Much Ado About Mavericks (6 page)

“As a matter of fact, I hear tell you fingered his privates, hoping to find pussy.”

She slugged down the rest of her whiskey, feeling his glare burn a hole in her back.  No more than two jabs, she figured, and she’d have him.  “You heard wrong.  If that’s what I wanted, I’d check you out first thing.”

Whirling and taking a glancing blow off her cheekbone, she slugged him in the gut with her left fist, then pasted him in the nose with her right.  As he grabbed his nose, she kicked his legs out from under him and, straddling him, she pinned him to the floor.  “Now,
girlie
, do you want to apologize, or do you want me to show your tiny little nuts to God and everyone?”

“That’ll be enough, Jake.”  Marshal Hiatt, the town’s lawman, towered over them.

“I expect so,” Jake said, shrugging as she rose to her feet.  “This whippersnapper don’t never learn.” 

Grady rolled away from her, whimpering and holding his bleeding nose.

The marshal hauled the cowhand off the floor.  “Boys, take this sonovabitch to my wife—she’ll patch him up.  Then I want him the hell out of town.  Understand?” 

When they grunted and nodded, he turned to Jake and sighed as he gripped her arm.  “I’ll be taking you in.”

Smirking, she held out her hands for the cuffs.  “Figgered that.”

*   *   *   *   *

“Wait’ll I tell the marshal the news!” the storekeeper said as she folded the britches Ben had bought.  “Why, he’ll be happy as a kitten lapping a bucket of cream when he finds out you’re staying.  And I’ll get particular pleasure in informing a few snooty old ladies around here just how wrong they was.”

Ben winced at her assumption, but decided not to correct her.  “I have a wire to send, then I’ll be back to pick up my goods.”

Mrs. Hiatt nodded without looking up.  “Don’t be long, Skeeter.  I’m shutting down early today.  Got to finish the fall harvest in the garden before the weather turns bad.”

“
Ben
,” he corrected on his way out.  At the telegraph office, he sent a wire telling his senior partner
, Mr. Morris,
that all was going well
and that he’d be back in time for
the Alexander Graham Bell case
. 

Now, if he could only convince them to go East with him.  He hadn’t
brought up the subject to Suzanne again
, but his mother showed no sign of relenting.  He couldn’t fathom why she wanted to live in Henderson Flats rather than the home he’d bought for her in
Boston
.

Mrs. Hiatt smiled as he walked in the store.  “Your packages are ready.  Tell your mama we’ll be getting a shipment of dry goods next Thursday.  Might have a piece that’d work up real nice for her.”

“She’s expecting it.”  He picked up the armload of packages, and as he turned, two men carried
in
another with blood streaming down his face.

“Grady, here, needs a bit of patching up, ma’am.”

“Oh, dear.  Take him to the back room and I’ll fetch my medicine bag.”

One of them men looked at Ben.  “You Skeeter?”

If he never heard that nickname again, it would be too damned soon.  “I’m Ben Lawrence.”

“Well,
Skeeter
, you better get your ass over to the jail and bail out your lady foreman.”

“Why would Jake be in jail?”

“Defending the honor of a feller who lets a woman do his fighting for him.”  Both men snickered.

Asshole
.  Ben felt like bloodying the loudmouth’s nose to match his friend’s.  He shoved the packages back on the counter.  “I’ll be back.”  He took off for the jailhouse at a dead run.  Damned woman! 

He burst through the door, then stopped and took a deep breath.  He needed to be collected for the next few minutes, and collected he’d be. 

“Howdy, Skeeter.”  Marshal Hiatt didn’t even look up from his paperwork. “I thought you’d show up in a hurry.”  He chuckled, put down his pencil, and picked up his keys.  “You probably want to see the prisoner.”

“Go to hell!” Jake called from the second cell, her hands on the bars.  “The prisoner don’t want to see
him
.” 

She had the beginnings of a shiner.  Ben suppressed a smile.  He’d never seen a woman with a black eye before, but from the looks of things, the poor fellow who picked a fight with her ended up in a lot worse shape.  “So who threw the first punch?”

“Grady, from the Lazy B.”  She cocked her head and grinned.  “Didn’t do him no good, though.  I busted his ugly nose and gave him a gut-ache he’ll remember for a day or two.”

The marshal chuckled.  “His nose wouldn’t be so ugly if you hadn’t broke it twice before.”

“Can’t help it if he keeps running into my fist.  He oughta keep his damned nose where it belongs.  Someone oughta take pity on the poor sunovabitch and shoot him.”

“Let’s not discuss shooting people while you’re on the wrong side of the bars,” Ben chided.  He turned to the marshal.  “What’s it going to take to get my foreman out of jail?”

“Just a promise that you’ll keep her out of trouble.  I ain’t filing charges.  To a man, all of ‘em at the saloon said that Grady started it.”  Tossing the keys and catching them in the same hand, he added, “Jake finished it, like she always does.”  He opened the cell door and motioned for her to come out.  “You’re free to go, Jake, but I don’t want to see you back in here for at least a month or so.”

“You won’t.  I’ve got work to do and the roundup starts in three weeks, so I won’t be no trouble to you till at least November.”

The marshal handed her Colt to her, then winked at Ben.  “Good luck.” 

Ben escorted her out to the boardwalk.  “I have to get my packages from the mercantile.  You wait here.”

“Wait, hell. I’m going with you.”

Just as they walked in, one of the men who’d helped Grady was walking out.  “I’ll get the marshal.  He’s good at setting noses.”

“I’ll set it.”  Jake looked so sincere, it was laughable.  She shrugged.  “I set noses all the time on the Bar EL.”

“The hell you will!” came a
man’s
stuffed up voice from the back room. 

Mrs. Hiatt shoved Ben’s packages in his arms.  “You best be headed out, and take Jake with you.  I’ll take care of this here whiner.”  She sniffed.  “Imagine that!  A grown man whimpering about a little ol’ broken nose.”

Ben waited until they’d ridden at least a half a mile out of town before he spoke.  “You need to stay out of trouble until I get the estate settled, Jake.  You want the land that Pa said you could have, and I have a lot to do before you own it free and clear.”

“Hell, if you’d just work the ranch through roundup, we wouldn’t have no problem.  But no, you gotta do every damned thing the hard way.  Besides, why do you think I wasted my time fighting a wimp like Grady?”

Ben tensed his jaw, wanting her to understand his choice, his life in
Boston
, but knew
she couldn’t—he doubted she’d
ever known any life but ranching.  Most of all, he wished there was some way he could earn her respect.  Damn it all, he didn’t need her admiration, but her disdain irked him. 

“All right, I’ll bite,” he said, against his better judgment.  “Why did you fight him?”

“Because,
Boston
, all the hands around think you can’t cut it.  And you’re proving them right.” 

She drew her pistol and shot, then rode off the road a ways, trotting back a minute later with a dead rabbit.  “I’m having me some stew for supper.”

Chapter 3
 

As soon as Ben escorted Jake back to the Bar EL, he tossed his packages on the front porch, kicked the big bay to a gallop and rode right back to Henderson Flats.  Maybe he was a fool and an idiot, but he was no damned coward.  His father would never know that—or care—but Jake was going to damned well find out.

Just as he rode into town, he met Grady, the man whose nose Jake broke, riding out with several other hands from the Lazy B. 

“Hey, boys, there’s the man who hides behind a woman.  Hell, if she won’t wear a skirt, he might as well.”

Ben ignored the well-lubricated cowhand.  Not quickening his pace, he rode on.  A poke at his back got his attention, though. 

“Why don’t you crawl down off that fine piece of horseflesh and fight like a man?  Or do you prefer to send the women-folk to do your fighting for you?”

Ben glared at the beat-up specimen.  “You already look like you’ve been run through a meat grinder.  Can’t say I’d get much pleasure from fighting you today.”

“Fight me, then,” came a deep voice.  A big man, muscle-bound and clean-shaven, leaned on the pommel and stared his challenge.

Ben saw no way around it.  A fight they wanted, and a fight they’d have.  Frankly, he could use the exercise.  But not here.  “All right.  Meet me at the Silver Sage tonight at seven.  I’ll be there.”

Grady laughed.  “Yeah, fellas, he’s got to go get Jake for protection.”  His friends guffawed.

Ben took a deep breath and counted to ten.  “Jake won’t be there, and neither will you.  This is a fight between your buddy and me.”

With that, he kicked his horse into a gallop and rode straight to the Henderson Flats telegraph office, not caring if he stirred up the dust or not.  He had come back only for the sake of his mother and sister, but now it was time to reclaim his honor.  Maybe Jake was right—he needed to play this game by country rules.  He swung off his horse and bounded up the stairs.

Without a word to the telegrapher, he grabbed a paper from the counter and wrote,
More to do than expected.  Back in late November
.  “Send that to Creighton Morris at Morris & Graves Law Office in
Boston
.”  

*   *   *   *   *

“I don’t want just any man,” Suzanne said, hands on her hips.

Jake jabbed the pitchfork into the hay, wishing Suzanne would find something else to talk about.  Marriage was a downright disgusting topic.  “Glad to hear it.”

“The will says I have to get married by the end of this year, and what if the fellow I have my eye on doesn’t take the bait?”

“Don’t marry him, then.  Ain’t nothing says you got to get married.  Your brother’s gonna bust the will.”  She leaned on the pitchfork and wiped the sweat from her brow.  Suzanne always followed her like a puppy, a vexatious habit of hers.  “Hell, a year from now, you’ll be some
Boston
society lady, twittering to twenty young fellers, every one of ‘em with their tongues hanging out.”

Suzanne frowned.  “Sounds dreadful, doesn’t it?”

“Yup.”  She pulled the pitchfork out of the hay and raked the ground with it, for lack of anything better to do while Suzanne wound down and left her alone.

“But I do want to get married.  I have my husband all picked out.”

“He might have some say on the matter—you ever thought about that?”

“Plenty.”  Suzanne sighed and looked toward the sky, her hands clenched against her bosom.  “Every night.  Why, sometimes I can’t even hold still, I feel so funny inside just thinking about him.”  She cocked her head and looked Jake straight in the eye.  “You ever felt that way?”

“Nope, I can’t say as I ever have.”  But she had—since the day Ben stumbled out of the stagecoach.  “But you’ll get over it.”

“I don’t want to get over it.  I want a baby.”

Jake threw hunk of grass to the horses.  “Hell, Suzanne, you don’t need no husband to get kids.  I picked up two strays myself.  Or you could buy a puppy, they’re easier to train.” 

She leaned the pitchfork against the manger.  “If you want my advice, here it is—don’t take my advice.  I don’t know a dad-blamed thing about being a female, and, by the looks of things, I don’t want to find out.  Near as I can tell, men only want women to clean their house and give them a poke every now and again.  And to be brood mares.  I ain’t got no store in any of that.  I’m making my own way on my own terms.”

Suzanne didn’t seem the least bit swayed.  But then, she’d been raised to live on a man’s terms.  Old Ezra had kept a short leash on his daughter, and she’d never known a smidgen of freedom in her entire life.  Jake reckoned she’d be even more caged in
Boston
.

“I won’t marry a mean man, like . . .”  Suzanne clamped her mouth shut, then sighed.  “Like I said, I have my husband all picked out.”

“Who’s your prey?”

“Peter Blacker.”

“Petey?  Hell, he ain’t worth spit.  Even Ol’ Harley don’t think so.”

Suzanne sniffed and jutted out her chin.  “His father has never taken good measure of Peter, just like my father never gave Ben a chance.  But Ben’s a good man, and so is Peter.”

Ben had never been given a chance?  Jake didn’t believe that any more than she believed a porcupine could knit.  Ben had spent his first fifteen years on the ranch—plenty of time to show his mettle.  Why, she’d signed on with the Bar EL at the age of twelve, a few months after her pa had died.  And at twelve, she’d done a man’s work all day, every day.