The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,316

pink. He waved the papers he’d carried across hundreds of miles into the air.

“Please read these, madam.” He frowned. “I’m assuming you do read.”

Letty’s smile quit about the same time as her patience.

“I read. I read just fine. However, you need to know that, out here in the territories, reading is about the last skill you need to keep yourself alive. You also need to know that I’ve been making lye soap all morning, and that I’m not sure what hurts worse… my back or my feet. Pissing me off before you state your business isn’t the smartest thing you could be doing.”

Robert Lee smiled. He didn’t mean to. But when Letty got her feathers in a fluff, he just couldn’t help it. There was even a small part of him that felt sorry for the blue-ass officer in his hot, wool suit.

Carson, on the other hand, was stunned. He got up, laid the letters in Letty’s lap without saying another word, and then sat back down.

Letty glared at him, thanked Delilah for the glass of water she brought to her, and took a long drink as Delilah served whiskey to the men.

Robert Lee took a small sip, savoring the fire it put in his belly.

Carson Mylam downed his fast and neat. He figured he was going to need it, and more, before this meeting was over.

Letty chose the letter from the president to read first.

“Look, Delilah. Abraham Lincoln wrote me a letter. He’s wondering if I would be interested in helping fund his war. Isn’t that something?”

Carson started to smile with a bit of relief until Letty finished what she’d been saying.

“I’d like to know where the hell he was when I was servicing drunks for fifty cents a poke to keep from starving to death.”

Carson choked on his own spit.

Robert Lee toasted Letty with a smile and what was left in his shot glass, and then downed it in one gulp.

Delilah grinned.

Letty laid the letter aside and picked up the other two. She scanned them quickly, then folded them and laid them on top of the first.

“Okay. Let me see if I understand you right. You traveled all the way from Philadelphia to see me because I’m rich, and because you’re thinking that, in my womanly wisdom, I might be swayed to donating a good sum of money so that men could go kill each other? Is that about it?”

Carson’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“Delilah, maybe you ought to pour the man another drink. He doesn’t look as if he’s feeling well.”

Delilah filled the shot glass.

Carson downed it, wheezing slightly as the liquor hit his belly.

“Mrs. Potter, I don’t think you’re getting the full picture, here,” Carson said. “There are people down in the south who—”

“I know all about slavery,” Letty said. “I’ve been one, but it wasn’t finding gold that set me free. It was the man who became my husband who did that for me. He’s dead, and this has been the saddest year of my life because of it. If you think that I’m going to donate money to something that is going to widow thousands of women, and cause just as many mothers to weep over lost sons, then you’re crazier than you look, sitting here in this hot house, in your fancy wool uniform with the gold buttons and gold braid.”

Carson wondered if he was in as much danger as he felt, and decided to toss out a small threat. He wasn’t sure if it was the truth, but it sounded good.

“Mrs. Potter, you do know that the government could confiscate your gold mine for the good of the country.”

At this point, any kind of threat to Letty lit a fire under Robert Lee. He leaned forward and fixed Carson Mylam with a cold, angry stare.

“Now that you’ve shared that bit of information with us, there’s something you need to know, as well. I put the last man who messed with Letty Potter six feet under. Now you can sit there and think it would be a small thing to remove me from the picture, and you’d be right. However, you might want to know before you start messing with this woman, that she rode down the man who killed her husband, shot him between the eyes with a rifle she didn’t know how to reload, then burned the bastard down to his bones, and brought them back to the sheriff to bury. Threats don’t scare her, mister, but they do piss