But Paul wouldn’t. “What would your folks say if they knew about her? Would they approve? What about the neighbors when they start arriving? Good people. Decent people. What’re they going to think when they find out your pretty little wife was a high-priced prostitute?”
Michael’s eyes darkened ominously. “I know what I think and what God thinks, and that’s all that matters. Maybe you ought to get your own life in order before you examine hers.”
Paul stared at him, smarting. Michael had never used that tone of reproach on him before, and it hurt. Couldn’t he see he was only trying to help; he was only trying to prevent him from being destroyed by that worthless woman? “You’re like my own brother,” he said thickly. “You saw me through the worst times in my life. I don’t want to see you destroyed by some conniving witch who’s got your heart so twisted around her little finger you don’t even know you’re heading for disaster!”
A muscle jerked in Michael’s jaw. “You’ve said enough!”
But all Paul could see was a prostitute in his beloved Tessie’s clothes. “Michael, she’s nothing but dung!” He didn’t even see the fist coming. He didn’t even know what happened. Pain spread along his jaw, and he was lying on his back, Michael standing over him, fists clenched, face livid.
Michael caught him by the front of his shirt and yanked him to his feet, shaking him like a rag doll. “If you love me as you claim to, then you love her as well. She’s part of me. Do you understand? She’s part of my flesh and my life. When you say things against her, you say them against me. When you cut her, you cut me. Do you understand?”
“Michael—”
“Do you understand?”
It was the first time in his life Paul had been afraid of his brother-in-law. “I understand.”
“Good,” Michael said and let him go. He moved away, his back to Paul, trying to control his anger.
Paul rubbed his bruised chin. She was the cause of this dissension between them. It was her fault. Oh, I understand all right, Michael. Better than you do.
Michael rubbed the back of his neck and looked at him. “I’m sorry I hit you.” He let out his breath and came back. “I need help, not hindrance. She’s in pain you can’t even begin to understand.” He made a fist, his face tormented, his eyes filling with tears. “And I love her. I love her enough to die for her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be silent!”
And Paul was, while they worked, but his mind was yelling the whole while. He was going to help Michael the best way he knew how. He was going to drive her out. Somehow. The sooner, the better. He would find a way.
Michael broke the tension. “You’re going to have to go to town and lay in supplies for winter. I haven’t got enough to stake you.”
“I haven’t any gold dust.”
“I have a little laid by. It’s yours. You can use my horses and wagon.”
Paul felt ashamed. But why should he? He was only trying to keep Michael from being hurt. Michael was a thinking man. He would come to his senses. His big problem was overlooking defects of character in others. He looked at a harlot and saw someone worthy of love.
Paul seethed. Already she was coming between them. Already she was breeding contention. He had to think of some way to flush Angel out of her comfortable hole and send her back where she belonged. And he had to do it before she broke Michael’s heart into little pieces.
They set the last plank into place. The inside walls were up. Michael said he could manage the roof on his own. He put his hand on Paul’s shoulder and thanked him for the help, but the tension was heavy between them.
“You’d better head for Pair-a-Dice tomorrow. Tell Joseph I’ll settle up with him in a few weeks. He’ll see you get everything you need.”
“Thanks.” Pair-a-Dice. Maybe he could find out a little more about Angel and her weaknesses when he got there. The Duchess would want her best girl back, and she could always send that big hulking giant who guarded her like she was the crown jewels to get her.
When Michael came in at dusk, Angel didn’t ask what Paul had to say. She put supper on the table and sat down with him, back straight, head up. He still hadn’t said anything. He was probably thinking everything over, examining and weighing. So let him.
The heaviness was back inside her, and she pretended it didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. When Michael looked at her, she tilted her chin and looked straight back. Go ahead and say what’s on your mind, mister. I don’t care.
Michael put his hand over hers.
Pain gripped her heart, and she yanked her hand from beneath his. She couldn’t look at him. Taking her napkin from the table, she shook it gently before meticulously placing it on her lap. When she raised her head again, he was looking at her. His eyes, oh, his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. I told you before, I don’t care what he thinks of me, and he can say anything he wants. It’s all the truth. You knew it. And it doesn’t matter. He’s not the first man who’s looked down his nose at me, and he won’t be the last.” She remembered Mama walking down the street, and the men who had come to the shack walking right on by like they didn’t know her at all.
“I might believe you if you weren’t so angry.”
Angel raised her chin. “I’m not angry. Why should I be angry?” She had no appetite, but she forced herself to eat anyway, just so he couldn’t make something of it. She cleared the dishes. Michael put another log on the fire.
“Paul will be gone a couple of days. He needs supplies. He’ll be over tomorrow morning for the horses and wagon.”
Angel lifted her head slightly, thinking. She poured water into the basin and washed the dishes. Michael wouldn’t take her back where she belonged, but she knew Paul would. Just to save poor Michael from himself.
Something squeezed tight inside her at the thought of leaving Michael. She forced herself to think instead of the satisfaction she would feel when she faced the Duchess again and demanded her money. She could always enlist the bartender’s help if she had to. He was as big as Magowan and had plenty of practice with his fists. As soon as her gold was safely in her hand, she would be free. Free!
Her chest hurt, and she pressed her hand against it.
Michael pulled her close again that night, and she didn’t resist. After a few minutes, he drew back shaking, bathed in sweat. He could hardly get his breath. “What are you trying to do?”
“Be good to you,” she said and used everything she knew to give him the pleasure he deserved.
Paul came at dawn for the wagon and horses. Michael helped him hitch up the team. He gave him gold dust and a letter for Joseph Hochschild. “I’ll look for you in four or five days.”
“I spotted a buck on the way over. A big one.”
“Thanks,” Michael said. As soon as Paul was on his way, he came back into the cabin and took the gun down from the rack above the mantel. “Paul spotted a buck on the way over. I’m going to see if I can’t get us some more meat for winter.”
Angel had wondered all night how she would manage to get away without Michael knowing. Now, here was her answer. She waited for him to be out of sight, then slipped the ring off her finger. She put it on his Bible where she knew he would find it. Grabbing the shawl and swinging it around her shoulders, she hurried out.
The wagon couldn’t have gone too far. Lifting her skirt, she ran to catch up with it.
Paul heard her call. He drew rein and waited, wondering what she wanted. She was probably going to tell him to bring something back for her with Michael’s gold. Or maybe she was going to beg him to leave things alone. Well, let her. A lot of good it would do her.
Angel was flushed and breathless when she reached him. “I need a ride back to Pair-a-Dice.”
He covered his surprise with a curt laugh. “So you’re running out on him already.”
She smiled derisively. “Were you hoping I would stay?”
“Get on up,” he said, not even reaching
out a hand to help her.
“Thanks,” she said dryly and climbed onto the wagon seat with him.
Paul had spent the better part of last night wondering what to do about Michael’s soiled bride, and here she had solved the problem for him. He hadn’t thought she would leave so easily. No bribe. No threats. She was going of her own free will. He clicked the reins, and they set off.
Paul glanced at her as she dabbed her face with the hem of Tessie’s shawl. It was all he could do not to tear it off her. “How do you think Michael’s going to feel when he finds you gone?”
She looked straight ahead. “He’ll get over it.”
“You don’t care about his feelings much, do you?” She didn’t say anything. He looked straight ahead and then at her again. “You’re right. He’ll get over you. In a few years’ time, California will have plenty of suitable girls for him to choose from. Women have always been after Michael.”
She looked off toward the forest as though she could care less. Paul wanted to cut her so deep she would bleed the way Michael was going to when he found she had deserted him without so much as a backward glance. Hadn’t he warned him? But she ought to feel something. It was only right.
He was curious. “What made you decide to leave?”
“No particular reason.”
“I suppose you got bored with the quiet life Michael leads. Or is it just having the same man all the time?” She didn’t respond. Michael would see now he was right about her. In time, he would accept what a mistake he had made. Women loved Michael. Besides his good looks, he combined a strength and tenderness that attracted them like flies. He would marry again if he was that ready, and he wouldn’t have to wait long. The next one would sure be better than this one.
“The Duchess’ll be glad to see you back again. I hear you were bringing in a fortune to her coffers. She never would say where you went.”
Angel raised her head slightly and gave him a cloying smile. “Don’t feel you have to make polite conversation.”
He grinned coldly. So he was getting to her a little. He dug deeper. “I guess talking isn’t all that important in your business, is it?”
Angel felt the fury rise inside her. Sanctimonious pig. If it weren’t so many uphill miles to Pair-a-Dice, she would get off this wagon right now and walk, but she wasn’t fool enough to think she could make it. Let him peck at her all he wanted. She could take one day of riding on a high seat with a lowbrow hypocrite. She’d think about her gold. She would think about her own little cabin in the woods. She would think about never having to look at another man like him again.
Paul didn’t like being ignored, especially by someone like her. Who did she think she was anyway? He snapped the reins and picked up the pace. He hit every hole in the road, bouncing and jarring her. She had to hold on tight to keep her balance and not be pitched out. He enjoyed her discomfort. She pressed her lips tight but made no complaint. He kept the hard pace until the horses tired and he had to slow down again.
“Feel any better now?” she said, mocking him.
He loathed her more with each mile.
When the sun was straight overhead, he pulled off the road and jumped down. He unhitched the team and let them graze. Then he strode off into the woods. When he came back, he saw her heading for the trees on the other side. She moved as though she were in pain.
His saddlebag was under the front seat. Inside he had an apple, beef jerky, and a can of beans. He ate them with relish. She glanced at him once when she came back and went to sit down in the shade of a pine. He tore off a piece of beef jerky with his teeth and chewed while studying her. She looked tired and hot. She was probably hungry, too. Tough luck. She should have thought to bring something with her.
Paul opened his canteen and drank deeply, corking it again when he was finished. He looked at her and frowned heavily. Annoyed, he got up and walked over to her. Swinging the canteen back and forth in front of her face, he said, “Do you want a drink? Say please if you want one.”
“Please,” she said quietly.
He tossed the canteen into her lap. She uncorked it, wiped off the mouth, and drank. When she finished, she wiped the mouth again, corked it and held it up to him. “Thanks,” she said. Nothing showed in those blue eyes.
Paul went back and sat down beneath the tree and finished the beef jerky. Angry, he started on the apple. When he finished half, he looked her way. “Hungry?”
“Yes,” she said simply, not looking at him this time.
He tossed what was left to her. Getting up, he went for the horses and hitched them to the wagon. Glancing back, he saw her picking the needles and dirt out of the half-eaten apple before she took a bite. Her cold, silent dignity made him uncomfortable.
“Let’s go!” He sat waiting for her impatiently.
She winced as she climbed up onto the wagon seat with him. “How’d you meet Michael?” he said as he snapped the reins and they started off again.
“He came to the Palace.”
“Don’t make me laugh! Michael wouldn’t set foot in that stink hole. He doesn’t drink and he doesn’t gamble, and he’s sure never consorted with prostitutes.”
She smiled, taunting. “Then how do you think it all came about, mister?”
“I imagine a girl with your gifts would think of something. You probably met him at the mercantile and told him your family had died on the trail west and you were all alone in the world.”
She laughed at him. “Well, mister, you needn’t even wonder anymore. Now that I’m gone, you can have Michael to yourself all winter long.”
His knuckles whitened on the reins. Was she making some sort of foul insinuation? Did she doubt his manhood? Yanking the reins, he pulled the wagon off the road and stopped.
She stiffened, wary. “Why are you stopping?”
“You owe me something for the ride.”
She went very still. “What did you have in mind?”
“What have you got?” He wanted to rub her raw. “I guess you figure when someone does you a favor, you don’t owe them anything. Right?” She looked away. He caught her arm tightly, and she looked at him again, her face pale. He glared into her cynical blue eyes. “Well, you do. You owe me for this ride.” He let her go abruptly.
She didn’t turn away this time. She just sat looking at him, face smooth and expressionless.
“You know, I never made it upstairs at the Palace,” he said, stabbing deeper. He untied the leather cord in her hair. “I didn’t have enough dust to even get my name in the hat.” He tugged it free. “I used to wonder what it’d be like to make it to Angel’s inner sanctum.”
“And now you want to know for yourself.”
Paul wanted to make her squirm. “Maybe.”
Angel felt the spiraling begin inside her. Going down, like water in a sinkhole. She had forgotten that everything cost something. She let her breath out and tilted her head slightly. “Well, we might as well get it done.” She got down from the wagon seat.
Paul stared. He jumped down on the other side and came around to stand in front of her. She was white and tired, and he wasn’t sure whether she was bluffing or not. Did she think she could walk thirty miles? He wasn’t going to give her the chance to change her mind and go back. “What do you figure on doing?”
“Whatever you want, mister.” She took off the shawl and draped it over the side of the wagon. “Well?” Her smile mocked him.
Did she think he couldn’t? Furious, he grabbed her arm and propelled her a hundred feet off the road, into the shadows of a thicket. He was rough and quick, his sole desire to hurt and degrade her. She didn’t make a sound. Not one.
“Didn’t take you long to fall back into old ways, did it?” He glared down at her in disgust.
Angel stood up slowly and brushed leaves from her skirt. She picked them out of her hair.
Paul was filled with distaste. “It doesn’t even bother you, does it? You’ve got the morals of a snake.”
She raised h
er head slowly and smiled a cold, dead smile.
Uncomfortable, he strode back to the wagon. He couldn’t wait for this trip to be over.
Angel could feel the shaking start. She tied her camisole and buttoned up her shirtwaist, shoving it into the skirt. The trembling became worse. She went into the trees where Paul couldn’t see her and dropped to her knees. Clammy sweat broke out on her forehead. She felt cold all over. Closing her eyes, she fought the nausea. Don’t think about it, Angel. It doesn’t matter if you don’t let it. Pretend it didn’t happen.
Her fingers dug painfully into the tree bark, and she vomited. The coldness passed, and the shaking stopped as she stood up. She stood for a long moment waiting for the calm to come.
“Hurry up!” Paul shouted. “I want to get there before dark.”
Chin up, she walked back to the road.
Paul glared down at her from the wagon seat. “You know what, Angel? You’re overrated. You aren’t worth more than two bits.”
Something burst inside her. “And what are you worth?”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
She came closer and snatched the shawl from the side of the wagon. “I know what I am. I never pretended to be anything else. Not once. Not ever!” She put her hand on the edge of the wagon seat. “And here you are, borrowing Michael’s wagon and his horses and his gold and using his wife.” She laughed at him. “And what do you call yourself? His brother.”
His face went from white to red, then white again. He clenched his fist and looked as though he wanted to kill her. “I ought to leave you here. I ought to let you walk the rest of the way.”
Calm now, in complete control, Angel climbed up onto the wagon seat and sat beside him. She smiled and smoothed her skirt. “You can’t now, can you? I’ve paid you.”
They didn’t speak another word the rest of the way.
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how
often shall my brother sin against me and
I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him,