“You know the way it works, Schumacher. Go all the way to the back of the cell and don’t turn around until you hear the cell door shut.”
“You’re makin’ a mistake, Willie,” Schumacher said.
“I’m just the deputy, Francis,” Deputy Pierce said, softening it somewhat by using Schumacher’s first name. “I have to do what the marshal says. You know that.”
“Well, the marshal is making a mistake.”
“Francis, my old friend,” Emile said coming over to stick his hand through the bars to shake Schumacher’s hand. “What are you doing in here?”
“Somebody took Miss Parker, and the marshal thinks I had something to do with it,” Schumacher replied.
“Did you?”
“No! I had nothing to do with it!”
“Who is Miss Parker, anyway?”
“She owns the dress shop.”
“Some old biddy, is she?”
“She ain’t old, and she ain’t a biddy. She’s a young, pretty woman. Duff MacCallister is some sweet on her, they say.”
“MacCallister?” Emile laughed. “She’s MacCallister’s woman?”
“That’s what folks say, and I got no reason not to believe it.”
“I’ll be damn,” Emile said. “Then more ’n likely you did have something to do with it, only you just don’t know it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it looks like Johnny ain’t forgot about me.”
Duff rode directly to his ranch from Bordeaux, arriving at about two o’clock in the morning. Going to bed, he slept until about seven, then he walked out to the cowboy’s cook shack to have his breakfast.
“What do you want for breakfast, Boss?” his cook asked. Red Kirby was still called Red, though his hair had turned white long ago.
“Maybe a biscuit and a cup of coffee, though I would rather have tea if you have any.”
“I can make you a cup of tea in just a moment. Would you like a piece of ham with your biscuit?”
“No, but some butter and marmalade would be fine.”
When Duff sat down, Elmer, carrying his oversized cup of coffee, came over to join him.
“I see you got out of Bordeaux alive.”
“Yes, no thanks to Reid.”
“Reid? You mean Simon Reid is in Bordeaux? Damn, I never run across him while I was there.”
“Aye, he was there, and he gave me away to Cline. ’Twould appear that there is a one-thousand-dollar bounty on my head.”
“Obviously Reid didn’t collect. Did you kill the son of a bitch?”
“Nae. At least, I do nae think so. The saloon was on fire when I left. I assume Reid and the others got out.”
Elmer laughed out loud and slapped his hand down on the table. “I’ll be damn! You burned the saloon down?”
“Aye.”
“I’ll bet that was some sight to see. I just wish I had been there with you,” Elmer said, still laughing.
“I must confess, Elmer, m’ friend, there were a few moments there where I wished you had been with me as well.”
Red Kirby brought the biscuit and tea, and Duff and Elmer continued their conversation.
“I did learn a few thing while I was there,” Duff said. “Johnny and his brigands have left Bordeaux. And they have hidden out the money they took from the bank, which means if we could find it, we could take it back to the bank and greatly reduce the losses suffered by the people in town.”
“That would sure ease a lot of burdens,” Elmer said.
“Aye, that it would,” Duff said, taking the last swallow of his tea. “I’d best get into town and tell the marshal what I’ve learned.”
Duff didn’t have to go to town, because even before he finished his breakfast, Marshal Ferrell came riding up to the ranch.
“Marshal, what are you doing out here?” Duff asked, as Ferrell dismounted. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks,” the marshal said. “I came to see Elmer. Actually, it was to see you, but I thought you might still be in Bordeaux.”
“You look troubled.”
Marshal Ferrell took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair before he replied.
“They’ve got Meagan, Duff.”
“What? Who has? And what do you mean by ‘they’ve got’?”
“I assume it’s Johnny Taylor. Cindy Boyce said some men came in the middle of the night and took her. I expect it has something to do with Emile Taylor being in jail, but we won’t know until we hear from them.”
“I do nae intend to wait to hear from anyone,” Duff said. “I’m going to find Meagan.”
“Duff, there’s no need to be goin’ off half-cocked here,” Marshal Ferrell said. “We don’t have the slightest idea where they went. Where would you even start?”
“Where was she taken from?” Elmer asked. “Do we know that?”
“Yes, that’s the strange part of it. According to Cindy Boyce, Meagan was taken from her room.”
“Whose room?”
“Cindy’s room,” Marshal Ferrell clarified. “Meagan had gone to Miss Boyce’s room to look at a picture of a dress Miss Boyce wanted her to make.”
“Then that’s where we will start,” Elmer said.
“Elmer, I’ll nae be askin’ you to get involved,” Duff said.
“I’m already involved,” Elmer said. “Duff, there is only one thing in the world I can do better than you, and that’s track somebody. If you want to find Meagan, you don’t have no choice. You have to let me come with you.”
Duff smiled at his friend.
“I will be very glad to have you come along with me,” he said.
It was daylight by the time the wagon reached the Chugwater Range. Meagan knew where she was now, because she recognized Chimney Rock.
They passed through an opening into a draw that was cut back into the long, flat slabs of rocks that made up the Chugwater Range. Meagan saw two guards who wanted to be seen and a couple who didn’t want to be seen. The pass was long and narrow, with steep walls on either side. At one point, the canyon had been filled in from either side, creating a choke point so narrow that the buckboard was barely able to squeeze through. If Marshal Ferrell raised a posse to come after her, no matter how many there were, they could be held up here by no more than three or four well-armed men. One man might be able to get through, though it would take a very special man to try.
A man like Duff MacCallister.
“Get out of the wagon, girly,” one of the men said.
Meagan tried to answer, but because of the gag, she could only make a squeaking noise.
“Take the gag out of her mouth. You might as well untie her feet and hands too. She ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Megan felt a sense of gratitude that the gag was removed and that she was being untied.
“Thanks,” she said, as she rubbed her wrists. They were raw from the ropes that had been tied tightly.
“Like I said, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The man who spoke was relatively short, with dark hair and a deformed ear. Then, as she looked more closely at it, she realized that the ear wasn’t just deformed; part of it was missing. She’d heard tell of a man who fit this description.
“You are Johnny Taylor,” she said.
“So, you know who I am,” Johnny said.
“What do you want with me?” Meagan asked.
One of the other men rubbed himself suggestively. “Girly, there’s a lot I want with you.”
“That’ll be enough,” Johnny said. “For our purposes now, we have to keep her alive, unhurt and . . . unsullied, as it were.”
At first Meagan thought that Johnny was protecting her through some sense of honor, but his next statement shattered that illusion.
“After we get what we want from her, she will be fair game,” he said.
“What do you want with me?” Meagan repeated.
“You are Meagan Parker, aren’t you?” Johnny asked.
“I am.”
&
nbsp; “You are Duff MacCallister’s . . . friend?” He set the word friend away from the rest of the sentence, giving it a suggestive meaning.
“We are friends,” Meagan replied, without rising to the bait.
“Good. Because what I want is for Duff MacCallister to come after you.”
“Believe me, you don’t really want that,” Meagan said.
“Oh, but I do, my dear. I really do.”
Chapter Thirty
Elmer looked around in the alley behind Foley’s Lodging House. “Looks like maybe a buckboard, or a small wagon, pulled by a team of horses. More ’n likely it was a buckboard, I’d say. The wagon waited back here for quite a while. But wasn’t only the wagon—they was riders back here, too.”
“How do you know?”
“See them turds there? Horses takes a shit ’bout ever two hours. There’s too many turds for ’em to all have come from one team. And as much as there is, you have to figure they was standing here for anywhere from half an hour to an hour. And there wouldn’t be no reason for horses and a wagon to be hangin’ around here in this alley, if they wasn’t waitin’ on somethin’. If you was to ask me, I’d say after she was took from the room, she was brought out here and put in a buckboard.” Using a stick, Elmer began a closer examination of the horse apples.
“Also, these here horses ain’t been stabled for a while. No oats, no hay. They been eatin’ nothin’ but grass for the last week or so.”
Elmer started tracking the buckboard, while Duff kept pace with him.
“Looks like they was headin’ south,” Elmer said.
They were about a mile south of town when they found the marker from Meagan. Duff spotted it first.
“Look at that, Elmer,” Duff said, pointing to a nail with a tiny bit of cloth. “That is nae accident.”
“No, it ain’t!” Elmer said, laughing. “That’s a smart woman you’ve got, Duff.”
“I’m goin’ into town. I want the rest of you stay here and keep an eye on the woman,” Johnny said.
“I’ll keep more ’n an eye on her,” Blunt said.
“No, you won’t,” Johnny replied. “You keep your hands off her. That goes for all of you. You don’t do nothin’ to her ’til I say you can. Like I said, I’m goin’ into town to do a little horse tradin’. If we can’t work somethin’ out, and by that I mean if we can’t get Emile turned loose, then we’ll give the woman back to ’em anyway. Only if that happens, MacCallister ain’t goin’ to like the way he gets her back.”
“Who gets her first?” Calhoun asked.
“We’ll play high card for her,” Johnny said. “Highest card goes first, then on down the line.”
“Hell, I don’t care where I am,” Blunt said. “As long as I get my turn.”
Megan listened to the men bartering for her with a mixture of fear and revulsion.
It was midmorning when Duff and Elmer reached Chimney Rock. Dismounting, Duff pulled his Creedmoor rifle from the saddle sheath. Then he and Elmer continued on foot until they reached a butte that extended north from the east-west Chugwater range. They climbed to the summit of the butte, lay on their stomachs, and began searching the canyon floor before them, each of them using binoculars.
“There they are!” Elmer said. “Up there in that far corner, by Needle Rock—do you see them?”
Looking in the direction Elmer pointed, Duff saw Meagan and four men. Meagan was sitting on the rocky ground just at the base of the Needle, and one man was standing right next to her. Two were standing several feet apart, and a fourth was acting as a lookout, perched on a rock about twenty feet higher than the others.
“What would you make the distance to be, Elmer? About six, or seven hundred yards?”
“At least seven hundred yards,” Elmer said.
“Aye, seven hundred. That’s what I was thinking as well. I’ll take care of the lookout first. Then the one that is standing the closest to Meagan, then the other two.”
“That’s goin’ to be one hell of a shot,” Elmer said.
As Meagan contemplated her future, she couldn’t help but be filled with trepidation. The one that the others had called Ike was standing very close to her, staring at her with eyes that were filled with lust and evil. His proximity to her was making her very nervous.
“You know what, girlie? I ain’t goin’ to wait on Johnny to get back,” Ike Thomas said. He rubbed himself, smiling obscenely at her. “No, sir, I ain’t goin’ to wait at all. Start takin’ off them clothes.”
“I have no intention of taking off my clothes,” Meagan said, trying to keep her voice as steady as she could.
Thomas pulled his pistol and pointed it at her.
“Take ’em off, or I’ll shoot you and take them off of you myself.”
“If you are going to touch me, I’d rather be dead when it happens, so go ahead. Shoot me.”
“I ain’t bluffin’ you, woman.”
“Neither am I,” Meagan said, defiantly.
“What are you doin’, Ike?” Blunt asked.
“I aim to have my way with this woman,” Thomas said.
“You heard what Johnny said. We ain’t supposed to touch her.”
“Yeah? Well, that don’t mean we can’t look at her, does it? Take off them clothes, like I told you to. Me ’n’ the others is goin’ to get us a look at a naked woman.”
“I have no intention of taking off my clothes.”
“You’ll either take ’em off now, when you ain’t hurtin’ nowhere, or I’ll shoot you in the leg and take ’em off of you. That way you’ll be hurtin’ and naked.”
“Yeah,” Calhoun said. “Johnny didn’t say we couldn’t look at her naked. Hey, Harper, you better take a look down here. This here woman is about to give us a show.”
Harper stood up and walked over to the edge of the rock, then looked down on the others.
“Have her move out here where I can see her too. Come on, girlie, give us a . . . uhhnh!”
Harper pitched forward off the rock, then fell head first, striking his head on the rocks below. He lay motionless where he hit.
“Son of a bitch, he fell off!” Thomas said.
There was no sound for a full second. Then they could hear, in the distance, the barely audible thump of a gunshot.
“What the hell was that?” Calhoun asked.
Blunt moved quickly to Harper, then turned him over onto his back. His eyes were open, and unseeing. There was a big, dark red hole in the middle of his chest.
“Uhnn!” Thomas said, and blood, bone, and brain matter sprayed from the side of his head.
“What the hell! Somebody is shooting at us!” Blunt said.
“Who!” Calhoun shouted. “There ain’t nobody here!”
This time, Calhoun heard the bullet as it came whizzing in. It struck Blunt in the middle of his chest, and he reached down to slap his hands over the wound. Looking down, even as the low, flat sound of the shot that hit him came rolling across the distance, he saw the blood spilling through his hands. He looked up at Calhoun.
“I’ve . . . been . . . kilt!” he gasped, just before he fell.
Calhoun started shooting wildly, pulling the trigger repeatedly until the gun was empty and all that remained were the echoes of the shots as they came rolling back.
“Where are you?” Calhoun shouted.
While Calhoun’s attention was diverted, Meagan reached down and slipped Blunt’s pistol from the holster.
“Who are you? Who’s doin’ all that shootin’?”
“I expect it is Duff MacCallister,” Meagan said.
Calhoun whirled around toward Meagan. “Come here, woman!” He shouted. “I’m going to . . .” He stopped in midsentence when he saw Meagan holding a pistol. She had it aimed at him, and she had already pulled back the hammer.
“You are going to do nothing but stand there without saying so much as one word,” Meagan said.
“Ha! Meagan’s got the drop on him!” Elmer said. “Come on, let’s go down there.”
It took a few minutes to cover the distance between the place where Duff had established his firing point, and where Meagan was standing with her prisoner.
“Good job!” Duff said when he and Elmer arrived. “Why, you didn’t even need me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. After all, you were some help,” Meagan replied, teasingly.
Elmer was wheezing and breathing hard from the exercise of the long walk over uneven, rocky ground.
“Clay Calhoun,” Elmer said. “Where is Johnny Taylor?”
“The son of a bitch run out on us,” Calhoun said. “He left us here to die.”
“He not only ran out on you, Calhoun, he took all the money,” Duff said.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Are you sure?” Duff said. “We know that two days ago, there was a deposit of thirty-five thousand dollars made to a bank in Cheyenne in Johnny Taylor’s name. He not only stole from you, he stole from his own brother. Where did he get that money, if he dinnae get it from the money you took from the bank in Chugwater?”
“He couldn’t have done that,” Calhoun said. “This is the first time we have been back here since we buried the money.”
“You’re sure? It does nae bother me—you are goin’ to jail anyway. You’ll be tried for bank robbery and murder, while Johnny Taylor goes off to Denver, or San Francisco, or some such place to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.”
“I hear he’s plannin’ to buy a saloon in San Francisco,” Elmer said. “He’ll get rich as Croesus, while you ’n’ his own brother will hang.”
With a frustrated shout, Calhoun ran to the base of the Needle. He moved several rocks aside, then started digging with his bare hands.
“He wouldn’t do that! If he did, I’ll kill him with own bare hands! Half that money is mine! He promised me!”
Duff, Elmer, and Meagan watched quietly and unobtrusively as Calhoun became more and more agitated, digging faster and faster.
“Where is it? Where is it? Damn it! He had no right! He said that we would share the . . .” He stopped for second, then, with a shout of triumph, began to pull out the four rolled-up shirts, each shirt containing a share of the loot from the bank robbery.
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