“Those aren’t real names.”
A bitterness shone in Marguerite’s large, dark eyes. “Whatever sort of trouble you’re in, you won’t find any help from these men. You’re better off taking the boy down to the cellar and hiding until your problems blow over. I keep my father’s crossbow there in case there’s trouble.”
“I’m not gonna hide from anybody.”
“The law here is a farce. They’ll make whatever’s wrong worse. Use the cellar.”
Cody took a sip of whiskey, glowered at Marguerite. “I suppose I’m not man enough to take care of them. Is that what you’re saying? You think Bittner and your ex and Boom and Bam or whatever the hell their names are could do better?”
Marguerite sounded unperturbed. “I don’t even know what your problems are. I know you got hurt last night, I know you brought in a boy who isn’t your kin to Doc Jackson and I know you’re spooked about something.”
“I’m not spooked about—”
“Hush,” she said. “Being afraid isn’t a bad thing, contrary to what men want to believe. The average man pretends he’s afraid of nothing until the danger actually arrives. Then he’s full of terror and an absolute coward.”
Cody eyed her. “You figure me for a coward?”
“If you’d listen, you’d realize I’m complimenting you. You’re afraid and you probably have reason to be. So take precautions. My advice? Relax and get some sleep. It’ll be several hours before Bittner comes on.”
“You don’t think there’s a chance the sheriff might help us?”
“He’ll only make things worse.” Marguerite ran a thumb around the edge of her glass. She looked up at him. “Is this business as bad as it sounds?”
Cody took another drink of whiskey, set the glass on the table with a dull clunk. “Bad as it gets.”
“Does this involve your wife?”
“My dead wife,” he corrected. “And yes, it does.”
She watched him steadily. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
“Not particularly.”
Marguerite nodded. “My ex-husband is a craven piece of trash.”
Cody couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “What makes him so bad?”
“He used to beat me with a wooden mallet.”
Cody’s good spirits evaporated.
Marguerite went on, her tone conversational. “Slim thought it was funny to use my father’s carpentry tools to inflict pain on me. Once he chopped off one of my toes with an adze.”
“You’re kidding.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want to see?”
“What’d Sheriff Bittner do about it?”
“I told you. He made my husband deputy.”
“They didn’t believe you?”
“The sheriff believed me, but he thought it was funny. My father was a great man, so men like Bittner and Slim hated him. My father’s ability to earn an honest living through his skill and labor alienated him from those with neither an ounce of skill nor an inclination to work. You notice all the fine craftsmanship in here?” She gestured at the ornate designs carved on the side of the bar.
Cody said that he had.
“My father’s work.”
“He must have been a good man.”
“He was. Too good for this place. I should never have married Slim Keeley. I should have seen him for what he was. But I was stupid.”
Cody grinned wearily. “I can relate to that.”
“Can you?”
“The way your ex treated you, I’m surprised you didn’t shoot me on sight when I came in.”
“You’re different from them,” she explained. “I can see decency in your eyes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know a good man from a bad one. I know my father had honor, and I know he knew fear. He was afraid because he valued life. He never wanted anything to happen to his wife or his daughter.”
A lazy, drawling voice spoke up from the entryway of the saloon. “But Daddy’s dead, ain’t he?”
In the moment before Cody turned, he saw Marguerite’s face go tight with surprise and what might have been loathing. When he did turn to see the tall man striding toward them, he knew who it was right away.
Slim Keeley was a tall man with a long, horsey face and a small gold star on his blue shirt. He was slender, but his limbs were imbued with a tensile strength that reminded Cody a little bit of Billy Horton. And like Horton, Slim Keeley wore an arrogant expression that made Cody want to knock his teeth out.
Slim approached, moving with a swagger that suggested he owned the place, despite Marguerite’s claims to the contrary. “I suppose Margie here’s been bellyaching about how unfit I was for marriage. Claimin’ I was cruel to her.” Slim neared the table and stood between Cody and Marguerite, one long-fingered hand resting casually on the holstered butt of what looked to Cody like a Colt Peacemaker. With the other hand, Slim reached out, brushed a lock of dark hair off of Marguerite’s forehead.
With a convulsive swipe, she smacked his hand away, her dark eyes blazing with rage. “Get out of my saloon.”
Slim’s smile was easy. “Easy, Margie. You keep talkin’ that harsh, you might scare this youngster away.”
Cody pushed up from the chair, took a step toward the tall deputy.
Without turning Slim said, “You’ll wanna sit down, boy. ’Less you’re a good deal tougher than you look.”
“She asked you to leave,” Cody said.
Slim chuckled. “Margie never asks anything. It’s why I had to get rough with her so often. I hadn’t done that, she would’ve never stopped trying to act like a man.”
Cody took a step nearer, less than a foot away. “What do you know about being a man?”
For the first time, Slim looked at him. The height difference was several inches, but Cody was angry enough it wouldn’t matter. Even though this man had likely never been to Tonuco, Slim’s face suddenly looked very much like one of the devils. It wasn’t hard for Cody to imagine Slim taking a turn on Angela the way Horton had, the way Penders and the others had. Slim was the same kind of snake—
From the corner of his vision, Cody saw Marguerite’s expression change. He made the mistake of glancing that way, and by the time he realized that Marguerite was looking at Slim’s left hand—the hand hidden from Cody’s view—the hand had balled into a fist and crashed into Cody’s jaw.
The next thing he knew, he was on his back, the ceiling an impossible distance away. A yawing dizziness spun through his head.
Pain exploded in Cody’s side. Doubling up on his side, he saw Slim’s receding black boot. Before he could bring up a hand to defend himself, Slim lashed out again, this time kicking Cody squarely in the chest. Cody’s breath rushed out in a tight whoosh, the pain between his pectoral muscles akin to a puncturing spear point. Vaguely, he heard Marguerite shouting something at Slim, glimpsed a whir of tawny arms and glossy black hair, but Slim only laughed at her, called her a painted cat and a goddamned harlot. Shrieking, Marguerite battered at Slim, tore at his face until, still laughing, he retreated toward the foyer.
Cody heard the door slam shut. He closed his eyes against the dizziness and heard the faint sound of Marguerite’s furious weeping.
Failed again, Angela’s voice taunted him.
You go to hell, he thought. The dizziness slowly abated. Footsteps approached, then grew muffled as they passed behind the bar.
With an effort, he pushed up to an elbow and watched Marguerite emerge from behind the bar, a key in her hand. Wiping her eyes, she crossed to the front door and locked it.
She returned to kneel over him, one dark calf exposed by the movement of her dress. It was very tan and very smooth. Somehow, the sight of it reduced the agony in Cody’s jaw and chest.
“Thank you for standing up to him,” Marguerite said.
Cody grunted. “Don’t know that I’d call this standing up.”
“You trusted to his honor,” she said absently. “You thought he would
fight you fair.”
Cody rubbed his aching chest. “Guy kicks like a damned mule.”
“He doesn’t know what honor is,” she said as if Cody hadn’t spoken. “He does what he wants and doesn’t care how he hurts people.”
“I should’ve hit him first.”
Marguerite looked down at him in silence. Cody felt even worse under her unblinking scrutiny. At length, she said, “What’s your name?”
Cody told her.
“Thank you, Cody. I owe you something for trying. Most men would have let it pass without saying anything.” Then, to Cody’s surprise, her face melted in a radiant grin. She looked as if nothing abnormal or unpleasant had just taken place. “Follow me,” she said.
Without waiting for a response, she rose, started up the staircase and curved around the balustrade above him. As she passed, he caught another glimpse of her tan ankles, her strong calves.
Before he could rise, a door opened and another female voice sounded from the balustrade above. “You need me yet, Marguerite?”
“We’re closed until tonight,” Marguerite answered brusquely.
“Really?” the other woman asked. “Who’s the guy?”
“Shut your door, Eliza.”
But rather than doing as she’d been told, the one named Eliza sauntered down the staircase and stood sizing him up from the shadows of the overhanging walkway. Cody got groggily to his feet and gazed back at her, waiting for her to make a crack of some kind. She looked like the type who’d have a wicked tongue. Reddish hair in tight ringlets depending from each side of her face. Her mouth half-open, her painted lips and her tongue both very red. Her light green dress was plain enough, but the neckline was cut so low that Cody could see the twin bulges of her milky white breasts jutting out. She noticed him looking and her grin widened.
“You coming?” Marguerite asked from above.
Cody went over, took one last gulp of whiskey and put it on the table with a shiver.
He bypassed the one called Eliza and followed Marguerite upstairs.
Chapter Eleven
When he reached the room into which Marguerite had disappeared, her back was to him. She was arranging bottles on a narrow bedside table. The bed itself was a broad, sturdy-looking affair. The headboard carvings reminded him of scorpions, though there was no real design to the swirls and protruding contours. Her room—if indeed this was her room—was sparsely decorated, but what décor there was seemed tasteful. Of course, Cody had never had much of an eye for such things, but to him the room seemed classy enough. It smelled good, too. Like citrus, with an undertone of jasmine. Cody inhaled the fragrance, which was a far cry from the odors of sweat and death radiating from his clothes.
Marguerite drew back her hair and tied it with a light blue ribbon.
“Take off your shirt,” she said. “Leave the trousers.”
Cody looked around, touched his belt buckle uncertainly. “Leave them where?”
She turned and looked at him with an arched eyebrow. “On. Leave them on.”
“Oh.”
He stripped off his shirt and folded it neatly on a chair.
“Lie there,” she said, nodding toward the ornate red blanket stretched out on the bed. Cody lay on his back, the blanket satiny against his skin.
“On your belly,” the woman said.
Cody did as he was told, but he wondered what the hell the woman had in mind. In profile she was even more beautiful, the prominent nose and sensual curve of forehead giving her the aspect of some dream-conjured maiden, not a saloon owner who’d probably known men beyond counting.
He glanced out the window overlooking the street but could not make out the doctor’s office from here. He moved a trifle to the right and to his great relief was able to spot the weathered gray façade, the safe haven in which Willet slumbered.
Safe for how long?
The insinuating voice set his heart to racing. Cody was about to thank Marguerite for her kindness and head back to Willet when she leaned over the bureau to set her rings down and her frilly white shirt breathed open, her lush tan cleavage momentarily and achingly visible. Though the sight of it sent warm currents spinning through his loins, it also brought with it memories of Angela. He thought of his wife’s naked breasts, lighter and smaller than this woman’s, thought of Angela as she’d been before their lovemaking soured, before the isolation and monogamy bred a resentment in her he never fully understood or acknowledged. That was, until he watched her being pawed all over the stage of the Crooked Tree by Horton, Penders and Price.
At the memory, Cody’s arousal ebbed. Perhaps it was just as well.
He pushed up onto his elbows. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but up until a few days ago, I was a married man. I don’t feel—”
Marguerite was laughing.
A heat burned in his cheeks. “What?”
Her laughter, high and silvery as church bells, would have pleased him under any other circumstance, but at the moment it brought on a dull throb in his temples, an indignation born of weariness and a disinclination to be derided after all he’d been through.
“What the hell’s so funny?” he demanded.
She shook her head against the laughter, put an index finger to her lips as if to shush herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, her composure gradually returning. “It’s just the idea of…” Her face twisted again, and she surrendered to another gust of laughter. She hugged herself and rocked forward on her toes.
Cody got up, collected his shirt and moved toward the door.
“No,” she said, a hand on his arm. “Please don’t leave.” Laughing, sniffing. “It’s my fault you thought this was about sex.”
His shoulders drooped, his arms unspeakably heavy. What energy he’d recovered from the catnap at the doctor’s had been beaten out of him by this pretty woman’s mockery.
“Lay down again,” she said. “Please.”
“What the hell for?”
“I’m going to massage your back.”
Cody stared at her. “Do what?”
“It’ll help you feel better.”
Though she barely had an accent, Cody couldn’t shake the feeling they were speaking different languages.
“Lay down,” she said, putting a hand on his lower back and leading him over to the bed. “I don’t want anything from you, and I’m not offering anything more than a backrub.”
He lay down as she went on. “You’ve been through a trial, that much is obvious. And since you were nice to me, I thought I’d do something nice for you. Okay?”
Cody rested his face on his wrist and closed his eyes.
He heard her splashing something on her hands, rubbing them together. Then her cool touch fell on his bare skin, and she set to massaging his back. It felt good. Damned good. But he couldn’t shake the humiliating way she’d laughed at him.
“Don’t see what’s so funny about it,” he grumbled into his wrist.
She paused in her ministrations. “How old are you, dear?”
“Old enough for you not to call me dear.”
“Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-four,” he said and resisted the urge to tell her he had a birthday coming later in the month.
(If you live that long.)
Cody clamped down hard on the thought. It was the last thing he needed to do right now, waste time and energy fretting over hypotheticals.
“Very tight muscles,” Marguerite said, her thumbs making painful arcs beneath his shoulder blades. “You’re more preoccupied than I thought. What happened to you and the kid out there?”
Cody elected to say nothing. What was the point of dragging her into it?
Marguerite’s fingers were strong, the pressure she exerted bringing him nearly as much discomfort as pleasure. Still, by degrees he felt himself relaxing.
Damn, but she’s strong, Cody thought. The dexterous fingers worked his flesh with such force that his body jostled on the bed. A vague current of arousal pulsed
through him once more. Cody marveled at how little it took to turn him on when in the presence of a woman like Marguerite. He put her at about twenty-six years old, but only because of her worldly attitude. Her face was fresh and unseamed, and the fragrance she broadcasted, an earthy lavender scent, made him ache to take her in his arms. He imagined her full, brown legs around him, imagined her sweaty body undulating beneath his…
He jolted and sucked in a breath. Good Lord, he’d actually fallen asleep. But if he didn’t get some sleep soon, he wouldn’t have the energy to oppose the devils tonight.
“It’s all right,” Marguerite said, tipping a bottle of clear liquid into one palm and then rubbing her hands together. “Your body’s telling you it needs rest.”
“My body needs to get the sheriff.”
That laugh again, high and mischievous, but tinged with a jeering undertone that made him bristle.
He propped up on an elbow. “The hell’s so funny?”
“If you’re looking for a savior, I’m afraid you’re looking in the wrong direction. I’m surprised Doc Jackson didn’t warn you about Bittner.”
Cody eased himself back down. “He said the sheriff keeps late hours.”
“The sheriff likes to screw my waitresses.”
“He some kind of ladies’ man?”
“Sheriff Bittner is the furthest thing from a ladies’ man I could imagine. This isn’t a brothel, but Bittner likes to treat it like one. His favorite is Eliza, though she’s not half his age. I tell her not to sleep with the customers, but I can’t control what she does after she leaves. Or how she fucks for money.” Marguerite met his gaping look of surprise with a smile. She pushed him back down and began massaging him again. “Don’t look so stunned, Cody. I’m only speaking the truth.”
He sighed, his surprise dissipating. “What shocks me now is considerably different than what would have shocked me last week.”
She chuckled. “You have a way of saying things. It reminds me of my father. He and my mom used to laugh all the time.”
“Your mom still living?”
Marguerite lapsed into silence. He worried she might be crying, but when she spoke again, her voice was composed. “You care about the boy.”
Dust Devils Page 8
