Laurie Grant - Devil's Dare

The stranger lounged at his ease against a hitching rail, his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his denims above the black leather chaps. He did indeed look like a dangerous character with the brim of his hat shadowing most of his face. All she could see were high, angular cheekbones and a black, shaggy mustache above an unsmiling mouth.

The cowboy was talking to another man, probably a cardsharp, Mercy guessed after studying the other man’s fancy waistcoat and its hanging watch chain. As she watched, something the cardsharp said must have struck the stranger as funny, for suddenly the tightly held mouth relaxed, parting in a grin. He tipped his head back, and she caught a glimpse of eyes crinkled with merriment.

That grin not only transformed the lean, angular features, but produced some startling changes in Mercy, too. All at once she felt warm all over, as if she’d worn black flannel instead of her light, figured calico everyday dress. Her pulse raced.

How ridiculous, she chided herself, to feel so silly about one of those wild hellions from Texas who swept through Abilene from May to September, drinking tanglefoot, shooting up the town and sending respectable citizens diving for cover. “Hurrahing the town,” they called it. But now that she’d seen this particular cowboy smile, she knew she’d have to make certain that he and Charity never met. He was just the sort of man who could wreck her sister’s tenuous hold on virtue.

Worried, Mercy glanced back at her sister, but with so much walking virility to feast her eyes on, Charity had already been distracted. Her eyes had wandered to a towheaded, somewhat bowlegged cowboy down the street who was tipping his hat to a lady—

Who was no lady, Mercy realized as the first of the working girls strolled past Moon’s Frontier Store.

“The shameless hussies!” hissed Abigail Barnes. The big, homely woman had come up soundlessly behind them and was now peering out the window between the sisters’ shoulders. “They shouldn’t be allowed in the same town as decent women, my Horace always says. Someone should do something!”

The women were indeed a fearsome sight in their gaudyhued dresses with tight, low-cut bodices and two-foot bustles that caused their skirts to sway gracefully behind them like the wakes of ships. As they descended the plank sidewalk to the street, they raised the edges of their spangled skirts to clear the dust. The action revealed layer upon layer of red petticoats and tasseled boots with a single star at the top of each.

Outside, the cowboys lining the street began cheering raucously and throwing their hats up in the air. The man Mercy had been watching, however, did not join in any of the boisterous behavior; he merely continued eyeing the painted women in a speculative sort of way. What was he thinking? she wondered. Was he selecting the one he wanted to buy for the night? The thought made her vaguely heartsick, though she did not know why.

“Why, they’re pretty, in a bold sort of way, aren’t they, Mercy?” Charity said, eyeing the town’s infamous “soiled doves” with curiosity. “What is that sticking out of the tops of some of their boots?”

“Pearl-handled derringers,” Abigail Barnes answered, as if Charity had been speaking to her. “Those Jezebels always carry their pistols in the right boot, and their ill-gotten gains in the left,” Abigail Barnes huffed, her breath smelling of stale onions.

“They carry money in their boots? How do they get the money?” Charity asked, her face a study of puzzled interest.

“Never you mind,” Mercy said quickly. “Come on, we’ve got to go.” She grabbed her sister’s wrist and started pulling her in the direction of the back entrance.

“But Mercy, wait, I wasn’t ready!” wailed Charity.

Mercy ignored her and kept pulling. She didn’t want Abigail Barnes to have time to commence a lecture as to how a fallen woman earned her living. As it was, she’d probably have to contend with the gossipy, shovel-faced woman telling the Ladies’ Missionary Society about Charity Fairweather’s indecorous interest in saloon girls, which was bound to get back to their father.

She couldn’t resist one last look behind, though, at the rangy, dark-featured cowboy across the street. But he was no longer there.

“A mighty fine supper, girls, mighty fine indeed,” the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather exclaimed in praise. “You know chicken and dumplings are my very favorite—and it’s not even Sunday!” he added, patting a nonexistent paunch as he favored Mercy and Charity with a benign smile.

“Thank you, Papa,” Charity said, dimpling prettily. “We do like to make you happy.”

“God bless you, child, you are such a comfort to me since your mother passed on,” Fairweather said, reaching out a bony hand to pat his younger daughter’s golden curls.

Mercy, seated opposite, studied her sister with wry amusement. Charity had had little to do with the preparation of dinner beyond keeping her sister company while Mercy had plucked the chicken and cut it up. Then Mercy had rolled out the dumplings, because Charity, whose job that was supposed to be, had been too busy chattering about the charms of the cowboys she had seen lined up on the street. It was just as well, Mercy reflected. Charity was too tenderhearted to wring a chicken’s neck effectively, usually resulting in a hen that pecked and struggled pitifully until Mercy finally took over to put it out of its misery. And Charity’s dumplings were usually heavy as lead, causing the displeasure of their father to descend on both of them. No, as long as Papa was satisfied with his supper, peace would reign in the Fairweather household, at least for the moment.

“And what did you do today, daughters, other than prepare this fine repast for your poor widowed father, that is?” Jeremiah Fairweather inquired with genial interest. Behind his spectacles, his pale blue eyes regarded them with keen attention.

Here was dangerous ground. Mercy remembered she had not spoken to her sister about avoiding a certain subject. “Well, we had to go to the store, since we were out of flour for the dumplings, and I needed some more thread to mend your shirt,” she told her father, then covertly sent a warning look at Charity. Please, Lord, don’t let her bring up the cowboys and get Papa started, Mercy prayed, gripping the scarred old dining table underneath its much-mended, second-best tablecloth.

Perhaps the Lord was busy just now, for Charity’s first words made Mercy’s heart sink.

“Oh, Papa, you just can’t imagine the sight we saw from the store window,” gushed Charity. “The most handsome men I’ve ever seen, and there must have been twenty of them, all cowboys, all dressed in spurs and chaps and wearing two six-guns apiece and throwing their hats up in the air…”

Honestly, how could her younger sister have lived with her father for fifteen years and not learned what set him off? Was she really oblivious to the sudden chill in the room, and the cold fire that blazed up in their father’s eyes?

“Oh? And just what were these handsome cowboys throwing their hats in the air about, Charity?” Jeremiah Fairweather asked with deceptive calm.

Too late, Charity appeared to see the abyss yawning in front of her. Mercy saw her sister swallow hard and try but fail to meet their father’s eyes.

“Oh…nothing…just an excess of good spirits, I guess…” she said, her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall just above their father’s thinning, carrot-colored hair. “I mean, well…they’ve just come in from weeks on the trail, and…”

“Charity Elizabeth Fairweather, you’ve never been a good prevaricator, and I’d strongly advise you not to start now,” her father said in a voice that he had not raised but that somehow seemed to reverberate from all corners of the room. It was the same voice that successfully convicted sinners and usually brought at least one woman to tears every Sunday morning during the services, which they were still holding in their house due to the lack of a proper church building.