The next day, L.J. Tanner was sweeping the floor of his saloon and grumbling under his breath about no longer having his swamper, Arnell Three-Bears, around to perform such lowly chores. Instead, Arnell was pushing up rocks and snuggling with diamondbacks on the little bluff across the river known as Potter’s Field.
Good help was hard to find, but Tanner wasn’t about to pay for the half-breed’s funeral.
All that was left of Arnell were the bloodstains on Tanner’s floor. Though L.J. had scrubbed and scrubbed at the stains, he couldn’t seem to get them out of the wood. Maybe in time they’d fade, but at the moment they were a grisly reminder of Lou Prophet’s barn blaster.
Hearing his only whore groaning again upstairs to the accompaniment of her worn-out bedsprings, Tanner lifted his head to yell, “Goddamnit, Danny-Boy—how many free pokes are you . . . ?”
Tanner let his voice trail off when sharp slapping sounds rose from out in the street. He turned to see Roscoe Deets’s pretty little Mexican wife shuffling by in rope-soled sandals, carrying a small crate of grocery goods up high against her comely, brown bosoms. She wore a straw sombrero and the low-cut red dress she nearly always wore, as though it were maybe one of only two or three dresses she owned. The skirt of the dress danced against her long, slender legs, and her straight, dark-brown hair fluttered out behind her shoulders as she strode on past the Arkansas River Saloon, heading east, the sandals slapping her heels.
Tanner moved to the door and called, “Hey, there, Senorita. I mean, Senora Deets!” He chuckled at his purposeful mistake.
Lupita Deets stopped and glanced back at him. She looked sad, crestfallen. Without much heart, she said, “Hello, Senor Tanner.”
She turned and continued shuffling away but stopped again when Tanner said, “Hey, where’s your husband, the marshal? Ain’t seen him around much lately.”
“He is sick,” said the girl.
“Sick, huh?”
“Si.”
“That’s too bad.”
Her head and shoulders bowed, she said unconvincingly, “He will be all right in time. I will tell him you asked, Senor Tanner.”
She started walking away again.
Tanner called, “Anything I can do to help?”
Without stopping or even glancing back at the saloon owner, Lupita merely shook her head. Tanner watched as she shuffled away, dust rising from around her sandals and brown feet, admiring the way the dress clung to her legs. A pretty girl, Lupita. But then, Tanner had always been fond of young Mexican women. There was something undeniably alluring about those dark eyes and that dark hair and smooth, nut-brown skin.
He’d once had a Mexican whore working for him, but she hadn’t liked the way he’d treated her. She’d slipped out on him only two weeks after she’d started.
Tanner grimaced at the ceiling through which he could hear his current whore groaning. Knowing what Danny-Boy was doing up there, and having seen Lupita Deets out in the street, looking so sad, caused a burn of desire to rise up into Tanner’s belly.
He leaned his broom against the wall, removed his apron, tossed it onto a table, and then stepped out through the batwings and onto the gallery. Lifting his black slouch hat trimmed with a conch band, he smoothed his thin hair back from his temples.
He dropped down the gallery steps and walked out into the street, swinging right and following the girl’s scuffed sandal tracks. He could see her a half a block ahead. Pulling his hat down snug on his forehead, Tanner jogged forward as two horseback riders passed on his left. They were the only two others on the street, as it was hot and bright and most folks were sticking to the shade.
“Mrs. Deets? I say there—Senora Deets?”
She stopped and turned to him, frowning, straining slightly against the weight of the groceries in her arms.
Tanner jogged up to her. “Don’t know what got into me. Where are my manners? I should have offered to help you with your burden.”
“That is all right, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said. “You are a busy man. Besides, it is not so—”
“Nonsense, nonsense. You let me help you with that.”
“Really, it is not neces . . .”
She let her voice trail off as Tanner took the small, tightly packed crate from her. “Of course it’s necessary. Your husband’s sick and you’re obviously feeling a mite off your feed about it. The least a good citizen . . . and gentleman . . . can do is carry your groceries home for you.”
“Thank you, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said as she drew her chin down and started walking alongside the saloon owner.
She said nothing as they walked along the partly shaded right side of the street, heading toward the cross street on which her and Deets’s house was located. Tanner glanced at her. Her brown cheek was screened by her coarse, dark-brown hair, which brushed her shoulders and arms.
“So ole Roscoe is sick, eh?” Tanner said, feigning concern.
“Si.”
“Tell me, Lupita. I mean, it ain’t none of my business, and I assure you I’ll keep it just between you an’ me, but . . . is Roscoe drinkin’ again?”
Lupita looked at him quickly, fearfully. But then tears shone in her eyes and she lowered her head again as she said, “Si. He is drinking again.”
“Ah, that’s a damn shame. See, I knew Roscoe had a problem. Back when he was working for old Chester McCrae, he and a couple of his compadres would ride into town on Friday nights already lit up like Chinese lanterns. But he promised me and the rest of the town council he’d given it up.”
“He promised me that, too, Senor Tanner.” Lupita turned quickly to Tanner again. “Please do not fire him, Senor Tanner. Please do not tell the others. It is just a small setback. It is a bender. My papa was the same way. When he is sober again, I will talk to him and he will listen to reason. He does not want to lose me, and I know he does not want to lose his job.”
“It’s this bounty hunter mess, ain’t it?”
“What?”
Tanner kicked at a horse apple in mock frustration. “It’s this bounty hunter mess that got him all antsy and pulled him back into the bottle. Damn, that man . . . and that girl. They sure have complicated things in Box Elder Ford, I don’t mind tellin’ you, Miss Lupita. But it’s a passing thing. Roscoe has to understand that. And he’s tough enough to face up to Lou Prophet.”
“I know that and you know that, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said as they turned the corner and headed for her and Deets’s house, “but Roscoe does not know that.”
“As soon as he comes out of it, chiquita, I’ll talk to him.”
Lupita glanced at him skeptically, hopefully. “You will?”
“Of course, I will. Hey, listen—we all got problems. Sometimes just knowin’ we got friends who care helps a whole damn lot, pardon my French.”
As they entered her and Deets’s yard, Lupita said quietly, “The back door, please, Senor Tanner. Roscoe is sleeping upstairs, and I don’t want to wake him.”
“Sure, sure.”
As they walked along the side of the house, Lupita glanced at Tanner skeptically. “You will not tell the other town council members?”
Tanner gave her a winning smile. “I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
Lupita smiled, flushing. As they turned the rear corner of the house and headed for the back door, Lupita said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Tanner.” She stopped and turned to take the box of groceries from him.
Tanner held onto the box and, smiling lasciviously, said, “I think you do.”
She frowned, staring at him with befuddlement in her chocolate-brown eyes. Then her dark cheeks turned darker and she pulled a little harder at the box in Tanner’s hands. “I will take this now, Senor Tanner.”
Tanner pitched his voice low with both lust and menace as he said, “You know what I think, chiquita? I think you need a man. I think you need a real man. Not some young drunk who turns tail and runs at the first sign of trouble.”
Lupita’s voice quavered as she tugged at the box. “Please, Senor Tanner, give me the box. I must go inside now. I have work—” She gave a startled cry as Tanner suddenly released the box and grabbed her. She dropped the box, and as the groceries spilled out on the ground around her sandals, she opened her mouth to scream.
Tanner clamped his hand over her mouth, and the scream sounded like a moan. He wrapped his free arm around her shoulders and shoved his face up to within six inches of hers, tipping her head back.
“Let’s go on over to the stable yonder, chiquita, and I’ll show you what it’s like with a real man.”
She moaned against his palm clamped down hard on her mouth, and tried to wrestle out of his grip, but he was far larger and stronger than she.
“If you don’t,” Tanner said. “If you keep makin’ a big fuss over it, I’ll see that Roscoe’s fired. Understand? Now, you like your little house here, don’t ya? Prob’ly wanna fill it with little half-breeds? Well, that ain’t gonna happen if you don’t come nice and quiet with me over to the stable and act like a woman’s supposed to act.” The saloon owner grinned. “Understand, chiquita?”
She stared at him through those terrified brown eyes. Her lips were moist and warm against his hand, fueling the fires of his goatish desire.
“Understand?” Tanner asked her again and gave her head a quick, savage shake.
She blinked once, twice. Tears shone in her eyes. They dribbled down her cheeks to roll up against Tanner’s hand.
She nodded once.
Slowly, Tanner lowered his hand to his side. Lupita did not scream.
Tanner took her hand and led her back to the small stable and buggy shed Roscoe had built at the rear edge of his and Lupita’s property. Deets’s chestnut gelding stood in the small corral abutting the stable, eyeing the pair curiously as it chewed hay and switched its tail at flies. The hot, dry breeze stirred the leaves of the cottonwood partly shading the stable.
A squirrel chittered angrily in the branches.
Tanner opened the stable’s side door. He stepped aside, and Lupita stared up at him for a second before she moved on through the door and into the stable’s heavy shadows, brushing tears from her cheeks.
“Why are you doing this, Senor Tanner?” she asked quietly.
Tanner closed the door and walked over to her. The empty stable was neatly kept, with gear hanging from spikes in the walls. There were three stalls standing side-by-side though Deets had only one horse. More of the young marshal’s optimism, Tanner thought.
He walked up to Deets’s pretty little wife and slid her hair back from her cheeks with the backs of his hands, staring hungrily down at her. “Because you’re the prettiest little thing in the whole damn county, chiquita. Don’t you know that?” He stepped back and hardened his voice, keeping it low. “Now, take that pretty little dress off.”
Lupita sniffed, lowered her head, and began unbuttoning the dress. When she had it open, she slid it off her shoulders, stepped out of it, and set it on a saddle rack.
“The rest of it,” Tanner ordered.
Sobbing quietly, she reached down and pulled her camisole up and over her head. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders and small, pert, brown-nippled breasts.
“Jesus,” Tanner said throatily, swallowing. He placed a hand on her right breast and fondled it roughly. “Niiice.”
When Lupita had removed her lacy drawers and set them, too, on the saddle rack, Tanner brusquely picked her up and set her down on the clothes piled on the racked saddle. She gave a small cry and then she just sat there on the saddle, naked and sobbing, as Tanner unbuckled his cartridge belt. He let his gun and holster fall to the hay-strewn floor. He unbuttoned his pants and lowered them and his underwear to his knees.
He stepped forward and, holding his jutting dong in one hand, spread her left knee wide with the other.
“Nice and quiet now, chiquita,” he warned, sliding himself forward against her. “Nice . . . and . . . quiet. Ohh, yeah!”
Suddenly bright sunlight swept over him as the stable door opened behind him.
“Huh?” Tanner said, awkwardly turning, stumbling over his trousers.
“Roscoe!” Lupita cried.