Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (11 page)

Longarm nodded and asked, “Couldn't you show a profit by busting up the rock and panning it?”

“Sure,” the assayer said, “but men don't crush their dreams. A few hand-picked samples from an otherwise worthless outcropping can make any man dream big. Over in the desert on the other side of the Sierra there are places where a man can pick up a burroload of fairly decent gold quartz in a couple of days. By the time they haul it out of the dry country, figuring a dollar a day for their time, they might break even. You have to have water, supplies, and plenty of money to make a profit even on a real strike.”

Longarm said, “I understand that part. Let's stick to this shit I brought in here today. You say it's worthless and I'll take your word for it. But just last night I saw it tested the same damned way, and there was maybe ten dollars' worth of color in the test tube.”

The assayer shrugged. “Then someone switched samples on you.”

“No. They couldn't have. I picked them myself, at random. If someone had salted two freight cars with enough real ore to fool me, there'd be enough aboard to be worth milling. Is there any way to fake that test?”

The government man thought and shook his head. He said, “Nothing but aqua regia, mercury, or cyanide will dissolve pure gold. What did the other chemist use?”

“He said aqua regia.”

“I'd say he had no reason to lie. Cyanide's dangerous to carry around and you'd have known mercury on sight. If he got a real precipitate, the samples you had him test must have been rich.”

Longarm frowned and asked, “Is there anything else in that rock he could have separated out? Maybe fool's gold or mica?”

The assayer said, “No. You don't find pyrite in quartz. It's a sulfide of iron you find in shale or slate.”

“Maybe brass or tin or something like that?”

The man was growing impatient. “Damn it, Deputy, I just told you there's not enough metal of any kind in this stuff to matter. Don't you think I know my own business?”

Longarm sighed and said, “You likely do, but I can see I don't know
mine
as well as I ought to!”

He went outside and caught a hackney cab back to the mill. He told the driver to wait and went back to the loading platform, where he called to MacLeod and explained, “I got us a ride to the stage line. We may as well get on back to Manzanita.”

“You mean they did it again? God damn it! I owe the railroad for hauling it and the mill supervisor just told me there'd be a charge for unloading it on their tailings dump!”

“You have a hard row to hoe and that's the truth, MacLeod. But we surely won't catch any rascals hereabouts. The U.S. government backs what they said. There ain't enough color aboard those cars to pay for our ride and breakfast, but that's all right. I'm on an expense account and I'm feeding you as a material witness.”

As they left the mill in the hackney, MacLeod said, “I'm too sick at heart even to think of breakfast. I'd like to go straight home.”

But Longarm insisted, “We can't help matters by neglecting our innards. Besides, we've got plenty of time.”

“Well, just a quick bite. What's our first move, once we get home?”

Longarm had been afraid MacLeod was going to ask that.

He had no answer.

Chapter 5

Longarm rode up to the ranch house and tethered his gelding to the hitching post. As he climbed the steps, a suspicious-looking Mexican with a shotgun opened the door and snapped, “
Que pasa, señor?
”

Longarm said, “I'm looking for Señorita Felicidad, amigo. Is she at home?”

“For why do you wish to see La Doña Felicidad? She has no business with your kind, Americano!”

Longarm didn't think it would please the lady to have her employee shot on her doorstep, so he tried to figure out some politer way to get past him.

Then Felicidad herself appeared in the doorway behind the man with the gun and murmured something softly in Spanish. The man shrugged and went off.

The girl led him into a baronial living room and indicated a chair by the fireplace. Longarm sat down. He saw she had no intention of offering him any of the coffee she'd been drinking from a cup that sat on a little table beside her chair, so he took out a cheroot and asked permission to smoke. She nodded a bit sullenly, and he lit up, placing his hat beside him on another table.

She asked what he wanted and he said, “I understand you offered Kevin MacLeod a thousand dollars for his mining claim, ma'am.”

The girl shrugged and said, “It was Vallejo land in the first place, but I see no other way to get it back.”

“Ain't that a sort of miserly offer for a gold mine?”

Her smile was bitter as she answered, “Who cares about the gold? It is the land, Vallejo land, I want.” Then she added, “I would offer more, if I had it. My late husband did not leave me enough to be imprudent.”

“I didn't know you were a widow, ma'am. I'm purely sorry to hear it. Is Vallejo your married name?”

“Both my married name and my maiden name. We of the old aristocracy tend to marry cousins.”

“Well, I never came to jaw about religion. MacLeod has another cousin of yours working for him. Do you know Tico Vallejo, ma'am?”

“I do not speak to him. He has become an Americano.”

“Forgive me, ma'am, but since you're both American citizens and have been for a good long time, it doesn't strike me as such a foolish notion on his part.” He smiled and added, “You couldn't have been born yet when California changed hands back in '48.”

“Just the same,” she said, “I shall never be an Americana. But we are wasting time discussing such matters. You still have not told me what you want.”

Longarm smiled self-effacingly. “Well, you might say I'm sort of fishing. I know us lawmen can be a bother asking all sorts of fool questions, but it's the only way we can work things out. You heard the MacLeods got robbed again?”

She smiled the sort of smile he had seen on the faces of Apaches. It chilled him slightly. She said, “Yes. My vaqueros were laughing about it just before you came.”

“I believe you. How many hands have you got working for you, ma'am?”

“Eight vaqueros, the house servant you just met, and a stable boy. I take it you don't suspect the chicas I have for cooking and cleaning?”

“I didn't see a man or a woman of any kind anywhere near that last shipment of ore they somehow got away with from under my . . . whatever. Let's get back to your real estate notions. A thousand is way low for a gold mine, but a mite high for a section of rough grazing. Half the spread is all torn up from the mining. What's left under the sod ain't worth a thousand dollars.”

She shrugged again and said, “Once I have reclaimed what is rightfully mine I intend to have the men fill in the pits with the spoil and plant alfalfa. In time, the scars will heal.”

He took a long drag on the cheroot, examined the lit end thoughtfully, then said, “I can see you're more interested in just owning it again than in any profit you might ever show.”

“We may seem quixotic to you pragmatic Anglos. But what of it? I made an honest offer. Does this make me a suspect? How do you think I stole the gold?”

“I don't know. I was hoping you'd tell me.”

She laughed a trifle wildly, and said, “We have the ghost of Murietta riding for us, didn't you know? I have the gold hidden under the house. Would you like to have me show you through the wine cellar?”

Longarm nodded and said, “Sure.”

“You are joking, of course?”

“Maybe. Don't you have a wine cellar?”

“Certainly I have a wine cellar, but what do you think I have hidden down there?”

“You're the one who mentioned it. If you don't want to show it to me, well, I don't have a search warrant.”

She rose to her feet and snapped, “Come. I insist you see it, now.”

“Hell, honey, I was just running you. You're acting like you've got red ants in your never-mind. I just rode over to ask some routine questions.”

“You suspect me of being a thief and I won't have it!” she said angrily. “I insist that you search the whole house!”

He got up and said, “All right, I'll take you up on it. I can play stiff-necked stubborn, too.”

She led him through an arched passage and into a hallway. There she opened a thick door under a staircase and said, “Be careful. The steps are steep.”

She struck a match as he followed her down into the musty, cobwebbed darkness. Felicidad lit a candle stub on an empty barrel and waved expansively, saying, “Behold the vaults of Monte Cristo! You can see they are a maze of treasure-filled caverns!”

He looked around the tiny hole and observed, “Looks more like a root cellar to me. Do you make your own wine, or are those barrels empty?”

“They are empty. We've made no wine since my grandfather passed away.” She chuckled theatrically before adding, “It is just as well for you, señor. We sinister Spaniards are well known as poisoners.”

He mulled that over as he followed her back upstairs. She was touchy as hell about being a Mexican, he thought.

She conducted him through the kitchen, insisting that he look in the beehive oven for the missing gold ore. He had a sudden thought as she led him through another room. He asked, “Your people make these 'dobe bricks by mixing clay and straw with sand, gravel, rocks, and such, right?”

“Of course.” She turned to him, one eyebrow cocked. “Are you suggesting the missing high-grade ore has been built into the walls of my house?”

“Not hardly. Not this house. But I mean to sniff around the county for new construction. No trace of the missing ore's turned up, but ore is bulky stuff to hide. Building a wall or a barn with it and just leaving it there until the search wore off might not be a bad notion.”

“My God,” she said with amazement, “you have a lively imagination. Do you want to know what I think? I think there is no gold at all. My people owned the land the mine stands on for generations. If there had been gold they would have known it.”

“You're wrong, ma'am. You folks had California for generations, like you said, but you never knew the gold was up here in these hills. It was a gringo who found the first nugget at Sutter's Mill. Your folks were cowboys, not prospectors, so they likely never
looked
for color. I'm a jump ahead of you on the Lost Chinaman. I checked the records down in Sacramento. It's a real mine. They shipped over a million dollars' worth of color to the mint in one year alone, back in the seventies.”

“Perhaps, but it has been closed for years. MacLeod and his wife are fools. They should have accepted my offer.”

They were in a bedroom now. Longarm said, “MacLeod's turned down bigger offers than yours, ma'am. Besides that, I saw the stuff he's digging tested and it was real. You see—”

Then he noticed the way she was standing there, looking up at him with her eyes limpid and confused. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to just reach out, haul her in, and kiss her full on her trembling lips.

For a moment she responded, running a hot tongue between his firmer lips. Then she stiffened and tried to pull away, murmuring, “What is happening? I don't want you to touch me! I hate you and everything you stand for!”

He said, “Sure you do,” and kissed her again before drawing her closer to the bed and running his hand down her back. She wore no corset under the black lace and her buttocks were quivering like a nervous colt's. He pressed her closer to him. Her feeble struggles threw them off balance, so he rode with gravity and let it deposit them across the mattress of the old fourposter. They wound up with her half under him. He had a hand between her thighs, now. She churned her knees and one of her slippers flew across the rug to a corner as she gasped against his lips, “We have to stop! You're acting like a monster!”

But he noticed she had her arms around his neck, so he didn't answer. He unbuckled his gunbelt before he started inching her skirt up a fold at a time. She was kissing him with a fervor to match his own, but every time they came up for air she told him how much she hated him, so he decided it might not work if he took time to get undressed. He got her skirt up around her waist and she tried to cross her naked thighs as he slid his hand between them. But he was too strong, or she wasn't trying as hard to stop him as she was pretending. She was wearing no knickers under the skirt. Her sex was as moist as a ripe, sliced-open fig. He fingered her and kissed her until she started moving to meet his thrusting hand. Then he braced a boot on the rug, lifted himself up and over her, and unbuttoned his trousers. The respite gave her time to twist her head away, wild-eyed, and moan, “Please don't. I am not that kind of woman!” But she opened her thighs wide to him as he plunged into her.

He pinned her to the mattress with his pelvis and stayed like that long enough to rid himself of his frock coat. And then, as he started moving, she sighed, “Oh, you
are
a monster!” and dropping the maidenly notions, started pumping back.

She wrapped her legs around him and groaned, “Oh,
querido
, it's been so long since I felt this way!”

He said, “Can't we get out of these duds? This tweed must itch you some.”

“Don't stop. I like it. You feel like a big, woolly bear and I'll never forgive you, but,
Madre de Dios
, don't stop! It's happening!”

For a woman who hated him, Felicidad nonetheless seemed to be taking great pleasure from this encounter as she heaved, plunged, and bucked beneath him. When their movements quieted for a moment after their first climax, Longarm was surprised to notice that they had managed to get fully undressed. Her hips began to gyrate under him once again before his erection had had a chance to wilt very much. He felt himself growing hard again. He felt purely sorry for her poor husband, dying young with so much to live for, but one man's misfortune was another man's bliss. As he stopped to get his breath back after a second climax she said, “You are a terrible man and I hate you. But as long as you've defiled me—” Then she started kissing her way down his moist chest and belly on her way to further glory. They made love for a good two hours before she lay quietly in his arms, her lips against his chest, and murmured, “If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you before I kill myself.”

He patted her bare back and said, “I ain't given to talking about such things. Your secret is safe with me.”

“You must think I am a terrible slut. I suppose you'd laugh if I told you there has been no one in me like that since my husband died?”

“Hell, I believe you. I could tell you'd been saving yourself for me.”

She laughed in spite of herself, and asked, “How could you tell? I didn't know how much I needed that, myself.”

“I know. That's likely what had you acting so ornery. Maybe some day gals will be allowed to admit that they get just as randy as us men.”

She giggled and snuggled closer, saying, “I thought I hated you that first day on the stage. But you were so brave about those bandits. You moved like such a beautiful big cat and you were so much braver than any man I'd ever known. I started feeling butterflies inside me, in a most indecent place for butterflies to be, and I told myself I was overexcited because of the shooting. You knew, even then, didn't you?”

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I was thinking more about not getting shot. You likely think I came out here with this in mind, but I really wasn't expecting to make love to you.”

She smiled. “I am glad. It would shame me to think I'd been so transparent. But why did you seduce me, if you never planned it?”

“Honey, if I knew the reasons for half the things I do, I likely wouldn't do them. I did what I did because you're pretty as a picture and, well, because I could read the smoke signals in your big brown eyes.”

“What are we to tell everyone?”

He frowned and said, “I just heard you ask me not to tell anyone at all.”

“I wasn't thinking. If you are going to stay with me, the servants must be told something.”

He'd been afraid she'd say something like that. He knew what she'd say if he explained that he wasn't the marrying kind, too. So he just said, “We have to keep it a secret for your own protection, Felicidad. I wouldn't want the men I'm after thinking they could get back at me through my woman.”

She gasped with pleasure and said, “Oh,
mi caballero!
You are so gallant, but I am not afraid to share your dangers.”

“You may not be scared, but I sure am. We're up against somebody who's as slick as goose grease. I'd fight hell and high water for you if I knew who or what was likely to come at us. But I can't do my job and guard your pretty little body at the same time. So we'll have to playact that we're only friends until I catch the rascals.”

“I understand. And after you catch them,
querido
, I shall never let you out of my sight again!”

*   *   *

The county seat of San Andreas was a lot closer than Sacramento, but still a long ride from Manzanita. There was a library near the San Andreas courthouse, and it was stocked with more books on mining than Longarm cared to read. The librarian was a little sparrowlike woman, but she had a sweet smile and he noticed her well-turned ankle when she climbed up a ladder to reach him down some books.