“Ahh, yes. The prolific Abraham Keyes. Quite the sordid history with that one.”
“You knew about him already?” Pete asked.
“I read a good deal about his trial in the papers. It happened around the time I was tucked away in a hospital in Colorado. There wasn’t much to do there apart from read. Oh,” Deaugrey tossed in as if it was the punch line of a dirty joke, “and getting healed.”
“Nate thinks the two men watching that jail were bought and paid for by Keyes,” Pete said.
“Oh, most definitely they were. Seems many men in this very saloon have had run-ins with them two regulators. They’re for sale but don’t do much to earn their money. The man who donated his watch to my wardrobe mentioned there’s a third who is still out somewhere working a silver mine. He’s the killer of the three and, if that’s what Keyes paid for, he’ll get it as soon as that one returns.”
“Then we’ve got to get Nate out as quickly as possible.”
“I thought that was the plan all along.”
“Yer damn right it is.”
* * *
“What’s this for?” Ross asked.
The sun had become a memory in the time since Pete had paid his last visit, and there wasn’t much light shining on the regulator’s face. The torch a few yards from the old smokehouse was burning bright enough for Pete to see an expression of genuine bewilderment. Pete’s grip tightened on the wad of cash as he held it closer to Ross’s face and asked, “What the hell do you think it’s for? Ain’t this enough to pay my friend’s fine?”
“What fine?”
“Whatever it is I need to pay to get him out of there! This has got to be enough.”
“There isn’t a fine,” Ross said. “He’s staying in there for another day at least.”
“Why?”
Ross’s eyes darted back and forth, but found nothing to fix upon. “Because,” he reluctantly said, “that’s our orders.”
Pete’s hand tightened into a fist around the dollars he was holding, which he thumped against the other man’s chest. “Take this goddamn money and open that goddamn smokehouse.”
Shaking his head, Ross stepped back. “You’re gonna have to leave.”
“Yeah?” Shoving the money back into his pocket, Pete slapped that hand against the gun holstered at his side. “You wanna tell me one more time what I gotta do?”
“I thought you were a priest!”
“You’re gonna need a priest if you don’t—”
Since it was clear that things weren’t going to get any better from there, Deaugrey patted Pete on the shoulder and stepped in. “Obviously, you were paid to keep that man locked up. Am I right?”
“That, uh, doesn’t matter,” Ross stammered.
“I can see I’m dealing with someone who knows their job well and isn’t to be trifled with,” Deaugrey said in a voice that didn’t betray the first hint of sarcasm. “For that reason, we’re willing to hand over some additional compensation.” He reached into his jacket’s inner pocket, which also allowed him to show the guns he kept on his person. Flashing an additional hundred dollars, he said, “This is more than the job is worth, but you drive a hard bargain.”
Without hesitation, Ross shook his head. “I can’t. We, uhh, we can’t take that.”
“Then how about this?” Deaugrey asked as he dug out another twenty.
Ross looked around as if he had an audience surrounding him. All that could be seen at that late hour was the usual assortment of drunks, vagrants and tired miners shuffling to whichever tent contained their bed for the night. “Tell you what,” he said in a voice that could barely be heard. “Bring that back in two days. We’ll open the door and your friend can go.”
Smiling, Deaugrey stashed his money away and said, “There now. I imagine that was some of the easiest money you’ll ever make. We’ll be seeing you and your associate real soon.”
Several paces behind them, Ross’s stout partner glanced about a few times before realizing he was the associate that had just been mentioned.
When Deaugrey walked over to where Pete was waiting, the tracker was gnashing his teeth like a horse chewing on a bit. Still smiling, Deaugrey looked over his shoulder at the regulators who were holding a nervous conference about twenty yards away.
“What did they tell you?” Pete asked.
“He told me to come back in two days,” Deaugrey replied. “If we do that, Nate will be dead. I say we give it an hour, wait for them to get nice and tired, stroll back over there, knock them over the head, take their keys and escort Nate to freedom. After that, we have a nice plate of breakfast.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why? I’m starving!”
“We gotta think about getting out of this camp as well as just getting Nate out of that box,” Pete told him. “These miners take care of their own. Them regulators may be idiots, but they gotta have some friends in this camp who’ll back their play. You see all these men standing and lying about?”
Deaugrey looked around to see the same drunks, vagrants and miners he’d seen before. The men’s dirty faces were every bit a part of the landscape as the rocks, tents and rich Missouri soil. “Yeah, I see them.”
“They’ve been glaring at us every time we so much as look at that smokehouse or them two who are guarding it. We make a move on those regulators and we’ll have trouble coming at us from all sides.”
“These aren’t bad men,” Deaugrey scoffed. “They’re tin panners.”
“They all got guns,” Pete said. “And if they all start shooting, at least one of them’s bound to hit something. We’ll only get one shot at getting all of us out of here before things get too messy, so we need to make it a good one.”
When Deaugrey looked around this time, he took special notice of all the dirty faces pointed back at him. They were in doorways, tent flaps, windows and shadows and they didn’t turn away until the pair had put some distance between themselves and the camp’s makeshift jail. “Even if we did get Nate out of there, we don’t have much of an idea of what Keyes has got brewing or what sort of meat grinder we’d be going into if we did find him.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“So we go it alone?”
Pete grinned. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, either.”
22
Nate woke up covered in sweat, stinking of stale smoke and aching in every joint in his body. He’d slept as he had the night before: curled into a half ball with his legs tucked in close to his chest and his head cocked at an awkward angle. A beam of sunlight pierced through a split in the smokehouse wall. It was the same split he’d been digging his fingers into all night long in the hopes of widening the crack enough for him to be able to break open a hole in the wall. All he’d gotten for his trouble were bloody fingers.
It was no easy task to get back to his feet. The effort involved a whole lot of grunting and groaning, pushing and struggling before he was finally standing inside the cramped space. “What the hell kind of idiot savages use a thing like this as a goddamned jail?” he grunted to himself while rubbing the aching kink in his neck.
His hand balled into a fist and he started pounding on the door. Every thump against the wooden boards was a reminder of how infuriatingly solid the door was. Pounding on it even harder, he shouted, “Where’s my damn breakfast?”
So far, Nate had only been given food twice and, even if combined, it wouldn’t have been enough to call a meal. Even though he could gladly go hungry rather than eat that trash, he still liked to make a fuss about getting it, if only to make his jailers regret the fact that he was there. It wasn’t a surprise when nobody responded to him. After a few more loud reminders of his presence, he gave his throat a rest and pressed an ear against the door.
Listening for information on his captors had yielded even fewer results than banging
on the door. Everything he’d needed to know had been gleaned in the first minute or two after he’d seen Ross and the other one the very first time. The fact that they’d barely blinked when shown the badge he’d been carrying told him there was no reasoning with them. Even though the badge didn’t represent any genuine authority, most folks at least gave it a moment’s consideration. But these regulators were already bought and paid for by someone who was an expert in buying the loyalties of petty men.
Nate peeled his ear away from the filthy door and immediately put it back again. Just before he’d moved it, the sound of voices drifted through the air outside. After a few moments, he found the voices again and concentrated on making out what was being said.
He couldn’t hear them clearly enough to piece any words together, but Nate swore he recognized one of the voices as Deaugrey’s. After a short scrap of conversation, the squat regulator groused angrily about something as the familiar voice hurried to defend himself in a steady string of syllables. That was Deaugrey, all right.
Grinning, Nate pushed his ear even harder against the door to listen for anything at all that might tell him what Deaugrey had up his sleeve. The conversation quickly tipped in the regulator’s favor as he snarled, “Now git the hell outta my sight!”
Nate strained to hear past the door, hoping to hear a signal from Deaugrey or something to let him know that the crazy man was doing more than just annoying someone out there. Instead, what he heard was the scrape of something against the smokehouse itself. Nate recoiled and looked around, certain that some piece of the wall had fallen off or possibly come loose after all the beatings he’d given it. The interior was still intact, however, even as something else scraped against the sides of the cramped little structure.
“Who’s out there?” Nate asked in a voice that he hoped didn’t carry too far. There were more scrapes, this time followed by the rattle of wagon wheels approaching the smokehouse.
“Hey!” the squat regulator shouted. “Get away from there!”
While Nate may have finally been able to hear the outside voices clearly, he was in no position to celebrate. His entire world was quickly turned on its ear as several scrapes came from all four corners of the smokehouse at once and the entire thing began to tilt. The more of them he heard, the more familiar the scrapes sounded. When they took on a more taut sound, Nate realized what they were.
Ropes.
There were ropes being tied around the smokehouse that were now cinching in tight to—
Completing Nate’s thought for him, the smokehouse tilted once again before tipping all the way over so the door was now angled toward the sky. It was all Nate could do to brace himself using all four limbs against whatever surface he could reach. The smokehouse didn’t tip all the way over, but it did tremble as the edge that was digging into the earth dug a rut as the structure was pulled from the spot where it had been rooted.
“What in the . . . ?” Nate hollered as he was jostled around inside that box like a single bean in a jar.
“Hang on!” someone shouted from above and behind the smokehouse. Since the ropes must have been tied to the wagon that Nate had heard, the man speaking now must have been its driver. The voice was vaguely familiar, but was getting washed away by the wagon wheels, the grinding of the smokehouse against the ground and the growing number of men shouting on all sides.
Just when Nate thought things couldn’t get any more chaotic, a shot cracked through the air to knock a hole through the top edge of the smokehouse. Sunlight stabbed through the bullet hole and wood splinters rained upon his face. “Shit!” he cried out as that single shot grew into a volley.
For the most part, the gunshots were behind the smokehouse. Every so often, however, some would come from up high and send a bullet to drill into Nate’s cell. After the second round had been driven through one side of the smokehouse and out the other, Nate tucked himself into a tight ball and covered his head with both arms. From there, all he could do was shout obscenities into his sleeves and absorb the impact of his body against the jostling back wall of the smokehouse.
After a minute or so, the gunshots became distant enough for Nate to move his arms and take a look at the walls around him. There were a few more holes, but most of them were at the edges of the smokehouse that would have been the top front corner if it were standing upright. The jostling slowed to a stop as a brake was hastily set to keep the wagon from rolling another inch.
“Who’s out there?” Nate shouted. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“Do me a favor and lean against the front of that outhouse instead of flapping your gums so much.”
“That you, Pete?”
“Yeah. Now would you like to keep talking or can you help me set this thing upright?”
Nate didn’t have to think for long about that one. Digging his heels into the floor, he threw himself at the door as he’d done so many times since it had been shut on him for the first time.
“One more time,” Pete grunted in a strained voice. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”
Nate charged the door as best he could. This time, the wooden box shifted forward to set itself back into the position for which it had been built. Now that he was standing, Nate only had to stoop a bit to look through one of the fresh holes that had been shot through the door. A second later, the light coming through that hole was eclipsed by a body stepping directly in front of it.
“Get this door open, Pete!” Nate said.
“Stand back.”
He may not have had very far to go, but Nate shuffled backward until he hit the rear wall and then pressed himself into a corner. The next gunshot that he heard was a lot closer than the rest, but he greeted it with a wide, expectant smile.
“Damn,” Pete grunted.
“What is it?”
“This is one solid door.”
Nate used both arms to push himself up. “Shoot it again!” he said.
“Stand b— Shit!”
Before Nate could ask what was keeping Pete from taking another shot, he heard another volley of gunfire erupt from not too far away. Bullets whipped through the air so close to the smokehouse that Nate could hear them through the thick walls. This time, however, he didn’t care. Instead, he propped himself in place as best he could while driving the bottom of one boot into the door. It rattled slightly in its frame, but was nowhere close to opening. Nate could even see a spot where one or both of Pete’s rounds must have landed but kicking there didn’t help his cause one bit. Staring at the unmoving barrier directly in front of him, Nate sighed. “Good Lord. Who built this damn thing?”
The gunshots grew into a storm that closed in once more on all sides. Pete returned fire, but was forced to do so at a slower, more calculated rate. “Grey!” he shouted. “Hurry up and get your ass over here!” Slamming against the outside of the smokehouse, Pete said, “We were afraid of this, Nate. That outhouse looked pretty damn sturdy. It’s been reinforced and won’t come open easy.”
“Keep shooting it,” Nate demanded. “Kick it! Find a hammer! Anything!”
“No time for that. But don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here.”
“You gonna drag me all the way out of camp?”
“Wouldn’t be fast enough. We got another— Ah! Here it comes now. Just hang on and get ready for some more jostling.”
“I don’t care if you turn this thing upside down!” Nate said. “Just crack it open!”
Amid the thunder of shots being fired as quickly as triggers could be pulled, Deaugrey let out a holler that sounded like a cross between a wild Apache and a rabid coyote. A good amount of gunfire was still being sent toward the smokehouse, blasting holes through the walls every now and then. Only now did Nate realize that not every hit put a hole into the smokehouse. And even the spots that had a few holes in them wouldn’t give way to Nate’s pounding fists. As he shifted his f
urious efforts from the wall to the door, he could feel a difference in the thickness of lumber used to build them. The true curse was the iron lock that kept the door shut. Nate had gotten a few quick glances at it on his way in and out of the jail, which was enough to tell him the lock was a formidable mechanism.
Another set of wheels rolled past the smokehouse to come to a stop behind it. By the sound of them, they were attached to something larger than whatever had dragged Nate this far. He could hear latches being opened and a wooden gate swinging down amid the squeal of old hinges. Footsteps scrambled around the smokehouse, followed by a few hasty slaps against the door.
“Ready?” Pete asked. “Here comes!”
Without counting to three, Pete shoved against the front of the smokehouse as the ropes that were still wrapped around it strained taut. It tipped back to fall farther than it had before and landed upright with a jarring slam that Nate felt through every last bone in his body. Now laying almost completely horizontal, Nate struggled to get up. His efforts were hindered by the impact, which felt like being kicked by three mules at once to knock all the breath from his lungs.
The gunshots kept coming.
The smokehouse was now starting to sway back and forth, up and down.
So many sounds washed through Nate’s ears. Too many. The snap of leather. A woman screaming. Horses whinnying. Something hissed in Nate’s ear like a hornet flying past. He rolled onto his side and knocked his head against both walls of the corner into which he’d landed.
Nate’s stomach felt like it was sloshing around inside of him, not attached to much of anything. His throat was raw from so much swearing and shouting. His head was splitting, and his body felt as if it had been run over by a wagon instead of being dragged behind one.
When the gunshots started to fade, Nate wasn’t sure if they were getting farther away or if he was simply losing consciousness. Whichever it was, he just lay where he was and let it happen.
Before he could get too comfortable, the wheels that were moving him along hit a rut that was so deep it sent Nate an inch or two in the air before dropping him straight down again. So much for laying back and enjoying the ride.
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