Chapter 1 – Making Amends

It took three days to get back to Delmont, and he was tired of sitting on a horse by the time he reached the small, southern town. He hadn't wanted to make this trip but necessity had forced him into it, and now that he was here he wasn't quite sure why. Uncertainty was something Bart Maverick had learned to live with long ago, and the ride back here had turned into uncertainty at its finest.

The first thing he did was return to the Delmont Arms Hotel and check in. "Mr. Maverick, back so soon?" Jackson at the front desk asked, and Bart just nodded. "Want room number fourteen again? It's vacant."

"Sure," he answered, "why not?" Maybe his luck would change if he had the same room. After all, everything in Delmont had been fine, until . . . . . He took the key from the desk clerk and trudged up the stairs, back to the room in the front corner of the hotel. It was a pleasant enough room, with a nice soft bed and a view of the whole town from the two windows. He unlocked the door and dropped first his saddlebags and then his war bag on the bed, and went straight to the windows and opened them. A fresh breeze invaded the room, and he almost smiled. That was the first good thing that had happened in days.

He'd intended to lie down and get some well-deserved sleep when he got into town, but he saw Bessie Dupree's buggy parked in front of the general store and he immediately changed both his mind and his direction, heading back out much quicker than he'd entered. He wanted to – no, needed to – catch up with the young woman before she disappeared on him. Nothing in his life would go right until he'd taken her up on her previous offer of 'employment.' If you could call looking for a wanted criminal employment.

His horse gave him a glaring look as he hurried past the animal, silently promising to come back and take care of the gelding as soon as he'd settled things with Bessie. Across the street and down to the store he went, hurrying to make the universe tilt back from the odd slant it had taken when he'd first turned her down. In his haste to find the lady he almost ran into her as he attempted to enter and she tried to exit. He tipped his hat as he greeted her. "Miss Dupree, I'm sure glad to run into you. I don't know if you remember me . . . . . "

She gave him a half-smile and replied, "I certainly do remember you, Mr. Maverick. It isn't every day a girl gets turned down when she offers someone a job. Especially someone like yourself."

He wondered if that was good or bad. Considering the turn his life had taken since he last saw Miss Dupree, he determined it to be decidedly dreadful. "Yes, well, that's what I was hoping to speak to you about. You see . . . . . "

"You find yourself in need of the job I offered before?"

There was no smirk or malice in her voice, and he found that made it a lot easier to admit defeat. Might as well be honest about the whole state of affairs. "To put it bluntly, yes. I find myself in great need."

The half-smile was replaced with a full smile, and almost as if in a trance he found himself smiling back. "Why don't you come to supper tonight at my house, say around six o'clock, and I'll explain everything to you? Will that work for you? Mr. Maverick?"

"What? Oh, yes, ma'am, that will work just fine. And where exactly do you live again?"

The smile never faded. "Take this road out of town," she pointed to the north, "and follow it for about three miles. At the fork in the road, turn west. That takes you right to my place, the D Bar D. At six o'clock, then, Mr. Maverick? You won't back out on me, will you?"

He gave a weary sigh. "No, ma'am, I'll be there. You can count on me."

"Good." She seemed pleasant enough, but there was just a touch of something in the way she said the word. It was the same way she sounded when she first tried to explain things to him, the first time he'd been in Delmont. Whatever it was gave him a momentary chill. She turned and climbed into her buggy before he even had a chance to assist her, and in what seemed like mere seconds she was gone, headed up the north road. As he walked back towards the hotel he remembered his promise to the horse and untied the gelding, who nuzzled Bart as if to bring him out of his stupor.

"What have we gotten into, old man?" he asked the horse while walking down to the livery. The gelding tossed his head and snorted, which was as much of an answer as the gambler was going to get. After making certain the animal had everything a horse could ask for, he told Lenny he'd be back around five-thirty.

"He'll be ready and waitin'," Lenny smiled at him good-naturedly, and Noble's head bobbed up and down.

"See ya later, pal," the weary man offered, and he patted the horse on the neck and headed back up the street. Whether he could sleep or not became the next question on his mind, and one that he had yet to answer.

XXXXXXXX

He woke with a start, the way he usually returned to wakefulness after a dream that made no sense, and looked around him. The late afternoon sun coming through the windows told him he still had enough time to get cleaned up, and he rose slowly from the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he stood. Thank God he'd had the good sense to hang his clothes before he lay down to sleep. At least they wouldn't look as rumpled as he felt. He didn't remember the dream, just that it seemed totally off-kilter to him, the same way he'd felt for days on end.

He washed his face and then took his time shaving. Shaving wasn't a task that should ever be rushed; he'd learned that the hard way. He still felt tired – not sleepy like he had earlier in the day, just bone-weary tired. And, truth be told, lonely. He hadn't seen his brother Bret for two months or more, and he missed having someone to talk to and reason things out with. It had been even longer than that since either of them had seen Cousin Beau, but that's what happened when one of you was in Montana and the other two were somewhere in the south. He understood Beau's rationale for 'hiding out' in Montana; it had been some time since his wife died and he still wasn't ready to leave her memories and the town they'd lived in behind. Bart had gotten a letter from general delivery two weeks ago when he was in Galveston and it sounded like Beau was beginning to feel more like himself. He talked about the saloon that he helped run for the four Mavericks that owned it (Bret, Bart, their cousin Jody and Beau) and how he'd miss the comfortableness of the place when he finally when back to wandering. That was the first mention Beau had made of traveling in over a year, and Bart took it as a good sign.

He hadn't heard from Bret since they'd parted company in Waltersville, a town almost in the middle of Louisiana. They'd had a disagreement over a scheme that Bret devised and Bart didn't particularly think would work, and they'd decided to part company for a while. It was nothing significant – they were too close for anything major to ever come between them, they'd learned their lessons the hard way – they just decided to go in different directions for a time. By this time Bart figured they'd been apart long enough but was having a hard time tracking Bret down. He was hoping to hear something soon while he was in Delmont, and after he got his finances back in order they could meet up and head whichever way they felt like going.

After he cleaned and wiped down his razor he walked to the closet to choose a shirt, and found himself staring at his clothes like he'd never seen them before. Nothing seemed quite right to wear to Bessie Dupree's and he finally settled on something that was far more Bret's style than his. It had ruffles in front and around the cuffs, and he'd only bought it because Bret kept insisting he'd look good in it. He decided that as long as the illusion he was presenting was 'dandified gambler' he might as well go all the way, and reached for his black silk waistcoat and black frock coat. Maybe Bessie would release him from the job and he could go back to his nice, peaceful life. The way it had been before Lady Luck went south on him.

Should he take something with him? A gift of some sort, a 'thank you' for giving him a meal and another chance at the job? Flowers were inappropriate; he wasn't 'calling on' the young lady. He remembered the bottle of wine in his saddlebags and decided that would do just fine. One more look in the mirror and he settled his hat on his head, then locked the door behind him.

His horse was indeed ready and waiting for him, just as Lenny had promised, and the gelding gave a nod of his head in approval as Bart climbed on board. They'd been together for some time now, and it was almost like having his brother with him. Well, that wasn't quite true; he'd never taken a bullet for his horse. The gelding seemed to have a nose for trouble, and it was encouraging that nothing appeared to be bothering him tonight. Maybe the sense of foreboding he'd felt around Bessie Dupree was nothing more than his imagination and an intense dislike for the word 'job.'

No matter – this was a job born of necessity and nothing else. Now that he'd expressed interest in the girl's employment offer, undoubtedly things would begin to move forward in a positive direction. He certainly hoped so. He wasn't sure how much more of this unprecedented run of bad luck, or bad timing, he could take.

The evening was peaceful and quiet, and the temperature had actually cooled down a bit. There was a soft breeze that ruffled his hair a little, and the countryside was quite beautiful at this time of year. A swamp rabbit hopped out of the brush, and Bart pulled Noble to a momentary halt. He had an affinity for conversing with rabbits, like the one that lived in Lakota Pass in South Dakota, and he took this one's appearance as a sign that whatever was plaguing him in recent weeks had been dispensed with. They eyed each other warily for a moment or two, and then the rabbit stood on its hind legs and called to its mate, who came wandering through the weeds like she hadn't a care in the world. Two small bunnies bounced along behind her, and all four sat still and watched the massive object in front of them. "Taking the family for a stroll?" Bart asked, and the momma rabbit twitched her nose and hustled the babies back into the bushes. He laughed out loud, something he hadn't felt like doing for quite a while, and the rabbit quickly disappeared. "Goodnight," he called after them and urged the horse on his way. Maybe things were looking up, after all.