“There’s no call for us to waste bullets on each other,” Deke called. He shifted the truce flag to his left hand.
“He’s getting ready to go for his piece when he gets close enough to see us. So’s Zeke.” Luke felt empty inside. The end of the trail had come too soon for him. He glanced at Marta. For the Pinkerton agent, too. The bounty hunters had figured out they had to make a move now, dangerous as it was, or they’d lose their horses.
Luke looked around for a rock to throw. That was as close to retaliation as he could get. Zeke and Deke would walk right up and gun them down. He wished Marta used this slow advance to get away while it was still possible. If the gunmen got much closer, they’d have a clear field of fire.
“I know,” she said. “Wait. Keep down and wait.”
Luke called out, “Do the right thing and put the horse out of its agony. You shot it, you should put it down.”
The men exchanged another quick whisper.
“I’m not wasting my ammunition. It’s your horse. We’ll let you come out so you can do the right thing. Or are you out of ammunition? You trying to make us run out, too?” Zeke took a couple steps closer.
“They’ve guessed we don’t have any way of stopping them,” Marta said. “I’ve got one shot. One shot.” She muttered over and over that she had one shot. Luke had no idea how winging one of the bounty hunters helped them. The remaining one would rush them.
He saw he had been right about Deke being wounded, but compared with the hole in his own butt, the other man was unscathed.
“This is it. Get ready,” Marta said softly. She settled down and called, “You two no-accounts. Don’t come any closer. You stop right there! I’m warning you!”
Deke and Zeke looked at each other, grinned, tossed aside the bandanna, drew their guns and started toward their victims.
Luke wondered at Marta. She counted backward from five. When she got to one, she pulled the trigger.
The report made Luke cringe. The explosion that came almost instantly after deafened him. A shower of dirt and rock cascaded down over him, blinding him. He sucked in a mouthful of dust and choked. Through ringing ears he heard Marta shout, “Get ’em now. It’s our only chance.”
She swarmed over the saddlebags she had used as a bulwark. Luke tried to follow as she ran hard toward the crater dug in the ground by the explosion, but his leg refused to work right. He began dragging it behind him, using both hands to pull it forward. Pain shot the length of his leg, but he ignored it to keep moving after Marta.
He came to the edge of a shallow crater. At one side lay her dead horse, put out of its pain by the explosion. He hobbled forward through the settling dust and bumped into the Pinkerton agent. She shoved something into his hands.
He fumbled and almost dropped a pair of six-shooters. It took a few seconds to realize she had stripped the guns from Deke and Zeke. Luke held one in each hand, then limped forward to where the men lay sprawled on their backs, staring up into the sky. They moaned and thrashed about weakly.
Luke trained the six-guns on their former owners.
“Don’t move, either of you. Nothing’d give me more pleasure than to shoot you.”
Marta worked to relieve them of their gun belts and the bullets carried there. She performed a quick search and tossed aside a couple knives. Only when she assured herself they were stripped of weapons did she step back.
“I’ve got handcuffs in my saddlebags. Keep them covered, Mister Hadley.”
Luke felt giddy. Whether it came from the sudden reversal of fortune or the loss of blood hardly mattered. He was strong enough to pull the triggers if either man moved a muscle. It might have been an hour or only a minute but Marta Shearing returned with her shackles. The sharp metal click as she fastened them brought Luke back from wherever he’d drifted to.
“Let me have this one.” She tugged harder to get him to release the pistol he held in his left hand. He finally relented. She whispered in his ear, “You go on over to the stream. I’ll get you patched up as soon as I secure these two, so they don’t go running away.”
He nodded. He understood her but other concerns bubbled up that seemed more important.
“What blew up? What—?”
“I had a couple sticks of dynamite and used my last bullet to detonate it. Now go. To the stream. Get those jeans off.”
“Been a while since a woman said that to me.”
Luke wondered why she laughed. He hadn’t realized he was joking. Dragging his gimpy leg behind, he started hobbling toward the gentle sounds of a running stream. Not even sitting in the icy water brought him back to full consciousness, but feeling the woman’s fingers fumbling to undress him came close.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A BUG TRYING TO crawl up his nose woke Luke. He batted at it, missed, then sneezed. That sent the offending insect sailing. He wiped his nose off on his sleeve. Then memories flooded him. He sat up and immediately regretted it. All his weight pressed down on his rear end. Pain shot through his loins and up into his side.
“Stay flat. You must hurt all over.”
“Felt worse,” he said, and he had. Collecting shrapnel in the chest had been bad, but having Crazy Water Benedict try to murder him had been worse.
Now there was pain, but not the horrific view of a man destroying a future.
Luke eased onto his right side and stared at Marta Shearing. She went about fixing a meal. It didn’t smell like much, but Luke’s grumbling belly wasn’t in the mood for fancy food with French names he couldn’t pronounce. Anything he kept down would be the best meal ever.
She sat on a low rock, giving him a view of her profile. She wasn’t the loveliest woman he’d ever seen. That had to be Audrey, but Marta was far from ugly. He saw a few scars on her right cheek. She turned to face him and he saw the tiny pink lines that showed up on both cheeks.
“Knives,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “I get into knife fights a lot.”
He shook his head.
“The scars are from something else.”
She took a deep breath, her breasts rising and falling under her blouse and the tan duster she wore open in the front. She dished out some of the stew she’d been poking at and brought it to him. He started to use his fingers to eat but she stopped him. Fishing around in her gear, she found a spoon.
“Thanks.” He took a deep whiff. “Smells good.”
“It’ll go down better with a couple of these.” She popped a pair of biscuits from a pan and dropped them on his plate. He gobbled down the food as if he hadn’t eaten in a month of Sundays.
When she handed him a second helping, she said, “It was my first case working for Allan. Allan Pinkerton. And yes, I know him, I’ve worked with him personally on more than one case. And yes, he’s a master of disguises. He taught me how to fade from sight without trying. When I put on a real disguise, I become someone entirely different.”
“It’s hard to add height to a disguise.” He watched her reaction over the top of his plate. He pushed what remained of his second biscuit to mop up the juice. She silently took the plate and refilled it.
“You’re right. You’ve got a good eye.”
“How’s that?” He stopped shoveling the food in. His belly began to ache from too much food too soon rather than the quality. It felt good aching somewhere other than in his butt or side.
“It’s hard to look taller, but I know ways. And you’re right. The scars aren’t from knife fights. My first case didn’t go well. A counterfeiter caught me and tortured me to find out what Allan knew about the operation.”
“You kept quiet, right?”
“I sang like a canary. He used a heated nail to mark up my face. I held out for almost an hour. It seemed like a century. But I told him everything he wanted to know.” She smiled crookedly. “It turned out Allan expected me to spill the beans and had
set a trap. The counterfeiter fell into it and the Secret Service caught him and stopped the flood of phony money throughout Chicago.”
“So you helped catch the crook.”
Marta laughed at this.
“For a man on a mission to exact vengeance, you are an optimistic cuss. I suppose you could say I helped catch the counterfeiter. All it did was extend my apprenticeship for another six months.”
“How long have you worked for Pinkerton?” He pushed himself up and found a way to sit that didn’t make him dizzy with pain.
“Four years now. I wanted to be a schoolteacher, but this suits me better. When I level a gun, I can use it. Killing a schoolroom full of misbehaving kids, as gratifying as that would be when they acted up, is frowned on in most places. Shooting a bank robber or killer wins approval of a job well done.”
“And a reward.”
“Pinkerton doesn’t accept rewards for its agents. That’s all right. I get paid well. And I get to shoot outlaws.”
Luke pulled himself upright and looked around. His hand went to the pistol resting on the ground beside him.
“Don’t get your dander up. Zeke and Deke are chained securely.”
For the first time Luke noticed his pants were different. Momentarily panicked, he hunted for his coat with the gold dust sewn into the piping. He grabbed it from where it had been thrown over a log and pulled it to him. Quick strokes along the sides assured him the gold dust that financed his hunt for Audrey hadn’t been touched.
“You might toss away that coat of yours. It’s worse for wear and tear. As hard as it is to believe, Deke had a better one. I reckon bounty hunters have to present themselves as successful.”
Luke laughed. Both men had been on the trail too long and had not bothered bathing. Telling what color their coats were under the heavy layers of dust challenged the eye of even the best artist.
“How much money did they have on them?”
“Not much. You claiming it as your due for getting shot?” Marta scrounged through her saddlebags and pulled out a leather pouch. “There’s close to ten dollars here.”
“You ought to keep it as your doctoring fee. You patched me up real good.”
“I ought to keep it because I had to get your jeans off you.”
“I can see that would be a chore.” He tried not to blush thinking about it. Sometimes it was better to be unconscious. Then he started to consider what it would be like if he hadn’t been shot and she . . .
“It was quite an undertaking, the way the blood caked onto the cloth and glued it to your flesh. I looked for a fillet knife, thinking to skin you. It was easier letting you soak in the stream until the dried blood washed away.” The smirk on her face irritated him.
“I’m not used to such treatment.”
“Don’t you have any sisters? I’ve got four younger brothers. When Ma got the grippe I had to ride herd on them. The oldest was ten.” She turned pensive. “Ma died. Pa remarried a year later, but by then I was the woman my brothers looked to for everything.”
“That was a burden, but I’m sure you did it well.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“Not at all! I can’t see you doing anything you’re not good at.”
She snorted and shook her head.
“You don’t know me or you wouldn’t say that. And it looks as if I don’t mean getting caught and tortured to spill my guts was a learning experience.” She looked mad at herself for revealing even that small detail about herself.
“Sorry. I promise never to bring it up or tell anyone. My lips are sealed.” Luke worked his way to standing, using the cottonwood for support. He took a tentative step. White pain flashed through him like he’d been hit by lightning. The second step wasn’t as bad. In a few minutes he found the right gait to keep the agony at a minimum. He wasn’t going to run any footraces but walking no longer stymied him.
While he practiced walking, she cleaned the plates in the stream and packed away the gear.
“You up to riding? We’ve got both their horses and the one you rode in on.” She snorted again. This time it told him she thought little of the plow horse. He took offense at her attitude.
“It got me here, and it’s the best choice for me getting on. It’s got a steady gait and is gentle.”
“You’re not giving up on finding the bank robbers? I need to know what’s driving you so hard to get Rhoades.”
“And Crazy Water Benedict.” Luke haltingly related his wedding day and how he felt in his gut that Audrey was still alive.
“You’re just saying that to give yourself a reason to find the gang. You want to kill Benedict and Rhoades. If you’re honest with yourself, you know they wouldn’t have kept your wife alive all these months. Considering the moral character of the gents in that gang, she’s better off dead.”
“She’s alive. I know it.”
“Do you believe in Pecos Bill, too? And Paul Bunyon’s big blue ox?”
Anger filled him. He began gathering his gear. Strapping on his six-shooter proved uncomfortable until he twisted it around so it rode a bit in front. He rested his hand on his left buttock. Marta had done a good job sewing him up, but riding would be the next challenge.
“Did you take all their clothes?”
“Deke and Zeke? I stripped them down to their long johns and tied them to a tree a dozen yards in that direction.” She pointed back toward the clearing where the shallow crater stretched as a reminder of the deadly fight there. “They’ll get free eventually, but without horses and boots they won’t travel too fast. Why do you ask?”
He showed her by putting on a second pair of jeans. The added padding helped. Folding a shirt and putting it between him and the saddle acted like a thin pillow. Every move came slowly, but he didn’t cry out in pain. He was ready to get back on the trail of the robbers.
“I’ve got two horses and can travel like the wind,” she said. Marta brushed her brown hair back and trapped it under her floppy-brimmed hat. With a jump, she got up into the saddle. “You just head in some other direction and let me bring Rhoades to justice. I know you’ve got a bur under your saddle, and with good reason, but you’re in no condition to fight it out.”
“You thought I wasn’t in any condition before I got shot. It doesn’t matter what you think.” Luke slid his boot in the stirrup, tested the muscles needed to mount and found them lacking. He gripped the saddle horn and pulled himself up, hardly using the muscles in his left side. Settling down, he vowed to keep pace with Marta Shearing, no matter what it cost him. He felt fine now but a few miles on horseback changed that, even when he wasn’t all shot up.
“Real Pinkerton agents are trained. Because you had a fake badge in no way qualifies you to chase down men as vicious as Rollie Rhoades.”
Reflexively, he put his hand in his pocket. His fingers traced over the tin badge there. Marta hadn’t noticed it when she took off his coat to tend his wounds. She might be right that it was bogus, but it made him feel as if he was on the right side of the law. After the wedding massacre, he had felt lower than a snake’s belly and unable to cope with simply living. During his recovery, he had read a few dime novels about Allan Pinkerton’s exploits and how everyone looked up to him. Carrying a Pinkerton badge was just the thing to bolster his own confidence and open doors to information people normally wouldn’t give up to a stranger. So far, the fake tin star had worked its special magic for him. That was something she couldn’t understand because she was a real agent, trained and ordered by her boss to bring in the gang leader.
He took his hand out of his pocket and settled the reins in his left hand. The horse refused to budge. Gingerly, he tapped his heels into the plow horse’s flanks. It looked back at him. The way its ears flicked caused him to sit straighter and use his own senses.
“Riders,” he said. “The horse felt the hoofbeats through t
he ground, but I hear them coming.”
“They’re not riding fast. That means they’re following our trail—or yours and the bounty hunters’. Come on.”
“What about Deke and Zeke?”
“They’ll talk their way out of anything Marshal Wilkes throws their way. If they don’t, then good riddance. They’re both scoundrels.” She snapped the reins and set off at a brisk walk.
Luke was hard-pressed to keep up with her. They splashed into the stream and followed it for a quarter mile until the sounds of the posse finding the two bound men behind them echoed over the rush of water. Marta urged her horses up a steep slope and onto a level area. Luke followed with more difficulty. When he came to a halt beside her, his heart sank. Rolling hills gave way to prairie.
“You can see four or five miles from horseback,” she said. “We need to put that much distance between us and the posse.”
“Why are you running? I’m the one they want. I’m the escaped prisoner.”
“Don’t play that song again. Stop being so noble and offering yourself up as a sacrifice. They’ll know who they’re after when the bounty hunters tell them we stole their horses. They might even figure everything Deke and Zeke say about the gunfight is the truth.”
“That reminds me,” Luke said. “How’d you come by the dynamite?”
“If Rhoades enjoys blowing things up, I thought fighting fire with fire—or dynamite with dynamite—was a possibility. I forgot that you needed blasting caps to set off the sticks.”
“A bullet works just as well,” Luke said. He admired her resourcefulness, especially since it had saved them. But the brief respite from being in a gunfight had to be used wisely. They had to keep away from the law.
“What are you doing?”
Marta Shearing dismounted and pulled up several clumps of Canada bluegrass by the roots. Tying them into a large bundle at the end of her rope, she mounted and motioned for him to precede her. He saw right away what she intended.
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