Wanton Angel e-reads www.ereads.com Copyright ©1989 by Elizabeth Chadwick NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment. Table of Contents: I: The Fire Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 II: Amnonville Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 III: Packard Valley Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 IV: The Fallen Angel Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 V: The Cabin Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 VI: The Jail Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 I The Fire * * * 1 From the highest point in the pass that breached the mountains to the east, Aaron Court reined in his horse and stared down into the darkening valley, watching yet another proof of his grimly held conviction that good times were always balanced by bad times—if not overbalanced. He had been away from the town for two days—in Denver on business and then in an adjacent valley bargaining for a horse that had caught his fancy before the winter snows had set in. The business had been concluded, the horse purchased, and thus he found himself in the pass as nightfall erased the mountains around him but not the town below, where a satanic glare seemed to be turning the structures into eerie, angry transparencies in the dusk. Court sighed as he shook out his reins and guided the new horse onto the down-turning road. Amnonville was once again aflame, and he wondered how many of his assets were turning to hot ash and rubble before his eyes: his office certainly was gone, along with most of the north end of the town. What other losses he had suffered he would know soon enough. A half hour later Court had again halted his horse, this time in the middle of Copper Street. As he leaned forward to pat the trembling muscles of the animal's shoulder, he stared at the remains of the building that had housed his office. The sign “Aaron Court, Attorney at Law” lay in the street, blackened, half devoured by the flames; the building was a skewed shell with a few tongues of fire licking indifferently at what remained of the frame; in the center among the ashes was his safe, glowing red with a life of its own, blackening the papers inside, no doubt. Court made no move toward the legal records of his clients. Time enough tomorrow to see to that, and in the interim there was little likelihood that anyone would try to haul off or break into that uninviting piece of incandescent metal. All around him his fellow citizens milled frantically; they called out commiserations to one another and to him; they threw futile buckets of water at doomed structures; they sweated and cursed and scrubbed ineffectively at soot-blackened faces. But Court rested calmly in his saddle, an island of cold philosophical acceptance in the midst of frantic emotion. He gentled his nervous horse with one hand and unbuttoned his sheepskin jacket with the other, for the air on Copper Street rippled with heat, although the night was chill. Once he had calculated what it would cost him to rebuild the structure devoured by the fire, Court nodded absently to several people who had spoken to him, and then he turned his horse toward the sound of dynamite. He presumed that someone was attempting to create a firebreak and save the southern end of the town before the icy spring wind drove the fire on. Two blocks down he spotted the town's one Silsby fire engine spraying water on a hardware store whose stock had been bought with Court's money. He added the hardware inventory to his losses since that battle, though still being fought, was hopeless. To his left on the next block he could see that the Fallen Angel was in flames. He remembered well enough the arrival in Amnonville of Lilith Moran some years back, not so many months after he had followed a gold strike there from Denver himself. She had built the first Fallen Angel and announced that although she preferred to be paid in gold, a man who wished to avail himself of the pleasures of her establishment could also pay in real property, and she had named the place accordingly. “Moran's Land, Cattle, Claim and Fallen Angel Company” could be seen still in ornate gold script across the burning exterior, and many a male resident of Amnonville, temporarily out of funds, had left a valuable title in her safe in exchange for the ministrations of her “fallen angels.” Although Court owned no stock in her “company,” he mourned its loss, for Lilith Moran was a beautiful woman—a madam with a head for business, some strange preferences in bed, and a lively sense of humor when she chose to give it rein, and her Fallen Angel Company was the town's most elegant saloon, dance hall, gambling parlor and whorehouse. Its demise would be an incalculable loss to the social life of Amnonville, at least that portion which Court found worth pursuing—not that Lilith wouldn't open up in a tent as she had after previous fires, but a tent, especially with winter still lingering into spring, would not, could not provide the same atmosphere and comfort that — Court reined his horse sharply as he drew even with the whorehouse. The first floor was completely aflame inside and out, and fire was climbing the white columns and leaping into the balcony where the prostitutes had displayed themselves and their finery on sunny days. In the middle of this balcony appeared one slender girl, wearing a long white nightgown—her hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide with terror, and her long black hair flowing around her. She stood transfixed about six steps from the railing with the fire a menacing backdrop. Court jammed his black hat over the new horse's eyes, dragged the animal's head toward the building, and applied his spurs. “Jump!” he called out sharply to the girl. She stared at him, but she did not move. “Come on,” he commanded again as he maneuvered the terrified horse toward the balcony. She edged closer to the railing, staring fearfully down at him with huge blue eyes. The flames behind her and to the sides of her framed her in a pulsing red glow, making her hair gleam and seem to flicker. Except for the small fingertips peeking from beneath lace ruffles at her wrists, the bare toes beneath the embroidered hem, and the lovely frightened face above the high lace at the neck, her gown covered her completely in modest white. Then a sudden gust of wind molded the fabric to her body. Court caught his breath in surprised admiration as he looked up at her; she was the most beautiful girl Lilith had ever brought to the brothel, more beautiful than Lilith herself. “You have to jump,” he called to her. “The balcony won't hold much longer.” The girl glanced fearfully to either side and saw the flame fingers edging closer, reaching out for her. Again she moved a few steps and touched the railing, measuring the distance of the fall. “I'll catch you,” Court assured her, but she seemed not to believe it possible. Instead of jumping she climbed over the rail, planting her toes carefully between the spindles and clinging with one hand as she clutched the skirt of her nightgown around her legs at knee level. “For God's sake, girl, hurry,” he shouted urgently. The fire to her left was now eating along the railing toward her. The young woman let go of her skirt and lowered herself hesitantly with both hands, releasing her foothold just as the flames curled into the lace at her wrist. The sudden pain brought a scream, and she let go abruptly and plummeted into his arms. Because Court had seen that she was afire, he whirled his frightened horse and dumped the girl within seconds into the water trough in front of the blazing building. That instant reaction effectively put out the flames that seared her arm, but her screams had been cut off a second before when her head hit the hard wooden edge of the trough. Cursing, he dismounted and lifted her from the shallow water; then kneeling in the street with her wet body limp in his arms, he leaned close to her face and felt her warm breath on his cheek. She was unconscious; her arm was burned, how badly he could not tell; but she was alive. Court struggled up, managing to lift her with him into the saddle, and headed toward the doctor's office, which, when he finally worked his way through the milling, panic-stricken crowds of people and animals in the street, proved to have suffered the same devastation as his own office and the whorehouse. “Where's the doctor?” he shouted to a man standing at his stirrup, staring at the flaming collapse of Amnonville's one medical facility. The man looked up, first at Court, the...
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