"I ... was jealous of you. When I saw him with his arms around you this afternoon, I ... couldn't stand it. I had to do somethin'. I was drove to it."
She brushed the damp hair back from her forehead and cleared her throat. She clutched Ann's one hand in both hers and turned to talk closely into her face.
"I ... it wasn't all lies. That part about me, about Charley Ling's, was true. It was true that Bruce took me out of there, too, but not for what you think. I ... I was pretty bad for a young girl, but I never knew much different until I knew Bruce ... I didn't know much.
"I was at Ling's. I didn't lie about that," she repeated stoically, baring her shame in an attempt to atone for her former behavior. "I'd been there quite a while, when one night when the' was whiskey an' men an' hell, he come....
"I'll never forget it. I can't. He was so big that he filled th' door, he was so ... different, so clean an' disgusted-like, that it stopped th' noise for a minute. He stood lookin' us over; then he saw me an' looked an' looked, an' I couldn't do nothin' but hang my head when 'twas my business to laugh at him.
"He didn't say a word at first, but he come across to to me an' set down beside me, an' when th' piano started again an' folks quit givin' us attention he said,
"'You're only a kid.'
"Just that; but it made me cry. He was so kind of accusin' an' so gentle. Nobody'd ever been gentle with me before that I could remember of. They'd been accusin' all right, all right ... but not gentle. He went away that night an' I cried until it was light. In th' mornin' he come back an' asked for me an' took me outdoors an' talked to me. He talked.... He didn't do no preachin'; he didn't say nothin' about bein' good or bein' bad. He just said that that place wasn't fit for coyotes to live in, that I'd never see th' mountains or th' stars or th' sunshine livin' there. He said that.... An' he said he'd get me a job here in Yavapai....
"He did. Got me this job, in this hotel. He stuck by me when folks started to talk; he stopped it. He taught me to ride an' like horses an' dogs an' th' valley an' things like that. He give me things to read an' talked to me about 'em an' ... was good to me.
"I've always been like his sister. That's straight, M's. Lytton; that's no lie. He's been my brother; that's all. More 'n that, I'm about th' only woman he's looked at in three years until ... you come. He ain't a saint but he's ... an awful fine man."