Chapter Twenty-two
Annabelle Walters heard Nicodemus yelling and jabbering and knew something had happened. Only one thing could get him that worked up, Annie knew.
Black Tom Mahone had arrived.
All the members of Finch’s group had expected that to happen. For two men who hated each other so vehemently, each kept track of what the other was doing with the unwavering intensity of jealous lovers.
If Finch moved his base of operations from one place to another, Mahone knew it. If Mahone started some new business venture, Finch was aware of it.
They were never apart for long. Something always drew them back together. Hate was just as strong a passion as love.
Annie had been just about to go inside one of the tents when Nicodemus started acting crazy. She paused, and while she was standing there watching his display out at the head of the point, Francesca emerged from the tent and said, “What in the world is he carrying on about now?”
Annie pointed at the group of wagons approaching on the other side of the creek.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Black Tom is here, unless I miss my guess.”
Francesca sighed disgustedly.
“Why can’t that man and his harlots leave us alone?” she said.
That was pretty rich, Francesca referring to Mahone’s girls as harlots, Annie thought wryly. They were all in the same line of work, after all. None of them had been at it for very long, but that didn’t change what they were. Sisters under the skin, so to speak.
A year ago, Annie never would have dreamed she would wind up being a whore, let alone one that was brought out here into the middle of the wilderness to service a bunch of dirty, smelly mountain men who reeked of beaver carcasses.
A year ago she had been Annabelle Walters, the pampered daughter of a plantation owner from Alabama. That was before her father had lost everything gambling, including the family’s ancestral home, and had taken the easy way out by pressing a pistol to his head and putting a ball through his brain.
Annabelle’s mother had died six weeks later, too stunned by her sudden change in circumstances to carry on. That had left Annabelle, barely nineteen years old and with absolutely no skills other than flirting and looking pretty, to care for four younger brothers and sisters.
What the hell else was she supposed to do other than sell herself? she had asked herself many times.
She had saved her money until she was able to take her brothers and sisters to Mobile, where she shamed an aunt and uncle into taking them in and promising to raise them. The money that Annabelle had given them had helped persuade them to do the right thing.
Annabelle herself couldn’t stay, though. She was already too tainted. Her aunt had put her foot down about that.
Annabelle hadn’t put up much of an argument. In truth, she didn’t want to stay with her relatives. If a new life had been forced upon her—and it had—then it only made sense to turn her back on her old life and get on as best she could.
That was how she’d come to be in New Orleans, and after that on a riverboat plying the stately waters of the Mississippi, and then in a house in St. Louis, where Nicodemus Finch had found her and bought her from the madam, adding her to the group of girls he was putting together for a journey he planned to make to the mountains.
“What’s your name, gal?” he had asked her, and when she told him Annabelle—because she had never given up her true name, unlike so many of the women in her profession—he had grinned and said, “Annie Belle. That’s a mighty pretty name to go with a mighty pretty gal.”
So he had introduced her to the others as Annie Belle and she hadn’t corrected him, so the name had stuck and was soon shortened to Annie. That was fine with her. Maybe it was even a good idea, she decided. Maybe stubbornly calling herself Annabelle had been clinging to the last vestige of who she had been before.
For all intents and purposes, Annabelle Walters, the plantation owner’s daughter, was as dead as her poor father.
Annie the whore was alive and in the middle of the wilderness, with trouble about to break out.
Finch finally bent and picked up his muddy, battered hat from the ground where he had been dancing on it in rage. He turned and rushed toward the wagons.
“Get your guns! Get your guns!” he yelled to the men who worked for him. “We got to shoot us some snakes!”
Caleb Moffit, who was Finch’s unofficial second-in-command, came up to him and said, “Boss, we can’t start shooting at Mahone’s bunch. They’ll shoot back at us.”
“What of it?” Finch demanded with a wild-eyed stare. “That’s what a war is, ain’t it?”
“Some of the girls are liable to get hurt.”
“It’s a war! They knowed the job might get dangerous when they signed on with me!”
Annie didn’t recall anybody actually “signing on” with Finch. She and the other girls had just been told that they were working for him now, and they were going to the mountains for some sort of fur trappers’ get-together. They hadn’t been given any choice in the matter, and they sure hadn’t been warned that it might be dangerous.
But the life of a soiled dove was never without its dangers, so what was the point of worrying about it?
“Are you sure those wagons belong to Mahone?” Moffit asked. “Did you see him?”
“No, but who else could they belong to? They’re his, I tell you! It’s gotta be that sassafrassin’ bungle-bender!”
“They’re stoppin’ over there. Let’s walk out to the point and make sure,” Moffit suggested.
“I can’t start shootin’ at ’em?”
“Not yet,” Moffit said, trying as usual to be the voice of reason.
“All right,” Finch said with a sigh. “But mark my words, it’s that burr-butted musharoo!”
“Where are you going?” Francesca asked Annie as the blonde started to follow Finch and Moffit.
“I want to see what’s going to happen,” Annie said.
“You’ll get shot once all hell breaks loose, that’s what’s going to happen.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Annie said.
She wasn’t the only one who followed Finch out onto the point. Gilbert and Jackson went along, too, and so did several other of the girls. Francesca hung back with a look of derision on her face.
The Irish girl Siobhan came up beside Annie and asked, “What do you think’s going to happen?” Her voice was a mixture of fear and excitement.
“I think Nicodemus and Mahone are going to stand there threatening and yelling at each other across the creek for a while, and then they’ll go on about their business,” Annie said with a smile. “They’re both too greedy to do anything else.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m counting on making some money at this rendezvous.”
That was her mistake, thought Annie. None of the girls would make much money from their efforts, not as long as Finch collected it and kept the lion’s share for himself.
Finch and Moffit stopped at the very tip of the point, not much more than a stone’s throw from the wagons parked on the other side of the creek. Annie had seen Black Tom Mahone a few times and would recognize him if she saw him again, but so far he wasn’t in sight. On the seat of the lead wagon were a fox-faced, middle-aged man who had hold of the reins and beside him a dark-haired woman who was probably one of Mahone’s doves. She regarded Annie with a cool stare, and Annie returned the look.
That one was trouble, Annie thought.
Before she could ponder any more, Mahone came limping into sight from one of the other wagons, leaning on the heavy walking stick he used.
As soon as Finch laid eyes on his old enemy, he threw back his head, howled like a wolf, and bellowed, “I’m gonna choke the life outta him with my bare hands!”
He lunged toward the creek, clearly bent on crossing it and attacking Mahone.