DangerousPassion (11 page)

* * * *

“I want to know when is the wedding going to be?”

Edgar looked at the man who asked the question. For several seconds he said nothing, though he felt the acid begin to pool in his stomach, percolating like a witch’s brew. The relationship Edgar had with his father, Jerome Patterson, was (to be charitable by saying the very least) complicated. He adored and admired his father while simultaneously finding his presence either frightening or infuriating.

“Well?” Jerome prodded, standing near the windows to look out at the bustling street.

“Sarah and I haven’t yet made a definite decision,” Edgar answered at last, knowing he couldn’t avoid the question.

Jerome made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. He looked around the office, and then crossed the room to where a large, detailed surveyor’s map of Deadwood and the surrounding area was tacked to the wall.

“I’m getting damned impatient with you,” Jerome said. He touched a spot on the map where a slender stream curled back upon itself so sharply that section of the stream was U-shaped. “This is Sarah’s land. Now either you buy it from her, or you marry that damned woman so that the land is yours. But we’ve got to have complete legal control of this land right here if we’re going to go through with the next phase of my plan.”

Edgar noted that whenever his father needed him to do something, he said “us” and “we” quite often; but when there was the chance to make immediate money, the profits
 
were always “mine,” and Edgar’s involvement in the making of that money was entirely ignored. It was just one of a thousand quirks that made Edgar, in countless ways, truly despise his father.

Sitting in his chair behind his desk, Edgar watched his father studying the map. The elder Patterson’s expression slowly transformed from annoyance to contemplation. When Jerome continued speaking, his tone was soft, his diction less crisp, as though he was talking to himself.

“All I need to do is dam up the stream right here, at Sarah’s land,” he said, tapping the map. “Rerouting the stream to the east instead of the west will turn all this land over here—“he tapped the map in a different location, where there were numerous small squares with numbers printed inside them to indicate land lot ownership—“into fertile grazing land. And with the stream no longer going straight south, as it does now, all the land that currently is irrigated will drop in value between seventy-five to ninety percent.” He took three steps backward to get a more complete view of the surveyor’s map. “I can buy land now at one tenth the value that it’ll be with water for irrigation. All I have to do is reroute the stream, and the only place to do that is at the Miller homestead.”

Edgar, watching and listening to his father’s almost trance-like dialog, said quietly, “I’ll get the date set for the wedding. Sarah won’t sell the land. I’ve tried a hundred times to get her to sell, and she just won’t.”

“Then marry her. I don’t give a damn whether you love her or not. Just marry her.” Jerome turned his head slowly to look straight into his son’s eyes. “I can buy sixty different plots of land for a thirty thousand dollar investment. With some proper planning and execution of that plan, I can turn that thirty thousand into a half million dollars. Maybe more. If Sarah is afraid of the altar, get her pregnant, then she’ll have to marry you.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “You are fucking her, aren’t you?” There was obviously only one suitable answer that Jerome would accept.

Though his motives for marrying Sarah were mercenary, Edgar was not entirely heartless toward the woman—and he certainly didn’t like the way his father talked about her. But he couldn’t say anything to Jerome about his disrespectful behavior. Jerome took even the slightest rebuttal as an all-out attack upon his authority, which he defended with fanatical ferocity. Edgar was not feeling strong enough to get another nasty dressing-down from his father.

“Well?” Jerome’s tone was stern. “Are you fucking her, or not? That shouldn’t be something you’d have to think about before answering.”

“I am.” Edgar looked into his father’s eyes before quickly looking away. He hated how weak and fearful he felt in his father’s presence. With strained casualness that wasn’t quite convincing, he added, “I fuck her all the time.”

“What about this gunman you hired? Where’s he?”

Pleased that the topic had turned away from Sarah, Edgar smiled and replied, “His telegram said he would be here either today or tomorrow.” Edgar clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together vigorously, his smile broadening. “The guy’s got one hell of a reputation. A cattle cooperative in
Nebraska
was getting muscled by the Coltrane combine down there. There had been a series of shootings on either side. The cooperative was completely out-manned and out-gunned, so they hired Derek Jordan. Within a month the battle was over. Rumor has it that Coltrane had his best men set up an ambush—eight killers against Jordan, who was all by himself—and there wasn’t a single Coltrane hired gun left standing by the time the smoke cleared.”

Jerome nodded. “Good. That’s very good,” he said in a rather distracted tone. It was obvious that Edgar could not hold his attention. He went back to the map and tapped his forefinger to an area just outside of Deadwood. “This area here is showing promise. The miner at
Lot
1991 has been coming up with color for almost five weeks. He’s all by himself, and yet he’s coming to town with plenty of gold to show for his efforts. If something unfortunate should happen to him, we could buy rights to his land on the cheap. When this
Jordan
fellow you hired shows up, let’s see that he makes sure something unpleasant happens to several people.” Jerome tapped another section of the map. “And the Louis family here is also showing color in their pans. Who in hell ever heard of a wife panning for gold right along side her husband? Anyway, they’ve been showing up at the assayer’s office every Saturday for the past month. Last week they cashed in enough gold to buy a new horse, buckboard, and stock it with supplies. They paid for it all with just one week’s worth of gold dust panned out of this little spot right here.” He tapped the map again. “I want the Louis family to have a very, very bad accident. And I want it to happen soon.” He looked at his son with eyes glazed slightly with savage dreams of easy profits. “I’m counting on you, Edgar. I want complete, legal control of those pieces of property. I don’t give a rat’s ass who you have to step on or who you have to crush—just make it happen. The sooner the better.” He shook his head as though to clear his thoughts. The cloudiness of distant glory left his eyes, and they once again became clear and bright. “And get that bitch with the big tits pregnant immediately. Then she won’t be able to say ‘no’ to marriage, and I’ll have that land free and clear without having to pay for it.”

Determined to not disappoint his father, even more determined to avoid another humiliating tongue-lashing from him, Edgar replied, “Yes, father.”

* * * *

Sarah sniffed irritably. She was in the vault at the bank, and had been for nearly three hours without a break. Edgar had assigned her the task of copying down all the latest sales transactions for land and mining deeds, and since he said it was “strictly private and confidential” and since those particular records were always kept in the safe, a small desk and chair had been moved inside the vault.

Sarah was convinced she was in the vault for reasons that had nothing to do with trust, security, or privacy—and everything to do with Edgar’s sense of revenge. He had earlier in the day demanded of her a wedding date. Her first reaction was to stall, but this time Edgar would have none of her evasive tactics. He wanted a specific date, and he wanted it now. Sarah refused.

Perhaps if memories of being in Derek’s arms weren’t so vivid, weren’t so magnificently intense, then Sarah might have set the date, or at least have allowed Edgar to set whatever date for the ceremony that he wanted. But the memories of what it had felt like to be in Derek’s arms—to feel more alive than ever before in her entire life—was something that she couldn’t easily dismiss or deny. Consequently, Sarah spoke back when her better judgment warned to stay silent.

“Stop pushing me, Edgar,” she snapped. “I was at home sick yesterday—sick as could be!
¾
and the first thing that happens when I come in to work is that you start hounding me. Well, I won’t stand for it! I simply won’t! I’ll give you a date soon, but not today and not tomorrow. I’m just not feeling up to making such an important decision right now.” She pressed fingers to her temples. “Oh, Edgar, why did you have to do this to me now?”

Edgar blanched, visibly shocked that his fiancée had shown the nerve to not just stand up to him, but to talk back to him. His hands balled into fists at his sides, and for a moment Sarah wondered whether he would actually strike her. But then his flinty gaze narrowed, and he took his revenge in another manner—by assigning her a boring detail in the cramped, stuffy confines of the bank’s vault, tediously copying land leasing entry after entry from one book into another to create identical copies.

Despite her boredom, Sarah had begun to notice a pattern in the land purchases that Edgar and his father, Jerome, had been making recently. They were busy picking up property, quite cheaply, southwest of her own piece of property. He hadn’t mentioned anything of it to her, and commenting on his business plans and how much money he intended to make on this deal or that transaction, was one of the ways that Edgar tried to impress Sarah. Yet this time he had said nothing at all…and Sarah found that curious.

Sarah knew that Edgar was up to something devious, she just didn’t know what it was. Her only hope was that he would fail. As the minutes ticked slowly by, Sarah, sitting alone in the bank vault, was beginning to come to the inescapable conclusion that she loathed the man she was destined to marry.

Chapter Seven

Edgar was sitting in his office at his desk when Derek Jordan walked through the door. From the first instant that Edgar had set eyes on Derek, he knew that he had hired a man who had killed before, and would kill again. There was something lethal in the way the man moved, in the way his dark, fathomless eyes impassively surveyed his surroundings, that let Edgar know he had chosen the right gunman to see that his annoying problems became corpses.

“Come in, Mr.
Jordan
,” Edgar said, smiling and rising as he extended a hand. “Please, shut the door behind you.” When the door was closed, Edgar’s smile broadened even more, and he said, “I trust my employees out there, but I like to keep certain things confidential. I’m hoping you feel the same way, Mr.
Jordan
.”

“Whatever we say in this room remains between the two of us. I’ll tell no one.”

The big man took off his hat—a brand new Stetson that couldn’t have seen more than a day’s service, if Edgar’s eyes were telling him the truth—and then looked across the office to where the liquor bottles were. A strange look came into Derek’s eyes, staying there for only an instant before becoming shielded again. But Edgar had seen the change in Derek, and he intended to find out what it meant.

“Might I offer you a drink?” Edgar asked.

“Thanks, but no.” Derek sat in one of two bentwood chairs that faced Edgar’s oversized desk, and put an ankle up on a knee.

Edgar was a little surprised that the new man had taken a seat without being offered. He pushed his concerns away. Gunmen weren’t hired for their refined manners, he reminded himself. “Are you absolutely certain? I keep some very fine spirits here at the office,” Edgar prodded. He believed that every man had a weakness, and Edgar was eager to know what Derek’s was. But then, Edgar was determined to know every man’s weakness.

“No.”

But Edgar had seen something in Derek’s eyes when he looked at the liquor tray, and he wasn’t about to give up easily. His father had taught him that battles were either won or lost before the first volley of bullets were fired. It was a lesson that Edgar kept close to his soul. “Personally, I’ve got a taste for Evan Williams sour mash whiskey. It’s really very nice, and countless times better than any of the rot gut whiskey that you’re likely to get in the saloons of Deadwood.”

In a slightly lower tone, Derek replied, “No, but thanks.”

Edgar rose to his feet and walked around the desk. “Suit yourself, but I hope you don’t mind if I have a taste.”

“Not at all.”

As Edgar poured a small amount of sour mash whiskey into a crystal goblet, he made sure that he left a second glass out for Derek. Unless his guess was completely wrong, Derek Jordan was a man who enjoyed a premium-quality sour mash whiskey…and Edgar suspected Derek didn’t often get offered such an elite libation. Edgar had been taught to always use every advantage against both friend and foe alike.

“Let me get right down to business,” Edgar continued as he walked back to his chair behind his oversized desk. “Right now I’ve got a number of homesteaders who are either renting property or leasing mining rights from my bank. Currently, they are in arrears, and they refuse to get off the land.” He gave Derek a half-smile. “Legally, I’m within my rights to use nearly any means necessary to get them off my land.”

“Why me?” Derek dropped his hat onto the toe of his right boot, which was propped onto his left knee. He leaned back in the chair. Though his body appeared relaxed, Edgar doubted that the man actually was. “Seems like this is a matter for the sheriff. Besides, as a taxpaying businessman here in town you already pay him so you might as well let him do his job.”

That wasn’t the kind of enthusiasm Edgar had been hoping for, but he didn’t let it show in his expression. “The sheriff gets paid a little less than fifty dollars a month to keep the peace. For that he gets to have some drunken fool shoot at him probably no less than once or twice a month. I’m willing to pay one hundred dollars a week to see to it that I get the peace and tranquility—and along with it the cooperation of the citizens of Deadwood—that I want.” He grinned crookedly, smiling as though he was about to confess a sexual secret. “You see, it’s not just some folks who can’t make their mortgage, or pay for the right to pan for gold on this little plot of land or that one. There are other problems facing this bank, problems that I’m hoping you’ll make disappear.” He drawled out the last word as three distinct syllables. His eyes lowered conspiratorially. “Disappear so permanently it’ll be as though they had never even existed.”

“What kind of problems?” Derek’s tone was perfectly neutral.

Edgar paused, took a very small sip of whiskey and then sighed with pleasure rather dramatically, and finally replied, “There’s an old coot name of Jeremiah Smythe who stays up in the hills. Every week for more than two months he’s been bringing in color to the assayer. He works all by himself doing nothing more than panning, and yet week after week he shows up in town with fresh gold. He goes to the assayer, changes his gold for dollars, then has himself one hell of a night on the town here in Deadwood.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that he doesn’t know a damned thing about prospecting, or about saving for the future, or about what the real value of money is—that’s the problem.” Edgar inhaled deeply, held it for a second, and then exhaled slowly. The entire gesture was an effort to say without words that he was superior in intellect to Derek, and that whatever explanation he was about to give should give proof beyond any doubt of his intellectual supremacy. “Jeremiah Smythe is a fool, a drunkard, and a man who week after week spends an astonishing amount of money on loose women and bad whiskey.” Edgar made a waving gesture with his free hand as though swatting away insects. “There’s no reason in the world for a man like Jeremiah Smythe should have the mineral rights to his mine. He simply can’t appreciate the real value of what he possesses.”

Derek shrugged, his expression bland. “But he’s got legal mining rights, and he’s making his own way in this world.”

“True. But, you see, even though he’s pulling quite a lot of color out of his stream right now, he’s not bankrolling any of his profits. He’s not even paying ahead on his land lease, he’s not planning for lean times! What if something unfortunate should happen to him? What if he should accidentally catch a bullet in the wrist, or in the knee, or even”—he theatrically put a hand over his heart”—God forbid, took a bullet in the chest, then he wouldn’t be able to keep up the payments he owes on a monthly basis to this bank.” The dramatics instantly faded, and Edgar looked straight into Derek’s eyes. When he spoke, his voice was cold as death. “In that eventuality, the bank would again—quite properly and legally--retain control of the mining rights to that currently over-mortgaged piece of property.”

Derek plucked his new, black, flat-crowned and flat-brimmed Stetson from the toe of his shoe. Edgar, too pleased with his own plans for acquiring the mineral rights to Jeremiah Smythe’s land to be aware of emotions other than his own, did not notice the angry swiftness of Derek’s movement. Self-satisfaction was a failing of Edgar’s that he was unable to control.

“And it isn’t just Jeremiah Smythe who has been a thorn in my side,” Edgar continued, nastily but happily warming to the subject. “There’s also a family of Norwegians over on Lots Number 134 and 135 that could use a nighttime visit.” He stopped suddenly, struck by a thought that perplexed him. “Who the hell ever heard of a wife panning for gold right along side her husband? What kind of man would let his wife do that? Anyway, those two have been showing up at the assayer’s office with some nuggets that are impressive in size. They have for the past three weeks.” He shook his head in disbelief. “It truly amazes me that those little piss-ants, who can hardly speak English, should be allowed to stand in my way.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I pay the assayer under the table to keep me informed on who brings in gold, and what the weight and quality of that gold is.” Edgar reached for the cherry wood cigar box on his desk, flipped open the lid, and then turned the box around so that it faced Derek. “Can I interest you in a good cigar? I have them sent to me once a month through the railroad all the way from
Virginia
.” In an expansive and unintentionally condescending gesture, he said, “Take as many as you like. I can always get more.”

“No thanks.” Derek rose to his feet, putting his hat on.

It was precisely at that time that Jerome Patterson came striding into the office, entering without knocking and so nearly bumping into Derek.

“Oh, excuse me,” Jerome said with a beaming smile when he saw Derek. “I’m Jerome Patterson, president of this bank. I see you’ve met my son, Edgar.”

Jerome extended his hand in greeting. Edgar, sitting in his chair and watching from a distance, saw the coldness in Derek’s eyes, noticed his hesitation before he shook hands. Derek’s reaction was not what Edgar had been hoping for in a hired gunman.

* * * *

The instant that Derek set eyes on Edgar, he recognized him as the man who had ridden to Sarah’s the previous day to complain that she hadn’t shown up for work. Edgar—unimpressive in height and considerable in weight—was the man that Sarah was sharing her—or, at the very least, her sex life with. It took every bit of willpower that Derek possessed to not say anything about Sarah to the banker. Derek felt like a man who was slowly being poisoned by knowledge he profoundly wished he did not possess.

He started out not liking Edgar though he really knew nothing about him. But the more Edgar spoke, the more he explained how otherwise innocent people were to have “accidents” with Derek’s well-paid “help,” the more Derek learned to loathe the over-dressed, over-weight jackass named Edgar Patterson.

Derek had just been about to explain that he wasn’t a hired assassin. He was, however, a hired gun who, for a price, would try to equalize the odds in favor of the less advantaged, provided their cause was just. Edgar had made it quite clear that murder—or in the very least, maiming people for the rest of their life—would be expected of him as part of his job duties. Derek might not have chosen for himself the most non-violent of professions, but he had his standards, and that meant that he simply didn’t commit murder and mayhem just because he was paid to. Contrary to popular opinion, at least one gunman had standards that he would not compromise.

“I see my son is having a drink,” Jerome said once introductions had been made. It was clear from the tone of his voice that he did not entirely approve of drinking during business hours. “I hope he offered you one as well.”

“He did,” Derek said. Deliberating a moment, Derek decided to let Edgar’s father speak. Perhaps the son, overzealous in his desire to succeed, had overstepped his father’s wishes.

Jerome was more diplomatic that Edgar, not coming straight out to explain that Derek would be paid to harass, intimidate, and even cripple or murder those unfortunate soul who happened to be standing in the way of the Pattersons’ grand plans. But in the end, when the fancy words were stripped away and the cold, brutal reality was examined with an objective eye, what the Pattersons were looking for was an assassin who killed on command, and didn’t ask such messy questions like “why?” In Deadwood and the surrounding area, there were many men who could fulfill those job requirements; Derek, however, wasn’t one of them.

Derek went to the office door and opened it. He looked out into the lobby, searching unsuccessfully for Sarah. He turned back toward Jerome and asked, “This all the folks you got working for you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“No reason. Just curious.” He shrugged. “Seems there’s been some mistake here. When you sent me that telegram, you said you have poachers on your land. What you’re talking about now isn’t so much about poachers as it is honest folks scratching out a living by their own hard work.”