Tamar nodded, holding her grimace until the man left. She would take care of the window later with a dispatch to the handyman she used for times like this. She had lined his pockets more in the past few months than ever before. She glanced at the card, then read it again to make sure her eyes hadn’t deceived her. Bart Quarles, primary investigator, Pinkerton national detective agency. Curiosity tickled her brain. Pinkertons were celebrated and notorious for their investigations and union busting. What was a Pinkerton agent doing here? And who exactly was Ada? Tamar checked the personal ad and dismissed the last question. Pinkerton agent or not, he was a man sustaining a broken heart. Those were common for any human.
Chapter Two
Ada, my dear. You have gone astray. I am certain I have lost you. I will move on alone. This is your last chance; give me a sign. Meet me where we last met before you broke my heart.
The man known as Deadwood Dick in the company of robbers lazily perused the newspaper, lollygagging in the manner customarily pinned to him. The men here thought that they knew him. They had no idea who the real man was.
The man lifted his eyes off the lonely hearts ad and only saw one other man in the clandestine ace in the hole far away from the city and roads. Their last job had only been hours ago, and they needed to cool off before the next bank and mail heists in Kansas City. They had five weeks to wait things out. One more goddamned month in hell with Beelzebub’s minions.
The Pinkertons had needed an agent to crack the confidence and trust of a band of outlaws, and Bart had sought him out for the impossible job with a nice pot of money attached. So now he was posing as a criminal, and using a dead man’s name—a man he had arrested years before, when he was a sheriff. They spoke through the wanted ads. Amos delivered messages to Ada in the code they’d created months prior. This was a matter of life and death.
Now, this notice from Ada changed the game. He leaned into the chair and smirked, a small bit of joy coursing through him. Ada wasn’t a real woman. It was a code that he used when talking to his deputies when he was wearing the white hat and on the right side of the law. Only one man—the one who put him on this job—knew how to reach him through the want ads of this paper.
The last message he sent was two months ago. Silence meant one of two things: either he had turned and forgotten his duty or he was dead. Bart was sending an SOS to his Pinkerton agent, and right then, Amos Tanner—former sheriff and Pinkerton agent to some, and Deadwood Dick to others—knew he had to get to Kansas City earlier and make amends to the Pinkerton boss.
Bart couldn’t string a series of loving words together if he had a Colt pointed at his dome. The fine words belied seething anger. Deadwood understood. If one of his Pinkerton men had gone off the book and hadn’t surfaced except for sightings and thefts, he would have felt the same way. Plans weren’t predictions. If they were, Amos would be back in Oklahoma on his farm, living life in the boundaries of legitimacy and freedom, untethered to the Pinkerton Agency, his former boss, or the past undercover work he once did. But he was close to getting the answers, and the head of the crime ring, the agency wanted.
One more month, and he would have his serene life back. The man snorted at the idea of a clean, simple life. No Pinkerton agent made clean breaks from the agency. Traces of old cases haunted you. Debts and promises made to fellow agents were never forgotten and could always emerge from the shadows. A man saves your life, and he comes to you with a favor five years later. I could have turned him away, Amos thought. He knew that he couldn’t. Pinkertons never gave up and never turned down a case.
Underneath Bart’s note was another code. 9th and Central. Cut and shave special. D only.
His gut roiled, and his jaw tightened. It was too soon. The gang was hot and on the lam. But the mastermind of the gang, the General, had made his move, as he’d promised, with the ad and the words. The next heist was ready to go, and the General had the final instructions.
The General had never seen a day of service to his country. Deadwood Dick called him that nickname in all of his reports to his Pinkerton contact. He was an old criminal mastermind who kept several groups doing his bidding across the Western states. They were paid mercenaries, working to create havoc through simple grafting and complicated robberies and reaping the mastermind a fortune. Deadwood Dick reread the last line. D only. The old man only wanted to meet him, the unofficial chief of the crew.
A bit of joy broke through his dark mood. The Great Spirit was having mercy on him. He might be able to get this man to admit his evil deeds and finally be free of his debt to Bart.
Finally, free and able to press toward the new call on his life.
One of his posse members made coffee on the stove and was now attempting to fry the eggs that he’d stolen from a chicken coop a few miles back. A squeal from the other room, followed by the masculine rough words, grunting, and bedspring squeaks, told him that his other partners were still sharing the calico queen who let them live in her house in exchange for hard fucks and orgasms.
He hated all of this.
“You gonna do something today, Dick?” the man at the stove asked. Harry was the name his mama gave him after pushing him out, but the sour-faced man went by Buster. “Get off your ass with those books and do some man things?”
Once he was off his job, he was useless, unproductive, and of no use to the men around him. In fable, he lived up to that nickname. In truth, he was never parted from his job, intimately wrapped up in the lies and details of his life as a criminal.
He folded the newspaper and tucked it into his pocket. No one in here could read. They needed him to decipher codes and documents. Even if they didn’t like him, they trusted him to do his job. “Kansas City is what, two hours away?”
“Yeah.” Buster flipped the egg and beat it into a hard, sloppy mess. “We’ll be there soon. Waiting to get the word to go.”
“We got it.” Deadwood Dick dropped a rock-hard biscuit into his pocket. Awful food and conditions would be alleviated once he got into the city. “I’m going to scout the location and get the instructions. We may have to move earlier than expected.”
“I got time to poke her, right?” Buster jerked his thumb over his shoulder. The well-timed, well-faked moan of the whore punctured the house. “I get your turn too since you always turn down good cunt.”
Deadwood Dick nodded, his face hard and stoic, before stuffing his hat on his head and heading out to check on his horse. It would take him a half a day to get there and find lodging and then another day to set up the drop and parlay messages to the General and Bart. These men on this crew were the worst of the money hungry, pussy chasing, and craven thieves he knew. They deserved whatever fate awaited them in Kansas City and beyond. He did, too. He hoped he would get his redemption sooner rather than later.
Chapter Three
“Are you possessed by the Great Satan, yourself?”
Sunday dinner was a dedicated time of peace, as declared by Tamar’s sister Priscilla, and today Priscilla’s husband Charles Henderson, the only man in the family—and the town’s richest black man—ignored those rules and launched into her.
“May I at least sit before you start lobbing insults?” Tamar slid into her seat next to Priscilla and bowed her head for a quick word of grace. Dear Lord, help me to not kill this imbecile of a man with any of the available utensils on this finely set table. She opened her eyes and spied the food she wanted. “Charles, please pass the green beans. Delilah, the roast chicken and rolls, please.”
“What kept you away for so long, sister?” Delilah asked between bites and with a laugh in her eyes. Both older sisters shot her a look to be quiet.
“Another issue at the press.”
“The damn place should be burnt to a crisp, if you ask me.”
“No one asked you, Charles. The Advocate has been in our family for years.”
“I am the head of this family now, and I know the history. Stop this foolishness before you get killed,” Charles huffe
d in righteous anger.
He’s like our own dragon, Tamar thought as she lifted a sliver of chicken to her plate. Her stomach thanked her for feeding it. She normally ignored her hunger for most of the day, going until she couldn’t stop. “Not one person wants to kill me. They desire that I stop speaking the truth.”
“No, the Klan wants you dead.” Delilah passed the basket of rolls around the table. “Sorry, but I had to tell someone. I read that note.”
“There is no Klan in Missouri,” Charles said with vehemence coating his words. “The Klan doesn’t exist. White and black are equal here.”
“And what about the Indians who were here first before we crossed the Mississippi? Are they equal here?”
“I don’t know about no red men, but I do know a fool put a rock through your window.”
“It’s a harmless prank. If I ran from a rock, I wouldn’t be in business.”
“First they come with rocks, and then fire and bullets,” Priscilla said in a low, small voice. “We want you to live.”
“I know you do.” Tamar squeezed her sister’s hand and swiveled to the red-faced man glaring at her. “But he would prefer to have me dead.”
“Why can’t you act like a lady? Quiet, submissive, and demure with no political thoughts. Women can’t handle complicated ideas.”
“Some men can’t either,” Delilah said, jumping up from the chair. “May I be excused? I would like to finish reading my Quintilian.” She left without being dismissed, flouncing off to the library.
“That girl should know about cooking, sewing, and other woman things, not philosophy and economics.”
“That girl is your sister-in-law. That girl is doing what we promised our parents and grandparents we would do. Go to school and become of use to the race. How quickly we forget that your dear wife went to school and has a noggin full of knowledge.” Tamar squelched the rising tide of anger that wanted to roll off her tongue and shot a teeth-achingly sweet smile to her brother-in-law.
“You Freeman women … ”
“Are the best thing that happened to you.” Priscilla moved to her husband and kissed his forehead, while smoothing his coat lapel as if she was smoothing his ruffled feathers. “Take a cigar on the porch, my dear, while I get dessert.”
Tamar and Priscilla watched the man stumble out of the dining room, mumbling about his hopes for dessert to be a mocha cake. Once he was gone, Tamar shushed her sister. “Don’t say it.”
“I just ask for peace one day out of the week. One ding-dong day for my family to come together.”
“He’s smoking on my porch. You know how much I hate smoke.”
“This is our house, made by our grandfather and father. We all have a right to this house. You just happen to live here right now.” Priscilla fixed all of the plates into a pile, the top dish loaded with refuse. “Can you please just be nice to him?”
“He attacked me first,” Tamar said with a pout. She scooped a bit of the mashed potatoes out of the bowl and popped it in her mouth. “I only go after those who come for me.”
“Charles has a point. It’s too dangerous for you to write and publish the things you do.”
“Daddy wrote the same things.”
“Daddy was a man. You’re a woman. You can’t expect people to believe a colored woman has a place in the public square and is able to say all the things you’re saying. Equal voting, lynching, civil rights … you’re talking like a mad woman with no hopes of ever getting married.”
“I don’t know if you’re more concerned about my marital prospects or the death threats.”
“I wish you wouldn’t make light of things. If you had a family, maybe you wouldn’t be so strident about that paper and trying to be martyr.”
“I have a family. You and Delilah are Freemans like me.”
“I meant a husband and some children. You must want that. Every woman does.”
Every woman doesn’t. The words fell off her tongue into the void of her mouth. Priscilla wouldn’t understand the passion that drove her, the fear that she’d had when they left Tennessee, and the pride she felt when she made a small shift in opinion. I want to be someone and let the world know who I am. Her sister didn’t have to fight for that; the world knew who she was when she opened her mouth to sing or when she stepped into the room.
“I want our race to be able to live and thrive, not just survive,” Tamar said. “And I want the new edition of the paper to be ready for print Tuesday.” Tamar rose from the table and tore into the soft yeast roll. She popped the bits into her mouth and savored the flavor. Her sister cooked just like their mother had.
“You can’t leave. I have dessert. It’s your favorite.”
Not even lemon queen cake would entice her to sit with Charles for another minute. “Save one for me. The newspaper must be printed.”
Chapter Four
Only three things were open in the dead of night: the doors of a saloon, a harlot’s legs, and the publishing office for the Kansas City Advocate.
Or so Deadwood Dick had been told. The legs of an easy woman and the saloon he could guarantee because he’d just visited the saloon to clinch the details of the robbery with the team’s contact. But the newspaper being open, hardly.
He prayed a silent prayer and crossed himself the way he’d learned at the boarding school he was forced to attend. Any and all help from the heavens was welcomed because Deadwood Dick must get this message to his beloved. He smiled at the subterfuge. Each week beneath their noses, his men read the lonely hearts, laughing at the poor suckers waiting around for some woman.
His woman—Ada—was waiting on him, and she was angrier than a hive of 10,000 hornets. Her last message told him so. The words burned in his mind.
I’ve lost hope. I think you have turned. I can’t trust you.
“Never,” he whispered. He was always faithful to Ada, the law, and his scruples. He had to let his contact—Ada, or in real life, a burly man who would have molly-whopped him for calling him that—know the truth and that the plan was still a go.
With all his musing and thinking, Deadwood Dick walked right to the publishing offices. He tested the doorknob, and it yielded under his grasp. The cluttered office was open, but no one was at the front desk. The office was quiet except for the angry hiss of a machine. The printing press, he assumed. “Hello there?” he said, easing through the door.
The cock of a gun greeted him, and a familiar sight—a gun muzzle—came into view as he rounded the corner. A small woman with a large gun was one of the things he avoided in life. The other, a pint-sized woman with a large gun.] He raised his hands to show he wasn’t armed, and the first voice to break the quiet was the woman’s voice. “My husband does not take kindly to strangers intruding on his wife,” she said.
“I come in peace.”
“At this late of night?” She eyed him suspiciously.
For an outlaw—or the men out to capture them—half past nine in the evening was hardly late. Things were barely getting warmed up at that time. “I promise. Your door was open.”
She stepped out of the dark corner of the office, and he couldn’t think for a moment. She was a pocket Venus with a true hourglass figure, clear skin, and huge dark-fringed eyes, along with a damn impressive steady hand to handle such a big weapon. “Not for you. And you are?”
Amos thought carefully to construct a response. The woman’s looks stunned him into dumbness. “Ma’am, I would like to place a lonely hearts ad.”
“You’re late. You missed the deadline. And you didn’t answer my question.” The woman didn’t lower her gun, but he watched her steadily assess him and the situation.
“I know, but I am hoping for a kind lady’s grace.”
“That kind lady isn’t here. If you’re here to rob me, know that I will shoot you when you leave.”
“A coward shoots in a man’s back.”
The lady snorted. “I would shoot you in the front. Not trying to kill you, just leave you with a walk
ing reminder not to mess with women.”
“My apologies, madam. I’m in a bind and I am swinging through town. I need to make this notice. For a lady friend,” he added.
“At this time of night?” The lady closed her eyes and shook her head. She was one of those types. Prim and proper with delicate sensibilities. What did he expect?
He dipped his head. “It’s a message to confirm my fidelity for my intended.”
Tamar rolled her eyes at him. That look and her sigh made him believe that she heard these lines before. “You have wild oats to sow, and I bet your intended knows that.”
He shrugged and slowly moved his hands down to his pocket. “Hold on,” he said, pulling a wad of bills out of his pocket and laying the stash on the counter. “I’m serious. I need to place the ad at any cost.”
The money on the counter beckoned. He saw it in her eyes—the way they widened and then sparkled at the bounty before her. “Count it,” he offered. He thought better of the offer and peeled off the bills. He counted each piece until he had fifty dollars laid out for her.
“You’re making me a great offer, but I will have to reset the press.”
“Triple that for your efforts.” Her eyes widened to the size of pigeon’s eggs. “You can buy a lot of pretty dresses for one hundred fifty dollars.”
Her eyes narrowed, and he knew in an instant that he’d said the wrong thing. She was going to pump buckshots into him for offending her. “I’d rather buy my sister a ticket so she can go to Howard University to become trained in Latin and Greek. It’s late, and I’m tired.”
“I will stay with you until you finish. It is imperative that I get this want ad out to my Ada.”
“Well, your beloved Ada certainly isn’t concerned about her own fidelity. And Ada can wait a week,” she said with a snort. “If she was top of your mind, you wouldn’t have missed the submission deadline that appears in every paper.”
The woman wasn’t weak, but he’d known that before he met her. She had a backbone of steel and the mouth of a rabble-rouser. She wielded her opinions like a well-sharpened blade, slicing any man or woman not on the side of justice and right. But she’s still a woman. He implored to what he had been warned was the touch point of the weaker sex: her heart. “Have you been in love before?”
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