by Cassie Hayes
Next to him, Fred whistled. “Hoo boy, look at that river. Mace, I don’t know what you’re thinking but going up the back of that hill ain’t an option for this old codger.”
Mason nodded. “Yeah, I know. Looks like we’ll have to ride up out in the open and hope for the best.”
His men were silent, contemplating their odds under such circumstances. They weren’t good.
“What if we wait for them to leave and we ambush ‘em soon as they hit the tree line?” suggested David, but Mason was shaking his head before he even finished.
“No good. Sheriff Watson has no doubt been out here already. They know we’re coming. No way will they leave that stronghold, such as it is, till we’re gone or dead. Or dead and gone, whichever.”
“And if we don’t strike now, Watson might hunt up a posse of his own, ain’t that right, Mace?”
It was a possibility Mason didn’t even want to consider, but knew it to be true. If Watson was as deep in Kirby’s pocket as the barkeep said, he might already be in town rustling up a group of men to hunt them down. Fred was right, they had to get while the gettin’ was good. But how?
Mason had spent the last year hunting Marie’s killer, and there he was, right in front of him but he might as well have been a thousand miles away. He hadn’t come all this way only to turn back now. If he didn’t take Roy Kirby tonight, he’d die trying. Which, he had to admit, was the most likely outcome as he looked down upon his foe.
“Mace,” Fred said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “I think we should make camp for the night.”
Mason gawked at him, incredulous. “Make camp? What are you talking about, Fred? Are you going senile?”
Fred smiled at his friend. “Nope. Not one bit. Y’see, I got an idea…”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dark had fallen on the cabin, and Roy’s men were scattered about, watching for Sheriff Wilder and his posse. Watson had rode out that afternoon to warn him they were in town. The old fool had wanted to take off for Coloma till the dust settled but Roy reminded him who was boss in these parts.
“You’ll stay and fight like the man you used to think you were, Watson. I’ve invested a great deal in you, and now it’s time I see some kind of return.”
Watson had cowered before the black look Roy gave him and slunk into a corner to await further instruction. Roy despised any lawman who could be bought — they were lower than the criminals, in his opinion — but that didn’t stop him from trying to buy all of them he could. They proved useful in many regards, and now Roy was delighted to have found a new use for this one.
As the hours passed with no sign of the posse, Roy wondered where they were. It was possible they believed Watson when he said there was no man by the name of Kirby in town, but it was unlikely. Watson was a crooked fool of a sheriff and a real law dog like Mason Wilder would see right through him. No, Watson’s days were numbered so he might as well spend them defending the man who got him elected.
Two of his crew, Jim and Boone, were keeping watch out of the cabin’s windows, while another, Collin, was standing guard outside the front door. Watson was still in a corner but at least he had a rifle in his hands. The only one of his crew who was unaccounted for was Frankie, who still wasn’t back from a scouting mission.
With the open space he’d cleared around the cabin, and the river in the state it was, there was no way for the posse to steal up on them, if they were coming at all. The moon was already peeking over the hills, illuminating the land around the cabin. If anything moved, they’d see it.
While they waited and wondered, Roy’s thoughts turned to his beautiful bride. With the sheriff standing at the back of the church, he’d had no choice but to leave her behind, but he had every intention of tracking her down after tonight’s unpleasantries were over. First, he would have to teach her a lesson about respecting her husband so she’d never again turn him in to the law. Then he’d make her his wife in every sense of the word. His mouth watered in anticipation.
He’d almost had her, almost had it all, but it had gone wrong somehow. It had taken him some time to figure it all out, but during his hasty ride out of Nevada City, he’d looked down and understood everything. She’d seen his scar during the hold-up, and then again when he signed the marriage certificate. That’s the only thing it could have been, because they were all careful to disguise themselves and their voices during their jobs.
It was dumb luck that she’d been on that coach. The irony of it all was that he’d planned to retire after that one. He was thirty, after all. Maybe it was time to settle down, get a wife to bear him some sons, see what normal life was like. He had plenty of gold hidden away to live on, maybe even start a business. The only problem was that women were in short supply out west, and the ones that were already here were either over-used or already broken.
He’d heard tell of a new paper “devoted to the promotion of courtship and marriage” so he sent in an ad. He only got one reply, but it was a ripsnorter. Emmy wailed on about her dead ma and pa and nasty uncle, and how she needed someone to save her. If she was anything like she described, she’d make a fine bride — pretty and completely dependent on him. And if she wasn’t pretty, there were plenty of pretty ones in town to take care of his needs.
Naturally he noticed Emmy’s beauty during the hold-up but didn’t put two and two together. She wasn’t due in till the next day, after all. But when she started going on about her wedding dress and how she was arriving a day early, he nearly died from joy. She was a bit mouthy for his taste but that could be beaten out of her easily enough.
After they tore off with the loot, Roy couldn’t get Emmy out of his mind. Could he possibly be that lucky, to not only have one last successful robbery but to have a bride that bewitching? He had to see her again, but how?
It didn’t take much cogitating to come up with a likely scenario. She didn’t know anyone in town, so she’d most likely be staying at a hotel. Being the eve of her wedding, she’d probably want a bath after a dusty ride from San Francisco, which only two hotels in town offered: The Union Hotel and Bailey House. He remembered seeing an ad for the Bailey House in The Nuptial News offering a discounted rate to newlyweds, so it wasn’t so far off the mark to think they’d do the same for brides on their way to their grooms.
His place outside Rough and Ready served as their temporary headquarters when they hit Nevada City stages — he had two more such cabins outside of boomtowns along the Sierra Nevada — and he left his crew there to clean up while he rode to town to buy them a reward for a job well-done. Might was well scout around to hear if there was talk of the robbery and, of course, to take another look at his intended.
He was passing Bailey House when he saw a couple of brawny fellows carrying Emmy’s trunk inside, with her leading the way like she was a queen or something. Just as he suspected.
Emmy was waiting near the counter when he walked in but she didn’t so much as look at him sideways. She was as breathtaking as ever, if maybe a little wilted. It was strangely thrilling to be standing so close and for her to be so completely unaware. He’d held a gun in her face only hours earlier, and by this time tomorrow she would be his in every way God intended a wife to be.
The moment he heard the tubby little manager invite her to dinner and the Doc Robinson show, he knew exactly how to ‘reward’ his crew for not killing anyone during this hold-up. A couple of his crew had trigger fingers so he decided to give them an incentive to restrain themselves.
It wasn’t that he had a problem with the killings, exactly, but it only made the lawmen angrier. Sure, they tried to track them down when they only robbed the coaches, but it lit a fire under them when any of their citizens were killed.
The last time they’d killed any passengers was a year or so before right outside Nevada City, and the minute Roy got wind that one of them was a lawman’s wife…well, the new no-killing rule went into effect immediately. The last thing they needed was for some revenge-happy lawdog to sniff
them out.
It was only coincidence that the very same lawman was hunting them right now. There was no way for him to know they were the crew that killed his wife. He really wouldn’t even suspect it. That crew killed everyone so there wouldn’t be any witnesses. This crew did the exact opposite. They covered their faces and disguised their voices when they spoke, which was discouraged, so no one could identify them.
Which made Roy wonder why Sheriff Wilder had traveled with a posse as far as Auburn to track down a pack of highwaymen who’d only hit his town’s coach once — twice, if he remembered the details of the one before. It didn’t add up. Something nagged at him, like sharp fingernail picking at a scab, and he couldn’t let it go.
“Watson, tell me again exactly what Wilder said to you,” he said to the sheriff.
Keeping his voice low, as if Wilder might hear him, Watson said, “He asked for my help finding someone, I asked who, he said you, I pretended I didn’t know you, then came straight here after he left my office. I already told you that.”
Roy gave the man a steely look. “Word for word, tell me what he said.”
“Um, let’s see…We talked about the rush for a minute, then he said he had a madman on the loose and couldn’t find him. Asked for my advice, all nonchalant-like. When I asked who, he said…hmmm, I think it was, ‘A low-down murdering highwayman named Roy Kirby.’ Yup, I’m almost sure those were his exact words. Like I said, I told him I’d never heard of ya but I’d ask around. He said he’d be waiting at the saloon and left. Then I came here. Why you askin’, Roy?”
But Roy had stopped listening at the word ‘murdering’. So Wilder knew, but how? No witnesses were left behind, and no one on his crew would squeal. They were so careful about not wearing anything that could identify them, so how did he put it together?
That itch at the back of his brain was still bothering him. Something he’d noticed at the job sites, but it was just out of reach. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and dove back into the memory of the last hold-up, since it was freshest.
The five of them had moved their horses to block the road right after a sharp turn. The driver had to slow the coach to make the corner, and he was blind to everything around the corner. Trees and bushes lined the road in that stretch so there was nowhere for the driver to turn. He was forced to stop.
They all set about their appointed tasks: Collin atop the stage, Boone down below, Frankie and Jim watched over the passengers until Roy needed Jim to help with the safe. Everything went like clockwork till Emmy piped up. She was lucky she wasn’t dead because Frankie was easily riled these days and a crack shot.
In his mind’s eye, he watched Jim step back to wait for him to chisel the strongbox out of the stage, like he’d done dozens of times. Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw him scuffing his boot heel in the dirt, but it wasn’t random, like someone kicking at a rock to while away the time. There was a rhythm to it, a pattern. Thinking back on the last several hold-ups, he seemed to recall Jim doing the thing with his foot each time, but he couldn’t make out what the purpose was.
“Jimmy, why do you kick the dirt?”
Jim turned from the window for a moment, a furrow in his brow. “Huh? What dirt?”
“At the hold-ups. I seem to remember you kicking at the dirt in a funny way a few times. Why? What were you doing?”
Jim broke into a grin. “Oh, that! I was making our mark.”
Roy’s gut tied itself up in knots. Trying to keep a firm grip on his temper, he calmly asked, “What mark?”
“The star,” Jim replied, glancing out the window again. “Like the one on your hand. I scrape three crisscrossing lines in the dirt with my heel to make a star. That’s our mark!”
Roy was baffled at the pride he seemed to take in the action that could very well see them all dangling from a California collar. His hands shook with rage at Jim, but he had to know why one of his most valuable men would do something so profoundly stupid. “Why?” he simply asked, his voice quivering.
Sheriff Watson heard the quiver and saw the fire in Roy’s eyes, and shuffled sideways, away from him and out of the line of fire. He may be corrupt and two-faced, but he wasn’t stupid. Not as stupid as Jim, at least.
“Well, the way I hear it, all the best outlaw gangs have a mark they leave behind. Shows how tough they are or something. You’re our leader and you got that dandy scar, so I figured that could be our mark.” He shrugged indifferently and turned back to the window.
The steam was building inside Roy, and he was about to explode. Taking a deep, calming breath, he tried to keep his voice level when he spoke. “How many times have you done this, Jim?”
“Oh, all of ‘em. I did it on a lark on my first ride with you — what was that, two years ago? Just kep’ doing’ it. But don’t worry, Roy. I made ‘em off to the side where no one would spot ‘em. I ain’t stupid, ya know.” He was oblivious to the death stare Roy was giving him.
Every one? That meant more than twenty stagecoach robberies and at least that many murders could be linked to them, if anyone had noticed Jim’s star. And obviously Sheriff Wilder had.
“Lemme ask you something,” Roy said, his voice now deadly calm. “All those gangs you heard about using marks? Any of ‘em still riding free, or are they all in jail or dead?”
He could practically see the wheels turning in Jim’s head, puzzling out the question. Finally, he turned his surprised gaze to Roy. “Oh!”
“Yeah, oh. Every time you was scuffing that star in the dirt, Jim, you was signing our death warrant! You’re the reason we’re holed up in here right now! I outta blow your brains out right now!”
“Me?!” Jim shouted. “You’re blaming this all on me?! You’re the one who decided to retire and take a bride who recognized you! Way I see it, you’re the one to blame for all this madness, Roy. Maybe you should go blow your own brains out!”
Roy saw red and the next thing he knew, his hands were wrapped tightly around Jim’s neck, squeezing with all his strength. Jim’s face turned an alarming shade of red moving toward purple before hands pulled Roy away, leaving Jim gasping on the floor.
“Take it easy, Roy,” Boone was saying, leading him away. “What’s done is done. No sense crying over spilled milk and all that. Let’s just focus on surviving the night.”
Roy nodded, glaring over at Jim but settling in next to the fire, breathless. Once this was over, he’d have to take care of Jim in a permanent way — couldn’t trust him — but for now he lived, if only to shield Roy from Wilder’s bullets.
Time passed slowly until Boone drew in a sharp breath, then everything speeded up. “Roy!” he whispered, excitedly waving him over to his south-facing window. “I think I see something!”
Roy peeked out the window but only saw the moonlit land. “What? I don’t see nothin’.”
“Look, over there in the trees. I see a fire. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Roy scanned the black nothingness of the woods. It took him a moment but, sure enough, a tiny flicker of light was burning out there. It looked to be at the edge of the woods, but it was hard to be certain. Blink too long and you had to search again to find it.
“That’s them,” Roy said excitedly. “They musta come east outta town and run south, thinking we wouldn’t expect ‘em to hit us from that side. It’s what I’d do if I was in their boots.”
“Musta made camp,” whispered Watson over Roy’s shoulder, crowding him.
“Where is it?” Jim asked eagerly.
“Right over there,” Boone said, pointing at the light. No sooner had he said it than the fire sparked and flickered out.
“What happened? Where’d it go?” The sharp smell of Watson’s fear made Roy sick.
“Calm down, Sheriff,” he said, smiling. “Someone kicked it out. One of the green deputies prolly started it up and Wilder or one of his more experienced men put it out before we could see it. Too late.”
Roy backed away from the window, rubbing his han
ds together greedily and chuckling. “We got ‘em now, boys. I’m half-tempted to sneak up on ‘em ourselves.”
“But Roy…”
He waved off the sheriff’s concern. “Don’t worry, we won’t, but just knowing they’re out there makes me hanker for a fight. Boone, go tell Collin what’s going on. We need all eyes watching for them to make their move. I’m guessing it’ll be in the wee hours, when they think we’ll all be sleepin’. That’s what I’d do.”
Before Boone reached the door, Roy heard two things that chased away his excitement and shrouded him in the blackest sense of dread. The first was a sharp crack off to the north. The second was the sound of Collin slamming against the door and falling to the ground.
Dead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mason had hoped to be a little closer to the cabin before taking out the man in front but he turned their way as they tore across the western clearing. If he spotted them, he’d send up the alarm to the men inside, so Mason took the shot. All of his men were excellent marksmen, but Mason was the best, and only the best could hit the target from that distance — riding on the back of a horse, no less. He took no pleasure in killing the man, but he had a job to do.
Jake and David pulled ahead of him and positioned themselves on either side of the cabin, rifles at the ready, while he rode to the front. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Fred galloping up from the south to join them.
Why did Mason always underestimate the man? Once again, he proved his brilliance by coming up with a plan to confuse Kirby and his men. He rode the long way around the property so he wouldn’t be spotted and lit a small campfire in the southern woods. The idea was that Kirby’s men would all be focusing in that direction, while Mason, Jake and David rode in as hard as they could from the north. There was a lot of luck involved but it was the only chance they’d had to ride up on the cabin unseen. And now they had the place surrounded.