“A man who’d use his own family, set them up as decoys, that is the worst kind,” Paco said unctuously.
Steve shrugged carelessly. “Hell, the women are probably in it themselves! What woman can resist the thought of being a princess?” He looked at Bishop. “I take it we wait till we’re close to the border before we snatch the gold?”
With the back of a fork, Bishop began to trace lines on the green baize that covered the card table, while Steve and Paco leaned forward intently.
As he drew his invisible maps, Bishop talked, giving them all the information he had—details and instructions to be memorized.
As usual, he forgot nothing, even his normal, cursory reminder to the men that once they had started on the job, they would be on their own.
“Needless to say,” he mentioned dryly, “the United States Government has no knowledge and can take no responsibility for this—ah—operation.”
Steve remembered the first time he had met Bishop and the warning he had been given and chuckled. Bishop was not amused.
“If anything goes wrong, and you are fortunate enough to be taken to jail, we’ll arrange an escape, if it’s possible. But chances are that if Brandon’s men capture either of you, you won’t be allowed to live that long. You realize that, I’m sure.” His formal warning given, his manner became more relaxed. He took a sip of his warm bourbon and refilled his glass.
“Gentlemen, let’s play cards. As you know, I’m leaving on the stage tomorrow, but we still have time for another hour’s play.”
“You mean you still have time to clean us out completely,” Paco grumbled, beginning to study his hand. “I’ll have to keep some of that gold for myself if my luck stays as bad as it has.”
They knew Bishop well enough to needle him now and then.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t play poker with anyone who doesn’t know you, Jim,” Steve advised, keeping his face straight. “They might threaten to shoot you for cheating.”
“Never cheated in my life,” Bishop said blandly, “but I’ve always been lucky!”
Had Jim Bishop been asked seriously what his secret was he would have replied that he was a student, not only of cards, which he could memorize at a glance, but of human nature. And it was really the latter which was the clue to the kind of game a man would play.
These two men sitting across from him were his best, and he had more or less trained them personally. They were, too, men that he trusted completely; and were intelligent and resourceful enough to use their own initiative if something went wrong with his carefully thought-out plans. He hoped they’d both come back in one piece—he couldn’t really afford to lose them.
Outwardly concentrating on his cards and their play, his eyes hooded, Bishop went through the initial part of his current operation, as he chose to call it, in his mind.
There was no doubt that Brandon was in a hurry to get his wagon train started for California, and it seemed more than likely now that Steve Morgan and Paco Davis would be hired as his scouts. Bishop had arranged for their being here very carefully, just as he had seen to it that there were no other men who’d meet with Brandon’s exacting specifications in San Antonio at this crucial time. The man Brandon had expected to hire had suddenly been offered a far more lucrative job taking a wagon train to Sante Fe, and had already left, and Marshal Trevor, who happened to be a friend of Bishop’s had already suggested to Brandon that he might hire Steve Morgan. When Brandon arranged for a meeting, Steve would inform him that he always worked with Paco Davis. And the groundwork would be laid.
If nothing went wrong, Brandon’s wagon train should be ready to leave within the next two or three days.
Bishop, his hand called, put down three aces and raked in the pot. Nothing would go wrong! He remembered that Morgan had warned him Sonya Brandon might not be too happy if he was hired—that unfortunate business in New Orleans! But Mrs. Brandon was hardly likely to confess an old affair to her husband—and Morgan had a way with women. A man of few scruples where his country’s security was concerned, Bishop kept his face impassive while he allowed himself to wonder if Steve’s past association with Sonya Brandon might not be of some use, after all. She was a beautiful woman, but weak. No—he did not think she’d say anything to her husband!
Looking up to meet Steve Morgan’s eyes, Bishop said suddenly, “I think you might just have a—hum—very pleasant journey after all.” Steve would know what he meant!
9
In the days that followed, Ginny Brandon kept finding new and stronger reasons for the dislike she had already developed for Mr. Steve Morgan.
First, there was the small, private dinner party, where her father had announced that he had hired Morgan and his partner, Paco Davis, as scouts for their party. Ginny, who at first had not wanted to go downstairs for dinner, had finally let Sonya persuade her that it would only upset her papa if she did not dine with them.
She had expected—she did not know what she should expect! Confusion and embarrassment on Mr. Morgan’s part, perhaps, when faced with cool disdain and hauteur on hers. She had been relieved to learn that Carl Hoskins would also be present, along with an older man called “Pop” Wilkins, who would be their wagon boss.
Ginny, once she had made up her mind to go downstairs to dinner, dressed with unusual care that evening, in one of her favorite gowns; this time in a soft shade of yellow that brought out the coppery brightness of her hair. She would put the uncivilized Mr. Morgan in his place once and for all! Rather to her surprise, she discovered that Sonya too had obviously paid careful attention to her dress—a deep crimson velvet, worn with rubies that made her blondness seem almost ethereal.
“You both look very lovely indeed,” Senator Brandon complimented them.
“It’s probably the last opportunity we’ll have for months to get all dressed up for an evening of dining,” Sonya murmured deprecatingly. She would not—could not admit, even to herself, that there might be another reason for her careful toilette. After all, it had been over four years ago, and living during the war, under the shadow of the war, had made everything seem so different. If this Steve Morgan was the same man, perhaps he’d changed. Sonya Brandon was too wise, too mature to think that she could hide from something by trying to escape a confrontation. The sooner they met and faced each other, the better, and somehow, she did not think he would give her away.
Ginny, her cheeks flushed becomingly, spent the evening dazzling Carl Hoskins, who could not seem to take his eyes from her sparkling beauty. She ignored Steve Morgan, as she had decided to do, but it piqued her, in turn, that he seemed pleased enough to ignore her, and spent most of the evening talking to her father and Mr. Wilkins. Paco Davis, a lithe, rather dark-skinned man with a thin black mustache, seemed content to say little and leave the talking to his friend.
And, apart from his low-voiced conversation with her father, Steve Morgan’s comments had to do with the inadvisability of taking women on such a long and difficult journey, and the danger from Indian attacks.
“He’s a vile man, I detest his type! Did you notice how he raised his voice for our benefit every time he told some horrible tale of Indian atrocities?”
Ginny could not contain her repressed anger, once she and Sonya had excused themselves and tactfully withdrawn upstairs, leaving the men to their drinks and their discussions.
“But, love,” Sonya remonstrated gently, “I did not think any of his stories so very horrible! In fact I’m sure he watered them down for our sakes. He was merely, I believe, warning us about the dangers of such a trip.”
“How could you defend him? Why—he’s not even a gentleman! I liked Mr. Davis better, at least he did not boast, or have too much to say.”
Sonya changed the subject tactfully.
“Well, at least—you did make one obvious conquest this evening. That poor young man! I’m sure he’s in love already.”
“I should hope not, for men in love get far too sloppy,” Ginny retorted. “And then,
they become too, too boring.”
“In that case, my love, I would not let his infatuation become too great. He’s a nice young man, but hardly one your papa would think suitable.”
Ginny glanced sharply at Sonya, and shrugged. Sometimes she could almost think of her stepmother as a contemporary, but there were times…she decided that they were both tired, and excused herself to go to her room.
Later, Ginny was to be only too thankful for the long and comfortable night of sleep she’d had. She learned from her father at breakfast the next morning that they were already to begin preparations for their journey, and that these preparations were to include wagon drill and practice in shooting and loading both guns and rifles. And before that first tiring day was over, Ginny was to wish fervently that she had never had set eyes on Steve Morgan or his friend Paco Davis.
The nine wagons they were to take on their journey were hitched to six-mule teams and taken to a flat, arid stretch of land about five miles out of San Antonio, and it was here that Morgan had decided to have them practice wagon drill. Ginny had been annoyed to hear that she, Sonya and Tillie would have to take it in turn to drive their own wagon. By the time her first day of wagon drill was over she was not only hot, tired and aching in every muscle, but almost speechless with anger as well. It seemed as if she could do nothing right.
Tillie found driving the wagon, bringing it into place in a quickly formed circle at a shouted command, to be an amusing kind of game. Sonya endured it stoically, and her determination to learn earned her the grudging admiration of both scouts as well as her husband’s praise.
But Ginny—she thought rebelliously that Morgan chose her to deride in particular; using her as an example of the wrong way to go about things. Her wrists were delicate, her hands soft—even the gloves she wore did not protect them from the chafing bite of the reins she was supposed to hold. She hated the mules she was supposed to drive almost as much as she hated Steve Morgan!
On one occasion, when they had almost dragged her off the high wagon seat and only Morgan’s swift intervention had stopped the team from bolting, Ginny told him breathlessly and angrily what she thought of him.
He listened, politely, pushing his flat-crowned hat back on his head to study her flushed, furious face.
“…And what is more,” she ended up, made even more angry by his silence, “you seem to make a particular point of picking on me!”
At that point he ordered her coldly and flatly to start off again from the beginning, and to try and get her wagon in line with the others this time if she could, please, ma’am.
He rode away then, before she could frame an answer which was rude enough, and after that it was Paco Davis who put her through her paces. He was a little more patient and more polite than Steve Morgan, but just as exacting, and by the time the first day was over Ginny had no energy left to think about anything except a hot bath and her bed.
She had planned to protest to her father, but his very first words the next day made her bite back her words and lift her chin in stubborn determination.
“Ginny, my dear,” he said doubtfully, “are you sure you are strong enough to survive such a journey? I keep forgetting that you were raised in Europe, and that the American west is very different from what you are used to.”
“If Sonya can do it, so can I!” was all Ginny could bring herself to say.
They started out three days later, the same day that Senator Brandon left by the morning stage on the first part of his journey to Washington. The gold bullion had been concealed secretly in a carefully contrived space under the floorboards of the wagon that the three women were to occupy—the bars carefully arranged end to end and wrapped in heavy sacking. It meant that Ginny and Sonya would have to manage with the barest necessities in the way of clothing during the journey, so as not to attract notice to the lack of space in their wagon.
“You understand now, my dear,” Brandon had said soothingly, “why it is so much better that you and Sonya and Tillie drive the wagon yourselves. A man, studying the inside of the wagon, or driving for you, might begin to wonder what makes it so heavy.”
And even Ginny was forced to concede that he was right. Only Carl Hoskins, besides themselves, knew of the existence of the gold, and of the rifles and ammunition that were carried in the wagon that supposedly contained Sonya’s household goods.
Ginny found that she missed Carl Hoskins’ attendance and help the first day on the trail. He had already explained, apologetically, that he had to stay with the cattle until they had settled down for the journey.
“Don’t know too much about this new white-faced breed, but longhorns are real spooky until they get trail-broke,” he explained, and she tried to look knowledgeable. At least, she thought after he had ridden away, he tried to explain things to her. He treated her like a woman and a human being, instead of a necessary but unwanted piece of baggage!
She told herself as that first long day wore on that it would get better once she got used to it. Now that San Antonio lay several miles behind them, the country seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions, dry and arid, with the heat shimmering off the sandy dust.
After they had stopped to rest for what the men called the nooning, it was Ginny’s turn to take the reins, and she sat uncomfortably on the high seat, glad for once of the unbecoming sunbonnet she wore.
Sweat trickled down Ginny’s face and onto her bodice and down her neck. Her armpits were soaking wet, and she realized with a feeling of distaste that the wet patches were spreading down her sides. Sweat poured down her legs as well, and she wondered dully why she had ever thought this journey would be an exciting and exhilarating experience that she would not want to miss.
There was nothing exciting about driving a team of mules, and being jolted and jerked over ruts and stones while her arms grew sore from pulling on the reins and her shoulders burned from the onslaught of the sun. There was nothing in the least interesting about the nature of the landscape they were passing through. Vast, undulating plains, sometimes sparsely covered with bunchgrass, but for the most part dry and sandy with cactus and mesquite thrusting skyward. Used as she was to the carefully tended, checkered fields of France, the orderly towns and tree-shaded avenues, this empty vastness was too awesome and too lonely not to be rather frightening.
By the time it was Ginny’s turn to crawl back thankfully into the wagon and let Tillie take the reins she was not only acutely uncomfortable but had a headache as well. Rebelliously, Ginny pulled off her thin cotton gown and stretched herself out on her narrow bunk. It was too hot and stifling inside the small, enclosed space to rest fully dressed in any case! She glanced at Sonya, who lay sleeping exhaustedly, and wondered how she could possibly fall asleep in this swaying, creaking vehicle. Her sunburned arms and shoulders throbbed, and she wondered dismally if this was what they would have to endure for the whole, long journey that lay ahead.
Closing her eyes determinedly against the slight feeling of nausea that was creeping up on her, Ginny tried to keep her mind on other things—memories of cool spring days in her beloved Paris; of balls and stolen kisses; and the long, exciting discussions in fashionable salons. A bluestocking, Pierre had teasingly called her, but she wasn’t that at all, there was no reason why a woman could not be intelligent and feminine as well! Pierre had kissed her once, very lightly, very tenderly and apologetically, and before that—there had been a girl, a comtesse in the convent school, who had crawled into her bed one night and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Some girls did this, and some had wanted to touch her body. Locked up with each other, they had been curious and had talked of nothing else but men, and the way a man might make them feel. Ginny too had been curious, but she had always had a slight sense of unease, of drawing back. Even then, she had thought to herself, there has to be something more than this! And, “no” she would whisper fiercely to the girls who had wanted more than just kisses, so that after a while they learned to leave her alone.
Wit
h a feeling of humiliation and anger, she remembered the way that Steve Morgan had kissed her, ignoring her struggles until she had been incapable of resistance—was that how men really kissed, like—like an invasion? Men are all animals, her friend Lucille, who was married at seventeen, had told her. They want one thing, and all their courtship, their charming, tender manners, all lead up to that. But—the thought came snakelike, unbidden—what will it be like? How will it feel to lie with a man and to have him—Ginny could feel herself blush, and she pushed the thought away firmly. Perhaps if she could concentrate on keeping her mind a blank, she too would be like Sonya, lucky enough to fall asleep.
Two hours later, when Carl Hoskins rode by the wagon to tell the women that it would soon be time for them to make camp for the night, he saw only Tillie.
Carl looked tougher, older, in his trail clothes, with a gun at his hip, and the brown-skinned woman’s eyes glanced appraisingly over him for an instant. Tillie, at least had no illusions about men, and she knew this was going to be a very long trip.
She met Carl’s eyes when he spoke, asking where Miss Brandon was.
“Back there—sleepin’, both of them. ’Specially Miss Ginny, she was sure tuckered out, poor young lady.”
Tillie had a soft, educated voice, and Hoskins glanced at her strangely, really noticing her for the first time. She was amazingly pretty, too, for a mulatto wench, he thought, with straight black hair and strange, gold-colored eyes. Maybe sometime—reading his look, Tillie smiled, revealing white teeth.
“You got any message for the ladies, sir?”
He hesitated for just a moment, sawing back on the reins of his horse to stop its nervous prancing.
“Nothing important—just thought, since the sun’s goin’ down, one of them might feel like riding…”
He looked idly over Tillie’s shoulder, unwilling to meet her somehow too-knowing eyes, and a slanting ray of the sun, glancing into the wagon, reflected off Ginny Brandon’s hair. Ginny, sleeping on her back only half-dressed, with the sweat-sheen still on her bare arms and shoulders, and her hair spilling down beyond the narrow confines of the bunk she lay on. Unable to help himself, Carl felt the involuntary tightening of his crotch. She looked so—so relaxed and unwary. As if she waited for a lover to find her that way—waited for him. He caught Tillie’s eye, suddenly, and something knowing, slightly amused, set him to silently swearing.
Sweet Savage Love Page 8