by Sharon Ihle
"Check a door?" Artemis scratched his head. "Why would I go do that?"
Tubbs grabbed him by his shirtsleeves. "Didn't you check the private compartments?"
"Ah, no, sir, I didn't."
"Why in hell not?"
Artemis backed away. "Well, because like I told you, I was with Zack when he bought all the tickets. Weren't none of them special, just plain seats."
Tubbs cuffed him alongside the head. "Didn't it ever occur to you that someone else might have tickets for a private compartment—a lawman or two, for example, someone who might even invite a U.S. marshal in for a little visit to that compartment?"
Artemis looked to the heavens for the answer. "I—no, sir, I'm afraid I didn't think about that."
Tubbs gave the kid a push toward the door. "It's a damn good thing one of us thought of it. Head for the parlor car with the private compartments, Artie boy. We're gonna go get us a marshal."
Chapter 15
Once he reached the correct parlor car, Artemis tested the door to several compartments, and to his horror, found passengers inside each room. He glanced down the hallway to where Tubbs stood watching, and used a mortified expression to plead for permission to quit pestering these strangers. The look he got in return brooked no argument. Tubbs gestured for him to try the next compartment.
When Artemis turned the knob to door 4, and then pushed, nothing happened. He pushed a little harder. Still nothing. He knocked. "Hello? Anybody in there?"
Inside the room, Mariah's hat, hairpins, and purple jersey had joined her lone shoe and drawers on the bench seat. Cain was in the midst of removing her camisole as the knock sounded on the door and Artemis called out Cain's name. He froze, his palm resting on one of her breasts.
"That sounds like Artemis," he whispered. "What in the hell do you suppose he's up to?"
Mariah, her nipples more erect now with the fear of discovery than from Cain's touch, whispered back, "I don't know, but I think it's him for sure. Who could he be looking for in a parlor car?"
As if in answer, Artemis's voice called through the thin wooden door once again. "Cain? You in there?"
Muttering an oath under his breath, Cain weighed the consequences of answering Artemis against those of ignoring him. Mariah did not hesitate to offer her opinion. She shook her head violently, whipping the loose strands of her thick ebony hair around her shoulders. Then she placed her finger on her swollen lips. Cain grinned, agreeing with her, and sealed their bargain with a gentle kiss. And then kissed her again.
"This is the conductor," came a loud voice a few moments later. "Is someone in there?"
Cain broke away from Mariah and crept toward the door. Carefully pressing his ear against the wood, he heard the conductor speaking to someone—Artemis, he assumed.
"... and no one has purchased a ticket for this compartment. It's possible that there has been some kind of leak in the roof, and the door is merely swollen shut. Thanks for bringing it to my attention."
Then Cain heard a harsh, angry voice he didn't recognize.
"Can't we just break the damn thing down?"
"Whatever for? As I already mentioned, no one is in there, and no one has the right to be." The conductor's voice was disdainful, clearly irritated to have been dragged into a discussion with such coarse passengers. "Our arrival in Silverton will be soon enough for the maintenance crew to see to the problem. May I show you gentlemen back to your seats now?"
Muttered grumbles were followed by retreating footfalls, but Cain continued to listen until only the soft clack, clack, clack of the wheels against the rails met his ears. Since there was really no other explanation he could think of, he assumed that Artemis had been recruited by another passenger to help sneak him into the high-priced seats.
Laughing to himself at the thought, Cain turned back to Mariah. She was standing against the window, looking like a wild Gypsy, half-angel, half-devil, her skirts mussed, ankles and petticoats exposed. Her hair was a mass of uncivilized waves and curls; her full breasts heaved, straining against the pink satin laces of her French cambric camisole.
"Now where were we, my wild little angel?" Cain asked in a husky voice.
Her smile coy, Mariah let her fingers flutter down into the valley between her breasts. "I believe you were busy taking advantage of the view."
* * *
With just over an hour remaining of the journey, Artemis slowly made his way back to his original seat. Tubbs had kept him all the way at the back of the train on the outer step of the last car for nearly an hour, lecturing him about how damn smart that Marshal Slater could be, and warning him over and over again not to let his guard down for a minute when he was around him.
Artemis could hardly believe that Cain and this evil lawman were one and the same man. And yet Tubbs, a man he respected if no longer revered, seemed certain that he was. He insisted that Cain, in all his cleverness, had indeed been in the "stuck" compartment, huddling in that room with Mariah and at least one other lawman or railroad official. Planning, Tubbs had gone so far as to suggest ways to foil the Doolittle Gang should they decide to attack the Denver & Rio Grande.
Artemis didn't believe it for a minute. He didn't want to. He'd thought and thought, trying to come up with the truth about Cain, but the more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. By the time Tubbs sent him back to his seat, he had a headache searing the scar by his cowlick, which made him feel as if he'd been branded with a hot iron.
When Artemis finally stepped back into car 334, he almost yelped with surprise to find that the entire medicine show troupe had returned to their seats. Approaching them tentatively, he said, "Where in tarnation have all you folks been? I been looking high and low for the lot of you."
Zack smiled up at the young man and patted his hand. "Now Artemis, not one hour ago you came out to check on me and the missus for about the tenth time, and for the tenth time I told you—we were staying put until the train passed by Elk Park and the hardest part of the trip was behind us. What's wrong with your memory, son? The train ride shake it out of you?"
Artemis grinned and blushed. "Nah. I remember talking to you just fine." He looked at the lawman from under hooded eyes. "But I sure ain't seen Cain and Mariah anywheres around for a spell."
Mariah waved him off. "We've been walking from car to car, taking in the sights. I don't know why you didn't see us. We saw you."
"Me?"
"Yes, Artemis." She laughed, shaking a finger at him. "Cain and I were just coming from some parlor seats we'd 'borrowed,' when we saw you and another fellow talking to the conductor. What were you up to? Trying to sneak inside one of the compartments?"
Artemis beamed. If she'd seen him in the aisle with the conductor, that meant Tubbs had been wrong about Cain and Mariah having secret meetings in the private room. Dead wrong. He smiled and lied through his teeth. "Yep. I thought we'd take a little ride in them fancy seats a spell all right. The conductor didn't think it was such a good idea. If you folks will excuse me, I reckon I'll just go sit with the common folk where I belong, and have myself another little game of paper-scissors-rock."
* * *
Buried deep in the heart of the San Juans, surrounded by thick forests and waterfalls spilling down along the steep mountain slopes, the small town of Silverton sat in a lush green valley shaped much like a bowl. The only access to it from the south had been by foot or horseback until 1882, when the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company blasted its way through forty-five miles of rocky mountain terrain.
Some citizens fought the invasion of the outside world, citing the inevitable arrival of fortune-tellers, beggars of the "professional class," and any other number of undesirables, parasites all. Other townsfolk loved the idea of welcoming new blood to their little burg, and actively campaigned to recruit them through newspaper ads and well-thought-out ordinances.
The Penny family was fortunate in that the sheriff of Silverton happened to side with the more far-sighted citizens. Permits for a week's
worth of medicine shows were not only reasonably priced, but happily offered as well.
Having gotten that part of their business out of the way the afternoon they arrived, the troupe checked into Silverton's finest hotel, The Grand. After settling themselves in their rooms, they walked a few doors down Greene Street to the St. Julien restaurant for a little French cuisine. By supper's end, everyone was too exhausted to do anything other than retire to their respective rooms for the night.
Thirty minutes after they had bid one another good evening, the door to Cain's room opened. Finding himself alone in the hallway, he crept down the Oriental runner in search of Mariah. His room, Cain had reasoned, was straight across from Zack and Oda's, while hers was a discreet two doors down, surely the more desirable location for a little tryst.
Mariah couldn't have agreed more.
Shortly after that, Artemis stuck his head out the door of his room, checking the hallway to make certain it was clear. Satisfied that it was, he darted toward the stairs. Then, following Tubbs's directions to the letter, he headed into the night and on to Silverton's notorious Blair Street, the rougher part of town.
* * *
As he waited for the kid to show, Tubbs sat at a corner table in Mattie's Place and dealt himself another hand of stud poker. He was in a foul mood. When he glanced up and saw Artemis creep into the saloon and then nervously look in his direction, Tubbs was pretty sure that his mood wasn't about to get any better. He waved the kid over.
"What took you so damn long?" Tubbs demanded even before the kid pulled out a chair. "I've been waiting for you for over an hour."
Artemis blinked, his eyes smarting from the heavy cloud of smoke which hung over the room, and eased his skinny frame onto a wobbly three-legged chair. "We was at supper. Zack paid, so I figured you wouldn't mind." Over a sudden roar from the crowd as the piano player sat down and began to pound the ivories, he raised his voice. "You ever had gravy called Bernadette, or wait a minute—I think maybe it was Bernasel. I don't know, something like—"
"My patience is at an end, kid." Tubbs leaned across the table, the cards he'd been holding crumpled into a ball. "Did you take care of business? That's all we need to think about. Business. Don't forget it again."
Artemis gulped. "Yes, sir. And yes, I did. The marshal's room is right smack next door to mine. He's in room seventeen, and I'm in fifteen. You planning to get yourself a room at The Grand, too?"
"No, kid. I'm put up at a hotel around the corner with Cletus. We're just fine."
Artemis craned his neck this way and that. "Say—where is Cletus?"
"Laying low, kid. Just like all of us should be."
"Yeah, but you should do it at The Grand." Artemis smacked his own forehead. "Glory be, Tubbs. You should see the room I got. Why, there's velvet curtains fancier than most folks got clothes, some fuzzy red wallpaper that feels like petting a dog backwards, and a bed I swear is made of cotton balls. You fellahs ought to get yourselves a room over there."
His mood considerably brighter, Tubbs didn't interrupt the kid's dissertation to remind him that it would be a very poor idea to put Cletus in the same hotel with the marshal, or to tell him that he planned to slip into room 17 sometime during the night. It was best, Tubbs decided, if Artemis didn't know any more than he had to. And he definitely didn't need to know that by morning, Morgan Slater would be lying on his own bed of "cotton balls," those fancy velvet curtains flapping a farewell to his cold, dead body.
* * *
An hour or so before dawn, as the wide Colorado sky began to loosen its grip on the night, Tubbs got up from his post just inside the door of room 17, and stretched. He'd been sitting there for hours, listening and waiting for the marshal's return, but all had been as quiet as a graveyard.
Because it was much too chancy for him to stick around until the sun came up, he knew he couldn't wait any longer to be on his way. Gritting his teeth as he thought about his continued failure to finish off the marshal, Tubbs let himself out of the room and stole away into what was left of the night.
* * *
As the light of dawn slowly trickled into her room, Mariah stretched, burrowing deeper beneath the blankets, and then snuggled into the crook of Cain's arm.
Silverton. They'd finally reached Silverton, with no further mishaps. Now, it looked as if everything would be all right. She glanced at Cain's sleeping face, thinking that soon she would have to trim that Brother Law beard again; it was getting a little shaggy. Then Mariah sighed and snuggled even closer to him.
She loved him. Lord, how she loved him. Had she bothered to tell him how much yet? Mariah thought back to the night before, trying to remember exactly what she'd said and when, but the entire evening was a blur of passion, pleasure, and contentment. She fingered one of Cain's nipples, still amazed at how very much like her own body his could be, at how quickly even this part of him hardened and grew erect.
"Careful what you ask for, princess..."
Cain's voice was husky with sleep, and it stirred her almost as much as his touch did. She reached lower beneath the covers. "Or I might get it? Is that what you were about to say?"
Leaning up on his elbow, a thick lock of his auburn hair dipping low over one eye, he gave her a crooked grin as he said, "Do you really think you can handle it? Maybe your eyes have gotten bigger than your—" He interrupted himself as he saw that a narrow beam of sunlight had turned the hairs on his arm to a pale rust color. "Oh, hell—it's morning. Your parents will be out and about soon."
"Oh, my God. I forgot all about them."
Cain threw back the covers and leapt out of bed, gasping as the cold mountain air slapped at his naked body. At over 9,000 feet, Silverton's altitude offered some damn frigid mornings, even in early summer.
Mariah laughed at his antics as he dressed, amused as she watched him hop from one foot to the other in an effort to warm himself. She hadn't had the chance to inspect him in such an exposed state before, but now that she did, she decided the view had definitely been worth the wait.
She loved his body almost as much as she loved him—especially his nude backside. It was nice and round and heavily muscled, a perfect thing for her to hang on to whenever the ride got too rough. Mariah blushed at the memory of one of those rougher "rides," amazed that she could still have such a response after all they'd been to each other of late.
Cain fit his hat onto his head. "See you at breakfast," he whispered as he opened the door and peered out into the hallway. Then he was gone.
Mariah sank back against her pillow, loath to climb out of the bed, so rich with his scent. She thought of how pious and proper he'd looked in his frock coat and preacher's hat as he slipped out of her room, then of how very irreverent and wicked the man beneath the Brother Law costume could be.
It was time, she decided, to buy the man she loved a little present, something to replace that ugly skimmer. He would most certainly appreciate the thought; Cain hated that hat as much as she loved the lovely bonnet he'd bought for her.
Her mind made up, Mariah decided to stop by her parents' room and borrow another twenty dollars from Zack's dwindling purse. Then, later in the morning, but before the troupe had to prepare for their opening performance, she would take him to Sherwin & Houghton's General Merchandise store.
Mariah smiled. The hat would be her first gift to him, another little way for her to say "I love you," just in case the actual words hadn't yet fallen from her lips.
* * *
After a hearty breakfast of ham, eggs, and plate- sized flapjacks, the troupe split up. Zack and Artemis went to the livery to groom the mules, and Oda went back to her room to mend a few loose beads in the Princess Tanacoa costume. This left Mariah with the free time she needed to do a little shopping.
Smiling secretly as she and Cain strolled down Greene Street, Mariah drew in a deep breath of crisp mountain air. "Don't you just love Silverton?"
Cain thought it was funny that she mentioned that subject. He had just been dwelli
ng on the little pocket town—in fact, thinking about it almost nonstop since early this morning. Even though none of the landmarks, the hotels, or public buildings looked particularly familiar to him, he knew without question that he'd been there before. More disturbing, his gut told him that for some reason, Silverton had once been a very important part of his life.
"Cain? Are you listening to me?"
"Sure, princess. I was just trying to figure out if I've ever been here before."
A cold little finger seemed to tap at the back of her neck, but Mariah shrugged the sensation off. She would let nothing spoil what she and Cain had together now. Nothing. "This is probably your first visit here. You'd remember a place like Silverton if you'd been here before. Why, it even has a bowling alley."
"A bowling alley?" He rolled the words on his tongue as if tasting them, trying to understand what they meant. "I don't think I know what that is."
"You mean you've never heard of bowling before?"
"I've heard the word, but I don't know what it is. Things like that have happened to me a lot since the accident. I know a word, but not what it means."
"Then let me help with this one. There's a small building around the corner with a couple of wooden alleyways inside. You throw a heavy rubber ball at a number of wooden bottles, and hope that you can knock them all down. A young boy at the other end of the alley sets the bottles back up, and then rolls your ball back down to you so you can try again. That's all there is to it. It's just a silly little game."
Silly, yes. Bowling sounded like a real waste of time to Cain, and yet something about the word continued to disturb him. He seriously doubted that he had ever tried to play the game. Maybe Virginia had been the one who liked to visit the bowling alley. She was awfully fond of games. Virginia?
