by Shirl Henke
Ever since his first journey all the way to Santa Fe back in 1806 Shelby had been obsessed with the Far West. As the only city centrally located on the one-thousand-mile length of the mightiest river on the North American continent, St. Louis was indeed the gateway to all the riches that lay in the uncharted wilderness beyond. The epic expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Pacific and back to St. Louis had only scratched the surface. Samuel knew the future of the United States lay inevitably over the western horizon and his blood quickened just thinking of the freedom and the excitement of playing a part in building that future.
In truth, he was also eager to see his sister again. Liza seemed happy enough with her Spaniard, Santiago Quinn. Shelby was still amazed that she was content to live under a Spanish flag in the largely unsettled province of New Mexico, especially considering that she, too, had worked as a presidential agent, risking her life for the United States. But she staunchly maintained that the American flag would fly over Santa Fe in their lifetime. Perhaps she was right, although right now he was more interested in what was going on in the Mississippi Valley than in distant New Mexico.
Liza and Santiago should be in St. Louis by the time he arrived. Every year the Spaniard took a trade caravan from Santa Fe to St. Louis and back, even though the Spanish provincial authority forbade trade with the Americans. But the border between the Louisiana Purchase and Imperial Spain’s possessions stretched thousands of miles and there were only a small handful of troops to patrol it.
Quinn’s trading ventures were making a tidy profit. Samuel was going to buy into the expanding business. His sister and brother-in-law had been urging him to join the company every time he visited with them. Well, he had truly burned his bridges in Washington now. With Jefferson’s considerable influence in the Virginia legislature, his divorce should be granted by year’s end.
Thoughts of Olivia St. Etienne again surfaced. Tish hated the wilderness but Olivia had spent years on the Mississippi. She was waiting for him right now in St. Louis. The thought appealed and alarmed at the same time. The last thing he needed to do was jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Marriage to Leticia Annabelle Soames should have taught him something. The demure Virginia belle he courted had changed dramatically into a shrewish bitch who killed more than one child growing within her body. Perhaps it was for the best. Tish would have made a truly terrible mother.
What kind of mother would Olivia be? He quashed the dangerous thought at once and swung up on the big rangy blue roan he had selected from the stock remaining on his plantation. Along with the divorce petition, he had asked his father’s old friend Tom to arrange the sale of the estate and disposition of its furnishings. Tish would receive a share of the profits and the rest would go to purchase his share in the Quinn’s trading company. He fully expected his wealthy wife to sneer at the paltry settlement, but it was all he could offer.
Was Olivia rich? She had been elegantly attired at the ball and drove an expensive rig, but that was all provided by her guardian. She had described a childhood of feast and famine, living high when the cards went her father’s way, sneaking out of hotel back doors when luck deserted him. That sort of existence could give a woman a real hunger for life’s pretty baubles.
Why did his mind continually keep turning back to the little French chit? A smile grudgingly spread across his face. He would see her again when he reached St. Louis. Why not anticipate the inevitable and stop fighting it? He was hardly the green youth he had been when he met Tish. He’d take Olivia St. Etienne’s measure, perhaps even enjoy her delectable little body and get her out of his system. But he would certainly never marry again—her or any other woman.
That night he stopped at a rugged way station, really little more than a long, crudely built log fort in the wilds of the Maryland interior. The accommodations were primitive, but it would be his last chance to sleep in a bed with a roof over his head until he reached Pittsburgh. After a passable meal of fried pork and biscuits in the main room, he made his way upstairs to the small narrow cell he had rented for the night. After depositing his pack beside the spartan pallet, he surveyed the lumpy mattress, hoping he would not roll on his left arm in the night. It was healing nicely, but the bullet had cut deep enough to require over half a dozen stitches. The doctor had removed them last week but the muscle was still tender.
A rap on the sash interrupted his settling in. He shoved aside the heavy leather curtain that served as a door and saw the sloe-eyed little barmaid standing with a tall stein of foaming ale pressed against her ample cleavage. She was a robust German girl with the dark hair and complexion of a Swabian.
“I bring you somesing cool to drink...and maybe some-sing else warm, ya?” She licked her lips slyly and swished her coarse cotton skirts in an obvious invitation.
Fleetingly he considered it, then immediately thought better. True, he had been celibate far too long, but she smelled of pork grease and garlic and her teeth were already beginning to rot although she could be no more than twenty. “I thank you for the most generous offer, but I’m exhausted from the day’s ride and I have to get an early start in the morning,” he replied, fishing in his breeches for a coin to appease her.
“You vil at least drink the ale, ya?” she asked earnestly. “It vil help vit schleep.”
He took the stein and handed her the coin, noting with distaste that she had dirt encrusted beneath her broken nails as she slipped her payment down the front of her low-cut bodice and swished away.
After depositing the stein beside his pallet, he sat down and began to tug off a boot, noting the snores and lustier noises issuing from the other cubicles up and down the long hallway. Taking an experimental sip of the ale, he decided it might indeed help him sleep. He turned his attention to the other boot which was slick with mud. Cursing the lack of a bootjack, he grinned wryly. In the wilderness there would be no such amenities. He had better get used to roughing it. As he yanked the second boot free, it slipped from his hands, knocking over the stein of ale sitting on the floor. The rough-hewn split log floor thirstily soaked up the liquid.
No use cursing his own clumsiness. Samuel stood up and padded in his stocking feet to the crude wooden stand where a pitcher of clean water and a chipped basin stood. He washed quickly, then slipped beneath the quilts and fell into a fitful slumber, dreaming of cat green eyes and flaming red curls.
Several hours later the scrape of the stiff leather door cover being pushed aside awakened him. Shelby’s dangerous career had taught him to sleep lightly, even when he was exhausted, and never to go to bed without a weapon by his side.
The room was shadowed with only a few feeble rays of moonlight peeking through the cracks in the log wall. Samuel groped quietly with his right hand, searching for the pistol on the floor. Just as his fingers found it, he saw the icy gleam of a knife as it arced downward toward his throat.
Before he could grasp the gun, Shelby had to twist his head to avoid the blade’s deadly slice. His hand swept up to block his assailant’s wrist. He came up from the pallet and smashed into the other man, who had knelt at his side. They rolled across the floor, thrashing and punching. His foe was smaller but incredibly strong and agile as a weasel. Samuel held the deadly blade at bay with one hand around his assailant’s wrist while he punched into the man’s chest with the other.
Shelby was rewarded by a grunt of pain, but before he could follow through with another blow he felt a searing agony in his injured arm. His enemy had dug his fingers into the bicep and tore at the tender healing flesh, almost causing him to lose his purchase on the other man’s wrist. Gritting his teeth, Samuel held on, smashing the knife wielding hand onto the hard log floor. The assassin lost his grip on the weapon and it skittered across the uneven boards landing in the opposite corner of the room.
Samuel tried to carry through with another punch but the other man twisted free and rolled to his feet, ferret-quick, then vanished through the leather curtain. Seizing the
gun he had been unable to use in the scuffle, Samuel ran after his quarry but the hallway was deserted. By the time he scrambled down the narrow stairs and ran through the empty taproom to the front door which stood ajar, all he could see was a dim figure on horseback disappearing into the forest.
Giving chase in the middle of the night over wooded, hilly terrain would certainly be dangerous and probably useless. By morning the killer could be halfway back to Washington. His arm throbbed wickedly and he could feel the faint dampness where some of the scab had been torn off. Best he clean the injury and wrap it before he ended up fevered and unable to travel.
As he trudged back upstairs, Samuel turned over in his mind who the devil his rather persistent assassin could be. He was certain the man tonight was the same one who attacked him on the Post Oak Road several weeks ago. How else could he have known to attack the injured arm? As a presidential agent traveling all across the continent, Shelby had made many enemies. Perhaps one of the filibusters he had convinced Allenworthy to betray had found out about his role in foiling their schemes. Dozens of possibilities flashed into his mind including a thought about Tish and Richard, but he dismissed it as ridiculous. As devoted to her as her stepbrother was, she held no hold over him which would impel him to risk his life sneaking around backwoods inns with knives!
* * * *
“Another failure! The man has more lives than a cat or you have the luck of a blind beggar to let him get away again.” Tish slammed her glass down on the pier table and paced furiously across her sitting room. It was late afternoon and she had just returned from a tea for the wives of high-ranking army officers.
As she stormed past him, Richard stood stiffly in the bedroom door, his eyes narrowed and face flushed a dull red. “All the luck was with him. Apparently he decided not to partake of the drugged ale. The minute I entered the room he was on me. Damned lucky for both of us he wasn’t able to recognize me. In that case he might have returned with a few questions for you, my pet.” He steepled his slender fingers thoughtfully and placed them below his chin. “I shall have to take ship to New Orleans, then go upriver to St. Louis. At least with the divorce petition destroyed, I will have plenty of time in which to plan his demise. They say God would not dare to cross the Mississippi.” A chilling smile touched his narrow lips. “Who knows what violent end will befall the colonel on such a dangerous journey?”
Tish unfastened the long rows of tiny pearl buttons down the front of her suit jacket and shrugged it off, then slipped the hook on the waistband of the matching skirt of pale chocolate silk and let it slip into a soft pile on the floor. Beneath it she wore a minimum of undergarments and knew Richard was watching her hungrily.
She should deny him as punishment for his failure, but seeing him in buckskin breeches, smelling of musk and horse excited her. Richard was normally so meticulous about his appearance, perfumed and dressed like a dandy. This way he seemed raw and vital. More like Samuel, a voice inside her mind taunted. Damn you, Samuel! What will I do about you now?
Another thought had been niggling at the back of her consciousness since Richard reported his second failure to kill her husband. Reaching for a violet satin dressing robe, she donned it letting its heavy sensuous folds cover her flesh as she belted it at her waist. “I’ve decided on a new strategy, Richard darling. As you’ve said, we have plenty of time now that the messy matter of divorce has been dealt with.”
“What sort of strategy?” His voice was ragged, his eyes tiger yellow, hungrily glued to her voluptuous body.
It was Tish’s turn to smile now, beckoning him to come to her by raising her arms so the robe gaped open to reveal her turgid nipples through the sheer beige lace of her low-cut chemise. “You’ve ridden long and hard, my poor darling,” she cooed.
“Not half so hard as I’ll ride now,” he ground out, seizing a fistful of her silvery hair and yanking the pins from it as he pulled her against him for a brief, brutal kiss. He bit Tish’s lip none too gently, turned her to face the bed, and then guided her to a kneeling position upon it. Flipping up the dressing robe and ripping away her undergarments, Richard bared her lush rounded buttocks. As he struggled to rid himself of the buckskin trousers, he alternately kissed and nipped the delectable flesh as Tish groaned and wriggled in anticipation. When he succeeded in working the trousers down his thighs, he drove into her. The blonde moaned and her upper body collapsed on the bed.
Richard thrust slowly, savagely. “And now for that ride.” Suddenly, he slapped Tish’s rump a stinging blow with the flat of his hand. She shrieked. He crooned as if speaking to a wayward mount. “Now, pet, a rider must use a touch of the crop to put his mare through her paces.” He laughed as Tish moaned, but thrust her hips into him. “And sometimes,” he continued the violent pumping of his own hips, “a touch of the spur helps as well.” He reached between her legs to pinch the tender flesh of her inner thigh. Tish buried her face in the rumpled bedclothes to muffle her whimpering moans of pain...and pleasure.
* * * *
Spring came early to St. Louis in 1811. Although March had just begun, buds grew fat on the cottonwoods and willows stood tall and thick along the riverbanks. Warm winds blowing from across the vast western prairies smelled sweet with the greening of grass. A hint of spring wildflowers wafted across the high-ceilinged room whose wide glass-paned doors had been thrown open to let in the fresh air.
Soon Santiago Quinn’s men back in Santa Fe would begin preparation for their long journey to St. Louis, but he had wintered in the American city this past year with his wife, Elise. Or Liza as her stubborn American brother insisted on calling her.
Quinn looked across the crowded ballroom of the Chouteau mansion, watching his wife charm a circle of male admirers, cleverly extracting information from them as Samuel observed in silent amusement. The whole reason the Quinns were here in this press of people, dressed to the nines in uncomfortable clothing instead of home enjoying the warm beautiful evening with their children, was to aid his brother-in-law.
As respected members of St. Louis society, even if they only resided in the city a few months a year, the Quinns could give Samuel an introduction to all the socially prominent citizens. And hopefully a lead on the British agent who had been stirring up dissension among the local Indian tribes. The mysterious Englishman had a sympathizer high up in the social hierarchy of the city, someone who had given him information about St. Louis’ defenses.
Santiago smiled as Elise and Samuel made their way across the polished walnut floor. They were two of a kind. Spies. Once the idea had appalled him, but that was when his wife had still been actively engaged in the dangerous profession. Now she had retired to raise their children, leaving Samuel to chase villains threatening the security of the fragile American republic.
Quinn’s dark auburn eyebrows arched sardonically as he raised a crystal goblet of champagne and saluted his wife. She smiled serenely as they exchanged glances. Samuel felt the subtle chemistry between them charge the air like summer lightning. Santiago Quinn, son of an Irish mercenary and a Spanish noblewoman, had always been a bit of an enigma to Shelby but the russet-haired rogue made Liza happy. In the final analysis, that was all Samuel really cared about. Although if he were to resign his commission after the impending war and join in the Santa Fe trade, it was best that he and his brother-in-law come to understand each other better.
“As always, Liza had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand,” he said to Santiago. “Postmaster Easton and Mr. Charles, the editor of the Gazette, had very definite opinions about the danger of having Indians live so near the city.”
“Somehow I never thought a leading citizen such as James Rogers a menace. And I can’t imagine his white wife scalping anyone,” Santiago replied, his eyes hooded as he studied Shelby.
“Jamie Rogers is a Shawnee and they’ve lived peacefully with Missouri settlers for a generation and have become completely ‘civilized’,” Elise interjected, knowing her husband was merely baiting her broth
er.
“Not at all like his fellow Shawnee to the north, Tecumseh,” Shelby replied with equanimity. Quinn was heir to an old Spanish title which he spurned, preferring the unlikely appellation given him the length of the Santa Fe Trail—White Apache. He had spent his youth living among the Lipan Apaches and trusted no white government, not even his wife’s.
“Yes, Tecumseh is hostile now, but he was not always. Your government’s broken promises and land-greedy settlers drove him to hate the United States,” Santiago replied.
“I’ll grant that he had justification, but I suspect there was also just a bit of encouragement for his anti-American sentiments from our British neighbors to the north,” Shelby replied dryly, not wanting to be drawn into an argument.
Elise grew thoughtful as she weighed the evidence that there would soon be war not only at sea, but here on America’s frontier as well. “I’m certain that young War Hawk William Henry Harrison is eager to deal with all the northern tribes who ally with Britain.”
“That’s his problem. Mine is trying to find out who’s supplying whiskey and weapons to the Indians in the Missouri and Mississippi valleys. If all the tribes in the region ally with Britain, these rivers will run red with blood. Manuel Lisa seems to think a Scot called the Red Head could be the agitator,” Shelby said, studying Quinn’s reaction.
Knowing the man to whom Samuel referred, Quinn replied, “Robert Dickson is a British agent, but I’ve never heard that he comes as far south as this. He pretty much keeps to Prairie du Chien and environs. I know the Osage have had no dealings with him. So does Lisa. After all, he’s been appointed a special agent by Washington, just to keep them in line.”
“And so he has—he and our most gracious host’s brother Pierre,” Elise said, looking across the room at the elegant and ever genial Auguste Chouteau.