Wild to the Bone (7 page)

Pinkerton glanced at the clock on the wall above the fainting couch, carved in the shape of his native Scotland. “You'd best get a move on if you're fixing to grab a bite to eat, Bear. I didn't know if you'd make it here by now or not, but I had Miss Whitehurst check the schedule for the Cheyenne and Northern for today and tomorrow. The next flyer is heading north to Douglas in two hours. You'll make it if you don't dally. Pick up your ticket and expense vouchers from Miss Whitehurst on your way out.”

“Don't worry about a thing, Mr. Pinkerton,” Raven said with her customarily crisp confidence, rising from her chair and tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “Agent Haskell and I will find out who those robbers are and run them to ground in short order. You can be sure of that.”

Smiling confidently, she extended her hand. Her employer squeezed it gently, gave a courtly dip of his chin, and said, “I don't doubt it a bit. A safe journey to you both, and please fill me in from time to time via that wonderful invention known as the telegraph.”

“Will do, Allan.”

Bear rose and started to follow Raven to the door, but Pinkerton said, “Bear, hold on a minute. I'd like a private word.”

When Agent York had left the office and closed the door, Haskell said, “What is it, Allan?”

Pinkerton canted his head to one side and narrowed one eye suspiciously. “You and Miss York haven't done anything, uh, against the rules, now, have you, Bear?”

The tips of Haskell's ears burned. What in hell had put the head Pinkerton on the sex scent? A fella—and a gal—had to be mighty careful around a man with Allan Pinkerton's detective experience.

To cover his chagrin, Bear widened his eyes and dropped his jaw in feigned exasperation. “What do you take me for, boss?”

That didn't seem to appease the older agent a bit. He continued to scrutinize the big man suspiciously as Bear, wagging his head as though his feelings had been irreparably hurt, turned, opened the door, and went out.

Raven was just then leaving. Miss Whitehurst caught him catching a brief glimpse of his partner's round ass beneath her pleated wool skirt as she went out through the car's rear door.

Bear blushed as he donned his hat.

Sitting at her desk, Miss Whitehurst shook her head and stared skeptically at him over the rims of her old-lady glasses. “Agent Haskell—”

“Oh, don't you start!” Bear said, cutting her off.

She arched a light red brow and canted her head to one side. “It's a long journey up to Spotted Horse in the Pumpkin Buttes,” she said in a lilting, faintly admonishing singsong voice, tapping a pencil on her desk. “One hundred and twenty-five miles to Douglas and then another hundred miles by horseback through some of the emptiest country on the western frontier.”

Haskell had already thought about that. It had tied his vocal cords in a knot, and he had to clear his throat of shame before croaking, “Meaning what, Abby?”

“Meaning”—she glanced at the door through which Raven had disappeared—“should I be jealous?”

Haskell chuckled as he hiked a hip on the corner of the secretary's desk and leaned toward her. “Let's say you are, though I assure you that you have no need to be. Me, I'm partial to redheads. Besides, that one's snooty. How 'bout if when I return from them Pumpkin Buttes up yonder with another gang of stage robbers tied up in knots, I take you out to the Larimer Hotel in Denver for a nice porterhouse by candlelight, followed by . . . coffee and brandy, upstairs in one of them fine-appointed suites?”

“Hmmmm. I'll have to think about that.”

“You do that.” Haskell poked his half-smoked stogie between his lips, rose from the secretary's desk, and winked. “Me, I'll be doin' little else.”

“Oh, get on with you, you big tease!”

Chuckling, Haskell left.

8

B
y the time Bear
had stepped out of Pinkerton's office car, Raven was gone.

The two bodyguards sitting on the car's front steps merely glowered at him as Bear pinched his hat brim to them and then headed off across the rail yard toward the depot station and Cheyenne proper, in hopes of finding a meal.

He found one at the Mountain Lion Saloon on Railroad Avenue, a place he knew well and that had a Mexican cook who could throw together the best
huevos rancheros
north of the border. The Mexican also knew the size of Haskell's appetite. When the cook's pretty daughter carried out the steaming platters, one with a steak and fried green peppers and onions on it, one with a side of potatoes fried in butter, onions, and chili peppers, along with a tall ale and a shot of Sam Clay on the side, he grinned.

He doffed his hat and went to work in earnest, running a napkin across his beard a half hour later, when all three platters and the two glasses were sitting empty before him. He tipped the waitress, hitched his LeMat on his right thigh and his Russian .44 on his left hip, threw his saddlebags over his left shoulder, picked up his rifle scabbard and bedroll in his other hand, and headed on out into the afternoon's bright sunlight.

The beer and bourbon sloshing around in his belly softened the light just a tad and dulled the din of horse hooves and ungreased wagon hubs and the yells of a teamster just then bounding into town atop a giant Pittsburgh freight wagon, behind six braying mules, dust dripping off the wagon's iron-shod wheels. Sucking an unlit Cleopatra and smiling with satisfaction at the thought of spending time with the beautiful Raven York up in such remote country, Bear made tracks for the train station.

His partner had assured him that they'd frolicked together like alley cats for the last time, as her conscience wouldn't allow her to continue breaking Pinkerton's rules. But Haskell thought he could probably lure her off the primrose path if he worked at it hard enough. Remembering the urgent need in her long, slender, pliant, full-bosomed body, how her nipples had jutted as he'd licked them, he chuckled and registered a none-too-slight tug in the crotch of his gray tweed trousers.

He reached the station just in time to purchase his ticket for Douglas and stepped onto a day coach's front vestibule as the locomotive gave several raucous clangs and roared on out of the station under a thick cloud of black coal smoke and steam. Haskell looked through both of the flyer's coach cars, populated with cowboys, soldiers, cowpunchers, farmers, and more wild children than he liked to contend with, running up and down the aisles and squealing at the tops of their consarned little lungs.

But there was no sign of Agent York.

Haskell remembered that she'd liked to travel in widow's weeds, thus discouraging any unwanted sparks from male fellow sojourners. But after Haskell had trudged through both coaches twice, he hadn't seen a single woman decked out in mournful black, her face obscured by a cloudy black veil.

The snooty bitch either had missed the train or was hiding from him. He doubted that Raven York had ever missed any train in her life, so it had to be the latter. He wouldn't doubt she'd somehow finagled her way into riding up with the engineers or perhaps back in the caboose with the brakeman.

Haskell gave a snort. They were working the same assignment, headed for the same place, so she couldn't hide from him forever.

Could she?

He was pleased to see that the combination included a club and observation car, trailing along behind the second day coach. When he walked in, still loaded down with gear, there were only four other customers sitting at the tables running along the left wall. Three sat together playing Red Dog, while the fourth sat in the rear corner with his nose buried in the
Cheyenne Leader,
his boots crossed on a chair.

“Well, I'll be damned, if it ain't ol' Bear Haskell,” said the barman, who'd just been closing one of the windows flanking the bar against the coal smoke wafting in. Burt Angel waved a hand in front of his broad, patch-bearded face, badly scarred from smallpox, coughing and saying, “Ain't seen your big, ugly hide in a spell.”

“Seems I been workin' mostly down south of late, Burt.” Haskell dropped his bags near the front door and leaned his rifle in the corner. He doffed his hat and ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair, gritty with coal soot and travel dust. “You got any Sam Clay on board, or is that too civilized for this boil-on-the-devil's-ass country?”

“I got plain old drinkin' whiskey and bottled beer. I might even be able to rustle up a bottle of
tequila
, if you give me a minute.”

“Ah, shit, just—”

“Bear Haskell!” said a man behind him, cutting him off. He looked into the back bar mirror to see a sharp-faced redheaded gent in a black suit and a string tie rise from the table where he had been engaged in a poker game with two others.

He was tall and slender, and he was wearing an eye patch. He was also wearing two pearl-butted Colts on his hips, both positioned for the cross-draw.

Haskell turned to face the man and said, “Well, I'll be jiggered if it ain't ‘One-Eye' Clem Magnus, his own mean an' ugly self.” He glanced at the other two men, both glaring at him, and said in the same droll voice he'd used to address Magnus, “And Charlie Butters and Dawg Anderson. What privy pit did some old hydrophobic bobcat drag you two out of ?”

“Same one it drug you out of, Bear,” said Charlie Butters, who gave a grunt as he hauled himself a little drunkenly out of his chair. He was as tall as Magnus, with dark, weather-beaten features and small, muddy eyes sunk deep in his bony face. He wore a fringed buckskin tunic and two shoulder holsters filled with Schofield .44s. A knife handle jutted from his high-topped right moccasin.

Butters was—or at least, he had been—a game hunter for the Southern Pacific Railroad, along with several other things not quite so civilized. He and Dawg Anderson, who stood only a little more than five feet tall and was as mean as a two-headed diamondback, had been known to sell whiskey on Colorado Indian reservations and to hire themselves out as regulators for crooked labor unions, since shooting men came as easily to them as shooting deer and antelope.

Bear knew of at least three territories both men were wanted in, so he assumed there were more.

The three men before Haskell, including One-Eye Magnus, had fought for the Confederacy. Since the war was still relatively fresh in everyone's mind even twenty years after Appomattox, they took umbrage with those who wore Union blue. Especially those Union veterans whose war record was as famous—or infamous, depending on which side you were on—as Bear Haskell's.

One-Eye said, “You killed my cousin at Monocacy Junction, you big bastard! And then because of you, my brother Willie and two more cousins was hanged down in New Mexico!”

Haskell dipped his chin. “Yep, you're right about that, One-Eye. Your cousin Ambrose was a casualty of the war, though I heard he even needed killin' before it started. And that worthless brother of yours and your own even more worthless
other
two cousins were claim-jumping, cheating hardworking miners out of the gold that was rightfully theirs. They hanged, all right, and I wish they could have hanged twice.”

Haskell shook his head once, slowly, keeping his hard gaze on Magnus's lone, angry-bright eye. “They sure deserved it.”

All three stared at him. Magnus stood to the left of the table they'd been playing cards at. The short one, Dawg Anderson, stood in front of the table, his back to it. Butters stood to the right of it. Dawg's fat face, fringed with dirty brown whiskers, was split in a delighted grin, big fists clenched at his sides.

Haskell had seen no reason to be diplomatic. There was little preventing a keg of dynamite from detonating when its lit fuse was as short as the unseen one in the club car. As soon as Magnus had heard the barman call out Haskell's name, the fight was on.

The only question in Bear's mind was, would it be with guns, knives, or fists?

One-Eye Magnus left his guns in their holsters as he bolted toward Bear, screaming, “You scum-sucking Union dog!” and brought up his right fist from his knees. He'd moved so quickly—and Bear had been briefly distracted by Dawg opening and closing his own hands at his sides—that the haymaker hammered against Haskell's left cheekbone.

The blow sent Haskell reeling back against the bar behind him. Burt Angel yelled, “Ah, shit, fellas!” When Bear had regained his balance, all three card players were on him, swinging or jabbing fists at his head, chest, and belly.

“Get around behind him and hold him, Charlie!” One-Eye shouted as he rammed his left fist into Haskell's solar plexus.

One-Eye was damn good with those fists. Too good. Haskell doubled over as the air left his lungs in a loud chuff, but he knew that if Butters got behind him and pinned his arms behind his back, he'd be a human punching bag.

And when these curly wolves were done punching him, they'd likely slit his throat and throw him from the train.

Bear slammed his right elbow into Butters's face, evoking a loud howl, and then he lowered his head and shoulders and threw his two hundred and forty pounds straight forward while raising his fists and forearms like shields. He bowled the other two men, Magnus and Dawg, straight back into the table and the chairs they'd been sitting in.

The men cursed as Dawg fell over one of the chairs and Magnus fell into the table, overturning it and hitting the floor, with cards, coins, drinks, and an ashtray raining down on top of him. In the corner of his right eye, Haskell saw Butters throw a fist at him. He stepped back, and as Butters's fist glanced off Bear's ear, Bear rammed his elbow into Butters's nose, smashing it flat against the man's face.

Blood spurted like red paint clear up to Butters's hairline.

As Butters yowled and clamped his hands over his nose, Dawg pushed off the wall near the overturned table and chairs and ran toward Haskell, bellowing like a poleaxed bull. Bear's left fist met the man's forehead head-on. As Dawg stopped and rocked back on his heels, Bear smashed his fist two more times against the man's face—
smack! smack!
—unhinging his lower jaw.

As Butters twisted around and fell to his knees, screaming, Magnus again came at Bear. This time, he was holding a chair in both hands above his head. Bear ducked low, and the screaming Magnus hurled the chair over Haskell's back.

It clattered onto the bar behind him as Bear rammed his head and shoulders into the tall redhead's chest and, surging off his boot heels, slammed the man so hard onto his back that the floor leaped on the car's chassis, dust billowing from the cracks between the floorboards. Haskell landed on top of him and, straddling him, grabbed the collar of the man's red calico shirt, lifted his head off the floor, and gave him two quick, powerful jabs with his left fist.

“You fuckin' devil!” one of the others cried.

Bear heard the telltale
snick
of iron on leather and turned to see the bloody-faced, broken-nosed Butters, down on both knees, raising a long-barreled Remington .44 in his bloody right fist and clicking the hammer back. Haskell shucked his Russian from the cross-draw holster on his left hip and fired a half second before Butters did, Butters's shot sounding like an echo of Bear's own.

Butters's bullet plunked into the car's wall, over the overturned table. Haskell's bullet chewed into the man's right arm, evoking another shrill scream from the
desperado
, who dropped the Remy and fell back against the bar, groaning and clutching his arm, which was starting to ooze blood in earnest.

Haskell heard another gun hammer click back. This one came from his left. Magnus chuckled devilishly as he gained his feet and extended one of his own pearl-gripped Colts at Bear's head.

“I been waitin' for this moment for twenty years, Haskell.” Bear inwardly winced as the main steadied the Colt at his left temple and narrowed one eye.

A shadow, as though of a very small bird, flicked past Haskell. He heard a faint whistling.

“Gnahh!”
Magnus cried, stumbling back and sideways as his Colt thudded to the floor, clutching his left hand in his right. From that hand, the slender ivory handle of a stiletto protruded.

Magnus dropped to a knee, his mouth open wide as he groaned deep in his throat and stared in shock at the fancy little blade sticking out of his hand. Magnus looked around, as did Haskell, to find out who'd thrown the knife.

The man Haskell had first assumed was a lone drifting cowpuncher reading the newspaper in the room's rear corner now folded
her
newspaper on the table and removed her brown stockman's boots from the chair. Agent York, decked out in skintight pale blue denim jeans and a hickory blouse with vertical red stripes, lifted her tan Stetson from her head, ran a hand through her raven-black hair, tumbling loose down her shoulders, and pushed herself to her feet.