by Abigail Roux
“Let’s get him out of here,” he murmured to Wash.
Wash had an expression of mixed amusement and vexation on his face, but he must have seen something in Flynn’s eyes because he nodded almost instantly without saying a word. He took Gabriel’s elbow and pointed him toward the door. Gabriel quickly handed off everything he’d been clutching to his chest, depositing it all unceremoniously into Cage’s arms, then he ducked his head again and let Wash lead him from the Emporium.
Cage and Flynn stood together, nonplussed.
Finally, Flynn sighed and turned to look at Cage. “Man should pick out his own hat. Find you one and let’s get before we meet anyone else who wants to kill him.”
Cage glanced over to where Baird had been, but the man was gone. He scanned the Emporium quickly, searching for the dove-gray top hat Baird had been wearing. He shook his head and met Flynn’s eyes worriedly.
“Faster we get to the river, the better off he’ll be,” Flynn said.
Cage nodded jerkily. Flynn took the clothing Gabriel had dumped into Cage’s arms, and then Cage reached out with both cuffed hands to pluck the closest hat from a nearby shelf. It was a brown bowler with a square crown, made of fur felt with hand stitching. It was a fine, expensive hat, and when he put it on, it fit him reasonably well.
“Is it pricey?” Flynn asked as he adjusted the brim.
Cage nodded and winced. They were putting everything on Gabriel’s tab by necessity.
Flynn actually grinned as he clapped Cage on the shoulder. “Good. Go ahead and get two,” he suggested with childish delight, and he headed for the front counter to tally their purchases.
“You want Cage or Rose?” Wash asked Flynn quietly as soon as they’d reached the first of their cabins on the large paddle steamer. One was on the Cabin Deck, which was the second deck up. The other room, the room they were in now, was a floor higher on the Texas Deck and at the very end of the starboard side. The lower cabin was a larger suite, opening up into the main area of the Cabin Deck. The Texas Deck cabin was barely big enough for all of them to stand together, and the door opened up to the outer decks. It did have a small porthole window that looked out on the promenade deck, which didn’t make Flynn feel one bit more comfortable about the tiny space.
Rose had already stretched out on the cot they had caused to be set up, and Cage sat gingerly on the edge at Rose’s hip. Whether he was trying not to tip over the flimsy cot or was self-conscious of where he touched Rose, Flynn didn’t know.
“I’ll take Rose,” Flynn answered grudgingly, looking over them. Flynn knew, on the surface, that it seemed Cage was the easier prisoner to control, and he knew that it would seem that Flynn was giving him to Wash to guard for that reason. But Flynn was afraid of what Rose would say to Wash, more than what he would do to him.
Even with just the one hand, Wash was no leisurely fight. But he was susceptible to a silver tongue and a sad story; he had already proved that in regard to Cage and Rose and their unlikely little burgeoning romance. Rose was a silver-tongued devil if Flynn had ever seen one. And while the silent scout may have had a tale sad enough to win over the hardest of hearts, he certainly wouldn’t be telling it to anyone.
“You want to risk putting him in the dining salon for supper?” Wash asked with a frown.
Flynn shrugged. “I think we can handle anyone who recognizes him.”
Seeing the man in the Emporium had spooked Rose, but the charismatic Englishman had recovered quickly from the incident. He didn’t seem worried now, and so Flynn had brushed the incident aside entirely. Unless they tried it while Rose was in his custody, it was no business of Flynn’s who wanted to kill him. Flynn narrowed his eyes at Rose. He wasn’t worried about the other passengers. If trouble came, it would come from Rose himself.
“I’ll mind my manners, marshals,” Rose crooned, as if he knew what Flynn had been thinking. “We’ll be on the river, after all. I can’t exactly throw myself overboard and doggy paddle to safety.”
“You may not be able to swim it, but just remember you can still be thrown overboard,” Wash warned with a quirk to his lips.
Rose raised one eyebrow and gave Wash a slight bow of his head to acknowledge the threat, his mouth twitching with a smile. To Flynn’s mounting unease, Rose seemed to be enjoying himself more and more as his situation became increasingly difficult to escape. At this rate, the man would be practically giddy once his neck was in a noose.
Cage glanced at Wash and cocked an eyebrow as soon as they shut the cabin door behind them.
“If that man don’t beat the Dutch, huh?” Wash said. “Some men just got guts of iron, I reckon. I’m surprised Flynn ain’t killed him yet.”
Cage smiled. So was he, actually. Gabriel was pushing the already cranky marshal a little too much for Cage’s comfort, but he supposed that was just the kind of man Gabriel was.
“Ain’t ever seen someone poke Flynn like that,” Wash mused. He put his hand gently on the back of Cage’s elbow and led him discreetly down the outer deck toward the grand stairwell all the way near the bow of the boat.
Cage glanced sideways at Wash, inclining his head.
“It’s just this side of amusing,” Wash admitted. He looked at Cage and shook his head, a teasing light entering his eyes. “Don’t you go telling Flynn I said so, though.”
Cage raised his hands and nodded, smiling crookedly. His chains clanked when he lowered his hands again. Cage found himself hoping they didn’t meet any of the other passengers as they made their way down the stairs. Their cabin was a deck below, right across a small corridor from the huge main cabin area and opposite the dining salon, where people would soon be gathered, socializing and playing cards and sipping genteelly at expensive liquors. The large room had struck Cage stupid when he’d first entered it, with its high sweeping ceiling, ornate chandeliers, shining tin tiles on the walls, and plush carpet.
He was wearing the new clothing they’d purchased, the highest quality the store had possessed, all at Gabriel’s insistence. They’d also had time to visit the barber, and he was clean-shaven. His hair had been cut as well, a little too short probably. But at least it wasn’t dirty anymore. He looked like a gentleman, save for the irons on his wrists. He tried to hide them, but it was nearly impossible, and he held his new hat between two fingers, trying to make it cover the chains.
“Found you a nice hat, I hope?” Wash asked as they strolled through the vacant cabin area of the Cabin Deck. “Nice beaver one, maybe?”
Cage smiled fondly at the marshal and nodded. He liked how the marshal always spoke to him as if he might one time respond with more than a nod or shake of his head. It spoke of the man’s eternal optimism.
Cage had found, over the years, that you could hear a lot about a man if you stayed quiet long enough.
Flynn sat staring at Rose after Wash and Cage had left them. He was thinking of all the possible escape routes the dining salon would offer: the unguarded exit and the bank of stained glass windows at the bow. All the people milling about and all the weaponry the other passengers would be carrying. It was a horrifying thought, all of the ways in which Rose could cause trouble. Especially if they were going to have to keep him low-key and unrestrained like the captain had requested.
The captain might just have to be disappointed tonight. Flynn would put Rose in irons if he had to, even if it did cause trouble.
Maybe having food delivered to the room would be the better option, after all.
Rose grinned at him as if he knew what Flynn was thinking. “We could go to dinner early,” he suggested helpfully.
“We’ll go at the time we agreed on.”
Rose merely shrugged and continued to smile. Several minutes later, he shifted and cleared his throat. “You know, if the goal is to draw little to no attention, you may want to go ahead and take these off.” He raised his wrists and clanked his chains noisily.
“And why is that?”
“To give the marks on my wrists time to go a
way,” Rose answered, as if that should be obvious.
Flynn frowned and leaned forward as Rose held out his hands. He was surprised to find the skin beneath the iron rubbed red and even bleeding in places. Flynn hadn’t realized they were so tight. He opened his mouth to say something—an apology for not allowing him to pad the irons with anything—but he couldn’t force the words out as he met Rose’s eyes. He just couldn’t make himself say sorry to the man.
“Give ’em here,” he said gruffly instead, gesturing for Rose’s hands as he extracted the keys from his pocket.
Rose shifted closer to the edge of his cot and draped his hands across the narrow space between them.
Flynn took the chain that attached the two cuffs and pulled it, glancing up at Rose as he placed the key against the first lock.
“One more blow to the head and you’re likely to slobber the rest of your life.”
“I’m well aware,” Rose said wryly.
“I’d take your word for it if you said you won’t try nothing else,” Flynn offered. He may have been taking a foolhardy risk by doing it, but Rose seemed the type to honor his word when he gave it, as odd as that observation seemed to Flynn.
Rose pressed his lips together tightly, obviously mulling over the offer. “I am a man of my word, Marshal Flynn,” he said in a low, smooth voice. Flynn waited with eyebrows raised, and Rose simply smirked at him. “I wouldn’t feel right giving it, in that respect.”
Flynn rolled his eyes and sighed, turning the key and releasing Rose’s hand anyway. He unlocked the second cuff and watched warily as Rose rubbed at his sore wrists.
“I reckon I could allow you to change into something clean,” Flynn mused as he scrutinized Rose. His clothes were still damp from his escapade in the bath, and he looked tattered.
“That would be quite human of you. If you’ll just hand me my bag—”
“I’ll hand you whatever you want out of your bag,” Flynn interrupted sternly. “Your hands ain’t going in that thing where I can’t see ’em.”
“Fair enough,” Rose said with an elegant shrug.
Flynn got up slowly, his eyes never leaving Rose as he opened up the bag and extracted several items of clothing. It was all high-quality fabric, obviously stuffed haphazardly into the bag by someone who had not cared much for Rose or his belongings. The deputies in Junction City had made a quick job of gathering his things.
“If they left me any valuables, I’ll be quite shocked,” Rose murmured with a huff.
Flynn patted down a white linen shirt and then handed it to Rose. He inspected a pair of pinstriped trousers and a black silk vest as well, and finding nothing in the pockets or in the lining, he handed them over. There were no undergarments of any sort to be found.
“That’s low,” Rose grumbled to himself as he disrobed unselfconsciously. “Stealing my underthings. Those were from Paris.”
“I’m sure they were something to write home about.”
Rose snorted at him unhappily and went about putting on his clean clothing. Flynn had to admit the man cut a striking figure once he cleaned himself up, much like Cage. They might turn heads, but it wouldn’t be because they were in irons.
Flynn handed Rose a wool frock coat to top off the attire and the man shrugged into it with a nod of thanks. He patted the lapel pocket and then winced. “My pocket watch is gone.”
“Was it a good one?” Flynn asked, not particularly feeling sorry for the man.
“It was a Howard,” Rose answered, patting the other pockets and frowning. “My grandfather’s. It was . . . it was the only thing I had left of him.”
Flynn was surprised that he looked genuinely upset. He hadn’t thought the man capable of true, honest-to-God feelings.
“Will you check the bottom of the bag?” Rose requested as Flynn pondered him.
Flynn narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but he bent back over the bag to rummage around the loose things at the bottom. He shook his head when he found nothing that felt like a pocket watch.
Rose’s shoulders slumped. Flynn again had the fleeting impression that he might actually harbor real emotions under all his charisma, that he just hid it all away under an infuriating smile.
“Well. Nothing to do about it now, I suppose,” Rose murmured as he adjusted the jacket and smoothed it over.
Flynn slid into his own jacket and fixed his collar, then stared at Rose almost sympathetically for a moment. “Come here,” he said as he stepped forward and took hold of Rose’s necktie. He adjusted it and tied it tighter, straightening it and fixing it with just one glance up into Rose’s eyes as he did it, trying to ignore the flush he could feel rising to his cheeks and the warmth in his belly. He moved back when he was done and nodded in approval.
“Thank you, Marshal,” Rose said, sounding surprised. He stood with his hat in his hands, and he frowned down at it thoughtfully. After being crushed and thrown out the hotel window, then carried all around town in the dog’s mouth, the battered bowler had definitely seen better days. The dog had brought it to him just before they had reached the gangplank to board the ship after their trip to the Emporium, and Flynn had thought both man and mutt were going to cry as they finally parted a second time.
Koda had struck Flynn like he was just doing what he had been told as he sat obediently in the mud, like he was grudgingly following some prearranged plan. The dog, Flynn had realized, bothered him even more than the man did.
“Perhaps I would do better to go without my hat tonight,” Rose murmured as he finally looked up at Flynn and held the hat up for inspection.
Flynn examined the bowler hat, then Rose dubiously. “Good call,” he agreed with a nod at the door. “You’ll do fine. Let’s go.”
They walked side by side down the breezy outer deck toward the grand staircase, Flynn’s hand discreetly resting on his gun the entire way. To his surprise, Rose in no way tried to draw attention to himself as they moved through the sparse crowd. The man kept his head down and kept touching his finger nervously to his hairline, as if wanting to find a hat there. It hit Flynn suddenly that Rose was used to hiding his face in crowds, and that he was probably afraid of being recognized. Perhaps leaving the hat behind hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
“You’re looking a might all-overish there, Rose,” Flynn murmured to him as the brisk wind off the river caught at their clothing and tugged at the tails of their jackets. Flynn stopped and took in a deep breath of the river air. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant smell.
“I don’t like crowds, Marshal,” Rose responded irritably. He sniffed at the air and winced. “Ah, the aroma of river mud.”
Flynn nodded and smirked. They turned around the curved bow of the ship and headed down the grand staircase, which fed them right into the main cabin. It was a beautiful boat, with all the luxuries you could want while traveling down the river. Flynn wished they could take the riverboat back to St. Louis on the return trip, just him and Wash together. It would be quite a treat to experience all this with his friend instead of the annoying outlaw he was escorting.
They cut through small groups of milling, chatting people. The ladies and children, what few there were, were all impeccably dressed and done up, flounces and lace and umbrellas galore. Every one of them could have been going to the highest of society functions. The men were a different matter altogether. Some were dressed in fancy clothes, like Rose. Others wore a more traditional, less impressive suit, like Flynn. And some of the men were in working clothes, still dusty from the trails as they chatted politely with the womenfolk. It was a typical scene, one Flynn had heard many a tenderfoot remark on. Apparently, west of the Mississippi was the only place a man wasn’t judged by his clothes alone.
Even knowing this, Flynn was glad they had thought to outfit Cage in more traditional clothing. The homemade oilskins would have looked too close to a savage’s attire for the comfort of inexperienced or uninformed passengers. The days of the mountain men lumbering around in their oilskins were long gone
. The oddity would have drawn far too much attention to their group for Flynn’s peace of mind.
As Flynn observed their fellow passengers, a man passed by them and bumped hard into Rose’s shoulder, sending him off-balance and falling into Flynn. Flynn’s hand tightened on his gun, immediately thinking it a ploy of Rose’s to try to escape again. But Rose merely righted himself with a hand on Flynn’s shoulder and turned to the man who’d nearly knocked him over.
“Pardon me,” Rose offered politely to the man, who went on his way with only a cursory glance at Rose. Rose faced Flynn and shrugged. “Ruffians,” he said with sarcastic relish.
Flynn watched the stranger go, then shrugged as well when he met Rose’s eyes. “Some of these folks been drinking since they boarded. Might do well to stay to the shadows, hmm?”
“For once we agree,” Rose said, looking around uncomfortably.
Flynn caught sight of Wash and Cage waiting at the entrance to the dining salon behind the base of the grand stairs, and he discreetly took Rose’s elbow and led him onward.
He smiled at Wash as they approached and received one of Wash’s crooked grins in return. It wasn’t the first time in his life he’d been struck by how well Wash cleaned up. Or by what a good-looking man Cage had turned out to be. He immediately pushed back the thoughts and cleared his throat as they drew closer.
The two marshals and their prisoners converged at the entrance to the salon, and Flynn could hear the laughter, chatter, and music playing from within.
“Shall we?” Wash asked cheerfully.
“I want it understood,” Flynn said to the two prisoners sternly. “The first sign of trouble and you’re being dragged out of there unconscious. Got it?”