Midnight Lover

by Barbara Bretton

  * * *

  Two hours later Caroline wondered why she'd fought so hard to stay in Silver Spur. The sparkling, lively saloon she'd dreamed about as she crossed the prairies had turned out to be a dilapidated building that not even mice seemed to find livable. Aaron's touch was visible in the red flocked wallpaper and the ornate chandeliers in the gaming room downstairs but apparently it took more than gaudy decor to lure drinkers and gamblers to a new establishment.

  The sound of piano music and raucous laughter drifted through the open windows from the Golden Dragon across the street and Caroline could not resist the urge to peek through her yellowed curtains at her competition. Jesse Reardon had certainly made a beeline for the place; no sooner had she paused in the doorway of the Crazy Arrow to direct the cowboys toting her baggage when she saw him leap the stairs to the Golden Dragon and disappear inside.

  Painted ladies abounded at the Golden Dragon: they perched on the second story windowledges like garish flowers; they lounged on the porch in most scandalous attire; one even sauntered down the street arm-in-arm with a grey-bearded cowboy whose pockets jingled with coins.

  How could she possibly compete with the enticements offered across the street? She'd already taken inventory of her stock and she doubted if the half-bottle of whiskey and jug of something labeled mescal would tempt even the driest of desert rats and the only entertainment she could offer—a front parlour rendition of the Spinning Song—was scarcely what the good gentlemen of Silver Spur were accustomed to.

  She sighed and walked through the dim hallway to the curved staircase. What does it matter, she thought as she climbed the stairs. Seven days from today she and Abby would be back on that stagecoach headed out of town landless, friendless, and penniless thanks to Jesse Reardon and their foolish bet.

  How arrogant she'd been to even consider such a foolish escapade. "Money is the key to life," Aaron used to say and for the first time she was inclined to agree with her father. Had she enough gold at her disposal, she could replenish her stock of liquor, hire a handyman to repair the sagging floorboards, and at the very least make an effort at establishing the Crazy Arrow as a force to be reckoned with.

  As it was, she scarcely had enough gold to return to Boston.

  She stormed into the enormous third floor bedroom where Abby was unpacking her trunks. "Unpack only enough for a week, Abby, for I doubt we'll be here longer."

  "Miss Caroline, I'd be thinkin'—"

  "Do not say a thing, Abby," Caroline warned, sinking down onto the lumpy feather bed. "I am within an inch of murder as it is. I should hate for you to be my unwitting victim."

  "Miss Caroline, I—"

  "Abby, there is nothing you can say that I have not already thought. This dwelling is an abomination, fit only for spiders and bats. I wonder only that Reardon wagered but fifty dollars gold that I would last just a week." She stretched out on the bed, uncaring that her boots left streaks of brown on the faded quilt, and closed her eyes. "I do not imagine there is any food in the pantry, is there, Abby?"

  "Three tins of beans," said Abby, "a jar of strawberry preserves and a loaf of stale bread and me with my stomach growling like a wild dog."

  "Do you remember that stew last night in Calico City?" Caroline asked dreamily. "Big pieces of beef, succulent carrots, just enough onion to add spice. Ah, that was a meal!"

  "Last night you said the stew was swill for starving pigs."

  Caroline opened one eye. "Last night I believed I owned a booming saloon in a bustling town. Today I know better." She would give up her silver brush and comb set for just one spoonful of the dinner she'd so arrogantly turned away from less than twenty-four hours ago. "Silver Spur is a dreadful place filled with witless cowboys and trollops and sunbaked prospectors who have but a nodding acquaintance with soap and hot water. My father must have been mad to think he could build a future here."

  Abby looked up from the trunk she was emptying and met Caroline's eyes. "Not everyone in town be as you say, Miss Caroline, if you don't mind me sayin' so."

  "I do mind, Abby. Don't you go letting some filthy cowboy turn your head with pretty talk."

  "Sam Markham wouldn't be a filthy cowboy, Miss Caroline, and I'll ask you to spare him the edge of your sharp tongue."

  Caroline sat up, knees drawn into her chest, and stared at her companion. "So help me, Abigail O'Brien, if you are turning into one of those husband-hungry females, I vow I'll—"

  "It isn't a husband I'd be hungry for, Miss, it's a full dinner plate and we wouldn't be seeming to come up with that."

  "And how does Mr. Sam Markham figure into this, pray tell?"

  Abby flashed her a triumphant smile as she pulled the last petticoat from the battered Saratoga trunk. "Thanks to Mr. Markham I know the one place in town where a body can find a hot meal."

  * * *

  Unfortunately Sam Markham's idea of a hot meal consisted of a tin can of rancid beans heated over a flame and served with a chunk of bread that looked as if it had been used as a seat cushion by a score of cowboys. Aunt Sally's offered a full stomach in exchange for a gold piece but nowhere did they promise that the diner would actually enjoy the meal. Caroline's stomach tilted in a most alarming fashion and she managed only a few sips of warm lemonade before abandoning all pretense of eating. Besides, attempting to enjoy a meal while under the scrutiny of fifty unshaven men carrying pick axes and bad tempers was more than Caroline could bear.

  "Come along, Abby," she said, rising from her hard wooden bench. "I would rather starve behind my own four walls than subject myself to such squalor."

  Abby polished off the last of her beans and drained her glass of lemonade. "As you wish, Miss Caroline," she said, casting another glance at a scruffy cowboy leaning against a pillar across the dining room.

  Her deep sigh did not go unnoticed by Caroline who followed Abby's gaze. "Mr. Markham, I take it?"

  Abby nodded, her cheeks blossoming poppy red. "It wouldn't be friendly to take our leave before we finish our supper."

  "Your plate is empty, Abby," Caroline pointed out, "and I have no intention of either eating this swill or walking those streets after sunset."

  Grumbling, Abby rose and Caroline heard the heavy thud of the girl's boots as the maid followed her outside. There was no point to becoming attached to anyone in town for the likelihood of their staying past the arrival of next week's stagecoach was slim indeed. Caroline wasn't one to admit defeat easily but it seemed to her that Silver Spur—in the person of one Jesse Reardon—had struck her a blow from which she could not recover.

  The sun was setting over the mountains in the distance, streaking the endless sky with shades of red and orange and indigo so beautiful that Caroline stopped for a moment to bask in its glory. Such high hopes she'd had for this adventure—what a shame she wouldn't be there long enough to watch the changing of the seasons...

  "We wouldn't be seein' sunsets like that in Boston," Abby observed when she caught up with Caroline. "Enjoy it, Abby, for we shan't see its like again soon." Next week they would once again be crammed into a foul smelling stagecoach headed back toward the life she'd tried to escape. The deadening tradition-bound rituals of Boston's finest families determined to cast their lot into the next generation and beyond.

  The women were quiet as they walked and Caroline found her mind strangely empty of all save the savage beauty of the sky and the inevitability of surrender into domesticity as represented by Thomas Wentworth Addison III.

  A crowd of cowboys lingered near the swinging doors of the King of Hearts saloon and she ignored their whistles and hoots.

  "Pay them no heed, Abby," she said as they walked past, "for it will only encourage them."

  Men, it seemed, were everywhere, spilling out of rooming houses and staggering down the wooden board walks clutching bottles of whiskey and high hopes. The McGuigan and Wilder girls must have been mistaken about the matrimonial opportunities in Silver Spur for the men Caroline had seen thus far seemed more intereste
d in games of chance than games of love.

  And the greatest gathering of men was at the Golden Dragon and Caroline knew it wasn't whiskey or poker that drew them. She'd seen the ladies with their bountiful bosoms sitting at the second floor windows in their shamelessly scanty peignoirs, calling out lusty suggestions to swaggering cowboys and prospectors eager to spend their money. Why, right now Jesse Reardon lounged indolently on the front porch being fanned by a beautiful Chinese girl in a red silk dress that left little to the imagination.

  "Indecent," Abby muttered, crossing herself, as they approached the Crazy Arrow. "Right in the middle of town, bold as you please."

  "Free enterprise," said Caroline dryly, trying to ignore a twinge of something strangely akin to jealousy, "but I'm certain that is the only item in the Golden Dragon without a price tag."

  "Miss Caroline!" Abby's eyes widened.

  "Well, it's true, Abby. We've both heard about sporting houses."

  Abby laughed then hid her face in her hands. "My mother would be sayin' three rosaries a night if she knew I'd be livin' across the road from one."

  "What have I gotten you into, Abigail O'Brien?" A pang of guilt stabbed at Caroline's heart as she patted the younger girl's arm. "Had I any heart I should have left you with your family and not dragged you out into the wilderness."

  "I been out of my mother's house five years this August and able to make my way. I came with you of my own free will and pleased to do it." A saucy smile brightened her freckled face. "Besides, Miss Caroline, slavery's over."

  "Please do not remind me of that terrible man," Caroline said, for Abby's imitation of Reardon had been uncannily precise. "I would rather die than ever see that creature again."

  "Then prepare to meet your Maker, Car-o-line," called out a too-familiar voice from the porch of the Golden Dragon, "because here I am!"

  Chapter 6

  Caroline stormed up the wooden steps to the Crazy Arrow. Her cheeks flamed crimson as the whispers of the fancy women mingled with Reardon's ribald comments.

  "How dare he!" she raged, slamming the door the moment Abby cleared the threshold. "I am not an object of pity."

  Abby's brows arched. "I wouldn't be thinkin' it's pity they're feeling, miss."

  Caroline wheeled on her maid. "Not pity? If it's not pity, what on earth could it possibly be?"

  "They're laughing at you."

  "That's absurd." She fastened Abby with her most autocratic gaze but the girl didn't flinch or look away. What on earth had happened in the space of a few hours to render her most powerful weapons useless? "I have never been laughed at, Abby."

  "Well, you would be now, Miss. Look at them, laughing loud as you please." Abby parted the yellowed lace curtains at the door and pointed across the street.

  Caroline peeked through the curtains then ducked back out of sight. "I believe your imagination has run away with you."

  "Oh, no, miss," persisted Abby. "The dark haired hussy be imitatin' your walk better than you do."

  Caroline took another peek and, to her dismay, found Abby's assessment to be woefully accurate. The beautiful Chinese girl was gliding across the front porch of the Golden Dragon with her chin held high and her back straight as a Boston oak tree and Caroline found her right hand curving instinctively to match the curve of the girl's own hand.

  Furious, she jerked the curtains closed once and for all.

  "You can just stop your gawking, Abigail O'Brien," she said, striding toward the staircase as quickly as her long straight skirts would allow. "If we do not find candles in this godforsaken place before nightfall, we shall be stumbling around in the dark and I do not relish that notion."

  Abby shivered and moved away from the door but not before bolting it tight. The three story structure was not without its own series of alarming creaks and shudders and it wasn't difficult to imagine what dimensions those noises would take on when shrouded in darkness.

  They searched the bar, the office and the gaming rooms with no success then peered in every closet and drawer in the second floor bedrooms only to come up empty-handed. Dusk had settled itself over the street outside and Caroline knew it was only a short time until they were plunged into darkness.

  "The attic," she said to Abby's obvious dismay. "Oh, miss, I don't—"

  "We must." The thought of spending the night in this strange town in total darkness was more than she could bear—not even the hidden terrors of the attic could dissuade her from hunting up some candles.

  As it turned out, the attic was musty and cluttered but no more frightening than any of the other rooms and Abby let out a whoop when she located a box of tapers and wooden matchsticks stashed beneath a pile of heavy drapes of faded purple velvet.

  It was the first pleasant thing to happen since they arrived in Silver Spur earlier that day and this one small triumph pleased Caroline out of all proportion. Quickly they lit two of the fat white candles and were making their way down the narrow staircase when a commotion erupted outside the saloon.

  "Ain't no place for you!" a drunken male voice cried out. "Go back, gals, before you regret it!"

  "What on earth?" Caroline hurried into the hallway then toward the front window of the saloon, with Abby nipping at her heels like a small terrier. "Haven't they given us difficulties enough for one day?"

  "Don't you be tellin' us what to do, you sniveling, lowlife coward!" Margaret McGuigan's voice rang out loud and clear above the din of men's laughter and tinny piano music. "We have come here to marry and marry we will!"

  "You ain't doin' no such thing!" screamed yet another cowboy, voice raspy from desert dust and drink. "Spinsters you are today and spinsters you're still gonna be when the stage comes to take y'all back where you come from."

  Caroline watched as Sarah Wilder pulled a huge square of dyed pink cambric from the sleeve of her calico dress and buried her face in its folds. "Nothing is the way I dreamed," she wailed in frustration. "They promised me a hundred someday husbands would be linin' up by the score at the station, waiting to claim me as their bride."

  "Ain't our fault," said a lanky redhaired cowboy. "Can't force a man to marry who don't want to. Ain't natural."

  "Living alone is what ain't natural," Sarah Wilder said. "Drinking whiskey and eating meals from tin cans like a stray cat."

  "Rather eat from a tin can than sleep next to one," the redhaired cowboy drawled.

  Sarah Wilder let out an ungodly screech and sprang for the cowboy's throat. Jesse Reardon, who had been lounging against the porch railing watching the proceedings, leaped to the ground and pulled the furious girl away from the surprised cowboy.

  "Ain't no way for a pretty gal to behave," Caroline heard him say. "Why don't you and your sisters get on now before it gets dark." He straightened the girl's collar and Caroline almost swore she felt his touch.

  Sarah Wilder seemed to melt right there on the spot. "We don't have any place to go," she managed, through her tears. "The man at the boarding house said we're not welcome anywhere."

  "That's right," piped up Margaret McGuigan. "We have tried everywhere including the hotel and cannot find lodging."

  Reardon's heart was obviously made of stone for he did not relent. "One thing's for sure: you can't stay out on the street."

  "What else is there for us?" pleaded Margaret McGuigan. "Unless we can sleep on some kind Christian's front porch."

  "Ain't no Christians kind or otherwise in Silver Spur," said Jesse Reardon. "That Reverend and his missus didn't last more'n fifteen minutes this afternoon."

  "Come on up here, ladies," called one of the whores from a third floor window of the Golden Dragon. "One thing we got is beds."

  Bawdy laughter echoed up and down the darkening street as the six spinsters looked at one another then burst into a flurry of sobs that lit a fire inside Caroline. Flinging open the door she stepped out onto the porch of the Crazy Arrow.

  "They can stay with me," she announced in her most imperious Boston manner.

  Th
e girls were huddled together, crying, in a pitiful circle while the cowboys and miners continued to laugh and congratulate themselves on ridding the town of another invasion of female pestilence. Only Jesse Reardon with those knowing eyes heard her words and watched quietly as she approached.

  "Listen to me," she said, touching the eldest Wilder girl on the shoulder. "I'll not have you begging for rooms. You'll stay here with me."

  Behind her, Abby started to protest but Caroline quelled her with a stern look.

  "I cannot offer you food but I can certainly provide shelter." Caroline had counted at least ten beds in the three story building and with her two trunks filled with fine linens meant for her future marriage bed, the sleeping accommodations would be the best in town.

  "I got a better idea." Jesse Reardon stepped forward until they were toe-to-toe. "Why don't I round up some horses and send the whole passel of you on to Silver City. They got runnin' water and churches and enough weak-willed men to get the plainest of you hitched before the month is out."

  "That won't be necessary, Mr. Reardon," said Caroline calmly, despite the furious pounding of her heart. "I am certain these young women will be quite satisfied with the accommodations at the Crazy Arrow."

  "Crazy Arrow ain't yours to offer, lady. Now I been real fair, lettin' you say there until the next stage rolls in, but now I got a good mind to toss your trunks out on the street and let the whole mess of you sleep with the horses."

  Two grizzled miners laughed and slapped Reardon on the back as the McGuigan and Wilder girls wailed ever louder.

  "You, Mr. Reardon, are an insufferable monster," said Caroline. "These ladies have caused you no harm and I shall not stand here and allow this abuse to continue any longer." She turned to Abby. "Go back in and light the candles in the lower rooms," she directed. "We'll follow in a moment."

  Jenny Wilder dabbed at her eyes with her soggy handkerchief. "You're an angel sent from heaven, Caroline," she declared.

  Jesse Reardon snickered and Caroline wheeled around and glared at him.