The Chili Queen: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  Addie regarded John coyly—she couldn’t help it; that was her nature, Ned knew—while Welcome beamed. Ned noticed she had put on a clean apron.

  Ned started to explain about Addie and Welcome, but Emma raised a hand. She drew John aside and spoke to him earnestly. When she was finished, John scowled at the two women, but Emma said something about how it wouldn’t make any difference. So after giving Addie and Welcome a harsh look, John all but ignored them.

  “I brought the money,” Ned told him, speaking in a low voice, although the four of them were the only ones on the platform. He drew out the bag he had removed that morning from the hiding place. At the same time, John took a wallet from his coat pocket and handed it to Ned. Both men turned aside to count each other’s money, while Emma looked nervously from one to the other.

  “It is there,” John said.

  “Did you think I would cheat my wife’s own brother?” Ned asked. His own nervousness had disappeared, as it always did once he began a job. “What kind of man steals from his own kin?”

  John didn’t reply. He took his wallet from Ned and handed it to Emma, along with Ned’s money bag. Emma started to put them into her purse, but Addie, watching her closely, frowned. She started to say something, then shut her mouth, but she couldn’t stay quiet. “I do not mean to interfere, but you are asking to get robbed, carrying money like that in a purse,” she told Emma. “There’s all kinds of pickpockets that ride the cars. I myself had twenty dollars stole from me on this very train. You must wrap it up safe and tie it to yourself.”

  “What?” Emma asked.

  Addie took a large black silk handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to Emma, who removed the money and folded it inside the scarf. The result was sloppy, and Addie took the money from her and wrapped the scarf around it, tying the corners into tight knots. Then she removed a long silk scarf from around her neck and told Emma to raise her arms. “I’ll fasten this package of skinplasters to your person,” she said. Addie pulled up the bottom of her own shirtwaist and placed the money next to her stomach to show what she meant. She motioned for Emma to put up her arms again so that she could tie the bundle to her corset. As she placed the money against Emma’s stomach, Addie caught Ned watching and cleared her throat. “She is a lady, even if she is your ‘wife,’” Addie said, and Ned felt embarrassed. John must have, too, for both men glanced away.

  Addie tied the bundle of money in place with the second scarf, but the silk was slippery, and she was not satisfied. So she went through her reticule and took out a carpetbag purse made like an envelope. She emptied out her own coins and a handkerchief, then put the bundle inside and fastened the lock. She tied the rough purse to Emma, winding the long scarf around Emma’s body twice and fastening it into such a tight knot that Emma would have to slit the silk with a knife to remove the purse. Emma was safe from pickpockets, all right. But that hadn’t been Addie’s only purpose in fastening the money to Emma. Ned was sorely sure that Addie wanted Emma to have an uncomfortable trip; the rough purse surely would bruise Emma’s ribs. But Ned did not believe that Emma would mind. She had been through so much already that a little chafing wouldn’t bother her. Thinking about what she and Ned were going to do with the money was enough to ease the discomfort.

  “You look only a little fat,” Addie said, her smile belying the unkind words. “Have a nice trip, my dear.” Addie suddenly stood on her toes and kissed Emma’s cheek. “On your return, I’ll treat you to a custard pie.”

  The train arrived then, on time. John produced a one-way ticket to Jasper, telling Emma she and Ned could pay the return fare, and the five of them walked to the cars. Emma said she would return the next day.

  “You be careful, honey,” Ned said, suddenly remembering that he was Emma’s husband. He wondered if he should kiss her good-bye, but when he saw John glaring at him and Addie paying particular attention, he decided not to. Emma got on the car alone and found a seat, leaning out the window to wave as the train began to roll forward.

  When it was almost out of sight, John turned to Ned and said, “I am in need of laudanum for my head. Is there a chemist in this place?”

  “Oh, I’ll show you,” Welcome spoke up. “I got to go to the market myself.”

  Ned tried not to show his pleasure at John’s illness. He had thought Emma’s brother would trail him about all day, but if he had to take opium for his pain, he would likely want to bed down again. That meant Ned could leave for Jasper at once. “I have work to do. If I finish, I’ll call on you when the sun goes down and see if you want to stretch your legs, maybe get a dinner of codfish and crackers,” he said, then smiled to himself. Sundown would not catch Ned within miles of Nalgitas.

  When John didn’t reply, Ned said, “Or if you don’t feel like getting up, I’ll ask Mrs. French here to send Welcome with a bowl of broth.”

  “I’ll tend to myself,” John said. “I’ll meet you here at traintime tomorrow. We will talk about the cattle when Emma gets back—just the three of us.” He sent a hard look at Addie, as if to say she was not expected. “Hurry along,” he told Welcome.

  “We’ll give the ground fits with our feets,” she replied, and the two walked quickly into town.

  Ned and Addie followed at a slower pace, walking along in silence. “I’ll be leaving now,” Ned said when they reached The Chili Queen.

  Addie stepped onto the front step and took off her sunbonnet. “Are you coming back, Ned?”

  “Why, sure thing. Why wouldn’t I?” Ned grinned at her.

  “I mean it,” Addie said. There was a catch in her voice.

  Ned moved a little closer. With Addie on the step, the two of them were the same height, and he looked directly into her eyes, which were wet. Something decent in Ned told him Addie deserved the truth. He looked away. “No. I reckon I won’t be seeing you again.”

  “It’s like I figured, then,” Addie said, and then her voice broke.

  Ned hoped she wouldn’t give him any knotty talk, and he said quickly, “We had some good times, Addie, the best times I ever had. And I loved you plenty and am grateful for it. But we agreed at the beginning it wasn’t for keeps, and any idea I ever had otherwise, I gave it up a long time ago. You told me you didn’t want anything permanent.” He looked up at her. “I’ll be sending you your money. You can trust me on that.”

  Addie nodded and looked at him a long time, while tears ran down her plump cheeks. She started to speak but thought better of it and abruptly turned and went inside, shutting the door behind her. Ned stared at it, knowing he and Addie had just closed the door on four good years. But he wasn’t tempted to open it. He’d be fair, more than fair. He’d send her $250 for Welcome and $500 for herself, twice the amount Addie expected.

  “Good-bye, Addie,” Ned said softly, then turned and hurried to the barn. He collected his blanket roll and saddlebags, went into the kitchen long enough to take some provisions. Then he saddled the horse, mounted, and rode west, never once looking back over his shoulder at The Chili Queen.

  Ned reached Jasper before the train did. The train was late, most likely due to a breakdown, or maybe the engine had hit a cow, the agent explained. The man seemed inclined to talk, but Ned was preoccupied and turned away. He wondered if he should find a preacher in Jasper but decided that was not a good idea. Getting married would take precious time. Besides, somebody might remember that when he and Emma had been there only a few days before, she was his sister. Perhaps, since they were getting married, Emma would be willing to share his blanket when they camped on the prairie that night, but if she said no, that was all right. After all, she would be his wife. He didn’t mind so much that she would want to wait.

  Ned thought about buying supplies but decided against that, too, since someone in Spillman & Gottschalk might recognize him. He’d taken enough food from The Chili Queen to last until they reached Taos. Ned went to the livery stable and looked at the horses for sale, liked two of them but thought Emma should choose her own mount.
Then he walked along the street looking for a saloon. He was about to go inside when he realized he didn’t want to smell like a brewery when he met Emma, so he wandered into a gents’ furnishing shop and paid $2.50 for a hat. Then as he walked past the jewelry store, he remembered that Emma had admired something in the display.

  Ned listened for the train whistle, and not hearing it, he went inside and said he would take the ruby ring in the window. He didn’t even ask the price. After all, he had five hundred dollars in his pocket, and Emma would be arriving soon with more than ten thousand dollars. He paid and went back to the station to wait. When the train pulled in thirty minutes later, Ned stood in the center of the platform, grinning, his new hat in one hand, his other hand in his pocket, clutching the little ring box. He almost wished then that he had looked for a parson so that he could surprise Emma right then with her wedding ring. He had never been so happy in his life.

  Ned fairly danced with anticipation as the conductor jumped off the train and set down the step. A large woman in brown got off, taking her time, followed by a man dressed in a linen suit. The conductor glanced inside the car, then looked at his watch and started off to the station house.

  “Wait a minute,” Ned said. “You got another passenger.”

  “Nope,” the conductor said. “That’s all that’s getting off at Jasper.”

  Ned shook his head. “I’m meeting somebody. I know she’s on this train.”

  “She must have missed it then.”

  “I guess you better check again, sir. I saw her get on at Nalgitas,” Ned said. He did not wish to be rude, but the conductor, his eyes red, appeared to be on a bust.

  “Oh, that one.” The conductor shook his head. “She got off at What Cheer. We had to make a special stop, since the train don’t normally stop there. First time in three, maybe four months that we done it. Her ticket said Jasper. I told her there weren’t nobody living in What Cheer. But she said she knew where she was going and got sharp with me. It don’t matter to me if she has to sit there all night.” He scratched his ear. “Maybe somebody’s meeting her. I asked, but she didn’t say.”

  Ned frowned at the conductor, too stubborn to let himself believe the man was not mistaken. “That must have been somebody else. I’m looking for a woman in a black dress, tall, black hair. She carried a red carpetbag with her.”

  “That’s the one. I guess if you was to meet her, you ought to be there, or she ought to be here.” The conductor laughed and walked down the tracks.

  “She got off at What Cheer?” Ned called after him.

  “That’s what I said, didn’t I?” the conductor answered over his shoulder.

  Ned took a few steps forward then sprang onto the train. Emma had fallen asleep. She hadn’t slept well the night before, and they would laugh that she had almost slept through the stop. The train had only two passenger cars, and Ned searched both of them, but Emma was not on board. He stepped down off the train and stood staring east along the tracks. No, he told himself. He and Emma were going to get married. They had agreed to buy a ranch. He had given her his money. It was a mistake. Maybe Emma had misunderstood. Maybe she had thought Ned would meet her in What Cheer, after all. That was it.

  But it wasn’t. Slowly, Ned realized there had been a mistake all right. But it was his mistake. He did not know how or why, but Emma had suckered him. He stood on the platform a moment, too stunned to move. Then he took a step forward, and another, then broke into a run for the livery stable. After going hard all day, his own horse was used up. He’d have to trade it in on a fresh one for the ride to What Cheer. Talking fast, Ned negotiated a deal, paying more than he should for a good horse, but what did that matter when everything he had in the world was at stake? By sunset, when the train pulled out, headed west, Ned was already riding northeast, toward What Cheer.

  Ned raged throughout the night. For the first few hours, he rode with wrath, pushing the horse as hard as he could. Then a little reason returned. The horse, while not much to look at, was tough, hardy, and surefooted, and would be good for several days, but Ned would have to conserve its strength. Besides, there was no hurry to reach What Cheer. Emma would be gone, and finding her trail at night would be as hard as filling up a water barrel with a thimble. He’d have to wait until daylight.

  So he slowed his pace and curbed his anger enough to study on Emma. What she had done was clever—brilliant in fact. She was no amateur, that was for sure. She was a professional, a swindler manufactured in hell. But why had she picked him? Why go all the way to Nalgitas to rob him when she could target someone with far more money? It didn’t make sense. And who was she? Ned didn’t know of any brother-and-sister teams. Maybe she and John had come from the East.

  Although he could have found his way to What Cheer in the dark, Ned was grateful for the stars. And he was glad the sky was so different from the night sky when he and Emma had ridden into the dark canyon. Thinking about that time made Ned grimace. He was tempted to hurry the horse, but he was in control of himself now, so instead, he reined in the animal and dismounted for a few minutes, to let them both rest.

  It was well past midnight when Ned reached What Cheer, maybe later, although he was not sure because he didn’t have a watch. Ned unsaddled the horse and hobbled it, then spread his blankets on the grass beside the old depot. As he lay down, he spotted a red bag shoved under the platform and pulled it out. It was Emma’s portmanteau, and inside were the black dress, the hat, crumpled up, and the yellow coffeepot he had bought her. The speckled pot had been his gift to Emma, and she had left it there to taunt him. Perhaps he’d take it with him and give it back to her. Ned smiled grimly at the idea and put the pot beside his saddlebags. He wished he had stopped long enough to buy a bottle of rye so that he could get beastly drunk, but perhaps it was just as well he hadn’t, as he did not want to be tight all the next day.

  He covered himself with a blanket and went to sleep, wondering just who Emma was. A swarm of buffalo gnats aroused Ned at dawn with a furious assault, and he awoke, covered with bites, to know himself a fool. As the previous day’s events washed over him, Ned tried to think who Emma might be. Most of the women he knew who worked the other side of the law were prostitutes. There were female cardsharps, too. Addie had been one. Maybe Emma was a bank robber. There was no reason a woman couldn’t rob a bank, as Emma had proved. But Emma wasn’t really a robber. She was a bunco artist. Something stirred in the back of Ned’s mind. He’d heard of a woman in Colorado who fleeced men. Ned thought hard, forcing himself to remember her name—Emma something. That wasn’t quite right; maybe it was Em. He rolled the name over in his mind—Em, Em-ma, Ma. Then the name came back to him: Ma—Ma Sarpy.

  He sat upright, scratching at a bite on his arm until he drew blood, and tried to recall what he’d heard about her. Not much. Someone had mentioned a month or two before that she’d been caught and put into jail up around Breckenridge, and he’d wondered then what kind of punishment the law would give an old lady. He’d assumed she was old because she was called “Ma.” Her targets were usually men who were crooked enough to hide in a snake’s shadow. She seemed to be getting even for something, and folks kind of admired Ma Sarpy. But Ned had never put much stock in the idea that she was anything but a clever sharper whose victims were either scofflaws or men too embarrassed to report the crimes to the authorities. And Ma Sarpy usually kept the stakes low enough so that her victims shrugged off the loss instead of pursuing her. Maybe in the beginning she had sought to right some wrong, but now she was just another thief.

  Did she have a brother? He’d never heard of one. Ned smacked his forehead with his hand. Why, he couldn’t reason any better than a sheep. John Roby wasn’t Emma’s brother. He was her lover, maybe her husband. And for a reason Ned couldn’t say, that made him killing mad.

  Emma

  Seven

  Emma watched the train until it was out of sight, then she stripped off the dress and threw it down onto the platform. She tried to untie the
purse that Addie had strapped to her chest, but the knots held, so Emma decided to leave the bundle where it was. Addie’s way was as good as any to carry the money. She unlaced the corset and tugged it off, leaving the money bundle fastened against her chemise. Then she put on riding pants and slipped on a shirt but left it open, because the air was very hot. She’d fasten it over the bundle later. After she had put on her boots, Emma removed the other contents from her bag—a coat, the framed picture of John, her mother’s brooch, her watch, a book of poetry, a coat, her riding gloves, her piecework and sewing kit, the man’s watch she always carried. And there was the coffeepot. Emma was not much for sentiment, and she wondered what had possessed her to put it into the bag, instead of leaving it behind at The Chili Queen. John would wonder, too, and he might tease her, and Emma didn’t want that. So she shoved the coffeepot back into the satchel, along with the dress and corset, and pushed the bag under the platform where it would rot away. She laid the other things in a neat row beside her.

  Welcome had packed a dinner, and Emma spread out the contents on the linen napkin that it was wrapped in. She wasn’t hungry, and the idea of food did not appeal to her, but she had a hard ride ahead, and they would not want to waste time stopping to eat, so she chewed on a chicken sandwich, then gnawed an apple, putting aside the spice cake for later. Welcome knew spice cake was her favorite and had baked it just for her. Welcome had been thoughtful, making the two weeks at The Chili Queen easier than they might have been, although Emma had felt Welcome hovering over her like an uneasy spirit, even when she slept. Addie and Ned had been kind, too, and that brought to Emma’s heart a feeling of sadness at her mean deceit. She didn’t feel right about this job, not about robbing people who had been good to her. Addie was not the cruel woman that Emma had expected her to be. And Ned—he had been more than good to her; he had offered her a home and his hand in marriage. She had not wanted that, had not even seen it coming. And she had not wanted to hurt him, but there was no way she could have called off the job. Thinking about Ned and the ranch, where they might have made a home had circumstances been different, made her sad.