Just then the sounds of furniture and glass breaking rent the quiet, punctuated by the loud yowls of Henrietta and Lena. With a muttered oath of disgust, Maggie turned from the window and headed out into the hall. Those two whores were fighting over the favors of Jack Schleffer again, she would bet her half of the business on it. Damned if she could see any reason to fight over a man like that weasel-eyed young punk Schleffer—or any other man, as far as Maggie Worthington was concerned.
She waded into the hair-pulling, eye-gouging melee, shoving Jack out of the way. “Let me handle this,” she said in the precise Yankee accent that always commanded attention. Jack backed off and she bent over the two women, who were now locked in combat, rolling on the floor. Grabbing one fistful of black and one of henna hair, she yanked on their scalps with enough force to pop the eyeballs from their kohled sockets. They both stilled at once.
“I told you the next time I caught you fighting, I'd fire you. I don't want my place busted up, and I sure don't need two whores looking like they just walked into a threshing machine. Pack up and get out.”
“She started it, Miz Maggie. Jumped on me fer nothin’,” Henrietta accused, wiping at her bloody nose.
“You were screwing my man, you lying, sneaking puta!” Lena shrieked as she stood rubbing her thick mop of tangled black hair.
Maggie turned to Schleffer. “You wanted them. You got them.” He paled and started to protest, then took one look at the formidable madam's expression and nodded. Maggie stalked crisply back to her office and leaned against the inside of the door. “Damn, I'm sick of this life.”
“Maybe I could take your mind off your troubles, sweet lady,” a low masculine voice said from across the big room.
Judd Lazlo materialized from the late afternoon shadows in the corner and approached her with his usual swagger.
“You know better than to come in this office uninvited.”
“I was looking for yer partner.”
“He's not here. Get out.”
“Now, now, Maggie, love, is that any way to treat an old friend? I haven't seen you in nearly a year.” An oily smile spread across his mobile lips, revealing even white teeth. Judd always fancied himself a ladies' man with his curly tan hair and broad regular features. He was tall and barrel-chested, the beefy muscular type of Anglo that lots of women in these parts fancied. But the cruelty in his icy green eyes had always been apparent to Maggie. She detested him on sight.
She slapped his hand away when he reached up to toy with an auburn curl falling over her shoulder. “I said, get out.” Her voice was ice cold and dead level.
“Where's Fletcher?”
“Hermosillo.”
Lazlo cursed. “He was supposed to be here. When's he coming back?”
She shrugged. “He had a rotten tooth begin to really pain him last night. Left at early light for the dentist there. I expect it'll be a few days before he feels up to riding back.”
His smile deepened and a feral glow came into his narrowed cat's eyes. He grabbed her with one hand and pulled her up against his body. “Well then, I reckon you and me could—”
“No, we couldn't.” She jabbed the barrel of the stubby little .32 caliber Colt in her skirt pocket against his crotch. “Don't even breathe or I'll shoot it off.” The click of the gun being cocked was unmistakable.
He blanched and backed slowly away. “I'll be screwed if you ain't the most unnatural female I've ever met.”
“You may be screwed, but not by me—at least not the way you'd like.”
“I don't know why Fletcher keeps a cold fish like you around. You got a block of ice between your legs, huh?”
“Lucky for you you'll never find out. You might get frostbite and your poor little pecker'd turn black and drop right off,” she said with sweet nastiness.
He swore as he stomped past her and left, slamming the door.
Maggie uncocked her gun after locking her office door. Then, she walked over to the pedestal table against the wall behind the desk and poured herself a shot of eleven-year-old bourbon. It was beginning to go down smoother and smoother every year. That was a bad sign. Resolutely, she shoved the decanter away and set down the empty glass. No refills today.
Maybe a turn at the blackjack table would calm her nerves. She was sick of unwashed, arrogant men with no more brains than a box of rocks. Homely Jack Schleffer or pretty Judd Lazlo, it made no difference. They all repelled her. In fact, memory could not recall any man who had not repelled her—at least the physical side of them. Ever since her girlish infatuation for Whalen Price had ended in such betrayal, she had learned to use men.
And feel nothing.
Of course Bart was different, but Bart Fletcher had never been her lover. Mentor, confidant, business partner, yes. She owed him a great deal, but lately even her comfortable relationship with him had taken on troubling dimensions she could not quite fathom.
Shrugging in frustration, she selected a dress suitable for working downstairs. An evening of blackjack would settle her down. After all, hadn't this been her routine every day for the past seven years?
* * * *
The Silver Eagle Saloon had been in business since 1861. It was the only two-story frame building in San Luís. Bart Fletcher thought its name blended just the right touch of English heraldry and Mexican imagery. During the boom years it had flourished, its bar, gaming tables and the upstairs bordello beds filled to capacity every night.
In 1873 Maggie had come to work for Bart. Within the year she was his partner. A good madam who was bright, healthy and honest was a pearl beyond price anyplace, especially in a backwater Sonoran mining town. They had been a good team and made good money. For a while. Now... Maggie shook her head and dealt the cards.
She watched the faces of her two players, Gregorio Sanchez, a wealthy stockman, and Mateo Guzman, a mine foreman. Sanchez indicated he would stand pat. Guzman called for another hit. She dealt him a ten and herself a seven to go with the king and four she already had. “Twenty-one, gentlemen,” she said with a professional smile. Sanchez, who had two face cards, folded with a philosophical Latin shrug. Guzman, who had been dealt a queen, held a nine and a tray. He threw them down in disgust and stalked off.
As she shuffled the cards, her fingers flying automatically, she considered her malaise. Was Bart's absence making her so morose and edgy? That and having that snake Lazlo come asking for her partner, not to mention having to dismiss two of her best girls.
What did that pond scum Lazlo want with Bart? She laughed to herself. Not that Bartley Wellington Fletcher was any angel. I've just been stuck in this suffocating hellhole for two days without intelligent conversation.
But it was more than that and Maggie knew it. She was bored, inexplicably restless and unhappy. When she actually pined after the company of a worthless rascal like Bart Fletcher, life was indeed passing her by. She had turned thirty-four on her last birthday and had been living here in Mexico for years and still felt like an outsider, always alone, always lonely, listening to her girls pour out their hearts to her, patiently hearing the confessions of drunken men, even fending off the advances of snakes like Lazlo or a rare stranger who did not understand about La Americana Intacta.
Intacta. Untouched. Pure. Maggie scoffed to herself. No man had touched her for a long time before she came here, but she had never been pure. Or if she ever was, she could not remember when. Her mind was not on the game, and the house paid off Sanchez and another miner who had taken Guzman's place. Motioning one of her girls to take over, she excused herself and headed upstairs for her afternoon ritual of tea, a habit Bart had taught her. She was halfway up the threadbare carpeted steps when he walked in. She turned instantly as if sensing a presence she must not ignore.
He was American. She could always tell after all these years, even though he ordered a beer in serviceable Spanish. He was tall, over six feet. Beneath the flat crowned hat he wore, his dark brown hair was generously flecked with gray. His face was cleanly chis
eled, the profile harsh and forbidding yet strikingly handsome. The sun had bronzed his skin, and life had put grooves in his cheeks. Maggie knew they were not from smiling.
She stood transfixed on the stairs, studying his dusty clothes and hardware. Trail-worn but good quality. So were the Colt Peacemaker strapped to his hip and the Remington repeating rifle that he leaned casually against the bar. A stockman, from the look of him.
“You're a long way from home, stranger,” Maggie said.
Colin looked up at one of the most striking women he had ever seen. When she moved from the shadows and began to descend the steps, he stared in amazement at lustrous China blue eyes and gleaming dark reddish brown hair set off by high cheekbones and clear creamy skin. Although she wore a faint bit of paint, her face was not hard. Rather, it looked younger than her years, quizzical. He guessed her age to be somewhere around thirty, but in spite of the low-cut blue satin dress and flashing jewelry, she did not move with the inviting swish of a scarlet poppy. Her walk was subtle and graceful, as elegant as the tilt of her head. Under any other circumstances, he would have been fascinated with finding such a woman in a saloon.
Colin doffed his hat and echoed, “I'm a long way from home, yes.”
“Arizona Territory?”
He nodded. “I'm looking for two men with a young woman. She's blonde—American like you.”
A flash of disappointment swept over her. “I haven't seen any Anglo women, except for one who works for me—and her yellow hair comes out of a bottle.”
“You might've seen the men then,” Colin said patiently.
“Come upstairs to my office and we'll talk. It's tea time—or if you prefer, I even have some decent whiskey.” She turned and he followed, after setting his empty beer glass on the scarred bar and tossing a coin down to pay for the drink.
As they climbed the stairs, he studied her with curiosity. Her diction was smooth and her voice clear and well modulated. She was tall for a woman, with a handsome figure, slim but well rounded in all the right places. When she ushered him past the open door, he stepped into another world.
The saloon had been big for a Mexican mining town, ornate and prosperous; but it was a bygone prosperity, as worn and faded as the garish carpet on the steps. Her office was as elegant as its owner, with a spinet desk in one corner and a pair of comfortable armchairs across from it. Between them sat a low tea table with a brightly polished silver service on it. But the walls were what held his fascinated attention. They were lined with books, shelved from floor to ceiling.
“This looks like a bloody library back in Edinburgh,” he said, a trace of his long-faded burr returning to sharpen his voice.
Maggie laughed delightedly. “Do I detect a hint of the highlands in your voice, Mr.—?”
“McCrory. Colin McCrory. I was born there but I've lived in Arizona most of my life. And you are?”
“Maggie. Maggie Worthington and I've lived just about everywhere in my life,” she answered brightly, motioning for him to have a seat across the table. “What's it to be? Tea or some of your own fine Scotch whiskey?”
He cocked one thick eyebrow and his golden gaze locked with her fathomless blue one. What was it about this woman? “Tea? You don't sound like a Sassenach, even if your name does,” he said as he walked across the room, his eyes scanning the titles along the shelves. “Shakespeare, Dryden, Keats, Swift. Even Mr. Dickens. Your taste in literature is as Sassenach as your tea. I'll have some.”
“Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, in case you didn't know it. And if you'll peruse the other walls, you'll see Cervantes, Rabelais and Dante, not to mention a generous sampling of literature from your adopted country.”
He shrugged and a half smile touched his lips. “What, no Bobby Burns?”
She pulled a well-worn copy of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect from a shelf and handed it to him, along with several volumes of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson.
“I'm suitably impressed. I didn't think anyone west of Aberdeen had even heard of Fergusson, Miss Worthington.”
She sat down and poured two cups of tea with a flourish as he joined her. “Lemon or milk?”
“Lemon.” He handled the Havilland cup with consummate skill.
Maggie studied his hands, long strong brown fingers, tapered with clean nails, in spite of the calluses. “I acquired the tea time habit from my partner, Bart Fletcher, who really is a Sassenach,” she said, inhaling the fragrant brew the cook had steeped. She studied him through thick dark lashes as she sipped her tea.
“You seem to be a woman who knows what goes on around here. I stopped in several places down the street. The locals all thought if anyone could help me, it would be the gringos at the Silver Eagle.”
“Well, Bart's in Hermosillo right now, but maybe I can. Describe the men with your woman.”
“She's not my woman. She's my daughter,” Colin replied, his voice grim and quiet.
Maggie set her cup down. For an instant she was transported back to Boston, trying to imagine Ezra Worthington coming after his daughter. No two fathers could ever have been less alike. “You don't look old enough to have a grown daughter. I take it you don't approve of her choice of friends.”
“They kidnapped her. I'd fired one of them. Lazlo probably did it out of revenge.”
“Lazlo?” Her elegantly arched eyebrows rose. She was startled.
“You know him?” Colin's voice held a dangerous edge now as he leaned forward, waiting intently for her to answer.
“Yes, I know who he is and he is slime. He came in here yesterday.” Something kept her from mentioning that he was looking for Bart. “But I don't know where he went. He didn't stay long.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes. I suppose the other man was holding your daughter. They didn't stay in town. There's a place—a hideout really, that Lazlo and his cronies use. Somewhere in the foothills east of here, near the San Miguel River. It's pretty dangerous country.”
“I'm a pretty dangerous man, Miss Worthington. If you'll just describe where this hideout is, I'll be on my way—with thanks.” He started to rise.
Maggie stretched her hand across the table. “Wait. I don't know where along the San Miguel it is. You could spend a year riding in and out of all those hundreds of box canyons and never find your daughter. What's her name?”
“Eden.”
She watched his face soften for an instant as he said the word. Then, the stricken fury behind those whiskey eyes burned her like golden flames. “I can still help. I have some men who owe me—locals. They can ask the sheep men who know every inch of the foothills. It may take a couple of days, but I guarantee it'll be faster than riding off blind.”
He was damned if he knew why he trusted her, but he did. “I've brought a partner with me. A breed named Wolf Blake.”
“From El Paso?”
“How the hell did you hear of him?”
“I've traveled all over, remember?” She smiled as she stood, looking up into his eyes. In heels she seldom met a man who was tall enough to require that. “Let me call some friends and set them to work…but they'll expect to be paid.”
She did not know if he had money with him, but even if he did not, she would pay it herself. If only someone had rescued her from Whalen Price.
“I have money. All you need.”
“Good. They won't charge much. I'll see to it.”
Colin followed her downstairs and listened as she summoned a small wiry man whose bronzed skin and blunt features gave away his Indian heritage. A rapid exchange followed in Spanish, but Colin understood it well enough. She was sending Emilio and several of his companions to check with the sheep men scattered through the foothills around the San Miguel. They haggled over the cost of such an expedition briefly, then Emilio agreed to a modest sum upon completion of the task.
Just then Wolf entered the cantina and approached McCrory with a negative shake of his head. “Several folks know of him but they say they haven't seen
Lazlo in months—or any gringa.”
“We may be in luck. The proprietress thinks her friends can locate him. He was here yesterday.”
“I might just ride along,” Wolf said, his eyes studying the other man of mixed blood. “I am called Wolf,” he said in Spanish to the Indian.
”El Lobo. Sí,” the smaller man responded, recognizing a kindred spirit, but when Wolf asked to accompany him, he refused, explaining that the hill folk were afraid of gringos—even gringos with Indian blood—and would not talk to them.
“Guess we'll have to wait here,” Wolf said to Colin. “We could use some real sleep before going up against Lazlo and Haywood.”
“It's been a hell of a ride.” Colin nodded in resignation. Every hour would crawl by until he could get Eden back and see her kidnappers dead.
“Well, hello. Two gorgeous strangers in one day. Things are picking up in San Luís,” a cheery female voice said. The speaker was one of Maggie's “girls.”
Susie was a bleached blonde with round hazel eyes, a toothy smile and generously endowed curves. She eyed Colin like a puma ready to pounce on a crippled heifer. A slim dark-haired young woman with a pretty heart-shaped face gazed at Wolf with liquid black eyes.
“I am Carmelita and I, too, am most pleased to show you hospitality,” she said in thickly accented English.
“Right now I'd like a place to sleep—alone,” Colin replied gravely to the blonde.
Maggie smiled and instructed her, “Take your turn at the card tables, Susie. Business will pick up tonight.” For some reason utterly unfamiliar to her, Colin McCrory's refusal to avail himself of Susie's charms pleased her greatly. Wolf followed Carmelita's lead and vanished upstairs.
She turned to McCrory. “I have several extra rooms. I'll have my maid make up a clean bed for you in the one at the end of the hall.”
“I'm much obliged, Miss Worthington. You're a good woman...for a Sassenach,” he added with a wink.
McCrory's Lady Page 2