The Town 0f No Return: Special Edition (Half Breed Haven Book 11)

by A. M. Van Dorn

  The pair from Cedar Ledge drew up next to the counter, and Blue River exchanged a word of greeting in Apache with the two women. Few were as skilled in all the different languages as his sister, Bright Feather, who had roamed the West for years learning all of them that she could. Though he was not on Bright Feather's level, his linguistic skills were passable, and the younger woman warmly returned his greeting. The two continued to converse, and Lijuan picked out two words that Blue River had spoken in English. Upon hearing those words, summer sky, the young woman nodded enthusiastically while the face of the woman behind the counter remained stoic. Though curious as to what that was about Lijuan turned her attention to the desk clerk.

  "We would like some lodging if that's not going to be a problem."

  The man smiled, but before he could answer a woman drew back the curtain that separated a back room from the desk area and bustled in. Her hair was the same color as his, and her matching bright green were expressive and thoughtful. Around her long neck she wore what looked a heck of a lot like a string of pearls, Lijuan thought as the woman spoke cheerfully.

  “Why ever would it be a problem? Of course, we do! My brother and I would be happy to accommodate you!”

  Lijuan nodded with a smile, “Forgive me. We had a little bit of trouble getting rooms last night. Some places would take a leper before they would take an Indian and a Chinese person, let alone together.”

  Speaking for the first time, the man said, "You will not find any such ignorance running rampant at The Gossamer. Now, what can we get you, ma'am?"

  “Two rooms. If you don’t have two then one with two beds.”

  The man snapped his fingers, “Two rooms coming right up!” he said as his hand flipped open the ledger on the desk.

  “Ross, I’m going to light on out of here for a bit and see if there has been any news on that dastardly robbery and-”

  The twin blasts from a gun being fired upstairs jolted everyone in the lobby as did the agonized scream that came with it. Astonished looks fell over them all and the hotel woman screamed as a body, spraying crimson, tumbled down the stairs, crashing into a bloody heap.

  In seconds Blue River was kneeling by the Indian man sprawled out on the floor. He furiously worked to examine the gunshot victim, and he reached down and placed his palm on his unmoving chest. There was no question. He was dead, maybe even before he reached the bottom of the stairs.

  "The Great Spirit has claimed a soul this day," he said solemnly looking at the others. Lijuan had seen enough bullet-riddled corpses to guess that one of the two shots must have shredded the man's heart. Acting on instinct, she was already leaping into action.

  “You! What’s your name?” she shouted pointing at the woman, who looked back at her horrified but managed to mouth the word, “Rosalee.”

  “Rosalee, if you’ve got a back exit that someone upstairs can take, show my brother here to it right now!”

  Still, in a tailspin from the shocking death, the woman mutely nodded her head, and Blue River followed her, his gun already drawn and ready for action. Lijuan turned to the hotel proprietor.

  “Ross, is it? We’ve got us a murderer to catch!” she was shouting even as she was halfway up the flight of stairs, her gun like Blue River’s, out and primed to do business.

  Launching into the corridor at the top of the stairs she halted, her almond eyes scanning everything. There were six doors lining the hallway and another stairwell at the far end which she presumed led to the back of The Gossamer. In the hallway was a little stand with some fresh flowers in a vase. Just above it rose a mirror, and there were a couple more pieces of art that included Boston’s Old North Church and one of the White House burning when it had been put to torch by the British in the War of 1812.

  Cautiously, she made her way down the hallway, aware of the man called Ross behind her now. She could hear movement in several of the rooms as well as the sound of a woman whimpering in one of them. Unless the killer had made it out the other stairwell, one of the rooms surely held the guilty party. Suddenly she stopped as something caught her eye. Resting next to the flower vase was a Peacemaker pistol.

  Snatching it up she inhaled from the barrel. If there had been any question at all that this had been the murder weapon, the pungent smell of the gunpowder in her nostrils settled it for her that it had just been fired. Grudgingly, she gave the murderer a tip of the hat for being smart enough to ditch the weapon before retreating to his room, rather than being caught with a just-fired pistol.

  The sound of footsteps pounding against wooden stairs drew her attention to the stairwell at the end of the corridor where Blue River suddenly burst into it, still clutching his gun with Rosalee behind him.

  “Anything?” she called to him.

  “Whoever did this didn’t leave out the back. The door was still locked from the inside. There was no way they could have used it to escape, Miss Lijuan.”

  “Oh, Ross, this is horrible! Just horrible! Nothing like this has ever happened here before!”

  Lijuan raised an eyebrow and asked, “Exactly how long have you been in the West?

  Blue River didn’t allow the siblings to answer as he called out.

  “Now what?”

  “How many of these rooms are occupied, Ross?” Lijuan wanted to know.

  “Four. Three single gentlemen and a husband and wife from Laredo!”

  "Then the culprit is still here. Looks like we are fixing to do us a little interrogating. We'll question each of them, and hopefully the murderer will give themselves away,” Lijuan said flatly.

  “We?” the hotel clerk asked somewhat aghast.

  "It is a matter of fact that every lawman in this town is far beyond this basin hunting down Liam O'Sullivan. So, if we want to see justice done, then we are going to have to take matters into our own hands. Does anyone disagree?

  She waited silently; part of her almost hoping one of the siblings would challenge the idea. It was that damn Cassie, rubbing off on her she knew. All Lijuan had wanted to do in Horseshoe was conduct the family business. But at the end of the day, she was a businesswoman second and a Wilde first. Cassie had always been adamant that justice needed to be served, and if there was anything they could do to facilitate it, then they had to step forward and do it. However, they would do it her way, she thought grimly. Finally, when the brother and sister said nothing, she nodded at Blue River who raised his Colt in a shooting stance as Lijuan began banging on the nearest door with her hammer.

  “Everyone come out with your hands up! No tricks! I so much as see anything in your hands that could be a weapon I’ll shoot, and I’ll shoot to kill!”

  Inwardly she chuckled as she watched hoteliers look at each other, their faces going pale even as confused looks spread over them, uncertain if Lijuan was only bluffing. Her eyes met with Blue River's, and she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Lijuan Wilde rarely bluffed.

  CHAPTER 7

  TOWN OF HORSESHOE

  Arizona Territory

  As was her custom when she sat in her own office, Lijuan had her feet propped up on the desk, her cowboy boots crossed. In her hands, she idly played with her Colt .45 shifting it from hand to hand. It was a pure intimidation tactic that Cassie had taught her all those years ago when the ex-Pinkerton had decided she would train her sisters in all the skills she had learned during her years with the famed detective agency.

  During her previous three interrogations with the second-floor guests of The Gossamer, it had proved unnecessary in two of the sessions. The people had been entirely cooperative when it came to her questioning. The third man, however, nearly had to be manhandled into the office by Blue River. Once inside her brother had given her a questioning look, but she had shaken her head no and told him to go wait to bring the last man in.

  Her gun had still been in her holster when she leaned back in the chair, her arms folded, appraising the smoldering man. Before the man had been led into Ross's office, which he had made
available for questioning, Ross had told her that the man's name was Douglas Dunleavy. At check-in, Ross had remembered the man saying he was a representative from the Stanton's Gap stockyards in town to meet with some ranchers about possible purchases. At the mention of Stanton's Gap, Lijuan had perked up as her mind flashed back to a harrowing occasion at the controls of a locomotive. It had been a train she had raced over a collapsing trestle in a mad attempt to reach the town and head off a deadly stampede with the train itself.

  Dunleavy was not a man who liked being labeled a potential murderer on his first visit to the town and he took extreme issue with her gender and her race.

  “I can’t believe I’m to be interrogated by a goddamn woman let alone a Chinese one! This is a hell of an establishment you are operating here, Mr. Tatum!” the man had said slamming his fist down on the desk for emphasis. Ross Tatum stood behind Lijuan, who remained silent, and rubbed his hands together.

  “I do apologize, sir. But there has been a murder in my hotel, and we simply must learn all we can to identify the killer and see that he is brought to justice.”

  The man’s face had turned a deep shade of scarlet. “I assure you that I am not your killer! Now you two have no authority to be questioning me in the first place. You’re not lawmen; you’re just a glorified desk clerk, and this dove should be out doing someone’s laundry!”

  Lijuan's eyebrow raised slightly, but still, she remained silent. Inside she was seething, red-hot fire but she would let him vent a little longer before she got down to business.

  “This is true, sir, but as you know the sheriff and his men are in valiant pursuit of the desperados who have cleaned out our local bank, so it is up to us.” Ross offered.

  “Not being a depositor of your bank, I don’t give a goddamn about that. Let us not mince words here. You two are little more than self-appointed vigilantes, and this dead man was nothing but one of them savages! Who cares if one of them went to meet whatever false god they worship? Only thing worse than a redskin is a color-”

  Both men were startled by the speed by which Lijuan yanked out the hammer from her belt and brought its broad side down on Ross Tatum’s desk with a resounding thud.

  “I believe I have your attention now!” she said as she left the hammer laying on the desk and pulled out her six-shooter and began toying with it.

  "You can continue to take swipes at me until the sun goes down, but my brother is a Yavapai, my sister a colored and another who is Mexican. I won't have you insulting them. My suggestion to you is that if I bother you that much, then you simply answer my questions, and you’ll be returned to your room as soon as possible.

  With a shaky voice, the man looked at her with eyes that had some of the largest bags beneath them that she had ever seen and managed to utter one last spark of defiance.

  “Where I shall remain your prisoner.”

  “You’re still our guest, Mr. Dunleavy. I shall have a fine meal prepared for you while we await the resolution of this most unfortunate turn of events,” Ross said graciously, hoping to restore some measure of order to the proceedings. The man’s eyes shifted to Lijuan. She could tell he was looking through her, after all to him an Asian was an inferior creature who, if you believed him, was only good for doing laundry, but she could see the defeat etched across his face.

  “Very well. What is it you wish to know?” He sighed as he pulled out a tin can of cigarettes that he laid down on a desk and lit one to life.

  The pair asked their questions, and he answered them. They weren't elaborate answers, some only one or two words, but it didn't take long to finish asking them. Truthfully Lijuan had been glad to wrap up the interview because she didn't trust herself around such a loathsome man. The man had continued to smoke through the interview, and every time he put his cigarette down in the ashtray she fantasized about picking up her hammer and crushing his fingers, cigarette, and ashtray all in one blow. There was nothing more she hated than the intolerance she and her unique family had encountered growing up.

  When the man before her who was to be the last questioned was brought in, she had asked Blue River to go take care of a request she had made, and Ross had left to stand watch over the other suspects. Still rankled by Dunleavy, she had decided to keep the gun in hand from the get-go to send a clear message. Her patience had run out, and she wasn't about to be stonewalled again.

  However, this man was proving to be the exact opposite of Dunleavy in looks and demeanor. The man from Stanton’s Gap had been short and dumpy in nature with a balding head. In contrast, though Francis LaRue had somewhat of a receding hairline and appeared to be in his early forties, none of that detracted from his handsomeness. His hair was jet black, and he had a neatly trimmed mustache that tapered to two sharp points. His chin was strong, and he looked out at her with chestnut eyes. She knew if Honor were here she would be commenting on the fine cut of the man’s pinstriped suit with a bolo tie. It was the suit of a dandy for sure, but it was a good look for him.

  LaRue acted as if the gun wasn’t being toyed with in her hands and readily answered her questions to the point she found herself holstering the weapon. His story wasn’t an exciting one but seemed solid enough. He was taking advantage of purchasing one of the homesteading parcels the government was selling in the hills surrounding the basin. She asked him where he was from and why purchase in Horseshoe. Smiling, he said he hailed from Prescott and that for the simple reason the price was right.

  “Did you know the dead man?”

  "I can't say that I did. Honestly, I haven't met many Indians in my life. Perhaps it's wrong, but something about them frightens me. I actually try to avoid them. No offense to that young man who I gather is your brother … somehow.” He answered his voice trailing off.

  Lijuan hoped the man wasn't expecting her to go into an explanation of how she came to have an Indian brother because he would go away disappointed. On this day she was the one getting answers not giving them.

  Her eyes narrowed as she considered what he said. It was convenient that the man had a fear of the red man, suggesting that he wouldn't have any reason to be interacting with one let alone murdering one. However, she wasn't blind to the fact that reasonable or not, many a person in the West held a fear of the mysterious people who had called these lands home long before the Europeans had boarded their ships and began staking out their claims in the so-called "New World."

  Derisively she thought that there were so many good and peaceful Indians like the band her brother hailed from, but they were overshadowed by the violent actions of renegades, most notably Black Hawk. The same Black Hawk who was Bright Feather’s uncle. Bright Feather, the constant interloper in their lives. Suddenly she swung her short legs down off the desk and sat upright in the chair. Now was not the time to be going down that old and familiar rabbit hole. She didn’t want to start thinking about her because it would only lead back to the memory of the coldness David had shown her at the party. The time now was to focus on the murder that had taken place in The Gossamer.

  “That will be all for now.”

  The man lost little time in rising, and he leaned over the desk. "If there is anything I can do to help you catch the murder, please do not hesitate to call upon me. It terrifies me to think that one of my fellow guests, perhaps even in the next room is a cold-blooded killer."

  Lijuan only nodded and followed him out the room. Ross was at her side in the blink of an eye as LaRue passed by him and began climbing back up the stairs to the second floor.

  "Anything?" Ross asked the slight change in pitch to his voice alerted her to the man's anxiety. Lijuan couldn't blame him though. A man had been murdered in his hotel, and one of his guests was inescapably the killer and he, no doubt, just wanted the whole thing to be over by having the guilty party exposed.

  “I’m afraid not. Just like all the others with the same claim, he didn’t do it, had to be one of the others.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I feel like we can safely
rule out the man and his wife from Laredo. I just don’t see them as killers. The peddler from Denver, I don’t know about him. Right now, I am leaning towards Dunleavy. His surliness may mean he’s hiding something.” Ross said as he clasped his hands in front of him.

  Nodding her head, Lijuan said, "I agree on the couple. The peddler I don't know. Dunleavy yes, I can see that, but this LaRue I can't rule out either. Seems innocent enough but also one of his answers was very convenient. Nothing stands out."

  She didn't want to admit it, but Cassandra would come in handy right about now. She was the real detective of the family. Lijuan considered herself good, but none of them could hold a candle to their oldest sister when it came to matters like this.

  Just then Blue River entered through the front door with a disheveled looking Rosalee Tatum and the ever-stoic Indian woman. Lijuan wasted no time in questioning him.

  “Did Lane Scott come through?”

  “Yes, he’s sent for a couple of his ranch hands to stand guard around the hotel to make sure that the suspects don’t try to leave.”

  “That is good news,” she said.

  “I still find it disturbing that Dunleavy wasn’t completely wrong. The naked truth is we are holding people here against their will. I know we can’t let a killer slip away, justice calls for it and all, but I am not use to-”

  “Ross, we must speak!” Rosalee exhaled as Lijuan noticed her face flushed with color and Blue River looked pensive as well.

  “Miss Tatum is right. I ran into her after meeting with Mr. Scott while she was searching. Everyone needs to hear what she has to say.” Blue River implored after his eyes met Lijuan’s searching gaze.

  “What is it, Rosalee?!” her brother said laying his hands on her shoulders just as her arm snaked out and pointed to the wicker basket still resting on the reception desk, next to the guest register.