“Did I ask for your help?”
“You needed my help.”
“Talk to Sal if you think you can squeeze more out of her. Good luck.”
“Well, at least we get this. That’s the deal with Sally. We get to keep anything she brought with her.” As she spoke, Mrs. Reston undid the chain of the locket Hassie wore around her neck, the one she kept Mama’s wedding ring on. The woman pulled it away roughly and held it up to the light.
“If those are really gold, you’re making out like bandits,” Zachary said. “If you want me to keep quiet about them, you’d better fork over some of that hundred.”
“Ten dollars,” Mrs. Reston said, “and only if they’re really gold.”
“Done.” Zachary shoved Hassie out of the hotel through the back door, his hold so unrelenting she almost passed out from pain on the steps. One block, two. She lost count. The world turned so blurry she hallucinated and saw a shadow stalking behind fences and hedges they passed.
Zachary pushed Hassie through the back door and into the kitchen of what appeared to be an ordinary house and finally let her arms down, although he kept a hard hold on her. Three women sat around a table in various states of undress, their faces bright with paint. Any hope that she had misinterpreted the Restons’ intentions died.
“Here she is,” Zachary said. “I don’t think explaining things to her is going to be enough. She’s going to take some breaking in.”
Two of the women left the room in a hurry after giving Hassie no more than quick, furtive looks. The third woman was older, her hair orange with henna, the layers of pale powder on her face contrasting with blood red rouge on her cheeks and lips. She grabbed Hassie by the chin. “Look at those eyes. Eyes like that could take a girl to San Francisco.”
“This one don’t want to go. Let me take her upstairs for a couple of hours and teach her a thing or two.”
“I promised the marshal he could be first. He’s paying through the nose for the privilege.”
“You’ll have to tie her down or he’ll fall over dead before he gets the job done. She ain’t ready to cooperate.”
The woman stroked Hassie’s cheek and laughed when Hassie tried to bite. “Don’t be silly. The marshal’s going to have a lovely time and so are the rest of her customers. You’re not some starry-eyed virgin, are you, honey? Working here is a lot better than emptying chamberpots at the hotel and taking orders from Lula.”
Her voice fell to a husky whisper as if she was sharing some delightful secret with Hassie. “She may be fooling some of the people in this town, but
we
know she was one of us once, don’t we?” Sally patted Hassie’s cheek again. “Now you’re going to be a smart girl and cooperate while we get you ready for your debut, aren’t you?”
Hassie slumped and nodded, hoping she looked defeated, even as her mind darted from one idea to another, trying to devise a way out of this horror. The mention of tying her down had done what seemed impossible and ratcheted up her fear.
Fighting these people wasn’t going to work. She had to escape, and to escape she had to be free to run.
For the second time in two days, Hassie bathed in a tub. This time under “Miss” Sally Nichols’ assessing gaze and this time with no pleasure whatsoever.
“You’re way too thin,” said Miss Sally, who carried enough spare flesh to make two of Hassie. “Some men like it but most prefer a soft ride, so you make sure you eat plenty of potatoes with meals and pie and cake after.”
Considering the way Hassie’s stomach was behaving, never eating again was more likely. At least Zachary was outside in the hall for the moment. When Miss Sally finished pouring clear water reeking of some flowery scent through her hair, Hassie stepped out of the tub and wrapped up in towels.
“Now I told the girls to find every lavender, violet, and purple dress in the house and bring them all here. We’ll find something that will show off those eyes, and that’s going to be your name. Violet. For God’s sake, Hassie sounds like a cow.”
For once Hassie was grateful for her lack of speech. Frightened as she was of making anyone angry enough to tie her up, she might be unable to resist telling this gross woman who was really like a cow. An ugly, mean cow.
The other women arrived with one ghastly dress after another. They yanked the towels off, made crude remarks about her body, and stared at the scar across her throat with curiosity.
“She’s gonna need a scarf or something to cover that up,” one said.
“No, she isn’t,” Sally said knowledgeably. “She has no figure to speak of. Her appeal is all to men who like something different. That scar is going to get the peckers up on some men better than a French job.”
These awful women could be speaking French for all Hassie understood, but it didn’t matter. She tried on each of the dresses in turn, letting the women dress and undress her as if she were a doll, all the while thinking about escape. Getting away would be hard, staying away harder.
If the town marshal and the hotel owners thought forcing a woman into a place like this was just fine, who was going to help her? The only one she could think of was Reverend Lyons—if he had returned to town.
Even so, she couldn’t wait. After tonight.... She shivered. She had to find a way out, take any chance, run for the church. The preacher had to be there. He just had to be.
B
RET WAS MORE
than five miles from town when he heard the first click. The sound was distinct and recognizable, but he didn’t want to believe his ears and ignored it for another mile until the clicking came too regularly to ignore. He dismounted, checked, and found the loose shoe on his horse’s right front foot.
The left hind was missing a nail. The left fore had all the nails, but one had broken off at the clinch and would be gone in short order. The packhorse had one shoe already missing two nails. On closer inspection, Bret saw where the clinches had been filed partway through on every nail.
Both horses had been fitted with new shoes the day before Bret left home less than two weeks ago. The last time he had checked, which was the day before he’d found Rufus Petty, he hadn’t noticed a problem.
His brother Will’s fine hand was all over this one. Bret closed his eyes, fighting anger. Did Will only have to suggest sabotage or had he bribed the blacksmith with money Bret spent months away from home earning?
Only good fortune had the shoes starting to come loose here where it was a mere inconvenience, not life-threatening trouble. Bret told himself Will hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe he hadn’t.
Leaning against Jasper a moment, Bret considered. The loose shoe would hang on until the next town. Or he could go back to Werver. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to check on Mrs. Petty while he waited on the horses.
Leaving her there bothered him. It shouldn’t. The Restons’ answers to his questions had been good enough. Her married life must have been far worse than her life working in that hotel would be. She’d be eating three decent meals a day, free of the burden of caring for a sick and dying old man. Still.
The way those fellows at the livery had stopped talking and exchanged knowing grins when he’d picked up the horses didn’t sit right. A lot of people held bounty hunters in contempt, but there was something knowing and sly in the looks they’d exchanged. He didn’t like it.
After swinging back into the saddle, Bret hesitated before reining the horses around and starting them back the way he had come. It would cost at least double to get a blacksmith to put aside work for regular customers and reset shoes on two horses for a stranger, but if that’s what it took, he’d pay it. After all, he wasn’t short on cash right now.
If no one could work on the horses today, he’d spend another night in Werver. One way or the other, he’d see how Mrs. Petty was doing.
T
HE FARMER WHO
directed Bret to a smithy on the outskirts of town spoke well of the man. The problem was Bret had no one to speak for him.
The smith eyed the US brand on the cavalry horse suspiciously but didn’t say anything. He did have something to say after examining the shoes on Jasper and Packie. “Someone must be pretty angry at you to do this. You have a problem paying for work done maybe?”
Bret handed the man twenty dollars, gold not scrip. “No. You keep what you think is fair out of that.”
The man bounced the coin in his hand a moment, staring at the patient draft horse tied near his forge. “I’ll do yours as soon as I finish old Bob there. He needs to get back into harness, and I promised to shoe him first thing this afternoon.”
Bret couldn’t asked for more. Resetting the shoes on his horses would be much less work than forging new, but even so, finding someone to do it yet today was good fortune.
S
ALLY SETTLED ON
a purple dress that was too low on the top, too high on the bottom, and too big everywhere else. The bodice had been designed for someone much bigger in the bosom and gaped so far out from Hassie’s chest she could look down and see her bare breasts, because there was nothing under the purple monstrosity.
Black stockings, lace garters. After everything else that was too big, Sally insisted Hassie cram her feet into shoes with heels that would have made her wobble even if they weren’t so tight she could hardly walk downstairs. It made sense in a way. No one would have to tie her up if she was wearing shoes that crippled her.
“She’s shivering, poor dear,” Sally said. “Let’s go down to the kitchen and finish this. Then we’ll get her out of the dress, and she can eat while we take a tuck or two in the bodice.” She laughed and patted Hassie’s cheek again. “Just a little tuck, mind you. After all, you’re going to grow into this dress.”
The kitchen was warmer, but Hassie still shivered. The face paint was cold. And greasy. The women moved from her face to her still-damp hair, chattering away, talking about styles, debating whether to cut her hair as they worked with combs, brushes, and curling tongs.
The scent of her hair scorching, the too-sweet perfumes, and a trace of body odor—someone else’s body odor in the purple dress—combined until Hassie worried about passing out. Losing any chance to get away by fainting for the first time in her life would be a disaster.
She distracted herself by working on getting the tight shoes off under the table. First the heel on one, then the other, and the shoes hung loose on her feet.
Zachary stood blocking the back door, arms crossed over his chest, looking bored. The only way out would be back past the stairs, through the parlor and to the front door. The door would be open. It had to be open. In a place like this they wouldn’t want to lock customers out.
She hadn’t run for months, not since the weather turned cold and Cyrus became too sick to leave. Even so, with a head start gained by surprise and desperation for incentive, she could outrun Zachary for as long as she needed. He wasn’t long-limbed, and he was heavyset.
The women argued about whether to stiffen her hair with sugar water. Zachary leaned back against the door, looking half asleep. Hassie pushed the shoes all the way off, knocked over the chair as she jumped up, and took off running. Shouts sounded behind her, a crash and curse as Zachary stumbled over the chair.
The door opened easily. Hassie barely noticed the gravel on the front walk biting into the soles of her feet. She ran, ran as if the hounds of hell pursued her, but the only hound who appeared was Yellow Dog, no longer a lurking shadow, but flesh and bone, frolicking along as if they were racing for fun, not for her life.
She had misjudged Zachary. His boots pounded on the road behind her, close and getting closer. Yellow Dog disappeared from her side. Furious cursing sounded, and she risked a look back.
Zachary sprawled on the ground, kicking as Yellow Dog worried at his legs. He pulled a small pistol and shot at Yellow Dog, missing the darting dog but driving it back to the side of the street. As the brothel man lurched back to his feet, Hassie stumbled over a rut in the road.
Only the road ahead mattered, she had to ignore everything behind her. Still, if she had strength to waste on lifting facial muscles, Hassie would have smiled. Without Yellow Dog’s help, Zachary would have caught her already. She concentrated on the road and her footing, ignored people, horses, wagons, and buggies except to veer around them.
The sounds of Zachary’s pursuit rose louder than her own gasping breaths. He was close again, gaining. Pain stabbed through her side. Her lungs burned. Her eyes streamed.
She leaned forward, pumped her aching arms, and ran faster.
A
FTER STRIPPING THE
packs and saddles off his horses, Bret shouldered Rufus Petty’s saddle bags. “I’m going to walk into town,” he told the smith. “I’ll be back before you get far with mine. Neither one gives trouble.”
The man didn’t look up from the huge hoof in his lap. “Don’t hurry. I don’t need supervising.”
The smith back home would probably say the same, Bret thought cynically. Maybe he’d have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie at the restaurant and then check on Mrs. Petty at the hotel. Or maybe check on her first.
Bret was still a block from the restaurant when he saw a flash of purple and heard barking. At first he didn’t recognize the woman, only the dog darting between her and the pursuing man.
Ahead of him, two men stopped and stared, pointed and laughed. With more time, Bret would have grabbed the pair of them by the ears and slammed their heads together.
There was no time. Before she fled past, he stepped into the street, ignored her attempt to dodge around him, and hooked one arm around her waist.
She struggled and fought, breath coming in harsh gasps, face smeared with tears and paint. “Settle down.” He lifted her so her feet, all but bare through what was left of black silk stockings, didn’t touch the ground, and she had no purchase.
Recognition flooded across her face, chased by relief, then her eyes dropped, and under the paint her color rose. Shame. Something hot and ugly ran up the back of Bret’s neck and settled behind his eyes.