The Pride of Hannah Wade (44 page)

“If you don’t think it’s enough money, we could possibly arrange for you to receive some percentage of the drinks. I am prepared to be generous,” he assured her with a faint stiffness.

Hannah set her teacup in its saucer with such force that it rattled. “Mr. Bannon, I have no intention of working for you no matter how much you offer to pay me.” She spoke clearly and concisely so that everyone in the room could hear. “Nothing would ever persuade me to work for you.”

He straightened, offended; then his mouth curved into a smile under his full mustache. “That’s what you say now, Mrs. Wade, but the day will come when you’ll be hungry—so hungry you’ll do anything. When it does, you will seek me out.”

She rose to her feet. “You have forgotten something, Mr. Bannon. I lived with the Apaches. A week in the desert, and you would starve to death or die of thirst,
while I would find all the food and water I need. I will never go hungry, Mr. Bannon, and I certainly will never be so desperate that I’d work for you!”

His face turned red, the veins in his temples bulging with the hot blood pumping through them. He pivoted sharply and walked with rigid strides from the dining room.

After that confrontation, she had no appetite left, and the tea was cold anyway. The silence in the room was deafening. She opened her reticule to take out some money and caught a glimpse of movement out of the comer of her eye. She turned as Hy Boler walked up.

“My congratulations, Mrs. Wade. I have always admired you, and now I know why.” He gave a deep chuckle. “I never enjoyed anything half as much as the way you told him off.”

“I’m glad you found it so entertaining.” She was still smarting from the scene, and the sting of it was in her voice.

“Put your money away. I’m buying your dinner tonight.”

“I will pay for my own, thank you.”

He wagged a finger at her, still smiling. “Don’t let your pride get in the way of practically.” He sifted through the coins in his pocket and gave the exact amount to the waitress. Hannah moved away, but he was quick to follow her. “The sun’s gone down and it should be getting cool about now. Would you care to take an evening stroll with me? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“If it’s a proposition similar to Mr. Bannon’s, you’re wasting your time and mine.”

“It isn’t.” His hand cupped her elbow to steer her outside. “Let’s walk.”

The Silver City nightlife was just beginning to hum as they wandered along the twilight-shadowed boardwalk.
Several riders galloped their horses up the street, and raucous voices came from the open doors of the saloons and gaming houses. Up the street, someone was banging a tune on a piano. Late at night, the shooting usually started, but it was still too early for that.

“What is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Boler?” Hannah prodded, on guard with him.

“Your story.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your story. A few minutes ago in the dining room, I realized that there was a great deal more to it than what I wrote about.”

“And?” Hannah knew there was more coming.

“And—I would like to buy the exclusive rights to it. All you have to do is sit down and tell me everything that happened, and I’ll write the book. I know it will sell.”

“Your version of my story would likely have me dying of a broken heart over Lutero’s death. No, thank you, Mr. Boler.”

Somewhere a bottle crashed, and the sound of splintering glass broke through the night.

“You’ve been through a lot, Mrs. Wade, and I don’t mean just being captured and living with the Apaches, but also coming back and all that’s happened since. It’s an experience people would like to know about. I know I could sell it to a publisher in the East. We could split the proceeds. You want to earn a living,” he reminded her. “With a true story of your life published, you could travel around the country lecturing to different groups.”

“I see. Now I’m simply a social outcast, and you’re suggesting that I turn myself into a freak for profit. You are beginning to sound like Mr. Bannon. Earlier you wanted to buy the rights, and now you want to split with me.”

He chuckled. “You have a quick mind, Mrs. Wade.
Not much escapes you, does it?” Their footsteps sounded with a rhythmic tempo on the plank sidewalk. “You’re intelligent and educated. Why don’t you write the book, and I’ll represent you—for a small percentage, of course.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course.”

“Then why don’t you give me a job at your newspaper? You’re the only person in town I haven’t asked.”

Boler stopped and Hannah paused with him. “When I suggested that you were capable of writing about your own experiences, I didn’t mean to imply that you had the qualifications to become a reporter.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that you should hire me to write for your paper. I can do anything—clean, fold papers, keep your accounts. As you said, Mr. Boler, I am intelligent and educated, and I need the work.”

“How are you at setting type?”

“I could learn.” Hannah felt a lifting of her spirits, the determined rise of hope.

He reached for her hand and studied her long, slim fingers. “Women are very dexterous. Half the time my typesetter is drunk. I could use somebody who is steady and dependable.”

“You’ve found her,” she stated.

“So I have.” They shook hands to confirm the agreement, and Hannah found that she had something to smile about for the first time in days.

“How much are you paying your typesetter now?” she asked.

“The man’s experienced—“

“He’s also a drunkard, you said.” The sky was purpling into night, the darkening shadows making an indistinct shape of his features.

He shook his head mildly. “All right. I’ll pay you the same wages I’m giving him. I have the feeling it’s going
to be a new experience working with you. Mrs. Wade. You’re going to keep me on my toes.” “Indeed, Mr. Boler.” They started walking again.

A high morning sun made an oven out of the steep-walled arroyo, the scant breezes passing over rather than through it. The Apache tracker squatted on his heels and poked through, the accumulated piles of horse dung. After testing its smell and crumbling some between his fingers, he straightened and looked at the gaunt, hollow-eyed sergeant.

“Long time here. Maybe four days,” the tracker concluded. “One dung still warm inside. Maybe two, three hours.”

“See which way they headed when they left,” John T. ordered, and jerked his hand toward the brush-blocked mouth of the gully. The Apache scout trotted past him, his moccasins making faint scuffing sounds on the sand.

“Sergeant! Look what I found.” Hooker turned toward the voice. Graver’s search of the hidden camp had unearthed a uniform, half-buried under a tumble of large rocks. He carried it over to John T., sweat streaming down his face and plastering his gray shirt to his back, and remarked. “It’s Bitterman’s, all right. Hell, I thought he’d be halfway to California by now.”

“He’s clever, but not clever enough to brush out the tracks leading into here,” Hooker said absently, and turned to issue an order to the other troopers. “All right, let’s mount up.”

No one mentioned Cimmy Lou or the way Hooker had pushed them during the last week, refusing to admit that they’d lost the trail and searching ceaselessly until they found it again. They hadn’t seen him sleep at all, and all of them had noticed the glazed, distant look about him. This wasn’t like their sergeant. Something was going on inside him that made them all uneasy.

The Apache scout had found fresh tracks leading away from the gully hideout, and they pointed to town. Another trooper muttered to Grover as he swung into the saddle, “Bitterman shoulda kept runnin’.”

“I got a feelin’ he could never’ve run far enough,” Grover murmured, and dug his heels into his horse as the sergeant gave a hand signal to move out.

Cutter rode up to the hotel and dismounted, looping the reins around the hitching rail in front. The heavy tread of his boots echoed loudly as he walked across the raised board sidewalk to the hotel entrance. Inside the lobby he hesitated, then crossed to the desk.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Hannah Wade. I was told she came here a few days ago,” he informed the young clerk behind the counter. “Could you tell me where I could find her?”

“Mrs. Wade? She’s at the newspaper office down the street.”

Faintly surprised by the answer, Cutter pushed away from the hotel desk and retraced his steps across the lobby to the door. Outside, he swung himself into the saddle and rode down the congested street to the building housing the newspaper. When he walked in, he automatically took off his hat and smoothed his shaggy black hair.

“Captain Cutter, isn’t it?”
The
newspaper publisher came forward to greet him.

As of this morning, the rank was no longer his to claim, but Cutter didn’t bother to go into that. “I was told at the hotel that Hannah Wade was here.”

Boler’s look instantly turned speculative and curious. “She’s in back setting type for tomorrow’s edition of the paper. Go on through if you’d like.”

“Thank you.” The absent response was given as Cutter walked by him, his attention already shifting to the back.

The cumbersome machinery of the printing press blocked his view of the rear area. The smell of oil and ink was strong as he moved by it. Sunlight streamed through a back window, shining on the wide, slanted table where Hannah was at work. A warm rush of feeling went through him when he saw her.

Her concentration was focused on the copy she was setting, and she remained unaware of his presence. Cutter paused for a minute to watch her. Stray wisps of auburn hair had escaped the bun at the back of her neck, softening its prim style, and there was something vital and strong in the deep tan of her skin. The long, bibbed apron she wore was smudged with ink, and her fingers were stained with it, too.

“Hannah.”

When she turned around, the rush of pleasure lighting her face was a heady sight. “Cutter.” She quickly checked her reaction. “It’s good to see you.”

“I just came back from patrol this morning and learned that you were gone.” Her withdrawal puzzled him, and he fiddled with his hat, fingering the creases in the crown and rolling the brim. “I wasn’t sure where you had gone.”

“I didn’t go far.” She fitted a slug between some words to space out the line to the end of the column. “I had to find work.”

An awkwardness stretched between them, and Cutter couldn’t seem to find the words to break it. “Will you be staying here, then?”

“Long enough to learn the trade. With a recommendation from Mr. Boler, I should be able to find a job at a newspaper in some other town.”

“Where will you go?”

“Maybe Prescott or Denver.” Her shoulders lifted in a vague shrug.

“What about Santa Fe?” It was closer to the valley where he planned to settle.

“Regimental headquarters for the Ninth? No, I don’t think so.” She shook her head wryly at the suggestion.

Cutter breathed in deeply. He wasn’t thinking of it in that way. He had so many things to say to her, but he could find no sign that she wanted to hear them. Maybe he had only imagined that she cared about him. Maybe when she had waved to him it had been only a casual gesture, and not some silent promise to wait for him. Lord knows, he’d built up enough visions in his head from it, and from the kiss she’d given him. She was his daydream and nightdream. But it was all locked up inside him, and he didn’t know how to get it out—or if it would be welcome.

The tracks were lost where they joined the main road into Silver City, the hoofprints obliterated by the horses and wagons that had come afterward. John T. halted the detail on the roadside and looked toward the town.

“Could be he’s tryin’ to lose us again like he done with the cattle.” Private Grover ventured the thought. “No tellin’ which way he went.”

“He doesn’t know we’re on his trail.” John T. collected the reins, slapping them against the horse’s neck to stir it forward. “He went into town. He’d be that brassy.”

A wave of his hand ordered the troopers to follow him as John T. rode alongside the Apache scout. They entered town in a straggly column of twos, walking their horses down the busy main street. Hooker’s staring eyes searched the faces they passed and scanned the brands of the horses tied at the hitching rails. One of them jarred him to attention, and John T. pulled his horse up and rode over for a closer look, sidling his horse up to the flank of the chestnut gelding. He ran his fingers over the 08 mark burned into the hide and flicked off a scab. The older US brand was barely
visible. The Apache slid off his horse and checked the gelding’s shoes and those of the horse tied next to it.

“Same horses,” the scout announced.

At the confirmation, Hooker’s attention swung to the building directly in front of the hitching rail. Tall letters painted on the fake front of the second story identified the establishment as the Ace High Saloon and Gambling Hall.

“Bitterman used t’brag that he dealt faro in N’Orleans,” Grover said.

John T. dismounted and passed his horse’s reins to the private. When he unholstered his gun and started for the saloon’s door, the troopers quickly swung out of their saddles to follow him, sensing that no order would be given.

His gun was leveled when he walked through the door. He had no conscious thought of what he was doing or of the soldiers behind him as he paused to look around the nearly empty gaming room. The click-click-clicking of a spinning roulette wheel made its sound against the background of muted voices.

Cimmy Lou laughed, and he turned and strode in the direction of the laughter. She stood beside Bitterman’s chair at a poker table in back, watching while he raked in the winnings from a poker hand and added them to the small pile beside him. John T. leveled the gun at the narrow chest of his target. In some distant part of his brain, he heard Cimmy scream a warning to Bitterman.

“Leroy! Look out!!”

He adjusted his aim as his target pushed back from the table to stand and grab at something tucked in the waistband of his pants. Unblinking, he pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession, and watched Bitterman slam against the back wall, then side to the floor, a red stain spreading down his shirtfront. Cimmy Lou was still screaming, and John T. shifted the gun muzzle and pointed it at her. The explosions reverberated
through the hall. Then silence—that awful, killing silence and the blue powder smoke drifting in the air, that’s all he knew when he lowered his gun. “Sweet Jeezus,” someone murmured.