He faded into the rear of the crowd, unnoticed by Amanda as she played to her fans. Luke withdrew a cigarette and struck a match on the sole of his boot, his eyes never leaving his wife. It was like she was born for this. For someone without experience with an audience, she handled herself deftly—and was clearly enjoying the attention.
Luke’s mouth burned with the bitter tobacco. He had wanted to live as her husband, the father of her children. He could make the business a huge financial success, that much he’d determined by riding the range and talking with the vaqueros. There was a new method of ranching that he’d learned about from a northerner that entailed the use of barbed wire. Already Luke could see how fencing in the property would prevent thievery and result in more mating control. He had ideas of a crossbreed that would mix the sturdiness of the Longhorn with the milk benefits of the Hereford. His plans would turn the Triple Bar into a ranchman’s paradise, even more profitable than it was now. His children would go to the finest schools and meet the right people. He had all the tools to start a decent, quiet life and to regain respectability.
He frowned, then stamped out the match as a handsome young man reached for Amanda’s hand, declaring his devotion. Luke started to barge in, but Amanda laughed sweetly and made the man promise to buy a book before turning her attention to the bartender from the Pecos Saloon. She didn’t need him. Luke strode away, furious, but Amanda didn’t even look up. His plans were secure, all right, but none of them included a wife as a celebrated novelist.
Even a very good one.
“Haskwell?” Sheriff Mendez leafed through a series of poster books on his desk, then paused as he found the name. “Here it is. He has not been to Texas for many years, senor. I would not think you had much to fear.”
Jake moved away from Luke’s side, the large man’s frame blocking the light as he picked up the book and examined the photograph. The picture displayed a handsome man, with jet-black hair and sharp eyes that looked out onto the world with a vengeance. The picture was obviously a vanity photo, taken at a circus with the strange blatant disregard for identification that plagued many outlaws. But unlike the depiction of Sam Bass or Jesse James, this man’s likeness showed no warmth, no humor, no gentleness. Sam Haskwell looked like exactly what he was—a ruthless killer without scruples or a single redeeming factor.
“Normally, I wouldn’t,” Luke continued, examining the picture with renewed anger. “But this man is an exception to every rule. We have reason to believe that he fears my wife could implicate him in a murder. She can’t, but Haskwell doesn’t know that, and hasn’t gotten close enough to find out.”
“Sí, but to cross the Indian border, just to seek out your wife who is innocent, that is not the work of a known outlaw,” the sheriff argued.
“No,” Luke agreed. “But his men quit the job. One of them probably got killed in a stampede, and it seems the other has given up the chase. If you know anything about Haskwell, he doesn’t like to be thwarted.”
“You seem to have much knowledge of this man,” the sheriff remarked thoughtfully, tugging at his black moustache. “Perhaps there is more we should know?”
“Haskwell killed my mother and sister,” Luke said blandly, ignoring Jake’s look of surprise. “I’ve followed his career for many years now. He always keeps one step ahead of the law, and two steps ahead of his banker. But I’ve never seen him give up a fight. He once tracked a man across the desert for a gambling wrong that cost him two hundred dollars.”
“I can verify that,” Jake stated quietly. “As acting lawman, I ran across Haskwell’s trail more than once. He’s a cruel man, and kills for pleasure as well as profit. He’s the worst kind of sidewinder I’ve ever seen. He particularly likes to abuse women. There was a prostitute he took a fancy to a few years back. Made her life hell. The girl finally killed herself, just to get away from him.” Jake shook his head gruffly. “I found her body. She was just fifteen.”
The sheriff nodded, then closed the book abruptly. “I have three men, two good deputies who can shoot, and one man who keeps my books. I will lend you what help I can, but I must warn you that it isn’t much. A gunman like this Haskwell could ruin Waco and run roughshod over this town. We will prepare as best we can.”
Jake walked outside with Luke, his face grim. “That doesn’t sound too promising.”
“No.” Luke stared at the street. Amanda was entering the post office, still fending off questions and teasing her admirers. She was so spritely and so pretty, that the thought of her falling into Haskwell’s grip was appalling.
Jake seemed to echo his thoughts. “We won’t let him get her, Luke. My ranch joins yours at the northern border. You hear anything, you send for me. We’ll make our own posse if we can’t get help from this damned one-horse-town.”
Luke nodded and shook Jake’s hand. “I’m grateful for the offer, but come what may, Haskwell is mine. I’ll die before he gets Amanda.”
Jake stared at him, his greyish brows narrowing. “Don’t turn this into a vendetta, son. We all have the same goal, to see that snake dead. Don’t be too proud to ask for help.”
Luke replaced his Stetson, and strode across the street to the saloon. Jake watched him go, a worried expression wrinkling his face. Luke’s desire for revenge was understandable.
But this time it could cost Amanda’s life.
Aileen shoved the crowd out of the post office and shut the door behind them.
“Whew!” she breathed, wiping her brow. “It seems you have a lot of admirers.”
Amanda smiled gratefully. The attention was fun, but she had work to do and the crowd didn’t seem to hear her pleas. She had suddenly noticed Luke was gone, and looked to her friend for help. Fortunately, Aileen had no scruples about turning everyone away. Like a mother hen protecting its young, Aileen took charge and whisked Amanda into the post office. The crowd still gathered outside, but Aileen sternly ordered them away in a thick Irish brogue that brooked no resistance. The crowd finally dispersed, and Amanda smiled at her friend.
Marriage to Jake had done Aileen a world of good. She looked radiant, her round figure set off by the gay blue dress she wore, trimmed in black velvet and jet buttons. Her face glowed with health and her eyes sparkled as she laughed with the postmaster. It was hard to envision her as the whiskey-drinking saloon girl Amanda had met at the hotel in Wichita, but she was glad that Aileen had found happiness.
As she approached the telegraph desk, she noticed Luke step out of the sheriff’s office, confer with Jake, then cross the street to the saloon. Haskwell, Amanda shuddered. For some reason, registering a complaint made the threat seem too real. She shook off the somber thoughts and handed the telegrapher a ream of papers. The man’s glasses fell off in astonishment.
“You wish to send all of this? But Madam, it will be terribly costly.”
“Nevertheless, I need to send the wire. Just the first ten pages of the proposal. I can mail the rest.”
The telegrapher’s face twitched and with a disgruntled sigh, he began to tap the message to her New York publishing house.
Bored, Amanda took a seat and flipped through the papers that lined the desk. There was the daily news, the religious meeting record, a notice for the Woman’s Committee, and the Wanted posters. These were by far the most interesting, and Amanda thumbed through them, appalled at the sinister faces that stared up from the drawings. Reading one after another, she got through the first ten, when her fingers paused at the sight of a black-eyed Irishman and her blood ran cold as she read the notice.
“Haskwell, Sam. Notorious outlaw of the West. Irishman, son of a bricklayer in County Cork. Came to America in 1856…”
“Amanda!” Aileen shouted impatiently. “Are you ready?”
“The work is done, Madam,” the telegrapher said. “Madam?”
Amanda froze, unable to believe what she was reading. She retrieved her glasses from a rung on Aesop’s cage, and put them on, her eyes narrowing in shock.
Alle
ged to have murdered over sixteen men, including John Haines, in a gunfight, no survivors, witness never found; Jesse Witherspoon of Texas, for a drink of whiskey; Lillian and Suzette Parker, of Virginia, Luke Parker surviving…
Amanda’s eyes blurred and the pages fell from her grip. It was as if all of the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit. She knew now why Sam Haskwell was after her, why he had followed her so relentlessly. She had picked that item out of a newspaper at random, never dreaming that the real outlaw might hear of it and think she witnessed the killing. She cursed her own stupidity in using Haines’ real name, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Haskwell obviously felt threatened by that description in her book, the one that so accurately described his murder of the sheriff. Logan Benteen was Sam Haskwell, Amanda realized in horror. Her fiction had come to life, and in a terrifying way.
Then something else occurred to her, something that disturbed her far more than learning Haskwell’s motivation. Luke Parker surviving…a sinking feeling passed through her as she realized the implication of that sentence. Luke had his own reasons for wanting Haskwell. She now knew why Luke was with her and why he had been on that train. Why he had immediately known Haskwell’s gang, enough so that he could recognize them on sight. Why he had agreed to come to Waco with her, a man who could have made a fresh start anywhere.
He was after revenge, and she was suddenly afraid she was nothing more than the bait to get it.
She said nothing on the way home. Luke seemed preoccupied and didn’t address her much more than to ask if she’d sent her work. She nodded, grateful that she didn’t have to speak, afraid that she would shout out everything and rail at him, let him know what a bitter disappointment he was to her.
She climbed the stairs woodenly, past the chandeliers that yesterday looked enchantingly beautiful, and locked herself in the library. Anguish poured through her as she dismissed Pedro and refused lunch. She couldn’t think about food, couldn’t think about anything other than her hideous discovery about Luke.
Tears spilled down Amanda’s cheeks. She, Amanda Edison—scholar, woman with an enormous amount of intelligence, who’d startled every professor at the institute with her theories on philosophy and the war—had been duped by a southern killer. She’d been used by him to get at the man who’d killed his family. Worse, the evidence had been there all along. If she hadn’t been emotionally involved with the man, she would have seen through him immediately. But no, she was worse than the heroine of any penny dreadful, giving her heart to a man who wasn’t fit to lace her boots.
Her glasses fogged, and Amanda scarcely noticed. Aesop perched on her leg, his sharp little claws digging into her soft skin, but she didn’t feel that either. She couldn’t feel anything but pain, and the overwhelming humiliation of being made a fool. Knowing that she had aided his cause only made it that much worse. Dear God, she had practically seduced him the previous night!
Aesop ruffled his feathers and Amanda ran a finger lovingly down his back. Thank God she hadn’t gotten pregnant from her first encounter with Luke, and with any luck, she wouldn’t be now. Wincing as Aesop tugged on her finger, she gave the little owl a fond glance.
Once, it had just been the two of them. It seemed it would be that way again.
“What do you mean, she isn’t coming down?” Luke glared at the manservant, while Pedro’s moustache twitched in worry. Bathed and dressed in good fawn-colored trousers and a clean white shirt, Luke had been sipping brandy and waiting for Amanda for over an hour.
“I ask her two times, senor, but she refuse. She is writing and cannot be disturbed. I am concerned. Senorita Edison has just come from a long journey and she should not work so hard right away. But she will not listen.”
“She can be damned stubborn at times,” Luke agreed. Fury built in him as he understood what she was doing. Amanda was rediscovering herself as an author, and apparently telling him that she didn’t need him. He had too much respect for her intelligence to believe that her nonappearance could mean anything but. She had refused lunch, declined his invitation to ride, and did not answer his knock when he first came back. She was testing him, Luke realized, trying to set the parameters of their relationship, and shutting him out once more.
“Don’t worry, Pedro, I’ll get her,” Luke reassured the manservant. “Just set out dinner and we’ll be right down.”
“Sí,” Pedro said doubtfully. Amanda Edison didn’t look like the kind of woman who would readily accede to anyone’s wishes. Even her husband’s.
Chapter
22
Luke climbed the stairs thoughtfully, determined to lay down the law. He sensed that the future of their relationship rested upon the next few hours, and he had no intention of letting Amanda close herself into her safe wall of books once more. Yet as he opened the door to the library, nothing could have prepared him for what he found.
She was buried in books. Volumes surrounded her, some with tiny cards marking the pages, others placed face down with paragraphs noted in red ink. Papers were strewn everywhere, from notecards that were obviously some sort of reference material to loose sheets of written script that were impatiently crumbled and rejected. Her carpetbag stood in the middle of the floor, half-opened books and old discarded notes bulging out of it. Reams of paper were strewn all over the table, and ink bottles stood half-empty, a silent testimony to the work that had passed within the last few hours.
In the midst of the mess was Amanda. Half-hidden by a volume entitled, Mankind and the Western Experience, she was perched on the floor with a pencil jabbing from behind one ear, and a dripping quill thrust carelessly into her dress—obligingly leaving a pool of ink just above her left breast. Her hair, never particularly tidy to begin with, tumbled wildly down her back, decorated with one of Aesop’s feathers and a tiny slip of parchment. She was scribbling endlessly, making short little squeaks and contented sighs, followed by exclamations of disgust as she rejected a full page and tossed the paper to lie with the rest. Aesop marched amid the mess in complete bliss, leaving bird droppings and feathers, obviously quite used to his mistress’s doings.
“Amanda.” Luke broke her concentration, and when she glanced up, it took her a full minute to focus and realize that someone else had entered her sanctuary. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
She looked around at the mess in the room, then lifted her turquoise eyes and peered directly at him. “I am writing,” she said, as if that explained all. “As you may be aware, I have a deadline to meet. Now that we have reached our destination, I see no reason to delay.”
“Does that preclude food?” Luke asked, trying to sound reasonable. “You have to eat.”
“Digestion disturbs the mental process,” Amanda said tiredly, the icy disdain in her voice apparent. “I shall eat when I’ve finished, and not before. I want to complete as much as possible tonight, so that in the morning I may start telegraphing my editor. I’ve put this book off for far too long, while dallying with meaningless research.”
“Is that right?” Luke got her meaning, and his jaw tightened with anger.
“Yes. As Cowper said, ‘Absence of occupation is not rest, a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.'”
She turned back to her work, casually dismissing him as one would an over-zealous servant. Furious, Luke kicked the door to the corridor shut behind him. The papers wafted through the air with the sudden draft like a blizzard, and Aesop squawked, then turned his head backwards, indignantly. Amanda stared at Luke through her glasses, her eyes wide and penetrating, and she gave him a look that would have pulverized iron.
“To what do I owe this irrational display of temper?”
“Amanda,” he said in a stern voice. “If you’re trying to see how far you can push me, you’ve just reached my limit. If you have half the brain I know you were born with, don’t dare continue.”
She lost a bit of her composure, but only by the quick moistening of her lips and the slight trembling of her quill would on
e even suspect.
Satisfied that he had chastised her, even momentarily, Luke strode through the midst of the paper snowstorm and stood directly over her, looking overwhelmingly tall and masculine. Amanda gulped. It was difficult to maintain her icy hauteur when facing his muscular thighs, and it was even harder a moment later when he reached down and effortlessly yanked her to her feet.
“That’s better. I think it’s time we had a talk.”
He was so damned handsome, his sapphire eyes blazing, his hair a polished blue-black, and his face rigid with anger, that Amanda momentarily regretted her discovery that he was only using her. For a sentimental second, she wished it was yesterday, when she had wanted him so desperately she was willing to open her heart to him. That thought only made her feel more like a fool, and gave her the strength to look at him coldly in the eye, and imagine him as something noxious that crept into her petri dish.
Luke noticed her expression and his jaw tightened visibly. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on, and right now?”
The bald threat in his words made Amanda’s quill tremble harder, but she managed to maintain an arctic glare that would have done one of her heroines proud.
“Nothing has changed,” Amanda replied calmly. “We discussed all this before. About how you wanted to come out here to rebuild your life. How it was better for us to remain uninvolved. And how you wanted to get a divorce as soon as we reached Texas. I believe we are here.”
The words hung in the room, weighing between them for a long moment before Luke spoke, his eyes gleaming with outrage. “Is that what you want? A divorce?”
“Yes,” Amanda said quickly, the word rushing out in relief.
“And what about last night? And the night on the trail?”
Bright flags of color stained her cheeks. She was so humiliated that he dared to remind her of that, when all the time he was simply using her for his own means in the coldest, cruelest manner she would have dreamed possible. It was that thought that made her look at him as if she was slicing through his heart, and sighed with regret.
Wild Is the Night Page 24
