by Pamela Morsi
When Calhoun was angry, when he felt the world out of his control, it was sex that he wanted, rough, fast, and aggressive sex. Queenie knew that mood well and she knew the blend of wantonness and passivity that suited him perfectly.
It had taken him the better part of an hour to work off his passion. Spent and exhausted, he'd apologized.
"Sorry, Queenie," he'd whispered as he rolled off of her and then pulled her into his arms. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow, darlin'."
In truth, though she preferred him gentle and tender with her, she was as satisfied as he was by an occasional wildness. And she knew this morning that he would be especially sweet and conciliatory.
"What time is it?" he groaned beside her.
"Still early," she answered. "Frenchie's got a customer, that's what woke us."
"Good Lord, does that woman never stop?"
"Let's hope not," Queenie answered. "She's a gold mine."
King chuckled and pulled her closer. "You okay this morning, Queenie? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"I think I'm all right," she told him thoughtfully. Then she drew his hand down to the juncture of her thighs. "But maybe you ought to inspect me for damage."
He snorted with humor and did as she had bid him, his touch more caressing than clinical.
"Everything seems right and tight, darlin'," he said.
He kissed her then, slowly, leisurely. She loved his kisses. A lot of men never bothered to kiss a whore. King Calhoun seemed to want to taste her mouth as frequently as the rest of her.
The sweet, loving kisses and the caress of his hand continued pleasurably for several minutes. She reached between their bodies to stroke him and found him still flaccid.
He sighed and pulled away from her.
"You want to talk about it?" she asked.
He leaned up on one elbow and look down at her.
"Bankers! Damn all bankers!" he said, as he angled her a little differently and shook his head. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
Queenie nodded, her eyes full of concern. "You still haven't been able to find any financing." she said.
King sighed heavily. "We're drilling and it looks good, Queenie. It looks dang good. There's oil aplenty trapped in that salt dome and I can get it out of there. But what in the devil am I going to do with it? Build a hundred miles of pipeline? I've got to have a refinery. And I've got to have one here."
Queenie nodded sympathetically. She'd been a confidant of King Calhoun's aspirations and dreams for years.
"The dang bankers. They want their safe investments. Farmers, merchants. Oil's just pie in the sky to them. Or maybe a dream in the ground. I introduced that Kansas City fellow all around the party last night. He was laughing and joking and eating my food and drinking my beer. Then he says right to my face that he thinks I'm 'too risky.'"
Queenie rubbed his face comfortingly. "I'm so sorry. I bet you wished you could rearrange his teeth."
"I just kept on smiling," he admitted. "But honestly, I could have happily stomped him to a greasy spot."
"It's so hard to figure. They are all willing to let you put your money in their bank, but it's tough as nails to get them to loan you some out."
King nodded. "They'll take money from the devil himself, they just have preferences about where they lend it out," he said. "The oil business is new, it's speculative. And the truth of the matter is, the people making money in the oil business are not the fellows these bankers are used to dealing with."
She nodded sympathetically and began rubbing the thick tufts of hair on his chest.
"It takes money to make money," he continued. "And the folks that have got money are not so willing to take a chance on somebody who's not one of their own."
"But you've made millions of dollars, they should know that they can trust you."
"They don't trust anyone like us, darlin'," he said. "You know that firsthand, Queenie. When you started your own business would one of them puffed up, down-their-nose-at-you yahoos, would one of them have loaned you the money?"
She shook her head. "If I'd have asked, they'd have thrown me out of their fancy office on my backside," she said. "If you hadn't helped me, I'd probably still be setting up sweethearts in a camp tent."
King waved away her gratitude. "You're a good businesswoman, Queenie. Backing you was the best investment I ever made. You've made a damn fine return on a small stake. Most of these banker fellows couldn't hold a candle to you."
She snuggled up against him and closed her eyes, breathing in the scent that was him. She wanted to remember it always. For Queenie, loving King Calhoun was a complicated and dangerous avocation. They'd never spoken of love, nor a word of commitment. It was there. It was there between them. But Queenie was certain that if something happened, if something tipped their fragile little boat to the left or right, they'd be swamped in minutes. And he would be gone. He would be long gone without even a good-bye.
"It's not fair," she whispered, thinking about both him and herself. "It's really not fair."
"Darlin', if anybody told you that life was fair, they was just plain lying."
She huffed with appreciation and agreement. Nothing in her life so far had seemed very fair. She'd had more than her share of troubles, sorrows, and sadness. Now she'd finally found success and had a man that she loved. She didn't want that or him to go away.
"Can I help?" she asked him. "I've got a pretty good nest egg laid by. I wouldn't be averse to investing it in the oil business."
He sat up a little and looked at her for a long minute before planting a kiss on the end of her nose.
"Queenie, refineries are big money. We could sell down to the shirt of every man in this town and it wouldn't be enough. If I don't get a bank to back me, I'm going to lose my shirt. There is not a soul in this world that I'd tell that to but you," he said. "I don't want to lose my shirt, but if you lose yours too ..." He shook his head disagreeably and with the end of his finger gently flicked her nipple. "Well, darlin', let's just say I don't want the whole town to see you with your tits bare."
She smiled, accepting his judgement but remaining serious enough to add her own admonition.
"If you lose it, at least promise me that you'll look this direction for a new stake," she said.
"I can't promise nothing, darlin', but I'll keep it in mind," he agreed. "Right now, I just got to come up with a new banker and a new approach. We've got to find somebody to get us some cash."
"Where you going to start looking?"
"I thought I'd take a trip up to Saint Louis," he told her.
"Do you know somebody there?"
"Darlin', I done asked everybody I know and most that I know of," he said. "The crazy thing is, I know that the oil is there. But as far as we are from a refinery, it might as well be tomato juice. I can't build a refinery without capital. They got some up there in Saint Louis and I'm going to try to get it."
"When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow, I suspect, or rather today, I guess. It is today already. I need to get up to the well this morning and make sure things are set up and under control while I'm gone. Then I'll catch the evening train. I'll be in Saint Louis in time for a steak-and-egg breakfast."
His words had a totally unexpected effect on Queenie. As the vision of steak and eggs flashed before her eyes, her stomach rumbled violently. With frantic haste she rolled out of bed and onto her feet.
"Queenie?"
All around her the world seemed to spin. Wave after wave of nausea coursed through her. Cold sweat popped out all over her skin. She dropped to her knees and barely managed to grab the chamber pot from beneath the bed before she vomited.
"Queenie? Queenie, are you all right?"
He was at her side immediately, solicitous.
"It must be something I ate," she said.
Naked, he hurried to the water basin where he dampened a towel and brought it to her.
"I heard there was an influenza spreading through the ca
mp at Gladys City," he said.
Gratefully she pressed the cool towel against her brow. "I haven't heard a thing about that here," she told him.
"Still, maybe I shouldn't go off to Saint Louis," King suggested.
Queenie's eyes widened and she looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
"You have to go, King," she told him incredulously. "I'll be fine. Frenchie and the girls are here, and you know that I can take care of myself."
His brow furrowed, worried. "Even those who can take care of themselves sometimes need people to take care of them."
* * *
Although the annoyingly constant rhythm of drilling oil had kept Tom awake most of the night, he was up early the next morning, but not by his own choice. The oil camp "bunkhouse" where he was staying went by the auspicious name clean cheap beds. All three words were an exaggeration. One long room was crowded with fifteen less-than-pristine cots crammed up against each other. To get out of bed, each man had to crawl to the end of his bunk and over the footrail. There was plenty of bumping, toe stubbing, and general mayhem as the morning shift prepared for work. After they'd finally left, Tom signed with relief and snuggled down into the thin, straw-stuffed mattress that he'd rented for a dollar a day, only to shortly discover that most of the fellows in the bunkhouse were doubled up. They shared the rent on their cot with a fellow that worked nights. When the second round of noise and activity began, Tom simply gave up and roused himself out for the morning.
The day was bright and as warm as expected in Oklahoma in early July. With the morning tour already on the job and the evening one eager to take their rest, the camp was quiet and peaceful. A feeling of familiarity that was almost nostalgic welled up inside of him. He had grown up not very far from this place. The Methodist Indian Home was only a half day's walk away. The sky and clouds and the scent on the air around him were all as well known to him as his face in the mirror. He could go there. He could see Reverend McAfee again.
"It's all pride and it will be your downfall," he could almost hear the good man warning him. "Want less and work harder, that will better your life, young Tom."
Tom shook his head thoughtfully and sniffed in disagreement. He'd tried Reverend McAfee's way. He had tried working harder, he had tried wanting less. But he'd seen too much to be satisfied; he'd learned too much to be content.
The Methodist Indian Home—warm and sweet and happy as those memories were for him—could not bring him his heart's desire. He pushed those thoughts aside. The life he had been trained for there was not at all the life that he wanted.
He had joined up with the Rough Riders at age seventeen. That, at least, was not a lie. He had been with Roosevelt in Cuba, but was no great friend of his. He was just a wild boy who could ride and shoot.
Colonel Teddy had a natural curiosity about him, about all of the Indians and part-breeds. They made up a significant number of the regiment and Roosevelt treated them as if they were strange, exotic animals that he was being allowed to observe in unnatural surroundings.
But Tom had been equally curious about Colonel Teddy and his friends. They were college men, athletes mostly, bent on living the manly life and having a grand time. At first they appeared as unnecessary as the two-headed calf at the traveling show. Later Tom had learned to appreciate them in many ways. And to envy them in many others.
Tom watched and listened and soon began to mimic "the cravats," the elegant eastern dudes who spurned the cotton neckerchiefs of the regiment for the same item made of silk. In the hot, tired aching boredom of military life, cravat watching quickly became a source of entertainment. Tom imitated the way they talked and walked and what they said. He did it as an amusement for the other fellows and could have a whole company of cowboy troopers clutching their sides and rolling on the ground with laughter.
Ultimately the inevitable happened. Ambrose Dexter, who answered to the nickname of Ambidextrous, had caught him in the act. Surprisingly there were no hard feelings. The fine eastern gentleman actually thought it great fun and suggested that Tom quit the army and take up the stage.
Ambi began to help him with what they all jokingly referred to as "Tom's vaudeville act." He taught him the things to say, the way to behave, the niceties of fine manners, and brought him to the attention of the other young men of his circle.
The character, life, and antecedents of Gerald Tarkington Crane came out of a barrel of Mexican beer that Ambi had confiscated for a night's encampment. They concocted the whole story. The man, his past, his family business, and his reasons for being in the U.S.V. It was just an hilarious way to pass the time.
Within a week, they were putting Gerald to the test. Since Colonel Teddy's friends were always welcome guests at parties and soirees, Ambi and the cravats took him along. They let him rub shoulders with the finest people in south Texas. It became sort of a game among them, laughing at the joke they played on the unfortunate locals who were unable to tell the difference between a real gentleman and a pretend one.
It was at that time that Tom had discovered the power Gerald had with women. Thanks to Reverend McAfee's diligence, Tom had been untutored in the ways of the feminine sex when he'd arrived in San Antone. He had, upon his first liberty, gone looking for female companionship. The women with painted lips standing around in saloons seemed to find him attractive enough. But the fine, fresh-faced ladies on the avenues looked through him as if he were invisible, and the pretty girls in their charge were as unapproachable as princesses.
"Princesses." He said the word aloud.
Amazingly, he'd learned that when he allowed "Gerald" to do the talking, both the girls and their mothers came after him almost panting.
Ladies, he discovered, much preferred the attentions of the very wealthy and sophisticated young man from Yale, rather than the ordinary attentions of Tom Walker, partbreed orphan.
As he slicked back his wet, black hair from his well-scrubbed face, he ruminated upon Miss Calhoun, who would undoubtedly feel the same.
This morning his uniform was safely stowed once more in his grip. He checked his belongings, not trusting any of his roommates further than he could see them. It was all there. Everything he owned. Two worn shirts, frayed at both collar and cuffs. A pair of blue denim overalls, the clothing typical of the working man, that he immediately put on over his underwear. There was a fairly presentable pair of black leather shoes, a deck of playing cards, and a paper of Doctor Joe's Miraculous Headache Powders. He got out his shaving gear, a bone-handled brush, a bent tin mug, a cake of shaving soap, and a hollow point razor. At the bottom of the traveling bag he spotted the slim, mother-of-pearl box that Ambrose had given him jokingly as a gift. It contained his business cards.
He checked the inside bib pocket of his overalls that was unobtrusively pinned shut. The ten dollar greenback was still there. Along with the forty-three cents he already had, it wasn't much of a stake. He needed clothes. His overalls were showing some wear and couldn't be expected to last much longer. But if he really intended to pursue Cessy Calhoun he'd need finer clothes than these. The ten dollars he'd made at the picnic could go as an investment in Gerald's pursuit. Or he could use it to tide him over until he managed to get another job.
He was thoughtful.
In his arms last night, she had been eager, willing. It would be almost too easy to seduce her. Then he could offer to do right by her and marry. It seemed like a reasonable plan.
"It will never work," he said aloud.
But it was the best idea he'd had. In the eight years since being mustered out he'd tramped around from one end of the country to the other. First he'd followed Ambi home. Tom had still been recovering from his wound and Ambi wanted his family to care for him. He'd liked Bedlington, he'd settled in nicely to the world there. Only to discover that among the wealthy an Army comrade, even one who had saved your life, was not truly fit company for your friends and neighbors. All he could reasonably be offered was a cast-off bit of condescendin
g charity. Hurt and angry, he'd stormed out of Ambi's handsome, twelve-room cottage, never to return. Determined to make his way on his own.
He'd tried his hand at ranching and railroading. He'd sold pitcher pumps, tended poultry, and played poker. He'd seen the outside of the society life and the inside of the San Saba County Jail. There were only four ways to get the kind of money Tom wanted. He could beg it, borrow it, steal it, or he could marry it. Of all his schemes and dreams, Tom was sure that marrying for money was the quickest and maybe the most honorable way of becoming rich that he'd ever thought up.
He grabbed up his gear and began heading down the road. He'd rarely given a thought in his life to taking a wife. He was still young, he reminded himself. And life was often long. Binding himself to a woman, for better or worse, was not for the unrooted and unemployed. A man made a commitment to care and provide, not just to the bride, but to the inevitable children that followed. Tom had never thought himself settled enough for such responsibility. But what if the woman didn't need providing for? What if she could do the providing? Then all he'd be vowing to do would be love, honor, and cherish. That didn't seem like too big a price to pay.
He could love Cessy Calhoun, after a fashion. And as for honor and cherish, that wouldn't be much of a stretch. Who wouldn't honor a woman worth a million dollars? Her bank account was something any fellow would cherish.
"It will never work," he reminded himself once more. It just couldn't be as easy as it now seemed. Nothing ever was.
A wagoner passed him with a great load of pipe piled high. Tom hailed him.
"You need a lift, fella?" the driver asked, pulling up.
"Thanks," Tom answered, hurrying to find a seat on the top of the pipe stack.
"Where ye headed?"
There was only a moment's hesitation before Tom answered. "P. Calhoun Number One," he said.
