Mail-Order Man (28 page)

It hadn't been for love that Braxton said, “I do.” It was for the ranch. Why else would any man want a scarecrow who lurched when she walked? Except when she could prop herself on a pot of gold and jewels.

Dropping her unfocused gaze, Skylla heard Braxton stand, heard him walk toward her. She felt his presence as he knelt at her feet. She rejected the hand that tried to take hers. “Keep your distance.”

“If I do, I can't tell you I love you. That I changed my mind about California, probably the first moment I laid eyes on you in the magnolia grove.”

“Love is only a word, Braxton. Only a glib four-letter word, useful for getting what one wants from a weaker person.”

“Have you no more faith in me than that?”

Faith? Only from his father had she heard about his family—which confirmed her suspicions about the liar and trickster who was his brother.
What's Calibornion ?

How these co-conspirators must have roared with laughter behind the back of a stupid, gullible cripple. What fun Braxton and Geoff must have had at the ease with which she fell into the trap. She could almost hear their hysterics.

She clutched her middle, protecting the child conceived while its sire connived. How could she shield the babe from the liars and thieves of the Nickel Dime?

“What can I do to make you forgive me?” He stood.

She feared what she needed most—him. And she hated herself for this weakness.
How can he love me, when I can't love myself?
“Forgive you? You actually expect me to say, ‘Oh, please, honey, please do take St. Clair land—do send a card to let me know you're having a wonderful time in California. And help yourself to some riches while you're at it.' Surely you don't think I'm such a dunce that I'll let you continue to live the leisurely life, complete with a fat bank account.”

Thunderous fury distorted his face. “You didn't mind my cheating—as long as you had something to gain from it.”

“Don't lower me to your level.”

He clenched his teeth, his nostrils enlarging. “I have schemed and cheated for your benefit. I have worked your land. I have put food on your table. I have given you my very soul, both in the light of day and in the privacy of your bedroom.” The storm and strife in his expression eased. “If you need me to do so, I will lie or cheat, scheme or steal, for your benefit. I would lay down my life for you, Skylla Hale.”

Rocked by how much he offered, she nonetheless forced herself to remember his glibness. “What would my uncle think, if he knew you'd deceived his family?”

Braxton's countenance filled with malice. “Titus St. Clair was a jeering, no-good son of a bitch. If the Yankees hadn't killed him, I would have.”

The temper she had tried to control flared, and she did nothing to control it. Grabbing for a currycomb, she hurled it. He didn't so much as flinch, even when it glanced off his shoulder.

“You'll regret these things you're doing,” he ground out. “You always regret your actions. Later.”

“Not this time.” She stood, determined to face the enemy eye to eye. “May you burn in hell, Braxton Hale.”

“Knowing how my father damned the Hale family, you would curse me to hell?”

“I don't care what you feel. Collect your band of misfits, liars, and thieves. Get on those nags you rode in on. Get gone!”

He grasped her elbow cruelly. “I won't be turned off this land. I am here to stay. As your legal husband. You're in no position to order me to leave.”

By law, if anyone left, it would be Skylla. Biloxi came hurtling into her thoughts. Her father swinging lifeless from a branch of the Spanish oak in front of Beau Rivage, vigilantes turning their hate on the St. Clair women. “Get out of Biloxi, or the three of you will be next!” they had shouted, advancing with nooses in their raised grips. Like scared rabbits, Skylla and Kathy Ann fled, dragging Claudine to safety with them. The vigilantes hadn't even allowed the St. Clairs enough time to bury Ambrose.

Skylla had lost one home. She wouldn't lose another. She owed her child more than that. But what could she do? Would the laws of Texas protect her? To the devil with the law! Yet the government could end up with the Nickel Dime and all its appurtenances.

Skylla would fight like a tiger for the ranch that Uncle had bequeathed her. Her child would grow up in the home that was its birthright. Whatever that took, she would do it. With no wool covering her eyes.

Bestowing a look of contempt on her husband, she spat out, “You are a whore, Braxton Hale. You sold your body to get this ranch. But then . . . blood will tell.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are the image of your selfish father. Quite a pair of bookends, the two of you.” She pulled her elbow free. “It's not over yet. I'll fight you—be it in the Courts or right on this spot—for all that you have lied and cheated to get.”

When she started to pass him, he grabbed her arm, yanking her to him. “Dammit, be reasonable. Yes, I made mistakes. Bad mistakes. But I love you. And I need you.”

She shoved her way out of his arms, rearing back and slapping him soundly The reverberation of the blow ringing, she watched him rub the reddening outline of her hand. Some of the life died in his face.

Like a dying man surfacing for the third time, he took her into his arms again, asking, “What happened to my sweet and understanding wife? Remember how many of your loved ones died knowing your anger.”

“Claudine blackmailed me into feeling guilty, but I'm smarter now. I won't take it from you.”

“Sweetheart, you're being unreasonable.”

With an “Oooh!” she brought her knee up hard against his groin, then took a backward step when he ground out, “Damn you, you hellcat!”

As he lunged for her once more, her hand grabbed a branding iron. “Stay back.” He didn't. Arching an arm, she whacked him on the side of the head. He fell, stunned. Shaking his head from side to side, he tried to get up.

For a split second she wanted to comfort him, to beg his forgiveness.

No more the fool, though, she pressed the branding iron against his chest, giving it a shove that sent him to the straw again. “You have twenty minutes to collect your vile entourage. Then I want you off this place. If you don't leave, I will shoot you dead, Braxton Hale.”

His every muscle ached from days of riding bareback, chasing through the Comancheria on a buffalo hunt in the middle of a January blue norther. Squatting Indian-fashion in front of a campfire in Stalking Wolf's village, Brax stared into the flames. It was Skylla he saw. She who couldn't forgive him.

“Do you want firewater?” the chief asked.

Brax elevated his line of sight to his brother-in-law, extending his hand for a gourd of whiskey. He took a more than ample quaff, enjoying the burn.

“A wise man does not surrender when his woman is angry.” Stalking Wolf folded his arms over his chest. “Go to her.”

Brax shrugged one of those aching shoulders. “I lost one wife. What's losing another one?”

Indifference, at least outward indifference, helped him pass the endless moments of each endless day.

Earlier, Pansy and Violet had curled up beside him and were now sleeping. He gave each girl a pat on the arm. “I'm bushed, Stalking Wolf. See you tomorrow.”

“Rest, Yellow Hair. Tomorrow we hunt more buffalo.”

Why not? Brax didn't have anything better to do. Calling up the remains of his strength, he creaked to his feet and trudged toward his borrowed tepee. Along the way he passed the abode Pearl's family had made available to their daughter and her quadroon husband. Stalking Wolf had provided separate sleeping accommodations for Bella, who didn't care much for the savage life. Good old Stalking Wolf, always providing.

The Comanche chief had left his beloved wife at the Nickel Dime to console her sister. This, Brax appreciated. He'd lost Skylla, but he wanted her watched over.

Oh, Skylla
.
Give me one more chance at the dance.

She wouldn't. The week between Christmas and New Year's Day, Brax had tried to make amends, had wanted to reason with her, had needed to show his love. She had refused to see him. He'd given up, withdrawing from her as well as from the Nickel Dime, when the sheriff showed up with a posse to run him off the place. His option? Return to the bosom of jail.

Brax neared his tepee. Home sweet home. What was a home without the best wife a man could ever hope for in it?

He walked over to give good-night pats to Molasses and Impossible, tied close by. Paying particular attention to Impossible, he rubbed the horse's long nose. “Do you reckon she ever thinks of us, old boy?”

Impossible neighed.

“Damn, boy. I wish I knew something I could do to show her I love her. But what? If I knew of anything, I'd do it. What can I do? There's the trouble over the deed to the Nickel Dime, but my hands are tied, since I can't get onto the property to search for papers.”

Impossible sneezed on his hand.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

Brax did an about-face, washed his hands, and headed for the tepee. He drew back the flap, and got an eyeful of Electra reposing on the buffalo skin. She yawned, then hissed. There wasn't a woman alive who wanted him, he decided.

“Move over, gal.” He shoved her aside, then lay in the bed of his making, and brought the cat's corpulent body to him. “This is a helluva bed I've made for myself, isn't it?”

She looked up, giving him an examination.

“Damn, it's cold. You may be fat, but you aren't fat enough to keep a man warm.” He drew another buffalo skin around his shoulders. It was still cold. Damn, the cat's breath was sour. “No-good bastard that I am, I shouldn't even want anything better than a cold bed to look forward to.”

Jesus, he'd been reduced to talking to dumb animals. Sympathetic now, Electra arched her chin against his. He fell into the sleep of a broken man.

“Sergeant. Sergeant, wake up.”

He lunged from the buffalo hides. Rubbing his eyes, he saw Piglet bending from the waist to stick her head through the flap hole. “Skylla. Is she here?” he asked hopefully.

“No. She's gone to San Antonio—the old records for Mason County are filed there. It's her last hope. There's only a week left 'til the auction, and that sidewinder Packard has been surveying the property.”

“Did she send you to fetch me?”

A sorrowful look on her face, Kathy Ann shook her head.

“You say she's in San Antonio? Is she all right?”

“Stupid question. Of course she's not all right. She's lost the love of her life.”

“No two people ever loved half as much as we did.” A stab of pain lanced Brax. “Does she . . . ever mention me?”

Kathy Ann entered the tepee, letting the flap fall behind her. She kicked away the hides, disturbing Brax's female friend. “Sarge, seems this would be a good time for a certain Reb to show a Blue Belly sidewinder not to mess with Texans. Then a certain Texas man ought to park his sweet behind in a certain woman's bed. He could be waiting for that certain woman with a romantic gift and a thousand ‘I'm sorry's.' ”

“That is exactly what a certain Texan has in mind.” Where he'd get a romantic gift was another problem.

Kathy Ann offered her pudgy hand. “Come on, Sarge. I bought a jar of peaches off a peddler. And René and I made fudge.”

“Piglet, you are a damned good woman.”

 

 

By the morning cookfire in the Comanche camp, Brax gathered his band of misfits, miscreants, and true friends, with the exception of Bella, who'd expressed an interest in learning beadwork. “Let's turn that house upside down. One more time.”

Stalking Wolf, Kathy Ann, Geoff, and Pearl got on their mounts. On a borrowed one, Brax led them to the Nickel Dime. They called for reinforcements, the original quintet fanning out in the house with Luckless, Snuffy, and René joining the entourage. Brax had to avoid getting sentimental, seeing his wife in every nook and cranny. He had a job to do. Three hours later, snake eyes. Crapped out.

He stood amid the upturned parlor. “Kathy Ann, where are the peaches and fudge? There's nothing for me to do but crawl into bed and hope for the best.”

Crawl. Why not do some crawling around under the house? He'd looked into the trapdoor, had seen nothing, then had moved on. He had to give that damned trapdoor one more try. He addressed the task with no passion save for the desire to please a woman.

Brax lifted the creaking door and took a peek into the dank hole. A rat scurried past. He shivered. Gooseflesh raised the hair on his arms as he contemplated that yawning hole.

“Makes me sick to think about what's living and what's not in that hole,” Kathy Ann commented, putting words to her brother-in-law's frame of mind.

“Ugh,” Stalking Wolf grunted, summing it all up.

Pearl gripped Geoff's hand; he said, “Pappy, Mammy, and a dog once known as Sammy. Careful of snakes, Bubba.”

“There's nothing down there.” Pearl sounded hopeful.

Luckless spoke. “I ain't going down in that there hole.”

“Me neither,” added his buddy Snuffy.

“Nobody asked you to,” Brax said.

René stepped forward, put his hands on Brax's shoulders, and in Continental fashion kissed his boss's right cheek. Brax nearly jumped out of his boots; the kisser nearly got a fist in the kisser, but Brax called to mind foreign customs. “Boulogne, you're in Texas. Texans don't kiss nobody. Except their sweethearts.”

“It is better in Cherbourg. We kiss everyone in my town.” Renée pouted, but offered a handshake, which was accepted.
“Bonne chance, monsieur.
Good luck. Like Monsieur Geoff said, the snakes, they could be down there.”

“Hush,” Kathy Ann ordered, her voice a croak.

Why should he search for the papers to a damned old piece of frontier hell? With forty thousand dollars banked, why not accept that the Nickel Dime was lost and be done with it. Hell, the Yankees were welcome to it. Except . . . Except that Skylla loved the place. And he did, too. It had been his salvation. Without his wife and her ranch, he might as well reconcile himself to life in a Comanche village. “Here goes.”

Feet first, Brax lowered his cowardly self downward. About three feet of space separated the floor from the ground. His knees buckled as he crouched down and shouldered his way into the black hole. Winter frost iced the den, and the chill seeped into his bones. The pitch of his voice resembled a boy's as he called, “The lantern. Quick!”

And then there was light. On second thought, he'd be better off not to see this Hades. A nested rat reared on hind legs to hiss at him. He'd never seen bigger teeth. Something scampered behind him. He didn't want to know what.

He prayed for deliverance, and shoved his stomach to the damp stinking earth. Brax propped himself on an elbow. “Put the lantern in my hand.” He looked up at Kathy Ann's worried face. A corona of concerned faces circled hers. Right then, Brax would have given five years of his life to be up there with them.

He grabbed hold of the light.

Something fell onto his hand, and it would have taken a better man than Brax Hale not to cry out. He screamed. Screeched was more like it.

“Sergeant, are you okay? Get out of there!”

“Bubba. Bubba! Answer her.”

“You all right, Yellow Hair of Good Medicine?”

“The snakes. Regard the snakes,” René cautioned.

“Bubba, you never did teach me to suck poison from a snake bite!”

“Hold your horses, all of you. I'm all right,” Brax lied, wishing he had a big slug of Titus's best whiskey in him. Even rotgut would do.

One hand pressing into the earth—he'd rather be pushing it into a fresh cow patty!—he waved the lantern from side to side. He saw plenty of nothing.
I've gotta turn around
. Somehow he managed the feat.

Once more he waved the light. More nothing. Wait. Maybe not. He angled the lantern toward the north end of the house, steadying his hand. There was something over there. Something that looked like a box.

Hot damn!

There was but one way to find out. Two vent holes had been built into the house's foundation, but those lay east and west, rendering each useless as far as easier access went. Brax would have to crawl to the other side of the house. There was no other choice, outside of cutting a hole in the floor above the box. Hell, he wasn't that much of a sissy.

Calling up courage from somewhere, he got onto all fours, bumping his butt on the floor. It was slither like a snake. So he did, the lantern in hand. A dozen times he spat dirt from his mouth, and blew it from his nostrils.

At last, though, he reached his destination.

It was a box. A strongbox. Made of some sort of metal, probably lead, from the weight of it. How the hell was he going to get it and the lantern back to the trapdoor?

“Friends,” he shouted, his voice muffled by the confines. “I've found something. It better be wonderful. Or I'm gonna go back to Virginia to dig up Titus St. Clair's bones—and break all two-hundred and six of them!”

“How will we know 'til you open it?” Kathy Ann asked.

“Get another lantern. Lower it down here. I'll leave this one here to use as a beacon.”

“Just a minute.”

It seemed like three lifetimes before the second lantern rested on the dirt. Box in hand, Brax extinguished the lantern he held and started slithering back. The return trip went faster than the initial one. About twenty feet from his destination, the mother rat, frantic to defend her squeaking infants, ran over his legs. By now he'd gotten somewhat inured to the environs.

“Sorry, Mama,” he murmured.

He kept going. He reached the trapdoor. At last! “Stalking Wolf, grab this. You others, help him. It's heavy.”

They reached down and hefted on the strongbox. Then a cheer went up.

Spent, Brax took a deep breath. “This had better not be for nothing,” he muttered. “And that woman of mine sure better be appreciative. She will. I know she will. I can't be that wrong about her. I hope.”

Like a prisoner given a reprieve, he levered himself up.

That was when it happened. Something—something like a needle—pierced the heel of his hand. Pain shot upward, even hurting his teeth. He yanked his fingers up. A creature small and fragile fell away. In the yellow glow from the lantern, he saw a scorpion, its venomous tail curled over its segmented body, skipping away, gleeful in its vengeance.

The poison race through Brax's veins. And he envisioned his death. Better men than he had died of a scorpion bite.