Dead Man’s Hand (40 page)

She’d told the gambler she wasn’t for sale, but he’d thought she was only haggling.
That was when Nate had come over. He’d asked the gambler to let Lily be. When the
man laughed, Nate fixed him with a stare as cold as a Nebraska winter. It hadn’t taken
long for the gambler’s nerve to crack. He’d gone for his Colt; Nate broke his arm.
Just like that. Lily saw the gambler reach for his piece and then he was screaming
like a banshee, his arm snapped, bone sticking out, blood gushing. That’s when she
realized Nate wasn’t quite human.

Now Nate turned his gaze on Lily as she undressed. Lily was used to men staring at
her. They’d been doing it since she was fourteen, which was when she discovered it
was so much easier to pick a man’s pocket if he was gaping at her bosom. Nate wasn’t
like that. He gazed at her with what seemed like his usual expressionless stare, but
Lily had learned to read deeper, and what she saw there now was hunger. He didn’t
move, though, not until she adjusted the dress and twirled around.

“How do I look?” she asked.

Nate growled an answer and, before she could blink, he was on her, one hand behind
her head, the other at her rear as he pulled her into a deep kiss.

“I really ought not to have bothered putting on the dress,” she said as she broke
for air.

Nate chuckled and hoisted her onto the nearby rocks.

* * *

They rode into town after sundown. That was best. There were many variations on their
game, but in each they’d learned the value of a late approach. By morning, the town
would be buzzing with rumors of the party that arrived under the cover of night. A
slip of a girl, bundled in an overcoat but riding a fine horse and wearing a fine
dress. A proper young lady, escorted by a surly uncle and three young gunmen.

As the day passed, the story grew. The girl’s uncle kept her under close watch at
the inn, but they’d had to venture out, as she was in need of a new dress. And what
a pretty thing she was, with yellow hair, green eyes, and the sweetest French accent.

The girl was shy, the uncle taciturn, and no one in town learned much from either,
but the young fellows with them were far more talkative, especially after a drink
or two. They said the girl came from New Orleans. Her parents were in California,
expanding their empire. Shipping or railroad, no one was quite sure which, but they
were powerfully flush. A suitor waited in California, too. A rich man. Very old, nearing
sixty. The uncle was taking the girl to her parents and her fiancé and her new life.
They’d been diverted here by news of Indian trouble and were waiting until the army
had it in hand. Until then, the party would pass the time in their little town.

* * *

Lily’s mark came at dinner. It was earlier than they’d expected—most men didn’t like
to seem eager. But it was said that John Anderson was keen to wed. Or wed again, having
recently lost his young wife in a tragic accident. It was also said that “accident”
might not have been quite the proper word to use. Anderson hadn’t been as pleased
with his bride as he’d hoped. Her daguerreotype had sorely misrepresented her and
she had not cared for ranch life. She’d also objected to her husband’s ongoing association
with the town’s whores and his penchant for bringing them home. Women could be quite
unreasonable about such things. So Mrs. Anderson had perished and her grieving husband
was impatient for a new bride.

Lily and Nate were dining at the inn. They’d barely taken their seats when Nate made
a noise deep in his throat, too low for others to hear. He kept his attention on the
wall-posted menu while Lily glanced over to watch their mark stroll through the door.
They said John Anderson was a handsome man, but she couldn’t see it. Or perhaps it
was simply everything she’d heard about him that tarnished her opinion. She did, however,
watch him until he looked squarely in her direction. Then her gaze darted away as
she clutched her napkin and cast nervous glances at her “uncle.”

Anderson stopped at their table, took off his hat with a flourish and introduced himself.
Gaze lowered, Lily waited for Nate to reciprocate. He didn’t.

“I see that you have not yet begun to dine,” Anderson said after an awkward silence.
“May I invite you both to join me at my table?”

“No,” Nate said.

“Does that mean I may not ask or you will not join me?”

Anderson’s lips curved in the kind of smile that would warn another man off. Nate
only stared at him.

“No.”

“All right then. May I ask—?”

“No.”

Lily simpered and shot looks at Anderson, her eyes pleading with him to excuse her
uncle’s behavior.

“I see,” Anderson said. “Well, then, perhaps I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you
both around town.”

Nate’s answering snort said, “The hell you will.” Anderson nodded stiffly and retreated
to his table.

* * *

They had been in town for nearly a fortnight. During the course of it, Lily found
increasingly more opportunities to see John Anderson. It was a difficult wooing with
her “uncle” seemingly so determined to keep the rancher away, but they met in furtive
assignations that grew ever more daring until Anderson finally extended the required
invitation to visit him at home. Not that he was quite so forward. He simply said
he had a hound dog with pups that would surely delight Lily and he wished for her
to see them. Naturally, it would have to be at night—
late
at night, after her uncle was abed. But Anderson would send his foreman to accompany
her so she would be safe. At least until she arrived.

And so the foreman—a man named Stewart—arrived at the appointed hour of midnight.
Lily informed him that her uncle was deeply asleep, having been aided by a draught
of laudanum. They set off into the night.

Nate and the boys followed.

* * *

Lily slowed outside the big ranch house and looked about nervously.

“It is dreadfully dark, monsieur,” she said.

“Mr. Anderson is right there, miss.” Stewart pointed at the lit front window. “Waiting
in the parlor.”

She gave a sheepish smile. “I am sorry to be such a child. I have not visited a man’s
home without an escort.” She dipped her gaze. “And I have
never
visited at night.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, miss. Mr. Anderson is a proper gentleman. You have
my word on that.”

Lily continued to stall. Nate insisted on scouting before she ventured inside. Finally,
she caught sight of Nate’s distant figure, poised in the side yard, gazing about,
face lifting slightly to sniff the breeze. He motioned to say that he’d circled the
homestead and all was well.

“I am ready to go in, monsieur,” she murmured to Stewart, and he took her up to the
front door.

* * *

An hour later, Anderson lay passed out on the parlor settee. He looked very peaceful,
Lily thought, as she knelt beside him. He would not be nearly so happy when he woke,
but even without his odious reputation, Lily would not have regretted bamboozling
him. Men like Anderson were no better than bunko artists themselves—seducing young
women in the expectation the ruined girl would be rejected by her suitor and then
she, and her inheritance, would be handed to him by parents hoping to make the best
of a bad situation. It proved such men were not as worldly as they believed or they
would know it was a ruse unlikely to succeed. This was not English society where one
eager bride could easily be exchanged for another. Out on the frontier, a good woman
was like a fine horse or pair of boots: you hoped they’d be pleasing and well-formed,
but you expected they’d been used a time or two. That was fine—it saved the fuss of
breaking them in.

Anderson hadn’t even won a flash of bared ankle. Lily was adept at the art of the
tease, a skill she’d learned as an actress. In cities, she was expected to perform
in actual plays, but that was not required in the Territories. Out here, men came
to see pretty girls in pretty dresses teasing and dancing and warbling on stage.

Other women who worked this game would be required to lie with the mark, even if she
had a beau in the gang. Out here, a girl was lucky if her lover didn’t toss her garter
onto the poker table and give her away for a night when his luck soured. With Nate,
Lily didn’t need to worry about that.

Once she’d confirmed that Anderson was out cold, she dashed through the house to be
sure it was empty. When she’d arrived, she had Anderson take her on a tour of his
“lovely home.” He’d dismissed the help, as men usually did. She still checked, in
case a maid or hired hand had snuck in the back. The house was clear.

Lily brought Nate and the boys in and gave them quick instructions on where to find
the best goods. Emmett and Levi needed little guidance and Will would simply follow
them. The five worked together on the parlor and adjoining rooms. Then Nate told the
boys he was taking Lily outside to “scout for trouble.” Will looked confused. Levi
smiled and shook his head. Emmett winked and told Nate to have fun. Nate grabbed a
parcel he’d left by the door and off they went.

* * *

Naturally, Nate and Lily were not heading outside to scout. This, too, was part of
the routine, and Emmett and Levi seemed to think it was quite reasonable that the
boss would whisk his girl off mid-job for a roll in the hay barn. After all, they’d
been forced to sleep apart for a fortnight now. Could anyone blame him? Well, yes,
they could, but the boys never seemed to realize it was the least peculiar. With Nate,
they were accustomed to peculiar.

“Did it go all right?” he asked as they slipped around the house.

Obviously it had, if Anderson was asleep and the boys were emptying the home, but
Lily knew that wasn’t what Nate meant. “He didn’t lay a finger on me.”

“Good.”

As Lily walked, she unfastened her dress, keeping to the shadows of the house. That
took a while, and she didn’t stop moving until she had to wriggle out of it. She glanced
over to see Nate watching her.

“No,” she said, waggling her finger.

He growled deep in his throat. She laughed and took the parcel from his arm.

“Don’t grumble,” she said. “You know it’s better if we wait.”

Another soft growl, this one less complaint than agreement. She laughed again and
tugged on her breeches, shirt, and boots. Her pistol was there, too—a little derringer
that tucked neatly under a shirt or a dress.

“Did you find him?” she asked when she’d finished.

“Out back. Farthest building from the house.”

She smiled. “That ought to make it easy.”

* * *

Lily peered through the open window. Stewart was at his kitchen table, playing solitaire
while drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.

Growing up in New Orleans, Lily had been subjected to more church-going than any child
ought to be, which had much to do with her running off at fourteen. Too many gospel
mill lessons pounded in with a strap. From what she’d learned there, the nature of
demons was quite clear. They were hideous beasts with wings and scales and horns.
They did not, in short, look like Theodore Stewart. But as she’d come to understand,
most church lessons were less than useful in the real world.

Stewart was a demon. Or a half-demon, fathered by one of those unholy beasts whom,
Lily was quite sure, hadn’t borne scales and horns when he seduced Stewart’s momma.
Stewart had, however, inherited his father’s predilection for hell-raising, which
was why they were there.

While their thieving provided a handsome income, it was merely a front. The real prize
sat at that table, drinking himself to sleep. This was the world Nate had introduced
her to, one filled with creatures that the church deemed “monstrous aberrations.”
Half-demons, witches, sorcerers, vampires, werewolves, and others. Monsters? Perhaps.
Monstrous? She glanced at Nate, peering through the window, sharp gaze assessing his
prey. No, not always. But they did cause trouble with somewhat more regularity than
average folk, which meant there were plenty with a price on their heads, like Stewart.

Nate leaned over and whispered into her ear, so Stewart couldn’t hear through the
open window.

“I’ll go in here. Can you take the front?”

She nodded.

“Be careful,” he murmured.

She nodded again, but there was rarely any need for her to be overly cautious. While
she had starred in the opening acts of this performance, Nate took that part now.
Like the understudy for an actor who never took sick, Lily’s new role was rather dull.
In all their jobs together, only once had a mark even noticed Nate, and that was only
due to an unfortunately placed looking glass. Even then, Nate had taken their mark
down before he reached the door.

Lily still undertook her role with caution, derringer in hand as she crept around
the tiny house to the front door. There she found a suitably shadowy place to wait.

When she heard a faint noise to her left, she wheeled and swung her pistol up, her
eyes narrowing as she strained to see—

Cold metal touched the back of her neck. “Don’t move.”

She calmly assessed the voice. Did it sound firm? Confident? Or did it waver slightly,
suggesting a man uncomfortable with pointing a gun at a girl of twenty? And perhaps
even less comfortable with the prospect of pulling the trigger.

“Lower the gun,” he said.

That voice. She recognized it, though the tone was not one she’d ever heard him use.
She cursed herself—and Nate—under her breath.

“Will?” she said.

“I told you to lower—”

“Please don’t hurt me, Will.” She raised her voice a little, knowing Nate’s ace hearing
would pick it up. “If you want a bigger share, I’m sure we can manage it. P-please
don’t—”

He kicked her legs out from under her. She tried to twist as she fell, but he’d caught
her by surprise. Will grabbed her gun arm. Before she could throw him off, his fingers
burned so hot she gasped as agony ripped through her forearm and Will plucked the
derringer from her grasp.