by Jane Toombs
“Cock your weapons,” Rhynne said. The two hammers clicked back.
“Take five paces.”
Both men walked five steps and stopped.
“Fire,” Rhynne said.
Danny whirled about and raised his pistol. Sutton turned more slowly, raised his Colt and aimed. Danny fired first. Sutton didn’t move.
“Missed him,” Ned muttered.
When Rhynne’s count reached three, King Sutton fired. The pistol flew from Danny’s hand and he clutched his stomach. Rhynne ran to him.
“Get down,” he said.
“I’m all right,” Danny told him. “I’m all right.”
“Get down, damn it. You’re in shock. You can’t feel the bullet yet.”
Danny sat on the ground. Rhynne pushed him onto his back, opening his clothes to find the wound.
W.W. looked over his shoulder. “Doctor, you’re needed,” he called to Braithewaite. The doctor was already hurrying across the field, black bag in hand. Sutton stood where he was with his smoking gun in his hand.
Rhynne bared a bleeding gash on Danny’s stomach. The doctor took forceps from his bag, inserted the ends into the wound and drew out a bloodied piece of metal. He wiped it on his sleeve. “It looks like part of the pistol’s hammer,” he said. He spread the wound with his fingers. “I think the bullet must have missed him completely.”
Rhynne stood and quickly walked to King Sutton. “He’s got an abdominal wound,” he said. “Can’t tell how serious. We’ll have to take him to town. Are you satisfied now?”
“Will he apologize?”
“He’s in no condition to be asked. For God’s sake, are you bloodthirsty?”
“I’m satisfied.”
“Good.” Rhynne returned to Danny. “Sutton’s satisfied,” he said. “Doc, let’s get your patient to Hangtown.”
“Some of the boys brought a door along just in case. We’ll put the lad on it and carry him back.”
When Selena, on the porch of the Empire, saw the men straggle over the hill toward the hotel, she ran into the road to meet them. There. What was that? A man being carried on a door. Danny! His eyes were closed. Was he dead? Had King Sutton killed him?
She ran forward and turned to walk beside Danny. “Is he ... is he badly hurt?” she managed to ask Doc Braithewaite.
“Should be right as rain in a few days. All he needs is rest and quiet.”
Selena reached down and took Danny’s hand. It was warm to her touch. Did he have a fever? Was his wound infected? “Oh, Danny,” she said, “you’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you until you are.” She thought she saw him smile.
Selena spied Rhynne walking a short way behind her. Releasing Danny’s hand, she waited until he reached her, then walked with him. “Take Danny to the hotel,” she told him. “I’ll look after him there.”
“I intended to, Selena.”
“Give him the Louis XIV bed. Bring up a cot and put it in the room. I’ll nurse him. I won’t leave him until he’s well again.”
“I’ll do whatever you say, Selena.” Rhynne smiled ruefully. “The winner of the lottery was supposed to have the use of that bed.”
“King Sutton? Never! I’ll not have it.” She lowered her voice. “He didn’t win fairly. You know he didn’t. The bed’s for Danny O’Lee, not for that would-be murderer.”
“I’m confident Danny will recover.”
“How can you be sure? Remember what happened to English Bob. Everyone said he was getting better and the next thing we knew he was dead.”
“Doc Braithewaite’s due to win one,” Rhynne said.
“Look.” Selena nodded behind them. “He’s actually going to show his face here in town after what he did.”
Rhynne looked over his shoulder to see King Sutton walking down the hill toward the hotel.
“He’s no monster, Selena. He did what he thought was right. After all, Danny did insult him in public.”
“I’ll take care of him, doctor. I’ll nurse him. I nursed my mother when she had the fever last year.”
“That’ll be fine, Miss Selena. I’ve undressed him and bandaged the wound. He was lucky; it wasn’t the bullet that hit him, merely a part of his own gun. The wound should be cleaned in about eight hours and bandaged anew. Other than that, all he needs is rest. If he should run a fever, and I don’t expect one, let me know so I can leech him.”
“I will, doctor.”
After Braithewaite took his bag and left, Selena put the back of her hand to her own forehead and then to Danny’s. If he was feverish, she thought, he was no more so than she.
“Selena?” Danny opened his eyes and looked up at her.
“Danny, you’re going to be all right. The doctor said you would.”
“Selena?”
“Do you want a drink of water, Danny? I’ll go to the well and fetch you one if you do.”
“Selena, do you know what came into my head when I was hit and thought I wasn’t long for this world?”
“No, Danny. What?”
“I said to myself, Danny O’Lee, if you live, and it’s like as not you won’t with a bullet in you, you’re to go to Selena, go to her first thing and say, ‘Selena, I love you. Selena, it’s the truth. I do love you.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
“Oh, Danny.” She sat on the bed. He pushed her hair back from her forehead, his fingers tender and gentle. Then she was kissing him, her lips wandering over his face until they found his lips. Once they did, they stopped and held and held.
At the bar downstairs, King Sutton drank down his whisky and strode to the door while the men in the gambling saloon watched him in silence. No one had approached to shake his hand or to drink with him.
He paused on the porch, hands thrust in his pockets, listening to the talk that had swelled behind him as soon as he had left the bar. He frowned. First there had been the miners’ resentment when he put Jed and Joshua to work panning for gold. Then the girl Esperanza had stabbed English Bob and committed suicide. And today the duel.
Yet what else could he have done?
Now his course was clear. He’d move on. Where? Did it matter? Perhaps to Coloma or to one of the southern mines. And leave Selena? He laughed drily to himself. Rhynne had been right when he said no man could hold her and no man should try.
Good luck to you, Danny O’Lee, he thought. You’ll be needing all you can get.
“Mr. Sutton?”
He turned and for a moment thought Selena was walking along the porch toward him. No, of course it wasn’t Selena, even though this woman’s walk and coloring and voice all reminded him of her.
King Sutton raised his hat. “Ma’am?” he said.
“I’m Pamela Buttle-Jones.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Miss Selena’s mother.”
“I thought you’d want to know that Danny O’Lee will be all right. Dr. Braithewaite found that the wound was superficial after all.”
“I never meant to harm the lad, merely to shoot the pistol from his hand.”
“You must be an excellent marksman, colonel.”
“Some have told me so.”
“My husband was forced to fight a duel years ago to defend his good name. Fortunately, neither man was hit and the duel ended in a public house over a bottle of brandy.”
“I was the loser today,” King Sutton said.
Pamela nodded. Was that why she had approached him? she wondered. Because she felt sorry for him? Was it her fate to lose her heart to the world’s defeated? she asked herself.
“At least I was the loser until this moment,” King Sutton said. “Selena told me she had a widowed mother. I never imagined she’d be so young, so beautiful, and such a lady.”
“Mr. Sutton, I’m thirty-eight years old. Beauty fades along with youth, and there are no ladies, I’m afraid, in California. Otherwise, I thank you.”
“A woman, like wine, improves with age. If I could take you home with me to Georgia you’d see that we southerners apprecia
te ladies. I’d be the envy of every man in the state.”
“You’re from Atlanta, Mr. Sutton?”
“No, I live near Athens. The Suttons have owned a cotton plantation there since before the Revolution.”
“It’s a pity we’re not in Georgia. I’m sure I’d adore having you show it to me.”
“We can imagine we are.” He swept off his hat and bowed. “May I accompany you to your door, Lady Buttle-Jones?”
She smiled up at him and took his arm. “You may, sir,” she said. And when he raised her hand to brush her fingers with his lips she did not object.
At the Empire, Rhynne locked the gold dust in his new strong box and made a final entry in his ledger. The lottery had turned out better than he had expected. Better than he had hoped, even. He looked at the figures in the book in front of him. Income, ninety-nine hundred dollars. Outgo, sixteen hundred and ten dollars. Profit, eighty-two hundred and ninety dollars.
By altering the tickets, King Sutton had saved him a five hundred dollar donation to Colton’s church and Selena hadn’t gone to bed with the winner after all, plus Danny O’Lee had come out of the duel with a scratch and new-found respect.
Rhynne had only one regret. Of what possible use was a thousand dollar bed?
Upstairs on that bed, Danny O’Lee trailed his fingers along Selena’s cheek to her throat, along the curve of her bare breast to the nipple, where he paused, down along her side to the curve of her hips, to her leg, between her legs and up along her thighs, parting them.
She shivered in anticipation.
“Danny,” she whispered, “do you think you should? You’re wounded and you might have a fever. Do you really think you should?”
“The first three times didn’t seem to hurt me.”
She smiled. “You’re right. You know best, Danny. In fact, Dr. Braithewaite should be pleased. You seem to be getting better all the time.”
Chapter Twenty
“Welcome to San Francisco, Captain Fitzpatrick,” William Coleman said. After the two men shook hands, Coleman motioned the captain to a chair beside his desk.
While Coleman lit a cigar and Fitzpatrick rolled a cigarette, the two men studied one another. Coleman seemed as thin as his cigar and slight, almost effete. Dressed in grey with a pale blue cravat flounced at his neck, he was the epitome of the successful San Francisco businessman.
Barry Fitzpatrick was quite different. His buckskin clothes, sun-bronzed face, and lean hard body made one think of a mountain man or the leader of a wagon train or a seasoned veteran of the Mexican War. He had, in fact, been all three.
“I think you probably know why the Committee hired you,” Coleman said.
“I have an idea.”
“You came well-recommended, captain. General Winfield Scott himself communicated with us praising your services to our country in the Mexico City campaign of ‘47. In fact, he said there were only two other men who fought in that war that he’d recommend as highly. He mentioned a Captain Robert E. Lee and a Lieutenant Ulysses Grant.”
“Both are fine officers.”
“And then after the War, I understand, you resigned your commission and served with the Texas Rangers. Again your commanding officer had nothing but praise for you. He mentioned a month-long pursuit of bandits along the Nueces in particular.”
“Anyone would be proud to have served under Colonel Hays.”
“You’re not much of a talker, are you, captain?”
“I’ve noticed that people who talk a lot don’t always do a lot.”
“Well said. That’s the very reason the Committee of Vigilance hired you. We want a doer, not a talker. This city’s had its fill of talkers. And its fill of corrupt politicians and judges more interested in enriching themselves than in seeing justice done. This city’s overrun with the worst sorts of knaves and cutthroats. We’re awash with Sydney Ducks, con men, gamblers, arsonists, and prostitutes.”
Coleman went to the window. “Come here, captain,” he said, “I’d like to show you something.”
When Barry joined him the other man put one hand on his arm, pointing with the other to city block after city block where only chimneys stood amidst the charred rubble.
“When I rode in last night,” Barry said, “I saw you’d had the city’s future.
“A quarter of the city destroyed. We’ve had fire after fire ever since the one on Christmas Eve of ‘49. Arson. They set fire to the city hoping to steal in the confusion. Or just for the merry hell of it. What’s more, our streets aren’t safe for decent folk. Robbery, assault, murder, you name it and San Francisco has it. In spades. And do you know how many murderers we’ve hanged here these last three years?”
Barry shook his head.
“Exactly none, captain. Nary a one. The sheriff’s helpless; the police are in the pay of the criminals. They must be. Is that any way to run a city of 35,000 souls? I ask you, is it?”
“Not to my way of thinking.”
“None, I’m afraid. That’s your job. Only last week a man named Kingman Sutton complained to me about a scheme Rhynne enticed him into. Seems Rhynne issued stock in a mining company, then salted mines near Hangtown and suckered a lot of newcomers into buying. Sutton says he lost his shirt.”
“Know anything about this Sutton?”
“He impresses me as a gentleman. Owns a cotton plantation in Georgia. He has a slave here in San Francisco with him, as a matter of fact.”
“I’ll talk to him. Is there anyone else involved with this Rhynne?”
“He had a partner in his Hangtown gambling hall. A woman, believe it or not. She’s back in the city too. I believe her name is Pamela Butler Jones.”
Captain Fitzpatrick jerked to attention. “Not Pamela Buttle-Jones? A woman in her late thirties? A beauty?”
“That sounds right. Do you know her?”
“I did years ago.” Barry Fitzpatrick watched the smoke from his cigarette curl toward the ceiling. “She was in a wagon train I led west before the gold rush. An English gentlewoman. Only there was a lot more to her once you came to know her. And, as I said, a beauty.”
William Coleman looked thoughtfully at Fitzpatrick, who had a deeply reflective look on his face. “To the best of my knowledge,” he said, “she’s not involved with Rhynne now. If this woman is a friend of yours, I suggest you see she has nothing to do with him in the future.”
“I intend to.”
“As for Rhynne, you’re to get rid of the son of a bitch any way you can. This is war, captain, just as the conflict with Mexico was war. It’s the good people of this city warring on the criminals. No holds are barred; our only concern is to win. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Good. When you have something to report, come here to my office or go to the Committee’s rooms on Battery Street near Pine. The first report I expect from you is one telling me that Wordsworth Rhynne is no longer among us.”
Captain Fitzpatrick rode out of Market Street, reined his horse to the right and climbed one of the higher hills overlooking the city and bay. The house, which he had no trouble finding—it was half a mile from any other—was unfinished, with only the frame rising skeleton-like against the sky. As Barry drew near he heard the pounding of hammers and the rasp of saws.
He dismounted and tied his horse to a post in front. He drew in his breath. She stood in one of the unfinished rooms on the first floor, her back to him, a furled yellow parasol in her hand. She was wearing a gown of golden brown and a large feathered hat. Her figure was just as youthful as he remembered, if not more so; her hair just as lovely as he remembered, perhaps lovelier.
Unexpectedly, he felt a tightening in his chest. After all these years, he thought.
Stepping lightly across the littered floor, he came up behind her and leaned down and kissed her on the neck. She started in surprise, spinning around to face him. He stared in amazement. It wasn’t Pamela after all. This girl was much younger, couldn’t be more than twenty. How coul
d he have been mistaken?”
“Why, it’s Barry Fitzpatrick,” she said. “You haven’t changed a whit.”
And then he knew. “You must be Selena,” he said.
She felt the color flood her face as she remembered all that had happened on the trail west. But she raised her eyes to his defiantly, determined not to let this meeting reduce her to the awkward girl he had once known.
“You’re every bit as handsome as I remember,” she said. She walked around him as though to examine him from every side. “We were just wild about you. All the young girls and most of the older women as well. Or don’t you remember our wagon train?”
“How could I ever forget that hellish journey? Though I’d like to.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick, so would I.” She looked into his bright blue eyes. “So would I.”
“Then forgotten it is. We’ll not mention the past again. Most people call me captain now, but it’s still Barry to my friends.”
“Oh, Barry.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Ah, you’re turning red. Perhaps you’ve been away from women too long.”
“I’ve been to Texas and Mexico. Oregon before that.”
“And you’ve just arrived in San Francisco? You must find this the biggest, noisiest city in all the west. I went to a costume ball last night where I met a newspaperman from the East. Do you know what he said about San Francisco? Wait, let me be sure I have it right.” She struck a pose.
“He said, I’ve seen purer liquors, better cigars, truer guns, larger Bowie knives and prettier courtesans here than in any other place I have ever visited. San Francisco can and does furnish the best bad things available in all of America.’ And, Barry, I love it.”
“You can’t mean what you’re saying.”
“Oh, but I do. Everywhere else people work from dawn to dusk. All day long men sit in their stuffy offices making money while their wives are home cooking meals and scrubbing floors and washing clothes. Here in San Francisco everyone lives just to live.”