This angered Worth—Jeremiah was constantly belittling others!—but Foster took it in stride. “Made a big name for myself.”
“Yes,” Jeremiah sniffed. “And you capitalized upon that by riding off into the mountains wearing a possum on your head.”
Foster laughed fully then, and it was a beautiful sight. “A beaver,” he corrected the puppeteer.
The shop was dim and absolutely choked with dust. Incense hung heavy in the air, and Worth navigated to a counter crammed with jars containing dust, roots, and herbs. In one jar, serpent eggs floated in a vile liquid, and something lived inside another jar. Worth wobbled the jar a bit to see black beetles swarm all over a branch. They had horns on their noses, and some reared on their hind legs and hissed at him.
“My good sir,” Jeremiah proclaimed loudly. Worth looked up and spied a diminutive Chinese fellow wearing a skullcap and one of those robes where they could hide their hands in the sleeves. “I would like assistance with this area of my body.”
Jeremiah pointed to a poster tacked to the wall. It depicted all the internal organs of the body labeled with Chinese characters, and Chang squinted at it.
“You wish help with penis? I have exactly the thing!”
Jeremiah went stiff with mortification. He swiveled his head to study the poster. “Am I pointing at a penis? No, I am not! I am pointing at the intestines.”
But Chang was dead set on his penis idea. “I make very good prick tea! Will rejuvenate the organ so you never have to worry about miners ever again.”
The only muscle in Jeremiah’s body that moved was his lips. “Miners? What does that have to do with miners?”
Chang replied happily, “You will sink the shaft every time!”
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “Oh, jumping Jiminy! Can someone help me out here? I’m pointing at the intestines, and this fellow keeps mentioning penises and miners. Look, riceman. Bowels. Intestines. Innards.”
Chang frowned. “You need shaft help!”
Tabitha said, “I suspect that is his remedy for everything. I hesitate to ask him my question.”
Foster said, “Look, let me ask about this skull. That’ll distract him.” He placed the skull, wrapped in the green gown, on the counter next to a mounted armadillo. “Chang, I need you to tell me. What is the green dye in this gown? It also appears to be the same dye that has colored this canine skull.”
“Ah, lawyer Richmond!” Chang apparently recalled his former client quite well. “Who died this time?” He chuckled fondly at the memory. “Your criminal was quite amusing. Used a barrel for a toilet. Wreaked havoc at the Morning Star Gallery.”
“Yes, well,” said Foster, “he won’t wreak havoc any longer now that he’s met Judge Lynch. Chang, what can you tell me about this gown? See the same green tinge on this skull?”
Chang placed a lamp on the counter but seemed to shy away from the pile of green things. When Foster unwrapped the skull, the jumpy pharmacist even cringed back from it, although he evidently had seen his share of skulls in his life.
“This is not good!” he declared.
“You’re telling me,” Tabitha agreed. “Mr. Chang, I got very ill last night while wearing this gown and these gloves. Can you tell me what it’s dyed with?”
Now Chang looked at his customers suspiciously, as though they were the ones responsible for the mess. “Paris Green is not good for dying clothing. You should have known that when I sold it to you. It is used to make blue in fireworks, not for eating or wearing.”
Tabitha held a hand to her breast. “I bought it from you? But I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“I sold you that can of Paris Green dye a week ago. You cannot remember? You told me it was for killing rats. How do you not remember?”
Jeremiah sidled up to them. “I don’t think he can tell the difference between white women. Allow me. Mr. Chang! When you sold this Paris Green whatever-it-is to Miss Hudson last week, what was she wearing?”
Chang frowned something fierce. “Same thing all women wear! Gown.”
Jeremiah closed his eyes patiently. “Let me try again. What color was her hair, a week ago?”
Chang appeared to put some thought into this. “Reddish color, like cinnabar. Like yours!” He pointed at Foster’s head.
“That’s right,” Tabitha said. “I did dye my hair. Now it’s blonde.”
“Yes,” Chang agreed. “You dyed your hair. Lucky thing you did not dye it green.”
Foster had wandered off holding his head, perhaps with the shock that a red-headed woman had bought the green dye, so Worth stepped up. “And could this Paris Green also kill a dog? That’s a dog’s skull.”
“Oh, yes!” Chang asserted. “This woman could have mixed it with food that a dog likes, such as beef or bison, and dog would have eaten it right down. I can test for it.”
“Test how?” Worth asked.
“I can test skull and gown.”
Tabitha asked, “Chang, when I bought this dye from you last week, what else did I say? I’m sorry I can’t remember much lately. Female disorders, you know.”
Chang said, “You said it would help some fellow you love love you back. This fellow here, I can see!” He pointed at Foster, who had meandered off to pretend to examine a stuffed tiger.
Tabitha protested, “But how would poison make a man love me? That’s absurd.”
Chang shrugged. “Maybe you wanted to poison someone who was in the way. Like the dog.”
Worth was getting a very creepy feeling about all of this. He knew the story of Foster’s old flame, Orianna. She had ripped his son Abe from his bosom to take the toddler to California on some lark, chasing a moneybags fellow. Worth knew Foster had been stabbed so cleanly through the heart he had given up his law practice to wander alone in the wilderness, playing his fiddle. Worth liked this image of Foster as a lone backwoodsman, but anyone who hurt Foster was automatically an enemy of Worth’s.
“So, Chang,” Worth asked conversationally, “if she was poisoned, how long would it stay in her bloodstream? Will she continue to be sick?”
“Depends how much. Obviously someone put much Paris Green in this gown. I will test, and you come back tomorrow.”
“I need something else, Mr. Chang,” said Tabitha and drew the fellow away to ask him some confidential questions.
“Hopefully nothing about intestines,” Jeremiah said, “or you’ll just get information about your toenails.”
Five minutes later, they climbed into the carriage. “Well,” said Jeremiah. “That fellow was of no help whatsoever.”
Worth said, “What do you mean? He helped us figure out that someone is trying to poison Tabitha.”
“I mean my intestines. To think that I needed some penis help, how absurd. How that fellow manages to make a living is beyond me. He is the height of rudeness!”
But some heavy questions weighed over the group. Foster looked out at the storefronts as the carriage rolled down the avenue.
It was Tabitha who finally asked, “Foster, does Orianna have red hair?”
Foster merely turned to her and nodded.
Since Tabitha seemed too polite to inquire further, Worth burst out, “So she’s obviously back in town! And leaving green gowns around Tabitha’s parlor.”
“And gloves,” Jeremiah pointed out. “And a baby rattle.”
Worth was angry, and he didn’t care if Foster didn’t want to discuss it. “But those items appeared out of the blue—all three times, all three items. We need to ask Caleb. Is your flame known for having supernatural powers?”
Jeremiah added, “She’s obviously a witch.”
Foster finally laughed, but it was a sad laugh of frustration. “I’ve obviously considered her a witch on many occasions, Montreal Jed.” He took Tabitha’s hand in his. “Of course I haven’t heard of her being back in town, but it appears that she is. Maybe we should go to Neil Tempest’s marshal office and have them on the alert for her. I am so sorry to drag you into this.”<
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Jeremiah said primly, “If she’s as ‘desperate and hopeless’ as Caleb said she is, and she’s the one who was pinching all of us during the séance—”
“And killed Phineas,” Worth pointed out.
“—I’d say she’s capable of many more odious and vicious acts. She’s obviously as crazy as a bedbug. Oh, Benjamin!” Jeremiah waved an arm to get the driver’s attention. “Can you take us to Neil Tempest’s office? He’s out of town,” he told them, “but his deputies can assist us.”
“Yes, Foster,” Worth agreed. “Was she always crazy as a bedbug?”
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have been with her.” Foster looked into the distance. His pine green eyes turned turquoise as they reflected the deep blue sky. “But something has obviously changed. And we need to protect ourselves from her.”
* * * *
As Tabitha had been ill and wasn’t feeling quite herself yet, they decided to stay indoors at Vancouver House that night. Tabitha had written her article on the Elks Club fandango, and it would appear in tomorrow’s Frontier Index. The narrative unfortunately ended when she had been forced to leave early and did not mention the fate of the buffet turkey. Worth and Foster contributed some society gossip. They had been invited to the house of the glass manufacturer for dinner but had declined, and now they lounged in the parlor, the men drinking whiskey.
Worth would be very sad to leave Vancouver House. He knew that as a bachelor he should get rooms in town. But the camaraderie he felt here made it more of a home than anywhere he’d lived in a decade.
“Bettina wrote some more in her diary last night,” Tabitha told the men.
“Yes,” prompted Worth. “Who is this Bettina Badeaux that Caleb confused you with?”
“You don’t believe in reincarnation?”
“Why…” Worth had to think. “The subject has actually never come up. But if Caleb says you were Bettina in a past life, I believe him. And I saw Foster uncover Ezra Kind’s stone with my own eyes. There was no way for Caleb to have known about the stone unless Ezra’s spirit was truly speaking through him. Do you think people become reincarnated in a linear fashion?”
“Meaning what?” asked Tabitha. “That in order to be born again, they have to have already died, at least five minutes before the birth?”
“Something like that. But who is to say we haven’t lived in the future before?”
Foster got into the spirit of the discussion. “Or our very last incarnation was as a caveman. That could explain some people’s behavior.”
Tabitha laughed. “Yes, perhaps their recent memories are of stoking fires and clubbing other people over the heads. That would probably be most people in this town. They’re closer to the apes than to the poets.”
Worth pointed at Foster with his whiskey glass. “But you were a pirate recently, that Pierre Badeaux fellow. A French pirate, to boot!”
“Yes.” Foster chuckled. “But I’m not going to make the same mistake Pierre made, leaving Tabitha behind.”
Worth said, “Tabitha, you said you’d been writing for Bettina. Could you read to us something she wrote?”
Foster sat erect on the couch next to Tabitha, his face all aglow. “Yes! That’s a good idea. Can we hear something Bettina wrote?”
“Of course!”
Tabitha scurried from the room, and the men sighed into their whiskey glasses. Worth said, “I’m glad you’ve decided to stay in town. Will you reopen your law practice?”
“I was thinking on it. Apparently, there’s only one other lawyer here in town, and he recently defended a fellow accused of sneaking about peeking into women’s windows. I don’t think he’s experienced in any really big crimes, or financial law, which was my specialty.”
“Speaking of crimes. How on earth could Orianna have had anything to do with this Paris Green mess? Unless she’s really a witch, but I’m still not convinced. She’s in California, right?”
“As far as I know,” said Foster. “That’s where I’ve been sending all the money meant for Abe. I suppose a deputy will report to us if a strange red-headed woman has been seen about town. I still don’t see how she could’ve gotten that poisonous gown to materialize in the middle of the room, or the gloves.”
“Or the baby rattle. That was your son’s rattle, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Perhaps we could get Phineas to lead us to her,” Foster mused.
Tabitha was entering the parlor clutching some sheets of paper. She settled down next to Foster, even kicking off her slippers and tucking her feet onto the couch. Foster regarded her with adoration and ran his arm along the back of the couch so he could finger her sleeve.
She read,
I am wilting and fading, my love. Some days I find it difficult to remember your beautiful face. I try to imagine you on your quarterdeck giving the commands to your crew. That used to inspire me so much, that you were such a commanding presence, a respected man. Now the thought of you at sea only fills me with despair. I know it is heretic to even write that I wish you had found some other way of earning money—that you had become a farmer or a fisherman. I know you would never be happy with those lives.
Reading my beloved Swiss Family Robinson for the hundredth time—
“Wait,” said Foster. “Swiss Family Robinson?”
“Yes,” said Tabitha. “That’s what she wrote. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing,” Foster said distantly. “That was my favorite book, too, as a youth. But I’m sure it’s many people’s favorite book.”
Tabitha said, “I get the impression she liked it because it taught her English.”
The couple shared looks of infatuation then, but Worth was still surprised when Tabitha put the papers onto a low table and kissed Foster. It was more than a friendly or companionable kiss, and after the first minute, Worth began to fidget.
He wasn’t only uncomfortable—he was stimulated. He gulped his whiskey and went to the sideboard to pour more, halfway hoping they would break the kiss but mostly hoping they would continue.
When he turned back to the couch, they were going hard at it. Worth could see by the workings of their jaws that their tongues were intertwined, and their fingers weaved through each other’s hair. Tabitha evidently took great pleasure in feeling Foster’s silky hair under her palms. Worth had longed to feel that, too—he often wondered if the ginger “fireball” hair felt different. It looked different, like a thousand match flames all woven into one strand.
Should he leave? They didn’t seem to be aware of his presence. Tabitha’s hand moved down Foster’s neck to caress his chest, his shirt opened at the collar. Foster had not replaced his fandango shirt with his old mountain man fringed shirt, perhaps feeling it didn’t befit a lawyer, and Tabitha moved to unbutton his collar. Tabitha luxuriated in running her hand over his well-developed pectoral, and when she pinched Foster’s nipple, Worth knew he had to leave.
They would not stop their petting, and Worth was only a perverted onlooker. His friends snacked on each other’s mouths like there was no tomorrow, and now Tabitha’s hand was drifting toward where Foster’s long, enormous penis was cradled between his well-worn leggings.
Worth banged his whiskey glass unnecessarily loudly onto the table next to Bettina’s writings, probably hoping they’d notice him.
Tabitha did. She broke away with the mussed hair of a distracted, hot woman, looking at Worth as though she’d never seen him before. “Oh. Worth.” She lifted an arm to him. “Come here, you sweet man. We don’t want to drive you away.”
What did she mean by that? Worth approached but stood stupidly with hands at his sides. He didn’t want to be caught glancing at Foster’s juicy erection, but his eyes kept flickering there.
Tabitha said to Foster, “If reincarnation is a fact, can men become reborn as women?”
“No,” Foster said with finality. “That’s impossible. Men are men.”
Tabitha’s eyes shone with a new form of glee. “Let us turn the tables. Mix it up.
That was one thing I learned in my marriage. People thrive on the stimulation of doing something new.”
Worth’s prick expanded at just this small hint of naughtiness. What did Tabitha have in mind? He had gotten the impression that her marriage had been unconventional, and just the idea that he’d be allowed into their intimate circle steamed him unbelievably.
“Yes,” Foster agreed. “New things are always welcome.”
Tabitha blatantly put her hand over Foster’s delectable cock and squeezed deliberately. “I want to watch, Foster. I didn’t get to watch when you and Worth were playing in the bathroom.”
Foster’s eyelids flickered with distraction. “What is it you want to witness?”
“I used to play with two men at once. But I never got to witness the two men playing together.”
Worth couldn’t believe his ears. His balls instantly filled nearly to bursting, moving up close to his body as though in preparation for spurting. He felt light-headed and would have fallen to his knees had not Tabitha commanded him to.
“Kneel, Worth.”
As Worth practically flung the low table aside in his eagerness to kneel, Foster finally looked at him. His nostrils flared wickedly at the things he must have been imagining, and he was clearly just as eager to give Tabitha her wish.
Tabitha took Worth’s hand and placed it on Foster’s knee. Putting her lips close to Foster’s ear, she whispered, “Kiss him, Foster.”
Foster did so immediately, without hesitation. Worth fell into the kiss naturally, as though he’d spent the past ten years kissing men. It was odd that he’d enjoyed the intimacy of fucking with Foster but they had never kissed. Fucking was all right for men—it was even highly manly, in a very base and primal way—but kissing seemed even more intimate.
Now Worth inhaled Foster’s cowhide scent. He imagined he could smell the lust radiating from Foster, the most masculine he-man Worth had ever known. Foster immediately gripped Worth by the back of the neck and held him still as he licked and nibbled at Worth’s lips. Worth’s cock expanded even more upon hearing the slurping sounds they made as they smacked upon each other’s mouths. Worth, too, gripped Foster by the back of the neck as he kneeled between his partner’s outspread thighs.
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