*
Archie and Adelia sat in the wood-paneled main lounge of the Sturgess Queen. Adelia’s feet rested on a low, claw-footed stool. A glass of ice water sweated in her hand.
“They sure know how to treat a pregnant girl, eh?” She grinned over her glass at Archie, who sat in a wide wicker-backed armchair opposite her, turning the feral bull’s tusk over and over in her hands.
“Why are you worried?” Adelia asked. “The worst thing that happens is they try to kill us.”
Archie continued worrying at the tusk. She muttered something under her breath.
“Que?”
“I said,” Archie replied deliberately, “that I’m not sure it’s them I’m worried about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they knew that we would be getting to the Gate today. They knew ’ow many of us to expect. They ’ad exactly six spots in the paddock, one for each ’ippo. And they ’ad enough rooms set aside for six people, which means they knew about . . . about Neville.”
“So?”
“So,” Archie said, her hands going still, “I think that someone told them about us. I think that someone told them what route we would be taking. I think—”
“What’s all this about?” Hero said, striding into the lounge.
“Archie thinks that we have a spy in our midst,” Adelia said with a crooked grin. Hero looked sharply at Archie.
“A spy?”
“Oui,” Archie replied, her brows high. “I inspected the Gate while ’oundstooth was talking to that ’illbilly ranger. It was sturdy, intact, no recent welding that I could see. And we all know that a ’ippo isn’t going to reach higher ramming speeds overland than in the water.”
“What’s your point, Archie?” Hero asked, not unkindly.
“My point is: if the Gate was not broken, then ’ow exactly did a single feral bull escape the Harriet and find us? Just the one? Not enough for us to notice and change course? I’ll tell you how: Monsieur Travers snapped ’is fingers, and that guard let it out. I’d guess that ’appened on the same day we ’it the road. The only question is, who was gone long enough to send a telegram?”
Adelia, Archie, and Hero looked at each other. None of them wanted to be the first to speak.
The doors to the lounge swung open, and Houndstooth strode in briskly. “Well! Why the long faces, you three? And where’s Calhoun?”
Adelia rattled the ice in her glass. “I’d imagine ’e’s at the blackjack tables,” she said, plucking out an ice cube and pressing it to her neck. “Ay, it’s too hot.”
“You alright, Adelia?” Hero asked.
“Si, si, it’s just—nobody ever told me that having a little girl would make me so hot all the time!”
Houndstooth, being a gentleman, said nothing; he kept his eyes averted from Adelia’s ripe belly. Hero, having no such compunctions, laughed heartily. “Get used to it, ma’am. We have a saying where I’m from—boys will make you cry, but girls? Girls will make you sweat.”
*
The lamps that lit the riverboat inside and out had come on by the time Archie found Cal on the casino floor. He swayed gently on his stool, and it was readily apparent that bourbon, rather than the rocking rhythm of the boat, was what moved him. Archie pulled up a stool beside him and mentally tallied the cash that rested in stacks on his side of the felt.
“’Ow are you doing, there, mon ami?” she asked softly. Cal swung his head around to her and grinned broadly. Blood was seeping through the bandage over his left ear. He had two toothpicks in his mouth. One was fresh; the other was chewed nearly to splinters, as though he’d forgotten to discard the old one.
“Archie! Or should I say, Regina?” He leered as he said her name, and she thought she could guess what pun he thought he was making.
“Actually, cherie, it’s Regina. Rhymes with Pasadena.”
His leer dissolved, and he became morose so quickly that Archie feared he would fall off his stool.
“You know Pasadena, oui, Calhoun? That is where you met our Adelia—on a supply trip for Mr. ’oundstooth, was it not? A decade ago, oui?”
“I don’t wanna talk about Adelia,” Cal slurred. “I miss Adelia so—” He hiccupped. “—so much, and I don’t wanna talk about her. She won’—she won’ even talk to me about the baby, Regina. After what I did for her? She came back to me and then, and then she left, an’—I don’t wanna talk about her, no, no thank you.”
“Ah, of course, of course—” Cal interrupted Archie before she could finish agreeing not to talk about Adelia.
“I met ’er in Pasadena, you know,” he said, having already apparently forgotten that Archie had said just that a few moments before. “I met ’er there and I loved—I loved her right away. I was so nice to her, but she just wouldn’t even lookuhme.” He slapped the table with the palm of his hand. “Wouldn’t go home with a ranch hand, no sir. Too good for that!” His too-loud voice suddenly wobbled. “Too good for me. But I showed her, I did everything he asked me to do and then some—”
Other patrons of the Sturgess Queen’s bar were starting to stare. Archie put a hand on Cal’s elbow. “Perhaps we should get you to bed, non? It would appear that you are winning. Best to quit while you are ahead, is it not?”
Cal shook his finger at her, squinting. “Not yet,” he said in a stage whisper. “Not yet. I’m not done yet.” He turned back to the dealer, who had observed this exchange with the removed patience of experience, and slapped the felt hard enough that one of his stacks of cash fell over. He left his hand where it lay, and his gaze swam up to meet the dealer’s eyes. “Himme.”
The dealer did as he was told, and Archie saw at once that she should not have allowed Cal to touch the table.
“Twenty-one. Again. Excellent, Mr. Hotchkiss.” The dealer smiled at Cal, but his smile did not extend to his eyes. He moved his hand as though to shift more cash to Cal’s side of the table, but at the last moment, he seized Cal’s wrist instead.
Archie sprang from her stool, her hand going automatically to her empty holster, as the dealer gripped Cal’s wrist and waved his other hand in a signal. Mr. Travers appeared as though from thin air, his hands clasped soberly behind his back.
“Well now, Mr. Hotchkiss. What have you been up to?”
The dealer lifted Cal’s hand, revealing a single card underneath it.
“This is the fourth card he’s swapped, Mr. Travers, sir. I wasn’t sure at first, but, well.” The dealer smiled at the small army of empty highball glasses that littered the table. “He got sloppy.”