The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1) by Brad Dennison (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

down from the cabin, to drop in the grass beside their guard. He wore a floppy, beaten sombrero, from under which greasy hair fell to his shoulders. He bore a knife scar that began at one cheekbone, extending upward to his brow, and his eye was a sightless milky white.

“Who’s that?” Josh asked.

Tempy glanced over, then snapped her gaze away with...what? Disgust? Fear? Josh wasn’t sure. But the gunman was looking over at her, his mouth spreading into a grin.

“That’s White Eye,” Tempy said.

“I think he likes you,” Josh said, probing for a response.

“I would never let that man touch me. I would kill myself, first.”

“What does Loggins say about it? You’re his girl.”

“He just laughs. He tells me White eye means no harm. But I’ve known men like that. Harm is all they mean. Like Kiowa.”

Josh shook his head. “I would never let a man look at my girl that way. I’d tell him to keep his eyes away, or I’d fill him with lead.”

She looked at him at the sudden suggestion of gunplay. “Are you as good as Dusty says?”

Josh shrugged, playing it like an actor on opening night. “I never gave it much thought. But if White Eye doesn’t stop looking at you like that, and if Loggins doesn’t do anything about it, then White Eye is going to find out the hard way how good I am.”

Dusty put in, “It’d be White Eye’s funeral.”

The girl’s brow knit. “I could see you maybe wanting to fight Loggins over me. Not that I’m that rich a prize, but there aren’t many available women in most parts of the west. But why would you want to fight White Eye?”

“I don’t fight for possession of a woman. You’re not an object. I would fight to defend your honor.”

Her gaze drifted to the grass beyond where she sat, and she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms about them. “I’ve never heard a man talk like that about me. After all, I know what I am. Most men would feel I had long since lost any honor worth defending.”

“I’m no one to judge. You do what you have to, to survive in this world.”

She looked at him again. “You don’t talk like most men.”

“That’s because most men you meet are in a saloon, ready to get liquored-up and spend money to buy you. I’m not one of those men.”

“You’ve never been with a saloon whore?”

“Well, I can’t really say that.” He was thinking of one in particular at Alicia Summer’s establishment, who didn’t mind him stopping in once in a while. But she had never charged him. “But I’ve never paid for one.”

There was silence then, and she let her gaze drift beyond the aspens to the rocky rim of the canyon. Josh did the same, but didn’t want the silence to be too long. He had gotten her train of thought moving in a certain direction, and wanted to build on that.

“How did you meet Loggins?” he asked, knowing fully well the answer. Where else would a saloon whore meet an outlaw?

She sighed. “In the saloon, back in town. He and Vic and some of the men started showing up regularly.”

“Were they all your customers?”

“Some of them.”

“But not White Eye.”

“No. He scared me from the start. And Kiowa was rough. He likes to hurt a girl. I told Flossy about it. She spoke to Vic, and Kiowa is no longer allowed near us.”

“He hurt you? He’ll pay for that.”

Dusty shook his head. “No. Kiowa is mine.”

Tempy continued. “Flossy eventually became Vic’s woman, and I became Loggins’. We spend most of our time out here at the hideout, now. We don’t get paid anymore, but our meals are provided. They brought me along on one of their recent raids, to cook. And Loggins is only one man, at least. That’s something, to know there will be only one man there, every night.”

So, it was indeed her shoe prints they had seen at the remains of their camp in the ridges surrounding the McCabe’s valley.

“So,” Josh said, “what were you doing at the saloon a couple days ago? Looked like you were working.”

“Flossy still runs some girls that work there. She was in town, and I went with her. I was just lounging in the saloon, having a drink.”

“Not the kerosene that barkeep serves.”

She chuckled. “No. He keeps the good stuff for his special customers. And because I’m with Loggins, I get to drink for free. I was just having a little fun with you when you and Dusty showed up.”

“Tell me something,” he said. “You told me your name was Felicia, and you have also said Sarah-Ann. How did they get ‘Tempy’ out of either one of them?”

She laughed. “My name was never Sarah-Ann. I said that because I was told to ride in and find out all I could from you. I don’t call myself Felicia, either. That’s a name Flossy thought I should use. My parents named me Temperance, but everyone calls me Tempy. I hate it, but somehow, ‘Temperance’ isn’t quite becoming of a saloon whore.” She laughed, and Josh noticed a bitter tone in it.

“How much of what you told me was a lie?”

“Not all of it. My father was in the Army. My parents died, and I was forced into this line of work to stay alive. Sad story, right?” Again, a bitter chuckle. “I had a sister named Faith, who was older than me. She married before Ma and Pa died, and moved back east.”

“Weren’t there any other children?”

“A boy and two other girls, all who died at birth.”

“Wasn’t there any family you could have gone to when your parents died?”

She shook her head. “My sister is all I have, and I am not going to be a burden to her. She and her husband are farmers, living in New Hampshire, and they’re raising a brood of children. They don’t need another mouth to feed.”

“So, you took to the saloons.”

She nodded. “I was fifteen.