Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (10 page)

For it was the same fellow who, not several hours earlier, had interrupted their sojourn at the schoolhouse with a story about some fire at the Cactus Club. Apparently there was ground beef all over the floor that only Liberty was capable of cleaning up.

Garrett had been aware that Levi and Liberty had been canoodling inside the schoolhouse. That was his intention. Once he had realized that the woman he’d been kissing so fervently he had practically penetrated her upside the schoolhouse wall was the woman meant for Levi, he was glad to hand her over to his partner. There was power in this prophecy business, and when Paddy had dictated that the new agent would be in love with a Miss Hudson, Garrett knew he had to step aside.

Now this.

He had honestly just stumbled upon the pornographic Indian lithographs. He had no plans to continue to regale Liberty with indecent recitations. It was Levi, who he suspected of being a libidinous satyr, who had made the first motion to follow the instruction manual. Levi had first rubbed Liberty’s neck and kissed her while standing a few feet away from Garrett and had encouraged Garrett to participate. Since Garrett had already imagined he had to give up the idea of wooing Liberty completely, of course he was glad to cooperate.

And it somehow felt right, pressing the woman between them. She certainly hadn’t resisted, not even when Garrett’s fingers had strayed from her underarm to the softly sloping rise of her breast. She had wiggled her bottom against his erection, and Garrett was even more stimulated when he felt Levi humping her from the other side. Each lunge of Levi’s hips caused Liberty’s ass to brush more forcefully against Garrett’s own erection.

It excited Garrett to think he could have easily reached just a little bit farther and placed a hand on Levi’s hip, to encourage him to hump the stunning Miss Hudson. The sensation of allowing another man to witness his most private sexual doings and urges somehow stimulated Garrett. Like being one of those people who sought gratification by opening their greatcoat in a public square. In fact, it stimulated him so intensely he now had even more trouble than usual getting his stiff cock to obey and stay under the gun belt.

“Yes,” grumbled Levi, stuffing his own prick up against his abdomen. “That potato-head seems to have a compass embedded in his brain. He can tell whenever anyone is getting randy and tears over to ruin it.”

“Who is he, anyway?”

Levi shrugged. “He’s some sort of adjutant for Simon Hudson and the railroad. But as far as I can tell, he’s an utter blockhead. Zeke, my man.”

Levi greeted the clerk, who stood in the doorway gazing at their erections with a puzzled yet airy expression. “Liberty!” Zeke gestured as though a magician whose fingers would emit cosmic rays. “Just wanted to see if you wanted to attend the fandango at the Frontier Hotel, but I can see you’ve already got company.” He wandered casually to the sideboard, where he poured himself an overlarge glass of whiskey. “And to tell you that Jack Hammer is recovering all right from being set on fire.”

Liberty seemed very calm and collected for a woman who had almost been discovered canoodling with not one but two men. Although she did take an atlas and place it over the compromising Indian lithographs. “Well, he never would’ve gone up in such flames if Rusty Pipes hadn’t of poured kerosene on him. We should replace that Rusty. He’s always pouring something on someone.”

“Yeah,” Zeke agreed heartily. “He’s always spilling something!” He gestured with the whiskey carafe, sloshing the bookshelf with it.

“Zeke, my man,” said Levi with authority as he came forward with the woven planchette. “Have you seen this before? Maybe you could tell us what it is.”

Zeke’s face lit up with excitement as he grabbed the planchette from Levi. “Yes! This goes to the talking board! I haven’t seen that thing in ages.”

“It’s right here,” said Garrett, and Zeke zipped over to Hudson’s desk with zeal.

“Yes, there it is!” Zeke said fondly. “Carpe diem! Although I don’t know why they’re mentioning a fish on a talking board.”

Garrett laughed, but Levi was more diplomatic. “Zeke, do you know how to use this thing? What’s the purpose of it?”

Zeke waxed long-winded. “Well, you see. The spirits, as far as Mr. Hudson explains it, are capable of talking through us, of expressing themselves.”

“From beyond the grave,” Levi prompted.

“Yes, that’s it! From beyond the veil, they can reach out and touch our hearts with their innermost feelings. My own dearly departed mother reached out once and told me she was happy in the afte
rlife—”

Garrett wasn’t so diplomatic. “And how do you work the board?”

“Oh—that’s simple! You merely get a group, although I suppose you could do it with two people, sit around, and place your fingers on this planchette. The spirits move your hands to the correct letters, and soon it spells something out.”

Liberty clung to Garrett’s arm, her eyes shining with passion. “Let’s try it.”

“Yes,” Garrett agreed. “Maybe your mother will guide our hands, Zeke.”

Items were soon gathered, and the table in the dining room was cleared of all objects, save for the board, candles, and a pencil and blank paper. The table was too long for them all to reach the planchette, so Liberty and Zeke sat at one side and Garrett and Levi around the corner from them.

“You don’t have to hold hands,” Zeke assured them.

“That would be pretty hard to do,” Garrett started to point out. “If our hands are on the planchette, how can we—” But Levi’s kick under the table shut him up.

Liberty sipped her sarsaparilla. “What question are we asking?”

Zeke said, “I want to find out if my mother is still with that greengrocer in the afterlife!” He heatedly gulped his own whiskey.

Levi said calmly, “Why don’t we ask something that will interest all of us? For example, the whereabouts of Shady Barnhart.”

“Yes!” cried Zeke. “I was wondering where that worthless jackass had gotten to, myself. One day he’s selling me a bunch of necklace beads wrapped in a skunk skin for four dollars, I mean just absolute extortion, and the next day he’s gone.”

Liberty’s mouth was a thin line. “Zeke, he was supposed to give those things to the Indians. For free.”

Zeke chuckled. “Ah, well! It’s just a bunch of…I mean…” Only his eyeballs moved, glancing from Levi to Garrett and back to Levi. “You know…Indians…”

Liberty sighed with exasperation. “Besides, what do you want necklace beads for, anyway?”

Zeke explained, “But it was such a good deal!”

“All right,” said Levi. “Our question is, where is Shady Barnhart?”

Everyone agreed they would pose this question, and they placed their fingers on the woven rim of the upside-down basket. They took it lightly at first, laughing and joking.

It was actually Zeke who reprimanded them. “This is serious business, people. I’ve been witnessing some pretty important happenings here in town lately. I tell you, the psychic vibrations around Laramie are at their highest right now. Don’t laugh.”

Garrett actually wasn’t laughing. He’d witnessed enough psychic vibrations lately to convince him of the truth in all of this supernatural stuff. He just felt self-conscious putting his fingers on a basket and looming over a board that talked about a fish.

But almost the moment Zeke lectured them, the planchette began to move. Everyone gasped as it raced over the polished board to the letter
S
. Then an
H.
Then an
A.

“Shady,” whispered Liberty.

Zeke said, “Don’t think ahead of time of what it might say. Try to keep your mind a blank. Otherwise your hands might accidentally intentionally push the planchette where you want it to go.”

That made sense, but it still spelled out SHADY IS SCARING BRULE.

“Brulé,” Garrett told a quizzical Liberty. “That’s the tribe of Sioux we have here.” Louder, he said, “Where is Shady scaring the Brulé?”

ROCK WITH TREE.

“Great,” said Levi. “We already knew that. But
where
is this rock with a tree? Paddy, is that you?”

The planchette swished to where
YES
was printed on the board.

“Paddy,” said Levi. “Where is this rock with a tree?”

The basket spelled out SHADY SCATTERS BONES. Then, HE HAS WAKAN.

Liberty frowned. “What is
wakan
, I wonder?”

Garrett explained. “
Wakan
means anything that is strange or mysterious to the Indians. Like, if we call someone a medicine man. The Sioux call him
wakan
man.
Taku-wakan
means anything that is
wakan
.”

“Yes,” agreed Levi. “They have another word that means spirit or God, but the word
wakan
is never used that way.”

“So,” said Liberty. “Shady is being…mysterious or strange. By scattering bones.”

“Yes,” Garrett agreed. “I suppose that’s how he’s scaring the Indians.”

Zeke exploded, pounding the table with his fist. “Wakanana, I knew it!” The other three séance-goers jumped. “Wakanana, Illinois, was where my mother met that greengrocer Ernest! Ma! Ma!” he beseeched the ceiling with hands shaped like claws. “How could you do this to us? Why aren’t you with Pa on the other side?”

“Son of a gun!” cried Liberty. “Zeke, I don’t think this has anything to do with your mother. Garrett just explained what ‘
wakan
’ means in the Sioux language. I think—”

But Zeke was now on his feet, shrieking at the ceiling. “Ma! Pa crossed over to the other side five years ago! Why aren’t you with
him?
That chiseler Ernest was always trying to swindle us out of our school money, charging five cents for lettuce—how can you say you’re happy with him on the other side?”

Garrett would have disregarded this as the grief of a misbegotten son—he had heard that Zeke had suffered a brain injury during the recent War—but just then, a shower of rappings engulfed the room. The three remaining séance-goers slowly pulled back from the table, casting glances all about, but it was impossible to tell where one rap sounded before another rap came from the other side of the room. Were they coming from outside the house? Or were tiny little fists knocking the interior walls of the dining room? And what were the rappings telling them?

“Is it spelling out something?” Liberty wondered.

Garrett said, “It seems like the more Zeke rants, the more insistent these raps become.”

Levi suggested, “Let’s just put our fingers back on this thing and ask the next question.”

So the three of them—Zeke had thrown open a window and was wailing out of it about the greengrocer—put their fingers back on the basket, and this time it was Garrett who asked, “Paddy,
where
is Shady? Where is the lone pine that sticks out of the rock?”

Swiftly, as a hail of raps sounded all around them, the planchette spelled out BEWARE.

“Beware of what?” Garrett asked logically.

WATCH OUT FOR LIBERTY.

“Oh, dear God,” murmured Levi. “Paddy! Something is going to happen to Liberty? Tell us what. When?”

WATCH OUT FOR COLD WATERS.

“Cold waters?” Levi asked frantically. “Liberty, does this make any sense to you?”

“None at all. Maybe he’s suggesting I refrain from bathing in the Laramie River?”

“It’s springtime,” said Garrett. “The water isn’t as cold as it was two, four months ago. Paddy, what do you mean? Why should Liberty watch out for cold water?”

KEEP HER SAFE, Paddy spelled out before sliding the planchette over to the “Carpe Diem” writing. Then the planchette went silent. Garrett could tell that Paddy had left the room.

The shower of raps went silent, too, like a clacking telegraph whose line had been suddenly cut.

Perhaps stunned by the sudden silence, Zeke dragged himself away from the window, his face a mask of anguish. Reeling to the dining table with his mouth hanging in a sob, his sorrow was renewed when he looked at the talking board. He pointed at it with a shaky finger.

“Carpe diem? That’s where the planchette landed? Why, oh why? That damned greengrocer is taunting me from beyond the grave about those damned rotten fish he sold me and my brother once!”

Levi exploded like a shot. It was impressive the way he stood with fingertips splayed against the tabletop. He had a commanding, imperious presence that very much impressed Garrett, and he knew Liberty was in safe hands. “Dammit, you jackass! This isn’t all about your mother, may she rest in peace. This is about Shady Barnhart stealing from the Indians and driving them out of their land. While you were blubbering over there, we were getting a message that Liberty is in danger. We need to keep an eye on Liberty and watch out for cold water. Whatever that means.”

Zeke collapsed in his chair like a properly chastised child. Levi huffed and puffed angrily as he stalked to the sideboard to pour himself some calming drink, and Garrett reached across the talking board to take Liberty’s hands.

“I hate to say it, Liberty. But I think this fellow”—Garrett nodded his head to indicate the overwrought Zeke—“is your best chance at staying safe, seeing as how he lives in this house alongside you. Zeke!”