Outlaw in Paradise

  Jesse poured two fingers of bourbon and took a thoughtful sip.

  "Are we playing cards here or not?" a woman's voice cut through the uneasy silence. "Chico, finish that song, I liked it."

  He didn't have to turn to know it was Miss Cady "Short for Cadence" McGill, saloon proprietor and dream interrupter. He'd been thinking about her all evening, even hurried through his pretty good dinner at Jacques' so he could see her again. He had a weakness for pretty girls, but that didn't explain why he'd passed up a golden opportunity by admitting to her he didn't work for Wylie. That wasn't like him. Not like him at all. He hated to think he was getting soft, not this early in the game.

  A short, handsome Mexican in a derby hat went back to playing "The Drunkard's Hiccup" on the piano. A roulette wheel spun; dice dropped; conversations started up again. Jesse poured another inch of booze and turned around real cool and slow, resting his elbows on the bar, hitching up one boot on the brass rail. And squeezed his eyes shut tight so they wouldn't fall out of his head.

  Miss McGill had changed her clothes. His memory of her brown skirt and blue blouse getup, vivid until just now, faded into nothing. Red exploded, temporarily blinding him. He recovered by making out bits and pieces of her slowly, gently, working up to the whole picture in stages so he wouldn't hurt himself.

  She was perched on a stool with her legs crossed, dealing blackjack to four lovestruck cowboys. Understandably lovestruck, because her dress... it was like she'd melted red candle wax all over her sweet little body, that's how tight it fit her. The cowboys who weren't staring at her high, white bosom were staring at the bare foot and six inches of bare calf swinging under her ruffled red skirt, and the sexy high-heeled red shoe hanging off the end of her toes. "Hit me," they begged her, going bust on purpose so she'd lean over and deal them another card.

  Jesse looked away in self-defense, scanning the spacious, high-ceilinged room, trying to work up an interest in what kind of a saloon he was in. He liked saloons, liked to think he was an expert on them. A saloon gourmet, you could say. This one had the usual equipment—stag's heads and spittoons, mirrors and hanging lanterns, the requisite naked lady at ease over the bar. A stone fireplace took up half the back wall; dark wood paneling covered the other three to chest height, then ivory-painted plaster up to the tall beamed ceiling. Handsome. Cheerful. And something else he couldn't put his finger on that set the Rogue apart from the ten thousand or so other bars he'd been in.

  Then it hit him: the place was clean. No smudges on the mirrors, no oily head prints. The waxed bar glowed like Chinese lacquer. He could see his reflection in the crystal-clean plate-glass windows. Strangest of all, the smoky air smelled pretty much like air, not the inside of a wet coal stove.

  Well, wasn't that just like a woman? He wanted to sneer and call the place prissy, dismiss it as a dandified bar no self-respecting man would drink beer in, but he couldn't. The Rogue was a great bar. And it was just like a woman to run a clean saloon, but it turned out—who'd've thought?—a clean saloon was nice for a change. It probably made you feel a lot better while you were defiling your lungs and pickling your liver and squandering your wife's egg money on simpleminded games of chance.

  Natural caution told him to stay away, but Miss McGill's red dress was calling to him like a siren. First, he poured a little more liquor, though, and stuck a thin black cigarette, prerolled, in the corner of his mouth—for that look at me wrong and I'll blow your brains out effect so vital to a man in his line of work. Nobody stared openly, but he felt the cautious, veiled looks as he moseyed around the tables of drinkers and poker players, heading for the blackjack table.

  A man saw him and started to scramble up off his stool, but Jesse put a friendly hand on his shoulder— which still made him freeze like a bird dog—and whispered, "Just watching." He was pretty sure McGill knew he was there, but was making a point not to look at him. So he looked at her.

  She sure had good posture. And she wasn't barefooted after all; she had on flesh-colored stockings. This afternoon she'd worn her curly dark hair down, but tonight it was up in a big, top-heavy pompadour that took some getting used to. In fact, he couldn't get over how completely different she looked from a couple of hours ago. Not that he was complaining. But even the freckles were gone. She had rouge on her lips, and perfume he could smell from here. Which was fine, great, he liked perfume and red lips on a woman, but... But nothing. She was gorgeous, and as soon as he got over the shock he'd start to appreciate it.

  That dangling shoe looked in danger of falling off as the swinging foot bobbed faster and faster. He liked the idea that he was making her nervous, but except for the foot you'd never have known it. She kept her face poker straight, as the saying went, and she handled the cards with the crisp, quick, slightly bored snappiness of a true professional.

  "You're busted, Gunther," she told a plaid-shirted, lumberjack-looking fellow, and leaned over to scoop up his cards. Jesse's eyes went where every other man's went, and that's when he saw it.

  Or thought he saw it—it only flashed for a second, and afterward he wondered if it had been a trick of the light. So he waited until the game was over— dealer won—and she swept up everybody's cards with one long, leaning-over pass. There it was, no mirage, no bourbon-induced hallucination: a genuine tattoo on the shadowy inside curve of her left breast. Some kind of a bird, an eagle or something, flying out of the cleft and nose-diving toward the nipple. His cigarette fell out of his mouth.

  He stepped on it, pretending he'd meant to drop it, hoping nobody noticed it wasn't even lit. Hell, no danger of that: who'd be looking at his cigarette when they could look at Cady's tattoo? She dealt another round, and he was so fixated on catching another glimpse of the elusive bird he forgot all about trying to catch her at card-palming or double-dealing. Which might, now that he thought of it, be the whole point. Hm.

  He was thinking about other uses for the tattoo, less practical but more interesting ones, when a tall, willowy blonde trapped his arm between her powdered breasts and breathed, "Hi," on a gust of gin and bitters.

  He was glad to see her. It was good that he struck fear in the hearts of men, but the down side was that hardly anybody talked to him. He got lonely. "Hi," he returned, then wished he'd said something meaner, more menacing. But what? Those real? Not very gentlemanly. And say what you would about Gault, he always tried to be a gentleman.

  "I'm Glendoline," the blonde confided in a childlike whisper, blinking dreamy blue eyes and pursing her lips as if she wanted to kiss him. "And you're Gault. I heard all about you."

  Ah, now he had her number. He'd never known about this species of woman before, the kind who liked dangerous men and would go to amazing lengths to get them. After the money, they were the second-best thing about being a gunfighter. Or at least they had been in the beginning, when he hadn't wasted a minute taking advantage of their breathless interest in him. Lately, though, it was starting to wear thin. It wasn't that flattering anymore. It was like getting a compliment on your hair when you were wearing a wig.

  "Want to sit down and have a drink with me?" Glendoline purred, pointing to an empty table for two. "You could show me your gun." Her china-blue eyes were innocent as a doll's, so he decided she meant the suggestion literally.

  "Why not?" he said in the gravelly whisper, which made her roll her eyes in ecstasy, and turned to follow her. Her skinny, sashaying butt was a cute distraction, but he glanced away from it to see if Cady was watching.

  She was. But she looked away quickly, slapping cards down hard in front of her customers, pretending she couldn't care less. Everybody was playing a game, Jesse philosophized pleasantly. He was just playing a bigger one than most people.

  He made a big deal of taking the chair facing the door so he could sit with his back to the wall, which almost sent Glendoline into a swoon. Another girl, a plump, buxom redhead named Willagail, was serving drinks to the customers at the next table. What kind of a place was this, it occurred to Jesse to wonder
. If his new friend wasn't a whore, he'd eat his hat. So... did that mean McGill was, too? Well, God damn. No, she couldn't be.

  Why not? Just because a girl had freckles didn't mean she couldn't turn tricks. He sat down slowly, peering at her across two tables of poker players, trying to picture her in the role of madam. It was hard, but not impossible. What did he think of that? He had, as they said, mixed feelings. He'd been thinking about her and him together in his big feather bed since approximately the moment they met. Now, for some reason, it needled him to think that all he might have to do to get her there was pay her.

  He bought Glendoline—"Call me Glen, honey"— a drink, then another drink, then another. It went without saying that the bartender was watering them down, but still, for a skinny girl she sure could put away the booze. She asked him the usual questions, how he'd become a gunfighter, how many men he'd killed, what it felt like to shoot somebody, and he avoided them with the usual sinister stares and enigmatic grunts. Glendoline wasn't too bright, but under the bloodthirsty curiosity she seemed sweet. He missed her when she went off to "see about something." After all those drinks, he was pretty sure what she was seeing about was the privy behind the saloon.

  Something bumped his leg. Looking down, he saw a little black boy, a miniature version of the bartender but with hair, squatting at his feet, halfway under the table. He had a whisk broom in one hand and a cigarette-filled dustpan in the other.

  "Howdy," said Jesse. The boy jumped, never taking his scared, white-rimmed eyes off him. "How's it going? You like that job? How much they pay you? I had a job cleaning out horse stalls once. I was about your age, twenty, twenty-one," he teased—the kid looked about seven. "Paid diddly squat, a quarter a week. Which is worse, you think, raking up horse manure or cigar butts and spit? Hm? Who's dirtier, horses or cowboys?"

  "Horses," the boy ventured, scuttling out a few inches.

  "I don't know," Jesse said thoughtfully, rubbing his jaw. "Some old boys are mighty damn messy."

  "Yeah, but they don't do they business on the flo'."

  "Well, that's true, that's surely true. That is a very good point. Cigarette? So tell me, what's a smart fella like you doing in a god-awful place like this?"

  "This a good place." His huge black eyes went wider still. "Why you think this a god-awful place?" He came all the way out from under the table, and when Jesse casually pulled Glendoline's chair out for him, he perched on the edge, curiosity getting the better of his nerves.

  "You like it here? This place?" He looked around in mock disbelief. "What's good about it?"

  "Well, Miz Cady the best thing, and I like it when Chico play the piano, and Miz Glen and Miz Willagail, they nice, plus sometimes I get tips or candy or a piece o' licorice. And my daddy, he the bartender and everybody like him, so that make 'em like me."

  "Uh-huh. So why's Miss Cady the best thing? By the way, what's your name?"

  "Abraham."

  "Pleased to meet you. You married?"

  "Naw." He giggled, then instantly sobered. " 'Cause. She just is. She let me do anything, drive her buggy, come in her room and play with stuff. And she always give me things, like a book or a apple or something. She funny, too, and she always smell good."

  "I noticed that myself."

  Abraham banged his heel against the chair leg, more at ease now but still devouring Jesse with his eyes. "Poppy say you a gunfighter," he said shyly.

  "Yep."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why you wanna go and shoot people?"

  "Well, it isn't that I wanna go and shoot people. Anyway, I only shoot people who really need it."

  "Who? Who you shoot?"

  "Bad guys. People who'd shoot other people if I didn't shoot 'em first."

  Abraham's mouth made an O. "So you one o' the good guys."

  "That's it." Jesse smacked the table with his hand. "I'm one o' the good guys. But listen." He leaned close; Abraham blinked in alarm but didn't flinch. "Don't tell anybody, hear? Because I don't want this getting out. Me being a good guy—this is a secret between us and nobody else, okay?"

  "Okay. Why?"

  "Why." He was mulling over reasons when Glendoline came back.

  "Ham Washington, your daddy said get your skinny ass off that chair and back to work right this minute or you're gonna be good and sorry."

  "Uh-oh." He scrambled up, grabbing for his pan and broom, darting a worried look toward the bar. His father scowled back at him. Jesse sighed, feeling dispirited when his new little pal scampered away and Glendoline took his vacated chair.

  "So, honey, you gonna show me your gun or not?"

  He was wearing two guns—maybe she was driving at something else. Luckily a new interruption came along before he had to answer.

  He didn't even have to look up to know why the room quieted down all of a sudden, or whose shoes were marching dutifully toward him from the swinging doors. He had experience at these things. He'd lay twenty to one it was the law.

  Glendoline, who had sidled closer so she could press her knee against his thigh, sat back guiltily. "Oh, hi, Tommy," she said in a careless tone, patting the corkscrew curls at the back of her head. "Fancy meeting you here."

  You could tell it was the sheriff because he had a badge on his starched white shirt, but otherwise you'd have guessed some other line of work. Bank teller, maybe, or telegraph clerk. "Good evening," he said, nervous but polite. "It's Mr. Gault, isn't it? I'm Sheriff Leaver."

  Ordinarily Jesse, being a polite kind of fellow himself, would've taken the slender, uncallused hand Sheriff Leaver held out to him. But Gault wouldn't, and besides, half the customers in the saloon were eavesdropping on this conversation, and the other half were trying to. So he ignored the hand and gave the sheriff his dead-eye stare, until the poor guy blushed and Glendoline giggled uneasily.

  "Glen," said the sheriff, "would you excuse us, please?"

  "Why, what'd you do?" She laughed at her witless joke, but nobody else did.

  He coughed behind his hand. "I mean, would you mind leaving me and Mr. Gault alone?"

  "Oh, you can talk in front of me."

  Sheriff Leaver had red hair and a skimpy goatee and the kind of fair, delicate skin women wished they had. The kind of skin that's like a thermostat under a clock in the middle of town where everybody can see it. White, terrified; pink, scarified; red, mortified. Currently it was a sort of rusty salmon shade, moving toward lobster.

  Jesse couldn't stand it. "Take a walk," he suggested pleasantly. "What the sheriff and me got to say might not be fit for a lady's ears."

  Glendoline, who had started to sulk, turned almost as red as the sheriff when she heard the word "lady." Falling over herself getting up, simpering and cooing, she couldn't move fast enough. " 'Scuse me, then, I'm sure. I'll come back when you gentlemen finish talking your business." She gave Jesse a smitten look, trailing her hand across his shoulder as she sidled away.

  The sheriff looked pained watching her go, like he'd banged his thumb with a hammer and was trying not to cry. "Have a seat," Jesse said to distract him. "Drink?"

  "No, thank you." He wouldn't sit, either. He cleared his throat, knowing as well as Jesse did that this conversation wasn't private, and that anybody not hearing it direct would be getting it secondhand soon enough. Clawing at his goatee, he stated his business. "Mr. Gault, would you mind telling me what you're doing here in Paradise?"

  Shiny badge and shiny shoes, pants hitched up to his ribs. Squeaky-clean and smelling like cologne. White hat and no gun. Jesse sized the sheriff up fast: heavy on earnestness, light on balls.

  Which was surely no sin, and not even a half-bad thing in the average run of men. Just maybe not what you'd want in the man keeping order in your town. Jesse had no stomach for embarrassing him, but they were like two dogs sniffing at each other's butt. The sooner one dog rolled over and gave up, the sooner they could both get on about their business.

  "Yeah, I'd mind," he said with a wiseguy snarl, le
aning back in his chair, sticking his boot heels up on the table, and crossing his arms over his chest. Had he missed anything? Were there any more ways he could look insolent? He could spit on the floor. But then Ham would have to clean it up. "You ask everybody that when they come to your town? Not very neighborly, Sheriff. In fact, I'd call that downright unfriendly."

  Leaver swallowed audibly. "I was just wondering how long you're fixing to stay."

  "Haven't decided. Nice little town, nice folks. Maybe I'll settle down. Retire, get me a place with one of them white fences all around. Raise posies."

  Somebody snickered; across the way, somebody actually guffawed. Sheriff Leaver turned a nice mulberry color. "Could I"—he coughed behind his hand again—"could I ask why you're here?"

  "Business."

  "What, ah, kind of business?"

  Time to demonstrate a short fuse. He picked up one boot and let it hit the floor with a stomp, and everybody jumped, nobody higher than the sheriff. "Private business," he said menacingly. "You got a problem with that, friend, we can take this conversation outside." He cracked his knuckles one by one, to make sure everybody knew what he was talking about.

  It took the sheriff two tries before he could say, "I don't have a problem with that."

  "Good. Then you can sit down and have a drink with me. Bartender."

  "No, thank you." The sheriff flared his nostrils a little, offended. His squared shoulders got squarer and he poked his chest out beneath his incorruptible white shirt. "I only wanted to say, I hope there won't be any trouble, Mr. Gault."

  Jesse guessed that was as assertive as he was going to get. "I don't plan on starting any," he said in the creepy whisper. "But when it comes my way, I always finish it."

  They stared at each other for about an hour and a half, until the sheriff's Adam's apple started bobbing up and down behind his string tie and his eyes started to water. He touched the brim of his hat with an upright forefinger. "I'll say good evening to you." Jesse kept quiet. Sheriff Leaver turned around and walked out of Rogue's Tavern with as much dignity, under the circumstances, as a man could hope for.