CHAPTER ELEVEN
Luna Talbot sat in lamplight, and Red Ryan again wondered at her striking beauty, her abundant auburn hair, dark eyes and wide, expressive mouth. She was mysterious, a woman with a story to tell . . . and, as she’d so recently proved, quite ruthless. He imagined that it would be easy to fall in love with her, but difficult to keep her.
And that night Luna did have a story to tell . . . but it was the story of Leah Leighton, not her own.
“Barnabas Leighton swept Leah off her feet with his honeyed words and his free-spending ways,” she said. “She was an orphan and had lived with two foster families in Kansas, one that abused her and treated her as a slave, the other, a preacher and his constantly ailing wife. They had pretty much ignored her except to feed her a diet of prune juice and scripture. She saw Barnabas as her salvation and married him shortly after she turned fourteen.”
“Young,” Button said, “for marriage and birthin’ babies.”
“Yes, too young,” Luna said. “But Leah couldn’t give Barnabas a baby and he hated her for it. Made him feel less of a man, I guess. After they were married two years, he decided to try his hand at farming, grow wheat or corn or whatever, but when he failed at that, he started to drink heavily and began to beat her.” Whiskey glowed amber in the crystal glass in Luna’s hand. “Pretty soon it became a daily occurrence.”
“I don’t hold with that, a man beating his wife,” Buttons said. “Red, you recollect Jim Poor that time?”
“Buttons, you pounded Jim Poor because he beat a dog.”
“Yeah, but a man who beats a dog will beat a woman,” Buttons said. “That’s a law of human nature and it’s wrote down somewhere.” He said to Luna, “So, what happened next?”
“Luna ran away. I mean, she ran across the Kansas prairie for several days, saw Indians a time or two, she says, and then when she’d no run left in her, more dead than alive, she was rescued by a couple of punchers and was nursed back to health at their ranch. Leah says the spread was the Lazy-J and she’ll never forget their kindness.”
“And then she came here,” Buttons said.
“Not quite,” Luna said. “Barnabas was hunting her, and Leah wanted to stay a step ahead of him and ended up selling it at the Gentlemen’s Club cathouse in Austin. Yes, Mr. Muldoon, she became a whore. Does that offend you?”
Buttons smiled. “The only thing that offends me is a wheeler hoss that won’t pull his weight. How about you Red?”
“I’ve known a lot of whores and liked all of them just fine,” Red said. “Well, except maybe the El Paso whores. They’re a tough bunch, always on the prod, and they’re mighty fond of derringers.”
“And it was then that Leah ended up here, huh?” Buttons said.
“Bessie Foley brought her here,” Luna said.
“Your cook?”
“Yes. Bessie killed a Cajun man in New Orleans. Shot him six times with a pepperbox revolver for cheating on her. She was sentenced to twenty years of penal servitude at a female prison farm in a Louisiana swamp, served three years, and then escaped. She ended up in Austin, cooking for the gents that used the Gentlemen’s Club.”
“How did Bessie hear about you?” Buttons said.
“We had a girl here, a reformed soiled dove, who called herself Ora Blake. Ora tried hard but couldn’t take to ranch life and went back to her old ways. She met Bessie in Austin and told her about the Talbot ranch.”
“And Bessie told Leah,” Buttons said. “Small world, ain’t it?”
“Yes, small world. Leah and Bessie talked it over and made the decision to come here.”
“And Barnabas Leighton found out and followed them to your spread, so you strung him up,” Red said.
“Yes. He tried to force Leah to leave with him, and he could have talked, stated his case, told her he’d changed, but he didn’t. He made the mistake of pulling a gun,” Luna said. “I shot it out of his hand. I don’t know if you noticed, but Barnabas was missing his right thumb and trigger finger. A poorly aimed .45 bullet will do that.”
“I didn’t notice, but I know what a bullet can do,” Red said.
“The shooting was two weeks ago. Better for him if Barnabas had bled to death instead of dying yellow like the woman-beating coward he was.”
Red picked up the decanter, poured himself more whiskey, and said, “Why do women like Leah and Bessie come to your ranch, Luna?” He smiled. “Is it for the grub, or do they just like cattle?”
“I provide a refuge,” Luna said. “If a woman is in despair and has nowhere else to turn, I want her to turn to me and the Talbot ranch. Here she can learn the cattle business, earn her thirty a month, and once again hold her head high. The women who come here are broken and I help mend them. I said help, mind you. Each woman must do most of the mending herself.”
“And you teach her how to use a gun,” Red said.
“We live on the frontier, Mr. Ryan, where gun skills are a necessity. All the hands on the Talbot can shoot, and they ride for the brand.”
Red didn’t know it then, but future violent events would prove that statement wrong. All but one of the Talbot women rode for the brand . . . her loyalties lay elsewhere.
Buttons said, “How did you get started in the refuge business, Mrs. Talbot, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I have things to do tonight, Mr. Muldoon, so I’ll make my answer short,” Luna said. “My husband was a deputy for Judge Isaac Parker’s court until he was murdered in the Indian Territory by a half-breed scoundrel called John Long. That was four years ago. Peter Talbot was a good man and a fine husband, and we had six wonderful years together before he died. I was suddenly a widow with few living relatives, forced to live on my husband’s meager savings. I can’t say I lived, but I survived, hungry most of the time, in Fort Smith for six months and then my uncle—”
“Morgan Ford,” Buttons said.
“Yes, he heard of my plight and loaned me enough money that I could buy this place.” Luna said. “Then, it was a run-down spread held together by string and baling wire, and I got it cheap. The first two years were hard, but I made a go of it and then had the idea of hiring women who were in the same dire straits as I’d been.” The woman smiled and rose from her chair. “Now, I really must go. Please excuse me, gentlemen.”
As he and Red got to their feet, Buttons said, “Whatever happened to that John Long ranny?”
“One of Judge Parker’s deputies told me Long died of consumption six months after he killed my husband,” Luna said. “He’d been arrested and convicted but passed away the day before he was due to meet the hangman.”
“Well, that’s just too bad,” Buttons said. “He cheated justice.”
“Perhaps his consumption was God’s justice,” Luna said. “I like to think that was the case.”
“Amen,” Buttons said with unusual piety.
Red said nothing, his eyes fixed on the window.
Outside, dozens of candles glowed in the darkness, their flames guttering in the wind.