Iron Ties (4 page)
Back outside the hospital, Inez buttoned up the borrowed jacket and looked around. The professor had left the string of Susan’s hired horse and burro, the chestnut she’d found by the river, and her own black mare. Inez laid a soothing hand on Susan’s hired animals and the unknown horse, and examined the brands in the dying light.
All of them had come from the nearby C&H livery. The very place she boarded Lucy. She wrinkled her nose, hoping she’d not have to deal with its newest owner and partner
. I’ve no great desire to tangle with Bart Hollis. Luckily, he’s seldom around.
She cheered up a bit.
Most likely, Jack or Mr. Carter will be there. Maybe I can find out from them who rented this other horse.
She stroked the chestnut gelding, noting the distinctive fur saddlebags on either side and wondering if they might hold a clue to the rider’s identity.
Rolling back the cuffs that engulfed her hands, Inez reflected that presenting a name to Preston Holt might go a ways to repaying him for his help. She examined the saddlebag fastenings. The buckles were straightforward, but the bags had been further secured with rawhide lashings. The knots looked like they’d require much time or a sharp knife to undo.
And I’ve neither right now.
It was but a few blocks to the false-fronted building labeled prominently “C&H Livery—Feed and Sale, Stable, Transfer and Ore Hauling a Specialty.”
“Hello! Mr. Carter! Jack!” she shouted at the entrance as she dismounted and shook the rain from the borrowed coat. A shadowy form moved deep inside the barnlike structure. A moment later Bart Hollis sauntered out of the gloom.
If Inez had to choose one word to sum up the bits and pieces of ex-marshal Hollis, it would have been “narrow.” Hollis’ long face held squinty eyes and a droopy mustache that followed the curves of his downturned mouth. A torso thin as a rail sported a pair of dirty red braces that prevented his trousers from sliding off nonexistent hips and puddling around his mud-covered boots. Narrow also summed up Hollis’ views on “wimmin,” “niggers,” “micks,” “bohunks,” “injuns,” and “yanks.” Orientals escaped his scorn only because those who dared venture into the Rockies avoided Leadville like the plague.
“Waaall, look what the cat drug in.” Texas stretched long in his vowels, almost as long as the contempt in his tone. He lounged against the splintered jamb. “That Old Harry you leadin’ around by the nose, Miz Stannert?” He spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the mud. “Cain’t say I’m surprised.”
Inez resisted the impulse to lash back at his taunt. After being forced to turn in his badge, Hollis had bought a partnership in the livery, now called C&H, and named every animal in it after those who’d wronged him. It must’ve given him great glee, Inez thought, to name a gelded mount after Harry Gallagher, one of the most influential silver barons in Leadville and the man who’d engineered first his appointment as marshal and then his dismissal. Rumor had it, Hollis also had a pair of jackasses answering to Inez and Abe. She had no desire to check the veracity of that story.
Inez gestured at the two livery horses and burro. “These are all yours. I see you gave Miss Carothers the most obstinate horse in Leadville.”
Hollis hitched up his pants. “An’ I’ll bet you gave her lessons on how to ride Old Harry like an expert an’ keep him happy. Right, Miz Stannert?”
Inez and Hollis eyed each other with intense mutual dislike. Inez was sorely tempted to slap Old Harry’s rump and set him galloping down the street and let Hollis chase after him. Then, she remembered why she was determined to stay civil to this man whom she considered lower than a snake—and took a deep breath instead. “Miss Carothers was hurt in a rockfall near Disappointment Gulch. Your other customer,” she indicated the chestnut, “was less lucky. It appears he’s buried under a ton of rubble on the Rio Grande tracks.”
Hollis finally moved out into the rain, lifting his boots fastidiously over mucky puddles. He gathered up the leads and examined Old Harry’s companion closely. Anger and puzzlement chased across his normally sour visage.
He looked up, caught Inez watching him, and affected a nonchalant air, remarking, “Not a scratch. Horace, you’re one lucky son of a bitch.”
Horace, she knew, referred to Horace Tabor, one of the richest men in Colorado, thanks to Leadville’s silver-heavy carbonates of lead and his own good timing. Tabor was affable, easy-going, and would probably laugh and wink at anyone who told him of Hollis’ pique. Harry Gallagher, though, was a different matter and a different man.
Inez led Lucy into the livery. Hollis followed, trailing the hired horses and burro and hollering, “Jack! Put down that bottle and get on up here! Got three horses and a burro, all in need of a rub-down.”
“So,” Inez said, “who took Horace out?”
He eyeballed her shrewdly. “Cain’t say as I ’member.”
“Maybe those saddlebags hold something that would indicate who the rider was.”
He glanced indifferently at the bags. “Those knots’d take time t’ undo. Cain’t say as I’ve got the time or inclination right now.”
She exhaled fiercely, trying to stay calm.
I should have just borrowed a knife at the hospital and cut the straps when I had the chance.
“Maybe a shot of Red Dog, on the house, would jolt your memory.”
“Mebbe. Might need two shots. One fer the first name, ’nother fer the last.”
She hesitated.
“Longer we dicker the more whiskey I’m gonna need to recollect.”
“All right, all right!”
Hollis smirked and led the animals further into the livery, the elusive saddlebags receding with them into the dim interior. Hollis’ voice drifted back to her: “See ya t’night. Save a bottle for me.”
Inez pushed open the back door of the Silver Queen Saloon. Abe Jackson, her business partner, glanced up. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up and captured by his sleeve garters, the dark skin of his forearms showing a fine sheen of sweat from working in the humid kitchen. He was halfway through decanting a barrel of potent spirits into the row of bottles on the kitchen table. The label on the barrel depicted a dog, which appeared to be in the advanced stages of hydrophobia, inked in gruesome red. The accompanying words could be taken as a warning or an invitation, depending on one’s thirst and state of mind: “Red Dog—Strong enough to make a dog go mad.”
Abe looked Inez over critically. A drop of rain rolled down her forehead, and she used a soggy sleeve to wipe the tickle away.
“Lord amighty, Inez. You and Miss Carothers get lost in that storm?”
Inez recounted the afternoon’s events, finishing with, “Susan is at St. Vincent’s under Doc’s care. I expect to wring more information from him later tonight.”
Abe banged the bung into the whiskey barrel. “Damn shame. You let me know if there’s somethin’ Angel and I can do to help out.” He eyed Inez’s outfit. “I don’t recall seein’ that coat before.”
“Courtesy of Preston Holt, a payroll guard for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. I’ll return it tomorrow when I let him know about Susan’s condition. Holt wants to talk with her. About the deaths, I imagine. I think one of the fellows worked for the Rio Grande.”
Abe glanced at the jacket hem, hanging below her knees. “Railroad men have a bad reputation. Don’t think I’d want a man of that size comin’ into the bar and gettin’ rowdy. Bet he’d be a hard one to toss out the door.”
A vision of Preston Holt flashed, not unpleasantly, across her mind. “He was courteous. Quite the gentleman in fact.”
“Uh-oh. Honeymoon’s over.”
She stripped off her wet riding gloves and jammed them in a pocket. “Just what do you mean by that remark?”
Abe began loading the bottles into the crate. “You can bluff with the best over a hand of cards, but when it comes to men, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Your face, when you mentioned that payroll guard, got me thinking. The reverend and you been sparkin’ for nigh on five months. Guess I’m wonderin’ if you’re gettin’ tired of him, gettin’ ready to give him the heave-ho. Five months. That’s a long time for you, Inez.”
“How presumptuous!” she sputtered, her face growing hotter by the moment. She started to unbutton the coat hastily, as if to shed herself of anything that had had contact with Preston Holt. “I was married for more than ten years to Mark. Still am married to him.” The pair of silver and gold bands on her ring finger glinted in confirmation. “Not that Mark and I didn’t have our ups and downs, as you well know, what with the three of us traveling together the whole time. But through the good and the bad, I stuck by the marriage. It was Mark who walked out last spring, not me—”
“Don’t get your dander up, Inez.” Abe smoothed his salt-and-pepper hair, the coarse kink invigorated by the humid air despite the brilliantine. “I’m just thinkin’ over the past year. First there was Harry Gallagher for—couldn’t’ve been more’n three months—then the reverend came t’ town around Christmas…lessee…Bat Masterson wandered through and looked a strong contender ’til he headed back to Kansas. So it’s been you and Sands for four, maybe five months. Dependin’ how you count.”
“What nonsense!”
He shrugged. “Don’t bother me none, Inez. I just figure for you, it’s like spring cleanin’. Some women hang out the rugs and give them a good beatin’, you throw out the old beaus and find new ones.” He squinted at her. “I got just one request: When you take on a new sweetheart this time—specially if it’s this railroad man—point him out to me so I don’t rile him by mistake.”
“Reverend Sands and I are just fine.”
“You’re sure a fool for sweet-talkin’ men, Inez.”
Before she could form a retort, Abe picked up the crate and said, “I’d put the jacket back on if I was you. Unless you’re looking to start a riot when you walk into the saloon proper.”
Inez glanced down and was reminded of the revealing properties of wet flannel. She blushed, reshrugged into the jacket, and held it tight to her neck as she followed Abe into the barroom.
“Honestly, Abe. You get married and all of a sudden you’ve got a holier-than-thou attitude that won’t quit.” She also thought, but didn’t say, that Abe had gotten considerably testier since he’d announced earlier that spring that Angel was expecting. When Abe had first informed her of Angel’s condition, Inez had burst out, too startled to hold her tongue, “But Abe! Who’s to say the child is even yours!”
He’d glared at her in a way to freeze her feet to the floor. It was a stare she’d seen him direct at serious troublemakers who were heading for serious trouble. After a long pause, he’d said, “Angel’s my wife.” He said the words as if they were straight off the holy tablets of the Israelites, words penned by God himself. “Any child born to Angel is a child of mine. And I don’t want to ever hear you say different.”
Abe set the crate on the near end of the bar and began unloading the bottles. Struggling for a less confrontational tone, Inez continued, “Furthermore, I find it strange that you continue to defend Mark to the bitter end—he was the smoothest talker of all. Why, Mark could charm the aces to the top of a deck, we both know that. But you won’t give Reverend Sands a chance.”
Abe shrugged. “Sands handles trouble and a gun like he was born to it. Then, he turns around with the Good Book and preaches ’bout the heavenly spirit. I don’t believe your reverend quite knows his own self. Either that, or he does know and he’s foolin’ everyone, includin’ you. You’re damn right I don’t trust him.”
“Yet he saved your life last winter as much as Angel or I did.” She glanced around the room. “Is Angel still here?”
“I was waitin’ on you before takin’ her home. Didn’t want to leave King Solomon alone.” Abe nodded toward their recently hired bartender, Solomon Isaacs. Sol’s red hair shone like a copper-colored beacon behind the bar.
Inez spotted Angel crossing the room, heading toward a crowded table. Clothed in a dark skirt and gray shirtwaist and further armored with a white bib apron, Angel looked the proper young matron. However, no proper Leadville matron, no matter what the age, would be using the swell of her pregnant belly to balance a tray of whiskey bottles and shot glasses.
A booming voice at the table caused Inez to pause. “Is that….”
“Yep. Chet Donnelly’s back from the hills,” Abe said shortly. “He and some boys’ve been playin’ cards for drinks since we opened. Angel don’t cotton much to him and neither do I. So soon’s you’re ready, I’m takin’ her home.”
Inez nodded and started toward the stairs leading to the second floor. She inclined her head at their piano player, Taps, who was warming up on the upright at the foot of the stairs.
He tipped his hat, grinned, “Evening, Mrs. Stannert,” took a good look at her attire, and swung into an upbeat version of “Buffalo Gals.”
Patrons turned and stared. Regulars called out greetings. The expressions of strangers ranged from curious to shocked to lascivious. Inez decided to take the high road and waved with dignity as she mounted the stairs, feeling like a frontier version of the Queen of England. The cacophony faded as she slammed and locked the office door behind her and dulled to an indistinguishable roar as she entered her private dressing room behind the office.
Once in her inner sanctum, she shucked off the damp clothes and splashed water into a washbasin.
Although why I bother after the soaking I got
.
After a quick cleanup and a dash of rosewater, she layered on clean undergarments, fingers flying through the laces and ties. Inez opened the door to her seven-foot wardrobe, inhaling the cedar scent as she confronted her better dresses alongside her husband’s abandoned frock coats, waistcoats, and trousers.
She touched one of Mark’s waistcoats, tracing a pattern of gold threads weaving through silver and black, then smoothed one of her watered-silk dresses. The outfits hanging side by side reminded her of the day she and Mark had exchanged hasty vows in upstate New York. Only later had she realized that the silk dress—with its French lace, satin ribbons, and Paris cut—paired with her guilty defiance had betrayed her for what she really was: the runaway daughter of a wealthy man. Mark, handsome as could be with his laughing eyes and fast-talking charm, had wrapped his arm around her waist as if he owned her. No wonder the justice of the peace had balked until Mark doubled his fee.
He knew we were eloping. Probably guessed that Mark was a sporting man, gambling on making his fortune by marrying me.
Yet even as she thought this, another inner voice insisted:
Nonsense! We loved each other. Through all the hard times, all that conspired to part us, we stayed together. There was no reason for him to walk out last year. We were planning to sell the saloon and move to California, for William’s health. Something took him from me. Maybe he was bushwhacked by cutthroats and his body tossed down a mineshaft.
Inez shook her head and dismissed the tired argument. It rose regularly like a spirit, summoned whenever she thought of the day Mark had left the house to talk to a prospective buyer for the saloon and never returned. Not a whisper of his whereabouts had reached her ears after that, except for a tenuous tale of a sighting in Denver in December. And the teller of that tale, she reminded herself, was not entirely to be trusted in his motives. Yet, ever since January, she’d had a recurring dream in which she was awakened by the metallic sigh of a key in the lock. The front door bolt would slide open, footsteps sound in the hallway, and Mark’s silhouette would appear at the threshold to her bedroom. Recently, the dream had taken a new twist, ending with Reverend Sands rolling away from her in the sheets and reaching for his revolver on the nightstand as Mark drew his gun.
Inez shuddered and pushed the unpleasant vision from her mind.
She pulled out a figure-hugging navy silk polonaise and closed the wardrobe door, shutting her nightmare within. Smoothing her short hair back from her face with practiced fingers, Inez glanced once in the mirror, noting that her hair was growing out from the hasty shearing she’d given it that winter.
Grabbing a clean apron from the hook, Inez covered her dress, thankful that Leadville’s chill summer evenings kept her from stifling in her many layers of clothes. Her gaze landed on Preston Holt’s damp jacket hanging nearby, and she remembered her riding gloves. She hunted through the jacket’s pockets, finally unearthing the crumpled gloves, and laid the damp wad by the washbasin.
She carried the jacket downstairs and into the kitchen, where Abe labored over a second crate of bottles and the dregs of the Red Dog barrel. Inez hung the jacket over a chair, smoothing out the folds before pushing it closer to the large cast-iron stove, still radiating heat from the day’s cooking. “You and Angel can leave whenever you’re ready,” she told Abe as she left the kitchen.
She was halfway across the barroom when she heard Chet say, “Hell, Angel, ya were a sight more friendly when ya worked down the line. Come on over here and bring me some luck.”
Inez glanced over at Sol, trapped behind the long mahogany counter, his face draining of color as he fumbled beneath the bar for the shotgun.
Inez shoved her way through the crowd gathered around the back table in time to see Chet, holding a deck of undealt cards, grab Angel and pull her onto his lap. Angel squirmed, moving faster than Inez could shout a warning.
Chet looked down. The handle of a slim knife quivered above the tabletop. The blade nestled between his forefinger and thumb, piercing the deck of cards and the tabletop below. He slid his hand away tentatively, as if half expecting to leave a finger behind.
Angel bounced off Chet’s lap, hissed at him, and yanked out the knife. Ruined playing cards scattered. She slapped the tabletop to get his attention. When he looked up, she held out her hand, thumb crossing her palm.
Inez pushed a gawker out of her path and hastened to Angel’s side, adding her own imprecations. “Chet, you fool! While you’ve been stalking silver in the Rockies these past months, Angel’s gotten married. She’s Mrs. Abe Jackson now.
Comprende?”
He blinked in whiskey-induced confusion. “What’re you talkin’ ’bout, Mrs. Stannert? Why, I think it’s great ya hired Angel t’ be a waiter gal here at your place. I always said Angel was the purtiest little thing that ever laid on her back an’—”
“Not any more,” Inez said coldly. “She’s a decent married woman now. And if that doesn’t make any difference to you, remember this. The next time you touch her, she says she’ll take off your thumb.” Inez glanced at Angel to see if she’d interpreted correctly. Angel nodded once, furious. She slapped the table again, then extended her middle finger to Chet and set her knife against the lower knuckle. Inez winced, thinking translation was probably not necessary, but continued, “Furthermore, Mrs. Jackson says, the second time you try anything, she’ll cut off your—”
“Won’t be no need for that.” Abe appeared, and his hands settled on Angel’s shoulders. “Next time he touches my wife, this man’s a dead man.”
Onlookers hastily melted away to the bar. Chet’s drinking buddies abandoned their chairs, leaving the prospector alone at the table, pink mouth forming a little “o” through his tangled gray beard. Inez thought that comprehension was, at last, dawning.
Inez said, “I think an apology’s in order.”
Angel glared at Chet, arms crossed above her swollen belly, foot tapping.
Chet stammered, “No harm meant. Just lookin’ for a little fun.”
Inez retrieved the empty bottles in front of him. “Time to be on your way, Chet. You know our rules: No drunks served a drink, no married men playing cards. You may not be married, but you surely are drunk. Frisco Flo is running the cathouse on the corner now. If you’ve got an itch in your trousers and money burning a hole in your pocket, go look for your ‘fun’ there or any of the other joints up and down State. But not here. Not in my saloon.”