The Irish Devil

by Diane Whiteside

  William took a step toward her but brought himself to an abrupt halt. Maggie shrank back against Jones, shaking.

  “Don’t you dare look at my wife that way,” Jones blustered, openly reaching for his Colt.

  William simply looked at the other man, whose fingers quickly returned to the reins. The Irishman smiled mirthlessly then stepped back from the wagon.

  “You’d best be moving on then, Jones. Wouldn’t want the little woman to come to any harm.”

  Jones started to lift the reins but William spoke again.

  “Our current deal runs out in June. It won’t be renewed.”

  “What! But you’re the only freighter who’ll haul ore from my mine, high up as it is.”

  William shrugged.

  “I’ll double your pay.”

  “There’s plenty of money to be made elsewhere with honorable men.” He ignored the ghosts warning of cruel hunger coming to anyone who refused a profit.

  “He’ll be ruined!” Maggie gasped.

  “You should have considered that before you stole a good woman’s life and business. Good day.” He touched his fingers to his hat in a mocking salute and walked on to his freight depot, the one place he could be sure of controlling matters.

  The big depot was full of his men preparing to send out the next wagon train of military supplies. Sentries patrolled the rooftops against an Apache attack, backed by others in the compound’s watchtowers. Some men loaded barrels, while others tied down tarpaulins over heavily laden wagons. The activity spilled out from the depot’s yard and corrals onto the flat desert, where the supply train would assemble.

  Men cleaned and oiled the heavy chains that would link wheels together, thus forming the wagons into an almost unbreakable barricade against attack. Every man had a rifle close at hand, of course.

  Hammering rose from the wheelwright’s and blacksmith’s shops. Both shops contained the special equipment needed for dealing with the sixteen-foot Murphy wagons, like the special forge and crane to handle the seven-foot iron wheels.

  Chickens clucked happily in their crates as they devoured their morning’s grain. Quiet reigned in a side yard behind rough mud-brick walls and a railed gate, where two men carefully unloaded barrels of gunpowder.

  The corrals were full of mules, twelve to twenty for every tandem hitch of two or three big Murphy wagons. A few had drifted to the rails to watch the teamsters’ bustling busyness, while the rest drowsed or enjoyed the morning’s first alfalfa.

  Soon enough, William was happily planning next week’s wagon train for the new fort. He checked the animals first, accompanied by his foreman.

  “Glad you arrived early,” Morgan Evans observed as they headed into the barn and its reassuring bustle of stock being groomed and prepared for the trail. “We’ll need you and all the firm’s best men to see Fort McMillan equipped. Even if we work Sundays.”

  “Mostly luck,” William disclaimed. “Smooth steamship voyage out of San Francisco, plus we didn’t sight a single Apache between here and Fort Yuma.”

  Morgan snorted. “Or Cochise didn’t want to take you on again. Good reputation to carry on that road.”

  William glanced at the notoriously calm younger man. An Apache ambush seldom caused more than a yawn from this aristocratic veteran of Forrest’s cavalry. So what was Morgan truly worried about?

  He paused to greet Saladin, his big gray stallion, who’d poked his head over his stall’s door. He needed to hear more of what had happened since his last trip to Rio Piedras seven months ago. “Quiet in town lately?”

  “Cave-in last month killed six men.” Morgan fed a carrot to his steady Indian pony as William crooned endearments to the fastest horse in the territory. “Tregarron resigned and took the last Cornish miners with him.”

  “Bloody damn. Lack of shoring?” The stallion’s ears flicked toward William. He nudged his human’s shoulder in an unmistakable demand.

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Lennox hasn’t been paying as much for inbound freight. Timber’s the heaviest cargo, now the stamp mill’s running.” William began to feed Saladin a handful of peppermints.

  “Cheap bastard.” Morgan’s three syllables were an indictment. “Most of the old miners are gone now. It’s too dangerous to mine their own claims and they won’t work for Lennox.”

  “Cochise that busy?”

  “Very. Killed Claiborne last week, not two miles out of town on the old road.” In silent accord, the two men moved to look at the horses outside.

  “Young fool must have been looking for the German’s buried gold,” William observed, searching for Tennessee, his most experienced lead mule.

  “Probably. But an Apache bullet’s a quicker death than drowning in a flash flood, as Mueller did.” Morgan slipped into the corral and carefully brought a big chestnut forward for inspection.

  William grunted agreement then turned to more important matters. “Tenn’s better than I’d hoped from your description but we can’t use him for the next train. It’ll be eight days, maybe nine, before he’s up to another run. We could hitch Blackie with Waffles instead.”

  “Or use another pair as leaders for the ammunition wagon,” Morgan offered in his soft Mississippi voice, bringing Tennessee to a halt before William.

  “Who’d you have in mind?” William asked, just as a horse and buggy turned into the yard from the street. The fancy buggy and high-stepping mare were as out of place in the depot as a dowager’s diamond necklace in a saloon. Lennox must have brought a new toy from back East.

  “I’ll hitch them so you can see them work together. Lennox will want to talk to you, now that you’re here,” Morgan murmured and faded away. He avoided contact with Lennox as much as possible, as did most war veterans. William lifted an eyebrow but said nothing as he turned to meet his caller.

  Paul Lennox pulled the buggy to a stop before the depot’s office. He quickly looped the mare’s reins over the rail as he looked around for William. A keg of beans thudded to the ground in the yard beyond, making his horse toss up her head in alarm. Lennox paid no attention to her fretfulness as he headed toward his quarry, twirling his ever present walking stick.

  Rio Piedras must be more restless than Morgan had mentioned, if Lennox was wearing a gun belt. Extravagantly ornamented and holding a pair of pearl-handled guns, it was still worn with the casual ease of someone all too familiar with its weight.

  “Donovan,” Lennox hailed jovially.

  William kept a polite smile on his face. He knew far too well about men like Lennox, who were happy to do business with him but would cut him dead if they met him at a private party. “Good morning, Lennox. Handsome rig you’ve got there.”

  “Thank you! You’re very kind to say so. It commemorates my acceptance into Pericles,” Lennox purred, visibly preening. “Really, the club’s even more magnificent than I’d heard. Too bad you’ll never see it.”

  “Congratulations,” William bit out. The most elite private men’s club in New York, the Pericles Club was where much of New York’s banking business actually occurred. He had as much chance of entering its halls as he had of walking on the moon.

  “Secretary of War Belknap, a very agreeable fellow, presided over my initiation,” Lennox continued.

  The most notoriously corrupt man in Grant’s administration? He probably had been accommodating to someone with Lennox’s money and connections.

  “I’ve always found him and his staff to be quite effective,” William agreed. Especially after a few bribes exchanged hands.

  Lennox beamed. “Four generations of my family have celebrated acceptance there with a splendid equipage, such as this horse and buggy. Nothing else in the territory quite as fine, don’t you think? And it should look magnificent when Mrs. Ross rides in it to our wedding.”

  William’s jaw tightened. Lennox wasn’t worthy of kissing her boot, much less putting a ring on her finger. A long-winded former Union cavalryman and New York real estate mogul, he’d never s
et foot west of the Mississippi until a year ago. She’d refused offers from far better men, but perhaps now she’d want the future he offered, since Mrs. Watson had absconded with the laundry’s last funds.

  “It certainly should be very impressive. What can I do for you on this fine spring morning?” William’s voice was silky smooth, a perfect camouflage for his seething emotions. He stepped up to the colonnade that ringed the yard, drawing Lennox after him.

  “Just wanted to exchange greetings and chat about the latest affairs in town.” Lennox followed William and accepted the mug that Abraham produced, some magic telling the houseman when coffee would soothe William’s business contacts.

  William nodded politely and cradled the heavy stoneware in both hands. “I trust matters have been going well for you.”

  “Well enough now. You heard about the cave-in?”

  “My condolences,” William began but Lennox kept talking.

  “Dreadful event. We lost at least a week’s production over that.”

  And you’re mourning lost revenue, not dead men. Hopefully, you’ll take the offer from those San Francisco bankers and sell out.

  “I had to take over management myself, now that expensive fool Tregarron’s gone.”

  William kept his face expressionless at this dismissal of a great mining engineer. The stamp mill echoing through the town was Tregarron’s masterpiece, a mechanical contraption that had more than quadrupled the Golconda’s output.

  “He used to handle problems in town for me, as well as at the Golconda. Now you and I both understand the need for our men to blow off steam, kick up their heels in a fashion that saloonkeepers don’t always appreciate,” Lennox murmured.

  William’s mouth twitched unwillingly. Even his handpicked teamsters occasionally raised a ruckus in town, and Lennox owned all of Rio Piedras’s saloons, the most obvious target for such high spirits. The two men’s eyes met in perfect understanding.

  Lennox went on with barely a break in his voice. “Tregarron regularly explained to the saloonkeepers how business really works in Rio Piedras and then matters would settle down, a task I now have to perform. So until the new manager arrives, please feel free to call upon me if I can be of assistance in ironing out difficulties with any of the local business establishments.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your consideration.”

  “My pleasure. I’m also bringing my best men out from New York to help keep the town orderly. Some of the miners have been a bit stubborn, but Conall O’Flaherty and his brothers should soon set them straight.”

  “Thank you for the warning.” A thug named Conall O’Flaherty? No, surely he couldn’t be the same man. It was twenty-four years and a different continent since that meeting. “I’ll pass it on to Evans and my men.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be an issue but I did want you to know the name.”

  William nodded acknowledgment and took a deep drink of coffee. Old memories swirled behind his eyes: his mother’s arms wrapped around her swollen belly, Maeve and Caitlin sobbing against her skirts. His nose bloody from a futile attack on the men as he struggled against his father’s tight grip. Their few possessions settling into the muddy road as the land agent urged his oldest son to throw a torch into the cow byre…

  “Enough of business,” Lennox said jovially. “Let’s discuss gentlemen’s interests, like this little mare I bought for forty dollars. She was a famous racehorse in Kentucky, so she should win next month’s big race in Tucson.”

  William looked at the blood bay more closely. Excellent lines, very fast but delicately built. She’d be better suited to the grass racetracks of Kentucky, or perhaps California, than the cactus-marked sand and rock of southern Arizona. “How long has she been here in the desert?”

  “Just over four weeks.”

  “Hardly enough time to learn how to run amidst cactus,” William pointed out, an edge creeping into his voice.

  “Exactly! The odds will be against her and I’ll make more money when she wins.”

  More likely she’d go lame or break a leg, William thought acidly, assuming she settled down enough to race. The little mare was sweating heavily now as she sidled away from bursts of activity in the yard. Her nostrils flared and her eyes rolled back until the whites showed when a barrel of coffee was tossed up to a wagon.

  Lennox turned back toward William, ignoring the restless horse. “Once my mare races Taylor’s gelding and wins…” He stared significantly at William as if to force agreement.

  He nodded a response but didn’t commit himself to abstaining from the coming meet. Taylor’s gelding could run circles around every other horse south of Globe except Saladin.

  “Then I’ll have more than enough money to build the finest hotel in the territory. Right there!”

  Lennox flung out his arm to indicate the chosen hilltop just as idle chance quieted the depot for a moment. His coffee mug flew out of his hand and crashed against a chest waiting to be loaded. The mug’s destruction echoed like gunfire. Pottery shards and coffee lanced the air and found his mare.

  The blood bay reared and screamed, laying her ears back flat against her head. The reins snapped, setting her free to wreak havoc. Lennox’s eyes measured the distance from her to the gunpowder. He reached for his gun.

  William dropped his mug and ran toward her.

  The little mare kicked out, tearing chunks out of the buggy and breaking one of the traces. Her first panicky turn snapped the buggy against a wagon’s iron wheel, turning Lennox’s pride and joy into a shattered wreck careening around the yard to terrify other animals and trigger more destruction.

  “Whoa!” William roared as Morgan and other men ran toward the disaster’s center. A quick glance showed Abraham vaulting into the side yard to crouch in front of the gunpowder barrels, poised to block any charges.

  Her wild lunges broke some barrels, pouring beans and coffee over the sand, and sent others rolling across the depot. Chickens squawked and flapped as a flour barrel crashed into their crate. The mare’s panic infected even the normally stolid mules until they began to circle and stamp restlessly. One of them brayed anxiously and another half-reared to avoid being trapped in the milling throng.

  William yelled again as he hurdled the buggy’s fragments and reached the mare. His strong voice with its message of absolute command made her hesitate for a moment, giving him the chance to grab her headstall. He glimpsed Lennox leveling his big Colt at the terrified horse.

  “Whoa!” William shouted again, shortening the word and deepening his voice to hold her attention. He put his full weight into stopping her next wild frenzy. Her four hooves hit the ground simultaneously but she still shuddered and tried to fight him. Her flanks heaved and foam dripped off as she fought for breath.

  He crooned to her in the old language of the bards, soft gutturals that had calmed Irish horses for millennia, a tongue that instinct and urgency made him use. She bucked again halfheartedly but her ears pricked to catch his voice.

  The men who’d come to help stopped and watched from a few paces away, letting him win her over.

  He murmured to her about the delights of her stall, a good meal, sweet water, the beauty of her gait, the sheen of her coat…all a stream of love words calculated to seduce a restless female as his father and grandfather had taught him. Finally she leaned against him, trembling, and he petted her gently.

  He’d need a bath when this was done, given the amount of horse sweat his clothes were soaking up.

  Satisfied, his men backed away and began to cut her free from the buggy’s remains. The debris quickly disappeared, while the corralled mules returned to their leisure. Abraham met William’s eyes for a moment before he began to smoothly clean up the coffee mug’s remains.

  William hummed old lullabies to the mare until she nudged him, snuffling at the treats in his pocket. He chuckled as she eagerly accepted a peppermint stick.

  “So you enjoy peppermints, little lady?” he laughed in English as he dug for
another hard candy. Then he stiffened as a strident voice ripped into the depot’s hard-won peace.

  “The bitch shattered my new buggy.” Lennox strode forward, his gun at the ready. “By God, I’ll not have her near anything else of mine.”

  The mare neighed frantically and shied away, tugging at William’s hold.

  William blocked Lennox’s path, his free hand reaching for his bullwhip. Eighteen feet of black leather, shot-loaded to increase its impact and with a cane shaft for accuracy, it should be enough to snatch Lennox’s Colt from his hand.

  “Out of my way, Donovan,” Lennox ordered harshly.

  William didn’t move, as icy calm as ever in a fight. “She’s a good horse, Lennox, but unaccustomed to a depot’s hubbub,” he remarked calmly. America was gone from his voice, replaced by more than a hint of the upper-crust accent he’d learned on the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy’s great estates. He released the mare’s reins in response to Morgan’s hissed, “I have her, sir.”

  “Devil take her, Donovan, do you know how much that rig cost?” Lennox snarled. He took a few steps to his left then caught sight of the braided leather flowing restlessly beside William’s leg. Lennox stopped abruptly as William flicked the whip casually.

  “Actually, Lennox, I’ve always admired the look of your other buggy.” William kept his tone calm and deep. Use your voice first to cool matters, Lady Irene had always said.

  Lennox flushed angrily and cocked the revolver.

  The bullwhip cracked gently. Lennox’s hands froze. The mare neighed frantically from a few paces behind William. But neither man had eyes for her now.

  “Its classical elegance reminds me of the rigs I’ve seen in London, on Rotten Row,” William continued softly. Soothe the man’s pride as you build him a bolthole.

  “Do you really think so?” Lennox lowered the gun, all the while watching the whip with eyes as lethal as a caged tiger’s.

  “Indeed, yes. Your gelding matches it very well and his smooth gaits are calculated to win a lady’s confidence.” William’s voice was as steady as his heartbeat.

  A stiff smile slowly appeared on Lennox’s face as he uncocked the Colt. “What do you suggest for the mare?”