the carrot. “Right now I’m not that desperate. In the meantime, I have a message from Alvie Dunne.”
“He might as well get it through his head that he has no ownership in the Last Chance.”
“He realizes that, and he’s ready to give up the piano. Every classy saloon this side of the Mississippi has a piano. You can pick it up tonight from the back of Lee’s store.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You need to pick it up before Lee returns from Dry Creek. You have thirty seconds to decide, then I’m leaving.”
“I want the Bill of Lading.”
I removed it from my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. Longstreet motioned to Squarehead, who was watching us from the bar. He sat his drink down and lumbered over.
“Let’s go, Greig,” said Longstreet. “We have a piano to move.”
* * * *
The wind was moaning around the corner of the building when we entered through the back of the store, and I could feel the first cold breath of winter in the air.
“There’s the piano,” I said. “The crate stays.”
“Looks like she’s shacking up with the Chinaman,” said Greig, looking at the cot.
Longstreet laughed. “I’ve never stood in line behind a Chinaman before.”
I stuck to our plan, refused to let him get under my skin.
“There’s a dolly in the storage room. Out the back door to your left. I expect it back here first thing in the morning.”
“Get it,” said Longstreet to his lacky. He smiled to himself. “Take your time.”
Greig left the room with a smirk on his face. Longstreet drew a bead on the safe and noticed the emerald liquid on top of it. Golden lights from my lantern danced along the rim of the glass.
“Open the safe,” he said.
I set the lantern down on a stack of boxes.
“I don’t have the combination.”
“Don’t play innocent with me, Susan. It’s obvious you’re playing the Chinaman for a fool.” He kept eying the emerald sleeping potion. “Where the hell does Lee get absinthe? I can’t even get a bottle for my private stock.”
“It’s not what you think it is.”
There was a thud and a few sputtered expletives from the adjacent storeroom. Greig wasn’t going down without a struggle.
“You clumsy ox!” I called out. “You break something, your boss pays for it.”
Longstreet wasn’t paying attention. He was transfixed by the enticing green potion…so like liquid emeralds…so like rare absinthe…a man of indulgence, unable to resist temptation. He picked up the sparkling crystal glass and downed the contents in a single swallow. The taste wasn’t what he expected, and he grimaced. My nerves were beginning to fray. Why were the men taking so long? How long before the green stuff kicked in?
“Now you can tell me what you did with Rolf’s gun.”
“What does it matter? You’re through in this town. Your customers liked Izzie. They liked Lupita more than they like you. They finally know you for what you are.”
“I might be through, but I’m not through with you.”
Longstreet reached out and grabbed my hair close to the scalp. I gave a yelp of pain. He forced a bitter-tasting kiss on my lips and started ripping at the buttons of my dress. I jerked my head to the side and bit him sharply on the cheek. He let go of my hair and cocked a fist. I closed my eyes and flinched, but nothing happened.
I looked into his face. The angry light in his eyes had lost focus. Strength wilted from his fist, then his arm, then his entire frame.
“What’s in that…?” he said.
“It’s called Sleep Like Death,” I said.
His tongue thickened. He struggled to catch his breath, but failed. He was allergic to the medication and it was putting him into anaphylactic shock. His eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites were visible. He folded at the knee, hitting his head on the safe as he went down.
Lee burst into the room. He looked at Longstreet lying in a heap on the floor.
“What happened?”
“Sleep Like Death,” I said. “He drank it.”
“What do you mean? It’s only a sedative. Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
Jasper and Alvie dragged Greig’s bloody corpse into the room.
“He put up one hell of a struggle. Even after we got him down, he took a long time to die.”
The men scooped Greig off the floor and struggled him into the piano crate.
“The bastard must have swallowed an anvil,” says Alvie. “I heard something pop in my back.”
He moved aside while Lee and Jasper dumped Longstreet on top of his henchman. A moan was heard as they nailed the lid down tight and loaded the crate beneath the canopy of Jasper’s freight wagon. Alvie jumped on the seat next to Jasper and Lee, and I watched them disappear into the darkness.
Back inside the store, Lee picked up a broom and tapped on the ceiling with the handle. I heard a door open at the top of the interior staircase. Light footfalls descended the stairs. Before my eyes was the most exquisite little creature I’d ever seen, her eyes demurely downcast, long black hair tumbling over her shoulders. She was dressed in white, silk brocade, tiny beaded slippers on her bound feet.
“Susan, I’d like you to meet my thirteen year old niece, White Jade. She was kidnapped from the house of my elder brother in Shantou, China and will be living in the household of Woo Dock and his wife.
* * * *
The next morning, Lee and the Chinese boys delivered the piano to the Last Chance, where Alvie hired an old black piano man who’d panned out on Lost Horse Creek. The Chinese girls were freed and sent off to San Francisco to find suitable husbands. The other girls decided to stay, now that order had been restored.
As soon as Lee and I had a moment to ourselves, we tracked down the preacher and tied the knot. A month later, we were married again in a traditional Chinese ceremony. I had no idea what was being said, but I got the general drift.
* * * *
At high noon, Jasper French pulled his team up next to a 200-foot drop in the badlands of Apache country. Longstreet had been a disruptive pain in the ass, cursing, begging, and kicking the inside of the crate for the last twenty miles, his silver spurs jangling against the wooden interior. Jasper couldn’t really blame him, being stuffed in a hot box with a dead man. He only wished he had the foresight to remove those fancy,
