Outlaw Hell Read Free Page A

saddlebag, and pulled out a black-beaded rosary. “It was made by Mexican nuns, and you should carry it with you always, to remind yourself of Christ's great love for you. The biscuits are almost finished, so let me absolve you.”
    The priest intoned ancient prayers and made the sign of the cross. “You are a very bad man,” moanedFather Diego, shaking his head disapprovingly. Then he examined the biscuits and peered inside the pot of coffee. “I hope you'll stay and have breakfast with me.”
    â€œI've already had breakfast, Father. Thank you anyway.” Duane reached into his pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar double eagle, and tossed it to Father Diego. “May the peace of God be with you, sir.”
    â€œAnd also with you.” The padre opened the pouch attached to his belt, dropped the coin inside, then lifted the Dutch oven off the coals. “Which way are you headed, stranger?”
    There was no answer. Father Diego turned around, but the black-garbed cowboy had disappeared.
    Alice Markham looked out the window and saw an adobe wall across the alley. Her new room reminded her of a prison cell, not that she'd ever been locked up. She had a cot, chair, mirror, and bottles of cosmetics lined on the crude wooden dresser. But at least she had a roof over her head, she thought, trying to cheer herself up.
    She felt trapped. But it hadn't always been this way. She'd grown up in Ohio, daughter of a hard-scrabble farmer, who died of an illness that turned his skin yellow, leaving a wife with seven mouths to feed. Alice's mother soon married another farmer who was always mad at somebody, usually his stepchildren. Then mother became sick, they had a bad crop, and someone stole their cow. It was decidedthat the oldest children should leave and find work. Alice wasn't educated enough to be a schoolmarm, but did the best she could. Every month she sent money to her mother, but her life was one man after another, their faces blurred before her eyes, and she loathed herself totally.
    She'd thought of destroying herself, but still hoped something good might happen someday. Alice was struggling to get ahead, but never managed to accumulate much. She'd heard business was booming in Texas, and worked her way south, with stops in Saint Louis, Dallas, and Camp Wood. Her latest move had delivered her to dirty little Escondido.
    Alice hated to sleep with strangers and pretend that she enjoyed it. She desperately craved normal life, but what man would marry a former prostitute? She didn't have answers to questions that nagged her constantly, but wasn't ready to surrender her dreams either. If Maggie O'Day can drag herself up, so can I.
    Alice looked at herself in the mirror, and noted that her profession was taking its toll in faint threadlike wrinkles about her mouth and eyes. She was a sensitive romantic soul forced to sell her most precious possession for a pittance, but she could see no avenue to improve her situation, and refused to beg. Stuck in hell, all she could do was pray for a miracle.
    That night she had to work as a gaudy harlot yet again. Some customers would be old enough tobe her father, others would smell of horses, and one might cut her face for the fun of it. She leaned closer to the mirror and perused the scar on her cheek.It had come from a straight razor in the hand of a trooper from the Fourth Cavalry. If she hadn't pulled back in time, he would've taken her head off.
    Alice would carry the scar to her grave, and no cosmetic could cover it adequately. Sometimes she considered it grotesque, but other times saw it as a badge of honor. Alice Markham was an odd mixture of defiance, shame, and tarnished innocence. She didn't trust anybody, not even her own mother.
    She sat in front of the mirror and smeared cosmetics on her cheeks and lips, as night came to Escondido. Gradually the pallid country bumpkin became a painted Jezebel with a naughty gleam in her eyes. “When you're a