Strong Convictions: An Emmett Strong Western (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 1)

by GP Hutchinson

  Then Seth said, “Strong’s still got to get out of here, sir. He’s got to try to get back to Texas. We can take him while he’s on his way out.”

  “You think that’s good enough?”

  Seth gave a slight shrug. “We can do whatever you want, sir.”

  “Can you?” The big man peered from one hired hand to another. “Can you do what I want? ’Cause I ain’t seen it in a few days now.”

  Aware of his own precarious standing with Lucian McIntosh at the moment, Seth met his boss’s gaze and nodded coolly. “I assure you I can, sir.”

  “Then this is what I want,” McIntosh said, holding up his index finger. “We ain’t waitin’ for Emmett Strong to dictate terms anymore. We ain’t gonna sit back and wait till he’s seen enough of Nevada and decides he’s ready to go home.”

  “Understood,” Seth said.

  “You start by hurtin’ him good while he’s still here. He came into my country and interfered with my business. Now I expect you to make him regret it. Understand?”

  “We’ll plan carefully, and we’ll take it to him,” Seth said resolutely.

  Zeke, McIntosh’s longtime gunhand, looked side to side, then asked, “But Mr. McIntosh, if them Texans is sittin’ tight in Virginia City, what can we do about ’em there?”

  “Plenty you can do. Just don’t be stupid. Can’t ten or twelve of you go about it at one time in plain view.”

  Seth turned to Zeke. “A pair of us here, a pair of us there, always houndin’ him, always remindin’ him the day he sets foot outside the city he’s all ours. That’ll wear a man down.”

  “Hell, don’t settle for wearin’ him down. Provoke him,” McIntosh said. “Get him to step in it—right there in front of the law. Turn the people of Virginia City against him. Get ’em to run him outta town right into our waitin’ arms.”

  “Chinamen might even turn out to be a help on that count,” Seth said to Zeke and the others.

  McIntosh scanned the scene of the failed ambush. “If Emmett Strong thinks this is over, he’s sorely mistaken. By the end of it all, I expect you boys to make that damn Texan regret the day he crossed into Comstock country.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  When the sound of Juanito’s voice finally began to make sense to him, Emmett opened his eyes. For several seconds, his gaze darted from corner to corner of the small, dimly lit bedroom. He studied the curtains. Nothing here was familiar to him. And he was dreadful thirsty.

  “Where are we, Juanito?” he asked, his voice croaky.

  “With Chinese friends in Virginia City. You’ve been asleep about twenty hours.”

  Emmett bolted upright. “Twenty hours?” He ran the fingers of both hands through his hair. “What—”

  Juanito held up a palm. As he crossed the room he said, “Somebody wants to give you some good news.” He opened the door and with a wave invited the visitor in.

  Li Xu paused with her hand on the doorframe.

  Emmett’s heart quickened. Tarnation! I must look like the hindquarters of bad luck. And here comes this—What did Sikes say they’re called? Ah, yes—this Celestial.

  And that’s the way she appeared to Emmett. She had obviously rested. Her hair was freshly combed and styled the way it’d been the first time he’d seen her—one part pinned up, the rest draping her shoulder. She was in boys’ clothes again…but the look of her was anything but boyish. Her face was radiant.

  She knelt beside the bed where he sat. “How are you?” she asked.

  That voice—like velvet, yet somehow still full of strength. It finally occurred to him he should answer. “I’m OK. What about you? And Ping?”

  She smiled warmly. “We’re OK. Thanks to you.” She kept her eyes on his. “I wanted to be the one to give you the good news.”

  He glanced up at Juanito, who was now leaning on the doorframe, facing away. Looking at Li again, he said, “I could use some good news.”

  “The doctor told me Mr. Sikes will not lose his leg after all.”

  “That’s great news. It’s…”

  “He’s going to have to stay here in Virginia City at least two weeks before getting on a train back to Texas,” she said. “That’s what the doctor told me anyway.”

  To Emmett the news was good on two counts: Sikes was going to be OK. And the doctor’s orders meant he too would be staying put for a while. Right away he hoped to spend as much of that time as possible getting to know Li.

  “I’ll bet Sikes would like to see you,” she said. “Can I take you to him?”

  “Sure,” he said. This was a good start. He might get to spend the evening with her. “Can I wash up a bit before going over, though?”

  She smiled and rose to her feet. “Just a moment.”

  In no time she left the tiny bedroom and came right back with a towel and a basin of steaming water. “I thought you might want these. I’ll wait right outside.” She glanced at him over her shoulder as she bustled out.

  “I’ll be outside too,” Juanito said with a slight grin.

  When Emmett stepped out into the evening air he felt very much alive. The fog of deep sleep had faded away. The thrill of being in Li’s company was growing moment by moment.

  Li led him and Juanito across the street and down two blocks to another small frame house. She knocked, and an older man with a wispy, gray beard opened the door.

  “Welcome,” he said with a broad smile. “Your friend will be happy to see you.”

  Emmett took off his hat as he entered. Right there in the main room was a bed. Sikes, wearing only a long nightshirt, was in it, propped up on two pillows, his twice-injured leg sticking out from beneath the sheets. From midthigh down to the knee, the leg was deep purple.

  “Good to see you’ve still got that limb,” Emmett said. “Even if it is ugly.”

  Sikes frowned. “I told you we should’ve gone down to Mound House and caught the train back up here,” he growled softly. “But no, you had to take the mountain pass.”

  Li spoke up. “Now why have you spoken so kindly to me and saved all your harsh words for Emmett?”

  Sikes looked at Li. “You, my dear, were kidnapped. We need to treat you gently. Meanwhile, this rascal…” He turned his head back to Emmett. “He nearly got us all killed.”

  “Nearly,” Emmett said. “And I’m sorry. Had I indeed gotten us all killed, I don’t think I ever could’ve lived with myself.”

  Sikes tried to maintain a scowl but failed, a chuckle escaping and a weak smile finding a place on his face.

  Juanito and Li both laughed along with him.

  Emmett stepped up to the bedside and held out a hand. “Thank you, Sikes. I’m indebted.”

  Sikes waved. “Not at all.” Then he clasped and shook Emmett’s hand.

  “So I understand we’re here for a couple of weeks,” Emmett said. He looked to Sikes’s host and back. “Will that be all right with you?”

  The older Chinese gentleman bowed. “It will be my honor. You Texas men have done for our community what no one else would have done. And we are grateful.”

  And that’s the way it was for the next several days. The Chinese treated the Texans as heroes.

  Funerals for Yan and Guiying—the two girls who had been shot—and for those who had fallen trying to rescue the rest took place on the second day. Even on that day, there was an easing of the customary rituals of mourning especially for Emmett and his pardners, and for Li Xu and the other girls who had suffered through the kidnapping.

  Throughout the following days, when Li and Emmett strolled together in the cool of the early morning and in the fading light right after sundown, the folks of Chinatown bowed in polite greeting or waved appreciatively. Many offered kind words. No one let Emmett or Juanito buy a meal. They were fed well in the neighborhood’s homes, cafés, and restaurants. They were forbidden from getti
ng rooms in a hotel, instead remaining guests in the modest but clean homes that had taken them in following the rescue.

  Juanito wandered over to the Lucky Strike Saloon a few times to catch up on news, but Emmett remained as close to Li as each day’s activities permitted. Yong Xu and Li’s mother, Xiulan, gave the girl very light responsibilities those first few days, wanting her to recover well from the trauma she had endured.

  As far as Emmett could tell, things were going well between him and Li Xu. They spoke freely. Given the circumstances that had brought them together, he ventured to ask her things he might otherwise have considered impertinent—improper for the brief time they had known one another. Yet late one afternoon as they strolled alone, he struggled to find just the right words to ask something that had been needling away at him ever since the exchange.

  “Li, I know everyone says you’re OK, but I need to know…Did Lucian McIntosh…” He cleared his throat. “Did he, uh, touch you…while he had you in his home?”

  She bit her lip, looked down, and shook her head.

  “Ping?”

  “No,” Li said, “but I don’t know how to explain to you what I did to stop him.”

  He frowned. “I don’t want to push you.”

  “It’s not like that,” she said. “It’s just that it has to do with womanly things.”

  Womanly things…Oh. Emmett gave a slight nod. “I understand. You don’t have to say anything more.” He pulled his hat off and raked his fingers through his hair. “Haven’t thought about womanly things in a while.”

  She tilted her head. “Why would you ever have to think about womanly things—if we both mean the same…womanly things?”

  Before he knew it, the words were out of his mouth. “My wife…”

  She stopped in place and faced him. Her cheeks flushed. “You’re married?” Her voice sounded thin.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  She touched the base of her neck. A gust of wind blew past them.

  He looked down. “She died. Five years ago.”

  Li clutched his arm tenderly. “I’m so very sorry. An illness?”

  Turning his gaze back to hers, he shook his head. “Strange. For five years I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I thought about her day and night, no matter where I was.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  He looked her eye to eye. “And then…you.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Is that OK with you? That I…”

  “More than OK.”

  She gave a faint smile and brushed back the hair that the wind had blown into her face.

  “May I tell you?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “Then let’s walk some more.”

  For the next hour he described how he and Gabriela had met and how they had always felt so natural together—as if they had belonged to one another forever. Then he told the story of the day he lost her.

  The next thing he knew, he and Li stood facing one another on the very edge of town in the last rays of the setting sun, a breeze rippling their clothes and hair.

  “I killed my wife, Li. I killed my sweet Gabriela.”

  She looked up the street—back into town and into the direct rays of the sunset. Then taking hold of his arms, she drew him to her and rested her cheek against his chest.

  “No, you didn’t,” she said. “Victorio Sanchez killed her.”

  When she eased back and peered into his face, tears glimmered on her lashes. “Don’t ever say it again, Emmett—that you killed her. You didn’t. And I never again want to hear you say that you did.” Her scolding was gentle. She bit her lip.

  “We’d better go back,” she said, keeping hold of his arm.

  “The elders,” he said.

  She only squeezed tighter as she looked straight ahead and walked.

  His insides were beginning to feel like melted wax. How can this be? he wondered.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  “So Seth Blaylock’s woman’s name is Ettie.” Emmett pondered what Li had just told him. He again recalled the shriek he had heard in the mesquite grove when he shot Blaylock’s pardner the day Guiying died.

  “Yes,” Li said as the pair continued their stroll back into Chinatown. “Ping and I were scared of her at first because she’s the one who picked out who to kidnap and who to leave behind.”

  “And somehow you quit being afraid of her?”

  Li shook her head. “She seemed like two different people. In Zhang’s Restaurant the whole Blaylock gang was so frightening. They were ruthless and violent. Well, she didn’t do anything violent, but she was one of the gang. And at that point I wasn’t even sure she was a woman—though I had my suspicions.”

  “Oh?” Emmett turned to see Li’s face more fully.

  “She had her nose and mouth covered with a black bandanna. She wore a long black coat with the collar up. Leather gloves. And of course a hat. But I could see the eyes.”

  Her powers of observation impressed him. “And later on? At McIntosh’s place?”

  “She still wore trousers and a vest—and a pistol. But she was very feminine. Her hair was beautifully braided on both sides, close to her head.”

  They were drawing near her parents’ café.

  Li went on. “At McIntosh’s place, Ettie seemed almost apologetic to us. She tried to comfort Ping.”

  Emmett considered what—if anything—this news of Ettie might mean.

  “Once they told us Ettie would be gone for a few days,” she said, “that’s when things changed again. The housekeeper and the cook were not kind at all. The cook is the one who started trying to drug Ping and me. They knew we liked tea, so they offered us plenty of it. But they kept putting something in it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think it was laudanum or something like that.”

  With a tilt of his head, Emmett said, “And what do you know about laudanum, little girlie?”

  She frowned at him. “Little girlie?”

  They both broke into smiles.

  “Just like any people, there are good Chinese and bad Chinese,” she said. “I’m sure you know the reputation some of my people have for smuggling opium from Asia to San Francisco. Then from San Francisco to places all over the West. Mining towns, cow towns, pretty much any town where people suddenly find themselves with more money in their hands than they’re accustomed to having.”

  Emmett understood far too well. There weren’t too many opium dens in Texas, but he’d come across them before. And opium was only one side of what went on there. Theft. Prostitution.

  “How’d you avoid the laudanum?” he asked.

  “It’s bitter. Haven’t you ever used it?”

  “No. I know doctors suggest it for all sorts of problems, but…”

  “Well, good thing,” she said. “It can make you extremely dull. And it’s addictive. We have far better remedies for cramps and colds and diarrhea than laudanum.”

  “We?”

  “Chinese grannies and doctors. Anyway, Ping and I kept dumping it into the chamber pot when they left the room. And we asked for lots of water. We told Margaret—the cook—that her tea made us strangely thirsty.”

  “Smart girls.” He smiled.

  Her grin was captivating. “Let’s go inside. I’ll play the pipa for everyone till dinner is ready.”

  Just before opening the restaurant door, Emmett’s attention was drawn to two men lingering in front of a shop a few doors down—in the direction he and Li had just come from. It was a place that sold paper, ink, and such. And the loiterers didn’t look much like the type to go home and write poetry. They were heeled and rough cut.

  He opened the door for Li. When he again glanced back, he caught the two staring directly at him. One touched the brim of his hat. Then they both turned and saun
tered back toward the edge of town. Emmett’s stomach tensed.

  Quite a crowd filled the café. Juanito was there.

  “Just getting some food for Sikes,” Juanito said as he made his way toward the door with a basket in hand.

  Emmett had seen his British friend a few hours earlier. His progress seemed good. “Tell him I’ll stop by after I’ve had a little grub.”

  “I’ll do that. Everything going OK with Li and you?”

  Emmett winked. “I think so.”

  Juanito raised an eyebrow. “Muy bien, hermano.”

  After making sure he wouldn’t be overheard, Emmett said, “Keep your eyes peeled. I think I just spotted a pair of deuces out there.”

  “McIntosh men?” Juanito lipped silently.

  Emmett nodded.

  Juanito waved two fingers in front of his eyes, then away. With that, he turned and headed out.

  Emmett pivoted to see where Li had gone. Just as he did so, Yong emerged from the kitchen.

  He greeted Emmett, but not with his usual effusive smile. “Let me get you something to eat,” he said. “Then you should go visit Mr. Sikes for a while.”

  “Thank you. I will. Juanito and I were just talking about that.”

  “Give him plenty of good company. Visit often. He will get well faster.” Yong’s smile seemed forced.

  Li took her customary chair in the corner of the room and began to pluck her Chinese lute. A few heads turned momentarily, but for the most part folks simply continued their table talk.

  “Here.” Yong Xu motioned toward the kitchen. “I can fix you a plate to take with you. Then you can eat with Sikes. Lift his spirits.”

  “Uh, sure,” Emmett said, eyebrows knit. If he didn’t know better it would seem that Yong was deliberately trying to get him out of the café. He wondered whether he’d done something to offend. Or whether he, Juanito, and Sikes might’ve overstayed their welcome—become an imposition. He didn’t for a moment believe the Chinese owed him anything. To the contrary, he’d felt awkward accepting free room and board. He’d done so only because they’d all insisted.