Waltzing With Tumbleweeds Read online

  Deliberately, she let the dress fall, exposing her breasts. Rose knew from his look what the sight of them did for him.

  She stepped out of the garment and put it on the chair, he was hurriedly shoving off her petticoats like a man on fire. Mildly amused at how viewing her body could move a man, she smiled as he eased her back on the bed. The wanton look in his dark eyes, told her enough as she laid on her back fearful of crushing poor Billy. What a mess.

  “My God, Rose, why don’t you live with me?”

  To silence him, she pulled his face to hers and sealed his lips shut with a demanding kiss.

  After their love making, Reagan slowly dressed. He sat in the wooden chair and pulled on his left boot. “They say you and Billy, the Kid once had a thing going between you?” he asked, in his Georgia drawl.

  “Once,” she replied, wrapping herself in a filmy duster. She dared not look back at the bed. “But he’s gone.”

  “If you’re over him, why don’t you come live with me?”

  “Reagan, you’ve asked me that before.”

  “Well?” He struggled to pull on the other boot. “Just think on it some more before you say no again.”

  “I will,” she said sharper than she intended. Oh, God, why didn’t he hurry and leave?

  “Be a lot easier than what you’re doing,” Reagan offered.

  “I promise I’ll think on it. Now let me get some rest.”

  He looked over at the tossed bed covers and smiled. “We could both sleep together for a few hours?”

  “No!” she said, herding him to the door.

  “I think you’re still stuck on Billy,” Reagan argued as he took her in his arms. When he kissed her, she closed her eyes. Would he never leave?

  He released her and headed for his horse. “You think on my offer, Rose.”

  “I will,” she said and forced a smile for him.

  She nearly collapsed against the door facing as the tall Georgian rode off down Cabbage Hill. Her breath came in small gulps as she waved a last time at the marshal. Light headed, she went back inside.

  “You can come out now,” she said, dropping heavily on a chair. She buried her face in her arms on the tabletop.

  “Whew,” Billy said, edging out on his back. “It was getting hot under there.” He sat up and swept back his too-long, brown hair from his face. Then he grinned at her like a schoolboy ready to challenge her with some secret.

  He laughed aloud as he pushed himself up. “That’s close as I been to a lawman since I ran head on into a deputy in Tularosa one day.”

  “It isn’t funny,” she said.

  “It was for me. You making love to him, just that far from me.” Billy held his forefinger and second one about two inches apart.

  “I’ve got to get out of this place,” she said, standing up. Upset, she began to pace the floor.

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “Arizona, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I need to go somewhere I don’t know lawmen or outlaws. Anyway, the mines are nearly played out.”

  “Aw, I’d miss coming to see you.” He put his arms around her and hugged her from behind her back.

  “Billy, you wouldn’t miss any woman,” she said as he nuzzled her neck. “Besides, it’s dangerous knowing you these days.”

  “Garrett?” he asked in her ear. “Are you scared of him?”

  “That stiff shirt?” she asked in disgust, recalling the straight-backed sheriff. “I mean everyone is looking for you.”

  “They won’t get me,” Billy said, his chin on her shoulder as he rocked her from side to side.

  “Why don’t you stay in old Mexico?” she asked, irritated at his uncaring attitude.

  “I ain’t Mexican. That’s why.” He turned her around and kissed her.

  Rose twisted her face free, resolved to give him her advice. “You’d be a damn sight safer there.”

  “Aw, Rose. I still got lots of friends. When they get in office, they’ll pardon me.”

  She shook her head. Billy would never grow up. She was wasting her time. Why did he make her feel so sad when there was nothing she could do to change the course of his life or their relationship? “They better hurry and have the elections.”

  “Quit worrying, I’ve lived this long.” His mouth closed off her protests. His kisses were more ardent than ever before. She felt him pulling her to the bed. Rose knew there was no use to argue about either his future, or intentions at the moment. He opened her thin duster, and slipped it off her bare shoulders. Rose wished she could stop him and clean up.

  But in a moment, Billy’s hot breath and tongue fed on her neck as he stoked the fires inside her. Never, could she recall him being so forcefully successful in arousing her. She pressed herself against him, wishing for more.

  Soon her breath came in short clutches. But Bill did not stop kissing, teasing and fondling her. Delirious with his stimulation, she arched her back in expectation. Her hips ached to receive him.

  When he finally entered her, she felt removed from Cabbage Hill, on a cloud floating over green farmland. Not in the desert, making wild love to a renegade cowboy. So intoxicated with ecstasy, they thrust hard to reach another plateau. She even worried the bed might crash.

  Billy was the stallion she always dreamed about. The prince that existed in storybooks and then only for princesses. Never had she soared so high over and over again. Their sweat-slick bodies squeezed out the last drop of passion in their loins

  Exhausted, they just lay in each other’s arms, neither ready to speak. Rose became choked up, realizing he would soon be gone. Her heart ached as she clung to him. Any minute tears could leak from the corners of her eyes.

  “Don’t worry so much,” he said, raising up on his elbow. “I still got more lives to lead.”

  She shook her head, a sour lump gathered behind her tongue. A sharp pain in her chest felt like an arrow had pierced her heart. And all this grief and worry, she mused, for a boy outlaw.

  “Was I that bad this time?” he asked, a wide grin exposed his prominent front teeth. She buried her face on his bare shoulder.

  “No,” she sobbed, “You were the best lover I’ve ever had.”

  “Come on, Rose, quit your damned crying,” he said.

  She didn’t dare speak. Why did she feel this was the last intimate moment she would ever spend with Billy? She felt powerless to change the matter.

  Later, she trimmed his hair. He needed to look nicer, like someone cared about him. Rose even found some buttons for his threadbare suit coat. She dismissed the idea of doing more than sewing on the buttons. The day wore on congenially.

  The sun dropped and Billy stood up as though he couldn’t wait much longer to leave.

  “Best you don’t know where I’m headed,” Billy said as he held her by the shoulders. “Not that I don’t trust you, but you won’t have to lie to them.”

  She agreed.

  “Aw, a friend of mine has a ranch, I can stay there. OI’ Garrett won’t find me,” he said. “Cross my heart.”

  “Billy, why don’t you go back...” His fingers silenced her lips as he gathered her in his arms.

  “Rose. Don’t fret about me. Why, in a couple weeks I’ll circle back like I always do.” Then he kissed her goodbye. Rose chewed on her lower lip as she watched his dark figure run for the arroyo in the twilight with the too long coat sleeves and the weather-beaten, high crown hat. Where had he left his horse? Some companero had kept it for him. Billy had plenty of amigos.

  A week later, making her nightly rounds, Rose slipped in the doors of the Silver Moon Saloon. She halted at the sight of all the men cloistered at the bar. What were they celebrating?

  “Hey! Rose!” A miner raised his mug high, sloshing some suds over the lip. “Here’s to Pat Garrett! He gunned down that damned Billy the Kid!”

  Thunderstruck by the news, Rose felt the blood drain from her face. She lurched between two men so she could reach the bar for support. Dazed for a moment, she
focused and refocused her eyes at her own pale image in the mirror behind the bar. No, she wouldn’t pass out. The nausea rose in her throat.

  “Are you all right, Rose?” Duffy asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said as her composure returned.

  “He shot that Billy Bonney three times,” a drunk said, inches from her face.

  She pushed the man away. Duffy was calling to her as she blindly rushed through the bat wing doors. On the boardwalk in front she gripped a post for support.

  Billy was gone. He was never coming back. The carefree young man who had stolen her heart and broken it so many times—was dead. Rose shook her head. She had known all the time he would never be taken alive. That stiff-backed, bastard Garrett—she wished him in hell.

  The cool night air drove out her self-pity and grief. Billy Bonney was dead. Nothing she could do would bring him back. Not one damn thing. All the nights she worried and cried for him—it was over.

  She patted her hair, hitched up the front of her dress and set out with her skirts in hand. Billy would have expected her to do it like this. The easygoing fool... she set out to find the night Marshal, John Reagan. Rose planned to have him ask her to move in.

  Passage by Starlight

  The stage run to Coyote Springs took eight hours. That time frame included the thirty-minute layover at Cyrus Vance’s stage stop to change the horses, empty your bladder and eat some of his burnt red beans. Cyrus’s half Navajo wife always managed to scorch the frijoles before she slopped them out on tin plates to the passengers and the Hawkins and Hawkins stage drivers like me.

  “You’re running late,” old Cyrus commented as he scooted in beside me at the driver’s table.

  “Yeah, they run a wheel off coming from Tombstone to Benson,” I offered between wolfed down spoons of bitter beans. “It means I have to go over the grade after dark, too.”

  The notion after dark eating at my guts didn’t bother the old man, he was more interested in something else in the room. The stage run over those Friscos with all those renegades off the reservation wasn’t my idea of a Sunday school picnic. I could tell what had his attention; he was watching the lady passenger from Tombstone. The corner of his mouth finally turned up in lurid pleasure under his unkempt pepper colored beard. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Mary Logan according to the last driver,” I said dryly. Then I washed the over cooked taste down with some strong black coffee.

  “She’s sure a looker,” he said with a rue filled shake of his head. His rummy eyes held fast on the black tressed woman. She stood by the doorway in the red light of sundown. No doubt, she had not wanted any portion of Cyrus’s squaw’s concoction in her delicate stomach.

  I studied her through the vapors of my second cup of coffee. The blue dress she wore was expensive; no doubt she came from wealth. Her slender jaw, almost hollow cheeks and sleepy eyes fascinated me. A bachelor of thirty, on my pay, I could never consider such a woman, except for a few moments in my daydreams.

  “Them horses are ready,” Cyrus said as he clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Those half broke ones hitched in the back?” I asked, not trusting his help. Hawkins and Hawkins had a few green teams that they’d worked into the system. I’d driven them the week before and had hoped Charlie Dickens had taken them back to Benson on his turn. They needed lots of driving and training.

  “How late will we be getting to Coyote Springs?” The fancy dressed passenger in the Prince Albert coat demanded right up in my face. I noted his tone of sarcasm and impatience.

  “I expect we’ll get there before midnight,” I told him. Ignoring his overbearing ways, I pushed past him.

  “The schedule says—”

  “Doing the best we can. Get in the coach. We’re leaving. If the Apaches don’t get us, we’ll be there by then.” I realized my words were strong and I removed my hat for her when I turned to face her. “Ma’am, the ride from here on maybe a little rough.”

  “I understand.” She smiled softly. An angel couldn’t have sounded better. It made the dread I had for the ride ahead fly away like a Sonora dove’s swift wings.

  In his faded underwear top and stained britches, Cyrus came out to see us off. He waited until I had everyone loaded and the door shut before he spoke to me . “If’n that renegade Chee don’t stick a feathered shaft in your back side, you ought to make some time with that looker.”

  I didn’t bother to give him any satisfaction with a reply. Without a commend, I climbed on the seat. One fancy dan, a whisky drummer and her—four of us to get over those saw toothed mountains in this ship.

  “See you next run, Cyrus!” And I kicked off the brake, shouted to the horses, working the reins in my hand and I wheeled them out of the station.

  The sun had set, perhaps I had an hour of lingering twilight. The horses acted fresh and we made good time up the long grade to the top of Frisco Mountains, then the road leveled but we were hemmed in by the tall pines. No moon, only the stars to guide my way up the narrow cut that sliced the black trees. This land held many an Apache renegade. Even the word, Apache, made most folks hereabouts apprehensive. The hour was late and there were still several miles to cover in the darkness, the trip would be unduly long. My total concern was for the horses and coach—getting all of us there alive.

  It must have been a bear that spooked them. Whatever it was, the lead team bolted aside and the green pair went berserk. The coach lurched sideways despite my desperate attempt to control the horses. The stage careened on two wheels—I knew it would spill as I sawed on the reins to right it. Too late to save it from turning over, I let go of the lines, jumped to clear the box and went air borne to land among some stiff pine boughs. The lynch pin broke and the terrified horses raced off into the night.

  A fierce stab in my left side slowed me as I fought my way to my feet where the two upright wheels of the stage spun freely. Despite the fire in my side, probably from broken ribs, I was grateful there were no war cries slicing the night as I hurried to find out about my passengers’ condition. “Get us out of here!” the fancy one demanded.

  I scrambled up the ribbed underside of the coach and with some effort jerked open the door. “I’m trying. Here give me your arms,” I said, seeing her hat.

  With a little strain, I hoisted her out until she was seated on the door facing. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I think so,” she said softly. She adjusted her hat and I thought she smiled pleasantly at me.

  “The rest of you all right in there?” I asked.

  “No. How long will it take to get this coach on all four wheels and on our way?”

  I frowned at the man’s impatience as I struggled to help him out. My side shot full of pain and his awkwardness combined to make me strain until he finally bellied out on the side of the coach.

  “I have to be in St John’s by seven in the morning,” he said.

  I looked at him in disbelief, shook my head and then reached down to help the drummer, who did most of the escaping by himself. The peddler out, I eased down on the ground, grateful no one had been seriously hurt in the accident.

  “Wait Miss, one of us will help you,” I said straightening up and seeing her intent.

  “What are you waiting for?” the man demanded from a top the stage.

  “Mister, those horses are half way to Coyote Springs,” I said as I swung her down on her feet. My heart almost ran away with itself, me having hold of the ribs of the woman’s corset. I didn’t want to let go, but for the sake of decency I did.

  “I demand you do something!”

  “Ah hell Kyle,” the whisky drummer said as he climbed down. “Don’t make such a pompous ass out of yourself. Ain’t none of us hurt. Damned lucky ain’t we, lad?”

  “Yes, we are. I’ll start a fire,” I said for her benefit. The mountain night air had a chill. We were twice as lucky it hadn’t been an Indian raid, but I saw no reason to mention that and upset her.

  “A fire would be nice
,” she said.

  “Fire? No, you don’t. Set out this instant and get us some transportation!” Kyle ordered as he climbed down. “I have to be in St John’s to catch that train in the morning.”

  I didn’t bother to answer him. It was near twelve miles to Coyote Springs and I had no notions of setting out a foot in the dark for there. Beside Jim Severs would send a buckboard up for us when those horses came screaming in without a coach. He’d be along before daybreak.

  “That Kyle is something else,” the drummer said under his breath joining me in a search for fuel.

  “I couldn’t help the wreck but he’s about impossible to deal with.” I glanced off in the dark, I could hear him blowing off steam about the sorry stage line

  “I just dread hearing about it all night,” the drummer lamented.

  I agreed and started back with my arms full of wood. Kyle rushed up in my face,

  “Aren’t you going to do anything?”

  “Gawdamighty Kyle,” I swore at the pain in my ear his shouting caused. “I ain’t deaf. If you’re in such an all fired hurry, point those fancy shoes north. Coyote Springs is about a dozen miles up this road.”

  “No, I paid for my passage.”

  “If you think that I’m packing you on my back out of here, think again.” My breath ragged through my nose as I knelt down and busied myself starting the fire. “Do something useful. Go find some dry wood. I promise you that help will be along directly.”

  My words silenced him. He took a few steps and stopped. “But it’s dark out there.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t—see.”

  “That’s the same reason I ain’t taking off afoot myself,” I said pointedly enough he could understand. The Lucifer match, I struck on my leg, flashed alive and I held it to the pine needles until they flared up. I saw her face in the blaze. The vision of her warmed me as much as any fire.

  Kyle began cussing the stage line and everyone else as he stomped around like a spoiled child. His fresh tirade was uncalled for and I could see it embarrassed Mary Logan. If the drummer hadn’t called him down first, I would have.