Jason laughed again. “I like a man with a sense of humor, especially a man who’s about to die.”
“I doubt that,” Lucas said, gambling for time. “You may get several thousand dollars from that gold shipment, but you can get a whole lot more for me.”
“What do you mean, several thousands,” Jason demanded suspiciously. There’s over a hundred thousand on that stage.”
“We divided it up,” Lucas said. “We didn’t dare risk the loss of a whole shipment again. I don’t precisely know what part of it is on this stage, but it’s not more than fifteen or twenty thousand. You can get much more by holding me for ransom.”
“You lied to me,” Jason bellowed, grabbing Brian by the throat before he hit him. “You said they’d be over a hundred thousand in that shipment.”
“He had no way of knowing my uncle changed his plans,” Lucas said, not wanting Jason to beat Brian too badly. Right now Brian looked like his only chance for escape, and he didn’t want to lose it. “It was done at the last minute.”
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“I don’t even know myself, but I think most of it has gone through already.”
Jason was furious, dangerously so. He hammered Brian again, sending him to the ground unconscious, then kicked him viciously in the side. From the sickening crack of impact, Lucas guessed he broke several ribs.
“I ought to kill you right now” Staples roared at Lucas, pointing the gun right at his forehead.
“It won’t make you one penny richer,” Lucas said, knowing that remaining calm and outthinking Staples was his only chance. “I might be worth a great deal to you alive, but I’m worthless dead.”
“Tie him up,” Jason shouted to one of his men. “Watch that sneaking liar while I’m gone and don’t let him leave,” he said, pointing at Brian. “I’ve got plans for him when we get back.”
“You’re leaving?” Lucas asked. The stage didn’t come through until tomorrow. Why would he be leaving now?
“Of course I’m leaving,” Jason growled, and backhanded Lucas across the face. “Kelly here told me who you were, and he told me it’s you who’s been running the company for some time now—”
“He’s wrong there.”
“—so I figure you’ve got something planned besides those men you’ve got sitting out in the bushes. While I’d like to stay and beat it out of you, I can’t wait that long. Get mounted up,” he shouted to his men. “We’re riding out in fifteen minutes. And take your bedrolls. We’re not coming back.” His men grumbled, but minutes later they had mounted up and ridden out, leaving a very unpleasant-looking man to guard Lucas.
“I’m pulling my bed in the shadows so I can get some shuteye,” the man said sullenly. “I don’t want no talking, and if you leave the fire, you get lead in you,” he said to Brian, but Lucas figured Brian was still unconscious.
The hours passed slowly and Lucas had plenty of time to think of Carrie and his promise that nothing would happen to him. But how was he to have guessed Brian Kelly was the informant, or that Brian would come to the station at the very time he was setting out to spy on Staples in the hidden canyon? And there was over one hundred thousand dollars in gold on that stage. His uncle had talked about dividing it up into several shipments, but they had decided it would expose too many passengers to danger. Instead they had hired extra guards, and Lucas had volunteered to find Staples and set a trap for him. Now thanks to Brian somehow learning his identity, it had all come undone.
Try as he might, Lucas could not keep his thoughts from straying to Carrie. He never doubted that he would find some way out of this tangle, but neither could he entirely banish the fear that he would never see Carrie again, and all night long he was tortured by memories of the kind of love he had just begun to experience and might never enjoy again. It was pure agony, and he forced himself to rework his plans for escape again and again. But he could not keep his fears buried in his subconscious, and they emerged like dark phantoms to rob him of any measure of peace.
He was tantalized by the taste of her mouth, the feel of her lips, the texture of her skin against his cheek. He could see her copper curls, rioting against the pillow and glowing in the lantern light like a living thing, the almost black brows which could rise so imperiously in question or gather ever so slightly to underscore the provocative invitation of her dark blue eyes. He could see just as plainly as if she were at his side, the delicate upturned nose or the pucker of her full lips, her lower lip pushed forward in thought or in a pout, could remember the smell of lavender, a scent he had come to associate with her alone. And her body! Oh God, how the thought of her warm body in his arms tormented him. More then once during the night his limbs grew tense with desire and his groin swelled from an unrelieved craving to sink deep into her warm, inviting flesh. He could feel her skin against his, could almost reach out and touch her breasts, kiss their throbbing peaks, nestle his face against the column of her neck. Stifling a curse, Lucas struggled with the ropes that bound him until they cut into his flesh, and one kind of pain gave him relief from the other.
* * *
“Don’t answer me, just listen,” Lucas whispered to Brian when he was sure he was awake. “You’ve got to help me get out of here.”
“You’re crazy,” Brian muttered through his bloody, bruised lips. “They’ll kill me.”
“They’ll kill you anyway. You’re not one of them, you never will be, and you’ve given them bad information. There’s less than fifteen thousand dollars on that stage. The rest is already safely in Denver.”
“But how? Why?” Lucas could tell that Brian was scared. If he could make him a little more scared, maybe he would help him.
“We knew someone in the organization was leaking information, so my uncle made the changes without telling anybody. Not even the drivers knew until the gold was loaded. So instead of more than fifteen thousand each, they’re going to get less than three thousand. You can guess how Staples is going to like that. And we know where the first gold shipment is hidden,” Lucas said, suddenly realizing where Found had gotten the gold they had discovered in his pouch. “It’ll be gone before Staples goes back for it.”
“You can’t know that,” Brian stammered, aghast that their plans could be falling apart so completely.
“It’s in the cave behind the cabin,” Lucas said, and could tell from the terrified look in Brian’s eyes that he had hit the bull’s eye.
“Quiet down there,” the guard shouted from the shadows. “Any more whispering, and I’ll start putting bullet holes in your feet.”
“Help me get away, and I’ll see that you’re protected,” Lucas hissed as quietly as he could. “Stay here, and Jason will surely kill you.” He didn’t dare try the guard’s patience any further, but he saw that he had said enough to make Brian think for the first time that his life was truly in jeopardy. And as the minutes passed, Lucas could see from the look in his face he was becoming more convinced. Now all he had to do was think up a plan before morning and make sure Brian was able to carry out his part.
Chapter 25
It was still dark outside the station, but Katie had the fires going and the delicious aromas of coffee and frying bacon filled the station. With an audible sigh of relief, Carrie took her first sip of coffee. She had been unable to sleep at all, and her head throbbed painfully. All night long she had been plagued by visions of Lucas captured and tortured, Lucas shot full of holes, Lucas bleeding and left to die, Lucas’s body left undiscovered in some remote canyon to be desecrated by buzzards and wild animals. She couldn’t stand it, and she meant to tell Lucas if he ever wanted to marry her, he was going to have to swear not to go after a gang of murdering thieves by himself. And all these men stationed along the road weren’t going to be able to do him a bit of good when they weren’t close enough to know he was in trouble.
“You’re looking right poorly this morning, ma’am,” Katie said as she observed Carrie from her position at the stove.
“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a frontier woman,” Carrie admitted. “It’s just as well Lucas is taking me to live in Denver. I couldn’t stand his going off like this. I guess it was something like this for Mama when Daddy and the boys left for the War, but you didn’t know what they were facing each day, and they were gone so long with no word that it was almost like nothing was really happening. But I know exactly what Lucas is up against, and I’m petrified.”
“Mr. Barrow will be all right” Katie tried to assure her. “I never knew any man better able to take care of himself?’
“But there are eight men in that gang” Carrie told her. “And he didn’t have to go by himself. He has lots of men out there who could have helped him, but he insisted upon going to that camp alone.”
“Then I’m sure he had a good reason for it,” Katie said, so serenely confident in Lucas’s ability to do anything he wanted that she irritated Carrie.
“Well, he didn’t have things entirely his own way,” Carrie said, piqued. “I had Found follow him.”
“You sent that child into those hills by himself?”
“That child lived in those hills by himself for months. He knows them better than Lucas ever will. Besides, no one would think anything if they saw him. Lucas would attract attention immediately.”
“I guess you’re right, but Mr. Barrow is going to be right angry when he finds out what you’ve done.”
“As long as he gets back safely, he can be as angry as he wants,” Carrie said. “And if he ever thinks about going after crooks by himself again, I’ll dope his coffee and tie him up.”
“You’ll do what every woman has done who was old enough to have a husband or a son facing danger. You’ll sit at home and wring your hands. Then when he gets back, you’ll assure him that you expected his safe return all along. Women have been doing it for their menfolk for ages, and nothing’s going to change that now.”
Carrie heaved herself out of her chair—she had to help Katie with the cooking—depressingly aware that every word Katie had said was true. She swore silently. It wasn’t fair for love to cause such agonies. It was supposed to be the most wonderful thing that could happen to a woman, yet from the moment she fell in love, she had oscillated with dizzying speed between the peaks of delirium and the depths of despair.
But the stage was due in at ten o’clock, and before long Carrie’s thoughts were absorbed in her work; thus she was caught unprepared thirty minutes later when Found came stumbling through the door, his face immediately telling her that something was very wrong with Lucas.
He began gesturing with his hands, shaping words with his mouth, but his actions were so frenzied that Carrie was unable to understand anything of what he was trying to tell her.
“Has something happened to Lucas?” she demanded, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to remain still while she spoke to him. Found nodded and Carrie’s heart sank. “Is he hurt?” Found shook his head and Carrie started to breath again. “But he is in trouble and needs help, doesn’t he?” Again Found nodded. “Where is he? Can you take me to him?” Found shook his head. “Why can’t you?” Found began making gestures and mouthing words again. “I can’t understand you,” Carrie cried frantically. Found tried to draw pictures in the air and trace them on the table, but Carrie’s terrified mind could understand nothing and she grew more frantic by the minute. “You’ve got to take me to him.” Again Found shook his head. “Why can’t you?” Carrie demanded, her voice rising hysterically. “Speak to me. Tell me why I can’t go to him.” She shook the child so violently that Katie had started to his rescue when he uttered his first broken sentence.
“S-Staples men … t-too many … Mr. Barrow is t-tied up.” Found stumbled over his first words, as though they were having difficulty opening a passageway that had long been blocked, and then they poured out of him like a long-damned-up stream. “Miss Katie’s man is one of them,” Found said, throwing Katie an accusing glare. “He told Staples who Mr. Barrow was, and they were waiting for him.”
“I knew Brian was up to no good,” declared Katie. “I knew it the minute I set eyes on him.”
“But he’s not hurt?”
“No. He told them he was worth more for ransom than dead, but he also told them the gold was mostly already sent on other stages, and that made Jason awfully mad. And Mrs. Simpson, Jason is terrible when he gets mad. I know because he killed my stepfather.”
“So that’s why you lived wild.”
“I was afraid he would kill me too. I knew too much. I know where he hid the gold.”
“Can you lead us back to that canyon?” Carrie asked, totally uninterested in the whereabouts of the gold.
“There are too many of them. And Jason will kill anybody who gets in his way.”
“We won’t be going alone. Mr. Barrow has some men stationed along the road between here and Tyler’s Mountain. I’m going to send Jake after them. Katie, you go back to the cabin and gamer any weapons and ammunition you can find. Found, you tell Jake to saddle a horse as quickly as he can. And bring all his rifles back here. We’re going to need all the weapons we can find.”
Everyone scattered to their assigned tasks, and Carrie turned to emptying out the gun racks and laying out the weapons in preparation for cleaning and loading. The ammunition was stored under the beds in the back rooms, but she wouldn’t need to get that out until later. She figured she had an hour before Jake could return with the men.
She tried to concentrate on what she was doing to drive all thought of what might be happening to Lucas from her thoughts. All night long she had imagined what might happen to him, but she had been able to tell herself she was imagining things, that Lucas said he would be safe and she had to have faith in him. Now she knew he was in danger, and only by concentrating fiercely on taking the guns apart and cleaning each part carefully was she able to keep the images out of her mind. Because her concentration was so intense, she was nearly frightened out of her mind when a strange voice suddenly spoke her name.
“Are you Mrs. Simpson?” the voice asked.
Carrie looked up into the coldest pair of blue eyes she had ever seen. The man was dressed respectably enough, but she knew he had not come on the stage and she had heard no horse.
“Who are you?” she asked, rising to her feet and instinctively stepping behind her chair. “I didn’t hear anyone ride up” she said, trying to cover her confusion, trying to buy time to think.
“I walked,” the man said, but Carrie involuntarily glanced down at his high-heeled boots and knew he hadn’t walked very far.
“My horse picked up a rock in his shoe,” he explained, not missing her swift glance. “I got it out, but I was hoping I might rest here a spell.”
“You’re welcome to sit for a while,” Carrie said, knowing that no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t turn him away, “but you can’t stay here. We don’t have overnight accommodations.”
“I meant just long enough to have a cup of coffee and maybe a piece of pie. You expecting trouble?” he asked, noticing all the broken-down pieces of rifles.
“I wouldn’t have taken them apart if I were, would I?” Carrie responded, trying to be just as cool as this stranger. She had a terrible suspicion she knew who he was, but she wouldn’t even allow herself to admit that the possibility existed.
“Most likely not. You don’t strike me as a slow-witted female. Must be a sluggish morning. Doesn’t seem to be anybody around.”
“They’re around, but not here. The stage isn’t due for several hours yet.” That was true, and never had she wished more strongly to see Bap, Harry, or even Jerry getting down from the driver’s seat. This man made her nervous, and she had decided she didn’t like him. She cut the pie and set it down in front of him, but he didn’t sit down. He just stood there, waiting.
“I’ll get your coffee. You can sit down unless your saddle has given you a dislike of chairs.”
“It’s not that, ma’am” the stranger said, an
d a brief smile crossed his face. He’s not bad-looking when he smiles, Carrie thought, but I still don’t like him. I wish Jake would hurry up and get here. She had just picked up a cup and the coffee pot when the sound of running feet attracted her attention, and a moment later the station door burst open.
Found flew into the room followed a few seconds later by Baca Riggins. That’s Jason Staples,” Found shouted between gasping breadis. They’ve got Katie and Jake tied up in the barn.” Staples had turned at the sound of running feet, but before he could move out of the way, Found plowed straight into him, using his head to butt Jason hard enough to send him to the floor.
“Quick, out the back,” Carrie said. She picked up a rifle stock and struck Baca a powerful blow across the back when he tried to follow Found. “You’ve got to find help,” she hissed, ignoring Baca’s slumping body and Jason’s shouted curses. Jason recovered quickly enough to get between Found and the door, but the boy dashed into the back of the station and Carrie knew he would be out one of the windows and into the woods before either Jason or Baca could reach him. A couple of shots fired behind the station frightened her, but she could tell from the curses that followed they had missed and that Found was safely into the brush. Once there, no one could find him unless he wanted to be found. Now it was a question of whether he could find help and bring it in time. Carrie wondered if it would do any good. They were all helpless.
Carrie snatched up the piece of pie and flung it at Jason. That’s for your horse with the bruised foot,” she said furiously.
“You knew who I was?” Jason asked, as he started to walk slowly in her direction.
“If I hadn’t, I would have known from the company you keep that you were a liar and a thief.”
Colorado Bride Page 36