Anita Mills (20 page)

“Just say you won’t kill her.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that it was Jack who double-crossed all of us? As long as you get your third, why do you care?”

“He up and left her while she was little, Gib. It ain’t her fault. Look, what’s to say she even knows about the gold?”

“What’s to say she doesn’t?” Hannah countered.

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t it seem damned funny she’s traveling with a fancy man like McCready? Doesn’t it seem damned funny they got off the train and walked in?”

“Yeah,” Charley conceded. “But what if it ain’t even her?”

“I’m saying she’s got something to hide, and she’s hiding it from us.” Hannah blew the last vestige of smoke from the gun barrel, then looked Lee Jackson in the eye. “Play the game right, Lee,” he said silkily, “and you’ve got a third of that gold. Play it wrong, and Charley and I’ll be dividing the whole thing between us.” When Jackson said nothing, he prompted him. “Well? Which way do you want it?”

“I ain’t afraid of you, Gib,” Lee lied. “But I aim to collect my share, so I guess I’m in.”

Hannah shoved the gun into its holster. “I thought you were, but I wanted to be sure.” As Pierce exhaled his relief, he added, “So while I’m gone, you two are going to take care of this mess. By morning, he’ll be stinking.”

“What’re you gonna do now?” Jackson asked cautiously.

“Ride in and look around for myself. Maybe tell the sheriff Richard Herrick is a wanted man.”

“You gotta have a warrant for that,” Charley reminded him.

Gib shrugged. “He won’t question a ranger. All I’ve got to do is say the warrant’s coming. I don’t know—I haven’t made up my mind yet. All I know for sure is I’m getting rid of McCready or Herrick, or whatever he calls himself.”

“And then what?”

A slow smile formed on Hannah’s lips. “You know, she’s a real pretty girl,” he said softly. “It just might be time to do a little courting.” He smiled at them, then mounted and rode off.

“Man’s more dangerous than a damned rattler,” Lee muttered after Gib left. “And I ain’t staying around to get bit.”

“Yeah.”

“Cold-blooded.”

“Yeah.”

“He ain’t dividin’ it no three ways neither, Charlie. He’s gonna pick us off one at a time.”

“Maybe.”

“Kinda makes a body wonder what happened to Evans and Tate and Connor, don’t it? Ever’ one of ’em dead afore his time, and it wouldn’t surprise me none if it was Gib as helped ’em along.”

“Yeah.” Pierce looked down, seeing Simmons’s blood making a pool in the red clay dirt. “Jesus.”

“I’m gonna go get that girl myself,” Lee decided suddenly. “I’m gonna find out if she’s Jack’s girl, and then I’m gonna tell her we ain’t greedy—all’s we want is our share. She can have Bob’s third, and you and me get the rest. Be enough to make her comfortable for the rest of her life. She can take it and go back wherever she came from.”

“You’re cutting Gib out?”

“Damned right. Otherwise I ain’t seein’ none of it.” Lee eyed Pierce soberly. “You surely ain’t stickin’ with him after this, are you?”

“No.” Charley exhaled heavily. “I used to look up to him, you know. Now I know he ain’t nothing but a killer. That’s all he is, Lee—a damned killer. That gold’s made him greedy. Hell, he ain’t gonna be satisfied less’n he gets all of it!”

“Yeah, wouldn’t surprise me none if he had something to do with the others—damned funny they’re all dead—Evans, Tate, Connors, Frank, Major Howard, too.”

“It was Comanches that got Frank. And the major was dead ’fore Gib got wind of where he was,” Charley reminded him. “If he’d a-knowed, he would’ve done run off with everything.”

“Yeah, but they was all gone afore their time, wasn’t they? And you know what? Ain’t nobody seen McCormick in a long time. Way I figure it, McCormick’s gone, too, and they just ain’t found the body. Gib probably took care of him, too.”

“Either that or he gave up on getting the money.”

“He’s dead,” Lee declared. “A man don’t disappear off the face of the earth like that and be alive.”

“Howard did,” Charley reminded him.

“Yeah, but he had the money. I was talking about the others now. And you know, the last time anybody saw Pete McCormick, he was with Gib, wasn’t he? Don’t seem too healthy to hang around him does it?” Lee fell silent for a long moment, then looked up. “So—which is it? You staying with Gib?”

“No. I reckon I’d rather split it two ways and get to keep my share of it.”

“Three ways—if she leads us to it, she gets Bob’s share. Only fair, ain’t it?”

“Yeah. But Gib’s got a head start on us, and I sure as hell don’t aim to cross him to his face. He sees us in town, he’s gonna know. We gotta be mighty careful, Lee.”

“If I know him, he’ll look the town over first, take his time planning his move. I’m aiming to go in the back way, get into the boarding house, and get the girl.”

“How?”

“Knock on her door, and when she answers, you throw your coat over her head and cover her mouth. When it’s clear, we carry her down the back stairs.”

“What if they ain’t got any? Back stairs, I mean.”

“It’s a boarding house, ain’t it?” Lee countered. “While Gib’s laying his plans, we’ll be getting her out of town.”

“What about the gambler?” Charley asked suddenly.

“If Bob winged him like he said, Herrick, or whatever he’s calling hisself, ain’t gonna put up much of a fight. And if she ain’t the Howard girl, we’ll turn her loose and high-tail it. She can go back to her fancy man. All I care about is findin’ the gold.”

“Gib’ll find us—if we get the girl first, he’ll be after us.”

“But we ain’t headin’ for San Angelo. Not yet, anyways. No, we’re headin’ back across the Colorado. Don’t you see, Charley? He’ll be expectin’ us to go to Angelo, but we go the other way. Maybe hide out in Austin for a while, until he gives up. Then Miss Verena and you and me find where Jack hid it, divide it up, and split up, so’s he ain’t got one trail to follow. Me—I’m headin’ for Cali-forn-eye-aye with mine. I aim to get myself lost where it’s warm.”

“I hope to God it ain’t hell,” Charley muttered. “Way I figure it, Gib ain’t a man to give up. Afore you take youself off anywheres, we’d better kill ’im.”

Lee Jackson paused to consider the notion, then nodded. “All right. Then we’ll get the girl, come back here, and wait to ambush the bastard. I reckon he’s got it coming for what he did to Bob.”

“If it’s her, we’re taking her to Austin with us?”

“I’m gonna be straight with her.”

“What if she don’t want anything to do with it? What if she wants it all for herself?”

“I’m gonna tell her if she runs into Gib, she won’t be gettin’ any of it.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Charley decided. Looking toward Simmons’s corpse, he sighed. “Gib had no call to kill ’im like that—no call at all.”

“No.”

“Ain’t nothin’ but red clay around here—mighty hard for diggin’ in it.”

“We got no time to bury him, and the damned coyotes’ll be diggin’ him up, anyways. No, if we’re gonna do it, it’s got to be now.”

Moving away from the campfire, Charley found Bob Simmons’s greasy felt hat. Carrying it back to the body, he carefully placed it over the bloody hair. Then he stood back. “Gib done you wrong, Bob—real wrong—but me and Lee’s gonna make him pay for it.”

It was too hot to sleep, and after her experience at the Brassfield place, Verena wasn’t about to try prying open a window. Instead, she’d forgone her high-necked lawn nightgown, deciding to wear her chemise and drawers. When even that had proven too miserable, she’d discarded the drawers, leaving only the round-necked sleeveless chemise, then lain in that scandalous state of undress on top of the bedcovers. That hadn’t helped much either.

Giving up, she’d finally poured water from the pitcher into the veined crockery bowl and carried it to the table by the bed. There she wet a cloth, wiped it over her already damp skin, and then lay down again, this time with the wet, folded rag covering her forehead.

Loud cantina music, drunken curses, and high-pitched, feminine squeals, punctuated by an occasional gunshot, carried upward, breaching the thinly plastered clapboard walls. Texas might have its share of fine, upstanding, God-fearing citizens, she reflected wearily, but so far she hadn’t seen many of them. All she’d encountered so far had been rowdy, uncouth, and unkempt, with the exception of the Brassfields, whose kindnesses had been endearing enough to overcome their shortcomings. And McCready. But he wasn’t a Texan, she reminded herself.

With his handsome looks and that highly polished veneer of gentility, he seemed almost as out of place here as she was. He was a hard man to figure out for a number of reasons. He dressed more than well—while she wasn’t an authority on masculine clothing, she could recognize expensive tailoring when she saw it, and everything he wore fit that tall, well-proportioned frame of his perfectly.

While everybody else wilted around him, he managed to remain neat, clean, and unruffled. When she’d first laid eyes on him, she’d thought him vain about those extraordinary good looks, but on closer acquaintance, she could see now that it was his things more than his face that he cared about. The clothes, the manners, the educated speech—they were the outward trappings that told him he’d risen above a humble beginning.

Despite her first assessment of him, she found herself actually liking him. And even more than that, she was
intrigued
by him. He earned his living playing a game, and he was apparently quite successful at it. For all his polished manners, there was a certain air of danger about him. When she’d dived over him with Big Al Thompson in pursuit, he’d drawn that gun so smoothly and so fast, neither she nor Thompson had expected it. She’d overheard the whispers of her fellow passengers speculating that he was a gunfighter. Something about the way he wore his holster. All he himself had said on the subject was that he had “fast hands.”

She closed her eyes, recalling how scandalously close she’d been to him, sharing a bed with him even. Yet for all that he’d flirted earlier, he hadn’t made so much as one untoward move in those two nights. No, she’d lain beside him, listening to his soft, even breathing, feeling oddly safe and secure with him between her and the door.

It would be so easy to fall under his spell. So easy to forget that he had to be hiding something. So easy to forget just how dangerous a man like that could be if she let her guard down, if she dared to imagine he could care for her. Men like Matt McCready, no matter how fascinating, were the stuff of heartbreak, not dreams. They didn’t really love women. They left them. She knew, because her mother had had the misfortune to love Jack Howard and had paid for it dearly.

Still … For the briefest moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if Matt crossed that line, if he kissed her, if he whispered sweet words. . . . No, it was utter, total folly to even let herself wonder about that.

Was that her door rattling? Startled from her sinful thoughts, she lay very still, holding her breath, listening. There it was again. Someone was in the hall, turning the knob on her door.

Fright tightened her throat and chest, making her heart pound almost painfully beneath her ribs. No, she couldn’t give in to it. Swinging her feet off the side of the bed, she touched the floor gingerly, then reached for the heavy kerosene lamp. Rather than light it, she carried it stealthily to the door, where she whispered, “Matt—is that you?”

There was no answer, no sound at all. And yet she could almost feel the presence of someone out there. She stood there uncertainly, wondering if she ought to scream for help. Tiptoeing carefully to the window, she bent at an angle, trying to look down the outside of the building. From what she could see, every light was out, which meant everyone was probably asleep. Moving back to the door, she waited for some time, staring at the knob in the shadowy, moonlit room.

“What do you want?” she managed to whisper.

Nothing. Her mind had been playing tricks, making her imagine she’d heard something. It was like when she was a child, when every tree branch, every rattle of a windowpane had sent her shivering beneath her covers. The only way she’d ever conquered those unreasoning fears had been to face them, to look out that window, to show herself there was a reasonable explanation for every sound.

Holding the unlit lamp in one hand, she grasped the key in the doorknob in the other, releasing the lock mechanism. The knob jerked beneath her hand, and the door pushed inward, shoving her back. Gasping, she swung the lamp with all the strength she had as someone came through the door.

“Owww! What the—?”

A callused hand shot out, wrenching the lamp from her, twisting her wrist and arm. His hand suffocated her scream.

“I got her—throw the coat over her, and let’s go.”

Frightened, she fought back desperately, kicking and flailing as somebody tried to cover her head. Her attacker, trying to maneuver the coat one-handed, eased the hand over her mouth without turning loose. It allowed her to open her mouth just enough to sink her teeth into the fleshy web between his thumb and fingers. As she tasted salt and dirt and blood, he let out a howl.

“Dammit, you gotta help me, Lee! Jesus!”

There were two of them, and her only hope lay in making enough of a ruckus to rouse somebody, anybody. Kicking behind her, she managed to knock a chair over. Heavy wool enveloped her, choking her with the smells of sweat, smoke, and grease.

“I got her!”

This time, she found an arm. Her teeth closed over cloth as she bit down hard. This time, the other man got her from behind, forcing her jaws open.

“Now we ain’t gonna hurt you,” somebody assured her in a low voice.

“Gonna help you,” his companion asserted. “All you gotta do is come along real peaceablelike—savvy?”

She recognized one voice from the Goode ranch, and her blood ran cold. But the first man bent close enough to whisper. “If you don’t come with me and Lee, Gib’s gonna find you, and then you’ll be real dead. We ain’t gonna hurt you,” he repeated. “All we want is what we got coming—you can even keep your share.” Apparently satisfied by her silence, he guided her toward the open door. “That’s better. I ain’t one to hurt a woman.”