CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emmett wanted his curiosity about Li Xu satisfied, that was all. Who was this rare beauty who had caught him so completely off guard—this astonishing, multitalented blend of feminine decorum and disarming self-confidence?
He carried the four water pails. She led him to the well at the end of the boardwalk.
“Why did you want to help with the water?” she asked.
Taken aback by the straightforwardness of her question, he struggled for an appropriate reply—one that wouldn’t slam the door in his face. Before he could formulate another answer, the words, “You’re a fascinating woman,” tumbled out of his mouth.
“Fascinating?” She bit her lip and kept her eyes on the well pump.
He hung one of the pails from the spigot and began to work the pump handle. “Well, I didn’t expect an entire variety show when I took your father’s friend’s advice to come eat here.”
“Oh? Which of my father’s friends do you know?”
“A fella named Chin. I don’t really know him. He carries folks’ baggage upstairs for them at the Comstock Queen Hotel—the place where we’re staying.”
“Chin.”
He thought he caught her rolling her eyes. “Yep.”
The pipe gurgled and belched sporadic splashes of water into the pail.
Her gaze rose to meet his, and she tilted her head a little. “So you didn’t expect a show. What did you expect?”
The water flowed freely now.
“I don’t know…Good food?”
“Was it good?”
“Best I’ve had in a while,” he said, smiling more comfortably now.
“My parents do know cooking,” she said. Her accent was slight, her voice smooth and melodic. “All kinds of foods—North Chinese, South Chinese, American.”
He was eager for her to like him. Even if he never saw her again. “They’re not the only ones in your family with talent. I liked your music. You play that instrument well. What do you call it?”
“It’s a pipa—very ancient, very traditional.” She reached for the first full bucket. “A lot of fun, for me at least.”
“Chinese too, right?”
“Yes, Chinese.”
She handed another pail to Emmett.
“Where are you from in China?” he said and right away added, “Although I don’t know why I’m asking. I don’t know Hong Kong from Peking.”
At that, Li Xu smiled. “I’m from right here. I’ve lived in Virginia City my whole life.”
Emmett figured confusion must have been written all over his face because she started laughing.
“Both my parents came here in 1860—the year after everybody found out about the Comstock Lode. Their parents had already been in California almost ten years. Anyway, my father and mother married right after they got here, and I was born the next year in a little house right over there.” She pointed away from the center of town, off beyond the café.
“So you’re twenty years old then,” Emmett said, pleased to have the answer to one of the questions tumbling around in his mind.
“Nineteen,” she said. “I don’t turn twenty until November.”
“Where’d you and your father learn how to throw weapons like that?” He grinned.
Her face took on a mischievous expression. “Just playing around behind the restaurant after we finished our work.”
“Chopsticks?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Similar. My father’s father had some Korean chopsticks—they sometimes use metal ones. He experimented with those when he was young. Later, just for fun, he made some sticks specifically for throwing.”
Emmett pondered whether folks up here let the Chinese own guns. Good that a man can defend his family with something. A couple of anti-Chinese news stories flashed through his mind, and he hoped Li and Yong would only ever need their throwing skills to amuse guests.
It occurred to him once again that prior to passing through California a couple days ago, he’d never actually seen an Asian before. He’d only read about them.
He stole another glance at Li Xu. She waited patiently for him to finish filling another pail. A Celestial. Not an hour ago, assuming it impossible, he had longed to talk with her, if only briefly. Now it was happening. So what was the verdict? Mere infatuation after all?
Their conversation stalled before the fourth container was full.
“Two and two?” she asked, reaching for a pair of buckets.
“Sounds fair,” he said, lifting the other two. “Would’ve been heavy for one little lady.”
She glowered over her shoulder.
“Although I’m sure it’d be nothing for you,” he hurried to say. The frown seemed playful, but it was just convincing enough to make him wonder.
Before reaching the café door, she said, “Are you and your friends going to be staying in Virginia City very long?”
He wondered why exactly she asked. “We’re looking for someone—a man who ran away from a serious crime he committed down in Texas. Your father seems willing to help us find out something we need to know. So whether we stay here or not, there’s a good chance we’ll be back to talk with him again.”
Directly in front of the door, she turned to face him. He liked the shape of her face and the bow of her lips. “What’s my father going to find out for you?”
Emmett wavered over telling her more. But something about the look in her eyes convinced him she truly wanted to know who he was and why he’d come to Nevada. And suddenly it became important to him to tell her—just in case this adventure ended badly for him.
“A man named Charlie Blaylock murdered my brother,” he said. “Charlie Blaylock’s brother, Seth, is supposed to be a big and dangerous man around here. I think Charlie came here to hide behind his brother. Your father said he’d ask around about where this Seth Blaylock lives and just how powerful he is.”
She delayed responding. “I’m sorry about your brother,” she finally said. “And I hope my father can help somehow. But I’m curious…”
“About what?”
“Of all the people you could go to for help in the search for your brother’s murderer, why a Chinese man? Why a simple restaurant owner?”
“It wasn’t something I planned. It just sorta happened.”
He reached for the door handle, but she didn’t step aside.
His heartbeat picked up.
“You haven’t told me your name,” she said.
“Emmett,” he said. “Emmett Strong. I heard your father call you Li.”
She nodded and gave a polite smile, allowing him room to take the door handle now. “Thanks for your help with the water, Emmett.”
He returned the smile and gave a single nod while his heart kept thumping a notch faster than usual. Stealing one last moment to etch the details of her face on his memory, he shifted both buckets to one hand and let her take the lead across the threshold.
Dammit! he chided himself. You’re more than infatuated.
He had a job to do. Distracted like this, he could wind up dead—especially if Blaylock’s brother really did turn out to be a big gun. And dead simply wouldn’t do…not when life was just starting to become so interesting again.
From the shadows between two shops across the street, Chin watched. His eyes burned. This, he thought, was not why he’d sent this cowboy over here.
How could this be? Yong Xu was fine with letting his daughter go out alone with a stranger—a white man, after dark. But he wouldn’t let her have time alone with him—a Chinese man. Why not? Because he didn’t have enough money? Because his English wasn’t good? Yong Xu was clearly becoming too proud. Too American.
And why was Li Xu always so impolite to him? Yes, she was beautiful—perhaps the most beautiful of all the pretty girls in Chinatown. But why had she stoppe
d speaking to him? OK, except for a formal hello or good-bye. Did she think so much of her own beauty? Or did she think she was special because her father was a community leader?
He had tried to impress both Li Xu and her father. That was over now. This was the last insult he would take from either one of them.
Gritting his teeth, he swabbed his eyes with his sleeve. After one last glance at Xu’s Golden Dragon, he spun and padded off into the darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Almost noon, the sun floated high in the cloudless blue. A chilly edge wouldn’t release its grip on the springtime air.
Emmett, Juanito, and Sikes had ridden out of Virginia City at daybreak, having paid to leave their mule and a few of their belongings back at the livery stable. They wanted to travel light in case they had to beat a path out of Carson City.
“You got your role down, Juanito?” Emmett asked.
“Sí, yo lo tengo.”
“OK then. Go to it, amigo. You’ll find Sikes and me down at the statehouse when you’re done.”
He nodded. “See you there.”
Juanito walked his horse toward the railroad station, while Emmett and Sikes continued straight ahead toward the Nevada capitol building.
“I wish I’d gotten a look at Charlie Blaylock back in Austin,” Sikes said.
“Yeah, well…I’ll have to keep my eyes shucked for the both of us,” Emmett said. “Just be ready to follow my lead if I happen to spot him.”
“This is a bold move, Strong.”
“Mainly just reconnoitering.”
“You won’t nab him if we run across him?”
“Depends. Need to find out where he is first. And what kind of protection his brother’s providing.”
“You said you wanted to stop in at the statehouse.”
“Yep.”
“You’ve played it cautious thus far,” Sikes said. “Knocking on the statehouse door to ask about Seth Blaylock hardly seems cautious.”
“It’s not like I’ll be out on the front steps, yammering on about Charlie or Seth for all the world to hear.”
Sikes shrugged.
In the center of the city, with Emmett still scouring the boardwalks for Charlie Blaylock, the two set about looking for the town marshal’s office. It seemed they must’ve searched both sides of every street and avenue twice and still hadn’t located the place.
Emmett drew up, planted his fist on his thigh, and panned the street. “Now what kind of town doesn’t put the marshal’s office right in the middle where everybody can find it? Juanito’s gonna be back here before we’ve accomplished a thing.”
Sikes reined his horse to the side of the street to catch up with a potbellied fellow wearing a bowler and a fine suit hurrying along the boardwalk. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “My friend and I are looking for the town marshal’s office. We’ve covered practically the whole of Carson City and still can’t seem to find it.”
The man in the bowler stopped, grasped the lapels of his suit coat, and squinted up at Sikes. “Town doesn’t exactly have a marshal’s office. That’d be why you haven’t found one.”
Emmett joined them. “No marshal’s office?”
The man gave Emmett and Sikes the once-over. “No need for one when there’s no marshal.”
Emmett pushed his hat back a little. “Peculiar—a city this size with no marshal. Who’s your local law?”
“Mr. McIntosh and his boys look out for the town well enough.”
Yong Xu’s words about Thaddeus McIntosh echoed in Emmett’s mind. He glanced at Sikes, who raised his eyebrows knowingly.
“They look out for the town,” Emmett said, “in some sort of official capacity?”
The man let go of his lapels. His eyes narrowed. “If you really want an answer to that question, I think you’re going to have to ask Mr. McIntosh directly.” He looked from Emmett to Sikes and back again. “Good day, sirs,” he said, already pivoting to continue on his way.
“Curious,” Sikes murmured, leaning on his saddle horn.
Emmett followed the man with his gaze. “Very.”
At the next street corner, the fellow approached and spoke to two men wearing gun belts. Though he didn’t point back at Emmett and Sikes, he jerked his head in their direction more than once.
After a fashion, the armed men shoved off the lamppost they had been leaning against and began to swagger toward them.
“I expect we’re about to meet a couple of McIntosh boys right now,” Emmett said. “Looking out for the town, so to speak.”
“Appears so,” Sikes said. “How do you want to handle this?”
“Head on.”
Emmett chirked and lightly touched his pinto’s flanks. He walked the horse right up to the pair. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
“Mr. Farley says there’s somethin’ you want to ask Mr. McIntosh,” the one on the left said. “Is that so?”
Emmett pursed his lips, then said, “No, I don’t believe Mr. Farley got that right. I’ll be glad to talk to the county sheriff or to any other duly elected or appointed official. But I don’t think I need to trouble Mr. McIntosh.”
The two men eyed one another. A plug of tobacco distended the cheek of the fellow on the right. He spat a stream of brown saliva to within inches of Emmett’s horse’s front hoof.
Emmett took pains to remain placid.
“You even know who Mr. McIntosh is, stranger?” the one with no tobacco said.
“Heard his name once before,” Emmett said.
“And?”
“And I never heard anybody say Marshal McIntosh, Sheriff McIntosh, or even Mayor McIntosh.”
“All them things you said—marshal, sheriff, mayor—you wanna talk about any of them things, you gonna have to talk to Mr. McIntosh.”
Emmett nodded. “And when the citizens of this burg want to talk about any of those things, do they have to talk to Mr. McIntosh?”
“Citizens ’round here don’t much wanna talk about such things.”
About then Emmett spied Mr. Farley again, at the mouth of a side street a couple of blocks ahead. This time the pudgy magpie pointed, and a welcoming committee of a half dozen heeled men fanned out into the street and began to head in their direction.
“A pleasure to meet you gents,” Emmett said to the pair directly in front of him. “I think our question’s been answered.”
“Naw, you ain’t leavin’ yet,” the one with the tobacco said. “We got some questions for you. What’re you—”
Emmett cut him off. “Thanks for the welcome. Adios.” He touched his hat and wheeled his horse.
Sikes followed suit.
“Hey,” the McIntosh man called out, “I said we got questions for you.”
They rode away at a trot.
“I get the feeling that even if we talk to McIntosh directly we won’t get any help arresting Charlie Blaylock,” Sikes said.
“Just a feeling, huh?”
“Think they’ll shoot us in the back?”
“Not just yet.”
Sikes started to look over his shoulder.
“Uh-uh,” Emmett said, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “You look back, you lose.”
Several blocks away Emmett and Sikes dismounted and entered the cool, dimly lit lobby of the statehouse. A man in a black suit sat at a desk off to one side.
“Help you gents?” he said, rising from his station. His voice reverberated in the spacious foyer.
“If there was a federal marshal in this fine city, where would we find him?”
The man scratched his thinning hair. He glanced toward the door where Emmett and Sikes had come in. “You bring trouble with you?”
Emmett closed his eyes and shook his head. “Do I look troubled?”
Sikes smiled.
“No, don’t reckon you
do,” the government man said. “You’re lucky to catch him in town today. He doesn’t spend a great deal of time here.” He pointed. “Exit on the other side of the lobby there. Door directly across the street. Won’t see a sign, though.”
“Didn’t figure we would,” Emmett said. “Much obliged.”
When Emmett opened the door to the federal marshal’s office, its sole occupant—his back to them—flinched visibly. Glass clinked on glass and two faint clunks followed. The man pivoted in place.
“Help you?” Thin and hollow-cheeked, the fellow looked as if he’d break in two if he so much as sneezed.
“Where’s your badge, Marshal?” Emmett said.
The man absently touched the left side of his blue suit coat. “Reckon I forgot it. Who’re you?”
Emmett pulled the Texas Ranger star from his pocket and affixed it to his vest. “Don’t know that this means much up here in Nevada.” He patted the badge. “Name’s Emmett Strong. This is my pardner Granville Sikes.”
“Yes?” the marshal said.
“Fugitive flees across state lines, do you suppose it might be within the purview of a US marshal to help give chase?”
The marshal cleared his throat, sniffed, and said, “You chasin’ a fugitive?”
“Yep.”
“All the way up from Texas?”
“Yep.”
“What’d he do?”
“Shot a Texas state senator right in the stomach. In cold blood. Left a young widow to mourn all alone in Texas.”
The marshal rubbed his whiskers. “How do you know he came up here?”
Sikes shifted his weight.
“Telegraph office,” Emmett said. “Fugitive sent a telegram ahead.” He paused for emphasis. “To tell his brother he was coming.”
“Fugitive’s brother’s in Carson City?” The marshal’s gaze darted from Emmett to Sikes, then to the door.
Emmett placed both hands on the lawman’s desk and leaned forward. “That’s something I’m hoping you can tell me.”
Strong Convictions: An Emmett Strong Western (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 1) Page 9