“Judge Travis, I do not need a babysitter on my three hour ride to Jackal.” Mary Travis spoke angrily, tormented, hated being treated like a lady instead of a well respected woman who’s lived on her own for the past two years.
In the beginning she agreed to have the hired help from the seven gunslingers she had since invited into her home, her life, her personal business with her son. The seven men she grew proud to call her friends. But now she didn’t need those seven men, not even one or two to aide her to the town of Jackal on her own business. Her business was private, not personal, and she had no intention of gathering an argument with her father-in-law when he protested she needed assistance.
“Mary, this isn’t argumentative. What happened with Governor Hopewell and the death threat, it wouldn’t be wise for you to travel alone delivering those newspapers that says nothing but statehood. The very cause this unknown man wanted you dead for.” Judge Travis told her as a-matter-of-fact. It didn’t matter if the only connection was his son, Stephen; Mary was still the mother of his grandson. The only family besides himself Billy had and he’d be damned if he’d let her go alone, seeking whatever trouble lurked in that town. He didn’t want her to face death or any trouble and that was the bottom line. He was making someone go with her.
“Oren, it’s not up to you.”
“It’s up to me now!” he raised his voice and tossed his hat back on his head and walked out of the Clarion.
Mary turned around, gathering how the small confrontation with the judge ended. She needed to do this on her own, stand up for herself, not to have some gunslinger, protector standing behind her, breathing down her neck, then pulling her away from the confidence she managed to weld in her throat ready to throw out. And that’s exactly the kind of gunslinger Judge Oren Travis would decide to ride with her. Someone who didn’t care about the cause. Someone who wanted nothing more to do than shoot off his gun in the first movement of suspicion.
Someone who was Chris Larabee.
Oh, Judge better not pick him, Mary protested.
Chris was the one who told her to stand down for what she believed in, what she thought about statehood, and he wanted to her to end it all by not going out into the public for what may happen to her. And in his final plea, he threw down one of her newspapers and told her, not asked her, told her that he was going with her.
Despite the need to have Chris Larabee by her side, behind her, watching in every direction for her protection, she thanked him deep inside but never expressing her thanks to him eye to eye. She thanked Ezra Standish for protecting her, for taking that bullet for her. The pain he had to endure all because of her. And she was deeply thankful to him.
Chris was a different story. A complicated story. Having these awkward feelings for the man, he never once bothered to tell her how he felt, if he felt anything at all for her. For a while their professional relationship took a detour and they were communicating on a much higher level dealing with grief, loss, and somewhere in the middle love. But their growing relationship took a backseat when that woman Ella Gaines appeared in town, sweeping Chris off his feet faster than Mary could spell a three letter word. She didn’t have time to tell the love sick gunslinger that he shouldn’t leave the town and go with Ella and assist her in the little problem she had with some locals. She didn’t have time to tell Chris about how she really felt. The timing never worked but the chance of actually losing Chris entirely to that woman left an aching pinch in her gut and she found she was losing her own chance to tell him the truth behind her anger.
She attempted to ask the infamous question, “How long will you be?”
And Chris, lost in love and lust grinning like a fool and said, “Shouldn’t be too long. You’ll be all right.”
And Mary didn’t know that too long would have ended in forever if Chris didn’t discover that Ella Gaines who stole his heart would be the person behind his family’s murder.
Two weeks prior and the incident with Governor Hopewell, she and Chris haven’t spoke since and planned to keep it that way for as long as needs be. And that time may just be now.
She knew Judge Travis would ask Chris personally to assist Mary in the ride to Jackal only because he trusted Chris, confided in him, would trust him with his own life. Mary was apart of Judge Travis’s personal life with his grandson and the town he did his best to clean up, the town Mary partially ran with the seven gunslingers. The Judge didn’t want another man protecting the only parent Billy had.
Knowing Chris’s feelings, his passions, and the strictness of protecting whatever came his way. If that included his relentless, now deceased, father-in-law, or JD, the young man, seeking bullets, fights, and arguments then so be it.
Mary crossed her arms over her chest walking up to the window revealing the town lot. She watched her ruthless father-in-law walk up to Chris as she suspected and ask him what he wanted to ask him. Take Mary for a ride, protect her, watch her, make sure she doesn’t do anything that might get her killed. Those sorts of thoughts. Those kinds of demands and questions. Just like the man he was.
She watched Chris’s body language, his formation, the way he leaned his body off the wooden post in front of the bank where he usually stood with either Vin or Buck. He let his thumbs loose from his gun belt and allowed his arms to drop free from tension as he took in every word Judge Travis said.
Just the look Chris sent off gave Mary the impression he wasn’t any happier about the request of the Judge as she was with his demand. The Judge wasn’t a fool, and Mary knew that but she didn’t have to have him choose who’d ride with her to Jackal.
Especially not Chris Larabee of all people. Anyone else she’d be okay with, calm, relaxed, but if Chris agreed she knew she could be none of the above. He dug himself way too deep under her skin to the point the irritated scratching was no use to get rid of.
Then they shook hands. Mary softly cursed under her breath, something she was never too keen about doing unless it was useful in situations and she needed to do something to spat out how she felt about the way things ended in her lap.
Chris agreed to ride with Mary to the Town of Jackal, the shake of their rugged hands proved that.
---
As suspected, Chris was outside the Clarion without so much an exchange of a word or glance at Mary the whole thirty minutes after he agreed to Judge Travis’s request. He was doing it for the Judge, because to protect was his job. Not for Mary.
Midway through saddling his horse and adjusting the reins, he caught a glimpse of that fine woman standing behind him with her back to him, fixing up her own horse for the short three hour journey she should be making herself, alone by herself.
This request of Judge Travis’s almost seemed life altering if he didn’t have someone assist. As if she couldn’t take care of herself. Yeah, she’ll admit that she hadn’t exactly been the one to ride the longest, stand up to drunken scum in Purgatory when she was in need of help. Chris’s help. But that was for the town, not because Chris decided to leave and seek danger on his own just because he didn’t like the new law. She’ll also admit that she was sadden to see Chris go, leave without saying so much what was on his mind, but then again, back then, almost six months ago now, they hadn’t had much of a relationship. Just business and after the incident with Ella Gaines she didn’t expect there be anymore growing between them. She knew it and preferred to stick to that non-emotional relationship.
“Town of Jackal is three hours away if not more. You may need to stop one or two times to rest the horses, rest yourselves before moving on.” Judge Travis said, showing Chris and Mary his old parent, grandfather worry. It didn’t matter how old the people he worried about were, he just worried. Simple as that.
“I’m very well aware of the distance and timing, Oren.” Mary said as-a-matter-of-fact walking up the wooden step to kiss her stubborn, worried wart father-in-law on the cheek.
Shaking his head, he knew exactly what Mary was thinking. That he shouldn’t have stuck his nose in her business. That she shouldn’t have even invited him into her business. After all, she shouldn’t have said a word about it. She just should have said she would be gone a few days and that’d be that.
Mary turned away from him and glanced over her shoulder at Chris finishing with his saddle. She somehow caught his eyes when he glanced right up into hers. For a short three seconds they had a locked eye constant but the burly, desert wind roared Mary’s loose blond hair into her face, into her eyes and she blinked from their intense stare to pull her hair from her face.
“Where are Buck and JD? Shouldn’t they be pulling the wagon around here?” Judge Travis asked, looking around the lot for a piece of wooden carriage on wheels lugging ten stacks of freshly printed newspapers. “Better get your horses finished before we harness them to the wagon reins.”
Mary reached down by Travis’s feet and lifted the silk luggage bag containing her personal items, one extra dress, another pair of long underwear and an additional uncomfortable corset for emergencies.
“Billy should be coming into town either this evening or tomorrow. I’m not sure what the times were from Donan.”
“And I’ll tell him you’ll be right back. That you had business to tend to in another town.” Travis said.
“Don’t lie to him.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that.”
He may have been a circuit judge but he was also one for pranks, jokes, and down right cruel manners when he wanted. Like any man, Mary supposed, but this particular man watched out for her son when she wasn’t around. He needed to be the grandfather Billy deserved, not a prankster. But she didn’t need to worry about that with him. It was more Buck or Ezra doing the pranking, the misleading. Mary took one, good look at her father-in-law before leaning to give him another kiss on the cheek.
“I know you wouldn’t, but I’m not so sure about Buck.” Despite being angry with him about asking that gunslinger, the best in town, she managed to give him a soft smile anyway. The smile Judge Travis knew only Mary could give.
After the gallop of Buck and JD with the wagon steering around the outskirts of town, finally making its turn in front of the Clarion, Buck assisted Chris in fixing his horse along with Mary’s tampered horse to the reins of the wagon, hooking them in nice and tight for the long journey ahead of them.
Long journey, eh? Mary still couldn’t live down that Chris was coming with her. Above anyone in the town, above all the gunslingers, it had to be Chris. Not Buck, not Vin, not Josiah, but Chris.
Telling off their friends for a good and safe trip in the outskirts and the desert air of the dry land, Chris gripped the reins in his hands and snapped them up then down to get the horses walking at a steady pace. Alone in the front seat, Chris watched his friends wave goodbye as Mary leaned outside the back of the wagon messing with her tightly bundled newspapers. She didn’t want to be close to Chris anymore than she had to be, but the time would come where she wanted to see the front view of the ride instead of eating dust where she sat now.
--
When Four Corners became a dot in the distance, Mary put her head in the back of the wagon and checked each one of her newspapers making sure everything was in place. Everything neat and tidy as she sought out them to be. How she arranged them then unarranged them.
“There a reason for this journey, Mary?” Chris asked from the front seat, arching his back against the cotton flaps of the wagon, the wooden post for support.
“Nothing you’d be interested in, Mr. Larabee.” Mary shot back then turned her back to his back, looking around her newspapers again shifting from the movement of the rough gravel of the desert land the wheels rolled on.
Ten stacks she counted again, ten stacks for the mail room, the press, the newspaper office in the town of Jackal.
The most prestigious part of this town was the newspaper and no later than a week prior to this journey Mary received a telegram requesting she make bundles of her known newspaper and send them right away to Jackal’s News office.
Apparently they got word of Governor Hopewell coming to Four Corners, how Mary’s life was at stack for statehood, and they wanted every bit of detail from the speech to the incident, then finally the death of the young man whose father was hired to assassinate Mary. The whole story they wanted and nothing else and thought none other than Mary to write it herself.
Adding to the deal, Mr. Mori, the town’s editor, told her he would pay twenty dollars for every stack she’d make. So in return and replying back his telegram she told him she’d make ten equal newspapers for him and would deliver them herself three days later.
Twenty dollars a newspaper stack—a deal Mary wouldn’t pass up. It didn’t matter so much for the money, she thought, just the reaction and notice she’ll get with response about the conquest of her assassination that failed miserably and what Governor Hopewell planned to do with the state of New Mexico and how the statehood promises should be kept and spread for everyone believing in it instead of just one man taking over, making his own decisions.
Yeah, everything, every bit of detail about statehood and what happened in Four Corners was beginning to get recognition and since the majority of the locals in Four Corners knew about the assassination attempt and suspected the governor was behind it all—she planned to bring him down too and therefore statehood would reign over the state of New Mexico.
Mary thought anything but cautious about Mr. Mori or the Town of Jackal. He was on her side, the whole town would be on her side, and that was why she’d minded traveling to the town by herself. Nothing could go wrong.
“Two hours and counting,” she heard Chris say. She turned, facing him now and poked through the opening in front where he sat alone. “Been travelin’ for a good two hours. The horses need to rest.” He let up on the reins in his sweaty hands from the heated sun straight above in the sky and the horses slowly halted to a stop.
“Over there,” Mary pointed to a bushel of trees in the near distant. “Take them over there for shade.”
Chris turned the reins and the horses tilted to a diagonal stride to the trees. When the wagon completely stopped Chris hopped off the wooden, stiff seat and stretched his legs and bent his back to an arch with his arms over his head. Stretching every limb in his body, every muscle.
Without help from Chris, as if she needed it, Mary stepped off the wagon and brushed off her dress, pulling at the creases making the light blue material sleek. She untied the ribbon from the bottom of her chin and released her bountiful blond hair from the cooped up straw hat.
It was a beautiful day, going to get a lot more beautiful once they reach Jackal and being the stubborn she was, she was still a woman and wanted to look her best. Not some sweaty, puffed gal looking for some fun or just something to shower in. She planned to look her best with her brightest smile, the hint of cockiness in her brows, and the sway of her hips with the I-know-what-I’m-talking-about impression.
“How long will we be?” she asked Chris who lingered in the back of the wagon for the packed gear for the horses and himself. He pulled out two cantinas full of water and headed back to the horses, snipping at the grass.
“What’s the big hurry, Mrs. Travis?” Chris asked, extended his arm to hand Mary the other cantina.
“Nothing you need to be concerned with. Nothing grand that you shouldn’t be here with me.” Nothing grand at all, she said again, nothing grand that he should present himself with the lust in his eyes, the concern worry in his forehead, the troublesome expression slapped across his face.
“Somethin’s goin’ to happen’. Otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to come.”
“You shouldn’t have agreed at all.” Mary said tightly. She untwisted the cantina’s top realizing she hadn’t taken a sip of the cold water yet Chris had provided for her. She didn’t think to pack any food or refreshments for the trip but then again she didn’t think Chris would be here either.
With that quick conversation minus the argument and straight attack talk with her whip tongue, neither Chris nor Mary had much to say. He finished with the horses, allowed them to rest for a good forty minutes before pushing on to the town of Jackal where Chris would get his rest with finding the saloon, taking a backseat in Mary’s little expedition to the town’s newspaper office.
--
And it planned out like that. After making a halt in front of the newspaper building, Mr. Mori stood in front of the building doors waiting patiently for Mary’s arrival.
Chris let go of the reins, whispered a word or two to the horses and only a word to Mary telling her he was moving onto the saloon and he’d be there if she needed anything. Business men, bankers, and even newspaper editors weren’t Chris’s taste and he knew he had to disappear from the scene immediately and get back into his comfort zone. Where the liquor was served, the ladies roamed, and piano keys played.
Taking a deep breath and free from Chris’s dark sight, Mary walked up to Mr. Mori bright smile, gleeful and all too strange for her to take in. The two burly men on both sides of the editor didn’t suspicion Mary as the men standing behind her did.
“Mr. Mori. I have the newspapers you’ve asked for. The whole story right here.” Mary turned on her heel, backing up to the wagon, the very back and hauling out one of the stacks. She walked it back up to Mr. Mori who continued to grin like a damn fool and put it down at his feet. One of the men behind her sideswiped her, tugging on the hay string wrapped around the stack and pulled it in his arms then walked closer to Mr. Mori, letting him inspect it.
This was weird. Mary’s heart thudded in her chest. So hard she thought it’d burst right out. Something wasn’t right and she sniffed that right away, and then she wondered why Chris didn’t and decided to leave her as soon as they reached town.
“Just what I was looking for, Mrs. Travis,” Mr. Mori dropped his smile and took the stack from the hired man’s arms. “Are the rest in the back of the wagon?”
“Yes,” Mary said shakily.
Mr. Mori licked his dry lips, catching the scruffy whip of his growing mustache then moved his dark, mustard green eyes to the men standing beside him and motioned for them to begin unloading the wagon with the swift of his head, moving his brown, growing gray hair.
“Come with me, Mrs. Travis. The money’s inside for the exchange.”
With hesitation and the resistance in her legs, she pushed back what she thought something might happen within those doors of the dark building, the strange locals looking at her, the way their eyes scanned her from head to toe. The flares in their noses, the spark in the burning red eyes told Mary to not go inside those doors.
Mr. Mori turned a ninety degree angle finding Mary foot locked to the dirt road. “Mrs. Travis, would you?”
Taking another extensive breath and unexpected it, the men behind her nudged her shoulders and literally forced her to walk in the building. Oh, no, something definitely was not right.
--
Ten minutes give or take it had to have been since Chris left Mary alone to the newspaper junkies to discuss newspaper business. And the gunslinger found himself on his fifth shot of tequila. After rejecting the two ladies walking his way, touching his shoulders, massaging his forearm, running fingertips down his chest eventually meeting his hand linking fingers, Chris slammed down his shot glass and walked out of the saloon content enough with himself to get the move on out of this town and back home.
He shoved open the saloon swinging doors and looked about the town full of no one. Worse than the first day he stepped foot in Four Corners when it was at its worst point to just shut down the town for good. Except this time, no bullets flew about the sky, no one tried to hang a man for winning the battle but not the war, and that woman standing in the middle of the town lot raising that rifle of hers to stop those men from the hanging.
Any activity was worse than no activity. He looked down the road and had a good view on Jackal’s News building. He walked down the length where saloon and alley met and took a seat in one of the wooden rocking chairs, looking nice and steady on that building and wait until Mary came out with the money giving the signal they could leave now.
--
When she found the letter from Governor Hopewell to Mr. Samuel Mori, Mary knew she was in for the beating when she questioned him about. The letter that was meant to keep private but somehow Mr. Mori didn’t succeed in hiding it when Mary arrived and walked right in the office with force from the two men.
“There really wasn’t a deal, was there?” she asked prior to the smack across the face from Mr. Mori. She didn’t understand. What did he want with the story? Why was he beating her until she gave up answers to his repeated questions? None of this made sense until he told her after another slap.
“Governor Hopewell has done a lot for this town. A lot for this state and he will not let one woman tear him down.” Mr. Mori said as two of his men pulled Mary’s arms to her back, tying her to a chair. “My brother will not be defeated by you.” Another slap across the face, from cheek to cheek, scraping his brass ring along her soft complexion.
“You see we’ll all connected somehow. My cousin failed to assassinate you when your hotel manager found him dead. His son failed to kill you with his bare hands.” He hit Mary again, making her lip bleed. “But this time, I will not fail in killing you with my bare hands.”
“What were the newspapers for? Why did you want them?” Mary choked out when Mr. Mori’s hands moved to circle around her neck.
“It was an plea to get you here. And now I am about to kill the only woman who stands in the way of Governor Hopewell’s success. I’d be damned to let you stop him.”
“It’s not me you should be worried about,” Mary said, voice shaking, lip bleeding, eyes swollen with tears but she managed to suck those up, showing her bravery.
But God, where was Chris? It’d been long enough for him to have a suspicion to make sure she was okay. Because she wasn’t. She was about to meet her death unless Chris did something about it but there was no way to yell for him because if she did, she’d surely be dead after.
“There’s no one else I’m more worried about. Let’s put it that way.” Mori said, laughing out the most hideous laugh she ever heard.
“If you kill me, you’ll have seven gunslingers if not the whole town of Four Corners stampeding in here like some damn cattle run.” Mary said, moving her tied hands, trying to release the tight grip but it was no use.
Mori lowered his body, arched his back and put his hands on the armrests of the chair and looked Mary dead in the eye. “Is that a threat?”
“In your case, yes it is.” Mary managed to say through clenched teeth and a tight expression.
“I’m real scared.” Mori spoke slowly then blew hot breath on her face, breezing back the loose strands from her half pinned up hair. He leaned back up and told one of his men to hand him his pistol. “Which way you want it, ma’am, bullet or just a slow choke?”
Mary let out a heap of breath from her closed tight lips, keeping her tears locked in her eyes, looking straight ahead of her praying to God Chris would show up in the last second. Bleeding from the mouth, dripping down to the baby blue, now dirty dress from the earlier wrestle on the Jackal’s office floorboards when she first found out about Governor Hopewell’s letter. The first beat from Mori right in the face, knocking her senses dead as her head slammed on the floor.
After a minute passed and no sign of her protector she relentlessly wanted to tag along and now glad he had but greatly horrified that he may not fulfill his duty. She was alone. Alone in the town, in the world, in her mind and her time clock was up.
“Since you give me no choice I’ll choose for you.” Mori said and Mary closed her eyes blocking out the snickering of the men around her. Tears flung from her eyes, her face throbbed, her wrists burned from the rough rope.
Her eyes snapped open then when two, large hands clasped around her neck squeezing gently at first then taking a rather rough turn squeezing harder.
--
Chris sat rocking the rocking chair on the end of the saloon watching the dead town lot with nothing on his mind but the usual thoughts of his small shack on the outskirts of Four Corners, the book he planned to finish when he arrived back, and the last thought he never forgot when a new day passed: Sarah and Adam.
And right then, he wanted a cigar. He craved to have a cigar twined between his fingers, the tobacco taste on his tongue, in his mouth, and the smell of the puffed cloud luring in the air around his nostrils. And that’s what he wanted to get. He planted his feet on the floorboards and stood to stretch out his muscles and walk across the town lot to the general supply store.
As he was about to enter the store he took one last glance at the Jackal’s News building making sure everything looked as it were when they arrived a half hour ago.
And it was just as he suspected until a man walked out, a man Chris recognized when Mary introduced herself. Watching the horses, his horse and Mary’s horse, Chris saw that man walking out of the newspaper building jump on the front of the wagon and reach for the reins to walk the horses around the building.
Something didn’t fit right and it was enough for Chris to forget the sensation of a cigar and walk his way to the man with the wagon, holding the reins to his horse.
Halfway there, the man saw Chris walking quickly to him without so much of a judgment in the eye with question about what he was doing with the wagon full of newspapers. With hesitation and a gut instinct something didn’t settle right with Chris and he quickened his walk to a hastily jog and ripped the reins from the man’s hands.
“What’re you doin’?” Chris asked, demanding to know right now. The man looked down upon Chris from the top of the wagon seat but didn’t have anything to say or couldn’t tell him and he tried to grab the reins back from Chris but he didn’t it have it that way.
“Hurry on up there, Joshua! She’s almost done for!” One of Mori’s men yelled out to the man in the wagon seat.
Joshua looked down in the darkest depths of the gunslinger’s mystified eyes and the very sight sent a shiver down his spine but the shiver didn’t last, turning into fear when Chris shoved the man from the seat and he toppled on his stomach on the opposite side.
Chris climbed up on the wagon seat and over it in the blink of an eye and grabbed Joshua lying in the dirt. He yanked him up from his jacket and shoved him hard into the closed doors of Jackal’s News building, half breaking the glass but more destroying the fine wood destined to make those doors shine.
All four men turned to find Chris Larabee holding the youngster of the band of brothers in his hand, holding him up by the shirt collar now.
Mori released his grip on Mary’s neck and reached for the pistol on his gun belt but Chris, too quick for any man, had him down like a dead dog, holding his blood in as he scrimmaged on the floor.
The man who called out Joshua’s name ran at Chris but he put him down just the same as he did to Mori. With the young Joshua still in his fist, he threw him hard against the other two brothers in the back of the room and they slammed on the floor from the impact.
Chris didn’t know what was going on, and he didn’t know why he had to go and shoot those two men. He looked around the room, at Mori laying face down in his own blood, and the other man he shot doing the same thing only laying eagle spread. Chris packed his pistol back in the holster around his gun belt.
He just killed two men and he didn’t have a clue why. It didn’t occur to him why until he landed eyes on an unconscious Mary Travis in the focal of the room. Panicked, but not so much as saying a word or groan, Chris ran up to Mary and grabbed her shoulders. From where her head laid, crooked down toward her lap, and after Chris grabbed her shoulders her head fell back, facing the ceiling.
Immediately, Chris checked her pulse and came up with something. Good, she wasn’t dead. Not yet. Just unconscious.
Chris tried to pull her body out of the chair but couldn’t and he turned around to the back of the chair and found her hands tied together, now bleeding from the constant struggle of trying to free herself.
In a quick swift, Chris untied her hands and they limped dead to her sides and her body about fell off the chair but Chris caught her before she managed to kiss the dusty floorboards.
“Mary?” Chris said after laying her body flat on the floor, tapping her swollen, beat face with his fingers. He tried to wake her up, but couldn’t. She was breathing, that gave a good sign but what the hell was he suppose to do? “Mary, wake up. Come on.” He continued to tap her face not wanting to put more hurt on her and when her eyes did flutter open it was for a mere second before she’d shut them again. “No, Mary, that’s not good enough.”
When stirring began to awaken the three men left alive in the back of the room, Chris had no choice but to slap Mary hard in the face and if that didn’t work by God what else could he do?
And it did work.
Now with her crying uncontrollably, Chris heaved himself off his knees from bending over Mary’s unconscious body; he ducked one arm under her thighs to swing her into his arms. She put her arms around his neck, remembering what had happened to her, where they were, and who was carrying her in the traditional way on a wedding night.
The three men themselves realized the sudden events of Mr. Mori dead and Kent, the other man shot dead. Before they even had the thought of running out to force Mary out of Chris’s arms and tear them both apart in the public eye for the murder of their boss and brother, Chris tugged on the reins of the horses, spitting out of the town like a bullet.
Marcus, the eldest of the brothers followed by Joshua, the youngest, and Daniel the family friend ran out to find the gunslinger and the wagon but both were gone from eyesight.
They still accompanied the newspapers. The newspapers revealing the truth about Governor Hopewell, his brother, his leader. The truth was out there on the run. And there was only one thing left to do and Marcus knew exactly what.
--
After galloping, hollering, praising, and consoling his nerves from the rush by himself, Chris turned around and looked through the wagon flaps at Mary resting consciously against a stack of newspapers. Damn those newspapers, Chris mumbled damn all those newspapers. This trip was a waste, a trick, a trick on Mary and what she believed in. Damn those people who tricked her. Damn them all.
Easing pressure on the horses, he continued to watch Mary as she caressed her throbbing throat, the imprinted fingers of Mori’s hands around her neck. The swollen, forming bruises circling her eyes. The dry blood crusted on her lips. The fresh drip of blood from her nose and black and blue smudges beneath the tip of her nose. And all these details were what he saw from afar. She could have been in worse shape in form and pain up close.
Chris put his attention back on horizon before him, squinting his eyes from the sudden blaze of the soon to be setting sun.
“Chris!”
Mary’s screeched voice box strained when she looked in the back of the wagon, finding three men riding fast toward them. Mary, half conscious by this point and scared half to death that she wasn’t herself at all, climbed her way to the front of the fast wagon ride to be closer to Chris. Unaware of her surroundings and half aware of what really happened with her as it all didn’t compute to her at the moment, she leaned into Chris to keep as safe as she could as if she were like any other lady scared.
Chris put both reins in one hand and pulled Mary’s scared stricken body closer to him. Keeping control of both the horses and the woman in his hold, Chris turned his head around and peered over the side of the wagon to see the three men riding up fast. Faster than he anticipated and before he knew it, a bullet flew right past his head causing him to whip back around and face this new obstacle of his.
Just another enemy to add to the list, Chris thought. He looked over at Mary and found her unconscious again. One man, a limp body to hold and can never let go, and a wagon full of controversial gossip, horror, and defeat. What more fun could Chris ask for?
With another round of bullets flying his way, Chris pulled Mary into his lap, arm across her chest, holding her tight, and then put the reins between his legs. He jerked his pistol from his gun belt and turned sideways to aim it at three gun men closer than he thought now. Almost close enough to spot one of them holding the reins of his horse with his left hand as he shot his gun off with his right, and another telling the youngest brother to ride up on the other side of the wagon.
Chris more than prepared himself to get ready for that little brother and when he did, that boy was done in the dust, foot caught in the reins of his horse, dragging him down the rocky dirt gravel.
Chris couldn’t help laughing. He couldn’t help but decide to kill all three of these men to what they watched or did to this woman in his arms. A woman who did nothing but speak her voice. A woman who gotten the beaten of her life for nothing. Battering woman never sat well with Chris and it never will—unless it came to Ella Gaines.
Erasing the thoughts of tricks being played on him for another story, Chris shot off another round of bullets at the two remaining men now at the back of the wagon to where Chris couldn’t see without breaking his neck to turn all the way around. He was in a tight situation with the reins of the horses slipping down between his legs and the tight grip of Mary in his occupied arm. He had to do something. And he had to do something quick when he felt a sudden pressure in the back of the wagon.
He turned around and found one of the men had jumped within the folds of the flaps, getting in pounce position with difficulty because of the rocking of the wagon.
Chris moved his gun to his back and shot off another bullet but didn’t hit anything and knew it without looking when that man reached out and grabbed Mary’s dress, about pulling her out of his grasp.
Sweating hard, Chris hauled Mary back up and stood up on the front wagon seat single floorboard and pulled Mary to the front of him as she managed to shake in and out of her consciousness. With some help of being awake, Chris whispered in her ear to hold the reins for as long as she could before he shoved her onto his galloping horse and in that quick second as Mary struggled to stay alert on the rough ride of the horse.
Chris free from everything but the wagon itself, he shot off his pistol and got the intruder right in the knee. A severe wound but not fatal. Just the kind Chris favored.
And without another struggle or effort from the man in the back of the wagon, Chris decided to leave him that wagon and get the hell out of the Dodge by jumping on the back of his horse, wrapping a hand around Mary’s stomach to keep her close and secure to his firm chest. He took his horse’s reins from her hands before shooting the rope that connected Mary’s horse to the wagon and with both horses’ reins in his hold; the wagon slowly came to a halt in the middle of the open desert, leaving the newspapers, the man, and everything inside.
Enjoying himself, he rode hard from the sight of the wagon and the two men, with Mary in front of him and her horse riding along just as fast before disappearing into a cluster of trees.
--
They got what they wanted, Chris supposed, the newspapers. All that information, the hard work Mary labored over for the past week. All down the hole of a water cellar.
It didn’t matter now as much anymore. He had a lot to think about as he held Mary’s unconscious body close to him, letting go of her horse as it willingly strolled alongside them.
He had lots to ask Mary about what happened in that newspaper office. What went down? What was said? What ticked off that Mr. Mori to have enough rage to strangle her to death? Mary had a mouth on her, a mind of her own that she proudly spoke out loud more than kept to herself. But whatever she said to anyone, to Chris, it was never cruel, untamed, or heartless.
A trick occurred for her. A trick of a trip what she was led into. A trick that very well could have ended her life and almost had if that youngster, Joshua, hadn’t turned Chris’s suspicion volume to loud.
Near dark, the sun more than half gone through the branches of the high trees swaying in the cool evening breeze, Chris made his way through an opening of those trees looking about the open desert finding out that north wasn’t north at all and that he had been heading in the wrong direction the entire time. How could he have gotten switched around? He knew these parts well ever since he was a kid out on his own, seeking fights, and violence. No one to tell him where or how to go, he just knew.
Not sure on where exactly he was, he knew the evening stars gave him the impression that it was time to wrap things up and head in the direction of the only town he knew they were close enough to.
--
When they had reached that town, Mary was rocking hard against Chris’s chest, allowing her eyes to open to come to truth where she was and wondered what time it came to be.
To find the general store was no problem to get the directions he needed to find the way back to Four Corners at day break so he could get Mary home as quick as possible for Nathan to run a check-up on her. Make sure there wasn’t internal bleeding, no cracked or broken bones, nothing severe or fatal.
It was hard to find a doctor or someone who knew what they were doing anymore and Chris knew he couldn’t trust anyone with a knife more than Nathan in battle or stitching a man up.
After the two hours riding blind in the forest’s thick trees, Chris unsaddled from the horse with Mary almost falling back without the support his body she’d grew fond of.
Holding her by the hips and feet planted in the mud as it appeared to be sprinkling, Chris heaved Mary from the horse and she dropped to her feet, but her knees gave and almost took Chris down with her in the mud.
With little strength Chris had left in his drained body, lacking the thrills of liquor or that cigar he’d been craving, and even sleep, he managed to lift Mary back up and she somehow found the strength to stay up like that for the time being.
Her eyes closed and her blond hair in a tornado mess around her face, Chris tried to take in the severe beatings she’d endured. This time, up close they were grisly, and would get even worse if he didn’t do anything about it now.
“Stay here.” He told her then reached around for his horse’s reins and closed her hands around the thick leather rope. Tears in her eyes then, she watched as Chris walked away from her into the general store.
--
Checking out the general merchandise of whatever came to his mind to need to purchase, he grabbed a handful of gauze, another cantina, and alas that cigar. He walked his way to the front counter and set his items in front of the clerk.
“Do you carry maps?” he asked the young fifteen year old behind the counter and he motioned for Chris to turn around and told him that the maps were at the end of the first isle. With the noise of his spurs and the rough walk of his boots against hardwood floors, Chris made the only sound it appeared in the entire town at that time of the night.
He grabbed a map, just where the boy told him they were located and made his way back to the front paying the boy money for his items and then heading out to find Mary still feet locked in the mud, holding onto the reins for dear life.
“What happened with the wagon?” Mary asked, unsure of her voice shaking.
Chris stuffed the purchased items into his jacket, “Gone.”
Mary didn’t ask another question about the wagon and they left it at that. She knew right from well that that wagon was gone along with all those newspapers and her travel bag with that one certain dress she favored the most.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the middle of Four Corners and Town of Jackal,” Chris mumbled after already unfolded the map and staring deep into it.
“Are we far away?”
“No, but the horses needed the rest and I think you did too. That’s why I stopped.” Chris watched as she took a finger to her face and touched the corner of her mouth, then winced in pain. “Don’t do that. You only gave yourself more pain.” He snatched her hand away from her mouth and it dropped lazily at her side.
She was weak, he knew it, and he had to get her to rest quickly. For all that woman’s endured, she deserved a nice, restful, soundless sleep for the next six to eight hours. “I’m bettin’ there’s a hotel around these parts.” He looked around the lot and if he didn’t have to shout for relief, he found one at the end of town, dark with some candle lights in a few of the windows.
He grabbed Mary’s hand and carefully led her and the horses down to the hotel. Passing locals as they did Chris couldn’t help but feel weary that the hotel housing didn’t have a room to store the ill willed Mary Travis for the night. He feared every room was occupied and he would have nowhere to put her while he figured things out.
The town was busy but not that damn busy to have the hotel completely filled. Mary losing her strength with each step, she fell drowsy but managed to pick herself back up and hold onto the inside of Chris’s jacket for support. He wrapped his arm around her back, resting his hand on her hip helping her along the way.
“Chris?”
An unexpected voice popped out in the darkness and Chris all but turned to face the light female’s voice who spoke his name with a spit fire in her voice. He continued onto the walk with Mary in his hold and the horses in his other hand, he ignored the call of his name until that voice appeared again but only now he saw the face of that woman.
“Chris?” Lydia popped her head in Chris’s sight with a bright, clear smile.
Chris, surprised himself to see Lydia, the woman he use to have his funs with back in the day. He hadn’t seen her for a year or so and hadn’t planned to see her again.
Not that she did wrong to him, she just wasn’t the woman he expected to show up in front of him, happy and thoughtful with pride and lust in her eyes to see him.
“Lydia,” Chris said then paused to look over at Mary as she did her best to straighten up but he told her not to.
“What brings you to this part of the desert, Chris?” She must have loved to say his name because within those thirty seconds of running into him again she hadn’t spoken a word without adding his name to the end of her thought.
Mary let go of Chris’s jacket and stood up on her own, lacking much of his help though she was in just as in much pain as she was in that newspaper building.
“Had a bit of trouble. Lookin’ for a room now.” Chris said, watching Mary’s every movement so she wouldn’t fall over in the damp mud.
Not really aware of Mary’s wounds, Lydia had her eyes fixated on Chris more than he liked, “Well, you’re not gonna find a room in this here hotel. There’s been a small rodeo goin’ on for the past couple days and it feels like the whole damn state of New Mexico moved west to our town. That hotel’s been packed for days now.”
Chris swore under his breath, thinking what the hell was he suppose to do now? He moved Mary and the horses under a balcony as those tiny sprinkles of rain turned to thick, heavy raindrops.
He had no where to put Mary. If he could just put her to rest somewhere for the remainder of the evening then he could care less what happened to him during those hours. He wanted nothing more than dawn to break now and get the hell out of this mess he had no reason to be apart of.
But he did need to be apart of it and he was and he saved Mary. He saved Billy from another death of a parent, and he saved Judge Travis from having to go through another funeral of a child.
Damn his conscience.
Lydia switched her gaze from Chris’s thinking eyes to Mary’s beaten complexion. “What happened, Mrs. Travis?” She remembered her name, that’s a first. Lydia remembered the last time she saw Mrs. Travis. She was in the almost same way but less beaten.
Then it came down to Chris’s last option and that was to ask Lydia for a room where ever she lived. That it be in the whore house he fixed his eyes on his way down the lot to the hotel before Lydia introduced herself again, or in a hotel room with a complete stranger. No, Chris couldn’t do that to Mary.
So he had to ask. It’s not like Mary was going to know the difference. She’d been asleep half way through the ride to this town and she’d fall asleep again once he dropped her on a nice, comfortable feather bed. She might know once she woke in the morning but she couldn’t have a thing to argue with him about. After all that’s happened.
“Lydia, you wouldn’t happen to have a room?” There he asked it.
Lydia rested her hands in front of her and glared into Chris’s drained eyes. “I have a room for you, but Mrs. Travis might not approve.”
“She’ll approve.” Chris shot back, tightly.
“Willing to take a chance on that?”
“Lydia, she’s tired. She’s half asleep now. I don’t think she’ll mind once she’s in a soft bed, dry, and warm.”
“And where will you sleep, Chris? With her?”
Chris glared at her, fierce and boiled.
“In the same room?” she asked again, only she rephrased it differently.
“No. I’ll find somewhere. I just need to get her off her feet.”
Intrigued and ready to revive old promises both made to each other when they were drunk and wild back in those days, Lydia leaned into Chris and whispered, “You can sleep with me.”
--
That undid him in a skip of a heartbeat but before he could lose himself in drinks and that cigar of his with Lydia bringing up good times that eased the suffering of losing his family, like he’d done with his new friend Maria in Purgatory now, Chris vowed to make Mary as comfortable as possible before leaving her alone the rest of the night.
Chris nudged his shoulder into the door of the only unoccupied, single bedroom of that whore house Lydia lived in. Cradling Mary in his arms, she rested her face where his neck met shoulder. He gently kicked the door back to shut and secure and walked the small feet to the bed and placed Mary down upon it. Her tired body sunk deep into the folds of the bedspread and with that last notion of a soft breath released from her cracked open lips, Chris knew this was wrong to leave her like that.
With both eyes dark and blue, cheekbones flushed, a deep scrape spreading from one cheek to the other, that bloody now crusted nose must be clogging her nostrils from relaxed breathing, her lips puffed with blood, and her throat, the hand, the fingerprint outlines wrapped all the way around to the back of her neck.
Chris may have lost half of his soul with the loss of emotion toward anyone, anybody. Who wanted nothing but to kill and have the thrill of killing. But to see a woman like Mary beaten down to the bone, half-alive, half-awake, half-conscious, he didn’t want to leave her alone and then go and enjoy himself while she lay here suffering.
Patting down his jacket, he felt the soft material of the recent gauze his purchased to repair Mary for the time being, for what he could do for her.
Lydia would have to wait. Mending unfinished business had to wait. He had to get Mary awake, conscious and talk to him about her beatings, and what he planned to ask her when he had a chance to get her awake and alert. Maybe not alert but conscious enough to converse and remember what had happened.
Pulling a chair from the corner, Chris positioned it in front of the bed, taking the gauze from his jacket and spreading the bandage out on the bed between him and Mary.
“Mary?” He pulled the cantina in his hand and poured a few drops of water into a piece of gauze he tore off with his teeth. “Mary, wake up.” Chris said for the second time then came close to her, his hand nearing her face. When she didn’t respond to his second demand, he dabbed the water filled gauze on her puffed lips and she jerked awake, looking right into his eyes through the open slit of hers.
“What are you doing?” she slurred her words.
“Just cleanin’ the wounds is all.” He took the gauze away and poured another round of water on it. Mary looked around the room, wondering where she was but didn’t ask. She was too tired to protest but then again she figured it was a hotel room.
Chris dabbed at her nose then, trying to clear up some blood but he found it wasn’t much the blood that turned her nose red above and beneath. It was bruised.
“You mind tellin’ me why you’re bruised? Explainin’ why I had to kill three men this afternoon?”
Mary closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly why and what for. Then it came all rushing back why she had the bruises, the bloody nose, the bloody lips and that horrible feel of a brass ring scraping her face. “It was a setup.”
Chris pulled his hand away, “What was their reason for beatin’ you?”
“Men do those sorts of things.”
“Not all, Mary.” He put his hand back but this time to her eyes, but when he thought it was the water dripping from the gauze it wasn’t. She was crying again. “What happened?”
“I thought he was interested in my story about the governor. I thought he wanted to help me but he was in it too. The governor was Mr. Mori’s brother. Brothers to the blood.” Mary stared at the wall in front of her. “What disappointed him the most was that no one succeeded to kill me. He had to do it himself just to keep me quiet so his brother could have all the glory. I was the one in the way and he tried to kill me with his bare hands.” In frantic, she moved her hands to her swollen neck, wanting to wrap her hands around it. “His hands were…” her voice trailed when the sudden rush of that man’s large hands wrapped entire around her neck, squeezing her life right out of her. “He asked me which way I’d prefer better, a shot to the head or his hands on my neck.” She moved her hands away from her neck to her hair, crying frantically knowing right then she could be dead.
When Chris tried to dab at her face, she pushed his hand away and when he tried it again, she pushed away again. Giving up or giving in, he didn’t know which, he threw the watered down gauze on the wooden dresser behind him along with the cantina.
He looked back around at her now watered down cheekbones and eyes and tremble in her lips when she told him to go and leave her now.
She remembered Lydia, the woman, the working girl from Four Corners. The woman she remembered she didn’t much like in the beginning but then cared for in the end when she left. And now to see her again only brought on more pain and more unsettled thoughts about Chris and what that woman meant to him.
In pain, sick, and an upset stomach she pushed Chris away, knowing she was in no mood now for argument because that’s what it seemed to come to if he opened his mouth about that earlier engagement with Mr. Mori or now with Lydia.
And she had no time to be jealous over Lydia and the fact that she overheard Lydia whisper in Chris’s ear that he could sleep in her bed tonight.
“Please, Chris, just leave.” Mary begged then rolled to the other side of the bed, her back facing him.
Chris watched her back heave from her ragged breathing from tears and anger. He pushed the chair back, set it back in the corner where he found it, then opened the door and left.
Then Mary let it all out. She cried loud and clear for the drunks to make out the cries for plead, for need, for Chris Larabee. In the most pain she’d ever felt since giving birth to Billy, if not worse, she wanted Chris to be with her the rest of the night. As much as she resented him, hated him for making his mind up so quickly when Ella Gaines came to town, her heart still ached for him. No matter how much she disgusted her father-in-law for introducing a new thought of someone tagging along on her adventure to the town of Jackal, she was even more furious when that man he asked was Chris.
But now she needed him.
After Ella, after that letter she handed to Chris when he came back from her ranch, he was about tell her what happened on that ranch, or so she thought that’s what he was going to tell her, but declined.
Mary knew she couldn’t be with this man. Not now, not ever. Tearing her insides apart, making her bleed internally mentally with fear and grief, she managed to fall into a restless sleep, doing her best not to toss too much from her aching pain that seemed to spread everywhere to right down to her toes.
--
Chris sat on the edge of Lydia’s queen size bed, taking in small sips of the alcoholic beverage she’d provided for him. With his maroon cotton shirt half way unbuttoned, his gun belt raked over a chair, and his shoes kicked off in a corner, he stared into the clear midnight sky straight through the open window before him.
Taking in the cool breeze of the night against his bare, solid chest, he lifted the regular size glass in his hand and took the last remaining sip of the rum.
“Another fill, sugar?” Lydia asked, draping her body on the bed behind him, waiting for him to make the first move and do what he had done plenty of other times to take pain away from his thoughts.
Without taking his eyes from the sky, he handed Lydia his glass indicating that was a yes to her question.
“You’re not as talkative as you use to be.” She said, pouring another glass then stilled to look at his back facing her, “But then again, you never were much of a talker.” She walked around the bed and handed Chris the filled glass. “In fact, we never use to talk at all. We’d just make love.”
Chris shifted his eyes right into hers as she bent down between his open thighs and moved her hands to her hair and untied her loose bun.
“We never made love, Lydia.” He said tightly.
“What would you call what we did then?”
“A thrill to lose tension. A bad day.”
She reached for the hand unoccupied with the glass full of rum and glided the tips of her fingers in between his. Then she placed that hand on her puffed breast showing she just made the first move and waited for him to make the second.
When he didn’t move his hand away from her breast, she thought to say something, “Aren’t you having a bad day now? This is the perfect solution to loosen that tension.”
No, Chris thought, and when he said no aloud right to Lydia’s glowing moonlit complexion. The face that wasn’t beaten, bruised, crusted with blood like the woman he left some odd hours ago alone. He pulled his hand away and put his glass in her hand then and stood up from the bed. He buttoned his shirt back up what she had unbuttoned when the time was right to have her, but now he had some time to think before he would’ve indulged in his male fantasies.
Grabbing his boots and gun belt and hat, he slipped everything back on as quickly as she took them off and left the room after apologizing to Lydia but thanking her for the extra room and wake up call she didn’t know she gave.
--
Rustling to find his way back to Mary, he alas found the room she occupied, turned the doorknob and when he expected to see her sleeping, she wasn’t. She wasn’t even lying down. And with some surprise to seeing her up and about he made sure he made enough noise to stop her trance of thought of being alone had ended.
With half her dress unfastened in the back, revealing her bare back, her soft, bruised back, Chris swore under his breath for not keeping a better watch on her when she disappeared into those dark doors of the newspaper building. He cursed at himself for leaving suddenly as they had just arrived. Not like she wanted him around, he damned himself for ignoring her like he’d done most of their professional relationship.
Ignoring someone is not always the answer for everything.
On of the tip of her shoulder, Mary moved her chin to rest upon it, gazing at Chris at the door. Their eyes met, held, and then faltered when she turned back around to look outside her window at the moon. What he had been doing for the last hour with Lydia.
No words were passed, not as much as a simple nod or another glance. Chris knew what he wanted to do right then, how he wanted to protect Mary the right way. Caress her bruises, the wounds, the cuts. He wanted to do it all and make up for what he didn’t do when the time served its purpose.
While he sat by the saloon earlier that day and waited for her. Why he had nothing but a cigar on the mind and a few shots too many of tequila. This was the time to make it up to her and he didn’t know how she planned to react to his response but he just knew she wouldn’t object it.
Losing the gun belt, the boots, and the hat, Chris steadily made his way toward the bed, kneeling down in the feather mattress, his knees disappearing in the folds of the bedspread. He came right up to Mary’s ear, she thinking he might whisper something but the initial shock soared through her veins when his lips touched her. He stroked the length of her arm, up and down, then paused at the tip of her shoulder.
With her dress loose already, he decided to loosen it even more pulling the blue fabric from her shoulder, revealing her creamy silk skin and no bruise, he kissed her there. Pulling the dress apart in one tug along with her undergarments, Mary managed to move her drained blue eyes to look right at him.
Chris kissed her then, while her eyes were soft and dreamy, while her lips were parted and curved with the contemplation of sweet and succulent fruit. Face cupped between his hands, easing pressure from the sores, his thumbs stroked the warm silk of her cheeks and along her jaw. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, savoring the thought of peach juice on her lips, her tongue, her skin.
Gently, he nipped at her bottom lip, and she backed away from the striking pain he caused. Not pulling away completely she managed to back into his lips and she opened to him with a sigh, a yielding that hummed in his throat with satisfaction. He licked her mouth and felt a tremor run through her body. Hunger gripped his, not raw or primal like with Lydia, but rich and earthy and unexpectedly sweet.
Mary rotated her hips to face him more and settled her arms heavily on his shoulders; the tips of her fingers traced a slow pattern against the back of his neck. And when he changed the angle of the kiss, she shifted toward his lap, angling closer to his body. Pressing more firmly against his arousal while she kissed him back with her eyes fixed on his with drowsy-eyed passion.
And when he eased back slightly, drawing out of that long lazy kiss, trying to relieve some pressure from her wounded lips, she followed. Kissing the corners of his mouth. His chin. The line of his jaw. While her hands shaped his face and sifted through his hair.
In the moment of time, Chris pulled away and shook his head with a snort.
“What?” she breathed, hot against his skin. Hot against his thighs and areas in between.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“I didn’t expect you to be so…” He hesitated over word choice.
“Easy?”
“Willing,” he corrected.
Mary pulled her hands from his face and reached down on the bed and took his hand. “Oh, I think you knew I’d be willing the instant I turned you down about going on this little expedition with me. I think you’ve known for a long time I always found myself yours.”
“Pushing me away was the answer to that problem?” Then Chris knew right away he only tried to clean her wounds, the crusted blood, and the pain in her heart that ached for reassurances these bruises were going to heal.
In her situation, her pain, he knew he’d push someone away if they kept putting something in his face when he was in no mood for play.
This was different though. Just somehow it was different.
He kissed Mary Travis, the woman who spattered out his name, printed his name across her newspapers, finding out about his family, finding out about his life through second hand trash as he called it. The woman he had the feelings for but never wanted to explore them because of what they both disagreed on, which everything about Four Corners, what she thought, what he was thought.
He had the dignity to say he was a whole lot of jealous when Mary confided in him about Gerard asking to marry her. Chris never knew why she only told him and not the others. He’d figured she might have told Vin or Nathan. She seemed pretty close to those two, if not Josiah. But no, she told him. Wanted to know what he would think, do, say. And he did none of the above but told her congratulations and the best of luck. The words Mary didn’t want to hear.
And now here they were, just as she wanted, only without the bruised face and cracked voice from the choke. She was exposed, vulnerable and wanted every way for Chris to take advantage of her. It’d been too long. Somehow they had to both push back the differences, the pastime arguments, the constant glares of dissatisfaction for one night of bliss they both needed.
“You sure you’re up to this?”
The question came out on a husk of breath as the last button came undone on his shirt.
Mary looked into his eyes, finding lust and at the last second, the need of love and hold. “If its how I pictured us making love would be.” She took her hands and pushed the sides of his shirt apart, the fabric slipped from his shoulders. She found strength from her ready to go legs and stood up with her dress resting around her hips, her breasts ready to be touched.
Putting her hands on his shoulders for support, Chris opened his thighs for Mary to stand before him in that small gap. His fingers gathered the material of the dress into a fist and pulled down slowly over her hips, down her thighs, down her legs to her bare feet.
When Chris looked down, away from the woman before him, Mary tipped his chin up to look at him before bending down to cover his lips with hers. Her heart beat hard, knocking her ribs with the same deep sultry note as his groan. He demonstrated slow with the back of his fingers, barely grazing her skin as they trailed upward over her ribs. She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes and waited, breath held, waited and willed him to keep going. To touch her breasts that grew tight and heavy with longing.
He didn’t.
Those taunting fingers trailed back down to her waist. His hands took over and held her hips tightly pulling her body into his. With much of the bruises mainly covered on small parts of her back and her face, Chris didn’t have to worry about making more pain for her during the night’s activities.
Her breath hitched and caught as his head dipped and he brushed his whisker-rough cheek against the flesh that pushed out her bra. The same breath rushed from her lungs in a long, low sound of wanting as he turned his head and kissed her sensitized flesh.
With his lips, with his tongue, with his teeth.
He laved her nipple through the sheer material of her bra, and she was so lost in the intensity of sensation, she didn’t notice his hands at her back. Didn’t register the clever flick of his fingers until the hooks she’d taken minutes to fasten gave effortlessly. Through the sensual pall that expertise vaguely registered. A dull glimmer of unease because he’d undone more kinds of bras that she’d ever seen.
But then his hands palmed her naked breasts and he made a guttural sound of arousal that echoed through her whole body, aching in places she never thought would wake again.
She couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t stand her lack of participation. Fingers twined in his hair, she dragged his head away and up and their mouths met at exactly the right angle, with bold, and her body took on the rhythm of his mouth, the rhythm of love making.
It wasn’t enough and too long.
But Mary had to ask herself why Chris was in her room this late. Why did he come to her? Why did he agree to come with her? She only figured those were questions to be asked later when the timing was right. When he didn’t devour her mouth with his, and when he rolled her from in between his legs onto the bed and slid her panties down her legs, she refused to think anymore for the rest of the night.
He finished undressing himself, and she prolonged her pleasure by watching. He let her. He stood before her, as spectacularly beautiful as she remembered when he came to see her, angry, furious the first time they met about that newspaper article of hers.
Never in her wildest dreams after that confrontation in her office, had that small disperse in the general store when she told him she knew about his wife and son that he’d wind up in her bed, watching him undress, waiting to make love to her.
Never had she thought. Just never.
Taking his time, he looked upon the woman ready to have him on the bed with tears stinging her eyes, the push up of her ready to go hips, and relaxed lay of her arms above her head.
During that usual routine of waiting, observing the lady beneath him, the whore he’d run into by a chance was she most of the time, but this wasn’t any woman. This was Mary Travis gazing up at him, moistening her bruised lips with apprehension. The dislikes about this woman erased from his memory as her hands shifted nervously against the pillow her head laid upon.
And suddenly, intensely, he wanted those eyes, those lips, those hands on him. Gripping his back, biting his shoulder, he wanted it.
He slid his hands up the inside of her arms, stretching above the pillow to link with her fingers. Her eyes widened, heat flushed her cheeks as he settled between her legs, as he instantly found the perfect position.
Coming face to face, nose to nose, Chris lowered his face even closer and brushed his lips across hers. As she wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed up against him, inviting him into the moist heat of her body. The jolt of her body beneath his told Chris to stop from going further, deeper what his body craved to do. To pull back and just bury himself. Deep. Hard.
“Chris.” Mary huffed through clenched teeth and pressure from his body on top of her swollen limbs. “Never thought you’d make love to me. Never thought you’d even kiss me. See how much I love you.”
Chris pulled his face away from hers and moved her messy curls away from her watery blue eyes. “Me neither.” Half way inside her, he took the rest of the gap away from their lips and met met, and he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.
Hard. Deep. That urgency clamored in his blood and tightened in his lungs until he had to end the kiss, to breathe, to press his face in to the side of her throat to escape the passionate intensity of her expression.
“Be careful,” she breathed and that was almost too much. A simple, straight comment that struck him with the same erotic force as the tight clasp of her body closing around him, drawing him deeper, sinking him into her core.
Not pretty damn good but pretty damn perfect. Pretty damn unforgettable. That’s what he wanted for this first time. He wanted to obliterate everything from her sensual memory except him. He wanted momentous where in the past, with every other woman, every other lover, he’d only wanted to satisfy. And for a brief instant of still and silent intensity, their eyes locked and it stunned him how much he wanted…and how much that wanting shook him up.
Sweat beaded on his brow, traced the line of his backbone as he slowly started to move, as he willed himself to set the same torturously slow rhythm he’d used hundreds of times before. He knew how to please a woman, how to drive her wild, how to hit every sweet spot.
How could this time feel infinitely sweeter…more intense…and so damn perfect?
And then he couldn’t take anymore and he released her hands, freed his so he could palm the stretch of her body beneath his, so he could reach between them, between her soft folds to find the supersensitive spot and stroke it with sure pressure.
So he could watch the explosion of heat in her crying eyes, so he could know that he’d given her the same pleasure that he felt building as he drove harder, deeper, stronger. As he flexed his hips with a last full thrust and let his release come, more powerful than he’d imagined possible, a wild spasm that rocked through his body and reflected in the splintered depths of her eyes as she came again, and he spilled himself deep within her body.
--
Mary woke slowly. The smile came easily to her lips, the stretch not so easily to her shattered body, and her mind took another ten minutes to get within cooee of cognizance.
Her first random thought was, Crikey! It’s bright! Eyes squinted against that brightness, she rolled onto her side, feeling pain striking everywhere in between, along her ribs, then the quick memory of yesterday morning’s out bringing. The beating, the scrambling on the floor fighting off two men twice her size, and then those large man hands on her throat.
Not much remembering the ride to where ever she was, she did remember Chris holding her tight to him both protector and lover. Could what they did last night make difference to them back home in Four Corners?
She hoped not. She hoped Chris would give in and be with her. Be with her, grieve with her, help her, and protect her like he always had. Making love with him was greater than her personal fantasy of just a kiss from him.
Pulling the white sheets closer to her body, her bare chest, to her puffed face, Mary dared not to look in the mirror for she might just see an entirely different woman staring at her.
The beating was severe. The fatal beating that could’ve taken her life and she was not about to think about it again. Heat crept through her veins, remembering. Not even making love to a man she wanted to have for so long could make those painful memories disappear.
--
After Chris told her they were ready to leave the town, he figured it would take less than an hour to get back to Four Corners. The entire time he said his thanks to Lydia, telling her he didn’t know what they would have done if she hadn’t had the room to rent. He offered to give Lydia money but she refused to take it and told him she wasn’t like that anymore. That’d she earned her money in other ways than just the usual working girl routine.
Untying the horses from the livery where he must have put them in for the night but didn’t remember, Chris asked Mary if she was up to riding back to town on her own and she told she was capable. Aiding her to saddle the horse, Chris walked around and jumped on his own horse then grabbed Mary’s reins and headed them both out of the town lot.
With Lydia leaning against a wooden post just outside the saloon, Chris tipped his hat toward her and she gave him a soft smile.
--
Riding in silence through the desert air in the right direction this time, not expecting to hide in the woods or get gang ambushed again, Chris and Mary rode side by side.
Chris glanced over his shoulder and watched Mary treat her wounds. Treating her wounds until her lip gave out and began to bleed out again. Those lips his kissed for hours the prior evening, the early morning activities. Those hands of hers that sketched the angle in his back, growing tenser when her hands lowered to his bottom, squeezing him with those nails.
“Stop messin’ with your face. You’ll make it worse.” Chris groaned.
“Is that even possible?” Mary asked tightly, fully conscious, fully aware of her surroundings compared to the way she looked the day before.
When she slept heavily against his chest, her limps dangling off the horse, blowing in the wind, she managed to fix her hair after taking a short walk to the town’s creek in the outskirts and clean herself up from the dirt. He must not have done a good job last night when he tried to clean her up.
Either that or she wouldn’t let him come near her. His hand dabbing her lips, her eyes and that crusted bloody nose of hers.
At this angle she looked better than what he could have done.
“We don’t have much longer to ride. Nathan can have a look at cha.” Chris told her.
“Nothing feels misplaced. Nothing torn or shredded. Just sore inside and out.”
Chris grinned, “I have anything to do with the soreness?”
Mary shot him a tight expression but she loosened her forehead and squinted eyes when she longed at him. His own expression loose, fragile, waiting for an answer. “You may have.” She shook her head looking away from him. “Would you like to tell me what did happen?”
Chris took a deep breath, “We rode into Jackal, you met with Mr. Mori, then he beat you, almost killed you and—“
Cutting him off she said, “I mean with us. I know what happened to me. I know the whole story, remember?”
Regret filled his mind, his memory. That regret wasn’t there this morning, not when he woke. Regret wasn’t there when he pressed his lips to hers, when he held his body on top of hers, when he drove deep inside her.
But he had regret now. Regret he didn’t want to think about. He just wanted to get back to Four Corners, get Mary fixed up by Nathan and take a side journey of his own perhaps with Vin or Buck but preferably alone.
To clear of his mind, his memory, of the latest events needed to just disappear for a while in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
He made love to Mary, he’ll admit that. He didn’t expect to, and he’ll admit that too. Where to lead off from this, he didn’t know. How to end all of this Governor Hopewell mess, he didn’t know that either. Not yet.
He reached inside his stalk coat for that cigar and quickly stuck it between his teeth so he could light the match and burn the end of the cigar to end the suffering of the need to have that taste soak in his mouth again.
Now thinking did he have to smoke this cigar just to get the taste of Mary out of his mouth?
He looked over at her again as she looked off into the distant, wind blowing her hair back behind her shoulders.
God she was beautiful, but could he actually commit himself to say that aloud to her, to anyone, to his companions? If he did he didn’t know what she’d do, what his friends would do, what he would do.
He couldn’t change back time to forget the lovemaking but if he had that power to, would he say no or go forth the kill anyway and do it again? Would he be able to say no to her, leave her crying in the midnight hour, bruised and tormented by the knowledge of the prior tragedy?
No, he couldn’t, but this wasn’t the time or place or place in time to think about being with another woman, spending the rest of his life with her, bare his children. The thought of remarrying never crossed his mind. Having another child did, but not with Mary.
Regret no longer stabbed in his brain when it came to making love to her, but the thought of continuing a life with her did and he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to. He didn’t have the strength or the love to give. Not after Ella tricked him, played him for a fool, and not after the constant fights with Mary and what she stood up for that about got her killed twice now.
“Chris?” her voice shrilled against the wind. Chris shifted his cigar with his tongue to the corner of his mouth and looked at her. “This never happened. You and me. It never did.”
Chris was shell-shocked when he heard those words come out of her mouth. After she told him she loved him with every fiber of her being. With all the pieces of her broken heart, she loved him.
But she was right. She loved him enough not to spread the word they made love. Her love for him was secret. No other human being in Four Corners, Judge Travis, her son, no one knew her love for him. They’d always had their suspicions and maybe Buck and JD had their own game playing if she did or didn’t, but they never really knew the truth.
She needed Chris, but she didn’t need him to hold her up mentally. To stick by her through the rest of her life. The woman Chris never saw himself with. And the knowing of that certainty relaxed his lungs, taking a free open release of breath, the trail of smoke from his cigar along with it.
“Our secret?” he said after a few minutes of silence. Of taking in her words that she didn’t want this out about him and her.
“Darkest secret,” Mary said alas, taking her own deep breath knowing everything would be okay from now on. With the lack of her bruises, her puffed lips, and crusty blood nose, she gave him a smile and reached for the reins in his hands and planned to steer her own way back into town just to show everyone that she was okay, don’t mind the bruises, the aches, the pains and just relax.
The End