“Zoe, a man over there needs a room,” Liza informed her the moment she reached the floor. The blonde pointed to the end of the bar where a man in a large Stetson sat drinking.
“Thank you,” Zoe replied as she walked toward the man. “Hello there, stranger,” she greeted him with a smile. “Liza tells me you need a room. How many nights you’re thinkin’ of?”
“Three to start,” he stated. “How much will that be?” he asked without looking up.
“Two dollars,” Zoe answered. She looked him over carefully, especially the two guns that hung from his belt.
He put the money on the bar top without a question and looked up. “Where is it?”
Zoe turned and took a key from the rack behind her. She looked for Liza but the girl was busy tending to other patrons. “Bernadette,” she called to the brunette. She was a single mother who worked serving drinks to support her small son.
“Yes, Zoe?” she answered as she approached.
“Take…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” she stated as she turned to the stranger.
“Mortensen,” the man answered shortly.
She smiled. “Could you take Mr. Mortensen to his room?”
“Sure thing, Zoe,” Bernadette answered. “Follow me.”
Zoe watched as Bernadette led the man up the stairs and to the left. She put him in the only available room, the one next-door to Victor’s. She hoped he kept his promise and was gone before the sun was up. She didn’t like the feeling in her stomach at having him there. He was in trouble and whatever it was, she didn’t want it winding up at her door.
Suddenly, the sound of shots rang out and Zoe’s heart erupted in her chest as she looked around nervously. Several people ducked, eager to get out of harm’s way. However, there was no gunman and the sounds continued. Everyone in the room was looking around. Was it coming from the street? Those closest to the windows didn’t react as if there was something to see outside. What was happening?
Zoe stepped out from behind the bar and began to follow the sound that was disturbing her customers. It led her to the piano, and behind it, she found Timothy, Bernadette’s seven-year-old son, with a handful of firecrackers.
“Timothy,” she chided as she grabbed the child by his arm and yanked him to his feet. She snatched the firecrackers from his hand. “What’re you doin’ with these?” she asked sharply.
“Playing,” the boy replied timidly. He hung his head. “Sorry, Miss Zoe.”
“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be when your mother gets hold of you,” Zoe answered. No sooner were the words released from her lips than Bernadette reappeared.
“Timothy?” she called when she arrived at the scene. “What have you done? I’m so sorry, Miss Zoe,” she apologized.
“It’s fine. Just take him back to bed. This is no place for a child,” she instructed.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bernadette answered. She took Timothy by the ear and led him into the back. “Now what did I tell you ‘bout playin’ out here?” she scolded as she led the boy away.
Zoe returned to the bar, but on her way, her eyes rose to the upstairs hall where Victor was hiding. The sooner he left, the better, then her nerves could be at rest.
Chapter Three
Quinn jumped awake in a dimly lit room. His hand immediately reached up and grasped at the starburst wound just below his left shoulder. His breathing was ragged and sweat dripped from his brow. Strands of black hair stuck to his face and neck. He looked around him.
Light was coming in through the window. It had to be around nine or maybe later, but it wasn’t quite noon. Quinn rose from the bed and walked barefoot over to the small table by the window. His long black hair fell across his face. Shaniko was busy, carts were rolling through the streets and people were walking on the sidewalk; people who may have seen Victor.
The sun fell upon Quinn, warming his skin. He looked down at the spot where his hand still remained. He could still remember the day he had gotten that wound. The day he’d learned just how deadly Victor Norton could be. He’d been lucky. If the bullet had been a few inches lower, he’d be sleeping in a grave somewhere in Wyoming. Thankfully, God was on his side.
Immediately, he thought of last night. Quinn could still see it in his mind. He stood facing Victor, both ready for a fight. Then an errant fork of lighting struck near the cabin, erupting the room in blinding light. They both fired and Quinn dove aside. He heard the bullet whistle past his ear as he fell, and Victor roared in pain. He knew then that he’d struck him. However, the man was quick. A crash of glass followed and Quinn peeked around the corner of the box he hid behind, to find Victor was gone. His only satisfaction was that Victor now had a wound. Hopefully, it would slow him down.
Quinn dipped his hands in the basin that sat on the table. The water was cold but he didn’t care, he cupped it and poured it over his neck. The temperature made his skin prickle but he continued. First, his neck, before he used the cloth the waitress had left behind to wash the cold liquid over his torso and under his arms. He had work to get to and he had no time to waste.
It wasn’t much later that he was locking the door to his room and heading out. The saloon was different in the light of day. The room was empty save the bartender and a single barmaid that he didn’t recognize from the night before. He went to the man who had served him. His name was Barber.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, as he dried the inside of a glass beer mug.
“I’m looking for the proprietor,” Quinn said frankly. “Where is he?”
“She, isn’t here right now,” Barber answered.
“She?” Quinn repeated. A woman was responsible for running this place?
“You met her last night, don’t you remember?” Barber elaborated as he continued drying mugs.
Quinn rifled through his thoughts, trying to decipher who the woman might be. Then he saw her in his mind. She was tall, slender with dark red hair that looked almost brown, and had delicate features. Her eyes were hazel and she had dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. “The woman who gave me the room key?” he questioned.
“Said same one,” Barber replied. “Her name is Miss Zoe Ferguson and she owns this ‘ere hotel and saloon. And who might you be, stranger? I didn’t quite get yer name last night.”
“Mortensen,” Quinn answered. “Quinn Mortensen.”
“Well, Mr. Mortensen, since Miss Zoe isn’t’ ‘ere, what can I do for you?”
Quinn stepped towards one of the barstools and took a seat. “You can give me some information.”
“It depends on what kind of information you be lookin’ fer,” Barber replied.
“I need to know if you’ve seen this man?” Quinn asked as he pulled a picture of Victor Norton from his breast pocket and slid it across the bar. Barber took it and looked it over closely.
“Can’t say that I have,” the bartender answered as he pushed the picture back across the bar top.
“What about Miss Zoe, maybe she saw him?” Quinn questioned.
Barber chuckled. “Now I can’t answer that,” he said. “But anythin’s possible. Miss Zoe knows a lotta people in town and out. There’s a chance she might know the man.”
Quinn’s brow pinched together. “How is it that Miss Zoe came to own this place?” he asked. “It’s not something you usually see.”
Barber laughed again. “Yer not from ‘round ‘ere, are yuh?”
“No. I’m from Boston,” Quinn replied.
“That explains it,” the bartender continued. “Back there, women may not hold much sway, but ‘round ‘ere, they can do a lot more. Men come to places like this hoping to strike it rich and make a name for themselves, but they still need someone to clean their clothes, sew their socks, and make pies. Women who come ‘ere and understand that, can make themselves quite wealthy. Miss Zoe understood it when she came to Shaniko six years ago. She started a small meal business that grew into this. Now she’s the most influential woman in town.”
Quinn
nodded his head at the tale. “Then she’s just the person I need to see. Thanks for the information,” he said as he slid a few coins across the table. “For your trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Barber called after him.
Quinn lowered his hat over his head as he stepped outside. The sun was far too bright and his eyes still stung from lack of sleep. It was something he should’ve been used to, but it always took some adjusting to when he got those few hours of rest.
The first place that caught his eye was the public bathhouse right next door to The Red Stallion. He smirked. “Perfect place to have it,” he said to himself. The public baths were a popular feature out west, where most couldn’t afford to have indoor plumbing. “C. Cleaver’s Tonsorial and Bathhouse,” Quinn read aloud. “Fifty cents for first water, twenty-five cents for used water, and twenty cents for soap and a towel.”
Quinn continued down the street as he familiarized himself with his surroundings. It was the first thing any good bounty hunter did. He assessed his situation. He needed to know all the ways in and out of town, and the best places to hide. If Victor was still nearby, he was going to find him. He couldn’t have gone far; Quinn knew he’d hit him at the house. The sound of Victor’s pain and the blood Quinn found after his escape into the storm confirmed it. However, Quinn had no idea how severe the injury was. He hoped it was enough to slow the man down for a while. Quinn couldn’t help but hope that it was enough to stop him permanently, but Victor had a way of escaping his punishments.
The town was built around two main streets. On one side was The Red Stallion, the bathhouse, the bank, the general store, and the boarding house at the end. On the other side, was the station, which doubled as the post and telegraph office, next to that was the trading post and then the sheriff’s office. At the very outskirts of town, right before the plain, was the church, a single-story building with one tall steeple. The houses were mostly on the second street, circling the first as if it were a heart.
Quinn removed his hat and ran a large hand through his shoulder-length hair. It was uneven and mostly unkempt. It had been far too long since he had sat in a barber’s chair. He did all his grooming himself, mostly on the road without the use of a mirror. He did his best and it didn’t matter to him who liked it or not. He set his hat back on his head.
All of the buildings in town were made of sturdy wood and more than half were two-stories tall, with only a few single-story buildings in-between. The streets were ingeniously designed to provide a place to walk for pedestrians, with paths built up in the mud between buildings to ensure that those walking stayed out of the muck.
“They could use some of these back home,” Quinn commented. It then struck him that Boston might already have the same thing, after all, it had been a long time since he had been home.
The thought of home brought a sudden and unexpected sadness to Quinn’s heart. Five years ago, he left the only home he’d known in pursuit of a man who had stolen the very heart of a woman by taking her sons.
However, he left his own mother, to pursue his cause and since then she’d heard little of him. It wasn’t easy staying in contact while on the road. The life of a bounty hunter was predominantly a lonely one. Quinn spent most of his nights sleeping under the stars on the hard earth or in the saddle. There was no time to write home and tell his mother and father where he was.
Though he was sure they would worry, he hoped they trusted him enough to know that he would do everything to stay safe. One day, he would go home. He hoped soon. However, he didn’t want to go home unless he had some good news to share; news that would make a weary mother happy to hear for the sake of her sons. He needed to get back to work.
Quinn wandered the streets of Shaniko purposefully. There were five possible exits that were well-travelled; the two main ends of the main street, then there was a path between the trading post and the general store that led to a narrow, stony path. The other two were on the other side of town, one beside the bathhouse and the other before the sheriff’s office. Their paths were broader, and the easiest way of fleeing, but they were also the most obvious. Victor would never use them. He would be too easily seen. No, he would choose one of the others for his escape. Quinn would follow those paths first, once he had established that Victor was no longer in the town of itself.
A head of blonde hair darted in front of him and Quinn recognized it immediately. It was the girl from the saloon, the waitress who had directed him to Miss Zoe. Perhaps she knew where she was. Quinn followed her, hoping to catch up.
The young woman moved so quickly. Her legs were short but her strides were quick. It was almost as if she was racing somewhere. He wondered if she was, and if so, where was she heading to? Where was she coming from?
Quinn stuck close to the buildings as he followed the woman. He needed to know where she was going and if by chance it had anything to do with Victor. The man had people in town, Quinn was sure of it—perhaps this woman was one of them—she certainly was his type. Victor had a penchant for diminutive women who weren’t very pretty but weren’t homely, either.
Victor Norton liked his women just in-between; pretty enough for him to look at but not so pretty they thought too much of themselves. They were easier to manipulate that way. He treated them like queens and allowed their insecurities to do the rest. By the time he was done with them, they’d do anything he wanted. Quinn had seen it too many times in the past five years. It no longer surprised him.
He followed the woman for several minutes, but it didn’t take long to deduce that she wasn’t on some secret mission on Victor Norton’s behalf. She rushed to the general store where she purchased some ribbons, buttons, candy, and a hammer. Then she went on to the post office to pick up her mail before turning back toward the boarding house.
She’s one of those mail-order brides? Quinn wondered as he followed her. She was greeted by the matron of the place, a stout woman in her early fifties, with salt and pepper hair and a fondness for buns in her hair, by the two that marked either side of her head.
“No, she definitely can’t be working with Victor,” Quinn said to himself as he turned away from the boarding house. Victor would never allow himself to be involved with a woman who had so many rules to live by. Quinn had encountered a number of those types of houses in his travels. There were very clear rules which dictated the actions of the women, and curfews were set in place. This one may have been more lax to allow the young woman to work to the hours she had, but he was sure there were rules that kept her movements limited otherwise. The merchandise’s purity had to be ensured.
Quinn hated mail-order brides. He found the entire thing degrading, but he was in the minority. The movement of women across the plains to the west was a lucrative business that many were engaging in. The entire process had evolved from a single letter in a newspaper, to companies with overseas contracts, who were bringing women in from as far afield as England and Ireland, to find them suitable mates in the west.
He continued his search for the elusive Miss Zoe. It was really beginning to look as if she might be the only person in town who might have some information that could help him. Everyone he met either avoided him or didn’t know who Victor was, and Quinn was good at detecting a lie, and he found none. The people of Shaniko seemed as oblivious to the fact that a serial killer was amongst them as they were about what weather to expect the next day.
Then he saw her.
Miss Zoe was stepping out of the boarding house with a basket in her arms. She was smiling brightly, the dimples in her cheeks sinking in so deeply that one could lose a coin in them. She was talking to the blonde woman as she departed and it was clear that their conversation amused them. He hated to interrupt but he was going to. He was sure that whatever they were speaking of was hardly as important as catching a killer.
Quinn strode quickly towards them, his boots squelching in the soft muddy streets as he crossed to the other side. He darted between oncoming carriages in the process,
sidestepping mules on their way with deliveries in the wagons they drew. He thanked God that Shaniko wasn’t nearly as busy as Boston, or he’d have a much harder time of crossing the street.
He never took his eyes off of the woman. He wasn’t about to lose her. Her back was to him as he approached—the other woman had disappeared inside—but before Miss Zoe could turn around he grabbed her by the arm. She turned and snatched it away with an incredulous look.
“Mr. Mortensen, what’s the meaning of this?” she demanded as she stepped back.
“I’m sorry to approach you like this, Miss Zoe,” he said as he removed his hat and held it over his chest as he looked at her. He continued, “I need your help.”
She looked at him skeptically and Quinn could see the caution and the questions in her hazel eyes even before she spoke. “What help can I be to you? I hardly know you.”
Quinn looked at her directly. “Maybe the greatest help I’ve had in the past five years, if you can answer my question.”
“What question is that?” Miss Zoe replied as she folded her arms protectively over her chest and continued to look at him curiously.
“Do you know Victor Norton?”
Chapter Four
Zoe couldn’t get Mr. Mortensen’s question out of her head. It repeated in her mind continuously as they walked back to The Red Stallion. She eyed him closely as he strode quietly beside her. What kind of man was he, and what did he want with Victor?
Zoe was no fool. She wasn’t about to tell him anything about Victor Norton. She owed him too much and he would never let her forget it, besides, she didn’t want to get involved in whatever mess the man had gotten himself into. Most believed Victor to be an animal, a brute, but there was another side to him that others rarely saw.
Zoe had been fortunate to see Victor’s other side many times since they met. He was different with women than he was with men. He was kinder, gentler, and more patient. Men evoked the worst in him. Zoe had often wondered why. However, the stories she heard of his father seemed proof enough. A violent man produced another violent man.
For the Love of a Wounded Cowboy: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 30