Helldorado (16 page)

The young man stopped and stared toward the creek several yards away as it slid darkly over rocks between its cottonwood- and aspen-stippled banks.

“How so?” Louisa was perched on a broad cottonwood stump, one bootheel hooked over the stump’s edge, one arm draped over her upraised knee. They’d been talking steadily for nearly two hours. It was almost dark, stars kindling brightly in the lilac sky over the canyon.

Miguel seemed to weigh his response before he turned to her. “After we’d held up the Laramie stage for the umpteenth time, the sheriff ran me and my gang down at an old miner’s shack up amongst the rocky ridges just west of here. The rest of my gang got away, but I was drunk and I fell off my horse. The sheriff threw a rope around me, made me walk back to town and right on up to my father’s front porch. The sheriff asked Pa what he wanted to do with me, and my father said, ‘Keep him here. I’ll saddle a horse.’ ”

Louisa frowned as Miguel stared at her, an oblique smile on his lips, the last light showing dully in his warm eyes.

“What do you think happened next?”

“They threw you in jail, which is right where you belonged.”

Miguel chuckled and shook his head. “They half dragged, half walked me up to an old mine claim on that ridge up there.” He pointed toward the peak rising on the far side of the creek, toward a jumble of boulders near the top. “They lowered me into the mine shaft and left me one canteen and a small burlap sack with jerky in it. My father told me he was going, to leave me there for four days, and during that time I was to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life—whether I wanted to remain a fiddle-footed firebrand who’d likely end up in jail or hanged if I kept on the way I was going, or the respected son of a banker with a nice income and a bright future. Then they went away and, true to his word, Pa rode back to the hole four days later.”

“A tough way to come to a decision,” Louisa said. “But it looks as though you made the right one.”

“I reckon I did. It led right on up to now, with you and me sittin’ here beside Pine Creek and,” he added with a smile, “not shooting it out in some canyon.” His eyes dropped to the pearl grips of Louisa’s Colts that shone brightly in the last light. “I got a feeling my trail would have ended in that canyon.”

“I got a feeling it would have, too.” Louisa looked off, and they were silent for a time. “Miguel?”

“Yes, Miss Louisa?”

“I just got to Juniper and all, but I have no idea if I’ll stay here or not. You see, I’ve been through what Lou would call—if you’ll pardon the expression—knee-deep shit. I’d like to tell you about it someday. But for now, I don’t really trust myself to think too clearly.”

“All right.”

“So, what I’m saying is—I like you and all, and even though we just met a few hours ago, I think it’s very possible I might get to like you even more.”

“My past hasn’t soured you on me?”

“Your honesty’s made you right sweet. We’ve all got trouble behind us.”

“So what you’re saying, Miss Louisa, is that you want to take things slow.”

“That’s right.”

Miguel fidgeted around on the branch for a time before turning to her again with that disarming smile of his. “Does that mean I can’t come over there and steal a quick kiss?”

Louisa felt herself blushing and was glad the growing darkness hid it. “You wouldn’t have to steal one.”

He slid off the branch, walked over to her, and stooped down. She remained on the tree stump, one arm still hooked around her knee, as he set his hands on her shoulders and closed his lips over her mouth.

When he straightened, he said, “That was nice.”

Louisa smiled. Her heart was swelling, and it felt good to just go ahead and let it swell. She suddenly felt a tingle of excitement and hope for the future. She hadn’t felt hopeful about her future in a long, long time.

Miguel Encina offered his arm to her. “Can I interest you in a cup of coffee before turning in?”

“Do they serve sarsaparilla in Juniper?”

“A bounty hunter who drinks sarsaparilla . . .” Miguel laughed as they strolled off toward the town together, arm in arm. “As a matter of fact, they do.”

 

Lou Prophet wasn’t all that taken with the idea of heading over to the Golden Slipper hotel to diddle like proverbial minks with Sivvy Hallenbach, aka Miss Gleneanne O’Shay, because Louisa was holed up over there. His comely partner, or former partner, was well versed in Prophet’s roguish behavior and seemed to have acquired a philosophical attitude about it, but he was just enough embarrassed by it himself that he didn’t want her to actually
see
him at it.

On the other hand, he wasn’t strong enough to deny a pretty girl’s request for carnal pleasure, especially one standing right in front of him clothed in a dark silk wrap so insignificant that he could have stuffed the entire garment inside his right cheek and still had room in his mouth to chew a full meal.

And he couldn’t very well expect Miss Gleneanne O’Shay to follow him over to the Muleskinner’s when she had her own private suite at the Golden Slipper.

So it was to the latter, better-appointed flophouse that he followed Sivvy. The girl—Prophet still considered her a girl though she had to be twenty-six or so—was dressed in a sparkling gold gown, pearls, and mink stole fit for a queen, all of which set off her dark red hair to stupefying effect. It also showed a goodly portion of her pillowy, pale cleavage, nearly causing more than a few heads to swing her way on the route between the opera house and the hotel.

As Prophet followed her across the lobby and up the broad, carpeted stairs, he felt humbled by his own wash-worn though relatively clean trail garb in sharp contrast to Sivvy’s queenlike elegance. She said she had to soak in a hot tub before any horsing around.

“I’d invite you to join me, you handsome ape,” she whispered as two men dressed like wealthy cattle buyers passed them in the hall, giving the actress a cordial nod before glancing at Prophet and looking vaguely befuddled. “But the tub isn’t big enough, and you’d likely crush the daylights out of me. I have to be careful not to damage my lungs.”

“And that’s a right fine set you got there, too, Miss O’Shay,” Prophet quipped as they stopped outside her door, marked by the gilded number 9.

“Oh, Lou,” she squealed, giving him her key and rubbing her shoulder coquettishly against his arm. “I don’t think you’re talking about my lungs!”

Prophet unlocked the door and threw it open, stepping aside to let her pass ahead of him, grinning. “I don’t think I am, either.”

She rubbed against him alluringly as she strode into the cavern-like room with a massive canopied bed and four tall windows bedecked in pleated red-and-gold drapes with bloodred roses stitched into them. There was a thick gold carpet on the floor, several beveled mirrors on the walls, and big chests and marble-topped washstands. Clothes of every shape, color, and size were strewn everywhere.

Sivvy stepped behind a massive privacy screen adorned with more roses, denying Prophet’s request to watch her undress and bathe because: “All women worth their salt know that letting a man watch them bathe diminishes their mystery. And I’m not some harlot, you know, Lou!” As she chided him, she tossed the gold dress over the privacy screen and batted her false eyelashes.

“No, ma’am,” Prophet said, kicking out of his boots.

“At least, I’m not anymore, though I reckon when we first ran into each other I was plying the lesser trade.”

“Never held it against you, Miss O’Shay. A girl’s gotta do what she can in this old world, same as a man.”

“Don’t call me that, big man,” she said, as sounds of water emanated from behind the screen. “Miss O’Shay sounds funny coming from you, Lou. I want you to always call me Sivvy, so I’ll always remember the time we had in that frigid cabin. The good times, anyway—not the Injuns that kicked in our door in that cold, cold night and you had to blast ’em both to smithereens with that big shotgun of yours.”

“Ah, yes,” Prophet said. “Those were simpler times.”

Behind the screen, Sivvy splashed and laughed.

“We were lucky to get through them, but you’re right—things were simpler back then. I was just starting out, heading for Fort Totten to perform at the officer’s theater there. Never made it, but I got an even better job in Bismarck. You know, the territorial governor even watched me perform in
Forty Thieves
. Didn’t visit me backstage or anything, though. He had his wife with him.”

“That’s a damn shame.”

“What’re you doing here, Lou? Still in the bounty-hunting business or you give it up? That and your pact with Ole Scratch?” Sivvy clucked with disapproval.

Prophet poured some liquor from an unlabeled, cut-glass bottle into a thick red goblet, threw back the shot, and poured out another one. It wasn’t rye, but it would do after a long day. “Once you make a pact with Scratch, Sivvy, there’s no goin’ back. No, sir, I’m still high-steppin’ with my tail up, havin’ as much fun as I can find, and in return I’ll likely be shoveling coal for as long as the Devil needs my services.”

“You shouldn’t talk so,” Sivvy counseled. “He might just hear you and hold you to it.” More splashing, and then her voice deepened as though she were scrubbing her neck. “So, what brought you here? Don’t tell me the fork-tailed one had a hand in this, too—our meeting again!”

Prophet sipped his drink, then set the glass on a varnished oak table beside the massive bed and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Nah, a girl brought me here. It ain’t what you might think. I’m tryin’ to get her to settle down. She’s had a tough time. A bounty hunter. A damn purty one. And a young one. She’s got no business in the business, and I figured this was as good a place as any to drop her, hope she sends down a taproot. So far, so good,” he added, hearing the sadness in his own voice.

Sad? What the hell was he sad about, for chrissakes?

“What’s this girl’s name?” Sivvy asked.

“Louisa.”

“Really?”

“A crazy coincidence.”

“You learn this girl to hunt men, did you, Lou?” Prophet chuckled as he shucked out of his denims. “I reckon Louisa learned me as much about the owlhoot hunt as I learned her and probably a little more.”

Water splashed loudly, and then Sivvy’s red head appeared above the privacy screen, her delectable tresses pinned into a comely but careless French braid. “What in the world made you decide to bring her here?” Her head moved as she dried herself, frowning over the screen at Prophet, who’d sat in a chair in the middle of the room, dressed in only his socks and longhandles, holding his drink in one hand on a thigh. His shell belt hung over the back of the chair.

“My friend Hell-Bringin’ Hiram said it was quiet here. And the folks were law-abidin’. I figured Louisa wouldn’t be tempted so to strap her guns on once I finally got ’em off her.”

“Yeah, the folks are law-abidin’,” Sivvy said, tossing a white towel over the privacy screen and bending down out of sight. “Them that’s still alive, that is.”

She said this last so softly that Prophet had barely heard her.

He frowned at her as she straightened, then walked out from behind the privacy screen, wearing nothing but a single strand of pearls jostling across her jiggling, cherry-tipped, flour-white orbs. Prophet was about to ask her what she’d meant by that last comment, but the vision of her there, moving toward him slowly, gracefully, shaking her head so that her hair tumbled deliciously across her shoulders and down her breasts caused his throat to swell almost painfully and his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth.

And then as Sivvy got down on her knees and began peeling his longhandles down his legs, he just got too distracted.

 

A long while later, after he and Sivvy had fallen asleep, something woke him.

He opened his eyes to see the hall door close. It latched with a faint click. In the room’s dense darkness he’d seen a pale figure slip out in front of the door. Now, lying with his eyes open, fully awake, Prophet stared at the door’s black rectangle from behind which he could hear Sivvy say in a harsh whisper, “What the hell are you doing here?”

A man spoke in a slightly hushed tone: “We came to tell ya . . .”

Sivvy must have shushed him, because his voice trailed off.

More softly, but loudly enough for Prophet’s keen hearing, he said, “Came to tell ya he’s here. They’re both here.”

“I know,” Sivvy hissed.

She must have said something else or made a gesture, because the man in the hall chuckled and said even more softly than previously, “You do work fast—I’ll give you that, Miss O’Shay.”

“Get outta here. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You gonna . . . ?”

“
Go!
”

There was the soft tread of boots. The door clicked, and a vertical strip of light shone in the wall where the door was, and Prophet closed his eyes. He heard the soft tap of bare feet on the carpet. The door clicked again.

Sivvy moved across the room, around the end of the bed, and then he felt the bed sag slightly as she crawled back into it.

Prophet rolled onto his back and said abruptly, “Visitor, Miss O’Shay?” He couldn’t keep the irony out of his voice.

The girl gasped then covered it with a laugh. “You know how it is—bein’ famous and all.”

“I reckon.”

“And it ain’t all that late . . . for an actress.”

Sivvy rolled against him, kissed his shoulder, and ran her hand down his belly. Her warm, soft hand slid down even farther. But even the former saloon girl’s beguiling fingers couldn’t keep Prophet from wondering who her visitor had been.

And what they were up to.

LOUISA AWAKENED THE next morning in love.

Or at least in the expectation of love. She hadn’t known Miguel Encina long enough to really be in love with him, and she was far too guarded a young lady to let herself be carted off on gilded emotions by dimpled cheeks, warm brown eyes, and a rich mop of curly chestnut hair. Not to mention money and a stable life.