McCrory's Lady (2 page)

      
“You're Colin McCrory from Crown Verde?”

      
“Yes. That mean something to you?” Colin asked levelly.

      
“I'm from El Paso. Name's Blake. Wolf Blake.” He did not offer his hand, but waited.

      
Both men ignored Settler, who fumed silently, not daring to interrupt.

      
“Blake. I've heard of you. And your gun.” Colin offered his hand. Wolf took it.

      
“That's why I was on my way to Crown Verde. I understand you're looking to hire a man like me.”

      
“I might be.” Colin turned to Jeb. “Have your boy rub down Blake's horse.” As the red-faced angry Settler walked back into the stable yelling for Otis, Colin returned his attention to the gunman. “I'm in a hurry now. Bound for Sonora, but I do need a guard at my timber mill up north of Prescott. I've had some trouble.”

      
“Apache trouble?” Wolf asked evenly.

      
“No. I made my own personal treaty with the Apaches, way back in sixty-one when I first settled here. Back then there was little or no army. They've kept their word and I've kept mine.”

      
Wolf studied Colin with faint amusement in his dark eyes. “That's not exactly a popular way of handling Apaches these days.”

      
Colin shrugged. “It never was. I might be able to use your gun, Blake, but like I said, I'm on my way to Sonora now.”

      
“You're stalking someone.” It was not a question. Wolf studied the heavily armed older man. “I saw the kid from the mercantile bring those supplies and ammunition.”

      
Colin returned Wolf's shrewd inspection, as if debating with himself for a moment, then said, “You just had a hell of a long ride. Feel like taking another one?”

      
A slow grin slashed across Blake's face, revealing white perfect teeth. “From the look of you, you've ridden pretty damn far yourself. I can keep up.”

* * * *

      
When the moon waned and a cloudy night sky dictated they stop, the two riders made a cold camp. They'd eaten biscuits and jerky while they rode. As they rolled themselves into their blankets, Wolf broke the long silence. “You never did say who we're after.”

      
“No, I didn't.” He had wanted no one outside Eileen and Riefe to know what had happened to Eden. Her life would be hell enough when she returned home without the sly whispers and speculations about her being “ruined.”

      
After a long silence, Colin made his decision, based more on gut instinct than anything else. He had survived a lot of danger that way. He liked the way the kid did not pry or try to make idle conversation. That suited his own taciturn Scot's soul. It was something else he had in common with the Apaches besides their shared bloody past.

      
“A man named Judd Lazlo's kidnapped my daughter. He and another man named Max Haywood. They rode for the border with her.”

      
“I've heard of Lazlo. He used to be in my business.”

      
“He still is. I hired him to oversee the lumber mill. Then he made the mistake of sniffing around Eden.”

      
“So you fired him and he kidnapped her in revenge. Did he leave a ransom note?”

      
“I only wish he had.” Colin's voice almost broke in the darkness. “No, the son of a bitch just took her and several of my fastest horses for his getaway. I found out in Tucson he was riding with Haywood. Before that I cut their trail about seventy miles north. I recognized my horses. The shoes are marked.”

      
“You have any ideas where they might be headed?”

      
“There's only one route with water enough between Tucson and Hermosillo,” Colin replied, memories lying as heavy as the wool blanket covering him against the desert's chill night.

      
“This have any feel of a trap to you?” Wolf asked.

      
“I've thought of it. Maybe that's why I decided to offer you a job.”

      
“Thanks, McCrory,” Wolf replied drily.

* * * *

      
The Sonoran Desert was awesomely beautiful in the spring. The saguaro cacti reached into the cloudless sky, their majestic arms laden with small white blossoms, like an offering to the merciless sun. The yellow and brown daisy like flowers of the brittlebush bloomed between jagged rocky crevices, and giant century plants grew in immense clusters, their greenish yellow blooms hiding sharp saw toothed edges that horsemen tried to avoid.

      
Neither Colin nor Wolf noticed the raw splendor of the landscape. They rode through the heat and dust in stoic silence, watching for signs of the Crown Verde horses. But the powdery dust blew with the searing winds, leaving no traces. They stopped in two small towns along the trail and were rewarded in the second with a report of two gringos and the pale-haired woman riding with them. They persevered.

      
“The next town's San Luis. Two days. I figure we're gaining on them.” Every hour Eden was in those animals' hands was killing him by inches, but Colin said nothing more, his mouth a grim slash.

      
“You know this country.” Wolf did not pry, merely waited to see if the older man would elaborate.

      
“I've been here before.”
God, don't let the old nightmares return now. Not after all these years!

* * * *

      
San Luís dozed in the indolence of noon heat. Flea-bitten horses and mules hung their heads at crude hitching posts in the pitiless sun as flies droned around them. An occasional burst of coarse laughter rose above the low murmurs emanating from the row of saloons along the main street. The played-out silver mines had once made business lively. Up north in the American territories, heavy machinery could still make mining pay. Here where the men worked by hand with crude picks and shovels, the industry was doomed.

      
Staring out of her office window, Maggie Worthington considered the future of San Luís' economy, or rather the future of her own livelihood and life. “God, I don't want to die in this hole,” she muttered under her breath. But there had been a lot of stops along the way here, none of them any better. At least here, she had a measure of autonomy that few other places had given her.

      
Just then the sounds of furniture and glass breaking rent the quiet, punctuated by the loud yowls of Henrietta and Lena. With a muttered oath of disgust, Maggie turned from the window and headed out into the hall. Those two whores were fighting over the favors of Jack Schleffer again, she would bet her half of the business on it. Damned if she could see any reason to fight over a man like that weasel-eyed young punk Schleffer—or any other man, as far as Maggie Worthington was concerned.

      
She waded into the hair-pulling, eye-gouging melee, shoving Jack out of the way. “Let me handle this,” she said in the precise Yankee accent that always commanded attention. Jack backed off and she bent over the two women, who were now locked in combat, rolling on the floor. Grabbing one fistful of black and one of henna hair, she yanked on their scalps with enough force to pop the eyeballs from their kohled sockets. They both stilled at once.

      
“I told you the next time I caught you fighting, I'd fire you. I don't want my place busted up, and I sure don't need two whores looking like they just walked into a threshing machine. Pack up and get out.”

      
“She started it, Miz Maggie. Jumped on me fer nothin’,” Henrietta accused, wiping at her bloody nose.

      
“You were screwing my man, you lying, sneaking
puta
!” Lena shrieked as she stood rubbing her thick mop of tangled black hair.

      
Maggie turned to Schleffer. “You wanted them. You got them.” He paled and started to protest, then took one look at the formidable madam's expression and nodded. Maggie stalked crisply back to her office and leaned against the inside of the door. “Damn, I'm sick of this life.”

      
“Maybe I could take your mind off your troubles, sweet lady,” a low masculine voice said from across the big room.

      
Judd Lazlo materialized from the late afternoon shadows in the corner and approached her with his usual swagger.

      
“You know better than to come in this office uninvited.”

      
“I was looking for yer partner.”

      
“He's not here. Get out.”

      
“Now, now, Maggie, love, is that any way to treat an old friend? I haven't seen you in nearly a year.” An oily smile spread across his mobile lips, revealing even white teeth. Judd always fancied himself a ladies' man with his curly tan hair and broad regular features. He was tall and barrel-chested, the beefy muscular type of Anglo that lots of women in these parts fancied. But the cruelty in his icy green eyes had always been apparent to Maggie. She detested him on sight.

      
She slapped his hand away when he reached up to toy with an auburn curl falling over her shoulder. “I said, get out.” Her voice was ice cold and dead level.

      
“Where's Fletcher?”

      
“Hermosillo.”

      
Lazlo cursed. “He was supposed to be here. When's he coming back?”

      
She shrugged. “He had a rotten tooth begin to really pain him last night. Left at early light for the dentist there. I expect it'll be a few days before he feels up to riding back.”

      
His smile deepened and a feral glow came into his narrowed cat's eyes. He grabbed her with one hand and pulled her up against his body. “Well then, I reckon you and me could—”

      
“No, we couldn't.” She jabbed the barrel of the stubby little .32 caliber Colt in her skirt pocket against his crotch. “Don't even breathe or I'll shoot it off.” The click of the gun being cocked was unmistakable.

      
He blanched and backed slowly away. “I'll be screwed if you ain't the most unnatural female I've ever met.”

      
“You may be screwed, but not by me—at least not the way you'd like.”

      
“I don't know why Fletcher keeps a cold fish like you around. You got a block of ice between your legs, huh?”

      
“Lucky for you you'll never find out. You might get frostbite and your poor little pecker'd turn black and drop right off,” she said with sweet nastiness.

      
He swore as he stomped past her and left, slamming the door.

      
Maggie uncocked her gun after locking her office door. Then, she walked over to the pedestal table against the wall behind the desk and poured herself a shot of eleven-year-old bourbon. It was beginning to go down smoother and smoother every year. That was a bad sign. Resolutely, she shoved the decanter away and set down the empty glass. No refills today.

      
Maybe a turn at the blackjack table would calm her nerves. She was sick of unwashed, arrogant men with no more brains than a box of rocks. Homely Jack Schleffer or pretty Judd Lazlo, it made no difference. They all repelled her. In fact, memory could not recall any man who had not repelled her—at least the physical side of them. Ever since her girlish infatuation for Whalen Price had ended in such betrayal, she had learned to use men.

      
And feel nothing.

      
Of course Bart was different, but Bart Fletcher had never been her lover. Mentor, confidant, business partner, yes. She owed him a great deal, but lately even her comfortable relationship with him had taken on troubling dimensions she could not quite fathom.

      
Shrugging in frustration, she selected a dress suitable for working downstairs. An evening of blackjack would settle her down. After all, hadn't this been her routine every day for the past seven years?

* * * *

      
The Silver Eagle Saloon had been in business since 1861. It was the only two-story frame building in San Luís. Bart Fletcher thought its name blended just the right touch of English heraldry and Mexican imagery. During the boom years it had flourished, its bar, gaming tables and the upstairs bordello beds filled to capacity every night.

      
In 1873 Maggie had come to work for Bart. Within the year she was his partner. A good madam who was bright, healthy and honest was a pearl beyond price anyplace, especially in a backwater Sonoran mining town. They had been a good team and made good money. For a while. Now... Maggie shook her head and dealt the cards.

      
She watched the faces of her two players, Gregorio Sanchez, a wealthy stockman, and Mateo Guzman, a mine foreman. Sanchez indicated he would stand pat. Guzman called for another hit. She dealt him a ten and herself a seven to go with the king and four she already had. “Twenty-one, gentlemen,” she said with a professional smile. Sanchez, who had two face cards, folded with a philosophical Latin shrug. Guzman, who had been dealt a queen, held a nine and a tray. He threw them down in disgust and stalked off.

      
As she shuffled the cards, her fingers flying automatically, she considered her malaise. Was Bart's absence making her so morose and edgy? That and having that snake Lazlo come asking for her partner, not to mention having to dismiss two of her best girls.

      
What did that pond scum Lazlo want with Bart? She laughed to herself. Not that Bartley Wellington Fletcher was any angel.
I've just been stuck in this suffocating hellhole for two days without intelligent conversation.