“Jonas told Louisa and me something earlier, outside his office, that I found a little hard to believe—given the circumstances, and all.”
Phoebe gave a wry grin, pink lips parting just a little. She blinked once, slowly. “He told you that George Hill is my father.” She dragged the words out as though she were confessing a secret she’d been keeping for a long time. One that she didn’t like to even think about.
“So it’s true.”
“It’s true.”
Phoebe emptied her wineglass and set the glass back down on the table. As she refilled it, she said, “Let’s order some food, shall we? If I’m going to tell you my life’s story, I’m going to need some fortification beyond wine”—she set the nearly empty bottle down on the table and rolled her eyes—“though the wine helps.”
Later, when their steaks and all the surroundings, including a steaming wicker basket of crusty bread, had arrived, and they were cutting into their meat, she said, “Yes, my father is George Hill. He raised me here in Carson’s Wash—before there was anything but the wash. And the Apaches. There were plenty of Apaches. And rattlesnakes.
“My mother died when I was twelve. She and my father had had a terrible row, and my mother ran out. My father had slapped her while I cowered under the kitchen table. It was night. She must have lost her sense of direction and fell into a deep gorge. That was the Lord taking pity on her, saving her from my father’s rough ways. God or whoever’s up there took no such pity on me. George Hill was and is a coldhearted devil. I didn’t realize it when I was much younger. Before my mother died. Before he killed her. He was a big, tough man who started the town when he built up a spring that made it possible to haul freight through this country. Then he built a saloon and a trading post that were the only ones within two hundred miles. He seemed to me a man who could do anything. To me, he was God!
“Only, this god had an enemy.”
“Dahlstrom?”
“The man I came to marry.”
“How did that happen? If I’m bein’ overly curious, Phoebe, just tell this cat to lay down. I don’t need to know any more than I already do to run Butters to ground.”
“I have nothing to hide, Lou. All of my skeletons are right out in the open for all to see. I first fell in love with my husband Max’s son, Erik. My father, however, forbade me to marry Erik. Max came into this country around the same time my father had, saw the future in that spring, and bought an old Spanish land grant on which he built his own ranch. He built several businesses here in Carson’s Wash, and he partnered up with Hannibal Ford, or ‘the General,’ as everyone around here knows him, to establish a bank and trust as well as a land office and a stagecoach line, which is still running.
“All three men—Max, the General, and my father, George Hill—were tough, belligerent, domineering men. They’d fought in the war back East and then the Apaches out here. All they really knew was violence. Naturally, they found themselves in competition with each other. Max and the General joined forces against my father. The two factions tried to drive each other out. Things got violent on both sides. Both sides hired gunmen. Men were killed in town and on the range.
“Through all this chaos, I fell in love with Erik Dahlstrom and saw him on the sly. When my father found out, he had Erik beaten to within an inch of his life. Erik survived, but, like a whipped dog, he was ruined. He headed for Mexico and died down there while running with a gang of ex-Confederate outlaws. My heart was broken. I turned against my father. I had nowhere to live, so Max took me in to keep house for him.
“A month after his sickly wife passed, Max and I were married. That was five years ago. On our wedding day, Max and I and his men came to town to celebrate and to stay here, in Max and the General’s hotel, the Rio Grande. My father and his men came over from my father’s saloon and mercantile and lumberyard to wreak havoc right here in this dining room. My father and Max fought mano a mano.
“They were a couple of splendid bulls fighting over past and current injuries. For their honor. For a woman. Damn near killed each other. When my father fell, beaten and exhausted, half his clothes ripped off his body, Max turned his left eye to pudding with a spur rowel. While my father screamed, clutching his bloody eye, I knelt before him and laughed in his face!”
Phoebe had lifted her chin proudly, defiantly, as she’d espoused this last in a voice buoyant with jubilation. Again, Prophet had the impression of the prow of a clipper ship cleaving a turbulent ocean. She smiled brightly over the rim of her wineglass.
Prophet had stopped eating midway through his meal. He’d been riveted on the girl’s tale as well as on the passion with which she’d relayed it. He couldn’t help being more than a little aroused, as well, by the half-crazed fervor in her eyes.
It was as if she were seeing it all again—that horrific mano a mano fight right here in the Rio Grande, and her father’s eye turned to “pudding” by her husband on their wedding night. Her husband, who had likely been twice her age or more.
A man whom she had no doubt married for the sole purpose of defying her father.
“I believe the cat has your tongue, Mr. Prophet,” Phoebe said, and laughed.
“It does indeed,” Prophet said, clearing the frog in his throat and staring back at the ravishing young woman before him. He wasn’t sure if it was the bourbon, but his brain was slow to absorb the information. Or the full impact of the violence and bloodshed that had occurred here. “Seems like such a nice, quiet little town.”
“True, it’s been a lot quieter here over the past five years. It helped when Jonas Ford came back from college in the East to take over as marshal. He’d returned a year before his father died. The General had always been respected in these parts, as he’d fought valiantly in the war, and that respect was passed down to his son.”
“So why do you suppose your father waited until now to kill your husband?”
Phoebe cocked a brow and shrugged a shoulder as she resumed eating. Forking a large chunk of meat into her mouth, she said, “Evil. Wickedness. A malevolence he was born with. I knew that when things settled down they’d only really settled down on my father’s part for one reason. He was biding his time. He was licking his wounds, savoring his pain. He wanted me and Max to have some time together, to come to love and respect each other. Which we did, in fact, despite the broad gap in our ages. Max might have been old, Lou, but I will tell you this”—she leaned forward to mutter with a devilish glint in her sexy eyes—“he had not only the right equipment but the skill to go along with it, to satisfy a woman.”
Phoebe winked, gave a husky chuckle, and forked more bloody meat between her pretty, pink lips.
“I think that cat has got your tongue again, Lou!” she said with naughty delight, laughing as she chewed.
Prophet had never known a woman to make him blush as many times in one sitting, but Phoebe Dahlstrom wasn’t just any woman. This was one whose mold had been broken across the knee of whatever laughing god had made her. Prophet had thought he’d had his hands full with Louisa. Here was another one who could tie a man’s britches in a knot.
Prophet cleared his throat again. The last chunk of meat and potatoes he’d eaten had gotten turned cattywampus somewhere around his vocal cords.
While he was trying to pick some coherent words out of the confusion of thoughts running through his brain, Phoebe shoved her nearly empty plate aside, picked up her wineglass, and clutched it to her breasts as she leaned intimately forward and cast a furtive glance toward where Ford and Louisa were eating on the other side of the room.
“Tell me, Lou—and please admonish me if I’m being too forward—but have you and the Vengeance Queen . . . uh . . . slept together?” She turned to him and fluttered an eyelid. “And I don’t mean slept.”
Chapter 8
Prophet had just taken the last sip of his whiskey.
The blatant impertinence of Phoebe’s question nearly caused him to spit the bourbon across the table at her. He managed to swa
llow it down after a few seconds wrestling with it, then glanced toward Louisa once more.
It was as though Louisa herself had heard the question. She met Prophet’s glance with a glance of her own, and a raised eyebrow.
Prophet looked back at Phoebe Dahlstrom and, blushing again, said, “If Ma Prophet taught this ole possum-poker one thing it was to not go around talkin’ out of school.”
“Oh, come on,” Phoebe said, pooching out her bottom lip in a feigned pout. “I let you see the dust under my rug.”
“You didn’t need to.”
She studied him, frowning. She glanced once more at Louisa, who had returned her own attention to Jonas Ford. Turning back to Prophet, Phoebe gave a whimsical half smile and said, “I had a feeling . . .”
Prophet sipped his beer, set it down, and fiddled with the handle. “About what?”
“You love her, don’t you?”
Prophet sighed. He felt a wall going up inside him. A protective wall. He felt as though he was not only protecting himself from an eccentric young woman who knew few bounds, but Louisa, as well.
“Cat’s got your tongue again, Lou.”
Prophet yawned. “I must be gettin’ old,” he said, glancing toward the windows. The sun was getting low but was not yet down. Long, dark shadows leaned out away from the buildings on the north side of the street. “I do believe I’m going to have a smoke and roll into the mattress sack. We’ll be getting an early start after Butters.”
He leaned back and reached into his pants pocket.
“I’ll get this,” Phoebe said. “My treat.”
“Not a chance. You pay me the five hundred for Butters, and we’ll be more than square.”
“Lou.” She leaned over the table again, pinning him with a lusty, smoky gaze. “I’d like you to spend the night with me.”
Prophet frowned. “Mrs. Dahlstrom, your husband hasn’t been dead . . .”
“I lied.” Phoebe looked down at her hands in her lap. “I didn’t love him. I married him for the very obvious reason that I knew it would hurt and infuriate my father. Here’s another little bit of truth for you.”
Prophet literally braced himself in his chair.
“I didn’t love Erik, either. I just hated my father while at the same time admiring the tyrant that he was and wishing I could be more like him. More like him and Max and the General. I wanted to make my own way. I wanted to dominate and crush and build things in my own vision of how they should be built. Then burn it all down if I so chose. That’s hard when you’re a woman. So I wanted to marry Erik. When he was taken from me, I married the next best thing. In fact, marrying Max was an even sharper, deeper sword in my father’s heart.”
“So . . . why are you so incensed that . . . ?”
“That my father had Butters kill Max?”
“Never mind,” Prophet said. “I’m a little thick, but I think I can see it.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Tell me.”
“Killing your husband was an assault against you. He was invading your territory. Now you want to lash back at him. Make him pay. Exact the final revenge for your mother.”
“There you have it.” She gave a dry half smile.
“Please don’t tell me I’m smarter than I look,” Prophet said. “I get that all the time and it hurts my feelings.”
“Sleep with me tonight.” There was a definite, firm urgency in her voice. “You will not regret it.” She blinked slowly. “I guarantee you.”
Prophet glanced at Louisa. Doing so, he caught her glancing at him. She looked away quickly. Too quickly.
To Phoebe, Prophet said, “You’re beautiful as all hell, Phoebe . . .”
“If she wasn’t here, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”
“Like I was sayin’, you’re beautiful as hell, but I don’t think I’m up to it tonight. I’ve been feelin’ like a black cat’s been loungin’ around on my grave all day, and for some reason the cat hasn’t gone away.” In some ways, the feeling had gotten worse. “Besides, I’ve always found trouble in mixing business with pleasure.”
Phoebe pursed her lips, nodded. “All right, then. I hope you realize what you’re denying yourself. I hope you wake up in the middle of the night with one hell of a . . . craving.” Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled.
“No doubt I will.”
“If so, and you decide to remedy your mistake, I’m in room eight. The end of the first-floor hall on the left.”
Prophet chuckled. “You sure know how to ride roughshod over a fella, don’t you?”
“I’ve built a life around it.”
Prophet rose, tossed a couple of silver dollars onto the table, stuffed his hat on his head, adjusted the holstered Colt on his thigh, and said, “Good night, Phoebe.”
“Good night, Lou.”
Prophet did not look at Louisa and Jonas Ford before he turned around and walked out of the dining room.
* * *
Prophet had a cigarette out on the hotel’s front veranda. As the sun drifted out of sight, taking its light with it and sending a refreshing chill along the main street of Carson’s Wash, Prophet walked up to his room and had another drink.
Then he went to bed.
It took him a good, long while to get to sleep. A lot had happened this day. Men had tried to kill him for reasons he wasn’t sure of, and they’d likely try again. They might even make a play this very night.
But he was accustomed to that.
What was really bothering him, he realized as he lay there in the dark, staring up at the pressed-tin ceiling, was Phoebe Dahlstrom. She bothered him even more than Louisa and Jonas Ford. Phoebe’s words were like ghosts haunting him though he wasn’t sure why. He’d known plenty of folks driven half-mad by life’s circumstances. Hell, he often put himself in that category.
Something told him he’d find out soon why the young woman had disturbed him. Maybe before he was ready.
He wasn’t sure when he’d nodded off. He realized he’d fallen asleep only when several light taps sounded on his door, hoisting him out of a shallow slumber.
Instinctively, he jerked his head up off his pillow and slid his Colt from the holster buckled around the right-front bedpost. He clicked the hammer back as he tossed the covers aside then, clad in only his longhandles, rose and walked to the door.
He stood to one side of the doorframe to avoid a possible shotgun blast through the door panel.
“Who is it?” he said, tipping his head close to the door.
“Me,” was the quiet response from the hall.
Prophet set the Colt on the dresser. He twisted the key in the lock, and, frowning, opened the door. He crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe.
Louisa stood in the hall. She wasn’t wearing a hat. Her hair spilled messily across her shoulders. Prophet could see her silhouette by the dull lamplight slanting through a window at the hall’s far end.
“Are you alone?” she asked, keeping her voice low in the dark hall.
“Yeah.” Prophet gave the door a tug then released the knob and let the door’s momentum open it. The hinges chirped faintly.
Louisa stepped inside. She appeared a little wobbly on her feet.
Prophet closed the door.
Louisa looked toward the bed. “Was she here?”
“Just left.”
Louisa jerked her right hand back and flung it forward. Her fist glanced off his left cheek. She flung another punch and another. Prophet halfheartedly held his arms up to ward her off as she silently punched at him. She punched mostly air and his shoulders and chest. She wore out quickly, breathing hard.
“You’re a skunk,” she hissed.
“You’re drunk.”
Prophet stepped around her, wrapped his arms around her waist, picked her up, and threw her onto his bed.
She grunted as she hit the mattress. When she stopped bouncing, she pushed up onto her elbows and looked at him through the mussed blond hair hanging in her face. Her words were slurred and garbled
with emotion. “You’re still a smelly possum.”
“I lied.” Prophet sagged into a ladder-back chair by the dresser. “She was never here. We parted in the dining room, and that was it.”
Louisa just stared at him. It was too dark in the room for him to see her expression, if there was one.
“Where’s Jonas?” he asked her.
“In his room.” A pause. She swept her hair back with both hands. “He kicked me out.”
“Kicked you out?”
“The man’s a gentleman,” Louisa sobbed. “He said I was inebriated and that it would be beneath us both to continue on our current course. He did not compromise the honor of young women not at their best.” She smiled, sobbed, shook her head, sniffed. “He said that.”
“Ouch.”
“The skunk’s a gentleman.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well . . . Do you have something to drink?”
“Fresh out of sarsaparilla.”
“I want whiskey.”
“It looks to me like you’ve had more whiskey tonight than you’ve had in your entire life. No more whiskey.”
She lay back against Prophet’s pillow. “I want to get good and drunk.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
Prophet rose from his chair, walked over to the bed, slid his hands beneath her back and legs, and slid her over, making room for him. He lay down beside her and hooked his arm behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.
“Why?”
Louisa drew a deep breath. She turned toward him, drew her knees toward her belly, and pressed her forehead against his side. “You see the damnedest things on this job, Lou.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The last savage I hauled in didn’t have a bounty on his head. I stopped at his place, a little tumble-down ranch just south of Amarillo, near Palo Duro Canyon, to water my horse and buy a little parched corn. A white man, middle-aged. Short, chubby, grizzled little man who seemed sort of bashful. He invited to me to stay for supper and to bed down in his barn. He had a wife. Half-Comanche. And a daughter. They seemed nice enough though the wife and daughter didn’t say anything. They served me a nice meal.
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