The Lonely Breed : A Western Fiction Classic (Yakima Henry Book 1)

by Peter Brandvold

  "What's with the harsh tone, my pet? Didn't you sleep well?" He nuzzled her neck. He'd once been a pugilist, and he still had a boxer's grip and brusque love habits.

  Kate took another sip of the brandy. She had to admit that the man's presence, even his rough touch, was a comfort on this frozen morning after another one of her oddly portentous dreams.

  "I should have gotten up when I first awakened," Crazy Kate said in her husky smoker's drawl. "A strange feeling came over me. It wouldn't have happened if I'd gotten up and had my usual drink and smoke instead of lying there."

  Still holding her heavy breasts in his hands, Sebastian nuzzled the other side of her neck, gently nibbling her skin.

  Kate chuckled and turned her head away. "Sebastian, that tickles."

  "Last night, it got you rather worked up, if you remember."

  Kate turned back to her own eyes in the mirror, her dark face growing serious, pensive. "I saw a woman on a black horse riding into the gulch."

  Sebastian chuckled again and straightened, removing his hands from Kate's breasts. "A good-looking woman? You know what the Irishmen say—you can't have enough pretty girls in Gold Cache."

  Kate took that as a slight against her doves. It wasn't easy getting clean, comely girls this high in the mountains. "But the Irishmen aren't exactly blooded studs, are they?"

  Sebastian sighed. He himself was Irish, though he'd nearly lost his accent. "I reckon I'll be getting these old bones off to the mine." He was the superintendent of the fledgling Gold Cache Mining & Smelting Company, which employed forty-seven men. "I can tell you're in no mood for teasing."

  "I didn't see the woman's face," Kate said, crossing her legs as Sebastian wandered around the room, gathering his strewn clothes. He appeared paler than usual in the snow-bright light pushing through the frosted windows. "Just the horse. It was tall and black."

  "Sounds like a harmless enough dream. A dream as nonsensical as any other."

  "It does at that," Kate said, taking a drag from the cheroot and blowing smoke at the mirror. She leaned forward, rested her face in her hand. "But why, then, do I have this feeling of dread down deep in my gut?"

  "Perhaps in your sordid past, you've crossed paths with a black stallion and treated him horribly," said Sebastian, accentuating his Irish accent while stepping into his serge suit slacks, breathing hard, his pale face reddening with the effort. He looked at her, a mischievous smile touching his lips. "As you're wont to do, Pet."

  "Fuck you, Sebastian."

  "See?" he chuckled, flapping his shirt out before him.

  "Why do I tell you anything?"

  "Because you haven't anyone else in the camp to tell." He leaned down and kissed the back of Crazy Kate's head, then sat on the bed to pull his socks on.

  Kate finished the cheroot, mashed it out, then picked up her brandy glass and strode to the window. Holding the glass in one hand, she stretched her other arm high above her head. In the little stone tavern across the street, still cloaked in the shadow of the high, pine-clad mountain behind it, someone played the banjo. The sound was oddly out of sync with the cold, snowy morning and the skeins of smoke ribboning from the stovepipes lining Gold Cache's short main street.

  "Come on, boys," Kate said, turning her head to gaze south, toward the mine, where the night shift should be ending, spilling a good dozen or so work-weary miners into Gold Cache's business district. "Bring those Irish and Russian and Norski peckers over here. I'll need money for another freight run ..." Kate let her voice trail off. Her eyes narrowed as they followed a figure along the street. Figures, rather.

  "Sebastian?" Her voice sounded thin and fragile.

  The mine superintendent was tying his right brogan. Startled by Kate's voice, he looked up at her, frowning. "Pet?"

  "Come here."

  Tucking his white shirttail into his slacks, Sebastian came over and stood beside her. She tapped the glass with her left index finger. "Look."

  On the snow-covered street already gouged with the tracks of men, wagons, and horses, two men rode toward the brothel from the south, tracing the corner around the German's wood-framed canvas hophouse, the north side of which had collapsed under the weight of last night's snow. One of the riders approaching the hophouse was tall, with longish brown hair, and clad in a red-plaid mackinaw and a black, flat-brimmed hat. The other was short and blond. He wore a coat of wolf hair and deerskin, the fur collar raised. Tied to his head with a green muffler was a brown bowler hat with a frayed brim.

  The stocky blond man rode a dun with three white stockings. At the end of his long lead rope, fighting the hackamore, rolling its eyes, and raising its tail defiantly, pranced a tall black stallion.

  There was a trill in Crazy Kate's voice. "The horse from my dream."

  Sebastian stared out the window. He continued tucking his shirttail into his pants. Wonder mixed with the humor in his gravelly voice. "Just a coincidence, Kate."

  Kate stared out the window so intently that she didn't notice that Sebastian turned away to tie the black four-in-hand necktie in front of her dresser mirror.

  On the street before the collapsed hophouse, the two riders reined their horses to a halt. They seemed to be speaking to the two Germans in buffalo coats and cloth caps who were shoveling snow off the collapsed hophouse roof. One of the Germans turned and pointed north along the street, beyond the hotel. The man with the brown hair and the black, flat-brimmed hat smiled, pinched his hat brim, and reined his claybank into the street.

  As the shorter man kneed his dun ahead, jerking on the stallion's lead rope, Kate wheeled to Sebastian. "I have to find out who they are. Will you come with me?"

  Sebastian straightened and absently ran his hand over the tufts of wiry silver hair framing his pale, bald pate. "Now, Kate, don't you think—?" He saw the fierce look in her ethereal green eyes, and his face fell. "Why not?"

  Kate threw back her brandy, set the glass on the bedside table, and grabbed a long flannel wrapper off a wall hook near the door. She stepped into a pair of high-topped rabbit slippers—she shouldn't be seen in the saloon in such shabby attire, but she didn't have time to doll herself up—and opened the door.

  She was still knotting the robe's belt around her thick waist when, half a minute later, she descended the brothel's broad mahogany staircase, the burgundy carpet rendering her hurried steps nearly soundless. Behind her, Sebastian Kirk wheezed, trying to keep up as he secured the bows of his silver spectacles behind his ears.

  Since it wasn't yet ten o'clock, the saloon and gambling parlor entertained only two customers—soiled, unshaven men who had the look of market hunters about them. They played a desultory card game in the middle of the broad room, yawning and smoking over their poker hands. The barman, Max Lerner, was polishing the backbar's grand mirror while humming to himself. Two whores, Emily and Maxine, stood near the bottom of the stairs, all fluffed out and painted up for a working day and staring up at Crazy Kate expectantly.

  "Not now, girls," Kate said. She had no time to be barraged with the whores' endless troubles.

  Maxine said, "Kate—"

  "It'll have to wait."

  "Kate," Emily blurted, flushed, her eyes bright with worry as she held her steepled hands to her lips, "Doc says I got one up the chute!"

  Kate stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Not again!"

  "I'm sorry, Kate. I was tryin' to be careful. Honest!"

  Kate expelled a sharp sigh as Sebastian stopped two steps above her. Kate looked at Emily. "How far along?"

  "Doc says two months."

  Kate looked at the other whore, Maxine. "Fetch my kit to Emily's room. We'll meet there in a few minutes to remedy the problem."

  Kate rolled her eyes at Sebastian, who shrugged, then continued striding toward the double front doors flanked by two big, sunlit windows.

  "Kate," Emily called behind her. "I think I'd like to keep this one!"

  Without turning around or slowing her stride, Kate lifted her head and shouted,
"You ain't keepin' nothing.”

  Kate opened the left door and stepped onto the shoveled stoop, raising a hand to shield her eyes against the sunlight careening off the snow like ricocheting bullets. She looked around.

  A few paces to her right, the two newcomers were walking their horses southward on the right side of the street, avoiding a couple of oncoming drays hauling firewood. The stocky blond man riding behind the dark-haired hombre was having trouble with the black stallion, which snorted and tipped his head up, tail cocked, obviously enraged.

  "Goddamn it!" the blond man said as he gave the rope a fierce tug.

  At the same time, the black lowered his head and rammed the rump of the dun. The dun started, giving a shrill whinny, and buck-kicked.

  Because he'd been pulling the rope, which had slackened suddenly when the black lowered his head and drove forward, the blond was caught off guard. He gave a cry as he flew forward, reaching for but missing his saddle horn, and was emptied ass over teakettle down the dun's right shoulder.

  He hit the snow on his back, feet pointing toward the street's right side. One of the firewood drays missed his legs by only six inches or so. The dark-haired gent half turned his own mount and chuckled.

  "That goddamn son of a bitch!" bellowed the thrown rider as he gained his knees.

  He was still holding the black's lead. The stallion reared and shied, trying to jerk the rope from the blond man's fist.

  Covered with snow, the blond man held tight to the rope. He glared at his chuckling partner, then turned to the stallion, which stood sideways in the street, nickering and twitching his ears with satisfaction, tail arched.

  "I'm so goddamn tired of this consarned beast"—the blond man lifted the skirt of his wolf coat and pulled his pistol from its holster—"I'm gonna do what I been wantin' to do ever since we got him!"

  As he thumbed the pistol's hammer back, the dark-haired man rode up and kicked the pistol out of the blond man's fist. The pistol hit the snow and skidded against the snowbank fronting the opposite boardwalk.

  "Goddamn you, Leo!" the blond man screeched, holding his right fist to his belly and glaring up at his partner. He still held the black's lead in his left hand.

  The dark man leaned down, gritting his teeth. "That horse is worth five hundred dollars if he's worth a cent, you copper-riveted fool!"

  The blond man pointed his injured hand at the horse, which was eyeing him with a challenge. "But he—"

  "We didn't come all this way to sell him just so's you could shoot him, Alvin!"

  Holding her robe tight about her shoulders, Crazy Kate, flanked by Sebastian Kirk, had made her way southward down the boardwalk. She now stood parallel to the two strangers, regarding the horse with fascination.

  Before either could say another word, Kate said, "You men say that horse is for sale?"

  They both looked at her skeptically. A cunning light grew in Salon's brown eyes, slitted against the sun's glare. "Yes, ma'am, he shore is." Salon grabbed the rope from Pauk's hand and led the angrily snorting black to the boardwalk.

  The banjo had ceased playing in the beer parlor on the other side of the street. Two men in canvas coats stood under the tavern's brush awning, one holding a banjo, both staring at Kate, the horse, and the two strangers.

  Crazy Kate stared at the horse. The horse drew up before her and shook his head. Then his eyes met hers, and they stood staring at each other, their breath puffing around their faces as the horse pushed his regal head forward, working his nose.

  "If you ever seen a better horse than this one here, ma'am," Salon said, "then you sure got a leg up on me!"

  "Where did you get him?" Kate said.

  "Bought him off a half-breed," Salon told her. He glanced at Pauk, who'd heaved himself up and was walking toward his six-shooter half buried in the snow along the street. "Didn't we, Alvin?" He turned back to Kate and Sebastian. "Back along the trail somewheres."

  "What was a half-breed doing with a horse like this?" Sebastian said, stepping forward to run a careful hand along the black's sleek neck.

  "We didn't converse about it, 'ceptin' he assured us it weren't stolen. He probably needed money to provide for the blond gal he was ridin' with." Salon had spoken to Sebastian. Now he turned his eager eyes to Crazy Kate. "If you got five hundred dollars, ma'am, he's yours. Hell, you rent him to stud three times in a month for more—!"

  Kate cut him off, snapping her keen green eyes from the horse to Salon. "Did you say 'blond woman'?"

  Salon looked at her dubiously, frowning. He shrugged a shoulder. "So I did." He paused. "The point is, a horse like this one here is a damn good investment."

  "Why are you selling him?" Sebastian asked.

  Kate was only half listening. She stared at the horse, remembering her dream about the black stallion and the blond woman.

  What did it mean? What did this horse and the blonde have to do with her?

  "Well," Salon said with a sheepish grin, "me and Alvin here ain't exactly horsemen. We're gamblers. We prefer to spend our time in gambling parlors and leave the horses to the stableboys, if you get my drift."

  "I'll take him," Kate said, still staring at the horse but snapping out of her reverie. Something in the back of her mind was telling her that in order to find out what the dream meant, she had to have the horse.

  Salon grinned.

  Kate turned to Sebastian. "Give the man five hundred dollars. Add it to my note." She looked at Salon. Pauk now stood beside Salon's dun, staring at the woman, his lower jaw slack.

  "Stable him at the Occidental, over yonder," Kate said, jerking her head to indicate the big barn half a block up on the other side of the street. "If you boys want gambling and the best women in the Rockies, you'll find 'em both at Crazy Kate's." She turned and, as if in a dream, moved back toward the brothel, hearing her voice say automatically, "Don't make yourselves strangers now, hear... ?"

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Yakima crouched atop a rocky scarp and used the freighters' German-made glasses to scout his and Faith's back trail.

  A high hill strewn with black boulders rose on his left, about fifty yards away. To the right, the land dropped gradually to a distant, pine-choked ravine.

  Straight south lay a lake in a broad hollow, unseen from this distance. Yakima and Faith had stopped for lunch by that frozen lake. He'd glassed their back trail thoroughly from a hill on the other side of the lake and had seen no sign of the three men he'd thought were trailing them.

  He saw nothing now, either, except drifting snow and purple shadows bleeding out from the trees and boulders, brown weed tips protruding above the scalloped snow covering the ground where the wind hadn't swept it clear.

  There weren't many places to hide up here among the ridges, where trees grew mainly in the ravines and valley bottoms. If the pursuers were still stalking him, he'd no doubt have spotted them by now, especially through the good German field glasses. It wasn't likely—Thornton had probably put a high price on his and Faith's heads—but maybe he really had lost them.

  His heart feeling lighter, Yakima straightened, turned, and hopscotched the boulders to the brow of the ridge behind him. He'd crested the hill and was descending the other side, leaping from one rock to the next, when he stopped suddenly, dropping to his haunches atop a flat rock and raising his rifle to his chest.

  Below, the tea fire he'd built at the base of the hill bent and tore in the wind. Faith was perched on the same rock she'd been sitting on when he'd climbed the hill to glass their back trail.

  On the other side of the fire from her, five riders approached her from across a snow-dusted, weed-tufted hill dome. They were not the ones Yakima had spied following them before.

  The first of the riders strung out in a shaggy line was only ten or so yards from the fire. So intently were they staring at Faith, lascivious grins on their faces, that they hadn't seen Yakima yet, perched halfway up the hill. Faith sat holding one of the freighters' rifles across her denim-clad knees, her ba
ck stiff, blond hair whipping in the wind.

  "Hello, there, ma'am," hailed the lead rider. He wore a rabbit hat with ear flaps, and a long, ratty buffalo coat. Long brown chin whiskers brushed the medallion hanging around his neck by a rawhide thong.

  Faith jerked a tense look up the hill behind her. She turned back toward the strangers, then jerked her gaze up the hill again, her eyes finding Yakima perched on the boulder. The strangers followed her gaze, all stiffening slightly as they stopped their horses five yards beyond the coffee fire.

  Yakima loudly levered a shell into his Winchester's breech and straightened, holding the rifle low across his thighs. "Help you, boys?"

  The leader glanced at the others riding behind him. Their horses stood hang-headed. They'd been riding hard. Fleeing the law? They had the scruffy, tattered look of renegades, their weapons prominently displayed. One wore his Navy Colts in crisscrossing shoulder rigs on the outside of his buffalo coat.

  Turning back to Yakima, the leader grinned. "We saw the lady out here alone and was gonna offer our assistance." A couple of the others chuckled. "Pretty high up in the mountains for a lady to be out here alone."

  Yakima smiled solemnly as he ran his eyes over the other riders—one was an older, gray-bearded gent who used to ride for a ranch east of Thornton's—then back to the leader. "It would be."

  No one said anything for a time. The riders stared at Yakima, who stared back. Faith turned her head between them, her eyes wary.

  The wind blew the snow around under the crystal blue sky. Gray mountain jays fluttered among the rocks behind Yakima. The gray-bearded man's sorrel suddenly shook its head, its bit chains jangling.

  The lead rider dropped his gaze to Faith. "Miss, you'd be better off with us than that savage up there. We got us a shack not far from here."

  Because of the fire and the breeze rustling around him, Yakima couldn't hear her reply, only saw her head shake slightly.

  The others glanced at the lead rider, who shrugged a shoulder. "Have it your way. It's gonna get mighty cold tonight."