"That's about how it works, sir. They'll ride for the brand as long as—"
"I know, Dave, I know—as long as the brand rides for them."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Hendricks."
Hendricks stood there for a long time, working the bacon from his teeth with his tongue and thinking it over. Finally, he turned to his foreman. "All right, Dave. Have them saddled up and ready to ride in half an hour. Leave a few here to keep up with the chores around the headquarters in case any calves start dropping."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Hendricks."
"And tell those left behind to stay away from the damn house, Dave."
"I'll tell them, sir."
"And Dave?" Hendricks looked at the tall, good-looking foreman, askance.
"Yes, Mr. Hendricks?"
"You haven't been doing anything... indecorous... with either of my daughters, have you?"
Groom swallowed and nearly choked on his tongue. He shook his head with vehemence. "No, sir, Mr. Hendricks!"
Hendricks watched his foreman for several seconds, then his eyes relaxed and he nodded. "Okay, Dave. See to the men."
"You got it, boss!"
Groom handed Hendricks his empty cup and headed for the bunkhouse, his heart pounding harder than it had when he'd had Megan Hendricks bent over the tack bench.
Chapter Twelve
AT HIGH NOON Doc Evans walked down the boardwalk on First Street and turned into Sam Wa's Café. He stood near the door, twisting the ends of his waxed red mustache and scouring the room for a table.
Sam's, as usual at this hour, was hopping with businessmen, cowboys, railroaders, and soldiers from Fort Assiniboine. Evans usually tried to get here by eleven forty-five to beat the crowd, but he'd had to relocate the dislocated knee of a telegraph lineman.
"This way, Doc," Evelyn Vincent said as she walked past him with a crooked finger. "Just cleared a little table back here against the wall," she continued as Evans followed her through the crowd. "Maybe we'll be able to keep you out of trouble back here."
The waitress snorted dryly as Evans sat down.
“Trouble? Me?" the doctor said, feigning a wide-eyed look of innocence. He knew that by now it had probably gotten around town and halfway around the county that he'd gotten Leon McMannigle drunk last night and thus less capable of performing his duties as efficiently as was expected of one of the top five sheriff’s deputies in the territory.
"Trouble? Most certainly you," the waitress returned. "Everyone knows Leon wouldn't normally drink on duty, Doc. Not only have you embarrassed him before the whole town, you have him feeling about knee-high to a grasshopper! Now, what'll it be? If you haven't noticed, I have quite a few mouths to feed."
When Evans had ordered his usual hamburger with fried onions and fried potatoes and gravy, Evelyn stomped back toward the kitchen, weaving her way through the tables. Evans crossed his arms on the table and glanced around, noticing several disapproving looks aimed his way.
He frowned and dropped his gaze, chagrined. He knew he shouldn't have enticed the deputy into imbibing last night, but Evans rarely had company except for Katherine Kemmett, and the woman was an incorruptible, irredeemable teetotaler. A man could literally die of thirst in the presence of such a prude! Due to Katherine's perpetual hovering, he himself hadn't had but one or two drinks in a night in weeks; he'd just taken the opportunity of Leon's presence to oil his tonsils.
Can't blame him, for God's sakes. After all, he did live out in the middle of friggin' nowhere, getting paid in hay and chickens for skills he'd acquired in one of the finest medical schools in the East! Not only that, but his only female companion these days was a prim and proper minister's widow.
Speak of the devil!
Mrs. Kemmett walked purposefully past the window and turned into the café. She looked around the room. Spying him, she started his way. As she came, Evans watched her, and in spite of his previous sentiment, he found himself admiring the figure she cut beneath all that cotton and crinoline. She was heavy-bosomed in spite of the tight corset she wore, flat-bellied, and round-hipped. And there was just something about all that prim and proper prudishness, all that church-pew varnish and gloss, that kept him, a veteran whoremonger, beguiled and imagining how it would be, unbuttoning all those buttons, unfastening all those fasteners...
"When I didn't find you at home, I figured you'd be here," she said as she approached, removing her long, white gloves. He could tell by her castigating tone that she, too, had gotten the news.
"Yes, I decided to stop by for a bite but rather wish I'd stayed at the house." He scowled and glanced furtively across the room.
She sat in the chair across from him. "Yes, as well you should have. A man of your ilk should stay as close to his own yard as possible, lest he get egged and stoned for his transgressions, of which there are plenty."
"He didn't have to drink!"
"Oh, Clyde!"
"Just because I was drinking—for the first time in weeks, I might add; even Christ deserved a bender in the desert for God's sakes!—didn't mean he had to imbibe."
"Such talk! And I suppose you did all you could to discourage him... ?"
Evans fidgeted like one of Katherine's Sunday-schoolers caught drinking communion wine in die rectory.
"Oh, Clyde! What are we going to do with you?"
"Yes, that's the question, isn't it?" Evelyn Vincent said as she set the doctor's meal on the table before him. She looked at Katherine. "Do you want me to find you another table, Mrs. Kemmett? Those railroaders over there should be leaving in a minute."
Katherine sighed, crossed her hands on the table, and looked Evans over critically. "No, I think I'd better stay here and give counsel... as best I can."
"Good luck."
"Oh, help me," Evans moaned.
When Katherine had ordered her usual bowl of soup and buttered roll, Evelyn headed back toward the kitchen. She stopped halfway across the room to accept a tip and field a flirtation. When she turned away with an affable smile, she saw three strange men enter the cafe, look around, and head for the table the railroaders were vacating.
She gave the men a cursory appraisal, noting they were strangers. Only half-consciously deciding she did not like how they looked, she headed for the kitchen and the several orders awaiting her there.
Behind her, the three strangers made their way to the table, walking stiffly and appraising the crowd with the skeptical, defensive scrutiny of outsiders. The one in the lead, who wore a frock coat over a paisley vest and a black slouch hat with hammered silver around the crown, mistook Evelyn's unfavorable appraisal for a favorable one, and studied her backside as she disappeared through the batwing to the kitchen.
As he threw the tail of his coat back and sat down, he grinned at the other two men. "Pretty," he said. "Did you see the way she looked at me?"
"Who?" Newt Jarvis asked. He was a big, mustached man in an ill-fitting suit.
"The waitress. I think she likes me."
The third man, Calvin Whitehead, chuckled. "Hell, Blade, you think they all like you!"
The man in the frock coat, whose name was Bledin Carstairs, leaned toward Whitehead with a self-satisfied grin, slapped the table lightly with his pinky-ringed right hand, and said, "That's because they do, my boy. They do!"
"Why don't we forget about the girls?" Jarvis said. "You can diddle all the girls you want after we've pulled the bank job over in Shelby."
Carstairs glanced around coolly, then sat back in his chair and looked at Jarvis. "Why don't you talk a little louder, Jarv? I don't think those two against the wall quite heard the whole thing."
"Nobody can hear nothin' in this crowd," Jarvis said.
"We're strangers," Carstairs retorted. "People in little towns scrutinize strangers—haven't you seen all the eyes that have turned our way since we walked in here? They also like to eavesdrop. So, keep your damn voice down or I'll put you right back on the train you just crawled off of, you big buffoon, and send you back to Dakota where you
belong."
Calvin Whitehead, the youngest of the trio who was dressed much like Carstairs but with noticeably cheaper tailoring, leaned over the table to regard both men with an acquiescent glance. "Come on, gentlemen, settle down. Don't get your tails all in a hook. We got a job to discuss."
The three men quickly formed smiles as the waitress approached looking harried, her smooth cheeks flushed and her blond hair falling out of its bun. "Gentlemen," she said by way of cool greeting, "what will it be?"
Bledin Carstairs blinked his flirtatious eyes and unconsciously widened his arms, edging his coat lapels back so the girl could get a good look at the gold watch chain looping out from a pocket of his lavish vest. "Hello there, pretty lady." His voice was deep and silky, like warm spring water bubbling over gumbo.
"Yes sir, what'll it be?" the young woman asked with an impatient sigh, giving a glance to the room which, while beginning to thin, was still aswarm with hungry diners.
"How 'bout a stroll along the river later?"
Evelyn sighed again, this time with real annoyance. She didn't mind men flirting with her—it all came with the job—but when she ran across a particularly persistent flirt during the noon or suppertime rush, one so self-centered as to believe she had all the time in the world to entertain him and him alone, she wanted to draw a pistol and start shooting.
Apparently, her face adequately conveyed her mood. The man, flushing slightly, asked for the lunch special, and the others followed suit. Smiling a little too brightly, Evelyn swung around and headed for the kitchen, unaware her bottom was getting another long, slow appraisal by Bledin Carstairs.
"Yeah, she's real crazy for you, Blade," big Jarvis snickered, nervously smoothing his unruly mustache with a hammy paw.
"Hey, the poor girl's busy," Whitehead said. "Even if she did have eyes for him, she wouldn't have time to flirt."
"Ah, the voice of reason," Carstairs said, sliding his eyes to young Whitehead. He frowned as another thought displaced the image of the waitress's ass. "Where in the hell did you get that suit, anyway?"
"Cheyenne—why?"
"It's ugly."
"It ain't ugly. Besides, it's all I had money for."
"What'd you do with all the money we took—?" Carstairs stopped himself abruptly and glanced around. Lowering his voice, he said, "With all the money from the assay office down in Deadwood?"
Jarvis laughed. “I bet that was gone the day after we split up!" He put a hand on young Whitehead's shoulder and gave him a playful shove. "You know how that little French devil over to Julesburg has him tied to her garter straps!"
Whitehead frowned, annoyed, and said through gritted teeth, "Shut up, Newt! I told you, if you don't have anything good to say about Julieanna, don't say anything at all!"
"You should have wired me for money, kid," Carstairs told him, keeping his voice below the din of the loud conversations surrounding him. "We're supposed to look like professional salesmen, not snake-oil drummers."
Whitehead was churlish. "I do look professional!"
"You look like a snake-oil drummer," Carstairs looked at Newt Jarvis and shook his head.
"I do?" Whitehead said. "What about him?"
"Hey!" Jarvis growled mock angrily.
Carstairs appraised big Jarvis and laughed. "Newt could crawl into the fanciest suit hand-sewn in New York City and still look like just what he is—an ole Missouri mule skinner!" He bent forward, laughing.
Jarvis grinned and yanked on his lapels. "Yeah, I reckon they don't make suits for men my size." He wagged his head sadly. "It still set me back three good drinkin' nights in Bismarck, it did."
"Let's get down to business," Calvin Whitehead said, turning to Carstairs. "You set a date yet, Blade?"
"Well, I did, but that was before last night. Last night something happened right here in Clantick that makes me think we should stick around here for a while."
Jarvis had been about to light a fat cigar. Now he frowned and leaned forward over the lantern in the center of the table. "Wait a minute—I thought you said you didn't want to pull anything here on account of the badass sheriff in town."
"I did," Jarvis said. "But he got called out of town on business last night. Some—" He stopped abruptly when Jarvis made a slashing motion with his hand. The waitress came up from behind Carstairs and set a bowl of chili and a ham sandwich before him, then went around and set the same meals before the other two men.
"Coffee?" she asked.
"If you wouldn't mind, beautiful lady," Carstairs said with a toothy grin.
"Comin' right up."
Carstairs waited until the waitress had returned with their coffee and left before continuing. "As I was saying, some prisoner escaped the doctor's house last night and headed into the Two-Bear Mountains. Apparently, the man's a trapper who knows his way around the mountains pretty well. So Stillman—that's the sheriff—will probably be occupied for several days."
Whitehead was chewing a mouthful of beefy chili. "So, what do you have in mind?"
"The bank here in town," Carstairs said, taking a bite from his sandwich.
"Isn't there a deputy?" Jarvis asked.
"Yeah, but I think we're okay. He's the one the prisoner escaped from. Apparently, he's not much of a lawman. Word is—I got most of this from some railroad men during breakfast over in the Boston Hotel—that he was drinking when he should have been guarding the trapper." Carstairs grinned. "Also—get this—he's a nigger."
Jarvis looked at Carstairs with surprise. "No kiddin'?"
"Sure enough. Who else they gonna get this far off the beaten path to play deputy to a hardass like Stillman? Some yessuh, nosuh guy, no doubt. Probably even more of a slacker than usual when his boss is out of town."
Whitehead was busy eating, for he'd been on the train for several days and hadn't had much money for anything but biscuits. "You seen this guy, Blade—this deputy?"
"No, I just got here yesterday. But I really don't think he'll be anything to worry about. And have you seen this town? It's grown by leaps and bounds since I was through here last. Two mercantiles, a livery barn, a damn fancy hotel for this deep in the sticks. And I seen some ranchers in town last night driving leather-seated buggies with brass fittings and the whole shebang!" Carstairs shook his head. "That bank—the First Stockmen's—has to be splitting at the seams. It's the only one in town, one of only three in the whole damn county."
"Well, what in the hell are we doin' here, then?" Jarvis asked.
"Yeah," Whitehead put in after he'd swallowed some coffee. "You always told us it wasn't smart to hole up in the same town you're sizin' up for a strike."
"Well, I didn't know until I got off the train yesterday we were sizin' it up for a strike," Carstairs said testily from behind his coffee cup. The two soldiers sitting behind them had gotten up to leave, and Carstairs watched them askance.
None of the three men said anything until the soldiers had left.
"So, what do we do now, Blade?" young Whitehead asked.
"Well, it's really too late to leave now. I say we just try to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible while we spend the next couple days sizing things up. I have a room over at the Boston. We'll bunk together there. I've already told the manager two of my, ahem, colleagues were on their way, and we'd be bunking together to save the company some cash."
"Okay," Jarvis said, straightening up and inspecting his attire. "The Boston it is. Sounds slicker'n a schoolmarm's knee." He stretched an arm out and nudged young Whitehead playfully.
"More coffee, boys?" the waitress asked, pot in hand.
Blade looked around and saw that the crowd had thinned considerably. That was probably why the waitress seemed so much more relaxed, not to mention friendly.
"How could I resist such an offer from such a lovely young temptress as yourself?" he said, extending his cup with flair.
The waitress, to his surprise, smiled broadly and even blushed.
"What are you doing tonight, if I may
ask, milady?" Carstairs inquired as the young woman freshened his partners' coffee.
"Well, tonight I'll be busy as a bee," she said, smiling. Whitehead and Jarvis snickered and cut their mocking eyes at Carstairs.
"Oh, really?" Carstairs groaned theatrically. "Pray tell this starstruck, heartsick suitor-to-be."
"Well, first I have to wash my hair, then I have to wash my work dresses."
More chuckles from Carstairs's partners.
They settled down considerably, however, when the girl, lifting the pot from Whitehead's cup, smiled lavishly at Carstairs and said, "But tomorrow night I'm free as the breeze. What'd you have in mind?"
Chapter Thirteen
"HOLD UP A minute, Ben."
Stillman reined his big bay to a halt and looked behind him. Jody was approaching from a depression in the trail they were following through a wide, grassy valley just behind the first front of the Two-Bears.
"What is it?" Stillman asked the young man.
Jody wore a sheepskin coat, leather gloves, and a cream plainsman strapped to his chin with a horsehair thong and acom fastener. He was appraising the mountain rising on their right
"This valley gets deeper the farther we follow it east. We should get out now. We need to be on the other side of this mountain. Then we can follow Aspen Valley southeast. It's a shortcut toward the river breaks."
"You know these mountains a hell of a lot better than I do," Stillman said. "Lead the way."
"Come on, Dex," Jody said to his horse, urging the buckskin off the trail they'd been following and up the mountain, through low-growing shrubs and over a scattering of black talus. "There's a pretty good switchbacking game trail up here, Ben."
Stillman kneed Sweets up the side of the mountain, following about twenty yards behind Jody. It was a steep climb but the footing after the shale was fairly good, for deer and elk had cut a seven-inch trail in the short grass and gravel-carpeted limestone.
On the ridge Stillman kneed his horse alongside Jody, who sat his saddle staring out over a deep valley filled with conifers and aspens. The buds on the aspens were swollen, preparing to open in a week or two. Ragged snow patches lingered on the south-facing slope. Down the middle of the valley, a stream curved over rocks, slicing a thin wedge between forested slopes. Shunting, puffy clouds swept the terrain with shadows.
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