Wicked, Wicked Women by Gardner Fox - Chapter 03

1961 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Historical Fiction

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Men like Mike Gannon and Black John Bennett made their living off the Erie Canal, forever battling one another for control of canal shipping.

Women like Moira Kennally—the wanton widow turned Madam -- and the Egyptian, owner of the notorious pleasure parlor, The Golden Tassel - made their living off men like Mike and Black John, offering their passionate embraces in return for the hard-earned dollars the canalers wrested from "The Big Ditch."

Together and apart they lived and loved in a mad search for power and pleasure during one of the most turbulent eras in the mainstream of American life.

You can download the whole story from the Fox Library.

CHAPTER THREE 

Captain Mike Gannon was flipping a hawser rope from the piling on the basin dock when he heard the rattle of coach wheels. He paid no attention to them. He was overdue now on his run from Rome to Buffalo. Four days he had been held up while the town buried Richard Ames Creegan. Lost days cost him money, and he was in a sour mood. The basin dock was empty, save for himself and his driver. Everyone was gone, this hour after quitting time. 

The last rope thumped across the dock planks. 

He stepped onto the deck of the big barge. The gossip in the bars along Basin Street told him plainly enough there was no love lost between the family and the widowed Mrs. Creegan. Mike was the only friend she had, but she had ignored him. She hadn't sent for him, now that she was a rich widow. 

"Guess I'm not good enough for her anymore—her and her fancy ways and house," he grumbled, moving along the deck to the forward cabin. Beneath his feet the barge appeared to sway a little in the water. "Time was, Moira Kennally liked to talk to me.” 

His hand was on the cabin door when a voice screamed at him. "Mike—oh, Mike! Wait for me!” 

He whirled, seeing Moira Creegan in a black dress and black velvet hat running across the loading area, a bundle in her arms. With a vague uneasiness he turned away from the cabin. 

"Faith, you needn't run so fast to say good-bye,” he grinned, his good nature restored. "All you had to do was send word.” 

He became aware of her white face and the tears streaking her cheeks. He sprang forward, his hands going out to catch her by a wrist. He swung her across the water between the dock timbers and the deck of the canal barge. 

"Sure you've gone and worked yourself up into a fine fit of crying, haven't you?” And then, because he could not forget the agony of the long years without her, he added, "And what's a swell lady like yourself got to cry about? You're a rich woman—" 

"Mike, will you shut up!”

He goggled, seeing the anger flare in her face. 

She beat his chest with a fist. "Get me out of sight, you Irish lunkhead. If anybody sees me with you, it'll be too bad for both of us." 

He saw that the bundle she held was little Kathy, sleeping soundly. Something told him not to ask questions. His huge hand caught her elbow, steered her along the deck and to a low bench along the tiller-rail. 

“Sit there. If there's so much need for hurry, let me get the Lucky Penny out into the canal. Nobody will notice you here.” 

His arm made a sweeping motion to his driver who sent a ripple along his reins as his voice urged the mules against the traces. The towlines shook and lengthened, grew taut. As the hooves dug deeper into the dirt towpath, the barge slid forward through the water. Mike put a hand on the tiller, holding it steady. 

Behind him Moira Creegan wept silently, head bowed. 

For a full thirty minutes Mike let the Lucky Penny surge through the canal waters, putting distance between the Rome basin and his barge. Twilight lay in a darkening hush across the land. It was time to stop and anchor for the night but he kept putting it off, wanting to let the miles grow in his wake. Until he could see no more, he stood at his tiller. Then he called to his driver and swung his whip staff over, the huge rudder creaking as it responded. 

Moira looked up at him. “Why are we stopping, Mike? Keep going, please. If you don't, they'll catch up to us and take Kathy away from me." 

"It's night, Moira. You know canal travel as well as I do. When the sun sets, travel stops." 

"Couldn't we make an exception?” 

“And run full tilt into some other barge? I kept going a full ten minutes longer'n I should have. Maybe you'd better tell me what this is all about. You look like you've lost your last friend." 

She smiled bitterly, lips quirking downward. “I have—all except you. Richard forgot to make a new will when we married. It's that simple. Everything he had goes to his dear, dear sisters and their families. Until this afternoon I was a wealthy widow. Now I'm nothing. The Tomkinses have a police constable at the Depeyster Street house to see I take nothing away with me. ..." 

The story came out in a harsh, hollow voice as she sat rocking back and forth, arms clasping her sleeping child. Mike listened incredulously in the darkness, not stirring, not speaking until her words ran out and she sat silent and unseeing, huddled up in a knot. 

"Jesus, girl. No wonder you ran like the devil was at your heels. They want your baby, do they? Well, now. Maybe we can do something about that. Marry me and to hell with the Creegans and the Martins." 

Her smile was tender as she reached for his hand. "I ought to marry you, Mike. It's what you've always wanted. But I have no heart for marriage right now. The thought of it gags me after what I went through with my precious in laws in Phineas Davies' office." 

He frowned at the hand clinging to his own. “So you won't marry me," he growled. "All right, stand on your own feet for a while. I can wait a little longer.” 

Her head was tilted as she stared up at him. “Go on, Mike. Ask it. How am I going to support my baby? It's what you're thinking, isn't it?” 

His cheeks flushed in the darkness. "Sure, I'm a damned fool to be so obvious. You've no need to support yourself while I can move an arm and a leg. You're welcome to what I have—” 

"Mike, Mike," she whispered fiercely. "You still don't understand. I want independence! I want to be free of the need to depend on a man for support. Those few minutes with Martha and Elvira taught me a bitter lesson. I want to earn the money I need. I will earn it." 

"How?” he asked bluntly. 

"I don't know. All I can do, I suppose, is sing and play a piano." 

"You do that well enough,” he admitted. "But you know what the world thinks of a public entertainer.” 

"A harlot, you mean to say. The world thinks her a whore. Is that it, Mike?” She lifted her face and even in the darkness—there was a faint moon lifting into the sky he could see her eyes flash. 

"I guess that's what I mean," he muttered. 

"Oh, don't be shy with me. I'm a married woman now and not the virgin girl you kissed five years ago. I know the way a man is made and the things that please a man." 

"Christ, woman! Will you be still!” 

Her smile was gentle, almost tender. "Why should I be still, Michael Gannon? Do I shock you, speaking this way? Aunt Elvira and Aunt Martha as good as called me a harlot this afternoon. That's just a polite way of saying I laid Richard into his marriage bed, isn't it?" 

"Moira, you're only torturing yourself.” 

"It's time we looked at the world the way it is and not the way we'd like it to be. You wanted to marry me five years ago. I picked Richard Creegan because he was rich. I went to him a virgin, despite what his sisters think and say. Now I'm his widow and penniless. I'm on your barge and on my way to Buffalo to find employment. I don't even have enough money to pay my fare." 

"Jesus, woman! Damned if I'll listen to—" 

"Mike, you've got to listen. If you've ever loved me—if you love me now—you'll let me talk. I want you to understand me, Mike. I don't care about the rest of the world but I want you to know. 

"I'll stand on my own two feet. I insist upon it. Never again will I be beholden to any man, not even to you. Never again will I find myself in the position I'm in now, because of a man. Richard forgot to make a will though he had five years in which to do it, and so I have to run away like a common thief with my own child. Can you understand a little of what I feel right now, Mike?" 

"Och," he said furiously and stared out over the rail. 

She did not move for a long time. Then there was the rustle of a taffeta underskirt and she was at his elbow, so close that he could smell her perfume and know the touch of her flesh against his arm. 

“Do you have a place where Kathy can sleep, Mike? And a galley? I'll cook your food for you as part payment for my fare." 

Mike Gannon turned slowly. His face was hard and grim in the moonlight. “You know I'd never take payment from you, Moira Creegan, for any service you let me do for you." 

Her smile was bright. "Then it's off the barge you'll be putting us? Like skulking thieves caught stealing a penny sweet?” 

He had to laugh at her rich brogue. "All right. Come forward with me. Abe—my driver—will have brought the mules on board and tied us up by now. Come forward to the cabin with me. I'll show you where you can put the little one, and the galley where we store our food." 

Within minutes the galley was alight with two brass wall lamps. Moira stood at the tin-lined wooden sink, peeling half a dozen potatoes, with her black bombazine sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a torn cloth belted at her waist to serve as apron. Kathleen was sleeping in an improvised bed near the west wall of the main cabin. Mike stood in the companionway, his eyes eating her alive. 

"We're almost like married folks," he said at last, heavily and with wistfulness in his voice. 

“What about your driver? Will he eat with us?" 

“Not old Abe. He'd be too embarrassed. He'd a lot sooner eat with the mules than with a woman. No offense intended, of course." 

Moira laughed richly. Watching her, Mike thought glumly that if she were his wife he'd have the right to bed her whenever he felt like it. His stare slid over her round hips pressing into the black bombazine and up her side to the firm bulge made by a full, ripe breast as her fingers peeled potatoes. The way she shook under the black stuff of her dress made his mouth go dry. 

"I've a bottle of Irish whiskey stashed away somewhere in here,” he muttered. "Would you be caring for a short one?” 

Her wrist pushed back a fallen lock of thick black hair, as her blue eyes danced in amusement. "I would, Michael Gannon. Very much." 

They drank the fiery liquor and began eating the bacon and eggs and potatoes Moira had hash-browned in the big iron skillet. It was warm in the tiny galley with the stove so close to their table, and soon Moira was undoing the buttons of her standing collar, opening the dress down to the deep cleft of her bosom. Mike tried not to stare. They would be several days together on the barge. He might as well understand now there was a hands of sign on Moira Creegan. She was no Canal Street trull to tumble into his bunk with him when he crooked a finger. 

He sighed heavily and went on eating. 

Dawn found the Lucky Penny moving steadily through the canal waters past Syracuse and on into Finger Lakes country, through neat farmlands where red barns and grazing cows added a pastoral dignity to long rolling green hills and apple orchards. Stone fences divided the meadows into neat geometrical patterns. Occasionally a group of boys with fishing poles across their shoulders waved straw hats. 

Moira sat on the cabin roof braiding her black hair, comfortable in camisole and bare feet, with little Kathy playing with a toy boat Mike had whittled out of a broken capstan bar. She was a strangely contented woman this morning. Rome and the Creegan family lay far behind as the barge pushed its way toward Buffalo at a steady four knots an hour. 

From time to time she glanced shyly at Mike. He had been so happy with her last night, eating the food she cooked and helping with the dishes. There'd been something boyish about big Mike Gannon with his whistling and his jokes and the yearning to take her in his arms deep in his eyes. 

She ought not to be mooning about Mike Gannon but worrying about her future in Buffalo. She had to make a living for herself and Kathy. It might not be too easy. Mike. had hinted as much last night as they stood on the deck leaning against the rail, staring up at the moon. 

“Things aren't too good these days,” he'd said. "Money's tight, but you don't need to worry about money. I have plenty.” 

"I won't take your money, Mike. I want you to understand that." 

"You always were a proud woman," he growled.

"Too proud at least to take money from a man when I have no way of paying it back.” 

She smiled as she stretched out on the cabin roof, closing her eyes, letting the warm sun beat on her. Yesterday seemed like a nightmare, soon to be forgotten. The future was all that mattered, her future with little Kathy. She squirmed into a more comfortable position. Soon she fell asleep. 

When she woke she found it had grown chilly and that Mike had covered her with his greatcoat. Her glance went to Kathy who was sitting on the rail bench near Mike, solemnly eating a slice of bread thickly larded with butter. Mike himself seemed scarcely to have moved, still standing with the tiller in his hands, staring forward. 

Snuggling deeper into the greatcoat, she drew it about her and rose to a sitting position on the cabin roof. 

"Don't you ever get tired of just standing there?" she asked. 

Her question drew his eyes to her. He shook his head, smiling faintly. "I'm used to it. And there are worse ways to make a living.” 

"If the Creegans learn it was you who got me out of Rome you may lose your account with them.” 

"It would be a small loss, believe me.”

"I don't want to cause you trouble, Mike." 

“What trouble can the Creegans cause? Just put them out of your mind." 

She slipped off the cabin roof and came to stand beside him. "Show me how to steer the barge, Mike. I can spell you for a little while." 

He showed her the huge wooden whip-staff and the manner of its handling. In her bare feet she was much smaller than the canal man. His nearness made her heart pound, she discovered. She was forced to concentrate on what he said in order to overcome the sensual pleasure she felt as his arm went about her shoulders and his hands fell on her fingers where they held the steering pole. 

After she discovered the knack of it, she began to enjoy the sensation of playing helmsman. Her laughter rang out when she found she could control the barge with a simple motion of her arm. After a while Mike came out of the galley with hot coffee and sandwiches. 

The day went quickly. There were so many things to see at the rail—a whole new world was opening up to her. 

That night she and Kathy slept more soundly than they'd slept in a long time. The sun and the wind and all that fresh air weighted her eyelids until she almost dozed over the evening meal. Mike shooed them off to bed, assuring her he would clean up, that he was used to doing it. 

For once she did not argue. 

Two days later they were moving past Lockport, on the last leg of the trip. Tomorrow morning a little before noon they would be docking along Canal Street in Buffalo. There was a sadness in Mike Gannon as he went about roping the Lucky Penny to a canal piling. 

The past few days had been among the happiest in his life, though he felt a twinge of guilt because he held the barge almost to a crawl so as to prolong the hours. If it were up to him, the trip would never end. 

"One last night,” he muttered. After tonight Moira Creegan would go her own way. She would start a new life in which there would be no place for Mike Gannon. She might meet a man, somebody who'd catch her fancy more than he did. She might even marry him. 

He groaned. There had been a number of moments when he'd thought he'd go mad if he couldn't take her in his arms and cover her mouth with kisses. The first night they'd spent on the barge, for instance, when he'd gone into the cabin to make sure Kathy was covered and the moonlight had been so bright he could not help but glance at Moira with the covers up to her middle and only the thin lawn of her corset cover veiling her firm breasts. God! How he had wanted her! 

The way she walked about in the camisole with her hips shifting enticingly at every stride maddened him. Just to be near her was all he asked, though as a man he admitted he wanted more of her than just her company. An insatiable hunger was in him for the touch of her hand on his as they stood together at the tiller or for the sound of her laughter ringing out at something he'd said. He lived for the quiet serenity of the nights after Kathy had been put to sleep and they stood side by side at the barge rail listening to the gurgling waters and watching the lights in neighboring farms go off one by one as the world fell asleep around them. 

She felt the way he did, he was sure. A tenderness smiled out at him from her eyes at times, and she took the opportunity of brushing against him occasionally as if to reassure herself that this was no dream she lived. Twice he'd caught her in his arms to tell her how much she meant to him and to beg her to marry him, but each time she'd slipped away with low laughter bubbling in her throat. 

As he moved toward the barge galley, he paused to stare through the porthole, eyes drinking in the sight of Moira moving back and forth from stove to counter. She had only the one change of clothes, the black bombazine dress, so she was forced to make do with camisole and corset cover. Right now she wore the thin sleeveless camisole, together with a flounced petticoat. For ease of movement she'd left off her corset, and the linen clung to the rounded contours of her hips and traced the outline of firm thighs as she moved. 

Gannon felt his throat go dry. 

He wanted this woman so badly he was forced to stroll twice about the deck so that his pounding blood might quiet, so that he could walk into the galley and smile at her without reaching out and pulling her into his arms. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes, smiling faintly. 

"You were a long time tonight, Mike.”

"There was work to be done,” he muttered. 

"I thought I saw you at the porthole a little while ago. I must have been mistaken." 

"I glanced in,” he said casually, moving to the wash basin, filling it with tepid water. 

As he washed he grew aware that she stood by with a clean towel. She was too close to him in that white camisole through which he could see the enticing circles of her dark nipples. 

She held out the towel but his hands went past the coarse cotton to slide up barearms to her shoulders. "Mike," she whispered, not drawing back, just pleading with her eyes. 

"Yes," he said heavily, letting his fingers bunch in the towel. "Yes, of course." But he had the feeling that they were only putting off for a little while this need which lay between them. 

He ate slowly, eyes intent on the woman who sat across from him, who reached out to her child from time to time, making sure she finished her vegetables, buttering bread for her, seemingly unaware of the big man who kept them company. 

Mike started the dishes while Moira was putting little Kathy to bed. His every sense was alert to the sounds coming from the other room, the quick steps Moira made from the washstand to the sawed-off crate which served Kathleen as a bunk, the muffled laughter of the little girl, and the low murmured prayer she said. 

Then Moira was beside him suddenly. He had not heard her come from the inner room. The brush of her hip against his thigh and the warmth of her arm sent a flood of fire through his veins. One hand went to her hip, stroking the smooth flesh through the linen camisole and drawing her back against him. 

"Mike, I—" 

His mouth smothered her words, even as his arm circled her middle, holding her firmly. His hand turned her so that he could feel the softness of her belly pressing against him. He forced her back against the lead-lined wooden sink, letting her know the solid strength of his body. 

For an instant she was limp and boneless. Then a moan formed deep in her throat as she brought her bare arms up and locked them about his neck. She opened her mouth wide and her tongue lashed outward between his lips as she came into his arms. 

“You want me, don't you, Mike? Ah, you don't have to answer. I can tell well enough. God forgive me, I want you, too." 

She tried to fight the molten longing that filled her thighs and belly. She was Moira Kennally Creegan, not a trull off Canal Street. Though she knew Mike Gannon loved her and she loved him, this terrible throbbing in her body was like nothing she had ever known before. Unable to control her own responses, she found herself moving back and forth against him, crooning softly deep in her throat. 

"Mike, oh Mike! What are you doing to me with your kisses and your hands? I'm a married woman but I've never felt anything like this craziness—” 

Her hands were on his shirt, ripping it, and then her teeth were nibbling at the flesh of his chest. Only vaguely was she aware of his startled cry, of his delighted surprise. Her fingernails were buried in his arms and she moved steadily and urgently, linking her soft loins hotly and wantonly to him. 

Her breasts were swollen, startling white in the lamplight as his fingers drew her camisole downward. When his lips touched them, she cried out harshly. Then his arms were lifting her, carrying her across the galley and into the bunk-room. The petticoat and camisole came away as he tumbled her onto the neatly made bunk. She still wore her black silk stockings and high-buttoned shoes but above them she was naked.

"Hurry, Mike—darling!” she panted. 

His great hands ripped off his sweater and threw it aside. In a moment he towered huge and muscular above her. Seeing him so powerful and so ready, her eyes widened. Sobbing uncontrollably, she writhed across the quilt, pulling him down to her. 

Their love-making was not the tender mating it might have been five years ago but a desperate search for pleasure, an attempt to make up in this frenzied instant for all their lost yesterdays. Her agile hips drove savagely in a steadily increasing tempo and her ecstatic cries were muffled by the shoulder against which she pressed her mouth. 

During the night he drew her to him many times. Always, she came willingly, eager to be used, letting his hands and his lips take their will of her, building an urgent need in her flesh over and over again. She twisted against him, her hands fondling and caressing his hard masculine flesh until he groaned with delight. 

"Five years, Mike. We've got to make up for five wasted years! I've been a fool, darling. Make me know how much of a fool I've been. Make me, make me!” 

They fell asleep in a warm tangled heap of arms and legs.