Lone Star 04 (20 page)

“What?” Gustolf blinked. “What are you saying?”

“We were just talking about him, remember?” Jessie nodded out the window. “Torgler. And right on schedule, at that. Must've left right in our tracks, Feodor.” She turned a rueful eye on Gustolf. “Bet he's brought you the money for your land, too. He knows you're running scared.”

“By
God!”
Gustolf shook all over. “You cannot say these things to me!”

“You're right,” said Jessie. “This isn't my business anymore.” Her green eyes touched him a moment, then she turned and walked out the door and marched straight past Torgler.

Torgler turned on his horse and looked at her, a slight hint of amusement in his ice-blue eyes. He didn't seem at all surprised to see her. “Miss Starbuck. A pleasure as always.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jessie muttered without looking up. She stopped on the common, a little apart from the others. The immigrants seemed to know what was about, and were already gathering at Gustolf's cottage. The old man limped out, clutching his silver-headed cane, Sonia at his side. Torgler climbed off his horse and walked toward the cottage. He was resplendent as always, Jessie noted sourly. Today he was dressed in a brown riding suit with Stetson to match. A green silk ascot peeked out of a cream-colored shirt, and his knee-length riding boots were clearly expensive and handmade. He knows exactly what he looks like to these people, thought Jessie. He could easily be the haughty count coming down from the manor to see his serfs. The whole thing was deliberate, and it made Jessie's blood boil.

Torgler mumbled something Jessie couldn't hear, and shook hands with Gustolf. She was determined to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn't help moving a few steps closer. Gustolf was squinting carefully at a paper Torgler had pulled out of his coat. He read it silently for a long moment, then a furrow creased his brow.

“These—these numbers are not right,” he protested. “The other man, the one in town, he offered us more.”

Torgler took back the paper and smiled. “That was Mr. Watson, sir. One of my employees. The money he offered per acre was in line with the market at the time. These prices reflect today's needs. Things change very quickly.” He shrugged. “Times are hard, and land prices are down, sir.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” Jessie couldn't keep quiet. “Times aren't bad. They're booming, Torgler, and you know it.” She shook her head at Gustolf. “Land prices are
up,
not down!”

“You are not exactly a disinterested party here, are you, miss?” Torgler said evenly. The crowd muttered agreement.

“Keep out of this,” warned Gustolf. “He—he is right. You do not wish us to sell the land. We all know that.”

“No.” Jessie shook her head and jammed her thumbs in her belt. “You're wrong. I didn‘t, but I don't feel that way anymore. I think you ought to take whatever Mr. Torgler here is willing to give you, and move on.”

“What?” Gustolf looked aghast. Feodor's expression didn't change, but Torgler's cold eyes narrowed at Jessie. “I'm sorry. I said it before and I meant it. I don't think you belong here,” Jessie said softly. “I don't think it's your kind of country. Too many wolves and ghosties running about.”

The crowd muttered angrily, but Jessie stood her ground. Gustolf's puzzlement turned suddenly to understanding. “Ah, of course.” He looked scornfully at Jessie and stepped out to face his people. “Miss Starbuck is an American. She laughs at what she does not understand. This is easy to do, I think, when it is not your own who are dying.” He looked squarely at Torgler. “We sell,” he said stubbornly. “We sell now.” His eyes swept out in a challenge at the others. “I am the elder here. I say this is to be.”

No one spoke, but Jessie saw more than one man look shamefully down at his boots. They had worked hard to get where they were. Throwing it all away wasn't that easy.

“A wise decision,” said Torgler. He gave Gustolf an easy smile and handed him back the paper. “I need your signature, sir. I have the money here in cash.” Gustolf took the paper, and Jessie's heart sank. Suddenly, Feodor took one step forward, grabbed the paper from the old man, and shoved it back at Torgler.

Torgler stared. Gustolf looked as if Feodor had hit him in the stomach. The crowd muttered in anger and surprise, and several men shouted and shook their fists.

“No,” Feodor said flatly. “No, old man. You will sell nothing. Not today.”

Gustolf came at him in a fury, swept back his arm, and struck at Feodor's face with the cane. Feodor stopped the blow easily, and jerked the cane from Gustolf's grasp. Gustolf staggered back, unable to believe what was happening.

“Feodor,
no!”
shouted Sonia.

“You do not attack your elder!” growled Gustolf. “Give me the cane. It is not yours to hold!”

“It is,” Feodor said calmly, “for I have taken it from you.” He looked solemnly at Gustolf, and Jessie could see the pain in his eyes. “I am sorry, Gustolf. I respect you greatly. More than any man I know. But this is a thing I must do. I—” The words stuck in his throat. “I do not think you are fit to make this decision. I think your wounds have weakened you, and you can no longer serve as elder.” He looked out and searched the crowd. “I do this because I must, because we cannot lose what we have fought so hard to gain. If there are any who would challenge this, let me hear you now. Is there one among you who would be Keeper of the Silver Cane?”

Again, Feodor searched the faces of his people, and Jessie knew exactly who he was looking for: Zascha. If there was any man there who might stir up the crowd and turn them against him, Zascha would be the one. Yet the burly hunter was nowhere to be seen. Where was he? Jessie wondered. She didn't trust the man at all, and knew Ki had reason to like him even less.

Not a man answered Feodor's challenge. Jessie knew what was going through their minds, and didn't greatly blame them. The man who carried the Silver Cane must also be prepared to use it. None were too certain they greatly cared for such an honor—not with the way things were going around the village.

“So, then.” Feodor turned to Torgler. “We wait. We do not sell.”

Torgler kept his temper, but Jessie could see the red coals of anger burning just behind his eyes. “It is your choice, of course,” he said evenly. He spoke to Feodor, but looked straight at Jessie. “Perhaps you'll change your mind, and we can talk again. I will look forward to that time.”

“If we do, you will hear of it,” Feodor said bluntly. He hadn't missed Torgler's unspoken message, and didn't much care for it. “Now, please leave. This land does not belong to you!”

Torgler turned on his heel and stalked calmly to his horse, as if he owned the village already and all its people. Once mounted, however, he could control his temper no longer. He gave his horse such a savage kick that it danced away over the common and showed the whites of its eyes, then bolted out of the settlement. Jessie walked up beside Feodor and they watched Torgler ride away toward Roster.

“He's not through with us. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes, I know. I know what I have done here today.”

“Do you? Do you, Feodor?” Sonia swept past Jessie, her face flushed in anger. “How could you
do
that to him? You have shamed him before his people. I—I will never forgive you. Never!”

“Sonia—”

Tears blurred her eyes and she bit her lip. She stared at Feodor a long moment, struggled to find words, then turned and ran for her father. Gustolf was standing alone, staring out at nothing. Sonia put her arm around him and guided him into the house. The big, blustering man with the fiercely determined eyes had disappeared. In his place, Jessie saw a man who'd crumbled in upon himself, shrunk within his clothes—as if the younger man had somehow sucked all the power out of his frame and taken it for his own.

“I know what it took to do that,” said Jessie, catching the look in Feodor's eyes. “I don't know any other way you could have done it.”

“I could have not done it at all.”

“I don't think that's true, Feodor.”

“No.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her. “It's not, Jessica. It had to be done. And there was no one else to do it.”

Jessie sighed and walked with him past the common. “Torgler won't sit still, you can count on that. If he backs down now—damn!” She blew a quick breath between her teeth and impatiently studied the horizon. “I hope Ki gets that girl. I don't much care for Lucy Jordan, but she's sure not a fool. If Ki brings her back, she's got enough sense to know there's not a lawyer in the country—Torgler included—who can talk her out of this one. Unless I'm mistaken, she'll be ripe for talking to me or anyone else who can keep her head out of a noose.” She turned to Feodor. “Ki will bring her here because he knows that's where I'll be. She might even have something to say that will help convince your people what's going on.”

Feodor looked hopeful, then screwed up his face. “Maybe. I'm not certain they'd believe
anything,
Jessica. Even if they saw it.”

Jessie stopped him and smiled. “Hey.
You
got them started, friend. Some of these people are thinking pretty hard now.”

Feodor stopped before a door to one of the cottages. “Would you come in for some wine? Oh, of course if you—”

“What?” Jessie gave him a saucy grin. “If I'm worried about who sees me going into a man's cabin? I'm not, Feodor. I do care what people think. Sometimes, anyway. What they're thinking, though, usually doesn't have much to do with what's real.”

Feodor gave her a bold, appraising look, from her coppery blonde hair to the tips of her boots. “If you come into this man's cabin, Jessica Starbuck, what they
think
will have a good deal to do with what's going on.”

“Now
that
sounds worth looking into,” Jessie said lightly. “What do you think'll happen to me in there?”

“Your worst fears come true,” Feodor promised. “Only the worst.”

“Sounds truly awful,” said Jessie. “Never know for sure till I try, will I?”

Feodor's small cottage was nearly empty. There was a bed, a crude table, and two chairs; a blanket was hung across the far end of the room. If Gustolf's dark furniture and somber tapestries were reminders of the Old World, Feodor's stark surroundings were more typical of the new. It was the room of a man who'd bet all his chips on the future, on what his hands could wrest out of the land.

He sat down beside her on the bed and frowned at the wall. “What do you think he will do, Jessie?”

“Torgler, you mean? Just what he's been doing, if you want my best guess. It's worked pretty well so far, hasn't it?”

“Oh, quite well indeed,” Feodor said soberly. “Damn the man!” He ground his teeth and dug his big fists into his knees. “What did I accomplish out there, Jessica? Besides crushing an old man I love dearly? If a wolf returns to this place tonight, who is going to care that I stood up to this Torgler? They will not believe that he is behind the thing. Not in a hundred years.”

“You had to do it,” Jessie reminded him. “You know that. And it's not over, Feodor. It's not. We can beat him!”

Feodor stared. “If a wolf comes and takes another life? Is this how we will beat him, Jessica?”

Jessie had no answer. Instead, she reached up and curled her arms strongly about his neck and drew his mouth down to meet her own. Feodor responded with a fierce, desperate need. There was none of the gentle lovemaking he and Jessie had experienced on the banks of the creek. Feodor took her hard and used her, tore her out of her clothes and plunged himself inside her. Jessie gave him as good as she got. Her long legs scissored about his back and welcomed him in. Her teeth dug hungrily into his shoulder and her nails raked his flesh. When they reached the heights of their pleasure, they both cried out. Feodor filled her with his warmth, and Jessie joyously opened her body to let him in...

Chapter 16

The sun passed over the low hills, and the narrow tunnel of trees became gray and indistinct. The creek turned to a ribbon of dark water, its banks lost in shadow. Ki stopped warily, all his senses strained to catch the slightest hint of danger. Reason told him to run, to flee the tangled woods and bolt quickly into the open where he could see an enemy coming. It took all the samurai discipline he could muster to stand his ground.

Only moments before, the waning light had swallowed the trail he'd followed. Even when he bent close to the ground, there was nothing, and he dared not risk a match to check for sign. Logically, Zascha and the horses should still be up ahead—keeping to the relatively clear path above the creek, out of the trees. Logic, though, would not save his life if he was wrong—if the hunter had left his mounts and doubled back, if he was waiting along the creek, his finger on the trigger...