“George…”
His head shot forward, kissing her, shifting his hands to the back of her head, holding her in place. She stiffened, tasting whiskey as his tongue probed her mouth.
His body was like a tense spring, his erection hard against his trousers. Then he pushed her, toppling her back onto her bed. Before she could right herself, he was on her, clawing at her dress, ripping the low-cut neckline. Buttons popped on her bodice, and he tore the fabric away, dropping his mouth to her exposed breast. She whimpered as he took her nipple in his teeth.
“George! All right! All right! Let me get out of this dress.”
He was panting, something feral in his eyes as he released her, his lips parted in a desperate grin.
She tried to wriggle out from under him, but he clapped a hand to her neck. Shifting, he pawed frantically at the ruin of her dress.
She was able to reach behind her head, pull herself higher on the bed, get her back against the ornate brass-rail headboard.
“You are mine!” he told her, blinking, his breath thick with alcohol. “No woman ever told me no. As if a whore like you was too good for George Nichols. Sarah, I own you. I made you. You don’t want to marry me? Huh? That it? Well, you don’t have to. But you’ll be my bitch, or I’ll bury you.”
“You’re drunk, George.” The fear had burned loose, the feeling of helplessness, the old terrors leaping up from the past. Flashes of Dewley’s eyes, of the smell of sour breath being blown in her face as men grunted and rutted.
“You tell me yes, Sarah,” he insisted, his hand tightening on her throat like a clamp.
She tried to break free, only to have him crush her windpipe. Panic lent her strength, but when she clawed at him, he smashed a vicious right to the side of her head. Pain and lights burst through her brain.
Half stunned, she slumped, letting her arms fall away. She managed a weak nod, body going limp.
Nichols grinned, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. With both hands, he tugged on her dress, ripping it down.
When he lifted himself and frantically began to unbutton his trousers, she shifted her grip on the headboard. Her fingers encountered cold metal, the smooth feel of wood.
He pulled up her skirt, his breath gone to ragged panting. As he threw himself onto her, she tightened her grip on the wood and metal, bracing herself.
His eyes had gone distant, expression hollow with anticipation. As he sought to insert himself, she drew her arm back.
She could hear the music downstairs as Caesar, unable to resist, mounted Cleopatra.
The voice seemed to come from a distance.
Do it!
Nichols barely had time to react, confusion flickering in his drunken eyes.
With all her might, Sarah slammed Dewley’s heavy .44 Colt against the side of Nichols’s head. He twitched and collapsed on top of her.
She lay there, exhausted, panting in the wake of the rushing fear, and rubbed her throat. When she’d hung the holster there, behind the headboard, she’d known this day was coming. Had thought it would be Parmelee. The feel of the revolver’s cool wooden grips reassured her.
She felt Nichols convulse and managed to roll him off onto the floor before he doubled and vomited onto her throw rug.
108
April 29, 1868
The knocking kept repeating before it finally brought Doc awake. Logy, he blinked his eyes open and realized the insistent pounding came from his door.
He staggered to his feet, half stumbling in sleep, and made his way to the front door. Opening it, he squinted into a lantern’s light, recognizing Mick, Sarah’s professor from the Angel’s Lair.
“What’s wrong?” God, tell me it’s not Sarah!
“Got a man in the wagon, Doc. Sarah asked that you look him over at your surgery. See if he’s all right.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after two, sir.”
“Let me get dressed.”
Doc blinked, half staggering back to his bedroom where he fumbled for his clothes. Damn it, he shouldn’t have had that last glass of whiskey. Problem was, whiskey helped. It deadened the sucking emptiness and softened the features of Bridget’s face, forever hanging, as it did, in his hopes. Just beyond his vision, as if he could reach out and touch her.
While one glass might get him to sleep, it wasn’t enough to keep him from popping awake a couple of hours later. That was when the emptiness and pain were the worst. That’s when he’d slip his hand onto her side of the bed only to find cold sheets.
Two glasses would conjure a stupor that would carry him far enough through the night that he would wake headachy, mouth dry, his tongue like a stick. But lately that hadn’t been enough, either, so he’d gone to three glasses a night.
“Physician, heal thyself.”
He finished dressing, grabbed his hat and coat on the way out of the house, and locked his door behind him. A man didn’t leave his house unlocked. Not in Denver with its hordes of destitute and broken men—the ones who’d flowed west after the war to make their fortunes. All but a lucky few had discovered that if they’d been failures in the East, they’d be failures in the Rockies. But without family and friends to cadge from. Here they found only starvation, pneumonia, exposure, and exploitation by the gangs.
Doc climbed onto Mick’s wagon seat and bent over the back. A man lay there, wrapped in a blanket. From habit, Doc checked his pulse and breathing as Mick started them for the surgery.
“Who is he?”
“George Nichols.”
“Jesus! What happened?”
“He come to the house tonight with a load on. Sarah took him upstairs to avoid a scene. Nichols got violent. Sarah pistol-whipped him with that big Colt she keeps. She wants you to take a look at
