Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  "You weren't this much of a bastard when you first came out here." Joe leaned against the wooden railing and crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at his employer. "Women must make you mean."

  "Women will make any man mean, given time. That's not what I called you up here for. Have you been keeping an eye out for strangers like I asked?"

  Joe gave him a look of disgust. "I may be a drunk, but I'm not blind. There ain't been anybody through here that you don't know about."

  "If that's the truth, then it's someone here who shot me." Sloan threw the cheroot stub into the muddy stream flowing beneath the gallery.

  "I can understand that. The men want those women to stay, and some of them might get nasty enough to take exception if you throw them out. That's just on top of the usual run of things. Ramsey hates your guts on general principles. The miners think you don't pay them their fair share. Graham is still sore 'cause you broke his head in that last fight. The list goes on, as if I had to tell you."

  "Guess you and Coyote are the only ones around here that haven't got a grievance against me. It's nice to be loved." Sloan propped his boots on the railing and didn't look in the least concerned. "But they've all hated me before and never taken shots at me. If the women are the only new arrivals, then it must be related to them."

  "You don't think one of them did it, do you?" Joe's usual taciturn expression faded almost to incredulity.

  "That redheaded witch might have if she'd known who I was; she might yet. But no, they didn't know anything about me then; I'd just about swear to that. How long have they been in town?"

  "They came in the evening before you got shot. We helped them unload, and they didn't once mention your name. Neither did anyone else that I know of."

  "Well, the redhead was out with a rifle first thing the next morning, but that doesn't mean anything. If she hadn't yelled, I wouldn't be here now."

  "I daresay she's regretting it." Joe glanced over his shoulder at the house across the plaza. "Don't see anybody preparing to move."

  "They can't stay here. You know that." Without saying more, Sloan swung his boots down and stood up. The topic was no longer under discussion.

  Making his way down the covered outside stairs overlooking the kitchen courtyard behind the hotel, Sloan spied a shadow of movement near the garden wall and halted. He had learned caution in his first days out here, and he had cultivated it with a passion ever since. Moving shadows where there should be none were meant for investigation.

  Figuring if he could see only shadows, they couldn't see him any better, he hurried down the stairs and into his office on the left. From there he strode through the hotel lobby, the smoking parlor, the dining room, and turned right into the corridor leading to the kitchen. Not that one could call it much of a kitchen. The last cook had heard about a mountain made of silver and went in search of it. The only cooking that got done here now was what Coyote did, and that didn't need a stove.

  Sloan refused to think about the steamy potatoes and tender meat he'd eaten at the Neelys the day before. He'd survived on roasted squirrels before. He didn't need good cooking now. If he did, he'd find a new cook. There were bound to be a few around 'Frisco the next time he went there.

  The movement he had seen had been just around the corner of the storage shed on the far side of the kitchen. Moving cautiously now, Sloan peered through the narrow apertures of the kitchen corridor and tried to see into the rain-drenched courtyard. He couldn't imagine anyone lingering for long in that downpour. Seeing nothing, he crossed to the kitchen door and listened carefully to the sounds from the other side.

  He could hear the noise of metal scraping against stone. Someone was definitely out there.

  Releasing his arm from the sling, Sloan pulled the knife from his boot with his good hand and held his gun in the other. He wouldn't let whoever was out to get him catch him napping this time.

  He kicked the door open and caught the shadow of movement long enough to pinpoint his target. With a grin of enjoyment, he flung the knife with enough strength and accuracy to nail his victim to the wall by the tail of his shirt.

  Jack screamed and held his hands up against the wall. "Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me. I didn't hurt nothin'. Honest!"

  Glancing down at the hole in the earthen floor that was rapidly filling with water, Sloan was of another opinion about that. He glared at the terrified twelve-year-old and pointed at the damage. "You call that nothing? What in hell did you think you were doing?"

  Jack snapped his mouth shut and didn't answer.

  Sloan stepped closer. "You'd better answer me, boy, or you'll go back to your mama with one ear missing." The fact that his knife was in the wall beside the boy didn't seem to detract from his threat. The boy turned refreshingly pale beneath his tan.

  "She ain't my mama. She's my aunt. And Sam will come and get you if you hurt me. Don't think she won't."

  "And don't think I won't be waiting for her." Aware that the scar at the side of his mouth gave him a rather menacing smile, Sloan smiled.

  Jack tore at the knife hilt in his eagerness to escape.

  Sloan slapped his boot on the shirttail, holding the boy to the wall as he jerked the knife from its resting place and palmed it. "Are you going to tell me what you were doing, or do you want to choose which ear you want to lose?"

  "Digging. Sir." Jack visibly gulped at the sight of the knife.

  "I can see that." Sloan kept his voice placid. The kid was likely to faint if he terrorized him anymore. "Why were you digging?"

  Rebellion flickered in the boy's eyes, but the knife's forward movement quenched it. "They said you have buckets of gold hidden in here. That spot was soft."

  Sloan almost chuckled. Almost. The boy had thought to become wealthy by digging in the easiest spot. That was typical of some of these dunderheads that came to make their fortunes in California. The boy was young yet. He would learn.

  "If I had buckets of gold I wouldn't keep them where every damn man in this town could get at them. Do I look like a fool, boy? There isn't any gold here. The only gold that's to be had in these parts is buried so deep in these mountains you'd have to turn them inside out to find it. That's why the gold-seekers have moved on." He took his foot down and released the boy. "Now fill that hole back up and pound it down good before the place washes away."

  "You've got a mine. I heard them say so." Free now, Jack was defiant once more.

  "It's a quicksilver mine. You'd better start listening a little more closely and not go off half-cocked. Now get busy." Sloan gestured at the shovel.

  Jack scowled, but did as told. He had little choice. Sloan stood right there until he'd finished.

  ***

  Every female in the house turned to stare as Jack ran into the house, soaked to the bone and covered with mud and late for lunch. His excuse was a solid one.

  "He pinned me to the wall with his knife! A great big nasty old one with a bone handle and everything. I bet there was even blood still on it!"

  "He did what?" Sam asked, scandalized. She had seen the knife in question. It did have a bone handle, but it was small enough to fit in a boot. Still, the man didn't have any cause to terrify a little boy like that, not to mention endangering his life if that knife had gone wrong.

  "What were you doing over there anyway?" she asked.

  Jack squirmed and reached for the heated towel Harriet handed him. His mutters were lost in the thickness of the cloth.

  Samantha grabbed his collar with one hand and the towel with the other. Separating them, she repeated, "What were you doing over there?"

  He gave Sam a defiant glance. "Looking for gold."

  With a look of disgust, she handed him the towel and started for the door. "I'll be back in a little while."

  "Samantha Neely, you can't go over there like that! I'm certain Mr. Talbott had his reasons," Alice called after her.

  Sure he did, Sam muttered to herself as she grabbed her rifle and pulled a weather slicker over her
head. He hated children as well as women. He probably hated everybody. Well, when she was through with him, he could hate all he wanted, but he would damned well leave all Neelys alone.

  The road was a funnel of mud running from the mountain. Sam glared at it as if it had been personally created to annoy her. Then taking a deep breath, she started across the plaza toward the hotel.

  She had reached the other side of the dead grass and weeds that represented the square and was about to plunge into the muddy street in front of the hotel and trading post when the lobby door opened and a man came flying across the porch, sliding on the wet stairs before landing on his bottom in the mud.

  "Get your horse and get out now!" A menacingly tall but familiar figure filled the doorway, hands on hips as he glared at his victim in the street.

  "I'll pay you as soon as I find that silver!" The figure in the mud propped himself up on his elbows and pleaded. "I've paid you before, haven't I?"

  "Donner, if you haven't got it through your head yet, you're not ever going to get it through your head. You got to make money before you spend it. Now get out of here and find a real job."

  Sloan was about to turn back into the lobby when a drenched figure in a loose slicker came out of the downpour to help Donner up and glare as if he were a demon straight from hell. He lingered just to hear the sound of her voice.

  "You can't throw a man out into the streets on a day like this. He could catch pneumonia. What kind of bas . . ." She amended her epithet hastily, "beast are you?"

  Sloan hooked his thumbs in his pockets. "It's likely to be snowing by nightfall. I was doing him a favor by throwing him out early."

  "It's not as if your damned hotel is full of paying customers," Donner said angrily, getting up and trying to brush off the mud. "It's not hurting you any to let me stay."

  "Just looking at your ugly face pains me," Sloan retorted. "You can be off the mountain by nightfall. Charm some silly woman down in the valley into taking you in."

  "I'm going to get you for this, Talbott." Shaking off Samantha's helping hand, he started for the stables.

  Up to her knees in mud with rain drenching every uncovered inch of her trousers, Sam caught the young man's arm. "If you can't find another place to stay, we've got a shed out back. There's no stove, but you can probably keep a fire going. It's dry, anyway."

  "Thank you, ma'am." There was nothing ugly about the young man, who lifted his hat and gave her a short bow. He had a wide brow and a nice smile as he acknowledged her offer. "It's good to know there's still some decency in this world." He turned and gave a final glare to Talbott before stalking off.

  Still warm and dry under the shelter of the overhanging gallery, Sloan leaned against the door frame and contemplated the drowned rat standing in the street. "Did you have more heartwarming words to say, Miss Neely?"

  "You enjoy being a bastard, don't you? You like terrorizing little children and kicking a man when he's down. You're enjoying watching me stand here in the pouring rain and mud while you're all warm and dry up there on the porch. A decent man would have invited me in to get dry by now. But you're not a decent man, are you?"

  The question was obviously rhetorical. Sloan watched cautiously as she marched up the steps, dripping a trail of wet and mud across the planks. "I'd be happy to help you take off your wet clothes," he murmured sympathetically.

  She was too angry to get any angrier at his suggestive phrase. Doffing her dripping slicker, Sam threw it in his face, slammed her heel behind his knees to throw him off balance, and shoved him in the direction of the street. Sloan grabbed a post before he could fall, but his sore shoulder protested the treatment. Before he could unwrap the slicker and grab for her, she shoved him from behind. This time, he went down.

  He didn't go down easily or very far, but he was using his hands to push himself out of the mud when Sam stepped daintily over him. "We'll discuss children and knives when you're in better shape, Mister Talbott," she murmured as she passed by.

  Sloan contemplated grabbing her ankle and giving a good jerk, but his shoulder wasn't going to allow that just yet. As he pushed himself up and watched her sassy rear end swing across the plaza, he had a good mind what he would do when he got the chance. And Miss Tennessee Samantha wasn't going to like it one little bit.

  Chapter Seven

  “The kid's staying over in their wagon shed. Ramsey gave him an old stove to keep warm, and he's sleeping in one of the wagon beds to stay off the ground. He's sitting there now, carving firewood into totem poles." Joe threw himself into one of the wooden rockers lining the second-story gallery, propped his boots on the railing, and glared contentedly at the mud wallow of the street. When he wasn't drunk, he preferred to look at the world through a glare.

  Sloan shifted his sore shoulder as he leaned against a post. "Totem poles?"

  The question was an idle one, and Injun Joe didn't dignify it with an answer. His employer's thoughts had obviously strayed elsewhere. Since the objects of his malevolence were even now scrubbing the mud off their wide front porch, he didn't have to wonder what Sloan was thinking. Joe sighed and admired the sight of a gingham bow wrapped directly over a delightfully rounded derriere bent in cheerful labor. It was like watching Christmas packages at work.

  And the man beside him wanted to get rid of them. Joe shook his head in disbelief. Employer or not, Sloan Talbott was purely demented.

  Without a word Sloan straightened and disappeared down the corridor toward his private quarters. When Joe saw him next, he was emerging from the saloon, wearing frock coat, tie, and ruffled shirt. Joe immediately counted the women on the porch across the street. Three. There were only three of them. And the one missing was the one who counted.

  Damn, he muttered to himself, glancing casually up and down the street—not that he could go warn the termagant even if he saw her, but somebody ought to.

  Across the street Sloan came to a halt before the eldest Neely. He should have addressed the mother from the beginning. He waited for her to stand up and acknowledge his presence before making his bows. She wiped her hands on her apron and regarded him thoughtfully as he did so.

  "Mr. Talbott." She nodded in recognition. "The weather has improved, hasn't it? Would you care for a cup of coffee?"

  "No, ma'am, this will take but a minute. I think there has been some misunderstanding on the part of you and your daughters, and I would like to correct it, if I might. As much as I appreciate the care you are taking of this property, the matter remains that it is mine and not yours. I believe under the circumstances that you would do better to continue on down the mountain for the winter. You could be in Sacramento in a day or two, or take a boat on to 'Frisco. Up here isn't any place for decent women."

  "Decent women make their own places, Mr. Talbott," she answered calmly. She turned to the twins, who now watched with varying degrees of concern and wariness. "Go on in and start the coffee brewing, girls. I promised Mr. Donner a bite of lunch before he sets out. You might check on the roast."

  When they were gone, she turned back to Talbott. "Mr. Donner is a charming young man, but I fear he is a bit of a dreamer. Someone needs to look after him."

  "He's a lazy no-account, and if you start housing all the layabouts in this town, you'll go broke feeding them. There's men a-plenty who will take advantage of any sign of weakness."

  "That may be your experience, Mr. Talbott, because you look through eyes blinded by bitterness. Try removing those blinders sometime. Mr. Donner is a very talented young man. He's just not a miner."

  Sloan was about to take objection to this assessment when he realized what the woman was doing. She was stalling. And he was letting her. Before his astonishment faded, he had already realized it was too late. Samantha strode onto the porch, rifle in hand.

  Sloan gave the woman in front of him a wry look. She'd sent the twins after their sister as surely as his name wasn't Talbott, but he'd been too blinded by his respect for a decent woman to recognize the ploy. He'd been
out of civilization too long if he'd forgotten the wiles of a woman. He deserved the comeuppance.

  "Well, Mr. Talbott, come to nail little boys to the wall again today? Or have you devised new and more inventive methods of amusing yourself? Perhaps you'd like to scalp the twins or shove my mother into the street?"

  Strangling was the pleasure he had in mind, Sloan decided as he turned to face this attack. He wanted his hands around that long, slender neck. He wanted to watch that mop of red hair tumble around her face when he shook her senseless. His glance fell to her open-necked white shirt, and he felt his mouth dry. He could see a hint of lace behind the linen, and his mind immediately drew an image of firm breasts pushing unfettered at that scrap of lace. He almost swallowed his tongue before he recovered his senses.

  He returned his gaze to her face and reminded himself of Joe's words that she was plain. She had freckles. Her mouth was too wide for her face. But her lips were moist and rosy . . .

  "I've given you and your mother ample warning, Miss Neely." He forced his voice to its most formidable, refusing to take up her sassy challenge. He'd terrorized men twice her size. It was time he applied his full strength instead of pussyfooting around. "If your wagons aren't loaded and ready to go by tomorrow morning, I'll have my men over here loading them for you. I want you out of here."

  Samantha didn't cock the rifle; she merely moved it into a more threatening position. "Good luck, Mr. Talbott. No doubt you'll be able to find a few men willing to take money to throw us out, but you'll have to do it over the bodies of everyone else in town. I hate to see it come to a shoot-out, but I'll do whatever it takes to protect what's ours. This house is ours."

  "It damn well is not!" He was losing his temper. He knew better than to lose his temper. Sloan took a deep breath and tried to find a reasonable solution. Hell, he didn't want to shoot at women. He hated women, distrusted them thoroughly, but he recognized their physical helplessness. Unfortunately, this redheaded brat didn't. She thought she was his equal.

  "It damn well is too!" she yelled at him.