The Fires of Paradise

by Brenda Joyce

  When he walked into the bedroom, Carmen hurled a glass at him. He ducked and it hit the wall, just missing him. “Don’t you come in here!”

  He wasn’t in the mood for this; he wasn’t in the mood for her. “This is my bedroom. You don’t want my company, then get out.”

  She sat still. She wore French lingerie, sheer, black, revealing everything. Her eyes were wild, her breasts heaving. But Carmen knew him well, and she was shrewd. She studied him for one more moment. “What happened?”

  He didn’t answer, stripping off his jeans. He was glad he hadn’t laid her, because the last thing he wanted to be was Miss Bragg’s private stud for her sexual experimenting.

  “You didn’t make love to her,” Carmen said.

  To get her off his back, he admitted it. “No.”

  “You don’t want her?” She watched him the way a cat does a mouse.

  He smiled meanly. “I don’t care for frigid bitches in my bed, Carmen, especially not ones who will run to Daddy crying rape. I don’t need that on my head, either.”

  Carmen was too clever to be fooled, and sensed everything. She was also too clever to reveal what she understood. “Who is she? Who is that little nobody who gives herself such airs?”

  “I used her to break out of jail and took her as a hostage. As soon as I can, when it’s safe, I’m freeing her.” He would be a fool to reveal Lucy’s identity to Carmen. He didn’t trust his mistress for a second.

  “For a ransom?”

  “No ransom.” His gaze was impatient. “I didn’t kidnap her, and I’d prefer not to have kidnapping added to my record.”

  Carmen thought about this while he climbed into bed. He tried not to think about Lucy, the snobby bitch, because if he did, he would get so angry that he would never sleep. Instead, he thought about something else that had been preoccupying him lately.

  Would the guns still be there? Would the guns still be buried near Geoffard’s Hanging Tree? There was a good chance that they would. Shoz could not leave such a cache indefinitely. He couldn’t afford to lose them should they be unearthed; he had a deal to finish. He had decided to take all of his men to retrieve them except for two, whom he would leave behind to guard the stronghold and Lucy. It would only take ten days to bring back the weapons if all went well. They would pack them out on four sturdy horses. He would be very cautious and clever about entering Texas again, and fortunately, the guns were not buried in Paradise County. Once back across the border, he would stop briefly to send a telegram to his contact to rearrange another sale.

  He knew it was dangerous to go back to Texas, but he didn’t have much choice. Besides, he’d be going with a small, fast army. If they had to, they’d fight and then run. It wouldn’t be the first time, unfortunately.

  By now, he imagined they were getting pretty desperate for the guns down in Cuba. What had started as a small uprising against the yoke of the Spanish government, led by someone named José Marti, seemed to be heading for a real war. If the quantity of arms they were requesting was any indication. Shoz didn’t know much about it and didn’t particularly care. He doubted like hell they’d succeed against one of the world’s strongest powers. But as long as they kept paying cash, he’d keep supplying them with guns and whatever else they needed.

  Carmen snuggled next to him. Shoz had lost absolutely all desire, but he thought of that bitch outside turning up her nose at him, so when Carmen started stroking his belly, he did not remove her hand. She was very skilled, and she knew exactly how to please him.

  She slid down his body, kissing and biting him, her fingers like magic on his testicles, until she was cradling him with her big breasts. Carmen teased his shaft with her lips and tongue until he was painfully rigid. Shoz had ceased to be aware of her. Instead, he was thinking about the Bragg princess. He imagined that it was Lucy sucking him like this, against her will, helpless to resist; he imagined that he was forcing her to kneel before him, forcing her to rub her face all over his shaft. Only, hot bitch that she was, what began as coercion ended with her whimpering in pleasure and need.

  With a growl, he tossed Carmen on her back and plunged into her. It was over in moments and he rolled away, panting. As always, the physical release seemed to be just that and nothing more. It had never bothered him before. But now, it did.

  He did not feel satiated. He did not feel satisfied. Foolishly, he thought of Lucy again.

  Carmen’s hand stole over to his hard chest. “You missed me,” she purred, pleased with herself.

  The last thing he wanted was more of her attention. He stopped her hand. “I’m exhausted.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’m leaving early tomorrow.”

  “What!?”

  He turned over, away from her, not bothering to explain. He had explained more than enough for one night.

  The Braggs had taken over the entire saloon for their headquarters. Fernando had been handsomely paid for the use of his premises, and hadn’t been seen since. The decision to remain in Casitas had been made three days ago, the day they had found the lame horse and the three dead bodies on the trail leading up into the mountains.

  It was obvious that the killer had been in the boulders on the plateau above the trail, ambushing the bandits from this vantage point while they were traveling unsuspecting below him. They weren’t certain it was Shoz Cooper, but they knew he and Lucy had come in this direction, because of the stolen horse they had found earlier. It certainly could have been Shoz Cooper, and if it was, he was proving to be a very cunning adversary. For it had taken several hours to find Shoz’s trail after that.

  But they had, and sometime later they had found the cave with the recent droppings of two horses. They had also found Lucy’s shoes.

  Late in the afternoon they picked up their track on a deer trail. But soon it disappeared, and no amount of searching in the past few days had recovered it.

  Shoz Cooper had vanished into the Sierra Madres with Lucy Bragg.

  Now the night was still and dark, the town asleep, except for the saloon. Within, fifty men drank and played cards and passed the time. Another fifty men were camped just outside of town, preferring sleep to liquor and gambling. The ranks of the posse had been swelled by the arrival of fifty private Pinkerton agents just that morning. Everyone was waiting for their orders.

  One of the back rooms, the largest one, had been rearranged hastily to serve as a command center. A solid old wooden table served for conferences, surrounded by a dozen rickety chairs. Another table held an enamel pot of hot coffee, chipped mugs, several bottles of whiskey, and chipped glasses. There were seven people in the room.

  Storm sat next to her brother Rathe to comfort him. He was unshaven, thinner, and gray with despair. The dark circles beneath his eyes testified to all the sleepless nights he had endured. Storm kept her palm on his forearm. Yet he was sitting straight and tense, his blue eyes keenly alert.

  Everyone was keenly alert—Brett, near the wall, his hands jammed into the pockets of his dungarees; Nick, straddling a chair across the table from his brother and sister; Derek, standing next to him, his fists clenched. In the center of the room was the focus of their attention. He called himself Lloyd.

  He was tall and whipcord-lean in a dusty brown suit and worn boots. About forty years of age, he was nondescript except for his shrewd, penetrating blue eyes. He worked for the United States government.

  The connection between this man and Shoz Cooper had been made by the chief of the Pinkerton office in New York, whom Derek had contacted by wire to hire the detectives. It was a fortunate coincidence, really. The New York bureau chief recalled a conversation he had had a year earlier when based in Washington, D.C., with a friend of his who was an ex-Pinkerton and now worked for Uncle Sam. In that conversation, the name Shoz Cooper had come up. It was the alias of the man his friend’s bureau was hunting. His real name was Shoz Savage.

  “What?” Rathe said, stunned.

  “I know just about everythin
g there is to know about Shoz Cooper—the name he’s been going by these past seven years—because I’ve been hunting him this past year—all three hundred and sixty-five days of it.”

  “Since when is an escaped felon convicted for burglary so important to the federal government?” Brett asked. More research had been done during the past few days, and another detail had come to light—the nature of the offense he’d committed in New York.

  “Since he started selling stolen army rifles to the rebels in Cuba.”

  A moment of silence greeted this bit of news as everyone struggled to digest it.

  Lloyd continued. “The first thing I want to do, Rathe, is assure you that Cooper is a smart mercenary, but in no way a typical criminal. I have not a doubt that your little girl is safe. He’s not a murderer, so you can rest at ease. Although I cannot understand why he would steal a horse. That is bothering me; it doesn’t fit.

  “After interviewing the Paradise deputy, I’m more convinced than ever that he merely used your daughter to escape, and kept her as a hostage to insure his success. Things have been getting a bit too hot for him lately.”

  “You haven’t reassured me. I won’t be reassured until I have Lucy back, safe and sound and—untouched,” Rathe said fiercely.

  Lloyd said nothing on the last matter, although Storm turned to him. “He did rescue the girls when their auto broke down.”

  Rathe said nothing.

  Derek cut in. “We got word from the Abilene marshall today that Red Ames and Jake Holt have been arrested. We’ll know that story soon enough.”

  Lloyd continued. “Let me fill you in on a few facts. Cooper’s real name is Shoz Savage. His story begins in New York. He attended Columbia University on a partial scholarship, paying the rest by himself by working part-time. He also worked his way through New York Law School.” Storm gasped in surprise. Lloyd ignored it. “If he ever did anything dishonest then, we have no record of it. But after graduation, just after he opened a private practice, he was caught stealing a large diamond from the employer of a housemaid he was seeing.” He looked at Storm. “Excuse me.” He wasn’t apologetic.

  “Why would he steal at such a point in his life?” Storm asked.

  “It was a helluva diamond. Maybe he just couldn’t pass up the temptation. A nice little egg like that could have set him nicely on his feet. What does it matter? He was tried and convicted—he was caught with the ring in his pocket.

  “Seven months after his incarceration began, he escaped. He was working on a chain gang and overpowered two guards, stole one of their guns, and forced them to unlock his manacles. After tossing the key to the other inmates, he took off, and did not come to my attention until last year.”

  Lloyd paused briefly, his gaze touching everyone in the room. “As you probably know, our government is very concerned with the recent events in Cuba. It’s a mixed deal. A lot of American property is at stake. Our citizens have some fifty million dollars invested in that island, and that doesn’t include the cash value of our annual trade. Right now we have sixteen million dollars of claims filed against the Spanish government for property damage and loss and even downright dispossession, but they turn a deaf ear. That’s another story anyway. We’re also a democracy, and it’s a fact that an American can’t look the other way when an entire people are savagely oppressed. There’s also strategic considerations. Cuba’s in our backyard.”

  “Get to the damn point,” Rathe erupted. “I know more about fucking Cuba than you ever will.”

  “Yes you do, don’t you, Rathe? You and your family are major investors, aren’t they? Maravilla, railroads, freight depots, warehouses, shipping, ports, you name it.”

  “Half of the board of the Manhattan Bank has major assets in Cuba,” Rathe snapped.

  “Exactly. That’s why we are so concerned, as I said. That’s why when guns began to reach the rebels in Havana, I was brought in.”

  “And Shoz is running some of those guns,” Nick stated.

  “Shoz is running most of those guns. He’s been doing it very successfully for the past year He’s clever But we almost caught him a few months ago in Corpus Christi when he was sending out a shipment Unfortunately, he and his men escaped” The agent was grim for the first time. “Nevertheless, I can offer hope, and a lot of it. We have an informer in Santiago.”

  Everyone sat up straighter except for Rathe, who was on his feet. “How in hell does that affect me? I don’t give a damn about Cuba right now!”

  “I understand that your daughter has priority, Rathe, believe me, I do. But we have a common interest, wouldn’t you say? In apprehending Shoz Cooper.”

  “I take it you are going to make us a proposition?” Nick asked dryly.

  “Damn right. We’re going to work together. That is, you’re going to do my work for me, in Mexico, where I have no damn authority and no right to be.”

  Six pairs of eyes shifted and met and turned back to Lloyd. “I don’t think anyone here objects to breaking a Mexican law or two,” Brett said. “I certainly don’t.”

  “Good, but let’s make sure we understand each other. I will tell you everything you need to know, but if your path ever crosses that of the Mexican authorities, you’re private citizens acting on your own.”

  “We’ve played this game before,” Derek said. “Go on.”

  “The rebels are awaiting another shipment of guns, desperately,” Lloyd said. “There was a delay recently when one of their men was caught by the Spanish authorities and executed. He had met Shoz Cooper three times this past year on Texas soil to buy the guns and ship them to Cuba. It’s only a delay. They are sending someone else to take his place—soon. When they set up the new deal to make the transaction, we will know exactly where it will be, and when. And Shoz Cooper will be there.”

  Rathe lunged forward. “And we’ll be waiting for the bastard.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Rathe said.

  28

  The door opened and hit the wall with a bang. Startled out of a sound sleep, Lucy practically bolted out of the bed. Bright morning sunlight was streaming through the windows. Realizing she wore nothing but her drawers because of the heat, Lucy clutched the sheet to her neck, expecting to see Shoz in a temper.

  Carmen stood against the door. She wore a flaming red blouse and a black skirt with a another gold one underneath. There were pink combs in her hair. “Get up!”

  Luck blinked. “Pardon me?”

  “The sun is up. Who do you think you are? Everyone is already working. Get up!” She strode out.

  Lucy debated defying Carmen; after all, who was she to tell her what to do? Then, as exhausted as she was, she decided it wasn’t worth fighting over, not with that volatile woman. Besides, judging from the sunlight pouring into her room, and the oppressive, wet heat, she had already overslept. She rose, washed, and dressed quickly.

  In the kitchen, Carmen and the older woman were rolling tortillas. “Finally!” Carmen cried. She shoved a rolling pin at Lucy. “Linda will show you how to do it.”

  Lucy found herself holding the pin and thinking that this was patently unfair. “I’m not doing this. I haven’t even had my breakfast yet!”

  “The royal queen hasn’t even had her breakfast!” Carmen mimicked. She seemed ferociously angry. “Did you hear that, Linda? You are our prisoner,” she said to Lucy. “And you do as we say. As I say.”

  Lucy had had enough. She put down the rolling pin. “I am not your prisoner. And I am going to eat breakfast.” Even if I have to make it myself, she added silently. This was in itself a major concession.

  She had forgotten about last night, sleepy as she still was. Carmen grabbed her ear, shocking and hurting her. “You didn’t clean up last night, did you? Today you sleep until seven. Now you don’t want to work? Do you want me to give you to the men?”

  Lucy wrenched free, her ear throbbing, her heart pounding, her eyes wide. “How dare you!” Her tone broke. The memory
of Carmen almost cutting off her braid with a knife last night came rushing back to her. And now she had mauled her. That another person should touch her so, should willfully hurt her … She was speechless.

  “Start work!”

  Lucy just stared, stunned and shaken. This woman was mad, she decided. Mad and dangerous. God! She didn’t want to go to Shoz, but she knew she needed protection from this witch. “Where is Shoz?” She started for the door at a run, but Carmen’s answer brought her to a halt.

  “He is not here.” There was pleasure in her tone.

  Lucy whirled. “What do you mean? You make it sound as if he has already left!”

  “He has! He has gone with most of the men.” Slyly she said, “But he left two. To guard you. His instructions were clear. You are his prisoner, puta, and you are to help me. If you disobey me, you answer to me.”

  This could not be happening to her, Lucy Bragg. To be kidnapped by Shoz was one thing. To want him was another. But to be left here, a prisoner, at the mercy of his violent wife … “When will he be back?”

  “Ten days. Maybe even two weeks.”

  Ten days … two weeks. Now she recalled him saying so. How would she survive? Lucy didn’t have a chance to consider her new dilemma. Carmen warned, “If you do not start making tortillas, I am going to let Pedro and José have you. I mean it.”

  Lucy did not doubt her. Tears of rage, frustration, and even despair welled. She reached for the rolling pin she had set down, and accepted the dough Linda handed her. How could this be happening? How could Shoz have left her here alone? Moments later, she was up to her elbows in cornmeal.

  After an hour or so, spent mostly sipping coffee and eating buttered bread while dispensing bossy orders, Carmen left. Lucy worked numbly alongside Linda, now chopping vegetables. She tried not to think; it was better not to think.

  It was with surprise that she realized Linda was holding out a hot cup of coffee. Lucy accepted it gratefully. It was very strong, black with the barest amount of sugar, but it was delicious. She sipped it with relish, watching the older woman, who regarded her as well. Linda seemed old enough to be Carmen’s mother, and time had not treated her well.