Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  Serena watched the festivities of the flower parade from the street in front of the Eldorado. Beside her was Consuelo, a useful and amusing companion, since the Spanish girl was able to separate the dashing young society matrons and the daughters of the mine owners from the fair Cyprians of Myers Avenue. It was not always an easy task, especially since the most high-spirited and eligible men might be seen riding or walking at the side of any equipage. If there was good reason to suppose that the escorts were to a man far from sober, it only added to the gaiety and exuberance of the day.

  A matron who made her winter home in Colorado Springs wheeled by in a spider phaeton decorated with smilax, geraniums, and sweet peas, and pulled by four white horses. The girls from the Old Homestead sat enthroned in a victoria on burgundy velvet seats strewn with pink roses. A mine owner’s wife, sitting with her two homely daughters in a surrey smothered in marigolds, the most blatantly golden yellow blossoms available, drew comment for the overpowering fragrance that had the occupants looking a trifle green. Close behind them came an equestrienne seated upon a saddle blanket covered with purple asters, setting off a habit of billowing lavender twill.

  Pearlie was an entrant in the parade. Her carriage was decked with orange poppies. In solitary splendor, she lolled on the seat wearing a dress of white printed with orange-and-blue flowers, and with a live, brilliantly plumed parrot sitting on her shoulder. The man who was driving her, dressed in white with a top hat of iridescent green, was Otto. Serena stared at him without surprise. After Ward had fired him, the big man had worked in the mines for a few short weeks, entered a few none too successful boxing matches, and finally wound up as Pearlie’s right-hand man at the parlor house. So long as he stayed well away from the Eldorado, she had no complaint.

  Hardly had the sensation Pearlie and Otto created died away than the cyclists came into view. Dressed in white, with white straw boaters on their heads and their cycles trimmed with daisies, they were a dazzling sight in the bright sunlight.

  “Look,” Serena said, craning this way and that to see over the milling crowd. “Isn’t that Lessie?”

  It was indeed Elder Greer’s third wife, riding a bicycle as if she had never covered ground any other way. A plump young man ran along beside her, trying valiantly to keep a white Chinese parasol over her head. Catching a glimpse of Serena, Lessie waved, and nearly collided with a horse trough that loomed in her path.

  “I heard the Mormon wagon train had gone on. I guess this proves it,” Serena commented with an amused glance at Consuelo.

  “I don’t know,” the Spanish girl replied. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from your crazy Saint, but someone told me they thought he let his family go on ahead while he stayed, working as a carpenter down in the Springs.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Who knows?” The other girl twitched a shoulder. “He’s lost two of his four women, hasn’t he? Maybe he means to stay around until he has you both back in his, ah, bosom?”

  “Don’t say such a thing, even in joking!” Serena exclaimed with a mock shudder.

  “Or maybe he feels he has a sacred duty to bring the word to the women of Myers Avenue, along with various and sun-dry other delights?”

  “If that’s so, he has been neglecting it.”

  Those last words, uttered so lightly, returned to haunt Serena. Before the month was out, the elder had taken up a stand in front of the Eldorado. Shaking his fist, he railed against an establishment dedicated to the gods of mammon and to Beelzebub, citing faro, poker, and roulette as temptations of the devil.

  In the weeks since Ward had been gone, Serena had continued her habit of spending an hour or two each evening in the barroom. The barkeeper and other barmen had adopted a protective attitude toward her, whether because of her advancing condition or due to instructions from Ward she could not say. From time to time there had arisen a situation that the men were at a loss to handle; the drunken disappearance of Timothy for the better part of a week, the sickness of one of the girls in the show, the delivery of a shipment of inferior whiskey instead of the good stock ordered. In each case, Serena supplied the solution, taking Timothy’s place at the piano, rearranging the show, refusing payment on the bad liquor. It was Timothy who, in lieu of Ward’s former partner, was supposed to see to it that the Eldorado wasn’t robbed of profits during Ward’s absence. Since the job seemed more than the Welshman could handle without finding respite in a shot glass instead of his usual beer mug, the responsibility gradually devolved upon Serena. It was to her they came then, when the disturbance began outside the Eldorado’s doors.

  “What are we going to do about that soap-box preacher, Miss Serena, ma’am? He’s running off business, that’s what he’s doing, besides stirring up an awful row. It’s enough to take the head off a man’s beer, the way he’s carrying on.”

  “I don’t know what can be done about it,” Serena said unhappily. “He’s not breaking any law.”

  “He’s slandering a fine woman, namely you, ma’am,” the barkeeper said, his face reddening. “The boys could just take him by the arms, gentle-like, and walk him back into the alley—”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Serena said hastily.

  “I don’t see why not, dang me if I do. The way I’ve got it figured, that feller needs a lesson in manners, and Mr. Dunbar would be plumb upset if some of us didn’t give it to him.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Serena answered, “but it isn’t necessary. What that man says can’t hurt me.”

  “It sure hurts me to hear it,” the man behind the bar said, giving his polishing cloth a vicious snap.

  “Maybe he’ll move on soon.”

  “If he don’t, he’s sure looking for trouble, and he’s just liable to find it!”

  In the end, no action had to be taken. The elder was not only turning business away from the Eldorado, he was affecting the clientele at Pearlie’s. It wasn’t long before Otto appeared on the sidewalk outside and tapped Elder Greer on the shoulder. What he said to him was unknown, but the elder deserted his post and was seen to enter the building next door. No more was seen or heard from him for the rest of the night.

  Serena let a week or so pass. The thought of Lessie, so enthralled with her triumphal progress on the flower-be-decked bicycle, was constantly with her. Did she know that Elder Greer had not left the area? Had she gone back into hiding? Serena hated to think of Elder Greer’s finding Lessie. His will was so strong, he was so sure of himself and his rights, For all the girl’s newfound independence, Serena did not think Lessie would be able to withstand the elder’s methods of persuasion. It would be far better if he had no chance to see and talk to her. Surely he would give up and go away eventually if he could get no satisfaction from either her or Lessie.

  After another day or two of worrying, Serena decided the only way to make certain Lessie stayed out of sight was to go and see her. Flinging a shawl around her shoulders, Serena set out along the street. It was still early, not quite dinnertime. The blast of a mine whistle, signaling the end of a shift, was like a shriek. A train chugged its way up the slope, curving toward the mining town of Victor, trailing its black smoke like a plume. The western sky above the mountains was pink and lavender blue, while the opposite slope was tipped with the last gold rays of the setting sun. The air was cool here at this height as the sun went down, even in Indian summer. It caught in the lungs with a sharp ache. The street was dry and dusty. There wasn’t a blade of green grass anywhere, only the sere, rattling mats of yellow gamma dotted with fat white heads of milkweed. This late in the year, everything was as dry as tinder.

  She was getting so clumsy. She wasn’t that large yet, but she felt enormous. Breathless from the quick walk, she stopped a minute outside the door of the crib before lifting her hand to knock.

  There was no answer. Had Lessie gone out? Serena stood listening. Nothing moved inside; the only sound was the distant voices of a group of boys playing stickball farther alo
ng Poverty Gulch.

  “Lessie?”

  Serena knocked again. When still no answer came, she tried the knob. She might leave a note, provided Lessie owned such a thing as a lead pencil.

  The door gave under her hand. “Is anybody here?”

  It was dim with the approach of evening inside the one-roomed cabin. The sound of flies buzzing was loud in the stillness, and an unpleasant sickly smell hung in the close air, The single chair had been overturned. The pitcher from the washstand lay broken on the floor. Clothes were strewn everywhere, most of them torn to rags. In the corner, the bed sagged, with the mattress drooping off its frame. To Serena, standing amid the violent disorder, it looked as if someone had deliberately torn the place apart. The destruction was so complete it gave her an uneasy feeling, raising gooseflesh along her arms.

  It did not look as if Lessie would be returning; there was nothing left for her here. Serena turned to go. It was at that moment she noticed the swarm of bluebottle flies between the bed and the wall.

  Lessie lay crumpled on the floor, her white hair clotted with dried, blackened blood, and her pale eyes glazed and staring. Her face was purple and lacerated with deep cuts, and her tongue protruded between her teeth. There were great black bruises on her neck, and also on her naked shoulders and breasts. She had a rag around her waist, all that was left of a nightgown. Her thighs and hips, covered with bloody gashes as from a knife, were crawling with avid, humming flies.

  Serena dragged breath into her lungs on a choking gasp. Shivering uncontrollably, with tears starting from her eyes and her hands pressed to her mouth, she stepped closer.

  There could be no doubt. Lessie was dead, had been for some time. There was nothing she could do to help her, nothing anyone could do. Whirling, Serena ran from the house out into the cool freshness of the evening and the pure, untainted air.

  Since she had discovered the body, Serena was questioned by the sheriff and his deputies. Their faces grave, they took down the particulars of Lessie’s short life, including the name, supplied by Consuelo, of the drummer who had been keeping her. It was a distressing affair, they said, an occurrence that was becoming much too common. Cripple Creek would be getting a bad name if they didn’t watch out, people would be thinking it was a dangerous place to live. They couldn’t have that. Promising a full inquiry without delay, they went away, though as Consuelo put it so succinctly, they looked as if they had found a worm in their soup, one that should have had sense enough not to get itself cooked.

  The funeral was held the next day. It was a warm, clear afternoon. Serena stood with her skirts catching on the dry weeds of the cemetery, staring at the raw, rocky earth mounded beside the grave. She could smell the fresh wood scent of the new pine casket, overlaid by the fragrance of flowers. The red and white roses, calla lilies, and carnations brought in by train lay wilting in the dry air and burning sun, too vivid reminders of the flower parade such a short time ago. Lessie had been so happy that day, happier, possibly, than she had ever been in her life.

  Serena was not alone. Consuelo was with her, and also Nathan Benedict. There was the drummer, looking uncomfortable in a striped suit and spats, and with a daisy in his buttonhole, standing well back, half hidden by the horse-drawn black hearse with its bobbing plumes on the roof. A few other men were clustered on the other side of the grave as if for company, rough-looking miners, a ranch hand or two. Beyond them waited a group of musicians provided by the undertaker, sweating in their woolen uniforms as they played a soft, dirge-like hymn.

  There was one other. Standing at the head of the open grave, a Bible in his hands, was Elder Greer. With his head thrown back and an ecstatic look on his features, he intoned the service with power and zeal. He had not been invited to perform this rite. He had simply appeared in his black, and claiming the dead as his own, began to pray for the repose of her restless soul. The prayer became an oration on the sanctity of marriage, which turned into a sermon on the conduct of women.

  Serena wanted to protest. The urge to cry out, to scream for him to stop, swelled in her chest. The look of pious grief yet sublime justification on his face made her gorge rise. The only thing that held her silent was the knowledge that nothing he said could affect Lessie any longer, that the most heated of his remarks were directed at her.

  Staring out over the town spread below, she stood it as long as she could. When she began to feel that she would have to fly at the elder and claw his face, or go mad, she swung around and marched toward Nathan’s carriage waiting behind the hearse. She had gone no more than a half-dozen paces when Nathan fell into step beside her, taking her arm to steady her on the uneven ground. By the time he had handed her up into the town carriage, Consuelo had joined them.

  That Serena was the target of the Mormon needed no further proof. With the most important segment of his audience fading away, he brought the liturgy to an end and called for prayer. Before the coachman could turn the team, the first handful of earth had been sifted onto the casket; the band had formed in marching order and began to troop back toward town.

  “Do you want to wait?” Nathan asked, his thin face set in lines of concern as he looked down at Serena.

  “No,” she answered. She could not bear the idea of being forced to exchange solemn pleasantries with the man who called himself Lessie’s husband.

  With a firm nod, Nathan gave the order to proceed, and they fell in behind the musicians. Serena twisted in her seat to stare back at the barren hill where the gravediggers were busy, watched over by the old man with his white hair and jutting beard. She did not cry until the band ahead of them began to caper, striking up a tune that had surfaced in one of the dance halls on Myers: “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”

  The carriage pulled up in front of the Eldorado. Consuelo reached to touch Serena’s hand.

  “I wish you would reconsider and come back with me to my house,” the Spanish girl said, her voice anxious.

  “No, I’ll be fine. It was good of you, both of you, to come to the funeral with me.”

  Nathan cleared his throat. “I wish I — we could do more. I worry about you here alone. I don’t know what Ward’s thinking of, going off and leaving you here like this so long.”

  “If you are referring to my condition, he doesn’t know,” Serena said with a wry smile.

  “Doesn’t know? You mean you didn’t tell him?” Serena shook her head.

  “He won’t like that, and I can’t say I blame him. Why didn’t you let him know?”

  Nathan’s voice was so stern that Serena slanted him a look of surprise. “A number of reasons. I didn’t want to interfere with his plans.”

  “Balderdash!”

  “But no,” Consuelo said with a quick lift of her chin. “I understand perfectly. If he would not stay for you alone, why should he be given the opportunity to stay for the child? Should it be more important to him than you?”

  A smile creased Nathan’s angular face. “Defeated,” he said. “You women always stick together.”

  “And why not,” Consuelo demanded, “when you men are forever ranged against us?”

  “Not I,” he answered, a disclaimer so firm that both women had to laugh. For a single instant Serena, looking across Consuelo as they sat three abreast on the carriage seat, met Nathan’s hazel eyes. The warmth in their depths was a reminder of his offer to Ward of mining shares in return for the chance to win her. How Ward had phrased his answer, whether declining the offer for himself alone, or conveying also her rejection, Serena did not know. The subject had never been mentioned between Nathan and herself. No slightest hint of it had been allowed to surface, and yet it hovered unspoken in the air whenever they were together.

  “When is Ward to return?” Consuelo asked, turning so that the wide brim of her cartwheel hat blocked Nathan’s view of Serena.

  “I’m not sure. He said before the snows.”

  “He’d better hurry along. Already the aspens have turned and are beginning to
fall,” Consuelo said.

  “He certainly had,” Nathan agreed. “All jokes aside, it isn’t right for you to be by yourself now, not with this maniac going around killing women.”

  “I’m not alone, at least not at night. But I hate the idea of whoever is committing these terrible crimes getting away with them. I know the authorities, for their own reasons, are looking into the deaths. Still, there ought to be something we could do. I get so angry when I think of how helpless these women are who are being killed, women like Lessie. They have no protection, none whatever!”

  “You are right, of course,” Nathan said slowly. “I’ve been thinking about offering a reward for information. Most of the people out near the section where your friend lived aren’t too anxious to talk to the sheriff, but they might be persuaded to come forward if the price was right.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Serena said.

  “Yes,” Consuelo said dryly, “it should certainly brand you as the friend of the crib girls.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Nathan said with barely a glance in her direction.

  “You may think differently when the good ladies of the town cut you in public.”

  “Fortunately, I am not interested in good ladies, only beautiful ones, such as you two,” he answered.

  “Next you will be endowing a home for destitute Ladies of the Lamplight!”

  “It’s an idea,” Nathan told his amused mistress before he turned to Serena. “Will you promise me, Serena, that you will come to me if anything goes wrong?”

  Consuelo, a frown between her dark eyes, divided a look between the man at her side and Serena before her lips curved in a smile tinged with sadness. “Yes, Serena,” she seconded, “will you come?”

  “There, see what you’ve done,” Serena said as tears rose to her eyes once, more at their kindness. “Though really, I couldn’t impose.”