This Calder Range (Calder Saga 1)

Sighing, Lorna rolled onto her side and tried to close her eyes. There was a brief irritation that Benteen had left the decision for her to make the first move as to when they would be man and wife again. Yet, if he had tried to force it, she would have been angry. It was very confusing.

After two days of wearing pants and riding astraddle, the trailhands became accustomed to the sight and Lorna stopped being an eye-popping oddity. There was a bit more to the work than Woolie Willis had led her to believe, yet Lorna discovered she could handle it. She was really quite proud of herself, too.

It had taken two days to round up the scattered herd. There were ten head they never found. The third morning, they started up the trail again. Benteen assigned Lorna to ride one of the flank positions, while Woolie Willis drove their wagon. He was hobbling around on a makeshift pair of crutches Rusty had fixed up for him. It was hard work, dirty work that tested Lorna’s endurance.

Ten days later, they reached Ogallala, Nebraska, on the North Platte River. They stopped south of there for a day so Benteen could ride to see if he couldn’t hire a couple extra men. Lorna took advantage of the day’s layover to wash clothes.

When she had her things together, she went through Benteen’s bedroll to get his dirty clothes. A bright brass coin fell out of the roll onto the quilt. It didn’t look like any money she’d ever seen before. Lorna picked it up to examine it curiously.

On one side, a woman’s portrait was stamped. The printing on the other side read: “Compliments of Miss Belle, Dodge City.” It was a coin of some sort, but it obviously wasn’t money or any kind of foreign currency. And who was Miss Belle?

Curiosity got the better of Lorna. Leaving the clothes in the wagon, she climbed out. Three of the trailhands had ridden into town with Benteen, and the others were out with the herd. Woolie Willis was at the river, trying his hand at catching some fish. There was no sign of Mary, but Rusty was over by the chuck wagon. Since he’d been practically all over the world as a ship’s cook, it seemed likely that he would know what this coin was, so Lorna went to ask.

“Rusty, have you ever seen a coin like this?” She showed him the brass coin lying in the palm of her hand.

He glanced at it, then sent her a sharp look. “Where’d ya get it?”

Something in his tone prompted her to be vague. “I just picked it up.” But she didn’t say it had fallen out of Benteen’s bedroll. If Rusty thought she’d found it on the ground, that wasn’t her fault.

“One of the boys musta dropped it,” he concluded.

“What is it?” Lorna repeated her question. “Is it money?”

“It’s a dollar token,” he replied, and tried to look busy.

“Do you mean it’s really worth a dollar?” Lorna studied it again.

“There’s places that accept it as legal tender. I don’t know as I’d take it into just any bank,” Rusty hedged on his answer.

“Who’s this woman—Miss Belle? Is that her likeness on the other side?” she asked.

“It probably is.” He nodded reluctantly.

The pieces were starting to fit together in her mind. A dollar token. Good in some unmentionable places. A woman’s picture.

“Is it a kind of advertisement?” Lorna guessed.

“Yeah, you could call it that,” Rusty agreed.

“What is this lady advertising?” A cold anger was starting to chill her dark eyes. “It doesn’t state what her business is.”

Rusty actually started to turn red. The color crept up under his white whiskers, making his skin ruddy. “Well, now, I don’t rightly know,” he faltered.

“Do you suppose she might be a ‘soiled dove’?” She challenged Rusty, daring him to deny what she had already guessed.

“If you already know, why’d ya ask me?” he grumbled in irritation. “You shouldn’t be askin’ me questions like that anyhow. It’s them pants you been wearin’. They’re makin’ you forget what’s proper.”

“I am a married woman,” Lorna asserted. “I am not unfamiliar with such women. It would be silly to pretend they don’t exist.”

“I reckon. There ain’t exactly a surplus of women out West, an’ sometimes a man gets tired of sleepin’ alone.” This time his look challenged her.

Her cheeks flamed at his implication that Benteen might be tired of sleeping alone. Pivoting on her heel, Lorna hurried back to the wagon. The brass coin seemed to burn her palm. She dropped it on the mattress, then sat down to stare at it.

Dodge City. He had wanted to make love to her at the hotel when he came to the room after she had bathed. Only she hadn’t been able to freely respond to his advances. Both nights they had stayed there, he had been out late. That had to be when he had gotten the coin.

A wild jealousy stormed through her as she was forced to conclude that Benteen had gone to bed with a whore to satisfy his lust. He had been unfaithful to her, and she’d kill him for that. Her hands were trembling with rage as she took the pistol from the valise. He’d regret the day he ever taught her to shoot.

When she checked to make sure it was loaded, another incident forced its memory on her. But Lorna wanted to listen to only the part that said “a whore in bed.” But there was a corresponding phrase to it that pushed its way into her consciousness. “Lady on his arm.”