Chapter 18

            The woman who greeted Tom Mulvehill inside the door of the dancehall wore blowzy finery in gaudy hues, and a face made up to match.  Everything about her said whore, except her voice, which said, “Care for a dance?”

            “No,” said Tom, barely glancing her way.  He craned his neck, searching among the dancing couples for Cash Joyner, scowling when he did not catch sight of the man at once.  The din of stomping feet and strident music, and the stuffy heat of the room, did not improve his temper.  Then, among the throng he spied Cash, energetically whirling a pretty young woman around the floor.

            Before he could cross to Cash, the whore sidled up beside him and slipped her arm beneath his.  “Then what did you have in mind, mister?” she purred into his ear.

            He flinched away, finally aware of her, and yanked his arm free.  “I didn’t come to dance, nor screw neither.  Piss off!”  He waded into the press of dancers, leaving behind him the outraged shrieks of the whore and setting a course to intercept Cash and his tart.

            Cash had seen him coming, thanks to the shrill imprecations of the rejected whore, and as Tom approached he grinned and shouted, “I paid for this dance, Tom!  No fair cutting in!”  Then he spun away for another circuit of the dance floor, his partner’s skirts billowing out from her legs.  Tom gritted his teeth and braced himself against the buffeting of the other dancers in the hall, waiting for Cash to come around again.  When he did, Tom caught hold of his elbow and dragged him to a halt by main force.

            “All right, Tom, if it means that much to you,” the younger man said.  A huge smile wreathed Cash’s face, though he puffed mightily from his exertions.  “This here is Irene, and I’d appreciate her return when you’re through.”  He waved a magnanimous hand in the direction of his partner, a petite young thing whose dark hair had flown loose from its ribbons.  Irene gave no sign of caring who her partner was, and when Tom pulled Cash toward the perimeter of the room she soon found another man to sweep her back into the currents of the dance.

            Cash resisted.  “What the hell are you doing?  I paid a quarter to dance with that girl.”

            “Then you got overcharged,” Tom said.  “Let me have ten dollars.”

            “I ain’t got ten dollars.”

            Tom stared at him.  “You mean to say you danced away twenty dollars?”

            “Of course not.  I had a few drinks and took a couple of dancing lessons first.”

            “Dancing lessons?”

            “That’s right.”  Cash’s grin got wider, if that were possible.  “Private lessons, if you take my meaning.  Oh, and you’ll never believe…”

            Tom interrupted.  “All right, how much do you have left?”

            “Wait a minute, what happened to your money?  You lose it all to Jonas already?”  The black look on Tom’s face answered his question well enough.  “Then forget it; quit while you’re ahead.  I’ve got a few dollars left.  Let me buy you a drink.  And wait till I tell you…”

            “I don’t want a drink, I want to get back to that game.”  Impatience and agitation rolled off him in waves, preventing him from holding still for more than a moment or two.  He’d been gone from the poker table maybe fifteen minutes.  “Any time now Jonas might decide to call it a night.”

            “Oh yeah?  You think if you lose some more, Jonas will hand over the strongbox?  That’ll save time.”

            “Don’t get smart with me.  Just give me what you’ve got, and I’ll make it last.”

            “No sir.  You’re just chasing your losses now.  What has Jonas told you, anyway, that’s worth forty dollars?”

            “Everything.  Who’s driving, the cargo, how many guards.  Only thing he hasn’t told me is when the coach is coming, but I can get it from him if I have a stake.  Half what you got, what do you say?”

            Cash shook his head.  “You’re welcome to a drink.  That’s all.”  He turned to the bar and gestured to catch the barman’s eye.  Tom slouched with his back to the bar, eyes roving back and forth as though searching each dancer and each woman for money he might be able to shake loose.  Then his gaze lit on a fellow he recognized and he straightened, an idea forming in his head.  Cash tried to hand him a shot of whiskey, but Tom ignored it, instead pointing out the man on the dance floor.

            “See that guy?” he said.  Cash admitted that he did.  “Wait for me out the side door of this place.  When I come out with him, just follow my lead.”

            “Oh, lord,” Cash said.  He tossed off one of the shots of whiskey and set the glass on the bar.  “Are we going to make him play cards at gunpoint?”

            “Just go.”

            Cash drank down the other shot and made his way toward the door.  Tom waited for him to leave, then ventured back into the turmoil of the dance, threading his way toward the fellow he recognized as the whiskey drummer who had been run out of Owens and Price.  The man was not dancing so much as embracing a woman, both hands squeezing her hindquarters through her dress and his face buried in the nape of her neck.  The woman, a brunette taller and older than Cash’s partner, held her head cocked away from his, an expression of profound boredom on her face.

            When he got close enough to be heard over the brabble, Tom called, “Hey, mister!”  The drummer’s face came up from its explorations, and Tom saw the confusion in his eyes when he realized he was being hailed by someone he didn’t know.

            “What do you want?”

            Tom tried to look sympathetic and said, “Didn’t I hear the sheriff tell you to stay in the hotel tonight?”

            “So what if he did?”

            Tom let him have his anger and belligerence for a moment, then dashed it away.  “It’s no skin off my nose, but he’s coming this way.  I expect he won’t be too happy to find you here.”  The panicked drummer released the dancehall girl so abruptly that she staggered a little, then flounced away with a grateful smile for Tom. 

            “I only came in here for a dance and a drink,” the drummer said.

            “That won’t cut no ice with the sheriff.  Come on, there’s a side door over here.”

            He steered the man by the elbow, casting glances over his shoulder at the front doorway.  The drummer, caught up in his urgency, yanked open the side door and fled through it with Tom close on his heels.  The light from the doorway cut a dim rectangle into the darkness outside, in which Cash Joyner’s form was visible, lounging against the wall of the dancehall.  He pushed himself upright as Tom slammed the door behind them, plunging the alley back into shadows and muting the noises within.

            “This way,” Tom said, and led the drummer farther down the alley, in among the sheds and privies.  Cash followed, and the salesman hurried to stay close to Tom, nervously looking behind him.  So distracted was he that he noticed too late when Tom set his feet in the dirt and swung around in a wide, low arc, putting all his weight and muscle behind the fist that he then drove deep into the pit of the drummer’s gut.

            All the wind whooshed out of the man’s lungs in one explosive grunt, and he doubled himself over Tom’s arm, unable to hold himself upright.  Tom took hold of his suit coat and let him fall slowly over on his side, struggling to take a breath.  Keeping his head down near the drummer’s ear, Tom said, “Sheriff told you to stay in the hotel, didn’t he, you son of a bitch?”

            The man didn’t answer, his belly still too clenched to allow him to speak.  Tom looked at Cash, who kept watch up and down the alley for passers-by.  Taking hold of the man by his hair, Tom forced his head around to stare directly into his eyes, streaming with tears of pain and helplessness.  “Answer me,” he said.  “Sheriff said to stay in the hotel.”

            The drummer nodded, gasping, “Uh-huh,” the only sounds he could utter.

            “But you didn’t listen, did you?”

            “Uh-uh.”

            “Well, friend, here in Malad City we take the law pretty seriously.  We can jail you, or we can kick the shit out of you, or we can fine you.  What do you say?”

            “Fuh.”

            “I didn’t quite catch that.”

            “Fuh-hine,” the drummer said, the words catching in his throat as though he were choking on them.

            “Fine?”  Tom shot Cash a wicked smile.  “You mean, fine, we can kick the shit out of you, or fine, we can jail you, or what?”

            “Uh-uh!  Fuh-fine!  Pay!”

            “That’s right, you have to pay for your mistake,” Tom said, enjoying himself.  Then Cash smacked him on the shoulder with the back of a hand.  When Tom scowled at him, Cash returned it and made a hurry-up gesture.

            “All right, my deputy agrees; you have been sentenced to pay a fine of…” Tom felt around inside the drummer’s now dust-smirched coat and withdrew a leather billfold.  He leafed through the wad of banknotes it held, keeping all but a pair of ten-spots.  “…two hundred and forty dollars, and we’ll let you off with time served.”  He bent down and tapped the man’s chest with the nearly-empty billfold.

            “When you’ve caught your wind, get back to the hotel and stay there.  In the morning, see to it you’re on the first stage out of town, understand?” Tom said.  The drummer nodded, his breath beginning to come easier now.

            “Good,” Tom said, and kicked him in the belly.  The drummer curled up again, retching.  “And next time, remember what happens when you don’t listen to the sheriff, you hear?”  He strode away and Cash followed, the moans of the salesman soon swallowed up by the darkness. 

            “What the hell was that about?” Cash said when they had put the dancehall a block behind them.  “I thought we planned to rob stagecoaches, not roll drunks.”

            Tom offered him a sheaf of bills.  “You want any of this?”

            Cash took the money and stuffed it into his pocket without counting it, tagging along as Tom headed back toward Owens and Price, and presumably toward Jonas and the poker game.

            “If you needed money so bad, why didn’t you just get it from Dove Ed?” Cash said.

            “He only had but forty dollars,” Tom said, “And besides, he’s off somewhere with that piece from the saloon.”

            “No he ain’t.  He’s back there,” Cash said, and jerked his head behind them, in the general direction of Nell’s.

            Tom stopped short and gaped at Cash.

            “I been trying to tell you.  He came in just a minute before you did.”

            “I didn’t see him.”

            Cash sniggered.  “I don’t think he was there to dance, Tom.”

            “You’re shitting me.”

            “Right hand to God.  He walked in and looked around like a child picking out penny candy at the general store.  Before I know it he was headed up to the rooms with a woman in a blue dress.”

            “Is that a fact.”

            “Hell, Tom, if you’d waited a couple of minutes he probably would have finished.  You know how young boys do the first time.”

            Tom pushed his hat back on his head and smiled in wonder.  “I’ll be damned,” he said.  “He had to learn sometime, I guess.”

“They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

They laughed, and Tom said, “Come on, let’s get back to Owens and Price.  I aim to get my money back from Jonas.”

            “You mean the news about the stage, right?”

            “Right.”

           

           

Chapter 17

            It hurt him to smile.  Of course, it hurt to do nearly everything: talking, eating, even breathing made the bruises and lumps on his face ache.  Dove Ed had gotten used to that over the past few days.  Smiling, though, pulled his cheeks and jaw into new shapes and sent lances of pain around his head to the base of his neck, and he realized that it was unfamiliar because he hadn’t smiled in so long.  Then Alice Morgan, concern etched across her features, asked him what had happened and was he all right.  For that, he was prepared to endure this new pain.

            Sitting alone at the bar in the Owens and Price Saloon, sipping at a glass of beer from time to time, Dove Ed watched Alice go about her work toting food and drink to the men at the tables and whisking empty plates back to the kitchen.  She was good to look at, gliding among the men with her sleeves pushed up and a loose lock of hair, escaped from the ribbon at the back of her head, trailing down the side of her face.  She had a flush to her cheeks and a gloss to her skin from the heat of the room or the steam of the kitchen that made her face shine in the lantern light.  Best of all, Dove Ed liked her smile, which she never lost.  At every table she passed a friendly word, sometimes laughing at a joke or sally, and when she did Dove Ed would smile involuntarily, then wince.

            At his poker table near the door, Tom Mulvehill did mortal battle with Jonas the stablehand and ignored everything else around him.  Cash Joyner had not returned, presumably because he had found a dancehall and company he enjoyed.  Since his departure two hours before, Dove Ed had been sitting at the bar, drinking a little beer, watching Alice, and screwing up his courage to speak to her.  As she went by on her many trips to and from the kitchen, she would catch his eye and smile or wink or wave if her hands were not too full.  Whenever she did, it robbed him of the power of speech, and he would smile, then wince, then look away. 

            Behind the bar, John Price smirked at him from time to time, and Dove Ed knew he was being laughed at.  He did his best to avoid the barman’s gaze, turning to face the room, but that was no better.  Whenever someone looked his way, Dove Ed got the feeling they were laughing at him behind their hands as well.  At the far side of the room, Alice chatted with a trio of men, travelers off the stagecoach, whiskey or dry goods drummers to judge by their fine clothes.  One of them took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, and Alice touched her other hand to her heart.  What she said, he did not hear, but it caused the three men at the table to laugh out loud.  A ball of ice formed in Dove Ed’s belly.  He turned back to the bar and drained the last of his beer, spilling some on his shirt in his haste to finish.

            The laughter grew louder, joined now by a shriek from Alice.  Dove Ed looked over to see that the traveling man had pulled Alice down onto his lap and wrapped both arms around her.  His companions laughed and hooted while he struggled to kiss her through her protests.  No one else paid any heed.  The coldness in the pit of Dove Ed’s stomach vanished in the flare of anger that overtook him now, and without thinking he slammed down his glass and crossed the floor to stand behind the traveling man.  John Price hissed something at him, but all of Dove Ed’s attention focused on the man and his two friends, who nudged each other and sat up, amusement gone from their faces.

            “Mister,” Dove Ed said, and the word was like a pebble dropped into a still pond as men nearby fell silent and turned to watch, and the men near them followed suit.  The ripple spread until the room held its breath.

            “Mister,” he said again, louder.  Alice and the traveling man craned their heads around to face him, she with a frightened expression, he with an insolent one.

            “What do you want?” the man said.

            Alice shook her head at Dove Ed.  “Don’t,” she said, “It’s all right.”

            Dove Ed recalled the moment when he took aim at Jacob Putney and pulled the trigger, knowing that he had to do it or die himself, knowing that it was one or the other of them.  This moment was different.  He would draw his revolver and shoot the man, not because he had to, but because he hated the sneer on the man’s face and he knew how good it would feel to see it change to fear and then fade into nothing. 

            “What do you want, boy?” the man said again.

            “He wants you to let go of that young lady, please,” said a voice.  Dove Ed glanced over to see Morgan Morgan standing in the doorway of the saloon.  Morgan had no gun out and had not even raised his voice, but he had the attention of everyone in the room.  “Then he wants you to go to your hotel and stay there until the stagecoach leaves tomorrow.  And he wants your two friends to go with you.”

            The traveling man looked as though he wanted to argue, but his companions got to their feet at once and plucked at his sleeves.  He let Alice up and she fled the table for the kitchen, straightening her disarrayed clothing.  Each of the three men laid money on the table, then filed out of Owens and Price past the sheriff.  “Good night, gentlemen,” he said as they went by.  Conversations resumed as the spectators lost interest, and by the time Morgan reached Dove Ed’s side, the noise level had returned to normal. 

            Dove Ed remained standing next to the now-empty table until Morgan took his elbow and steered him back to the bar, nodding to John Price.  “Give the boy a beer,” he said.

            “I don’t want a beer.”

            Price drew one anyway and put it in front of Dove Ed, who only looked at it.

            “There’s no reward on that drummer,” Morgan said, “So it’s a good thing you didn’t shoot him.”

            Dove Ed still wished he had.  He said, “He was hurting Alice.”

            John Price said, “He was roughhousing a little, is all.”

            “A lot of fellows do,” Morgan said.  “Alice can take care of herself.”

            “And if she can’t…” Price said, and raised his right hand from below the bar.  In it was a stubby shotgun, the twin barrels cut short.

            Dove Ed left the glass of beer untouched and walked away, toward the front door.  Morgan called after him, “Steer clear of the hotel tonight, all right?”  He avoided Tom Mulvehill’s table as he went out, staring straight ahead with his jaw set.  His pulse throbbed in his temples and made his bruises ache again.

           

            Morgan, his back to the bar, watched Dove Ed stalk from the saloon.  Behind him, John Price said, “Well done.  That could have turned ugly if the damn fool had reached for his gun.”

            Morgan nodded.

            Price continued, “He’s a different sort of damn fool than his father, I grant, but he’s making up for it by starting early.”

            Morgan swiveled his head to stare at the saloonkeeper.  He said, “Hugh Williams was never a damn fool, John.”

            Price returned his gaze evenly.  “I stand corrected,” he said.  “Hugh was a lazy, good-for-nothing drunk, but he was far from a fool.”

            “He wasn’t born a drunk, either.”  Morgan turned to face John Price straight on. The saloonkeeper folded his arms over his chest and thrust out his lower jaw as though bracing for an attack.  “When I met him in Iowa City, Hugh Williams was as devout and sober a Saint as you could hope to find.  He and I pushed one of those miserable handcarts hundreds of miles, and when my wife died he pulled my weight as well.  He saved my life, John, so I’d take it as a kindness if you would stop calling him names.”

            He did not raise his voice or even scowl, but John Price flushed a dark red before he ground out, “I’ll see what’s keeping Alice.”  Then he hurried away, through the kitchen door.

            The speed with which he had vanished bemused Morgan, who wondered what Price saw in his face or heard in his voice to cause such emotion.  To be sure, Morgan recognized that he had been easily angered the last couple of weeks since Dove Ed and his friends arrived in town; he glanced over at the poker table where Tom Mulvehill seemed to be suffering quite a drubbing at the hands of Jonas Stokes and his cronies.  Cash Joyner, the third member of the bunch, had found his way to Nell’s whorehouse the way most Gentile travelers seemed to do.  Morgan had tailed the tall southerner from Owens and Price to Nell’s, then left him to his vices and returned to take up his vigil outside the saloon.

            He couldn’t have said why he was watching Dove Ed and his companions so closely, since they had so far done nothing illegal.  Maybe it was due to the encounter with Jacob Putney, and Tom’s glib explanations of that episode.  Maybe it was to see how Dove Ed spent his reward, or out of some sense of obligation to Hugh.  Whatever the reason, he settled himself in a chair outside the saloon, turned so he could peer through the front window, and kept a dull vigil while Dove Ed and Tom indulged themselves inside.  Only the boy’s confrontation with the out-of-town drummers brought Morgan inside at last.

            Alice came through the kitchen door, bonnet in hand and her apron missing.  John Price followed not far behind and took his place at the bar.  Morgan said, “Where you off to, Miss Alice?”

            She stopped beside him.  “Home,” she said.  “Mr. Price gave me leave to go.”

            From her impatient manner, the way she fidgeted with her bonnet, Morgan gathered she was eager to be away, and he had a good idea why.  Through the window all evening long he had seen the smiles, the glances and banter that passed between her and Dove Ed.  He had witnessed for himself the lengths to which the boy would go for Alice.   The thought rankled and put a bite in his words when he said, “If you’re going after the Williams boy, remember what I told you.  I’d think twice about throwing myself at a lad with friends like his.”

            Alice glared at him and whisked by.  Morgan went after her, searching for the right words, but he knew that he sounded like a scold as he said, “Alice, he was ready to shoot that man, and all because of one little kiss!”

            Alice marched straight on toward the door, determination written across her features.  “Yes,” she said.  “He was.”  She stepped out the door and was gone.  Morgan let her go.  At the tables around him, men looked away and pretended not to have overheard the exchange, except for one.  Over his hand of cards, Tom Mulvehill met Morgan’s gaze and held it for an instant, a knowing smile creasing his broad weathered face until a coin clinked into the kitty on the poker table and drew his attention back to his game.

            “Don’t worry about her,” said John Price at Morgan’s elbow, making him start a little; in his distraction he had not heard the saloonkeeper approach.  “Alice is a sensible girl.  She knows you’ve only her best interests at heart.”  Price’s tone was soothing.  Morgan suspected he was trying to make amends for his earlier gaffe.

            “I hope you’re right.”

            “Besides, what have you to fear from a shaver like that?”

            “What do you mean?”

            His hands busy with the table he was clearing, Price shrugged with his expression, oblivious to the frown that crossed Morgan’s face.

            “With Bill gone, the lass needs a husband.”

            “Now, here,” Morgan said.  “Bill was my cousin.  It’s only right I should look out for his widow!”

            Price toted the armload of mugs and glasses to the bar.  He set them down and wiped his hands on his apron.  “By God, you’re touchy as a bishop today!  Anyone can see you’ve got eyes for Alice, and everyone says you’d make her a good match.  What the hell’s the matter with that?”

            “I’m twice her age, is what!”  This drew a scoff from Price; they both knew at least a dozen men in Malad City with young wives, and some with more than one.  “Besides, who says I’ve got eyes for Alice?”

            “Nobody,” Price smirked.  His earlier unease had disappeared and he seemed delighted to have put Morgan off-balance.  “But if you don’t then you ought to get a pair of spectacles before you lose your sight altogether.”  Hearing this, the men at the nearest table burst into laughter, which Price joined.

            “Oh, go to the devil,” Morgan said.  He left the saloon with their mirth ringing in his ears.

The cool night air outside the saloon soothed Dove Ed’s hurts and his temper both.  He hadn’t really considered going to the hotel after the travelers, and it seemed foolish to think of it now.  The way back to the cave was a long one, easy to miss in the darkness, but he had no desire to search through the saloons and dance halls and bawdy houses for Cash, then try to convince him to leave. 

            The idea of the bawdy houses gave him pause.  Even with the money he had given Cash and Tom, and even with what they had spent on supplies and meals, Dove Ed still had more than twenty dollars of Sheriff Morgan’s money left to him.  Surely that was enough to…pay for a round?  He wasn’t certain, but he thought he remembered hearing men speak scornfully of “two-dollar whores”.  Were five-dollar whores all right, or was it better to get a ten-dollar one?  He knew where to find a house; even a Mormon town like Malad City had a cathouse or two. Nell’s stood off the main street a few houses beyond the jail.  But what did you do once you were inside?  The possibilities excited and shamed him, and he started walking in the general direction of Nell’s, not knowing what he would do when he got there.  Wrapped in such delicious, sinful thoughts, Dove Ed did not notice the sound of running feet until they were almost upon him.  He wheeled, scrabbling at his holster in alarm.

            A slim form hurried toward him along the darkened street, calling, “Dove Ed, wait!” and the clear voice helped him recognize the face and figure of Alice Morgan.  She stopped beside him and steadied herself with a hand on his arm as she caught her breath.

            “What’s wrong?” he said.  “Did that fellow come back?”

            She shook her head, still winded.  “I wanted to talk to you.”

            “Ain’t you working?”

            “I told John Price I was too upset.  He let me leave early.  Where are you walking?”

            Dove Ed hoped the gloom of the street hid the blush he felt rising on his face.  He said, “Nowhere.  Just walking.”

            Alice said, “Will you walk with me?”

            He nodded and she slipped her arm through his.  When she started to walk, Dove Ed kept pace without a thought—in fact, all thoughts had fled from his mind.  He could think of nothing to say, and his senses constricted to focus on two things: the burning of his face and the pressure of Alice’s arm on his.

            She said, “That man in the saloon.  Thank you for helping me.”

            Dove Ed remained mute, letting her guide their steps and their talk.

            “A lot of men grab me or pinch me.  They don’t mean anything.”

            Dove Ed said, “I worked in a saloon once.  Nobody ever grabbed me like that.”  Alice laughed, and Dove Ed felt the unfamiliar pain in his jaw that meant he was smiling again.

            “John Price puts a stop to it if they get too rough,” Alice said.  “What would you have done if that man didn’t let me go?”

            “I don’t know.”

            They walked a while before Alice said, “The sheriff told me about…what happened at your father’s farm.”

            “He did?”

            “He was cousin to my husband.  Since Bill died, Morgan looks out for me.  He said you…shot the man who gave you those.”  Alice gestured at the marks on Dove Ed’s face.  “He came in the saloon once, you know.  Jacob Putney?”

            Dove Ed averted his eyes.  They were walking up a sloping street, away from the center of town, and the houses were sparser, smaller here.  With fewer lights around, they slowed their pace.  Alice spoke again, her voice soft. 

            “When you came over to help me, I was afraid you…I didn’t want you to…”

            “I didn’t.”  Even his own voice did not seem to be under his control.  The words grated on his ears; he hadn’t meant to speak so harshly.  Nothing about this night was turning out the way he had hoped. 

            “I know.  But I saw your face, and you were staring at that drummer the same way Jacob Putney looked at me that time.  It frightened me.”

            “He ought not to have grabbed you.”

            Alice released his arm and Dove Ed stopped as though he could not move without her to propel him forward.  She turned to him.  “I remember when you were little,” she said.  “That’s how I knew you when you came back to town, because you looked so much the same.  But tonight you were different.  You’re not the little boy I knew, are you?”

Her face composed and serious she regarded him, head tilted slightly up, and he realized for the first time that he was taller than she.  His heart raced, but his mind remained blank.  When he tried to speak, no sound came to his lips; he cleared his throat, tried again, heard his own voice as though from the bottom of a well.  “We ought to get back,” he said.

            “Back where?”

            His head swam.  He couldn’t think.  “Home?” he said.  “Don’t you have to…?  I mean, I could walk you…”

            Alice smiled.  “All right,” she said.  She kept her hand clasped on his and turned off the street, pulling Dove Ed along a short path to a small house of rough-sawn, unpainted planks, a one-story affair hardly bigger than a homesteader’s shack.  At the door she stopped and said, “Thank you for seeing me home.  I don’t know how I would have found my way, I’m sure.”  She unlatched the door and stepped halfway through.  Dove Ed heard the strike of a match; saw the flicker of a flame as she lighted a candle on a shelf just inside.  When she turned back to him once more he stepped forward and kissed her.

            The kiss was brief.  Though Alice did not flinch away or make objection, neither did she return the kiss; her lips were warm and pliant under his and did not press back against him.  Her hands remained at her sides and Dove Ed had no idea what to do with his own.  He kept them half-raised, afraid to touch her, and when he drew back they would not fall but opened and closed as though in a fit.  Alice reached out and took his left hand in her right.  She wore a sad smile, a pitying smile he thought.

            “Oh, Dove Ed,” she said.

            He looked down at the tips of his boots, hoping the ground beneath would open up and swallow him.  When it did not, he said, “I thought…”

            “It’s all right.”

            “No it ain’t.”  He pulled his hand away.

            “Dove Ed, don’t…I’m just scared, is all.”

            “Scared?  Of me?”

            “Of what might happen to you.  Hanging around men like Mulvehill and Joyner.”

            “Nothing’s going to happen.”

            “Putney nearly killed you!  Morgan says it was all because of those men.  He says they’re trouble.”

            At the mention of the sheriff’s name, Dove Ed’s hackles rose and the edge crept back into his voice.  “Oh does he now?  What else does Morgan say?”  He loaded the name with scorn, turning it into an insult.

            Now Alice raised her voice in return.  “He says they’ve given no good account of themselves since they came to town.  He says they’ve brought with them an iron door they’ve no reason to need.  And he says if they’re prospectors, then he’s Joseph Smith!”

            “Well, he spews enough bullshit to be the prophet, that’s sure,” said Dove Ed.  “You forget that I came with them, giving no good account of myself either!”  Alice gaped at his sudden ferocity and Dove Ed plunged on.  “We brought that door to guard our claim, so when we strike it rich no one can steal it.  And we will strike it rich, and then Morgan Morgan can just go to hell!”

            Tears had begun to stream down Alice’s cheeks and she shrank back from his tirade.  When he ground to a halt, she said through her soft sobs, “He’s only looking after you.”

            “I don’t need looking after.  I ain’t a little boy any more, remember?”

            “You’re right.”  Alice stepped back inside her house, her hand on the edge of the door.  She said, “But you sure as hell ain’t a man yet, either, Dove Ed.”  And with all her might she slammed the door shut in his face.  Through the curtain over the small window he could hear her muffled weeping, but in his anger and confusion he could not bring himself to call to her or knock on the door.  When the candlelight inside suddenly snuffed out, he turned and strode blindly through the darkness back toward the main street.

            How he arrived at the front steps of Nell’s Dance Hall, he could not say; perhaps the music had drawn him like a moth to a lamp, unconsciously and instinctively.  Now he stood outside with the music and laughter spilling out through the front door, and he looked at the signs promising “Twenty-Five Cents a Dance” and “Private Lessons” and “Every Hostess a Well-Bred Lady”.  He felt in his pocket for his twenty dollars and he thought of Alice and the way her lips felt against his and he stayed where he stood.

            From out of the noise and light and haze of the dance hall stepped a woman.  With the glare in his eyes, Dove Ed could see only her silhouette, but from her place at the head of the stairs she towered over him, imperious.  She said, “Hello there.  Won’t you come inside and dance with me?”

            Dove Ed shook his head.  “I don’t know how to dance.”

            “Why then, you can have a private lesson.”

            “I don’t want to dance.”

            She descended the steps, and Dove Ed saw she was shorter than himself, dressed in blue dress trimmed with bits of lace.  She drew close to him, smelling faintly of sweat and flowers.  “Then we’ll find something else to teach you,” she said, and took his hand and led him up the stairs and inside.

           

Chapter 16

            They drilled holes in the rock face using mallets and cold chisels, the clash of the hammers on thumb-thick rods of steel resounding from the cliffs around them and shivering into the cave.  They talked little, saving their breath for the effort of striking the chisels.  Every so often one or the other of them would miss his mark, chipping the rock with a dull thud or the ironwork with a clang and curse for his own clumsiness.  Then the stream of blows would resume, creating an ever-changing syncopation with his companion, since they never struck precisely the same rhythm.  Dove Ed tended to use faster, lighter blows while Cash took more time with each swing but delivered more force.

            Starting a hole demanded the most patience and endurance, since they had to brace the cold chisel with one hand and wield the mallet with the other.  The chisel was applied to the rock face; as the opposite end, mushrooming slightly from thousands of such uses, was struck with the mallet, the broad cross-shaped tip bit into the sandstone the smallest distance.  The chisel would be rotated forty-five degrees and struck again.  And again.  And again, gradually boring a hole inches deep into the rock beside cave opening, small shards of powdered rock sprinkling out around the shaft of the chisel.  When the hole grew deep enough it would support the chisel by itself, and Cash or Dove Ed would gratefully let go, shaking their hand, now tingling from the thrum of each hammer-blow.

            The iron door, with its still-attached remnants of latticework cage, dictated the precise arrangement of the holes they had to drill.  It stood in place, covering the mouth of the cave they had selected as their cache.  The contours of the surrounding boulders prevented an exact fit, but they were able by dint of cutting certain of the bars and applying judicious brute force to others, to fit the lattice close against the stones.  Then they propped it up and began drilling their holes, into which they would drive iron staples slightly broader than the openings.  The staples, spanning the bars of the cage, would secure it to the boulders as near forever as made no difference.  The only way into the cave, then, would be through the iron door.

            In the meantime, Cash and Dove Ed sweated and pounded and cursed in the heat of the June sunshine, stopping for an occasional dipperful of water or to catch their breath and stretch their cramped shoulders.  When they did, they wondered to themselves what was taking Tom so long, then answered themselves that Tom would be back when most of the work was finished.  He had that knack, they agreed, though only through exasperated glances and headshakes.

            It was several days since they dragged the iron door from the ruin of the Williams farm and hauled it and their supplies to the cave.  The bruises around Dove Ed’s eyes were fading into a spectrum of putrid yellows and purples, and his broken nose, still swollen, encroached on the rest of his features, but the boy never complained.  At least his injuries were healing; the evening he returned alone from Malad City he looked like he wouldn’t last the night.  Bundled in linen bandages, wan and clammy with pain, he made up his bedroll in the Williams barn and slumped atop it with hardly a word.  Cash and Tom were forced to wait till morning to ask where he’d been, and got only vague answers in reply.  Dove Ed spoke seldom, if at all, and they did not press him.  When they did speak, it was of the task at hand.

            Dove Ed had the idea of building platforms over the uneven cavern floor to give level spaces for sleeping and clearing supplies.  They scavenged the Williams farm for lumber and nailed together some rude but serviceable trestles.  Onto these they moved their meager stores and their bedrolls.  With the wood left over they planned to build a wall to reinforce the inside of the iron lattice, which might keep out the inquisitive but would not keep out the weather.

            By and by, as the afternoon wore on, Cash flung down his tools and said, “If Tom ain’t coming back, I say we go in to town after him.”

            Dove Ed gave a last flurry of blows to the staple he was driving, then dropped his mallet and stood, passing a bandanna gingerly over his damaged, sweat-sheened face.  He hooked his gunbelt from where it lay; Cash had noticed he kept it always in arm’s reach, even while working.  It still amazed Cash that the sheriff had given back the gun, let alone allowed Dove Ed to leave Malad City a free man.  But what really put the shine on the saddle was the five twenty-dollar gold pieces he said the sheriff had given him.  Lord, the look on Tom Mulvehill’s face when the boy displayed those golden eagles!

            “If that gimpy lawman has a purse that heavy, we’re wasting our time taking stagecoaches, by God,” Tom had said.  Ever since being rescued first by Dove Ed and then by the law, Tom had been acting touchy, and he viewed Dove Ed’s sudden largesse as a further personal insult.

            “He said the reward for Putney might be a while coming,” Dove Ed said.   “I think it’s from Putney’s loot.”

            The idea that it was reward money griped Tom even more.  “We all deserve a share,” he had said.  “All three of us fought the bastard.  You may have shot him, but we kept him busy!”  He had a point; while Putney gloated over Tom, Dove Ed had found his discarded pistol and loaded it.  In the end, they shared out the money, one gold piece each for Tom and Cash, and three for Dove Ed, who after all had shot the son of a bitch.

            Now Cash and Dove Ed descended the draw from the cave mouth to the small camp where they had left the wagon and horses.  Tom had not returned, so they set to saddling their mounts.  “Who would have thought,” said Cash as he tightened the girth strap, “That twenty dollars could keep Tom in town for so long?”

            From their camp on the thinly wooded slope of Samaria Mountain it was several hours ride into Malad City, and it had gone full dark by the time they rode in.  On the way they neither saw nor expected Tom Mulvehill, and they were not surprised to find his horse tethered in front of Owens and Price.  Tom, on the other hand, appeared both surprised and somewhat displeased when he caught sight of their entrance.  He sat at a poker table, with a bottle of whiskey near to hand and an odd assortment of bills and coins before him.  He nodded to them but kept his attention on his cards as Cash and Dove Ed threaded their way through the crowded, smoky barroom toward him.

            “Hello, Tom,” Cash said.  “Making us all rich men, I see.”  He gestured at Tom’s pile of cash money, the smallest of the six men in the game.  The others at the table ignored him except to pull their cards closer to their vests.  Dove Ed did not pause, but moved past without a greeting to take an empty seat at a table near the bar.

            “Yeah, I’ve got them right where they want me,” Tom said, and grinned, but his eyes flicked back to follow Dove Ed.  “What brings you boys into town?”

            “When you didn’t come right back we got fretful,” Cash said.

            One of the players at the table laid down his hand with an air of satisfaction, and groans arose as the others tossed down their cards.  Tom leaned forward and swore.  “A full house?  Christ,” he complained.  “You’ve got some unholy luck, Jonas.”  Jonas paid him no heed but gloated as he raked in his winnings and set to counting it as the cards were shuffled anew.

            “I’ll see you, Tom,” said Cash.  Tom stopped him with a hand on his arm.

            “No, hold on a minute.  I’ll join you.”  He gathered up his stake and his bottle, telling the rest of the table they’d have to get along without his money and his company for a while.  This announcement appeared not to trouble the others unduly; they ignored him, already intent on the deal of the next hand.  As Tom stepped away, another man took his seat at the table.

            “How much have you lost?” said Cash.

            Tom changed the subject.  “Look here,” he said, pointing with his chin at Dove Ed’s table.  Alice Morgan, the serving girl, had laid a plate of food before Dove Ed, but rather than return directly to the kitchen she stood over the boy.  His face rested in one of her cupped hands, tilted upward to give her a better view of his injuries.  Concern etched he features as she brushed aside his hair and took inventory of his scrapes and bruises.  Cash and Tom could not hear what words they exchanged, but Tom nudged Cash with his elbow and advanced on the table.  He walked with a pronounced limp, favoring his right leg, which he said had been cruelly twisted when the iron door fell upon it.  Cash doubted this.  But while he had been knocked senseless for a time, his own hurts had been minor and he hesitated to call Tom a liar.

            Hobbling up to the table, Tom said, “No kissing on the mouth, darlin.  Boy’s still sore where he lost them teeth.”

            Dove Ed glared over at Tom, and Alice stepped away from him, color rising in her cheeks.  Her voice stayed level as she said, “I’ll bring you somewhat to drink, shall I?”

            “Tea?” Dove Ed said.

            “Coffee for me,” said Cash.  “And another plate of that dinner?”

            Alice nodded and left for the kitchen.  Tom called after her, “Me too!”  She gave no sign that she had heard.

            “Hello, Tom,” Dove Ed said as they sat down.  “Lose much?”

            Tom waved a hand dismissively.  “How’s the work coming?”

            “Almost done, no thanks to you,” said Cash.  “You left two days ago, and we ain’t stopped work since.”

            “I wouldn’t of been much use to you with this leg of mine,” Tom said.

            Cash raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Dove Ed spoke first.  “I know you wouldn’t,” he said.

            The edge in his voice drew Cash up short, and he wondered if Tom noticed it.  Dove Ed was still a quiet fellow, but since the night at the cabin he had been acting different, showing an unsuspected side of himself, harder, darker.  It reminded Cash of the war, and new recruits after the first time a man died before their eyes.  Something went out of them then, and something else took its place.  A sidelong glance showed Tom pouring a drink, his face giving nothing away.  Talk at the table died.  Dove Ed applied himself to his meal, Tom drank, and Cash watched the ebb and flow of customers out of the saloon.  Alice returned from the kitchen and busied herself arranging plates, coffeepot, cups and saucers, then whirled away without a word.

            “Didn’t you want some supper, Tom?” Cash said.

            “No, you go on.  Meantime guess what I found out.”

            His mouth full of potato, Dove Ed said, “Not to draw to an inside straight?”

            Cash choked on his coffee.  Tom looked at him, then back at Dove Ed with a grin on his lips that didn’t reach his eyes.  He said, “You’re a poisonous little cuss, ain’t you?”

            Dove Ed used a biscuit to chase gravy around his plate.

            “What’s the matter with you two, anyways?  I thought we had agreed on the plan.  Your plan, if I remember right, Cash.”

            “My plan didn’t call for me and Dove Ed to spend life at hard labor while you drank and played poker.”

            “I like that,” Tom said.  “Old Tom, just boozing and gambling while his friends do all the work, the lazy bastard.”

            “Don’t forget ‘losing the only money we got’.”

            “It ain’t a loss.”

            “You got less than when you started.  I’d call that a loss.”

            “It’s an investment.”  Without leaning in or shifting his eyes, Tom somehow contrived to make his voice softer, conspiratorial.  With the hum of conversation and activity in the saloon, no one beyond their table could have heard him.  “See Jonas, there at the poker table?”

            “The one with unholy luck.”

            “He’s a stablehand for the stage line.”

            “Then he needs the money more than you do, I guess.”

            Tom pulled a disgusted face.  “Just shut up a minute.  Now suppose I walk up to Jonas and ask him when a stage is due, carrying gold or payroll.  Suppose I ask him who’s driving, what kind of guards are aboard, and whatnot?  Suppose I offered Jonas ten dollars to tell me.  You think he would?”

            Cash ate his meal, seeing where this was headed but knowing Tom would have to run out of steam on his own.

            “Hell no, he’d have the sheriff on us is what.”  Tom poked the tabletop with his index finger for emphasis.  “But if lose ten dollars to Jonas, I get the chance for some friendly conversation.  It just takes a little longer is all, to steer the topic around where you want it, and you got to listen to a lot of useless nonsense until then.  Lord, some people do love to talk.”

            “Yeah, Jonas seemed awful gabby.”

            “I know his name and where he works.  I know he came here from Orem three years ago.  I know his wife nags him.”  Tom smiled knowingly and tapped the side of his nose.  “And I know he leans back in his seat when he’s holding a weak hand, because he wants to look casual.”

            Cash sucked the last morsels off his spoon and refilled his coffee cup from the metal pot on the table.  Then he said, “Tom, I apologize.”

            Dove Ed looked up, and Tom narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  Cash said, “I mean it.  With information like that, there ain’t a strongbox in the Territory that’s safe from us.”

            For a moment Cash thought he might have pushed it too far; Tom’s face froze and color rose from his shirt collar to his cheeks.  Cash kept his expression innocent but his body tensed, waiting.  Then a chortle erupted from Dove Ed and the moment passed as Tom and Cash laughed as well.

            “You son of a bitch,” Tom said, shaking his head and chuckling.  He tossed back a quick drink of whiskey and refilled his glass, then added a dollop to Cash’s coffee cup.  Dove Ed pulled his tea back and shook his head.  Tom and Cash toasted and drank, then Tom took his bottle and stood.

            “Better get back to it,” he said.

            Cash said, “See if you can’t find out where Jonas plays poker.  Then we’ll have it licked.”

            They laughed again, and Tom leaned over the table.  To Dove Ed he said, “This might take a while yet.  I could hang in there longer if I had another of them twenty-dollar coins...or two, if you can spare them.”

            This made Cash laugh even harder as Dove Ed solemnly dug into his pocket and produced one of the remaining gold coins and handed it over.  Tom bounced it on his palm as though debating whether to ask for more, but finally he straightened, tucking the coin away.  Touching his hat to the others, he turned and made his way back toward the card game, where Jonas the stablehand still sat in rapt attention with his cards.

            Cash doused his laughter in his coffee, whistling noiselessly at the bite of the whiskey.  “Better count those last two eagles, Dove Ed,” he said.  “Tom might of talked you out of them without you noticing.”

            He drained his cup to the dregs, then planted both palms on the table and pressed himself to his feet.  “We’ve had a meal and a drink,” he said.  “That leaves women and cards, and cards can’t dance.  Shall we find ourselves a dance hall?”

            Dove Ed shook his head without looking up, and fiddled with the creases in his shirtfront, plucking them this way and that.  “You go ahead,” he said.  “I thought to get some cake.”

            “Cake?”  Cash couldn’t believe it at first, until he saw Alice Parry emerge from the kitchen, and Dove Ed’s eyes following her.  “All right, then.  Catch up when you can, but don’t expect me to save a dance for you.”

            He headed outside, shrugging into his coat and adjusting his hat.  On the porch he turned and looked back into the hazy light of Owens and Price.  Near the door, Tom had gotten back into his poker game, his stack of currency much healthier than before.  Toward the back, Dove Ed stood talking with Alice.  Cash couldn’t see his face, but the girl smiled at Dove Ed and once even laughed at something he said.  With them seen to, he started off the porch, listening for the sound of bright music and laughing women to guide him.

            His eyes full of light-dazzle, he did not notice Morgan Morgan farther down the boardwalk.  From where he stood he could see inside the saloon, directly to the table where they had been sitting.