“Ow, hell!” Mason groaned.
“What’d you do?” Winslow asked without looking back at him.
“Tripped over something.”
“Keep walkin’ anyway.”
“I may have twisted my ankle,” Mason complained.
Winslow looked over to him, but only for a second before looking back toward the rocks. “If I can get as far as I have with a shot-up leg, you can keep walkin’ on a twisted ankle.”
“It . . . may be broken.” When he saw that Winslow wasn’t about to budge from his spot, Mason hunkered down as though he was about to curl up like a shriveled piece of cabbage.
“You really are some kind of dandy,” Winslow said as he brought his horse around to ride over to the spot where Mason was huddled. “You don’t have soft rugs under your feet or fancy crystal chandy-leers over your head and you just go to pieces.”
Although he appeared ready to fall over, Mason tensed every one of his muscles in anticipation of the perfect moment. His head was bowed, but he watched Winslow ride over to him. There was a fifty-fifty chance that Winslow would approach him in the direction Mason wanted. By the looks of it, this was going to be one coin flip that he might win.
Pulling back on his reins a few yards short of where Mason had pretended to trip, Winslow told him, “Get up.”
“Just . . . give me a second,” Mason replied through a strained breath.
“You already took a few seconds. Get up right now before I put you down for good.”
Mason started to stand, but winced and dropped back down again. He knew he was laying it on a bit thick, which was the point, since he guessed that would get under Winslow’s skin even more than if he played his role convincingly.
“You’re not foolin’ anyone,” Winslow snarled. “I’ve got half a mind to drag you behind this damn horse!”
It seemed Mason’s guess had been right.
Shifting his reins to the other hand, Winslow brought his horse a little closer to Mason. The anger in his eyes only grew when he leaned down to grab Mason’s arm, because that was the same side as his hastily bandaged leg. “It don’t even matter if you’re sandbagging or not,” Winslow said. “By the time I haul you over to them rocks, if your legs weren’t busted already, they sure will have—”
Mason’s hand dipped into his pocket to grab the stick he’d procured earlier during the walk. It had been snapped in half, which created a sharp point at one end. When Mason brought his fist down, he drove that point into the middle of the bloody patch where Winslow had been shot by the sawed-off Remington.
Winslow clamped his jaw shut and his face turned red with the effort of choking back the scream that leaped into his throat. He managed to contain himself for about half a second before cutting loose with a bellowing, profanity-laden roar. He tried once more to grab hold of Mason’s arm, but blinding pain sapped him of a good deal of his strength. That made it relatively easy for Mason to slap away his hand.
As soon as he’d diverted the hand meant to drag him alongside the horse, Mason reached for the Remington that had been tucked under Winslow’s belt for safekeeping. He might have gotten to it if Winslow hadn’t suddenly reeled back in his saddle while tugging on the reins. His stolen horse pivoted around toward Mason, its hooves stomping the ground within inches of Mason’s feet. The last thing Mason needed was a genuine injury that would render him immobile, so he abandoned his pistol and headed for the rocks at a dead run.
Winslow caught his breath and shouted, “You’re dead!”
Mason’s head filled with all the new angles he now faced. Rather than sift through them as he would normally have preferred, he just pumped his legs harder to run faster.
“You’re . . . ooowwww!” Winslow hollered.
It was only then that Mason realized the stick was no longer in his hand. He must have left it in Winslow’s wounded leg where it had just been pulled out. That bought Mason enough time to cover a few more yards of riverbank, but he figured he’d pay for it by having a much angrier man coming after him.
For the second time in as many minutes, Mason was right.
Before Winslow let his next obscenity fly, he sent a pair of bullets through the air to hiss over Mason’s head. After that, the profanities flowed like water.
Mason was too busy running to worry about whatever nonsense Winslow was spewing this time around. His breath came in short, choppy bursts and his feet dug holes into loose dirt that had been washed up by winds and river water. As another shot whipped closer to him than the ones before it, Mason pushed his muscles to the point of burning to close some more distance between himself and those rocks.
The next shots that were fired sounded different than the previous ones. A more experienced gunman might have been able to tell the caliber of those rounds or maybe even the model of the weapon that had set them to flying, but all Mason knew was that they hadn’t come from his Remington. At the moment, that was more than enough.
More shots were fired back and forth and fewer of those bullets were being sent in Mason’s direction. After running for what felt like a good couple of miles, he made it to the large rocks stuck in the mud. In that same area, there was a rotting tree trunk and moldy planks from what could have been a boat or a cabin that had been blackened by a fire. Mason was pleased to see that there was indeed a rowboat. Unfortunately dragging a boat to the water and rowing away didn’t seem like such a good idea with at least two armed men nearby.
Mason approached the boat and rather than try to push it into the river, he checked inside to see if its owner had left anything behind. Apart from oars fastened to the sides of the boat through metal rings, there were only a few articles of clothing folded and placed on one of the narrow seats.
Not too far away, the gunshots had stopped. Winslow’s mouth, however, had yet to run out of steam.
“Whoever you are,” Winslow shouted, “you picked the wrong man to cross!”
Despite having just searched the boat, Mason did it again in the hopes that he might have overlooked something the first time around. It didn’t take much time for him to see that he hadn’t.
“That’s right, whoever you are!” Winslow hollered. “I see you. Just stay where you are!”
There could have been some useful items wedged beneath the boat, near the log, or in the mud around the base of the rocks. If Mason had had just a bit more time, he would have looked around to see what he could find. But, judging by the heavy thump of approaching hooves, time wasn’t something Mason had in abundance.
Winslow rode into view. He had the Remington in hand but was pointing it toward the trees. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going.”
“Who else is out there?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get much of a look at them. Don’t matter, though, because we’re goin’.”
The next time Winslow glanced toward the trees, Mason stuck his hand into his other pocket. “Why were they shooting at you?”
“They didn’t say anything, so how should I know?”
“They? There’s more than one?”
“Yes!” Winslow barked. He turned in his saddle and leaned over to grab at Mason’s arm or possibly his shirt. “Just come along with me before I—”
Mason cut him short by pulling his hand from his pocket and punching Winslow squarely on the nose. The impact sent Winslow teetering in the other direction, where he wobbled and tried unsuccessfully to regain his balance. His eyes seemed focused on something that wasn’t there as he slid from his saddle. If he hadn’t been knocked out from the punch, he was certainly put to sleep when he hit his head on a rock after falling off his horse.
“Damn,” Mason said as he winced in surprise. The horse had been startled by the loss of its rider and moved quickly out of the narrow space between the log and rowboat. Now that Mason had a clear view of Winslow, he hurried over to him to check if his
punch had proven to be fatal.
Winslow was still breathing, but he wasn’t a pretty sight.
“That you, Mr. Mason?” asked a man who had gotten all the way to the rowboat without making a sound.
Mason wheeled toward the sound of that voice. The burly man wasn’t familiar, but the pearl gray of his pants and the club hanging from his belt were very distinctive. “Y . . . yes. I’m Mason.”
Another man stood behind the first. Both had the sleeves of their starched white shirts rolled up to their elbows. They were missing their pearl gray jackets, which Mason had discovered neatly folded and placed on one of the seats inside the rowboat.
“You know who we are?” the man asked.
“Pretty sure I do.”
“Good. Then you won’t argue when I tell you to come along with us without making a fuss.”
“Where are you taking me?” Mason asked.
“I thought you said you knew who we are.”
“That’s right, but . . .”
“If we wanted to bury you here, we’d already be digging the hole,” the man stated. He looked down at Winslow and asked, “What did you intend to do with this one here?”
Mason opened his fist and allowed the rocks he’d collected earlier during his walk to fall from his hand. “I intended to hit him in the face with a fistful of rocks. Seems like that plan worked out pretty well.”
“Who is he?”
“You don’t know?”
The overman took another look down at Winslow and grunted. “Looks familiar, but I can’t put a name to his face.”
Mason couldn’t help smirking. “Now, that truly is funny.”
Chapter 18
When Mason rode the rest of the way to where the Delta Jack was docked, it was on the same horse that had brought him this far. This time, however, he was the one sitting in the saddle. One of the overmen who’d found Winslow rode alongside him and the other rowed the boat to the dock. The gunman in the boat was so thick through the chest and arms that he made the task seem relatively easy.
Mason was escorted back onto the riverboat at a little after ten in the morning. Surprisingly enough, he was given until the agreed-upon time to clean himself up in his own cabin. Fighting the urge to lie down and catch some sleep, Mason gathered up everything he needed, splashed some clean water onto his face, and changed into fresh clothes. Those simple things alone made him feel like a new man.
On his way down to the main card room, Mason walked around to the starboard side, where the rowboat had been hauled up from the water by a pair of hooks. He leaned over the edge and saw Winslow still lying in the little boat like a piece of forgotten baggage.
* * *
The card room wasn’t quite as full as it had been during the middle of the night, but there was still a respectable number of gamblers at the tables. Most of them had gotten even less sleep than Mason, and the ones who had brighter eyes carried the bulk of the conversations. The biggest difference at that hour was the number of working girls standing at the bar as opposed to sitting in men’s laps. At that time of day, even for the truest night owls, breakfast was in higher demand than sweet talk from a pretty set of lips. One of the ladies not at the bar spotted Mason and came right over to him.
“Where have you been?” Maggie asked.
“I got tossed overboard,” he said.
When she looked him up and down, only to find a clean set of clothes wrapped around his lean frame, she clearly wasn’t feeling any sympathy. “The least you could have done before catching a nap was let me know you were done in Virgil’s cabin.”
“Did he give you any trouble?”
“Not a bit. He got awfully presumptuous the longer I kept him distracted, but I’ve managed to shake free of worse than him. Did you find what you were after?”
“Not enough to settle my debt,” Mason replied, “but enough to give me a good running start at it.”
“Speaking of that,” she said while reaching into a pocket stitched into the bodice of her dress. “Here’s some of that money I offered.”
“This is very generous. Are you sure you can part with it?”
“I’m not parting with anything,” she said. “It’s a loan. Save your gratitude until after I let you know what the interest will be.”
Mason let his eyes wander up and down over her figure. “I can tell you where my interest lies right about now.”
She smiled at him in the same way she would smile at a precocious boy. Patting his cheek in a similar fashion, she said, “That’s very flattering, but I doubt you could handle any vigorous pastimes right now. You look like one big bruise.”
Although he wasn’t sure how he looked, Mason did know he could feel the playful touch of her hand against his face as if it were an angry slap. He did his best to hide his wince and said, “Sometimes the best thing for a man to help recover from his wound is a mighty good distraction.”
“You really don’t let up, do you?”
“Nope.”
“If you had showed me this side of you while we were playing cards,” she said, “I might not have considered lending you this money.”
“I do like to make a good first impression,” he said.
“And the impressions after that?”
“A man can only hold back his instincts for so long.”
Maggie let out an exasperated sigh. There was something in her eyes, even as she was rolling them, that told Mason she was enjoying the conversation at least a little bit. “I wasn’t about to carry all that money with me,” she said. “I can get to the rest real soon. Instead of handing it over in a roomful of card cheats and gamblers, why don’t I bring it to your cabin?”
“That sounds like a good idea. It’s number twenty-four.”
Turning her back on him, she tossed a disinterested wave over her shoulder and said, “A bath couldn’t hurt, you know.”
“For me or you?”
She shook her head and quickened her pace to get away from him.
“Or us?” Mason added.
Maggie didn’t respond to that. She could have heard him, but she also could have been too far away to catch his comment. He put the odds at an even fifty-fifty between the two. He was more interested in something else, however. Something that could prove to be much more promising than any wager laid down at a poker game.
He leaned back against a wall, partly to appear as though he didn’t have a care in the world and partly to support the weight of a very tired body. “Come on, now,” he said under his breath. “Don’t disappoint me.”
Maggie kept a purposeful stride as she went to the door leading out of the card room.
“Come on . . .”
There was no possible way she could have heard the words that Mason spoke quietly to himself. Even so, she honored his request by turning to look back at him one last time before walking out of the room.
He was right there watching her and tipped his hat to the lady. “Much obliged, ma’am,” he said.
* * *
Mason went back to his cabin, his steps carrying him as if he were fresh as a daisy and ready to grab the world by the throat. Once he got inside, however, he relaxed his guard and let out the breath that had been keeping his chest puffed out all the way from the main card room. He unbuttoned his jacket and then his vest, peeling them both off to lay them on his bed. There was a small shaving mirror hanging from the wall above the washbasin, which he’d mostly ignored up to this point. He’d seen his own reflection plenty of times before and hadn’t been anxious to see the state of it after all the hell he’d gone through recently. After what Maggie had told him, though, he was curious as to how bad it could be.
“Good Lord,” he groaned when he got a look at the bruised and battered man staring back at him from the looking glass.
His eyes were sunken from sheer exhaustion, as were
his cheeks. Bruises covered his face like blotchy paint, and one side of his jaw was swollen. Cuts marred him even further, making him look every bit the wreck that Maggie had hinted at. Since he was already surveying the damage, Mason unbuttoned his shirt to get a look at the rest of the picture.
There were at least five different shades of black and blue smeared along his rib cage, mixed with a generous portion of red and yellow. Part of Mason’s reasoning for not setting his eyes on what he’d figured would be an ugly picture was that he might be able to convince himself that it wasn’t so bad if he couldn’t see it. To some extent, he’d been correct. Now that he was looking straight at the calling cards left by all the punishment he’d taken recently, the pain throughout his body seeped in that much deeper.
Inch by inch, Mason tested his ribs and worked some of the kinks out of the joints in his upper body. Every movement was followed by a wince. And with every wince, there came a fresh jolt of discomfort. He might not have been able to recall each time he’d taken a punch or was otherwise knocked around, but he could feel every last one of those encounters etched into the fiber of his aching body.
“How the blazes are you still standing?” he asked the reflection in the small circular mirror.
Mason went to his bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. If he was going to keep his appointment with Greeley, he couldn’t stretch out or make himself very comfortable. Even closing his eyes for too long put him in danger of sleeping through the rest of the day. Mason split the difference by putting his elbows on his knees and allowing his head to hang forward while his eyelids drooped until they only allowed a sliver of the outside world to make it through.
Even with the precautions he took, Mason began to feel sleep encroaching on all sides. Like a stalking predator, it intended to bring him down and wasn’t about to be discouraged. It was, however, frightened away by a sudden sharp sound that came from the door.
Ralph Compton Straight to the Noose Page 12