Badlands

by Melissa Lenhardt

  “You examined her?” Hankins said.

  “Of course. She’s my patient.”

  “That was completely unnecessary.”

  I ignored him. “I found what I believe to be a tumor attached to her left ovary.”

  “What?” Hankins said.

  “It isn’t hard, which is most likely why you didn’t notice it, Dr. Hankins. It feels like a balloon filled with water.”

  “A tumor?” Diamond stared at me in disbelief. “Is it cancer?”

  Hankins stood. “I’ll go over right now to examine her and prove Mrs. Graham is mistaken.”

  I stayed focused on Harry Diamond. “No, I don’t think so. Her lymph nodes are normal and she’s in no pain. I suspect it’s benign, but there’s no way to know with an external examination. I recommend—”

  “That is enough, Helen.” Hankins grasped my arm, pulling me from the chair and away from the table. “What exactly do you think you’re doing talking about this in front of Harry?”

  “Husbands were routinely consulted on their wives’ treatments in New York City. Is it different in the West? If so, I apologize. I didn’t know.”

  “You made me look the fool in front of my client.”

  “I apologize, Dr. Hankins, that was not my intention. Would you please release my arm?”

  Hankins started, as if unaware he held my upper arm in a vise grip, and released me.

  “Thank you. I welcome your examination of Mrs. Diamond. A second opinion on such an important diagnosis is always a good idea.”

  Hankins’s indignation returned. “Second opinion?”

  “You forget, Dr. Hankins, I’m a skilled physician. I graduated at the top of my class full of men, and have been working in surgery for five years. I’m well able to diagnose a tumor, but by all means, satisfy your curiosity, or save your face, however you prefer to think of it. As a courtesy to you, since you were her doctor, we can confer on the best treatment plan after you’ve made your determination.”

  “You are very full of yourself.”

  “I’ve had to be.”

  “Don’t forget who’s beholden to whom in this relationship.”

  “Oh, never.”

  “Did you go by the printers?”

  “I’m on my way there now.”

  Harry Diamond joined us. “You started to say what you recommended.”

  “No need to talk about that yet,” Hankins said. “I’m going to examine your wife right now. Come with me.” He stalked off.

  Harry Diamond stared at me through narrowed eyes. “Did you tell my wife?”

  “No. I like her too much to cause her pain.”

  “You aren’t a nurse, are you?”

  “I want what’s best for your wife, as I’m sure you do.”

  Roger Hankins returned. “Harry, do you want my expert opinion or not?”

  Harry Diamond hesitated, but nodded and followed.

  CHAPTER

  21

  It was dusk when I exited the Rollins House Hotel to mostly empty streets. Smoke billowed periodically from the trains resting on the tracks a few streets over. A whistle sounded. One would be leaving soon.

  A teamster touched his hat to me while I waited for his wagon to pass. I stepped off the wooden sidewalk and headed to the newspaper office. The door was locked but I could see the printer inside. I knocked on the glass and waved at the printer when he looked up. Sydney Cotton wiped his hands on a rag as he crossed the room to open up. “Mrs. Graham. You here to pick up the business cards?”

  I stepped through the door and was assaulted with the noise of the printing press and the sweet smell of ink and paper. “Yes, I am.”

  Cotton stepped behind the counter and pulled out a stack of business cards wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Would you like to review them?”

  “I’m sure they’re perfect.”

  “Did you read today’s paper?” Cotton asked.

  “Not yet.” I didn’t want to tell the newspaperman that I rarely read the newspapers. After being in the West for a year, and knowing Henry Pope, I knew newspapers for what they were: purveyors of entertainment, not news. Mr. Cotton might not believe my disinterest in any case. After learning of Kindle’s fate from Hankins, I’d gone to the newspaper office immediately and, telling one more lie with an eye to survival, asked to see news of my husband’s former regiment officer, William Kindle.

  He slid the day’s paper across the counter to me. “Page four. A new story about your husband’s commander.”

  My head jerked up. “Captain Kindle?”

  “Yes.” I opened the newspaper but Cotton kept talking, more interested in telling me the news than my reading it. “His sentence was commuted by Uncle Billy himself. Got out with time served. A dishonorable discharge, mind you.”

  I gasped as my eyes skimmed over the very words Cotton said. Kindle was free. I scanned the article for a date and, when I didn’t find one, looked up at Cotton.

  “When?”

  He pulled his head back and his brows furrowed. “You okay there, Mrs. Graham?”

  I forced my expression to relax, and I smiled. “Yes, of course. I’m pleased for him. Do you know when he was released?”

  “I got it out of a two-day-old Saint Louis paper, but it didn’t say whether he’d been released or not. Just that the sentence had been commuted. You know how slow the Army works.”

  “They convicted him quick enough. Thank you.” I picked the cards up and turned to leave.

  “Dr. Hankins said you were going to pay for those.”

  I unlocked the door and was halfway through when I said, “Bill him.”

  I hurried down the street toward the depot, throwing the business cards in the trash as I went, while mentally calculating how much money I had: fifteen dollars spirited away in the false bottom of my medical bag, including the five from Lily Diamond. I didn’t think it would be enough. A train whistled three times, signaling its departure from the station.

  The station clock read 8:35 as I watched the caboose of an eastbound train click-clack its way out of the station.

  “Damn.”

  The platform was dotted with stragglers who’d disembarked from the latest train. I stood in front of the darkened ticket window and studied the timetable and fee schedule. Twenty dollars for the emigrant train that had just departed, twenty-four for the next train leaving, the first-class limited departing tomorrow at one thirty. Seventeen hours. I had seventeen hours to beg, borrow, steal, or earn nine dollars, or more if I wanted to eat on the way.

  My heart soared. In seventeen hours I would be on my way to Kindle.

  “Going somewhere?”

  I jumped and turned at the deep voice. A tall, dark figure in a low-brimmed hat leaned against the metal column topped by the station clock. The hands on the clock clicked forward. The end of the man’s cigar glowed brightly, and dimmed.

  “Mr. Salter.”

  “Mrs. Graham.” He pushed off from the clock and moved toward me. I stood my ground, though my instinct was to shrink back. “Are you leaving?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Your sister will be unhappy.”

  “She’s settling in nicely.”

  “Returning to your husband?”

  “He died. Or didn’t you hear?”

  “I didn’t. I’ve been in and out of town. Condolences.”

  “Thank you.” I glanced around the now-deserted platform. The ticket master closed his window with a snap, and I was alone with Salter. I opened and closed my right hand and rubbed it against my hip to rid my palm of the sweat that had popped up on it.

  Salter nodded at my hand. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  He mimicked my stretches. “Getting ready to break my nose?”

  My laugh sounded forced. “No. I’m stretching it. It’s been broken a couple of times.”

  “From punching men in the nose?”

  “No.” I turned slightly away. “I have an appointment
I must keep. Good evening, Mr. Salter.”

  “Would you like me to walk you home? Offer my protection?” Though his hat was pulled low, I could see the mocking expression in his eyes.

  “No, thank you.” I touched the gun holstered on my waist. “I can protect myself.”

  He stepped closer and loomed over me. “Can you?”

  I met his challenging gaze with my own. “I won’t hesitate to kill who needs killing.”

  He raised his eyebrows and let his eyes roam over me. “Maybe you should offer your protection to me.”

  “I would, but I have an appointment to keep.” I turned and walked away.

  “Do you remember Martha Mason?”

  I stopped, and my stomach fell through the floor. I swallowed my terror, arranged my face in a benign expression, and turned to face my nemesis. “Who?”

  “Martha Mason. Wife of the hotelier in Grand Island.”

  “Oh, right. Martha. I didn’t know her last name. What of her?”

  Salter moved toward me, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “She took a beating in Omaha. Almost died.”

  “That’s awful,” I said, voice faint. I wanted to know more, was desperate for information, but knew appearing too interested would increase Salter’s already heightened suspicions. “I hope she will recover.”

  “Better hope she doesn’t. Mason won’t take her back. She’ll probably have to earn her living on her back. She wasn’t attractive before the beating; now only a blind man would fuck her.” Salter’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Don’t you care why she was beaten? Or how I know?”

  “You’re a Pinkerton,” I said.

  He pulled out his badge and showed it to me. “The railroad pays me to keep an eye on crime up and down the tracks.”

  “Isn’t that a sheriff’s job?”

  “They want to protect their investment. So many sheriffs are incompetent. How’d you know I was a Pinkerton? You’ve been asking around about me.”

  “No.”

  “I’ve been asking around about you.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “You and your sister were the last two people to speak with a woman who ended up dead, and another who might as well be.”

  “You think we are somehow responsible?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “We barely knew them.”

  “On its face it seems a stretch, I admit. But Martha left town without a word to her husband, and no warning, the same morning you did. She was the only witness to a Mr. Bullock sending a note to Cora Bayle, the dead woman. Now, I find that compelling, don’t you?”

  “It’s interesting, at least.”

  “Couldn’t figure why she wanted to kill Cora Bayle, but it seemed like the logical answer. ’Til I heard about her being robbed and beaten.”

  “Robbed?”

  “A necklace she said she got from your sister.”

  Here it was: my opportunity to get my revenge on Rosemond. Salter suspected that one or the other of us killed Cora Bayle, but he had no proof. Not that proof would matter much with the kangaroo courts of the West. I could give Rosemond to Salter and tell him a version of the truth, keeping my true identity out of the story. Or I could save Rosemond, turn myself in, and hope Salter preferred the “alive” version of “dead or alive” so I might see Kindle before I died.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want Rosemond to die, either.

  “She implied Rosemond gave her the necklace?” I laughed. “She stole it. We didn’t realize it was missing until we arrived Cheyenne.”

  “She said Rosemond gave it to her.”

  “Of course she won’t admit she stole it.” I shook my head. “I horribly misjudged Martha. I thought she was a sweet woman.” I sighed. “I suppose it’s my lot in life to be perpetually disappointed in people. Now, I really must go and check on my patient. Good evening.”

  I walked across the platform, down the steps, and started across the tracks to Calico Row. Once I was clear of the rail yard, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Salter following me at a distance. I picked up my pace and when I passed an alley bisecting the main street I was on, I ducked into it, taking a shortcut to Monique’s I’d learned over the last few weeks. I immediately realized my mistake: I’d never taken the shortcut in the dark, or alone.

  The light from the glowing tents lit the alleys, but barely. I stumbled on the uneven ground and reached out for the guy rope holding up a tent. Back the way I came, I saw the shadow of Salter walk past the mouth of the alley. I took a few deep breaths to settle my trembling body. I supposed regaining my fearlessness would take more than a steely determination.

  When steady, I released the rope holding me up and headed toward Monique’s, my hand on the handle of my gun and my mind on Salter. Did he believe my lies, or would he continue on with his investigation? If Martha lived, it would become her word against Rosemond’s. I knew Rosemond well enough to be confident she would be the more believable liar. Still, Cheyenne wasn’t safe for her anymore. I had to warn her before I left.

  The alleys behind and between the tents were full of trash and human waste. A small goat tied to a stake in the ground bleated as I walked by. I saw the lights of Calico Row one section over as I passed the last alley perpendicular to it. A woman was pushed up against a stack of crates behind one of the few wooden buildings. Her legs were wrapped around the man’s waist, his pants around his ankles, his white rear glowing in the moonlight as he pumped his seed into her. Instinctively, I stopped and the man groaned his release.

  “That was mighty nice, Reverend,” the woman said, her voice calm and unmoved. The man pulled away and revealed Clara. “Hello, Slim. Care to join us?”

  The man’s head jerked up in the process of pulling up his pants. Reverend Bright’s eyes met mine. I turned and walked away and was soon lost in the crowd on Calico Row. I doubted Reverend Bright would follow me and try to explain himself. What was there to explain? He was a man being serviced by a prostitute. It didn’t matter he was a man of God. They were as prone to sins of the flesh as others, maybe more so.

  I’d suspected Bright was partaking in the services of the women on the row, but Clara? Of all the soiled doves to poke, he’d chosen the one he and Portia had taken a special interest in. The one they were working so tirelessly to save. Was the Reverend’s true purpose to receive carnal thanks for his efforts? Had he done the same with the other prostitutes? It was an almost unfathomable betrayal of his wife and her mission.

  I’d known my fair share of hypocrites, and too often they used the word of God as their protection and forgiveness. The more I thought of Reverend Bright’s actions, the more I realized I wasn’t surprised by what I’d seen. His marriage with Portia seemed more based on mutual respect than love. I doubted their private life was satisfying for either. I thought of the day they brought me to Calico Row, how they had barely interacted, though it was supposed to be their joint mission, how the Reverend had disappeared and how Portia seemed completely unconcerned about it.

  I stopped in the road. Portia knew and didn’t care.

  No doubt when Portia met the Reverend she saw someone who would save her from a lonely life as a schoolteacher, from constantly moving between the settlers’ houses of the children she taught; from being one bad harvest away from the pioneers not being able to pay her salary or to board her, one drought from losing her job. Portia might not have answered an ad for a wife, but she came west with the same goal as other women like her, the same goal as the single men had: to start a new life and better their lot.

  Calico Row teemed with these very men, rambunctious and eager to spend their money. Women called out to tempt it away from them. Fiddle music floated from one tent, harmonica from the other. Down the street, in one of the few wooden buildings, a piano could be heard. Laughter, the clink of glasses, the smell of cigar smoke and the mouthwatering aroma of meat roasting over an open fire, it all mixed together to create an atmosphere
charged with anticipation and possibility.

  A volley of gunshots startled me out of my reverie. The crowd in the road moved to the edges, taking cover and looking for the culprits. Was it another running gunfight over a card game or a prostitute? A cowboy rode down the center of Calico Row, whooping and hollering, firing his pistol into the air. Salter stepped out from the shadows in front of the galloping horse and raised his hands. The horse reared, throwing the cowboy. The riderless horse ran off down the street.

  “Far be it from me to interrupt your revels,” Salter said in a level voice, “but there’s one thing I can’t abide and it’s the wanton discharge of a pistol.” He stalked toward the man on the ground, who was groaning and holding his arm. Salter stood over the squirming man. “You ask me, it’s a waste of a good bullet. You never know when you might need it.”

  “You broke my arm, you crazy son of a bitch,” the cowboy said.

  Salter squatted down. “You’re drunk, so I’ll forget you called me that.” He gestured in my direction. “There’s a lady right there who can fix your arm.” Salter stood and waved me forward.

  I hesitated, my eyes drawn to a man standing near Stella and her girls. Dr. Drummond smiled at me and tipped his hat. Most everyone on the street had stopped to stare at what was going on. More to end the spectacle than anything, I moved forward and helped the man up. Salter had turned and walked away. “Let’s get out of the road.”

  I sat the man down on a bench outside Stella’s tent and asked her for a lantern. The shirtsleeve on the cowboy’s lower right arm bulged, and blood bloomed on the material.

  I ripped his shirtsleeve. “What’s your name?”

  “Zeke.” His face was pale and sweaty. He swallowed with difficulty, as if swallowing bile. “God, this hurts.” He wiped his watering eyes roughly but kept them turned away from his arm. He knew as well as I did that the bone was sticking out of the skin.

  I grasped my stomach at the familiar stabbing pain of my menses.

  “I can help you with the pain.” Drummond was beside us, pulling a small case from his inside coat pocket. He was looking to Zeke, but I suspected the offer encompassed me, as well.