Mail-Order Man (12 page)

He looked the redhead square in the eye. “For the same reason she's special to you. Because she is special.”

“All right. You've won this round. But mark my words, Brax Hale, this fight isn't over.”

She whirled around, her skirts belling, and beat a hasty departure. Brax knew the fight wasn't over. For now, though, he was out of fight. He fell into a restless sleep punctuated by a redheaded demon welcoming him to the gates of hell.

The specter of Satan appeared to lead Brax into the fiery underworld. With hair of gold and eyes of green, the Lord of Evil had no horns, nor did he carry a pitchfork. He wore natty clothes and carried a satchel. He smiled a brilliant smile that displayed a set of perfect teeth. “Welcome to hell,” he intoned. “I've been waiting for you.”

“I'm glad you're dead.”

“I'm not dead. The pure die young. You and I are still on earth. It's my duty to see that you're never content. Son.”

“You've done that, John Hale.”

 

 

Midday in Austin, Texas—a scorcher in late August of 1865—John Hale, M.D., wore a fine set of clothes as he sauntered into Governor A. J. Hamilton's office in the capitol building. He strolled in triumphant, a conquering hero.

The governor rose from his oversize walnut desk. “John Larkin Hale, welcome back to Texas.”

“Thank you, Governor. Same to you.”

The bespectacled Hamilton, a Texan of long standing Unionist sympathies, had been newly appointed by President Andrew Johnson. Hamilton had returned to Texas in June from an exile in Mexico. Order was begun. John Hale intended to be part of it.

The governor rested his elbows on the desk and laced his fingers over the buttons of his waistcoat. “We set those seditious slave-mongers on their posteriors, didn't we?”

“That we did.”

“You came through the war no worse for the wear, I note.”

“I do fine for my age.”

He did more than fine for fifty-seven. Few men in middle years had a young wife and two pubescent children. Hell, most men his age couldn't even get it up, much less once a week. If only Harriet weren't tied to her mama's apron strings . . .

“I have my health, my good looks, and I'm never without a superlative tailor. Moreover, I went to the winning side in the rebellion. What more could I ask for?”

Hamilton fiddled with a watch fob. “How's the family?”

John knew Hamilton didn't mean his faithless wife and her miserable issue in Mississippi. Them, he'd been able to keep hidden. They were no longer cause for concern, anyway; word had reached him a year ago that Elizabeth and the rest were dead.

Thank Lucifer.

For the past fifteen years, John had enjoyed a bigamous relationship with a wife who knew nothing of his first family. And he now had a pair of beautiful children whom he knew to be his.

“John?”

“Oh, pardon me, Governor. You asked about Harriet and the youngsters. The climate in the islands has taken—”

“Islands? I thought they rode out the war at her sister's home in Pennsylvania. You don't mean they were with you at your post in the Caribbean Sea? Let's see. You were a major in the medical corps stationed at the prison camp on the Dry Tortugas, I do believe.”

John looked down his patrician nose, verily smelling the fruits of disrespect. “President Lincoln himself decreed that my experiences warranted a high rank. I was a
colonel
in the United States Army. I assumed you kept up with my doings.”

“John, John, don't get touchy. I had many people to keep up with, from a backwater country without proper lines of communication. Please go on telling me about your family.”

“Harriet and the children joined me at Fort Jefferson. They were headed for her sister's in Harrisburg, but stopped their sea voyage for a visit. A detestable place if there ever was one.” John brushed the arm of his silk suit, remembering with displeasure his days as prison-camp physician. “Nevertheless, we decided to stay together as a family.”

“It brings me joy to see such devotion in a family.”

“Thank you, Governor. But the climate in the islands took its toll on young Andrew. His asthma. I thought he might outgrow weak lungs, but he's now a lad of ten, and his lungs, well . . . The drier air in the West should do wonders for him.”

“And the little girl, Abigail. How does she fare?”

“Like her mother and brother, she's anxious to resettle in Texas.” John was aggravated by the delays that kept his family in those infernal coral islets near Key West. “I'll send for them, as soon as you appoint me to a post . . .”

“Yes, of course.” Hamilton picked up a sheet of paper, scanning it. “You've applied for a coroner's office.”

“To go along with my medical practice, naturally. I have plans to open another infirmary. We'd hoped for Bexar County.”

“Bexar County is yours.”

Though he'd gotten his wish, it would be a mixed blessing. John didn't find himself anxious to face Bexar County at all, but Harriet whined to be near her battle-ax mama in that county's seat. There were times John wished he hadn't married a younger woman. They tended to have mothers on the loose.

At least Elizabeth hadn't had a mother to breathe down his neck. But that was her only saving grace. The happiest day of John's life was the morning he had abandoned Natchez—and the adulterous Elizabeth Braxton Hale.

Skylla couldn't believe her ears, for Claudine, now that Braxton's fever was gone, had just said, “I demand you send that blackguard away.”

Up to her elbows in soap suds, she scraped discarded bandages against the rub board. “No.”

“No?” Claudine used her foot to shove the wash pail away. Water sloshed on the cookhouse floor as well as on the hem of her skirts. “How can you tell me
no?”

Skylla straightened, massaged her fist against the ache in her lower back, and stuck by her guns. “Blast it, Claudi. How can you stand in this kitchen and argue about Braxton when Kathy Ann is still missing!”

“She's only been gone a day. Charlie is looking for her. And I sent Geoff to help.” Claudine elaborated. “I'm concerned about the girl—believe me I am—but what do you want me to do? Drown myself in worry about a disobedient whelp while I see you throwing away this ranch? Brax could well sell this place out from under our feet.”

“You have nothing to prove—not even a whisper of proof—that he has ulterior motives. Claudi, you've jumped to a conclusion.”

“Ask Homer Daggitt if you don't believe me. He'll tell you Brax Hale is a cardsharp. Everything he presented to us was the same as stolen. The shoat, the chickens, the food, the supplies. Think, Daisy, think. If Brax cheats men at cards, what else is he capable of?”

“Homer Daggitt is a mean-minded man, and everyone in town knows it.”

After pacing up and down the kitchen, Claudine said, “Have you ever asked yourself
why
Brax wants this marriage so much? A man with his appeal shouldn't need to come all the way to Texas simply to answer a newspaper advertisement. He could get a wife of means anywhere.”

“Oh? How many rich ladies did we leave behind in Mississippi, Claudi?”

“He could have waited for a Yankee bride.”

“He isn't looking for an easy berth. He's wanting to be settled.”

“Yes, and green apples are purple. Skylla St. Clair, that man is not—I repeat, not!—right for you. He's going to hurt you. You just wait and see.”

“You aren't being fair to Braxton.”

“Oh? Daisy, the Hales were déclassé long before the war. And there were rumors, awful rumors about his parents.”

“He shouldn't have to pay for the sins of others.”

“You should have a look at the strange fruit in his family tree. Take a hard perusal of that colored boy, Skylla St. Clair. You'll see a family resemblance.”

“If I looked for strange fruit, I'd look no further than Teddy Twill. Your own kin.” Several times Skylla had wondered if Braxton had ties to his batman, since the bond between them was evident. As she'd concluded, she now answered, “Geoff is a fine young man.”

“How do you feel about tying in with a liar?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was specific. The age limit was twenty-nine.”

“Braxton is twenty-nine.”

“Impossible. The strapping blacksmith who served as stud to a multitude of Vicksburg women couldn't be twenty-nine. Not unless he started rolling women in the hay at fourteen.”

“May I remind you of a secret you shared with me one stormy evening in Biloxi? A storm—next to a hurricane—had uprooted the chinaberry tree outside my bedchamber window. You and I were scared witless. We got tipsy on scuppernong wine. We—”

“I was grieving for my third husband, Mr. Lewis.”

“And I was worried sick over James leaving for the navy. I told you I'd given him my virginity, and you admitted you lost your maidenhood at eleven. And your young man had been
twelve.”

“Skylla!”

“The point is, Braxton could have been promiscuous at fourteen with those Vicksburg ladies.”

“With Joanie Johnson? He did it with Joanie Johnson.”

A pair of yucks merged into cackles, and cut the strained moment. Joanie Johnson's daddy had been the richest cotton planter in the Delta, but his daughter was the most repugnant creature in the entire Deep South.

Claudine sobered, grabbing the baton of argument anew. “Furthermore, the next week
—the next week—
Brax's mother took delivery of a piano. It was said the buyer's name was Johnson.”

“You're making an awful accusation.” Even more awful than Joanie Johnson. “Virgil Petry would't have sent us a scoundrel,” Skylla pointed out. “If you heard those rumors long-distance, the lawyer surely would have heard them, too.”

“My initial reaction as well. Which is why I've written Virgil and asked him to explain his reasoning.”

Incensed that Claudine would go to such lengths, Skylla had to school her anger, else she would have shouted something scathing, rather than reply quietly: “I'm wondering why you waited to make these accusations. I'm wondering why you didn't say something the day Braxton arrived here.”

“I should have.” Claudine went over to a chair and sat down. “Since it's my duty to protect my stepdaughter, may I have the liberty to point out some other facts? Your cherished Sergeant Hale is not—I repeat
not—
a degreed member of the medical profession. He's just a quack who calls himself a doctor.”

“Uncle told me he was a self-taught man, that he'd gotten his learning through books, and by looking over his father's shoulder. Moreover, he studied Indian medicine.”

“Quackery.”

“Claudi, he doesn't claim to be a doctor with credentials. He was drafted into the practice of medicine during the war. Furthermore, has he ever asked anyone to address him as Doctor?”

The redhead went for the whiskey, downed a shot. A black look speared Skylla; Claudine had not given up. “He's a crook and a liar. He'll have to go.”

Skylla's head swam, bedeviled with Claudine's arguments. Was he devious? Surely not. Whatever the case, no one was perfect, and she decided to trust his integrity. “He can't go anywhere. He's got to convalesce.” Oliver Brown had given a good prognosis before leaving, but Braxton remained bedridden. Skylla continued her obstinance. “He's not going anywhere until I say so.”

“Oh, Daisy . . .”

“I want to know something. Do you really want to send him away? Or are you up to something? Since you've long known of Braxton's past, I don't believe you've given up on him, not on the strength of the idle gossip of a buffoon.”

Claudine studied her fingernails. “I can't stop thinking about him.” A tear made a path down her check. “If he were to say the word, I'd have him in an instant. We're alike, you and me. We're both weak for Brax Hale.”

“Whatever are we going to do, Claudi?”

“I just don't know. Trust in the fates, I suppose.”

 

 

“I'm back.”

Convalescing in bed the afternoon after he'd removed the slug from his leg, Brax pulled the covers over his head and rolled onto his side, away from the returned Piglet. “Just my luck. The Comanches didn't lift your scalp.”

He expected one of her usual smart-mouthed remarks, but Kathy Ann sang a different tune. “I'm sorry about shooting you.”

“Is that so?”

She stepped over to the bed. Her pudgy hand held up a crumpled sack. “This is for you.”

He expected spiders to crawl out of the offering. Instead, stuck-together horehound candy filled the sack.

“I didn't eat any of it. I saved it all for you.”

Brax put the peace offering on his lap. “Did you steal this candy?”

“I didn't. I traded Mr. Kreitz for it.”

“What did you trade?” he asked and dreaded the reply.

“A couple of topaz stones. I found them in the kitchen the other night. They were in an empty medicine bottle.”

Brax recalled Titus squirreling this and that away. Boon surprises weren't the problem. “A trip to town wouldn't take long. Where have you been? Your sister's worried sick.”

Reaching into the sack, Kathy Ann helped herself to a piece of candy “I went to town to sell the jewels, so's I could get money to go to New Orleans. When Mr. Kreitz wouldn't give me real money, I got the idea to come back and give the candy to you. It was dark by then, so I slept under a tree. I was on my way here when Geoff and Charlie found me.”

She licked her fingers. “You know what happened before that? I saw Stalking Wolf from a distance. Sarge . . . he acted real peculiar. He was standing on a bluff overlooking the Llano River, jabbering to the sky and stabbing himself with a knife. He scared me half out of my skin.”

“He mourned for a lost loved one, Kathy Ann. That's the way Indians deal with loss.”

“Indians don't have feelings. They're like wild dogs, doing nothing but going around fighting and acting ugly.”

“They're people, just like you and me. On second thought,
few
are like you and me,” Brax corrected dryly.

He'd never encountered an Indian as rotten and no-account as the pair in this sickroom. They were a lot alike, Brax and Piglet. Troubled, rootless, opinionated. Merciless.

“They have ways that are unusual to the white man,” he said, “but theirs is an admirable race.”

“I don't understand why they do the stuff they do.”

“They're just as stymied by our ways.”

“If you say so.”

“Did you know there've been many cases of whites marrying Indians? It's not a bad life, I promise you. You might want to read up on Cynthia Ann Parker. She—”

“I've heard of her.” Piglet's face brightened. “What with her, and with your recommendation, why, a girl might find herself a place with heathens.”

“Don't get any harebrained ideas.
You
are too young to be away from your family.” Topaz not out of his mind, he asked, “Kathy Ann, what kind of getup was Stalking Wolf wearing? Make that, was he wearing any sort of jewelry?”

“I didn't get close enough to tell.”

“Nothing flashed in the sunlight?”

“No.”

It could be that the Comanche chief hadn't chosen to wear as adornment the topaz stones he'd stolen from Titus. Brax doubted it. Indians had a great respect for beauty and beautiful objects. They would have been fascinated by the bright blue baubles. Brax wondered what had become of Titus's lost treasure.

“What's the matter?” Kathy Ann got a worried look on her face at his silence. “Are you okay?”

“I'm all right. I'm thinking about something.”

It suddenly struck Brax. He was conversing with the Piglet. Conversing without antagonism. Strange, he ought to feel more antagonism than ever. She'd nearly killed him; then two men had put their lives on the line to save her hide.

Brax looked her dead in those beady eyes. “Where are Geoff and Charlie?”

“Building the aqueduct, I guess. Last I saw, they were headed that way. Least, that's what Geoff told Charlie to do, help him and Skylla. Claudine's filing her nails.”

Being a man who enjoyed having good ideas and having others act on them, Brax was pleased that Skylla hadn't forgotten his mention of an irrigation ditch. But he didn't want her doing men's work. He needed to get into his boots.

If someone had told him in Vicksburg that he'd end up working a ranch, he'd have called the accuser “touched in the head.” He remained averse to ranching, and would gladly say goodbye to being a strong back, but he felt good about his efforts.

Did this mean he wanted to settle here? No! While he knew Skylla had a soft spot for this ranch, he also knew she'd be better off once it was no more than a memory.

He'd show her the soft life in California.
That's the sap's way, Hale.
He wouldn't be a sap to set her up properly. Whatever she did, and wherever she did it, she'd be fine.

Nonetheless, his conscience kept nagging him about leaving her to her own devices. He decided to nip it in the bud. Men had been deserting women for centuries—a lesson well learned at his pappy's knee—but . . . But, hell. Elizabeth Hale had had it tough, but she'd lacked Skylla's backbone. And Brax wouldn't leave Skylla with four children and no roof over their heads.

What if she got in the family way while he was making certain the marriage would be legal? Surely once or twice wouldn't hurt.
Didn't you learn anything about conception?
Then again, Songbird, a mother of two, had never conceived with him.

His bullets might be blanks.

The slurp and suck of candy-eating drew his attention. “Planning to leave any of that for me?”

“I'm hungry.”

“Then go to the kitchen and get something decent to eat.”

She got one of those hardheaded looks on her moon face. “You aren't my boss. I don't have to do nothing just 'cause you say it.”

Once he could navigate around, he intended to check the looking glass and see if he'd sprouted gray hair over her. “Could I ask you a favor? Would you please,
please
hand me that rifle over there? Yes, that one. Thank you.” Brax took up Claudine's Spencer, got the Piglet brat in sight—boy, had her raisin eyes gotten big—then said, “If you'll move just a little to the right, we won't knock a hole through Skylla's outside wall when I blow your brains out for back-talking me.”

Kathy Ann hit the floor.

Brax lowered the scope to her level. “Are you or are you not going to fill your belly with something besides sweets?”

“I'm gonna, I'm gonna,” she squeaked, her head covered with her hands.

Brax set the rifle beside him on the bed. “I take it you like the idea of living.”