“Hello, babe,” he said.
Clint went down the hall to his own room, unlocked the door, and turned up the wall lamp as Angela had done. By that light he also saw someone waiting for him on his bed, only it wasn’t a man.
“Hello, Clint,” Ava said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Hello, Ava,” he said. “I thought you were staying with your family tonight?”
“Well,” she said. “They’re not really family. I mean, it’s a cousin of my mother’s cousin. I can’t really figure that out, can you?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t even think I’ll try.”
She was lying on top of the bedclothes, still fully attired in a blue dress, which she had pulled up so that her bare legs showed. Her arms were also bare.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Getting something to eat, and smoking a cigar,” he said, “both with a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Jerry Sumner,” he said. “An engineer who was on the Dolly Madison. You ended up on the Louisiana shore, didn’t you?”
“That’s right?”
“Were you hurt?”
“No,” she said. “It was Dean who got me into the water.”
“Did you see what happened to Dean?”
“No,” she said. “He was supposed to jump off the boat when I did, but he didn’t. He made sure I got off, and then I didn’t see him again. I figured he thought of something that kept him from leaving.”
Something like gold? Clint wondered. Even if he had known about the gold, there was nothing that could have been done while the boat was going down. Even if they were gold bricks, you couldn’t have swum to shore with even one.
“What about the Warrant brothers?”
“We never saw them,” she said. “Dean was wonderin’ where they got to.”
“And the gamblers? Kingdom? Galvin?”
“Never saw them. Or the girl, Kathy. They weren’t on shore across the river?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “They weren’t there when I was, and I haven’t seen everyone who was rescued from there.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess my job singing on the Dolly is over.”
“I guess so.”
“Think I can get paid?”
“Even if we find Dean,” Clint said, “I don’t know if he’ll have any money. His investors are going to be looking for him.”
“I knew it was too good to be true,” she said.
“Lots of things are,” he said.
“And,” she said, pulling the hem of her dress even higher, “others aren’t.”
Angela stared at the man on her bed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did anybody see you?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Nobody saw me.”
“Why did you take the chance?”
“I’ll tell you why, sweetie,” he said. “Because you got me to ship my gold upriver on a boat that sank.”
“It shouldn’t have sunk,” she said, shaking her head. “It was supposed to be impossible.”
“When are you gonna learn that nothin’ is impossible?” he asked.
She shook her head again, walked to the bed, and sat at the bottom. He slid down to put his arms around her.
“Have you missed me?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
“Of course,” she said, thinking how lucky it was that Clint had not come into the room with her.
“Have you talked to anybody?” he asked. “About the gold?”
“No.”
He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back so that her neck was stretched out.
“Are you sure?” he asked in her ear.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure!” she said. “You’re hurting me!”
“I’ll do worse than that if you tell anyone about it, Angela,” he said, releasing her head. “Remember that.”
He got off the bed and moved toward the door. “I’d like to spend the night with you, but I’ve got to make plans to recover that gold.” He opened the door and pulled his jacket on. “Remember what I said, Angela.”
He held his finger to his lips and slipped into the hall.
Ava slid off her dress and beckoned Clint to the bed with her. He made sure the door was locked, then unbuckled his gun belt, hung it on the bedpost, and got undressed.
Naked, he got into bed with her. She took him in her arms.
“You always make sure that gun is near,” she said.
“That’s why I’m alive to make love to you,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “I’m sure not gonna complain about that.”
TWENTY-NINE
Clint and Ava entwined their legs and pressed their naked bodies together as they kissed. She slid her hand down between them to massage his hard cock, and he slid his fingers in and out of her wet pussy. They en-flamed each other with kisses and touches until Clint slipped a leg over her, straddled her, and slid his cock deep into her. As he fucked her, Ava wrapped her muscular legs and thighs around him, scratched his back with her nails, and bit his shoulder. It was as if she was determined to mark her territory.
Clint grunted and groaned as he drove himself into her, cupping her gorgeous ass in his hands and pulling her onto him with each thrust.
Ava laughed, groaned, and growled as he continued to plow into her. She also exhorted him with cries of “Harder, oh, harder, come on . . .”
The bed began to leap off the floor as their bodies slammed together, as they each strained for release.
Ava’s came first, and she dug her nails into him as waves of pleasure rolled over her. Just moments later Clint cried out as he ejaculated into her in powerful, almost painful spurts . . .
“That was just fucking,” she said, later, “plain and simple . . .”
They were lying together, her head on his shoulder, perspiration drying on their skin.
“Are you complaining?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “I’m just sayin’ you promised me some lovemaking, and that was fuckin’.”
“That’s not very ladylike,” he told her.
She laughed. “Sugar, ain’t you learned by now I ain’t very ladylike when I’m in bed with a man?” She made circles on his belly with her fingernails, then stroked his penis. “I’m just sayin’ don’t get too comfortable, because you ain’t finished with me yet, and I definitely ain’t finished with you.”
“That suits me fine,” he said.
She stretched, her breasts growing taut, and added, “But first we’ll take a little nap.”
“That suits me, too.”
They woke hours later and made love more slowly and gently, then slept again. The next time they woke, sunlight was streaming into the room.
“Mornin’,” she said, kissing him.
“Good morning.” He kissed her lips, her chin, her neck, then lingered around her breasts until her nipples were turgid.
“That’s enough,” she said, pushing him away. “I need a bath. I smell like a goat.”
“You smell fine to me,” he said, licking her shoulder. “And you taste good.”
She pushed him away again and said, “I need a bath.”
“Then go take one.”
“This is your room, your hotel, not mine” she said. “You have to arrange a bath.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, “we’ll take a bath.”
“Together?” she asked excitedly.
“If they have a tub big enough,” he said, “together.”
“I think we can fit into a normal tub together,” she said, “but you’ll have to wash my back.”
“I’ll wash your back, but then I have to have breakfast,” he said.
“I’m sure by then we’ll have an appetite,” she said.
He got dressed and went down to arrange for the bath.
Fresh from their bath—which took half an hour and lasted until half the tepid water was on the floor—they went across the street to have breakfast in a small café r
ecommended by the desk clerk.
“Very fahn grits,” he’d said in his Southern accent.
Clint wasn’t crazy about grits, but he did like biscuits and gravy with his steak and eggs.
“What are you gonna do today?” Ava asked, then said, “Oh, that’s right. The boat.”
“If Dean’s body is out there, I’d like to find it,” he said.
“I hope he’s alive,” she said.
“So do I.”
In fact, after breakfast he went to the temporary hospital/shelter they’d erected for the survivors. It was a huge tent filled with cots and tables, and as he entered, the survivors were enjoying a breakfast supplied to them by a local restaurant.
Clint recognized some of the people from the boat, but most of the passengers were strangers to him, since there had been so many on board. But there was not even close to the full complement of guests in that tent. He knew that some, like him and Jerry, had been able to make their own arrangements for shelter, but still others were simply not there at all. Their bodies were either at the bottom of the river, still floating on top, or had washed up on shore.
Having satisfied himself that Dean Dillon was not there, he left the tent and walked to the docks, to the offices of the Anchor Line.
THIRTY
Fred Ward and Stan McKay looked up as Clint entered the office.
“Good morning, Adams,” Ward said.
“Morning,” Clint said, exchanging nods with McKay.
“Ready to go?” Ward asked.
“I’m ready.”
“I hope you don’t find your friend out there,” Ward said.
“I hope to find him alive, somewhere,” Clint said.
The door opened again and Jerry Sumner entered. They exchanged greetings and Ward said, “Thank you for offering your expertise on this, Mr. Sumner.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Ward,” Jerry said. “I’m anxious to find out what happened.”
“We all are,” Ward said. “Mr. McKay will take you both to the boat.”
McKay nodded and led the way out of the office.
“We’ll take one flat-bottomed boat today,” he told them.
“Will we be picking up bodies?” Clint asked.
“No,” McKay said, “that’s up to the law. The chief is making arrangements for that. We’re just going out today to examine the boat. We’ll have two of my men with me who can do the underwater work.”
As they reached the boat, Clint saw that, in addition to the two divers McKay talked about, there were several other crewmen.
They got on board and headed downriver. Clint and Jerry sat in the back of the boat, out of the way, and talked.
They had both gone to the temporary shelter to see who was there. Jerry had recognized more people than Clint had, but neither of them had seen any sign of Dean Dillon, Galvin and his woman Kathy, or Kingdom.
“They’re out there somewhere,” Clint said.
“Yeah, but dead or alive?” Jerry asked.
McKay came back and sat with them.
“When will something be done to salvage the boat?” Clint asked.
“We need to have an owner on hand before anything can be done,” McKay said. “If we don’t find Dean Dillon, then someone from New Orleans—perhaps an investor—will have to come to town and make arrangements.”
“I see.”
“Were you friends with Dillon?”
Rather than trying to explain their relationship Clint simply said, “Yes.”
“But not an investor?”
“No.”
“Were you asked?”
“No, and if I had been I would have said no.”
“Why?”
“Same reasons everyone else has been talking about,” Clint said. “Too big, and too heavy.”
“Dillon is lucky he had Captain Hatton in the wheelhouse,” McKay said. “That old warrior saved that boat by getting it to shallow water.”
“He doesn’t like people very much, does he?” Clint asked.
McKay laughed. “He should never come in off the water,” he said. “No, he doesn’t have much use for people, unless they’re his crewmen.”
McKay left them and moved to the front of the boat again.
“Doesn’t sound like Dillon’s going to have anyone to blame,” Jerry said.
“Unless it was sabotage,” Clint said. “There was an explosion, and it didn’t come from the steam engines.”
“Maybe we’ll know more by the end of today,” Jerry offered.
“I hope so.”
When they reached the Dolly Madison, Clint looked around carefully, studying both shores. He wasn’t looking for survivors or bodies. If Angela was right about the gold on the boat, and if anyone else knew about it, somebody might have already been there to try to salvage it. But they’d need a hell of a boat if there was as much gold as she’d indicated.
He didn’t see anyone about as they pulled up alongside the huge riverboat.
McKay and his men, along with Jerry, went to work belowdecks while Clint took another look around the upper decks to see if anyone was around. After a careful search he determined no one else was on board, and it didn’t look like anyone had been there trying to salvage anything. Not yet, anyway.
He went back down to the lower deck, where he waded to where the men were working.
McKay and Jerry was standing there, waiting for the two men who were underwater.
“We can’t find anything other than that hole that was blown in the side,” McKay said. “Definitely looks like it was done deliberately.”
“Have your men taken a look at the cargo hold?” Clint asked.
“No, why would we?”
“Just to be thorough.”
McKay didn’t seem to understand that. “Are you askin’ me to have my men lookin’ at the hold for some reason?”
“Nope,” Clint said, “I’m just asking questions. Maybe my questions are uninformed.”
“I think they might be,” McKay said.
“I wish I could get down there to take a look,” Jerry said. “I think I’m a little too old to be diving, though.”
“Maybe you can get a look from the outside,” McKay said. “We can take the boat around to that side.”
Clint doubted that. It seemed to him that if the hole was underwater, Jerry wouldn’t be able to examine it whether he was inside or outside.
But then again, he kept his mouth shut because he was uninformed.
THIRTY-ONE
Watching from shore, careful to stay under cover, were three men.
“What if they’re there for the gold?” one of them asked.
“They’re not,” the leader said. He was the man who had been in Angela’s room.
“How can you tell?” the third man asked.
“They’re not outfitted to salvage it.”
“We ain’t either,” the first man said. “We need a big boat.”
“We don’t need a boat,” the leader said. “The captain managed to get that boat right in the perfect spot for us. We’re gonna salvage that gold from shore. We ain’t lookin’ to float upriver with it.”
“How we gonna take it then?”
“We’ll need a strong buckboard and a good team,” the man said.
“How we gonna get it from the water to the shore?” the first man said.
“That,” the leader said, “is somethin’ I’m still workin’ on.”
Clint went up to the wheelhouse to see what Captain Hatton had seen when he was operating the Dolly Madison. From there he once again took a long look at both shores, and was about to leave the bridge when he thought he saw something on the Louisiana side. He stared and kept staring, until he saw it again. The glint of sun off of something. He remained where he was until he saw it yet again, and then he was sure.
They were being watched from shore.
He thought about bringing this to the attention of McKay and Jerry Sumner, but then thought again. What would be the point? They weren’
t concerned with anything but the condition of the boat. What did they care if they were being watched?
In fact, Clint wouldn’t have cared, either, except that Angela had told him about the gold. The whole point of blowing a hole in the side of the boat and sinking it might have been to steal the gold. Maybe the thieves were watching, waiting for their chance to swoop in and grab it.
Only how would they do that? If Angela was right about how much there was, it would take a lot of men to get it out of the water and either into another boat or to the shore.
Clint left the wheelhouse and headed back down to the first deck.
He found McKay standing on the deck while his two men were taking Jerry on the flatboat to see what he could see of the Dolly’s damage from the outside.
“McKay,” he asked, “am I correct that it would be quicker to get here from Vicksburg on horseback than by the river?”
“Definitely,” McKay said. “With all the twists and turns in the river, a man on a horse or even on a buckboard would get here much faster.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Why?”
“Oh, just satisfying myself that I was right,” Clint said.
McKay shrugged the question off and walked to the port side of the boat to look down at his men and Jerry.
THIRTY-TWO
“What about a guard?” Clint asked McKay when it was time for them to leave.
“Whataya mean?”
“I mean leaving somebody here with a gun to guard the boat.”
“What for? Nobody can steal the boat.”
“Yeah, but what about the cargo?”
“Is there something in the cargo that’s worth stealin’?” McKay asked.
“I don’t know,” Clint lied. “But what about the boat being stripped? There are some expensive furnishings on board.”
“I can’t worry about that, Adams,” McKay said. “That’s for the law, or the owner, to worry about. My job is done and I have to go back and make my report.”
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