by Craig, Emma
“Beg pardon, ma’am. I’m not sure what it means, but it sounded to me as though he knew who he was after.”
Crinkling her brow in a way that made Jed look away and groan, Tacita murmured, “How strange.”
“Yeah,” crept from his throat. He gave himself a mental punch in the jaw and told himself to keep his mind out of his drawers and on the matter at hand. “He looked to be reaching for your neck, too.”
“I thought that was just because he was going to strangle me, or—” She stopped speaking abruptly and turned a deep red. Even across the coals of their campfire in the dark of night, Jed could see her blush, and realized what she must be thinking.
Wonderful. Jed’s indelicate thoughts had apparently managed to transcend space and silence and lodge themselves in her head, too. Only she obviously wasn’t thinking of them fondly, as he was. She was thinking of them in terms of rape and savagery. He wasn’t surprised; the woman was a complete innocent.
Thrusting all of those irrelevant notions aside yet once more, Jed said stolidly, “No, I don’t think he had lovin’ on his mind, ma’am. I got the feeling he wanted something you was—were wearing or something.”
Tacita lifted a delicate hand to her throat. “Something I’m wearing? How can that be? I’m not wearing anything.”
Oh, Lordy. If only that were so. Jed administered another mental punch upside his head, this one more violent than the last. “I don’t suppose you showed anybody any jewelry or anything in Powder Gulch, did you?”
“Of course not! I’m not a fool, Mr. Hardcastle, no matter what you think of me.”
He refused to get mad. He was going to help her whether she wanted him to or not. “Hmm,” he mused mildly. “Were you wearing anything that somebody might want?”
“Certainly not.”
“Didn’t ask the sheriff or the hotel clerk to hold any jewelry for you?”
“Of course—oh.”
Sitting up straighter, his attention caught, Jed didn’t even harbor a lustful thought for a second. “You mean you did?”
Tacita pursed her lips again, and his second’s reprieve ended. He tried not to think about it.
“Well, actually, I guess I sort of might have.”
She looked troubled, her big eyes going round. He couldn’t make out their color tonight; they only seemed big and dark and sort of glowy by the light of the gleaming coals; kind of like Luggett Lake on a moonlit night after he’d been fishing all day and was feeling tired and relaxed and happy. Or the way his mama’s devil’s food cake looked after she’d iced it with that dark, dark frosting he loved so well. Her eyes were shiny like that. Only Tacita looked sweeter than any cake.
He had to swallow before he could force out the words, “What do you mean, ‘you sort of might have,’ Miss Grantham?”
“Well, Rosamunda has a pretty collar with some sapphires on it. I bought it for her because she’s such a perfect little lady, and I wanted her to have something as beautiful and precious as she was.”
She rendered her little speech into Rosamunda’s beautiful, precious fur, and Jed’s insides rebelled. Dammit, it wasn’t fair that a vicious little rat should be the object of this splendid female’s undivided affection. A man should be the recipient of her love; not some fat-nosed terror who was about as big as a minute and nastier than a nest of riled yellow jackets. Of course, Jed wasn’t thrilled by the thought of Tacita in the arms of another man, either, but he elected not to contemplate why.
Teeth clenched, he asked, “So, who’d you show this collar to anyway?”
“Well, I guess I asked the hotel clerk where I could keep it first.”
First? Oh, Lordy.
“And then, when he couldn’t help me, I guess I asked the nice gentleman at the telegraph office.”
Great. Jed shook his head slowly.
“And then he suggested I ask at the newspaper office.”
“The newspaper office,” Jed repeated, wanting to make sure he’d heard her correctly.
“Yes. Because the telegraph man said the newspaper man hated everybody else in town and probably had a safe.” She frowned. “And he did, but he hated me, too, and wouldn’t let me use it.”
“I see.”
“So then, I went to the sheriff, and he locked it in his desk drawer.” She looked brightly at Jed. “But that’s all, really. That’s not many people, and I can’t imagine any of them following us in order to get a dog’s collar.”
“Or hiring anybody to get it for them?” Jed thought about asking her why she hadn’t just posted their itinerary in the Powder Gulch Gazette in order to make it easier for anybody who wanted to follow them, but decided he’d better not.
“Oh, I don’t think any of those men would hire anybody.” Her gaze searched his face, and she looked the tiniest bit guilty. “I—I didn’t think of that, you see.”
“Yeah, I see,” said Jed, who did. “Well, isn’t this just dandy?”
Tacita frowned at him. Jed wasn’t surprised.
Chapter 7
“Do you really think that awful man found out about Rosamunda’s sapphire collar because of something I did in Powder Gulch, Mr. Hardcastle?”
Tacita had been troubled by the possibility all night long. Even though the prior day’s activities had worn her to a nub, her sleep had been restless. When she wasn’t having frightening nightmares featuring horrid men carrying off her precious darling, she’d been dreaming about Jed Hardcastle’s hands on her waist. And other places. This morning, she couldn’t have told anybody which dreams had caused her more aggravation.
“I don’t know, Miss Grantham.”
She looked up from folding her bedroll, hoping he’d expand on his answer. At the moment, he was preparing breakfast, a task he went about as he went about everything: deliberately, unrushed, but with no wasted motions. He didn’t seem inclined to grant her unspoken hope, and Tacita felt a spurt of irritation.
“Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t be so taciturn, Mr. Hardcastle!”
He did look up at that. He even spoke.
“Beg pardon?”
Feeling a little silly—after all, he hadn’t actually scolded her for telling so many people about her wealth—she murmured, “I said, I wish you weren’t so taciturn.”
His eyebrows lowered into a quizzical V and Tacita realized he didn’t know what she was talking about.
Feeling slightly superior, she said, “Taciturn. Close-mouthed. It’s from the Latin, tacitus. It means silent. It’s the same root my name came from. Tacita. Tacitus. Taciturn.”
“Your name?” Jed grinned. “Silent?”
Tacita frowned.
Rosamunda growled.
Jed’s grin got bigger. “Your folks didn’t know you very well, did they?”
Tacita had opened her mouth to sling a hot retort at him when the truth of his words struck her, right in the heart. She swallowed and looked down at her bedroll again.
“No,” she said shortly. “They did not.” And she went on about her business.
Puzzled, Jed felt his grin fade and die. Although he didn’t believe what he was about to say, he said it anyway. “It might be that Boskins wasn’t really after us, ma’am. He might have just happened on our camp.”
She only nodded, and Jed wondered what he’d said to hurt her feelings. That her parents didn’t know her? That had been meant as a joke, for heaven’s sake. He squinted hard, trying to decipher her expression. Rosamunda lifted her lip in a snarl, but Tacita didn’t say a word. Nor did she look at him.
Finally, he shrugged and went back to boiling the water for coffee.
# # #
“What do you mean you didn’t get it?” Luther Adams Williamson stared at Farley Boskins, horrified.
“It ain’t my fault,” Boskins said sulkily. “You didn’t tell me that dog of hers was crazy.”
“The dog?” Luther was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. “The dog’s smaller than your average house cat, Boskins. What did the dog have to do with it?”
Boskins shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable. “Well, its bein’ small don’t matter. The thing’s crazy.”
He had sought out Luther in the El Paso honky-tonk that Luther had usurped for his headquarters. It was the only place in town where he could be assured of a steady supply of calming liquids. Even though he’d consumed a number of such refreshing beverages already today, Boskins’s news precipitated the need for another. Luther lifted his beer mug with a shaky hand and downed its contents.
“So the dog bit you and you failed in your mission.” He could hardly believe it. On the other hand, why shouldn’t he? Everything else had gone wrong in his life lately. Why not this?
Oh, if only Tarkington hadn’t had the bad manners to die! Tarkington Daugherty Grantham, Luther’s brother-in-law, had more or less kept Luther afloat for years. And then he himself had sunk, along with Luther’s sister Madeline. Luther hadn’t had a lick of luck since. A little more than a year since the death of his sister and brother-in-law he’d managed to get himself so deeply in debt, he was actually trying to steal from his own niece. The truth made him feel guilty, which made him need another drink, so he took one.
“It did more than just bite me,” Boskins said sulkily.
Luther frowned up at him. “Well, you’re not getting your bonus until you get the Eye. Agrawal’s patience is wearing thin, and so is mine.”
Boskins plopped himself down in a chair, making Luther’s frown deepen. “Now you looky here, Williamson, I think I deserve that there bonus. You didn’t tell me that animal was loco. I’d’a charged more if I’d’a known. Why, I might coulda got hydrophobia.” He looked sorely aggrieved, which didn’t add to his overall appeal.
Recognizing a vulnerable spot in a man who scared him, Luther prodded it. He even gave an experimental derogatory snort before he said, “That dog isn’t big enough to spit on. If that’s all that kept you from doing your job, I expect a whole lot of people would like to know about it.” He also gave an experimental sneer. “Wouldn’t want any of them to put you up against a bigger animal. For instance, I reckon a cow’d about do you in, wouldn’t it?”
Boskins leapt up from his chair again, knocking it over backwards and startling a small squeal from Luther, who feared he’d gone too far. He closed his eyes tightly and started to shake.
“Don’t you tell nobody, you hear?”
Luther’s eyes popped open when Boskins’s whine smote his ears. He stared up at the vicious criminal, whom Luther knew had slain any number of enemies, and almost gasped to encounter the pleading expression on his face. Because he was still too scared to form coherent words, he gulped and didn’t answer.
“Please, Mr. Williamson?”
The whine was more pronounced this time, and Luther came to the astonishing conclusion that Boskins feared for his reputation as a stalwart and violent hired assassin. The knowledge emboldened him. Although he’d was still too frightened to produce another sneer, he did manage a cocky head toss.
“Well, I might be persuaded to keep it to myself if you go back and finish the job.”
Boskins sat down and proceeded to look surly once more. “Hell, Mr. Williamson, there ain’t no way I can get to ‘em now before they reach Alamogordo and board that there train.”
Contemplating his beer, Luther made some quick calculations in his head and moaned mentally when he realized Boskins was right. He decided he’d better not risk aggravating his companion by pointing out that it was his own failure that had caused the problem. He didn’t quite trust Boskins not to shoot him should he get angry enough.
He said, “Hmmm.” Then he said, “Mmmm.”
Boskins kept his own counsel.
When a silky voice floated over them like an exotic, silken fabric, Boskins looked up, intrigued. Luther uttered a little scream and spilled his beer.
“I see you are consulting with your minion, Mr. Williamson.”
Although Luther had squeezed his eyes shut and begun to pray, sure his end had come, after several seconds passed and he was still breathing, he dared to open them again. He peeked up. Then he shut his eyes once more.
“M-M-Mr. Agrawal,” he stammered, sounding more like a strangled chipmunk than a man.
Agrawal bowed, an elegant gesture oddly out of place in the beery honky-tonk. “As you see, my dear sir.”
He nodded to a large fellow standing directly in back of him who was garbed in the Indian fashion. The man pulled out a chair, and Agrawal eyed it with distaste. His employee then pulled out a handkerchief and flicked it over the chair. After inspecting it once more, Agrawal sat.
“So, do you have the Eye, my good Mr. Williamson?” He spared a smile for Boskins, who stared at him, his mouth hanging open.
Luther knew he had to gather his wits together and come up with a plausible answer. He had to be smooth. He had to be urbane and dignified. He had to show this Agrawal fellow that he was every bit as sophisticated as he was. Besides, if he fumbled, he was a dead man.
Unfortunately, that last thought was the one he carried with him when he screeched, “No!” He swallowed convulsively several times. “No! This idiot couldn’t get it. Said that dog attacked him and ran him off.”
Boskins’ mouth shut with a clack of teeth. “Well, it did.”
Agrawal tutted several times. “What shall we do, then, my dear friend? I know I needn’t remind you of the promise you made to me.” He smiled a smile that was slick enough to set Luther’s heart to rattling like a hailstorm in his chest. “Not to mention the quite large sum of money I’ve already paid you to secure the Eye.”
“I know. I know,” Luther muttered. He wished he hadn’t spilled his beer. He needed a drink desperately. Since Boskins seemed to be ignoring his own glass, Luther grabbed it and downed the contents.
“Hey!”
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—something he’d never done before in his life—Luther muttered, “Sorry. Thought it was mine.”
Agrawal put his hands together in a gesture Luther’d most often seen used in prayer. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he feared Agrawal wasn’t praying.
“So, you have failed to secure the Eye again. Whatever shall we do about this problem, my dear Mr. Williamson?”
“I’ll get it,” Luther said quickly. “I was just thinking of ways to get it. I’ll get it. Honest. I’ll think of a way.”
Silence—and a tiny smile that made his blood run cold—greeted Luther’s stuttering promises. After fully long enough for Luther to get light-headed from hyperventilating, Agrawal said, “Ah.” Then he said, “Hmmm.” Then he said nothing at all for at least three minutes.
To Luther, those minutes might have been hours. He discovered himself sinking lower and lower in his chair, until Agrawal’s hired man plucked him by the collar and tugged him upright. He screamed again.
Shaking his head, his face a mask of spurious sympathy, Agrawal said, “Tut, tut, my dear friend. You really should do something about your nerves.”
“I am,” Luther declared, grabbing his empty beer mug.
“That’s not what I meant,” Agrawal said gently.
“I’ll get the Eye,” Luther choked out. “I’ll get it. Honest.”
Agrawal shook his head. Luther nearly cried.
“Oh, I will! Honest. Just give me another little while, and I’ll get it. I promise.”
Agrawal’s smile could have been used by an artist to depict Pure Evil, as far as Luther was concerned.
“Ah, my friend. Please do not believe that I do not trust you. Why, I know you would not attempt to—what is that quaint expression you Americans use? Weasel out? Yes, I believe that is the one. I know you would never attempt to weasel out of our little bargain.”
Luther shook his head so hard his hat fell off and said, “No. No, never I’d never do that!”
“Just so.”
Luther sighed with relief.
“However—”
Luther’s relief died.
“—I believ
e that perhaps you are not equipped for this type of operation, my friend. No, indeed. Not by—what is it you Americans say?—not by a jugful?—yes, that is it. You are not equipped by a jugful, sir. I believe that I should step in and direct matters.”
Luther stared at him, wondering what this new wrinkle meant.
“No, my friend, I fear you are not furnished with the necessary endowments for this sort of exploit at all.” He turned to Boskins. “Is it possible to secure a private train to San Francisco in this town, my dear sir?”
Boskins pulled on his lower lip, frowned and concentrated on Agrawal’s question for a moment. The expression made him resemble a gargoyle Luther had found particularly repulsive the last time he was in Paris, and he looked away.
After a few seconds Boskins said, “I expect so, if’n you pay enough.”
“Money, my friend, is no object. We have a holy artifact to return to its home.”
“That so?” Boskins looked almost interested.
Agrawal smiled again, reminding Luther of cobras and cougars and other sneaky, deadly things.
He croaked out, “What about me?”
Agrawal’s glittery gaze seemed to bore into him. He got so nervous, he forgot Agrawal’s man stood behind him and tried to rise from his chair, only to encounter a large, beefy hand pressing down on his shoulder.
“You will come with me, Mr. Williamson.” Agrawal nodded, never taking his gaze from Luther. “Yes indeed. I believe it would be best for you to come with me.”
This time, Luther did faint.
# # #
Jed, Tacita and Rosamunda resumed their journey early in the morning, traveling alongside the river once more. This path was much more pleasant than jostling across the prairie had been, although Rosamunda still considered the territory a certain kind of hell. Thank God for rabbit fur.
“You know, Rosamunda, darling, I’m beginning to like Mr. Hardcastle, after a fashion. He’s actually rather sweet underneath all that smelly buckskin and rough frontier nonsense.”
Rosamunda stared at her mistress, confounded. She was, in fact, too shocked even to snarl when Jed gave Tacita a warm smile over his shoulder.