Native Hawk (California Legends Book 3)

by Glynnis Campbell

  Catalina was tempted to run up to the room to warn Drew that someone was looking for him. But that would likely lead the stranger right to him.

  So instead, with as much nonchalance as possible, she filled a tray of glasses with sarsaparilla. Then, grabbing her purse, she ambled up the stairs with the refreshment for the ladies on the balcony. From here, she could keep her eye on the man. If anything happened, she’d be ready.

  Chapter 31

  Jasper swirled the sarsaparilla in his glass. He’d come to the right place. These ladies knew something about the half-breed.

  They weren’t going to give him up easily. They were protecting him, probably because, as the town sheriff had told him, one of the girls was the filthy redskin’s bride. He’d bet it was that foreign lady. She was wearing a wedding ring.

  The little miss should be grateful, Jasper decided. He’d come to save her from the shame of having a half-breed husband.

  In actual fact, if it were up to Jasper, he’d geld them all. The damned mixed bloods were polluting the white race.

  Jasper washed away the bitter taste of injustice with another drink.

  He was a patient man. He’d sit here sipping sarsaparilla all night if he had to. Sooner or later, his quarry would show up. He was sure of it.

  No sooner did he settle in for a long wait than a plump little auburn-haired tart sidled up to him. She was so friendly that if he hadn’t moved his leg out of her way at the last instant, he was sure she would have perched herself on his knee.

  “What’s your name, darlin’?” he asked.

  “Amanda,” she cooed. Then she glanced conspiratorially around the room and bent close. Her eyes glittering, she whispered, “I’ve got somethin’ you want.”

  That might be true. She had mischief in her eyes and a little extra meat on her bones. But his flag had only been able to fly at half-staff since his wife passed. Besides, he was on duty.

  “Not now, ma’am,” he said.

  Undeterred, she toyed with the buttons on his shirt and murmured, “I know where the half-breed is.”

  His eyes widened. Now he was getting somewhere. “Is that so? And are you gonna tell me?”

  She gave him a simpering smile. “How much is it worth to you?”

  He grabbed her forearm and flattened his eyes. He hated uppity women. Peeling back his duster, he showed her the butt of his revolver. “How about you tell me, and I don’t shoot you in the face?”

  She squeaked in panic, then started stumbling over her words, which came out thin and whispery. “He’s…he’s…he’s…up-, upstairs.”

  “Which room?”

  “The…the s-, second one on the…on the right.”

  He glanced over her head, locating the second room. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.” He let go of her arm, and her knees buckled. Catching herself on the chair, she limped off.

  Jasper finished off his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He gave his pistol a pat, even though he knew it was there…and loaded. Then, keeping an eye on the second story room, he eased away from the table, stood up, and headed for the stairs.

  He was met at the foot of the stairs by the madam.

  “You ain’t goin’ up there,” she said. “Not without payin’ me first.”

  He knew better. The madam wasn’t going to let him up there at any price. So he played his trump card. Hooking his thumb in the lapel of his duster, he pulled it back to show her his badge.

  Her face fell. He could see she still wanted to block his way. But she was smart enough to realize the madam of a whorehouse didn’t dare tangle with the law.

  Still, the glimmer in her eye told him she wasn’t quite done fighting. She opened her mouth to shout out a warning.

  Fortunately, he caught it in time. He drew his six-gun and shoved it into her stomach. She choked back her cry.

  “Out o’ my way,” he mumbled. “And if you don’t want your girls shot, you’ll keep quiet.”

  She faltered back against the stair rail and let him pass.

  He took his time climbing the stairs, keeping his gun under the flap of his duster. After all, there was no reason to get anyone else involved. Men were still drinking and playing cards. The ladies on the balcony were still displaying their wares. Hell, his own boys were in one of these rooms, getting their pistols polished. He’d just settle the score behind closed doors.

  Jasper figured the half-breed was probably knocking boots with one of the shady ladies. So when he forced open the door and found the man alone in a tub, he was taken aback for a moment.

  The half-breed dove for the nightstand, and Jasper raised his pistol.

  But the half-breed’s hands came up empty. Whatever he was looking for wasn’t there. He spat out what Jasper assumed was an Injun curse. Then, raising his hands and hanging his head, he stepped from the tub, naked and dripping.

  Jasper could have shot him right then. He should have. But even though he’d spent days on the trail, hunting the man responsible for his son’s death, there was something about shooting anyone that naked and helpless that made him hesitate.

  That moment of hesitation cost him everything. He took a step into the room. In the next instant, he heard the unmistakable click of a gun cocking behind his head.

  “Stop.”

  He froze. It was a woman. He wasn’t afraid of a woman.

  Catalina wasn’t afraid of the big bear. She had Drew’s gun in her hand. She might not have shot a man before. But she had shot a hole in the floor. She knew what to do.

  Behind her, sensing danger, the ladies retreated to the safety of their rooms with soft cries of dismay.

  Catalina’s hand was steadier than she expected. But determination did that to a person. And she was quite determined that the big, bad man would not shoot her beloved.

  “Cat, no!”

  From around the man’s big shoulder, she could see Drew. He was still wet from his bath and completely nude. He had his hands above his head and a look of desperation on his face.

  “Put the gun down, Cat!”

  She hesitated. He shouldn’t talk to her like that. Now her hands were quivering and indecisive. Still, she didn’t lower her weapon.

  “Cat, he’s a lawman, a sheriff. You can’t shoot him. They’ll hang you.”

  She blinked in surprise. A sheriff? What did a sheriff want with Drew?

  “That’s right, ma’am,” the stranger murmured. “So you’d best…”

  She jabbed the back of his head with the barrel. “I do not care if he is the Duca di Spoleto,” she bit out. “I came halfway around the world to find you, Drew Hawk, and I am not about to let you get shot again. One bullet in your body this month is enough.”

  Drew’s gaze softened just enough to let her know that her words had moved him.

  Then, to her surprise, the sheriff started chuckling. “Oh, I don’t mean to shoot him, ma’am. Is that what you thought?”

  Catalina swallowed. She knew better than to trust him, even if he was a man of the law. Men often said one thing and did another.

  “No,” the sheriff said, “I’m just here to collect him so’s he can have a fair trial, that’s all.”

  Catalina tightened her grip. “A fair trial?” she challenged. “For a half-breed? There’s no such thing as a—”

  Before she could brace herself, the man’s hand came around and seized the barrel of the pistol, wrenching it aside. The reflexive shot she fired missed his head and hit the wall. And then he ripped the gun out of her grip.

  “Cat!” Drew’s voice rang out over the suddenly silent salon.

  The brute wheeled and gave her a hard shove. Her spine struck the balcony railing with paralyzing force and bent her backward. Everyone on the ground floor gasped. Then he took aim.

  She heard the shot. But she didn’t feel it.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl. She blinked once, and it felt like it took forever.

  Drew had told her what it was like to be hit by a bullet. At first
there was no pain. Later, he said, the burning had come.

  She was numb. There was a queer ringing in her ears, and beneath that sound, she could hear her own heart beating.

  That was good, wasn’t it? Her heart was still beating. But for how long? She was afraid to look down, to see where the bullet had hit her, afraid of the blood and the hole that might look jagged and empty, like the hole she’d shot in the floor.

  But as her eyes remained fixed on the ominous gray barrel bearing down on her, she saw it begin to waver. Then she moved her focus beyond the pistol to the stranger’s face.

  He blinked twice, looking puzzled. Then, as the barrel began to droop, his arm lowered, and she saw his throat.

  At first, to Catalina’s eyes, he appeared to be wearing a brilliant red silk poppy on a lady’s choker. After a moment, she realized it wasn’t silk at all. It was blood.

  She hadn’t been shot. He had.

  The pistol fell slowly from his fingers, seeming to float through the air. He moved his hands to his throat, trying to stop the deadly flow. But ribbons of red streamed through his knuckles as he opened his mouth in a silent scream.

  Slowly, gradually, he sank to the floor, smearing the wall behind him with stripes of his blood.

  As if from very far away, she heard Miss Hattie’s voice. “Catalina! Catalina! Are you all right?”

  Clinging to the balcony railing, Catalina turned in the direction of the voice. It felt like she was moving through molasses. Miss Hattie stood below her on the stairs. She was holding a pistol.

  “Cat!” Drew called.

  Slowly, Catalina looked back over her shoulder. He was standing in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. For an absurd moment, she wondered why he didn’t go put some trousers on. After all, the door was wide open.

  It was the real and naked relief in Drew’s eyes that finally woke her up and brought her out of the lethargic fog. And when he rushed over to her, stepping over the body…

  She lowered her eyes to the ground for only an instant…and wished she hadn’t.

  She started wheezing in horror.

  The man lay twitching on the floor. Blood gurgled out of his throat. His face was red and sweaty. His hands clawed at his chest. And his eyes were glassy with disbelief.

  And then Drew was there to block it all, taking her in his arms, burying her head against his chest.

  “It’s all right now, Cat. Don’t think about it. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

  At first, she couldn’t stop shivering. Even when he stroked her hair and murmured soothing words in his breathy native tongue, she kept trembling, unable to piece together what had just happened.

  “It’s all over now, Cat,” he whispered. “You’re safe. He can’t hurt you. He can’t hurt anyone.”

  Eventually, her heart slowed, and she could breathe without rasping.

  Downstairs, the men started up their quiet conversation again, speculating over who had been shot and why.

  Miss Hattie summed it up for them, showing them her pistol. “Out-o’-towner messin’ with my girls.”

  They seemed to believe that explanation and went back to playing cards.

  One by one, the upstairs doors opened, with the ladies and their clients tenuously peeking out to see if it was safe. A few of the ladies ogled Drew.

  Catalina, struck by a sudden wave of possessiveness, pushed him back inside the room. He obliged her by putting on his trousers.

  Miss Hattie swept along the balcony and knocked on Mary’s door. “Young man, you’d best come out.”

  A moment later, a bearded man emerged with a frown, pulling up his suspenders. His frown dissolved when he saw the grisly remains of the sheriff.

  “Pa!” he yelped. “What happened? Who did this?”

  Then he banged hard on Sophie’s door. “Harvey! Get out here!”

  Harvey came out boiling mad, buttoning his trousers. “What do you…” His face crumpled when the first man pointed to the body. “No. Oh no.”

  Miss Hattie showed them the pistol. “Now you listen, boys. Your daddy did somethin’ real bad. He shot at a woman, and he shot at an unarmed man. He deserved what he got.”

  The bearded man looked like he was foaming at the mouth. “You done this? You?”

  When he started coming toward Miss Hattie, she leveled the gun at him, stopping him in his tracks.

  “I can shoot two men as easy as one,” she said.

  “No, Jim, don’t do it,” Harvey begged. “Don’t get yourself shot. Don’t leave me alone.”

  Jim spat on the floor. “You’re gonna hang for murder,” he threatened Miss Hattie. “My daddy was a sheriff.”

  “Who was shot with your gun,” she told him. “And I got a salon full o’ happy regulars who’ll swear it was in your hands at the time.”

  The men below voiced their agreement.

  “So unless you want to hang for his murder,” she told them, “you’d best get dressed and get out o’ my town. You can take your daddy with you if you like or leave him here.”

  There was a bit of an argument over that. Harvey wanted to take him back to Shasta. But Jim said he’d be rotten by then. In the end, after charging Miss Hattie to give him a proper burial, they decided to leave him.

  Long after they’d gone, Miss Hattie glared down at the dead sheriff and muttered, “That’s the only way that son o’ the devil could possibly ever wind up in Paradise.”

  Then she sat down on the stair step with the pistol on her lap and rested her head in her hands.

  Catalina sat down beside her. “You saved my life.”

  She shrugged it off. “He ain’t the first man I shot. Prob’ly won’t be the last.”

  Catalina only knew she was grateful Miss Hattie had fired the gun when she had. A split-second later and…

  She shuddered at the thought.

  “Truth is, Catalina,” Miss Hattie said, “I’ve about had it with this business. I’m gettin’ too old for this kind o’ calamity.”

  “Oh, Miss Hattie, you are not old.”

  Miss Hattie patted her knee. “You’re a fine young lady, Cat. You’ve got a good man and a bright future. Me? I got nothin’ but this den of iniquity. When I die, I’m gonna be meetin’ up with all the fellas I shot, ’cause I sure ain’t gettin’ into heaven.”

  Catalina frowned. That wasn’t right. The madam was a good person.

  Miss Hattie gazed around the room at the red wallpaper and the crystal chandeliers, the card tables and the mahogany bar, the big mirror on the wall and the overstuffed chairs in the salon.

  “You know, if it weren’t for my girls needin’ to make a livin’, I’d close down The Parlor tomorrow.”

  Catalina didn’t know what to say to that. It was true that The Parlor was a bordello, a place that catered to the sinful appetites of men. But she had friends here. She couldn’t imagine what Anne and Emily would do if Miss Hattie closed down The Parlor.

  Chapter 32

  Drew spit in his palms and got a good grip on the crate. “You ready?”

  Across from him, Chase nodded and hefted up his end.

  The ladies at The Parlor leaned over the balustrade, watching with interest as the twins hauled the heavy crate, step by step, up the stairs of The Parlor.

  “Don’t you ladies have gentlemen waitin’ for you?” Miss Hattie asked.

  Most of them reluctantly returned to their rooms.

  “What’s in here anyway, a railroad safe?” Chase asked with a grunt.

  “You’ll see,” Drew replied.

  It had taken two weeks, but the shipment had finally come in.

  At Drew’s suggestion and with Miss Hattie’s permission, Catalina had taken the day off and gone to the Parker Ranch to visit Claire. When she returned, there would be a splendid surprise in her room.

  Earning the money to buy it had been challenging, especially once Sheriff Campbell cornered Drew with an ultimatum.

  It seemed that after the shooting death of Sheriff
Jasper Brown by one of his sons—according to witnesses, though no one could prove it—Sheriff Campbell had done some investigating of his own. He’d made inquiries about a certain related incident at the Winsome Saloon in Shasta where the sheriff’s youngest son Billy had been killed. The bartender admitted it had looked like an accident to him—an unlucky crack on the head—but Jasper, convinced the half-breed gambler had killed his boy, had come looking for Drew Hawk in Paradise.

  It was a sticky business. A person could argue that Drew wasn’t exactly innocent in all this. There was also some mention of Miss Hattie having confiscated the boys’ guns. But Sheriff Campbell said he’d be willing to overlook some of the details and cover for Drew on one condition…

  Drew had to play poker with him. The sheriff was still pining over his lost ladylove and convinced he was going to win back his money and his girl. No matter how Drew tried to persuade him that gambling was no way to impress Maggie Ellen, the sheriff insisted it was what he wanted to do.

  Naturally, Drew had to agree…and he had to lose. He’d spent a week cheating—folding when he had a straight flush, betting a fortune on a pair of eights, accidentally letting the sheriff take a good gander at his cards—until he finally repaid every penny he’d profited.

  Unfortunately, it had taken a toll on the savings he was trying to amass for his wedding. And he wasn’t winning enough off of other players to make up for that. It seemed like it’d be months before they could afford to get married.

  In the end, it was the brilliant Miss Hattie who’d come through for him.

  He’d been standing on a step ladder one morning while Cat was out, bringing down the crystal chandelier for her to polish when the madam said, “You know, I never returned those two pistols to the Brown boys.”

  Drew hesitated, chandelier in hand.

  “You aren’t thinkin’ o’ clearin’ your conscience, are you?” If she returned the murder weapon, she’d have no leverage over the sheriff’s sons. “’Cause those boys might come lookin’ to avenge their—”

  “Hell, no.” She reached her arms up to take the chandelier, setting it gently on the carpet. Then she dusted off her hands. “I got that revolver off o’ their daddy too.”