Kitabı oku: «Devil's Dare»

Chapter One

“Gentlemen, Abilene is a fine town,” Wyatt Earp, one of Abilene’s premier cardsharps, told them as they sagged against the stock pen that held the three thousand milling, bawling longhorns they’d trailed all the way from Texas. “You may ask why I think so. Well, boys, Abilene is a fine town because there’s so much easy money in it, so much sin and so little law. Why, there’s twenty saloons, twenty gambling houses and ten dance halls—as well as three restaurants, for when you’re all tuckered out from all that carousin’ and just want some tasty vittles. Yessir, I believe you boys are gonna have a high time here, a high time indeed.”

Sam Houston Devlin began to grin as he pushed back his wide-brimmed hat. After endless weeks on the trail, driving the meanest beeves on four hooves over the plains and through the rivers, enduring storms, stampedes and endless dust, dodging Indians and rustlers, he was more than ready for a little fun. In fact, if he looked back on his twenty-five years, it seemed as if he couldn’t remember having fun since he’d left home at eighteen to join the Confederate army.

Following the grim years of war, during which he’d grown to manhood, he’d returned to find the Devlin farm close to ruin. Three dreary years of hard work had followed, until at last he’d realized the only way to recoup their prosperity was by rounding up the hundreds of longhorned cattle, running loose in the brush, and driving them to market in Kansas.

And now he was here at last in Abilene—trail’s end. Once he’d paid the men’s wages and allowed for expenses, he figured he’d have some thirty-six thousand dollars to take home with him. Seemed like he’d earned a good time before returning home to Texas, and it sounded as if Abilene was ready and willing to oblige him.

“And if you’ll join me down at the Alamo Saloon tonight,” the cardsharp continued, “I’ll see that you have the finest time playin’ monte and poker and faro you ever thought of having. And cards, gentlemen, are just the beginning. The liquor flows freely at the Alamo, boys, and the women, well…they ain’t free, but they’re pretty easy.”

A collective guffaw greeted his sally. The “Devil’s Boys,” as Sam’s crew liked to call themselves, were even more eager to begin tasting the delights of Abilene than their trail boss, if that was possible.

“We’ll be there with bells on,” promised one of the drovers, and there was echoed agreement all around him. “And just where is this Alamo Saloon, Mr. Earp?”

“Why, the corner of Cedar and Texas streets, the two streets where all the pleasures a cowboy could hope to have are located,” Earp answered. “I’ll be at my regular table ‘bout seven, okay, gents? Meanwhile, be sure not t’ miss the promenade.”

“Th’ promenade?” questioned one of the younger hands, a baby-faced kid they called “Boy” Henderson for his beardless cheeks.

Earp smiled at the youth, then pulled out an ornate gold pocket watch and flipped the case open, studying it. “Fellas, you’re in luck. It’s just half an hour before the daily ritual unique to this fine town. Every day except Sunday, at nigh onta four o’clock, the sportin girls’ of Hattie’s HotHouse and Saleratus Sal’s Sink of Sin go for a stroll down Texas Street, yonder.” Earp pointed to where the facades of buildings could be seen through the dust raised by the milling, bawling longhorns. “If you’ll walk on up the street, gentlemen, you’ll have plenty of time to select the ideal vantage point, so as not to miss a collection of female pulchritude that will fairly make your mouth water.”

“I sure ‘nough don’t wanta miss any o’ that!” Boy Henderson exclaimed, and spun around, bolting in the direction of the promised spectacle. “Come on, fellows!” he called over his shoulder with a beckoning wave.

“Hey, Henderson, don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” drawled Sam.

The youth looked back, and seeing that none of the other men had moved from where they had been lounging against the stock pens, he halted. “What, Sam?” he asked. None of his crew called him “Mr. Devlin.” Sam was not one to stand on ceremony.

“Aren’t you gonna draw your pay, Boy?” Sam reminded him with a teasing grin. “Lookin’s free, but you got a hundred and twenty dollars comin’ to you after all those weeks on the trail, and I don’t think that these fancy girls are gonna let you do more than look unless your pockets are full. And you do want to do more than look, don’t you?”

“Gosh dang, yes!” he replied with so much enthusiasm that the rest of the cowboys snickered, causing Boy to blush.

“Then come on back and stand still while I divide the money you boys have comin’,” Sam said, wondering if he’d looked that eager the first time he’d been taken to that brothel in New Orleans before the war. Lord, to be that young and innocent again! Compared to Boy, most days he felt a hundred weary years old. But now that he’d have gold jingling in his pocket again, he meant to see if he could reclaim some of his lost spirits. And perhaps Texas Street had a female or two who could help him try.

The pay was soon dispensed. All but one of the hands took their money with smiles and remarks about wanting to work for Devlin on subsequent drives.

“A hunnerd and twenty dollars don’t seem like much fer three months’ work and nearly gettin’ drowned in the Red River,” Tom Culhane mumbled sourly.

“You knew the wage when you signed on, Tom,” Sam Devlin said evenly, hoping an ugly fight wasn’t going to mar their first night in town. “And danger comes with the work. Hellfire, you probably wouldn’t have had any difficulty in the river if you hadn’t ridden the horse I told you was a panicky swimmer. As it was, you got a good cowboy drowned.” Culhane’s lower lip drooped sulkily. It was obvious he didn’t like being reminded that the tragic incident at the Red River was essentially his fault.

“You give Jase Lowry a hunnerd an’ forty,” Tom Culhane retorted.

“Jase Lowry’s my point man, my second-in-command,” Sam reminded him. “If anything had happened to me, it would have fallen to Jase to get the herd to Abilene and take the profits home to my family. He gets paid more for taking more responsibility.” Sam kept his tone neutral.

Tom walked off, grumbling. Sam supposed Tom would either get over his sulk and appear again next spring, looking for work, or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t, that was just fine by him. Culhane had shown a tendency to bellyache about every little hitch that came up on the drive, and on a three-month drive, that was a lot of bellyaching he’d just as soon not have listened to.

* * *

“Heavenly days, Mercy, just look at them,” said Charity with a sigh, her face enraptured at the sight of so many handsome cowboys lining the opposite side of the street.

“Charity Fairweather, I declare, you’re such a featherbrain! I should have known better than to bring you out on the street with me any time from spring to fall!” snapped her older sister, Mercy, trying in vain to pull Charity away from her vantage point at the window of Moon’s Frontier Store. In the fall and winter Abilene was free of the scourge of Texan invaders. “Come away before one of them sees you!”

“It won’t hurt to look,” the fifteen-year-old girl insisted stubbornly, smoothing her blond corkscrew curls and pinching her cheeks as she continued to study the lined-up men with their tanned faces, leather chaps and red bandannas.

“Well, looking better be all you’re doing,” warned Mercy in an exasperated voice. “Charity, aren’t you ever worried that you’re going to get a reputation for being fast?” she hissed. A wary glance over her shoulder confirmed that Mrs. Horace Barnes, the chief of Abilene’s gossips, had entered the mercantile and was trying not to look as if she were eavesdropping on the conversation. It was clear as day from her smirking expression, however, that she was.

“Oh, pooh! Anything faster than a turtle is considered fast by Papa’s congregation.” Charity sniffed. “And you talk just like them. You’d think you were an old maid, instead of just eighteen! Ooh, just look at the tall one over there, the one with the dark mustache! Doesn’t he look just like a desperado?” she asked in awed tones.

“He probably is, the rest of the year,” Mercy said tartly before repeating, “Come away before he sees you.” Charity ignored her, of course. And Mercy found she couldn’t help looking through the fly-specked, blurry window in the direction her sister’s pointing finger indicated.

The stranger lounged at his ease against a hitching rail, his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his denims above the black leather chaps. He did indeed look like a dangerous character with the brim of his hat shadowing most of his face. All she could see were high, angular cheekbones and a black, shaggy mustache above an unsmiling mouth.

The cowboy was talking to another man, probably a cardsharp, Mercy guessed after studying the other man’s fancy waistcoat and its hanging watch chain. As she watched, something the cardsharp said must have struck the stranger as funny, for suddenly the tightly held mouth relaxed, parting in a grin. He tipped his head back, and she caught a glimpse of eyes crinkled with merriment.

That grin not only transformed the lean, angular features, but produced some startling changes in Mercy, too. All at once she felt warm all over, as if she’d worn black flannel instead of her light, figured calico everyday dress. Her pulse raced.

How ridiculous, she chided herself, to feel so silly about one of those wild hellions from Texas who swept through Abilene from May to September, drinking tanglefoot, shooting up the town and sending respectable citizens diving for cover. “Hurrahing the town,” they called it. But now that she’d seen this particular cowboy smile, she knew she’d have to make certain that he and Charity never met. He was just the sort of man who could wreck her sister’s tenuous hold on virtue.

Worried, Mercy glanced back at her sister, but with so much walking virility to feast her eyes on, Charity had already been distracted. Her eyes had wandered to a towheaded, somewhat bowlegged cowboy down the street who was tipping his hat to a lady—

Who was no lady, Mercy realized as the first of the working girls strolled past Moon’s Frontier Store.

“The shameless hussies!” hissed Abigail Barnes. The big, homely woman had come up soundlessly behind them and was now peering out the window between the sisters’ shoulders. “They shouldn’t be allowed in the same town as decent women, my Horace always says. Someone should do something!”

The women were indeed a fearsome sight in their gaudyhued dresses with tight, low-cut bodices and two-foot bustles that caused their skirts to sway gracefully behind them like the wakes of ships. As they descended the plank sidewalk to the street, they raised the edges of their spangled skirts to clear the dust. The action revealed layer upon layer of red petticoats and tasseled boots with a single star at the top of each.

Outside, the cowboys lining the street began cheering raucously and throwing their hats up in the air. The man Mercy had been watching, however, did not join in any of the boisterous behavior; he merely continued eyeing the painted women in a speculative sort of way. What was he thinking? she wondered. Was he selecting the one he wanted to buy for the night? The thought made her vaguely heartsick, though she did not know why.

“Why, they’re pretty, in a bold sort of way, aren’t they, Mercy?” Charity said, eyeing the town’s infamous “soiled doves” with curiosity. “What is that sticking out of the tops of some of their boots?”

“Pearl-handled derringers,” Abigail Barnes answered, as if Charity had been speaking to her. “Those Jezebels always carry their pistols in the right boot, and their ill-gotten gains in the left,” Abigail Barnes huffed, her breath smelling of stale onions.

“They carry money in their boots? How do they get the money?” Charity asked, her face a study of puzzled interest.

“Never you mind,” Mercy said quickly. “Come on, we’ve got to go.” She grabbed her sister’s wrist and started pulling her in the direction of the back entrance.

“But Mercy, wait, I wasn’t ready!” wailed Charity.

Mercy ignored her and kept pulling. She didn’t want Abigail Barnes to have time to commence a lecture as to how a fallen woman earned her living. As it was, she’d probably have to contend with the gossipy, shovel-faced woman telling the Ladies’ Missionary Society about Charity Fairweather’s indecorous interest in saloon girls, which was bound to get back to their father.

She couldn’t resist one last look behind, though, at the rangy, dark-featured cowboy across the street. But he was no longer there.