California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (21 page)

"Feelin' better now, dearie?"

Esther nodded.

"Good
cuppa tea'll wash away most of the world's tears. Come on. I'll show you where
you can sleep."

When all the lamps but the one glowing in
the fat woman's office were out, Esther got up from the foul-smelling cot and
searched for the nail file Sutter had given her. Quietly she slit open a line
of light stitching that held the back flaps of the tent together.

Ten minutes later, Arabella Ryan came
into the tent with a tall, soft-spoken man who had been a steady customer since
arriving in San Francisco a week before. When she saw Esther was gone, sweat
broke out on her chin and forehead. Each time this man came in, he left her
with an inexplicable aftertaste of fear. That part of his nature was what had
prompted Arabella to send for him, but now it chilled her.

"She was here, Luther. I swear it.
And I put enough in that tea to knock out a horse!"

Mosby
stared at her for a moment, examined the loose tent flaps, then smiled.
"Forget it, Arabella. I was losin' in that faro game anyway. Wake up
Rebecca, and I'll take her back to the hotel with me."

There was no one behind the front desk
when Esther reached the
Alta
Hotel.
Taking a key off a hook, she went upstairs and let herself into a room at the
back of the second floor. As soon as she closed and latched the door, she began
shaking uncontrollably. Taking off her hat and gloves, she lay down on the bed
and started to cry. Pulling the comforter over her legs and chest, she waited
until the tears and the shivering subsided, then closed her eyes as the small
amount of the drug she had swallowed with the tea took effect.

In the morning, when the hotel clerk
knocked, Esther told him her name was Josephine Caldwell and that she was sick
with the grippe, and passed him payment in advance for five days through the
still-latched door. She arranged for meals to be brought to her room, after
giving him five extra silver dollars and promising five more if he saw to it
that under no circumstances would she be disturbed.

She lay in bed the first day, reliving
the months she had spent so happily with Alex Todd; she walked with him again,
held his hand, kissed him tenderly, made love with him passionately; in the
barn, in her bed, by the river, in the Conestoga wagon. The very happiness of
her memories only served to make her more depressed with the reality of the
present.

The second night, she sat by the window,
out of view, staring at the moonlit fog over the waters of the bay and
reexamining her decision to leave her life with Alex behind. It could never be
the same with him now. Any attempt to be together again would be haunted,
subverted by all that had happened, and, finally, doomed. She was certain he
would never permit her to pursue Mosby; as certain as she was unswerving in her
determination to track Mosby down at all costs. Still, the thought of Alex
tormented her until she fell asleep, tears drying on her face as she began a
night of fitful tossing and turning.

The
following morning she lay staring at the ceiling, dwelling on the same subject,
remembering the urgency, hope, frustration, and, finally, dejection in Alex's
voice just two nights before. The short span of hours seemed like a lifetime.
She fought the urge to search for him, find him, soothe him, and drain away his
pain and grief. Her fantasies were interrupted by a thunderous crash in the
next room. A tremor of fear ran through her as she heard a woman plead: "
Please.
Oh, God,
please
don't hit me!"

Luther Mosby stood glaring at Rebecca
Coyle, the prostitute he had brought back to his room from Arabella Ryan's two
nights in a row. The flat morning light made him squint. His long johns were open
to the waist. She was fully dressed and ready to leave. Behind her, the shards
of a water pitcher he had thrown at her lay at the base of a wall. Still drunk
from the better part of a quart of whiskey they had consumed the previous
night, Mosby lurched toward her. He grabbed the lapels of her jacket with one
fist and jerked so hard her head snapped forward.

"You connivin' little bitch!"
He slapped her hard across the face with an open hand. "You thought I was
asleep, didn't you? Too drunk to know you was liftin' my wallet?" He
slapped her again with the back of his hand, and she screamed.

"I
wasn't
stealing it!"
she cried. "You took more'n you paid for. I was just going to…"

"You're
fulla
shit, you little slut." Mosby
punched at her.

She clucked, and the blow glanced off her
ear.
"Oh, God,"
she shrieked. "Please!
Please don't
hurt me!
"

Enraged,
Mosby punched her on the point of the jaw, knocking her temporarily senseless.
"Rotten little bitch! You're all the same. Every last one of you."
Staggering, he threw her on the bed, face down. "
I'll
show you what
you'll do for free." Groping under the bed for his socks, he tied both her
wrists to the bedposts with them, ripped off her clothes, then pushed at her
until she was sitting on her knees. Opening the bottom of his long johns, he
positioned himself behind her, shoved her further forward and spread her thighs
until her anus was exposed.

At the hotel desk downstairs, Alex Todd
let out a disappointed sigh. "Damn. I've inquired at just about every
place in San Francisco."

"I'm awful sorry I can't help
you," the clerk intoned. "But as I said, there's only one unattached
lady in the hotel, and she's a working girl. Come back with Mr. Mosby late last
night. So you might say she's attached, too." He broke into a peal of
laughter, pleased with the joke and proud of himself for resisting the urge to
mention the other young woman, the one who was suffering from the grippe.
Five
dollars more to come,
he thought.

"Is she one of the girls from that
stable down near the waterfront?" Alex asked.

"Believe she is. 'Course, it's just
a guess," the owner added quickly. "I don't pay much attention to
that sort, you understand."

"Yes," Alex said, thinking,
I'm
sure you don't
.

The barber from the shop next to the
hotel walked up to the desk. "Littlejohn? A Mr. Littlejohn wants a shave
in his room," he said to the clerk. He looked at Alex. "You wouldn't
be he?"

Alex shook his head.

The barber turned back to the clerk.
"What room is he in? I'll just go right on up."

The
clerk was about to answer, when all three of them heard the woman scream
upstairs.

Esther held her hand to her mouth. The
girl had stopped screaming, but she could hear the man shouting in rage. For a
moment Esther thought it sounded like Mosby. She dismissed the idea as absurd.
She listened at the wall as several minutes passed. Suddenly she heard the girl
moan: "Oh, Lord, don't do that.
Please.
I'm too small there. Please
get some…" Esther heard her scream in pain.

"I'll get
nothin'
to make it
feel any better!" Esther heard the man shout. "You thievin' little
whore! I hope it kills you!"

"Oh, God. You'll tear me…
apart…" The girl screamed again. "Stop.
No
! Oh, Jesus,
please
stop
!"

Esther
got up from her bed and pulled on her dress. She heard a loud crack through the
wall. It sounded like a slap. Biting at her knuckles, she wondered if the man
was going to kill the girl. She moved toward the door, then hesitated. He might
kill her too, if she interfered. She considered the prospect of being dead,
never having the opportunity to take revenge.
Mosby be damned!
she said
to herself.
I cannot just stand here. I must do something to help the poor
woman.
"

When the girl started screaming again,
Alex glared at the clerk. "Well, what are you
waiting
for? Someone
may be getting killed!"

"I'm not a… a… peace officer,"
the clerk said, unable to look Alex in the eye.

"Goddamnit!" Alex shouted.
"Get out from behind that desk!"

The
woman screamed again, and for a moment Alex had the urge to grab the clerk by
the scruff of the neck and drag him upstairs. But the continued pleading from
the woman demanded immediate action. "Give me a passkey!" he ordered.
"And, damn you, follow me up there or I'll break your neck when this is
through." He glanced at the barber, who seemed rooted where he stood.
"You
too
!" The barber didn't move. Alex bared his teeth in
anger. "Come
on
, I said!"

Esther quickly pulled on her shoes and
ran to the door.

She heard the woman sob, "
Oh
,
Jesus. Oh, oh…
Oh!
Jesus Christ. Please… I'm bleeding."

Turning
the doorknob, Esther took a half-step into the hallway and saw Alex rushing up
out of the stairwell. Involuntarily, she pulled back and closed the door again.
Pressing her face against it, she heard Alex run by and pound on the door to
the next room.
He was not looking at me
, she thought.
He did not see
me…

Alex punched the passkey into the door,
threw it open, and rushed into the room. The sight of Mosby, still thrusting
savagely into the now unconscious girl, stopped him in his tracks.

Mosby turned and glared at Alex.
"What the fuck you think you're doin'?" He pulled out of the girl and
got off the bed on the far side, eyeing the chair where his holster, belt, and
pistol hung. It was too near Alex to make a move for it. "You don't want
your skull cracked, mister, you'll butt your goddamn ass out of here."

Alex looked at the gun hanging on the
chair. "Not until you get dressed and leave." He heard a footstep
behind him, turned for a second, and saw the terrified barber peeking into the
room from the far side of the hallway.

"
Get the hell out of here!
"
Mosby shouted. "You hear what I said?"

"And I said I would after you're
gone and this woman is safe." He walked over and picked up the holstered
pistol. "You can get this down at the desk—later."

Mosby moved quickly, picking up a second
chair and rushing Alex in one motion. Hefting the chair with his good arm, he
swung it in a looping, over-the-shoulder arc. Alex moved to one side as the
chair caught on an elaborate gas lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling.
Mosby jerked at it and the fixture crashed to the floor at his feet. Acting
instinctively, Alex ran at Mosby. Taller and heavier, he rammed into him with
both forearms and drove him backward into the wall beyond the bed. Mosby's head
snapped back and cracked against a thick oak beam just beneath the thin layer
of plaster. His eyes glazing over, he slumped against Alex's chest.

Torn between relief and anger, Alex eased
Mosby down onto the floor. He glanced around and saw that the girl was coming
to. The barber was staring at him from out in the hall, mouth open and bug-eyed
with terror. It suddenly came home to Alex that he might have been drawn into
killing an absolute stranger because of his own overblown imagination. The girl
he had seen, inquired about downstairs, resembled his wife, to be sure. But his
wife was dead. And so was his son. He was shocked that after three years he had
spent an entire day and two nights convincing himself she was still alive.

He stared at the trickle of blood running
down behind Mosby's ear, staining his long johns. For a moment Alex wondered if
he indeed
had
killed the stranger. He crouched and laid his hand over
Mosby's heart. Still alive. Relieved, he beckoned the barber in and examined
the scalp wound. It was superficial.

He turned to the timid, fearful man in
the barber's apron. "I don't know this gentleman. Do you?"

The barber nodded, his eyes darting back
and forth between Mosby, who had been in his shop earlier in the week, and
Alex.

Alex stood up, towering over the barber.
"He doesn't appear to be hurt bad. I want you to stay with him. No, get a
hot towel and clean his head wound. Then wait with him until he revives.
Here." Alex fished a silver dollar out of his pocket and handed it to the barber,
who seemed ready to faint. "Can you steady yourself?"

The barber nodded again, went to his
shop, and returned a few minutes later with a steaming towel.

"I want no more trouble with this
man," Alex said. "So I'm going to leave—with the girl. He'll probably
come to in ten minutes or so. Will you stay with him?"

The barber nodded once more and applied
the towel to Mosby's scalp. Alex walked over to the bed. The girl was fully
conscious now, but still groggy and so frightened she could hardly speak. Alex
handed her a towel and her clothing When she had cleaned the blood off her legs
and dressed, Alex took one last look at Mosby, who was beginning to stir, and
ushered the girl out through the door.

At a restaurant several blocks away, Alex
ordered tea for the girl and waited until she had regained a semblance of calm.
Her left cheek was swollen and   turning purple.

"Are you all right now? Would you
like me to take you to a doctor?"

The girl sobbed. "No… I'm sore as
hell, but I think I'll be all right." She squirmed, extremely
uncomfortable. "Listen. I want to thank you. You took a hell of a chance,
helping me like that." Her head clearing, she suddenly recognized Alex.
"Say, ain't you the fella come into Arabella's the other night?"

"Yes." The urge to make one
last effort to find his wife suddenly overpowered him. "Yes, I was there.
And I'd like to ask you a question or two."

The girl frowned and let out a deep
breath. "I got no time for questions, mister. I'm grateful to you, but
time with me costs money. And that son of a bitch at the hotel's already set me
back a bundle, not to mention what he done to my face." She touched
gingerly under her eye. "Jesus Christ, no one's gonna want to…"

"What's your name?"

"Rebecca." She pouted.
"Wasn't good enough for you the other night, huh?"

"It wasn't that. You're very…
attractive. Listen, Rebecca, you're going to be out of… work for a few days
anyway, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Well, if you have the right answers
to my questions, it could be worth twenty dollars."

She thought about it for a moment.
"All right. But make it quick. I got to go get cleaned up. Maybe with a
little rouge, I
will
be able to work."

"Did a girl—someone who doesn't work
for… for Arabella, come in and hide from me the other night?"

She weighed the pros and cons of telling
him. Stalling, she said, "Arabella told you wasn't no one come in, didn't
she?"

"Yes. But I thought perhaps she was
lying for some reason."

"Why would she do that?"