Chapter Five
In Purgatory, Duke Rudd and Sam Logan were bored. Both men had been outlaws since they were in their teens, and when they weren’t busy robbing and killing, sometimes they found that they didn’t know what to do with themselves. And Billy Ray just kept telling them to be patient, claiming that there was a big job coming up but the time wasn’t right for it yet.
So here they sat at a table in the Silver Spur, nursing beers. Logan was playing a game of solitaire with a deck of greasy, dog-eared cards. Rudd wasn’t interested in cards. He just scowled as he looked around the room.
“Might as well be in a damn cemetery,” he muttered. “It’s sure enough dead in here.”
“It’s early,” Logan said without looking up from his cards. “Place’ll get busier later on.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to wait for later on? What if I want some excitement right now?”
“Then I guess you’ll have to manufacture your own. Why don’t you take one of the gals upstairs?”
“Because the only one down here right now is that damned Linda Sue,” Rudd snapped. “I swear, my horse is better lookin’ than her.”
“Then why don’t you—”
Logan must have sensed the look Rudd was giving him, because he didn’t finish that sentence. Instead, he frowned at his cards and moved some of them around so he could continue playing. That was cheating, sure, but he didn’t figure it really mattered since he wasn’t likely to shoot himself over it.
“Anyway, I’m a mite low on funds,” Rudd went on.
“I know. Billy Ray don’t give us enough spendin’ money. As much loot as we’ve got stashed at the hideout, seems like we ought to be flush all the time.”
“He says he wants to save it up and not do the divvy until we’re ready to rattle our hocks and shake the dust of New Mexico off our boots. Well, how long is that gonna be, I ask you? How much is enough?”
“Money’s like sweet lovin’ from a gal,” Logan said with a grin. “Ain’t no such thing as enough.”
“Maybe so, but I’m gettin’ tired of just sittin’ around and waitin’—All right.”
Logan glanced up.
“All right what? What’s goin’ on?”
Rudd nodded toward the staircase at the side of the big barroom.
“Look who’s woke up and comin’ downstairs,” he said.
The pretty blonde called Della was descending the stairs. As Rudd and Logan watched her, she stifled a yawn. Her hair had been brushed but was still a little tousled from sleep. She paused halfway down, grasped the low neckline of her dress, and gave it a tug to adjust it over her breasts.
“Lordy,” Rudd breathed. “You ever had her, Sam?”
Logan shook his head.
“She charges more than the other gals, and she can get away with it, too, lookin’ like she does. Besides, I, uh, think that she’s kinda sweet on Billy Ray. She’s always hangin’ all over him when he’s in here.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t sweet on her, is he?” Rudd asked. “I mean, she don’t mean nothin’ special to him. I never knew Billy Ray to get moony-eyed over any gal in particular. So he hadn’t ought to mind if I was to spend some time in Miss Della’s company.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have any money,” Logan said.
“I’ve been savin’ some back for somethin’ special.” Rudd licked his lips as Della reached the bottom of the stairs. “And if that ain’t special, I never seen anything that is.”
Logan shook his head and said, “Go ahead. Don’t be too surprised if she laughs in your face, though.”
“Why in the hell would she do that?” Rudd asked with a puzzled frown.
“Because you’re about the ugliest peckerwood south of the Picket Wire!” Logan said.
Rudd glared and said, “I reckon I’ll shoot you for sayin’ that, Sam. One of these days I will, you just wait and see. But not today.” He downed the rest of the beer in his mug, stood up, and hitched his trousers a little higher. “Today I got more important business to take care of.”
“You do that,” Logan said, apparently unconcerned about Rudd’s death threat. He rearranged the cards again in his solitaire game.
Rudd cocked his hat at a jaunty angle and crossed the room to the bar. Three men were drinking there, none of them paying any attention to the others. Della was near the end of the bar, talking to Linda Sue and the bartender, a consumptive-looking gent named Meade.
As he came up to them, Rudd ignored Linda Sue and Meade and said, “Good day to you, Miss Della. Remember me? Duke Rudd? We’ve spoke before.”
“Why, of course I remember you, Duke,” Della replied with a smile. “How are you?”
Rudd thought it was likely Della would have claimed to remember any man who spoke to her, whether she really did or not. Whores were that way. But he didn’t care. He said, “I’m doin’ fine, I reckon. But I’d be even finer if you’d go upstairs with me and allow me the pleasure of your company for a spell.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, Duke. I’m flattered. But it’s early in the day and I really haven’t been awake that long.”
“It’s after noon,” Rudd pointed out.
“Well, that’s early for me, honey.” Della paused. “Besides, I sort of doubt that you’d be able to afford me.”
“How much?” Rudd asked.
Linda Sue laughed and said, “Boy, he comes right out with it, don’t he?”
“I’m willin’ to pay,” Rudd went on. “Just tell me how much.”
Della glanced at the bartender. Rudd thought she might have been appealing to Meade to get rid of him, but the man pointedly looked away and started wiping the bar with a rag, each movement taking him a little farther away. The message was clear: He wasn’t going to interfere with one of Billy Ray Gilmore’s men.
Looking a little annoyed by Meade’s desertion, Della said curtly, “Ten dollars.”
That brought another laugh from Linda Sue. She said, “Lord, who do you think you’re talkin’ to, Della, the president of these here United States? Nobody’s gonna pay ten dollars for a poke.”
“Not if you’re the one they’re pokin’,” Rudd said.
Linda Sue drew back and frowned. She said, “Well, that’s rude.”
“No, it’s Rudd. Duke Rudd.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a ten-dollar gold piece. He slapped the eagle on the bar and said to Della, “There you go.”
She looked surprised that he had actually met her price. Called her bluff, as it were. And now there was nothing she could do about it.
“Fine,” she said, not sounding happy about it. Her hand moved over the eagle and swooped down on it like the coin’s namesake. “Let’s go.”
She turned and led the way toward the stairs. Rudd divided his time between watching the appealing sway of her rear end in the tight dress and smirking in triumph at Logan, who sat there openmouthed.
As she started up the stairs, Della looked over her shoulder at Rudd and said, “You don’t get anything special for that price, so don’t even think about it.”
“Just bein’ with you is special enough for me, darlin’,” Rudd assured her.
She took him along the balcony to her room on the second floor, which was spartanly furnished with a narrow bed, an old wardrobe with the doors taken off of it, a ladderback chair, and a small table that had one leg shorter than the others. The only remotely feminine touch was a gauzy yellow curtain over the single window.
Della put the gold piece on the table next to a basin of water. With her back turned to Rudd, she said, “Unbutton my dress for me.”
“Oh, I’d be glad to,” he said.
His blunt fingers weren’t really meant for delicate work, though, and in his eagerness he fumbled even more than he might have otherwise. Della sighed in impatient exasperation.
“Hang on, hang on,” he told her. “I’m gettin’ it.”
“I sure hope you’re better at other things than you are at this, Duke,” she said.
For some reason that really rubbed him the wrong way. Ever since he’d walked up to her at the bar, she’d been talking to him like she looked down on him. Her, a whore, doing that. It just wasn’t right.
So without thinking much about what he was doing, he grasped her dress where he had already gotten a couple of the buttons unfastened and wrenched the fabric in opposite directions. Buttons popped and cloth tore, and Della exclaimed, “Hey! What the hell—”
Rudd ripped the dress all the way down the back, exposing the short, thin shift she wore under it. She opened her mouth to scream, but Rudd gave her a hard shove that sent her sprawling facedown on the bed. He threw himself on top of her and planted a hand on the back of her head, shoving her face into the bedding to muffle any cries.
“I don’t let no damn whore talk to me that way,” he said in a low voice as he leaned down close to her ear. His other hand tore the shift from her.
Her right hand slid under the pillow and came out with a straight razor that she opened with a practiced flick of her wrist. She swiped back with it and he felt the blade’s fiery bite on his thigh where it sliced through his jeans and into his flesh. He yelled and jumped back.
She rolled over on the bed, moving fast, and slashed at him again, but this time he was able to grab her wrist. A brutal twist made her hand open. The razor fell to the mattress. Rudd swept it off onto the floor.
Then in an extension of the same motion, he backhanded Della across the face. The blow landed with a sharp crack and jerked her head to the side. Curses and even worse filth spewed from Rudd’s mouth as he hit her again. She was still conscious, but she went limp, all the fight going out of her.
“You’re gonna pay for what you done,” he threatened as he loomed over her. “I might even take my ten dollars back. You’re gonna have to work mighty hard to convince me I shouldn’t cut you, too, like you did to me. I could fix it so no man’d ever want you again, missy.”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Della panted. “You just . . . took me by surprise. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Well, now, that’s more like it. What’re you gonna do to make it up to me? Show me.”
She did, and while she was at it he couldn’t see her eyes anymore. If he’d been able to, he might have been worried.
Because in their green depths lurked the promise that someday he was going to pay for what he’d done, sure enough, and not with money, either.