"Don't believe I'm gonna have to relay nothing for you, Miss Gailwood," Wilby drawled, "'cause you'll be able to tell it to Totter your own self. 'Less I miss my guess, that's him comin' now … "
Amelia's blue turned ice cold. "Indeed it is. The arrogant, murderous peacock!"
Brandon Totter and his followers came to a stop on the boardwalk in front of the telegraph office. He craned his neck and scanned the men on horseback. "Which of you is Anse Wilby?" he demanded.
Still leaning on his saddle horn, Wilby lifted a forefinger and wagged in acknowledgement. "That'd be me."
His tone no less demanding, Totter said, "Did you bring what I sent you after?"
Kendrick watched Wilby's face muscles tighten very faintly.
"Before I answer that," Wilby said, "you mind tellin' me who you are to be asking all these questions?"
Totter's face reddened. "I'm Brandon Totter. You damn well ought to be able to figure that out."
Wilby smiled. "Pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Totter. I've enjoyed our telegram exchanges. I especially enjoyed all that money you wired me."
"I should hope to hell so," Totter blustered. "You certainly required enough."
A larger crowd was starting to gather as people emerged from surrounding stores and businesses. Kendrick spotted Sheriff Watson among them, hovering unobtrusively in the background.
"Not so much that I picked you clean," Wilby responded, letting his gaze skim meaningfully over the three men backing Totter. "Appears you had enough left to hire this clump of gun-bumblers. I know you're a rich man, Mr. Totter, but you really oughta be more careful about wastin' your money so."
"Hey. To hell with you, Wilby," said one of gunnies at Totter's shoulder. "The only wasted money was however much he threw at your tired old ass."
Wilby shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. Horace, you always did have that foul mouth on you." His eyes flicked to the other two men. "Pancho, Buck … Didn't your mamas ever warn against hangin' with those who use such nasty language?"
"Never mind that," Totter snapped. "I don't give a sick dog's ass how a man talks as long as he gets the job done for me. And that means you, too, Wilby. Now I already asked you once—did you get that damn diamond or not?"
Wilby looked again at Pancho and Buck, this time plaintively. "See how the bad language spreads? A wealthy, important man like Mr. Totter and already he's picked it up. Let that be a lesson to—"
"Knock off the bullshit! Where's that diamond, goddamn you?" roared Totter.
Wilby straightened up in his saddle, his torso going rigid as a steel bar. All of a sudden, without anyone seeing it move, his right hand was poised above the pearl-handled Colt in the cross-draw rig on his left hip. "Speak to me like that again," he said to Totter, his voice like the scrape of a knife blade on a honing stone, "I guarantee that diamond will be the least of your worries."
Totter's eyes blazed. They burned into Wilby for a moment, then cut over to Amelia. "It's her, isn't it?" he spat. "The witch used her wiles to swerve you against me, didn't she?" Now his demand was aimed directly at Amelia. "Do you have the diamond?"
"No, I don't have that accursed thing," Amelia fired back. "If you want the truth, it's in the hands of a band of Aravaipa Apaches up in the Pinalenos Mountains. They're waiting patiently to hand it over to you. Please, I urge you—hurry and go claim it from them."
Totter looked half-confounded, half-furious. "You're mad! All of you." He looked around desperately. "Where's my man Kazmir?"
"The Aravaipas ate him for breakfast," Kendrick said.
Totter's eyes fell on him. "You must be the bounty hunter."
Kendrick gave no response.
"The witch hired you with my money, you realize. That means you're working for me, too."
"I'd starve before I'd work for the likes of you."
"You may well do that. In prison!" Totter's face purpled with gowing rage. "I intend to bring charges against the lot of you. You hear me? I paid good faith money to every one of you ungrateful bastards and bitches and I've been bilked. Such treatment will not stand! I know people at the highest levels in more countries than you can count. I demand—"
The thunderous discharge of Sheriff Watson's shotgun, aimed skyward, cut short Totter's enraged rant. Totter staggered backward, as if he thought he'd been hit by the blast. The gunnies behind him, their expressions appearing somewhat nervous and uncertain after witnessing the escalating meltdown of their meal ticket, reached almost reluctantly to steady him.
"You three," Watson addressed them, pushing his way through the crowd. "Take that man to his hotel room and find a way to get him settled down. Keep him there until I send for you to bring him to the stage that will be leavin' town later this afternoon. You'll all be gettin' on it. If I see any of you outside the hotel before then, I'll arrest the whole bunch and charge you with everything from inciting a riot to disorderly conduct to acting like jackasses in public. Now git!"
Pasty-faced and bug-eyed, Totter looked around as if in disbelief.
When he opened his mouth to try and say something, Watson barked, "Not another word! Just get a move on."
The gunnies escorted him away. As they were leaving, the one called Horace looked over his shoulder and said to Wilby, "You and me ain't through. There'll be another time."
Wilby touched a finger to the brim of his hat. "Be lookin' forward to it."
"Not in my town," Watson growled.
"Nossir," Wilby agreed. "It respectfully will not be in your fair city."
To the crowd of gawping onlookers, the sheriff made a sweeping gesture with one arm. "The rest of you need to clear on out of here. The show is over … Go on about your business, hear?"
When the crowd started to disperse, Watson turned back to Kendrick, Wilby, and the others, still on their horses. His eyes came to rest on Kendrick. "Those hombres arrived in town yesterday. I had a hunch they were gonna be the source of trouble, sooner or later. And I had an even bigger hunch that it was somehow gonna be tied to you."
"You got to watch this rascal, Sheriff," Wilby said. "I had the same hunch first time I laid eyes on him—that he was gonna have trouble tied to him."
Watson's gaze shifted. "Ain't you Anse Wilby?"
"I am for a fact."
Watson turned back to Kendrick. "Thought this was the hombre you warned me to be on the lookout for? You didn't say anything about those others. And now here you are, by the look of it, buddied up with Wilby. You seem to have a troubling way of shiftin' your allegiances on a pretty regular basis."
"Man has to be what you call flexible, Sheriff," Kendrick tried to explain. "These are fast-changin' times."
Watson nodded. "Fair enough. Good to hear you understand about change. You see, I've changed my mind about some things, too. For instance, when you arrived in town before you said something about hangin' around for awhile and collectin' some of the bounties that seemed to be so plentiful around here. I had no objection at the time … Now I've had a sort of change of heart."
"All things considered," Kendrick allowed, "I guess I can't fault you for that."
"Good. I ain't sayin' you got to skedaddle as quick as those others I just sent packin'. But a day or so ought be time enough. You can stop by my office before you go, I've got the rest of those bounties owed you."
"I'll do that."
Watson's eyes swept over Wilby and his men. "Reckon you got the hint that the same thing goes for you boys."
Wilby wagged his head. "See? Deserves us right, hangin' with the likes of a no-account such as Kendrick … We get the message, Sheriff. You'll have no trouble with us, we'll be gone by tomorrow."
"Obliged."
"What about me?" Hickory wailed from the rear of the pack. "Am I gettin' run out of town, too?"
Watson craned his neck to see who was talking. "I thought I saw you back there, you old coot … No, you're welcome to stay as long as you can talk Markson into hiring you back as a stage driver. I don't want no unemployed bums around. Ma
rkson was plenty sore the way you took off so sudden, but he's had bad luck keepin' help ever since you been gone, so I expect he'll give you another shot."
Hickory nudged his horse around the others and aimed toward the stage station. "I'll go do some fence-mendin' right now." He showed a sheepish grin to Kendrick, Amelia, and Faleejah as he passed by. "Been a pleasure, folks, but I'm too blamed old for that adventurous life. I'm goin' back to a tamer one, even if it means dodgin' road agents from time to time."
Now turning his attention to Amelia and Faleejah, Watson said, "You ladies, of course, are welcome to stay in Lowdown for as long as you like, or as long as it takes to make whatever arrangements you require." He cleared his throat. "Although, if I can make a suggestion, you might in the future be more careful about who you choose to associate with."
"Kendrick strikes again!" Wilby guffawed. "You hear that, bounty man? You're a corrupting influence on everything you go near."
Ignoring him, Amelia said, "Thank you, Sheriff. We'll get our affairs in order as quickly as possible. And, if I might say, I think you're judging these men a bit too harshly. Their ways may at times be coarse, perhaps even distasteful, but they have been nothing but attentive and protective to both of us women out there in the wild."
"Now she's talkin' about me," Wilby boasted.
Taking his turn at ignoring the distraction, Sheriff Watson said to Amelia, "Appreciate you sharin' that, ma'am. But what I said before still goes."
With that, the sheriff pinched his hat brim and then ambled off toward his office, with the shotgun casually across one shoulder.
Watching him go, Wilby said, "That bespectacled old codger don't look like much, but I get the feelin' he was a handful in his day."
"And that day ain't all the way past, I don't figure," said Kendrick.
Wilby grinned. "That why we're lettin' him run us out of town so easy?"
Kendrick shrugged. "More like we're just ready to move on."
"Yeah, there's that. Plus the fact it seemed pretty clear I've been fired by Totter." Wilby sighed. "Guess there ain't a lot to keep me around, anyway. And, when it comes right down to it, the main use for towns is mostly because that's where you find the saloons and the willin' women—no disrespect meant, Miss Amelia, Miss Faleejah. Once a body's sort of caught up on those pursuits for awhile, headin' out on the open trail again is usually a welcome thing."
Wilby seemed to consider his statement and then his mouth spread in a wide, wicked grin. "Don't get me wrong. It usually takes more than one night for me and my boys to get our fill of whiskey and wild women … But, in this case, since I told the sheriff we'd give him no trouble, it'll have to tide us over until we get to another town."
"I'm sure he'll appreciate that," Kendrick said dryly.
Wilby's expression turned serious. "What do you think, amigo? Our paths gonna cross again some day?"
"Never can tell."
"In one way, I wouldn't mind if they did. In another … it might not be a good idea."
"Uh-huh. I guess I feel about the same."
Now the grin came back. "One thing's for sure … It'd be interesting, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah. Bound to be that."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kendrick escorted the women to the Silvertip Hotel and saw them checked into adjoining rooms. They'd both left personal belongings in storage there at the temporary close of their previous stay. These they now arranged to have delivered to their respective rooms, along with items from their mounts and the pack horse hitched out front. Kendrick accompanied them up to their rooms, assuring them he would take care of the horses getting stabled and tended for as long as they remained in town.
In the hallway outside their doorways, Faleejah turned to Kendrick with a deep earnestness in her smoldering eyes. "In the desert yesterday, when the Red Ghost made his appearance, I spoke very harshly to you and the other men. I regret that, especially where you are concerned. It was just that Kazmir had for so many years been such a loyal servant to my family and to me—or so I mistakenly believed. It was hard for me to think of him in another way, even after what happened. And therefore the thought of just leaving him to … "
"It's all right," Kendrick assured her. "The whole thing had to have been a very hard experience for you. You needn't have any regrets about anything that was said."
"But you saved my life. Twice. First, when you stopped Kazmir from dragging me away. And then again when you pulled me to the protection of the boulders. I just stood there frozen with fear. Surely the arrows and bullets from the savages would have—"
Kendrick pressed a finger to her lips, stopping the flow of words. "Shhh. Let it go. You're safe now. That's all that counts."
"I don't know the words to express how grateful I am."
"You already expressed them. Now, like I said, just let it go."
Faleejah leaned up to plant a warm, lingering kiss on his cheek, then whirled and ducked into her room.
Kendrick stood looking after her for a long moment. "Wow," he said.
"Yes. Wow, indeed," said Amelia, leaning against the frame of her own door. "That's going to be a hard act for me to follow."
Kendrick turned his attention to her. "I hope you're not gonna give up too easy."
"What good would it do me, no matter how hard I tried. It's still going to end in goodbye, isn't it?"
"You heard the sheriff. I've been invited out of town."
"Like that would stop you, if you really wanted to stay."
Kendrick didn't have an answer for that.
"You know, I owe you money. You ought to at least stick around for that. I didn't expect things to end quite like this, so abruptly. It may take a day or so to arrange having payment sent. I can explain to the sheriff and I'm sure he would—"
"I'll make out okay with the bounty money I'm going to collect. You don't owe me anything. After all, I didn't succeed in gettin' you your diamond, did I?"
"Your job was to help me find the diamond. You did succeed at that."
"Let's agree to disagree," Kendrick told her. "Now I'd better go down and see to gettin' our horses took care of. They've seen some long, hard miles, they deserve to be proper tended."
"What will you do after that? Where are you going to stay tonight—the same place as before?" She teased him with a smile. "Will that blonde be waiting for you?"
"That ain't something we're gonna discuss," Kendrick said stiffly. He cursed himself inwardly. Damned if she didn't have him blushing again.
Amelia pushed closer to him. "I know I'm being bold, but you're not giving me much choice. We had precious few moments out on the trail, yet you can't deny you felt the attraction building between us, the same as I did. So, now that we have the chance, are we just going to go our separate ways and make no attempt to explore where those feelings might take us?"
"I already know where they'd take us," Kendrick said, gazing into her eyes. "We'd still end up goin' our separate ways, only we'd likely hurt each other before we did."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because we're way too different. You're a woman determined to succeed big with your writing, and well on the way to achievin' that success. Me, I'm just a restless drifter. Neither of us is ready to change. You'd never be able to accept my lifestyle—no woman could. And I sure-fire ain't the kind of fella to follow you around sharpenin' your pencils and carryin' your notebooks for you."
"You could be wrong."
"But I'm not," Kendrick insisted. "And actin' on our feelings—here, now, maybe for the next week or a month … I can't do that to you. I won't."
Amelia squeezed her eyes tightly shut and kept them that way. When she was sure no tears were gong to leak out, she said, "Go then … Go now."
And Kendrick did.
* * * * *
He shared a stable stall that night with Blockhead. For a while he could hear a lot of whooping and hollering from one of the saloons down the street, and he figured it was probably Wilby and his
men. When they eventually quieted down, he slept.
At first light, he rose. He fed, watered, and saddled Blockhead.
Then he rode down to the jail/sheriff's office and waited for Watson to show up.
Once he had most of the bounty money secure in his saddlebags and the rest stuffed in a pocket, he rode out of town without glancing back.
When Blockhead twisted his neck around from time to time in order to shoot back dirty looks, Kendrick told him to shut up and mind his own business.
Author's Note
The story you've just read is fiction, seasoned with a few sprinklings of historical fact.
There is no record of any gift such as the Devotion Diamond given to Cleopatra by Julius Caesar. However, it is well known that Caesar did lavish upon the Egyptian queen considerable amounts of jewelry and countless rare gems from all across the known world … So who is to say there was not a Devotion Diamond?
Aravaipa Apaches, along with other tribes of the Apache Nation, did inhabit the Pinalenos Mountains on and off throughout much of the 1800s.
My description and brief history of the U.S. Army Camel Corps is accurate in accordance with the research I did on the subject. When the Corps was disbanded following the Civil War, many of the camels were in fact simply released or allowed to escape. There were numerous reports of them roaming the Southwest for many years thereafter.
The camel that came to be called the Red Ghost (because of his reddish fur) truly existed and became one of the most famous and most frequently spotted of the "phantom camels". For a time, documented reports attest to him carrying the corpse of a mysterious dead rider on his back. Eventually the corpse rotted to just a skeleton and at one point some prospectors were present to witness the skull jarring loose and falling to the desert floor. For nearly a decade longer, the Ghost continued to roam with its now-headless skeletal rider. In the 1890s, the Ghost was shot and killed by a farmer who caught him invading a cabbage patch. The rest of the skeleton had fallen away by then, but the leather straps and thongs that had originally held the body in place were still intact. Why or how the body was placed there to begin with, no one knows … Or do we?
Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 15
