Luke was careful to keep his face expressionless. Making it look like he was shifting around to get more comfortable, he turned so that his back was toward the conductor. A moment later, he felt fingers fumbling at his bonds.
Barely moving his lips, he asked, “How did you get loose?”
“There’s a sharp rock here where they dumped me,” the conductor replied, equally tight-lipped. “I’ve been working at it ever since they hauled us out here. It wasn’t easy with my arm wounded the way it is, but I knew I had to try. The guards didn’t seem to regard me as much of a threat, so they didn’t really pay attention to me.”
“Their mistake,” Luke said.
Time seemed to rush by as the conductor struggled with the knots in the rope, while still pretending that his own hands were tied so the guards wouldn’t notice anything wrong. He had only one good hand, and Burroughs had done a good job of tying Luke.
Luke felt the delay gnawing at him. With every minute that went by, the riverboat was traveling farther upstream to the spot where the guards were supposed to rendezvous with it.
To make matters worse, one of the guards took it into his head to stroll over toward Luke and the conductor. The conductor had to stop what he was doing, just as Luke sensed a little more play in the knots.
The hard-faced, beard-stubbled outlaw glared down at Luke. “I think the boss is makin’ a mistake lettin’ you live, Jensen. I’ve heard of you. Damn bounty hunter. How’s it feel, makin’ a livin’ off blood money?”
“I’ve never lost any sleep over it,” Luke replied coldly.
The outlaw snarled and looked like he was about to draw back his foot and launch a kick, but he spat and turned away.
Luke supposed he had decided that anything else was too much trouble and let out the breath he’d been holding, happy with the guard’s decision. His ribs already hurt.
The conductor went back to work on the knots, grating his teeth together as if in pain.
The ropes came loose and fell away from Luke’s wrists. He flexed his fingers to get some circulation going in them again.
Less than a minute later, the high-pitched sound of the riverboat’s whistle drifted downstream along the little valley through which the river flowed.
That was the signal. The guards backed toward their horses, keeping their rifles leveled at the prisoners. But they were in a hurry to leave and get to the gold, so they turned their backs as they reached their mounts.
Luke leaned forward, reached for the ropes around his ankles, and tore desperately at them.
Burroughs hadn’t been quite as careful with those bonds. The knots came loose without much trouble. Luke threw the rope aside and surged to his feet. His muscles were stiff, but he forced them into action and sprinted across the rocky ground toward the guards as they swung up into their saddles.
It was impossible to rush the outlaws without making some noise. One man still on the ground looked over his shoulder and yelled in alarm. He twisted around and clawed at the gun holstered on his hip.
Luke heard feet slapping the ground right behind him and glanced back to see that half a dozen male passengers and the burly engineer had joined his charge. Seeing his example had been enough to jolt them into action.
As the outlaw’s gun cleared leather, Luke left his feet in a diving tackle. The gun roared as he crashed into the man and drove him back into the horses. The animals shied violently from the collision, and the two outlaws halfway into their saddles were thrown clear. They yelled as they sailed through the air.
The shot had gone wild, missing Luke by several feet. He and the guard he had tackled were sprawled on the rocky ground, practically underneath the stamping hooves of the spooked horses. As the guard brought the gun to bear again, a steel-shod hoof came down hard on his hand, crushing bones. The outlaw screamed. Luke ended his pain momentarily by slamming a punch to his jaw that bounced his head off the ground. The outlaw went limp.
Luke heard other shots as he scrambled to his feet. A wild melee had broken out between the prisoners and the other three guards. One of the passengers was down, clutching a wounded leg, but the others were giving the outlaws all the fight they could handle. The train’s engineer wrenched a revolver away from one of the outlaws and swung it in a looping blow that caved in the man’s head. The remaining two bandits went down in a maelstrom of flying punches and kicks.
The fighting was fierce but short-lived. When the prisoners—former prisoners, now—stepped back, one of the outlaws was dead and the other three were out cold.
Luke picked up a couple pistols that had been dropped during the fracas and felt better as soon as his hands wrapped around the gun butts. They were Colts instead of his Remingtons, but they would do nicely. “Some of you men grab those horses,” he ordered. “We can’t let them get away.”
The wounded man’s wife rushed up to fuss over her husband as Luke checked the man’s injury and saw that it wasn’t too serious. “He’ll be all right, ma’am.”
He looked around at the others. “I need three volunteers to come with me. Three who can handle a gun.”
The conductor stepped out of the group. He had untied his feet and was making his way around a little unsteadily. “I’ll come.”
Luke shook his head. “You’ve done enough, friend. You’ve lost quite a bit of blood and need to take it easy as much as you can.”
The engineer stepped forward. “If you’re going after those train robbers, mister, count me in. They killed my fireman. I got a score to settle with ’em.”
Two more men spoke up, neither of them married.
That was a good thing, Luke thought. They’d be going up against heavy odds and there was a good chance none of them would come back alive.
But . . . no matter how dangerous it was, Luke was going after Burroughs and the rest of the gang, not to mention McCluskey and Delia. He told his volunteers, “Grab the hats and vests these owlhoots are wearing. Here’s what we’re going to do. . . .”
CHAPTER 20
Luke and the men going with him had no time to waste. They had to have the element of surprise on their side if they were going to stand any chance against the outlaws. They needed to appear at the rendezvous point before Burroughs started to wonder why his men hadn’t shown up.
Not only that, but the outlaws on the boat would have heard the gunfire and had to be curious what the ruckus had been about. Luckily, only a few shots had gone off, so Burroughs wouldn’t likely think that the guards he’d left behind had decided to massacre the prisoners.
Wearing the outlaws’ hats and vests and armed with weapons they had taken, Luke and his companions mounted up and headed northwest along the river. He figured the stream must have a name, but he’d never heard it. They might as well call it Blood River, he thought grimly. That was likely to be running in it before the day was over.
The engineer, who’d introduced himself as Kermit Winslow, asked as they rode, “Do you really think we can get close enough to jump those hombres without them recognizing us?”
“I hope so,” Luke said. “Otherwise, they’ll just sit there on that boat and pick us off at their leisure.”
The other two volunteers were Craig Bolden, a mining engineer, and Ray Stinson, an unemployed cowboy currently riding the grub line. Both had handled themselves well during the fight with the guards, and Luke hoped that would continue. The odds would be at least two to one against them, so they would need some luck on their side, too.
The going wasn’t easy as they rode upriver. In some places the steep slope went down almost to the water, leaving only a narrow trail they could follow. At times, the path was blocked by rocks, and they had to ride into the river a short distance. Fortunately, the stream was fairly shallow despite having a strong, steady current, so the horses didn’t have to swim.
Finally, Luke spotted smoke rising into the sky around a bend in the river. He motioned for the others to stop. “I want to go ahead on foot and have a look. We need to know what we
’re getting into.”
He dismounted and left Winslow, Bolden, and Stinson. He used the brush growing close to the water for cover as he slipped forward to reconnoiter.
Reaching the bend, he parted some branches and peered through the gap he’d made. The riverboat was pulled up next to a grassy bank about two hundred yards upstream, and a gangplank had been placed between the deck and the shore so the guards could ride their horses over it when they arrived.
Only those guards weren’t coming, Luke thought. One man was dead, and the other three were prisoners, tied up back at the train.
That gave Luke an idea. He faded back along the bank to the spot where he’d left the volunteers.
He explained what he’d seen and what his plan was. “You three are going to ride up to the boat leading the other horse. Keep your heads down so they can’t see your faces very well, and there’s a good chance you ought to get pretty close before they realize you’re not the men they’re expecting. They’re bound to have heard those shots earlier, so they probably figure some of the prisoners put up a fight. When they see an empty saddle, they’ll think the fourth guard was killed in the fighting.”
“What are you going to be doing, Jensen?” Winslow asked.
“I’m going to take them even more by surprise. I plan to get on the boat without them knowing I’m anywhere around.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Stinson wanted to know.
“The river.” Luke nodded toward the stream. “I’m going to stay underwater as much as I can and swim up to the other side of the boat.”
Winslow rubbed his jaw and frowned. “That’ll be quite a chore, swimming that far against the current.”
“If I can make it, we’ll have them in a crossfire.”
“Yeah, there’s that. I guess it’s worth a try.”
Stinson and Bolden nodded in agreement.
Luke checked the Colts he had taken from the outlaws. Getting wet wouldn’t keep them from firing, although being immersed in water wasn’t good for guns in the long run. If his plan worked, he wouldn’t need those revolvers for very long. He might even be able to recover his Remingtons from whichever of the outlaws had taken them.
He stripped down to his long underwear and tied the pair of Colts into a bundle using his shirt, then tied the sleeves around his waist. “Give me five minutes before you ride around the bend. Take your time as you approach the boat. And remember, keep your heads down.” He paused and then gave them a grim smile. “Good luck.”
“Good luck to you, too, Jensen,” Winslow said.
Luke slipped into the water and stroked out to where the river was deeper. Even though the weather was warm, the mountain streams were fed by a combination of springs and snowmelt, and that made them cold year-round. It instantly drained all the warmth from Luke’s body and seemed to steal the very breath from his lungs.
He ignored that and kept moving, knowing he wouldn’t be in the water long enough to be in danger of freezing to death. Moving would help warm him up a little. He reached the deeper water and swam against the current, heading upriver.
He hadn’t gone very far before weariness began draining the strength from his muscles. Fighting the current was exhausting. As soon as he was around the bend, he had to be careful how hard he stroked and kicked. He couldn’t afford to make much disturbance in the water or he risked someone on the riverboat noticing his approach. It would have been easier if he could have circled wide around the boat, gone into the water upstream, and allowed the current to carry him back down, but there hadn’t been time for that.
He wondered if he was going to reach the riverboat before Winslow, Stinson, and Bolden did. If he didn’t, they would be left on their own once the outlaws discovered they were not three of the guards who’d been left behind. They wouldn’t stand a chance unless Luke could board the boat without being seen and take the gang by surprise.
Finally around the bend, he took a breath and ducked his head, going completely under the frigid water. Whenever he needed to take a breath he would have to roll onto his back and allow just his mouth and nose to break the surface. He put that off as long as possible to decrease the chances of being spotted.
With ice seeming to flow in his veins, Luke swam on.
“How long do you plan to wait here?” McCluskey asked as he stood on the deck. He held his left hand out while Delia worked on the lock of that cuff with a sharp piece of metal she had found in the boat’s engine room. She had already managed to spring the lock on the right-hand cuff.
Burroughs stood with his hands tucked in the hip pockets of his trousers as he gazed back downstream. His hat was pulled down low over his eyes. “We’ll wait as long as we have to for those fellas to join us. We don’t run out on our partners.”
“What if they’re not coming?”
“They’ll be here,” Burroughs said confidently. “I never knew a man to turn his back on this much gold, did you? Well . . . with the exception of Luke Jensen, and he doesn’t really count. Those Jensens aren’t normal men. I’ve heard plenty of stories about his brothers Smoke and Matt.”
McCluskey grimaced. He didn’t care about Jensen or his damn brothers. He would have liked to have had his vengeance on the bounty hunter, but that was in the past. McCluskey was focused on claiming his share of the gold in those strongboxes sitting on the deck and getting the hell out of there.
He frowned at Burroughs. “We all heard those shots a little while ago. What if the passengers from the train jumped your guards? That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
“Maybe,” Burroughs admitted. “But there were only a few shots. That didn’t sound like a full-scale battle to me. My men probably had to fire some warning shots to calm things down again.”
“I hope you’re right. With that much gold at stake, only a damn fool would take chances he didn’t have to.”
Burroughs narrowed his eyes and gave McCluskey an angry glance, then turned his attention back to the river and the bank along which his four men ought to be riding any time. Obviously, he hadn’t cared for McCluskey’s veiled insult.
Burroughs wasn’t the only one who had heard what McCluskey had to say. Several other members of the gang were standing within earshot, and from the corner of his eye, McCluskey saw them sending speculative glances toward him and Burroughs.
Maybe they were thinking the wrong man was in charge here, McCluskey mused. After all, Burroughs had spared Luke Jensen just because the bounty hunter was an old friend of his. Leaving Jensen alive had been a foolish thing to do. Hell, if it had been him giving the orders, he would have considered killing everybody on the train, including Jensen.
McCluskey wasn’t that fond of killing women and children, but the idea of not leaving any witnesses behind was very simple and appealing. It could be that some of those other fellas saw it that way, too.
With a metallic click, the cuff around McCluskey’s left wrist sprang open.
“There!” Delia said, pleased with herself. “I told you I was good at picking locks, Frank.”
“It’s a handy skill to have,” McCluskey said as he rubbed the skin of his wrist where the metal had cut into it. “You think you can do the same with these leg irons?”
“Sure I can. Sit down somewhere so I can get at them.”
McCluskey ambled over to the closest strongbox and sat down on it. He stuck his right leg out in front of him. Burroughs gave him a disapproving glance, but he just smirked. What harm was he doing? He wasn’t going to hurt the strongbox by sitting on it.
Delia sat down on the deck, pulling up her skirt a little and crossing her legs. She lifted McCluskey’s ankle into her lap and went to work on the lock.
That was a pretty undignified position she was in, McCluskey thought, but what did it matter? She was a saloon girl. She had willingly surrendered all her dignity a long time ago.
The more he thought about it, the more McCluskey wondered just how difficult it would be to wrest the leadership of t
he gang away from Burroughs. He hadn’t planned to put together another gang right away, but sometimes opportunities just fell into a man’s lap and he would be a fool not to take advantage of them. Anyway, if he took over, he could declare that he was getting a full share of the loot, not just a measly four bars.
Of course, to do that he’d have to kill Burroughs, but that would be okay. In fact, McCluskey was just fine with the idea.
“Here they come.” Clearly, Burroughs was relieved, but he tried to sound confident as he looked at McCluskey and added, “I told you they’d be here.”
McCluskey gazed back along the river and saw three men riding slowly toward the boat. One of them led a riderless horse. “I thought you left four men behind, Burroughs.”
“I did,” Burroughs said with a worried tone in his voice. “Something must have happened to one of them.”
“I reckon there’s not any doubt about those shots we heard. The passengers from the train put up a fight again, and one of your men was killed.”
“That’s what it looks like, all right,” Burroughs admitted. “I’m sorry about that. But there are always risks in this line of work.”
“A smart man runs as few of those risks as he can get away with,” McCluskey said, and once again his comment was rewarded with speculative looks from the other members of the gang.
Burroughs was about to say something else—something angry, judging by his expression—but just then Delia succeeded in opening the leg iron on McCluskey’s right ankle.
“There!” she said with obvious satisfaction. “One more lock and we’ll be done with these shackles, Frank.”
“Good job.” Grinning, he added, “I knew there was a reason I kept you around, Delia.”
She smiled and practically purred under his praise.
In point of fact, he hadn’t really kept her around, McCluskey thought. It was more like he couldn’t get rid of her. But he had to admit she had helped him a lot. He put his other foot in her lap and let her get to work on that leg iron.
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