Wild Is the Night (35 page)

The sheriff nodded, then closed the book abruptly. “I have three men, two good deputies who can shoot, and one man who keeps my books. I will lend you what help I can, but I must warn you that it isn’t much. A gunman like this Haskwell could ruin Waco and run roughshod over this town. We will prepare as best we can.”

Jake walked outside with Luke, his face grim. “That doesn’t sound too promising.”

“No.” Luke stared at the street. Amanda was entering the post office, still fending off questions and teasing her admirers. She was so spritely and so pretty, that the thought of her falling into Haskwell’s grip was appalling.

Jake seemed to echo his thoughts. “We won’t let him get her, Luke. My ranch joins yours at the northern border. You hear anything, you send for me. We’ll make our own posse if we can’t get help from this damned one-horse-town.”

Luke nodded and shook Jake’s hand. “I’m grateful for the offer, but come what may, Haskwell is mine. I’ll die before he gets Amanda.”

Jake stared at him, his greyish brows narrowing. “Don’t turn this into a vendetta, son. We all have the same goal, to see that snake dead. Don’t be too proud to ask for help.”

Luke replaced his Stetson, and strode across the street to the saloon. Jake watched him go, a worried expression wrinkling his face. Luke’s desire for revenge was understandable.

But this time it could cost Amanda’s life.

Aileen shoved the crowd out of the post office and shut the door behind them.

“Whew!” she breathed, wiping her brow. “It seems you have a lot of admirers.”

Amanda smiled gratefully. The attention was fun, but she had work to do and the crowd didn’t seem to hear her pleas. She had suddenly noticed Luke was gone, and looked to her friend for help. Fortunately, Aileen had no scruples about turning everyone away. Like a mother hen protecting its young, Aileen took charge and whisked Amanda into the post office. The crowd still gathered outside, but Aileen sternly ordered them away in a thick Irish brogue that brooked no resistance. The crowd finally dispersed, and Amanda smiled at her friend.

Marriage to Jake had done Aileen a world of good. She looked radiant, her round figure set off by the gay blue dress she wore, trimmed in black velvet and jet buttons. Her face glowed with health and her eyes sparkled as she laughed with the postmaster. It was hard to envision her as the whiskey-drinking saloon girl Amanda had met at the hotel in Wichita, but she was glad that Aileen had found happiness.

As she approached the telegraph desk, she noticed Luke step out of the sheriff’s office, confer with Jake, then cross the street to the saloon.
Haskwell,
Amanda shuddered. For some reason, registering a complaint made the threat seem too real. She shook off the somber thoughts and handed the telegrapher a ream of papers. The man’s glasses fell off in astonishment.

“You wish to send all of this? But Madam, it will be terribly costly.”

“Nevertheless, I need to send the wire. Just the first ten pages of the proposal. I can mail the rest.”

The telegrapher’s face twitched and with a disgruntled sigh, he began to tap the message to her New York publishing house.

Bored, Amanda took a seat and flipped through the papers that lined the desk. There was the daily news, the religious meeting record, a notice for the Woman’s Committee, and the Wanted posters. These were by far the most interesting, and Amanda thumbed through them, appalled at the sinister faces that stared up from the drawings. Reading one after another, she got through the first ten, when her fingers paused at the sight of a black-eyed Irishman and her blood ran cold as she read the notice.

“Haskwell, Sam. Notorious outlaw of the West. Irishman, son of a bricklayer in County Cork. Came to America in 1856…”

“Amanda!” Aileen shouted impatiently. “Are you ready?”

“The work is done, Madam,” the telegrapher said. “Madam?”

Amanda froze, unable to believe what she was reading. She retrieved her glasses from a rung on Aesop’s cage, and put them on, her eyes narrowing in shock.

Alleged to have murdered over sixteen men, including John Haines, in a gunfight, no survivors, witness never found; Jesse Witherspoon of Texas, for a drink of whiskey; Lillian and Suzette Parker, of Virginia, Luke Parker surviving…

Amanda’s eyes blurred and the pages fell from her grip. It was as if all of the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit. She knew now why Sam Haskwell was after her, why he had followed her so relentlessly. She had picked that item out of a newspaper at random, never dreaming that the real outlaw might hear of it and think she witnessed the killing. She cursed her own stupidity in using Haines’ real name, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Haskwell obviously felt threatened by that description in her book, the one that so accurately described his murder of the sheriff. Logan Benteen was Sam Haskwell, Amanda realized in horror. Her fiction had come to life, and in a terrifying way.

Then something else occurred to her, something that disturbed her far more than learning Haskwell’s motivation. Luke Parker surviving…a sinking feeling passed through her as she realized the implication of that sentence. Luke had his own reasons for wanting Haskwell. She now knew why Luke was with her and why he had been on that train. Why he had immediately known Haskwell’s gang, enough so that he could recognize them on sight. Why he had agreed to come to Waco with her, a man who could have made a fresh start anywhere.

He was after revenge, and she was suddenly afraid she was nothing more than the bait to get it.

She said nothing on the way home. Luke seemed preoccupied and didn’t address her much more than to ask if she’d sent her work. She nodded, grateful that she didn’t have to speak, afraid that she would shout out everything and rail at him, let him know what a bitter disappointment he was to her.

She climbed the stairs woodenly, past the chandeliers that yesterday looked enchantingly beautiful, and locked herself in the library. Anguish poured through her as she dismissed Pedro and refused lunch. She couldn’t think about food, couldn’t think about anything other than her hideous discovery about Luke.

Tears spilled down Amanda’s cheeks. She, Amanda Edison—scholar, woman with an enormous amount of intelligence, who’d startled every professor at the institute with her theories on philosophy and the war—had been duped by a southern killer. She’d been used by him to get at the man who’d killed his family. Worse, the evidence had been there all along. If she hadn’t been emotionally involved with the man, she would have seen through him immediately. But no, she was worse than the heroine of any penny dreadful, giving her heart to a man who wasn’t fit to lace her boots.

Her glasses fogged, and Amanda scarcely noticed. Aesop perched on her leg, his sharp little claws digging into her soft skin, but she didn’t feel that either. She couldn’t feel anything but pain, and the overwhelming humiliation of being made a fool. Knowing that she had aided his cause only made it that much worse. Dear God, she had practically seduced him the previous night!

Aesop ruffled his feathers and Amanda ran a finger lovingly down his back. Thank God she hadn’t gotten pregnant from her first encounter with Luke, and with any luck, she wouldn’t be now. Wincing as Aesop tugged on her finger, she gave the little owl a fond glance.

Once, it had just been the two of them. It seemed it would be that way again.

“What do you mean, she isn’t coming down?” Luke glared at the manservant, while Pedro’s moustache twitched in worry. Bathed and dressed in good fawn-colored trousers and a clean white shirt, Luke had been sipping brandy and waiting for Amanda for over an hour.

“I ask her two times, senor, but she refuse. She is writing and cannot be disturbed. I am concerned. Senorita Edison has just come from a long journey and she should not work so hard right away. But she will not listen.”

“She can be damned stubborn at times,” Luke agreed. Fury built in him as he understood what she was doing. Amanda was rediscovering herself as an author, and apparently telling him that she didn’t need him. He had too much respect for her intelligence to believe that her nonappearance could mean anything but. She had refused lunch, declined his invitation to ride, and did not answer his knock when he first came back. She was testing him, Luke realized, trying to set the parameters of their relationship, and shutting him out once more.

“Don’t worry, Pedro, I’ll get her,” Luke reassured the manservant. “Just set out dinner and we’ll be right down.”

“Sí,
” Pedro said doubtfully. Amanda Edison didn’t look like the kind of woman who would readily accede to anyone’s wishes. Even her husband’s.

Chapter
  
22
  

Luke climbed the stairs thoughtfully, determined to lay down the law. He sensed that the future of their relationship rested upon the next few hours, and he had no intention of letting Amanda close herself into her safe wall of books once more. Yet as he opened the door to the library, nothing could have prepared him for what he found.

She was buried in books. Volumes surrounded her, some with tiny cards marking the pages, others placed face down with paragraphs noted in red ink. Papers were strewn everywhere, from notecards that were obviously some sort of reference material to loose sheets of written script that were impatiently crumbled and rejected. Her carpetbag stood in the middle of the floor, half-opened books and old discarded notes bulging out of it. Reams of paper were strewn all over the table, and ink bottles stood half-empty, a silent testimony to the work that had passed within the last few hours.

In the midst of the mess was Amanda. Half-hidden by a volume entitled,
Mankind and the Western Experience,
she was perched on the floor with a pencil jabbing from behind one ear, and a dripping quill thrust carelessly into her dress—obligingly leaving a pool of ink just above her left breast. Her hair, never particularly tidy to begin with, tumbled wildly down her back, decorated with one of Aesop’s feathers and a tiny slip of parchment. She was scribbling endlessly, making short little squeaks and contented sighs, followed by exclamations of disgust as she rejected a full page and tossed the paper to lie with the rest. Aesop marched amid the mess in complete bliss, leaving bird droppings and feathers, obviously quite used to his mistress’s doings.

“Amanda.” Luke broke her concentration, and when she glanced up, it took her a full minute to focus and realize that someone else had entered her sanctuary. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

She looked around at the mess in the room, then lifted her turquoise eyes and peered directly at him. “I am writing,” she said, as if that explained all. “As you may be aware, I have a deadline to meet. Now that we have reached our destination, I see no reason to delay.”

“Does that preclude food?” Luke asked, trying to sound reasonable. “You have to eat.”

“Digestion disturbs the mental process,” Amanda said tiredly, the icy disdain in her voice apparent. “I shall eat when I’ve finished, and not before. I want to complete as much as possible tonight, so that in the morning I may start telegraphing my editor. I’ve put this book off for far too long, while dallying with meaningless research.”

“Is that right?” Luke got her meaning, and his jaw tightened with anger.

“Yes. As Cowper said, ‘Absence of occupation is not rest, a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.'”

She turned back to her work, casually dismissing him as one would an over-zealous servant. Furious, Luke kicked the door to the corridor shut behind him. The papers wafted through the air with the sudden draft like a blizzard, and Aesop squawked, then turned his head backwards, indignantly. Amanda stared at Luke through her glasses, her eyes wide and penetrating, and she gave him a look that would have pulverized iron.