Authors: Brenda Joyce
Innocent Fire (30 page)
Miranda sobbed helplessly. She had no strength left to fight. She had seen everything, had watched her husband slaughtered before her eyes, had seen him fall as she was thrown up on a pony in front of an Indian who smelled like rancid grease. To leave him lying there destroyed her. What if he was still alive, but bleeding to death?
How could a man live after being lanced and stabbed that way?
There were only six of them, she realized dimly, and they rode through the day and into the night. She stopped thinking. Her heart was broken. She couldn’t think because then she would die from the pain. Derek. Derek. She wanted to die.
They stopped the next day. Miranda wasn’t sure if it was the next day or a week later. She felt utterly exhausted. She was confused, dazed. Derek was dead. Derek! Pain throbbed steadily within her. Someone pulled her off the pony, and she crumpled to the ground.
A hand coiled in her hair. She whimpered from the physical pain as she was dragged by the hair, then released, falling on her face. She heard male voices, excited voices. They were arguing. She opened her eyes, raising her head. A big man in buckskins, a white man, was talking to the Indians, gesturing with his hands. What was happening? Where was she? Where was Derek?
This wasn’t happening. She was with Derek in their beautiful meadow, safe, secure. No…Derek was dead! No…soon he would come, rescue her…Derek, I love you….
The floating, drifting sensation deepened. A fog curled around her. A misty fog…England. Her mother, a park, beautiful, manicured lawns. Her mother loved her. She was young, so young, a little girl. The fog was cool and soft, like a fluffy cloud. She didn’t want to leave it, but someone was shaking her. Miranda forced her eyes open, and her heart leaped at the sight of a buckskin-clad chest. “Derek.”
The man smiled. “This is your lucky day, l’il gal. Come on. We got some traveling to do.”
Miranda blinked and stared at the big, dirty stranger. Derek was dead. Nothing mattered. The Comanche had already ridden off. When the man pulled her to her feet, she moved as if she were drugged.
He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. That was his first coherent thought—that he was conscious. His next was of Miranda.
He focused. He was hurt—dying, if he didn’t do something about it. His back was in agony. His chest burned, but that pain was insignificant to the rest. He was weak, and when he opened his eyes, it was dawn, red, rosy, and very blurry. He closed his eyes and fainted again.
The next time he came to, the sun was high and very, very hot. He managed to pull his knife from his sheath. He had to rest after that effort. He made an incision in his shirt. He was panting, and desperately thirsty. He was going to faint. No! He had to live…to find Miranda.
He fought the encircling blackness. He cut through his shirt, slicing it into awkward rags. Then he fainted again.
But only for a few hours, he saw, when he came to again. He still had the knife in his hand, and he released it, with great difficulty placing both his hands on the spear protruding from his chest. It was in a good spot, he noted, below the collarbone, above his lungs. He was lucky. In his mind he smiled at the complete irony of the thought. He needed strength. He yanked, moaning in pain, fighting wave after wave of dizziness.
It took him half a dozen tries to finally pull the spear out, and then the blood gushed anew. By sheer will-
power he managed to place a wad of his shirt on the wound and rolled onto his stomach, still clutching the material to his chest. He refused to pass out.
He knew the knife was still in his back, because he had fallen against it before twisting half consciously to his side. The pain was unbelievable, high in his back, in his shoulder, in bone and muscle. He was so weak. He had to get it out, but he knew he didn’t have the strength, not yet.
He crawled to the creek. He passed out twice, and it took him hours to go thirty yards. His body was burning, and he knew fever was setting in. But he wasn’t going to die. He slithered into the water.
He drank deeply.
With his knife he cut off the rest of his shirt in strips. The process took him a long time. All the while he sat in the creek, letting the water bathe his wounds. He bound the wad to his chest with a strip of his shirt, still bleeding. He was weaker than ever, but his determination outweighed everything. He ignored the knife in his back; he knew without trying that there was nothing he could do to get it out, not now.
He could not think about Miranda, either. But he did wonder, briefly, if his people had been attacked, too. He fell asleep.
He awoke burning up with fever, but he had expected it. Desperately he hung on to sanity. His chest wound had stopped bleeding and was clotting. He knew he shouldn’t get it wet, but he also knew he could die from the fever. He had already determined that the chest wound was the more serious injury. He crawled fully into the water until it coverd him, clear and cool, and he slept again.
He awoke as cold as he had been before, but he didn’t move, he wasn’t able to. The chills alternated with burning heat. At some point he began to thrash and murmur and dream, mostly of Miranda. He relived their time together. He could actually feel her touch on his forehead, so cool and soft.
He saw his son as a newborn infant, and he felt thrilled with pride. The boy howled with lusty vigor from his first moments in the world. Derek held him. His wife smiled tiredly. She was Apache. Then, before his eyes she turned
into Miranda. The boy in his arms became Chavez’s bastard. He stared, holding the infant, unable to put it down, but not wanting to touch it. The infant changed, became his own flesh and blood, then turned back again into the unwanted bastard. Finally he saw his son, tall, a teenager, a Comanche. Derek was protecting Miranda from his son who was charging, wanting to kill her. Bragg prepared to defend Miranda from his own flesh and blood.
He awoke to a sparkling day, the pleasant, tepid warmth of a late setting sun. He focused, remembering. He was in the creek, covered up to his neck, but he was no longer feverish. He was very, very weak. He didn’t have the strength to move, but he tried to take a mental inventory of his wounds. The bandage on his chest was as clean as if he had never bled. He became aware that there was no knife in his back. Had he pulled it out? Or had the water loosened it? He didn’t remember pulling it out. How long had he fought the fever?
And, God, was Miranda okay?
He knew he needed strength. He dug with his fingers in the mud to find worms and bugs, which he ate. He was too weak to spear a fish with his knife, which was tucked in his belt. But if he built up his strength he would be able to catch a fish and eat it raw. Until then he would live on worms and bugs. He sank into sleep.
The Beloved
“What’s wrong with her?” the woman asked suspiciously, her hands on her ample hips.
“You can see she’s a beauty,” the big, buckskin-clad man said, scratching his lice-ridden beard.
The woman was short and plump, clearly a prostitute, clad in a scandalously low-cut black satin gown. She was not young and not old. Her hair was red and natural, her face heavily painted. Her eyes were hard and old. “Chester, what did you do to this girl?”
They both looked at Miranda. Her hair was nothing but snarls, her dress filthy tatters. Chester had washed her face, the better for Mollie to see what a beauty she was, but nothing could change the vacant look in her eyes. If she saw them looking at her, or heard them, she didn’t give a sign. In fact, she never looked at them, but through them, as if they didn’t exist.
“I didn’t do nuthin’. She’s an idiot, I guess. She don’t talk, don’t smile, nuthin’. But she’s a beauty. Hell, she don’t need to talk, Moll, you know that. Men don’t pay a whore to talk.”
Mollie frowned and walked up to the girl, then around her, inspecting her. “She’s thin.” She wanted to ask how Chester had come by this girl, but she wouldn’t—she never asked. Never before had she even wanted to know. “Girl, you got a name?”
Miranda looked at her blankly. She was in such pain. Why couldn’t they leave her alone with her grief?
“I told you, she don’t talk. But me an’ Will named her Belle, ’cause she’s such a looker. Listen, you don’t want her, I can unload her in Chihuahua, I know that.”
Mollie frowned. “I’m short two girls, Chester. Damn bitches run off and got married, can you believe it? The way this town is growing, damn, I need all the girls I can get.”
“You sure do,” Chester encouraged her. He wouldn’t tell her that he privately thought the wench was insane. Crazy like a loon. At night she’d moan and whimper, saying the name
Derek
over and over. Her man—the one killed by the Comanche. He’d always been afraid of crazy folks, and it was too bad, because if she weren’t crazed from her grief he’d have bedded her. What a waste. “Galveston’s three times the size it was five years ago,” he said.
“There was nothing here five years ago, practically.” Mollie snorted. “All right. I’ll take her. Maybe with some food and sleep she’ll snap out of it. Let me ask you, though, how long she been like this?”
Chester hesitated. He didn’t want to tell her she’d been like this from the first day he’d seen her and bought her from the Comanche.
“I see,” Mollie said astutely. “Well, I ain’t giving you the standard price, not for this one. Seventy-five, and that’s it.”
“Damn! That’s robbery! You know I don’t sell a girl for less than a hundred fifty. You make that much in six months.”
They bickered back and forth and agreed on a hundred, as they had both known they would. Chester left. “Well, girl,” Mollie said, taking her hand. “I’m going to have one of the girls bathe you and bring you up a fine meal.” She led her out of the office behind her saloon, which served also as her sleeping quarters. There was a back stairs up to the rooms where her girls lived and work. There were eight girls—now this one made nine. Better than nothing, she thought.
“Lil, follow me,” Mollie said to a tall, willowy brunette.
Lil had been standing in a doorway clad in a sheer
wrapper, talking to a plump Mexican and a thin redhead. She obediently followed Mollie and Miranda into a small room containing a bed, a washstand, a chair, and wardrobe.
“Who’s this?” Lil asked curiously, her blue eyes friendly.
“Belle. She needs some care. I want you to fix her up, see if you can’t get her to talk. Maybe she’s deaf and dumb, I don’t know. I don’t think she’s a dimwit, myself. Something so damn empty about those eyes.” Mollie stared at Miranda, scowling. Then, “See she eats, too. I want her fattened up good.” Mollie left. She was disturbed about the girl, and she didn’t like it. She was a business-woman, and a cold one. If she hadn’t been, she’d still be on her back every night like her girls, instead of just when she felt like it.
“Hello, Belle,” Lil tried. “Gee, you are dirty, but truly beautiful. Let’s get you out of these clothes.” She wondered if the girl even heard her. She didn’t seem to, just standing there in the middle of the small room where Mollie had left her.
Lil undressed her after sending for hot water and a tub. The girl was thin and bruised. She felt sorry for her. She knew the girl had been brought here by Chester. She herself had chosen her life, which was different. She sighed and helped Miranda into the tub, talking all the time.
“Things really aren’t so bad here. Mollie pretends to be mean, but she’s not. We have plenty of food and we get one day off a week. Mollie says its important for us to get a day of rest. It’s better for business, she says. She wants us fresh. You’re so pretty you’ll be real popular—well, maybe not. Don’t you ever talk?”
Miranda looked at the woman bathing her, seeing her as if through a haze. The woman was speaking to her, and the words came from a great distance away. She wondered where she was. Oh yes. Galveston. Chester had bought her from the Comanche. Sold her into a brothel—just like Derek had said. Derek. She had never told him how much she loved him—and now he would never know.
“You have such pain in your eyes,” Lil said compassionately. “Did he hurt you?”
It would take too much effort to answer, so she didn’t respond.
Lil washed her with soft caresses, as if she were a frail child. Even her compassionate touch couldn’t stir Miranda from her grief. Lil helped her out of the tub, chattering now about the latest gossip in Galveston, gently toweling her dry. When Lil wrapped her in the thick towel, pushing her onto the bed, Miranda was pliant. Lil began to comb through the tangles of her hair.
“Good Lord! I never seen so much hair on a head! You’re lucky, Belle, do you know that?”
Lil finished and spread Miranda’s hair out along her shoulders to let it dry. She removed the towel, handing her a wrapper, much like the one she was wearing, from the wardrobe. Miranda looked at it without curiosity. It was sheer and hid nothing. It brought home the fact that she was indeed in a brothel. But she slipped it on. She didn’t care—she couldn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.
Miranda looked up as Lil returned to the room with a tray of food. Lil smiled brightly. “Hello again, Belle. I’ve brought you some food.”
Food. She wasn’t sure when she had last eaten, but the aroma of chili and beans was pungent, and even though she didn’t care whether she ate or not, her stomach growled. Despite herself, she looked at the tray. She sighed and said to Lil, “My name is Miranda, not Belle.”
Lil’s eyes widened with surprise. “You
can
talk! Oh, dear, I was so worried about you! Are you all right?”
In answer, Miranda felt tears coming again. From deep inside, deep in her soul. Oh Derek.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Lil’s tone was compassionate.
“My husband.”
Lil sat down on the bed next to her. “Do you want to talk about it? Maybe it would help.”
“It won’t bring him back,” Miranda said softly.
“I’m sorry.”
Miranda shook her head. “I don’t think I can go on without him.” Her voice broke.
Lil put an arm around her. “You’ve got to, honey. If he loved you as much as you loved him, he’d want you to.”
Those words rang true. And there was something else, something she’d avoided thinking about all the time, and
her hand went unconsciously to her belly in an age-old protective gesture.
Lil gasped. “Honey—you’re with child?”
Miranda nodded.
“Then you just have to eat and get on with living,” Lil said firmly.
Miranda knew she was right—but didn’t know if she could. “It’s so hard.”
“No, it’s not.” She set the tray on her lap, and handed Miranda a spoon. “One bite at a time.”
Miranda ate.
“Honey, I’ll see if I can’t get you a few more days to grieve, to pull yourself together, before you have to start working.”
Miranda stopped eating. Fear pierced her numbness. “Lil—I can’t.”
Lil grimaced. “Honey, you’re going to have to earn your keep.”
Miranda shook her head and gulped back a sob, seeing Derek’s golden image. Did it matter? Did anything matter now?
Lil watched her, frowning. She coaxed her through most of the meal, told her to get a good night’s rest, and said she would be in to see her in the morning. She left, and Miranda fell into another light, dozing sleep, broken by nightmares about Derek’s murder. Once she woke up screaming, and Lil rushed in half clad to comfort her.
The next few days passed in a kind of haze. Lil came to visit often, and introduced her to other girls—prostitutes—who seemed kind and cheerful, if curious and sympathetic. Miranda’s grief and lack of animation tugged at everyone’s compassion. She rarely smiled, and when she did, it was soft and slight, barely there, a sad, pain-filled smile. Lil wasn’t the only one to pity her and want to protect her. Most of the other girls did, too.
The day came when Mollie decided that Miranda was ready to work. Lil brought the news that afternoon, and Miranda stared at her with a twinge of fear. “What am I to do?”
“I’ll help you dress,” Lil told her. “You’ll serve drinks downstairs, and when a man wants to take you up to your
room, you get the money first, and give it to Cleeve. Never spend more than a half an hour with any man; twenty minutes is better. Soon as he’s done, give him the boot.”
Miranda’s heart started to pound.
Lil hugged her. “You’ll do just fine.”
The dress was a rose satin, faded and worn. It was cut very low, exposing almost all of Miranda’s small bosom. Lil brushed out her hair into a shining, waist-length mass. Because Miranda was so pale, Lil added rouge to her lips and cheeks. Lil regarded her handiwork and thought Miranda looked like a painted porcelain doll. She felt a pang of pity and regret. They went downstairs, Miranda looking more and more frightened every moment.
The saloon was loud with raucous laughter, rank with male body odor and cheap whiskey. Lil felt Miranda stiffen, saw her face pale, and took her hand. “It’s all right.”
Men stopped talking and they all looked at Miranda. She was new, and thus an object of considerable interest. Miranda’s fear increased as the reality of what was happening registered. “Miranda, this is Cleeve,” Lil said. “You bring Cleeve the money, three bits, before you go upstairs,” she repeated.
Cleeve was tall and stocky, balding and mustached. He looked at Miranda. “Hey, she all right, Lil?”
Lil bristled. “She’s fine. Ain’t you, honey?”
Miranda looked at Cleeve, then Lil, scared to death.
A big man in stained buckskins, bearded and with broken teeth, sauntered forward. “Hey, little lady, I’ll be your first.”
Miranda looked at Lil. “Lil—I can’t.”
He reached in his pocket and tossed some coins on the bar, toward Cleeve. “What’s your name?” He grabbed her hand.
Miranda felt his touch and was terrified. She paled and tried to pull away.
“Her name is Miranda,” Lil said, worried. “It’s all right, honey, you take Moss up to your room. He’ll know what to do.”
Moss laughed, revealing yellow teeth, several missing. He grabbed Miranda by the waist.
Miranda’s heart began to race. She looked at Lil pleadingly, and began to struggle. “No!”
“A fighter!” Moss was delighted. He laughed again and picked her up as if her weight was meaningless to him, carrying her up the stairs. She hadn’t stopped struggling, in fact, she was fighting with hysterical strength. Lil couldn’t stand it.
She raced up the stairs, knowing that she had to stop Moss. She reached them as they went inside Miranda’s bedroom, and followed them. Moss threw Miranda on the bed, reaching for his belt buckle.
“No, Moss,” Lil said. “You don’t want her, you want me.”
“Hell no, Lil. I want the new one. She’s prettier.”
Miranda huddled on the bed, panting and tensed, her painted cheeks stained with rouge and tears.
“She’s been ill,” Lil snapped, and placed herself between Moss and the bed. “We thought she was well enough to work, but she ain’t.”
“Get out of my way,” Moss growled.
Lil struck a provocative pose.
Moss snorted.
Lil gave him a surly look, and began to unhook her gown in the back.
“It won’t work, Lil,” Moss said, but he was hard and grinning.
Lil slid the gown down to her waist, revealing a partial corset that thrust her breasts up, the nipples just visible. “You know how good I am,” she said huskily.
“Damn,” Moss said. His eyes were hot.
Lil slid the gown the rest of the way down. She wore no petticoats—nothing, in fact, but stockings and garters. Moss stared at the hair curling between her thighs, then inhaled sharply as Lil touched herself intimately. “Tell me who you want now, Moss,” she whispered.
He grabbed her. Lil darted free, out the door, and into her room next door. Moss followed.
Lil returned sometime later, and found Miranda still on
the bed, her eyes closed. “You all right, honey?” she asked, picking up her dress and slipping it on.
Miranda looked at her with gratitude. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got an idea, Miranda, one to keep you off your back. I’m going to go back downstairs, but I guess you’d better stay here until I talk to the other girls and then to Mollie.”
“You can talk to me now,” Mollie said grimly from the doorway, clad in her usual black satin. Her gown, unlike her girls’, was new. “Why is she cowering up here alone?”
“Mollie, Miranda just lost her man. She’s only a child, look at her! She needs time—”
“She’ll get over it,” Mollie said.
“Yes, she will—with time.” Lil stared, hands on hips.
“Lil, you have gotten too bold,” Mollie said, frowning. “I paid money for her, and I expect her to earn her way.”
“I’ll take up her slack,” Lil said. “If me and the other girls all do one extra trick each night, it’ll be the same as if she was working.”
“The rest of the girls would never agree.”
“I think they would. They all feel for her.”
Mollie hated to admit it, but ever since she had first seen the girl, she had had doubts about buying her, because of her strange mental state. It had made her wonder just what had happened to the girl, that she was so vacant and detached. Now, of course, she knew, for Lil had told everyone. The girl disturbed her and made her feel sympathy—something totally out of character. “If you can talk the other girls into it, we’ll try it for a while. But she still has to serve drinks.”
“We can say she’s your niece,” Lil said eagerly. “And that’s why she’s off limits.”
Mollie just walked away.
