Karen Mercury (18 page)

So, of course, Foster had been devastated and betrayed. He had even abandoned his law practice to ride off with Custer—that’s how much he had not wanted to see Laramie or their former friends. Now she was back to torture him some more, now that Foster was finally building a cheerful future for himself. His only thought was that Abe was ill, but Orianna had said Abe was fine.

Orianna folded her hands in front of her lap and lowered her eyes modestly. “I have come to many realizations lately. Abe was only one year old when I went to California. But he’s three now, Foster. He knows Arthur isn’t his real father. Every day he asks me questions about you. Who you were, what you did. He asks me to retell your amazing exploits because I read to him about Custer from the newspapers. I admit, I pretend you are constantly at Custer’s side, as though you’re his aide and not a scout.”

Foster frowned. “If you thought I was with Custer still, what brought you back to Laramie? Custer only told me to bring a message to Laramie, say, two weeks ago.”

Orianna regarded him, expressionless. She had never been a terribly emotional person, now that Foster reflected on it. Her one expression was that of thoughtfulness. She was constantly thinking, pondering, musing. There was never any real happiness, joy, or mirth in her face. She was quite a serious woman, actually. “It was an instinct, I’ve concluded. I had a dream one night that you were headed back to Laramie. I knew it was time for me to come.”

That intrigued Foster, as all of the other strange goings-on had intrigued him the past week. “What did the dream entail, exactly?”

“Well, in the dream you were riding with someone else—might have been that fellow you were playing the game with back in the clearing.” So Orianna
had
been watching them for awhile. If she had seen the hoops, had she also seen the cocksucking? No matter—it was none of her concern.

“What else? What did you see in your vision?”

“Well, I knew you were returning to Laramie with some urgent message. A voice in my head kept saying, ‘Your husband is arriving with a message,’ although that’s absurd, of course. You and I were never married.”

“Did you ever marry Firestone?”

She actually had to pause to think about that? “Ah…no. We never wed. Anyway, there was something to do with sunflowers. You were picking some, and then you found a stone with an inscription. I just had an urgent need to get ahold of you once I had that dream.”

That was fantastic! Was Orianna inclined to the paranormal, as well? “Wait here.” Foster went to his horse and got the baby rattle from the saddlebag. He hadn’t known where else to put the rattle, as he really had no home at the moment. His three friends were gone from the clearing now, probably back to the shooting range.

He opened his palm to Orianna. “
This
appeared on our dining table yesterday. Out of the clear blue sky.”

Orianna didn’t seem that amazed by the sight of her son’s rattle, having obviously materialized a thousand miles away from San Francisco. To Foster, all of these things were omens. Of what, he didn’t know. “I haven’t seen that in a long time. He’s three now and obviously doesn’t use it anymore.
Your
dining table? Have you wed that Tabitha girl?”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re in love with her?”

Foster didn’t have to ponder on that. “Yes. I am.”

Orianna’s bland expression didn’t change. “Well. I am here to beg then, I suppose. Foster, Abe needs his father. He needs you. This rattle is obviously a sign from above, telling you that Abe needs you. I am not above begging if I know it will be for the betterment of my son.
Our
son. And from the upstanding, noble man I remember you to be, you will agree with me.”

“I suppose it depends upon what you mean by Abe ‘needing’ me, Orianna. If you’re asking me to come back to San Francisco to lie around and act like an uncle to him in your palatial estate with Firestone, I’ll have to think long and hard about that. I’m about to reopen my law practice here. And there’s Tabitha to consider. Does Abe not like Firestone?”

“Oh, he used to like Arthur just fine. The past year, though…he has missed you terribly. ‘Where’s my daddy?’ he constantly asks me. He sobs and cries nearly every day. I had to buy him a soldier doll so he can pretend it’s you, and he’s inseparable from it.”

“But…” Foster thought. “He was only one when you left Laramie. He was just learning to walk. Do toddlers really have memories that early?”

“Apparently so. Foster, he’s gotten to the point where he just drags on my skirts, sobbing, demanding that I come out here and get you.”

Foster sighed mightily. This was indeed a conundrum. He had just begun to forge a whole new life with Tabitha and Worth. This afternoon he was planning to look at an office on First Street that Harley had mentioned he could use for his law practice. Of course he wanted to do what was right by his son, but asking him to alter his entire life was a large request. Especially when this woman had abandoned him under such acrimonious terms. How convivial would their example be for their son when they loathed each other?

Orianna said, “I don’t hold anything against you, Foster. In fact, my strongest wish is that you can forgive me for leaving so suddenly.” Emotion now filled her words. “It was a mistake, I know that now. I’m very chagrined you’ve found love again, but of course I should’ve expected that. You’re a very intelligent, hearty man.” Her look became lascivious then. “And handsome, of course. You are some pumpkins, Foster. I very much long for the old days in Laramie when you were
my
pumpkin.”

Foster chuckled a bit at that. The redheaded couple had cut quite the figure around Laramie. He had thought everything was so perfect with Orianna. He had been slapped into an unpleasant reality when she had walked up and informed him she was leaving with Abe. Only recently had he found some peace in the wilderness with the Seventh Cavalry, and now here she was, wreaking havoc once more.

Orianna continued, “I made a huge mistake thinking that Arthur Firestone’s money would be our salvation, Foster! I want to extract a promise from you that you will at least consider my proposal.”

Foster made his mouth a thin line. “I am not giving up Miss Hudson, if that’s what you mean. Is there any possibility you could bring Abe here to Laramie?”

Orianna’s placid face was wreathed in smiles. “Yes, that was one option I had considered. I am so glad you’re considering my proposal!”

Was he considering it? Foster supposed he was. It would be heartless to reject a son one had sired. Many fellows did that, of course, some claiming they weren’t even the father when it was clear that they were. He could not leave his son in a house with a jackleg that Abe didn’t even like! If Abe truly disliked Arthur, Orianna was right. No amount of money would raise a happy boy.

Orianna put her palms on Foster’s chest. “We must spend more time together, Foster. You will see. I’ve changed immensely. I no longer believe money is the root of all happiness, for example. I had everything perfect with you. I’ve been beating myself senseless ever since for ruining all of that! You must allow me to make amends.”

Must he? He could be a good father without starting back up his courtship with Orianna. But he agreed—he definitely needed to resolve his resentment of Orianna, or his son would notice it.

“There’s a fellow in town I’d like you to meet,” Foster said. “I think he could be of assistance with this strange situation. The rattle, the sunflowers, the stone… He’s already helped us quite a bit.”

“I’d like that.”

My dead dog
.
How can I ever forgive Orianna for killing Phineas?

And she is hopeless and desperate, according to Caleb. If she would kill a dog, what else is she capable of?

* * * *

“You must get that witchy woman out of town!” cried Harley, waving his whiskey glass about. “Tabitha, I merely pretended to like that woman because my good pal Foster liked her, but… She was the most execrable, malignant, superficial, manipulative excuse for a woman I’d ever hope to meet! She was constantly lording her French hats and fashions over Ivy, as though Ivy would want to wear a Dolly Varden walking suit out on our ranch. Or in the Union Pacific telegraph office.”

Tabitha soaked her lips in her whiskey glass, dead-eyed with gloom. “I can’t get rid of her. Even if I could, Harley, she’s the mother of Foster’s son.”

Harley was smoking mad, though. “Yes, and about that! It was clear to anyone who could read a calendar that she conceived practically the moment they met. In this day and age of pessaries and sponges, that sort of behavior smacks of entrapment!”

Tabitha thought about her saffron soup and had to agree. “Maybe they were carried away by lust. It’s been known to happen. Anyway. All I can really fault her for is killing poor Phineas.”

In fact, Phineas sat on the parlor floor now, her tongue lolling casually as usual. They had explained to Harley her morbid situation, but Harley still could not see Phineas. Apparently only Foster, Worth, Tabitha, and Jeremiah could, of all the citizens of Laramie. In town, people looked at them strangely when they pet or talked to the giant Newfoundland dog.

Jeremiah added, “And you can blame her for having a grasping, avaricious greed for money. Why else would she rip that poor boy from his father’s bosom to chase some moneybags magnate in San Francisco? Shameless money-grubbing hussy, if you ask me.”

“Jeremiah,” Tabitha said miserably. “You can’t fault Orianna. By Jove. I have known cunning, nefarious, plain wicked women who would poke any fellow with two cents to rub together. And I don’t mean prairie flowers. But if they are a mother to someone’s child, you cannot criticize her in the father’s eyes. It would only make me look like less of a woman if I did.”

“That’s true,” said Worth, looking over the rim of his own whiskey glass. Today they all needed the whiskey—Jeremiah had even poured himself a finger. “But we don’t even know what she wants yet. Maybe she just stopped by on her way somewhere.”

“Without her son?” Jeremiah pointed out. “A fine mother
she
is.”

“I’m telling you,” said Harley. “When she told him she intended to blaze a trail for California, you’ve never seen such a mess of a man as poor Foster. He went overnight from the finest lawyer in Laramie to the most debilitated, paralyzed invalid. I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it does give him a good recommendation as a man capable of great and deep love. He stayed here with me, and all he’d drink was forty rod. Boy, he could smite a man at forty rods with his breath alone. I swear it seeped from his very pores.”

“That’s why they call it that,” Jeremiah affirmed. He hadn’t dared do more than sniff his whiskey. “Sixty rod, you have to be farther away to knock a man over.”

Harley continued, “Then he went off to join Custer, and we all thought it was the best thing for him. Get away from all the sights and people who reminded him of that witch. I’m telling you, Tabitha. For a long time I thought he was one of those fellows who should just never be in love. He turns into an absolute wreck, a devastated mess of a fellow.”

Tabitha tilted her head. “So you’re saying he’s
sensitive
. Nothing wrong with that.”

Harley agreed. “No, that’s a good thing. Nothing worse than a blockheaded emotionless blob for a husband. But you’d better tread extra carefully, Tabitha, with this one. If Orianna’s going to use his son to manipulate Foster, who knows where it will end.” He sat at the desk and clinked the pen inside the inkwell in preparation to write a note.

“Yes,” agreed Jeremiah. “She’s got a secret agenda, I’m telling you. I’ve seen this happen far too many times in my showman’s career. Woman comes back pretending she forgot her tightrope or a seesaw or left a kid behind, and bam. Turns out she got wind that her former flame came into some money with his new act as a living skeleton.”

“Yes,” said Tabitha. “That happens too often to mention. Now, I hardly suppose Orianna is coming to Laramie for all of Foster’s thousands. The army can hardly pay that well.”

“No,” said Worth, “but his gold claim can.”

“What gold claim?”

Worth sighed heavily. “You’ll have to ask him about it. I considered it bad
taku-wakan
so didn’t want any part of it. I mean, look what happened to old Ezra Kind when he looked for gold in the Black Hills. Anyway, Foster doesn’t give credence to any of that abracadabra business, so he’s got people still mining his claim for him.”

“Well,” said Jeremiah. “Don’t let Orianna get wind of that if she hasn’t already. I’m starting to suspect this shipbuilding fellow. Maybe he doesn’t exist at all.”

“Which is why,” said Harley, sealing his note with wax, “I am asking Tabitha to bring this message over to Ivy. Have her cable it to San Francisco. I have a good friend there, also in the shipbuilding business. We can get to the bottom of this, if only to prevent our dear buddy Foster Richmond from going up the spout.” He handed Tabitha the note and graced her with a warm look. “If he’s going to go loco over any doll, it’s going to be you, Tabitha.”

“That’s what I was hoping,” she said weakly.

“Let me come with you,” said Worth.

“No, that’s all right. I feel like being alone.”