Sloan knew that he would have been welcome at Mayfair, but his mood was too volatile for him to feel comfortable in the company of friends.
He was due back in the next few days at Fort Abraham Lincoln, but he was glad as well that he wasn’t due tonight—the Sioux half of him was warring away in his soul. There were too many army commanders he would like to scalp at the moment.
He rode into Gold Town alone, taking a room at the Miner’s Well. Like most of the town, it offered whatever might be desired. The respectable wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, and lovers of army personnel and prospectors might take rooms here and find them clean and neat. There was a huge, warm dining room where home-cooked meals were served. Baths were available in room, there was a pleasant downstairs library, and the plump, matronly Mrs. Smith-Soames was available to direct nice young ladies around town.
For those of a more adventuresome nature, the Ten-Penny Saloon sat just out back, the work yards of each establishment being next door to one another, with side doors and servants’ entrances facing one another. Though all the food served in Mrs. Smithe-Soames’ dining room was excellent, food and liquorcould be ordered from the Ten-Penny at off-hours and discreetly brought in by the side entrance to appease the hunger of late-arriving guests.
Other hungers could be appeased as well from the Ten-Penny. Even more discreetly so. An order merely needed to be placed at the saloon, and a soft tap would come upon a man’s door. It was all quite smoothly arranged. As they were located in Gold Town, the saloon and the inn catered to whatever tastes their clientele might have nurtured, be they the most chaste—or the most decadent.
Sloan had never been much of a drinker-—he was far too aware of the way whiskey had been used by the red man across the continent, and too often, how it had taken a great warrior, set him upon agency land, and eaten into both his soul and his guts, leaving him a sad creature to wallow in the mud of uselessness. Not that whites couldn’t become pathetic drunks as well. They could, quite easily. But the Indians just seemed to have more strikes against them to begin with.
Returning from the travesty at the Red Cloud agency had left him feeling not just volatile but depressed as well, with a slow simmering anger within him that threatened to become explosive. It didn’t help to remind himself that though it had actually been tradition that had sent him to West Point, it had been his choice to remain in the cavalry in the West. He’d spent four years going to war against his classmates, instructors, and friends, and now he was taking part in a crusade to annihilate his own people, and it didn’t matter that he tried to stand against the tide, to bring some honor and justice to the Sioux. He was a candle against the wind, a flame burning bright, yet unable to illuminate any paths that could take his people out of the way of the onslaught of the storm.
After he bathed and changed his clothes, he decided a few drinks seemed to be in order before retiring. Once he got somerest, he hoped he’d regain the control that allowed him to slip between worlds and remain true to them both.
With the dust of the trail bathed away and himself decked in civilian attire, he took a walk across the yard to the Ten-Penny.
Joe, the short, round barkeep, supplied him with a bottle of his best whiskey, just in from Tennessee. Sloan shuddered as he swallowed the first shot. The second one went down more slowly.
Dusk had come. Darkness was settling over the town. In a few hours, he thought, the place would be crawling with miners and travelers and the unattached menfolk in the area who were looking for a good time. For the moment, a few wizened old prospectors played a game of cards, cackling now and then at an exceptionally good hand.
He was on his third shot of the whiskey when Loralee, proprietress of the establishment along with Peg-Leg Jack Cleat, came to quietly stand beside him.
“You look plum tuckered, hon,” she said softly. He glanced over at her, smiling wryly. She was a very attractive woman, probably nearing fifty, but capable of being every bit as sensual as the youngest of her girls. Her blonde hair was turning gray, but she had a beautiful face, soft amber eyes, handsome bone structure. Her waist was minuscule, her breasts, more than bountiful. She had a nice way about her as well. She was a shrewd businesswoman, charmingly pleasant, and strangely enough, incredibly sincere. “Plum tuckered, and mad as a hornet,” she continued.
He offered her a half-smile, lifting his shot glass to her, then pouring her a shot of whiskey as Joe set a glass down for his boss.
“Just tired out, Loralee,” he told her.
A ripple of rueful amusement passed over her features as she returned his smile. “Wish I could make it better for you. But Ican’t. I make it a rule never to fall for the men I bed, and you’re nearly lethal when you choose to smile.”
He laughed. “Thanks. That sounds like a compliment.”
“It is.”
“Lots of women aren’t fond of Indian blood.”
“Lots of women are.”
He raised his eyebrows in an offhand acknowledgment. He should have just told Loralee that the world was a wicked, wearying place—and the hell with falling in love. He’d done it once, only once. She’d proclaimed undying devotion.
But then her father had spoken. Warned her that she might never know when Sloan’s red blood might tell, when the savagery in him might break loose, despite his mother’s impeccable family lines. The girl’s father had offered an alternative and suggested she marry an all-white boy from Nebraska who was destined to follow his own father’s footsteps into the United States Congress. No telling where that boy might go. Undying devotion had died upon the hearth of undying ambition.
The worst part was, he still saw her now and again. Life did play its tricks. Her congressman had become stout and bald—and lost a lot of teeth. She’d gotten what she wanted along the political trail, but not at home. On those rare occasions when their paths crossed now, she tried to rekindle the past. Maybe she had never realized how much she had hurt him. It didn’t matter. He hadn’t stopped enjoying women—he’d only ceased to trust them.
“Want to talk?” Loralee asked him.
His smile deepened; he shook his head. “Loralee, I’m feeling as restless as a caged tiger at the moment. I’m not good company for anyone.”
“We’ve just taken in the prettiest little piece of baggage you ever did see, straight from the East. A beauty. She’d be just what you need tonight.”
For a moment, he reflected on the offer. He thought of Hawk—and his new wife. The two of them had been at odds—naturally. He knew all about the way Hawk had acquired his wife, knew how she must feel about Hawk’s tricks and how Hawk felt just because his deceased father had done all the arranging without telling him. Yet he suddenly felt a stab of envy. Sparks flew between Hawk and his wife, yet they made a blaze that burned with a curious warmth. Skylar was a most unusual woman.
He felt any desire he might have summoned for a whore—any whore, even the most beautiful and talented one in the world—wither away.
“Loralee,” he said, and kissed the woman on the forehead. “I think not tonight. I’m going to take my whiskey, slink into my room, and drink myself into pleasant oblivion.”
“Sloan, I just may surprise you now?—”
