The Chili Queen: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

John gripped Emma’s hand so hard that he hurt her, but she did not pull away. “It was years later, and I had despaired of finding her,” he continued. “I was playing poker in one of the Tiger Alley hellholes, in Leadville. A woman approached me. I thought she was a beggar, so old and emaciated was she. Then she spoke my name.”

  “Your wife,” Emma said.

  John nodded, unable to speak. He dug his fingernails into Emma’s hand, but she did not flinch. “She was dying of tuberculosis,” he said at last. “The banker had gone through the money and placed her with a madam in Stillborn Alley, who forced her into despicable acts. When she sickened, that evil woman threw her out, to live on charity.” John took a moment to control his anger, then explained that he had nursed her until she died. “I forgave her, for I still loved her. And I promised myself I would avenge her,” John said. Now Emma knew why there was a rage that burned white hot in John Roby. He’d never turned his anger on Emma, for he had a true softness for her, but she had seen him direct it at others. She had seen how his eyes grew pale whenever he recognized the proprietor of a house of joy.

  “I have an abiding hatred for both madams and bankers,” John explained later that evening, as they sat in the Palace, following Emma’s performance. She nodded in agreement. She didn’t care for them herself. Emma had no use for women who made their living off other women’s bodies, and she despised the pompous, well-satisfied bankers who frequented the Palace, one in particular. A prostitute whose fancy man had given her a sum of money to hide for him had entrusted it to the banker. A week later, when she asked for it, the banker denied that he had received so much as a half-cent from her. The fancy man beat the woman nearly to death.

  “It’s too bad someone can’t trick him out of money—and get revenge for her,” Emma said.

  “Maybe someone can,” John told her.

  That was the beginning of their partnership. The next time the banker was at the Palace, Emma asked him for a loan of two hundred dollars. She pointed to John and said he had on him stock in the Mineral King that he had been trying to sell the night before. “He has been drunk since then and does not know that the mine has announced a rich discovery this very day, tripling the price of the stock.” Emma parted her lips and smiled at the banker. “If you will loan me the two hundred dollars, I will buy the stock and repay you with an extra hundred.” The banker refused Emma the loan, and as soon as she left, he went to John and bought the shares himself, just as John and Emma knew he would.

  But the stock had not gone up threefold in value, for the officers of the mining company had not revealed a discovery. Instead, they had announced that the ore was played out, and the stock was worthless. The banker had no recourse. After all, he had taken Emma’s information and used it for his own advantage. And to complain, he would have to admit he had tried to cheat John.

  The two hundred dollars John and Emma cleared, minus the few dollars they paid for the Mineral King shares, wasn’t much, but it made them realize they had a talent for defrauding others. The bunco schemes required all their abilities—intelligence, coolness, acting skills, and detachment, for both of them could be as unsentimental as mathematics—and it allowed them to satisfy their demons. Emma needed someone to keep her from the lonely hours. John’s dark side required that others pay for the hurt done to him. And he seemed to need a woman to protect, as he had been unable to protect his wife.

  Both John and Emma were tired of the gambling-hall life, and they were glad to find something as lucrative as the bunco game. It let them spend a few weeks a year working, and the rest of their time was their own. They were good partners, each perfectly understanding the other, and Emma thought their relationship endured as much from their ability to work together as their affection for each other. John was as intensely loyal to her, Emma knew, as she was to him.

  The two thought up their jobs themselves. They could have made more money robbing banks or stagecoaches, but holdups didn’t appeal to them. They liked the excitement and the challenge of using their victims’ own greed to cheat them. At times, they employed confederates, although they generally avoided anyone who came to them to avenge some wrong. Charley Pea was different. Emma had known him in Mingo, where he was the blacksmith. He had helped bury Tom, had worked the Sarpy fields for her after Tom died. She encountered Charley again in Denver, and he explained that Addie had told people in Nalgitas that his wife, Mayme, was a prostitute. “She didn’t need to say that. It wasn’t her right,” Charley told Emma fiercely.

  Mayme, who was four months pregnant, brooded on the wrong, he continued, and when Mayme miscarried, Charley blamed Addie. Mayme hadn’t gotten pregnant again, and Charley wondered if he would ever have a son. He blamed Addie for that, too, and the blame had turned into hatred. “Addie French is worthless as fungus,” he told Emma.

  Emma owed a debt to Charley, so she presented the idea to John, emphasizing the fact that Addie was a madam, a woman John would despise immediately. Besides, the challenge was ideal for John and Emma. The bunco would be complicated and dangerous, and the two of them liked that. So they agreed to trick Ned Partner out of the money he had taken in a bank robbery. Charley believed that Ned would be so angry at the loss that he’d blame Addie and quit Nalgitas. Charley would get even, and John and Emma would keep the money.

  The plan was a simple one, although it almost died aborning, for Emma and John did not know that Addie had extended her stay in Kansas City. The two boarded five trains at Palestine looking for her, arousing the suspicions of the stationmaster, who inquired about their business. Emma and John agreed they would try only one more train before abandoning the job. Addie had been on that train. John had spotted her through the window of the coach and had nudged Emma ahead of him onto the car and down the aisle of the car, until he indicated the vacant seat beside Addie. “Sit here,” he ordered. “You shan’t ride beside a man. You are foolish in the ways of the world, Emma.”

  Toward morning, Emma got a small nap, but she was up before dawn, and when John awoke, she had saddled the horses and built a fire, since they would be leaving soon. John had said it was a big country and Ned could have gone in any direction, but Emma imagined every minute that Ned was only a few minutes behind them. Still, she believed John when he said that by going west at Pueblo, they would lose Ned. He would go on north to Denver, and when he didn’t find them there, he might even continue to Cheyenne. At worst, he would look for them in one of the mining towns west of the capital city. There were hundreds of camps, and Emma believed Ned would search the larger, more notorious ones that were the hangouts of outlaws. He would never think of them hiding in Georgetown, which was every bit as respectable as Galena.

  In fact, Emma had chosen Georgetown because its tidy houses reminded her of Galena. Keeping to themselves and having little social intercourse with their neighbors, John and Emma had lived there for four years, in a tiny cottage on Rose Street, with green shutters and a white fence and a lilac bush under the front window. John posed as a mining investor, Emma as his wife, although they had never married. John had asked, but Emma said it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t love him in that way, and she knew John would never love her quite as much as he had his wife.

  John chewed his breakfast of crackers and cheese and dried beef, as Emma packed their things and saddled the horses. She had unstrapped the bundle of money the night before and tried to open it, but the purse was latched, and Emma was too tired to pick the lock. Besides, there was no hurry. Now she put it into her saddlebags. Her ribs chafed where the rough purse had rubbed her skin through the chemise, and she wondered if Addie had tightened the scarf against her ribs on purpose. Maybe Addie had had some premonition that things with Ned were spoiled, and that Emma was responsible. She pictured Addie sitting in the glow of the kerosene lamp, her wrapper hanging open across her sizeable bosom, sniffing over Ned’s perfidy. Welcome would be standing in a dark corner, muttering about deviltry. Perhaps Welcome would taunt Addie, but Emma did not think so. The Afr
ican was not cruel; Emma was sure of it. Still, who knew what was in the heart of a human being who had been tied up regularly and whipped like a dog? Emma had seen the scars on Welcome’s back. Maybe Addie had, too.

  “Perhaps I can shoot an antelope, and we’ll have fresh meat,” John said, as he broke off a piece of the tough beef. “Or we can dine in Trinidad and have ourselves a first-rate supper. We should make it there today.”

  “We can’t stay in Trinidad. It would not be a prudent measure. Ned will find us.”

  So when they reached Trinidad in the early afternoon, they stopping barely long enough for John to exchange their horses for fresh ones. Emma found a store and bought tinned peaches and sardines, and they spent fifteen cents for a piece of watermelon. Then they hurried on and made more than twenty miles that afternoon, and camped under the shelter of some cottonwoods.

  They rode for two more days, stopping once at a sign that read BRED FOR SAIL. There they purchased warm biscuits and fresh milk from a farm woman who was doing a pretty smart business with travelers, although she charged thirty cents for a plate of six lumps of dough. But they did not argue about her sharp practice, as they themselves were not without fault in the matter of raw extortion. Finally, on the third day, they reached Pueblo. Emma was nearly perished from the ride, so they left the horses in a livery stable and found a room in a hotel. Emma was so fatigued that she threw herself on the bed fully clothed and slept for twelve hours.

  Eight

  When she awoke after the first night’s refreshing sleep in more than two weeks, Emma was lying under a blanket, alone. She could tell from the imprint in the pillow that John had slept beside her, but he was gone now. Her boots were on the floor and her pants on a chair, and as she had no recollection of rising in the night to take them off, Emma supposed that John had removed them for her. She got up then, lazy, and stretched and wondered what time it was, but she could not tell, for she still had wound neither her watch nor Tom’s. She pushed aside the curtain, and as she looked into the first yellow streak of day, she was caught up in the memory of that prairie sunrise little more than a week before when she had left Nalgitas with Ned for the ride to Jasper. This morning’s early light was only a pale reprise of the fine dawn she had seen from the wagon.

  Emma bit her lip as she stared out onto Santa Fe Avenue.

  Pueblo was a prosperous young city of brick buildings and fine new houses. Just a block away stood a three-story building of dressed stone, with a brick tower reaching into the sky. Across from the hotel, an office block was going up, and beside it, a false-front frame building was being dismantled, probably to be replaced with a more imposing structure. Telegraph and telephone lines were strung from pole to pole down the street. She and John had chosen the hotel from among half a dozen hostelries because it was neither the finest nor the poorest but the most colorless. Emma felt safer, more anonymous in Pueblo than she had since she boarded the train at Palestine, Kansas.

  She dropped the curtain, which slid back across the open window, and she let herself wonder then if she loved Ned, perhaps just a little. What matter if she did or not? It was madness to think things would have worked out between them. She had allowed herself to lose control, to daydream about the ranch as the two sat at dinner that evening in Jasper, to soften with reflection in a way that could have made her unfit for the job ahead.

  She had loved farming, first as a child at Galena and later on the Eastern Colorado homestead with Tom. John would have been happy to live in a hotel, but Emma had insisted on buying the Georgetown house, where knowing she was too damaged to bear another child, she took solace in growing things. She spent hours in her garden planting lettuce and corn and beans, even though she was not always there to harvest them, nursing flags and heartsease and rosebushes. She had always been partial to the outdoors, in good weather and bad, and knew she would have loved ranching, watching the colts and baby calves grow. She had lost control of her emotions for a little while that night with Ned, but she’d caught herself and had grown curt—for her sake, and for Ned’s, too.

  Perhaps he would return to Addie. Emma dismissed the jealousy she felt at that possibility. She did not have the right to be jealous. She remembered sitting in the kitchen just a few days earlier, watching Welcome blacken the stove, rubbing the polish onto the black metal with circular motions of a powerful arm. Emma had turned to look out the door and seen Addie run her fingers through Ned’s hair. Ned had grinned at Addie, and Emma felt a longing at the sight of the two of them that had been plain for Welcome to see. Welcome stopped the work to warn, “Be careful what mischief you stir up, or I’ll be after you like the devil chasing you with all his forks.” Welcome had looked at her darkly then. The African frightened her at times, and Emma wished she knew what was in that brooding heart.

  Emma suspected that John knew something out of the ordinary had happened between Ned and her. When John had called a halt beside a clear, pleasant stream the day before, he had watched her as she scooped out water to drink, and he had said, “I believe he cared about you.”

  It was her good fortune that men often cared about her. That made the job easier. Men in love were not suspicious. John teased her about it sometimes. She had always laughed it off, but this time she let the water run down the front of her shirt and had rubbed her wet hands over her face and had not replied.

  John said only, “Perhaps you cared a little for him, too. This was not an easy job for you,” but he did not pursue the subject, perhaps because he would not accuse her of what he himself was guilty of. Emma was sure John had had some female company from time to time, for he had an appetite that must be filled, and she was not always passionate. She wondered if John would have satisfied himself with Addie, if she had not been their mark. Fair play, Emma thought, in light of what had passed between Ned and her. But, while John might turn to a prostitute, he hated women of Addie’s position too much, and so Emma knew he would not have had connection with her.

  Yes, Emma decided, she had loved Ned, more than a little. He had made her heart light. He had awakened in her a feeling she thought had died with Tom. But it did not matter. She would bury it again.

  Emma looked through the gauzy hotel curtain into the light, trying to judge the hour—early, she decided, not yet 6 A.M. John must have gone for breakfast or to inquire about fresh horses, since the animals they had acquired in Trinidad had been ridden fast. Maybe he was ordering a bath sent up. His warm heart was always mindful of her comfort. Sitting in a little tub of water would be nice, and perhaps she would have time to purchase some clothes before they left Pueblo. She had only the shirt and pants she had taken with her from Nalgitas, and they were badly soiled. She thought for a moment about remaining in dishabille for John’s return, for she was curiously aroused. They had barely touched each other since they had embraced in What Cheer. He would be pleased, and it would be her delight to pleasure him. But there was time enough for that later on. It was not prudent to dally in Pueblo when Ned was only a day behind them, perhaps less. John’s instincts were right. They should turn westward and hurry along for a few more days. When they were safely home in Georgetown, they would celebrate at the Hotel de Paris. She would don her best gown, which would please John, and the laugh and song would go ’round. Thinking of home reassured Emma. Georgetown was not a city, although it was a place of some small importance, large enough so that they could come and go without much notice. She and John had been away for too long with jobs that year; she was weary of the gypsy life.

  Emma inspected a tear in her pants and considered repairing it. No, she decided, it would be better if she were ready when John returned. So she pulled on the pants, tucking in the shirt she had slept in. A pitcher of water was on the dresser. She washed her teeth, then filled the basin and rinsed her face. The water was dirty when she finished. Emma had not brought along a comb, so she ran her fingers through her hair, then arranged it in a single braid, which she pinned to the top of her head. She was pulling on her b
oots when John opened the door without knocking and closed it quickly, going to the window and pushing aside the curtain, the way Emma had done a few minutes earlier.

  “Ned is here, and he is red hot.” He turned to her, his eyes cold, almost sinister, and Emma wondered whether John hoped for a confrontation. There were depths in him she never would understand.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  John shook his head. “I don’t know. He inquired at the stable if anyone had encountered a man and woman—the woman wearing a man’s clothing—riding hard. He said we were old friends whom he had arranged to meet in Trinidad, but we had left a message there that we were continuing on to Pueblo. The livery owner must have expected Ned to return in short order, for he nearly talked me to death to keep me there.”

  Emma’s heart pounded. “Are you sure the man was Ned?” She didn’t have to ask. She knew he was.

  “Yes. He fits the description. He promised the stableman five dollars if he would locate us. I told him Ned was a quite late pay and gave him ten not to tell.”

  “And will he?”

  John shrugged. “We can hope that Ned will go away only as wise as when he came, but the stable owner is a celebrated old pisser, who is not to be trusted. So I don’t intend to wait around and see. After I exchanged our horses, I rode toward the Denver road, but I doubt that I fooled the man.”

  “We could abandon the horses and take the train.”

  John considered that option as he spread his blanket on the bed. “We would be too easy to spot at the station—or in the cars, for that matter, if Ned were to board down the line. Besides, with horses, we can go anywhere. Horses will be slower but safer, I think.”

  As they talked, the two of them quickly gathered their belongings and rolled them inside the blankets they had brought, then picked up the bedrolls and the saddlebags. John preceded Emma down the stairs and out the front door. “He will expect us to retreat down the alleys,” John explained. “So we will be bold and use Santa Fe Avenue.” They secured their things to the saddles, then mounted. Emma would have raced out of the city, but John slowed her. Two riders at a full gallop would draw attention, so they trotted the horses down the street. They made their way through oxcarts and mule-drawn wagons laden with building materials, past a trolley that had stopped to pick up passengers, until they reached the highway to the west. Then they took off at a smart pace.