Deadly Fortune

by J. R. Roberts

  Even though they’d been dragged upstairs by the scruffs of their necks, neither of the two gunmen Clint and Wheeler had captured seemed to notice them any longer. The man with Wheeler was nursing a wounded leg and he gimped from the room like a scalded dog. The man who’d brought Clint to the stairs asked, “Wh-where should we go, sir?”

  “I don’t give a damn so long as it’s out of my sight.”

  The man skulked away with his head hung low.

  Straightening the lapels of his jacket, the man with the black-and-gray hair said, “Come now, Sheriff. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your associate?”

  “Clint Adams,” Wheeler announced, “this is Wilhelm Torquelan.”

  The Colt was still in Clint’s hand, but Torquelan didn’t seem to mind one bit. In fact, he barely even seemed to notice there was a gun pointed at him at all. That told Clint a hell of a lot about the man. Holstering the weapon, Clint extended his hand and said, “Good to meet you. I’ve already made the acquaintance of some of your associates.”

  “Yes,” Torquelan mused. “From what I heard of the commotion downstairs, I’ll be cleaning up the mess for some time.”

  “Something tells me you have workers to do that sort of thing for you.”

  “Indeed.” Torquelan then shifted his eyes to Wheeler. “At least I won’t have to go through the trouble of informing the law as to what transpired here.”

  “Not at all,” Wheeler said. “But there are a few things you can tell me.”

  Torquelan’s office was simple. It was so simple, in fact, that Clint doubted it was a spot the man would spend very much time in at all. There was a desk, a few uncomfortable-looking chairs, and a small safe against one wall. Circling around the desk, Torquelan sat down with his back to a window that was covered by a dark sheet. “Have a seat.”

  Hurried footsteps rushed down the hall, announcing the arrival of two more gunmen. They huffed with the effort of their run and immediately pointed their guns at Clint and Wheeler. “They killed two and wounded another,” one of the men announced.

  “And you’re too late to do anything about it,” Torquelan said. “Get out of my sight.”

  The men disappeared almost as quickly as they’d arrived.

  “Where were we?” Torquelan asked in an overly formal tone.

  “I was about to ask you what you knew about three men who’ve gone missing,” Wheeler said.

  When Torquelan replied to that question, he did so with a voice dripping with feigned innocence. If he was a woman, he would have batted his eyelashes while saying, “Three men? Why would I know anything about three men who’ve gone missing?”

  “Because they’re miners,” Wheeler said, obviously not buying Torquelan’s act for a moment. “Two had gold claims that were starting to pan out and another had uncovered a vein of silver.”

  “I hate to say it, but men with that kind of good fortune will have plenty of others gunning for them.”

  “You made an offer to buy them out.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Having remained on his feet after being told to sit, Wheeler stepped closer to the desk and leaned forward to place his hands upon the rough wooden surface. “I spoke to two others who accepted similar offers from you. They told me two of them other three were at the same meeting.”

  Somehow, Torquelan maintained his innocent façade as he shrugged. Clint had to admire someone who could keep a poker face like that.

  “I meet with plenty of miners, Sheriff,” Torquelan said. “That’s the business I’m in.”

  “Bullshit,” Clint snapped.

  Furrowing his brow, Torquelan fixed a glare onto Clint as he said, “Excuse me?”

  Clint hadn’t moved from his spot, which meant everyone else in the room was in his field of vision. That included the man with the chiseled features dressed in an immaculate, freshly starched suit who stood just outside the doorway Clint had used when coming into the office.

  “I said this is a bunch of bullshit,” Clint replied. “You sit there acting like a wide-eyed daisy when the stink of gun smoke is still in the air. Maybe the two of you are willing to forget that we were shot at as soon as we set foot in here, but I’m not!”

  “And perhaps you’ve forgotten that when you set foot onto my property,” Torquelan said, “you did so by kicking down my door like a common invader. For all I knew, the two of you meant to slaughter me and my men without provocation.”

  “There’s plenty of provocation,” Wheeler said. “Just ask the families of those miners you’ve killed.”

  “First they were missing and now they’re dead?” Torquelan scoffed. “You should at least get your story straight before you do something like this, Sheriff. Judging by the expression on Mr. Adams’s face, I’d say he doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “I know your men have been following me since I got to town,” Clint said. “And before you try to tell me you don’t know about that, I’ll have you know I heard it from more than one source.”

  Torquelan settled into his chair. “I don’t suppose you’d name that source?”

  “Sure, but I don’t have to. You already know I’m speaking the truth.”

  After a brief pause, Torquelan folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “It seems I owe you an apology, Adams. You’ve stumbled into an unfortunate situation. If you’d like to wash your hands of the entire matter, I’d be happy to oblige.”

  “You would, huh? How so?” Clint asked.

  “By offering to reimburse you for any losses you may have suffered while in Las Primas and assuring that you will be allowed to leave town without another unfortunate incident befalling you.”

  “What a generous offer. How long do I have to think it over?”

  Torquelan got to his feet. “I assume you won’t need much time at all.”

  “Tell me something,” Clint said. “What has all this trouble got to do with Madame Giselle?”

  “Madame who?” Torquelan asked. But his poker face wasn’t as good as Clint had originally thought. Despite the innocence that remained in his voice when he said those words, Torquelan’s eyes showed a subtle twitch in the corners. It was a twitch that could only be put there by someone with a particular knack for getting under a man’s skin. More often than not, that someone was of the female variety.

  “Madame Giselle,” Sheriff Wheeler said. “She’s a fortune-teller in the Cart and Tent District.”

  “You two may have heard of her, but I haven’t,” Torquelan said. “I have much better ways to spend my time and money than by handing both over to some gypsy wrapped in cheap silk.” He then motioned toward the door, where the handsome man was waiting. “Tonight’s scuffle was unfortunate all around.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Clint said.

  “You men came in like brutes,” Torquelan continued, “and mine opened fire like common outlaws. Neither side has much in the way of redeeming qualities, so I’m willing to let it pass.”

  Before Clint could mutter the next smart comment that came to mind, Wheeler said, “I can abide by that. Of course, I’d like to have a chance to speak to you again. How about tomorrow? That should give us all a chance to cool our heels.”

  “That would be splendid . . . if I didn’t have business that takes me out of town tomorrow. Why don’t we have our next chat when I return?” Torquelan offered. “Until then, Mr. Darrow will show you out.”

  With that, Darrow stepped into the room and extended an arm to reveal the pistols holstered under both shoulders beneath his jacket. “This way, gentlemen,” he said in a smooth voice.

  When Darrow attempted to give Wheeler a nudge toward the door, the lawman turned to him and snarled, “Put a hand on me and you’ll pull back a stump.”

  “I’ll have to agree with our host,” Clint said. “There’s been more than enough excit
ement for one night.” He then led the sheriff out of the building.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Once outside, Clint gave Wheeler a shove toward the street. The sheriff wasted no time at all before spinning around to face him angrily.

  “What I said to Darrow goes for you as well, Adams!”

  “Funny how you lead me into an ambush without telling me much of anything beforehand and you’re the one who’s riled up.”

  Bringing his glare down to a simmer, Wheeler pointed himself toward the corner leading back to the busier part of town and started walking. “I suppose you do have reason to be perturbed.”

  “Perturbed?” Clint chuckled as he fell into step alongside the sheriff. “I would describe it more as pissed as all hell.”

  “Say what you like.”

  “All right, then. After what you pulled, I should knock you onto your ass!”

  Wheeler stopped, faced Clint, and placed his hand upon the pistol at his side. “You may have earned some slack with me, but don’t you forget who you’re speaking to. I’m a duly appointed lawman and you’ll respect that.”

  “I can respect the badge if not the man.”

  Letting out a measured breath, Wheeler conceded the point with a nod. “I suppose I had that coming.”

  “That and more as far as I’m concerned. Where are you going?”

  Wheeler had resumed his stride down the street and didn’t break it when he said, “Home. It’s been a long day.”

  “Do you intend on telling me what the hell this was about?”

  “I wasn’t going to ask why you were skulking about or what you intended on doing when you got what you were after.”

  “Yes you did!”

  After thinking that over for a moment, Wheeler said, “So I did. If you want to take Torquelan up on his offer to wash your hands of this mess, I don’t blame you.”

  “All I want,” Clint said, “is to find out exactly what the hell this mess is!”

  Wheeler put his hands on his hips and looked down the street as if he’d just been dropped there from a great height. “I could go for a drink. How about you, Adams?”

  “You buying?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I’m drinking.”

  * * *

  They wound up back in the spot Clint had first visited upon entering Las Primas. Sweet Caroline’s Spirits was alive and jumping with rowdy music being played by two men strumming banjos. Their feet stomped the floorboards and customers showed their appreciation with a chorus of drunken yells that vaguely resembled singing. Clint and Wheeler took their beers to a table as far away from the commotion as possible, which didn’t do much to lessen the noise blaring through their heads.

  “I misjudged you, Adams,” Wheeler said. “I’ve heard plenty about the men you killed and didn’t think too highly of it.”

  “That’s not the sort of thing plenty of men would admire,” Clint admitted. “Especially lawmen.”

  “Yes, well, I had you pegged for a common gunman. Maybe even a gunman on Torquelan’s payroll.”

  “So you invited me in there to see what I’d do once I got around those men?”

  “And if I didn’t like what I saw, I’d put you down.”

  “Just like that, huh?” Clint asked.

  Wheeler nodded and sipped his beer. “That’s what the good people of this town pay me to do.”

  “I suppose it is. So what do you think after what happened back there?”

  “I think I’d be plenty able to tell whether you were trying to pull one over on me and I don’t believe you were. As for the rest, it seems Mr. Torquelan has got more up his sleeve than I thought.”

  “You mind telling me about it?”

  After another drink, Wheeler seemed much more at ease. Not drunk, but just allowing himself to relax a bit. “Things around here have always been tense where Torquelan is concerned. I’ve usually been able to keep it under control enough to maintain a certain level of peace in Las Primas.”

  “It seems Torquelan has plenty of business outside of town,” Clint pointed out.

  “Which is outside my jurisdiction.” Where most lawmen Clint had encountered would let the matter drop right there, Wheeler added, “It’s come to my attention that he’s responsible for harming citizens, though, which extends my jurisdictional boundaries as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You’re talking about those miners?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what’s the story with them?” Clint asked.

  Wheeler drew a deep breath and shook his head slowly. “You’ve already been dragged through enough of this town’s mud. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you’d rather just put this place behind you. Lord knows I’ve considered it more than once.”

  “I’m in this and it’s not too hard to see that there’s a lot more beneath the surface. Besides, Torquelan didn’t strike me as the sort of man who’d honor his word by letting me ride on out of here without incident.”

  “I’d have to agree with you on that. How familiar are you with Torquelan’s line of work?”

  “I’ve just heard he invests in mining claims.”

  “Collects them is more like it,” Wheeler said. “He offers to buy them out, and when he’s refused, things get ugly.”

  “Nobody’s tried to put him away for stealing property rights or threatening honest miners?”

  “They would, but he’s not careless enough to be arrested that way. He covers his tracks real well.”

  “Yeah,” Clint groaned as he drank some beer. “Snakes tend to be like that.”

  “I may have been wrong about you, Adams, but I’m not wrong about him. Torquelan is a killer and a liar. He’s not a thief, however, which troubles me.”

  “Why? Because you’d rather deal with a thief?”

  “No,” Wheeler said. “Because it seems that he’s been collecting a lot more gold mines lately and not by the usual means. He intimidates miners, buys them off, kills them, cheats them, but outright stealing from them is . . .”

  Since Wheeler seemed to be searching for his next words, Clint offered some of his own. “Simple theft is beneath him?”

  “That’s right. I’m sure he’s done it in the past, but he’s beyond that now. He doesn’t need to steal. Torquelan sees to it that he acquires whatever he wants by eliminating whoever is in possession of it at the time. Simply calling him a thief would be like calling attention to the rain that comes on either side of a tornado. Does that make sense?”

  “Not entirely,” Clint said with a tired laugh, “but I get the point. What is it that troubles you now as opposed to what’s troubled you before?”

  “Three miners turned up missing. In the last week, they were declared lost. Torquelan made offers on their claims, but only after their grieving families gave up hope of finding them. Before that, Torquelan has been sending workers to start digging into four more properties he’d bought interests in.”

  “Controlling interest?”

  Wheeler shook his head. “He’s taking on partners. That’s not strange in itself, but reaching out to invest in so many claims at once isn’t like him. And none of those claims I mentioned belong to the miners that went missing. The fact that I discovered all of these happenings at once leads me to believe there’s a lot more going on that I haven’t found.”

  “And one of those things you haven’t found yet is what Torquelan is doing with those claims from the missing miners.”

  “That’s right,” Wheeler said. “Because he’s got to be doing something about them. When I looked into it some time ago, I lost one of my deputies.”

  “Torquelan had him killed?” Clint guessed.

  “Worse. He hired him. His name’s Mason. I believe you’ve already met him.”

  “He was one of your deputies? I never would have guessed that.”r />
  “Mason never was a saint,” Wheeler said. “Honestly, I was glad to be rid of him. But having him sign on with Torquelan’s bunch just when I got close to finding out what was happening with those claims is too much of a coincidence for my liking.”

  “I’m guessing those claims are fairly lucrative.”

  Leaning forward, the sheriff dropped his voice to something close to a whisper. “That’s just the thing. They were barely starting to produce anything at all. Normally, they’d be way below Torquelan’s interest. After those miners went missing, he scooped them up and locked them down.”

  “He’s not working them?”

  “Not as far as I can tell.”

  “Hasn’t anyone else suspected Torquelan of being involved with those miners?” Clint asked.

  “Of course. That’s when he holed up in them three buildings and stopped talking to anyone apart from his own men and a few of his business associates.”

  “Which associates?”

  “Suppliers and such,” Wheeler replied.

  Clint swirled what was left of his beer around in his glass. “What do they supply him with?”

  “Don’t know just yet.”

  “Where do you intend on going from here?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas, but I’ve only just started getting my hands dirty on this whole affair. It didn’t take much digging for me to find myself in over my head.”

  “Yeah,” Clint sighed. “I know just what you mean.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The sun crested the horizon, bathing Las Primas in its glow. When she awoke, Gigi found herself alone. She emerged from her wagon, looked around, and quickly spotted a familiar pair of boots sticking out from a bedroll that had been spread on the ground beneath a nearby tree. She went over and tugged on one of the boots until the man connected to the feet within them began to stir.

  “Do I want to know why you’re sleeping out here instead of with me?” she asked.

  “Couldn’t be certain,” Clint said as he sat up and stretched, “but I may have been followed.”