Deep Purple

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Elizabeth rested her head in one hand, shielding her eyes. "How far has this . . . this . . . gone?”

  Her voice was so low that Jessie was not sure she understood the question. Brig asked, “What exactly do you mean?”

  Elizabeth removed her hand. The gray eyes were like marbles, Jessie thought. “I mean, exactly, has this affair been consummated?”

  Brig shot to his feet. “I don’t like the word ‘affair,’ Grandmother. And I don’t think it’s any of your—”

  The old woman's eyes glistened as if she were about to cry. It startled Jessie. “Dear God, I wish it weren't my business. But it is—more than you both realize.”

  Brig glanced at Jessie with a puzzled frown before switching his gaze back to the grandmother. “What are you talking about?”

  Elizabeth looked at Jessie. Sadness seemed to droop the corners of her mouth and etch deeper furrows in her brow. “You, Jessica, are my son’s illegitimate daughter. Sherrod told me as much before he died.”

  Jessie rose slowly to her feet, propelled by the fury boiling in her like a volcano about to erupt. “I don’t believe you!” She almost strangled on the words.

  Elizabeth sighed and looked down at her folded hands. “I’m sorry, but what I’m telling you is the truth. Brigham, Sherrod knew the truth would kill your grandfather, so he had to let society accept Catherine Howard’s version of Jessica’s conception.”

  Elizabeth looked up to meet her grandson’s wild-eyed glare. "You two are brother and sister, Brigham. And if you go through with this, you’ll be committing the unholy act of incest.”

  “No!” Brig roared. "No!” His fist swept out in a wild arc, striking at anything to refute her statement, and happened to hit the lampstand. The crystal globe crashed to the floor. Sudden darkness filled the parlor. A loud silence followed, broken by Brig’s anguished bellow. “You had to win, didn’t you, Grandmother?”

  Jessie stretched out her hand in the dark, groping for Brig, and found his arm. “Brig,” she frantically pleaded, “don’t listen to her! Don’t you see, she’s trying to separate us. She’s a lying evil old woman! I know. I overheard your father and her arguing the day he brought me here. I remember him saying I was Lorenzo Davalos’s child and deserved to live here as much as you or Abigail!”

  A scratching sound pierced the darkness, and lights flared again as Elizabeth settled the globe back on its stand. The light shone up into her wrinkled face, casting demonic shadows. “My poor grandson,” she said, sorrow weighting her voice. "Don’t you realize that Jessica will tell you anything to gain back what she thinks belongs to her?”

  “Don't believe her!” Jessie cried out.

  Brig slowly withdrew her hand from his arm. "Don’t you see, Jessie, every time we kissed . . . every time we made love . . . we would be doing so beneath the weight of a horrible sin. We’d never know,” his voice cracked, "and we’d never find happiness.”

  Incredulously Jessie watched him swerve away and make for the doorway, heard the slam of the front door. Elizabeth said, "He’ll get over this infatuation.” As did my husband with the Davalos woman, she added bitterly. “So will you, Jessica. For Brig’s sake . . . if you love him . . . leave.”

  Jessie was shaking. A deep, red-hot anger seethed in her, bubbling, boiling. She did not know anger could be tangible. But it was there inside her . . . a living thing. As tangible as her blood or bones. Her voice came in a tight, harsh, almost inaudible whisper. “You haven’t won yet, Elizabeth Godwin. No matter what Brig said!”

  At that moment Jessie knew she was strong, as Brig had told her. As he was weak. Blindly she turned and sought the doorway, grateful for the things her hands touched for support—the back of the couch, the wooden hallstand. When her hand felt the ironwork of the door's handle, she half turned. “Somehow, someday,” she told the formidable woman who stood in the parlor doorway, “I will win. I will have the Stronghold!”

  CHAPTER 31

  From the mesquite-stubbled hillock the young woman sat astride the calico pony, looking down at Tombstone. The raw mining boomtown in no way resembled its sleepy sister town of Tucson. To the young woman it looked more like an ant bed of activity.

  Within the year that Ed Schiefelin found his silver lode and named the claim for his friends’ predictions that he would only find his tombstone in that Apache-infested country, the sudden gathering of tents had leaped in population to become the largest town in Arizona territory—fifteen thousand people, all caught up in the silver dream.

  Heavy ore wagons drawn by sixteen mules, two abreast, came and went from the mines that ringed the four-year-old town. Wagon trains loaded with lumber rumbled in from the sawmills in the Chiricahuas and Huachucas. Rustlers were arriving from the San Pedro Valley. Sheriff’s posses clattered out on the trail of stage robbers. Stages and Wells Fargo coaches were departing, shotgun messengers on the box beside the driver, for Benson, Bisbee, Tucson, and mining towns across the nearby Mexican border. Cowboys mounted on horses and soldiers out of Fort Huachuca mixed with the cabs and barouches that swarmed the streets.

  Tombstone, Arizona Territory, was the first sign of civilization that the young woman had seen in five days . . . five days of aimlessly wandering through the basin and low desert ranges of southern Arizona, of sleeping on a saddle blanket beneath the summer's silver sickle of a moon and eating the remnants of the cheese and dried beef Marta had urged on her.

  But then Jessie had not really been hungry, only utterly tired, wishing to sleep forever. The furnace heat of the day drove her on, kept her moving. She feared not for her safety, cared not if the next moment she drew her last breath. Once, as she paused in the shadow of a ravine’s striated walls, she had seen a string of Indians riding single file, their heads bobbing in and out of sight among the rolling hills.

  For a fleeting second she thought about charging into their midst. The swift flight of an arrow would put an end to the agony of living and thinking and feeling. Only the knowledge that the Apaches sometimes let their victims live to sell as slaves south of the border prevented her from so rash an act.

  The thirst for vengeance was greater than her death wish. Because of Elizabeth's treachery . . . despite the disillusion of Brig's weakness, Jessie had to go on living. And the wild, raw Tombstone—it matched her own wild nature—seemed as good a place as any to mark time until she found the way to avenge herself.

  She kneed the pony's barrel and let it slowly make its way down a beaten path into Tombstone's outskirts of tents. There she joined the throng of people surging into the town proper. Her gaze studied the names of the establishments she passed—Addie Bourland’s Millinery, Fly’s Photography Gallery, Vogan’s Bowling Alley, Kerney’s Drugstore. None of these businesses displayed "Help Wanted" signs.

  Passing through the district housing businesses of ill fame, she then reached the town’s center, where saloons and theaters jostled for elbow room with restaurants and hotels. The old man at the Dexter Livery and Stables where she left her calico looked at her strangely, and only then did she realize what a sight she must look—her hair hung in rats’ nests, her brown serge skirt was mud-splattered, and its matching jacket was ripped at one shoulder seam.

  Regardless of her unkempt appearance, she set out down Allen Street determinedly, carpetbag in hand, chin held high, as though she were one of the Eastern society matrons who had come to the area for its mineral baths rather than a bedraggled, homeless sixteen-year-old. At the comer of Fifth and Allen she paused on the boardwalk outside the first gambling establishment— the Crystal Palace Saloon.

  It was a two-story gray frame building with well-designed French windows and doors and overhanging eaves that protected lolling inhabitants from the summer sun. It looked the most luxurious of the saloons and gambling houses as she compared its facade with the others that fronted Allen Street—names like the Oriental Bar, Hatch’s Saloon, the Alhambra, the Occidental, the Arcade, and the Dragon.

  For a moment she lost her pluck, reali
zing how little she knew about life in towns, how naive she was. Then she drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. One thing she did know was how to play cards. Four years among the Cristo Rey's cowhands had taught her well. She marched into the Crystal Palace.

  Inside she stood goggling. The walls, covered with colorful eagle-bedecked wallpaper, were resplendent with oil paintings and gilt-framed mirrors. Even at that time of day the gambling tables girding the walls were surrounded by men of every nationality. Monte tables were stacked with gold and silver. Faro was played in feverish silence. The little ivory ball danced capriciously over the roulette wheel’s red and black numbers.

  She hesitated, not knowing whom to approach for work. Behind the long mahogany-and-brass bar three bartenders in white aprons hustled furiously. An old vacant-eyed black man in a battered derby played a tinny piano. At last she turned to the thin wiry man sitting as a lookout in the high chair near the door. Beneath the straw sombrero his eyes were as hard as the six- shooters buckled about his waist. "I would like to speak with the proprietor, please,” she said, using her most prim voice.

  She realized he could not hear her above the noisy rattle of the dice in the chuck-a-luck boxes and the call of the roulette dealers. She repeated herself, this time in a louder voice. The cold orbs slid down over her and back up to her face. ‘‘Diamond Dan is in the cage—his office,” he said at last in monotone syllables.

  She followed the nod of his head. At the rear of the room was a barred window and a door. She did not even bother to glance at the guard again. “Thank you,” she said and began to make her way through the gamblers elbowing for positions at the green-baized poker tables. Her first hesitant knock on the door brought no response, and she rapped more loudly.

  The door swung open, and a blowzy woman of maybe thirty stood before her in a low-cut red satin dress with once-matching slippers now dirt-stained. Black net hose showed a full five inches above her ankles. Jessie had never seen a dance-hall girl before, and her lips parted in an O as she surveyed the castle of dyed black ringlets atop the woman’s head, the black beauty patch on the chin, and the paint above the eyes and on the high cheeks. "Yeah?” the woman asked.

  “I’m looking for the proprietor—Diamond Dan.”

  “Let the woman in, Mary,” a deep voice spoke from somewhere behind the girl. Virgin Mary stepped back, pulling the door wide with a grimace, and Jessie saw the owner of the voice—or the back of his head, to be exact.

  He sat at a notched and battered black desk, head bent. When Mary closed the door behind Jessie, he swiveled around in the chair. His dark eyes narrowed as they met Jessie’s. The visual contact slammed against her with a sexual impact. Beneath the pencil-slim mustache the lips curled slowly in a sensual smile. He was not as extraordinarily handsome as Brig, but there was a devil-may-care expression in his eyes and lips that demanded attention. His raven-black hair was parted in the center and smoothed back with the aid of a pomade. Apparently he was a wealthy man, for stuck ostentatiously in the lapel of the finely tailored gray pinstriped suit was an enormous diamond stickpin.

  He rose, crossed to her, and took her hand. He bowed low over it, and Jessie's own eyes narrowed, mistrusting the dandy. His gaze had most certainly taken in her disheveled state, so why the elaborate politeness? When he straightened, saying, “Daniel O'Rourke, at your service, ma’am,” she jerked her hand away, thinking he was making fun of her.

  “In that case,” she said frostily, “if you are at my service, you may employ me.”

  One of O’Rourke’s finely delineated brows arched. His practiced eye scrutinized her more closely, from her huaraches, past her dusty, wrinkled—and too small—traveling suit, to her birdnest hair. “You wish to work as a . . . dance-hall girl?”

  “No. As a dealer.”

  Striving not to, the solemn lips gave in and curled upward in amusement. “I see. But dealing cards calls for a certain amount of dexterity—uh, skill, Miss—”

  “Flora,” she improvised.

  “Flora?” His lips twitched again. “Just Flora—like the Spanish ‘flower’?”

  “Just Flora.”

  “Well, Flora, a woman dealer, while not unheard of in San Francisco or Dodge City, would be most unusual here in Tombstone.”

  “Nevertheless, I am quite—dexterous,” she mimicked, “with playing cards and would like a job as a dealer.”

  O’Rourke glanced at Mary, who stood, hands on hips, surveying the scene. She rolled her eyes. “The only thing she can do, Dan, is rob you blind.”

  “All right,” he said. “Do you have anything more—appropriate—for the Crystal Palace than what you have on?”

  Jessie took a deep breath, gripping the carpetbag. “No.”

  “Any money—a place to stay?”

  “No.”

  O’Rourke pulled out a cheroot. “Mary can get you a dress that might halfway fit if it doesn’t swallow up those—” He saw her face color and amended what he had been about to say. “If it doesn’t hang on your bosom. And we can give you a room upstairs. Of course, it’ll—”

  “No.”

  He blinked. “No—what?”

  “No, I don’t need a room here, thank you.”

  The man threw back his head and laughed, a soft chuckle that seemed to caress the skin. “So that's it. A real virgin, eh?”

  She blushed. “I’ll find a place to stay,” she said stiltedly, though she knew until she was paid her bed would probably be the ground and her pillow her saddle.

  “All right, perhaps it’s just as well. I’ve a feeling you’d put my girls out of business.”

  Mary put her hands on her hips. “That ain’t likely, unless the men have the sweets for boys. Then they might go for her type.”

  “That’s enough, Mary,” O'Rourke said mildly. He jammed the cheroot back between his teeth and surveyed Jessie with a critical eye again. “The name Flora—it hasn’t got class. We’ll give you the name of a flower. What’ll it be, Mary? Any ideas? Maybe a yellow flower for the yellow hair.”

  Jessie felt foolish, standing before the two, who eyed her as if she were a piece of horseflesh. “Daisy?” Mary suggested.

  O’Rourke waved his cigar in rejection. “No, no. We want something exotic.”

  Jessie fidgeted beneath their intense stares. “Look, it’s not exotic, but it is yellow—and it does fit me . . . the desert primrose.”

  “Jeeminy!” Mary derided, rolling her eyes again.

  “No, wait—the girl may have something. She certainly could be called a prim desert rose. The Primrose,” he said, testing the name. “Yes, I think it’ll go.” He pulled the Albert watch from his checkered waistcoat’s pocket and glanced at it. “Be back tonight at eight, Flora—er, Primrose.”

  “Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke,” she said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity you’re giving me.”

  Mary said, “Don’t be too grateful, honey. This Irishman always collects.”

  He flashed Jessie an intimate smile and flipped her a gold piece. “And get something to eat.”

  Jessie spent part of the gold piece at the New York Coffee Shop, one of the more reputable-looking restaurants along Allen Street. At a table opposite her were two dowdy women in black who pursed their lips at the sight of Jessie’s rumpled appearance. She ignored them, leaving them to drink their tea—their lips still puckered as if tasting something sour.

  She scanned the menu, which listed such delicacies as pasas, half-dried grapes, from El Paso and honey from the Tia Juana Ranch in Lower California. She decided to be extravagant and ordered the shrimp, which was freighted on ice from Guaymas. After a five-day fast, the seafood, followed by compote of fruit, was delicious but too much for the already full stomach.

  The Mexican boy who waited on her directed her around the corner to a two-story adobe building known as the Russ House. Nellie Cashman, who operated the boardinghouse, surprisingly asked no questions of Jessie. Though only in her late forties or early fifties, the horse-fac
ed Miss Cashman was partially deaf and thus practically screamed her directions to Jessie.

  “Now, remember, Miss Primrose, no men in the room! And the rent’s due on the first!”

  Jessie replied that would be fine, and Miss Cashman held the ear trumpet to her ear, shouting, “What's that you say, Miss Primrose?”

  Jessie repeated herself and escaped to the privacy of the room. It was more than she had expected, certainly more than the jacale she had lived in at the rancheria—a bed with an iron- grilled headboard and a washstand and a mirror, no less. The crude clothespress looked wasted with only the pink calico and the peasant’s camisa and red flowered skirt to hang on its pegs. Without even bothering to remove her clothes, she stretched out on the bed, falling asleep immediately.

  The room was in darkness when she awoke, and she hurriedly straightened her traveling suit and vainly tried to tuck in the unruly curls into the knot of hair at her nape. Unfortunately, there was no water in the pitcher, and, as much as she disliked it, she had to return to the Crystal Palace Saloon in the same state of disrepair.

  She nodded to the guard on lookout, a different man this time, and moved past the milling men to the bar, where Virgin Mary sidled next to a middle-aged man in specs and a bowler who hugged a case in one hand and a glass of gin in the other; obviously he was a huckster. He ogled her as she approached Mary. “Won't you introduce me to your lovely . . . friend?” he asked Mary in a thick, fuzzy-tongued voice.

  “She’s going to work here,” Mary said tartly. “See you later, Frank.” She patted his sloping chin and cast Jessie a withering glance. “Come on along . . . Primrose.”

  Jessie followed her up the carpeted stairs and into one of the rooms that did not really have much more furniture than the Russ House bedroom—but it did have a large painting above the headboard of a nude woman shielded only by a huge ostrich feather. Jessie’s eyes riveted to it in shock.

  At a ruffle-covered dressing table a young girl who was maybe two or three years older than Jessie sat before the lamp-illuminated mirror. At the sight of Jessie she stopped applying the bright spots of rouge to her cheeks. “A new recruit, Mary?”