Whippoorwill (33 page)

Eulis sagged against the fence. It was over. They’d been found out. He looked at Letty. She was down on her knees in prayer. He frowned. Praying was good and all, but there was a time and a place for everything and right now he needed a gun and a horse to get out of town a lot worse than he needed a prayer.

Beau James froze, his finger just shy of pulling the trigger. Although Charity was tugging desperately on his arm, he wouldn’t budge.

“What the hell do you mean, he ain’t the one? I just asked him his name. He said it was Randall Howe.”

Charity swayed, near exhaustion from their frantic ride. She looked to her sister, Mehitable, who was in the act of dismounting.

“Tell him, Hetty. Tell him it’s so. I don’t know who this man is, but he’s not the man who came to our home. He’s not the one who shamed me.”

Eulis’s mouth dropped. If he was understanding this right, the preacher they’d buried hadn’t been that true blue. Somehow, just the knowing of that made their deception a little bit easier to bear.

Mehitable got down from her horse. She was dusty and tired and wanted a bath. But she wanted justice more. She stepped closer to the light, peering at Eulis with cold-eyed intent. Finally, she shook her head and stepped back.

“Sister’s right,” Mehitable said. “That ain’t Randall Howe.”

The tension slid out of Beau in one breath. “Then who the hell are you, mister? And what’s yore game?”

Eulis’s mouth was in gear, but his brain had yet to catch up. All he could manage was a flapping jaw.

It was Letty who saved the day. She’d given too much of herself and come too far today to lose it all now. She pulled herself up, mindful to keep the shawl over her state of undress.

“I don’t know what your trouble is, mister, but you need to back off.” Then she looked at Charity with a pitying gaze. “And I’m real sorry Miss, if you were lied to by some good-lookin’ man. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. But this man here
is
Reverend Randall Howe. Today he’s preached four weddings, had a burying, given a boy a Christian name, and baptized a whore. And the night isn’t over. Whoever did you wrong must have been an imposter.”

Mehitable hissed through her teeth and threw her arms in the air. “I should’a knowed,” she snarled. “He was too damned pretty for a preacher.” When she realized what she’d just said, she added. “No offense, Reverend Howe.”

Thinking how come he’d close to dying, Eulis shuddered. “None taken.”

Beau went limp. All the fury he’d been saving had nowhere to go.

“Then I’ll have to keep lookin’,” he said coldly, and holstered his pistol.

Charity threw herself into his arms. “No, Beau, no,” she cried. “No more. Wherever that man is, he can’t hurt me anymore.”

That’s for sure, Eulis thought, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

Beau was torn between wanting to please Charity and the need for revenge. He wrapped his arms around her, his face bearing witness to his internal agony of having suffered a defeat.

“I don’t know as how I can live with myself if I don’t make that man pay.”

Eulis cleared his throat. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”

Mehitable’s eyes squinted even more than usual as she considered Eulis’s words.

“He’s right, Beau. We’ve all done our share of takin’ Charity’s side. Leave the rest of it to the Lord.” She arched an eyebrow at the way Beau was holding her sister, and then back at the preacher. “From the looks of things, I’d say the trip wasn’t altogether wasted.”

Charity hugged Beau even tighter. The thought of losing him was more than she could bear.

Beau James crumbled. But it wasn’t so much what Eulis said that changed his mind, as it was the feel of Charity’s soft breasts pressed against his chest.

“Then that’s that,” he said softly, and laid his cheek against the crown of her hair.

Relieved that it was over, Mehitable shoved her hat to the back of her hair and frowned.

“While I ain’t got no problem with you lovin’ my sister, I’m tellin’ you right now that I ain’t ridin’ all that way back with the two of you tryin’ to spoon behind my back. There’s a preacher. Get the words said now and ride back to the ranch man and wife.”

Beau swallowed nervously as Charity smiled up at him. “I ain’t got anythin’ to offer her except me.”

Mehitable butted in one last time. “It’s true you ain’t got much now, but marry my sister and I reckon you’ll be ownin’ the ranch one day.”

Beau took a deep breath. “Then if you’ll have me, Charity Doone, I’d be honored.”

Charity hesitated. Her girlish dreams of a fancy wedding and a party to boot had ended in Randall Howe’s bed. Mehitable was right. There was no time to waste. Not when a good-looking man like Beau James was willing to overlook what she’d done.

“As would I, Beau James.” Then she whispered for his ears only. “You will always be my hero.”

A sideways grin tilted the corner of his mouth. He nodded and turned to the man he’d almost killed.

“Uh, say… preacher?”

“Yes?” Eulis asked.

“If there’s no hard feelin’s, I reckon I’ll be askin’ you to marry me and Charity, here.”

Eulis managed a smile. “I’d be honored.”

A short while later, the trio mounted up and rode away. Eulis was still shaking as he glanced toward the lantern-lit arbor. Faint strains of Onward Christian Soldiers drifted down the hill. Will the Bartender didn’t have much of a repertoire, but he couldn’t bring himself to worry about that now. He shook his head and then sat down in the dirt with a thump.

“You’ll get your good clothes mussed,” Letty muttered.

Eulis dropped his head between his knees. “Dirt is the last thing I’ll be worryin’ about tonight.”

Letty thought about it for a minute and then sat down beside him. Her clothes still dripped. Where she was sitting would make mud. But right now, she had to agree. Getting dirty was nothing compared to what they’d endured.

Finally Eulis looked up. “I reckon I’d better get on up the hill and close out the service.”

Letty gave him a hard look and decided she could trust him that far. “Considering my dress and all, I think I’ll go on to bed.”

Eulis sighed. “That sounds good to me. I won’t be far behind.”

Letty gave him a glare. “Just don’t go gettin’ yourself drunk ’fore this is over.”

He studied her face, trying to absorb the fact that she was no longer the whore at the White Dove Saloon. He looked away. Leticia Murphy wasn’t the only one today who’d had a change of heart. He hadn’t told her yet, but he was thinking of giving up drink altogether.

“Did you hear me?” she muttered.

“Yes, ma’am. I heard you loud and clear.”

She dragged herself up then. “Well, that’s that. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He got to his feet. “Bright and early.”

She frowned. Bright and early? She didn’t know as how she could manage that. She hadn’t been up before daybreak in so long she wasn’t sure what a sunrise looked like. And then she smiled to herself as she walked away. It might be nice to see a sunrise again.

***

A cock crowed, rudely calling Eulis from his sleep. He cracked an eyelid to test the air and groaned at the sight. Daylight. He rolled over and wiped at his face. His head hurt. His belly rolled. He wanted a drink and he needed to pee.

And then he sat up on the side of the bed, saw the suit of clothes and the bowler hat on the nearby chair and groaned. It hadn’t been a dream after all. Yesterday he and Letty had pulled the biggest scam in the Kansas territory and were still alive to tell the tale.

He shuddered.

Therein lay his fear. He didn’t want the tale told. He liked his new identity. He didn’t want to lose that acceptance. And with that thought, came another. The only person who could ruin it all was Letty, herself!

He looked around the room, half expecting to see her standing in the corner, coated in green slime and pointing an accusing finger. Then he remembered she’d gone to bed in the room across the hall.

Alone.

Suddenly too pure to be in the presence of a man who was not her husband.

He thought of the promise she’d made him of free pokes for the rest of his life and sighed. It was the story of his life. Too little, too late. At that point, he got out of bed as the chamber pot beckoned.

Later, as he dug through the preacher’s bag for a clean shirt, he began planning his next move. When he was dressed, he strode to the mirror, turning first one way, then the other, looking at his own reflection with a judgmental eye. He thought of that wanted poster under his bed over at the White Dove Saloon.

Dodge City wasn’t all that far. He looked at himself in the mirror again. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were red. He needed a drink in the worst way, but his gaze slid back to his reflection. Baths and new clothes and another man’s name might give him a new start, but before he could begin a new life, he needed to put the old one to rest. He’d have a little whiskey in his coffee. That should perk him up some. And he’d be weaning himself off the drink a little bit every day.

“I’ll have to learn to read some better,” he said aloud. “But it’s a powerful long way between some towns out here. I can practice on the way.”

He began to pack. “And I know there’s a better way to baptize, but I’ll watch one done before I try another.”

With that vow set firm in his memory, he checked Randall Howe’s ticket for his next destination.

“I’ve always believed that a man should see what he can of the world a’fore he passes, but Sagebrush Pass will have to wait a bit until I get back from Dodge City.”

He frowned and rubbed his belly, ignoring the tremble in his hands. The need for drink was strong, but the urge to escape Lizard Flats was stronger. He laid Randall’s bible on the top of his clothes and then fastened the straps on the suitcase. The more he talked to himself, the better it sounded. By the time he went down to get breakfast, the decision was firm in his mind.

Right in the middle of his bacon and eggs, Letty showed up wearing a dress he’d never seen before. Somewhere she’d found a new set of clothes to go with her new identity. He paused in the mid-bite, wondering if this was where he ran like hell, or stood and offered her a chair.

“Preacher?” There was a question in her voice that he wasn’t sure how to answer. Either she was asking for permission to sit down, or checking on his identity of the day.

She blinked and then smiled, so he swallowed his bite. It seemed it would be the chair.

“Miss Letty, won’t you join me?”

She sat. When her food arrived she picked at it like a proper lady, afraid to show her appetite for anything, especially life. Her bites were dainty and she kept dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin as if she’d suddenly sprung a leak.

“What are your plans?” she asked, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Will thinks Eulis left town with the last freight wagon. He’s not too happy on having to sweep his own floors, and just so you know, I gave him notice that I’m leaving, too.”

Eulis gawked. He couldn’t get over the change in her. She was a different woman, right down to the way she ate.

“Where am I going? I’m going to Sagebrush Pass, by way of Dodge City,” he said.

She nodded and used a bite of bread to sop the egg yolk from her plate.

“I can play the piano, when there’s one to play,” she offered. “And as you know, I sing. I can also count money and read real good. I got all the way to through the first primer before Daddy died.”

Eulis was beginning to sweat. What was she saying?

“That’s fine. Real fine, Miss Letty.”

“Leticia, if you don’t mind,” she amended, batting her eyes like a vestal virgin.

Eulis choked on his swig of coffee and mopped at his chin, hoping he hadn’t splattered his clean shirt.

“Leticia. Of course, of course,” he said. “Leticia it is.”

She fixed him with a hard blue stare. “Then you’ll be taking me with you. After all, you’re gonna need to practice up on several things, includin’ baptizin’ your congregation.”

It wasn’t a question. It had been a demand. And he took instant offense to her criticism of the way he’d handled the situation last night.

“I don’t know as how I was so far off. It seemed to do you a world of good,” Eulis said, and tried not to frown. He didn’t suppose preachers were supposed to glare.

She snorted. It was an unladylike noise from a woman who called herself Leticia, but it got his attention, nevertheless.

“One for the money, two for the show, my ass,” Letty grumbled, then leaned across the table. “It goes… I baptize you in the name of the Father, and… uh… the Holy Ghost, and stuff like that.”

Eulis leaned back in his chair and nervously slicked down the part in his hair. “I’ll practice on it some.”

“Not on me, you won’t,” Letty warned. “And not in no more horse troughs, neither. I was still blowing moss out of my nose this morning. I’ll probably come down sick.”

This time Eulis glared. Hard.

“You shoulda kept your mouth shut and your dress buttoned, and you wouldna’ had no moss gettin’ where it didn’t belong. Besides, you was plumb out of your head. I asked you twice last night if you knowed what you was doin’, and all you could say was you wanted to be saved. It wasn’t me that was had by the Devil.” He tried not to grin. “By the way, how are your legs?”

When her eyes narrowed at the mention of body parts Eulis got the message real fast. She’d become a proper lady, all right. In the old days when he helped his daddy farming and before he’d been a soldier and then a drunk, he seemed to remember that it wasn’t seemly to mention limbs and such to a lady. He felt obliged to correct himself by adding.

“The scratches! I meant, how are the scratches?”

She relaxed. “Oh! They’re healing up just fine.”

Something about the smirk on his face made her ask. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make the Devil scratch at me.”

His eyes widened. She still didn’t know. And something told him that the less she knew, the better off he was. After all, a man needed all the power he could get to save himself from a reformed whore.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I was as surprised as the next man to see you yank up your skirt tail and show them marks on your legs.”