Felicia Andrews Read online

  Finally, in the barber shop on the far side of Daniels's restaurant, she saw him sitting comfortably in the center chair, a sheet draped around his front and lather foaming on his face. She slapped open the door, and the barber, a tough little Norseman named Kar Solem, jumped back as though he had been shot, his straight razor held high.

  "Out," she told him, and the little man scrambled through a curtained doorway into the back room.

  Kurtz, meanwhile, was trying to wipe the lather from his face with the sheeting but succeeded only in smearing it into his hair. When he tried to stand up, the stained white cloth tangled in his legs, and he fell back again, panting.

  "Nate," she said, her hands on her hips, "you had better have a damned good reason for making that son of a bitch Eagleton the acting sheriff. "

  "Now, Mrs. Munroe--"

  "What's the matter with Cole? Or Phil, huh? 'They've been here for God knows how long. How could you, Nate? How in hell could you do such a thing?"

  Kurtz, whose face had flushed a deep and angry red, settled more deeply into the brown leather chair and crossed his legs and folded his hands over his stomach. "Mrs. Munroe, as mayor of this town, I do not have to answer to you, and you know it. I am not your puppet. "

  " I never said you were." Her voice was cold, her words pellets of ice. "I never said you were. "

  "Then, " Nate said, recovering his composure enough to regain his pompous trademark, "you will be civil, don't you think? I think it's a good idea. All right? All right. "

  She nodded, said nothing.

  "And Mr. Eagleton generously offered to serve in an acting capacity-an acting capacity only, Mrs. Munroe, may I remind you-to lessen tension in this town. You know as well as I that folks are either for or against Sheriff Mitchell in this case, and if I want to be as impartial as I should be, I had no choice. Cole and Philip are good men, no doubt, but they are Mitchell's men, and there's no telling what they might do.

  "Mrs. Munroe, we must have law and order in this town, and if appointing an interim sheriff from outside the town's interests is what's needed, then I will do it. And I did."

  She looked around the narrow shop as if searching for something that would give her an argument to present to him. But nothing sparked a sequence she needed. It would do her no good to tell him what she suspected, because everything Trevor had done to her was done . . . to her-personally, emotionally. The fact that she was rapidly finding him both insufferable and despicable did not erase the fact that he might be the most honest man in the entire territory. Might be. For suddenly, without warning, she did not believe it for a minute.

  But suspicion was nothing.

  Proof was what she needed, and proof, she told herself, was something she was going to get if it killed her. None of this made any sense at all; and none of it had started until Trevor had returned. A dubious assumption, she admitted, but nevertheless, she could not shake the feeling that Eagleton was working at something far beyond the simple expunging of a small-town sheriff . Something that had everything to do with her.

  Frustrated and angry, then, that she could not fling an adequate response into Kurtz's smug face, she snapped around on her heels and stormed outside again. She stood on the walk and glared at the street, daring someone to say anything to her so she could take off his head.

  Doug, she thought despairingly . . . and the anger faded as rapidly as it had been born. Her shoulders slumped, her arms became laden, and she almost fell back against the barbershop window as she sought for something that would keep her from screaming.

  Alex walked cautiously up to the Peterson's porch. He knew he wasn't welcome here because of his mother, but Hope had asked him to stop by and see if Olivia had found a small chest that contained a few items Hope's mother had made for her when she was a child. They seemed to mean a lot to her, and Alex, after several passes along the road, finally found the courage to ride straight to the house and dismount. As in everything else, he would do as his wife wanted, simply because he loved her and knew she would not take advantage.

  He knocked lightly on the door, then stood back and clasped his hands behind his back. He waited. A minute later he knocked again, heard the hollow sound of his request sifting through the house.

  He glanced behind him at Storm, the huge black stallion that had been Guy Munroe's. The animal was getting old, but its sleek and muscular sides belied its age. It shook its head impatiently. Alex grinned at it, turned, and knocked again.

  When no one responded this time, he walked to the end of the porch and tried to peer in through a window. There was nothing that he could see beyond his own dark reflection. Frowning now, he vaulted over the railing and walked quickly around to the back, a prickling at his nape making his hand drift slowly toward the handle of the revolver he carried when his mother wasn't around. She hated guns-though she herself carried a deadly hidden knife in her left boot-and refused to have them around her unless specifically accounted for.

  There was a broad sweep of browning grass that led from the house up a low slope to a well and other outbuildings at its crest. There, drawing a bucket from the well, was Olivia. He hesitated, then called out and began walking toward her.

  The closer he came, however, the slower he moved. She was wearing a dress torn at the shoulders, and the skirts were caked with damp mud. When he looked down at her feet, he saw puddles of water soaking into the ground. How many buckets had she dropped, he wondered; and before she could drop this one, too, he took an extra long stride and pulled it gently from her hands.

  Her face was streaked with dried mud, her eyes swollen, her hair flailing stiffly in the afternoon breeze. Her cheeks were flushed, and for a moment he thought she was seriously ill.

  "Mrs. Peterson," he said, and she cut him off with a sharp wave.

  "Come to gloat, I expect," she said. Then she stared at the bucket in his hands and jerked her head toward the house. "Well, come on, then, boy. I don't have . . . time to fight you."

  "Mrs. Peterson," he said, hurrying to keep up with her as she rushed down the slope. "Mrs. Peterson, I don't know what you're talking about. Hope asked me to come around and see if you'd found a small redwood chest about this size"-and he made an awkward mime with his free left hand to indicate something approximately two feet square-"because there's some things in it she wants for the baby. "

  Olivia stopped dead in her tracks, turned slowly and stared at him. "Baby?'

  Alex blinked. "Well . . . yes. Didn't . . . I mean, hasn't anyone told you? Hope is expecting a child sometime this fall. "

  Suddenly Olivia slumped to the ground and buried her face in her hands. Alex dropped the bucket, not caring about the water, and knelt anxiously beside her, not knowing what to do, what to say, only wishing he could somehow stop the sobs that rocked her body.

  "Mrs. Peterson? Mrs. Peterson, if it was something I said, please . . . I didn't mean it. I do it all the time. My . . .mother says I have the only human case of hoof-and-mouth disease she ever heard of. Mrs. Peterson, please don't cry. Please!"

  Olivia slowly lowered her hands, the tears streaking through the caked mud as she gulped to fill her lungs. "I don't know, " she said, looking around her, everywhere but at Alex. "I don't know anything anymore . " She turned to him. "I'm sorry, Alexander. I . . . there's been so much today. Harley, he's out riding, where I don't know. They came just after dawn, you see, when he was getting ready for work. They-"

  Alex, without thinking, pulled a bandana from his hip pocket and, holding her hands down, wiped gently at her face. "Who, Mrs. Peterson? Did anyone hurt you? Is Harley all right?"

  "No one's hurt," she said and broke into a harsh laugh that made Alex look away, "Not much , " she said when the laughing was done. Just . . .

  The sobbing began again, and Alex pushed himself up, not knowing what to do for her. He wanted to leave, but on the other hand he did not want to leave her here by herself. And it was with a feeling of immense relief that he saw Harley ride around the comer of the h
ouse and stop. They stared at each other until the young man began to feel uncomfortable, then Peterson urged his mount to them and. Alex once again explained why he was there.

  Harley nodded.

  "Livy," he said, making no move to assist her, "go inside and see what you can find. "

  She rose and staggered blindly past him, and Alex turned away when Harley reached out to caress her hair.

  "What happened?" Alex wanted to know, fighting to keep his voice from breaking.

  "Just what your mother said would happen, " he told him.

  "I don't understand. "

  Harley glared into the distance and swallowed. "That Mr. Wilder come out here with his new man, Eagleton-! suppose you know him-and told me he was taking the option. "

  Alex looked up at him, bewildered.

  "The option, boy," Harley said hoarsely. "The goddamned option! He ain't goin' to sell, and I'm fired!"

  Amanda pushed herself away from the window when she heard Nate talking softly to Solem. Without watching where she was going, she headed back to Wind and pulled herself onto his back. For a long minute she sat there, rubbing a knuckle thoughtfully over her teeth, trying to dispel her abrupt depression so she would be able to think more clearly. . . think, and act.

  Wind, needing no direction, backed away from the hitching post and walked slowly westward.

  A wagon filled with sacks of grain passed them going in the opposite direction, and a small boy sitting atop the load waved at her wildly. She glanced over and recognized him, smiled as hard as she could for the one who thought her a princess, and sighed when he could no longer see her face.

  Think! she ordered herself then; damn it, think!

  She tightened her legs slightly and Wind stopped, waiting, until she glanced back over her shoulder-at the hotel.

  No, she thought, even as Wind made the turn. It won't work. Why should Wilder order Trevor not to take the job? After all, Trevor's his man. It's good for business. Why should he?

  But she would never know positively until she asked. And she never asked.

  She stopped in front of the hotel and was about to dismount when the doors opened and a man stepped out.

  There was no hesitation. Recognition was instantaneous.

  Simon Maitland tipped his bowler to her . . . and smiled.

  BOOK FOUR

  Moon witch

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Amanda heard them outside the window. Crying, calling across the sky that had been threatening snow for days came the faint and mournful cries of a flock of geese. Their formation, while ragged, was direct and unswerving, and they swooped through the dusky afternoon without pause--crying, calling, giving directions to the others of their kind. They cast no shadows on the barren land below them, and no hunters waited in ambush to decimate their number. They continued by the dozens, by the score, by the hundreds.

  She turned her head on the pillow and looked through the windows; they looked like arrows slashing through the gray and fragile air. She imagined the black masks across their eyes, the dull bronze of their beaks, the soft down of their bellies. Every year they warned her that the year was ending, and every year she had climbed to her mountain crest and had watched them, listened to them, searching for signs of danger during the winter months ahead.

  But not now.

  Now she was lying in her own warm bed, and the geese were passing over her.

  The evening before, Grace had lost her temper. She had thrust a hand mirror in front of Amanda's reluctant eyes and showed her the haggard, waning face that was reflected in the glass. Amanda did not know her. It was a stranger, a stranger whose eyes were flat and dull, whose cheeks had begun to cave in on themselves, whose hair was stringy and without the grace of luster. It was, she thought, the face of an animated skull, and nothing more. And Grace had thrown the mirror against the wall and raced out, slamming the door behind her. She had not returned.

  Too bad, Amanda thought listlessly. Too . . . bad.

  Bill Manley did not bother to visit her anymore. She would listen to his sermons, examine carefully the medicine he prescribed and the diets he demanded, and when he was gone, she would drop into a soothing dark sleep where no one nagged her, no one goaded her, no one expected more of her than she had to give.

  She closed her eyes slowly. Everything she did was done slowly.

  And every once in a while her mind roused itself sufficiently to prod her memory. And once prodded, it always returned to that day in July-this year? last year? she had no way of knowing-when she sat on Wind's back in front of the Goreville Hotel and saw the devil himself tip his natty hat to her and open his nearly toothless mouth in a gentle mocking smile.

  She'd no idea what she had done then; the next thing she had been aware of was a pair of hands touching her boot gently, pulling at her until she felt herself falling. The hands caught her, cradled her, salty tears were warm on her cheeks and a soft broken voice pleaded with her to talk.

  She said nothing. Not then, and not for another five days. She only sat in her room and stared at the walls, wondering what had happened to her that she should be visited this way.

  That night she had had a dream. Guy had returned to her, still dressed in his impeccable gambler's suit, a deck of cards riffling through his hands while he told her, again and again, how Maitland had been arrested for his gun-running business, but the charges of murder would not stick to his hide. A few years, she was told, and he would be out. In spite of his nefarious dealings, he was still a wealthy man, and he still had powerful connections, and he would not spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  The dream ended. The dream came again.

  She managed to tell Alex, to tell Sam, to tell Tom Lions.

  She had fought back the shock . . . or, at least, she had subdued it to something bordering on control and had set out again to do what she could to help Doug and herself.

  But everywhere she turned, Maitland was standing-smiling, tipping his bowler, smiling his smile.

  Within a week of her partial recovery, Harley and Olivia had been thrown off the Circle B, and Maitland had moved in, no longer bothering to hide under the name he had been using for years. Ephraim Wilder was dead; Simon Maitland had returned.

  The Petersons moved in with Alex and Hope in the house beyond the hill and the stand of fir to the north of Amanda's place. Olivia was still embittered and still blamed Amanda for it all, especially when she learned of Maitland' s connection with her past. Harley . . . said nothing. Silently, without a trace of his former pride, he'd accepted Amanda's offer of a job on Four Aces, and he did his work well, and without complaint, and without speaking.

  There had been a single day, some time in late August, when she had found enough fire to send her into Coreville where she found Tom Lions in his office near the depot.

  "No," he had told her. "I've wired the authorities in New York, just like you asked me. And Amanda, I'll tell you again--as often as it takes until you listen to me, woman!--that there is nothing at all illegal in what Maitland is doing. He bought the ranch fair and square. All the papers have his legal name on them. And the deal he made with Harley was, from Harley's position, stupid and irresponsible and incredibly naive . . . and legal.

  "You can scream all you want, m'dear, but there is nothing the law can do to touch him . "

  "But damn it, he's after me!"

  "Prove it."

  "He's . . . he's here!"

  "It's a free country, Amanda, the last I heard. The man can live anywhere he wants to, as long as he has the money and he doesn't break the law. And-listen to me closely, Amanda--and the man has not broken the law!"

  She had then run to Douglas, but Mitchell was impotent to do anything but grind his teeth. And she could see immediately that her own troubles only added to his. The delays by the court had kept him in jail for nearly two months, and he was languishing. Depositions were filed, judges cornered in their chambers, until-at long last-he was taken to Cheyenne where Lions tried des
perately to have the case against the sheriff dismissed.

  It might have worked. Lions assured her it would.

  On the first day of October, however, while being transferred, Doug Mitchell escaped from his guard and had not been heard from since.

  A third formation soared overhead, and she followed it as far as the window would allow.

  It was a year later, she finally decided.

  But the days that had passed were too dreamlike to be counted.

  She had risen each morning with a new plan to drive Maitland out, and by noon of that same day had argued herself out of it. It was either demeaning, or illegal, or not feasible, or stupid. Nothing seemed to work, and she could not bring herself to talk to him directly, not to Eagleton, who once in a while rode over to Four Aces to see how she was doing-so he said-and to see if anyone there had heard from the missing fugitive. He knew full well that no one would tell him if they had or not, but Amanda soon came to understand that Trevor did not mind. It was she he was after; just the idea that he was on her land and wearing Doug's badge was all he wanted her to think about.