Inside the Brass Bell Saloon, Teddy led to a corner table, kicked back a chair and sat.
“Marc André Rhys Delmar at your service, mademoiselle.” Smiling to full effect, Rhys slid into a second chair and squared himself across the scarred bar table from Teddy Gamble. Her expression was that of a caged cat, one of pent-up energy and barely held-back anger. He stared at her because it was impossible to do otherwise. She was like no woman he’d ever seen. Her face was finely boned. And her hands had tanned a honey-brown from the sun. They were nearly the same color as the fringed buckskin shirt and trousers she wore. Her eyes, all banked with angry fire, were the most striking he’d ever encountered, a glowing green color as remarkable as the stones she wore.
“It’s plain Teddy, here,” she said. “I don’t need any mademoiselle or mouthful of names to know who I am.”
With a whisk of her hand, she pushed the dusty hat from her head and sailed it into the seat of an empty chair at the table. Rhys had been prepared for a cropped head of straggly hair but was surprised to discover that Teddy Gamble had an abundance of shining tawny locks which had been gathered in a braid and pinned beneath her hat. With some relief he concluded he’d been right to suspect that the woman had at least a tiny element of femininity to her.
“A thousand pardons, mademoi—Teddy,” he said. “I only intended politeness.”
“Well don’t tangle yourself up in it,” Teddy snapped. “Just spit out why it is you think you’re part owner of the Gamble Line.”
Rhys flashed another smile. “It is not what I think. It is what is true.” He fished in his inside coat pocket for the leather packet in which he’d placed the papers given him by Zachary Gamble. “Monsieur Zachary Gamble wagered his share of the company in a game of cards.” With what was, to Teddy, agonizing slowness, he spread the papers on the table for her to view. “He lost.”
Teddy’s heart faltered a beat. Her Uncle Zack’s exaggerated penmanship was unmistakable. He’d signed his interest in the company over to the Frenchman as a pledge against a gambling loss. And evidently her Uncle Zack had either been unable or unwilling to ante up the cash to buy that interest back.
But be that as it may, Teddy wasn’t about to accept the fancy man’s claim without a challenge. “Uncle Zack will have to tell me himself that he surrendered his interest to you,” she said coldly. “For all I know you robbed him and forged that signature.”
Rhys blanched white. He came halfway out of his chair, then thought better of his action and eased himself down again. “Mademoi—” He paused, blew out a long breath then spoke with deliberate slowness to Teddy. “If Monsieur Gamble could tell anyone anything I would not have come halfway across the world to redeem these documents.”
“What do you mean?” Teddy hissed.
“Your uncle is dead.”
“How?” A chill of suspicion ran up her backbone and ended in the cold stare she gave Rhys. “Did you—”
Rhys shook his head. “He died in his sleep before he could make good his pledge. I’m surprised the authorities haven’t notified you—his family.”
“I’m his family.” Teddy felt the sickness that had been threatening all day settle hard in her stomach. The only imaginable thing worse than having Uncle Zack return and put his stamp of ruin on the business was having this Frenchman here in his stead. A wave of guilt hit her right behind that notion. She was Zack’s family, she and her grandmother, his only living blood kin, and she hadn’t been able to foster a charitable thought about him. And dammit! She had loved him. The troublemaking old fool!
Tears started to well in her eyes but she’d be horsewhipped before she’d let Marc André Rhys Delmar see them. Mumbling a string of swearwords, Teddy pushed away from the table. She stood.
“Mademoi—Teddy!” Rhys called after her as she fled the saloon. Seeing that his raised voice had brought all eyes his way, he made a polite nod to no one in particular, grabbed his papers, stuffed them in his pocket and rushed out. He caught her just outside the swinging doors. “Our business—” he began.
Teddy shoved him aside. “Give a body time to grieve, won’t you?” A moment later she’d swung astride a horse, a big rangy spotted animal that looked to Rhys more suited to the plow than the saddle. The horse’s hooves kicked up dust that settled in with the other stains on his best suit as she galloped out of town.
Lucien was at Rhys’s elbow when he turned around. “Our accommodations, monsieur?”
Rhys sighed and looked into the distance at the sinking sun and the showcase of amber and red light in the evening sky. Teddy Gamble, who’d proved as inhospitable as the desert, was already out of sight. Fortunately though, at the far edge of town, he spotted a sign for the Gamble Line’s stable. He nodded toward it. “We’ll see if there’s an empty stall,” he told Lucien.
***
“Git up, mister!” Horace Roper stabbed the tines of a pitchfork into the hay, six inches from Rhys’s face. “We don’t cotton to skinflints ’round here.”
Sending straw flying in every direction, Rhys bolted to his feet. Lucien stood backed into the corner of the stall trembling like a leaf in a gale and muttering incoherent words in his native tongue. The man wielding the pitchfork had pulled it free of the ground and held it like an Indian spear.
“You misunderstand—” Rhys protested. “I am—”
“Trespassin’,” Rope supplied. “Now get out of here, the both of you, before I give you something to remember.”
“Hold up, Rope.” A familiar voice came from the door of the stable but Rhys was hesitant to turn about and put a face to it. The man called Rope was still threatening to put holes in him. “This here’s the man that brought down that bandit on yesterday’s run.”
Rope gave the straw-littered Rhys Delmar a scrutinizing look. “This dandy?”
Strong Bill, hands swathed with strips of clean bandage, had reached the stall. “I’ll allow he don’t look like he could chunk a rock and knock a fellow out of the saddle, but that’s what he done.”
Rope tossed the pitchfork into a pile of hay. “Sorry,” he said and offered a hand to Rhys. “Reckon I owe you thanks and reckon you owe me a reason you’re sleepin’ in one of my stalls.”
“Reckon he thinks he’s entitled.” Teddy led the big spotted horse into the stable and looped a rein around a post. “He claims he’s part owner of the Gamble Line.”
“The hell you say!” The hand Rope had offered swung back to his side as the challenge rose in his voice.
“I’m sorry to say part of his story has proved out,” Teddy added. “A letter came in today’s mail sack, a notification from London authorities that Uncle Zack died back in June, more than a month ago.”
“What’s the other part?” Rope inquired.
“That before he passed on Uncle Zack managed to do us in by wagering his share of the company in a card game and losing.”
“To him?”
“So he says.”
“So the documents Monsieur Gamble gave me say,” Rhys insisted. “They are properly witnessed.” He motioned to his companion. “Lucien can prove his signature and—”
Teddy gave the other man a hostile look. “We’ll need to verify that other one,” she insisted. “And until we do you own nothing but paper. Understand?”
“No.” Rhys brushed straw from his trousers. “As I see it I am the one put out here. I want none of the Gamble Line, only the cash that is its value. Had Monsieur Gamble not died he’d have settled his marks and bought back his share of the company the day following our game.” He didn’t bother to add he had had his doubts. “As it is I’ve had to come to you. And, I assure you, I am most anxious to conclude our business so that I can leave this uncivilized place.”
“You can leave any time you like,” Teddy shot back. “But I’m not making good any of Zack’s marks.” She huffed out a breath so hard the force of it lifted the fringe of tawny brown hair from her forehead. “And if you want cash for that paper you’re carrying, you’ll have a long wait ’cause I’m not parting with a penny until I know every claim you’re making is legit.”
“That could take months. A year even,” Rhys protested.
“At least,” Teddy returned. “But you won’t get a dime or a dollar until I get someone trustworthy in London to track down that other witness and verify what you’re saying. Until I do I’m doing nothing on this end.”
Rope nodded to Strong Bill and the two of them ambled off toward the feed room, close enough to hear, but out of the way of Teddy’s temper.
“But mademoi—I’m afraid I can’t wait that long,” Rhys insisted. Especially now, he did not want anyone asking questions about him in London. “My need is immediate,” he said.
Teddy rubbed a hand across the warm flank of her saddle horse. She had a slim hope that the Frenchman’s story and the letter were a hoax, but knew her uncle Zack too well to count on that contingency. Her uncle had had a weak heart and a weaker head. This was just the kind of mess he’d leave behind if he’d truly passed on. So in the event the worst was true, and the Frenchman was her partner in the Gamble Line she couldn’t afford to antagonize him too much.
She couldn’t, however, resist antagonizing him some. Marc André Rhys Delmar had brought her trouble on top of trouble. For a moment, as she breathed out a sigh of resignation, she considered that if all that had happened in this one day wasn’t so ridiculously unbelievable she’d haul off and bawl. Instead she stared hard and accusingly at the Frenchman, then hastily looked away. Damned if she liked the way he’d met her stare. Those blue eyes of his had made her feel as if the blood flow had changed direction in her veins.
“If you’re short of cash,” she said coolly, “we can use some help in the stables. You can give Rope a hand. The job includes a meal and you can keep the stall. The same goes for your friend.”
“I am Monsieur Delmar’s valet, mademoiselle,” Lucien said nobly.
“Valet?” Teddy laughed. “Well, hell, I reckon you can hold his coat while he pitches hay.”
Brushing briskly at the straw on his sleeves, Rhys stepped toward Teddy. “You’ve no call to insult my man,” he said.
Teddy stopped short and shrugged her shoulders. “Never intended to,” she said. “I was insulting you.”
Rhys, bristling, started after her as she stalked off. Lucien held him back until she was out the door. “Monsieur Rhys,” he began in all earnestness, “do you suppose there are many like her in Arizona?”
“Assuredly not,” Rhys said. “God would have shattered the mold once he saw his mistake.”
***
A few steps ahead of Teddy, Rope strolled out of the stable. Propped against a hitching rail he rolled a smoke and waited. He heard her cursing as she emerged from the barn. The rhythm of her brisk footsteps broke as she kicked a good-sized rock out of her path.
“Mind how you rile that Frenchman, Teddy,” Rope said quietly. The tiny flare of his cigarette beamed through the darkness. “The fellow might have a sharper mind than you credit.”
Teddy stopped and lifted her eyes to the heavens. She wasn’t in the mood for advice, good or otherwise. “I’m just stalling him ’til I’ve got the cash to settle up with him.” She sighed heavily and with slower steps, strolled in Rope’s direction. “You’re forgetting, Pa put the last of our capital on those three new coaches he bought a month before he died.”
“Uh-huh.” Rope drew a long puff off his cigarette. “Meanwhile you got that Frenchman raw-nerved as a fresh-broke horse.”
Teddy groaned loudly. “Don’t know why that fellow ought to feel any better about this situation than I do.”
“I reckon if you’d settle down a mite you would,” Rope said. “Ain’t you forgettin’ there’s somebody around here with the cash to cover his claim?”
“Hell!” The clouds in Teddy’s mind parted and the light came through in a flash. “Adams!” She kicked hard at the hitching rail. “I hadn’t even thought of him.”
“Well think. ’Cause Adams is sure to hear about this by mornin’ and he’ll be a lot nicer to the Frenchman than you’ve been.”
“Hell!” She grimaced. “Adams will probably kiss him.” Angrily she jabbed a finger at Rope. “And don’t go saying that’s what I ought to do.”
“I’m only sayin’ you ought to use a little more sweetenin’ and a lot less salt on that fella. You gotta give him some reason not to jump at what Adams is sure to offer. Better yet, take him out to the ranch. Keep him out of Adams’s reach if you can.”
Groaning again, Teddy agreed. Rope was right. Parrish Adams was evidently stuffed with money right up to his beady eyes. He’d bought out every rancher in the area who would turn his spread loose. No, Adams wouldn’t have to search for a way to cover Delmar’s shares.
She gritted her teeth and felt knots of anger tighten in her chest. Thanks to Uncle Zack she had to be nice to the Frenchman, even though it galled her. Adams would turn the world over to get forty percent of the Gamble Line. He’d rooted up half of the globe trying to get the ten percent Zack had wagered and lost before leaving Wishbone. Rope owned that ten percent now, but it had been sheer luck that he’d found the gambler Zack had lost it to at a time when the man was down and out.
She’d heard Adams was still looking for the man. When he heard about Delmar he’d be foaming at the mouth thinking he might be close to getting his hands on fifty percent of her company. No telling what he would pay. She felt her breath coming fast. The devil take Adams. He was going to be disappointed. She was going to see that he never even got as much as a ticket on the Gamble Line. She could count on Rope to stand with her against anything. But the Frenchman...
A string of curses ran through her mind. She’d do what she had to.
“Take him out to the ranch,” she said. “Him and that valet of his. Tell him we’ll talk over breakfast in the morning.”