The Damnation Affair

Chapter 11

As soon as he stepped into the Lucky Star, Gabe knew something was amiss. The hush was instant, and he didn’t need to see Mercy Tiergale’s badly bruised cheek to tell Tils was unhappy. It wasn’t like him to tap a popular girl in the face where it would show, either.

It was midafternoon, so the serious drinking hadn’t started yet, and wouldn’t for hours. The card games were going full-force though, and Mo Jackson was banging on the tinny little piano, waltzing his way through “She Was A Charming Filly” and humming off-key. Mercy made a beeline for Gabe, and he barely had time to lay his bit on the counter and accept a shot of something passing for whiskey before she was at his elbow.

“He left an hour ago,” she said, and the bruise was fresh red-purple, glaring and still puffing up. Her breasts swelled almost out of the dress—well, dress wasn’t quite the word, it was just a scrap of corset and lace, and low. “Gabe…”

“Tils?” He nodded as the ’tender, weedy Tass Coy, slapped his hand over the bit and made it vanish. Coy’s jaw was a mess; you could clearly see where the horse’s hoof had dug in and shattered bone. Not even the doctor could do much for it, and Russ Overton’s mancy didn’t extend to fleshstitching.

“He said he was gonna talk to her.” It was a strained whisper. “I sent Billy to the jail, but you warn’t there.”

Coy watched this, his brown eyes neutral. He plucked at one of his braces with long sensitive fingers, and turned away very slowly. There was nothing wrong with his ears.

No, I was ridin’ the circuit, dammit. Gabe’s chest knew before the rest of him. A cold, hard lump settled right behind his breastbone. “Tilson’s visiting the marm?”

“He said he was gonna ride right out to that schoolhouse and teach her not to interfere.” Mercy’s hands clutched into fists. “Gabe…now don’t be hasty.”

Hasty is one thing I’m not. “Tilson. Visiting the schoolhouse.” He repeated it slowly, just to make certain he hadn’t misheard. “When did he leave, now?”

“An hour, maybe more—Gabe, I—”

He bolted the shot. No use in wasting liquor, even if it was terrible. When he cracked the glass back down on the sloping counter, Mercy cringed like a whipped dog. Did she think he was going to tap her, too?

“Goddamn.” He headed for the swinging doors, but he didn’t have to take more than two steps before they whipped open as if disgorging a flood. Emmet Tilson stamped through, looking halfway to Hell. Blood and dust crusted his face, and one eye was swollen shut. It looked much worse than what he’d inflicted on Mercy, and Gabe stopped dead.

What the Hell? His jaw felt suspiciously loose, and the way his hands were tense and tight-knotted, Gabe was suddenly afraid he was going to break a finger or two.

Tils saw him a bare half-second later, and stopped dead as well. He wasn’t wearing a gun, which was a piece of good fortune, because Gabe saw the saloon owner’s hand twitch, and almost drew himself.

Now, don’t lose your temper, something inside him was trying to say. Oddly, it sounded a little like Annie, and a little like an archly amused schoolmarm.

There was a general shuffle as everyone in the saloon noticed the two of them eyeing each other like rattlesnakes, and moved out of the way.

Gabe decided to be mannerly. Why not? “Afternoon, Tilson.”

The man twitched again, and Gabe was mighty glad there was no gun on Tils’s hip. On the other hand, the saloon owner had gone out to the schoolhouse without an iron? That was very unlike him.

Maybe he thought Miss Barrowe wasn’t worth shooting. ’Course, Tilson preferred to talk to a woman with his fists.

A spike of heat went through Gabe. He realized, miserably, that he was not about to keep his temper. Especially if the whorehouse manager said one, small, wrong word.

“Sheriff.” Brittle, but at least Tilson wasn’t shouting. “My office. Now.”

Since when do you order me around like one of your whores? “Beg your pardon?” He drawled it nice and slow, as if he didn’t understand. Give the man some time to reconsider his tone, as it were.

The garish blood and dust all over Tils was thought-provoking. The cold was all through Gabe now, except for that hot spike of rage in his chest, beating like a heart. He hadn’t felt that heat in so long, it was almost comforting.

Whatever was in his expression made the saloon owner back up a step, his spurs jangling a discordant note against the worn wooden floor. If Gabe were still of the Faith, now would have been the moment for him to punish the man for a transgression real or imagined.

But that part of him was long gone, wasn’t it? And thinking about its loss was not guaranteed to keep his temper, either.

“I mean, ah…” Tilson coughed, rubbed at his swollen lips with one hand. But slowly. “I mean, Gabe, we’ve got business. Care to step into my office?”

That’s better. But you’re still likely to bite. Cowards always are. “I ain’t aware of any business between us, Tilson. Unless you want there to be.” It was hard, but he glanced aside at Mercy Tiergale, whose hands were clutched at her mouth. “Miss Mercy. Don’t you and the girls have an appointment?”

The silence was so thick you could pour it into a cup. Tils stiffened as if Gabe had just slapped him. The doors squeaked on their hinges, and the wind on Damnation’s main street was a low moan as wheels rumbled and horses neighed outside.

A susurrus behind him as he returned his gaze to Tilson. “You look like hell, Emmet.”

“Tangled with a she-cat.” Tils straightened. The tension leached out of the air, and Mo brought his hands down on the keys again. The tinny crash almost made him jump.

“Is that so.” Looks like she tangled you but good.

“Gabe…” Mercy sounded as if she’d been punched. Maybe she had. Or maybe she found it difficult to breathe. Mo noodled through the first few bars of “My Old Mother Is Watching,” and Gabe wondered if it was the man’s comment on proceedings, so to speak.

“You just run along now.” Gabe said it evenly, slowly. “Take the girls with you. I’ll be along to see all’s right.”

Tils seemed to have a bit of a problem with this. “You can’t—”

“You want to think right careful before you finish that sentence, Tilson.” And so help me God, if you hurt her, I’m going to make you pay.

It was an uncomfortable thought. He didn’t even like the marm; she was a prissy little miss, and he had no need to be involving himself in this trouble. It was too late, though. He was well and truly involved, because he had opened his fool mouth.

And besides, he was lying to himself again. A knight of the Order must never commit that sin, of untruth in his own soul. The smell of incense rose in his memory, the moment of struggle before the altar before he had turned away, leaving his brothers praying in their plainsong chant, his hands fists as they were now and a single thought burning in his brain.

Annie.

Except it wasn’t her he was thinking of now, was it.

The saloon owner subsided. But the ratty little gleam in his eye told Gabe there would be trouble later.

Oh, damn.

The news had spread like wildfire. By the time Gabe arrived at the schoolhouse the Granger wagon was there too, and he winced again.

Maybe this would all blow over. Tils might not use his fists too much on the girls now that Gabe was involved, but there were a hundred other ways he could make their lives even more miserable. And the miss might find that teaching a bunch of saloon girls was not as easy as the little ’uns—though Gabe didn’t know how easy the little ’uns were, rightly. About all he knew was that he wouldn’t care to be trapped in a schoolroom with them all day.

He took his time pumping fresh water for the horses. The sun beat down unmercifully, and even though the water was brown and the bottom of the trough none too clean, he still thought longingly of just sinking into it and letting the entire damn situation play itself out with no help from one tired, head-buzzing Jack Gabriel.

He had just finished pumping and settled his hat more firmly when Letitia Granger sailed out of the schoolhouse door, her bosom—the only soft thing on that big bony body—lifted high with indignation and plump with starched ruffles. The rest of her was in severe dark stuff, and she looked so rigid with disapproval he was surprised her skirts didn’t creak.

She sallied down the stairs, head held high and the poor feathers on her hat hanging on for dear life. “Sheriff!” she crowed, her lips so pinched the word was a hoarse croak.

Oh, Lord. He tried his best not to wince yet again. “Afternoon, Mrs. Granger.”

“Do you know what she’s done?” Granger was fairly apoplectic. Her color was a deep brick-red, and strings of her graying hair stuck to her forehead, wet with sweat. She looked fit to expire right there on the steps. “Do you?”

He decided a measure of strategic befuddlement might work. “Last I heard, she was teachin’.”

“There are unrespectable women in there, Sheriff! On the very seats our children…the seats…” Letitia Granger’s jaw worked.

He tipped his hat back a little, scratched at the creased band of sweat on his forehead. He took his time with it, as if he was stupid-puzzled. “Well, where else should she teach ’em? At the church?”

That was probably the wrong thing to say, for Mrs. Granger’s eyes flashed and she sailed across the yard, dust sparking and crackling in her wake. She was so het up she was throwing mancy even though she had no Practicality, and Gabe at least had the comfort of knowing he wasn’t the only one the Boston miss had tied up in a tangle there was no working free of.

“It’s unchristian!” The woman stopped, her hands fisting at her sides. She probably packed a punch like a donkey’s kick under all that starch.

“Well, they ain’t no Magdala nuns, I’ll allow that.” He nodded, slowly. “But they paid her fair and square, and I can’t find no law against it.”

“Law? Law? It ain’t a question of law, Sheriff, and—”

“It ain’t?” He hoped she couldn’t tell the surprise on his face was a mockery. “Why are you all het up, then? And squawkin’ at me?”

She looked about ready to have a fit right there. “The town shall hear of this!” she hissed. “Do you know what she told me? That teaching was her business, and she thanked me kindly to keep myself out of it. Why, I am on the Committee! We’ll see her out!”

That collection of biddies can’t even decide what color the Town Hall should be painted, let alone where it should be built and who’s going to pay for it. But they had put together the subscription to pay Miss Barrowe.

He’d thought about that on the ride here. If the miss didn’t watch her step, she could be sent back to Boston without a Reference.

Somehow, he thought Miss Barrowe might not mind as much as Granger thought. She’d obviously come from money and manners, which was just another puzzle about the girl. What was she doing here?

What did you come here to escape, Mr. Gabriel?

“Now, how would we get another marm out here?” he wondered, openly. “Was hard enough to get this ’un. Been weeks now, and she’s at least kept some of the little ’uns out of trouble.” He scratched at his forehead some more. “Why not just let her be?”

Granger’s lips trembled. For a moment he thought the woman might actually weep. Instead, she stuck her nose in the air and sashayed past him. He hurried to help her up into her wagon, and she snatched her hand back as soon as she had hefted her bulk up as if his heathen fingers singed. The horses weren’t happy to leave the trough, but they obeyed. Her wagon set off down the road for town, raising a roostertail of golden dust, and Gabe let out a sigh that threatened to blow his hat off his head.

I should have just never gotten out of bed this dawnin’.

The steps creaked under him, and he gave the door a mannerly tap. He opened it to find six women sitting straight-backed and uncomfortable in long desks just slightly too small, the bottom of the tabletops actually hitting their knees. Miss Barrowe, smoothing back a dark curl that looked bent on escaping, stood tense by the slate board, her fingers almost white-knuckled around a yardstick that vibrated with hurtful mancy discharged not too long ago.

Bet that’s what she hit Tils with. The sudden certainty made him want to smile, but he banished the notion, reaching up to take his hat off. No reason not to act proper. Besides, it gave him a chance to compose his expression, so to speak.

“Sheriff Gabriel.” Low, and clear. “What is it?”

Given the day she’d had, he was probably lucky she didn’t say anything worse. “Just checkin’ to see all’s well, ma’am.”

“You may sit quietly.” She pointed with the stick, at the very back row. “We are rather busy.”

“Yes ma’am.” He settled himself into a seat.

Mercy Tiergale hunched her shoulders as she bent over a slate she shared with Anna Dayne. Dark-eyed Belle and sharp-nosed blonde Trixie sat shoulder to shoulder, and the youngest of Tils’s girls, Anamarie, hunched next to tall rangy Carlota like she expected Tils to come thundering in any minute. Lace shawls more fit for the saloon than for walking around town, the comb in Carlota’s hair glimmering mellow in the late-afternoon light, Mercy’s cheap paste earrings swinging gaudily. They were a sorry picture indeed, and as out of place as a sheep in a pulpit.

But Miss Barrowe continued, in the same clear tone, patiently tracing each letter on the board. By the end of the session, the women could write their names on the slates, which Miss Barrowe collected and locked in her desk. “To keep them from misadventure at a man’s hands,” she said grimly, and the ripple that went through the saloon girls, barely controlled, reminded Gabe of a flock of minnows in a clear stream.

“Very good,” she said, standing before them with her hands clasped. “You are all quick, and docile. You are capable of being educated. I shall see you tomorrow, then. You are dismissed, ladies.”

They sat and blinked at her for a few moments. The silence was thick, and Miss Barrowe’s gaze flickered to Gabe in the back of the room. He should have been in town, looking after whatever mayhem the end of the afternoon would bring, or watching Freedman Salt’s door, or any of a hundred other tasks. But here he sat, cramped in a desk the likes of which he hadn’t seen since seminary after the orphanage, and he stared at the schoolmarm hungrily.

Mercy let out a disbelieving half-laugh. Carlota breathed a profane term Miss Barrowe pretended not to hear.

Gabe unfolded himself slowly, and he found himself the object of every gaze instead of just the marm’s. “Take you back to town, ladies,” he said, and wondered why Belle and Anamarie blushed, and Mercy’s laugh seemed more genuine this time. Miss Barrowe’s smile was like sunlight, but she suddenly looked very…fragile.

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Prim as always, but high color in her cheeks. The pulse in her throat leapt, and found an answer in his own chest.

It was at that moment Jack Gabriel admitted to himself that he was in deep water, and sinking fast. He couldn’t say he minded.

But Miss Barrowe might.