Karen Mercury (21 page)

Caleb searched his vision for more information. “Something about the dinner menu. He doesn’t like the Fowl à la Mayonnaise.”

Worth leaned far back in his chair to talk to Foster behind Orianna’s back. “This guy sure doesn’t sound like a brother. More like a shipbuilding fellow.”

“Exactly my thoughts.” Louder, Foster addressed Caleb. “Caleb. Or Ezra. Are you Ezra Kind?”

“That’s what they used to call me,” Ezra agreed.

“All right, Ezra. Can you tell us, regarding Orianna’s brother, Arthur. What is his surname? Is it Firestone or Anderson?”

Orianna slapped Foster on the arm. “That’s enough, now! I need to ask a more urgent question. Caleb, will Foster Richmond here have success in his new law career?”

It was interesting that when Orianna became emotionally upset, the table rocked more energetically, not shaken by Phineas now. The whistling of the wind increased in volume as though a tornado were heading their way. Worth wondered how that worked. Up until now, it clearly had been Caleb or Ezra controlling the mood, sounds, and vibrations of the room. But Orianna, obviously riled at being caught asking questions about Arthur Firestone, seemed to have the capability of affecting the room as well.

Jeremiah yelled, “We don’t care about Foster’s stupid law career! Why are you controlling this séance? We barely know you. We’d like to get our money’s worth from Ezra before he fades back beyond the veil.”

“Yes,” Tabitha agreed, frowning. “We were here to ask Ezra questions about Paris Green dye.”

At that, the very walls of the room commenced to shake. Roaring engulfed the entire room as though the train ran directly through it, making it very difficult to hear the question Tabitha shouted down the table to Ezra. The table shuddered horribly, but once again, the candles didn’t even wobble.

“Ezra!” Tabitha shouted. “Who in this room has been poisoning people and animals with Paris Green dye?”

Ezra had to shout louder, too. “The woman with the glass necklace does enjoy alchemy.”

That was all he was able to say before a whopping explosion sounded in the middle of the table and several people had their chairs knocked back.

Everyone shielded their eyes with their arms. The explosion didn’t make a bright light, but it was instinctive to protect one’s face from exploding shards. However, when Worth removed his arm from his eyes to see Jeremiah, Ivy, and Tabitha clambering back into their chairs, he saw it had only been a large rock that hit the center of the dining table. It had slammed with such force it had created a splintered crater, ruining the table.

“Oh, that’s just beautiful!” Jeremiah shouted. “Ezra is about to expose you, and you respond by throwing this big rock into the middle of the table! What an excellent way to change the subject.”

Orianna held her hand to her bosom. “I? How could I toss this big rock? And you were all looking at me the whole time.” She stood and leaned toward the rock, examining it. “But it does look like an interesting rock. Sort of a Philosopher’s Stone. Some significance to this inscription. ‘
Came to these hills in 1833. Seven of us. All died but me Ezra Kind—”

“That’s enough!” Worth snapped, holding Orianna back from examining the rock further. “That’s Foster’s rock and you know it.”

Orianna raised an eyebrow imperiously at Worth. “Oh, yes? And is this gold Foster’s as well? When the rock fell, it was placed right before me.” She opened her palm to Worth to display three enormous gold nuggets of the sort only found in the Black Hills.

“Yes, it must be Foster’s gold!” Worth yelled. “How’d you get your greedy paws on Foster’s gold, you harridan?”

“I’ve sent her some gold overland, Worth. To help with Abe.” Foster stood behind Orianna. “What’s in your other hand, Orianna?”

Orianna looked truly surprised to find that she clutched something in her left hand. “I have no idea.” She opened her hand to reveal a leaf. About four inches wide and not even wilted, the formerly bright green leaf looked on the verge of turning yellow and orange—it was that time of year.

“A grape leaf,” said Orianna, who must have seen them in California. “I wonder what the significance of—”

Jeremiah’s piercing howl finally silenced the shrieking of the invisible train and tornado that had never hit Vancouver House. All heads swiveled to view the showman halfway standing above his chair, pointing at something on the table before him.
“It’s a hand!”

Ivy said coolly, “Of course it’s a hand, Jeremiah. It’s your own hand. Now, why don’t we go and lie down. I’ve got some laudanum—”

Tabitha interrupted. “No, Ivy. He’s right. It really is a hand. Look!”

Worth walked down the table to lean between Ivy and Harley.
Jiminy crickets! It’s a hand!

The hand, which ended abruptly at the cuff, seemed nearly fleshy. Harley, as the boldest world traveler in the room, reached out a forefinger to touch it and declared, “It’s an apparition.”

Some people looked about the room for the magic lantern that was projecting this image, but the hand was moving.

“It’s writing!”
Jeremiah shrieked in his wavering voice. “It’s writing, ‘Foster Richmond. Everything will be revealed if you just organize a rodeo.’” Upon reading this, Jeremiah’s eyes rolled backward in his skull, and he collapsed in a pile on the floor.

Why would Jeremiah swoon upon reading about a rodeo? Tabitha seemed unconcerned as she stepped over his comatose body to observe the hand closer. Caleb had asked for paper and a pencil to be left on the séance table, and now the hand was indeed writing. “Ezra!” Tabitha called. “Whose hand is this? Is this your hand?”

Ezra seemed very chipper at this revelation. “It is my hand, indeed! I am pleased that I can do this. I wonder what else I can do.”

Worth got to the basis of the matter. “Ezra, what do you mean by ‘organize a rodeo’? How can a rodeo help?”

“Let the hand speak!” Ezra proclaimed.

The hand continued to write.

Have entire town participate in rodeo. This will make everyone happy and will reveal the answer to your conundrum.

Everyone leaned back in their chairs and sighed, but the hand wasn’t finished writing.

Make sure you have hoop-and-pole game. All your problems will be solved.

“Well!” Foster sighed deeply. “It would be merry to have a rodeo anyway. When’s the last time you had one in Laramie?”

“About a year ago,” Harley said. “Remington Rudy was the star performer, of course. But some unfortunate incidents led to the town council putting a kibosh on any future rodeos.”

“Yes,” Tabitha agreed. “More than a few bones were broken when men were hurled from wild horses.”

Ivy said, “But the real damper was when Rusty Pipes spilled an entire barrel of beer. More bones were broken from beer than from horses, with all the folks slipping in it.”

Harley recalled, “And the brawls that ensued between citizens irate that Rusty had wasted an entire barrel of beer.”

“All right!” Foster proclaimed. “We shall hold a rodeo, Ezra. And you’re invited!”

“Just ensure Rusty Pipes doesn’t bring a barrel of beer,” suggested Tabitha.

The mood became jovial then, and it seemed the general consensus that the séance was over now. Someone knocking on the front door seemed to seal this idea, and Harley and Worth went to the sideboard to pour whiskeys. Caleb even became himself again without levitating this time and asked for a sarsaparilla.

Worth knew he wasn’t imagining when he overheard Orianna hiss at Caleb, “You keep your magic in your neck of the woods and I’ll stay in mine, bud.”

Caleb gave a wan smile. “And which is my neck?”

“The one where I’m not.”

Some issues seemed to have been resolved, but when Neil Tempest’s deputy entered the foyer, other issues became more clouded.

“How dare he bring that awful woman here,” Worth murmured.

Tabitha had only glanced once at Foster and Orianna when their entrance into the Fowler’s ballroom was announced by a servant.

Tabitha’s breath had been taken away by Foster’s stunning, dressy getup. She had never seen him wear tails before, of course, there never having been a call for it. His erect, athletic figure seemed made for the elegant ball room. His frock coat was black and shiny, and his necktie was done up in an especially fussy manner, probably by Orianna. Orianna, of course, was dressed to the nines in a frothy concoction outlandishly covered with silk roses. The roses were strewn about the ridiculously long train, and the biggest rose drew attention to the very low square neckline. It was a typically feminine ability of Tabitha’s to automatically note, in the fraction of a second that she observed the couple, that her own bosom was fuller and higher than Orianna’s.

But that was small comfort. The fact remained, Foster was squiring Orianna to the Fowler’s ball.

Tabitha tried to be understanding, she really did. But already, she felt if she heard “Orianna is the mother of his son” one more time she would absolutely scream! Foster should just marry that witch and be done with it! Foster’s face fell when his eyes lit on Tabitha, no doubt mortified at being caught with Orianna.

Neil’s deputies had not found a can of Paris Green in Orianna’s room, but she could have easily and intelligently disposed of that can. However, the deputies had seized a copy of a questionable publication called
Mutus Liber
. Caleb had privately told Tabitha it was a manual of instruction in how to fabricate your own Philosopher’s Stone, the stone being a substance that could convert other metals into gold.

Worth now said, “I don’t need to see an actual can of Paris Green dye in her possession to know that woman is an evil hellcat.”

“They’re striking up another waltz,” Tabitha noted and tugged at Worth to escort her onto the dance floor.

The ballroom was actually more like a very large parlor, the quartet jammed into a corner by the front windows. The violinist bashed the cellist with his elbow when hitting particularly emotional notes, and there was only space for about eight couples to waltz at once, but it was the largest ballroom in Laramie. Tabitha was glad to see her new acquaintances and could write a new article about their “scintillating conversations” for the
Frontier Index
. And in the meantime, she was not moping about the house, at least. Worth was a very honorable and strapping beau, but already Tabitha knew she would drink more sherry than was absolutely necessary.

“Foster is being very smart,” Tabitha said flippantly. She knew, though, she would not fool Worth with her light tone. “He is showing Orianna how pleasant Laramie can be, that we do have high society, and he is taking her out, allowing potential beaus to see her. He’s being very cagey. There is still a shortage of women in Laramie, though Senator Spiro passed that bill allowing them to vote, to draw more women here.”

Worth, who usually was a happy-go-lucky optimistic chap, was not tonight. “There is no way Laramie can compare to San Francisco, if that’s what she’s looking for.”

“Well, it wouldn’t behoove him to ignore Orianna. She would just angrily return to San Francisco and poison Foster’s image in his son’s mind.”

“True. But from the sounds of Arthur Firestone’s yachting schedule, he’s not eagerly looking for Orianna to return. I wonder if it was old Firestone who gave that witch the boot?”

“That could be. A woman doesn’t want to admit when she’s been thrown over. All the more reason for Foster to play nice with Orianna, then. If he can convince her to bring Abe out here, he will need to be on convivial terms with her.”

“Yes,” agreed Worth, spinning Tabitha past the waltzing Ivy and Harley. “I just wish he didn’t have to spend time with that awful sorceress. She’s capable of conjuring up that smoke warlock or whatever it was that attacked Caleb. Not to mention killing poor innocent Phineas and poisoning that gown she materialized.”

“That’s what scares me,” Tabitha admitted. “Even if we succeed in getting her to bring Abe to Laramie, who’s to say she’ll stop trying to harm people?”

“Perhaps there’s something Caleb can do. He must have stronger powers than her.”

The waltz ended then on a lovely flourish that was ruined when a violinist banged his elbow against the wall. This would not impress Orianna on Laramie’s highfalutin status, especially when the violinist proceeded to flail his instrument into a passing waiter, who tossed his tray of four champagne flutes into the lap of a Union Pacific magnate.

That reminded Tabitha. “We’d best get some more champagne before it’s all gone.” She spied the railroad tycoon her father knew, and navigated in his direction. She wondered if that fellow were a bachelor. He must have enough income to satisfy Orianna. After all, Tabitha was now a society journalist and needed to know these things.

“I wonder why Ezra was so dead set on a rodeo.” Worth wondered for the dozenth time. “Maybe because he knows it will make Foster look good? Next to everyone other than Remington Rudy, of course.”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “There are many excellent vaqueros here in town, Worth. They can all ride circles around Foster, as skilled as he may be. I, however, will be the only woman performing in the rodeo.”

“What rodeo?” asked the railroad fellow.