The Killing Look

by J. D. Rhoades

  Seeing her expression, Lin pointed to another shelf across the room. “Perhaps the books over there would be more to your liking.”

  Mei looked. The first thing she saw was a slender volume bound in red, lying on a nearby table. She picked it up. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches,” she read out loud. She looked at Lin. “Mr. Kwan reads books by the white devils?”

  The White Orchid shrugged. “He says he is trying to understand their minds. But they are a mystery.”

  Mei laughed. “I hear they say the same thing about us.” She took the book over to a well-stuffed armchair in one corner of the room and sat down. A nearby gas light fixture provided illumination.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Lin said as Mei opened the book.

  When she returned a half hour later, Mei was frowning. She looked up as The White Orchid entered the room. “This story is stupid,” she blurted out. “One white devil goes looking for another one, then runs into someone with a similar name who tells him a pointless story about other white devils cheating one another in a frog race. It’s ridiculous.”

  Lin shrugged. “As I say, who can figure them out? But Mr. Kwan has made his decision.”

  Mei closed the book and stood up, trying to will her knees to stop shaking. “Yes?”

  “He has a job for you to do.”

  “A…a job?” Mei couldn’t imagine what it could be. She had never harmed anyone in her life.

  “Yes,” Lin said. “He needs you to deliver an invitation.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Cade and Samuel arrived back at the house to find an enraged Hamrick waiting for them at the back door. “Where the hell have you two been?” he demanded.

  Cade swung down from the passenger seat of the carriage. “Early morning target practice, sir,” he said. “Getting Mr. Clayborne here accustomed to the use of the pistol.”

  Hamrick scowled. “Clayborne? Who…?” He looked at Samuel as comprehension dawned.

  Cade realized Hamrick had never bothered to learn Samuel’s last name. “Yes, sir,” Cade said. “Last night, Mr. Clayborne…Samuel…gave a good account of himself. I decided another gun hand would be useful.” He paused. “Actually, sir, not just useful. Necessary.”

  Hamrick looked over at Samuel, who was busy putting the horse away and acting as if he wasn’t listening. “You decided.” He didn’t look happy as he said it.

  “Yes, sir,” Cade said. “You put me in charge of your safety here. So, I reckoned I had some leeway to make decisions.”

  “I suppose,” Hamrick said. Then his shoulders stiffened, as if he was remembering he was supposed to be angry. “And was one of your decisions to leave us completely unguarded while you went off on your target practice?” His lip curled on the last two words, turning them into a sneer.

  At that point, Cade once again considered abandoning this whole mess, leaving this unhappy house and its puffed-up little lord and master behind. He’d dealt with strutting tyrants before, in the Army, because he’d had no choice. This was different. He could tell this one to go to hell and walk away without the fear of a court martial or a hanging. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wasn’t sure why. The ten dollars a week was surely part of it. But he felt a deeper sense of commitment than just that. He’d taken on a job, recruited another man into it, and something in him rebelled at the thought of just walking away. He straightened his back and looked Hamrick in the eye. He had to look down to do it. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “I made a calculated risk. The Chinese seem to be fond of attacking at night. Early morning seemed a good time to train.”

  “Train,” Hamrick said with the same derision. “Do you fancy yourself—?”

  “John,” a female voice said. Cade looked to the back door. Mrs. Hamrick was standing there, holding the kitchen door open. “Come to breakfast,” she said. She looked at Cade and nodded. “Mr. Cade.”

  Cade touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am.”

  “I will in a moment, my love,” Hamrick said. “I’m just having a word with Mr. Cade here.”

  She smiled sweetly. “It’s getting cold. You should come now.”

  Hamrick looked at her, then back to Cade. He clearly wanted to say something else, but his wife’s words, mild as they seemed, were imperative. He turned and followed her into the house.

  Samuel had come up to stand beside Cade. “I see you’re getting some idea of the lay of the land around here.”

  Cade shook his head. “I guess.” He turned to Samuel. “I had a talk with Mrs. Hamrick yesterday morning. She said she was the one who has the money here. Is that true?”

  Samuel nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “I don’t get it,” Cade said. “Why does she let him act the big man? Can’t a woman do business in her own name here?”

  Samuel shrugged. “She can. But like most places, it’s not easy. Maybe Hamrick greases the wheels for her.”

  “Well, the son of a bitch is oily enough, that’s for sure.”

  At that moment, Bridget appeared at the back door. “Are the two of ye goin’ ta stand there jawin’ all day, or are you gonna come in for your breakfast?”

  Cade smiled. “Now, how can I refuse such a gracious invitation?”

  Their breakfast was laid out on the long high table in the kitchen, a large silver bowl of scrambled eggs was flanked by a silver dish of fat sausages still popping and sizzling from the griddle and a plate of hot buttered toast. A large pot of hot coffee completed the feast. Considering Bridget’s apparent contempt for them both, it was a surprisingly generous meal, but if the Army had taught Cade anything, it was to never refuse a good meal, because there was no telling when you’d get another. Samuel seemed to share the same sentiment; when the two were done, there was nothing left but toast crumbs and the thin sheen of grease on the platter where the sausages had once been. They leaned back on their high stools, sighing contentedly.

  “Well, if you two layabouts are done stuffing your faces,” Bridget’s voice cut through their replete serenity, “I’ll be needin’ to clean up. Have the two of ye not got work to be about?”

  Too satiated to be annoyed, they slid down from the chairs. Cade turned to Samuel. “We do need to talk about how we’re going to handle things,” Cade said, then burped.

  Samuel hid a belch of his own behind his hand. “Like how we’re going to guard this house twenty-four hours a day while our employer wants to go rambling about the Coast at all hours?”

  “Yeah,” Cade said. “It’s a mystery, ain’t it?”

  “You might call it a conundrum, Mr. Cade.”

  Cade blinked. “A what?”

  Samuel flashed his teeth. “A confusing and difficult problem or question.”

  Cade laughed. “What the hell did you do, swallow a dictionary?”

  The smile faded. “Mr. Cade, I suspect you and I are alike in one thing.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “When someone forbids you from doing something, does it make you more determined than ever to do that thing?”

  Cade chuckled ruefully. “I guess so.”

  Samuel was deadly serious now. “I was forbidden to read.”

  Cade paused a minute, then nodded. “Okay. I get it.” He inclined his head. “Say, was that your dime novel I found in the parlor? The one about the…let me think…Yellow Chief?”

  Samuel looked away, clearly embarrassed.

  Cade laughed. He slapped Samuel lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mr. High Brows. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Mr. Cade?” a voice came from the kitchen door. Mrs. Hamrick was standing there. “May I have a moment?”

  “Of course, ma’am,” Cade said. He glanced at Samuel with a raised eyebrow. Samuel responded with the slightest shrug. Cade picked up his hat and started to put it on, then remembered his manners and let it dangle by his side as he followed Mrs. Hamrick out of the kitchen.


  ***

  He followed her into the front parlor. The sun was well up now, shining through the big bay windows facing the street as Mrs. Hamrick settled into the largest and most comfortable of the leather armchairs, pausing to arrange her skirts just so, like a queen preparing to address a petitioning subject. Cade stood, hat in hand, wanting very much to be somewhere else.

  Mrs. Hamrick waited a moment before beginning. “I understand you’re training Samuel in the use of weapons.”

  So that’s what this is about, Cade thought. He straightened his spine and looked her in the eye. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you think that’s wise?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be, ma’am?” Cade asked. Despite the excellent breakfast, he was still a little raw with exhaustion from too little sleep and too much worry, so his next words weren’t as measured as they might have been. “It wouldn’t have to do with the color of his skin, would it, ma’am?”

  She regarded him coolly. “Not in the slightest, Mr. Cade. Do you think so little of me?”

  “Ma’am,” Cade said, still too tired to dissemble, “I am frankly perplexed as to what to think of you at all.”

  The words hung in the air for a moment like the dust motes in the sunlight coming through the windows. Then Mrs. Hamrick chuckled.

  “Mr. Cade,” she said, “that is something I am not unhappy about.”

  He nodded. “I get it. You like being underestimated.”

  “I do.” She looked down and smoothed her skirts again. When she looked up, her eyes were serious. “In fact, I rely on it.”

  “Understood, ma’am. But you can see as how it might lead to things being a bit muddled. And this ain’t a time when things can really afford to be muddled. If you take my meaning.”

  “I’m not sure that I do.”

  Cade sighed. “Ma’am, may I sit down?”

  Her cold facade flickered for a moment. “Yes. Of course. I’m being rude.”

  “Thank you.” Cade took a seat in one of the fabric-covered chairs, his hat on his lap. “When I joined up to the Army,” he said, “the cavalry troop I was part of was put together by a fellow from my hometown. Well-to-do. Successful. He had the money to raise a unit, so, of course, he got elected colonel.” He looked at Mrs. Hamrick.

  “Go on,” she said in a tone that let him know her patience wasn’t infinite.

  Cade went on. “We also had a lieutenant. Had done a couple years at West Point. We never knew why he left, but he had it in his head he was a professional military man.” Cade shook his head as he remembered. “Everywhere we rode, they were bickering and arguing about what to do next.”

  “And in this parable,” Mrs. Hamrick said, “I suppose I’m the stupid colonel with the money and no brains.”

  Cade shook his head. “As parables go, it’s not a perfect match. Especially since the colonel wasn’t stupid. Neither of them were. That was the problem.”

  She leaned back in the chair. “Go on.”

  Cade took a deep breath. “We got ambushed by a detachment of Reb infantry. They opened up on us while we were in column, riding down a dirt road somewhere in that godawful maze of Virginia woods. It was a perfect killin’ box. Seemed like we were gettin’ hit from everywhere.” He swallowed as the memory came flooding back to him. The terror, the screams, the acrid smell of gunpowder on the light breeze they’d so recently welcomed as a respite from the oppressive heat and relentless insects… He shook the memory off and looked at Mrs. Hamrick. Her expression had thawed slightly as she noticed his distress. He pulled himself back together to finish the story. “The colonel and the lieutenant were arguing right up until the same Reb cannonball took off the top of both their heads.” Cade stopped, suddenly realizing how inappropriate this story was for this sunlit drawing room in a fancy house in San Francisco. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  But his audience didn’t seem offended or shocked. She was leaning forward, her dark brown eyes riveted on his. “And then?” she said. “Clearly you got out. How?”

  “We had a sergeant,” Cade said. “Crusty old—” he stopped himself, “—crusty old veteran of the Mexican War. He kicked our—he got us organized. Got us out of there.”

  She leaned back, her eyes shrewd. “And so, the point of this story is that you…and only you…are the crusty old veteran with the experience to get us out of this mess?”

  “No, ma’am,” Cade said. “Because I’m not completely sure of what mess exactly we’re in. What I’m tryin’ to express is that I need to know who I’m supposed to take orders from.” He stood up, picking up his hat and slapping it against his thigh in agitation. “I mean, first, I’m supposed to guard Mr. Hamrick. Then I get here and I find there’s also a threat to you and your daughter. But I can’t look after both, because Mr. Hamrick…well, he goes off on his, ah, business trips. So, if I go with him, I leave you and your little girl alone.” He realized how heated up he was getting and sat back down, rubbing his temples. “Ma’am, whichever one of you I have to ask for them, I need more men.”

  “Hmmm,” Mrs. Hamrick said. “And did you have anyone in mind? Men you trust completely?”

  Cade thought for a moment. “I got some ideas. Frenchy Terrenoire, maybe. Or Wyoming Andy Grant. Dead shots, both of ’em, and you can depend on ’em to stick in a fight. They’re men I’d want backing me…us…up.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Hamrick said. “You have an interesting circle of friends. And are any of these killing gentlemen immediately available here in San Francisco?”

  Cade sagged back into his chair. “No, ma’am,” he sighed. “I’d have to look for them. And last I heard, Frenchy had gone back to Carolina and Andy married some kind of heiress.”

  “So, there’s no one in San Francisco that you trust?”

  Cade shook his head. “I’m a stranger in a strange land, ma’am.”

  “It seems, then, that you’ll have to make do with what you have.” She twined her fingers in her lap. “Tell me the rest of your story, Mr. Cade. How did your sergeant get you out of the ambush?”

  Cade ran his fingers through his hair. “Only way to get out of an ambush, ma’am, is to attack into it.” She inclined her head quizzically. “Charge straight at it,” he explained.

  She nodded. “Perhaps that’s your best strategy, then.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “If you sit back and wait for our enemy to come, they’ll always have the advantage. Maybe you should take the fight to them.”

  Cade chewed that over for a moment. “Only problem,” he said, “is that I’m not completely sure who the enemy is. Other than someone called the Green Dragon Tong. But I don’t know anything about them.”

  “That’s your first task, then, Mr. Cade. Find out as much about our enemy as you can. Then, perhaps, you can see your strategy more clearly.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stood up. “I guess I better get to work, then.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He started to leave, then turned. “Pity the Army doesn’t take women, ma’am. You’d have made a fine colonel. Maybe even a general.”

  She smiled that enigmatic smile. “Thank you, Mr. Cade. But let me let you in on a little secret.” She leaned forward. “A woman in this world has to learn strategy more quickly than any military man. Unless she wants to be little better than a slave.”

  He nodded. “I see your point.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Cade encountered Samuel in the hallway. The first thing he noticed was the smile on his face. Then he noticed the reason for it. He nodded. “I see the little tailor’s arrived.” Samuel was dressed in a suit so new it still had chalk marks from where Simonson had made final adjustments.

  “Yes, he has,” a sour voice said from behind Samuel. Simonson stepped out from where he’d been standing, concealed by Samuel.

  Cade nodded to him, his face reddening with embarrassment. “Morning, Mr. Simonson.” He looked back at Samuel. “Got M
r. Clayborne kitted out real fine.” He lowered his voice. “Includin’ the other thing we talked about?”

  Simonson nodded. “Show him,” he said.

  Samuel reached beneath his coat and withdrew a revolver with a short barrel.

  “Colt Pocket Police Model,” Simonson said, still looking unhappy about it. “I chose it because it makes a better fit for this…gentleman’s smaller hands.”

  Samuel frowned. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “Leave it,” Cade said. He addressed Simonson. “You seem to know your shooting tackle pretty well.”

  Simonson didn’t lose his scowl, but he nodded. “Since you intimated that your duties involved personal protection, I’ve provided you with a pair of coach guns.” He went down the hallway to the open trunk Cade could see a few feet behind and returned with a pair of stubby-barreled shotguns. Cade took one and looked it over.

  “Mr. Simonson,” Cade said, “you are a wonder.”

  Simonson smiled. “Let’s just say that it pays to have a diverse inventory.”

  “How diverse are we talkin’ about?” Cade asked.

  Simonson looked at him, his eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t know you that well, sir. Therefore, I pray you’ll forgive me if I’m a little vague. Let me just say that I can obtain just about anything you might require for your current occupation, or any other. And if not, it’s likely I can direct you to someone who can.”

  “Good to know,” Cade said. “And by the way, I’m sorry about the ‘little tailor’ crack. You do good work, sir, and I regret insultin’ you on account of your size.” He extended a hand. “I hope we’re square.”

  Simonson looked at the hand expressionlessly, then extended his own hand and took it. “Apology accepted,” he said stiffly. He let the hand go, rolled his shoulders as if shaking something off, and grimaced. “I’m a man of business. A man of business can’t afford to hold grudges.”