by Shirl Henke
“It'll take time. I don't want to return to Wellsville looking like this,” Rory replied distractedly. The tremendous surges of adrenaline that had sustained him through the fight were gone now, but the pain from his beating had not yet set in. He was briefly, blessedly numb.
“I'll see to collectin' our winnin's while Junie here tends you,” Blackie said with a wink.
“Rory, I can't stay in Denver,” Beau interjected as the crowd surged noisily around them. “I got a livery to tend and a new racer due to run next Saturday at the track.”
“I understand, Beau. You collect your winnings and head out. I'll be along once I don't look so polecat ugly.”
“Even beat up, you ain't ugly, darlin',” Junie purred.
“I appreciate your help, Junie, but I think what I need to do right now is go back to my room and sleep—for about a week.” He stood up and clapped Beau Jenson on the back. “I owe you, Beau, for getting me this opportunity.”
“I reckon everything worked out for the best. You got you a real good stake now. What y'all figger on doin' with it?”
“Buying a piece of land up in the Truckee Valley. I might even be interested in some of your racing stock.” Rory grinned through cracked lips. “I'd shake on that, but neither hand will unfist until I soak them.”
Jenson thumped him on his shoulder. “I take it that means I done lost me the best horse handler I ever had.”
“That it does, Beau, but I'll always be grateful that you gave me that job.”
“You done earned every cent I paid you, son. Why don't y'all head back to the saloon? I'll see what's keepin' Blackie.” Jenson waded into the crowd of well-wishers who began to cluster around their new hero, while Poole's handlers dragged him, semiconscious, out of the ring.
“The end of an era,” the Kilkenny Kid said softly to himself as he saluted his fallen foe.
* * * *
“Nearly ten thousand between yer purse and the side bets,” Blackie said, shoving a stack of bills in front of Rory as they sat around the big walnut table in his private apartment. The din of the celebrating crowd downstairs was muted by the thick carpets and heavy paneled walls. Blackie Drago was a man of the people, a saloon owner and political boss; but he had acquired refined tastes over the years. He poured a round of excellent cognac and raised his crystal snifter in a toast.
“To new beginnings.”
Jenson swallowed the aromatic brandy and coughed. Rory held his cognac gingerly between two badly swollen hands.
Soaking and ice had finally enabled him to unclench his fists, but they were badly hurt. He sipped the brandy cautiously through his sore lips, grimacing at the sting of the alcohol.
“Keep my prize money in your safe, Blackie. As soon as I can hold a pen, I'll write a letter to my lady in Wellsville, but I don't think it'll be any time in the next few days. Every nerve and muscle in my body is starting to ache like a bitch. Think I'll turn in now,” he said, finishing the cognac and setting down the glass. He turned to Jenson. “I'll not be up to see you off tomorrow. Safe trip, Beau.”
“Same to you 'n all the luck of the Irish, Rory,” the beefy-faced older man replied as Blackie refilled his snifter.
“I've already had all the luck one man can ask for in this lifetime—even an Irishman.” He left the two men and headed down the hall toward his room. The raucous sounds of celebration from below made him grin inwardly. Once, he would have been down there in the thick of the crowd, swilling cheap liquor with a girl on either side and a deck of cards in his hand. Now, all he could think of was getting back to Rebekah.
Engrossed in his own thoughts, Rory did not see Junie in the dark hallway. She unfolded her lush curves from her doorway as he walked past and placed her hand on his arm. “Need someone to rub yer sore muscles, darlin'?” She insinuated herself closer, rubbing one nearly bare breast against his chest. “I know boxers are in need of some relief after a fight—they kinda hold everythin' in before.” She wet her carmined lips with the tip of her tongue and smiled at him.
“I appreciate the offer, Junie, but all the relief I can handle right now is to fall sound asleep,” he replied, gently disengaging himself from her fulsome charms.
He watched in mild amusement as she pouted and ran one·hand down the curve of her satin-clad hip onto the black fishnet stocking revealed in the slit up the side of her costume—what little there was of it. Her hair was hennaed a harsh dark red that clashed with the vivid pink rouge on her cheeks. Her eyelids were weighed down with kohl, giving her dark eyes a slumberous, sly look. All in all, she was the kind of woman he was used to spending time with, nothing like the slender, delicate beauty of his quiet Rebekah. Pausing at his door, he gave her a brief nod good night and slipped inside. She stomped downstairs in her high-heeled satin mules to join the celebration.
In her snit, Junie did not pay any attention to the two men who watched the exchange from the bottom of the steps. “Glad thet whore didn't go ta bed with him,” Chicken Thief Charlie Pritkin said, spitting in the general direction of the cuspidor. “I'd hate to cut a fine-lookin' piece like her.”
“Madigan's enough ta handle by hisself. Just be glad we ain't got no screamin' female to distract us,” Bart Slocum replied.
“Let's git it done,” Pritkin replied, starting for the stairs.
“Shit! Give him some time to fall asleep first.”
“You afraid o' thet mickey?” Pritkin scoffed.
Slocum's face darkened. “Hell, no, but I got sense. He jist beat a prize ring champ unconscious, remember?”
“I wuz there. He took lots o' raps hisself. He'll be asleep quick enough.”
“At least we can use the window. He's probably locked his door,” Slocum said, eyeing the side door to the saloon.
A crafty glint came into Chicken Thief s eyes. “Ain't no lock I cain't pick,” he replied, chuckling.
Rory was just drifting off to sleep. He rolled onto his left side, brushing the stitches over his eye that Doc Eisner had so carefully sewn after the fight. Pain lanced through his skull and he flopped flat on his back, gritting his teeth. Then he heard it—a soft click, the sound of a door latch snapping open. He turned his head and peered through the darkness at a slit of light widening as the door to his room slowly opened. Two figures slipped stealthily inside. Rory caught the gleam of a knife before the door closed silently.
Surely, they couldn't think he was stupid enough to sleep with his prize money under the mattress! He waited tensely, thinking of his options. The gun he carried was in his saddlebag across the room. No way to reach it. Over the din downstairs, no one would hear his call for help and Blackie' s apartment at the opposite end of the hall was virtually soundproof.
One of the assassins began to circle the bed. Rory could not let them surround him. He rolled off the mattress and launched himself at the nearest one, hoping to fell him with one surprise punch; but the room was dark, and his vision greatly impaired by the swelling around both his eyes. He struck the target, but the punch was just off center. The man doubled over but did not go all the way down.
By then the second fellow was on him with the knife. Rory whirled around, his stiffened muscles crying out in agony as he grappled with the man, one hand holding the wicked-looking blade just inches from his throat. He pounded his assailant's ribs and twisted the knife away from his own throat at the same time. As the would-be killer doubled over, the blade caught him full force, buried to the hilt at the base of his neck.
Madigan yanked it free and turned just as the other man recovered and charged him, knife raised. As the two blades clashed, Rory was at a distinct disadvantage. His swollen hand could barely hold his own weapon and was fast going numb. He had to finish this quickly. Trying to parry the other man's blade, he jabbed again with his left but missed. He was slowing down, his grip on his knife slipping away.
“Too late, mickey,” Chicken Thief Charlie Pritkin said with a low, ugly chuckle. His knife slipped between Rory's ribs.
Madi
gan fell to his knees, Slocum's knife falling from nerveless fingers as he crumpled. Pritkin reached out to assure himself the job was done by slashing Madigan's throat, but footsteps coming down the hall deterred him. Perhaps, someone had heard the fight and come to investigate. He sprinted toward the window, jumping nimbly over Bart Slocum's body. That one was dead meat. So was the Irishman. He climbed through the window and jumped to the soft ground below, landing with a thud.
Whistling jauntily, he rounded the corner of the alley and melted into the shadows. The job was done and he had no one to split the reward with. A good night's work all right.
* * * *
Rory awakened as fierce, thrumming pain washed over every inch of his body, but none so wicked as that centered in his left side. He tried to move and grunted in agony.
“Easy, boyo,” Blackie's voice came out of the darkness. “A good thing yer such a tough son o' the sod. We're hard to kill, us Irish.”
“If one inch higher that knife had gone in, even an Irishman such as our redoubtable young friend here would have met his maker,” a German-accented voice replied.
When Rory opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Dr. John Eisner's thin, ascetic face as the physician worked on him. He was lying in his room on the bed while the doctor finished packing the knife wound in his side. Bright sunlight streamed in the window. How long had he been out? “The other two...where…?”
“Two is it now? We found one—that big ugly galoot in the corner. Sheriffs comin' to fetch him away.” Blackie motioned to the body shoved unceremoniously against the wall. “Lucky you pulled down that bed sheet and passed out on it. Doc here says the pressure from it saved your life durin' the night. Lucky, too, that Junie decided to check on you this mornin', else we might not have found you in time.”
“I owe Junie one.” Rory tried to raise his head and caught a glimpse of the dead man, who looked as if he were sitting up, asleep, but for the grimace on his face. “Bart Slocum.”
“You know him then?” Blackie raised one eyebrow.
“You could say so. I beat him senseless after he tried to rape Rebekah.”
“Then that explains the sneaky snake, attackin' you while you slept—with a helper to boot, you say.”
“He's the one who did the damage, and got away.” Every word was agony for Rory as the doctor finished his bandaging.
“My apologies, Herr Madigan, but I must bind the packing tightly to keep you from losing more blood,” the gray-haired physician replied. “Do not move—even to roll over—until I check you in the morning. It is lucky to be alive you are.” He shook his small, elegant head in wonder.
“The luck of the Irish,” Rory said grimly. “How long until I'm able to travel, Dr. Eisner?”
The kindly old Austrian frowned with concern. “The beating you took in that fisticuffs exhibition alone would keep you down several weeks, but now, with such a deep stab wound...I do not think any vital organs were damaged, but it is a great deal of blood you have lost. I would not wish to hazard a guess for several days.” He peered at Rory's pallor beneath the bruises. The young man was not out of danger yet. Even with luck, it would be several months before the Irishman was able to ride a horse. He knew his young patient would not want to hear that now.
“I have to return to Nevada.” Rory's jaw was clenched with pain and sweat beaded his brow. “I swore...”
“And that you will, bucko. In the meanwhile, you just get some rest. You'll be able to write the lady as soon as the swellin' is out of those hands.” A twinkle came into Blackie's eyes. “Unless now, you'd be wantin' the likes of meself to write a love note for you?”
“I imagine I'll be able to manage in a few days,” Rory demurred wryly.
Three days later, Rory was struggling over the words, eager to share his joy with Rebekah. They had the chance to begin a new life with a small fortune. Yet in explaining why he would be so tardy in returning to Nevada, he did not want to frighten her with Slocum's attack. He wrote a very sanitized version of the assassination attempt, leaving out the man Slocum had no doubt hired to assist him and the fact that one killer was still at large. Minimizing his injuries, he said that he would return in a month, good as new, finishing with his pledge:
I'll come for you with all the love in my heart, Rebekah, my darling. We swore we would never be parted and we will not.
I love you always,
Rory
The letter went out on the evening train.
* * * *
Wellsville
Rebekah and her mother were out working in the garden while Reverend Sinclair made his customary morning trip to the post office to pick up their mail. Since it was Monday, he would spend the day at home working on some long-overdue correspondence. When he returned to the parsonage, Ephraim took the letters into his office and quickly perused them. One with a Denver postmark caught his eye.
Ephraim knew who was currently in Denver. He had overheard the men at Wally's barbershop talking about the big prizefight the Kilkenny Kid had won there. Beau Jenson had returned day before yesterday with his winnings, and folks on the shady side of town were agog that the Irish boy who had beaten Cy Wharton had also been able to defeat some infamous Englishman in one of those barbaric gladiatorial contests.
That saloon-bred trash who had dared to shame his daughter by publicly bidding on her box lunch now had the temerity to write to her. Surely Rebekah, in spite of her free-spirited ways, could not really have meant to encourage the scoundrel. Then, he remembered a pair of blue Irish eyes set in a soullessly lovely gypsy's face framed by gleaming inky hair. Kathleen!
He squeezed his eyes closed and blocked out the vision of the beautiful Irish woman who had betrayed him. “No, I won't think of her. I swore an oath I would place that part of my life behind me forever,” he murmured to himself, staring at the letter that seemed to burn in his hands. Should he give it to her? Surely, she would see the folly of associating with these stiff-necked people. No. If he did, it would go hard on her when Dorcas found out. It would go hard on you, too, his conscience accused him.
The truth. Dorcas hated the Irish with even more passion than he did; but she would turn her wrath on Rebekah first, and his daughter needed no more such harsh outbursts. He feared already that his wife's incessant complaints to Rebekah about her cool treatment of Amos Wells had led the girl to harden her heart against an eminently splendid match. Rebekah was headstrong enough to turn away Amos and run off with this Irish prizefighter if she were pushed too far. Better to let the whole matter drop. If his daughter knew nothing about the letter, she would probably never give Rory Madigan another thought.
“Now, if only Amos hasn't given up on her.” His older, more experienced guidance was just the thing a reckless girl like Rebekah needed. She had none of Leah's practical sense. Of course, Leah had none of Rebekah’ s keen intelligence or soft heart either, he admitted with a fond smile. Still, his younger daughter must be saved from herself.
He took the letter to his wastebasket and tore it into tiny pieces.
Chapter Ten
Rebekah sat on the edge of her bed with her head between her knees praying for the spasms racking her to cease. She had thrown up almost every morning for the past several weeks, and hiding the evidence in the slops was getting more and more difficult. She had to hurry and perform the odious chore of emptying and washing the pails in both bedrooms every morning before her mother got to the task. It was no easy feat, since she felt light-headed and dizzy for the first hour or so after arising.
Dorcas had already made several comments about her failing appetite, and even her father was concerned that she looked so listless and pale. Her indisposition did make a legitimate excuse for refusing to see Amos Wells, but he had not been around for the past month—not since the week before Rory left for Denver. If only her love would return. It had been more than three weeks. She had heard nothing about the fight, but that sort of news was not respectable enough to be printed in newspapers and was
confined to the rougher elements over in glitter town anyway.
At first, she had attributed her malaise to fear over Rory's boxing match and simply missing his love and laughter in her life. In the few brief months they had shared, he had turned her world around and become the center of it. When she missed her courses the past month, she had thought little of it, considering the stressful situation she was caught in; but when again this month they did not come and the light-headedness and sick stomach began, she realized that something was amiss.
Dorcas had never said a word about women in a “delicate condition,” but Rebekah had heard her friends, who had the benefit of younger siblings, say that missed courses and upset stomachs were two signs of pregnancy. Initially, she had been thrilled at the idea of bearing Rory's baby, secure in the knowledge that he would return for her; but then she realized that she would have to confess to her parents the reason for her unseemly rush to wed. Her mother's furious tirade would be bad enough, but just thinking about the stricken silence with which her father would greet the news wrung her heart.
For several weeks she had held to the consolation that with Rory behind her, they could weather her parents' censure; and once they were wed, everything would work itself out. But the trip to and from Denver should not have taken more than two weeks, unless something awful had happened to him. Remembering the savagery of the fight she had witnessed the first day she laid eyes on Rory, Rebekah shivered in terror. And that had only been an amateur bout with a big, clumsy local bully, not a professional fighting champion. Visions of Rory haunted her nightmares. She saw him lying bloody and battered, his splendid body and heart-stopping face beaten beyond recognition.
Rebekah had to know what had happened to him. Working up her courage, she decided she would go to the livery and ask Mr. Jenson that very morning. Slipping away to the livery was not nearly as difficult as Rebekah had feared, for Dorcas dispatched her to the mercantile up the street to purchase some sewing thread. When she arrived at the big stables, a small, narrow-faced youth was shoveling hay into one of the front stalls. She recognized Mort Logan. Although his family was considered poor white trash of the worst sort, he had always seemed like an industrious and sympathetic waif to her.