Ralph Compton - Bluff City

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clay said dryly. “Thanks for the visit. And if you hear anything new about Jesse Stark, I would be obliged if you passed it on.”

Vale had taken a step but stopped. “What on earth is Stark to you?”

“Didn’t Wes tell you I work at the Courier?”

“As a clerk, I understand.”

“I won’t be a clerk forever.”

Marshal Vale scratched himself again. “Mr. Adams, you worry me more and more. Having Harve Barker for an enemy is bad enough. Nosing after Jesse Stark’s doings is worse. If you’re trying to get yourself killed, you will likely succeed.”

Clay Adams considered that, then said, “Marshal, do you believe in miracles?”

“How your mind works,” Marshal Vale said. “I’m not all that religious, so I can’t rightly say I do or I don’t.”

“Let me try a different way then,” Clay said. “Do you believe in second chances?”

“We take all kinds of chances in life, son. Which particular chance are you talking about?”

“At living,” Clay said.

“If you want to live, stay away from the likes of Harve Barker and Jesse Stark,” the lawman advised.

“I would if I could. But you see, I was different once. A lot different than how you see me. I didn’t much like what I had become but I didn’t see how I could change, me being as I was.”

“You are confusing me more and more.”

“It’s just that life gave me a second chance. I don’t have to be who I was. I can live as I choose. I can do what I want. And I want to do it right this time.”

“I’m all for doing things right,” Marshal Vale said. “But what does all of that have to do with Barker and Stark?”

“Barker likes to boss people around, to tell them what they can and can’t do. But my life is my own and no one is going to tell me how to live it. I won’t let anyone spoil my second chance, no matter how rich and powerful they are.”

“I respect your sentiments.”

Clay Adams did not appear to hear and went on in that quiet manner of his. “The way I see it, there are two trails each of us can take. One is what they call the straight and narrow. The other is the wild and woolly. But maybe wild and bloody is a better way to describe it. I was on that trail once. I hated it and I hated myself, but I was stuck. Then came the miracle, and now I can give up the old ways if I want to. If I truly and really want to.”

“That part I can understand. I think.”

“If I back down to Barker, if I show yellow, then the miracle was for nothing. I won’t have that. I won’t have my life be worthless. But at the same time, if I stand up to him, I might need to be the me I don’t want to be anymore.”

Marshal Vale scratched his head this time. “Now you have cut the line and cast me adrift, son. I have no idea what in hell you are talking about.”

Clay looked at him. “Maybe there is no getting away from the past. Maybe it always comes back, whether we want it to or not.”

Vale gave the younger man a searching scrutiny. “You sure are a puzzlement if ever I met one. But I see why you impressed Wes. If I can be of any help, you let me know, hear?”

Clay Adams let the lawman out. After he closed the door he leaned his forehead against it and said, “God help me. What if the old urges come back? What if there is no escape?”

Melanie Stanley liked to eat breakfast at a small restaurant a block from the Courier. Her favorite was oatmeal with sugar and milk, and she had just started to eat when someone sank into the seat across from her without asking. “Well, this is a surprise.”

Harve Barker was, as always, the pinnacle of sartorial splendor. But his face was pinched and drawn, and his eyes were quartz prisms. “Melanie.”

“Can this be? The notorious night owl, up before noon?” Melanie poised her spoon over the oatmeal. “What has brought you out and about so early?”

“You have,” Harve Barker said.

Melanie smiled. “I am touched. You got up just to have breakfast with me? I must say, you have kept your romantic nature well hidden until now.”

“We need to talk, my dear.”

Dipping the spoon into the oatmeal, Melanie asked, “About what?”

“Your betrayal.”

The spoon stopped halfway to Melanie’s mouth. “I beg your pardon?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out about you and that clerk?” Barker stressed the last word so that the profession of clerking sounded like a job fit for half-wits. “About all the time you spend together? About the nights he has walked you home?”

Melanie set the spoon by the bowl, placed her elbows on the table, and laced her fingers together. “Who I see, and when, and what I do with them, is my own affair.”

“I respectfully disagree,” Barker said. “I have made no secret of my interest in you. Everyone in Bluff City knows my intentions.”

“Everyone in Bluff City can think what they want,” Melanie said. “You and I are friends. That is all we have ever been.”

“I was under the impression we were closer than that,” Harve Barker said.

“You were mistaken.”

Barker gazed out the window at the carriage that had brought him. It cost more than most people earned in a year. “I see. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to hear you say that. There isn’t a woman anywhere who wouldn’t relish my attention.”

“Friends,” Melanie stressed.

“This clerk is something more?”

“You overstep yourself.”

Barker swung toward her. “He must be. Why else did he have the gall to confront me last night?”

Melanie’s fingers came unraveled. “He did what?”

“You haven’t heard? I should imagine it is the talk of the town by now. Your clerk came into the Emporium and mocked me to my face in front of some of my friends. He told me you are his.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Harve Barker sniffed. “So now I am a liar as well as misguided? It appears I have misjudged you, rather severely, I am afraid. You are not the innocent I took you for. You trifle with men like any common—”

“Be careful,” Melanie said. “Be very careful.” Her hand closed on the spoon as if it were a knife. “It isn’t my innocence that irritates you. It is what you once called my willful nature. I live my life as I see fit, and I am answerable to no one for my actions. Certainly to no man.”

“You need to learn your place in this world.”

Melanie’s eyes flashed fire. “That’s what this is really about. A woman’s place. Not just mine but every woman’s. You can’t stand the thought that women want lives of their own.”

“Let’s not start that again,” Harve Barker said.

“Yes, we have had this argument before, haven’t we?” Melanie said. “And it always ends the same. You refuse to admit I am right and I refuse to be less than I can be. If that’s willful, so be it.”

“What about Clay Adams?”

“What about him?” Melanie rejoined. “I enjoy his company. He is bright and he is earnest and he never treats me like I am his property.”

Barker pushed back his chair. “I might as well go. This is getting us nowhere.”

“Yes. Go. Go and never impose on me again. Whatever we had, whatever friendship we shared, is over. I want nothing more to do with you.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is,” Melanie said. “You walk out that door and never look back. In a few weeks or a few months you will find someone else. A woman willing to be ground under your boot heels. A woman who doesn’t think for herself. A woman you can wear on your arm like you wear rings on your fingers.”

“That was uncalled for,” Barker said. “And harsh.”

“The truth usually is.”

Avoiding her gaze, Harve Barker rose. “Very well. When you are in one of your moods talking is pointless. I’ll leave if that is what you want. But you have not heard the last from me. Neither has your clerk friend.”