Читать книгу Storming Paradise - Mary McBride - Страница 9

The big red-and-black Concord coach—its door branded with the famous Circle P—was a familiar sight on the streets of Corpus Christi. Amos Kingsland always came to town in style. He kept fresh teams at intervals along the forty-mile stretch. In the old days it guaranteed he could outrun whatever marauders lay in wait along the way. Now, with most of the rustlers and bandidos having been driven off, the coach’s speed wasn’t so much for safety as it was for its own sake and to let everyone in Corpus know that God, in the guise of Amos Kingsland, was down from Paradise.

Eb Talent was the reinsman. The grizzled sailorturned-landlubber had been with Kingsland since the steamboat captain had moved inland nearly thirty years before. Eb hadn’t been a young man then and the rigors of riding the range that first year had left him with what he called “permanent saddle sores,” so he’d carved himself out an indispensable niche as cook and coachman. The red-and-black conveyance was his spit-shined pride and joy.

On this afternoon, though, it wasn’t God who was riding in the closed coach, but his foreman, Shadrach Jones.

With a blistering crack of his whip, Eb cut the corner onto Water Street, rocking the big coach and sending its dozing passenger sprawling onto the floor.

Once in the livery, the wiry man climbed down from the high seat, brushed the dirt from his britches and opened the door. His grin revealed an odd assortment of gaps and tobacco-stained teeth. “Six hours and thirty-eight minutes,” he announced. “Only done it faster once, and that was back in ‘76 when we had that pair of quick-footed grays.”

Shadrach Jones punched the crease back in the hat that had taken his whole weight when he slid from the seat. “You’re a goddamn miracle, Eb.” He slapped the black Stetson on his dark head before angling his long legs out of the coach, then stood a moment, gazing around the dim confines of the stable.

“Six and thirty-eight. Damn! I didn’t know I had it in me,” the driver exclaimed.

Shad’s mouth slid into a grin—a flare of white against his deep bronzed skin—and he clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. “I wasn’t surprised for a minute, hoss. You’re still the best whip-cracker in Texas.”

Of course, why the man had been in such a damn hurry was beyond Shad. It wouldn’t have bothered him if the trip from Paradise had taken twice as long. He was about that eager to meet up with Amos’s two daughters and escort them back to the ranch.

He’d tried to get out of it, coming up with at least half-a-dozen crises that required his immediate attention, but Amos would have none of it. “You’re the only man I’d trust my daughters to, Shad,” the old man had said. “Do this for me, son.”

Hell. How could anybody deny what might be a dying man’s last request? And when that man called you son…well, it wasn’t in Shad to say no. He’d killed men for Amos Kingsland; the least he could do now was round up the two stray heifers and cart them back to Paradise. If only they were heifers, he thought. He knew how to handle those. But ladies…

The quiet of the stable was suddenly broken by the sound of female laughter and the swish of skirts.

Eb shook his head. “What do they do, smell you?” he muttered as three young women paraded across the hay-strewn floor, each trying to elbow the others out of her way, each flashing her petticoats in order to outdo the others.

Shad would have replied, but his arms were quickly filled with women. Rosa clasped her arms around his waist. Nona plastered herself against his hip. Carmela—bless her—fit herself like a favorite saddle to his backside.

“We saw the coach,” Nona cried, her face tipped up, her breath catching. “We ran. Come see us.”

“Come now.” Rosa pulled seductively at his gun belt.

While the prostitutes continued to press against Shad, Eb Talent stood nearby, poking a chew into his cheek. “Beats me, Jones,” he mumbled, “how a fella who claims he don’t care for ladies can draw ‘em like flies on dead meat.”

Shad lifted his head from Nona’s ardent kiss. “I said I didn’t care for ladies, Eb. I never said anything about real women.”

The girls giggled and squirmed all the more in light of the compliment, until Shad was forced to peel them away, one by one. They refused to leave until he had promised to spend the night—upstairs—at the Steamboat Saloon. It wasn’t a difficult promise as that had been Shad’s intention all along after he had paid a dutiful call on the Misses Kingsland to inform them that they would be leaving for Paradise bright and early the following morning.

Eb turned from watching the prostitutes as they sashayed out of the stable. He cast his cohort a look that told him he was one lucky son of a bitch, then spat out of one corner of his mouth.

“Don’t s’pose Amos’s daughters will be half so taken with all that road dust, though.” The driver grinned. “Guess they’re used to fancy fellas who smell more like hair tonic than Texas dirt.”

As he realigned the gun belt that Nona had nearly undone, Shad grumbled, “Some women like it fine.”

“Yup,” mused Eb, “I ‘spect it depends some who it’s on.” He bent then to pick up a bucket and rag, and began to wash down the dusty red-and-black coach. “Still, you best wash some of that dirt off, Shad, afore you pay your respects to the Captain’s daughters. Can’t walk through the door of a fancy eating establishment looking like a man who works for a living, I hear.”

Grumbling under his breath and rolling up his sleeves, Shad ambled toward the washbowl on a bench. “Doesn’t make much difference since I’ll be taking my supper at the saloon,” he called over his shoulder.

“Not tonight, you ain’t,” Eb called back.

“What do you mean?” Shad dipped his hands into the soapy gray water and splashed it on his face. “I always eat and bed down at the Steamboat when I’m in Corpus.”

“Bed down maybe, but tonight you’re eating with the Captain’s daughters at a fancy restaurant.”

The big man shook his wet head, sending beads of water in a wide spray. He pulled the towel roll till he found a dry spot. “Says who?” he asked.

“Says Amos.” Eb put down his bucket and rag, then fished in his pants pocket a moment before producing two gold coins. “He gimme these here double eagles to give you. Said you’re to see those females have a proper meal. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you hisself.”

Actually Eb Talent wasn’t at all surprised. When the boss had handed him the money and had instructed him in how it was to be spent, Amos had laughed as he added, “Shad’ll tell me no to my face, Eb, but once he’s in Corpus he can’t do that, now, can he?”

When it came to getting his way, the Captain didn’t miss a trick. And nobody knew that better than Shadrach Jones. Given half a chance, Shad could usually outfox the old man, too. The two of them were so much alike that some of the hands at Paradise had speculated over the years that the Captain might even be Shad’s natural father. Eb knew different, though. He and Amos had still been steaming back and forth across the Gulf of Mexico when Jones had been born some thirty-four or thirty-five years ago.

There was a lot about Shadrach Jones that Eb didn’t know, including his sire, but he did know right that moment in the livery stable that the man was about to explode. The former sailor was tempted to haul himself up into the coach as fast as his old legs could move in order to avoid the fireworks.

But Shad didn’t explode. He laughed instead, shook his damp head and muttered, “That old fox. I’m telling you, Eb, I don’t envy the Almighty once Amos Kingsland starts staking his claim on the real Paradise.” He jerked a thumb heavenward, then extended his hand toward Eb. “Gimme the damn money.”

Eb did as he was told, saying, “I sure wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when you’re having supper with those gals.”

Shad jammed the coins into his back pocket. “Come on along then. Only don’t expect to linger over coffee and prissy little desserts. Fancy or not, this is going to be one quick meal.” Shad sighed “I don’t get to town so often that I intend to waste my time with a couple of thin-lipped, bony-assed Eastern ladies when there’s all those willing women down the street.”

For a moment, the notion had a certain appeal for Eb. “Maybe I could get a couple new recipes. Fancy stuff, you know, to fix up for the Captain.”

“Sure,” Shad agreed.

Then the old man glanced back at the big coach, still covered with dust. He shrugged. “Nah. Guess I’ll stay right here. Anyway, fancy eats might not sit right with the Captain what with his aching stomach.”

“Suit yourself.” Shad planted his black Stetson on his damp hair and turned for the stable door. “I won’t be long, hoss. You can count on that.”

The second floor, corner room in the Excelsior Hotel was pleasant but small, made smaller still by a cot and a huge assortment of trunks, handbags and hatboxes. The room was so crammed that Shula Kingsland could barely pace. She kept tripping over luggage.

“Damnation,” she howled, grabbing onto the iron footboard to keep from pitching forward onto the floor. “Well, I don’t know why I bother holding on, really. A person couldn’t possibly fall down in here. All this junk would keep a body propped up indefinitely.”

Libby was tempted to remind her sister that most of the junk was hers. Instead, she remained silent and continued to press a cool cloth to the forehead of the little girl lying on the cot. The long trip from Saint Louis—by train and finally by steamship—had taken a toll on Andy. She’d been seasick on the steamship from Mobile and what little she had eaten had promptly come back up. Shula, too, had claimed to be deathly ill while they were on The Belle of the Gulf, but it hadn’t stopped her from taking a seat at the captain’s table or consuming copious quantities of oysters and champagne.

“Lord, it’s hot in here,” Shula said now, fanning herself with her hand as she picked her way toward the window. “I’m fairly dripping, Libby. I don’t remember Texas being so hellishly hot, do you?”

“It’s no worse than Saint Louis,” Libby said softly. Andy seemed to have drifted off to sleep and she didn’t want to wake her. She angled off the cot as delicately as she could. “If you’d sit a minute, Shula, maybe you’d cool off.”

Shula was peering out the window now. “I can see the gulf.”

“Well, that should make you feel cooler.”

“No,” Shula said with a sniff. “Looks to me like it’s boiling.”

Libby sighed. It would be a miracle, she thought, if she survived this day, let alone the several weeks she planned to remain in Texas. It wasn’t a trip she wanted to make, but all her resolve had evaporated that afternoon last week when John Rowan had nearly broken down their front door in his attempt to get his daughter back. Damn that man anyway. Libby had felt she’d had no choice but to spirit the child away—far away—for a while at least. With any luck, the man would commit other crimes for which the police could successfully put him away permanently.

In the meantime, she merely hoped she could endure her sister’s theatrics. Sharing such close quarters with Shula was like being strapped to a front-row seat at a melodrama. The woman could go on for hours about everything and nothing. Complaining, it seemed, had become Shula’s favorite pastime. And she never just talked. She exclaimed!

At the moment she was flapping her arms in an effort to dry the damp fabric of her dress. “I’ll be dehydrated in a few hours,” Shula muttered now. “How can anybody stand this? It’s like a steam bath.”

Libby went to the window and gazed out at the sparkling gulf. Funny she didn’t recall it, she thought. Her memories of Texas were land, not water. Land and nothing else, as far as the eye could see. Her father’s land. Paradise. She wondered if it would seem as vast, as purely magical now that she was grown.

When she turned from the window, she was greeted with the sight of Shula’s draped and ruffled backside as she bent to rummage through a valise.

“Aha!” Shula straightened up, holding a tin of talc. “Help me undo my dress, will you, Libby?”

Libby sighed and crossed the little room to assist her, more aware than ever that her own dress felt clammy and uncomfortable. After unfastening a myriad of tiny buttons, she went back to the window while Shula slapped powder under her arms.

“I want to look good for Daddy,” Shula proclaimed. “What if he’s disappointed, Libby? What if he just plain doesn’t like us?”

“If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.” Libby shrugged, continuing to gaze out at the water.

“Well, that’s a fine attitude. Are you telling me it makes no difference to you whether you wind up filthy rich or as poor as a piddling church mouse?”

“We’re not poor, Shula.” Libby turned to discover her sister wreathed in a cloud of talcum powder, waving a ringed hand to clear the air. Shula appeared flustered by more than mere talc dust, however.

“We’re not poor, Shula,” Libby said again.

“I meant relatively speaking,” Shula insisted.

Libby angled one hip onto the windowsill now and crossed her arms. Her lips firmed as her gaze narrowed on her sister. “Sometimes I think money’s all you care about.”

“It isn’t all.”

“Name something else then.” Libby’s chin lifted and her arms crossed tighter. “I dare you.”

Shula’s brow wrinkled a moment, then she made a little clucking sound and bent to brush powder from the drapes of her overskirt. “I care about how I’m going to keep from looking like a dowdy catfish in all this humidity.”

“Ah,” crowed Libby. “Money and appearances.”

Shula glared at her. “I’m sure our daddy doesn’t want two ragtag, mop-headed women descending on the ranch. Gracious! I want to look nice for him, that’s all. Who knows? We might be the last human beings he’ll ever see. It’s our duty to make his final moments as pleasurable as possible.”

“Foolish,” Libby muttered under her breath.

“I heard that,” her sister shot back. “It’s all right with me if you want to look like a frump. But men take great pleasure in the way a woman presents herself. And maybe if you spent a little more time worrying about your appearance, you might not be Miss Kingsland all your life, Miss Kingsland.”

It was an ancient argument. Their surroundings may have changed, but their differences remained. And it was an argument that Libby knew she would never win, so she was relieved when a soft knock sounded on their door.

“Now who do you suppose that is?” Shula did up a few fast buttons, then bustled to the door. She opened it a fraction.

Libby could hear a deep Texas drawl coming from the opposite side of the door. In a flash, it brought back the music of Paradise. A shiver rippled up and down the length of her spine.

Then, a moment later, Shula closed the door and just stood there, looking a little addled, breathing as if she had only just mastered that most difficult task.

“Who was it?” Libby inquired

Shula sucked in a full breath then, and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Just some big, dirty cowboy who says he’s supposed to take us to supper. I told him we had made other arrangements.”

“Shula!” Libby strode through the trunks, kicked a hat box out of her path and opened the door herself. Then, like her sister, she suddenly couldn’t remember how to breathe. And when she did remember, Libby was overwhelmed.

The big, dusty cowboy was halfway down the hall, but still the fragrance of Paradise lingered where he had stood. Leather and lye soap and dust. Sunshine and something more. Something purely and gloriously male. Libby cleared her throat and called out to him.

“Sir. Just a moment, please.”

Hell and damnation. Shadrach Jones stopped dead in his tracks. Another couple yards of carpet and he would have been trotting down the stairs, whistling, then pushing through the hotel’s fancy front door toward freedom. And Rosa and Nona and—bless her—Carmela.

Now he shook his head slightly, then scraped off his hat again and pressed it over his heart as he turned to get a look at the lady who’d just put the capper on his escape.

This one looked every bit the lady, too. The redheaded sister who had answered his knock on the door had been as painted and powdered as any whore he’d ever seen. This one, though, had lady written on every stiff pleat, every rigid bone, and every square inch of her prim little face. Tiny, this one. Pretty, too. For a lady.

“Ma’am,” he drawled, moving toward her.

She reached out a small, pale hand. “I’m Elizabeth Kingsland.”

Even though he’d just washed up and his hands were probably cleaner than they’d been in weeks, Shad still felt compelled to run his palm along his pant leg before he took her hand. Her grip was firmer than he anticipated. Even so, her bones felt delicate and breakable as a newborn kitten in the depths of his hand. He let her go after one quick pump.

“I’m your father’s foreman, ma’am. Shadrach Jones.” He shifted his weight onto one hip and held his hat in both hands now, dragging the brim through his fingers, wishing like hell this little lady would slam the door in his face the way the other one had.

“My sister said you had mentioned supper?” She tipped her heart-shaped face up.

Well, hell. There went half his evening. He was doomed, but for Amos’s sake he figured he’d just have to smile and take it like a man. “Yes, ma’am.”

His sudden, slantways grin did the oddest, most unexpected thing to Libby’s stomach. It quivered and then drew taut, like a reticule whose strings had been pulled tight. Or perhaps it wasn’t the grin at all, she thought fleetingly. Perhaps it was as simple as hunger. Still, almost before she knew it, Libby was accepting the huge cowboy’s invitation.

“I can’t speak for my sister, Mr. Jones, but I’d be happy to accompany you. If you’d like to wait downstairs, I’ll join you in a few moments.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She closed the door on that engaging grin.

“Well? What did he say?” Shula was reclining atop the bed now, with a damp cloth covering her eyes.

Libby smiled. “’Yes, ma’am,’ mostly.”

“He didn’t happen to say what time he’ll be calling for us tomorrow, did he?” Shula whined. “I hope it’s not before ten o’clock. You know how I am in the morning.”

“He didn’t say.” Libby was gazing in the mirror now, frowning. All of a sudden her hair seemed wrong—too curly, not curly enough, just wrong somehow—and she wasn’t quite sure why that bothered her. She picked up her hat and jammed in the pins. “I’ll ask him at supper.”

Shula swiped the cloth from her eyes. “You’re not actually considering going with him, are you?”

“I’m not considering it, Shula.” Libby turned and faced her sister. “I’m doing it. One of us ought to go since the man was kind enough to ask. If you’d like to go yourself, I’ll stay here and watch over Andy.”

Shula lay back on the pillows and returned the cloth to her eyes. “I can think of a million things I’d rather do than suffer through a meal with some big, dumb ranch hand who only says ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am.’” With a little sigh, she added, “Even if he is handsomer than sin.”

“Really?” Libby shrugged as she pulled on her gloves. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Shula yawned. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me one little bit?” She flounced onto her side and scrunched a pillow beneath her cheek. “Try not to wake me when you come back, Libby. I’m sure we’ll have to be up before the damn chickens tomorrow.”

Libby didn’t know how handsome sin was, but she had to admit, seeing the tall cowboy spilling out of the dainty chair in the hotel lobby, he was a very nice looking man. All of him. From his wide shoulders to his trim waist and on down the endless length of his denim-clad legs.

His hair was dark and longer than she was accustomed to seeing on gentlemen. She thought she liked the way the raven waves brushed his collar and framed his angular face. That face wasn’t tan so much as it was bronze, and not all of that deep color had come from long hours under a hot Texas sun, she was sure. Judging from his cheekbones, the strong flare of his nose and the flint in his dark eyes, Libby assumed her father’s foreman was more Indian than Jones.

Funny, she thought as she crossed the Persian-carpeted lobby while scrutinizing the man in the chair. She felt an overwhelming sense of recognition, yet she doubted that Shadrach Jones had been at Paradise fifteen years ago. He didn’t look like the type to stay in a place fifteen minutes, let alone fifteen years. He looked wild somehow—dark and shiny as a mustang stallion she remembered from years before.

The thought brought instant color to her cheeks. Stallions, indeed, Libby admonished herself, straightening her shoulders and firming her mouth as she proceeded toward him.

When he caught sight of her, he unwound from the little chair and rose with what Libby could only define as a casual grace. The way smoke rises on a windless day. He was, she thought suddenly, handsomer than sin.

“Mr. Jones.” She extended a gloved hand.

Damnation! There she went again, putting that little paw out for him to crush. He could feel the kitten warmth even through the thin fabric of her glove. And, as before, he had intended to let go immediately when it struck him like a lightning bolt that this lady was the dark-haired, skinny little girl who’d been crying all those years ago. Elizabeth? No…Libby. Sad little Libby.

She was looking up at him now, dry-eyed, even a trifle confused. He wondered all of a sudden if he had said her name out loud.

“Miss Kingsland,” Shad said now, letting go of her hand, trying to clear his head of visions from half a lifetime ago.

“It was kind of you to ask us to supper, Mr. Jones.”

“It’s not exactly me, ma’am. Your father—”

“I realize that,” she said, cutting off what was probably going to be a pretty muddled, bush-beaten excuse anyway.

“My sister has decided not to join us, I’m afraid.”

Shad didn’t know if he was glad about that or not. Was one lady worse than two? Especially when the one was prim little Miss Libby? He shrugged slightly as he planted his hat on his head.

“Well, let’s get going then,” he drawled as he gestured toward the hotel’s front door.

It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic invitation, Libby thought. More like a man on his way to the gallows than one preparing to dine. The man had all but admitted he was just doing his job and following her father’s orders. Still, he offered her another of those sunny Texas grins as he was waving her toward the door.

“Yes, let’s,” she said with as much brightness as she could muster, once again aware of that peculiar thread tightening in her stomach.

Libby sniffed garlic as she stepped into the foyer of the restaurant. She sniffed trouble, too, the minute she caught a glimpse of the crystal sconces and the silk-swagged windows. It was a very elegant establishment. Much too elegant for a big dusty cowboy and a woman in a wilted traveling suit.

Behind her, Shadrach Jones muttered a grim little oath as his hand pressed into the small of her back to urge her forward toward a mustachioed little man in a black cutaway coat whose expression was hovering between panic and disgust.

The maître d’ dismissed her with a quick “Bon soir, madame,” then slid his gaze to her companion. “I am sorry, monsieur, but gentlemen are not permitted to dine without the appropriate neckwear.”

There was a sudden change in the temperature of the room. It had seemed merely warm before, but now Libby noticed that it had become distinctly hot. And she realized that the source of that heat was the man standing behind her. Shadrach Jones was giving off heat like a blast furnace.

“Appropriate neckwear,” he muttered now from between clenched teeth, making the phrase sound like an oath.

“Oui, monsieur.” The little man gave his mustache a quick twist. His eyes flicked toward the door, as if inviting them to use it.

Libby would have, too, only her father’s foreman was bolted to the floor like a big, hot stove behind her.

“You mean like a tie?” he drawled now.

The little man lofted his gaze heavenward as if to seek patience and deliverance from ill-dressed, persistent fools. “Oui, monsieur,” he said with a sigh.

“Kinda like the one you’re wearing?”

The question seemed innocent enough, but Jones’s tone—much to Libby’s horror—was what a snake might use if snakes could speak. Its lethal quality seemed lost on the officious little man, however, who lifted a finely manicured hand to touch his black cravat.

“Oui, monsieur. Comme ça.”

The words were barely out of the Frenchman’s mouth when a dark hand flashed out and, in what seemed like a single movement, flicked loose the bow and whipped the tie from beneath the starched white collar with such incredible speed that Libby thought she caught a whiff of smoke from rope-burned skin.

A second after that, Shadrach Jones was looping the black silk around his own neck and grinning down on the stupefied maćtre d’.

“We’d like a table for two,” he drawled.

The little man swallowed audibly. “Oui, monsieur.”