“Oh, my.”
“Just sit still.”
Whiteoak followed that order for all of three seconds before saying, “This is a nice house. A little sparse, though. I’m surprised you allow me here at all, considering how distasteful you seem to find me.”
“Would you rather I bang on a doctor’s door in the middle of the night? Then again, from what I’ve seen so far, it seems that’s the only time you’re out and about. Just because I won’t have you bleeding to death, don’t get any funny ideas, Mister Whiteoak.”
“That’s Professor, if you please.”
Lyssa announced the fact that she’d found the wound responsible for the bloodstains by pressing her finger against it.
“Damn!” Whiteoak yelped. “If that’s how you treat every man who isn’t your brother, it’s no wonder you haven’t found a husband.”
“To be honest, I did have some other ideas for you once I got you alone, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“Why?” Whiteoak asked.
“You talk too much and say the wrong things. It makes you much less desirable.”
“I’m sure I can change your mind,” Whiteoak purred.
“Maybe I should have left you in that alley,” she grumbled.
“You wouldn’t have done such a thing,” Whiteoak said with utmost confidence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean you don’t let anything lie. You charge into distraction headfirst with gun drawn,” Whiteoak replied.
“I heard the shots and so I went to see what might be behind them.”
Stretching his arm up a bit more as Lyssa cleaned off his wound with a wet cloth, Whiteoak watched the young woman’s face as he pointed out, “Most people would have run in the other direction.”
“Maybe,” she replied as she uncovered a gash in Whiteoak’s flesh that looked as if it had been opened by an eagle’s talon. “But I’m not most people. When we were kids, I was often the one stopping fights between other children while Byron ran for help.”
“Also, more recently, you were taught by a lawman.”
She stopped what she’d been doing for a moment and looked up to meet the professor’s gaze and then returned to her task. “My brother told you about my aspirations, did he?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t taught in a formal sense, but I did learn a lot from observing. I wish Byron wouldn’t say so much about me when I’m not around.”
“Don’t blame it all on him. I might have figured it out on my own from watching you in action.”
“I was married to a lawman some years ago back in Topeka.”
“Really? Byron didn’t mention that part.”
In a softer, sweeter tone, Lyssa said, “Because he didn’t know.”
Whiteoak started to turn so he could face her more directly, but was held in place by a portion of skin that felt as if it had been snagged on a fishhook. “What are you doing to me?” he screeched.
“Just a few quick stitches.”
“Stitches?”
“You were shot,” Lyssa replied. “You’re lucky this is all you need.”
“Are you qualified to sew stitches in a man?”
“I know how to sew well enough.”
“I know how to sew!” Whiteoak bellowed. “That doesn’t make me a doctor!”
The next time the needle punctured his skin, it was somehow more painful than the others. “If you can sew, then you can see to your own damn stitches.”
Since he couldn’t squirm anymore without tearing at his own skin, Whiteoak collected himself and tried to catch his breath. “How do you even know I need stitches?”
The professor wasn’t currently interested in looking at her so she leaned over to fill his field of vision. “Are you honestly asking me that question?”
“Yes. You are not a physician.”
“I have eyes and I see you’re cut open badly enough to need stitches. Now stop being a baby and let me do what needs to be done.”
Blinking quickly and lifting his chin slightly, Whiteoak asked, “Can I at least have something to drink? Possibly some whiskey to dull the pain?”
“You have the pain tolerance of a small child.”
“I served in the army, I’ll have you know.”
“Were you ever wounded?”
Whiteoak’s mouth hardened into a straight line. “I was.”
“Let me guess,” Lyssa said as she continued to sew his skin together. “You were knocked unconscious and woke up when the doctor’s work was done.”
“You are mostly correct and it is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“No,” she said with only a slight chuckle. “There isn’t. I’m almost done here, but I imagine the skin’s a bit raw. Do you still want that whiskey?”
“No,” Whiteoak tersely replied. “I can barely feel the stitches anyway.”
Lyssa kept working, tactfully ignoring the winces and suppressed grunts from her patient whenever she pierced his skin with the needle. As promised, she didn’t have many more to do and she was soon tying off the last of them.
“How could Byron not know you were married?” Whiteoak asked.
Her voice was soft and a little sad when she replied, “There was a few years when he preferred to stay away from the rest of his family. I don’t want to go into the ugly details, but let’s just say I didn’t blame him. We all lived separately for those years, during which I lived in Omaha and married a lawman.”
“He mentioned Wichita.”
“That’s where I went after my husband died,” she told him. “I was in a bad way, so I went to Wichita where things got worse. That’s when Byron came back and decided to take care of me for a while. I didn’t make things easy for him, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, I was a real nuisance to anyone and everyone.”
“That’s the sort of trouble Byron was talking about,” White-oak said. “I imagine you were a real pistol. Still are, as a matter of fact.”
Smiling, Lyssa said, “Speaking of trouble, I hope something was accomplished after all that trouble you and my brother got into tonight.”
“I learned a lot.”
“Other than what my brother told you about me?”
“My lady, not everything that goes through my mind has to do with you.”
“Oh,” she said while giving the final stitch one last tug. “Excuse me.”
Whiteoak clenched his teeth, unable to keep from grunting louder when he was surprised by the painful pull on the thread holding his flesh together. “That bank is going to be hit again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the bank is going to be robbed.”
“It already was robbed.”
“Whatever those outlaws were after,” Whiteoak explained, “they didn’t get it. Jesse Nash is still in town. And if he’s still in Barbrady, that means he’s still got work to do. Him sticking around for any other reason doesn’t make sense.”
“What if he intends on breaking his partner out of jail?”
“Men like him aren’t so loyal,” he told her.
Gently washing off the wound, Lyssa muttered, “You know from personal experience, I’m sure.”
“Yes. From personal experience. A man who travels and trades as much as I do has to deal with all sorts of folks, reputable and otherwise. Also, if Nash intended on a jailbreak, I doubt he’d be meeting with the likes of George Halstead.”
“Junior or Senior?”
“Is one of them a bank robber?” Whiteoak asked.
“Well . . . no.”
“Then what’s the difference?”
Lyssa put her needle and thread away so she could clean up the rest of the supplies she’d used to help Whiteoak. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“As well you shouldn’t.”
She shook her head while letting out a tired sigh. “I didn’t like it when Byron started acting as a courier in the first place. He said I was just fretting for no reason, but I always
thought that anyone willing to pay so much just to deliver papers from one town to another had to be up to no good.”
“Your instincts were correct this time.”
“And I don’t even know what all the fuss was about,” she continued as if talking to herself. “There wasn’t much of anything on those papers anyway.”
“Wait. You know what’s on those papers?” Whiteoak asked.
Lyssa nodded.
Leaning on the edge of the chair, Whiteoak said, “The papers that those men tried to take from him before Byron got to town?”
“Yes. I . . .” She glanced toward the door. Even though there was nobody standing there, she lowered her voice when she said, “I told Byron it couldn’t be anything good in those bundles, but he said it was only papers.” Lyssa stood up and wrapped her arms around herself as if the room had suddenly grown cold. Walking to a window she looked outside at nothing in particular and continued, “He insisted it was business as usual. Papers needed to be delivered.”
Whiteoak, sensing he was drawing closer to something truly big, stood up and cautiously approached her. “Yes?” he prodded.
“Normal papers are mailed, I told him. Normal papers are taken by normal couriers on trains or stagecoaches. They’re not tucked away and hidden so they can be delivered at a higher fee and nearly stolen by armed men who should be after money or something of real value. The whole arrangement seemed suspicious. I suppose it was mostly instinct.”
“And so?”
“And so . . . I looked at them.”
“At the papers, you mean?”
“That’s right,” she said. “When he got here that first night, I took a look at them to see what my brother had gotten himself into. I wanted to see what was so important that armed men would try to take it from him.”
“And what did you find?” Whiteoak caught himself leering hungrily at her in anticipation of Lyssa’s response. When she turned to look at him, he quickly pulled back a bit and relaxed his expression into something less wolfish.
“It wasn’t much,” she said. “He wore a money belt with some cash and one other piece of paper.”
“What was on the paper?”
“I really shouldn’t. After everything that’s happened . . .”
“I’ve been shot at too, you know.” Lifting his arm, Whiteoak winced in exaggerated agony while gesturing to the spot on his side bearing the freshly placed stitches. “I was wounded. More than once, actually. I’m in this. We all are. The only way to come out of this in one piece is for us to know what we’re dealing with.”
“That’s if you intend on fighting.”
“I believe the fight has been brought to me, instead,” Whiteoak scoffed. “Me and your brother.”
“We could all leave town and put whatever dirty business is being done here behind us.”
“Is that what a peace officer would do?”
“Why would that matter to me?” Lyssa asked, even as a twitch in the corner of one eye told the professor that it mattered to her very much indeed.
“You’re not the kind of woman who picks up and runs when there’s trouble, just like I’m not the sort of man who would run from anything, either.”
“Really? Aren’t you the same man who lives with all of his possessions in the back of a wagon?”
“That is my career,” Whiteoak replied. “Facing adversity head-on is my way as I believe it’s yours.”
While his words may have been more than a little dramatic, their effect on Lyssa was undeniable. She turned away from the window and crossed her arms into a more severe posture as she faced the professor eye-to-eye.
“What would you do if there was a chance to face whatever is going on here?” she asked skeptically. “Almost get yourself killed again? Maybe even succeed at it? Or would you get my brother killed instead?”
“I never asked your brother to do anything. He’s simply following his instincts, which are most likely telling him the same thing as yours and mine.”
“Which is?”
“That when powerful men like this Mister Halstead and the other rich old men here in town lock horns, there’s got to be lots of money involved.”
“How could that benefit us?”
Whiteoak smirked. “All we need to do is figure out what they’re doing and we might be able to turn it to our advantage.”
“How?”
Whiteoak squared himself to her so he could take both of her hands in his. It was like closing a circle between them that shut out the lesser thinkers of the world. “It all depends on what they’re doing. At the very least, we know Nash is involved with at least one other gunman and one of your town’s founding fathers. Whatever was on that paper you saw could have something to do with it as well.”
“I doubt it. There wasn’t much. Just some numbers.”
“There had to be more than one paper with some numbers,” Whiteoak said.
“The rest was cash.”
“Do you happen to know how much?”
“Twelve hundred dollars. It was all separated into neat little parcels of two hundred each, all six of them wrapped up in strands of twine.” Seeing the questioning look on Whiteoak’s face, she shrugged and added, “Byron is a sound sleeper. I had plenty of time to look at it all.”
“And what about the numbers?”
“Three, four, seven, nine, twelve and sixteen.”
Whiteoak blinked and shook his head quickly as though he’d been swatted on the end of the nose. “Were those the actual numbers?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Do they mean something to you?”
“No. I’m just surprised someone could remember something so . . . random.”
“They’re not random.” Lyssa grabbed Whiteoak’s hands and spoke with the speed of a fan that had caught a stiff breeze. “I mean, they can’t be if they mean anything at all and they must mean something otherwise they wouldn’t have been written down and sent here by a courier. Don’t you think?”
“I agree wholeheartedly. You’re certain those were the exact numbers?”
She nodded quickly. “I’ve always had a good head for figures. Besides, I read that scrap of paper so many times trying to figure out what it could mean that I see it in my sleep. Does that seem crazy?”
Professor Whiteoak showed her what he thought of that by taking hold of Lyssa’s face in both hands and planting a kiss on her very surprised lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
On the following night, Whiteoak was preparing for his demonstrations as always. The locals found some reason to be near his wagon so they could appear to wander by out of nothing but curiosity as always. Three things, however, were out of the ordinary.
Whiteoak’s movements were stiffer than usual due to the tender skin around his stitches.
The tonic he mixed wasn’t something that he’d made while in Barbrady.
Something else he’d managed to forge during his stay was some degree of respect from the sheriff since the lawman knocked once before pulling open the door to the wagon and saying, “Come on out of there.”
“I’m busy,” Whiteoak replied.
“Now.”
“I already told you—” was all the professor managed to say before being dragged outside.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Whiteoak fumed. “My next show will be starting soon!”
Once he had the professor outside, Sheriff Willis stood with his hands propped on his hips and glared at him like a schoolmarm getting ready to chastise a rambunctious student. “Why don’t you explain yourself first?”
“In what regard?”
“Don’t take that fancy tone with me. You know damn well what regard I’m referring to.”
Holding up a single finger as if to number his first point, Whiteoak said, “I believe you meant in what regard to which you were referring.”
The sheriff’s face reddened and the muscles in his shoulders tensed. Aft
er choking down the urge to throttle the man in front of him, Willis said, “Tell me what happened the other night. Why the hell were you harassing one of this town’s more reputable citizens?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Some of Mister Halstead’s men tell me you’ve been giving them some trouble.”
“I was merely out for a stroll . . .”
“Which, by all accounts, is something you tend to do a lot.”
“Yes, actually. It’s good for the constitution.”
Still fighting his anger, the sheriff moved the conversation along with a quick wave.
“All I did,” Whiteoak continued, “was happen upon Mister Halstead while he was talking with some other men. At least, I’m assuming that was Halstead. I ran into trouble myself, you know. Someone should really do something to clear out the unsavory element in this town.”
“Maybe I should start by escorting an eyesore on four wheels right out of Barbrady?”
“Let’s not be hasty, Sheriff. I’d like to cooperate any way possible.”
“You can start by telling me why George Halstead is so up in arms?”
“Junior or Senior?”
Judging by the twitch in the corner of the sheriff’s eye, it was entirely possible that Whiteoak didn’t always know exactly when to retreat a step or two with his verbal barbs. Quickly, he said, “Senior, of course. I only saw him from a distance.”
“And what happened after that?” Willis asked.
“I ran into some more of this town’s unsavory element as I mentioned earlier.”
“And there was shooting involved?”
“Yes,” Whiteoak calmly replied. “I believe there was. Before you ask, I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I thought you would have been notified of the incident.”
“I was,” Willis said. “But only that there was trouble in the business district. That sort of trouble, by the way, has become all too common since your arrival.”
Whiteoak smirked and shrugged. “The incident was partly my fault. After all, I was the one who decided to divert my stroll through a dark alley in the middle of the night. A man in that position should expect some harassment. I defended myself, however, and that was that.”
The lawman scowled at him, which was something to which Whiteoak was becoming very much accustomed. In fact, if someone in the professor’s line of work didn’t have a man in a badge scowling at him from time to time, he wasn’t doing something right.
Easy Pickin's Page 15
