She knocked again on the fifth room when Constance didn’t make an appearance. “Everything all right, Constance?”
She didn’t hear a reply so she pressed her ear to the door. “Anyone in there?”
Mary Margaret turned to face the other girls waiting. “Get on downstairs and help Bob.”
Tara, a light-haired woman in her mid-twenties approached her. “That creep she entertained last night paid her a visit about an hour ago. I heard him tell her he ain’t gonna let her work tonight.”
“I don’t know about all that. You whores work for your keep just like I do and unless that young fella is planning on marrying her, I reckon it’s not in her best interest to listen to a blasted thing he says.” Mary Margaret pursued her own room in an effort to insinuate she’d let the issue go for the time being.
Bob had a rule. The girls avoided confrontation, but if there was trouble, they were supposed to let him handle it. Poor Bob was five-foot-four and weighed about a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. He didn’t care to wave a gun in the face of danger but he was quite treacherous with his weapon. There were about seventy-two bullet holes in the walls and floors to prove the saloon owner was a lousy shot.
Mary Margaret feared one day he’d take aim, fire, and come up with a bull’s eye. Since he couldn’t keep his avocado-colored gaze from darting toward the closest female, the girls tried to handle their customers on their own. It was a matter of self-preservation. Every woman residing there knew with absolute certainty if Bob readjusted the gun’s sights, they’d be the only target at the wrong end of the barrel.
Tara walked away but came back. “Mary Margaret, You might want to check on Constance. I’m afraid she’s got a right smart amount of trouble.”
“There’s gold to find down there tonight,” Mary Margaret said, refusing to look at Tara as she entered her room.
“But Mary Margaret—”
“I’ve got this up here,” Mary Margaret assured her. “Get to work. Make you some money. Have a good time.”
Mary Margaret never turned around. She pretended to busy herself with primping until Tara disappeared.
The piano at the foot of the stairs hummed with vibrant ragtime tunes. The music was loud enough to drown out other sounds. Mary Margaret strolled across the varnished pine floor and stared down at the trio of hitching posts where their guests’ horses had been tied. The shiny leather saddles sported heavy gear and packs, suggesting the strangers downstairs were wealthy enough to spend some of their profits.
These men had blood on their hands. She’d seen outlaws come and go, serviced quite a few of them. When a bunch of horses were loaded down with goods, it was telling. The riders had robbed, and probably killed, for their belongings. Oh yes, the stench of dirty money was in the air.
Mary Margaret didn’t care how much they wanted to toss her way. Considering her mood? She wasn’t working the crowd. Besides, with her position and clout, she didn’t have to negotiate a price.
The townspeople didn’t call her a privately kept whore for nothing. Unlike the others who lived there, Mary Margaret only worked for wayward cowboys when she needed a little extra spending change. Several miners and bankers kept her busy enough to pay the rent, shop a bit, and travel by train whenever she took a notion to visit relatives out in California.
In that particular moment, Mary Margaret didn’t need the money. She made out all right with what she earned from slim pickings. It was a hell of a lot better than worrying over a beatin’, too, a sad occurrence she’d endured several times when the liquor did more talking than the man paying for her services.
Clutching her hairbrush, Mary Margaret combed through a few tangles. She’d just reached for some powder when she heard what resembled a muffled yelp coming from the other side of the wall. The faint sound produced a horrifying signal she’d hoped she wouldn’t hear.
Immediately, she rushed to her bed, felt under the mattress for a small pistol, and hurried toward Constance’s room. An outright blood curling scream resounded.
She jiggled the brass knob, knowing good and well she should’ve hollered downstairs for assistance. With enough patrons in the place, chances were good Bob wouldn’t retrieve his rifle but several men down there would perhaps rush upstairs with their pistols drawn. Without another thought or fear, she entered the small quarters, stepping inside Constance’s bedroom in time to see a lunatic aim his gun at young Constance’s pretty head.
“Get out of here, Mary Margaret!” Constance cried, clutching the white cotton sheet to her chest. “He’s gonna kill me. He said he’d rather see me dead than hear of me bedding another man again.”
Mary Margaret pointed her small gun. “Is that what you said, boy?” She took one step and then another.
“This is a family matter,” he said, pressing the muzzle against Constance’s cheek.
Noting the devil’s juice on the bedside table and the blood streaks running through the man’s eyes, Mary Margaret realized she’d made a dreadful mistake. One wrong move and she could cost Constance her life. She’d be lucky to leave the room alive.
Barely twenty-one and full of fear, Constance shivered so violently, the bed squeaked. Her shoulders were bare and her hair was a mess. Streaks of smeared lipstick encased her mouth.
Mary Margaret had been in the business long enough to see just about everything, but typically the life she tried to preserve was her own. Now she had someone else’s future in her hands, hanging in the balance.
Constance snatched another tattered blanket, balling the material right under her chin. The soft cries falling from her lips resounded and the noise fell upon the room like a doomsday drum.
“You said this is a family matter, did ya?” Mary Margaret asked, thinking of ways to keep a madman talking.
“It is, ma’am and it ain’t none of yer concern.”
“That’s debatable,” she muttered, eyeing the pistol. “We don’t like trouble here. You know that, boy.”
“I ain’t no boy!” he screamed, kicking a pair of boots away from the bed when he damn near lost his balance.
“You’re not,” Constance managed to say, sobbing between syllables. “Of course you aren’t. Jack, you’re more man than I’ve ever had in my bed. I swear it!”
The blood washed out of Jack’s face and Mary Margaret gasped. That was the wrong thing to say to a jealous renegade. Unfortunately, it took Mary Margaret a minute to conjure up a better way to distract him.
Jack cocked the gun.
Shit.
Mary Margaret was out of time. She’d best start thinking and come up with a right intelligent way to outsmart the man who held her friend’s life in his hands.
“Jack?” she crooned. “This is the Jack you’ve been talking about?”
Constance, God love her soul, didn’t catch on right away. She looked bewildered but given her current predicament, utter confusion was to be expected.
The young woman finally cleared her throat and said, “Why yes, Mary Margaret. This is Jack. I thought the two of you had met.”
Mary Margaret tossed her gun aside and said a silent prayer it wasn’t a move she’d die regretting. Placing her hands on her hips, she took a parental tone, a forced voice inflection her own Ma once used whenever she tried to taunt Mary Margaret into doing something she didn’t want to do. “Well, I’ll be. This is the Jack you’ve been babbling about? I declare, woman, I see what you’ve been bragging about now. You said he was the handsomest man in Colorado. I just didn’t believe it until I saw proof with my own eyes.” A beat later, she added an exasperated, “You’re Jack.”
“Yeah so? What of it?” he asked, trying his best to remain on his feet but teetering around all the same.
If he wasn’t so drunk in the first place, he’d soak in a few more compliments. The man couldn’t steady himself to save his life. Mary Margaret wished she could hand him another bottle and give him enough liquor to knock him out cold. Maybe then she could convince some of the cowboys downsta
irs to drag him out to the alley.
“Well I’ll be,” Mary Margaret muttered, continuing her exaggerated charade. She walked over to the window and stood where anyone might see her, hoping if a cowboy entered the saloon he’d look up and see the fear scribbled across her face. “If I’d known Jack was such a looker, I might have called you out for a draw. He’s the kind of man a woman will fight over, or at the very least barter for a share.”
Constance’s eyes widened. “You want me to share him with you?” She acted as if she were considering the possibility and that alone irritated the hell out of Mary Margaret. Constance, like most of the young prostitutes housed there, was so gullible.
“Why sure,” Mary Margaret drawled, left without a choice but to agree.
“What ‘chu talkin’ ‘bout, woman?” he asked, his thick accent evident. He must’ve been from back East.
“All this girl talks about is Jack this, Jack that. She tells everybody who’ll listen about some man named Jack, some fellow who promised to come here and take her home with him. Around here, all me and the girls hear is Jack, Jack, Jack. It’s every day, all day. I don’t know how we live with the girl.” She hoped Tara hadn’t passed along wrong information. She was winging it on a prayer, assuming Jack and Constance had spent a considerable amount of time with one another.
Jack blinked. He pulled back his arm—the one wielding a weapon—and stared at Constance. His expression softened and he said, “You been talking about me, girl?”
She reluctantly nodded.
Mary Margaret had never heard anyone mention Jack. With such a plain name, she would’ve remembered.
“You been running that mouth?” he asked. The dangerous edge in his tone dripped with contempt all over again.
Hell and damnation. Mary Margaret had miscalculated what Jack might want to hear.
“No, it’s not like that,” Constance said, apparently giving up the fight they’d almost won.
Jack propelled the cocked gun forward. Again, he was too close to Constance’s head. Mary Margaret searched the dusty streets of Cripple Creek hoping she’d see the marshal or someone she knew entering or leaving the town’s only watering hole.
The streets were eerily desolate.
“You ain’t supposed to be talking about me, whore!” he screamed, drool creaming at the corners of his mouth. He released the gun lever and tossed the pistol to the bed. Immediately, he threw his body forward, towering over Constance as she shoved crossed wrists in front of her face and turned her cheek, an attempt to block any potential blow.
Before Jack slapped her face, a huge specimen of a man rushed inside the room, threw himself over the bed, and tackled Jack right square in the middle of Constance’s floor.
“You’ll regret this you son-of-a-bitch!” Jack screamed, apparently under the impression someone might perceive him as a dangerous opponent.
A gun was drawn. Slurs and threats were exchanged.
“Stop! Please! Don’t hurt him!” Constance, who’d somehow held it together, outside of stifled cries here and there, started squealing in a high pitched voice.
The men tumbled across the small area of space. Jack was on top. The intruder—or more accurately, their hero—was on the bottom. Punches were thrown. Heads jerked as fists connected with jaws. Then came the dreaded sound, an unmistakable noise guaranteed to stop commotion.
Pa-pow! Pa-pow! Pa-pow!
Constance wailed louder. “Oh my God!”
Mary Margaret rushed her friend, noticing the man to her left, twitching. Wrapping Constance in her arms, Mary Margaret held her. “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right. You’re safe now. You’re all right. I’ve gotcha. Everything is just fine.”
Constance pushed her away. “No! No it isn’t! That man had a family! He had children!”
Mary Margaret jerked. “What do you mean he had a family? I thought when he said family, he meant—”
“He wanted me to be…” Constance dabbed her eyes and continued, “It was just complicated, Mary Margaret. He had other commitments but he was gonna take me out of here. He promised. He just struck gold in the mines and….and…”
“Honey, I’ve heard it all before—same song, different dance, with just another lover. Trust me, Constance. He wasn’t anything more than another customer pitching those pretty lies we’re all dying to hear, itching to believe.”
“This fellow didn’t have a penny to his name,” interrupted the man who pulled the trigger. “Anyone can look at him and tell he was broke.”
“He was not,” Constance informed the stranger. The past tense must’ve stunned her. “Wait a minute. Is he…is he…gone?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the cowboy replied, removing his hat as if he might feel remorse for killing a man he didn’t know.
“No! He can’t be!” Constance screamed, leaping from the bed and immediately draping her nude form over her fallen lover. “You don’t understand. Jack never meant me any harm. He was a good man. I promise you. He was a real good man. He just had a little too much to drink today. That’s all.”
The stranger stood and holstered his weapon. He reached inside his buckskin coat and withdrew a paper. He slapped the wanted poster on her bed, face up. “Read this. You may change your mind.” Stepping over the corpse, he stood in front of Constance. “I can see for myself you’re a young woman. You ain’t been taught what’s right and wrong. If a man strikes ya, he ain’t worth a cuss. If he pulls a gun on ya, he’s the one worth shootin’. That’s why he’s lying there in his own pool of blood. Don’t you ever forget it. Whore or not, a man don’t have a right to hit ya. And that fella there? He’s abused good people.” A minute later, he addressed Mary Margaret. “Can you direct me to the marshal’s office?”
“Yes,” Mary Margaret replied, picking up the poster and staring down at Jack’s face. “It’s at the end of the street on the left.”
“Thank you,” he said, turning his back. He exited the room but quickly returned. “By chance are you Mary Margaret?”
His dark chocolate eyes met hers as he awaited her reply. Her breath caught in her chest as she studied the fellow who’d saved her, the stranger who’d spoken so passionately about what a woman shouldn’t be forced to endure.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes,” she finally managed to reply. It was an effort to respond since her heart took off in a rapid flutter.
In all her life, Mary Margaret had never been on the receiving end of such a gentle gaze. The cowboy’s tight jaw relaxed and his expression changed. A warm smile tilted his lips and his wide grin literally took her breath away.
The outlaw possessed enough hair on his face to tickle anyone he brushed against but the fellow didn’t look like he was old enough for peach fuzz. Age must’ve been kind. Thanks to the way he carried himself and the deep guttural pitch to his voice, the renegade couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five.
“I figured you had to be the one we’re looking for. I’m Tuff McDonald. Several of us bounty hunters rode all the way from Tombstone. We wanted to meet you.”
“Me? Why?” she asked.
“I have a proposition for you. I’d like to discuss it in private when you have a chance. How about later this evening?”
“Sure,” she replied, patting Constance’s hand. “As soon as my girl here is all right, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“That’ll do fine, ma’am,” he said, tilting the brim of his cowboy hat and exiting the room.
Mary Margaret listened to the continual rattle of the cowboy’s spurs as she quietly walked over to the marble top dresser, a magnificent piece of furniture Bob recently moved into Constance’s room. She opened the long bottom drawer and rummaged through Constance’s clothes. Retrieving a red satin dress with a black velvet torso and ribbons cross-tied between the bosom, she tossed the garment to the bed.
“Get dressed, honey.”
“I can’t work,” Constance said, terribly shaken.
Mary Margaret approached her. She
picked up the worn piece of paper and studied the image and then glanced over her shoulder, looking down at the man who’d fallen victim to a bounty hunter’s gunfire. “He had it coming to him.”
“So did I,” Constance said.
Mary Margaret arched a brow. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Constance collected her composure. “We’re whores, Mary Margaret. We ain’t got a pampered future. Half the men we service here have guns and they all know how to use them. How long before you, me, or one of the others spills our tainted blood all over a polished floor?”
“We deserve better than to die at the hands of a monster like this, Constance.” She pointed at the wanted poster. “That man was hunted all over the state of California. He’s abused whores anywhere he can find them and I doubt he was short on selection.”
“He still had a family, Mary Margaret.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me about his wife and children, said if he didn’t have them he would’ve married me. That was the reason he became so possessive. He knew he didn’t have much in the family way to offer me but we were still in love. He planned to take care of me.” A beat later, her voice softened and she added, “He loved me. He just loved me so much he didn’t want anyone else to have me.”
“Honey, that’s not true,” Mary Margaret said gently. Oh Lord, she wished she had time to correct this poor girl’s way of thinking. Men like Jack were masters of deception and well practiced in fooling a woman. “This man was a con. He reeled you in and wanted you to trust him. It was a game he played. He wanted to hurt you and that poster there suggests he’d already harmed a lot of vulnerable women like you.”
“That’s not right, Mary Margaret! You didn’t know him! He was just trapped by commitment and circumstance.”
Mary Margaret sighed. Saloon owners had a hard time keeping the girls happy for this very reason. The young ones held fast to big dreams and aspirations, hoping one day they’d become some man’s wife.
Every customer was a potential husband. With every line pitched, a new round of bull shit was made to sound sweeter than church music on Sunday.
Wild Outlaws Page 2