by Maggie James
“Feel better?” Lulamae asked, grinning.
“Much. But I think I’ve had enough.” She held her hand over her glass as Lulamae tried to refill it.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. If you have much more when you ain’t used to it, you might fall on your butt out there, and then I’d be in big trouble.” Lulamae poured another for herself.
She and Kitty were sitting on stools opposite each other. Tucking her skirt between her legs, Lulamae propped her elbows on her knees and leaned toward Kitty till their faces were mere inches apart. With fascinated eyes she asked, “What was it like with them Indians? I’ve heard they do terrible things to women. Was it real awful? Do you have nightmares about it?”
“Not really.” Kitty would hardly call nightmares the dreams she still had about Whitebear…dreams she wished would go away because they left her feeling so confused.
“You see,” she went on to explain to Lulamae, “they thought I was a boy. I dressed like one on the trip out here because I felt I would be safer if I did. As it turned out, I was right. The Indians never knew I was a woman.”
“But it must have been a horrible experience just the same.”
“No. Actually it wasn’t. I had to do chores, and I slept on the ground on animal skins, and I didn’t enjoy a lot of their food, but, all in all, I was well treated.”
Lulamae poured herself another drink. She stared at Kitty over the rim of the glass as she took a swallow, then said, “I’ve just heard so many dreadful stories that it’s hard to believe what you’re saying.”
“Some of the tales are probably true, but the Indians feel they are only fighting to keep what is theirs by right of their birth—their land. They aren’t all evil. They’re capable of love, and…” She trailed to silence when she saw Lulamae’s condemning expression, and was reminded once again of Pale Sky’s sad words—They will not listen. They never have.
Lulamae drained her glass, then tapped Kitty’s knee with her fist. “I’m going to give you some advice, sweetie. Watch what you say about the Indians. Some folks have had relatives slaughtered by those devils…tortured, scalped. And if you go around trying to defend them by talking about the white man stealing their land…shit like that…you’re going to make a lot of enemies. Best if you just keep your mouth shut.
“Besides,” she said, refilling her glass, “Mr. Earp don’t want nothing else said about you having been with them, anyway. From now on, you’re an angel.” She lifted her drink in salute, then lowered her voice conspiratorially to ask, “But I’m still curious about some things, ’cause if they thought you were a boy, you probably saw them naked, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I tried not to look.”
Lulamae leaned even closer to whisper, “Did you wonder what it would be like with one of them? I bet it’d be terrible, them being such savages and all. I’ll bet they’re like animals, and—”
A loud rap on the door made them jump. It opened, and Kitty recognized Morton, one of the bartenders. His face was screwed with anger as he spotted Lulamae and he roared, “I figured you’d be back here sneakin’ a drink. You better get yourself back out here and get to work or I’m gonna see Mr. Earp finds out.”
Lulamae bounded to her feet. “If you do, you old goat, I’ll see to it your wife finds out you’re sleepin’ with Jessamine every chance you get.”
“You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?” he snarled.
“You tell on me, I tell on you.”
They glared at each other in tense silence. After a moment, Lulamae, cursing under her breath, got up and went with him.
Kitty sat where she was and did not move. Lulamae had sparked memories and her thoughts began to drift.
Whitebear had been a fine figure of a man, and with the whiskey making her mellow, she could fantasize without guilt or shame over what it would be like to have him make love to her.
He would not be brutal. Of this she could be sure, for she had heard him with the Indian girl…had heard their tender sighs and satisfied moans as he took them to paradise. There was no coarseness. No savagery. No animal grunts or cries. From where she had lain outside his tent, every sound was audible. Remembering, she felt a flood of desire in her loins.
She thought of the morning when she had awakened in the silent graying dawn to find him standing over her. Her vision had slid up long, lean legs, the flesh smooth and golden, taut thighs stretched to a breechclout which hung low on his flat belly. A narrow waist veed up to a wide, solid chest, and he had stood with knuckled hands at his narrow hips. He had ordered her to get up and fetch water for his mother, but Kitty had been unable to move, unable to tear her gaze away from him in that crystallized moment of realizing for the first time in her life what it meant to be a woman…and want a man.
The revelation had abruptly ended when he yanked her up, so effortlessly that it was almost as though she were floating until he set her down on her feet.
Stop it, she chided herself as she pulled herself back to the present. Stop thinking about him, and if you’re lucky, you’ll never see him again.
She had to go forward, not dwell on the past, for it was truly behind her—the brief episode of captivity, the grueling journey West, and, yes, too, the misery of her life in Virginia. All faded and gone…along with the dream of being with Daddy Wade again. Reality was a smothering thing, reminding her she had no family and was completely on her own. There was no one to look out for her, to care for her, and certainly no secret gold mine to be found with half of a tattered map. But now she had a chance to make money as a singer and support herself. Otherwise, there was nothing left except marriage for the sake of survival or a job trying to get men so drunk they didn’t know what they were doing.
With a deep sigh of resolve and determination, birthed all the way from her very soul, Kitty got up and returned to the mirror. Opal had styled her hair in swirls atop her head, then capped it with the pearl tiara. She had also applied her makeup—pink cheeks, pink lips, and eyelids dusted with a blend of blue and green to highlight her turquoise eyes.
Kitty felt as though she were looking at a stranger. She heard Jim start playing the piano but no longer felt any apprehension. Opal was right. She had no reason to feel bizarre in her costume—and that was what it was—a costume. She was a performer…a singer…and she would entertain the men and give them a show, and then walk away with head held high.
Mr. Earp had called her into his private office earlier and told her he was going to pay her twenty-five dollars a month. Opal had nearly fainted when Kitty told her. She only made fifteen, she confided, so Mr. Earp had to have great confidence that Kitty was going to bring in lots of new customers to justify such high wages.
Jim had gone over the introduction music with her, and as soon as she heard her cue she hurried up the stairs leading to the stage.
Thick drapes of blue and yellow velvet shielded her from the audience. She could hear sounds above the music—glasses clinking loud voices intermingled with laughter.
The curtains began to open.
Kitty folded her hands beneath her bosom, fixed a smile on her face, and drew a deep breath.
She could feel the glow of the sparkling chandeliers above as a hush fell over the crowd.
She began to sing, drawn to the beauty of the melody and the sensual rhythm of the words. Pleasurable vibrations rolled over her in caressing waves. Something was being unleashed inside her, driving out all fear and making her want to open her eyes and face her audience.
The men staring up at her were mesmerized, entranced by her incredibly melodious voice. Some watched with lips parted. Others swayed in time, lost in sweet memories thought long forgotten but brought back by the sensuous balm of the song.
Kitty found herself smiling as she sang, and soon she began to walk about on the half-moon stage. She made eye contact with her patrons, as though singing to them and them alone. She gestured with her hands as if to fold them into the melody along with her.
She di
d not see Wyatt Earp watching from the railing upstairs, a pleased expression on his usually stony face. Nor was she aware of Jim’s moist, shining eyes, or how Opal, along with her faro players, had momentarily abandoned the game as they were drawn to the music like everyone else.
When the song ended, the applause was deafening. Jim did not allow her but a brief curtsy, however, for he went immediately into the Federal Army’s anthem. It was also received in a rousing way, and by the time she swung into the peppery stanzas of “Dixie,” everyone was up and stamping their feet and clapping their hands.
Kitty pranced and whirled and threw her arms to the sky, feeling the rhythm, the music, all the way to her bones. The crowd no longer existed for her. She was lost in a world of her own and enjoying every second. And it was only when the song ended and the curtains swished open and closed again and again that she remembered where she was…who she was.
The Singing Angel.
Afterward, she collapsed happily in a chair in the dressing area. Her heart was pounding and her spirits were soaring. Lulamae charged in to hug her and tell her she had never heard anything so lovely. Jim was promptly there to declare he’d never seen such a reaction from an audience.
Opal, came, too, for a quick hug and promise that they would meet later to celebrate.
Then others came—all men—to vie for Kitty’s attention and favor.
One man, wearing a diamond stickpin in the lapel of his gray striped suit, introduced himself with a bow and a sweep of his top hat and then proceeded to bluntly ask her to marry him.
Another shoved him aside to do the same.
A drunk staggered in insisting that she dance with him.
And then Wyatt Earp was there to usher them out and declare that, henceforth, he would post a guard outside the door so Kitty would not be bothered with such foolishness.
Finally, she was alone with nothing to do. Jim would keep playing off and on, but she would not sing again, although before he had left her Mr. Earp had hinted they needed to think about doing two shows a night.
Not about to join the revelry in the saloon, Kitty waited until things settled down, then went back to the stage. The curtains were closed, and there was a side exit where she could slip out, unseen, and make her way to the back stairs.
Once in her room, she peeled out of the gown, scrubbed the makeup off her face, and vigorously brushed the curls from her hair.
Someone had left tea cakes, fruit, and a pitcher of milk on the table beside her bed, and she ate ravenously. With her stomach in knots earlier, she had not wanted any supper.
Afterward, she lay down and tried to sleep, but the noise from downstairs kept her from doing so. Finally she got up and padded to the window to look down on the busy street below. Despite the bustling crowds of the night and the goings-on in the saloon, Kitty was struck to realize how truly alone she was.
She absently chewed on a fingernail as she wondered why, despite the successful evening, she felt so empty. When she was with the Apaches, even as a captive, she now realized, she had felt a part of things…a part of life. The cooking and hunting and tanning had all made her feel vital, as though she belonged somewhere…to someone. Here, she was something to be stared at, ogled, and, yes, prized, if some man could rope her in for his wife.
She thought of Virginia and the farm and Jabe, Loweezy, and Roscoe—the only friends she’d ever had.
And she thought of the horses, how she had loved working with them.
It was the kind of life she yearned for, longed for—not singing in a saloon, even if she had been well received.
Suddenly it dawned on her that she was trapped. With no other way to support herself, she had to be grateful for the opportunity at hand.
But if she could find the gold strike…
“Impossible,” she said out loud and turned from the window and went back to bed.
The only way she might ever find it would be if she had Whitebear’s half of the map. But he was not going to give it to her any more than she would hand over hers to him.
“So be it,” she muttered sleepily, covering her head with the pillow to shut out all the noise.
“I’ll just have to content myself with being the Singing Angel,” she whispered…knowing she never would.
Chapter Thirteen
It was late afternoon, and Ryder was about to make his first attempt to find Kitty Parrish in busy, crowded Tombstone.
He had arrived early that morning and taken a room at a boardinghouse. Weary, he had slept most of the day, knowing the town did not come alive till late afternoon anyway.
Bathed and dressed, he scratched irritably at his beard. The itching was why he had never liked having one and tried to shave every day. It was necessary, however, that he change his appearance drastically. He was also assuming a new identity, for there was no way he could introduce himself to Kitty Parrish by the same last name as her uncle’s partner.
So he had taken the name Sam Bodine. With a double holster strapped around his waist, he would present himself as a drifter…a hired gun. That way, most folks would steer clear of him, which was what he wanted. He did not need, or want, friends or camaraderie. He had one reason for being in town—to seduce Kitty Parrish and get her to turn over her half of the map. Everything else was a waste of time.
He felt no guilt or shame over his purpose. His people came first, and they needed gold to survive across the border without having to steal. He wanted no trouble with the Mexicans.
He had spent the past three weeks working as an army scout in Texas. He needed the money, as well as the time to grow his beard.
He hoped his quest would not take long. Already it was midsummer, and he wanted to get his people out of the mountains before autumn. They needed time to settle in before winter. In the spring, they could start their gardens and, hopefully, start herds of cattle, but food had to be found and stored for the harsh months ahead.
So it was important he move fast, for too much time had already been wasted.
He supposed it was arrogant to assume he could maneuver Kitty Parrish into his bed and charm her into handing over the map, but the fact was, he knew how to pleasure a woman.
Katrina Stevens had taught him well.
She was the daughter of one of the high-ranking officers at Fort Bowie. It had been built to fend off Indian attacks at a place called Apache Pass, through which the Butterfield Stagecoach line carried mail and passengers from Missouri to California. Ryder had gone there, passing as white and working as stable help to spy for the Apache leader, Geronimo, who was leading raids on both sides of the border.
At first, Ryder naively thought Katrina hung around the stables because she liked horses and was always coaxing one of the soldiers to take her for a ride. Because of all the Indian trouble, she was not, of course, allowed to go outside the fort without an escort and then could not go far.
When Katrina began to pay attention to him, he was too taken by her to notice the smirks from the soldiers. And, since they dared not speak disrespectfully of an officer’s daughter, Ryder had no way of knowing that she was a spicy little vixen who enjoyed a good tumble in bed as well as any man, and he was merely a new conquest.
She asked him to take her riding, and he eagerly agreed. There was a creek within the boundaries she was allowed to go, and she directed him to a private hideaway among some boulders. To his surprise—and delight—she promptly stripped and proceeded to show him an ecstasy unlike anything he had ever known before.
Katrina’s desire was insatiable, and she showed him a hundred ways to try and satisfy it.
Inexperienced and naive when it came to women—back then, anyway—Ryder stupidly thought what he felt for Katrina could only be love.
Little did he realize such thoughts were birthed in his loins—not his heart.
He could look back now and see where he went a bit crazy that summer. He forgot all about spying. In fact, he shirked his chores to be with Katrina any time she wanted him.
Ryder was completely bewitched, and when Katrina began talking about how she was going back East in the fall, he felt his heart begin to crack. She hated the West, and so did her mother. Her father had put in for a transfer, and it was hoped by the end of summer he would have it.
The thought of her leaving drove him crazy, and one day, after a torrid session of lovemaking, he asked her to marry him.
At first, she had seemed stunned, then she began chattering about how he must be crazy to think she would live in the West. And hadn’t he been listening all the times she had expressed her desire to go back East?
He had quickly assured her he understood how she felt and was willing to move there to make their home.
So many times Ryder had thought back on that day and given thanks he had kept his mouth shut and not told her of his mixed blood and how difficult it had been for him to make the decision to leave his mother and his people and live forever in the white man’s world. Had they married, he would have told her in time, but he figured his proposal was a big enough surprise for the time being.
As it turned out, he was the one surprised, for when he kept pressing her to say yes, arguing down all her reasons against marriage, she had finally, bluntly, told him that when she did wed, it would be to someone wealthy. He was nothing but a poor stable hand and would never be able to support her in the way she wanted.
He had dared hope that in time he could break down her resolve, still foolishly thinking she loved him, but, as it turned out, he was not to be with her again. She refused to have anything else to do with him and, the very next day, shunned him to ride with another soldier.
Fool that he was, he had continued to pine, until a sergeant drew him aside and said it was time he wised up. Katrina Stevens was a hot-blooded little whore, the sergeant confided, and had bedded half the cavalry. Her father was as blind to her immorality as Ryder had been.