The Temptress (Montgomery/Taggert 8)

She didn’t look at the others in the hotel lobby who were watching her with interest, waiting until she’d gone upstairs again so they could tell others what had happened at the picnic.

“Miss,” said a young man behind her, “I have a message for you.”

With her eyes downcast, Chris took the piece of paper, crumbled it in her hand and went up the stairs. Chris sat on the bed and thought for some time. She felt that she owed him this one last visit, to say goodbye, to tell him that she was returning to her father and that she would see that he was given his pardon.

She wrote a note to Asher telling him that she planned to start the journey home tomorrow.

With her shoulders squared, she went downstairs, leaving the note to Asher with the desk clerk, and went outside. As soon as she started toward the jail, she had a following of curious people, some of them snickering. So, the big city girl thought she could come to this town and tell us about someone we already knew, she could almost hear them saying.

Once, a man blocked her passage, and she had to look up at him, giving him her most withering look to make him step aside. He spit a big wad of tobacco juice at her feet, barely missing her.

One thing about people who made a fuss about someone they thought was better than they were, when their idol came to earth, they were very angry about it.

“May I see your prisoner?” she said to the deputy sitting at the desk.

“Oh sure, Miss Dallas,” he said, getting the ring of keys from a nail on the wall. “I’m real sorry about what happened. The sheriff should be here tomorrow and this thing will be cleared up. There’s someone to see you,” the boy said to Tynan as he let Chris into the cell.

Tynan turned around quickly, looking at her with eyes that examined and searched. He didn’t seem to like what he saw because he turned away again.

“I got your message,” she said, looking down at her hands.

“I’ve seen what I wanted to, you can go now.”

The coldness in his voice made her head come up—and her anger surface. “Tell me, are you innocent again? Like with the Chanry Gang? Were you perhaps protecting children from Rory? What was it this time that got you involved in a shooting?”

“Get out of here, Chris,” he said softly. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Because I don’t have a gun? Oh yes, I know the code of the West. You’d never draw on an unarmed man—or woman. How could you do that to me? Those people trusted me! They told me their secrets and I asked them to trust me more. I asked them to give you another chance, to let you start fresh. And they did! But what did you do but show them just what you really are, what I was too stupid to see?”

He just stood there with his back to her, his arm up, pressing against the stone wall, looking out the cell window.

“Look at me when I talk to you. If you have no conscience, at least you can pretend to have manners.”

Slowly, he turned toward her and he seemed to be a man Chris had never seen before, one of coolness, as if he were far away and not there at all.

“I never lied to you about what I was. I always told you I wasn’t for you. But you never listened to anything I said. You were so busy showing the world that you could reform the criminal that you never thought about who I really was.”

“I guess I’ve learned now.” She walked toward the cell door. “I won’t bother you again. I just came to tell you that I, and probably Mr. Prescott, will be leaving early in the morning. I’ll make sure, though, that you will be given your pardon by my father. Deputy,” she called.

Tynan was across the room in seconds, barring her exit. “You will not leave without me. I swore to your father that I’d deliver you and I plan to.”

“Of course, the Western man always keeps his word. He may kill people on a daily basis, prison may be a way of life to him but he always keeps his word. Deputy, you may let me out now.”

Tynan slammed the door shut, startling the boy against the wall. “You can’t leave tomorrow morning. You can’t go across this country with just that man, he doesn’t know anything about surviving.”

“I have to agree that he doesn’t know how to shoot innocent men at church picnics.”

“He didn’t shoot Sayers,” the deputy said. “Sayers attacked him from behind.”

“I knew you were innocent,” Chris said. “A man like you doesn’t get caught when he does something illegal. Deputy, please open this door.”

Ty held it shut. “Chris, you can’t leave until I get out of here. You need—”

“Mr. Tynan, if I waited for you to get out of one jail after another, I’d never get home. Let me make myself clear. I am going to leave tomorrow morning and start home to my father. You will have your precious pardon and you will get rid of me in the bargain.” She grabbed the door and jerked, stepping outside quickly. “When you make your way to my father’s, via the jails of Washington, however falsely accused you are, he may even have the ten thousand dollars you’ve worked so hard for. Good-bye, sir, and I hope we never meet again.”

Chapter Eleven

Asher led the way out of town the next morning before the sun was up. She’d mumbled answers to his many questions on the night before, saying her engagement to Tynan had been a farce, something to save him from Rory’s barbs. Asher seemed satisfied that she was properly contrite.