“Anybody here ever heard of Gideon Midnight’s Authentic Wild West Extravaganza?”
“Sure! Seen it in—”
“You bet! Went to that show when—”
Amber raised her hands for silence, ignoring the loaded look she knew Rafferty was giving her. “Well, it just so happens I worked for Gideon not so long ago,” she continued, feeling her sideshow persona returning as though she were still working the crowds. “And if you promise me—if you promise me—you can abide by a five-minute limit and mind your manners, I’ll tell your fortunes or read the cards for you. I, gentlemen, am Madame Amber LaBelle, fortuneteller and seer into the future. And by the time somebody rigs me up a tent in that back corner, with a table and two chairs in it, I can be dressed in my real clothes, ready to tell each of you what lies ahead. But I want supper first, and a meal for my husband and his dog.”
As though a shot had been fired, the men rose from their places, laughing and talking. Jack, who’d watched Amber’s pitch with resigned awe, was almost wishing Carnahan would call a halt to the whole idea—for Amber’s sake, if nothing else. But the camp boss was grinning broadly.
“Well now, ain’t that somethin’!” he said with a chuckle. “The little gal’s a seer—and you’re married to her? If my wife was that purty, I wouldn’t let her outta the house.”
Jack chortled. “Amber’s not much of a homebody, actually. You sure this won’t cause any trouble among—”
“Tarnation, no! It’ll keep the orneriness under control,” Carnahan assured him. “You got a camp fulla hundred an’ fifty timber beasts who ain’t done a licka work since noon, you got trouble, unless you keep ’em fed and occupied. Pleased to have you folks. Set down and we’ll rustle up your supper.”
Within minutes the cook’s assistant cleared a spot at one of the tables and they were attacking plates of the plain but delicious food. “How is it?” Carnahan demanded with a grin.
Amber swallowed a mouthful of the best potatoes and gravy she’d ever tasted. “Absolutely divine,” she said with a contented sigh. “I never anticipated such a meal, especially since you weren’t expecting us.”
“Ole Sam’s a wonder in the kitchen. Has to be, or I couldn’t keep enough men workin’ for me to cut these trees all winter. Looks like they’re about ready for you,” he added with a nod to where a crude tent was being made from plaid blankets. “Any of these boys takes advantage of the situation or makes remarks, you let me know. Can’t have a bad attitude brewin’, when they’ll be pickin’ up saws and axes first thing tomorra.”
The camp boss ambled off, leaving them to finish their meal. “Hope to hell you know what you’re doing,” Jack murmured beneath the clatter of the dishes being cleared around them. “We could pay for the night, if need be. It’s not like you have to—”
“Why should you be the only one who earns our keep?”
Her doelike eyes teased him, and the excited flush on her face reminded him of the night they met, when the sly, winsome Madame LaBelle had caught his fancy—just as she would appeal to these men. “Figured you’d say that,” he replied quietly. “Just don’t take any chances. If one of these timber beasts grabs you, he could swat me off like a fly, you know.”
Amber reached across the table to take his hand, never doubting his ability to defend her. “I’d know where to kick him,” she replied with a chuckle. “And I thought if Maudie stayed with me, maybe you could be asking some of the men about the best way to go north from here. We could wander among these lakes and trees and never make it to Canada. And we’d probably never know it.”
He’d thought of that. And after Amber was dressed in her red-orange skirt and a provocative blouse, her smile shining like those gold necklaces and the locket she loved to wear, Rafferty looked among the men waiting in clusters at the tables. No doubt several of them knew the Minnesota wilds and would gladly give him directions, merely because he was associated with this exotic, mysterious lady.
As they talked among themselves in low, eager voices, they seemed a congenial enough lot: hardy, good-natured men who’d left the families they were supporting for months of back-breaking labor in temperatures that would become more grueling in the weeks ahead. Most of them smoked short corncob pipes or chewed tobacco. Their accents were a mixture of Irish, Scandinavian, French, and others he didn’t recognize, and most of them showed the stubble of new beards that wouldn’t get shaved during this stint in the wintry woods. He caught himself stroking the mustache that no longer graced his own face, and as he approached a couple of nearby loggers he decided to grow it back . . . wondered if Amber would like him in a full beard.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked them. “The name’s Jack Rafferty, and I’d like to bend your ear a little, if I may.”
The redheaded behemoth on the end of the bench scooted down with a toothy grin, while the smaller man across from him gestured that he should take a seat. “Must be quite a life, with such a ... fine-lookin’ woman,” the logger ventured with cautious enthusiasm.
“Amber’s a sight, isn’t she?” Rafferty agreed. “And it’s because of a promise I made her that I need you boys’ help.”
As he’d hoped, this confidence made them lean into the conversation with genuine interest, to the point that the shorter logger went to fetch materials to draw him a map.
“If it were me,” the big man beside him talked on, “I’d head toward Red Lake and try to find a trapper named Eddie Gastineau. Knows that northern territory like the back of his hand, and you can’t miss him. Looks a helluva lot like yours truly, because he’s some cousin twice removed—or whatever. Tell him Claude LeClerc sent you. My pal Shorty here says hello, too.”
Jack was about to thank him, but the words dropped dead in his mouth. A man was coming out of Amber’s tent wearing a big grin, and the logger ready to take his turn looked awfully familiar . . . had a deep scar in his cheek and revenge written all over his pug-ugly face. “Who’s that?” he growled.
LeClerc glanced toward the tent and then frowned. “Grizzly Fiske. They say he caught the wrong end of a mother bear’s wrath—and it didn’t make him any more fit to keep company with, neither.”
“Excuse me.”
Rafferty rose, the back of his neck prickling. It was the sore loser from his last poker game in Bemidji—he was sure of it—and as he hastily stumbled between pairs of huge booted feet extended into the aisles, he was relieved to hear Claude coming along, too.
“You got a gripe with that fellow, you better be warned he’s deadly with a knife,” the redhead’s voice came from behind him.
“He made a play for Amber a few days back,” Jack shot over his shoulder. “She doesn’t know it, though, and—”
A fierce snarling and then a loud yelp had every man in the room on his feet. Just as Rafferty reached the tent he was nearly knocked aside by a fast-moving weight that turned out to be Maudie, who had Fiske’s arm clenched in her jaw, and was propelling him away from Amber. Man and dog writhed on the cook shack floor, each making noises that signaled a fight to the death, while several loggers gathered around trying to grab one angry body or the other.
Jack rushed between the blanket flaps and was met by Amber’s horrified stare as she clasped the torn halves of her blouse. “He—he tried to—threatened to—but when Maudie saw his knife, she—oh God, Rafferty, he’s going to stab her!”
Amber flew from the makeshift tent, but Jack was close enough to catch her before she shoved between the broad backs huddled around the fight. “Stay out of this!” he ordered, and then he signaled to Shorty to keep an eye on her.
“By God, if you boys let that bastard kill my dog—” he cried, and then suddenly the bodies parted to let him through to where Maudie and the overgrown logger were rolling on the floor.
Blood was everywhere. The black and white collie yelped and lunged at Grizzly, this time at the man’s face—unaware that Fiske was raising a shiny silver blade, ready to plunge it through her red-soaked chest.
“Clear out, alla ya! I’ll have no fights in my camp!”
Just as Jack’s hands closed over his dog’s kicking, sticky-wet form—was that her blood, or Grizzly’s?—a torrent of tepid, soapy water made all three of them cry out in surprise and jump apart. He managed to scoot away with an enraged Maudie kicking against his ribcage, and he was damn glad to see Claude LeClerc grab the man she’d been attacking.
“What kind of yellow-belly threatens a lady and thinks he can get away with it?” the logger boomed, and the cook’s assistant, who’d tossed the dishwater on them, stood poised to bang the bucket on Grizzly’s head, if need be.
“I didn’t do no such—”
“Miss LaBelle didn’t tear her own blouse,” Carnahan pointed out. “Now drop that damn knife and tell us what happened in there, Fiske. I only give a man one chance to get it right—and then the lady’ll have her say.”
The logger grimaced at the crowd around him, struggling against his burly captor’s grasp, until the sickening crackle of bones forced him to drop his weapon. “Goddamn dog lit into me before—”
“Maude never attacks, unless she’s provoked,” Rafferty piped up. He was trying desperately to see if his dog was hurt, or if it was blood from Fiske’s numerous teethmarks smeared all over her. “Chrissakes, Fiske. If you didn’t like the way our poker game turned out, why didn’t you have the balls to come after me?”
A low murmuring went through the crowd and Todd Carnahan stepped between the opponents, glaring at each of them. Rafferty, Maude, and Fiske were all dripping with dishwater, splotched with blood, and it was apparent the logging boss would tolerate no more.
“You and your woman take that dog to the office!” he bellowed at Jack, “and Fiske, you go lookin’ elsewhere for work. Won’t have cowards with knives turnin’ on my men at the least little thing.”
“And how the hell am I to find a job when this redheaded ape broke my hand?” the man demanded shrilly. Fiske was still in LeClerc’s powerful grip, but no longer fighting him—and looking pretty pale around the edges.
“That’s your problem. I want the three of you—and that dog—cleared outta camp before breakfast.” Carnahan surveyed the scene with distaste, and then barked, “And whadda the rest of ya gawkin’ at? Clear out! Anybody who’s got ideas about fightin’ in my camp can be gone tomorra, as well! Save your energy for them trees!”
The lumberjacks were heading to the door without further comment, while Jack carried his dog to where Amber stood with Shorty. Feisty as Maude was, he doubted she’d gotten seriously hurt, but the color drained from Amber’s face when she saw the bloodied collie cradled in his arms.
“Oh, Jack, I never dreamed—it happened so fast—”
“She’s fine. Just a little messy,” Rafferty reassured her with a rueful grin. “You’re not the first woman Maudie’s defended, and her reaction tells me you must be worth your salt after all,” he teased. “Let’s go, before we wear out our welcome any further.”
“Here—you might want this,” Shorty said, offering him a piece of paper. “It’s the way to Red Lake, and that cousin of Claude’s can take you wherever you want to go. Wouldn’t waste any time, though. It’s been known to snow two feet at once before it lets up around here.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He saw the fear cross Amber’s face as she took the map, felt her revulsion as she watched Claude LeClerc lead Fiske toward the cook shack door, talking with the boss about locking the troublemaker into the smithy.
“Can’t have a damn slasher on the loose in the dark of night,” Carnahan was muttering. “Damn fine start to the timber season.”
The thought did nothing to reassure Rafferty as he pointed Amber toward the log office building across the snow-covered camp road. How had such a disaster developed so fast?
And what was to keep a vengeful Grizzly Fiske from stalking them, right along with that investigator, Watson?
Chapter 25
Watson raised his collar and tugged his hat brim lower against the blowing snow. Two days now he’d been trailing Rafferty and the LaBelle woman, and for the past few hours the pair had been barely-visible lumps of white on horseback, managing to stay just ahead of him. They knew he was here . . . knew, as he did, that it was only a matter of time, and that the sport had gone out of it. Yet they doggedly continued north.
He’d considered charging ahead to capture them, but something held him back. At times he’d been so close he could’ve shot their horses out from under them, but such a ploy was foolish—deadly, out here where they might need all the animals they had between them to make it to shelter.
And then there was the matter of a third rider, a man who skirted the edges of the trees, only to emerge now and again to watch Rafferty and his woman. Booth had gathered from the gossip at Camp Carnahan that this fellow might have his own vendetta and would bear careful watching—but all mouths clamped shut when he’d inquired about Jack and Amber’s destination. In this thickening blizzard he had to keep all three of them in sight or he’d never find their trail again.
So he, with Butch and a pack horse on a lead, trudged on through the thick whiteness that was defined only by deep green trees moaning in a wind that whipped viciously around him. If any of them stopped, they’d freeze to death. So they all plodded on.
Watson was no stranger to winter weather and its fickle nature; he’d grown accustomed to the cold, and knew that the monotony of these next hours would be his most formidable enemy. Images of Felicity Nunn kept him alert, warmed him in ways he’d be ashamed to show in public. Damn her for flashing that green-eyed smile at him! For playing upon his protective nature when she was hurt—and playing him for a fool when she wasn’t! She’d be a more lethal habit than whiskey if he were around her for any length of time, so it was best that he was tending this business alone and had sent her on her way, as well. It gave him no solace that his client had used him as much as he’d sought basic male release from her.
And as she haunted his thoughts, wearing her pale pink camisole with that perfect leg extended in unabashed invitation, Booth suddenly realized why he was reluctant to capture Jack and Amber.
For one thing, he’d heard in the logging camp that his quarry were married, though he had no idea when or where the ceremony had taken place. It didn’t surprise him that two such outlaws were sticking together, but legalizing their relationship before God and a justice of the peace implied more decency . . . more respect for each other than he’d wanted to think them capable of.
Respect was a word he could never associate with Felicity Nunn.
He still hadn’t figured her out, but he now knew that the slender, enticing blonde who’d been seducing him since they first met was not a woman to whom loyalty and truth mattered a great deal . . . which cast a suspicious light on everything she’d told him about why she wanted Jack back. He wished he’d heard more from his partner Scott since that first telegram, but this far north of any railway or telegraph lines, he had to rely upon gut hunches and his survival instincts.
Booth reminded himself, too, that at this point it wasn’t his place to worry about Felicity’s motives: he’d accepted her more-than-generous advance, so he was obligated to carry out the search she paid him for. But when he could force the sharp, sensual memories of Mrs. Nunn’s body to subside for a moment, his innate curiosity about her kept him awake in this numbing cold.
He squinted, sitting straighter in the saddle. Just ahead of Jack and Amber’s snow-covered forms he saw a structure of some sort—a log cabin, it was. And they were speeding up, their excited cries carrying on the wind as though this had been their destination all along. Remaining a cautious distance behind, Watson guided Butch into the camouflage of the forest’s edge. The cabin had a single window in front, and he wasn’t keen on being seen by its occupant when Rafferty went inside. While he paused, he remained a
lert for signs of the other rider, but more than an hour had elapsed since the fleeting figure had shown himself.
From this secluded vantage point, Booth observed the situation carefully. When the wind and snow weren’t gusting, he noted the column of smoke rising from the stone chimney—a sign the owner was home. Yet when Rafferty pounded on the drifted door, no one opened it. He watched as Jack led his gray and Amber on her bay around to the small lean-to attached to the cabin, trying not to let his own cold discomfort make him rush into following them. On a clear day the scene would’ve been picturesque, a quaint log home bounded on the east by majestic, snow-coated pines, while a vast uninterrupted plain of white stretched out in every other direction.
Rafferty and Miss LaBelle were now slogging through the drifts, arms about each other, as they returned to the door to pound on it again. The only sane thing would be to enter uninvited, and he was glad to see them do it.
“All right, Butch, let’s close in,” he murmured, although the horse was already inching along the edge of the trees. “May as well get this over with before anybody else shows up.”
His heartbeat accelerated; he slipped into that controlled yet heightened state he always attained when he was about to apprehend his prey. Humans and horses alike needed to rest, eat, and warm up before they pushed on, so he saw no point in drawing his gun or otherwise antagonizing Rafferty and his bride. Surrounded by miles of trees and snow, there was no place to run . . . and now that Jack was no longer eligible to remarry Felicity, this whole manhunt had lost some of its urgency.
One fact remained, however: Rafferty had killed Bitsy Sisser, and the law in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska wanted him for it. It was this aspect of the chase that made Booth think carefully as he secured Buck and his pack horse beside Rafferty’s mounts in the crude lean-to. This was no penny-ante philandering husband he stalked. It was a man who’d murdered a sporting woman, no matter how loving he acted toward the lady he was with now. He probably packed a knife like the one he’d planted in Bitsy’s heart, and he had to be watched every moment. There would be no room for error, no assuming he or Amber LaBelle could be believed, much less trusted, once prey and predator shared the same close quarters. And once the cabin’s owner returned ....
Outlaw Moon Page 27
