by Tess LeSue
“You’ll talk to me if I buy you a drink?” The Englishman was still breathless from her elbow in his stomach.
“This is a bar, and typically that’s where people come to drink,” she said dryly. “You do have bars in England?”
Ava kept a surreptitious eye on Voss as she led his lordship to the bar on the far wall of the gallery. Kennedy and Co. were clearly the reason upstairs was nearly deserted. She imagined on any other night the gallery would be as overstuffed as the floor below, but tonight the worst of the west were up here. And no one in their right mind would drink with Kennedy Voss and Company.
“Of course we have bars.” His lordship sounded offended. “We invented them.” Lord Whatsit might have been unwelcome, but he wasn’t inconvenient, she thought as they took up residence at the bar. It was handy for a lady to have an escort in a place like this. It might give the varmints pause. At least for a moment or two, and especially when there was no one behind the bar to act as a buffer between her and the villains. She couldn’t see anyone who looked like they worked here; if it hadn’t been for Lord Whatsit, Ava would have been alone up here with the pack of wild dogs.
Voss noticed her before the rest of his companions did; she expected nothing less from a man with his reputation. Ava watched him in the brass-edged mirror that stretched the length of the bar. His gaze swept her from top to toe, and he smirked in that way men did when they liked what they saw. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, Kennedy Voss. He had a shock of sandy brown hair and a broad, honest-looking face. He seemed for all the world like a good country boy—the type who split wood for his ma and went to church on a Sunday with his cap in hand. He had a wide grin and a cowlick that stood straight up and bobbed when he moved. Kennedy Voss was the type of young man you might invite to come a-courting your daughter. But Ava had seen enough of his handiwork over the years to have no illusions about him. The man was surface charm and bone-deep bad. She’d written about him in The Bloodbath of Iron Ridge and The Devil Came Calling. She’d seen the bodies he left behind. And her accounts were mostly accurate.
Mostly.
In the mirror she watched as Voss grinned, his gaze lingering on her rear end. She wondered if he knew who she was. He might. She’d been around—and she stood out in a crowd. She could thank her red hair for that. But then again, he might just be grinning because he was Kennedy Voss and she was a woman. Voss liked women. Or, rather, he didn’t like women. And he wanted them to know it. Know it until they screamed for mercy.
“Well, then,” the Englishman said happily, completely unaware of the mortal danger they were in, “what can I get you to drink, Miss—”
“Don’t say my name,” Ava said curtly, interrupting the Englishman but not looking away from Voss. It would be like looking away from a rabid dog. It was surely too loud in here for Voss to hear the Englishman, but Ava had survived this long only by being careful; she didn’t want Lord Whatsit trumpeting to all and sundry that Ava Archer was here watching their every move. Not until she had some idea of what they were up to, at least.
“I beg your pardon?” His lordship struggled to take in her meaning. At this rate he was unlikely to survive the night, she thought ruefully.
“Don’t say my name,” she repeated. “Not unless you’re looking to get me killed.” In the mirror Kennedy Voss said something to his friends, and they all looked her way. Hell and damnation. She rested her palm on the holster of her weapon, mostly for comfort. She was a terrible shot. The gun was for show more than anything; usually, she managed to talk her way out of a sticky situation. But it did help to be waving the gun as she talked.
She practically felt the greasy gazes sliding up and down her body as she stood at the bar with the Englishman. She hoped LeFoy would send his dancing girls out soon; she could use some help mopping up this male attention, and from what the postmaster had said, the dancing girls were the best this side of the country. Apparently they even indulged in some scandalous French dancing. She bet Voss and his slimy friends would enjoy the distraction to no end. And while they were distracted, she could get a good look at them.
“Pardon? What do you mean ‘get you killed’?” Lord Whatsit, in pure greenhorn form, blinked in shock and turned to gawk at Voss and Co.
“I thought you said you’d read my books,” she sighed, swatting him on the arm to snap his attention back to her. “Even if you just got off the boat, you should know not to go staring at men like Kennedy Voss.” The last thing she needed was him bringing the wild dogs this way with all his openmouthed staring. They’d be over soon enough, but she’d rather it be on her terms.
“I certainly did not just get off the boat,” he protested, realizing more than a little too late that he was staring at some heavily armed thugs. “I’ve been here for more than a week.”
“I do beg your pardon,” she said, rolling her eyes. She was glad to see Voss was now distracted by a barmaid who was huffing up the stairs with a crate of whiskey. “A whole week? You’re practically a local. You can order me a dash of whiskey with water,” she told his lordship. “And seriously just a dash. I need to stay sharp.”
Lord Whatsit had returned to staring, rapt, at the varmints. “Do you know them?”
“I know of them.” She realized she’d lost him. He was transfixed. Like a boy who’d stepped into a storybook.
Ava ordered the drinks herself as soon as the barmaid had dropped her crate behind the bar. “He’ll pay,” she told the girl.
“Give me a minute,” the barmaid complained, putting her hands on the small of her back and stretching with a groan. Like the other women working here, she was very skimpily dressed. A starched white apron with frilled straps revealed more than it covered; the girl had wiry, muscular arms and the swell of pert breasts. Aside from the whimsical apron, she was otherwise clothed only in undergarments; she wore white pantalets and a chemise, with a blue satin corset pinching in her already thin waist, and her legs were clad in scarlet stockings.
“Goddamn, those stairs get worse every time I haul myself up them,” she grumbled. “I told him to put in one of them dumbwaiter things. I told him till I was blue in the face, but do you think he’d listen?”
In the mirror, Ava could see that some of the varmints had transferred their attentions to the girl. But not Kennedy Voss: he had eyes only for Ava. Or, rather, Ava’s derriere.
“Hey,” the barmaid exclaimed, once she’d straightened up and caught sight of Ava, “I know you!”
Ava managed to keep her expression serene through sheer force of will. It was hard; she was tired. She really wanted to tell the silly girl to shut up and get the damn drinks.
“Hush,” his lordship said in a far-too-loud conspiratorial whisper, finally tearing his gaze away from the men. “She’s incognito.”
“Oh no.” The girl gave Ava a sympathetic look. “You want me to call for the doctor? It’s no trouble at all. He’s just downstairs.”
God save her from fools. “He means I’m trying to go unnoticed,” Ava told her impatiently.
“So you are you!”
“Last time I looked.” Ava sighed. “Can we have those whiskeys now?”
“You wouldn’t have a sherry, would you?” His lordship peered at the bar shelf. “These American spirits give me heartburn.”
“I knew it!” The barmaid took no notice of him. She grinned at Ava. “You don’t remember me, do you?” She clucked. “And fancy, I’m even almost in one of your books.”
“Almost?” His lordship looked confused. But maybe that was just his face.
“We met back in Missouri,” the girl trumpeted.
Luckily, someone downstairs chose that moment to start banging away at a piano. There was a ripple of excitement, and then a four-piece orchestra sent up a loud din. Voss and his crowd turned to peer over the railing at the stage below. Ava breathed a sigh of relief. Good. Maybe the show would keep them busy f
or long enough for her to have a drink and shake off Lord Whatsit and the bar girl.
“I’m Becky Sullivan,” the girl said, leaning on the bar and beaming at Ava. “We met in the town square of Independence at one of them dances. You must remember. I was with Mrs. Smith? The lady in The Notorious Widow Smith and Her Mail-Order Husband.” She laughed. “Lord, that was a night! I wore that beautiful pink dress Mrs. Smith lent me. Gave me. She never did want it back.” Her expression turned dreamy. “It was too fancy for the likes of me and didn’t I feel like Cinderella!” She sighed, the sparkle going out of her eyes. “I wish I still had that dress, but those little hellions cut it up for costumes.”
Ava honestly couldn’t remember Becky. She did remember the widow Smith; she’d made a wonderful subject, and the story had been syndicated around the country. The book had done very well too. Ava also remembered Matt Slater. Slater was big and bearish and possessed of a brother . . . and this brother of Slater’s had many names: the Plague of the West, White Wolf, Rides with Death, the Ghost of the Trails . . .
Deathrider.
Some of the names Ava had invented for her stories, but most she hadn’t; most of the tales about him she’d come by honestly. She’d hadn’t made the man famous; he’d already been famous. Hell, more than famous: infamous. She’d just . . . spread the news of his fame a little farther than it might otherwise have reached. All the way to New York. And beyond . . . Her books were crossing oceans now, devoured as exotic fancies in European cities. But she certainly hadn’t told people out west anything they hadn’t known.
Everywhere you went, from Missouri across the Great Plains to the coasts of California, people knew of him. The stories were legion. She only followed along, gathering them up, publishing them in the western newssheets and sending them back to her publisher in the east. She didn’t invent them.
Mostly.
It was only that sometimes a girl had to add some . . . flavor. A description here, a flourish there, a missing gap or two filled. Especially when she’d never even seen the man. How did you describe someone you’d never met? It took a little imagination, that was all. A touch of poetic license. Nothing too extreme, just enough to bring him to life on the page. People who had met him claimed the books were true to life, so she couldn’t have strayed too far from the facts. . . .
It wasn’t ideal that she’d never so much as glimpsed him from a distance. In fact, it felt downright amateurish. She’d spent years looking for him, and she hadn’t seen him once. At least as far as she knew. Ava knew more about Deathrider than anyone in the west, but she wouldn’t have known the Plague of the West if he was standing right here in front of her.
“There! Right there!” Becky exclaimed.
Ava’s heart lodged in her chest, and she spun around, feeling like she’d conjured up a ghost.
“There! That used to be my pink dress!” Becky’s finger jabbed at the stage.
Oh. Ava felt ridiculous. For a moment she’d thought. . . . Never mind what she’d thought. . . . She was jumping at shadows. On the stage below, she could see a little girl walking on her hands across the floorboards. The moppet was wearing a shaggy ballerina dress of pink satin and lace, and her mop of golden red curls flopped in her face.
“That too,” Becky added glumly as the moppet was followed by another girl, this one cartwheeling merrily, her shaggy pink tutu glittering with spangles that caught the lamplight.
“And that.” A smaller girl, with another set of golden red curls and another shaggy tutu appeared, this time turning aerial somersaults, flipping backward and forward like she could just about fly.
“I loved that dress,” Becky said sourly, not at all impressed with the acrobatics.
Ava’s memory stirred. She vaguely remembered the girls, standing on the steps of the Independence courthouse singing “The Rose of Alabama.” Their voices had been incredible. Yes. That had been the night she’d learned of Deathrider’s demise. Saw him shot stone-cold dead, Matt Slater had said. Shot by Saltbush Pete in Fort Kearney. Buried him myself. Ava had felt a chilly bolt through her heart at the hearing of it. It was a feeling too close to grief for comfort. Even though she’d never met the man, she’d felt like she’d known him. After all, she’d been writing about him since ’42.
Down below on the main floor of LeFoy’s, the crowd clapped in time with the music, and there were hoots as the titian-haired moppets climbed up one another to form a tower. Voss and the varmints were hollering and clapping along with the rest.
“Don’t be fooled by those girls’ sweet faces,” Becky said in dire tones, “those three are demon hell spawn. They belong up here with the thieves and murderers.”
“Aren’t they a little young for a saloon?” Lord Whatsit asked dubiously.
Becky snorted. “Whiskey, you said?” She turned back to the task at hand.
“Sherry?” Lord Whatsit craned his neck hopefully.
“Sherry?” Becky sighed. “I’ll have to go back downstairs. Do you want the Mexican or the Spanish?”
Lord Whatsit looked astonished that they even had sherry, let alone had a choice of vintages. But, again, perhaps that was just his face. “Erm . . . Spanish?”
Becky harrumphed and clomped over to the stairs. She only went halfway down, and then they heard her yell, “Frankie, get me the Spanish sticky stuff!”
At this rate, Ava would be waiting for her whiskey and water all night. Her impatience got the best of her, and she leaned over the bar and helped herself.
“Should you be doing that?” His lordship pulled nervously at his thin mustache.
Ava ignored him and poured herself a generous dash of whiskey. It was more than she’d planned to drink, but she was worn out and getting more irritable by the minute; she needed to take the edge off. “Look, mister, I’ve got plans for tonight,” she told Lord Whatsit, “and I can’t say they include talking to you. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you could get your story out of your system so I can get along.”
She heard him mutter under his breath, something about frontier manners. Well, he was welcome to go back to England. She saluted the idea and knocked back her drink.
“I thought you liked hearing people’s stories,” he said stiffly.
“Depends on the people.” She refilled her glass, this time with plain old water.
“You don’t think a lord is the right kind of people?” If he got any stiffer, he was liable to crack.
She sized him up. “You’re a real lord?”
“I am.” He gave her a slight bow. “Lord Justice Whent, at your service.”
“Here’s your sherry.” Becky returned, slapping the bottle down on the bar and pulling out a tumbler. His lordship’s eyes grew wide as she filled the tumbler to the brim. “Take it,” Becky said. “On the damn house.” She muttered to herself as she turned away, “Thinks he can tell me not to shout across the room. Should have put in that dumbwaiter like I said and then there’d be no call for shouting.”
“Becky, was it?” Ava said, trying to get the barmaid’s attention even as her gaze refocused on Kennedy Voss in the mirror. Onstage, the girls were singing now, and he was grinning from ear to ear like a farm boy. “You know anything about those men over there?”
Becky frowned, not happy to be interrupted. She’d clearly been settling into a long mutter. “Who? Them lot?” She shrugged. “They’re here for the same reason you’re here. Pete’s little game.”
Pete’s little game. That sounded promising. Ava dug her notebook out.
“And who’s Pete?” Ava asked, licking the tip of her pencil.
“Pete is Pierre,” Becky said poisonously. “Pierre LeFoy.”
Ava brightened. She had a vague memory of meeting him in Independence as well; he’d been part of the knot of men standing with the widow Smith. He’d been there when she’d been talking to Slater about Deathrider. She wo
ndered what LeFoy knew about Deathrider, and if she could get it out of him. Because after all this time, she knew with 100 percent certainty that Deathrider wasn’t dead. He wasn’t in some unmarked grave outside Kearney; he wasn’t interred on his ancestral lands; he wasn’t lying at the bottom of a ravine, the victim of either ambush or accident. He was riding the trails, a living, breathing man. A dangerous living, breathing man. As fearful an Indian as ever lived. Or . . . a maybe Indian . . . People described him as having pale eyes, the color of winter ice, so perhaps he wasn’t quite as he appeared.
If only Ava could see him with her own eyes . . .
“Only his name ain’t really Pierre LeFoy.” Becky had gone back to grumbling as she clanked about in the bar. “His name is Pete Frick, and he’s a no-count, lying, weaselly . . .”
“Gentlemen, welcome!” a voice boomed from the stairs.
“Speak of the devil,” Becky muttered.
A trim man in a spotless suit stood at the head of the stairs. His mustache was waxed to perfection, and his eyes were twinkling. He looked thrilled to see the varmints.
