Desperate Hearts (5 page)

Jace bit off a hunk of the tough meat “I
never would’ve thought that,” he observed wryly. “How old are you,
anyway?”

“
Old enough.” His voice
cracked.

“
It’s a secret?”

“
No, it ain’t a secret, but
what do you care?”

Jace took another bite. “I don’t give a
damn, kid. But usually women are the only ones who are touchy about
their ages.”

Kyle looked away. “I just don’t like
answerin’ a lot of questions. I told you what you need to
know.”

“
Not by half. I need to
know enough to make sure I don’t walk into a trap and get my head
blown off. Tell me again how Hardesty got this ranch you say is
yours.

“
I ain’t just sayin’ it.
It’s the truth.” He threw a bone into the fire and wiped his hands
on his pants legs.

“
Fine, tell me about it
anyway. I don’t want to get to Blakely and be . . . surprised. I
hate surprises.” Jace listened carefully while Kyle repeated the
story he had him the first time, no more and no less.

“
Who did Hardesty
kill?”

Jace heard him sigh. “He was my—he worked at
the as foreman. After he was dead, the rest of the crew scattered.
I can’t blame them.” He threw another bone into the fire. “I tried
to hold Hardesty off but I couldn’t do it by myself. He had the
Vigilance Union behind him."

“
How long has your father
been gone?” Jace extracted a cheroot from his saddlebag.

“
He died almost two years
ago.”

“
Any sisters?
Brothers?"

Kyle glanced up at him sharply. “No!”

Silence fell for a moment then, interrupted
only by soft snapping of the fire and the call of a peregrine as it
crossed the darkening sky.

“
Hardesty’s soul is
festering and rotten, and he must pay," Kyle concluded, his voice
cold and flat, as it had been yesterday.

Jace nodded but said nothing. There had to
be more to it. He knew the boy was withholding something, and that
the part he was hiding was vital. He would keep an eye on him; that
was the best way to discover whatever secret he kept.

In his experience, most people betrayed
themselves eventually.

* * *

Kyla glanced at Jace Rankin across the dying
fire. He lay with his head on his saddle again and his rifle in a
loose grip. He looked like he was asleep, but she suspected that
the snap of a twig would bring him instantly to his feet.

She wrapped herself tightly in her bedroll
and looked at the stars overhead. In the distance, a coyote howled
at the sliver of cold white moon riding the western horizon.

This wasn’t the life she had imagined for
herself: banished from her home, dressed in a boy’s dirty clothes,
running around the countryside with a bounty hunter she disliked
and feared, hoping to convince him to kill a man, while a white-hot
coal of anger and vengeance burned within her night and day—

She had seen none of this coming. When Kyla
imagined her life, in her mind’s eye she had finally thrown away
all of her boy’s clothes. Sometimes she pictured being married to a
strong man, one who would be her equal in wits and will. A man who
would honor her independence, but whose heart was noble and whose
touch was tender. There weren’t too many men around who would have
found that an interesting partnership. Hank had been almost like
that . . . but not quite.

And now? She turned her head to look at Jace
again, the stubble-shadowed jaws, the rifle in his hand. Even
asleep he was forbidding. She had been scared and lonely sleeping
in the open by herself in the month it took her to find him. But
now she felt even more vulnerable. At least when she’d been alone,
the chances were slim that her true gender would be detected.
Tonight, she’d nearly given herself away at least three times. And
oh, when he had made that remark about women and their reluctance
to discuss ages, she was certain that he had found her out. And if
he did?

But no. She was safe. She had practiced
posing as a boy, in varying degrees, since her girlhood. As long as
she was careful, no one would ever know the truth.

* * *

They were on the road again early the next
morning. Jace was stiff from sleeping on the ground. It was cold. A
layer of frost covered everything, and mist drifted over the
valley, making the sun look like a watery white ball on the
horizon.

He wasn’t in the best of moods. After all
the commotion in Silver City, he’d forgotten to buy coffee before
they left town. Hot coffee on a morning like this wasn’t too much
to ask for, but he had none.

And he still had Kyle tagging along behind
him. He could hear the dun’s hooves back there, clopping on the
summer-baked earth. Jace never looked over his shoulder to check on
him. It was his job to keep up. He supposed he couldn’t gripe too
much. The kid was a rugged, capable traveler, and he was doing his
share without complaint.

But Jace wasn’t used to having someone
around all the time. Despite the vast expanse of empty land around
them, he felt crowded, as if he needed to shrug off an unwelcome
hand on his shoulder.

He didn’t like people much, and trusted them
even less. Often enough they appeared to wear one face, then proved
to have another. Years of chasing wanted men had taught him that.
Some of those men, when they’d wanted to, were able to fool people
into believing they were just one step down from choir boys. But
their true faces were usually those of bank robbers, cattle
rustlers, and murderers.

Women were another story altogether, but
he’d avoided personal entanglements with them, too. The risk of
losing everything—heart, mind, and self—was too great. He’d never
had time for them beyond a saloon girl now and then. Anyway, not
too many women were likely to beat a path to a man who earned his
living bounty hunting.

He heard Kyle sneeze behind him. At least
the boy didn’t talk his ear off. But he made Jace uncomfortable,
riding back there, and watching his every move. Why the hell had he
decided to let him follow along, anyway? He nudged his horse to
quicken his gait. He was supposed to go to Misfortune to talk to
Travis, not provide traveling company for this silent, sullen boy
with a peck of trouble. Well, he’d made a mistake, but not one that
couldn’t be corrected.

Cord was the next town up ahead. They’d
reach it come afternoon, and he could buy coffee there. It might
also be the perfect place to unload one angry kid.

* * *

When Jace and Kyla reached the tiny town of
Cord, dark clouds were stacking up against the foothills of the
Cedar Mountains.

After two days of seeing no buildings or
other humans, from the distance Cord looked almost like
civilization to Kyla. But as they drew closer she saw that most of
its few weathered buildings were abandoned. The town had the look
of a community on its last legs. In fact, the only two businesses
that remained were the same ones usually established in a new town:
the general store and the saloon. The street was dusty, and
tumbleweeds had blown to rest in some of the empty horse troughs;
plainly, no horse had drunk from them in a long time.

Kyla saw only one other person on the
street, a trail-dirty man heading out of the saloon. He paused to
stare at them through narrowed eyes as they passed, his hand
resting on the batwing doors. Something about him was ominously
familiar to Kyla, but she didn’t know why. The look he gave them
was malevolent, but Jace didn’t favor him with even a glance.

Jace led them to the general store and
dismounted from his bay. Securing the reins to a wobbly hitching
rail, he looked up and down the street. Kyla remained in her
saddle. She longed to get down and look around in the store, but
she was too tired to fight with him if he were to bark at her.
Actually, he didn’t bark—half the time she had to lean in to hear
him when he spoke. It was one of his unnerving characteristics.
However, although he’d been no more taciturn than usual, she’d
sensed his sour mood.

“
There sure isn’t much left
of this place.” The remark was made more to himself than to Kyla.
Then he glanced up at her with speculative eyes, and she thought
she saw an odd expression of disappointment, as though he’d hoped
for more here. It made a chill run through her.

“
Well, come on if you
want,” he said finally, turning toward the store. “I’m not going
another morning without coffee.”

She jumped down and followed him across the
rotted plank sidewalk, mindful of the holes. When they walked into
the store, Kyla noticed the poorly stocked shelves and the lack of
warm, inviting scents that floated through most general stores.

While Jace ordered coffee from the clerk,
she idled at the glass display case. Her eyes fell upon a pair of
real tortoise shell combs that lay on a scrap of yellowing lace,
and an unexpected surge of regret tightened her throat. She’d worn
combs like that when her hair hung to her waist. When she’d finally
had the chance to grow it out, she had thought it was her best
feature, her long, thick hair. That was before she stood at a
mirror a month ago, with tears in her eyes and a razor in her
shaking hand, and resolutely hacked off the blazing badge of her
femininity. Now it was hideous, a jagged-edged mop. She wondered if
she’d ever get the chance to wear it long again. Not as long as Tom
Hardesty lives, she vowed silently, her fist clenched against her
chest.

When she looked up, she saw that Jace was
studying her, the same speculative expression in those ice blue
eyes. Realizing that her interest in the combs might seem odd, she
hastily moved on to examine a crosscut saw hanging on the wall.

Jace watched the boy a minute longer, then
turned back to the clerk. “Could you use some extra help around
here?” he asked, keeping his voice down. “Maybe give that boy over
there a job if I left him here in town?”

The clerk snorted and gestured at the nearly
empty shelves. “Hell, even a blind man could see I don’t need any
help. You’re joking, right, mister?”

Jace stared at him, but said nothing.

He swallowed hard under the scrutiny. “Uh,
no, I don’t suppose you are. Well, Cord hasn’t got much left to it
beyond the saloon and this place. It’s folding up like a spavined
horse.”

Jace nodded. Despite his wish to be rid of
Kyle, the boy didn’t deserve to be left in a town like this.
Misfortune wasn’t in much better shape than Cord, but maybe Travis
could give him work in the blacksmith shop when they got there. It
might put some bulk on the kid’s bones. He looked over his shoulder
and saw him studying the peppermint sticks in the jar on the
counter. At least he’d quit eyeing those women’s gee-gaws in the
display case.

“
Hey, Rankin.”

Without seeing who the voice belonged to,
Jace recognized its tone. Even if he hadn’t, the expression on the
shop clerk’s face told him plenty. The man’s eyes darted between
Jace and the speaker behind him, and he looked suddenly chalky, as
if a gun were pointed at him. He backed up until he bumped into the
empty shelves lining the wall. Jace felt Kyle tense next to him
too.

Jace pivoted slowly, tucking the front edge
of his duster behind his holster as he turned. He recognized the
skinny young saddle tramp he’d seen when they first rode in—he was
one of the two men who’d sat at the table in the Magnolia Saloon,
obviously conferring about Jace. It wasn’t easy to forget someone
so ugly. His pale eyes bulged like a frog’s and what remained of
his teeth were ocher-colored and overlapped one another behind a
pair of lips that made Jace think of calves’ liver. His stained
buckskins looked as if they’d been on his back since the first day
he put them on. He was unsteady on his feet, and the smell of sweat
and pop skull whiskey radiated from him in waves.

And Jace had read the shopkeeper’s fear like
a newspaper—the weaselly little bastard did have a gun pulled, but
it was trained on Jace’s own chest.

“
You’ve been following me.
Who the hell are you?” Jace inquired.

“
Name’s Hobie McIntyre, not
like it’s your business.”

Jace looked him up and down. “Well,
McIntyre, it’s my business now. Where’s your partner?”

“
Lem’s around, don’t you
worry ’bout that.”

“
I guess nobody taught you
it isn’t polite to point a gun at a man’s back. If you learn it
from me, it’s going to be a hard lesson.”

As soon as he said the words, the other
customers in the store—two men—looked up and dropped the coil of
rope they’d been measuring, beating a hasty retreat. Only Kyle
stayed put, frozen in place like a rabbit with a hawk circling
overhead.

The stranger didn’t lower his gun. “Damn, if
this ain’t my lucky day—Jace Rankin. I knew it was you as soon as I
seen you ride by. Where’s the Bailey woman? I know she found you in
Silver City. A saloon girl told me.”

Jace felt every nerve in his body snap to
attention. He had no clue what the man was talking about, but with
that gun pointed at him he chose his words carefully. "I don’t know
anything about a woman, mister, but I can promise you that you’ll
be sorry you ever walked in here.”

“
No, I won’t. I heard all
about you and her at the Magnolia Saloon. They say she’s a real
looker, all nice curves and fire-colored hair. Now, there’s folks
lookin’ for her, and I aim to know where you got her.”

Jace’s senses, focused sharply on all the
details around him, suddenly and completely fixed on the business
of survival. Though he didn’t take his eyes off the man in front of
him, in the periphery of his vision he saw the grime-smudged
windows, the festoons of cobwebs in the rafters, a rag doll on the
shelf. He smelled the coffee behind him, the trail dust on his own
clothes. A cool, detached calm came over him, the same deliberate
control that he’d learned long ago. Hotheads made mistakes;
sometimes they landed in the undertaker’s backroom.