The grey light of morning didn't give away anything about the heat of the day to come as Darcy, Jo and Marta prepared baskets of food and jugs of water with ginger and a bit of sugar and salt to quench the thirst of Fletcher and the the hired cattle hands who were gathered on the front porch. The women packed them fried chicken, boiled eggs and pickles from the pantry to keep them full until they arrived in Denver late the next day. Spot and Eli did all of the groundwork to get the herd that was being taken to auction ready for the sixty mile drive, neither one meeting the eyes of the hired hands who were very curious as to why they were hired when Fletch had two strong young men living and working on his property. The truth was they kept waking up to hearing footsteps outside the house. Undeniably human footsteps pacing the the hard packed dirt around the ranch house, the barn, the Conlon house and even Jim and Eli's little cabin. They'd all heard it by this time, and Fletcher wanted to keep his girls safe, so he left the two people he trusted them with above all others at the house and ignored the scrutiny of the local men. Jim led the herd out and the hired men followed, keeping the cattle in line. Fletcher kissed Marta long and hard, and Darcy couldn't help but blush and look away. "You sure y'all will be fine? I hate leaving you with that prowler hanging around."
"We've got the boys, and we've got Eli and Spot. You get those cows to market," Marta assured him. "Together, we can handle anything." She grinned cockily, "You'd really just be in the way if he decided to do something. The four of us don't really know how to let anyone else in to our attack plans." He frowned at her and she pouted apologetically.
"Please, don't let me come back to the sheriff on the front porch," he pleaded and winked up at Darcy. He pulled back and stared into her hazel eyes, letting anyone who could see know the depth of his heart and the breadth of his care for his family.
"Perfectly under control," Marta said, brushing his blond curls off his brow. "Get going, so you can come back." She kissed the tip of his nose and he gave another one of his endearing smiles and ran to jump on his horse and push him to a lope to catch up to the herd. Marta sighed and clapped her hands. "Come on ya bums, we got work to do. Will and Jesse, you have cows to milk, stalls to muck and a garden to weed and harvest. Eli, Spot, there's a dinner pail on the counter for you two and two water jugs. Get it and get your asses up the hill." She grinned at Eli, "Keep Spot away from the hives, huh? He's a real pansy when he gets stung." Trout smirked and Spot called her a number of dirty names under his breath which she ignored besides a slight raise of her tawny eyebrow. "Girls, we're canning all day, go stoke the fire and open up all the windows or it'll be hotter than the devil's balls in there by noon." She shooed the boys away to do their chores and scooped two year old Teddy into her arms to feed and change him. Darcy bounced Cooper as he fussed, ready to eat again. Spot took his son and held him on his shoulder cooing softly in his ear, calming his cries immediately. Never in a million years would Darcy have believed it if someone told her this would be her future. Never in a hundred million would Spot have believed it.
"Nice to see that someone around here likes me best," he grumbled as Cooper settled down, gurgling and grabbing at Spot's shirt collar.
"Only 'cause I ain't putting out for him right now," she answered with a seductive smirk.
"Maybe you'll put out for me later." Behind the flirtatious and snide look, a question was hiding. Would she let him back in? Did she trust him enough again to play with him again? The longer she waited, the more the mask came down, and like always he showed her the real man behind it. The one who tortured himself over his own actions and would be the last person to forgive himself. Those steel blue eyes started to look broken, and her heart wouldn't let her be the reason behind it. She sent him a saucy smirk, beckoning him closer with a crooked finger.
He leaned in, pressing a subtle kiss of thanks to her head. He was shaking. "You make it back tonight without pissing anyone off and I will reward you," she purred into his ear. "Generously." He groaned and kissed her with greedy lips until Cooper, smelling the proximity of his milk and his mother, protested again.
"I know it, Kid, I know!" Spot agreed, handing the baby back to her. "She's a tease and she's trying to kill us both." She grinned at him, noticing Eli and Jo over his shoulder as she opened her blouse to let Cooper get at what he wanted. He suckled and grunted happily, his little hand gripping her skin with uncanny strength. Her ever tactful husband watched on in awe. Darcy was never sure if he was so intrigued by the act of feeding a baby because there was a breast out for the world to see or if it was that her body could sustain something he helped make. While she wanted to think it was the latter, common sense said it was the former. Eli and Jo talked shyly, their cheeks red with nerves and the giddy anticipation of finally getting somewhere with one another. It was adorable and nauseating all at the same time, but she was happy for them. She liked having Jo around, it made her feel like she could be a sister again, make up for what she missed with her three little sisters. The star crossed lovers smiled at each other, looking up at each other through their eyelashes and talked quietly, each waiting for the other to be the brave one who made the first move. Darcy couldn't take it anymore. It slipped, her hand reached out and rested between Jo's shoulder blades pushing her gently. She tripped over her feet and stumbled right into Trout's waiting arms. From there, it only took a moment of awkward stammering before their lips were locked together. Eli turned those big blues up at Darcy and winked before letting his lids flutter closed to fall headlong into JoAnna's kiss. Darcy couldn't help the contented sigh that came out watching them. "That wasn't very nice," Spot growled into her ear, his voice more of a vibration than a sound, making her spine shiver and her skin pucker despite the warmth of the oncoming day.
"Sure it was," she answered, shifting Cooper in her arms. "Do you see either of them complaining?" He chuckled and gently pushed the whisps of soft, blonde hair on Cooper's head back. The baby grunted in displeasure at having his meal disrupted.
"Nah, you's right. You's the nice one. This," he grinned wickedly, "is not nice." He bounded down the stairs clapping Eli's shoulder heartily before dragging him away by his collar without a word.
"Long live the King of Brooklyn," Darcy muttered under her breath.
By the time they fed the children an early lunch, the mercury in the thermometer was pushing one hundred degrees of dry desert heat. The heat from the fire in the cast iron stove and the steam coming from the large canning pot pushed the heat inside well above that. By noon, the kitchen was so hot that their clothes hung limp from the steam in the air and the heat in the room. The boys had delivered two milk pails full of honey already but Spot said that was only the first hive. There were four more to go. As soon as he left, Jo threw down her towel that she was using to clean the jars with after Marta filled them and began opening the buttons on the bodice of her dress and wiggled her sticky arms out of the sleeves. As the breeze through the open kitchen door hit her bare arms she let loose a soft moan. Her chemise was sweaty and a little more see through than was proper, but it was just her friends and the babies. She flapped her skirt, trying to get the same kind of relief for her legs, while Marta and Darcy looked on in amusement. She looked at them shyly, before an impish smile spread across her face as she undid the bottom on it too and let it pool around her feet before giving it a kick over to the corner. Marta and Darcy shared a look before following suit, hanging their dresses over the backs of the kitchen chairs.
In their underwear and aprons they pressed on. Marta ladled honey, warm and soupy from the outside heat, into jars. Jo cleaned the outsides of them and put the lids on and Darcy put them into the big pot to seal. They canned and sealed seven gallons of honey over the course of the day, more than any of them could have imagined was possible. Darcy hadn't even seen that many jars of the same thing in the big mercantile stores back home.
"This is the last that he wants done up this way," Spot said, setting the last milk pail in the door. "He wants to do the rest in the other jars, the ones that you don't heat up tomorrow with the comb in them." He rolled his eyes and Darcy was immediately suspicious.
"What did you do?" she accused, wiping her hands on her apron. He looked over his wife, noticing her undressed state for the first time and swallowing hard, dragging his eyes up and down. After a long stop below her chin, he managed to look her in the eyes again smiling sheepishly.
"I didn't do nothing! He told me to shut up when I asked why anyone would want bee shit in their honey and I left it alone. I didn't get mouthy or nothing." He stared at her like a starved man at a banquet and she had to fight to keep a straight face.
"I'm checking with Trout." She raised an eyebrow at him in warning and crossed her arms over her chest. He tsked his tongue in disappointment and ducked back out the door. For a moment, no one said anything, they just went back to work. Darcy pulled a batch of jars out of the water bath and set them on a towel and checked the batch that came out before that one for popped lids, setting them aside. She was just tightening the last lid when a giggle stifled into a snort pulled her attention away. Both Marta and JoAnna were trying to hide their laughter. "What's funny?" she demanded.
Marta giggled wildly. "I wish that woulda worked when he was a kid! If I knew that all it took to make him behave was a little…" she shimmied her shoulders and wiggled her scantily clad hips, making Darcy blush and Jo laugh down to her belly, punctuated with little snorts, "…maybe he wouldn't have been such a pain in my ass growing up!" Marta and Darcy both stared at Jo as she laughed, it was the most of any emotion they'd seen from her besides tears and sadness. Most of the time she floated around in a strange state of numbness.
"Wouldn't…have worked," she choked out between fits of giggles and snorts. "No one wants to see their sister on the job." Her laughter stopped as abruptly as it started and her eyes widened as she realized what she said. It happened every few days as she became more and more comfortable around the other women, she'd say more than she meant to and then she'd clam up and make herself scarce so that she wouldn't have to say any more. But she didn't run this time around. She looked at them warily as she sucked in a deep breath through pursed lips and blew it back out to make the flyaway hairs unstick from her forehead. Her cheeks burned red as she tried to figure out how to face this problem.
"I didn't think you had any sisters," Marta said carefully.
"I don't," Jo answered, going back to her job, keeping her hands busy wiping away non-existent traces of honey from the jars. "I lived with a few girls in Wichita, before Gordon and they were sisters." Her discomfort at the subject permeated the air making it feel even more thick and hot and stifling. "They were all I had then." She tried to smile but her lip trembled and her brow furrowed. "We used to play games together at night, after my work was done and before they started." It was the most she'd ever said about the time between leaving New York and marrying Gordon. "We were all stuck there, so we were friends out of necessity. We'd play with liquor, because the games were always better when our tongues were loose."
There were no professions for women in any city of any size that let girls live together in close quarters without a chaperone keeping them decent and away from the dangers of alcohol and men. Except the one that Darcy feared most for gentle JoAnna. Her heart ached thinking of a sweet creature like Jo at the Fox with Clarice's girls. "Clarice," Darcy's voice said before she was really thinking about it, "the woman my Clarice is named for, used to tell me that the girls at The Fox would do the same on slow nights." She felt more than saw the realization dawn on Marta's face because she was too busy focusing on JoAnna's and gauging her reaction. Jo stared back levelly, looking almost relieved, like she had held it inside so long and was grateful to have it out of her, to share the burden. Darcy knew that feeling. Marta turned her back to them, unable to hide her shock or sadness at what Jo had been put through. "I never got to play, I was kept separate, but Clarice would come and visit me, take care of me when Mick went too far and I couldn't take care of myself anymore. She was a mother hen that one, taking care of everyone. Always." Marta's soft sob stopped Darcy and the small blonde wrapped her arms around the tall redhead from behind. She'd never forgive herself for all Clarice did for her. Jo's head tilted to the side and her slender dark brows knitted together in concern. "Clarice died saving Marta," Darcy explained. "That's why we named our Clarice in her honor. Marta never got the chance to thank her before she gave herself up as bait."
"Jenny was not like that," Jo whispered. "She promised to take care of me and Edith and Maude, but she didn't. She only took care of herself."
Marta shook Darcy off of her back and wiped her face quickly, trying to rub away any sign that she was ever upset. "I say we play one of your little games," she said, painting a cheery smile onto her face. "Loosen up some tongues and get some secrets out in the open without getting so sad. We're just about done here for today, the kids are taken care of. Lets have some fun!"
"I caught your son when you gave birth," Darcy sneered, "you have no secrets from me."
Marta laughed, "True enough, but there is one among us who still has her secrets. Come on, let an old lady feel young again. I never had friends when I was young enough to do stuff like this!" She went to the pantry and got out two bottles of whiskey, one a quarter full and the other unopened.
She swirled the amber liquid around, staring at the bottle, battling with herself. Spot told his wife about how quickly she took to trying to soothe her feelings with alcohol and that he warned her against it. It was nice to see her take it to heart. Darcy stepped closer, "We ain't trying to solve the world's problems with a bottle, Sweets," she murmured, pulling Jo close into her side. Marta saw Jo's struggle and pressed in on her other side. "Just cooling down after a long, hot day with friends and a bit of giggle water." Darcy grinned at Marta, who stuck her tongue out. "So long as you know the difference, you'll be ok. If you don't want to drink it, that's fine too."
She looked back and forth between Marta and Darcy. "What am I missing?"
Darcy handed Marta the nearly finished bottle of whiskey with a grin. "Oh, you'll see." Marta swiped the bottle out of her hand with a scowl. "Let's just say that Miss Tough Girl Gatcyk gets the giggles like a stupid school girl when she's on the sauce."
"Watch it, Underwear Girl," Marta sputtered as she tipped back a big swig. "And that's Mrs. Tough Girl Fletcher, thank you very much."
"Or what?" The little blonde taunted. "You gonna sock me in the face? They shoulda named you Giggles, not Kisser. You're such a teatotler, my grandmother could drink you under the table!" She knew exactly how to push Marta to get her to do what she wanted. A drunken, giggling, chatty Marta could charm the claws off of a jungle cat, and hopefully the past out of a very scared and sad JoAnna, so that she could start to heal.
"Kisser?" Jo asked, obviously confused by their names for each other.
"Go on, 'never have I ever…'" Darcy coaxed.
"Never have I ever heard why Marta is called Kisser," Jo repeated.
Darcy sniggered as she took her first drink, letting the sharp liquid slide down her throat. Marta took her drink too and said, "It was my newsie name. When I ran away from the convent, I had to prove to the boys that they couldn't push me around. When they got mouthy, I punched them in the mouth and they never saw it coming because I'm left handed. They kept getting knocked in the Kisser and it turned into my name." The conversation went on, regaling Jo with how she knocked Scatter's tooth out.
"Never have I ever slept on the streets," Darcy said. It was the truth. She was too afraid of Mick to run away. Both Marta and Jo drank and Marta shot Darcy an angry look, not liking how she was baiting Jo for information that she might not want to give, but Jo took her drinks placidly and waited for Marta to go.
"Never have I ever…Shit. There is nothing I haven't done, girls….I'm an old woman! The things I haven't done I don't want to do!"
"Bullshit!" Darcy cried loudly. "You're not old, you're thirty-one and you did jack shit living in the lodging house." She grinned though. "But then again, so is this. Never have I ever been forced to do something with a man after money was exchanged." Jo drank and Darcy took two drinks since she lied.
"All right, never have I ever been naked in public," Marta said.
Jo and Darcy drank quickly. Her eyebrows raised at at the woman she thought of as her sister. "Do you really want to know?" Darcy asked.
"Ew, no. Keep that secret to yourself!" She turned to Jo, "But I do with you."
Jo shrugged and her eyes lit up as the tinies smirk tilted her lips, "Ladies don't talk about such things," and stuck her nose in the air like the prim upper class girls she grew up with while Marta and Darcy ribbed and booed at her prudery. They went around and things started to get absurd as they ran out of things that they had never done. Marta was giggling like a madwoman, but Jo just got more and more quiet and contemplative. It came around to be her turn again after awhile and she shocked them again. "Never have I ever taken a life," she said quietly and took two drinks, signaling her lie. Marta and Darcy looked at each other carefully.
"How do we do this?" Marta asked quietly. "We'll be sick if we a take a drink for every life."
"I think one big one will do it for all of them," Darcy answered, tipping back for an extra long swig. Marta did the same as the sun began to sink low behind the Rockies.
"How many?" Jo asked, staring at Darcy.
She sighed and went to pick Cooper up out of his cradle, needing something in her arms to comfort her. "We're not sure. Eli told you about the tenement, right?"
"He told me Spot tried to kill him, and that Spot was taken by the man who kept you. That's it."
Marta took another long drink. "Neither one of us stabbed or shot anyone. We didn't choke them or drown them or do anything like that, but we set that building on fire with a lot of the gang members still inside. There were a few who died beforehand, Darcy knocked Mick out and we thought he was dead, but he got back up and Spot had to kill him to get Trout and I out. I'm not sure how many died, maybe ten or fifteen. It doesn't matter that I didn't pour the gas or drop the match. It was my plan, my fire, my mess that we were cleaning up. I had those men killed." She suddenly looked older, more tired and world weary.
"You took two drinks, Jo," Darcy said quietly. "Care to share with the rest of the class?"
"No," she answered. "I think that's enough." She drifted over to the doorway with her arms wrapped around her ribs and her eyes closed, letting the breeze wash over her. Marta rested her head on the table for a minute before popping back up with a slow loopy grin on her face.
"Never have I ever slapped Spot Conlon," she hiccuped and sniggered to herself as her head dropped back down, her eyes heavy lidded. Darcy was flooded with relief from the startling silence they'd been dumped into and laughed too, grabbing the bottle for one last drink. The rattling of the approaching wagon pulled Jo out of her reverie and she took the bottle from Darcy's hand. The blonde watched JoAnna tip back one last drink and smiled when she winked. Jo put Teddy and Clarice to bed together while Darcy nursed Cooper again. Marta was asleep at the table when Spot came in from outside. He shook his head at the three of them before throwing Marta's arm over his shoulder and pulling her to her feet.
"C'mon Kiss, lets get you to bed," he said gently as he helped her to her feet and supported her stumbling gait up the stairs while she chuckled at him. When he came back down, he smiled at Jo. "He's in the barn putting the horses up. Go lick the honey off of him." She balked at that but smiled anyway and went out the door. "Honey goes pretty good with whiskey, ya know," he said to Darcy, leaning over and kissing the top of her head.
"No amount of honey could make you sweet, Spot," she heckled. He scowled and she grinned, tipping her head back for a real kiss. When his mouth left her's, she said, "But that's ok, because I like my whiskey soured with lemons better." With a roguish grin, he took Cooper and his cradle back to their house, but came back looking spooked with the baby still in his arms.
"Have Jess keep all the kids in one room together." His voice was a quiet command, fraught with concern. "Tell him not not let any of them out, no matter what. Send Will to get the sheriff."
"What's going on?" she hissed. He wanted to get outside and see more, but she needed more information. "Spot, I can't help if I don't know what's happening. Tell me what you saw."
"Gordon's back. He's got Trout and Jo in the barn and she's crying. Do what I said Darcy. I love you and I need you to listen to me and stay safe. Take care of the babies, send Will, get some rifles and meet me outside." He kissed her long and hard and she could feel the possible good bye in it.
She grabbed his arms, wanting to feel his skin one last time before their world was destroyed yet again, "I'll see you in a few minutes. Go help them, I have your back."