Devil's Dare
A waiter motioned them over to one of the tables away from the window, for which Mercy was grateful, for sitting by the window would increase the chances that someone passing by would see her in there and mention it to her father. She knew from the way that the waiter had eyed her oddly as he handed her a menu that he had recognized her as the preacher’s daughter, but he wasn’t one of the few men who belonged to their congregation, so it didn’t matter. She hoped he wouldn’t refer to her father in front of Devlin, though—she knew he didn’t know her father was a preacher, and she was afraid he might start behaving differently with her if he knew. Mercy just wanted Sam Devlin to be himself.
Sam had noticed the way the waiter had been looking at her, but he’d misinterpreted it. He’d stiffened, thinking the man had recognized his supper companion as Mercedes LaFleche, the sporting woman, and was considering informing him that the Grand Hotel dining room did not serve women “of her caliber,” or some such snobbish euphemism. That would make it awkward as hell for Sam, for then he would want to knock the waiter down, which certainly wouldn’t add a romantic touch to their evening. Mercedes LaFleche probably saw brawling cowboys every night she worked, and was entitled to something a little different when she was taken away from the Alamo Saloon.
But the waiter said nothing, and left them to peruse the grease-spotted menus.
He made his decision quickly, then studied her surreptitiously over the menu. He appreciated the fact that she had worn something tasteful and elegant, rather than the gaudy, multiruffled and flounced gowns a woman of her profession often wore. She apparently disliked flashy gewgaws, too, for the simple red earbobs and a cameo on a black velvet ribbon merely called attention to the slender curve of her white neck, rather than to themselves.
What a different sort of woman she was from the usual run of females who made their living catering to the baser needs of men. She was fine-boned and small, not exactly beautiful—her mouth was too wide for perfect beauty—but she had a quality better than that for which he had no name. Her speech was not “refined,” exactly, but certainly free from the coarse phrases most sporting women used. And she still had the ability to blush. He found that fact incredible, after all she must have seen in her career. No wonder she was such a favorite that she could pick and choose her customers.
There was a blush blooming on her cheeks now, as if she was not unaware of his scrutiny. “Hmm, what looks good to you, Sam?” she asked him.
You do, he thought, but I’ll have to wait till later to see about that. “I don’t know—what do you recommend?”
An anxious frown creased her forehead, and she rescanned the menu. “Umm, I hear the steaks are good,” she offered.
“You hear? Honey, hasn’t anyone ever taken you to supper here?” he said, before he could think.
She shook her head, her eyes still fastened on the menu. “No,” she answered in a small voice. “P—” she began, then stopped. “No,” she repeated. “You’re the first.”
What had she been about to say before she stopped herself? He found it amazing that she had never been here. Maybe the hotel was very recently opened. After all, Abilene had only consisted of a few log cabins before the railroad’s coming brought on the cattle boom only last year. Or perhaps she thought it made a man feel special to have been the first to take her somewhere nice? No, she’d have to be an awfully good actress if the latter was the case—she seemed sincere about what she was saying.
“Well, then—we’ll do our best to make it a memorable occasion, won’t we?” he said with a wink, and was touched to see her blush again. Maybe she did find him appealing. “I don’t think I’ll have the steak, though—I just spent three months eating beef any possible way it could be fixed. We had beef morning, noon and night on the trail. No, I think I’ll have the fried chicken for a change,” he concluded, just as the waiter returned to their table.
“Oh,” she said, “how silly of me. Of course you don’t want steak. I…I think I’ll have the steak, though, if that’s all right,” she said, her eyes glued to the menu. “We—I-don’t eat it too often.”
He was surprised by her meekness. “Honey, you can have anything you want to eat—you can have the whole dang menu if you want it.”
Did he imagine it, or did the waiter frown at him for the endearment that had slipped out? The old sourpuss! What was he afraid of…that next Sam would start making love to Mercedes right at their table? But the waiter scuttled off and they were alone, so that Sam was free to enjoy the color that had invaded Mercedes’s face again—all because he had called her honey?
For a moment there was silence, and then she said, “So—you’re up from Texas. Where, exactly? Do you have a family down there?”
He wondered if she was really asking if he was married, and if he had been, if that would make a difference to a woman of her calling? Probably not, he reasoned. Women like that were used to servicing a man’s needs away from home, knowing that it had nothing to do with the good women they were married to.
“I’m from Brazos County—good blackland prairie country. My father came from Ireland with the clothes on his back and a fine stallion, and started a horse farm there. It was prospering by the time he died. That was before the war, though. The Confederate army requisitioned all our horses, the ones that the Devlin boys didn’t ride to war, anyway. Now the Devlins—or what’s left of us, anyway-are trying to rebuild the stud, but it takes cash. So I’m here in Abilene to sell the herd we rounded up in south Texas. They’re runnin’ loose down there, free for the takin.’“
“’What’s left of us’?” she echoed. “Did you lose family…in the war?”
He nodded. “My mother almost died of grief. My brother Caleb, the middle boy, never came home, and neither did my sister Annie’s husband—but at least we got a letter from his captain telling us where he fell. Garrick, my oldest brother, might as well have died. They cut his leg off after it was shattered by a minié ball, and now he just sits around the house and feels sorry for himself. I guess I would, too,” he added, feeling guilty for criticizing the brother he’d idolized when they’d been growing up together. “There isn’t much he can do around the farm.”
She reached out a hand and touched his wrist. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said with sudden certainty. At his surprised look, she added, “I know, I haven’t known you long enough to say that, but I just know you wouldn’t. You’d find a way to do what had to be done. Did your brothers have wives?”
He allowed himself a bitter laugh. “Garrick’s wife ran off the morning after he came home. Couldn’t face the sight of him, I reckon. Cal hadn’t married yet—fortunately, as it turned out—though every mama in the county wanted her daughter to marry the parson.”
“Your brother was a preacher?”
He nodded, thinking how easy she was to talk to. “Yeah, but not the hellfire-an’-brimstone kind. He said you couldn’t teach people about God’s love that way. He went and fought for the Union army because of his beliefs. Shocked a lot of folks in Brazos County.”
“How did your family feel? Was your father angry?” she asked.
“He was dead by then. Garrick, though, was furious. He thought my brother had shamed the Devlins, even though he knew how Cal felt. The Devlins didn’t own any slaves-Papa didn’t hold with it, either, you see—but Garrick felt a Southerner ought to support his state.”
“And you?”
“I wasn’t real happy about Cal’s choice, either, but I was a green kid then, all excited about what I believed was the glory of war,” he said grimly. “But he was my brother, and I loved him. Before he rode away to join the Yankees, I told him I just wanted him to come home safe.”
She looked thoughtful. “My father’s a preacher, too. Except he’s that other kind you mentioned.”
Now he’d put his foot in it. “Oh, say, Miss Mercy, I didn’t mean any offense…”
“None taken,” she said quickly. “I was just wishing Papa was more like your brother was. I think it works better, too.”
Her face looked wistful. He wondered what had caused a preacher’s daughter to earn her living whoring in a cattle town? Had her father been so harsh that he had driven her away for some trifling offense? Perhaps he’d caught her out in the haystack with some hayseed swain?
Then their meals came, and he ceased wondering about her for a while.
Chapter Seven
“He’s havin’ dinner with her right this very minute,” Cookie Yates announced triumphantly and without preamble as he stood over Wyatt Earp, seated at his usual table in the Alamo Saloon with three other players, one of whom was Tom Culhane. Cookie was relieved to see that Culhane looked a little more amiable than he had earlier in the day. Maybe he had just had a sore head earlier.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Wyatt Earp growled. He didn’t much cotton to having his game interrupted, especially when he held the winning hand. Giving the other players too much time to think could cause Lady Luck to smile on someone else.
“Devil—Sam Devlin, my trail boss. He and the sportin’ woman you made the bet about was just headin’ into the Grand Hotel’s dinin’ room when I passed by. Sure looked like they was sweet on one another already,” Cookie said with a grin. “Looks like you’re gonna lose your money, Earp. Sure hope you can afford it.”
“Well, lookin’ sweet doesn’t mean much from a sportin’ woman,” Earp replied, a cynical smile on his face. “You don’t know the breed if you think that means she’s gonna give it away—hey, wait a minute, who did you say your trail boss was with?” he asked, his eyes on the man and woman descending the stairway as he spoke.
“That Mercedes gal you made the bet about,” Cookie repeated. “You know, that sportin’ woman you said was so choosy? The one Dev bet you he could poke without payin’? It was her, all right, saw that red hair in the lamplight at the entrance.”
“And when was that?” Earp asked, smirking as he motioned the woman over to their table. She patted the satisfied-looking cowboy she’d been with on the shoulder before separating from him and coming in Earp’s direction.
“Why, just a coupla minutes ago,” said Cookie. “I figure about now they’re lookin’ deeply into one another’s eyes…give my boss an hour and he’ll have her layin’ down for him, all right. She’ll beg him to,” Cookie bragged. “The gals in Fort Worth couldn’t get enough o’ him when we passed through there. Iffen he tells you he can have her for free, you’d best believe it.”
“Oh, I’m not arguin’ his ability to have a woman without payin’,” Earp replied, “just the particular woman we were speakin’ of. Boys, I’d like you to meet Miss Mercedes LaFleche,” he said, rising and holding out his hand to the sultry-looking redhead in a tight gown of turquoise satin, who bestowed a smile on the whole table.
Cookie stared at the woman as if she were a ghost. “But…” he began, pointing at the rich, deep red of her curly hair.
“Is this the gentleman you wanted me to meet, Wyatt?” she asked, eyeing the gray-haired, whiskery Cookie a little doubtfully.
Wyatt was grinning openly now. “No, my dear, it isn’t. But tell me something, Mercedes, honey. Were you just over at the Grand Hotel a couple of minutes ago, meetin’ a Texan for dinner there?”
She looked at the cardsharp as if he had clearly lost his mind. “Wyatt, you just saw me walk down those stairs from my room, I know you did. You saw the cowboy with me. He was a Texan, all right, most of ‘em are, but I didn’t meet him at the Grand Hotel. He bought me a drink right here in the Alamo before we…went upstairs for a while,” she said with a meaningful wink.
Wyatt turned back to Cookie Yates. “Seems like your boss was takin’ some other woman in to dinner, doesn’t it? Could be he found another gal to charm. Maybe he lost interest in the dare, if he found some gal who’s more of a sure thing.”
“But…but she had red hair just like this one,” protested Cookie.
“Is that a fact?” drawled Earp, putting his arm around Mercedes LaFleche, who seemed to enjoy the caress. “Mercedes, you know any other woman in Abilene with red hair that’s as pretty as you?”
Mercedes preened. “Why, Wyatt, you always said I had no equal! But there isn’t any other woman in Abilene with red hair that I know of, anyway—and I know all the sportin’ women and the ‘virtuous ladies,’ too, even if that bunch do cut me dead when we pass on the street,” she said with a little laugh. “Unless you mean the preacher’s daughter, now…her hair’s sorta the color o’ mine, just a little darker red. But I don’t think she’d be out with some cowboy,” she added. “Her father watches over her like a miser watches his money. And she’s kinda, well…innocent lookin’, compared t’ me.” She gestured at the tight-fitting, eyecatching satin dress she wore.
Wyatt hooted and smacked the table. “Cookie, is it possible your boss is out wining and dining the preacher’s daughter, thinking she’s a sporting woman?”
Cookie looked distinctly uncomfortable as he considered the possibility. He glared at Tom Culhane, who obviously found the idea as hilarious as Earp did.
“Aw, stop lookin’ like you was suckin’ a lemon, Cookie,” Culhane said when he could stop guffawing. “I think it’d serve th’ Devil right if he thinks he’s courtin’ a whore and finds out she’s some prissy little preacher’s daughter instead!”
At the moment, however, Mercy was feeling far from prissy. She’d taken a cautious first sip of the wine that their stuffy-acting waiter had brought, not wanting to confess it was the first she had ever drunk. Even when celebrating Communion, Papa served grape juice instead of wine. She found the fermented version very good, too, and as a consequence had been sipping it slowly but steadily as Sam Devlin regaled her with tales of the trail drive.
“No, it doesn’t take much to set off a stampede,” Sam was saying in response to a question she had asked. “At night we took turns singin’ to the herd, soft and low. Some men sang songs from the war, some sang hymns, some even sang nursery rhymes.” His blue eyes were distant and unfocused, as if he was remembering. “It didn’t matter much what we sang, as long as it sounded soothing to the beeves. But somethin’ as sudden as a flash of lightning, or as simple as the snapping of a stick—or sometimes nothin’ at all—could set those longhorns loco, and in a flash they’d be up and runnin’, with all of us gallopin’ hell-for-leather after them an’ tryin’ to turn them. God help any poor cowboy who wasn’t on his horse when they decided to turn in his direction. We lost a good hand that way, just after we crossed the Red River,” he said, his expression somber.
Sam hadn’t been bragging, just telling her matter-offactly what a trail drive was like, but she marveled nonetheless. He painted such a clear picture of it. When Sam talked of his days on the Chisholm Trail, Mercy could almost see the choking cloud of dust—she could hear the constant lowing of the cattle and the thunder of their hooves over rocky ground. She could smell the savory odors of wood smoke and beef stew at the nightly campfires. She could feel the incredible heat that could be generated by a stampeding herd.
What a brave man he was—what brave men all of them were, these Texans who brought the hundreds of stubborn horned beasts a thousand miles from where they ran free among the mesquite in south Texas, crossing swirling rivers, enduring all kinds of weather, danger from hostile Indians and murderous rustlers, disease and the ever-present threat of stampede. No ordinary man—no man she’d ever met until now, anyway—was capable of surviving all that.
No wonder the cowboys were so ready to have a little fun, to…to raise a little hell, Mercy thought, surprising herself by even thinking about that word that Papa reserved for discussions of the hereafter. She noticed Sam had used it, too—”hell-for-leather”—quite unconsciously, not apologizing up and down because he had used that word in the presence of a lady. She found she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything, as long as he would keep on talking. That rich drawl was so easy on the ears, so warming…
Or was it the unaccustomed wine? By the time the waiter brought her steak and Sam’s chicken, Mercy was feeling so warm that she wished she had a fan, perhaps one of those black ostrich-feather ones that she and Charity had seen in the Godey’s lady’s book. It would be nice to be fluttering her fan, and flirting over the top of it with the handsome male across the table from her.
“I hear they call you Devil,” she said, feeling very worldly-wise and sophisticated as she said it.
His irresistible smile turned into a chuckle. “Aw, that’s just some funnin’ the boys do with my name. They just like callin’ themselves the Devil’s Boys.”
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