Margaret Jane Olson, a.k.a. Lola Diamond, sat in the driver’s box of the wagon upon whose cover the words “BIG DAN WALTHROP’S TRAVELING DOLLS AND ROADHOUSE SHOW” had been written in large block letters. She wore a floppy-brimmed straw hat and the clinging, low-cut green dress of cheap material she always wore traveling between show stops. But in an effort to look as nice as she could without sacrificing expensive cloth to the ravages of the sun, wind, and dust of the trail, she wore about her slender neck a choker with a single pearl, and tiny pearl earrings. You never knew who you might meet on this godforsaken prairie; she’d once met a Russian prince, of all people, in Dakota, of all places. He had been amazed at her hair, which he had described as red as a Western sunset, which it was, she was proud to admit. It contrasted the sky blue of her eyes and the porcelain cream of her skin to bewitching effect. Her full lips, which she painted the same shade of red as her hair, made an exquisite, pouting O beneath her delicate nose.
Now she pulled the brim of her hat down lower, protecting her face from the sun, and scowled as she rode with the reins of the two-horse team lightly in her gloved hands. Lola Diamond, as she preferred to be called these days, was not happy. Not only was she once again traversing the freight roads and army trails of the middle of nowhere, crooning and dancing every night for drunk miners, gandy dancers, cowpokes, freighters, and outlaws in every tumbleweed town and stage stop in southern Montana, she was having to drive a wagon while “Big Dan” snored off a hangover in the box behind her.
How in the world had she ended up here? she wondered, casting a look about the sun baked plain rolling off in every direction, relieved by knolls and ridges, occasional buffalo wallows and brush-lined water courses. Here and there a rock shelf jutted up, scaly with ancient sandstone, and the far western horizon was a toothy, dark blue line of mountains—no doubt another godforsaken range in which some backwater mining town sat, or a roadhouse, and where Big Dan would have her and the other girls playing tomorrow night or the night after or the night after that.
Big Dan seemed to love these forlorn, off-the-beaten-path places. He’d no doubt run up against the law somewhere in his seedy past, and didn’t want to be seen anywhere he might be recognized. Lola preferred places a little more hopping, where there was more of a chance some agent from a big-city playhouse might discover her and give her a chance to achieve the kind of fame she’d not only been born for, but worked hard at attaining practically her entire life.
She’d been born in Utica, New York, to a mild-mannered, unambitious father and an ambitious, hardworking mother who ran a boardinghouse and who gave her beautiful, precocious Margaret Jane acting lessons by accomplished East Coast thespians. When Margaret Jane was twelve, her mother sold her boardinghouse, and she, Margaret Jane, and the reluctant father hopped the Union Pacific to take advantage of the acting and singing opportunities offered by the burgeoning seaport of San Francisco.
Only Margaret Jane and her mother made it to California, however, the father having fallen ill and dying during a layover in Kelton, Utah. Not to be thwarted, the stalwart Olson women journeyed on to San Francisco, where Mrs. Olson secured for Margaret Jane singing and dancing stints galore, but only in perilous bars and taverns along the waterfront. No jobs were available in the more respectable theaters, which, the Olsons were exasperated to learn, had been monopolized by a few local families with connections, one of which was the Booth family, made infamous by Edward’s assassination of President Lincoln.
Compounding young Margaret Jane’s problems, her mother died of food poisoning, leaving Margaret Jane, then sixteen, utterly alone. What saved her from the horrors that befell most young women alone and down and out in San Francisco was an older actress and singer named Naomi Tate, who invited Margaret Jane to accompany her and her traveling theatrical troupe to the wild and woolly—but highly profitable—mining camps in the northern territories.
Things went well in that rough country populated by cowboys, Indians, miners, and outlaws, and the playbills identified Margaret Jane as “Amber Skye”—the stage name had been Naomi’s idea—until the troupe headed back to San Francisco. Liking the wild and woolly West, making good money there, and believing it was there she would one day be discovered by the right talent scout, Margaret Jane joined one traveling show after another, playing in places like Virginia City, Johnson City, Medicine Bow, Billings, and Bannack—and every roadhouse and stage stop in between.
It was in Johnson City that she ran into the trouble that landed her in the Beaverhead country. She remembered it all now as she squinted off across the sun-scorched plain, the sharp smell of sage bringing tears to her eyes. At least she thought it was the sage. Maybe it was the memory of that horrible night back in Johnson City, after she’d gotten through her usual string of numbers at the Stockmen’s Hotel, had gone to bed, then gotten up for water and heard the trouble in Hoyt Farley’s office ...
No. She didn’t want to think of that now. It was too terrifying a memory. She, Lola Diamond, as she’d been known since her last night in Johnson City, had to keep her head up and stick to the back country where, hopefully, no one would recognize her. In a few months she’d make enough money working for Big Dan that she could book passage back to Denver or San Francisco, where certainly her considerable experience would secure her a job ... somewhere.
And where no one from Johnson City would ever find her ...
As the big wheels of the wagon rolled along, the horses’ hooves thumping on the well-churned trail, kicking up the alkali dust like flour, the snores behind Lola suddenly ceased. A moment later Big Dan stuck his head through the white canvas cover. He blinked his eyes and smacked his lips as he crawled onto the seat beside Lola.
“See any Indians?” he asked.
Lola jerked him a startled look. “Indians?”
Big Dan chuckled deeply. “Guess not. That’s good.”
“You said the Indians were peaceful in these parts,” Lola reminded the big, red-bearded man.
He was twisting the upswept ends of his mustache, badly in need of trimming. With his idiotically protruding eyes, scarred nose, and huge, ungainly frame, he looked more like a bouncer in some Leadville saloon than the master of a road show. But then a bouncer in a Leadville saloon was exactly what he’d been two years ago, before he’d inherited the wagons, costumes, and horses from his cousin, the former owner, who’d died from a knife wound during a saloon brawl.
Only one of the show’s original actresses had remained with the show, but it wasn’t hard recruiting actors and singers in these parts, where everyone but the miners seemed dissatisfied with his or her current occupation, and was desperate for money. For Lola, who had met Big Dan only a month ago, it had been either sign up with the man, who’d been pulling out for the Beaverhead country the next day, or get her throat slashed and her body thrown to the dogs at the Johnson City dump.
Big Dan pulled a flask from an inside pocket of his frock coat. Lined with red satin, it was another trophy he’d inherited from his cousin, and about two sizes too small. Big Dan’s round shoulders strained the seams, and the cuffs stopped well short of his wrists. “Mostly the Injuns are right peaceful around here, but you never know. The Bannacks are raisin’ hell over Utah-way, so you never know what the Blackfeet and Crows are gonna try pullin’. Sometimes one tribe gets a hell-raisin’ idea from another ... ” He shrugged, uncorked the flask, and raised it to his lips.
Lola’s cheeks flushed with anger. She scrutinized the man with narrow-eyed disdain. “You might have told me that before you decided to nod off.”
Big Dan took another slug from the flask, smacked his lips, and recorked the bottle. “Sorry ... I wasn’t feelin’ too good.” He gave Lola a sidelong glance, grinning wolfishly and stealing another of many looks down her dress.
“Well, you seem to be feeling fine now. Here”—she tossed him the reins—”you can have your job back.”
Dan chuckled and returned the flask to his coat. Taking up the reins, he grinned. “You sure are pretty, Lola. You’re the prettiest girl in my troupe. I sure wish you’d give me a poke.”
Accustomed to his crude advances, she merely rolled her eyes. “If wishes were horses, Dan ...”
He grinned through his beard. “Never know—might be fun.”
Lola sighed and looked off. Here she was, miles from civilization with this tawdry troupe of underpaid actresses and this moron, who didn’t know Shakespeare from vaudeville and who accosted her with his goatish hunger every chance he got.
Holding the reins at his chest, Dan nudged Lola with his elbow and winked. “I didn’t say I’d pay ya for it, Lola.” He guffawed. “If I don’t pay, it ain’t whorin’— now, ain’t that right? Haw, haw, haw!”
She gave a long, tired sigh and turned to the man showing his long horse teeth under his mustache as he grinned, pleased with himself. “When are we gonna stop? I got nature to tend, and I bet the other girls do, too. Looks to me there’s a creek right over there.”
Big Dan pulled a watch from his pocket and flipped the lid. “Well, it’s already one o’clock. I’d like to make Henry’s Crossing by three. It’s gonna take us a while to set up, an’ I know you girls are gonna wanna have naps and baths like ya always do ... ”
Anger flashed in Lola’s eyes as she turned sideways to face the big man. “Listen, you scoundrel—I drove this wagon all morning while you slept off your hangover. Now you stop so we can pee and the horses can drink, goddamn you!”
“All right, all right!” Big Dan relented, swinging the horses toward the creek. When they approached the cut-bank, he said, “You got a half hour. No more, an’ that’s final. These wagons are pullin’ out at two-thirty.”
Lola hardly heard the last two sentences, for she’d jumped down from the wagon before the horses had halted, and was walking back along the trail as the other two wagons approached, driven by two other actresses— Minnie Calhoun and Glyneen Night. All the actresses took turns driving the second wagon. When they weren’t driving, they usually slept in the wagons or looked over song sheets or playbooks, or sewed costumes.
“Mr. Big-Shot’s givin’ us a nature break, girls,” Lola called. “Pull up yonder.”
She beckoned as she turned and started down the shallow bank, heading for a stand of cottonwoods in a wide horseshoe of the creek, about a hundred yards away. The other actresses climbed down from their wagons. The two younger girls. Glyneen Night and Audrey Fare, still had enough energy after the arduous journey from the last gold camp to jostle each other and laugh as they approached the cottonwoods. Lola was only twenty-one, still young by most standards, but in the last month or so she’d felt old. Old and angry and tired.
She pulled up her dress, dropped her bloomers, and squatted behind a cottonwood. Audrey Fare rustled the grass as she approached and squatted behind a tree only ten yards to Lola’s right. Audrey was only a year younger than Lola, but because of Lola’s superior beauty, talent, and mysterious past, Audrey looked up to her, in much the same way Lola had once looked up to the dynamic, worldly Naomi Tate.
“Lola,” the girl said as she peed. “Can I ask you a question?”
“As long as it’s not personal,” Lola snapped.
She’d made it clear after she’d joined the troupe that she would entertain no questions regarding her immediate circumstances; no questions regarding what she was obviously running from back in Johnson City. Naturally the others, including Big Dan, were curious, since Big Dan had hired her in the middle of the night and she’d abruptly appeared the next morning as the wagons were heading out of town.
“Oh, it’s not about you, Lola,” the girl said mournfully. “It’s about me. Do you think Harvey’ll stay true?”
“Harvey?”
“You know—the gent I met in Lofton?”
Snickers rose from a tree behind Lola.
Lola turned angrily. “Minnie, you hush your mouth!” To Audrey, she said regretfully. “Honey, how long did you know the man?”
For several seconds there was only the sound of the prairie breeze churning the cottonwood leaves high above their heads. Cloud shadows swept the gurgling creek and the clover, mustard, and foxtails along its banks.
“Two nights,” Audrey said. She stood holding her dress above her waist as she adjusted her bloomers.
“Did you allow him to ... well ... you know ... ?”
Audrey shrugged passively. “Well ... yeah ... ”
Minnie snickered again behind the other tree.
“Did he promise himself to you before or after you gave yourself?” Lola asked Audrey.
More snickers, louder this time.
“Minnie, I don’t want to have to tell you again!” Lola cried. The snickers ceased.
“Before,” Audrey said thinly.
Lola got her bloomers in place, smoothed her dress down over her legs, and walked over to Audrey, who stood holding herself before the cottonwood. Her thin blond hair blew about her face.
“Well, I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, sweetie,” Lola said, taking one of the girl’s hands in hers. “But any man who promises himself to you after he’s known you only a night or two is either a jasper or a peckerwood—a varmint of the lowest kind. A snake in the grass. Most likely, he promised himself just so he could get in your drawers. Now that he got what he wanted, he’s no doubt promised himself to two or three other girls since we left Lofton.”
“Oh, Lola, he wouldn’t!” the girl cried.
Lola put her arms around her. She knew what it was like to be hurt by a man. It had happened to her once, when she was only sixteen. You grow up fast in this business. She knew one thing, though—she’d never let it happen again.
“Oh, yes, he would,” she said, rocking the girl gently back and forth in her arms. “It’ll take you a while, but eventually you’ll learn how to tell the snakes from those men who’ll walk the straight and narrow with a girl.”
Audrey lifted her head to look into Lola’s eyes. “You find any of those men yet, Lola?”
Lola looked away, frowning. “No,” she said at length. “No ... for all my talkin’, I haven’t found any man like that myself.” She held the girl for a while longer, then she pushed her away and smiled. “But I’ll tell you as soon as I find more than one, and you can have first pick of the pack. How’s that?”
Audrey smiled through a sob and nodded her head.
“In the meantime, I think I hear a snake right now,” Lola said.
Audrey frowned. “Huh?”
“Wait.” Lola bent down, lifted the hem of her dress, and removed a small, silver-plated pistol from a sheath strapped to her calf. Turning, she swung the pistol around toward a stand of high grass and chokecherry shrubs, and squeezed off a round. The gun cracked sharply, spitting smoke and fire.
“Wait!” erupted a man’s voice from the brush. “Wait, goddamnit, Lola! It’s me!”
“I know it’s you!” Lola returned. “It’s you trying to get a peek at four women tending nature, you pathetic son of a bitch.”
There was a thrashing in the weeds, and a bush moved, but Big Dan did not show himself. “Don’t shoot!”
Lola had a mind to go ahead and plug the dirty bastard, but then where would she be? She could take over the troupe herself. If anyone asked about Big Dan, she could say he’d gotten overly randy one night—which wouldn’t be a lie, the way he was always pawing the other girls, and had even talked Minnie and Glyneen into sleeping with him for special favors—and she’d plugged him. The other girls would probably even corroborate her story.
The only problem was four women without a man were sitting ducks out here, for anything that happened along. They certainly couldn’t ride into the mining camps they played every night without a man riding shotgun. Big Dan was worthless most ways, but he was a big son of a bitch, and he wielded a shotgun well.
Lola lowered the gun to her side. “Get back to the wagon and do your job for a change. You ever try that again, you bastard, I’ll shoot you between the eyes.”
“Okay, Lola, okay,” Dan said, snapping twigs and rustling branches as he made his way out of the bushes, his hands raised to his chest. “I was just havin’ fun, Lola.” He grinned. “Don’t take it so serious. The others don’t— right, Glyneen?”
The other girls had gathered around Lola when they’d heard the gunshot. Now Big Dan, grinning like a naughty schoolboy, draped an arm around Glyneen and Minnie as he made his way back toward the wagons. “You two know how I am, don’t you? Big Dan just likes to have fun ... ” He went on talking as he walked with Glyneen and Minnie on either side of him, giving truckling, inaudible answers to his pandering questions.
Lola turned to Audrey, who smiled devilishly. “Would you really have shot him?”
“Right between the eyes,” Lola said.
She turned to stare across the creek and the bending weeds rising on the other side to a low sandstone ridge. Everything was made so terribly small by the sky that Lola wanted to cry. Her mother was dead, and here she was toting a pistol on her leg and fending off randy troupe masters in Indian country.
Where were the silk top hats and leather buggies, ladies decked out in crinoline and lace? The thirty-dollar rooms and the caviar? Where were the big shows with her name in large, fancy letters, the bejeweled social circles in which her mother had wanted her so desperately to romp?
“Come on, Lola,” Audrey urged, tugging on her sleeve. “We’d best get back to the wagons. It’s on—”
“Yes, I know,” Lola sighed, unwillingly emerging from her reverie. “It’s on to Henry’s Crossing.”
She brushed her sweat-damp hair back from her face and started toward the wagons. Could her life get any worse?