‘I do try my best.’ She turned to him and caught him staring at her. ‘The charge is two dollars, Mr. Prophet.’
‘F-for wha-what?’
‘The room, Mr. Prophet.’
‘Oh!’
He cleared his throat, chagrined, and gave her enough coins to cover several nights. Holding up a key on a gold ring, she said, ‘Your room is number twelve.’
He accepted the key and started edging away, feeling like a dog slung around by its own tail but reluctant to stop feasting his eyes on this woman.
‘Good night, Mr. Prophet. I’ll summon Annabelle for your bath straightaway.’
‘Much obliged, Mrs. Ryan.’
‘Uh, Mr. Prophet?’
Prophet stopped at the newel post at the bottom of the wide staircase and turned around. ‘Yes, ma’am?’
She gazed at his saddlebags with a schoolmarm’s suspicion. ‘Did I mention there could be no consumption of spiritous liquids on the property?’
Prophet swallowed, his right knee quaking. ‘Yes, ma’am. You sure did.’
She smiled a smile that had no doubt taken its toll on the men of Luther Falls. ‘See you in the morning for breakfast at seven o’clock, Mr. Prophet.’
‘Seven o’clock it is, ma’am.’
‘Sharp.’
‘Sharp.’
At once madly in love with her and scared to death of her, he turned and started up the stairs. He would have turned cartwheels through the parlor if she’d asked him to. No wonder her husband was dead. Married to such a browbeating vixen, he’d probably gone mad and cut off his own head with a rusty saw.
On the third floor, Prophet found his room, went in, and fumbled around until he got the bracketed wall lamp lit. Neat and comfortable, the room sported a double-sized, four-poster bed with a canopy, an oak wardrobe, and a washstand with a built-in cupboard and a deep porcelain bowl. The two sashed windows were covered with heavy mauve curtains, and there was even a writing desk upon which sat a leather-bound book, its title in gilt lettering: WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
Prophet stood for a full minute taking it all in. He hadn’t stayed in a room this grand since wintering in Denver three years before.
Shaking his head, he hung his rifle and shotgun on the wall pegs between the two windows and dropped his saddlebags on the bed. He tossed his hat off and sat next to the bags, eyeing them cunningly, staring at the bulge his bottle of rye made in the left pouch.
Should he or shouldn’t he?
Guiltily, he glanced around the room, as if there were a peephole somewhere and she were watching him.
‘Oh, for Chrissakes!’ he groused aloud, opening the flap and producing the bottle. ‘She’s just a woman like any other—born to be hornswoggled.’
He popped the cork and took a long swig, the air bubbles rising toward the lip. He took another drink and, feeling relaxed, kicked his boots off and scooted up against the headboard, resting there, his eyes on the canopy as he very slowly but surely anaesthetized himself against the wear and tear of the trail.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he became aware of footsteps in the hall. A loud, single knock on the door.
‘Yoo-hoo,’ a shrill voice sounded. ‘Bath time!’
Jesus, he’d forgotten! His heart leaping into his throat, Prophet slapped the cork back on the bottle and looked around for a place to hide it. Finally slipping it under his pillow, he got up and opened the door.
A woman very closely resembling an Oklahoma mule skinner—her shoulders were that broad, her face that haggard—said, ‘Bath time, Mr. Prophet,’ in a high singsong.
She pushed her way into the room, a tin tub in one hand, a bucket of cold water in the other. While Prophet gazed on, befuddled, she set the tub on the floor, hefted the bucket in her big, well-muscled arms, and poured the water into the tub.
‘There we go—nice and cold to start out. Gets the circulation going. Now I’ll go down for some hot!’
With that, she waddled out of the room, shuffling from side to side, wide shoulders working like a yoke on a pair of contrary oxen, and disappeared, not closing the door behind her.
Prophet stood there, staring at the door. What was he supposed to do? Climb into that damn ice melt? He’d had enough river baths. No thanks. He’d wait for some hot water to temper the cold.
Which was what he did, inciting a Norwegian-laced tongue-lashing from the beast known as Annabelle. He smoothed her feathers, however, by offering a silver dollar gratuity in return for as much skin-peeling hot water as he could take and the tub could hold.
Then he locked the door behind the retreating Anna-belle, climbed into the tub, his skin reddening instantly, and sat there in the steaming suds for close to an hour, sipping from his bottle on the floor. All he wanted now was a cigar, but he guessed he could do without, under the circumstances. He certainly didn’t want another surprise visit from Annabelle, who could no doubt inflict some serious damage with those maul-like fists of hers.
And then there was Mrs. Ryan ... Cordelia. If she found him smoking in here, let alone drinking, she’d sure as grit in a sandstorm throw him out with his horse. But it was nice to think about her... the way her eyes sparkled and the way her full bosom heaved under all that velvet and lace.
He was sound asleep and dreaming about her beneath two quilts and the softest, cleanest sheet he’d ever experienced, when he awoke to a creaking sound in the hall. Then there was a tinny clicking, as though someone were trying to unlock his door.
Shit!
He reached for his gun on the bedpost, but it wasn’t there. He’d gotten careless and left his gunbelt on one of the pegs across the room.
Shit!
‘Who the hell is it?’ he asked as he heard the door squeak open in the darkness, instinctively expecting a bullet.
‘Sh.’
‘What?’
‘Be quiet. It’s Cordelia.’
‘What is it?’
He heard the door squeak shut and softly latch. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a figure move toward him, heard the sibilant sound of rustling silk. Smelled laurel in full bloom....
The figure moved toward him and stopped beside the bed. ‘You’ve been drinking. I can smell the whiskey.’
His heart pounded and his head swam. ‘Uh .. .’
‘Your punishment is you must make love to me.’
He heard the cloth moving again, and then he saw her figure before him, the dim light from the window revealing proud, delicate shoulders thrust back behind heavy breasts, the dark nipples staring him down like a pair of .44s.
His pulse throbbed in his throat. There was a low humming in his head. His throat had gone dry as the Sahara during a sandstorm.
She reached down, found his hand, and brought it to her breast. ‘You want to. I know you do. I saw the way you looked at me earlier.’
‘Sorry . .. I...’
‘I haven’t had a man in two years, Mr. Prophet.’
He didn’t know what to say to that. He rubbed his thumb around on her nipple, which quickly grew erect beneath his touch. She looked down at it, saying, ‘I’ve never met a man here I wanted to be with ... as much as I wanted to be with you as soon as I saw you.’
He could hear her breath quicken as he worked at her nipple. She brought both her hands to his, cupping it and her breast both, ‘You mustn’t tell a soul. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Slide over.’
He slid over.
‘Tell me one thing,’ he said, running his hand down her impossibly smooth thigh. ‘Am I dreaming?’
She laughed huskily and bit his lip, pushing him back on the bed.
Chapter Four
THE NEXT MORNING, Prophet woke to the sounds of someone shuffling about the room. He turned his head on the pillow and opened his eyes.
Pale dawn light seeped around the edges of the curtains. In the smoky dusk of the room, Cordelia held her silk wrapper out before her, tossing it around to find the front. Her
breasts jiggled as she did so, and Prophet groaned with desire.
‘Where . . . where you going?’ he asked her.
‘Well, good morning,’ she said cheerfully.
She drew the wrapper on and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning down and kissing Prophet’s lips, running a rough hand through his hair. Her wrapper yawned open, exposing her breasts, and Prophet took them in his calloused palms, fondling them gently and kissing each nipple in turn.
‘It’s early,’ he said, his voice muffled by her bosom.
‘I have to go down and help Annabelle with breakfast,’ she said, making soft sounds of delight as he buried his nose in her cleavage.
‘Come back to bed,’ he urged.
‘I can’t,’ she laughed, drawing her wrapper closed and pulling away. ‘But I’ll be back again tonight—you can bet your boots on that!’
Prophet grinned and smacked his lips at the prospect, watching her lithe form fairly float to the door, her long black hair rippling down her slender back.
‘Oh, Lou?’ she said, turning around.
‘Yes, my pet?’
‘What are your plans for the day?’
‘Don’t have any,’ Prophet said, stretching luxuriously.
‘Then would you mind—? Oh, I hate to ask this.’
He lifted his head from the pillow. ‘Ask what?’
She thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, I can’t.’ She started twisting the doorknob.
Prophet pushed up on an elbow. ‘What is it, Cordelia?’
She stopped again and turned to face him. ‘Well... I was just wondering... You see, the man I had taking caring of chores around here is laid up with a kidney ailment, and ...’
‘And you need something done. What?’
‘Oh, Lou, what will you think of me, asking a favor after we’ve . . . ?’ She let the sentence trail off and drew her shoulders together, bunching her breasts.
‘Ask away,’ he said absently, swallowing as he stared at the flesh exposed by the open wrapper.
‘The door to the privy won’t shut all the way. I think the boards are warped.’ She had a pained look on her face. ‘Would you mind taking a look at it? I mean, since you don’t have any other plans for the day and all?’
Prophet ran his eyes up and down her scrumptious figure once more. ‘I would be more than happy to fix anything you got ailing, Mrs. Cordelia Ryan.’
‘Oh, Lou!’ she said, running back to the bed and kissing his cheek. ‘You’re a dear!’ She went back to the door, began opening it, then closed it again gently, half-whispering, ‘Until this evening, my stallion ,..’
She blew him a kiss and left.
Thoroughly bewitched, Prophet rolled back on the pillow with a big grin on his face.
As soon as he’d polished off a big plate of ham and eggs and fried potatoes, and washed it down with hot, black coffee, he got started on the privy door, which was so badly warped by moisture that he had to remove it, take it apart in the maintenance shed in the backyard, and replace two boards and a handful of screws before putting it back together and remounting the knob, which he also took apart and oiled.
Before he put the door back on its hinges, he gave it a fresh coat of paint. That done, something didn’t look right. The problem was the fresh white paint on the door no longer matched the dull, gray paint of the rest of the privy. It bothered him to the point that he went ahead and painted the whole privy.
‘Now, if that ain’t the best lookin’ two-holer in town, I’m not the middle son of Homer and Minnie,’ Prophet said, stepping back to admire his handiwork.
‘Oh, Lou?’
He turned. It was Cordelia standing on the house’s back porch. ‘Annabelle was cleaning a room upstairs and found a cracked window.’ She thrust her lower lip out, pouting.
Prophet sighed and offered a wry smile. ‘Be right there.’
By the time Prophet had replaced the window, repaired several pickets in the fence surrounding the boarding house, plastered several cracks in the parlor’s ceiling, cleaned the kitchen chimney, and hauled a load of food staples back from the mercantile, stacking it all in the basement storage room, he was ready to saddle Mean and Ugly and head back out on the owlhoot trail for a little rest and relaxation.
But he was rewarded that evening by the finest meal—young chickens roasted in white wine and butter and a dessert of peach cobbler and ice cream—he’d ever eaten in his life. And the coffee Annabelle brought him on the porch afterward, where he sat smoking with the two older, chess-playing gents from the evening before, was liberally laced with a sweet liquor—a clandestine gift, he knew, from Cordelia.
The gift she gave him later was just as clandestine but not nearly as subtle. Slipping into his room after everyone else in the house was long asleep, the old gents’ snores resounding in the walls, she snickered into her hand, ripped off her wrapper, threw herself atop him, and hissed, ‘Come, my stallion—throw the blocks to your sweet Cordelia!’
He did, and paid for it again the next day, so that by the time he’d finished repairing the house buggy’s left front wheel and greasing both axles, his back was squawking like an old goose. Rather than head back into the boarding house, where surely Cordelia or Annabelle would have another chore for him, he washed at the outside pump, donned his hat, unrolled his shirtsleeves, and walked south toward the business district. He thought he’d have a beer and the free lunch in the town’s only saloon, maybe even indulge in a game of five-card stud—if such impious dalliance was allowed in Luther Falls.
On the way to the Sawmill Saloon, he saw Sheriff Beckett sitting in the sun outside the jailhouse.
‘Mr. Prophet,’ the sheriff greeted him. ‘Haven’t seen much of you lately. Thought maybe the widow had done run you out of town.’ Beckett laughed.
‘No ... not yet,’ Prophet said with a baleful sigh, shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘She’s workin’ on it, though.’
Bathing his face in the warm midday sun, the sheriff glanced up at the bounty hunter. ‘Yeah, she can be mighty tough. It’s either her way or no way. Think that might be why she hasn’t remarried. Tends to scare men off with all her rules and regulations. Why, you so much as clear your throat wrong over at the big house, and she’ll read you from the book till you’re blue in the face.’
‘That she will, Sheriff. That she will.’
‘Been toeing the line over there?’
‘I guess you could say that.’
‘Must be doin’ all right,’ Beckett mused, looking Prophet over humorously. ‘Otherwise, she and ole Annabelle would have sent you out on a long, greased pole.’ He laughed again and shook his head.
‘Yeah, I guess I’m doin’ somethin’ right, Sheriff,’ Prophet grumbled with an unreadable irony. ‘Say, how long do you think it’ll take for my money to travel from Dodge?’
‘Well, it’s a fair piece, and this time of the year the roads can be a little muddy. I’d say a week at the earliest.’
‘A week, eh?’ Prophet mused with an air of disheartenment. He’d figured it would take that long but was hoping he was wrong. He wanted to exit these parts before Cordelia decided she needed a new roof. He didn’t think that even at his relatively youthful age he could roof her house and grease her wheels at the same time. ‘I reckon if it rains, or if there’s some official holdup, which there usually is, it could be two or even three weeks before I can start looking for my reward money.’
‘I’d say that’s about right.’
Prophet sighed. ‘Thanks, Sheriff.’ Favoring his back, he started toward the saloon.
‘What’s your hurry?’ Beckett called after him. ‘The widow’s treating you all right over there, isn’t she?’
Prophet gave the man a dismissive wave and continued across the street to the Sawmill, where he enjoyed the free sandwiches, pickled eggs, nickel beers, and several three-for-a-nickel cheroots. There were no gamers, however. Just two regulars—retired sawyers by their ratty clothes and missing fingers—playing back
gammon beside the woodstove. The bartender fold Prophet the gamblers were still out chopping trees and wouldn’t be in until after six or so.
‘That’s all right,’ Prophet said, shoving his chair out, extending his legs, crossing his ankles, and lacing his fingers over his belly. He smiled at his third beer sitting before him, beside his empty plate. ‘I’ll wait for ‘em right here.’
He was halfway into his fourth beer when he heard a commotion down the street. A man yelled, a woman screamed, and then two pistol shots sounded.
Prophet looked at the bartender, who was sitting beside the chess players, reading the paper. The man had looked up and was staring out the window with a curious frown.
‘What was that?’ Prophet said. In ranch country, it could’ve been cowboys hoorawing the town, but since this was mainly a honyonker and woodcutting area, and since the weekend was still three days away ...
‘I don’t know.’
Two more pistol shots split the midweek somnolence, and Prophet got to his feet and walked to the door, followed by the bartender in his sleeve garters and the two old backgammon players. Across the street, the dentist stepped out of his establishment to gaze around curiously, as did the blacksmith and the barber and the little gray-haired lady who ran the fabric shop.
They, like Prophet and the others from the Sawmill, turned their gazes eastward down the town’s main drag, where at least twenty men on horseback were milling around on agitated horses before the mercantile. Two more men were on the broad loading dock fronting the place. The two appeared to be fighting with a longhaired girl, who screamed.
One of the men yelled something and smacked the girl across the face. When the girl went limp in his arms, he carried her down the steps to the street, where the other men were heeling their mounts back and forth before the place, six-shooters drawn and raised above their heads.
Several squeezed off shots skyward, just making noise.
‘Now what in the hell is that all about?’ the bartender said as he scratched his noggin.
‘Looks like a damn holdup, if you’re askin’ me,’ Prophet said, all his senses suddenly coming alive but not quite believing what he was seeing.
Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) Page 3
