The singer in the black suit bowed, spangles flashing in the lamplight. The band took a break. John Stone’s jaw hung with fatigue as he looked at empty glasses lined up on the bar.
“Hey, bartender!”
Everybody wanted him. What am I doing here? Annie Mae stood at the end of the bar and rapped her knuckles. “Whiskey!”
Stone poured, dashed to the cash box, returned with change. A miner with a beard to his chest stood next to her. “Buy you a drink?”
“Got one,” she replied, and looked the other way.
“Don’t turn yer back on me!” He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.
“Take yer hands off’n me!”
He grinned, one tooth missing on top. “What if’n I don’t!”
“You’re hurtin’ me!”
“Don’t git uppity with me, you goddamned whore!”
He smacked her across the face with the back of his hand. She went flying across the floor.
The man with the truncheon maneuvered in front of the miner. “You’d better settle down, mister.”
“Put that thing away,” the miner replied, “or I’ll shove it up yer ass.”
The truncheon swung at the miner’s head, but the miner reached up and grabbed the bouncer’s wrist, then kicked between his legs. The bouncer hunched over and dropped moaning to the floor.
The miner pulled his blade and turned to Annie Mae, who pressed her back against the wall, trying to get away from him. “So you don’t like Jack, eh? When I finish with you, no man’ll ever look at you again!”
Annie Mae opened her mouth and screamed. She looked like a terrified child wearing her mother’s makeup. Jack drew lips over his teeth. She covered her face with her fingers and hollered.
A shadow fell over her. “Leave her alone,” said John Stone.
Jack saw guns in his hands. “You’d better put them peashooters away, ’cause I ain’t afraid of you.”
“One move toward her, you’re a dead man.”
Jack stared down the gun barrels. Then he looked into John Stone’s eyes. Bluffing? Jack pushed the knife into his scabbard. “Maybe some other time.”
Annie Mae sobbed. Stone placed his arm around her shoulders and led her toward the back door.
“Watch out!”
Jack lunged toward Stone, knife in hand. Stone slammed his palm on Jack’s wrist, the blade sliced across Stone’s thigh. Stone took one step to the side and threw a stiff uppercut.
It caught Jack coming in. Stone darted to the side as Jack’s momentum carried him forward. The miner crashed into the wall, stunned for a few moments. When his head cleared, John Stone stood in front of him, left pant leg red with blood.
“You best get out of here while you can still walk,” Stone said.
“And don’t ever come back again!” Everyone turned to Belie McGuinness, standing at the edge of the crowd, wearing a red satin gown.
Jack laughed, brandishing his bloody knife. “You want me to leave, you’ll have to throw me out.”
Stone thought of shooting him. Where were the police? “You don’t get out of here on your own steam, I’ll put you through the window.”
“Like to see you try.”
Jack waved the blade of his knife from side to side and dropped into his knife fighter’s crouch. “I’ll cut you from hell to breakfast.”
The crowd swarmed around. Stone wondered whether to pull his gun. Suddenly Jack thrust his knife toward the front of Stone’s shirt. Stone grabbed Jack’s wrist with his left hand, rammed his forearm against Jack’s elbow. A sickening crack, Jack bellowed in pain. Stone cracked him in the face. The miner sailed through the air, landed on a table, slid to the floor. Stone lifted him by the belt and carried him toward the nearest door. It opened, and two uniformed deputies entered the Grand Palace, flanking a man with a bushy mustache, wearing a badge on the lapel of his suit.
The marshal looked Stone over. “What’s your name?”
They heard Belle’s voice. “He’s one of my bartenders. The miner cut him.”
The marshal looked at Stone’s leg. Stone saw a strange scimitar scar at the corner of his eye.
“Watch yer step,” the marshal said gruffly to Stone in a voice that sounded familiar.
“Drinks on the house!” shouted Belle.
Two deputies picked up the unconscious miner and carried him toward the door. Stone watched the peace officers disappear into the crowd. “What’s the marshal’s name?” he asked Belle.
“Bill Kincaid. C’mon back to my office. I’ll look at that leg.”
He followed her through the crowd. Belle was full-bodied, medium height, an armful for any man. Miners tipped their hats as she passed. The lamp in her office had gone out.
“Got a match?” she asked.
She lifted the chimney, he set the wick aflame, she aware of muscles straining the fabric of his shirt. His profile, against the lamplight, pleased her eye. She replaced the chimney and adjusted the wheel.
“What you say your name was?”
“John Stone.”
“Lie down on the sofa. You’ll have to take your pants off.” She threw a towel. He stepped behind her dressing screen. “Shy?” she asked sarcastically. “I seen little boys before.”
Blood coagulated on the wound. He wrapped the towel around his waist and limped toward the sofa. Belle rolled up the sleeves of her blouse.
“Bartenders usually dive ’neath the bar at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “Why’d you take on Jack?”
“What happened to your bouncer?”
“You want his job? Pays five more dollars a week than you’re gittin’ now.”
“When do I start?”
“Never figgered you fer a bartender.”
She placed the basin beside him and knelt, his leg covered with golden hair. The wound was a three-inch slash with ragged edges. She rinsed the washcloth, wrung it out, patted his wound gently. Long ago she learned to hide feelings behind an impenetrable wall. She covered the bloody line with a bandage. “Don’t know how yer pants’ll fit over this.”
“What you know about Marshal Kincaid?”
“Best marshal money can buy.”
“Where’d he come from?”
“Here in Lodestone, we generally don’t ask people where they come from.”
“He arrive alone?”
“What’s Marshal Kincaid to you?”
“Always a good idea to know who the lawman is.”
“He’s got sand. That’s all you’ve got to know. Some lawmen hide when trouble starts, but not Bill Kincaid. He keeps the peace pretty damn good in this town.”
“How about outside town?”
“Roads ain’t safe, if that’s what you mean. Lots of holdups. You ’spect that in gold country. Kincaid can’t be everywheres, but he catches crooks. We had a hangin’ here two weeks ago. You stick around, you’ll prob’ly see the next one.”
~*~
Marshal Kincaid puffed his corncob pipe and looked out the window of his office. Drunks staggered over the sidewalks, a wagonful of miners passed in the street. The stamp mill pounded incessantly in the distance.
He thought about John Stone. Rob a man in the afternoon, come face-to-face with him that night. Marshal Kincaid dug dottle from the bowl of his pipe with a pocketknife, then blew through the stem. A stream of tobacco juice squirted into the air.
He put on his hat and looked in the mirror. His belly hung over his belt, he had jowls. Retire in Mexico in a few more years. Can’t let an odd coincidence spoil everything.
He walked out the door. Across the street, a group of miners entered the Grubstake Saloon. On the corner, a deputy twirled his club beside a streetlamp. “Find Tommy Moran, tell him to meet me behind the Lodestone Savings Bank in a half hour.”
~*~
Stone limped to an empty table in a dark corner, sat on a chair, blew out the candle. The corner plunged into darkness. He had a lot to think about, Belle McGuinness uppermost in his mind. A strange woman, beautiful, hard as nails, but sensitive beneath her carefully manufactured exterior. Probably didn’t even know she was acting most of the time.
A few tables away, a miner jumped into the air and screamed. Then he scooped up a big pile of chips, cackling like a maniac. Men hollered at each other angrily near the bar.
A figure in a white suit sat beside him. “Looks like you got a promotion,” Slipchuck said. “You find out if she had somethin’ fer me?”
“Didn’t think of it, but we’ll set it straight right now.”
Stone walked back to Belle’s office. Slipchuck hitched up his pants, hoping to make a good impression on the boss lady.
“John Stone and a friend of his to see you, Miss Belle. You too busy to see ’em?”
“Send ’em in.”
John Stone entered, accompanied by a filthy little old man. “This is my pardner, Mr. Slipchuck.”
Slipchuck removed his dirty hat and made an elaborate bow.
“I know he doesn’t look like much,” Stone said, “but he saved my life more’n once. Not afraid of anything. You need another bouncer, he’s your man.”
Belle raised the back of her hand to her mouth and laughed. Slipchuck blushed to the roots of his gray hair. He yanked out his trusty Colt and aimed at her. “No woman makes fun of me an’ gits away with it!”
Stone whacked Slipchuck’s gun downward, Slipchuck pulled the trigger, the bullet crashed into the floorboards. A cloud of acrid gunsmoke filled the office.
Slipchuck took a stance like a fighting cock. They were the strangest duo Belle had ever seen. How could they be pardners? John Stone clearly cared for the old man.
“Have a seat,” she said, holding out her box of cheroots.
“Don’t mind if’n I do,” Slipchuck replied.
He selected one and lit it with a match. So did Stone. Their heads disappeared in a vast cloud of blue smoke. Belle leaned toward Slipchuck. “I can tell a gentleman when I see one. Bouncer ain’t no job fer you. How’d you like to work on the second floor with the girls?”
“With the girls?” Slipchuck asked in disbelief.
“Sweep the corridors, keep the stoves goin’. Fix anythin’ that might go wrong.”
John Stone was indignant. “You can’t give my pardner a janitor job. Anybody can see he deserves better than that.”
Slipchuck held up his hand. “Hold on, Johnny. Lemme speak fer meself.” He turned to Belle. “You say I’ll be on the second floor where the gals live.”
“Yer job is take care of ’em,” she replied.
“You got yerself a deal!” Slipchuck slammed the heel of his fist upon her desk.
Belle turned to John Stone. “Stop at my room when you get off work tonight. Somethin’ I want to talk to you about.”
~*~
Marshal Kincaid sat on the ground, puffing his corncob pipe, his back leaned against the rear wall of the bank. A thin sliver of curved moon hung on the horizon. He felt nostalgic for the open range. Long ago he’d been a cowboy.
Footstep in the alley, Kincaid drew his gun and melted into the shadows. The figure of a man emerged from the night. Moonlight silhouetted his profile.
“Kincaid?”
“Over here.”
Tommy Moran walked toward him, head cocked to the side, sturdily built, black hair, black mustache. “What you got fer me, Marshal?”
“His name’s John Stone. He’s at the Grand Palace. Yer goin’ rate is sixty dollars?”
“Half in advance.”
Marshal Kincaid pulled a handful of coins out of his pocket. “How soon can you do it?”
“Right now, if you want.”
~*~
Slipchuck pushed his broom down the main corridor of the second floor. He’d been over the same territory ten times already, but that didn’t stop him. Usually he had to pay, get it over with, get out. Never before had he taken time to observe the activity. A pudgy, dew-eyed whore wearing a thin chemise approached from the far end of the corridor. A man lives long enough, all his dreams come true.
~*~
Tommy Moran entered the Grand Palace, didn’t step out of the backlight. He was ready, the swagger and confidence of a gunfighter as he approached the bar.
“Whiskey.”
The bartender filled a glass. Moran spilled a few drops on his tongue for good luck. He had a description of John Stone. Before shooting his quarry, liked to study him, understand his quirks. Made it more interesting.
A whore with long red hair down her back approached and wrapped one arm around his shoulder. “Wanna come upstairs?”
“I’m lookin’ for John Stone. Know where he is?”
“The corner over there.”
Moran saw only darkness. “I can’t see him.”
She pinched his nose. “But he can see you.”
~*~
Stone noticed Moran and the whore, two faces in a sea of humanity drinking, playing cards, shooting dice, reading newspapers, arguing. A mangy spotted dog strolled toward Stone, bone clamped in his jaws. A miner booted his tail, the dog scurried away.
A miner danced a jig atop a table, while a circle of onlookers clapped. A glass of beer flew through the air. A dude with a black mustache strolled along the aisle. Their eyes met. Tommy Moran made his way back to the bar. “Whiskey.”
A tiny dot of red floated in the shadows, as Stone smoked a cigarette. He was unaware of Moran’s scrutiny, the gunfighter just another customer. Stone was lost in thoughts of bygone days with the golden girl he was supposed to marry.
He remembered the night he proposed. They’d gone for a walk in the woods. He was only fourteen, and she one year younger. Beside a spring, he perched on one knee and asked her to be his wife when they were older. She said yes, and they drank the blood of the forest from the same cup.
The band struck up a jig. Tommy Moran rolled a cigarette, his brow furrowed. Something strangely familiar about John Stone. Had they met before? Maybe he just looked like somebody. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He’s going to die right now.
~*~
Slipchuck climbed the stairs affixed to the rear of the Grand Palace, a load of firewood in his arms. He opened the door, pulled back a curtain with his leg, lowered the wood to the floor. Bark and a worm remained on his sleeves. He brushed them off and leaned against the wall.
“I’m a-gittin’ too old fer this shit.”
He heard footsteps, snapped to attention. A whore pulled the curtain aside. “Thought you’d be a-hidin’ back here, you old buzzard. Me stove’s nearly out. Fix it while I go downstairs. Room twenty-five.”
He followed her down the hall, watching the sway of her shapely hips beneath her pink silk dress. He came to her room, smelled her perfume. A Negro maid put fresh sheets on the bed.
“Gittin’ cold in here,” she said. “Git the fire goin’, old man.”
“Ain’t that old.”
He opened the door of the potbellied stove, stirred the ashes, threw in a few sticks of wood. The maid departed. Every customer got clean sheets, one of the establishment’s main selling points.
Slipchuck, alone in a whore’s boudoir, didn’t have to hurry for a change. He clasped hands behind his back and looked around philosophically. The headboard of the bed was painted white, brass ornaments on the bedposts. Slipchuck placed his hand on the mattress, calculated the bounce. Not bad at all.
A table covered with cosmetics across the room. He held a bottle of perfume to the lamplight. Paints and rouge. The things they do.
He opened her closet. Two frilly dresses, thick wool coat, blouses and skirts, silk fabric, baubles, glitter, black mesh stockings, and lace underwear. Drive a man crazy.
~*~
A fight broke out in the middle of the bar. John Stone hoped it’d end by itself. A crowd formed, people shouted, a bottle crashed to the floor.
John Stone drew himself to his full height. No rest for the wicked. He put on his old Confederate cavalry hat and strolled toward the commotion. At its center, two filthy miners held knives in their hands.
Stone stepped between them. “You want to kill each other, do it outside.”
“Out of the way,” said one of them, wearing a new yellow shirt. “If I have to cut you to git to him, don’t make a shit to me.”
Stone snapped both guns on him so fast his hands blurred. “Try it.”
Yellow shirt grimaced. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Men dived behind the bar. Another contingent ran at the door. Some jumped out windows. A few fell behind table barricades. Stone stepped backward and faced both miners. “I said get out.”
“You wouldn’t dare shoot me,” yellow shirt said.
Stone pulled the trigger in his right hand. A shot rang out, yellow shirt felt something tug his hat. He took it off, saw a bullet hole in the crown.
“Next one goes between your eyes.”
The miners looked at each other sheepishly. Eyes peered over the bar and through windows. “You’d better never let me catch you alone in a dark alley,” said the miner to Stone, “’cause I’ll cut yer fuckin’ throat.”
Stone squeezed his trigger, the knife flew out of the miner’s grip. “You ever see me again, you’d better walk the other way.” He turned to yellow shirt. “That goes for you too.”
“How about me?” Tommy Moran stood at the edge of the crowd, twirling his gun around his forefinger. He threw the weapon into the air and caught it behind his back, then spun it a few times and let it fall into the holster. “If they want to fight, let ’em fight.”
“They can fight outside.”
“I say let ’em fight here.”
“You don’t like the way I run this saloon, take it away from me.”
Moran expected to brace Stone, but Stone turned it around. The ex-West Pointer raised his palms above his gun grips. Moran was confused. Stone stepped toward him, Confederate cavalry hat slanted low over his eyes. Moran flashed on Antietam. He stared at Stone in disbelief. It couldn’t be!
“You going to fight?” Stone asked.
Moran tried to smile. But he’d met John Stone before. Moran cleared his throat. “They say only a fool mixes in other people’s fights.”
He turned away. Stone wondered why he backed off so suddenly. Customers gawked over the bar.
“Moran was skeered of him,” somebody said.
Moran heard the remark, his blood ran hot. But he couldn’t shoot John Stone.
“Thought Moran was tough,” another man sneered.
Moran never backed down in his life. But he was bewildered, frightened, shaken to the marrow of his bones. He burst out the door and walked swiftly away, seeking a dark quiet spot where he could be alone and think it through.
~*~
Stone returned to his favorite table. The saloon refilled with customers. Little black balls spun around roulette highways. Gamblers and miners threw their money down. A whore shrieked with delight as a drunken miner hugged her tightly.
One moment he wanted to kill me, the next moment looked like the saloon fell on him. Why’d he back down?
Belle lay naked in her bathtub, steam curling from the surface of the sudsy water. Flames roared in the fireplace, a cheroot stuck beneath her teeth, she leaned backward and closed her eyes.
Heat permeated her flesh and bones. She sighed contentedly, and thought of John Stone. More muscles than he knew what to do with. But Bart Madden had money and power. A woman can get anything she wants, if she’s smart.
Time, her worst enemy, skin not firm as five years ago, breasts didn’t stand up quite as proudly. But she knew old whores who earned more than younger ones. All in the technique.
If you can’t get a man one way, try another. John Stone would be a special treat after too many nights with the Bart Maddens of the world.
Beneath her harsh exterior, Belle McGuinness needed a man. But not everyone would do. John Stone was her type. They’d have a good time, and when it was over, go their separate ways. No point getting crazy over a man. None of them’re worth it.
~*~
Tommy Moran bit his knuckles so hard they bled. He sat on his bed in the hotel room, remembering Antietam. He served in the Third Provisional Brigade under General George Crook, and was hit by a squadron of Confederate cavalry during the second day of fighting.
A Confederate officer’s horse was shot out from underneath him only yards away, the officer thrown clear. The rebel commander drew his sword, shouted to his men, and charged on foot.
Moran knelt in a trench, aimed his rifle at the officer, and pulled the trigger. The cartridge didn’t fire, and the Confederate officer continued his forward movement. Moran jumped to his feet, bayonet affixed to the end of his rifle. He took the stance for close combat.
The Confederate officer didn’t stop. Moran thrust his rifle and bayonet toward him. The officer brought his saber down swiftly, whacking the rifle and bayonet out of the way. On the backswing, the officer crashed his sword into Moran’s ribs.
Moran was hurled to the ground. He rolled onto his back and looked up through a sea of pain at the Confederate officer raising his sword for the coup de grace.
The Confederate officer gazed down, then muttered something Moran couldn’t understand. The officer stepped over Moran’s prostrate body and walked away. Moran passed out afterward, woke up three days later at a field hospital, surrounded by dead and dying.
But he survived. He lifted his shirt and looked at the scar across his lumpy ribs. Back at the saloon, when he took a close-up look at John Stone, he saw the Confederate officer who’d spared his life at Antietam so many years ago.
That’s why he backed off. Couldn’t kill the man who gave his life back. He didn’t know what to do. Wherever he went, he might run into somebody who saw him turn yellow in Lodestone. Could haunt me for the rest of my life.
He was a gun for hire, but lived by a code. You don’t shoot somebody who saved your life. He took thirty dollars out of his pocket, felt like Judas Iscariot. The coins burned his hand, he wanted to fling them away. Give the money back and get out of town. Make a new start someplace else. Killing people didn’t make sense anymore. Whatever gave him the idea in the first place?
~*~
A portly man wearing a top hat and plaid vest approached John Stone’s table. “I’m Edgar Faraday, publisher of the Lodestone Gazette. May I join you?” He sat, crossed his chubby legs, pulled a notepad from an inner pocket of his frock coat. “Thought I’d get the story from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Your name’s John Stone? Could you describe to me, in your own words, what happened tonight?”
“Don’t have time.”
“I was referring specifically to the incident with Tommy Moran. I understand you backed him down.”
“You want the story, ask him.”
Faraday wore thick round spectacles perched on his minuscule nose, his teeth stained with the tobacco he constantly chewed. The odor of alcoholic beverages emanated from his being. He cocked an eye and examined Stone carefully.
“You sound like an educated man. Where’d you go to school?”
“Long time ago.”
“On the dodge?”
“Not yet.”
“Not very friendly. Would you rather I put on the front page that the man who shot Tod Buckalew is in town?”
“Who told you that?”
“Hard to remember. Happened so long ago.” Faraday winked.
“Every gun-crazy kid in town’ll try to shoot me.”
“Ever done newspaper work? I’ll pay you ten dollars a week more than you’re getting here.”
“I’m getting sixty dollars a month,” Stone lied.
“Seventy,” said Faraday.
Wheels spun in Stone’s mind. He wouldn’t have to fight the Grand Palace Saloon every night. In a month, San Francisco. His best offer so far. “I’ll need an advance, so I can get a hotel room.”
Faraday tossed him a ten dollar gold coin. Stone lit the lamp and held the coin to the light. Faraday spit a brown stream of tobacco juice at the nearest cuspidor, missed by three inches. “You can start by writing the story of what happened here, and don’t spare the details. I want to see every drop of blood. Glad to have you aboard. Put ’er there.” They shook hands. “You go to West Point?”
Stone was surprised by his sudden question. Faraday chuckled. “A newspaperman develops a sharp eye after many years observing humanity. I can see your Confederate officer’s campaign hat, and your confidence borders on arrogance. You’re a West Pointer down on your luck, am I right?”
“A newspaperman sees everything.” Stone removed the picture of Marie from his shirt pocket. “Ever run into this woman?”
Faraday adjusted his eyeglasses and held the picture up to the light. “Wish I met her. What’s she to you?”
“I’m on my way to meet her in San Francisco. Guess she didn’t stop off in Lodestone.”
“Would’ve noticed if she had. Pretty gal.”
A commotion broke out at the doors, the saloon invaded by women in high-necked black dresses, carrying signs:
REPENT DRUNKARDS COME TO THE LORD
One was lifted by her cohorts onto a table. She raised her black-gloved fist in the air and shouted: “Children are starving tonight, because of drink! Women weep in hovels, because of drink! The Lord God calls on all drunkards to repent! Even the vilest of you can be forgiven if you repent! The kingdom of God is within you, saith the Lord God! Throw away that accursed whiskey and follow me! Dedicate yourself to the will of the Lord!”
A roar of approval arose from the throats of stern-faced women, armed with signs, WHISKEY IS THE DEVIL’S BREW.
They accosted miners, whores, and cardsharps. A tubby little old lady waddled toward Stone, her face pinched by years of bitterness and anger. “Drunkard!” she hollered at Stone. “You’ll meet your death at the bar!”
Stone remembered something an old cowboy told him once. If you git into an argument with a woman, grab yer hat and run.
Stone plunged into the crowd. Another woman loomed up in front of him. “Repent!” She kicked him in the shins.
Edgar Faraday ran for cover. “I want the full story on my desk by nine in the morning, and don’t leave out the details!”
A biddy hit Stone across the spine with a chair. “Deserter of babes! Violator of young maidens!”
Stone crawled on all fours toward the back door. A woman with a face like a prune dumped a pitcher of beer over his head. He jumped to his feet, joining a crowd of men fleeing in panic. The woman standing on the table waved her arms hysterically and shrieked: “You’ll burn in hell forever, dirty rum-soaked pigs! The Devil’s got his hold on you, but Baby Jesus holds out His merciful hand! Accept His wonderful invitation! If you follow Jesus, He’ll never let you down!”
A drunkard lying in a pool of vomit on the floor hollered in sobbing pain: “He let me down a hundred times! There ain’t no Jesus! We’re all alone here!”
She pointed her long finger at him. “Look at you up to your ears in filth! That’s what happens to the man who trades his faith in the Lord for a bottle of cheap rotgut whiskey!”
A deep barreling woman’s voice replied from the top of the stairs: “It’s the best whiskey in the Rockies!” Belle stood resolutely in a white-and-red-striped satin dress, rifle in her hands.
The preacher woman glowered at her. “There she is, the whore of Babylon herself! The Devil’s seed! She’s made widows and orphans! Sucked the blood of this community Yet the Lord will forgive even this woman if she falls down and repents! Though her sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow!”
Belle pointed her rifle at the lady preacher. “You take their money and give ’em a two-bit sermon! I give ’em the best pour in town, the best steaks in the Rockies, and if Jesus came to Lodestone tomorrow, first spot he’d visit would be the Grand Palace!”
The lady preacher trembled with barely concealed rage. “Blasphemy! You’ll boil in everlasting hell! Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain! She’s the Devil’s bride, ladies and gentlemen! You know her past! She fornicated for pennies beside the railroad tracks when this town was founded! Filth and corruption are in her soul! Turn away from her, my friends! The Lord God calls to you from His holy tabernacle!”
Belle looked magnificent at the top of the stairs, her fabulous full figure illuminated by light from the nearby chandelier. The preacher lady, slender, no trace of cosmetics, not more than forty, her eyes ablaze with the deep conviction that God spoke to her.
“How can she sleep at night? Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to run her out of town! Send her forth into the wilderness! Let her lay with animals and snakes!”
“D’rather lay with animals and snakes than with you! I’m a-gittin’ sick of this goddamn circus! This is private property! Where’s my bouncer?”
Her eyes roved the crowd, and fell on John Stone. “Throw her the hell out of here!”
Belle spun around and walked away. Stone hadn’t time to tell her he was the new reporter for the Lodestone Gazette. They’d laugh if he ran from a woman. And such an unreasonable holier-than-thou crow she was too. She reminded Stone of a schoolmarm he had.
“Who is she?” Stone asked the miner standing beside him.
“Reverend Rebecca Hawkins, First Christian Assembly.”
He walked toward her, and caught her eye. She pointed at him as he approached. “Do you see this man!” she screeched. “He’s the Roman soldier who nailed Christ to the cross. You pay him, he’ll use the strength God gave him against the people of God! He just does his duty like a soldier! He even wears an old soldier’s hat! But we’re not afraid of him, because we’re the Christian soldiers of the Lord God Almighty!”
A solid phalanx of upright religious women formed before Rebecca Hawkins, arms crossed over their breasts. Stone stopped. How could he get through?
They advanced toward him. He couldn’t fight an army of women! Run while you’ve got the chance. The women stepped closer, eyes narrowed with hate.
Something growled at his feet. He looked down and saw the mangy spotted hound who’d gnawed a bone earlier. The mutt glowered at the women, their turn to stop. The dog trudged forward, snarling deep in his throat. Long teeth flashed in the light of lanterns. The women made way for him, Stone followed toward the table where Reverend Hawkins stood, expression of fear growing on her face.
Stone grabbed her thin waist, she tried to kick him, he turned her on her side and carried her like a log toward the nearest door.
“You’ll roast in the ovens of Hell! They’ll boil you in oil till the end of time! Imps will pull off your nose and ears! You’ll be an abomination in the eyes of the Lord!”
A grateful miner opened the door. Stone carried her onto the front veranda of the Grand Palace and set her down. A few women made aggressive motions toward Stone, but the dog snarled. The preacher lady quivered with rage. “He’s the Devil’s spawn!” she cried, pointing at Stone. “One day the Devil will claim him!”
~*~
Marshal Kincaid felt an elbow in his ribs. “Somebody’s at the door,” his wife mumbled, half asleep. “Dig the dirt out’n yer ears, maybe you’d hear somethin’.”
He opened his eyes. The sound of tapping came to his ears. “Whozzat?”
“One way to find out,” his wife replied. “Get up off’n yer ass and go downstairs.”
He rolled out of bed in his long Johns, pulled on his pants, stepped into high-topped boots. Then he strapped on his six-gun. His wife returned to slumber, her rump like a mountain in the middle of the bed.
He descended the stairs. The door knocked again. He reached the main floor and paused, gun in hand. Tommy Moran stood before him, an agitated expression in his eyes.
“Brought your money back.” Moran held the coins in his palm. “Couldn’t do it.”
“Why in hell not?”
“We met before,” Moran said mysteriously.
“You and Stone?”
“Can’t shoot him. Get somebody else.”
Kincaid accepted the coins. “You’ll never work for me again.”
“My gun ain’t for hire no more, so we’re even. I’ll be a-leavin’ town tonight. Nice to know you.”
Moran walked away. Kincaid dropped the coins into his pocket, closed the door. He climbed the stairs, thinking of what Moran said. The gunfighter looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Kincaid entered the bedroom. His wife rolled over and said, “Who was it?”
“Mistake.”
She patted the mattress beside her. “Come to bed.”
He reached for his gunbelt buckle, his hands froze. If Moran went round the bend, no telling what he might say. The whole house of cards could come tumbling down. Marshal Kincaid reached into the closet for a shirt. Some jobs a man has to do himself.
~*~
The dog followed Stone into the kitchen. A Negro with a mustache fried steaks and potatoes at the big stove. Stone reached into a tubful of meat and pulled out the biggest porterhouse he could find. He dropped it onto a plate. “This is for you,” he said to the dog. He filled a bowl with water and set it beside the plate.
The saloon was half-full, the night winding down. A drunkard lay underneath a table. Another slept against a wall. Stone knew all about it, spent many nights in saloons.
He didn’t feel better sober, but at least his head was clear. He didn’t have to worry about walking into walls, or shooting himself by mistake. Sobriety provided a sense of security. He could handle anything.
Belle told him to stop by. He climbed the stairs. On the second floor, a lone figure kneeled before a door, peering through the keyhole. Slipchuck glanced guiltily at Stone, then pretended to be searching for something on the floor.
“Lost me hankie,” Slipchuck said.
“Somebody catches you looking through keyholes, liable to put a bullet through your head.”
Slipchuck held his finger in front of his lips and whispered, “What you doin’ up here? Lookin’ fer poontang?”
“Got to see the boss lady.”
Slipchuck’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “How come?”
“Business, I guess.”
“All the wimmin’s after you, Johnny boy. Wish I could be in yer boots.”
Stone climbed to the third floor. Fatigue took the spring from his knees. He hoped the boss lady wouldn’t keep him up too long. Not in the mood for a woman giving orders.
He came to the third floor, door straight ahead, brass rapper. He slammed it three times. Silence. Maybe gone to sleep. The door opened on a gorgeous Negro maid.
“Mr. Stone?” she asked. “Miss McGuinness is waiting for you in the parlor. Would you follow me, please?”
She led him through an anteroom and corridor, walls covered with gaudy oil paintings of landscapes, seascapes, nymphs, nude men and women frolicking in gardens. They came to an immense room with three sofas arranged around a fireplace filled with roaring logs. Belle sprawled on a sofa, wearing a black gown with low décolletage, cheroot in one hand, champagne glass in the other.
“Look who’s here,” she said in her husky voice. “Sit down and have some bubbly.”
Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Lamps and candelabra burned on the mantel, four rifles mounted on a rack near the window, the head of a buffalo stared across the room at a painting of Napoleon leading the charge at Austerlitz.
Heat blasted from the fireplace. Stone loosed the bandanna around his neck. She lay resplendent beside him, silk gown revealing every curve of her body, including nipples and naval. She was practically naked. His right hand trembled.
An intoxicating perfume arose from her body. “I said, have some bubbly.” She pointed to the bottle in the bucket.
“Don’t drink,” he replied.
“Little bubbly won’t hurt you.”
She raised herself to a sitting position, leaned toward him, poured champagne into his glass. He could see all the way to the deepest secrets of her bosom. Her perfume was devastating. She handed him the effervescent liquid. “Here’s to the new manager of the Grand Palace Saloon. Pays a hundred dollars a month.”
“To do what?”
“You’ll run the saloon operation. I got too many other things to do.”
“Told Edgar Faraday I’d work for him at the Lodestone Gazette”
“What’s he payin’?”
“Seventy dollars a month.”
“Why work fer less? Let’s drink on it.”
Stone was about to say: I don’t drink, but comes a point where a man has to stop making excuses. Champagne is pisswater compared to what I used to drink. The rims of their glasses clicked. Her perfume swept over him, clouding his senses, her eyes deep pools of immeasurable delights. She touched the tip of her tongue to the rim of her glass, her eyes mocked him.
“Nothin’ like bubbly to end the day.”
Champagne tickled the roof of his mouth and glided down his throat, subtle as a woman. Firelight flickered on her face. An artery throbbed in his throat. She was there for him, round, soft, voluptuous. Her eyes had the gleam of naked lust. He could see the outline of her waist, lovely legs, feet small, toenails painted. One ankle wore a thin gold chain with a gold heart affixed.
Logs crackled in the fireplace. Stone knew the time had come for him to jump on top of her or get the hell out. He reached for the bottle of champagne and refilled their glasses. Part of him wanted to rip her gown off, another said don’t you dare.
He loved Marie, but Belle McGuinness was a short reach away. The champagne made him light-headed. Her perfume drew him closer. I’ve got to control myself, because I’m engaged to somebody else. His hand shook as he sipped the champagne.
She wondered what was wrong with him. This had never happened to her before. Surely he knew why he was here. “Are you sick?”
“Champagne’s going to my head,” he alibied.
She lay practically naked beside him. But Marie was in the room. Duty and lust ripped him apart.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her diamond earrings danced as she refilled their glasses. “Don’t you like girls?”
Her nipple touched his arm. The fragrance of her body made him dizzy. He swallowed hard. The artery in his neck pumped harder. The blond beast inside him awakened.
“I’m in love with another woman. I’m supposed to marry her. I can’t … I just can’t.”
He felt exhausted. His whole life was a fight. Nothing ever came out right. He leaned against the sofa and closed his eyes.
“I envy her,” Belle said wistfully. “Wish somebody loved me like that. But you ain’t seen her for how long? Momma’s here right now.” She pressed her lips against his ear. “I won’t hurt you. What’re you savin’ yourself for? For all you know, she’s doing the same thing. Pretty women don’t stay alone long. Take it from one who knows.”
Stone stared at Belle’s bosom spilling out of her nightgown. The champagne made him feel floaty. His eyes roved over her body. I don’t have to tell Marie when I find her. A slice from a cut loaf will never be missed.
He emptied his glass, set it on the table, and buried his face in his hands. Torn between loyalty to Marie and desire for the naked woman beside him, he muttered, “I don’t know what to do.”
She pressed against him, inserted the tip of her tongue into his ear. He melted like ice in the tropics. She pushed him onto his back and crawled on top of him. His arms wrapped around her as if they had a life of their own. She squirmed against him and pressed her lips to his. Their tongues touched, electricity shot through him.
He lifted the hem of her gown. She covered his face with impassioned kisses. They tore each other’s clothes. The fire cast weird shadows on their entwined bodies as they sank deeper into the cushions.