Karen Mercury

by Manifested Destiny [How the West Was Done 4]

  Tabitha thought about her saffron soup and had to agree. “Maybe they were carried away by lust. It’s been known to happen. Anyway. All I can really fault her for is killing poor Phineas.”

  In fact, Phineas sat on the parlor floor now, her tongue lolling casually as usual. They had explained to Harley her morbid situation, but Harley still could not see Phineas. Apparently only Foster, Worth, Tabitha, and Jeremiah could, of all the citizens of Laramie. In town, people looked at them strangely when they pet or talked to the giant Newfoundland dog.

  Jeremiah added, “And you can blame her for having a grasping, avaricious greed for money. Why else would she rip that poor boy from his father’s bosom to chase some moneybags magnate in San Francisco? Shameless money-grubbing hussy, if you ask me.”

  “Jeremiah,” Tabitha said miserably. “You can’t fault Orianna. By Jove. I have known cunning, nefarious, plain wicked women who would poke any fellow with two cents to rub together. And I don’t mean prairie flowers. But if they are a mother to someone’s child, you cannot criticize her in the father’s eyes. It would only make me look like less of a woman if I did.”

  “That’s true,” said Worth, looking over the rim of his own whiskey glass. Today they all needed the whiskey—Jeremiah had even poured himself a finger. “But we don’t even know what she wants yet. Maybe she just stopped by on her way somewhere.”

  “Without her son?” Jeremiah pointed out. “A fine mother she is.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Harley. “When she told him she intended to blaze a trail for California, you’ve never seen such a mess of a man as poor Foster. He went overnight from the finest lawyer in Laramie to the most debilitated, paralyzed invalid. I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it does give him a good recommendation as a man capable of great and deep love. He stayed here with me, and all he’d drink was forty rod. Boy, he could smite a man at forty rods with his breath alone. I swear it seeped from his very pores.”

  “That’s why they call it that,” Jeremiah affirmed. He hadn’t dared do more than sniff his whiskey. “Sixty rod, you have to be farther away to knock a man over.”

  Harley continued, “Then he went off to join Custer, and we all thought it was the best thing for him. Get away from all the sights and people who reminded him of that witch. I’m telling you, Tabitha. For a long time I thought he was one of those fellows who should just never be in love. He turns into an absolute wreck, a devastated mess of a fellow.”

  Tabitha tilted her head. “So you’re saying he’s sensitive. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Harley agreed. “No, that’s a good thing. Nothing worse than a blockheaded emotionless blob for a husband. But you’d better tread extra carefully, Tabitha, with this one. If Orianna’s going to use his son to manipulate Foster, who knows where it will end.” He sat at the desk and clinked the pen inside the inkwell in preparation to write a note.

  “Yes,” agreed Jeremiah. “She’s got a secret agenda, I’m telling you. I’ve seen this happen far too many times in my showman’s career. Woman comes back pretending she forgot her tightrope or a seesaw or left a kid behind, and bam. Turns out she got wind that her former flame came into some money with his new act as a living skeleton.”

  “Yes,” said Tabitha. “That happens too often to mention. Now, I hardly suppose Orianna is coming to Laramie for all of Foster’s thousands. The army can hardly pay that well.”

  “No,” said Worth, “but his gold claim can.”

  “What gold claim?”

  Worth sighed heavily. “You’ll have to ask him about it. I considered it bad taku-wakan so didn’t want any part of it. I mean, look what happened to old Ezra Kind when he looked for gold in the Black Hills. Anyway, Foster doesn’t give credence to any of that abracadabra business, so he’s got people still mining his claim for him.”

  “Well,” said Jeremiah. “Don’t let Orianna get wind of that if she hasn’t already. I’m starting to suspect this shipbuilding fellow. Maybe he doesn’t exist at all.”

  “Which is why,” said Harley, sealing his note with wax, “I am asking Tabitha to bring this message over to Ivy. Have her cable it to San Francisco. I have a good friend there, also in the shipbuilding business. We can get to the bottom of this, if only to prevent our dear buddy Foster Richmond from going up the spout.” He handed Tabitha the note and graced her with a warm look. “If he’s going to go loco over any doll, it’s going to be you, Tabitha.”

  “That’s what I was hoping,” she said weakly.

  “Let me come with you,” said Worth.

  “No, that’s all right. I feel like being alone.”

  The Union Pacific office was on First Street, three blocks down Garfield Street and three blocks north. Tabitha walked there, pondering and feeling sorry for herself.

  She had just met the only man capable of pulling her out of her grief and mourning, and what happened? A witchy trollop all done up like a Parisian shop window came making demands from him!

  To be honest, nobody knew what Orianna was demanding from Foster. Maybe Orianna was just stopping by on her way to the East, the old states. She was all dressed to the nines in her skirt so flounced children could have gone for a ride on it. Rosettes decorated the overskirt and polonaise like a rose garden. Her hat was so laden with fruit it would have looked at home as a banquet table centerpiece. But Tabitha should not dislike Orianna for her sumptuous fashion. That was just sheer jealousy, and Tabitha was a better person than that.

  At the telegraph office, she handed Ivy Harley’s message.

  “Hm,” said Ivy. “Why is Harley looking for someone to investigate Arthur Firestone? Could it possibly have anything to do with Orianna Anderson? I thought I saw her walking down the street, but I know I must have been mistaken.”

  “Yes! You were not mistaken. She’s in town. How long ago did you see her walking?”

  “Oh, it must’ve been four days, at least. I’m certain of it. Liberty had just brought over some lentil soup from the Cactus Club so we could have our lunch together. After Liberty left, I could have swore I saw Orianna leaving the Union Pacific Hotel. What had me convinced was the massive amount of flounces in her train. She had all manner of flowers pinned to her hair, and the most outrageous bustle ever.” Ivy sniffed. “We don’t wear bustles like that in Laramie. It must be a San Francisco thing.”

  “What did you know about her?” Tabitha asked confidentially. “Was she your friend?”

  “Not really. It would’ve made sense, because Foster was such a good friend of Harley’s. But I never really cottoned to Orianna. She seemed so…superficial. Interested only in trivial matters. With a husband who deals with murder all day and another who is a world traveler speaking eighteen languages, I was never much interested in tortoiseshell hair ornaments or hats with pigeons perched in them.”

  “Me neither.” Tabitha almost mustered a laugh. “But maybe I should be, if that’s the sort of woman Foster likes.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Tabitha,” Ivy said soothingly. “Look at where he’s been the past two years. Would a man interested in only stylish women in the swim be courting you? Oh, my. That didn’t sound right.”

  “Yes,” sniffed Tabitha miserably. “For we all know I am not in the swim!” The impossibility of her position started to become clear. “I ride around shooting apples off scarecrow’s heads. I best Foster in the hoop-and-spear game. By Jove, I met him when I bashed him with my elbow! These are not ladylike pastimes, Ivy! Now I am somewhat employed scribbling trivial articles for Henry Zuckerkorn.”

  Out the telegraph office’s window, there was a brief flash of silvery rainbow hair adorned with eagle quills. Caleb!

  Tabitha raced to the door to open it, practically flinging herself against the seer’s chest. He held her at arm’s length to study her eyes. She knew she looked fearful. She could feel the very fear seeping from her skin!

  “I was just attacked,” Caleb started out with no polite introductions. “I was walking in the al
ley between the Elkhorn Barn and Livery and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company when a fellow literally jumped out of the darkness and attacked me with a knife. I use that word ‘fellow’ loosely, though, because for all intents and purposes it was merely a smoky black, knife-wielding demon. The fierceness and power of the attack was beyond all human strength and swiftness. I’m convinced I’m in great danger.”

  Ivy was at his side too, clutching the sleeve of his bison coat. “Who do you think it was?”

  Caleb’s sprightly gray eyes shimmered with his own fear. “Not ‘who,’ dear Ivy. What. It was an incubus of some sort, and I had the feeling it was commanded by that same female presence I felt the other day at the séance. It was more like a shadow shaped like a man but imbued with evil from outside of itself.”

  “Someone close to Mr. Richmond, you said.”

  Caleb nodded eagerly. “Very discontented. Weary of life, weary of the earth.”

  “I think I know who it is. Orianna Anderson. Foster is with her right now—in the flesh, that is. Did the demon inflict any wounds?” Tabitha saw one bloody swipe across Caleb’s cherubic cheek, but the cut matched with some ceremonial paint swipes painted there, so it blended in quite fashionably.

  Caleb spread his arms wide and looked down at his bison robe, covered in hunting hieroglyphs. “My coat saved me. You can see some tears here, and here, but nothing penetrated. He—it—just kept shrieking something that sounded like ‘leave the Paris green girl alone!’”

  Ivy frowned. “Leave the Paris green girl alone? Whatever could that mean? Caleb, I think you should proceed right to Vancouver House and do another séance to get to the bottom of this. If this Orianna really has some witchy powers, we should know about it. Warn Foster,” she added, her eyes wide with terror.

  Tabitha felt the need to confide in the seer. “After your last séance, I donned that green gown that had appeared out of nowhere. Remember the matching gloves that appeared the day you were there? Oh, that’s right. You were floating up near the ceiling, you probably didn’t see them. Anyway, that was the night I got so ill. Foster figured out it was my dress, and that pharmacist Chang confirmed it. It had been dyed with some poisonous substance called Paris Green dye. And a woman who resembled Orianna had been by Chang’s shop not long ago purchasing it.”

  Ivy held her palm to her mouth. “Good Lord, Tabitha! She was trying to kill you, too? We need Neil to get right over to her and arrest her.”

  “Based on what? Besides, she’s having some intense conversation with Foster right now. If we’re lucky, she’s just here passing through. She is the mother of Foster’s child, Ivy. The most helpful thing would be if she would return to San Francisco and act like a mother.”

  Ivy frowned but nodded. “All the same. The least we can do is search her hotel room for Paris Green dye.”

  Tabitha nodded. “All right. I already notified Neil’s deputies to keep their eyes skinned for her.”

  Her heart stopped cold when out the window she spied Foster and Orianna, walking just as cozy as could be. He appeared to be saying good-bye to her in front of the Union Pacific lobby. Tabitha was struck clean to the heart at the manner Orianna smiled her well-born smile up at Foster. Orianna didn’t have stupid little beaver teeth. Her teeth were fine, and her bosom wasn’t tanned from riding astride in the sun. Her bosom was white as an overcast, foggy sky.

  Tabitha loathed her and knew she shouldn’t. She was the mother of Foster’s son!

  “That’s her, Caleb. Do you get any vibrations from her?”

  Caleb half closed his gray eyes. A smoothness came over his entire visage, as though a veil had been pulled over his shoulders. Tabitha enjoyed seeing him like this. It calmed her very soul to be in the presence of his peaceful vibrations, as though they washed over her and relieved her anxiety.

  “I get the vibrations that she’s the woman present at the séance who was slapping some attendees and caressing others.”

  “Caressing?” Tabitha demanded. “I didn’t know she caressed anyone. I can guess who she caressed, though.”

  Tabitha could see Ivy visibly shuddering. “I’m telling you, Tabitha. We had better hope this woman is just passing through.”

  Caleb said, “I second that. She is some sort of alchemist. She can change metals into gold, and she has learned how to manifest objects that can affect matter. This woman is bad taku-wakan.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Foster was surprised to see Caleb, as well as Harley and Ivy, in the parlor at Vancouver House when he returned.

  His immediate conclusion was that Tabitha’s family was ganging up on him. Even Harley’s mouth was a thin line when he caught sight of Foster. He betrayed none of the camaraderie he usually did when seeing his old boon companion. Tabitha regarded him levelly, and it seemed as though she raised her glass to her lips with a special hostility reserved for him. Jeremiah outright sneered, and Caleb was the only person who lifted the corners of his mouth into a smile.

  Even Worth had an aura of uneasiness as he pulled Foster back into the hallway. “If I were you, and I’m glad I’m not, I’d have a talk with Tabitha right now. Foster, you need to explain to her what Orianna is doing in town. It’s none of my concern, but I think it does concern Tabitha.”

  “Yes, yes, that was my intention, but what are all these people doing here? It looks like a wake, and I fear it’s mine.”

  “Caleb was attacked by a spirit he swears was sent by Orianna. You probably don’t want to believe the mother of your child has some kind of evil abilities, so I’m not going to bother convincing you. But Caleb wants to hold another séance. We’ve sent an invitation to Orianna’s hotel room just to see what happens when she’s present.”

  “I have to say I agree with you she’s been cultivating some kind of heinous powers. I’m none too pleased she murdered my dog, and how else do we explain the manifestation of that green gown?” Without any further ado, Foster stuck his head back into the morgue that the parlor had become and beckoned for Tabitha.

  She expressed no happiness at being summoned, and took her glass of sherry along with her, as though prepared to throw it into Foster’s face. He led her into her father’s study, where she leaned back against a desk but didn’t put down her drink.

  “My pet. Let me explain. I was as shocked as you to see her appear out of the blue. I haven’t had any contact with her in two years. I just send the money but never even knew for certain if she was receiving it.”

  “I believe you, Foster,” Tabitha said evenly. “I believe that you were taken by surprise today. I just want to know one thing. What does she want?”

  Foster squeezed his eyes closed. This was the difficult part he had dreaded. “She wishes to be a family again.”

  When he opened his eyes, Tabitha was at the window clutching the sill. Her empty glass sat forlorn on the desk. Foster went to stand behind her, and she stiffened when he put his hands on her shoulders. “I knew it,” she whispered. “And she has your son, so she is always going to win out over me.”

  “But I didn’t tell you my response, Tabitha. I told her no. I told her I’m in love with you.” He shook her a bit. “I’m in love with you, Tabitha. I made that very plain to her.”

  Tabitha didn’t turn around to face him. “Then…is she going back to California?”

  This part was even more difficult. Foster knew that Tabitha loved Pierre Badeaux—she had said that. But was her love for Foster Richmond strong enough to see her through the future travails Orianna seemed determined to bring down on them? “She says that Abe needs me. She claims that Art Firestone isn’t a good father, and Abe will continue to falter without me.”

  Now she spun about to face him, a glimmer of hope in her face. “Then let Abe come to Laramie! I’m sure he’s a good boy. Is Orianna willing to let a nanny bring him out here? I’m sure you would love to have your son with you again.”

  “Yes!” Foster agreed eagerly. “I would like that, Tabitha. I believe, or at least I feel, tha
t Orianna might be amenable to that idea. She doesn’t seem too attached to that Arthur Firestone fellow. Of course that would be much preferable to me going to San Francisco.”

  Tabitha’s lower lip trembled. Normally this would be an entirely appealing sight, but right now, it nearly broke Foster’s heart. “So there is a chance that you might have to go to San Francisco? If Orianna doesn’t see fit to make Laramie her home again?”

  Foster paused. “But I love you.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question, Foster.”

  “Well…yes, I suppose. I need to do everything in my power to convince Orianna that bringing Abe to Laramie is the best idea. My practice, for one thing.”

  “You haven’t even started it up again. You could start a new law practice in San Francisco.”

  Of course, he’d thought about that. He was running out of flimsy reasons to encourage Orianna to move to Laramie. Why would Orianna care that he wanted to stay in Laramie because he was in love with another woman? Orianna could not give a flying fuck. In fact, the more he loved Tabitha, the more Orianna would be inclined to do anything that threw a brick into that situation.

  He grabbed Tabitha’s biceps and shook her strenuously. “I could marry you right now. That is the message Pierre brought with the sunflower—will you marry me? A new wife is a good reason to stay in Laramie.”

  Tabitha pushed against Foster’s chest. “How do you know I will even say yes? I will not allow you to use me in your push and pull with your former flame. Foster, I must step aside until you figure out what you’re going to do. You must give Orianna a chance. Perhaps she will allow Abe to relocate to Laramie. Or perhaps she insists he stays with that Firestone fellow. In which case, the sooner I disengage my heart from you, the better.” Tabitha wrenched herself away, returning to the desk where her empty glass sat.

  No! Orianna had ruined his life two years ago. She could not be allowed to ruin it now! “But she tried to kill you, Tabitha! How can you be so noble, so detached? You must be dying to rip her head off, as I often am. But I must put those thoughts aside for the good of the boy.”