Texan's Touch

FOURTEEN

STANDING IN THE shadows of a quarter moon, Nichole stripped off her warm wool trousers and heavy cotton shirt. Slowly, she removed her undergarments, knowing that where she was going she might get hurt. She couldn’t stand the thought of ruining them.

The musty air was cool against her bare flesh as a spiderweb brushed her shoulder. She pulled a roll of bandages she’d taken off Adam’s supplies from her trouser pocket. The wide cotton strip was tied with a piece of midnight blue yarn. Laying the yarn on a beam, she wrapped the bandage around her rib cage and across her breasts, pressing the soft tissue as flat as she could.

The familiar wrapping gave her a sense of coming home. The tight bandage made her straighten, as though placing on an invisible cloak of the warrior inside her. Her muscles tightened, her stance widened, her senses became more alert.

A smile touched her lips as she thought that this was Adam’s bandage that now bound her. The memory of the morning so many months ago at his farm came drifting back to her. She could almost taste him as she recalled the way he’d kissed her and how his hands had spread over her breasts forever branding his touch on her skin.

What if they’d had longer that morning? What if he’d made love to her?

High in the dusty attic, his memory kept her warm as she dressed in bandit’s black. The silk shirt slid across her skin like a caress. The pants were a little baggy, but the tarnished silver-buckled belt held them tight. She used the yarn to tie her hair back knowing that if she continued this disguise, she’d have to cut it a few inches shorter. Nance’s father’s hat fit low but securely. She used her own soft leather footwear that laced high, a cross between a moccasin and a boot. Wolf had them specially made not to make a sound or leave a heel print, even in sand.

Last, she wrapped her gun belt around her waist, high and secure. A gunman might think of wearing it low so that his draw would be a second faster, but not a Shadow. A tiny circle of leather hooked the Colt in place so that it wouldn’t accidentally fall from the holster. If she did her job correctly, she’d never need her gun, Wolf used to lecture. She slipped the knife into its casing at her calf and straightened.

More than her clothes had changed. Her entire carriage, the very air around her had been rearranged. Any softness was gone, any hint that she was a woman. A tall thin man seemed to have been born in full armor. She pulled black gloves over her bandaged hands and the transformation was complete.

She moved silently to the opening and dropped down to the storage room. For an instant, she thought she saw something move among the boxes.

“Nance? Sister?”

No one answered.

Nick pulled her Colt and moved between the boxes. Nothing. She crossed the room twice. No one. If there had been someone in the room, they were as good at disappearing as she was.

She slipped into the hallway and down the stairs. Adam’s voice drifted from the examining room. He was talking with the undertaker, offering to help so that Dancing could be buried soon after dawn.

As she passed the office, she saw Rose sleeping in a chair behind Adam’s desk with an empty bottle of whiskey next to her. She once again reminded Nick of a ball of red yarn, for her hair was a flaming blanket covering her. Sister Cel must have retired and Nick guessed Adam would think she had also.

Tiptoeing across the room, Nick kept an eye on Rose. Silently, she opened a window and slipped out. She’d learned years ago that doors caused too much noise and draft. Windows were a far easier porthole. The darkened porch on the moonless side of the house would be the perfect place to penetrate the world outside.

She crossed to the house next door and entered the same way she’d left the boardinghouse. It was only an hour before dawn and everyone was asleep in this establishment that housed most of Mole’s employees.

Nick passed from room to room, looking, listening. The rooms were cluttered and smelled of old whiskey bottles and bodies in need of washing. Most of the rooms had two or more women sleeping together, their customers having left for the night. A few men had paid to stay till dawn, but they didn’t stir as Nick walked past.

She entered each door, checking first the location of weapons, and then studying each man.

In the last room on the second floor, she found what she searched for. A stout, barrel-chested man spread across the bed on his belly. His right forearm had been bandaged with what looked like a bar towel. The smell of blood and filth assaulted her nostrils as she moved closer and forced herself to stare at the nude man. His body was hairless and rounded, reminding her of his name, Mole.

He snored unaware as she circled the bed. The cut she’d slashed into his arm had bled through the towel, but the injury didn’t seem to be bothering his sleep. The back of his body was scarred and ugly like a sand sculpture that had been pitted by rain and distorted by wind.

Nick fought down the bile that climbed in her throat. Without looking away, she moved to the chair where he’d draped his clothes. Slowly, she slid her hand into his pants’ pocket, thankful for the gloves.

Nothing.

She moved to the other side of the chair and felt inside the other pocket. Mole grunted in his sleep and rolled to his side as her fingers touched a key.

Clutching it, she almost ran from the room. She should have moved slowly but realized she couldn’t endure seeing more of his body than she already had.

Once she was in the hall, Nick leaned against the wall and listened, afraid to breathe. Mole’s snoring continued.

Slowly, an inch at a time, she relaxed.

Within minutes, she was back outside and once more in the fresh night air. She slipped into the total blackness behind a building and took a deep breath, enjoying the rush of excitement through her body.

Something rattled in the alley behind her. Nick froze. Someone had followed her from the Mole’s house. Her first thought was that Mole, still nude, was stalking her, but he couldn’t be. She’d left him snoring and his stocky body could have never moved down the stairs without waking half the house.

She waited several minutes then relaxed. Probably only a cat, she thought as she started down the street staying well into the shadows. In the wild, animals were like allies, warning her of danger. In towns, they could confuse even the best Shadow.

The rules turned over in her mind like a lesson long ago memorized. Stay behind the light, never between it and something that might show your outline. Move slowly as if melting, for fast actions cause attention. Pick your next hiding place before you leave where you are. Listen. Listen.

Glancing at the sky, she calculated. Thirty minutes maybe before the first hint of dawn. Thirty minutes to complete her mission.

Slipping into the doorway of the first saloon, she tried the key. Nothing. It would have been a great help if she knew which saloon Mole owned. But she could hardly ask Adam. If he had any idea of what she planned tonight, he would do everything in his power to stop her.

The second saloon. The third. The key didn’t work. She moved on into a part of town less well kept, more lawless.

Finally, half a mile from the boardinghouse, the key worked on one of the most run-down saloons. The door swung open, and Nick slipped in. A moment later, she almost cried out in repulsion. The floor gave with her foot. Slime, tobacco spit, and filth covered the floor thick as a greasy chicken skin.

Nick forced herself to progress across the open area to the bar outlined by moonlight. There were no tables or chairs, only a long horseshoe-shaped bar and a pair of stairs leading to a second-floor landing, with doors off it every four feet. Men who patronized this place came to drink and to womanize, nothing more.

Behind the bar was cleaner. Sawdust coated the floor. She felt her way in the blackness for a door that must lead to storage. She found one beneath the stairs. The lock was a simple one she’d practiced with as a child. Within a minute the lock was opened, not broken, so it could be refastened. She opened the door and found stairs leading down. A lantern and matches were on the first step. Nick took two steps into the blackness, closed the door and lit the lantern.

“Thanks, Mole,” she whispered as if he’d left the light there for her.

Barrels of beer lined one side, whiskey the other. She sat the lantern on the third step and went to work.

With the sharp point of her knife, she chipped a hole in the back of each barrel. Guessing no one would be in the saloon before noon, most of the barrels would be empty before anyone checked and the basement floor would be a foot deep in whiskey-smelling mud.

Her act wouldn’t pay Mole back for the life he’d tossed away, but it was a start. Maybe without any liquor, he’d have to close and let the girls go somewhere else.

Something stirred near the steps, and Nick turned to stone. What if someone had followed her? What if someone had been sleeping beneath the steps? No, she told herself. The door had been locked. Mole would never imprison anyone inside his supply of liquor.

She moved slightly and saw a rat dart between two steps. “Rats,” she whispered. “I hate rats.”

Turning out the lamp, she retraced her steps, stopping to relock the door. When she made it back outside, the first touch of dawn brushed the sky. She hurried down the alley to where Mole slept and slipped the key back into his pocket, without even glancing at him snoring on the bed. She’d done what she came to do. If he caught her now, she’d simply fight her way out.

A woman on the first floor rose a few inches as Nichole passed, but a man leaving the house at dawn was not an unusual enough sight to fully awaken her. She rolled over and let Nichole pass without saying a word.

No one confronted her as she crossed between the houses and slipped back into the open window. Rose still slept in the chair, and Nick heard Adam and the undertaker working in the examining room. The smell of coffee came from the kitchen.

She climbed the stairs and entered the storage room, taking her first deep breath. But as she pulled herself into the attic entrance, she had the feeling that someone was watching her. Someone who wouldn’t be there if she looked back.