Cactus Flower

by Duncan, Alice

  Knowing she was an idiot didn’t slow her down. With a high kick and a twirl of her lacy blue parasol, Eulalie paraded before the crowd, listening for any abatement of their enthusiasm. She didn’t perceive any. Good. Her job was secure for another while, anyway.

  After her first number, Griswold played the introductory chords of “Lorena,” a solid old tearjerker that never failed to elicit strong emotions from the drunken patrons of the Opera House. Eulalie doubted whether any were veterans of the Civil War, during which the tune had been introduced, but they all loved it anyway. Eulalie always made sure to put an extra dollop of pathos into the song. It amused her to see how many of her audience had to dab their eyes with the big red bandannas most of these men used as handkerchiefs. She’d never yet been able to make Nick cry with her dramatic renderings of certain songs, but she kept trying.

  “Lorena” passed by without Nick batting an eyelash, and she launched into “The Man on the Flying Trapeze,” a number to which she did several energetic kicks and dance steps. Her audience loved it, although Eulalie noticed that Nick apparently did not. She judged this reaction by the scowl on his face and the hand he kept on his firearm. Well, she thought bitterly, she couldn’t help it if he didn’t like what she had to do for a living. If he wanted her to quit singing and dancing in front of a bunch of half-drunken cowboys and worse, clad in scandalous costumes, he could jolly well marry her.

  Good God! Eulalie almost fainted when that thought crossed her mind. She instantly shoved it out again and concentrated on her performance.

  To thunderous applause, “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” ended, and Griswold immediately played the opening chords of a number that always made everyone laugh, “The Cat Came Back.” Eulalie was halfway through the song, and was creeping across the stage in her best imitation of a cat and tipping a wink at her audience—something she did every time she sang this particular number—when she stopped dead in her tracks, stood up straight, and very nearly died on the spot.

  Eulalie screeched, “You!” Absolute terror engulfed her.

  Confusion ensued.

  Gilbert Blankenship smiled at her from the second table from the back of the saloon.

  * * * * *

  Nick’s heart almost stopped when Eulalie screamed and ran off the stage. Pandemonium broke out among her audience, with people hollering and whispering, leaping to their feet, looking around, drawing weapons and obviously worried. Since Nick had seen the man to whom Eulalie had reacted so violently, he kept his gaze fixed on him as he drew his Colt out of its holster and fired off one round into the floorboards of the poor, abused Peñasco Opera House.

  Instantly, every man in the audience save one hit the floor.

  “Christ, Taggart,” muttered Dooley Chivers.

  Nick ignored him. “Quiet, everybody!” He pinned the one man who hadn’t had sense enough to flatten himself on the floor—the one who’d frightened Eulalie—with the most vicious stare in his repertoire. He moved toward him, stepping over and around the bodies that were the inevitable result of gunshots in the saloon, keeping his Colt aimed at the bastard’s chest. “Who the hell are you?”

  The man’s eyes opened wide, and he appeared a trifle worried. It was a sensible response, since Nick had every intention of killing him. Nobody frightened Eulalie Gibb and got away with it. Holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, the fellow said, “Name’s Gilbert Blankenship, and I didn’t do anything!”

  That would probably have been the end of everything right then, given Nick’s intentions, except that Sheriff Wallace shoved through the bodies at that moment and put his hand on Nick’s arm. “That’s enough, Nick. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Now listen here, Sheriff—”

  “I’ll handle it, Nick.” Then, in an instant of unexpected brilliance, Sheriff Wallace added, “You ought to go see to Miss Gibb.”

  Nick was torn. He really, really wanted to kill this Gilbert Blankenship fellow. But he also knew that Eulalie needed him. He said, “Aw, shit,” jammed his gun back into its holster, and turned to find Eulalie.

  His feeling of alarm and dread intensified as he took the stairs three at a time, and he was running by the time he thundered to a halt before Eulalie’s door. It was locked. “Eulalie!” he hollered. “Eulalie, damn it, let me in!”

  “Are you alone?”

  Sweet Jesus, was that her? The Eulalie Gibb that Nick had known to be as prickly as a cactus ever since she arrived in Rio Peñasco? That squeaky little voice sounded like that of a frightened mouse. “It’s me, and I’m alone,” he said, attempting to soften his tone, a difficult task, since he still labored under murderous impulses.

  “Are you sure?”

  What the hell was going on here? “Of course, I’m sure, dammit! Now open the damned door!”

  He heard what sounded like someone tiptoeing to the door, and the bolt being drawn back. Then, very slowly, the door opened a scant half-inch, and he saw one of Eulalie’s gorgeous blue eyes, huge and wary, peek out at him. “It is you,” she whispered, sounding relieved. “Thank God.” And she swung the door wide and threw herself at him.

  Nick never minded having Eulalie in his arms, but at the moment he wanted answers even more than he wanted her. He carried her into her room and set her gently on her feet. Still clinging to him, she glanced at the door. “Lock it. Please lock it, Nick.”

  So he locked it, Eulalie never letting go of his arm, even though he knew a well-placed kick would shatter the frame. But that didn’t matter, since he had his Colt with him. And so, he noticed, glancing at the array of weapons Eulalie had set out on her dressing table, did she.

  Picking her up and sitting on a chair in the corner and settling her on his lap, Nick said sternly, “All right now, Eulalie Gibb, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Oh, Nick, I’m so frightened!”

  “Yeah, I can tell you are. Why?”

  Suddenly Eulalie jumped from his lap. “Oh, Lord! I can’t wait around here! I have to get home and warn Patsy! My God, I should have done that first! I was just so scared.”

  Without even bothering to step behind her screen, Eulalie ripped her costume off and threw it on the floor. “What’s the matter with me? I shouldn’t have panicked like that!” She halted, holding her street dress in front of her.

  Nick, who would have enjoyed the show under any other circumstances, frowned. “Calm down, Eulalie, and tell me what’s going on.”

  “Help me, Nick,” she pleaded. “Go warn Patsy. Please! She has to be warned!”

  “Damnation!”

  His roar stopped Eulalie in mid-panic. She jumped six inches and dropped her dress.

  Heaving himself out of his chair, Nick picked it up for her and plopped it over her head. “If it’s that Blankenship fellow you’re worried about, he’s not going anywhere. The sheriff has him.”

  Eulalie heaved the most gigantic sigh Nick had ever heard and seemed to wilt as he buttoned her dress up the back. “Thank God,” she whispered.

  And then she turned in his arms and burst into tears. Nick, who had come to expect damned near anything from Eulalie except normal female vapors, was appalled. “Hell, Eulalie, don’t do that.”

  She shoved herself away from him, swiping madly at her wet cheeks. “Sorry. You’re right. I can’t cave in now. I have to get to Patsy. Help me, please, Nick. Get my stockings and shoes while I take down my hair.”

  He did as she asked, and noticed that her fingers trembled as they fumbled with the gewgaws in her hair. She seemed unable to control them and ended up yanking feathers, pins, and hair with abandon. He hated to see her beautiful hair treated so disrespectfully, so he caught her hands in his. “Hey, slow down. Why don’t you put on your shoes and stockings, and I’ll take your hair down.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her eyes still dripped, he noticed. This wasn’t good. In point of fact, it was very, very bad. Eulalie was having a fit about that man downstairs, and for the first time since he’d met her, was
acting like one of his step-relations.

  A knock sounded at the door, and Eulalie let out a small shriek.

  “It’s only me, Miss Gibb.” Nick recognized Dooley Chivers’ voice. “Are you all right? You durned near give us all a heart spasm when you screamed like that.”

  Eulalie sucked in a shaky breath. Before she could use it, Nick said, “She’s all right, Dooley, but I’m going to take her home now. Is the sheriff still with that Blankenship fellow?”

  “Is that the man’s name? Yeah, Wallace took him over to his office.”

  “Thank God,” whispered Eulalie, pressing a hand to her heart.

  Eyeing her, Nick made a decision. He still didn’t know what the hell was going on or who Gilbert Blankenship was in relation to Eulalie Gibb, but he wasn’t going to allow the man to bother either Gibb sister if he could help it. And he could. “Say, Dooley, will you send somebody to fetch Junius? Ask him to meet Eulalie and me at her house.”

  “Junius?” Eulalie said dazedly.

  “Sure thing, Nick. Take care of yourself, Miss Gibb.”

  Nick felt Eulalie swallow before she said, “Thank you, Mr. Chivers.” Her voice sounded better. Stronger, although still somewhat strained.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Nick growled. He didn’t know if Dooley heard him, but Eulalie did. She reached up and squeezed his hand.

  “Thank you, Nick.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He’d got all the pins and things out of her hair and she’d put her shoes on by that time. While Eulalie wrapped her hair into a knot and pinned it in place, Nick got her shawl and put it around her shoulders. “Now,” said he, “what the hell’s going on, Eulalie, and don’t leave anything out. You can tell me all about it while I walk you home.”

  She clung to him like a limpet, a circumstance that worried Nick. This didn’t seem like the Eulalie he knew and—God save him—loved. “Please wait until we get home, Nick. This is more Patsy’s story than it is mine. And I really don’t think I could stand to tell it more than once.”

  Nick didn’t like it, but he agreed. He supposed it was for the best, since he wanted to be alert in case anybody tried to jump them. He’d had scoffed at such a possibility until tonight. Tonight, he wasn’t sure of anything any longer, and the moon was new, and it was black as India ink outdoors. “Do you expect this Blankenship bastard to have friends hanging around?”

  “Friends?” Eulalie sounded startled. “Why, I … don’t know. Why?”

  Why? Because he was debating whether or not to carry a lantern, given the relative blackness of the night. “Just wondering, is all.”

  “Oh. Well … I doubt it. I don’t think he has any friends.”

  “All right.” Still, he opted to forego the lantern. He didn’t want to give any lurking villains a better target than he could help, just in case Blankenship had formed acquired friends since Eulalie had last seen him.

  They heard a soft murmur of voices before they saw Patsy and Gabriel Fuller. Nick heard Eulalie suck in a quick breath.

  “They’re outside,” she whispered, as if their being outside was one of the worst things that they could be.

  “Probably spooning on the back porch,” observed Nick with some satisfaction. He tolerated Fuller ever so much better now that he knew the lieutenant’s interest lay with Patsy and not Eulalie.

  “But she can’t be outside,” Eulalie cried softly, speeding up until she was practically dragging Nick behind her—quite a feat, given the differences in their sizes.

  “Whatever you say.” And Nick scooped her up and covered the last few paces to the Gibb sisters’ house more quickly than Eulalie could have done.

  Fuller jumped to his feet when Nick suddenly erupted into the back yard and set Eulalie on her feet. “Shoot, Taggart! I thought you were an outlaw or something,” growled Fuller. He nodded at Eulalie. “Ma’am.”

  Patsy, too, was on her feet. She stared at her sister in trepidation, “Eulalie! What’s the matter? Why are you home so soon? Why is Nick carrying you?” Nick put her down, and Patsy rushed over and threw her arms around Eulalie, who embraced her back.

  Nick eyed the two sisters and felt slightly disgruntled. He really wanted to know what the devil was going on here.

  Eulalie released Patsy and held her at arm’s length. Watching her fiercely, as if she feared for the state of Patsy’s nerves, she said slowly and deliberately, “Gilbert Blankenship has come to Rio Peñasco, Patsy. He was at the—”

  She didn’t get to finish telling her where Gilbert Blankenship was, because Patsy uttered a sharp gasp and crumpled to the ground.

  “Patsy!” Eulalie tried to catch her sister’s body, but only succeeded in being borne to the earth along with her.

  “Shit,” muttered Nick.

  He and Fuller both reached for the sisters at the same time. Nick managed to get Eulalie on her feet, and Fuller picked Patsy up and headed to the kitchen door. “Good God,” he said under his breath.

  Nick couldn’t have agreed more.

  Eulalie rushed to the kitchen to get some water, as Lieutenant Fuller laid Patsy on the sofa in the parlor. Nick, who felt kind of useless, followed Eulalie. “Anything I can do?”

  “I don’t think so.” She glanced at him and smiled tentatively. “Thank you, Nick. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  And he didn’t feel useless any longer.

  * * * * *

  By the time Patsy recovered from her faint, Junius had arrived. When she did open her eyes, she started crying and wringing her hands and generally behaving in a way that shocked Eulalie, who had always known her sister to be strong and resilient—and thank God for it, or she wouldn’t have survived this long. Eulalie’s relief was great when Gabriel Fuller wrapped his arms around Patsy and held her during the storm. She was also extremely grateful to Nick, who held her hand as they both watched helplessly.

  After what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, Patsy regained her self-control. Using the huge handkerchief Fuller had offered her, she mopped her cheeks and eyes and blew her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said in a sniffly voice. “I was just so … shocked. And afraid.” She gazed beseechingly at Eulalie. “Oh, Eulalie! Whatever will we do?”

  Run? To Eulalie, that seemed like the only option, but she dreaded it. She didn’t want to leave Rio Peñasco. She didn’t want to leave Nick Taggart.

  Anyhow, if Gilbert Blankenship had found them once, he could surely find them again. Unless, of course, the sisters found a town with no newspaper.

  She didn’t answer Patsy’s question immediately, since her thoughts were in such a turmoil.

  It was Nick who spoke next, in a voice that snapped with disapproval and suspicion. “Who the hell is that man, Eulalie? And what kind of hold does he have over you?”

  Eulalie looked at him with surprise. “Hold? He has no hold over me. Or Patsy, either.”

  She heard Patsy take a deep, ragged breath. “That’s not true, Eulalie. These men deserve to know the truth. I … I don’t care anymore. They need to know everything if they want to help us.” She looked suddenly at Gabriel Fuller, who still held her in his arms. “But maybe they don’t. I mean … oh, dear, I didn’t mean to presume.”

  Eulalie decided it was time to take charge. It was a demonstration of how much Gilbert Blankenship’s presence at the Opera House had rattled her that it had taken her this long to do so. Over the past few years, she’d become adept at directing others. She cleared her throat. “Actually, this is exactly why I made arrangements with Nick. Mr. Taggart.” Oh, dear. She really had to get a hold on her nerves. “This possibility, I mean. And to protect us from others, of course.”

  Nick said, “Of course.” He sounded quite sarcastic about it.

  “You don’t have to make any arrangements with me,” declared Fuller, shooting a glower at Nick, who rolled his eyes. “I’ll kill the man if you want me to.”

  “The sheriff might have something to say about that,” growled Nick.


  “Well …” Fuller appeared slightly chagrined. “Maybe so.”

  “No maybes about it,” Nick said. “I already tried to get rid of the bastard, and Wallace stopped me.”

  The two men glared at each other. Drat it, her control was slipping again. Eulalie said loudly enough to squelch any further comments from the male contingent in the room, “Would you like to tell the tale, or do you want me to do so, Patsy?”

  Patsy bowed her head and whispered, “You tell it. I … can’t.”

  So once again Eulalie cleared her throat. Then she began the story.

  “Very well. As you gentlemen all know—at least Nick and Junius know, because I told them, and I assume Patsy told you, too, Lieutenant—Patsy and I come from a long line of theatrical people.”

  The men nodded.

  “The Gibb Theatrical Company was established by our great-grandfather in 1834, over sixty years ago, in New York City. We practically grew up on-stage.”

  “Yeah, you told me that before,” said Nick, scattering her thoughts. Junius reached over and patted his arm, as if to tell him to calm down.

  She scowled at him. “That may or may not be the case, Nick, but please stop interrupting me.”

  He rolled his eyes again, and she went on. “We traveled a lot on the east coast and, of course, performed before all sorts of people, most of whom appreciated our work and enjoyed our performances and left us alone. It was an enjoyable life, and we both got a marvelous classical education.”

  And that had nothing to do with the matter at hand, she realized when she saw Nick shift restlessly in his chair. She was clearly putting off the hideous revelation, and she told herself to stop it. She took a deep breath. “About three years ago, a man named Gilbert Blankenship saw our company when we put on a play in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He … he …” She hesitated, trying to think of a way to put such a strange situation into words. Then she decided to the devil with it and just went ahead and said it. “He formed an unnatural attachment—really, I suppose one could call it an obsession—for Patsy.”

  “I didn’t even know him,” said Patsy in a pitifully wavery voice. “I just began receiving notes and flowers from someone who seemed to believe we had some sort of … relationship. A relationship of a romantic nature.”