The Intruders Read online

  “Why not laudanum?” Clay asked.

  “Because it’s a substance that can quickly get out of hand, as you saw earlier when one of our customers almost walked into you. The Celestials like to keep it contained.”

  “Trammel wants it contained, too.” Clay grinned. “See, you’re not the only one who hears things, Adam. I’ve got eyes and ears in places, too.”

  Hagen had never doubted it for a moment. In fact, he had a pretty good idea who it might be, too, though only time would prove if he was right. “I’m sure you do. It’s only prudent that you would want an independent report on your investments.”

  They walked a bit farther, past a vacant storefront, to the Firebrand Saloon. “This place caters to a more rustic crowd. No gambling in here either. Only at our last stop on the tour. The locals refer to it as ‘the Brand,’ and I must admit I like it, too. The customers are often of the harder luck variety. I laid it out in a particular order.”

  He gestured Clay to follow where he was pointing. “The Clifford is strictly a hotel and caters to a more refined crowd. Mostly people who come to town to do business with my father. The mining concerns and the like. Then we come to the Pot of Gold. A decent place, but the main attraction is laudanum. When they can’t afford whiskey in the saloon, they end up at the Vic in between their trips on the dragon’s back. When their prices become too dear, they wind up here at the Brand.”

  “And where do they go after that?” Clay asked.

  “The gutter, which is according to the plan we’ll discuss over a bottle of fine whiskey at our final stop.” He motioned toward the Gilded Lily. “Shall we?”

  But Clay would not be rushed. He pointed at the empty storefront between the two saloons. “Why’s this space empty? What are you putting in there?”

  Hagen had not forgotten about it. He just had not counted on Clay caring enough to ask. “That is where I plan to have the doctor’s office.”

  “Doctor’s office? This town’s already got a doc in the Downs widow. How much medicine does a place this size need?”

  Hagen placed his hand on Clay’s back and gently urged him forward. “Miss Emily is a fine doctor, but she’s not really a doctor. She’s a fine nurse. An apprentice doctor at best, and was a good student of whatever her late husband taught her. She may be the town doctor, but she isn’t our doctor. My new man will belong to us. Part and parcel owned by us.”

  Clay did not look any less confused. “What the hell do we need with a doctor?”

  Hagen grinned. “All part of that plan I told you we’d talk about in a bit.”

  Hagen saw Michael Albertson, the rabble-rouser, out for a stroll with Old Lady Higgins. They spotted each other at the same time and, with a pat of Mrs. Higgins’s hand, Albertson stormed toward them. And judging by the fire in his eye, he was about to give them a loud lecture about corrupting the town.

  Hagen decided to have some fun with the blowhard before he got started. “Mr. Clay, I beg you to pause for a moment and behold a truly righteous man. The cornerstone upon which our humble village has built its conscience and turns to in times of moral corruption and strife.”

  Albertson stopped in the middle of the thoroughfare and waggled his finger at the two men. “Don’t you dare mock me, you vulture. How can you show your face in the light of day? Just look at what you’ve done to this town. You, with your whiskey and women and laudanum. Poisoning the minds of good men with good jobs only to pull them down to your level. You’re a scoundrel, sir. And I’d call you worse, still, if a fine woman of substance wasn’t within earshot of my words.”

  Hagen admired the old fool’s bravery. He told Clay, “Listen to him and listen to him well. For this man is the very embodiment of Michael, the archangel himself, sent by the Good Lord above to smite us sinners in His holy name. An old freighter hand who lay down his reins in the hopes that he might one day reign at His right hand in Heaven above.”

  Albertson spat in their general direction, but, Hagen noted, not too close. He wasn’t a complete fool.

  “A pox on you, Mr. Hagen. A pox on you and your house.” He looked at Clay. “And to any man who joins you. I take it this man’s a friend of yours.”

  Hagen knew Clay’s temper and did not want to risk it getting the better of him. Albertson certainly deserved a beating, but it would only serve to make him more popular than he already was. People loved a martyr.

  “Let’s go, Lucien. Sinners like us are not fit to be in the presence of such pious company.”

  Hagen was glad Clay seemed more amused by Albertson than annoyed by him, especially when the man continued to wish a pox upon them as they walked away.

  “Mouthy old coot, isn’t he?” Clay observed. “He really gets people following him with that fire-and-brimstone nonsense?”

  “Thirty or more last I counted,” Hagen told him. “In a town this size, that’s a good number. They can’t do much on their own, but the Blackstone Bugle covers their marches. It’s only a matter of time before his antics get picked up by one of the Laramie papers, and when it does, we might find ourselves tripping over Bible thumpers wherever we go.”

  “I’ve got a handle on the press in Laramie,” Clay said. “I’ll make sure any mention of Albertson’s antics gets stopped quickly. I’ll have a word with the editor as soon as I get back to town.”

  Funny, Hagen thought. I never mentioned Michael Albertson’s last name. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything. “Come, let’s forget about him, and let me show you the houses we’re building on Buffalo Street. It’ll help us change the town forever.”

  * * *

  An hour later, as they shared a bottle of fine whiskey in the refined surroundings of the Gilded Lily, he could tell Lucien Clay was impressed. Not just with the interior of the saloon, but by all that he had seen that day.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Adam. I didn’t think much of your plan when we joined up, but now that I’ve had the chance to lay eyes on it, I sure do like what I see.”

  Hagen was glad. Clay’s opinion meant nothing to him, but his continued participation in their partnership did. For without it, he would be hard-pressed to pull King Charles Hagen from his throne. But once that happened, Lucien Clay’s opinion would be worthless.

  “I’m glad you’re pleased,” Hagen said. “Those houses should attract a lot more people to town when they’re finished. People we’ll need on our side in the months to come.”

  Hagen looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear them. No one was there except for Big Ben London, helping the bartender stock new bottles behind the bar. And his father’s attorney and president of the Blackstone Bank, Mr. Frederick Montague, having a quiet drink by himself at a table close to the bar.

  “But I still don’t understand the reason for building all them new houses. And the saloons, too, for that matter. This place is beautiful, and I get why you built the other two dumps. But where are all the people going to come from? Your father’s cowhands and the miners can only drink or smoke so much. We’ve paid for an awful lot of new buildings here, Adam. I’d like to know why.”

  Hagen decided he had kept his partner in the dark long enough. Any further delay would only agitate him, perhaps make him withdraw his support. Hagen may have inherited Madam Pinochet’s collection of corrupt officials and businesses, but influence only went so far without something to back it up. Hagen had no choice but to level with him.

  “The best way to destroy a house is from beneath it,” he explained. “Ruin the foundation and the whole thing becomes unstable. Cracks begin to form and the building will fall in on itself. That’s what we’re doing now with my father’s hold on the town.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don’t see how.”

  Hagen was only too glad to tell him. “He fired twenty men and hired on thirty from a ranch he controls in Nebraska. He’s paying them twice what he paid the old hands, which not only galls him to no end but also makes him spend more than he planned. My father is nothing
if not a planner. He’s also threatened to fire all the miners in his employ, but that didn’t go as planned. Miners are a close bunch, and the lot of them threatened to strike if he dared fire a man just because he happened to smoke laudanum. He’s still trying to force the issue, but continues to meet resistance, which only frustrates him further.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Hagen talked over him. “The rest of the mines in the area are owned by smaller concerns, or by men who have independent claims. None of them are as big as my father’s holdings on their own, but together, they’re more than enough to compete with his production.” He raised his glass and toasted Clay. “And we’re going to own them. All of them.”

  “How?”

  “By having them sign the titles of their mines over to us in exchange for credit at our gambling houses and the laudanum den at the Pot of Gold. Their vices are our reward.”

  “That’s it? That’s your grand plan?” Clay lost all color in his face. He downed the remaining whiskey in his glass and quickly poured himself another. “You mean to tell me you’ve put our money at risk on the chance that all of this might happen the way you say it will?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Hagen said. “I only started after we already controlled a good number of the mines. I’ve been a gambler long enough to bet only on a sure thing. I’m hurt you’d think otherwise.” He winked. “I think I might even cry.”

  Clay shook his head, as if to clear it. “Are you telling me we’re already in the mining business?”

  “My friend, you’ve been in the mining business since the moment you agreed to work with me,” Hagen told him. “We had a quarter of the deeds to good mines back then. We own more than half of the independents now, with the promise of more to come by the end of the month. Word has spread among them that I’m very fair to deal with. I let them work their claims for a ridiculously low fee and let them drink and smoke all they want for free. The whiskey and laudanum are overpriced anyway. The Celestials complained when businesses started issuing chits for free smokes, so I let them have a larger share. They’re stealing from us anyway, but the vices are but a means to an end. As things stand, The Blackstone Mining Company is already the second-largest mining concern in the territory. When the rest of them sign over their shares to us, we’ll be bigger than the Hagen Mining Company, and the tide will begin to turn in our favor.”

  Clay looked at him from across the table as all he had just learned began to settle. “So that’s where the extra money has been coming from. The mines we own. I was wondering why the numbers didn’t add up.”

  “We’ve gotten them hooked on our vices so we can gain control of legitimate businesses. Father has lost twenty good men and is overpaying for good hands far away from home. Despite his edict, a fair number of them have visited the Celestials. I’ve made sure our friends from the Far East moderate their consumption. We don’t want to use them up quite yet.”

  “But now you’ve got another problem,” Clay said. “The town’s full of men high on our product.”

  Hagen was not surprised Clay was so slow to grasp the situation. “That’s not our problem. That’s Trammel’s problem. He’s so busy trying to sweep the dirt off the streets that by the time we’re ready to take down my father, he’ll be in no position to stop us. He’s a good man. A big man, but he’s still only a man, and everyone has their limits. The busier he is cleaning up after us, the better off we are.”

  Hagen enjoyed watching Clay ponder all the news he had just given him. His partner was a blunt and deliberate man. He did not have the mind for nuance, which was exactly why Hagen had thrown in with him. He was like the meat cleavers the Chinese bouncers used to protect the den, while Hagen was the dagger that pierced the heart of the beast. Both had their own roles to play, depending on the situation.

  Clay still did not appear to comprehend the situation. “So, what does all of this have to do with the houses we’ve built? Or these saloons? And how are you going to bring down your father?”

  Hagen knew they would eventually get around to discussing this, the most delicate part of his plan. He had spent many hours wondering how much he should tell Lucien Clay. He ultimately decided that holding anything back from him could cost him Clay’s support just when he needed it most. It was a gamble, but he laid his cards on the table.

  “The Blackstone Ranch runs cattle and horses,” Hagen reminded him. “The biggest herds of each in Wyoming. While cattle and horses are profitable, they’re quite susceptible to conditions of the lungs. All it takes is one infected animal to spread it to the rest of the herd.” He examined his nails. “It’s been known to ruin even the biggest ranches in a matter of weeks. I’m afraid a similar fate will befall my father’s ranch very soon, courtesy of the efforts of our Celestial friends. The Chinese are an ancient and deadly people, particularly when there’s a profit in it for them.”

  Clay’s reaction surprised him. “Are you out of your mind?” Hagen noticed Montague and Ben look over at them and he gestured for Clay to lower his voice.

  Clay complied. “What happens when he brings all that livestock to market? They’ll infect every other animal they’re penned in with. You’ll kill off an entire industry!”

  Hagen shook his head. The poor slob was so ignorant, it was almost comical. “My father will cull his herds and bring them down to be shipped out of Laramie next week. A large number of his ranch hands will go with them, leaving the ranch relatively unguarded. Our Celestial friends will poison the drinking water for the cattle and for the horses. Only the remaining animals will be affected. His best breeders.”

  Clay sat back in his chair. “Oh.”

  “Some of them will undoubtedly survive,” Hagen admitted, “but not nearly enough to save him. A former cavalryman like me hates the thought of hurting an animal, particularly the horses, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped. A greater purpose and all that.”

  “Your old man will be in a fine fix after that.”

  “To say the least,” Hagen said. “Some of these diseases have been known to jump to humans and I hope it’ll happen in his case, but I doubt it. That old varmint won’t have the decency to die so easily, but that part of this is my affair.” He fixed Clay with a steady glare. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on keeping that part from you, Lucien.”

  “Of course,” Clay said absently as he picked up his glass but didn’t drink from it. He was too deep in thought to drink just then. Hagen imagined he was digesting all he had just heard, trying to find a flaw in it. He envisioned his partner’s mind to be like a maze where a mouse hunted in vain for the cheese he could smell but could not see.

  Clay sipped his whiskey, which seemed to revive him. “You’re going to need muscle to pull this off in case something goes wrong. This plan of yours has a lot of holes in it and you’ll get caught short if things get rough. You were a hell of a gunfighter for a gambler in your day, Adam, but with that right arm being as it is, you’ll need some help. I’ve got some real choice boys I can send up here to help you. No offense, of course.”

  “None taken,” Hagen lied. For when all this was over and he was finally in charge of his family’s kingdom, Lucien Clay and the rest of the world would know that his injury had only made him more dangerous than he ever was.

  “But I think I’ll decline your generous offer for now, Lucien. Your concerns have been noted and are already well in hand.”

  Clay set his drink on the table. “I sure hope you’re not going to rely on those Chinese characters to have your back if things get tough. They stick to their own.”

  Hagen chanced a glance at his ace in the hole. Big Ben was busying himself behind the bar, ever the loyal employee to Miss Lilly Maine. But before he had worked for her, Ben had served as his bodyguard, back when he worked the riverboats on the Mississippi. He had remained loyal to Hagen since the day Hagen had killed the man who had once owned him and still considered him his property. He had even been loyal enough to travel to Wichita an
d work for Lilly when Hagen had asked him to.

  “Like I said, Lucien. I appreciate the concern, but it’s all well in hand.” He filled their glasses and proposed a toast. “To a future of our own making.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Up in Lilly’s room, Trammel stood by the window that looked out on Main Street. He saw the fancy black-and-gold coach parked up near the jail and wondered whose it might be. It was not a funeral coach and it was not the regular stage that ran from Laramie to Blackstone and farther north to Dutch Springs. That meant it must be a private coach, which baffled him. Why would anyone who could afford their own coach be in Blackstone?

  There was only one reason why: Adam Hagen. As for who the owner might be, Trammel intended to find out right now.

  “What time is it?” Lilly asked sleepily from the bed they had shared.

  Trammel tucked his shirt into his pants. “Time for me to go to work. Go back to sleep. You’ve still got a few hours left before the evening rush begins.”

  “Then why are you leaving?” she asked. “I thought you and Hawkeye switched shifts so you could have days with me.”

  “I did, but something’s come up that needs tending to.” He patted her leg after he shrugged into his shoulder holster. “Rest. I’ll come back up here before my shift starts if I can.”

  He had switched shifts with Hawkeye in the month since Lilly had come to town. When he was not working, he was with her for as long as he could manage it. He began to feel guilty about leaving the young man with so much responsibility so suddenly, but it could not be helped. Lilly had a hold on him now that would be mighty tough to break. He did not care any less for the well-being of the town, but he found himself caring more for her with each passing day.

  He gave her one last look in the darkened room before he headed out to do what the good people of Blackstone paid him to do. And as he shut the door quietly, he felt a powerful sense of guilt overwhelm him. Lilly had made him greedy and selfish. She had made him think of himself for a change, instead of only the town. No one else had ever affected him this way, not even Emily Downs. Maybe it was because Emily and he were both equally interested in the well-being of the town and its citizens, whereas Lilly only cared about her saloon. As long as Hagen got his piece of the profit from the place, nothing that happened beyond the front door of the Gilded Lily mattered to her.