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“We leave at dawn tomorrow,” he said. “You can tell me more while we’re riding.”
“What about supplies?”
“I have my own. You have a bedroll and rations?”
“Enough for a few days.”
“Don’t bring too much. It’ll weigh the horses down.”
“I’ll meet you at the south end of town tomorrow, Mr. Kavanagh. I have business of my own tonight.”
His lip curled in a way that suggested he knew what business she’d be about. “Don’t get too worn out, kid. I ride fast and hard.”
“I’m overwhelmed by your concern,” she said.
He leaned close, and she noted that his breath held not even the slightest taint of alcohol. “You talk mighty pretty, boy. Schooled nice and proper, I’ll bet. But all the fancy education in the world won’t help you out here.”
You’re wrong, she thought. There are certain kinds of education that are invaluable in a place like this. “Dawn. Tomorrow,” she said, dismissing him. “Good night, Mr. Kavanagh.”
He backed away, drawing his hat brim down over his eyes. A moment later he was gone. Tally let out her breath and met Miriam’s gaze.
“What do you think?” she asked her friend.
“Dangerous, for sure, but I think he was telling at least some of the truth.” Miriam looked down the street the way Kavanagh had gone. “You be real careful, Miss Tally. Real careful.”
“It is not good,” Federico put in.
“It has to be done. You know I won’t take any chances.”
“No chances,” Federico grumbled. “Ay, Dios!”
“You just see that Miriam gets back to Cold Creek.”
“I’ll pray for you and Mr. André,” Miriam said. And Elijah, but she didn’t need to say it.
“Thank you, Miriam.” Tally went to see the stable owner about staying the night and checked on the horses. She, Miriam and Federico shared fresh bread Miriam had bought at the bakery and a wedge of cheese, along with the jerky they’d brought from Cold Creek. Federico bedded down in a pile of clean straw, while Miriam and Tally lay rolled in blankets in the wagon bed.
At cockcrow the next morning, Federico harnessed the wagon horses. He and Miriam set out on the rough fifty-mile ride home, while Tally took Muérdago, her roan, and rode to the southern edge of town.
Kavanagh was waiting for her. He looked like Death himself, silhouetted against the lightening sky, the rolling, scrubby hills and mountains behind him. Tally hesitated only a moment and then urged Muérdago to join him.
She had a feeling that she would need every prayer Miriam could send her way.
CHAPTER TWO
SIM WATCHED THE SLENDER RIDER trot up the hill, admiring her graceful posture and firm seat. He didn’t make a habit of admiring women—with one notable exception—but he had to give this one credit for the guts to pose as a man and the skill to pull it off.
Of course he’d known she was female the moment he stood beside her at Hafford’s Saloon, and that was after he’d heard someone named Bernard was searching for a brother called André. He’d followed her at a distance through the streets of Tombstone, waiting for the right moment to get closer and hear the full story. It seemed too lucky that he’d located his prey so easily, but here she was, just where Caleb had told him to look.
Caleb had mentioned that André had a sister who’d lived with him in Texas, but nothing Caleb said had suggested she was vital to Sim’s mission. What was her name…? Chantal. A handle as fancy as her speech. He rolled the name around his tongue, disliking the taste of it. He preferred the name she’d given herself: Tal.
He didn’t trouble himself wondering why she disguised her sex. She gave off a powerful impression of fearlessness—even he had been hard pressed to sense her unease—but she must be pretty damned afraid of something. Afraid, and yet confident enough to keep anyone from looking too close at what lay beneath the mask.
He had a suspicion that she cleaned up a lot nicer than her outward appearance indicated. Her features under the grime were strong but just a little too delicate for a boy, her lips full, her eyes the color of coffee lightened with fresh cream and flecked with crystals of sugar. She must have a figure under those baggy clothes. But she was only a means to an end, unimportant to him except as a guide to André.
Likely she didn’t know anything about the map or she would be a helluva lot more suspicious than she was. She didn’t have any idea why André would have gone into the Chiricahuas outfitted for prospecting. But if André had told her about the treasure, Sim would learn soon enough. Meanwhile, he would let her keep pretending as long as it served his purpose.
He nodded to her as she drew her mount alongside Diablo. A wisp of blond hair had escaped from under her hat, the strand no longer than a boy’s might be. She tucked it back with a gesture both artless and impatient. Her roan sidled, and Diablo snapped at the gelding’s flank.
“Your horse has an unpleasant disposition,” she remarked.
“Just like me,” he said. “You ready?”
“Lead on.”
He turned toward the east and broke Diablo into a gallop, racing down the slope of the dusty miners’ road pointing toward the Dragoons. Diablo had something to prove and lit full out, leaving Tal and her gelding to choke on his dust. But she was game for the contest. In a few minutes her roan was neck and neck with Diablo. What Sim glimpsed of Tal’s profile was grimly unamused. When Diablo had worked out a little of his spite, Sim reined him in and slowed to a steady lope.
Tal flashed him a smile edged with anger. “Trying to get rid of me already?” she said, breathing hard. “Or was that just a test?”
“That’s up to you.” He noticed that her hat had blown back a little ways. She caught his look and jammed it forward.
“Now tell me about your brother,” he said.
She blinked at his sudden change of subject. “What else do you need to know?”
“How familiar is he with the mountains?”
“Our ranch is in the foothills near the south end of the range, in Cold Creek Valley, between the Chiricahuas and the Liebres.”
Which meant she and her brother were squatters on land they hoped to claim once the southern Sulphur Spring Valley was surveyed and opened for homesteading under the U.S. land laws. Until they could claim it legally, they had to hold their spread against all comers, including the rustlers who swarmed over the Valley like lice in a miner’s beard. Sim’s respect for Tal increased.
“This is the first time your brother has shown any interest in looking for ore?” he asked.
“When we lived in Texas, he spoke of getting rich in Arizona Territory. I never—” She paused, darting Sim a wary glance. “I said he was a dreamer.”
“And apt to go off half-cocked.”
Her lips set in a straight line. “He’s young.”
“You ain’t?”
She shrugged.
“What was he doing in Tombstone?”
“I don’t know. He was supposed to be in the Valley, buying stock for the ranch.”
“Doesn’t sound like you should have trusted him.”
She shot him a cold look. “You’re not here to judge André, Mr. Kavanagh, only to find him.”
Sim scratched the day’s growth of new beard on his chin. Tal was defensive about her brother but still naive enough to lead a stranger right to him. She honestly didn’t believe André had anything worth stealing. She valued him more highly than he deserved, and Sim couldn’t figure out why.
“Your brother’s a drinking man,” he said.
“Isn’t everyone?”
The disdain in her voice almost gave her away. “You talk like an abstainer,” he said. “But I saw you take a drink in Hafford’s.”
“I think better when I’m sober.”
“So do I. But from what they say in Tombstone, your brother talks when he drinks. That ain’t a wise habit in this country. It’s a good thing he don’t have nothing to hide…except from you.”
“He was ashamed to come home without the money. That’s all.”
“You sure he planned to come back?”
“I’m sure.” But her voice had a little crack in it. She wasn’t nearly as sure about anything as she let on. She would ride her heart out to prove herself Sim’s equal, but under that tough skin was a weakness he intended to exploit.
He wondered how she would handle their first night together. They would have to make at least one camp between here and the Chiricahua foothills.
“What about this foreman of yours? He any good as a tracker?”
“Elijah was with the Tenth Cavalry, so he has the skill for it. He may very well still be looking in the Valley.”
“But you want me to concentrate on your brother.”
“Elijah can take care of himself.”
Which meant André couldn’t. That fit with everything Sim had heard so far.
Once they were well away from the overwhelming scents of Tombstone, Sim dismounted. “You got anything on you that belongs to your brother?” he asked.
She stared down at him, perplexed. “No. Why?”
“Never mind.” Sim knelt close to the earth. A hundred horses, mules, oxen and men on foot had passed this way. He located a pair of mules’ prints accompanied by the boot marks of a single man.
Sim gathered a pinch of dust and held it to his nostrils. The dirt was infused with a faint but distinct scent that linked this traveler with the woman riding beside him.
“What are you looking for?” Tal asked.
He didn’t bother giving her an answer she wouldn’t understand. “Your brother came this way,” he said, mounting again. “He probably passed through Turquoise. We’ll stop there next.”
He rode a little ahead of Tal to get her smell out of his nose. The ground began to rise, and the trail turned south to loop around the tail end of the Dragoons. Seventeen miles without shade on a road with so many twists, hills and dips was hardly a pleasant jaunt, especially in the growing heat of the day, but Tal didn’t complain. She drank sparingly from her canteen like an experienced desert traveler. Even Sim was glad to catch sight of the Chiricahuas when they finally reached Turquoise.
He knew that Indians had once dug the bright blue rock out of these mountains, but white men were far more interested in the lead, silver and copper they’d found a few years back. The hills were scarred with recent excavation and the discarded trash of human activity. The camp itself was no more than a series of tumbledown shacks, sufficient for the bachelor miners’ stark way of life.
One of the shacks was a makeshift saloon of sorts, indicated by the crudely drawn sketch of a bottle on the door. Sim tied his horse to the hitching post and went inside.
The proprietress was a blowsy woman of early middle age and probably the only female within a ten mile radius—possibly the wife of one of the miners, more likely a willing companion to any who could pay. Her establishment was empty of clients. Flies buzzed lazily near the warped tin ceiling. Sim dropped a coin on the long, poorly fashioned table that served as a bar.
“How’s business?” he asked.
The woman, whose rouged cheeks were the only bit of color in a face hard and gray as granite, looked him up and down. “Maybe better than it was,” she said. She put a shot glass of whiskey down in front of him. The door creaked behind Sim, and Tal walked in.
“You boys lookin’ to stake a claim? Ready Mary can help you get started, get you everything you need. Even a little fun.” She leered at Sim, and he shoved the whiskey back at her. She drank it herself. “No, you ain’t no miner. On your way to more important business, I’d say.” She winked at Tal over Sim’s shoulder. “Now he don’t look as if he’s done much riding at all. I’ll give you a good price, cowboy. And half of that for his turn in the saddle.” She laughed hoarsely until she realized that Sim wasn’t smiling.
Sim glanced back at Tal. It was difficult to tell if she was blushing under the dust and the tan, but he couldn’t mistake the pity in her eyes. Pity for this dried-up husk of a female, who was probably stuck out here because she couldn’t compete with the younger whores in Tombstone.
“We’re looking for someone,” Tal said before Sim could reply. “Maybe he passed this way.” She described her brother as she had before, but she wouldn’t meet the older woman’s avaricious gaze.
“Yeah, I saw someone fitting that description,” Ready Mary said, leaning forward to display the sagging bounty of her bosom.
“Did he say anything?” Sim asked, ignoring the view she offered.
“Well, that depends. He did a bit of drinking—not that he looked liked he’d gone thirsty too long.” She wiped out the glass with a dirty towel and hummed under her breath.
Sim plopped down another coin. “What did he say?”
Ready Mary batted her eyelashes. “Well, it was some days back, and my place was crowded—when the miners come down they need their entertainment….”
Sim slapped his palm on the table. The woman jumped and nearly dropped the glass. She glanced at Sim’s eyes. “Well, he…he wasn’t making much sense. He was talking about someplace called Castillo Canyon, on the west side of the Cherrycows. He was all outfitted up, but everyone knows there ain’t no mines there.”
“Castillo Canyon?” Sim repeated, holding her with his stare.
“Y-yes.” She swallowed, and the sagging flesh of her neck quivered. “What did he do to you, mister?”
“He’s my brother,” Tal said, grabbing Sim’s arm. “Come on, Kavanagh.”
Sim let himself be led more out of shock than cooperation. Once outside the saloon he pried her fingers from his arm and led his horse to the nearest trough, clearing away the scum with a sweep of his hand. Tal’s horse dipped his nose in the opposite end of the trough, wary of Diablo.
“Never do that again,” Sim said quietly.
“What?”
“Touch me like that. Drag me around.”
“You didn’t have to threaten that woman.”
“That whore? She would’ve robbed you blind if she could.” He pulled Diablo away from the water. “What made you think I was threatening her?”
Tal stroked her horse’s neck. “Not with words. But she was terrified of you.” Tal glanced at him sideways. “The way you looked at her… Do you dislike all women, or just a particular type?”
Sim snickered. “What d’you know about women, boy?”
Tal tightened the gelding’s cinch and mounted. “I had a mother,” she said softly. “I’ll ask you to behave with courtesy and decency as long as you’re in my employ. Even to whores.”
Sim swung up to Diablo’s back. So she expected decency, did she? Was the tough, capable shell a front as false as her male disguise? Let her put on some fancy frock and she’d probably want him to bow and scrape like some dandy from back East.
