“For another nickel we could turn a big profit,” he quipped, looking her over lasciviously.
“How much profit?” She sipped the so-called wine.
“What?” He did a double take.
“How much could we make for the night?”
“You’re joshin’ me, right?”
“I’m just curious.”
“The whole night?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You mean the whole night with one John?”
“Yes,” she giggled. “Is that so unheard of?”
“Here it is. Most of the girls work by the trick. You know what that means?”
“Yes. How many tricks equal a night?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
Clementine dug through her purse and came up with a nickel. “Let’s see.”
“See what?”
“You negotiate the price, and I’ll split it with you.”
He gave her a dubious look. “I don’t have time to play games.”
“I’m not playing a game.”
“You plannin’ on stiffin’ the sucker?”
“Stiffin?”
“Dumpin’ him. Runnin’ out without deliverin’. Like that.”
“Oh. No. I won’t stiff him. But I have a condition.”
“What?”
“He must leave at sunup. Not before and not after.”
“You thinkin’ of takin’ this joker to your hotel room?”
“Yes. Why not? It’s a very nice suite and there’s a back staircase very near.”
“A suite.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. A living room, two bedrooms and a small dinette. My husband uses one of the bedrooms for an office.”
“No bathroom?” he asked sarcastically.
“Oh yes,” she said, missing the sarcasm. “Of course it has a bathroom.”
“If I didn’t have to work I’d be up for it.”
“What time do you get off?”
“We’re open all night.”
“What nights do you have off?”
“You serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“Sunday. I get Sundays off.”
“Too bad. My husband will be back on Saturday.”
“Just my luck.”
“So? Do we have a deal?”
“Deal?”
“I’ll give you fifty percent of the price you negotiate.”
“Okay, Lady. If you’re serious, we got a deal.”
“I’m serious.”
He looked over the patrons. “There’s nobody here that’s worth your time.”
“Then I’ll just drink your quasi-wine. Maybe if I have enough I won’t need company.” She put another nickel on the bar.
“Don’t drink too fast. We sometimes get some high rollers in here after the saloons close.”
~
Clementine rolled onto her side and found herself looking into the open mouth of a snoring man. She punched him in the stomach. “Hey. Hey you. Wake up. You were supposed to be gone by sunup.”
“Huh?” He made a face and blinked at her stupidly.
“My husband will be here any minute. He’s a colonel in the army and he carries a sidearm. If you wanna live to see the noonday sun you better get your ass outta here fast.”
“Shit. Why didn’t you tell me all that last night?”
“It slipped my mind.”
“Say. Are you bullshittin’ me?”
“Bullshittin’? Bullshitting, I mean?”
“Yeah. Are you lyin’ about the husband.”
Clementine rolled off the bed and opened the closet door to reveal a row of starched uniforms. “Does that look like bullshit?”
“No. It looks like trouble.” He began dressing. “Can I see you again?”
“Yes.” She slipped her arms into a silk dressing gown. “The next time my husband leaves town I’ll be drinking quasi-wine at that same bar.”
“This is probably stupid of me to say, but a beauty like you could get a lot more than twenty bucks for – your services.”
“How much more?”
He shrugged. “If you worked outta a class place, like this hotel here, you could get a hundred a night.”
“Working from here would be suicidal.”
“There are plenty of first class hotels in town.”
“Do you have the kind of connections I’d need?”
“I might. For the right deal.”
“Fifty percent?”
“That’ll work.”
“My husband is often called away unexpectedly so I don’t know what nights I’ll be available in advance.”
“It don’t matter. If we get you in the right spot, I can fill your dance card in ten minutes.”
“Really? If that’s so you should be charging more.”
He chuckled and stamped to get his boot all the way on. “Maybe. I’ll see you when I see you.”
“Wait. Just let me peek out the door.”
“Good idea. It wouldn’t be so good if I was to get caught by the house dick.”
“By who – whom? Dick?”
“The house dick.”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid that I don’t know what that is.”
“You got a lot to learn, Honey.”
“So it would seem.” She opened the living room door a crack and looked out, then opened it all the way. “Bye. It was nice.”
“Nice. Yeah, it was nice. Picture that.” He chuckled and hurried down the hall toward the back stairs.
Clementine closed the door and leaned against it. “What the hell is wrong with me?” She banged her head against the door. “God. I’m so stupid. Never again.”
July 9, 1850
Mesilla, New Mexico
The Mesilla Valley was a strip of green, split down the middle by the Rio Grande, in a vast sea of brown sand, with occasional patches of yucca and greasewood. Josiah Whipple reined in the wagon and gestured toward the towering mountain peaks. “They call that the Organ Mountain. Looks just like a pipe organ, don’t it?”
“Yes.” Marina shaded her eyes and looked across the river at the expanse of green. “What a beautiful place.”
“Thought you said that you’d been here before.”
“I have. I passed through here twice. But I was in a hurry and didn’t notice how pretty it was.”
Whipple nodded. “Yeah. That happens when we’re young. We take things for granted and don’t slow down enough to enjoy ‘em.”
“Slowing down wasn’t an option. My first time through here I was running away from home. The second time I was running from a detachment of Mexican soldiers who intended to hang me.”
He turned to look at her. “Don’t suppose you’d want to tell me about it.”
“Someday, maybe.” She forced her eyes away from the verdant view. “Let’s go. I’m anxious for a bath. The road to my brother’s place is only about a mile further.”
He whipped the reins and clicked to the horses. “When was it that you run away from home? When you was a kid, or after you was married?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Cause if it was after you was married and had kids of yer own it might explain some things that yer kids have said over the years.”
“That’s family business and I’d prefer not to discuss it with outsiders, Josiah.”
“Outsiders.” He turned to glare at her. “In case you ain’t noticed, Marina, since they come to Texas, I’ve been doin’ a sight more motherin’ of yer family than you.”
“Almost anyone could make that claim.”
He started to answer her, then decided against it and urged the horses to pick up their pace.
Marina looked away toward the mountains again. “I’ve done some horrible things in my life, Josiah, but running away from my family was the worst. Anna never forgave me and it turned William to ice.”
“Why’d y’ do it?”
She sighed. “All the wrong reas
ons. Vanity, mostly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I already said more than I wanted to,” she snapped. “Let it alone.”
“Okay.”
She jabbed him with her elbow. “You’re as bad as my husband.”
“In what way?”
“He would never argue with me either.”
“There ain’t no point in arguin’ with you, Marina. You never back down or agree with nothin’ that anybody else says.”
“I suppose that’s true. Why do you put up with me?”
“Can’t really say. Memories, I reckon.”
“Memories of what?”
“The most beautiful woman I ever did see.”
She choked back a sob. “What a nice thing to say.”
“Didn’t mean it as no compliment. You bein’ beautiful weren’t none of your doin’. God done that. The parts of you that you made ain’t so pretty as the parts He made.”
“You’re a miserable old coot.” She jabbed him again with her elbow.
“True enough.”
She pointed ahead. “Do you see that line of poplar trees?”
“Yup.”
“That’s the road to my brother’s place. The plantation house – I mean the hacienda – is over there in that big grove of cottonwood trees, near the river. You can see the red tile roof if you look close.”
“Looks big. Must be quite a place.”
“I suppose it is. The lawyers said that it was worth over a million dollars, but that I’d be lucky to get half that if I freed the slaves.”
“Slaves?”
“The principal crops are cotton and rice. I’m told that neither can be grown profitably without slaves.”
“But yer gonna free ‘em anyway.”
She nodded.
“Never took you for an abolitionist, Marina.”
“That may be because you never took me for a former slave.”
“What?” He turned to look at her.
“John Van Buskirk bought me from a sleazy bartender in New Orleans.”
“Bullshit.”
“I was a swindler, a card-cheat, a shill and a whore.”
“I knew some o’ that but I never knew that you was Yank’s slave.”
“I wasn’t his slave. Well – not for very long, anyway. He bought me, set me free, married me and gave me a job as an interpreter, all at the same time. It’s rather a complicated story.”
“How come I didn’t know it?”
She shrugged. “It was such a long time ago that it seems to have happened in a different world.”
“So how comes you to run away from him and your kids?”
“I felt like I’d never been free. I went from being a slave in a bar to being a slave to my husband and children. I wanted my own life.”
“Guess your own life weren’t so good if you had to come runnin’ back with the law on your heels.”
“No. It wasn’t so good. When you come right down to brass tacks, the only good thing in my life was John Van Buskirk.”
“And me.”
She smiled. “And you. Turn here.”
Whipple guided the leads onto the lane and peered at the fields beyond the poplars. “That’s not cotton and it sure ain’t rice.”
“I didn’t say that cotton and rice were the only crops,” Marina replied. “Those are chili peppers on the right and pinto beans on the left. They also grow squash and melons.”
“So where do the slaves and farm workers live?”
“In the village.”
“That’s peculiar.”
“Why?”
“I just never heard of no such of a thing before. In the South the slaves and workers live on the plantation.”
Marina shrugged. “I don’t see the difference. The village is on my brother’s land.”
“You own a village?”
“Well – yes. I guess so.”
“I think you should get another opinion about how much the whole barrel-full is worth. A million don’t sound like near enough.”
She looked at him for several seconds. “Josiah. Did you know that John’s – Yank’s family was old New York money?”
“Might have heard that. Why?”
“Because I’m already so rich that this place doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Oh. That must be nice.”
She made a face at him. “How much did you get when you sold that section of land to Thomas?”
“Don’t rightly recall. The lawyers made the business and put the money in a New York bank for me. Why?”
She chuckled. “Because of your ‘must be nice’ comment.”
“Oh. You mean I’m prob’ly near rich too?”
“No ‘prob’ly’ about it.”
“That’s the thing about money, I reckon. It ain’t really important so long as you got enough. Reckon that between us, we got enough?”
“I reckon,” she said, imitating his drawl.
“Do you suppose gettin’ married would make any sense?” he asked.
“Not much.”
“Well. Think about it.”
“Okay, I will.” She pointed. “There’s the house.”
“Well now. I never knew they could stack adobes that high.”
“A little pretentious.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If yer brother had a lot of free mud and free labor he might as well of put it to use.”
Marina cackled. “I don’t know why you continue to surprise me, Josiah, but you do.”
“Now that’s good, Marina. ‘Cause when a man gets too predictable he might as well be dead.”
September 13, 1850
San Francisco, California
The bartender walked to the end of the bar and wiped at an invisible spot with his towel. “The gentleman with his back to us at table six.”
“Thank you.” Clementine slipped off the barstool and walked toward the table that the bartender had indicated. “Good evening,” she said as she reached the table.
“Good evening, my dear sister-in-law.” William Van Buskirk turned in his chair to smile up at her.
She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a scream.
“Please have a seat.”
“This isn’t what it seems, Billy,” she stammered.
“It never is.” He pointed to the chair across the table. “Sit.”
Clementine hesitated for a long moment and then sat down. “What do you want, Billy?”
“Only what I paid for.”
“I wish that was true, but straight sex was never your style.”
“We once made beautiful music together, Clem.”
“Until you started beating me.”
“Beating you? Really? Me? I don’t remember that.”
“I still have the scars on my butt to prove it.”
“Ah, yes. Now that you mention it, I do fondly remember your firm little derrière. Shame on me if I’ve disfigured such perfection. You might be interested to learn that I no longer employ whips. I’ve found that paddles produce nearly the same results without damaging the flesh.”
“I don’t have much money of my own, Billy – and Jack has me on an allowance. But…”
He stopped her with a raised hand. “Keep your money, Clementine. I have a sufficient amount of my own.”
“Then what do you want from me?” she asked too loudly.
“Speak softly,” William warned. “When one has secrets, such as you and I have, inviting attention is a serious mistake.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. But I know that you want something...”
“Of course I do.”
She opened her eyes, looked at him, and waited.
“I want to know the latest news of my family,” he said after a long silence, “and I want you to tell it to me.”
“Really? Just family news?” She smiled and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Okay. Let me see. Hmm. Well, I guess you heard that…”
“In my room,” he interrupted
. “Nude.”
“What?” Her eyes went wide.
“I find that now, in addition to hearing the news; I have a need to see those scars that you mentioned.”
“What?”
“Pay attention.”
“I am. What is it that you want?”
“I want you to take this key, go up to my room, remove your clothing and wait for me.” He pushed the key across the table toward her. “When I join you, I shall want you to tell me all the family news.”
Clementine looked at the key as if it might bite her. “Let me guess. You plan on tying me to the bed and torturing me while I tell you the family news.”
“Tempting, but you are, after all is said and done, my brother’s lawfully wedded wife. Tying you to my bed and torturing you would be a violation of brotherly trust.”
“But me bein’ naked in your room isn’t a violation of that trust?”
“If you voluntarily appear naked in my room, I don’t see how trust would be at issue.”
Clementine snatched up the key and stood up. “Let’s get this over with.”
“A wise decision,” William said. “Oh, by the way. I’ve a seat at a poker game that will be starting soon, so you may have to wait for me.”
“The longer the wait the better.”
“Is that so? I thought that I had remembered you having some irrational fear of being alone at night.”
“You’re a sick bastard, Billy.”
He pointed his finger at her. “Just be sure you’re in that room and naked when I arrive.”
“I heard you before.”
“Then heed my words. If you leave the room or get dressed before I arrive, Jack will get a full report of your activities including names, dates and signed affidavits from some of your clients.”
She turned on her heel, walked out of the lounge and into the lobby.
William waited until Clementine was out of sight, then he picked up the small bag that was under his table and took it to the front desk. “Williams is the name. I’ll be checking out immediately.”
“Yes, Mr. Williams,” the clerk said. “Was everything satisfactory?”
“Quite satisfactory.”
“Your key, please?”
“Oh, yes. The key. Now that’s a slight problem. You see there’s a very beautiful young lady in my room who currently has possession of the key. Regrettably, she has developed an emotional attachment to me and it has become necessary for me to slip away. Asking her for the key would tip my hand, so to speak.”
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