One Went to Denver and the Other Went Wrong (Code of the West) (13 page)

  “Oh, all right. It’s that case I was telling you about, Dillard.”

  “My word. Do you mind if I join in? It’s a very curious case.”

  “By all means, come on. Rebecca Maria, we will be in the library if anyone is looking for us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mrs. Dillard, it is with regret that we must hurry off. You still owe me a dance, young lady.”

  “I will keep my word, Governor.”

  “Yes .
 . . yes, that will be very nice. Mr. Dillard, if you will go downstairs and get Judge Rankin, I’ll meet you in the . . .”

  Their voices faded as the two men hurried out of the bedroom into the hall. The door swung closed behind them.

  “I think the governor will miss his own ball,” Rebecca Maria commented. She fluffed up a pillow behind Pepper. “Would you like me to go down and fetch you some refreshments from the party?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m very hungry.”

  “Will you be all right by yourself?”

  “Yes. Give me my valise.”

  “You mean the little revolver, don’t you?”

  Pepper smiled. “You think you know all about me.”

  “No. I think you are a lady who has so many secrets you cannot remember all of them yourself.” She handed Pepper the small handgun.

  “Go on. Go get plenty of refreshments for both of us.”

  Rebecca Maria stood at the door. “I will lock it behind me, no? All this talk about hanging killers gives me the chills.”

  Pepper sat up and stretched her arms. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Who is the man condemned to die?”

  “I think it is the Indian lawyer.”

  “Who?”

  “The Comanche lawyer—Mr. Eagleman. It was in all the papers how he shot Mr. Billingsly in the back.”

  “Eagleman? Wade Eagleman?” Pepper gasped.

  “Yes, yes. Do you know him?”

  “No. I mean, remember I told you that long story? Who was the man at the door just now? Was that Eagleman?”

  “Oh, no. Eagleman is in jail. That was a friend of his.”

  “Did you know the man?”

  “No, I have never seen him.”

  “Did he wear a brown leather vest with Indian beadwork above the left pocket and an old gray hat sloping at the front and a—”

  “Oh, no. He was wearing a suit and black tie. He was quite handsome. Perhaps he is part Comanche himself. Why do you ask?”

  “My Tap came to Denver to get Eagleman to help him.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Eagleman is the one who needs the help.”

  “And Tap would try to help him. Did the man at the door have a black mustache?”

  “Yes, but fifty men in the ballroom have black mustaches. I don’t think it could have been your Tap.”

  “Did his eyes dance, Rebecca Maria? When you talked to him, did his eyes dance in such a way that made your heart beat faster?”

  The Mexican maid blushed.

  “It did. Didn’t it? That was him. That was my Tap.”

  “Shall I go get him, Señora? I will be very cautious.”

  “No. Don’t you see? I must leave at once. Order a carriage to the back of the house. I will pack my things. He can’t find me here.”

  “But . . . you hate Mr. Dillard and have been wanting to get back to Mr. Tap. Now that he might be here, you want to run?”

  Lord, why doesn’t this make sense to anyone but me?

6

M
ost of the patrons at the Pearly Gate Dance Hall quickly resumed their drinking, dancing, gambling, and various other forms of debauchery the moment Tap eased the bartender back down to his feet and turned to face the woman dressed in purple velvet.

  “Rena .
 . . I thought . . .”

  “Around here I’m called Lena.”

  “You work here?” Tap surveyed the room. Several men’s hands rested on their holstered handguns as they watched him.

  “You might say that. You haven’t changed much.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the changes,” Tap replied.

  An argument at a poker table in the back corner of the room caused them both to look in that direction for a moment. Then Tap pushed his gray hat back and shook his head. “You look good, Rena. Maybe the makeup’s a little thick, and the dress is much too revealing, but you’re still the prettiest thing Globe City ever saw. This doesn’t seem like the right kind of place for you to work.”

  “Don’t think you’re the first cowboy to feed me that line, Mr. Tapadera Andrews. Besides, technically, I don’t work here.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I own the place.”

  “You own the Pearly Gate?”

  “Me and a silent partner. I run the operation.”

  “That’s quite a distance from being a bank manager’s wife in Arizona.”

  A loud slap and a curse punctuated their conversation. A short, bald-headed man with a handlebar mustache got smacked alongside the head by a dance-hall girl who was almost as wide as she was tall. At the same time three Welsh miners began singing a Celtic tune near the bar.

  Rena shrugged. “It’s not boring.” Tap felt her warm, soft hand link fingers with his. “Come on, we have a lot of talking to do.” She tugged him through the crowd toward a back room.

  “Look, Rena . . . I don’t want to go back there. What I want is some information.”

  A wide smile broke across her painted lips. “This is my office, not my bedroom. We can’t talk out here. It’s too noisy.”

  Stepping into the back room at the Pearly Gate was like walking into a different world. A big oak rolltop desk hovered near a lace-curtained window. Prints of famous paintings lined the far wall above a standing globe and black leather couch.

  Rena beckoned for him to join her as she sat down at one end of the sofa. “I really am relieved to find that you’re not in jail in Yuma.”

  “No thanks to you. Rena, why did you run off? Where did you go?”

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re looking at a ghost or something. I .
 . . know I look older. There’s nothing left that’s prim or proper, is there?”

  He stood up and paced the office. “I didn’t say a word about that.”

  “Tap, those big brown eyes of yours read like an open book. You never could hide anything you felt.”

  “You’re avoiding the subject.”

  “You mean, where did I go after I shot Howard?”

  “Yeah, I thought you went to get the sheriff.”

  “I thought you were the one going after the law.”

  “Me?” Tap exclaimed. “Why would I do that? You were the one who shot your husband.”

  “Precisely. So you had nothing to fear.”

  “Wait a minute.” Tap stopped his prowling and stared at Rena. “You fled because you thought I was going to turn you over to the authorities?”

  “I was terrified. I thought they’d hang me. Or worse, send me to prison for the rest of my life. I thought you’d be all right because you hadn’t done anything. So I ran.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “To Mexico at first. I was so scared, Tap. I don’t know why I shot him. I never did anything like that before then.”

  “Before then?”

  “I’ve done a lot of things since then that I never figured I’d do. Anyway, at that moment it was like I just lost all control—control of my actions, control of my judgments, control of my morals. Everything was gone, and I ran.”

  Tap waved his hand to animate his words. “Meanwhile I faced a trial for a murder I didn’t commit. Didn’t that bother you?”

  “Tap, I was all messed up. Most every day I spent drunk down in Dante. When I thought about it, I just knew you would tell them the truth. Then they’d let you go and come lookin’ for me. Why didn’t you tell them I shot him?”

  “Because Howard was a jerk who used to whip you with his belt and then lock you in the bedroom closet while he went out chasing women.” Tap could see the smudges in Rena’s makeup where the tears began to trickle down from the corners of her eyes.

  “Besides, I didn’t think they would convict me either. In the end lots of folks thought I might have killed you as well.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. When you disappeared, they searched the canyons and draws for your body. So I went to prison, and you went into business in Colorado.”

  “At first I just knew they would ride over the border and arrest me. So I was really insane. I found someone who wasn’t afraid to use a gun. He would be my protector.”

  Tap sighed and looked into Rena’s red-streaked eyes. “So you latched onto Victor Barranca? That’s worse than being with Howard.”

  “Yes. It’s a choice I have often regretted. Vic did say that he knew you.”

  “You might say that.”

  “I stayed in Mexico until last summer. Some man wanted to hire Vic to come up to Colorado and do some work. So I figured it was safe, and I—”

  “Safe because I was in prison for your crime.”

  Rena stared at Tap with sad eyes. The room felt chilly  and smelled of stale cigar smoke.

  “Yes. That was part of it. I came to Denver with Vic. After several weeks the man who hired him seemed to take a special interest in me. So he bought this business. If I would run the place, he’d share the profits with me as long as no one knew he owned it.”

  “Mighty nice of him. A real generous soul.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t do anything without getting paid back.”

  “So here you are in Denver makin’ money left and right?”

  “I get by. But in this place, you never know who will get shot in the back on any given night. Besides, hanging around with Victor Barranca is like carrying a lantern into a room full of black powder. There’s a tendency to live one day at a time.”

  “The saloon is yours. Why don’t you dump Barranca?”

  “That’s easy for a man with a gun on his hip to say. I’ve kicked him out a dozen times in the past three months, but he doesn’t go any farther than the girls down the hall. Enough of that. I’ve got a lifetime to be depressed. What about Mr. Tapadera Andrews? What are you doin’ at the Pearly Gate? How did you know where to find me?”

  “It’s a long story. The core of it is that I came to town to talk to a lawyer about how to clear the mess up in Arizona. I wanted to get that settled so I wouldn’t have bounty hunters showing up at my ranch every other day.”

  “You have a ranch?”

  “I’ve got a ranch, a fiancée, and a future. But not with that Arizona matter hangin’ over my head.”

  She jumped to her feet. “Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me Tap Andrews is engaged to get married? Did you find a rich widow or what?”

  “I found a lady who was as tired of runnin’ and pretendin’ as I was. Meanwhile, I came here to talk to a friend. But he's in jail, scheduled to hang for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  Rena walked over to her desk, picked up an empty ink bottle, and turned back to Tap. “So what does that have to do with me?”

  “I didn’t know it was you. I was told there was a Lena workin’ at the Pearly Gate that knew where I could find a certain man. I didn’t come here specifically lookin’ for you.”

  She opened a drawer and tucked the bottle inside. “What man?”

  “Victor Barranca.”

  “Yeah, figures. It's Eagleman. Your lawyer friend is Wade Eagleman.”

  “Yep. So I guess what I’m sayin’, is Barranca around? I want to talk to him.”

  Rena slinked over to a small oval mirror and brushed back her raven hair with her fingers. The curls tumbled past her shoulders. “It was kind of fun thinkin’ about old times. Tap Andrews breaking out of prison to be with the woman he shielded from a murder arrest. Sounds like a dime novel, doesn’t it?” She wiped the corners of her eyes with a linen hankie that she pulled from her laced sleeve.

  “Barranca. Where is he?”

  “I haven’t seen him for hours, but if he’s still at the Pearly Gate, he’ll be upstairs with one of the girls.”

  “With you down here?”

  “It doesn’t bother me. Nothing bothers me anymore except knowing that you were in the Arizona Territorial Prison. I’m really glad you’re out.”

  “I’ve got to talk to Barranca about that Billingsly killin’.”

  “He won’t want to see you. He’s been staying out of sight for the past several weeks on orders from his employer.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “I know nothin’ about anything. That way I’ll never have to appear in court.”

  “Which room is he in?”

  “It’s not that easy to take him. Three fellas with a New Mexico warrant came lookin’ for him a few days ago, and he shot all three. ’Course, shootin’ like that doesn’t make the newspapers. You ever heard of the Lane brothers?”

  “Jim-One and Jim-Two—that gang?”

  “Yeah. He killed them all.”

  “That isn’t sayin’ much. I’ve known porcupines that are quicker that those three. Which room is he in?”

  “First off, he’s taken to posting a guard at the bottom of the stairs. So unless a man comes upstairs with one of the girls, they’re not allowed past the guard. But besides that, I don’t know whose room he’ll be in tonight. Our room is the big one at the end of the hall. Maybe he’s there.”

  “You can walk me past the guard. I need a favor, Rena.”

  “So you can kill Barranca?”

  “I don’t want to kill anybody. I just want to talk. Just show me the room.”

  “But I told you I don’t know—”

  “I don’t believe that for a moment.” He lifted his gray hat and brushed his fingers through thick brown hair. Then he put his right hand on her shoulder. “If he’s your man, then you know exactly who he’s cheatin’ with.”

  Rena brushed her dress off as if she were about to be introduced at the Governor’s Ball. Then, not looking up a Tap, she spoke softly. “Sarah. If he’s not in our apartment, he’ll be with Sarah. She’s in 8.”

  “Will you walk me up there?”

  “I’ll walk you past the guard, but I won’t stay around and watch the shooting.”

  “Look, I told you, I’m not goin’ to—”

  “Tap, he’ll shoot you on sight. He’s told me that. You . . . Brannon . . . . the Earp brothers. He claims he’ll shoot any of you that ever shows up in Denver.”

  “Same old Victor. It’s nice to know that some folks remain the same. I’m glad to hear it’s nothing personal.”

  “Come on, Mr. Engaged Rancherman, I owe you a favor, but I’m not sure this will be to your benefit . . . nor mine.” She slipped her arm into Tap’s and walked him back out into the saloon and dance hall.

  A piano banged away at some forgotten tune while the shouts and laughter in the crowded room numbed the mind as quickly as the watered-down drinks. Rena seemed to glide through it all, graciously tossing out words and smiles like a queen in a parade.

  The man in the straight-back wooden chair at the bottom of the stairs stood as they reached the landing area. He looked Andrews over from head to foot, resting his eyes on the Colt .44.

  “Evenin’, Miss Lena.” He chewed on a toothpick.

  “Bobby, I’ve got a personal question for you. Is Vic at home, or did he go visitin’?”

  The man with a bushy black beard raised his eyebrows. “I do believe he’s, ah, you know, out visitin’.”

  “Thanks, Bobby.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He tipped his hat to her and sat back down.

  Reaching the unnumbered door at the end of the hall, Rena turned and whispered, “I’ll go in just to make sure he’s not here at our place.”

  She stepped inside the door and closed it behind her.

  What if this is a setup? What if Barranca’s really in there and she knows it? What if he swings open the door with guns blazing? Why should I trust her?