Dance Hall Road

by Dorothy A. Bell

  “They loaded the body into the back of the wagon next to me. His blood got on me…on my toes.”

  Swallowing hard, Petra held her breath, scraping her lower lip to the side with her teeth.

  Buck didn’t know what to do. He wanted to hold her, tell her she didn’t have to remember anything else, tell her she could forget everything. But it would have been a lie.

  Bravely, she kept talking. “The next day, Beau read the paper out loud to me. The papers reported it, the body found behind the Blue Bucket Saloon. Beau and Kurt, they laughed about it, bragged about it in front of me. One of the saloon girls had found the kid’s body. The paper said the kid had only been in town a few months, and no one knew much about him. No one had seen or heard anything and there were no witnesses. Except me, but I was no longer alive, not really.”

  She heaved a heavy sigh and looked down to the hand he held and put her hand over the top. When she lifted her gaze to meet his, Buck could hardly stand it. He could see it there in her eyes, all the horror, all the desperation, raw and unsheathed.

  With trembling lips, she whimpered as a tear rolled down her cheek. “The poor coolies. They were prisoners like me. They worked hard and took beatings and abuse—expendable, like me. I guess they’d simply outlived their usefulness. Kurt had no problem taking care of them; it only took a little rat poison in their food. No one missed them or questioned their disappearance.”

  “You actually saw Kurt and Beau poison the coolies? How many?”

  She straightened her shoulders and rocked her head from side to side.

  “There were three of them. They had rice at every meal. Kurt fried up some fresh trout for’em. They were very grateful and ate hearty. I saw the smile on Kurt’s face as he seasoned the fish with the rat poison. He winked at me. I didn’t eat anything Kurt gave me for three days afterward. Then I ate, and hoped and prayed he’d poison me too. I wanted to die so badly.”

  Buck scraped his chair back. He couldn’t stand to sit still one more second and started to pace the room.

  “You, and Gabriel, you’re both lucky to be alive.”

  Kneeling down beside her chair, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head against her side.

  “Yes,” she said, as her hand stroked his jaw, “I know.”

  Turning his head up to her face, he held her trusting gaze with his eyes. “You have to tell the sheriff everything. You’ll have to testify. I’ll be right beside you all the way. I won’t let anything happen to you. You have to, Petra. You have to do this. Is there anyone else who might back up your story?”

  “I don’t think so. After I overheard them in the study, they wouldn’t allow me to speak to anyone. And I don’t think anyone saw what was happening to me. The housekeeper doesn’t know anything, not really, she’s just guessing. She’s a very sweet lady. No, no one saw me. They hid me away—out of sight—coming and going to the mine. The Laski brothers can be very wily when they put their evil minds to it.

  “Matt, will you hold me for a while? Will you come to bed with me, and just hold me?”

  Scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to the bed, Buck slid in beside her and pulled the quilt up over the both of them. They lay there, both of them staring out the window.

  “We’ll leave first thing in the morning. We should get to Baker City in a day, easy.”

  With her back to him, her butt pressing into his hips, she cried out, saying, “Oh, God.”

  He almost gave in. He almost changed his mind. They could pack up this afternoon and light out, head for Canada like he’d always planned.

  “The moment the shot missed your head I knew there was a reason why. I knew it,” he said, sorry he’d said anything.

  “What? What did you say?”

  Damn, she’d heard.

  “Nothing, nothing, just thinking back to when I found you up there by the boulder. At the time, I didn’t understand why me.”

  She relaxed in his arms, and Buck closed his eyes, vowing never to tell her how close she’d come to dying that afternoon, not from the elements or starvation, but by his hand.

  Unable to hold back, he turned her around to face him, he needed to look into her eyes, he needed to kiss her, savor the taste of her, feel her in his arms.

  This was a dream, a lovely dream. He had to hang on to it, never let it go. The kiss, all he intended, was all he needed. That is, until she began to unbutton his shirt, her hand slipping inside, her fingers warm, moving across his chest. Silently they looked deep into each other’s eyes, and he knew what she was asking. A slow dance began. A slow dance of caresses, kisses and sighs. Led by instinct, their bodies in rhythm, they satisfied their need to touch, to feel, to taste, and to hell with tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bundled up in Matt’s mackinaw, wool cap, mittens and scarf, Petra adjusted the fur robe over herself and Gabriel. Behind her, Matt settled a weak and grumbling Mr. Cummings into the bed of the wagon.

  “Layin’ back here like a damn corpse—I’m gonna get shaken so bad my teeth are gonna fall out. I ain’t dead. I’m sick. Not even sick no more, just kind’a puny is all.”

  Buck finished tying off Ike and Smiley’s two cobs to the back of the wagon. “Shut the hell up, you old fool, or I’ll leave you here to fend for yourself. You’re in no shape to sit up, let alone sit up on a wagon seat.”

  Matt climbed up beside her. “Gabriel and I would be fine back there.”

  He scowled at her and took up the reins. “Smiley’s better this morning, but I’d have to tie him to the seat to keep him from falling off. He’s lost all his starch. Besides, I’d rather have you sitting next to me to keep me warm than that stinky old bag-a-bones.”

  He flicked the reins and set the team in motion.

  Smiley reared up. “Where you goin’? The main road’s north.”

  Buck didn’t even give the man a glance. “We’ll take the canyon, it’s shorter. No sense traveling two miles in the wrong direction just to get on the main road.”

  “Good Christ-a-mighty, you’re gonna liquefy my innards.”

  Hunkering down into the quilt Buck had laid over him, Mr. Cumming’s warm breath formed a halo over his head.

  Beside her, Matt heartlessly chuckled. He winked at her and grinned. With a sharp flick of the reins, he urged his team of well-muscled mules forward, to head southwest, following the rough track circumventing the hot spring and winding up through the canyon.

  The coming dawn revealed a clear, blue winter sky. The moon, still up, gave escort to a bright star sailing over the jagged, snow-covered Blue Mountains to the west.

  Their route hadn’t been uppermost in her mind at all. But now, with the realization they would be returning to the canyon, a feeling of shame washed over her. This entire enterprise had her feeling edgy and sick.

  Nothing good could possibly come of it. The thought of testifying, confronting Beau in a courtroom, had Petra in a state of quivering panic, much as one might feel in anticipation of being tossed into the throat of an erupting volcano.

  She’d had very little sleep, and this morning, with the prospect of a long, grueling, miserable day of travel ahead of her, she had to clamp her lips shut to stop herself from complaining. Matt, she knew, would do everything he could to see to it she and Gabriel were comfortable.

  By early light, they passed the hot spring, the vapor from the pool rising up, hovering over the water and the frosted vegetation. She thought it a magical place. She doubted she’d ever get the chance to bathe in the lovely pool beneath the shed. She’d like to bathe there with Matt, but her opportunity had passed. She didn’t think she would be returning.

  Once Matt got her back into town, he’d find a way to leave her there. He didn’t need her, didn’t need a woman with a baby. Nothing would be the same—she wouldn’t be the same. This thing she had to do, she knew it would change her, change the way Matt looked at her. How could it not?

  Matt called out to his team as they headed up int
o the canyon and expertly kept the wagon wheels out of the ruts to avoid the oversized boulders. The rough trail had Petra hanging on to the back of the seat, while keeping one arm around her son, snug within the leather sling against her breast.

  Looking up the sides of the canyon, she wouldn’t have thought she would ever forget the place where she’d given birth to her son, but in truth all the boulders looked alike. Looking over her shoulder, she watched as the lush, frosty green oasis surrounding the hot spring slipped farther and farther away.

  With her head turned over her shoulder, the hot spring, the house, barns and corrals faded to blend with the dust and sage. Soon it all appeared as nothing more than a mirage, the buildings no more than figments of her imagination. A sweeping sense of sorrow threatened to flood her heart with loss and regret.

  Mr. Hoyt’s home was a stark and Spartan place, to be sure, but she’d come to think of it as hers—and Gabriel’s. She’d felt she belonged there—it could have been home. But it wasn’t. She couldn’t live under a roof where women sold their bodies to men. It would be wrong to raise her son there. And yet, Matt would be there. She loved him—truly loved him. When she turned back around, her eyes moist with tears, she scanned the canyon walls.

  Beside her, Matt tensed, sat up straighter, his eyes looking ahead, shoulders set. He hollered out to the mules, and flicked the reins. But he hadn’t distracted her, she’d seen it—the boulder—far up on the left. How she had ever reached it, Petra couldn’t recall. Up there she’d come close to death. She’d smelled it, tasted it, and by the grace of God, lived to see another day, thanks to the man beside her.

  “How did you know I was up there?”

  He growled, then cleared his throat, his eyes riveted to the trail ahead.

  “Your screamin’ spooked my horses. I thought you were a big cat.”

  She couldn’t drag her eyes away from the place where she’d cheated death.

  “I couldn’t hear a thing. I remember sensing death, the grim reaper. I felt his presence, felt him looking over my shoulder. I even thought I could smell him—smell Hell and brimstone. I knew I would go straight to Hell. I’d been living in purgatory, still breathing. In death I would go down into the bowels of the Earth.”

  She shuddered and swallowed hard to keep from throwing up.

  With his face concealed beneath the brim of his hat, Matt had his eyes focused between the ears of his mules, his jaw clenched. His lips worked, but he didn’t make a sound.

  They continued up and out of the canyon, coming out onto a wide, rolling prairie. The sun rose up, providing plentiful light but little warmth. They stopped twice to allow the team to rest. Petra nursed Gabriel and tried to eat. Matt helped Mr. Cummings out of the wagon, giving him a chance to stand for a few moments to stretch his legs and take a few sips of water and a couple bites of food.

  Under cover of darkness, they entered Baker city. Matt ordered her to pull the blanket up around her head to shield her face and disguise her sex and age.

  He also threatened Mr. Cummings with his fist to stay quiet and out of sight. They kept to the back streets, Matt pulling up the wagon before a small clapboard house at the west edge of town. When the wagon stopped, the faint sounds of a tinny tinkling piano wafted down the street, coming from the saloon on the Main Street a block away.

  “Stay here.” He handed off the reins to her then swung down from the wagon without further explanation. She watched him go through the yard gate before the house, walk up to the door, and slap the door with the palm of his gloved hand—the muffled sound made her think he didn’t want to call attention to his arrival.

  A woman answered the summons, one hand on the door and one hand clasping her dressing gown tightly to her breast.

  Matt nodded, took off his hat and said something. The lady pushed him back a step, her dressing gown set free to flutter in the breeze. Petra heard Matt swear, then heard him chuckle.

  Drawing herself up, ears and eyes alert, jealousy sent Petra’s pulse to pounding. The woman appeared small, blonde and pretty—three things Petra had always wanted to be. The woman and Matt stood there, deep in muted conversation within a beam of golden light, their voices low and murmuring, their conversation indiscernible.

  In a few moments, he turned, marched back to the wagon, muttering to himself, and reached over the edge of the bed of the wagon for Gabriel’s cradle and their meager belongings, then reached up to help her down.

  “You and Gabriel can stay here with Doreen…Mrs. Brown.”

  Taking his hand, Petra climbed down off the wagon, her legs wobbling, bones replaced with custard. Matt had her by the elbow. She tried to see his face, but he didn’t give her time.

  “You’re not staying with us?”

  He didn’t even bother to shake his head. “Smiley and I’ll stay in his shack in back of the stable. I want you to stay out of sight.”

  He opened the gate for her and guided her firmly ahead, his hand between her shoulder blades, down the narrow gravel path to the front door of the house.

  “Doreen’s a good woman. She’ll take good care of you. I told her to buy you some clothes, and the baby, too.”

  He hustled her toward the door, giving Petra little opportunity to protest or even think. Mrs. Brown opened the door wide, and Petra finally had a clear view of the woman. She was small, fine boned, her face white with powder, cheeks pink with rouge, lips red with paint, brown eyes outlined in black pencil. Her hair was a strange shade of yellow—actually, almost pink—no—more the color of the meat of a ripe peach.

  Matt set Gabriel’s duffle on the floor and started the introductions. “Doreen Brown, this is Petra Yurvasi, and under her coat you’ll find her son, Master Gabriel. He’s slept most of the day, so I expect he’ll try to keep you up most of the night playing peek-a-boo.”

  Mrs. Brown waved his foolishness off, and Petra’s tired gaze locked in on Mrs. Brown’s lacquered, blood red fingernails.

  “Let me help you out of your coat.”

  Not bothering to give Petra a chance to resist, Mrs. Brown folded back the oversized Mackinaw and peeked into the folds of the sling. “I want a look at this little fella.”

  Mrs. Brown’s pretty brown eyes lifted to gaze into Petra’s face. “What a handsome boy you have. You look frozen stiff, tired, and I bet you’re near starved. I know how Buck travels. He travels light and with few vittles other than hardtack and jerky.”

  Mute, Petra took in her surroundings and found the room had a homey, cozy appearance, with deep cushioned chairs draped with scarves and doilies, braided rugs on the plain wooden floors, and chintz curtains at the windows. A fire blazed in the fireplace at the other end of the room, and a small spinet sat against an inside wall.

  So charming did Petra find the room, it took her a second or two before she became aware Mrs. Brown and Matt were discussing food.

  “It just so happens I was about to sit down to my supper. I made a big kettle of chicken and dumplings. I always make way too much, it’s about the only dish I know how to make. Buck, I know you don’t eat nobody’s cooking but your own, but if you’re hungry, you and Smiley could take a bit of my dinner with you?”

  Matt adjusted his hat on his head and nodded. “I’ve given up on my cookin’, broadened my horizons,” he said and nodded in Petra’s direction. “So if it isn’t too much trouble, Doreen, we’d be grateful.”

  At this point, it occurred to Petra that Matt had relayed more of his plans to Mrs. Brown than he had to her, which reignited the jealousy within her bosom. And, she surmised Matt and Mrs. Brown were very old and intimate friends.

  Her wits were a bit numb with fatigue, but Petra wasn’t so lost she didn’t recognize Mrs. Brown for one of his whores. And if he thought he could drop her off like a bag of dirty laundry, leave her in this woman’s care, then Mr. Hoyt had another thing coming.

  The gall of the man, the impudence—the shame.

  Petra wanted to complain, but couldn’t muster the strength. Beneath
all of her indignation, there lurked the notion that perhaps she deserved his disregard, the way she’d bought Kurt Laski with her money and her body and thrust herself on this man—why should he respect her?

  Mrs. Brown swirled about to trot off to her kitchen, her green satin dressing gown flaring open like the petals of a rose to reveal white satin pantaloons and chemise, leaving Petra feeling at once envious, shocked and appalled.

  Preparing to at last give protest, she drew herself up and pulled in her chin. “Matt, Mr. Hoyt, I’d rather not stay here, if you don’t mind. There’s a perfectly respectable hotel in town. If not the hotel, then the boarding house. As for that, I’m sure Gabriel and I would be fine staying with you and Mr. Cummings in his shack.”

  She remained stiff when he gathered her into his arms. He held her there for several seconds. With the solid, steady beat of his heart to calm her, Petra relaxed, her cheek against his strong chest.

  He gave her a little shake and put his finger beneath her chin to bring her gaze up to meet his.

  “Now listen to me and believe what I say.”

  His voice, deep and rumbling, soothed her frayed nerves as nothing else could, and she sagged in surrender.

  “I’d rather have you with me. I don’t like this one bit, but I want to keep your presence in town under wraps. I need to be free to move about without causing suspicion while I do a little probing, ask a few questions, and with any luck, get some answers. I don’t want to take any chances, Petra. I have to keep you safe. I promised I’d keep you safe, and I mean to do it.

  “Beau is desperate, you know. I’m going to quarantine Smiley in his shack to keep him from blabbing what he knows all over town. And Doreen is going to guard you and Gabriel. You are not to show your face outside this house until I say so. You’ll see, you and Doreen are gonna do fine together.”