"The market's that rich?"
"Throw in Indiana and Iowa, I could live like a damn earl or duke. Hochstein won't touch the cathouse market, though. Competition won't eith — whoa! Where you going?"
"We need some light. We need a discussion."
A match scraped; a flame brightened the room. She grabbed her blue silk robe with peacocks embroidered on it, a present from the senora. It was part of a batch of clothes the senora had taken from a girl she threw out.
Fenway fussed about being cold. Ashton tucked the worn coverlet under his chin, making soothing sounds, then sat down again. "Willard —"
"Will, goddamn it, Will. I hate Willard."
"Excuse me, Will. You just had a wonderful idea and you don't know it. Wouldn't you like to give that old Mr. Hochstein a kick in the seat? And make a lot of money in the bargain?"
"You bet I would. I been his slave twenty-two years now. But —"
"Would you stand some risk to do it?"
He thought about that. "I suppose. Depends on how much risk, for how much reward."
"Well, you just said you could live like a nobleman by selling pianos to parlor houses in three states. What if you sold them all over the West?"
Fenway looked bludgeoned, barely managing to croak, "My God, girl. You're talking about El Dorado."
She clapped her hands. "Thought so. Will, we're going to be partners.""
"Partners? I've not been here ten minutes —"
"Yes, you have, and we're partners," she said, giving an emphatic toss of her head. "We're going into the piano business. You do know how pianos are made?"
"Sure. The work I don't know how to do myself, I could hire out. But just where would two piano-makers find the forty or fifty thousand dollars it would take to start up? You tell me that."
"We'll find it in Virginia City. Once you help me escape from this damn place."
Ashton leaned forward, the breast of an embroidered peacock bulged by the breast behind it. She smelled Fenway's breath for the first time. Not the usual sewer smell of most customers. He'd sweetened it up by chewing a clove. The clove mingled nicely with the wintergreen. She really liked the old fellow.
"Y'see, Will, my late husband had property in Virginia City. A mine. It belongs to me. All we have to do is get there."
"Why, yes, nothing to it," he said. "It's just a little old hop and a skip to Virginia City. Am I really hearing all this?"
"You surely are. Oh, wait. Have you got any strings on you?"
"You mean wives? Nope. I wore out three, or they wore me out, not sure which." He grinned. Below, someone broke a piece of furniture. Then Ashton heard the culprit yell — Luis. Fenway failed to understand the venomous look that flashed over her face. "You telling me the truth, Miss Ashton? Your husband owned a mine in Nevada?"
"The Mexican Mine."
"Why, I been there. I know that mine. It's a big one."
"I won't lie to you, Will. I don't have a paper to prove I own it. And the marriage license saying I'm Mrs. Lamar Powell got left behind in Richmond."
"If we can reach Frisco, I know a gent who can fix up another paper." Ashton reveled in the way his eyes glowed. He'd begun to see the opportunity. "But that might not be enough —"
She laid his hand on the swelling peacock. "Oh, I've got ways to persuade anybody who's picky."
Fenway was beside himself, turning pink. "Keep talking, keep talking. You may be crazy, but I like it."
"The hardest part — seriously now, Will, no joke — the hardest part will be getting out of here, and out of Santa Fe. The senora, the woman you paid, she's a mean sort. Luis, her brother-in-law, he's worse. Do you have a horse?"
"No. I travel the overland coaches."
"Could you buy two horses over at Fort Marcy, maybe?"
"Yes. I've got enough for that, I think."
"And do you have a gun?"
The color in his face faded fast. "This gonna involve shooting?"
"I cant tell. It might. We need nerve, we need horses, and we need a loaded gun, just in case."
"Well —" A veined hand indicated the sample case. "Root around under those sales sheets. You'll find an Allen pepperbox. She's a good twenty-five years old, but she's popular with traveling men." He cleared his throat. "Afraid mine's for show. No ammunition."
"Then you'll have to buy some."
While he was considering that, the altercation downstairs broke out again. A crashing sound suggested one person breaking furniture on the head of another. Ashton's mouth twisted up meanly when she heard Luis bellow, "Vete, hijo de la chingada. ¿Gonsalvo, y dónde está el cuchillo? Te voy a cortar los huevos."
A ululating yell and hammering footfalls signaled the potential victim's retreat. Fenway's eyes bulged.
"Was that the brother-in-law?"
"Never you mind. We can take care of him — if we have a loaded gun."
"But I'm a peaceable man. I can't handle a loaded gun."
Ashton's sweet smile distracted him from her malicious eyes. "I can." She stroked his cheek, stubbled white at day's end. "So I guess it's up to you to decide, sweet. Would you rather keep dragging around the West, safe and poor, or take a little chance and maybe live rich forever?"
Fenway nibbled his lower lip. In the cantina Luis's rumbling, grumbling voice recapitulated his recent brave triumph over the man who'd fled. Fenway gazed at Ashton and thought, This is surely a piece of work. A remarkable piece of work;
He had no illusions about the girl who was petting and cooing over him. Nor did she disguise what she was. Why, she practically wrote it out on a sign, and would bid anyone who didn't like it to kiss her foot. He'd already taken a fancy to the honey-talking she-wolf.
She planted a chaste kiss on his lips. Moist mouth close to his, warm excited breath bathing his face, she touched him with the little tip of her tongue while a finger fiddled in his ear. "Come on, Will, tell me. Poverty, or pianos?"
His heart thumped at the prospect of her cleavage, the prospect of riches — and the prospect of losing his life.
"What the hell. Let's try pianos. Partner."
Two nights later, with an early winter storm deluging Santa Fe, Will Fenway returned with his sample case, just as he had the preceding evening, when they'd laid their plans. Slightly wild-eyed, he closed the door and leaned against it while the rain hammered the shutters. Ashton snatched the case from his hands and opened it on the bed. "Did you pay for the whole night?"
"No. Couldn't afford it."
"Will —" she complained, cross and nervous.
"Listen, I'm beginning to think this is a damn-fool idea. I spent every cent I've got on ammunition and those two nags, and now the señora and her nasty-looking relative are playing cards downstairs without another soul in the place, 'cause of this rain. They'll hear every sound."
"We'll wait them out."
Ashton removed the Allen pepperbox from the otherwise empty case. She checked the revolving barrels to be sure they were all loaded, then laid her few meager pieces of clothing in the case. She had no rain cape; she'd have to get soaked.
She felt a tightness in her chest, yet she was composed, in a cool sort of way. She laid the Oriental box in the case. "How long have we got?"
"An hour's all I could pay for."
"It'll have to do. We'll go by the back stairs, and through the storeroom. Did you —?"
"Yes. I did everything," he said, snappish because of his fear. "The horses are in that little shed around back. But —"
"But nothing." Ashton began caressing his forehead with her fingers. His skin was no longer cool or tangy with winter-green, but slick, clammy. "Sit down, Will. Sit down and we'll wait till it's a little noisier. Luis gets noisy when he drinks. It'll be all right, trust me."