His dread deepening, Roman wished to God his name were anythingbutRoman Montana.
Chapter Two
Soused. Liquored up. Under thesauce. Stewed to the gills.
Drunk.
Roman could think of no other state of being that would enable him to get through the three-day journey to Templeton with Theodosia Worth. “For all I care,” he mumbled to the bartender, “she can fly to Templeton on her parrot’s back.”
“Whatever y’say,” the bartender answered, refilling his customer’s glass.
Wrapping his hand around the glass, Roman looked into the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Its reflection showed him a cloud of blue-gray smoke, with weak rays of sunshine filtering through it. Beneath the haze a half dozen men sat at tables, playing cards and stealing a feel or two from the voluptuous barmaids. Others stood at the bar, nursing their drinks in solitude. Most were drifters like himself, he knew. They wandered here and there, earning money when they needed it and handling their days the way a child builds with blocks—one by one, with no specific scheme in mind.
That was where the similarities ended, Roman thought.Hehad a definite plan, and it wasn’t some sort of castle in the air, as his stepmother had so coldly put it.
It was a dream so big that only twenty-five thousand acres of the richest grassland that the Rio Grande Plains had to offer could support it. He’d raise a remarkable breed of horses on that beautiful land and then make a fortune off the cattle ranchers who would undoubtedly pay any price he named to buy his stock.
Tomakethat fortune, however, he had tospenda fortune. True, he was only five hundred dollars short of being able to purchase the land. And the herd of sturdy Spanish mares wouldn’t be expensive.
But the English Thoroughbred stallions would not come cheap. The best in the country, bred and raised on various farms in the east, cost nearly their weight in gold. He would get them somehow, though, for he wanted the finest money could buy.
Nothing—no onein the entire world was going to keep him from realizing his dream. As he had done for ten long years, he would accept any and every job that came his way until he possessed the funds he needed.
He would just have to find the patience to put up With Theodosia Worth during the trip to Templeton. He couldn’t afford to pass up the money Dr. Wallaby would pay him for completing the job.
“Reward money, that’s what it is,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. “Like the kind a man gets for bringing in some sort of menace to society.”
“A real menace,” the barkeep agreed automatically. “Hey, don’t I know you? Ain’t I seed you… Yeah, you’re the same feller who come through a few months ago. Roman Montana, that’s who ya are. Folks ain’t quit talkin’ about that horse o’ yours. Still ain’t sellin’?”
Roman shook his head and sipped his whiskey.
“Y’know, Will Simpson said his horses ain’t never been shod they way y’shod ’em when ya was here last. Said your blacksmithin’ weren’t nothin’ short of amazin’ and that he’d like to know how y’got them shoes to stick s’good.”
“Tell him to drive the nails home with one blow. More than one strike gives the nail a chance to loosen before it’s even in.”
“Really? Hmm. Didn’t never know that. Well, what about ole Herman Gooch? Jest the other day he said he was hopin’ you’d come back and bigger his wife’s parlor. She really liked how you biggered her kitchen. Y’on’t me to fetch him over here?”
Roman drained his glass. “Another time, maybe. I’ve got another job to do right now. A real headache of a job by the name of Theodosia Worth. And her damned parrot’s every bit as much of a pain in the—”
“Parrot? A big gray bird with red tail feathers? Oh, I seed that woman. She stopped in front o’ the saloon fer a second. Purty little thing. Skin so white, it looked like it come from a milk bottle. Whatcha gotta do fer her?”
Roman sloshed more whiskey into his glass. “Take her to Templeton. She’s over at Claff’s livery now, trying to pick out a horse and wagon. I had a mind to stay and help her, but when she asked Claff about a certainEquus caballus,I couldn’t leave fast enough.”
“Equus caballus?”The barkeep scratched his head. “What the hell’s that?”
Roman swallowed his fifth shot of liquor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Best as I can figure, that’s genius talk forhorse.”
“Mr. Montana!”
Roman swiveled on the stool and saw Claff’s son standing between the saloon doors.
“Paw asked me to come git ya! Said fer ya to hurry up. That Miz Worth woman y’brung to the livery ain’t speakin’ no kind o’ English we ever heared, and Paw’s beside hissef tryin’ to make out what she wants.”
Roman folded his arms across his chest. “Claff s upset? Don’t tell me—that Miss Worth woman is now trying to cicurate him.”
“Cicurate?” The boy shook his head. “Naw, she ain’t hurtin’ him none, but she’s sure got him riled. Will y’come?”
With a fair amount of whiskey flowing through his veins, Roman felt more inclined to deal with the obnoxious Miss Worth. He paid for the liquor and headed out of the saloon.
