Mr. Beautiful entered her wagon. Melody knew his step, the way the wagon rocked when he stepped on the tailgate. The sweet smell of dust and grass surrounded him. Peeping through her lashes, she concentrated on her breathing, keeping it slow and steady, heart racing. He hovered over her and adjusted the blanket to cover her cool shoulders. She held at bay a ridiculous, disgustingly feminine inclination to sigh.
He stood for a few seconds then left her, and she let her breath go. Cursing her bruises, squirming, she struggled to sit up, ignoring the shooting spikes of pain in her chest and neck. Outside, dawn cast a hazy pale light across the high, rolling prairie. She shivered, winced, and right-handed, pulled her blanket up to her chin.
She had to get dressed. He mustn’t come in and find her undressed again. Her body responded to him, her flesh tickled, she ached in places as yet unexplored. He posed a danger. She didn’t know how, or why, but the threat was there. She didn’t understand it; he made her heart lurch and jump. His blue eyes looked into her heart and asked too much of her. There were aspects of her gender she’d as soon ignore. Defiantly, she liked being neither woman nor man. She preferred being a freak. An unlovable freak who knew how to train and ride a horse. She knew her place, how to behave in a sideshow circus.
A God, such as Mr. Blue Eyes, would naturally be curious; men were curious creatures. He probably had females falling at his feet all the time. A few fools had tried to spark to life the woman inside her—Kit, but not Melody McAdam. Melody McAdam never allowed anyone to get close enough to weaken her defenses. Kit the trick rider knew how to deflect and defend herself. Between the halves of herself, her heart was well protected.
Mr. Blue Eyes weakened her defenses, made her question her reasoning, and challenged her resolve to stay in disguise, to hide from the reality, the responsibilities and norms of her gender. Soon enough, at home in Laura Creek, she’d have to face those challenges now that her short-lived career as a sideshow freak had come to an end. Her family would pressure her to take her place as a woman, take a husband, raise a family. The prospect brought her no joy. The fantasy of Mr. Blue Eyes and his effect on her had no part in that. None at all.
Leaning back against her pillow, she sorted through the events of the past twelve hours. How in the hell she’d ended up back outside and on Maji’s back remained a mystery, an unpleasant, horrifying mystery. That man, Mr. Blue Eyes, had come to her rescue again. She found his presence intrusive and wished him gone.
“Should you be sitting up?” Ollie asked, huffing and puffing to board her wagon. “Van’s gone to the ravine.”
Van? Melody didn’t understand the significance of Ollie’s announcement, but obviously, Ollie considered it of extreme importance, her lips tight and brows puckered.
“I’ve got coffee made. Maybe a nice biscuit with honey. Or if you’re up to it, some fried taters. You didn’t get any of my stew. Van and me, we had stew. He said it hit the spot.”
“Van? Who’s Van?”
Ollie sputtered and gave her a tut, tut. “Now that’s Mr. Van DeVeer. You met him last night. Hoyt’s his name, but he says everyone calls him Van. And that suits him.”
Melody squeezed her eyes shut. Of course, she remembered now, not Mr. Blue Eyes, but Mr. Van De Veer. A fancy name to be sure. Just plain Van? Nothing plain about the man. “Help me get my shirt and trousers on.”
Ollie shook her head at her. “I’ll help you with a shirt and vest, but you’ll wear a skirt. Easier for you to use the thunder mug. Can’t have you pulling your trousers up and down. That won’t do. Won’t do at all.”
The struggle to get her flannel shirt and vest on, her arm back in a sling, and then into her woolen skirt, left Melody puny and weak. Ollie ordered her to rest before leaving to fetch her coffee and a biscuit. But not so puny Melody could let go of all her questions. Maji, she had to see to Maji.
Ollie returned with plate and cup in hand. Melody shifted her legs over the side of her cot and attempted to stand. The interior of her wagon stretched and twirled; she slumped to the side. Ollie set her plate and cup down and eased her back down on the cot. “Now if you’re gonna be doin’ stuff like that, I’ll have to tie you down. You want to get up, fine, you call me, and I’ll help you up. You’ve got a lump on your head, some cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder, a bigger man than you would’ve been laid out good and proper. You don’t need to go showin’ all of us how tough you are. It’s just foolishness, is what it is. Where was you goin’ anyway?”
“Maji. I have to see to Maji. She’s here, right? The bastard didn’t steal her, did he?”
“Now, now. I told you last night your fool mare is fine. What I gotta do, bring her in here and show you?”
“Yes,” Melody said, her jaw set and tears forming in her throat. “Did they hurt her?”
Ollie sat down on the cot and put her hands on her fleshy knees, arms straight, and looked her straight in the eyes. “First off you calm down right now.”
Melody started to shake her head, but the movement brought a lightning bolt of pain and tears to her eyes. “Mr. Van De Veer, Van, is still here. Why? You’re not telling me everything. I have to know what happened. What’s going on? Why is he down in the ravine? It’s Maji. She’s hurt and down in the ravine. She likes the ravine. She likes the water.”
“Shhhh, I tell you she’s fine. She’s right outside. You sit back, take a breath, and I’ll tell you what we know and what we think happened.”
“Think? You think?” Melody said, working very hard not to scream.
Ollie nodded, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “We think, Van and me, we think a couple of skunks tried to steal your mare. You didn’t fall or get bucked off. They roped Maji and tried to hobble her.”
Kit lurched forward. Ollie firmly eased her back and gave her a warning look. Melody tucked her lower lip between her teeth to keep from throwing up and willed herself to be patient.
“Van’s horse, Ranger, came to Maji’s rescue, don’t exactly know how, but Maji broke free of the hobble, but you were left out cold on the ground. One fella got away, the other fella, and this is why Van is goin’ down to the ravine, the other fella got his just desserts, compliments of those brave horses. The other skunk, the one that got away, he come back to get the mare. He didn’t much care how he done it. He tied me up good and proper. He was gonna take you and Maji. Van told me he was smart enough to realize he’d have his hands full gettin’ that mare to go anywhere without you comin’ along, so he flung you on the mare’s back. You remember any of that? Do you remember being on Maji’s back last night?”
Melody closed her eyes. Yes, she remembered now. Mr. Blue Eyes, he’d helped her down. She asked Maji to stand. Yes, she remembered the awful, nauseating pain of finding herself flopped over a horse’s back and the humiliation of being absolutely helpless, unable to move and barely able to breathe.
Ollie took a breath.
Melody, hand over her mouth, hiccupped, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“In the struggle to get the gun away from the bastard, the skunk came close to takin’ Van’s head off. I seen where the bullet hit the dust. He’s lucky to be alive,” Ollie said, her brown eyes wide. “It’s sheer providence Van was here. He clocked the bastard good and proper. Which reminds me, I’m gonna go check on the cull, see he’s not come loose from the ropes. I hope he makes a move; I’m itching to give him a good whack with my skillet.”
Melody slumped down, her eyes squeezed shut. The cretins who’d threatened her at the feed store, they’d followed her, watched her. What a damn fool she’d been to go haring off in the dark. She could’ve lost Maji for good, or worse, injured her.
“Go home,” she told herself. “Go home and grow up.”
Ollie patted her good shoulder. “You have something to eat, a few sips of coffee and you’ll feel better. Rest awhile. Food and coffee will put the starch back in you.”
Melody nodded, easier to agree than present her doubts. “I have to go home. But not yet. Not like this. Not like this.”
∙•∙
Legs encased in ripped and dirt-covered trousers, coat shredded across his back revealing deep gashes, bare-headed, his black hair wet with blood and caked with mud, a man, or what was left of him, lay face down in the ravine. Down the hill, the ground scrubbed bare by horse’s hooves, held evidence of the sight of the battle—this was where he’d found Kit.
The buzzards circled overhead. They’d already started to rip the flesh from the brows and jaw of the carcass. Van threw his rain slicker over the remains and piled rocks around the edges to keep the big birds away, or at least make it harder for them to get at it.
Ranger’s sprain didn’t bother him this morning as far as Van could tell. Instead of going back to camp, he decided to ride into town. Sunday morning, gone were the vendors and street hawkers, hookers, gamblers, and drunks. The stores were shuttered and closed, no tinkling pianos, no hurdy-gurdies dueling over who could make the most racket. The gentle chime of a church bell echoed up and down the river.
The sheriff’s office at the east end of town sat vacant, shades pulled down over the window and door. A notice tacked up to the side of the door directed citizens to the sheriff’s residence, two blocks south, in case of emergency.
The shack nestled up against the cliff-face did not inspire confidence. It needed a coat of paint, and the porch roof looked about to collapse, the two porch posts rotten and riddled with bugs. Van stepped up and over a loose board and knocked on the weathered door. Silence. He raised his hand, made a fist, and pounded.
“Yeah, yeah, hold yer water!” The door jerked open. A big man in red, moth-eaten long johns with salt and pepper hair spiking out at the sides and on the crown, nearly opaque blue eyes blazing, snarled and asked, “What the hell is it? Can’t a man sleep in this town? Go away. Unless there’s a body that isn’t breathin’, I ain’t interested. Come to think of it; if it’s dead, it’ll keep.” And he started to shut the door.
Van suppressed the urge to grin and slapped his hand on the door to keep it from closing in his face. He understood grumpy men. His father and their family friend, Sheriff Rafe Bollo, were grumpy men. Maybe you had to be grumpy to be a sheriff; maybe it was a requirement. Or maybe it was the horrible occupation. Whatever it was, the sheriff’s surly response didn’t faze Van and wouldn’t deter him from his mission. “I know where there’s a dead body, sir. And I have a body that’s breathin’ but out cold. Caught’em horse stealin’.”
His eyes squeezed shut, the Sheriff scrubbed his thinning hair with both hands. “Wait. Shut the hell up. I can’t think. I’m still asleep. I ain’t had but six hours sleep in the last three days. You come in. Have a seat. I’ll get my pants on.” He turned and padded down the hall barefoot to a room at the end. He left the door open. “I can hear you. Talk to me, son. What the hell happened when and where?”
Van couldn’t sit—none of the furniture looked reliable, the sofa cushions were threadbare, springs exposed. The one chair in the room sagged in the seat. He didn’t dare sit in it, he’d get trapped. Left with only one option, he paced in a circle before the front door, hat in his hand. “Two men jumped a young woman to steal her horse. A dapple-gray mare. You might’ve seen this young woman and her horse. I understand she put on a trick riding show the other day. She and the other members of her party are camped up on the hill.”
“I know the outfit,” the sheriff said, emerging from his room, buttoning his shirt. “What’s your name and what’s your business?”
Van opened his mouth, shut it; he needed a second to think. “Ah, Hoyt Van De Veer, most folks call me Van. My home’s near Baker City. I don’t have any business here. I’m just passin’ through. Last night I wanted to camp away from town, so I went up the hill.”
The sheriff narrowed his eyes and tipped his head to the side. “Ah,” he said, tucking in his shirt. He held out his hand to Van. “The name’s John Rutland, folks call me Sheriff Rutland.”
Van released his breath and shook the man’s callused hand. The sheriff gripped it hard and asked him directly. “So, Baker City? Who’s the sheriff now?”
Meeting that direct gaze, Van replied without blinking or smirking, “Phelps, Roy Phelps. Rafe Bollo retired two years ago. Phelps ran against Thad Mathews. Mathews didn’t stand a chance.”
The sheriff grinned, gave his hand another quick jerk, and let it go. “Ah, yeah, right. I remember Bollo. He’s a good man.”
“The best,” Van said.
“I’ll get my horse, and I’ll meet you at the office. You can give me details on the way up the hill.”
∙•∙
They weren’t the only ones going up the hill. Three men, well, actually two boys and half a man, the boys leading two teams of big footed, shaggy-coated draft horses and the half-man riding one of the horses, emerged from the corrals at the west end of town.
“Hey, Miller,” the sheriff called out to the short fella riding. Van had never seen a man so short. At first glance, he’d thought him a toddler of maybe three or four wearing a big ole’ Stetson hat.
“Sheriff, good day to you, sir,” replied the man in a perfectly normal, manly voice.
The two boys, in their teens, red hair and freckle-faced, brought their teams to a stand and respectfully nodded to the sheriff.
“There’s been some trouble at your camp, Jerry,” said the sheriff.
The little man scrambled to his feet and stood on the back of the sturdy horse. “Ollie? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, sir,” Van said, bringing his horse around close enough to extend his hand out to the man. “The names Hoyt Van De Veer, Van, to my friends. I spent the night up at your camp. Your wife is fine. Kit, the girl, she’s roughed up a bit, ribs and shoulder, but she’s okay.”
“What the hell happened?” Jerry asked the sheriff, looking past Van and ignoring his hand.
“Horse thieves,” said Van, and offered his hand again. Jerry eyed him, hesitated, then took the hand and gave it a firm but quick shake.
“Black hair, black clothes, and the other one, beard, mustache, smells sour?” Jerry asked Van.
Van nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“You know’em, Jerry?” the sheriff asked. “You seen ’em before?”
Jerry plopped back down on the horses back. “If it’s the same fellas, they cornered Kit behind the feed store right after our show. They wanted to buy the mare. Kit refused. That horse is her life. Wouldn’t sell her for the world. They didn’t want to take no for an answer and got rough with her. The boys and I stepped in and finished them off for her. We drug them down to the river to cool off. Didn’t see ’em after that.”
“Well, they tried to steal the mare last night. Things didn’t go as planned,” Van said and turned Ranger around to go up the hill.
The sheriff set his hat more firmly on his head and dug his heels into the sides of his mount. “Van’s gonna show me where they ambushed the girl. You and your boys go on up to your camp, Jerry. I know you’re worried about your Mrs. I’ll be up to talk to the girl and Ollie.”
The sheriff leaned over to speak to Van, his voice low. “The Millers come through Pendleton a couple of times a year. I’ve known them for, must be four years now. They’re good people. Worried about them last fall getting tangled up with the Circus International Payasos gang.”
Van glanced up the hill. Ollie, one hand shading her eyes, waved at them. “Yeah, I heard about that. I know the Pinkerton man who brought them down,” he said, managing to maintain a straight face, waving his hat at Ollie. To shade his lying eyes, he set his hat low over his brow.
The sheriff went on to say, “Don’t know much about the Indian girl. This is the first year I’ve seen her. She put on a good show. Damn fine horsewoman. So, you say she’s busted up some?”
“Yeah. She spooked my horse. I was leading him up the hill. He followed the mare and the girl down the hill into the ravine. Ollie assured me the girl would bring my horse back. Suspecting she’d stolen my horse, I stayed put. Ollie invited me to sit and have some of her stew.
“When the two horses came back into camp, the mare rider-less, we thought the girl had gotten thrown. The mare had a rope bridle and rope burns on her hind fetlocks. Ollie said Kit never, ever, used a bit or a saddle on the mare. And the rope burns on the mare’s fetlocks said someone tried to hobble her. My horse, Ranger, had blood on his nose, and a sprain. I didn’t know what he’d gotten up to, whatever, animal or human, he put up a good fight.
“The mare led me back down the hill to the girl…to Kit. I didn’t see anyone else; it was dark by then. She had a dislocated shoulder and some cracked ribs, the kind of injuries you’d get if you get bucked off a horse in the dark.”
They started up the ravine. “How and when did this other fella show up?” the sheriff asked.
“We got Kit settled in. Ollie killed her campfire. I bedded down near Kit’s wagon. I woke up with a gun barrel stuck up my nose. The fella was a might put out my horse had killed his brother. He wanted the mare. He’d already put Kit over the mare’s back thinking, and rightly so, the mare would give him a hard time unless he took her with him. I had no idea what he’d done to Ollie. I grabbed the gun barrel and took him off balance, and then I hit him a couple of times as hard as I could.”
The sheriff shook his head. He clicked his tongue in his cheek. “Wonder how an Indian girl comes to have a valuable animal like that? Makes a body curious don’t it?”
Van hadn’t thought about that angle. But yes, it did. “The bond between them is strong. She’s had her for a while. You don’t create that kind of trust overnight. I’d say they’ve been a team for years. But together where? You don’t suppose she’s escaped from the reservation?”
The sheriff tipped his head. “That’s a distinct possibility.”