Riley tried for a second to get up, then groaned and sagged back down. The limp sprawl of his arms and legs showed that he had passed out.
In disgusted tones, Matt ordered, “Somebody put him on his horse and take him back out to Pax. When he wakes up, tell him not to come back to town until he’s sober and willing not to cause trouble.”
A couple of cowboys moved to do as Matt said. While they were busy with that, Sam said to the rest of the men, “Like I told you, either go back into the dance or go home. But the trouble is over, understand?”
Mutters of grudging agreement came from them. Both groups broke up, some of the men returning to the schoolhouse, others drifting off into the night.
Matt joined Sam on the porch. Sam still held his revolver, but he had lowered it to his side. “Think the ones who left will start taking potshots at each other in the dark?” he asked.
Matt shook his head. “I don’t reckon that’s likely. Looked like Riley and Danks were the ones who were stirrin’ things up.”
Sam leathered his iron and said, “I wonder what that business about Shad Colton being a rustler was all about.”
“Just a drunk mouthin’ off, I’d say. Riley was tryin’ to get under Danks’s skin.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sam still sounded interested, though.
They went inside, where Seymour hurried over to them right away. “What happened?” he asked. “People are saying that there was almost a gunfight, and there was something about punches being thrown.”
“Punch,” Matt said with a smile. “There was only one punch . . . and I threw it.”
“You were right to worry, Seymour,” Sam said. “A couple of men from the Double C and Pax were about to slap leather, and if they had, the rest of both bunches would have joined in, too. It could’ve been pretty bloody.”
“But you stopped them,” Seymour said.
Matt nodded. “Yeah.”
“This time,” Sam added. “Somebody ought to have a talk with Colton and Paxton and see if they can’t be convinced to patch up their differences and put an end to this feud.”
“I agree,” Seymour said, “but I couldn’t do that. I haven’t been here long enough. Neither of those men would listen to me.”
“That’s right,” Matt agreed. “Anyway, I’ve heard about these Texas feuds. Usually the only thing that ever ends them is when one side is killed out.”
“My God. That would require wholesale slaughter.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, “that’s about the size of it.”
Matt Bodine’s comment was still on Seymour’s mind as he walked Maggie O’Ryan back to her house after the dance was over. “Is that really the way it is here in Texas?” he asked her as they strolled along. “One family commits mass murder on another family?”
“Well, they sort of commit mass murder on each other,” Maggie said. “That’s why they call it a feud.”
Seymour shook his head. “I’ve learned a lot about the West in the relatively short time I’ve been here, and there’s a great deal I like about it. But I’m not sure if I’ll ever become accustomed to the cheapness with which human life is regarded on the frontier.”
Maggie stopped, which made Seymour come to a halt as well. She turned toward him and said, “It’s only some of the people who feel that way, Seymour. We’re not all like that. I wish there never had to be any violence at all. I . . . I worry about you being the marshal and all. Something could happen to you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he told her with a smile. “I’m learning all the time how to handle the job, and as long as I have Matt and Sam around to help me—”
“But that’s just it,” Maggie interrupted. “Mr. Bodine and Mr. Two Wolves won’t be around Sweet Apple forever. They’re drifters, Seymour. You’ll wake up one morning and they’ll be gone.”
“I know,” he said. “Matt warned me that they were . . . violin-footed, I believe was his word, although I’m not quite sure I understand the derivation of it.”
Maggie couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Fiddle-footed, Seymour. I’m sure he said fiddle-footed.”
“Oh. Yes, I believe he did. I suppose that makes a bit more sense. But at any rate, I know that the time will come when I have to maintain law and order in Sweet Apple by myself. I’m confident that by then I’ll be up to the job.”
“I hope that’s true, Seymour.” She slipped her arm through his as they started walking again. “You don’t know how much I hope that’s true.”
Her words made his heart swell. During his time in Texas, he had grown very fond of Miss Magdalena Elena Louisa O’Ryan. She was smart and pretty and very sweet. She was devoted to her job of educating the town’s youngsters—often whether they wanted to be educated or not—and Seymour found that quite admirable. Civilization brought education, and education brought progress of all sorts. The better educated people were, the less likely they would be to settle all their arguments and disputes with gunplay. Feuds such as the one between the Coltons and the Paxtons would cease to exist.
As if reading his mind, Maggie said, “You know, I’m sure there are people back East who are prone to violence, too.”
Seymour shook his head. “Not like there are out here,” he insisted. Continuing with the line of thought that had just been occupying his mind, he said, “Take the Coltons and the Paxtons. These are two of the leading families in the entire area. They own successful ranches. Their children are educated. They’re not lowbred hooligans. And yet, if hostilities between them continue to escalate, there’s a good chance that soon they’ll be shooting at each other. Something like that would never happen back in New Jersey, where I come from. People are simply too civilized there to resort to such tactics.”
“Maybe you’re right, Seymour,” Maggie said with a sigh. She didn’t sound like she fully believed it.
Seymour did. No respectable Easterner would ever resort to violence to remove an obstacle from his path.
It just wasn’t done.
In Trenton, New Jersey, Cornelius Standish sat behind the big desk in his office, in the building that housed the Standish Dry Goods Company, and intently regarded the three men who stood before him.
Warren Welch was a fresh-faced young man with curly brown hair and a friendly expression. You had to look at his cold, snakelike eyes to know what sort of man he really was. Daniel McCracken was a redheaded, belligerent Irishman. Standish didn’t fully trust him, but he was said to be good at his job. Ed Stover was the tallest and the oldest of the three, a broad-shouldered man with a mostly bald head and a fringe of gray hair under his pushed-back derby.
All three men were associates of the late Wilford Grant, who had been hired by Standish to do a particular job—and who had failed miserably at that job. Grant and his cohort Spike Morelli had paid for that failure with their lives, but that didn’t help Standish. He was still faced with the same problem he had sent Grant and Morelli to Texas to take care of for him.
McCracken pushed his jaw out and said in a surly voice, “I ain’t sure I’m carin’ for th’ job ye’ve proposed, Mr. Standish. Who in his right mind is goin’ t’ believe that we’re dry-goods salesmen?”
“No one will question it,” Standish snapped, “because I’ll be with you.”
Stover scratched at his bald pate with a blunt finger. “That worries me a little, Mr. Standish,” he said. “You comin’ along with us, I mean. No offense, but we can handle this without havin’ you lookin’ over our shoulders.”
Standish shook his head. “I made that mistake once already when I trusted Grant and Morelli. This time I’m going to make sure that nephew of mine is out of the way.”
It was bad enough that Seymour owned half of the Standish Dry Goods Company, the company that had been built into a success by Cornelius and his brother, Seymour’s late father. Half of the profits that should have belonged to Cornelius now went into Seymour’s bank account, even though he was no longer here in New Jersey and had resigned his position as a salesman fo
r the company.
The thing that was really goading Standish to take action against Seymour was the way the company was increasing its ties to the criminal element in Trenton and elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. One way to increase business was to make it difficult for your competitors to be successful. If it took beating up deliverymen or artificially inflating freight rates for everyone else or even seeing to it that a fire “accidentally” broke out at a rival company’s warehouse . . . well, that was just business. A smart man didn’t draw the line at whatever tactics were necessary. The only “line” that mattered was the one that showed a profit or loss in a ledger.
But Seymour—soft, gullible, innocent Seymour—wouldn’t understand that. If he ever found out about the way his uncle had the company branching out into legally questionable enterprises, he would cause a big stink and ruin everything. Cornelius Standish was sure of it.
Therefore, something had to be done about Seymour. Standish had thought that dispatching him to Sweet Apple, Texas, would take care of that. The place had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous settlements on the frontier. Standish had been certain that Seymour wouldn’t last a week there before one of the local badmen gunned him down.
That had almost happened, in fact, but somehow Seymour had survived. Not only survived, but apparently he was thriving in Sweet Apple, as unbelievable as that might be. Those idiots had even made him the town marshal, and now he was regarded as some sort of hero.
That wouldn’t last, Standish had vowed. He would see to that himself, with the help of the three men who now stood before him.
He continued. “Until I’ve had a chance to look the situation over and decide on the best plan of action, the three of you will pretend to be salesman who will be working the western part of Texas for the company. You shouldn’t have to actually sell anything because I don’t expect it to take very long to accomplish our real goal. Now, are all of you in . . . or not?”
Welch, McCracken, and Stover exchanged glances. They were brutal, uneducated men, but they were experienced enough and had enough natural cunning to know that if they backed out now, after Standish had revealed his plans to them, they would be putting their own lives in danger. Behind Cornelius Standish’s smooth, prosperous veneer was a man who was every bit as ruthless as they were.
“We’re in,” Welch said as he jerked his head in a curt nod. The other two agreed.
“Very well,” Standish said, keeping his face and voice expressionless so he wouldn’t reveal how pleased he was by their decision. “We’ll be leaving for Texas on the eleven o’clock train tomorrow morning.”
With their business concluded, the three men left Standish’s sanctum. When they were gone, Rebecca Jimmerson came in from the outer office. A beautiful young woman with sleek, honey-blond hair, Rebecca was Standish’s secretary—and his mistress. She asked, “Did they agree?”
“Of course. They’ll be well paid, and they know it. I’ll need you to go down to the train station and purchase four tickets on the eleven o’clock westbound.”
Rebecca came over to the desk and perched a trim hip on it so that she could lean closer to Standish. “Why don’t I purchase five tickets,” she suggested, “and make two of them for a sleeper?”
“You want to go?”
“I’ve never been to Texas,” Rebecca said. “In fact, I’ve never seen anything west of New Jersey.”
Standish shook his head. “From everything I’ve heard, Texas is a horrible place. You wouldn’t like it.”
“I was thinking that when your business was done there, we might go on to San Francisco for a week.” She touched his cheek with soft fingertips and murmured, “Wouldn’t you like to spend a week in San Francisco with me, Cornelius?”
She wasn’t supposed to use his first name when they were in the office like this, but he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her. Not with the way her delicate scent filled his senses and the warmth of her breath brushed his face. Even though he tried not to, he couldn’t help but think about San Francisco and all the things they could do there . . .
“I suppose it would be all right,” he conceded. “The office can get along without both of us for a while.”
“Of course it can.” She leaned closer and nuzzled his ear. “Thank you, Cornelius.”
He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her onto his lap, and kissed her. After a moment, he drew back and said in a voice that was rough with desire, “Go lock the door.”
“Of course.”
It was dangerous, indulging their passion in the office like this, but Standish didn’t care. He wanted her too badly to hesitate.
And his need was fueled by something else, too, something that filled him with power and made his fleshly appetites even stronger.
That something was the sure and certain knowledge that soon, very soon, his nephew Seymour would be dead.
Chapter 3
Jessica Colton knew she made an appealing picture as she rode along with the wind making her long red hair stream out behind her head. She wore trousers and a man’s shirt and rode astride, even though she knew that scandalized her mother Carolyn. A sidesaddle was fine for cantering through a city park back East; Jessie had done that more than once. But for pure enjoyment there was nothing like galloping over the West Texas hills and plains, and that required some real riding.
She had ridden out today, the day after the dance in Sweet Apple, to meet Sandy Paxton at the creek that formed part of the boundary between the Double C and Pax ranches. Her father had tried to discourage her from spending so much time with Sandy, but Shad Colton knew better than to forbid his strong-willed daughter from doing anything. That would just make Jessie even more determined to do it.
She knew from things Sandy had told her that her father, Esau Paxton, was the same way. Esau didn’t like the two of them being friends, but it was much too late to do anything about that now. Jessie and Sandy had been close companions ever since childhood. They had grown up together, more like sisters than second cousins, and gone away to school together. It was while they were back East that the rift had developed between their families. Neither young woman knew what had caused it, but whatever it was, they didn’t see any reason why it should keep them from being friends.
Jessie came in sight of the creek, which ran roughly north and south, rising in the rugged hills and meandering some twenty miles before finally running into the Rio Grande. Pax lay to the east of the stream, Double C to the west. Both spreads extended on into the hills, past the spring where the creek bubbled to life, and up there the boundary was less well defined. That didn’t matter much, because all the good graze was down here along the creek. The stream’s banks were dotted with scrubby cottonwood and mesquite trees, as well as the occasional desert willow or oak.
Sandy hadn’t gotten there yet, Jessie saw as she reined to a halt on the bank, in the shade of one of the cottonwoods. They had agreed to meet here this morning so they could talk about everything that had happened at the dance the night before.
Sandy would want to talk about Sam Two Wolves, Jessie thought with a smile. Sandy thought Sam was just about the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the fact that he was half-Cheyenne didn’t bother her. It wasn’t like he was Apache or Comanch’. That would have been different. The Cheyenne weren’t longtime blood enemies of the pioneer families that had settled in West Texas.
Jessie had to admit that Sam was a good-looking man. But Matt Bodine was better looking, she thought.
She and Sandy had met Matt and Sam at the train station in Marfa when the young women were returning to Sweet Apple from school. There’d been some trouble there, and two hardcases who had been bothering Jessie and Sandy had made the mistake of drawing on the blood brothers when Matt and Sam intervened on their behalf. Those fools had wound up lying dead on the platform.
It might have turned out like that anyway, since both of the girls had been packing iron and knew how to shoot. That fancy Eastern scho
ol had taught them quite a bit, true enough, but it hadn’t changed them, made them something they weren’t. They were still West Texas gals, through and through.
They had enjoyed talking to Matt and Sam on the train after that, although Jessie figured that Mr. Matt Bodine was pretty full of himself. Sam was quieter and more modest.
But Sam didn’t have the same sort of reckless, devil-may-care attitude about him that Matt did, and whether she wanted to or not, Jessie had to admit that she found that attitude mighty appealing in a man . . .
Not that she was any sort of expert on men or anything like that, she reminded herself as she felt a warm flush creeping over her face. It was best not to think too much about how handsome Matt Bodine was.
The drumming of hoofbeats made her look up. She spotted Sandy on the other side of the creek, riding toward her.
And something was wrong, too, Jessie realized as Sandy came closer. Her friend had a worried look on her face.
Sandy rode across the creek, the hooves of her horse splashing the shallow water. She brought the animal to a halt. Like Jessie, she wore men’s clothes and a broad-brimmed Stetson. Her blond hair was pulled into a thick braid that hung down her back.
“What’s wrong, Sandy?” Jessie asked.
“Pa fired Jeff Riley this morning.”
Jessie’s mouth tightened. “Good riddance, I’d say. I know he was a good bronc-buster, but I never liked him. I saw the way he looked at you sometimes in town, when you didn’t know he was watching you.”
Sandy made a dismissive gesture. “I knew it. I just didn’t let it bother me all that much. Hell, girl, men have been looking at both of us like that for quite a while now.”
Jessie couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, I know. Sometimes I don’t mind . . . depending on who’s doin’ the lookin’.”
That brought a laugh from Sandy, relieving her grim demeanor for a few seconds. It came back quickly, though, as she said, “I don’t trust Riley. He’s liable to try to get even with Pa.”
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