A Dangerous Man (7 page)

By morning the snow had stopped, but storm clouds piled up above the Sangre de Cristo peaks like massive black boulders, threatening another avalanche of bad weather. The air was frigid, so cold it was sharp to breathe and the people who passed Tam Sullivan on the boardwalk were wrapped to the eyes in great woolen mufflers.

“I tell you I seen them with my own two eyes,” he heard a man say as he took his seat in the restaurant. “A dozen maybe, and painted for war they was.”

“So how come you're still alive, Eddie?” said the speaker's companion, an affable-looking man in a gray woolen topcoat and plug hat of the same shade.

“Because I hid, didn't I? And I didn't look at them direct. Look at an Apache direct, and he can feel your eyes burning him, like.”

“And smell you if the wind is blowing right,” the affable man said.

Ida Mae, looking as tired as always, came up to Sullivan's table. She gave him a half-smile as she poured coffee. “All this talk of Apaches is scaring me half to death.”

“Where did the gentleman see them?” Sullivan asked.

Ida Mae turned her head. “Hey, Eddie, where did you see them savages?”

“Over to Angel Fire Peak, Ida Mae. Just yesterday morning. Seen them clear as day.”

“What the hell were you doing over there in this weather?” Ida Mae said.

“You know the crazy lady?” Eddie said.

“Yeah.”

“She asked me to guide her over there and stand by with my rifle while she gathered”—he hesitated—“potsherds.”

Ida May jerked back as though amazement had just slapped her. “What the hell is a potshard?”

“Broken pieces of clay pots an' jugs and the like, Ida Mae. An' the crazy lady wanted old Injun skulls.”

“What does she want them for?”

“I don't know. She says she collects them. Anyhoo, that's when I seen the Apaches and wished I hadn't.”

The affable man said, “Eddie, you're as nuts as the crazy lady.”

Ida Mae shook her head, then turned to Sullivan. “Maybe he saw Apaches and maybe he didn't. That crazy lady is no companion for a sane man. Make him as tetched as she is. Still hungry?”

“Enough for bacon and eggs,” Sullivan said.

“Comin' right up.” Ida Mae hesitated a moment, bent toward Sullivan and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your name was mentioned at the town meeting last night as maybe being involved in the murder of Sheriff Harm and them two others.”

Sullivan smiled. “You believe that?”

Ida Mae straightened up and shook her head. “No, I don't. You look like a born killer to me, but not a cold-blooded murderer.”

Sullivan laughed outright. “Well, that was a double-edged compliment.”

Ida Mae smiled. “I meant born killer in a nice way.”

 

 

After Tam Sullivan ate, he asked Ida Mae about the crazy lady, some kind of amateur collector of antiquities, he'd guessed . . .

Or maybe a raving lunatic.

“She calls herself Lady Clotilde Wainright,” Ida Mae said. “And I guess that's what she is. She's from England but came to live here about two years ago. She keeps to herself and accepts no visitors.”

“Old? Young?”

“She's young, no older than thirty, and quite lovely in my opinion. Of course, I've only see her once and that was when she first arrived. She has a hired man who does her shopping, an Oriental gentleman.”

“She lives in the hotel?” Sullivan asked.

“No, in the yellow house at the edge of town. You can't miss it. It's got a painted dragon weather vane that the Oriental gentleman keeps bright. Several times a year, he climbs up onto the roof with a can of red paint and a brush.”

“Seems like an interesting lady,” Sullivan said.

“She's a widow and she's crazy, collecting broken pots and old skulls. Before you get any ideas, she does not encourage gentleman callers. Perry Cox the banker tried and she left him standing at the door like a great booby. And in the summer heat, too.”

“I'd like to ask her if she saw the Apaches. I sure don't cotton to them getting in my way out of town.”

“Eddie Lewis was out there in a snowstorm and maybe he saw something or maybe he didn't,” Ida Mae said. “The eyes of a scared man standing on guard with a rifle can play tricks on him.”

“Lady What's-her-name would know.”

“Wainright. Yes, she'd know, but she won't tell you.” Ida Mae refilled Sullivan's cup. “You're safe here in Comanche Crossing. Why not stay here until the Apache thing blows over?”

Sullivan shook his head. “No, I don't want to do that. Just as soon as I collect the bounty on Crow Wallace, I aim to head south. If Lewis is right about what he saw, there's a chance I could lose my hair real quick.”

Ida Mae shrugged. “Well then, try to talk to Lady Wainright. But you could lose your hair real quick at her place, too.”

Tam Sullivan returned to the hotel. He saw no sign of Bill Longley.

He damped down his unruly shock of hair, combed it in place, and trimmed his sweeping dragoon mustache. The mirror told him he looked all right, but he wished he'd one of those . . . what did they call it? Oh yeah, a
carte-de-visite
with his likeness on one side and a sentiment on the other.

A card like that would be sure to impress a highborn lady.

But he didn't have one of those so he settled his hat on his head and went as he was.

The morning remained cold and the clouds so low Sullivan figured a man could reach up and grab a fistful of iron-colored mist and watch it fade away like a fairy gift in his hand.

He crossed the street, wading through five inches of mud, then walked south until he reached the end of the boardwalk. He turned and touched his hat to a respectable-looking woman who'd just stepped out of a store. “Good morning, ma'am.”

The woman cast him a horrified look, lifted her skirts, and hurried away.

“Yup, Tam, you're a real charmer with the ladies,” Sullivan said to himself.

A yellow, gingerbread house of considerable size, six small-paned windows showing to the front, stood on a low, timbered hill to his left. The ground floor was of worked stone, but the upper level was clad in shingles. A roof of the gambrel type, of moderate steepness, ended in a broad gable. The house had several chimneys, an extensive porch, and multilevel eaves.

Sullivan stepped through a front yard haphazardly laid out with miniature Chinese and Indian temples, Greek columns of white marble holding up nothing but sky, statues of ferocious oriental gods, and a classical statue of a shapely nymph covering her feminine parts with a strategically placed veil.

But what held Sullivan's attention was the weather vane in the shape of a red, snarling, Chinese dragon, its tusked and fanged snout telling anyone who cared to know that the wind was blowing from the north.

The oak door was weathered, but the brasses shone as though they were polished every day. Also in brass, and just as shiny, was a plaque that read: G
UN
K
AI.

Sullivan had no idea what that meant.

He lifted the door knocker, yet another dragon, and rapped sharply four times. Echoes knelled inside the house and he heard a woman say something in a rapid foreign tongue.

He fixed his smile in place and waited . . . and waited....

After what seemed like several minutes, the door opened slowly and hesitantly.

Sullivan's smile that had slipped was back in place. He expected to see a fine English lady, but in her place stood a small, Chinese man, slender as a girl, wearing tiny little slippers, a red silk jacket embroidered with silver dragons, and black pants.

Sullivan recovered from his surprise quickly. “I'm here to see Lady . . .” Damn! He'd forgotten her name again.

The little man, who stood as tall as the middle button of Sullivan's coat, scowled and pointed to the brass sign. “You no read?” His voice had a belligerent edge.

“I don't know what the hell it means,” Sullivan said.

“Last word
off
. You work it out, big shot.” The Chinese man moved to close the door, but Sullivan grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

“I still want to see the lady of the house.”

The first lesson the bounty hunter had learned was to never underestimate an opponent. But he broke that rule and it cost him.

The little man did something quick and the next thing Sullivan knew he was on his back in the yard, stunned, his ribs and jaw throbbing.

“Gun kai!”
the Chinese said, not even breathing hard, and slammed the door.

Sullivan hurt all over. For the moment, he stayed where he was, staring up at the glowering sky that threatened to snow on him at any minute. He figured he'd had warmer welcomes.

After a minute or so, he heard the door slowly creak open again.

Still groggy, he got to his feet, made fists of his gloved hands and yelled, “You want to try that again you little—” The words died on his lips when a young woman appeared at the door.

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked. “I do hope not.”

Sullivan unclenched his fists. “I guess I'm still all in one piece.”

“Cheng can be so rough. And he has a quick temper.”

“I noticed.” Sullivan rubbed his jaw.

The woman was tall, of stately bearing and handsome rather than beautiful, but the dark auburn hair that cascaded over her shoulders in tumbling waves was lovely beyond measure, as were her steady, emerald green eyes. She hesitated on the doorstep a moment, then said, “You look most unwell. I suppose you'd better come inside and have a cup of tea. My name is—”

“Lady Clotilde Wainright,” Sullivan said, smiling, the woman's name flashing back to him.

“And yours?”

“Tam Sullivan, from down Texas way.”

A faint, fleeting smile touched Clotilde's lips. “Yes. How nice for you. Do come inside.”

As he stepped into the drawing room, the first thing he realized was that he was too big for the furniture. It seemed that the spindly, antique chairs were made at a time when people were smaller and women in crinolines weighed about a hundred pounds.

In the fashion of the period, the room was overcrowded and stuffy with too many tables and settees, paintings on the walls, and delicate vases and ornaments on every surface.

Afraid to move, he stood in the middle of a Persian rug and turned his hat brim in his hands, a tall, wide-shouldered man feeling as out of place as a preacher in a courtesan's boudoir.

The room smelled of incense, like a Catholic church on a Sunday.

Lady Wainright, who had the British aristocracy's instinct to spot unease in others, smiled. “Perhaps we should repair to the kitchen, Mr. Sullivan. There's a nice warm fire in the stove.”

She seated him at a more substantial pine table then glided into the chair opposite. “Cheng will bring the tea directly, but first he'll look at your forehead. You have quite a bump and some grazing, I fear.”

“It's fine. It doesn't hurt any.” Sullivan smiled. “Well, not much.”

“But, I insist, Mr. Sullivan. Cheng was a fine physician and anatomist in his native China and he's very skilled at treating bumps and bruises.”

Sullivan grinned and gingerly touched his head. “And very skilled at putting them there.”

“Yes, indeed. Cheng has made a study of many ancient martial arts and he can be quite the rowdy at times.” She turned as the little man entered the kitchen. “You may proceed, Dr. Cheng.”

Sullivan tensed as the man advanced on him, but Cheng wore a wide smile and carried a bowl of water, a towel, and a small alabaster jar.

The Chinese kowtowed, then straightened up. “Welcome to the home of Lady Wainright, honorable sir. It is indeed a prodigious pleasure to see you here. Now, if you will permit?” As gentle as a woman, he dabbed at the graze on Sullivan's head with a damp towel.

“I think you may have taken a bad fall,” Cheng said. “It is most distressing.” He spread some ointment on the wound that smelled of pine but didn't sting then stepped back like an artist admiring his work. “There. You'll soon feel right as rain.”

“You may serve the tea now, Cheng,” Lady Wainright said. She gave Sullivan her slight smile. “Cheng is a treasure. He and my late husband were both physicians and they met when we did missionary work in China.”

“I'm sorry your husband is no longer with us,” Sullivan said, trying to be polite.

“Sir Arthur was killed during the Second Opium War, trying to save China from being annexed by the Western powers. I'm afraid he failed.”

“And the Chinese killed him, huh?”

“No, Mr. Sullivan, the British killed him. On Christmas Eve three years ago, they stood Arthur against a wall in Nanking and shot him as a traitor. Ah, here's the tea at last.”

Cheng poured tea into thin, china cups. “Cream? Sugar?” he asked Sullivan, bowing.

“No. This is just fine.” The big bounty hunter looked at Lady Wainright over the rim of his steaming cup. “You must have been very young when your husband was killed.”

“Not so young. I was twenty-eight. Arthur was forty years older than me, but he was a fine, intelligent, and energetic man and a first-rate anatomist. As it happened, I was spared execution, but Lord Elgin, the British commander, warned me that if I ever returned to England, I most certainly faced the hangman's noose.”

A log dropped in the stove and erupted a shower of sparks that glowed bright red in the morning gloom. A solemn, round-faced clock ticktocked on the kitchen wall and the wind had picked up, rattling the windowpanes.

“So that's why you came to the United States?” Sullivan held up his cigar case. “May I beg your indulgence, ma'am?”

“By all means. Sir Arthur enjoyed a cigar and I became quite enamored of the fragrance.” Lady Wainright's mouth hardened. “We'd lived in this country before, in Louisiana, where Sir Arthur was famed among his peers for his profound knowledge of human anatomy. I returned to recover from my husband's martyrdom and to do what I can to save yet another ancient culture facing destruction at the hands of the Anglo-Saxons.”

“The Indians, you mean? I guess they're doing all right—which brings me to the reason I came here. I want—”

“They're not doing all right, Mr. Sullivan. They will be slaughtered and humiliated, just like the Chinese. Have you finished your tea?”

Sullivan nodded.

“Good. Then come with me. I have something to show you.” Lady Wainright rose and in her dark gray day dress she glided across the floor like a ghost.

Sullivan mentally compared her to Lisa York. If Lisa was a pretty china doll, Lade Clotilde was a white marble statue like the one outside in the falling snow.

Lisa was alive, vivacious, and her skin would be warm to the touch. But Lady Wainright was cold, aloof, a vital part of her closed off and locked up tight. The woman part of her.

Sullivan reckoned Clotilde could arouse strong emotions in a man . . . but love would never be among them.

“As Chinese art is defined by her bronzes and porcelain, the history of the native tribes of America is written in their pottery,” Lady Wainright said. “And in their bones. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sullivan said, completely baffled.

“I am cataloguing all the pottery shards I can find and thus will preserve something of the Indian heritage before it's all destroyed.” The woman stared directly into his eyes. “Have you ever killed an Indian, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Well, I recently shot a breed, feller by the name of Crow Wallace. But he was a murdering skunk and lowdown.”

Lady Wainright's eyelids flickered as though Wallace's name had struck a nerve. “He was a lowdown because white men made him that way. Don't you agree?”

“Well I heard tell that his white part was a mountain man, and they generally got along pretty well with Indians,” Sullivan said.

“Cheng told me there are Indian-killers in this very town. I thought you were too, Mr. Sullivan, after Cheng said you brought in a dead man who looked like an Indian.”

“Hell, no . . . oh, excuse me, ma'am . . . heck no, Crow Wallace was half-Irish, half-Cheyenne and all damn bad . . . excuse me again, ma'am. He was called Crow because one time his pa took to liking birds and named him after one.”

“I plan to return to China next year and continue my ministry. Until then, woe betide any man or woman I hear has been abusing our Indian brethren.”

Sullivan nodded, smiling. “I'll keep that in mind, ma'am. Now, you were going to show me something?”

“The door, Mr. Sullivan.” Lady Wainright led the way. Cheng, once again tense and menacing, was her shadow.

She turned the handle on the door and Sullivan said quickly, “Ma'am, did you see Apaches yesterday when you were out by Angel Fire Creek with Eddie Lewis?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Ten of them?”

“Twice that number, Mr. Sullivan. I'm afraid they were hidden behind falling snow and it seems that Mr. Lewis doesn't see very well.”

“That's a heap of Apaches. Enough to put the wind up a man.”

“A question for a question. Is there a man in town who goes by the name Wild Bill Longley?”

“There sure is,” Sullivan said. “He's not a real sociable fellow.”

The woman nodded, but said nothing. She opened the door and held out her hand.

Sullivan didn't know if he was supposed to shake the hand or kiss it, like he'd seen highfalutin' menfolk do. He settled for a handshake that Lady Wainright readily accepted.

“
Au revoir
, Mr. Sullivan. And remember me to dear Mr. Longley.”

A moment later, Sullivan found himself on the doorstep, the door slammed in his face.