Outlaw Moon

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “And how long were you married to him?”

  “About a year and a half.”

  “And why’d you divorce him?”

  Her cheeks took on a nervous flush. “That’s awfully personal.”

  “I need to know,” Booth insisted quietly. “It might give me some hints that will help us later.”

  Felicity watched him, admiring his serious, mustached smile and the way he cocked his head slightly when he listened to her. The gray streaks in his sideburns gave him an air of authority and wisdom she relished . . . but this was no time for mooning over a man who had to trust her.

  “I...I was so caught up with Jack,” she replied in a faraway voice. “He was a striking man—a virile, devoted husband. A dashing young attorney with such a future ahead of him. I couldn’t understand why he took on so many clients who couldn’t pay him . . . got tired of threadbare clothing and that dingy little shack, when his colleagues enjoyed such lovely, enviable lives.”

  “So where does Mr. Nunn fit in?”

  Felicity fidgeted with the large ruby on her left hand, giving him a sheepish smile. “Douglas made a few remarks in passing, the sort of words a woman likes to hear from a well-heeled gentleman whose head she’s turned. When I found Jack was seeing Bitsy, I couldn’t tolerate his poverty and his unfaithfulness.”

  “So you married Douglas and lived happily ever after?”

  Her laughter was soft, so feminine. “It was immediately clear that Mr. Nunn lacked Jack’s . . . passion. But he treated me well, and upon his death he left me more money than I ever dreamed he had. I soon learned, however, that living alone, above a funeral parlor, can be devastatingly—”

  “Didn’t think about that when you married him, huh?” Booth asked quietly. “What was he, about thirty years older than you?”

  Felicity’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not on trial here, Mr. Watson. I was betrayed by my first husband—”

  “Who was seen visiting your sister, right?” he continued relentlessly. This was where her story got tricky, and he focused his senses on every move, every change of inflection that might indicate she was leading him on more of a wild goose chase than Rafferty was. “Is it a crime for a man to check on his sister-in-law? Seems to me—”

  “Bitsy was a whore. We’ve already been over this.”

  “And how do you know he wasn’t talking her out of that occupation? Perhaps offering her financial support?” Watson queried. “He sounds like the type to take on such a noble, if unprofitable, cause.”

  “He knew I was ashamed of her, because she chose whoring over other alternatives—changed her name to Bitsy, to make the transformation even more ludicrous,” Felicity replied in a voice that quavered slightly. “And when he came home reeking of her cheap perfume, it was obvious what he’d been offering her. It was the ultimate humiliation, Mr. Watson, and the scandal would’ve eventually ruined him. My only recourse was to—”

  “Divorce him,” Booth finished for her, “and marry money the next time around. And meanwhile your sister was stabbed, and Jack was charged with her murder, and he disappeared before the law in Dodge could catch him. Sounds like you got shed of him just in time.”

  What was he implying? She looked him over closely, sensing she was indeed on trial here and that her handsome judge and jury could somehow read her mind. “I didn’t believe that murder charge for a minute,” she insisted. “Much as I resented his betrayal, I knew Jack could no more kill a woman than I could. Bitsy’s bedclothes reeked of whiskey, and the empty bottle on her night table pointed to a drunken, foul-tempered man who pinned the blame on Jack, knowing Rafferty was sweet on her. But that’s where the story falls apart, Mr. Watson. Jack’s a teetotaler. Made such a point of it that his friends teased him about it.”

  “Then why did Jack run?” the detective asked in a low voice. “You’ve told me the newspapers said he was on the premises.”

  “Seeing another one of the girls,” Felicity stated coolly. “He was a free man, after all... maybe a little lonely, but not a murderer. Knowing Jack, he wanted to protect his clients from further scandal by separating himself from the scene, until things cooled down and the killer was caught. Instead, the Wanted posters were issued, and he’s been hiding out ever since.”

  So far he found little variation from Mrs. Nunn’s original version, yet Booth persisted. He sincerely doubted Rafferty was the type to kill a woman, and he was wishing he’d had a chance to talk with the law in Dodge before Jack came out of hiding, forcing him into the hunt unprepared. Until his partner, Scott McConnell, could wire him about what the Kansas sheriff said, he would have to go with what this slender, green-eyed woman told him. Her motives were still a little murky, though.

  Booth sighed, looking his client in the eye. “We’ve been over this, but tell me again why you want to catch Rafferty. You have money, and you have a respectable name to go with it. You can’t bring your sister back—and it looks like the real killer won’t be caught—so why go after Jack now? Sounds like a move that’ll only bring you embarrassment and heartache, Mrs. Nunn.”

  Felicity shook her head, looking a little dreamy-eyed. “I was a fool to let him go in the first place ...an uppity, harping fool,” she said quietly. “I miss him, Mr. Watson . . . miss the nights we spent in each other’s arms, as craven as that may sound to you. I have all the money we could ever want, and with my sister in her grave I realize how very much alone I am now—even though I detested her line of work. Even though his affair with her devastated me, I ... I can understand how my unsympathetic attitudes might’ve driven him to it.”

  She paused for breath and effect, leaning over the table to touch his hand. “I need my man, Mr. Watson. I want to mend fences before it’s too late. Can you understand that? Surely a gentleman of your calling’s no stranger to loneliness.”

  She had that right. And it was all Booth could do to keep his mind on business as her slender fingers caressed his. “If that’s truly the case, Mrs. Nunn,” he said, gently slipping his hand free, “then why’d you detain me during the show? We could’ve had Rafferty—could’ve escorted him to Omaha so you could clear him, come Monday. And no matter what you think of this Gideon Midnight character, he’ll slow us down even more. Our chances of finding Rafferty now will be—”

  “But I saw that two-faced bitch steal his jewelry and his horse!” she protested. “He has a right to recover his valuables, and she can lead us straight to Rafferty! Gideon says they planned this escapade, so she knows where he’s headed!”

  Booth cleared his throat. “And you still want Jack, despite the fact that he’s running with another woman?” he asked pointedly. “What if he doesn’t want you?”

  “We’ll see who’s woman enough to keep him!” she declared, pounding the tabletop. Felicity glared at him, tired of his questions, and then continued in a no-nonsense tone of voice. “Remember that thousand dollars I left as a deposit, Mr. Watson? Remember the supplies I’ve bought? I’m paying you handsomely for capturing my former husband—and I’ve already assured you I’ll pay Gideon’s expenses, as well. First thing I’ll do when we reach Omaha is wire another thousand dollars to your office and replenish our food—or do you object to having a client who can pay her way? I never dreamed you’d be as squeamish about accepting money for your services as Jack was!”

  Watson wanted to laugh at her outburst, but it wasn’t funny. He needed her money to get his fledgling detective agency going—and she knew that, dammit—so there was little room to argue with the hard-eyed blonde who was now staring him down. Her story had holes in it. But until he found them, there was no sense in sending her away as though he was too high-toned to chase after a wealthy woman’s fantasies and get paid royally for it.

  “We’re tired,” he stated. “Rafferty’s probably catching some shut-eye, and so should we. You tell your star friend we ride before seven. We’ve got no more time to waste, Mrs. Nunn.”

  As he stood up and put his black Stetson on, Felicity’s insides
quivered. Booth Watson filled the car with his larger-than-life air of authority—how she loved it when he bored into her with those blue, blue eyes and told her how things were going to be! “All right,” she breathed, her hand fluttering to her bodice. “Whatever you say, Mr. Watson. You’re the boss.”

  Booth let out a short, humorless laugh, knowing he should despise this woman for playing his emotions against his common sense. The trail to Rafferty would be trickier and more treacherous now. But as he fetched his bedroll from his horse, he vowed to wrap this case up before Scott could wire him about why he never should’ve taken it in the first place.

  Chapter 7

  The train lurched with the first surge of the locomotive and chugged slowly away from the station. Rafferty could relax at last, and as he sat down in an overstuffed chair beside the window of his private car, he even managed a smile. “They can’t catch us now, Maudie,” he crooned to the dog at his feet. “Don’t know who the hell that fellow was, but we won’t be seeing him again. Once we cross into Canada, we’re free, girl.”

  The collie grunted and curled into a tighter ball, lying against his leg.

  Jack stared out at the night, at the dark, shadowy buildings huddled on the fringes of the sprawling Omaha rail yards, and rolled a cigarette. He’d galloped into the station just after midnight, only to discover that the last train to anywhere departed about ten minutes before. He was sweating bullets at first, for having to wait nearly three hours to be rolling along these rails, but he realized now that it was time well spent.

  After riding to the nearest bath house—where, in a fit of inspiration, he’d swapped his dirty work clothes for another bather’s natty pin-striped suit—he’d filled up on the free food in a saloon and won a few lucrative hands of poker. Feeling flush, he then secured this private Pullman car and arranged for it to go as far north through Minnesota as the train could take him—the best way to get some undisturbed sleep, and the safest way not to be seen by conductors and porters who’d remember a mustachioed man and his dog if that detective came asking after him.

  And gut instinct told him the burly man was a detective, perhaps a Pinkerton operative.

  For months after fleeing Dodge City, he’d drifted from one Rocky Mountain boom town to the next, losing himself in the sea of grimy miners until he had some cash laid by. Then he’d hired on at a Colorado sheep ranch so vast he seldom worried about the law finding him. Just minded his own business while watching over those woollybacks with Maude, until an impish little lassie named Lyla barged into his wagon seeking protection from the ranch’s perverted owner.

  Little did they know that her supposedly-deceased sweetheart, Marshal Thompson, would find them—and Rafferty still recalled the nasty scowl on the lawman’s face when he recognized him from the Wanted posters. But out of gratitude for rescuing Lyla, he’d chosen to wink at Jack’s past . . . even invited him to be in the wedding party a few weeks later, sport that he was.

  Jack caught his grinning reflection in the window-pane and chuckled. Barry Thompson was one lucky son of a gun to catch a bride like buxom little Lyla . . . probably still honeymooning, since he’d turned in his badge before the ceremony. From Colorado, Rafferty took out across the Nebraska plains with Maude on a fine gray gelding he called Smoke, shunning civilization until the bright lights of Gideon Midnight’s Wild West Extravaganza lured him onto the Omaha fairgrounds.

  He felt like he was closing another chapter of a life story that had grown tiresome and lonely these past few months, and he was glad Amber LaBelle knew enough to stay behind. She only reminded him of the pleasures a fugitive could never partake of on a permanent basis . . . reminded him that he was doomed to run until the law stopped looking for him. Or until he died.

  The grim thought made Jack get up and pace with the rolling rhythm of the train, almost wishing he’d bought a bottle. He was a man accustomed to his own company—a perpetual stranger when passing through a town, always on the lookout—but as his thoughts lingered on the man who’d been studying him in the arena, his guts got that too-tight feeling again. His nightmare had finally caught up with him: somebody intended to collect on his crime.

  Rafferty was certain he’d never seen the man before. Who could forget that tall, broad frame or the thick mustache and piercing blue eyes? He was vaguely reminiscent of Barry Thompson . . . probably hailed from out West, where lawmen were likelier to dress as their bold, leather-vested predecessors had, rather than like the uniformed policemen who patrolled city streets these days.

  And as Jack resumed his seat by the window, another thought struck him: the detective wasn’t alone. In the few seconds he’d observed the man, he’d also gotten the impression that the fashionably-dressed lady beside him was part of the chase—which made no sense at all! No operative worth his salt would let a woman slow him down . . . and damned if there wasn’t something oddly familiar about her, now that he thought about it.

  “Must be going crazy,” he muttered. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette; tried to lose himself in the rapidly-passing telegraph poles and the open spaces outside. To the east, the first streaks of yellow, pink, and lavender announced the sunrise, and he told himself he should be getting some sleep. Yet visions of the slender, straw-haired woman—green, she was wearing—kept toying at him like a sharp-clawed kitten.

  “Must’ve been seeing things,” he mumbled, realizing that the habit of talking to himself had returned, as it did each time he left civilization behind.

  But as he took a last, long drag on his smoke, Jack caught a movement on the horizon that made him press his nose to the windowpane. The train was slowing down—probably for the first station north of the city—and it was being followed, by a fast-moving figure that shone a mystical white as it flew like Pegasus along the rails stretching behind Jack’s Pullman car, the stock cars, and the caboose.

  Rafferty gripped the arm of his chair, to keep from being jolted out of it as the long line of cars rammed into each other and came to a stop. That was a white horse! And when he saw the blue and red ribbons plaited into its mane, and the rider’s billowing paisley skirts, he almost swallowed the stub of his cigarette.

  “Amber! Dammit!” he cried, standing up so suddenly that poor Maude skittered behind the loveseat.

  And a moment later there she was, her coarse brown waves flying behind her as she hugged Miss Blanche’s lathered neck. As though she knew he was in there, the fortuneteller glanced through his window while she reined in her proud mount, and her mouth dropped open in surprise—and delight.

  Rafferty pivoted away from her. “Goddammit, she promised me—just when I thought—well, we’ll fix her, won’t we, Maudie?” he demanded with a sarcastic laugh. “Little bitch better think again if she figures to hitch her ass to my wagon.”

  With quick flicks of his wrist he threw the bolts on the doors to his car, and then he yanked his curtains shut. He should be sleeping. He’d paid fifty dollars a day not to be disturbed, and by God he wouldn’t be!

  Amber felt flushed and exhilarated as the train pulled to a hissing, groaning, clatter-banging stop at the station. Rafferty was aboard! She’d assumed him to be long gone, or departed in a different direction, and the sight of his dark, glistening eyes—and a vested suit—set off a whirlwind in her mind.

  But she had to be careful: she was on the run now, just as Jack was, and calling attention to herself was the last thing she should do. She allowed Miss Blanche to trot in a circle behind the train for a few minutes, and when the mare had cooled down Amber reined her around the caboose. The platform and station building bustled with passengers, while blue-uniformed conductors called out “all aboard!” as trunks and valises got loaded onto the cargo cars.

  As she’d hoped, the ramp of the boxcar carrying passengers’ horses was down . . . her limited funds would stretch a lot farther if Miss Blanche could be stowed away, but how would she slip her prancing, milk-white mount into the stock car without being seen? She’d have to buy a ticket if she
rode in a passenger car, but if she could share Jack’s quarters . . . pay him back after she’d won a few hands of cards . . . well, it seemed much more practical than shelling out full fare. And it was safer than traveling alone!

  Amber was grinning at her cleverness when a fracas broke out on the platform. A dandified young prankster had apparently snatched his sister’s carpetbag and was running in wild circles ahead of her, which caused his poor mother to cry out for assistance. It was the perfect diversion, so while the crowd chuckled and three conductors chased after the children, Amber dismounted and quickly walked Miss Blanche up the stock ramp.

  “Easy, girl—all the way to the back here,” she said in a low voice. The car was dark and smelled of hay and fresh manure. Flies buzzed lazily, and as the horses stomped and shifted their hindquarters the white mare champed at her bit, ready to back up.

  “I realize these aren’t the sort of accommodations you’re used to,” Amber muttered, “but we have to adjust, now that we’re not on Gideon’s payroll. Look—here’s a fresh bale of hay, and water in the trough. You’ll be just fine. It’s a sacrifice, I know, but it’s for a good cause, Blanche.”

  The spoiled horse nickered and shook her braided mane, but Amber could waste no more time humoring her. If she didn’t get out of this smelly boxcar before they slammed its door shut, she might be stuck in here for a long time!

  Squinting when she emerged into the bright morning sunlight, she ducked between two boxcars just before the approaching crewmen spotted her. Clutching her two carpetbags, she scurried onto the platform of the car she thought was Rafferty’s—only to discover it was a parlor car instead. Several expensively-dressed gentlemen peered at her from behind their veil of cigar smoke, and when she remained rooted to the spot, momentarily stunned, a few of them gave her sly once-overs that brought her wits back.

  “Well!” she said cheerily, “I can see I’m in good company on this run! Perhaps we’ll meet again after I get set up.”