“There’s something I need to tell you,” Kain said after they had finished a meal of venison, buttermilk biscuits, and custard pie. Vanessa looked up at him with a quick intake of breath. He saw her fear, his hand sought hers beneath the table, and he squeezed it reassuringly. “John already knows about this. He discovered it when he went into town. The truth is, we’ll be having visitors any time now.”
“Company?” Ellie passed the pitcher of milk to Vanessa so she could refill Kain’s glass. “I love company.”
“Not this kind, Ellie.” Kain’s smile broadened when he glanced at John and saw the old man trying hard to keep the grin on his face from breaking out into a full laugh.
“What do you two know that’s so funny?” Vanessa’s eyes traveled over the expectant faces around the table and she pinched Kain’s thumb with her fingernails.
“First I’d better tell you about this place, The House. It was built by a woman named Mary Gregg about ten years ago. She and her husband came up from Texas and filed on land west and south of here. After a year or so they were pushed off the land, and shortly after that her husband died. Mary was left with a little money, but not enough to live on. She was a lovely, compassionate lady, and one day she saw the owner of the saloon throw one of his . . . ladies of the night out into the street. The girl had nowhere to go. It gave Mary an idea. She bought this land, built this house and opened a brothel.”
“A what?” Vanessa gasped. “You mean . . . a wh—”
“That’s exactly what I mean, sweetheart.” His amber eyes glinted with amusement as they traveled from Ellie’s shocked face to Vanessa’s. It was deathly quiet for the space of several seconds, then both women erupted in laughter.
“That’s why . . . that man in town was . . . so friendly!” Vanessa gasped between bursts of laughter, her eyes shining like sapphires.
“My land! I wondered why he was so pleased The House was going to be opened.” Color had stained Ellie’s cheeks and she kept her eyes turned away from the men.
“‘Don’t ya worry none, ma’am,’” Vanessa mocked, laughter making her so radiant Kain couldn’t tear his gaze away from her, “‘Stan Taylor’ll spread the word.’”
“Vanessa!” Ellie chided, but smiled despite her embarrassment.
“According to what John heard in town, Stan did a good job.”
“For goodness sake, Kain. You mean men are coming here thinking that . . .”
“Yes ma’am. They’ll be coming here thinking that! The House is well known among cowboys and drifters, traveling men and, no doubt, some respectable husbands.”
“Well, I never!”
“Mary just ran the place,” Kain hastened to add. “She wasn’t one of the girls. The House is known all over the territory as a place where a man can come if he’s sick or hurt or needs . . . ah, whatever.”
“Sounds like a mighty fine place to know ’bout,” John said, then his weathery face turned beet red and he looked fixedly down at his plate.
“What’re you talking about, Kain? I don’t know why Van’s laughing.” Henry had a puzzled frown on his face. “It ain’t funny if a man’s sick. We had sick people come to the farm back home and Ma and Van didn’t laugh.”
“How did you come to buy the place, Kain?” Vanessa asked quickly, teasingly, to fill the void after Henry’s question.
“Whew . . . thank you, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Mary’s childhood sweetheart, a man named Case Malone, came up from Texas. He worked for awhile with Logan Horn out at the Morning Sun Ranch, then he and Mary went back to Texas when his brother died and someone was needed to run things there. Mary rented the place to Bessie Wilhite and she carried on in Mary’s tradition. When Bessie married a man from Wyoming and moved there, I bought the place from Mary just because I didn’t want someone else to have it, I guess. Now I’m glad I did.” He smiled down at Vanessa and his fingertips caressed the palm of her hand.
“That’s why there are all those rooms up there—for sick people,” Henry announced.
“Does anyone want more pie?” Ellie asked so quickly that even the faces of the somber Texans were creased with wide grins.
Later in the afternoon a visitor arrived, but it wasn’t a male visitor. Vanessa was washing the upstairs windows in the middle hallway when she saw a shiny black landau driven by a Negro servant in livery stop at the front gate. Two escort riders reined in a distance away and sat their mounts. The servant jumped out of the buggy and handed down a woman covered from neck to toe in a dust coat. She had a large scarf over her head. She removed the coat and scarf and handed them to the driver. She was dressed all in white from the small brimmed hat perched on her high-piled blond hair to the tips of her buttoned shoes, except for something pink that fluttered from the neck of a hip-length, form-fitting jacket. She daintily lifted the sides of her white wool, tiered skirt to keep it from brushing the dry weeds that edged the walk and came toward the door, a floating vision of white and pink beauty.
Vanessa dropped the wet cloth in the bucket of water and hurried down the stairs, knowing Ellie and Mary Ben had gone to the barn and Kain was resting in his room. At an insistent rap she opened the door and stared. The face she looked into had the perfection of an exquisite cameo.
The woman lifted artfully plucked eyebrows and looked at her coolly. Blue eyes traveled over Vanessa with appraising frankness and pink lips opened to reveal small, extremely white teeth.
“I understand Kain is here.”
“Yes,” Vanessa managed to say.
“I want to see him.” The woman stepped across the threshold, stopped, turned, and once again studied Vanessa with a certain cool and rather amused patience. “Well, get him.”
The words were ordinary, but the tone was not. It was marked by a commanding rasp designed to place the beautiful but untidy redhead firmly in the pigeon-hole marked “inferior.” Vanessa’s eyes flashed with anger and her proud chin lifted. Unconsciously her hand lifted to the straggling curls on her forehead, but she lowered it quickly when the woman’s pink lips twitched knowingly.
“You can wait in here.” Vanessa swung open the double doors to the parlor and the woman swept past her.
In spite of her soiled, damp dress, dirt-smudged face and unruly hair that had sprang loose from the ribbon, Vanessa marched with dignity down the hall to Kain’s room. She opened the room without knocking and found him sleeping soundly, his boots on the floor beside the bed.
“Kain, wake up.” She shook him gently. “Kain?“
“I’m awake, sweetheart. Hmm . . . what a nice way to wake up.” His hands reached for her face and pulled it to his. As her mouth came to his, she felt the soft mating of their breath before his lips opened gently beneath hers. He kissed her, lingeringly, lovingly. When the kiss was over, she gazed down at him, seeing the tenderness in his eyes as his fingers touched the fair skin of her neck where her pulse beat so rapidly.
“Come lie down with me.” His voice had a sensual rasp. When his arms moved to pull her down beside him, she pulled back.
“You have a visitor.”
“A visitor? Let him wait, I want to hold you, love you, kiss you.” He grasped her hand and slipped it inside his shirt so her palm lay flat against his chest. “It was worth getting shot to feel your hands on me.”
“It’s a woman. She’s waiting in the parlor.”
“What does she want?” Kain’s hands reluctantly fell from her when she stepped back. He sat up on the side of the bed, reached for his boots, slipped them on and ran his fingers through his hair. Vanessa was at the door when he looked up. “Wait a minute, honey.”
The woman was standing in the parlor doorway when Vanessa walked down the hall and turned to go up the stairs. She heard Kain’s boots on the floor behind her, then the woman’s soft laugh and lilting voice.
“Kain, darling. It’s so good to see you.”
Kain heard the door to the stairway close as he went down the hall. “Hello, Della.”
“Well, a
ren’t you glad to see me?”
“Overjoyed,” he said dryly, and shouldered past her into the parlor.
“I heard in town that you were back. Are you opening this place?” She closed the parlor doors and turned to look at him. “Have you been sick? You’ve lost weight.”
“Get to it, Della. You don’t give a damn if I’ve been sick. You want to know if I lost all my money in the crash. I lost some but not all.” Kain looked at his sister’s beautiful face and felt not a trace of affection for this woman who was born of the same parents as he. He would be damned if he’d let her know that this place and a few dollars were all he had salvaged from the crash.
“You don’t have to be so defensive, brother dear. I thought if you needed money I’d take The House off your hands. I’ve had it in the back of my mind for a long time to reopen it. I’ve got places in Denver and one in Greeley. Papa wouldn’t care if I had one here as long as I didn’t run it myself. I’ve done very well, Kain.”
“I know. You’re a very rich whore.”
“My, my! What a nasty word. Don’t tell me you’ve never used the services of a whore, brother.”
“Perhaps, but that doesn’t make it any easier knowing my sister’s one.”
Della laughed, the musical sound reaching the upper floor where Vanessa stood clutching the wet cloth.
“I’m good, Kain. I’ve fucked royalty and they said they’d never had better.”
“Say what you came to say and get out, Della.”
“Do you want to sell this place?”
“It’s not for sale.”
Della shrugged. “How long are you staying, Kain? And who is the grubby-looking redhead?”
“How long I’m staying is no concern of yours, or your dear papa’s. And the redhead, grubby or not, is far more a lady than you’ll ever be.”
“Come now! What’s a lady but a female with a slit between her legs? We’ve all got a twat under our clothes. Without it you men wouldn’t give us a second look. Is she better on her back, Kain, or her knees?” Another tinkling laugh followed the question. “If she’s good I may be able to use her. Her hair is different, but I can’t say much for the rest of her.”
Kain gazed at his sister. She looked like a porcelain doll. He thought about the night he’d walked into a saloon in Denver and saw a beautiful naked woman dancing on a table. He hadn’t realized it was his sister until she took off her mask just before she slipped behind a curtain. He thought of how she had tried to have Logan Horn hanged for rape after he had refused her advances, and the rumors that she had been old Clayhill’s mistress for years. He wondered how anyone so beautiful could be so rotten. He went to the door and opened it.
“Good-bye, Della.”
“So you’re opening The House. Well! If you plan to use the redhead, my advice is to clean her up a bit. She smelled like a wet goat! And although she’d only be servicing drovers and drifters, even they like—”
Kain slammed the door. “Shut up! You don’t have a decent bone in your body.”
“Decent? What’s decent? Does it make you feel good? Does it put money in your pocket?”
“Why don’t you get the hell out of here?”
“Does Papa know you’re back?”
“I suppose he does. The old son of a bitch knows everything that goes on in the territory.”
“Are you going out to see him?”
“Why in hell would I do that? You know I despise his guts.”
“Papa isn’t well. Joseph said he had a sinking spell one day. I’m staying to take care of him.”
“Don’t give me that line of bullshit, Della. You’re staying to be sure you get his money when he dies.”
“Of course. I didn’t screw that old bastard for nothing!” Della opened the door and stepped out into the hall. “This place is ideally suited for what it was built for. It’s drab, but that could be fixed in a hurry. If you need any help in training your girls, Kain, let me know. Or would you rather do that yourself?” She made sure her lilting voice carried, glanced over her shoulder to the stairway and laughed.
Kain could hear Ellie’s voice in the kitchen. He opened the door, took Della firmly by the elbow, and pushed her out of the house.
“Get out of here, Della, and don’t come back.”
“You’d better not lay a hand on me, even if you are my brother. Papa’s men might shoot you. He pays them well to protect his little girl.”
“His own private whore, you mean. I’m glad Ma never knew what you turned out to be.”
“Oh, she knows. She’s probably up there clucking her tongue and saying, ‘Don’t be a naughty girl, Della. It’s naughty to fuck your steppapa.’” Della went down the walk laughing, turned and called, “Bye, darling. If you want to see me you know where to find me.”
Kain watched the servant help her on with the dust coat, then place a small stool on the ground so she could step up into the landau. She waved a white handkerchief as the buggy, followed by the outriders, pulled away from the gate. Kain stood on the steps for several minutes trying to rid himself of the feeling that he’d been surrounded by something dirty.
* * *
At the window of the ranch house, Adam Clayhill watched his stepdaughter alight from the landau with all the grace of a queen. A smile hovered on his lips beneath the neatly trimmed white mustache. She was something to see. She could fit herself into any society. On the outside she was every inch a lady, but the truth was she was every inch a whore. She had been a lanky ten-year-old when he had married her mother. Even then she had liked to sit on his lap and wiggle until she had him worked up. She was a born courtesan, and even then had known instinctively what to do. Four or five years ago they had become lovers; she was the best he’d ever had. Then, after the business with the Indian, Logan Horn, she had gone to Denver and become quite a businesswoman. Over the past several years she had come back to the ranch often; this time she’d been here several weeks. He chuckled. Della intended to be here when the money was counted. By God! She was more of an offshoot of his then either of the two known bastards he had sired.
Yes, he thought gleefully, Della was thinking he was about to cash in his chips. He looked at his reflection in the shiny glass window pane. He was still a handsome, robust man. His hair was thick and white, his carriage erect. It would take more than one sinking spell to do him in, but if Della thought so, let her if it would keep her here. He was vigorous despite his years. Cecilia, his little Mexican whore, could still get a rise out of him. So far Della hadn’t come to his bed, but he knew her strategy was to let him wait. He chuckled again and went to the door to let her in.
“Hello, Papa Adam. How are you feeling?” Della took the pins from her hat and handed it to the silent Mexican girl who stood waiting. She took off her coat and hung it carefully on the halltree.
“Fine. I’ve been waiting for you. Dinner is ready.”
“You’re sweet.” She kissed his cheek.
“Who did you see in town?” he asked when they were seated at one end of the long table and the Negro servant had gone back to the kitchen.
“There’s nothing in town half as handsome as what’s here on this ranch.” She smiled, reached across to caress his arm with her fingertips, her eyes lingering on his mouth.
“I could’ve told you that.”
“You are a conceited old bastard, aren’t you?” She laughed. “Mr. McCloud said he’s holding a letter for an Adam Hill. He wondered if it could be for you.”
“Where was it from?”
“Springfield, Missouri.”
“It couldn’t be for me. I don’t know anyone in Missouri.”
“Kain is back.”
“I heard that this morning.”
“You do have your network of spies, don’t you, Adam? Did they tell you he’s at The House? I stopped there to see him. He’s been sick, or hurt. More than likely some jealous husband shot him. He was walking slow and carefully.”
“Did you hear any news about Coope
r or the . . . Indian?” It was still hard for Adam to speak of Logan Horn.
“I heard Mr. McCloud at the store telling someone that Cooper’s little boy had been sick and that his mother, Mrs. Henderson, had been out at the ranch. I guess he’s all right now. Your former . . . ah, mistress has gone back to Morning Sun to be with her husband. Is it true that you had some men break his legs a few years ago thinking it would make Sylvia pressure Cooper to come work for you?”
“Humph!”
Della ignored the scowl on his face and continued talking.
“Your grandson looks like his mother, Adam. Lorna Parnell is a wild, dark-haired, mountain-bred bitch! She goes into town in britches with a bullwhip over her shoulder. I’ll swear, it amazes me that Cooper lets her do it. Everyone knows he’s a Clayhill. It reflects badly on all of us.”
“Everyone knows you’re a whore, too, sweeting, but that doesn’t seem to hurt my standing in Denver one bit.”
“No. Because if one bad word about you reaches my ears, I could more than likely ruin whoever said it. And I would, too, Papa. I have a little book tucked away with a lot of valuable information in it.”
Adam basked in her affectionate smiles. “What a team we would have made if we’d met when I was young.”
“You’re not old darling! I refuse to let you say you’re old.”
“Did you hear anything about that Griffin fellow down on the Blue?”
“No. He’s Kain’s friend, isn’t he? He and Kain killed those two bullies you had working for you a year or so ago. What was the name of that redheaded man? Dunbar? If they hadn’t killed them, folks would have strung them up when they found out they had horsewhipped a woman. You don’t get away with that in this country. I never did find out what they had against Lorna Parnell.“
“That son of a bitchin’ Dunbar. He bungled the job, or I’d be owning that place on the Blue. Cooper’s got a hand in it, too. The stiff-necked son of a bitch. He’ll not get an inch of this land, by Gaw!”
Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] Page 21
