The Marriage Knot

Ezra. Something about Ezra.

Then she envisioned Delaney, tall and somber at the foot of the stairs. His arms were going around her and she could feel the rough touch of his wool vest and all the warmth beneath it. There was the sudden scrape of his cheek against hers.

Hannah tried to speak, but she was under water again and the current was stronger than before, pulling her down relentlessly.

“There,” whispered Miss Green. “There, there. Just sleep now, you poor dear. You’ll feel ever so much better in the morning.”

Two days later, sitting beside Ezra’s casket in the darkly draped front parlor of the Moran Brothers’ Funerary Establishment, Hannah had to remind herself once again that Ezra was no longer in pain. She’d watched the cancer eating away at him, dulling the light in his eyes, creasing his forehead, and weighing down the corners of his mouth, especially when he thought she wasn’t looking.

But now he had freed himself of all that agony, hadn’t he? Rather than allow his illness to waste him away over the course of the next few months, Ezra had mastered his own fate. He had mastered his own death. Above all else, he had vanquished the terrible pain. That alone should have given her great consolation.

Hannah edged a hand beneath the folds of her black veil to wipe away one more tear.

How like Ezra to take fate in hand. His suicide shouldn’t have surprised her. She should have been prepared. She should have read it on his face the night before he shot himself or tasted goodbye on his lips when he kissed her good-night.

Or perhaps somewhere deep inside she had suspected Ezra’s intentions, yet had chosen to deny if not completely ignore her knowledge. Life without Ezra, after all, was unthinkable. They’d been together fourteen years, half of Hannah’s life.

“Mrs. Dancer, please accept my deepest sympathies on your loss: If there’s anything I can do for you—anything at all—you only have to say so.”

Through her veil, Hannah recognized the brown checkered suit and polished brogans of Henry Allen, the young banker who’d been boarding at her house for the past year. She hadn’t seen Henry since Ezra’s death, having kept to her room until the house was quiet and all the boarders were asleep. Now the young man stood gazing at her with his brown puppy eyes. If he’d had a tail, Hannah thought, he’d be wagging it. Instead he was dragging the brim of his bowler hat through his fingers while he rocked back and forth in his glossy shoes.

“Thank you, Henry. It was kind of you to come. Ezra would be very glad and grateful.”

His puppy eyes grew darker, more glossy. His voice lowered to the intimacy of a whisper. “Shall I wait and see you safely home?”

The boy’s sweet on you, Hannah. Suddenly she heard Ezra’s voice as clearly as if he were standing right behind her, chuckling as he always did whenever Henry Allen said something particularly syrupy, or something punctuated by undisguised sighs.

Can’t say I blame him, either. You’re a fine-looking woman, Hannah Dancer. You don’t see it in yourself, honey, but others surely do.

A chill edged along her spine, and Hannah sat up a little straighter. “Thank you, Henry. I expect to be here quite a while until everyone’s paid their respects.” She looked across the parlor where her other boarder, Florence Green, sat with a teacup and saucer balanced on her knee. “Miss Green’s been here a long time. She looks a bit tired to me. You might offer to see her home, Henry. I’d consider it a favor.”

He sighed a rather boyish, recalcitrant sigh.

“I’d appreciate it enormously,” Hannah urged. “Oh, and you might leave a light burning in the vestibule for me, too. I believe I forgot to do that earlier.”

“Are you quite sure I can’t...?”

“No, thank you, Henry.”

Hannah let out a small sigh of her own when he walked away, and was heartened, even relieved, when the young man approached Miss Green and apparently offered to escort her home. The plump schoolteacher put aside her teacup, then rose and took Henry’s arm quite somberly. Then, after a last lingering glance toward Hannah, the young man escorted his companion out the door.

People came and went during the next few hours. People who were sorry, shocked, saddened, oh so sad. By ten o’clock Hannah was nearly numb and thankful, not only that her veil hid her reddened eyes, but that it disguised an inappropriate yawn or two. She hadn’t had a good sleep since she woke from her laudanum-induced stupor two days ago. When the final mourner shook her hand and murmured his sympathies, Hannah was eager to get home, to take off her black bonnet, her black dress and stockings and shoes, and to fall into a deep and unworried sleep.

“Looks like that’s it, Miz Dancer.” One of the Moran brothers—Hannah wasn’t sure if it was Seth or Samuel—plucked his watch from his pocket and clicked it open. “Ten o’clock. Pretty late. Your husband had a lot of friends.”

“Yes, he did.” Hannah wasn’t sure what to do or say next. She’d never had to preside in a funeral parlor before.

“I’ll send a boy around tomorrow with all these flowers,” Moran said, gesturing toward the many vases that decorated the room. “Just let me lock up and I’ll see you home.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Moran. It’s only a little way. I’ll be safe enough.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m very sure. After such a throng of people, I think I’d prefer being alone for a while. Will you be picking me up tomorrow for the ride to the cemetery?”

“Yes, ma‘am. Nine o’clock, if that suits you.”

“Nine will be fine. Thank you, Mr. Moran. Thank you for everything. I’ll see you then.”

Hannah took a last look at the closed casket and felt her tears welling up again. Ezra was dead. The notion kept surprising her somehow. The hurt kept feeling fresh. Raw. She wondered how long it would be before she truly accepted the fact that Ezra was gone, that she was alone.

A soft breeze riffled her black satin skirt and bonnet when she stepped outside onto the planked sidewalk. The night was warm. She breathed deeply, cleansing herself of the smell of funeral bouquets and the lingering camphor and cedar that scented the mourners’ best clothes.

Beyond the brass carriage lights that flanked the Moran Brothers’ doorway, Newton was bathed in silver moonlight. Even the dirt of Main Street glistened here and there where moonbeams pooled. Down the street, Hannah could see the elm-shadowed facade of her own house. There was a lamp burning in the vestibule, turning the stained-glass fanlight over the door to glittering jewels.

For a moment everything was beautiful, almost magical. Then Hannah remembered Ezra was dead, and the beauty of the night seemed to mock her. Everything silver suddenly seemed to tarnish. A feeling of such loneliness engulfed her that she had to reach out to the hitching rail to steady her liquid knees.

“Kinda late for a lady to be walking home alone.”

Delaney’s voice—its deep, rough music—came out of the darkness. Hannah would have known it anywhere. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of moonlight on the badge pinned to his black vest and the dull sheen of his ever-present shotgun.

“I’m sorry about Ezra, Mrs. Dancer.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Hannah stepped off the sidewalk, into the street. Without asking permission, Delaney fell into step beside her, so close at first that their sleeves brushed, causing both of them to veer slightly—Delaney to his right, Hannah to her left—leaving a foot or so of moonlit road between them.

“I understand you were the one who kept me from pitching down the stairs the other day. I’m very grateful, Sheriff.”

“It was nothing,” he said, his gaze directed straight ahead. “Glad I was there to help.”

They walked in silence then. Well, not total silence. There was the clash of piano music coming from several saloons behind them, a bright peal of laughter drifting out a window somewhere, and a chorus of crickets on the edge of town. Hannah’s satin skirts rustled softly while Delaney’s spurs kept up a gentle, metallic beat.

When they passed the jailhouse, Hannah caught sight of the chair where this man usually sat, shotgun at hand, casually keeping watch over the town. It seemed odd to stare so boldly at that chair now. Ordinarily, when she walked into town, she riveted her gaze on the opposite side of the street. The sight of him forever flustered her.

They were halfway up the flagstone sidewalk to her house when Delaney halted.

“I’ll wait till you’re safe inside.”

For a moment Hannah wanted to stop, too, rather than continue, alone, toward the huge house. It was happening again—that magnetic pull she always felt whenever she was near this man. She’d been intensely aware of it from their very first meeting last winter. At the first, surprising sound of his well-deep voice and the sight of his serious face with those frank hazel eyes, Hannah’s heart had quickened inside her.

Then, after the lemonade social to welcome the new sheriff to Newton, there had been the Valentine’s Day dance and a similar tug at her heartstrings seeing Delaney across a crowded room. It had confused her in the past, even irritated her, but now it shamed her—feeling that same pull—with Ezra just a few days dead.

“Good night, Delaney.” She said it almost stiffly as she forced herself to walk the final yards to the front steps, and then up to the door. With her hand on the knob, Hannah was tempted to turn and take one last look at the tall man in his black vest, black trousers, and boots. She feared, though, that if she did, she might turn to a pillar of salt.

So she went inside and softly closed the door behind her.

Delaney didn’t go back to his room at the National Hotel. Instead he pushed through the doors of the Longhorn Saloon and settled himself at a table in the back. In a matter of minutes, Ria Flowers had brought him a tall, wet glass of beer and had planted her bountiful self in the chair next to his.

“I haven’t seen you for over a week, Delaney, darlin’. Don’t tell me you’re loving up some other girl.” She leaned forward, a seductive smile on her redglossed lips and a significant amount of cleavage shimmering above her crimson laced corset.

Delaney found himself oddly and uncharacteristically immune. Ria was a beautiful young woman still on the spring side of twenty, blond and blue-eyed and finely constructed even without the unnatural allure of her tight-laced corset. Of all the women who made their livings in the saloons of Newton, she still had a softness about her, not the sulky demeanor of most whores.

It had become Delaney’s habit over the last several years, as he went from one wild town to another in Kansas, to take his pleasures in each place with just one woman. So, there’d been Joy in Abilene, Josette in Wichita, Fanny McKay in Dodge, and now pretty young Ria Flowers in Newton. It was a sort of monogamy, he thought, unsanctified as it was, unholy perhaps, but ultimately a necessity Delaney could not deny or do without.

Besides, since he never intended to get married again, it wouldn’t have done to get cozy with a proper single lady who had... well... expectations. Not that it was always easy walking away from a whore he’d had an affection for, but it was legal. Unlike Wyatt and Doc, he’d never lived as man and wife with such a woman.

In Delaney’s view, his two friends might just as well have been married to their paramours for all the grief they cost one another. He’d seen Mattie crying more than once over Wyatt. And if Doc’s Kate never shed a tear, still he thought he could read chapter and verse of sadness in her eyes.

“You tired of me?” Ria asked him now, her pink tongue glossing over her lips and her fingers smoothing up and down his arm.

“Just tired, honey.” Delaney took a long draft of the warm beer in front of him, then set it down again. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

It had to do, he thought, with a red-haired widow whose face and form seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his mind these last few days. The smart thing to do now, he knew, would be to take Ria upstairs to bed, to lose himself if only for a night in her arms and her giving flesh. That was, after all, why he’d come to the Longhorn instead of returning to his room.

But he didn’t feel particularly smart at the moment, and somehow being with Ria Flowers didn’t seem like such a good way to rid his mind of Hannah Dancer. It struck him as dishonest. Damned if he’d ever coupled honesty and lovemaking in the same breath. And damned if he’d ever turned his back on a warm and willing female.

He drained his glass and set it on the table with a thump. “I think I’ll just turn in for the night,” he told her.

“Well, if that’s what you want.” Ria’s lower lip slid out. Worry flickered in her eyes. “I could come with you to the hotel, Delaney. Harry wouldn’t mind.” She angled her head toward the bartender. “Here. There. It’s all the same to him as long as he gets his cut.”

He stood up, reached in his pocket for a silver dollar, and pressed it into her hand. “Harry doesn’t need to take a chunk of this, honey. You keep it. I’ll see you later. Tomorrow maybe.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” He bent to kiss her forehead, then caught a whiff of her orange-blossom talc and nearly changed his mind. Nearly. “Good night, Ria.”

His room on the second floor of the National Hotel was similar to all the other hotel rooms where he’d resided during the past decade of lawing. This one had new wallpaper, though, unlike the fly-specked patterns of some of his former residences. The mattress was decent enough and there were fresh sheets every two weeks.

He propped his shotgun against the wall between the nightstand and the bed, then took off his clothes without bothering to light the lamp. There was still plenty of moonlight coming through the window to keep him from cracking a shin on the rocker or tripping over the worn Oriental runner.

Delaney dropped onto the bed. It was true, what he’d told Ria. He was tired. God, he was tired. Of his present circumstances. Of Newton. Of living in this hotel. Of a job that paid him just enough to keep on being poor.

Out of habit, he flexed his right hand—the hand that had once been fast and deadly accurate. That hadn’t been the case since he’d been shot last summer in Dodge by a fool kid who wanted to earn a reputation by killing an Earp. But the boy had winged Delaney instead, then found himself pistol-whipped by Wyatt and Virgil both and promptly tried and sent to jail. If it hadn’t been for the kid’s bad aim, Delaney would probably be in Arizona now.

He’d come to Newton last winter less by choice than by default. With his gun hand out of commission, he knew he couldn’t pull his weight with the Earps. It was all well and good that he was still pretty lethal with a shotgun, but then anybody was that. With enough buckshot, even a blind old granny was a threat to life and limb.

Hell, he’d even quit wearing his gunbelt and holster when he’d come here because he’d felt like a damn fool when he knew they were pure decoration. So he’d locked the leather and iron in the bottom drawer of his new desk, then he’d spent the next couple weeks feeling like a gelding. Just half a man somehow. Not that he thought wearing a gun made somebody a man, but not wearing his had taken a definite chunk out of his pride.

He doubled up the pillow behind his head, sighing at the notion that, bone tired as he was, sleep wasn’t within easy reach tonight.

Up till now, he’d adjusted pretty well. The shotgun wasn’t the total embarrassment it used to be. He’d had the occasional comfort of Ria, and he’d even managed to save a little cash. Not enough yet to buy in with the Earps in all their financial schemes in Tombstone, but enough to at least keep that particular dream alive.

Things hadn’t been perfect. Hell, far from it. But Delaney’s life had been on a fairly even keel these last few months. Now he felt off center again, detoured if not downright derailed.

Hannah.

He shouldn’t have walked her home tonight. He should have just stood there, out of sight, and watched to make sure she got to her door safe and sound. But something always drew him to her like a magnet, like a dizzy moth to a dancing flame. Whatever it was, Delaney didn’t care for it one bit.

It was time to start thinking about leaving town. So what if he couldn’t grip a pistol anymore? Doc Holliday did well enough with his sawed-off shotgun and nobody thought any less of him. So what if Delaney couldn’t buy into a silver mine or a saloon right away? He could save money in Tombstone just as readily as here. Maybe more, for all he knew.

It was June. There were six months left on his sheriffing contract. He courted sleep by counting the dollars and cents he planned to save before that contract expired.

Chapter Three

It wasn’t like Hannah to take to her bed, but that was exactly what she did for the next three days. Right after Ezra’s burial, she had joined her little trio of boarders for supper in the dining room, but she hadn’t even made it past the soup before she was dabbing her linen napkin at her eyes.

First, Ezra’s place at the head of the table—the empty chair and blank stretch of tablecloth—kept drawing Hannah’s gaze, again and again. Then Miss Green’s continual expressions of sympathy made any other topic of conversation quite impossible. Henry Allen’s mournful glances didn’t help a bit, and neither did Abel Fairfax’s understanding nods or his encouraging smiles.

Hannah had excused herself from the table, rushed upstairs, and hadn’t come back down since. The only person she had allowed in her room was Nancy, the hired girl who helped with household chores. Bigboned, raw-knuckled Nancy never spoke more than a word or two and kept her eyes downcast as she came and went with tea and toast or rice pudding. Her silence suited Hannah fine.

She needed that silence and solitude to deal with Ezra’s passing, to find her balance now and learn how to be alone after sharing her life with him for fourteen years. Had it really been that long? she wondered. So often it seemed like just yesterday that the big, barrel-chested man in the gray frock coat had come storming into her narrow little crib in Memphis. He’d had a graying beard and mustache back then, but Hannah could’ve sworn it was gray smoke issuing from his nostrils and mouth.

“Get dressed,” he’d ordered her. “I’m taking you out of this foul place.”

Hannah had just sat there on the worn mattress, gaping at the huge stranger.

“Come along now. You needn’t fear me. Put your dress on and let’s go.”

When she told him she didn’t have a dress, but only the underclothes she wore, he raised his fists toward the ceiling and bellowed like some wounded thing. Then he took off his fine gray coat and wrapped it carefully around her shoulders.

How warm that coat had been. How safe it had felt, shielding her from her chin down past her knees. It had smelled like Ezra, too. Even after all these years Hannah could still remember the pleasant shock of that unique blend of fragrances. One minute she’d been wearing cotton rags, then suddenly she was cloaked in yards of finely tailored wool, in the scents of cherry pipe smoke and rye whiskey and oatmeal shaving soap.

She’d been with Ezra ever since that night in Memphis. There had been at least half a dozen girls her age or younger—all as destitute as they were pretty, most of them orphaned by the war—all of them trading their bodies for a roof over their heads and a pittance of food in their stomachs. Why Ezra had rescued her in particular, Hannah never knew. Somehow she’d never had the courage to ask, perhaps because she was afraid it was all a dream and, if examined too closely, it might simply disappear.

Now, fourteen years later, it was Ezra who had disappeared and Hannah felt more alone than ever before in her life. Part of her wanted to pull the bedcovers over her head and never get up again, but the sensible, strong part of her knew that was a coward’s way out. She had a house to run and boarders to tend to. Ezra hadn’t brought her to Newton and built this grand mansion just to have them both—Hannah and the house—fall to wrack and ruin after his demise.

Tomorrow, she vowed, she’d rise early, then after her bath she’d don her widow’s weeds once more and begin living the rest of her life.

Tomorrow.

She promised.

Just for tonight, though, Hannah pulled the covers over her head once more and wept into her pillow.

The next morning, when Hannah brought the coffeepot into the dining room, she wasn’t surprised to see Abel Fairfax sitting alone at the table.

“I meant to get up earlier,” she said as she refilled his cup. “I’m sorry, Abel.”

“Nobody minded, Hannah. Henry’s gone off to the bank and Florence is down at Galt’s Emporium, most likely aggravating the devil out of poor Ted Galt while she hems and haws over stationery and ink.” He took a sip of his fresh coffee, eying her over the rim. “You’re looking better, Hannah.”

She had taken her customary seat at the foot of the table by then and poured her own coffee cup to the brim. “Do you think so, Abel? I feel as if I’ve aged five years in the past five days.”

“It’s that black frock. You ought to go back to wearing your regular clothes. Put some color on, my dear. Ezra would be the very first one to tell you that. I’m certain.”

Hannah smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? Ezra never much cared for me in black. He was partial to greens and blues.”

While Hannah sipped her coffee, Abel finished his oatmeal. Then he dabbed his napkin at his thick gray mustache, folded it carefully, and returned it to its silver napkin ring, which was engraved with an ornate D for Dancer.

He leaned back in his chair and flattened his palms on the table. “Hannah,” he said. “Ezra left a will.”

She blinked, surprised as much by his serious, rather official tone of voice as she was by his statement.

“I wanted to let you get your bearings before I mentioned it,” he added.

“Thank you, Abel. I’m grateful.” Hannah wasn’t all that sure she had her bearings, but at least it was encouraging that Abel thought so.

She’d always admired him. A widower who’d never had children, he’d come to Newton about the same time Hannah and Ezra had, hoping to start a newspaper in this up-and-coming cattle town. Unfortunately, though, it was the cattle that upped and went after a single wild and newsworthy year. Instead of publishing his own paper then, Abel Fairfax spent most of his time writing letters to the editors of other papers and composing long-winded articles for eastern magazines.

“I studied law back in Ohio,” Abel said now. “I don’t know if you’re aware of that or not.”

“You’ve mentioned it, I’m sure.” Hannah noticed now that Abel’s brow was even more wrinkled than usual and his lips were pursed thoughtfully, worrisomely, beneath his shaggy mustache. “Is there something wrong, Abel? Something about Ezra’s will?”

He didn’t answer her directly, but instead said, “Ezra named me his executor. I’d like to read you the will in my office, Hannah. As soon as possible. Not here, though. Do you feel up to walking downtown around three this afternoon?”

Now Hannah frowned. Did she feel up to it? She honestly didn’t know. But then she supposed the sooner she attended to legal issues regarding the house—which was, after all, in Ezra’s name—the sooner she could get on with her life. Not that it would be all that different from her past, she mused. She’d have the house. She’d have her boarders. Only Ezra’s absence would make a difference.

“Three o’clock will be fine, Abel.”

“Good.” He stood up and headed toward the front door. “I’ll see you then.” Halfway out the door, he paused. “And don’t worry, Hannah. Don’t you worry for a single minute.”

The screen door closed behind him.

Worry? Hannah thought. Worry? Why, it hadn’t even occurred to her.

By three o’clock that afternoon the big June sun had beaten down on Newton for eight straight hours and raised the temperature to ninety-two degrees in the shade. Since they hadn’t had rain in several weeks, the unpaved street was dustier than usual.