Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Online Free PDF

peeled. One might get the poisonous layer capable of causing great damage. Garrett had evidently just found the murderous layer that no one ever wanted to touch.
    Levi snarled, “Don’t you ever. Ever. Mention that subject to me again.”
    Garrett exhaled and paced about again. Now he really didn’t want to ask about the tattoo, either. He had heard, through non-trancelike channels, that Levi had previously been the agent at Standing Rock Agency, but Sioux men didn’t tattoo themselves. So he must’ve gotten the tattoo in Chicago. “All right. Then why don’t we discuss what this Paddy fellow says about Caeser’s death?”
    That was a good move for Garrett to make. Levi visibly relaxed and went to the table to shuffle Shady’s papers around. “Yes. It appears that Shady has absconded with, or sold, all of the supplies meant for the Indians. I was expecting to find a whole storehouse full of sugar, ketchup, and”—he rattled another piece of paper and frowned at it—“skunk skins, and all I apparently have left to give the Indians is a sausage grinder.”
    “Yes,” Garrett agreed. “Shady used to say the position of agent at Fort Sanders was worth four thousand a year. I know his salary was only fifteen hundred. I’d like to help you find Shady. I can speak Lakota passably and used to interpret for Shady all the time. The post commander will give me leave.” He paused. “Shady also made off with something valuable to me.”
    Levi raised his eyebrows at Garrett, but thanks to the incident about Liberty Hudson and the tattoo, Garrett knew Levi wouldn’t ask him about it.
    “All right,” said Levi warmly. “But where do we find Shady and this Moses shit sack? All your letter said was that we’d find Caeser’s body under a rock with a pine tree sticking out of it. There must be a thousand of those. And what was that about a cactus?”
    Garrett read from Paddy’s letter. “‘Go to the cactus in Laramie where they eat.’”
    “Does that have any meaning to you?”
    “None at all. There’s a sort of cactus the Sioux peel and toast to eat, that’s all I know. White people call it whiskey-root.”
    “Maybe you can go into a trance again and find out.”
    “That would be a good idea. But I have no idea how I managed to do it the first time. So how can I do it again? How did the people in the books you read bring it on?”
    Levi looked thoughtful. He was an extremely handsome man, especially when looking thoughtful, and it was a pleasure just to gaze upon him. Garrett wanted to know everything there was to know about this man, maybe because their fates were obviously intertwined. “I think it was usually a surprise the first time, but they trained themselves to manage it, to induce it at their whim. Maybe you could sit where you sat the first time, to recreate the conditions.”
    Garrett grinned, knowing that he, too, looked exceptionally handsome when smiling, with his even, white teeth. “I’ll try. First, I’m going to Lieutenant Colonel Potter’s headquarters, to ask about leave.”
    Levi nodded. “Let me come with you to introduce myself, and you can show me the storehouse. I certainly hope old Shady left a mattress, so I have something to sleep on.”
    “Or maybe a few skunk skins,” Garrett said.

Chapter Four
     
    “Welcome to the Cactus Club.”
    The Cactus Club wasn’t much of a club yet. Right now, it was just an enormous barn with tables and chairs and a long sideboard where Liberty ladled out stew for voracious townspeople. Neil Tempest’s partner Harley was overseeing the building of it, and when complete, it would have a soda fountain and fans. But for now, lines of starving and roostered brawlers came to put some food in their stomachs—and on their shirtfronts, shoes, and other men’s heads, sometimes. The only other restaurant in town, the Belle of the West, had become glutted with diners since the train’s arrival, so Harley had asked Liberty to help at the Cactus. She