скачать книгу бесплатно
A subtle fullness settled deep in his loins.
She lifted the tray over her head and turned sideways to shimmy through a narrow path between tables. The movement, unconscious as Sloan was certain it was, offered up her more visible assets like a feast to a roomful of starving men. Every eye in the place seemed to rivet on her. A sudden hush descended over the room, save for the piano’s off-key tune.
A seated cowboy turned, licked the spittle from his lips and ogled her bosom with a lascivious intent that fired a longdormant but staggering fury in Sloan. He took a step, watching the cowboy’s dirty hands.
Another cowboy slid his chair into Gertie’s path, trapping her with the tray balanced above her head. Her smile cut like a knife through Sloan. It was the smile of a child, a guileless, slightly mischievous smile that had no place in the Silver Spur around these men. She belonged in a sun-dappled, tightly sealed parlor with all the other virgins of the world, working a needle through cloth and dreaming of the noble man who would love her.
The first cowboy rose from his chair, his lean, muscular body not a hairbreadth from Gertie’s. Narrow hips jutting, broad chest straining at his shirt, he braced his muscled thighs wide and poised his sinewy, sun-hardened arms to crush around her. Sloan could smell the man’s thoughts. Those slitted eyes had already stripped Gertie of her sheath and laid her on that squeaky bed.
Sloan moved through space without volition or thought to consequences. All he could see was Gertie turning in profile to face the cowboy. Her eyes widened as he spoke to her and realization swept over her. Her lips parted in silent protest. She wasn’t strong enough to defend herself against a man gone rabid with need. His cohorts would cheer him on. She had only one champion in this room.
Shoving a cowboy from his path, Sloan shouldered between two others and then he burst upon them.
Gertie’s head snapped around. Her gaze froze him midstride. He saw the helplessness in the quiver of her brows, the desperation in the heightened color in her cheeks. He knew only that the upward curve of her breasts brushed against the cowboy’s chest with her breaths.
“Madam Gertie,” he rumbled as he surged past her, “I will handle this matter for you. Step aside.”
“But—”
The cowboy’s eyes met Sloan’s long enough to register the challenge issued. But his fingertips got no further than his gun belt. With a lightning-quick slice of his hand Sloan slapped the cowboy’s trigger hand away, blocked a wild punch with his forearm and easily ducked another. In two strides he drove the cowboy back against the table and the table up against the wall. The cowboy raised his hands beside his ears in wide-eyed, dumbfounded surrender.
“I jest asked her ta dance, mister,” the cowboy sputtered. “Ain’t no laws against dancin’ in a public place.”
Sloan shoved his nose an inch from the cowboy’s. “Is that what you call it here? Where I come from, we call it something else, and we conduct it privately. I doubt very much the lady would have consented to what you suggested.”
“The hell she didn’t. I was gonna give her two dollars!”
Sloan stared at the man as the grumbles of agreement rippled through the crowd. He turned and found Gertie standing directly at his back. Hands on her hips, one brow arched with disdain, she didn’t look the least bit grateful for his intervention and saving of the day. She looked…as if he’d muddled her plans.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Sloan said, suddenly very much aware that he towered over her and that the air seemed to grow instantly thicker between them. And hotter. Her skin was of the most astonishing shade of warm apricot.
Her emerald eyes dropped to his tailored topcoat, then narrowed on the stickpin at his neck. Suspicion lurked in her voice. “Who are you?”
He found himself watching the slow descent of one thick copper curl onto her shoulder. “Sloan Devlin, madam, late of—”
“You’re from the railroad.” An icy shadow fell over her features.
“Indeed, I came from—”
“Get the hell out”
He bit off his reply as Gertie turned abruptly and made her way through the swarm of men. Sloan’s attempt to follow was instantly thwarted by the bulging chest of one particularly foul smelling man with only a handful of teeth to register his sneer. Sloan set his jaw wearily. “Don’t make me move you.”
“D’ya hear that, fellas?” The man spread his sausage legs wide and punched one fist into his palm. “This gussied-up railroad gent says he’s gonna move ol’ Reuben. Better take off yer fancy coat, railroad gent. Don’t wanna mess up yer Sunday best with yer blood.”
“No chance of that” Sloan’s eyes slid over the man’s shoulder. Gertie stood at the bar, arranging whiskey glasses on a tray. Another young cowboy stood at her side, feasting on her every movement.
Oddly enough, none of the brew-house maids he’d championed had ever rejected his help so recklessly, so defiantly, so damned foolishly. Virgins couldn’t afford to.
“Leave him be, Reuben,” a leathered old man wheezed from one table nearby. “He ain’t even got a gun.”
A chorus of jeers went up. Two men began shoving at each other. Several others exchanged heated words. Someone stuck the old man’s nose into a glass of whiskey.
“My wife run away last year with one of them fancy railroad gents came through after the mine blew,” Reuben snarled. “Left me with four kids an’ her own ma who cain’t even cook. I been lookin’ fer revenge ever since.”
“A bath might have served you better,” Sloan replied, attempting to shoulder past. Reuben shoved him in the chest. Sloan stood his ground and met the man’s bleary but antagonistic gaze. Sloth, filth and a marked penchant for fighting. Nothing encouraging to be found so far in. Prosperity Gulch, save for Gertie. A peculiar, almost overwhelming desire to talk to her took hold of him.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Sloan said. “Let me pass.”
Reuben stepped from his path with a travesty of a bow. “Whatever you say, fancy gent.”
Sloan took two steps and realized his mistake an instant too late. He’d allowed distraction to get the better of him only once before, and a bullet meant for him had found his father. He thought he’d learned that lesson well. Apparently not. Reuben put all his weight behind a punch that caught Sloan in his ribs and drove the breath from him. Sloan doubled over, spun to the left and swung his left leg in a blinding arc into the side of Reuben’s thick skull. Like a mighty oak felled by the single stroke of an ax, Reuben toppled to the floor.
“I didn’t want to do that,” Sloan muttered, stepping past the man’s motionless body, one arm pressed to his ribs. It was then that Sloan realized every man in the place was engaged in a fistfight. He stepped over one fallen cowboy, ducked as a chair flew past, and narrowly missed being crashed over the head with a whiskey bottle. Fists met flesh everywhere he looked. Blood spurted. Curses spewed. And above it all the piano belched out its gay tune as if playing to a room full of civilized people.
He made his way to the bar. Gertie had disappeared. His eyes flickered to the stairs. She wouldn’t have gone up there with that young cowboy…or had she?
The shiny-headed barkeep met him in front of the bar, hamlike hands braced on his hips. He was a formidable-looking man, powerfully built, but the glint in his eyes revealed far more than a lust for a bloody fight. There was something distinctly possessive in the man’s stance, a protectiveness that extended beyond the tables and chairs in the place. Sloan was fairly certain the man didn’t easily lose his temper.
“Where is she?” Sloan asked.
“You’re goin’ nowhere but out that door, mister. And you can take your fancy fightin’ with you. It won’t do you any good against a Smith and Wesson.”
“We’ve no quarrel between us. Where is she?”
“You leavin’ or do I get my rifle?”
“I want to talk to her.”
“I’m going to start counting, mister.”
“Sloan Devlin’s the name, late of—”
The man moved one step closer. “If you don’t leave my place, I’ll kill you.”
“Yes,” Sloan said, looking deep into the man’s eyes. “I believe you would.” Again his eyes shot to the stairs. “I’m leaving. Just tell me, is she up there alone?”
A growl came up from the man’s broad chest, bursting from his lips in a bellow of rage. And then Sloan knew beyond a doubt that this giant was deeply in love with the reckless Miss Gertie. A part of him must have understood that, must have forgiven him his vulnerability, because he didn’t strike out when the man clamped his fists onto Sloan’s shirtfront and shoved his face close.
“She’s never been up those stairs with a man, mister,” he snarled. “And she never will, least of all with another finelooking, smooth-talking gent who’ll give her nothing but empty promises and another broken heart.” The man released Sloan and rubbed an unsteady hand over his brow. The creases around his eyes seemed to deepen and the glitter of rage faded as he glanced around his saloon. “Now get the hell out of my place.”
With a curt incline of his head, Sloan tugged his topcoat smooth, turned on his heel and maneuvered his way to the saloon’s double-doored entrance, retrieving his valise along the way. As he stepped into the late-afternoon sunlight he passed the bandy-legged wagon driver who’d pressed his face up against the saloon’s front window and worked his jaw in a circular motion.
Sloan had just stepped onto the wooden boardwalk opposite the saloon when gunfire exploded through the Silver Spur. A moment later two cowboys crashed through the beveled glass front door, spraying the street with tiny shards.
An odd hush fell over the saloon and the street. Even the piano fell silent. One by one the cowboys crept out into the street, some rubbing bruised jaws, others limping, most with blood streaming from flesh newly laid open. Sloan leaned a shoulder against the corner of one building, drew his journal from his valise and flipped it open. He squinted out into the street as the saloon owner emerged from the Silver Spur with a long-barreled rifle.
Sloan’s gaze ventured up, drawn to the rooms above the saloon. At the windows, white lace curtains stirred in the soft breeze. The curtains hung motionless now, like the dust hanging heavy and still over the street. There was no breeze to be found. Lace at a window would stir if someone moved past them.
He glanced down at the journal and wrote, Women allow themselves the privilege of a broken heart only once. After that, they never fully part with it again.
Chapter Two (#ulink_00041733-854e-5af3-ab35-535b529fa7d2)
You from the Independent?”
Sloan snapped his journal closed and glanced over his spectacles at the man standing at his elbow. The fellow jerked his eyes from Sloan’s journal but there was no apology in his gaze, no chagrin in the set of his jaw beneath his sweeping black mustache. There was also no gun belt around his waist, just a black walking stick in one hand. He wore a starched white shirt and black trousers common to men of decidedly civilized occupations. Sloan found himself taking an immediate liking to him despite his palpable animosity.
“No news in Deadwood Run today, eh?” The fellow eyed Sloan with increasing suspicion, particularly the stickpin at his throat. “Or you fellas run out of all those epithets and insults you’ve been hurling at us? I’ve been called a loathsome creature one time too many by that louse you call an editor over there.” The man jerked his chin at Sloan’s journal. “I’ll tell you right now, mister, there’s room in this town for only one newspaper and that’s the Lucky Miner.”
“They’ve been lucky then,” Sloan said, folding his spectacles into his pocket and tucking his journal under his arm.
The man snorted and waved an arm at the motley collection of men lingering on the street. “Where’d you hear that? The miners of this town do nothing night and day except drink fiery liquids and indulge in profane language. Sure, the miner you see today loves whiskey, cards and women, just like the cowboys. But compared to the forty-niner of California, or the fifty-niner of Colorado, he’s a hollow mockery.” The man frowned at Sloan. “And you can quote me on that. It’d be the first time fancy didn’t get the upper hand of fact in the Independent.”
“A common malady when there’s a dearth of news.” Sloan watched the color creep from the man’s wing collar. “Truthfulness is not the hallmark of frontier journalism, no matter the paper.”
The newspaperman puffed up his chest. “You give folks what they want to read if you don’t intend to close up shop. Let’s just say most editors in these parts have become masters of the exaggerated news story. Based on the facts, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Hell, about a year ago some poor fella from back East came through town, muttering something about the Indians he’d seen east of here. By the time he’d driven to the other edge of town I’d put his wagon through an Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history. Folks liked it well enough.”
“It’s a wonder they didn’t all flee town,” Sloan said.
The newspaperman looked squarely at Sloan. “Folks here aren’t afraid of Indians. They’re scared of one thing, and that’s being driven off their land by the railroad. They didn’t knuckle under ten years ago when the railroad said there’d be no town without a rail line through here, and they won’t now. Course, you know all about that, don’t you? The Union Pacific’s used the Independent for spreading its propaganda for years.”
“I’m not from any newspaper,” Sloan said, extending his hand to the newspaperman. “Sloan Devlin, late of Cornwall, England.”
“Lansky,” the man said after a moment’s hesitation, pumping Sloan’s hand. “Tom Lansky. Editor and proprietor of the Lucky Miner. That’s a damned fine set of Sunday bests you’ve got on there. You must be one of those orators who travels around spreading the word about politics and the finer things of life. Funny, but I took you for a writer. Only writers carry a pencil and a journal in their finest coat pocket.”
Sloan’s lips curved in a rare smile. “I’m no orator. And as far as I know carrying a pencil and journal never qualified a man to think he had something worth writing about. Or that anyone might care to read it. I’ve found it’s not the desire to put words on paper that makes a man a writer, but the difference he can make by doing it, the pleasure he brings to his readers.”
Lansky grunted. “Whenever people can learn to walk on their eyebrows, balance ladders on their chins and climb to the top of them will an editor be found who can give pleasure alike to rich and poor, honest and false, respectable and low. I’m just a poor fella who empties his brain to fill his stomach.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of the printed word,” Sloan said, flipping open his journal where he’d tucked a folded handbill. He snapped it open. “This is only one brochure that I encountered in New York. And all of it enticing people westward to make their fortune. They tell a man to come, rush, hurry, don’t wait for anything to buy lots, sight unseen. I visited one of these prophetic cities just outside of Omaha, fortunate as it was to have a depot. I found that this city of grand houses and shady trees contained not a single human habitation, and the only shade to be had was that thrown by the stakes pounded into the dry dirt. It was a paradise, lacking only water and a larger measure of good society. A fortune is being made, but not by the frontiersmen.”
“It’s a story, all right, but if you’re looking to make a big difference somewhere, you’d best go on back to England while there’s still no Union Pacific buying up all the land there.”
“There’s nothing for me in England at the moment.”
Lansky squinted up at him. “You looking to stay on?”
“If I find good enough reason.”
“Fine. You’ve got one. I’m offering you a job. Editorial column every couple of days. Anything you want to write about. Stir things up a bit. If there’s a town bleeding for a champion, it’s Prosperity Gulch.”
Sloan squinted out into the sun-bitten street where only a handful of people meandered past. Set against the majesty of the snowcapped mountains, the town huddled like a shriveled old man. Leave it alone…stay a few days…move on…. “How many people live here?”
“A hundred, give or take, though folks keep to their homes when the cowboys come through. Twice that number called the place home a year ago before the Lucky Cuss mine blew. The dirt was still fresh on the graves when the railroad men rode into town waving ready cash. Guess they thought fifty cents on the dollar for land would sound good to widows with children. Now we got the damned vigilantes trying to burn everybody out”
Sloan glanced sharply at Lansky. “The widows?”
“Everybody. They’ve come a good handful of times in the dead of night. Torched Widow Gray’s house and barn and shot all her cows and pigs. The only reason she was spared was because she had the good sense to hide in her hope chest. It helps that the Widow Gray’s a small woman. She sold out two days later. A good twenty more followed her the next day.”
“Do these vigilantes work for the railroad?”
Lansky shrugged. “You tell me.”
“It’s become a matter of pride,” Sloan muttered, half to himself, remembering the tinner’s immovable pride in the face of the powerful mine owners. “Pride more than the land.”
“Damned straight. Of course there’s some miners who still think they’re going to strike that big vein in the South Platte River. There’s a group of them determined to find it, no matter what the railroad does to try to run them out. Some folks think the railroad men know all about that big vein and are hoping to get the land cheap before the strike and lay their track right through town. Those folks are sitting tight, thinking their land values will triple then. Others still believe they can make their livelihood in Prosperity Gulch, strike or no strike. Some are afraid to sell now, thinking they’ll get ambushed by the miners before they can get out of town, if the vigilantes don’t get them first.”
“What about the mine that blew?”
“It’s common knowledge the owner was a fool. Had too much charge with him one day and she blew. Killed him, his four boys, handful of other men. There’s been nothing there for years. I’ll tell you, though, no matter who you talk to, tempers are running high. There’s a lawlessness in the air, Devlin. I can smell it. And the victims are the common folk, the folks who’ve sunk their lifeblood and their savings into land, homes and businesses.”
Proud, angry and desperately in need of rallying around a common cause if they were to stand a chance against a foe like the powerful Union Pacific and its rogue vigilantes. The town needed a heralding cry, and what better than the newspaper to corral tempers and focus energies?
“Where can I find a hotel?”
Lansky’s lips jerked into a smile. “You’ll find the softest bed and the best cooking at Willie Thorne’s boardinghouse. Second farm on the right about a mile west of town. I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay you fifty cents for every column—”
“I don’t want your money, Lansky.”
“Whatever you say, Devlin. You think about my offer.”
“I plan to.” Sloan picked up his valise and turned east along the boardwalk.
“Hey, Devlin, Willie’s place is due west. Where are you going?”
“To buy a horse.”
“Get yourself a breastplate while you’re at it. I ask only that my editors be responsible for defending themselves against folks who don’t like what you have to say in the paper. And there’s bound to be some. Last editor I had was horsewhipped and run out of town by a fella for something he wrote about the fella’s wife. Something about her dimensions giving her the appearance of an ambulatory cotton bale. Wouldn’t hurt to oil up your gun. You just might need it.”
“I’ll remember that,” Sloan said, turning on his heel and heading for the livery.
The ax blade whizzed through the air then cleaved into the log, cleanly splitting the wood into pieces that would fit neatly into the stove. Willie tossed the pieces onto a pile that reached to her knees then hoisted another log. Taking up her ax, she aimed, drew a breath, swung the ax and drove it into the log.
“Fancy man,” she hissed through her teeth, swiping a forearm over her brow then tossing the split wood onto the pile. “Gussied up and dandified. Damned shiny-toed shoes and pleated trousers. Too damned tall for decency—”
Again she bent, lifted a heavy log and braced it against her belly as she slid it atop the wide tree stump she used for wood chopping. Smacking her hands clean against her blue-denimed hips, she braced her boots wide, took up her ax and swung it in a powerful arc.
The last time she’d looked so far up into a man’s cleanshaven face had been seven months ago when she’d all but run over Brant Masters with her wagon. He’d been wearing the same sort of finely made coat and trousers, the same high linen collar. He’d even stuck one of those jewel-headed pins into his tie and his shoes were shiny and new. Now that she thought about it, Brant had smelled clean and spicy, a scent that had made her knees go wobbly and her belly flutter every time he passed within six inches of her. That scent had seemed to fill her nostrils for weeks after he went back East.
The fancy English gent had smelled like that. Refined. Educated. Thinking himself too good for the likes of Prosperity Gulch. But the English railroad gent’s eyes weren’t dark and sparkling like Brant’s. They were icy blue, shot through with silver, and seemed as deep as she imagined an ocean could be. Against the midnight blue-black of his hair they were startling.
Willie threw the wood aside. “Railroad weasel.”
“The man sure could fight.”
