His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (2 page)

"Kill yourself on someone else's handout, old man. You won't get a nickel from me."

The weasel puffed up in indignation. "Here now. Is that any way to talk to yer friend?"

"If I'd wanted a friend, I wouldn't be in Whiskey Bend."

Michael's growl caused the weasel to slink sideways out of reach, but the old man still jogged close enough for Michael to smell the stench of urine and unwashed flannel.

"You sure are a strange one, Mick. You hardly touched that sipping whiskey you plunked down that gold piece fer. An' you didn't hump a single one of Rose's girls. Jest what are you after, anyway?"

Retribution.

But again, Michael didn't waste his breath. The weasel wouldn't care that Gabriel Jones had gasped tenaciously night after night, fighting for the right to the miserable life he'd been granted. He wouldn't care that Michael's medical education had proven futile against the lung plague that had been sent to murder his twelve-year-old brother.

Carefree youth, innocence, nobility of spirit—these were alien concepts in Whiskey Bend.

"Gimme them reins, you little whore!"

The bellow had cracked like a whip on the wind.

"What's the matter, Mick?" The weasel seemed surprised that Michael had stopped walking and was frowning into the shadows. The old man glanced toward the nearest shanty, a low-class crib with a scrawny woman-child preening in the window. "You seen some tits you wanna sample?" he asked hopefully.

Lightning streaked overhead. Against the backdrop of the livery, Michael finally spied the source of the threat: a man with a knife loomed over a young woman and her skittering horse.

The weasel must have seen them too. He retreated so fast, his spine collided with Michael's chest. "Holy shit! It's Black Bart!"

Black Bart be damned,
Michael thought. A Confederate deserter and war criminal, Bart's peacetime legend had been embellished by rumors that he rustled livestock, distilled moonshine, and robbed stagecoach passengers along routes through the Cumberland Mountains. Michael didn't doubt the bastard was dangerous—if, in fact, this shriveled shell of a man was Bart. But as far as Michael was concerned, bushwhackers were cowards.

He shoved the weasel out of his way and headed toward the girl.

"What're ya doin', Mick?" The weasel dashed in front of him again, his arms waving like a windmill. "You can't tangle with Bart. He ain't no nancy-boy like Hoss!"

"Give me your gun."

"I ain't got one!"

"Then get the hell out of here."

The weasel whimpered, obviously torn between the impending sport and his contemptible life. "They'll scrape you off the street!"

That would certainly solve my other problems.

Michael pitched the old man toward safety then slipped into shadow. He could barely hear the weasel's retreat above the din of neighing, panting, and cursing by the livery.

"Bart," he snapped, his voice grating like steel, "get your own damned horse, or I'll blow your head off."

The outlaw started, wheeling unsteadily toward the sound of Michael's voice. It took only a heartbeat for the renegade to locate his challenger, but Michael had already tucked his duster back, just close enough to his belt to appear threatening. He hoped the lightning wouldn't expose his ruse. The deadliest thing he wore strapped to his hip was a flask of rotgut.

Meanwhile, Bart was wheezing, trying to discern Michael's black hair, black eye, and black broadcloth from the utter gloom of the oncoming storm.

"Yeah?" Bart gripped his knife more tightly in his shaking fist. Lighted by the lantern hanging over the livery's door, his face, which had been grizzled by nearly fifty years of depravation, revealed every nuance of suspicion, bravado, and fear. The lantern also lighted Bart's hip. He wore no holster.

"Who the hell are you?" Bart rasped.

"Someone you don't want to cross."

The outlaw darted an uneasy look around them. Michael recognized the signs of blood loss: pallor, tremors, desperation. Bart held his heavily bandaged gun hand close to his chest. He swayed a couple of times. But before the physician in Michael could let himself be moved by Bart's plight, he glanced at the girl, cowering behind the teeth-baring, hoof-pawing brute she'd been defending—or had the gelding been defending her?

"There ain't no law in Whiskey Bend," Bart snarled, his timbre more plaintive than menacing.

"That's right. So don't think some tinstar will stop me from blowing you to kingdom come."

Bart's bushy brows locked. Michael guessed the outlaw was thinking twice about argument.

"The hell you say. I got a right to a horse when I wants one. I got a right to respect! I'm a war hero, goddammit." Bart spat at Michael's boots. "Me and my Sharps was blowing holes through them Yankee bastards while puny-assed upstarts like yerself were still wetting yer dia—"

"You want the slug in your brain or gut?" Michael cut in. "Because I'm not particular."

Bart bared his teeth, more mongrel than wolf. "If I weren't in such a hurry, I'd carve you up for crow bait."

I'll consider myself blessed—for once.

Bart half-turned to the girl. "And when I come back, I'm gonna give you what-fer, you uppity little—"

"Time's wasting," Michael interrupted.

Bart sputtered something unintelligible, cast another anxious look down the street, and retreated, his blade still held at a menacing angle. When he reached his bandaged hand behind the watering trough, he cursed, his face screwing up with pain.

The girl took a hesitant step forward, as if she meant to help.

"Stay back, whore!" He brandished his knife again. She froze, and he heaved a bulging flour sack into view. "Don't try an' follow me neither, smart-ass," he panted at Michael. "'Cause you'll get what these others got when they came to steal my loot." He gestured toward the blood stains on the canvas.

Loot, eh?
The rattling in the sack didn't sound like coins. It sounded like broken crockery. A tell-tale stain at the bottom dripped amber liquid.

Moonshine,
Michael concluded disparagingly. Bart hadn't been shot; he'd cut his hand on the corn mash bottles that he'd been trying to salvage from the garbage heap.

The moonshiner slinked into the drizzle like a mongrel dog. Michael expelled his breath. He lumbered out of the shadows.

The girl gasped, retreating a step.

In that moment, he came to understand just exactly what he must resemble: the monster out of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein.

"You all right?" he demanded.

"Y-yes." She nodded hastily.

"Good. Then go someplace where it's warm."

Battered and bloody, he trudged past her, avoiding her eyes. He didn't want her thanks. He didn't want her adulation. All he wanted was some private place to nurse his wounds and wait out the storm. He figured he could share Brutus's stall if a vacant one wasn't available.

Michael rounded the corner of the livery. No longer pumping with adrenaline, he shivered as the rain sluiced beneath his collar. The cold tore inside his nose and throat. At this rate, his wounds would freeze closed without the need for bandaging. His lips twisting at such a macabre thought, he yanked on the ring that slid back the livery door.

Light. Michael squinted. The lanterns swung, flooding his mind with memories. He could almost see Gabriel kneeling in his pajamas, rumpled but exuberant, piling the straw closer to a laboring mare. He remembered how the boy had clasped his hands and prayed; how he'd laughed with delight when the colt had sprung forth; how he'd gravely considered a name. Brutus was the moniker Gabriel had finally chosen, because he'd hoped the spindly-legged foal would grow into it.

And Brutus had, villain that he was.

Michael's throat worked painfully. Must every new experience torment him with old memories? During the last two years, more visions had besieged him than he'd been able to drown with liquor: Gabriel, catching snow-flakes on his tongue; Gabriel, chasing yellow butterflies through the Kentucky woods; Gabriel, doing bellyfloppers in the swimming hole. Two years ago on this very day, Gabriel had painted him a placard to hang outside his future office.

"'Michael Jones, M.D. The Best Doctor Brother in the World,'" Gabriel had proudly read the birthday gift aloud. "But don't let it go to your head," he'd teased, whacking Michael with a pillow.

Remembering childish laughter and airborne goosedown on that sunny October morning, Michael dashed away tears. He valued Gabriel's gift more than he did his own life, but he didn't deserve it. He didn't even deserve the sentiment behind it. How could he possibly bring himself to hang that sign anywhere, much less over the door of a medical office?

Shaking more now from grief than cold, Michael limped inside the livery and rolled the door closed. A blast of heat assailed him, and his numb flesh began to sting. Horse sweat and manure assailed his senses, along with a nervous chorus of whinnies. One of those nickers belonged to Brutus. The gelding was stabled near the back.

Stumbling over a pitchfork, Michael cursed and headed for the rear. That's when he heard the livery door roll open again. His damsel in distress appeared, tiptoeing her horse into a stall. Venturing into the center aisle again, she halted, twisting her pinafore as she gawked at him.

Damnation.
Did she think he'd come here for a tumble?

Thunder rattled the eaves. Michael gritted his teeth, dropping onto a fresh mound of straw. Its wisps drifted down around him, winking in the lamplight. He sneezed. The resulting pain doubled him over, and he cursed again, wondering how many of his ribs were broken.

"Mister?"

Her voice was a breath, a sigh, and far too husky for her own good. He rolled to his side and drew his knees to his chest, pretending not to hear.

An uncertain scrabbling followed. A horse stomped; another nickered.

"Mister?" she whispered again, more insistently this time.

He cracked open a swollen eye. On a line with his chin, he glimpsed dusty boot toes, a touch of lace, and the thrice-turned hem of a faded green skirt.

"Go away."

The skirt moved closer. "Um... are you hurt?"

"No."

"You're bleeding."

"Doesn't matter," he snapped.

Those contrary skirts billowed about twelve inches from his nose. "You don't look so good."

"Yeah, well, I had a rough day."

"Were you in a fight?"

"More like a massacre," he muttered. Hoss was lucky he still had any teeth.

"Pardon?"

He forced his eyes back open. She was kneeling beside him now. "Why are you still here?"

His growl didn't have the desired effect. She leaned over him, a gleaming strand of auburn curling over the swell of her bodice.

"It's raining. I can't leave 'til the storm's over." She sounded apologetic. "Besides, you saved me and Valentine."

Christ.
Now he had a babe in bloomers batting eyes at him, thinking he was some kind of hero.

"I always stable Valentine during storms," she prattled on. "He's afraid of thunder."

"Well, I'm not. Go away."

Her palm, smelling faintly of leather, hovered, trembled, then resolutely touched his brow. He wondered if she was ornery or just hard of hearing.

"I sure wish Talking Raven was here," she murmured, reaching next for his ribcage. "She always knows what to do."

He flinched, grabbing her wrist. "What the hell are you doing?"

She blinked at him.
Green eyes,
he noted fleetingly.
Curious and innocent.

"Seeing what hurts."

"You don't listen so good."

"Oh. Did you already tell me?"

"Look." He struggled to sit again. "I'm a bad man. An evil man. And if you don't get away from me, you're going to regret it."

"Papa says there's no such thing as evil men. Just frightened ones."

Michael narrowed his eyes at this addlepated logic. "Where is your father?"

"Back at the wagon by now. Probably."

"Probably?"

She nodded, and something dusky dimmed her gaze. "The hotel wouldn't let Talking Raven have a room."

Michael ran a hand through his hair, found a tender spot, and winced. His head hurt. Every blasted inch of his body hurt. And her insistence that ravens talked wasn't making the least bit of sense—but maybe his rising fever was to blame.

She sat back on her heels, coming to some decision. "Wait here."

Suspiciously, he watched her rise and turn. Russet ringlets cascaded down her sleek little spine; hair ribbons bounced against her shoulders. She had enough patches on her skirt to quilt a blanket; still, she didn't have the manner of a cracker. And her accent wasn't southern white trash, either. He wondered fleetingly where she came from. Not this Tennessee border town, that was certain.

"I'm back."

He started. Had he dozed? She was standing above him again, streams of golden light radiating from her hair and shoulders. He blinked at this angelic vision, and she smiled, looking sweeter, purer, and wiser than she had before. The clatter of a bucket at his side shattered the illusion. He heard a snap; something woolly and musty fluttered over his head. The next thing he knew, she was kneeling, tucking a horse blanket around him.