Gunslinger’s Lullaby

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

Red rain!

When the red drops continued to fall all around her, she reached up, rubbed her face, and then looked at the smear of red death on her hand. Seeing it put her in shock until she realized it was the blood of a pig, and shouted, “Carl! My God, do you have to do that now? It stinks, and the blood of that poor pig is gettin’ all over my clean clothes!”

“Sorry Miz McClure, but it’s gotta be done before me and the boys leave.” He stopped for a moment, wiped his sweat, and looked up into a white sky. “Unusual weather we’re havin’ for this time of year. No wind to speak of. Slaughterin’s best done in cold weather, you know. Don’t smell so bad then.”

“I ain’t never seen a hot spell hang on so long,” she answered back as she took a wet rag from out of her wash, wiped the blood off her, and then hung up her last piece of clothing to dry in the hot sun.

“We’ll probably have a cold winter for sure when it finally breaks.”

She looked toward the barn when she heard the fast clip-clop of horses riding off. “Where are they goin’?”

“To the General Store in town. We need a few things before we get started. As soon as I get through here, I’m gonna get cleaned up and meet ‘em out along the south forty.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“At least a couple of weeks.” He looked over at her with a look of concern on his face. “That’s a long time. You sure you’ll be all right here by yourself? I could leave Jimbo here, if you think…”

“No, no. I’ll be fine. You boys do whatever it is you have to do and don’t worry about me.”

“You know, the widow Johnson’s just a few miles away. I could…”

“Carl, you worry too much. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine? You’re a baby!” Seeing the way she was looking at him, he said, “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Your pa wouldn’t like us leavin’ you without gettin’ someone to…”

“I’m not a baby, Carl. I can…” She took a deep breath, trying to get control of her anger. “Carl, I appreciate your concern, but you know as well as I do that my pa taught me all I need to know about taking care of this ranch, and myself. I’ve lived on this piece of land my whole life, and as for weapons I’ve got everything from guns to fryin’ pans, and I ain’t afraid to use them. I’m insulted that you think I’m some kind of baby that needs protectin’. I remember everything my pa taught me, so you just go and put me and my welfare out of your mind.”

Carl looked at her, smiling and shaking his head. “Hell, I guess you’re right. I even feel sorry for the hombre that tangles with you.”

“That’s better.” With her young bones aching, she turned to pick up her empty basket, and started toward the house. “If I don’t see you before you leave, you boys be careful, hear?”

“Sure thing, Miz McClure.”

She slammed into the house noticing that the wind was so still, even the slam of the front door didn’t make much of a sound. She quickly pulled off her bandana, shook out her bright red hair, and then immediately headed for her bedroom. She fell on the bed and lay there for a moment, breathing deeply before reaching under her lumpy mattress to dig out Frank Starr’s Ten Penny Novels.

Reading all about the dangerous escapades of the men of the west was her favorite past time. She was so used to hiding them from her father that she couldn’t seem to break the habit now that he was dead and gone. She looked at the title, Vigilantes and Bad Men of the West, and flipped to the pages about the notorious Reno Hudson. Reno was the most famous gunslinger the West ever knew. His name was on everyone’s lips all the way from California to New Orleans. Every time she opened the book she looked at the drawing of him—at his long hair, dark eyes, and muscled physique, and knew this man was worlds away from her. She shuddered inwardly when she wondered what in the world she would do if she ever met him in the flesh.

He had several books written about him, but the one she held in her hand was the most notorious. It had everything from midnight raids, to the countless number of saloon girls he satisfied. Each word gave her a thrill, and it was hard to put the book down. It finally came time to drag herself up when she heard her ranch foreman slam into the house and yell out.

“We’re headin’ out now, Miz McClure. See you in a couple of weeks.”

“Okay. You be careful, hear?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She piddled around in the kitchen for a while, carrying water, banging skillets, and then went outside to clean up the larder after Carl had hung the meat. She just got back into the house when suddenly she heard a sound and stopped. She ran to the front, pulled the handmade curtain back, and saw a man dressed in black fall off his horse and lay bloody and dying not five feet from her front porch. A spear of fear shot through her. Her first inclination was to run and hide, but she quickly got hold of herself. She couldn’t fall apart now. She’d just bragged to Carl about how brave she was. Remembering what she’d said, she quickly grabbed the shot gun her father left her and ran outside. She lifted the gun and pointed it while swinging it from side to side, sure there must be a gang of murdering cowboys hiding in the bushes, but everything was quiet. Finally, she threw the gun aside and sank down beside him.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I got a bullet in the shoulder,” he said softly, his white, even teeth clenched with pain that was etched in deep lines around his mouth.

“I’ll have to get you in the house, then go for a doctor.”

“No…no doctor.”

“But you’ve lost a lot of blood. You could die.”

“No doctor!” he insisted.

A chill raced up her spine. She knew there was only one reason why a dying man wouldn’t want a doctor. He had to be wanted. An outlaw! Her gaze strayed toward the bunkhouse, wishin’ her cowhands were here, but they’d already left, so she was here alone.

“My name’s Easy.”

“Easy?”

“No time to explain. Look, I’m gonna have to try and get you inside. I’d never be able to lift you by myself, so do you think you can help me a little? Can you walk at all?”

“I might…be…”

As he tried to get up, his teeth clenched in pain, and Easy could almost feel it all the way down to her toes. “Here, lean on me,” she said, and did everything she could to hold up this giant of a man with blood all over him. Slowly they both made it into the house with him stumbling over everything. When she finally got him in bed, she rushed over to a cabinet, pulled out some of her father’s brandy, poured him a couple of inches in a small glass.

“Here,” she said as she tried to hold him up so he could drink it. This will help.”

He grabbed it quickly, drank it, and then passed out with the pain, leaving her to loosen his clothes and try to get him comfortable. When she moved toward his boots, she suddenly stopped dead still.

Sometimes when you think he’s nowhere around, you’ll hear the clink of his silver spurs. The star points on them are sharp enough to do someone some real damage. It’s like a death rattle. Next thing you know, you’re dead.

Those words—where had she—

Oh, my God. They’re from the story in the Ten Penny Novel I’ve been reading.

Slowly her curious gaze raked along his muscular body until she came to his dark stubble and savage features that screamed danger.

One look at him will take your breath away. He’s big, and rugged, and his eyes shine like two black pearls—or an angry rattler. He’s killed thousands! Some people think he’s a half-breed because he refuses to cut his hair. He wears it long and pulled back with buckskin. They say when you face Reno Hudson, you come away with one of two things—a grave, or a reputation.

With these words whirling through her mind, she wanted so much to collapse and let someone else take care of her notorious visitor, but she couldn’t. She simply didn’t have time to be afraid. Not now. He may be a professional gunslinger, but he’s also a man who needs help, a man bleeding all over my bed, for God’s sake! She would just have to somehow shake this fear off until she could decide what to do.

Leaning down, her hands trembled when she tried to avoid the dangerous spurs, so she could pull off his boots. Finally her eyes shifted to the ripped up shirt where the bullet entered and began to tear at it until she saw his bloody flesh. She moved quickly in spite of the waves of heat and danger that seemed to radiate from him.

Was she afraid because he carried death in his gun hand, or was it because even passed out and harmless he made other men she knew look like young pups in heat? She realized for the first time that she’d been with nothing but boys. Now she was wondering what it would be like to ride a man’s c**k—a real man’s c**k—this man’s c**k?

She couldn’t deny the hot flashes of demon lust she felt rear up in her like a wild stallion as she watched him lying there all dark and handsome—and big. She stood paralyzed for a moment, but finally forced herself out of her paralysis, and rushed over to the side table where she poured some water from the porcelain pitcher into a matching bowl. She put the bowl on the table, wet an old rag, and tried to clean his wound, but his shirt kept getting in the way. Putting the rag down, her trembling, unsure fingers began to undo the rest of his buttons.

She jumped when suddenly his hand grabbed hers. “What the hell are you doin’?”

He’s awake!

“I’m…I’m just tryin’ to take off your shirt so I can get to the wound and treat it properly.”

“I can take off my own shirt,” he spat out while pushing her hand away.

She wanted to laugh at his remark. Here was a big, tough, angry cowboy with a timid side. “Fine, but I would have never figured you for shy…sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“The name’s Reno, and I ain’t shy, I just like to take off my own clothes.”

“Mr.…Reno, please believe me. I’m trying to help you, not take advantage of you.”

He was about to answer her when he heard something and quickly lunged forward with his gun drawn and pointed.

“You can put your gun away,” she said as she reached for the wet rag. “It’s only my cat, Hobo.”

He looked around, noticing for the first time how empty the place was. “Where the hell is everyone?”

“The ranch hands are in and out,” she said briefly while busily dabbing at his wound. “They’re out along the south forty ridin’ fence right now.”

“What about your folks?”

“They’re both dead if you must know. My ma died when I was twelve, and my pa got killed in a range war just one month ago. I been runnin’ the ranch by myself since then.”

“What’s the story with your name?”

“Nothing mysterious,” she said with a shrug. “My pa named me after a saloon girl he knew a long time ago, and since he had no sons, he taught me everything about the ranch I needed to know.” She smiled proudly. “Said I turned out as good as any boy he could’ve had.” Slowly her smile faded in remembrance. “Stubborn old coot never did get that boy.”

“Sounds like you were close to your pa.”

After re-wetting the rag, she wrung it out. “I was.”

“Then why ain’t you cryin’ your eyes out instead of tryin’ to run this stupid ranch? Sell it for God’s sake and let someone else do it. Give yourself a decent period of mourning. You’ll feel better.”

She gave a derisive chuckle.

“What’s wrong?”

“First of all, them words don’t fit well in the mouth of a man who must’ve killed thousands in his lifetime. While you’re shootin’ holes in a man, any thoughts of what his poor grievin’ widow or his kids would be goin’ through?”

“Let’s get somethin’ straight right now. I ain’t never killed no man that wasn’t tryin’ to kill me first.”

“Sure. I’ve heard it a million times before. It’s the gunslinger’s lullaby.”

“You want to know what this gunslinger lullaby is? A snake’s rattle, an empty belly, a cold wind that sings in your ear while it blows up your backbone and freezes your ass. A night when the only thing that’ll help me sleep is a bottle of rot-gut whiskey. You think you got it hard here? Well, welcome to my world, baby.”

She shrugged. “So find a place and settle down.”

“It ain’t as easy as all that. Not for someone with a reputation like mine. I can wish, I can hope, and I can even pray, but I ain’t never gonna have no ranch as good as this one.” He indicated toward the ceiling. “They wouldn’t let me.”

“They,” she asked, looking up.

“Them,” he continued, still looking up. “You know, the gods.”

She nodded. “Oh…the gods.”

“They looked down one day and saw me doin’ just fine. We can’t have that, they said. So they sent a little bad luck my way. Nothin’ big, mind you. A father that beat the hell out of me, a mother than ran away the first chance she had.”

He breathed deeply, as if reminiscing. “Yeah, I let them tin horn gods push me around for thirteen years before I decided to be the ruler of my own fate. One night after my pa got the razor strap after me, I decided that was it. The minute that belt came whizzin’ toward me, I grabbed it, and yanked it out of my pa’s hand. With blood in my eyes I started walkin’ toward him.” Reno laughed, but it fell dead and humorless between them. “I stood there as surprised as anything when he turned and ran away. That was the night I became a man. It was also the night I found out that my father was a coward as well as a drunk.” He looked at Easy and indicated toward the ceiling.

“Was that enough for them? Nah. First off, they got mad at me for taking things into my own hands. Who does he think he is, they said. He’s got to pay for that. So, they hit me with the big one. They put my name in a book, and now every gun in the west wants Reno Hudson. The bastards. They made me a gunslinger so I’d never get any rest. Always runnin.’ The only problem is after they had their laughs they forgot to turn the bad luck off.”

Easy looked at him as if he’d sprung a leak. “Sounds like you’re crazy on top of everything else.”

“I ain’t crazy,” he said with a weary sound to his voice, “just goddamned sick and tired of it all.”

“Look,” Easy said, her hand suddenly stilled from its task of cleaning his wound. “I’m sorry about your pa and all that, but the way you knock around from town to town you can’t possibly know how important land is to someone.” She put the rag down, rose from the bed, and went to the window. With her fingers punched down in her back pockets, she gazed out at the land. “No black veils and regrets for me. I loved my pa, but I can honor his memory better by taking care of this ranch he spent his life building.” She turned back and looked at Reno with determination shining in her eyes. “I ain’t about to let it die right along with him.”

“You’re wrong.” Reno said as his gaze moved beyond hers to the vast land Easy was gazing at. “A man who doesn’t have land knows better than anyone how important it is. He’s a drifter with no roots, no place to rest. It can get old after a while. As for how you feel about this ranch, I understand, but you’re so damned young. Hell,” he said, indicating toward the front door. “You oughta be out goin’ to dances and box suppers with some young punk that don’t know a gun from a milking stool.”

With a smile on her face, she strolled from the window, sat down, and continued cleaning his wound. “Did you ever go to dances and such?”

“Me?” he laughed. “Not me, but I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, angling a gaze toward her with eyes that appreciated what he saw. “If I’d met someone like you back then we wouldn’t be wastin’ our time dancin’.”

“Yeah?” she said with a grin.

“Yeah,” he said as he reached for her hand. “How about you? Would you have let me…?”

“I guess we’ll never know, will we?” she said as their eyes met. A long silence hung heavy in the room until she laughed and said, “Hey, how’d we ever get on this subject?” She tried to act busy, but her gaze kept crawling back to his. She knew that something serious had come alive between them, and it wasn’t about to go away. Finally, to try and cover up the awkwardness, she said, “All right, so I’m young. I’m also strong and healthy in case you ain’t noticed.”

“Young ain’t the only problem. I mean…you’re a girl.”

Girl. The word—or maybe it was his prejudiced implication—grated on her until she finally threw the rag down splashing the water. She jumped up, put her hands on her hips, and with a gaze as sharp as any knife, she glared at him. “All right, so I’m a girl. What the hell has that got to do with the price of eggs? In case you think I can’t pull my weight, look again, cowboy. I can ride a bucking bronco from sunup to sunset and then cook the best damned meal you ever tasted. I’ve sat up all night with sick animals, and then did my chores the next day without complaint. What man can do that?”

“Hey, what did I say to ruffle your feathers?”

Her green-eyed gaze narrowed on him. “The next time you call me a girl, don’t make it sound like a dirty word.” She saw Reno’s eyes rake over her body as she stood there. “What the hell do you think you’re lookin’ at?”

“Them pants ain’t that tight because you don’t want me to look.”

“For your information, I hate baggy pants and I also hate men who think gals were created for nothing but their pleasure.”

“You’re sure some little spitfire, ain’t you?”

“I’m spitfire enough to keep this ranch runnin.’ Now, are you gonna take that shirt off, or do I do it for you?”

He looked at her with a challenge in his eyes. “Just tear it off me…uh, Easy. Think you can handle that?”

Anger sprouted in her like spikes on a cactus. Without wasting a second, she quickly reached down, yanked it open, and then tore it off his back. “How’s that, you black-hearted bastard?”

“First time I ever had my clothes taken off by someone named Easy,” he said as he reached for her and pulled her down on the bed.

Before she knew what was happening, she found herself staring into his eyes with his hot breath singeing her skin. She immediately began to struggle to get away, but even wounded, he was stronger than her, so she reached for something lightning quick, gave a sudden turn, and shoved a gun in his face. “Let me go or get a bullet between your eyes.”

“Whoa, now,” he said as he stared down the barrel of his own six gun. Without another word he quickly released her and lifted his hands up so she could see them.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said as she carefully moved away with the gun still aiming at his chest.

He pointed toward the gun. “I’d advise you to put that right back where you found it, little lady.”

“I’ll put it back when you remember a few facts. First of all, I might have a name that makes you sweat, but don’t let it give you any ideas. I’m the kind of girl that refuses to be pushed around by some foul-talkin’ gunslinger who thinks he can come into my house and put his hands on me any time he pleases.”

Reno smiled. “You have to admit, a name like Easy—”

With the gun still pointed at him, she said, “Not another word,” and then looked at him with disappointment. “You’re just like all the rest, ain’t you?

“All the rest? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean men. They seem to think just because of my name they can have their way with me. Well, it ain’t true, see. Because of my name I’ve learned how to take care of myself, and I’d advise you to believe it.”

“My, my, saddled with a name like Easy. Yes, I can see where that might be a problem.”

She stared closely at him. “You makin’ fun of me?”

“No, no. I’m agreeing with you.”

She gave a slight shrug. “Just because I enjoy a man’s attentions now and again don’t make me cheap. Of course, a lot depends on the man.”

“I see. A fat-bellied farmer wouldn’t have a chance with you, but a black-clad gunslinger with a wound in his shoulder…?”

“I ain’t made up my mind about you,” she said as she reached over, unbuckled his gun belt, and yanked it off. “The first thing you need to learn is that a bed is no place for guns, and if you want to stay in my bed, they have to go.”

He smiled at the implication, and said, “Yes, ma’am.”