Cold Steel and Hot Lead [How the West Was Done 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Page 1
How the West Was Done 3
Cold Steel and Hot Lead
Stuck on a snowbound train in Laramie, Wyoming, is Senator Derrick Spiro, traveling to introduce a measure giving women the right to vote. While watching a magician making a girl vanish, Derrick meets Rudy Dunraven, escape artist. When the girl fails to materialize again, the men flee from the unruly lynch mob.
They are assisted in their quest to find the real kidnapper by Alameda Hudson, bolting from a disastrous engagement to a serial cheater. A helpful and mischievous spirit instructs Alameda to join the play the circus is putting on in town. All three, tortured by past failed loves, are reluctant to love again. But they have no one to trust but each other, and they can’t clear their names until Alameda puts herself in danger during the final act of the play.
Alameda hopes she lives long enough to be the first woman voter in America.
Note: Each book in the How the West Was Done series stands alone and can be read out of sequence in any order.
Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 54,853 words
COLD STEEL AND HOT LEAD
How the West Was Done 3
Karen Mercury
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
COLD STEEL AND HOT LEAD
Copyright © 2012 by Karen Mercury
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-890-6
First E-book Publication: August 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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DEDICATION
To Clod
Thanks for the ectoplasm. I will keep it refrigerated.
COLD STEEL AND
HOT LEAD
How the West Was Done 3
KAREN MERCURY
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
February, 1869
Laramie City, Wyoming Territory
“Ladies and gentlemen. Step right over here for the most wondrous, amazing, and energetic magical show you have ever laid eyes on!”
Derrick Spiro was watching a rather dull puppet show, screeching Punch and Judys whacking each other over the heads with mallets. He had already taken in the knife throwers, snake handlers, and the Museum of Anatomy that displayed organs in jars and petrified freaks.
“Pluck the duck,” Derrick muttered to himself. “What do I have to lose?”
He stepped right over to the skinny fellow in the gaudy vest, velvet mask, and beaver top hat. The wooden cabinet behind him proclaimed he was “Montreal Jed, the Great Wizard of the West.” A hand-painted sign depicted Montreal Jed mesmerizing the crowd with bugged eyes and sausages radiating from his fingertips, levitating a woman. Apparently Jed was proficient with vanishing lamps and orange trees, too, and could saw a bloody woman in half.
Derrick had nothing better to do. The train that was to take him to the legislature in Cheyenne had been snowed in overnight, stuck here in Laramie City in drifts up to five feet high. He supposed he was lucky that the Great Wilson Circus had been traveling in the third-class cars, for this morning the inventive showmen had instantly jumped out and set up their acts. It was something to see, all spread out here on the blinding white prairie, their colorful costumes dazzling against the azure bowl of the sky above. There was a tent for a kootch show, disheveled men played music on barrels and hoops, and The Flying LeVans were even stringing aerial wires between telegraph poles. They were hardy, ingenious people, and the citizens of Laramie were already flocking, most of them to the kootch show, an “educational exhibit” for men only, where they could see the most important parts of women’s bodies.
“Citizens of Laramie!” bellowed Montreal Jed. He strode across his snowy stage, entrancing the audience with his sausage fingertips, his cape billowing dramatically as he swirled it about. “I have demonstrated to you The Amazing Orange Tree and The Enchanted Loaf. Now I shall give to you, fellow citizens, where the scent of grass wafts and the noble bison roam—”
“There ain’t no bison here!” shouted a fellow standing next to Derrick. “They’ve all gone north!”
“Yeah!” another fellow grumbled. “Ain’t no grass either.”
Montreal Jed’s eyes flickered with annoyance. “Perhaps you, kind and living citizens of Laramie, have heard of the famous Bullet Catch Trick?”
The crowd buzzed with anticipation of seeing someone catch a bullet in his mouth, but it was not to be. “Well I, Sideshow Jeremy—”
Someone bawled, “I thought your name was Montreal Jed?”
Louder, the magician yelled, “I, Montreal Jed, will perform a trick of even greater dexterity and magical skill.” He paused, scanning the crowd with his bugged eyes, and everyone went silent, waiting. Jed materialized a wand from inside his cape, which rained glittery dust onto the first row. “I will make one of you disappear.”
Members of the audi
ence—women, mostly—gasped in shock. Derrick chuckled. As a new territorial legislator in Cheyenne, he was immune to humbug like this. He was a practical businessman, a mine and saloon owner from South Pass, but he obviously had nothing better to do at the moment, being stuck here in Laramie City. Someone had opened up a keg of beer and was dispensing it freely to every stranded passenger who could prove they had a train ticket, probably hoping they would venture to the local Bucket of Blood in order to piss.
The mood was jolly, and a fellow standing next to Derrick elbowed him. “This is the worst magician I’ve ever seen. His pitch is absolute claptrap.”
Derrick turned his head and was stunned by the beauty of the speaker. His profile revealed him to be an absolute Grecian god of a statue, with curvaceous bowed lips and a stately nose. A shock of fluffy brunet hair stuck out from under his gentlemanly derby hat, and he shivered in his greatcoat. A silk scarf was wrapped around his neck, and he gave the impression of being a rather cultured, schooled fellow.
Derrick said, “Well. Isn’t it supposed to be claptrap? I don’t think anyone is supposed to actually believe he’s going to make someone vanish.”
The fellow leveled his crystalline blue eyes on Derrick. His beauty was such that Derrick almost forgot to think. “It’s possible, you know. That someone actually vanishes. Not just hides in a compartment in that spirit cabinet, as it’s obvious Montreal Jed is about to do.”
What did he mean? Derrick opened his mouth to reply, but Montreal Jed was now ranting, “To prove I am not in cahoots with any of my fellow showmen, I will select a woman from the fair town of Laramie. Yes, one of you will have the opportunity to know what it feels like to race at full chisel into the otherworldly realms of the beyond! To hover with the ghostly spirits of our ancestors who still breathe in their heavenly abode beyond the veil.”
“Kiss my ass, Montreal Jed!” shouted a nearby heckler. His female companion belted him to shut up.
Derrick sighed. “It must be very difficult being a showman. In my line of work I sometimes place myself onstage as a target for oiled hecklers, but it’s always nerve-wracking.”
His new friend’s eyes turned steely. “You get used to it.”
“So you’re with the Great Wilson Circus, too? I haven’t seen you before.”
“No. I’m currently residing in Laramie, but I did vaudeville for years. I know all of these tricks. I heard the train was snowed in and a circus was performing. I’ve performed with old Buckskin Bob Four-Eyed Murphy and some of those bareback acrobats, so I came on down to talk about the old days.”
“What is your specialty?”
The beautiful fellow shrugged modestly. “Lately I’ve been specializing in Wild West shows. Tricks on horseback, shooting apples off people’s heads, tattooing, lassoing, escaping from bonds, things like that. Lately, though, I’ve been interested in more esoteric things. Laramie seemed the perfect place to set awhile.”
Derrick held his breath. “And…have you performed the Bullet Catch trick?”
The showman graced Derrick with a look of pure refinement and glamour. He must have led such an exciting life. The legislature was crammed with activity and commotion, to be sure. But suddenly Derrick wanted to step away from the legal life, if only for a few minutes. He wanted to know more about the magical world of performing. “I have. Unfortunately it’s only a very good illusion. Most people are killed when the magician accidentally breaks a ramrod into the barrel and shoots it at their victim. Or a fellow named DeLinsky killed his own wife by standing her on her head and taping her mouth shut.”
Of course Derrick wanted to know more. He had never realized how fascinating the performing life could be! But the crowd surrounding him was roaring, now that Montreal Jed had selected a very pert young blonde woman from the crowd. She blushed, looked at the ground, and kicked snow as she stood next to Jed.
He bellowed, “And where do you hail from, Kittie?”
She said something very tiny, and Jed repeated, “Memphis! Dear denizens of Laramie, I will now proceed to send Memphis Kittie into the otherworldly realm to converse with her dearly departed relatives! Memphis Kittie, give me one of your gloves. The spiritual vibrations of the glove will lead you back into the present time and place.” He waved his wand over the girl. “Laramie City, eighteen sixty-nine!”
“Clownville is more like it!” a roostered fellow drawled. Another woman slapped him quiet.
Apparently being a showman was a very good way to impress the ladies. Derrick recalled some marionettes he’d had as a child. He’d had a privileged upbringing, nothing rough-and-tumble like these circus people. But they certainly had more stories to tell.
Montreal Jed was whispering some things to Memphis Kittie now. Derrick’s new companion said, “See? He’s telling her to hide in the compartment. He’s giving her key words that he’ll say that’ll tell her when to hide and when to come out of hiding again.” He shrugged. “It’s all very basic and stupid. I lost interest in this stuff a while ago.”
Montreal Jed sat Memphis Kittie on a bench inside the spirit cabinet, which proclaimed that viewers would obtain “Wisdom, Advice, and Insight…from the Departed.” A few musical instruments were in the compartments that flanked Kittie, and Derrick suspected that a couple of midgets who stood nearby would sneak in there and play them.
“Watch closely but comment little!” roared Montreal Jed, brandishing his glittery wand as he latched the cabinet door shut. He prowled his icy stage like a venomous spider, flapping his cape every which way. “Roam, Memphis Kittie, roam! Venture back to the land of your ancestors, where your grandmother will impart words of wisdom handed down from centuries of old!”
“Yeah!” bawled a heckler. “Hand her down a jam recipe, more like it!”
Derrick could see the spirit cabinet jiggling as Kittie tried to secret herself in the compartment. The midgets could no longer be seen, and a ukulele and tambourine played from within the furniture.
Derrick turned to his new friend and offered a handshake. “Derrick Spiro. Territorial legislator for Wyoming.”
“Rudy Dunraven.” His eyes sparkled, and dimples appeared when he smiled. “You’ve got my vote, whatever it is you’re going on the stump for.”
Derrick couldn’t feel Rudy’s hand through all the layers of gloves, but his handshake was firm and confident. “I authored a measure advocating the women’s vote, actually,” he said loudly. Being a politician, he knew that this was a good way to get women to fawn over him. He’d never met a woman who didn’t want the vote, and his measure’s popularity had stood him in good stead with the ladies. It was a fortunate thing. His wife’s death two years earlier had turned him against romance, but lately he’d been feeling he might be ready for it again. “I’m heading to Cheyenne to drum up support for it, but I guess that’ll have to wait a couple days until the snow melts.”
“Could be worse,” Rudy opined. “Look at all this entertainment you’ve got. These buskers will keep you amused. I heard there’s an opera company aboard that train, too. We’ve got Oddfellows and Elks halls in town where they could perform.”
“Yes, I was chatting with some of those opera singers. They must not be as hale and hearty as these showmen, for they’re still huddled in the first-class car. Oh, my,” he said, when Montreal Jed made enormous flourishes over the cabinet and moved to open the doors. The ukulele made a dying, smashed sound inside the cabinet, and the tambourine fell to the ground as the midgets scrambled to exit their compartments.
“Behold!” cried Jed, displaying the empty cabinet where Kittie had been sitting. “She has gone to converse with her ancestors in the misty realm where spirits flit about, playing harps in bliss!”
Rudy scoffed. “Harps? Oh, my ass. Believe you me, Derrick. I’ve been to that misty realm. And it doesn’t involve harps.”
As Jed shut the cabinet to perform some more hocus pocus over it, Derrick asked Rudy, “How do you know? I mean, when have you been to the misty realm?”
But when Montreal Jed made a flourish at the cabinet with his wand and the musical midgets scrambled again to open the doors, a stupefying thing happened. Kittie wasn’t there.
Montreal Jed’s grin threatened to split his face in two as he proudly displayed the empty cabinet behind his back. “And now, dear Laramie citizens, delivered to you directly from the hallowed—What?” he snapped at the midget who was gesticulating at the empty cabinet.
The fine citizens of Laramie were shouting things like, “Where’d she go, Sideshow Jeremy?” and “Did she get stuck in the afterlife?”
When Montreal Jed turned around and his puppetlike grin fell from his face, Derrick couldn’t help but break out into laughter. “She missed her cue?” he asked Rudy.
“Must have,” said Rudy. But he was thoughtful and stroked the stubble on his chin. “Once, a spectator died in someone’s hidden compartment. The same thing happened—she failed to materialize.” He chuckled a little now, too. “She only materialized later in a coffin.”