Felicia Andrews

by Moonwitch

They were in the cell block. Anders had returned from the ranch with news that the marauders attacking the cows were coyotes of the two-legged kind and he had gone straight out to make the rounds of the saloons and the banks. Phil Latham, the night deputy, had not yet arrived, and Doug was too nervous to sit and wait for his time to go home. Instead he grabbed a broom from the corner and opened the cell block's heavy iron-banded door and began to methodically sweep each of the four cells clean.

  He had done it that morning, too. All he was doing now was raising dust.

  And when Carla returned for the tray, he had stopped, standing in the rearmost cell with the broom in his hand and his shirt opened to the waist. She walked straight into the block without asking permission, examining each cell with a slight grin before moving to stand directly in front of him.

  He'd coughed. "Dust," he'd explained.

  She'd nodded and pressed herself into him.

  He looked to the barred window behind him, then to the door and realized she had closed it.

  "Now listen here, Carla, this--"

  Her fingers sealed his lips. Her long black hair, curled and waved like the flow of low hills, was pushed back of her shoulders, which were bare, soft, and inviting his hands to cup them and caress them.

  He did.

  She leaned closer, and he could feel the heat of her naked body beneath the blouse, the skirt, and he tried to read what was in her eyes, the obsidian eyes that locked onto his eyes and would not let them go. He bit at his lips, and she snaked a hand around his neck, yanked, and held him tightly. The kiss was long, hot, her tongue probing the soft underside of his lips while her hips moved against him until, finally, the broom dropped from his hand.

  Some time later he heard someone calling him in the front. He froze, fearing discovery, but the outside door slammed shut and the office was quiet again.

  Carla sat on the straw cot and deftly rearranged her blouse back into position. Her face was flushed, her breasts rising and falling heavily. He could not believe the effect she'd had on him, nor that he had taken her right here, right where dozens of drunks and fighters and a handful of murderers had slept.

  He wasn't at all sure he should feel guilty.

  He laughed quietly instead and helped her to her feet. Her lips brushed over his ear, and she slipped the key of her room into his hip pocket. She said not a word, only walked calmly away as though nothing had happened.

  Damn, he'd thought and shook his head slowly.

  It was only sheer chance that had him meet Doc's wife on the street.

  "I was busy," he said shortly while Manley adjusted his frock jacket and set his hat on his head.

  "See you, Amanda," the man said, taking her hand. "I'll drop in tomorrow, the day after and see how he's doing. Take it easy, Doug. "

  Mitchell nodded to him but did not turn around as the wagon creaked and groaned in a tight circle before heading back for the road. Alex and Bess were gone, racing around the house toward the stables in back.

  "Busy," Amanda said, clearly disbelieving.

  Mitchell nodded. "Amazingly enough, Amanda, there are other people in this territory besides you and yours. They have their problems, too, you know. "

  "You could have sent a deputy."

  Mitchell took a deep breath and held it. Now there was guilt, an almost overwhelming amount, but he would not give this infuriating woman the benefit of seeing him crawl for an apology.

  "Tell me what happened." .

  She thought about ordering him off her property, thought too of throwing herself into his arms and demanding at the top of her voice an explanation for his behavior, a reason for his tormenting her. But she controlled herself with a massive shudder he did not fail to notice. And as she spoke, her left foot tapped loudly on the flooring until the words themselves became part of the cadence. When she had done, she glared at him, daring him to ask her if she had left anything out.

  "No one found anything," he said, almost to himself. "No casings, no tracks . . . nothing."

  "You heard me. "

  "Sounds like a ghost."

  "You tell Carl that."

  "I was jesting, Amanda ...

  She almost hit him. "This is not the time for it."

  He backed off visibly. "No, I guess not. I'm sorry."

  For what, she wondered. For everything? Or just for the ill-timed joke?

  ''I'll come back tomorrow and talk to Carl if he's better. "

  "You do that."

  Mitchell stared at her, his lips working, until finally he could contain himself no longer. "Damn it, Amanda, I don't know why the hell you're so mad at me! I came out, didn't I? And there's nothing I can do, is there? So what the hell . . ." He raised a hand to stroke at the air, let it drop weakly into his lap.

  "Doc told me there's someone new in town," she said quietly.

  "There's lots of new people in town these days," he said, though the chill in her voice struck again at the guilt now eating rapidly at his stomach.

  "Her name is Carla or something . ..

  "So?''

  She stared at him long and hard, wanting in one breath to scream at him and weep. But she only shook her head and turned toward the door.

  "I have things to do," she told him .

  " Yeah. All right."

  "I probably won't be here when you come tomorrow."

  "All right. "

  She opened the door and went inside, closed it softly, and leaned heavily against it. The sound of the pinto's hooves reached her through the thick carved wood, and she closed her eyes tightly.

  Trevor, she thought. Trevor, for God's sake!

  TWELVE

  On the last day of July Frank Webber was sitting on the edge of a brass bed on the second floor of Sophie's Wooden Dollar Saloon. His boots, trousers, chaps, and shirt were folded neatly on a chair on the other side of the small room. His hat was on a peg by the door. His wallet he slipped between mattress and spring while the girl, who claimed her name was Diane, slid coyly behind a dragon-decorated screen and was slowly dropping her clothes over the top.

  He watched them carefully.

  He was still wearing his union suit, and he was not about to get himself completely naked until he was positive she was going to do what he paid her for. He did not trust women. From the first time he had discovered what sex was all about, he felt that he was somehow being cheated from feeling the full effects of what his old man had laughingly called a tumble in the hay. In fact, it was one reason why he had never married, never thinking that it might be because there were few men west of the Mississippi who were quite as unpleasant to look at.

  He sighed. "Goddamn it, you goin' to take all night?"

  "Now hold your horses, sugar," Diane said, only her high-piled blond hair visible over the screen.

  "Sure, " he muttered. "Horses."

  If there was one thing in this godforsaken world he was good at, it was handling horses. Hadn't the missus said to him only last week that she'd never seen anyone break a wild one the way he did? And she ought to know. Redskins know more about horses than anyone on earth. Damn, but she was one fine woman! And he had learned early on that she was completely untouchable, at least for the hired help.

  It didn't bother him.

  "Sugar?"

  It never paid to mess around with your employers; not if you wanted to live to see sunrise.

  "Sugar, blow out the lamp, will you?"

  "I don't like it dark."

  She laughed silkily. "You will tonight. Come on, sugar. Please? For me?"

  He scowled, but thought of the white-powdered breasts that pushed up out of her red-spangled gown, and he sighed. He reached over to the table by the bed and picked up the lamp. He held the chimney close to his chin and blew carefully. The flame wavered and vanished.

  There was a rustling behind the screen.

  "You goin' to take root there, Diane?" he said, lifting his legs onto the bed and folding his hands over his stomach.

  She laughed. He l
iked that, a woman with .a keen sense of humor. That Booth fella was right; this was the place when the cows started looking good.

  "Sugar?"

  "Now what?"

  "You ready?"

  "Jesus Christ, lady, Sophie's goin' to be poundin' on the door by the time you decide to get your ass over here. "

  "Hey, watch your language, cowboy. "

  "Ain't no cowboy. I work horses, lady.''

  "My name is Diane. "

  He closed his eyes and demanded patience. "All right, Diane. Well, Diane, you goin' to come or am I goin' to have to come get you?"

  He heard her moving, then, across the bare floor, and he tried to relax. He could not. He could picture her standing over him, could see her now as his eyes adjusted to the almost total darkness. He wanted to ask her to open the curtains just a little, so he could see her and what she had to offer. He wanted to. He was about to. But there was no time.

  Something cold, something hot, slid into his chest, just under his ribs. He gasped and jerked into a sitting position, was shoved back onto the pillow and held there until the darkness deepened and became laced with something that sounded like a woman screaming.

  Doug stood over the body, his hands jammed into his pockets. He had been doing some reading in his boarding-house room when Phil Latham come pounding on his door, yelling something about a murder at Sophie's. He had thrown on a shirt, buckled on his gunbelt, and was down the stairs two at a time before Phil had a chance to give him the details.

  On the way over he saw a small crowd growing in front of the saloon, and he ordered his deputy to keep everyone out of the place and not to let anyone leave.

  Inside it was quiet. There were only a dozen men at the forty-foot bar, less than that scattered at the green-topped tables set in a semicircle like ripples in front of a low curtained stage. A staircase wound gently around the far wall to a balcony above, and he took it quickly, nodding once to the bartender who only pointed toward the corner room.

  Sophie, naturally, was nowhere to be seen. Another one of her spells, he thought sourly.

  Doc Manley rose from the bedside and drew the sheet over the man's face. There was a small amount of blood on the floor.

  "She did a good job," the doctor said dryly.

  Diane, wrapped in a filmy black robe, sat in a high-backed wooden chair as far away from the bed as she could get. She was pale, and her ringlets dangled in front of her face without being brushed aside. Her hands trembled in her lap. There were tears in her eyes, a splatter of blood on her right arm; across the top of her chest, on her neck and upper arms were the beginnings of ugly welts and dark, painful-looking bruises.

  On the table by the bed was a long thin knife, and he knew that it would fit perfectly into the sheath she, and the other girls, routinely wore under their dresses strapped to their calves.

  He walked over to her and knelt in front of her. He smiled, and she tried to respond, but her lips were quivering too much for her to control.

  "All right, Diane," he said softly. ''Tell me what happened. "

  "We . . . " She caught a sob in her throat and put a hand to her mouth.

  "Diane, my love, " he said then, "you aren't going to pass out on me, are you?

  She shook her head quickly.

  "All right, then. Pull yourself together and tell me what happened. "

  "Well, he . . . " She swallowed, and Doug mastered his impatience. "He come in here, y'know, and we was goin' to talk some and have some of Sophie's special stock, you know what I mean?"

  Doug nodded, fighting a smile, keeping his face as impassive as he could.

  "Well, he started gettin' fresh, if you know what I mean. He wanted . . . well, he wanted to do things to me. Disgustin' things. I told him over and over I wasn't that sort, that if he wanted things like that he should go over to the Palace, if you know what I mean. But he just kept comin' on and comin' on . . . he hit me once, but the singin' was goin' on and no one heard me yellin', I guess. "

  She paused for a moment, and Doug put a hand o n her knee, patting it gently and smiling now to encourage her. She straightened and glanced over at the doctor, who was watching her intently.

  "Well, then I thought I was goin' to die right here. I mean, he was so ugly and all and he was goin' to kill me, Sheriff, I swear it. He hit me again, right across the back of the head, and knocked me down. Before I could move, he had the dress right offn my back. Well, I tell you, I wasn't about to get taken like no animal, no way. So I tried to calm him down a little. I moved around a bit, you know what I mean, and I told him that okay I'd do what he wanted. So he got on the bed there and took off his clothes-he had that there gun there pointed right at my heart, Sheriff, so what could I do?"

  "You're doing fine, Diane," he said. "Just fine . "

  "Then I kind o f moved away from him, you know, thinkin' maybe I could get to the door, but he jumped up off the bed and grabbed me and threw me down . . . Well," she said, suddenly louder, "I was damned if I was goin' to let that ugly son of a bitch rape me, that's for sure!" She gasped then and took a deep, long breath. "Sorry. I lost m'head . "

  "That's all right, Diane. "

  " I shouldn't talk like that, but I was so scared, Sheriff, and he started hittin' me all over again. Well, I still had my skirts on, see, and I managed to roll away from him and get out my friend, if you know what I mean. He jumped at me and I just held it up and . . . and . . . " She burst into tears, and Doug stood quickly. He stared down at her for a moment, shook his head, and walked with Manley to the door.

  "Well?"

  Manley nodded. "Could have been, I guess. Some of these hands they get kind of funny out there. We've seen worse, you and I. "

  "Yeah . " He opened the door and nodded to a short, spindly man dressed in formal black. "Okay, Henry, he's all yours. "

  The undertaker hurried inside. As h e stood over the body, he tipped his hat to Diane, who took one look at him and started crying all over again, raced from the room and across the balcony to the far door. It slammed behind her.

  "Could be," Manley said again.

  "She isn't known for cutting folks up," Doug said as they walked toward the stairs.

  "Not that I know of. Sophie runs a pretty good place. This one here, this Diane, she's new. Only here a month or so. Came in from Denver on the train. "

  Doug nodded.

  "You going to hold her?"

  "Nope. No reason. Like you said, the room looks just like it happened the way she said. And I know you aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead, but she was right about one thing-he surely was one ugly son of a bitch. "

  Manley laughed, shook Doug's hand, and left. Doug wandered over to the bar, then, and spoke briefly with some of the men who had stayed around to pick up some gossip. When he learned that Frank Webber worked for Four Aces, he almost groaned aloud. Then he headed into the office behind the bar and waited for Sophie to decide to show up.

  When she did, all white glitter and false diamonds wound into her silver-gray hair, he warned her about being more careful of the people she allowed upstairs and told her that he would need Diane in court the following morning for the inquest. It was all a formality, he assured her; the girl wouldn't be charged with anything.

  An hour later he pushed away from his desk and riffled the papers in front of him until they fell into a neat pile. It was the one thing he hated about this job, filling out forms and depositions, but Judge Kurtz-when he wasn't acting like the mayor-had told him there was a need for records like this and it was to his benefit to keep them as accurate as possible.

  Maybe, he thought; but how do you put down something like what Amanda was going to say when she finds this out?

  He considered sending Latham out first thing in the morning, knowing that if he had to talk to her, there would only be another explosion. But Phil was no better at handling that damned woman than he was. He sighed, rose, and clapped his hat on his head. He waited outside for a few minutes, thinking that trouble like
this could only come in pairs, then moved down the wooden walk until he reached the darkened facade of Daniels's Restaurant. He could see through the large front window the tables piled with their chairs, the gaslights turned low, the faint shadow of Lonny Daniels still sweeping up behind the far counter. It would take him, Doug knew, most of the night to get things the way he wanted them, and though he often thought the old man worked too damned hard for a town this size, it certainly paid off in customers.

  At the building's far side was an alley. He stood at the mouth for several moments, debating, then turned in and hurried through the black tunnel until he reached a high fence that cut the alley short. There was a gate. He opened it, just as a light from a room above the restaurant flickered on and cast a sickly yellow glow over him. He hurried through and shut the gate behind him; he was facing a second narrow alley that ran perpendicular to the one he'd just left. Here were the backs of the shops and offices that faced Main Street, including his own, and the dismal fronts of a half-dozen small cabins that had somehow been constructed in the hopes that this would be the main thoroughfare, back when Coreville had been founded. He didn't know what had happened, knew only that they were all occupied by a handful of old men long since past their usefulness on the range, an elderly couple who claimed they were waiting for the Second Coming . . . and Carla Menoz.