Delilah's Flame (12 page)

Lilah didn’t completely share her father’s love of horses. She did, however, love her father enough to overlook her reticence about anything that made him happy. She could hardly wait for him to see his surprise, and didn’t intend to let anything spoil it, not even Dinah’s perplexing behavior, though she couldn’t understand why her sister had refused to come to the stable to share in the event.

“Cover your eyes, Papa. I don’t want you looking until everything is ready,” Lilah said with evident glee in her voice.

“I feel ridiculous holding my hands over my eyes,” Clement retorted good-naturedly. Lilah, he understood, took it as another of her duties to keep her father cheerful. She was forever surprising him with things she thought would add to his comfort and happiness. He thought back. Just last year there had been an upholstered rocking chair with a music box built into the armrest, a frisky spaniel named Squire, and a bottle of rather repulsive Egyptian massage oil. He dared not guess what she was foisting on him now.

“You’re determined to peek, but I’ll take care of that.” Lilah laughed and whipped off her broad- brimmed straw bonnet and held it in front of Clement’s face. “Bring him out, Gus,” she called.

The thump of hooves on flinty earth brought an exclamation of interest from Clement Damon. “Lilah, what have you been up to?”

“Grand things, Papa. You’ll see.” Slowly she lowered her hat, fearful a sudden move might startle the tall black stallion standing stretched out only a few feet away. “What do you think of him?”

“I’ll be damned!” Clement said, leaning forward as he did at those times he consciously wished he could walk. “What a magnificent animal! Where did you get him?”

“In St. Louis,” Lilah said, deliberately avoiding her father’s eyes lest he see the lie hidden in them.

“Take him in a circle, Gus.” Clement, smiling broadly, watched the horse’s power and clean, solid moves as, neck arched, he pranced around behind the stable man. “An animal like that must have cost a fortune,” he mumbled. “Lilah!” Suddenly his eyes were on his daughter. “How did you pay for that horse?”

“With my allowance, Papa,” Lilah said sweetly. She caught Clement’s hand. “I suppose I’ll have to do without a few gowns, but it’s worth it to see you so happy.”

“Sweetheart...” Clement said, creases lining his brow. He had never put any limits on Lilah’s spending, but if she intended making more purchases like this, he would have to come to a new understanding with her. “Six months of your allowance wouldn’t pay for that animal.”

“He wasn’t nearly that much, Papa,” she answered, still avoiding her father’s eyes as she hugged him. “I got him at a bargain price. The man who owned him had no idea of his value. The horse isn’t well-broken. Why, it’s hard to even get a saddle on him. The owner was glad to be rid of him.” The smile on her face came from a deep-seated sense of satisfaction.

Clement saw the strange light in Lilah’s eyes and wondered about it, but he was much too entranced with the horse to give her expression any serious thought. He shook his head in disbelief.

“Take him around again, Gus. This time in a wide circle.” Gus led the horse completely around the carriage. “Pick up the pace a little,” Clement called. Gus speeded up, and the stallion followed in a trot, moving proudly, as if he knew he was being admired and knew he deserved that admiration.

“You like him, don’t you, Papa?” Lilah asked softly, pleased by the look of delight on her father’s face.

“He’s one of the finest animals I’ve ever owned.” He squeezed her hand. “Does he have a name?”

“Indeed he does,” Lilah returned, the peculiar brightness once more in her eyes. “I call him Rogue.”

*     *     *

Tabor scrubbed his chair back from the bars of his cell and stood and stretched his muscles. A light breeze drifted in the small window and he had to admit his own odor was a bit ripe. Peregrine had allowed him only bucket baths. He and both sets of his clothes were in need of a good wash. The marshal didn’t seem to mind, though. Tabor wondered if being made to smell like a carcass was part of his punishment. Still he managed a smile as he tossed his last hand of cards through the bars to the marshal.

“Damn!” Peregrine said. “Reckon I better try again.”

Tabor shook his head. “Hell, Walsh. You’re wearing me out. Why don’t you forget about winning and just admit I’m too good a poker player for you?”

The marshal, his bulk straining a wooden straight chair, used his foot to push a small table away. “‘Cause you ain’t been here but two weeks and I got plenty of time to outsmart you yet.”

“Now, that’s another thing, Walsh.” Tabor ventured into a subject he’d avoided until now. In two weeks he had gotten to know the marshal rather well. Odd as it was, the men had become friends of a sort. “Didn’t you tell me you were one of the best poker players in town?”

“That’s right.” Peregrine leaned the chair back on two legs and propped his feet on the rough wood table where the cards lay. “Not a man in town can get the better of me, and that’s not just because I’m wearin’ this badge.” He reached into his shirt pocket for his tobacco pouch, and finding it empty, asked Tabor for a smoke. Tabor obliged.

“You haven’t won a game with me.”

“I reckon I know that.” Peregrine filled a paper with tobacco, licked it, and formed it into a lumpy cylinder with his stubby fingers. “You’ve damned near cleaned out my tobacco money. Had to ask my wife for two bits to buy lunch today.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Peregrine frowned. “It ought to tell me not to play another hand with you.” He struck a match on his boot sole and lit his cigarette. “But I mean to get my money back.”

The marshal threw back his head and barked a laugh. Having Stanton in his jail and listening to his tales about naval voyages to Japan and Hawaii made the time pass better, gave him something to talk to his wife about too. She had even sent the boy a slice of apple pie. Stanton offered such a believable account of native girls in grass skirts doing a dance called the hula that Peregrine could almost see brown-skinned hips shaking.

“Ever played poker with a woman?” Tabor asked.

“Nope.” Peregrine puffed on his cigarette. “Never seen a woman who knew a jack from a king. Anyhow, women are too emotional to play poker. They’d give away a hand every time.”

“You ever seen me cheat?”

“Nope. You don’t have to.”

“Think I’d lose a game with a woman?”

Peregrine guffawed at the thought. “Nope,” he said. “You’d have a woman in tears in—” He abruptly dropped the other two chair legs on the floor and drilled Tabor with a pair of deep-set eyes. “What’re you gettin’ at, Stanton? Are you claimin’ Miss Delilah lied?”

Tabor backed away a few feet, remembering how the marshal had once slammed him into the bars. “Think about it, Walsh,” he said matter-of-factly, hoping he was leading Peregrine where he wanted him to go. “Do you believe I’d lose a game to any woman?”

Delilah had left Yuba City two weeks ago. Her spell on Walsh Peregrine had faded but not died. “Aw, I don’t know,” the marshal said, scratching his chin as he thought about it.

“Would you lose a game to a woman?”

“Hell no!”

“See what I mean, Walsh?”

“Yeah, you got a point, but I still can’t believe Miss Delilah told a lie.”

Tabor pressed on while he had Peregrine thinking. “I’m not saying she told a lie. I don’t think she really understands poker. Most likely she thinks she had the winning hand. But women are...” He decided on Peregrine’s own word. “Emotional. And when they get that way, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Peregrine nodded slowly as he remembered a recent disagreement with his wife after he had told her the biscuits were too dry. She had snatched his dinner plate from under his nose and fed the contents to the dog, then sent him packing out of the house to find his own meal. His eyes nearly got lost in the deep furrows of his brow as he frowned. Stanton was right. Women were unreasonable when they were upset.

“Well, what about you pullin’ a gun on the lady?” He stood and tugged up the gunbelt that liked to slip under his potbelly. “Was she wrong about that too?”

“Now, Walsh.” Tabor wanted to tell the marshal what a thick head he had, but couldn’t risk losing whatever advantage he had gained. “I don’t wear a gun when I visit a lady. You got my holster and guns out of
my
hotel room the same day you picked up my bedroll.” He made fists of the hands he longed to wrap around Delilah’s neck. “Hell! I don’t know. She was hysterical. Maybe she
thought
I had a gun.”

“Yeah. That could be it.” Peregrine tossed the smoldering butt of his cigarette into a sand-filled bucket. “Trouble is, she ain’t comin’ back to say what she thought after she calmed down. And I still got a signed deposition says different.”

Forgetting his caution, Tabor gripped the cell bars. “The judge won’t be here for another six weeks.”

“So?”

“So when he gets here, you’re going to have to tell him you locked me up because I pulled a gun that was in another room. What’s he going to think?”

Peregrine rubbed his bristly chin. “You know, I been thinkin’, Stanton. You can’t always put store in what a woman says when she’s hysterical.”

“Uh-huh,” Tabor mumbled, afraid to say anything that might sway the marshal another way. A few days ago Peregrine had mentioned an old quarrel with the judge. Tabor had stored the information away for later use, thinking it might come in handy.

“I reckon two weeks is long enough to keep a man locked up for bein’ drunk and disorderly.”

“Two weeks is about right,” Tabor agreed. His entire body tensed. He could see freedom almost at hand. All he could think about was what he was going to do when he found Delilah.

Peregrine got up and scuffed across the office to his desk. “‘Course, I’m going to have to fine you. You bein’ a guest of the jail so long.”

“How much, Marshal?” Tabor scowled as he watched Peregrine pull a ring of keys from his desk drawer. He could still have a problem. Delilah had emptied his pockets before carting him over to the jail. The only money he had was the twenty dollars he’d won from the marshal.

Peregrine jangled the keys. His wide grin worried Tabor. “Say about as much as you won from me playin’ poker. Don’t forget, I staked you that first game.”

“Marshal, I got to buy a horse to leave town.”

Tabor’s crestfallen look must have stirred a little sympathy loose in Peregrine. “Yeah. I reckon you do,” he drawled. “Look, I’m sorry about you losin’ your horse. How was I to know I was dealin’ with a hysterical woman?”

Tabor swallowed his anger. He didn’t expect to be without the Admiral for long. He smiled. “No hard feelings, Marshal. It’s not your fault. You did the only thing you could.”

“Yeah. I reckon I did. I’ve always believed in givin’ a lady the benefit of the doubt.”

Tabor gritted his teeth and nodded. The lady who had put him in this predicament was a scheming, man-hating, red-haired witch. She was going to wish she’d never heard of Tabor Stanton. Hell! Who was he kidding? By now she’d probably left another half-dozen witless victims in her wake. Most likely she didn’t even remember his name.

“So you’re going to drop the fine?” Tabor asked hopefully.

Peregrine started to agree, then thought of asking Martha for more spending money. “I’m droppin’ it to half,” he said.

Tabor opened his mouth to argue, but quickly assessed the likelihood of doing more harm than good. He wouldn’t get much of a horse for ten bucks, but if he rubbed Peregrine the wrong way he wouldn’t need one.

“That’s fair, Marshal,” he agreed.

“That’s what I figured you’d say.” Peregrine’s grin widened as he slid the key in the lock.

*     *     *

“Curtis...” Tabor spoke to the livery owner he had left the Admiral with two weeks back. “You remember that black stallion I rode into town.”

Curtis smiled. “The one Miss Delilah won from you in that poker game?” Curtis remembered. The stallion was one of the best-looking horses he’d ever seen. Temperamental, though. He hadn’t ventured into the stall with that one.

“Right.” Tabor fumed. He supposed he had been the laughingstock of Yuba City since that night. Being reminded of it didn’t help his outlook any. “Who took him out of here?”

“One of them dandies led him out. Couldn’t saddle him. Left your rig here. Reckon you’ll be wanting it.” Curtis disappeared into the tack room, returning shortly with the saddle. He dropped it at Tabor’s feet. “Got anything to go under it?”

“No,” Tabor said, galled to have to ask for a horse and knowing he was going to be laughed at again when he told Curtis how much money he had. “I need a mount.”

“No problem about that.” Curtis pointed to a gelding at one end of the barn and at a mare nearby. “Thirty dollars will git you either one of those.”

“What’ve you got for ten?” Tabor mumbled.

“Ten!” Curtis spat tobacco juice on the ground. “For ten I can git you a rocky horse.”

Tabor, blood throbbing in his temples, knuckles stretched tight, looked at the ground, afraid that if he looked at Curtis he’d soon find himself back in Peregrine’s jail. The sight of his saddle gave him an idea.

“All right,” he said slowly when Curtis showed no sign of letting up. “How about a trade? My saddle for a horse and an old saddle of yours.”

Curtis glanced at Tabor’s saddle. “Well, I don’t know,” he said, poking his boot at the saddle. “It’s a good saddle, but it ain’t
that
good. Let’s say you throw in the ten bucks you got and it’s a deal. I’ll even hand you back enough for a little grub.”

“It’s a deal,” Tabor agreed, kicking his saddle toward Curtis. A black look on his face, he dipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the ten dollars he’d won from Peregrine. Curtis counted the money, then handed him back a few dollars. Under his breath Tabor mumbled the thoughts he couldn’t voice. He knew now how outlaws were made. A little more humiliation and he’d be ready to resort to holding up the Yuba City Bank. He could bear it only because he knew someday he’d get even with Delilah.

“You come back late this afternoon and I’ll have a horse ready,” Curtis told him.