To Tempt A Texan. Georgina Gentry

enough to call her that. “I see you’ve already met Blackie O’Neal.”

      He gulped in surprise. “How did you know?”

      “Just guessed, I reckon.” So that’s how the Rebel was referring to her? She imagined reaching her hand down Blackie’s throat and pulling his smart-alec tongue out so far it could be used for a red sidewalk. “You’re a painter?”

      He nodded. “Starving, mostly. I do signs, though, to make a living. Now and then I do a picture.”

      “Good.” She heard a long, drawn-out train whistle and turned to watch the incoming train. “You can do a sign for the front of my building.” She realized suddenly that Lively was asleep on the tracks. “Lively! Get up!”

      About that time, the gambler himself came running up on the platform, whistling at his dog. The big bloodhound stood up slowly, stretched and ambled off the tracks as if he had all the time in the world to move. “Great God Almighty! That’s a new low, sister, tryin’ to get my dog killed.”

      “You think I’d stoop to that?”

      “Hush it up, you two,” Chief Thunder said, “here comes the train.”

      The train pulled into the station from the north, blowing steam and throwing soot and cinders as it ground to a halt with its whistle blowing. The conductor stepped down from the coach. “Here we are in the Unassigned Lands,” he hollered at the passengers, “town of—?” He turned and looked at the people on the platform.

      “Pretty Prairie.” Lacey volunteered.

      “You must be joking,” the gambler sneered. “Whiskey Flats, now that’s more like it.”

      “What?” Lacey opened her mouth to protest, but people began getting off the train, a couple of cowboys, a nattily dressed traveling salesman with his sample kits, a family with squalling children.

      Chief Thunder approached the salesman. “How. Me Chief Thunder. Have buttons from Custer’s uniform to sell.”

      “Really?” The plump salesman paused and pushed back his derby. “Boy howdy, I’d like a souvenir like that. How’d you get ’em?”

      The handsome Potawatomi looked somber and fierce. “My father cut them from General’s uniform after him scalp him.”

      “Really? Hot diggety dog! How much?” The salesman was already reaching in his pocket.

      Chief Thunder seemed to be sizing the man up. “One silver dollar for two.”

      The drummer hesitated.

      “Throw in lock of his hair.” He held up a blond wisp.

      “Wow! Wait’ll the boy’s back in Cincinnati see this.” The drummer could hardly get the money out of his pocket fast enough. The exchange was made.

      When the drummer walked away with his treasures, Lacey raised one eyebrow at Chief Thunder.

      He shrugged. “Hey, as Barnum used to say, there’s a sucker born every minute.”

      She wondered where he’d gotten the light hair, but before she could ask, other people were departing from the train and the gambler and his dog, tail wagging, hurried to meet them. One of the biggest, baldest men she’d ever seen was shaking hands with O’Neal. “Hey, boss, glad to be here.”

      “Howdy, Moose, good to have you.”

      The Moose was bald as a marble and big as a mountain. He had a tattoo on his right forearm, a heart with “Ma” in the middle of it. Around him, young, flashily-dressed women were getting off the train, gathering their luggage. They were escorted by a matronly older woman with dyed red hair.

      “Howdy, Blackie,” the redhead hailed him and then came in for a hug. “Missed you.”

      “Good to see you, Flo. This is a great town.”

      “Better than the last one we got run out of?” She laughed with a husky voice.

      The younger, highly-painted girls crowded around Blackie like bees around honey. “Ohh, Blackie, sweet, you got us a good place to work?”

      Blackie grinned and wiped at the lip rouge on his face as he turned and glared at Lacey. “It’ll do. I got a choice lot picked out, but someone is contestin’ me for ownership.”

      “Now what range rat would do something mean like that?” Flo griped.

      “Someone who landed on the lot first.” Lacey snapped, surprising even herself.

      Flo looked at her, surprise in her heavily painted old face. She might have been a beauty in her younger days. “Well, she’s got gumption if she’ll go up against Blackie; must be a Texan.”

      “Yes, I am.” Lacey declared.

      The younger women paid no attention to anyone but the smiling gambler as they gathered around him. “Ohh, Blackie, we’re so glad to see you again.”

      They all tried to hug him and he was obliging. “Hey, Nell, hey, Sal. How are you doin’, Dixie?”

      Dixie was a young, painted blonde whose hair color looked suspiciously as if it had come out of a bottle. “I’ve missed you, Blackie.” she drawled.

      “And I’ve missed you all too, you little Southern belle, you. Atlanta doesn’t know what they’ve lost.”

      “I got run out of Atlanta, remember?”

      He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, Dixie, you’ll love this new town; lots of men. Come on, I’ve got my new barouche. It came in on a freight car last night.”

      The Moose gathered up the luggage and the whole crowd trooped out to a big, fancy open carriage with bright red horsehair upholstery. Two fine black horses outfitted in shiny harness with lots of sparkling brass, pulled it.

      Lacey took a deep, annoyed breath. Blackie had completely ignored her as if she didn’t exist. His women had left a trail of heavy, cheap perfume on the air.

      “Outrageous!” Lacy said to no one in particular as she watched the painted women giggle and take turns hugging Blackie, “he must have his own harem.”

      Chief Thunder coughed and shifted his feet. “Actually, Miss, they work for Flo, but they always share Blackie’s place because the girls bring in the galoots to gamble and drink plenty of booze.”

      “No doubt.” Lacy snapped as she watched the crowd loading into the barouche with Lively barking and wagging his tail. “You seem to know a lot about them.”

      “Blackie and me go a long way back in some other towns. He’s a charmer, ain’t he?”

      “Somehow, his appeal escapes me.” She glared after the departing barouche. “When the decent citizens clean up this town, he and his girls will have to find some place to go.”

      Chief Thunder shrugged. “Wouldn’t bother Blackie none. He’s been run out of better towns than this one.”

      “I believe that.”

      “I reckon I’ve hit all the suckers I’ll get this morning.” Chief Thunder folded up his merchandize, left the platform and mounted his horse. As he rode away, she noticed the cream-colored horse he rode had a very short, ragged tail. Evidently the General’s hair had been an excellent seller.

      “My word.” In all her astonishment at the arrival of Blackie’s whores, she’d forgotten to interview anyone for the news article. Lacey took a deep breath, more annoyed with Blackie than ever and returned to her drafty, dusty tent to write an editorial about how this new town should be law-abiding with no saloons or other dens of sin.

      The next morning, she had her first newspaper on the streets. Soon she would have small boys delivering, but for now, she set a stack of papers and an honesty box outside the tent so people could drop their nickles in and take a paper. Several men dropped in to congratulate “the little