Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy)

by Shirl Henke

  “That rich-ass greaser Velasquez. Got him a nice big herd of prime horses all set aside fer breedin', not to mention lots of saddle-broke mustangs ‘n beef cattle. Place is far 'nough from town so's not to attract much attention. Anyways, since he feels like he does ‘bout rangers, my boys won't go near his place. Course, he ain't got no family at that big fancy ranch house since his little lady's done left him ‘ns livin' in town,” Walkman said with a sly snicker.

  “That female reporter who writes gossip for the Star?”

  ”Yup. Feisty ‘n smart-mouthed for a gal. Reckon that's why that greaser got shut of her. Never could figger why a highfalutin type like him'd hitch up with a gal workin' for a newspaper.”

  Laban Greer's face relaxed into a smile, wolfish and cold, but openly lustful. He recalled the night he'd danced with Melanie Velasquez. “Madam Velasquez is a very beautiful woman, Seth. Just a bit too, er, unconventional to appeal to a man of your tastes.”

  “Don't go gittin' smartass with me, Laban,” Walkman retorted. “I don't like bein' talked to like I'm some cur hangin' round your back porch.”

  “As you said, Seth, we need each other to achieve our mutually complementary goals.”

  Walkman unfolded his tall, gangly body from the chair and loomed over Greer's desk with his big hands planted on the polished walnut surface. “Just don't you forget how much you need me. I ain't so easy got rid of like that drunk Blaine.” With that he turned and strode toward the door.

  Melanie scarcely had enough time to crouch behind a rain barrel before Walkman's boots crunched on the rocky ground as he passed within three feet of her. Once he had vanished around the corner, she stood up on wobbly legs. They're going after Lee! I have to warn him!

  She walked as calmly as possible from the alley, headed for the livery stable to get Liberator, reviewing the incredible conversation she'd just overheard. No wonder Laban Greer's ranch prospered while he spent so much time in town at his small land office! “I wonder just how many murdered families' ranches he's bought up in the past year or two?” she muttered under her breath. As soon as she warned Lee, she'd go to the recorder's office and see what the public records showed. Formulating her plans, Melanie rounded the corner at Simpson's Livery when she saw Jeremy Lawrence.

  He smiled warmly at her as she stopped abruptly in front of him. “Whoah, Melanie! You're out of breath. Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  Looking around and seeing no one close by, she pulled the ranger into the dim interior of the livery and proceeded to relate what she had just heard.

  Jeremy's face paled as he listened, realizing the danger she had been in. “You're certain neither of them saw you?”

  “No. I left the alley after Walkman. Greer was still in his office.”

  “Let me walk you back to the Star office, Melanie. Then I'll ride out to Night Flower,” he replied with relief in his voice.

  “Forget me! Go to Night Flower and warn Lee! He could be killed, Jeremy—all so Laban Greer can get his land. Oh, it's monstrous—all those people butchered so brutally for revenge and money.” She shuddered.

  “Lee already knows he's being scouted,” Jeremy said carefully, knowing he had to explain part of their scheme to Melanie or she'd stir up a hornet's nest and ruin everything. “Jim Slade and I talked your husband into helping us catch Blaine and Walkman. We didn't know about Greer, though. Thanks for that invaluable piece of information. You are some reporter, lady.”

  “Lee—working with you?” she asked incredulously.

  He grinned wryly. “Believe me, it took some fancy talking from Jim to persuade him. But now, thanks to you, we know Walkman's taken the bait and sent his men to scout our carefully laid trap. We're prepared. But you have to keep quiet about this, Melanie—and stay out of it.” He said the last with steel in his voice as he took her elbow, firmly propelling her toward the Star.

  As soon as Jeremy had ridden out of town, Melanie left the newspaper and headed to the recorder's office. Jarvis Phelps was the town recluse, perfectly suited to hiding behind stacks of rustling papers and keeping track of all land transactions in Bexar County. Small, bald, and emaciated, he lived alone in a room above the rickety frame office. Melanie wondered if Phelps might refuse her access to his precious records and mulled over her best approach. Entering the long musty room, she gave Jarvis a dazzling smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. Phelps. I have a problem and I surely do hope you can help me...”

  While Melanie was busy at the recorder's office, Jeremy Lawrence rode hard for Night Flower Ranch. He had some very interesting information to share with Lee Velasquez.

  “She hid in the alley and eavesdropped on Greer and Walkman!” Lee's face darkened in a combination of anger and fright. Visions of what Seth Walkman could have done to his beautiful wife flashed before Lee's horrified eyes. He forced himself to concentrate on what Lawrence was saying.

  “Laban Greer is apparently buying up the burned-out ranches after Gall and his renegades kill the owners. I haven't had time to check on the county records yet; but after what your wife overheard, I'm sure we can confirm it.”

  Lee's eyes narrowed. “If I know Mellie, she's already at Phelps's office going through every record book.”

  “I took her to the Star office and told her to stay out of this,” Jeremy said defensively.

  Lee smiled thinly. “If you can get my wife to do anything sensible or safe, you'll be the first man in her life who could.” He turned and began to pace, running his hands through his hair in nervous concentration. “We need to talk this over with Jim. He said Houston thought someone higher up with connections in the Indian Office had set Blaine up in business. Now we know who.”

  “Question is how do we stop Greer?” Jeremy asked in perplexity. “Catching Blaine and Walkman won't be hard if Walkman's already got his men scouting your herd. Jim's idea about rounding up that big batch of prize horses and corralling them at Oak Creek was good.”

  “I'll tell my foreman, Bill Ross, to alert those new vaqueros that Gall's getting ready to move.” Lee paused a minute and looked warily at the ranger. “You're certain those Lipans won't be recognized as ranger scouts from Travis County?”

  Jeremy Lawrence's expression came as near to being contemptuous as Lee had ever seen it. “You think men like Walkman can tell one Indian from another?” Can you?

  Lee shrugged uneasily. “We need the Lipans if we're going to stop Blaine's Comanche renegades. That's for sure. Let's ride to Bluebonnet and see how Jim wants to deal with Greer.”

  “What about Melanie?” Jeremy asked, worrying about what the boldly curious newspaperwoman might do if left unattended.

  “What about her, Lawrence?” Lee parried in a tight voice. “I'll see to my wife tonight,” he said as he swung up on Sangre's back, leaving the ranger to follow in his dust.

  * * * *

  After spending her dinner hour poring over a set of carefully recorded notes, Melanie locked them securely in the drawer of the big oak desk in Obedience's office. She had enough on Laban Greer's activities for quite a story. But it must wait until all the other pieces were in place. From now on she would watch Jeremy's comings and goings with a great deal of interest, not to mention that scamp Lame Deer, who was apparently in collusion with the men!

  For now, she had a temperance meeting to report on, although she was certain the follow-up story about this gathering would be tame indeed compared to the riot at the Gilded Cage. In all the excitement of the past days' discoveries about Greer and Walkman's conspiracy and the trap Lee, Jim, and Jeremy were trying to spring on them, Melanie had little time to brood over her sundered relationship with her husband.

  The meeting was slightly less crowded than it had been that evening before the saloon riot. Probably, some of the men kept their women under lock and key tonight, Melanie thought disdainfully as she seated herself near the rear of the church to better observe the crowd while Stella spoke.

  “Move over ‘n make room fer a body ta set,” Obedie
nce said to Melanie as she plunked her ample girth onto the groaning bench next to the amazed younger woman.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you didn't hold with temperance ideas,” Melanie said with raised eyebrows.

  Obedience scanned the room, then looked back at Melanie. “Jist come ta see whut all the hullabaloo is ‘bout, thet's all. ‘Sides, Wash ‘n a couple o' his friends got them a red-hot poker game agoin' down at th' Red Dog Saloon.”

  Observing her friend's guileless expression, Melanie had a sudden sense of uneasiness. “Obedience, you wouldn't—”

  A sharp rap of Stella Wolcott's gavel brought the whispering, tittering assembly to order. The Reverend Bixly, minister of Mount of Olives Methodist Church, opened the meeting with a prayer and several hymns. Then, Stella took over, fixing the crowd with her piercing gray eyes. They glowed like banked charcoal, causing many of the men scattered through the room to squirm uncomfortably. The audience was a motley assortment of San Antonians—well-dressed merchants in wool suits and elders in the Presbyterian Church sat next to farmers clad in homespun. Melanie’s own simple blue linen suit looked elegant alongside the calico worn by many of the women. Store owners and clerks, ranchers and cowhands, but most of all, their wives, sisters, and mothers, filled the place.

  Stella began by telling the story of a poor motherless family of six children whose drunken sot of a father spent every last cent he earned at the local saloon, leaving his fifteen-year-old son to support the younger siblings by scrubbing floors and emptying slops in that very establishment. The tale was probably apocryphal, but powerfully told, as if it were an Old Testament allegory mirroring the sins of all husbands and fathers, including those of San Antonio.

  Melanie watched people shuffle in embarrassment, nod in agreement, or sob in regret as Stella ranted on. Finally, Stella left the small speaker's lectern at the head of the room and began to march up the aisle. “Who will sign, sister? Brother? Come forward and sign the pledge. Not one drop more of demon rum!”

  She waved the sheets of paper and brandished the pen like a banner and sword as she began to collect signatures. “Take home a pledge for your husband or father, your brother or son to sign, ladies. It is your God-ordained duty.” A number of stalwarts signed up and others nervously took copies of the pledge with vows to deliver them into the hands of their erring male relatives. Suddenly, Stella stopped directly in front of Obedience Oakley.

  “What about you, Sister Oakley? I understand that your man imbibes,” she challenged.

  Obedience had sat through the performance, passing a few backhanded asides to Melanie about the hypocrisy of some of the actors, but taking it quietly overall. Now, she looked up into Stella's intimidating hatchet face, and her brown eyes squinted. Melanie knew that look.

  “My man has a pretty considerable o' a thirst, yep. It fits th' rest o' him,” she said proudly.

  A few titters escaped around the room, and Melanie bent her head to take notes, hiding her smile.

  “Then you should have him sign a pledge,” Stella persisted.

  “Whut fer?” Obedience asked reasonably.

  “Why, to save him from the clutches of debauchery. To keep him from spending his income on whiskey and games of chance and wicked women!” Stella looked abashed at the big woman's density.

  “Wal, as fer a snort o' good corn likker ‘n a turn o' th' cards, I guess I'll let Wash have hisself a time now ‘n thin. As fer th' other, I don't reckon I need ta worry, none,” Obedience said dryly.

  Stella drew herself up even more ramrod straight and stuck out her pointed chin. “Any man who gambles and drinks spirits will fall under the spell of those Jezebels. My late husband fell into the clutches of a painted hussy.”

  “Considerin' how yew treat th' men hereabouts, I reckon I kin see why he might jump headfirst inta her clutches,” Obedience shot back with an expressive gesture of her big ham like hands. Laughter bubbled up around the room, then subsided into nervous giggles.

  Stella Wolcott's face suffused with wrath. “No decent man spends his money in saloons while his children go hungry.”

  “Yew keep yammerin' ‘bout thet. Any woman worth her salt'd better settle with her man on whut's needed fer vitals ‘n sech afore he goes out fer a jug er a card game. All my husbands tuk care o' me ‘n our younguns jist fine. Now me ‘n Wash got us a good life. It's nobody's bizness whut we do with our money er whut we drink!” Obedience stood up as she finished her speech. It was obvious the zealot had ceased to amuse her.

  Stella Wolcott was gauntly thin compared to Obedience's girth, but she matched the Tennessean's height. Brown and gray eyes glared levelly at each other.

  “Not all women, Mrs. Oakley, have your formidable weight to throw behind the decision of how a family's money will be spent,” she spat with a vicious inspection of Obedience's hips.

  “Yew ever hear of convincin' a man with a skillet twixt th' ears? Works wonders. Even a scrawny, dried-up old prune like yew cud handle it. ‘Specially if ‘n she's got brains 'nough ta wait till her man's asleep.” She paused for a beat as the laughter erupted in full force this time, then scratched her head speculatively. “‘Pears ta me it'd be even easier ta convince a feller if ‘n he wuz sleepin' with a leetle help from a jug. Might jist make this here scrap o' paper plumb unnecessary,” she said, yanking the sheet from Stella Wolcott's clenched fist and balling it up. Her shrewd brown eyes were benignly calm as she waited to see what Stella was going to do.

  Melanie was torn, wanting to let out the laughter she had suppressed, yet feeling sorry for the hapless crusader who had picked on the wrong adversary. Having seen the Tennessean in action, she hoped Stella would curb any rash impulse toward physical violence. Obedience Oakley would shatter Stella Wolcott like a year-old buffalo chip!

  The temperance lady seemed to sense that, for she balled up her hands in fists held impotently at her sides and spat her parting sally, “You and your husband are bound straight for hell.”

  “ ‘Long as yew'll be headin' th' other direction, suits me jist fine!”

  * * * *

  “First a riot in the Gilded Cage, then a riot in a Methodist Church!” Melanie shook her head in consternation as she sat beside Obedience's big oak desk in the boardinghouse library.

  “Thet woman's plumb dangerous, that's all. Crazy, unnatural ideas. Good Lord give us spirits. Even th' Good Book says Noah got drunk. Wouldn't surprise me none if ‘n St. Peter ‘n a few others didn't tetch a drop now ‘n then, too.”

  “When did you become such a biblical authority?” Melanie asked, a smile curving her lips in spite of her chagrin over the riotous outcome of the meeting.

  “I read th' Good Book ‘n I go ta church—leastways when I kin heer me a good hellfire ‘n brimstone Baptist preacher. Thet Bixly feller's a mewler ‘n pewler.”

  “But Mrs. Wolcott isn't, though, is she? Obedience, honestly, you baited her something awful,” Melanie scolded. “Why did you come to that meeting anyway?”

  The big woman walked carefully over to the cabinet across the room. She opened it and removed two delicate glasses and a bottle of clear white liquid. “This here stuff is th' best me ‘n Wash ever tasted. Them fancy leetle glasses belonged ta my sister-in-law, God rest her soul. Mebbee they'll make it taste better ta yew.” She poured two shots, full to the brim, and handed one to Melanie.

  “Obedience! I've taken the pledge. You know I'm temperance.”

  “Harrumph! Temperance means moderate—not goin' ta extremes, don't it?”

  “Well, literally, I suppose that's true,” Melanie said, equivocating as Obedience forced the crystal glass into her hand.

  “Then one sip ain't gonna kill ya!”

  They drank. Melanie was surprised at the silky smooth taste of the drink—indeed, it had virtually no taste at all, just a slight warmth as it coiled downward into her stomach. “This is nice, Obedience. It doesn't smell or taste like the vile stuff they drink in the saloons at all,” she said with a grin. “Now, tell me w
hy you came to that meeting.”

  Taking another drink and making sure Melanie followed suit, Obedience began, “Jest look at thet dried-up, hatchet-faced ole woman, Melanie. Drove her man away, lives alone, ‘n travels from town ta town, stirrin' up grief. Yew wanna end up like thet?” Obedience asked.

  Melanie jumped up angrily. “That's monstrously unfair! I left Lee because he doesn't want me. I'm not like Stella Wolcott!”

  “No, yew shore ain't. And I aim ta see yew don't end up like her neither! Set yerself down ‘n finish yore drink. I got me a piece ta speak ‘n I'm gonna speak it.” Slowly, like a wilting flower, Melanie sank back in the chair and allowed her friend and mentor to refill her glass.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Lee and Jeremy met Jim Slade at Bluebonnet and shared their new information about Walkman and Greer. Charlee insisted Lee stay for supper, although Jeremy Lawrence begged off the invitation and departed after their strategy meeting with Jim. When the meal was over, Jim excused himself and took the children out for a late evening ride, leaving Charlee and Lee alone. Lee wanted to unburden himself about his separation from Melanie. He and Charlee talked for several hours. He explained the series of confrontations and fiascoes that had led to Melanie's flight from Night Flower.

  “When she accused me of only wanting her back because I was afraid of her father, I left her in town,” he finished bitterly.

  “You, of course, never thought of telling her you wanted her back because you love her,” Charlee said gently. Her bright green eyes met his startled black ones.

  Lee swallowed convulsively. “I never told her that because I don't love her!”

  Charlee leaned her chair back and studied the scowling, angry man across from her. “You don't love her—don't care for her the least little bit; but you can't keep your hands off her when she's around, can't stop thinking about her when she's not around, and break your neck riding to town after her when she leaves you. Just what would you call it?”