Paxton Pride (28 page)

“But I am thirsty,” Karen answered pleasantly, trying to put him at ease. “Surely a glass of water …”

“But ma'am, I already done tole'…”

“Give the lady some water.”

Karen, startled by the familiarity of the new voice, spun around to discover Roscoe Bodine standing just behind her.

“Now look here, Bodine, you know rules is rules.”

“She's with me. I'm escortin' her. Ain't that right, Miss Hampton?”

Karen chanced a tentative smile at the rugged outrider, sensing an opportunity to gain satisfaction for what she considered to be the bartender's rudeness.

“That takes care of your rules then, don't it, Miller,” Bodine declared, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“Uh … why, yes. I reckon so.”

Bodine turned to Karen and ignored the bartender. “You want somethin' stronger, Miss Hampton?”

“No. Water will be fine, thank you.”

Miller poured a glass of cool, sweet spring water from a pitcher and handed it to Bodine to carry as he guided her to a far corner table near the entrance to a narrow hallway from which exuded a dank, stale, musty odor, not at all pleasant. Bodine sat with his back to the wall. He had washed, shaved and bought some new clothes, giving him a dashing if rough look. The patch only added to his interesting face, a face not handsome nor ugly, but rather used and stern, reflecting the harshness of the land in which he lived and recalling the hardness seen in many of the men and women behind her at the bar.

Karen listened wide-eyed and with great intent as Bodine spoke of places he'd seen, scrapes he'd encountered, battles he had won and lost. The whiskey bottle in front of him tipped from time to time to spill more of the disagreeable amber fluid—the label said, quite simply, “Whiskey,” though a more evil-smelling potion she had never encountered—in his glass, and as he talked he drank, not quickly but steadily, his voice slurring at first imperceptively and then in a more pronounced manner. Karen wanted to leave but her confidence had been shaken and she wasn't quite sure of how to do so without creating a scene. Instead she smiled as she listened, laughing in all the right places at his humorous tales, never dreaming the man would construe her behavior as an invitation to further advances. A vague memory of Vance telling her flirtation could be dangerous tugged at her mind but she dismissed it, for she was on her own now and such was the way she was accustomed to win over men, to bend them to her will. Slowly, as she became used to the room, the sounds and smells, her confidence returned.

A woman at the bar laughed coarsely. She was standing close to one of the cowboys. Karen blushed and turned her eyes as the woman leaned against the man and whispered in his ear, her hand sliding below his belt. A second later the same two passed her table and headed down the hall. Again, she turned her head from them, focusing on Bodine in order to cover her embarrassment.

Bodine glanced sharply at the pair leaving the room, then looked back to Karen, a strange glow in his eye. “Rooms down there,” he said huskily. “Want to go look?”

The question took her off guard and she glanced about nervously, a move he interpreted as an affirmative answer. He tossed off the rest of the glass of whiskey and reached across the table to grab her wrist. The move shocked her and she tried to draw away. “Mr. Bodine.…”

Weeks of loneliness and frustration transformed the outrider from a rough but well-meaning man into a lust-driven beast. His grip was like a vice and his voice rasped in her ears. “Honey, you been wantin' it ever since I first seen you. Maybe that boy you travelin' with don't Know how, but I do. I got enough saved up to last you a long time. Warm that northe'n blood a' yours.”

“Mr. Bodine, I am sorry, but you'll have to.…” She was frightened now. That which had seemed so harmless only moments before had been blown out of all proportion.

“I don't have to do nothin', 'cept what I got a mind to. You been askin' an' puttin' on airs ever since we left Corpus. Hell, I can read sign on the trail an' I can read sign in a woman.” He rose drunkenly from the table, hauling her out of her seat and pulling her to him, covering her mouth with a brutal kiss before she quite knew what was happening. Panic stricken, Karen fought to get free, only to feel a hard, demanding hand grope at her breast and savagely knead it.

“Bodine!” The name rang out clear in the sudden silence. “Leave her be!” As Roscoe lifted his head a fist shot by Karen and slammed into Bodine's face, knocking him back into his chair and spilling him to the floor. Karen leaped away, struggling to keep from screaming. Through tear-filled eyes she saw her benefactor, Billy, Bodine's partner and the other outrider.

“Are you all right, ma'am?” he asked solicitously. “Roscoe gets a mite mean when he drinks too much. It's a sorrowful way for a good man to behave.”

Karen nodded. Suddenly from behind her Roscoe lunged from the floor, his fist describing a wide arc which connected with Billy's jaw and knocked him head over heels into a table. The boy moaned softly, then slumped unconscious. Bodine's momentum had carried him past Karen and he stopped, whirling to face her, his eye burning with lust and anger. She was trapped. He was between her and the front door. Barely thinking, she whirled and bolted down the narrow hall.

Behind her, several of the men made a move toward Bodine but he flipped a gun from its hiding place behind his waistband. They stopped suddenly, backing from the weapon. “Bodine … dammit, leave her be,” the bartender shouted.

“Go to hell, Miller. I'll pay you for your damn room,” he growled as he followed Karen into the hall.

Karen ran to the farthermost door. Hoping it led to the outside she raised the latch and rushed through into a sour, musky, sweat-smelling alcove lit by a single sputtering coal oil lamp and then stopped, aghast at the sight before her. The prostitute who had left the room only moments before lay on her back on a dirty mattress, her legs naked and the red satin dress bunched up around her waist. The man on top of her had dropped his jeans and long johns to his knees and grunted wildly as he drove himself into the flaccid, unmoving and uncaring woman under him. The door closed with a loud click and the man looked over at Karen, as startled as she. The woman beneath him couldn't have cared less. “You lose somethin', honey?” she asked in a bored, matter-of-fact tone before turning her attention back to the cowboy. “Come on, Eddie. I ain't got all day.”

Karen stood spellbound, near hysteria. Frantically she looked about for means of escape. The room had no windows, no manner of egress. Suddenly the door behind her flew open and Bodine stumbled into the room. The man on the bed clambered off the woman and hopped about grabbing at his trousers, trying to pull them up and still look angry. “What the hell is this?”

Bodine shoved Karen further into the room and in the same motion grabbed the half-naked man by his shirt and threw him into the hall: The prostitute disgustedly rolled off the bed with a curse. “Roscoe,” she warned, “you're drunk again. You'd be better off with me, 'cause that there's a lady. And trouble to boot.”

“Get the hell out, Lilly,” Roscoe growled menacingly. “Get out before I throw you out, too.”

Karen cringed at the sound of his voice. “Please, miss, get some.…”

“Honey, you gotta take care of your own problems,” Lilly answered, patting down her skirt and heading out the door.

Bodine's eye was red and bleary. He kicked closed the door behind him and stared at the girl cowering against the wall. “Well … peel.”

“Please, Mr. Bodine.…”

“We're alone. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? Hell, ain't no one gonna see you. It's what you come here for.”

“No. No, you're wrong.”

“You smiled an' smiled at me, cast me longin' glances. I could tell you was fancyin' me.” He stepped closer, his hand reaching out to touch her face, somehow more gently than she had imagined he would. A confused look came into his eye and he hesitated. “Why you cryin'? Never understan' women. Lonesome where I been, with nothin' to talk to but the tumbleweeds an' the sky.”

He staggered backward, stooped over a moment to hold his head. “
Hijo!
” he exclaimed in Spanish. “My head. That goddam rotgut whiskey. Ought to make him drink his … hey!” He reached out as Karen bolted past him, his hand tearing at her dress and tripping her. Karen tumbled to one side and fell on the bed. The man lurched closer to her and stopped. “I don't understan' you, miss,” he said, his speech becoming more and more slurred as the whiskey tightened its hold on him. He reached out to touch her again.

“Bodine!”

The outrider's one good eye went wide with recognition. Vance Paxton stood outlined in the doorway, the bartender's gun stuck in his belt. Karen started to speak but Bodine cut her off, screaming, “Get out of here, Paxton!” He grabbed at the gun in his belt.

“Don't, Roscoe!” Vance shouted, even as his own hand dropped and, on reflex alone, scooped out the heavy army Colt. Karen stared horrified. The sound of Vance's gun was deafening in the small room. Karen tried to scream for them to stop, knowing the unspeakable climax had already been reached. The report from Roscoe's pistol was just as loud as, slammed back against the dresser, he fired his own weapon, sending the bullet into the soiled mattress and barely missing Karen.

In the sudden silence, time stopped. Roscoe slowly raised his pistol, the chore almost too much for him. He looked puzzled at the gun in his hand, at the man in the doorway, at the girl on the floor. Vance did not shoot again, though he kept his revolver aimed at the outrider. “Roscoe, for Christ's sake … enough. Don't make me shoot again.”

Bodine shook his head. “You won't need to. That one's done it,” he said, his voice small and far away. His eye seemed to clear and his arm lowered, the pistol slipping from his grip and falling with a thud to the floor. He stepped away from the dresser, his face a puzzled frown as he stared at Karen. “You … you fancied me. I could tell. All the way … up from … Corpus.…”

Karen covered her mouth with a pale and bloodless hand to keep from screaming. There was a hole in front of Bodine's shirt, a dark smear spreading around it. Behind him a gleaming white chip from the limestone wall where the bullet had struck glowed in the dim light. Slowly, she rose and stepped aside as the man stumbled and fell forward onto the mattress. The springs creaked as he bounced and lay still. On his back, a larger hole streamed blood and gore.

Vance stepped to him quickly, rolled him over and swung his long legs onto the bed. Pink froth bubbled from the front of his shirt as he breathed, sucked back in with each inhalation. Vance sat by him, ripped off the shirt and exposed the wound. Working quickly he tore the shirt into strips, plugged the wounds and bound them. Bodine seemed lucid and watched calmly as the man who had shot him tired to save him. When he spoke the whiskey slur was gone. “Sorry, Paxton. Shouldn't a' tried you. Knowed better, if I'd thought about it.” A wave of pain caught him and he winced, his teeth gritting with effort. When the pain subsided he chuckled grimly, the sound garbled with the blood welling in his throat. “Damn it, Paxton, you done gone an'… ruined my … new shirt. An' it cost me … cost …” He stopped, his face contorting with a new wave of pain. As it ebbed he swung his head to look at Karen. “She fancied … she …” But the effort was too much. His eye glazed over, not with drunkenness, but death.

Silence lay heavily on the room. Slowly, Vance stood, laying the dead man's head back on the bed and closing his eye. He turned and faced Karen, his face hard and set, eyes slit and cold. Three steps and he stood in front of her. Neither said a word as his hands, red and wet with fresh blood, rose to hover in front of her face, the bloody fingers clawed in talons before her eyes. “You just got a good man killed,” he said quietly, almost whispering.

Karen shrank back from the hands, the terrible blood-covered hands. “I … I didn't …”

He reached and grabbed her arms, the fresh blood smearing on her sleeves. “
I said,” he interrupted fiercely, “you just got a good man killed.”

Someone coughed nervously outside the room. Vance stared hard at the offender before grabbing Karen's wrist and heading for the door, hauling her behind him. The men in the hall parted silently and let them through, the narrow pathway closing behind them as the whispers started. The saloon was empty save for Billy, who sat at one of the tables, holding his head in his hands. He looked up and as she passed, Karen saw the side of his face was puffed out and blood still streamed from his mouth.

Vance paid no attention, merely continued dragging her across the empty floor and out the door where a knot of people stood, drawn by the story of a killing. A single look from him opened an avenue for them and he hauled her to a fancy blackboard and unceremoniously dumped her in. Leaping to the seat beside her he grabbed the reins and whip and lashed the horse into a startled run.

The buckboard left a chorus of shouted protests in its dusty wake as people leaped aside to avoid being run down. Vance slashed the whip across the horse's rump, urging it to greater speed. He had not spoken a word to Karen, who sat glumly next to him, holding the torn fragments of her dress together while trying not to fall from the wildly careening buggy. They pulled up to the rear entrance of the Menger and came to a shuddering halt. “Get out,” Vance said shortly.

“This is the servants' entrance,” Karen answered, attempting to sound braver than she felt. “I shall go in by the front door.”

Vance jumped out and pulled her after him, roughly led her through the back door, the kitchen, the laundry and up the servants' stairway to the hall leading to their rooms. Once in her room, Karen whirled around, her temper boiling, a flush on her cheeks. “How dare.…”