Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  The man who had spoken looked thoughtful, glancing at the men around him.

  “It is all a thing of revenge, what is being done here to Serena,” Consuelo went on. “A thing hatched by this one here, this parlor-house she-devil, Pearlie, and this miserable spouter-from-streetcorners, this elder of the Mormons who once wanted to make Serena his fourth wife while he had three others that still lived. Because she took the man of Pearlie, and refused to be the woman of the elder, they make her the target of their cruel malice. Would you be a party to it? Would you have the blood of an innocent woman on your hands for the sake of such a pair? Will you be ready to stand accused with their paid assassins, these dregs of the town who would sell their souls for a tumble in bed and a few dollars in their fists? And you who have been hirelings, know there will be no money! For this day’s work, you have already had the only wage you will receive!”

  A vicious cry went up. The mood of the core of men left grouped around Serena and Ward grew uglier as they saw many of their number easing away. There were fists shaken, and teeth bared in hissing curses. Only the rifle in Ward’s hands kept them at bay.

  Consuelo reached to shake the shoulder of the woman on the seat beside her. “Tell, them, Pearlie. Tell your bought mob that you have changed your mind, that you will no longer pay. Tell them to go, and never to touch Serena again!”

  Pearlie lifted her head, staring wildly at Ward, who seemed to look through her as he swept the gathering that jostled around him. Her pale-blue eyes were vindictive, gloating, as she looked to Serena, who stood swaying, with her pink-tipped breasts exposed to the greedy gazes around her. She glared past the elder with bitter contempt for his failure, then let the maniacal glint of her glance pass over the others.

  Consuelo shook her again. Pearlie licked her lips. “It’s true,” she croaked. “I — I changed my mind. There’ll be no money.”

  It was as good as an admission of guilt. The mob stood exposed for what it was, as did the Mormon elder.

  “Slut,” he growled, the inimical hatred of his silver eyes focused on the red-haired woman.

  Ward stepped forward at that moment, catching Serena’s wrist, pulling her free. The elder swung to start after her, only to be brought up short by the barrel of the rifle against his chest.

  “Stay right there,” Ward said softly, and began to back away. He urged Serena behind him. “Get into the buggy,” he told her, never taking his eyes from the elder.

  Serena did as she was bid, lifting her foot high for the smooth iron step, pulling herself upward with a great effort. For an instant, Pearlie blocked her way, then at Consuelo’s hissed command, the woman shrank back. Ward came next. He stepped up, catching the strut to brace himself against the footboard, since there was no more room on the single seat. His attention was centered on the men below.

  It was then that Pearlie lunged for him, a keening noise in her throat as she grabbed for the rifle. Off balance, Ward struggled with her, his foot slipping from the step. Serena twisted around as she realized what was happening, stretching to close her fingers on his leather belt even as Pearlie lay across her, prodding her with a sharp elbow in the chest, squirming as she tried to wrest the rifle from Ward.

  Suddenly the rifle belched flame, and the report reverberated under the top of the buggy. Ward was flung back, his face contorted with pain, holding to the vehicle by his fingertips and Serena’s grasp.

  With an animal bawling, the mob started forward. Consuelo shouted at the horses, slapping them into a run. Ward swung forward, reeling, falling across Serena and Pearlie as Serena wrenched desperately at his belt. Pearlie screamed, letting the rifle go, raising her shaking hands to her face. Her eyes were lifeless, demented, as she stared at the bloodstain spreading across the front of Ward’s shirt, soaking into her wrapper as he lay over her lap. The buggy jolted, leaning around a corner. As it straightened, Consuelo reached for the rifle that threatened to bounce from the moving vehicle. She set it between her knees, then put out a hand to help Serena pull Ward farther inside the buggy.

  There was no time for fear. Serena slid her hand inside Ward’s shirt, feeling for a heartbeat. It was there, a little fast, but strong.

  He lifted his head, turning to look at her with a tight grin. “I’m still alive, if that’s what you want to know.”

  He ended on an indrawn breath as one of the buggy wheels fell into a hole. Pearlie stopped screaming with a gasp, though her eyes were vacant. Ward pushed himself off them, going to one knee in the jouncing buggy to relieve them of his weight. His face was gray despite his attempt at humor, and blood seeped through his fingers that he held to his ribs. Behind them came the hue and cry of the mob, a chilling sound. A man stared open-mouthed as they careened past, heading downhill. A burro trotted, braying, out of their path. Nothing else moved in the town. It was as if everybody and everything had drawn back inside, taking cover until they saw what happened.

  Consuelo brought the buggy to a stop in the alleyway between the Eldorado and the parlor house. Pearlie was the first one out, climbing over Serena in trembling haste, pushing past Ward, straining away as though she was afraid of him, and of what she had done. Once down, she left them at a curious, straggling run, heading for the back door of the parlor house.

  Ward swung down, favoring his side. Serena came next, and Consuelo after her, Ward reached back inside for his rifle.

  “The parlor house,” the Spanish girl said. “They may be less likely to tear it apart, and there will be somebody to send for the sheriff.”

  Ward gave a nod, his teeth clamped together so tightly the muscles stood out in his jaws. “I should have sent someone to start with.”

  “There was no time for explanations,” Consuelo said succinctly. “Besides, the fools should have taken notice by now.”

  It was only a step to the door. Consuelo turned the knob and pushed inside, standing back as Ward entered with Serena at his side, half-supporting him. A girl, the candy-box brunette named Cora, was just coming down the stairs. Her eyes widened at the sight of them. She opened her mouth to exclaim, but Consuelo forestalled her.

  “Get Serena something to wear. And light a lamp. Why are the shades always pulled in places like this? It’s dark as night.”

  The girl stripped off the wrapper she was wearing over her corset, chemise, and drawers. Handing it to Serena, she said, “I have a lamp in my room where I was heating my curling tongs. I’ll get it.”

  “Do that,” Consuelo said over her shoulder as she barred the door, “and bring bandages. Then send somebody out the front way after the sheriff. Tell him — tell him there’s a riot down here, a gang trying to break up Pearlie’s place.”

  The sound of the crowd was coming closer. Hearing it, the girl leaped to obey. In seconds, the housekeeper came pounding down the stairs fully dressed, and whisked past them along the hall and out the front door.

  Consuelo pulled aside the curtain over the back door. “They are heading for the Eldorado,” she whispered.

  At that moment, they heard a moan. It came from the recess under the stairs. Turning, they saw Pearlie crouched there with her shoulders hunched and a look of terror in her eyes. Above them on the stairs, Cora appeared with the oil lamp. Pearlie shielded her contorted face from its golden glow. “Go away,” she said, making ineffectual shooing motions with her other shaking hand. “Go away. Don’t touch me. You can’t touch me.”

  Serena had slipped into the wrapper given her. Now she exchanged a brief look of amazement with Consuelo, then reached for the bandaging brought by the girl with the lamp. She pushed a chair forward for Ward, but he refused it, leaning against the frame of the opening that led into the back parlor. There was a listening intentness on his face, and the rifle was steady in his hand.

  “Set the lamp down, there where Serena can see to Ward,” Consuelo said, “and then help me drag something — chairs, stools, tables, anything — in front of this door.”

  There was no time. Coarse yells came nearer, and
the door rattled in its frame as a fist hammered on it. A cold look descended on Consuelo’s features. She swept down on Pearlie and dragged her to her feet, shoving her toward the door.

  “Tell them we are not here!” she hissed. “Tell them you got away and came here, but you do not know which direction we ran.”

  “No, no, please, no,” Pearlie whispered, her eyes vacant and her mouth working.

  “Yes,” Consuelo said, pushing her in place before the door. “Open it and speak to them, but be careful what you say, or you will be shot.”

  Pearlie glanced at Ward, and her face seemed to dissolve. Tears flooded her eyes and her lips trembled loosely, while her features contorted in an ugly mask of grief. He motioned with the rifle as the hammering grew louder, and slowly she turned to put her hand on the bolt.

  Abruptly, her face twisted. She jerked the bolt and swung the door wide. “They’re here!” she screamed. “Come and get them!”

  Elder Greer was the first man over the threshold. A shot rang out, tearing its way through his flapping coat as he dived for the floor, passing on to kick splinters from the doorframe. The next man yelped and threw himself backward. The shot that followed sent the other five or six gathered outside running for cover. Ward jacked another shell in and sent it after them for good measure, then nodded to Serena. She stepped immediately to slam the door and throw the bolt once more.

  Pearlie flattened herself against the wall beside the stairs, her eyes wide and staring. The brunette with the lamp retreated upward a step, her shaking hands making the flame inside the lamp’s globe flutter.

  The elder sat up, then pulled himself to his feet by holding to the stair banister. Ignoring the rifle bore that swung in his direction, he took a step toward Serena. From inside his coat, he took out a long-bladed skinning knife. “Now,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Now, Serena.”

  Her face pinched and bruised, Serena looked at him. Since she had known this man, she had been assaulted, nearly raped, subjected to public humiliation, and robbed of everything she owned. She had been hounded and harassed, held up to scorn, charged with vile accusations, branded with foul names, and threatened with acts of violence. Her life had been endangered, she had been harried and attacked, chased down, her horses and carriage taken from her, her clothing shredded, and her pride and modesty stripped away as dozens of strange men had prodded and handled her. She had faced torture and death, and finally been chased into this last place of refuge, a run-down parlor house smelling of sweat and urine and stale tobacco. Her body ached from the mauling, the cuts and whip marks she had received, and the rankling injustice of it was like a running sore. Rage boiled up inside her, bringing color to her cheeks and a militant look to her eyes.

  “Now?” she breathed, her voice strained, but firm. “What do you mean? What have I done to you, except injure your towering pride?”

  “You are a fornicator!” the elder thundered.

  “For living with, being with, the man I love? I count this no sin.”

  Beside her, Ward went still, but she paid no attention.

  “An adulteress!”

  “How can I have betrayed a marriage that was never a true union, a marriage to which I never agreed?”

  “You murdered your husband!”

  “His death was an accident. He died by no man’s hands, none.” Ward’s indrawn breath caught at her consciousness, but she went on. “No, it is you who are the murderer, you the fornicator, you the adulterer and the deserter of your family. You killed your wife Lessie with brutal enjoyment because she left you. You stalked the other pitiful women of the cribs, using their bodies with lust before you took their lives, cutting their flesh, wounding them in your insane need for revenge. Why? What has any woman ever done to you?”

  “No — I am the instrument of the Lord. They were washed in the blood of the lamb as it is written, those women, made pure and clean in his sight.”

  “You are insane. Your mind is so twisted you don’t know what you are doing.”

  Concern amounting almost to fear crossed the shrunken, bearded face of the elder. “You are evil,” he whispered. “I have to kill you before you turn them all against me.”

  “You have turned them against yourself.”

  The Mormon stared around at a loss, his gaze touching on Consuelo, standing on the opposite side of Ward from Serena, on Pearlie and the other girl with the lamp. From outside came shouts, as if the men left were getting ready to rush the door. Ward’s attention was drawn to the sound. At that moment, the elder took a step forward, then halted suddenly as the rifle in Ward’s hands steadied once more on his chest.

  Consuelo glanced at Ward’s face, at the pale line around his mouth. She reached out to close her fingers on the elder’s arm.

  “If it’s evil women you want, there is one for you over there, one you know. You and your partner Pearlie make a fine pair.”

  The Spanish girl gave him a push. Almost as if relieved, he turned from Serena, gripping his knife tighter, drawing his righteous anger around him like a mantle.

  “If it wasn’t for you,” he said, pointing a long, bony finger at Pearlie, “the other woman would be dead now. Her soul’s salvation, my scourging of her body, the physical union, would be complete. It’s your fault, yours alone.”

  Pearlie came away from the wall, her pale-blue eyes dilated. “Are you going to kill me like all the rest? Are you? Are you?”

  There was in her voice a husky fascination and the strength of a yearning challenge. It was almost as if she wanted him to kill her, as if she defied him to try.

  The silver eyes of the older glittered. “Slut!” he cried. “Do you repent of your sins?”

  “No!” Pearlie screamed. “Never!”

  Before anyone could move, before they realized what was happening, Elder Greer lunged for her. Pearlie spun around and stumbled up the stairs, pushing past Cora with the lamp, shrieking with excited laughter. The elder pounded after her, knocking the other girl against the banister as he took the treads two at a time.

  At this second blow, Cora lost her footing. She cried out as the lamp she held tilted, went spinning out of her hand, spreading kerosene down the wool runner of the stairs. It hit the floor with a tinkling crash. The flame of the wick leaped high, blossoming yellow and orange. In an instant, the stair runner was ablaze, the air filled with the acrid, singed-hair smell of burning wool.

  The girl screamed, and with legs flailing, jumped over the fire to the hall below. “Fire!” she sobbed, turning to call upward. “Hey, you girls up there, fire!”

  Black smoke billowed, making their eyes water. Ward, with his hand still pressed to his side, heaved himself away from the doorframe, heading toward the stairs. Consuelo ran after him.

  “You can’t go up there. This place is going up like paper. I’ve seen it before, too many times, in other mining camps.”

  “I can’t just stand and do nothing,” he grated.

  With despair, Consuelo looked to Serena. Ducking their heads against the smoke, they went after him, edging around the flames, taking the stairs at a run.

  In the upper corridors was pandemonium. Women in all stages of undress ran back and forth, carrying their belongings to the windows and throwing them into the streets below, cradling kittens, rabbits, and puppies, or running here and there with sleep-dazed eyes, demanding to know what was going on.

  The door of Pearlie’s room was locked. From inside came a harsh screaming, followed by the rise and fall of shouted intonations and prayers. Ward jerked at the handle, but it held solidly. Backing off, he rammed the door with his shoulder.

  It shuddered in its frame, but did not budge. Ward reeled away, his breathing ragged and his grip loose on his rifle as he rested against the wall. The grayness in his face was more pronounced, and the blood gushed from between his fingers over his ribs.

  “Does anybody have a key to this door?” Serena asked a girl running past. The girl only stared and kept going.

  “Come
away, Ward,” Consuelo begged. “We have to get out of here. Think of Serena, think of me, if you won’t do it for yourself.”

  He did not answer. Pushing erect, he backed off, then kicked at the door handle once, twice, three times. It flew wide, banging against the wall.

  Serena stifled a scream, her hands clamped to her mouth. The room was bathed in blood. It smeared the walls and trailed over the floor toward the bed. On the coverlet of Brussels lace, red-stained and rumpled, lay Pearlie with her legs spread wide and blood slowly dripping from the heel of her foot, hanging off the side, onto the floor. Her hair was wet and matted, and her eyes staring. Above her crouched Elder Greer, grunting, his trousers about his ankles.

  “Por Dios,” Consuelo whispered, turning away.

  Ward dropped to one knee. The Mormon elder turned, growling, and began to come off the bed with his knife in his hand. When the white-haired, nearly naked man was squarely facing him, Ward raised his rifle, nestled the butt against his cheek, and fired.

  24

  Serena moved down the stairs with assurance, pulling on her gloves, of gray leather as she went. It was a bright day, after the past month of dull weather and snow flurries; the stained-glass window above the door glowed with color. So did Serena, at least in the face. Her blue-gray eyes were clear, her cheekbones flushed with pink, and her mouth was rosy and moist. She was well at last, and happy, and if a shadow sometimes crossed her face, she did not allow it to linger long. Nothing must be allowed to mar the precarious peace she had attained, not today, not any day.

  The costume she wore, of soft mauve-gray crepe de chine, was not vivid by any means, but that was as it should be. She wore with it, as a symbol of her mourning, black gloves and cartwheel hat, and the collar of jet with its ten-inch “rain” that Nathan had given her. Around her shoulders, over the full leg-o’-mutton sleeves, she had draped the cape edged with beaver fur that Ward had presented to her for Christmas year before last. It was a nice compromise, she thought, though she doubted that Ward would appreciate it.