Journey to Yesterday (14 page)

Shaye sat on a hard wooden chair beside Alejandro, her
gloved hands folded in her lap, listening as the Reverend Warrington offered
comfort to the family and friends of Jacob “Moose” Kenyon.

The coffin, made of pine, rested on a pair of wooden chairs
at the front of the hall.

“Was a fine and honorable man,” the Reverend was saying. “A
good husband and father, a friend to many in this town. He will be sorely
missed…”

Shaye glanced surreptitiously at the family. Mrs. Kenyon was
clad in black from head to foot. Two dark-haired boys huddled against her,
their faces pale. She held a third, a little fair-haired girl who was about a
year old, on her lap. What would they do now, Shaye wondered. Would they stay
in Bodie?

She leaned toward Alejandro. “What will happen to his
family?”

“They’ll be taken care of,” he replied quietly. “The Miners’
Union will pay for the coffin and the funeral, and he’ll be buried in their
plot.”

She turned her attention to the Reverend once more.

“Moose’s favorite scripture was the Twenty-Third Psalm. Will
you say it with me now? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me
to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of mine enemies, my cup runneth over. Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell
in the house of the Lord forever….Amen.

“Yes, our brother Moose walked through the valley of the
shadow of death, and this day resides with our God in paradise. Let us pray.”

Shaye stood beside Alejandro while he offered his
condolences to the widow. She felt a surge of tenderness when she saw him slip
several greenbacks into the woman’s hand, saw the tears of gratitude in the
woman’s eyes.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Alejandro said.
“Anything at all.” He smiled down at the boys. Shaye was certain the oldest
couldn’t be more than six or seven. “You two take good care of your ma now, you
hear? And your little sister, too.”

The boys both nodded solemnly. They looked older already,
Shaye thought, as if the weight of responsibility was already settling on their
shoulders.

“It’s so sad,” Shaye remarked as she watched six men load
the casket into the back of a black, glass-sided hearse drawn by a pair of
black horses. She wondered, fleetingly, if it could be the same conveyance she
had seen in the Bodie museum. “What will she do now?”

Alejandro took her hand as they walked toward the hotel.
“She has family back in Philadelphia. They’ll take her in.”

Shaye nodded. Even with family to take care of her, it
wouldn’t be easy for Moose’s widow, not with three small children to support.

She lifted the hem of her skirts as they crossed the dusty
street. For a woman who had worn a dress only when absolutely necessary, she
was surprised at how readily she had grown accustomed to wearing the frocks of
the period. She was even more surprised to find that she rather liked the long
skirts and petticoats, though the corset was something she would never get used
to.

Lost in thought, she was startled when Alejandro grabbed her
arm and jerked her backward. A moment later, a wagon pulled by a pair of
wild-eyed horses thundered past.

She heard someone scream, heard a voice yell, “runaway!”

She was still recovering from the fact that she had almost
been trampled by a pair of wild-eyed horses when Alejandro vaulted onto the
back of a horse tethered to a hitching rack. With a shout, he wheeled the bay
around and lit out after the wagon.

He caught up with the runaway carriage before it reached the
end of the street. Open-mouthed, she watched him vault from the back of the
horse onto the seat of the wagon, grab the reins, and bring the buckboard to a
halt.

“What the hell happened?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Philo Richardson. “I
don’t know,” she replied.

Philo grunted as he shifted his cigar from one corner of his
mouth to the other. “Might be a good story there,” he mused.

“If there isn’t, there will be, if I’m any judge of reporters,”
Shaye said drily.

Philo laughed good-naturedly. “Spoken like a woman who knows
the breed.”

Shaye grinned at him. “You could say that.”

She followed him down the street to where a crowd had
gathered around the wagon. “What happened?”

That seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind as
Alejandro jumped to the ground, then turned and lifted his arms. “Come on,
Bobby Joe.”

Slowly, a curly brown head rose into view. “I…I didn’t mean
nothing.”

Alejandro nodded as he lifted the boy to the ground. “You’re
damn lucky you didn’t kill anybody. What are you doing driving this wagon,
anyway?”

“I was…I was just trying to…”

“Bobby Joe!” A shrill voice cut through the murmurs of the
crowd.

A moment later a woman swooped down on Bobby Joe, hugging
him tightly. Shaye recognized the woman as the one who had given her a sandwich
the night of the cave-in at the mine.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked anxiously.

“I’m fine, Ma,” he said, his cheeks flushing with
embarrassment.

“Are you sure?” She hugged him close, then ran her hands
over his arms and legs, clucking softly.

“I’m sure, Ma,” Bobby Joe said, wriggling away. “Rio saved
me.”

“Well, he won’t be able to save you when I get you home,
young man!” the woman said, her worry swiftly turning to anger when she
realized her son was out of danger. “Just you wait until your father hears
about this.” She looked at Alejandro. “Thank you, Rio.”

“Hell, Jilly, it could be worse,” Alejandro said, grinning.
“He could be twins.”

“Sometimes I think he is,” Jilly declared. “That boy is
gonna be the death of me yet. Do you know what he did last week? He set off a
firecracker in the chicken coop. The hens still aren’t laying. And the week
before that, he near burned down the outhouse. Right after he decided to swing
from the clothesline. One whole load of my clean wash landed in the dirt.” She
shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”

Alejandro ruffled the boy’s hair, then pulled a silver
dollar out of his pocket and held it before the boy’s eyes. “You see this, Bobby
Joe? If you behave yourself for one whole month, this is yours.”

“A whole dollar? For me?”

Alejandro nodded. “Is it a deal?”

“Yessir!”

Jilly fixed Alejandro with a stern look. “I don’t hold with
blackmail, Rio.”

“It’s not blackmail,” he replied with a grin. “More like a
bribe. Remember now, Bobby Joe,” he said, lifting the boy onto the wagon seat.
“One whole month.”

Bobby Joe nodded vigorously as he scooted over to make room
for his mother.

“Remember now, don’t be too hard on him, Miss Jilly,”
Alejandro said. Offering her his hand, he helped her into the wagon. “I got
into a pile of mischief when I was a boy, and look how well I turned out.”

Jilly looked down at him, her lips curled in a wry grin;
then, with a shake of her head, she took up the reins and clucked to the team.

Shaye moved up beside Alejandro. “My hero,” she murmured.

He pulled her up against him, his expression intense. “And
don’t you forget it.”

He looked thoughtful as they walked back to the hotel.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I was just thinking about what you said earlier.”

“About you being my hero?”

“No, about you coming here from the future.” He shook his
head. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. Hell, it’s hard to believe.”

“Tell me about it!” she exclaimed. “But it’s true, whether
you believe it or not.”

He spent the rest of the day teaching her the finer points
of playing poker and when she had the rules down pat, he taught her what to
look for if she thought someone was cheating. There were all manner of tricks
and gadgets dishonest gamblers used, and Alejandro seemed to know them all. She
was aware of some of them, like marking a deck, or dealing off the bottom, or
having a shill at the table. He told her that one method was for a bag to be
fastened under the table; it was used for drawing or hiding cards. There were
also several kinds of mirrors that enabled a player to see the cards held by
the other players. A handy little gadget was called a ring holdout that made it
possible to palm a card. A ring shiner was a ring with a highly polished
surface that allowed a dealer to see each card as he dealt it. A sleeve holdout
was worn under a coat sleeve and held one or more cards which, when the player
held his arm close to his body, triggered a mechanism that shot forward,
allowing him to palm the cards. A similar item, called a vest holdout, could
hold an entire deck.

“There are a lot of games,” Alejandro told her. “Faro,
roulette, casino, red dog, craps, fantan, three-card monte, black jack, but
there’s nothing like a good honest game of draw poker.”

“Are there a lot of cheats?”

He shrugged. “I reckon, though I haven’t run across many at
the Queen. It’s known as an honest house, with honest dealers. You have to
watch out for some of the other saloons. The Number Nine is the worst. They’re notorious
for using advantage cards.”

“What are they?”

“Marked cards. You can buy them from Cross and Company in
New Orleans, or from E. M. Grandine in New York. You see them advertised in the
papers. A dollar a pack, or a dozen for ten bucks. They have complicated
patterns on the backs, like stars or calico or vines, so the markings on them
are hard to detect, especially if you aren’t looking for them. Of course, you
can always use an honest deck and mark the cards yourself, or notch a corner.”

Shaye shook her head, amazed at the ingenuity of the gadgets
he had described, at the lengths men would go to cheat at a game of cards.

“A lot of men think faro is the only honest game,” Alejandro
remarked, “but even faro can be rigged.” He looked at her and grinned. “I think
that’s enough for today. It’s getting late. What say we go out and get a bite
to eat?”

Shaye looked outside, surprised to see that the sun was
setting. “Sounds good to me.”

* * * * *

He took her to the Excelsior Restaurant on Main Street. He
was known to the waitresses here, as well, Shaye noted. They all smiled at him,
and of course, he smiled back. He held her chair for her, then took the
opposite seat. She couldn’t blame the women for vying for his attention, for
noticing his presence. He was all man; surely no woman past puberty could
resist him.

One good thing about being with Alejandro, Shaye mused. They
always got quick service, hot food, and plenty of it. A waitress appeared at
their table almost before they were seated.

“Evening, Rio,” she said, flashing a warm smile. “Steak
tonight?”

He nodded. “What’ll you have, Shaye?”

“Steak. Medium-rare, please.”

“So,” Alejandro said after the waitress moved away. “Do you
want come to the Queen with me tonight?”

“So soon?”

“Why not? You’ve got to start some time.”

“I guess so. I hope that I can… What’s wrong?”

He jerked his chin toward the entrance. “McCrory’s here.”

Shaye looked over her shoulder. A man and a woman stood near
the door. The man was of medium height, with sandy brown hair, a cavalry-style
moustache, and ice blue eyes. His gaze moved over the room, and then he was
striding toward them.

“Did you ever talk to him?” she asked. “About Daisy’s
suspicions?”

“No. I was going to take care of that tonight.”

“Valverde, I’ve been looking for you.”

Alejandro pushed his chair back from the table, let his
right hand drop into his lap. “What can I do for you, Mr. McCrory?”

“I had me a little talk with Daisy last night.”

“Is that so?”

McCrory nodded. “I don’t know what she told you, but mind
your own business.”

“Daisy is my business.”

McCrory planted his fists on the table and glared at
Alejandro. “Not anymore.”

Shaye glanced around the room. Except for the diners at the
nearby tables, no one was paying them any attention. “I think we’d better take
this outside.” Alejandro stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Tell Monica
to keep my steak warm.”

The girl with McCrory placed her hand on his arm. “Dade.”

McCrory shook her hand off. “Let’s go, Valverde.”

“Alejandro…”

“It’s all right, Shaye.” He ran his knuckles over her cheek.
“This has been a long time coming.”

She watched the two men leave the restaurant, her heart
pounding with trepidation. It hadn’t happened this way before, she thought
frantically. What if Alejandro were killed? It would be all her fault. If not
for her, he wouldn’t be dining in the Excelsior tonight. As farfetched as it
sounded, she had wondered, in a distant part of her mind, if Alejandro had died
prematurely and she had been sent to the past to save his life.

She frowned, hardly aware that she was walking toward the
door. What if it was Daisy who had died before her time? She felt certain that
McCrory had killed Daisy? If that was true, and Alejandro killed McCrory,
Daisy’s life would be spared. And perhaps Alejandro’s, too.

She stepped out onto the street, glanced up and down. Where
had they gone?

A commotion drew her attention. Lifting her skirts, she
hurried down the street to where a group of men were clustered in the alley
that ran between two of the saloons. Standing on tiptoe, she saw McCrory and
Alejandro.

McCrory stood with his hands on his hips, his expression
arrogant. “Knives or fists, Valverde? It’s all the same to me.”

Alejandro shrugged out of his coat. “You’re a real
four-flusher, McCrory. I never should have sold you my half of the saloon, but
I didn’t think even you were low enough to steal from your own partner.”