Devil's Dare

“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 (#ulink_b61946e2-6c14-5e0d-9602-d0004f562a4c)

“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.”