Her blonde hair beneath a small tricorne hat seemed to shine like ripened wheat even in the sunless hallway. She carried a dainty-looking sun umbrella more for style than practical use.
Her eyes widened ever so slightly as the heavy pistol was slipped from the sheath at Kerrigan's right hip.
"Howdy, Miss Wilkerson," Ace said imperturbably. "Getting ready to see the sights of Yuma? Couple of Southern Pacific* steamboats bouncing up and down at the landing with the river plenty high. The territory prison is just up on the hill above. They got some real bad whites, Mexicans, and an Apache or two in there, I hear."
* Author's note: In 1874 Southern Pacific bought most of the boats plying the Colorado River.
"Thank you, Ace," she murmured. "Is the coach ready?"
"Stubb's got it waiting in front of the hotel, Miss Wilkerson. I expect there'll be quite a few eyes start poppin' when you and that red coach with them six blacks roll through town."
"Thank you for the compliment, Ace, and putting the horses last. Is—is this the man Thomas came to Yuma to see?"
"This is him, all right. But you wasn't expected to see this part of it. He's just outa the territorial prison and you got to handle them accordin'."
Kerrigan saw a slight revulsion come into her face and he knew she was viewing him as some kind of a human mad dog. No telling, of course, what kind of story Harrow had concocted for her benefit. But one thing was certain: seeing him disarmed by Ace told her a part of that story.
She was studying his features; the quick glance of an intelligent woman toward a man she was instinctively afraid of. She viewed him as a hardbitten frontier man worlds apart from a woman like her; a man of whom she had heard much, all of it bad.
She saw a tight-lipped mouth, thin like the mouths of two manso Apache Indians she'd seen up north. An aquiline nose and, at the moment, the most piercingly impersonal brown eyes a woman had ever looked into.
"You're Mr. Kerrigan, aren't you?" she asked in a voice that was soft and cultured and which, under normal circumstances, probably was very musical.
To Kerrigan's surprise, she walked closer and extended a slim, white-gloved hand, grey eyes searching his harsh face. She was too faintly superior, he thought, and she stirred nothing inside of him even after two years without the sight of a woman. But she was too good to marry a man with a past such as Tom Harrow had put behind him, and he wondered fleetingly how much she knew about the man.
"I'm Lew Kerrigan, ma'am," he admitted with a brief nod, and touched the brim of his brown hat with the fingers of his left hand.
"I've but recently arrived in Arizona Territory from the deep South, Mr. Kerrigan, but I've heard your name. Clara Thompson up at Pirtman spoke kindly about you."
"Clara saw a husband brought back to her lashed head down over a cavalry horse with most of his face hacked away by Apache lances, ma'am," he said. "Such things have a way of tempering a woman."
He found himself removing his hat then, feeling suddenly strange and uncomfortable in the presence of this woman. She wasn't as beautiful as Kitty Anderson by any stretch of the imagination. She didn't look like she'd ever gone through what Clara had suffered. And the thought came to him quite suddenly that perhaps this meeting might have been carefully arranged by Tom Harrow, to soften Kerrigan up before their meeting.
The old chill of antagonism came into him and he put on his hat with an abrupt movement.
"I understand that for some reason in the past you hold considerable enmity toward Thomas," she said. "May I ask the nature of it?"
"It's personal, ma'am."
"I see," she replied softly. "Could I offer you my friendship on his behalf?"
He placed his left hand upon the doorknob, and his voice was as flat and cool as the fireless corn baking stone of an Indian woman. "I don't think after today you'll be wanting it, Miss Wilkerson."
He opened the door, closed it behind him, and saw Harrow seated at the desk. The man who had sent him to prison, the man he had planned to destroy.
He saw the immaculate suit of blue wool broadcloth, the grey temples and sideburns over freshly barbered chin, the thin, aristocratic nose above a briskly clipped mustache. This was no mountain country man; this was no longer a seller of guns and cartridges to Loco's bronco Apaches. Sudden wealth and prominence in Arizona mining circles had returned Harrow to the status of a suave Southern gentleman. Only Lew Kerrigan and possibly a very few others knew the man for what he actually was.
Harrow got to his feet easily and with the welcome smile Kerrigan had been prepared for, although he leaned stiff-armed with hands on the edge of the polished desk, above an open drawer. Lew Kerrigan noticed that, too.
"Hello, Lew," the mining tycoon greeted him pleasantly. "When I heard the noise in the hallway I wasn't sure whether it would be you coming to see me or Ace coming in to tell me you wouldn't be here. Needless to say, I'm glad it's you. Sit down, Lew."
"I haven't that much time," Kerrigan replied. "You seem to have regained the taste for nice things since our old strike paid off so rich."
"I know how you feel, thinking what you do," Harrow replied smoothly. "But I wish you'd sit down while I talk. How about a drink, Lew?"
"Maybe my own taste has undergone a change in the past couple of years," Kerrigan replied harshly. "Whatever you've got to say, let's hear it, Tom. I don't happen to be the ranting kind. I'm just a man who's had two years in prison to do some thinking. Seven hundred and thirty-odd nights in a pitch-black cell with an Apache Indian to do a lot of thinking. I used to feed an old one-armed prospector named Bear Paw Daly. The old grey-bearded fellow who wore a bear claw and skin on his left arm stub to scare the hell out of superstitious Apaches like Loco so he could prospect in their country without fear of being strung up by the heels and burned head down."
He paused a moment to let Harrow know what was coming.
"I was up at your place to hang out for a few weeks after killing Buck Havers. All I wanted was to let the law cool down, catch Joe Stovers out of town, pick up Kitty and be on our way back to Texas and a new life back there among my own people. I was safe up there with you in the one place Joe Stovers, knowing me as he did and what you were, wouldn't have come looking for me. He didn't either. Not until somebody tipped him off as to my whereabouts. You real sure you want me to go on, Tom?" he sneered.
"Go on, Lew," Harrow nodded quietly, "because I know it's all been tied up tight inside of you for two years. You'll feel like a new man when you get it off your chest."
"Anyhow," Kerrigan went on, "I was there when old Bear Paw came by with the coarse grain nuggets he'd finally found. From the evidence of Indian tools, it was Loco's secret hoard beyond any doubt. The same gold he'd been paying you for guns and ammunition to keep defying the soldiers. Just one of those things—old Bear Paw stopping by for supplies while on his way to Pirtman and my small ranch. He didn't have to go any farther. I was there at your place, sharing your big cabin. Men had gone mad for years hunting old man Adams' lost diggings, and it looked like Bear Paw had hit where scores of others had missed and died."
"It was to be a three-way deal among us, you and Bear Paw going back to the strike and leaving a blazed trail for me to follow with a mule pack train of stuff to get operations under way. I was going to clean up a fortune, get clear with the law, and take Kitty on to Texas. But I didn't figure on your greed. You knew if I got caught while the case was still hot, old Judge Eaton would hang me. Without any doubt. And just two days later Joe Stovers rode into the little settlement where I was outfitting a pack train and arrested me. Bear Paw Daly was never seen again, because you got rid of him, too—probably with a shot through the back of the head. Thanks to Joe Stovers' testimony, I didn't hang like you planned; but I was in for life and you announced a big 'strike' in bronco Apache country. Old Adams' fabulous lost gold, men swore. But you gave it the name of Dalyville. It was very touching of you, Tom, to name it after the old fellow and put out the story he dropped dead from age and excitement at the new diggings."