Cactus Flower (4 page)

      
She
put down her comb and surveyed the result of her work. “There. I’ve
never seen you look worse, Eulalie Gibb.” She was so pleased with
herself that she grinned.

      
In
spite of the saloon’s rough clientele and locale, Mr. Chivers had
a well-appointed, if smoky, establishment. There was even a stage rigged
with a purple velvet curtain and gold scalloped edging. If it weren’t
for the dust coating everything, that curtain might even be pretty.
Eulalie didn’t suppose there was much one could do about the dust
out here, since the wind seemed to blow constantly, and there was nothing
by way of trees or shrubs to stop it. Nobody’d warned her about the
wind.

      
There
was also an orchestra of sorts, consisting of a piano, a violin—fiddle,
she supposed she should call it—and a horn. The piano player was a
consumptive drunk, the fiddle player was a fifteen-year-old boy, and the
horn player was a Mexican man who seemed to have trouble with anything
that didn’t have a Latin beat to it, but Eulalie didn’t care. She
could sing with them or without them. She aimed to make the whole town
love her voice and her shape, if not her personality, so that she’d
make a lot of money fast.

      
Her
costume was low-cut in front, and Eulalie’s bosom was more than ample.
She had plenty of cleavage, in other words, and she stuffed her Ladysmith
between her breasts. She wasn’t going to take any more chances than
she had to.

      
A
knock came at the door, and she turned quickly, reaching for the Ladysmith
as she did so. “Who is it?”

      
“It’s
me, Miss Gibb. Nick Taggart.”

      
“What
do you want?” She didn’t bother to try to sound polite.

      
“Dooley
wanted me to tell you it’s almost time.” He sounded offended. Eulalie
didn’t care.

      
“I
can tell time, Mr. Taggart. And I know when I’m supposed to perform.”

      
There
was a several-second silence from behind the door. Then Nick said, “You’re
very welcome,” and Eulalie heard him stomp away. Since she hadn’t
heard him stomp up in the first place, she presumed she’d annoyed
him with her acerbity. She didn’t care about that, either.

      
He
was right, though. It was almost time. Eulalie replaced the Ladysmith,
sucked in a huge breath for courage, and bowed her head for a moment
of silent prayer. Then she squared her shoulders, opened her door, and
marched to the wings.

* * * * *

      
Nick
Taggart had met unpleasant people in his day, but he’d never met one
as aggravating, mouthy, and crusty as Miss Eulalie Gibb. He’d like
to turn her over his knee and paddle her bottom. And then strip her
naked and tussle with her until she begged for mercy.

      
When,
after a suitable and almost tuneful introduction by the Opera House
musicians, she slithered out onto the stage, looking for all the world
like a professional harlot, his mouth dropped open and his fantasies
dried up and blew away like so much chaff. He ceased thinking entirely.
In fact, for a moment or two, he didn’t believe it was really her.
The Miss Eulalie Gibb he’d met couldn’t look like that in a million
years.

      
Could
she?

      
The
moment of stunned silence that filled the saloon was followed by a din
the likes of which Nick had never heard before. The noise, consisting
of whoops, catcalls, whistles, stomping feet, and bellows of approval,
jarred him out of his slack-jawed contemplation of Miss Eulalie Gibb’s
abundant charms.

      
She
was … she was … Nick couldn’t think of a word for what she was.
Several came close. Magnificent. Shapely. Breathtaking. Gorgeous. Splendid.
Stimulating. Arousing.

      
Arousing
.
That was it. In fact, she was so arousing in her present state of undress
that Nick’s prior wish that he could strip her naked thundered back
into his head like a randy bull. When he could pry his gaze away from
her, he looked at the other men in the room and decided they all felt
the same way.

      
Which
made him angry. All at once, he experienced an almost overwhelming urge
to rush up to the stage, wrap a blanket around Eulalie Gibb, and haul
her off so that none of these other men could ogle her the way Nick
was doing.

      
“Holy
shit,” Nick heard at his side. He shot a glance at Dooley Chivers
and discovered him staring, bug-eyed, at Miss Gibb. Dooley’s mouth
hung open, too, and his cigar barely clung to his lower lip. Nick repressed
the urge to shove the lit cheroot down the older man’s throat.

      
His
reaction was stupid. Nick knew it, and he forced himself to get a grip
on his emotions. What the hell did he care if Miss Eulalie Gibb made
a spectacle of herself in front of a mob of lustful men? It was no skin
off his teeth. She was nothing to him but a pain in the neck. Or in
another part of his anatomy.

      
Nick
suppressed a frustrated moan when Eulalie, smiling provocatively and,
posing with one pink-slippered, well-shaped foot poised in front of the
other, lifted her arms for silence. He gulped hard. When she lifted
her arms like that, her bosom damned near popped out of that teensy
piece of bright pink material she had draped over it.

      
“Lord
above, I ain’t never seen nothing like it,” Dooley murmured, awed.

      
Nick
hadn’t either. He didn’t say so.

      
Dooley
finally managed to drag his lascivious gaze away from his new singer
and peered at Nick. “I swear, Nick Taggart. If I waren’t lookin’
at her with my own eyeballs, I’d never believe it was the same female.
Did you think she’d turn out like that?”

      
Since
he didn’t trust his voice, Nick only shook his head and continued
staring at Eulalie.

      
Looking
as if she were the conqueror of the world, which she pretty well was
in the very small world of the Peñasco Opera House, Eulalie smiled
her seductress’s smile at her ravening audience once more, and then
signaled to the orchestra.

      
Nothing
happened. When Nick glanced at the musicians, he discovered them gaping
at Eulalie, too stricken with lust to play their instruments. He decided
things had gone on long enough.

      
“
Hey
!”
he shouted. “Get to playing, you fools!”

      
His
voice was virile, deep, and loud, and it made everyone in the room jerk
to attention. The whistles and stomps and catcalls stopped. Nick threw
a cracker from the bowl on the bar at Griswold Puckett, the piano player,
who immediately slammed his hands down on the piano keys, producing
a chord that sounded like fifty cats screeching.

      
He
recovered at once, however, and launched into the tinkly strains of
What Was Your Name in the States
, a song that had originated among
the California gold-mining camps, but which held a good deal of appeal
to the men populating New Mexico Territory nowadays. In fact, a new
round of cheers went up from the men, many of whom, Nick knew, had been
less-than-stellar citizens in the States and had left their original names
behind when they moved to the territory.

      
When
Eulalie began to sing, the room went quiet again.

      
“Sweet
Lord, have mercy,” Dooley whispered, which expressed Nick’s sentiments
to a T.

      
He’d
never heard anything like it. Sweet and pure and as loud as the alarm
bell on top of the sheriff’s office, Eulalie’s voice filled the
air like sunshine after a storm. She had the most beautiful voice he’d
ever heard in his entire thirty years of life. He felt like a pure fool
when tears filled his eyes. Yet when he glanced around the room, he
saw that most of the other men, those who weren’t too drunk to be
pervious, were sneaking hands to their eyes, too, and wiping tears away.
A couple of bandannas appeared, even.

      
At
least five minutes of thunderous applause followed Eulalie’s rendition
of
What Was Your Name in the States
. This time when she lifted
her arms for silence, the men obeyed her. Nick had never seen a person,
male or female, control an audience with such ease. He wondered if she’d
been trained as an actress.

      
He
decided she must have had some kind of training when she launched into
The Man on the Flying Trapeze
. She strutted and pranced on the stage
like she’d been born on it. By the time she’d finished that one,
every man in the house was drooling.

      
Nick
himself had never seen a female kick so high. And her legs … Well,
if he’d ever seen more delicious legs on a woman, he couldn’t remember
when. The fishnet stockings she wore didn’t hurt any either. Nor did
the black-and-pink garter she’d pulled up to about mid-thigh. Lord on
high. He discovered within himself a fierce desire to shoot all the
other men who were lusting after her, and told himself to stop being
an idiot.

      
From
The Man on the Flying Trapeze
, she went on to
Lorena
and
Streets of Laredo
and a couple of other tear-jerkers. Several men
in the audience sobbed aloud. Nick was astounded.

      
Then
she took a bow, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. She had
knockers the size of watermelons. He heard Dooley suck in a deep breath.
He’d noticed, too, Nick presumed. Who wouldn’t? She was flaunting
them for everyone to see and appreciate. Which, Nick gathered from the
renewed chorus of whoops and hollers, everyone did.

      
“Jehosephat,
Nick, it’s a good thing you’ll be stayin’ here tonight. Otherwise,
I ain’t sure she’d survive the night.”

      
Nick
wasn’t, either. Although she took several curtain calls, the noise
didn’t abate. Finally she stopped returning to the stage, and for
a few tense minutes it looked as if the men might riot and tear the
Opera House apart. Nick bounded onto the stage and drew his hogleg,
however, restoring calm without more than several fights breaking out.

      
“She’ll
sing again tomorrow night, boys,” he shouted above the din. Cheers
erupted. He noticed Dooley was surrounded by men, all of whom, Nick
presumed, were asking how much a tumble with Miss Gibb would cost. Nick
saw red for a minute, and fired his gun into the planking of the stage.

      
Dooley
Chivers said, “Aw, hell, Nick!” but Nick didn’t feel very guilty
about it. It wasn’t the first time a gun had been fired in the Opera
House, and it assuredly wouldn’t be the last. At least this one had
only made a hole in the floor. Usually, when a gun went off in the saloon,
the bullet made a hole in a man. This was much less messy.

      
Again,
men dropped like rain, flattening themselves on the dirty floor like
lumpy carpeting. When Dooley had hollered at Nick, his cigar fell from
his mouth and landed on the back of Jem Flick’s neck. Jem hollered
and swore, but he didn’t get up. Any time gunplay broke out in the
Opera House, most fellows considered themselves fortunate to escape
with a cigar burn.

      
“Miss
Gibb isn’t for sale, boys,” Nick called out. Groans and curses met
his announcement. He was prepared for disappointment and didn’t holster
his gun immediately. “But Miss Violet and Dooley’s other fine ladies
will be happy to take care of you.” He winked at the men on the floor,
some of whom had lifted their heads to listen better.

      
Dooley,
who had grabbed his cigar and apologized to Jem, nodded. “Nick’s
tellin’ ya the truth, boys. Miss Gibb, she said she ain’t in any
but the singing-and-dancing business.”

      
“That’s
right, boys. Miss Gibb’s an honest-to-God actress, trained in Chicago.”
Nick didn’t know if it was true or not, but it might as well be. She
was surely good enough to have been trained somewhere.

      
Unhappy
mutterings rumbled up from the floor. Men began to get to their feet
and dust themselves off now that it appeared there would be no more
guns going off.

* * * * *

      
Eulalie
listened from behind the door of her small dressing room, wishing the
door had a stronger lock. She had her own gun—the Colt Lightning this
time—drawn, just in case. Her heart thundered like a herd of buffaloes
stampeding through her chest. She’d never been so scared in her life
as she was there for a second, when she’d wondered what she’d do
if any of those men decided not to take no for an answer. One or two,
she could probably handle with her Colt. More than that, and she’d
be lucky to escape in one piece.

      
She
and Patsy had formulated a contingency plan for conditions such as these
that might arise, but Eulalie wasn’t eager to implement it. For one
thing, she’d hoped to get through this ordeal without having to depend
on a man. She especially didn’t want to acknowledge that she needed
a man to protect her.

      
Aside
from all that, she and Patsy had both learned the hard way that men
were unreliable at best, even when they were working for money. More
often than not, men were pure beasts. Eulalie wouldn’t hire a bodyguard
except as a last resort because she was done with beasts in this life
if she could help it.