The girl hung her head and slunk away.
Roland wheeled back to face Olaf. “What part of no one is to go near these men did you not understand?”
“I . . . I was tryin’,” Olaf stammered. “But bein’ how it was your . . . I mean, I didn’t . . . I wasn’t sure . . .”
“Well, then let me make it perfectly clear,” Roland said through gritted teeth, “so you can be sure to understand it for the future. No one gets close to these two unless you hear it authorized by me and no one but me! Stop them by whatever means necessary. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely!” Olaf assured him.
Roland stood still for a long moment, nostrils flared, body trembling with barely contained rage. His glare shifted from Olaf to Luke and Eagle, as if he intended to say something to them. But then he didn’t, instead simply stomping off and going back inside his cabin.
During the tense seconds when Roland had been berating Ying-Su and all eyes were on them, Luke had—with a quick, smooth, unseen motion—reached out with one foot and pulled back a broken piece of pitcher that he then covered by extending his right leg over it.
Some time later, after things had settled back down, Luke whispered to Eagle, “Remember, a while back, when you asked if I happened to have any kind of weapon hidden away and I said no, I didn’t?”
“Yeah. All too well. Why?”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up too much, but that might have changed some . . .”
Chapter 42
Parker Dixon arrived at the Gold Button a quarter past two that afternoon. Roland must have had someone on lookout to watch for his approach because, fifteen minutes in advance, a rider came tearing in and went directly to Roland’s cabin. A flurry of activity followed in which the same man left the cabin and hurried to the headquarter buildings of the actual mining operation.
A short time later, Mace Vernon, Hack Ferris, Dr. Carstairs, and two men in dress trousers and gartered shirtsleeves who Luke guessed to be engineers, came marching dutifully to gather in front of the cabin. Roland, decked out in a fresh suit jacket and cravat, stepped out and stood with them. Minutes later, the elder Dixon came riding in at the head of a rather impressive caravan. Mounted next to him was Asa Patton.
Eyes sweeping in a quick assessment, Luke counted two dozen heavily armed outriders, half in front of and half at the rear of three canopied freight wagons with a driver and shotgun guard in the seat of each. In between the second and third freight wagons was a fourth vehicle, more like a beefed up buckboard, with an open bed. It, too, had a driver and shotgun guard and seated on a specially constructed bench behind them rode three tall, bareheaded black men clad in loose-fitting burlap shirts with several rows of beads and ornaments dangling around their necks. And behind them, secured to the wagon bed with heavy ropes as thick as a man’s wrist, were two steel cages draped in thick sheets of canvas that obscured whatever was inside.
Dixon reined his horse to a halt in front of his son and the men standing with him. Patton silently raised a hand and the line of riders and wagons behind them creaked to a stop as well.
“Good afternoon, Father,” greeted Roland. “You made better time than expected.”
“Other than a very blustery night after we camped last evening,” Dixon replied, “we’ve enjoyed fair weather the whole way and encountered nothing to delay us.”
“Yes,” Roland said dryly, “with this formidable entourage, it’s hard to imagine anyone attempting to interfere with you.”
Dixon’s gaze fell on Vernon and the two engineer types who stood expectantly by. “Gentlemen,” he addressed them, “I trust you are prepared to discuss operational issues such as we usually do on my visits, and I assure you we will be getting to such matters in due time. But first”—and here his eyes cut sharply to Luke and Eagle—“I have some long overdue business of another nature that will require my full attention for at least the balance of the day. You may remain and observe if you wish. Otherwise, with the exception of Ferris, you are dismissed until further notice.”
Roland frowned. “But surely, Father, you must first wish to step inside out of the heat for a few minutes and perhaps freshen up? I have your room prepared as you like it and your favorite beverage ready to—”
Dixon cut him off with a wave of the hand. “In good time, son. All in good time.” He swung smoothly down from his mount and Patton followed suit. Dixon motioned Hack Ferris over to him. Holding out his reins, he said, “See to our men and horses. Take the freight wagons and arrange for unloading at the appropriate supply buildings. Then arrange stabling for the horses and show the men to temporary quarters.”
“Yessir,” said Ferris.
“Leave the wagon with the cages and those who go with it here,” Dixon added. “After you’ve set all that in motion, return here with half the men. Give them time for a drink of cold water, nothing stronger. Have them back here in fifteen minutes.”
“Yessir,” Ferris said again.
Patton took a step back toward the men and wagons. Jerking his thumb, he told them, “This is Hack Ferris. You heard what Mr. Dixon said. Go with him, all except those of you attached to the cage wagon, and follow his instructions. Half of you will be coming back in short order.”
Then he also handed his reins to Ferris and stepped back to rejoin Dixon. Ferris waved his free arm and barked orders and those assigned to him followed him off toward the collection of buildings that marked the heart of the mining operation.
As the wagons rumbled and creaked away, Dixon abruptly turned from his son and Patton and strode over to where Luke and Eagle sat in their restraints, silently watching and listening.
Looming over Luke, he gazed down with mock concern and said, “My gracious, Mr. Jensen. Look at the way you’ve let yourself go in just the few days since last we conducted business. Surely the generous advance money I paid you should have afforded you better attire and accommodations than this. What in the world happened?”
“It’s a long story,” Luke grated. “But as you can see, I got your man Eagle. Here he is, a present from me, all wrapped up. So pay me the rest of what you owe me and I’ll be on my way. And this time I’ll promise to try and spend the money more wisely.”
Dixon showed his teeth in a cold smile. “Very amusing. Did you hear that, Eagle? Your apparent new partner just sold you out. What have you got to say about that? You think it might be that pesky half-breed blood working against you again? The way you just can’t seem to get anybody to side with you, no matter what?”
“At least that gives me an excuse,” Eagle responded. “You, if you didn’t have money to buy people, your loyal followers—even your own son—would sooner side with a diseased rat than the likes of you!”
Olaf, who had moved up from the wagon with the other guard posted there, took a menacing step toward Eagle.
Dixon held up a hand, stopping him. “Let him talk. He has such a short time left to pretend he is any longer of consequence, allow him to waste his breath while he still can.”
“It was indeed a stroke of luck to have captured these devils together, Father. But it wasn’t all luck, by any means,” said Roland. “It came at considerable cost to Hack Ferris and his men, and even some of Vernon’s miners that he loaned for the sake of being able to cover a greater expanse of ground. I sincerely hope, the first chance you get, that you take time to acknowledge—”
“Yes, yes,” Dixon cut him off impatiently. “I’m sure that much brave and devoted effort went into achieving success. Although, I must say that it seems about blasted time where this renegade half-breed is concerned. And as for Jensen, I sent him right into your laps. How difficult could that have been?”
“All I can say, sir,” Roland replied in a strained voice, “is that it turned out to be considerably more so than expected.”
“Never mind that.” Dixon made a dismissive sweep of his hand. “The fact they are captured—and together—is what counts. The timing couldn’t be better. And
that fact, above all else, gives me great pleasure and satisfaction. You can fill me in on incidental details during and after the hunt.”
“We’re going to proceed with the hunt right away, sir?” asked Patton.
“What hunt?” said Roland.
Ignoring his son, Dixon addressed Patton, saying, “Why not? On the way in, I pointed out to you the perfect terrain just west of here. We have several hours of daylight left and the dogs have been caged up for days. They should certainly be ready for a good workout, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, when you put it that way, I guess there’s no reason not to,” Patton said, knowing that there’d really been only one correct answer to the question put to him.
“What hunt?” Roland said again.
Still ignoring him, Dixon called and motioned to someone on the remaining wagon. “Ngamba! Come here a moment.”
One of the black men clad in burlap and beads rose up, leaped nimbly from the wagon, and trotted obediently over on bare feet. “Yes, Bwana?”
“The dogs, Ngamba—how soon can they be ready for a hunt?” Dixon asked him.
“Be ready whenever Bwana say,” came the reply, shaded by a faint accent. “After days in cage, dogs welcome a good run.”
Dixon smiled. “Exactly! Start getting the cages uncovered, you and your men. Then stand by, we will soon be giving the hounds a good run indeed.”
As Ngamba headed back to the wagon, promptly issuing orders in a foreign tongue to the other two black men, Dixon turned once more to those gathered about him. “Gentlemen, you will have to indulge me in this. I can understand that what I’m about to engage in may not be everyone’s cup of tea and, in fact, could be quite distasteful to some of you. For me, you must understand, it is the culmination of being able to pay a long overdue debt, to administer a personal vengeance that I for many years thought was impossible. Once I learned this was no longer the case, little else has consumed me as much as finding a way to make it happen and make it happen in a way that would not only even the score but do so in a manner meaningful enough to equal the loathsomeness of the initial act!”
Roland looked on, his expression appearing concerned to the point of being somewhat frightened. “Father, I never saw you act like this way. I don’t understand what this is all about?”
At last Dixon paid some heed to his son. His gaze fell on him with a kind of abrupt gentleness. “No, of course you don’t. I never meant for you to. I never wanted you to know the rage and the aching, unanswered thirst for revenge that I endured for so long. Especially when I felt so impotent to do anything about it. But now that’s all changed. It is time for you to know. You must, it is right here before you. And you will be part of the culmination, the realization of my revenge and you will understand the depth of family honor that must be upheld and, when necessary, done so with blood.”
With Roland now appearing perplexed and perhaps even a little stunned, Dixon stepped over and once more loomed directly over Luke. “And you, you traitorous yellow piece of scum, it is your blood that will be spilled and spilled savagely in order to settle this matter once and for all!”
Chapter 43
Luke peered up at the man standing so menacingly over him and knew he was gazing into the eyes of madness. “Mister,” he grated, “if talk was going to get the job done then I might be feeling worried, because you sure know how to sling words. But so far none of them have wounded me in the slightest, and for all that you’ve babbled on about, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you will. I’m going to make sure of that,” Dixon told him. “This whole exercise would lack impact if no one knew or understood what was behind it.”
Over at the remaining wagon, the three black men were busily loosening and starting to remove the tarps from the cages secured to the bed. From within the cages came the sounds of heavy bodies moving restlessly, accompanied by a few low growls and snarls.
“Colonel Russell Lancaster.” Dixon stated the name with a kind of reverence. “Do you admit knowing someone by that name? Don’t repeat it, I don’t want to hear it spoken on your cur’s tongue. We both know the answer to my question, and given that, you should begin to realize what this is all about.”
Luke knew the name Russell Lancaster. Knew it all too well. His acquaintance with the man went back many years. But the incidents connected to their brief association were as fresh and indelible in Luke’s mind as any he’d ever experienced. They were, in fact, life-altering incidents that had set Luke on the path to the man he was and the life he led today.
“Russell,” Dixon went on, raising his voice for the purpose of informing the others listening and looking on, “was my older brother. Technically, my half brother—but no siblings ever had a closer bond. His father, whose surname Russell kept, died shortly after he was born. When our mother remarried, I was the next issue only two years later. Russell was special in the eyes of everyone, but none more so than me, his little brother. And in turn, he welcomed me tagging after him from the moment I could take my first steps.
“He was marked for great things in his future, everyone could see it. Politics, law, business, industry . . . whatever he set his mind to, it was a certainty he would excel and succeed at the highest level. And I would have been perfectly proud and content to stand always in his shadow.”
Dixon paused for a moment, his voice tightening with emotion, his eyes taking on an intensity that seemed to burn right through Luke and see something far beyond.
“But then,” he continued, “that blasted war came. And Russell, naturally, felt compelled to go and serve the cause. Arrangements could have been made to keep him out of combat, but he wouldn’t have it. In no time at all he was a colonel. Everyone was proud, even in our fear for him. And then, as we learned from details painstakingly pieced together long after the conflict was done, he was placed in command of a very special mission near the very end, just ahead of the fall of Richmond. A last-ditch effort to save the Confederacy by smuggling all the gold out of the city and delivering it to still-fighting forces for the sake of purchasing food and supplies in hopes to sustain.”
“Father,” said Roland, “you never spoke of any of this.”
“It was too painful . . . and pointless,” Dixon murmured distantly. “Most painful of all, as we learned from the information we were eventually able to gather, was the fact that Russell did not fail in his mission at the hands of the enemy. No, it was his own command, his own hand-picked squad of men that caused his demise—traitorous wretches who not only turned on him and killed him but then stole the gold that sealed the fall of the Confederacy!”
Dixon’s eyes came back into focus, a focus of pure hate boring once more straight into Luke. “And leading that murderous pack of filth was none other than this thing—I refuse to call him a man—here before me. Luke Jensen, brave and renowned bounty hunter. All lies! In truth, after for years going by an alias to hide his name and guilt, I now reveal him to you as nothing but a cowardly, conniving, backstabbing murderer and thief of the lowest order!”
Luke could feel the eyes of the other men shift from Dixon to him, most of them instantly filled with a measure of loathing. He knew that mere words weren’t likely to change any minds—especially not Dixon’s—but with his own life as well as Eagle’s clearly on the line, he had to at least try.
“There’s some truth in what you just spewed,” he said, meeting Dixon’s hateful gaze with flinty determination in both his voice and his own glare. “But it’s all distorted by wrong conclusions and your overriding blind hate.”
“You deny you rode under the command of my brother?”
“No. You got that part right. I rode with him under the circumstances you described and was proud to do so, proud to have been selected for that critical mission.”
“Yes,” Dixon sneered. “So proud you betrayed the trust placed in you to help carry it out.”
“That’s not the way it was,” Luke protested hotly. “Only
half our eight-man squad betrayed the mission and gave up on our cause. And that was only after Colonel Lancaster had been killed by enemy fire.” Luke watched Dixon’s face closely. “There’s one of your first big mistakes. No one in our squad murdered your brother. He died fighting bravely when a Union patrol surprised us on some nameless back road near the Georgia border. Had he lived, I’ve always had a hunch our mission would’ve held together. But as it turned out, it wouldn’t have made any difference as far as the war. The truth of the matter was that we’d already lost by the time our mission began.”
“What a convenient rationalization,” Dixon snorted. “Just like your pathetically transparent pretense of applauding my brother’s bravery and leadership skills.”
“I never applauded Lancaster’s leadership style, not as part of a pretense or any other way.” Luke scowled. “Truth to tell, I found him a pompous little weasel. But when he was alive, he did maintain control, I’ll give him that.”
“He maintained control exactly because he was not pompous. He knew how to lead men, that’s all—something a rebellious ruffian like you would never understand or appreciate. Russell had self-assurance and the courage of his convictions!”
Luke sighed wearily, sensing the hopelessness of this exercise. But a Jensen never gave up.
“I already conceded he had courage . . . just not enough to stop a round from a Yankee musket. And after the colonel went down, the rest of the mission started to go to hell pretty quick.”
“You say that as if the mission disintegrated of its own accord. As if no treachery was involved in causing it to happen.”
“No, there was definitely treachery by part of the men. I already said that, too,” Luke responded. “Half of us wanted to continue on and deliver the gold as intended. The other half was ready to give up on what they saw as a lost cause and were primed to desert as rich men with their share of the gold. When four of us stood our ground against that, the other four who wanted to quit convinced us they’d settle for just deserting. We knew we couldn’t trust them but figured we could stay on guard and dodge anything they had in mind long enough to make it to Copperhead Mountain, our destination. Well, we were wrong. They ambushed us, killed everybody but me, and got away with the gold. For a while things worked out pretty good for them. They lived in mighty high style. Until, that is, they got crossways of the wrong hombre and met their own bloody end . . . But then, I expect you already know all that, don’t you?”
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