Читать книгу The Scoundrel - Lisa Plumley - Страница 7

August 1882

Morrow Creek, northern Arizona Territory

T here was only one thing Daniel McCabe didn’t understand about women—how a man could be expected to choose from among them. Beginning with the raven-haired ones and ending with the feisty ones, there was an endless variety of females for a man to sample. Settling down with just one seemed nigh unthinkable.

Curling his fist ’round the pint of Levin’s ale on his table at Jack Murphy’s saloon, Daniel smiled at the rouged-and-powdered beauty before him. Her costume shimmered of fiery satin; her bosoms pushed at its neckline in a way that made him wonder about the architecture of corsets. To make so much of so…much, the garments had to be fashioned of something sturdier than mere muslin and whalebones. Something more akin to tiny versions of the sleigh runners he’d been shaping at his blacksmith’s shop before coming here today.

The matter might require closer investigation, he reckoned. Much closer. How else to further his grasp of architecture and design? A man never knew when an intimate knowledge of such things might prove handy.

With a wider grin, Daniel propped both booted feet on the nearest ladder-back chair. Who was he fooling? If there was one thing he understood, it was ladies’ undergarments. The corset or garter had yet to be designed that could defeat him. ’Twas a point of pride, much like his knack for forging steel and wielding a twenty-pound hammer.

The snap of Jack Murphy’s bar towel pulled Daniel from his reverie. He glanced up to see the man scowling at him.

“Yes, Rose’s charms are a sight to behold,” the barkeep said in his drawling brogue. “But I brought you here to get your opinion on building a stage in that corner, McCabe. Not to watch you beguile my dancing troupe.”

“It’s unavoidable, Murphy. I can’t help it.”

“Try harder.”

“All right.” Reluctantly, Daniel spread his arms. “You heard him, ladies. I am not in the least charming, nor as irresistible as you might think. I am a serious man, with serious work to be done.”

The women on either side of Daniel giggled, plainly disbelieving. They did not budge.

Both were costumed as extravagantly as Rose. Both flirted just as boldly as she did. One laid her arm enticingly across his shoulders and pressed herself against him, her feathered headpiece tickling his nose. The other cooed over the fineness of his arms, honed by years of blacksmith’s labor. Each lady had promised him admission to her boardinghouse room later that evening, if he desired to receive “private dance instruction.”

To be sure, a man could hardly help but develop an interest. In waltzing, of course.

The lady to his right snuggled closer, not the least bit daunted by Daniel’s claims of seriousness. Their traveling ensemble had arrived in Morrow Creek two days past. They were set to perform at Jack Murphy’s saloon before moving west to San Francisco, if Murphy could construct a stage for them.

The barkeep’s exasperated gaze signaled his interest in doing exactly that. The Irishman was new to the territory, and Daniel liked him. He decided to try a bit harder.

“I warn you,” he told the troupe next. “I’m not a man for settling down. Neither am I a sweet talker, a fine dancer or even the least bit a dandy.” He nodded at his flannel shirt and rough-hewn canvas trousers. Although both were clean, they had seen hard use. “Stay away. You’d do well to cozy up to Murphy, instead. He’s a man of industry. Purpose. And coin.”

“Coin?” Murphy scoffed. “I was, before your aces turned up last night.”

“I never said I wasn’t lucky.”

The barkeep rolled his eyes.

“Only that you were a fine prospect for these ladies. Far finer than me.”

The women turned contemplative gazes upon the Irishman. One fluttered her fan. Another fluttered her eyelashes. As a group, they returned their attention to Daniel, undeterred.

Murphy snorted. He strode to the corner of the nearly empty saloon, his boots ringing across the scarred floorboards. With hands on hips, he surveyed the area where the makeshift stage was meant to be built.

Daniel shrugged, his grin wide. “See?” he called out to his friend. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Hmm.” Rose sashayed a little closer. “I’d wager there are a few things you can do. Quite well, at that.”

Her ribald gaze swept over him, taking in his oversize frame and nonchalant pose. Daniel gave her a wink. He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted—just so long as what she wanted wasn’t him in a marriage noose.

Contemplating what diversions the night might hold, he pulled out a Mexican cigarillo. Eagerly, the lady to his left held out the table lamp to light it with. With an arch of his eyebrow, he murmured his thanks. These women were uncommonly bold. But at least they weren’t like most of the women in town—many of whom were inconveniently marriage-minded. Dallying with one of Murphy’s dancers would prove pleasurable…and pleasure, above all, was what Daniel lived for. Life was too short to be spent among missed opportunities.

It was also too short to shirk a promise to a friend.

Regretfully, he stood. His cigarillo’s plume of rich tobacco smoke trailed his progress across the room to join Murphy. In his wake, the dancers sighed.

Daniel offered them an apologetic over-the-shoulder glance—coupled with a smile to promise he’d make up for their disappointment later. Maybe he’d finish his ale, order a bath and invite one of the ladies to join him. Cleanliness was a virtue, after all. Or maybe that was patience. Either way, he reckoned he had things square.

He squinted at the space Murphy indicated. “You already talked to Copeland about getting the lumber from his mill?”

The barkeep nodded. “It’ll cost me plenty. But even after paying Rose and her girls, a dance show ought to make a profit.”

“Even after you factor in paying off Grace Crabtree?”

Murphy tilted his head in confusion.

“She’s bound to cause a ruckus once she hears you’ve got dance-hall ladies here,” Daniel said. “I’ve known them Crabtree girls all my life. Grace is the most trouble of the lot. She’s all het up over women’s suffrage. Other things, too.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

“You’ll see. Grace is a meddler. If she decides to make this place one of her damnable ‘causes’—”

“My saloon isn’t a—”

“That’s what Ned Nickerson thought,” Daniel interrupted. “Until Grace and some of her friends chained themselves to the awning of his Book Depot and News Emporium, protesting because he didn’t have some lady author’s highfalutin book or other. In the end, Deputy Winston had to haul ’em away.”

Murphy frowned. Most likely, Daniel figured, he was imagining a passel of troublemaking females all picketing his saloon. With reason. Grace was a handful, and she knew most everyone in town. The Crabtrees in general were a bunch of original thinkers, prone to all sorts of oddball behavior. With one exception, of course.

“I could put in a good word for you with Grace’s sister,” Daniel offered. Murphy was out of his depth—whether he realized it or not. “Sarah’s the only sensible one of the lot. She’ll see that Grace ought to leave well enough alone.”

With a skeptical shake of his head, the barkeep strode the width of the corner, measuring the space available for his stage. For a moment, he was silent.

Then, “I can cope with Grace Crabtree.”

The man was deluded. “Have you never tangled with a woman before? Most of them are beyond reason.”

“I can cope with Grace Crabtree.”

Clearly, Murphy hadn’t spent much time with the fairer sex.

Daniel shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“No, it’s my saloon. I’ll see no one interfering with it.”

“Oh, yes, you will. Mark my words.”

One ale and two flirtatious encounters with the pouting dancers later, Daniel finished his measurements for Murphy’s stage. Although he wasn’t a carpenter by trade, he’d done his share of building, all the same. By the time he was old enough to reach for a straight razor for his peach fuzz, he’d grown a head taller than most men. Because of that, he’d learned to erect barns, raise roofs and rebuild storm-damaged houses…all while apprenticing as a blacksmith.

Now that he’d finished his plans for the stage, it had grown late. Murphy’s saloon was packed to the rafters with miners and merchants, ranchers and lumbermen. Tinny music accompanied Rose’s impromptu dance beside the piano—as did raucous cheers from the men watching. She fluttered her fan and swiveled her hips, belting out a rowdy rendition of a sentimental tune.

Comfortable at his table with dancers again on either side, Daniel smoked his second cigarillo. He tilted his head and aimed smoke rings at the fancy lanterns overhead, feeling satisfied. He had a whiskey at his elbow, a bellyful of Murphy’s tinned beans and bread, a friendly obligation fulfilled and the promise of a delectable evening’s entertainment ahead. A man’s life didn’t get much better than that.

“Daniel McCabe!” someone yelled. “McCabe?”

He glanced sideways. Several men stepped aside for a boy in a baggy suit and low hat. Daniel recognized him as the clerk from the railroad depot. He made his way through the crowd, an expression of urgency on his young face.

“Is Daniel McCabe here?”

“Over here, boy.” Lazily, Daniel indicated the one remaining chair at his table. “Why don’t you sit a spell?”

The dancers murmured their agreement. The clerk gawked at them, at their impressive bosoms, then at the empty chair. A blush rose clear from his starched collar to his eyebrows.

“No, thank you, sir. I couldn’t.”

“Sure, you could. I have one lady more than I can handle, anyway.”

The dancers tittered. They leaned his way with joint protests. Another minute and he’d forget the boy was there at all. Resolutely, Daniel focused on the clerk.

“Well?”

“Well, uh… I came to bring you a message. You’ve got a delivery down at the railroad depot.”

“A delivery? I’m not expecting anything. Are you sure it’s for me? McCabe?”

“I’m sure. We haven’t been able to determine much else about it, but we know one thing for sure. It’s for you.”

“I’ll get it tomorrow.” Daniel raised his whiskey in the clerk’s direction. “You man enough for one of these? I’ll buy you a boost for your trouble in coming down here to find me.”

“Oh, no. You’ve got to come with me. Tonight.”

A portion of Daniel’s good cheer evaporated. “I’ve got plans for tonight. Believe me, they don’t include hightailing it to the train depot.”

Inconveniently, the boy held fast. He didn’t so much as glance at the proffered glass of Old Orchard.

Daniel held out a coin instead. “Here. If you’re not a drinking man, take this to the apothecary. Get yourself one of those medicinal soda waters they sell. Maybe it’ll grow some hair on your chest.”

The clerk’s blush deepened, but he straightened his spine doggedly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist you come with me.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You insist?”

The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Uhhh…yes, sir.”

Squinting against his cigarillo smoke, Daniel eyeballed the clerk. He was plain ruining his night—and his plans for Beatrice, the dancer to his right, too. There was something downright intriguing about that feather in her hair….

But if the boy had to “insist” one more time, he looked as if he might piss his britches. Daniel had that effect on men sometimes. He didn’t mean for it to happen. There was just something about his size, his strength…his reputation for bending steel.

He heaved a sigh, drained his whiskey, then stood. “All right. Stay here, ladies. I’ll be back before you can say ‘lickety-split.’”

He would not be back before “lickety-split.”

In fact, he’d be lucky to get back before his dancing girls pulled foot for San Francisco, Daniel realized. That much became clear the moment he stepped on the platform at the train depot and spotted the commotion there.

He surveyed the gathering crowd. At this time of night—when lanterns illuminated the platform and a dark breeze made the nearby ponderosa pines swish and creak—most people should have been abed, not at the depot. But there was a sizable crowd there, all the same. Ambling nearer in the clerk’s wake, Daniel cocked his head toward the mysterious thumps and muffled swear words he heard. Some kind of scuffling reached him next.

“C’mere, you little hooligan!” the stationmaster said, grabbing for something Daniel couldn’t see.

Whatever it was, it managed to duck away. Several women squealed. The whole group surged backward in a clatter of boot heels and ladies’ button-ups.

“All aboard!”

To Daniel’s right at the waiting train, the conductor issued his standard boarding call for the westbound 8:47 passage. Then, hardly waiting for any response, he jumped on the train and signaled the engineer. Smoke bellowed from the engines as the cars pulled out. The train looked, Daniel would have sworn, to be in a marked hurry.

Curious.

The clerk nudged him. “Looks like your delivery’s still here,” he observed, nodding to the crowd.

From within it came more scuffling. More swearing. More squealing. Apparently, Daniel’s “delivery” was a part of that mess.

At the realization, a sense of prickly unease rushed over him. Something was akilter here. Worse, he’d just been called into the thick of it.

Regretfully, Daniel let pass a moment’s mourning for the waltz lessons he’d doubtless be missing. Then he strode forward. He wasn’t a man to back down from a challenge, no matter how much cussing and fighting was involved. Or how much mystery.

At Daniel’s approach, the murmuring crowd parted. In its midst, he glimpsed the beleaguered-looking stationmaster, then someone about waist height. A child. Before he could do more than take note of the boy’s dirt-smudged face, big dark eyes and wild demeanor, the child glanced up. Recognition sparked in his expression.

“You’re here!”

An instant later, the boy hurled himself at Daniel’s midsection. The tinned beans, bread and ale he’d consumed for dinner were jostled mightily by the impact. Wincing, Daniel took the child by the shoulders and set him apart.

Or at least he tried to. The boy was uncommonly wiry and determined, to boot. When Daniel gently pulled, the child merely…stretched a little, his grimy fingers clenched fast on Daniel’s leather belt.

Confused, Daniel looked up. Although the crowd had not dispersed in the least, the stationmaster had already begun retreating to his usual post. The man brushed his palms together and waddled across the platform, shoulders sagging with relief. The clerk, too, scurried to the depot’s entrance.

They both moved, it occurred to Daniel, with the same haste the train conductor and engineer had employed.

“Hold, there!” Daniel bellowed.

At his shout, the boy started. His scrawny shoulders jerked. A mighty snuffle issued from the vicinity of Daniel’s shirtfront. Awkwardly, he lowered his voice.

“What about my delivery?” he demanded.

“You’re holdin’ it,” the stationmaster said.

The clerk nodded.

Daniel frowned.

The crowd watched avidly. Their expressions put him in mind of the sight that probably greeted a lion tamer when he looked out from inside the circus ring. What the hell was going on here? Had everyone gone daft?

“I was not expecting…a child.”

“We’ve heard that afore!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Titters followed.

“Yeah. Long about April, after a long winter’s rest.”

More chortles. Daniel didn’t find this situation funny in the least. A child had attached itself to him—a child who appeared to know him. Experimentally, he took a step sideways. The boy trundled right in time with him. ’Twas like having a third boot. Or an extra arm. Or a squirmy, four-foot shadow. One that smelled like cabbages and surreptitiously wiped its nose on Daniel’s shirtsleeve.

Again he tried to wrench the boy free. This time, he accomplished a full three-inch space between them before the child locked his bony arms around as much of Daniel’s middle as he could reach and hurled himself forward once more.

Something inside Daniel lurched a little, as well. Most likely, it was the further settling of his dinner. But it felt a scant bit like some mush-hearted emotion…concern, maybe. Staunchly, he shoved it back. He placed both hands over the urchin’s ears.

“You’ll have to take him back,” Daniel commanded in a low voice. “This is a mistake. I can’t take delivery on a child.”

“He’s yours,” the stationmaster said. “Good luck.”

“He’s not mine.”

Several onlookers snickered. Exasperated, Daniel rolled his eyes. There’d be whispers now. By morning, rumor would have it that he’d fathered ten bastards between swallowing his morning coffee and arriving at the depot. That was the way of things in Morrow Creek.

Drawing in a deep breath, Daniel moved his hands away from the child’s ears. As he did, he became aware of the boy’s gritty, unkempt hair—and the striking disparity between his beefy hands and the child’s small head. Clearly, the boy was too helpless to take care of himself. He needed someone to watch over him. At least for tonight.

But it could not be Daniel. The notion was preposterous.

Who would place a child—however stinky, scrawny and troublesome—in the care of a renowned bachelor like him?

The boy shifted. From someplace within his bedraggled coat, he produced a packet of twine-wrapped papers. He let loose of Daniel’s belt just long enough to offer the bundle.

“I’m s’posed to give this to you.” His gimlet gaze latched on the stationmaster, who’d lingered to watch. “Only you. I rec’nized you from the picture my mama showed me.”

Daniel examined the boy’s defiant face. Though dirt-smudged, his features looked familiar. They looked…a little like his own. God help him.

Scowling, he accepted the papers.

The crowd pushed nearer. A deeper scowl sent them back again, affording Daniel room—and lantern light—to read. The moment he glimpsed the handwriting on the fine stationery before him, he knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Briefly, he closed his eyes. He’d need strength to confront the revelation awaiting him. Strength, and a goodly measure of whiskey, too. But since the whiskey was back in his old life—the life that included dancing girls, carefree days and no one watching him with hopeful, little-boy eyes—Daniel knew he might as well get on with it.

A minute later, he put his hand on the child’s shoulder. Ignoring the curious onlookers, he hunched low, so only the boy would hear him.

“Eli, you did a fine job of this. You should be proud, coming all this way on the train by yourself.”

Solemnly, Eli met his gaze. “I know. I won this coat playing marbles.”

After that, the truth was plain. Daniel could harbor no doubts at all.

Gently, he squeezed Eli’s shoulder. Then he addressed the waiting crowd. “This boy is mine,” he said gruffly.

New murmurs whisked across the platform. Daniel couldn’t be bothered by them. In truth, he’d never cared for rumors. He couldn’t be troubled even by those concerning him.

“Come with me, Eli. It’s time we went home.”