Lone Star 04 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Teaser chapter

  "KI? WHAT IS IT?”

  “I don’t know,” he snapped. “Gaiter, look out!”

  Jessie turned. Her boot caught a loose board and sent her sprawling. In the smallest part of a second she saw it happen ... the enormous gray shadow sprang past Ki out of the alley. Gaiter stood frozen in the street . . . his hand snaked to his waist and three quick explosions brightened the night. The thing leaped off the ground with a snarl and slammed him in the chest. Gaiter shrieked . . . the creature tore at him, shook its great head.

  “Oh, God!” Jessie’s stomach turned and she quickly looked away. Gaiter’s throat was completely gone. His face was twisted in horror...

  Also in the LONE STAR series

  from Jove

  LONGARM AND THE LONE STAR LEGEND

  LONE STAR ON THE TREACHERY TRAIL

  LONE STAR AND THE OPIUM RUSTLERS

  LONE STAR AND THE BORDER BANDITS

  LONE STAR AND THE UTAH KID

  LONE STAR AND THE LAND GRABBERS

  LONE STAR IN THE TALL TIMBER

  LONE STAR AND THE SHOWDOWNERS

  LONE STAR AND THE HARDROCK PAYOFF

  LONE STAR AND THE RENEGADE COMANCHES

  LONE STAR AND THE KANSAS WOLVES

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with

  the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 1982

  Third printing / April 1983

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1982 by Jove Publications, Inc.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

  by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: Jove Publications, Inc.,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-16888-2

  Jove books are published by Jove Publications, Inc.,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. The words

  “A JOVE BOOK” and the “J” with sunburst are trademarks

  belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  Ki made his way back along the train toward his own compartment. Most of the cars he passed were relatively empty. The few passengers aboard kept to themselves, drowsing in the sultry afternoon or staring straight ahead. There was nothing to see outside, only shimmering waves of heat off the flat Kansas plain. The KP wasn’t getting rich on this trip, which didn’t surprise Ki at all. Anyone who didn’t have to travel would be back home resting in the shade, instead of baking in a fine upholstered oven.

  Sometimes a passenger glanced up and gave him a quick, curious look as he passed. Ki was used to that and ignored it. For the most part, he looked no different from a thousand other young men. His suit was a simple blue-gray tweed cut to fit his lean, wiry frame. He wore a twill cotton shirt the color of a pale winter sky, and a plain shoestring tie. A black Stetson and ankle-length Wellingtons completed his wardrobe.

  Still, there were differences, if you cared to look for them. His hair was straight and hung to the top of his collar. In the light, it had the blue-black cast of a raven’s wing, the sheen of burnished metal. The hair formed a sharp point high in the center of his brow, then swept back abruptly to show the prominent curve of his skull.

  It was the eyes, though, that most often caught a stranger’s attention. They were a deep, penetrating brown, and seemed to have no whites at all. A small fold of skin close to the lids lifted slightly at the corners to show his Oriental heritage. The high, sharp plane of his cheeks and the quick sweep of his jaw completed the image.

  If a man bothered to notice Ki at all, he simply glanced up a moment and looked away. Women, though, let their eyes linger a little longer. Bolder young ladies studied him with open curiosity. The pretty redhead at the end of the car was one of those. She fastened on him the minute he entered the coach, and followed him all the way through. Ki returned the glance but didn’t stop. He was interested, but something else had caught his attention.

  Two men sat together across the aisle from the girl. Just before Ki passed the middle of the car, they stood and walked casually before him out the door to the platform between the two coaches. Ki came instantly alert. To his trained eye, they telegraphed their purpose in a dozen different ways. A swing of the arm, a slight, almost imperceptible tightening around the mouth. To Ki, their bodies betrayed them with every step they took. The lazy, indifferent manner of the pair told him something else entirely—something they didn’t wish him to see.

  Part of this was kime, the subtle hint of power and purpose the samurai learned to sense in another. Part of it was something else that had no name. The enemies Ki sensed here lacked the fire and strength of fighters with honor. There was a vague hint of darkness, a twisting of the soul that told him what the pair were, what they wanted from him.

  Ki left the coach and walked straight for the two. They stood between the swaying cars, blocking his way, making a show of ignoring his presence. They were stocky, hardfaced men, one slightly taller than the other. The tall one wore a Colt Peacemaker under his belt. The other was seemingly unarmed, a fact Ki noted with care.

  “Excuse me,” he said politely. “I am going to the next car, gentlemen.”

  The man with the Colt drew a cheroot out of his vest, then turned to Ki as if he’d suddenly appeared out of the air. “Willie, you see anyone tryin’ to get by?”

  Willie frowned and sniffed the air. “No. But I sure do smell something.” He looked straight at Ki and grinned broadly. “By God. You know what we got here, Karl? We got us a real yellow nigger.”

  Karl tried to look pained. “That’s a Chinaman, son. One of your gen-yoo-wine chinks. Isn’t that right, mister? They call you Ching or Chow or what?”

  Willie sniggered at that, and granted Ki another grin.

  “You’re mistaken,” Ki said gently. “I’m not Chinese. I’m half Caucasian and half Japanese.”

  “Oh, damn, I’m sorry.” Karl looked at Willie and frowned. “See now, we was wrong. He ain’t a chink-chink at all. He’s a Jap-chink.” Willie liked that, too.

  “I would like to pass, please,” said Ki. His breathing was slow and easy, spreading calmness throughout his body. This journey was important to Jessie; he had no wish to call attention to himself or to her with a fight. The pair’s insults meant nothing.

  Karl’s smile suddenly vanished. “You know what?” he said darkly. “I thought chinks was supposed to build railroads. I never heard nothin’ about ‘em ridin’ on them.” His eyes flicked to his friend. “You think maybe Ching here’d be more comfortable closer to the tracks?”

  “I sure think he would,” Willie agreed.

  It was going too far. Ki didn’t want it to go further, but he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting out of it without trouble. The men wanted it to end this way—Ki had known that from the beginning.

  “I would like to get past,” he said once again. “Please.”

  Karl liked that. “How ‘bout please with a little chink dance thrown in?” His fingers edged slowly toward the Colt.

  For the first time, Ki ans
wered the man’s smile. “Would a Japanese step do?”

  “Well, hell, yes it—”

  Ki moved. His left hand came up in a blur, fingers thrust out stiffly. The blow struck the gunman at the base of his throat, just above the collarbone. At the same time, his eyes caught the wicked flash of a blade driving straight at his gut. His right hand was already in motion in the shuto-uchi, the knife-hand strike. A blade for a blade, thought Ki.

  Willie howled and grabbed his shattered wrist. Ki whipped his hand up again and chopped him once across the temple.

  The whole encounter had taken less than two seconds. Neither man was quite unconscious, but both were paralyzed with pain and would give him no trouble. They were alive only because he had used just enough force to put them out of action and avoid injury to himself.

  Now, though, he had the problem of what to do with them. At any moment, someone was likely to come through the door of either car for a breath of air and find him with two men writhing in pain. He could leave them, and go about his business. Which meant they would surely trouble him again. He could call the conductor and have them locked up until the next stop—but that, too, would call attention to Jessie and himself.

  Ki knew the only logical answer was to remove them from the scene. The train was moving at high speed across the flat countryside—which meant they might injure themselves or maybe even break their necks. He stoically accepted the possibility. They had initiated this encounter, and must face the consequences.

  Quickly he went through their pockets, then hefted them up one by one and tossed them over the side. A few moments later he threw their weapons far out over the prairie and straightened his jacket. With any luck at all, everyone aboard would be too bored to glance out their windows and see two stout bodies tumbling by.

  He opened the door to his own coach and walked to Jessie’s compartment, and saw the man sitting beside her. The man said something that amused her, and Jessie laughed. Her green eyes crinkled at the corners, and she tossed a shock of strawberry blonde hair over her shoulders.

  Ki disliked the man instinctively, and knew his feelings were only partly due to the stranger’s easy manner with Jessie. He was a tall, striking man in his early forties, with an aristocaratic nose and and commanding blue-agate eyes. Silver patches brushed the sides of his temples, tinting a full head of curly black hair. The silver was a perfect match for his expensive, dove-gray suit and dark blue shirt. Polished was the word that thrust itself into Ki’s mind. The man was entirely too polished, too smoothly honed, for Ki’s liking.

  Jessie glanced up, saw Ki, and quickly motioned him into the compartment. “Oh, Ki—I’d like you to meet Mr. Torgler. He’s going to Roster, same as we are.”

  “Very pleased to meet you,” said Torgler, in a mellifluous voice Ki had fully expected. He thrust out a strong hand, and Ki grasped it. “Miss Starbuck and I were just passing the time. Devilishly hot, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is,” said Ki. He felt the man’s eyes all over him, and took the opportunity to do some searching of his own. Something was there, but it eluded him for the moment. Torgler was good at hiding what he didn’t want seen—and that in itself told Ki a great deal.

  Torgler stood and nodded at Jessie. “Ma‘am. It’s been a pleasure. I hope your stay in Kansas is most rewarding.”

  “Well, thank you, sir,” smiled Jessie. “I’ve truly enjoyed your company.” Without another look at Ki, he walked quickly out of the compartment and disappeared.

  Ki slid into a seat across from Jessie. Jessie looked at him and raised an inquisitive brow. “Well now. What was all that about?”

  “All what, Jessie?”

  “All right,” she grinned, “don’t go Oriental on me, Ki. You know very well what.”

  Ki shrugged. “I don’t like the man, Jessie.”

  “Didn’t much care for him myself, but I think he’s likely harmless.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why didn’t you like him?”

  Jessie closed one eye in thought. “Oh, he’s a little too ... what? Confident. Sure of himself. Nothing wrong with that, but Mr. Torgler makes too big a thing of it.”

  “Ah,” Ki brightened. “Exactly.”

  Jessie studied him closely. “You’re going somewhere with this, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He quickly related his encounter with the two men between the cars, and what he’d done with them.

  Jessie listened, then let out a sigh. “I don’t think there’s anything else you could’ve done, Ki. And as you say, they brought it on themselves.” She looked past him, squinting into the late afternoon. “And you think maybe there’s a connection, right? That it has something to do with our business?”

  “There’s no way to tell. This is not the first time I’ve had to, ah, explain my Oriental heritage. And there is no reason to connect those two with Torgler. Except a look I didn’t care for. Oh, I did go through their clothing. There was nothing to connect them with our business.”

  “‘Course, if they’re mixed up with our European friends, there wouldn’t be,” Jessie said shortly.

  “No, there wouldn’t.” Ki shook his head. Something about Torgler kept tugging at the back of his mind. Jessie had noticed it too. Ki’s old teacher, Hirata, had put it into words long ago, and now Ki remembered. It is easy to spot a bruise on an apple. But what of the fruit that is rotting from the inside out? That was Torgler—or at least it was Ki’s impression of the man. But again, there was nothing at all Ki could really put his finger on.

  The flat plains of the Kansas heartland flashed by the window, one mile stretching into another. Jessica Starbuck stared at her reflection in the dusty glass and didn’t much like what she saw. Not for the first time, she felt that terrible sense of loneliness, the fear that she had bitten off a great deal more than she could chew. Even the loyal Ki, who in many ways knew her and understood her better than anyone else, could do little to help her at moments like this. He would protect her with his life, use his keen sense of danger and almost frightening talents to guard her from harm. In the end, though, she was alone. She was Jessica Starbuck, her father’s child and heiress to the vast Starbuck holdings. She had inherited both the power of that title and the awesome responsibility that went with it.

  And always, overshadowing all else, was the ever-present specter of those faceless men who would take it all from her—who had ruthlessly murdered her father, and signed her own death warrant at the same time.

  Jessie knew the story well, even those parts not another living soul could recount. She had grown up with a part of it, seen it in her father’s restless eyes, and heard the final chapter only moments before his death. Alex Starbuck had been a maverick from the start, a man who set his own course and knew what he wanted. Many young men had sailed with Commodore Perry to open the door to Japan. Most had served out their time and come back home with only the memory of that exciting adventure in the Orient. Alex Starbuck came home too—but not for long. He liked what he saw in Japan, and returned to learn more about those isles and their people. Later, when he knew what he needed to know, he returned to San Francisco, sought out a group of wealthy men, and made them a proposition. There were fortunes to be made in that newly opened land. He, Alex Starbuck, could deliver valuable import/export contracts with the Japanese. All he needed was money. He was a persuasive young man, and in time, the money came to him.

  Starbuck took another important step in San Francisco. He married a lovely young copper-haired girl named Sarah, a woman who stood by his side all her life as his lover and companion.

  Jessie had fond memories of her childhood in San Francisco—memories of her breathtakingly beautiful mother and the big, handsome man who was her father. Those were years when she was showered with presents from Alex Star buck’s Eastern trips—silks, painted fans, and small ivory boxes with tiny cities and people carved in their sides. Better still, there were stories of fierce, scowling warriors, and s
ecret gardens with exquisite lakes and trees—and still more exquisite ladies posed on delicate bridges, like butterflies on a branch.

  At the time, Jessica was too young to know the rest of the story—that there were others interested in making their fortunes in the Orient, men from wealthy business cartels in Europe. Always on the alert for ways to extend their holdings, they saw such an opportunity in the successful young American. Money was tight in the late 1850s, and Starbuck was overextended. A group of Prussian businessmen approached him with an offer that seemed made in heaven. They needed Alex’s ships for their silk trade, and were willing to sublease them at a staggering profit for Alex. Starbuck, of course, snapped at the offer—and soon learned the reasons behind the generous terms. The Prussians weren’t shipping silks at all. Their cargo was Chinese slaves.

  Alex tried to fight them, but the experienced Europeans were ready for him. They struck out at the Starbuck interests in the Orient and tried to ruin him, using every weapon they could bring to bear—coercion, bribery, and even murder. And Alex Starbuck struck back...

  Jessie sighed and sank back in her seat, listening to the hypnotic rhythm of the rails. From her window she watched the sun falling rapidly over the horizon behind a brilliant array of clouds. The broad, open fields of Kansas seemed greatly out of place with the thoughts that plagued her mind. Sometimes she found it all hard to believe, though she’d heard the tale from her father himself, when Alex Starbuck knew he was dying. It was a terrible, ugly story—nearly impossible to relate to the man himself. Starbuck had fought his enemies from one continent to another. Ships were hijacked and warehouses burned. Treachery was the order of the day, and there were no holds barred. It was a game her father hated, Jessie knew. But he was in it, and there was no getting out.