Pistols and Petticoats (A Historical Western Romance Anthology) Page 10

  At least, not singing talent.

  Fortunately, Chalkey was distracted from another of his harangues by one of the Masterson brothers. Both wore tin stars, and Sadie delighted in ruffling the roosters' feathers by pretending to confuse the Ford County sheriff with the Dodge City deputy. A businessman couldn't operate a saloon in the Wickedest Little City in America without giving free drinks, free screws, and unlimited faro credits to local lawmen.

  But as far as Sadie was concerned, Bat Masterson, Jim Masterson, Wyatt Earp, James Earp, and Charlie Bassett were as crooked as the horse thieves whom they arrested. Maybe that's why she liked the horse thieves better.

  Turning her back on the two stuffed, golden eagles that Chalkey proudly displayed behind his bar, Sadie cast a dubious eye over the dusty drink-guzzlers. Cowboys, wolfers, gamblers, and railroaders were abundantly represented among the buffalo hunters, who milled beneath bluish cigar smoke and the haze of scarlet gas lamps. As hungry for sport as they were thirsty for liquor, the men had packed themselves into every vacant inch around the faro tables, Poker contests, and chuck-a-luck games.

  She tried not to look as disgusted as she felt at the prospect of luring one of the belching, slovenly wretches upstairs. Only the dance floor was relatively empty, since most of Chalkey's girls were too busy humping to boot-scoot through the sawdust.

  But not until Sadie trained her eyes beyond the Poker players did she notice the dark-haired, wintry-eyed stranger. Seated with a gray Stetson and a bottle of Chalkey's finest scotch, he sat in a dim corner of the saloon with his back against the wall—a gunfighter's habit.

  She realized he was staring at her. Sizing her up.

  A nervous little thrill coursed her spine.

  Sun-baked and wind-groomed, he looked about 20 years older than she—and even more jaded, if that was possible. Nevertheless, his rugged, clean-shaven features were attractive in a mature, wolfish way. He wasn't wearing a badge, but he was wearing his holster slung low across his hips. The close proximity of his revolver to his right hand didn't alarm her. He didn't look as dusty as most, and he wasn't belching smoke from a cigar.

  Two points in his favor.

  She was just about to saunter over to Wolf's table, when a much younger gunfighter, sporting a double-holstered rig with two Colt Thunderers, lurched across her path.

  "Sadie! Lawdy, girl, it is you! I never did expect to find a Yellow Rose so far from Texas!"

  His tell-tale drawl fairly boomed, and Sadie's smile stiffened. The last thing she wanted was to associate with a Texican. Last year, a Texas cowboy had plugged the third Masterson brother, Ed, in a street fight. Ed hadn't survived, and Bat, whose sheriff's badge didn't give him jurisdiction in Dodge, was universally believed to have gunned down the Texican to avenge his brother's death.

  Needless to say, Texicans weren't welcome in the Long Branch whenever Bat was around, getting his fill of booze and boobs.

  She darted a wary glance at the sheriff, who was slapping Chalkey's shoulder and laughing at something he'd said. According to gossip, Texas was sending a hired gun to make Bat pay for plugging his brother's murderer outside the limits of the law. But surely that assassin couldn't be this tow-headed youth with the Coyote grin!

  Sadie ran her cynical gaze over her admirer's athletic build, past his immaculately brushed black Stetson, to the ebony bandanna that nestled between the top two buttons of his pitch-colored shirt.

  More from duty than curiosity, she allowed her eyes to continue southward. The only spot of color in his otherwise black attire was the flash of his buckle and Mexican-style spurs. When her gaze hesitated on its journey upward, it did so only long enough to gauge the size of his purse—not his package. She guessed by the way his trousers hugged his muscular thighs and narrow hips that his pockets were empty.

  It figures.

  No longer interested, she turned her head.

  By comparison, Wolf was flush. She'd drawn this conclusion from the bottle of Glenmorangie that he'd bought. He was still watching her like... well, his namesake. She guessed he liked redheads. That would give her an advantage over Liliana, with the peroxide curls.

  But when she would have stepped toward her intended John, Coyote Boy blocked her path.

  "Don't you remember me, hon? It's William. Billy. Cass," he bellowed, raising his voice above the roar of the bettors. His increasing volume wasn't aiding her memory.

  "Is that name supposed to mean something to me?" she demanded, allowing her husky alto to drip acid.

  Coyote Boy kept grinning, apparently immune to disdain. Reluctantly, she found herself admiring his moxie. She also found herself admiring the striking color of his eyes: like the darkest petal of a Texas bluebonnet. Or a wind-swept sky over Fort Worth's prairie at dusk.

  At the ripe old age of a quarter-century, she'd believed that masculine beauty couldn't move her any more. But some primitive part of her brain stirred at the whiff of lemongrass and spring water that wafted from his neck. He'd bathed before soliciting a rut. She appreciated the consideration. So few men thought whores were worthy of the effort.

  Still, she was a business woman. She had to keep a cool head and a hard heart. She reminded herself that tow-headed lovers had never been her first choice. Coyote Boy's shoulder-length hair wasn't just blond: it had been bleached by the elements to an uncommonly pale shade of gold—nearly white. His straight teeth fairly dazzled in a chiseled, sun-gilded face that might have been painted by Botticelli.

  She suspected that Coyote Boy's fallen-angel's smile had made more than one Texas schoolgirl swoon.

  "I reckon it has been awhile," he said, an endearing humility creeping into his tone. "Almost nine years in all. I've grown a bit taller since then, but you..."

  He doffed his hat, admiration etched into every angle of his sculpted face. He was feasting his eyes on her lips—her lips, of all things! Was he really that green? He didn't look a day over 21.

  "You haven't changed a bit," he crooned. "Except to get prettier. And maybe smarter. Not that you weren't the Cat's Meow back in Texas..."

  Sadie's brow furrowed with impatience. Maybe Coyote Boy thought he'd been her first lover. That would explain why he expected her to dredge up his memory from hundreds of Johns whose names sounded like Bill or Will or whatever he was calling himself these days.

  He rushed on:

  "Remember midsummer? How we took turns swinging over the swimming hole? How we named every star over the holler? Aw, c'mon. You wrote a song about me. Don't you remember?"

  No, she didn't. And frankly, she preferred not to remember anything that smacked of sentiment. She'd learned the hard way to forget everything that had ever meant anything to her, especially family. Margaret Michelson had taken her life two days after moving into the brothel—which had been bad enough—but Mama's suicide had forced Sadie to fend for herself against Madam Snake Eye.

  Sometimes, Sadie was glad that her twin sister hadn't survived their fifth birthday, even though Sadie would have done so many things differently if she could have relived that hellish afternoon...

  Pushing Maisy and Mama firmly from her mind, Sadie forced herself to turn toward the ever-watchful Wolf.

  "Sadie," her blue-eyed admirer murmured, dropping his voice to a poignant murmur by her ear, "Don't you remember... Bobby? You were my salvation that summer. After he got killed."

  She sucked in her breath.

  In a painful rush, memories that she'd hoped to keep buried—recollections of carefree youth and shattered innocence—were exhumed. She'd been a jade of 15, and William "Billy" Cassidy had barely outgrown his knickers. At 12 years of age, he'd started trotting after her like a puppy on a string, begging to carry her berry baskets, leaving wildflowers on the brothel windowsill, confiding his hopes and dreams. He'd yearned to make something of himself in those days, to rise above his White Trash heritage and become a Texas Ranger.

  Then rumors had started to spread across the town of Pilot Grove. Billy's last, surviving kinsman h
ad impregnated the blacksmith's daughter, and Bobby had been "punished" for his crime by the Ku Klux Klan. On that fateful day, nearly nine years ago, Billy had sobbed in her arms. He'd declared himself the man of the house. He'd taken the family name, Cass. He'd vowed to kill Abel Ainsworth, the leader of the Klan, for smashing his cousin's skull with a branding iron.

  She'd tried desperately to talk Cass out of his mad scheme. But 72 hours later, Ainsworth's brains were found splattered across his smithy, and Cass had disappeared from Pilot Grove. Gossips whispered that he'd hooked up with bad influences: a half-breed Cherokee, named Jesse Quaid. The Confederate war criminal, Black Bart.

  Sadie had never seen Cass again.

  She swallowed hard. She didn't know what to say, much less what to feel. Had he really shot Ainsworth in the head?

  She supposed she could get huffy and turn righteous, but the unfortunate truth was, she didn't have the right to judge Cass for avenging the cousin whom he'd loved like a brother. Not after she'd caused the death of her own sister.

  "Cass. Of course." She forced some warmth into her tone to commemorate their magical summer. Billy had found a way to light her darkness. He'd made her feel special and given her hope. To return to her sordid world of callous protectors and loveless sex had nearly killed her. That's why she'd taken such pains to forget him.

  "I guess they'll let anyone walk into the Long Branch," she teased with practiced coquetry.

  He chuckled. She could see that he was pleased to be remembered. She decided he wasn't much of a Poker player.

  "Would you like to dance?" he asked gallantly.

  She let a dimple flirt with her lips. "That depends. Do you have a dollar?"

  He blinked. But his smile never wavered. "Sure."

  He was lying, of course.

  She let the other dimple peek. "You see that gentleman behind the counter?"

  "Yeah?"

  "That's Chalkey. He expects me to earn my keep."

  Cass's eyes narrowed as he sized-up the lean, pistol-packing barkeep. "For a dollar?"

  "For starters," she said grandly, improvising as she went. A dance normally cost 25 cents. "One dollar gets you one dance."

  Cass snorted. "Is Chalkey the bottom-feeder who convinced you that you were only worth a dollar?"

  A slow burn climbed her cheeks. "That's a helluva question."

  "So give me a helluva answer."

  "You in or out?" she snapped.

  Eyes like blue flames seared her soul. She glimpsed the full measure of the man then, and her pulse tripped. This one is different, her heart whispered. This one plays for keeps.

  "How much does Chalkey want for the night?" Cass demanded.

  She nearly peed her pants. Three minutes alone with Billy the Kid, and already he'd wormed his way under her skin! She didn't dare spend a whole night in the arms of his wily alter ego, Coyote Cass.

  "Fifty dollars," she lied, naming the most outlandish fee she could imagine for a woman in her profession.

  "So that would make $1,500 for the month, right?"

  It was her turn to blink.

  "Times four," she said slowly, trying to anticipate where this train of thought would derail. She calculated rapidly in her head. "Six-thousand dollars, if you're asking for exclusive entertainment for 30 days."

  It was a fortune—three, maybe four years worth of room and board at the Long Branch. There was no way Cass could afford it. No way, she assured herself.

  As if reading her mind, his Coyote grin broadened.

  "No problem, hon. You wait right here. 'Cause I'm going to get that money—and before midnight too. Tell that butthead, Chalkey, you got yourself a private customer. And tell that Old Fart with the scotch"—Cass jerked his thumb over his shoulder—"that if he lays a finger on you, I'll beat him senseless."

  So Coyote Boy noticed the Wolf, eh? Apparently, she'd underestimated the pup.

  Cass centered the pitch-colored Stetson on his head. He tipped the brim and turned to go.

  "Wait." She caught his sleeve. There weren't a lot of ways that a man could scare up $6,000 in less than two hours—even in Dodge. "Don't do anything foolish. Don't rob anything," she added in an urgent undertone. "The Earps and the Mastersons—"

  He patted her hand. It was a brotherly gesture and completely inconsistent with the banked fires smoldering in his gaze.

  "Don't worry about me, darlin'. I know my business. And it ain't robbing banks."

  He winked.

  She released him reluctantly.

  When his rolling, cocksure gait carried him toward the swinging doors, she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or alarmed.

  Especially when his right hand dropped to his six-shooter.

  Chapter2

  MOTHER HEN

  Cass was seething when he slammed out the swinging doors onto Front Street.

  At half-past ten, a sizeable crowd of raucous, unkempt cowboys loitered under the star-studded, Kansas sky. Most had spilled out of the saloon, where breathing room was at a premium. Some were caterwauling to harmonica music, staggering arm-in-arm with soiled doves, or slumping against watering troughs to whistle unsuccessfully for horses. Others were whizzing on the walls of the Long Branch's closest neighbors: Rath's General Store and Hoover's Liquor and Cigar shop.

  Fortunately, a crowd was important to Cass's plan. So was the bright, full face of the moon. It sailed low in the east, casting plenty of light. He could read wind-riffled handbills for liver pills, gunsmiths, and stage runs to Wichita on the pillars that propped up the saloon's sloping porch roof.

  So far, so good.

  Pushing his way through the horseflesh that stomped and nickered around the hitching post, he found his gelding. He'd christened the sorrel, Doby, in honor of the springs where he'd "borrowed" the animal last month from a poorly guarded remuda of cowponies.

  To purchase a well-trained quarter horse cost $150 and gobbled up at least five months of a drover's wages. In Cass's mind, that sorry state was the real crime. When his cowponies turned an ankle or did something stupid, like ingesting locoweed, he had to steal a new horse just so he could afford to make an "honest" living, protecting beeves from stampede-minded Cheyenne.

  Fortunately, rustling was only one of Cass's money-making talents.

  Unbuckling his saddle bags, he began rummaging inside for an ammo box. Less than a minute passed before the breeze wafted the tell-tale smoke of tobacco, oregano, and cloves his way. The blend was Jesse Quaid's favorite. It was also one of the few ways that Cass could keep track of his friend, who was one-quarter Cherokee. "Lynx" could walk in utter silence, even while wearing rowels.

  "Damn," Cass muttered, finding his ammo box three-quarters empty. "Hand over your cartridges," he told the lean, rangy shadow that had materialized behind his shoulder.

  Lynx inhaled. His cigarette tip glowed brighter, casting an orange glow over a rugged, sun-blackened face with panther-green eyes. Those eyes allowed him to pass for a White man in most places. Right now, they gleamed in an annoying, knowing way as he watched Cass shove ammo into his belt loops.

  "If I passed you a cartridge every time you wanted one, who would keep your hot head from getting blown to smithereens?"

  Cass tossed a withering glance at his best friend. Two years his senior, the habitually reticent Lynx had ridden beside him, day in and day out, for eight years. Together, they'd branded calves, smuggled moonshine, tracked renegades, robbed stages, eluded bounty hunters, fought range wars, seduced wives, fled cuckolds, and dodged the most persistent wedding-bell chasers in the western territories.

  Despite all that—or maybe because of it—Cass was often tempted to punch out Lynx's lights.

  "Remember how we talked about that Mother-Hen thing you do? And how I hate it?"

  Lynx's lips quirked as he exhaled a stream of smoke. "So the redhead turned you down, eh? I think that's a first."

  "The night's still young."

  "And you're planning to spend the rest of it in the calaboose?
"

  "Give me credit for half a brain. This place is crawling with tin-stars."

  "That never stopped you from shooting up a town before."

  "Yeah, well, I got a lot more than usual riding on this bet."

  "What bet?"

  "The one I'm about to make with some uppity high-roller, who thinks I can't hit a knothole at 25 paces in the dark."

  Amusement flickered across the shadow-steeped planes under Lynx's chocolate-brown Stetson. "Wouldn't it just be easier to find another whore?"

  "Don't you be calling my Sadie a whore!"

  Lynx arched an eyebrow. "The Sadie?"

  "How many Sadies do you think I know, buckethead?!"

  Cass was hard-pressed not to yell at this point. How many times had he told Lynx the story? A hundred? A thousand? Sadie was his Hope. His Inspiration. Back in Pilot Grove, she'd been the only girl who'd ever thought he might amount to something. The night after his thirteenth birthday, when he'd shot Abel Ainsworth, Cass had suffered two regrets:

  One: turning renegade had forced him to abandon his dream of becoming a Texas Ranger.

  Two: plugging the bastard had forced him to flee in the dead of night, depriving him of the opportunity to tell his Sadie good-bye.

  All these years, Cass had believed that Sadie was still living in Pilot Grove, the one place in Texas where he could never return. Imagine his shock—and delight—to learn that she'd migrated with the cattle herds to Kansas.

  "I reckon it must've come as a surprise," Lynx began in that even tone of voice he used whenever he was about to impart some unasked for advice, "to see your Sadie coming down a brothel staircase with Wyatt Earp."

  Cass scowled.

  "The fastest gun wearing a star," Lynx emphasized.

  "Fast don't count if it ain't straight."

  "Earp shoots straight enough."

  "Not straighter'n me!"

  "Uh-huh," Lynx deadpanned. "And just in case you're thinking of sending Wyatt and his pesky pecker to boot hill, let me remind you that he has five brothers. Most of them are lawmen. All of them are gonna be a tad miffed about burying him."