The Temptress (20 page)

“If I must,” Pilar said and found, to her consternation, that her hands were shaking. “I'll help if I must.”

• • •

Tynan put his hand up to halt Asher as they entered the little town of Sequona. “I want you to go in first. Go to that big saloon there, about halfway down the street, and take a corner table. Do nothing but order a beer and wait for me. Don't talk to a single person, you understand?”

“Don't you worry about me, I can handle myself.”

“Take your gun out, put it under your hat and wait. I want you ready when the shooting starts.”

“Shooting?” Asher whispered. “How can you be sure there'll be any shooting?”

“How can you be as old as you are and not be sure? You ready?”

Asher just nodded as he reined his horse forward, down the long, dusty street and stopped in front of the saloon. As he entered, a body came flying out, barely missing him and landing in the street.

“And stay out!” said a man wearing an apron, his big arms flexed, the muscles outstanding.

Asher waited until the entrance was clear, then went inside. He had to stand at the bar for a moment until the back table had cleared of a group of men playing poker, then he took his beer and sat down. As inconspicuously as he could, he removed his gun from his holster and placed it on the table, hidden under his hat.

He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes half closed when Tynan walked in—and immediately he could feel several eyes turn toward the man. So, Ash thought, Ty was right and there were people waiting for them.

Tynan ordered a double whiskey, and, as he was drinking it, a woman sidled up to him, putting her arm about his waist and running her hand over his back.

“How about buyin' a lady a drink?” she said.

Asher straightened his chair, trying to look as if he were interested in his beer, but he was actually trying to watch the men around him. There was one fat, dirty cowboy to his right whose hand was inching toward his gun belt. Get out of the way, lady, he thought with all of his might.

Tynan moved away from the woman just a bit. “Honey, I'd like to share more than a drink with you. You think that could be arranged?”

The woman's smile made her eyes disappear.

“Why don't you go on upstairs and wait for me? I need to wet my throat a little bit and I'll be right up.”

The woman, in her dirty red-and-black dress, gave a look of triumph to the few other women in the saloon then started up the stairs. When she was halfway up, Ty turned to the bartender and said loudly, “What I really want is some information. You know the whereabouts of Beynard Dysan?”

There was a split second pause before the first gun was fired. Tynan, obviously watching the room in the mirror over the bar, spun on his heel, crouched low and fired into the belly of the fat cowboy across from Asher. Jumping up, Ash brought his gun up and shot another man on the balcony overlooking the main room of the saloon. As a bullet whizzed inches past his ear, Ash fell to the floor, knocked the round table over and got behind it.

As he was firing, he tried to see where Tynan was so he could protect him. Ty was backing toward an outside door, dodging bullets as he went.

Just as Ty was about to reach the door, Asher saw a man's head in a window to Ty's left. Standing, Asher bellowed, “Tynan!”

Ty turned and fired, the man at the window fell back, and Ty left the saloon just as Asher felt a searing pain in his leg before he could again reach the safety of the table.

Now Asher was alone in the saloon, all guns blazing at him, pinned down behind a little round table, the front door several feet away. He sat down to reload, watching the blood seep from his wounded leg, when he heard the softer more deadly sound of rifle fire in the saloon.

Looking around the table, he saw Tynan standing in the doorway, a rifle at his shoulder. “The next one that moves gets it. Get over here, Prescott,” he commanded.

As Asher moved from the table, Tynan shot at a man in the corner and a gun dropped from his hand.

“I'm looking for Beynard Dysan and I want to know where he is. Watch my back,” he said under his breath to Asher.

There were only four men left in the saloon now—and five bodies. The others who had been there had either run when the shooting started or were dead now.

“You!” Ty said to a tall man with a scar over his eye. “You'll be the first. I'll take a few inches off your left foot in about two seconds if you don't tell me what I want to know. Where is Dysan's place?”

Tynan put the rifle deeper into his shoulder.

“He has a big place ten miles due north of here,” the man said. “But it's guarded and no man that he don't want in there can get in.”

“That's my problem.” Ty began to back up, Asher in front of him watching the crowd that was gathering in the street. Their saddled horses were waiting.

“Ride like you never rode before,” Tynan called to Asher as they made their way north out of town.

Asher followed Ty as they thundered down the road and headed for the forest. For a while, Asher thought Ty knew where he was going but as they left the road and went into the trees he saw Ty stop several times and look around him. “You don't know this country, do you?” Ash asked.

“If I did, I'd have known where Dysan lived. Get down, I think this is it.”

“What's it? Where are we?”

“Someone's to meet us here.”

“Who?” Ash asked but received no answer as Ty dismounted, removing his saddle bags from his horse. Wincing with pain, Asher dismounted also.

“Let me look at that leg,” Ty said as Ash lowered himself to the ground. After a rough, but thorough examination, Ty took a bottle of whiskey from his saddle bag. “This'll sting but it'll kill any lead poisoning. It's not a bad place, more a burn than a real bullet wound. You'll be fine in no time, even if you are a little sore.”

Ash nearly screamed when Ty poured the whiskey on the raw, open cut, but he managed to control himself.

“First gunshot wound?” Ty asked, amused.

“The first this week,” Ash answered as he tried to get his breath.

An hour later, both men were stretched beneath trees, when Ash heard a sound coming from behind Tynan. He looked at Ty but there was warning in Ty's eyes, telling Ash to be quiet. Pretending to be asleep, Ash watched in fascination as a woman, not quite young, but not old either, came sneaking up behind Ty, making as little noise as a human can make in a forest.

Just as she reached Tynan, who seemed to be asleep, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, Ty reached out, grabbed her and pulled her into his lap.

“Let me go!” she yelled at him.

“Come on, Belle, you're not still mad at me, are you?”

“I'd take a knife to you if I could.”

Tynan held her easily in his arms, struggling only with her hands, with which she meant to claw him. “You know I never meant to hurt you, but that girl was only thirteen years old. I couldn't let you sell her to that old man.”

“You didn't have to shoot up my place to save her. I lost everything in that. I had to go back on the streets to get enough money to pay for what you did.”

Tynan began nuzzling her neck. “I'll bet you made a fortune.”

“I did not!” she yelled at him, then began to relax. “Well, maybe I did make some at that. What are you doing here? And askin' about Dysan! You must wanta stop livin'.”

“I just want to find him. You know anything about him?”

“Not enough that I want to lose my life by tellin' you. What's he done to you?”

“Taken Chris Mathison,” Asher said. “Allow me to introduce myself. Asher Prescott at your service, ma'am,” Ash said, removing his hat.

The woman tried to free her hands from Tynan's grip but he still held her. “All right, what do you want from me?” she said with a sigh. “Tynan, one of these days, you're gonna ask for one too many favors.”

“What I like about women is that they always know how to give.”

Suddenly, the woman stiffened in Ty's lap. “Chris? Is that a woman? Tynan, if you got me out here to help you find another woman, so help me I'll—”

Ty kissed her to keep her quiet. “It's strictly business. I've been hired by her father to take her to him and Dysan has her.”

“Then you'd be better off leaving her where she is. She won't be worth much when Dysan finishes with her.”

Tynan frowned. “Are you speaking from first-hand knowledge?”

“I saw a girl after he got through with her. He doesn't like women; he doesn't like anybody for that matter. He has a place not far from here, but I don't think he stays there much, I think he goes back East pretty often, and, for the life of me, I can't figure out why he even comes to this godforsaken hole. He has money enough that he can live anywhere he wants to.”

Tynan released her hands but she still stayed in his lap. “I heard he has business around here.”

“There are rumors that he's involved in whatever evil trick has been pulled lately, but no one's been able to prove anything yet. The law's terrified of him.”

Tynan was quiet for a moment. “You said this place of his was guarded. How well guarded?”

“An army post could learn from him. He has men patrolling his big house night and day—and they have dogs on leashes at night. Anybody even gets close and the dogs are let loose. They say those dogs can really take you apart.”

“Has
anyone
ever made it inside?” Asher asked.

“Why would anybody be stupid enough to want to try?” the woman asked, looking from one man to the other.

“Belle, you know anybody who's been in the place? Somebody we could ask questions?”

Belle looked down at her hands. “To tell you the truth, I was in there last year. I went with some other girls and…. Tynan, I don't like to think about what happened that night.”

Tynan pulled the woman to him, hiding her face in his shoulder. “Dysan has a young woman now and he's holding her captive. Prescott and I plan to get her out so I need all the help I can get. If you could tell me anything that you remember about the place, a way in, the floor plan of the house, whatever you can remember, I'd sure appreciate it.”

Belle moved away from his shoulder. “You don't deserve my help, not after the way you tore up my place, but I'll do what I can.” She looked at him in a seductive way. “I'll do it in memory of that time down in San Antonio. You remember that?”

“Every day of my life,” Ty said, smiling. “I use it to judge everything else by. Prescott, you got any paper? Belle's going to draw us a plan.”

Ty pushed her off his lap while Asher managed to move his stiffening leg so he could get to his horse. Minutes later, the three of them were hunched over a map Belle was making, and an hour later, the two men were mounting their horses again.

Belle looked up at Tynan. “By the way, Ty, there was some guy through town yesterday lookin' for you.”

“What'd he look like?”

“Tall, skinny, long red hair. His arm was in a sling and he walked with a limp. Seemed real anxious to see you.”

Tynan leaned down from the horse and kissed her lingeringly. “You tell him you saw me about forty miles south of here.”

She smiled at him. “Maybe. I might consider it if you come back through here and make it up to me about what you did to my saloon.”

“I might do that.” Ty smiled at her, then was off, heading north toward Dysan's house.

Pilar was sitting on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed, and, in spite of her good intentions, she was asleep and didn't hear anyone in the room until a hand covered her mouth, startling her awake.

“Tynan?” she asked in disbelief. “Is that you?”

“Where's Chris?” he asked at once.

Pilar sat up straighter. “I don't know. She's been gone for hours and I heard the dogs and men yelling but I didn't hear anything from her. Ty, I'm worried about her.”

Tynan's face showed what he thought of Chris leaving the room. “How did she get out?”

Pilar started to stand. “We tore the bed sheets into strips and she went down through the window. Ty! You're injured. Here, sit down.”

“I don't have time. I have to find her and soon. Leave that alone, it's not bad, just a couple of dog bites. Why in the hell did you let her go? I don't expect her to have any sense, but you, Pilar, I expected more from you. I told you to watch her.”

“How was I supposed to stop her? Dysan said that he'd sent out over a hundred men to stop anyone from finding us. You could have been dead for all we knew and then Chris said Dysan wasn't going to release us since we could identify him.”

“Has he contacted Mathison yet?”

“That's what's strange, Ty, I'm not sure Dysan knows who Chris is. He talked about her father committing suicide and about her husband being an embezzler. If he doesn't know that Chris is wealthy, then why has he taken us?”

“I'll worry about what's on the man's mind later. Right now, I'm more concerned about his guns. Did you see what Chris did when she reached the ground? Did she try leaving the grounds or did she go back into the house? She just loves snooping in people's private papers.”

“I didn't see because I was pulling the rope up, but I think she probably had to go into the house because the dogs came around minutes after she touched the ground. She wrapped her shoes in pieces of sheet and rubbed them with some meat fat. She was planning to throw the cloth away when she reached the edge of the forest.”

“Well, it doesn't look like it worked because she's nowhere to be seen outside. Now, I want you to listen to me and do exactly what I say. Prescott, the man from Hamilton's place, will be here in a minute and I want you to let him help you get out of here. He'll take you over the roof.”

“And where will you be?”

“Searching for Chris.” With that statement, he went to the window and proceeded to climb up a rope toward the roof. Pilar could hear him walking softly overhead and then all was silent.

Tynan gave a signal to Asher who crouched behind a dormer on the tall house, then tied his rope about a far chimney and started down. Thanks to Belle, he knew most of the layout of the house and he was heading now toward Dysan's office. This would be the room that Chris most likely would want to explore.

The room was dark and there wasn't a sign of any activity in it—no papers, only a few books, no ledgers with their revealing account numbers, no pretty little blonde snooping through things.

Cautiously, Tynan made his way out the door and into the dark hallway. Listening carefully, he heard voices downstairs, but they didn't seem particularly upset about anything, as they might be if they'd just found Chris haunting the rooms. With his back to the wall, he began to ease his way down the stairs, stopping constantly to listen to whatever he could hear.

According to Belle, the house was a big one and Ty wasn't sure where he should begin searching, but the library seemed like a good bet—not because he thought Dysan might have something there but because Chris would want to search a place like that.

He stopped twice at the foot of the stairs to listen but he heard nothing, so he went across the empty dining room to the closed door that he knew led to the hallway. Still listening and, as quietly as a cat, he made his way through the door and into the hall. The first door on the right was the library.

Once inside the library, he paused, pressed his back against the door and waited. He wasn't sure what it was, but something was wrong. He stood so still that he became part of the shadows, fading into his surroundings so that he disappeared.

The sound of a match being struck made him turn his head—and he saw Beynard Dysan sitting in a chair before him, bringing the lit match up to his cigar tip.

“Bravo,” Dysan said. “You were almost silent.” He bent forward to touch the match to a lantern on the table before him.

In the light, Tynan could see Chris in a chair beside Dysan, her hands and feet tied, her mouth gagged. Her eyes were wild and she looked as if she'd seen something awful.

“I wouldn't try it,” Dysan said as Ty took a step forward. “I have a gun on her and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot her.”

Tynan stood where he was, not moving a muscle but trying to look about the room.

Dysan smiled. “I can assure you that there is no way to escape. You got in because I allowed you to enter.” He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it. “I wondered which one of the women you'd go after first.”

Dysan stood and walked to stand behind Chris, putting a gun to her head, running his hand along her throat and pulling her head back. “Why do I get the feeling that she's not what she seems? Hamilton said she was his cousin, a mousey little thing that allowed her husband to beat her, but here she is, having escaped down the side of a four-story building, and I somehow sense that she isn't what she appears.”

“What do you want? If it's money, you'll be paid. All you have to do is release her.”

“Money?” Dysan sounded genuinely surprised. “And do you have money to pay for her ransom?”

“I can get it.”

Dysan walked away from Chris but not far enough that he couldn't have hurt her if Tynan tried anything. “And what do you have that you can sell? Do some of the prostitutes you know have money? Will they sell their diseased bodies to get money for you? Or has that miner of yours finally found gold?”

Tynan just looked at the man, not saying a word.

“Ah, the rescuing hero doesn't want to tell what he knows. What can I do to loosen your tongue? Remove pieces of this little lady?”

Still, Tynan didn't move.

Dysan moved closer to Chris and began to run his hands down her arms. “Do you mind that other men touch her? Do you insist that this one is yours alone?”

“Do what you want with her,” Tynan said. “She's just a job to me. I get paid to take her back to her father.”

“And who is her father that he would pay for her?”

Tynan took his time in answering. “Del Mathison,” he said into the silence.

The only sign Dysan gave that he heard was that his cigar shook just once as he held it in his hand.

There was a long silence in the room as Dysan stared at Tynan. “I think I have underestimated you. I thought you only went in for whores.”

“I do. I want nothing to do with girls like her. She's been nothing but trouble so if you have some grudge with me, you can leave her out of it.”

Dysan ran his hand along Chris's neck. “Shall I test your words? Shall I see how little you care about her?”

“Mathison won't take kindly to his daughter being mistreated and I don't think you're big enough to buck a man like him.”

Dysan seemed to be considering this, but, after a moment, he walked toward the door, his gun aimed at Chris and looked out. Immediately, two men appeared. “Take them to the cellar and lock them in.”

Tynan stood back as he watched Chris being untied, and when she was released, she fell forward. One of the men caught her arm roughly and jerked her upright. Ty still stood where he was as she looked up at him as she was being pulled along.

Without any protest, he followed behind her, in front of a man bearing a rifle.

They were led downstairs into a deep basement. There was a door against one wall and one of the men took a key and opened it, throwing Chris into the dark, dank little room. Tynan entered of his own accord, standing by the door until the men closed and locked it behind them.

Instantly, he was across the room to Chris, groping for her in the darkness. “Chris, Chris,” he whispered repeatedly while running his hands over her body as if he were inspecting her. “Are you hurt?”

Chris clung to him as if she were drowning. “He's a horrible man,” she gasped, then choked over her tears. “He told me about three women who'd been here. He told me about using a riding crop and—”

“Sssh,” Ty said, holding her, stroking her back. “It's over now.”

Chris hiccupped. “The woman
died.
He killed her. He told me in florid detail what he did and how he made the other women watch. The woman bled to death.”

“Chris, stop crying. He won't do anything to you now.”

“But how could one human do something like that to another? He told me about it and he wasn't sorry. Why wasn't he punished?”

“I don't know, just so long as he didn't hurt you.”

It took Chris several minutes more to control herself. “What does it matter to you?” she asked, pushing away from him and moving back against the wall. “I'm well enough to get back to my father if that's what's worrying you.” She sniffed.

Ty's hands moved away from her and there was resignation in his voice. “I'll see if I can find a light.”

She leaned against the wall and listened to him rummaging around the room. Her head ached, there were rope burns on her ankles and wrists and along with Dysan's hideous stories, her ears were ringing with Tynan's words that she was nothing to him.

She watched as he struck a match and lit a candle. It was a dreary little room, dirt walls on three sides, the heavy wooden door on the other. There was a crude wooden cabinet against one wall, the door hanging off its leather hinges, exposing a few jars of canned fruit and a couple of half-burned candles on the shelves. Except for a few plants trying to grow out of the walls, the room was bare—and cold.

“Let me look at you,” Tynan said, his voice cool, his face set.

Chris jerked away from his approaching hands. “Don't touch me. I am perfectly all right,” she said. “You don't need to concern yourself with me.”

Ty rocked back on his heels. “We'll get along a lot better if we work together. As long as you fight me, we'll never get anything done.”

“So you can get me back to my father and you can get your money? Maybe Dysan will let you go free now that you've told him who I am. Maybe you two can share the money from my father.”

“Of all the ungrateful—I ought to leave you here.”

“Go ahead. There's the door.”

Tynan opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, then stood and walked to the door and began looking at it.

“You have on new clothes again,” Chris said after a while.

Tynan didn't answer her but kept looking at the door.

Chris tried to stand up, using the wall for support. “I guess you got Pilar out safely.”

“If you'd stayed in your room, you'd be out now, too.”

“He knew when you were inside the house so what makes you think he didn't know when you were in the upstairs room?”

Ty didn't look back at her but kept searching the room, inspecting the ceiling which looked as if it were always wet, and the floor which was nothing but hardened mud.

“Dysan said he'd sent out a hundred men to stop anyone from finding us, so how did you get here?”

“Your father's money was a powerful incentive. It got me through clouds of gunfire.”

Chris leaned against the damp wall, flexing her sore ankles. “All right, maybe I was rude and I apologize. I thank you for trying to rescue me and I'm sorry that I'm going to cause your…that I'm going to cause whatever will happen to us.”

He turned back to her. “I think that finding out that you're Mathison's daughter will curtail whatever Dysan planned. Now, I suggest that you sit down and get what rest you can because, come morning, I think he'll take us out of here.”

Chris sat down on the floor and was silent for a moment. “You could have gotten away in there. You could have overtaken those two men. Why didn't you?”

Tynan stretched out with his back against the door, his eyes half closed. “Maybe, maybe not. Why don't you get some sleep now? You might need to do some running in the morning.”

Chris couldn't sleep, but she was quiet as she sat and watched Tynan across from her. Since that awful night in the cabin, she'd done her best not to think of him, not to remember what he looked like, how he smelled, how he'd touched her, but now, with him so near, it was impossible not to recall every bit of it.

And with the pleasant memories came his words: he only wanted to get her back to her father, that all she was to him was a possibility of a pardon, that she was just one of hundreds of women he'd bedded, no more, no less. Chris remembered with shame the way she'd tried to talk him into marriage. In the flickering darkness, she could feel her face turning red. How childish she'd been, how immature.