Rafe raised an eyebrow at the Mexican vaquero standing next to him. He told him, in Spanish, that Hangtown girls were scarce and snooty. Then, with a smirk, he added something vulgar in English.
Looking once again at the band, which was trying to make a louder noise than the singers, Rafe noticed a sign announcing that Felicia Mantero would be performing an operatic aria that night.
He asked the same man if he’d seen anyone matching Pablo’s description. The guy mumbled “No,” but his friend said that Pablo and some fellow named Sancho had left town in a hurry that morning. “They said something about a hanging and stolen horses.”
Rafe groaned with dismay. “Any idea where they were going?”
“North, I think. Maybe Rich Bar. I dunno, really.” Great! More horseback riding. Well, I’m gonna stop and do some prospecting this time. Until we catch up with Pablo. Taking a huge swallow of the burning liquid, Rafe stared up at the stage to see the owner motion for the band to stop playing and the men to quiet for a moment. “Uh… I have an announcement to make,” the nervous man in the blue brocade vest tried to shout over the crowd, which appeared angry about something. “It is my misfortune to… uh… have to tell you… that, well, Felicia will be unable to sing tonight. It ‘pears she’s indisposed.”
Bellows of outrage greeted his words before they were barely out of his mouth.
“We coulda gone to the Palace, you worm.”
“I doan think he ever had Felicia. It were a come-on.”
“Yeah, let’s string the bastard up by his toes.”
“I ain’t dancin’ with no more men gussied up like ladies. The las’ time I got Buford fer a partner ‘n he belched the whole time.”
“How ’bout one of them Mex gals? Singin’ and screwin’ comes natural to them.”
“We want Felicia. We want Felicia. We want Felicia…” The drunken sots began to chant and stamp their heavy boots on the dirt floor.
The wily owner scrambled off the stage and out through the rear. The band started up again, more raucous than before.
Rafe let his shoulders rest against the wooden support of the canvas wall. He closed his eyes against the stench of several hundred unwashed bodies, the ear-splitting din of music and gambling and now shouting, and the heart-squeezing pain of the racial bias he felt closing in around him.
“You got some money, señor? Calina can show you a good time if you got gold.”
He opened his eyes slowly to see a young Spanish tart waiting expectantly for his answer, hands braced on her slim hips. She stood so close he could smell her cloying rose perfume. Her eyelashes were loaded with black goop, her lips painted crimson, and her flimsy camisole blouse hung so far off one shoulder that half her breast was exposed.
She was about fourteen.
“Chica, go home to your madre,” he scolded her in mixed Spanish. “You should be playing with dolls, not men.”
“Bebe,” she shot back at him, in broken English, “I ain’ got no madre no more, and mi padre sold me to a gringo sailor for fifty pesos when I was twelve. Hell, eet ain’ such a bad life. I eat good. I sleep on a soft bed. All I have to do ees close my eyes and hold my nose for ten minutes.”
“Yeah? How many times a night do you have to close your eyes and hold your nose?”
She shrugged. “Fifteen or twenty.”
“Shit!” He wasn’t going to make any progress trying to turn this girl around.
“So, do you have the money to play with Calina tonight?” She pressed up closer and allowed the blouse to slip down lower so he could see the whole of one immature breast pressed against his shirt front. One of her hands snaked up around his neck and tried to pull him down for a kiss.
Before he could push her away with revulsion, he heard a sharp hiss. He gazed over Calina’s head.
Helen.
Oh, great! Now the you-know-what is going to hit the fan. What was she doing here? He’d told her to stay in the room.