Irritated beyond measure, McBride stomped back to the bar, studded his collar in place and knotted his tie. Tomorrow he’d let the women know that the food was for paying customers, not for the help, and he’d get Bear to translate for him. Then he remembered that slightly mocking grin the old man got on his face when he told the ladies what their employer was saying. Most of the time he wasn’t even sure Bear accurately repeated his words. For all he knew, he’d tell them what a great job they were doing.
McBride brushed off his coat with his open hand. Well, maybe enlisting Bear’s help wasn’t such a good idea. He’d have to come up with something else. But come up with something he would.
Mirrors of any kind were rare in the West and all McBride had was a polished scrap of steel. Still, when he looked at his distorted image he decided he presented a respectable appearance, except for the pieces of bloody paper stuck all over his face and his untrimmed mustache.
“I guess you’ll do, McBride,” he whispered to himself as he turned away from the mirror.
It was important that he make a good first impression on Miss Elliot.
McBride left the outlying shacks of Suicide behind him and walked toward the Elliot house. The sleet had stopped and the clouds, driven by a bullying wind, were flying apart, scudding tattered and black across the sky like monstrous ravens. A bone white moon, almost full, spread an ashen light, deepening the shadows, filling the night with dark omens.
The only sound was the crunch of McBride’s feet on frozen slush and the hiss of his breath, smoking briefly in the icy air, only to be snatched away by the wind.
He glanced at the moon and, a man of imagination, saw that same moon shining on a wagon out in the plains to the east, shading still, pale faces to deathly white. By now the coyotes would be talking and their shadowy shapes would be skulking closer to the wagon like gray ghosts….
McBride shook his head, clearing the image from his mind. He’d done what had to be done. But try as he might, he found little consolation in that thought and no easing of his conscience.
Lights burned in the Elliot house and in a single turret room. A gravel path wound like a serpent up the hillside to the front door and all the trees had long since been cleared from the slope. A good rifleman would have an open field of fire from the house and nothing could live on this part of the hill once he started shooting. Projecting pillars of gray rock, each rising several hundred feet to the crest of the hill, flanked the house and a massive shelf of sandstone overhung the roof.
Allison’s father had chosen the site for his house well. The place was a fortress, obviously built where it was to hold off Indian attacks, and in that it had succeeded.
If the Apaches struck at Suicide, the men of the town could retreat here and fight them. McBride realized he might lose his cantina and the others their stores and businesses to fire, but they’d keep their scalps. The house was well nigh impregnable and the Apaches were not ones to lose men in a battle where all the odds were against them. Indians were first-rate fighting men, but they did not throw away their lives unnecessarily.
As he got closer, McBride noticed that despite the raw cold of the evening every window in the house was wide-open, lace curtains billowing into the rooms. The door of the house surprised him even more. He’d expected etched glass maybe, and a polished brass handle and knocker. But it was a massive affair, studded with iron, the knocker a heavy circle of green, mildewed bronze.
McBride stopped just before he reached the door and polished his boots on the legs of his pants. Looking up at the building, its soaring turret rooms with their narrow, arrow-slit windows and the steeply pitched roof, he was overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding. For all its gingerbread decoration and white paint, there was a pervading gloominess to the place. The house didn’t sit on its foundation; it crouched like a great hawk, as though ready to swoop on what lay below. It seemed to McBride that the place could suddenly rise in a flutter of wings, descend on the town, pick it up in its talons and carry it to the crest of the hill to be devoured.
He had the feeling that this was not a happy place and it never had been. The house seemed alive, full of malevolence…watching him. Hating him.
McBride shook his head. He was tired and his imagination was working overtime. A house that sheltered a woman rumored to be as beautiful as Allison Elliot must surely be happy.
Smiling at his own foolishness, he stepped to the door…and it swung open just as he reached it.
Jim Drago, swaddled in a black cloak of some kind, a fur hat on his huge head, threw McBride a venomous look of intense dislike, then brushed past him without a word.
The giant figure of Moses stood silhouetted in the doorway. “You are three minutes late, Mr. McBride,” he said accusingly. “Miz Elliot awaits you in the drawing room.”
McBride stepped inside into a small foyer floored with marble. Ahead of him was a wide hallway with rooms leading off on both sides. Beyond soared a grand staircase that led to the second story. A massive, crystal chandelier hung over the first landing before the stairs branched in two directions, but it was not lit. In fact, the only light came from six oil lamps placed on small tables against the corridor walls.
Moses led McBride to a room at the end of the hall. “Wait here,” he said. He tapped on the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him.
The house was cold, as cold as it was outside, and McBride shivered as he looked around him.
A huge portrait in a heavy oak frame dominated the hallway. It hung on the wall opposite McBride and reached almost from ceiling to floor. The painting had been done in oils and was of a stern, middle-aged man with a mane of iron-gray hair, a thick mustache adorning his top lip. The man’s gray eyes looked down at McBride and no matter where he moved in the hall, the eyes followed him, disapproving and faintly contemptuous. A thriving city with tall buildings, sprawling suburban mansions, a railroad yard, churches and schools formed the background of the painting. There were also busy stores and people either strolling or riding streetcars, all under a bright blue sky without a hint of cloud.
McBride smiled. No city in the world looked that clean and uncrowded—certainly not New York with its constant pall of factory smoke, chaotic traffic and dirty, teeming streets. This was one man’s fantasy of what the ideal city should look like, and it was far divorced from reality.
“I see you’ve met my father, Mr. McBride. And his utopia.”
McBride turned, saw Allison Elliot standing in the drawing room doorway looking at him—and his heart almost stopped beating.
Chapter 20
Allison Elliot’s father had dreamed of creating a beautiful city, but that was fantasy. However, he had created a beautiful daughter and that was reality.
The woman burned like a candle flame, a creature of blinding loveliness who possessed the delicacy, almost fragility, that goes hand-in-hand with true feminine beauty.
Her glossy auburn hair was piled on top of her head. Her eyes were large, a lustrous smoke gray like her father’s in the portrait. Her lips were full, scarlet, delicious as ripe cherries waiting for a hungry man to devour them. She wore a floor-length kimono of watered yellow silk that did nothing to conceal the voluptuous curves of her body.
Allison regarded McBride with a smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eyes, a woman in her midtwen-ties who knew very well the effect she had on men.
She glided toward him. “It’s nice to meet you at last.” A man would have gladly died for her smile. “I’ve been hearing quite a lot about you.”
McBride tried to talk, gave up the struggle and awkwardly extended his hand.
“Forgive me. I don’t shake hands,” Allison said, the smile fixed on her luscious mouth. “It bothers me.”
Feeling too big, too ungainly and too out of his depth, McBride swallowed hard and said the first thing that popped into his head. “You have a lovely home, Miss Elliot.”
“Thank you. I like it. And, please, call me Allison. I shall call you Joh
n.”
It pleased McBride greatly that the woman knew his name. “Cold tonight,” he said, then swore at himself for being so transparently gauche, like a teenage boy.
“Yes, yes it is. But then I don’t feel the cold. You obviously do.”
“I, I mean I—”
“Your hat?”
McBride snatched the plug hat from his head, feeling his cheeks redden. “I’m sorry.”
“No harm done.”
Allison moved closer to him and she looked up at the portrait. “My father built this house. He was a wonderful man, a great man. Tam Elliot was a giant, a visionary. Unfortunately smaller men could not share his vision and it died with him. It died and rotted into a town named Suicide.”
“Your father founded the town,” McBride said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, he did.” She flashed her dazzling smile again. “But more of that later. A sherry before dinner?”
Finding himself again, McBride smiled. “Yes, I’d like that.”
Allison led him into the drawing room. The room was ornately furnished. A low coffee table and two large, leather wing chairs fronted a wide fireplace. But no warm and cheery log crackled in the fire. An embroidered screen stood in front of the grate and the entire interior of the fireplace had been blackened and polished. All the windows were wide-open, letting in gusts of icy wind that tossed the curtains and made the candle flames in the candelabras placed around the room gutter and smoke.
As though she didn’t notice the freezing cold, Allison led McBride to one of the leather chairs and she took the one opposite. A crystal decanter and two glasses stood on the table and she poured sherry for both of them.
“A poor sherry, I’m afraid, John, but in Suicide one must take what one can get.”
Trying his best not to be too obvious in his shivering, McBride tried the sherry. It was vinegary and long past its best. “It’s just fine,” he said, choosing a small lie over a truth that might offend.
“You’re too kind.” Allison sipped her sherry and her eyes sought McBride’s over the rim of her glass. Her kimono had slipped from one shoulder, showing the upper swell of a milk white breast. “Did I tell you about my father?” she asked.
McBride was surprised. “Why yes, when we were admiring his portrait.”
As though she hadn’t heard, the woman said, “He was a great man, an intelligent man, full of passion and restless energy. I have known many men, but not one has ever come close to comparing to him.”
Including me, I guess, McBride thought glumly. He knew he’d already made a grievous faux pas. Damn it all, he should have taken his hat off as soon as he entered the house.
Allison was talking again. “After he struck it rich in the goldfields, Father had a dream, call it a vision. He wanted to build his own town, a utopia where people could live in peace, prosperity and harmony.”
McBride smiled, knowing he was sunk anyway. “In the middle of Apache country?”
If Allison was offended she didn’t let it show. “The savages were quiet then, and besides, they would never have attacked the kind of city my father planned to build.” She lifted her glass and sipped. Then she said, “It took my father five years of searching before he found this place. There were no other towns close and his city would have had plenty of room to grow.”
She laid the glass carefully back on the table. “Father’s idea was that his city would attract the railroad and he’d make Eden Creek a great cattle shipping center.” She smiled. “Think about it, John. Why should the Texas ranchers drive their herds all the way to Kansas, running off tons of beef, when they could ship them east from here?”
“Seems like a good plan.” McBride was shivering and he fought to keep his teeth from chattering. “What happened?”
“Father first built this house as an anchor for all the rest to come. That was ten years ago, just after my mother died. I was at a finishing school back east at the time and he invited me to join him here.”
McBride brightened. “I have four young charges and I plan on—”
“Father began by erecting the buildings you see in town,” Allison said, as though she hadn’t heard. “They were but a tiny acorn from which a mighty oak would grow. He invited people passing through to settle here, men like Jed McKay and Adam Whitehead and others. But they were unworthy.”
“In what way?” McBride asked, now that his attempt to shift the conversation had failed.
“They were a lazy, shiftless bunch and they did not or could not share Father’s vision. Instead of growing, Eden Creek stagnated. No more settlers came and the railroad turned far to the north.” The woman took a deep, shuddering breath. “Three years ago, in utter despair at the failure of his dream, Father shot himself.”
“Why didn’t he go someplace else? Try again?”
“He was discouraged and sank into a deep depression. He no longer had the will to try again. Tam Elliot was a broken man. The people of Eden Creek destroyed him and because of that it was I who renamed the town Suicide.”
McBride tried another tack. There were tears in Allison’s beautiful eyes and the present line of talk was going nowhere. “I’ve heard that there’s a fortune in gold in this house.”
The woman gave McBride a sidelong glance. “Father did not believe in banks.”
“And the five men who tried to steal it?”
“No doubt you’ve heard I killed those men. I did not. Greed killed them.”
“But they say you pulled the trigger, Allison.” Even as he said it McBride wondered how this slender woman could have handled the weight and punishing recoil of a Sharps big .50.
“I didn’t pull the trigger. Men who protect me, protect this house, did.”
“Who are they?”
A gong sounded somewhere in the house and Allison rose quickly to her feet. She was smiling again. “Ah, it’s time for dinner.” Her eyes lifted to McBride’s face. “Perhaps your cuts are healed?”
Now he remembered the scraps of newspaper all over his cheeks and neck. Flushing, he picked them off one by one, dried blood making them stick to his skin. When the papers were all gone he didn’t know what to do with them, so he shoved them in his pocket.
“Much better,” Allison said approvingly. “You must be more careful with the razor, John.”
McBride said nothing, feeling foolish.
The woman led the way to a door at the end of the hallway near the stairs. She entered first and McBride followed. A long, mahogany dining table ran almost the whole length of the room, but there was a setting for two at the end near the cold fireplace. All the windows were open and the room was icy.
Allison stood at the head of the table and waited until McBride helped her with her chair. She waved to the place next to her on her right. “Please be seated.”
The woman waited until McBride took his seat, then said, “You will find that Moses is an excellent cook.”
A freezing draft assailed McBride’s back and his fingers and toes were numb. He managed a smile. “Has Moses been with you for long?”
“Ten years, and before that he was with my father. He was once a slave, you know, a field hand on an Alabama plantation. Wine?”
McBride nodded and Allison poured from another expensive crystal decanter. “I’m afraid you’ll discover that the wine is no better than the sherry.”
The woman was right, McBride told himself as he placed his glass back on the table. He was no expert on wines, but the stuff was terrible.
“May I ask you a question, Allison?” he asked. Through the open windows he heard the coyotes talking, their mad yips carried along by the wind.
“Why, of course you may.”
“Have you ever heard of the rule?”
Allison smiled and McBride again found himself devastated by her stunning beauty. She said, “Well, let me think. I’ve heard of the golden rule, the rule of thumb and the rule of King Henry the Eighth of England. Are you referring to one of those?”
&n
bsp; Refusing to be sidetracked, McBride said, “Unfortunately not. The rule says that no one is allowed to leave Suicide.”
Allison’s laugh rang like a silver bell. “Who told you such a silly thing, John? People come and go in Suicide all the time, a lot of them outlaws on the dodge.”
“I’m talking about the originals. The first settlers invited here by your father.”
The woman studied McBride for some time. Finally she said, “I suspect they made the rule story up to cover their own stupidity and idleness. Not one of them has the gumption to leave and try to start a new life somewhere else.”
McBride would not let it go, even as he saw a look of irritation in Allison’s wonderful eyes. “I’m told that some have tried, and all of them were found murdered on the trail, including women and children.” He thought about mentioning the Wrights but decided against it. For the time being he’d keep that a secret.
Allison looked startled. “John, the people you’re talking about packed up slow-moving wagons and headed into Apache country. Of course they were murdered. Man, woman or child, it doesn’t make much difference to a savage whom he kills.”
“Manuel Cortez was one of them.” McBride watched Allison’s face for a reaction. The woman didn’t flinch.
“I heard about that. I’m told you found his body and had a narrow escape yourself. It only proves what I just said—you can’t go gallivanting into Apache country and expect to survive for long.”
Dinner was a long time coming and it seemed to McBride that the room had grown even colder, the cutting wind stronger. Beside him, Allison Elliot didn’t seem to notice. He grinned and changed the subject. “Will you ask me for my rent for the El Coyote Azul before I leave?”
Allison didn’t smile. “It’s a nominal sum—a hundred dollars a month.”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Angel Guerrero? He recently tried to shake me down for that much protection money, or at least, one of his men did.”
“Guerrero has been around these parts for years,” Allison said. “He’s a bandit and an all-round scamp.” Now she was smiling.
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