Seymour swallowed hard. “What . . . what is the name, Uncle Cornelius?”
Cornelius leaned back in the big chair and smiled. “It’s called Sweet Apple, my boy,” he said. “Sweet Apple, Texas. It’s going to be the perfect place for you.”
Chapter 7
Cornelius Standish waited until after his stammering fool of a nephew was gone before he took a cigar from a humidor on the big desk and lighted it. Seymour always coughed and acted like he was choking whenever he was around cigar smoke. Standish had waited not out of any consideration for Seymour, but simply because he didn’t want to put up with the annoyance of listening to him. The door to the outer office opened and Rebecca stuck her honey-blond head into the room. “I gave Seymour the train tickets you had me purchase for him, Mr. Standish.” She paused, then went on. “He wasn’t very happy about going to Texas, was he?”
Standish lifted a hand and motioned for Rebecca to come into the office. When she had done so, he said around the cigar, “Shut the door.”
She looked like she didn’t much want to do that, but she closed it anyway and then stood with her hands behind her back, leaning against the door behind her. Standish admired the way that pose made her breasts push forward against her dress. And she knew perfectly well that he was admiring her, too, the little minx. Standish took the cigar from his mouth and tapped the ash into a heavy glass ashtray. “What did he say?”
“Oh, not much, really.” Rebecca straightened and came toward the desk. “Just that he was worried that he might let you down because he wasn’t sure how well suited he was for a trip to Texas. But I could tell that he was really worried about going to such a rugged, dangerous place.”
A harsh bark of laughter came from Standish. “The boy doesn’t know the half of it. I made inquiries before I decided where to send him.” Standish leaned back in his chair and smiled in satisfaction. “Sweet Apple, Texas, is the worst hellhole on the frontier. Someone is shot, stabbed, or beaten to death nearly every day there.” Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Then Seymour . . .”
“Is doomed,” Standish finished for her. “He can barely take care of himself here in Trenton. He won’t stand a chance in a place like Sweet Apple.” He stuck the cigar back in his mouth and growled, “It’s perfect.”
Indeed, he was proud of himself for having arrived at such an easy solution to a problem that had been vexing him for quite a while. Even while his brother Benjamin had still been alive, Cornelius Standish had seen how ineffective, how downright useless, his nephew Seymour was. The boy was a terrible salesman, had no head for business, and was so scared of everything that he practically pissed himself every time anyone spoke to him. And yet Benjamin had given him a place in the company. Why his brother had done that, Cornelius would never know. Looking out for family was all well and good, but not when it interfered with making money. Benjamin should have been able to see that. Cornelius had hinted often enough that Standish Dry Goods, Inc., would be better off if Seymour was let go. Benjamin had always stubbornly resisted the very idea.
Then Benjamin was dead and Cornelius was in charge, and the first thing he planned to do was to send his worthless nephew packing . . . until the terms of Benjamin’s will made it clear that they were to share the company, although Cornelius would remain in charge of its day-to-day operations, with the power to make all necessary business decisions.
With one exception. Seymour would always have a place with Standish Dry Goods, for however long he wanted it.
That thorn in Cornelius’s side had irritated him no end. He seemed fated to have to put up with that blithering incompetent from now on, no matter how much money Seymour cost the business . . . until the grand idea occurred to him. He might not have the power to fire Seymour, but he could send the boy to someplace where he was bound to come to a bad end. Someplace like Sweet Apple, Texas.
And once Seymour was gone, not only would Cornelius be rid of an annoyance, but the company would belong completely to him as well.... Standish became aware that Rebecca was biting at her lower lip as if something bothered her. “What is it?” he snapped.
“Well . . . I was just thinking about Seymour. . . .”
Standish’s hand slapped down on the desk like a gunshot. He put the cigar in the ashtray and said, “Good Lord, you’re not smitten with the little bastard, are you?”
Rebecca was an ambitious young woman. A female had to be ambitious to work her way into such a respected, important position as a businessman’s private secretary, as she had been for Benjamin Standish. After his death, she had started to play up to Seymour, no doubt thinking that if she could worm her way into his affections she could take advantage of his newly inherited wealth and power.
Only Seymour had no real power, and Rebecca had soon realized that. She understood that only one man in Standish Dry Goods, Inc., could do her any good—and that was Cornelius. She would do well to forget any residual fondness she felt for Seymour.
“Of course I’m not smitten with him, Mr. Standish,” she said now. “He just seems so innocent. So . . . so harmless. I hate to see anything bad happen to him.”
“He’s not harmless,” Standish said. “He costs this company money with his nervous bumbling. That’s why he has to be dealt with.”
“Yes, but—”
Standish fixed her with a hard glare. “Are you going to cost this company money with your sympathy, Miss Jimmerson? I wouldn’t be pleased if something like that happened.”
Rebecca swallowed hard. After a moment she said, “Of course not, sir. I would never do anything to harm Standish Dry Goods.”
He grunted. “Good.” As he reached for his cigar, he added, apparently casually,
“You’ll be home this evening, I take it?”
Rebecca lived in a small cottage in a quiet neighborhood. Every month, Standish gave her cash to pay for the rent, so there would be no bank drafts or anything else to show his connection to the place.
She nodded without meeting his eyes and said in a quiet voice, “Yes. I’ll be there.”
“Good. I’ll probably be working late here in the office, but I might drop by there for a few minutes on my way home.”
He would drop by there, all right. There was no might about it, and both of them knew it. Despite being perhaps a bit too softhearted for her own good, Rebecca was a smart girl. She had chosen the right Standish, and as long as she didn’t do anything foolish, Cornelius would see to it that she didn’t regret her choice. But if she ever crossed him . . .
Well, he would hate to lose her services as a secretary—and otherwise. But as always, he would do what needed to be done.
For the company’s good, of course.
* * *
After his father’s death, Seymour had moved out of the mansion that had been the family home for as far back as he could remember. The place was just too big and rambling and empty for one man alone, even with servants there. And Seymour, being a humble young man, didn’t care to have a lot of servants around anyway.
So he’d closed up the mansion and taken a room in a modest but well-kept boardinghouse, and that was where he was early that evening, packing for his trip to Texas.
He wasn’t quite sure what to put in his valise. What did one pack for a trip to an untamed wilderness? He had already put in shirts and underwear and a gray tweed suit. He planned to wear the brown tweed on the train.
His eyes moved to the sample case sitting in a corner of his room. It was fully packed already with examples of every line of merchandise carried by Standish Dry Goods, Inc. Seymour wondered how many stores there might be in Sweet Apple, Texas. Enough to justify the expense of a trip like the one on which his uncle was sending him? That seemed unlikely, but perhaps there were other towns in the vicinity where he could hawk the company’s wares. He could use Sweet Apple as his base of operations, he mused, and hire a buggy to travel to all the other settlements in the area.
Or perhaps he could rent a horse.
That thought made
a nervous frown appear on his face. He had never been on a horse in his life, but that was how Westerners got around, wasn’t it? From time to time he had read articles in Harper’s Illustrated Weekly about the Wild West and had seen the drawings there of cowboys riding huge stallions. On occasion he had even perused a few dime novels, although they seemed too frivolous to him with their breathless, breakneck tales of gunmen and outlaws and savages and beautiful young women who seemed to be constantly in need of being rescued from one deadly peril or another. For all their luridness, Seymour had no doubt that those stories conveyed an absolutely accurate portrait of what life in the West was really like.
As he thought about that, he closed his eyes and suppressed a groan of dismay.
What was he doing, going into that . . . that uncivilized milieu? He would never fit in, and his trip would be an unmitigated failure. He was sure of it.
But he couldn’t refuse. Uncle Cornelius, after all, was in charge of the company.
The instructions left by Seymour’s father had made that clear. Seymour had no choice but to follow Cornelius’s orders and make the best of the situation.
He put extra underwear in the valise, thinking that he might need it before his trip west was completed.
The soft knock on the door took him by surprise. He turned away from the bed where his open valise sat and said, “Who is it?”
The voice that answered was even more of a surprise. “Rebecca.”
Seymour’s eyes widened. What was she doing here? She had never visited him before. The very idea that she would show up now at his room was . . . well, unsettling, to say the least.
And yet a small tingle of pleasure went through Seymour at the sound of her voice. That was even more unsettling, he realized. He wondered briefly if he should send her away.
But he was too much of a gentleman to do that, and anyway, he didn’t want to.
Instead he said, “Just a moment,” and picked up his coat, which he had taken off earlier. He couldn’t receive a caller, especially a female one, in such an informal state. He slipped on the coat, tightened his tie, and went to the door.
Rebecca smiled at him when he opened it. “Hello, Seymour,” she said. She looked past him into the room. “Getting ready for your trip, I see.”
“Ah . . . yes.” Seymour stood in the doorway and didn’t budge. He slept in this room, after all. He couldn’t very well invite a young woman into it. A young, unmarried woman.
“Aren’t you going to ask me to come in?”
Why did she have to say that? Now Seymour’s chivalry had backed him into a corner. He swallowed, nodded, and said, “Of course. Please come in.”
Rebecca waited for a moment, then said, “You’ll have to step back before I can, Seymour.”
“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” He moved out of the doorway. She walked into the room. She was dressed as she had been at the office, only she had added a jacket and now had a small, stylish hat perched neatly on her honey-blond hair. As she moved past him, Seymour caught a faint whiff of her perfume, and the delicate scent made his pulse beat faster.
He left the door standing wide open. That was the way his landlady would want it—she didn’t really approve of her boarders having callers of the opposite sex— and that was the way Seymour wanted it, too. He believed it was always best in life to remove as many temptations to impropriety as possible.
Rebecca had a package of some sort in her hands. It was wrapped in brown paper, tied up with string, and about a foot long, six or eight inches wide, and three or four inches deep. Seymour had no idea what might be inside it. “I brought something for you,” Rebecca said as she held the package out toward him.
“What is it?” Seymour asked, making no move to take it just yet. Accepting presents from a young lady wasn’t really a proper thing to do.
“Something for your trip. Something you might need in Texas.”
Seymour frowned and shook his head. “I believe I already have everything I’ll need. But I certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness, Miss Jimmerson—”
She shoved the package at him again, thumping it against his chest this time.
“For God’s sake, take it,” she said.
Seymour had no choice but to do so. As he grasped the paper-wrapped package, he found that it was surprisingly heavy. He almost dropped it.
“Don’t open it now,” Rebecca went on. “But I want you to promise me that you’ll take it with you, Seymour. This is very important.”
“But . . . but what do I do with it once I get to Texas?”
“You’ll know. Believe me, if you need it—and I have a feeling you will—you’ll know.”
He started to shake his head and press the package, whatever it was, back on her, but the look on her face stopped him. He could tell how important this was to her. Something very near to desperation was visible in her eyes.
“All right,” he heard himself saying. “Whatever you wish, Miss Jimmerson.”
“What I wish is that you’d call me Rebecca just once. What I wish is—” The words had come out of her quickly, but she stopped short and drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Seymour. I didn’t want to place you in an awkward position by coming here this evening. And I have to go. I have to be somewhere else tonight. I have . . . an engagement.”
“Oh? For dinner?”
“Something like that.” She reached out and touched his hand as it held the package she’d given him. Her fingers were soft and warm and the feel of her touch made his breath hiss between his teeth. She went on. “Promise me you’ll take that with you and use it if you have to.”
“I . . . I suppose . . .” The nearness of her made Seymour’s head spin until he had trouble getting the words out.
“Promise,” she said.
“I promise,” he managed to say.
A smile that was sad somehow touched Rebecca’s lips. “All right. Thank you.”
She moved closer still, came up on her toes, and brushed those lips against his cheek. “Good-bye, Seymour. And good luck.”
The fact that she had kissed him shook Seymour to his core. But even though he was ashamed to admit it even to himself, he liked it. He liked it a lot. So much so that for a moment all he could do was blink his eyes and open and close his mouth. Finally he was able to say, “G-good-bye . . . Rebecca.”
She turned away to leave, but paused in the doorway and looked back at him.
“One more thing, Seymour, and this is very important, too. If you see your uncle before you leave Trenton . . . don’t tell him that I came here this evening.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll be seeing him, because the train leaves at eight twenty- seven in the morning, so I won’t be going to the office, and I doubt that Uncle Cornelius will come to see me off.” He was on firmer ground now. Concrete details like a train schedule always made him feel better. They weren’t as nerve-wracking as things like a pounding heartbeat and the delicate scent of perfume and the warmth of a woman’s hand....
“You have to promise me that, too.” Her tone was insistent.
“Of course. I won’t say anything to Uncle Cornelius, if I should happen to see him again before I depart.”
“Thank you. Good luck, Seymour.”
That was the second time she had wished him luck, he thought as she departed and he closed the door behind her. He was grateful, of course. Headed for the wild frontier as he was, he would take all the luck he could get.
He would also take whatever was in the package she had left with him, since he had given her word that he would. He frowned at it as he carried it over to the bed.
She hadn’t made him promise that he wouldn’t open it until he got to Texas, merely that he would take it along on the trip. So he gave in to his curiosity and began to untie the string holding the wrapping paper on the package.
When he got it loose, he pulled the paper away to reveal a plain wooden box with a hinged lid. The lid had a simple clasp and no lock. Seymour unfastened the clasp and
raised the lid.
He gasped in surprise as he stared down at the object resting inside the box on a bed of dark blue velvet that was shaped to hold it. The light from Seymour’s lamp reflected from polished, nickel-plated iron and what appeared to be hand-carved ivory plates fastened to the handle. No wonder the box was heavy, Seymour thought as his heart began to pound again, this time with fear.
Inside the box was a gun.
Chapter 8
Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves had been three days on the trail of the outlaw gang that had raided Buckskin when they spotted smoke rising on the southern horizon in front of them. That was one of the problems with West Texas—a fella could ride and ride and ride and not get anywhere. Everywhere was a hell of a long way from everywhere else. But now Matt and Sam appeared to be approaching civilization again.
Or at least what passed for civilization out here.
The raiders hadn’t attempted to hide their tracks. That would have been impossible anyway with such a large group. With every mile that passed under their horses’ hooves, the blood brothers had worried that they would come across the body of one or more of the women who had been taken prisoner back in Buckskin and carried off from the settlement. Those wolves in human form wouldn’t hesitate to kill the prisoners and toss them aside like broken dolls if they tired of the women. So far they hadn’t made any such grisly discoveries, and Matt and Sam were grateful for that. Evidently the outlaws were keeping their captives alive.
“Is that a town up there?” Matt asked as he squinted toward the distant smoke.
“I don’t think so. Looks more like a fort of some sort.”
Matt glanced over at Sam. “You mean an army fort?”
“No, more like a trading post. There appears to be an adobe wall around several buildings.”
“You can see that much without a spyglass?” Matt asked with a frown.
“Indian have eyes like hawk,” Sam said in a solemn voice.
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