrugged it off; with Jesse she got furious. Why was that?
Why was she asking herself questions with such obvious answers?
"I pulled a gun on him once."
His jaw dropped open. "You what?"
"What made it worse was that I was in his saloon at the time. People saw. If you humiliate Merle in public, you can get yourself into a peck of trouble."
"Yeah," he said feelingly. "Why'd you pull the gun?"
"He tried to— Well, he took me out to dinner once," she said, starting at the beginning. "This is back when I thought he was nice, if you can believe that. I'd heard some stories, but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt."
"Uh-huh."
Even Mr. Shlegel had liked him, she recalled; they had been fairly friendly rivals. "So afterward, we were in his saloon, and he made a suggestion. I declined. Politely. I got up to leave, and he put his hands on me. I couldn't believe it! He really wasn't going to let me go."
"So you pulled out your .22."
"I had no choice."
"I guess not."
"Ever since then, we've been enemies. Oh, Jess, thank God you straightened him out today." She came up on her elbow and hugged him with fierce gratitude. "Wylie's been poisoning the town for months and months. If you hadn't come along when you did, I don't know what he would've tried next." She kissed him soundly. "Thank you."
"I'm tired of talking about Wylie," he said uneasily, and she thought, Aha, an unexpected side to Jesse: modesty. "No more, okay?"
"Fine with me." She sat up. The asters grew two feet high in this fragrant meadow. No one came here, but even if somebody did, she and Jesse would be invisible. Especially if they were lying down.
She smiled a soft, dreamy smile, and began to open her dress for him.
Jesse's eyes warmed. Such sweetness, such—appreciation. In a corner of her mind, Cady wondered if there was anything she wouldn't do for him. Slipping her arms out of the sleeves of her pretty flowered frock—her best, she'd worn it for him—she basked in the heat of the slanting sun on her shoulders, her cheeks. She started to untie the ribbon at the neckline of her shift, but then she stopped. She wanted him to do it. She sat back, braced on her arms, aware of the thrust of her breasts against the thin white cotton. Smiling, she offered herself to him.
He sat up fast, but his cupped hands when he touched her were gentle and patient. Painstaking. Pleasure-taking. To please him, she'd worn no corset. He caressed her through the material of her chemise, stroking and pressing, softly squeezing, rubbing his thumbs and his fingertips over her nipples. She closed her eyes. She sighed. She slipped her hands through his hair, smelling the hot sun in it. He put his mouth on her breast and kissed her, right through her shift. The cool and the wet and the friction of cotton made her nipple tighten and peak, and he drew on it until she couldn't bear it. Then he soothed her with kisses, soft trails of them across her chest, in the hollow of her throat. Her chemise came away in his hands, and she was bare to the waist. "Sorry," she murmured.
"For what?"
"This." She fingered the little blue bird, the mark of her foolishness. "I know you don't like it." She didn't either, but eventually she'd forgiven herself for it.
He put his lips there. "There's nothing about you I don't like."
It wasn't just talk—he said it as if he meant it. Something was happening. As good as it had been last night, this was different, and she thought he knew it, too.
She unbuttoned his shirt quickly and pressed herself to him, needing to be as close as heart-to-heart. "Jesse," she said between kisses, "oh, Jesse." He took her down, laid her on her back, with his hands for a pillow under her head, kissing her and kissing her. Tears kept clogging her throat, and she kept swallowing them down. Silly, she thought. As sweet as it was to give Jesse her body it was only a symbol. The real gift she'd already given him, and it was the truth about herself. Did he know it? Could she stand for him to know it?
Probably not. The likelihood of this affair ending in happily-ever-after was so remote, it was a laugh. On her. Oh, Cady, you've done it this time. Picking men who were good for her had never been her strong suit, but oh, this was going to be a disaster.
Off came their clothes. They came together, and everything seemed to get brighter. Her skin was flushed, sensitive, and the way he touched her wasn't so gentle now. She loved the sweat on his forehead, the passion and the helplessness in his face when they made love. He couldn't stop kissing her; he held her as if he would die without her. "Ah, Cady, ah, Cady," he panted, and she loved the frankness of his desire for her. She'd never been with a man, never even kissed a man who didn't try to hide something of himself, no matter how far the sex carried him away. But Jesse let her know how much he wanted her without an ounce of shame, and she was learning there was nothing more seductive than that.
"Hurry," he advised in a rough mutter, arching over her. She could feel his muscles straining, trembling. He was hanging on for her.
"Such a gentleman," she whispered lightly, although her heart was bursting. She let love take her, just love, not the excitement of skin or heat or friction or even the deep, steady throb of him inside her. And she came gently, silently, like a flower opening, so quietly he didn't know it—she had to tell him, "All right, Jesse. All right."
After, she didn't speak at all for the longest time. Couldn't. Afraid of what she would say if she opened her mouth and started talking. Much better to shut up.
But it made him worry about her. "Honey? You all right?" He probably called every woman he slept with "honey," but when he said it to her it made her melt. Every time. "Was it okay?" He kissed her, coaxing a smile. "Come on, tell me I was great. Hm? How was it, Cady girl?"
She hid her face in his shoulder, afraid he'd see too much if he looked into her shiny eyes right now, and fell back on a standard answer.
"It beats canning salmon."
****
They drove past Cady's mine on the way home. The sun was setting; pale orange beams seeped through the low, mossy tops of the live oaks verging the road, softening the air, the twilight. Buzzards made slow, stately circles high up in the whitening sky. Cady loved the peaceful silence, but Jesse broke it to ask, "Why does Wylie want your mine if it's finished?" and she roused herself to try to explain it again.
"I've told you—that's just how he is. He's like a rotten little boy. He wants all the toys, and he'll make everybody's life miserable till he gets them."
&n
bsp; "But that doesn't make sense. Are you sure the Seven Dollar is worthless?"
"Sure, I'm sure. It has been for years. Look, there's the turnoff to Wylie's. It starts about half a mile back, right up against the cliff from the river. It's called the Rainbow, and naturally it's thriving," she said bitterly. Then she remembered: Jesse had taken care of Wylie. Threatened him, she assumed—he wouldn't say much about it. What a relief. Wylie had been a thorn in her side for so long, it was going to take a while to get used to the idea of him being harmless. She slipped her arm through Jesse's and pressed, leaning against him lightly. Her gratitude embarrassed him, but she couldn't help it. He was her hero. The whole town's hero.
On the outskirts of Paradise, passing by the little schoolhouse and the lot beside it where the children played baseball, she noticed a nasty, foreign odor that grew stronger as they kept driving. "What is that?" she said, and Jesse wrinkled his nose and swore wonderingly. By the time they reached the center of town, the smell had become a stench. People in the street stopped and stared when they saw her, but nobody spoke. Uneasiness crept over her.
"Something's wrong. Jesse, what in the world is that smell?" He looked grim and didn't answer. "Wait, you're passing the livery," she told him. "Don't you want to take the buggy..." She didn't finish. She knew where they were going—straight to the Rogue. Because something bad had happened.
Eleven
It could've been worse. They could've burned her out. They'd stunk her out, and that was only temporary. But it was bad enough.
Shrimp Malone was the first to identify the smoldering, smoking, reeking pile of black stuff on the bar—Levi's beautiful mahogany bar, his pride and joy; Jesse had seen him late at night sanding and staining cigarette burns, polishing out white glass rings, rubbing beeswax into the wood until it shone like a mirror.
"It's tires," Shrimp claimed. "Them little rubber tires on ore trucks." Ore trucks? "Them carts they wheel around down in the mines. What you got here is ore truck tires, about fifty of 'em, I'd say. On fire, and stinkin' to high heaven."
The fire department—Stony Dern—came and tried to shovel the tires out through the swinging doors, but the smoke was too bad. He couldn't stay in the saloon any longer than he could hold his breath. Next the sheriff organized a group of citizens to take turns dragging the tires out with pitchforks, but Nestor Yeakes, the first man in, promptly fainted, and Oscar Schmidt, the second, ran back out claiming he was having a heart attack. All this excitement happened before Jesse and Cady rode in. When they pulled up in front of the Rogue, nobody was doing anything except standing in the street and watching black smoke billow out of the windows.