Riverboat Blaze

by J. R. Roberts

  “Yes.”

  Farrell looked unconcerned. He dropped the chicken leg he was eating. Clint was afraid he was going to offer to shake hands, but he didn’t. He just wiped his hand on his shirt.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Clint explained about the Dolly Madison and why he was in Bedford.

  “I heard about that boat goin’ down.”

  “Any strangers in town lately?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact,” the sheriff said. “Three.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Farrell said. “They had a room at the hotel, but I don’t know if they’re still there.”

  “Any place in town to rent a buckboard?”

  “Sure, the livery.”

  “I’ll check over there, then.”

  “What then?”

  “I’m going to take a ride out to the site where the boat went down.”

  “Want me to go with ya?” Farrell asked.

  “No,” Clint said, “that’s okay. I’m just going out to take a look.”

  “You expectin’ these three to be lootin’ the boat?” Farrell asked.

  “It’s possible.”

  “You an owner?”

  “No,” I said, “but I’m friends with the owner.”

  Farrell picked up his chicken again and said, “Close enough.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Yeah, I rented out a buckboard, but it was a funny thing,” the fat liveryman said.

  “What?” Clint asked.

  “They wanted me to reinforce it,” the man said. “Like they was gonna be haulin’ somethin’ real heavy.”

  Clint turned his head and looked out through the front door to where Angela was waiting with the horses again.

  “Did you do the work?”

  “Oh yeah, and I did a good job, too.”

  “When did they pick it up?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Did they leave town with it?”

  “I think so. Leastways, I ain’t seen them since.”

  “Any names?”

  “Naw,” the man said. “I didn’t need names to do the job. And they paid me in advance.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. “Thanks.”

  They went to the hotel next, and once again Angela stayed outside.

  “No, sir, they ain’t checked out yet,” the clerk said.

  “Okay, thanks.” Clint turned to leave, then turned back. “Oh, one thing. If they come back, don’t tell them anyone was asking for them.”

  “If they come back?”

  “Yeah,” Clint said, “they may not be able to. Understand?”

  The young clerk swallowed and nodded. Clint walked out.

  “Where are we goin’ now?” Angela asked as they rode out of town. They had been there for half an hour.

  “Out to the boat.”

  “Are we gonna get the gold?”

  He looked at her.

  “Where would we put it?” he asked. “In our saddlebags?”

  “So then we’ll just let them bring it up, and we’ll take it from them?”

  “Let’s see what happens when we get there,” he said.

  The two men came up from the depths of the Mississippi and gulped for air. The third man—the leader—looked down at them from the first deck of the Dolly.

  “What the hell are you comin up for?” he demanded.

  “We gotta breathe!”

  The leader put his foot on one of their heads and pushed him back underwater.

  “You can breathe when you tell me somethin’ about the gold!” he yelled. “Understand?”

  The other man said, “Yeah, we understand.”

  The leader removed his foot so the other man could take a breath, and then both men dove.

  Clint and Angela rode along the shore until they came to the buckboard and two horses. Out on the river they could see the Dolly Madison.

  “They don’t have it yet,” she said. “The buckboard’s empty.”

  “Shhh,” he said, trying to quiet her. “Dismount.”

  They tied their horses off so they wouldn’t wander away, then moved closer to the shore while staying hidden behind the brush.

  “I don’t see anybody,” Angela said, keeping her voice low.

  “If they’re trying to get to the gold, they’re probably on the other side of the boat,” Clint explained. “Keep quiet and listen.”

  They both fell silent, and before long they were able to hear voices—or, rather, one voice, and an angry one at that.

  “That sound familiar?” he asked her.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “yes.” She made a face. “Nobody you know.”

  “Not Dean? Not Kingdom?”

  “No, no,” she said, “I told you, it’s nobody you know.”

  “Well, maybe it’s somebody I should meet.”

  “His name is Kevin, Kevin DuBois.”

  “DuBois?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s my husband.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Your what?”

  She looked away.

  “My husband.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “I didn’t think it was that important.”

  “So are you setting me up here for him?” Clint asked.

  “No,” she said, “I’m tryin’ to set him up for you.”

  “Your husband.”

  “Well, we’re married,” she said, “but we’re not a happy couple. I’m tryin’ to get away from him, and he said if I helped him steal the gold he’d let me go.”

  “Do you know who he’s got with him? Or how many?”

  “I think he’s got two men, but I don’t know who they are,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he means to stiff them, though. Get them to do the work and then take off with the gold.”

  “Kill them?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “Can he handle a gun?”

  “Yes, he’s good with a gun.”

  “And he probably hired two men who aren’t,” Clint said. “Tell me, does Dean Dillon know your husband?”

  “No, they’ve never met.”

  Clint turned his head to look out at the Dolly Madison again.

  “What are you thinkin’?” Angela asked.

  “I don’t see how they can take any gold off that boat,” he said. “Not without some kind of special equipment. Is it in gold bars?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It could be.”

  “They could take it off several bars at a time,” Clint said, “but that would take forever. Is he determined to take all of it?”

  “Every bit of it,” she said.

  Clint shook his head. “Can’t be done.”

  “Kevin is stubborn,” she said.

  They’d need a boat, Clint thought. Of course, there could be a boat out there alongside the Dolly Madison , but it wouldn’t be large enough or strong enough to take all the gold.

  Clint assumed that all the bodies had been picked up from both shores or plucked out of the water. The only reason for anyone else to come back would be to pull the Dolly Madison out of there, but he’d been told that nothing could be done before they found the owner—or someone to replace him. So they probably had a lot of time to get the gold off, and they’d need it.

  But time or no time, they just didn’t have the equipment.

  The two divers came up, again empty-handed.

  “Can’t get the crate open,” one of them said.

  “Do you have the right crate?”

  “It’s the one you described to us, Kevin,” the second man said. “But we can’t get it open.”

  Kevin DuBois stared at them for a moment, then looked at the sky and shouted, “Damnit!” He looked at them again. “I didn’t blow a hole in this boat and sink it just to come up empty.”

  “But, Boss, ya can’t get the whole crate up,” one of them said.

  “And we can’t g
et it open,” the second man said.

  “Then what good are you to me?”

  DuBois stood up, drew his gun, and shot each man in the head. They sank beneath the surface with startled looks on their faces.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Clint and Angela heard the shots.

  “What the—” Clint said.

  “Oh, no,” Angela said.

  Clint looked at her.

  “He must have decided he doesn’t need them anymore,” she said.

  “He killed his men?” he said. “You knew he was going to kill them.”

  “Well . . .”

  “You’re still holding out on me.”

  She stared at him.

  “You have to promise me you’ll protect me,” she said. “Kevin is a killer. He blew a hole in the boat, not caring if it killed anybody. And on every job he pulls, he kills his men when he doesn’t need them anymore. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Except . . .”

  “Except what?” he asked, staring at her.

  She pointed out to the water and said, “He’s comin’ back.”

  Clint looked out toward the Dolly Madison and saw Kevin DuBois coming back in a rowboat.

  “Okay, tell me something quickly.”

  “What?”

  “Is Kevin smart?” Clint asked.

  “Um, well, yeah . . .”

  “Does he plan his own jobs?”

  She hesitated.

  “Angela?”

  “Well, I’ve always wondered about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean once I married him, once I was around him for a while, it seemed to me he wasn’t all that smart.”

  “And?”

  She shrugged and said, “His jobs always work out right.”

  “Except for this one.”

  “That didn’t have to be his fault,” she said. “I mean, that explosion could have been premature, right?”

  He stared at her. “Would Kevin even know what ‘premature’ means?”

  “No,” she said, seeming stunned, “he wouldn’t. Oh my God, he’s not that smart.”

  Clint nodded “Okay, somebody planned this for him. We need to find out who.”

  “Why?” she asked. “He’s comin’ back from the boat now. Just kill him, and then we’ll take the gold.”

  “He was out there with two men, and the three of them couldn’t bring up that gold. How are we going to do it?”

  “Well, you’re smarter than Kevin is.”

  “But am I smarter than whoever Kevin is working for?”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “let’s find out.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “We find out who it is,” Clint said. “And for that we need your Kevin alive.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When this is all over,” she said, “you’ll kill him.”

  “Why don’t you just get a divorce?”

  “Because he would kill me before he divorces me.”

  “How about this?” he asked. “I’ll kill him before I let him kill you.”

  She sighed. “I guess that’ll have to do.”

  They were waiting for him when he got off the boat and dragged it up onto shore. He turned and stopped short when he saw them, flinched as if he was going to go for his gun.

  “Whoa,” Clint said. “If you do that, you’ll die right here.”

  “Adams?” Kevin asked.

  “That’s right.”

  The look DuBois gave his wife was murderous. She, on the other hand, was willing him to go for his gun. She was disappointed when he stood up straight and moved his hand away from it.

  “So what’s this?” he asked. “She give you a little something to kill me?”

  “She told me about the gold, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, it’s out there,” DuBois said. “Go and get it.”

  “No. You and your two men weren’t able to do that. So now they’re at the bottom of the river with the gold. I’d like to know what your next move was going to be.”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you,” Clint said. “You were going to talk to the man you work for.”

  DuBois laughed.

  “I don’t work for anybody,” he said. “People work for me.”

  “Until you kill them.”

  “Look, you wanna work for me? Fine. Otherwise get out of my way.”

  “You just killed two men,” Clint said. “We saw you do it.” DuBois didn’t know whether they had actually seen him or not, but that didn’t matter. “Why don’t we just go talk to the sheriff?”

  “You’d do that to me?” DuBois asked. He was talking to Angela, not Clint.

  “In a minute,” she said.

  Now he looked at Clint. “Okay, what do you want?”

  “I want to know who you work for,” Clint said. “And I want to meet him.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You’ll have a better chance of getting that gold up with me than without me.”

  DuBois stared at him.

  “Let me put that another way,” Clint said. “Without me you have no chance of getting that gold . . . at all.”

  FORTY

  DuBois mounted one of the horses, quite content to leave the other and the buckboard behind.

  “No good,” Clint said. “You rented the buckboard and the liveryman will be looking for it.”

  “What the hell—” DuBois said. “Why don’t we just ride to Vicksburg?”

  “That’s where your boss is?” Clint asked.

  “That’s where my employer is,” DuBois said, clearly not comfortable with the word “boss.”

  “Nevertheless,” Clint said, “we better return that buckboard.”

  “What about the riderless horse?” Angela asked. “Won’t that draw attention?”

  “You’re right,” Clint said. “We’ll leave it just outside of town where someone will find it. By that time we’ll be gone.”

  Clint didn’t think the sheriff would expend much energy trying to find the rider.

  Clint allowed DuBois to keep his gun but kept the man in front of him during the ride back. He made Dubois drive the buckboard, with both horses tied to the back. Just outside of town they untied one horse and tied it to a tree, then rode in and returned the buckboard. After that DuBois mounted his horse and they headed for Vicksburg. Clint still kept the man ahead of him, with Angela riding right alongside Clint.

  Clint wondered if one of the missing men—Dillon, Kingdom, or Galvin—would turn out to be the “employer”? Or would it be someone else entirely?

  “DuBois,” he called out.

  “Yeah?”

  Clint rode up alongside the buckboard.

  “Who were the two men you left in the river?” Clint asked.

  “Does that matter?”

  “It might,” Clint said. Might give him a better picture of who he was dealing with.

  DuBois gave Clint a scowl, as if he didn’t really want to answer the question, then said, “It was Sam and Lou Warrant.”

  Somehow that didn’t surprise Clint at all.

  They got back to Vicksburg late in the afternoon and reined in their horses in front of Clint’s hotel.

  “Where do we find him?” Clint asked.

  “Actually,” DuBois said, “he usually finds me.”

  “I don’t buy that,” Clint said.

  “It’s true,” DuBois said. “I don’t know where he stays.”

  “That may be, but you don’t just wait around for him to find you,” Clint said. “There’s got to be someplace that you and he leave messages for each other.”

  Clint could tell by the look on DuBois’s face that he was right.

  “Well, yeah .
. .” DuBois said.

  “Where is it?”

  DuBois took a breath and blew it out in a gesture of annoyance.

  “There’s a saloon we use,” he finally said.

  “Where?”

  “It’s at the far end—”

  “Never mind,” Clint said. “You’re going to take me there.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “I’m comin’—” Angela started, but Clint cut her off.

  “No, you’re going to stay in the hotel,” he said. “This might get dangerous.”

  She made a face, but didn’t argue.

  “We’ll take the horses to the livery, and then you’ll take me to the saloon.”

  DuBois didn’t argue, but got a crafty glint in his eye.

  “If you try anything,” Clint told him, “I’ll kill you in a minute.”

  “In cold blood?” DuBois sneered.

  “Hey, you blew a hole in the side of a boat with no thought about the lives it might cost,” Clint said. “I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your head.”

  DuBois suddenly looked less arrogant.

  “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the reins of Angela’s horse. “Go to your room and wait there.”

  She nodded.

  As Clint and DuBois rode toward the livery, DuBois said, “You pokin’ that bitch? Is that it?”

  “Keep it up, DuBois,” Clint said. “Every time you open your mouth, you give me less and less reason to keep you alive.”

  FORTY-ONE

  They left the horses at the livery, and then Clint again instructed DuBois to take him to the saloon he and his employer used to leave messages for each other.

  “So, you don’t know this guy’s name?” he asked as they walked.

  “No.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “He approached me in New Orleans, told me about the gold, and offered me a cut to help him steal it.”

  “Do you know who put the gold on the boat?”

  “No,” DuBois said, “he didn’t tell me that.”

  “You think he knows?”

  “Oh, yeah, he knows,” DuBois said. “He’s takin’ a lot of pleasure from stealin’ this gold. I think that has to do with who stole it in the first place.”

  “And does he know who the gold was stolen from?”