River of Blood

by William W. Johnstone

  By now Breckinridge had reached the women. He got his hands under Annie’s arms from behind and lifted her out of the water. She yelled and kicked, but she was no match for his great strength. Two long strides brought Breck to the bank, where he dumped Annie unceremoniously on the grass.

  He turned back toward the middle of the stream. Dulcy came up coughing and gagging and spitting creek water. She floundered, obviously disoriented, and Breckinridge caught hold of the back of her collar to haul her out of the water.

  She twisted in his grip and flailed at him. Her fists struck his chest and shoulders without much effect. Whether she thought Annie had hold of her and was striking out at her, or whether she meant to hit him, Breckinridge didn’t know, and he figured it didn’t matter. She could even be lashing out blindly, not knowing who was on the receiving end of those blows.

  He let go of her collar, took hold of her upper arms, and lifted her. She tried to kick him. He said, “Dulcy! Dulcy, settle down! It’s me, Breckinridge.”

  She stopped fighting and gaped at him. Her hair was plastered to her head except for several strands that hung limply over her face. She was still breathing hard. After a moment she said, “B-Breckinridge . . . ?”

  He lowered her so that her feet were on the bottom of the creek bed again. He let go of her, but only for a second, just long enough for him to bend a little and scoop her up in his arms, one arm behind her knees, the other around her shoulders. Carrying her as if she weighed no more than a child, Breckinridge turned and waded toward the bank.

  “Wait a minute!” Mahone yelled from the other side of the creek. “You bring her over here! This is where she belongs!”

  Nicodemus Finch was waiting on the bank. He shook a fist at Breckinridge and bellowed, “Don’t you bring that Mahone spy over here!”

  Breckinridge ignored both of the feuding old-timers. With Dulcy cradled in his arms, he stepped up onto the bank. A few feet away, Annie had sat up and was coughing and shivering. At this elevation the nights were cool, even in the summer, and that was doubly true when somebody was soaked to the skin.

  “Morgan, we need some blankets,” Breckinridge said.

  Like most of the others, Morgan was staring at the aftermath of the battle. Breckinridge’s words broke through to him. He nodded and said, “Sure, Breck,” then hurried to fetch a couple of blankets from their bedrolls.

  Breckinridge lowered Dulcy to the log where they had been sitting a few minutes earlier. When Morgan came up with the blankets, Breck took one of them and draped it around Dulcy’s shoulders.

  “Wrap up Annie with the other one,” he told his friend. “These gals need to warm up.”

  He sat down next to Dulcy and pulled the blanket tighter around her. What she really needed to do was get out of those wet clothes, but he didn’t see how they were going to accomplish that with all these people standing around.

  He told Akins, “Roscoe, see if you can build a fire. We need to get some heat goin’.”

  “Sure.” Akins nodded. He hurried off to search for some firewood.

  Meanwhile, Morgan knelt next to Annie and wrapped her in the other blanket. Through chattering teeth, she said, “Th-th-thanks.”

  Finch stalked over to glare at Breckinridge and Dulcy and began, “Now, see here—”

  “Stop right there,” Breckinridge snapped. “I ain’t in the mood for it, Finch, and before you start tryin’ to throw your weight around, you’d best remember this ain’t your land. Everybody else has got just as much right to be on it as you do. All this stuff about your side of the creek and Mahone’s side of the creek is a bunch of damn bull.”

  Finch’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. When he could form words again, he said, “You can’t talk to me like that!”

  “I just did, you addle-pated musharoo.”

  Normally, Breckinridge wouldn’t talk like that to one of his elders, but tonight’s events had pushed his patience to the breaking point.

  On the other side of the creek, Mahone leaned on his walking stick and cackled with laughter at the way Breckinridge had turned one of Finch’s nonsensical insults around on him.

  Mahone’s reaction irritated Breckinridge, as well. He drew Dulcy against him and tried to put everything else out of his mind.

  “It’ll be all right,” he told her as she shivered in the crook of his arm. “We’ll get you dried off and warmed up.”

  “I . . . I could have t-taken her,” Dulcy said. “I was going to d-d-drown her.”

  “I know. I didn’t figure you’d want to live with that on your conscience, though. That’s why I waded in to stop you.”

  Actually, Breckinridge hadn’t had to stop Dulcy from drowning Annie. The blonde had already fought her way free by the time Breck got there. His main goal then had been to break up the fight as quickly and efficiently as possible before one of the women was badly injured.

  A few yards away, Morgan sat on the ground with his arms around Annie. She lifted her head from his shoulder where she had been resting it and told Dulcy, “You couldn’t b-beat me on your b-best day, you—”

  “Hush now,” Morgan told her. “Let’s don’t go starting the whole thing over again.”

  Roscoe Akins bustled up with an armload of firewood. He got down to work with it and soon had a nice blaze going in front of the log. Breckinridge and Dulcy stayed where they were, while Morgan helped Annie up and led her over to sit down on the other side of the fire. The women let the blankets fall open so the heat from the flames could reach their wet clothing. They stopped shivering as the fire warmed them.

  Finch worked up his courage and came over to them again. He said, “I ain’t sure you and your bunch are welcome here anymore, Wallace.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Breckinridge said. “We’ll just go across the creek, and once the fur company men show up and buy our pelts, we’ll spend our money over there.”

  “Now, hold on, hold on! There ain’t no need to be hasty.”

  “Then why’d you come over and try to run us off?”

  “I started to say, you ain’t welcome here as long as you’re talkin’ ugly to me. Promise you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, and you can stay.”

  “And you can go to hell,” Breckinridge said. “I’ll stay or go, whichever I please, and it’ll be my decision, not yours.”

  Finch glared at him some more but didn’t say anything else. After a few seconds the scrawny old-timer turned and stomped off again.

  A few more minutes went by as the women basked in the heat from the fire, then Dulcy said, “Breckinridge, I think I’d like to go on back to my tent. I’m still damp, but I’m not freezing now.”

  “Sure, I’ll take you.” He stood up, and when Dulcy started to get to her feet, as well, and remove the blanket, he went on, “No, you keep that wrapped around you.”

  As he had done before, he scooped her up in his arms and cradled her against his chest. As he walked toward the creek, obviously intending to wade across it and take Dulcy to her tent, Morgan called after him, “Breck, are you coming back tonight?”

  Breckinridge looked down into Dulcy’s face, saw that she wasn’t angry with him anymore, and said, “I reckon not.”

  Chapter Thirty

  At the edge of the crowd that had gathered on Finch’s Point to see what all the commotion was about, Powell stood and watched with great interest as Breckinridge Wallace crossed the creek with the dark-haired whore in his arms.

  All evening, Powell had been waiting for a chance to catch Wallace alone, with none of his friends around to help him.

  Now it looked like luck—and a couple of battling soiled doves—might have given him that chance.

  Otto Ducharme and the rest of the hardcases the vengeful German had hired back in St. Louis would be here by the middle of the day tomorrow, and they could take Wallace anytime they wanted to.

  How much better would it be, though, if Powell was able to place Wallace in Ducharme’s hands before then, so that Ducharme
could take his revenge without having to worry about Wallace’s friends or any of the other men who were going to show up for the rendezvous?

  If there was any bonus to be paid for this job, Powell wanted to make sure he was the one who collected it.

  With that thought in his mind, he faded back away from the creek and the crowd, although he stayed close enough to watch as Wallace walked out of the stream carrying that lovely dark-haired burden. Powell took note of which tent Wallace and the whore went to. Once the two of them had disappeared inside the canvas structure, Powell went in search of the men he had brought with him.

  There were four of them: Bristow, Harkins, Edgeworth, and Snell. Cutthroats, all of them. Tonight they would have to suppress their tendency to murder, though, since Ducharme had insisted that the object of his hatred be taken alive.

  Each of the four men had taken quite a bit of punishment during the fight with Finch’s men earlier. They were sitting under some trees near where the horses were picketed, passing around a jug and commiserating with each other over their bruises. They barely looked up to acknowledge Powell’s arrival when he strode up to them.

  “Didn’t you fellas hear that ruckus a few minutes ago?” Powell asked.

  “Yeah, and we figured it didn’t have anything to do with us,” Edgeworth answered in a surly voice.

  “Well, you were wrong about that,” Powell snapped. “Wallace was right in the middle of it.”

  Bristow said worriedly, “Nothing happened to him, did it? If that bastard was to get himself killed, Ducharme probably wouldn’t pay us the rest of what he owes us.”

  Powell frowned. He hadn’t thought about that. Bristow was right. If Ducharme was disappointed in his quest for vengeance, he’d probably take it out on the men he’d hired. So it was in their best interest to keep Wallace alive . . . until Ducharme could kill the big redheaded bastard himself.

  “Wallace is fine, but we’ve got a chance to grab him tonight. He went across the creek with one of the whores who works for that fella Mahone. His friends stayed on this side. So if we’re quiet enough about it, we can take him prisoner and get him out of here without anyone knowing.”

  “If he’s staying with one of the whores, she’d know,” Harkins pointed out.

  Powell thought about that for a few seconds and then nodded slowly.

  “What we’ll need to do is kill her,” he decided. “One of us can strangle her, and then when Wallace disappears, it’ll look like he killed her and ran off so he wouldn’t have to answer for it.”

  The other four men considered that plan, then nodded and muttered their agreement. The potential death of a soiled dove meant less than nothing to them. It was convenient, that was all that mattered.

  “When are we gonna do this?” Bristow asked.

  “We’ll wait until it’s closer to morning. Give both camps plenty of time to settle down and go to sleep. That’ll give Wallace a chance to wear himself out with the whore, too.” An ugly grin stretched across Powell’s rugged face. “I hope he enjoys it, since it’ll be his last time on this earth.”

  * * *

  Cots weren’t really made to support Breckinridge’s weight, but several blankets spread on the grassy earth were plenty comfortable for him and Dulcy. She got out of her still-damp clothes and so did Breck, and by the time she sighed in contentment and snuggled against him as he wrapped the blankets around them, they were pleasantly warm and sleepy. Their lovemaking had been very satisfying for both of them.

  He fell into a deep, dreamless slumber almost right away, and he had no idea how long he had been asleep when something roused him. He had always been a light sleeper, and he didn’t know if he had heard something or if it was just instinct that had awakened him.

  But he was instantly alert as soon as his eyes opened. He lay there in pitch darkness and let his senses do their work as they searched for any sign of potential danger.

  He didn’t hear anything except the soft, regular pattern of Dulcy’s breathing as she slept in his arms, nor did he smell anything except the scent of her hair as she pillowed her head on his chest.

  She was sleeping so peacefully that he didn’t want to disturb her, but if trouble was lurking around, there was a good chance her slumber was going to be interrupted anyway. Breckinridge began sliding out from under her as gently and carefully as he could.

  The movement caused her to murmur in her sleep. Because of that, Breckinridge almost missed the slight sound of the canvas being brushed aside as somebody came into the tent. It wasn’t pitch-black in here after all, he realized. Enough light from the moon and stars came in for him to make out a looming shape just inside the entrance.

  Instead of trying to slide out from under Dulcy, he tightened his left arm around her now. At the same time, his right hand shot out and closed around the butt of the pistol he had placed beside the bedroll.

  He shifted his weight and threw himself to the left as he kicked off the blanket. Only half awake and startled by the sudden movement, Dulcy cried out. Breckinridge rolled on top of her, shielding her body with his own.

  He brought his right foot sweeping up and around in a kick that impacted hard against the intruder. The man let out a pained grunt and doubled over. An unfamiliar voice rasped, “He’s awake! Get him!”

  That told Breckinridge more than one man was stealing into the tent. He was pretty damn sure they didn’t mean him any good, either.

  He looped his thumb around the pistol’s hammer and pulled it back as he raised the weapon. When he squeezed the trigger, the boom as the charge of powder exploded was deafening. Flame spurted from the muzzle, lighting up the inside of the tent for an instant.

  In that instant, Breckinridge saw a man thrown backward as the ball slammed into his body. He got tangled up with two more men in the tent’s entrance. Another man lay crumpled to one side, laid low by the kick Breck had landed in his belly.

  Cursing, the two men flung aside the one who had been shot and charged into the tent. The muzzle flash had faded, and Breckinridge could see them now only as vague shapes.

  “Stay down,” he told Dulcy. He started to surge to his feet, but something crashed into his back. The intruders had clubs that they swung with brutal strength, hammering Breckinridge to the ground.

  So far he’d been lucky and none of the blows had landed on his head. If they had, he probably would have been knocked out, and then there wouldn’t be anything he could do to stop the men from carrying out whatever plan they had. If they kept whaling away at him like that, though, they were bound to connect with such a blow sooner or later.

  Breckinridge’s hands shot out in the darkness. He closed them around a pair of ankles and heaved. A man cried out in surprise and alarm as his legs went out from under him. Breck heard the heavy thud as the man crashed down on his back.

  Something brushed his shoulder and arm as it fell. The man he had just upended had dropped his club. Breckinridge grabbed it and came up swinging blindly. He hit something, and then suddenly he was tangled in the canvas side of the tent. He staggered back and forth, trying to free himself, but succeeded only in wrapping more of the flapping stuff around him as he dragged the tent loose from its moorings.

  Men shouted somewhere nearby, more than likely Mahone’s men reacting to the shot Breckinridge had fired. Breck heard a man’s pained voice gasp, “Let’s get out of here!” Booted feet slapped against the ground as the intruders retreated.

  Dulcy cried, “Breckinridge!” as he finally got hold of the canvas and ripped it away from his face. He threw the demolished tent aside and looked around, his eyes adjusting to the moonlight. He saw Dulcy with a blanket wrapped around her. She rushed to him and clutched at his arm as she asked, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “How about you?”

  “I’m all right, too,” she said, causing a wave of relief to go through him.

  He looked down at his hand and saw that he was holding a section of thick tree branch. He check
ed the ground nearby, ready to swat any of the attackers who’d been left behind.

  He didn’t see anybody, though, and realized that the men had taken their wounded with them.

  More men approached, one of them carrying a lantern. As its yellow glare washed over him, Breckinridge became aware that he was standing there stark naked, holding a club in one hand like some sort of primitive savage. He tossed the club aside and picked up another blanket to wrap hastily around his waist.

  “What the blue blazes is goin’ on here?” Mahone demanded. It was one of his men who held the lantern aloft. Others clustered behind him, some of them holding rifles.

  “Somebody snuck into Dulcy’s tent and jumped us,” Breckinridge explained.

  “Finch’s men! He sent them over here, damn his eyes!”

  “Maybe,” Breckinridge allowed, “but I heard a couple of ’em talkin’, and they didn’t sound like any of the fellas I know work for Finch.”

  “Who else could it have been?” Mahone demanded.

  Breckinridge could only shake his head. He didn’t have an answer for Mahone’s question.

  Somebody shouted from across the creek, “What’s all the commotion over there? Breck, are you all right?”

  Breckinridge recognized Morgan Baxter’s voice. He called back, “Yeah, I’m fine, Morgan. Just a little ruckus. Nobody hurt.”

  Except one of the intruders, he thought. He was sure his shot had winged one of them.

  Come morning, he was going to have to have a look around and see if he could spot any sign of an injury like that.

  In the meantime, he said, “Reckon some of you fellas could help me put this tent up again? It’s still a while until dawn. Might get some more sleep.”

  And as fetching as Dulcy looked with the blanket wrapped around her like that, they might do a little more than just sleep, too, he thought.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Powell and the other men departed from Finch’s camp very early that morning, well before dawn. Powell wanted to get away from there while most of the people around were still asleep. They might get too curious if they saw the bloody bandage tied around Bristow’s shoulder.