hard runs. Jack definitely looked shabby, but he had not yet been caught and hanged.
“I thought you were on the mesa, Jack. Surrounded by every man within a hundred miles ormore, and you fighting for your life.” She did not screen her words and did wince after she had spoken them. “You have been fairly identified as a thief, Jack. Why the change…why would you now begin to steal from the ranchers here? They are even linking Burn English with you, and, because of what you have done, they will try to hang him, also.”
She thought she had spoken the words in a neutral tone, but there must have been a note in her voice, for Holden smiled for the first time in their chance encounter.
“Ma’am it’s good to see you, too. But I swear English is not counted among my friends or associates, and he is most definitely not on Slaughter Mesa. I’ve never met him, unless you count the time I tried to swap horses with him.” Jack laughed, and there was a dreamy look to his eyes, a memory of something better. He took a long breath. “He stood that mustang broadside and dared me. Offered me a short ride, knowing I wanted his bronc’. There weren’t nothing I could do ’gainst that kind of courage. He couldn’t have weighed more’n a hundred something pounds, like a scrawny cat tackling a bulldog.”
Then: “Ma’am, I got a favor to ask.” Jack looked directly at Katherine and did not flinch at what he must have read. “Ma’am …I lost a good friend, and word’s come back they finally buried him. Would you get a name put on a cross? Name’s Refugio, that’s all. Refugio.”
She nodded yes, of course, remembering the sorry tale brought to the ranch by Eager Briggs. This Refugio had been a Mexican bandit and a friend of Jack’s.
“There’s another favor, a tougher one,” he said, looking away. “I know there’s always a girl. But this one…I wronged her, Kate. It makes me ashamed of what I done. Please.” Here he quit, at a loss for the right words.
Katherine watched his drained face, and thought of the summer gossip.
“It’s Rose Victoria, isn’t it, Jack?”
He nodded, relieved of having to speak the name.
“Well, I can’t guess what you have done to her. She’s not pregnant, is she? She’s not carrying your child?” This should be a feared subject, too basic to be mentioned between unmarried men and women.
Jack’s face was white, but he told the truth. “I’ve taken her, Kate. Several times, and she’s come willingly to me. But this last time, I was wrong.”
Whatever lay on his conscience, Katherine decided she would not make it easier by mouthing those useless, magical words of it not being his fault, of his being blameless in having a girl, a mere child.
“I took her, Kate. Can you understand what that means?”
“I won’t be able ever to explain to her. Would you please…?”
Katherine had been too deep in her own thoughts and not listening to him, for she had no idea what he’d requested. But she nodded, looked straight at him.
“I need her to know it was wrong. She needs to know men can be better than I ever was.”
Katherine would try to explain to Rose Victoria, but she was not convinced the girl even knew she had been wronged.
They watched each other, two lonely people, and each saw the hurtful truth.
“Kate, enough of all this. It’s only years and time…it is of no importance to anyone but me. Come here… please?” It was the first time he had ever asked.
His kiss was sweet and gentle, not demanding, simply offering tenderness, and pain. They drew apart, their horses shuffling to accommodate the shift.
Jack tipped his hat to her, said the last few words left to speak. “Ma’am, I stole that kiss from you…my last act as a thief. Now you ride home. It ain’t safe for a lady to be ridin’ alone, not with all the riff-raff coming through.”
She would have spoken, but he touched his hand to her mouth, and against her lips she felt the weakness spill from him.
“Ma’am, you are always a lady. I’m a gentleman no longer. Please, Katherine, go home. You’ll be needed soon enough.”
The bay was content to walk and that gave Katherine too much time to think. She cried, shedding tears, the nodding bay gelding as her witness. Davey’s bay gelding took her to the corralof the L Slash headquarters and stopped. Once the horse was turned out, Katherine was alone. There was no one at the house, and for the first time ever Katherine was afraid.
She forced herself to approach the house. She entered the kitchen quietly, suspecting all manner of invasions. But the room smelled of stewing hens and rising bread and nothing else. She had been gone on her rampage less than two hours.
After changing back to a prim dress and washing up, she returned to work. But she was altered inside, where it did not show. She moved easily, yet her legs ached from the unaccustomed riding, and each bruise and reddened patch of skin was a welcome reminder.
As she peeled the carrots, a different scent warned her and she spun around, knife in hand. It was Burn English, more ragged than ever, a softly curling beard shading his thin face. He was bloody, of course; one hand held the other arm at the wrist. She would have tended to him immediately but for the eyes, which stared directly at her, with no sign of deference or longing. Even Jack had only glanced at her, unwilling to insult her with a stare. English was different; he was always different.
“Ma’am, you call off your pa,” Burn English said. “If he don’t remember we’re partners, then he’s dead. I ain’t got much left to lose.”
Katherine responded the only way she knew. “You are the thief…using the ranchers’ good winter grass. What do you call that but thieving?”
He grinned unexpectedly, and it made him almost handsome. “Ma’am, I’d call it investment. None of these boys’ll give me peace enough to find my own graze so I use theirs. They’ll get a chance to buy good stock, so they’re sort of paying now for what they’ll want to buy later.”
Katherine hadn’t expected him capable of such devious thinking. It was hard not to smile at him and the calculated charm of his words. He took away her need to say something, anything in response, by letting his arm hang at his side. Immediately it leaked blood droplets onto the kitchen floor.
“You clean up that cut, Mister English…so it doesn’t stain my floor.”
He couldn’t grin any more; the effort put a bleak grimace on his face. “Ma’am, I run out of clean a while back. Ain’t had much chance to do a wash lately or find time to take my Saturday bath. I need your help for this one.”
She offered him a large rag soaked in cool water.
He wrapped the arm, licked his dried lips. “Thanks again, ma’am, for the rescue. Can I get a drink of water…maybe a few biscuits? I’ve been riding hungry too long. Seems folks think I’m a cattle thief.”
She poured him coffee and put out old, cold stew, biscuits, molasses, and half of a leftover pie. He ate everything she put in front of him and looked like he could eat more. She took her chance to lecture him while he ate, figuring he would remain only as long as there was food. “The outlaw life doesn’t suit you, does it? You’ve damaged what took so long to heal. You might well have killed yourself this time.”
He dropped a biscuit onto his plate. “Ma’am, I ain’t no outlaw. Even your boss admitted his wrong and pulled off the law. It’s your pa, wanting what ain’t his, doing this to me. I ain’t no outlaw.”
A verbal contest was a waste of time. She rested her hand on his shoulder, and he winced. Her voice was sharp. “Mister English, if you are running only from my father, stop and clear it up. Or are you running more from habit than circumstance?”
He shook his head and the shaggy hair covered his eyes, rolled over his filthy shirt collar. “Ma’am, your pa and I had a deal, witness and all. As for me reasoning with the law, I got a killing to my name. Two men down in Texas.” He waited, seemed to know how she would react.
Katherine went to the stove and stirred the boiling hens, appalled that he would speak so easily of
