They left the horse and buggy where they were, dashed over to the livery station and commandeered two ponies in the name of the law, and hit the trail as fast as they could. The buggy would have slowed them down far too much, and they needed the flexibility horses alone could give them.
Matthew’s mind raced nearly as fast as the ponies. They truly were alone out here in Santa Fe. They didn’t know which police officers, if any, they could trust, and they didn’t know if Bleaker had turned the whole Pinkerton office or if he alone had gone rogue. He sifted through everything Bleaker had told them—and everything he’d omitted. So many lies and omissions for just one day. Some people just worked faster than others, he supposed.
Their intention when they’d laid out their plans the night before was to speak plainly to Bleaker and insist on more information. When they’d found that bullet in the wall, their plan had changed somewhat—they’d still approach Bleaker, but with the intent to arrest him if he couldn’t come up with some excellent explanations for his oversight. Now, knowing that Bleaker and Ridges were working together . . .
Did Pedro Garcia even exist, or was Bleaker behind the entire thing?
At that thought, Matthew almost fell off his horse.
He shouldn’t jump to conclusions—he knew how important it was to remain as objective as he could. But he couldn’t ignore the possibility that Garcia was a shadow, a name to hide behind.
Hmm. If that were the case, if Bleaker was the mastermind behind this plot, what did he have to gain from it? His objective wouldn’t be returning New Mexico to Spain—it would be the money, pure and simple. The argument over territorial rights would be a red herring.
For that matter, that could be true if there was a Pedro Garcia running everything. He could claim a sense of patriotism as his motivation, but beneath it all, he could be counting on the money from weapons sales to create a nice nest egg.
Regardless of the motive, regardless of the real mastermind, they were riding into the middle of a very dangerous situation, and Matthew gritted his teeth. It was time to focus on the things right in front of him and to stop conjecturing. He could sort out the details later. Right now, they had some men to arrest. A glance over at Esme told him that she was similarly focused, her jaw set.
And she’d never looked so beautiful.
Matthew shook his head, exasperated. He’d just given himself a lecture about staying focused, but now he was becoming distracted all over again. He didn’t know how to get this one out of his mind, though—she had planted herself there pretty firmly. Maybe if he rehearsed all the ways in which she annoyed him . . . but no, that wasn’t going to work either. Even her irritating little habits were starting to become funny to him, and he was more amused by her than exasperated. She was wearing him down, no doubt, and she would come out the winner in this battle of wills.
Another mile down the road, Matthew signaled by raising his arm, and Esme slowed her horse to match his speed. They led their horses into the trees and tethered them by some tender young grass, then kept low to the ground as they approached the camp Mr. Young had indicated on his map.
At first, Matthew wasn’t sure they were in the right place. Hand-drawn maps were never accurate as to proper distances, and as they crept along, he wondered if they needed to return to the horses and go farther north before veering off into the trees again. But then up ahead, he saw smoke curling into the sky where smoke wouldn’t ordinarily be, and he felt encouraged to keep going.
They placed their feet as quietly as they could, but the ground was covered in twigs, and it was difficult to remain silent. Thankfully, as they got closer, they could hear a child crying, and that should mask the sounds they were making. As grateful as Matthew was for the sound cover, he felt sick to his stomach that children were involved in this mess. Why couldn’t Ridges leave his family in town, a safe distance away, if he had to take this job at all? Didn’t he realize the danger he was placing them in?
Then again, if Ridges believed in the lies his boss was telling him, chances were good that he didn’t realize how dangerous things could become.
Matthew inwardly shook his head. Perhaps he was misinterpreting the entire situation and he was conjecturing scenarios that didn’t even exist. He hoped that would be the case—he hoped that every single thing he’d imagined would turn out to be just that, only his imagination.
At last they reached the edges of the camp. There were four tents set up around a fire pit, the doors opening toward the center. A huge kettle dangled from a tripod over the pit, filled with something that smelled like meat and pepper. The carcasses of some smaller animals had been strung between the trees—Matthew noticed a couple of rabbits and a groundhog, and he suspected that’s what he smelled in the pot. He’d be perfectly all right if he didn’t receive an invitation to this particular meal.
Mrs. Ridges exited one of the tents, and Matthew and Esme both took a step back farther into the shadows of the trees so as not to be seen. She gave the contents of the pot a stir, then went back into the tent. The whole time, the child’s crying didn’t vary in pitch or tone at all.
After taking greater note of the layout of the camp, Matthew motioned for Esme to follow him, and they edged away from the camp and ducked behind a rock cropping.
“We’ve located Mrs. Ridges, but now what?” Esme whispered.
Matthew slid down and sat on the ground, considering their options. There weren’t many. “We wait,” he replied after a moment. “We need to locate Bleaker or Garcia before we can take any sort of action—heading in there now with just Mrs. Ridges doesn’t accomplish anything.”
She nodded, and they settled in to wait. He shared his hypothesis that Bleaker might actually be the leader of the organization and that there was no Garcia, and she accepted it as though she’d already considered the possibility. That was a bit disappointing—he’d hoped to impress her or at least present her with a fresh perspective.
As the sun worked its way across the sky and then started its descent, Matthew was grateful for the rocks that sheltered them from the heat. The back of his neck was surely bright red anyway, but at least they’d been protected from the worst of it. The camp had been almost eerily quiet except for the child’s wail. They hadn’t heard Mrs. Ridges’ voice speaking to the children, and if they hadn’t seen her for themselves, it would be tempting to wonder if she was even there.
Esme, for all her insistence that she had a hard time sitting still, was patient as they waited, only moving when necessary. Toward the end of the afternoon, she leaned over and whispered, “I haven’t started interrogating you yet.”
“That’s right—you haven’t. What would you like to know?”
“You mentioned having a sister. Tell me about your family.”
They scooted closer together until their shoulders were touching, leaning against the rock while they waited for something—anything—to happen in the camp. Being so near to her made it possible for them to hear each other clearly, and it also made Matthew realize yet again just how pretty Esme was—and how feminine. Even though she was dressed simply in a blouse and skirt, she was certainly an entirely different breed of animal from his usual partners.
“One younger sister named Sarah,” he whispered. “She’s twenty now, married, one little boy. They live about five miles outside of Denver on their own little ranch.”
“Do you see her often?”
“As often as I can, but that’s hard in this line of work. My nephew is sure a cute thing—he’s only one and isn’t walking yet, but when he is, he’s going to run everywhere. You can just see it in him.”
Esme smiled. “He sounds like he has a doting uncle.”
“Yes, he does—I’ll admit it.”
“And how did you become interested in joining the Agency?”
He grinned, almost embarrassed to tell the story. “Playing horse thieves with my friends after school.”
“Horse thieves? How do you play that?”
“You choose one person to be the sheriff and another to be his deputy. Then all the other children are horse thieves. It’s a lot like tag—the sheriff and the deputy try to round up all the thieves, and at the end, all the bad guys get thrown in jail.”
She smiled. “And you liked being the sheriff?”
“No, actually—I liked being a horse thief. I liked being sneaky and figuring out how to get away. As I got older, I figured I could either use those skills to go into a life of crime or I could go into law enforcement. You see what I chose.”
He’d already been whispering, but at a sound from the camp, he stopped speaking altogether and listened. Faintly, so faintly, he heard a man’s voice and a woman’s reply.
The sun had nearly set by this point, and the sky was tinged with purples and pinks. The remaining light illuminated the red rocks that surrounded them, and the whole effect was breathtaking. It wasn’t the beauty of nature that was taking Matthew’s breath at that moment, though—it was the fact that he’d recognized the man’s voice.
Agent Bleaker.
Matthew looked over at Esme, who gave him a slight nod. She’d recognized it too.
“Time for Plan . . . C?” he whispered. Perhaps D. He’d lost count.
She nodded again.
She moved as though to stand, but he reached out and caught her elbow. She paused, looking at him curiously.
Now that he had her attention, though, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. His thoughts felt murky.
“Be careful,” he finally managed.
She gave him a smile. “You too.”
He held her gaze a moment longer before turning away, hoping she understood that wasn’t all he’d wanted to say. Maybe there would be time later—but maybe there wouldn’t. They had no backup, just each other. Only Mr. Young knew where they were. They had no idea how many people were actually living in this camp and how many of their supporters were living nearby. All they had was a long list of guesses, a few itchy hunches, and the fact that Bleaker hadn’t been entirely forthright. That was a shaky foundation to build a case on, and yet, they had to try.
Sometimes those itchy hunches saved lives.
Squaring their shoulders, Matthew and Esme crept back toward the camp, their heads down and their pistols ready.
Chapter Seven
The presence of children in the camp made everything a dozen times more difficult. Esmerelda kept an eye on them as Mrs. Ridges brought them out of the tent and set them each up with a plate of food. They ate as though ravenous, the poor little things, and Esmerelda’s heart ached for them. She didn’t think their father was a bad man—from what Mrs. Ridges had said while loading the wagon, he was desperate to feed his family, and Esmerelda knew that kind of desperation was born from love.
It was born from love, yes, but didn’t always lead to wisdom.
A man she supposed to be Mr. Ridges sat on a tree stump with his own dinner, and there, across the fire, sat Agent Bleaker, who poked at his food with a disgusted look on his face.
“I thought you said your wife could cook,” he said to Ridges, throwing his plate into the fire. “This is nothing better than animal carcasses and tree roots.”
“No one asked you to move out here with us,” Mrs. Ridges shot back. “If you wanted fancy city food, you should have stayed in your fancy city.”
Bleaker came to his feet. “I wouldn’t talk so high and mighty if I were you, Mrs. Ridges. Let’s not forget who got your husband this job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be homeless right now.”
She flung her arm toward the tents. “We are homeless. We live in tents and we eat whatever we can trap. You only have coffee in that pot because I went to town and put some on our store account—I was tired of drinking sagebrush tea every day. I should think you’d feel ashamed to talk to me the way you do.”
Bleaker took a step forward, then froze. “You went to town today? When?”
“This morning. While you and Tommy were out checking the caches with Garcia.”
Esmerelda glanced at Matthew. That answered one question—Garcia was a real person.
Bleaker swore and whirled around to face Tommy Ridges again. “Do you see? Do you see what she did?”
Tommy lifted his head tiredly. “What did she do?”
“She went into town, Ridges. The thing we told her not to do—she did it.”
“You can’t expect me to live out here on nothing! The children are starving, they’re cold, and they’re sick. They haven’t had but two seconds of joy in weeks, and you expect me to keep house here like this is some sort of grand palace. And no one, no one at all, told me I’d be childminding your prisoner for you either!”
Bleaker’s face had become more purple as she spoke, and now he stepped forward and backhanded her right across the cheek. The sound echoed around the camp, and Esmerelda winced.
“You will do as you’re told and you’ll keep your mouth shut while you’re doing it,” he growled. “We’re so close to bringing this deal to a close, and then we’ll all get paid. Until then, your head stays down and you keep your opinions to yourself. You understand me?”
She nodded, obviously fighting tears. Then she grabbed another plate, put some food on it, and disappeared into the tent on the farthest side of the camp, returning seconds later without it.
She’d said she was taking care of a prisoner . . . They’d just located Agent White.
Esmerelda felt goose bumps on her arms. The pieces were coming together, and now it was a matter of gathering them up again correctly.
She and Matthew crept back to their rock outcropping and hunched down out of sight.
“First thing is to rescue Agent White,” she whispered. “We need his help.”
Matthew nodded. “If you can creep around the back of the campsite and approach his tent from the rear, I’ll keep an eye on everyone from this side and make sure you’re not spotted,” he replied. “Do you have a pocketknife?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “My dear Agent Harrison, do I look like the kind of woman who would leave home without a pocket knife?”
He grinned. “Okay. Cut a slit in the back of the tent and go in that way so no one can see you from the fire. Lead White straight out into the woods and then begin to curve back around this direction. If anyone makes a move toward the tent, I’ll intervene.”
She nodded. “Once we have White, then what?”
Matthew sat back on his heels. “With White’s testimony, we should be able to put Bleaker away for a good long time, so my first thought was that we should just steal White and run. But once they discover White’s gone, they’re literally going to pull up stakes and disappear, and who knows how long it would take to hunt them down and arrest them.”
“So we’re not just stealing him and running?”
“No, I don’t think we should.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Go get White, bring him back here, and let’s get his input. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of this operation by now.”
She nodded. That sounded like the best course of action to her as well.
They waited a short time longer until darkness had truly fallen. Mrs. Ridges had put the children to bed in their tent, and Bleaker sat near the fire with Tommy.
“Garcia’s expecting another shipment tomorrow,” Bleaker was telling Tommy as Esme approached the campsite yet again. “The wagon will come down the northern route, so I’ll need you there at the fork. Keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. That wife of yours could have ruined everything for us, heading into town the way she did. You’d better pray she didn’t give away our location, Ridges.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Tommy replied, a slight whine in his voice. “She was just trying to take care of the children—and she knows how much you like your coffee.”
“Don’t try to blame me for her carelessness,” Bleaker spat. “I don’t have the patience for it. I’ve got to ride down to town in the morning and send those Denver agents on a wild goose chase to
get them out of the way so we can handle this shipment—if it goes sour, Garcia will have all our heads.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Tommy said again, and Esme rolled her eyes as she crept past them on the outer perimeter. She couldn’t stand whining.
When she reached the back of the tent where they believed Agent White was being held, she pulled the knife from her pocket and opened the blade, then inserted it in the canvas. She kept the blade sharp, and it slipped through the tough fibers without too much difficulty. The hard part now was seeing in the dark interior.
She put her head through the opening and gave her eyes a chance to adjust, but after a few moments, she couldn’t see any more clearly than she had at first.
“I can hear you,” came a faint whisper from the corner of the tent, nearly making her jump. “Who are you?”
“Agent White?”
He paused, then answered, “Yes. Who are you?”
“Agent Carter with the Denver Pinkertons. I need you to do exactly as I say.”
He exhaled. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Yes, of course. Anything.”
“Are you injured?”
“No, but I am tied together at the ankles, and that rope is tied to the pole in the center of the tent.”
“All right. I’m coming in.”
Esme slipped in through the opening she had cut and bumped into something large on her left. No sound was made, but she still didn’t like being unable to tell what it was. “What’s in this tent besides you?” she whispered.
“Extra supplies, tents, ropes, that sort of thing,” he replied.
She felt her way forward, using her toes to guide her feet and waving her arms in front of her. At last she touched the center pole, and she trailed her fingers down it to locate the rope tying Agent White in place. When he’d first mentioned the rope, she’d wondered why he hadn’t just untied it, but as she touched it, she realized why that was impossible. It was by far the thickest rope she’d ever encountered, and the knots were complex. Mere fingers would never have been enough.
An Agent for Esme Page 7
