Rose (2 page)

Unwilling to challenge him as she usually did, Rosa went toget another straight-backed chair. She knew that if she refused to do his bidding, Zia Rina would jump up and fetch whatever Guido asked for. Even though it was the way of all men to order the women about, Rosa thought it unfair, especially when Guido was hale and hardy and Zia Rina so frail. Barely five feet tall, her
zia
reminded Rosa of a tiny gray field mouse with bright, shining black eyes that missed nothing. She was never idle. Rosa knew that if her
zia
could, she would devise a way to sew while she slept. A shadow crossed Rosa’s brow and she wondered for the thousandth time how Zia Rina would fare alone with the household of men once she herself had gone to Giovanni in America.

Rina had been the only member of the family to offer encouragement to Rosa when she talked of leaving for America. As Rosa returned to the house and gathered more glasses and another bottle of wine for the men, she told herself that even her concern for Rina could not keep her from going to Giovanni.

The yard was cloaked in darkness now, illuminated only by the light that spilled out of the doorway and the soft glow of Zia Rina’s lamp. The weak circle of light was easily swallowed up in the darkness. Stars dusted the heavens like seeds of new worlds scattered by the hand of God. The hills and distant mountain peaks loomed as giant silhouettes against the black sky.

Rosa passed out three glasses to the men and handed the tall, nearly opaque green bottle to Guido. As the men relaxed, seated on the mismatched straight-backed kitchen chairs, Rosa sat on the swing beside Rina. She remained silent, her hand resting against the pocket of her apron that contained Giovanni’s letter. Suddenly exhausted, she hoped that in an hour or so the men would relax and nothing more would be required of her so that she could slip off to bed. Rosa envied Angelina. Her older sister had already gone, taking Margarina off to bed in their home down the lane.

The men talked among themselves for a time until Rosa, thinking they would surely be ready to retire soon, was about to stand and excuse herself. She had been lost in thought, reviewing each and every detail of her impending departure, when the heavy sound of Guide’s deep voice interrupted her musing.

“So, Rosa, you’re going after that lout, Giovanni, after all?”

They had had this same conversation many times; it was one Rosa had hoped to avoid on her last night at home. She refused to answer his insulting question and just stared back at him. The smirk that hooked his upper lip was not fully visible in the darkness, but she could sense its presence.

“Leave it alone, Guido.” It was Pino who spoke. Now as always he was her defender. Not only were they the closest in age—he was three years older man her twenty—but they were alike in temperament and appearance as well. Except for the fact that Rosa’s eyes were a strange blend of topaz with brown highlights and his were near black, Pino’s eyes were as round and wide as hers. The shortest of her brothers, Pino was only a head taller than Rosa. His frame was thick and wide, his spine straight, his square hands capable of the tasks of the field.

Rosa stood, intent on leaving the brewing argument behind as she sought shelter in the house.

“Does Giovanni come to get her himself?” Guido persisted. “No. He sends money and a letter. Three years, three letters.” As if the others were incapable of counting, he held up a thumb and two fingers and shook them in Pino’s face. He belched, a loud, rumbling sound that climbed upward from deep in his belly. “Three stinking letters and then the
command
for her to go to America alone. And what if I say she is not going?”

“Guido,
basta,”
Zia Rina warned. She raised her hand as if her feeble show of strength could halt his argument.

Guido reached out and grabbed Rosa’s arm. “Guido!” Rosa was startled by his physical assault.

“You are not as smart as you think you are, Rosa.” He brought his face close to hers, and she could smell the wine on his breath. “You and your America. You know nothing.” His grip tightened on her arm and she winced. “If you were so smart you would never have married a man who would run off and leave you. The man is a dreamer, a fool.”

“Let go of my arm, Guido.” Rosa held her temper in check as she tried to pull out of his punishing grip.

“Let her go, Guido.” Pino stood so quickly that his chair toppled back with a soft thud as it hit the ground.

“Yes, let her go.” Even Mario spoke up mis time. Guido shot a dark look in his direction. Always a follower, Mario quickly slumped back down in his chair and poured himself another glass of wine.

“So, go, Rosa.” Guido released her with a rough shove toward the house.

Rosa tilted her chin in defiance and spat the words back at him. “I will, Guido. And I’ll be more than happy to see the last of you.” She turned away from him and walked toward the door.

“You’ll be back,” Guido shouted after her. “You’ll be back, begging to live here again.”

Rosa halted inside the back door and hastily crossed herself. She hoped the harsh words she had fired at her brother would not call bad luck down upon her.

Wyoming, July 1887

A rickety oak table of unknown origin with a surface so scarred it might have been a chopping block functioned as a resting place for a pair of well-worn but comfortable boots coated with a fine layer of dust. From the scuffed leather of the boots emerged a pair of long, lean legs molded by muscle and enveloped in a pair of Levi’s so worn that they shone at both knee and thigh.

Shifting his weight around in the swivel chair where he sat slouched behind his desk, Marshal Kase Storm swung first one and then the other booted foot to the floor. He folded back the front page of the
Cheyenne Leader,
then shook out a stubborn wrinkle along the fold. Scanning the page, Kase found nothing so noteworthy that it would change his life before sunset, and he tossed the newspaper on top of the clutter that already littered the table. Clasping his fingers behind his head, Kase spun the chair around in the opposite direction and tilted back, this time propping his feet up on the opposite corner of the table and stared out the window of the tiny room that served as his office.

The only sign of movement on the deserted street outside was a whirling dust devil. Kase watched it pass. Gazing out of the window, he was content to allow another hour of the day to slide by. A crooked smile crossed his face as he sat musing over his present circumstances. He’d heard Tombstone, Arizona, referred to as the town too tough to die and thought that if Busted Heel, Wyoming, were to have its own motto, it would surely be “Busted Heel, the town too dead to care.”

The only danger he had faced in his six months as marshal of Busted Heel was breaking his neck as he hung over the roof of the local whorehouse trying to rescue a kitten that belonged to one of the girls. When the wooden rain gutter collapsed beneath his weight it gave Kase a heart-stopping scare while the four working girls and the local madam, all bedecked in sequins, satin, and feathers, squealed in fear from the muddy backyard below.

No, he thought, I’ll be lucky if I run into any more danger than that.

Sometimes Kase wondered what he was doing wasting his days amid the clutter of the unkempt office or, when the spirit moved him, walking along the wood-plank sidewalk that fronted the few stores and shops that comprised the whistle-stop town of Busted Heel.

But then he would think back six months to the disclosure that had knocked him over with the swift, sure power of a mule’s kick, and Kase Storm knew that it would be a while longer before he could go home again.

Three hollow knocks sounded on the door and without moving a muscle, Kase called out, “It’s open! No use standing on the other side.”

The door swung wide and Flossie Gibbs, the owner and madam of Busted Heel’s Hospitality Parlor and Retreat, swept in on a gust of plains wind and cheap perfume, her flounced, chartreuse satin skirt rustling as she crossed the floor. The door banged shut behind her, and Kase knew without turning who had entered.

“Hey, Floss.”

“Hey, Kase,” she boomed in salutation. “How come you always know who it is without turnin’ around?”

“I don’t have to see folks to know who they are; I can smell ‘em.” He didn’t tell her it was the overpowering scent of her perfume that gave her away.

Kase dropped his hands and spun the chair, then stood and stretched out to his full six-foot-three-inch height.

“All I have to do is peer into them crystal-ball blue eyes of yours and I forget you’re part Indian at all,” Flossie said.

“Well, as much as I’d like to forget it right now, I am.” Because it was Flossie and she was his friend, he knew she meant no insult. Still, the reference hurt. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

She reached up and straightened the collar of his brown cambric shirt and smoothed the seam along the shoulder. The fringed and beaded reticule that dangled from her wrist slapped gently against his chest with every move.

“Well, I jes’ came over to invite you to supper with us, Marshal. It’s been some time since we had us a dinner party, so I thought to cheer up the girls I’d order us a mess o’ fried chicken over from Mrs. Matheson’s boardin’house. That’s about the only dish she can make without poisonin’ us.”

He nodded in agreement. “Sure, I’ll be glad to come for dinner. What time?”

“Thought we’d start early. ‘Bout five.”

“Fine.” He hooked his thumbs into his hip pockets and rocked back on the heels of his boots. “Things a little slow this time of year, Flossie?”

“No slower than any other time of the year in this four-whore town.” She chuckled bawdily again, throwing back her head with a motion that set her ponderous bosom shaking. The lace that edged the low neckline of the shocking shade of green bobbed and fluttered as she laughed. “You noticed I don’t count myself anymore, didn’t ya, boy?”

Flossie peered at him out of the corner of her eye, and Kase could almost imagine her as she might have appeared forty years earlier. But now, at sixty, powder and rouge caked her skin, creating deeper creases in the lines around her eyes and mouth. He knew that beneath the brassy henna tint, her hair was no doubt frosted with silver. She told him once that she had begun whoring at sixteen. He guessed that she was probably quite a looker then.

“You’ve still got what it takes, Flossie, no doubt about that.”

“Don’t lie to a liar, boy. You know firsthand that I don’t hold a candle to any of my girls.”

He flushed at her words and was thankful that his earth-toned complexion hid his embarrassment. He had only befriended the youngest, Chicago Sue, but Flossie could not know that the young blonde who was only seventeen reminded him so much of his half sister, Annika, that he could not see himself making love to her. But it was true he’d sampled Felicity, Mira, and Satin. It would have been temptation enough for any man living in Busted Heel, but the fact that he rented a room in the Hospitality Parlor made his infrequent visits to them inevitable. Proximity was combined with the added incentive that the girls gave him free of charge what cost other cowboys cold hard cash.

“You think you ought to keep on calling the marshal ‘boy’?” he teased.

“I figure since I was close to forty when you were a twinkle in your pappy’s eye that I have the right to call you damn near anything I want.”

A twinkle in your pappy’s eye.
The thought hit Kase like a winter gale and froze his high spirits. His fist clenched involuntarily. He walked away from Flossie before she could wonder how her words might have affected him. Shuffling through the posters, letters, and newspapers on the desk, Kase spoke to her over his shoulder. “I’ll see you at five, then, Flossie.”

As if she sensed his sudden need to be alone, Flossie Gibbs saw herself to the door. “See ya then, Kase,” she called out before the door closed behind her with a bang.

He stood staring at the pile of papers on his desk for a moment as he tried to shake the dark thoughts that crowded in on him. A sigh was followed by a shudder that came from the toes of his boots and shook his entire frame. He had to get out. With a slight shake of his head, Kase made certain the gun rack was locked and then turned toward the bentwood hat rack on the wall near the door.