It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) Read Online Free Page B

shouted to the man at the piano. “Go get a wagon hitched up so they get Judd up to a doctor. Have the men pack the woman up to Pepper’s room.”
    “My room?” Pepper moaned. “You can’t put her there.”
    “I own this place,” April huffed. “I can put her any place I please. Now take it easy, boys. Don’t spill any blood on the divan. That stuff never comes up.”
    “Wait .  . . you can’t take her to my room.”
    “You take the night off, honey. We ain’t goin’ to have no one dyin’ down here in the dance hall," April informed her.
    “I don’t want the night off. Put her in Selena’s room. She ain’t wantin’ to work tonight anyway.”
    The dark-skinned Selena Oatley stared with narrow eyes at Pepper. “I ain’t never said I didn’t want to work tonight.”
    “You told me and Danni Mae you were goin’ to fake bein’ sick just to avoid that rough bunch that’s been hangin’ around.”
    “That’s a lie, you yellow-haired sow. I ain’t never said that."
    “You did too, and you know it, you half-breed,” Pepper hissed.
    Instantly, Selena whipped a knife out from under the folds of her dress. “You want to get laid out like this other blonde?” she taunted.
    “I ain’t afraid of you or that knife,” Pepper mocked. “You never done nothin’ more serious than pick out splinters with that blade."
    “Pepper,” April Hastings injected, “we’re taking her to your room. You’ll get paid tonight just like the others. Now git your curly head up those stairs. If you two get in another cat fight, one of ya is leavin’. Is that clear?”
    “It ain’t fair. I can’t put little Miss Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
    “Jist make her comfortable and find out her next of kin,” April Hastings instructed. “It’s the kind of thing every one of us would want for ourselves.”
    Hiking up the stairs behind the men carrying the woman, Pepper muttered, “Pepper, you take care of her. Pepper, you do this. Pepper, you do that. The whole bunch is jealous. I’m the one the boys come here to be with. Beckett and the others don’t go chasin’ her around the table with their tongues lollin’ out. Selena! Hah! She has to stand in line for the leftovers. Sure, let’s get Pepper off the floor tonight. She pulls that knife on me again, and I’ll take it and slice her.”
    “Did you say somethin’, ma’am?” one of the men asked.
    “It’s none of your fat-bellied business,” she snapped.
    “But which one is your lodging?” the startled man r eplied.
    Pepper looked back, then said, “Jist put her in that sloppy room down at the end of the hall.”
    A voice boomed from the dance floor, “Don’t you put her in my place, you Jezebel.”
    Pepper scowled, then m otioned. “This is my room . . . wait! Don’t put her on my quilt. Oh, that’s great. Sure, let her bleed all over my stuff.”
    After the men left, Pepper surveyed the small, dark room and her badly injured patient lying on the wood-framed bed. She strolled to the dresser and turned up the la ntern. Then she pulled the combs out of her hair and shook the curls down to her shoulder. Slowly she unbuttoned the sleeves of her dress and rolled them up above her elbows as she stared into the mirror.
    Pepper, you lucky devil. What a fine life you found for yourself. A magnificent home. A loving fa mily. Surrounded by such close, caring friends. You’ve got it all, girl. Why, women all over the world would sell their souls to be right here . . . and that’s about what it’s costin’ me.
    She reached up as if to brush back a tear .  . . but there weren’t any.
    Picking up the wash basin and a towel, she walked over to the woman on the bed. “Darlin’, it’s time to see what you got.”
    Pepper spent the next hour cleaning and redressing the severe head wound, tugging off the torn dark dress, and tucking the woman under the covers of her bed. As she did, she could hear noise from downstairs and out in the hallway as