Texas Lucky (5 page)

Lulie sneered at such a ludicrous notion. “Who’d have asked about it? Not me. I got to live in this town, and I don’t want no trouble.”

“I still wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“Well, it does. Now, you ought to make Saul’s cabin by night if you keep poppin’ the whip to that lazy mule. It’s only a two-hour ride or so, and it’ll take longer’n that for anybody to notice Jake’s missing. Are you sure you got the map I gave you?”

“I pinned it inside my petticoat so I wouldn’t lose it.”

Lulie gave a slow, secretive grin. “You didn’t ask me how I come by that map.”

Tess hadn’t really wondered, but Lulie obviously wanted to tell her. “So how did you?”

“Well…” Lulie wet her lips in anticipation of enjoying the boast. “Saul used to be sweet on me, and he was all the time wantin’ me to ride out and see him. I went a couple times. He said maybe if I got to
likin’
the prospectin’ life, I’d think about hitchin’ up with him. He gave me the map so I wouldn’t get lost. After a while, I quit goin’, but he kept after me, right up till he made arrangements to bring you out here.”

Lulie finished with a triumphant
I-could’ve-had-him if-I’d-wanted-him
kind of grin, and Tess merely regarded her blankly, holding back her own
wish-you-had
look. Then she would not be in such a dilemma.

“I won’t forget to send you some money to pay you back for the wagon and the mule,” Tess said.

Lulie fired back, “I hope not. After all, I didn’t come by ’em free. As for the gun, don’t worry about it. I swiped that off a drunk boarder who thinks he lost it in the street, so you can have it.”

Tess didn’t want it but thanked her all the same.

Lulie pointed her toward the door. “You get goin’. I loaded your trunk, so you’re all ready. I even put a little grub for you in a sack to do you till you get to Prescott. But don’t be in too big a hurry to get there. You need to lay low for a while. They’ll be lookin’ for you, but Jake ain’t got no idea where Saul’s place was, ’cause Saul was too smart to let anybody know…’cept me.”

There was the exultant grin again, but it faded quickly as she warned, “If you mess up and get yourself caught, I’m gonna say you stole my rig, understand? I’m not goin’ to jail on account of helpin’ you, and I’ll swear I don’t know nothin’ about it.”

Tess said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate everything, Lulie. If not for you—”

Lulie gave her a gentle push. “I know, I know. If not for me you’d have been ravished, and you wouldn’t have a chance to get hold of some money and get yourself out of all this. Now get going.”

Shadows were falling as Tess prodded the mule slowly along. The only sign of life was at the saloon. As she passed by, Tess could hear the piano still jangling off-key and loud voices and laughter.

Tumbleweeds rolled along in the late afternoon breeze, bouncing off the backs of the buildings.

A cat foraging in trash hissed and spit as Tess passed by. Dogs barked now and then, and from somewhere in the distance toward the sloping mountains, a coyote howled.

Tess wished she could have done this in the morning, so she would have more time to find Saul’s cabin to hide out, but Lulie said it was too risky. Men came and went all day long in the assay office, and Jake would be discovered in the safe before she had a chance to make tracks. Then, too, it was doubtful she could complete her business without someone intruding.

So it had to be now, with night creeping in, and Tess could only hope and pray she would find the cabin and not get lost. She would have liked to hide at Lulie’s instead, but Lulie said she could not risk it.

At the rear of the assay office, Tess got down from the buckboard and looped the end of the reins around a post so the mule would not wander away. Then she took her purse, almost stooping from the sheer weight of the gun inside, and went to the back door and knocked.

She heard a chair scraping against the floor, footsteps shuffling, and then an annoyed voice asked, “Who’s back there and what the hell do you want?”

Tess cleared her throat. “It’s Miss Partridge. I need to speak with you, please.”

The door jerked open, and Jake scowled down at her. “I told you—you aren’t getting Saul’s money. You’ve got no legal claim.”

“Perhaps not,” she pretended to politely concede as she grasped her purse with both hands. “But I would still like to talk to you, if I may. Maybe we can work something out.”

His eyes narrowed.

Lulie had predicted he would immediately think she meant she would bargain with her body for whatever pittance he might give her.

Opening the door wider, he peered out to make sure no one was around, then beckoned. “Come on in. I’ve got some nice brandy. We can have us a drink and talk all you want to.”

Tess glanced about and spotted the safe. The door was hanging open, and she could see it was, indeed, large enough for a man to be able to survive awhile. Jake’s wife would probably come looking for him in a few hours, anyway.

There was also a large desk and a few chairs scattered about, and, along one wall, a long counter with equipment Tess presumed was used for assaying ore.

She sat down in the chair Jake indicated.

He rummaged and found a clean glass, filled it with brandy, and handed it to her. Then he leaned back against the desk, and she cringed at that predatory look in his eye.

“Now what is it you want to work out, honey?”

She took a sip of the brandy and made a face. It tasted terrible.

Jake laughed. “Anybody that looks like that when they take a drink needs one bad. Drink up. You’ll feel better. But you know there’s no need for you to be nervous. I’m easy to get along with.”

She was stalling but needed to gather her nerve. Lulie had said to just take the gun out of her purse the second he let her in, shove it at his chest, and tell him what to do quick. But Tess couldn’t do it that way. She reasoned she needed to be sitting down when she took the gun out of her purse.

She set the brandy on the desk. “I really don’t want this.”

He crossed one leg over the other. “Suit yourself. Now, are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“I told you. I am morally entitled to the money for the silver ore Saul left with you the day he was killed.”

“And I told you—I don’t agree with that.”

Her hands went to her purse. “Then who do you think has the right to the money?”

“What money?”

“Why, the money for the silver ore.”

His grin infuriated her. “What silver ore?”

Rage was a tight knot in her throat she had to speak around, for she knew what he was leading up to. Only now it did not matter because she had opened her purse and slipped one hand inside to close about the gun.

“You’re trifling with me, Mr. Harville.”

“Do you have a receipt?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Then how can you prove old Saul even deposited any ore here? I always give a receipt because I sure as hell can’t have some old crazy prospector claiming something I don’t have. I do it to protect myself.”

 
“I’m sure,” she said tightly, evenly, “that if Saul had a receipt on him when he was killed, it would have been taken.”

“Really?” Jake feigned surprise. “You really think someone would have stolen it off his body? But who would do such a thing? And besides, I’d have a record here of giving him a receipt in the first place—which I don’t.”

“When I was in here yesterday, you did not deny that he had left the ore.”

“I didn’t admit it, either.”

“But you know he did.” She had not intended to get into a debate, but she was scared and needed time to get herself together before making her move.

“Look…” He pushed off from the desk to tower over her. “There’s no need for us to argue. Now, you said you wanted to work something out, so what did you have in mind?”

“I…” She knew she had to do it, had to draw the gun and do exactly what Lulie had told her to—point it at him, demand the money, make him get in the safe, and then hightail it out of there like the devil was breathing on her heels. But all of a sudden she seemed to have turned to stone, heart as heavy as the weighty gun she was grasping with a perspiration-slick hand.

Jake dropped to his knees before her.

Tess gasped and drew back.

He began to run his hands up and down her arms, his eyes dropping hungrily to her bosom. “You know, I’m not a cold-hearted man, Miss Partridge, and I do feel sorry for you. After all, it’s a real tragedy for you to come all the way out here expecting to get married, only to find out your husband-to-be got himself killed, leaving you alone in a strange place with no money, not knowing anybody…”

His thumb flicked the side of her breast as he leaned into her, and she could feel his hot breath on her panicked face.

“We can work something out,” he said thickly. “You be good to me, and I’ll be good to you, and I’ll see to it you get some of that money, enough to get you back home. But maybe when you see how good it is, you’ll want to stay and be my woman…”

He moved to put his arms about her and lowered his mouth to kiss her, but Tess finally came alive.

Yanking the gun out of her purse, she pushed him back and he went sprawling to the floor.

“Get up,” she ordered, rising to her feet.

He scrambled to obey, then backed against the desk, not taking his eyes off the gun she held with both hands. “You…you be careful with that thing. It…it could go off.”

“It won’t if you do as I say,” she said in a nervous rush. “Now get over to that safe and count out ten thousand dollars, because Saul told somebody he thought his ore was worth that much. I’m not stealing it, because by rights it’s mine. Not yours. Not anybody else’s. Now move.”

As she was speaking, Jake continued to focus on the gun, but she was baffled to see how his expression of fear was fading.

“I’ll use it,” she threatened, the gun bobbing up and down in her hand. “I swear I will, and I don’t want to…I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I want what’s mine.”

Quietly, coolly, he declared. “You aren’t going to shoot me.”

“I will. I swear it.”

“No, you won’t.”

He lunged for her, and Tess made to pull the trigger, knew in that instant that she was truly capable of shooting him, then scrambling to gather up what money she could find and make her escape. She would go fast, had the nerve to, and would be well on her way by the time the sound of gunfire brought folks running.

Only she could not pull the trigger.

Because she did not have her finger on it.

In her nervousness, and because the gun was so heavy, Tess had wrapped both hands around the barrel but not one finger to the trigger.

Jake wrested it away, but by then she had found the trigger and pulled, and the gun fired.

The bullet slammed into the floor, but there was no time to try again because Jake snatched the gun away from her and then slapped her—hard.

“Damn you,” he roared, hitting her again. “You tried to rob me…shoot me. I oughta throw you down on that desk and take you like the bitch you are.”

Tess had stumbled to the floor, but only for an instant, as he wrapped cruel fingers in her hair to yank her up.

“You’re lucky I don’t have time to give you what you deserve,” he growled as the frantic pounding on the front door began.

Gunfire around the saloon might not have raised brows, but shooting in the assay office had brought the whole town running.

Jake dragged Tess by her hair out of the back room and all the way to the front to unlock the door.

Worley Branson was the first man to rush in.

“She tried to rob me,” Jake cried, flinging Tess on the floor. “Tried to kill me, too, but I got her gun away.”

Tess tried to get up, but Jake held her down with his foot. “That’s not how it was,” she protested to the dozens of hostile faces suddenly staring down at her. “My fiancé left his silver ore here the day he died, and by rights it’s mine. That’s all I wanted.”

“All she wanted was to rob and kill me,” Jake bellowed. “She should hang for it, too.”

“That’s for the judge to decide.” Worley reached down and grabbed Tess by the nape of her neck and yanked her to her feet, then, twisting her hands behind her back, fastened cuffs about her wrists.

He shoved her out onto the crowded boardwalk.

Someone called out, “Jake’s right. She deserves to hang. She could’ve killed him.”

“That’s right,” Jake agreed. He had tucked the Colt in his belt but pulled it out to show everyone. “See what she had? No decent woman would be carrying a dangerous weapon like this. And I think she’s been lying since she got to town. She was hiding Abe’s murderer in her hotel room, remember? I think they came to town together, hell-bent on robbing folks, and then she heard about Saul and tried to say I had his ore here, which isn’t so.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Worley agreed. “I remember us talking about it and wondering how come he didn’t have any ore with him this time. He was always bringing in just enough to lose at poker.”