She rarely worried about meeting anyone who might have known her in the past. The men she had entertained in the mining and cattle towns rarely came east; and she had changed the color of her hair, wore higher heels, and presented a very different appearance. She had never returned to the West, and had no desire to do so. But there remained the chance of encountering some former client, so she restricted her social activities to private parties, rarely going to large hotels or restaurants, or to watering places.
She called for one of her runners and before she left for dinner she had started the movement of events that would have Henry Sonnenberg checking the arrival of a certain box, and would bring her information as to the financial status of Prince Pavel Pavelovitch.
In a saloon, not more than a dozen blocks away, Avery Simpson stood at the bar and nursed a drink. He needed that drink and those that would follow, for Myra Fossett had scared the daylights out of him.
She knew too much for comfort, but what puzzled him was her familiarity with the identities of Will Reilly, Henry Sonnenberg, and some others. All of which gave rise to the question: Who was Myra Fossett?
CHAPTER 21
A FEW WEEKS LATER Prince Pavel was asking himself the same question. He had received through his bank a note written in a small but beautiful hand a suggestion that if he were in a position to come to America on a brief visit it might prove financially interesting to him.
He put the note aside, a bit curious as to this Myra Fossett who had written it. When he went to dinner he noticed an old friend across the room, a man known for his international business affairs, and for his unusual success. It was Robert Fleury. Prince Pavel went over to his table.
“Robert,” he said, “do you by any chance know anything of an American woman named Fossett?”
Fleury turned sharply. “Myra Fossett? How do you know anything about her?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
Fleury shrugged. “It is simply that she is a business woman…beautiful, but very shrewd, also.”
“A woman? In business?”
Fleury shrugged again. “There are more than you think, but none of them like Madame Fossett.”
“She is wealthy?”
“Rolling in it.” Fleury studied his friend. “But what do you know of her?”
Pavel’s explanation solved nothing. “I do not know what she has in mind,” Fleury said, “but be assured there is money in it. She thinks of nothing but money, that one. Be careful, my friend. When she makes any such proposal you can be sure it is for her benefit alone—that much I know of her. She is not only shrewd, she is utterly ruthless, and without a scruple.”
Pavel was not impressed. He had no scruples himself; and a woman, a beautiful woman, and very wealthy…“I have no idea what she has in mind,” he said.
Robert Fleury, whose interests in America were many, was puzzled, because so far as he was aware Madame Fossett had shown no interest in any man that was not casual, nor did she seem very active in a social way. She was not a party-giver, and seemed to ignore most of the social highlights of the season.
“Just be warned,” he said again, “but you can be sure whatever it is has money in it.”
Prince Pavel, ten years before, had come into a good-sized inheritance which had since dwindled because of his enthusiasm for gambling. It was growing increasingly difficult to borrow, and although he had a small reserve he had kept untouched, it was too small for comfort.
His cousin, the Princess Louise, was single again. Her husband—Pavel had finally been successful in that matter—had died, leaving her a considerable estate, but so far Pavel had been unable to touch it. Louise was careful, and she knew him well enough to distrust him. Nevertheless, they were on friendly terms.
Louise had beauty, she had presence, and there were a lot of millionaires in America, he had heard. If he handled it wisely…he did not like the idea of Louise marrying an American, but if the man was rich enough…
Prince Pavel was no longer handsome—the scars took care of that—but he had found that scars seemed the utmost in masculinity to some women, and his he represented, without actually saying so, as dueling scars.
He had an idea it would not be difficult to persuade Louise to accompany him. She had always had an interest in everything American…at least since she met that damned Reilly.
A few days later he replied to Myra Fossett. My cousin, the Princess Louise, and I, have been considering a visit to New York. Am I to assume you wish us to come as your guests?
The response was immediate. Passage was arranged, everything paid for, and there remained nothing but to go.
* * *
—
FOR THREE WEEKS Val Darrant had been working harder than he had ever worked in his life. He had branded calves, cleaned out water holes, repaired corral fences, trapped wolves, pulled steers out of bogs, and helped in the breaking of horses. He had been getting out of bed before daylight, and rarely coming in off the range until well after dark. He had worked as hard as any hand on the ranch, and he had worked with Tensleep beside him, learning from him as they worked.
His shoulder wound had healed rapidly, and he was not one to pamper himself when there was so much to be done. But always, in the back of his mind, there remained the thought that soon he must catch the stage for Colorado.
He was thinking of it now as he topped out on a rise and looked over the wide basin below.
Cody rode up to join him, a lean, wide-shouldered young man with cool eyes and an easy way of moving and talking.
“How you comin’ boy? Shoulder botherin’ any?”
“No, it’s all right now, though I find myself favoring it a little. I just don’t like to think about leaving.”
“We’ll miss you.” Cody built a cigarette, touched the paper with his tongue. “You’ve been doin’ more’n your share.”
“We need rain,” Val commented. “The grass on the high range looks bad.”
“Heel flies are gettin’ worse, too,” Cody said, and he added, “boy, you better let one of us ride along with you. Dube, he’s a-rarin’ to go.”
“It would be company,” Val admitted. “How’s the work stack up?”
“We got it whupped. You take Dube. I’d admire to go myself, but if trouble shapes up, me an’ Tardy ought to be here. Dube is dead fast with a gun, a better than usual tracker, and maybe the best rifle shot amongst us.”
“Why all this concern?”
Cody grinned. “Boston said there’d be no foolin’ you. Fact is, Tardy picked up a story. Boston heard talk of it over to Winslows’, too. Henry Sonnenberg was in Mobeetie, roundin’ up two or three tough ones.”
“So?”
“They taken off, night before last…headin’ for Colorado.”
Far down the valley some cattle were walking toward the creek, and a thin plume of dust told of a lone rider coming across the flat. That would be Boston, returning from the Winslows’.
“I can handle Sonnenberg.”
“Yeah, I think maybe you can, although there’s nobody more dangerous than him, but what about the others? He’s got himself some tough men.”
“You think he’s gunning for me?”
“No. I figure there’s something else in the wind. So does Pa. You see, a body don’t live long in this country unless he keeps track of folks, so we got us a little bird over to Mobeetie. Pa, he gives him eatin’ money and this little bird keeps us alive as to who’s comin’ and goin’. Seems like one of these men he picked up, one he asked for special, is just out of prison for blowing the safe in a bank.”
Val turned his horse toward the ranch house, angling across country to intercept Boston. Cody rode along beside him, and suddenly he spoke up. “Didn’t you tell me one time that you knew Billy the Kid?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead. One of the Turk
eytrack boys told me. I met him yonder, huntin’ strays. He was shot by Pat Garrett at Pete Maxwell’s place.”
So he had gone there, after all. And now he was dead. He had known Billy only a short time, but it had been one of the first times he had been around boys of his own age. He and…what was his name? Dodie…Dodie Grant. They had ridden out with Billy.
Hickok was gone, too, shot in the back up in Deadwood a few years ago.
He and Cody rode on in silence. Suddenly he felt lost and lonely…old ties were being cut, and so much of the country seemed to be changing. He said as much to Cody.
“You ain’t heard the most of it. This cowhand was tellin’ me they’ve passed a prohibition law up in Kansas. You can’t buy a drink nowhere in the state.”
“I had heard they were talking of it.”
Val stared at the horizon, thinking. He had to belong somewhere, he had to put down some roots. He could not forever be moving. He wanted a home.
After all, why should he feel any urge to kill Sonnenberg? Hardesty and Pike were dead, and they had paid their debt for Will. Avery Simpson was somewhere in the East, and Prince Pavel was far away in Europe. Let the course of natural events take care of Sonnenberg.
This was where he belonged, somewhere here in the West. He would marry Boston, if she would have him, and hang out his shingle in some lively western town, in Texas, New Mexico, or Colorado.
Boston came wheeling up then, flashing him a quick smile, her black hair blowing in the wind.
“Do you know what I am going to do, Val? I am going to Denver with you!”
“What?”
“I mean it! We made it up between us this afternoon! Dube, Tensleep, and me. We’re all going with you!”
“What is this going to be—a gypsy caravan?”
“I need some clothes, some girl clothes. Dube has never seen a big town and he wants to go, and Tensleep figures he should go along and look after all of us. So there! It’s settled!”
* * *
—
THE LAND LAY wide before them, under a wider sky—long, slow swells of the grass sea, a grass now tawny with the dryness of a parching summer, streams now scarcely a trickle lost in the width of sandy bed.
A few tracks of buffalo, here and there the trail left by a drifting band of mustangs, and always, lost against the brassy sky, the slow swinging loops of the buzzards. Men may plan, they may dream and struggle, but the buzzard has only to wait, for all things come to him in the end.
They rode due north toward the railroad, coming once upon a covered wagon, standing desolate in a small hollow, its cover blown to shreds, one of the bows broken, and several stacks of buffalo hides standing nearby. The wagon had been looted and left, but there were two grave mounds close by, no marker on either.
“Happened to a man I knew,” Tensleep said. “He come upon a trailside grave and rode over to read the marker. It was his brother buried there, alongside the Chisholm Trail, a brother he hadn’t seen in ten years because they left home separate. You ever stop to think the number of men who come west and nobody ever hears of again?”
They camped that night near a seep where a tiny trickle of water made a pool the size of your hat and a small area of damp grass where the horses ate and breathed up what little water they could get.
The next creek bed was dry, with cracked mud for a bottom, and digging brought nothing but dust.
They heard the long whistle of the train before they could see the station, four lone buildings huddled together on a flat valley with no trees. Four buildings and a water tank—the station with a few feet of platform, a saloon with a post office sign on it, and a general store next to it where the bartender sold supplies between drinks. There was also a stable and some stock corrals.
Several men with drinks in their hands came to the door of the saloon to stare at them as they rode in, and when they reached the stable two of the men in the saloon followed. One was only a boy of seventeen, the other a few years older.
They took sidelong glances at Boston, and approached Val. “Mister,” the oldest one said, “meanin’ no offense, but is that a woman yonder?”
“Yes, it is. It’s his sister.” He indicated Dube.
“You reckon I could speak at her? An’ maybe look a little closer? Mister, Willie an’ me, we ain’t seen a woman in nigh onto a year. Nine, ten months, I’d put it.”
Val turned. “Boston, these young men haven’t looked at a girl in some time. They would like to talk to you.”
“Sure!” She walked over. “How are you, boys?”
They stood grinning, the red creeping around their ears.
“Are you ranching out here?” she asked.
The older one nodded. “We went to work for a gent up at Newton, Kansas, and drove some cows down here for him. We been here quite a spell, and a man sure gets hongry to even look at womenfolks.”
The hostler came to take their horses. “I’ll buy ’em if you’re sellin’,” he said, “or keep ’em for you if you’re comin’ back.”
“We’re comin’ back,” Dube replied, “an’ we want these same horses waitin’ when we come. I’m Dube Bucklin,” he said, “an’ you may have heard of our outfit.”
“I surely have. That reminds me. Got a letter over to the post office for a gent named Darrant—one of your outfit, I reckon.”
Val turned. “I am Val Darrant.”
“Pleased….This letter, it was misdirected here. Guess those folks back in Boston don’t know much about west Texas.”
“Are you the postmaster?”
“You could say that. Rightly I am only half of him. Smith Johnson is postmaster and I’m Johnson. Smith is over to the saloon. You see, we couldn’t decide which was to be postmaster, so we decided we both would, and we made application for the job as Smith Johnson. You walk over yonder and Smith will give you that letter. Been settin’ here nigh onto two weeks.”
The saloon–post office was a bare room with a short bar and four or five bottles on the back bar. Smith was a fat, unshaven man in his undershirt, who leaned massive forearms on the bar. A cowhand lounged at the end of the bar, nursing a beer. At a table in the corner two men sat drinking beer.
“Quite a town you’ve got here,” Val said.
“Yep! She’s a lollapalooza! Biggest town between here and the next place. Was that really a flesh-and-blood woman you had with you?”
“Yes. That was Miss Bucklin, from down south a ways. Her brother is with her, and we’re catching the train for Denver.”
“Won’t be much trouble, catchin’ it. We got a signal here that we hang out and she stops ever’ time. You just order yourself a beer, and—”
“I’ll have the beer, and the letter for Val Darrant. The other half of the postmaster said you had one for me. Incidentally, which are you? Post or Master?”
Smith chuckled. “First time anybody asked me that. Now if I said I was Master I’d have to lick Johnson, and he’s a tough old coot, but I wouldn’t want to say I was Post, not with all those stray dogs runnin’ loose hereabouts.”
He drew a beer from the barrel, then took down a letter from a high shelf. “And there’s your letter. As for the train, that old busted-down bronc-stomper yonder at the table is what passes for a stationmaster. He’ll sell you a ticket. If you ain’t got the money he’ll trust you for it if you’ll buy him a beer.”
“Seems like a man can get almost anything around here if he can buy a beer,” Val said, smiling.
“Mister, you already have,” Smith said. “In this here town when you’ve put up your horse, bought yourself a ticket and a beer, you’ve just had about all there is to offer!”
“We pitch horseshoes,” the stationmaster said, “and toward evenin’ we shoot at jack rabbits or coyotes. Ever’ oncet in a while, somebody hits one.”
Val drank his beer and
waited for the others to come over. The board at one end of the saloon showed a timetable, and the train was due about sundown.
On all sides the brown and slightly rolling plains stretched away to the sky. Nothing changed here but the seasons, and occasionally the cloud formations. Not long ago this had been Comanche country, and some miles away to the south was the site of Adobe Walls, scene of several great Indian fights.
Smith went to the door when Boston crossed the street toward the saloon, accompanied by Tensleep and Dube. “Ma’am,” he said, “would you like to come into the post office an’ set? It ain’t often we have a lady in town.”
“Thank you.” Boston entered, and went to a table with Val and Dube. Tensleep strolled to the bar.
Smith gave him a sharp glance. “Tensleep, what are you up to? These here folks shape up to mighty nice people.”
“I ride for Darrant and Bucklin,” Tensleep said. “I’m a reformed man, Smith.”
At the table, Val opened his letter. It was from Van’s sister.
Dear Mr. Darrant:
As you may know, my brother was killed in a fall from a horse. He had left word that if anything happened to him, this box was to be forwarded to you, unopened. Being unsure of your exact address, we have forwarded the box to Mr. Peck, at his home in Empire, Colorado.
Van said Mr. Peck had handled some business matters for you, and would deposit the box at the bank, to await your pleasure.
A few words followed to say that Van had often talked of him, and asking him to call on them if he came to Boston. He read the note twice; then, after reading it to Boston and Dube, put it down on the table.
When it came right down to it, he knew very little about his mother, and what he knew he did not like, but Van Clevern had been with her throughout her bad days, and if anyone knew the whole story it would be Van.
Reilly's Luck (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 20
