by Jon Sharpe
As he washed up and pulled on his last set of clean buckskins, he hoped that he wouldn’t be rolling around in a slimy, gator-infested slough again anytime soon. By the time he got downstairs and rejoined Isabel and Kiley, Isabel had a worried look on her face. Fargo knew Kiley had filled her in on the day’s events.
‘‘Skye, you nearly got killed!’’ she said as she stood up and grasped his hands.
‘‘Nearly doesn’t count,’’ Fargo said with a smile. ‘‘I’m fine.’’ He turned to Kiley. ‘‘You want to join us for dinner?’’
Kiley shook his head. ‘‘No, I’m going to go look for those three men who were ambushed. They should have been back by now. You said one of them was wounded, so they might be down at Doc Fearn’s place.’’
After Kiley left the hotel, Fargo and Isabel walked into the dining room and sat down at one of the empty tables. After the waitress had brought coffee and they had ordered their meals, Isabel reached across the table to grasp one of Fargo’s hands again and said, ‘‘I hate to think about you out there putting your life in danger, Skye.’’
‘‘Folks put their lives in danger every time they get out of bed in the morning,’’ Fargo pointed out. ‘‘There’s no guarantee that anybody will live to see the sun set.’’
‘‘No, but some people go out of their way to take chances.’’ She sighed. ‘‘I know you’re just trying to help Mr. Kiley, and Captain Russell, too. I’m grateful for that, because Cap’n Andy has been almost like a father to me for the past year, ever since . . .’’
Fargo frowned as her voice trailed off. ‘‘Ever since what, if you don’t mind my asking?’’
Isabel shook her head. Obviously, she did mind.
‘‘It’s nothing important,’’ she said. ‘‘I had some trouble, and Captain Russell was there to help me. That’s all. I feel like I’m in his debt, though, and I’ll do anything I can to help him in return.’’
‘‘That’s a good attitude to have,’’ Fargo said. He didn’t press Isabel for answers about her past. That was her business, unless she chose to make it otherwise.
When the food came, it was good, and Fargo ate with a hearty appetite, replenishing his strength after the long day. As they lingered over coffee, he smiled across the table at Isabel and asked, ‘‘Do you have any plans for the evening?’’
‘‘As a matter of fact, I do,’’ she said. Before Fargo’s smile could widen into a grin, she went on. ‘‘I’d like to hunt up a good poker game.’’ She flexed her long, slender fingers. ‘‘I need to stay in practice.’’
Fargo chuckled. Although he’d had something else in mind when he asked the question, the thought of a few hands of cards sounded pretty good to him, too. And he found himself curious as to what sort of poker player Isabel was. There was one good way to find out.
‘‘I’ll join you, if that’s all right.’’
She returned his smile. ‘‘I was hoping you would.’’
As they left the dining room and entered the lobby, Fargo inclined his head toward the clerk and said in a low voice, ‘‘Should I ask him where we can find a game?’’
‘‘And have him make that face like a prune again?’’ Isabel shook her head. ‘‘Don’t worry, Skye. I’ve been traveling on the Bayou Princess for a while now, and staying over on these stops in Jefferson. I know where to find a good game.’’
That turned out to be a saloon called Skinner’s, which was located in a brick building on Lafayette Street. The main room looked more like somebody’s parlor than a barroom, with polished hardwood floors, nice rugs, and crystal chandeliers. Felt-covered gaming tables took up some of the space. Instead of booths, there were more tables and armchairs. A long mahogany bar with a well-stocked back bar and a large gilt-framed mirror behind it were the only saloonlike touches. The hostesses wore long, rather demure dresses instead of gaudy, spangled outfits, and the bartenders sported nice jackets, vests, and bow ties. Most of the customers were well-dressed, soft-spoken men.
Fargo looked around and said to Isabel, ‘‘You sure we didn’t fall in a hole somewhere and come out in Philadelphia or Boston?’’
‘‘You wouldn’t expect to find a place like this in the piney woods of East Texas, would you?’’ she asked with a smile.
‘‘Not hardly.’’
‘‘Between the cotton and timber industries, Jefferson is a wealthy town, Skye. It’s almost like a much smaller version of New Orleans.’’
The way she spoke about that Louisiana city made Fargo think that she knew it well, and he wondered if that was where she was from. He wondered, too, if that was where the incident occurred that had caused Isabel to seek help from Captain Andy Russell.
He didn’t ask, though, still willing to give Isabel her privacy. Instead he went with her to one of the tables where a poker game was in progress. Four men were playing in a rather desultory manner, but they perked up when Isabel arrived. That would be a natural reaction for most men, but evidently these gents were acquainted with her.
‘‘Good to see you again, Miss Sterling,’’ one of them greeted her. ‘‘Would you care to join the game once this hand is over?’’
‘‘I would,’’ Isabel said, ‘‘and so would my friend here.’’
The man who had spoken extended a hand to Fargo. ‘‘Edgar Price,’’ he introduced himself. ‘‘I own a cotton plantation west of here.’’
Fargo shook hands and supplied his name.
‘‘I’d heard you were in town, Mr. Fargo,’’ Price said. ‘‘These other gentlemen are Hal Olmsted, Howard Phillips, and Patrick Walser.’’
Fargo greeted the others, who all had the look of confident, successful businessmen. He held one of the empty chairs for Isabel and then sat down himself as the men concluded the hand they were playing, with big, bluff Patrick Walser winning the pot. Everyone threw in their antes again, including Fargo and Isabel this time.
Out of habit, Fargo was sitting where he could keep an eye on the door. That was why he saw the man with the eye patch come in. Fargo recognized him right away as the man he had thought might be following him the day before. This time, though, the man didn’t even glance in Fargo’s direction with his one good eye. He just went straight to the bar and ordered a drink.
In his rough clothes, he was a little out of place in Skinner’s, but no more so than Fargo in his buckskins. Nor were they the only patrons who weren’t wearing suits. There were a few others. Evidently anyone was welcome in the place as long as he behaved himself and had money to pay for the drinks he ordered.
Despite the fact that the one-eyed man had ignored him, Fargo watched the hombre from the corner of his own eye. That didn’t interfere with his poker playing. He was still able to keep his mind on the game.
That was fortunate, because Isabel and the four men from Jefferson proved to be good players. They weren’t afraid to take a chance when they thought their cards justified it, but neither were they reckless, foolish plungers. They were just the sort of canny opponents who could give Fargo a good game. And Isabel was perhaps the shrewdest one of all, with an almost infallible instinct for when to push her luck. Fargo might have thought that she was cheating, if not for the fact that his keen eyes watched her with close scrutiny. He was able to spot any trick that a card-sharp might try, and Isabel indulged in none of them.
Convivial talk flowed freely around the table. Fargo enjoyed himself a great deal and wasn’t really aware of how much time was passing, although he did notice when the one-eyed man left the saloon after a couple of drinks, still without paying any attention to the Trailsman. Fargo was down a few dollars, as were the other male players, which made Isabel the big winner. None of the men appeared to mind, though, proof of Fargo’s theory that most men were more willing to lose at poker to a beautiful woman than they were to another man.
Finally, at the end of a hand when Isabel raked in another sizable pot, she smiled and said, ‘‘I believe that will do it for me, gentlemen.’’
There were halfhea
rted protests from Price, Olmsted, Phillips, and Walser, and entreaties for her to give them another chance to win some of their money back, but Isabel shook her head.
‘‘A girl has to get her beauty sleep, you know,’’ she said.
‘‘My dear, you appear to have gotten plenty,’’ Price said. He sighed. ‘‘But of course we’ll be gracious and let you go, won’t we, boys?’’
A chorus of agreement came from the other players.
Isabel gathered her winnings and tucked them into her handbag. Fargo held her chair for her as she got up, and the other men stood politely. She looked around at them, nodded, and said, ‘‘Gentlemen.’’ Then she offered her arm to Fargo, who took it and strolled toward the door with her.
He had seen the looks of jealousy in the eyes of the other men. Those hombres had something to be jealous about, he thought, and it didn’t have anything to do with the money they’d lost tonight. He was leaving with Isabel, and they weren’t.
So to Fargo’s way of thinking, that sort of made him the big winner of the evening. . . .
She came into his arms almost as soon as the door of her room in the hotel closed behind them, and their kiss and the way they tugged at each other’s clothes demonstrated the urgency of passion postponed until now. Fargo slid his tongue between Isabel’s eager lips as they parted. He filled his hands with the firm bounty of her breasts as her dress fell around her waist.
As they left Skinner’s a few minutes earlier, he had looked around for the man with the eye patch, just in case that hombre was lurking in the vicinity of the saloon, but Fargo hadn’t seen any sign of him. Nor had they run into any other trouble on their walk back to the Excelsior House.
Now all of Fargo’s senses were concentrated on the warm, willing woman in his arms. They stripped each other’s clothes off, their arousal growing hotter with each new area of skin that was revealed. The night was warm, the sort of sultry evening made for passion.
When they were both nude, Fargo pulled Isabel tightly against him, cupped a hand behind her head, and kissed her again. She slid a hand down between them to caress the long, thick pole of his manhood as it prodded its heated length against her belly. She urged Fargo back until they reached the bed. Then he sprawled on the mattress while she positioned herself beside his hips. Wrapping both hands around his shaft, she leaned over and began to kiss and lick the head.
Fargo closed his eyes and lay there for long moments, basking in the sheer pleasure of what she was doing to him. He felt the heat of her mouth engulf him as she sucked in as much of his organ as she could. One hand steadied him while the other crept down between his legs to cup the heavy sacs at the base of his shaft.
A part of Fargo’s mind would have been content to just lie there and let her bring him to culmination this way, but at the same time that seemed a mite selfish to him. So he opened his eyes and reached out to grasp her hips. She answered his gentle tugs by moving around so that she was above him, with her thighs straddling his head while her upper body rested on his stomach. She never stopped sucking, even while she was rearranging herself.
With her poised like that, Fargo was able to reach up and use his thumbs to spread apart the folds of her sex. He sent his tongue delving into it. That made a shudder go through her, and she finally stopped what she was doing to lift her head from his groin and gasp in ecstasy. Then she went right back to her task with renewed energy.
Both of them continued their oral caresses for long minutes, each selflessly giving the other pleasure. Finally, when they couldn’t stand the exquisite torment any longer, Isabel rolled off of Fargo onto her back and spread her legs. He knelt between her thighs, brought the head of his member to her drenched opening, and drove into her. She was so wet and he was so hard that he was able to sheathe himself fully within her with one thrust.
Isabel wrapped her arms and legs around him and pushed her tongue into his mouth as they kissed. Fargo launched into the timeless, universal rhythm of men and women coupling. The only sounds in the room were their labored breathing and the soft, liquid music of their joining.
Despite the long, action-packed day, Fargo’s desire allowed him to find fresh reserves of strength. He was tireless in his lovemaking, and his pounding thrusts soon sent Isabel spiraling over the edge into a climax. He eased off a bit as she clutched at him and spasmed around him. When the shudders rippling through her trailed away, he allowed her to catch her breath for a moment, then resumed his urgent pace. She looked up at him in amazement and whispered, ‘‘Skye, you didn’t . . . ?’’
Fargo smiled and kept going.
Isabel gasped as she felt her arousal building back up. Fargo was relentless, and when she climaxed again he had to kiss her to keep her from screaming in pleasure. This time Fargo let himself go as well, relaxing the iron control that he had exercised earlier. He drove his shaft into her as far as it would go and began to empty himself in spurt after shuddering spurt. His juices filled her to overflowing. Their shared culmination left both of them limp and drenched and covered with a fine sheen of sweat.
With his manhood still inside her, Fargo tightened his arms around her and rolled onto his back, so that she wound up sprawled atop him. He felt the fast, steady thudding of her heart against his chest. His right hand stroked her fair hair as she rested her head on his shoulder, while his left caressed the swelling curve of her rump.
Isabel was too breathless to speak for several minutes. When she finally recovered enough to find her voice again, she lifted her head and said, ‘‘Skye, even . . . even after last night . . . I didn’t know it could be so good.’’
Fargo chuckled. ‘‘Practice makes most things better, or so they say.’’
She laughed, too, and said, ‘‘In that case, I intend to get a lot of practice with you.’’
She pushed herself up a little, leaned over, and blew out the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Fargo didn’t know what she had in mind to do next, but he was pretty sure he would enjoy it, whatever it was.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to, because at that moment he glanced over Isabel’s shoulder toward the window. The curtain was pulled, but it was thin enough so that some of the moonlight from outside came through it.
And that silvery illumination was enough for him to be able to make out the silhouette of a man crouched on the balcony just outside the window.
Somebody was spying on them.
9
Fargo clamped his arms around Isabel and moved again, this time rolling right off the bed. He twisted so that he landed on the bottom as they fell to the floor. Isabel cried out, not in pleasure this time but from surprise.
Eavesdropping on their lovemaking was bad enough, but the lurker on the balcony might have something even worse in mind. Fargo wouldn’t have been surprised if the glass in the window had shattered under the onslaught of bullets. The man might have come to ambush them, not just spy on them.
No shots came, though, and as Fargo pushed Isabel off of him, she said in alarm, ‘‘Skye, what—’’
‘‘Stay down,’’ Fargo told her as he snagged his Colt from the holster he had placed on a chair beside the bed. He saw that the shadow of the lurker had disappeared from the curtain. The faint sound of running footsteps came to his ears.
The son of a bitch was getting away.
Naked as a jaybird, Fargo leaped up and lunged to the window. He swept the curtain aside with his left hand and thrust the window up. He went through the opening in a low dive that sent him sprawling on the balcony. Given the fact that he was naked, that was a mite painful, but he didn’t care at the moment. He spotted a shape in the darkness several yards away and identified it as a man trying to climb over the wrought-iron railing at the front of the balcony.
‘‘Hold it!’’ Fargo called as he lifted the Colt.
Halfway over the railing, the spy twisted around. Colt flame bloomed in the darkness as the gun in his hand erupted twice.
Fargo was already moving,
rolling to the side as the slugs plowed into the planks of the balcony. He felt the sting of splinters in bare flesh, but that was better than the smash of bullets. As he came to rest on his stomach again he triggered the Colt and felt it buck against his hand as fire gouted from the muzzle. The flash lit up the balcony, and in that searing instant, he caught a glimpse of the man’s face.
He wasn’t a bit surprised to see the black patch over the lurker’s left eye.
With a yell of pain, the man went backward over the railing, disappearing. Fargo didn’t know if he’d been hit or had just lost his balance and fallen.
Fargo got to his feet and hurried over to the edge of the balcony, being careful as he peered over because he didn’t want to get a faceful of lead if the one-eyed man opened fire on him from the street below. The man wasn’t interested in fighting anymore, though. Instead he was running along Austin Street, limping quite a bit but moving fast despite that. Fargo snapped a shot at him, aiming low in hopes of knocking a leg out from under him, but the bullet kicked up dust in the street as the man suddenly darted sideways and vanished into the black mouth of an alley.
Fargo bit back a curse and lowered the Colt. He knew that by the time he could pull some clothes on and get downstairs, the one-eyed man would be long gone. Jefferson was a big enough town so that someone who didn’t want to be found could lose himself without much trouble, even a varmint with an eye patch and an injured leg.
‘‘Skye?’’ Isabel asked from the open window. Her voice was tight with worry. ‘‘Skye, are you all right?’’
Fargo turned toward her and said, ‘‘Yeah, I reckon I’m fine. Skinned up a mite, that’s all.’’ He went to the window, and as Isabel stepped away from it, he threw a leg over the sill and climbed back into the darkened room.
Along the street, people had come out to see what all the shooting was about. Men yelled questions to each other, but nobody had any answers.
Fargo didn’t intend to volunteer any information about his involvement in the fracas, either. He didn’t want to have to try to explain things to Sheriff Higgins.