Dead Tomorrow

Full Circle

 Darcy 2006

Originally posted on Isobel’s Lair, April 2006

He'd spent months looking for her, gone all the way to Texas and back, and she'd been in Arizona the whole time. Jesus, if he could only have found her before Rafe Carradine got hold of her, ruined her.

Ellen.

He wanted to think of her as sweet, but he couldn't. She wasn't sweet. Brave and smart, she'd been different from any woman he'd ever known. He'd admired it from the moment he'd first talked with her, the defiance, the determination, the cool demeanor that never faltered, not even in the face of death. Cort had sensed right away she'd been terrified of John Herod, but she'd gone for him anyway. She never spoke of her reason for hating John, but she didn't hide her contempt. Refused to give voice to the dark memories that tortured her mind, hid her fear behind a hard-bitten man-woman exterior. Yet Cort had seen the goodness in her, cloaked by a feigned indifference.

Her actions had spoken louder than her hard-hearted posturing. In the short time she spent in Redemption, she'd brought hope and light to a town that had lived in darkness and despair for too long. He remembered the little girl...the saloon owner's daughter. Ellen's courageous decision to live with the freedom of a man in a disapproving world had shown young Katie that she didn't have to go down that road to whoredom. And in the end, she'd saved the girl from entering the life. Cort had been chained outside, but he'd peered through the streaked window, seen her go for that sick bastard Eugene Dred like a wildcat. She kicked hell out of him so bad that the pimp had no choice but to challenge her to save his reputation. Cort had seen Ellen gun Dred down himself, witnessed her refusal to finish him off. In the end she'd had to kill him. But self-defense wasn't cold-blooded murder, and some people deserve to die for what they've done. For all his bloodcurdling threats to kill her, it was Dred who was feeding worms now.

And sweet Christ, she'd saved his own life when she shot him down in the saloon. He was seconds away from a strangling death, and only she had been courageous enough to end Herod's vicious game. She'd rescued him that last night in the bordello too, saved him from becoming the main player in a sick sideshow when she burst into the whore's room and dragged him out of the door to safety. That night... Cort grimaced. Sweet Jesus, that night. She had saved him then, and not just from whores and perverted sinners. For it was that night that she had touched his soul, that night that he had come to love her.

It had only been a month since then. How could she have changed so much as to forget who she was? How could a woman like Ellen let it all go...her pride, her dignity, her courage? As far as Cort could see, there was only one reason for the change in her. One thing that was different. Rafe Carradine. He'd led Ellen astray, somehow convinced her to throw away her principles, enticed her into a life of shame.

Cort shifted in the saddle, wished he had some whiskey to dull the pain in his shoulder, and gingerly tucked his arm into his shirt for support. His eyes closed to block out the darkening land that spun dizzily around him. Lord, he was feeling a mite light in the head, and tired, so tired...like he could lay down and go to sleep for a week. Maybe the old Mex was right; he'd lost too much blood.

But the blood he had left was hot, the old killing rage was on him with a vengeance. Cort's spine stiffened, he sat straighter in the saddle. If the Elkhorn boss cowboy was a good man, he might have found it in his heart to ride off and let Ellen live her life with him. But Carradine wasn't a good man. Carradine was a thief like himself, McCabe's anonymous partner, the buyer for the stolen Mexican herd. The cabron who'd led Ellen into a life of degradation and shame.

As far as Cort was concerned, he was a man who deserved to die.

He rode past clusters of ghostly saguaro cactus, their lateral branches like arms lifted in supplication that reminded him of lost souls begging for salvation. And the thought came unbidden that his own soul would be lost forever, beyond redemption, if he kept on killing. Had not the lights of Bisbee winked like low-slung stars as he topped the last rise, he might have listened to the angel's voice whispering in his ear and turned back. But the lights called him on with an unrelenting pull, more powerful than his weakness, his weariness.

So close. Wouldn't be long now. He'd find Rafe Carradine. Challenge him. And gun him down.

During his time on this earth, there had been men who'd earned their deaths at his hands. Might even have been some who'd asked for it, and he'd been glad to oblige. There were a few he'd taken satisfaction in killing, cruel men who deserved their fate. But he'd never looked forward to seeing them suffer, never wanted to watch the light flicker out of their eyes like he wanted to see it fade from Rafe Carradine's.

Cort set his jaw, ignored the throbbing fire in his shoulder, and gave the paint a sharp slap on the haunch. She broke into a shambling run, covering ground at a smarter pace. He leaned forward in the saddle, the bloodlust in him seething like a live thing while the lights of Bisbee beckoned in the distance.

Ellen. Revenge. Justice.

e e e

Rafe Carradine was pleasantly drunk, just likkered enough on the Bon Ton's rye whiskey to feel mellow. He stood at the bar making desultory talk with the men who came in to wet their throats and chew the fat, ignored the fellers who regularly visited Ellen. It was getting hard for him not to care about the tricks she led upstairs to her room. Hard not think about what was going on right above his head.

A sudden craving for solitude took him, and he signaled for another drink and moved off down the bar to ponder over the last month. Seemed like things had gone pretty good for him since he'd met his sweet Ellen. He reckoned she was his lucky charm; too bad he couldn't tuck her in his pocket and take her with him everywhere, like some fellers toted a rabbit's foot or a gold piece. He stared down at the scarred bar top, blind and deaf to the hubbub around him, remembering the day he'd found her drunk in a saloon in Tombstone. He remembered all the days that had passed between then and now, the sweetness of her kiss, the comfort of her body. The sadness in her eyes that all his good nature hadn't been enough to erase.

From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of garish color, and a woman drifted into his peripheral vision. For a moment he thought it might be Ellen, but it was old Trixie, the whore known for her willingness to take a man's cock up her ass. Rafe grimaced and turned deliberately away to avoid her. She was a sorry piece, old Trixie. Been rode hard and put away wet a few times too often. All the rice powder and French rouge in the territory wouldn't be enough to cover the network of broken veins and the deep lines in her age-ravaged face. She wore tight corsets to push her tits back up to where they'd been long ago, but the flesh of her bosom was sallow and creased like a turkey's wattle. Long past the bloom of youth, her specialty was the only reason she was still permitted to sport in the Bon Ton. Were it not for the goodly number of ass-fuckers in town, she would have been kicked out to make her way in the cribs long ago.

He couldn't help comparing her with Ellen. Though she wasn't a girl any more, Ellen still had roses in her cheeks, a sparkle in her eye. She still had her freshness, a beauty as sweet and new as an early morning. But Rafe knew it wouldn't take long for it all to fade, were she to stay in the sporting life. A good look at Trixie was enough proof that whoring was hard on a woman. The work wasn't hard, but it used a woman up. Took something out of her that could never be replaced. And the drink---especially the drink. Most whores drank, and Ellen came to the life already too partial to whiskey. Rafe knew she drank to forget. He just wasn't sure what she wanted to forget so bad that she would down a whole bottle of red eye in the attempt. His efforts to get her to tell him had come to naught.

He raised impatient eyes, searched the saloon for McCabe. Everything hinged on his deal with the rustler. The money he made skimming the profit would put him over the top, and he swore that after tonight, Ellen would never whore again. He’d save her from ending up like Trixie. They'd move away from Arizona, from people who wouldn't forget what she'd been. He'd make her respectable, a wife, a mother. By Christ he'd make her happy, or die trying.

e e e

It was suppertime when Frank McCabe finally pushed through the swinging doors of the Bon Ton, his eyes searching the crowd. He elbowed his way to Carradine, greeted him like a long lost brother. Rafe, both glad and relieved to see him, slapped McCabe's back so hard the dust puffed from his shirt. They had a drink together at the bar, then at Rafe's suggestion they walked across the street to a dining hall that catered to miners and cattlemen. At a table out of earshot of other men eating Miss Nellie's fried chicken and mashed potatoes, they squared their deal.

"Eight hundred eighty prime Mex longhorns, five dollars a head. Take it or leave it," said McCabe, leaning across the table, his voice purposefully low.

Rafe puffed a cheroot into life and tossed the spent lucifer away. He calculated quickly in his head: They'd settle on four fifty, but he'd tell old man Barker he'd had to pay five, and pocket the four hundred and forty dollars difference. That cash added to what was in his account in the Wells Fargo office would be enough to buy a good piece of land in Colorado. One more bout of trailing cattle for the army. One more trip that fattened Barker's purse, for the rancher would sell those cows for a sight more than five dollars the head. But as soon as he delivered the herd to Fort Bayard, he'd quit the Elkhorn and marry Ellen. And then he could watch those little tits jiggle loose all day, just for him.

He drawled lazily, hiding his impatience and greed, "Five's too much, pardner. Four's my top price."

McCabe shook his head. "Ain't enough, amigo. Them cows came dear. I lost a man on the way back...Mex's got him. Poor bastard's likely buzzard bait by now."

Rafe snorted in derision. "What’s that got to do with your price? Losing a man saved you money...you ain't got to pay him his share." He drew on the cheroot, smiled through the smoke. "You forget I know how you operate...we done business together long enough."

McCabe scowled. "Listen, you rebel son of a bitch...it was me who took the risks, got my ass shot at while you were back here as safe as in your mama's arms. That's worth five dollars a head."

The 'rebel son of a bitch' rankled. Rafe's eyes went cold and his tone went colder. "Mebbe it is…but I'm offerin' four and a half. You don't like it, you can trail them fuckin' cows to the fort yourself."

McCabe sat up. He was an outlaw, not a drover, and no more wanted to hit the trail with a herd of stolen Mexican cattle than he wanted to run across a lawman with a warrant on him. For a moment there was a tense silence as hard men stared each other down, and then McCabe dropped his eyes and gave way, just as Rafe expected.

"Cash on the barrelhead," he muttered. "I ain't takin' no goddamn rancher's scrip."

Rafe offered his hand and they shook on it. "Cash it is, as soon as the Wells Fargo office opens in the morning and I take a look at the herd." He paused as the serving girl set their plates down on the red checked tablecloth, then tucked his napkin in his shirt. "Now let's eat up this fine fried chicken, and then we'll go have us a drink to seal it up proper," he said.

e e e

The streets were crowded in Brewery Gulch. Torches placed along the plank sidewalks lighted them enough for Cort to see they were full of roughly clad men going from saloon to gambling house to brothel. He saw a few women, knew them for crib girls, those pathetic whores who sold themselves for a few bits and worked out of leaning shacks or patched tents that held only a cot or a bedroll. The men who used them more often than not found themselves pissing blood and fire before long.

He rode at a slow pace, passed the Alhambra and the Lucky Strike until he finally saw a sign illuminated by a rank of flaring torches. The Bon Ton Saloon boasted a grand edifice, a false front three stories high with a balcony off the second floor. Cort gazed up at lighted windows, some curtained, some with shades pulled low, and wondered which was Ellen's.

He tied Bute's mare to the hitch rail and mounted the wooden steps from the street to the plank sidewalk. At the top he had to stop to catch his breath. He slid his hand inside his shirt, it came away red and sticky. Bleeding again, but it was no matter. Soon enough his business would be finished, and he could rest and heal up for a long spell. Cort pushed through the batwing doors, surveyed the saloon.

The Bon Ton lived up to its name. Fancy red flocked wallpaper, a mite stained in places, but still gaudily pretty. Chandeliers as big as wagon wheels hung suspended from the ceiling. Cort's eyes took in the faro tables, the dudes playing poker in the corner. He heard the click of wooden chips tossed into the pot, the muffled rolling thud of diced tossed on green felt. A piano player pounded the keys in a rollicking version of Buffalo Gals, adding to the general din. His eye lighting on a vacant table in the corner, Cort bought himself a bottle and went there to sit with his back against the wall. He poured a drink and tossed it back, poured another to sip. He settled in to wait.

e e e

Ellen closed the door behind her last trick and went to the washstand in the corner. She stirred up her usual soda water and vinegar douche, and propping one leg on a chair, took care of his leavings. It was warm in the little room, she could feel the sweat trickling down her ribs under her corset. A sniff under her arms proved a toilette was in order. There was water in the pitcher, she poured some into the bowl and washed. A dispassionate glance in the mirror told her she needed more coralline salve on her lips, and her hair had to be pinned up again. She performed those tasks absently, and when her ablutions were finished, she threw on a light wrapper and went downstairs to the saloon.

The loud voices, the equally loud music, irritated her. She was nervous tonight, she didn't know why. There was a tension inside her that made her feel skittish as a young colt. When the bartender came to collect her tokens, she handed them over with two bits extra and asked for a drink.

Clancy jerked his head toward Boss Lemmon, the owner of the Bon Ton, who sat at a table playing poker and watching over his kingdom. "You know he don't like you ladies drinking on the job," the bartender demurred.

"I need it tonight, Clancy. I'm nervous...feel jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Please...just one."

He poured her a short one, shook his head at the practiced way she threw back her head and downed the raw whiskey. As she set the empty glass on the bar Ellen asked, "Where's Rafe?"

Clancy shrugged. "Left with Frank McCabe a while ago. Said he'd be back."

She nodded, looked around the saloon. More miners than cowboys tonight, but not too many of either. If she had to choose one over the other, Ellen preferred miners. As a rule, they were more generous than cowboys, who worked for wages. Usually, by the time a cowboy came to her, all he had left was enough to pay her. But miners were an optimistic race. When they made a lucky strike, or if they even thought they might hit pay dirt some day, miners were in the mood to celebrate. They always tipped her above the price of a poke, and tips were hers to keep.

Pale blue and coolly appraising, her eyes drifted over the sparse crowd. Plenty of suckers at the faro table, but then there always were. Cowboys loved to buck the tiger. Couple of poker games going, the usual players around the table. She recognized one or two sharps, professional gamblers who made their living fleecing greenhorns. No point in looking for a trick there, the winners never bought a whore until the game was over, and the losers were always broke.

Her gaze settled on a man far across the room. He was alone at a corner table, had his back to the wall, a bottle and glass in front of him. He wasn't a miner or a cowboy, didn't have the look of either. 'Outlaw,' she thought, and idly wondered if the Bisbee marshal had any paper on him. The stranger looked vaguely familiar, but his hat was pulled low over his eyes and she couldn't make out his features. But he seemed to be aware of her, and she was about ready to go over and ask if he wanted to buy a poke when a prospector slipped his arm around her waist, whispered in her ear, and tugged her toward the stairs. Ellen forgot about the stranger and led her next customer up the wide wooden staircase to her room.

e e e

Cort shook with fury. She'd looked right at him and hadn't known him. He loved her enough to kill for her, and she hadn't recognized his face.

He poured another shot, tossed it back to dull the pain that radiated from his shoulder all the way down his arm. He flexed his hand, grimaced at the jolt of pure fire that skittered up his arm. Whatever was in those poultices had stopped working, and he hadn't had enough whiskey to make a difference. He sat in his corner drinking, waiting, trying to shut out the voices in his head.

'She didn't know you.'

He wanted to make excuses for her. It was dark in the saloon, he'd kept his hat on. But her eyes had gone straight to him and there was nothing in them, no spark of recognition, no sign of warmth or tenderness. He poured another shot, drank it down.

'You're nothing to her...she doesn't remember you...'

His hand clenched on the glass and his eyes went hot as he thought of the night they'd spent together. Her frantic kisses, burning into him, lighting a fire that hadn't gone out yet. Her hands stroking, touching, fingers twisting in his hair. She made him want her, drove him crazy with her mouth until he couldn't stand it anymore. Everything she did that night told him she needed his love. How could she forget him when he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind? He raised his gaze to the ceiling, stared at it, wondering if she was just above his head this minute, sucking another man...

There was a burst of laughter and raucous voices, louder than the rest in the saloon. Two men walked in from the street, Frank McCabe and another fellow with a gun at his hip. They went to the bar, ordered drinks. Cort saw McCabe slap his companion on the back.

It had to be him. Rafe Carradine, boss cowboy on the Elkhorn. Ellen's new lover.

Cort drank his whiskey, his eyes narrowed in hatred. It tortured him, but Carradine didn't seem to mind that Ellen was upstairs servicing another man. What kind of man allowed his woman to whore for him? The voices answered for him: 'No kind of man at all...'

McCabe and his compadre leaned on the bar, ordered drinks. Cort lurched to his feet, cursed his numb right hand under his breath. He shouldered his way to the bar, stood close enough to hear them talk. He wanted proof, waited to hear the name Rafe Carradine, but he heard worse.

e e e

Rafe gave him a cool look. "No doubt she's upstairs." He poured himself a shot, pushed the bottle toward McCabe. "Have another, pardner. On me."

"Don't that bother you none?" McCabe poured, drank. "That she's up there fuckin' another man?"

Rafe shrugged, took pains to hide his anguish at Ellen's profession. Wouldn't do to let McCabe see a weakness in him.

"My daddy always said a woman's like a loaf of bread," he shrugged. "Once the first slice is off, you can't tell how many been's cut." He downed his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Besides, she's not long for it. We're gettin' hitched soon enough."

Behind them, a man spoke quietly, and with deadly menace. "The hell you say."

McCabe turned at the familiar voice, astonishment plain on his stubbled face. "By God, I thought you was dead!" he exclaimed.

"Looks to me you were glad of it," Cort said coolly. His eyes slid to Carradine, flickered in disgust. He let go with a deliberate taunt. "I hear your friend here lets his woman whore for him. We got a name for that where I come from."

Carradine's face flushed a dark red and he stood up straight, his body tense, his eyes wary. His gaze went to McCabe. "Frank? Who the hell is this feller?"

Cort took a menacing step forward, shouldered McCabe out of the way. "I'm the man who's going to kill you, cabron."

It happens sometimes in crowds, when there is a moment of unusual quiet and something is said that resounds in the dead air. Cort's insult carried over the room, settling like a blanket. Those in the saloon who understood Spanish...and that was almost all of them, the border was so close...drew shocked breaths and turned to watch what would happen. Only Carradine did not realize that in one descriptive Spanish word, Cort had just called him less than a man, a weakling who permits others to fuck his woman. But the deadly menace in the stranger standing so coolly before him penetrated his mellow drunkenness, and he looked at Frank McCabe in confusion.

"Kill me? For what?" Carradine spluttered a nervous laugh. "I ain't never seen you in my life."

"Rafe...shut up," McCabe warned, and then said tensely to Cort, "Listen amigo, why don't you come outside with me? Forget this. We'll go across to the Alhambra and have us a drink." He threw a casual arm across Cort's shoulder, froze when he knocked it away.

"Come out in the street," Cort said softly, his eyes boring into Rafe Carradine's. "You and me, we got some business together."

Rafe stilled, hardly dared to breathe. By Christ if the stranger wasn't serious...he meant to kill him. He could see it in the cold eyes that didn't blink or waver, in the hand that hovered near the butt of a gun tucked into his waistband.

"Mister..." Rafe shook his head. "I ain't going nowhere."

"You're going straight to hell," Cort said quietly.

Later, most of the patrons said they didn’t see the stranger draw his gun. They were watching Carradine, some said, waiting to see if he would swallow the insult. Others claimed to be watching the stranger, but didn't see him fire. All they could swear to was hearing the shot, and then the man was standing over Rafe's prostrate body.

Carradine's eyes widened in shock as the .45 caliber bullet slammed into his belly. The moment stretched endlessly until his knees buckled, and he clamped his hand to his abdomen to stanch the flow of warm trickling blood.

"Jesus...you shot me." He said it like a child's petulant accusation before he slid to the floor.

Cort watched him collapse, stared down into his wide open eyes. Carradine didn't notice, his gaze was on the stairs. "Ellen?" he whispered. "Somebody get my sweet Ellen..."

And at the sound of her name profaning his lips, Cort shot him again. As the bullet punched into Rafe's chest, Cort saw the light go of his eyes like a snuffed candle, his mouth fall slack. His chest heaving, he stood over the body, silent, triumphantly victorious.

There was a shocked silence. Gray wisps of gun smoke curled and rose, wreathing Cort's head. A chair scraped, and boot heels pounding across the wooden floor sounded like claps of thunder. Overhead there was a pattering of bare feet, the slam of a hastily closed door. And then she was on the stairs, one hand on the wooden balustrade, the other holding her wrapper closed at her neck. Her eyes went to Rafe's body, then to the man standing over him, his smoking gun still in his hand.

She started down, her steps jerky and uncoordinated, as if she were a marionette in the control of an amateur puppeteer. Even those hard-bitten men who watched felt the stirrings of pity, for her face was white, her eyes staring in disbelief. They shuffled back, made way for her until she stood above her fallen lover.

"Rafe?" She dropped to her knees, her hands fluttering helplessly over the bloody wounds. "Rafe?"

Cort shifted, the soles of his boots scraping on the sanded wooden floor. He shoved the gun into his waistband, reached for her. "Ellen," he said softly. "Ellen."

She didn't hear, didn't trouble to look at him. "Ellen," he said again, "I'm here. I came for you. Come on, sweetheart. Come away from him."

She recoiled when his hands closed on her arm, and faster than any of the men in the Bon Ton could have imagined, she jerked Rafe's pistol from his holster. In the blink of an eye it was pointed at Cort's chest, in another blink she had pulled the trigger. A hole bloomed in the middle of his chest, the flesh and fabric around it peppered with black powder that burst into flame and ignited his shirt. As Cort dropped to his knees, Ellen struggled to her feet. The gun fell from her numb fingers to bounce off Rafe's lifeless body and clatter to the floor.

Someone threw a beer on him and extinguished the tiny licking flames. On his knees at her feet, Cort swayed, reached for Ellen's skirts. An expression of confusion clouded his features. He couldn't catch his breath, he was blinded by smoke. He stared up through it into her coldly expressionless face. His hands balled the silk of her dressing gown, clutched at it.

She didn't understand...it was all for nothing, and the gates of a fiery hell yawned before him. "I loved you," he whispered, his eyes pleading. "I loved you."

Looking down into his face, she realized who he was. Ellen staggered under his dead weight and stepped away from him, breaking his hold on her skirts.

"I hate you," she said coldly.

It was the last thing he heard. Cort fell to the bloody floor to lie next to the man he'd killed for her.

e e e

"It's time."

The marshal slid his key into the lock on her cell and swung the door open. He stepped back, waited until the woman dressed in leather britches and a soft white shirt passed by him into the office, where his deputies waited.

It troubled Tom Crutchfield to hang a woman. Such things didn't happen much in these parts, and there was certainly no precedent for it in Bisbee. But the whore had shot a man in cold blood, killed him out of revenge for her lover. Some of the fellers in the Bon Ton that night claimed it was a justified killing, but Mayor Flickinger didn't want whores thinking they could just shoot a man and get away with it. Whores killing men was bad for business. He had a talk with the circuit judge, let him know which way the town wanted the hearing to go. He almost hadn't had to...the woman never said a word in her own defense, sat as silent as the grave through the entire trial. Didn't blink an eye when the verdict came in, either. It was almost like she expected the judge’s sentence.

The silent deputies formed a cordon around her, marched her out the back door into the torrid heat of an Arizona midday. A hastily knocked together gallows cast a skeletal shadow over sun-parched dust. Crutchfield and his men guided her to the stairs. She didn't hesitate, went up them with a steady step, her cool blue eyes on the hangman waiting above. Ranged in a loose a semi-circle in front stood the Cochise County sheriff, Mayor Flickinger, and the members of the town council. There were no other spectators, the curious townsfolk thronging the street were held back by a line of strong men, hastily deputized that morning to keep them away.

The Reverend Mr. Hartland from the Congregational Church stepped forward, a Bible in one hand, the other raised in blessing.

"Are you sorry for your sins, ma'am? Ready to face the Lord and repent of them?"

Ellen turned a cool glance his way. "I ain't much of a one for preachers. I'll make my peace with the Lord in my own way, thanks."

Hartland stepped away, but he didn't leave the platform. She heard him quietly imploring God to receive her soul, and shrugged. Let him pray. She didn't care.

The hangman beckoned, "Over here, ma'am," and she moved to stand squarely in the center of the trapdoor. Her hands were bound behind her, just like her father's had been, and when they started to slide a muslin hood over her head, she stopped them.

"I don't want it," she said.

"It's common practice at a hanging," the hangman began.

She hadn't asked for a last anything, so she said now, "Then let's call it my last wish. I don't want my eyes covered."

"Let it go," the marshal ordered. "Any last words, ma'am?"

"I should have let him die," she murmured absently. "Back in Redemption, I should have let him die."

Tom Crutchfield bent to look in her eyes, but she turned away.

"Who ma'am? Who should you have let die?"

"It doesn't matter. Not anymore." She shook her head. "Get on with it."

She stilled as the noose was placed just so, with the knot resting to the left of the delicate bones of her spine. Her eyes went to the men standing below as if she were searching for a particular face. And then at a signal, a deputy knocked away the plank that had been holding the trapdoor from below. As her body dropped through the platform she saw the shadow of a man, stark and black against the pale dust, swinging in a slow arc.

"Daddy?"

The witnesses waited until her body stopped jerking. The hangman released the ballast rope, and Marshal Crutchfield came down from the gallows to catch her lifeless body himself. He carried her to the undertaker waiting with a coffin on the back of a buckboard, thinking maybe they'd made a mistake, that a woman who died so brave deserved to live.

It was all the mourning she got.

The undertaker fitted her body into the coffin and nailed on the lid, the hammer blows echoing in the heavy air. When he was finished, he clambered down and signaled to his assistant. The man clucked to the mules, and the buckboard rattled off toward Boot Hill. To their credit, the men who had watched her die removed their hats as it passed by.

e e e

The Butterfield stage from Tombstone pulled into town just after high noon on the day of Ellen's hanging. The streets of the town were crowded, and old Scratch Dann the driver had to rein in his team and guide them carefully to keep from running folks over.

"What the hell's going on here?" He pulled up, got the coach stopped in front of the depot, and looked questioningly at his pard riding shotgun. "We miss a parade or somethin'?"

His companion shrugged.

Scratch jumped nimbly down from the high seat and after a stretch, jerked open the passenger door. The stage was crowded with fancy ladies...whores come to Bisbee from Tombstone. Miss Twyla's Flowers, relocating to a town the madam deemed less violent. Scratch didn't know if Bisbee was peaceful enough for her, but he was sure glad to have the madam and her fancy ladies in town. They were a sight fancier than the ones he was used to, and he'd heard tell one of them was all the way from Chicago.

One by one they stepped down, smiling at him, offering thanks, daintily adjusting hats and skirts like real ladies. Miss Twyla was the last one out, and she stopped to have a word with Scratch. As soon as she laid her gloved hand on his arm, he blushed red and whipped off his dusty hat to stand bareheaded in the relentless sun.

The madam's voice was low and musical. "You've been very helpful, Mr. Dann, and I most certainly appreciate it. One more question, if you please...where is the Brewery Gulch section of town?"

A red-cheeked Scratch managed to point north up the street, thinking it was mighty nice of her to call him Mr. Dann. Most folks just called him by his unfortunate nickname, earned when he'd caught the crabs from a whore when he was a young feller. It had been an unpleasant experience, and those lice were hard to get shed of, but it hadn't hurt his opinion of whores any.

"There's a hotel just up the street a ways." He managed to keep his eyes on her face and not let them dip to the display of cleavage almost hidden by her ruffled bodice. "Fine new hotel...the Copper Queen. Can't miss it. I'll get a wagon and fetch your baggage along, if that's where you'll be stayin'."

"For now, it will do. Thank you." Miss Twyla smiled and patted him again, and Scratch turned a shade darker. He pulled his bandana and wiped sweat from his forehead before he put his hat back on, and watched her gather up her Flowers for the walk to the hotel.

"That's a fine lookin' woman," he muttered under his breath as the whores mounted the steps to the wooden sidewalk. "Gonna pay her a visit as soon as she sets up shop."

Madam Twyla walked beside her freshest Flower as they made their way up the sidewalk. Disregarding the insult of proper women pulling their skirts aside as if to avoid contamination, Violet looked around with interested eyes. Bisbee seemed about as big as Tombstone, had as many stores and such. She even saw a steeple or two. But this was the proper side of town. She'd wait to pass judgment on her new home until they got to Brewery Gulch.

Their passage went unimpeded until they were almost to the Copper Queen. A dense crowd of loud cigar-smoking men gathered in front of Simm's General Mercantile. Twyla and her flock of soiled doves pushed their way through with murmured apologies.

"Must be giving something away," Violet thought, demurely waiting while Miss Twyla tapped a man on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, let us through please." A hole opened, large enough for them to pass through. But Violet and Twyla stopped dead, stunned into immobility by the scene before them.

Two wooden coffins leaned against a bench, like pictures propped on an artist's easel. One was glossy black and trimmed with fine silver fittings. A glass window over the face of the departed allowed a view of the nice looking young man who reposed inside. His face was pasty and white except where the undertaker had applied two spots of rouge, high on his cheekbones, and his mouth sagged slightly open.

Beside it was a rough box, seemingly knocked together out of old planks. The lid of the coffin leaned beside it against the wall of the Mercantile. The corpse was dusty, as if nobody had troubled to prepare it for burial. The hair was chestnut in color, thick and full, and hung to his shoulders, And around the neck of the dead man was a crudely lettered cardboard sign that said simply, KILLER.

Aghast, Violet put a lace mittened hand to her mouth and caught her breath in shock. Tywla recognized him too. She hastily put her arm around her favorite Flower and forcibly turned Violet's head onto her shoulder so she could no longer look on that unforgettable face, handsome even in death.

She remembered him well, they both did. He was the kind of man who made an impression on a woman, especially if he was her first. His name came to mind as easily as if she'd met him only the day before...she could see him bowing over her hand, all courtliness and good manners, feel his lips brush softly over her knuckles as he said in a drawling, low-pitched voice, "Just call me Cort, ma'am."

The End