“If you don’t have any claim on him, what are you doing here?” she demanded in an angry, challenging voice.
Arabella struggled to hang on to control of her temper. “Steve and I are friends, and I just heard some news I thought he ought to know.”
“Well, here’s some news for you,” Copper said. “You can just stay away from him from now on.”
Drake looked like he would have rather been almost anywhere else. “There’s no need to argue, ladies.”
“I’ll say there’s not,” Copper said as she slid her arm through his and pressed herself against him. In their state of undress, it was a blatantly intimate gesture. “How could anybody argue that they’d rather be with this dried-up foreigner rather than me?” She smirked at Arabella.
Drake swallowed hard and began, “There’s no need—”
“There’s certainly not,” Arabella broke in. “You’ve always been free to do whatever you wanted, Steve.” She turned away but added over her shoulder, “I just thought you had better taste than to take up with such a common tramp as this.” She walked along the corridor toward the stairs with her chin held up in what she hoped was a reasonably successful attempt to retain a little dignity.
She heard Copper’s outraged gasp behind her
“Why, that” Copper started spewing obscenities.
“Copper, don’t!” exclaimed Steve Drake.
The rapid rush of footsteps as she reached the landing was all the warning Arabella got. She turned just as Copper crashed into her, still spitting curses and clawing at her eyes. Arabella let out a startled cry as she felt herself going over backward.
“Bella!” Steve Drake cried.
She grabbed at Copper in an attempt to catch her balance and steady herself, but all that succeeded in doing was pulling the redhead down with her.
Both women landed hard on the steps and began to tumble down out of control. The impacts jolted Arabella to her core and drove the breath out of her body. When she finally reached the bottom of the staircase and spilled onto the floor of the hotel lobby, she was gasping for air.
Copper sprawled alongside her, seemingly stunned.
Arabella started moving her arms and legs in an attempt to discover if she had broken any bones in the fall. Everything seemed to be working, she realized. She ached and she might be covered with bruises by the next day, but she decided that she wasn’t seriously hurt.
She looked over at Copper. The redhead’s shift had hiked up so it was definitely immodest. Her bosom threatened to escape completely from the thin fabric, and the fact that she was breathing hard because the fall had knocked the air out of her, too, didn’t help matters.
Arabella reached toward her. “Copper.”
With a snarl, the redhead slapped her hand aside and then lunged for her throat. She got both hands on Arabella’s neck, rolled on top of her, and started to squeeze.
Arabella hadn’t gotten her breath back fully and was still desperate for air. The hotel lobby seemed to spin crazily around her. Her blood rushed in her head like a great river. Over that roar, she barely heard men shouting.
She looked up at Copper looming over her. The redhead’s face was twisted with anger and didn’t look so beautiful anymore. Her hair hung down around her head in crazy tangles.
With a black haze starting to close in around her, Arabella clenched her right hand into a fist and shot it upward into Copper’s face. Copper might have expected scratching or hair pulling, but the short, hard punch seemed to take her by surprise.
The blow landed solidly on her jaw and drove her head to the side. Her grip on Arabella’s throat slipped. Arabella bucked up from the floor and wedged her left forearm under Copper’s chin. She pushed Copper’s head back and heaved to the side, forcing the woman to let go and roll off of her.
Scrambling to survive in Liverpool all those years ago had taught Arabella some hard lessons. She didn’t trust that the redhead wouldn’t come after her again, so she took the initiative despite the fact that her head was pounding and she was still gasping for air. She lunged after Copper and plunged her hands into that mass of red hair.
With that grip, Arabella was able to lift Copper’s head and slam it down against the floor. She did that once and then again before someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her away from the redhead.
“Stop it!” Drake yelled. “Damn it, Bella, you’re going to kill her.”
“That redheaded slut . . . tried to . . . kill me,” Arabella panted. “Let go of me!” She writhed in Drake’s grip, but couldn’t break free.
A few feet away, the hotel clerk danced nervously around Copper’s senseless form. Several men and women, more than likely guests in the hotel, watched the scandalous scene from the other side of the lobby.
Chapter 19
It had occurred to Slaughter that he ought to talk to Stonewall again and make sure the deputy hadn’t heard Dallin Williams say anything that might offer a clue to where the fugitive was going. He went to Clara Mumford’s boarding house, stood on the porch, and knocked on the door.
The widow lady answered the summons almost immediately. As she swung the door open, she beamed at him. “Why, Sheriff Slaughter! It’s so good to see you again. Please, come in. Come in and have a seat.”
Slaughter took his hat off and held it in front of him. “I won’t take up much of your time, Mrs. Mumford. I’m just looking for Deputy Howell—”
“Goodness gracious. Time is the thing I have the most of, Sheriff. Please come in.”
“If you could just tell Deputy Howell I’m here.”
She wouldn’t be denied. “I just made a pitcher of nice, cool lemonade to go with lunch, but I think I can spare a glass of it for the sheriff of Cochise County.”
The walk in the blazing sun seemed to have baked every drop of moisture out of Slaughter, so the idea of a glass of lemonade sounded very appealing. Too appealing to turn down. “All right. Thank you, Mrs. Mumford.”
She led him into a parlor with a woven rug on the floor and lace doilies on the backs of the furniture. There was a mantel on one wall, but no fireplace to go with it. Above the mantel hung a portrait of George Washington, a Currier & Ives print, and a framed needlework picture of praying hands. An enormous pedestal clock sat in one corner and its rhythmic ticking somehow had an ominous sound.
“Now you have a seat, Sheriff,” the elderly, white-haired woman said, “and I’ll be right back with that lemonade.”
“Thank you,” Slaughter said again. He sat on a divan that had elaborate scrollwork on its arms and listened to the clock tick. After a minute or two it began to sound to him like the pounding of a drum. There wasn’t a breath of air in the room.
Luckily, it didn’t take Mrs. Mumford long to fetch the lemonade. She brought the glass to him and sat down opposite him in an armchair.
Slaughter sipped the cool, tangy liquid and immediately felt better. He was tempted to gulp it all down, but he controlled that impulse. “I can just go up to Deputy Howell’s room when I finish this.”
“Oh, Deputy Howell’s not here,” Mrs. Mumford said.
Slaughter was taking another drink of the lemonade and almost choked on it as he drew in a sharp breath. “Not here?” he repeated. “I told him to go home and get some rest after that wallop on the head he got.”
Mrs. Mumford shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, Sheriff. Stonewall left more than an hour ago.”
“Did he take his horse?”
“Yes, he did. He took along some sandwiches he asked me to make for him, too. I’m under the impression that he thought he might be gone for a while.”
Slaughter kept a tight rein on his temper. The old woman could have told him that when he first got there, instead of luring him into the house with the promise of lemonade. “Did he happen to say where he was going?”
“No, not at all, and I didn’t ask.” Mrs. Mumford tightened her lips primly. “I don’t make a habit of prying into the personal af
fairs of my boarders, Sheriff.”
“Of course not.” It didn’t really matter. He had a pretty good idea where Stonewall had gone, or at least what the deputy was doing.
He leaned to set the half-full glass of lemonade on a spindly-legged table in front of him, then changed his mind and downed the rest of it in one long swallow. He might as well get something out of this visit, he told himself.
He set the glass down and stood up. “I have to be going.”
“Is there anything you want me to tell Deputy Howell when he gets back?”
Slaughter could think of several things, but the elderly widow would be too shocked and scandalized to repeat them, so he just shook his head. “No, thanks, ma’am. And thank you for the lemonade.”
“You’re very welcome, Sheriff. Come back any time.”
But she was talking to Slaughter’s back as he left the house.
There was no doubt in Slaughter’s mind that Stonewall had gone after Dallin Williams. The boy was young enough to take it personally that Williams had knocked him out and escaped from jail while Stonewall was supposed to be responsible for him.
They weren’t sure which direction Williams had gone, though. Mose Tadrack and Jeff Milton had spread out through Tombstone, questioning merchants and others who had been out and about early and might have seen Williams flee the jail. Lorenzo Paco was making a wide circle around the town, searching for likely tracks.
If Stonewall had been gone for more than an hour, as his landlady had said, that meant he must have had an idea where Williams might go and was checking out his theory.
What it amounted to for Slaughter was that he had a second person to find, which meant his work had doubled.
He was just about to the jail when a man coming from the opposite direction hailed him. “Sheriff, I was just lookin’ for you.” Judging by his clothes, he was a cowboy, and his voice held a Texas drawl.
“I’m afraid I’m a little busy right now,” Slaughter said.
“But my horse has done been stole,” the man insisted. “I’m set a-foot. Can’t get back to the spread I ride for.”
Slaughter started to brush past the man. “You can file a report with one of my deputies—” He stopped short and looked at the man again. “You say your horse was stolen?” He remembered the theory he had mentioned earlier, that Williams had stolen a horse but the horse’s owner didn’t know about it yet.
“That’s right, Sheriff. Pretty little chestnut mare. Best cow pony you’ll ever find.”
“When did this happen?”
The man took off his battered old hat and raked his fingers through straw-like hair as he frowned. “Well, I don’t rightly know. You see, I, uh, had a mite to drink last night, and I just woke up a little while ago in one o’ them cribs up by the Birdcage. Went to get my horse, and it was gone.”
“Where did you leave it tied up?”
The cowboy pointed along Toughnut Street. “Down yonder at one o’ them hitch racks, the one in front of the gunsmith’s shop. Had to have him do a little work on this ol’ hogleg o’ mine, and when he was finished I just left the hoss there and walked around to the saloon. Didn’t really plan on spendin’ the night in town or I would’ve put her in a stable.” He frowned. “I sure hope she’s all right.”
Slaughter understood the man’s concern about his horse, although the cowboy shouldn’t have allowed himself to get so distracted by whiskey and whores that he had forgotten all about the animal. At the moment, however, Slaughter was more concerned with the timing of the theft. The horse that Dallin Williams had ridden into town—with Little Ed McCabe and the Bar EM punchers in hot pursuit—was still at the livery stable; that was one of the first things Slaughter had checked on when he found out about the prisoner’s escape.
Williams had stolen a horse to get out of Tombstone, and nobody else had reported a missing horse this morning. The fact that this one had disappeared from a hitch rack not far from the courthouse and jail was just more of an indication that Williams had taken it.
“You said it’s a chestnut mare?”
“That’s right. Answers to Milly.”
“Anything unusual about its hoofprints?”
The Texan frowned in thought for a moment. “Well . . . the shoe on the right front hoof has a little moon-shaped nick in it. You know, like on an outhouse door.”
That was a stroke of luck, thought Slaughter. To an experienced tracker like Lorenzo Paco, such a mark was almost as good as a painted sign.
“Anything else distinctive about her tracks?”
The cowboy shook his head. “Naw, not that I can think of. You’re gonna find her, aren’t you, Sheriff?”
“We’re certainly going to try,” Slaughter said, and he meant it.
There was a good chance that if they found the stolen horse, Dallin Williams would be riding it, and Stonewall wouldn’t be far behind.
He went back to the courthouse and sent Jeff Milton to find Lorenzo Paco. While he waited for the men to return, he unlocked the cell where Harley Court had spent the night and let the man go.
“You’re not gonna charge me with anything, Sheriff?” Court sounded like he couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“I’ve got too much on my plate right now to worry about you, too,” Slaughter snapped. “But the next time you’re tempted to join a lynch mob, just remember how you wound up with a bullet hole in your leg.”
Court winced in pain and declared, “Not gonna be a next time, Sheriff, I can promise you that.”
When Court was gone, Slaughter tried to do some paperwork, but he couldn’t concentrate. The air in his office was too hot, and too much was going on. It didn’t help matters when Morris Upton showed up looking for him.
“Sheriff, I want to know if you’ve made any progress finding Angelo Castro’s killer,” Upton said without preamble.
“It’s only been a couple hours since the body was found,” Slaughter said.
“I know, but the players in my tournament are worried. Some of them are afraid that they’ve been targeted for death, too.”
Slaughter almost snorted at the melodramatic way the saloonkeeper phrased that. “You had to know that if you invited a bunch of gamblers into town with a lot of extra money, there was a chance of trouble.”
“It’s your job to handle that trouble.”
Unfortunately, Slaughter couldn’t argue with that statement. The people of Cochise County had elected him to deal with whatever came up . . . and he had been damned fool enough to accept the job!
“I know you have an escaped prisoner to go after,” Upton went on, “but the murder of my friend is important, too.”
“Nobody said it wasn’t. We’ll do everything we can to find out who killed Castro. In the meantime, why don’t you let us go on about our jobs, Mr. Upton?” Slaughter sounded a lot more polite than he felt, or at least he hoped he did.
After a moment Upton nodded curtly and left the courthouse.
Slaughter had a strong hunch that he would be seeing more of the saloonkeeper than he wanted to until the mess was cleaned up.
Jeff Milton and Lorenzo Paco came in a few minutes later, along with Burt Alvord. Slaughter explained what he had learned from the Texan.
“It must’ve been Williams who stole that horse,” Burt said. “If anybody else had lost a saddle mount, chances are we would’ve heard about it by now.”
“I think so, too,” Slaughter said. “Lorenzo, did you notice any tracks like that while you were searching?”
“No, but now I know what to look for. I will go back out right away, Sheriff.”
“You can cool off a little first if you want to.”
Paco shook his head. “The heat doesn’t bother me. I have lived with it all my life . . . and that life has been a long one.” The leathery Mexican left.
Once Paco was gone, Burt said, “There’s a lot of talk around town, Sheriff. Folks aren’t happy that nobody has gone after Williams yet.”
“Where would they
have us go? We’re trying to find out which direction he went when he left Tombstone.”
“All of us know that, but after the way you stopped that lynch mob last night, they think you’re draggin’ your feet on purpose so Williams will have a better chance to get away. They think you’re takin’ his side in this deal.”
“Then they don’t know John Slaughter very well, do they?” He felt anger burning inside him to go along with the heat outside. He didn’t like being accused of not trying to do his job the best he could.
Mose Tadrack came in with a worried look on his face. “Sheriff—”
“What is it now? Some new trouble?”
“Well, I don’t know. A fella told me there was some sort of ruckus going on at the American Hotel.”
That was unusual. The hotel’s owner, Nellie Cashman, ran an orderly establishment. Reports of trouble there were rare. Nellie was a forceful personality, and usually if there was a problem, she handled it herself.
Slaughter sighed and heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll go see about it. Jeff, gather some of the men and get ready to ride. You’ll lead the posse that goes after Williams as soon as Paco finds the tracks.”
“You’re not going along, Sheriff?”
“I have the business of that dead gambler to deal with, and as long as Upton’s damned poker tournament is going on, there’s liable to be more trouble. You’ll be able to handle Williams when you catch up to him.”
Slaughter hadn’t said anything about Stonewall’s disappearance and his theory that his young brother-in-law had gone after Williams on his own. He thought that would all be cleared up when they found the escaped prisoner.
He hoped fervently that Stonewall wouldn’t go and get himself killed. Viola might not ever forgive him, although she knew the risks that went with a deputy’s job.
Slaughter left the courthouse and walked with as much speed as he could muster toward the American Hotel. The hotel’s front doors were open to let in air, and they also let out the sound of angry voices shouting at each other. There was some sort of ruckus going on, all right.
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