The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,25

cheeks burn, but the sensations soon passed, leaving a clean and pleasant aroma about his person. He’d made up his mind that tonight he was going to confess to Letty his growing admiration for her. He knew it was a long shot, but lately he’d been hungering for a different kind of life and hoped that Letty would, too. Will the Bartender had told him a little about Letty’s childhood and when questioned, she’d told him the rest. Jim understood all too well how a woman could come to the place in which Letty now found herself and held none of it against her. The way he looked at it, everyone sinned. It was the ones who didn’t regret it who were the losers and he knew that Letty hated her life. He heard the longing for something better when she sang of sadness and retribution.

He glanced out the window and noticed the setting sun. Within a few minutes, Will would be calling up the stairs for Letty to come down, and he wanted to talk to her first before she re-entered that world. Smiling to himself, he reached for his hat, settled it on his neatly combed hair and started out the door of his hotel room when he realized his derringer was still on the bed. He slipped it in the pocket of his jacket and then hurried down the stairs, suddenly anxious to get to the White Dove.

As usual, Letty was out on the balcony, girding herself for another night of drink and debauchery and waiting to hear the call of her good luck bird when she saw James Dupree exit the hotel. An ache rose in her throat as she watched him start across the street. The past few days with him had been heaven on earth for her. He had yet to take her to bed, although his good night kisses on the hand had progressed to tender kisses on her lips. Each night when she went to sleep, his face was in her dreams, and each day when she awoke, thoughts of seeing him that night were all that got her through the days. She didn’t want to think of the day when she’d awaken and once again find that he was gone, although she knew that it could happen.

In her eagerness to see him, she forgot about the bird and leaned over the balcony to call down to him.

“Jim!”

He stopped in the street and looked up with a smile of delight on his face.

“Letty, dear Letty. I need to talk to you. May I come up?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “But hurry. Will has already yelled at me once.”

“Will can bide his time,” Jim said. “This is important.”

Letty nodded and then raced back into her room as Will stepped up onto the sidewalk. She was checking her appearance in the mirror when she heard the gunshots—two—in rapid succession. After that, there was a rush of running feet and loud shouting, and then everything went still.

She stood in the middle of her room without moving, staring toward her doorway with her heart in her throat, listening for the sounds of footsteps on the stairs that would tell her Jim was on his way. But the longer she stood there, the more certain she became that she would never hear them again.

Finally, when she could move without falling, she made her way to the door and then started down the stairs. The room below was full of people, but all she could see was a sea of dusty hats. She couldn’t tell one man from another then saw Eulis coming out of the back room with the mop and a bucket of water. She flinched, and as she did, he caught the movement and looked up. The expression on his face made her sick. It was pity, pure and simple.

As if on signal, the crowd below where she was standing suddenly parted and she could see the body stretched out on the floor. It was Jim. Even in death, he was still a beautiful man. Blood had blossomed upon the front of his white suit, like a red rose pinned on his lapel, but what had run out beneath him was pooling on the floor.

“No,” she moaned, and started to moan. “Not him! Not him! Damn you, God, why do they all have to die?”

Heads turned at the sound of her voice and then the men quickly looked away, as if ashamed to have seen