by Carol Arens
"Here now, miss, you can't just sit down there and play!" The bartender rounded the bar with his fat belly leading. He crossed the room with plodding steps.
"Mister, I've got a pair of lungs like you never heard before. I don't think you want to hear me screech." She couldn't recall ever having had an occasion to screech, but screech she would if the man tried to get her off the piano bench.
"Let her be for now, Mitch." Pete's voice drifted out of a room near the bar, along with a trail of cigarette smoke.
The man named Mitch shrugged his shoulders and returned to his position behind the bar, spitting again at the stained spittoon.
She closed her eyes, she didn't need sheet music to play. She had often been told she had a gift for music. Until this moment she hadn't appreciated the value of it. Until Harriet, her gift had seemed a rather dull one, just a step above embroidery and serving tea.
Almost of their own will, her fingers went to Bach. The heavenly notes of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring rang off the walls of Pete's Palace and spilled out into the street.
Distantly, she heard a pair of footsteps come into the saloon. She heard a chair scrape the floor.
From Bach, she turned to Pachelbel and his Canon in D. She didn't notice when her fingers became tired, she had no knowledge of the sun sinking below the horizon outside. She didn't recall who the composers were any longer, only the lovely, gentle melodies that seemed to come from her heart instead of her fingers.
Last, she played a piece called Meditation in which a young, sinful man finds God's love. Finally, she lifted her fingers from the keys, folded them in her lap and bowed her head with a deep sigh. She prayed that Harriet had found an hour of relief from her suffering.
Whistles and applause erupted from behind her. Jolted from her peaceful moment, Missy nearly fell off the bench. She turned to see two dozen people or more, some standing and some sitting, clapping and cheering.
Just inside the saloon doors stood Maybelle, accompanied by Moe. It was well past five o'clock and here she was in the forbidden Palace. She would get locked in her room, for sure.
Missy stood, gave her audience a proper curtsey, and then looked at Maybelle, ready to face her fate. To her amazement, Maybelle did not seem angry. She dabbed a tear from her eye then handed her lacy handkerchief to Moe who blew his nose into it with a snort and a snuffle.
* * *
Captivity had taken a turn for the better. Upon seeing Missy safely to her room, Maybelle declared that since the whole town had witnessed that Missy was a lady and not a strumpet, it would be safe to leave the door unlocked. Maybelle still asked that she stay in her room as much as possible during the night. If she had occasion to go out of an evening, Moe would accompany her.
Those seemed fair terms since Missy was wholly dependent on Maybelle's generosity. Gainful employment seemed more illusive than ever. A full day had passed and she still did not have a nickel to put in a purse, had she had a purse to put it in.
She did have what counted most, though. Set before her on the writing desk of the third-floor room were the pen, ink and paper that she had earned with her own two hands.
First, she wrote about Zane. She wore his coat against her skin while her feathered dress hung on a wall hook airing out over night. With the scent of him for inspiration, pages seemed to write themselves. Surely Suzie would be able to envision his bold carriage as he walked. She'd melt when she read the description of brown eyes that could send a woman to the fainting couch with a single glance her way. Long black hair tied in a mysterious lace ribbon would make Suzie daydream, but the description of muscular arms holding Missy tight all through a long dangerous night would leave her sister sleepless.
The temperature in the third-story room seemed suddenly stifling. She fanned the lapels of the coat over her breasts. The stirred air felt like breath from a mouth too tempting to linger in thought over. It would be best to write about something else for a while.
"Cold evening air drifts in through the window opened fully to the night." A description of Luminary might be a more comfortable subject for now. "Lusty laughter bubbles up from the street below and an argument a block over blends with the tinkle and pound of the lively piano music from any number of bars. Night in Luminary sounds gay..."
It sounded like red and blue bursting with sparks of gold and silver. What she couldn't tell Suzie was that it didn't quite cover the wheeze and gasp of Harriet Cooper's breathing.
* * *
The campfire cast amber shadows on the faces of Zane's companions. Beyond the friendly circle, night stretched black as eternity. Coyotes howled and yipped to one another on the moonless prairie.
He had been pleased to come upon the group of cowboys and grateful when they'd offered him a meal of hot stew and biscuits. Three days on the trail without a soul to talk to, besides Ace, had become wearisome. Nights had turned haunted. Not by ghosts, but by visions of Missy Lenore Devlin.
Blamed if the blanket of stars overhead didn't remind him of the sparkle in her eyes. If he watched long enough, a shooting star would bolt across the heaven from east to west like some joyous spirit set free of its paddock, like Missy on her great Western adventure. It disturbed him to think of those stars that reminded him of her. They shot bright and straight for a while but in the end they fizzled out of sight.
Maybe he shouldn't have left her in Luminary. That town could be a rotten place for a woman alone. He trusted Maybelle to do her best, but when it came to someone like Missy, her best might not be good enough. She would try to send Missy home but that bounty presented a problem. What if some bounty hunter grabbed her for the reward? Not all of that breed lived under a high moral code. He knew several who would ignore the clause about returning her in as pure a condition as when she'd fled the bosom of her family.
With some effort, Zane purged Missy from his mind. He'd be better off planning a way to trap Wesley Wage, who by all accounts was just a day away, in the quiet town of Creekside. Creekside had a small bank where local farmers trusted their funds to be safe.
A log cracked in the fire and shot a spray of sparks into the dark. Quiet cowboy conversation of steers and horses and what each man would do with his next paycheck lent a cozy feel to the night. Zane closed his eyes, listening.
"I'm spending my dime on that new gal at Pete's," said a deep voice.
Zane's stomach soured in pity for any girl unlucky enough to tie in with Pete.
"She's about the prettiest little thing I've ever seen." This voice was young. It dripped with appreciation for the girl. One thing was sure, she wouldn't be pretty for long. "I'd spend a month of dimes for her services."
"Now, her little white dog with that bow in his fur is something to see," a voice from Zane's right declared.
A little white dog? With a bow? Prickly heat crept up Zane's spine. He sat up straight, peering at each golden face around the fire.
"Pete's sure never had a woman like that one." This came from a man with years of sun etched into his face. The feathered lines of his skin caught the firelight and gave him the appearance of a spirit risen from the underworld. "What that lady can do with her fingers is a pure wonder."
"It's almost holy what those two hands can do." Heads nodded all around.
"Pete's gonna get rich, what with the way she can take care of all the gents at once." This voice, from the man to his left, seemed full of admiration.
"Luminary's got a new sweetheart and that's no lie."
"What's her..." Words cracked out of Zane's throat as if they were struggling through a dust storm. "...name?"
"Why, even her name sounds like music," the youngster said. "It's Missy Lenore Devlin. Mister, you must be the only man around who hasn't been to Pete's just to watch the lady ply her trade."
Chapter Six
Pete, Missy judged, while she stared at his closed office door, was a cruel man. His love of a profit and a truly mean disposition made him a despicable guardian for the women in his service.
"Do you think there's even a heart in that chest, Moe?"
Moe, the human shadow that Maybelle had assigned to follow her, dabbed at the moisture welling in his eyes.
"Don't you be fooled into thinking so, Miss Devlin." Moe shook his bald head, sad and slow. He brushed a lock of hair behind Harriet's deaf ear with a trembling thumb. "This lamb weren't nothing to him but another dollar. He'll have himself another poor child by week's end, mark my word."
Dressed in the white nightgown Missy had purchased with a night's earnings, Harriet looked peaceful, like an angel who had flown her way home.
"I'm sure you're right, Moe."
"Right as a feather on a sporting woman, Miss Devlin. You was the one who paid for the laudanum to make her passing peaceful, not that dung worm."
Now half a day had passed since the dung worm had slithered into his hole. Harriet grew cold and stiff in her crib without the undertaker having been called.
Missy curled her fist and pounded on the office door. Harriet could no longer force Pete to live up to his obligation to her, but, by heavens, Missy could.
"Go to hell!" the voice behind the door yelled.
There couldn't have been a more appropriate invitation.
She opened the door, swished her red skirt inside, then leaned backward to close it.
Pete sat slumped in a chair with his back to her. He gazed out a window so crusted with dust that the pink rays of sunset barely penetrated.
"I quit," she announced to the back of his head.
His boots, which had been propped on the windowsill, hit the floor with a slap of leather. He turned in the chair with a slow pivot.
"You think so, Miss Devlin?" Missy couldn't tell which glowed hotter, the glare in his eyes or the burning tip of the cigarette bobbing between his lips. "My women don't quit."
"Harriet proved that, I guess. She had to die to get away from you." Missy wished that the flush coloring his face came from shame but knew it was pure, red-hot greed.
He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and waved it like an ash-dripping flag. "That wasn't any of my doing. She was sick."
"Where I come from people treat their dogs better than you treated Harriet. You owe her a proper burial."
"If that squirrelly pup of yours is anything to go by, dogs get treated better where you come from than any human soul can hope for." Pete dropped the butt of his cigarette into a glass. The inch of whiskey left inside hissed as the hot tip died. "But to the point, that girl was a starving waif when I took her in out of the cold. She'd have died long ago if it hadn't been for me. Can't see that I owe her a damn thing."
"You owed her ten dollars." Harriet, with a pained breath, had made Missy promise to claim it for her.
"She ain't here to collect. Besides, no undertaker is going to come and bury a whore for ten dollars." Pete picked up the glass of whiskey, noticed the butt in it and set it down with a frown. "And that is where this stands."
"Here is where it stands." Missy leaned away from the door. She peered through the feather flopping over the edge of her hat, returning his stare, will for will. "I'll perform tonight on the condition that you take the evening's earnings and combine it with what you rightfully owed Harriet, then you give her the burial that her folks would have, had they lived."
"The hell you say." Pete propped his boots on the desk. He knocked over the whisky glass but didn't seem to notice. With a grunt, he crossed his arms over his chest. "And why would I do that?"
"Because it's the decent thing to do, and if you don't I'll invite all your customers to join me at Maybelle's."
She expected him to leap from his chair, ranting like a madman, but he went still, his eyes narrowed in calculation. Outright anger would have felt more comfortable than this silence. A tantrum would be easier to deal with than the quiet ticking of his brain.
"You throw in your share of the take and we have a deal," he said at last.
"You make sure it's a fine funeral." Missy grasped the doorknob, eager to get out from under his scrutiny. "And get her buried next to her parents. I'll be watching to see that you do right by her."
He stood up slowly, like Moe's dung worm unwinding from its coil.
"Sweetheart, I'm dealing with you out of the goodness of my heart. You won't be taking my customers anywhere. I told you that my women don't leave. I meant that."
By heavens, the mealy-faced slug of a man had threatened her! Why, Edwin was twice his size and, although decent to the core, had looked every bit as fierce in his attempt to keep her from leaving home. Did he think she had the backbone of a banana?
"I'm sure you did mean it," Missy said, intentionally smiling at his sneer. "Still, I am not one of your women."
She opened the door, stepped through then slammed it behind her, certain that she had put him in his place.
A thud hit the back of the door. Broken glass tinkled on the floor. Edwin, in all his brotherly fury, had never lifted his hand in anger.
* * *
To all appearances, everything about the evening was as normal as mud, but Missy felt the difference down to her bones.
She readied the saloon for the nightly performance, the same as always. She dragged the gaming tables to the alcove under the stairs. She set the chairs in neat rows ten wide and ten deep. Muff slept in his basket beside the piano. Moe stood outside on the boardwalk sipping a beer, but all the while keeping a watchful eye on her.
Until tonight, setting up for the concert had been exciting, but this evening she felt watched. Not by the bartender. Mitch was busy stocking the shelves behind the bar. After the night's performance the men tended to drink heavily and make use of Pete's women until nearly dawn.
The source of her agitation seemed to come from Pete's private sanctum. The office door stood a few inches ajar, which was unusual all by itself, but to make that occurrence truly curious, the lamp had been put out.
Without a doubt, Pete watched her through that crack. After their conversation a few hours earlier, he might be dreaming up ways to force her to become one of his girls. On the nights that she performed, his profits doubled. He wouldn't give that up without a fight.
Were secret stares and wicked thoughts through a crack in a doorway what made the girls fear him?
With her back to the door she felt his eyes pricking at the tender spot between her shoulders. She spun about to face the door, feeling trapped, like a butterfly with its wings pinned against a board. She watched the burning end of a cigarette float up and down in the dark.
As unnerving as the unseen stare was, Missy doubted that it would be enough to keep a girl here against her good judgment. The man must have another way, something subtle yet brutal that would not be noticed outright, to keep his doves in submission.
Missy glanced out the front door to see Moe take a big gulp of beer. He laughed with a fellow drinker on the boardwalk but every second or two he peered inside, sometimes at Pete's cracked door and sometimes at her.
It was clear that Maybelle had not sent Moe to be her personal guardian on a whim.
So far on her adventure west, she had braved a giant, gown-eating cow, spent a rainy night snuggled beside a bold bounty hunter, and she had challenged a river gone wild on top of a huge beast of a horse.
Still the bravest act of her journey, and maybe her life, had been to smile and comfort poor Harriet, to assure her that welcome arms waited for her on the other side of life. She had done that with a smile even though the lump in her throat twisted and ached. Even though the unshed tears behind her eyes had burned like a fury.
Missy went to the piano bench and sat down. She
tidied the blue bow holding the fur out of Muff's eyes then straightened the small blac
k feather that Emily had placed in it. She checked under the dog's blanket to make sure that her writing supplies were snug and safe. One never knew when one's path would take a sudden turn. It was best to keep her valuables close at hand.
"I suppose with all we've been through, that sour-faced weasel Pete shouldn't be much of a challenge." For some reason, Zane's brown-sugar gaze popped into her mind. It was a pleasant sight compared to Pete's secret-keeping stare so she let it linger. She closed her eyes and mentally added his smile, then his frown. She summoned his voice and heard him call her darlin'.
"Don't you miss him, Muff?" Muff growled in his sleep. "I wonder if he's caught that outlaw yet. He sure has his mind set on it."
"Sometimes, when a man has his mind set on something, hell can crack apart over his head and he won't give it up." Pete's breath, whispering six inches from her ear, smelled sour with alcohol and nicotine. "For instance, what wouldn't you do to keep that little dog from coming to harm? Things you wouldn't ordinarily consider, I expect."
Threats had never had much of an influence on her, but they had been delivered by Edwin who loved her in a way that only a protective brother could. Pete's threat made her long to pack up Muff's basket and flee to Maybelle's third-floor sanctuary.
Obligation to Harriet and a dash of willfulness kept her derriere planted on the bench. She turned, sliding over a foot to put distance between his mouth and her nose.
Mindy Nightrose, a middle-aged dove with a jiggling bosom more out of her corset than in, stood close by. She peered over Pete's shoulder with wide eyes, clearly warning Missy to be careful.
"I quit." Missy watched Miss Nightrose's hand fly to her mouth, covering her irregular teeth and her surprise. "Tonight is my last performance. Take your threats and your foul breath somewhere else."
Pete's face flushed, a perfect match to Missy's crimson dress.
