by Craig, Emma
And what would happen to Rosamunda after she was gone? Now that she could breathe again, Tacita was able to think about her pet. Good heavens, Jed couldn’t have gone into some kind of vile partnership with that horrid Mr. Picinisco, could he? She hugged Rosamunda more closely and stared, wild-eyed, up at him.
“Poison? What poison?” He still looked worried. He even sounded worried.
How contemptible of him to pretend innocence! Tacita scrunched back against the tree, sat up straighter, and scrambled for her shredded composure. If she was destined to die, she at least wanted to do it with dignity.
“Don’t be coy with me, Mr. Hardcastle,” she said in a hard, sarcastic voice. “I know what you’re up to.”
“Are you still feverish, ma’am?”
His pretense sickened her. “Stop it! I can’t imagine anyone being so vile as to murder someone just to get at their dog!”
“Huh?”
“I know you tried to poison me with that evil tea of yours. Well, you may be able to kill my body, but you can’t kill my spirit!” Even though she was trying to be strong, Tacita began to weep again, thinking about what would undoubtedly happen to Rosamunda after her demise.
Jed’s eyes widened. He looked even more frightened. “Oh, Lord,” he whispered. “Oh, Lord, it’s worse than I thought. She’s delirious.”
“Stop it! Stop pretending innocence, you murderer. I know you want me out of the way so you can sell my darling Rosamunda!”
All at once Jed straightened. He unclasped his hands. He stared. “Huh?”
“I know everything. You can stop acting now.” With an indignant sniffle, she added, “You’re a terrible actor.”
Jed leaned closer. Tacita shrank back. He reached out and pressed a hand against her forehead, as if testing for fever. Tacita stopped Rosamunda from attacking his hand and then wondered why she’d bothered.
“You don’t feel hot,” he said, sounding bemused.
Tacita tossed her head and huffed indignantly. “Of course, I don’t feel hot. Not unless the poison you shoved down my throat gives one a fever before it kills one.”
Straightening up again, Jed put his hands on his hips and considered her. She wished she didn’t still find him so attractive. She must have a weak character, indeed, if she could find her own murderer attractive right after he’d tried to kill her. It was a lowering reflection, although she guessed it wouldn’t plague her for long. She wondered when the poison would begin to take effect and hoped it wouldn’t hurt when it did.
“You mean you weren’t sick?”
His voice sounded funny. Tacita glared at him. “What on earth are you talking about?” The disagreeable aroma of the awful mixture he’d poured down her throat still lingered in the air, probably because he’d spilled a lot of it on her shirtwaist. Tacita hoped to heaven it would wash out. Then her heart squeezed when she realized she’d never know if it did or not because she’d be dead.
“B-but I thought you were sick.”
Eyeing him sharply, Tacita didn’t say anything for a moment. She examined his expression and his posture and had to admit that he looked genuinely worried.
Cautiously, she asked, “Whatever do you mean?”
He cleared his throat. “I—I thought you were sick, ma’am. Tacita. I—I got scared. That’s why I made up my ma’s special tea.”
“You thought I was sick?”
He nodded.
She still didn’t trust him. Oh, he looked worried—even frightened—but she didn’t believe it. Why on earth would he think she was sick? Even if he did think she was sick, why would he be frightened? It certainly couldn’t be for her welfare. In her entire life, nobody had ever worried about her welfare The fact no longer bothered her much; Tacita was accustomed to the world’s indifference.
“And that’s why you poisoned me?”
Perhaps this was some sort of bizarre western custom: to kill the ill and weak so as to prevent them from delaying the wagon train or something. Not that they were on a wagon train. Not that Jed had any reason other than Tacita to go to San Francisco. At least, no reason she knew about. She still didn’t believe him.
This time he shook his head. “I didn’t poison you, ma’am.”
Tacita sniffed indignantly. “Oh, come now, Mr. Hardcastle. You can’t really expect to fool me. I was here, remember? It was I down whose throat you poured that vile liquid.”
“That was my ma’s special tea, ma’am.”
She gave him an acid smile. “Of course it was.”
She almost shrieked in alarm when he fell to his knees in front of her.
“It was, ma’am! Honest. My ma makes it special out of willow bark and other stuff she grows in her garden back home in Busted Flush. It’s powerful.”
“It certainly is.”
“No. I mean it’s powerful medicine.”
With a thought to the dime novels she’d read, Tacita said tartly, “You sound like an Indian, Mr. Hardcastle.”
“It cures fever.”
Her brows drew together. “I can believe it. No self-respecting fever would be caught dead in the same body with that awful tea of yours.”
“Don’t say that!”
Her brows shot up again. “Don’t say what?”
“Dead. Don’t say that. It—it scares me.”
She didn’t respond at once, but continued watching Jed suspiciously. Taking note of his expression, she did have to grant that he looked sincere. Of course, she supposed most of the best confidence men in the world looked sincere or they wouldn’t be successful.
“I thought you were sick, ma’am. Tacita. I—I got scared. That’s why I made up my ma’s special tea. I’ve never had to use it before.”
“I’m sure your prior customers are grateful.”
He didn’t seem to notice her sarcasm. “I—I just got real scared when I thought you were sick, ma’am. I didn’t say anything about it, because I didn’t want you to worry.”
Frowning, Tacita watched him carefully for some minutes, silent.
If what he said was true, Tacita had to acknowledge that his motives were pure. Even sweet. Imagine him not wanting to worry her by voicing his suspicions that she was ill. Giving another thought to her life before Jed, she decided she didn’t quite believe him yet. After all, nobody else had ever cared if she were ill or not. It would be imprudent of her to allow her heart to accept what it wanted to hear when indications pointed elsewhere. She most assuredly wasn’t sick. Tacita never got sick.
“What made you think I was ill?”
He spread his hands out in a helpless gesture. “You were so quiet. I never heard you be so quiet before.” Bowing his head, he whispered, “I was sure you were fevered and going to die. It scared me.”
“You thought I was sick because I was quiet?”
His eyes still aimed at the ground Jed nodded. “I ain’t—I never saw you be quiet before. I thought sure you was—were sick. My ma says people get quiet when they’re in the grip of fever.”
Tacita wasn’t sure what to make of Jed’s confession. After mulling it over for a second or two, she decided she wasn’t flattered. “Are you saying that I’m usually garrulous, Mr. Hardcastle? That I—rattle on?”
His nod came immediately. He lifted his head and smiled at her hopefully, as if he were glad she understood now.
“Yes’m. That’s it, all right. You gen’ly rattle on until my ears ache. When you was so quiet yesterday I didn’t think anything of it. When you were still quiet today, I was sure you were sick. It scared the pants off me, ma’am.”
Tacita hardly noticed his indelicate phrasing which, under normal circumstances, would have offended her. She was already offended.
“Why, of all the nerve! You actually made me drink that horrid stuff because I was being quiet?”
“Yes’m.”
Incensed now, she continued, “Well I like that! You thought I was sick, when for the last two days I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think how on earth to as
k you to make love to me!”
As soon as the words left her lips, Tacita blushed.
Jed was so shocked, he fell over.
Rosamunda barked violently.
Chapter 13
“You—you—” Jed stared at her. “You—what?” He sat in the dirt, bracing himself on his hands to keep from tumbling over backwards. His eyes had gone as round as billiard balls.
Tacita wished fervently that she’d not been mistaken in his motives. She’d rather die an agonizing death by poison than face Jedediah Hardcastle after having made such a scandalous confession.
“Nothing,” she mumbled.
Rosamunda was barking so savagely Tacita couldn’t even hear herself. She knew good and well Jed couldn’t hear her. If only the silly dog had decided to bark a few seconds earlier. Feeling guilty about her unkind thought, Tacita hugged Rosamunda and muttered, “Hush, darling,” without much conviction.
To Jed she said, “Nothing,” more loudly.
He shook his head hard, reminding Tacita of Rosamunda after her bath. “It wasn’t nothing. It was something.” His voice was more gravelly than usual.
Tacita averted her head, annoyed. She wished Rosamunda would be quiet. She also wished Jed would stop staring at her in that unseemly manner. Not that it was any more unseemly than her own declaration had been.
But that was the whole point. A true gentleman would pretend he hadn’t heard her. She sniffed and for the first time wished Jed bore more resemblance to some of the stuffy businessmen she’d known back home in Galveston. The ones who never talked about their families or paid any attention to her.
“What did you say, ma’am?” He cleared his throat. “Er, that is, would you mind repeating what you just said?”
Oh, this was simply impossible. Feeling sorely put upon, Tacita snapped, “I said, I was quiet because I was trying to think of a way to ask you to make love to me.”
There! Let him chew on that for a while!
“You—you want me to make love to you?”
He still sounded punchy. Tacita wanted to punch him. She glared at him instead. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Are you happy now?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time. Tacita continued to scowl, wishing he’d say something. Or that the world would open up and swallow her.
Nothing so convenient happened, of course. Jed stared at her as if one of them had lost his or her mind until she wanted to shriek. Then, all at once, he shoved himself up from the ground.
“Wait there.”
And with those two curt words, he turned. As Tacita watched, dismayed, he took off toward the stream and vanished into the trees growing along its bank.
Her lips trembled and she wondered when she’d ever learn to keep her foolish mouth shut.
# # #
The train that had been specially commissioned by Avinash Agrawal arrived in Santa Fe in time to meet the train Tacita Grantham and Jed Hardcastle were supposed to be on. When the train arrived, however, neither Tacita nor Jed got off of it. Instead, they learned the two had disembarked at the prior train station, after having been burgled by an Indian man named Virendra Karnik.
The porter who gave them the information chuckled. “Yes, suh! That little dog of hers liked to chew the bandit’s ears off fust, too.”
Agrawal managed to pry Virendra Karnik out of the engineer’s hands, giving that phlegmatic individual a plausible story about how Karnik was a relative of Agrawal’s and had slipped away from his erstwhile keeper.
“Alas, my cousin is unwell, my good sir. Indeed, we try to prevent him from appearing in public, as he is prone to outbursts.” Agrawal’s eyes glittered. Karnik shivered as if he were standing in an arctic breeze.
“That what his problem is?” The engineer chewed on a straw and eyed Karnik unemotionally. “Figgered it was something like that.”
Agrawal’s smile would have made Luther quake if his brain wasn’t so numbed with alcohol. “Indeed, sir,” Agrawal said. “My poor cousin comes from a family of lunatics.”
The engineer only nodded and accepted the cash Agrawal offered as a bribe. He tipped his striped cap, and Agrawal led Karnik away. Luther left too, flanked by a couple of Agrawal’s burly bodyguards.
It certainly hadn’t been difficult to convince the engineer Karnik was a maniac. Luther knew that by this time, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince someone he was insane, either, if anybody cared to try.
Agrawal had conversed with several porters before they discovered that Tacita and Jed intended to travel by pack horse and mule to Denver. From there, they were going to book stage passage to San Francisco. Agrawal sent a message telegraphically to one of his innumerable hirelings, this one in Denver. Luther wasn’t sure what the message said, but he presumed the stagecoach wouldn’t make its trip to San Francisco unmolested.
After he took care of business at the train station, Agrawal questioned Karnik.
Karnik squeaked, “Goddess preserve me, Master, I have failed you.”
Avinash Agrawal looked down his imperious nose at Karnik, who trembled before him.
Luther Adams Williamson watched. The three of them and two of Agrawal’s ever-present henchmen were seated in a room in Santa Fe, in a hotel not far from the train station. Luther was so used to being terrified by this time, he didn’t even bother to be disappointed that Karnik, too, had failed to secure the Delhi Hahm-Ahn-Der Eye. He did sigh, however, and take another sip of his beer.
Obviously, Luther decided, he was cursed. Whoever the Goddess was from whom that be-damned Eye had been stolen had cursed him. He never used to believe in those Oriental curses, but he did now.
“It was the dog, Sahib,” Karnik said, casting a beseeching glance at Luther. “The vicious dog almost tore me to shreds.”
Luther shook his head, recalling Farley Boskins’ story.
“I understand the dog is very small, my friend.” Agrawal’s silky voice sent a chill up Luther’s spine.
It apparently had the same effect on Karnik, because he shivered. “It has the soul of a devil.”
Although, he didn’t say so, Luther didn’t guess he’d argue the point. Rosamunda had thwarted Luther often enough for him to have formed the same opinion, although he’d never thought to express it exactly that way.
“A very small devil.” Agrawal’s left eyebrow lifted.
Until he met Agrawal, Luther had never seen anybody who had such precise control over his eyebrows. Everything about Agrawal was precise, a fact Luther had begun to find disturbing even before they left El Paso.
“How large would you say the animal is, my friend?”
It took Luther a moment to realize Agrawal was speaking to him. He swallowed his beer quickly and focused his attention on the suave Indian. His focus wasn’t the best these days, fuzzed as it was in a froth of beer foam, but he did his best.
“It weighs about five pounds.” Luther was rather proud that he didn’t slur.
“It’s not only the dog!” Karnik had started to wring his hands, but stopped when the wringing aggravated his wounds. “It’s that man, too. That Mr. Hardcastle whom you hired.” He cast Luther an accusing look, as if to let him know he should have hired a less competent guide. Luther couldn’t find it in his heart to blame him. “Mr. Hardcastle is not a small fellow. He is a very large fellow. A giant, Master. And he has brains, too, may the Goddess grant us mercy. A giant and a little devil, alas, conspired to prevent me from carrying out my mission.”
“We are no longer in India, my friend,” Agrawal said dryly. “I don’t think Americans believe in giants and devils. Or goddesses, either.”
Luther chuckled, surprising himself.
Karnik blinked. “Oh.”
As for Luther, he believed in devils. He believed he was in the presence of one right this very minute, in fact. He eyed Agrawal through bloodshot eyes and attempted to remember when he’d stopped trying to figure out how to escape. He wasn’t sure. He only knew that there was no escape from this Indian devil and that if t
he wretched Eye couldn’t be found, he was a dead man.
The thought hardly bothered him any longer. He swallowed another mouthful of beer to keep it that way.
# # #
For the longest time, Tacita sat still under her tree and tried not to give in to tears. At first, she wasn’t sure Jed hadn’t poisoned her, no matter what he said. A nasty taste lingered on her tongue. She considered getting up and trying to find something minty to get rid of it, but couldn’t seem to find enough energy within herself to do so. In the space of a heartbeat—in the second in which Jed had turned and left her, in fact—her spirits had fallen into a bleak depression.
The day was still light, although shadows lengthened along the edges of the clearing and the sky was beginning to take on the pinks and oranges of sunset. The entire episode of Jed’s attempted poisoning and her ultimate, embarrassing confession hadn’t taken more than thirty-five or forty minutes. By Tacita’s reckoning, it was probably only five-thirty or six o’clock. She could have taken out her watch and looked, but lacked the spirit. If she’d been in a better mood, she might have appreciated the play of light and shadows as they crept across the grass in the rustic glen and turned the grass from emerald silk to deep jade velvet.
She was still sitting there, feeling wretched, when she heard a rustle in the bushes.
“It’s probably a bear, Rosamunda.”
Rosamunda had calmed down as soon as Jed left the campsite. Now she licked Tacita’s hand, a comfort-giving gesture Tacita appreciated very much.
“Thank you, darling.”
She looked towards the bushes, wondering if she should stand and meet her fate bravely or sit her in a miserable heap and let fate find her. Then she decided she didn't care. Let the bear gnaw her to death sitting down. She didn't have enthusiasm enough to fight. She didn't have enthusiasm for anything. Not even the thought of Rosamunda and Prince Albert's children could lift her spirits.
Shutting her eyes, she hoped the bear wouldn’t take too long dispatching her. She might be depressed, but she didn’t relish dying slowly and in great pain.