Fair Is the Rose (32 page)

"Yeah, sure.
Go on. But don't think this is over. You'll talk someday."

"I won't. I've already proved it."

"No, girl, not at all.
You were close to talkin' when we were in Falling Water. You trusted me then; you'll trust me again."

She glanced at the tin star pinned to his chest. "I doubt it."

He shrugged and took out a coin from his pocket. He began flipping it. She could see it was the whore's token Faulty had given him. Newly enraged, she opened the door.

"Christal."

She paused.

"Save a dance for me, okay?" he said, a nasty gleam in his eye.

She slammed the door in her wake.

*
 
*
  
*

"Now he
don't
want you to be too friendly with the customers, Christal. He told me that last night. I guess he wants you all to hisself." Faulty wiped his hands on his white apron and poured another gent a whiskey. The evening's business was light. The new sheriff had been in town less than a week and already things were slowing down.

"You're making him think I'm a—" Christal eyed Dixiana and Ivy. She didn't like saying the word around them.
Whore
had no meaning other than the physical one. It had no heart to break, or dreams to tarnish. She finished, saying with ire, "You just shouldn't have implied that I did that kind of thing, Faulty. You've given him expectations. He's going to be mad when I don't honor the token."

Faulty clasped his hands in surprise. "Didn't he already use the token?"

"No," she answered, disapproval on her face.

"Oh, my saloon!" he gasped, looking heavenward. He grabbed her. "Is that why he comes here every night? He's waiting to use the damned token? Christal, you gotta get him to use it! He's ruining business. Folks just don't want to come here with him sitting there every night, glaring at every man who touches you. You got to be nice, girl. You gotta save my saloon!"

"I'm not going to be that nice, Faulty." She glared at him. "Besides, I'll be gone as soon as I can get a wagon to take me out of here."

"And where would you go? Come on, Christal, the other girls do it."

"But I don't! You should never have given him that token!"

"How was I to explain you're different? He wouldn't have believed me."

She hid her wounded feelings. Perhaps she no longer had a right to her pride. But she was a Van Alen, a Knickerbocker from one of the most illustrious families of New York. Pride was something she would never relinquish.

Handing him her tray, she ordered three whiskeys. Faulty poured them, his forehead lined with worry. Suddenly she couldn't be angry with him over the token. He'd been a godsend when she'd had nobody to help her. Saloon owners weren't known for their charity. Once in Laramie, one had tried to beat her into going upstairs with a customer. She had left that night and never looked back. But running was a difficult life. Coach fares were costly; it cost
her a
ten-dollar gold piece every time she went on one. In many ways, Noble offered respite. Faulty wasn't too ambitious. He couldn't afford to be with his cheap customers.

She took the three whiskeys and gave two of them to a pair of cowboys who were playing a hand of poker. She walked with the last one over to a table in the corner and set it down, pointedly not looking at the customer. Joe played gaily in the background and a drunken cowhand pressed a coin into her hand and dragged her to the dance floor.

In the corner, Macaulay took the whiskey, kicked a chair in front of him and put up his feet. He eyed the men in the bar, but none of them held his attention like the one who had Christal in his arms.

But he made no protest; started no fight. Instead, he did exactly what he'd done the night before.
And the night before that.

He drank and he stared.

SOMEBODY'S DARLING

Into a ward of the whitewashed halls,

Where the dead and dying lay,

Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,

Somebody's darling was borne one day.

Somebody's darling, so young and so brave,

Wearing yet on his pale, sweet face,

Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,

The lingering light of his boyhood's grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold

Kissing the snow of his fair young brow;

Pale are the lips of delicate mold,

Somebody's darling is dying now.

Back from his beautiful blue-veined brow,

Brush all the wandering waves of gold,

Cross his hands on his bosom now-

Somebody's darling is stiff and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody's sake,

Murmur a prayer soft and low;

One bright curl from his fair mates take—

They were somebody's pride, you know.

Somebody's hand has rested there:

Was it mother's, soft and white?

Or had the lips of a sister fair

Been baptized in their waves of light?

God knows best! He has somebody's love,

Somebody's heart enshrined him there,

Somebody wafted his name above,

Night and morn, on the winds of prayer.

Somebody wept when he marched away,

Looking so handsome, brave and grand!

Somebody's kiss on his forehead lay,

Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody's watching and waiting for him,

Yearning to hold him again to her heart;

And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,

And his smiling, childlike lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,

Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;

Carve on the wooden slab at his head,

"Somebody's darling slumbers here."

P
enned by
M
arie
R
evenel
L
a
C
oste,

who tended confederate soldiers in the wards of

S
avannah and who lost her betrothed to the
C
ause

Macaulay closed his eyes, grasping for sleep that seemed always beyond his reach. The whiskey was keeping him axvake, he rationalized, but he knew what it really was. It was the girl. She was in his blood, a heat pounding through his veins. She ran through him, capturing him. He couldn't let her go.

He placed his hands at the back of his head and stared at the dark ceiling. The night was silent. Across the street the lights at the saloon had long since gone out.

Was it lust that had driven him here? She was beautiful. God, she was beautiful.
Classic blond perfection.
But he'd had women that were just as beautiful, and far less trouble.

As if seeking the answers, he let his mind wander. He found himself in the past. Growing up at the farm in Georgia, they'd had a dog, an ugly, scarred mongrel that looked as if God had put it together from leftover parts of other more sleek and beautiful breeds. The thing had appeared in their lives one day dragging itself onto the property, starved and chewed up from a fight. His mother had taken pity on the creature and nursed it back to health. For twelve long years the cur was his mother's shadow, trotting happily at her side as she swung her willow marketing basket on her arm, or sleeping by the stove as his mother cooked when its joints became stiff with age. He himself must have been nine years of age when he looked up from his morning porridge and watched his mother feed the hideous thing potatoes and bacon grease. "Why do you care for that creature, Mama? He's hard on the eye," he'd said smartly, always all too sure of himself. But then his mother had stepped up to him and caressed his smooth, boyish face, resting her hand beneath his jaw.
" 'Caulay
," she'd said, tenderness for him in her eyes, "remember this well: There's no face more beautiful than one well loved."

The memory burned into him. So did he love Christal? Was love what had brought him here? He didn't think so. He cared for the girl, and he sure as hell lusted after her. But love—not yet. He didn't know enough about her yet. All he knew was . . .