Guadalupe's Tears Read Free Page A

afterward.
    “It’s the least we can do for such a rude introduction,” she was saying.
    “Yes Ma’am Miss Phaedra,” Bruce stuttered. “Livvy, get your lazy black ass out here,” Bruce shouted over his shoulder. “And Fetch some grub.”
    A slave girl Lee judged to be around eighteen came out of the kitchen with a tray filled with food. She eyed Phaedra with a look of pure hatred as she dropped a platter of stew and cornbread down onto the bar with a clatter. She looked at Lee with wide expressive eyes. Bruce offered the girl a swift kick in her direction, which she expertly dodged as she scurried back into the kitchen.
    “Clumsy slut,” Bruce muttered as he wiped spilled broth off the counter, shaking as if he had palsy.
    “Go ahead, and enjoy,” Phaedra said as Lee looked doubtfully at the chunks of meat and potatoes. “Go on,” Phaedra prompted and Lee picked up his spoon and ate, noticing that the girl was hiding just beyond the doorway, staring at him, her expression inscrutable.
    “And after you’re finished here,” Phaedra said as she mounted the barstool next to him and sat upon it as regally as a queen upon her throne, “come up to my room. We can have a nice talk.”
    “If you don’t mind ma’am,” Lee said, “if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just be going.”
    “Oh but you can’t,” Phaedra said, one long finely manicured finger tracing his bicep. “Just come up for a few minutes; that’s all I ask. It gets lonely out here...” Her voice faded as she stared out at the day riders who scurried out of the saloon like frightened mice, the doors swinging as if a gale force wind had struck it. “As you can see,” she added.
    The sun offered a final blast of dull red light that etched sanguine squares upon the floor. The saloon girls melted into the darkness behind the stairwell. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bruce move his head slightly, his eyes large and round. Livvy, the slave girl, watched from the kitchen door. Lee put his hat on and eased off the barstool. “I best be getting on,” he said.
    “On your way to where? And out in the dark too?” She smiled at him and his bowels turned to frozen mush. There was daylight streaming from the windows a few minutes ago, he was certain of that. Faded red from the sun that seemed loathe to set. But now...Lee’s Adam’s apple did a quick two step. How had night fallen so quickly? He wondered. How did I lose my sense of time? When did the slave girl light lamps which were burning brightly on the tables? He absently fumbled for his grandfather’s watch then couldn’t remember why he needed it.
    “Are you afraid of me?” Phaedra asked.
    She’s right , Lee realized. I’m scared of her. The scarlet beauty who sat so close too him didn’t walk in beauty like the night, but somehow was the night. Lovely Phaedra of the wicked eyes, Lee thought. Phaedra...the woman/queen who smells of death and life; of hushed and obscene things done in the dark where no decent man should see. Lee felt foolish. Casey was just a town. Sure, it was an oddity perched out here alone on the rim of the Permian basin, but a town nonetheless. And Phaedra, as fancy and as terrifying as she seemed, was in reality only a woman. . . Wasn’t she?
    He laughed and said, “No offense ma’am, but I’ve never been scared of a woman in my life. Except maybe my ma when she got riled, but...” His voice trailed off.
    Phaedra laughed and moved closer. Lee‘s hand slipped to his gun and before he could consider drawing, she placed her hand on top of his. Her hand was smooth, soft, and cool. An image of what he longed for her to do with those hands arose in his mind. He repressed a disturbing urge to grab her by the forearms and pull her toward him, or better yet, pull her into the dark recesses of the saloon, where they could do things in the moment of heat that Lee could never tell the local parsonage.
    “Surely you’re not going to pull that thing on