In the Season of the Sun (14 page)

Virginia wasn't sure she did, but the woman's warmth was infectious. “Yes, ma'am …” She backed away a step. “May I see to things?”

“Certainly.” Abigail watched the servant hurry down the hall and wondered if poor Virginia would ever relax. Abigail didn't think of herself as a witch. Of course Nate could be most trying at times. He was an ambitious, driven man given to quick-tempered flare-ups. Abigail, his one weakness, loved to bait her brother, just to watch him bluster and fume.

A mischievous expression lit Abigail's pretty features. Though it was Hiram's duty to show guests into the house, today Abigail intended to replace Nate Harveson's trusted manservant. The young woman had the distinct impression that the men she had seen heading toward the Harveson estate would be far more interesting than her brother's stuffy, well-to-do friends. Now what would happen if the two parties should meet?

Abigail couldn't wait to find out.

Tom Milam leapt down from his horse and tethered the animal to a ring post by the carriages and sauntered up a flat stone walk to the front door of the estate. He knew Coyote wanted to lead the way. So Tom glanced over his shoulder at the three men he had left behind and slammed the brass door knocker. He tilted his broad-brimmed hat back and let it hang behind his head by the leather string. He stood with his thumbs crooked in his belt. The wind tugged at his long coat. A black scarf trailed from around his neck like some piratical banner in the breeze.

The door swung open. And he saw Abigail Harveson. She was as fine a looking young woman as he had ever encountered. She had all the bearing of a real lady, someone to be watched from afar and never approached. Skin like rare china, lips like cherry wine, a hint of daring in her expression—all this at first glance, he thought he'd take a second.

Behind him, Coyote Kilhenny, Skintop Pritchard, and old Pike Wallace dismounted and left their mounts by the carriages and marched toward the house. They looked anxious to be out of the north wind, Abigail thought. She quickly appraised the young man in the doorway. Black hair, dark blue eyes, a white ridge of scar tissue scrawled on his cheek, he was slim, catlike in his stance; a brace of pistols and a knife jutted from his belt. “You don't look like you play Mozart,” Abigail said.

“Why I cut my teeth on him.” Tom grinned. “I'm not particular. I'll play with anyone.” He touched the brim of his hat. “My name is Tom Milam.”

Abigail laughed and stepped aside to allow Tom to enter the foyer. “Bold talk.”

“Actions speak louder than words. Want to learn for yourself?”

“Miss Abigail!” A black servant stepped out of the formal sitting room and hurried to the foyer. His hair was snowy white; his features kind and homely. At sixty years old he held himself erect and his broad shoulders belied his advanced years. He was dressed in a brown frock coat and woolen trousers, shiny leather boots and a white coarsely woven shirt buttoned to the throat. A black sash circled his waist.

“See here, Miss Abigail, you aren't to be opening the door to just anyone.”

“I'm not just anyone,” Tom Milam retorted, turning on the servant who towered over him. Size meant nothing to Tom. “I'm part curly wolf, part grizz'. I move like a panther and got the humor of a snapping turtle.”

“My heaven, a whole menagerie,” Abigail commented.

“Yes, ma'am,” Tom said, turning back to the girl. “Common decency prevents me from explaining how I take after a buffalo bull.”

Abigail blushed.

“See here,” Hiram said, stepping toward the young man. Suddenly, three other heavily armed men crowded through the door. Coyote Kilhenny placed his massive frame between the servant and Tom.

Hiram started to protest anew until Coyote placed Harveson's letter in the black man's hand.

“Where's Harveson?” Kilhenny brusquely asked. He placed his rifle stock on the floor and leaned on the barrel, his arms folded and gaze intent as he noted the wealth of paintings and furnishings in the handsomely appointed rooms beyond.

“In the solarium, sir. Mr. Harveson is performing. If you'll wait in the sitting room, I'll announce you at the first opportunity.” Hiram indicated a room to his right with a sweep of his hand.

“We didn't ride all the way from Santa Fe just to wait,” Kilhenny exclaimed as he shouldered past Hiram. Pike Wallace fell in step, as did Skintop Pritchard, although not before feasting his eyes on Abigail, who shifted uncomfortably beneath his hungry stare.

Hiram started to follow the three men. He did not like to be treated with such casual disregard. Tom's voice cracked like a whip.

“Don't,” Tom said. “They're hard men. You don't want Kilhenny's kind of trouble. And as the letter said, we're expected.”

Hiram swung about, hesitated, then glanced at Abigail.

“Hiram, why don't you see to dinner. I'll show Mr. Milam to the sun room.” Abigail's little play was getting out of hand. The last thing she wanted was to see the Harveson's family retainer injured in any way.

“Yes, ma'am.” Hiram started down the long hall that ran past the stairs and led to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

Abigail and Tom were alone again.

“Aren't you going to offer me your arm, Mr. Milam?”

Tom reached out and snared her; his right arm circled her waist and he pulled her to him. His lips covered hers in a sudden kiss. Then Tom released her. As Abigail staggered back, she slapped him across the face.

“A fair trade.” Tom grinned, his cheek reddening from the force of her blow. He bowed and held out his arm, feigning the role of a perfect gentleman.

Abigail, by now thoroughly confused, didn't know whether she wanted to slap him again or walk with him.

Ed Piller and Richard Crane, a banker and a physician from Kansas City, dropped their bows and violin and viola and gaped at the new arrivals. Their wives muttered beneath their breath and clutched silk kerchiefs to their respective noses. Captain Palmer, a riverboat pilot, paused at his cello, looked up in surprise, and growled, “What the devil?” Con Vogel, a muscular man in his middle twenties, set his violin aside and stood. His chair slid back and toppled over and alerted Nate Harveson, who was hunched over the piano keys. He looked up, awareness slowly dawning.

Harveson was a diminutive man with slender limbs sprouting from a round, thick body. His silver hair was combed forward to mask a receding hairline. A prominent Roman nose thrust over a salt and pepper moustache. When he noticed the men crowding the entrance to the solarium, he rose from the piano seat, leaned forward on the piano, and in a cold voice said, “Gentlemen, there had better be an excellent reason for this interruption.”

Kilhenny stalked into the room. Sunlight streamed through surrounding windows but cast precious little warmth. The musicians were arranged in a semicircle. Another four straight-backed chairs accommodated Eva Piller, Leticia Crane, Parson Goodwith, and his wife, Charity, who scooted aside as Kilhenny entered the room and made his way through their midst. Skintop Pritchard winked at the parson's young, pretty wife. She immediately blushed and lowered her gaze. The parson glanced at Pritchard, who seemed to dare Goodwith to take offense. The parson coughed nervously and averted his gaze.

Abigail, arm in arm with Tom Milam, appeared in the doorway. Nate saw her and frowned at his sister's unladylike familiarity with the dark young stranger. However, Leticia Crane and Eva Piller smugly nodded to each other as if some hidden suspicion had at last been confirmed.

“You sent for me,” Kilhenny said. His broad frame hid Nate Harveson from the men in the back of the room.

Tom Milam wondered how such an unprepossessing little man could wield such power. Of course, money had something to do with it. But there had to be more to the man than the size of his bank balance. Tom resolved the man bore watching. As did his sister.

“I'm Kilhenny,” the half-breed repeated. “I pulled up stakes in Santa Fe for this scrap of paper and don't figure on being kept waiting.”

For a moment no one said anything, as if audience and musicians were waiting for Nate Harveson to explode in wrath and fury and order these intruders off his premises. The man's temper was legendary. However, what happened next surprised and even startled those refined guests gathered in the solarium.

Nate Harveson burst out laughing. He threw his head back and laughed aloud with such force he had to support himself on the piano. His fellow musicians continued to stare as if the director of their ensemble had lost his mind.

“Kilhenny … yes, of course. You would be him,” Harveson finally said in a silken tone. “You are everything I expected. Yes, I can tell at a glance. You'll do. Yes, you'll do very well.”

“I'll do what?” Kilhenny asked. He wasn't used to invoking such amusement in people. Fear, yes, but laughter?

“Well, for now, you can spend some of my money,” Nate Harveson said. “Ride on to Independence and put up at the River Wheel Hotel. Your rooms are paid for and so's anything you can eat, drink, or bed. Breakfast with me tomorrow morning, here at my house. Say, around ten. We'll talk then.” He clapped Kilhenny on the shoulder and waited to see if he had satisfied the renegade. Kilhenny shrugged and ran his fingers through his red beard.

“Tomorrow,” he said and, turning, motioned for Pike Wallace and Skintop Pritchard to leave the room. His fierce-looking cohorts did as they were told, much to the relief of the tamer souls gathered in the sunlit room.

Tom started to follow the others, but the pressure of Abigail's hand on his arm held him in place more securely than a chain. She led him to a nearby chair.

“I've invited Mr. Milam to stay awhile. He is an aficionado of good music,” Abigail said. “So I have offered him the hospitality of the afternoon.” The coquettish smile brightened her features as she sat beside the dark-haired plainsman.

Tom didn't know what the girl was up to, but she was pretty enough to want to make him hang around and find out. The displeasure on Nate Harveson's face was matched by Con Vogel's hard, angry glare. It appeared the brawny-looking German considered Abigail Harveson his territory and Tom Milam a possible trespasser.

So Tom Milam shucked off his coat and hat and nodded deferentially to the musicians. He glanced at Kilhenny looming in the doorway.

“I'll be along,” he said.

Kilhenny frowned. He considered insisting that Tom join him. He reconsidered then, thinking it might not be a bad idea for one of his own to hang around. “Keep watch,” he muttered in Shoshoni.

Tom, with a sideways look toward Abigail, resolved to do just that.

Nate Harveson was not about to embarrass himself by creating a scene. His sister was as stubborn as himself. Resolved to the situation, he motioned for his fellow musicians to return to their music. Vogel was the last to do so. He grabbed his violin and snapped it to his shoulder, his fingers clasping the neck of the instrument in a stranglehold.

“We will begin at the pianissimo on page two,” Harveson directed.

His fingers touched the keys. He tried to concentrate on the music, but his mind was already miles away, fixed on a plan that would not only make him rich but win him power and a mountain empire. Nate Harveson began to play, and though his mind was on the great plan about to unfold, his fingers upon the keys did not make a single mistake.

Tom Milam sipped French champagne and dined on goose liver pâté and found both to his taste. Perhaps it was the quality of the food and drink, perhaps it was the elegance in which it was served. I could grow to like this, Tom thought. But not the tiresome company.

“The renovations on the church are almost complete,” Parson Goodwith was saying. “But the salvation of Independence, ah, now there's another matter.” The parson, a tall, spare man with thinning hair and a fair complexion, leaned forward; his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Tell me, my son, have you been saved?”

“Sure,” Tom grinned. “More times than I can count. By these.” Milam pulled aside the flaps of his coat and patted the brace of revolvers thrust in his belt. “Save your lectures, Parson. I'm hell bound and thunder wild. The sermon I hear is the roar of my Hawken and I carry the cutting edge of truth in the top of my boot.” His hand swept down to his right leg and drew a razor-sharp throwing knife from a scabbard sewn inside his right boot. Lamplight glittered off the blade. Charity Goodwith, standing close by her husband, gasped and covered her mouth. Her cheeks grew red as her hair.

Tom glanced around and noticed he had become the object of everyone's attention. He shrugged and sheathed the blade. Abigail Harveson crossed the room toward him. Con Vogel, a big strapping young man, stayed close at hand, shadowing Abigail, hovering protectively as if guarding a possession. She sipped brandy from a short-stemmed tulip shaped snifter. The glass looked terribly fragile in marked contrast to the woman who held it. In her green eyes was strength.

“You are too quick to free your blade, Mr. Milam,” Abigail said playfully. “You'll frighten the ladies.”

“I'm too quick to sheathe it, or so I've been told,” Tom replied. He started toward Abigail, but Con Vogel stepped between them, a broad grin lighting his clean-shaven features.

“They say the best knives and swords are made of German steel.” Vogel looked down at Tom and flexed his beefy shoulders beneath his burgundy frock coat. He turned and raised his wineglass in salute to Abigail.
“Zum wohl!”

“Out where the wolves howl, a knife or gun is only as good as the man who uses it,” Tom replied.

It was plain to Tom that Con Vogel had no intention of leaving Abigail alone with him. He didn't like backing away from the German. On the other hand, Coyote had cautioned him about getting into trouble at least on his first day in Independence.

“How good are you, my friend?” Vogel challenged.