Lust Is No Lady

by Michael Avallone

  Mr. Riker didn’t unfold his arms. His glance went from his wife to Las Vegas and then back to me.

  “That isn’t all you mean,” he said.

  “No it isn’t. I found a half-dead Indian girl staked out for the vultures by some maniac or sadist. She can’t talk anything but an Indian language, making it somehow all the more pitiful. She leads me in gratitude or desperation to a place called Agreeable Wells where an unfriendly, fat sheriff runs us off as if we’d stumbled onto a gold mine or something. Next comes the capper. The girl take me home to meet her father. But her poor old Dad is hanging from the ceiling like a dart board. And if that isn’t enough, six fast horses show up from Agreeable Wells to see what’s going on. What the Indian girl did is pure cause and effect. She burned the cabin down because her old man had been killed. Why does she have to hide out in the hills anyway? What do you have against her? And last and definitely the most, who killed Charley Redwine and why was Brandy staked out in the sun?”

  Rita Riker murmured softly, “The poor kid.”

  “Poor what?” Las Vegas rumbled. “She’s an Indian, isn’t she?”

  “You can’t be all that bad,” I said.

  Mr. Riker heaved a sigh that came up from his boot tops. “Is that all you feel, Mr. Noon? You are so certain that we are doing something underhanded and unlawful in Agreeable Wells?”

  “I didn’t say that, sir. I simply want you to understand that I’m willing to listen. I want to save my own neck, too. People have been moving pretty fast around here without thinking it over first.”

  I had gauged him accurately and won. He was a Bible reader, true, and too far steeped in it to be above committing crimes to further some good end. A dangerous type at all times because they are convinced that good can come out of evil. But he was reasonable if you had the time, and still had the breath, to argue with him. I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night with a knife in my ribs just because I’d stumbled across some divine project of his. He reminded me too much of John Brown as it was. I had to take him seriously.

  “Mr. Noon,” he began sonorously. “You have taken me to task and well. What is it the Bible says — ‘Am I my Brother’s Keeper?’ Very well, I shall answer you in kind. You have seen fit to clear the air around us. I shall endeavor to do the same. In the midst of life, we are in death —”

  Before he could get into the second chorus, the door behind his back squeaked open on rusty hinging. Everybody else must have known who was coming because nobody treated the newcomer with anything amounting to surprise.

  “About time you showed up, young lady,” Rita Riker said in a voice that mocked her own comparative youth. “Supper was over a half hour ago. Where have you been?”

  I’m afraid I blinked at the young girl who halted in confusion in the doorway. We’d seen each other much too recently not to recognize at first glance.

  She was still wearing the jodhpurs and the rest of the motorcycle outfit. She was as blonde as I remembered. Even in the darkness of the night behind her, she brought splashed sunlight into the cabin. But that wasn’t what threw me.

  She had removed her helmet and goggles. I saw bright blonde hair, gold in every strand.

  I also saw a long, jagged, ugly scar that ran from her left eye clear down to the jawbone. Somebody had cut her up good, a long time ago.

  “Oh —” Mary Lou said, seeing me, her hand immediately flying up to cover the scar. “The man with the Buick —”

  8

  “The girl with the bike,” I said. “How are you, Mary Lou?”

  Las Vegas laughed out loud. “Boy, this bird gets around. You mean you two met already?”

  Mary Lou nodded, still standing in the doorway, still fiddling self-consciously with her face. “Yeah — gee. I drove by while he was having trouble with his Buick and — and —” She halted, shame-faced, remembering how neighborly she’d been.

  “Come in, daughter, come in,” Mr. Riker boomed, a little peeved at the interruption of his story. “I thought I told you to stay out of Rock Springs as much as possible. You may cause too much talk flying up and down the road on that machine of yours.”

  Rita Riker stared at me with amusement. As if I were the first interesting thing in days.

  “You draw them like flies, huh? Figures. A man like you ought to be worth millions.”

  Sure. A teenager and a beat-up Indian girl. But I hid my irritation. “Come on in, Mary Lou. I won’t bite you and I’m not mad.”

  Mary Lou came hesitantly forward, closing the door meekly behind her. “Gee — I’m sorry. I knew how Pa didn’t want me mixing with any strangers and — oh, darn — there I go again. Saying things I shouldn’t —”

  Rita put an arm around her. “Want some supper?”

  “Uh uh.” Mary Lou’s gesture of touching her face was really unthinking. It was sheer force of habit. Small wonder. Even with the terrible scar, she was ravishingly wholesome. “Had hamburgers with Jingo at the garage.” But she was eying me as if I were a magician. “How did you ever get out here?”

  “The stork left him,” Las Vegas said. “Look, kid. How about letting us grownups to talk things over? A rich millionaire wants to adopt you and everything.”

  “Oh, you!” Mary Lou literally stamped her foot. “You’re so funny, you are.”

  “You didn’t bike in over all that grass, did you?” I asked.

  She shook her curls at me, welcoming the interruption. “Are you kidding? No — I leave it with Jingo and ride in on Ringo. He’s my horse.”

  “Would you believe it, Noon?” Las Vegas showed me a smiling face for a change. “That horse actually sings.”

  “Pa, will you make him stop!” Mary Lou pleaded.

  Mr. Riker oddly enough had enjoyed the exchange. Even Rita seemed to find refreshing the sudden humor in the cabin.

  “All right, my child.” Mr. Riker stopped grinning. “Go to your cabin and get some rest. You look flushed. Mr. Noon and I have a lot to talk over.”

  “Okay, Pa.” She looked at me breathlessly. “I’m sorry. About what happened this afternoon, I mean. You won’t hold it against me or anything?”

  “Forget it, Mary Lou,” I said. “Loyalty in a woman is a fine thing.”

  “Gee — thanks —” She was gone as suddenly as she had come. But she had left breathlessness and wholesomeness in the cabin. Rita Riker sighed.

  “I was going on twenty once myself.”

  “She’s a doll.” I looked at Mr. Riker. “Can’t anything be done about that scar?”

  He wagged his great head. “She and I have borne that cross since she was a child of ten. One day, when there is enough money for operations —” He paused and those damn sharp eyes of his bored in on me. “I’m pleased you’ve met her. I’m glad we decided to talk before tomorrow. Maybe it has all been planned this way. Your coming into our midst from out of the blue as you have —”

  Las Vegas snorted. “Maybe he ought to go out the same way if you ask me. Think it over, Mr. Riker. We don’t want to go sharing the wealth too much. How do we know he’s not a government man?”

  “Let him tell it, friend,” I said.

  Mr. Riker was weary. “What have we to lose, Las Vegas? Five weeks out here have netted us nothing. Perhaps, Mr. Noon can help.”

  “Tell him, Thaddeus,” Rita Riker said carefully. “I think you ought to tell him.”

  The lean man from Las Vegas threw up his hands. “Okay. You both vote me down. Go ahead and give him the whole deal. But don’t be surprised if he wants a fifty-fifty cut. I know his type.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell me. I just got here, remember?”

  Mr. Thaddeus Riker probed his eyes with his big fingers. He coughed. His eyes took us all in as if we were a class of favored students. I’d begun to find out a lot of things about life. One of them is — the older a man gets, the more he likes to talk. Especially when he has a captive audience. I wasn’t kidding myself. I’d been virtually a prisoner since the time I mounted the ro
an behind him.

  “This is a big country, Mr. Noon,” he said, his voice conveying sweep and size. “Even in this day and age, it is amazing how much land is unexplored. The prairies, the buttes, the plateaus, the canyons — who can honestly say he has put his foot down on every square inch of ground? I know I cannot. Progress is short-sighted sometimes. To the north lies an important group of coal mines. To the southeast are fields of natural gas that can yield approximately two hundred million cubic feet a day. This is fabulous sheep and cattle country, too. The land is rich and abundant. Behind us lies Rawlins with the state penitentiary. Mountain ranges are visible for miles around us. There are vast, open stretches of ground. And yet, there are pockets of land here in Wyoming where only the woodchuck, the skunk, the badger and the coyote have walked the ground. They and they alone.”

  “You didn’t discover another coal mine, did you?” He was straying off the track with verbiage and I didn’t want him to stray too far. Coal might explain shovels and pickaxes. “Uranium would be worth more, Mr. Riker.”

  His smile was patient with me.

  “Do you know anything at all about Virginia City, Mr. Noon?”

  “Nevada,” I said. “Where they found the Comstock Lode before the Civil War. It’s just a tourist attraction now, isn’t it? Sort of a ghost town where they sell souvenirs.”

  Las Vegas remembered Virginia City too. It was closer to his favorite city than Reno.

  “Boy, there was a town. Wish I’d been in that burg in the good old days. All those suckers every night of the week. Miners, dance hall marks. You know, Noon, they got over a billion clams in silver and gold out of those hills.”

  Mr. Riker nodded vigorously to quiet him down so he could get on with his narration. “Exactly as Las Vegas says, Mr. Noon. You may not be aware of it but Virginia City actually financed the government during the Civil War. That one tiny town, set on a hill in the wilderness had seven hundred and fifty miles of underground workings. Tunnels, shafts, drifts, raises and inclines. Producing over twenty million tons of ore. If you ever visit the city in the future, you will be able to see, as a tourist, some of these workings for yourself. The terrain is fabulous.”

  Rita Riker smiled at me. “Mr. Riker does a lot of reading, Noon, but he’s also been there.”

  “All right,” I said. “Virginia City is in all the guide books. Now tell me what it all has to do with Agreeable Wells.”

  Mr. Riker seemed to glow right in front of me.

  “During the Civil War years shipments of gold left Virginia City almost daily. The Union Pacific railroad was not completed until 1869 so you can readily see that shipments had to travel overland, by stage or wagon train. The gold was shipped East to finance the Union. As a detective, you possibly may appreciate what opportunity for evil-doing such trips represented. The overland trails were rampant with Indians, army deserters and just the ordinary run of bad men. Not all the shipments arrived at their final destination.”

  “Men have always sought an easy way to make a living,” I admitted. Las Vegas, who had picked up the deck of cards to rifle them expertly, set them down on the table with a sarcastic grin. Rita Riker was watching her husband, her face unguardedly soft and feminine.

  Mr. Riker spread his hands. “The records of lost shipments, one way or the other, must have exceeded scores. Who knows what became of those records? Are they still on file in Washington or did some bored government clerk clean out a filing cabinet years ago and consign the facts to oblivion? Be that as it may — one of those shipments which vanished on the trail has brought us here to Agreeable Wells.”

  I blinked. “You better try that again.”

  His eyes were amused now. “Is it so impossible to believe? Why do you doubt when explorers still harbor the hope of uncovering Atlantis? Are the Dead Sea Scrolls not a fantastic discovery after the thousands of years that have passed since they were first transmitted to paper? Think before you answer, Mr. Noon.”

  “Okay. I’ll bury my native skepticism. Just tell me what you have or what evidence brought you here.”

  Mr. Riker licked his lips. The marrow of the story was close. “In 1865 or thereabouts, a shipment left Virginia City, by wagon train, crossed Nevada, bore south of Salt Lake to avoid the Rockies and cut just above the Wyoming borderline because it was easier to traverse. The flatlands do have their value sometimes. The overland route was pretty close to where the Union Pacific rails runs today. And here is exactly where fact ends and word-of-mouth begins.”

  “Keep going. I’m fascinated.”

  “A war party of Sioux attacked the wagons and massacred the complement of troops and civilians from Virginia City. There were no females, thank the good Lord. The wagons were destroyed by fire, the personnel scalped and left for the coyotes and vultures. But — the redmen were captivated by the sacks of gold dust they found on the wagons. They had heard of gold, of course, seen it in their dealings with the whites. And because in their shrewd Indian way they knew what respect the white men had for gold dust, they carted the bags away and buried it in the ground of their lodges when they returned to their hills. But the deadly ways of the early West overtook them in time. A cavalry troop attacked the village shortly thereafter and wiped out the Sioux, sparing only the women and children, without ever knowing about or finding the fortune buried beneath the floor of the lodges.”

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Riker.” I just remembered a small but nettling fact. “Gold dust? Didn’t that shipment leave Virginia City in bullion form? You know — gold bars? Strikes me the government would have had a mint on the spot.”

  Mr. Riker emitted a deep sigh of satisfaction. “Splendid, Mr. Noon. You are at least listening. Which suggests only one thing to me. This particular shipment was illegal. Someone — who knows who? — was secreting a load out of town for his own personal gain. The shipment should most certainly have been in bars. But, even without records to back me up, it is not impossible to conceive of such a shipment being made. Those were evil times, as I said. The contrary evidence of gold dust only serves to make me believe what I know even more fully.”

  “Word-of-mouth, you said. You don’t mean Charley Redwine?”

  “Do I not?” Mr. Riker got up from his chair. “That grand old man who died so terribly today was a boy of seven. A baby, if you will, who listened as the braves of his tribe told of the massacre of the train. He has seen the years rush by. Watched the cottonwoods die, seen the push of civilization over Wyoming. But he remembered and I believed him.”

  I sat there and thought. The tale was taller than the Empire State Building. But unless he’d lost all his marbles, Mr. Riker spoke it all like gospel. Rita Rigger was looking at me now. So was Las Vegas. They were glad to see that I was reacting as they must have when they first heard the story. But they were both here with Mr. Riker, sharing the dream and nursing the hope. Or were they?

  It was too confusing without seeing it in black and white. I couldn’t restrain a grin. Mr. Riker scowled.

  “I didn’t tell you all this for your amusement, Mr. Noon.”

  “Don’t get sore, sir. I love cowboys and Indians. But Charley Redwine didn’t walk up to you and say ‘Great White Father, I know where a gold mine is, planted in 1865.’ He must have given you some proof for you to jump out here, set up a camp, and go all-out for the gravy train. Now, that is what I’m waiting to see.”

  “Go on, Mr. Riker,” Las Vegas urged. “You told him the story. Now give him the snapper. He’s from Missouri like all us city boys.”

  Without another word, Mr. Riker unbuttoned his blue shirt, reached a big hand around his middle, explored and then drew forth an irregular piece of something that looked like dried-out leather. He extended it across the table to me. I took it. Placing it closer to the lamp, I flattened it out and looked at it closely. It was a faded brown color that had yellowed considerably with time. It appeared to be leather hide that had been used as a map. The piece of leather was no more than eight inches wide and five inch
es high. Red symbols were scrawled on it stiffly. The ink or whatever it was had almost turned brown with the years.

  “This,” I said, “is absolutely Greek to me.”

  Mr. Riker laughed. “Don’t be so upset. It is consistently plain if you know what you are looking for and you know the man from whom you got it.”

  “Meaning what?”

  He poked a big forefinger at the map.

  “That is virtually an overlay of the Union Pacific route. Just lay it across the Wyoming map. The line running across the diagram from left to right is the railroad. The conical figures below are the Black Buttes. The cones above the tracks are the range of Rockies behind us. See those two parallel lines running down the center of the diagram? South Bitter Creek, certainly. The position of the two black dots can only be Rock Springs, on the left, and Bitter Creek on the right. The symbol for the sun is fairly obvious and those drawings of birds are there to read for north. It’s a fair map for a redman to make.”

  I frowned. “What about those lines that look like another sun? They seem to indicate illumination or a splash of light. Or —”

  “Gold dust.” Mr. Riker’s sigh could have been heard in heaven. “According to Charley Redwine, that is where the old lodges stood. Where the gold is buried. But —”

  “But, what?”

  He stamped his feet angrily on the floor of the cabin. So violently that Rita Riker jumped.

  “That’s the horror of the whole business! The Indians never knew how to scale a map. The halation of lines that supposedly pinpoints the gold could cover a radius of five hundred yards. Or five miles.”