CHAPTER 28

Graham walked slowly through the darkening town, smiling and tipping his hat at the women he saw and nodding politely to the men. Rough and rugged as he looked, he was in fact quite smooth in his manners, even charming when he wanted to be.

His charm vanished, though, when he rounded a corner and was run into by a staggering drunk who carried a glass of beer in his hand, taken from a nearby saloon when the barkeep wasn’t looking. The beer splashed down Graham’s front—and the drunk roundly cursed him, as if it were all Graham’s fault.

Graham smiled, but it was a smile to put fear into the heart of the man on the receiving end of it. The drunk found himself grabbed by the collar, his face dragged close to that of Graham.

“My good friend,” Graham growled in his English accent, “I suggest you voice your apologies for your bad behavior right away, or I’ll draw out my knife, gather a crowd to watch the show, and castrate you right out there on the street. And my knife is a very dull knife, I might add.”

The drunk stared into the Englishman’s fierce eyes, slobbered down his chin, and nodded. “All right, mister. All right. I’m mighty sorry.”

“Are you now? Sorry, might I ask, for spilling your beer all down me or sorry for making such an ass of yourself immediately thereafter?”

“Uh … both.”

“Not good enough, sir.”

“What?”

“I want you to show me you’re sorry. See that puddle of beer at my feet?”

The eyes shifted down, then back up. “Yeah.”

“Lap it up. Like a dog.”

“There’s … there’s folks watching.”

“Indeed there are.” Graham shoved him away, then drew his pistol. “Would you prefer those folks see you cleaning up your spilled beer or bleeding out your last moments with a bullet in your belly?”

The drunk, trembling, slowly got on his knees. He glanced around, humiliated, then lowered his head and began to lick lightly at the puddle of beer on the boardwalk.

“Oh, come now!” Graham said. “You can do better than that! Lick that boardwalk like you mean business!”

“Folks spit down here,” the drunk murmured.

Graham put his foot on the back of the man’s neck and shoved his face down so hard onto the walk that it almost broke his nose. “Drink, you cur!”

The drunk licked the boardwalk with full swipes of his tongue while men gathered around and laughed.

Graham was satisfied. “Keep at it until it’s all cleaned up,” he instructed his victim. Then he turned to the nearest watcher and said, “Might you point out to me where the mortician’s establishment is?”

The drunk pulled up and back clumsily, almost rolling over. “Don’t kill me!” he begged.

Graham looked at him with disgust. “Get on with you, you miserable sod. I’ve had all I can stand of looking at you!”

The drunk somehow made it to his feet and headed off down the boardwalk, then cut left into the dark safety of the nearest alley. Catcalls and laughter followed him.

Graham received directions to the undertaking parlor, but the man added, “The place is probably closed right now. But the undertaker lives in rooms up above it.”

“Then I’ll roust him out if need be. Thank you, sir, for your aid.”

Graham walked on, whistling, receiving wide berth from those he passed.

*   *   *

Now that he was alone, the drunk in the alley got his courage back. “Reckon you’ll not do that to me again!” he muttered beneath his breath. “Reckon next time I’ll know how to deal with you, you damned foreigner!”

But he knew that it would be for the best if there wasn’t a next time. The Englishman had a dangerous manner about him.

As he calmed down, the drunk’s anger began to change to maudlin sorrow. He’d been humiliated before the people of his own town! Forced to lap up spilled beer off a filthy boardwalk! He even had a couple of splinters in his tongue.

There was surely no one in the world more miserable than he, no one more despised by man and God. He began to sniff and whimper and wish he had more beer … in a glass rather than spilled, preferably.

He began to think back on the times his family had been together and his home was happy. Now his wife was gone, his life was miserable, and most of the time he didn’t even know where his son, Stockton, was or what he was doing. The boy would wind up a convict one day with his roaming, stealing ways! Just another reason to feel sorrowful and self-pitying.

He decided to find Stockton. Bring him home. Maybe they could sit and talk or play a game of cards or do something like fathers and sons are supposed to do together. He hoped Stockton never found out that his father had been forced to drink beer off the boardwalk.

Josiah Shelley exited the alley by its rear entrance and vowed that he would not go home again until he’d found Stockton. He and the boy would have a good time together … and if Stockton had something cocky to say about it, he’d quick learn the better of it! Sometimes the only way to do good for that boy was to beat it into him.

Josiah wandered through the dark streets, trying to think of the various places Stockton liked to hide.

*   *   *

Graham returned to the mansion an hour later.

“Well? Did you see the bodies?” Kevington asked.

“Both already buried,” Graham replied.

Kevington swore.

“But I know who the second dead man is, anyway. I persuaded the undertaker to show me his personal effects … including this. Recognize it? I managed to sneak it away unnoticed.”

He held out a brass matchbox with initials engraved on its top. Kevington took it and studied it.

“McCurden’s. So our agent in Culvertown is dead,” he said. “Killed, no doubt, by Brady Kenton, who then fled with Victoria.”

“So it would seem.”

“Tomorrow morning we travel to this ghost town across the mountain. And before the sun goes down tomorrow, I will have Victoria with me again, and Brady Kenton in his grave.”

“What about tonight? Do we return to the hotel?”

“The accommodations here are much more comfortable. We spend the night right here in this house … where Victoria has been.”

“I left some things at the hotel,” Brown said.

“Then go back and get them … cautiously. Don’t let anyone see you leaving or reentering this house. Bring back everything any of us have left at the hotel, then try to get some rest. I want us all to be at our best tomorrow. Kenton will resist. He’ll not surrender Victoria lightly.”

“He can resist all he wants. It won’t do him any good in the end,” Graham said.

“No,” Kevington agreed. “It won’t. I’ll not leave this country without her. Either Victoria is mine … or she is no one’s.”

“And what if she doesn’t want to go back with you?” It was a question only Graham was bold enough to ask.

Kevington glared at him. “She will see what she should do when the time comes. She’ll come back.”

“And if she didn’t … you’d kill her?”

Kevington had nothing further to say.