No Less Than the Journey (7 page)

CHAPTER 8

When Connolly had taken his son from the gambling saloon, Wes thanked Aaron for his intervention with the Louisiana Senator, but the US Marshal made light of it.

‘I expected no more and no less from Connolly,’ he said. ‘He’s one of the most pompous men in the Senate, also one of the most insecure – and he knows it. I doubt if he’s ever made a decision or put forward an original idea since the day he was elected. He bends with the wind, always chasing popularity … but it’s something he has never managed to achieve. President Grant would be pleased to have him out, but by doing nothing Connolly makes no mistakes. He knows I am close to Grant so he’ll not do anything that might upset me.’

Wes realized, not for the first time, that chance had thrown him into friendship with a very special man who had a great many influential friends.

‘Would you really have shot the Senator’s son had he managed to draw his gun?’ he asked.

‘Would you have been likely to die had he shoved the gun
in your ribs and pulled the trigger?’ Aaron responded. Not waiting for a reply he added, ‘There’s someone coming across who you’ll enjoy talking to far more than to me. I’ll speak to you later about the need to keep a gun on you at all times now you’re heading out West.’

Turning his head, Wes saw Anabelita heading towards them and Aaron nodded an acknowledgement to her as he made his way back to the seat he had been occupying before trouble broke out in the saloon.

When she reached Wes, Anabelita smiled at him and said, ‘I want to thank you for coming to my aid just now, but I am sorry to have put your life in danger as a result.’

‘It was no fault of yours,’ Wes replied, aware that Anabelita was even more attractive close to than she had appeared at a distance, ‘but I might not have been quite so brave had I known he was carrying a gun.’

‘I do not believe that,’ Anabelita replied, ‘but I would not have allowed him to play at my table had
I
known. Guns are strictly forbidden in the gambling saloon.’

‘Does that rule apply to croupiers too?’ Wes asked, with apparent innocence.

Anabelita looked at him uncertainly for a few minutes then, with a faint hint of embarrassment, she replied, ‘I think Lola has been saying far more to you than she should.’

‘Perhaps,’ Wes agreed, ‘but, as a matter of interest, have you ever needed to make use of such a … deterrent?’

‘Once or twice,’ Anabelita admitted, ‘… but never while I have been working.’

As Wes digested this confession, Anabelita said, ‘I really am very grateful to you … may I call you Wes? The young man was hurting my arm very much. Had he continued to twist it for a few more minutes it is likely I would not have been able to deal cards comfortably for a few days. As it is
… I will take the rest of tonight off. By tomorrow I will be fit and well once more.’

At that moment there was an outburst of sound from the crowd about the roulette table as a number came up on which one of the players had placed a large sum of money.

‘It’s noisy in here. When I’m working I don’t notice it, but it’s difficult to have any sort of conversation … shall we go outside – that’s if you are quite happy to talk with me … but perhaps you would rather I didn’t bother you?’

‘You’re certainly not bothering me,’ Wes assured her, hurriedly, ‘In fact I feel privileged to have your company all to myself – but let me buy drinks and we can take them out to the rear deck space with us.’

‘Taking drinks is a great idea,’ Anabelita agreed, ‘but you won’t need to buy them. After what you have done tonight you will not need to pay for any more drinks while you are on board the
Missouri Belle.
’

It would appear that someone had already briefed the bartender in the saloon. Pouring generous quantities of bourbon into two glasses, he passed them across the bar to Wes, explaining, ‘These come with the compliments of the company, sir. We all appreciate what you did for Anabelita. She’s very popular with all of us. Despite the complaint by the Senator’s son, she doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body.’

‘Thanks, I’ll tell her what you’ve said about her. She’ll be well-pleased.’

Anabelita had chosen to sit in an open-sided deck-space behind the saloon. Above it was the top deck of the paddle-steamer, where the pilots’ house was situated.

The only light here came from the night sky, through the open sides. The lack of lanterns was intended to deter mosquitoes and other night insects that might otherwise be attracted to them.

Anabelita was waiting for him in one of two comfortable seats placed close to the stern rail. Here, noises from the saloon and the tinkling of an out of tune piano being played on another deck of the vessel were lost in the sound made by the paddle-wheel at the stern of the
Missouri Belle
as it thrashed the muddy waters of the river into a foaming wake.

There were possibly a half-dozen others sharing the deck space, but their features were lost in the darkness, their conversations impossible to be heard.

Placing a drink in Anabelita’s hand, Wes warned her, ‘I don’t know how used you are to hard liquor, but I should take it easy with this one. The bartender is obviously a fan of yours, he’s given us both enough to floor anyone not too used to drinking.’

Her teeth showing white in the darkness, Anabelita replied, ‘That will be Frank. He takes a fatherly interest in me – as he did with the girl from whom Lola took over as a croupier. Sometimes, if it was quiet out here when we closed the tables the three of us would sit here for a while to slow down – and watch the sun come up if it had been a particularly long night.’

‘How did you come to be gambling on a riverboat in the first place?’ Wes asked. It was more to make conversation than for any other reason. Lola had already told him how Anabelita’s career had begun.

‘That’s a very good question,’ she replied ruefully. ‘As a young girl I thought I was going to be a schoolteacher. At least, that’s what my mother always told me. She was teaching in a Mexican school in California when she and my pa met up.’

‘I believe your pa was already a gambler then?’

There was just enough light for Wes to see her head jerk up in surprise at his question. Then Anabelita asked, ‘Was it Lola who told you about my pa being a gambling man?’

‘Yes, she’s been wanting to introduce you and me ever since
we boarded the boat. She’s really taken with you.’

‘Lola is a nice person,’ Anabelita commented. ‘All she ever needed from life was to be given a break. She has it now and I believe she’ll make the most of it … but to get back to your question, yes, my pa was a gambler all his life. He knew every gambling trick in the book – and a few more he had thought up for himself. Yet, in the main, he was honest. He taught me that it isn’t necessary to cheat. By studying the way a man plays his cards for a couple of hands it is possible to learn enough about him to beat him nine hands out of ten. Those odds were good enough for him and they are good enough for me too.’

‘You still haven’t told me why
you’re
gambling on a riverboat instead of teaching school in California,’ Wes pointed out.

There was a long pause before Anabelita said, ‘When I was sixteen my ma died and it hit pa hard. It took him a couple of years to recover, by which time we had lost just about everything, so he began travelling – and took me with him. When we found a respectable town I would join in a card game or two, but we would never stay long. Folk don’t take to gamblers especially successful ones. Besides, most money was to be made in and around mining towns, where it was “easy come, easy go”. Unfortunately, saloons in mining towns aren’t the sort of places frequented by “nice” young women, especially women who like nothing better than to sit down at a table with a pack of cards, taking money from men like the Senator’s son you took care of for me tonight. The result was that pa eventually took me off to stay with one of his sisters who ran a respectable boarding-house in St Louis, but I didn’t stay there for long.’

When Anabelita fell silent, Wes prompted, ‘Where’s your pa now?’

‘He’s gone to join my mother.’

From something in her voice, Wes felt he was about to hear something she was not in the habit of talking about very often. He was right.

‘Pa died a while ago, shot after an argument in a gambling saloon in a small town in Texas. He didn’t carry a gun.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Wes said sympathetically. ‘That must have hit you very hard.’

‘It did, but it was only the beginning of my troubles …’

Pausing to down a deep swig of her drink, Anabelita continued, ‘My aunt was a pillar of her local church who had never approved of the fact that my mother was a Mexican Catholic. When she found me playing cards for money with some of her boarders she made the men involved move out of the house and find somewhere else to board. By then the money my pa had been giving her for my board and keep had run out, so she told me to leave too. I think that was the happiest day of her life.’

Wes detected the bitterness in her voice and was almost afraid to put his next question to her because he was not sure he wanted to hear her answer. Nevertheless, he asked, ‘What did you do then?’

‘One of the men who stayed at my aunt’s house whenever he was in St Louis was a Mississippi river pilot. He was one of those I would play cards with. He told me about the gambling saloons on boats like this one and said the riverboat companies were always looking for young women to act as croupiers. I approached the steamboat company, told them what he had said and who he was, and they took me on for a trial onboard the
Missouri Belle
. I’ve been here ever since.’

‘Well, you’re obviously a great success,’ Wes said. ‘That can be seen by the number of men who prefer playing at your table to any of the others … but where do you go from here,
Anabelita? How do you see your future?’

‘None of us can predict the future, Wes,’ Anabelita replied. ‘Right now I am working at something I know and enjoy … at least, I do for most of the time. I also have free board and lodging, earn commission on the money I take at the tables and am able to save more than I could by working anywhere else. I don’t think beyond that … but my drink has just about gone and yours must be too. Let me go and fetch you another.’

‘No, you stay here and enjoy having nothing to do. I’ll go and get them….’

CHAPTER 9

When Wes woke the following morning the cabin was in darkness, although it was apparent from the curtained window that it was daylight outside.

His head felt heavy, his temples were throbbing and it took him some minutes to gather his befuddled thoughts together and realize that part of his disorientation came from the fact that he was not in his own cabin. He became aware at the same time that he was not alone in the bunk.

The body beside him stirred and the faint aroma of perfume brought memories of the events of the previous evening flooding back to him.

At that moment his sleeping partner galvanized into life. Sitting up abruptly, Anabelita groaned before saying, ‘This was not meant to happen!’

The bunk was hardly the size of a single bed and as Wes struggled to sit up too he was aware that his sleeping partner was wearing no more clothes than was he.

Embarrassed, he said, ‘I … I’m sorry, it must have been the drink.’

‘Thank you very much!’ Anabelita said, indignantly, ‘You
certainly know how to make a woman feel better about giving her all to a man.’

‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that …’ Wes was floundering and he knew it, ‘I’m just … I’m trying to say “sorry”, that’s all.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? Just what exactly are you sorry about?’

‘Well … for forcing myself upon you, I suppose.’

Falling backwards to lie with her head upon the pillow once more, Anabelita said, ‘If I quoted that in a courtroom do you think they would accept it as an admission of rape?’

He realized – or hoped he did – that she was teasing him now and he responded accordingly. ‘I can’t imagine a judge and jury of healthy, virile men taking my word against yours, so if that’s what you intend doing I’d best be heading back to my cabin and getting ready to leave the
Missouri Belle
at its next call, which should be any time now.’

As he was speaking he had swung his legs out of the bunk with the bed-sheet concealing the lower half of his body. In the dim light from the curtained window he could see his clothes. Some were on a chair beside the dressing-table, others being strewn on the floor nearby.

There was no way he could recover them whilst still retaining a degree of modesty. He had just decided that modesty was a lost cause anyway, when Anabelita said, ‘Are you really sorry you made love to me?’

Momentarily taken aback by the question, Wes hesitated before asking, ‘Can I be perfectly honest with you?’

‘I would prefer it if you were.’

Despite her words, Anabelita sounded uncertain and Wes felt his reply was of some importance to her.

‘No, Anabelita, I’m not sorry for what we did together – and I never will be, whatever happens in the future – but I will feel
guilty if you regret what happened.’

‘So it
wasn’t
just because you had too much to drink,’ she persisted.

‘No … but the drink did give me the courage I needed to make the first move.’

‘I don’t believe that! You are not lacking in courage in anything. The fight with the river pirates and the way you dealt with the Senator’s son is proof of that, but if that’s what you think you need, I’ll make sure there is always a bottle of bourbon here, in my cabin …’

At that moment their conversation was interrupted by a long blast on the riverboat’s steam-whistle. It was followed by a succession of shorter blasts.

‘We must be approaching Memphis,’ Wes said. Forsaking all modesty now, he relinquished the bed-sheet, made a dive for his clothes and hurriedly began to dress.

‘What’s the hurry?’ Anabelita asked the question as she sat up in the bunk and watched him dressing, unabashed by the fact that she was naked from the waist up, ‘You are not leaving the boat at Memphis.’

‘No, but a US Marshal from Arkansas, across the river is going to be there to speak to Aaron – and he wants me to meet up with him.’

‘Why?’

Wes was almost fully dressed now and aware of her own nakedness, Anabelita pulled the cotton sheet up about her breasts as she waited for his reply.

‘Aaron believes the marshal might be able to help me find work, or at least tell me what’s happening on the mines in Missouri, where I’m heading. I believe Arkansas has a border with that State.’

‘It’s more likely that Aaron is hoping this marshal will help him persuade you to become a deputy Federal Marshal,’
Anabelita said, ‘He thinks you would make a good lawman … and so do I. You’re not a killer as many so-called lawmen are, and you can deal with difficult men – as you proved last night.’

Pulling on his boots to complete his dress, Wes glanced up to give Anabelita an arch look, ‘Ah … but I don’t suppose I could expect a similar reward every time I did something like that.’

His remark failed to provoke a response in a similar vein. Her eyes widened in disbelief and she demanded angrily, ‘Is that why you think I let you make love to me? As a reward? Do you honestly believe I have so little regard for my body – and my self-esteem – that I would offer it to anyone who does something for me? Is that what you think?’

Aware that his unthinking and tasteless joke had not been well-received, Wes said hurriedly, ‘Of course not, it was meant to be a joke, but it wasn’t in very good taste. I’m sorry … I truly am.’

She was only partially mollified but just then the
Missouri
Belle
’s whistle emitted another discordant and ear-splitting shriek and the riverboat slowed noticeably.

Hurriedly jumping to his feet, Wes said, ‘I really must go now, Anabelita. As soon as we get underway again I’d like to have a chat with you … about us. You and me.’

‘You mean … you want to give me another opportunity to show how grateful I am to you.’

Looking pained, Wes replied, ‘It meant a lot more than that to me, Anabelita – and so do you, I think you know that. But I really must go now.’

He could hear members of the riverboat’s crew shouting and indistinct distant replies. Hurriedly crossing the cabin floor to where she was sitting up in the bunk, he kissed her.

The kiss lingered for longer than he had intended, but a
renewed outbreak of shouting from outside caused him to straighten up.

Looking down at her he said, ‘I’m a very lucky man, Anabelita. I would like to stay that way.’

Hurrying to the cabin door, he opened it – and was gone.

Behind him, Anabelita sank back on the pillow. When she thought of what Wes had said, and what had happened between them she smiled … and it was a contented smile.