Fair Is the Rose Read online

  "Yeah." He broke one and looked down the barrel.

  "You take very good care of them. I suppose you've had them since the war. You must treasure them."

  He glanced at her, disgust twisting his lips. "Out here a man doesn't treasure his guns, Mrs. Smith, he's a slave to them. I'm just a more diligent slave, that's all." He snapped the revolver closed. "Besides, Yankee-issue Remingtons are better than what I have."

  "Why don't you have Remingtons, then?"

  His disgust appeared again. "Why bother? A dead man doesn't know the difference."

  She fell silent, unable to counter this indisputable fact.

  After a long pause, he said, "What were you saving that money for?" He didn't look at her. He just continued polishing and oiling his revolver as if she weren't around, but she knew if she didn't answer, those eyes would finally look her way. The threat of his stare was enough.

  "I was a schoolteacher saving to buy a house."

  "I see," he said, clearly not believing her.

  "It came from my husband."

  "No." He looked up. "You had all that gold, yet you sold your wedding band?" He suddenly smiled. It chilled her. He had caught her in a lie and there was no way to extract herself. So she said nothing. Silence was better than stumbling around for answers.

  "You hated him, didn't you?" he asked in an oddly needful tone.

  It was her turn not to look at him. "Don't ask me any questions about my past unless you're willing to help

  me."

  He glanced over at the sleeping men. Snores broke in tandem with the whooh of an owl. He looked back at her and their gazes locked. He seemed to want to say something, but somehow he couldn't. He glanced again at the men. She wondered if he couldn't trust that the other men were truly asleep and not listening. She wanted to ask him, but he put her off. He thrust his Colt into his holster and shook out his bedroll. Then he forced her down on it on the other side of the fireplace.

  Trembling, she waited for him to join her, fearing his unexpected anger. But he didn't touch her. Instead he sat with his back against the warm fireplace stones and dug out a harmonica from his saddlebag. He began the tune to "Tom Dooley" and one of the men—Kineson, she thought—shouted to him, "Cain, you are somethin', boy! Playin' that harmonica! Why, if that were my woman, I wouldn't be playin' nothing but her!"

  Men's laughter echoed from around the shaft of the chimney. Christal shivered. Cain began to sing. Hang yo' head, Tom Doolah, Hang yo' head and cry, You killed Laurie Foster and now you're gonna die. The words rang in her head. Now you're gonna die.

  Chapter Six

  Sunday came with a vengeance. Overnight a winterlike chill permeated the air and crystalline frost covered everything including the blanket they slept beneath. Christal dreaded leaving the warmth of Cain's body, but dawn was breaking over the mountains, coloring the faces of the opposite slopes long before darkness was erased and the sun actually peeked over the eastern hills. It was one of the strange quirks of the mountains. To find dawn, she'd learned to look west.

  Though he lay against her back and she couldn't see him, she knew Cain was awake; not moving as if he, too, hesitated to part from the warmth of the bedroll. There were only two days left before the ransom was paid. Two more days of hell and captivity by the Kineson gang, two more days of intense contrary emotions for the man who held her beneath the frost-covered blanket. How it would end was the only question. She pondered the different scenarios, but of one thing she was certain. Cain wasn't going to let them hurt her. He'd taken too many risks, protected her too often, to let Kineson and his gang members slay her like a lamb once they got the ransom. She only wished she could be as confident about Mr. Glassie, Pete, and the other passengers' protection. Their futures were murky, but, in truth, all their futures were. Her fate really wasn't up to Cain. He couldn't control everything. In some ways, he was a captive himself, captive of the crime he had helped to commit.

  A thin light streamed over the eastern peaks, barely melting the frost. Cain moved and she waited for the gust of cold air as he threw off the covers. The cold air didn't come. Wondering what he was doing, she rolled over and met his gaze inches from her own. He still lay on his side, one hand gripping his gun belt against his chest, the other tucked beneath his dark head.

  He stared at her, so close that the whisper of his breath warmed her cheek. She was captured like a bird in a snare, finally seeing where the coldness lay in his gray eyes, how the color of his irises fractured into slivers of ice blue around the pupil, an effect that seemed to drain his eyes of warmth, yet, in turn, endow them with an emotion infinitely more compelling. More dangerous.

  She lowered her gaze, upset by the flare of unwanted longing. He was so near, a sigh could close the distance between them; bring them together, lips upon trembling lips in a kiss. And he wanted to kiss her, female instinct told her that. She knew that the thought of their kissing weighed as heavily on his mind as it did on hers.

  She looked at his throat where the ragged scar showed above his bandanna. She wanted to feel nothing, but she was unnerved by the erotic rhythm of his pulse as it beat along one sinew of his neck. She lowered her eyes farther, this time refusing to acknowledge how the rise and fall of his chest touched another chord deep within her body.

  Beneath the neck of his shirt she could see a white woolen union suit that could have done with a good washing. By all rights he should reek, but he didn't. Whether he was just cleaner than the other men or whether she'd been forced into such close company with him that she'd lost the ability to smell him, she didn't know. All she did know was that the outer layers of his smell were gone, leaving her with only the ability to recognize his essence, a scent like that of horses. Natural, animal, heated. Esthetically he'd be more pleasing with a bath, they both would be. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd seen hot water or combed her hair. But that was this outlaw's strange power. He made everything elemental. He gave her the tragic simplicity of a life with no choices. The unimportant was overshadowed by his presence. He was dangerous, protective, and ruthless all within the same breath, and he bore watching. And perhaps because circumstances were so dire, there were moments when he could pare everything in her existence down to the simple fact that they were both human, uniquely male and female. What terrified her the most was ... it almost seemed enough.

  His hand slipped beneath her chin, and she moaned. He was going to kiss her and the hell of it was, she wanted him to. He lifted her chin and her eyes met with his again. She ached to feel his hard lips on her soft ones. It was wild, insane, sinful to want something so bad for her, but she did want it and the desire for it nearly choked her.

  "What do you think when you look at me ... as you're looking at me now?" he whispered.

  A sob broke into her voice. She could only tell him the truth. "I wish everything were different."

  His knuckles grazed the pliant flesh beneath her jaw. She stared at him, hating her reaction to his touch, hopelessness etched onto her face like a madonna's veil.

  He didn't kiss her. As if he knew just how much damage that would inflict, he simply let her go, his expression grave and preoccupied. He rose to his feet, callously pulling the blanket from her. She almost cried out when the frigid morning air rushed over her, mercifully shocking her into reality.

  For the entire day Christal went through the ritual. She'd fix one vile meal after another. The men would be served. Cain would scarf down his ration, share his second portion, and settle into some task that would keep him by the chimney and thus, by her side. Twice that day he took her by the hand and forced her into the woods. Both times the men rooted for him, and she grew to despise them more each hour. To call Kineson and his gang animals would be to insult God's creatures. To call them devils was to credit them with a panache they could never possess. In truth, she'd come to discover that this gang of outlaws was a species she'd come up against only once before. In her uncle, Baldwin Didier.

  But then
there was Cain. Her enigma, her salvation, her damnation, a dark, brooding question mark that lurked in the shadows of her unconscious. She feared him with good cause. There was an implied brutality in his walk, a deadly potential in his eyes. He was like a gun lying useless on a table, waiting for the right person, or the wrong person, to trigger it. In Wyoming Territory she'd seen a thousand guns and a thousand violent men. Never had she seen the combination that made up the outlaw Macaulay Cain.

  But as much as she feared him, she needed him. And that was part of the fear. He was Russian roulette. At any time, for any reason, he could turn on her. So she warred with conflicting emotions that threatened to tear up her insides, emotions that only got worse when he took her hand and walked her far away from the campfire. When he would hold her in silence, and she would listen to the wind chime through the aspens.

  Sunday evening she was expected to serve supper not only for the outlaws but for the prisoners as well. She was exhausted. It was a lot of work hauling the pot of beans up the ravine to Falling Water. She slipped so many times, Cain finally took the heavy iron Dutch oven and carried it himself. Still, she was elated to be going to the saloon. She wanted to see the other passengers. If they fared well, then perhaps the horrors of the situation were mostly in her mind.

  At the saloon, one yellow light shone through a broken glass window where the prisoners were kept. Cain held the lantern, not giving her the potential to use it as a weapon. He walked through the abandoned saloon, waiting at the staircase for her to go first.

  She'd had thoughts of escaping the entire way up to Falling Water. Cain, burdened with a lantern and the Dutch oven, wasn't going to go far. She convinced herself that she might actually get a few yards, but in the end, she didn't run. The night was moonless, the forest jet black. She would stumble around and bump into boulders and trees. The man had an uncanny ability to see in the dark, and he would catch her. Worse, if he dropped the pot of beans to do so, she'd be up all night cooking for the prisoners, wasting precious time that could be used renewing her strength, thinking of ways to save herself and those seven gold pieces that now jingled in Kineson's pocket.

  She walked up the stairs and knocked on the closed door. Cain nodded. She opened it and found the prisoners sitting against one wall, all in their woolen underclothes. Pete was at the end, next to an outlaw named Marmet. The outlaw leaned back in the only chair, his Winchester idle across his chest. He was drunk.

  "Goddammit, I gotta take a piss. Where the hell you been?" Marmet suddenly laid eyes on Cain and straightened his chair with a screech. He stuttered, "D-didn't know it was you, Cain—"

  "She's going to feed them tonight," Cain said, no reprimand but the killing look in his eyes.

  "Fine." The outlaw gave him an ingratiating nod, then looked at her. "Git to it, girlie," he said, mimicking Kineson. He started to laugh, but quieted the instant he realized Cain didn't laugh with him.

  Christal bent to fill Mr. Glassie's bowl and her hands began to shake. If she believed the prisoners' treatment was a reflection of the outcome, then they were doomed. Manacled, slumped on the floor, dressed in a union suit that had been worn days past its cleanliness, Mr. Glassie stared at her like an abused mongrel. He'd been unable to shave or comb his hair and he was now as grizzled as the rest of the men, outlaw or not. She was a mess, too, with her knotted hair and torn bodice, but diere was no mirror for her to see herself. Instead, all she could see was the contrast of the portly, dapper salesman who had impressed them all with his fashionable verdigris suit and the man in front of her with his soul-weary expression. She could take the abuse of these men because she hardly expected better and because she'd had bad treatment before. But for some irrational reason she found it hard to bear what they had done to Mr. Glassie. Tears came to her eyes, as if he had somehow become a symbol of herself.

  Trembling to fight off the emotion, she leaned near to top off his bowl. Her hands shook so badly that Mr. Glassie reached out and took the ladle from her.

  With sorrow in his eyes, he said politely, "Ah, Mrs. Smith—thank God you look well, yet how it grieves me to have you see me in this state of undress."

  They had taken away his fine suit; they had made him dirty and unkempt. Nonetheless, the gentleman inside endured. His spirit triumphed.

  And so would hers.

  Surprising even herself, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. She buried her head in his enormous chest and fought the urge to cry. She would pay anything—all seven of her gold pieces—to see the man in the verdigris suit once more.

  "There, there, my good woman . . ." he soothed, a heaviness to his voice, clearly surprised by her unexpected emotion. "Well get out of this, never you fear. The Paterson Furniture Company won't want to lose me. They'll see to our safe return, if nothing else."

  She heard his words, her eyes clamped shut as if to shut out everything she could no longer accept. He tried to hold her, but his hands were shackled, and after a tentative brush across her back, he lowered them.

  She would have never moved, she would have stayed within the comfort of his chest, if she hadn't felt Cain's hand come down on her shoulder. He tightened his grip, not hurting her, but unmistakably informing her that her behavior must stop or she must pay the consequences. With a strength she could hardly summon, she drew back from Mr. Glassie and resumed filling the prisoners' bowls, her face drawn and pale, her eyes glistening with tears she wouldn't allow herself to shed. She looked at Cain only once, desperate to see even a hint of guilt cross his face for what had been done to the passengers of the Overland Express, but there was none. He only stared at her, a stare she'd seen before when they were by the campfire. A stare of possession.

  She filled the driver's bowl, then the shotgun's. The preacher looked like he was almost dead from lack of drink, but she filled his bowl, too, and Pete's father's.

  Pete was last. He stared at her, obviously moved by her breakdown with Mr. Glassie. She was suddenly afraid he might do something foolish again in his desire to protect her, but he didn't. Without a word, he allowed his bowl to be filled. Then he put his hand on her wrist.

  It only took a second. He glanced down, motioning for her gaze to follow. In his lap, hidden between the fold of his bent legs was a six-shooter. Frightened, she glanced at the drunken outlaw sitting next to them. Marmet was saying something to Cain and once more leaning back in his chair. For the first time, she noticed Marmet's left holster was missing its revolver.

  She stood, exhilarated and terrified. They were going to escape. Or be killed.

  "Where's my dinner?" Marmet drunkenly asked her. She was in such shock, she didn't even realize his hands were on her until she felt his palm cup one of her buttocks through the fold of her skirt.

  "Get it yourself," Cain said, an angry edge to his voice. He kicked the bean pot toward Marmet and grabbed her. Pete used the disturbance to lift the revolver. With both hands, he pointed it at the drunken lout in the chair.

  "Let her go, Cain, or I'm going to put a hole through him."

  In a flash, Cain had his gun from his holster, but it was too late. Pete already had a hostage. Marmet thunked forward in the chair, astonished at the gun pointed at his head. He reached for his side; his terror grew when his fingers shoved through an empty holster.

  "I said give her to us, Cain. This guy's gonna die, and then you're gonna die if you don't," Pete warned, his voice cracking with the strain.

  The room was dead silent. The only noise Christal could hear was the drumming of her heart against her ribs. The men didn't move. Every breath was held waiting for what Cain would do.

  "Put the gun down, boy. You don't know what you're doing," Cain answered, his voice as steady as the gun in his hand.

  Marmet grabbed his Winchester. He aimed it at Pete and drunkenly fumbled with the barrel. In a flash, Pete pulled the trigger of his revolver. Marmet fell dead at the prisoners' feet, a hole clean through his forehead.

  Christal bit her lower lip until it bl
ed to keep from screaming. The shot rang in her ears. Blue gunsmoke trailed from Pete's revolver and hung suspended in the air, its acrid scent burning in her nostrils. The other prisoners could have been mannequins. Not a chain rattled, not a muscle flinched.

  Pete turned the revolver on Cain. His hand trembled wildly. "Let her go!" he screeched, his face filled with the horror of one killing and possibly another.

  Cain hesitated a split second, perhaps on account of Pete's youth. A mistake. The rattled boy squeezed off a shot. The bullet cut across the muscle of Cain's arm and ricocheted off the wallboards.

  Cain shoved her out of the way and lunged. The boy struggled valiantly to retain hold of his weapon, but he was no match for a hardened outlaw who moved with lightning speed. Marmet's revolver was in Cain's possession before Christal could gasp.

  "Don't hurt my son! Don't hurt him!" Pete's father shouted as Cain held his gun to Pete. The chains rattled as the old man futilely tried to free himself. The boy cowered on the ground.

  "You can't do this!" Christal cried out, pulling on Cain's arm. She then ran to the boy and took him in her arms to protect him from Cain's rage.

  Cain towered over both of them, his face stone cold. He cocked the gun, and she knew the instinct to kill ran strong in him, especially now with his own blood dripping down his arm.

  Christal looked at him, terror on her face. She whispered, "Macaulay," in supplication, then turned her head away, unable to watch.

  His gaze never left her. Slowly, Cain lowered the gun. The murderous rage on his face softened into acceptance. He straightened, tucked Marmet's revolver in his gun belt, and picked up the rifle where it lay by the corpse. He grabbed her to her feet rather cruelly, almost as if she were as lifeless as the Winchester. She put her arm out to stop his rough treatment and her hand met with warm, sticky blood.

  She looked at him. Blood dripped from his left fingers, a carmine red so deep, it seemed black. He walked her to the door. It left a trail across the raw floorboards.