Badlands

by Melissa Lenhardt

  I picked up the bottle of carbolic I’d dropped and went into the kitchen. Zeke was facedown on the ground, his broken arm beneath him. I rolled him over with difficulty. His compound fracture was bleeding freely now. I fashioned a tourniquet from a nearby dish towel, screaming in pain with my own injury. With his upper arm tied off, I felt for a pulse in Zeke’s neck and was relieved to find it strong. The trembling that had originated in my legs overtook my entire body. I staggered to the nearest chair and fell heavily into it.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, vowing to never take breathing for granted again and to never, ever touch morphine or laudanum for the remaining days of my life. I touched my throat, confirming that Rosemond’s hands weren’t around it, though it felt like they were, still. A sharp pain shot through my broken right hand, too much for the morphine to mask. I stared at my hand, deformed once again, and chastised myself and my temper. The burst of satisfaction I’d received for punching Rosemond was dissipating with each stab of pain in my hand. Though I was hours from leaving Cheyenne and putting this behind me, Rosemond’s memory would haunt me every time I looked at my ruined hand—and I was afraid it was damaged beyond repair—every time the longing to be a surgeon returned. Nor would I ever forget the rage in her eyes as she strangled me and blamed me for Portia’s betrayal.

  I tried to recapture the anger at Rosemond I’d nurtured since finding out she’d lied to me about Kindle’s death. I wanted to hate her, and a small part of me did. But the rage in her eyes … I understood it. I understood the tremble of emotion in Rosemond’s voice when she told Portia she loved her, the elation when she thought their path had been cleared, the devastation when Portia left. In the space of minutes, Rosemond had journeyed the emotional gamut that I’d traveled over the past year. I couldn’t condemn her reaction. Hadn’t my plan in staying in Cheyenne been to earn money? Yes. But to find a way to ruin Rosemond’s life? Now I had the perfect opportunity to tell the world about Rosemond’s Sapphic tendencies, and all I could think of was how alike we were. Could I ruin someone’s chance at happiness for my own revenge? What kind of person would that make me?

  I love you. I came all this way for you.

  I closed my eyes and turned my head away, ashamed at myself for spying on a private moment between two people who obviously loved each other, for not being disgusted by watching them.

  Zeke groaned and shivered in the cold. I rose and left the kitchen. The entry hall was empty, save a puddle of blood where I’d left Rosemond. I went to my room, pulled the blanket from my bed, tucked my pillow under my arm, and returned to Zeke. Breathing through my teeth against the pain in my hand, I tucked the pillow beneath his head and laid the quilt over him. I needed to clean his wound and splint the arm, at a minimum, but I couldn’t do it alone.

  I found Rosemond standing at her dresser, holding a wet cloth against her bleeding nose. She glared at me in the mirror, her left eye puffy and bruising. “You broke my nose.”

  I moved through the studio, catching a quick glimpse of the beginning of Portia’s portrait and the finished painting of me on the train leaning against the wall nearby. I turned Rosemond to face me and tried to pull the cloth away. “Let me see.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be belligerent.”

  “Don’t try to be nice to me now.”

  “You tried to strangle me, or have you forgotten?” Rosemond removed the cloth. I felt the sides of her nose with my thumb and forefinger of my left hand. “Hmm. I thought I did a better job than this.”

  “Stop being glib, Laura. It hurts.”

  I pulled my hands away. “Do you want me to help you or not?”

  “Will my nose look like it did before?”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “If you can set your own nose.”

  “What?”

  I held up my ruined right hand.

  “Serves you right,” Rosemond said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She sighed. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Are you honestly telling me you never had your nose broken while whoring?”

  “There are whores and there are whores. I was the first kind. I need whisky.”

  “Don’t be a baby.”

  “Have you ever had your nose set?”

  “Not while conscious, no.”

  “When?”

  “After Kindle rescued me from his brother.”

  Rosemond studied me for a long moment. “What do I need to do?”

  “Blow the blood out of your nose.”

  “I just stopped the bleeding.”

  “It shouldn’t bleed again.”

  Rosemond didn’t look convinced, but she obeyed, ending the blowing session with a coughing fit. She held out the bloody cloth to me. “I don’t want it. Put it there.” I motioned to the dresser.

  “Now what?”

  I stood behind her, reached around, and felt her nose with my left hand.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  There was a large blot of blood on the inside of my shirtsleeve from where Drummond dosed me. “It’s nothing.” I found the break. “Put your left thumb where my thumb is, and your right thumb where my finger is. Do you feel the break?”

  She nodded.

  I placed my hand on her shoulder. “When I count to three, push your thumbs against your nose. You ready?”

  Rosemond nodded again.

  “Are you sure your fingers are in the right place? Do you feel the break?”

  “Yes, Goddamn it. Stop prolonging it.”

  “One … two … three …”

  After a loud pop, Rosemond screamed. “Son of a bitch!”

  I laughed, turned her toward me, and gently pinched the bridge of her nose. “Straight as an arrow.”

  “Stop laughing,” Rosemond said.

  “You’re going to have black eyes for a while.”

  “I’ve seen broken noses before.”

  “Now you know how to fix one.”

  “Let me see your arm.” She grabbed my arm and shoved my sleeve up. The puncture was large and jagged. “Good Lord, Laura. What happened?”

  “Drummond dosed me with morphine.”

  “What? Why?”

  I focused on remembering what Drummond had said to me while I struggled for air. I pulled my arm away and rolled down my sleeve and told her the story of Drummond’s attack, omitting the part where I insulted the man.

  “Are you in pain now?” Rosemond asked.

  “Thanks to the morphine, no. I need you to help me fix a compound fracture. I have a cowboy in the kitchen who needs his arm fixed, and I need another hand.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  “Because I’ve decided to let you live.”

  Rosemond’s head jerked back, and she laughed.

  “I know, Rosemond. I know you’ve been lying to me about Kindle from the beginning, that he’s alive. What kind of person does that?”

  Her mirth died and was replaced by something like fear. She opened her mouth as if to argue but apparently thought better of it. Her shoulders straightened, and her expression turned defiant. “You would do the same thing to be with who you loved.”

  “Of course I would. That’s why I’m letting you live. We’re both reprehensible people. Happy? Are you going to help me or not?”

  “I need to go to Portia.”

  “She’ll be there in the morning.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I saw the expression on her face when she left.”

  The hope in Rosemond’s expression nearly broke my heart. It switched to skepticism in a flash. “Are you lying to me?” she asked.

  “I’ll lie about a lot of things, but I wouldn’t lie about that. Will you help me?”

  She smiled in relief and nodded. “First, I’m going to bandage your arm and broken hand.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “You don’t like being taken care of, do you?”

  “Not
particularly.”

  “Too bad.” She grabbed my good hand and pulled me into the kitchen.

  CHAPTER

  23

  After Rosemond bandaged my injuries and, following my directions to the letter, washed, set, and splinted Zeke’s arm, we sat at the kitchen table. Rosemond drank whisky, still grimacing slightly from the sound and feel of setting a compound fracture. I drank coffee in the hopes it would counteract the morphine. The small circle of lamplight from the lantern on the table faded into darkness where our hands held our glasses, shadowing our faces enough to give Rosemond the safety to confide in me.

  “It started with Lyman. In the war,” Rosemond began. “He was part of the occupying Army. A quartermaster. He never saw a battle, as far as I know. Unsurprising, if you know him. My father, Edgar March, was a well-known Confederate sympathizer. When the Union came into town, he tried to change his allegiance, for survival as well as to spy for the Confederacy. He pinpointed Lyman as the easiest officer to con.” Rosemond laughed. “God, my father was an idiot. But he was smart enough to know the Army would never trust him, one of the biggest slave owners in the state. But a silly girl enamored with a dashing officer? No one would ever suspect her. Unfortunately, I wasn’t silly or enamored with officers.” She twirled her glass on the table. “Yes, even then my preferences tended the other way. It made it easier, to be honest. Lyman would have been easy to fall in love with. He can be devastatingly charming.” She drank her whisky and poured more. “My brother was killed in nothing more than a skirmish. Not only did my father lose his only son, but he was robbed of being able to claim his death had been in glorious battle. I could have told him Ned would die ignominiously. I would have made a better soldier. My father didn’t come out and tell me to become Lyman’s mistress, but he made it quite clear my virtue was a small price to pay to avenge my brother’s death by destroying the Yankees from the inside.”

  “You were your father’s favorite, I gather.”

  Rosemond laughed long and hard. “I fell somewhere above the slaves, but it was a near deal sometimes. I was too outspoken, too assertive. Didn’t know my place. Truthfully, Father knew I would have been a better heir to his fortune than Ned, and he hated me for it.” She drank. “I think I believed if I did what my father wanted, if I struck a blow for the Confederacy, he would take me into his business. God, I was naive.”

  She took a long drink. “When Lyman took me to bed the first time, I expected to hate it. But Lyman is a skilled lover. There were times I thought I might come to enjoy being with a man. I was smart enough to fake it.”

  “Does Lyman know about …?”

  “My Sapphic tendencies?” She nodded. “I thought I was doing a rather good job of pleasing Lyman, but as I said, he was experienced. He saw right through me. One night, he came to my room—he’d set me up in a hotel when my parents kicked me out, as they had to do to keep up the ruse—with another woman. A prostitute. He said he wanted to watch. I refused because I knew I was supposed to, but I didn’t want to. The woman was beautiful. A beauty mark right here”—she pointed to the right corner of her mouth—“above her plump, red lips. She read me immediately but told Lyman I wasn’t interested and started to leave. I stopped her, of course.” She lifted her finger and wiggled it in the air. “Right there. That’s where Lyman had me. I ended up spying for the Union. Giving my father enough correct information that he didn’t suspect I was taking back everything he told me to Lyman. Lyman rewarded me with women.

  “We went on like this for a while. Lyman taught me how to please a man, and Danielle taught me how to please a woman. Ménage à trois were my favorite. Occasionally Lyman would bring in a fourth. A man.” I held her gaze, though I felt my face flush with mortification.

  Rosemond smiled, slightly, and I knew she was trying to shock me. “I had no idea what Lyman was grooming me for. I thought we were partners, you see. I thought after the war he might marry me. I would never love him, not like I loved women, but he knew about that side of me and didn’t care. Lyman was always looking for an angle, and he saw in me a present for fellow officers, or businessmen he wanted to con. I refused, at first. It only took a veiled threat of exposing my tendencies to make me spread my legs for the first client. After that, it became easier. And I was good at it.”

  “Rosemond …”

  “After the war, my family forgave me for being Lyman’s mistress. My father practically ordered it, after all. For a short period, I was a heroine, a true daughter of the South who gave her innocence for the cause. Since Lyman’s clients had unique tastes, my whoring wasn’t widely known. Those who did kept quiet. Self-preservation is the greatest motivator.”

  “And the family business?”

  Rosemond chuckled. “I’d almost convinced my father. Then they learned I’d been spying for the Union and Lyman’s whore.”

  “Lyman told them?”

  “He was long gone by this time. I betrayed myself. I came down with smallpox and in one of my deliriums told much more about my time with Lyman than my sister, who sat at my beside, wanted to hear. Especially as it related to her fiancé, who was one of my more regular clients. When I was well, my parents gave me a hundred dollars, told me to change my name and never return.”

  “Saint Louis?”

  Rosemond nodded. “I rented a room and got in touch with the Army officers I’d known in the war. Within three months, I’d bought a house and had four girls working for me. Within a year I was the highest-paid madam in town. About a year later I met Kindle.”

  I reached for the whisky and poured some into my cooling coffee.

  “Don’t bristle so,” Rosemond said. “I didn’t like Kindle any more than the other men I lay with. He was one of the nicer ones, so I taught him everything I knew. Naturally, I was an expert in teaching men how to please women. Feel free to thank me.”

  “I will not.”

  Rosemond laughed. “Laura, I’d much rather fuck you than Kindle. But don’t worry. I’m a one-woman woman.”

  “Did you fuck him that night on the riverboat?”

  She stared at me while twirling her whisky glass and didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

  I stood, went to the sink, stared out the window, and remembered Salter and the threat he was to Rosemond’s safety and future happiness. Was I jealous enough of her past with Kindle to turn her in? To tell the world about her and Portia? I closed my eyes and searched deep within myself to find the source of my anger. It wasn’t Rosemond. Had it ever been Rosemond?

  “The good Reverend isn’t returning with your plaster,” she said.

  “No.”

  I turned and leaned against the sink and opened my mouth to tell her about Salter when she spoke. “I’m sorry I told you Kindle was dead. I didn’t want you to leave.”

  “Because you still needed to make Portia jealous.”

  “Partially. How long have you known?”

  “Hankins told me the day I met him.”

  Rosemond’s face relaxed. “You didn’t leave.”

  “I needed to earn money, and I wanted to find a way to hurt you.”

  She nodded slowly. “I would have done the same.”

  “Kindle didn’t ask you to help me, did he?”

  Rosemond shook her head. “I saw an opportunity to leave and took it.”

  “Sherman commuted Kindle’s sentence. He’s free.”

  Surprise, followed by satisfaction. “That’s good news.” Her smile drifted into a frown. “Then you’re leaving.” I detected a slight tremor in her voice.

  I nodded. “The one-thirty train.”

  “What about the cowboy?”

  “I’ll send Hankins a note after I get on the train.”

  Rosemond rose and placed her glass in the sink. I crossed my arms. She noted the movement and smiled slightly. “I don’t blame you for hating me. But I think you understand why I’ve done the things I’ve done.” I stared at her and didn’t answer. “Admit it, you like me a little bit.”


  “I don’t hate you. Anymore.”

  “Good enough.” Rosemond took my arm and pulled the sleeve up. She ran her hand over the burn scars she must have noticed bandaging my arm but didn’t mention at the time. “What happened?”

  “I fell off my horse and into a prairie fire.”

  She lifted my injured hand. “And this?”

  “The first time the Indians broke it when they beat me.”

  “Can it be fixed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She lifted my hand to her lips and brushed them against my fingers. “I’m sorry.”

  I tried to pull my hand away but she held fast. She looked into my eyes and smiled teasingly, testing me. Rosemond knew I’d watched her and Portia and hadn’t been disgusted, or rejected her after. “Are you afraid I’m going to try to seduce you?”

  “No.”

  “Good, because I’m not.”

  “I’m almost insulted.”

  “Oh, I’ve considered it. More than once. You would be easy to conquer.”

  “I would not.”

  Rosemond released my hand and laughed. “I almost always get what I want, Laura.”

  “Now I am insulted.”

  “Oh, it’s been a struggle. But I’d much rather have you as a friend than a lover. But if you ever think you want to dabble, let me know.”

  “What would Portia say?”