.45-Caliber Deathtrap (11 page)

“
WHAT CAUSED YOU
to pull such a fool stunt anyway?” Serenity asked the Chinaman when they'd ridden for a while in grim silence and they were sure the prospectors weren't trailing them.

“His daughter,” Cuno said when Kong didn't answer but only stared, brooding, over the mules' twitching ears. “He thought he'd steal a mount and ride on up to The Committee, twanging away with his bow and arrow, and rip the girl right out from under 'em.”

Serenity had been working a good cheek of chaw for the past forty-five minutes. Now he spat a quarter of it onto the double-tree hitch, then sat back and ran a greasy sleeve across his beard.

The air had warmed and they no longer wore coats. The only sign of last night's snow was a quicker pace to the streams they hugged as they climbed toward Sundance through fir-walled valleys.

“Good way to get her killed,” Serenity said. “Good way to get yourself killed too. Me, I seen The Committee at work. Armed with just a bow and arrow, you wouldn't have a chance.”

Kong stared straight ahead, the bridge of his blunt nose deeply creased. “Kong no dummy. I find Li Mei, wait for night. Go in and”—he made a snatching motion with his hand—“steal her away!”

“That might work,” Cuno allowed. “It'd work better, though, to bide your time, trail the gang slow. They're heading for Sundance. Got 'em a bank to rob. No doubt, they'll split up a time or two before they get there. A gang that size never hangs together long. They get in women trouble or fighting trouble. Besides, Cannady left his brother and several other men behind. He probably expects to meet up with them again soon.”

Serenity chuckled dryly.

Cuno continued. “Some'll fall back for a while, catch up to the others later. If we can knock off the stragglers, we'll have a smaller bunch to face when we finally meet Cannady in Sundance.”

“They ride horses,” Kong pointed out. “We may not catch up to them. They might rob and be on their way, like rabbits with a fox on their heels!”

“Maybe,” Cuno said. “Comes to that, we'll rent horses in Sundance. Trail 'em from there.”

“By then, Li Mei could be dead.”

“That's true too,” Cuno said. “A good way to make sure she's killed is to ride in like a donkey with cans tied to its tail.”

“With just a bow and arrow,” added Serenity.

“Take it from me.” Cuno turned to Kong. “The keys to getting your daughter back are patience and relentlessness.”

Kong held his gaze with a dark one of his own. “You young to know so much about manhunting.”

Cuno squinted into the dust. “Yep.”

They hadn't ridden much farther before a four-mule hitch and a big Cleveland dead-axle freight wagon appeared, heading toward them around a bend in the trail ahead. Cuno recognized Bull Stevens and his cousin, Lyle, sitting the driver's box, their floppy-brimmed hats flapping in the wind. By the way the wagon bounced and rattled over the ruts, Cuno knew it was empty.

Cuno reined in his own team. Bull Stevens did likewise, throwing his shoulders back and bellowing, “Hooooooahhh!”

The wagons sat side by side, dust sifting, the mules braying contentiously, stomping their feet. One of Stevens's big Arkansas blacks dropped several plops in the trail dust to Cuno's left.

Stevens grinned and slitted his good eye. He'd lost the other to the man who'd cuckolded him during the fight that left the cuckolder's throat laid wide, the man's soul sent to heaven. “That's what he thinks of you, Massey.”

“Your hitch doesn't have any better manners than you do, Bull. How they hangin', Lyle?”

Lyle Stevens grimaced and cupped his crotch. “Funny you should mention 'em. Think I picked up some drip on the way up trail.”

“Which whorehouse?” Serenity asked with alarm.

“Heaven's Bane.”

“Aptly named,” Serenity said.

Bull scowled at the old man. “What the hell you doin' up here, Parker? You're s'posed to be in Columbine, tendin' that privy you call a saloon.”

“You'll have to wet your whistle at Mrs. Mondova's,” Serenity told the freighter. “Me and Cuno got business.
Manhuntin'
business.”

Cuno reproved the old man with a look, then turned to the freighters. “A pack of owlhoots killed Wade,” he explained. “Should be about two days ahead. Call themselves The Committee.”

“Ah, shit,” Stevens said. “That pack of curly wolves?”

“Seen 'em?”

Stevens jerked a gloved thumb over his shoulder. “Hell, one of 'em is laid up at Heaven's Bane. Seen him last night. Some girl they had with 'em ran a pigsticker through his jaws.”

Lyle laughed and scratched his flabby, bare bicep, red and swollen from an insect bite. “Pinned his head to a wardrobe! Ugly damn mess. Still got blood on the floor, and the poor bastard's upstairs howlin' like a trapped timber wolf.”

Cuno glanced at Kong. The Chinaman stared at the two freighters, wide-eyed, veins bulging in his forehead.

Cuno looked at Bull. “The others?”

“Headed up the trail. We met 'em on the trail yesterday. Still had the girl with 'em. They hoorawed our mules out of sheer orneriness.”

“Damn near ran us off the road,” said Lyle. “If we hadn't already off-loaded our freight, we'd be toothpicks at the bottom of Pilgrim's Gulch.”

“Least your pecker wouldn't be pussin' up,” Bull told him. “Shit, I can smell it on you!”

“Have a good one, boys.” Cuno flicked the reins across the mules' backs. As the wagon rolled forward, Cuno favored Kong with another glance.

The Chinaman stared ahead, his brows like a black anvil hooding his eyes. “I knew she would fight.”

“At least she's still alive, Kong,” Serenity said gently.

“Yesterday,” Kong grunted. “What of today?”

Li Mei winced when the horse she rode double with the outlaw leader, Cannady, faltered suddenly as the man turned in his saddle to shout over the girl's head. “Rock farmers' camp—fifty yards an' closin'!”

The man whooped with glee.

Li Mei winced again, this time at the man's loud, grating voice in her ears. The Chinese girl, who knew more English than her parents' native tongue, leaned out from the horse slightly to see around the man's broad, sweaty back. Ahead, tents and plank-board shacks appeared along a narrow, sun-dappled stream.

Men stood knee-deep in the stream, working over long, wooden boxes mounted on legs. Some swirled sand and water in tin pans, staring into the pans intently, the brims of their floppy hats pushed off their foreheads. Several women worked along with the men, working in the water or slinging picks or shovels along the rocky banks. Some carried babies in makeshift packs or watched over others playing in the sand along the shoreline.

Behind Li Mei, other men whooped. She heard the big black man, whose name she'd learned was Brown, laugh his raucous guffaw. It gave her gooseflesh and pricked the hair on the back of her neck.

Cannady spurred the horse into a gallop, and Li Mei closed her tied hands about his waist, pressed her face against his back with an expression of deep distaste, hating the fetor of the man's shirt, the slick, wet feel of his sweat against her cheek. She had no choice but to cling to the man, however. With her hands tied about his waist, if she slipped off the horse's back, she'd merely dangle off a hip. Cannady would probably let her drag.

“Fuckin' rock pickers!” the outlaw leader shouted as the horse galloped into the encampment, setting dogs barking and babies crying.

The other outlaws spread out on both sides of Cannady and Li Mei, several triggering pistols. Brown kicked over a tent while another man leaned out from his horse to upend a wrought-iron spit upon which several birds roasted. One of the prospectors—tall, bearded, wearing a hat and a begrimed, white undershirt—ran out from behind a canvas-and-wood cabin, several split logs in his arms.

“Hey, what the hell you think you're doin'?” he shouted, red-faced with fury.

Cannady slowed his horse. He grabbed a coiled rope off his saddle horn, raised a loop above his head, and swung it out to the right. It settled over the bearded miner's head. Li Mei's eyes widened in astonishment as Cannady jerked the rope taut around the prospector's shoulders, laughing.

As the horse plunged on past the prospector, the man screamed and dropped the wood as the taut rope jerked him off his feet so quickly he seemed to dive forward, as if into a stream—but with his arms clamped to his sides.

He looked up as the rope dragged him along the ground, losing his hat, gritting his teeth, and cursing. He grabbed the rope in both hands, apparently trying to steer himself around obstacles while trying to squirm out from under the taut loop.

As Cannady made for the other end of the settlement, the man plowed through a small cook fire, showering sparks and stretching his lips back from his teeth as he screamed. His clothes and hair smoked for a time as he smashed through sage shrubs and haycocks, and bounced over hummocks and tree stumps. He skidded across a rocky freshet with a splash, mud basting his face.

Li Mei stared so intently at the poor prospector, her eyes wide with horror, that she was only vaguely aware of the destruction and terror the other riders wreaked to both sides of her and Cannady—shooting out windows, kicking over tents and small wagons, and sending the prospector families running for their lives. Ahead of her on the saddle, Cannady loosed several celebratory whoops, guffawing and throwing his head back on his shoulders, flicking occasional looks behind to appraise his work with the fishtailing prospector.

“No!” Li Mei heard herself plead. “Stop!”

As the man plowed through the bare yard of a small cabin, two dogs chasing him and barking and nipping at his trouser cuffs, the rope slid up over his shoulders and head, releasing him. Li Mei felt relief as the man rolled to a dusty stop at the edge of the cabin yard.

She closed her eyes as Cannady continued straight on past the village. Li Mei could hear the thunder of the others galloping behind her, but she didn't open her eyes to see. She didn't open her eyes again until, a few minutes later, the horse's stride slowed.

She peered around Cannady. Ahead and right of the wagon trail they'd been following, a small cabin sat in a meadow between the creek and the pine forest carpeting a high mountain slope. The cabin was one of the biggest Li Mei had seen lately—two stories with a lean-to addition, constructed of peeled, upright pine poles. The windows were filled with real, albeit grubby-looking, glass.

Several corrals and pens stood to the right, a barn to the left.

At the moment, a girl with sandy-blond hair was throwing slop to red chickens in a small, fenced pen. To Li Mei's left, a tall, stoop-shouldered man wearing a coonskin cap was hauling two wooden water buckets, each attached to an end of the pole draped across his shoulders, up from the creek. Under the water's weight, the tall man walked as though trudging through mud. He looked up from the furry brim of his cap, glowering at the riders gathering in his yard under a thick dust cloud.

Cannady regarded the man in the fur cap with passing interest. His gaze settled on the sandy-haired young woman who wore a homespun shirt and denim trousers, her hair gathered in a ponytail. Barefoot, one hand shading her eyes, she stood regarding the group from inside the pen, with an expression much like that of the tall man's.

The cabin door opened and two more girls stepped out. One—short, dark, and round-faced—appeared around Li Mei's age, thirteen. The other, taller and with hair the same color as the girl in the chicken pen, looked to be around seventeen or eighteen.

All three were pretty. The two oldest girls filled out their dresses.

Li Mei gave a silent sob, castigating herself for the relief she felt. Tonight, these girls would no doubt take some of the attention away from her.

“WHAT CAN I
do fer you gents?”

It was the tall, bearded man in the coonskin cap. He'd apparently figured out who the gang's leader was, and while Cannady was raking his eyes across the three comely young ladies, the man had stopped near Cannady's horse. The man slid his brown eyes between the group's leader and Li Mei, the bridge of his nose wrinkled with apprehension and curiosity.

Cannady spat a wad of dust and saliva onto a rock near one of the man's hobnailed boots, and wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. “Well, now, it ain't what you can do for us, amigo. It's what
we
can do for
you.
”

The wooden pole sagging across his shoulders, the bearded man raked his eyes across the gang nearly filling the cabin's small yard, horses blowing and swishing their tails, a couple drawing water from a stock trough near the barn. His face was long and weathered, the skin drawn tight to the bones, with a purple mole on the nub of his right cheek. His furry chin pointed like an angry finger at Cannady.

“How's that?”

“We come bearing gifts!”

Cannady glanced at Young Knife and El Lobo, both of whom sat their horses several yards off the right hip of Cannady's mount. Small, bloodstained mountain goats were draped over the rumps of both horses, the horned heads hanging slack down one side, rear legs sagging down the other.

The open eyes of both goats appeared to be taking in the scene with wan disinterest.

“My
compadres
there,” Cannady said, canting his head toward Young Knife and El Lobo, “shot 'em a couple mountain goats a few miles back. We were thinkin' about stoppin' early today and havin' us a nice, big bonfire and a mountain goat supper. How'd it be if you and your girls do the cookin' and servin' in exchange for the succulent meat of two prime young goats fattened off Rocky Mountain wild grass and willow leaves?”

Cannady grinned down at the man expectantly, one hand holding his reins, the other resting on his thigh.

The man said nothing, only studied the gang thoroughly, flicking his wary glance back to Cannady and the Chinese girl riding, hang-headed and bruised, behind him. To Cannady's left, the creek gurgled between its sandy banks. To his right, the chickens clucked. One of the two girls at the house's open front door muttered something to the other one, too softly for Cannady to hear.

Finally, Ned Crockett gigged his horse up to Cannady's left. The oldest of the gang members slid his long-barreled .44 from his tied-down holster and held it negligently across his saddle horn, aimed in the general direction of the bearded gent. He canted his head at the man, spreading a toothy grin.

“The only acceptable answer here, sir, is yes.”

The bearded man scowled.

Cannady threw up his right hand and twisted around in his saddle to regard the others. “It's a deal, boys. The man says
yes
. We provide the food, they serve!”

While the others whooped victoriously and gigged their tired mounts toward the barn, Cannady cast his glance toward the chicken coop. The full-figured, sandy-blond girl stood just outside the pen's door, her empty slop pail in one hand. Her other hand was fisted on her hip. She cocked one foot, canted her head to the side, and slitted one eye at him.

Cannady chuckled and gigged his horse up the slight hill, turned the horse sideways to the girl, and stopped. He closed the lid over his bad eye and grinned down at her.

“Hidy, there. Name's Cannady.”

The girl's pretty, heart-shaped face was implacable. “You're outlaws, ain't you?”

“Yes, ma'am.
Dangerous
ones too.”

The girl flushed slightly. Her chest heaved, full breasts pushing at the rough wool shirt. She dropped her eyes to the six-shooter thonged on his right thigh. “You kill many people with that?”

Cannady slipped the gun from its holster, raised it barrel-up, and spun the cylinder. “Oh, only about a hundred.”

“A hundred? I don't believe you!”

“Well, maybe only eighty-five or ninety. I lost track around fifty.” Cannady chuckled, dropped the pistol back in its holster, and leaned toward the girl, resting his forearm on his thigh. “What's your name?”

“Aubrey.”

“Aubrey, the slanty-eye behind me is Li Mei. She's a captive. A war trophy, you might call her. I'm taking her to a whorehouse in Sundance 'cause the man who owns the place, a cousin of mine, likes slanty-eyed whores. I owe him a whore 'cause I killed one of his. Anyways, I'm tryin' to keep Li Mei in as good a shape as possible, so I sure would appreciate it if, when I've done tied her to that little willow tree yonder, you'd bring her a cup of water.” He grinned. “Would you do that for ole Cannady?”

Aubrey glanced at Li Mei, then slid her combatant gaze back to the outlaw leader. “Who're you to give me orders?”

“The man who done killed upward of a hundred people, half of those women who sassed me.” Cannady winked. “That's who. Now, you do as you're told, girl, and maybe I'll give you a couple sips of whiskey around the fire tonight. How'd that be?”

The girl stared at him, the flush in her cheeks growing slightly. Her eyes flicked to his pistol, then back to his face. Sweat glistened faintly on her forehead.

Cannady pinched his hat brim. “See you later, Miss Aubrey.” He reined his horse around and gigged it toward the barn.

When Cannady and the other men had unsaddled their horses in the barn, then turned them into the corral, Cannady tied Li Mei to the willow between the yard and the creek. He pinched the girl's cheek and gave her a brusque kiss on the lips, telling her not to fret and that she should thank him, Cannady, for not killing her after what she'd done to Paxton, or turning her over to his men.

“They'd make an awful mess of your delicate face,” he said, caressing her cheek with the knuckles of his right hand, her fearful, bruised eyes canted down. “What a surprise you'll be to ole Len Owen. I don't understand it myself, but he likes you slanty-eyes. Apparently, the miners in Sundance do too.”

He shrugged, spat, picked up his saddlebags and bedroll, and headed toward the fire pit in the middle of the yard, where the other men were throwing down their gear—tired and dusty and happy to be stopping early for the night.

Li Mei watched him throw his saddle down beside that of the man called Crockett, kicking Crockett jokingly and telling him he'd better not snore as loud as last night or Cannady would fix his throat with a Green River knife. Crockett responded with something Li Mei couldn't hear because the other men were gathering around them, laughing and joking and punching each other lightly, a couple pretending to be fighting over which one was going to get which of the prospector's three daughters later.

Li Mei didn't care that she couldn't hear Cannady. She'd only been listening to distract herself from her own misery—her bruised face and her wrists into which the ropes had cut deeply.

She'd probably never see her father again.

Her mother was dead, buried back in New Mexico after dying from smallpox, and now her father would be alone, as Li Mei would be alone, earning her keep by spreading her legs for filthy miners in a whorehouse in a town she hadn't known even existed until two days ago.

She'd heard stories of such women.

Women who often died from disease or lived beyond their attractiveness and were thrown like refuse into the streets.

Poor Papa.

As she thought of him, the tears came, Li Mei's lower lip quivering. She leaned as far forward as the ropes tying her wrists behind the tree would allow. Then she merely sobbed, her long, black hair hanging like two raven wings on either side of her face.

Lost in her own misery, she didn't know how much time had passed before soft footsteps rose above the din of the talking, laughing renegades. A shadow moved before her, and she snapped her head back, terrified that one of them was going to…

“Easy,” said a girl's voice coldly.

Li Mei opened her eyes.

Before her crouched the blond girl Cannady had talked to. She squatted before Li Mei, holding a battered tin cup of water. The girl had put on a dress and combed her hair, drawing it back in a French braid, and she'd scrubbed the dirt from her face. Li Mei glanced at the hand holding the cup six inches before Li Mei's chin. Aubrey had even dug some of the dirt out from beneath her fingernails.

“Drink it,” Aubrey said, her voice sharp with impatience. “He wants you to drink, so drink. I got work to do.”

Li Mei peered over Aubrey's left shoulder. The girl's sisters, who were still dressed as they had been when the gang had ridden into the cabin yard, were digging old ashes from the fire pit. The men lounged around, leaning against their saddles and passing bottles, leering at the girls and offering lewd comments. Shoveling ashes into a wheelbarrow, the girls ignored them.

Li Mei shuttled her glance back to the cup, tipped her head toward it. The girl lifted the cup slightly, and Li Mei drank half the water, surprised by her thirst, feeling somewhat refreshed by the cold creek water.

“All right, you had your drink, ya damn heathen.” Aubrey stood, shaking out the last few drops from the cup. “Papa said your kind worships the devil—that true?”

Li Mei stared up at her, too distraught to respond. It wasn't as if she hadn't heard such questions before. Papa had said that in the land where he and Li Mei's mother had come from, before Li Mei was born, they weren't bothered by such questions, and the girl often wondered what that would be like.

Holding the cup down against her thigh, Aubrey glanced back toward the men sitting around the fire pit. “You lay with him—Cannady?”

Li Mei recoiled slightly, nauseated, and shook her head quickly.

“How come? He might go easier on ya if ya pleasure him right.”

When Li Mei didn't respond, Aubrey said, “Is it the eye?” She chuckled. “Gotta admit, he ain't real pleasant to look at, but I'd lay with him. Hell, to get outta here I'd lay with the devil himself.” Aubrey stared down at Li Mei coldly, then chuffed and turned away. “Nice chattin' with ya.”

As Aubrey headed back through the yard, weaving around the men, Cannady spotted her and jerked down the bottle he'd been drinking from. “Hey, there's my girl!”

He reached out and gave Aubrey's dress a tug. Aubrey leapt away, laughing, and jogged off to the cabin, her hair falling from the French braid and spilling about her shoulders. Cannady and several other men whooped behind her.

A large bonfire was built, the goats roasted on a high, iron spider which the prospector, Mason Llewellyn, had forged from wrought iron and wagon wheel scraps. He and the girls served coffee and beans to go with the meat the men grabbed from the spit and ate with their fingers, stumbling around drunk, howling and joking and expostulating the ways in which they'd spend the money they intended to rob from the bank at Sundance.

One of the men played rousing numbers on his fiddle in spite of one broken string, singing along when he could remember the words.

Seen from afar, the shindig before the cabin would have looked like some otherworldly barbaric frenzy, possibly one of unmentionable witchery or human sacrifice. All that was needed were buxom barbarian wenches strolling the crowd in bare feet, pouring ale from pewter pitchers, to complete the picture.

All the gang had, however, were the “yellow devil wench,” whom Cannady had deemed untouchable, and the prospector's three daughters, only one of whom seemed, when her father wasn't casting admonishing looks her way, to enjoy the festivity.

The blond Aubrey strolled about the crowd with a bean kettle or coffeepot, taking furtive sips from Cannady's bottle or puffs off his cigarette, as she refilled the men's cups and tin plates. It wasn't long before she was stumbling over gear and tack, giggling and laughing and no longer swatting the men's brazen hands away from her breasts and ass, letting her dress hang open halfway down her chest to reveal a good portion of her corset-lifting cleavage.

It was only nine o'clock, but good dark, when the prospector shuttled his other two daughters into the cabin, to the whining protests of several hard cases.

When both daughters had disappeared inside, Llewellyn turned from the cabin door, one hand on the knob, gazing across the crowd milling in the shadows shunted this way and that by the fire.

“Aubrey?”

The girl didn't hear him. A couple of horses had gotten out of the corral because someone hadn't latched the gate, and Brown and Crocodile Burdette were drunkenly hazing them back in, making a ruckus, the horses stomping around and nickering loudly. Meanwhile, Aubrey was sitting beside Cannady, knees drawn up to her breasts, holding a near-empty bottle by the neck.

Cannady, resting one elbow on his saddle, caressed the girl's face with a hay stem.

“You mean,” Aubrey said, slurring her words, her eyes heavy, “you boys're sorta like the James and Younger gangs in the illustrated newspaper…?”