by Ben Boulden
At that moment Joshua crashed through the hotel’s front door and skidded to a halt a few feet from the table. His face red, chest heaving as if he’d run a long distance. His eyes scarlet with terror.
“Joshua? What’s wrong?” Kate said.
CHAPTER 20
Joshua grappled for breath. His hands on his knees. His head down. After a few moments he looked up, his eyes wet and red, and said, “It’s Mr. Billy.”
James Ames was the first to stand. “There’s something wrong with Billy?”
Joshua nodded. A tear bubbled in his eye.
“Where is he?”
Joshua looked at Kate. “He—”
Kate moved to the boy, placed her hands on his shoulders. “What happened, Joshua?”
“They—they. I think he’s dead, Mrs. Kate.”
Ames rushed past Kate. His shoulder collided with hers. She lost her balance, took a step to keep from falling and bumped against Joshua. The boy stumbled, off balance. As he started to tumble backwards Kate clutched his wrist in her hand, but Joshua’s momentum pulled both into a heap on the floor.
Kate stood, checked that Joshua was unhurt, and followed Ames out the front door. The afternoon glare blinded her. The sun’s light reflected from the powdery white soil like it was unblemished tin.
“Kate!” The voice J.D.’s, but Kate didn’t respond. Instead she cupped her hands over her eyes and looked for Ames.
“Ames!” Kate shouted when she saw him sprinting across the flat valley floor. An unmoving, prostrate man his destination. Kate’s horse in the background wandering nervously across the lonesome trail. She slipped the .44 from its leather, its wood grips cool in her hand, scanned the horizon for any movement in the valley. Trail dust marked three men moving north in a hurry.
She looked over her shoulder at J.D., shouted, “Three riders!”
J.D. waved her forward. “Go!”
Kate hurried after Ames. When she arrived at the scene, Ames had already pulled Billy onto his back. The man’s eyes wide. A gaping wound across his neck where a blade had been pulled across.
Ames slapped Billy lightly on each cheek. He did it again and again, whispering Billy’s name over and over.
“He’s dead, James.” Kate holstered the Colt and kneeled beside the grieving man. After a moment, she pulled him away from Billy. James grasped her, his tears wet against her face.
“Goddamn them.” He repeated again and again.
Kate held him tight, felt his body spasm with grief. She patted his back in the same manner she would settle a baby. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
J.D. touched her gently on the shoulder before moving to the dead man. He crouched, looked at the gruesome wound. His shoulders slumped. With his right hand he closed Billy’s eyes, pulled a bandanna from his back pocket and placed it over Billy’s face.
He stood, looked at Kate. A hard glint in his eyes. “They have Emma and her husband.”
Kate blinked, surprise taking her breath. “What?”
“They gave Joshua a message. Emma and Stephen Wiley are their prisoners.”
“Emma? How?” Kate was stunned by the new circumstances.
“I don’t know, but—”
“Mrs. Kate!” Joshua halted a few feet away. “Is he okay, Mrs. Kate?”
Ames pulled away from Kate. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m really sorry.” He stood, his back to Billy. His eyes cast a distant stare. “Billy didn’t deserve this.”
Kate shook her head. “No, James. Billy didn’t deserve this.”
“We need to bury him,” Ames said to himself. “He’d want a tree in sight.” He looked around the desolate valley, studied the greasewood and sagebrush at the western mesa’s base. His gaze settled on something unseen to Kate. He pointed. “Over there, I think.”
Kate followed his hand’s direction to a cottonwood copse hidden in a depression at the mesa’s sandstone base.
J.D. approached Ames, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sure. We’ll bury him in the shade of the cottonwoods.”
“What about Emma, J.D.?” Kate said, back on her feet.
J.D., an uncomfortable look to the way he stood with hunched shoulders and his hands at his sides, said, “They wanted Joshua to relay a message. Emma and her husband will be killed if we dig any deeper into their private business.”
“What business?” Kate said. “We have no idea what’s happening around here.”
J.D. shook his head.
Kate studied the horizon. The plateau’s washed out yellows, browns and whites. The mesa’s painted red rock. J.D.’s hesitance bothered her. The way he stood. His even, too calm manner. Even more bothersome was his lack of enthusiasm for the chase.
Kate looked at J.D. “You’re not telling me something.”
J.D. played his boot toe in the dirt, tracing a small circle over and over. It reminded Kate of a little boy. She wanted to cry for a reason she didn’t understand.
“J.D.?”
Joshua stepped to Kate, took her hand. His eyes dry. “Mr. J.D. is frightened for you.”
“For me?” She stared at the boy for a moment, waiting for him to answer. When he didn’t she looked at her husband. A man with a reputation for fearlessness. A gunfighter. An adventurer. Her lover. “I don’t understand.”
J.D. said, “The albino offered us another deal. He’ll release Emma in exchange for you.”
Kate’s skin crawled, her neck prickled. “That dirty bastard.” Red hot anger flared. Suffocating in its intensity. She turned to Joshua. His eyes glimmering with tears again. “Did he say when and where?”
The boy looked at J.D., but Kate pulled his face back to her with gentle fingers. “Don’t look at him, look at me. Where and when?”
“Kate.”
“You stay out of this for a minute, J.D.” She kept her eyes solidly locked on Joshua’s. “Well?”
“The Wiley place, Mrs. Kate.”
“When?”
J.D. said, “Before sunset.”
Kate pulled a railroad watch from a pocket. It read, 12:36.
“There’s more than one move here, Kate.” J.D. moved toward his bride. “And you going in there alone is the worst.”
Kate shook her head. “It’s the only way, J.D.”
“How do you figure?”
“It gets us inside. Maybe I can figure what’s happening out there and that’ll help everyone. The Emma, Gentry, even Unity. Alabaster is a terrible man, J.D. I’ve looked in his eyes, touched him. There’s an evil to him.”
“That’s why I don’t want you going alone, Kate. We work best side-by-side. You and me. Hell, there’s no guarantee they’ll let Emma Wiley go anyway.”
“I promised Emma we’d get to her husband, J.D. I promised it.”
J.D. raised his hands. “I’m not saying we saddle the horses and ride away from here. I’m saying we do it the right way. Together.”
Kate shook her head. “We need to get Emma away from Alabaster. He’ll destroy her, J.D. She’ll be perched in his brothel, broken and addicted, her only memory the torture that bastard bestowed on her.”
J.D.’s blue eyes simmered, Kate could feel the anger and helplessness rise from him like an illness. She knew it wasn’t something he felt often, and she didn’t want him to feel it ever again. Still holding Joshua’s hand, Kate motioned J.D. to her, pulled him close. Kissed his nose. An eye.
J.D. said, “You got a plan?”
Kate said, “No.” Then released Joshua’s hand and wrapped it behind J.D.’s neck. She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him with urgency.
“I love you, J.D.”
CHAPTER 21
It took less than an hour to dig Billy’s grave. The service brief. Ames said a prayer that included several, “Our Heavenly Fathers,” a plea for forgiveness—both for Billy and Ames—and not much about Billy’s life. A nice service, but Kate hoped hers would be more conclusive about who she’d been, and maybe even why she’d been. And with luck, J.D. would be there mourning over her gr
ave, so she wouldn’t have to mourn over his.
Moon hugged Ames. His face shimmered silver with tears. “Billy would have enjoyed it.”
J.D. nodded, took Kate’s hand in his and squeezed gently.
The men went to work filling the hole. Kate moved towards the hotel, watched as several vultures circled above the valley where Guggenheim’s man had fallen dead from Kate’s bullet earlier in the day. She watched for several minutes before J.D. came to her side.
“Reckon we should do something with him?”
Kate shook her head. “I sure don’t want to.”
“Me either,” J.D. said, “but it would be the Christian thing to do.”
Kate looked at her husband sideways. “You’re a philosopher now, are you?” She smiled to let him know it was a tease. “We’ll bury him after we get Emma and Stephen away from Guggenheim.”
J.D. nodded. “We need to be real careful tonight. I have no plans of planting you anytime soon.”
“Or me, you.” Kate pulled the train watch from her pocket. 4:19. “I better get ready.”
The sun wound its way to the western horizon. Shadows stretched longer with each tick of the clock. An anxiousness enveloped the Ames-Moon Stage Coach Inn for the dangerous job ahead. No one said a word. J.D. and Joshua saddled four horses while Gentry, Ames and Kate watched from the hotel’s porch.
Joshua brought Kate her horse. It whinnied nervously as she took the reins, seeming to understand the peril ahead. Kate patted its shoulder, cooed gently in its ear before placing her left foot in the stirrup, right hand on the saddle horn and without any obvious effort hoisted herself into the seat. The stillness such that she heard saddle leather creak, the jangle of spurs. She felt half-naked sitting the horse, her Colt and its holster missing from her hip and the scabbard gone from the saddle. Her only protection a three-inch blade buried in her left boot.
When she looked up all four men, everyone except Moon who was in the kitchen doing chores, stood shoulder to shoulder. J.D. and Ames with thumbs hooked in their belts, Joshua’s shoulders slumped and Gentry grimacing.
“You’re the glummest bunch I’ve ever seen.” The thought of Billy kept Kate caught from comparing it to a funeral. In a light tone she continued, “I reckon you’re either hungry or feeling bad about the only woman in ten miles riding off.”
“I don’t like this one damn bit,” Gentry said. A sour look to his face.
His words burst a dam because everyone seemed to speak at once.
Joshua said, “Please don’t go Mrs. Kate.”
“There’s other ways, ma’am,” James Ames said.
Kate nodded and tried to smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it when no words came.
J.D. said to the men, “Once Kate’s decided something there’s no more arguing.” He closed the distance between he and Kate and took her hand. A smile on his face. “It’s not like we won’t be seeing you in a few hours anyway.”
Kate burst into laughter. J.D.’s easy manner silly, but welcome. “I better see you, big man, because if you have any plans to ride out for a better woman I’ll hunt you all the way to your grave.”
J.D.’s brow scrunched, showing his concern about the powder keg Kate was about to ignite. “It doesn’t exist.”
Kate tilted her head with confusion. “What doesn’t exist?”
“A better woman.”
Kate wanted to cry, but stifled it. Joshua giggled.
Gentry said, “I’ve sure never met one better. Anyone better for that matter.”
Kate coughed politely into her hand, embarrassed by Gentry’s words. “I’ll see you at eight.”
But before she could turn her horse away, Moses Moon appeared in the hotel’s door. “Mrs. Blaze! A moment, please.”
Kate held her ground. A questioning look on her face.
“I have something you’ll want.” The small man held an even smaller pistol towards her. A silver-plated two-shot over-under derringer. “It belonged to my late wife and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find it.”
Kate took the pistol from Moon and studied the fine engravings on its barrels for a moment. The black grips cool in her hand. She broke its chamber open and verified loads in each barrel. She bowed her head slightly and said, “Thank you, Moses.”
“It’ll shoot accurate to about ten feet.” Moon pulled two small .22 caliber rounds from his pocket, handed them over. “I don’t have any more.”
Kate pushed the derringer into her right boot. The two extra rounds in her jeans’ front pocket. She brought the horse around, pointed its head towards the Wiley’s homestead. A few tears popped from Kate’s eyes, her back to the men so they couldn’t see, as she rode.
“Good luck, Mrs. Kate!” shouted Joshua.
Kate waved without turning around. A smile on her face at the boy’s words. And for a moment she thought how easy it would be to keep him around.
CHAPTER 22
The flora changed from greasewood, sagebrush and juniper to ponderosa, quaking aspen and fir. The soil darkened to a rich brown as the trail moved steadily higher. In the distance Kate could see the ragged rocky peaks rising above the tree line, their eastern slopes stained orange by the dropping sun. The wilderness alive with chirping birds, unseen animals rustled in the underbrush. The clip-clop of Kate’s shod horse. The air fresh and cool.
Kate didn’t notice when the small noises disappeared and left her alone with nothing except her horse’s clip-clopping. The beat of her heart.
“That’s far enough.”
An easy, calm voice broke the silence and startled Kate. She pulled her horse’s reins back, a whinny and snort its response. The darkening forest at the trail’s edge a mask to her eyes.
“I’m stopped,” Kate said. Her hands clasped on the saddle’s horn.
“You alone?”
Kate sighed. “Do you see anyone else?”
“What about it, Timmons? You see anybody else?”
Behind Kate, a horse clattered down a slope until it hit the trail with a clomp. Kate turned in her saddle to see a familiar man wearing a riverboat hat, a red vest under a dark waistcoat. It took her a moment to place him, but she sighed when she remembered the man heckling Sheriff Gentry when he arrested J.D. for killing Deputy Haskins.
“Nobody I saw.”
“Timmons,” Kate said.
The man sat the horse lazily and grinned like the devil as he urged the animal toward Kate. “That’s me.”
“You work at the Wanderlust?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A mirthless laugh, high pitched and ugly. “That’ll probably be the last time anyone calls you that.”
“Ma’am?” Kate said.
“You’ll be less than a lady when Guggenheim gets done with you.”
“Promises, promises,” Kate said. “The more a man boasts, the less satisfaction I seem to get.”
“You’re a peach, girlie. I understand why Guggenheim wants you.” He pulled up a few feet shy of Kate. “Do you think Marcus will mind if I take a bite first, Sully?”
“Shut up.”
Timmons raised both hands in surrender. To Kate he said, “I guess I’ll have to wait my turn.”
Kate smiled, an alluring curve to her lips. “I can’t wait, Mr. Timmons.”
She turned forward to see the man called Sully move onto the trail.
“You bring a gun?”
Kate shook her head. “I didn’t think Alabaster would like that.”
Sully smiled. “Alabaster? That’s clever. If I were you I’d keep that name to myself, Mrs. Blaze.”
Kate sat straight in the saddle. “Not sure I can keep it to myself, being clever and all. We sitting here, or we going somewhere?”
Sully stared at Kate for a few beats, nodded. He clicked his tongue against his check, turned his horse up trail, his back to Kate. “Sure, but I wouldn’t think you’d be anxious to get there any sooner than you have to.” He spurred his horse forward. “Don’t let her shoot me in the back, Timmons.”
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The gambler chuckled. “That’d be a shame.”
* * *
J.D. followed Ames closely. The landscape forbidding as it changed from desert to mountainous. The mesa and plateau far behind. They kept away from the trail as they circled toward Wiley’s homestead. Behind him rode Gentry and Joshua. The boy’s presence a secret since Kate was dead set on him staying at the Ames-Moon. But, J.D. figured, it was better to have the boy at his side than following somewhere out of sight.
Ames came to a stop and waved J.D. forward.
When J.D. came even, Ames said, “Wiley’s place sits half a mile that way.” James pointed to the north and east at a small depression covered by fir and quaking aspen, a short broken rock wall at its back.
J.D. said, “What’s Wiley farming? Trees?”
Ames glanced at J.D., a smile on his face. “He is a city boy.”
“I’m not sure anybody’s so city they’d want to farm in those trees.”
Gentry moved next to J.D. “That’s not a farm.”
J.D. nodded. “Where’s Wiley’s camp, James?”
Ames pointed to a spot at the depression’s center. A little better than a hundred yards from the broken cliff. J.D. pulled a looking glass from a saddle bag, studied the area, but saw nothing except trees and rocks.
J.D. turned back to Ames. “You sure this is the place?”
“Sure as I can be.”
“Okay.” He turned in his saddle. “You two ready?”
Gentry and Joshua nodded.
J.D. said to Joshua, “You’re with me, little man.”
Ames put a hand on J.D.’s shoulder before he could ride away. “You think this is going to work?”
J.D. thought about Kate alone on the trail below. “Kate’s probably about there. I’m not leaving without her.”
“You ready, Ira?” Ames slapped his horse on the rump and started forward.
The lawman grunted and followed the hotelier as he rode to the left to curl behind the broken rock wall.
J.D. watched the pair ride for a few moments. He motioned to Joshua.
“You know this area?”