Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (26 page)

“Oh, but you do,” Jackson countered. “In fact, we have a great
deal to discuss, starting with the night my brother was killed. You told my
father that you’d heard Clay and me arguing. But there’s more to it than that,
isn’t there? A great deal more.”

“Betty, honey, fetch me a bottle, will ye?” Ignoring Jackson’s
glower, Heath dug in his filthy trousers and came away with a fistful of coins.

Jackson seized Malcolm’s wrist, surveying the contents of his palm
at a glance. “There’s more than fifty dollars here. You haven’t worked the
waterfront since the night Clay was killed. I know, because I’ve asked around.
How does a man who can’t hold a job come by so much hard coin?”

“You go to hell, you murtherin’ scum.” Malcolm tore his arm from
Jackson’s grasp and leaped to his feet, flinging Betty into Jackson. Jackson
tried to block Malcolm Heath’s path, but the whore clung tenaciously to him,
screeching loudly all the while.

Cursing, Jackson pried her loose and set her roughly from him; at
the same time another man stepped up to block his path, grinning an evil,
drunken grin. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you make proper amends to the
little lady.”

Jackson swung a chair at this new obstacle, and, snatching the
pistols from his belt, leveled them at the crowd as he backed slowly into the
dense fog that choked the alley.

Thrusting the pistols through his belt, he searched for some sign,
some indication of Malcolm Heath’s passing.

There was only a thick blanket of white. More blindingly opaque
than before, it concealed all but the largest objects from view. Sound was
muffled and distorted, the heavy
slap, slap
of footfalls echoing eerily along the narrow passageway.

Jackson instinctively followed the sound.

Heath fled like a frightened deer, down the length of the alley
and onto Front Street, then south along the waterfront, Jackson right behind
him. As they sped past the scene of Clay’s murder, Jackson lunged for Heath, so
close that he could taste his victory. Then, at the last crucial second,
something loomed up from behind the crates and bales piled high on Jackson’s
left, stumbling directly into his path.

The obstacle was warm and solid. He barreled into it, taking it
down with him, slamming hard against the cobblestones. Blinding pain shot
through Jackson’s right shoulder at the impact. He ignored it, scrambling to
his feet, cursing roundly as he realized that Malcolm Heath had escaped.

At his feet, the old man with whom he’d collided had rolled into a
ball. Bending down, Jackson gripped the man’s shoulder, staring down into the
ancient, wizened features. “Whiskey Joe, are you all right?”

“Ho, Jack Broussar’,” the old Indian said drunkenly. “Joe mighty
fine... mighty fine.” That said, Joe lay back down and closed his eyes.

Jackson frowned. The old man reeked of whiskey, and though he knew
that Malcolm Heath was out there, he couldn’t walk away and leave the man lying
here in the open. He’d known Joe a long time, since before he’d lost his only
son to the white man’s spotted fever and found his solace in cheap whiskey.
From the age of sixteen Jackson had been extracting the old man from the street
and letting him into the Broussard warehouse, where he could curl up between
the bales and safely sleep off his whiskey, undisturbed.

“C’mon, Joe,” Jackson said, helping the old man to his feet and
steering him back toward the warehouse, just as he’d done a thousand times
before. Only this time, as they neared the building, and the grim facade with
its faded lettering loomed up out of the fog, Joe panicked.

“No, no, no,” Joe said, cringing away from Jackson as he stared in
horror at the building, adamantly shaking his graying head. “No, no, no.”

“It’s a safe place, Joe,” Jackson said. “You can sleep inside
where it’s warm and dry, and no one will disturb you.”

Still the adamant wagging of his head. “Not safe, Jack Broussar’.
Not safe no more. Don’t go there. Don’t go there.” He gripped Jackson’s
shoulder with a gnarled hand for a long moment, looking into his eyes as if
trying to convince him of the dangers within the warehouse; then he turned and
shuffled off, swallowed in an instant by the thick, concealing fog.

Jackson collected his mount and made his way back to the great,
hulking house that was his legacy, unaware that at that very moment his quarry
emerged from the mist just long enough to cast a furtive glance around before
plunging down yet another alleyway some three blocks north of the warehouse.

Heath hurried down the narrow passage, yet when he approached a
darkened alcove in the side of a dilapidated building, a tall, slim figure of
a man stepped into his path, bringing Heath up short. “Damn me,” Heath said
with a shaky, wheezing laugh, “you ought not to lurk about in the shadows. You
gave me a terrible start just now.”

The silver head of the walking stick the other man carried came
up, pressing against Heath’s breastbone. “You’re half an hour late. What the
devil kept you?”

“Your nephew, that’s what!” Heath shot angrily back. “You’d best
do somethin’ about him, Navarre!”

The walking stick arced up, catching Heath in the soft underside
of his chin. Navarre heard the taller man’s teeth clack noisily together and
smiled. “Just a friendly warning. If I ever hear my name pass your lips again,
in any capacity, I shall take great joy in prying out your tongue and feeding
it to the crows. I trust you take my meaning?” Heath bobbed his head, and
Navarre lowered the walking stick. “Very good. Now, what is this nonsense about
Jackson?”

Heath dabbed at his lower lip, then wiped it on his sleeve, glaring
at Navarre. “Thought you might want to know that he’s been pokin’ his nose
where it don’t belong, askin’ a lot of questions about a certain night last
April.”

“My nephew is no fool, and though I did not share his sentiment,
he loved his brother. I fully expected that he would seek answers about
Clayton’s death. It’s only natural. After a time he will grow bored with it—”

“Somehow I ain’t convinced. The man I faced off with this evenin’
down at the Painted Lady didn’t show no signs of givin’ up. In fact, he damn
near ran me to ground just now.”

“Faced off,” Navarre said, tensing. “You confronted him?”

Heath drew himself up to his full height. “It was the other way
around. I stopped by for a drink on my way here, and—”

“I thought we agreed at our last meeting that you preferred a
warmer climate.” Navarre said softly. “You were to take your wife and children
on the next packet out of here.”

“I got to thinkin’. Fifty dollars ain’t gonna last long, and it
ain’t much pay for all this trouble.”

“It is more than you’ve had in all of your miserable life, and
considerably more than you are worth,” Navarre replied.

 “To you, maybe.”

Navarre had turned half away; now he turned back, his grip hard upon
the silver-headed cane. “Was that a threat?”

Heath thrust his chin out and assumed a belligerent stance. “You
can take it however you damn well please. I say fifty dollars ain’t enough for
me to keep a lid on all I know. If you won’t pay what it’s worth, then maybe
there’s another Broussard who will. Could be he’d like to know everything I saw
and heard that night, includin’ his brother’s last words.”

 Navarre smiled at that. “Perhaps after all you do have a point.
How much will it take for you to keep that particular information to yourself?”

“Five thousand dollars seems a good place to start. Bring it here
tomorrow night, and all of your worries will be over... at least for the time
bein’.”

“Tomorrow night, then,” Navarre said pleasantly. “Oh, and Malcolm?
Precisely what have you told my nephew about Clayton’s death?”

“Nothing—yet. It’s our little secret...
Navarre.”

 Heath was smiling as he turned away. Navarre could see it plainly
as he stepped swiftly up behind him, bringing the walking stick up and up, then
swiftly bringing it down. The other man’s skull cracked like an egg, yet
Navarre gave him another blow for good measure; then, pausing to examine his
work, he wiped the head of his cane on the fallen man’s clothing. Strangely,
Malcolm Heath’s smile remained fixed, a ghastly mirror image of Navarre’s own.

Navarre was just about to turn away when a large and shadowy form
separated from the side of a nearby building, stepping up neatly to block his
path. The smell of sweat and bear grease seemed to hover around the intruder
like a noxious cloud. “Well, well,” the newcomer rumbled, “if it ain’t my old
friend and former employer, Navarre Broussard.” Nudging the still form of
Malcolm Heath with the toe of one huge moccasin, Abe McFarland flashed a
mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth. “Looks like your friend here’s had a little
accident, and you’ve got yourself a whole passel of trouble.”

Jackson’s chair was empty when Reagan swept into the morning room.
It was, however, clear that he’d been there, for his cup had been overturned in
its saucer, and there was a large coffee stain on the otherwise pristine table
linen. Raised voices, one approaching a bellow that she instantly recognized as
belonging to Jackson, drew her to the kitchen. “Quit! You can’t quit!”

“Ain’t I a free woman since your daddy give me my manumission
papers ten years back?” Bessie demanded indignantly. ‘‘And don’t them papers
give me the right to say where I work, and where I don’t work?”

“She’s got you there, Broussard,” Reagan put in from the doorway.

He shot Reagan a smoldering sidelong glance that sent shivers up
her shinbones and made her weak in the knees. It was the same intensely
passionate, burning look he’d given her that night on the gallery. “You stay
out of this!” he warned, then turned his attention back to Bessie, who was
slowly gathering her things into a willow basket. “Bessie, for Christ’s sake,
be reasonable!”

“I
ain’t the one bein’
unreasonable,” the old woman shot back. “And while I’m at it, I ain’t the one
planning some fancy dress ball with less than a handful of folks to do all the
work in too short a time! What were you thinkin’, boy?”

Reagan stifled a giggle. “Seems to me he
wasn’t
thinkin
’. You got
yourself a staff of four, which ain’t enough to run a house this size in a
normal capacity. Looks like you’ll just have to call off this party after all.”

Her comments earned Reagan a thunderous look from the young master
of
Belle Riviere
and a scowl from Bessie. “Now, Miz Reagan, you keep
outta this. I don’t need no help from no quarters, and especially not from someone
with as hefty an ax to grind as the one you’re totin’.”

“If it’s the staff that concerns you,” Jackson said, “then I’ll
hire a score of servants.”

Bessie raised her brows. “A full-time staff of twenty? Now you’re
talkin’. But you got to do it today. No dillydallying’ or delayin’. It’s gonna
take time to whip this house into proper order.”

“Consider it done,” Jackson said. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”

“For the time bein’,” the old woman said slyly.

Jackson had succeeded, yet as he shouted for Antoine Garrett, he
looked far from pleased. Reagan seized the opportunity, plucking a biscuit from
a tray and trying to slip away, but Jackson pinned her with an unforgiving
glance. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

“I spied the garden from my window and thought I might breakfast
outside. Looks like it’s about to get real busy around here, and I sure don’t
want to be in the way.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be worried about the consequences of your
little insurrection, now, would you?”

“Afraid of you?” Reagan snorted. But her bluff rang false as his
fingers entwined with hers, and a slow, sadistic smile spread across his mouth.

“Then you’ll stay. I’m not through with you yet.”

Reagan would have replied if Antoine Garrett had not chosen that
moment to enter the room. Garbed in his shirtsleeves, his cravat hastily tied
and his dignity askew, he hardly resembled his haughty and meticulous self.
“M’sieur, it is your father again. He has refused his breakfast, and when I
attempted to shave him, he flung the basin across the room.”

The scarred corner of Jackson’s mouth turned down in an odd half
frown. “Feeling more himself, is he? Then he can spare your services for the
afternoon.’ ’