Page 74 of My Heart Will Find You

For the first time, Etta felt like she was really and truly his wife. Not girlfriend, not lover, not even friend. Hiswife.

She removed her clothes. The corset was stained and smelled so much of buffalo that she smiled in memory. When they got back, she’d have great stories to tell Alice and Pat and Nellie. Rufus and the men would love to hear them too.

When she was down to her underwear, not clean but not covered in buffalo fat, she lay down beside him. Instinctively, he pulled her to him like a teddy bear and she fell asleep in his arms.

“Time to get up,” she heard Max say.

“Go away.” There was a pillow. What an incredible, divine luxury. A pillow! She put it over her head. “I want to sleep.”

“Remember the bath I promised you? It’s here. Only now it’s cold. If you don’t get up, I’ll pour it on you.”

“You wouldn’t! I’ll—” She turned over to look at him.

Max was standing with one foot on the floor and the other one on the bed. The only clothing he had on was the buckskin breechcloth. His legs were bare. The sides of his glorious behind were exposed. His chest and arms were naked. A streak of early morning sunlight came through the window and hit him. Time for another hallelujah chorus!

Etta swallowed.

“What did you call this?” He flipped up the front of the teeny tiny breechcloth.

She tried to speak but nothing came out.

He put his leg down, walked across the room, then held up the shirt with the birds on it. “This what you were looking for? It was on top. Odd that you couldn’t find it.”

When he moved, she could see the muscles in his body. They undulated, rippled, moved in a lazy, easy way that made her mouth dry.

“How soon can you be ready to go?” he asked with feigned innocence.

“Do shut up.” She opened her arms to him.

She discovered that a breechcloth came offveryeasily.

14

Compared to Garrett, Kansas, Van Buren, Arkansas, was New York City. There were stores, hotels, and of course saloons. The air was full of the sound of hammers and handsaws. There was lots of building going on.

They stopped near a very handsome courthouse. It was the kind of building Etta liked, not flashy but beautiful in a simple way. There was an impressive clock tower.

“I bet Cornelia could design something like this for Garrett.”And maybe it wouldn’t be torn down, she thought. She was so absorbed in the building that she hadn’t noticed that they were surrounded by pigs. At first she was startled, but then realized it made nineteenth century sense. Why waste a good feeding area like the courthouse lawn?

Max had dismounted and was holding up his arms to help her down, but there was a pig nuzzling her foot. He looked at it. “If you knew what she does to creatures like you, you’d run for your life.”

As though the animal understood, it ran away, squealing loudly in fear.

“You are so not funny,” she said as she slid down into his arms.

“But honest.”

He led them straight to a stone building with a high roof. There was a man sitting nearby, under a shade tree, a rifle over his shoulder. They kept walking.

“How did you know where the jail was?” she asked Max.

“I asked Rufus. He had an interesting youth, so I figured he’d know where the Van Buren jail was.”

They got to the far end of the jail by going around a couple of other buildings. Along the side was a little window, but it was higher than Etta’s head. Max muscled a full rain barrel to under the window, then lifted her up. She had to stand with her legs wide apart, her feet on the rims. It was a precarious balance, but Max put a steadying hand on her ankle.

As soon as she was up to the window level, she drew back. The smell was awful! She knew that ten men were locked inside one cell, with a bucket in the corner. Seemed that it hadn’t been emptied in a while.

“Mr. Earp,” she said as loudly as she dared. It was dark in the cell, and it took moments for her eyes to adjust. A man’s face appeared at her level, so he must have been standing on the bed frame.

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