Hard Luck Money

by J. A. Johnstone

  “There’s a settlement about three miles in that direction.” Grey pointed northwest. “We’ll avoid it as much as possible. We don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves than necessary.”

  “So this is our hideout,” The Kid said. “We won’t be pulling any jobs right around here. Best to stay respectable where you live.”

  “You’re starting to understand, Waco,” Grey said. “I knew you were an intelligent man.”

  The wagon drivers followed a path around the place toward a barn and other outbuildings sitting to the right of the main house. Brattle hopped down from the buggy and turned to help Beatrice, but Grey had already dismounted and beaten him to it.

  He smiled at her as he took her hand and helped her down from the vehicle. “Welcome to your new home, my dear.” He gave a gracious wave with his other hand and led her to the thick wooden door. Grey hadn’t told The Kid to go around back with the other men, so he stuck close to the ringleader.

  Hot, musty air drifted out when Gray opened the door. It didn’t smell too bad, The Kid thought. Despite the air of abandonment about the place, the old ranch house appeared to be in better shape than the one on the plantation.

  The one Alexander Grey had torched as they left.

  Grey hadn’t said anything about the blaze, and neither had Brattle or any of the other men. The Kid followed their lead. He figured Grey had his reasons for what he’d done, but they probably didn’t have any connection with The Kid’s mission.

  Grey and Beatrice went into the house and The Kid and Brattle followed. The interior of the big stone pile was dark and gloomy, reminding The Kid again of European castles. However, enough sunlight peeked through the gaps around the dusty curtains over the windows for them to find their way around the rooms.

  Large, heavy pieces of furniture loomed here and there, obviously left behind when the cattleman who’d built the house abandoned it. The Kid listened for the chittering and scampering of vermin but didn’t hear any, which surprised him. The house had to be well built if it had kept out rats and mice during the years it had been deserted.

  “Excellent,” Grey proclaimed as he looked around. “This will do just fine.”

  “I’ll take a look at the kitchen.” Beatrice headed in that direction.

  Brattle suggested, “Maybe I’d better have a look around, too, boss, just to make sure the place is as empty as you think it is.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Grey replied. “Take Waco with you.”

  “How about a gun?” The Kid asked.

  “You won’t need one,” Brattle said with a disdainful grunt. “There ain’t been any Indian trouble around here for twenty years or more.”

  “I didn’t say anything about Indians.”

  “Anything short of a Comanche war party I can handle by myself.”

  The Kid shrugged and went with Brattle on a quick tour of the house. The other rooms had furniture in them, too. Moving in wasn’t going to be difficult.

  Cleaning up might be, though. When they came back to the kitchen to report the house was indeed empty, Beatrice was standing in the center of the room with her hands on her hips and a determined expression on her face. “This place is going to take a lot of scrubbing, from the floors to the ceiling. All the bedding will have to be changed and washed, too. I’ll build a fire in the stove. Brattle, can you fetch water from the well?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the segundo replied. He looked at The Kid. “Come on, Keene, you can lend a hand.”

  The rest of the day was spent getting the place into better shape, or getting started on that job, anyway, since Beatrice kept insisting there was still a great deal to do.

  The house was big enough that all the men could stay inside, rather than having to use the bunkhouse out back. The Kid took note Beatrice had her own room on the second floor, rather than sharing a room with Grey as he’d expected her to do. As far as he knew, nothing had gone on between the two of them during the trip from East Texas, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. When camping out on the trail, privacy was at a minimum and everybody was worn out from the day’s travel. It was no place for romance.

  Now that they had reached their destination and were evidently going to stay for a while—possibly until the gang was ready to kill him, have Angus Murrell turn in his body for the reward, and move on—the need to contact the Rangers became more urgent. The journey had given him plenty of time to think, but he hadn’t figured out any way to get in touch with the Texas Rangers and let them know where he was. Brattle or one of the other outlaws had watched him all the time.

  They had the same sort of meal for supper that they’d been eating on the trail—bacon, beans, and biscuits, with canned tomatos and peaches.

  “Tomorrow I need to go to that settlement you mentioned, Alexander,” Beatrice said to Grey while they were eating at a long table in the dining room. “If we’re going to be here for awhile, we need some proper food.”

  Grey frowned. “I said we were going to avoid the settlement as much as possible,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, well, that’s not possible right now. We need supplies.” She glanced across the table at The Kid. “Brattle and Mr. Keene can take me.”

  “Not Waco. Too much of a chance someone might see him and recognize him.”

  Grey didn’t want anybody recognizing him until the gang pulled their first train holdup with him, The Kid thought.

  “Well, then, just Brattle,” Beatrice said.

  “All right,” Grey gave in. “I suppose you’re right. We’re going to be here for a good long while, so we can’t live on what few supplies we have left.”

  She smiled. “Good. It’s settled.”

  After supper, Brattle came up to The Kid and inclined his head toward the stairs. “Come on, Keene. Time for you to go to your room.”

  The Kid’s eyebrows rose in feigned surprise. “You’re going to keep on lockin’ me in like you did back at the plantation? I’ve been with you people for more than a week now. Don’t you trust me yet?”

  “Ain’t a matter of trust,” Brattle said. “It’s—”

  “Just the way you do things,” The Kid finished for him. “Right?”

  “Well, at least you understand.”

  “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

  “Nobody said you had to.”

  Arguing wasn’t going to do any good. The Kid shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  When the door of the room assigned to him closed behind him and the key rattled in the lock, he looked around. A bed and a small table next to it were the only pieces of furniture in the room. A candle burned in a holder on the table. No chair, no wardrobe as there had been at the plantation house.

  That was fine with The Kid. His comfort didn’t matter as long as he got the job done.

  He went to the window and pulled the curtain back. Dust swirled into the air and tickled his nose. He leaned closer to the window and peered out.

  He was on the second floor. It would be a simple matter to climb out through the window, hang from the sill, and drop to the ground.

  But it was possible, even probable, Brattle had posted at least one guard outside to keep an eye on that window. He had made it clear that while they wanted The Kid as part of the gang, if he caused any problems they might kill him. Trying to escape might just get him a bullet.

  Anyway, that would mean abandoning the mission. Getting away, finding the local law, convincing those star packers to get in touch with the Rangers, and setting up a raid on the old ranch, all before Grey realized The Kid was gone and bolted with the rest of the gang ... well, those chances were practically nonexistent, The Kid thought. But he wasn’t the sort of man to give up.

  That stubbornness was something else he had inherited from Frank Morgan.

  Despite that resolve, he put a hand on the window and tried to lift the pane, just to see if he could. If anybody asked him about it later, he could always say he was just trying to get a little fresh air.

  T
he window wouldn’t budge. The Kid studied it more closely and let out a humorless laugh.

  Earlier in the day he had heard hammering and had assumed some of the men were carrying out repairs. Maybe that was true for part of the racket, but not all. The window was nailed shut. He couldn’t go anywhere that way without breaking the glass. The racket of that would probably be heard all over the house.

  With a rueful shake of his head, The Kid let the curtain fall closed. There was nothing left for him to do except what he had done the first night at the plantation house.

  Go to bed and get some rest.

  Since the room was warm and stuffy and the window wouldn’t open, he stripped down to the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, blew out the candle, and stretched out on the bed with a sigh.

  Beatrice had seen to it that some of the fresh sheets they had brought with them were placed on the beds, but the mattress smelled musty to The Kid. He tried to ignore it as he rolled onto his side.

  He hadn’t fallen asleep when he heard a soft, metallic scraping. It took him a moment to realize someone was unlocking the door and trying to be quiet about it.

  He stiffened for a second, then swung his feet to the floor and stood up noiselessly. No one in the house had any reason to do him harm, at least not at that point, but he still didn’t like the idea of somebody sneaking into his room.

  He moved quickly and quietly to the door and pressed himself to the wall so he was behind the panel when it opened. Holding his breath, he waited.

  The door swung back. The corridor was dark. No light spilled into the room, only a faint glow indicating a lamp was still burning downstairs.

  A shadow moved against that glow. The figure it belonged to eased into the room.

  “Mr. Keene?” a voice whispered. “Waco?”

  The Kid couldn’t have been more surprised, and yet he had a sense that the moment was inevitable.

  His nocturnal visitor was Beatrice.

  Chapter 21

  Guided by her voice, he reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Miss Beatrice.” His voice was as quiet as hers had been.

  She gasped and pulled away from him, but at least she didn’t scream. It would have drawn Grey’s attention and explaining to the outlaw leader just what his mistress was doing in The Kid’s room might have proven awkward.

  For that matter, The Kid wondered, what was Beatrice doing there?

  “Waco? Is that you?”

  “Who else would it be?” The Kid asked dryly. “I was locked in here, remember?”

  “That wasn’t my idea. I’m not sure why Alexander and Brattle don’t trust you. It seems to me you’re all on the same side.”

  “You could say that,” The Kid agreed. You could say that, he thought, but saying it didn’t necessarily make it true. Beatrice didn’t have to know that.

  His eyes had adjusted a little to the darkness, and he could vaguely make out her shape. She wore what appeared to be a light-colored robe.

  He gave voice to the question uppermost in his mind. “I’m not tryin’ to be rude, but what are you doing here? I don’t reckon Alexander would take kindly to it if he knew you were in my room.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well ...” The Kid thought the answer to that question was pretty obvious, but if she wanted him to put it into words, he would. “I don’t think he’s the sort of hombre who’d cotton to having somebody messin’ with his property.”

  A sharply indrawn breath hissed between her teeth. “I’m not Alexander’s property. I’m not anybody’s slave.”

  “Well, then, his ladyfriend.”

  For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she asked, “Is that what you think I am?”

  “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Obvious to you, maybe.” She laughed softly, surprising him. “I’m not Alexander’s ladyfriend, Mr. Keene. I’m his sister.”

  It was The Kid’s turn to stand in silence, unable to find the words to respond.

  “Half sister, actually,” Beatrice went on. “He and I have the same father.”

  “I didn’t have any idea,” The Kid murmured.

  “There was no reason you should. You didn’t know any of us until a week or so ago. My mother was a servant who worked on the plantation after the war. She was an octaroon from Louisiana who’d been a slave when she was a little girl. Her mother brought her to Texas after they were freed. They both worked for Alexander’s father, and he ... took a fancy to my mother when she was fifteen. After I was born, she and my grandmother took me and ran away, back to Louisiana.”

  “All right,” The Kid said. “That’s a pretty ugly story. How’d you wind up back in Texas?”

  “My mother and my grandmother are both dead now. I didn’t have anyone else. So I came back to Texas to claim my birthright.”

  “Things don’t work that way.”

  “Why? Because I’m a bastard? Because some of my ancestors were slaves?”

  “Take your pick,” The Kid said. “I’m not sayin’ it’s right, just tellin’ you how the law would look at it.”

  “That’s probably true. Fortunately for me, when I showed up at the plantation and told Alexander my story, he welcomed me. He remembered me from when he was a boy and knew I was telling the truth. He said I was a member of the family. You see ... he hates our father as much as I do.”

  “Is that why he set the place on fire when we left?”

  “I suspect that’s right. He hasn’t said anything to me about it, and I haven’t asked him.”

  They were standing in almost complete darkness. The Kid wanted to be able to see Beatrice’s face. If he could see her, he would be able to judge better if she was telling him the truth.

  The Kid recalled matches laying on the table. “I’m going to light the candle, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He found one and snapped it to life with his thumbnail. Squinting slightly against the glare, he held the flame to the candle wick. It caught and the flame strengthened, casting a circle of light into the room.

  Hearing the floorboards creak a little, The Kid turned to see Beatrice easing the door closed. He had been right about the robe she was wearing. What he hadn’t been able to tell was that it was silk and clung enticingly to her body.

  Her midnight hair was pulled back from her high forehead and tied behind her head. She was strikingly beautiful and The Kid knew he didn’t have to worry about her being Grey’s mistress.

  But she was Grey’s half sister, which might also make him protective of her. Besides, The Kid had no interest in cluttering up his mission with unnecessary complications.

  He was interested, though, in finding out what had brought her to his room. “What’s Alexander got against your father?” he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to keep her talking.

  “My father never recovered from losing his wealth and power because of the war. He let the plantation go downhill and became a lecher and a drunkard. He ... he raped my mother, and she wasn’t the only one. Eventually his wife—Alexander’s mother—confronted him about his behavior, and in a drunken rage, he choked her to death.”

  “Good Lord,” The Kid muttered.

  “When he saw what he’d done, he ran away. Alexander found his mother’s body. He was only ten years old. When the authorities discovered what had happened, they took him away. It was a horrible time for him.”

  “I can imagine. This was after you’d already gone back to Louisiana with your mother and grandmother?”

  Beatrice nodded. “Yes, thank goodness. Otherwise we would have been in the middle of that terrible mess, too. I didn’t even know anything about it until I came back to Texas and went to the plantation to see Alexander. He told me what had happened and then asked me to stay.”

  “Wait a minute,” The Kid said. “How did he wind up with the plantation? What happened to his father? Your father, too, I reckon.”

  “The law caught up to him eventually
,” Beatrice said. “He had changed his name and become an outlaw. He was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for his crimes. The plantation was lost, of course. It went through several owners, but they were never able to get it back on its feet. By the time Alexander was grown and had made some money of his own, the place was empty when he came back.”

  “Just like this one,” The Kid mused. “So he was just squatting there, like he is here.”

  “The difference is he had grown up in that house and considered it his by rights, to do with whatever he wanted.”

  Including burning it down when he was done with it, to wipe out the place where his mother had been murdered by his own father, The Kid thought. It made sense ... of a twisted sort, but still ...

  “That’s quite a story. The sort of thing they make melodramas out of. But it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here in my room tonight.”

  A flush spread across her lovely features. She lifted a hand to the robe’s neckline and toyed with the silk. “Do I really have to explain that, Waco?”

  “Yeah, you do,” The Kid said bluntly. “You’ve barely looked at me since the night Brattle brought me to the plantation. What changed your mind all of a sudden?”

  “Nothing, I ...” She looked more uncomfortable. “Darn it, Waco, why are you making this so difficult?”

  “Because I figure on making some money workin’ with your brother, and I’d just as soon not have him shoot me for beddin’ his little sister before I can cash in on the deal.”

  “Listen, when I came to the plantation, I didn’t know Alexander was an outlaw! It didn’t take me long to figure it out, though. This isn’t really the life I bargained for. I haven’t said anything to him about it, but I ... I’m afraid of what might happen.”

  “So you want me to rescue you, and the two of us will run away together. Is that it?” The Kid put a tone of scorn in his voice as he asked the question. The thought had occurred to him it might be a test. Grey might have sent Beatrice to find out just how easily he could be persuaded to betray the gang. Maybe she was telling the absolute truth about everything, but he couldn’t afford to assume that.