Plus he had a couple of hole cards that no one else here knew about.
“Smoke, don’t do it,” Luke croaked, his voice even more strained by Galt’s grip on his throat. “I’d rather go out . . . fighting. . . .”
“They’re not giving me any choice, Luke,” Smoke said. He lowered the Colt so that it wasn’t pointing at Mordecai anymore, and then tossed it onto the ground.
As soon as the revolver thudded onto the dirt, Mordecai left his saddle in a diving tackle aimed at Smoke. He wrapped his arms around Smoke and the impact of the collision spilled both of them from the horse’s back. They crashed to the ground, and hatred gave Mordecai a slight edge as he scrambled up first.
He yelled, “I’m gonna kill you with my bare hands!” and sent a punch speeding toward Smoke’s face.
Chapter 40
Matt lowered the field glasses through which he had been peering as he watched Smoke and Mordecai Kroll ride on through the pass and disappear on the other side.
A few moments earlier, he had been studying them through the glasses when he had seen them pause for some reason. Mordecai had tilted his head back a little as if he were looking at something up on the walls of the pass. Matt had shifted the glasses and caught a split-second reflection up there, even though not much sunlight penetrated into the pass.
Then Smoke and Mordecai had ridden on, with the outlaw waving to someone and confirming Matt’s hunch that sentries were posted up on those walls of stone.
“I reckon the hideout must be on the other side of that pass,” he said to Preacher and Darcy as he stowed the field glasses away in one of his saddlebags.
“What makes you think that?” Darcy asked.
“The pass is being guarded. The gang wouldn’t go to that much trouble unless there was something on the other side of it to protect.”
Preacher said, “That makes pure-dee sense. Which means we got to find some other way around.”
Matt studied the sheer cliffs, the rocky ridges, and the rugged peaks on both sides of the pass.
“That’s not going to be easy,” he said. “Looks like that’s the only gap for miles.”
“We can just ride around,” Darcy suggested. “How long can it take?”
“Dependin’ on what we find,” Preacher said, “it might take days. And I ain’t sure Smoke and Luke’ll have that much time to spare.”
“Neither am I,” Matt said. “It’ll be pretty dark in that pass come nightfall, though. Somebody who was really good at sneaking around might be able to get through it without the guards noticing him.”
“Meanin’ me, o’ course,” the old mountain man said.
“Actually, I was thinking about me.”
“Dadblast it!” Preacher said. “I’ve done forgot more about sneakin’ up on varmints than you ever knowed, boy. Besides, it ain’t easy for a big ol’ galoot like you to move around without makin’ some noise.”
“You’re not exactly small yourself, Preacher,” Matt pointed out. “Scrawny, yes, but not small.”
“I’m the smallest of any of us,” Darcy pointed out, but Matt and Preacher both shook their heads at the same time.
“You’re not going anywhere near that outlaw hideout,” Matt said. “We’ll tell you all about it later, so you can write your story and try to sell it, but we’re going to find some place where you’ll be safe and leave you there.”
Darcy got a stubborn look on her face that Matt was already familiar with, despite the relatively short time they had traveled together, and he knew she was going to argue.
To forestall that, he raised a hand and held it toward her with the palm outward.
“If you give us trouble, we’ll tie you up,” he warned her.
“You wouldn’t dare!” she said. “If you tie me up and then go off and get yourselves killed, I’d starve to death or die of thirst or get eaten by a mountain lion!”
“Oh, we’d fix it so’s you could get loose sooner or later,” Preacher said. “You’d just be stuck there long enough for me an’ Matt to do what needs to be done.”
She glared at them for a long moment, and then said, “You two are incredibly annoying.”
Preacher nodded and said, “Thank you kindly. I reckon we been doin’ things right, then.”
Darcy just blew out a frustrated breath.
Preacher ignored her and turned to Matt. He pointed at the mountains to the right of the pass.
“I been studyin’ on them peaks,” he said. “I got a hunch there’s a way through there. See that leetle bitty notch?”
Matt squinted and frowned as he looked where Preacher was pointing.
“Maybe, but it’d take a mountain goat to get there,” he said.
The old mountain man nodded and said, “I been accused of worse. Thought maybe I’d get as close as I can on horseback, then Dog and me will scout around up yonder and see what we can find. Might be a way to circle around and come at the hideout from the north.”
“Even if you make it to the notch, you don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“You don’t know what’s on the other side o’ that pass, neither. And there’s only one way to find out.”
“You’re right about that,” Matt admitted. “I don’t much like splitting up, though.”
“Neither do I, but the odds are gonna be mighty heavy against us no matter what we do. Catchin’ those varmints betwixt us wouldn’t make ’em even, but it’d help.”
Matt nodded.
“All right, go ahead. I’ll find a good place to leave Darcy and then wait for it to get dark so I can try slipping through the pass.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Darcy said. “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not.”
“Wasn’t my intention,” Matt told her, but he didn’t actually apologize.
Preacher lifted a hand in farewell, and then rode off on Horse with Dog padding along beside them.
“Now,” Matt said as he looked at Darcy, “what am I going to do with you?”
“You don’t want me to answer that,” she said with a half-snarl.
Matt turned away so she wouldn’t see him grinning. She was feisty as all get-out, but he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate it if he said as much.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll have a look around for a good place.”
Darcy looked none too happy about it, but she came with him.
A short time later, they found a little canyon that twisted between two rock spires. It narrowed toward the back, so it would be relatively easy to defend. With her rifle, Darcy could hold off quite a few men if she had to.
Although there was no spring or creek, the presence of some grass told Matt water was seeping in from somewhere. He pointed that out to Darcy and told her, “If you’re in here long enough to need more water than what you have in your canteens, you can dig for it. Just be careful and make what you have last.”
“What about food?”
“Same goes for that. You have enough provisions to last for several days, though.” He paused, and then went on. “If Preacher and I aren’t back before your food runs out, chances are we’re not coming back. What you should do when you have only a couple of days’ rations left is pull out and head for Phoenix. If you get down out of the mountains and head west, you’ll hit it before you run out of food.”
“What you mean is that you’ll be dead. The Kroll brothers will have killed you.”
“That’s the only thing I can think of that’d stop us from coming back for you,” Matt said.
He picked out the best place for her to camp, where the graze was thickest for the horses he would leave with her and also where some boulders would provide cover if she needed it. He wished she were back in Boston, where she had come from, or just about anywhere else other than here in the Superstition Mountains not much more than a stone’s throw from the lair of some of the most vicious outlaws on the frontier.
But one of the secrets of life was that you had to deal with things as th
ey were, not how you wanted them to be. Despite his relative youth, he had learned that lesson and learned it well. He nodded to Darcy and told her, “All right, I’m going to leave you here now. You’ll be all right. Just wait for me or Preacher to come and get you, and in the meantime keep your eyes open. Don’t fire any guns unless you absolutely have to. Shots will just announce where you are. Same thing is true for a campfire. You’ll have to make do without one.”
“I know all that,” she said. “There’s nothing I can tell you to change your mind about taking me with you?”
“Nope. Not a thing.”
“Then maybe I can do something.”
Without warning, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. She was tall and didn’t have to stretch up very much to press her mouth to his in a kiss.
When he thought about it later, Matt realized he could have stopped her if he tried. The reflexes that had kept him alive in numerous gunfights certainly were fast and sharp enough to have prevented one woman from kissing him. He tried to tell himself that it was because she took him by surprise, but he knew that wasn’t exactly the case.
The truth was he didn’t mind her kissing him.
But it wasn’t going to change his mind about what he’d decided, either.
He slipped an arm around Darcy’s waist and held her close against him for a moment. He had no doubt that her actions were calculated to help her get what she wanted, but from the way her mouth moved under his and her hips surged against him, he thought she found herself enjoying it more than she’d expected.
That didn’t make any difference, either. He broke the kiss and stepped back.
Darcy’s lips curved in a smile as she said, “Are you sure—”
“Remember, keep your eyes open,” he went on as if nothing had happened. “If you see anybody coming up the canyon who isn’t me or Preacher, take cover. And if you have to shoot . . . don’t shoot to warn.”
The grim import of his words was clear.
Darcy looked angry and exasperated at his failure to rise to the bait she had flung his way. But she nodded and said, “All right, I understand. But you be careful, too, Matt. As you put it, don’t shoot to warn.”
“I don’t make a habit of it,” he said dryly.
Chapter 41
Mordecai’s fist caught Smoke on the jaw and knocked him backwards, but just as the punch landed, Smoke’s left hand shot out and grabbed the front of Mordecai’s shirt. As Smoke fell he hauled Mordecai with him and gave the outlaw a heave that sent him rolling across the ground.
Smoke slapped his right hand against the dirt and shoved himself up. From the corner of his eye he saw two members of the Kroll gang start forward, obviously intending to intervene in the fight, but Rudolph stopped them with a curt gesture.
“Mordecai bit it off,” Rudolph said sharply. “Let’s see if he can chew it.”
Smoke took that to mean the boss outlaw was going to let them fight. Right now that was all right with him. If he could bust Mordecai up enough to put him out of action for a few days, that was one less threat he’d have to worry about.
Mordecai caught himself after he’d rolled over a couple of times. He got his hands and knees under him and cursed bitterly as he pushed himself upright. Smoke could have stepped in and given him a vicious kick in the belly while he was getting up, but instead Smoke waited for Mordecai to reach his feet before boring in and throwing a left-right combination.
The jab followed by the cross both landed and made Mordecai stagger backwards. He didn’t fall this time. He got his back foot braced and lunged forward as he swung a looping right at Smoke’s head.
Smoke swayed to the side so that the punch missed by a bare inch. He hooked a left into Mordecai’s belly. Mordecai doubled over, but he turned that to his advantage by driving the top of his head into Smoke’s chest with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs. Mordecai threw both arms around Smoke’s waist and drove with his feet. The outlaw’s lean body possessed a great deal of hard, wiry strength. Smoke’s feet left the ground, and Mordecai dumped him on his back.
Smoke was already gasping for breath. The impact as he landed stunned him even more. So did the vicious kick that landed in his ribs on the left side an instant later. Luckily, Mordecai was still wearing the blunt-toed prison shoes instead of boots, or the damage might have been even worse.
As it was, Smoke grunted at the sharp stab of pain from a possibly cracked rib.
With a gleeful laugh, Mordecai lifted his foot again and swung it into position to stamp his heel down in Smoke’s face. Smoke got his hands up barely in time to grab Mordecai’s foot and stop the crushing blow from landing. He twisted as hard as he could. Mordecai let out a startled shout as he fell.
Smoke kept his grip on Mordecai’s foot and continued twisting. Mordecai howled in pain as his right knee started to bend in ways it wasn’t meant to. Smoke knew if he kept the pressure up for another few moments, he could cripple Mordecai.
Rudolph Kroll must have known that, too, because he snapped, “Galt, get him off of there!”
Smoke heard the boss outlaw’s command over the roaring of blood in his ears. A second later, huge fingers clamped down on his shoulders from behind and lifted him. He tried to hang on to Mordecai’s foot, but it was torn from his grasp. Smoke’s surroundings whirled dizzily around him as Galt spun him through the air and let him go.
Again Smoke crashed to the ground. Getting flung around like a rag doll was starting to annoy him. He let that anger fuel him as he came up swinging.
He drove a right and then a left into Galt’s face. The big man’s head moved enough that his flat-crowned black hat fell off.
Other than that, however, it was like punching a block of granite, Smoke realized.
Galt grabbed him, lifted him off the ground, crushed him against the wall of slabbed muscles that was the big man’s chest. Those tree-trunk arms closed in a bear hug. Smoke’s ribs groaned under the pressure, and once again he felt pain shoot through him. Beyond a doubt, one of his ribs was cracked.
Like the dropping of a curtain, a red haze descended over his eyes. He was already starved for air, and now the situation was even worse. He knew he was going to pass out at any second, and if Galt continued squeezing, Smoke would never wake up. Galt would compress the life right out of him.
“That’s enough,” Rudolph called. “Let him go.”
Smoke barely heard the command. That red haze was so thick it filled his entire head now, and it had started to turn black around the edges. That black tide continued as Galt released him and let him fall to the ground.
Smoke felt himself hit the dirt, but he didn’t know anything after that.
The cell was cramped when only one prisoner was in it. With two people incarcerated here, there was barely room to breathe, let alone move around.
Well, brothers were supposed to be close, Luke thought wryly as he waited for Smoke to wake up.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they had been brought through the house, down the narrow stone staircase, along the corridor, and into the cell. Galt had carried Smoke’s unconscious form draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. When they reached the cell he’d had Luke go in first, then unceremoniously dumped Smoke at his feet. Guards with rifles had been ready to step in the whole time if need be, although with Smoke out cold and Luke in the shape he was in, the likelihood of that was pretty small.
Then Galt had stepped back and swung the massive door closed with ease, causing gloom to close in around the prisoners.
By now night had fallen, Luke thought, or if it hadn’t, it wouldn’t be long now. He had no idea how long the Kroll brothers intended to keep them alive.
Although it was Rudolph alone who made the decision, he mused as he sat on his blanket with his knees drawn up to give Smoke as much room as possible. Mordecai had wanted to go ahead and kill both of them right away, but Rudolph had vetoed that idea.
“They’ll die when I’
m good and ready for them to die,” Rudolph had said, and the flat, menacing tone of his voice had made Mordecai stop arguing. They were brothers, but that didn’t stop Mordecai from being a little afraid of his older sibling.
The thing of it was, Luke couldn’t think of any reason for Rudolph to delay killing them unless it was a demonstration of his power. Mordecai had caused considerable trouble for his brother by sneaking away from the hideout on his own and getting himself caught. Keeping the prisoners alive reinforced the idea that Rudolph was the boss around here and served the extra purpose of annoying Mordecai.
Smoke stirred and groaned. He was starting to come around. Luke had known it was only a matter of time. His brother was plenty tough.
It didn’t look like that was going to be enough to get them out of here, though. Luke’s biggest regret right now was that Smoke had been drawn into this fiasco.
Smoke lifted his head, shook it, and grimaced. He was lying on his stomach. He tried to roll over, but the wall stopped him. Clearly surprised, he muttered, “Where . . . where are . . .”
“We’re in a cell under the hacienda,” Luke said. “Sorry about the cramped quarters. The place appears to have been built for one occupant.”
“Luke . . . ?” Smoke turned his head and looked around in an attempt to penetrate the shadows.
“Yeah, I’m right here.”
“Matt . . . Preacher . . .”
Luke frowned in the darkness and said, “What?”
He knew who Matt and Preacher were, of course, but he didn’t see how they were connected to this affair.
“They haven’t been . . . caught?” Smoke asked.
“You brought them with you?”
Even though Luke was surprised, when he considered the situation and the people involved, this development made sense. Smoke was a strong believer in family. When he found out that Luke was in danger, he wouldn’t have hesitated to recruit Matt and Preacher to help with the rescue effort.
“They’re not . . . in here?”
Luke let out a grim chuckle and said, “If two more people were crammed in here, the place would burst at the seams. No, I haven’t seen Matt and Preacher. I didn’t know they were anywhere around here.”
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