Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 6

  Chapter Ten

  The knock rattling the room’s only door woke Kendrick with a start. His arm immediately shot out and his fist closed on the butt of the holstered Peacemaker dangling from the bedpost a foot from his head. While the butt of the gun was cool comfort in his palm, another kind of butt—a warm, firmly rounded one that was the source of its own type of comfort—bumped hard against his belly.

  “Answer the damn door,” the second butt’s owner grumbled sleepily.

  Kendrick shoved back the covers and stood up on the far side of the bed, naked except for the .44 he’d drawn from the holster.

  A knock rattled the door again and a hoarse, insistent voice called from the other side. “Kendrick! Wake up and open the blamed door, doggone it, before I roust the whole joint and get us both kicked out!”

  The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Kendrick couldn’t place it. “Hold your damn horses,” he called back.

  A low-burning lantern over on the wash stand gave the room a trace of murky illumination. Kendrick shuffled around the foot of the bed, pausing to pull a pair of long handles up over his pale, hairy, knobby-kneed legs. After shoving his free hand into one sleeve and shrugging the garment up over his left shoulder, he went to the door with his gun arm bare, the sleeve for it hanging empty down the middle of his back.

  Standing off to one side in the shadows, Kendrick opened the door a cautious six inches. The single bleary, blood-shot eye and section of a man’s unshaven face visible through the opening was still not recognizable to him.

  The puzzle was solved a moment later when the face impatiently growled, “Damn it, man, it’s Hickory Dawson. Are you gonna let me in of not?”

  "Dawson? What the—" Kendrick didn’t finish before the old stagecoach driver pushed the door out of his grip and shoved it the rest of the way open so he could stumble on through. Whiskey fumes wafted heavily around him.

  But Dawson’s unexpected intrusion and his drunken condition were suddenly of secondary consideration once Kendrick saw who had accompanied him here. Left standing out in the dimly lighted hallway was none other than Amelia Gailwood.

  “Good evening again,” she said demurely. Then added, “Or should I say good morning?”

  Past Kendrick’s shoulder, trying to negotiate the dark and cramped room, Dawson barked his shin on something and cursed sharply. “Damn it, Kendrick, you ought to turn a light on in here so when callers stop by they can see to keep from breakin’ their doggone necks!”

  “Stand still a minute and I will turn up the light,” Kendrick hollered back.

  “You’d better do something,” wailed an agitated female voice from inside the room. “If this old fool trips and falls on top of me, we’ll both end up with broken bones.”

  “Who’s that? Who else is here?” Dawson wanted to know.

  At the sound of the female voice, Amelia’s eyebrows lifted with curiosity, but did not appear particularly shocked.

  “Just – just wait here a minute,” Kendrick mumbled as he turned hurriedly back into the room, clunking his gun against the edge of the door as he did so.

  He strode to the washbasin and turned the lantern up high, casting the room in full illumination. Dawson was revealed to be leaning on one end of the nightstand, bent forward at the waist, reaching down to rub the shin he had banged in the dark. On the other side of the stand, the one closest to the bed, Sally the barmaid was sitting up on the mattress. Her golden hair was tousled, a spill of blonde curl dangling over one sleep-puffed eye. She was clutching a corner of blanket to barely cover her ample, otherwise naked breasts.

  Dawson straightened up, squinting into the brighter light. “That’s better. Now that a body can see, you reckon you can find a bottle somewhere? Strictly for the pain in this newly damaged leg, you understand.”

  “You’ll get no bottle nor anything else from me, you old rummy,” Kendrick responded. “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on here.” He shot a glance over at the door, still standing partially open, and through it he could see Amelia waiting in the hall. “And why the heck are you dragging Miss Gailwood around with you at this time of night?”

  Dawson straightened up with a groan. “I went lookin’ for you. Figured you’d be stayin’ at the Silvertip. The desk clerk said you wasn’t there, but that you’d been up to Miss Amelia’s room earlier. So I went to find out if she knew where you were stayin’. But she’d only tell me if I let her come along.”

  “Just how the hell many gals do you entertain in hotel rooms on one given night, Kendrick?” Sally demanded tartly.

  “It was nothing like that,” Kendrick tried to explain.

  Sally waved him off. “Save your breath. I don’t care what it was like. All I know is that it’s getting a little too crowded in here for little ol’ me. So I will gladly take my leave, thank you very kindly.”

  And, with that, she threw back the blanket and slid from the mattress in all her naked glory. She squatted beside the bed for a moment to retrieve her shoes and spangled dress off the floor. Then, carrying the shoes in one hand and swinging the dress nonchalantly over one shoulder, she glided past Dawson—who’d tipped back against the wall with his eyes bugged and his mouth hanging open so wide his tongue was practically dragging on his belt buckle—and out the door she marched. As she passed Amelia in the hallway, she said, “You can have him back, honey. He’s all yours.”

  * * * * *

  A handful of minutes later, after Kendrick had hastily finished getting dressed and Amelia was ushered into the room with the door closed behind her, things were starting to calm down … Starting.

  “Now,” Kendrick said as he paced back and forth at the foot of the bed, “will somebody tell me what was so all-fired important that the two of you couldn’t wait at least until daybreak to show up here?”

  Amelia was seated on a corner of the bed, as far away as she could get from the tangle of blankets where Sally had lain. Dawson was still tilted back against the wall where he had leaned to allow Sally her grand exit. A quick check of his pocket watch had told Kendrick it was half past two in the morning.

  Dawson cleared his throat. “A fella could do his explainin’ a sight easier, you know, if he wasn’t parched and sufferin’ in pain from crashin’ into stuff in the dark. In case nobody ever told you before, Kendrick, you make a mighty poor host.”

  Kendrick scowled. “If you want, I can show you how I could be a lot poorer one by chuckin’ your sorry hide right back through that door without ever opening it.”

  “You’re going to want to hear what he has to say,” Amelia spoke up. “You need to simmer down and listen.”

  Kendrick demonstrated that he had more than one scowl to pass around. “I’m surprised at you, allowing yourself to get caught up in his drunken nonsense,” he said.

  “I know what you mean. People can surprise you in all kinds of ways,” Amelia said, after cutting a meaningful glance over at the twisted blankets in the middle of the bed.

  Kendrick looked down, feeling a hot flush crawl up his neck.

  Dawson pushed away from the wall and took a lurching step. “Damn it, Kendrick, you need to climb down off your high horse and do like the lady said—listen to what I came to tell you. I ain’t talkin’ nonsense, I know what I saw. I saw him and that showy damn vest of his plain as day.”

  Kendrick gritted his teeth and started to relent. “Saw who? What showy vest?” he asked.

  “The fella from the stage ambush,” Dawson said, jutting his face forward and spreading his hands wide, like he was talking to somebody slow of wit. “One of the two who got away—the one wearing that cowhide vest.”

  “I never saw no cowhide vest. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “You had a different angle than us. Maybe you didn’t get as good a look as we did,” Amelia explained. “But Hickory is right—one of the ambushers who ran away after you showed up was wearing a cowhide vest. I remember it, too. One of those black and white-patterned affa
irs that you see once in awhile, but aren’t all that common.”

  Kendrick thought back to how things had played out that day on the ridge overlooking the waylaid stagecoach. He’d gotten a fleeting glmpse of Reese Eckert, barely enough to recognize him. But as far as the fourth man, from Kendrick’s perspective he had been nothing more than a blurred face and a hat bobbing in and out of sight behind the rocks as he bolted over the crest. He might have been wearing a dress and bloomers as far as Kendrick had been able to tell.

  “I heard talk you had another shootout earlier tonight,” Dawson said. “Another attempted ambush, only this time the target was you.”

  “That’s right. Two men tried for me out in the street. I killed one of ‘em. He was an hombre named Reese Eckert who I recognized as one of the men who got away at the stage ambush. Whoever was with him got away again, but logic says it had to be the fourth ambusher.”

  “Get any better look at him tonight?”

  “He was just a shape and a gun flash in a dark alley.”

  “There you go, then,” Dawson said smugly. “What I’m tryin’ to tell you is that I got a look at the jasper a while later and I know where he’s likely to still be found right now.”

  “Where?”

  Dawson jabbed a thumb. “Over in the tent city. I go there when I’m in town to … well, indulge in some vices.” He glanced at Amelia and then hung his head. “In case you ain’t figured it out, ma’am, I am a loathsome sinner. No matter how hard I try—“

  “Stop it,” Amelia cut him off. She rose to her feet. “The two of you may as well get some things straight right now. I’m no delicate little flower who’s never ventured out of the kitchen or past the front parlor. I’ve traveled all over the world on writing assignments and with my father and brother. I’ve seen the grandest opulence and I’ve seen the lowest forms of human existence. The ravages of alcohol and other drugs are not strangers to me, they can be found at every level. And I’m well aware that lust exists in both men and women. Believe me, my brother pursued the fairer sex on seven continents and the incident from a little while ago was hardly the first time I’ve seen a scantily clad damsel fleeing the scene at an awkward moment.”

  From the pocket of her short-waisted, fringed jacket, Amelia drew a nickel-plated Baby Russian .38 revolver, which she gripped with obvious comfort and familiarity. “And as far as facing danger,” she continued, “I’m experienced in that, too. My father taught me to shoot —and do so accurately, I might add—when I was ten years old. The only reason I couldn’t join the fray when our stage got attacked the other day was because I made the mistake of leaving my weapons with the luggage up on top and thereby was caught off guard.” She brandished the .38 meaningfully, then added, “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Nobody spoke for a minute. Then Kendrick said, “Okay, that’s a real convincing speech and we’ll be sure to keep it in mind. But that still don’t make it necessary for you to tag along with us if Hickory and me are headed for the tent city to try and corner this buzzard in the fancy vest. Hickory’s got his beef on account of the stage attack and I got a personal score to settle. But you—“

  “I’ve got a score to settle as well,” Amelia interrupted once again. “Hugh Crandall was killed as part of that stage attack while in my employ. That alone gives me justification. On top of that, there is still some question of why that stage—seldom known to carry anything of value—was robbed to begin with. Unlikely as it seems, I’ve been asking myself if those ambushers could possibly have been sent to try and stop my companions and me in regard to the matter I discussed with you earlier … If Hickory is able to lead us to the fourth man and you can refrain from killing him, maybe we could learn some worthwhile answers.”

  Kendrick found himself at a loss for words to try and argue with her.

  “She’s a mighty determined gal,” Dawson pointed out. “I don’t see how you’re gonna hold her back, Kendrick, less’n you’re willing to hogtie her and stuff her in a closet or something.”

  Amelia’s eyes flashed. “I’d like to see you try it.”

  “Whatever we’re gonna do, we’d best get after it. We’re wastin’ time and maybe our chance to pin down Fancy Vest. He ain’t gonna stay in one spot forever.”

  Kendrick threw up his hands in defeat. “Okay, I give up. Lead the way, Hickory, if your booze-addled brain can remember it. And you” —he shot Amelia a fierce glance— “had better be able to keep up. And if you feel the need to wave around that Baby Russian some more, be damn careful where you’re aiming it.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Amelia shot back. “You just be damn careful to stay out of my way.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They threaded through the dark streets of Lowdown with Dawson in the lead, then Amelia, then Kendrick bringing up the rear. They’d confiscated a pair of lanterns off posts in front of the Silvertip to help light their way. The night was still, the sky a cloudless canopy of bright stars. But the shadows that filled alleyways and slanted between buildings were as black and impenetrable as twenty feet down.

  When they crossed the narrow slice of open ground that separated the last buildings on the edge of town from the beginning sprawl of the tent city, everything was briefly awash in pale silver from the starlight.

  The tents were arranged basically in three rows, two of them facing one another on either side of what might roughly be called the main street, a bare strip of ground cut by deep wagon ruts and gouged by hoof prints. The third row, crossing the main street about three-quarters of the way down as the latter extended away from town, was made up of somewhat larger tents and two or three ramshackle buildings. While the tents lining the main street were mostly living and sleeping quarters for the miners, the ones on the cross row housed the businesses, for want of a better word, that served the miners’ baser needs—saloons, gambling joints, whorehouses, and opium dens.

  It was to one of the latter that Dawson led them. In town, he’d made a couple false turns, albeit ones he quickly corrected. By the time they reached the tents, however, his course was unerring. Either the fresh air was starting to sober him up, or the trip to the opium den was one he’d made so often it was like his feet were automatically drawn to it.

  “Here we are,” Dawson announced as he came to a halt about ten feet from the entrance of one of the largest tents in the row. “Mama Ling’s—the finest smoke to be found this side of Peking.”

  “And Fancy Vest is in there?” Kendrick said.

  “Saw him go in only a few hours back. Folks who go into Mama’s tend not to come back out in a hurry.”

  “I won’t ask how you know that,” Kendrick muttered. “Christ, how many different kinds of poison do you need to dump in your body at one time, anyway?”

  Dawson smiled benignly. “I keep tellin’ you, the whiskey’s only for my miseries. I’m an old man, I got a lot of aches. The smoke, on the other hand, is purely for the pleasure.”

  “Never mind that,” Amelia said impatiently. “Are we going to go in, like we came here for? Or are we going to stand debating the bad habits of a self-admitted loathsome sinner?”

  Dawson looked hurt. “Jeez, ma’am. You don’t really think I’m loathsome, do you?”

  “No, Hickory, of course not,” Amelia amended quickly, gently. “You’re just another lonely man making unwise decisions on how to fill his empty time.”

  “Well let’s fill some empty time right now by doing what we came for—going ahead on in, like you said,” urged Kendrick.

  On the outside, the entrance to Mama Ling’s was framed by a pair of tall torches flickering on the ends of poles thrust firmly into the ground. Inside, colorful curtains hanging from horizontally strung ropes formed a short hallway and then served to section off rooms to either side. Candles burning on a series of wrought iron stands cast everything in a soft golden glow.

  At the end of the entrance hallway, as if awaiting them, they found an ancient, withered slip of a woman reclining on a s
ilken couch strewn with pillows. A long, loosely flowing maroon robe hung on her bony frame like a billowy sheet caught on twigs. She puffed on a long-stemmed ivory pipe as the narrow, slanted slits of her eyes tracked their arrival.

  “Welcome, children. Come in. Welcome to Mama Ling’s house of pleasure.” Her voice quavered slightly but her English was quite precise.

  Her gaze came to rest on Dawson. “You are back soon, my son. And you brought friends with you.” Her head dipped in a single nod. “That is good. Good to be generous in sharing the pleasures to be found here at Mama Ling’s.”

  Mama Ling gestured toward two long shelves supported between a pair of upright blocks. The top shelf was strewn with ceramic-bowled, long-stemmed opium pipes; the shelf below contained numerous small lamps to heat the opiate mixture in the bowls and turn it into the vapor to be inhaled. As evidence of this practice currently taking place elsewhere throughout the tent, a brownish haze, permeated with the sweet smell of opium, hung in the air.

  Kendrick shook his head. “What we’re here for’s got nothing to do the junk on those shelves. We want to talk with a man seen comin’ in here.”

  “What man? What is it you wish to talk with him about?”

  “That’s between us and him.”

  “If the man is a guest of mine, then his privacy is guaranteed by me for the time he is here,” Mama Ling insisted. Here eyes narrowed to even tighter slits. “Your presence, I believe, is no longer welcome. You have the look and feel of trouble, and that I will not allow. You must leave.”

  “No, I don’t think we’re so inclined,” Kendrick told her. “If you truly want to avoid trouble, then let us take a look inside. If we spot our man, we’ll simply take him away to have our talk and nobody else will be bothered.”

  “You must leave now,” Mama Ling said again, her voice taking on a shrill edge.

  “Guess she don’t understand English as good as she speaks it,” Kendrick muttered to Amelia and Dawson.