Elise Morton wasn’t ready to end her column just yet. Despite the telegram from her editor directing her to move on to the Pikes Peak Gold Rush and the stories waiting to be discovered there, her bags remained unpacked.
Moving far from civilized society’s comforts for a reporter position in the “untamed West” had taken an adjustment. Her parents wrung their hands over her choice to venture out into the Wyoming Territory. Still, her editor’s offer had been too alluring to reject, and so away she went, to cover the gunslingers and US Marshals that brought them to justice. Despite her trepidations over being so close to dangerous criminals and occupational hazards, the inmates were more cooperative than expected. Some were downright charming. Even after months, she hadn’t had her fill of her first assignment, the sweet-talking highway bandit Royce McElhaney.
His voice was slow, meandering in that way only a deep drawl could be; impossibly languid and delicious. Not that she would ever tell him that. That would cross a couple of lines if the Warden had anything to say about it, she was sure. But she could still enjoy it.
Where his voice was lazy, Elise’s was pointed and thoughtful but clinical. At least at first. Every Tuesday they’d meet, same place, same time, and she’d listen through the iron bars.
This Tuesday was like every other as she waited patiently for the interview cell at the end of the hall to clang open. She wrinkled her nose at the guard’s stale boozy breath as he leaned in close, tipping his hat to her on the way out. With a weak smile she inclined her head in thanks.
While there was little to be said for the sobriety or work ethic of the guards of Wyoming Territory Prison, she appreciated their complete disinterest in journalism, and as a direct result, her privacy with the inmates. The tall man deposited a ring of keys on the far wall and ambled back to his post down the hall, already reaching for a flask.
“How are you today, Royce?” Elise settled onto the unsteady stool the guard left, pulling out her journal and pencil. She’d left her folio behind this time, no longer needing the inmate’s file she’d memorized by heart. Staring at the contents week after week unsettled her– she refused to believe Royce was guilty of the crimes he’d been charged with. No one could have such an easy demeanor as his and still be capable of those things.
“Well, now I’m better for havin’ seen you, darlin’.” He grinned and leaned back, crossing an ankle over his knee.
She let it slide when he called her ‘darlin’, and let him think she didn’t notice.
Oh, but she did.
Elise knew she shouldn’t allow such casual names from the so-called “dangerous criminal” sitting opposite of her, but she couldn’t deny the small part in her that smiled. It was hard not to, considering the ease radiating through those prison bars. There wasn’t any harm in giving a prisoner some semblance of regular human interaction in the face of isolation. It didn’t hurt that she enjoyed their weekly talks or the praise her editor heaped on her from readers in the East.
Everyone was enraptured with the story of Royce McElhaney, the reformed gunslinger who’d returned the payroll from a stagecoach robbery to save a town as it burned to the ground, a casualty of encroaching on Sioux Territory. Her paper ran with the headline ‘Bandit With A Heart of Gold’ and ‘Robbing Royce, the Railroad Robin Hood’. The editor of the New York Herald wrote to her himself with questions for Royce after that one. Elise was all too happy to oblige, never skipping a Tuesday to fulfill the requests.
After negotiating down his sentence to one year of hard labor for giving the whereabouts of his fellow outlaws, he’d acclimated well to prison life for all that Elise could see. At least, as well as could be expected for prison life. The hours he’d toiled away at the labor camp had chiseled out a wiry frame from his previously slight figure.
She’d be lying if she said it hadn’t enhanced his allure over the past months. For all her efforts to keep admiration from seeping into her articles, she’d still received a letter from her mother demanding she take the first train home, away from ‘that evil man’. But she couldn’t. Elise was a moth to a flame, and Royce McElhaney burned brighter than any story, person, event, or battle she’d ever covered.
“Tell me about how you’ve spent your time since we spoke last.”
Again his grin came easily, warm as if the bars separating them didn’t exist. “Oh, you know, the usual. Lots of travel. Socializing.” His honey-brown eyes twinkled.
She let the hint of a smile play at the corners of her mouth. “And have you made progress on the book I lent you?”
He hefted a dog-eared tome. “I read it. You’ll be disappointed to learn I didn’t find it nearly as captivatin’ as the scholar who recommended it.”
She forced down a flush creeping up her cheeks. “Royce, let’s focus on the book. What passages stood out to you in Marx’s Manifesto?”
“Look at me, Elise.” The clean scent of pine tar soap wafted from him as he leaned forward, nearly touching his temple to the bars. “I mean, really. Look at me.”
Book forgotten, she felt compelled to obey. He wore his dusty camp issued denim like a tailored affair, not a hallmark of degrading punishment. Hell, she hardly noticed the gray and black stripes as she found herself gravitating to that molasses-smooth voice.
“I feel like you’re the only one that sees me in this hellhole, kitten.”
She could have drowned in the bourbon brown pools that stared back at her. “I do. I see you, Royce.”
“I know you do, darlin’.” There was something startlingly unassuming about him, his red flecked beard matching the highlights in his eyes. “You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Anything.” Her answer came as naturally as breathing.
Calloused fingers curled around the bars as he murmured, “Prove it to me. Open this cell.”
And she loved nothing more than to obey.