Chapter Eleven

“Lord A’mighty, Lady Lex.” Garrett jumped from his horse, leaving the animal ground tied. “Why didn’t ya get a shot off?”

Alex managed to roll on to her right side and push herself up as he approached, but she hugged her left side in pain, rocking back and forth. “You want me to start a stampede?”

Garrett fired two shots into the air. “Ain’t gonna be no stampede round here. Beeves are way out. Anyways, you had us all scared to hell.”

Garrison rode up leading a somewhat reluctant Ranger. Cal and a couple of others were behind him, then Jesse rode in at a gallop. He swung off before his horse was reined in.

“Is Ranger all right? He put his foot in a hole,” Alex told Garrison.

“Lord, is that all you think ’bout?” He looked over at Jesse as if the other was in charge, but Jesse hung back now that he saw Alex was still among the living.

“I’ve dislocated my shoulder. It hurts like hell. Someone will have to push it back in place, please.” The men shifted uneasily. “It’s happened before. You just push it back in. Please!” She looked around. “Cal?”

“Well, heck sweetheart, I ain’t no doctor.”

“I am not going to sit here waiting for eight hours while someone rides into bloody Greeley.” She swayed slightly and looked up again.

“I’ve done it once before on ol’ Laney,” Garrison said, “but that was a time ago and I don’t think…well, you know, you’re sorta on the delicate side, Lady Lex.”

She tried to turn to look up at him. “Just do it, please!” she said with gritted teeth. “I’m sure women’s and men’s shoulders are not all that different.”

Garrison hesitated. “Well, I sorta need to actu’lly feel the shoulder. What I mean is, you know…”

“Fine! Someone take my shirt off, please.” She looked up.

Cal said, “All right, I think we gonna just leave the two of them together.” He looked over at Jesse, but Jess started to walk off back to his horse.

“Well, hang on just a cotton pickin’ minute,” Garrison spit out. “Y’all can’t just leave me here with her.”

“Does anyone here realize I am sitting here in pain? Does anyone really care?” She held in the tears, thinking about her back, what it looked like, what she had on underneath her shirt. “Can you just bloody well do something, please?”

“Jess, you know her best,” Garrison said. “You take off her shirt.”

“I think she’d prefer Garrett to do it. Garrett is oldest here.” Jesse’s voice was quiet and steady but behind it Alex heard the edge.

“And then I need someone to brace her—less’n she faints an’ all.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—I’m not going to bloody well faint!”

“All right.” Cal took charge at last. “The rest of you get back to work. It doesn’t take more’n four men to help one small gal.”

Garrett squatted down in front of Alex and, rather tentatively, unbuttoned her shirt. He nodded up to Cal who removed his gloves, stuffed them in his belt and took careful hold of Alex’s shirt collar to try to slip the shirt back.

“Ow!” He stopped. “Look,” she continued, “I think it’s best to help me get my right arm out of the sleeve, pull the shirt around and then you can slip the other sleeve forward off my left arm.”

Cal knelt behind her and gave Jesse a questioningly glance. Jesse didn’t move. Garrett eased the right sleeve forward a bit so Cal could help Alex slide her arm out, and then he gently pulled the shirt across to the left side, exposing her back.

He stopped. The only sounds were the horses cropping grass and the rustle of the leaves in the wind. Alex watched as Garrett looked from one face to the next questioning. Jesse walked off toward a stand of cottonwood, his back to the rest of them, his hands on his hips.

“What?” Garrett started, but Cal shook his head.

Alex realized her chemise did not cover everything.

Garrison sank down next to her. “Lady Lex? You have to tell us who done this to ya,” he said quietly. “No one can get away with somethin’ like that.”

She turned and looked at him for a moment. “If you’re looking for frontier justice, my friend, I’m afraid you’re a bit too late.”

“If’n it’s your uncle…”

“Oh, don’t be a bloody fool, Gar. You think I’d be staying on at the ranch if my uncle was beating me like that? I’d think you knew me better than that. Anyway, you can see they’re old scars.”

“Alex?” Cal started.

She turned her head sharply and looked at him. It was strange to see Cal so serious, to the point where he actually called her by her first name. She smiled briefly. “Can we get on with this please? Really. I’m afraid you’d have to cross that other continental divide called the Atlantic Ocean to avenge my honor on this one, boys. And quite honestly, I’m not even sure my ex-husband is worth the lead.”

Cal took a deep breath. He looked over to where Jesse still stood with his back to them before he proceeded to slip the shirt off. Garrison changed places with Garrett and moved to the front to take Alex’s left arm across her stomach bent at an angle while Cal pushed gently forward on her back and then Garrison rotated the arm until the shoulder clicked into place.

“Well, thank you.” Alex shuffled back into her shirt.

“Heck, Lady Lex, you’re supposed to bind that up and take it easy or somethin’.”

She didn’t answer. Jesse looked back at her now as she got up and came toward him, tears streaking down her face.

“Don’t you do that to me, Jesse.” She punched him with her small weak fists, grimacing with her own pain. “Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Don’t you dare!”

Jesse stood there taking it. He stared at her as she beat his chest, and he said nothing, his face tight against his own tears for her. He waited for her to stop and continued standing there, the others looking on as Alex came marching back, bent to pick up her hat, gathered Ranger’s reins and rode off.

****

As the round-up wound down, the Reps took their stock back to their outfits, and soon the men were back at headquarters or at the camps. Alex knew word had more or less got out and found the punchers were gentler now around her, had a sort of quiet respect for her, and she hated it. She tried to bully them a bit to show them she was still the same girl, jolly them into joshing with her as they had before. It was slow work. At the same time, she yearned to see Jesse, to speak with him, to try to get life back to the way it was before the argument at the corral, and before he saw the scars. The opportunity didn’t present itself. She would see him from a distance some days, riding with the herd, sitting his horse with that peculiar grace he had, throwing his lariat out with an ease that reminded her of people on a dock waving their hankies in farewell. Hoping to just be near him, she slid into one of the corrals one evening to practice her roping.

The light was failing and the birds were settling with their evening calls. Somewhere in the pasture a horse nickered. She sensed Jesse was there, watching, but she never turned as he stood at the fence. She heard him climb over and ease up behind her. He took the coiled rope from her in his left hand and slid his right hand over hers on the swing end, almost forcing her backward into his arms.

She thought of paintings and statues she had seen, imagining his naked arms now, how the muscles would form them into long oblique curves, how he probably had soft downy fair hair on his forearms, how his muscle would slightly bulge as he bent his arm. His voice was soft in her ear, and she could feel his breath on her neck like a whispered secret.

“Gentle-like, right to left, right to left to widen the noose, keep your eye on the post—are you watchin’ where we’re goin’?”

He made the throw and pulled in the rope to tighten the noose. Alex stood there, his hand still entwined with hers and, for a moment, she wished they could stand like that forever. Then she took her hand away and faced him. For a second he rested his chin on the top of her head, then straightened again and went to get the noose off the post while coiling in the rope. She looked up at him in the fading light and saw nothing but kindness in his face, simplicity and gentleness that was most inviting. A smile spread across her face as he handed her the coiled rope and sauntered away, turning once to look back at her before he opened the gate. Emptiness filled her like a poisoned vapor seeking every corner of her being, and she stood with the rope in her hand listening to the ring of his spurs as his footsteps retreated.

****

With this uneasy and unspoken truce, mending was still slow work. After a few days of polite “Hellos” and “How’s it goin’s” Tom mentioned to Alex that Jesse had been sent up to Boyd line camp with Garrett to nighthawk for a while.

Nighthawking meant his days were free, if he could stay awake long enough to enjoy them. When Jesse heard Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was over in Greeley, he thought of sending word to Alex to see if she and Cal would want to meet up, but Cal sent word back that Alex had already been asked to join the Yosts.

The men strolled around town before the show, mixing with the performers, talking to friends. They met an old acquaintance, a former puncher who went by the name of Stone Rodney who had once worked at the ranch; he was now in the show. Talking with him about life on the road, the man’s eyes seemed to go beyond them. Cal and Jesse turned at the same moment to see where he was looking.

“Heck.” Stone’s eyes widened. “If that ain’t the prettiest durned li’l gal.”

Jesse didn’t need to be told he meant Alex. She stood in the crowded street with Sue Ann, laughing at J.J. who had managed to get himself covered in some sticky candy.

“I think the same thing happened to me at the circus once.” Alex met Jesse’s glance. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the nighthawk himself,” she said, coming over.

“I sent word to invite you but Cal told me you’d be comin’ in with the Yosts.” His eyes sought hers. He was lost in her suddenly, ached for her. He could see the hazel flecks in the green of her eyes, and had that same feeling he’d had at the station the day he collected her—that his heart was quickening and part of him was lost.

Alex was filled with the sudden desire to kiss him there and then; she laughed. “I’m sorry.” She giggled and covered her mouth with her hand as if he could somehow tell what she was thinking. “I might sit on your lap anyway,” she flirted. “Just like ‘of yore.’”

Cal stood there, his arms across his chest, slowly working the chicle in his mouth as his eyes darted from Jesse to Alex and back. To Alex he appeared to be waiting for something to happen.

Then Stone broke in with, “Ain’t ya gonna introduce me, Jess?”

“Oh, sure. Lady Alexandra Calthorpe. Stone Rodney. Stone used to work at the Double F.”

“Really?” Alex’s smile was brief and disinterested. She faced Jesse as Tom and Annie came over to collect her. A bright idea hit her and she turned back to Stone. “I don’t suppose I could sketch you, could I? I’ll be coming into town while the show is on to do some pastels and drawings in the hope of getting something suitable for a painting.”

“Lady Alex is a famous artist,” Jesse put in. There was a big smile on his face as he said it but Alex’s quizzical expression wiped it off. “Well, she’s gonna be a famous artist. Soon.”

Stone looked from one to the other. “Sure. How’s about a trade? You be in my show and I’ll be in yours.”

Alex laughed. “What’s your act?”

“You don’t wanna be in his act, Ladilex,” Cal said.

Jesse put an arm around her gently, almost possessively. “He’s the trick whip cracker,” he said.

Alex couldn’t watch that part of the show. The idea someone could stand still with a cigarette in their mouth and let someone else whip it out was beyond her. She flinched at the very idea. Jesse took her out, stepping over the Yosts and others to get out of the tent into the fresh air.

“You didn’t have to leave,” she said at last.

“Not as good fun as the circus, was it? Pretend gunfights and all. Maybe them city folk like to see that, but I reckon we got enough of them out here.”

“I haven’t seen a gunfight!”

“No? Well, here’s hopin’ you never do—see a real one, that is.” They walked on in silence. “I hear you been paintin’ over at Miss Bea’s? That musta been real int’restin’.”

“Oh, very.” Alex tried not to laugh but couldn’t help herself.

“What?” Jesse stopped and looked at her. She was more woman now; somehow the child was slowly disappearing and there was an adult there instead. “She bin tellin’ you tales?”

“Definitely not,” she affirmed. “I asked, I begged her.” She made a drama of her speech. “But she said she couldn’t tell me a thing or it might ruin her business. Dreadful! Think of all the knowledge I could have gained, think of all the men I could be blackmailing—”

“Think of all the lies you might be telling…instead, of course, of the ones you’re tellin’ now.” Jesse laughed.

He lifted his hat for a moment and ran his hand through his hair. Alex suddenly yanked the long bits at the back of his neck she had always liked to play with. “Why do you do that?” he asked. “You always liked to do that, even when you were little.” He shook his head pondering it for a moment.

Alex giggled. “I don’t know really. I just… I don’t know.” They stood there for a moment on the boardwalk with the softening light of the late afternoon about them, each with their own memories, their own thoughts of the years that connected them.

“I have to get back,” he said at last.

****

The Wild West Show sketches went very well over the next few days. Alex thought about bringing a rig into town to collect her things from Miss Bea’s. Riding in the last day of the show, she spotted one of the Faringdon wagons outside the Benders’ shop.

“Now, if you’re still wondering ’bout them boots, Lady Alex,” Mrs. Bender started as she entered the shop, “I’m afraid I’m still waitin’ on news. All the bootmakers I’ve contacted are real backed up on orders at the moment.”

“That’s positively ridiculous,” Alex shot back. “How long can this possibly take? Anyway,” she continued, “I just came in looking for whoever was driving our wagon out front. Have they been in?”

“Oh, yes, it was Jesse Makepeace. He started to give me an order but then the sheriff came in saying something ’bout getting a posse to go out after the Darcy Brothers up near Boyd Lake, and Jess shot out of here like a bat outta hell. Went over to the liv’ry for a mount, I think. Said something ’bout Garrett Landry being up there on his own.”

“Has he gone with the posse?”

“Oh, no I don’t think so. Sheriff’s still gathering men.”

The door jangled as Alex left. She got to Ranger, checked she had cartridges for the Purdy, and that the rifle was loaded, and then loaded a sixth bullet into her Colt.