CHAPTER

21

It was dusk when I exited the Rollins House Hotel to mostly empty streets. Smoke billowed periodically from the trains resting on the tracks a few streets over. A whistle sounded. One would be leaving soon.

A teamster touched his hat to me while I waited for his wagon to pass. I stepped off the wooden sidewalk and headed to the newspaper office. The door was locked but I could see the printer inside. I knocked on the glass and waved at the printer when he looked up. Sydney Cotton wiped his hands on a rag as he crossed the room to open up. “Mrs. Graham. You here to pick up the business cards?”

I stepped through the door and was assaulted with the noise of the printing press and the sweet smell of ink and paper. “Yes, I am.”

Cotton stepped behind the counter and pulled out a stack of business cards wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Would you like to review them?”

“I’m sure they’re perfect.”

“Did you read today’s paper?” Cotton asked.

“Not yet.” I didn’t want to tell the newspaperman that I rarely read the newspapers. After being in the West for a year, and knowing Henry Pope, I knew newspapers for what they were: purveyors of entertainment, not news. Mr. Cotton might not believe my disinterest in any case. After learning of Kindle’s fate from Hankins, I’d gone to the newspaper office immediately and, telling one more lie with an eye to survival, asked to see news of my husband’s former regiment officer, William Kindle.

He slid the day’s paper across the counter to me. “Page four. A new story about your husband’s commander.”

My head jerked up. “Captain Kindle?”

“Yes.” I opened the newspaper but Cotton kept talking, more interested in telling me the news than my reading it. “His sentence was commuted by Uncle Billy himself. Got out with time served. A dishonorable discharge, mind you.”

I gasped as my eyes skimmed over the very words Cotton said. Kindle was free. I scanned the article for a date and, when I didn’t find one, looked up at Cotton.

“When?”

He pulled his head back and his brows furrowed. “You okay there, Mrs. Graham?”

I forced my expression to relax, and I smiled. “Yes, of course. I’m pleased for him. Do you know when he was released?”

“I got it out of a two-day-old Saint Louis paper, but it didn’t say whether he’d been released or not. Just that the sentence had been commuted. You know how slow the Army works.”

“They convicted him quick enough. Thank you.” I picked the cards up and turned to leave.

“Dr. Hankins said you were going to pay for those.”

I unlocked the door and was halfway through when I said, “Bill him.”

I hurried down the street toward the depot, throwing the business cards in the trash as I went, while mentally calculating how much money I had: fifteen dollars spirited away in the false bottom of my medical bag, including the five from Lily Diamond. I didn’t think it would be enough. A train whistled three times, signaling its departure from the station.

The station clock read 8:35 as I watched the caboose of an eastbound train click-clack its way out of the station.

“Damn.”

The platform was dotted with stragglers who’d disembarked from the latest train. I stood in front of the darkened ticket window and studied the timetable and fee schedule. Twenty dollars for the emigrant train that had just departed, twenty-four for the next train leaving, the first-class limited departing tomorrow at one thirty. Seventeen hours. I had seventeen hours to beg, borrow, steal, or earn nine dollars, or more if I wanted to eat on the way.

My heart soared. In seventeen hours I would be on my way to Kindle.

“Going somewhere?”

I jumped and turned at the deep voice. A tall, dark figure in a low-brimmed hat leaned against the metal column topped by the station clock. The hands on the clock clicked forward. The end of the man’s cigar glowed brightly, and dimmed.

“Mr. Salter.”

“Mrs. Graham.” He pushed off from the clock and moved toward me. I stood my ground, though my instinct was to shrink back. “Are you leaving?”

“Eventually.”

“Your sister will be unhappy.”

“She’s settling in nicely.”

“Returning to your husband?”

“He died. Or didn’t you hear?”

“I didn’t. I’ve been in and out of town. Condolences.”

“Thank you.” I glanced around the now-deserted platform. The ticket master closed his window with a snap, and I was alone with Salter. I opened and closed my right hand and rubbed it against my hip to rid my palm of the sweat that had popped up on it.

Salter nodded at my hand. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

He mimicked my stretches. “Getting ready to break my nose?”

My laugh sounded forced. “No. I’m stretching it. It’s been broken a couple of times.”

“From punching men in the nose?”

“No.” I turned slightly away. “I have an appointment I must keep. Good evening, Mr. Salter.”

“Would you like me to walk you home? Offer my protection?” Though his hat was pulled low, I could see the mocking expression in his eyes.

“No, thank you.” I touched the gun holstered on my waist. “I can protect myself.”

He stepped closer and loomed over me. “Can you?”

I met his challenging gaze with my own. “I won’t hesitate to kill who needs killing.”

He raised his eyebrows and let his eyes roam over me. “Maybe you should offer your protection to me.”

“I would, but I have an appointment to keep.” I turned and walked away.

“Do you remember Martha Mason?”

I stopped, and my stomach fell through the floor. I swallowed my terror, arranged my face in a benign expression, and turned to face my nemesis. “Who?”

“Martha Mason. Wife of the hotelier in Grand Island.”

“Oh, right. Martha. I didn’t know her last name. What of her?”

Salter moved toward me, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “She took a beating in Omaha. Almost died.”

“That’s awful,” I said, voice faint. I wanted to know more, was desperate for information, but knew appearing too interested would increase Salter’s already heightened suspicions. “I hope she will recover.”

“Better hope she doesn’t. Mason won’t take her back. She’ll probably have to earn her living on her back. She wasn’t attractive before the beating; now only a blind man would fuck her.” Salter’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Don’t you care why she was beaten? Or how I know?”

“You’re a Pinkerton,” I said.

He pulled out his badge and showed it to me. “The railroad pays me to keep an eye on crime up and down the tracks.”

“Isn’t that a sheriff’s job?”

“They want to protect their investment. So many sheriffs are incompetent. How’d you know I was a Pinkerton? You’ve been asking around about me.”

“No.”

“I’ve been asking around about you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“You and your sister were the last two people to speak with a woman who ended up dead, and another who might as well be.”

“You think we are somehow responsible?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“We barely knew them.”

“On its face it seems a stretch, I admit. But Martha left town without a word to her husband, and no warning, the same morning you did. She was the only witness to a Mr. Bullock sending a note to Cora Bayle, the dead woman. Now, I find that compelling, don’t you?”

“It’s interesting, at least.”

“Couldn’t figure why she wanted to kill Cora Bayle, but it seemed like the logical answer. ’Til I heard about her being robbed and beaten.”

“Robbed?”

“A necklace she said she got from your sister.”

Here it was: my opportunity to get my revenge on Rosemond. Salter suspected that one or the other of us killed Cora Bayle, but he had no proof. Not that proof would matter much with the kangaroo courts of the West. I could give Rosemond to Salter and tell him a version of the truth, keeping my true identity out of the story. Or I could save Rosemond, turn myself in, and hope Salter preferred the “alive” version of “dead or alive” so I might see Kindle before I died.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want Rosemond to die, either.

“She implied Rosemond gave her the necklace?” I laughed. “She stole it. We didn’t realize it was missing until we arrived Cheyenne.”

“She said Rosemond gave it to her.”

“Of course she won’t admit she stole it.” I shook my head. “I horribly misjudged Martha. I thought she was a sweet woman.” I sighed. “I suppose it’s my lot in life to be perpetually disappointed in people. Now, I really must go and check on my patient. Good evening.”

I walked across the platform, down the steps, and started across the tracks to Calico Row. Once I was clear of the rail yard, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Salter following me at a distance. I picked up my pace and when I passed an alley bisecting the main street I was on, I ducked into it, taking a shortcut to Monique’s I’d learned over the last few weeks. I immediately realized my mistake: I’d never taken the shortcut in the dark, or alone.

The light from the glowing tents lit the alleys, but barely. I stumbled on the uneven ground and reached out for the guy rope holding up a tent. Back the way I came, I saw the shadow of Salter walk past the mouth of the alley. I took a few deep breaths to settle my trembling body. I supposed regaining my fearlessness would take more than a steely determination.

When steady, I released the rope holding me up and headed toward Monique’s, my hand on the handle of my gun and my mind on Salter. Did he believe my lies, or would he continue on with his investigation? If Martha lived, it would become her word against Rosemond’s. I knew Rosemond well enough to be confident she would be the more believable liar. Still, Cheyenne wasn’t safe for her anymore. I had to warn her before I left.

The alleys behind and between the tents were full of trash and human waste. A small goat tied to a stake in the ground bleated as I walked by. I saw the lights of Calico Row one section over as I passed the last alley perpendicular to it. A woman was pushed up against a stack of crates behind one of the few wooden buildings. Her legs were wrapped around the man’s waist, his pants around his ankles, his white rear glowing in the moonlight as he pumped his seed into her. Instinctively, I stopped and the man groaned his release.

“That was mighty nice, Reverend,” the woman said, her voice calm and unmoved. The man pulled away and revealed Clara. “Hello, Slim. Care to join us?”

The man’s head jerked up in the process of pulling up his pants. Reverend Bright’s eyes met mine. I turned and walked away and was soon lost in the crowd on Calico Row. I doubted Reverend Bright would follow me and try to explain himself. What was there to explain? He was a man being serviced by a prostitute. It didn’t matter he was a man of God. They were as prone to sins of the flesh as others, maybe more so.

I’d suspected Bright was partaking in the services of the women on the row, but Clara? Of all the soiled doves to poke, he’d chosen the one he and Portia had taken a special interest in. The one they were working so tirelessly to save. Was the Reverend’s true purpose to receive carnal thanks for his efforts? Had he done the same with the other prostitutes? It was an almost unfathomable betrayal of his wife and her mission.

I’d known my fair share of hypocrites, and too often they used the word of God as their protection and forgiveness. The more I thought of Reverend Bright’s actions, the more I realized I wasn’t surprised by what I’d seen. His marriage with Portia seemed more based on mutual respect than love. I doubted their private life was satisfying for either. I thought of the day they brought me to Calico Row, how they had barely interacted, though it was supposed to be their joint mission, how the Reverend had disappeared and how Portia seemed completely unconcerned about it.

I stopped in the road. Portia knew and didn’t care.

No doubt when Portia met the Reverend she saw someone who would save her from a lonely life as a schoolteacher, from constantly moving between the settlers’ houses of the children she taught; from being one bad harvest away from the pioneers not being able to pay her salary or to board her, one drought from losing her job. Portia might not have answered an ad for a wife, but she came west with the same goal as other women like her, the same goal as the single men had: to start a new life and better their lot.

Calico Row teemed with these very men, rambunctious and eager to spend their money. Women called out to tempt it away from them. Fiddle music floated from one tent, harmonica from the other. Down the street, in one of the few wooden buildings, a piano could be heard. Laughter, the clink of glasses, the smell of cigar smoke and the mouthwatering aroma of meat roasting over an open fire, it all mixed together to create an atmosphere charged with anticipation and possibility.

A volley of gunshots startled me out of my reverie. The crowd in the road moved to the edges, taking cover and looking for the culprits. Was it another running gunfight over a card game or a prostitute? A cowboy rode down the center of Calico Row, whooping and hollering, firing his pistol into the air. Salter stepped out from the shadows in front of the galloping horse and raised his hands. The horse reared, throwing the cowboy. The riderless horse ran off down the street.

“Far be it from me to interrupt your revels,” Salter said in a level voice, “but there’s one thing I can’t abide and it’s the wanton discharge of a pistol.” He stalked toward the man on the ground, who was groaning and holding his arm. Salter stood over the squirming man. “You ask me, it’s a waste of a good bullet. You never know when you might need it.”

“You broke my arm, you crazy son of a bitch,” the cowboy said.

Salter squatted down. “You’re drunk, so I’ll forget you called me that.” He gestured in my direction. “There’s a lady right there who can fix your arm.” Salter stood and waved me forward.

I hesitated, my eyes drawn to a man standing near Stella and her girls. Dr. Drummond smiled at me and tipped his hat. Most everyone on the street had stopped to stare at what was going on. More to end the spectacle than anything, I moved forward and helped the man up. Salter had turned and walked away. “Let’s get out of the road.”

I sat the man down on a bench outside Stella’s tent and asked her for a lantern. The shirtsleeve on the cowboy’s lower right arm bulged, and blood bloomed on the material.

I ripped his shirtsleeve. “What’s your name?”

“Zeke.” His face was pale and sweaty. He swallowed with difficulty, as if swallowing bile. “God, this hurts.” He wiped his watering eyes roughly but kept them turned away from his arm. He knew as well as I did that the bone was sticking out of the skin.

I grasped my stomach at the familiar stabbing pain of my menses.

“I can help you with the pain.” Drummond was beside us, pulling a small case from his inside coat pocket. He was looking to Zeke, but I suspected the offer encompassed me, as well.

“What’s that?” Zeke asked.

Drummond held up the vial. “Morphine. It’ll ease your pain while Mrs. Graham here works on you.”

“I cannot pay you for it,” I said. I gritted my teeth against my own pain, trying to mask my weakness from Drummond and my patient.

“From one professional to another,” Drummond said with a sly smile. He held up the syringe. The young cowboy’s eyes widened in alarm at the needle.

“I don’t think so,” Zeke said.

I couldn’t tear my gaze from the brown liquid in the syringe. I imagined it flowing through my veins, releasing the ever-present tension in my muscles, dulling the pain I knew would lay me out for days, would keep me from going to Kindle. One dose would make travel on the emigrant train more bearable but would make a woman traveling alone vulnerable.

“Maybe you need this more than the cowboy,” Drummond said with a knowing smile.

“Give it to him.”

“You sure?”

I ignored him and said to the cowboy, “I can’t treat you here. We’re going to have to go to Dr. Hankins’s office.” Drummond pushed up the cowboy’s sleeve, hit his arm to raise the vein, and pushed the needle home. The cowboy cried out and turned green.

Salter walked up with the man’s horse. Drummond removed the needle and returned the syringe to his case.

With more gentleness than I expected, Salter helped Zeke stand. Before helping him onto his horse, Salter said, “I’m sorry about your arm, son. I’ll pay your bill.”

Zeke’s legs buckled beneath him. “What about my lost wages?” he slurred.

Salter boosted Zeke onto the horse and patted him on the leg. “If you lose your job, come find me at the Union Pacific Hotel.” He handed the reins to me. “I’ll leave your payment at the front desk. Unless you want me to pay Hankins? Five dollars?”

“No,” I said. “The front desk is fine.”

“If you need another dose, you know where to find me,” Drummond said.

Salter and I watched the huckster return to the whores he’d been with when the commotion began. Clara took him inside.

“He gives the whores a free taste to hook them, then sells it to them at a premium,” Salter said.

“I know.”

Salter looked down on me and studied my face. Did he see tension there from holding back the pain increasing in my abdomen? “Stay out of the alleys, Doc. Nothing good happens in the shadows.”

I clicked to the horse and led him away. I went by Monique’s and told her I would return to check on Lavina and Thomas as soon as I could. We were crossing through the rail yard when a shadow stepped in front of us. “Mrs. Graham. How do you feel?”

It was too dark to see his face clearly, but I recognized the voice. “I’m fine, Mr. Drummond.”

He reached into his coat. “I thought you might rather get your dose away from prying eyes. Doesn’t look good for a doctor to be partaking, does it?”

“I do not need your morphine, Mr. Drummond.”

“Don’t you? I knew who you were the first time I met you.” Drummond’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Fear and pain mingled in my stomach and I clutched at it instinctively. “Who am I?”

“An addict.”

Relief almost overshadowed the stabbing pain in my lower abdomen. He didn’t know me as Catherine Bennett. “I’m going to have to ask you let me pass. I need to help my patient.”

Drummond laughed. “The cowboy can wait. He doesn’t feel any pain. Unlike you. I can help. I want to help.”

I couldn’t help myself; I laughed. The thought that this man had my best interests at heart was too much. “You are reprehensible, preying on whores who have no hope.”

“I help make their lives more bearable.”

“Oh, you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart?” I scoffed. “I’d be surprised if you had a heart.”

Drummond’s expression changed in a flash. He drew his arm across his body and backhanded me across the face. The force of the blow spun me around and I fell heavily on my hands and knees. Zeke’s horse reared and bolted, jerking me forward by the hand still holding the rein. The leather strip whipped out of my hand and I fell forward onto my chest, which knocked the wind out of me.

I lifted my head to gasp for breath and saw the horse trip on the railroad tracks, regain its footing, and continue on. Zeke tumbled over the side of the horse and hit the ground. Drummond turned me onto my back, pulled my gun, and tossed it aside. It hit the tracks with a metal clang. “The problem with women like you is you don’t know when to keep your mouth shut.”

I tried to scramble back on my elbows, but my chest felt as if it were in a vise. I couldn’t breathe, my tight corset working against me. My vision swam as I clutched at my chest, ineffectively trying to loosen the corset beneath my shirt. Drummond knelt down and straddled me. I bucked against him, trying to dislodge him, while my hand reached down toward my leg, bent so I could access my knife. Drummond took my arm clutching at my corset, shoved my shirtsleeve up, and hit my arm a couple of times, while I continued to squirm beneath him. “You’re feisty, but you’ll be compliant soon enough.”

I could barely hear through the pounding in my ears and my gasps for breath, but I felt his erection and knew what he intended for me.

I saw the needle at the same moment I grasped the handle of my knife. “You’ll be begging to suck my dick for another dose,” he said. Drummond stuck the needle in my arm and pushed the plunger a moment before I stabbed him in the back of his shoulder. I bucked against him with as much power as I could muster. He screamed, reached for the knife, and flew backward off me as if plucked by the hand of God.

I pulled the syringe from my arm and rolled over onto my hands and knees. I crawled away still clutching the syringe, the edges of the world dark from lack of oxygen. With a final, unsuccessful heave, I collapsed on my chest. I saw nothing but the hard metal of the railroad track, heard my heartbeat slow, the sound of fighting, the oof of a man being punched in the stomach, and finally the crunch of gravel beneath running feet. I closed my eyes and relaxed, exhausted. A sublime feeling of well-being flowed through me.

I’m sorry, Kindle.

Strong hands turned me over and fumbled with my clothes—the buttons of my vest, my shirt, and finally, the laces of my corset. I knew I should fight but didn’t have the strength. The man pulled the corset open and said, “Take a deep breath, Helen.”

I did so and air, glorious air, filled my lungs. I tried to rise, but the man placed a hand on my shoulder. “Catch your breath first.” He held my hand and when my vision came into focus I saw who my savior was.

“Reverend.” One side of his red face was dirty and he rubbed his abdomen.

He helped me sit. “Better?”

I nodded as the morphine seeped into the far reaches of my body. God, why have I avoided this for so long?

“Can you stand?”

“Not yet, I don’t think.” I lifted the syringe. It was three-quarters full. Drummond only managed a small dose. I pushed the plunger and the liquid shot out of the needle onto the ground. No need to tempt myself. I had a patient to take care of and it would be hard enough with the dose I’d received.

“What is that?” the Reverend said.

“Morphine. It’s Drummond’s new line. He tried to make me a customer by force.”

The Reverend’s face darkened in anger, and he looked back toward Calico Row, his forehead creased in thoughtful concern. He turned back to me.

“Did he violate you?”

“No.”

The Reverend sighed and shook his head in relief. “I’m glad I wasn’t too late.”

I took a few deep breaths and stood with the Reverend’s help. I turned my back to button my shirt and found that they had been ripped off. The Reverend had managed to save my vest, so I pulled my shirt together as best I could and closed my vest.

“I apologize for your shirt,” the Reverend said. “You were turning purple.”

“Buttons can be replaced.” I looked around the dark train yard. “I don’t suppose you have a lantern.”

“No.”

“Drummond threw my gun.” I turned around. “I’m not sure which way.”

Reverend Bright picked up my carpetbag and handed it to me. The sound of broken glass explained the blots of wetness on the side of the bag that had been lying on the ground. I opened it and saw my small bottle of alcohol destroyed, and my carbolic powder gumming up in the liquid.

A man groaned.

“Zeke,” I said, pointing to a lump on the ground a little distance off. I hurried to my patient, trying to walk in a straight line, the Reverend on my heels. Zeke’s head was pillowed awkwardly on a railroad track. I slid my hand beneath his head and probed the base of his skull, relieved to find a large bump instead of the soft, pebbly sign of a crushed skull. “I fear his horse is gone for good. Can you help me with him?” I asked the Reverend, my words slurring together.

“Can you?” the Reverend asked.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

He took Zeke’s good arm and pulled him upright. Zeke’s legs gave way, but Reverend Bright wrapped the cowboy’s arm around his neck and supported him. I gently took Zeke’s broken arm and dipped below it to help the Reverend as much as possible. It had the added benefit of supporting my numb legs. Zeke’s head lolled around on his neck, finally settling back so if conscious, he would be staring at the stars. We continued on.

“Where are we going?”

“My house.”

“Dr. Hankins’s is closer.”

“Yes, but it’s more important I get his wound disinfected first. I have more carbolic at my house.”

We labored on for a while in silence. My chest burned with the effort of helping hold Zeke up. The man was dead weight. “Let me,” the Reverend said, taking Zeke from me. It wasn’t until we were in sight of my house that the Reverend spoke on what I had little doubt had been plaguing his mind for a while.

“Mrs. Graham, about what you saw …”

“Reverend—”

“It is something I’ve struggled against—”

“Really, Reverend, I do not care about your struggles. I am not the one you should be discussing this with.”

“My wife and I rarely—”

“Oliver,” I snapped. “I do not want to know of something so personal. There is nothing special or unique about a man fucking a whore. Spare me your excuses and justifications. If you want to ask for forgiveness, talk to your wife.”

I led him between the houses to the kitchen door at the back of Rosemond’s house. I hurried on to open the door and light the lantern.

A pot of coffee was warm on the stove. One mug with dregs sat on the table across from an empty glass and a bottle of whisky. Rosemond had company and hadn’t cleaned up after herself. Typical.

I cleared the table and moved the chairs out of the way and directed the Reverend to lay Zeke out on it.

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, I must ask another favor.”

Reverend Bright put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “Of course.”

“Find Hankins. You can try his office, but you might want to go by the Rollins House first. Tell him I’m treating a compound fracture and need some plaster of Paris.”

The Reverend nodded.

“First, sit for a moment,” I said, moving a chair toward him. I poured a cup of coffee from the pot and handed it to the Reverend. “Rest for a minute while I get the carbolic.”

He nodded and drank. I took the lantern and left the room.