Slaughter didn’t expect to see two women—one of them nearly naked!—standing toe to toe and yelling at each other while a couple men tried to hold them back. The sheer ludicrousness of the scene irritated him. He raised his voice and shouted, “What the hell is going on here?”
Chapter 20
Slaughter recognized one of the battling women as Lady Arabella Winthrop, although the English woman’s hair and clothing were a lot more disheveled than they had been the last time he’d seen her. She had a bruise forming on her jaw, too. Obviously, she and the skimpily clad redhead had been fighting.
The man holding Lady Arabella back was Steve Drake, another of the gamblers who had come to Tombstone for Upton’s poker tournament.
The one trying to keep the redhead under control appeared to be a drummer of some sort, judging by his flashy, checkered suit and derby hat.
Slaughter strode forward and put himself between the two women. Holding out his hands like the referee in a prizefighting match, he swiveled his glare from one to the other. “We don’t allow brawling in hotel lobbies in Tombstone. And ladies don’t have any business brawling in the first place!”
“You see, there’s your mistake, Sheriff,” Lady Arabella said coolly. “This slut is no lady.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” the redhead shot back. “At least I’m not a tease like you.”
“That’s enough.” To the redhead, Slaughter said, “Ma’am, you’d better go upstairs and get some clothes on. Can I trust the two of you not to start fighting again if these hombres let go of you?”
“I never wanted to fight in the first place,” Lady Arabella said. “Miss Farris attacked me without warning as I was leaving. I just defended myself.”
“You thought you could call me names and then walk off,” the redhead said. “I don’t let anybody get away with treating me like that.”
Slaughter started to tell Drake to take Lady Arabella out of the hotel, but then he noticed that the gambler was partially undressed himself, wearing only the bottom half of a pair of long underwear.
The sheriff stepped over to Lady Arabella and took hold of her arm. “Come with me, ma’am.”
“Are you arresting me?” she demanded.
“No, ma’am. Not unless you give me more reason to. I’m just getting you out of here so things can settle down.”
“There’s no need to force me. I’ll go with you.” Her angry gaze shuttled back and forth between the redhead and Drake. “There’s nothing else I want here.”
When Slaughter let go of her arm, she took a moment to straighten her clothes, then walked toward the door with her chin held high.
Slaughter stayed beside her to make sure the redhead didn’t get loose and try to tackle her from behind. He recalled that Lady Arabella and Drake had seemed quite friendly when he had seen them together before.
He didn’t think it was a coincidence that the gambler and the redhead were both in their underwear. If they had been together like that and Lady Arabella had walked in on them . . .
Well, that was a sure-fire recipe for a ruckus, all right.
Once they were outside, the English woman sighed wearily. “I’m very sorry about this disturbance, Sheriff. I assure you, it wasn’t my idea.”
“No, ma’am, I suppose it wasn’t.”
She looked at him. “You’ve figured out what happened, haven’t you?”
“I can make a pretty good guess.”
A faint, sad smile curved her lips. “Then you’re more perceptive than I was. Never in a million years would I have believed that Steve would take up with such a—”
Slaughter held up a hand to stop her. “You don’t want to get yourself all worked up into a state again,” he cautioned. “Sometimes, for your own peace of mind, you have to just let these things go.”
She sighed again. “I suppose you’re right. Besides, there are more important things to worry about. Have you made any progress in finding out who killed poor Angelo Castro?”
“Not yet,” Slaughter answered honestly, suppressing the irritation he felt at the question. He couldn’t really blame her for asking it. Castro had been a friend of hers, or at least an acquaintance. “There’s not much to go on other than the fact that he was killed with a narrow-bladed knife.”
“Like a dagger or a stiletto?”
“That’s right,” Slaughter said.
“I wouldn’t think there would be many of those in Tombstone. Don’t most of the men around here carry Bowie knives or other big hunting knives?”
“That’s true, but I can’t very well go around Tombstone asking everybody what kind of knife they carry and demanding to take a look at it.”
“Yes, I can see that that would be a daunting task,” Lady Arabella said. “Not to mention the killer would probably just lie to you. I’ve heard talk that you have an escaped prisoner to go after, or something like that.”
“Something exactly like that,” Slaughter agreed. “One thing’s for sure. There’s plenty of trouble on my plate right now.”
Lady Arabella smiled. “Well, I wish you luck with that full plate, Sheriff Slaughter. I shall do my best not to add any more heaping helpings of trouble.”
* * *
Oscar Grayson and Jed Muller strolled into the lobby of the American Hotel a couple minutes before three o’clock that afternoon and asked at the desk for Max Rourke.
The clerk pointed to the entrance to the dining room. “I believe Mr. Rourke is in there . . . gentlemen.”
That slight hesitation in the man’s voice annoyed Grayson. He knew the clerk thought they weren’t dressed well enough to be in there. That they weren’t high-class enough.
Grayson had heard all about the trouble earlier, when Lady Arabella and Copper Farris had gotten into a knock-down, drag-out fight. The gossip going around town said that Copper was dressed only in her scanties at the time.
That would have been a sight to see, Grayson reflected. But he had something more important on his mind than the abundantly endowed Miss Farris. He nodded curt thanks to the clerk. “Come on, Jed.”
Muller had an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. He rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other as he followed Grayson across the lobby to the dining room. It wasn’t busy in the middle of the afternoon. Most of the tables were empty.
Max Rourke sat at one of them with a cup of coffee in front of him. He glanced up as Grayson and Muller approached, but didn’t seem too interested.
“Hello, Max.” Grayson was a little nervous about coming up to Rourke. The man had a reputation as a powderkeg that could go off for no reason. “You haven’t forgotten about what we talked about last night, have you?”
“We didn’t talk about anything except that we’d get together here today.” Rourke looked at Muller with cold green eyes. “You’re part of this . . . whatever it is . . . too?”
“I reckon I am.” With his characteristic bluntness, Muller asked, “Can we sit down?”
Rourke’s shoulders rose and fell maybe an inch as he said, “Help yourself.”
Grayson and Muller scraped chairs back and took seats at the table.
As an apron-clad waitress came toward them, Grayson said, “Bring us some coffee.”
“Yes, sir,” the girl said with a smile. “Anything else you need, Mr. Rourke?”
“No.”
Grayson passed the time with small talk while waiting for the waitress to bring two more cups of coffee to the table. Rourke seemed to ignore it all.
When the girl had come and gone, Grayson lowered his voice. “We need some place private to talk, Max.”
“This is private enough. Look around.”
Grayson saw what he meant. The few other hotel guests had left. They were the only occupants of the dining room. The waitress had gone through a swinging door and was no longer in sight, either.
“Somebody out in the lobby might hear . . .” Grayson said.
“Nobody’s going to hear. Nobody gives a damn what you�
�ve got to say, Grayson, including me.” Rourke took a sip of his coffee. “You’ve got two minutes to change my opinion.”
“Well, what about me?” Muller asked.
“You’re just a beast of burden, Muller. I’m here to listen to Grayson.”
Muller’s face turned brick-red, and he started to stand up.
Grayson put a hand on his arm and said sharply, “Take it easy, Jed.”
“I don’t cotton to people talkin’ to me like that,” Muller said.
“Really?” Rourke said. “I would have thought you’d be used to it by now.”
“Just sit back and get hold of yourself, Jed,” Grayson told the big man. “All three of us can wind up rich men here . . . if we work together.”
Muller settled back in his chair and glared at Rourke. “All right. But there’s a limit to how much I’m gonna take.”
For a second, Grayson thought Rourke was going to say something else just to put a burr under Muller’s saddle. But Rourke looked at him instead. “Tell me what you’ve got in mind.”
“You know there’s going to be an awful lot of money on the table during that last game between Upton and whoever comes out of the tournament,” Grayson said. “There’s a good chance that won’t be one of us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Muller said. “I’m a damn good card player.”
“Not good enough. Sorry, Jed, but that’s the truth and we might as well admit it. None of us are good enough to come out on top of all the opposition we’ve got here.”
Rourke said, “So you’re planning to steal that last giant pot.”
Grayson blinked in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“What else could you be talking about that would make us all rich? If one of us could win on his own, he wouldn’t need the other two.” Rourke drank some more of his coffee. “You know Upton will have guards all over the place.”
“That’s why we need a distraction. We’re going to have bundles of dynamite set to go off all over town, right at the same time. When everybody runs out to see what’s going on, you kill the guards and anybody else who gets in the way, I grab the money, and we go out the back to where Jed’s got horses waiting for all of us.”
Silence hung over the table for a long moment before Rourke spoke. Grayson was afraid the man would declare the plan to be stupid and unworkable.
Instead, he asked, “Who’s going to handle the dynamite? Muller?”
“I used to be a mining engineer,” Muller said. “I know how to use the stuff, what length to make the fuses, how to keep from blowing myself up, everything like that.”
Rourke reached up and rubbed his rather pointed chin as he frowned in thought. “You’d be running less of a risk than we are, Grayson. Muller has to handle explosives, and I have to shoot it out with Upton’s men.”
“It was my idea,” Grayson said, trying not to sound too defensive. “And I’ll probably have to kill Upton when I make a move for the money.”
Rourke smiled thinly. “That’s true.” He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge the point Grayson had made. “I wouldn’t expect him to go along with it peacefully.”
Grayson leaned forward, “So, what do you think, Max? Does it sound to you like it could be done?”
Instead of answering the question directly, Rourke looked at Muller. “Where do you plan on setting off the dynamite?”
Grayson and Muller glanced at each other. Muller shook his head, and Grayson said, “Well, we hadn’t really gotten that far with our planning . . .”
“You want a distraction, don’t you? You need to have the blasts in places where they’ll attract a lot of attention. If you blow up an empty barn, not enough people will care.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Blow up all the other saloons in town.”
Grayson’s eyes widened. “There’ll be people in those places, folks who don’t care about the poker tournament and just want something to drink or a whore to dally with.”
“That’s exactly right. Destruction makes a good distraction. Death and destruction make an even better one.”
“That might kill a couple hundred people,” Muller said. “Maybe more.”
“And there may be a quarter million dollars on the table during that last hand,” Rourke said. “Maybe more. Look at it like that and a couple hundred people doesn’t seem like such a high price to pay, does it?”
Several seconds ticked by without Grayson or Muller saying anything. Finally, Grayson asked, “Does that mean you’re in on it with us, Max?”
“I’m in,” Rourke said softly, “but I call the shots. You may have come up with the idea, Grayson, but it’s my job now.”
Muller said, “As long as the split stays even, I don’t care about anything else.”
“Neither do I,” Grayson said, although it required an effort for him to go along with the idea of Rourke taking over. The money was all that mattered, he told himself, not his pride.
Besides, he might have a surprise or two for Rourke before it was all over.
“All right,” Rourke said. “We’ll get together again after the tournament has gone on longer and we have a better idea when the showdown will be. Until then, it would probably be a good idea if we’re not seen together a lot.”
“That’s fine with me.” Muller’s meaning was clear. He didn’t want to be around Rourke any more than he had to.
“Me, too,” Grayson said as he got to his feet. “Let’s go, Jed.” He smiled. “The games will be starting again soon, anyway.”
Once the two of them were gone, Rourke finished his coffee. His face was hard and unreadable as he reached under his coat. He slid a knife from a soft leather sheath hidden under his arm, a thin-bladed dagger that he used to trim a rough spot on one of his fingernails.
A tiny rusty spot on the cold steel showed where a drop of blood had dried. Rourke frowned at it for a second, then picked up a napkin from the table and wiped it off. There, that was better, he thought as he slipped the dagger back in its sheath.
Chapter 21
Stonewall and Roy Corbett rode all day toward the Santa Catalina Mountains.
By late afternoon, it seemed that the peaks weren’t any closer than they were when the two men started, but Stonewall knew they really were. “We ought to get there by around the middle of the day tomorrow,” he said as they paused to rest their horses. The heat was taking a toll on men and animals alike.
“We could make it sooner if we just camped for a couple hours and then rode on through the night,” Corbett suggested.
Stonewall frowned. “I don’t know. I’d hate for us to get lost. That’d just cost us time.”
“How are we going to get lost? The mountains are over there. We can steer by the stars well enough to keep going in the right direction. It’s not like we’re actually following a trail, so we don’t have be able to see hoofprints or anything like that.”
Corbett had a point, thought Stonewall. He hoped they were headed in the same direction as Dallin Williams and Jessie McCabe, but there was no way to be sure of that. The plan was to pick up the trail of the escaped prisoner and his hostage somewhere along the way.
“All right, here’s what we’ll do,” Stonewall said as he’d reached a decision. “We’ll push on for a while longer, then find a good place to stop for a few hours. These horses have to rest and cool off, and so do we. Then we’ll keep going.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Corbett said.
As they rode on, Stonewall said, “I sort of expected you to turn back before now, Roy. Chasing down fugitives ain’t your job, you know.”
“No, I’m in this to the end,” Corbett declared. “That’s how much the law means to me, Stonewall. I’m going to do everything in my power to see that the system works.”
“Maybe you should be a star packer instead of a lawyer, if you feel that strongly about it.”
Corbett laughed. “No, I don’t mind helping out with something like this, but I’m not
cut out to wear a badge permanently. A lawman can’t really see a case through to the end. Once you’ve arrested an outlaw and put him in jail, what happens to him after that is really out of your hands. It’s up to a judge and jury to decide his ultimate fate, and that’s what I want to be part of.”
“Reckon you’d ever want to be a judge someday?”
“Well . . . I don’t know. Maybe. But I need to be a lawyer first and get plenty of experience.”
“Sort of like I’m bein’ a deputy.”
Corbett grinned. “You think you might be sheriff someday, Stonewall?”
“You can’t ever tell.” Stonewall laughed. “I reckon stranger things have happened in this world.” He paused, then added, “After seeing how much paperwork Sheriff Slaughter has to do, though, I’m not sure I’d really want the job.”
They stopped at the base of a large, rocky upthrust and let it shade them from the last of the sun’s burning rays as they unsaddled the horses.
The presence of some grass and a pair of scrubby bushes prompted Stonewall to dig down into the sandy soil. After a couple feet he hit a trickle of muddy water. “If we let this fill in and settle for a while, we’ll have some clear water on top we can use to fill our canteens.”
“That’s why I’m glad I’m traveling with somebody who knows his way around the wilderness.”
“Shoot, that’s just common sense. You would’ve figured it out yourself.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Corbett said. “I’m not much of a frontiersman.”
“Well, everybody has their own strengths, I reckon.”
As Stonewall had predicted, a little pool formed in the hole in the ground while they slept a couple hours. They filled their canteens, then ate the last of the sandwiches Mrs. Mumford had packed. Stonewall had intended for the food to last longer than that, but he couldn’t expect Corbett to go hungry.
Once they reached the mountains, there would be game to hunt. They wouldn’t starve.
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