“She’s not setting foot out of this house until I say so,” Ella informed him. “It was you and your hateful vengeance that put her here in the first place.”
“I know why you’re so anxious to have her back” said Lucy, pointing an accusing finger. “You want to make her sing.”
“It can’t hurt her to sing a few songs,” Ira complained. “She can sit down if she wants.”
“You’re afraid you won’t get much business without Eliza. I know what people are saying about you, and I heard Mr. Blaine grave you orders not to show your face downstairs. Miss Eliza kept telling you to leave Mr. Cord alone, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s Eliza’s responsibility to sing—” Ira began, but Ella cut him off.
“You don’t deserve a niece like Eliza! She’s too kindhearted to tell you what a miserable little dab you are, but I’m not. You’ve bullied her for the last time. She’s not singing one note until she’s good and ready. And if she takes my advice, she’ll never set foot in that saloon again. Now you get out and don’t come pestering her again, or I won’t let her out of bed for a month.”
“You can’t keep my own niece from me,” Ira announced, firing up.
“See if you can get that sheriff to do something about it. You come around here again, and Eliza’s going to be an orphan.”
Eliza was much improved the next day, but Ella thought it was better to tell Susan Haughton to wait one more day. As it turned out, even though Eliza was anxious for visitors, things weren’t any better. All anyone could talk about was the cold-blooded murder of the new foreman of one of the big ranches.
“And the worst of it is he hadn’t set foot on the ranch. He hadn’t even reached Buffalo,” Susan added for emphasis. “Somebody shot him just for meanness. They shot him in the back too.”
“I don’t know what things are coming to,” Ella lamented, finally forced to abandon her customary sanguine outlook. “I’ve lived through the War Between the States and more Indian wars than I care to remember, but never have I see men kill for sheer devilment. I always said people out here were rough and took a little getting used to, but they were honest and upright. I’m not so sure anymore.”
“People are crazy with fear,” Susan said. “Every day there’s a new rumor. Either it’s an invasion twice as big as the first on the way, or half the county is going to be arrested and hauled off to Cheyenne to stand trial.”
“But that’s no reason to go crazy. The fighting’s over. The Association is defeated.”
“Not yet. Ever since their hired guns got arrested, they’ve been trying to get President Harrison to declare martial law. Sam and I both have talked ourselves blue in the face, but people are still so mad about the invasion we can’t get them to see this kind of lawlessness is playing into the Association’s hands.”
“What’s martial law?” asked Eliza.
“They send in the Army with permission to shoot anybody who resists and hang people without a trial. The sheriff and the courts would be completely powerless. They’ve sent six hundred additional troops to the fort just this week.”
“But that’s worse man the invasion,” Eliza exclaimed.
“You try and tell that to those hotheads, especially after they’ve been in the saloon for a couple of hours.”
“You can be sure I won’t be selling them any more ammunition,” said Ella. “They can shoot each other to pieces if they must, but they won’t do it with my bullets.”
Two days later Cord came again. “I wanted to tell you I would be away for a few days.”
Suddenly Eliza’s heart was beating too rapidly. “Where are you going?” she asked uneasily.
“I’m taking two herds to Montana. My boys have been in the saddle around the clock for over a week. I’ve got to do something before they start acting crazy. We’ve closed up several herds to make them easier to watch, but there’s not enough grass to keep them in one spot for more than a few days.”
“I had no idea it was that bad for you too,” Ella said.
“Some of the boys have been shot at. One got hit in the arm. The other night someone took aim at me.”
Eliza turned white. “Will it never stop?” she exclaimed. “Has everybody gone crazy?”
“Just about. I warned people this was coming, that they ought to be looking for ways to solve their differences instead of creating more, but nobody wanted to listen. Now they got what they wanted, though it’s a lot worse than I expected.”
“It was that foolish invasion,” declared Ella. “I know these people. They’re good folks at heart.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Cord. “Right now there’re enough bad ones out there to make it nearly impossible to protect my herds.” He stood up. “Sam knows where to reach me. I’d rather you stayed here,” he said to Eliza. His eyes suddenly became warm, and Eliza longed to reach out and pull him down to her side.
“She’s not setting foot outside that door until I say so,” Ella informed him, “and Ira Smallwood can cry and moan for his lost customers all the way to Douglas for all I care.”
“As long as there’s a new rumor afoot, there’ll be enough new customers to make up for the loss of any old ones,” Cord said. “You stay here and let Ella take care of you,” he said, bending over to kiss Eliza on the lips. “When I get back, I intend to make taking care of you my permanent job.”
Eliza wanted to cry out, to say anything that would bring him back, but she knew she couldn’t. This was his work, a job he had to do.
Eliza walked along the plank walkway that fronted a row of buildings that included the Sweetwater Saloon. She was almost well, but after being in bed for a week she was as weak as a kitten. It felt a little strange to be up without leaning on a chair, table, or Lucy’s arm every few steps, but she couldn’t stay inside any longer. She probably shouldn’t have gone this far, and if Ella or Lucy had been around they most certainly wouldn’t have allowed her to leave the house alone, but it felt good to be out and breathe in the fresh air, and the walk would not have bothered her at all if it had not been for her notoriety.
Eliza never considered herself a celebrity. Everyone knew her because of her singing and her beauty, but the fact that she was secretly ashamed of one and didn’t put much value in the other did much to help her keep her equilibrium. But nothing in her twenty years had prepared her to be pointed at and followed by a group of untidy urchins and roundly applauded by men who came out of saloons as she passed. She was so rattled she instinctively headed toward the safety of her room in the saloon. By the time she realized what she was doing, she had covered two thirds of the distance, and nothing would have made her retrace her steps to Ella’s house.
“Yoo-hoo, Miss Sage,” Amelia Craig called, virtually catapulting herself out of a shop in Eliza’s wake and leaving her purchases to the clerk who had attended her. “Though I suppose I really should call you Miss Smallwood, Miss Sage being your stage name and young ladies preferring to be addressed in a proper manner, at least when they’re not working, not in a saloon, that is.”
“Please call me Miss Smallwood,” Eliza told her, trying to recover her composure after the unexpected barrage.
“It doesn’t really matter what I call you, because you’re such a heroine everybody will know who I’m talking about. You’re just about the most talked-about person in Wyoming. Why, they’ve even heard about you in Cheyenne.”
Eliza blanched.
“And they should,” Amelia declared enthusiastically. “Any young lady who would leap onto a runaway wagon and defend her fiancé from a horrible death with her own body should be talked about. Not that young ladies usually are called upon to leap upon wagons, or consider it a proper thing to do, but it was very brave of you just the same. I don’t know how you did it. I never would have had the courage. Why I get gooseflesh every time my Horace mentions traveling as far as his sister’s place, and that’s just ten miles away. But I dare say you consider that no more than a morning’s
jaunt, compared to riding across half the county on a mule. I know one has to take what one can find, but I will never understand how you kept your dignity on that horrid animal. And astride! Well, I realize these are terrible times and that heroes—I beg your pardon, I meant to say heroines—rise above every difficulty, not letting any consideration stop them, but me ride a mule! Well, I just couldn’t. You may call me a poor creature, and indeed I know I am, but I think I would faint if I were even forced to touch one. As for throwing myself on a wagon load of dynamite! Well, all I can say is you are an amazingly brave woman. I don’t see how you did it.”
“It really wasn’t so terribly hard.”
“Well, I can see that falling down on some dynamite doesn’t take much skill, but you must admit that you haven’t been in the habit of leaping onto racing wagons every day. You must tell me how you did it.”
“It had just started to move … I wasn’t very far away … I really didn’t stop to think how I did it.”
“I can assure you I wouldn’t know how to do such a thing without a great deal of thought. Your resourcefulness must come from farm rearing. Us city-bred folks are at a serious disadvantage.”
A particularly well-scrubbed urchin pulled at her skirt.
“Henry, you know I’ve told you never to interrupt Mama when she’s talking.”
“Mr. Huggins wants to know if you want the milk fresh, or are you going to wait till it’s clabber?”
“You tell Murty I’ll thank him to give me none of his sass.”
“I must be going” Eliza said feebly. “This is the first time I’ve been up.”
“Shame on me. I forgot you’ve been a great invalid. You run along back to your bed. I’m sure everyone in town will be calling to tell you how proud they are of your brave deed now that they know you’re up and about.”
Certain she would have a relapse if she were accosted by another person, Eliza hurried down the street, entered the saloon by the back stair, and tottered along the hall to her rooms, feeling very much like a cornered rabbit. She opened the door to her parlor and came face to face with her uncle.
Chapter 36
“So you’ve finally decided to come back,” he sneered, looking anything but pleased. “Or did that old battle-ax kick you out?”
Eliza was no longer surprised by her uncle’s cruelty. “I went out for a walk because I was tired of being cooped up all day. Do you know some little boys followed me singing a song that put my whole history into silly verse? Then I ran into that awful Mrs. Craig.”
It’s disgusting the way people have been carrying on, just like you didn’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood.”
Eliza was tired of the old complaint, and didn’t even bother to answer. “I need some more clothes. Mrs. Baylis has finally agreed to let me get out of bed for most of the day, and I’m tired of the same two dresses.”
“You’re not going back. I need you here. With Sam gone and Iris getting above herself, we don’t have anyone to attract customers these days.”
“I’m not very strong yet. I wouldn’t have come this far if those people hadn’t scared me half out of my wits. Cord said you had more business than ever.” She hadn’t meant to mention his name, but he was a natural part of her thinking and it just slipped out.
“So you’ve been seeing him again, have you?” Ira exploded. “You’re too weak to help your own kin, but you’re strong enough to chase after that cocky pair of britches.”
“He came by to see how I was doing.” Eliza was going to have to tell her uncle sometime she had changed her mind and was going to marry Cord, but she didn’t feel up to it now.
“You swore you’d never see him again.”
“Can’t you forget your hatred for one minute?” she demanded angrily. “I was nearly killed, yet all that upsets you is Cord Stedman coming by to thank me for saving his life.”
“You brought it on yourself.”
“You brought it on me, you and your blind, unreasoning certainty that Cord is behind everything bad that happens in Johnson County.”
“He is!’
“Even if he were and I never wanted to see him again, I’d have done exactly as I did.”
“You only did it because you can’t stop thinking about him.”
“I couldn’t let any man die unfairly, especially not at the hands of my own uncle,” she added wearily. “Not after he’d made a fool of himself before the whole town.”
“Nobody calls me a fool,” Ira said, straightening his thin body and adjusting his fancy domes. “I’ve grown too rich.”
“Nobody cares about your money. It’ll disappear as fast as it came if you continue to make yourself a laughing-stock.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, girl,” he shouted. “People in this town look up to me.”
“Then why did Croley order you not to show your face in the saloon?”
“There are plenty of people who listen to me now, especially since Stedman tried to save those killers.”
“What for? Trying to kill a man who’d been shot in the back and tied up while he was unconscious? When did it become a praiseworthy act to blow up a helpless person?”
“They’re listening now that Stedman says he’s taking his cows to Montana. I know it’s a cover for turning tail and running like the rest of his kind,” Ira continued, ignoring her questions. “Now everybody knows him for the miserable informer he’s been all along.”
“He’s doing it so he can watch the rest of his herd more carefully. You’re making a big mistake if you think he’s running away.”
“You’re afraid he won’t come back. Then everybody will know what a shameless spectacle you made of yourself over him.”
“I’m not afraid anymore, not of you or anybody else. I’m going to marry Cord and never sing in this saloon again,” she added with increasing earnestness. “I hate it. Even after I stopped shaking every time I got up from the dinner table, I only did it because you needed me. There were times when I was so frightened it made me sick, but you never saw that, and you never saw how the men stared at me, thinking things I didn’t dare let myself imagine. And when Cord defended me, you insisted he was costing you money, even after Croley told you it brought in even more customers. All you’ve been able to think about since you came to Buffalo is the saloon and your hatred for Cord. You never thought of me, certainly not of what I wanted or what was good for me. And everything that interfered with what you wanted was either proof of Cord’s diabolical nature or evidence of my degenerate character.
“I’ve always known you didn’t love me,” Eliza said, swallowing an involuntary sob. “I knew I could never take the place of Aunt Sarah or Grant, but all those years when I was growing up, I thought if I worked hard you would learn to like me. But nothing I did ever satisfied you, and you never made me feel like anything except a burden to you. When we came here and Cord Stedman fell in love with me, my whole life changed. For the first time since Aunt Sarah died I knew what it was like to have someone want to take care of me, to be concerned for my happiness. I found friends and made a place for myself with the school. I was somebody, not just a nameless shadow who cooked and cleaned and then vanished until needed again.
“I tried to stick with you, but you wouldn’t let me. This thing you have against Cord has made you so sick in your mind you strike out at everybody around you. I think you’ve taken to hating me almost as much as you hate him. When you lit that dynamite, you forced me to choose, something I probably never would have done if it hadn’t happened so fast. But I chose Cord, and I’m moving in with Ella until we can be married. I’m never coming back here again. I hope you will visit us, but not if you mean to disparage Cord. I won’t let you run down my husband.”
Listening to the longest speech Eliza had made in her entire life in stunned silence, Ira realized she meant every word she said. In his mind’s eye, he could see Cord laughing at him, and with every word Eliza spoke, Cord laughed harder until Ira couldn’t s
tand it.
“There won’t be any ranch or rich cowboy for you to marry,” he jeered in a kind of half-crazy triumph. “While Stedman and his crew are away, we’re going to run off every head of cattle he has left. He’ll be a pauper.” He glared defiantly at Eliza, not even remembering Croley had threatened to break his neck if he said a word about their plans.
“Do you mean after failing twice, you’re going to make a fool of yourself again?” demanded Eliza, thunderstruck.
“Croley’s gathered a crew that’s double the size of Stedman’s,”
Ira announced furiously between grinding teeth. “And they won’t shy away from putting a bullet into anyone who gets in their way.”
“What crew?” Eliza stammered. “Even Croley wouldn’t dare to hire the outlaws who have been running loose lately. They’re the same madmen who shot that poor foreman before he reached town.”
“He was shot by his own men.”
Eliza gave him a blank look.
“It’s an Association ranch. The owners paid one of their cowboys to shoot him so they could blame it on us. Then the governor would bring in the Army.”
“You’re mad,” Eliza said, putting into words what others had felt for some time. “Your hatred has completely destroyed your common sense.”
“Where are you going? Ira demanded sharply as she turned toward the door.
“I’m going to tell the sheriff of this extremely foolish plot before anybody else gets hurt.”
“You mean you’re going to warn Cord’s men,” Ira accused, grabbing her by the arm.
“I doubt I could ride that far, even in a buckboard,” Eliza said, jerking and twisting her arm, but failing to free it from Ira’s surprisingly strong grasp. “This is the sheriff’s job.”
“You’re not going to the sheriff or anybody else,” Ira said, half desperate, wholly furious. “You’re going to stay right here.”
“No I’m not,” contradicted Eliza. Unable to free herself, Eliza jabbed the heel of her shoe into Ira’s toes. Ira loosened his grip long enough for her to make a dash for the door, but he grabbed her from behind and slung her so hard toward the center of the room she stumbled over the rug and tumbled onto the sofa. Before she could get to her feet, he was on her, dragging her to her feet and shouting in her face.
Wicked Wyoming Nights Page 36