Iron Ties Part 7

As they approached the Texas House Saloon, a louder than usual array of hoots and hollers sounded from within. The saloon's double doors slammed open, and the building disgorged a three-piece bra.s.s band-trombone, trumpet, and cornet. Inez caught a glimpse of crystal chandeliers swinging wildly within while the players lined up by the entrance. They marched in place, feet thundering enough to shake the boardwalk. Settling on a beat, they broke into a jaunty version of "Camptown Races."

A nattily dressed figure appeared at the door, derby hat askew. Inez recognized the casekeeper for the house's faro table as he bellowed, "Big winner at the faro table, and the drinks are on the house! Come try your luck, boys. The moon is right and the cards are generous. Be the next to rake in a Texas-sized fortune here in Leadville! Afore you know it, you'll be counting your silver, smoking cee-gars with Haw Tabor-Colorado's Lieutenant Governor and Leadville's own-and chattin' up the actresses in the opry house."

A pet.i.te woman emerged from behind him, short skirts displaying shapely knees. The casekeeper, no doubt awash with inspiration, continued, "Why, the next winner might even coax a kiss from our sweet little waiter-girl here, Molly."

"Name's Camille, dammit!" shrieked the waiter-girl, not so sweetly. With a ferocious swing, she clopped his derby off his head.

Derby, waiter-girl, and casekeeper disappeared from sight as the boardwalk crowd stampeded the saloon. As they waited aside for the crush to pa.s.s, Sands asked Inez, "How about it, Mrs. Stannert? Want to try your hand at a game of chance? Gentleman says the moon is right."

She snorted, holding her long skirts close with one hand to keep them from being trampled. "Buck the tiger at the Texas House? Faro's not my game. And particularly not when I'm standing on the far side of the table. Besides, I hear they sand the cards."

"Reverend." A hoa.r.s.e voice rattled behind her.

Sands dropped her hand and spun around. Heart thudding, Inez whirled to confront a cadaverous face, way too close for comfort. Despite a night temperature close to freezing, he was sweating. Gloveless fingers danced up and down the front of a fashionable but filthy coat as if counting the b.u.t.tons to be sure they were all there. His eyes were shiny, and the skin around them looked paper-thin and ready to tear. He had the air of a desperate man, preparing himself for desperate measures.

Inez slid her hand into her pocket, and curled it around the comforting grip of her Remington Smoot Number Two revolver.

Cracked lips, surrounded by an ill-kempt beard, parted. A shaky voice emerged. "Sorry if I startled...." His gaze jittered away from Inez's face and he seemed to drift off, lost, until his gaze anch.o.r.ed on Reverend Sands. "Reverend. I, I-" he licked his lips feverishly. "I need help." Tears welled up.

Reverend Sands gripped the man's upper arm, a gesture of support and comfort. "Hold on. Weston Croy? Do I remember your name right?"

He nodded.

Staying in the shadow, Inez drifted to the side to get a clear view of the man. She kept her hand on the revolver in her pocket, watching him for sign of a gun or knife.

Sands was talking low, his words rapid, intense. Inez caught "-Monday. Do you have a place to stay until then?"

Weston shook his head, drying his face on a coat sleeve.

"Go to the Exchange Hotel on Front Street. Tell them I sent you." Sands dug into his coat pocket and thrust a crumpled-up currency note into the man's palm. "This should tide you over."

"How can I repay-"

"You repay me when you get home." He squeezed Weston's arm, which looked to be stick-thin. "Just show up Monday. The office is behind the church."

Weston headed unsteadily toward Front Street, his shoulders hunched as if winter breathed down his soiled collar.

Sands watched until Weston was out of sight, then reached for Inez's hand, still firmly anch.o.r.ed in her pocket. "Thanks for watching my back, but that's one you won't have to shoot." He shook his head. "Mr. Croy came from back east. His story's unclear. He talks about the war as if it was yesterday. Talks about building bridges, finding his wife. Why he thinks she's in Leadville...." Sands shook his head. "More likely he came here thinking to make an easy fortune and tripped over the easy vices in town. Lost his way and any funds he brought with him. An all too common story. Unfortunately."

"I'd venture lack of money's not Weston Croy's only problem," said Inez, remembering his jittery manner and strange shiny eyes.

When Sands didn't respond, Inez examined his expression. Even after nearly six months in his company, it still amazed her how quickly and completely his demeanor could shift to match the circ.u.mstances. One minute, the compa.s.sionate minister. The next...the warmth in his face was gone, replaced by an expression that was harder, colder. A frown burrowed between his drawn-together eyebrows. Other lines ran down both sides of his nose to guard his mouth. Times like this, he seemed a different person entirely. A stranger.

She shivered.

Sands shrugged, tossing off whatever dark thoughts occupied his mind. He caught her gaze and involuntary shiver. His expression softened. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

She hugged his arm a little closer. "No ghost. I was thinking, I didn't see you much this week. Last time you walked me home was last Sat.u.r.day night."

"I've been busy. Near the end of the strike, it looked like touch and go whether it would turn violent. Fool thing for the governor to call out martial law. Could have turned the strike into a bloodbath. I spent a solid day with the men from Silver Mountain, trying to convince them that pulling the trigger was like asking to die. Then, there were the usual rounds. Down to South Arkansas, up to Kokomo, calling around town on those I haven't seen the last few Sundays. Meetings with the other town clergy about the building of the city's poorhouse. Our own efforts to finish the mission at the bottom of State Street. The strike put a crimp in our plans to have it done by the time the railroad arrives. Meetings. More meetings. To say nothing of," he groaned, "an overly long one regarding the pews. A meeting which nearly ended in blows."

"Well, what do you expect? The pews mysteriously start to split and fall to pieces and one lumber dealer accuses the other of selling the church green, inferior wood. The accused cries slander. Before you know it, they're both defending their honor and trying to sell new pews to the church."

They turned from Harrison onto Fourth. The streetlamps, which marched down the main streets of town, quit at the corner. Moon and stars provided the only illumination, touching the nearby mountain range with pale shadows beneath the inked-out sky. Inez's small, one-story house waited near the end of the block.

The reverend's arm slid from Inez's grasp and circled her waist. "Well, I'm not complaining. Any job that keeps me close to you will do."

Inez glanced at the dark windows lining both sides of the streets. Two in the morning, no faces at the windows. Relax, she ordered herself. Yet she only felt safe from prying eyes once they mounted the two short steps to her front door.

As she fiddled with the door key, he moved his hand from her waist to cradle the back of her neck.

"Are you inviting me in tonight?" His voice was as warm as his touch.

Inez pushed the door open and paused at the brink of darkness, turning her head to smile at him. "Don't I always?"

She touched one gloved finger to his lips, pleased to see that the hard lines on his face had melted away.

Inside, she removed her cloak and hat and hung them on the curved branches of the coatrack. In her small parlor left of the entryway, moonlight flowed through lace curtains, silvering the crystal decanter of brandy on the sideboard and the ivory keys of her parlor grand. Inez stripped off her gloves and started toward the piano, thinking of the Bach sonata Taps had played earlier.

Sands grabbed her hand and pulled her close. "No music. Not tonight."

Moving in a pattern reminiscent of a slow waltz, he reversed her course, stepping her out of the parlor and across the hall until her bedroom door was at her back, the bra.s.s doork.n.o.b pressing against her right hip. As they kissed, Inez slid her left hand from his shoulder, down his chest, to his waistcoat. She began undoing the black b.u.t.tons, one by one.

He pulled back, gazing at her in a way guaranteed to take her breath away. "I can think of more comfortable places to continue this dance."

Inez pressed against him, taking her weight from the pine panels. She snaked one hand behind to reach the doork.n.o.b, grasped it, and turned.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The feather bed lurched beneath Inez, the sudden movement bringing her out of a deep sleep. She flung out an arm, only to have it fall on the empty, still-warm spot beside her.

Inez bolted upright, dizzy from abrupt awakening, and stared around the dim room. Still tangled in a web of dreams, she thought she saw her husband Mark, crouched by the bed, gun trained on the door.

The line between sleeping and waking worlds shifted. Her Leadville bedroom snapped into focus as Reverend Sands rose from his crouch and sat slowly onto the edge of the bed, breathing hard. He laid the Colt on the bedside table with care as if, at the slightest jarring, it might fire without human aid. He lowered his head into his hands with a groan.

A shard of moonlight slipped between the roller shade and window frame, painting a thin stripe along the left side of his back. The muscles along his shoulder blades bunched and stretched as he kneaded his face. The m.u.f.fled voice that emerged was raw with desperation.

"Christ. I need a drink."

Inez exhaled, trying to calm her jangling nerves. She reached out, gently touched one of the silvered scars that crisscrossed his back, intending comfort. He jerked away. When he twisted to look at her, she had the feeling that, for a moment, he couldn't remember who she was or how he came to be in her bed.

Without a word, he reached to the foot of the bedstead and extracted the woolen drawers looped over the bedpost. Sands pulled them on and b.u.t.toned them in a quick, fluid motion then padded silently over to the heating stove in the corner of the room. He hooked the grate open, poked among the ashes, and said irritably, "Cold." He slammed the door shut. "Why are there never the makings of a fire around here?"

She bit back a retort, knowing his distress had nothing to do with the cold ashes and lack of coal.

He padded back across the room and disappeared into the hall.

Inez listened hard, but detected no clink of gla.s.s on gla.s.s, no rising notes of descending liquid. Sands reappeared in the doorway with one of her brandy snifters and headed for her washstand. Inez could barely make him out in the gloom as he picked up her water pitcher and filled his gla.s.s. Clutching the edge of the flannel duvet, she watched as he downed gla.s.s after gla.s.s of water, tossing them back in a way that, if it were whiskey, she would've been certain he drank to forget.

She finally spoke, her words loud in the silence. "Drowning one's sorrows usually requires something stronger than water."

He refilled the goblet and brought it to the nightstand. "Anything stronger, I might just as well put a bullet in my brain and be done with it." He eased onto the bed and leaned back against the solid wood headboard.

"Bad dream?"

He reached for her hand, entwined his fingers tight with hers. "Worse than bad. It must've been seeing Preston Holt again. All the talk of the war."

She scooted closer, settled her head on his chest. His skin still had the lingering coolness of drying sweat. She rubbed her cheek against the ridge of muscle overlaying his ribs. "Talking it out might help."

She felt his chest rise and fall in a long sigh. Then abruptly, "Judith. Did I ever mention her?"

Inez nodded. Once, he'd shown her an ambrotype of himself and his older sister. Their likenesses, forever captured as children, were framed in his pocket.w.a.tch casing. She added, "You said she was everything to you after your parents died. And that she pa.s.sed away during the war."

His grip tightened on her hand. "When she died, I vowed to kill a thousand Johnny Rebs to even the score. But not even killing Lee himself could have brought me peace."

"I thought she died of a fever."

"Judith was a casualty of war." His voice sounded m.u.f.fled, sorrowful to her ear. "She was caught spying for the Union. They-" he hesitated, then drew her closer, tighter, "left her where we'd be sure to find her." Sands brushed Inez's hair away from her cheek, an absent caress. "Judith was still alive when I found her. I was there when she...." His voice trailed off. His hand stilled. He finally said, more to himself than to her, "I never could resolve what happened to her with the idea of a just and merciful G.o.d."

Inez wondered which way to turn the conversation in the dark, which branch of the suddenly open road to take. Finally she ventured, "Why did she become a spy?"

"Judith had strong beliefs about the war. After our parents died, we were shuffled among relatives on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. We saw the economics, the realities. Heard talk of states' rights, federalism, abolition, and freethinking. After war was declared, she sat me down in the peach orchard of a Maryland uncle and announced that we were going to help the Union. She'd planned it all out, made the necessary connections in Philadelphia where we'd been living. She was eighteen. I was a boy, fourteen and small for my age. I played the parts she gave me, accompanied her back and forth across the line while she-" He stopped. "Did what she set out to do," he concluded softly.

Inez waited, then ventured, "How old were you when she died?"

"Sixteen."

She stroked his chest with her free hand. This time he didn't flinch. "What happened to you after that?"

"I was ordered to Berdan's Sharpshooters, although I begged to be sent to the front lines. Those in charge must have sensed I was in the mood for suicide. Probably thought keeping me a distance from the enemy would be safer."

"And that's where you met Preston Holt."

"Mmm-hmmm."

"I didn't quite understand. Was he your commanding officer?"

"He taught me to be a soldier. Some of his lessons took. Some didn't."

"What happened after you left the sharpshooters unit?"

Sands stirred. His heartbeat pounded in her ear. "I don't want to talk about it, Inez." He sounded weary. "It only brings the nightmares back."

Inez placed a gentle kiss on his skin and waited to see if more words were forthcoming. She finally snuggled her cheek back against him and asked, "Did you dream of your sister?"

"And others." He released her hand, shifted her head to the pillow. "I'd better go. Morning's coming on."

The dusk outside the window looked the same to her. She reached for him, but he slipped from her grasp and bent to gather his clothes from the floor.

She watched as he dressed. From the nightstand, he gathered his pocket.w.a.tch and chain, then picked up his handkerchief and carefully wrapped its contents.

She flicked a finger at the square of linen. "The...French envelope. Now that was a surprise."

"A welcome one, I hope."

"A...surprise," she said, unwilling to let on how uneasy the condom made her feel. It reminded her of Dodge City, the time she found a package of "male safes" in Mark's pocket, the anger and betrayal she felt when reading the claim stamped on the package: For protection from all private diseases. They were for the actresses, prost.i.tutes. He sure as h.e.l.l didn't use them with me. She'd tried to slam the hotel door in his face while screaming every invective she knew and a few she invented. Threatened to leave him, to stay in Dodge. Mark had wedged his foot in the door, worn her down with his pleading: "Inez, darlin', now don't shut the door, I can explain. Darlin', it's not what you think."

Reverend Sands stowed the cloth away in an inner pocket. "It seemed a reasonable alternative to...." He hesitated. "Frankly, I got tired of you halting in the middle of...." He stopped again. "And counting the days until your 'visitor' was due."

She flushed and crossed her arms protectively over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She'd been unaware that her mental calculations of her monthly cycle had been quite so obvious or that he even knew the discreet terminology used by women. "It's just that they're...not easy to come by." She barely refrained from saying illegal. "Where did you buy them?"

"I have my sources." Done with watch and handkerchief, he gathered up his money clip and a handful of coins and stray objects from the table. A small pale shadow escaped and floated to the bed sheet.

Inez reached over and picked it up. Soft, paper-thin. "What's this?" She rubbed it between her fingers. The subdued scent of rose greeted her.

Sands hunted through the objects in his hand, and delivered a small flower, half the length of her finger. Holding it up to the window and the waning moonlight, Inez divined a single aspen leaf with its stem tied around a much-crumpled wild rose.

"Who gave this to you?"

"Miss Snow."

Inez sat up straight, holding the tiny wilted bouquet. "When?"

Sands transferred the remaining objects to various pockets and began b.u.t.toning his waistcoat. "She slipped it to me when she came back later."

The scent of roses was overpowering. Inez suddenly realized she was crushing the flower. "She came back?"

"Miss Snow and her father stopped by toward the end of the day."

"Why?" Inez fought to keep her tone neutral, suspicion out.

Sands looked down at her as he fastened the last two waistcoat b.u.t.tons. "To extend an invitation to accompany them to the church's Fourth of July picnic."

"And you accepted!" She didn't try to hide the accusatory tone.

Sands sat on the bed, rattling his cufflinks in one hand like a pair of dice. "Inez, I asked you to go with me to that picnic nearly a month ago. You declined last week. Said you had to work that day."

"It's a holiday! And, even though it's a Sunday, we've no choice. It's our best opportunity to make up for the miserable two months we've had during the strike. We lost so much money."

"I know. Profits vanished. Work on the renovation stopped. Wholesale liquor prices increased. You've told me often enough. Now tell me this, Inez. What was I supposed to say to Lowden Snow? He's a top lawyer for the Rio Grande, has a lot of pull in town. I couldn't say no. Particularly when I had no other companion engaged."