Dorothy Garlock (33 page)

Della grimaced. She went to the door, opened it, and slammed it shut so hard the walls shook. The only move the woman made was to turn her head. She began to snore. Della went around to the side of the bed, unwound the whip from her hand, and struck the white, bare buttocks a stinging blow. There was an instant response. The woman reared up in the bed. She brushed the hair from her face. Her wide, startled eyes looked at Della with disbelief.

“What the hell!”

“Get up and get out,” Della said quietly.

“Get out? Who’n the hell are you to be tellin’ me to get out? This is my room.”

“Not if I want it. I’m Della Clayhill. I’ll give you ten minutes to get this room cleaned up and to get out.”

“This room goes with my job. Mr. Clayhill said so.”

“Mr. Clayhill isn’t here, but I am . . . with this little persuader.” Della flicked her lightly on the thigh with the tip of the whip.

Bessie was a big-boned, handsome woman with thick, auburn hair, large amber eyes and voluptuous breasts. She had started singing in saloons at the age of fifteen, and now, in her late twenties, she was perfectly capable of handling almost any situation that came up during the course of an evening in the saloon. This was an entirely different matter. She’d heard of Della Clayhill, the beautiful stepdaughter of the wealthiest man in the northwest territories. She’d seen her riding through town in her buggy. Dressed all in white, with her beautiful, smiling face framed with silky blond hair, she had looked like a fairy princess. Bessie had envied her. She had wondered what it would be like to be so beautiful, to have all the lovely clothes she wanted, to live in a grand house and have a nigger drive her around in a handsome buggy.

The cold, little pissant didn’t look beautiful to her now. She was looking down her nose at her as if she were a wart on a mule’s ass! But the bitch not only had a whip in her hand, she was the owner’s stepdaughter! Bessie got off the bed. She felt big and gauche beside the woman. She didn’t like the feeling. Pride forced her to hold her head high while she crossed the room to pick up a robe.

Della stood silently and watched as Bessie picked up her clothes. When she had an armful, she dropped them outside the door and came back to dump the rest of her things in a worn valise. When she went out the door, she slammed it behind her. It was flung open almost immediately.

“Take your pisspot with you.”

Bessie put down the valise, walked back into the room, and picked up the half-filled chamber pot. She turned and looked down at Della with raised brows.

“Of course, your ladyship,” she said in a mocking English accent heavily laced with sarcasm. “Anything else, your ladyship?” She held the pot in her hands, silently daring the other woman to insult her again.

Della flushed angrily and her hand tightened on the whip.

“Go ahead,
princess.
Touch me with that whip and you’ll get this right in the face!”

The two women glared at each other. Bessie was tempted to douse her with the contents of the pot regardless of whether or not she raised her hand. Finally, it was Della who, with a superior smile, backed away and motioned with her hand for Bessie to leave.

Outside the door, Bessie paused. She was so angry, and her legs trembled so that she feared they would be unable to carry her down the hall to the small room at the rear. She’d had her share of hard knocks in this world, but never before had she been treated like so much . . . horseshit!

Bessie sat down on the sagging bed and stared at the bare floor of the room that was only used, now and then, by a drifter or a gambler who had the price. The walls were unfinished, rough plank boards, the window small and high. The air in the room was heavy and smelled of dirty feet. She clenched and unclenched her fist and gritted her teeth in frustration. That cold bitch would pay for this, she vowed. She’d see her humiliated and dragged in the dirt if it was the last thing she ever did!

Logan enjoyed the day he spent in Cooper’s company. For the first time since he’d come west he was companionably at ease with another man. They looked over the horses Cooper had for sale and Logan picked out twenty head, the beginning of a remuda for his ranch. Cooper promised to have the horses saddle broken, ready to work, and delivered to the Spurlock ranch in a month’s time.

For several hours they discussed brands and the immediate necessity for Logan to get one on his stock and registered with the Cattlemen’s Association in Denver. They traced several designs in the dirt with a stick and Logan decided on a five-pointed star. Cooper showed it to his foreman who was also the smithy on the ranch and he set to work forging the iron.

Before the day was over Logan bought a big, gentle roan gelding for Rosalee to ride, and helped Cooper select the mares suitable to put to his spotted stallion. By evening, a tired but contented Mercury had serviced each of the mares twice and they were reasonably sure some of them had caught.

Cooper was greatly interested in Logan’s chestnut mare and the foal sired by Mercury. Logan discovered the tall, blond man was far more knowledgeable about good horse flesh than he was. Cooper suggested his stud, Roscoe, would make a good sire for the foal’s issue and Logan agreed. As it was time for the fool to be weaned from the mare, Cooper offered to keep them at the ranch in separate corrals until Logan was settled on his own ranch.

They were at the horse trough. Cooper splashed water on his sweaty face and wiped it on his neckerchief. He grinned, friendly blue eyes catching and holding friendly dark ones. He had spent the day with this man. There was a lot about him he liked.

“I’ve got a thing to ask you.” From the tone of Logan’s voice Cooper knew it wasn’t easy for this man to ask a favor of any man. He remained silent and nodded his head. Logan took a paper from his pocket. “This is a letter to Randolph. I’d he obliged if you’d see that Rosalee and her brother and sister get to him if things don’t work out for me.”

“If it comes to that, I’ll see that it’s done.” Cooper nodded again solemnly, took the letter and put it in his shirt pocket. “Let’s go eat. I can smell Ma’s berry pie from here.”

It was not until the morning Logan and Rosalee were leaving for town that Sylvia found the chance to speak with Logan alone. It was scarcely daylight when she went out to scatter grain for the chickens and saw him in the far corral with the nervous foal. She hurried through the chore and walked rapidly alongside the pole fence toward him.

“Mornin’,” she called. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

“Mornin’.” Logan released the fidgeting foal, and she took off on the run. “This girl is aware of that and wants her mother.”

The colt, with her tail standing straight up, raced the length of the corral, wheeled, and came prancing back on slender, dancing legs. She stood at the railed fence with head and tail upflung, squealing her displeasure, her eyes fixed on her mother, who grazed with Cooper’s mares in the pasture beyond the house.

“She’s a pretty thing.” Sylvia moved up close to the fence.

“She’ll make a fine mare,” Logan answered and crawled between the rails to stand beside her.

Uneasiness touched him and his stomach muscles began to tighten. There was no doubt in his mind that Mrs. Parnell had sought him out to talk about Rosalee. She was nervous. She fidgeted, shifted her feet, and her hands held the grain pan to her so tightly the edge pushed into her side. To Logan’s watchful eyes these little signals betrayed her. He filled his nostrils with the fresh morning air and waited, knowing there was no polite way he could stop her from saying what she had come to say.

Sylvia’s blue eyes flicked down to his feet and then moved up across his chest to his face. She stepped back so she didn’t have to tilt her head so high to see him, her eyes locked with his, and in them she saw deep tension but also learned patience.

“Mr. Horn, ah . . . Logan—” She corrected herself and looked away from him and back again. Her composure was almost shattered by the quiet waiting look on his face; but with determination she tightened her trembling lips, took a deep, hurtful breath, and waited for the knot of tension in her throat to dissolve.

“Yes, ma’am?” he prompted.

“May I speak to you in . . . confidence?”

“Certainly, ma’am.” He clamped his jaws shut after the words. Here it comes, he thought. Without him being aware of it, the look on his face altered, leaving it devoid of expression.

Sylvia forced herself to continue looking up into his dark face. “I tried all night to think of a way to say this—” she began in a breathless whisper, and could not go on.

“You won’t embarrass me, ma’am. Say what you have to say and don’t let it trouble you.” He took a slow breath. His disappointment was choking him. He had been so comfortable here, so sure that his relationship with Rosalee was not offensive to her. He would let her have her say, then tell her that nothing she, or anyone else, could say to him would keep him from his love if she wanted him.

“I must say it!” Sylvia said with a sudden burst of courage. “I must know if . . . you know who your father is!”

Her unexpected words threw him completely off balance. Dismay rose in him, stopping his breath in his throat. The words on his lips died between his hard-clamped jaws. He looked down at the woman, his eyes hard.

“Why should that concern you, ma’am?”

His cold question raked through her like a jagged blade, but she met his downbearing gaze steadily, gathering strength from the thought that now it was started, it had to be finished.

“I know a man who has a crooked finger—like yours. It’s a family legacy passed down to one or two of the children in each generation.” She took a trembling breath when she saw the hatred flare in his eyes, and his hand resting on the rail, the one with the crooked finger, clenched into a hard fist. Sylvia spoke again before her courage left her. “He had a son by a Cheyenne woman whose name was Morning Sun.” The last words came out on an expelled breath.

“Is there something you want to know, Mrs. Parnell?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the resentment in his voice.

She closed her eyes tightly. All the color drained from her face and she moved her head from side to side. Her chest rose with her slow indrawn breath.

“No,” she whispered, then, “Yes. I must know if you know who he is.”

“I know,” he said harshly. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, or do you want to know more of the sordid details of my life?”

“I don’t mean to pry into your background, but I had to know. There’s something I want
you
to know. Something that may be important to you.” She hesitated, then placed her hand on his where it rested on the fence rail. “This man, the one with the crooked finger, is Cooper’s father, too.”

In the waiting stillness Logan uttered a word on an exploded breath. “Godamighty!”

“Cooper doesn’t know,” Sylvia said quickly.

“Godamighty! That means—”

“Yes. You and my son are half brothers.”

“But . . . why are you telling me? And why haven’t you told Cooper?”

“I want him to know . . . someday. It’s his right. But I’m afraid if he knew now he’d go gunning for him. He knows his father left me unwed. He suffered taunts for being a bastard when he was young and didn’t know what a bastard was. I had to explain to him what it meant.”

“Does
he
know about Cooper?”

“He knows a girl by the name of Sylvia Williamson was pregnant with his child when he sneaked away in the middle of the night and left her to face the disgrace of being pregnant and unwed.” A pained look came over her face as she remembered. “He came to Bent’s Fort and spent several months there. He said he’d been held captive by the Cheyenne but escaped and was on his way East. I had never met a man like him—handsome, glib of tongue. He could charm the skin off a snake when he set his mind to it! One night, after he’d taken my virginity, he told me about the Indian woman, Morning Sun, and about the son born to her with the crooked finger, a legacy passed down through his bloodline to one or two offspring of each generation. He was quite proud of the fact. He was going to take me back to Saint Louis and give me the world.” Although she spoke quietly, the very softness of her voice gave her words a harsh quality. “He did give me something far more precious—my son,” she said finally.

Logan was stunned into silence, and Sylvia seemed compelled to tell him everything.

“Needless to say I was a disgrace to my missionary parents. I left my home and worked as a laundress at the fort. Cooper was about five years old when I married Oscar Parnell, who was everything a father could be to my son. After years of hard work we finally saved the money to buy this place. Oscar died before we got here.”

“Does
he
know you’re here?”

“I’ve heard about his crooked finger, and I’ve seen him from a distance; but I’ve not come face to face with him and I hope to God I never do.”

The vein beneath the fair skin of her temple showed blue in the morning light and Logan knew what a strain on her it had been to tell her story. He took the pan from her hands.

“Thank you for telling me, ma’am. I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through, but I can’t help but feel glad that Cooper and I have some of the same blood, sorry as it is.”

Sylvia clasped his hand in both of hers. “I saw how the two of you hit it off and I was so pleased. Cooper didn’t have many friends while he was growing up. People can be cruel to a small child, as I’m sure you know. If the time should ever come that he should know about his father, and I’m not here to tell him, tell him what I’ve told you and he’ll know it’s the truth.”

“You can depend on it.”

*   *   *

The wonder of Sylvia Parnell’s words stayed with Logan all through the leave-taking. He tried to keep his eyes from straying to his newly discovered half brother, tried to keep his mind on what the women were saying.

“Don’t worry about Odell. We’re going to make up that pretty, yellow cloth Logan bought for her and in a few days Cooper will bring us to town.” Sylvia gave Rosalee a final hug.