by Ann Parker
But there was one issue left, unresolved.
Inez gently took her younger sister by the shoulders, and looked hard at her. Her pallor. Her thinness. “Harmony, is your health such that you must take this medicine?”
Inez easily identified the flash of surprise, followed by another emotion—fear, perhaps. It disappeared so quickly that Inez would have missed it entirely had she not been scrutinizing her sister at such close quarters. Harmony’s expression settled into a surprised amusement, touched with affection. “Oh, everything is fine, Inez.” She disengaged herself from Inez’s grasp, looking down to secure the two bottles in her tote.
Tonics tucked away, she looked back up, earnestness painted across her features. “Please, don’t alarm yourself unnecessarily. I would never, ever place William’s health at risk. In fact, Jonathan and I wondered, at first, about the wisdom of bringing your son back to Colorado, even for a short visit.”
She glanced down at her walking suit and plucked at the hem of the short jacket, then looked up at Inez. “But we received such glowing commendations about Manitou and particularly about Dr. Prochazka from the physicians back home. He is attached to the Manitou Springs House exclusively, you know. He had his training in Europe and is well-known among the New York and Newport set, although he didn’t stay back East but a year or so before coming out here. Papa gave his blessing after hearing what Dr. Bell had to say.”
Inez listened to Harmony’s patter, looking for the deeper truth she sensed was lurking beneath the conciliatory words. The familiar name caught her off guard. “Dr. Bell? You are referring to Dr. William Bell? The physician who founded Manitou?”
A brief memory surfaced of Dr. William Bell, at her Leadville establishment, sitting in one evening for a round of cards in the company of Doc Cramer, one of her regulars.
It had not occurred to Inez that she might run into people in Manitou who knew of her association with the Silver Queen Saloon in Leadville. A chill settled over her.
Harmony nodded. “He’s General Palmer’s confidante. I gather he and General Palmer founded Manitou and Colorado Springs. Jonathan and I have been invited to a ‘do’ at the Bells’ home next week. Mrs. Bell is quite a character I understand. Have you met General Palmer or Dr. Bell?”
“Colorado is a large state, Harmony. I haven’t met everyone who lives here.” It was discomfiting to think that her estranged father might actually have ties to her corner of the world. Determined not to get sidetracked, Inez continued, “I assume that with such credentials, you have talked to Dr. Prochazka about William’s condition? What does he say about William’s lungs?”
“He says William is the healthiest boy ever. A rambunctious tot, I believe were his words.” Her expression sobered. “We broached the possibility of bringing William to Leadville, thinking we could send a telegram and come visit you. We actually discussed going to Leadville with the Paces, but in the end, decided against it. Dr. Prochazka didn’t think it wise, given William’s lung problems after his birth.”
Inez suppressed a shudder at the thought of the DuChamps popping up to Leadville for an unannounced visit. Inez had a nightmare vision of Harmony stepping into the Silver Queen Saloon and coming face to face with Mark or Abe. New York may have fought for the Union, but her sister would probably not understand how a free Negro such as Abe could be an equal partner in anything, much less a business venture. On top of that, Inez had yet to tell Harmony about Mark. She still thinks he’s missing, most likely dead.
Pushing the nightmare aside, Inez said, “Tell me about your husband. I haven’t met him. Is he good to you? Are you happy, Harmony?”
“He’s a good man. He’s kind to me. We are happy.” Harmony’s eyes slid to the distant scrub-filled hills, then down to Fountain Creek. “Ah!” She broke away from Inez to lean over the rail, “There he is now! He walked with me this morning, but then went back out again. He has a very rugged constitution, does Jonathan.” There was genuine fondness in her voice, and Inez’s concern for her sister settled a little.
Harmony said, “We should be going inside. Jonathan is very punctual, and we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Without waiting for Inez, she started back to the door. Inez realized that her chance to tell Harmony about Mark was fast fading away. “Harmony, I have something to tell you.”
“We can talk on our way down to the dining room,” said Harmony as she pulled the door open. “I have something I need to tell you as well.”
“I had best let you know now,” said Inez as they walked through the door. “It’s about Mark. My husband.”
Harmony stopped, turned toward Inez, and waited.
“He’s…” Inez gulped, then pushed the words out despite the sudden hammering in her temples. “He’s alive.”
Chapter Eight
Leadville
Mark is alive.
The words surfaced in Inez’s mind as she was unwillingly pulled into wakefulness, propelled to consciousness by daylight pouring through the windowpane.
She turned and buried her face in the velvet pillow of her fainting couch. She wanted to just stay there, to hide in her small room in the upstairs of the saloon—her refuge from reality. But even though her eyes were stopped, her ears were not. A murmur of voices floated up from the kitchen below. Inez identified the Irish rise and fall of Bridgette’s voice, followed by the muted clangs of heavy cookware. The deep monotonic tones of Abe Jackson, co-owner of the Silver Queen Saloon, threaded the culinary percussion. Lulled by the familiar back-and-forth orchestration of Bridgette and Abe, Inez began to hope that, perhaps, she’d dreamt it. A nightmare. None of it real.
Down in the kitchen, Mark laughed.
Inez bolted upright on the couch, illusion shattered.
Her muscles protested from the sudden movement and from sleeping curled up on the couch. She clutched at the small of her back and listened more closely, trying to make out what was being said.
Below, the three voices joined together in animated conversation, weaving in and out—Abe’s bass, Mark’s easy-going baritone, Bridgette’s gliding mezzo-soprano. The harmony implicit in the unworded music caused a thunderous rage to build inside her, a rage fueled by the unfairness of it all. Not back for half a day, and he had already wormed his way into their graces.
She stormed off the couch and threw open the door of her wardrobe. Poking savagely through her clothing choices, she considered what impression she wanted to make on her wretched husband and traitorous friends downstairs.
First, she gripped and then dismissed a somber dark gray cuirass bodice. Too severe. I don’t want him to think I’ve been in mourning, pining for him all these months. Then, her hand slid over a deep red, watered silk gown, low cut, spilling lace, smooth with promise. She thrust it aside. Seductive? Absolutely not. Finally, she pulled out and examined the basic components of a business-like outfit: a form-fitting dark-blue polonaise and an underskirt, enhanced by a row of shirring above a double-pleated flounce. The skirt was street length and would allow for sweeping haughtily down the stairs, into the kitchen, and, eventually, out the door without the mincing steps required by narrower skirts. Inez chose a cream-colored lace fichu to soften the neckline, added various required undergarments, and moved to the washbasin to begin her toilette.
As she scrubbed at her face and arms, bleakness shadowed her concentration. I must see my lawyer today and tell him of this revolting development. After drying off, she returned to her wardrobe, chose a hat with waves of feathers, and tossed it onto the couch next to her outfit.
She dressed, positioned the asymmetrical hat at a defiant slant, located a purse with decorative ruching that echoed the knife pleats of her skirt, and stuffed a pair of gloves into it. She paused to unhook a parasol wound about with a dark blue ribbon. Upon leaving her room, she heard Bridgette’s muffled voice through the floorboards with the rising inflection of a question. Mark’s muted response was short.
Bridgette’s laughter vibrated up through the
soles of Inez’s stylish shoes.
Inez locked the door to her dressing room with a vicious twist and moved through the connecting office with a determined stride. She opened the office door just in time to see a calico streak—the saloon’s cat—shoot down the hall and disappear down the stairs. Inez followed, her stomach tightening with every step. She marched through the main room of the empty saloon, frowning at the silent chairs and tables, the dust motes dancing in the late morning air.
She pushed on the passdoor to the kitchen. The cat brushed past her skirts and darted inside, leaving a smear of fur clinging to the lower tier of ruffles and doing nothing to improve Inez’s mood. She gave the skirt a shake, saying testily to the room at large, “Why are the doors still barred? It’s past opening time.”
Three heads swiveled toward her voice. Three figures froze. It could have been a tableau from the past, except for the expressions on the faces.
Bridgette, hair pinned back smooth and tight into a bun, sleeves scrunched up over ample forearms, stood at her station by the massive cast-iron stove. One hand gripped an upraised ladle, dripping white sauce. The other, wrapped in a dishtowel for protection, held the lid of a large stew pot aloft. She stared at Inez with a guilty look on her face. “Why, ma’am. You’re awake.” Bridgette’s eyes swiveled to Mark Stannert, sitting at one end of the long kitchen table, then swiveled back to Inez, apprehensive. It was almost as if she expected Inez to stalk up to Mark and commence beating him with the parasol.
Inez’s grip on the parasol did tighten as she took a step through the doorway and into the kitchen.
Mark smiled and said, “Good mornin’, darlin’. Hope our jawing down here didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.” He rose from the chair at the far end of the table.
Her chair.
Then she remembered, through her flash of ire, that it had once been Mark’s. She’d only jumped that claim after he’d disappeared.
Without responding, she switched her gaze to Abe Jackson, the Stannerts’ long-time business partner, at the other end of the work-scarred and stained table. Abe was eased back in his chair, balancing on the two rear legs. Dark hands laced across his black waistcoat, he looked back at Inez with heavy-lidded eyes and an unreadable expression. It was as if he waited to see whether she would call or fold before deciding how to play his hand.
A beam of sunlight cast a sheen on Abe’s steel-gray hair, the natural kink subdued with a copious application of brilliantine. His skin, normally the shade of the mahogany bar in the saloon’s main room, appeared almost ashen in the bright light. The lines in his face were scratched deep by harsh shadows, the standup collar almost blinding in its whiteness. The glare slid from him as he leaned forward and brought the tilted chair upright, front legs hitting the floor with a thunk.
He picked up the spoon in the bowl before him. “Bridgette’s got some mighty fine potato soup, Miz Stannert. Whyn’t you set yourself down and have some.”
Mark moved around the table and pulled out the vacant chair between the two men—Inez’s spot in times before—saying, “Abe and I, we were just discussing when to open today. We thought to give you some time to rest up, being that it was a long night.”
Mark’s everyday, conversational tone—as if the previous fourteen months and fifteen, no, she corrected herself, sixteen days had been nothing more than one night’s bad dream brought on by bad whiskey—made her shiver in fury.
“We can’t go back,” she said, deliberately shattering the illusion. “Don’t even try to pretend that we can, Mr. Stannert. Too much has happened during your absence.”
Mark stood by her unclaimed chair, thick fair hair combed into a smooth wave, mustache neatly trimmed and waxed, the face she had once loved, all so familiar, and yet not. The scar and more prominent cheekbones indicated that the missing months had stamped their hard passage upon him.
Inez was well aware that living in the high altitude of Leadville paired with the hard work of running the saloon had sharpened her own features and pared down her curves since they’d last been together as man and wife. What does Mark see when he looks at me now? She gave the unwanted question a mental shove.
“Inez.” Mark’s voice was soft, as if he understood her pain. “We can talk about this later.” He glanced at Abe and Bridgette, his meaning obvious: let’s not air our differences and dirty laundry in front of others. “Why don’t you set a spell, have something to eat. Abe and I’ll open the doors and put things to rights in the saloon.”
“I’ve no time at present,” she said, pulling her gloves out of her purse. “I have business to attend to, and I won’t be here.”
She bent her head, tugging on the gloves and straightening the seams, not looking at Mark. It was so damned disconcerting to see him standing there in the flesh. She said to the room at large, “We should set up a schedule for covering the saloon. There are four of us now working the bar, including the hired help.”
Inez continued, still fussing with her seams, “An extra pair of hands should provide some added relief for you, Mr. Jackson, since your wife’s time is so near.”
She slid a glance at Mark, in time to see him nod and smooth his mustache. Ah. He apparently knows about Abe’s marriage. I wonder what else Abe has told him. I wonder if Abe has mentioned the Reverend Mister Sands. Or if Bridgette has. She could never keep a secret. The reverend’s comings and goings here this summer were hardly much of a secret.
Her stomach clutched with dread and betrayal.
“The Silver Queen is still closed on Sundays, as it has been from the beginning. That makes six days. Three for Mr. Stannert, three for me.” She twiddled with one of the buttons and finally raised her eyes to Mark. Daring him to disagree with her. “I will lay claim to Saturdays, as I have a regular clientele for cards on Saturday evenings. Other than that, make what arrangements you will.”
She expected Mark to protest that she was being a silly woman and to lay on the Southern charm. Instead, he simply asked, “Still the same table? Doc, that newspaperman, Elliston, right? He still losin’ as much as he used to? Cooper, Evan, Hollingsworth, Gallagher?”
Inez interrupted, not wanting to hear the litany of names from their lives together. “There have been changes. Mr. Gallagher is seldom in town, and Mr. Hollingsworth met with an unfortunate accident last winter.”
“May God save his soul,” said Bridgette, crossing herself with the ladle. Drops of potato soup flew.
Inez jerked back into awareness that they had an audience in Bridgette and Abe.
Bridgette hastily turned away. She plunked the ladle back in the pot and dropped the lid on with a clang. Fussing with the dishcloth, she said, “The missus and Mr. Jackson have been busy as bees, Mr. Stannert. Why, you should see the gaming room upstairs. Quite the gentlemen’s parlor, my lands, even though I don’t approve of cards as a rule, but at least we keep the Sabbath, and that’s a blessing.”
Some of the tension leaked out of the room with Bridgette’s commentary. Abe pushed the soup bowl away and stood. “I’ll see to the doors. Folks are gonna think they’re seein’ a ghost when they spot you mixin’ drinks.”
Mark laughed an easy laugh, full of genuine affection. “Well, we’ll just have to encourage them to keep drinking to clear their vision.”
Inez had had enough. She turned to go, feeling like she would go crazy if she had to stay in the same room with her husband for a moment longer.
She pushed her way out the doors and into the cool, dark interior of the saloon. She was halfway across the floor, heading for the State Street entrance, when footsteps and the quick click of a cane behind warned her.
She whirled around, hissing through clenched teeth, “Do not talk to me right now, Mr. Stannert. And do not call me ‘darling.’”
Mark held up a placating hand. “Dar…Inez. Hold your horses. I have something for you.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun.
Inez gasped, then realized he held it out, grip first, no
t pointed at her.
He looked reproachful. “You said you lost your Smoot in the house fire. Can’t let my wife walk down Leadville’s streets without a bit of protection in her pocket. Picked this out special for you, this morning, first thing.”
He opened his hand so she could see the gun, lying across his palm.
It was a perfect jewel of a pocket revolver.
Inez recognized it as a Smoot Number Three, offspring of her old protector. Its pearl grip shimmered in the diffuse light, begging to be held.
She looked up at Mark, and over his shoulder saw Abe, framed by the kitchen entryway, apparently not willing to walk into the main room and interrupt. Bridgette hovered behind him.
She realized, belatedly, that Mark had outmaneuvered her, again. If she took the gun, it would look as if she had accepted his gift and they were reconciling. If I don’t take it, I’ll look like a hard-hearted harpy.
“It’s lovely, but there’s no need,” she said coolly. “One of my errands this morning is to pick up a replacement Smoot that I have ordered. Alas, you’re too late.”
With that, she spun on her heel, walked to the door leading out to State Street, and exited the saloon.
Chapter Nine
Harmony’s hand covered her mouth. “Mark. Alive?”
“That’s not all,” Inez continued grimly. “He’s not only alive, he’s back. In Leadville. He will be coming to Manitou at the beginning of next week.”
“Oh no,” Harmony whispered from between her fingers. “That changes everything.”
Inez frowned. “What do you mean, ‘everything?’”
From behind Inez, a precise female voice drifted up the hall, saying, “Inez Marie Underwood. Now that you are here, we can finally stop all this ridiculous business and make arrangements to all return home to New York.”
The voice hit Inez like a slap to the face.
In fact, she could almost feel the hand that accompanied that voice, the voice that had more than once delivered a sharp rebuke simultaneous with a flat-palmed physical blow.