Chapter Fourteen
Shamus O’Brien led the way into Recoil, riding through a thin dawn light. The street was empty. The sporting crowd had just gone to bed and the merchants hadn’t yet opened their stores.
But Edith Ludsthorpe and her daughter already sat on the porch in front of the hotel. Edith sipped prune juice and viewed the three riders with obvious distaste, as did the man sitting next to her, a goateed, exotic creature wearing a paint-stained smock and a black beret so large it swept over his left shoulder.
“Halloo there, my good man . . . you riding the donkey,” Edith called out.
Steele reined the burro to a stop and touched the rim of his plug hat. “Your servant, ma’am.”
“You’re too heavy for that poor animal. Is it not so, Chastity?” Without waiting to hear her daughter’s comment, Edith said, “That is a most singular act of cruelty and of the greatest moment as far as I’m concerned.” She picked up her rolled parasol and shook it at Steele. “Dismount that poor beast this instant!”
“Of course, ma’am.” Steele swung off the burro. “His name is Jonesy, by the way.”
“I don’t care what his name is, young man. If I catch you mistreating him again I’ll . . . I’ll box your ears.”
Steele said nothing, all his attention on the man in the smock who had stepped to the edge of the porch. His glowing eyes were fixed on Ironside and his face bore an expression of wonderment. “Hallelujah!” he yelled. He tilted back his head and called out again, “Thank the gods.” He swung his arms wide and then clasped his hands in front of his chest. “You there, the fellow in the blue shirt!”
“You talkin’ to me?” Ironside asked.
“Yes, my dear fellow, I’m talking to you. You splendid specimen. I want your head! Oh, I want your head so badly.”
“Seems like all of a sudden every jackass in the territory wants my head,” Ironside grumbled. “If you want it that bad, mister, you’d better go heel yourself, because I ain’t givin’ it up easy.”
Shamus said, “I swear to God this town has gone crazy since we left, Luther. Let’s go get breakfast.”
“No, wait, my dear fellow. You don’t understand!” the smock said.
Edith rose to her feet and her shoes thumped on the porch as she stepped beside the man and glared at Ironside. “I’ve already been exposed to your impertinence at that dreadful stage holdup and I’ll have no more of it, so keep a civil tongue in your head.”
“Talkin’ about my head again,” Ironside said.
Edith ignored that and waved an imperious hand, like old Queen Vic introducing a favorite courtier. “This is Mr. Maurice Bird, the famous artist. Already he’s been compared most favorably to George Catlin and, needless to say, he is streets ahead of those low persons currently masquerading as painters.”
Her eyes, hard as steel ball bearings, fixed on Shamus. “You may understand this, Colonel, though your companions won’t. I attended an exhibition of Mr. Bird’s paintings in Chicago, and right there and then, enthralled, I said to myself, ‘Edith, you must travel west so Chastity can study under Mr. Bird’s tutelage.’” She angled a look at the artist. “At great expense, may I add.”
Bird smiled sweetly and gave a little bow. “Madam is very generous and her daughter is so talented. She’s still raw, to be sure, but talented nonetheless.”
“Hey, Maurice, if you’re so talented how come we’ve never heard of you?” Ironside said.
“It takes time to build a reputation,” Bird said. “I’m working on it, I assure you. My paintings of the Playas Valley will make me famous and, I may add, wealthy.”
“How about the exhibition in Chicago?” Dallas Steele said. “I imagine that must have brought in some commissions and offers from galleries.”
“Ah, well, you see, I sort of sneaked into that exhibition with a few of my paintings,” Bird admitted. “They were not on view for very long.”
“Until you and your canvases were thrown out into the street, you mean,” Steele said.
“Something like that,” Bird said. “I was at the mercy of barbarians.”
“The works were on view long enough for me to determine that you are an artist of genius, Mr. Bird,” Edith said. “And when I say that someone is an artist of genius, it is so.”
“Then you understand why I must have that man’s head, Mrs. Ludsthorpe.” Bird waved a hand at Ironside.
“No, quite frankly I don’t.”
“Look at him with the artist’s eye, Mrs. Ludsthorpe. See the scowling frontier ruffian in that face. See the savagery, the cruelty, the ignorance and arrogance. Yet your eye will also behold a certain nobility of countenance, the pride of the noble savage, the aspect of a wild Indian chief.”
“Oh, yes!” Edith exclaimed. “Mr. Bird, I do! I do! But only a virtuoso like you could have opened my eyes so thoroughly. For the first time in my life the scales have dropped from mine eyes and I can seeee!”
Ironside gave Shamus a sidelong look. “Should I shoot that paint daubing so-called artist, Colonel?”
“Give me time, Luther. I’m studying on it.”
“Luther, you can’t rob the world of such a great artist,” Steele said with a straight face.
Ironside ignored that and impatiently said to Shamus, “Well, should I plug him?”
“No. We’ll go to breakfast instead.”
“Mind if I join you?” Steele asked.
“Buying breakfast is the least I can do for the man who saved my life,” Shamus said.
Ironside looked at Steele, then at his burro. “Walk behind us at a distance as though you don’t know us.” As he and Shamus rode in the direction of the restaurant, Bird ran after them. “Come to my studio,” he yelled at Ironside, tugging on his stirrup. “Let me do a quick sketch at least. Damn it all, man. I must have your head!”
Suddenly Bird found the muzzle of Ironside’s Colt in the middle of his forehead and his eyes grew big.
“Mister,” Ironside said, “this is your first and last warning. Stay the hell away from me.”
The artist trembled, his mouth working. Then he turned and ran back to the hotel where he threw himself, sobbing, into Edith Ludsthorpe’s arms.
The woman clutched him to her bosom and yelled over his head, “Philistines!”
“Hey, Luther, she’s talking about you again!” Steele yelled, grinning.
Chastity Ludsthorpe wore a flowered dress, a wide straw hat with a pink ribbon tied around the crown. She stopped in front of the table where Ironside, Shamus, and Steele were sitting. “I came to apologize for my mother. There are times when she’s a little hard to take.”
“Amen to that,” Ironside said.
The three men had finished breakfast and were lingering over coffee and cigars. The restaurant’s air was thick with the smell of steak, bacon, and grease.
“So you plan on becoming an artist.” Steele decided she was as pretty and glowing as a polished pearl.
“I have no talent for painting,” Chastity said. “None at all.”
“Then why does your mother—”
“Because there’s not a thing I can do about it. Mother wants me to be a painter and that’s that. I’ve tried to tell her I’ve no talent in that direction but she refuses to listen.”
“What do you want to do, child?” Shamus asked.
“I’d like to be an actress, like Sarah Bernhardt.” Chastity smiled, white teeth in a pink mouth. “She’s my hero. Or should that be heroine?”
“Heroine,” Steele said, “especially when you talk about the Divine Sarah. She’s all female.”
“Have you ever met her?” Chastity said, her blue eyes alive.
“I’ve never met her, but I saw her in New Orleans a few years ago. She’s a stunningly beautiful woman. She took my breath away when she smiled at me.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not a stunningly beautiful woman who takes men’s breath away,” Chastity said.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Steele said. “I think you would light up any stage, or parlor, come to that.”
“He’s right,” Ironside said. “Hell, honey, you’re so pretty you could make a glass eye wink.”
Chastity blushed. “Thank you, Mr. Ironside.”
“He does have a way with words, doesn’t he?” Steele said dryly. “Quite the rustic bard is Luther.”
“Damn right,” Ironside said.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but it seems to me that you should get out from under your mother’s thumb and head east,” Shamus said. “I expect that’s where the acting opportunities lie.”
Chastity shook her head. “There are plenty of opportunities right here in the West, Colonel, mostly in the big cities and the mining boom towns. Why, I’m sure a retired actor lives in this very town.”
“A he or a she?” Steele said.
“He’s a man.”
“How can you tell he was an actor?” Steele said.
“Oh, there are lots of ways. The way he holds himself, the way he talks. He’s obviously had stage training.”
“And who is this paragon?” Steele said.
“Chastity!” Edith Ludsthorpe stood in the restaurant doorway. “Come away from there. I’m surprised to find you in such rough company when poor Mr. Bird needs comforting.” She glared at Ironside. “He was assaulted in the street by a rowdy brandishing a murderous revolver, you know.”
Chastity rose to her feet. “I must go.” Then, in a whisper, “I do apologize.”
After Edith took her daughter in tow and swept out of the restaurant, Steele said, “A real pretty girl.”
“Pity about the mother,” Ironside said.
Shamus drained his cup. “I wonder who the retired actor is?”
“Could be anybody, I guess,” Steele said. “Anybody at all.”