Lone Star 12

Chapter 1

Just before sunset, Ki topped a shallow rise and paused, squinting, while his tired horse nuzzled the nape of dried yellow grass at trailside. Some distance ahead could be seen Albuquerque, ashimmer at the foot of the Sandia Mountains, adobe walls gleaming and roofs wavering with heat in the lowering light. Beside it ran the Rio Grande, its summer-broiled course as meager as a village ditch; and around it stretched high desert vistas of stony ridges, tawny red sand, and splatters of grama grass, sagebrush, yucca, and mesquite.

Licking parched lips, Ki heeled his horse forward, anxious to arrive and get on with the mysterious, potentially dangerous task Jessie had sent him to do. The horse loped along, plumes of dust rising behind it. The sun continued its slow decline, slanting rays burnishing the western slopes of the Sandias, setting them afire.

Even after the vastness of the arid, baked desert, Albuquerque did not appear at first glance to be a rouser of a town. Approaching its outskirts, Ki saw only shuttered buildings and sleepy adobe huts dotted haphazardly along the few unpaved streets. If it hadn’t been for a low, droning undercurrent of noise filtering from deeper in, toward the center of town, it would have been easy to misjudge Albuquerque as poky and mundane, instead of as a town enjoying a boom.

The boom had been caused by the arrival of the railroad. For close to two centuries, Albuquerque had been no more than an undistinguished stopover on the Santa Fe Trail, and a small outpost for the Spanish, Mexican, and ultimately American military. Up till now, the most excitement it had seen was during the Civil War, when for a brief time it was held by the Confederate forces. But earlier this year, the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad had arrived, having laid track southward from Raton Pass and bypassing Santa Fe—much to the territorial capital’s indignation—and now it was striking westward, its railhead currently ten miles below Albuquerque along the Rio Grande, near Isleta.

A couple of hours before, Ki had passed through the railhead and found it to be the typical clump of jerry-rigged tents and gangs of sweaty gandy dancers. The action was all up in Albuquerque.

And the closer Ki got, the more the action grew. By the time he’d crossed the Central Avenue bridge and reached the old Plaza, he was in the midst of a restless swirl of humanity. Riders on horseback and teamsters driving wagons inched clamorously through lanes crowded with bearded laborers, grizzled prospectors, sombrero-wearing Mexicans, and stocky, stoic Pueblo Indians. The walkways were clogged with shoppers, transients, fancy women, saloon barkers, and picturesque characters in buckskin shirts; a number of blueclad soldiers meandered about, giving tangible evidence by their presence of the threat posed by the renegade Victorio and his Mescalero Apaches.

Ki entered the Plaza by San Felipe de Neri, the pretty little church that dated from Albuquerque’s founding in 1709. He rode slowly, wearily, yet upright in his saddle, a man in his early thirties whose body was lean and sinewy, and graced naturally with energy and agility: His father, an American, had given Ki a respectable height, despite his Japanese mother having been petite even for an Oriental woman. From her, in turn, Ki had inherited his almond-shaped eyes, straight blue-black hair, and that handsome golden coloring that denoted his mixed parentage.

But in the Southwest, that centuries-old melting-pot of blood and race, crossbreeding was too common to draw attention. And as usual, Ki was dressed in normal range garb—faded jeans, loose-fitting collarless shirt, worn black leather vest, and dusty, stained Stetson whose crown was battered all out of shape. His feet were clad in Asian-style rope-soled cloth slippers, but in this land of moccasins and sandals, even these were not remarkable.

So, compared to the colorful melange of people around him, all busily minding their various businesses, it wasn’t surprising that those about Ki took little notice of him and showed even less interest. That was how he liked it. Those who were acquainted with Ki knew him to be calm yet alert by temperament, slow to anger, and utterly devoted to Jessica Starbuck and her farflung interests. As Jessie’s companion and confidant since the murder of her father, Ki was, in a sense, the protector behind the throne, and as such, he felt more comfortable out of the limelight.

Shortly, however, the job Jessie had sent him on would require him to be highly visible. That he didn’t like, and it irritated him. It wasn’t her orders or the risks involved that vexed him; it was the mission’s odd combination of conspicuousness and deception that went against his nature. That, and having to leave Jessie. He realized logically that she was quite safe—as safe as anywhere outside her Circle Star Ranch in Texas—back where he’d left her, with Professor Hart at Pueblo del Rey, some sixty miles downriver. She was certainly safer there than in Albuquerque with him. Still, Ki was equally aware of the constant sentence of death under which she lived, and inwardly, emotionally, it fretted him to be away from her side for any length of time.

He passed the new train depot. Its office, waiting room, and baggage and freight room were combined in one long, peak-roofed frame building, its entrances and platforms shaded by wooden awnings. Across the street from the depot was a livery stable. It too appeared to have been freshly built, as though an enterprising hostler had forseen a growing need here with the advent of railroad service.

Ki pulled up in the livery yard and dismounted. His horse was a hock-scarred dun gelding, which he’d rented from the livery in El Paso when he and Jessie had arrived there four days ago. The best he could say for the horse was that it had four legs that reached the ground, and Jessie’s rental, a liverish hammerhead mare, wasn’t much better. But El Paso, like Albuquerque, was having growing pains, and finding warm, breathing mounts at all had been difficult.

From the stable sauntered a brashly grinning kid with eyes that looked too old for his face. Fifty cents for overnight, mister, including feed and rubdown.

Ki paid him seventy-five, instructing him, Strip his saddle blanket off to dry and walk him some first, so he won’t cool down too fast.

Sure. The kid kept grinning. Anything else? A hotel, maybe? I’ll carry that there warbag of yours, if you want.

No, thanks. Ki picked up his bag and started walking.

Suit yourself. But if you want anything, call on Rico, hear?

Ki paused, turned. Hey Rico, do you own this place?

The boy’s grin widened. Not yet, mister, not yet.

Smiling wryly, Ki shook his head and continued up the street. A Murphy wagon lumbered across the Plaza, axles screeching, its driver blistering the air with profanity as he cut through the sea of men and women, the throngs flowing back in behind him like a boat’s wake. The half-dozen or more saloons ringing the square pulsated with shouts and laughter, and the vagrant strains of guitars and pianos.

Ki spotted the Hotel La Paloma’s half-obliterated sign and headed toward it. His angle brought him close to another place of interest to him, Fat Sam’s Grand Slam Casino, which was a low adobe building with vigas protruding from the walls just below the roof. He judged that whatever the gambling hall served wouldn’t poison a person, seeing as there were plenty of horses tethered to its post outside. A dubious blessing, he supposed, and then brushed his thoughts aside, too tired to pursue them. The hotel was what he needed now. He was dizzy from the heat and dust and long hours of riding, and the press of people in the scorched Plaza was like the squeeze of a vise.

The Hotel La Paloma was a two-story house in the Spanish colonial style. Entering its dim, cool lobby, Ki saw a doorway at the back that opened out onto a flagstone patio, where a fat Mexican woman was stirring a big boiling pot of bedsheets. On his left, a staircase led to a wooden gallery that surrounded the lobby on the second floor and gave access to the rooms there. The clerk was a ferret-faced dandy with his hair slicked back, and with sly wet eyes that made him look even more on the make than the kid at the livery had been.

Only Americans here, the clerk said. No foreigners.

I’ve a reservation, Ki replied affably. Miles Arcus.

Pursing his lips disapprovingly, the clerk pushed a ledger in front of Ki. Since you insist. Room four, at the rear.

Ki wrote in the name of Miles Arcus. For his residence he put down El Paso, which was far enough away to be difficult and time-consuming to check. There. Now how about my key?

Three bucks a night, in advance. No money, no sleepee.

Ki felt his pulse quicken. He was already in a sour mood, and this snotty clerk, who obviously disliked Orientals and probably everybody else who wasn’t certifiably white and American, was turning his disposition downright nasty. But he swallowed the insult, and quietly counted three cart-wheels from one of his vest pockets.

The clerk scooped up the coins and, without looking, grabbed a key from the rack behind him. No noise and no women, understand?

This key is stamped number eighteen.

Doesn’t matter. Any key fits any lock. The clerk watched Ki climb the stairs, and when Ki reached the gallery, he called snidely, If you’re so worried, put a chair against the door.

Room four had a chair, which Ki promptly wedged under the knob. It also had a humpbacked bed, a tall wardrobe, and a combination bureau and washstand. On the bureau was a hobnail lamp with a tasseled shade, and on the washstand was a bowl and a cracked pitcher.

Ki lit the lamp, drew the windowshade, and took off his clothes. After washing, he opened his bag and changed into a clean shirt and his blue-gray town suit, then transferred some things from his dirty clothes and put on boots instead of his slippers. Feeling a bit more refreshed, he stowed his gear and left the room.

He stopped down at the desk. You got a safe here?

The clerk nodded. There’s an extra charge for using it.

Figures, Ki murmured, placing a small leather satchel on the counter. Hold on to this, and never mind what’s in it.

Couldn’t care less. That’ll be another three dollars.

That’s a handsome suit you’re wearing, Ki said pleasantly as he paid. I bet it’s tailored with one-way pockets.

Why, you heathen—! the clerk bristled, but Ki was already across the lobby and out the front door.

Dusk was rapidly thickening now. Windowpanes were catching the waning scarlet rays of the sun and were reflecting them against the cobblestones and adobe walls. The town marshal, a barrel-bellied man with muttonchops and an oversized badge on his shirt, was going around the Plaza, lighting street lanterns with a taper attached to a long stick. There were more people about than ever, milling in noisy packs around the saloons, gambling halls, and cribs, attracted like moths by the bright lights and glitter.

Inside the Grand Slam Casino, the air was hazy with tobacco smoke, pungent with the reek of sweat and liquor, and resonant with the babble of lubricated voices. A long mahogany bar along one side was lined with drinkers, and in the rear area, past the regular tables and chuckaluck layout, several poker sessions were going strong. Most of the men were Yankees, some with honestly callused hands, and others with holsters tied low; but there was a good smattering of swarthy Mexicans and mestizos, appearing capable of flashing knives as readily as they did their white teeth. Mingling among them were the women, dressed gaudily in hourglass costumes, cadging drinks and plying sex, and all looking worn and weary.

Ki wedged himself in at the bar. The bartender—who, surprisingly, was a plump blond woman—winked at him and said, Whiskey, love?

Beer, Ki answered.

The man on his left said, You look thirsty, pal.

Long ride. Ki would have dropped it there, except now he had a role to play. Yeah, just in from down El Paso way, he continued expansively. That’s a long, hard ride, I don’t mind saying.

Shit, you don’t mean you rode the Jornada!

Ki nodded. The Jornada del Muerto—the day’s march of the dead man—was the section of the original Santa Fe Trail that extended eighty shadeless, waterless, pitiless miles up through the southern New Mexico desert. Yeah, and with Victorio still on the rampage, I crossed it a little quicker than usual.

The bartender slid an unlabeled bottle in front of Ki, and kept her hand on it until she was paid. The beer tasted like soap, but sipping it gave Ki a moment to size up the man beside him.

The man wore threadbare Levi’s tucked into dilapidated army boots, and a gray striped shirt that was closed at the throat but hung out over his pants. He was tall, his shoulders sticking out thin and angular, and the shirt was cut long and straight like a pajama top, its drooping tails accentuating the fellow’s lankiness. An old felt hat shadowed his weathered, age-creased bony face, and his eyes were dull, sickish, the eyes of a man with trouble dogging his thoughts.

Shit, the man repeated. For a loco trip like that, friend, you must’ve had a mighty important reason for comin’ to Albuquerque.

No, for leaving the border country, Ki corrected. Wore out my welcome, if you catch my drift, and there ain’t a decent game to be had ’tween there and here. Speaking of which ... Ki gave the man a soft smile and a slight farewell salute with his beer bottle, then slipped from the bar and moved toward the poker tables at the rear.

Only one of the tables had space available. Ki stood near it, watching while the four players there finished a hand of stud. Two were husky, unshaven laborers, and the third was a pudgy youth with wispy sproutings of beard growth. The fourth was larger and more muscular than the laborers, stone-faced, his eyes fathomless under beetling brows. He might have passed as another laborer except for his clothes, which were a little too dapper, a little too new and unsoiled, and for his hands, which were soft-skinned, their nails clean and buffed.

As he waited, Ki dismissed from consideration the man who’d spoken to him at the bar. It’d be one of these here, he felt, or one of the gamblers at the other tables, who’d be the man he had to meet.

When the hand was played out, Ki sat down in the empty chair. Evening. Name’s Arcus, Miles Arcus, and I’d like to join in awhile.

Three of the four nodded without comment, but the man with the manicured hands regarded Ki skeptically. Let’s see some stakes.

Hundred to start, Ki replied, laying a wad of banknotes on the table. I’ll be leaving at nine. I’m giving fair warning now, so there won’t be any misunderstandings later. Nine sharp, I go.

If that meant anything special to any of the men, none of them showed it. The manicured hands shuffled the cards and dealt.

For quite a while, nothing much happened. Ki looked for signs of cheating, but the game appeared honest, no ringers or marked cards. The play was desultory, the pots generally low and passing back and forth, although the youth was green and mostly lost, and the man with the nice hands was sharp and mostly won.

Then the lady came.

She was blonde and somewhere close to thirty. Her body was lush, perhaps a couple of years past its prime, but her legs were exquisite, and her full breasts and buttocks swelled her spangled green dress with sensual effect. Her eyes were blue and perky in a snub-nosed, slightly overpainted face, and a jeweled Spanish comb was set in her thick, upswept curls. She stopped in back of the manicured man’s chair, and when she affectionately placed her hands on his shoulders, it was evident just whose lady she was.

How’s it going, Frank? she asked him.

Frank said, So-so, and because it happened to be his turn to deal again, he picked up the pack and began flipping out the hands.

From then on, the game was anything but so-so. Whatever else the lady was to Frank, she certainly wasn’t his good-luck mascot. He lost and kept on losing, even to the youth, but mainly to Ki. It became an increasing strain to keep his poker face, and as time wore on, he began to growl out of the side of his mouth, and to glare whenever Ki raked in another pot.

Ki needed to win like a moose needs a hat rack. He wasn’t overly fond of cards, and the only reason he’d gotten in the game was because he’d been instructed to. And, once having called attention to himself as Miles Arcus, he would have preferred to fritter away his hundred and then, apparently cleaned, to withdraw. Instead he was beating the socks off a sore-losing gambler in front of his