Devil's Dare. Laurie Grant

to the window and opened it, staring out into the moonlit darkness at the darkened shape of the little building between the barn and the house. No candlelight showed through the chinks between the boards. She watched, thinking perhaps the candle had blown out in the soft night breeze, and while she waited she heard the distant sounds of tinkling pianos coming from Texas and Cedar streets. The saloons must be doing a good business, as usual. As she listened, a shot rang out, and then another, followed by some drunken shouting, and all was quiet again.

      The sound of gunfire at night from the streets where the saloons were was so usual that it didn’t even wake them anymore. She wondered if the darkly handsome cowboy she had seen today was one of the drunken revelers. She hoped not—or at least, if he was, that he wasn’t shot in some pointless brawl.

      After five minutes she was forced to realize that Charity wasn’t in the outhouse. Where could she be? Quietly she found the lucifers in the darkness and lit the candle on the bedside stand. Then, tiptoeing so as not to wake their father, she went down the hall to the parlor.

      But Charity wasn’t a victim of insomnia, sitting in the parlor, the kitchen, on the porch or even in the barn. She was just…gone!

      But where? Mercy only had to think for another moment before she remembered the mulishly rebellious expression on her sister’s face while Papa had reprimanded her for being so interested in the Texans and the town whores. You had only to tell Charity to forget about a thing to guarantee that that was all she could think about, Mercy reminded herself. Dear Lord, could Charity possibly have been so foolish as to go over to the saloons, in search of her towheaded drover?

      With a sinking heart Mercy realized that was just where her foolish sister must have gone.

      Her heart pounding, she stole back through the darkened house and into their bedroom. A quick check of the nails on the wall revealed that Charity had taken her Sunday skirt and the Mexican blouse Papa had said was too sheer to wear except at home, as well as her high-buttoned Sunday boots.

      Charity had no idea what she was getting into! Mercy had had no chance to have that talk she’d promised herself to have with her younger sister, for Charity had gone up to bed while Mercy was still saying good-night to her father’s congregation, and Mercy had found her with her face turned to the wall, apparently asleep. She was going to have to rescue the foolhardy girl from the consequences of her folly, Mercy realized, but to do so would mean braving the vice-ridden dens of depravity herself! And if their father discovered what they’d done, neither one of them would be able to sit down for a week, let alone leave the house. But she couldn’t just leave Charity to her fate, as much as the silly girl deserved it.

      She stared at the remaining dresses hanging from the nails on the wall. Which of them would look enough like the garb worn by the whores that she wouldn’t be stopped at the swinging doors of the saloons, yet not encourage drunken cowboys to treat her as fair game while she searched for her sister?

       Chapter Four

      In the end Mercy settled upon a dress that had been Mama’s, realizing that she had nothing of her own that did not shout the fact that she was the preacher’s daughter and had no business in Abilene’s saloons. But Mama had been the daughter of a banker, and had possessed a great many dresses for events more worldly than those she would attend after she had made her unlikely match with the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather. She had saved some of these in the large cedar chest at the foot of Mercy and Charity’s bed, thinking the girls might be able to use them someday.

      The forest green silk dress had a round neckline that dipped low, and since their mother had been a little smaller in the bust than Mercy was, when Mercy dropped it over her head it revealed a shadowy hint of cleavage. She would have to remember to keep her shawl wrapped around her.

      She crept down the short hallway as quietly as she could, freezing momentarily when she forgot which plank in the floor always creaked. But her father’s snoring, audible as usual all over the house, continued unabated.

      By the light of her candle the grandfather clock in the parlor showed the time to be ten minutes to midnight. Shivering, Mercy patted her hair, which she’d twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, and gathered the fringed black paisley shawl tightly over her mother’s dress. Then, murmuring a prayer that Papa wouldn’t hear her and that she’d find Charity before he awoke, she exited the house. She’d try the Alamo Saloon first. It was the biggest, and catered to the Texans. It was the most likely place her sister had gone.

      

      The merriment showed no signs of diminishing as the ornate clock over the door of the Alamo Saloon struck the hour of midnight, but Sam’s mood was far from merry. He’d drifted over to the mahogany-and-brass bar and was leaning on it, nursing a beer. So far he’d seen no signs of Miss Mercedes LaFleche, though he’d kept a steady watch on the staircase. Earp had disappeared at some point. The only thing left to do was watch his cowhands get steadily more drunk, and that was getting old quickly. He was wasting his time. Maybe he ought to call it a night and begin his hunt again after a good night’s sleep.

      Tom Culhane had gone out the back door a few minutes ago with his little blonde, “for a stroll,” he’d said, but Sam knew darn well what was on the cowboy’s mind. He’d start by kissing Charity Fairweather, then his hands would start to stray…No doubt by then they’d already be discussing her price. Maybe they’d even consummate the deal right out there in the alley, up against one of the buildings. He’d heard some of the whores had been forced to conduct their business that way the last year before the brothels had been built, and Sam imagined most weren’t averse to doing it that way again if their customers were impatient.

      Sam only hoped that Tom wasn’t going to try to sneak the little blonde into his room at the Drover’s Cottage and get them all in trouble. The landlord had already made it quite clear that he didn’t hold with such things—the soiled doves were not to roost in his rooms, he’d said.

      “New in these parts?” the bartender asked him as he wiped a glass dry behind the bar.

      He barely glanced at the man before replying, “Just in town to sell my herd.”

      “Up from Texas?”

      “Yeah.” He knew his answer had been curt. It would have been mannerly to extend his hand and give the man his name, but he wasn’t feeling very mannerly right now. And anyway, a man never knew when admitting to being a Texan would land him in a ruckus. He’d already run into some hostile Kansans fussing about their own cattle being endangered by tick-infested Texas longhorns bringing the Texas fever. The danger had been exaggerated out of proportion, of course, and it seemed that the Kansans had forgotten about the boom the drovers were bringing to the area.

      But the man, who wore a patch over his right eye and had several scars marring the same side of his face, didn’t seem hostile. “Deacon Paxton’s my name.” He wiped his hand dry with the towel he had over his shoulder, then offered it to Sam.

      Sam felt vaguely ashamed as he shook the man’s hand. There was no need to take his sour, suspicious mood out on the bartender. “Sam Devlin. You say your name is Deacon?” he asked, more to make amends for his earlier abruptness than because he was curious.

      The man smiled, his expression lightening the somewhat weary, somber side of his face beneath a silvering thatch of hair. “They like to joke with me because I read the Bible when it’s not busy around here. So they call me Deacon.”

      “You oughta be a preacher—seems like they’re scarce around here,” Sam commented, nodding toward the street to indicate the whole town.

      Deacon Paxton chuckled. “I am—or at least, I was once. There ain’t no church built in Abilene yet. There’s a Baptist preacher who holds services in his house a couple of streets over, though, so I reckon he sees to folks’ souls around here. In addition to informing us that the saloon keepers an’ the cowboys an’ the gals in th’ saloons are bound for perdition, that is.”