Fair Is the Rose (34 page)

She swallowed, finding the words difficult to say. "Dixi says she likes him. Why not let her get him off your back? He won't go arresting anybody if he's partaking of the fun."

Faulty turned his gaze to the piano where Dixi sat widi Joe. Even Christal could see the way Dixiana was eyeing the sheriff. Confused, Faulty asked, "You think he'll take her?
Seems he's got his eye on you."

"He's not ever going to have me."

Faulty opened his mouth as if to plead with her once more, but sensing it was useless, he sighed and went to go get Dixi.

Christal turned from the door, pointedly refusing to watch. She didn't know how she would handle it if during the evening she saw Macaulay take Dixi by the hand and walk upstairs.

A soft knock interrupted her misery. She went to the back door and found Jericho there, hat in hand, fresh from his weekly supply trip to Jan Peterson's. He was a tall man, young and strong. No woman would consider him handsome, but he had a warm, quick gaze and a polite manner. Christal could understand why Ivy was in love with him.

She put her finger to her lips. She tiptoed to the kitchen door, being careful not to look at either Cain or Dixi. She closed the door,
then
let Jericho into the kitchen.

"Would you like some beans? Have you had supper?" she whispered.

Jericho shook his head.
"No, ma'am."

"You want me to fetch Ivy and then maybe you two could have supper together? I'll make sure Faulty doesn't come back here. I think I can give you an hour."

"That's mighty nice of you, Miss Christal."

Christal smiled. She nodded to a chair, then left to fetch Ivy Rose.

Ivy's whole face lit up when she told her Jericho had arrived. She eyed Faulty, making sure his attention was elsewhere,
then
she left with Christal for the kitchen.

Christal served them dinner and watched for Faulty, the whole time thinking what a strange world they lived in. Unlike Faulty, or Dixi and Ivy, or most of the saloon's customers, she had grown up wealthy, well aware of the classes considered "beneath" her. But her experience out west taught her that even a low man could find another below him to crush. The country had fought an entire war so black men could be free. But they still couldn't walk into a saloon in a crummy little town like Noble and order a drink and talk with a pretty girl. Instead, they had to knock on the back door and hide in the kitchen. When the weather was warm, Jericho had to settle for just sitting on the back porch for twenty minutes while Ivy took a break from customers, and when it was cold he didn't even have that. The only way Jericho could see Ivy these days was behind Faulty's back.

"You want a whiskey?" Christal asked the muscular black man.

Jericho nodded. He laid the necessary coins down on the table.

"I'll get it." Ivy stood from the table and squeezed his hand. Hers looked almost white in his; he was very dark.

"No." Christal stopped her. "I'll get it. If Faulty sees you walking back here with a whiskey, he'll know what's going on."

"Thanks." Ivy smiled,
then
looked at her man. Jericho was a homesteader, freed from Missouri. He lived in a shack east of town and had come to Wyoming with only a mule to plant wheatgrass. He'd been fairly successful. The soil hadn't lasted enough seasons to make him rich, but when the ground petered
out,
he'd saved enough money to buy some cattle. Many said that was going to be the future of the territory, but the future hadn't arrived yet. Jericho was still living in his log shack, unable to purchase the lumber for a real home, and though all the girls knew he hated what Ivy did to earn her room and board, he couldn't bring himself to take her from the warmth and comfort of the saloon until he had the proper place for her.

But even now, Christal could see Ivy didn't care about waiting. The girl would go tonight if Jericho would only let her. No man had ever been
so
nice to her as Jericho was. He talked to her and asked about her feelings. He made her laugh. He told funny stories about roughing it out on the homestead, sometimes not seeing the sky for days when the shack was buried beneath ten-foot drifts of snow, and watching the contents of his chamberpot freeze before he was even finished with it. Christal couldn't understand the logic behind barring Jericho from the saloon. Being a black man, he would never be allowed upstairs, yet as mean as some of the cowpokes could get, especially when they were drunk, the cow-pokes were white and therefore the only men "good" enough to use Dixi's or Ivy's bedroom.

But they talked that this might be the spring when they would finally be free. Jericho hoped to make good money on his
cattle, that
was, if the cold and the wolves didn't take too many down in the meantime. If he could make a good sale, he'd have enough money to marry Ivy proper. Christal kept her fingers crossed for both of them. If Ivy could marry, then someone would escape. And every time Christal thought of the man drinking whiskey in the corner of the saloon, in his black Stetson, she was no longer sure it would be her.

"I'll be right back with that whiskey," she said, untying her apron. She wished she could get it without entering the bar. For some reason she had a terrible thought that she was going to walk into the saloon and Dixi was going to be swinging her leg, sitting in the sheriff's lap.

She closed the door behind her, doing her best not to look in the corner. Business was picking up and Faulty was busy pouring at the bar. She ordered a whiskey, still not looking for Dixiana, still not looking in the corner.

"Another one for that damned sheriff?" he cursed, sliding a glass to a cowhand.

She didn't answer, glad he'd been so busy he hadn't seen where she'd come from.

He poured two fingers in a glass and slid it to her. She took it, dismayed that he was watching her, waiting for her to give it to Cain.

She turned. With a strange, unspeakable relief, she saw Dixiana dancing with a cowhand—very far away from the brooding man in the corner.

"Well, go on. Give it to him. All I need is for him to decide we ain't serving fast enough." Faulty angrily clanked the bottles on the bar.

Christal walked to Macaulay. She could see him staring at her, his eyes glittering beneath the black brim of his hat.

"Business is good tonight," he said before she put the whiskey down.

"It should be," she commented coolly. "I heard you shut down Mrs. Delaney's."

"It isn't legal to run a cathouse. It's only a matter of time before this one goes too. The minute I see one of you girls accepting money—"

"The girls have got to make a living. What else are they going to do?"

"They can run a saloon or a penny opera. I told them when they're ready I'll even go in with them and they can give me part ownership."

"So you're cleaning up the town. Just what everyone
wants.
" She didn't bother to hide the disdain on her face. She felt bad for Mrs. Delaney's girls. Some of them were real nice. She hoped the opera house worked.

"This place is next." He fingered a coin lying in front of him on the table; his eyes glittered with shadowed emotion.

She looked down. It wasn't a coin he was
fingering,
it was the whore's token Faulty had given him. Faulty had told him it was just a souvenir, and most men looked at them that way. Whore's tokens were a joke. They were notoriously never honored. Faulty had only given the thing to Cain in a clumsy attempt to try to read the new sheriff's attitude. Her lips twisted in a derisive smile. Faulty probably thought he was being cagey by giving Cain the token, but Cain wasn't stupid. He knew what was going on at the saloon. And soon he would get whatever cold, hard proof he wanted and shut them down.

She watched his thumb stroke back and forth along the surface of the token. Her gaze met his and she could barely repress the fury that suddenly seized her. When he had acted the outlaw, he'd treated her with some deference. Now that he was sheriff, he seemed to be just waiting for a turn, as if she were a piece of venison on a spit.

"Why do you keep that thing when you know I'll never honor it?" she whispered to him, her eyes glittering with anger.

He covered the token with his palm and slid it into his pocket. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do with you yet."

She stared at him, her face as emotionless as alabaster. He'd made her care for him in Falling Water. Back then, she knew they had had something good between them. But now he'd returned and all she wanted to do was hate him. And the curse was that she couldn't.

Faulty was behind a crowd of men at the bar, his attention consumed by demands for whiskey. Without saying another word to Macaulay, she turned and took her chance to sneak back to the kitchen.

But his hand shot out and stopped her.
"Where you going with my whiskey, girl?"

"Who said this was your whiskey? Get it from the bar like everyone else." She tossed her head in the direction of the dance floor. "Or have Dixiana get it for you. She'll honor that token and with my blessing."

"If I thought that'd get a rise out of you, I'd take her tonight." He pulled her near to him, even though he was still seated. He whispered, "But I'll tell you true, Christal, I'd rather take you."

She met his gaze. If she were the girl she had once been, she would have dropped the tray and whiskey, and slapped his face, then walked away with all the dignity of a dowager duchess.

But she wasn't that girl any longer. She'd slept with this man, clung to him for protection, and now feared him as she feared few others. If things were different, and he asked her to be his wife and have his children, she believed she might be the happiest woman alive. But things were all messed up, and her feelings for him were all stirred into the mess. And now all she wanted was him to be gone. She had too much to lose to allow herself to be intimate with him.

"Excuse me," she said coolly, refusing to look at him. With slow, wooden steps, she returned to the kitchen.

She silently gave Jericho his drink. Ivy and he were whispering and laughing so much, they hardly noticed her pensive mood. She was about to return to the saloon, when Faulty burst through the kitchen door.

"Where the
hell are
you girls? Dixiana's out there trying to please the whole of 'em while you two are back here just sittin'—and—" Faulty's gaze found Jericho. Jericho stood, his mouth tense, his eyes defiant. Ivy nearly fainted. Christal just looked on in horror.

"What the hell are you doin'?" Faulty gasped. In a knee-jerk reaction, he skittered to the kitchen door to close it to the view of his customers. Then he nearly knocked Ivy over in his fury. "Are you stupid, girl? I can't have
no
darkies in here! That'll bust up business surer than a tornado!"

"They were only spending a moment together," Christal interrupted. "Jericho comes to town on Tuesdays to get his supplies. He just stopped by to say hello. I invited him in. It was my doing, not Ivy's."