Storming Paradise

After pushing away from the table, Shula began fluttering around the small kitchen. “Paradise. Don’t you just adore the sound of it. It’s bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island. Did you realize that, Libby? Bigger than an entire state.” Shula sucked in a breath. “I guess that makes our father about as important as a governor. Do you recollect the house? I confess I haven’t any memory of it. Of course, I was only five when we left. But it must be grand. Was it grand, Libby?”

Her silk gown swished as Shula turned to her sister, who sat rigid and silent. “Libby?”

“I won’t go.” Libby’s lips barely moved when she spoke. “I’m sorry he’s dying, but I will not go. Not ever.”

Shula sniffed, resuming her circuit of the room. “Don’t be silly,” she said dismissively. “Of course you’ll go. Our father’s dying and he wants us. Good Lord, Libby! Think what that means.”

It meant trouble, Libby decided, or worse. Unable to bear a second more of her sister’s outlandish exuberance, she had left the kitchen and had gone up to the spare room to check on the child, whom she found smack in the middle of the big four-poster bed, fast asleep. As gently as she could, Libby unlaced and removed the dreadful brogans from the little girl’s feet.

How fortunate Andy was, Libby had thought, to be able to escape all her trials and terrors in such deep and innocent sleep. For a moment, as she had stood gazing down at her, Libby had envied the child for that. She was sleeping like an angel. Libby couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had such an angelic rest.

But—dammit—yes, she could. It had been at Paradise with the white curtains billowing in, with South Texas sunshine buttering the walls of her room, with the lullaby of cattle and the sweet, sweet smells of hay and mock orange and jasmine.

So long ago.

Libby sat for a long time, keeping watch over the sleeping child, letting her mind drift back to a time and a place she had tried for fifteen years to erase from her memory.

Paradise! Lord, how she’d loved it. Every inch of the place from Caliente Creek where the mesquite tangled to the southernmost pastures where the air was heavy with salt from the gulf. The images—all the sights and sounds—came back so quickly and with such intensity now, it nearly took Libby’s breath away. As if having been locked away for so many years, they were rushing and spilling over one another to make themselves seen and heard. Fast. Bursting its banks like a creek after a summer storm. A flash flood. Or—Libby smiled softly at the notion—as they said in Texas, a real gully-washer.

So many memories. And superimposed on them all was the image of Amos Kingsland. His glossy black boots. His enormous, work-roughened hands. His deep auburn hair and the scratchy beard that bristled from his chin. That beard was what Libby remembered best.

Her father had been a steamboat captain in the Gulf of Mexico before venturing inland to raise cattle. The salt breezes of the gulf seemed to have permeated his beard and to have given it a permanent thrust so that, even in the house, it was as if the wind were tugging at his chin.

Or so his little girl had imagined. It hadn’t been wind at all, Libby thought now, but pure stubbornness, a will to succeed at any cost, and no qualms whatsoever about bending anyone to that will. As he had bent her mother. Bent and nearly broken the sweet, soft Ellen McCafferty Kingsland Carew.

Just then, as if the mere thought of her mother had somehow conjured up her form, Shula poked her curly head in the door.

Quickly Libby touched a finger to her lips, gesturing toward the sleeping child.

“You look so much like Mama sometimes, Shula, I find myself looking twice,” she whispered.

The ruffled apparition rustled across the room and sought her image in the mirror over the dresser. “I do, don’t I?” She rearranged a few curls, then leaned forward to more closely inspect her eyebrows. “Of course, Mama was a fool, bless her heart.”

Libby opened her mouth to protest, then kept silent. Sadly enough, it was true. Their mother had been, if not a fool, then an exceptionally weak woman. Where she’d gotten the gumption to walk out on Amos Kingsland was a mystery. Even so, that strength had quickly deserted her once she had married that tightfisted mercantilist and bully, Edgar Carew.

Thoughts of her poor mother prompted Libby to whisper, “What would you do, Shula, if a man ever lifted a hand to you?”

Her sister snorted. “I’d slap him back.” Her eyebrow arched in the mirror. “Or worse.”

Libby sighed. “I wonder why Mama didn’t”.

Shula shrugged now. “She was afraid, I guess. Who knows? I can tell you I gave our dear stepfather the back of my hand on quite a few occasions, along with several pieces of my mind.”

Libby’s eyes widened in astonishment. “What did he do?”

“He just laughed. The pig! I hated losing Mama, Libby, but I have to say I didn’t mind one little bit that that awful Edgar perished in that carriage accident, too.”

Shula sighed softly at her reflection, then turned to face her sister, her hands lifting to fasten on her hips. “We need to start packing, Libby. Where’s that old trunk of Mama’s I took to Italy with me?”

“I have no idea.” But what Libby knew was that she wasn’t prepared to argue now, here, and possibly wake Andy, who needed all the peaceful sleep she could get. Once thwarted, Shula wouldn’t be able to whisper, she would probably scream.

“Take a look up in the attic,” she suggested, hoping to occupy Shula temporarily and thus forestall their confrontation.

“I hate it up there,” Shula said. “It’s dark as a week of midnights, and all that dust gets into my pores and just takes up residence for days no matter how hard I scrub. I won’t even mention the spiders.” Shula shivered, sending her gown into a flurry. Then her expression brightened. “Maybe I could just order a new trunk. One with all those cute little drawers and…”

The heat of Libby’s glare withered her sister’s speech, as well as her enthusiasm.

“Well, they are cute,” she finished glumly. “We don’t want to look like two kitchen maids when we go to Texas, do we?”

As much as she felt like one sometimes, Libby thought there was nothing wrong in looking like one. But since she wasn’t going to Texas anyway, it didn’t make any difference. She continued to scorch her sister with her gaze, using her thumb now to indicate the door.

“All right. I’ll go,” complained Shula as she moved across the room. “But if I’m not back downstairs in fifteen minutes, Libby, it’s because I’ll have choked to death on all that dust”

“Maybe you’ll be lucky, sister,” Libby offered encouragingly as she bit back on a grin. “Maybe those big, hairy spiders will get you first.”

With a shudder and a strangled little moan, Shula swept out of the room.

As soon as the door clicked closed, little Andy jerked upright in the center of the bed. She rubbed an eye with one grimy knuckle, then mumbled, “I heard about Texas. I heard it’s real nice there.”

Her comment, cool and disinterested as it sounded, didn’t fool Libby for a moment. The child was terrified of being abandoned, or infinitely worse, of being returned to the clutches of her father. Libby left her chair and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching to smooth a pale hank of hair from the little girl’s forehead.

“Texas is nice,” she said, “but I’m not going there. I like it fine right here.”

“I do, too,” the child responded. “Especially when I’m with you.” Andy scuttled across the mattress now and wrapped her arms around Libby, burying her face in the pleats of her bodice. “Don’t let my papa take me back, Miss Libby. I want to stay here with you. Oh, please, don’t let him take me back.”

Libby hugged her tightly. “I won’t, honey. I promise I won’t let him get within a foot of you.”

Fine words, she thought, as she sat and rocked the frightened little girl. The Sisters of Charity had cautioned her only this morning that John Rowan, once out of jail, had every legal right to reclaim his daughter.

“And he’ll try,” Sister Josepha had said. “Sure as the devil’s prodding him from behind. They can’t keep the man locked away forever. Once he’s out, he’ll be needing her for his cooking and his cleaning and whatever other despicable things the man has on his mind.”

Libby’s reply had been forceful. “I just won’t let him.”

Sister Josepha had merely shaken her head sadly, as if to say “How can you stop him?”

“I wish I knew,” Libby murmured now. “Oh, Lord, I wish I knew.”

The pounding on the door was enough to loosen the mortar from every brick in the two-story house. By the time Libby got downstairs—after shoving Andy into a wardrobe and covering the child with a quilt—Shula was already there, leaning all her weight on one shoulder against the front door.

“Shh!” she hissed when Libby rushed to join her. “Just keep still and he’ll think nobody’s home.”

“Miss Kingsland, I know you’re in there,” a voice boomed from outside while fists continued to batter the paneled oak.

When Libby opened her mouth to reply, Shula hissed again, menacingly this time, so Libby kept still. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, she thought, letting John Rowan believe the house was empty. Surely the man’s fists couldn’t keep up that pummeling indefinitely. From the sound of him, he was already getting hoarse.

The sisters stood there for what seemed like an hour, feeling the door tremble and quake, hearing the doorknob rattle again and again. When it stopped, and when there was only silence on the other side of the door, they waited another few minutes before they spoke.

“Andy’s not safe here,” Libby whispered. “Oh, Shula, what in the world am I going to do?”

Shula draped a comforting arm around her sister’s shoulder. Certain as Shula was that their unwelcome visitor had been another bill collector—the most aggressive of them yet!—she was briefly tempted to allay Libby’s fears and tell her the truth, that little Andy was plenty safe from creditors. It would have comforted Libby, no doubt, but then it wouldn’t have done Shula herself the least bit of good.

So instead, she said quite somberly, “I only know one solution, Libby. We’ll simply have to take the poor child with us when we go to Texas.” She embellished her words with a lingering, sympathetic sigh. “I believe we ought to leave as soon as possible, don’t you? For little Andy’s sake?”

Chapter Two

The big red-and-black Concord coach—its door branded with the famous Circle P—was a familiar sight on the streets of Corpus Christi. Amos Kingsland always came to town in style. He kept fresh teams at intervals along the forty-mile stretch. In the old days it guaranteed he could outrun whatever marauders lay in wait along the way. Now, with most of the rustlers and bandidos having been driven off, the coach’s speed wasn’t so much for safety as it was for its own sake and to let everyone in Corpus know that God, in the guise of Amos Kingsland, was down from Paradise.

Eb Talent was the reinsman. The grizzled sailorturned-landlubber had been with Kingsland since the steamboat captain had moved inland nearly thirty years before. Eb hadn’t been a young man then and the rigors of riding the range that first year had left him with what he called “permanent saddle sores,” so he’d carved himself out an indispensable niche as cook and coachman. The red-and-black conveyance was his spit-shined pride and joy.

On this afternoon, though, it wasn’t God who was riding in the closed coach, but his foreman, Shadrach Jones.

With a blistering crack of his whip, Eb cut the corner onto Water Street, rocking the big coach and sending its dozing passenger sprawling onto the floor.

Once in the livery, the wiry man climbed down from the high seat, brushed the dirt from his britches and opened the door. His grin revealed an odd assortment of gaps and tobacco-stained teeth. “Six hours and thirty-eight minutes,” he announced. “Only done it faster once, and that was back in ‘76 when we had that pair of quick-footed grays.”

Shadrach Jones punched the crease back in the hat that had taken his whole weight when he slid from the seat. “You’re a goddamn miracle, Eb.” He slapped the black Stetson on his dark head before angling his long legs out of the coach, then stood a moment, gazing around the dim confines of the stable.

“Six and thirty-eight. Damn! I didn’t know I had it in me,” the driver exclaimed.

Shad’s mouth slid into a grin—a flare of white against his deep bronzed skin—and he clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. “I wasn’t surprised for a minute, hoss. You’re still the best whip-cracker in Texas.”

Of course, why the man had been in such a damn hurry was beyond Shad. It wouldn’t have bothered him if the trip from Paradise had taken twice as long. He was about that eager to meet up with Amos’s two daughters and escort them back to the ranch.

He’d tried to get out of it, coming up with at least half-a-dozen crises that required his immediate attention, but Amos would have none of it. “You’re the only man I’d trust my daughters to, Shad,” the old man had said. “Do this for me, son.”

Hell. How could anybody deny what might be a dying man’s last request? And when that man called you son…well, it wasn’t in Shad to say no. He’d killed men for Amos Kingsland; the least he could do now was round up the two stray heifers and cart them back to Paradise. If only they were heifers, he thought. He knew how to handle those. But ladies…

The quiet of the stable was suddenly broken by the sound of female laughter and the swish of skirts.

Eb shook his head. “What do they do, smell you?” he muttered as three young women paraded across the hay-strewn floor, each trying to elbow the others out of her way, each flashing her petticoats in order to outdo the others.

Shad would have replied, but his arms were quickly filled with women. Rosa clasped her arms around his waist. Nona plastered herself against his hip. Carmela—bless her—fit herself like a favorite saddle to his backside.

“We saw the coach,” Nona cried, her face tipped up, her breath catching. “We ran. Come see us.”

“Come now.” Rosa pulled seductively at his gun belt.

While the prostitutes continued to press against Shad, Eb Talent stood nearby, poking a chew into his cheek. “Beats me, Jones,” he mumbled, “how a fella who claims he don’t care for ladies can draw ‘em like flies on dead meat.”

Shad lifted his head from Nona’s ardent kiss. “I said I didn’t care for ladies, Eb. I never said anything about real women.”

The girls giggled and squirmed all the more in light of the compliment, until Shad was forced to peel them away, one by one. They refused to leave until he had promised to spend the night—upstairs—at the Steamboat Saloon. It wasn’t a difficult promise as that had been Shad’s intention all along after he had paid a dutiful call on the Misses Kingsland to inform them that they would be leaving for Paradise bright and early the following morning.

Eb turned from watching the prostitutes as they sashayed out of the stable. He cast his cohort a look that told him he was one lucky son of a bitch, then spat out of one corner of his mouth.

“Don’t s’pose Amos’s daughters will be half so taken with all that road dust, though.” The driver grinned. “Guess they’re used to fancy fellas who smell more like hair tonic than Texas dirt.”

As he realigned the gun belt that Nona had nearly undone, Shad grumbled, “Some women like it fine.”

“Yup,” mused Eb, “I ‘spect it depends some who it’s on.” He bent then to pick up a bucket and rag, and began to wash down the dusty red-and-black coach. “Still, you best wash some of that dirt off, Shad, afore you pay your respects to the Captain’s daughters. Can’t walk through the door of a fancy eating establishment looking like a man who works for a living, I hear.”

Grumbling under his breath and rolling up his sleeves, Shad ambled toward the washbowl on a bench. “Doesn’t make much difference since I’ll be taking my supper at the saloon,” he called over his shoulder.

“Not tonight, you ain’t,” Eb called back.

“What do you mean?” Shad dipped his hands into the soapy gray water and splashed it on his face. “I always eat and bed down at the Steamboat when I’m in Corpus.”

“Bed down maybe, but tonight you’re eating with the Captain’s daughters at a fancy restaurant.”

The big man shook his wet head, sending beads of water in a wide spray. He pulled the towel roll till he found a dry spot. “Says who?” he asked.

“Says Amos.” Eb put down his bucket and rag, then fished in his pants pocket a moment before producing two gold coins. “He gimme these here double eagles to give you. Said you’re to see those females have a proper meal. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you hisself.”

Actually Eb Talent wasn’t at all surprised. When the boss had handed him the money and had instructed him in how it was to be spent, Amos had laughed as he added, “Shad’ll tell me no to my face, Eb, but once he’s in Corpus he can’t do that, now, can he?”

When it came to getting his way, the Captain didn’t miss a trick. And nobody knew that better than Shadrach Jones. Given half a chance, Shad could usually outfox the old man, too. The two of them were so much alike that some of the hands at Paradise had speculated over the years that the Captain might even be Shad’s natural father. Eb knew different, though. He and Amos had still been steaming back and forth across the Gulf of Mexico when Jones had been born some thirty-four or thirty-five years ago.

There was a lot about Shadrach Jones that Eb didn’t know, including his sire, but he did know right that moment in the livery stable that the man was about to explode. The former sailor was tempted to haul himself up into the coach as fast as his old legs could move in order to avoid the fireworks.

But Shad didn’t explode. He laughed instead, shook his damp head and muttered, “That old fox. I’m telling you, Eb, I don’t envy the Almighty once Amos Kingsland starts staking his claim on the real Paradise.” He jerked a thumb heavenward, then extended his hand toward Eb. “Gimme the damn money.”

Eb did as he was told, saying, “I sure wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when you’re having supper with those gals.”

Shad jammed the coins into his back pocket. “Come on along then. Only don’t expect to linger over coffee and prissy little desserts. Fancy or not, this is going to be one quick meal.” Shad sighed “I don’t get to town so often that I intend to waste my time with a couple of thin-lipped, bony-assed Eastern ladies when there’s all those willing women down the street.”

For a moment, the notion had a certain appeal for Eb. “Maybe I could get a couple new recipes. Fancy stuff, you know, to fix up for the Captain.”

“Sure,” Shad agreed.

Then the old man glanced back at the big coach, still covered with dust. He shrugged. “Nah. Guess I’ll stay right here. Anyway, fancy eats might not sit right with the Captain what with his aching stomach.”

“Suit yourself.” Shad planted his black Stetson on his damp hair and turned for the stable door. “I won’t be long, hoss. You can count on that.”

The second floor, corner room in the Excelsior Hotel was pleasant but small, made smaller still by a cot and a huge assortment of trunks, handbags and hatboxes. The room was so crammed that Shula Kingsland could barely pace. She kept tripping over luggage.

“Damnation,” she howled, grabbing onto the iron footboard to keep from pitching forward onto the floor. “Well, I don’t know why I bother holding on, really. A person couldn’t possibly fall down in here. All this junk would keep a body propped up indefinitely.”

Libby was tempted to remind her sister that most of the junk was hers. Instead, she remained silent and continued to press a cool cloth to the forehead of the little girl lying on the cot. The long trip from Saint Louis—by train and finally by steamship—had taken a toll on Andy. She’d been seasick on the steamship from Mobile and what little she had eaten had promptly come back up. Shula, too, had claimed to be deathly ill while they were on The Belle of the Gulf, but it hadn’t stopped her from taking a seat at the captain’s table or consuming copious quantities of oysters and champagne.

“Lord, it’s hot in here,” Shula said now, fanning herself with her hand as she picked her way toward the window. “I’m fairly dripping, Libby. I don’t remember Texas being so hellishly hot, do you?”

“It’s no worse than Saint Louis,” Libby said softly. Andy seemed to have drifted off to sleep and she didn’t want to wake her. She angled off the cot as delicately as she could. “If you’d sit a minute, Shula, maybe you’d cool off.”

Shula was peering out the window now. “I can see the gulf.”

“Well, that should make you feel cooler.”

“No,” Shula said with a sniff. “Looks to me like it’s boiling.”

Libby sighed. It would be a miracle, she thought, if she survived this day, let alone the several weeks she planned to remain in Texas. It wasn’t a trip she wanted to make, but all her resolve had evaporated that afternoon last week when John Rowan had nearly broken down their front door in his attempt to get his daughter back. Damn that man anyway. Libby had felt she’d had no choice but to spirit the child away—far away—for a while at least. With any luck, the man would commit other crimes for which the police could successfully put him away permanently.

In the meantime, she merely hoped she could endure her sister’s theatrics. Sharing such close quarters with Shula was like being strapped to a front-row seat at a melodrama. The woman could go on for hours about everything and nothing. Complaining, it seemed, had become Shula’s favorite pastime. And she never just talked. She exclaimed!

At the moment she was flapping her arms in an effort to dry the damp fabric of her dress. “I’ll be dehydrated in a few hours,” Shula muttered now. “How can anybody stand this? It’s like a steam bath.”

Libby went to the window and gazed out at the sparkling gulf. Funny she didn’t recall it, she thought. Her memories of Texas were land, not water. Land and nothing else, as far as the eye could see. Her father’s land. Paradise. She wondered if it would seem as vast, as purely magical now that she was grown.

When she turned from the window, she was greeted with the sight of Shula’s draped and ruffled backside as she bent to rummage through a valise.

“Aha!” Shula straightened up, holding a tin of talc. “Help me undo my dress, will you, Libby?”

Libby sighed and crossed the little room to assist her, more aware than ever that her own dress felt clammy and uncomfortable. After unfastening a myriad of tiny buttons, she went back to the window while Shula slapped powder under her arms.

“I want to look good for Daddy,” Shula proclaimed. “What if he’s disappointed, Libby? What if he just plain doesn’t like us?”

“If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.” Libby shrugged, continuing to gaze out at the water.

“Well, that’s a fine attitude. Are you telling me it makes no difference to you whether you wind up filthy rich or as poor as a piddling church mouse?”

“We’re not poor, Shula.” Libby turned to discover her sister wreathed in a cloud of talcum powder, waving a ringed hand to clear the air. Shula appeared flustered by more than mere talc dust, however.

“We’re not poor, Shula,” Libby said again.

“I meant relatively speaking,” Shula insisted.

Libby angled one hip onto the windowsill now and crossed her arms. Her lips firmed as her gaze narrowed on her sister. “Sometimes I think money’s all you care about.”

“It isn’t all.”

“Name something else then.” Libby’s chin lifted and her arms crossed tighter. “I dare you.”

Shula’s brow wrinkled a moment, then she made a little clucking sound and bent to brush powder from the drapes of her overskirt. “I care about how I’m going to keep from looking like a dowdy catfish in all this humidity.”