Two Brothers

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I think you don’t say much—you like to watch and listen and work things through before you put in your two bits. You’re at home on a horse, and probably fairly fast with that forty-five, when you’re sober. As a kid, you got good marks in school, but you spent a lot of time staring out the window, wishing you were somewhere else. You liked to read, still do, and you’re a good pool player, at least early in the day. Course, the way your hands shake, we’ll be lucky if you don’t get yourself killed in a shoot-out before this is over.”

  Shay ignored the reference to his unsteady hands—mostly because it was true—and studied his brother with calm amazement. Tristan’s assessment had been uncannily apt. “How did you know all that?”

  “Simple. Except for the pool playing—poker’s my game—and the liquor palsy, I could have been describing myself. You’ve got a callus between the first and second fingers of your left hand, the kind left by the slide of a cue stick. Tell me about your sisters.”

  It was Shay’s turn to grin. “They hate me,” he said. “Or, at least, Cornelia does.”

  When the mosquitoes came out and the sun was going down, Aislinn reluctantly made her way toward the hotel. It was early evening, and bawdy music spilled out the back door of the saloon as she passed, but there was no sign of the marshal. She didn’t attempt to convince herself that the disappointment she felt was really relief.

  For her, twilight was the loneliest part of the day. Folks were locking up their places of business and heading home to supper, and in the lull before the night’s revelry would begin at the Yellow Garter, she could hear the voices of women on the doorsteps of the town’s bare-wood houses, calling their children in.

  She bit her lower lip, remembering her own gentle, harried mother, her hardworking father, a country doctor. They’d both perished in a hotel fire, during a rare visit to the city, where they’d gone to celebrate an anniversary.

  Aislinn and her small brothers, Thomas and Mark, had been at home when the news came. She could still see the expression on the constable’s kindly face, when he’d stopped by, first thing one bright summer morning, carrying the weight of the news in his eyes as well as upon his shoulders.

  They’d had no kin, she and her brothers, and there was very little money. The house was mortgaged, and even though Aislinn managed to sell it right away, it took all but a few dollars of the profits to pay their debts. Several men had come forward with offers of marriage, and she supposed accepting would have been the simplest solution, but something in her had rebelled against a loveless union, undertaken for the sake of expediency. Too, being a doctor’s daughter, she’d known what was expected of a wife, and being just sixteen at the time, she hadn’t felt ready to give that.

  In the end, she had enrolled her brothers in a boarding school in Portland, Maine, using most of the remaining funds to pay for their room and board, and then gone to an agency, seeking employment in the West. She planned to save her wages, buy a little piece of land, and send for Thomas and Mark as soon as she could put a proper roof over their heads.

  She’d found work immediately, serving food in a railroad dining hall in Kansas City, and she’d left there only when a certain unwanted suitor had become too persistent. She’d been moving from one town to another ever since, traveling farther west each time.

  She was nineteen now, with a fair sum saved, and she’d found an abandoned homestead a few miles out of town, and hoped to make an offer of purchase very soon. Once the transaction was complete, she would send for her brothers, who waited anxiously to join her.

  She hoped to marry one day, and have children of her own, but life had made her wary, and the more independent she grew, the less willing she was to settle for anything less than precisely the right man.

  Nearing the entrance to the hotel’s kitchen, she heard the clatter of stove lids and kettles and heavy china plates, the brisk, busy conversation between the cook and the serving girls, and, beneath it all, the bedrock of Eugenie’s authority. It was, in a small way, a homecoming, and Aislinn found herself smiling a little as she went inside, toward the wavering light of the lanterns.

  “There you are,” Eugenie said, up to her elbows in a pan full of hot, soapy water. Beside her were stacks of crockery, waiting to be washed. “I was just about to send Mathilda out looking for you. Get yourself a plate of supper and don’t give me any sass, miss. I won’t have it said that we don’t feed our girls proper.”

  Aislinn was hungry, and glad that someone had been awaiting her return; that she belonged, however tenuously, in this place. The kitchen was warm, and so was Eugenie’s affection, and her spirits rose as she obediently helped herself to a slice of venison roast, a mashed turnip with butter, and a corn biscuit. She took a seat at the trestle table, within the golden glimmer of a lantern, and began to eat.

  Eugenie was in an unusually talkative mood, even for her. “Shall I put on a kettle of hot water for you?”

  “Please,” Aislinn said. Everyone knew she was fussy about cleanliness; each night, behind the rickety changing screen in the attic dormitory, she took a sponge bath. To the other girls, such behavior seemed as eccentric as going barefoot at every opportunity. “It looks as though the dining room’s been doing a lively business tonight.” She indicated the stacks of dishes with a nod. When she was finished eating, she would elbow Eugenie aside and take over the dishwashing task herself.

  “Shamus’s boy was here,” Eugenie said, with much portent, and it was a moment before Aislinn realized she was talking about Shay McQuillan, the marshal. The word “boy” was a misnomer of monumental proportions; McQuillan was all man, with no apologies offered. “I believe he hoped to see you.”

  Something foundered in the back of Aislinn’s throat and flailed its way to the pit of her stomach, like a bird falling down a chimney pipe and fluttering in the ashes of a cold stove. “Nonsense,” she said, shakily. “One woman is the same as another to him. Everybody knows that.”

  Eugenie left her dishwashing to pump water into a large kettle and set it on the stove with a ringing thump. “Do they?”

  She remembered looking up into those too-blue, too-knowledgeable eyes, and her throat closed so tight that she nearly choked on her food. After a few moments of recovery, she stood, meeting Eugenie’s challenging gaze directly. “I’m sorry,” she said, in even tones. “I guess the marshal is your friend, and you’re right to stand up for him. But I’m entitled to my own opinion, and I think he’s bad news, pure and simple.”

  Surprisingly, Eugenie chuckled. “Oh, he’s that for sure. But there’s such a thing as the right kind of misery, gal. I hope you find that out before it’s too late.”

  The cook guffawed. “Lawd, Eugenie, you sure are right about that.”

  Aislinn scraped her plate into the scrap bucket, which would be set out by the back step for a scrawny dog named Bert at closing time, and took over the task of washing the dishes. She had to wait for her bathwater to heat anyway. Eugenie and the cook busied themselves preparing for the morning, giggling like a pair of school-girls, and Aislinn just shook her head.

  When she went upstairs, the attic room was sweltering, as usual, so she pried open the single window, being as quiet as she could, since some of the girls were sleeping.

  She bathed, as always, put on a nightgown, unplaited her hair, brushed it thoroughly, and braided it again. She’d crawled into bed, and was silently repeating her nightly prayers, asking God to keep Thomas and Mark safe and well, when she heard someone weeping.

  At first, she thought it was one of the other serving girls—the new ones, frightened and far from home, often cried themselves to sleep at night—but the sound was thin, and seemed to rise on the hot summer air.

  No one else stirred, and Aislinn honestly tried to ignore the soft, snuffling sobs, but in the end, she couldn’t. She got up and went to the window, peering into the thick darkness. The night was a thrumming cacophony of saloon music, one or two barking dogs, a braying mule, the celebratory whoops of
cowboys and even the occasional gunshot—she knew a moment’s piercing fear for the marshal’s safety—but underlying it all was the weeping, sorrowful and hopeless.

  Far below, in the narrow space between the hotel and the general store, a small figure crouched. Aislinn started to call out, then decided that would be a bad idea, for the girls sharing the room with her worked hard all day, and needed their rest. Exasperated, she pulled on a wrapper and made her way down the rear stairs in cautious haste. In the kitchen, now empty, she lit a lantern and unlatched the back door.

  The brindle dog was taking a noisy supper from the scrap pail; he looked up at Aislinn and then went on lapping up leftovers. Hoping no one would come along and fasten the door behind her, she moved carefully around the corner of the building.

  “Who’s there?” she called softly, holding the lantern aloft in an effort to make out the other person’s identity.

  The figure was a small, trembling bundle, garishly dressed in purple and red taffeta and young, judging by her voice. “Go away and tend to your own business.”

  Aislinn crept closer. “I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at that,” she said. “Are you hurt?” She had an impression of fierce, glittering eyes and terrible fury, barely held in check, and was reminded of a small animal, struggling in a trap. “Shall I fetch the doctor?”

  “I told you, just go away. There’s nothing you or that rummy old sawbones can do for me.”

  Light spilled over the tumble of taffeta and feathers and fear, and a small thrill of excitement went through Aislinn as she realized that the young woman was one of the dancing girls from the Yellow Garter Saloon. Her curiosity was overwhelming, and exceeded only by pity. “I’m not going to leave you. It’s obvious that something is wrong.”

  The woman gave a hoarse, despondent laugh and wiped her nose with one hand. “You’re one of those women who pours coffee and serves flapjacks in the hotel restaurant, aren’t you?” she challenged.

  It occurred to Aislinn that if she and the others could wonder and whisper about the soiled doves at the Yellow Garter, the reverse might be true as well. “Yes,” she answered, crouching down beside the fallen woman. “My name is Aislinn Lethaby. What do they call you?”

  Another bitter laugh. “You don’t want to know what they call me,” she said. “It would singe your pretty little ears.” She paused, then went on with a sort of forlorn defiance. “My mama and papa called me Liza Sue, but I’ve been somebody else for a long time. What kind of name is ‘Aislinn’? You a foreigner or something?”

  Aislinn smiled, set the lantern down, and reached quickly to steady it when it tilted. “My mother took the name from a book. It’s Irish, I think. I was born in Maine, and so were both my parents.”

  Liza Sue sniffled. “That’s a whole lot more than I asked you,” she said. In the dim, wavering light, Aislinn could see that the other woman’s face was badly bruised, as were her upper arms. Her cheeks were streaked with kohl, and the feather on her hat bobbed with a sort of pitiful gaiety. “Listen, I got beat up by a drunken cowboy. Are you satisfied? I’ll be all right by tomorrow.”

  Aislinn gaped at her, horrified. “We have to go and complain to the marshal. Whoever did this should be arrested!”

  The prostitute shook her head, marveling. “If I did that, I’d just get beat up all over again.”

  “Surely the marshal wouldn’t—”

  Liza Sue’s smile was grim. “It isn’t Shay McQuillan I’m afraid of—he’d throw the feller in jail right enough. The next day, he’d get out, and come after me again, only it’d be a whole lot worse the second time. No, ma’am. If Marshal McQuillan asks me how I got myself all black and blue, I’ll tell him I fell down the stairs. You say different, and I’ll swear on the preacher’s prayer book that you’re a liar.”

  “Surely you don’t mean to go back to that place?”

  “Where else would I go?”

  Aislinn flung out her hands in frustration and nearly overset the lantern. “I don’t know. I could speak to Eugenie—somebody runs off to get married at least once a month, and they always need help—”

  “You really are addlepated,” Liza Sue scoffed, but her tones were hollow and her smeared eyes were enormous with a yearning she couldn’t quite hide. “I step foot over the threshold of that place and they’ll toss me right out again, quick as they would that old dog by the back step. Quicker, probably.”

  Aislinn considered the dilemma. Liza Sue had certainly strayed from the fold, but she was well spoken and obviously intelligent. “Do you have any other clothes? If we scrubbed that stuff off your face—”

  “We’d never fool anybody.”

  “I can’t solve the whole problem myself, you know,” Aislinn pointed out. “For my part, I don’t see where you’ve got a whole lot to lose.”

  “You’d lie for me? Why?”

  “I wouldn’t be lying, you would.”

  Liza Sue giggled tentatively. “It won’t work. I’ve got these bruises, and somebody’s sure to remember me from the Yellow Garter.”

  “There are a lot of ways to get hurt—you said as much yourself. And if someone recognizes you, well, it seems unlikely to me that they’d want to admit to frequenting the saloon, not in respectable surroundings like the hotel dining room, anyway.”

  The other woman was silent for a few moments. “I don’t have any clothes. Jake Kingston took them away from me when I signed on at the Yellow Garter.”

  “Then I’ll give you one of my dresses. I have two to spare.” Another silence. The brindle dog came around the corner and tried to lick Aislinn’s face. She pushed him away in a distracted motion of one hand.

  “Why would you want to do this?” Liza Sue asked. “When those hotel folks find out, they’ll send you packing, right along with me.”

  “That’s probably true,” Aislinn confessed. “But I’ve got somewhere to go.” She was thinking of the homestead, with its sagging roof, broken windows and overgrown vegetable patch. She almost had somewhere to go, and in another month, if she scrimped, she’d finally have the funds to send for her brothers.

  “Pardon me, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

  Aislinn sighed. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s not that I’m particularly noble or anything like that …”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “I can’t leave you like this, Liza Sue. My conscience will chew me up alive if I do.” Aislinn stood, resigned to her duty. “If you don’t come with me, I swear I’ll go and report this whole incident to the marshal. You can say I’m lying, but it will be your word against mine.”

  “Hellfire and spit,” Liza Sue muttered, getting up. “You just don’t listen, do you?”

  “Come on. You can hide in the pantry while I go upstairs and find you something to wear. We’ll stuff those clothes into the stove and burn them.”

  “You won’t either,” came the protest, but Liza Sue tottered along behind as Aislinn led the way toward the back door. Mercifully, no one had bolted it.

  “Hush, now,” Aislinn warned, as they crept inside. Every board in the kitchen floor seemed to creak as they crossed the room, but soon Liza Sue was safely tucked away in the pantry, with the smoky stump of a tallow candle for light. She looked small and fearful in the gloom, like a bit of colored paper crumpled up and discarded.

  “You’ll come back, won’t you? You won’t forget I’m here?”

  “I won’t forget,” Aislinn assured her. “Just be quiet.”

  She was halfway up the rear stairs, the lantern in one hand, when Eugenie appeared on the landing with a lamp of her own. “Aislinn? What’s the matter? You feelin’ peaky?”

  Aislinn’s heart pumped with sudden and painful force. “I was hungry,” she said, and hated herself for the lie. Eugenie was kind, for all her gruff words and ways, and she might have sympathized with Liza Sue’s situation. In the end, though, Aislinn couldn’t take the risk of explaining; there was simply too much at stake. “I’m sorry if I
disturbed you.”

  Eugenie assessed her in silence, as though weighing what she’d said. Then, with a weary sigh, she nodded and went back to her own room.

  Aislinn got out her spare dress, a plain green gown of lightweight wool, praying no one would recognize it, and took the stairs one step at a time, barely daring to breathe. Liza Sue was still cowering in the pantry, but she’d found a piece of bread and was nibbling on it. She looked hungrily at the woolen dress.

  “Put this on,” Aislinn whispered crisply. The lamp was burning low and the candle had already guttered out. Soon, they’d both be in the dark. “I’ll get you some water and soap.”

  “How are you going to account for me just appearing all of the sudden?” Liza Sue demanded, but she was stripping off her disreputable gown. “This whole plan is plain crazy—”

  “Maybe so, but it’s the only one we have. You’ll sleep in the storeroom next to the dormitory. In the morning, we’ll pretend that you’ve just arrived in town. You can present yourself at the kitchen door and ask for work.”

  “What if they say no?”

  “Oh, for mercy’s sake,” Aislinn hissed, “stop fussing. We’ll worry about that when and if it happens. I told you, Eugenie’s always looking for help.” She brought a basin of cold water, a sliver of soap and an old dish towel from the kitchen. “Here. Wash your face. Have you eaten? There are some corn biscuits left from supper, and there should be some cold venison, too.”

  Liza Sue was already scouring industriously, and it must have hurt plenty, she was so badly bruised. “I’d be obliged for a biscuit,” she said.

  The second trip up the stairs was more harrowing than the first, for this time Liza Sue was right on Aislinn’s heels. They’d left the lantern behind, on the kitchen table, and outside, the brindle dog began to howl plaintively, calling to the absent moon.

  There was a line of light under Eugenie’s door, and as they passed Aislinn could hear the steady squeak of a rocking chair within. She held her breath and did not release it until they’d reached the threshold of the storeroom.