Chapter 20

Bliss felt a smile break out across her face. Just when she was about to despair, Clint blurted out some hope for her.

“You really think you could?” Getting to the top of that mesa meant more than the world to her, and she felt gratitude overflow in her heart for the man who might just have a fiber or two of kindness in him.

“Well, it’d be tricky, but I think if I grabbed on to the rocks in the right places and dig the toe of my boots in the right spot, I could make it,” he looked up to study the wall of earth in front of them.

Bliss grinned broadly. Things were looking up!

Then it hit her that this could prove very dangerous.

“What if you fell?” she asked, her exuberant smile disappearing.

“Nah,” Clint said nonchalantly.

She still couldn’t deny the quivering in her stomach.

*****

Two nights later, Bliss lay awake in her bed, the pleasures of sleep eluding her. It appeared to her that she had lost an awful lot of sleep over the past two weeks. She was never restless.

Looking up and out of the window, Bliss took in a deep, calming breath and looked at the clear sky, the stars peppered across it so thick that they lit the room with the stream of light through her bedroom window. She smiled. Stars were the best thing about the night. Like tiny glimmers of hope for a worn out world.

Deciding to give up her want for sleep, she sat up and lit the lantern beside her bed before taking the opportunity to read a little more in the dime novel she had purchased.

Soon, she was snuggled under her quilt, leaned against a stack of pillows, and was fully enveloped in the pulp-fiction novel.

She read a few chapters into the book, getting more and more interested in the author’s way with words the whole time. She reached the point to where she was flipping pages faster than she could read them in anticipation until the author’s words formed a scene that was overly suggestive in every sense of the word. For a moment, she reread the last two sentences, not believing the words that were written there, before she felt her face heat and turn beet red. She slammed the book closed, her heart beating at a fast rate, and shoved the novel under her bed.

She couldn’t believe that she had paid money for a book with that kind of filth in it!

Was Clint Slade a man of that kind of character in real life? It hadn’t fully dawned on her the duties of a saloon girl like Vivian Lockhart until that scene popped up out of nowhere. She felt nauseated as she tried to shove the scene from her mind. Sure, Grace had talked to her about the happenings between a married man and woman years ago, but the characters in the book weren’t even engaged!

She felt completely scandalized.

Nodding her head with decision, Bliss got out of bed and retrieved the offending book from underneath her bed before silently exiting her room and walking down the hall towards the kitchen. At the end of the hallway, she marched right to the potbelly stove in the corner and opened the door, throwing the book among the flames still burning inside.

Closing the door back, Bliss felt her conscience ease some as she went back to her room.

She thought she had been silent about her excursion to the kitchen, but Clint’s door swung open just as she reached her door.

The first thing she saw emerge was the shiny barrel of his six-shooter. She waited, holding her breath, until his head peeked around the doorframe. He saw her and let down his gun.

“What in the name of heaven are you doing?” he asked.

Bliss remembered the book she had just burned, and her suddenly lacking respect for the man in front of her. She jutted her chin out in defiance. “I reckon I have a right to walk to my own kitchen if I so choose.”

“You nearly got shot, you know.”

“It’s not my fault you are too trigger-happy to realize someone might have got up in the middle of the night.”

They kept their voices low in order to not awaken the others.

“No one’s up this late at night except for robbers and saloon-hoppers. I never know what to expect around here,” Clint uncocked his gun with a click.

Bliss crossed her arms. “I simply couldn’t sleep.”

Clint sighed. “I’m going back to bed. Goodnight.”

He closed his door before she had a chance to reply.

Bliss felt her ire rise up against the man even more. A man she had only a few days ago thought handsome.

Well, he might be handsome on the outside, but on the inside he was as ugly as homemade sin.

*****

An abandoned shack sat in the middle of deserted country miles north of the Dottie Belle Ranch, sitting alone and forsaken. Two riders rode toward it from a distance, the gentle sound of their horses’ hooves hitting the earth piercing the still night air. The riders rode up to the shack and dismounted, making themselves at home in the shack. Two riders whose existence was unknown to the people merely twelve miles from where they were - the people who would soon be their prey.

The riders - partners - threw their saddlebags over their shoulders and headed into the shack to make a fire before taking care of their mounts. Though the night around them was still and silent, it was most certainly not peaceful as the stifling stench of the plan in their minds cloaked the air in with a suffocating oppressiveness, begging the prey of the malicious characters to take heed of its warning and beware.

If only the air could speak, if only the night could call out and help those around it that knew nothing of the impending danger upon them.

If only secrets of the night, the secrets that only God and nature knew of, could be disclosed.

*****

Clint threw his saddle over his horse’s back, huffing at himself. Today was the day that he would follow through with his thoughtless favor he was doing for Miss Cooper. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he was going to make it to the top of that mesa, regardless of what it did to him.

It’s just like climbing a big hill

. He told himself. It’ll be easy.

He jerked hard and cinched his saddle, taking a deep breath.

“Where you goin’, Slade?” Clint turned when he heard Damian’s voice.

“Gotta take Miss Cooper for her ride,” Clint mumbled.

“Seems like she goes on a lot of those.”

“Ever’ morning,” Clint answered

“Seems like they’re gettin’ longer, too,” Damian’s voice held suspicion and accusations.

Clint stiffened. Miss Cooper had begged him not to tell a soul of their plans to get to the top of Almighty or anything else she confided in him about.

“She loves riding,” he stated simply, crisscrossing his reins above his saddle on his horse’s neck.

“Her daddy trusts you with her, you know that.”

Clint nodded. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”

“I do.”

Clint spun around. “You tryin’ to insult me, Jeremiah?”
Damian put up his hands. “Stand down, son. All I’m saying is that I’ve got my eye on you. Bliss means just as much to me as she does to her father. You better watch your step and keep your distance.”

If he only knew how much I needed to ‘watch my step’ today.

Clint saw that it would take a big man to turn around and leave that comment alone. He was beginning to shrink.

“Ah, I appreciate that, Damian. I really do,” Miss Cooper showed up with her horse fully saddled and ready to go.

Damian’s face paled some, and then turned a deep shade of red.

“You can put your worries to rest, though. Mr. Slade has been nothing but a gentleman and I know you take my word for that. Ya know, since you I mean so much to you,” Bliss smiled and kissed Damian’s cheek as she led her horse past him.

Damian scowled at Clint, who merely shrugged and turned toward his horse, barely concealing a smile. Clint mounted his horse and directed it to the door.

“Oh,” he stopped just beside Damian and leaned down close to the man’s face. “Don’t ever call me ‘son’ again. M’kay?” He poked Damian in the shoulder.

Kicking his horse into a walk, he rode to catch up to Miss Cooper.

“You got everything we need?” she asked him.

“I gotta rope,” Clint offered.

“Well, I made sure to pack a few things incase someone got hurt,” Miss Cooper said, looking down at her saddlebags.

Clint followed her gaze.

A few things? The buckles were just about to pop off due to the amount of things stuffed into the bags. Clint looked up at her without lifting his head.

She shrugged.

He shook his head and directed his gaze back to the trail they were following.

Clouds were growing lightly grey around them, and it looked as if they might get some rain.

“Look like it’s gonna rain to you?” he asked.

Bliss looked up. “I hope it does. We can always use it around here.”

Clint hoped it didn’t rain while they were on top of that mesa and had to climb down in the rain.

Then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

After a time, they reached the desired area for trying to climb the mesa wall. Clint gulped as he came to the full realization that he had to climb up one hundred and fifty feet.

Swallowing his pride, he dismounted his horse and slung the coiled rope over his shoulder. Miss Cooper dismounted behind him and walked along with him. They stopped at the bottom of the mesa.

“Well…” Clint let the word hang in the air as he slipped on the gloves he had cut the fingertips out of down to the knuckles to keep his palm protected. “Here goes.”

*****

Bliss couldn’t believe the bravery of the man in front of her. He looked at the mesa as if it were no opponent at all to climb. She would be high-tailing it back to the ranch my now if she were in his place. He resituated the rope on his shoulder and walked a few steps to take hold of the first outcropping, ready to pull himself up.

“Wait,” her voice creaked.

He stopped and turned around, a strange expression on his face.

She closed the gap between them. “You don’t have to do this. You could get hurt or worse. I can’t ask you to climb up there knowing the dangers.”

Clint looked up at the mesa, then back to her. “Well, we’ve come too far and got too worked up to give up now.”

Bliss lightly nodded. She really didn’t want him to climb that mesa wall. She wanted to stop him, but she couldn’t make the words come out. Half of her wanted to keep him from getting hurt while the other half wanted to get to where her mother threw herself over the edge no matter what the cost. She was torn between her two desires.

Before she could come up with a logical next sentence, Clint was already climbing up the mesa wall. The slope of the wall made it easier to climb, but if someone were to slip, that would be bad news.

Her heart beat into her chest and her stomach twisted as she watching Clint bravely take hold of another outcropping.

For the first time in many, many years, she uttered a prayer in her heart.

God, I know you are somewhere up in that universe. Please, please keep Clint safe until he gets to the top of Almighty.

She didn’t know if He cared, or even if He heard her, but her insides calmed just a little bit at the hope that maybe He had.

She watched as Clint climbed father and farther up, keeping his footing sure and his hands well braced on the outcroppings. He was not intending to fail.

Thank you to all of my readers who take time out of their day to read my story! It means the world to me and you literally have no idea how much even the silent readers help me. The more reads I get, the more confident I get... the more friends I get:) I've been so blessed to get to know some of you through the internet! You are all so encouraging and stick by me no matter what! I'm so proud of ya'll and I'm convinced that no other writer has as good of readers as I do:) Thank you!