Between the Rivers Page 6

SALOONS. Gideon had seen smaller saloons. Therein, any comparison to such an uncouth establishment ceased. The couch beneath him was well padded, the smoothness of the fabric unexpected. Before him stood a huge fireplace, with flat stones placed along the front to make a bench. Gideon had seen the like in a hotel once and, like that hotel, stairs on his left led to a second story. It wasn’t a ladder, nor boards nailed to the wall, but a bona fide staircase with an actual handrail. Morning light poured through glass windows, real glass, not linen or paper stretched across frames. Everything was clean, orderly and sparse. He had known an old soldier who kept things like that. ‘Quarters’ he had called them. Gideon’s scan of the room took mere seconds and ended at a gun rack on the wall to his right.

  “Morning, Governor,” said a voice directly behind Gideon. “Coffee?”

  Aspen held out a white china cup. It was a lady’s cup, from floral pattern to curly-swirly handle, and it looked completely out of place in his calloused hand. Ignoring the offer, Gideon stretched expansively— and groaned emphatically. According to the indignant messages coming from various bruises, abrasions, cuts and grievously offended nerves he had a strong case for filing a grievance. He— this line of reasoning abruptly stopped. The handcuffs dangling unproductively from his wrist had halted his thinking in its tracks. One loop was open, clearly having been unlocked by the supposedly non-existent key.

  “Should've let your hide sink,” he opinioned sourly.

  Aspen stood over his groggy charge, obviously pleased with himself. Gideon knew that look. It was an expression he had seen before, in not too dissimilar a situation. Only then he had been in no doubt of the quality and purpose of the man who had bested him.

  Aspen lowered himself to the coffee table and tried again. “Take it, you’ll feel better.”

  China perched uncertainly in his fingers, the warm aroma of fresh, black coffee shouldered its way forward, pounded on Gideon’s nose and declared its intention to commit olfactory assault with malice aforethought.

  “Were I beat whilst I done slept?” he grimaced.

  “No,” Aspen’s voice was purposefully dry. “You threw yourself down a mountain as a run-up to throwing yourself down a whitewater river.”

  “If’n you’re half as sore, it’d make my day.”

  “My rifle?” Aspen inquired.

  “Bottom-a the lake,” Gideon supposed, with no particular sympathy. “Oh, wait– that were the key.”

  “Breakfast?” Aspen offered, ignoring the offered bait to an argument.

  Breakfast? Was he serious? Gideon dared to explore.

  “Eggs?”

  Was it a year ago he had eaten eggs? That tiny hole in the wall. No point trying to recall the town, there had been far too many, but he remembered those eggs.

  “Possibly,” Aspen allowed.

  “Bacon?”

  “Probably.”

  Gideon grimaced at the coffee cup. “Tea?”

  “Could be. Shall I have a word with the chef?”

  Gideon rose and allowed Aspen to lead the way to the kitchen. The shelves were stocked, the work surfaces clear, the floor swept. The floor was real wood too, not dirt. And rooms. How many did this house have? He had awoken in a sitting room, and then there was the kitchen, and two more doors to who knew what, and one to the outside.

  Aspen nudged Gideon to a chair, secured him to the iron loop of a door handle, and went about preparing breakfast. He wasn’t a very good cook and his efforts proved it, but it was food and Gideon ate with unabashed zeal. Aspen nearly matched him. Neither asked anything of the other and both were content with the arrangement.

  As Gideon shoveled lumpy eggs and gulped tea, he wondered how much glass windows cost. Probably a lot. And a whole set of those flowery dishes, how much did they run? Everywhere were things, not clutter, but good serviceable things. He had been right– Aspen Rivers was not only an educated man, but a rich one.

  “Let’s have a look at that leg,” Aspen suggested, interrupting Gideon’s mental wanderings. “You don’t need it getting infected.”

  Kneeling down, Aspen snipped and teased away the makeshift bandage from the day before. Wait– had it been two days ago? It felt like a week.

  Gideon held very still. He’d be danged if he would show even a smidgeon of discomfort. When the ragged wound was finally exposed, the edges were angry and it bled anew. Aspen retrieved alcohol, scissors and fresh bandages from a safe.

  “Ready?”

  Gideon nodded, and then wished he hadn’t because pride made a lousy impediment to the burn of alcohol.

  “Can’t be helped,” Aspen empathized, “but it won’t last.”

  He applied fresh dressings and reassessed the criminal he had brought home. It didn’t take much effort to come to the same conclusion: society had willfully tossed this boy out for improper conduct. Chances were pretty good society had received a black eye for its trouble too.

  “How about we get you some clean clothes?” Aspen offered, putting up his medical supplies. “You should be about Emberlee’s size.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with these.”

  “No, but there’s not much right either.”

  Upstairs three doors surrounded a narrow landing. Once again, Gideon thought of some of the saloons he had been in, although this house felt more akin to a hotel. He could just about expect a single loft for any who felt the need for comparative privacy or, in larger families, a place for the children to pile onto one blanket, but three actual separate rooms? Gideon couldn’t decide if the bedroom they entered belonged to two people or one with a passion for clothes. There was one bed, yet a single chest of drawers and a wardrobe. Two pairs of boots toed the wall, but one coat hung from a peg. Everything was tidy, like the rooms downstairs, albeit in a more lived in fashion.

  Aspen handed over a pile of clothes. “Here, Emberlee can spare these. Give them a try.”

  He propped himself in the doorway, back considerately turned, whilst wisely preventing escape.

  “Whyn’t I in jail?” Gideon asked, unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Why did you help me at the lake?” Aspen countered.

  In retrospect there were certainly wiser decisions Gideon could have made. So why had he done it?

  Well?

  What’re ya askin’ me for? It were your idea.

  Yeah, but you did it.

  Shutup.

  Gideon tugged at his borrowed britches. The buckle at the back wasn’t doing much good. There wasn’t much of anything that was doing him much good, if he stopped to think about. But, by and large, he did not care to think about it. He buttoned on his own braces and pulled them up over a blue cotton shirt. The soft fabric felt foreign against his skin. The last item was a vest, which he ignored in favor of his own. The buttons were an odd, mismatched collection and he did not bother to fasten them.

  “Leave your things here,” said Aspen. “We’ll go do some chores.”

  Very little needed to be done, and Aspen barely felt ambitious enough to meet the need, but doing was better. He secured Gideon on the back of a wagon and begun cleaning stalls and feeding horses. As he worked, Aspen talked about how his father had been a freighter and then come west. In the years that followed he had done well, found trustworthy partners, and eventually established the Rolling Rivers as it stood today.

  “Whose side you on?” Gideon asked, brow furrowed.

  “Side?” Aspen echoed.

  The Rolling Rivers could be pasted in a book as the picture definition of a fine set up. A cabin that was no shack, a barn, corral, and every plank and rail maintained. Any gent riding the grub line would be pleased clean out of his boots to stumble on such an outfit.

  “Them stoled critters, weren’t a mighty lot a-wearin’ no brand-a yourn.”

  “And?” Aspen prompted, tossing hay to his horse.

  “Your pa done lost more pride than beef.”

  “What about those who did lose livestock?”

  “What ‘bout ‘em?”<
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  The tone proposed Gideon couldn’t possibly have cared less about the concerns of others. The expression accompanying said tone suggested he couldn’t even be bothered to care that he didn’t care. Aspen gave his horse an affectionate pat and leaned against the stall rail to eyeball his charge. The expression on his face suggested he might be on better terms with the truth than Gideon.

  “There’s right and there’s wrong and there are laws that ought to be followed,” Aspen replied equitably. “Stealing a man’s livelihood is wrong. Now, provided I have passed your test, you tell me what you were doing up on the ridge.”

  “Runnin’,” Gideon answered.

  Aspen tipped his head and raised an eyebrow. After riding herd on three younger brothers, he knew a knee jerk reaction when he heard one.

  “Do you recall meeting a little fellow, dark hair, part of the sheriff’s posse? Seems to me he was cussing you at the time— Pa will have to have a word with him about that. Ring any bells?”

  Gideon gave a non-committal shrug.

  “What did you do to him?” Aspen continued.

  “Do?” said Gideon.

  “You heard me.”

  Gideon gave another shrug, this time loaded with indifference. “Knocked ‘im flat.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause a bullet were a-headed for his guts via his back,” the words popped out of Gideon’s mouth of their own accord.

  “So a rustler, suddenly finding himself on the run, stops to save the life of a man who intends to arrested him? Sounds a touch backways to front, don't you think?”

  So much for runnin’.

  I couldn’t let the kid die.

  Ya could’ve if’n you’d’ve a-been a rustler.

  Rustlin’ ain’t murder.

  An’ you weren’t a-doin’ neither.

  “Care to try your story again,” Aspen offered generously, “or at least come up with a better lie?”

  Gideon had plenty of reasons not to trust people. He certainly had sufficient reason not to put his faith in a rich man. Or a lawman. Or a man with a gun when he had none. Or, come to think on it. . .

  “I followed them men a fair piece,” Gideon’s back thoughts said, to the utter surprise of his forethoughts, which suddenly quit ruminating upon the exact measure of trust he did not own and gaped, appalled at what they were hearing. “Near had ‘em too, afore your lot barged in.”

  “You were tracking the rustlers? Alone?”

  “Somebody had to,” said the hind thoughts.

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Gideon reined himself in and shut himself up. His feelings on fancy men, lawmen, and the merits thereof were nobody’s business but his own— no matter what his suddenly loquacious inner-self had to say about the matter. He sure wasn’t going to explain how good men had died defending a man who would die anyway at the hands of another man who had never been good a day in his life.

  Well, if’n ya put it like that, he’s sure to un’erstand.

  Is this you helpin? If so, I’d like to end this association.

  “They’d’ve b‘lieved me, them friends-a yourn?” Gideon said, shoving the back thoughts back were they belonged.

  Aspen had to concede the point. The locals weren’t exactly in the best mood for explanations or alibies. They were in the perfect mood to shoot anyone who so much as set eyes on a running iron. And that had been Gideon’s first introduction to the men of Caswell Crossing.

  “Who wouldn’t help you?” Aspen asked, looping around to something Gideon had not quite said.

  “Seein’ as I ain’t no thief,” Gideon evaded, jangling the handcuffs, “mebbe we might could dispense with these?”

  “Not a chance. I may know what you aren’t, but I still don’t know who you are.”

  Not to mention Luke Gandy would have his head, and then his hide, and then would come the lecture and besides— Aspen wasn’t stupid.

  “Thought you had you ‘nough bruises,” Gideon retorted.

  “You just sit tight. Like it or not, you’re safest right here on the Rolling Rivers. Now, who wouldn’t help you?”

  “A fellah’s gotta look out for his ownself. He can’t go askin’ no odds-a nobody.”

  Gideon wouldn’t say a peep more, but Aspen was getting used to that. They went up to the cabin and plopped on the couch, whereupon Aspen settled into a thick book.

  “What’re ya doin’?” Gideon asked.

  Aspen turned a page. “It’s called reading.”

  “You’re just gonna sit there?”

  “Yes. We did it your way yesterday.”

  Throughout history, prisoners have made a point of doing their level best to cease being prisoners. No one has to tell them to do this. They are simply locked up and their thoughts naturally turn to escaping before the situation escalates to being strung up. Where this sometimes leaves the one doing the capturing at a loss, no prisoner anywhere has any difficulty grasping the concept.

  Purely by instinct, Gideon followed this fine tradition. After several hours of impatient waiting, his guard finally nodded off to sleep– also a fine historical tradition— at which point Gideon applied himself to picking the handcuffs. A jimmy, a twist, and the lock popped open.

  So did the eyes of Aspen Rivers.

  In an explosion of movement Gideon left the couch, dodged the armchair, and leapt for the front door. Then he was tackled flat. A fair amount of tussling followed, accompanied by grunts on one side and curses on the other. It involved elbows, and gouging, and the acute application of teeth. It then involved Aspen climbing Gideon’s frame and pinning both arms up his back. Gideon continued to follow tradition and took this turn of events rather badly. He did not yell or beg to be let go. That would have been foolish. He did buck and yank to his heart’s content. When this produced no appreciable results, he proceeded to cuss Aspen’s family for three generations– both retrospectively and those yet to come. Aspen, for his part, quietly straddled his captive and waited for Gideon to collect himself.

  “We’ve been here before. The results have not changed.”

  Meant to be reasonable, Aspen’s words instead sparked a surge of anger and made him glad he already had a firm hold. Aspen had never seen anyone go from still to sunfishing without a single ounce of build up in between. Even Ember, his hot tempered younger brother, needed a step or two of run up. Oh well, he was in no hurry.

  Gideon could not say as much. The arrival of that danged posse had shot a year’s worth of work clean to blazes. He would have to start all over again. And the longer he took, the harder the job would be. The rustlers were on the run, lighting the proverbial shuck to parts unknown—

  You sure ain’t.

  Oh good, you’re a-helpin’ again.

  One-a us has to face facts.

  An’ this here’s the best time?

  No. It ain’t. That’s there’s the point.

  And it was a point, Gideon had to admit. Perhaps the best thing was to play quiet and wait for a better opportunity. Where to start left him at a loss though, having only seen giving in from the other side as it were. He lay there puzzling out the notion and, serendipitously, the amount of thought this required stole the energy from his muscles and shunted it to his brain. As thinking neurons powered up, dumb muscle conversely powered down and Gideon felt the pressure on his arms ease.

  Telled ya.

  Very clever. Now what?

  Hey, were me as got us this far.

  Ya don’t know, do ya?

  Well. . . no. How would I?

  “I’m starved,” Aspen tried again, after several minutes of mutually anticipatory silence. “Shall we see to supper?”

  Offered companionably, it nevertheless hung in the air like the peace offering it was.

  “Peaches?” Gideon inquired hopefully.

  “Could be.”

  “Dessert?”

  “Doughnuts.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Aspen anchored Gideon to the cast iron s
tove and began patting down his pockets.

  “Any chance you’d like to tell me your name yet?”

  “Ain’t likely,” Gideon replied bluntly to avoid confusion.

  “I suppose, were I in your position,” Aspen allowed, rifling through Gideon’s vest, “I probably wouldn’t tell me either. A point in my favor though: I could have shot you up on that mountain rather than chase you.”

  Aspen winced suddenly and gingerly explored his side, whereupon he winced again.

  “You may have cracked my rib.”

  “My a-pologies, I’m sure,” Gideon replied, in the lifted tones of false snobbery.

  Why d’ya reckon he didn’t shoot?

  Beats me. Mebbe folks ‘round here don’t fig’r there’s much point in a-stretchin’ a corpse.

  We got some-a our own back, any road.

  And that was true because, quite clearly, a shiner had been added to his guard’s list of worries.

  “So that’s how you do it,” Aspen proclaimed, holding up the thin nail.

  When he found the hide-out knife, Aspen decided Gideon was clever, not much of a hardened criminal, but clever. He had been searched by professionals and nobody had discovered the little blade. Satisfied, Aspen turned his attention to searching the pantry.

  “It appears we have canned peas. Not a favorite of mine. You?” he called, as his hand moved to a glass jar brim full of peaches.

  He spied Gideon surreptitiously stretching his arms. Perhaps that ache would make the fool stop and think next time. Unfortunately, current evidence suggested such sound logic had about the same chance of being employed as a directionally impaired cartographer.