Chapter 9
That had been more fun than watching Clarence drive Temperance onto a bench the other day. Maybe he did want a dog, Owen thought as they walked back toward the bridge.
“Thank you for not telling them I work in a saloon.” Temperance said beside him. “They’re decent people, so I can only imagine how she would have reacted.”
“Decent people don’t judge someone for working in a saloon. Are you really ashamed of it?” If so, he would have to rethink the plan that was taking shape in his mind.
“It’s not very respectable, is it? I’d rather work for my father.”
“Tell me more about the sorts of things you do for him. I saw you had a ledger book when you were looking in your bag.” It was similar to the one that Ira kept at the mine where he recorded wages and yields. Madame Beauville had also recorded Elmer’s debt into her own. “Do you know what to do with those?”
“I do,” she said firmly. “I told you that Papa’s handwriting is terrible. It’s always been my task to record the costs of supplies and expenses for his different projects. You asked how he makes money. Formulating a sound budget and staying within it is always a good start.”
That’s what Owen needed—someone who could record every dram of whiskey that went in or out. He had the ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide faster than anyone he knew, without a pencil or chalk. When Emmett measured out lumber for cutting, he always double-checked his mathematics with Owen, if Owen happened to be nearby. Owen could keep running tallies in his head for months, but he didn’t have the smarts for writing any of it down.
“In fact, I wanted to ask you—” Temperance began.
“Can I catch up to you tonight? I beg your pardon.” Owen realized he had cut her off, but he had moved from preoccupied to fixated. While they’d been speaking to the Greenlys, another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place for him. He wanted to act on it. Now. “I have business this direction.” He pointed left while the bridge was another block straight ahead.
“I— Yes. Of course.”
“I’ll come by the saloon tonight with the ticket and the money for Mavis.” He was beginning to believe that Temperance did, in fact, have a father who wrote reports. That’s why he’d paid up with her landlady, but he wasn’t so gullible he’d entrust her with a stage ticket and two hundred and fifty dollars. “Will you actually be there this time?” He pinned her with a narrow-eyed look.
“Unless I get dismissed again.” She feigned nonchalance with a shrug.
“Try not to get dismissed, then. Behave yourself,” he ordered.
“I thought I was the one who’s supposed to tell you that?” Her brows went up, haughty.
“So did I. You’re actually very bad at keeping me in line. We’ve known each other a week, and you’ve already implicated me in rustling.” He waved at the dog. “Is that why Mrs. Dudley gave you the boot? She learned you were wanted? What’s the reward, by the way? I may be interested.”
“You’re complicit. You kept the dog,” she pointed out. “As for Dudley’s, I don’t want to tell you why I was thrown out.”
“No?”
She made a noise of oppression and folded her arms. Her eyes rolled skyward and her mouth pursed in amused self-deprecation.
“Tell me,” he coaxed, instantly captivated.
“I went upstairs to avoid all those drunken men and fell asleep. She caught me the next morning.”
“You didn’t even leave the building? That’s why I couldn’t find you? I thought you’d been kidnapped.” He’d been worried.
“Merely napping.”
He winced at the pun, trying to decide if he was furious or entertained. “What a ridiculous thing to do. Tell me you dreamed of me, at least.”
“You are the reason I was there at all. You refused to hire me.” She waved a maddened hand at him.
“I’ll take that as a yes. And now you’ve reminded me where I’m going and why.” He would hire her, if he got what he wanted from this next meeting. “We’ll finish talking later.”
She huffed out a sigh, but said, “Thank you. For this.” She lifted the skimpy weight of her carpetbag.
“No trouble.” He hadn’t done it to put her in his debt, but hoped it obliged her enough to be at the saloon when he got there, because the more he thought about his new plan, the more pleased he was with it.
They went their separate ways and, ten minutes later, he entered the Clerk and Recorder’s Office for the town company.
“Not you again,” Elmer groused. He was bleary-eyed and smelled like the inside of a rotting whiskey barrel. “What do you want this time?”
“Which building sites have yet to be claimed?”
“For a homestead?” Elmer pushed to his feet and walked to a wall where a large map was pinned. He started pointing out the landmarks to help Owen orient himself. “That’s north. There’s Cherry Creek and the corral. This is where we are right now. You can see all of these are still available.” He waved toward the outskirts of town.
“Those are too far out. I want something closer to the bridge.” Foot traffic. Definitely here in Denver. “Not too close to the water.” Tom always cautioned about spring floods. “What’s this one? Isn’t that the undertaking parlor? He died, didn’t he? What happened to him? I mean, who buries the undertaker?”
“The undertaker from Auraria looked after him.” Elmer spoke as though it was obvious.
“Oh.” That was a dull answer. Owen folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “Do you think the Auraria undertaker was responsible for his death? Did he kill off his competition?” That was an interesting rumor to start.
“No.” Elmer scowled at Owen’s dark humor.
Owen bit back a smirk, surprised Elmer had a line he wouldn’t cross.
“Who do I talk to about buying it?” Owen was warming to the location. “Did he have family?”
“No.” Elmer’s gaze slid back to the map. He grew downright cagey. “No, he didn’t have any next of kin, so the town company absorbed that parcel back into its inventory.”
“Did it,” Owen snorted. It must be very helpful to have a probate judge for a father.
“Mmm.” Elmer did a very credible job of pretending he was both innocent and grieving the misfortune of someone who had no one else to grieve for him. “It’s very valuable, given its location. How much were you thinking to spend?”
“Probably the amount we added to Madame Beauville’s books last night.”
“Oh, come on, Owen.” Elmer turned on him. “The land is worth more than that, and it’s already got a building on it!”
“Which you were already paid for once, when the undertaker bought it.”
“But it has a building now. And a wagon house. You have all of this to work with.” He waved wildly at the outskirts of the map. “What do you want a funeral parlor for anyway? Are you taking up grave digging?”
“I’m taking up minding my own business.” He was proud of that comeback. “Give some thought to how badly you’d like to clear your debt at Madame Beauville’s, then come find me at the Bijou tonight.”
“The Bijou?” Elmer made a face.
“She’s not there,” he reminded him. “She just gave birth.” Idiot.
He walked out.
It wasa busy night in the Bijou. Temperance couldn’t imagine Mavis and Freddie were getting any rest, given the hullaballoo going on in here.
Mavis was incredibly relieved to have a ticket and money promised to her, but she didn’t want to believe it until it was in her hand. Temperance wouldn’t breathe easy until that happened, either. She smiled when Owen finally arrived.
He nodded at her, downed a shot of whiskey, then disappeared again.
She caught up to him at the bar when he returned.
“Another round please Mr. Fritz. Is everything all right?” Temperance asked as she searched Owen’s expression. She lowered her voice to ask, “Did you speak to Mavis?”
He nodded. “I told her the stage has a seat available the day after tomorrow.”
Temperance was briefly speechless. “Do you understand the mechanics of childbirth? She won’t be able to travel for a week or two at least.”
Mavis was up and moving around, but still heavily staining her rags. That frosty little room was no place to keep a baby for a winter, though. They were all worried, given the temperatures were dropping more each night. Jane and Temperance had spoken privately about one of them traveling with her, to help, but neither felt right about stealing from Freddie’s future and what would they do once they arrived? At least here, they each had an income and a place to sleep.
“Hey, Rosie. Git that whiskey over here!” a man called from one of the tables.
Owen frowned.
“Lively bunch from Horsefly,” Temperance said with a pressed smile.
They were rowdy, disrespectful, and had arrived drunk—something Mr. Fritz seemed to think was beneficial since it meant they were spending freely.
Temperance already had a silver dollar and two bits in the pocket Jane had helped her sew into her bodice. That made the way the men treated her slightly less odious, but it was still dismaying.
“Thank you,” she said distractedly, as Mr. Fritz replenished her tray. She hurried over to set out the drinks, asking, “Who’s winning?”
“Not me. Kiss me for luck, Rosie.” One unbathed man in deerskin and a smelly hat offered his unshaven cheek.
Temperance blew a kiss at him. “Good luck.”
“Ah, come on, girlie.” He scooped his arm around her and would have shoved his face between her breasts, but she jammed her tray before her like a shield. Jane had taught her that move her first night here.
“I think you’ve mistaken this saloon for another type of establishment,” she said with forced lightness as she twirled out of his hold.
“Oof.” She walked straight into Owen Stames.
He caught her by the upper arms to steady her. How had he come up behind her so fast? He’d been on the other side of the room a split second ago, she was sure of it.
“Deal me in,” Owen said, looking past her to the men. He stepped between her and the table. “Fetch me a whiskey, too, Rose,” he said over his shoulder.
She did, then danced twice, hurrying back when the men started shouting for more drinks. Jane was in the same boat, racing to deliver drinks as fast as Mr. Fritz could pour them while being pulled into dancing between.
Temperance had four more dimes weighing down her neckline and was at the bar, waiting on another round of glasses, when a grubby, drunken man swaggered up beside her.
“Gimme a bourbon, Fritz. One for the lady, too.”
“That’s kind of you,” she said as politely as she could, instinctively knowing she didn’t want to encourage this one. He seemed very unsavory and was slurring his words. “I need to deliver these to the table, but I’ll come back in a moment.”
She really didn’t want to. She took the tray to the table and felt Owen’s gaze on her as she served everyone. She kept her smile pinned in place, but it felt very stiff and forced.
“Sit down,” one of the men said, offering his knee.
“I have someone buying me a drink at the bar. I’ll come back in a moment.”
Good grief! She looked for Jane who was being cajoled into yet another polka. It had to be draining the life out of her.
“Hello,” Temperance said when she hurried back to the bar. “I’m Rose. And who might you— Oh, sir. That drink was meant for me.”
He shot her glass of watery tea and frowned at it.
“What the hell is this?” He clapped the glass onto the bar and glared at her. “You charged me for bourbon.”
“Um—” She hadn’t. Mr. Fritz had taken his money and poured the drink, but it didn’t seem prudent to say so.
Her vision was suddenly filled with the back of Owen’s jacket.
“I know you.” Owen’s voice was barely audible over the din of men’s voices and the off-pitch notes from the squeezebox. “Sureshot. That’s what you call yourself, isn’t it?”
Did he jab the man’s chest? She tried to peer around Owen to see what was going on.
“That’s my name, yeah. But I don’t know you.” Mr. Sureshot tried to brush Owen aside to continue confronting Temperance, but Owen kept himself between them.
“Quail’s Creek. You rode in two months ago looking for a gold watch. You owe my partner twenty dollars for it. Pay up.” Owen stuck out his hand.
“The hell I do. Now git out of my way. That woman is trying to cheat me on a shot of bourbon, and I won’t stand for it.” He tried again to come around Owen to confront her.
Owen side-stepped, keeping himself between her and the other man. He wound up wedging Temperance against the bar and into the man standing on her other side.
That man decided to take advantage of her pressing up on him to grope her bottom.
“You fresh bastard!” Temperance jabbed the man with her elbow.
“Hey!” he grumbled.
“What—” Owen sent a murderous look over his shoulder.
The bum pincher sensed trouble and dodged to his left, knocking straight into the man next to him who bumped the next.
The whole drunken line staggered over, clinging to the bar like sailors falling overboard. As glasses tipped and spilled, one cried, “I’m not paying for that.”
Sureshot took advantage of the commotion to take a swing at Owen.
Owen evaded the blow, and Temperance cringed into the bar, tray raised as a shield, certain the flying fist would strike her. The next thing she knew, Owen had hold of Sureshot and propelled him across the room.
He crashed into one of the empty barrels being used as a gambling table. The barrel toppled. Cards, chips, and coins flew. Men leapt to their feet with a clatter and shouts of anger. Sureshot was turtled on the overturned barrel, trying to find his bearings while everyone else shoved and scrambled after the scattered coins.
“You’re gonna be sorry.” Sureshot rolled onto his hands and knees. He flattened one hand on the floor to push himself upright. His other hand reached for his holster.
Temperance reacted on instinct. She was still holding her tray and spun it at Sureshot, the way she and her younger siblings threw a pie plate on a fine day when Adelaide wasn’t around to stop them. The tray chopped Sureshot right in his throat.
“Gack.” He clutched his neck.
Owen had his own pistol in hand, but that didn’t stop another man from shouting, “Hey!”
The man who had been dancing with Jane thrust Jane away so abruptly, Jane staggered into the man playing the squeeze box. A discordant wheeze of the accordion resounded in a room that grew quiet as everyone realized Owen had his pistol drawn.
Temperance watched in astonishment as Jane’s partner charged toward Owen—who could have shot him! But Owen swung out his fist. The other man ran straight into it, landing on the floor on his backside. He sat blinking and holding his jaw, seeming confused by what had just happened. Everyone was.
“Enough!” Mr. Fritz had his long gun pointed it at the ceiling. “Take it outside.”
“It’s over.” Owen held his own pistol dangling from his hand, but stepped across to steal Sureshot’s out of his holster.
“Hey,” Sureshot said in a strangled noise of protest.
“You can have it back when you give me Virgil’s twenty dollars,” Owen told him. “You know you owe it to him.”
“It’s true.” The man who spoke wore a bushy moustache and a red kerchief tight at his neck. “I was in Quail’s Creek when it happened.”
“Thanks, Sandro.” Owen nodded at him. “Now everyone go back to your drinks.” Owen holstered Sureshot’s pistol, kept his own in his hand, and picked up Temperance’s tray to offer it to her. “Nice aim.”
“Thank you.” She blushed, smiling shakily, thankful that the hubbub seemed to be over. She set the tray on the bar, striving to get her pulse back to normal. “I can’t recall if I ordered drinks, Mr. Fritz. Do you remember?”
Mr. Fritz was glowering and still holding his long gun braced on his hip.
“Get the hell out of my saloon,” he said. “And don’t come back.”