Texas Tall

by Kaki Warner

  “Yes, sir, I’ll probably go to the meeting,” she said in answer to his question. “Becky said Mrs. Ledbetter wanted to attend, and I might go with them.”

  “Be careful.” His teasing smile deepened the grooves around his mouth. “Wouldn’t want you girls generating any lustful thoughts about the new preacher.”

  “I’ll . . . ah . . . remind Becky.”

  “Mrs. Ledbetter, too. She was always a rare one.”

  Lottie couldn’t even imagine that. “I’ll keep an eye on both of them.”

  As it turned out, it wasn’t Mrs. Ledbetter she had to watch out for when they settled in to hear the reverend preach the following Sunday. Becky nearly threw out her back, waving those bosoms around, and the preacher almost tripped on his tongue when he saw them bob and jiggle. Mrs. Ledbetter mostly dozed.

  There were enough people in the crowded tent that Lottie wondered if the Greater Glory to God Assembly would have any worshipers that morning. Most had probably come out of curiosity. And Reverend Lindz didn’t disappoint, working his attentive listeners like a master fisherman, using his voice to hook them, then promises of eternal glory to reel them in. His closing message was simple: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” He said it twice for emphasis then passed around the tin collection plate, adding that it was more blessed to give than receive and giving to him would help further the Lord’s work as well as keep them safe from Satan.

  Seeing how few coins plinked into the plate, he doubled his efforts. Lifting his voice and hands toward the top of the tent, he promised fiery damnation to those who refused to heed God’s words, and glorious redemption to those who gave in His name. That got the money flowing.

  It was quite a performance. Lottie wondered if he would bring out snakes for an encore. Then seeing the slack-jawed awe on the faces around her, she chided herself for being such a doubter. She had heard much of this before: Grandpa had a Bible verse for every occasion and had used them frequently to keep her in line.

  Overall, it was a nice sermon, although Mrs. Ledbetter seemed unimpressed. Or perhaps the heat in the stifling tent overrode religious zeal. When Lottie saw her face had gone pasty gray, she elbowed Becky. “Mrs. Ledbetter is looking poorly. We should get her home.”

  Becky stared raptly at the reverend. “Hmm?”

  “I’m taking Mrs. Ledbetter home,” Lottie said in a louder voice. “It’s too hot in here for her.”

  “Hot?” When Becky finally tore her gaze from the reverend and looked at the woman beside her, her eyes widened in concern. “Mercy!” She hopped to her feet, and together, she and Lottie helped Mrs. Ledbetter from the bench.

  As soon as the reverend saw them rise, he pounced. “Come forth, come forth!” he cried, bounding toward them down the aisle between the benches. “Let the Lord heal you! Let Him work His miracles through these unworthy hands!”

  “Eh?” Mrs. Ledbetter said, looking around.

  Stopping in front of the befuddled old woman, Reverend Lindz boomed in her face, “Do you believe?” Without waiting for a reply, he clapped his hands to her head and scrunched his eyes closed. “By the power of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” he shouted in ringing tones, “I take away your pain and despair! Rise up and be healed!”

  Having already risen, and being unhealable besides, Mrs. Ledbetter did the next best thing and fell dead at his feet, a beatific smile on her face.

  Some said the reverend killed her. Others said it was a miracle, since her suffering was finally over and she was now at peace with the Lord in heaven. The less pious said the preacher ought to get holsters for those lethal hands.

  The reverend offered no comment and added drinking to his growing list of vices.

  “I don’t care what anybody says,” Becky said several days later when she and Lottie left the cemetery after putting wilted flowers on Mrs. Ledbetter’s grave. “Nathaniel didn’t kill her.”

  “Nathaniel?”

  “He was only trying to help.”

  “Since when do you call him Nathaniel?”

  Becky flipped a curl aside. “Why shouldn’t I call him Nathaniel? That’s his name, isn’t it?”

  Lottie continued to stare at her.

  “He’s heartbroken, you know. He’s never killed anyone before.”

  “And he didn’t kill Mrs. Ledbetter,” Lottie reminded her. “The poor woman was dying. It was the heat that did her in.”

  “Oh, I hope so.”

  They walked for a few more yards, then Becky heaved a despondent sigh. “Her brother is coming from Missouri. He wrote and asked me to stay and keep an eye on the house until he arrives. I think he plans to sell it. If he does, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Maybe Nathaniel will hire you to pass around his collection plates.” It was unkindly said, but Lottie wasn’t feeling particularly kindly toward the reverend. He seemed contradictory in a lot of ways, and she hated that he preyed on the vulnerable, like Mrs. Ledbetter and now Becky.

  But she could be wrong. She could be hearing her grandfather’s voice in the reverend’s words. “God casts a jaundiced eye on evildoers,” he’d often warned her. “And He’s always watching, so you’d best be righteous in His sight.”

  That ever-present coil of guilt in her stomach tightened. In her head she heard echoes of that inhuman groan as the roof caught. If God was watching that day three years ago, did He understand why she’d done what she had?

  Over the next days, Becky continued to console the reverend. She went to every prayer meeting, arriving early to help him set up and staying late to gather the tattered hymnals. She even convinced a couple of whores at the Spotted Dog to attend with her, which caused a ruckus among the more respectable womenfolk and a few awkward moments with their husbands, especially when the whores called out and waved. Even Juno was upset, Becky said.

  But not for the reason Lottie would have thought.

  On Monday morning of the following week, Lottie was returning from the bank after depositing the previous week’s receipts when Mr. Juno stepped onto the boardwalk as she approached the Spotted Dog.

  “Miss Weyland.”

  She stopped, surprised. He’d never spoken to her before. She wondered why he did so now, or if she was about to be pulled into the middle of a conflict between Becky and the saloon owner. “Mr. Juno.”

  “Just Juno.”

  She glanced past him down the boardwalk, then across the street, then down at the money pouch in her hands. Anywhere but into those dark, all-seeing eyes. Eyes that reminded her of the color of molasses. His voice, too. Deep and rich and flavored with the cadence of the South.

  “I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said.

  Confusion brought her head up. “Why would I be embarrassed?”

  He gave a thin smile that softened the sternness of his features. “You’re a good woman. I run a whorehouse. You shouldn’t be seen talking to me.”

  Unsure how to respond to that, she made a vague dismissive gesture. “How can I help you?”

  “How serious is Becky Carmichael about Reverend Lindz?”

  Now she was even more confused. She studied Mr. Juno, trying to read the intent behind the question. Was he worried he might lose a prospect for his brothel? Upset that Becky had riled up his whores with religious talk?

  Then she saw the answer in his worldly-wise eyes. “You care about her, don’t you?”

  He looked away, his lips clamped in a tight seam.

  He wasn’t as old as Lottie had originally thought. Maybe early thirties. But there was a hardness about him that made him appear older, as if harsh experience had aged him prematurely, replacing youth with weary cynicism. Would that happen someday to the farm-boy-ranger, too? Would the hard life of a lawman dampen the fire she’d seen in his clear blue eyes?

  “Very much,” Mr. Juno said, snapping her back to attention.<
br />
  When he faced her again, she saw a man she could like, possibly even trust, and one who might be good for Becky.

  “I don’t want to see her hurt, Miss Weyland. That’s all.”

  “I don’t, either.” Lottie smiled, an idea forming. “But she’s at loose ends right now, and looking for something to hold on to. If you want to help her, you might offer her a job—not upstairs,” she hurriedly added. “I understand you serve food. Maybe she could work in the kitchen. She’s a good cook. Or teach her to deal. I’ve heard some of the gambling palaces in Dallas have female dealers.” And since Becky was in the saloon all the time, anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to give her something better to do than flirt with cowboys. “Keep her busy, Mr. Juno. Eventually, the reverend will head to greener pastures.”

  “Just Juno.” He thought for a moment, his dark eyes fixed on a point beyond her shoulder. Then he nodded. “Makes sense. I appreciate the help, Miss Weyland. And I never forget a favor.”

  “Just Lottie,” she said, feeling as if she’d made a powerful ally in the most unlikely of places.

  Chapter 3

  The days marched on, cooler now as they neared the middle of October. Isolated showers brought on a flurry of last-minute growth in vegetable and flower gardens before the cool nights of fall settled in.

  Lottie sensed change—not only in the weather, but in herself, as well. She felt restless and vaguely discontented, as if she was waiting for something she could neither name nor describe.

  Nights were long and lonely. As she lay listening to mice scurry and crickets chirp in tempo to the distant plinking of the piano over at the Spotted Dog Saloon, her thoughts often turned to the farm-boy-ranger, and whether he was still alive or if an outlaw’s bullet had stolen the glow from his beautiful blue eyes. Did he remember the girl who had tried to help him? Did he think of her as much as she thought of him?

  Her preoccupation with him was probably a reflection of her solitary life, always living on the fringes of other people’s lives. Yet in the dark stillness of those lonely nights, she wondered what it would be like to have someone of her very own. To have a man show interest in her, kiss her, smile at her the way Mr. Brackett smiled at his wife. Idle thoughts that left her restless and yearning.

  But the worst nights were when Grandpa invaded her dreams and she would awaken breathless with fear, dreading the retribution God would exact for what had happened on that terrible day over three years ago.

  One week drifted into two, and the sameness of her days added to the restlessness of her nights as she waited for something to change.

  Her eighteenth birthday came. Mrs. B. baked her a cake, and Becky gave her a length of green ribbon that she said brought out the green in her greenish-yellow eyes. Becky dropped by less often, spending most of her time at the saloon where she had quickly settled in, doubling as cook and faro dealer. She loved it, and the patrons loved her. Reverend Lindz was less enthusiastic, but managed to keep up his spirits by gambling for God and drinking his guilt away.

  Juno continued to watch over Becky and her preacher, which Becky found irksome. But he paid her well, and she was able to quit working for the crab and still pay rent to Mrs. Ledbetter’s brother so she could stay in the house. She helped defray the cost by renting out the other bedroom to one of Juno’s whores who had gotten pregnant. Juno paid the girl’s rent, which surprised Lottie. Most brothel owners would have booted her out since she could no longer work. Or maybe it was his way of protecting Becky’s reputation by ensuring she had a chaperone—even if it was a pregnant whore—and making sure the townspeople knew she wasn’t staying overnight at the saloon. Whatever his reasons, as far as Lottie was concerned, it was another mark in his favor.

  Seeing Becky better herself gave Lottie ideas about improving her own situation. She couldn’t stock shelves and sleep in a storeroom forever. The future she dreamed of wouldn’t happen on the tiny nest egg she was building. She had to do something.

  Early one cool day toward the end of October, she donned her Sunday dress and gloves, took extra care shoving her unruly light brown waves beneath her Sunday bonnet, and marched across the street to the People’s Bank of Greenbroke.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Griffin,” she told the sour-faced, middle-aged man with a permanent squint and a blackened front tooth, who sat at a desk outside the bank owner’s office.

  “He’s busy.”

  Lottie glanced through the open door behind him. Griffin was dozing in his chair, heels propped on his desk. “He doesn’t look busy.”

  “I can assure you he is.”

  “Doing what?”

  The squint narrowed to a tiny slit.

  “I just need a moment of his time.”

  “He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll check.” And before he could stop her, Lottie rounded his desk and darted through the open door, shutting it behind her with a bang that brought Griffin’s feet thudding to the floor and his rotund body bolting upright in his chair.

  “Good day, sir. I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

  Griffin righted his spectacles and squinted in confusion. “Miss Weyland?”

  “I know how valuable your time is, so I’ll be quick.” Fluffing her skirts, she settled into the chair in front of his desk. “I’m good with numbers,” she said without preamble. “I’ve been doing the books at Brackett’s Market for a couple of years now. Have you ever found a mistake in the tallies I deposit?”

  “Well, no . . . but . . .” He glanced at the closed door. “Where’s Humphries?”

  “And have the Bracketts ever offered a complaint about my work?”

  Realizing no help was forthcoming, Griffin sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, disturbing his lacquered mustache and knocking his spectacles askew. “Not that I’m aware of,” he said, patting everything back in place.

  “So you know I’m competent. And trustworthy.”

  “I do, Miss Weyland.” Sitting back in the chair, he laced pudgy fingers over his round belly. A look of regret crossed his face. “Is this about a job? Because if it is—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “I would hire you in a minute if I could afford another employee.”

  “Thank you, sir, I appreciate that. But I don’t want your money. I want your knowledge. And your recommendation.”

  No longer half-asleep, he sat forward, interest sparking in his bleary eyes. “Recommendation for what?”

  “I’m starting a bookkeeping business.” It was an idea she had toyed with for some time. She liked doing books for the Bracketts, and she was good at it. Why not turn something she enjoyed into a business? “But I’ll need your help.”

  He sat back again. “If this is about a loan—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Then what?” He scratched his balding head. “I don’t understand.”

  “In addition to the bookkeeping business, I want to learn how to invest. I figure you’re the man to teach me.”

  His rapid blinking told her he was shocked by the idea of a woman in the investment business. And maybe a bit flattered that she had come to him.

  “What I propose is a trade,” she rushed on before he could interrupt with another reason why he wouldn’t be able to help her. “I’ll work for you two days a week without pay. In return, you’ll teach me about stocks, bonds, railroad shares, and so forth.”

  More blinking. “I will?”

  “We’ll both benefit. You’ll get an honest, hardworking employee for nothing, and I’ll learn how to make my earnings grow. I figure it’ll take about six months.”

  “Six months?” A smile peeked beneath the corners of his gray mustache. “Is that all?”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll be seeing what other businesses might need a bookkeeper. That’s where your
recommendation comes in.” Lottie let out a deep breath and clasped her shaking hands in her lap. “What do you say?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I can start next Tuesday. On trial, if you’d like. Or I could—”

  “Fine.” Chuckling, he raised his hands in surrender. “You win, Miss Weyland. Tuesday it is, then.”

  “You won’t regret it, sir.”

  “I hope not.”

  Lottie sniffed at Humphries on her way out and refrained from skipping back to the store.

  She’d done it.

  She had a plan, prospects, and would soon have her own business.

  Her grand future was on the way.

  The first business she approached was the Spotted Dog Saloon. Mr. Juno had told her he never forgot a favor. She hoped he remembered that.

  She went early in the morning, surmising that most of the gamblers, drinkers, and upstairs patrons would have departed by then. But just in case, she went to the back door and entered through the kitchen, as she had seen Becky do several times in the past. Voices drifted down the hall from the front of the establishment. Gathering her courage, she headed that way.

  The hallway was narrow, unadorned, and surprisingly clean. The chair rail on the polished wainscoting was free of dust; the plank floor was swept clean. Beneath the masculine odors of whiskey and sweat and tobacco smoke lay the clean scent of lemon oil and a dash of flowery perfume. She continued past several closed doors. The rooms behind them were silent, except for one, from which came the faint sound of snoring.

  The voices grew louder, punctuated now and then by soft feminine laughter. Fortified with a deep breath, Lottie stepped through the opening into the main room, then stopped and looked around.

  Tables dotted the large open space. The piano she heard in the still of the night sat silently in one corner. Brass cuspidors stood here and there along the floor, and ornate brass lanterns hung from the painted ceiling. Under the morning sunlight slanting through the front windows, everything sparkled and gleamed, and not a single cobweb dangled overhead. If this was a place of wickedness and vice, it was certainly well-kept.