The Great West Detective Agency (10 page)

He let out a whoop when he discovered the owner's signature on a report.

“So I am poaching business from Jacoby Runyon, agency operative.” Lucas chuckled to himself at the discovery, then sobered when he found a biography of the man. He had become expert listening to men's tales and deciphering the lies from the truths. Those who spoke the loudest about their lives invented the most. This seemed truest of the war veterans, either of the Civil War or any of the innumerable Indian wars. The true participants had their voices muffled due to grave memories.

Lucas saw more missing from Runyon's biography that hinted at a dire road to this Denver office, meandering through death and larceny of great proportion. He shoved the pages back into a file drawer as he wondered if Runyon would have taken Amanda's money for what might have been a trivial chore. How long would it have taken a real detective to find the political connection with Jubal Dunbar? Lucas doubted even an expert detective like Runyon would have navigated through the turbid waters around Amanda any better than he had already.

He idly leafed through another file in the top right desk drawer, then read it more carefully. The railroad down in Durango had been shut down due to recurring robberies with track blown up and railroad crews slaughtered, and Runyon had been hired to bring the criminals to justice. The huge amount of money already received showed that the railroad owners were willing to go to any length. That gave Lucas new insight into Jacoby Runyon. The man wasn't to be crossed. Dunbar might have thugs working for him, but Runyon had the spine—and hard fists—to oppose them.

Lucas held up his own fist and smiled. He wasn't a slouch when it came to bare knuckle fighting either. He had gone a few rounds with the best for a bet and had won. Relaxing his fist, he ran his sensitive fingers over his left cheek. The hard knot where a cheekbone had been broken and mended improperly was immediately obvious. Lucas knew it didn't mar his good looks with an unsightly knob on his face, but more than one woman had stroked over his cheek and commented on it.

He had won a thousand dollars betting on himself by going six rounds with an up-and-coming fighter named John Sullivan. Sullivan had knocked him down five times, but he had always answered the bell for the next round. Lucas was glad the bet hadn't required him to go a sixth or the bare knuckles fighter would have killed him. He touched the poorly mended cheekbone again as a reminder of his own limits.

Lucas closed the desk drawers and relocked them. The excursion into the office once more had satisfied his curiosity. Now he could keep Amanda's money with a clear conscience. He wasn't taking bread from a poor detective's mouth. If anything, Jacoby Runyon was better heeled than most of the merchants in Denver, taking money from the richest men in America for dangerous commissions no one else could tackle.

He stood, sampled the air again, but no longer detected the scent. On impulse, Lucas went to the file cabinet and searched it as much for the source of the odor as anything else. He found a bank bag—empty—and not much else but dust and an all-pervading smell of old paper and ink.

Lucas considered leaving through the front door, then decided to retreat out the way he had come. The Northcotts' letter wouldn't be disturbed any more if he did that. He wished them luck getting the job Runyon had advertised with the agency. Neither of them struck him as detectives. Runyon needed office help, and the married couple would provide it, especially the woman.

At the back door, he hesitated. A tiny sound in the alley alerted him that something was wrong. It might be nothing more than cat-sized rats dining on garbage or a hungry coyote come to town to dine on those same giant rats. He slipped his pistol from his pocket and cocked it before opening the door.

A dark form slammed hard against the door and sent Lucas stumbling back. He fired point-blank and hit his target. But he didn't stop a snarling, biting dog trying to rip out his throat. His second shot directly into the gaping, fang-filled mouth blew the top off the dog's head and sent it reeling to die.

Lucas scrambled to his feet and found himself facing another large dog, sleek and slender and measured in hands high rather than inches. Two more shots crippled the dog. A big jump carried him over the snapping, crippled dog. He started to run and realized there were more than the two dogs he had shot.

A pack of gigantic wolfhounds coursed from the far end of the alley, intent on ripping him to shreds. His pistol carried seven rounds and he had expended four. Lucas jerked as sharp teeth snapped at his leg, sending him careening off balance out into the street and his death.

L
ucas hit the ground, rolled onto his back, and kicked hard. Teeth sank into his ankle just above his boot top. He winced as pain knifed into his leg. He jerked back on the pistol's blue-colored trigger and sent a round into the wolfhound's head. To his surprise and panic, the bullet glanced off, leaving a bloody streak in the dog's fur. It didn't kill him or slow him down. It only infuriated him. Lips drawn back to show pearly white teeth, the dog leaped for Lucas's throat in retaliation.

Another round fired without the man realizing it. And then he prepared to die with the dog's jaws clamped firmly on his throat. He felt hot liquid running down his neck, and the smell of dog and fear and blood made his nostrils flare.

Heavy weight pinned him to the ground—but it was dead weight. Kicking, feeling his injured calf protest even this small movement, Lucas heaved the dog off his chest and sat up, waving his small pistol around. He vowed to swap it for a Colt Peacemaker. If .45-calibers of heavy lead didn't stop a dog dead in its track when he shot it, nothing this side of a Sharps buffalo rifle would.

“Dead?” The word slipped from his lips. He tasted blood. As he ran his tongue over his lips, he realized he had bitten down hard on his own flesh. He spat, then stared at the dead dog. It had a deer horn–handled knife protruding from its side. The blade had sunk deeply through both lungs and maybe the heart, killing the dog instantly. He yanked the knife free, knowing he was down to a single round. Or had he fired all seven? Everything jumbled in his head.

He saw a half dozen wolfhounds snarling and snapping at the mouth of the alley, fighting over some prey. As the pack shifted position, he saw they fought for a large haunch of meat. It might have been beef or lamb. Whatever it was, the hounds thought it gave them more food than his trembling body would.

A light touch plucked the knife from his hand. He twisted about, his pistol coming to bear. Only a powerful hand pushed it out of line. He looked up into the middle of the man's chest, then even farther up to a dark, impassive face. Tight braids of black hair flopped on either of the man's shoulders.

Lucas struggled for words. A strong hand grabbed his arm and lifted him to his feet. By now he recognized his savior.

“Reckon we're even,” he told the Indian he had saved a couple nights earlier.

“Still owe you ten dollars,” the man said. He shoved hard and sent Lucas stumbling along. With his bad leg, the gambler found running difficult, but he summoned up the stamina and ignored the pain.

Their hasty retreat drew unwanted attention along the slowly filling street. It was still a half hour until dawn, but the businesses had to prepare for their customers at the first light of day. Lucas heard a squishy sound as he hobbled along, looked back, and saw he was leaving bloody tracks. He slowed and began to fumble to pull off his boot, but his rescuer slipped an arm around his shoulder and lifted him off his feet as if he weighed only a few ounces.

“No time to stop.”

Lucas did his best to keep up with the quick pace set but quickly became light-headed. Before he fell, he was gently placed into a chair in front of a boarded-up store.

“Nobody'll notice us here. Nobody'll come to work,” he said. The dizziness robbed him of his usual facile thought. Everything that had happened in the past few minutes worked to confuse him.

“Do not take off boot. Your foot will swell.”

“And I won't get it back on.” Lucas nodded. It felt as if something had come loose inside him. He cradled his head in his hands as he leaned forward. This cleared his mind after a few seconds and he sat upright. “My name's Lucas Stanton.”

“I know.”

“That's not the proper response,” Lucas said. “You're supposed to answer ‘My name is,' then you tell me what you're called.”

“Good.”

“I'm happy it pleases you. What's your name?” His anger further sharpened his senses. The pain in his left turned to a dull throb.

“Good.”

“You pulled my fat out of the fire. Thanks. You didn't have to do it.” Lucas scowled. “You knew I was going to run afoul of the dogs, didn't you?”

Fathomless dark eyes stared at him.

“Unless you carry a leg of some dead animal around with you all the time, you wouldn't have been able to entice them away.” He saw no hint of emotion on the man's broad face. Playing poker with him would be a pisser.

“Good.”

“What are you saying ‘good' to now?”

“That is my name. Good.”

“Just Good?”

“Why do I need more?”

Lucas laughed at the logic. Why did any man need more than one name?

“It might keep you from getting confused with everyone else named Good.”

“No one else is Good.”

“Now that, sir, is something I will not dispute.”

The Indian looked at him curiously now.

“Why do you call me ‘sir'?”

“You deserve it. You are obviously better than I am at some things, such as keeping me alive.” Lucas used both hands to pull his leg around. The trouser leg had plastered itself to his flesh, but the blood had stopped oozing out. “It's clotted. The wound's not too serious, then, unless the dog had hydrophobia.”

“Dogs were all well tended, well trained.”

“Russian wolfhounds,” Lucas said, finally remembering enough of the attack to wonder how it was connected with Amanda's lost puppy.

Good nodded once, then bent and used the tip of his sharp knife to cut through the cloth and expose Lucas's bite. He poked about with the knife tip for a moment more, then sheathed it at his waist and drew out an Apache hoddentin bag. He opened it, took out a pinch of brown powder, and sprinkled it on the dog bite.

Lucas recoiled in pain.

“The dog didn't kill me. Are you trying to finish the job?”

Hot lances ran up to his knee, through his hip, and into his groin until he was sure he was going to explode. Then the pain subsided. Good put away his medicine bag made from cured deer hide.

Lucas frowned. He recognized the medicine bag but had thought the man belonged to one of the Five Civilized Tribes. He was seldom wrong, but why would a Creek carry an Apache shaman's fetish?

“Are you Apache? That's an Apache medicine man's symbol on the bag of—”

“Tule.” Good settled his belt, moved his knife around to where he could whip it out in a hurry, then pressed his hand over the medicine bag. “I killed the Apache. He was Lipan. I do not like Lipan. I am Creek.”

“Eastern Oklahoma?” Lucas heaved a sigh of relief that he wasn't wrong. Good might hail from somewhere close to his own hometown in Kansas. For some reason Lucas couldn't immediately identify, this made him more comfortable with the man. Trust never came easily, and he warned himself to be wary or something of his might go into the dead Apache's medicine bag dangling from Good's belt.

Good simply stared.

Before the war, the Creek had been slave owners but not in the way white Southerners tended theirs. The Creek slaves had been a part of an extended family, but they had been chattel nonetheless. After the war, many of them and their offspring had left Indian Territory. It wasn't out of the question to find a black Creek in Denver seeking his fortune.

Lucas was damned lucky Good had been there.

“Did you take that knife off the dead Apache?” He pointed to the horn-handled knife that had gutted the wolfhound so intent on ripping out his throat.

“You take your coat off a circus clown?”

Lucas was taken aback, then laughed. It wasn't his place to interrogate the man.

“You've been watching over me, haven't you? Did you see the woman who was following me the other day?”

Good nodded slightly, then ran his finger under his nose.

“She wears a strong perfume,” Lucas said. “Spikenard. That's what it's called. It's made from some plant found only in the Himalayas.”

“I know of those,” Good said. “Tall mountains on the other side of the world.”

“You do get around,” Lucas said, standing. His leg felt strong enough for him to walk. “Thanks for the help.” He started back toward the detective agency. Good fell into step beside him.

“You go after them?”

“No pack of dogs is going to chew me up and spit me out without paying for it.”

“Dogs were killed. That is enough.”

Lucas wasn't going to explain to the Creek what he felt. He had been attacked, but more than this, he thought this was the only chance he had of finding Amanda's dog. A wolfhound puppy had to come from a wolfhound sire and bitch.

“Not for me. I'm going to find the pack—and the woman siccing it on me.”

Good started to speak. He shook his head no, then stared straight ahead as they returned to the detective agency office. The dead dogs had already been removed from the street and the back room. From the footprints left in the dogs' blood on the floor, a woman had come in and taken the carcass. Lucas went to the far end of the alley and saw deep ruts left by wagon wheels. Of the dogs, woman, or wagon, he saw nothing.

“I need to get a horse.”

“You cannot go alone.”

“I won't say a word against it if you're offering to come with me. Sitting in a chair all day long is more my style than astride a horse.”

“Then stay. I will follow them.”

Lucas tried to figure out the reason for this strange offer. Good had been ready for the dogs' attack. He wanted to ask how that came about, but the offer to ride after the pack by himself gave Lucas more reason to wonder.

“I owe you,” Good said, as if trying to answer the question before it was asked.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm mighty appreciative of what you've done. If you think you need to do any more to pay back the ten dollars, consider the debt paid. My life's worth about that much.” He grinned crookedly. “And the magic dust you used on my leg is worth even more.”

“You will go after the dogs?”

Lucas used the Indian's method of answering. He nodded once. Good sagged a little, as if in resignation, then straightened.

“I will get horses.”

Lucas stayed at the alley while Good fetched horses for them. He spent the time staring into the distance at the Front Range. The wagon had rattled off in that direction. If they rode hard, they would overtake the dogs and driver before noon.

That had seemed a reasonable estimate, though Lucas had overestimated his own endurance in the saddle. Parts of him hurt that he didn't even know existed, and the places he knew about blistered after an hour on the trail. For reasons known only to him, Good said nothing. If Lucas could read the man's thoughts, he was happy for the delay. That made no sense, but Good was always ready to continue when Lucas forced down his pain enough to hit the trail again.

“There,” Good said as the sun dipped behind the tall Rockies.

Lucas shielded his eyes and tried to make out the wagon tracks. Good proved himself a far superior tracker. All Lucas saw were scrapes on rock. Left to his own devices, he would have never chosen this route.

“Camp on far side of hill. We can look from the crest.” Good indicated a game trail going up a steep knoll.

“How do you know there's a camp anywhere nearby?”

Good snapped his reins and worked his pony up the trail without replying. Lucas took a deep breath and thought he caught a hint of wood smoke. That might have been all the hint the Creek needed, but Lucas thought it was chancy to bet on a camp on the far side of the hill.

Twilight held the land when they topped the rise. Lucas caught his breath as he looked down into a gentle, grassy bowl.

“I bow to your expertise. That's a good-sized camp.”

“Four wagons,” Good said. “Ten men.”

The baying of the wolfhounds added to the count below. How Good came to his tally on the men was another tribute to his skill—a skill Lucas did not possess. He kicked his leg back, winced as skin stretched over burning muscles, then he dropped to the ground.