Victoria nodded her head numbly. “And the mortgage?”
“Paid and recorded. You’ve nothing to worry about there.”
Victoria felt emotion begin to infiltrate the icy barrier with which she had protected herself.
“Are you sure Mason had no doubt that—”
“There’s nothing that would lead me to believe otherwise. That’s what’s so unfortunate about this whole affair. As far as I could find out Mason Mahaffey is an honorable man.”
The bitterness Victoria had felt for so long seemed to dissolve itself in one long shuddering sigh, leaving only emptiness.
“My brother is here. I had a note from him asking me to come to town. He claims Mason is trying to cheat me. He warned me not to tell anyone he’s here, that our lives are in danger.”
The lawyer was quiet for a long moment. “I’d heard there was an Englishman in town. It never occurred to me it might be Robert McKenna. Have you seen him?”
“Not yet. There’s one more thing I want to tell you. The last time Mason and I were in town we were ambushed on the way home. Two men tried to kill us. I thought it was because they had seen me go into the bank and thought we were carrying money, but Mason thinks they were hired to kill us. I was shot in the leg when they killed my horse, and Mason was shot in the arm when he killed them.”
“Who were the men?”
“One of them was a man by the name of Bob Cash. We don’t know who the other one was.”
“Never heard of him,” the lawyer said. He continued as if thinking aloud. “The only person I can think of who would benefit if you and Mahaffey were dead is your brother. Mason to cover up the swindle and you so he could inherit and sell the property again.”
“Could my own brother really be trying to kill me?” she asked, as much of herself as of the lawyer.
“It looks that way, Victoria. Did you come to town alone?”
“No. Mason’s sister and one of the hands came with me. Mason brought the cattle in and is probably down at the stockyards by now.”
Mr. Schoeller got up and reached for his coat. “I’ll take you back to the hotel. I think you’d better stay there until Mahaffey comes in. He’ll be coming to the bank, won’t he?”
“Yes, but we don’t have to tell him about the will right away. I’d like to wait awhile.” Her mind was spinning wildly. If Mason thought the ranch was his, there was no reason for him to make love to her unless he wanted to.
“That’s up to you, but if you want me to tell him, I will.”
“I’d rather wait, Mr. Schoeller, but I’d like you to be with me when I see Robert.”
“I think you should go back to the hotel and stay there until Mahaffey comes in.”
The afternoon had rolled into evening by the time they left the office. Soon it would be dark. Victoria’s legs were wobbly and her heart was beating too fast. She realized this weakness was partly due to the fact she hadn’t eaten anything since morning when she had choked down a biscuit and a piece of meat. She was grateful for the presence of the tall, gaunt lawyer as they walked down the street.
In the lobby of the hotel she turned and smiled at him. “I’ll be all right now, Mr. Schoeller. Thank you for all you’ve done on my behalf.”
“Go to your room and stay there until you hear from me. If your brother tries to see you, put him off. I think Mahaffey is the one to handle this. I’ll send someone out to bring him in.”
Victoria ran lightly up the steps. She felt as if the world had been lifted from her shoulders. Mason, Mason! You’ll never know the doubts I had about your intentions or about the torment I’ve been through this past week.
She knocked on the door calling for Nellie to let her in. There was no answer and she tried the knob. The door swung open into an empty room.
“Nellie?” She stopped short, her eyes searching. She tried the connecting door. It was locked. “Nellie?” She didn’t know why she called out again. It was obvious Nellie wasn’t there. Sage had come back and they’d gone to supper, she reasoned, smiling a little at the fright she felt when she first found the room empty. I’ll go down to the dining room. I’ll find them there.
She took off her hat and coat and wrapped her shawl about her shoulders. The key was still in the lock on the inside of the door. She took it out and held it in the palm of her hand for a moment, wondering at why it was there, then shrugged her shoulders and went out into the hall. She was locking the door when a voice came from behind her.
“Hello, Victoria.”
She whirled around. There was nothing familiar about the man standing there and yet she knew he was her brother. Impossible! He was not even as tall as she was! The top of his head came even with her eyes. She stared. He looked older than she had imagined he would look, and softer, pudgy, in fact. Only his mouth beneath the waxed mustache reminded her of their father.
“You seem to have lost your tongue, old girl. Surely you remember your brother.”
“Of course I remember you.”
“Well, come along. I want to talk to you.”
“Not now. Some friends are waiting for me. I’ll meet you later.”
“We’ll talk now. One of your friends is waiting for you in my rooms.” Robert’s face had turned vicious.
“What do you mean?”
As if on cue the door to one of the rooms down the hall opened and a young man held a struggling Nellie in the open doorway. Her hands were bound behind her and her mouth was gagged with a dark cloth.
“Nellie! What are you doing to her?” Victoria started forward, then stopped suddenly and turned to Robert like a savage cat. “Let her go!” she hissed.
“That will depend on you. Come along now or I’ll kill her.” His look was unruffled and arrogant.
“You can’t mean that,” Victoria gasped.
“Oh, but I do.” He took her arm and propelled her toward the door where Nellie stood wide-eyed with terror. He pushed Nellie out of the way, slammed the door shut with his foot and turned the key in the lock.
Victoria’s eyes went from Nellie to the youth holding her. He didn’t look any older than Nellie in face and body, but his eyes looked much older. He was holding a long, thin-bladed knife against Nellie’s throat. Victoria’s eyes widened with sudden clarity. The youth was a girl! A girl dressed in boy’s clothing. The unmistakable roundness of breast showed beneath the boy’s shirt, and hair shoved up under a cap was struggling to be free.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded of Robert.
“Sit down. You make a sound and Juney will slit her throat. It will be messy. Blood will spurt everywhere, but we’ll have to endure it if you prove to be stubborn.” His mouth twisted cruelly.
Nellie’s eyes clung to Victoria, begging, pleading. She was deathly white.
“Don’t hurt her!” Victoria said beseechingly. “What do you want me to do?”
Robert had moved behind her. “Nothing.” He jerked her arms behind her and bound them.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Victoria said frantically. But she did understand. It was clear that her half brother intended to kill her and Nellie. She turned her head to try to see him and he slapped her across the face.
“Be still,” he snarled. “Tie that one to the bed, Juney, so you don’t have to hold on to her.”
“It will be a pleasure to tie the lady up, Robert honey.” The girl spoke for the first time and then she laughed. “I always did want to get my hands on one of those nice ladies—who think their shit don’t stink.”
“Just tie her up, Juney.”
“Can’t I even carve my name on her bosom?”
“You touch her and her brothers will kill you!” Victoria blurted. They were the last words she spoke. Robert was surprisingly strong. He forced a rag into her mouth and tied it there. Victoria struggled and tried to spit it out.
The girl had thrown Nellie onto the bed. Almost crazed with terror she kicked and thrashed. Her skirts worked up to her thighs, then up a
round her hips. The girl laughed as if she was playing a game and struck Nellie’s white limbs again and again. Robert finished tying Victoria and hurried across the room.
“Let me at her, Juney. I’ll tie the blasted split’s legs together.”
“I was just funnin’ with her.” The girl pouted like a spoiled child.
“We’ve got more important things to do.”
Nellie continued to turn and twist on the bed. Victoria felt as if she were in another world. This couldn’t be happening—but it was. Where was Sage? And Mason! I’ll never be able to tell him I love him, she thought in desperation.
Robert put his knee on Nellie’s chest and hit her a resounding blow on the side of her head. The thrashing stopped. She had either fainted or been knocked out by the blow. The lump of fear in Victoria’s throat was so large she thought she would choke on it.
“She’d better come out of that swoon before we leave,” Robert said. “She’s got to walk out of here.”
“I’m prettier than them, ain’t I?” Juney’s arm encircled Robert’s neck and she rubbed herself intimately against him.
“You’ll be the toast of London, ducks. I’ll dress you like a queen and we’ll take in the sights.” He patted the girl’s bottom affectionately. “It’s time for you to go and get that cowboy. Tell him to bring the buckboard to the back courtyard then to come up here. My sister,” he said sneeringly, “wants to talk to him.”
“I don’t like him,” Juney pouted. “He tries to rub up against me.”
“I’ll be glad to see the last of him, too. But it was either use him or pay that other bloke five hundred to do away with her. We can do a lot with five hundred.”
“He only charged two hundred to kill Mahaffey. He’d’ve taken less if we bargained with him.”
“It’s done, ducks. Run along and get the cowboy. Put on your coat and muffler, it’s cold out there. And give me a kiss before you go.”
Victoria felt as if she had been drawn into a horrendous black pit. Robert had paid someone to kill Mason! She closed her eyes and fought to retain her sanity. The words beat against her eardrums like an Indian tom-tom. She was filled with such rage that she could scarcely breathe.
Juney went out and Robert closed the door and locked it. He came to stand in front of Victoria. “It is unfortunate, Victoria, that I had to put the gag in your mouth. A brother and sister should have at least one conversation during their lifetime. But never mind, old girl. I’ll talk and you can listen. That’s the way it should be anyhow. Women are such inferior creatures. Their only function is to produce young to populate the world and they can’t even do that without a man to go inside their bodies and get things started.” He walked around her and came back with a full glass of whiskey in his hand. “They do have their uses, though. Take a girl like Juney. Dressed right and taught a few of the graces—just a few, mind you, so she’ll still be different from the usual crowd that throngs the gambling tables—and she’ll be worth her weight in gold.” He emptied the glass and rocked back and forth on his heels while he stared at Victoria. “I have despised you since the day you were born. It was always Victoria and Martha, Martha and Victoria! I hated that woman! She was like a cat rubbing up against Papa. She switched her tail at the old fool and he followed her around like a blubbering idiot.” His voice had risen to hysterical pitch.
Victoria stared at him with eyes aching from shock and pain. The malice in his face and the venom in his voice were terrifying.
Hatred had corroded his soul.
CHAPTER
* 18 *
Sage came out of the saloon, the last of the five saloons he had loitered in, and looked up and down the street. Everything looked about as it should in a western town on a cold, windy evening. There were a dozen horses tied at the hitching rails and a buckboard stood in front of the funeral parlor. A wagon was being loaded at the mercantile store. A few men hurried along the boardwalk. Nothing seemed out of kilter.
Not the slightest happening goes unnoticed in a western town and everything is hashed over in the saloons over a bottle of whiskey or a mug of beer. A man can find the answers to many questions if he stands around and listens. That is what Sage had been doing. He knew the Englishman was staying at the Overland and that he had taken up with a young lady who had come to town about the same time as the foreigner. Nothing much was known about her except that before she latched on to the Englishman she had invited several men up to her room.
Sage also knew that the notorious killer, Runt Tallard, was seen getting off the train and that he had bought a horse and headed south. He was trying to tie these facts together when he saw a wagon and a group of horsemen round the corner and come down the street. He stood with his back to the wall of the saloon and waited for them to pass so he could cross to the Overland.
Although he didn’t recognize the team and wagon, Sage recognized the riders immediately and stepped out into the street.
Clay reined in his horse. “There he is, Pete,” he said to his brother. “Where’s Nellie?”
Sage ignored him. “Is Mason coming in?” He asked the question of Pete.
“He’s in the wagon. He’s been shot. Where’s the doctor in this town?”
“I know where he’s at, boy,” a voice called from the front of the wagon. “It’s on down this away.”
The wagon and the riders moved down the street and Sage loped alongside Pete’s horse.
“Is he hurt bad?”
“Bad enough,” Pete said tightly. “Hired killer come fer him. I dunno what the hell fer, but he got his. What’s this ’bout you runnin’ off with Nellie?”
“Nellie and Miss McKenna are over at the hotel.”
“I told ya, Pete, that he—”
“Hush up, Clay,” Pete said sharply. “This ain’t no time to be bringing that up. We’ve got our hands full with Mason.”
The men crowded into the doctor’s house and waited silently while he dressed and bound Mason’s wounds. The pain woke him, and the doctor gave him a dose of laudanum to make him sleep. Then they moved him into a bed in one of the doctor’s back rooms. Sage and the brothers crowded around the bed.
“Victoria,” Mason whispered, struggling to stay awake.
“She and Nellie are at the hotel,” Sage told him. “I’ll look after them.”
“Hired…killer. After…her.” Mason tried to say more but the drug took over and he fell asleep.
“What did he mean?” Pete asked when they had left the room.
Sage answered in clipped tones. “He meant someone could be gunning for Miss McKenna and I’m pretty sure I know who it is.” He turned to the younger brother. “Doonie, sit with Mason. Give him one of your guns, Pete. If anyone busts in that door, shoot ’em. I’ll have some men stick ’round here.” No one disputed his orders, not even Clay.
When Sage left the doctor’s house Pete was walking beside him and Clay was not far behind. They had been assured by the doctor that Mason had every chance of recovering. The worry that nagged at Sage’s mind now was not Mason but Victoria, and the brother he was sure was trying to kill her.
* * *
Kelso followed the slender figure of the girl up the back stairs of the hotel. Even in the boy’s clothing she was a looker. But he didn’t like anything about her, or that damned foreigner who claimed to be old Marcus’s son. Try as he might he couldn’t find a trace of the McKennas in the bastard. And the girl was a tart. She was damned pretty when she got all gussied up, but nonetheless, she was as dangerous as a keg of gunpowder. He couldn’t wait to get clear of the pair of them. He’d already decided that the Englishman was a windbag and that Miss Victoria wouldn’t stand still for having Stonewall thrown off the ranch. He wasn’t so sure he wanted the job of ramrod anyway. Now that he’d been away from the Double M for a few weeks he’d found there were other things to be discovered and that maybe he should be discovering them. He’d do the job McKenna wanted him to do, collect his pay and ride out.
Forever, Victoria Page 29