by Ben Boulden
Joshua thought for a moment. “No, but close once.”
“Do you think you can get us there?”
Joshua sat so straight in his saddle, J.D. thought his spine might pop through his chest. His face stern with pride. “I can, Mr. J.D.”
“Take us there,” J.D. said.
CHAPTER 23
A canvas tent sat in a tiny clearing, surrounded by aspen. A tin chimney pipe at its back. The tent’s flaps closed; pale yellow light illuminated its walls from within. A cracked shaving mirror hung against an aspen’s nearly translucent bark and reflected sunset’s hazy orange light. Two men stood by a campfire, mouths agape, and stared as the riders entered the camp.
Timmons hustled his horse next to Kate, a sneer on his face. “We’re here.”
“I hope there’s somewhere for a girl to wash up.” Kate smiled benignly.
Sully shouted, “We got her!”
Fifty yards into the trees a hooded man stepped from behind a ponderosa. “Good to have you, Mrs. Blaze.”
Kate recognized the voice as Alabaster’s. A tremor moved across her back, cold goosebumps prickled in its wake. Panic threatened to rise; hardened in her throat. She counted a few numbers, breathed consciously with every beat, watched as the hooded man delicately walked on his toes across the open ground.
“It’s my pleasure.” Her voice surprisingly strong. “Is there a masquerade party?”
Alabaster stopped, cocked his head. “You are a pistol, my dear Kate, but as a smart woman like you can surmise, my fair skin tends to chafe.”
“Chafe?” Kate said. “I think you mean burn.”
“I’m going to enjoy you, Kate. You’re intelligent, beautiful, and so very willful. Breaking you will be my sincere pleasure.” He rubbed his hands together with glee. Kate imagined a childish smile on his face, lust-filled eyes at the prospect of destroying another person.
“A marvelous goal. I imagine torturing yet another small animal must seem rather dull at this point in your life, Mr. Guggenheim. It’s a shame, really.” Kate paused for a moment, looked upwards as if contemplating her words.
“A shame?” Guggenheim said.
“You know,” Kate looked to Timmons and Sully and back to the hooded man, “your inability to perform when your partner is warm and breathing. At least, I’ve heard you like it cold. Is that true?”
Timmons laughed; Sully looked uncomfortable.
Guggenheim remained silent. A slight tremor in his hands and arms.
A playful smile, a coquettish batting of eyelashes.
Alabaster, a faint crack in his voice, said, “This will be a pleasure.”
“Where’s Emma?” Kate’s voice strong, a hard look on her face.
Sully looked from Kate to Guggenheim and back. A nervous twitch under his right eye. “She’s in the tent.”
“Shut your mouth!” Alabaster said to Sully.
Sully dropped his chin to his chest.
Alabaster closed the distance between he and Sully, put a finger in his face. “You speak when I tell you to speak, and not before.”
Sully nodded.
To Kate, Alabaster said, “Good help is hard to find.”
“Me for Emma, Mr. Guggenheim. That was the deal.”
“You are a prize, Kate Blaze; beautiful, intelligent and naïve.” Alabaster turned to Timmons, “Put her in the tent with the girl,” and then he walked back to where he had come from.
Timmons dismounted. To Sully he said, “Take Buster.”
Sully took the reins without a word, sulking from his rebuke.
“Get down,” Timmons said to Kate.
Kate studied the fancy man for a moment and then looked at Sully. “They don’t respect you, do they?”
Sully lifted his head, eyes blazing. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.”
Kate smiled. “You sound like a battered wife.”
Sully growled, pivoted from his mount. He hit the ground with a grunt; looked at Timmons who watched the scene with folded arms. A grin on his face. An obvious enjoyment to his demeanor. Sully howled with rage and charged Kate.
Kate moved her horse forward a step and turned it sharply towards Sully. Its powerful haunch slammed against the attacking man with a meaty thud. Sully bounced backwards. His howl changed from rage to pain. He landed on his back, air whooshed from his mouth. His eyes bulged. Kate saw him struggle to breathe. She turned quickly towards Timmons with a plan to run him down, but instead she stared at a short-barreled Colt’s large bore.
“That was fun, girlie, but you better come down off the horse or I’ll shoot you.”
Kate pulled back on the reins. She glared at Timmons and decided he had no qualms about pulling the trigger. She swiveled from the saddle and stood next to her horse. She puzzled at her predicament, calculated the odds of getting the derringer.
Timmons pointed at Kate’s horse. “Step away, girlie.”
She moved a few feet away from the horse, but no closer to Timmons or Sully, still lying on his back wheezing for breath.
“That’s good, girlie.” Timmons seemed to relax, but when Kate made a move to dodge behind a tree, hoping to gain enough time to palm the derringer hidden in her boot, the fancy man closed the distance in a blink. He brought the revolver’s barrel down against the side of her head with a chopping motion.
Thunder rolled across Kate’s vision, pain flared.
* * *
The rocky peaks high above greedily grasped the day’s last moments as the valley drowned in darkness. J.D. paused to listen. Crickets chirped, mosquitos buzzed, small animals rustled from their burrows to hunt or be hunted. In the distance a hazy yellow-orange glow, a campfire kissing the night, marked the site where Kate should be. Where J.D. hoped Kate would be.
Joshua came even with J.D. and touched his hand in the darkness. When J.D. looked, the boy pointed to a narrow gap in the underbrush. “A game trail, Mr. J.D.”
J.D. followed the boy to the slash of broken vegetation and followed it silently toward the campsite’s light. A gentle night breeze tickled his face and whispered across the forest with creaking trees and fluttering leaves. J.D.’s nerves taut, his Colt heavy in his hand. His thoughts firmly on Kate.
CHAPTER 24
It started as a single band of pain. It wrapped itself around Kate’s head from a great distance. A distraction at first, but pulling tighter second by second until her head felt like it would burst. Her vision black, white stars pulsed and then faded with each heartbeat. A droning buzz filled her ears and isolated her from the world she knew existed beyond this dark pool.
A sensation startled Kate. A gentle caress to her face, her head. A coolness doused the agony momentarily before being battered down by waves of nausea. She tried rolling onto her side, but the movement fragmented her skull.
She gasped. The muscles in her neck and shoulders contracted with rising panic. Her breathing irregular and harsh. Electric pain arced across her head and down her spine when she tried to rise. She fell back, eyes closed, terror mounting.
“It’s okay.” The whispered words calmed Kate. At first sounding unreal before becoming solid and unmoving in her mind. “You’re fine, Kate. Please don’t move.”
Kate opened her eyes without understanding they had been closed. Her vision glazed and fuzzy before focusing on Emma’s face. A shadowy smile touched the girl’s mouth.
“I can see you,” Emma said. “You’re fine.”
Kate forced herself still.
Emma massaged her face and scalp with a tender touch.
“Where am I?” Kate said.
“At the camp.” Emma’s voice disjointed from her lips.
Her memory flared. The fight with Timmons, the handgun’s heavy impact on her skull. She sat up with Emma’s help, closed her eyes and let the stars circle and fall. When the world stopped spinning, her eyes fluttered open.
She blinked at her soiled white surroundings. It took her a moment to realize she was in the tent. Its canvas wall
s and ceiling filthy.
A small bed at the back, a table with a bright lantern next to the door.
Kate looked up at the girl. “Why are you here, Emma?”
The girl said, “He came and took me.”
“Guggenheim?”
Emma nodded, Kate heard her snuffle and felt a cold tear plop on her cheek.
“Is Mrs. Tiller hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
Emma shook her head. “I- I mean. He hit her, but she was breathing.”
Kate nodded. “Okay. That’s good. We’ll check on her when we get back to Unity.”
The girl went still. “Do you think—?”
Kate knew what the girl was asking. “We’ll be in Unity before dawn, Emma.”
“Safe?”
“Safe and sound,” Kate said, “Do you think you can help me stand?”
Emma helped Kate to her feet. She wobbled a moment and then took a few small steps to test her strength. A smile on her face when she didn’t fall. Kate wandered around the tent’s interior before she stopped at the table and leaned against it for support.
“Where’s your husband?”
The girl stared at her feet, with her fingers she worried at a loose thread in her dress.
“Emma? Is he hurt?”
The girl remained silent. A fat tear splattered on the dirt floor.
The tent’s flap opened.
Kate jumped. She reached for where her Colt would normally be strapped to her hip and cursed its absence. She stepped away from the table to separate herself from the tent’s door.
A bare-headed man ducked beneath the flaps, hat in hand. A light-colored waistcoat over a frilly city shirt. A wide forehead, close-set eyes. A gun strapped to his hip.
“Stephen?” Emma said.
He waved the girl off, looked at Kate. “I was told you were beautiful, Mrs. Blaze, but the descriptions failed you.”
Kate looked to Emma and then back to Stephen Wiley. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m the bad guy.” Stephen moved past Kate to Emma and reached for her hand. When she pulled away, he made a clicking noise with his tongue.
“You? You wanted Haskins to kill Emma?”
Stephen grimaced. “Deputy Haskins was to bring her here for an unfortunate accident. But his incompetency and your husband ruined it.”
“Why?” Kate said.
“For this”—Stephen’s arms went wide—“It all belongs to me when she dies, but not before. Her father didn’t trust me for some reason.”
Kate shook her head. “The land? It’s worthless. The altitude makes farming impossible and if there was gold the Indian reservation wouldn’t be here.”
Stephen looked at his wife, grinned like a bastard. “No one sees your inheritance’s promise, do they, darling?”
Kate said, “Why don’t you tell me?”
Stephen glared at Kate with scorn. “You’re as foolish as this,” he pointed to Emma, “this twat.”
“Stephen…please.” Emma reached for the hand he had offered her a few minutes before, but he pulled it away. “I love you.”
Wiley turned on his wife. An evil glint in his eyes. He yanked her closer by her hair, slapped her face, then threw her to the ground. “I’ve heard enough from you to last a lifetime.”
Emma whimpered. Her eyes swimming with tears.
“You sicken me. The sight of you. Your body. The very idea that a stupid mouse like you could attract a man like me is ludicrous. You wormy little bitch.” He turned on his heel and walked past Kate and exited the tent.
Kate kneeled next to Emma and pulled her close with an embrace. She caressed the girl’s pale hair. Emma’s head fell on Kate’s shoulder. Her own pain forgotten as she comforted the girl. The two women stayed on the hard ground for several minutes, not moving. Kate said, “I’m sorry,” over and over.
Emma’s body racked with grief at her husband’s betrayal. Her face covered with tears.
After a time, Kate helped Emma to the small cot at the tent’s rear, where she rolled onto her side and curled into the fetal position.
As Kate stood from the bed, the door flap’s familiar rustle caught her attention. When she turned, her breath caught in her throat, her heart lurched.
“There you are, my love. Stephen told me you were aroused.”
“A sensation I’m sure you’ve never felt without blood on your hands.” Kate’s mouth a line, her eyes narrowed, and for the first time in her life she had murder in her heart.
CHAPTER 25
Ira Gentry’s shoulder hurt like a bastard. His hand numb in the makeshift sling. His world reduced to a star brightened sky above and brooding thin boned ponderosa and fir everywhere else. His chest tight with claustrophobia from a lifetime spent on the plains past the eastern Rockies’ foothills. Ahead, Ames moved with sure-footed grace. He paused infrequently to decide on the best path, like a man born to this rugged country.
The rangy hotelier came to a stop and signaled Gentry to join him. When the lawman was even with Ames he saw the cliff’s edge. Below them, a meadow spread across the landscape. A campfire licked the sky with orange flames, dry wood popped and cracked and embers sparked high with the pine scented smoke.
The night buzzed with unabashed conversation and laughter. The words mostly indecipherable, but the few Gentry understood made him cold.
“The bastard really tears them up…” Kate’s name in the mix, Emma’s, too. The promise of wealth and whiskey bright on the men’s tongues.
“I count three.” Ames’ eyes never left the campsite that stood some two hundred yards away.
A dozen feet from the fire, a tent glowed warmly. Elongated shadows from its inhabitants moved awkwardly along the walls.
Gentry said, “At least two in the tent.”
“Where would they put Kate?”
Gentry shook his head. “She’s not at the fire. In the tent? Emma, too?”
Ames said, “You reckon one of those men killed Billy?”
Gentry grunted without comment. He had heard murder on a man’s voice before. He understood the emotion, but he couldn’t condone the action no matter the circumstance. It was still murder even if the victim deserved a seat in hell, and he was certain these men had earned their tickets to the graveyard. But he was a lawman, and murder was murder no matter who did the killing and who did the dying.
He studied Ames’ thin face for a moment without the man seeming to notice. His skin taut around the eyes and the mouth. His hat back on his head, his forehead crinkled with concentration. After several seconds Ames stood and moved along the cliff top until he found a narrow gash leading to the meadow below.
Ames paused and signaled Gentry to follow and dropped beneath the rock’s surface and into the steep passage. Gentry close behind, studied the trail with unease. Its narrow floor littered with broken, crumbling shale. Its trajectory steep and unforgiving. The lawman looked at his arm sling. He sighed and stepped into the passage. The Colt in his left hand, the right strapped tightly at his chest.
He lost sight of Ames as he worked his way down the trail. The rocks slippery under his boots. He moved in inches, one foot and then the other. His left hand’s heel on the jagged rock surface for balance. Every few feet he dislodged a rock to tumble down the sheer rock face. A cold fear crept into his stomach, tightened his chest. He felt old and scared for the first time in his life.
Then it happened.
His foot slipped on flat and loose shale.
He slid sideways and down. He jammed his left hand against the torn-up stone, the Colt clattered from his grasp, bounced and disappeared. His knuckles scraped across the jagged surface, pain peeled with his skin.
His balance gone, Gentry fell forward. He tried to raise his right arm, but the sling trapped it. He tumbled and slammed against the ground.
Molten agony blossomed from his gunshot wound. He grunted in fear and pain as he careened down the incline. An aspen tree halted his slide with a thump.
The tree shuddered, Gentry’s vision paled then darkened with confusion; throbbing painful waves kept him conscious. Alert.
He cursed.
Rocks avalanched behind him, smashed together, their rumble boomed across the night. A stunned silence fell across the meadow for two long heartbeats. Gentry searched the ground nearby for Kate’s borrowed Colt as wild shouts and fast talk spread in the camp.
“You okay?” Ames whispered from below.
“Shit,” Gentry responded.
A flame reached across the darkness, a shattering roar echoed. Gentry flattened, tried to disappear beneath the rocky soil.
The atmosphere electric with the bullet’s passage.
* * *
J.D. and Joshua were inside the tree line at the meadow’s edge when the night exploded.
A clatter of rock and whispered voices. An ear-splitting boom.
The muzzle flash yellow-white in J.D.’s peripheral vision. Its image burned stark against the night. Another shot followed, and then another.
J.D. processed their new situation. Their chance for surprise gone. Gentry and Ames in trouble across the meadow. With a split-second decision, he raised the Colt and aimed at the spot where the gunfire erupted and pulled the trigger. The .44 bucked pleasantly in his hand.
He moved deeper into the trees. Joshua a few feet behind. J.D. wanted separation from where he had taken the shot. He started away from the meadow and then moved parallel with it for several yards before he turned back towards the camp. At the tree line J.D. stepped behind a large aspen, ejected the spent shells from the Colt’s cylinder and replaced each with a fresh round. When he was fully loaded, J.D. turned to Joshua. The boy lying prone. The Winchester’s barrel on a stump as he looked for targets.
“Stay here. And don’t shoot me!”
J.D. moved hesitantly into the meadow. The men in disarray, heads down. He straightened and ran at full speed when he realized the confusion would make it easy to breach the camp’s perimeter without much fuss from the bad guys. The uneven ground hard and unforgiving. The tent directly ahead.
The tent’s front flap rattled. Naked light spilled out.