The Law and Miss Penny (30 page)

When he was spent, Cain fell against Mariah, burrowing through her hair until his mouth met the satin of her moist skin. His teeth gently nipping her neck, he drew in a long, shaky breath. Then, his voice husky with the kind of emotion he knew he'd never experienced before, he said, "Oh, how I love you, Mariah. I'll love you forever."

* * *

Tubbs's cheeks puffed out, coloring a little as he glared at Artemis and said, "They didn't up and throw themselves off the train, kid. They have to be here somewhere."

His chin quivering, Artemis sniffled. "But I looked everywhere. I'm telling you, they ain't on the train no more."

Tubbs grabbed him by the shirt collar and pushed him until his head was sticking out over the black iron safety railing at the back of the car. "We don't have the time for your nonsense, Artie. We've got to take care of business, and we've got to do it now. You ready to talk sense?"

The air current generated by the speed of the locomotive was cold, icy against Artemis's skin, but that wasn't what got his knees to knocking and his hands to shaking. The view did that all by itself. Tubbs had leaned him out over the railing on the inside curve of the rails. Dead ahead, he could see a tight bend in the tracks, a turn around the mountainside which would leave precious little room between the jagged rocks and his head—if any.

Artemis nodded rapidly. "Yes. Yes."

Tubbs pulled him back inside the railing. "Good thinking, kid. Now here's what we're gonna do, and this time, you do it exactly the way I say. Are you with me?"

"Y-yes, sir. I am."

"Good." Tubbs pulled up the waist of his trousers and adjusted the angle of his guns. "You and I are gonna search this train from one end to the other—together. You just walk on ahead of me, pretending like you don't know me, and I'll let you know when to stop or if I want you to check a compartment door."

"Check a door?" Artemis scratched his head. "Why would I go do that?"

Tubbs grabbed him by his shirtsleeves. "Didn't you check the private compartments?"

"Ah, no, sir, I didn't."

"Why in hell not?"

Artemis backed away. "Well, because like I told you, I was with Zack when he bought all the tickets. Weren't none of them special, just plain seats."

Tubbs cuffed him alongside the head. "Didn't it ever occur to you that someone else might have tickets for a private compartment—a lawman or two, for example, someone who might even invite a U.S. marshal in for a little visit to that compartment?"

Artemis looked to the heavens for the answer. "I—no, sir, I'm afraid I didn't think about that."

Tubbs gave the kid a push toward the door. "It's a damn good thing one of us thought of it. Head for the parlor car with the private compartments, Artie boy. We're gonna go get us a marshal."

Chapter 15

Once he reached the correct parlor car, Artemis tested the door to several compartments, and to his horror, found passengers inside each room. He glanced down the hallway to where Tubbs stood watching, and used a mortified expression to plead for permission to quit pestering these strangers. The look he got in return brooked no argument. Tubbs gestured for him to try the next compartment.

When Artemis turned the knob to door 4, and then pushed, nothing happened. He pushed a little harder. Still nothing. He knocked. "Hello? Anybody in there?"

Inside the room, Mariah's hat, hairpins, and purple jersey had joined her lone shoe and drawers on the bench seat. Cain was in the midst of removing her camisole as the knock sounded on the door and Artemis called out Cain's name. He froze, his palm resting on one of her breasts.

"That sounds like Artemis," he whispered. "What in the hell do you suppose he's up to?"

Mariah, her nipples more erect now with the fear of discovery than from Cain's touch, whispered back, "I don't know, but I think it's him for sure. Who could he be looking for in a parlor car?"

As if in answer, Artemis's voice called through the thin wooden door once again. "Cain? You in there?"

Muttering an oath under his breath, Cain weighed the consequences of answering Artemis against those of ignoring him. Mariah did not hesitate to offer her opinion. She shook her head violently, whipping the loose strands of her thick ebony hair around her shoulders. Then she placed her finger on her swollen lips. Cain grinned, agreeing with her, and sealed their bargain with a gentle kiss. And then kissed her again.

"This is the conductor," came a loud voice a few moments later. "Is someone in there?"

Cain broke away from Mariah and crept toward the door. Carefully pressing his ear against the wood, he heard the conductor speaking to someone—Artemis, he assumed.

"... and no one has purchased a ticket for this compartment. It's possible that there has been some kind of leak in the roof, and the door is merely swollen shut. Thanks for bringing it to my attention."

Then Cain heard a harsh, angry voice he didn't recognize.

"Can't we just break the damn thing down?"

"Whatever for? As I already mentioned, no one is in there, and no one has the right to be." The conductor's voice was disdainful, clearly irritated to have been dragged into a discussion with such coarse passengers. "Our arrival in Silverton will be soon enough for the maintenance crew to see to the problem. May I show you gentlemen back to your seats now?"

Muttered grumbles were followed by retreating footfalls, but Cain continued to listen until only the soft
clack, clack, clack
of the wheels against the rails met his ears. Since there was really no other explanation he could think of, he assumed that Artemis had been recruited by another passenger to help sneak him into the high-priced seats.

Laughing to himself at the thought, Cain turned back to Mariah. She was standing against the window, looking like a wild Gypsy, half-angel, half-devil, her skirts mussed, ankles and petticoats exposed. Her hair was a mass of uncivilized waves and curls; her full breasts heaved, straining against the pink satin laces of her French cambric camisole.

"Now where were we, my wild little angel?" Cain asked in a husky voice.

Her smile coy, Mariah let her fingers flutter down into the valley between her breasts. "I believe you were busy taking advantage of the view."

* * *

With just over an hour remaining of the journey, Artemis slowly made his way back to his original seat. Tubbs had kept him all the way at the back of the train on the outer step of the last car for nearly an hour, lecturing him about how damn smart that Marshal Slater could be, and warning him over and over again not to let his guard down for a minute when he was around him.

Artemis could hardly believe that Cain and this evil lawman were one and the same man. And yet Tubbs, a man he respected if no longer revered, seemed certain that he was. He insisted that Cain, in all his cleverness, had indeed been in the "stuck" compartment, huddling in that room with Mariah and at least one other lawman or railroad official. Planning, Tubbs had gone so far as to suggest ways to foil the Doolittle Gang should they decide to attack the Denver & Rio Grande.

Artemis didn't believe it for a minute. He didn't want to. He'd thought and thought, trying to come up with the truth about Cain, but the more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. By the time Tubbs sent him back to his seat, he had a headache searing the scar by his cowlick, which made him feel as if he'd been branded with a hot iron.

When Artemis finally stepped back into car 334, he almost yelped with surprise to find that the entire medicine show troupe had returned to their seats. Approaching them tentatively, he said, "Where in tarnation have all you folks been? I been looking high and low for the lot of you."

Zack smiled up at the young man and patted his hand. "Now Artemis, not one hour ago you came out to check on me and the missus for about the tenth time, and for the tenth time I told you—we were staying put until the train passed by Elk Park and the hardest part of the trip was behind us. What's wrong with your memory, son? The train ride shake it out of you?"

Artemis grinned and blushed. "Nah. I remember talking to you just fine." He looked at the lawman from under hooded eyes. "But I sure ain't seen Cain and Mariah anywheres around for a spell."

Mariah waved him off. "We've been walking from car to car, taking in the sights. I don't know why you didn't see us. We saw you."

"Me?"

"Yes, Artemis." She laughed, shaking a finger at him. "Cain and I were just coming from some parlor seats we'd 'borrowed,' when we saw you and another fellow talking to the conductor. What were you up to? Trying to sneak inside one of the compartments?"

Artemis beamed. If she'd seen him in the aisle with the conductor, that meant Tubbs had been wrong about Cain and Mariah having secret meetings in the private room. Dead wrong. He smiled and lied through his teeth. "Yep. I thought we'd take a little ride in them fancy seats a spell all right. The conductor didn't think it was such a good idea. If you folks will excuse me, I reckon I'll just go sit with the common folk where I belong, and have myself another little game of paper-scissors-rock."

* * *

Buried deep in the heart of the San Juans, surrounded by thick forests and waterfalls spilling down along the steep mountain slopes, the small town of Silverton sat in a lush green valley shaped much like a bowl. The only access to it from the south had been by foot or horseback until 1882, when the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company blasted its way through forty-five miles of rocky mountain terrain.

Some citizens fought the invasion of the outside world, citing the inevitable arrival of fortune-tellers, beggars of the "professional class," and any other number of undesirables, parasites all. Other townsfolk loved the idea of welcoming new blood to their little burg, and actively campaigned to recruit them through newspaper ads and well-thought-out ordinances.

The Penny family was fortunate in that the sheriff of Silverton happened to side with the more far-sighted citizens. Permits for a week's worth of medicine shows were not only reasonably priced, but happily offered as well.

Having gotten that part of their business out of the way the afternoon they arrived, the troupe checked into Silverton's finest hotel, The Grand. After settling themselves in their rooms, they walked a few doors down Greene Street to the St. Julien restaurant for a little French cuisine. By supper's end, everyone was too exhausted to do anything other than retire to their respective rooms for the night.

Thirty minutes after they had bid one another good evening, the door to Cain's room opened. Finding himself alone in the hallway, he crept down the Oriental runner in search of Mariah. His room, Cain had reasoned, was straight across from Zack and Oda's, while hers was a discreet two doors down, surely the more desirable location for a little tryst.

Mariah couldn't have agreed more.

Shortly after that, Artemis stuck his head out the door of his room, checking the hallway to make certain it was clear. Satisfied that it was, he darted toward the stairs. Then, following Tubbs's directions to the letter, he headed into the night and on to Silverton's notorious Blair Street, the rougher part of town.

* * *

As he waited for the kid to show, Tubbs sat at a corner table in Mattie's Place and dealt himself another hand of stud poker. He was in a foul mood. When he glanced up and saw Artemis creep into the saloon and then nervously look in his direction, Tubbs was pretty sure that his mood wasn't about to get any better. He waved the kid over.

"What took you so damn long?" Tubbs demanded even before the kid pulled out a chair. "I've been waiting for you for over an hour."

Artemis blinked, his eyes smarting from the heavy cloud of smoke which hung over the room, and eased his skinny frame onto a wobbly three-legged chair. "We was at supper. Zack paid, so I figured you wouldn't mind." Over a sudden roar from the crowd as the piano player sat down and began to pound the ivories, he raised his voice. "You ever had gravy called Bernadette, or wait a minute—I think maybe it was Bernasel. I don't know, something like—"

"My patience is at an end, kid." Tubbs leaned across the table, the cards he'd been holding crumpled into a ball. "Did you take care of business? That's all we need to think about. Business. Don't forget it again."