High and Wild (27 page)

“What about your family? Your sister?” Raven said, shaking her head in bewilderment. “They're the ones who sent us to find out what happened to you, Malcolm.”

Briar laid his head back and gave a soft grunt. The light was leaving his eyes. “They never understood . . . never understood nothin' . . . about me.” He drew one more deep, ragged breath and implored the two Pinkertons with his eyes. “Take care of Gustav for me. Please . . .”

He laid his head back again. Death rattled in his throat. His broad chest fell still. His eyes grew opaque.

Up on the scarp, Gustav meowed.

“Bear?” a girl yelled.

Running footsteps thudded.

Haskell straightened. Teddy Redwine was running along the base of the scarp and up the slope, her pretty tanned cheeks flushed with concern. “Bear!”

She ran to the big agent and threw herself against him. Her hat tumbled off her head to hang against her back. She wrapped her arms around Haskell's waist and buried her face in his chest. “I was scared for you, you big lug. Are you all right?”

Haskell glanced at Raven. She looked at Haskell, then at the blonde in his arms, and rolled her eyes.

Haskell smiled and shrugged.

“Don't worry, Miss Teddy,” Bear said, returning the girl's hug. “This big, ornery Texan is fine as frog hair!”

EPILOGUE

A
week later, on his
way back to Denver from Wendigo, Haskell laid over a night in Colorado Springs.

He was arm-wrestling an old Army buddy in the saloon of the Pikes Peak Hotel, and he almost had Diamond Dave Calhoun's hand down on the table, when he spied a figure staring at him through the saloon's front window. It was night, so he could only dimly see the woman's face behind what he thought was a black widow's veil in the weak lamp- and candlelight issuing through the window and onto the saloon's front stoop.

Haskell saw the figure, looked away, and then looked back again. The distraction was enough to cost him the game.

As his hand hit the table under the iron grip of Calhoun, Diamond Dave's supporters roared. Male patrons and whores, most of whom were drunk, as were Haskell and Diamond Dave themselves, of course, held their hands out for their chunks of the sizable pot that had built up, the odds being even, and was being tended by a comely, young, bare-legged and barefoot whore named Kansas Kate.

“Sorry, there, Bear, old chum!” intoned Diamond Dave, slapping Haskell on the back. “Better luck next time. Say, what did you see out there, anyways? All the best whores in the Springs are right in here!”

Haskell grumbled as he plucked his smoldering Cleopatra from the ashtray on the cluttered table and rose from his chair. He made his way, staggering a little and kicking chairs, through the milling crowd and the thick cobwebs of cigar smoke. He banged his head on a hanging lantern, staggered a little, clutching his temple, and then continued through the saloon's batwings and out into the cool, dark night.

He looked toward where he'd seen Raven—or the figure he'd taken to be Raven. What other “young widow” would be out running around this time of the night in a boisterous Front Range mining and ranching camp, decked out in weeds? Haskell hadn't seen his partner since they'd ridden down into Wendigo together with Malcolm Briar's cat. Not that he hadn't looked for her after that, but he hadn't been able to find her anywhere over the next two days he'd remained in town, tying up loose ends in the case and helping the town council seat another sheriff.

(Bear had also, at least figuratively, run Judith O'Brien out of town on a rail. He had no strong evidence against her, aside from the dying testimony of a crazed killer, but he'd made sure that Geist and all the other citizens of Wendigo knew that Judith had in a roundabout way instigated the trouble that had cost so many lives.)

No, he hadn't seen Raven again after Malcolm Briar died, and that had gotten his neck in a hump. Shouldn't they have gotten together and compared notes, maybe drafted their report to Allan together? What, did she think she was too good to be seen around town with him?

Or was she afraid of her own female cravings?

Whatever the reason for her rude disappearance, it had irritated and frustrated him. Yes, he had to admit that his dick drooled for the girl. And maybe that's what frustrated him most of all—being enslaved by his passion for her and her so easily giving him the brush-off.

Bitch!

Haskell looked around the stoop and in the street in front of it. She wasn't out here. He moved off into the street and continued to look around, checking the breaks on either side of the building.

Still, nothing.

Had he imagined her?

Sweating as though he were coming down with an illness, Haskell walked up and down the street for about a hundred yards on each side of the saloon. All he saw were scantily clad girls—none of them her—and drunk cowboys and equally drunk prospectors on their way down from the mountains with winter moving in, enjoying a licentious night before heading out onto the plains.

Frustrated, Haskell tossed away his stogie, staggered back into the saloon, and headed for the stairs climbing the back wall. He was drunk and tired. Time for bed.

The pretty dark-haired whore, Kansas Kate, stepped out in front of him, blocking his path and pressing her back against the bar to his right. She raised a knee coquettishly, brushed it against his leg. She raked her eyes across Haskell's broad chest as she said, “Care for a French lesson tonight, Bear? I'll give ya one on the house to make up for losin' to that rascal Diamond Dave.”

Haskell looked at the girl's black corset and bustier barely holding in her breasts. Kate followed his gaze, grinned, and shook her hair back from her face.

His cock was heavy with need. Except the one he needed was Raven York. Damn his flea-bit hide, but he just didn't have the desire for any other girl.

Not tonight.

“Thanks anyway, Kate,” he said, his own cravings making him feel like a whipped dog. “This ol' Bear's ready for hibernation.”

He tramped on past her and up the stairs. He stopped in front of his second-floor room. Haskell always set a rifle cartridge on the floor of his room, just inside the door. It was his way of keeping himself from walking into a bushwhacking, which was always a risk, considering all the enemies he'd made over the years as a Pinkerton.

The tactic had saved his life so many times that he remembered to implement it even when howling drunk, as he too often was.

He got down on hands and knees and peered under the door. The silhouette of the .44-caliber round shone just on the other side, where someone would likely kick it as they stole inside.

He fished his key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. He stooped to pick up the bullet, and then, pocketing the shell, he drew the door closed behind him. Grumbling and cursing under his breath, he dragged his boot toes over to the dresser and got a lamp lit beside his open bottle of Sam Clay.

At the same time that the lamp's glow chased the shadows into the corners of the small room, he smelled the fragrance of ripe cherries.

His heart skipped a beat.

A cat meowed.

He turned to the bed. His beautiful partner lay there beneath the blankets, resting her head and shoulders back against the headboard. Her black hair was down. It hung messily along her flushed cheeks.

The widow's weeds were tossed across a chair.

Briar's tabby cat stared at Haskell from beneath the chair. Gustav's eyes glowed green in the shadows. The tabby meowed once more and then hunkered low on a folded blanket.

Haskell gave a snort and looked back at the bed. Raven glared at him, cobalt-blue eyes sparking angrily.

“God damn you, Haskell,” she said, enraged by her desire.

She swept the covers aside to reveal that she wasn't wearing a stitch. Her hair curled down along the sides of her large, pale breasts. The nipples were distended, beckoning. She spread her legs with a catlike groan, and the pink petals of her cunt shone wetly behind the tufts of silky black fur.

She drew a breath through parted lips as she stared at him, her gaze dropping to his crotch. Her breasts were rising and falling heavily.

She cupped them in her hands as she said throatily, “Hurry!”

Bear chuckled.

As he unbuckled his cartridge belt and kicked out of his boots, he thought of the .44 cartridge he'd left on the floor. “How in the hell . . .?” He let his voice trail off.

Of course, she'd have found a way around that old trick. He'd have to come up with another one.

Later . . .

About the Author

Peter Brandvold
has penned more than 70 fast-action westerns under his own name and his penname,
Frank Leslie
. He is the author of the ever-popular Sheriff Ben Stillman novels and the .45-Caliber books featuring Cuno Massey, as well as the Lou Prophet and Yakima Henry novels. Head honcho at Mean Pete Publishing, publisher of lightning-fast western ebooks, he lives in Colorado with his dog. Visit his website at
www.peterbrandvold.com
. Follow his blog at:
www.peterbrandvold.blogspot.com
.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Brandvold

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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition April 2014

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Cover illustration by Craig White

ISBN 978-1-4767-3011-0