And Cabe thought: I’ll be damned, this lady actually cares about me.
“I don’t like one bit of this. Mr. Cabe,” she said and her voice was deep and sensual and it made the bounty hunter’s insides bubble like sweet molasses. “I fully realize this is none of my affair, but I think it would be wise for you to hide out for a time. Let my husband deal with this human pig. He’ll know what to do.”
Cabe found himself smiling like a little boy.
Smiling, mind you.
Here he had just about the meanest bastard imaginable wanting to make a tobacco pouch out of his privates and he was grinning like a little boy with a peppermint stick all his own. And it was because of Janice Dirker. Though he wasn’t much prettier than your average wild boar (and would be the first to admit the same), Cabe had had his fill of women over the years. He had been desired and lusted after. But no one had ever really cared if he lived or died… and now someone did. He felt a lot of things right then: confusion, bewilderment, and, yes, even fear.
But he liked it all, God yes.
“Ma’am, y’all very kind to me. Very caring to some worn-out saddletramp like me and I can’t tell you how I appreciate it,” he told her, feeling his voice squeak with emotion. “But, really, I can take care of my own affairs. Always have, always will. And Jackson… the Sheriff, that is… well, I think he’s got enough problems without worryin’ over me.”
Janice was breathing hard and Cabe was, too.
What was it all about? Lust? Passion? Yes, surely those things were evident, but something more too. Something that went deeper. Something that he could feel burning deep inside of him like hot coals and blue ice. There was a word for it, but he didn’t dare think it.
“Please, Mr. Cabe. You are, without a doubt, a man who can handle his own affairs, but…”
“But what?”
She averted her eyes. Cabe reached out and pressed his hand over hers. It was like an electric shock passed through him. She started as well. She made to pull her hand away as color touched her cheeks, but didn’t. And under his rough, callused paw, her hand was petal-soft and fine-boned. It felt so very good.
She licked her lips. “I don’t… oh what in God’s name am I doing?”
“Say it,” he told her.
She sighed. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“If that’s what you want, then I’ll make sure nothing will.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a time and then Janice pulled away, rushing from the dining room as fast as she could. And Cabe just sat there a time, feeling like a man flattened by some tremendous wave.
It was some time before he could so much as stand.
15
“Well, I see you’re still alive,” Charles Graybrow greeted Cabe later that morning. “I was planning on buying a nice whiteman’s sort of suit for your funeral. Maybe I was rushing things.”
Cabe dragged off his cigarette. “Maybe just a bit.”
After his talk with Janice Dirker, he finally found his guts again, tucked ’em back in, and took to the streets. Started walking. Checking Whisper Lake out saloon by saloon. And not for drinks, but for Elijah Clay. At the far end, near the Union Pacific railroad depot, he spotted Charles Graybrow having a taste at a lumber yard, chatting it up with another Indian who was cutting barrel staves.
Graybrow stood there, studying the sky which was leaden and turbulent. A chill breeze ruffled his long iron-gray hair which was tucked under a campaign hat. One eye was squinting, the other open in that solemn brown face.
“Hey, Tyler Cabe,” he suddenly said. “You figure I wear a fancy whiteman’s suit and hang around the depot, folks might think I’m some rich banker from back east?”
“Doubt it.”
“Because I’m an injun?”
Cabe shrugged. “That might tip ’em off.”
“Damn, it’s hell to be an injun some days. Maybe I’ll get the suit, though. Way I hear it, Elijah Clay’s in town. They say he’s looking for you.” Graybrow just shook his head. “So I might get some use out of the suit after all.”
Cabe just chuckled. He crushed his cigarette in the dirt and pulled off his hat. Not looking up, he fumbled with the rattlesnake band above the brim. “Already got me dead and buried, have you?”
Graybrow nodded. “Me and a bunch of my red brothers are taking bets. I’m saying your dead before tomorrow morning. But maybe I’m just a pessimist. Folks say that about me. Go figure.”
Cabe put his hat back on. “You’re gonna lose some money, I think.”
“Maybe.” Graybrow looked over to his Indian friend. “Hey, Raymond? You think you can fix up my amigo here?” Then he turned to Cabe. “I call him Raymond because his name is Raymond Proud.”
“No shit?”
Raymond Proud stood up and he was a big man dressed in wool pants, suspenders, and a lumberjack shirt. “Is this the Arkansas bounty hunter?”
“Yes. Calls himself Tyler Cabe.”
Proud nodded, scratched at his chin. “Yeah, I’m thinking I could fit him. I got some spare scrap lumber out back.”
“Yeah, that would work. He don’t want no fancy nameplate. Just the box.”
“Well, I’d need a little money up front.”
“That could be arranged.”
Cabe just stood there, not getting it at all. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
Graybrow patted him on the shoulder. “Just stay out of this, okay?” he said in a whisper. “I’m getting you a good deal.”
“On what?”
“A casket. You’ll need one soon enough.”
Cabe felt his mouth drop open. “Well, you two just got all sorts of faith in me, don’t you?”
“Nothing personal, is it, Raymond? We just know Elijah Clay is all.”
Cabe let out a sigh and walked away, deciding to take a look around the depot. Somewhere, that hellbilly was hiding out and he planned on getting the draw on the sonofabitch come hell or high water. Because, honestly, for the first time in a long while he felt that he had a damn good reason to go on living.
“Hey, Tyler Cabe,” Graybrow said. “Slow down, I need to talk to you.”
But Cabe didn’t slow down. “If you found me a nice plot of earth, I ain’t interested.”
Graybrow caught up with him, put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “No, nothing like that. Just stop now.” He was panting. “It’s not that I’m old, but I don’t want to show off and run you down.”
“Course not. Wouldn’t be your way.”
Graybrow smiled thinly. “You didn’t like my little joke back there?”
“Not much.”
“It’s my injun sense of humor, it’s kind of strange, I reckon. White folks never seem to get it.” He followed Cabe to a bench by the telegraph office. “All us injuns got it. Take Custer at the Big Horn, for instance. He would’ve just waited for the punchline, things would have turned out different.”
“You’re crazy, that’s what.”
Graybrow offered him a drink. “It’ll settle your nerves.”
“My nerves are fine. Besides, it’s a little early.”
“You white folks… boy, I’ll never understand you. You bring the whiskey out here, get my people hooked, then you act like it’s not good enough for you.”
Cabe smiled. “That’s our little joke.”
Graybrow took a good pull off his bottle. “Since you already know about Clay being in town, I won’t warn you about that. But I hear them miners hired you to sort out all these killings. That true?”
“Word travels fast, don’t it?” Cabe said. “But, sure, it’s true enough.”
“Good. Because you’re gonna need my help. I know lots about those killings. If you wanna stop them, then you’re gonna have to stop James Lee Cobb.”
“Who in Christ is that?”
“You don’t know?” Graybrow said. “Well, sit back, because I have a story to tell you. And before you ask, yes, it does have to do with coffins and graves and the like. Just not in the way you think…”