Frantic with fear, Raina had tried desperately to run away. She had risen in the middle of the night and taken what clothes she could carry and what little money she had saved. She had begun to walk north, but Billaud had been too careful for her. He had guessed her route and had sent James Farmer, the county sheriff, after her, promising him a reward if he brought her back. Farmer had indeed caught her, and Raina had pleaded with him. “Let me get away. He’s going to have me,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Raina,” Farmer had said. He was not much of a sheriff but was a creature of Oscar Butler, who owned most of the land in this part of the world.
Standing before the huge form of Billaud, Raina thought of how she had walked through the cold and had a brief thrill as she thought she would get away, but then Farmer had caught her and brought her back. “I’ve done nothing,” she cried. “He can’t force me to stay.”
Farmer shook his head. He had some of the aspects of a bloodhound. “I got a warrant signed by Oscar Butler. It says you’re charged with grand theft.”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
“I expect you didn’t, but that’s the charge.”
Farmer had brought her back, and now as Billaud stood looking at her, he read her thoughts. “If you run away again, I’ll let them put you in a women’s prison at El Paso. You’ll like that even less than you like it here, and you’d come out an old woman. Why don’t you listen to reason? You don’t want to waste all those good looks.”
Raina could not think of anything to say. She knew she would never change Billaud’s mind. He was a stubborn, willful man and a womanizer. He had ruined several young girls, and now it was her turn. “I’m not such a bad fellow,” he said. “Try to like me. I’ll make it nice.”
“You’re my brother-in-law. You’re married to my sister. That’s reason enough for you to stay away from me.”
“That’s not your problem. You’re going to have to accept it, Raina. And Roxie knows better than to question anything I do,” Billaud said carelessly. He took her by the shoulder, pulled her against him, and tried to kiss her, but she turned her face, and he merely touched her cheek.
“Just leave me alone!”
“I’ll never do that. I’ve got to have you.” He turned toward her, but she drew back, and he said, “I want you to go downstairs and wait on the customers tonight. Need a good-lookin’ woman down there.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to cook.”
“Roxie can do the cooking. You wear that dress I bought.” He pointed to the one hanging on a peg on the wall. “You’ll look nice in it. Hurry up now. The crowd’s starting to come in.”
A wave of relief came to Raina as Billaud left. She expelled her breath and felt so weak that she had to sit down on the side of the bed. Tears came to her eyes, and she helplessly began to weep.
She heard the door open, and her sister, Roxie, came in. Roxie had worn her life out serving, cooking, and making a saloon work. She stopped abruptly, and her dull brown eyes said, “Is he after you again?”
“You’ve got to help me, Roxie. He’s going to get me.”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“He wants me to go entertain the customers. Last time he told me I had to sleep with one of them.”
“You know how he is.”
“He says you’ll do the cooking, but you don’t like it.”
“I don’t like anything about Billaud. I don’t like anything about this place.”
After her sister left, the words echoed in Raina’s mind. “I don’t like anything about this place.” She had grown up in the Silver Dollar Saloon, knowing no other world. Some of the Cajuns who came in were kind, but most were heavy drinkers, just the kind who would find their way into a saloon. When she was only fourteen, men had begun trying to put their hands on her, and Billaud had only laughed. Finally she had persuaded him to let her do the cooking, and for two years she had done that. Now he wanted more than that from her.
Slowly she got to her feet, knowing that there was no way out. Moving across the room, she picked the dress up, staring at it with dislike. She shook her head in disgust. “Just the kind of dress that man would buy.” She slipped off her worn dress and put on the new one. It was low-cut and too tight. She stared at herself in the mirror and tried desperately to think of a way out. Perhaps the reading she had done about romances had given Raina a false idea of the world. Her own life was drab and painful, and she spent hours thinking how life could be different if she were somewhere else. But the Silver Dollar was her universe, and Billaud was her curse. Slowly she moved over to the chest with a small mirror on top and put on a trace of makeup. She did not need it, for her coloring was fine as it was. Her eyelashes were long and shaded her eyes. Taking off her old shoes, she put on a pair of patent slippers that Billaud had bought with the dress. They were too tight and hurt, but she had no choice but to wear them.
Leaving her room, she went downstairs and into the kitchen, which was at the back of the large room that served as a bar and a gambling establishment. She could already hear the noise of the men who had come to gamble and drink, and a grimace swept the pleasantness from her features. Going into the kitchen, she saw her sister cooking at the stove. “I want to stay and cook.”
“Doesn’t matter what you want or what I want. You know what he’s like. If you tell him no, he’ll just beat both of us.”
“Why did you ever marry him, Roxie?”
“Because I was a fool.” Roxie’s eyes grew bitter, and her mouth twisted into a scowl. She had long ago given up on trying to look presentable. She usually wore a shapeless dress and kept her hair tied behind her back.
Roxie’s own father had been a drifter whom their mother had simply taken up with, but she’d discarded him. When their mother married again, it was to an Irishman who was working on a railroad in the vicinity. He had been the man who had fathered Raina. She couldn’t even remember him. No one cared about ancient history like that.
“He’s going to try to get me to do evil things, Roxie.”
“I can’t help it. You know I can’t.”
Raina sighed and looked at the floor. “What was my father like?”
“After all this time you’re asking that?”
“I can’t remember him.”
“No, I guess you can’t. He left when you were just beginning to walk.”
“What did he look like?”
“Well, he had red hair. But you didn’t get that. You got Mother’s black hair. He was not a big man, but what I remember most about him was he was crazy for God.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means all he could talk about was what God had done for him. Somehow he had gotten the idea that God had put special favor on him. Of course our mother didn’t want to hear that, and she ran him off after a time.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, I don’t. What difference does it make?”
Raina stared at her sister and knew that there was no help to be had from her. She’s worn down. She’s not going to be able to fight Billaud off. I wouldn’t be surprised but what he’ll kill her one of these days. “We’ll try to talk him into letting me cook and then you can rest.”
A brief smile touched Roxie’s face. “You’re a good girl, Raina. I’m sorry I married such trash, but there’s no way out of it.”
That phrase entered into Raina’s thoughts repeatedly. “There’s no way out of it.” As she passed into the saloon, the odor of alcohol, strong tobacco, and sweat struck her. She had always been sensitive to things, loving the scents of flowers and of a bottle of perfume that she had used sparingly.
A small white-haired man was banging away on a piano, and a woman in a scanty dress was trying to sing along with him. Both of them were half drunk, so the music was not exactly beautiful.
Raina made her way across the floor toward the bar.
The bartender, a heavyset man with muddy brown eyes and black hair, said, “Hello,
Raina. Billaud tells me you’ll be serving tonight.”
“I guess so, Juan.”
“Here. Take these drinks over there in the corner. Gonna be busy tonight.”
Raina took the tray and threaded her way across the crowded floor. There were tables around an open space, and couples were trying to dance. The noise was horrendous, women’s shrill laughter and men yelling across the room at each other. She knew that sooner or later a fight would break out, for Cajuns were hot tempered. All she could do was stay away from them.
“Well, thank you, sweetheart.” The customer looked up and grinned at her. He was a bronze-skinned man with a shirt that had once been white. It was open to his belt, and he was hairy as an animal it seemed. “Why don’t you sit down and help me drink up this stuff?”
“I can’t do that. It’s against the rules.”
“Rules are made to be broken.” He reached out and grabbed her hand.
She wrenched it away. “I can’t do that. The boss wouldn’t like it.”
“Why, I’ll make it right with the boss.”
“Just leave me alone,” Raina said sharply.
“Think you’re too good for me, do ya?”
At that moment, the bartender, Juan Rolando, suddenly appeared. He was a huge man, running to fat but strong as a bull. He grabbed the arm of the man who was reaching for Raina, squeezed, and said, “Drink your booze, and leave the help alone!”
“I just wanted—”
“I know what you wanted. Now here’s what I want—get out of here or I’ll break your neck!”
Raina watched as the customer staggered out. Then she turned to Juan. “Gracias, Juan.”
“If you have any trouble, just give me a call.”
She moved back toward the bar and got another order. For the next half hour she filled her time with serving the customers. The smells, the odors, and the profanities that rose in shrill voices all were an offense to her.
She had read a book once about a meal in a fancy New York restaurant where everything was quiet except the man with a violin who played beautiful music during the meal of the heroine and her lover. A longing rose in Raina, and she knew she would give all she had to have one meal like that where the men weren’t drunk and the women were pure and the music was sweet.
That’ll never happen to me, Raina thought, and all the joy of life faded from her as she continued to serve the drunken patrons. She saw that Billaud was scowling at Juan but said nothing.
She passed by a table where a tall, well-dressed man was sitting, and smiled at him. “How are you, Mr. Channing?”
“Fine, Miss Raina.” Mason Channing was the one decent man Raina had encountered in the cantina. He was a lawyer and had the respect of everyone in town. He always called her “Miss Raina” and was ever polite. “A little trouble, Miss Raina?”
“Oh, nothing unusual, Mr. Channing.”
Channing studied her and said, “A pretty tough life you have here. Did you ever think of trying something else?”
“What else is there?”
“Not much in this town, I know.”
“If everyone were as nice as you, life would be a lot easier.”
Channing considered her words then said, “I’m sorry it has to be so hard.”
“Not your fault.”
“No, but I hate to see a fine young lady have to put up with the trash that comes in here.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Did you ever think of getting married?”
“To who? One like Juan threw out the front door a little while ago? That’s about all we get—except for you. And you’re already taken. How is your wife, by the way?”
“She’s doing just fine. In fact, I should be getting home to her now. Well, if I can ever help you, just let me know.”
Raina would have been suspicious if any other man she knew made the remark, but she smiled. “That’s like you, Mr. Channing.” She walked away, hopelessness filling her completely.
CHAPTER 3
Tyler Kincaid pulled his worn shirt closer around his neck then buttoned up the top button of the heavy mackinaw coat he wore. The sky overhead was a dull lead-colored canopy that pressed down upon the earth. It was late morning now, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.
When Ty had left Houston, the weather had been mild enough, but as he’d traveled toward the northeast, the cold seemed to lower itself upon the earth, chilling him to the bone. Tiny granules of what would turn into snow were already falling, and he blinked his eyes to clear them then stared up ahead. Somewhere he would reach the Louisiana border, and his goal was to make it to Baton Rouge where he could continue his journey on a paddle-wheeler.
His horse had been a poor one to start with. Now he felt the animal tremble with the cold. Ordinarily Ty would not have ridden a horse in this condition, but there had been little choice for him.
Suddenly he was seized by a spasm and began to cough. The cough from his imprisonment had returned when he had left Houston. He had gone there after his escape and worked at odd jobs to earn barely enough money for this trip. He muttered into the stiff wind, “Getting sick again. Better not be too serious this time.”
He rode for another thirty minutes, and when he felt the horse’s pace faltering, he knew that he’d have to rest her. He found shelter in a grove of hickory trees and tied the horse up, although there was little danger of her running away in her condition. He studied the animal closely and then shook his head. “Never make it, I reckon.”
He turned to the task of fixing some sort of breakfast. He found a fallen tree and was able to break off small fragments of the dead limbs. He made a pile of them, and taking a match from his inside pocket, he struck it, waited until it burned blue, and then pushed it down into the pile of dead wood. “Come on, burn, blast you!” he muttered. His words had little effect, but soon the wood caught and a tiny yellow blaze flared up. Carefully he added larger pieces until he had a respectable fire going. The warmth of the flame would have cheered him, but it was so small and the weather was so bitter that it did little good.
Going back to his horse, he pulled a skillet and several small bags out. One of them carried grain, and he put it on the horse’s head. Tired and weary and sick as the horse was, she began to eat. “That’s about all we got, girl,” he said. “You’ll have to make out until we get somewhere to get some more.”
Going back to the fire, he broke wood and made a pyramid. He balanced the skillet precariously on top. As soon as the skillet got hot, he dropped in three thick slices of bacon, the last of that store, and dumped a can of beans beside it. There was a small end of a loaf of bread, which he put on top of the frying bacon, letting the grease soak in.
As the meal sizzled and sent a good aroma to Kincaid, he squatted there, trying to estimate how he would be able to make it all the way to Arkansas. That was his master plan, to get from Houston to Fort Smith, Arkansas, which was a difficult thing under any condition. He was a man of silence, but he was planning ahead how he could, perhaps, sell the horse for at least enough to get a ticket partway up the Mississippi. The big river didn’t go to Fort Smith, but the Arkansas River cut into the Mississippi, and the smaller paddle boats and sternwheelers made it all the way up to the Indian Territory and Fort Smith.
Ty ate slowly, chewing thoroughly, pulling his coat around his shoulders and his hat down to avoid the tiny fragments that stuck to his face and burned like fire. Finally he straightened up, put the skillet and the pitiful remains of the food into the saddlebag, and studied the horse. “You got to go a little bit farther, girl. Sorry about that.” He was a man who cared for horses and had no use for men who mistreated them. He knew that the horse could not last long, but he stepped into the saddle and urged the animal forward. “Come on, girl, you can do it.” The mare started forward, and in short steps they headed northeast.
The cold wind was sucking the energy out of both man and horse, and as Ty looked down the road, he shook his head. He had been told at
the last stop that the small village of La Tete lay in front of him, and it wasn’t far from the river itself. He rode slowly, and finally the horse stumbled and nearly fell. Stepping out of the saddle, Kincaid grasped the bridle and leaned forward. “Come on, now. Without all my weight you ought to be able to make it.” As the two plodded along, the wind whistled a dirge like a funeral hymn. It was a depressing moment for Tyler Kincaid, but there was no way he could do anything except continue on his way.
La Tete was indeed small, and as Ty staggered into it at almost noon, he saw a sign that said CECIL’S LIVERY STABLE, halted the horse, and dismounted.
He was greeted by a tall, lanky man who appeared at the livery’s door. He was bundled up against the cold, his red hair extending beneath his hat. He had a pair of sharp blue eyes. “Bad weather to be travelin’, my friend. My name’s Cecil.”
“I’m Kincaid.” Ty was almost too winded to answer, but he took a deep breath and began coughing again. When it finally stopped, he said, “I need to leave this horse with you until she gets rested and then find me a room.”
“It sounds like you need a doctor more than any of that.”
Kincaid smiled. “You know one that works for nothing?”
“Well, not really, but you could maybe work it out. Albert Vance is a pretty good fella for a doctor. How far you come?”
“All the way from Mexico.”
Cecil whistled and shook his head. “That’s a far piece on a horse like that. What were you doing down there?”
“Went to work on a railroad, but I got caught in one of their revolutions. And I was on the wrong side, at that.”
“You headed far?”
“Headed for Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
“Well, you’re going in the wrong direction, you know.”
“I know. Fort Smith is northwest of here, but I was hopin’ to get to Baton Rouge. I could get on one of those sternwheelers and head up that way.”
Cecil shook his head, took a toothpick out of his pocket, and stuck it in his mouth. “I doubt if this hoss will make it.” He wiggled his toothpick up and down. “And the Mississippi don’t go to Arkansas.”
The Western Justice Trilogy Page 52