Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (3 page)

B
y midafternoon, the upstairs rooms were filled with noise and voices as the women woke up, and the arrival of the Lees’ new baby too early meant that Rosa was called out for her healing skills, meaning Izzy added hairdresser and bodice-lacer to her usual chores. No matter how busy her hands, though, Izzy’s thoughts kept wandering, picking one possibility up to consider it, then setting it aside for another, the need to make a decision weighting her shoulders. Nueva España. The States. Heading north to the Wilds to make her living as a trapper. Settling down in one of the Territory towns, maybe become a storekeeper or marry a farmer. Stay in Flood. Leave Flood forever. Each time she thought she’d come to a decision, then a new thought would wind its way in and tangle the threads again, only now her chest got tight every time she thought of something new, the need to make a decision pressing against her and making it hard to breathe.

“You have wrinkles in your forehead, Izzy.” A tall brunette paused as she walked past the window seat where Izzy had taken refuge for a moment, and reached out to rub at Izzy’s forehead. “Men don’t like girls with worry-lines.”

“Men don’t look that high up,” Izzy retorted, batting at the helping hand. She was trying to fix her hair; a braid was fine for daytime, but she was due on shift soon, and the thick black mass needed to be pinned up neatly.

“Oh, here, let me do that. How someone so nimble with her hands can so muddle a coil, I’ll never understand.” Peggy settled in behind
her, making swift work of rolling the braid up into a neat knot. “There you are.”

Izzy didn’t bother to reach up with a hand to check it; Peggy wouldn’t say it was ready if it wasn’t.

She tilted her head to look up at the older woman. Peggy had come to Flood seven years before, after her husband died. She had to be nearly forty, but despite her sorrow, her face was unlined now and she still laughed easily. Even the hardest customers relaxed when she rested her hand on their shoulder. “Have you ever been East, to the States?” Izzy asked, trying to keep her face equally calm.

“Not me, no.” Peggy didn’t sound surprised by the question, but then, Peggy rarely was surprised by anything. “My brother was born there, but we came out when he was only five.”

Her brother was a road marshal, one of those who settled disputes and kept the daily peace. A hard job, the boss always said, but some folk were born to it, and Tom was one of those. He’d ridden through town last year and visited with them for a while. He didn’t laugh the way his sister did, and kept the six-pointed star pinned inside his vest, but he’d smiled at her and given the young ’uns store-bought candy.

“And west, out to the Spanish lands?”

“Now, why on earth would I want to do that?” Peggy’s hands rested briefly on Izzy’s shoulders, her fingers warm and hard through the cotton of her shawl and dress. “Izzy, dearling, whatever is in that head of yours, with all these questions?”

Izzy looked down at her hands, rubbing fingertips together and feeling the soft calluses there. People came to Flood for a reason. But she hadn’t come here; she’d been brought. What reason did she have to stay? “Just thinking, is all.”

“Well, you think too much and you’ll be late for your shift. Go on; shoo, now.”

Izzy ducked back into her room to catch up a shawl to drape over her shoulders against the evening chill, and came back out just as the clock called four chimes. She went to the stairs and looked down; it
was a quiet start to the night, with only half of the six gaming tables in use, but that would change soon enough. Catie was right; Sundays were always busy. She looked back up at the balcony, where Peggy was leaning against the railing. The woman smiled and winked, then went back into her room to finish her own preparations.

Peggy was content here. So was Rosa. So was mostly everyone. Why couldn’t she be the same?

Izzy was the only girl working that afternoon; Lisabeth had a bad head cold, and Alice was too young to work with customers yet. Sarah’s mother was working the far left table, dark brown hair piled elegantly on her head, a periwinkle-blue gown half-covered by her lace shawl, her pale, slender fingers distributing cards. Jack’s table was the other side of the room from hers, only two men at it just then, talking among themselves while they waited for a third. Jack had shed his jacket, his shirtsleeves gleaming white like the store-bought finery they were, emphasizing the odd coppery redness of his hair.

This was her home. She knew every pulse, every shift, the way she knew her own heartbeat.

Suddenly aware that she’d been moon-gazing, Izzy picked up a tray from behind the bar and began circulating around the tables, collecting empty glasses and filled ashtrays. As she worked, she looked over the crowd, habit and curiosity sorting them out. There were a few locals passing time and gossiping, a handful of strangers with the look of professional gamblers come to test their luck against the devil, and two men who sat shoulder-slumped at the bar, drinking too slow to forget but too fast to be calm. Only one woman among them all, watching the tables, wearing widow black trimmed with purple. That meant she was nearly out of mourning, or was out but decided black made her look exotic. Her dust-veil was tucked back, showing wisps of pitch-black hair and a pale, square face that had never seen the noon sun, not without a parasol, anyway.

Men came to Flood for a hundred different reasons, the boss always said. Women only came for one reason: revenge. Izzy thought
that he would deal with this woman last, after the easier tasks were done.

Izzy waited patiently for Iktan to finish filling the new orders, then carried them to the main table, where the boss held sway, his hands sorting and delivering cards with nonchalance, as though gold and souls were not on the table.

Three men were playing him, two sweating, one too cool. He was the one with the worst hand, she thought in passing.

She delivered her drinks, then paused by the boss in case he had direction for her.

“What do you think, birthday girl? What do you see?” The boss’s voice was scented with the cigars he carried but never smoked, and the lighter taste of the gold-colored whiskey he drank a sip at a time.

Izzy knew what he was asking. They played this game often. “The woman.” She was the most interesting, of all the people here tonight. “She’s glad he’s dead. There’s something else she wants.”

“A lover? Scorned, or unresponsive?”

“Another woman.” Izzy didn’t know how she knew that; something about the way the woman’s head turned, the way she listened or simply how she wore her hat. “She hates another woman.”

“Ah.” He had already known, of course. But she felt a flush of satisfaction hearing his voice confirm her suspicion. People were so easy to read, sometimes. She finished delivering their drinks and turned to go.

“And that gentleman, last seat at Jack’s table?”

And sometimes, they weren’t so easy to read. Izzy studied the stranger from under her lashes, careful not to draw his attention. Despite that, he turned and looked directly at her. His smile was sly and sweet, and promised things she knew that she’d like. Izzy composed herself, looking her fill, until she had his measure.

“A charmer, that one. He’s winning and doesn’t care.” Most men cared very much. Whatever they brought to the table, they clung to—until they gambled it away in a moment of passion or hunger, and then the devil had them.

“Yes.” The boss agreed with her assessment. “Why is that?”

It was a question, and an order.

When she’d been younger, Izzy could get away with walking up to someone and asking a question. Even if someone had been offended, they’d laughed rather than take it out on a child. Now she had to be more careful. She ghosted to the man’s elbow, her tray balanced on her palm, a saucy pitch she’d stolen from Peggy in her voice. “You like a freshening?”

“That’s all right, darlin’.” He had a soft voice, faded around the
R
s and
D
s, and he didn’t look up from his cards when she paused at his elbow.

“I can get you something else, if you like?”

He looked up then, and his gaze took her in, crown to toe. Close up, she noted that he’d dark blue eyes under thick brown lashes, and his crooked, sly smile was all the more powerful when he wasn’t trying for sweet. Izzy felt herself blush; there was no way not to, under such a look, but she made herself stand and take it.

She could tell that he wasn’t one of those men who came here for the women and not the cards, but he looked his fill anyway and didn’t seem to mind what he saw. “Your boss send you over to distract me?”

“If he wanted to do that, he’d send Molly or Sue.”

“Get me drunk, then, drinking his surprisingly fine whiskey?”

There was good whiskey and rotgut behind the bar; Iktan decided what you got, no matter what you paid. She let his wink go and tilted her head at him, curious. “Why would the boss do that?”

“Why, indeed? Because I’ve got a tidy pile of his house’s money under my palm?”

Izzy almost laughed. “He doesn’t mind that. The boss admires a man who takes chances and plays them well.”

“And to entice us in, he offers the only honest faro game in all the Devil’s West.” His smile was cheeky, his dimples showing, and there
was laughter in his eyes, too, the way they crinkled around the edges and made him look older than he probably was.

“The devil’s table is an honest one,” Izzy said, not quite scolding him.

The crinkles around his eyes eased a little; he wasn’t laughing now. “So I’ve heard.”

She had his measure now: likely a professional gambling man, or maybe a law’s advocate, someone who held things close. A sharp man, either way. The charm was on the surface; she couldn’t tell yet what was underneath.

“You’re one of his girls. Young for it, aren’t you?”

“Sixteen.” She put her hand on one hip, shifting her weight the way she’d seen Molly do when she sassed a man.

“Still young for this world, barely a woman grown,” he said. “But good bones, bright eyes, smart mind, and a mouth that doesn’t say half of what that smart mind’s thinking. You’ll be a handsome woman soon enough.”

“Handsome?” Her pride was stung. “Not pretty?”

“Handsome’s better than beauty,” he said, leaning back in his chair, the cards under his fingers not forgotten but put aside, for now. “Lasts longer. Does better. A handsome horse, a handsome woman, they’ll never give you grief. Pretty is heartbreak waiting to happen.”

“That’s a man’s take on it. Beauty is power.”

He laughed and moved on his cards, proving he was watching what happened at his table, too. “Power is power. A good hand of cards, a bank filled with gold, a loaded gun, a pair of fine eyes and a bewitching smile . . . The trick isn’t what you’ve been given but how you use it.”

He studied his cards, then studied her again with the same look. “A young girl with wits and looks could do well beyond Flood.”

Izzy cocked her head, looking at him differently now, studying the new turn he’d taken. “Is that an invite, mister . . .”

“Kasun. Gabriel Kasun. You’re a bit young yet for me to be offering
any invites to, missy, sixteen or no. But if you happened to be out front when I ride out, I would not be unwelcoming of the company. I’ve mentored before; not against doin’ it again for the right rider.”

She stared at him, her hand still on her hip, all sass forgotten. An offer like that to come along on this of all days, only a fool’d ignore it. A mentor, someone who knew the Territory, could teach her what she needed to know, how to get by on more than her wits. . . .

“You mean that?”

He was paying full attention to his cards, not her. “I don’t offer what I don’t mean, girl.”

“Iz-sobel. My name is Isobel.” Her full name felt odd-shaped in her mouth, but she didn’t want to use her nickname, not with this man. Not when he talked to her like that.

“Isobel, then.”

The weight of the tray in her hand reminded her she had other drinks to deliver. He might have watched her as she walked off: Izzy didn’t look back to find out. She made her rounds as though nothing had changed, watching the way cards were held, the shift and lean of bodies, keeping a tally of whose glass was nearly empty and who had waved off a refill already. She couldn’t afford to think on it, not while she was working, not when she was meant to be
looking
and
seeing,
not thinking.

Eventually, she made her way back to the main table and stood behind the boss while he finished a game, waiting while the players took their winnings or left their losings. In the brief space before new players came, she gave her report. “House is clean. Nobody cheating too obvious; nobody looking to cause trouble.”

“And the young man over there?”

“He’s a sharp, passing through. Likely wanted to see how the devil’s house laid down the cards.”

“And he is satisfied?”

“Said you run the only honest game in the West.”

“Hah.” The boss seemed pleased. “And so I do.”

“He said I was handsome.”

The boss skimmed her with his gaze and smiled. “And so you are.”

“And he thinks I could do well, outside of Flood.”