Arizona Gold (15 page)

Ryder had already spotted the man with a shotgun posted on the upstairs landing. “Do you have many Indian attacks on folks around here?”

“Well, no,” she said hesitantly. “This was the first I knew of.”

“So why would one threaten you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. What’s your name, anyhow?”

“Sam Bodine.”

“Where you from?”

He shrugged. “Anywhere. Nowhere. Wherever I can find work.”

“And what might that be?” Her gaze fell on his guns. “Oh, I see. Gunman, eh? Well, you’ll wind up like the rest of ’em—in Boot Hill.”

“I doubt it. I’m good. Otherwise, I’d already be there. Besides, I don’t go looking for trouble.” He had tipped back in his chair to prop against the wall. With thighs spread and head cocked to one side, he looked anything but worried about getting killed in a shoot- out.

“Well, it’d be a shame to see a fine-looking man like you laid to rest”—she grinned and winked—“just like it’s a shame I’m probably old enough to be your mama. Otherwise, I’d give you some trouble—but it’d be the kind you’d enjoy.”

With hips swaying, Opal continued on her way.

He heard piano music, and the crowd started yelling and stamping feet.

Curious as to what had them so enthused, Ryder went and stood where he could see the stage.

He saw the Earp brothers leaning against the bar, keeping an eye on things. Then gunfire exploded outside in the street, and they took off.

He heard a man nearby say, “Wish they hadn’t run off like that. There’s always some rowdy who needs his head busted to keep the peace.”

A roar went up as the curtains finally opened.

Ryder drew a sharp breath. The woman standing in the middle of the stage was pretty, all right. And she did kind of look like an angel, in gold satin and lace, her chestnut hair curled in ringlets about her sweetly smiling face.

Her hands were folded beneath her chin as she began to sing. And, like the bartender had said, she did have a way of locking eyes to offer a personal serenade.

After her opening number, slow and soft, she went into a rousing song and began to prance about the stage. She did a jaunty little dance, lifting her skirt ankle high to show her tapping feet.

The men sang along with her, clapping their hands over their heads.

“Sing to me, Angel,” a voice louder than any of the others cried out. “Sing me to heaven or hell. I don’t give a damn.”

Laughter erupted, and others began calling out to her, each trying to outdo with wit and praise.

Then someone shoved someone else, and things began to get out of hand. Chairs fell, and the Singing Angel quit singing and melted back to the far wall of the stage in fright.

The piano player banged all the harder, trying to get people back into the mood of music, but a fight broke out.

Suddenly a man began pushing his way through as he yelled, “I aim to hear my Angel. C’mere, Angel. We’re goin’ where I can hear you good…”

He bolted up onto the stage. Ryder saw he had drawn his gun in warning to anyone trying to stop him.

“You get away from her,” Opal screamed, then whipped around to yell at the guard upstairs, “Ben, get your ass down here now.”

Ben was on his way, but the man onstage saw him…saw he was carrying a shotgun, and fired. Ben dropped his gun, grabbed his wounded shoulder, and tumbled down the steps.

Quickly, before anyone else got hurt, Ryder stepped up on one of the chairs. Drawing his right gun, he took careful aim. The man onstage had hooked his arm around the woman’s neck and was trying to drag her off, and Ryder had to be careful lest he hit her.

He squeezed the trigger, hitting the gunman in his wrist. With a shriek, he dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. Instantly, men rushed onto the stage.

Ryder surged forward with the crowd, wanting to make sure the woman wasn’t hurt.

Suddenly Opal screamed, “Damn you, Roscoe Pate, you old drunk. You’re gonna get yourself killed one day pulling your crazy stunts.”

The wounded man sat on the stage floor, his left hand gripping his bloody right. “Aw, hell, Opal, I didn’t mean no harm, and you know it.”

“You scared her half to death, you ninny. And it’s a good thing the Earps weren’t here, or they’d have shot you dead.”

“Who did do it?” someone asked. “Damn fine shot, whoever it was.”

Ryder saw that the Singing Angel, who was being comforted by the piano player, was staring right at him.

“He did,” she said with a nod in his direction. Then she was ushered away, but she turned to look at him over her shoulder till she faded from sight.

Opal turned also and blinked in recognition. “Sam Bodine. Well, I thank you for what you did.

“And thanks, too,” she added, “for not killing this worthless bastard. He really don’t mean no harm. He just does stupid things when he’s drunk.” She turned back to Roscoe with a scowl. “I guess you being here means my no-good brother is back in town. How come he’s not here raising hell, too?”

“He’s took up with a
puta
south of the border.”

“Well, it would suit me fine if he stayed there.”

A deputy came to whisk him away to jail with the promise he would be there awhile. Ben was helped up and taken to a doctor to treat his wound.

Things began to settle down, and Opal walked over to the bar, where Ryder was having a drink on the house.

“Thanks again, mister,” she said, slapping him on the back. “I really appreciate your coming to the rescue. Roscoe wouldn’t have hurt her for the world, but he was scaring her to death.”

“Glad to do it,” he said. He was also glad to be in her favor, because he intended to figure out a way to ask about Kitty Parrish, and maybe she would cooperate.

“Yeah, Kitty has been through a lot.”

Ryder’s stomach slammed against his spine.

Opal slapped the bar with her palm. “Morton, give me a whiskey. After all that, I need a drink powerful bad.

“Kitty wasn’t too sure she could do it,” Opal continued, “but she needed a job. Now she’s used to it, and I think she likes it, but many more upsets like that, and she’ll quit.”

Ryder took a sip of whiskey and rolled it around in his mouth a few seconds in hopes of slowing his throbbing pulse. Then he said, “That’s her real name? Kitty?”

“Yeah, but Mr. Earp gave her the name Singing Angel, because a man shot down in the street thought that’s what she was when she tried to help him. I’ll have to introduce you later. She’ll want to thank you proper. Right now I’ve got to get that faro game going, or I’ll be out of a job.”

She took her drink and walked away.

Ryder stared after her.

A coincidence, he repeated to himself. There was no way that woman on the stage could be the same bedraggled
boy
he had held captive.

“Lucky you,” the bartender said. “Our little Angel has been real standoffish with men since she hit town, but you’ll be on her good side, for sure.”

“How long has she been here?”

The bartender scratched his chin as he thought about it, then said, “Oh, a month or more, I reckon. Real interesting story about her, too. She got captured by Injuns—Apaches—but managed to escape.” He held up the bottle. “Want a refill? After what you did, Mr. Earp ain’t gonna care how much you have.”

Hand slightly trembling, Ryder covered his glass.

He did not need more whiskey.

The world was already spinning.

Chapter Fourteen

Damn the money, the fancy wardrobe, and all the attention and flattery that went with being a well-liked performer; Kitty was no longer enamored. In fact, she was fed up.

Stomping around in her room the next morning, she was churning with anger. Feeling life slowly ebbing away as Roscoe Pate’s hold on her neck threatened to crush her windpipe, Kitty had known more terror than she ever had with the Apaches.

And what if the bearded stranger had missed and hit her instead? She would have been next in line at Boot Hill. Still, she could not chide him too harshly for taking the chance. After all, she had done the same on the stagecoach when she had shot the knife out of Seth Barlow’s hand to keep him from stabbing Lloyd Pendergrass. So thank goodness the stranger was as good a marksman as she was.

She wished she’d had time to thank him proper. But maybe it was just as well. There had been something about the way he looked at her when their eyes met and held for the briefest of seconds that was strangely unnerving, for he made her feel that she was being looked
into
…not
at
.

Silly. She was being silly, that’s all. He had come to her rescue, and she was grateful but would probably never see him again. Drifters came and went like the wind. She had to stop thinking about him, Roscoe Pate…all of it. Because it was time, she decided, to think about leaving Tombstone.

Opal’s call brought her from her musings, and she hurried to unbolt the door and let her in. Opal was still wearing her robe, soft blue satin edged in delicate pink lace. Setting down a tray of sandwiches and tea, she said, “I figured you didn’t go down for breakfast this morning.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“Still upset over last night, huh? Well, don’t be. Ben’s going to be fine, by the way. It was just a flesh wound.

“Stupid, stupid Roscoe,” she snorted, disgusted. “He gets drunk and don’t know what he’s doing. He wouldn’t have hurt you, though.”

Kitty had been standing at the window, holding back the drapes to peer down at the street below. Whirling about, she cried, “How can you say that? He was choking me to death.”

“But he didn’t mean to.”

“You just said he didn’t know what he was doing—and he obviously didn’t know he was killing me. If that man, whoever he was, hadn’t acted when he did, there’s no telling what might have happened. I just thank God he was a good shot. What if somebody else had tried to shoot the gun out of Roscoe’s hand and hit me? No”—she shook her head so hard her hair flew about her face—“I can’t dismiss it as easily as you, Opal. There’s too much violence here. Somebody is always getting killed. And when I think of what happened to Daddy Wade, it makes my blood boil. I just don’t like it here.”

“Honey, it’s dangerous all over the West. Outlaws, Indians. You’re as safe here as you would be anywhere else, except maybe Virginia, and I don’t think you want to go back there.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then forget about last night. You’re making damn good money for a woman. More than me, that’s for sure. And you’ve got a nice, clean place to stay. Everybody looks out for you. There’s a lot you ought to be thankful for.”

“But I’m not happy here, don’t you see? And I’ve tried. I really have. I do my best to entertain, and I have to say the majority of the men in the audience treat me with respect. But I still don’t enjoy it. I grew up outdoors, and I want to ride, raise horses, break them to saddle. I’d even like to learn ranching, maybe have one of my own one day. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life standing on a stage hoping some rowdy doesn’t decide to drag me off of it.”

Opal spoke around a bite of sandwich, “Which is why I keep telling you to find a good husband while you’ve still got your looks and can pick and choose. Why, there isn’t an unmarried man in that audience who wouldn’t leap at the chance to marry you.”

“I have told you over and over—I do not want to get married.”

Opal threw up her hands. “Then all that’s left for you, honey, is what you’re doing or a job like I got. You aren’t going to get hired on at a ranch to do man’s work even if you’re able. What rancher in his right mind would hire a pretty young thing like you? His hands would never get any work done and probably wind up killing each other over you, to boot. And forget pretending to be a boy. You might have got away with that on the ride out here and fooled the Indians, but you couldn’t do it forever, and you know it.

“Settle down,” she urged, pouring a cup of tea and holding it out to her. “You’ll get over last night.”

Kitty took the tea and sipped, hoping it would quell her rolling stomach. She was a bundle of nerves, thinking of her plight. “I feel like a prisoner here. There’s nothing to do but hide out in this room when I’m not onstage, and it’s hot and stuffy. I’m miserable here.”

“Go for a walk. It’s safe during the day. Do some shopping.”

“I have been to every store in Tombstone. I know all the shopkeepers by their first names. There is nothing I need to buy, anyway. And I have walked this town till I could find every house, tent, and shanty blindfolded. What I want to do is go riding.” She drained the tea and set the cup down with a clatter. “But I’m denied the privilege of even doing that. All the stable owners refuse to rent me a horse, because they say a woman has no business riding out by herself.”

Opal shrugged. “So ask a man to go with you.”

“I can’t do that. If I ask someone unmarried, he’ll think I’m inviting him to court me. And it would be improper to ask someone who is.”

“You’re probably right,” Opal allowed. “And I’m glad they won’t let you go off by yourself. That Apache—Whitebear, or whatever you said his name was—might be out there.”

“He wouldn’t know me if he saw me,” Kitty pointed out. “Besides, we don’t know for a fact that he ever found out who I really was, anyway.”

“True, but it’s not worth chancing. That’s why we moved up here, remember? Now relax. Things aren’t as bad as you think.”

Kitty went to her chifforobe and yanked the door open. Rummaging through her clothes, she took out a citron cotton dress. “I am going to relax,” she said. “I’m going for a ride. If I don’t get out in the wide-open spaces for a breath of fresh air and change of scenery, I’m going to go crazy. I’ve never felt so cooped up in my life.”

“But you just said they won’t let you have a horse.”

“I’m going to rent a buggy.”

“They won’t agree to that, either.”

Kitty smiled. “They hinted they would if I’d hire one of the stable boys to go with me. They all look to be about thirteen or fourteen, so they’re hardly married or looking to be any time soon.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue. Your mind is set.” Opal gathered cups and saucers, stacked the tray, and stood. “I just hope if you do run into trouble there’s another gunslinger around to take care of you.”

“That one last night,” Kitty said, mind again hooked to the stranger, “who was he? Do you know? I didn’t have a chance to thank him.”

“Never saw him before. I talked to him a spell before you went on. Said his name was Sam Bodine.”

“Well, if he’s around tonight, I’d like to thank him for what he did.”

Opal moved to the door. “He probably won’t be. His kind never hang around for long. Good-looking fellow, though, wasn’t he? Even with that beard covering most of his face.”

Kitty allowed that, yes, the stranger had been good looking, in a feral, rugged way. But Opal was right. She would never see him again. Perhaps it was just as well, for the way he had looked at her still needled.

Ryder had been standing across the street from the Oriental Saloon since noon.

Discovering that the popular so-called Singing Angel was actually Kitty Parrish had struck as hard as a mule kick to the belly. It had all but knocked the wind out of him, because it was too incredible to be true.

But it was.

And his self-confidence was shaken.

After all, he had not pictured Kitty as being pretty. She had been a scrawny, scruffy, dirty boy with long, greasy hair stringing all down her face. As a woman, he had imagined her to be shapeless and plain, easily falling prey to a man’s attentions.

Hell, he never dreamed she would be the sweetheart of Tombstone, turning the head of every man in town. It was going to make his quest extremely difficult, if not impossible, but at least he had an edge, because she would be appreciative of what he had done.

All he had to do now was find a way to get to her without being obvious about it. So he had stationed himself across from the saloon to wait for her to come out, only he was beginning to think she wasn’t going to. Most of the women who worked the gambling and dance halls stayed in during the heat of the day. And he didn’t dare hang around all afternoon. It might arouse suspicion, and he did not want that…did not want it to appear he was stalking anybody.

And then he saw her. She came out the front door, pretty in a yellow dress and matching bonnet. With head held high, she walked purposefully down the boardwalk, and Ryder smiled as she cursed to stumble in her high buttoned shoes. A far cry from the boots she’d been wearing the whole time she was with him. Evidently she was not used to dressing up, but she did a fine job of it. She was a beauty, all right. No denying that.

He waited a moment, then began to amble lazily down his side of the street, keeping her in sight as she marched by the stores. Every so often she nodded to someone she knew, but she ignored the hoots and whistles from men who ogled as she passed.

When she reached the livery stable, she turned in. Ryder went down the alley next to it and entered from the rear door to stand in the shadows and listen.

He caught the tail end of her offer. “…pay you two dollars. All I want you to do is take me for a buggy ride.”

While Ryder could not see Kitty, the stable boy was visible. With head down, shoulders hunched, he dug into the straw-littered floor with the toe of his boot as he regretted to say, “Aw, I’d like to, ma’am, ’cause that’s a lot of money, but there ain’t nobody here but me, and the boss would kill me if I upped and took off.”

Ryder heard an exasperated sigh, then. “All right. Let me take the buggy by myself, and I’ll pay you anyway. And I assure you I can handle a horse. I used to raise them back home in Virginia, so you needn’t worry. And I won’t be gone long. I just want to go for a little ride. Maybe an hour or two.”

The boy lifted his head to stare at her in horror. “I can’t do that, ma’am. We don’t let our buggies to women.”

“I thought it was only horses.”

“Buggies, too. If you was to get hurt, everybody would blame us. I’m sorry. Maybe I can go another time.”

“But I need to get out of town today.”

Ryder could not believe his ears. Throughout the time Kitty Parrish—or Billy Mingo, as she had called herself—had been held captive, not once had he heard her sound as though she were about to cry. Now it appeared she was close to breaking, and it made no sense, not over something as trivial as renting a buggy. Whatever her reason for desperation, he quickly decided to use it to his advantage.

He stepped from the shadows. “I’d be glad to take you, Miss Parrish.”

Kitty took a step backward, then, in recognition, her hand fluttering to her throat. “You’re the man from last night…the one who shot the gun out of Roscoe’s Pate’s hand.”

Frightened by the sight of an ominous-looking stranger stepping out of darkness wearing the low-slung double holster of a gunslinger, the stable boy disappeared as though he had never even been there.

Ryder sucked in his breath as he looked her up and down. How stupid he had been not to see through her disguise. Delicate hands, neck pale and slender, the soft line of her jaw, and rosebud lips begging to be kissed. But he had not seen all that, because he had not looked for it. His view had bounced back from the dirt and grime and sheer messiness of Billy Mingo.

And her voice had been another deterrent to discovery. Always she had spoken low, husky, not soft and lilting as she did now.

“Sir?” Kitty prodded, tilting her head at how he was not saying anything…how he was looking at her once more in that strange, thoughtful way. “That
was
you, wasn’t it? Last night? In the Oriental Saloon?”

He wiped his hand across his brow, which had become beaded with sweat. “Yes. It was.”

“And how is it that you know my real name?”

“Your friend, the faro dealer, told me.” He tipped his hat. “I’m Sam Bodine.

“I hope I didn’t scare you too bad, having to shoot as close as I did,” he added with a smile to lighten the mood.

She seemed to relax a little. “Oh, it gave me a start, for sure, but I’m glad you’re as good a shot as me or I wouldn’t be here to thank you.” She laughed, soft and silvery.

The corners of his mouth pulled in a smile. “Are you saying you’re good with a gun?”

“I am.” Mischief twinkled in her sea-green eyes. “Want me to prove it?”

“Why not? It could be fun.”

“Then I’ll take you up on your kind offer to give me a ride out of this rough and tumble town, and we can find a place where we can shoot.”

Ryder knew her real motive was to get him to take her for an outing she would not have otherwise. He called to the stable boy, figuring he was hovering nearby and listening in. “Get us a horse and buggy.”

Kitty offered to pay since it was her idea, but Ryder declined and gave the boy the money himself, figuring the more indebted she felt toward him, the better.

“You picked a bad time to go for a ride,” he said after they had rolled along for nearly ten minutes without conversation. “It’s boiling hot.”

She waved a hand to fan herself. “I know, but I thought if I didn’t get away for a little while, I’d lose my mind.”

He noted she was keeping her distance, squeezing as far from him as possible on the leather seat. “Do you want me to stop and pull the cover up for shade?”

“No. I want to feel space around me. Staying in my room all the time is positively smothering.”

“Why don’t you get out a spell?”

“Where would I go? And what is there to do? It’s terribly boring, but as soon as I’ve saved up enough money, I’m going to buy a horse, and then I can come and go as I please.”