His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (4 page)

June 1881

Whitley County, Kentucky

Hunger. Biting, clawing at his gut, it reminded him of the mountain lions Pa used to skin.

Collie shivered in the rising wind, squinting as dust and pebbles smacked his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. Nothing stayed inside him very long, and everything burned its way out. It scared him, and he wanted it to stop. His belt was already double cinched.

Thunder rolled, and Collie sucked a forefinger. The taste of dirt was comforting as he huddled with the pill bugs and the earthworms. Every now and then, the planks on the porch above him would bounce, and he'd wriggle further under the stage depot, pressing himself into his trench until the boots strode by. He hated towns. Hated townspeople—except for Sera, of course. But most of all, he hated hunger. That's why he'd forced himself to come back to Blue Thunder, to hunt for slops and see what baked goods he could steal. Lately he'd been getting dizzy whenever he tried to strike a squirrel with his peashooter. And the rabbits had all gotten smart, too smart to be snared.

But Pa must have been watching out for him from above. 'Cause not twenty paces from Collie's hiding place, a big black cat sat in a cage beside some trunks that the whip was tossing off the five-o'clock stage.

Saliva moistened Collie's mouth. He stared hard and thought of grabbing that critter and filling his belly till it hurt in a satisfying way. The trouble was, a mustard-colored skirt kept swishing by. And a biddy with a crabapple face had planted herself square in front of Collie's hiding place. He could see the cat between the biddy's legs, since she wore dungarees, but he couldn't get to the cat. Not without bowling the biddy over and slowing himself down.

Thoughtfully, he fingered his bowie knife. Scowling, he shoved it back into its sheath.
Too risky.
The whip could jump down and collar him. 'Sides, he didn't want to hurt nobody, just to frighten them off. If only the womenfolk would go away! He didn't want nobody to see him, especially that red-headed Mustard Skirt. She looked like the kind who'd start flapping her jaw, asking where his ma was. Or his pa.

But Collie was fifteen. He didn't need no ma or pa, even though some folks, especially the female kind, thought he did. Good Sammertuns, he'd heard them call themselves. Collie wasn't exactly sure what Sammertuns were, although he was pretty clear they wanted to ruin his life. They always insisted he get a haircut and bathe, learn the three Rs, and live in an orphanage. But Pa used to say orphanages were worse than jails. And since Pa had come out of the last jail in a pine box, orphanages scared the daylights out of Collie.

A tremor shook his bones.

The cat growled deep in its throat. Collie narrowed his eyes. Dang if that varmint wasn't staring straight at him! It bristled, as if it sensed his intentions. He licked his lips and bared his teeth.

Suddenly, a shadow dropped out of the sky. Mustard Skirt shouted a warning; a trunk struck the cat's cage, and the bars crumpled, flinging the door open. The cat shot out of its prison as if its tail were on fire, making a beeline for the elm at the far end of the yard.

Collie swore foully under his breath.

Now how was he supposed to catch himself a meal?

* * *

"Dang cat. I never did see much use for 'em."

Eden Mallory winced at her great-aunt's denunciation of felines. For nearly ten minutes, the woman had done nothing but grumble while Eden tried to coax Anastasia out of the tree. After everything she'd been through in the past eight weeks, the last thing Eden needed was a cantankerous old woman whose coonskin cap and corncob pipe probably explained why Claudia Ann Collier was the last of her bloodline.

Eden clamped a hand over her bonnet to keep the lid on her frustration. The fact that she was also trying to keep the rising wind from snatching the straw from her head was a secondary consideration at this point.

All her hopes, all her fears, hinged on the outcome of this first meeting with her only living relative. Eden wanted—no, she
needed
—to lead an inconspicuous life, to hide herself away in a nice, secure home without wheels. Claudia had agreed, albeit grudgingly, to let Eden and her cat live with her in Blue Thunder, and Eden was more grateful than she could say. She just hoped Anastasia's tree-climbing escapade wouldn't ruin their introduction.

Of course, if the weather had been balmy, Eden mused, she might have felt more confident. Whenever lightning cracked from the heavens, something bad happened—like her mother's riding accident. And Talking Raven's miscarriage. Eden wasn't normally superstitious, but lightning seemed to be an omen in her life. However, she had little hope of convincing her ornery kinswoman that doom flashed in the clouds.

"Anastasia isn't used to cages," Eden said, trying another tactic. "Considering I dragged her halfway across the continent, I daresay Stazzie has every right to be irritable."

Aunt Claudia snorted. "I ain't ever met a puss that needs an excuse to be irritable. Mark my words, missy, that mouser of yours ain't coming down."

"But the storm! Stazzie could be struck by lightning."

"Fried to a crisp," Aunt Claudia agreed, striking a match.

Gritting her teeth, Eden waved away tobacco smoke. Over the years, Papa had chuckled about his mother's spinster sister and her "peculiar" charm. However, he had somehow neglected to mention that Claudia had the manners of a street arab.

Meanwhile, the other object of Eden's frustration clung stubbornly to one of the elm's highest boughs, despite the way her perch was being pummeled by the wind. Eden could feel rather than see the accusation in those topaz eyes, because from the street level, Anastasia looked like a big black dandelion seed ruffling with each gust.

Oh, Stazzie, quit being such a pill. Kentucky's not going to be as bad as Colorado—I hope.

She glared back at her pet. The cat had an uncanny way of knowing things long before they happened. For instance, she'd refused to enter the medicine wagon for seven whole days before drunken miners had come to ransack it. And Stazzie hadn't left Papa's side, not even for a second, on the day that he'd died.

If Anastasia hadn't been Eden's single best friend, comforting her so faithfully through those horrible days in Silverton, Eden might have thrown up her hands and let the mulish feline get what she deserved: a thorough soaking.

The whip strolled over to Anastasia's tree. He was a barrel of a man in straining suspenders, and he made no attempt to conceal the tobacco chaw that made him look like a chipmunk with a toothache. "The kitty ain't come down yet, eh?"

"No," Eden answered, hard-pressed to hide her annoyance.

"You got any ideas?" Claudia asked him.

The whip shrugged, spewing a stream of tobacco juice at the elm. "Reckon you could chop the tree down."

"Use your dang head, Angus," Claudia snapped. "That tree'll fall on the roof of my store. I got enough trouble with leaks as it is."

"Thunderation, Aunt Claudia," Angus retorted. Apparently everyone in Blue Thunder called Claudia "aunt."

"You can afford another roof. Hell, you can afford a whole 'nother store. Why don't you hire yourself a handyman who knows what he's doing? All that booklearning makes Doc Jones too high and mighty for hammerin' and sawin'. 'Sides, you got more money than God."

"I got money 'cause I don't squander it on hired hands." She drilled him with a ferocious stare. "As for Michael, we got an agreement. He's a fine carpenter once he gets around to it. And he's gonna get around to it, if I have my say about it. And I always do. So shut up, Angus."

Angus turned beet red, sputtering an excuse and hurrying back to his team. Eden couldn't blame him. Still, remembering how easily he'd heaved the traveling trunks she could barely drag, Eden marveled at the way her seventy-five-year-old aunt had glared the man down. Apparently, Claudia was someone to be reckoned with in this town.

The thought of Claudia's age made Eden squirm. She didn't want to think her last surviving kinswoman might be heaven-bound soon. She'd watched helplessly at the age of twelve as Mama had died from complications following a riding accident, and then eleven years later as Talking Raven's miscarriage had ended her life and Eden's last hope for a brother or sister.

But Eden's failure to save her own Papa eight weeks ago from pneumonia had been the final defeat. She'd been forced to the bitter conclusion that her calling to heal people made her more of a menace than a savior.

The people of Silverton had largely agreed. In fact, some of the more mean-spirited townsfolk had claimed that she and Papa had done nothing but bilk people. Once that rumor had spread, a veritable army of derelicts had started appearing at the wagon, demanding the wages that, they'd claimed, Papa owed them because they'd "pretended" to be cured during his medicine show.

Eden had been stunned by the accusations and the threats that accompanied them. Papa had been the most honest man she'd ever known. She'd never doubted the power of his remedies before, because from Texas to Montana, she'd watched his patients improve.

Of course, during their western travels, Eden had learned there were
other
medicine show pitchmen, shysters who secretly paid actors to endorse their cures. But no one had ever dared say such things about Dr. Andrew Mallory. Not in her presence, anyway.

Tears prickled Eden's eyelids. Could she really have been so wrong about her father?

Eden felt a nudge against her hip. Grateful for the distraction, she glanced down and saw that a curly-haired boy of about eleven years had joined them by the tree. She had a heartbeat to notice his expensive linen shirt, freshly soiled, and the eye-poppingly huge toad he gripped between his muddy fists. Then his brown eyes rose to hers.

"How much money does God have?"

She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Mr. Angus said Aunt Claudia's got more money than God. How much money is that?"

Bracing her gnarled hands on her knees, Claudia grinned at the boy. "More money than your pa ever did, Jamie Harragan."

Jamie gazed at her thoughtfully, the toad giving an occasional kick to protest its imprisonment. "Then maybe you could pay God to bring Pa back."

Claudia cocked a bushy eyebrow. "Why would I want to do that?"

"'Cause I miss 'im."

Claudia's blustery facade softened. "Jamie Harragan, you can't go bribing God."

"How come? Pa said anyone could be bribed."

"God ain't just anyone, Jamie Harragan," Claudia retorted, then muttered under her breath, "Dang, if I don't give that mother of yours a piece of my mind, letting a boy go on thinking such things." She fixed him with a keen, appraising stare. "Say, where'd you find that hoppy toad?"

He brightened, jerking his head in the direction of the general store. "Under your porch."

"He's a big 'un."

Jamie grinned, stretching his freckles from ear to ear. "I'm gonna call him Charlie."

He raised his pet for her inspection, and Eden hid a smile to see how solemnly her aunt made a fuss over the none-too-happy toad.

After a couple of nods and admiring whistles, Claudia dropped her arm around Jamie's shoulders and stabbed her pipe toward the elm. "Lookie there, Jamie. We got a stuck cat. You know how to get one of those dang critters out of a tree?"

Jamie cocked his head, as if considering. "I got my slingshot in my back pocket."

Eden glanced warily at the Y-shaped stick and leather thong that jutted from the boy's broadcloth breeches. "I don't think slinging stones at Stazzie is a good idea."

Claudia drew the boy closer. "That there's my niece," she said in a conspiratorial whisper. "She's kind of particular about the whys and wherefores, on account of it's her cat."

Jamie nodded sagely.

"Well, I wouldn't hurt the cat, ma'am," he said politely. "I'd just spook her a bit, maybe hit some twigs up above her."

"Jamie's got a fine aim," Claudia said, patting the boy's shoulder. "If he says he's gonna hit a twig, he'll hit a twig. Isn't that right, Angus?" she bellowed at the whip.

"Sure," Angus shouted back gamely. "As aimin' a slingshot goes, Jamie's the best."

Claudia narrowed her eyes at him. "Not better'n me."

Eden cleared her throat. "I'm sure Jamie is more than proficient with his slingshot," she intervened, "but Stazzie can be quite unpredictable, and I don't want her to—"

"That storm's about to hit, missy," Claudia interrupted with a wag of her pipe stem. "You want your cat outta that tree, or don't you?"

"Yes, of course I do, but—"

A female voice sliced through her protest, shrill enough to cut through thunder.

"Jamie Harragan! What have you done to your trousers?"

The boy started, hurrying to hide Charlie behind his back. A youngish, smartly dressed woman in honey-colored taffeta sailed toward them. With her petticoats fluttering like froth, she looked like a battleship in full steam.

"Young man, you are filthy. Positively
filthy!
And you've torn out the knees in your trousers! How dare you go crawling around in the dirt, when I expressly told you to sit on our wagon and keep clean? Do you have any idea how much our tailor charges to repair your britches?"