Cactus Flower

by Duncan, Alice

  “And you didn’t?” Nick lifted his eyebrows, and Eulalie experienced a strong urge to slug him in the solar plexus with her fist. She didn’t, primarily because she knew from intimate experience that Nick’s solar plexus, if hit by her, would probably break her hand.

  “No,” she said firmly. “She did not. At first we couldn’t figure out who ‘G. Blankenship’ was. That’s how he signed all his notes and letters. Then, gradually, we became aware that the man seemed to be following our company. Everywhere we went, there he was, too. He followed us from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to Chicago and back to New York. He became more bold, too.”

  Patsy shuddered and tears leaked from her eyes again. “I swear to you that I did nothing to encourage him. I didn’t even realize who he was until he accosted me one day as Eulalie and I were shopping at Macy’s Department Store.”

  “Yes,” Eulalie said, the memory making her skin crawl and her mouth tighten. “He stepped right in front of us in the hosiery department and demanded to know why Patsy hadn’t answered his last several letters.”

  “It was awful. He created an embarrassing spectacle. I was … alarmed.”

  “Horrified,” Eulalie corrected. “We both were. And we couldn’t understand the man’s reasoning. He honestly seemed to believe that he had some kind of romantic bond with Patsy. It was uncanny. At first, we thought someone must be playing a bizarre joke on us, although we didn’t know why anyone would do so.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nick said, his gaze flipping between the two women. “Do you mean to tell me that this fellow you’d never met believed you had met? And, not only that, but that he and Miss Patsy were involved with each other somehow?”

  “Yes,” said Eulalie firmly. “That’s exactly what I mean. It’s exactly what happened. He thought that he and Patsy were in love with each other.”

  Nick said, “Huh,” and his frown was a picture of puzzled incredulity.

  “It sounds crazy,” admitted Patsy.

  “It is crazy,” said Eulalie. “And it’s the absolute truth. Gilbert Blankenship is crazy.”

  “It was … horrid,” said Patsy.

  “It certainly was. I … wasn’t as alert as I ought to have been,” Eulalie said, guilt gnawing at her insides. “I’d recently lost my husband, and I fear I wasn’t recovering from my grief as well as I’d expected to.”

  “How could you have?” asked Patsy gently. “You and Edward were perfect for each other. You had such a warm and special marriage. You were crushed when he died. You’re not at fault for anything regarding Gilbert Blankenship. He’s the one who’s insane. He must be.”

  “But I should have seen how mad Mr. Blankenship was and tried to do something.” She noticed that Nick’s frown had intensified for some reason.

  “What could you have done?” Patsy said reasonably. “None of us expected him to do what he did.”

  “What did he do?” asked Fuller.

  “Well, a lot of things, really.” Eulalie heaved a big sigh. “For one thing, he continued to write and send flowers, but his communications changed. From what had sounded like devoted, if unreciprocated and unasked-for love, he started threatening Patsy with harm if she didn’t respond to his communications. He demanded that she go away with him.”

  “Go away with him?” said Nick.

  “Yes. He said he was going to marry her and take her away from the life she lived. He evidently believed that acting was somehow sinful, and that Patsy was being forced to work with the company against her will.”

  “If all that’s true, he really does sound loco,” Nick observed.

  “It’s true, and he is. We went to the police, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do.” She glanced at each man in turn, and frustration pushed her to raise her voice. “I know it sounds unbelievable. It is unbelievable! But it happened exactly as I’m telling it to you. Gilbert Blankenship somehow convinced himself that he and Patsy were in love and that he was supposed to rescue her from the clutches of her family. Her evil family.”

  Patsy shook her head and uttered a low moan. Fuller squeezed her shoulders and asked softly, “What happened?”

  Eulalie suspected Nick anticipated her answer to Fuller’s question, because his expression softened and his gaze fixed on Patsy’s scarred face. “He broke into our flat one night.”

  “He broke into your flat?” Fuller asked, evidently dumbfounded.

  Eulalie nodded. “Yes. He broke in. I’d been feeling poorly and was in bed. Patsy answered his knock at the door, and he rushed in. He … had a knife.”

  “It was a huge knife,” said Patsy. “The police told us later that it was one of those big hunting knives that men use to skin deer. A Bowie knife, one of them called it.”

  “Jesus,” whispered Nick.

  “And said he was going to kill us both because we’d treated him so badly. He said he hated me in particular, because I was the one keeping Patsy from him.”

  “He would have killed both of us, starting with me,” Patsy said, her voice shaking like an aspen leaf in a high wind. “But Eulalie stopped him.”

  “How’d you do that?” asked Nick, transferring his gaze to Eulalie.

  Did she detect a note of approval in his voice? Probably not. “I heard him from my bedroom and tiptoed out to see what was wrong. I saw Patsy turn to run from him, but he caught her and …” she swallowed the huge lump that always formed in her throat when she remembered that hellish night. “And he stabbed her. She tried to fight him off, but he kept slashing at her arms and her face, and he … he stabbed her in the side and in the stomach.” She had to stop speaking and gather her nerves before she could continue.

  “I picked up a heavy cast-iron skillet from the kitchen stove. By that time, Patsy was on the floor and he kept stabbing her. Again and again. I hit him over the head with the skillet. But he’d already cut Patsy badly. I didn’t get to him in time to save her from that damned knife.” She was too caught up in the horror of the past to realize she’d used a bad word before three gentlemen until it was too late. They didn’t seem to care. “There was … there was so much blood, you see. There was blood everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was … it was awful.”

  Gabriel Fuller’s arms tightened around Patsy. “My God, the brute!”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said Eulalie, feeling shivery and cold and wishing Nick would put his arms around her as Fuller was doing with Patsy.

  “But didn’t you press charges against him?” Nick asked.

  “Of course, we did!” Eulalie frowned at him. “The judge gave him six months for breaking and entering our apartment and for aggravated battery against Patsy.”

  A trio of masculine voices said in an incredulous chorus, “Six months?”

  “Six months. For almost murdering Patsy. And that’s all.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” said Nick.

  “No,” Eulalie agreed. “It doesn’t.”

  “But why so light a sentence?” asked Fuller.

  Patsy, her head hanging and her hands squeezed together in her lap, said, “Who knows?”

  Eulalie felt her lips tighten. “I know.”

  Patsy sighed deeply.

  “You do?” Nick lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.

  “Yes. The judge saw that Patsy was an actress, and he came to the conclusion that she’d led that monster on. That she’d encouraged him somehow.”

  “And I didn’t!” Patsy cried, her voice trembling.

  “No. She didn’t. Neither of us had ever seen the man in our lives until he began … stalking Patsy. Like prey in the forest.” She sucked in a huge breath and, not for the first or even the hundredth time, felt as if the injustice of it all would make her explode. Because she knew that screaming would only annoy the men, she said merely, “The laws don’t favor women. It’s terribly unfair.”

  “I should say not,” muttered Fuller.

  “And now he’s here,” whispered Patsy.

  “And no
w he’s here,” Eulalie confirmed. She shut her eyes and wished Gilbert Blankenship to the devil.

  “How’d he find you here in Rio Peñasco?” Nick asked.

  Eulalie’s eyes popped open again. She couldn’t escape from her problems that easily. “I don’t know, but I suspect Mr. Benson.”

  “Bernie?” Nick’s brow furrowed. “Why Bernie?”

  “He’s been sending copies of his newspaper all over the country and its territories. I was afraid one of them might get to Gilbert Blankenship. I can’t imagine how else he could have found us. Everyone in the family knows better than to have anything to do with him.”

  “Hmm.” Nick appeared to mull that over for a moment. “I suppose it’s not that hard to track somebody if you know where the rest of the family is. Your family doesn’t keep itself under wraps. If a fellow tried, he could probably steal mail or whatever.”

  Patsy’s face drained of the little color it had heretofore possessed. Eulalie gazed at Nick, feeling vulnerable and helpless. “I … never thought of that.” She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my God, what are we going to do?”

  And then she felt Nick’s arm go around her, and she didn’t feel quite so alone and defenseless.

  “I’ll protect you, Eulalie. You know that.”

  “But how?” She lifted her head in time to see a meaningful glance pass between Nick and Gabriel.

  “For one thing, you won’t be alone. Ever. I’ll be by your side every day.”

  “And I’ll be by Patsy’s side every night, while you’re singing at the Opera House,” declared Fuller. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Can you do that?” Patsy asked in a little voice. “What about your duties at the fort?”

  Fuller gave a derisive snort. “What duties? Don’t worry. I’ll be here every night while Miss Eulalie performs. If I can’t get away, I’ll be sure to send Nash.”

  “Do you think he’d mind?” Patsy asked.

  “Mind?” Gabriel looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “He’d love it.”

  Patsy blushed a little and said, “How kind.”

  “And you’ll watch them during the day?” Gabriel directed the question at Nick.

  “Yes. And so will Junius. They won’t be alone for a second.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick and Junius Taggart and Gabriel Fuller were as good as their word. Every day, either Nick or Junius, whichever man could be spared from their smithy, escorted Patsy and Eulalie wherever they needed to go.

  And everywhere they went, they met Gilbert Blankenship. When they went to the Loveladys’ mercantile store, Gilbert Blankenship was there. When they went to visit Mrs. Johnson and her children, Gilbert Blankenship lingered across the street, watching, watching, watching. Eulalie discovered that constant worrying was an asset to what she had perceived to be a threatening weight problem. Now that Blankenship had found them, she was so nervous, it was all she could do to swallow a bite or two of whatever meal she was supposed to be eating.

  Nick spoke to Sheriff Wallace, who spoke to Gilbert Blankenship, but nothing came of it.

  “Damn it, Sheriff, the man’s stalking those two women as if they were a couple of antelopes and he was a cougar. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

  “I can’t make the law, Nick. You know that.”

  “Shit. There are people in the U. S. of A. who say there are no laws in the damned territory.”

  “I know that’s what folks say, but that’s not how I run this town.”

  “Hell.”

  So Nick went to the mayor. Mayor Graveside’s expression matched his name in the gravity department, but he couldn’t offer much assistance to the beleaguered Gibb sisters, either. “I’m sorry, Nick. I reckon I can get a town council meeting together and see if we might could run the feller out of town. Mebbe even tar and feather him, if it comes to that.”

  “Good idea,” said Nick, sensing a bright spot in the dilemma.

  “But you know damned well the feller can just wait until dark and come back again. Rio Peñasco’s small, but it ain’t that small. There’s strangers all over the place, especially with the cattle runs starting up.”

  Nick knew it. Nick hated it.

  “Why don’t I just gun the bastard down?” he asked Eulalie, Patsy, Junius and Gabriel Fuller one night as they all sat at the Gibbs’ kitchen table eating the fine roasted chicken and potatoes Patsy had prepared for supper. “That would solve our problems.”

  “I’d love it if you would,” said Eulalie. “But you’d get into trouble, Nick. Everyone from the sheriff to the mayor to Mr. Chivers would know it was you who killed him.”

  “Hell, I don’t think I care much,” mumbled Nick around a bite of potatoes.

  “But I do,” said Eulalie.

  He shot her a speculative look, but didn’t continue along that theme.

  “I ‘spect the gals will be all right ‘slong as we keep watching them,” observed Junius. “Blankenship can’t get at ‘em while we’re around.”

  “True,” said Fuller. “But …” He glanced at Patsy, obviously troubled. “But how long can we keep this up? My captain is … well, he’s getting a little impatient.”

  “Oh, dear,” murmured Patsy unhappily.

  Eulalie shut her eyes and sent a silent prayer to God, begging Him to solve this problem for them. “I’m so sorry to have involved all of you in this mess.”

  “We don’t mind,” said Fuller stoutly.

  “Hell, no,” said Nick.

  “Watch your language before the ladies, Nicky,” warned Junius.

  Nick grinned at his uncle. It was the first time Eulalie had noticed even a hint of humor in his expression since Gilbert Blankenship showed up in town.

  “I have an idea,” said Patsy, startling Eulalie, who was generally the one with the ideas in the family.

  “Oh?” came a chorus of voices around the table.

  “If you have to return to your duties at the fort at night, Gabriel, perhaps I can go with Junius and Nick to the Opera House. That way I’ll be protected while Eulalie performs.”

  “But you need your sleep,” Eulalie protested.

  “I don’t mind losing a little sleep if it means staying alive,” Patsy said dryly.

  Good heavens, Eulalie had never heard her sister sound so caustic. Patsy was the sweetest, dearest of women. Her hatred of Gilbert Blankenship edged up a notch for causing her sister to lose her prior innocence.

  Nick and Junius exchanged a glance, then turned to Fuller. “What do you think, Lieutenant?” Nick asked in a neutral voice.

  Frowning, Fuller said, “I don’t know. I don’t like the thought of her in there. In the saloon.” Apparently he feared he’d been undiplomatic, because he hastened to add, “Not that there’s anything wrong with you performing in the Opera House, Miss Eulalie, especially with the Taggarts watching over you, but …”

  “I understand,” Eulalie assured him. “But if you can’t stay with her, perhaps it would be better for Patsy to remain with me. She can stay in my dressing room.”

  “Better that she stay with us,” said Nick. “Under the eye of everyone. Nobody will let Blankenship do anything to her as long as we can see both of you.”

  “I have an even better idea.” Without so much as a warning, he left his chair, took Patsy’s hand, and knelt before her. Her eyes opened so wide, Eulalie feared they might pop out of her head. “If you will do me the honor of becoming my wife, Patsy, you can come with me to the fort and be protected by the entire First Cavalry of the United States Army.”

  Patsy gasped.

  So did Eulalie.

  The Taggart men goggled. Nick said, “I’ll be damned,” in an awed sort of voice.

  Her face flushing a becoming pink, Patsy said, “Lieutenant! I … I don’t know what to say.”

  Fuller fumbled in the breast pocket of his uniform. Eulalie had noticed something lumpy residing there, but she’d had no idea it was a little jewelry box until Fuller withdrew it, opened it, and
showed Patsy a plain gold band with one tiny diamond set in it. “It’s not expensive, Patsy. It’s nowhere near good enough for you, but … well … I’ve thought about this for weeks now, and … well, curse it, I love you, and I want to marry you.”

  Fuller’s face was as red as Patsy’s by the end of his speech.

  Eulalie pressed a hand to her cheek, and felt tears sting her eyes.

  Patsy swallowed, hesitated for a moment, and said, “Well, then … yes. I will marry you.” And she threw herself into Fuller’s arms.

  Eulalie had to grab her handkerchief from her pocket and wipe her eyes with it. She was so pleased, she didn’t know what to say.

  However, Patsy and Gabriel’s engagement didn’t solve the problem of Gilbert Blankenship, and well Eulalie knew it. After swallowing her tears and taking a deep breath, she said, “I think that’s wonderful, and I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. But that still leaves the time between now and when you get married and go to live at the fort. So, until that happy event occurs, I suggest we do as Nick suggested and all walk to the Opera House together. Then, when we get there, Nick can escort me to my dressing room, and Patsy can stay with Junius—and Lieutenant Fuller when he’s there.” She glanced around at her companions. “Is that all right with one and all?”

  They agreed that it was. So Eulalie and Patsy cleared the table and washed the dishes—because men didn’t do things like that, Eulalie thought darkly—and they all set out for the Opera House.

  As they’d expected, Gilbert Blankenship was there, smiling blandly at anyone who came near his table, which was closer to the stage than usual, a circumstance Eulalie didn’t like, but couldn’t do much about. She did notice that the sheriff was nearby, though, and that made her feel better. She knew Nick had talked to Wallace about Blankenship and, although there was nothing of a preemptive nature that Wallace could do about him, at least he was aware of the potential danger.

  “They ought to pass a law,” she grumbled as she and Nick climbed the stairs to her dressing room. “Men ought not to be allowed to harass women as that man has harassed Patsy.”