Heart of a Dove Read Online Free

scarce recognized her. She said, “Show time, Lila.”
    Trembling and terrified, I followed her down the hall.
    Later, I would recall the moment as something from a nightmare, carnival sounds and garish sights nauseatingly amplified. The open staircase wound down into a bustle of activity that brought to my mind ants at spilled sugar. Men caroused everywhere, laughing, talking, drinking; some were seated at green, felt-topped tables, cards fanned before them. From above, the women circulating the rowdy crowd appeared as bright flowers among the dun-colored garb of most of the men. Here and there was a flash of Federal blue, startling me, though I well knew that those who had lived through the War and been discharged from service were allowed to keep their uniforms. St. Louis had been Federal-controlled for most of the fighting, though it mattered little now. Deirdre descended with practiced, seductive motions, the fingers of her right hand trailing lightly on the banister; she peeked over her shoulder at me and tipped her chin, indicating that I mimic her.
    Ginny, from below, saw us descending and gestured to a man behind the bar, a huge, slope-shouldered man with a flat nose and a barrel-shaped chest. He lifted his hands and announced in a husking baritone, “Quiet!” and, as anticipated, a hush fell over the crowd.
    Again I was stunned that the swirling eddies of guilt, shame and fear did not instantly smite me dead. Ginny spoke loudly into the stillness, as eyes lifted to watch us. And then murmurings followed, and a couple of low-pitched laughs.
    “Gentlemen, let me introduce to you my newest gal, lovely Lila. Fresh as a peach, gentlemen, sweet as rainwater on a parched throat. Pure as Easter Sunday, fellas, if you take my meaning, and she goes to the highest bidder!”
    A burst of noise then, as we reached the main floor. Men were shouting and caterwauling and calling, leaning over one another to gander at me. Deirdre led me through the crowd of leering faces, to the raised, wedge-shaped platform that jutted from a corner of the room and already contained the piano and the slim, red-haired man who was pounding music from its black and white keys. She led me up the single step, her long white arm extended gracefully, before turning me neatly to face the crowd; to my terror-dazed eyes, they appeared ready to consume me in one gulp.
    “Look at that face!” Ginny was heralding from across the wide room. “Look at that sweetness, gentlemen. Who will give me twenty for her, twenty?”
    The floor seemed to erupt with bidding. Ginny called out, “Twenty-five!”
    “Thirty!”
    “Thirty-five!”
    Deirdre took my fingertips into her own, delicately, and lifted my right arm, turning me in a slow circle as though we were dancing. The candles in the swinging overhead chandeliers dazzled my eyes; I wished, fervently, that they would explode into flame and burn this entire place to the ground in one spectacular blaze of sin and shame. I spent a moment wondering where Jim Foster and his three children were, and if he regretted doing such a heinous thing to me. I hoped he did. I hoped he’d burn in hell.
    “Do I hear forty, gentlemen, forty dollars? Nothing for such an angel, such a beauty!”
    There were shouts and complaints, as the bidding rose too high for most. The saloon was surely bursting to capacity, the batwing swinging doors sprawled wide on their hinges to accommodate the growing crowd.
    “I hear forty!” Ginny crowed. “Is there forty-five?”
    My frantic eyes roved the crowd, attempting to discern which men were attached to which bids. There was a forty-five. I could hardly fathom anyone willing to spend such an amount.
    And then a voice rose above the din, shouting in triumph, “Fifty dollars!”
    There was a pocket of disbelieving silence before a roar rose above our heads. The man who’d bid this staggering amount was pushing his way through the crush of bodies, waving a leather pouch in the air. Ginny