Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (41 page)

      
Lee stopped walking and faced Father Gus squarely. “I haven't seen her since she moved out of my house last week. Tell Lame Deer to visit her at Oakley's if he's all that worried about her.”

      
“He's worried about you, too, my son. You know, Leandro, you've become quite a hero to him since you saved him from Felipe and Fredo.”

      
“He's a good enough kid,” Lee said gruffly.

      
“For an Indian?” Father Gus said, watching Lee's face.

      
“For anybody's kid. Hell, Father, you're beginning to sound like my wife,” he said impatiently, once more beginning to walk.

      
The priest's much shorter legs had to churn to keep up with Velasquez's long stride. “Your wife, or your own conscience?” he asked, puffing.

      
“Sometimes I think God invented wives to be our consciences,” Lee groused, half to himself.

      
“Then maybe it is you who should go to Oakley's and reclaim yours, before you go farther astray,” the priest said with a twinkle.

      
Lee only grunted noncommittally and walked faster.

* * * *

      
Stella Wolcott was a woman with a mission, and she looked the part. Tall and angularly thin, she had a determinedly set chin that was enhanced by a fierce under bite and penetrating gray eyes that could skewer a man to a chair at forty feet. Her thick graying hair was knotted inelegantly behind her neck, and she wore sensible shoes.

      
Clarence Pemberton detested her on sight. She reminded him of his stern New England mother, as grim and humorless as the rocky Maine coastline. The first time he'd met Melanie Fleming she had looked like a younger version of the harridan who now sat in his office. But Melanie had wit and spirit, a sense of life's infinite ironies. When she had metamorphosed into a beauty and married that young
Tejano
rancher, he had been secretly relieved.
Praise be, she won't end up like Manila Pemberton—or Stella Wolcott!
Either of them was vicious enough to name an innocent son Vivian!

      
“Are you quite certain, madam, that I cannot help you? Mrs. Velasquez seems to have been detained this morning,” he said to Stella, affixing her with his most forbidding glare over the top of his low-perched spectacles.

      
She matched him glare for glare. “No, thank you, Mr. Pemberton. I'll wait for Mrs. Velasquez. I have some important—” She stopped short when Melanie swished into the office. “Ah, there you are, my dear child.”

      
Something in her solicitous tone alerted Clarence. It didn't fit. She had been after Melanie to write an expose on the debauchery of the city's saloons and gambling halls. To date the girl had been too caught up with the Indian raids to work on it. Now, the old harridan seemed to have a new card up her sleeve. When the two women exchanged hushed pleasantries and then she and Melanie left the office for a private interview, his reporter's instincts told him something was wrong.

      
Melanie was suspicious, too, when Stella began her preamble with unnatural motherly concern. “My dear,” she said, taking Melanie's small hand in her large one, “you know how much I admire you and the work you've accomplished here in this wicked city.”

      
“I thank you, Mrs. Wolcott,” Melanie replied uneasily.

      
“But you know how much more there is to do. We must nail shut the door of every saloon and house of ill repute. Only then shall demon rum be vanquished. The evils of the flesh tempt men to saloons. Then, when they're sodden with drink they perform heinous deeds—gambling their homes and fortunes away, betraying their noble wives with scarlet women.”

      
Melanie felt the cold hand of dread squeeze her heart as she listened to Stella. She intuited where it was leading. “Are you trying to say that my husband was lured to one of these places?”

      
“The Gilded Cage,” Stella spat with an air of righteous wrath. “He spent the night with a harlot named Clarice after drinking and gambling in the bar below! A lady such as you is fully vindicated in leaving such a debaucher. But, my child, you, of all women, are in a position to exact retribution. You wield a pen, and we all know the pen is mightier than the sword!”

      
Numbly, Melanie let her rant about the Gilded Cage and other infamous places of similar ilk. All she could think of was Lee making love to a painted whore, waking up in a bordello bed with a slut named Clarice. As she vaguely fastened on what Stella said, she let the numbness dissipate, replacing it with a suffusing rage.

      
Finally, she interrupted the temperance crusader. “What would you say to a tour of the local saloons, Mrs. Wolcott? When I'm finished taking notes, I should have enough for quite a series of articles; and you should be able to draw a sizable crowd to your next meeting—which should include just about every woman in San Antonio who can read, if I don't underestimate the power of my pen!”

      
Melanie stood in the middle of the
Star
office, facing her scowling editor, while Amos retreated behind the press to watch the fireworks. “I tell you, Clarence, this story is fantastic!” she pronounced doggedly, hands on her hips, feet braced apart for a fight. “I know you don't like Stella Wolcott, but what I've written here is absolutely true. These places are sinkholes of corruption. I know of a small rancher who gambled away his whole herd of cattle on a turn of the cards last night and another whose family is living on rotten sweet potatoes while he drinks every night in a different saloon!”

      
“Alas, human frailty being what it is, these lamentable events have transpired since the dawn of civilization, Melanie. Neither you nor I, nor even your formidable Mrs. Wolcott, can close the saloons of San Antonio,” Clarence said with world-weary tolerance.

      
“We can damn well try! At least look at it as a first step in awakening people's consciences to the worst abuses. If one man having an innocent drink sees his neighbor swilling down a whole bottle, maybe he'll take him home to his family before the sot drinks up a year's income,” she pleaded. She played her final ace. ‘It'll sell newspapers.”

      
“Run the first article on the crooked dealer at Caradines' place and we'll see how it goes,” he replied speculatively. “And you're right—I don't like Mrs. Wolcott, so don't make this into a temperance crusade to drive the honest saloonkeepers out of the city. I'm one of their best customers,” he added with pettish defiance.

* * * *

      
Lame Deer gave Francisco another sharp kick in the ribs, but the fat old burro refused to move with any more dispatch. “What a slow, lazy fellow you are. Father Gus only keeps you out of Christian kindness,” he complained to the burro. “I will tie you well this time,” he promised grimly, thinking of that long trek back to town two weeks ago. The cuts and bruises on his feet still were not completely healed.

      
Lee was busy at the main corral, working with a promising new filly, when he saw the boy ride up on Father Gus's burro.

      
“You're a long way from town,
pequeño
. Playing hooky from school?” He grinned as he led the pretty pony from the corral.

      
“Oh, no,
Señor
Lee. It is Saturday and we have no lessons. Father Gus let me borrow this ugly one.”

      
“Want to browse through my library? I expect you've read about all the books I sent to Father Gus by now,” he said teasingly, noting how the boy's big dark eyes were transfixed on the little bay filly with the shiny coat and the white blaze on her face.

      
“Thank you,
Señor
Lee, but I still have one or two books to read at school,” the boy said earnestly. “I only wondered how you were. You have not been in town during the day to visit our school for several weeks.”

      
During the day
. But he'd been in town plenty of nights. He looked at the guileless chocolate eyes with a guilty start. “As you can see, Lame Deer, I'm perfectly fine.”
Liar
.

      
“So is Melanie,” the boy replied airily, scooting over to rub the pony's nose gently.

      
So that was the lay of the land. “Did Father Gus send you to report on Melanie and check on me?” Lee asked with one brow arched in tolerant displeasure.

      
Unconcerned, the boy replied, “Not exactly. He wanted you to read the stories in the
Star
that she is writing, though.” He walked over to Francisco and fished several crumpled newspapers from the saddlebag and handed them to Lee. “Why doesn't Melanie live here anymore? Aren't you still married?”

      
Lee decided he preferred the boy's Indian obliqueness to this newly acquired Anglo bluntness. “We're still married, but it's her choice to live in town,” he muttered, quickly scanning the pages with their bold headlines:

CESSPOOL OF CORRUPTION IN LOCAL GAMING ESTABLISHMENTS.

MAN SPENDS LIFE SAVINGS ON DRINK WHILE FAMILY STARVES.

RANCHER ROBBED IN HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE.

      
That last headline especially caught his eye, since the name of the Gilded Cage leaped from the body of print below it. Beneath the carefully orchestrated accounts of crooked faro dealers bilking customers, compulsive gamblers losing their life savings, and hapless bordello clients having their wallets lifted, a common theme pervaded: close down the saloons and legislate morality—especially sexual morality.

      
Several of the younger women who worked at the Gilded Cage were even mentioned by name, including Clarice. It seemed, if the story were to be believed, they were poor unfortunates who were exploited by the saloon owners and forced into lives of fear and drudgery. His face darkened into a scowl, then a fierce grimace of disgust. Poor exploited Clarice! She'd run out on her husband and child in Houston two years ago because she was bored with being married to a shoe clerk! Obviously, she'd told him one story and a nosy, gullible reporter another. He had no doubt about which was the truth.

      
Stella Wolcott's crusade was also a prominent news item. She had held several temperance rallies that were drawing increasingly large and rowdy crowds of participants who took the “pledge.” He tossed the paper down in disgust. “And just what does Father Gus expect me to do about all this? Round up all these squawking women and stampede them out onto the Staked Plains like a herd of mustangs?”

      
The boy shrugged in perplexity. “He is worried about your
señora
. She and that
feote
vulture Wolcott spend much time together.”

      
Lee had to laugh in spite of himself at the rather apt mixture of Spanish and English. “Hideous vulture! That fits old Stella, all right.”

      
“
Señor
Pemberton calls her Madam Vulture, but I am not so polite,” the boy agreed gravely, once more stroking the pony's nose. “Do you think you might come to town and see Melanie someday?” he asked wistfully.

      
“Maybe,
pequeño
. Do you borrow Father Gus's burro often?” Lee wanted to change the subject.

      
“Yes. Whenever I need to get somewhere far away. But the stupid fat one doesn't move much faster than I can walk,” he replied dolefully.

      
“And you have many faraway places to go in a hurry,” Lee said with a smile. “You aren't still spying on Blaine and his friends for Melanie, are you?” he asked suddenly, afraid for his wife and the boy.

      
“Oh, no,
Señor
Lee. I report to Ranger Lawrence now—or to you, if you wish,” he added quickly, seeing the flash of anger in Lee's face.

      
“No, it's all right to talk to Lawrence. He's a lot closer in town, Lame Deer. But I don't want you taking any more dangerous chances hanging around Blaine or Walkman. Understand?”

      
The boy nodded. He did understand.

      
“You like her?” Lee asked, patting the filly's silky neck.

      
“Oh, yes! I bet she is as fast as the wind,” he said with awe as he scratched the white blaze on her forehead.

      
“At least a lot faster than Francisco, here,” Lee agreed, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Lame Deer, don't you think Father Gus might need Francisco sometimes when you're out riding him? After all, he is the only mount the good priest has.”

      
The boy looked troubled. “Yes, I suppose that is true—and I've almost lost him several times. Of course, he's always come back to town, but...”

      
“If you had your own pony, then you could give Francisco back to Father Gus for good.”

      
“But I don't have a pony,” the boy replied sadly.

      
“I have several extra ponies from the last herd my hands captured. This pretty little girl is one of them. I've just finished training her. I make her a gift to my friend, Lame Deer,” Lee said gravely, offering the reins to the astonished child.

      
Lame Deer's eyes grew enormous and positively glowed. Suppressing the overpowering urge to shriek with glee, he nodded with grave politeness. “I thank you with all my heart,
Señor
Lee. I will take special care of her.”

* * * *

      
What god-awful racket was that awakening a body when she'd just gotten to sleep? Clarice thought irritably. Hadn't enough things already gone wrong this night? First old Jake Barlow had refused to pay her until the two-hundred-pound barkeep below stairs had persuaded him to reconsider. Then, Lizzie had cajoled a wealthy cattle buyer away from her; and she had ended up with that fat, slobbering Whalen Simpson, who always smelled of horses. And for the third night in a row, Lee Velasquez hadn't shown up at all.