Dashing Druid (Texas Druids) (31 page)

A choked sound escaped Lil, and she reached out to him. He hugged her tight, then set her away, and for several moments neither of them seemed capable of speech. Then they both started to talk at once and had to laugh. After that they talked about old times, recalling pranks they’d pulled, ponies they’d tamed, and a dozen other experiences they’d shared. Time passed swiftly, and before Lil realized how late it was, her train arrived.

She thanked David again in a tight voice and gave him another brief hug.

“You take care of yourself, you hear?” he said gruffly. “And when you catch up with that stubborn Irishman, remember to send word. Jessie will be worried sick, your folks too, I reckon.” His mouth crooked upward. “So will I.”

“I’ll remember. Everything,” she promised. Then she turned and hurried up the steps to her car.

Once inside, she found a seat and stuck her head out the open window. “Good-bye,” she called, waving at David.

“So long,” he replied, hand raised in salute.

Then the train started to move, and she settled back in her seat, looking ahead, toward Tye and the future.

* * *

Lil trudged across the dusty street toward yet another saloon. The lettering on the tall false front declared it to be the Golden Nugget. Fitting, she guessed, since the town was also called Golden, and because gold was what drew men to the nearby mountains.

Gathering her skirts, she stepped onto the boardwalk outside the saloon. She’d given up wearing britches after the trouble she’d had finding a hotel room back in Denver.
Ladies
who dressed like men weren’t welcome, one snooty desk clerk had told her flat out. The others had eyed her with scorn and informed her they had no room available. She’d ended up sleeping in a flea-bitten cubbyhole above a saloon, with her gun under the pillow. Come morning, she’d rigged herself out in gown and petticoats.

She squared her shoulders and pushed through the saloon’s batwing doors. The odor of beer and firewater immediately surrounded her, but she hardly noticed it after all the other whiskey mills she’d visited. Pausing just inside, she glanced around the room. The place wasn’t very busy. Three men sat playing poker at a table off to her left and a couple of solitary drinkers lounged at the bar. One of the card players glanced up and saw her.

“Boy howdy! Look what just walked in, boys,” he said, grinning at his cronies. He pointed in her direction and they turned to look.

“Well, well, a pretty gal come to visit,” one of the others commented. “Hey, honey, you lookin’ for company? Come on over here. You’re welcome to join us.”

“No thanks,” Lil said, giving him a cold stare. He grumbled something to his friends, but she ignored them as she walked purposefully to the bar. Behind it, a lanky man with oiled dark hair and a droopy mustache stood wiping a glass with a dingy towel. He frowned as he watched her approach. Setting her heavy reticule on the polished mahogany bar, she started to ask him a question, but he didn’t give her a chance.

“You oughtn’t to be in here, Miss,” he said, mustache bobbing with every word. “This is no fit place for a lady.”

“I’ve heard those words before, mister,” Lil snapped. “They haven’t scared me off yet.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe they should have.”

“Look, I just want to ask you something. Then I’ll clear out. Okay?”

He eyed her suspiciously then nodded. “All right, but make it quick.” Looking past her, toward the three poker players, he added, “I don’t want any trouble in here.”

“That’s fine with me. I only want to know if you’ve seen a black-haired Irishman come through here in the past few days. He’s got blue eyes and he’s about yea tall.” She raised her hand to indicate Tye’s height. “And he’s good looking.”

The man set aside the glass he’d been polishing and tilted his head in thought. After a moment during which Lil barely breathed, he said, “You know, that sounds like a gent who stopped in two, maybe three days ago.”

Lil heart leapt and she tingled with excitement, hardly believing she’d finally cut Tye’s back trail. “Did he say where he was bound?” she pressed.

“Can’t recall as he did. Why are you so all-fired anxious to find him, Missy?”

Her soaring hope died a cruel death. “He’s my beau,” she said distractedly, keenly disappointed and wondering what to do next. Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t see the barkeep stiffen or pay attention to the sound of approaching footsteps.

“You’ve got a beau, do yuh?” a sarcastic voice said.

She looked up and, reflected in the mirror above the bar, saw the poker player who’d wanted her to join him and his friends. He was standing directly behind her.

“Seems like he ran off and left yuh if you’re up here lookin’ for him,” he scoffed.

“That’s none of your business, mister. Now back off,” she demanded.

“Ah, that’s no way to talk, honey. All I want to do is make you feel better.” He ran a hand down her arm, sending a jolt of fury washing through her.

“Take your hand off me,” she gritted. When he merely laughed, she grabbed her reticule off the bar, reached inside and drew out her pistol. Knocking his hand aside, she whirled to face him, gun pointed at his chest. “I said back off. Now!”

He stumbled back a step. “Whoa, there’s no call for you to pull a gun on me.”

“I don’t want trouble in here,” the barkeep repeated nervously at her back.

Paying him no mind, Lil saw the other two card players push to their feet and start toward her. Deciding all three needed to learn she wasn’t playing, she fired off a shot. The bullet drove into the floor a few inches from the man who’d dared to touch her. He yelped and jumped back, his compadres froze in their tracks, and the whiskey peddler cursed loudly. The two men who’d been nursing drinks by the bar, one on either side of Lil, scuttled away.

 “I’m leaving now,” she said. “Clear out of my way.” She gestured with her Colt, and the man who’d started the trouble moved aside, hands raised. Lil edged past him, keeping a close eye on him and his friends. Reaching the entrance, she paused.

“Thanks for the information, mister,” she said, addressing the barkeep. Then she backed through the swinging doors. Once outside, she lowered her gun and took to her heels, not stopping until she was safely inside the lobby of her hotel. By then she’d decided on her next move.

In a while, after giving those owlhoots at the saloon time to mosey along, she would head over to the train depot and see when the next train into the mountains was scheduled to leave. She meant to be on it.

* * *

“Georgetown, Silver Queen of the Rockies,” the stage driver shouted as he reined in his team outside the Wells Fargo office, sending up a cloud of dust.

Coughing to clear the stuff from her throat, Lil glanced out the window in time to see a line of pack-jacks pass by. Loaded down with supplies, the sturdy burros were evidently headed for the mines in the mountains above the town.

Lil waited while the woman next to her was helped out of the coach by her husband. Then the gent across from her jumped down and offered her his hand.

“Thanks,” she muttered, warily accepting his assistance. She didn’t much like him. A dandified faro dealer by the name of Roy Hotchkiss, he’d eyed her too closely during the trip up Clear Creek. As soon as her feet touched ground, she withdrew her hand from his and moved aside to allow the last two men off the coach.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” Hotchkiss said with a grin that showed his yellow teeth. He stepped over next to her. “I’d be happy to help you locate a hotel.”

“No thanks. Don’t let me hold you up.”

His grin disappeared. He nodded stiffly and cocked a wiry brown eyebrow. “As you wish. Perhaps I’ll see you around town.”

“I doubt it,” Lil drawled, giving him a cool stare.

A muscle ticked angrily along his jaw. Giving up his attempts to charm her, he grabbed his carpetbag and stalked off. Glad to be rid of him, Lil sighed tiredly and shook some of the dust from her travel-stained blue gown.

“Lady, you wanta take this, or should I let her drop?” the stage driver asked from atop the coach.

Lil gave a start, then reached up to catch her war bag when he tossed it down. “You happen to know a decent hotel hereabouts, mister?” she inquired. “One that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.”

He gummed the tobacco pouched in his cheek and squinted off down the street. “Lemme see, there’s the Barton House and that other new place. It’s owned by a Frenchy name of Louis Dupuy. Calls it the Hotel de Paree. It’s too hoity-toity for what yuh want, though, I expect.” Knitting his brows, he tugged off his greasy leather hat and scratched his head.

“So, I oughta try the Barton House?” Lil prodded.

“Well now, I didn’t say that.” He scratched a moment longer, then replaced his hat and gave her a toothless grin. “I know just the place. Yessum, Miz Ennis will take real good care of yuh.”

Following his directions, Lil proceeded to the Ennis House, noting the well constructed shops and Victorian houses along the way. After the drab mining camps she’d seen, Georgetown was a pleasant surprise. It called to mind a daguerreotype of a pretty New England town she’d once viewed – except that town had been surrounded by gentle hills, not granite mountainsides.

She glanced up at the gray-brown peaks and experienced a wave of discouragement. So far, her venture into the high country had yielded only that one small trace of Tye in Golden.

As per David’s advice, she’d traveled on to Black Hawk and Central City, along the way getting a small taste of what Tye had endured while trapped underground after the cave-in. Scarred by mine entrances and tailing piles, Gregory Gulch was so tight in places that the narrow gauge rails nearly ran into the tumbling waters of North Clear Creek. Lil had felt like the stony walls were about to crush her.

Reeking with the stink of smelters and the pounding of stamp mills, Black Hawk had offered no news of Tye. Neither had Central City, nor any of the small camps along the stage route south to the main fork of Clear Creek. Her luck hadn’t improved in Fall River, Idaho Springs or any of the other stops on the bumpy climb to Georgetown.

If Tye didn’t turn up around here . . . . No, she wouldn’t think about that, she told herself, walking into the Ennis House. The stout hotel gave off an air of welcome. So did its owner. The motherly woman, who could be anywhere from thirty to fifty, introduced herself as Miss Kate Ennis.

“But you can call me Aunt Kate, dear. All the boys do,” she added, escorting Lil upstairs to a clean, sunny room. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Well, I could sure use a bath and if there’s someplace I could wash my clothes . . . ?” Lil flicked a hand at her dress, certain the bandbox-neat woman had noted its soiled condition.

Miss Ennis nodded and smiled brightly. “There’s a bathing room down the hall, and I’ll have your things put to soak right away downstairs. Do you have something to wear until they dry?” she inquired, doubtfully eyeing Lil’s beat-up canvas bag.

“I . . . I’ve got my trail clothes, but I reckon you wouldn’t like me walking around in britches.”

The hotel keeper broke into laughter, making her starched gray gown flutter over her bosom. “Good heavens! I’ve seen women dressed in everything from gunny sacks to satin in these parts, honey. A pair of pants won’t bother me.”

Astonished to hear it, Lil laughed along with her. Still, after getting scrubbed up, she finished washing her dress and made sure to have it dried and pressed in time for the evening meal. She didn’t want to shock Miss Ennis’s patrons.

Glad to feel clean once again, she accepted her hostess’s invitation and sat down to eat with her and three male guests in the dining room. Others were scattered around the room at separate tables. Two of the men at Lil’s table were miners. One, a tall man with ruddy skin and chestnut hair, called himself Samuels. The other was a blocky, dark-haired gent who went by the name of Colter. The third man, a pockmarked youth named Zoltan, worked at a smelter outside of town. Aunt Kate scolded and joshed with all three as if they were her sons.

Over dinner, Lil took some joshing herself because of her Texas drawl. She retorted with her favorite joke about a dude who came to Texas, eager to see a real cattle ranch.

“So the boss shows him around the spread,” she said, “and the greenie can’t get over how many steers the cowman owns. And he asks, ‘But where do you get enough hands to milk ’em all?’”

Evidently knowing something about cattle, Kate Ennis and the tall miner, Samuels, immediately broke out laughing. Colter took a moment to catch on, but then he guffawed loudly. Young Zoltan, whose odd accent Lil couldn’t place, gazed blankly at her as she forked up a bite of roast pork and smiled at him.