In the Season of the Sun (15 page)

“Good enough.” Tom glanced past Vogel and met Nate Harveson's frank gaze. Harveson was close enough to hear the exchange and realizing he had been caught in the act of eavesdropping, stepped away from the fawning courtesies of Eva Piller and Leticia Crane. The parson quickly took his place. As for the banker and the physician from Kansas City, the two men watched from a distance, equally intrigued by the young plainsman.

“Well, Mr. Milam here seems most confident of his abilities,” Harveson said in a silken voice. He took pride in his ability to judge others.

“A man has to be,” Tom dryly observed. “Else he never does anything in this world. I figure you'd know that more than most, Mr. Harveson.”

Nate Harveson chuckled, warning toward the dark, slender plainsman despite his obvious interest in Abigail. “Well said.” Harveson stroked his chin and though a moment. “Now Con here is a known quantity. He is an accomplished marksman. But as for you, sir …”

“Perhaps a demonstration would be in order,” Vogel suggested. His expression smug, he bowed toward Harveson. “With your permission. What do you say, my friend? Perhaps we might even wager—but what do you have … pelts … scalps … what?”

Tom felt his temper rising and suppressed it. He shook his head. “I'll take my leave, Mr. Harveson. It's been a long, hard ride.”

Nate Harveson looked perplexed. He had expected Tom Milam to jump at the chance to prove his worth.

“But what of our exhibition?” Vogel interjected.

“I'm not one of your ‘musicians,'” Tom said, addressing Harveson, and then turning to the German, added, “I don't perform on cue.”

Abigail laughed and quickly bit her lower lip as Con Vogel burned, his cheeks crimson down to the neck. Before he could manage an adequate reply, Tom brushed past him, kissed Abigail's hand, nodded to Nate Harvcson, and walked out of the solarium.

“Perhaps I should show him out,” Abigail suggested, taking a step forward.

“He can find his own way, dear sister,” Harveson said, tight lipped, his voice stopping Abigail in her tracks.

“Yes,” she sighed. “I suspect he can.”

15

T
he dog waited in the middle of the street, holding a severed human hand in its mouth. The mongrel eyed Tom Milam as he paused on the outskirts of “Gully Town,” that riverfront section of Independence where vice and lawlessness was a way of life. And a way of death too, Tom speculated, noticing the dog and its grisly snack. Up ahead on Tom's left was a motley array of hotels, warehouses, saloons, and bordellos. On his right was the riverbank with its piers and loading docks piled high with goods to be transported upriver and down, pyramids of crates and boxes to be loaded onto freight wagons bound for Santa Fe.

After a minute, the dog lost interest in the man in the street and with its tail wagging trotted back down the alley from which it had come. Tom made a mental note to avoid that particular section of the riverfront. The River Wheel Hotel was a couple of blocks ahead and Tom headed straight for it. The wind blew cold here by the river and he was anxious to stretch out near a fire.

The street became crowded the further he ventured into the riverfront district. Four stern-wheelers were tethered to the docks by heavy-looking lines of braided hemp rope. Black men and white scurried over the boxes and crates, shouldering their loads and filing back and forth from the docks to the boats. Along the wooden walkway and street was a seemingly neverending procession of outfitters, half-wild trappers, bewildered settlers, bullwhackers, painted ladies, gamblers, and riverboatmen. Gully Town was no place for a timid soul. The fainthearted kept to the more civilized sections of Independence where shops and offices and homes both simple and more ostentatious endured their close proximity to the river district.

It was an unwritten rule that the rabble-rousers Gully Town attracted keep to the riverfront and avoid the more genteel sections of town. And for the most part, the riverfront's populace policed themselves. The law—in this instance, a constable and three deputies—maintained a stern vigilance but refrained from extending their authority into the heart of the sinful district.

Tom reached the River Wheel Hotel in a matter of minutes. The noise from inside the adjoining saloon filtered through the walls. Suddenly the door to the saloon crashed open and two men landed on the boardwalk. One was a buckskin-clad trapper; the other, a coarsely dressed riverboat man. Tom could see they were evenly matched as they staggered to their feet. Music and laughter and obscene encouragements poured through the open door. The trapper slugged the riverboat man and was in turn rocked on his heels by the boatman's vicious uppercut. The combatants continued to hammer each other, standing toe to toe and trading blows until a round-hipped, amply endowed whore stepped out of the doorway and in between the men. Despite the cold, she pulled down the already low-cut bodice of her blue satin dress and cupped her ponderous breasts.

“See here, boys, I'm woman enough for the two of you.” She laughed. The trapper wiped the blood from his mouth and gashed cheek. The riverboat man stared at the whore, his eyes puffed and bruised looking. The two men shrugged. The whore held her arms out to them and enfolded the former enemies into her embrace. They carried her inside, and presumably up to bed, amid a chorus of cheers.

“My kind of place,” Tom chuckled. He dismounted and called to a young black boy standing nearby.

“How old are you, lad?”

“Ah'm all of nine, suh,” the ragtag child explained. “But Ah'm pow'ful willin' for my size.”

“Is there a stable round back of this hotel?”

“Yessuh. Mah pappy works therebouts; he keeps things a'right.”

“My name is Tom Milam. Now take my horse and tell your pa to see he gets currycombed and maybe a bait of oats. Here's a dollar for your trouble.”

“Yessuh!” the boy exclaimed. He took the reins and led the animal away as Tom climbed the steps to the walkway. He paused outside the saloon, just for a moment, and listened to the clamor of sin and celebration—sweet music to his ears.

He hurried inside.

Lantern light and smoke clinging to the rafters obscured the roof beams and the ceiling overhead. The saloon adjoining the hotel was a wide, spacious room crowded with tables and high-back chairs and dominated at the far end by a long walnut bar that spanned almost the entire width of the room. Three overworked and sweat-streaked bartenders served hard liquor and applejack to a score of trappers and mountain men. The scene was bedlam. It was like a rendezvous, where men drank too much, regaled themselves with lies, chased every available woman, and spent themselves in quarrels, tall tales, cheap liquor, and fistfights. Eventually a man could take no more and collapsed unconscious in the nearest available corner. Floor space was at a premium.

Tom picked his way toward the center of the room where Coyote Kilhenny held court. The half-breed sat at a table with half a dozen hard-looking men, all dressed in buckskins, all marked by the howling wilderness in some way, be it a look or a scar or a manner of speech. They were men with the bark on, like Kilhenny … and like Tom Milam.

“Ha—Tom!” Kilhenny called out, seeing the wiry, dark youth approach. “Back so soon from the civilizin' influence of Nate Harveson?”

“I wouldn't mind bein' influenced by Miss Abigail,” one of the men at the table, Iron Mike, muttered. He was a squat, surly-looking man with thinning hair and a stubbled jaw. The backs of his hands were matted with black hair. He was coarse and when drunk showed a mean streak that made him a dangerous man to be around. But he was a crack shot and on the trail seemed virtually indestructible, a good man to side with in a fight.

“The reverend tried to show me the error of my ways, so I figured it was time to leave.” Tom grabbed a jug of hard cider from the table and tilted it to his lips and drank long and deep. He set it down and wiped a forearm across his mouth. It was a far cry from Harveson's champagne, and the River Wheel was a good deal more rustic than Harveson's fine estate, but Tom felt at home in both worlds.

“Just so long as you didn't wear out our welcome,” Kilhenny added.

“Ain't none of our kind welcome up on Harveson's hill,” said Spence Mitchell, another trapper. Tobacco juice mottled his white beard. His long, bony fingers were curled around a tankard of rum. “Harveson sent for the lot of us. Put us up here and payin' our way, so I don't like to be complainin'. But damn my eyes, I don't like to be treated like some snake in the buffaler grass.”

“We're good as Nate Harveson any day in the week,” Iron Mike grumbled.

“Now don't you worry, lads.” Kilhenny stroked his red beard. “You'll be the first to know what's going on. Just as soon as I take breakfast with my good friend Nate Harveson.”

The men around him scowled. They were jealous of Kilhenny's access to the wealthy trader, but the half-breed had proved himself a capable leader in the past and they were willing, if need be, to follow him again.

One of the bartenders emerged from the back kitchen with a platter piled high with buffalo steaks and squaw bread. Tom joined the throng headed for the bar. The mouth-watering aroma of fried meat permeated the air. Tom helped himself to a couple of steaks and a fist-sized chunk of fry bread, sat with his back to the wall, and drawing his knife, used it for both a knife and fork.

A narrow-waisted woman of thirty-one stepped through the doors separating the hotel lobby from the saloon. She wore a black and gray taffeta dress with a fringe of yellow-white lace at the bodice, wrists, and circling her boyish hips. Her face was thickly powdered and wore a heavy coat of rouge. Tom recognized her at a glance. Junie Routh had run bordellos from St. Louis to Santa Fe.

She entered the saloon and nodded to one of her girls who was busily cajoling Skintop Pritchard into risking his last dollar at the faro table. Sweat beaded Pritchard's brow as he gambled and lost, playing the odds as recklessly as he lived his life. Junie Routh glanced aside, spied Tom hunched over his plate, gave a cry, and headed straight for him.

“Tom Milam, you've been here long enough to grab some vittles and you ain't even given your Aunt Junie a kiss.”

Tom stood, a sheepish smile on his face, as the woman wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. She pressed against him. Her hand darted down, searching for his groin. Tom maneuvered in such a way that she grabbed a fistful of buffalo steak instead.

“Aaah!” she scowled and dropped the meat, then feigning displeasure, proceeded to lick the grease from each finger. “You always were a fresh boy.”

“It's part of my charm.”

“Come upstairs and I'll show you charm,” Junie Routh invited, her eyebrows arched, her voice thick with sensuality. “Or has that rich little Harveson bitch ruined you for a real woman?” Junie saw she had caught Tom off guard. “Pike Wallace and I split a bottle upstairs. He told me you stayed behind up on Harveson Hill.”

“Why, Aunt Junie, I do believe you're jealous,” Tom said.

“They ain't your kind of people is all.” She ran her fingers along his neck, discovered the chain, and tugged. The coiled snake ring dangled free from his shirt. “You need to keep with family, honey.”

Tom's hand snapped up and caught her wrist. “My family's dead,” he said, his bloodless features and venomous tone made her draw back in alarm, as if the antique gold serpent had sprung alive, tail rattling, its deadly fangs bared.

A few seconds passed before Tom relaxed and the hardness left his gaze. He shrugged, made a sandwich of his buffalo steak and bread, and set the plate aside. He stepped up to Junie Routh, patted her derriere, and headed for the double doors leading from the saloon to the hotel lobby.

As he walked away, the ring Jacob had given him bobbed against his chest, hammering his heart with every step.

16

N
ate Harveson wiped the biscuit crumbs from his moustache and stood. “I have a map in the study. We can talk there.”

Coyote Kilhenny shrugged and shoveled the last bite of egg into his mouth. A big hand surrounded his coffee cup and he poured the steaming contents down his gullet. He slapped the cup back on the tabletop, belched, and nodded in satisfaction.

“Your darky can cook for me any day,” Kilhenny announced.

“I'll inform Thalia of that,” Abigail said from the end of the table opposite her brother

“You do that, missy,” Kilhenny replied. It was too early in the morning for him to extract any derision from the woman's remark.

“Eggs are a rarity west of Santa Fe.” Tom Bopped up the last of the yolk with a morsel of biscuit. “I can't remember when I last had them. These biscuits are fitting as well.”

“I made those,” Abigail replied, quite pleased. She wore a simple cotton dress buttoned to the neck. Flour smudged one pale blue sleeve. “I used buttermilk in the batter.”

“Old Pike Wallace cooks for us,” Tom said with a smile. “I swear his biscuits could pass for adobe. You could wall up a jacal with them. Worse is his pie. The filling's not so bad, but the crust is so tough it would take the hide off a mule.”

“I'm pleased you find my efforts … uh … fitting,” Abigail replied. She lowered her head and looked up at Tom with a soft doelike gaze. He knew she was playing with him and didn't care.

Nate Harveson loudly cleared his throat, attracting his sister's attention. “I haven't brought these gentlemen here to discuss the merits of our kitchen.” He gestured toward the hall. A black woman hurried in from the winter kitchen and began clearing the table as Harveson strode out of the room and headed up the hall. Two rooms dominated the front of the house, a formal parlor on the west corner and Nate Harveson's personal study on the east side, across the spacious foyer. Harveson led Tom and Coyote Kilhenny into his book-lined study.