by Jon Sharpe
‘‘This isn’t in my line of work. As I mentioned.’’
Lund laughed bitterly. ‘‘I wish I could get away from it, too. Just get on a horse and ride so far away nobody would ever find me again.’’
Fargo had a lot of misgivings about the man, particularlyin the way he treated his miners and in the way he hired gunslicks for lawmen, but at the moment he felt sorry for him. Lund was confounded by the news. As Fargo probably would have been, too.
‘‘I’ll have to talk to her, won’t I?’’ The longer he talked, the more helpless he sounded. This powerful man, helpless. ‘‘I’ll have to tell her that I had her followed and then I’ll have to tell her what I found out. And she’ll lie to me, won’t she, Fargo?’’
‘‘Probably.’’
Lund took a deep breath, let it out. ‘‘I need to go back to my study. Have a little brandy. Think this thing through. The best way to approach her, I mean.’’
Lund was still at the point where he couldn’t quite face what he’d learned. When that moment came, the helplessness would become bitterness. Or maybe even something worse.
‘‘I’d like to start tomorrow on that other work you mentioned,’’ Fargo said.
Lund seemed confused. ‘‘What other work?’’
‘‘The stage routes. Seeing how to protect them. The strategic points, the way I did with the other one.’’
‘‘Oh, yes. Of course.’’ But Lund still didn’t sound as if he was sure of what was going on here. He turned away in fact, his eyes narrowing on the mansion. His wife wasn’t home yet but probably would be soon. He’d mentioned his study and some brandy. He damned sure needed something right now. ‘‘I was only unfaithful to her once. But I have a feeling that she’s made a habit out of cheating on me.’’
He didn’t say good-bye. He didn’t even nod. He just walked away. He usually had a long and assertive stride. Not now. Shoulders slumped, footsteps unsteady, he made slow, uncertain progress as he returned to his house.
Fargo knew that Serena would soon reappear. But he didn’t want to talk about the matter anymore. He wanted to be done with it all.
Soon Fargo was on his way back to town.
5
She was naked, a young, ripe, appealing woman sitting on the edge of the canopy bed in the master bedroom, and Brett Norton felt no desire for her whatsoever. The large pink nipples; the flat stomach angling down to the dark area between her legs; the attractive if not pretty face; and Brett Norton . . . the blond stallion (or so he thought himself) who could mount and ride a woman no matter how drunk he was . . . Brett Norton felt no desire whatsoever.
Louise was the daughter of the maid who tended to all of bachelor Norton’s needs. He’d sent her to the general store twenty minutes ago so he could be alone with nineteen-year-old Louise. They’d been together six or seven times in the past month. She was excited to be with someone so rich and courtly. She’d confessed that she was tired of the young miners and farm boys who always called on her. Norton had no feelings for her except lust. And right now he felt not even that.
Her blue eyes looked troubled. ‘‘Don’t you like me anymore?’’ she whined, noting that he had yet to take his clothes off. The room was decorated with military ornaments from the time of King Arthur. A shield, a battle ax, mace, a broadsword, and other deadly pieces of warfare. Replicas, of course, but damned good ones shipped over from England. He amused himself with the notion that in the master bedroom he made war on the female species. And he triumphed every time.
Except this afternoon.
He willed his manhood to stiffen but got no response. He saw how she parted her legs slightly. She was a tasty sweet thing, no doubt about it.
‘‘I can help you,’’ she said. ‘‘One of the boys who used to call on me, I had to help him sometimes.’’
‘‘Don’t be ridiculous,’’ he snapped. ‘‘I don’t need any of your so-called help. I just remembered something I have to do. That’s all.’’
He could see that she didn’t believe him. Was that a tiny smile fretting the right corner of her full lips? Little bitch. Laughing at him, was she? No, Louise wouldn’t laugh at him. She was too intimidated by him.
‘‘Get up and get dressed.’’
‘‘But—I thought you liked being with me.’’
And then she did the worst damned thing of all.
She started crying. Sitting there completely naked, crying, her breasts trembling with her sorrow. She put her hands over her face like a small girl.
‘‘It’s not that, Louise. It’s just what I told you. I forgot that I had something to do. Now please get up and put your clothes on and let me work.’’
She did as she was told. He appreciated the young, firm curves of her body as she tugged on her undergarments and then the brown gingham dress that only seemed to enhance her body rather than hide it. The crying ended but she was still sniffling.
After she finished with her poor, cheap shoes she came over to him and said, ‘‘Will you want me to come back here again?’’
‘‘Of course. Of course I will. Now go downstairs and wait for your mother.’’
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. ‘‘I think about you all the time.’’
After she was gone, he thought: Bitch.
But he didn’t have Louise in mind. Oh, no, Louise was too feckless to be a bitch. To be a real bitch a woman had to be a manipulator, a conniver, a liar, a whore.
There was only one woman like that in Norton’s life, the woman he feared he was doomed to be in love with the rest of his life: Alexis Lund.
It always struck him as bitterly funny that he’d spent most of his thirty-eight years taking the women he wanted and then running quickly away from them without a single regret. When they cried to him that he had misled and betrayed them, he pretended to be shocked. I didn’t mean to make you think this was serious; I’m sorry. It helped that many of his conquests had been married—a spurned married woman could protest only so much without revealing her affair to her husband.
And, at first, Alexis, beautiful as she was, looked to be another easy conquest. Poor Alexis. Lund was a dull old man. No wonder she fell so easily into Norton’s arms. He had no idea then that he would fall in love with her. That he would come to a time when he couldn’t eat, sleep, think coherently because of her. Or would destroy his office one day in a fit of rage so terrifying that his secretary ran to get the minister, seriously thinking that Norton had become possessed by the devil.
That was the day he discovered he wasn’t her only lover.
He went over to the canopy bed and sank down on the edge of it. There had to be some way to make her change her ways. Had to be some way to make her put it back the way it had been. Had to be some way to make her spend hours with him in this very bed when the maid and other servants were gone.
Had to be; had to be.
She had waited for this moment for more than four years, but now that it was here it terrified her because she had never heard her father this angry.
She heard something smashing—thrown, she imagined—against the wall in the study, then a scream. Something else smashed against the wall. Her father shouted, thundered at Alexis. As much as she usually liked to spy on the people in her father’s study, tonight she stayed in her bedroom with the door closed. But it didn’t matter. The roar of the argument filled the entire mansion. She knew that the four servants would be cowering in the kitchen, not knowing what to do. And by now, given her father’s shouting, they obviously knew what had prompted this rage.
Alexis had been unfaithful.
Now there was sobbing. This was the only part Serena wished she could see: Alexis humbled. Even if the tears were faked, Alexis would not dare be dismissive or haughty with Serena’s father now. Even if she planned to flee into the arms of Carstairs, she would have to endure the verbal punishment that Lund was inflicting on her. And by the sound of things, would continue to inflict on her for some time.
&n
bsp; Serena wished she were taking more pleasure in this. But in wanting to prevent pain for her father— wishing that Alexis would be exposed—she realized now that his pain bordered on madness. For the first time in her life she was afraid of what her father might do.
Another crash sounded as something heavy was turned over. Alexis screamed. Her father’s voice was so loud Serena was surprised the walls didn’t shake.
On impulse she started to the door. She intended to burst in to the study and calm her father down, not for Alexis’ sake but for her father’s. She would tell Alexis to pack up and get out. And then when she was alone with her father she would assure him that as bad as he felt now, in time he would see that this was for the best, that Alexis had been a schemer all along. He was still a strapping, powerful man and he would find a good woman to be his wife. And—yes— Serena would help him. How would that be? The idea amused her. Father and daughter on a wife hunt for the father. She would go right downstairs now and tell him.
She got as far as putting her hand on the doorknob, then stopped. She was being ridiculous. If she did any of the things she’d just thought of, her father would get even angrier.
She walked back to the window seat where she’d often sat as a child, contemplating the night sky and wondering if cows really did jump over the moon as in one of the stories her mother had always read her.
Oh, Lord, it would be so good to be that child again, innocent of human ways, her mother alive and her father so happy.
It would be so very, very good.
And then she heard the words she had yearned to hear ever since Alexis had first entered the house: ‘‘All right, then, Andrew! I’m leaving! I’ll be staying at the Reliance Hotel until further notice!’’
A door slammed, Alexis making as much noise as possible.
Alexis was leaving!
6
Today might just be the day, Fargo thought as he watched the waitress named Myrna set down a plate filled with steak, sliced potatoes, and corn in front of him. She’d already brought him three cups of coffee while he waited for his food and in the course of it had told him that she finished work as soon as the lunch hour was over.
Miners, cowboys, sharpers of various kinds, and couples from town filled the place that was draped in cigarette and cigar smoke.
Myrna was a lithe redhead with amused green eyes and a slim but well-developed body. There was an air of fun about her, the way she teased, the soft sarcasm, the occasional coy hint that she was available. Today she was making the hint more explicit.
The café was busy and a few customers were getting impatient with the amount of time she spent with the handsome drifter. But if she cared about their irritation, she didn’t let on. ‘‘I suppose an old duffer like you needs an afternoon nap, though.’’
‘‘I bet you could use a nap, too.’’
He liked her clean, sharp laugh.
‘‘Think you could stay awake long enough to have a visitor?’’
‘‘I’d probably have to drink a lot more coffee.’’
‘‘Well, we’ve got plenty of that.’’
‘‘Then maybe I’ll have one more cup with my food and head back to my room at the Excelsior.’’
‘‘And from what I hear that would be room 214.’’
He smiled up at her. ‘‘You wouldn’t be one of those gypsy women who can read minds, would you?’’
‘‘No, but I would have a cousin who works there behind the front desk sometimes.’’
‘‘That’s even better than a gypsy woman.’’
She finally relented and went back to her other customers. They were all easily mollified by her competence—now that she wanted to be competent— and that great, clever smile of hers.
Fifteen minutes later Fargo walked back to his hotel amidst all the clamor of a boomtown: a stray shot from a six-shooter, probably harmless; a fistfight in an alleyway; a pair of soiled doves trying to convince two elderly drunks that they could make them young again; a respectable middle-aged woman sobbing; a young man puking; and over all, the beat and slam and grind of the mines themselves. He’d be glad to be done with it and back to the relative peace of the stage routes. He’d rather face outlaws than a sham of a town like this one.
In his room he washed up, rolled himself a smoke, took a reasonable-size snort from a pint of rye he’d bought earlier, and then parked himself on his bed. He’d left the door unlocked.
She was there even sooner than he’d thought she would be.
‘‘Alms for the poor,’’ she said as she peeked inside.
She wore a dark cape over her work dress. Her red hair had been tousled by the wind. The wind had also colored her cheeks and made her look even younger and more adventurous.
‘‘I hope you realize that I’m a virgin, Mr. Fargo.’’
‘‘Well, what a coincidence.’’
‘‘You, too?’’ She was already disposing of the cape and starting to work on her dress.
‘‘Yes, I wanted to wait until I was sure I was old enough to start committing sins of the flesh.’’
‘‘I’m told they can be a lot of fun, those sins.’’ She was now down to her undergarments and walking toward him as she dropped them on the floor.
She had pert young breasts with long nipples the color of salmon. Her hips curved perfectly, trailing into long thighs topped by a crimson bush. She also had a very sexual way of walking, one that instantly inspired a stiffening of Fargo’s attention.
‘‘Any room for me on this bed?’’ she said, playfully taking his cigarette from him. She stabbed it out in the tin ashtray on the chair and then pushed him over so she could lie down.
He reached for her and brought her face down to his. Their mouths opened and he felt the sweet warmth of her breath and the urgent, flicking passion of her tongue. His hands found her full, eager breasts, the pink areolas bright in the slanting sunlight. He lapped them until the nipples became firm nubs that rubbed his eyes as she drew him close to her.
The transformation was almost magical. They moved with such need that they were scarcely aware of her slipping his pants off, of her sliding her legs over his shoulders, of him lancing deep into the hot juices of her sex. The position allowed him to strike deep as she clamped her hands to his buttocks for maximum connection.
She whispered: ‘‘Make it last, Fargo. I need this.’’
His strokes became longer, more deliberate, as he took his time bringing her to the moment when her eyes glistened with sensual joy and her body writhed wildly. She eased him off and then rolled over, presenting herself so that he could take her from behind. This was a woman who knew what she wanted and Fargo appreciated that. She was a skilled partner.
His hands entangled in her brilliant red hair, he brought them to mutual climax only after her whispers signaled that she was ready for it. Then they fell side by side, Fargo close enough to his makings so that after a time he could roll a cigarette.
‘‘I don’t suppose you’d give me a couple of puffs of that,’’ she said.
‘‘Well,’’ he grinned, ‘‘I suppose that could be arranged.’’
Fargo wasn’t sure if the knocking was in his dream or in reality. He’d been sleeping comfortably after the redhead had gone so he was lazy responding to the banging on the door. It was getting on to six o’clock, full dark now.
He grabbed his Colt from the holster hanging from the brass head of the bed. The knock was insistent, desperate.
He eased himself from the bed and walked across the floor on tiptoe. He stood to the side of the door and said, ‘‘Who is it?’’
‘‘It’s Serena, Skye. Let me in. Hurry. Please.’’ He didn’t have to see her to know that she was crying.
He opened the door and she fell into his arms. The weeping she’d had under control now burst forth in a series of body-jolting sobs. He helped her to the bed and hurried to close the door and turn up the lamp. He grabbed his pint of rye and put it to her lips. Her face smelled of cold and tears
.
After he got two large gulps down her, she began forcing herself to calm down. She took deep breaths and wiped away tears that made her eyes shimmer in the lamplight.
What the hell had happened, Fargo wondered, to bring her here?
He didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
‘‘It’s Alexis, Skye,’’ she said in a single gasp. ‘‘Somebody murdered her and I’m afraid my father did it.’’
7
Sheriff Harve Tyndale stared at the dead woman in the blue silk robe. He was pretty sure she was naked underneath. He’d always tried to imagine Alexis Lund naked, and now—way too late—he was going to get his chance.
This was taking place in room 204 of the Reliance Hotel, the most expensive, exclusive, elite hotel in the Territory. The mattresses were thick, the furnishings British, and the service impeccable. The local joke was that this was where the gentrified men of Reliance brought their women for trysts with their golden rods.
Sheriff Tyndale knew that this room represented the way he was going to get back at Andrew Lund for dumping him and supporting a new candidate for sheriff. Who had a better reason to kill Alexis Lund than her angry husband? Tyndale knew all about her lovers, but he was going to make sure that it was Lund he arrested for her murder.
The bone-handled knife that had ripped into a narrow spot just above her right breast looked especially ugly from where he stood.
But ugly as it was, this was a happy moment for the lawman. He was soon going to pay Lund back for turning against him.
She’d made herself at home. Perfumes were lined up like toy soldiers on the dressing table and the closet held four different dresses. He’d checked the bureaus and found two drawers containing her undergarments. He needed to find out when she’d checked in. He needed to learn everything he could about what had brought her here.
He heard loud talk coming from the stairs. At first there were two, maybe three voices talking over each other—arguing. Then it sounded as if one man had broken from the others and was pounding up the rest of the steps. Then he heard a female voice, young.