Willis, Connie - SS - One-Eyed Jack.pdf - Connie Willis - przemosta

One-Eyed Jack

By Connie Wilkins, illustration by Noel Bebee

6 August 2001

H e might have been reduced to one eye, one arm, and scarcely more than one

good leg, but Lightning Jack lacked nothing in between. Nothing at all. Half a

man? Miss Lily's first impression had been wildly off target. Two or three men put

together (and of course you never could put the good bits together) couldn't

equal his endowment.

No one judged better in these matters than Miss Lily, better known as The

Schoolmarm.

Not that she often took gentlemen into her own bed these days. She might, for

a substantial fee, apply her other, very specialized skills where they would do the

most good; but any customer with the fortitude to seek a bedmate after Miss

Lily had latticed his hairy butt with her lash could make do with one of her girls.

Jack, though, was an investment. An unwise one, she had feared, watching him

hobble from the train; but an investment nonetheless. And rumor insisted that

he still possessed that legendary aim and speed, and a gun with new notches

earned only weeks ago.

More certain was the cold fire of revenge consuming him. Miss Lily understood

the power of that fire. And, since his enemy was her enemy, she had welcomed

his written offer and guaranteed his personal safety up until the shoot-out, as

well as a handsome fee upon completion, payable to an address in San Francisco

in the event that he was unable to collect it himself.

Jack's personal safety was best guaranteed in The Schoolmarm's well-guarded

establishment. That it required sharing her own opulent rose-and-ivory

bedchamber was less self-evident, but Miss Lily had acquiesced. Something in his

blend of frailty and rage recalled men she had nursed in the war, long ago, before

she had come west to teach and learned a lesson or two herself, the foremost

being that she might as well make men pay for what they were determined to

get anyway, the second that there was no limit to what some men would pay

for.

Miss Lily would have drawn the line at taking her whip to Jack's already-ravaged

body, but she was expert at reading men and doubted that he wanted anything

more than the softest bed in the Territories and maybe a little womanly comfort.

It came as no surprise that before dawn he was sobbing into her ample breasts.

The surprise was that those breasts were heaving as though the Grand Tetons

had been tossed on the waves of an earthquake. It seemed forever until she

could catch her breath, and even then she was still shaken by the best time

she'd had since . . . since . . . but there was no comparison in all her years of

experience.

Lily stroked his scarred face and made soothing sounds and let him fall asleep

atop her, then gently eased him off. She tried to lift the bedclothes just enough

to get a glimpse of what she'd been enjoying, but he gripped the satin comforter

and muttered, "No . . . no . . . please . . . ," so she let him be.

In the morning Jack accepted a hot bath, but refused assistance, even from

Slow Joe the bouncer, who carried the steaming buckets up from the kitchen.

Only when fully dressed did Jack re-enter her boudoir.

"Miss Lily," he said, sitting awkwardly on the slippery rose satin edge of the bed,

"there's one more thing I'd like to ask of you."

"No harm in asking," she said, feeling an urge to ask for a little something herself

but knowing that what lay ahead would require all his concentration. She hoped

he hadn't already lost the edge he was going to need.

"Well, it's just, if it should turn out . . . if you should feel you could handle it . . .

I'd appreciate if you'd look after that." He nodded toward the long gun-case

sitting on the marble-topped bureau.

"Don't you worry any about that," Miss Lily said. She decided it was time to fan

fires that might have got a little dampened last night. "You just fix your mind on

dealing with Rigby. Is it true what they say? He's the one who tied you to that

railroad track like a dime-novel virgin?"

Jack's smile would have been grim even without the scars. "Is it true what they

say, Miss Lily, that you near to killed Rigby with a bullwhip after he and his boys

cut up one of your girls, but you weren't tough enough to finish the job?"

"True enough," she said. "I stopped too soon."

"I won't." He stood and limped to the bureau. Lily heard him opening the gun

case.

"Jack," she said over her shoulder as she slipped on a lacy peignoir, "should I . . .

if there's a need . . . should I send your things on to that San Francisco

address?"

"No need," he said, closing the case and turning back. "If you don't mind keeping

them." She noticed the single holster slung low on his right hip, empty sleeve

dangling above it. "There's somebody in 'Frisco I owe, but it's not what you'd call

personal. Old Chinaman there fixed me up about as well as anybody could, after

the train crew got me that far. I couldn't pay him right then, but he seemed to

think my reputation was guarantee enough." He twitched his shoulders to adjust

the fit of his shabby black coat. "Amazing what those pig-tailed doctors can do,

what they've got, dried stuff hanging on the walls, pickled stuff in bottles, live

things in big jars and baskets. Truly amazing." He avoided her eyes; she figured

those memories must be hard to handle.

"I'll see your debt paid," she assured him. "I might go to San Francisco myself,

one of these days. Once I know Rigby won't be carrying out his threats against

my place and my girls." She let her peignoir fall open, and was only mildly

disappointed that her rose-and-ivory charms sparked no interest in Jack's dark,

single eye. His focus should be on the coming confrontation, the bizarre, balletic

ritual wherein men could kill with honor, publicly, face to face in the dusty arena

of Main Street under the blazing sun of high noon.

"Go on down and have breakfast with the girls, Jack, while I take my bath," Miss

Lily said. "Slow Joe won't let anybody in, and I have men outside on watch."

"Just some of that coffee I smell, Ma'am," Jack said. "That's all I'll need. But

thanks, Miss Lily. Thanks for everything."

Then he was gone. Miss Lily listened to the uneven thumps of his progress down

the stairs. When the dining room door swung shut she crossed to the bureau

and opened his unlocked case.

A strange, musky odor, not unpleasant, rose from the interior. Maybe some

oriental perfume. The single revolver-shaped niche was empty, but the case

could hold a good deal more, and clearly had. A channel coiled through the

jade-green satin lining, looping around the perimeter and inward toward the

center. A perfect whip-case, she thought automatically, not big enough for a

standard bullwhip, but fine for her own customized instrument. Was that why he

wanted her to have it? If he didn't survive?

She bathed and dressed slowly and meticulously. Jack had no expectation of

surviving. She knew that. Remembering last night, the tears as well as the

delight, she was more than willing to call the whole thing off, find another way to

deal with Rigby; but Jack's own rage for vengeance drove him now, holding him

together just long enough to satisfy it.

Any aftermath would be Miss Lily's to deal with. She smoothed the lines of her

long, elegant skirt, arranged the lace at her neckline to reveal just the right swell

of bosom, and hung her neatly coiled whip from the belt that cinched her waist.

Then she went down to face the day.

As the sun neared its zenith Miss Lily's girls clustered on the verandah, designed

to give her establishment a touch of elegance. Their seductive gowns and poses

were good advertising; folks had crowded into town for the upcoming spectacle,

and business would boom tonight. If the business survived.

Slow Joe and two hired hands manned the roof with an arsenal of shotguns. The

girls had derringers tucked in amongst their ruffles, and knew how to handle

them. But Jack was Lily's best hope.

Jack sat stiffly in the parlor, expressionless, barely breathing. Miss Lily didn't

intrude. She trusted him by now to know his own business best. Maybe he'd

learned some kind of concentration trick in the alleys of Chinatown.

She stepped out onto the verandah, adjusted her chiffon-swathed hat at just the

right tilt, then moved down to the board walkway along the street. As though

he'd been waiting for her appearance, a horseman left the milling throng in front

of the general store and approached her. Henson, Rigby's mouthpiece. She

waited calmly for his opening gambit.

"So, Miss Lily," he said, glancing around to make sure of his audience, "you finally

allowed as how that whip ain't enough to make a man of you. Heard you

Willis, Connie - SS - One-Eyed Jack.pdf

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