by Jake Logan
As he drifted to sleep, he thought of Anna, her body sprawled on the bed upstairs in Severigne’s house. Dead from too much laudanum. Suicide or murder? The same question he asked himself about Emily.
He came awake with a start when he felt a cold hand on his chest. Slocum grabbed and trapped Sara Beth’s fingers on his bare chest.
“It’s getting cold, John. We slept till sundown.”
“We ought to find a place to hole up for the night, out of the wind.” He felt the cold, wet wind and knew a storm was brewing out over the mountains and was coming this way. “I can throw together a lean-to before the storm gets here.”
“Storm?”
He had barely finished lashing together the saplings to form a crude roof when the rain hit. It came down cold and wet, but they were dry enough as long as they clung to one another. Sara Beth didn’t mind but Slocum grew increasingly uneasy as the storm raged through the night. He had the feeling more women would die in Clabber Crossing and he didn’t know why.
When he awoke again, the fresh dawn promised a perfect day. Slocum stretched and shook Sara Beth awake.
“Time to ride. We’re going back to town.” He tended their horses and then ate a bit of the breakfast Sara Beth had fixed. Slocum said nothing but he was a better trail cook. Sara Beth might shine in a kitchen with an oven and all her utensils at hand but using nothing more than a pan and a low wood fire didn’t highlight her culinary talents.
Three hours after noon they rode into Clabber Crossing.
“Doesn’t look any different,” she said. “I wonder if anybody missed me opening the restaurant.”
“Missed you, is most likely,” Slocum said, seeing Edgar Dawson peek around the corner of the restaurant, then disappear when Slocum noticed. The marshal made a point of coming around and so did a lot of others, and it probably wasn’t so much for the grub as it was to see Sara Beth.
“I’ve got to tell Severigne what happened,” Slocum said.
“John,” Sara Beth said sharply, “you’ve been mighty quiet all day. You won’t stop looking into how Emily died. She was a good friend. We hadn’t known each other long, but she and I were good friends.”
Slocum had decided the woman had killed herself, but he wasn’t going to tell Sara Beth that. Even if Emily killed herself, there had to be some underlying reason since she had seemed a loving mother and wife and wouldn’t put her family under such a dark cloud without a good reason. And why had she given him that note? That argued against suicide. Slocum’s head began to hurt as he went over the reasons again that Emily might have to shoot herself.
If there ever was a good reason to kill yourself. Slocum didn’t think much on that but couldn’t come up with one that made sense. He valued his life too much to want to end it all by his own hand. Too many times he’d faced death and made the decision whether to let someone who hated his guts kill him—or be killed. So far, he had always chosen to be the one doing the killing.
Slocum led the two spare horses back and put them into Severigne’s barn. By the time he tended them and got to the kitchen steps, the woman waited for him, hands on her hips.
“So where are they, my Danielle and Catherine?”
Slocum explained they were beyond the madam’s reach now without going into too much detail when it came to Catherine. Let her try to carve out a new, different life for herself.
“But they did not die? I would not like that since I look after them so here.”
“They weren’t the ones who died,” Slocum said, resting his hand on the butt of his six-shooter.
“Good,” she said, putting the matter behind her. “I have an appointment.” Severigne tipped her head to one side and waved him away, turning and hurrying into the house.
Curious, Slocum walked around the side of the building, noting the job he had done with the whitewash was barely noticeable unless you knew where to look, then poked around the side of the house in time to see Edgar Dawson running off. But it wasn’t the young Peeping Tom that Severigne had gone to let inside. Slocum recognized Andrew Molinari’s buckboard out front. He circled the wagon, looking into the bed, but the photographer had not come to the house for more photographs.
Slocum went to the far side of the house where Edgar had been lurking. The window was open and the lacy curtains flapped and fluttered in the breeze. Slocum pressed against the side of the house and overheard everything going on in the parlor.
“They are so good, these pictures,” Severigne said. “The catalog is perfect. I can use it for selection.”
“It’ll speed up business, that is certain,” Molinari said sardonically. “Your visitors need only look at pictures, choose, and be sent to the proper room.”
“The ladies do not need to parade about downstairs,” Severigne said in obvious agreement. “They do not have to all the time put on clothing and take it off.”
“You are pleased with the photographs, then?”
“I am, yes . . . but what is this one? Did the lady lose her head?” Severigne laughed. Slocum had to peek inside. Severigne held up a photograph with half torn off.
“Sorry, that is one I should have discarded.”
“But this one, she has a fine body. I can hire her. You can recruit using these photographs. You take pictures of potential ladies to work for me, then I hire on the basis of their looks. Before the rodeo comes to town, I can use several more girls.”
“This one’s not available,” Molinari said.
“Pity. She has a good body for this work.”
Molinari took the photograph and tucked it into an inner pocket. He and Severigne dickered some over the price, then the madam paid him. Slocum tried not to let out a low whistle when he heard how much Molinari received. Eight photographs earned him $400. He wondered if Danielle and Catherine were included, since they were no longer in Severigne’s employ.
How hard would it be to remove Catherine’s picture from the catalog? He didn’t owe her anything but saw no reason for some drifter to come through, see the photograph, and then go to work at the Flying B and compare how the foreman’s wife looked like a picture from a Clabber Crossing whorehouse. Worse, was the Flying B sending any cowboys to compete in the rodeo? It was likely at least some of those cowboys would stop by Severigne’s for a night of dalliance. It wouldn’t take much for that information about their foreman’s new wife to get back to Bascomb and his wife.
Getting the photograph from Severigne would be easy. She had no reason to advertise a woman whose services were not available. But getting the photographic plate from Molinari would go a ways toward keeping Catherine’s new life sacrosanct.
The photographer climbed into the buckboard and rattled off toward town. Slocum had nothing to do at the moment, not with Severigne engrossed in her new catalog. He saddled his horse and cut across the field to the woods and angled into town, reaching Molinari’s office before the photographer. He looked around but nobody was looking at him as he forced open the door and slipped into the studio.
The pungent smell of acid and other photographic chemicals made his eyes water. He needed some light inside but Molinari had the windows blacked out, probably to control the light as he took photographs. Slocum found the man’s camera set up on a tripod and pointed at a corner of the room where black drapes had been hung. Nearby was a straight-backed chair and a footstool, other props for picture taking. In the far corner heavy curtains shut off an area for developing photographs in the absolute darkness required to prevent light damage to the plates.
Slocum quickly looked at the framed pictures on the walls and saw the different ways Molinari used the chair and footstool to pose a family. The woman sat, the husband stood behind, and children were arrayed to her left. Few variations on the composition showed up in any of the photographs. Small children were seated on the footstool and there were even a few pictures of dead men inside coffins. Slocum reckoned they must be outlaws, but he couldn’t identify any of them.
Men looked different dead
than alive, especially if they were riddled with bullets as several in the pictures were.
But nowhere did he find any of the photographs on display that Molinari had taken at Severigne’s. Those would be kept out of sight so women wanting family portraits wouldn’t be offended. Slocum looked around and found a strongbox about the right size for photographs behind the desk. He rattled the lock but it wouldn’t budge. Turning the box on its side allowed the lid to open a fraction of an inch. Slocum shook the box and a sheet of paper slid out. Tugging on it, he got a look at the woman in the picture.
For a moment, he could only stare at her naked body, posed in a lewd manner that suggested she wasn’t showing herself like that for the first time. He finally got a good look at the face in the photograph just as the door rattled.
Slocum hastily shoved the photograph back into the box and looked around for a place to hide.
The door opened and Molinari stepped in, a small-caliber pistol in his hand. He looked around. Slocum crouched behind the desk, his own six-shooter out. Shooting the photographer wouldn’t be his choice but trying to explain how he had just happened to break into the office wasn’t likely to set well with either the photographer or the marshal.
Severigne had bailed him out of jail before. He didn’t want to be beholden to her yet another time. But from what he had seen in the photograph, Molinari would start shooting the instant he spotted an intruder.
For what seemed an eternity, the photographer stood in the doorway, then backed out and closed the door behind him. Slocum chanced a quick look to be sure that Molinari had left. Some rattling at the door made it sound as if the photographer had locked the door. He might have thought he had left it open, but Slocum doubted that. Molinari struck him as a methodical man who attended to details—every detail.
Not locking his office door was out of the question.
On cat’s feet Slocum crossed to the far side of the room and pried back the wood shutter over the window. Molinari got into his buckboard and drove off. He might have accepted the idea that he had just forgotten to lock his office and had other business to do—or he might be going to fetch the marshal.
Slocum couldn’t get out the door without ripping it off its hinges. And when he started prying away the shutter, he saw that the window had been nailed shut so no one could raise the sash.
Unless he wanted to leave an obvious trail getting out of Molinari’s office, he was trapped inside . . . with the knowledge of the picture in the strongbox burning in his mind.
13
He could burn the place down. That was a desperate way to get free without Molinari knowing for sure anyone had broken into his office and seen the photograph in his strongbox, but he might as well kick out the door and take his chances. Try as he might, he couldn’t pry open any of the windows. Knocking out the glass and escaping that way was about the best option open to him, but doing so would definitely alert Molinari to an intruder. Slocum wanted to make the photographer wonder if anyone had broken in rather than knowing someone had.
If he was going to bust out a window, he ought to take the strongbox with the picture with him. He could shoot off the lock and take his time looking at the rest of the contents.
Then he saw the way out. At the far end of the room a stovepipe rose to the ceiling. The spot where the pipe went through the roof had been crudely plastered. Slocum jumped to the top of the iron stone and ran his fingers under the plaster, which came loose in a giant chunk. He let it fall, then reached up, grabbed the exposed roof through the hole, and pulled hard. He kicked free and worked his way through the hole onto the roof. It was a tight fit and he left a bit of skin behind but he managed to flop facedown on the roof so he could look back into Molinari’s office. The only trace that the plaster hadn’t fallen on its own were his boot prints on the top of the iron stove.
Working quickly, he pried loose more of the plaster and carefully dropped it onto the stove to cover the prints. Only when he was sure no one could tell that the roof simply hadn’t given way due to a bad repair job did he scoot back and go to the far side of the roof. He saw Molinari and the marshal coming back. He jumped from the roof, hit the ground hard, and rolled, coming to his feet. Several quick paces took him behind the next building and out of sight. He wasted no time making a beeline for Sara Beth’s restaurant.
He didn’t bother with the front door. Customers came and went already. He slipped into the kitchen and was hit with a blast of heat from the cooking stove. He was covered with plaster dust so he set about washing his face and hands. He skinned out of his coat and vest, wiped them down the best he could, and then shucked off his shirt to rinse it out in a pan of water beside the sink.
“Oh my God!”
Slocum reached for his six-shooter, then went back to cleaning up.
“What have you been up to, John? I’ve got a full restaurant out there, and I can’t have you parading around half naked.” Sara Beth stopped, pursed her lips, then said, “Well, I could but folks would talk.”
“They’d gossip,” Slocum corrected. He wrung out his shirt and held it near the stove. The heat made quick work of drying. With Sara Beth’s help, he put it back on.
“You look more presentable. What did you do? Get yourself tangled up with a dust devil? No, that couldn’t be. This is white powder.”
“Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” he told her.
“I’ve got customers to serve.” She gathered plates of food and put them on a tray. Slocum stopped her.
“Before you go, was Emily ever in Kansas City?”
“Why, yes, she was. She must have been since she came west from Ohio.”
“But she married Henry in Ohio?”
“She said she did.” Sara Beth stared at him. “What’s this all about?”
“Go feed your customers.” He gave her a quick kiss and a swat on the bottom to send her on her way. Only when she had disappeared into the main dining room did he put on his vest and coat, wiping off the last specks of plaster. Even if the marshal figured out who had broken into Molinari’s office, there wasn’t any proof.
“Proof,” he muttered under his breath. Slocum stepped outside and went straight for the church, where Henry Dawson was preparing for the Wednesday night prayer meeting.
The preacher looked up. A flash of irritation at the intrusion vanished, and he smiled and held out his hand. Slocum shook it.
“You’ve come to join us tonight, Mr. Slocum? This is something of a surprise.”
“I just wanted a question answered.”
“Just one? Your life is blessed if there is only one. And it will be even more blessed if I can give you the answer.”
Before the preacher started on a sermon, Slocum cut him off.
“Where in Ohio did you marry your wife?”
Henry Dawson looked confused, then said, “You must mean where did Emily come from. She came from Ohio, but we met in Kansas City and were married there. Her people all died in a diphtheria epidemic, but by God’s mercy she escaped. She couldn’t bear to remain where so many of her family rested in graves, so she left Ohio. It was my good fortune that she had yet to travel on. She was on her way to New Orleans.”
“You know why?”
Henry Dawson smiled wanly.
“She thought it provided more opportunity for her, but I proved her wrong.”
“You came here from Kansas City?”
“Oh, no, we started a mission in Indian Territory but decided our true calling was farther west, so we moved on. When we reached Clabber Crossing, found it didn’t have a pastor, we knew we had found our destiny.”
“Thanks, Reverend,” Slocum said as he turned to leave. He knew that the town’s need for a minister was only part of the reason they had stayed there. They had run out of money to go any farther west.
“You can stay for my sermon. It’s going to be a rousing one about ...”
Slocum didn’t hear the rest. He plunged out into the twilight and went directly back to
Severigne’s. Her customers—the ones not intending to go to the prayer meeting—were already starting to file in. Then Slocum had a cynical thought that the men were coming early tonight so they could have a good tumble in the hay before they had to go hear the reverend’s sermon.
“There you are. What have you been doing? I have need of you already this night. Drunks! Pah! I would stop all sale of whiskey. It makes you men rowdy or rough. I am not sure which is worse.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“First, the drunk. Throw him the hell out!”
Slocum was burning with the need to ask Severigne a few questions but went into the parlor, where the drunk man had trapped Alice and held her in the corner so she couldn’t escape. She looked past the man and silently implored Slocum to do something. He ignored everyone else in the room, and Severigne had a goodly number tonight, grabbed the man by the collar, and lifted him up onto his toes.
Off-balance, the man staggered. Slocum steered him down the hall to the kitchen, where Severigne held open the screen door. Slocum never slowed his bum’s rush and the man hit the steps and fell heavily. Only then did he release his collar so he wouldn’t be pulled along after him. Hopping down to stand beside the man as he struggled to get up, Slocum grabbed his collar again and helped him along to the watering trough.
A tiny geyser exploded when Slocum shoved the man’s head under. He struggled, sputtered, and began blowing bubbles. When the bubbles stopped, Slocum yanked him up and let him fall to the ground.
“When you learn how to treat a lady, you can come back. Take my advice and do it sober.”
“Lady? Lady? She’s a whore. She ain’t no—”
Slocum held him under a trifle longer this time. When he released him, the man spit out half a lungful of water.
“Awright, I’ll go. Which way’s town?”
Slocum got him on the road into Clabber Crossing, where he’d either go back to drinking and probably brag about how good he was in bed or find himself another soiled dove. It didn’t matter to Slocum as long as he kept his business somewhere else and caused trouble a long ways away.
