“Don’t do it.” Robert’s bellow followed them out into the street. “Don’t be an ass, man. If you go out there and find him alone, he’ll kill all of you.”
Gil swung the workshop door shut with a resounding thud. He shrugged, looking up at Jon. “They talk too much.”
“Indeed.” He grinned at the boy. “Now, let’s get going.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Victor Morton looked at the full moon rising over the horizon. He sat on a large rock near the campfire, rubbing his hands together so intensely that Sam thought he would wear the skin off, leaving nothing but scarred bones behind. The thick fingers wove in and out of each other’s grasp, twisting back and forth until Sam was sure they would tangle in a Gordian knot.
“I know you’re not part of this whole thing. You weren’t there at the beginning when it all started.”
He spoke to the darkness surrounding them, not directly at her. “And I can’t blame you for finding Jon Handleston attractive. He’s had quite a few lovely ladies wanting to play cards with him over the months, if you catch my meaning.”
The first burning embers of jealousy started in the pit of her stomach. She mentally stamped them out before they could gain momentum. Victor was no fool. Making her angry at Jon would encourage her to break and give up the brace’s secret.
“I suppose he’s told you about my fiancée.” He scratched his beard. “My Lily-Beth. My Lily.” His booted foot kicked a stray twig into the fire. “She was a wonderful woman, she was. Everything a man could ask for and more.” Victor cleared his throat, spitting a gob of phlegm to one side. “Pardon me.”
Feeling a sharp pain on her left side, Sam shifted her weight. Her eyes widened. Shifting back, she wriggled closer to the sharp stone jutting from the ground. She grimaced, touching it with her fingers.
There was no real edge, but…
Wrapping her fingers around it as tightly as she could, she tugged on the rock. It began to move, ever so slowly, into her grip. It wasn’t a knife, but it could be helpful.
“You probably wouldn’t have liked her much,” Victor mused, digging into a pocket of his jacket with one hand. He came up with a small silver cigarette case. “She didn’t like women who put on airs, thought they could do a man’s job.” After taking out one cigarette, he picked up a twig from the fire and pulled it close enough to light the hand-rolled stick. “Thought women had it good and didn’t want upstarts spoiling it for everyone. Know your place and stay in your place, that’s how she thought. And I agreed with her, of course.”
Sam opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of it. Interrupting Victor’s reveries might not be the best thing right now. The longer he kept rambling the more likely they were to be found. Especially when he built a campfire that could be seen for miles, a bright spot in the darkness surrounding the town.
Heck, she was surprised some renegade night flyer hadn’t dropped in to see if he could beg a cup of coffee.
“Told her not to fret, I’d take good care of her. Promised her father that. Like a good husband would.”
A limp smoke ring drifted across the campfire towards her. “Sure, I was a bit older than her, but true love knows no barriers. Give me some sons, keep the house clean, you know—woman stuff. And I’d keep her happy in return.” He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and turned it, staring at the burning edge as if it were a strange creature he’d never seen before. “And he took it all away from me.” His gaze went to her, his eyes dragging over her restrained body. “And now I’m going to take it all away from him.” He tossed the barely burnt cigarette down and ground it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. “I’m going to take it all.”
Sam shifted again, clutching the rock tighter in her right hand. One edge rubbed against the rope holding her hands together. She wasn’t sure if it was sharp enough to cut through the binding in time, if ever.
Victor continued pacing around the fire, muttering to himself. After tossing his jacket into the back of the wagon, he rolled up his sleeves and undid the top buttons of his shirt, still walking around in circles.
“What do you want?” Sam said in what she hoped was a low, calming voice. She often used that tone with Gil when he was into one of his temper tantrums, usually involving going to school.
“I want you to tell me what the secret is.” Victor walked over to her and crouched down. He leant so far forward she thought for a horrific moment he was about to kiss her. “I realize that you have a reputation and all, but I have my own to repair. And I cannot do it without knowing what makes Jon Handleston a better gambler than me.” His breath washed over her, thick with whiskey and coffee.
Sam tilted her head to one side, trying to draw in fresh air. “What would your Lily-Beth think of you kidnapping a helpless woman and dragging her out into the wilderness?”
Victor’s moustache twitched once, twice. “Do not think me a fool, woman. I will not be thwarted from my goal by a snip of a girl,” he roared.
He stood back up and resumed his erratic patrol around the campfire. “Either way, Handleston is finished. Either you give me the secret and I expose him for the fraud he is, or he comes out here like a fool, with or without the authorities, to save you, and he misses the tournament.”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “The tournament.” She’d forgotten about the very reason why Jon Handleston was in Prosperity Ridge.
Morton laughed. “Yes, the tournament. It’s fine for an established gambler like myself to leave a game or two suddenly, but for a rookie like him?” He kicked a clod of dirt into the fire, sending sparks everywhere. “He’ll have to forfeit his stake and then what will he do?”
“Stake?” A sudden wave of dizziness came over her, matched by a hollow ache in her belly. “Stake?”
“The amount you pay to enter this tournament, dear. Not just anyone gets to walk in, not at this level of play. You have to have a certain amount of wins and you pay to secure your spot.” He smiled, sending a shiver up Sam’s spine. “He put up, like I did, a hundred dollars. I can afford to lose that, but can he? Not just the money, but also his loss of face. The embarrassment of not showing up for such an event, especially one with such publicity?” Throwing his head back, Victor laughed again. “No matter what happens here, Handleston is finished. Finished!”
The tears started to run down her face, washing trails through the dirt and dust. Her fingers tightened around the rock, nails digging into the rough surface. She began scraping it against the coarse rope, putting all of her strength into breaking the bonds holding her hands at bay. She wasn’t going to let Victor win, not by a long shot. And if that meant saving herself before the authorities arrived, then so be it.
Jon looked up into the night sky. A few days ago he had been stepping onto a train car, the stars bright overhead and sparkling with the possibility of finally finishing his quest. Now all he could see were dim discs, light blots set against the smoggy darkness.
Prosperity Ridge, for all its claims on industrialization and modernization, still acted like a small medieval town when the sun went down. While the streetlights revealed scattered groups of men and women scuttling through alleys and back doors, probably on missions and errands that would be better suited to darkness, the majority of the residents seemed to move indoors where the safety of the electric lights and gas lamps offered protection from the night terrors that existed everywhere. The similarity with the larger cities back East and of London tugged at his heart, along with the memories of his family and friends. A sharp shake of his head cleared the fumes from his lungs and reminded him of the task at hand.
“Victor took the last horse and wagon.” Jon let out a snort, scaring a dog sitting on the nearby sidewalk. A visit to the nearest livery had been pointless. The owner had mumbled that he had just sold his last wagon and horse to some man who needed a ride right away and had taken the remaining wares without question. The man had matched Victor’s description and had paid in cash without even inspecting the w
agon or horse, tossing the money at the businessman before dashing off with the buckboard and horse.
Jon had nodded to the man once before heading off for the town limits, Gil keeping him from making a wrong turn with a subtle nudge of his shoulder every now and then against his side.
Gil continued talking, despite their fast pace. “More the fool, buying from Lldyellen. He don’t sell good anything, including horses. Besides, getting us a wagon would only slow us down.”
“How do you figure that?” Jon nodded politely to a pair of women who shuffled through a door into a private residence. His heart was pounding as if he’d run a mile, and they hadn’t even left the town yet.
“A wagon makes more noise and we’d have to stick to the road with a horse. This way we’ll be able to track them in silence,” Gil recited, his tone that of a teacher to a pupil.
“But they left in a wagon. They’re not going to go off the trail,” Jon answered. A stray cat hissed before ducking back into an overturned garbage can.
“He’s a city man. He’s not going to go off the trail, not at first. And when he does go off, we’ll be able to see it right fast.”
Jon looked up at the full moon, the lit orb’s rays desperately fighting to break through the haze and smog. “I hope you’re right. I’m not sure that Sam has until morning, if Victor’s gone mad.” He shuddered inwardly, thinking of the men he’d seen in the military hospitals, driven insane by seeing their friends blown apart in battle. One had started chewing at his fingernails, moving so far as to begin ripping his own flesh away. Another had refused to go out in daylight, fearing that he’d be burned alive.
Gil stopped, looking over his shoulder. “We’ll get ’er back, sir. Just you watch. We’re gonna bring her back to ’er dad and to you.”
Jon smiled, feeling the youthful enthusiasm wash over him and wipe out some of the pain.
“There’s the outside.” Gil pointed at a gap between two buildings, barely large enough to fit two wagons through. “The town map says ‘gates’, but there ain’t no such things.”
The edge of the town had no discernible signs, just a sudden lack of buildings. The last two structures consisted of a saloon that seemed to be the first stop for many incoming visitors, judging by the amount of abandoned horses standing in the road, and a general store with the doors closed and locked for the evening, the owner obviously staying out of his neighbor’s business. The dirt road spread out in front of them, the dim moonlight turning the landscape into a dreamscape of different hues of black and white. Jon took a deep breath, feeling the fresher air sting his nose and throat.
“Yep.” Gil’s face lit up as if he’d been handed another pastry. “Lot better out here.” He crouched and poked the soil. His index finger sank down maybe half an inch into the mangled dirt. Standing up, he brushed it against his shirtfront. “Stay close. I’ll see where he left the road.” The young boy trotted ahead of Jon, almost sprinting down the single lane into the wilderness stretching out around them.
Jon shuddered, trying to banish images of what Victor could be doing to Sam at this very moment. He picked up the pace, forcing himself to walk faster and dwell less on the possibilities. His shoes, once stained with tobacco juice, now eagerly sopped up the dust and dirt, turning the fine leather into an unidentifiable muddy mess. He took off his jacket and tossed it over his shoulder. The cool night air was a welcome change from the town’s thick atmosphere, erasing the sweat from his brow with little effort.
Jon did a quick check to see if the derringer was still in his waistcoat pocket, mentally agreeing with his previous decision to not seek more firepower. Victor wasn’t a man given to actual physical violence, at least in the past, and if Jon showed up with a rifle or a revolver, it was more likely than not that they would be in a shootout before either man knew what was going on. He only hoped that his logic was true.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam studied the man in front of her. Proud, arrogant and more than a little insane, but still just a man.
Pushing herself up against the rock at her back, she began to speak, choosing her words to appeal to his ego.
“I’m losing the circulation in my arms.” She shrugged, rolling her shoulders forward with a soft cry.
“Could you untie my hands for a few minutes?”
Victor turned around from the rock he had been sitting on. He had ignored her for the last half-hour, staring into the night sky. “Pardon me?”
“I said I need to move my arms.” She moaned as helplessly as she could, grimacing inside at having to play the helpless female. “Please untie me and let me stretch out.”
“Do you take me for some sort of fool?” The older man let out a sharp laugh. “You’ll run.”
She sighed. “My feet are tied together, you know that.” The sharp rock was now wedged against the base of her spine, partially hidden under her leather coat.
“Hmph.” Victor walked over to the wagon. A minute later he returned, brandishing a large hunting knife, the bare blade catching bits of moonlight.
“And if you have any ideas about trying to escape…” He pointed the knife at the rifle propped against the rock. “I will have no qualms about shooting you in the foot, Miss Weatherly. You are more valuable to me alive, but I don’t have to make it a pleasant stay.”
“Thank you, sir.” She shuffled around, offering her hands. “I do appreciate this.”
“You could make this all so much easier on yourself, you know,” Morton snarled, going down on one knee beside her. “All you need to do is give me what I need.”
The sharp blade dug into the coarse rope, slicing cleanly through the bindings.
“Just tell me what I want to know. That’s all I want.”
The rope fell away, the sudden rush of sensation to her wrists and hands blinding her with the pain for a second.
“I can make you a very rich woman. You’d never have a problem finding a man.” The whiskey-laden breath soured the air around her.
Her right hand fell limp to the ground, fingers curling around the loose rock.
Victor leaned in, dangerously near her face. “Just give me what I want.”
“I will,” Sam whispered back.
The large rock slammed into the man’s left temple. He pitched forward into the dirt, mumbling incoherently for a second before falling silent. Blood gushed from the open wound, seeping down over his face and dripping into the soil.
Grabbing the knife, Sam quickly sliced through the rope around her ankles and tossed the rope to the side. The knife went flying end over end into the dense brush to her right. She didn’t know how to fight with a knife and keeping it from both of them was an acceptable compromise.
She got up, unsteady on her feet, and staggered to the wagon. The horse lifted his head, whinnying softly as she grabbed the sides of the buckboard, fighting for balance. Sam looked over the edge of the thin wood. Sure enough, there was another coil of rope tucked inside the wagon, the original source of her bindings. She stomped her feet on the ground, forcing the circulation back into the cramped limbs.
Grabbing the remainder of the rope, she staggered back to where she had left Victor.
She knelt by the unconscious man, taking one hand and wrapping the rope around it, pulling the first knot tight on the thick wrist. The inch-long gouge on his temple continued to ooze blood. The sticky liquid had started dribbling down into his beard and moustache, matting the thin hairs.
Suddenly the bound hand twisted up, grabbing her wrist and pulling her down to the ground beside him. Her strength still sapped from the prolonged bindings, Sam fell easily into the dirt, moaning as she hit the ground.
“Did you think I’d be that easy to kill?” Victor snarled, rising from the desert floor to straddle her and snatching the rope out of her fingers. “Did you?” His wild eyes locked with hers, wide with excitement and anger. “Did you?” he roared again, the yell echoing into the night. Hovering over her, he pulled the rope tight between his hands, s
napping it twice in the air.
Sam drew in a deep breath, preparing for the madman’s rage. Victor grinned, the smile made even more dastardly by the light of the full moon overhead.
The moonlight transformed the world around Jon and Gil, changing the common into the uncommon and reviving every bad dream Jon had ever had. He had been out in the night before, taken stagecoaches from small town to small town through dreary rainstorms, sailed the waters aboard one of Her Majesty’s ships in sleet and hail, but the world had never seemed so alien as it did right now. Every shadow, every stone, every bush seemed to be warning of impending doom, waving them farther and farther into possible danger.
Gil stepped off the trail, breaking the fast trot that had carried them so far. The young boy crouched, touching the fine soil. He dragged his fingers through the furrowed dirt. “The wagon pulled off here.”
“How do you know?”
“The tracks are the last ones on top. He’d be the last one out of town, since no one travels at night.”
He waved a hand over the deep ruts. “And the horseshoes show the horse was going out of town, not back.
At a pretty high pace too—you can see by the prints that he was galloping along. Pretty dangerous going off the road at any time at that speed, more dangerous at night.” Gil turned towards him with a smile.
“We’re getting closer.”
Jon looked around, scanning the horizon. “If Victor built a fire, it’d be easy to make out.”
“Not necessarily.” Gil stood up. “There’s plenty of gullies and dips around here. He could have a fire going and we wouldn’t see it until we fell onto it.” The boy gestured into the darkness. “Heck, he could have run right off into a ravine, crashed, and we’d never find ’em until morning. ’Less the horse did a lot of screaming.”
Jon winced, trying to avoid the mental image of Sam trapped under a dying horse and buckboard.
Wild Cards and Iron Horses Page 18