A Hard Ride Home (4 page)

Jesse crossed from the General Store to the Weeping Willow, arm in arm with Miss Rose, talking about some new lace pattern she wanted to knit up for a fancy pair of knickers, when two riders on horseback came thundering down the middle of the street fit to plow right over them.

They barely dodged the riders and ended up a stone's throw from the fight that broke out when Emmett came out of the jailhouse with his pistols drawn.

"Stay behind me, you fool girl," Jesse shouted, dragging Rose behind a bench on the boarded up old bank's front porch. She craned her neck to watch, and he pushed her down by the top of her head to try to keep her safe—and get a better view himself.

Emmett's boots kicked up dust as he turned, and that was all Jesse could focus on. The fight was too quick and too loud. Emmett moved like a dancer, crouching and shuffling and shooting both moving targets. It was just crack, crack, crack, crack and silence. The outlaws landed in the dirt, their horses snorting and looking bewildered.

Jesse ran out into the road, breathing hard, excited. The men were dead, dark red blood pooling around one's shattered skull, but all he could think was that this—this was just like the stories he read in Warren Grady's library. Emmett was like a fancy musketeer or a gallant pirate, and hell if Jesse didn't sound like one of those damn girls, swooning over make-believe heroes.

When he reached Emmett, he realized Emmett probably read those same books, in that same library, before Jesse ever came to Silver Creek. The thought abruptly left him colder than the sight of brains in the dirt, and he couldn't fathom why.

Emmett had sweat all over his face and blood on his arm. He looked at Jesse, frowning, as more people spilled out onto the street, drawn to the echoes of gunfire and the eerie silence that followed.

"Are you all right?" Emmett asked, squinting in the bright sun and eyeing Jesse like he couldn't figure out why Jesse was staring at him. Even his eyelashes were a deep, rusty orange.

Jesse said, "You're bleeding. Did they get you?" He stamped his foot nervously, like the horses, trying to forget every fool thing he'd just thought because when he looked at Sheriff, he didn't want to think about anything else, not that library, not Warren's big hands on him, not anything but Emmett's face and the steadiness of his hand on the gun.

"Just a little." Emmett touched his torn shirt where a bullet must have grazed his arm.

By then, there were enough folks around that Jesse thought he better not put his hand over that bleeding place like he wanted to.

Besides, Rose did it for him, wrapping a perfectly good kerchief around the wound and tutting.

Jesse slipped back through the crowd, his heart racing. He passed Evelyn in the street, gave her a little shrug, and hurried into the Willow. He rushed up the stairs so he could hide in his room, thinking about the wild look in Emmett's fine blue eyes as he came down from the fight as quick as a whip's snap.

*~*~*

As the end of his first month in Silver Creek neared, Emmett started to feel at ease walking the short length of the town from one end to the other. His small room at the back of the jailhouse wasn't much, but it felt cozy and even a little cheerful thanks to the fresh wildflowers Rose and Josephine and Beatrice brought him every few days. They were awfully cordial, for whores.

The people of Silver Creek gossiped more than a gaggle of old women at a knitting circle.

All it took was a handful of sour lemon candies to secure more information than his sister had shared with him since he got back.

"Mayor Grady's got his own posse, Sheriff," a boy told him in front of the General Store. "Ma says they're sc-scoundrels."

He crouched in front of the boy. "I'm a Grady too, you know."

"They gonna drown you like they did the old sheriff?" the boy asked, reaching into his paper bag to nab more of the round candies.

Emmett didn't know what to make of that. Children had a way of twisting what was real into fancy. He was fairly certain Evelyn, if anyone, would have told him if their father were engaged in illegal goings-on.

The gunsmith, Charley Green, a young black man with amber-colored eyes, told Emmett how a city-educated homesteader called Ira Durn had been pouring half his fortune into the Weeping Willow wooing Charley's sister Sara, even though Sara was the madam's seamstress.

"She's not a painted lady," Charley said, looking down with a shy grin. "Though don't get me wrong, the girls there are real nice. Good girls."

Their father had died owing the mayor a debt that Sara and Charley's salaries together were barely putting a dent in. Sara refused to marry her homesteader suitor until the debt was clear.

"But I've said too much," Charley said pleasantly. He sold Emmett a box of cartridges. "Easy with these now, my stocks are low."

Milton, the town doctor, and Horace, the old shopkeeper, had been around since Silver Creek was just a cattle estate on a lone prairie. They both had snow-white hair and skin marred with sunspots and deep, leathery wrinkles.

"Your father rode in and cleared everyone out," Milton told him as he cleaned blood out of a tin basin. "Brought fine furniture from back east to make that big house a home for your ma. People said he was mad, but he wanted her to live like a lady of society."

Emmett didn't like talking about his mother. "Is there truth in this talk of a posse? Father might be the mayor, but he isn't above the law. If he's got some… bodyguards or such, they ought to be deputized, not acting as a general menace."

Milton gave Emmett a long look. "Oh, I don't ask questions, Sheriff. Everyone bleeds red when they come through my door."

The girls were more forthcoming, inviting him on picnics and following him home, strutting past the jail under threadbare silken parasols and chattering on and on about the men who came to dote on them. Trouble was, they mostly wanted to gossip about the sorts of things Emmett wasn't interested in—like fashion and city news and the state of affairs beneath a man's trousers. Though once in a while they got to telling stories that helped piece together the town's checkered history.

"We were riding for the pass when our wagon was set upon," Beatrice told him, kissing his throat between each word. Her short, soft hair tickled his jaw. "Mayor Grady gave me lodging here, with Miss Devaux, and gave my father work."

"But—" He pushed her away carefully. "What about Jesse?"

No one seemed to know where Jesse had come from, or if he had kin, or why he stayed at the Weeping Willow instead of doing honest work, or what his business was with the mayor. Beatrice answered with sly kisses, Josephine changed the subject when he asked, and Rose quirked her mouth in an odd pout and put her hands on him instead of talking.

There was another girl there, a tiny thing they called Delia who worked in the kitchens and cleaned out the saloon when it wasn't too busy, but she only ever gave Emmett big-eyed glances before darting off like a squirrel.

Of course, Emmett could go talk to his father himself.

But every time he stood at the crossroads at the base of the hill, he looked up at the big house and the path seemed tiresome, and steep.

*~*~*

When Emmett asked Roscoe to tell him where Jesse came from, Roscoe stopped pouring his whiskey and snatched back the glass, giving him a sharp-eyed look.

"Have I offended you?" Emmett asked, keeping his hands on the bar top. In their limited interactions, Roscoe had struck him as an affable man, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.

"Jesse, friend!" Roscoe caught the boy's attention, which was absolutely the last thing Emmett wanted. "Sheriff wants a word."

Jesse was over on the big red sofa under the window bouncing Josephine on his lap. She whined and held onto his shoulders, and arched, and Emmett flushed all over, realizing he was fucking her right there. Right in front of another man!

"Five—er—mm—three minutes, Roscoe," Jesse called out, before taking hold of Josephine's heavy braid and pulling her into a tight kiss.

"That's Alonzo there," Roscoe said, pushing the whiskey back to Emmett. "He drives the coach. Got mule kicked in his manly regions and can't take a woman anymore. So Jesse gets all the fun with Miss Jo." He failed to mask the longing in his voice.

"Couldn't you volunteer?" Emmett asked, trying—and failing—not to watch the girl bob and squeak with her thin white undergarments riding up her pale, jiggling thighs.

"I've tried," Roscoe said, giving a low, mournful sigh when Jesse loosened the laces on Josephine's corset and pulled her small breasts free to suckle and paw them. "Oh, I've tried."

Jesse had lip rouge smeared all over his mouth when he swayed up to the bar a few minutes later, flushed and so fever-hot Emmett could feel it without touching him. Roscoe handed him a shot of something clear, and he downed it with a quick grimace and a quicker grin. He reeked of whiskey and sex.

"It's hardly past noon," Emmett mumbled, uncomfortable with the amount of drinking and fornicating going on around him. It was lovely outside, dry with a fresh breeze. Folks ought to be riding, or ambling, or working.

"Is it? I forgot to sleep last night," Jesse said with a soft, hoarse laugh. "Roscoe says you want me. Do you want me, Sheriff?"

"Wanted to chat, you hussy." Roscoe handed Jesse a glass of water.

Emmett cleared his throat, trying to keep his eyes level with Jesse's and not on the mess of love bites on his throat or the damp stains from God-knows-what at his crotch.

"I've been getting a feel for the town is all, for the citizens," Emmett said.

Jesse drank half the glass of water in slow, deep pulls, his throat working. He had fine stubble along his jaw and a blue ribbon tied around his neck and it was too much. It made Emmett feel like the fever was catching, like he was standing right next to the sun.

"You wanna get a feel for me?" Jesse asked, slamming the glass back down on the bar top.

Roscoe rolled his eyes and walked away, leaving Emmett supporting Jesse's lunging, boneless, warm frame as he all but wrapped his arms around him.

Emmett didn't know where to put his hands. "I—I'm—this is—I can't—"

"Mmnfff, we can talk," Jesse said at his ear while his hand snuck down between their bodies and cupped Emmett's balls over his trousers. "We can talk, talk, talk."

"Carry him upstairs for me?" Evelyn asked from the balcony above. She'd probably been there the whole time, lurking like a hawk.

"I'm working," Emmett said, voice strained.

"Then carry him upstairs quickly, Emmett."

Delia appeared as if she'd been hiding under a table, and led the way as Emmett manhandled Jesse up several flights of creaky stairs. By the second floor, Jesse finished singing something about sea pirates and all the things they liked to do with their swords.

Jesse had his own room on the third floor. It was hardly more than an attic closet, but it had a big window with fine glass panes.

As he dragged Jesse over to the trundle bed that barely looked fit to hold a grown man, Emmett realized this room wasn't for working. It was just a room. Jesse lived here.

It was full of more junk and more oddities than Emmett had ever seen in one place. The walls were covered in pinned-up photographs and yellowing newspaper ads. Crooked shelves held amber and blue and green bottles, dried flowers, jars of ink, whittled figurines, and spools of ribbon.

"Sometimes he just don't sleep," the girl murmured, picking at her sleeves fretfully.

"Oh. I think he'll sleep now," Emmett said, dumping Jesse onto the thin mattress. "Probably for a week."

"He can't! He can't be late again," Delia said, putting her small hand on Emmett's arm. When their eyes locked, she pulled her hand away as if he'd burned her and scurried away in a rustle of lace.

Left alone, Emmett crouched beside the low bed and pushed blankets up onto Jesse, not entirely sure how to go about putting someone to bed. He'd dumped plenty of drunks into the jail, but he'd never been around a child or a woman long enough to know the finer points of tucking one in.

Jesse seemed at ease, wriggling and pressing his face into his pillow and smacking his red lips together.

"Are you—well, you'll be all right, then?" Emmett asked.

"Hnngsleeping. S'loud. Shhhhh."

Emmett reached out and pulled the thin ribbon away from Jesse's neck, fearing it might hurt him if he tossed in his sleep too much. "Goodnight, or, well, sweet dreams."

Without considering it, he tucked the ribbon into his pocket before he picked his way out of the room and back down to the saloon.

*~*~*

The call of nature roused Jesse from a deep, hazy slumber. He took a long piss and sat back down on the bed to watch the sunset from his window. The clouds went pink and gold as the shimmering sun seemed to melt the earth where it touched on the horizon. He had the best view in the whole town.

The view was about the only thing that made up for the tiny size of his room. That and the fact that unlike the girls, he didn't have to let any fool men up into his space. He could keep his things here without worrying about some drunken boor breaking them or making off with them.

When the sky started to go pale gray, Jesse finally made his way downstairs, squinting irritably at every candle and lamp he passed on the way.

Roscoe nearly knocked him over on his way up the stairs. "Jesse!" he said, his voice far, far too fucking loud. "There you are. I need a case of whiskey from the cellar, and the pickled okra."

"Do I look like a maid? Get them yourself. Ow! Ow."

It didn't actually hurt when Roscoe took him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him downstairs, but he kept complaining anyway, mostly to try to talk over Roscoe's quiet lecture about how Miss Devaux was ready to burn him alive for falling all over the sheriff, and did he know the sheriff had to carry him upstairs like a sack of potatoes?

"What?" Jesse dug his heels in and batted Roscoe's hand away. They stood at the back door, the humid night air blasting in from outside like moist breath. "Carried?"