Containing his eagerness, Cal closed his hand over the grip. Rusty or not, the cool metal felt like heaven in his hands.
Striking a match, Smith leaned back against a tree and started puffing on a cigar. The tree branches blocked all but the faintest trace of smoke. “I sent the other nine around to patrol the rest of the perimeter. You stay here by me.”
So, Smith didn’t completely trust him. It would only be a matter of time before inquiries confirmed Smith’s suspicions. He needed to act soon.
“You ever been in a gang before?”
Cal shook his head.
Breathing in, Smith took a long puff of cigar and then breathed out. “More clerical crime.”
“Yeah.” Cal wished he had a more distinct memory of exactly what stories Mrs. Clinton had spread about him. If he’d just paid more attention at Temperance League…Any thought that started like that wasn’t going anywhere good.
“This town job should work well. I’m about ready for less days in the saddle, some clean clothes, and a warm bed. And frightened-out-of-their-wits townsfolk always make good servants.” Smith chuckled darkly.
Torture and now enslavement. This Smith fellow might be worse than Bloody Joe. Cal nodded all the same. How was Ginny faring back at the camp? If only he could have left her a gun.
“Did the boss tell you the plan for tomorrow?”
Cal shook his head. No one better accost her this night, no one. Maybe he should have made that clearer when he signed on to be a puppet cop.
Stretching, Smith scratched the back of his neck. “Shooting the sheriff at daybreak. A pity, really. I had a torture plan worked out, but since you arrived, Bloody Joe wants to get the town situation rolling, not waste time on torment.”
Cal gripped the dark fir tree behind. “Daybreak you say?” He steeled his voice to remain steadily disinterested.
“Yeah, right before we get off watch.”
“Shouldn’t we be there? Need enough crack shots to do a firing squad right.” In the darkness, Cal closed his finger around the rusted revolver trigger.
“Naw. Bloody Joe doesn’t want you to see the sheriff. Afraid of personal feelings getting involved. Though I say anyone with personal feelings isn’t cut out for this work. What about you?” Smith stared pointedly at him.
An owl hooted in the darkness. A cloud overhead shifted and the full moon poured its light down through the tree branches. This was scarcely the best night for escaping, but it was Sheriff Thompson’s last chance.
“Did you hear that?” Cal made the pretense of listening. “I’ll just go over there and check it out.”
Smith puffed his cigar. “You’re just jumpy. Stay put.”
“Jumpy’s what you need in a sentry.” Cal casually walked forward.
Smith tugged one gun out of his holster and pointed it at Cal’s heart. “Bloody Joe may trust you, but I’ll make my own judgment. Until I do, you stay here.”
Hand coming up, Cal feigned a gesture of surprise. “I’m on your side, Smith. After all, what’s not to like about an easy job fake-policing a gang town?” Except for morals, duty, and righteous abhorrence of men on wanted ads, that is.
“You know that circus they say you sold your brothers to? I grew up in Houston, all fifteen wretched years before I left the legal side of life, and I ain’t ever heard tell of no such circus.” With two fingers, Smith removed his cigar and extinguished the butt on his pant leg.
Making his muscles relax, Cal lounged against a pine trunk. “If you’re so sure I’m double-crossing you, why not tell Bloody Joe?”
“Once he’s got his mind made up, he don’t listen to no one. But I’m telling you, one false move and I’ll put a bullet through you so quick you won’t know what happened.” Smith took out his second revolver and spun it around his finger. “Hey, might do that anyway jist for fun.”
“Loosen up.” Stifling a fabricated yawn, Cal stretched. “You won’t catch me turning down easy money. Though I will say this sentry business is one of the less pleasant aspects of your gang. Mind if I get some sleep?”
“Suit yourself.” Smith lit a new cigar.
Sitting down, Cal leaned back against the tree trunk, and crossed his arms. Half closing his eyes, hewatched the man. The cold night wind tugged at his shirt, flapping the thin cotton cloth. Midnight passed, and then one o’clock, two o’clock. The moon rose higher and swept down beyond the earth’s shadow, but Smith stood alert as ever, gaze fixed on Cal.
Once Smith’s pistol lowered as if the man might be wearying, but he merely switched pistol hands. Smith was a crack shot, of that Cal had no doubt. The man would never have made it into the Silverman gang otherwise.
Three turned into four o’clock and still Smith held that keen-eyed piercing stare as he examined the darkness all around.
Cal looked to the trees just beyond the moonlit clearing. A dash there would give Smith time to get at least two shots in, maybe three. He’d be willing to take that risk though, except for the men back at the camp. Even if he singlehandedly eliminated all the sentries—a sizeable feat, but not undoable—the moment the gang heard gunshots they’d shoot the prisoners. So by delaying, he staked Sheriff Thompson’s life against the posse, and Ginny. Could she ever forgive him for letting her Uncle Zak die? For some reason that mattered to him—a lot.
Five thirty in the morning. “Wake up. I’m getting some chow. Joe won’t be relieving us for another two hours yet, needs his beauty sleep.” Smith dropped his twenty-third cigar onto the forest floor and ground it into the mud with his heel.
Pretending a yawn, Cal stood up, legs protesting. The wetness from the night’s dew had sunk all the way into his bones. If Smith looked away for a moment, he’d be gone. Rescue the sheriff and have two guns to fight the gang.
“You first.” Smith pointed to the trees and underbrush ahead with his gun.
With a pistol in his back, Cal led the way. As he crunched ferns underfoot, Cal eyed the horizon where the faint glimmers of daybreak broke through the dark. Once Smith came off sentry duty, he and the other sentries would sleep while Bloody Joe and the rested men went out to stand guard. Then he could cut the posse free, arm them, and take over the camp. Two more hours…if the sheriff’s execution could just be halted that long.
Inside the clearing, the campfire sent flames a pace high and a rancid odor rose from the cooking pot Widow Sullivan hovered over.
Cal searched for Ginny.
Several yards from the fire, she sat, coat still around her shoulders, eyes stolidly open. Safe.
Bloody Joe strode back and forth in front of the fire. “Can you finish up already, woman? An execution in the morning makes one hungry.”
Widow Sullivan blushed even as her hand holding the ladle trembled. “You’re going to shoot the sheriff today?”
“Already sent a man out to do the job.” Bloody Joe yawned. “But some food now—”
The soup ladle clattered to the ground below, hitting a log and throwing off sparks. “Where is he? I have to say my last good-byes!” The widow’s voice rose an octave, desperate in its shriek-like quality.
“Over past the next valley, same as before.” Bloody Joe pointed one grubby finger. Cal’s gaze followed the finger.
Gathering up her skirts, the widow ran in that direction. Brush and small woodland creatures went flying out of her way as she sped.
“Women.” Bloody Joe shook his head and grabbed for a tin plate.
A cold deeper than the dew-soaked clothes on Cal’s back wrapped around him as he glanced toward Ginny. He was glad she was a distance away and wouldn’t realize that the next shot she heard took her uncle’s life.
“Cal.” Ginny motioned wildly from where she sat.
He glanced at Smith and Bloody Joe.
“Sure, take a minute for your lady friend. If you’d rather do that than eat, that is.” Smith chortled in a smoky combination of new cigar and gassy hiccups from the brown stuff in the cauldron.
With the way that goulash s
melled, one didn’t need a lady friend to choose her over the food. Walking over, Cal crouched down in the earth besides Ginny.
“Have a plan to save my Uncle Zak yet?” Ginny crossed her thin arms across her chest.
“Your Uncle Zak.” He swallowed hard. Had she overheard Bloody Joe’s words? How did he tell her that his plan would start two hours too late? In mere minutes, her uncle would leave this earth and without even a chance for her to say good-bye.
“I know they’re planning to execute him. Do you think Bloody Joe talks quietly?” She pulled the dirty coat up higher around her neck, making a tunnel for her words. “Can you keep the sentries quiet?”
“Can I what?” He stared at her.
“I’m assuming they won’t let you off sentry duty. Which may be just as well since, as it is, we will have the Silverman gang divided. I’ll arrest Bloody Joe and the gang members in the campsite. If you distract the sentries—”
The cough in Cal’s throat let up enough for speech. “Exactly how are you planning to defeat Bloody Joe and six other gang members? These men are killers, remember?”
“I’ll go cut Peter free first and leave him the knife to free the rest. Then, it’s just a matter of some simple distraction work to allow Peter and the others to grab the guns.” She jerked her chin toward the tarp-covered pile of weaponry, not twenty feet from Bloody Joe’s conscious and moving form. “Then we meet back here and go save Uncle Zak.”
How did he break the news to her that her beloved uncle would very likely be dead before this conversation ended? Not to mention that the chances of her getting the drop on Bloody Joe and his band of desperate criminals was about as likely as Mrs. Clinton taking a vow of silence. “I don’t have a knife, and I doubt I can convince Smith to give me one.”
She smiled. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I still have one.”
“You were searched.” He stared at her.
Shaking her head, she gave him a distinctly pitying glance. “There are just so many advantages to the female anatomy.”
“Time’s up, Westwood.” At the campfire, Smith let his bowl drop to the ground with a clatter and shoved his guns a little tighter into his holsters. “Back to work.”
“I can count on you to take care of the sentries?” She looked up at Cal with those big, green eyes.
How did one say no to those eyes? Maybe he could use the line, “You’re going to get killed if I let you do this!” He should have insisted on sending messengers to the Denver marshal like he’d planned to do in the first place. Now Sheriff Thompson, and if Ginny had her way, the posse, and her, too, would be dead anyway.
“Westwood,” Smith shouted again.
Too late to explain his plan to her now. “There’s no time, Ginny. Wait two hours, and I’ll set us free.” He’d not let Ginny die in this foolhardy attempt to save her uncle.
Those green eyes looked up at him again. Her soiled skirt wrapped around her bent knees. She looked so small enveloped in the gang man’s coat. Even with his plan, there could be casualties…
No answer from Ginny.
“Take care of yourself.” Cal touched her knee, looked one last time into her dry eyes, and stood up.
“You’d better take care of the sentries because I am arresting Bloody Joe.” Ginny whispered.
17
Pace up to tree, pace back once. Cal looked over at Smith, but the man still watched him. Surely, Ginny wouldn’t be crazy enough to take on Bloody Joe herself? The man was a crack shot along with every other member of the Silverman gang. She’d never…
All right, crazy was the word that defined Ginny Thompson’s life. But still…
The orange glow on the horizon said a quarter hour at most until daybreak. In a quarter hour, the sheriff would die. That is, if the gang had the patience to wait until the sun had entirely risen. No disturbance in the camp yet. By now Ginny had probably reconsidered and would wait for the sentries to return.
No. Cal’s jaw hardened as the memory of the sickly-sweet taste of Russell’s Tonic came back to him, and he felt even sicker than that night. This was Ginny Thompson, and reconsider was not in her vocabulary.
Just as clear as the purple mountain peaks in front of him, he could see the bullet passing through her head—her white face as the life blood seeped out. Worse yet, what if Bloody Joe decided to assault her first? A rush of blood attacked his heart. He had less than a quarter of an hour to save her.
“Westwood.” Smith’s brutal voice cut the air. “First, you slept all night, and now you’re staring into the air. If all lawman are this lousy at being sentries, it explains why we kill so many of them.” His thin laugh shook his trail of cigar smoke.
Fifteen minutes between Ginny and certain death. Cal leaned back against a pine tree. “Where are the rest of the sentries? Surely, Bloody Joe didn’t send us out here alone?”
“Picketing on the other end.” Smith stuffed another cigar in his mouth.
Cal sneaked his hand down to the rusted gun.
“Real shame about the sheriff fellow dying in a minute here. If he’d stayed alive a few more days, I might have had myself even more fun than with that Houston Ranger back last year.”
Isaacs! This vermin had been the one who’d murdered him. Cal kept his back studiously turned, not daring to trust his face or voice to Smith’s scrutiny. Even so, he felt the man’s eyes boring into his back, waiting for his reaction.
Cal counted to three before he lunged. “Look over there, do you see that?” He pointed to the mountains above.
Throwing down another cigar, Smith squinted up to the mountain peaks. The night’s fog rolled down from the barren crests to the valleys below. “See what?”
”Gun smoke!” The rushing blood in his veins made the eagerness in his tone more than realistic. Pine needles crunched under Cal’s rigid legs.
“That’s morning fog, not smoke, idiot. A gun shot would have made a noise.” Leaning back against his tree again, Smith took another puff.
The man had to buy this ruse or Ginny was dead twice over. Hands on his belt, Cal spread his stance. “I say it’s gun smoke.”
Smith rolled his eyes and stretched his thin neck back against the tree, giving much the impression of a snake at rest. “Are you sure you actually went to lawman training or did you maybe forge the signature on that piece of paper, too?”
An ex-confederate-turned-Texas-Ranger’s voice came back to Cal’s head. Remember this, officers. Doesn’t matter how stupid what you’re saying is. If you say it loud and firm enough, people will start takin’ you seriously. That’s how Lincoln did it.
“It’s smoke.” Cal let his voice rise to a blustering tone, confidence radiating even from the set of his shoulders.
Now Smith came off the tree. “It is not—”
“I want a second opinion.” Not letting his opponent finish his talking points was also a good way to win a debate. He’d learned that from Cherry.
The irritation trickled out of Smith’s body, and he flopped back against the tree. “Fine, go get a second opinion. Be a laughingstock for all I care.”
“Will do.” Even before the grim victory smile crept over his face, Cal started off at a sprint. The sentry perimeter stretched the whole way around the camp, men spread out at a distance calculated to detect newcomers.
One young man stood to the east. Chewing on a bit of grass, he shifted his feet on the damp earth as he peered out at the plains below.
Chest heaving in the thin mountain air, Cal paused a moment by the man.
Once he notified this sentry, he had the time it took the man to walk back up the hill to Smith and no longer. If he didn’t get to all the others by then with the same message, the young man would be back to his post and sounding the alarm when the first pistol shots were fired.
Head dizzy from little oxygen, Cal gulped one more breath. “Hey, you! Smith wants you for a second opinion.”
Message delivered to first sentry. He set off up the eastern slope at a run. His
legs burned as he headed up the hill. The second sentry stood marching back and forth between three pine trees, gaze glued to the horizon. “Smith needs you.” No time for more words. On to the third.
Running up the northern edge of the camp, millions of little needles wedged their way into his lungs. He spared one glance into the campfire obscured by the needled fronds of pine trees. What was Ginny doing? Had she attempted anything yet? As soon as she pulled a knife on Bloody Joe, the man would put a bullet through her. The thought gave speed to Cal’s legs as he plunged on. He had to take down the sentries and make it to her.
No. He needed to run back to the campsite, burst through the trees and hold a gun to Bloody Joe’s head.
And have the sentries hear the cry and put a bullet through his head along with Ginny’s? No, the sentries had to be incapacitated, or none of them had a chance. If only Ginny would have the sense to wait just a few minutes longer.
Cal’s legs churned across the uneven ground as he ate the distance between him and the next sentry. Fourth sentry, fifth, sixth, he called them all up front to Smith. Ninth sentry up ahead. He could hear the faint sound of voices from the end of the circle where Smith was. He had to get there before the sentries dispersed.
“Smith needs you now.” The words came out in gasps to the ninth sentry. Jerking to attention, the man looked at Cal. But Cal didn’t stop to take in the man’s opinion. Plunging forward, he pressed on to the finish off the circuit.
And there stood Smith. Eight men gathered around Smith, twirling guns in their hands with confused expressions plastered over their faces.
“What’s wrong with you, Westwood? I said one second opinion, not every man on the watch!” Smith’s holler may have been calculated to intimidate, but when one’s staring death in the eye, intimidating doesn’t do so much.
“I needed their opinion.” Cal’s finger played around the leather trim of his one holster. His breath made mist in the cold morning air.
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