William Johnstone - Thunder of Eagles

It was bad enough that Seymour owned half of the Standish Dry Goods Company, the company that had been built into a success by Cornelius and his brother, Seymour’s late father. Half of the profits that should have belonged to Cornelius now went into Seymour’s bank account, even though he was no longer here in New Jersey and had resigned his position as a salesman for the company.

The thing that was really goading Standish to take action against Seymour was the way the company was increasing its ties to the criminal element in Trenton and elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. One way to increase business was to make it difficult for your competitors to be successful. If it took beating up deliverymen or artificially inflating freight rates for everyone else or even seeing to it that a fire “accidentally” broke out at a rival company’s warehouse…well, that was just business. A smart man didn’t draw the line at whatever tactics were necessary. The only “line” that mattered was the one that showed a profit or loss in a ledger.

But Seymour—soft, gullible, innocent Seymour—wouldn’t understand that. If he ever found out about the way his uncle had the company branching out into legally questionable enterprises, he would cause a big stink and ruin everything. Cornelius Standish was sure of it.

Therefore, something had to be done about Seymour. Standish had thought that dispatching him to Sweet Apple, Texas, would take care of that. The place had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous settlements on the frontier. Standish had been certain that Seymour wouldn’t last a week there before one of the local badmen gunned him down.

That had almost happened, in fact, but somehow Seymour had survived. Not only survived, but apparently he was thriving in Sweet Apple, as unbelievable as that might be. Those idiots had even made him the town marshal, and now he was regarded as some sort of hero.

That wouldn’t last, Standish had vowed. He would see to that himself, with the help of the three men who now stood before him.

He continued. “Until I’ve had a chance to look the situation over and decide on the best plan of action, the three of you will pretend to be salesman who will be working the western part of Texas for the company. You shouldn’t have to actually sell anything because I don’t expect it to take very long to accomplish our real goal. Now, are all of you in…or not?”

Welch, McCracken, and Stover exchanged glances. They were brutal, uneducated men, but they were experienced enough and had enough natural cunning to know that if they backed out now, after Standish had revealed his plans to them, they would be putting their own lives in danger. Behind Cornelius Standish’s smooth, prosperous veneer was a man who was every bit as ruthless as they were.

“We’re in,” Welch said as he jerked his head in a curt nod. The other two agreed.

“Very well,” Standish said, keeping his face and voice expressionless so he wouldn’t reveal how pleased he was by their decision. “We’ll be leaving for Texas on the eleven o’clock train tomorrow morning.”

With their business concluded, the three men left Standish’s sanctum. When they were gone, Rebecca Jimmerson came in from the outer office. A beautiful young woman with sleek, honey-blond hair, Rebecca was Standish’s secretary—and his mistress. She asked, “Did they agree?”

“Of course. They’ll be well paid, and they know it. I’ll need you to go down to the train station and purchase four tickets on the eleven o’clock westbound.”

Rebecca came over to the desk and perched a trim hip on it so that she could lean closer to Standish. “Why don’t I purchase five tickets,” she suggested, “and make two of them for a sleeper?”

“ You want to go?”

“I’ve never been to Texas,” Rebecca said. “In fact, I’ve never seen anything west of New Jersey.”

Standish shook his head. “From everything I’ve heard, Texas is a horrible place. You wouldn’t like it.”

“I was thinking that when your business was done there, we might go on to San Francisco for a week.” She touched his cheek with soft fingertips and murmured, “Wouldn’t you like to spend a week in San Francisco with me, Cornelius?”

She wasn’t supposed to use his first name when they were in the office like this, but he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her. Not with the way her delicate scent filled his senses and the warmth of her breath brushed his face. Even though he tried not to, he couldn’t help but think about San Francisco and all the things they could do there…

“I suppose it would be all right,” he conceded. “The office can get along without both of us for a while.”

“Of course it can.” She leaned closer and nuzzled his ear. “Thank you, Cornelius.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her onto his lap, and kissed her. After a moment, he drew back and said in a voice that was rough with desire, “Go lock the door.”

“Of course.”

It was dangerous, indulging their passion in the office like this, but Standish didn’t care. He wanted her too badly to hesitate.

And his need was fueled by something else, too, something that filled him with power and made his fleshly appetites even stronger.

That something was the sure and certain knowledge that soon, very soon, his nephew Seymour would be dead.

Chapter Three

Jessica Colton knew she made an appealing picture as she rode along with the wind making her long red hair stream out behind her head. She wore trousers and a man’s shirt and rode astride, even though she knew that scandalized her mother Carolyn. A sidesaddle was fine for cantering through a city park back East; Jessie had done that more than once. But for pure enjoyment, there was nothing like galloping over the West Texas hills and plains, and that required some real riding.

She had ridden out today, the day after the dance in Sweet Apple, to meet Sandy Paxton at the creek that formed part of the boundary between the Double C and Pax ranches. Her father had tried to discourage her from spending so much time with Sandy, but Shad Colton knew better than to forbid his strong-willed daughter to do anything. That would just make Jessie even more determined to do it.

She knew from things Sandy had told her that her father, Esau Paxton, was the same way. Esau didn’t like the two of them being friends, but it was much too late to do anything about that now. Jessie and Sandy had been close companions ever since childhood. They had grown up together, more like sisters than second cousins, and gone away to school together. It was while they were back East that the rift had developed between their families. Neither young woman knew what had caused it, but whatever it was, they didn’t see any reason why it should keep them from being friends.

Jessie came in sight of the creek, which ran roughly north and south, rising in the rugged hills and meandering some twenty miles before finally running into the Rio Grande. Pax lay to the east of the stream, Double C to the west. Both spreads extended on into the hills, past the spring where the creek bubbled to life, and up there the boundary was less well-defined. That didn’t matter much, because all the good graze was down here along the creek. The stream’s banks were dotted with scrubby cottonwood and mesquite trees, as well as the occasional desert willow or oak.

Sandy hadn’t gotten there yet, Jessie saw as she reined to a halt on the bank, in the shade of one of the cottonwoods. They had agreed to meet here this morning so they could talk about everything that had happened at the dance the night before.

Sandy would want to talk about Sam Two Wolves, Jessie thought with a smile. Sandy thought Sam was just about the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the fact that he was half-Cheyenne didn’t bother her. It wasn’t like he was Apache or Comanch’. That would have been different. The Cheyenne weren’t longtime blood enemies of the pioneer families that had settled in West Texas.