LITMIR.BIZ

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the fire’s small, orange flames that leaped around like ghostly yellow snakes in the brassy sunshine filtering through the forest canopy.

      Finally, Pecos frowned across the fire at Slash. “What you got there?”

      Slash glanced up at him, dark brows arched over his cinnamon eyes. “Huh?”

      “What you foolin’ with in your pocket there? You was foolin’ with it earlier, before the stickup.”

      Slash pulled his hand out of his pocket and sat back with a sheepish air. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He sipped his coffee and looked off through the trees.

      “Ah, come on, Slash. What you got in your pocket? You was fingerin’ it on the way up, and you been fingerin’ it on the way down.”

      “It’s the derringer.”

      “No, it isn’t. You keep the Double-D in your right-hand pocket. Whatever you was fingerin’ you got in your left pocket.”

      “Oh, never mind!”

      “Ah, come on! Humor this old reprobate, Slash! I’m burnin’ up with boredom!”

      “It’s Jimmy, damnit, Melvin. We gotta remember to use our given names. Slash an’ Pecos are dead.”

      “Don’t change the subject.”

      “I wasn’t.”

      “Yes, you were.”

      “Ah, hell!” Slash brushed his hat off his head and ran a hand through his still-thick and mostly dark brown hair, give or take a few strands of gray, which hung down over his ears and his collar. He raked it up like a shaggy tumbleweed, then threw it straight back off his forehead. “It’s . . . it’s a, uh . . .”

      “It’s a what? Come on, Slash . . . er, I mean Jimmy . . . you can say it. Spit it out.”

      Slash drew a deep breath and stared up at the forest canopy, where a crow was doing battle with an angrily chittering squirrel. “It’s a ring.”

      “Huh?”

      “My mother’s ring.”

      “Your mother’s ring?”

      “Weddin’ ring.”

      “What you got your mother’s weddin’ ring for, Sla . . . I mean, Jimmy?”

      “I wrote to my sister in Missouri, had her send it to me. Since I’m the only livin’ boy in the family, she’s been savin’ it for me.”

      “Okay, well, let me ask you again—what you got your mama’s weddin’ ring for, Jimmy?” Pecos’s eyes snapped wide, and he opened his mouth in sudden recognition. “Oh . . . hell!”

      He grinned across the fire at his sheepish partner. “You . . . Jay . . . you’re gonna pop the question—ain’t ya, you old rattlesnake?”

      Slash tried to snap a fly out of the air in front of him with his hand, and missed. “I don’t know.”

      “What do you mean you don’t know? If you went to the trouble of sending for your momma’s ring, you must know!”

      Slash cast him a fiery look, his cheeks reddening beneath his deep brown tan. “Ah, hell—I never shoulda told you a damn thing. Look at you—you’re actin’ like you got ants in your pants!”

      Pecos dipped his chin demurely and held up his hands in supplication. “I’m sorry, partner. I apologize. I shouldn’t make fun. It’s just that—well, hell, you really caught me by surprise. I mean, I know you an’ Jay got . . . well, got somethin’ goin’ on, though I can’t rightly put my finger on just what it is. You take her out to breakfast a whole lot, an’ she buys you more beers than what you pay for at her saloon, but . . . Well, you’re pretty tight-lipped on the subject of women, Slash. You always have been.”

      Pecos studied his stoic partner, who was looking off through the trees again as though he were watching for Apaches. In fact, Pecos could tell that Slash would probably rather tussle with Apaches than continue the current conversation. James Braddock was not a man who could speak frankly on subjects of the heart.

      “All right, all right,” Pecos said, using a glove to grab the coffeepot from the iron spider over the fire. “You’ll tell me when you’re good an’ ready. I won’t prod you about it no more.”

      He refilled his coffee cup, then held the steaming pot up to Slash. “More mud? Pretty good pot, if I do say so my—”

      “I think I’m gonna ask her.” Slash was still staring off as though watching for those imaginary Apaches. He turned to Pecos again and said, “You think she’ll have me?”

      Pecos just stared back at him for a few seconds, still overcome with shock. Slash had never confided in him about women before. Pecos had confided plenty in Slash, but never the other way around. Mainly because Slash had never seemed interested in women. At least, none beyond the sporting variety. Oh, he’d made time with plenty of parlor girls, but Jimmy Braddock had always been a love-’em-an’-leave-’em kind of fella.

      “Well,” Pecos said, when he found his tongue. “I think she’s too good for you, but, yes, I think she’ll have you.” He grinned, chuckled. “Yes, I do indeed think that Jaycee Breckenridge will accept your hand, James.”

      “Son of a buck! Do you really think so, or are you just sayin’ that to humor me?”

      It was Pecos’s turn to cloud up and rain. “You dad-blasted fool! What does it take to convince you? Can’t you see the way she looks at you? Why, as soon as we step into that saloon of hers, her eyes light up like a Christmas tree. Like a barn fire! And a flush always—always! —rises in her cheeks. And, believe me, it ain’t me she’s lookin’ at. Why, that pretty li’l redhead is pure-dee gone for you, Slash!”

      “Jimmy.”

      “I mean Jimmy!”

      “Okay, okay,” Slash said, running a sleeve across his nose. “If you say so.”

      “Can’t you see it for yourself?”

      Slash winced, shrugged. “I’m a little slow that way, I gotta admit. Besides . . .”

      “What?”

      “I don’t know, Pecos, but—”

      “Melvin.”

      “Melvin, I mean. But it always feels like there’s a hand inside me, holdin’ me back.” He punched the end of his fist against his chest.

      “What is it?”

      “I don’t know.” Slash raised a knee and hooked his arm over it. He picked up a stick with his other hand and poked it into the flames. “I’ve never been good with women. I’ve never really known how to talk to ’em. I reckon that’s why I always preferred parlor girls to . . . well, you know, to real women. Real ladies like Jaycee.”

      “Well, that just don’t make sense.”

      Slash frowned. “What don’t?”

      “Women fall all over you, Slash. I mean, Jimmy. They always have. Leastways, they always seem primed to. It’s your looks. You’re a square-jawed, handsome devil. I’ve always been jealous of that. I suppose we’re so old now it don’t matter if I go ahead and confess it.”

      “Pshaw.” Slash flushed.

      “No, no. You’re a dark-eyed, handsome devil. Me? I’m too big an’ lumbering. I’m an ole bulldog. And I got this stringy hair, an’ the sun makes my face all splotchy instead of Injun-dark like yours. Oh, I’ve had me some women over the years. I don’t deny that. Some I’ve loved. Some have even loved me back.” He chuckled as he stared into his steaming coffee cup. “But I’ve always had to work for the ladies. You? Hell, all you gotta do is walk into a saloon or restaurant, and the eyes of every girl in the place just naturally

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