They were playing her intro. Lily felt a moment of panic. Had Hezekiah appeared before her at that instant, she might have thrown herself into his arms and begged him to do with her as he wished.
But Hezekiah wasn't there, and this change was all her idea. There was no point in getting weak in the knees now. All she had to do was sing a little song in front of a few men. There was nothing to it. She'd done it for a week already.
Lily put a smile on her face, offered a prayer to the angel in charge of fools and drunks -- she hadn't bothered him lately -- and stepped out onto the stage.
* * * * *
Zac had taken his coffee to his office while he looked at the returns for the week. The saloon had never made so much money. If things kept up like this, he was either going to have to buy a second saloon or start putting his money into some legitimate investments. He smiled to himself. Wouldn't Madison and Jeff love that? They'd been investing his share of the family income for years, but Zac had never let them touch his gambling money.
The noise from the saloon intruded on this thoughts. It was hard to concentrate. He ought be out there now, but he'd stayed up later than usual last night. The cards had gone his way. He couldn't seem to lose. Chet Lee had had to be hauled away shouting curses at his head. Zac knew he was a fool not to ban the man from the saloon, but he couldn't resist taking his money. Chet seemed to have a genius for locating newly rich investors and cheating them out of their mine stocks. It kept Zac busy winning them away from him.
Damn, maybe he'd better go see what was going on. The noise was getting louder. As he got up, he wondered where Dodie was. She usually liked to be at his side when he looked over the figures for the week. She probably couldn't because of the noise. It sounded like they were having a riot. If Chet Lee was responsible, he was going to have to break his head.
But once Zac entered the saloon, it was clear there was no riot. They were going crazy over some singer he'd never seen before. And rightly so. The woman was stunning. She sounded a lot like Lily, but she didn't look or act like her. Zac saw Dodie leaning against one of the abandoned hazard tables and walked over to her.
"Why didn't you tell me you had a new singer? Was Lily upset when you replaced her?"
"Not a bit," Dodie said without turning around. "It was her idea."
Zac looked a little closer. "She looks familiar. Who is she?"
"Somebody."
"Where did you find her?"
"Around."
"Don't get coy with me." Zac could hear the amusement in Dodie's voice. "A woman like that is never just around. She'd have crowds of men following her down the street."
"She did. It made it impossible for her to keep a job."
Zac felt like he'd been hit over the head with a rifle butt. It couldn't be! It was impossible! But it had to be.
That woman was Lily!
He didn't know what staggered him more, her looks, the way she was acting, or the fact that at least a hundred men were staring at her in rapt wonder. Some even reached out trying to touch the hem of her dress when she passed close to the edge of the stage. He was, however, sure of one thing. He had to get Lily off that stage, and he had to get her off now.
Zac wasn't quite sure how he got there, but the next thing he knew, he'd pushed his way through the crowd and was mounting the stage. He reached Lily in half a dozen strides. Around him the girls forgot their steps in the surprise of seeing him, thunderously angry, in their midst. Lily gazed at him in shock, the last note of her song dying on her lips.
"Sorry, fellas, but she can't stay. There's been a death in her family." Taking Lily by the arm, he hurried her off stage and out of the main room before the shocked audience realized what was happening.
In the background, the piano started up once again.
Lily stumbled along, nearly falling in the unfamiliar high heels.
"Was this your idea?" Zac demanded of Dodie as he charged past.
"It was mine," Lily told him. "And I would very much appreciate it if you would release my arm."
"Not until I've had a few words with both of you in my office."
Those black-rock eyes were back again. Lily felt something quiver in the pit of her stomach. Dodie merely smiled and headed toward the office without making the slightest objection.
"Now," Zac said when he had slammed the door behind them, "what in hell were you doing out there looking like a strumpet?"
"Lily wanted you to notice her," Dodie announced. "She said she was tried of being treated like a piece of furniture."
Zac gaped at Lily. Lily stared right back.
"Glad to see you're on the same wave length," Dodie said. "Now I think I'd better take a look outside. Your walking off with the star of the new number is bound to cause a flap."
"What the hell is she talking about?" Zac demanded. "I think she's gone queer in the head lately."
"It's not her fault," Lily said. "It was my idea."
"So Dodie said, but what's this about me noticing you? You've been underfoot for weeks."
"That's just it," Lily said, a little of her courage coming back at his terrible choice of words. "I'm something under foot, in the way, a bother, a responsibility you'd rather be without."
"I never said that," Zac protested. "I--"
"You just said I was underfoot. If you never said the rest, you thought it."
"A bad choice of words," Zac admitted. "You got me a little rattled."
"Good."
"What do you mean good?"
"It's better than being ignored."
"I haven't ignored you. You've been more trouble than any dozen females I know."
"See, that's exactly what I meant. Now I'm trouble."
"Dammit to hell, you're twisting my words."
"Don't curse."
"I'll curse as much as I damned well please, and don't tell me it's a sign of a limited vocabulary. When I say dammit to hell, I mean dammit to hell!"
"Papa says--"
"Don't you ever think for yourself?"
"Of course I do."
"Then stop prefacing every thought by Papa says. I don't give a damn about your old man. As far as I'm concerned, he's a jackass and a fool or he'd have never let you run away from home. As for all those wise things he says, he probably got them out of some book. The man's clearly not smart enough to know he's got a beautiful, intelligent, courageous daughter. If you were mine, I'd be here right now dragging you back to Virginia. And I'd shoot any gambler who so much as thought about laying a hand on you."
Lily didn't say a word. She just stared at him.
"Don't look at me like that," Zac said. "It makes me nervous."
"I can't help it," Lily finally managed to say. "I was sure you thought I was a country simpleton who would get gobbled up in five minutes if you weren't there to watch over me all the time."
"I do. Well, not the simpleton part. But you don't know what to do in a city. You're too damned trusting. You nearly had those men out there worked into a frenzy."
"Yes. Wasn't it wonderful?"
"Wonderful! I was ready to shoot the eyes out of the lot of them. I don't know how I'm going to explain to them you won't be appearing again."
"But I will."
"No, you won't. This is my saloon. I say who appears in it."
"I can ask for a job next door. Or across the street. After tonight, they'll hire me."
"No, they won't. I'll shoot them if they try."
Lily laughed. A happy, delighted laugh. "You can't go around shooting everybody."
"Yes, I can."
"Now you're the one who's acting like a simpleton. I'm just going to do one number. Twice."
"Twice!" Zac had never known his voice could rise so high. It sounded like a squawk.
"Dodie says it's always slow for the first two hours. She thinks my number is just what you need to get things started earlier. Then you can make more money and not have to stay up so late."
"No!"
"You keep this up, and you're going
to lose your looks before you're thirty. Papa says" -- Lily paused to clear her throat --"I say you need more rest, better food, and more regular hours."
Zac began to wonder if he might not be the one turning simpleminded. Why was it that Lily could turn everything upside down until it came out the way she wanted? Always before he'd been the clever one, the one to manage people, to get them to do what he wanted, to have the answers before they thought of the questions. Now he seemed to have the thinking capacity of a longhorn bull that had been grazing on loco weed.
"I want to sing twice," Lily said. "That way I feel like I'm earning my money."
"I'm paying you to help Dodie."
"But she doesn't need help, at least not enough for what you pay me. But if I bring in extra customers, I'll be worth it."
How could he convince her his objections had nothing to do with money? She was obsessed with paying her way. He didn't care if she never earned a cent if it meant she had to display herself in front of all those leering gazes.
"It has nothing to do with the money."
"Yes, it does. I've been a drag on you ever since I got here. Now I've found something I can do, a way I can help. That's important to me. You ought to understand that. You said that's how you felt when you ran away to start your own saloon."
Zac nodded.
"I can't tell my father I think he's wrong about me when I can't take care of myself. That would make me a failure -- a stupid, egotistical failure --and I refuse to be that. Do you understand?"
Of course he did. She sounded so much like himself eight years ago it was uncanny. But it wasn't the same for a woman as it was for a man. She couldn't just go out and take the world by the tail. It was liable to turn on her.
But she wouldn't understand that, not while she was basking in the glow of success. He'd have to wait, pick his time, choose his words carefully, but he was going to have to convince her she was wrong.
"Now you stay here until I'm done," Lily said, her smile restored to its full power. "I don't think you ought to come out if it's going to upset you. Why don't you have some of that brandy you keep for Dodie? She says it's a wonderful pick-me-up. You look like you could use one."
Zac sat staring at the door that closed behind Lily, trying to figure how he'd gotten here from where he was just an hour ago. It was as though a flash flood had washed away all the trails, carrying him along with it. Now he was high and dry on the rocks and couldn't figure what the hell he was going to do next.
He got to his feet. He would have a drink. That was the best idea Lily had had all evening. Then he was going to go out there and punch the daylights out of the first man who forgot to treat her like a lady.
* * * * *
"I can't imagine what any decent woman would do with this," Mrs. Wellborn said, holding up an undergarment made of nearly sheer material and decorated with knots of ribbon and embroidered with rosebuds.
The women were sorting through clothes in Mrs. Thoragood's parlor, a curiously over decorated room in stark contrast to Mrs. Thoragood's severity of dress and character.
"Maybe it can be altered," Bella said.
"I should think it would have to be cut up and used for something altogether different," Mrs. Thoragood said. She looked at the pile of garments they were sorting. "It's a disgrace that most of the clothes we have to distribute came from dance hall girls and saloon doxies."
"I think we should be thankful for the clothes no matter where they came from," Lily said. "They're very colorful, and the material is in good condition."
"But how can a decent woman make use of this?" Mrs. Thoragood demanded, jerking up a gown made of material so thin it was nearly transparent.
"It'll make a nice shift for the summer," Lily said.
"Maybe in Sacramento where it gets boiling hot," Mrs. Thoragood said. "But not for San Francisco with its fog and damp. A woman could catch pneumonia in something like this."
"We could refuse to accept them," Mrs. Chickalee said.
"I've considered that," Mrs. Thoragood said. "I've even talked to Harold. He says it might be better to have nothing to distribute to the poor than to give them something which might further undermine morals already dangerously loose."
"I don't agree," Lily said.
The four women turned in unison. "Why not?" Mrs. Thoragood demanded.
"I don't think we should ever refuse a gift. I believe giving does far more for the giver than for the receiver. Besides, it's un-Christian to ask people to donate their discarded clothing then tell some of them what they've given isn't good enough."
"Are you daring to place your opinion in opposition to my husband's?" Mrs. Thoragood demanded, her color dangerously heightened, her speech unnaturally deliberate.
"But they're dance hall girls," Bella interposed, in an apparent effort to head off an explosion.
"We don't want people to think we approve of what those women do," Mrs. Wellborn said.
"What do they do that's so bad?" Lily asked.
Her companions were at a loss for words.
"Have you ever been to a saloon?"
"How dare you ask such a question," Mrs. Thoragood said.
"Then how do you know?"
"My dear, we all know that coming from a small town in the Virginia mountains as you do, you aren't aware of what goes on in San Francisco."
"I expect I'm a good deal more aware than any of you," Lily snapped, her patience gone. "I live in a saloon."
Bella turned red. The other women gasped in shock.
"I thought you were staying with Bella," Mrs. Thoragood said.
"Didn't she tell you?" Lily said, unable to deny the tiny bit of malicious pleasure in her soul. "Bella threw me out because she thought I was giving her place a bad name. She took me to The Little Corner of Heaven. Since I had no money, my cousin had no choice but to let me stay there."
"But Bella said you had a job."
"I did, several of them, but Mrs. Wellborn and Mrs. Chickalee both fired me. They said I was giving their places a bad name, too."
Clearly none of the ladies had had the courage to tell Mrs. Thoragood what they had done. Lily was honest enough to admit she enjoyed seeing the three women squirm under the ominous glare of their minister's wife.
"Would you refuse any clothes I might give?" Lily said, hoping to draw the discussion back to the original point.
"Of course not," Mrs. Thoragood said, reluctant to have her attention drawn from such interesting shortcomings in her flock.
"Even if I sang there?"
"Don't be absurd," Mrs. Thoragood said. "It's ridiculous even to attempt to image such a thing. You wouldn't--"
"I do," Lily announced. "I wear a blue dress and put flowers in my hair. I even dance a little bit. I don't do it very well, but the customers seem to like it. The other girls are much better."
"Other girls," Mrs. Thoragood echoed in a faint voice.
"Twelve of them. Zac said everybody had to be on stage with me."
The four women gaped at her as though she were Salome lacking only her seven veils before she would go into a dance so scandalous it would echo down through twenty centuries.
"You can't continue to do such a thing," Mrs. Thoragood said, suddenly finding her voice. "You've got to stop immediately."
"It's my job," Lily said.
"We'll find you another job," Mrs. Thoragood said, her voice throbbing with outrage.
"I'm finally able to pay for my room and board with something left over."
"We'll find you a place for you to stay as well," Mrs. Thoragood said, casting a glance full of foreboding at Bella. "It's inconceivable that a woman of your nature should be dancing in a saloon. Think of the danger, the nearness of so many men barely better than animals."
"Don't worry," Lily said, forced to smile at Mrs. Thoragood lurid idea of what went on inside a saloon. "I'm perfectly safe. Zac never leaves the room when I'm performing. He has two huge men -- he keeps them to throw out people who cause trouble -- stand
between me and the customers. The worse thing that has happened is some men got into a fight over who got to keep a handkerchief I dropped. Another time they started to throw dice to see who got to buy my supper, but Zac stopped them."
"Fights, dice throwing, singing and dancing," Mrs. Wellborn said in a voice that grew weaker with each word.
"Something will have to be done," Mrs. Thoragood announced. "A member of our congregation shall not be forced to work in such a place."
"It's not that bad," Lily assured her. "I think it's fun."
"See, I told you sin could ravage even the most righteous soul," Mrs. Thoragood intoned. "There's not a moment to waste."
Chapter Thirteen
"Oh my stars and garters!" Dodie exclaimed. "If I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing, I'll never touch brandy again."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Zac barked.
He'd waked up at three-thirty from a dream about Lily being kidnaped by Barbary pirates and carried off to Turkey in a boat that looked like a cross between a Chinese sampan and a twelve masted clipper ship. The fact that his dream was far-fetched and nonsensical only served to blacken his mood.
"It's the preacher's wife and what looks like a temperance committee."
Zac looked up to see Sarah Thoragood leading her little band as though through a room full of serpents. They kept to the middle of a narrow aisle, their arms held close to their sides.
"It looks like a vigilante committee to me," Dodie said. "I wonder where they're hiding the rope."
"You can be sure Lily's at the bottom of this somehow. Where is she?"
"Gone with Kitty to spend the afternoon with her mother and baby."
"So I get to deal with the vigilantes without interference."
Dodie gave Zac a sharp look. "Be careful what you say. Lily will be the one to suffer the consequences."
"Damnation!" Zac cursed. He was feeling ripe for murder, just the right mood for the Reverend Mrs. Sarah Thoragood. "What is Bella doing trailing along with her?"
"I don't know," Dodie answered, "but she doesn't seem to be happy about it."
As Bella draw nearer, Zac thought she looked willing to give up a month's income to be able to escape. This got more interesting all the time.
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