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Turning, he saw Belle standing in the doorway, smiling that same soft smile he remembered so well. Outwardly she seemed to have changed not at all, though it was something over a year since he had last seen her.

  She wasn’t a small woman, yet there was a delicacy to her that somehow belied the shapely hips and full bust. Her hair was the color of a raven’s wing, glinted through with specks of rust when the light struck it just right, and her eyes had always reminded him of an emerald stickpin he once saw on a riverboat gambler. But it was her face that stopped most men. Not hard or worn, like what a fellow who frequented sporting houses would expect to find on a madam. It was an easy face to look at, pleasurable. Maybe something short of beautiful, but with a devilish witchery that made a man sit up and do tricks just so he could watch it smile.

  “Belle, you look nifty as ever.” McCluskie was hard put to keep from licking his mustache. “Appears life’s been treatin’ you with style.”

  “I can’t complain.” She walked toward him, airily waving her hand around the parlor. “What’s the verdict? Think it’ll pass muster?”

  McCluskie caught a whiff of jasmine scent as she stopped before him, and for a moment he couldn’t get his tongue untracked. “The house? Why, sure. Even classier than the place you had in Abilene.”

  “Yes, good old Abilene. Every now and then I think back on it and have myself a real laugh.” A curious light flickered in her eyes. Somehow it put him in mind of a tiny flame bouncing off of alabaster. “But that’s water under the bridge. Tell me about yourself, Mike. What have you been doing since the good old days?”

  The way she was looking at him made him uncomfortable as hell. Almost as if he should be scuffling his toe in the dirt and apologizing for some fool thing he’d done.

  “Nothin’ much. Just pickin’ up a dollar here and a dollar there.”

  “I do declare, a modest Irishman. Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “Well, you know me, Belle. I never was one to toot my own horn.”

  “Don’t be bashful, honey. You’re among friends. Why, everybody in Kansas has heard about Mike McCluskie. Some folks say the Santa Fe would fall apart without him to fend off those big, bad train robbers.”

  The conversation wasn’t going quite the way McCluskie had expected. In fact, it seemed to be all uphill, with him pulling the load. He decided to try another tack.

  “I just got in this afternoon. Thought I’d come down and invite you out for a bite to eat after you close up tonight.”

  “Then we could go up to your room for a drink and talk about old times.”

  McCluskie grinned. “Well, something like that had crossed my mind.”

  Fire flashed in Belle’s eyes, and it was no longer a tiny flame. “Listen you thick-headed Mick, forget the sweet talk and trot yourself out of here. You left me high and dry in Abilene, and once burned is twice beware. So just scoot!”

  “Aw, hell, Belle. It wasn’t like—”

  “Don’t ‘aw, Belle’ me, you big baboon! Waltz on down the street and find yourself another sucker. They’re a dime a dozen and standing in line.”

  Singed around the ears and smoking hot, he headed for the vestibule. “Well, don’t say I never asked you. If you change your mind I’m stayin’ at the National.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she fired back. “And don’t let the door hit you in the keester on the way out!”

  McCluskie didn’t. But he came near jarring it off the hinges when it slammed shut behind him.

  CHAPTER 2

  MCCLUSKIE STALKED back up Main Street like a mad bull hooking at cobwebs. With each step his temper flared higher and his mood turned darker. There was just no rhyme nor reason to Belle’s attitude. There’d never been any understanding between them, and she sure as hell hadn’t had any claim on him. She’d known that from the outset when they started keeping company back in Abilene. It was simply an arrangement. Pleasant enough, and something they had both seemed to need at the time. But nothing more. Just two people having a few laughs and enjoying one another whenever the mood struck them.

  That was the trouble with women. They could never accept a little monkey business for what it was. Somehow it always came out larded with mush and lickety-split got itself embroidered into a four letter word. L-O-V-E. Even crib girls weren’t immune to the disease. Countless times he’d seen blowsy tarts go sweet on a certain man and just eat their hearts out when they couldn’t have him all to themselves. While all the time they were plying their trade regular as clockwork.

  It surpassed all understanding. Goddamn if it didn’t!

  Yet, when it got down to brass tacks, that wasn’t what had him boiling. Lots of females had got that goofy look after he’d flushed the birds out of their nest. That was something a fellow learned to live with, for it seemed to be the universal affliction of anything that wore skirts. What had his goat—and the mere thought of it set him off in a rage—was that he’d never before been dusted off by a woman.

  And a madam to boot!

  The gall of the woman, and her not even Irish. If her name was Adair or Murphy or O’Toole, just maybe he could have swallowed it. Understood, anyway. But for the likes of Belle Siddons to think that she had something special! Something he wanted badly enough to let her put a ring through his nose.

  Great crucified Christ! It defied belief.

  The hell of it was, he’d never given her any reason to think that way. Not the slightest inkling. He’d always been aboveboard, a square shooter from start to finish. Maybe he hadn’t discouraged her. Or put the quietus on her syrupy talk. But that was no reason for her to give him frostbite now. Merely because he’d pulled up stakes in Abilene without inviting her along. There just wasn’t room for a woman in his line of work. Not a regular woman anyway. Belle had been around long enough to know that. Leastways if she hadn’t then she must have had her head stuck in the sand.

  Yet she had still kicked his butt out the door!

  McCluskie was barreling along under a full head of steam when the doors of the Red Front Saloon suddenly burst open and he collided head on with a half dozen Texans. One look told him that they were pretty well ossified, and mad as he was, he started to let it pass. Just at the moment he figured he had all the troubles he could say grace over. Besides which, there was nothing to be gained in swapping insults with a bunch of trailhands. Shouldering them aside, he plowed through and headed up the street.

  “Jes a goddamn minute, friend! Who’ya think yer shovin’ around?”

  The big talker knew he had made a mistake when the pilgrim in the bowler hat wheeled about and started back. McCluskie was obviously no friend. The Texan wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t recognize a grizzly bear when he saw one, and he had the sinking sensation that he was on the verge of becoming somebody’s supper. Out of sheer reflex he made a grab for his gun, but he never had a chance.

  McCluskie’s fist caught him flush on the jaw and he went down like a sack of mud. The suddenness of it was a little too much for the other cowhands. They just stood there slack-jawed and bewildered, gawking at their poleaxed comrade as if he had been struck by lightning.

  The Irishman rubbed his knuckles and glowered down on them. “Anybody care to be next?”

  Apparently it wasn’t a thought that merited deep consideration. Even at five to one the Texans weren’t wild about the odds. Not after the way their partner had nearly got his head torn off. They just shook their heads, exchanging sheepish glances, and let it slide.

  McCluskie spun on his heel and walked off, just the least bit irked with himself. He shouldn’t have let a loudmouth drunk set him off that way. Anger was something to be conserved, held back, so that a man could choose his own time and place to let fly. Otherwise he’d get snookered into fighting on somebody else’s terms, which was a damn fine way to wind up with a busted skull.

  Still, he wasn’t fooling himself on where the score stood. It was Belle that had set him off. Not the Texans. If anything, the cowhand was just a
n innocent bystander. And any time a woman got a man to acting like a buzz saw it was time to pull back and check the bets.

  Satisfied with his estimate of the whole affair, he struck off in search of the big nabobs uptown. It was high time he quit horsing around and got down to business. Which didn’t include yellow cathouses or dagger-tongued madams.

  * * *

  Some twenty minutes later McCluskie wandered into the Lone Star Saloon just north of the tracks. After a stop at the depot, and a brief conversation with Hansberry, he came away with an interesting piece of information. Bob Spivey, owner of the Lone Star and Newton’s guiding light, was chairman of the town board. All things considered, it seemed a good place to start.

  The barkeep was an amiable sort by the name of Mulhaney, who had a weakness for fellow Irishmen. Before McCluskie had time to polish off his first drink Bob Spivey had been summoned from the back room. Mulhaney positively glowed that his countryman was decked out like a Philadelphia lawyer, and made the introductions as if he were presenting a long lost cousin from the old sod. After filling their glasses, still beaming from ear to ear, the barkeep drifted off to let them get better acquainted.

  Spivey hoisted his glass in salute and downed the shot in one neat gulp. Plainly he liked his own whiskey. “Welcome to Newton, Mr. McCluskie. Pardon me for sayin’ it, but I can’t help admirin’ that suit you’re wearin’. Real nice duds. Just between you and me and the gatepost, we haven’t had many visitors with any real class as yet. Hope you’ll decide to stay with us for a while.”

  “Might take you up on that.” McCluskie smiled and tapped the brim of his bowler. “Don’t pay any mind to this, though. It’s my travelin’ outfit. Once I change into workin’ clothes you couldn’t pick me out in a crowd.”

  “Is that a fact?” Spivey refilled their glasses, glancing sideways as he set the bottle on the bar. “If you don’t mind my askin’, what line of work are you in?”

  The question was breach of etiquette in a cowtown, and both men knew it. But Spivey was playing the role of a well-meaning, if somewhat curious, host. His face bore the look of a plaster saint, all innocence.

  McCluskie didn’t bat an eye. “I’m with the railroad. The Santa Fe.”

  “Well now, that is news.” Spivey’s grin suddenly turned spare, inquiring. “Would I be out of line in askin’ what brings you to our fair metropolis?”

  “Nope, not at all. Understand you folks are gettin’ ready to open a bank.”

  “That a fact. The Cattlemen’s Exchange. You might have noticed it directly across the street. But I don’t see the connection, just exactly.”

  “The money shipment will be comin’ in on tomorrow evening’s train. I sort of look after things like that for the Santa Fe.”

  “I see.” The saloonkeeper’s gaze drifted off a moment, then snapped back. “Say, wait a minute. McCluskie? Aren’t you the fellow that used to ride shotgun for the K&P up in Abilene?”

  “Yeah, I did a turn or two along the Smoky Hill.”

  “Then you’re the one that killed the Quinton brothers when they tried to hold up that express car.”

  “Guess you got me pegged, all right. Course, that was about a hundred lifetimes ago.”

  “Well I’ll be dipped. Mike McCluskie.” Spivey’s mouth widened in a toothsome grin. “Hell, I feel safer about our money already. I’m just guessin’, but I’d speculate the Santa Fe sent you out here to see that things come off without a hitch.”

  “That’s close enough, I guess.” McCluskie paused, knuckling back his mustache, and decided on the spur of the moment that it was time to test the water. “Newt Hansberry tells me you’re the he-wolf on the town board. Thought we might have a little talk about this lawman of yours. I’m sort of curious as to how much help he’ll be if push comes to shove.”

  “You mean if somebody tries to rob the train?” When the Irishman nodded, Spivey gave him a concerned look. “That sounds like you know something we don’t.”

  “Wouldn’t say that exactly. But when you’re talkin’ about that much money it never hurts to hedge your bet.”

  “Then you know the amount being shipped?” McCluskie just stared at him, saying nothing. “Listen, if there’s anything in the wind, I’d like to hear about it. Just between you and me, I own a piece of that bank, and all this talk of train robbers don’t do my nerves much good.”

  “Mr. Spivey, I knew you were in on the bank deal before I came out here. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be talkin’ to you. But so far as I’ve been able to find out, there’s nobody plannin’ a stick up. Like I said, I just wanted the lowdown on this deputy of yours. In case I had to call on him.”

  “Well there’s not a whole lot I can tell you. He’s from Wichita, y’see. The county sent him up here after a bunch of us pitched in and raised a kitty to pay his salary. Way we figured it, the town needed some sort of John Law to keep the Texans in line. So far Hazeltine’s done the job. Leastways we haven’t had no killin’s.”

  “Has anybody braced him yet?”

  “Can’t say as they have. He don’t believe in post-in’ a gun ordinance. Says it can’t be enforced without a lot of killin’. So far nobody’s tried him on for size, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Guess I can’t help you there. All we know is that he’s supposed to be some kind o’ tough nut. The sheriff says he’s a real stemwinder. Evidently made himself a reputation somewheres down in the Nations. Tell you the truth, though, you sort of lost me. What’s Hazeltine got to do with a Santa Fe money shipment? I always heard you boys weren’t exactly slouches at lookin’ after your own business.”

  “We generally manage.” McCluskie’s look revealed nothing. “But it don’t hurt to take a peek at your hole card, just in case you have to play it. Might be an ace and it might be a joker. Pays to know what you’re holdin’.”

  Spivey fell silent, sipping at his whiskey. He was a short man, tending to bald with the years, and he perspired a lot. Mainly from the bulge around his beltline, which was the result of indulging himself with good food and plentiful liquor. But what he lacked in size and muscle he made up for with an agile, inquiring mind. In the past he had been able to stay a step ahead of bigger men simply by outwitting them, and it was this ferret-like shrewdness which had given him some degree of influence in the affairs of Newton. Right now that inquisitive nature was focused on the Irishman. Something about McCluskie’s sudden appearance and his guileless manner just didn’t jell. Granted, the money shipment warranted the presence of someone of McCluskie’s caliber, but there was something here that didn’t meet the eye. Puzzling over it, he decided to try a shot in the dark.

  “Say, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you about. You being a railroad man and all.” Spivey’s expression was bland but watchful, searching for any telltale sign. “What’s the word at Santa Fe about this new outfit down in Wichita? Way I heard it, a couple of sharp operators name of Meade and Grieffenstein are tryin’ to promote themselves a railroad.”

  McCluskie didn’t even blink. “Beats me. There’s so many small-timers around a man’s hard put to keep ’em sorted out. Why, they been up here tryin’ to dump some stock?”

  “Naw, they’re smarter’n that.” The saloonkeeper hadn’t detected anything suspicious, but he wasn’t willing to let it drop so easily. “They’re tryin’ to float a bond issue by organizin’ a referendum vote. Course, they got the courthouse crowd in their hip pockets, but that don’t go for all of Sedgwick County. Up here, we mean to fight ’em right down to the wire.”

  “That so? Any special reason?”

  “Reason? Why, hell yes! You mean to say you don’t know where they intend to build this railroad?”

  “Don’t recollect hearin’ one way or the other.”

  “That curious, for a fact, since they mean to run a line between Wichita and here. Offhand I’d think the Santa Fe wouldn’t let a piece of news like that slip past ’em. Naturally, you can see tha
t if the bond issue ever went through, Newton’d be dead as a doornail. Leastways where the cattle trade is concerned.”

  Whatever reaction this sparked in the Irishman, Spivey missed it completely. His little game came to an abrupt end as the door burst open and a man stomped in as if he was looking for a dog to kick. The cast of his eye said that it didn’t make much difference which dog. Just any that happened to be handy would do nicely.

  McCluskie caught the glint of a badge and his interest perked up. The man striding toward them was tall and slim, and there was something glacial about his face. Almost as if it had been shrunk and frozen and nailed down tight, so that nothing moved but his eyes. Nature hadn’t let him off that lightly, though. His teeth were stained and square as cubes, not unlike a row of old dice, and his eyes gave off a peculiar glassy sparkle. Queer as it seemed, he looked like a stuffed eagle that had had a couple of marbles wedged into his eye sockets.

  Plainly, this was Tonk Hazeltine. Newton’s principal claim to law and order.

  The deputy marched up to Spivey and gave him a hard as nails scowl. “You heard about it?”

  “About what?” Spivey sounded like a befuddled parrot.

  “Don’t nobody in this town keep their ears open ’cept me?” Hazeltine’s curt tone was underscored by a kind of smothered wrath. “Some jasper just cold-cocked a drover down at the Red Front and the lid like t’ blew off. I hadda hell of a time talkin’ them boys out o’ startin’ a war. Got it in their heads they was gonna tree the whole shebang ’til they found this bird and hauled his ashes.”

  “Well, Tonk, that don’t sound like a major calamity to me. I mean, it was just a fight, wasn’t it?”

  “Fight, hell! The way them boys tell the story, it was closer to murder. This feller stiffed him with one punch and come near cripplin’ him for life. Why, the boy only woke up a minute ago. He’s still stumblin’ around like a blind dog in a slaughterhouse.”

  “Then why don’t you just arrest this rowdy for disturbin’ the peace? Seems to me that’d be the simplest way ’round the whole thing.”