Orphan Moon (The Orphan Moon Trilogy Book 1)

by T. K. Lukas

  “We can finish eating while we wait for your hair to dry,” Hughes said, patting her head with the towel. “I have another canteen with some honeyed whiskey, now that you’re feeling better. It’ll thicken your blood for the ride back to town.”

  “That sounds nice,” she said, taking the towel from him, rubbing her head with vigorous strokes. “I’ve always thought I needed thickened blood. While we’re waiting, you can tell me what a Texas Ranger is doing in Salt Lake City in Utah Territory via Saint Joseph, Missouri?”

  Hughes picked up a long pine needle from the floor of the cave and scraped at the dirt under his nails. “Barleigh. I’ll say your name a lot, since I can only say it here. Barleigh, there’s not much to tell.”

  “I don’t believe that. Tell me something about yourself that others don’t know,” she said, laying the towel aside.

  “What? You shared your secret, now I share mine?” Hughes inspected his nails and flicked the used pine needle away.

  “Yes, something like that.” She sipped the honeyed whiskey from the pewter cup with the matching coat of arms as the plate and studied his profile over the flickering fire, thinking he looked as much like a lion as he did a wolf. “You have secrets, don’t you,” she said as a statement.

  Hughes held her gaze for a long moment, the light from the fire dancing in his eyes. Barleigh wished she knew what he was thinking—what secrets he carried in his eyes. He looked away, careful to keep them to himself, his own private thoughts.

  “All right,” he said after a pause, “give me your lady’s word and swear an oath on your Pony Express Bible that the dark secret I reveal to you will travel no further than the mouth of this cave.”

  She raised her right hand and composed a serious expression. “I swear an oath on my Pony Express Bible and give you my word to keep your secret.”

  Hughes took a deep, dramatic breath. “I’m deathly afraid of spiders. I hate them, every eight, horrible little leg, all creepy, crawly, and crunchy when you step on them.” He shuddered.

  “That’s not fair.” Barleigh threw her empty cup at him, tried to pull down a pout, but her mouth gave way to a grin.

  “You’re right, that’s not fair. I should share a secret bearing equal weight to the one you’ve shared.” His look was serious.

  “That’s the honorable thing to do.” She was open to the seriousness of his tone.

  “Yes, and I’m nothing if not honorable.” He settled a steady gaze on her, as if calculating the odds on a poker game. “I am a Texas Ranger, currently inactive. Mostly, I work for the federal government. Clandestine operations. There’s a group of Southern sympathizers conspiring to censor the U.S. mail. Their special interest is the westbound mail to California. I’m working undercover to see what can be done about it.”

  “Is the Pony Express mail at risk of—”

  “—of being diverted or tampered with? Yes. That’s one of the reasons why I’m here.”

  “One of the reasons?” she asked, her interest piqued. “What’s the other?”

  “Ah, don’t be greedy. One secret per customer per day. Barleigh.” His voice adopted a sensual quality, soft yet masculine.

  He smiled and steadied his piercing amber eyes on her. Barleigh knew the futility of resisting his silent command to not look away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NOVEMBER 16, 1860

  Journal entry: We rode back to the city together after Hughes shared the rest of his meal with me in the cave. But that’s all he shared. Mr. Lévesque holds his cards close to his chest and reveals little. He told nothing else about himself except that he is indeed a Texas Ranger taking leave to work for the Government to discover who’s attempting to tamper with the mail.

  I have a strong intuition, however, that his mission is more involved than that of a singular assignment of discovery.

  I’ve promised to tell no one, and I shall keep my promise as I expect him to keep his. I feel I can trust him, though I don’t know why. I hardly know him. But, I have no choice other than to do so. His cover is that he is a wealthy businessman in town scouting out investment opportunities. He plays the wealthy part with comfort and ease.

  Amusing, both of us incognito. He as a businessman. Me as a boy. I wonder which requires the biggest leap of the imagination.

  The Salt Lake House is the only fine hotel west of the Mississippi, so Mr. Lévesque has taken a room on the second floor next door to the room kept for the Pony Express riders. This arrangement might prove useful to both of us as we discussed on our ride into town. We can keep an eye out for the other’s best interest.

  “Well, ain’t that something,” was Stoney’s expected reply when we ran into him as he was flying down the stairs on his way out the door for his east-bound mail run, short brimmed hat in hand. Stoney reminded me again to keep an eye on his sombrero, to not let Mario throw it away. I promised him I would.

  Keeping my mind focused and on task will require an extra amount of vigilance. I don’t know why, but thinking about Hughes sleeping in the next room from where I sleep stirs me. It’s good that there is a wall in between—a barrier—a physical reminder that I must keep to myself. Although, I might be tempted to press my ear to the wall to discover what sounds a man makes when he’s alone and thinks no one is listening.

  Next weekend is the Harvest Festival, a full day Saturday of sharing food and feeding the poor. There’ll be pie-eating contests, yard games for the children, a quilting exhibition, a butter churning contest, and a barn dance in the evening. The festivities end Sunday with a day of giving thanks for all our blessings and for our bounty, the 25th of November, exactly one month until Christmas.

  That almost a full year has passed since Papa and Birdie’s secret “ceremony of vows,” then her discovery that there’d be a baby, seems impossible. But everything about last year seems impossible. I wonder if that’s why I ride so fast and so hard, that maybe the faster I ride, the faster I’ll put last year behind me.

  I should blow out my lamp, put away my journal. I go back on duty in the morning and back in the saddle.

  The mail must go through.

  *****

  Barleigh left the Bath & Bakery still damp behind the ears, washed, and wearing clean clothes. She made her way to the courthouse square, guided by the lively shouts and peals of laughter coming from the boisterous crowd in the meeting hall. Though she was tired from her earlier mail run, the festive mood lifted her spirits. Hearing people laughing, singing, and having fun put a smile on her face. It felt like a long time since she’d had a genuine reason to smile.

  “There you are,” she said to Stoney, tying her gelding to the hitching post. “I thought you were sick, or dead. Big Brody took the eastbound mochila from me when I rode in this afternoon. He said he took over your run.”

  “He didn’t take over my entire run, just this one ride tonight. I had to pay him a king’s ransom to get him to agree. Big Brody don’t like missing out on too many pie-eating contests. You going to enter?”

  “Me? No, I don’t think I’d be very good at that. You?”

  “Hell yes, I’m entering. The winner gets to dance with the girl who baked the pie,” said Stoney, grinning from ear to ear. “Getting my hands around a girl, pulling her body close, smelling perfume on soft skin. Gets me hard just thinking about it. Maybe we should go pay a visit to the whorehouse instead.”

  “Maybe I’ll think about the pie-eating contest after all,” said Barleigh, a nervous twitch in her voice.

  The pathway leading from the courthouse square to the town hall was lined with pumpkins, gourds, and square bales of hay decorated with garlands of dried flowers and leaves. The melting from the first snow of the season left muddy puddles, the chilled evening air hinting of frost as stars began to shimmer in the eastern sky.

  “Seems more like winter than harvest time, don’t you think?” asked Stoney, tapping a pumpkin with his boot. “Back in Frog Level, Arkansas, harvest is over and done with by now.”

&
nbsp; “It’s over with here, too,” Barleigh said. “The Harvest Festival isn’t welcoming it in; it’s celebrating the bounty that it left behind. And, sharing it with the needy.”

  “We had harvest festivals, too,” said Stoney as they reached the town hall doors, “but in Frog Level, my family were among the needy on the receiving end.” Stoney waved. “There’s Hughes Lévesque by the coat table.”

  “Hello, gentlemen,” said Hughes as he handed his coat to the girl behind the table. “I was wondering if I’d see you two here.”

  After depositing their hats and coats at the table, Barleigh shook his hand and said, “I’m on my two-day break, and Stoney pawned his ride off on Big Brody so he could come here tonight, eat a pie, and dance with a girl.”

  “I think that sounds like a fine plan,” said Hughes, giving Barleigh a private wink. “Let’s all eat a pie and dance with a girl.”

  “I’ve never been good at pie-eating contests. You two go ahead. I’ll watch.” The thought of dancing with a girl and the girl thinking she was dancing with a boy caused Barleigh to suppress a giggle.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” said Hughes. “You’re entering with us. It’ll be fun. Come on. I’ll even put up the quarters to buy the pies. Go on, go pick out which pie you want.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Stoney, hustling over to a table laden heavy with apple pies, pumpkin pies, chocolate cream pies, a variety of berry pies, and some pies undistinguishable as pies altogether.

  Girls, some smiling, some shy, some confident and bold, an assortment of girls as varied as the pies they stood behind, waited to see who would buy their pie and vie for a chance to whirl them around the dance floor.

  “What are you doing,” Barleigh said under her breath. “Don’t you know what the prize is for the winner of the contest?”

  “Yes, I do know, Barleigh. I’m helping you with your cover,” whispered Hughes, still grinning. “These folks seeing you wolfing down a pie and dancing with a girl will be good for your image.”

  “Don’t be crazy. And don’t call me Barleigh. It’s Bar. And, I’m not dancing with a girl.”

  “It’s harmless. I do it all the time.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Let’s go find our pie.” Hughes strolled over to the pie table, causing a twitter among the girls. “Over here, Bar. Lots of pies to choose from.” He waved with a grand gesture, drawing attention his way. Then, to the girls behind the pies, he said, “This is my friend, Bar, a Pony Express rider. Don’t let his small stature fool you. Pick him out the biggest pie here.”

  A doe-eyed blonde behind the chocolate cream pie with thick flaky crust said, “My pie’s small. Could be eaten in one or two bites, if you’re hungry enough.” Her eyes shuttered closed and reopened in slow motion, as if each lash weighed ten pounds. “But Dorthea over there at the end of the table, she’s got the biggest pie here. Could take a man all day to get through that.”

  Hughes put a silver dollar in the jar and said, “We’ll take three—keep the change. It’s for a good cause, right?”

  “Thank you, sir. It goes into the food drive fund. Now, which pies do you want?”

  Stoney wasted no time in claiming the doe-eyed girl’s small chocolate pie, pleasing her. She rewarded him with a beaming smile and batted lashes. Hughes scooped up the large pumpkin pie in front of Dorthea.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing the pie to Barleigh, avoiding her glaring eyes. “And, let’s see, I’ll have the nice apple pie over there.”

  “Not funny,” she said through gritted teeth as they walked to the row of chairs lined up behind the table of eager pie eaters.

  “I picked the biggest pie for you as a strategy,” Hughes said under his breath. “I’ve thought this through. Stoney will be dancing with Little Miss Doe Eyes, not you and Dorthea. Remember, this’ll be good for your boy image.”

  “My boy image is just fine, thank you, and this pie may, just may, be a fraction bigger than the others.”

  “Then I recommend you eat slowly.”

  A fast-talking man chewing a fat cigar announced one minute left for purchasing pies, but not to worry, there would be rounds two and three and perhaps four until all pies had been sold.

  At the table, Stoney, Hughes, and Barleigh took their places alongside a half dozen others, hands in laps, faces hovering inches above the pies, waiting for the word “go.”

  “First to finish their pie wins. And, finish means the crust, too. No hands—just your gobbler. Ready . . . set . . . go!”

  The crowd erupted with applause and shouts as all the competitors at the table dove face first into their pies, shoving their heads around, grunting and slurping and rooting through the baked goods like starving pigs.

  Two faces looked up simultaneously.

  “Looks like we have a tie, and in record time, too,” shouted the cigar-chewing announcer. “How in the world did you boys do that so fast, and where in the world did you put it? One’s no bigger than a flea, and the other could hide behind a broomstick.”

  Barleigh looked around, meeting Hughes’s astonished eyes. “What? I’m competitive. I couldn’t help it.”

  “And I’m motivated by something altogether different,” said Stoney, walking over to the pie table to claim his dancing partner.

  Hughes laughed so hard he fought for breath, holding his sides as if they might split. Wiping traces of apple pie from his face, he shouted over to the pie table, “Oh Dorthea, your dance partner awaits.”

  Barleigh glared at him and swiped her sleeve across her face, erasing bits of crust and pumpkin custard from her mouth as the fiddle player screeched out the first notes of a waltz. Dorthea stood at the pie table, her impatient foot tapping, waiting to be claimed for the dance. With her hands fisted on her generous hips, she cocked her head and stared at Barleigh in the manner of an enthusiastic woman not used to waiting.

  Barleigh gave Dorthea a sheepish smile. Visualizing herself dancing as a man, seeing the steps in her mind—one, two, three, one two three, one two three—she told herself to simply start forward on the left foot, not backward on the right. Easy. She readied her mind for the task.

  Tired of waiting, Dorthea pushed past the pie table and strode to where Barleigh stood. Clamping a meaty fist around Barleigh’s wrist, Dorthea pulled Barleigh onto the dance floor, leading and one-two-three-ing her way around the small space. Dorthea kept perfect rhythm with the frantic notes erupting from the fiddle, eyes closed, head and body swaying as she glided around the floor in three-quarter time.

  Smiling and sweating in profuse droplets when the last note came to a halt, Dorthea gave Barleigh one final under-the-arm spin, curtseyed, and announced in a voice heard loud and clear by the appreciative crowd.

  “I thank you kindly for buying my pie, but as far as dance partners go, a little romance wouldn’t harm you. I might as well have been dancing with my sister.” With that, Dorthea grabbed Barleigh by both cheeks and planted a wet, sloppy kiss full on her mouth.

  Hughes threw back his head and let out a hearty laugh. “That was worth the dollar I paid for the pies, right there.”

  “I, uh, thank you, Dorthea, that was my, uh, my first pie, I mean, my first time to d-dance. . . ,” Barleigh stammered in awkward embarrassment.

  “Bar, you better stop while you’re ahead. Explaining yourself to a woman is a losing proposition,” shouted Stoney after rejoining Hughes, his comment eliciting more laughter from the crowd.

  “Come on, let’s adjourn this party to Whiskey Street,” said Hughes, rescuing Barleigh from the dance floor and directing them toward the coat table and out the door. “If you want to dance and have some real pie, a stroll down Whiskey Street is where even the Mormons sneak off to on Saturday nights.”

  “Whiskey Street?” asked Stoney. “What’s Whiskey Street?”

  Hughes gave him an astonished look. “You’ve been here how long and haven’t heard about Whiskey Street?”

  “Apparently not long enough. Let’s go,�
�� said Stoney, an eager smile on his face.

  Barleigh buttoned her coat and followed them out the door, wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

  *****

  Main Street threaded north and south through the darkening town, and where it left the southeast corner of the Temple Square and headed due south, the commerce district of the Great City buzzed with activity. The far south end of Main Street flowed from one block to the next with a lively mixture of saloons, distilleries, and tippling houses and became familiarly known as Whiskey Street. Here, the fervor was for things other than religion.

  At the corner of Main and 2nd South Street, Hughes said, “We’ll turn here. The best whiskey around is a few steps away. The Baer Brothers’ Distillery. They brew and barrel their own.”

  The saloon wasn’t yet crowded, with a few empty chairs at the bar, a billiards table unmanned, and a card table with vacant chairs waiting to be filled. Stoney and Barleigh seated themselves at the card table, while Hughes negotiated with the bartender for three glasses and a bottle of Baer Brothers’ finest.

  Sitting the bottle and glasses at the table, Hughes said, “This is not a contest, Bar, so don’t let your competitive side see who can finish the fastest. Fine whiskey should be enjoyed, slowly.”

  He grinned, handing Barleigh a cut-crystal glass of amber liquid, then gave it a small splash of water. Doing the same for Stoney and himself, he raised a glass. “Here’s to the most entertaining pie-eating contest I’ve personally ever witnessed.”

  “Here, here,” said Stoney, lifting his glass.

  A blush tried to form and Barleigh fought hard not to let the heat rush to her face. She lifted her glass. “Here’s to Hughes, a man who knows a thing or two about picking the right pie.” She took a sip, waited for the burn, but was surprised by the velvety, delicious flavor of smoky caramel with a hint of orange, and sipped again.