Fatal Elixir

by William L. DeAndrea

She smiled at me, put her hand on her heart, and then pointed it, open, at me.

  “You want to thank me?” I said.

  She nodded, then pointed out the window.

  “You saw me deal with those two idiots this afternoon?”

  Again she nodded.

  “Well, you’re quite welcome. Anything else before I go to bed?”

  She came toward me. I was wary, but it didn’t seem like an attack; whether it was or not depends on your definition of the word. What she did was grab me by the shirtfront, pull my face to hers, and kiss me on the mouth. It began gently, but soon warmed, then burned into something I wouldn’t soon forget. It lasted a long time, as kisses go.

  When it broke, I caught my breath and said, “I’ve never kissed a sixty-seven-year-old woman before. If I’d only known.”

  The princess rolled her eyes and shattered her vow of silence into a million pieces.

  “Oh, dang it,” she said with a nasal twang that instantly explained the vow of silence. “I’m twenty-two years old, my name is Daisy Herkimer, I was born in Oklahoma, my mamma was a full-blooded Cherokee, that crazy old man downstairs is my daddy, and I’ve wanted you ever since I laid eyes on you. Now kiss me again.”

  I kissed her again, and again and again. It was remarkable to hear that down-to-earth voice coming from that exotic face and body. Remarkable and exciting and very endearing.

  Daisy Herkimer hadn’t stated explicitly to what extent she wanted me ever since she first set eyes on me, but she soon made that clear enough, virtually clawing the shirt off my back and freeing herself from the dress.

  Naked, she was more than a princess. She was an empress. A goddess. Eagerly, she pulled me to the bed and fastened her mouth on mine.

  I know it was wrong. Like it or not, at that moment, I was the law in that town, and it was no part of my duty to be making free with the person of one of my prisoners, no matter how eager she seemed to be to make free with mine.

  But I was also a young man who was tense, enervated, and scared. I never realized until it started to happen how much I needed a woman; how much I needed this woman.

  I would worry about the ethics of it later. For now, I would let nature take its course.

  And what a glorious course that was, all the peaks and valleys of her, the smooth dusky skin over the strong dancer’s muscles, the voluptuous little mound of softness at the bottom of her belly. And her hands and mouth were restless, too, delivering countless caresses and scratches and kisses and bites, each one raising the excitement to a new level.

  Then it was time, and I began to merge with her.

  And stopped halfway.

  I pulled my head back in astonishment. Her black eyes were very bright.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “You’re a virgin!”

  At that, she wrapped those strong legs and arms around me and squeezed hard.

  “Not... any... more!” she said triumphantly. After a sharp little gasp, she spent the rest of the time alternating between wild laughter and shuddered moans.

  Finally, sweat dripping from my hair, I collapsed alongside her.

  “Goodness,” she said.

  I started to laugh. “What’s so funny?” she demanded. “Are you making fun of me?”

  Gently, I kissed her neck. “I wouldn’t presume to make fun of you, Princess. It was a laugh of joy. You are unique in all the world.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m still not sure you’re not making fun of me,” she said. “But I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  “Unique?”

  “No. Princess. It’s so boring, you couldn’t begin to know. Mope around all day, don’t smile, don’t laugh, don’t say nothing. It’s like being a statue. The only good part is the dancing.”

  She pursed her lips in thought. It was certainly true that Daisy Herkimer was a lot more animated than the princess Farrah.

  “Course,” she mused, “I think I just found me another good part. Can we do that again?”

  “In a while,” I said. “Men don’t bounce back as quickly at this stuff as women do.”

  “My mamma mentioned that. Told me how wonderful being with a man could be, too. Don’t think she built it up enough, though.”

  “Some mothers don’t want to raise expectations that high.”

  “Mmm,” Daisy said. “I love my daddy, but I miss Mamma.”

  At that moment, I remembered Daddy, sleeping locked up in a cell downstairs. I had just deflowered the man’s daughter under the same roof. I was thinking that if I had any decency, I’d horsewhip myself.

  Trying to get my mind off it, I asked her to tell me how it all happened.

  “How what all happened?”

  “How your father went from regular doctor to medicine show man. How you went from being a half-Cherokee American beauty to an Egyptian princess.”

  “You really want to know that?” Her tone implied she didn’t believe it. I assured her I did; she shrugged her lovely shoulders and told me.

  It was simple enough, the way she explained it. Her father had done some medical missionary work among the Cherokee, who had been moved from their homes in the East to Indian territory in Oklahoma.

  “Well, the medical part went okay, but the religious part didn’t work too good, because he took up with my mamma, and she had Joe and me.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Joseph Feathers is your brother. I should have realized.”

  “Why? You’ve been kinda distracted since you learned I wasn’t sixty-seven years old.” She kissed me a few times, providing more.

  The children were only a few years old when Herkimer had to go back to his sickly wife in Indiana. He kept in touch over the years, wrote and sent some money, but he never got back to his true love and his children until after his white wife died.

  “Then, give him credit, he come on down lickety split,” Daisy said. “Trouble was, Mamma died when he was on the way. With her dead, he didn’t want to hang around there anymore. Can’t blame him, neither did I. He talked about bringing us back to Indiana, but Joe talked him out of that one, too.”

  “He did? How?”

  “Well, I think he was right. Let me tell you something if you don’t know it, being from the East and all. Ain’t nobody likes a half-breed, not the white and not the Indian.”

  “Lobo Blacke’s best friend was a half-breed. A Blackfoot Swede named Ole Sundberg.”

  “Yeah? I’d like to meet him.”

  “He died last winter. His widow was the older woman who was cleaning up this place.”

  “Yeah? She looked white.”

  “She is white. I don’t think either one of them ever gave it a second’s thought.”

  With long fingers, she combed back a lock of the liquid blackness of her hair. “Well, maybe not everybody feels that way. You seem to like me okay.” She planted her tongue firmly in her cheek.

  “You don’t act like a woman who was a virgin less than an hour ago.”

  “I tell you, Mr. Booker—”

  “I think you can call me Quinn.”

  “Quinn, I ain’t been thinking like a virgin since I first laid eyes on you. Outfoxing Joe, bringing us into town—”

  “Then why did you try to claw my eyes out?”

  “Family loyalty, Quinn. You may have been my dream man, but I still thought you were fixing to hang my daddy.”

  She smiled warmly. “Anyway, when you faced down that crowd, and again when you dealt with those men out in the street, I knew you were a real hero. This is the happiest day of my life.”

  Time to head that sort of talk off.

  “So your father didn’t bring you back to Indiana.”

  “No. Maybe not everybody hates half-breeds, but enough do, and Daddy wasn’t going to take us back to his hometown just so’s we could be outcasts there.

  “He also realized that money makes a lot of difference in this world, and that a half-breed who could buy her own house and hire a maid would have
a better time of it than one who had to depend on what God gave her.”

  “You certainly can’t complain about what God gave her.”

  “You’re sweet. But someday, I really will be sixty-seven, and then what’s gonna happen?”

  Anyway, that’s when Daddy decided to get out of regular doctoring and into the medicine show. We’ve done all right. Couple more years, I’d be able to buy that house. It’s a hard life, but it sure is interesting. When I don’t have to remember about being that stick of a princess, I mean.”

  “Only now,” I said, “it’s gotten too interesting.”

  “Oh, Lord, I know what you mean. All those people, losing their kin, blaming it on Daddy. I hope you can’t blame me for wanting to put it from my mind.”

  “Not really,” I said. “I don’t much enjoy thinking about it myself. But bear with me for a few minutes. A couple of witnesses have reported seeing someone sneaking out of your wagon before the show. Someone small, in a long coat like a duster, or a cloak or something like that. Did you see anything like that?”

  “Nope, I was out walking in the woods after supper. I have to tell you that since Daddy don’t want anybody to hear my voice, that wagon gets to be like a prison cell sometimes.”

  She giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded.

  “This is more my idea of what a prison cell should be. The company is so much nicer.”

  “Where did your brother go?”

  “Why do you want to know that?” she asked. All traces of the giggle were gone, and she was suddenly suspicious.

  “It would be a good idea to find him. As long as he’s at large, he’s in danger. To say nothing of riding around with all that money on him.”

  “You won’t put him in jail?”

  “Not if he didn’t do anything.”

  “Then I think he’s probably going to try to find some way to get to Minneapolis. That’s where Daddy keeps most of our money, in the Proctor Bank there.”

  That was nice to know. I’d send a wire in the morning.

  I kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a good girl, Daisy.”

  “Hell,” she said, “I can think of a better way to thank me than that.”“

  Then she said, “You ready yet?” with a little tinge of impatience in her voice that sent shivers down my spine.

  Fortunately, I was ready, thereby preserving my status as dream man for a little while more, at least.

  Daisy was ready to take it more slowly this time, enjoying each experience for itself, instead of thinking of them as hurdles to be crossed on the way to a goal. The goal having been reached, she was more than contented to enjoy the scenery (as it were) en route this time.

  But it was frantic again by the climax. She was so energetic that I held her tight and rolled her on top of me. “Oh!” she said, but she adapted to the situation with enthusiasm.

  When we were done, she put her mouth close to my ear and said, “You’re full of surprises, ain’t you?”

  “You, too, Daisy,” I said. “You too.”

  20

  LOBO BLACKE’S HOUSEHOLD PROBABLY eats breakfast later than any establishment within twenty miles of Le Four. The reason is simple, though unacknowledged. Blacke needs his sleep.

  It was lucky for me that morning, though, because once I handed over the guardianship of the sheriff’s office to Stick Witherspoon (who had greeted me by telling me I looked chipper this morning) and walked out to the telegraph office at the railroad station, by the time I got over to the Witness building, Mrs. Sundberg was just dishing out the flapjacks and bacon and potatoes and pouring the coffee.

  I took my place, wished everyone a cheery good-morning, and dug in. I asked Blacke how the paper was getting along without me.

  “Fine,” he said. “Got along without you before you got here, remember. We’ll publish on Wednesday.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I think I’m going to devote the day to riding out to check on Harold Collier.”

  Blacke stuffed a rasher of bacon into his mouth and nodded while he chewed.

  “Tolerable idea, I suppose. What’s your thinking?”

  “Well, he’s the only person we know with even a ghost of a motive. I mean, it wasn’t the right medicine show, but he may be that crazy.”

  “Somebody turned me blue, I’d be crazy. At least in a wheelchair, they get used to you and stop staring after a while.”

  “All right. And he was definitely there at the show. I saw him, Mrs. Simpkins saw him. Stu Burkhart thinks he saw him.”

  “Burkhart would say anything,” Blacke said. “Something else, Booker. Harold’s a freak now, a loner. People like that tend to do a lot of watching, and a lot of times, they see something interesting.”

  It was something I hadn’t thought of.

  “Hmm,” I said. “Maybe I ought to haul him into town and let you have a go at him.”

  “Not necessary yet,” Blacke said. “Just sound him out. Like I said, he may know something. Besides, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since our talk last night, and I think I might just be starting to have a glimmer.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s nice. A glimmer of what?”

  “Just a glimmer, Booker. A bright spot in the darkness. Gonna have to check a few things before I’m ready to talk about it.”

  We’d been down this road before. Over the time I’d been with Blacke, I’d learned he wouldn’t tell you a thing before he was ready to.

  “Okay,” I said. “Good luck. Don’t make me read about this in the paper.”

  Much to my surprise, he found that hilarious. He had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from showering the rest of us with a mouthful of coffee.

  “Uncle Louis, control yourself,” Rebecca said. She was half upset, half amused.

  “I’m sorry,” Blacke said, though he didn’t sound sorry. “It’s just that Booker is beginning to sound just like a lawman.”

  “No chance,” I said. I patted my lips with a napkin, sat back, and patted my stomach. Folks had a tendency to do that after one of Mrs. Sundberg’s breakfasts. I think it was an instinctive attempt to tamp the food down into a more compact shape.

  “If you’ve got a couple of minutes,” I said to Blacke, “I’d like to talk to you out in the composing room before I get going.”

  “Sure.” Blacke wheeled himself away from the table.

  “Unlike you,” I said when Blacke had settled himself at his place at the checker table, “when I get information, I share it.” This drew only a grunt in reply, so I simply went on to tell him about the Herkimer family’s relationships and backgrounds, and of the possible destination of Joseph Feathers.

  At that, I got another grunt.

  “My,” I said. “Aren’t you charming this morning.”

  “I’m thinking,” he said. “And just to show you what a sport I am, this time I will share it with you. With Muller coming down from Montana as fast as he can, and Feathers heading for Minneapolis as fast as he can, given the times they left, I make it about seven to three they’re going to meet somewhere on the road.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Yeah. It could be very ugly. And there isn’t a goddam thing we can do about it, so we might as well forget it.”

  Blacke looked at me skeptically.

  “So you got the princess talking, huh?”

  “She wanted to talk.”

  “Anything she said surprise you any?”

  “Well, yeah, it did, but it shouldn’t have. I should have figured something was keeping her with the medicine show. I know for a fact that there are theaters in New York that would pay her two hundred dollars a week just to go onstage and stand in one spot, let alone dance the way she can. Places a lot closer to here, too. She must have had offers. Family loyalty explains a lot.”

  I scratched my head. “I guess it was natural skepticism. Herkimer just doesn’t strike me as the type who could captivate an Indian beauty and father two children by her.”


  “Oh?” Blacke was amused. “And just who is the type to captivate an Indian beauty, Booker?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Really, Booker, it’s no use. It’s like you’ve been dipped in gold paint, it shines out from you. It’s getting to the point where Rebecca can’t even bring herself to be disappointed in you. You may be horny as a billy goat, but you’re a happy, innocent billy goat.”

  He shook his head. “If people back east are all like you, no wonder it’s so crowded.”

  “Are you through?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let me know what you find out from Collier.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  About halfway to Harold Collier’s place, the fun of the trip was gone, as far as Posy was concerned. I warned her we had a long day’s ride ahead of us, but I guess to her a long day’s ride was just a couple of hours.

  In any case, I let her take it easy, drink in the streams, eat some grass when she could find it, and we got to the Collier place about noon.

  There wasn’t a sign of life about the place. I still hadn’t learned much about farming or ranching (and, truth to tell, I never much wanted to), but I expected with the sun high in the sky like that on a pleasant day, I would have found him outside somewhere, doing chores.

  There was a neat little cabin at the top of a small rise, the ideal place from which to cut me down with rifle fire, not that I had reason to suspect him of any such intention. It had just been that kind of a week.

  I forced myself to ride straight up to the cabin and tried to control my imagination-fired nerves.

  I stopped Posy about fifteen feet shy of the door, walked her the rest of the way to the railing, tied her, then went and knocked on the door.

  I got no direct response, but there was noise inside, like the scrabbling and chattering of some large rodent. I put my ear to the door, and I thought I could make out hoarse whispers of “No, no, go away, go away.”

  “Mr. Collier?” I yelled through the door.

  Still no answer.

  “Mr. Collier, please. I know you’re in there, and I have to talk to you.”

  “Go away! I don’t bother anybody, and I’d like the favor returned. What call have you got to come here disturbing me? I don’t bother anybody!”