The Bounty Hunter Page 2

  “I’ll enforce the law, Mr. Gibbs. What more than that do you want?”

  The mayor opened his desk drawer, took out an object and leaned across the desk to place it before Nate. “It has to look like you’re cracking down, Harding. Be vigilant. And be visible.”

  Nate glanced at the tin star on the desk top. “In other words, impress your wives.”

  Mayor Gibbs’s face reddened. “Just do your job.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Just keep the women out of my hair.” He picked up the badge and tucked it into his vest pocket. “Your telegram said you’d have a place for me to stay.”

  “You can take a room at Mrs. Staub’s boarding house for as long as you like. Or until you find something that suits you better. Just let Shirley know when you’ll be there to eat. Her place is on Gold Street, just around the corner. The town will pay the bill. Same at Callahan’s eatery. Three meals a day between those two places, to your liking.”

  “Any houses for sale?”

  “Matter of fact, there’s a small one on the street behind the church that might suit you. Another set back to the north aways. It’s a family home, though, probably not to your liking. Family that owned it moved to Colorado. The man built that big brick building as an investment and ended up never putting it to use.”

  Nate stood and replaced his hat. “When do I start?”

  “You can start tomorrow. Randall Parson has until the end of the week, and he can show you around.”

  The narrow man in the outer room blinked at Nate’s guns as he passed through. Nate nodded and took his leave.

  Shirley Staub was an attractive fair-haired woman several years older than Nate’s thirty-five, but she wore a wary expression after opening the door to him.

  Nate immediately adjusted his saddlebags to remove his hat. “Nathaniel Harding, ma’am. I’ve come to board for a spell.”

  Her expression relaxed. “Yes, Sheriff Harding, the councilmen told me you’d be arriving. I have a room ready for you.” She ushered him inside. “I put you close to the back stairs. That way should you have to go out of a night, you can leave through the rear without disturbing the other tenants. I have two elderly gentlemen, a lady schoolteacher and two sisters who are residents. The other rooms are only occasionally occupied. This is the parlor. You’re welcome to share it with us of an evening.”

  He glanced at the long narrow room furnished with a spindly settee and several chairs gathered around a cold fireplace.

  “The dining room is here. Breakfast at six, dinner at noon and supper at six. The regulars are set in their ways, mind you, so you’d best use this place here.” She touched the back of a chair.

  “The necessary is out back, of course, through the kitchen right here. And these are the back stairs.”

  Nate followed her up and stood aside while she opened a door. “This is your room. You can take water up with you at night for washing, but I’d like for you to bring the dirty water down in the morning. I change and wash bedding once a week. There’s a laundry across the street for your clothing. We do have a bathing chamber behind the kitchen. I have a boy who helps with water on Saturday afternoons.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. The room is adequate.”

  “Well.” She brushed her hands together as if she was finished with her task. “Welcome to Thunder Canyon, Mr., er, Sheriff Harding.”

  With his hat against his chest, he nodded. “One more thing, ma’am. Where can I get a bath and a shave today?”

  “There’s a bath house on the street behind us and back toward Main. You can’t miss the shingle.” She left him alone.

  Nate closed himself inside the room and glanced around. Nothing fancy. He dropped his saddlebags to the floor. Plain iron bed frame and a piecework quilt—mighty tempting after a stretch of sleeping on the ground. On one wall stood a chest of drawers, and on the other a table holding a pitcher and bowl. Under the window was another table with a chair pulled up to it that served as a desk.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d set himself up in a room without knowing when he’d be leaving. The longest he’d stayed anywhere in years had been six months ago, when he’d been shot and taken a hard fall from his horse. He’d done a lengthy stint recuperating in a doctor’s home.

  That had been when he’d decided fifteen years of man hunting was enough. Fifteen years of being on a horse, sleeping on the ground, tracking wanted men and bringing them to justice had been more than enough. He was good at it. But he’d seen the worst side of life, dealt with the dregs of humanity, and he was weary.

  Compared to what he’d been doing, sleeping in a bed, cleaning up the dance halls and keeping the peace in this town was going to be as easy as a ten-cent whore.

  “HE’S HERE,” HELENA SAID, in her dramatic Polish accent.

  Lily glanced at the door, which hadn’t opened. “Who?”

  “The bounty hunter. He’s in town. Bernard Kendrick saw him going to the bath house yesterday. George Lynch said he has a black beard and he wears a Colt.”

  Bernard Kendrick had a vested interest in the new sheriff—he owned the Big Nugget. George Lynch was the barber, and he and his son ran the bath house.

  “Then he went into Wesley Clark’s hardware store and bought bullets. Mr. Clark said he possesses a menacing look.”

  Lily wasn’t going to get in a dither over a new sheriff. She ran a clean establishment, had no bone to pick with the law. “I’m sure we’ll see him sooner or later.”

  “We have nothing to fear, do we, Lily?” Helena asked. Her lovely dark eyes had crow’s-feet at the corners, though she was probably only five or six years older than Lily. She had once worked for Antoinette and had very little use or respect for men. The Shady Lady was her safe haven and Lily her dear friend. Lily couldn’t tolerate the uncertainty in her eyes.

  “We have nothing to fear,” she assured her with a brief hug. “The sheriff is here to protect us from the bad guys, remember?”

  “I find men difficult to trust.”

  “So do I, Helena. I never want to have to rely on a man. And I won’t have to. Neither do you. You and I, we have decent skills to earn our way.”

  Helena and Mollie had taken over Lily’s laundry position and were paid by the other women to wash and press their clothing. Helena often sang of an evening, and the patrons paid her well for the gift of her voice.

  “We have money in the bank,” Lily reminded her. “But nothing is going to happen to the Shady Lady. It’s mine free and clear, and as long as I’m around, you have a home.”

  “You are a generous, kind-hearted person, Lily. Those uppity women don’t see that, because if they did, they would know you are an angel sent from above.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Lily said with a laugh. “But I’m for sure not the devil they think I am.”

  Boots sounded on the floorboards. “Package came on the train for you, Miss Lily.”

  The two women turned toward the front door as young Mitch Early carried in a flat crate about four feet long. “Mr. Brennan said I should bring this on over to you, so it didn’t sit in the store room.”

  “Well, that’s good of you, Mitch,” Lily replied. “Would you like a cold sarsaparilla while you’re here?”

  “Yes’m, Miss Lily. That would hit the spot right nice.” His glance took in the corners of the room and the hallway leading toward the entrance to the house next door.

  Lily smiled to herself. It was no secret that Mitch was sweet on Celeste Kinney, a young woman who’d been with Lily for about a year.

  “Let me go ask Celeste to shave some ice for you.” Lily stopped. “Maybe you’d like to come to the kitchen with me and wait for her while she does it.”

  He grinned and followed her down the hall and through the open doorway. They only locked the adjoining door of an evening when there were customers in the saloon.

  Celeste was humming as she peeled potatoes at the big oak table that ran down the center of the kit
chen. Mollie stood at the stove browning meat for their dinner.

  “Celeste? Would you mind shaving some ice so Mitch can have a cold drink? He’s come all the way over with a package for me. A heavy one at that.”

  Celeste blushed prettily and wiped her hands on her apron as she stood. “Be glad to, Miss Lily. We could all use a cold drink.”

  Lily left them and returned to the saloon, where Helena was examining the flat crate. “Did you order something?”

  Lily shook her head and found a hammer behind the bar. She used the claw to work the boards loose. After several minutes she had broken the crate open to reveal a carefully wrapped object.

  Peeling back layers of batting, she discovered a framed painting.

  Her eyes played tricks on her at first glance, because there seemed to be too much exposed flesh in the likeness of the woman she first viewed upside down.

  Helena drew in a breath. “It’s exquisite work. I’ve seen paintings of this quality in museums.”

  Lily walked around the painting on the floor until she saw the portrait from the proper angle. Picking it up, she propped the frame against the brass foot rail on the cherrywood bar.

  It was indeed a painting of a naked woman, as she’d first thought. No mistaking it. Curly auburn hair with ringlets about her ears and neck, blue eyes, a gentle, almost self-satisfied smile. Shocking. Scandalous. Beautiful.

  Her.

  The woman’s ivory skin appeared soft and delicate, her breasts were full and rose-tipped, her waist narrow. Across her hip a sheer black veil exposed skin, but concealed her pubic area in dark mysterious folds of gauze. The woman’s legs were long. She wore pearls on each ankle as well as around her neck.

  “Lily, it’s you.” Helena turned wide eyes on her friend. “You didn’t pose for this portrait, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. Well, I did, but—but I had my clothes on. My gray skirt, remember? You saw—everyone saw that day. I sat for hours while Edward Mulvaney sketched and mixed colors. But I had my clothes on.”

  Helena’s lovely smile deepened the lines at the corners of her eyes. “You are beautiful, Lily.”

  Lily’s cheeks were warm. “That’s not really me.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “It’s the way he imagined me.”

  Helena laughed then, a full-throated sound. “I would like to see the faces of the Intolerant Women’s Prayer League if they saw this.”

  Lily laughed at her friend’s twist of their title, and then at the thought of Meriel Reed’s eyes bugging out when she got a gander at this painting. “Beatrice Gibbs would fall over in a swoon!”

  She and Helena laughed until tears ran down their cheeks.

  Old Jess came shuffling from the back room with a broom in his hand. “What’s all the cacklin’ about?”

  He walked around the bar and stopped in his tracks before the painting.

  “Jumpin’ Jehosephat! That’s a fine piece of art!”

  Mildly embarrassed, Lily laughed harder, wiping tears from her eyes.

  Mollie, Celeste, and Mitch Early joined the gathering a few minutes later, followed by the other women from various parts of the house who’d been drawn by the commotion.

  Mitch blushed clear to the tips of his ears.

  Rosemary, a woman who’d come to Lily for a job five years ago after her abusive husband had been killed in a brawl, studied the artwork with a look of incredulity. “How astonishing,” she said at last. “He’s captured your spirit, Lily. Your kindness, your determination and compassion. Right here on this canvas.”

  Lily studied the likeness of her expression again. “You see all that?”

  The others murmured their agreement.

  “All I can see is…are…”

  “And how amazing that he drew you like that by using his imagination,” Celeste said, pointing to the nude body.

  Lily met her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Mitch cleared his throat. “You didn’t pose for this?” he asked, color still high on his cheeks.

  “She posed fully dressed,” Mollie replied for her, and the others confirmed that.

  Lily felt better knowing her friends and employees knew her well enough to realize she hadn’t been naked in front of Edward Mulvaney. And if she had, she’d be grateful if she looked that good, she thought with another sideways glance.

  “Lily and I were imagining the reactions of the uppity wives if they saw this painting,” Helena told the gathering, and they laughed.

  Mitch picked up the painting and carried it behind the bar, where he propped it on the counter. “It belongs back here. For everybody to see.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Lily objected.

  “Yes,” Mollie agreed. “It’s the perfect place.”

  Lily looked at the nude woman and felt a brazen sense of defiance. “It’s not illegal.” Displaying the painting would be impudent. Challenging. Daring. She couldn’t help a smile. “People might not even know it’s me.”

  Mollie and Helena exchanged a skeptical glance and a grin.

  “And after all, this is the Shady Lady Dance Hall,” Lily said. “She looks like her namesake.”

  The others clapped.

  “Let’s celebrate with sarsaparilla,” Celeste suggested. “We’ll toast to the Shady Lady.”

  She and Mollie carried trays to the bar and all of them raised their glasses to the woman in the portrait.

  The painting became a symbol of liberty for Lily that day. She would not be intimidated. Nor would she cower to those who accused her of imagined sins. She would be the confident, independent woman others saw. And she would not let any of her friends down. She was, after all, Lily Divine.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE DOORS HAD BEEN OPEN for nearly an hour, and half a dozen men were sitting at a table playing cards when Big Saul hurried to Lily, where she sat at the end of the bar. Saul was over six feet tall and built out of solid muscle, but he had the mind of a ten-year-old. He’d been with Lily since his mother’s death four years previous.

  “Miss Lily, you gotta come. Little girl’s hurt and askin’ for ya.”

  Lily slid from her seat. “Where is she?”

  “Came to the back, she did. I was stackin’ wood by the stove.” He ran and she followed.

  Saul didn’t have a key to the adjoining door, as he and Old Jess lived over the dance hall, so Lily followed him out back to the alley and in through the rear of her house.

  “There she is. There’s the little girl.”

  Lily took one look at the girl, who wasn’t all that little. She appeared to be about fourteen. She wore a baggy dress and thin shawl, and her brown hair was limp and tangled. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut and the bruising extended to her jaw.

  “Thank you, Saul. You did the right thing to come and get me. I’ll take care of her now, and you go help Old Jess.”

  “Yes’m, Miss Lily.” He exited back the way he’d come.

  Lily approached the girl, who stood trembling beside the cold stove. “It’s okay, sweetie,” Lily said to her. “What’s your name?”

  The girl’s skittish gaze flicked around the room and back to Lily’s face. “Violet.”

  “What happened to you, Violet?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Lily went to the ice chest and used the mallet to knock a small chunk from the brick. She wrapped it in a thin rag. “Will you let me put ice on that?”

  Violet nodded.

  “Sit here, sweetie.”

  Violet sat on a bench and allowed Lily to touch the ice to her injury. She winced and sucked in a breath at the touch. “I…I heard you give girls jobs. Can I stay here?”

  “I hire grown women, not young girls.”

  “I’m not a child. I can work. I work for my pa all the time. Please.” She reached out and gripped Lily’s forearm. “You have to let me stay.”

  The desperation in her voice and her eyes took Lily back to a time when she’d feared for her own safety. Lily felt the girl’s d
esperation as though it were her own and knew in that instant that she had to help her.

  She placed her hand over Violet’s. “You’re going to be all right now.”

  After a moment Violet lowered her gaze and loosened her grip on Lily’s arm.

  “Take this.” Lily left her holding the ice and prepared a basin of soapy water. “Let’s wash some of the blood away and see if you need stitches.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to no doctor.”

  “Let’s just look, okay?”

  Violet let her wash the side of her face. There were older bruises along her neck and cheekbone, bruises that were already fading and sickly green. “Who did this to you?”

  Tears formed in Violet’s fearful blue eyes. “I didn’t have supper ready when my pa got home. He gets real mad if I don’t have everything ready. I wasn’t feelin’ so good…my…my woman time, you know—and I laid down for a minute. I didn’t mean to sleep. When I woke up he was yellin’ and shakin’ me. I tried to get away, but he pushed me and I fell against the table. I can’t go back there.”

  Lily felt ill at the thought of a grown man—a father—hurting this girl. Lily blinked back her own tears and busied herself rinsing out the rag, so Violet wouldn’t see. She’d been only two years older than this girl when her father had traded her to a man for a share in a miner’s claim. She understood the feeling of helplessness gripping Violet.

  “Please don’t make me go back. I’d work real hard for ya, I swear I would.”

  Lily knelt before the girl and looked into her eyes. Antoinette had been Lily’s savior years ago. She wouldn’t be alive today if the woman hadn’t come to her aid. “Of course you shouldn’t go back. We’ll figure out what to do.”

  “If he finds me, he’ll beat me for runnin’ away.” Her eyes pleaded with Lily, and Lily’s heart broke with compassion.

  “Don’t you worry, sweetie. He’s not going to find you. As long as you’re in my place, you’re safe. I’ll see what I can do to help you. Let’s get you upstairs and into a nice soft bed. I’ll find you something to eat, and you can rest all you like.”