Gambler's Tempting Kisses Page 6

  Leavenworth bustled around them as they approached the Planters Hotel. Shops of every kind lined both sides of Delaware Street—the Western Candy Factory, Flescher Dry Goods, a dentist, a tailor’s shop, and dozens of other businesses kept her busy reading their signs. “Quite a place,” she said as she watched people striding along the plank sidewalks. “As busy as Jefferson City.”

  “It’s a fitting-out town for wagon trains and people headed west to homestead,” Devereau explained. He nodded to a comely woman who was watching him from the bookstore, and then smiled over at his bedraggled companion. “Leavenworth’s the last town where you can buy all the necessities for a new life on the plains. Thousands of people make their down payments on a dream here.”

  Exhausted as she was, Charity still thought the life Dillon described sounded terribly exciting. When they arrived at the Planters, however, there wasn’t time for daydreaming. Papa hurried her along after he got them a room for the night.

  “Devereau had his nerve, insisting we stay here,” he groused as he hefted their suitcases to the landing. “I should’ve known that dandy would choose the most expensive—”

  “Hush! He’s probably right behind us,” Charity hissed. She turned the key in their door, then couldn’t help gaping at the lovely room. The twin bedsteads were carved walnut, as were the marble-topped dresser and washstand. The brass light fixture gleamed above a round table with two chairs, and the striped rug had the same colors as the Japanese screen and the pictures on the walls, which were hung with fancy tassled ropes.

  “It’s only for one night, so don’t take on any airs, daughter,” Papa warned her. He swung, the luggage onto the nearest bed, scowling at the furniture. “It’s ludicrous to spend so much for a night’s sleep, when—”

  “And ungrateful to keep harping about it, when Mr. Devereau can probably hear every word you’re saying.” Charity fully expected him to deliver a sermon about children respecting their parents, but she was too hot and hungry to care. She took her blue gingham dress from her suitcase and shook it, then arranged the tall folding screen so she could have some privacy at the washstand.

  Except for her splashing and the street noises drifting in through the open window, the room was quiet. She heard the door to the next room open and close, and it occurred to her that after tomorrow, she would never see Dillon Devereau again. He hadn’t spoken of his own reasons for coming to Leavenworth, and telling him good-bye seemed as disappointing as not seeing Aunt Maggie and her house, even though she hardly knew him. Charity

  recalled his kisses wistfully, and she had to button her gingham dress a second time.

  There was a knock at the door and her father answered it. “I know you’re wanting to get to the cemetery, so I brought you these sandwiches,” she heard Dillon say. “You can take the wagon, and if I’m not in when you get back tonight, I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  Charity was pulling her hair back into a ribbon, and she stepped out from behind the screen. “How thoughtful—and lemonade!” she exclaimed. She gave him a grateful smile, wishing she hadn’t been so angry with him this morning. “I—I’m sorry you’ve come all this way with us for nothing. Or do you have business here?”

  Dillon smiled slyly. “Yes, but it has to wait until tomorrow when the stores are open again.”

  His gaze was so devilish Charity didn’t ask how he planned to spend the evening. She took a big bite out of one of the roast pork sandwiches. “This is delicious. Thank you again, Mr. Devereau.”

  With another smile and a nod to her father, he returned to his room. Papa finished buttoning his shirt and then glanced out the window. “We’ll have to take the sandwiches along, if we’re to read the names on the headstones before dark. I suppose Devereau charged this food to our bill.”

  “Papa, really!” Charity took a long drink from a glass of the freshest, coolest lemonade she’d ever tasted, and then glared at him. “So far Mr. Devereau has clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and given us his own bed. If you criticize him for helping us this way, aren’t you criticizing Christ himself?”

  Papa looked ready to lash out at her, but then his bruised grimace relaxed. “I suppose you have a point,” he said glumly. “I should be in a more charitable mood as we prepare to visit your mother. But it’s so frustrating to know . . . let’s go, daughter. The light’s fading even as we speak.”

  The ride to the cemetery was quiet. Charity knew her father felt as forlorn as she did about this whole wasted trip, yet as they approached the arched stone gateway, other thoughts crowded out her disappointment. The moment had come, the moment she’d dreaded since the arrival of Aunt Maggie’s letter, and she had to accept her mother’s death . . . had to look at the rectangular patch of earth, and read the final words inscribed over her remains. She’d sung at dozens of funerals and had never been comfortable watching the agony that always accompanied the ecstasy over another soul going home to God. This was Mama, sorely missed and always, always loved despite the distance in miles and years between them.

  Papa’s face was somber as he helped her from the wagon. They paused to survey the rows of white and gray monuments casting long, slender shadows in the sunset. “Seems we should look for a fresh mound,” her father murmured. “We’ll have to go stone by stone. She’ll probably be near a marker that says Powers.”

  Charity nodded, shading her eyes with her hand. They walked along, moving slowly enough to read the tombstones. A breeze riffled the cedar trees, creating a whisper that made her think souls and spirits were flying around them in the dusk.

  Up one row and down the next, they mumbled the names but said nothing more. Despite her satisfying sandwich, she felt queasy as they came to the last two rows. “You don’t suppose she’d be in that mausoleum? The only recent graves we’ve seen belong to two old men.”

  Papa glanced toward the small marble building and shook his head. “The carving over the door says Zimmerman, and I never heard her mention that name in her letters. I don’t recall that Erroll has any family in town either.”

  When they resumed their search, Charity found herself holding her breath and walking faster past the headstones. Mama had to be along here . . . her heart pounded as they started up the final row, going almost at a trot in the fading light. But all the names were carved quite clearly, and none of them were Marcella Scott.

  The lines around Papa’s eyes deepened visibly. He shaded his brow with his hand and surveyed the rest of the cemetery property, and when his gaze came to rest on a few simple crosses in the far corner, he said, “There’s the potter’s field, but surely they wouldn’t have . . .”

  Without a word Charity took his hand and they walked quickly toward the only remaining gravestones. Some were initialed and some were only smooth, round rocks—graves of drifters and vagrants, she was guessing—and she knew that Mama wasn’t among them. “Let’s go,” she whispered. “There must be an explanation.”

  “We’ll find the sexton first thing in the morning,” Papa declared.

  His voice rang with purpose, yet the hand he placed on her back was trembling as they walked toward the wagon. Charity was too stunned to speak during the ride to town, and rather than be alone in the hotel room she stayed with her father while he drove the wagon to the livery stable. Where was Mama? She’d heard Aunt Maggie’s letter a dozen times, and the colored maid had directed them to the only cemetery she’d seen in Leavenworth, so why was everything going wrong? Instead of having answers to these heart-wrenching questions, Charity had only a sense of deep, aching emptiness.

  After they climbed the hotel stairs, she heard a mournful tune being played on some sort of primitive flute in Dillon’s room, and she went to the balcony to let the music soothe her. Once outside, she sat on a wicker settee and felt the evening air settling around her as the flute sang to her very soul. Devereau’s plans must have fallen through, yet Charity doubted the cavalier gambler would be so desperate for entertainment that he’d be playing such a sad song. Curiou
s, she stood up to peek through his open window.

  By the light from his chandelier, she saw Dillon and three other men playing cards at a table. They were in their shirtsleeves, and as one of the men poured whiskey into their glasses, Papa stepped out onto the balcony. Charity moved away quickly, but catching sight of the flute player scared her more than any lecture about eavesdropping her father could deliver. He was the biggest, darkest Indian she’d ever seen, and hanging from the belt of his buckskins was a tomahawk with a buffalo head carved into the handle.

  Chapter 5

  “Charity, I told you this infatuation with Devereau can only lead to—”

  “Papa, it’s him!” she rasped. “It’s the Indian who killed Mama!”

  Her father scowled, then he joined her at staring into Dillon’s room. As he put a hand on her shoulder, Charity felt a jolt of angry recognition go through his body. “Didn’t I tell you Devereau was in league with the devil? That savage—”

  Charity sucked in her breath when the Indian stopped playing his flute and gazed haughtily at them. “Papa, no! Surely Dillon can explain—”

  But her father was striding into the hotel to confront the redskin, so all she could do was hurry after him. Papa barged into Devereau’s room by throwing open the door so hard it slammed against the wall. The poker players jumped in their seats and then glared, until Dillon laid his cards face down on the table and stood up. “Reverend Scott, I’m pleased you’re here, because I’ve—”

  “You’ve lied to us, that’s what you’ve done!” Noah shouted. “You’ve known this murderer all along, yet you didn’t have the decency to tell us about—”

  “This man’s no killer,” Dillon stated firmly. “He’s my friend Jackson Blue, and I was as surprised as you are to find him in town. And these are my friends Enos Rumley, Sol Goldstein, and B. C. Clark,” he continued, gesturing toward each man at the table. “Men, meet the Reverend Noah Scott and his daughter, Charity.”

  The poker players nodded curtly while Jackson Blue stepped over to extend a huge, dark hand to Papa. He gave Charity a sly once-over and winked, but she was too frightened to do anything except stare at him. Mr. Blue reminded her of a tall, solid tree. His skin was a color she’d never seen—almost ebony, with a brick-red sheen. And rather than being braided, his hair was a tight mass of blue-black curls. He was smiling at her, yet a scar stretching from his temple to the base of his neck gave him a sinister air Charity disliked immediately.

  “I’m pleased to meet you both,” he said. His voice was deep and resonant, and when he saw that her father wasn’t going to shake his hand, he lowered it. “Dillon tells me you’ve come to Leavenworth looking for your wife, Mr. Scott, but I’m afraid I can’t be much—”

  “Don’t give me that, you lying heathen,” Noah barked. “Your very soul is soaked with her innocent blood—”

  “Noah, please,” Dillon interrupted. “I think we’re all civil enough to settle this misunderstanding without getting ourselves thrown out of the hotel. When I told Jackson about your letter, he recalled galloping down the street with a woman named Maggie, but that was years ago, and—”

  “How can you cover for this murdering savage when—”

  Charity gasped as Jackson Blue grabbed her father by the shoulders and lifted him at least a foot from the floor. “I’ve never so much as met a Marcella Scott,” he said as he brought Papa’s face within inches of his own. “And I resent being called a savage and a heathen when I’m a baptized Methodist. You’d do well to listen to Mr. Devereau’s explanation instead of spouting off like a damn teakettle, Mr. Scott. Unless you’d like me to shut that other eye for you.”

  The sight of her father dangling helplessly in the Indian’s grasp made her knees go weak, and Charity was relieved that Papa had enough sense to be quiet. She, and the men at the table, breathed considerably easier when the buckskinned scout set his victim on the floor again.

  “As Dillon was saying,” Mr. Blue continued calmly, “I’ve just gotten back from escorting a wagon train west, and I was having a drink with our friends here when Devereau happened along. If I could see that letter, perhaps we can solve this mystery. I can understand how frustrated you and your daughter must feel, but I refuse to be called a killer without the chance to refute your ridiculous accusations.”

  That this rugged, intimidating man could speak with such educated fluency amazed Charity somewhat. Apparently Papa was surprised, too, yet as he reached into his shirt pocket for the tattered page, he was watching Mr. Blue warily. “Get the photograph from your suitcase, Charity. It’s best we settle this while we have witnesses.”

  He unfolded the letter and read the salutation aloud, until Jackson’s hand closed around the page. “I can read, thank you,” he said stiffly.

  Papa surrendered the page, and when he saw that she was still watching from the doorway, he jerked his head toward their room. As Charity returned with the photograph, Mr. Blue was leaning against the marble-topped dresser, reading the last of her aunt’s letter to himself. He shook his head as he refolded the paper. “Maggie’s got her faults, but lack of imagination certainly isn’t one of them,” he said with a secretive grin.

  “You know Magnolia Powers?” her father demanded.

  Jackson laughed. “Yes, but her name’s Wallace. And with your daughter present, I don’t think we should discuss the nature of my acquaintance with her.”

  Charity nearly dropped the photograph in her disgust. “Aunt Maggie’s been married to Uncle Erroll for more than—”

  “Erroll Powers? He’s a crooked lawyer for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Has his hand in the till,” the Indian replied matter-of-factly, “and he’s definitely not the marrying kind. Sort of like Devereau here.”

  Dillon was following the conversation as closely as his poker partners were, but he sensed things would get ugly if he allowed Blue’s baiting to continue. From what he and Jackson could piece together before the Scotts rushed in, there was something terribly amiss—and more decadent than he cared to imagine—going on with Charity’s mother, and he didn’t want her to be needlessly humiliated. She looked pitifully vulnerable standing in his doorway, clutching the photograph as though one more lash from Jackson’s brash tongue might knock her over.

  “Let’s stick to the subject of Marcella Scott,” Devereau said pointedly. “And let’s remember that her daughter and husband have spent several days on the river, anticipating a visit with a consumptive Aunt Maggie and preparing themselves to visit Marcella’s grave.”

  Charity’s throat tightened as Dillon approached her. “We didn’t find it,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  Devereau’s heart went out to her, and all he could think of to say was, “Perhaps if we show Jackson the picture, there’s a simple explanation for all this.”

  She handed him the photograph and moved closer to Papa, because Jackson Blue’s expression hinted at a situation too scandalous to think about. The colored maid had told them Maggie and Erroll were traveling, despite what Mama’s letters had described as her aunt’s imminent death from tuberculosis, and now this giant Indian was saying Maggie went by her maiden name, and that she wasn’t married to Powers at all. And Charity still didn’t know where her mother was.

  “That’s Powers, all right,” Jackson said as he nodded at the picture. “And that’s Maggie—twice, unless this whiskey’s making me see double.”

  “They’re twins,” Papa explained, although his voice lacked its usual conviction. “Marcella is seated, and Maggie is at her husband’s side.”

  Mr. Blue continued to study the photograph, his dusky eyes sparkling. “Maggie Wallace is not a married woman, and she spends her days relieving Erroll of his wealth—if you know what I mean. And if she had a twin sister . . . Lord, what a time we would’ve had—”

  “That’s enough!” Dillon interrupted. “The Scotts are trying to—”

  “If you think I’ll let you insult my wife’s memory—or her sister,” Noah began angrily, “then
I’ll have you arrested for—”

  “I’m telling you she’s not your wife, or anybody else’s. She’s a—”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Dillon insisted as he stepped between Scott and Blue. He was about to motion to his partners to grab them, but a flying fist sent him sprawling onto the rug, clutching his nose. Blood spurted between his fingers, and he rolled out of the way before five sets of feet caught him up in the fray. If Scott was too stupid to know Jackson Blue could overpower him, Dillon wasn’t about to defend him again. Especially since he suspected it was Noah’s misguided fist that had struck him.

  Charity rushed to Dillon’s side and snatched his handkerchief from his pocket. As she held the square of linen to his nose, she glanced nervously at the men who were trying to subdue her father and Jackson Blue. “What should I do? The manager’ll kick us out—or Papa could get killed!”

  Devereau winced when Jackson freed himself of Rumley and Clark by banging them against the wall. Then the Indian brandished his tomahawk with a leer. “That thick head of hair would look mighty fine in my collection, Mr. Preacher Man,” he said in a menacing voice.

  Dillon groaned, grabbing Charity before she bolted. “Just stay out of their way, and I’ll pay for the damages. Your father’s only letting off steam, and Blue has yet to use that hatchet on anybody, so—”

  There was a smashing of glass beside them that made Charity whimper. The photograph had landed face down on the floor, and she snatched it out of the scuffle just before her father broke away from Sol Goldstein and overturned the poker table onto Jackson’s moccasined feet. The wooden picture frame fell into two pieces, revealing the photographer’s engraving in the bottom corner. She glanced at Dillon, who was wiping the last of the blood from his face. “It says E. E. Henry of Leavenworth took this picture. Is he still in business?”