Because she was acting strangely, too.

  She refused to make eye contact with MacCorkendale, and with Slocum as well. Every time he spoke to her, she colored hotly and answered the floor, not him, in short, monosyllabic sentences.

  Well, if Helga and Ralph weren’t getting along right now, he guessed it was no skin off his nose. At least the grub was good.

  Helga had cooked up something she called Wiener schnitzel, and served it along with new potatoes, swimming in some kind of butter sauce, sauerkraut, and fresh-baked bread. He wasn’t too crazy about the kraut, but the Wiener schnitzel and potatoes and bread sure hit the spot.

  He noticed that MacCorkendale appeared to be put off by all of it except the potatoes. He stared at his fork, stared out the window, and tapped the table with his knife. Finally, when Slocum was about halfway through the meal, MacCorkendale spoke.

  “I hired you to kill Rodriguez or Valdez or both,” he said softly, although his fist clenched his fork tightly. “I didn’t hire you to stretch a goddamn fence.”

  Slocum said, “I know, Ralph, but—”

  MacCorkendale cut him off, suddenly shouting, “I didn’t hire you to get all buddy-buddy with your big pal, Jorgé Rodriguez!”

  Slocum sat silently for a moment, working his jaw muscles and grinding his teeth, and holding back his first instinct, which was to go pound Ralph MacCorkendale right through his fancy table.

  At last, as calmly as he could, he said, “You’re about that close to it, Ralph.”

  “Close to what?” the idiot went on, heedless. “Close to bankruptcy? Close to ruin?”

  Slocum boomed out, “Close to gettin’ your damn head caved in!”

  Abruptly, MacCorkendale’s visage turned from that of a roaring bear to a rabbit caught in a train’s oncoming lantern glare. Helga tittered behind her hand, and MacCorkendale’s glare returned, although this time it was focused on her.

  Slocum spoke quickly, hoping to defuse the situation. “I told you, Ralph,” he said, “this fence is a simple thing, and it’s gonna fix a world of worries. You’ll just have to trust me on it. Nobody has to get killed over the situation. Or even hurt, if we’re lucky. Now, your lady has set us out a pretty good spread, so why don’t we enjoy it and figure that in a few days, all your problems are gonna be taken care of.”

  And then for emphasis, he added, “See?” and took a big bite of schnitzel. “S’easy.”

  Helga blushed beet red.

  And MacCorkendale didn’t say a word. He just picked up his fork again and started moving the food around on his plate.

  Why couldn’t I have got stuck with Valdez and Jorgé with MacCorkendale? he wondered, as he heard the soft scrape of Helga’s chair.

  “I bring dessert now?” she said. She stared at the floor.

  “That’d be fine,” Slocum replied.

  “Do what you want,” grumbled MacCorkendale. “I don’t care.”

  9

  Samantha Rollings, who had waited an hour for Maria last night, to no avail, woke in her hotel room at a little past dawn. And her first thoughts were of Slocum. And the silver ring tied into her hankie.

  And then she remembered Maria and got mad all over again.

  She got up, got dressed, fixed her hair, and locked her room behind her. But before she set out for the cantina, she untied the little ring and slipped it onto her finger.

  She smiled.

  She was ready to meet this Maria, whoever she was.

  Her nose in the air, her expression haughty, she walked downstairs and out into the breaking morning.

  Helga MacCorkendale had been up since dawn. Well, if she wanted to be truthful about it, she had been awake most of the night, tossing and turning while her husband snored beside her.

  Why had Slocum come here, to spend the night just a few feet down the hall? Didn’t he know she ached for him, that she had wanted to touch herself all night long so badly that she had practically ground her teeth down to nubs?

  How could he be so cruel? How could he be so unfeeling to one who lusted after him so strongly?

  She didn’t love him. She barely knew him. But her want for him was so strong that she was certain it was written all over her every motion, her every expression, that it drifted on her every word, even those unspoken.

  She did not understand.

  She did not care.

  She simply wanted him to go, to let her life go back to its same old drabness and emptiness. That, she was accustomed to. This passion, this uncaring, wild-feeling passion, she was not.

  She heard boots on the stairs. They were not MacCorkendale’s footfalls. She tried her best to ignore them and busied herself with her cooking: oatmeal, steamed fruits, and eggs.

  “Well, somebody’s up, anyhow,” Slocum said, from behind her. “I was beginnin’ to wonder!”

  She took a deep breath before she turned toward him. She still couldn’t keep the smile from her face, though. “Guten Morgen, Herr Slocum,” she said, and felt her knees bend in a little curtsy.

  And then she felt herself do something else, something far more terrible. She took a step forward, stood on her tip-toes, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth!

  When Helga flung herself at him, Slocum was taken completely off guard. He returned the kiss—more out of habit than thought—and then realized what he was doing—with the boss’s wife!—and broke it off.

  Perplexed, he held her by the shoulders, at arm’s length, and said, “Helga?”

  Damned if she didn’t burst into tears!

  He guided her to the kitchen table and sat her down, then pulled out the opposite chair for himself. And then he waited.

  At last, in a small, trembling voice, she said, “I am so sorry, Herr Slocum. I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . . I would be most pleased if you would not tell my husband of this.”

  “That’s fine, Helga,” he said quickly but gently. “He ain’t gonna hear nothin’ from me.” That was for certain sure, at least. But why the hell had she latched onto him in the first place? Slocum wondered. “Are things not goin’ so good between you and the mister?”

  She looked up, and right away Slocum knew she wasn’t going to give any further explanation. Her face was closed up tight as a clamshell. And the only words that came out of her mouth were, “Ach! Breakfast!” She hurriedly got up and took two quick steps to the stove, where she alternately stirred things or moved them off the burners.

  “What? Are we eatin’ in the kitchen now?” came MacCorkendale’s voice, and Slocum looked toward it. MacCorkendale was standing in the doorway, slouched against its frame. He didn’t appear to be in the best mood.

  At the stove, Helga froze, her back to her husband.

  Slocum picked up the conversation for her, though. “No, Ralph,” he said. “I just came in to bother your wife with a little small talk and see what she was servin’. Soon as I grab some breakfast, I’m off to see how Jorgé’s comin’ with those fence posts. Wire won’t be in for a day or two.”

  Ralph frowned at the mention of the fence but said nothing about it. He just said, “Fine. I’ll be in the office, Helga,” and turned on his heel.

  “Ja Herr MacCorkendale,” she replied softly, without turning around. MacCorkendale didn’t notice. He was gone already.

  And Slocum could see that she wanted him out of there, too. Whatever reasons she’d had for kissing him, they’d have to remain her own.

  Too bad, really. He’d actually enjoyed it, brief as it had been.

  He pushed back from the table and said, “I’ll be in the parlor, Helga.”

  “Ja, Herr Slocum,” she said. And kept her back to him. Women, he thought. Who the hell knows what goes through their minds, anyhow?

  Sitting at a rear table at Cantina Lopez, a plate of steaming huevos rancheros in front of her, Samantha Rollings ground her teeth as she watched Maria—at least, she thought it must be Maria, because she was the only other woman she’d seen in the place thus far—moving back and forth in the kitchen.

  She caught the waiter’s sleeve before he could get away, and asked, “Diego, is that the Maria you told me about yesterday? The one who might know where I can find Slocum?”

  “Sí, señorita,” he said. “You wish me to tell her you are here?”

  Samantha played with the little silver ring on her left hand for a moment. “Yes,” she said at last. “I do wish it.”

  She’d find out what was going on, by God!

  Actually, she already had a pretty good idea, judging from the glimpses she’d had of Maria. That Slocum was no better than a tomcat in rut! If tomcats ever came into rut, anyway. She didn’t know.

  The eggs were still sitting before her, untouched, when Maria came out of the kitchen and walked up to her table, smiling.

  “Good morning, miss,” she said in a voice that Samantha would have said was polite and beguiling, had she been in her right mind.

  But seeing that she wasn’t, she heard a voice full of nothing but raw sex, the voice of a barn cat in heat, the voice of a yowling siren who was trying to steal her man.

  “Do you know Slocum?” she asked, straight out.

  “Yes, I know him,” Maria replied and cocked her head curiously. “You are a friend?”

  Samantha snorted. “I should say so.” She fingered the ring again. “Could you tell me where I might find him?”

  Maria’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she said, “Certainly. He is probably at the rancho of Señor MacCorkendale. That is about eight miles east of town. I’m certain they would rent you a buggy at the livery, if you are in a hurry to talk to him. Or you can wait in town. I expect him tonight.”

  She expected him tonight? For some reason, this simple statement nearly threw Samantha into a fit. But she didn’t give in to it. Not now. Not yet, anyway. She forced a smile and said, “I shall wait in town, then.”

  Maria bowed her head and said, “Very well, miss,” then seemed to notice Samantha’s untouched plate. “You do not like my eggs? Perhaps they are too spicy? When Diego told me you were white, I did not use so much salsa.”

  “No,” Samantha said, her voice clipped. She picked up her fork. “They’re just fine.” She cut herself a bite of egg and took it into her mouth. When she bit down, it was as if someone had shoveled a hot coal between her lips, and tears came to her eyes.

  Maria smiled.

  Damn her.

  She said, “Let me get you another plate. With no salsa.”

  “Fine.” The word came out forced and hoarse and was immediately followed by the intake of a half a glass of water.

  Maria slid the plate away and carried it off, and a few minutes later the waiter, Diego, brought her another plate of eggs—this time, with no salsa—with two slices of buttered toast and a little pot of sweet jelly of some sort.

  “Better,” she admitted.

  Diego said, “Bueno, señorita,” and went back to the kitchen.

  The girl was nice enough, Samantha had to admit, and she was a pretty good cook, too, if the eggs were an example. But that didn’t mean she liked her. She didn’t, not one bit.

  She was far too pretty, for one thing. Far too . . . sultry, that was it. Back at the Regal, at Miss Daisy’s, there had been a few Mexican girls working. But they hadn’t been anything like this Maria. They’d been short and pudgy, and mostly as plain as a mud fence.

  Maria was practically glamorous, and in a little dump of a town like this!

  Not only did Samantha not like Maria, she thought she might very easily hate her.

  She gave the ring on her finger a last turn, then finished her eggs. Tossing a few coins on the table, she walked out rather haughtily and made a point of not looking toward the kitchen.

  She’d find somewhere else to eat lunch.

  Slocum rode south, to the border or thereabouts, and then turned Concho west, toward the place Jorgé had said the stand of wood was. He spotted it a long way off, and when he rode closer, he saw that Jorgé had some help: two men—just dots of moving color, really—back in the copse of trees.

  Had Valdez given him and Jorgé the loan of a couple of hands? He’d have to tell MacCorkendale. Maybe it would shame him into doing likewise.

  “Hello the camp!” Slocum shouted as he rode up.

  Jorgé was just coming up from the little woods, fence posts balanced on his shoulders. “Greetings yourself, amigo!” he called back. He deposited the posts in the nearly full wagon bed as Slocum rode up to it and dismounted.

  “You boys have done yourself a mite of work!” Slocum said.

  Jorgé nodded. “Valdez followed me out yesterday, and I had to . . . come clean with him, no?”

  Slocum grinned. “How’d he take it? You cuttin’ the posts from his wood, I mean.”

  “As well as can be expected, I think,” Jorgé said. “He left me two men to help.” He pulled a canteen from under the wagon’s seat, had a long drink, and shrugged. “They are not much help—well, Juan is the best of the two—but they are better than nothing.”

  “Any help’s a good thing,” Slocum said and pulled out his fixings pouch.

  “Sí it is,” Jorgé admitted, and slouched down in the shade of the wagon. He looked up at Slocum and added, “And MacCorkendale? How did he take the news?”

  Slocum finished up rolling his quirley and stuck it between his lips. “Fair,” he said as he struck a match, then lit the smoke. “There’s somethin’ weird goin’ on up there.”

  “At the MacCorkendale ranchero?”

  “Yeah. MacCorkendale acts like he’s got a poker up his butt most of the time, and this morning, his wife kissed me.”

  Jorgé looked at him curiously, waiting for him to go on.

  “Well, she did!” Slocum added. “I don’t know why. Hell, I was only lookin’ at her cook pots.”

  “I must remember this technique.”

  “Oh, very funny, Jorgé,” Slocum grumbled. “You oughta go on the stage, you know that?”

  Jorgé stood up. “Yes, I know. And there is one leaving at noon, no?”

  “Smart-ass,” said Slocum.

  “Yes, amigo,” Jorgé said, smiling, and handed Slocum an ax. “Let us go do some damage to the trees of Señor Valdez.”

  Slocum ground out his smoke and hoisted the ax over his shoulder. “Someday, Jorgé . . .” he grumbled.

  Jorgé slapped him on the back. “Someday never comes, my friend.”

  Together, they walked down toward the trees.

  Jorgé whistled.

  10

  Samantha waited the whole morning, staring out her window at the vacant street and thinking evil thoughts.

  She was able to get a bite of lunch at the hotel’s little restaurant, although the waiter there suggested she eat at Cantina Lopez. When she gave him a dirty look, he’d seated her at a table, then served her an abominable lunch: dry roast beef on stale bread, a horrible, gigantic limp pickle, and for dessert, an orange so wizened and puckered and discolored that she couldn’t bring herself to touch it, let alone eat it.

  When she complained, he’d said, “Not my fault, miss. I told you to go to Cantina Lopez if you wanted good food, but you wouldn’t listen, you had to be stubborn . . .”

  Against her better instincts, she paid for the meal, though she left most of it on her plate. Then she had gone directly back upstairs and shut herself in her room again.

  It was hot and stuffy, made no more bearable by the open window, but at least she could keep her eyes on the cantina from there.

  Her mood alternated between outrage and hurt. She was going to give Slocum an earful when he got back to town, all right!

  But then she’d play with the ring she’d bought herself and felt bad, bad that Slocum had been seduced by that jezebel across the road, then bad that he had forgotten her and their time in Bisbee so quickly, and worse, that he’d forgotten her at all.

  Which would make her mad all over again.

  It was a bitter, relentless cycle, and she was powerless to stop it.

  Maria was a very smart girl in the ways of men. After all, didn’t she serve them liquor and food and scrape them off the floor? Hadn’t she been doing it ever since she could remember?

  And she also thought she was a fairly good judge of character in general.

  She was.

  She had pegged Samantha Rollings right off as one of Slocum’s previous conquests. Maybe one who was just a little bit crazy. Although Maria was wild about Slocum, she also was levelheaded. She knew he was a man—and what a man!—but she also knew this meant something else. He was not perfect, and especially, he was not perfect where women were concerned. He could be taken in as easily as any of them.

  Now, whether Samantha Rollings had taken in Slocum—she seemed to make a big point of drawing attention to that cheap ring on her finger—or whether she was just plain crazy, or something in between remained to be seen.

  In any case, Maria intended to confront Slocum about it the second he walked through the door. She had enough to take care of without having to babysit Slocum’s crazy former girlfriend.

  The kitchen door opened in from the alley, and two giggling, small children ran in. “Tía Maria! Tía Maria!” the little girl cried. “Alberto took my dolly!”

  Alberto looked far too angelic to have stolen anybody’s anything, but Maria turned to him, bent down, and said, “Alberto, is this true?”

  Alberto, all of six, turned those big brown eyes on her and said, “Sí, Tía Maria. But not to be bad. I promise.”

  Consuela, his junior by only a year, folded her chubby arms across her chest and stared down her nose as if to say, I told you so! It was on occasions such as this that Maria was reminded of her sister, and more, her crazy brother-in-law. At least he was absent. At least he had left her sister. He’d probably gotten himself killed by now.

  Live in hope, she thought.

  “Then why?” she asked the boy.

  He looked up with complete innocence and smiled at her. “To make her cry,” he said.