Helene Booth murmured a properly demure greeting and shook hands with Thorp, although she looked as if she halfway expected him to kiss her hand instead of shake it. As she turned away, her eyes met Longarm’s for an instant, and he felt as if somebody had just punched him in the belly. There was something incredibly powerful about Helene’s gaze, something raw and primordial that called out to the male animal residing deep within Longarm, the atavistic savage that dwelled inside all men.
“Lordy,” he muttered to himself, sweeping those thoughts away with an effort. Unless he missed his guess, Helene Booth was one damned horny woman.
“… my servants, Absalom Singh and Randamar Ghote, Booth was saying. Singh was the tall one with the sword and the beard, judging by the way he bowed when Booth said the name. That would make Ghote the little one, and Longarm wondered idly if anybody had ever called him Billy.
“There have been some unexpected developments, Lord Beechmuir,” Thorp said, “but I still want you to try to track down the creature we think may be out there somewhere along the Brazos. We still can’t rule out the possibility that it exists, and that it took my wife.”
“Please, call me John,” Booth replied. “And you can be assured that I shall do my utmost to rescue your lovely bride, Benjamin. The head of this Brazos Devil of yours will make quite the trophy for the wall of my club back in London, eh?”
Longarm felt almost as if he had stepped into the middle of some opera house play without knowing it. He wished for a second he had headed for Graham or Palo Pinto or some other town instead of Cottonwood Springs. He had a job to do, and the presence of an English big-game hunter, his overheated redheaded wife, and a couple of turban-wearing Indians of the subcontinent sort would just complicate things.
He was about to find out just how much of a complication, because Booth went on. “I believe this is one hunt I would make even without that twenty-thousand-dollar bounty you’re offering, Benjamin.”
Chapter 6
“Bounty?” Marshal Burley repeated. “Did you say something about a bounty, Mr. Booth?”
“That’s correct,” the Englishman said. “Twenty thousand dollars for the head of the Brazos Devil.” He added to Thorp, “Quite sporting of you, Benjamin, I must say.”
Burley turned to Thorp and said in an accusing tone, “You didn’t tell me anything about a bounty, Mr. Thorp.”
“Well, it’s none of your business,” snapped the rancher, looking not the least bit repentant. “After more than a week had gone by and you hadn’t found any sign of Emmaline, I knew I had to do something.”
Longarm knew what Burley was worried about, and the local lawman confirmed it by saying in a half-groan, “Money like that will bring in half the men in the state, and they’ll be shooting at anything that moves between here and the Brazos! Tell me you didn’t put an advertisement in the newspapers!”
“That’s exactly what I did,” Thorp said. “I ran the notice in papers in Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Galveston, and New Orleans.”
Burley closed his eyes and grimaced.
“But I wrote personally to Lord Beechmuir,” Thorp went on. “He’s the first one to arrive.”
Burley looked at the Englishman. “You really think you can track down that varmint, Mr. Booth?”
“Of course I can,” Booth asserted. “I tracked a particular lion halfway across the veldt once. A killer, he was, with a taste for human flesh.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Burley told him. “I just hope you find the Brazos Devil in a hurry, before a bunch of bounty hunters come down on this town like a plague of locusts.”
Longarm figured the marshal was exaggerating a little, but probably not by much. Nothing drew folks like the chance of a big payoff. People sometimes lost all common sense when they smelled the possibility of money.
“I intend to begin my search as soon as possible,” Booth assured Burley. “I’ll be making my headquarters at Mr. Thorp’s ranch.” Booth looked over at Thorp. “I believe you said that I could use your men as beaters, Benjamin, once I’ve discovered the general location of the animal?”
“My hands will do whatever you say,” Thorp replied with a nod. “Everything I have is at your disposal.”
“Well, I’ll take a small party into the bush first. Myself and Singh and a couple of men should do just fine. Then, once I’ve found the beast, I can send a rider back to fetch assistance.”
Thorp nodded. “Sounds good to me. Why don’t we go on out to the ranch so you can get settled in?” He managed to smile at Lady Beechmuir. “I’m sure her ladyship is tired after the trip up here from San Antonio.”
“I wouldn’t mind freshening up a bit,” Helene said, returning Thorp’s smile.
“It’s settled then.” Thorp cast a meaningful glance at Burley. “Isn’t it, Mal?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Thorp,” Burley responded grudgingly. “But like I said, I sure hope you find that monster in a hurry.”
For Emmaline Thorp’s sake, so did Longarm.
The visitors climbed back into the wagons, Booth and his wife getting into the first one along with the servant Randamar Ghote, who handled the team. The fierce-looking Singh stepped up to the box of the second wagon and took the reins. Benjamin Thorp fetched his buggy from the nearby livery stable and led the little procession out of Cottonwood Springs.
Mal Burley watched them go and muttered under his breath, “Did you ever see anything like that?”
Longarm knew the local marshal wasn’t really talking to him, but he replied anyway. “Not particularly, though I’ve run across a heap of strange things in my time. That big fella with the sword, I think he’s what they call a Sikh. Mighty fine fighting men, from what I hear.”
“I don’t care. I just want the whole lot out of my town where they won’t cause trouble.” Burley lifted a hand and rubbed wearily at his temple. “And I wish Mr. Thorp had asked me first before posting a bounty on the Brazos Devil. I don’t think he really knows what he’s started.”
“I don’t reckon he cares,” Longarm said. “He strikes me as the sort of gent who generally does what he wants.”
“Yeah,” Burley said, nodding slowly. “That describes Mr. Thorp, all right.” He looked over at Longarm. “You’re still going to stay in these parts for a few days, aren’t you? Mr. Thorp seems to have forgotten that Rainey may be mixed up with his wife’s disappearance, but I haven’t.”
Longarm thought about the developments of the morning and replied honestly, “I don’t think you could get me to leave now if you wanted to, Marshal.”
With the show over for the time being, Longarm went over to the Western Union office and sent that telegram to Billy Vail in Denver, informing his boss that Mitch Rainey was his prisoner and that he had been forced to kill Jimmy Lloyd in the process of apprehending the outlaws. He went on to say that Rainey was in jail in Cottonwood Springs, pending the outcome of a possible jurisdictional dispute. When the telegrapher was finished tapping out the message, he looked up from his key at Longarm and asked, “Do you want to wait for a reply, Marshal?”
“No, and don’t come looking for me when one comes in either, old son,” Longarm told him. “I’ll come by and pick it up when I get the chance.”
That ought to take care of it, he thought as he left the telegraph office and paused on the street outside to fire up a cheroot. As long as he could honestly claim that he had not received any instructions to proceed directly to Denver and jurisdictional disputes be damned, he felt justified in waiting to see what happened next in Cottonwood Springs.
He sauntered back toward the jail, and found the office empty. Longarm knew where Burley kept the ring of keys, though, so he took it from the desk and unlocked the cellblock door. Rainey looked up dispiritedly from his bunk as Longarm stepped into the aisle between the rows of cells.