High and Wild by Peter Brandvold

punctuated the saucy rebuke with a slightly chilly smile. “Now, then, Mr. Pinkerton,” she said, turning to their employer, who sat smiling in toothy awe at the girl, “won’t you tell us why we’re here so we can both get to work on the task at hand?”
    Pinkerton slid his gaze from the girl to Haskell. The big detective thought the head honcho would fairly burst at the seams of his tailored suit in fatherly pride at his impudent female operative. He gave Haskell an “Ain’t she somethin’?” wink and then gestured at the visitor’s chair to the left of the prettier of his two agents.
    When Haskell had slacked into the chair, Pinkerton sat down in the high-backed swivel chair behind his desk and with both fine-boned hands smoothed his thin, gray-flecked brown hair back from his pronounced widow’s peak. “Now, then, Miss York is right. It is time to get down to brass tacks, though let me just say, Bear, that the president sends his appreciation for the accomplishment of your last assignment. He and Mrs. Johnson are both very happy to have their niece back in the safe hands of her husband. And before I forget . . .”
    Pinkerton removed a paperboard box from a drawer and slid it across the table to his prized agent with a wink. “While I do not normally give out bonuses, you will, however, find a few extra Cleopatras in there, along with a check for your standard salary.”
    â€œA few extra of these little babies,” Haskell said, having dipped a hand into the box and plucked out one of the long, fat, butterscotch-colored stogies, “is all the bonus I need, Allan. You know that.”
    He smiled as he ran the aromatic stogie, smelling like a mouthwatering amalgam of licorice, chili peppers, molasses, and brandy, beneath his nose.
    On the band, as on the top of the box, was a gold engraving of the sultry, long-lashed Egyptian queen herself in full headdress, with “Federal” written in flowing black script on the tiny banner beneath it.
    Miss York gave him a skeptical glance. “You get paid in cigars?”
    â€œOnly partly,” Pinkerton interjected.
    Bear said, “Not just any cigar, Miss York. But Cleopatra Federales. Hand-rolled in Cuba and infused with the finest cognac in the world. Dang near thirty dollars a box.”
    â€œForty,” Pinkerton growled.
    â€œHmmm,” said Miss York. “You don’t look like the type of man who could appreciate such finery. Uh, no offense, Mr. Haskell.”
    â€œNone taken,” Bear said, returning the stogie to the box and setting the box on the edge of Pinkerton’s desk. He gave Miss York a faintly caustic smile. Somehow, being insulted by this girl, unlike any other he’d yet known, was giving him a boner. He adjusted his position in the chair to try to relieve the discomfort. “And it’s Bear, if ya please.”
    â€œOf course,” she said primly, returning his smile with an equally ironic one of her own. Did he just imagine that she’d flicked her glance to his crotch? Did she know the effect she was having on him?
    Christ, this was no time to imagine the girl writhing around beneath him, half in and half out of those widow’s weeds, hammering his buttocks with the heels of her shoes . . .
    â€œNow, then, Boss,” Bear said, turning to Pinkerton with what he hoped was an imperceptible wince. “You were saying about the assignment . . . ?”

6

    P inkerton leaned forward, crossed his hands on his tidy, hide-covered desk, gave each of his two detectives a grave, authoritative look, and said, “The Pinkerton Agency has been hired by the family of one Malcolm Briar of Chicago, Illinois, to locate Mr. Briar, who was last seen in the Colorado mining town of Wendigo, up in what has become known as the Ute District of gold and silver mines in the western Sawatch Range.”
    â€œSouth of Leadville,”