Mary Travis shrugged off her robe and began to dress. It had been another hot day in Four Corners, and the bath she had just taken brought welcome relief to her heated body. Now, she felt cool and refreshed. It helped that the temperature outside seemed to drop drastically. While still warm, it was pleasant.
She quickly put on a thin cambric chemise and petticoat. Instead of her stiff corset, she opted for her lighter, more comfortable stays only. It was late afternoon and she didn’t intend to go out again today. The Clarion’s offices were closed and she expected no visitors. No need to get so formally dressed since she would be alone.
Mary slipped into the simple pale pink calico dress with the tiny pattern of roses on it. She turned to the mirror and removed the towel she had wrapped around her long hair. Slowly, she ran her brush through the wet strands until every tangle was out.
The bedroom was still stuffy, containing the pent up heat from earlier that day. She slipped into her dainty cloth house slippers and went out onto the back porch.
Mary sat down on the porch swing that Steven had installed long ago. Gently, to the rhythm of her brush strokes, she began to sway on the bench as she brushed her hair.
She closed her eyes and allowed the warm prairie wind blow through the wet strands as she began to hum a small piece from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 that she had heard so long ago.
J.D.
JD Dunne was making his way around the livery on a quiet afternoon. The heat of the day had finally broken and he was making a sweep of the town to make certain all was well. He had just rounded the corner of the livery stable and stopped in his tracks.
He saw Mary Travis sit down on her back porch swing and begin to brush her hair. The wind stirred the long, gold strands. Dressed in her pretty pink dress with her hair falling loosely like that, she looked less formidable than she normally did.
With a shock, JD realized that she must not be too much older than he was. With a double shock, he realized how beautiful she was.
Oh, he had noticed before how pretty Miz Travis was, but he never really looked. Now, as she sat there dressed in a plain dress and just brushing her hair, doing a woman thing, he didn’t see Miz Travis, newspaper woman and widow. Friend to him and the other men. Judge Travis’s daughter-in-law. Billy’s ma. JD saw Mary, as fine of an example of womanliness as could be had.
For a moment, JD’s thoughts strayed in another direction before he quickly clamped down on them. While a woman, and a beautiful one at that, she was still Mary Travis. He couldn’t think about her in that way. Once, before they really knew her, Buck made the mistake of making some off-handed comment. Whew! JD thought Nathan and Josiah were going to gut him right then and there. Even Ezra looked pretty pissed.
But the scariest look was from Chris. The gunslinger didn’t say or do anything. He had merely given Buck a certain look that was hard for JD to describe, but Buck never made another off-colored comment about the widow ever again. And, as the months passed, Buck became just as protective about what people said about Mary as Nathan was. They all had.
Why, right after they rescued her from Wickestown and she was at home recovering, the whispering started up even though nothing had happened to her. Except for a pretty bad beating. JD thought for certain that Buck or Nathan was going to shoot somebody when that talk started going around, but once again, it was Chris’s quiet threat that stopped any gossip.
The man in black had merely said in that quiet voice of his one day in the saloon, “I want everyone to know, ain’t nothing happen to Mary Travis while she was in Wickestown and if I hear someone saying differently or even a hint of someone saying differently, I’ll hunt them down and shoot him and I don’t give a damn if it’s a man or woman.” He had looked up from the cards he held in his hand and stared at everyone in the crowded saloon. “Is that clear?”
He hadn’t even stood up, but Chris managed to hold everyone’s attention and almost in unison, everyone nodded. After that, there was never any talk.
JD’s attention returned to the woman on the porch. She turned her head slightly and closed her eyes as the wind gently caressed her face. The boy sighed a bit in longing and a bit in resignation. He adjusted his bowler and continued on his rounds.
JOSIAH
Josiah easily carried the heavy box out the back door and he set it gently on the porch. Old man Remar was getting too feeble to haul this type of stuff around so the ex-preacher had offered to help him move a few items from his shop out onto the back porch. He took out his bandanna and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He arched his back to stretch out the muscles and looked out across the way.
She was indeed a sight to behold.
Long burnished gold hair that caught the occasional ray of sunlight as the ivory backed brush went through it. The dress was simple, but Josiah thought it more flattering than some of her other ones. It was plain, but it only allowed the viewer to appreciate the figure all the more since there were no distracting fancy trimmings.
Get her naked and standing on a half-shell and she could be Venus, Josiah thought to himself. Ah, if only I was younger and a better man.
If only she was remotely interested.
Josiah shook his head in chagrin and smiled. Perhaps twenty years ago, but not now. Besides, there seemed to be only one person Mary had shown the slightest interest in, but he kept pushing her away.
“And a bigger fool never lived,” the ex-preacher murmured aloud as he moved towards the door he had come out of earlier. He paused for a moment and turned around to take one last look.
“A rose that stands alone out in this hellish place,” the big man said quietly. He opened the screen door and went inside.
NATHAN
Nathan Jackson stepped out of Larson’s Dry Goods and paused as he tried to re-juggle his armful of packages. He looked up and saw Mary sitting on her back porch brushing her hair. The healer smiled.
Even since Steven Travis passed away, Miz Travis rarely had an opportunity to just relax and enjoy herself. He remembered a time when she would always be visiting others and smiling and laughing. Funny, Nathan couldn’t remember the last time he heard her laugh.
It’s been hard for her. Struggling with the paper and the state of this town. Don’t help that she’s been fighting more with some of the townsfolk. Lot of the menfolk here didn’t take too kindly when she decided to stay out here on her own and run her business herself. Thought she should have sold out and gone to live with Billy at the Judge’s.
Also didn’t help that she had shamed all of them that day those cowhands tried to lynch him. Nathan stretched out his neck as though he could still feel the noose around it.
Yeah, if it hadn’t been for Miz Travis trying to save him, he didn’t think Vin and Chris would have interfered that day. Even before that, he owed the Travises a lot. When he first got to Four Corners, it was Mary and Steven who helped him get settled. When they found out he knew a little bit about healing, they tried to help him as much as they could.
Yep, Mary Travis was on special lady. It was just a shame she had all them burdens to carry. Chris may have stopped any nonsense talk about Wickestown and what didn’t happen to Miz Travis there, but his little speech in the saloon that day just made people talk about him and her.
Nathan shook his head. The old gossips had even more to talk about when they saw how Chris treats her. Nathan didn’t think Chris even realized what he was doing with all that touching. And then when Nathan heard what Chris did when that Mosely girl was brought back to town. The healer sighed. Yep, that started up all that talk again.
Nathan’s attention went back to the woman brushing her hair. But she seemed to be handling it well. Mary Travis was made of strong stuff and she could take whatever was thrown at her.
He just wished she laugh more often.
BUCK
Buck Wilmington rode his horse into the livery stable and came out a few minutes later whistling cheerfully. His whistle died off when he saw the sight not a 100 feet away from him.
Mary Travis was gently brushing her hair in the slowly approaching evening. The setting sun’s fiery light seem to mingle with her gold hair and create a metal far more precious than anything known to man.
Buck leaned against a hitching post and sighed appreciatively the way he always did when he saw a beautiful woman.
Oh, he had noticed her when he first rode into town. Kinda hard not to notice all that pretty, blonde hair and that itty, bitty waist with that sweet, little bustle saying back and forth. But he knew he was likely not to get anywhere with her so he had concentrated on Miss Alice instead. But when they came back from that Seminole village and he saw her standing there next to the Judge not caring about getting shot. Well shoot! His admiration went just beyond the way she looked.
Why a woman liked that made him think of settling down. But she wasn’t interested.
You could have just about knocked him over with a feather when she began asking questions about Chris. That’s the way women do things. Never ask outright, but sort of dance around the subject, but he could tell she was interested.
But Chris?! Hell, most women were scared of him because he was so silent and broody. Hardly any decent woman would come with in ten feet of him much less ask about him.
But he saw the way she eyed him while he was running around like a fool passing out papers for her.
It was the same look Sarah gave his old friend way back when they all first knew each other.
And Buck had also seen the way Chris looked at Mary Travis.
Buck smiled and sighed with a little regret. He wouldn’t have minded if he and Miz Travis walked out a bit and perhaps had a little kiss or two. But Mary was what Chris needed, no wanted, in his life. Whether the old mule knew it or not.
He pushed off the hitching post and slipped his hand into the waistband of his pants. He just hoped they do something about it before something happens that makes it impossible for them to get together.
EZRA
Ezra Standish stopped and flicked off some dust that had dared to settle onto his pants leg. When he straightened up, he saw across the way womanly beauty at it’s best.
Mary Travis ran her brush from the top of her head all the way down to the ends of her long blonde hair.. For a moment, the gambler wondered what it would feel like to have his fingers run through those silky strands.
He watched as she flicked her hair over her shoulder and turn her head towards the setting sun. A gentle light bathed her face and lighted her hair in a golden-red halo. Her porcelain skin was flushed a soft pink and her dress took on a rosier hue.
In another life, another time, perhaps it would have happened. But women like Mary Travis did not belong with a man like him. She represented all that he had been taught to scorn and cheat. Goodness, fairness, justice.
But wasn’t that what he was drifting towards now? Did he not fight those who were what he used to be? How many times had he caught men cheating and forced them to return their winnings? This certainly wasn’t the future his mother had envisioned for him.
Maybe...
A movement in the livery shadows caught his eye. Ezra turned his head and he saw a figure clothed in black leaning against the barn wall also looking at the woman on the porch.
Chris.
Ezra sighed and shook his head over his own brief folly. No. Not even a maybe. It would never be.
He looked up and continued on with his walk.
VIN
Vin rode into the stables and came out of the building after settling his horse down for the night. As was his habit, he looked around him casually, but his eyes missed nothing. He stopped by a low fence when he saw the woman brushing her hair.
With gentle strokes, she drew the bristles down the golden length. Vin leaned against the fence and admired the calming rhythm she set. A small smile crossed his features.
He had always loved beauty in it’s most natural state and a woman brushing her hair was such a natural movement.
Vin remembered first seeing Mary Travis enter the mercantile he had briefly worked in. She brought in the latest edition of her paper and spotted him. After Harvey introduced the two, she had smiled that sweet smile of hers and welcomed him to the town. He had felt a bit shy and tongue-twisted and mumbled something. She spoke briefly with him and then left.
Several times after that, he would see her on the street but he never spoke to her. By listening, he found out much about Mary Travis. How she was a widow and owned the paper. About her little boy and her struggle to keep the town afloat. Then she did something that would win Vin’s loyalty until the day he died.
She tried to save an innocent man when no one else would.
Vin could sympathize with Nathan. Hell, he had a bounty on his head for something he didn’t do. Wasn’t that what them drunks were going to hang Nathan for? But Mary Travis had stepped out and tried to stop them and in the process made Vin examine himself a bit more.
He had come to Four Corners running away from who he was. He had forgotten his Ma’s last words to him and all that she had taught him. But with Mary’s plea for someone to help an innocent man, he couldn’t help remember those lessons.
Mary Travis had helped him find himself again and he thanked her for that.
Vin would of liked to have thanked her in all sorts of ways, but then he saw her affect on Chris. Vin smiled again. When a woman gets under a man’s skin like that, it only means one thing; that man’s got a mighty strong yen for her. And if Vin knew anything about people, she got the same thing for Chris.
Vin knew it from the way Chris wouldn’t talk about her when Buck was going on about the pretty widow woman on their way back from the Seminole village. But Vin’s suspicions were confirmed when they spotted her standing next to the Judge out on the street and right in the line of fire.
That was when he heard Chris swear loudly and violently about that damn fool woman who was trying to get herself killed. Chris had then spurred his horse forward and the others had followed. While the rest of them had gathered around in a perimeter, Chris had stepped right into the line of fire and drew attention away from the woman and back towards him and the Judge. That way, if bullets started flying, they be aiming away from her.
Something moved in the gathering shadows and Vin craned his neck to peer around the corner of the stable. Leaning against the wall, he could see a tall, lean figure watching Mary. Vin grinned again and quietly stole away so Chris wouldn’t know he had been caught.
CHRIS
He had been watching her since she first came out. Chris had been walking past the livery when he heard the bang of Mary’s screen door. He stopped in the shadow of the building and watched as she shook her wet hair. She sat down on the swing and began to gently brush out the wet, gold strands. He was close enough to see that her dress seemed to fit her more snugly than usual and emphasized her figure more. Wildly, he wondered if she wore anything underneath.
The wind carried a few notes of the song she was humming towards him. He didn’t recognized the tune, but it was gentle and pretty. Like Mary.
He admired the curve of her neck as she drew her hair over one shoulder and bent her head that way to brush out the ends. He watched with a smile as she almost unconsciously tucked one, small foot underneath her body in a more comfortable position.
How had this happened? How had he allowed someone, a woman no less, get to him in this way?
The infection began when he first saw her striding majestically down the street in a vain attempt to save Nathan. Just that and that one meeting in her office had branded her face into his mind. Every time Buck mentioned “the pretty, yellow-haired widow-woman” on their way out to the village and back, he saw that beautiful face in his mind.
And now that he knew her better, she practically filled his waking moments. It was getting harder and harder to hold himself aloof and away from her.
Why, like right now. How long has he been standing here? The sun was beginning to set and she looked even more beautiful in the rosy light.
But it cannot be, he told himself. They were too far apart. Too different.
But when he touched her, when he held her in his arms, he didn’t feel the differences or the danger. All he felt was this warm and alive woman who smelled of roses and was softer than anything he had ever touched before. All he knew was that he wanted her with him and that he never wanted to let go.
+ + + + + + +
Mary stood up suddenly and stretched her back. She tilted her head to the side and watched the sunset for a few minutes. Chris watched as she touched her hair and she appeared to seem satisfied that it was dry. She flicked it back over her shoulders where the wind blew it out in gold streamers.
She gave one last look at the sunset and moved towards the backdoor. He saw her pause a moment and look over her shoulder as though she felt someone watching her. Chris willed himself not to move and betray his location.
A small smile crept over her face and she turned back to the door. She walked in and gently closed the screen door after her.
Chris sighed and moved out of the shadows and back towards the center of town.
The End
