Blood Gold (9 page)

One steady pace at a time, Mack and Rodrigo stalked into the fort. They took flanking positions, kneeling on either side of the gate, and roved their rifles back and forth.

Mack beckoned Salvador to follow them in and with their heads down, Salvador and the remainder of his followers slipped inside and scurried along the side of the stockade. To short hand gestures from Salvador, they took positions at ten-yard intervals, then hunkered down and aimed at the huddle of blankets where Gideon and Hannah lay.

But then Salvador waved his arms above his head and, with Mack and Rodrigo on either side of him, he dashed across the parade ground, keeping low.

Two yards in front of Gideon he skidded to a halt.

‘Where are they?’ he muttered.

‘Sleeping off that batch of whiskey,’ Gideon said.

Salvador nodded and glared at Hannah.

‘And why ain’t you keepin’ Jack all happy and distracted?’

Hannah shrugged beneath her blanket. ‘When you start firing I don’t want to be anywhere near Jack.’

Salvador chuckled. ‘You’re a right sensible whore. Now, where’s Jack?’

‘Over there.’ Hannah stretched her head to the side and pointed to the powder magazine with her chin.

‘That so?’ Salvador said, looking at Gideon.

‘Yeah.’ Gideon nodded towards the powder
magazine
. ‘He’s over there.’

Salvador turned towards the magazine, but then turned back and looked at Hannah, then Gideon, lying on their backs under their blankets. His eyes narrowed. He stalked to Gideon’s side and kicked the blanket from him, then reached down and pulled him to his feet.

While muttering an angry oath, he swung him round to see the coils binding his hands.

‘What in tarnation are you—’

A gunshot blasted Salvador’s hat from his head forcing him to hurl himself to the ground and lie flat.

Gideon tottered, then let himself fall to the side.

With no cover available, Salvador glanced back and forth, then on his belly squirmed to the stable wall and pressed himself flat. Another shot ripped out and Mack clutched his chest, his fingers clawing at the redness seeping through his fingers.

Even before Mack had keeled over, gunfire was roaring from all directions as Jack’s men blasted at
Salvador’s men from the advantage of their covered positions.

Within ten seconds, two more of Salvador’s men collapsed. With no choice other than to find
somewhere
to make a stand, they split. Some dashed for the officers’ quarters, Zane getting in shots that blasted the men on the raised platform to the ground, but the others made a desperate charge towards the powder magazine. Another man collapsed before the rest scurried inside. Then fierce gunfire ripped out in the powder magazine.

Through the magazine doorway, Gideon watched Salvador’s men fighting hand to hand with Jack’s men, and from the occasional body he saw fall to the ground, he judged that the attackers accounted for some of Jack’s men. But after less than a minute, quiet descended on the powder magazine. Then Jack and Leland edged to the doorway and peered outside.

Outside the officer’s quarters the remnants of Salvador’s men wavered a moment, then scurried inside, a last volley of gunfire from Jack and Leland hurrying them on their way.

Gideon gritted his teeth, listening for the gunshot that would herald their discovery of Patrick in the building, but he didn’t hear a shot.

A hand slammed on his shoulder.

He looked up to see Salvador looming over him. Then he slid down to lie beside him.

‘You double-crossed me,’ Salvador muttered in Gideon’s ear.

‘I’m tied up and helpless. That ain’t the position of someone who’s gaining from this.’

Salvador snorted and levered an arm around Gideon’s chest, then pulled him to his feet. He gestured to Rodrigo, who scurried from the stable wall and skidded to a halt behind Hannah. He also levered her to her feet and with her held before him, he faced the powder magazine.

To Salvador’s instructions, they edged into the parade ground.

‘You’d better hope Jack still likes you and the whore,’ Salvador muttered, ‘or I’ll be draggin’ your lifeless body for a long way.’

‘Jack hates me.’

‘Then start prayin’ his aim’s poor.’

Walking sideways, they stalked to the centre of the parade ground and, aside from the occasional high blast of gunfire from the officers’ quarters, everyone stilled their fire.

‘Jack Wolf,’ Salvador roared when he was ten yards from the officers’ quarters. ‘I got your woman.’

‘You ain’t leaving here alive,’ Jack shouted from the powder magazine.

Salvador backed one steady pace at a time until he stood in the doorway.

‘You know what kind of deal I want. You got three minutes to tell me what I want to hear.’

Salvador nodded to Rodrigo and they backed into the building.

Inside, the darkness had grown. Gideon glanced around, noting that Patrick’s blankets were scattered.

He counted through the men he’d seen fall since Salvador had ambushed the fort, and he judged that there ought to be two or maybe three men in the building. But the room was bare.

Rodrigo and Salvador glanced around too.

‘Check the other room,’ Salvador muttered.

Rodrigo hurled Hannah to the ground, then stalked across the room and stood beside the
doorway
.

‘Anybody in there?’ he shouted.

The only sound was Salvador’s muttering under his breath.

Rodrigo glanced back at Salvador. Then he flinched and at that moment, Gideon saw a blurred shape slam into Salvador – a man falling from the rafters above. The man landed heavily on Salvador’s shoulders slamming him to the ground.

Gideon just had time to realize the man was Rusty, but by then Rusty and Rodrigo were both blasting at each other. Rusty fell to one knee, lead ripping into the wall behind him, then blasted again at Rodrigo. His shot was wild.

From the corner of his eye, Gideon saw Salvador scramble to his feet and arc his gun towards Rusty. In desperation, Gideon rolled to his feet and hurled himself at Salvador.

He slammed into Salvador’s side and pushed him to the ground. Another shot from Rodrigo blasted over his head as they both fell, but a second shot slammed into Rusty’s shoulder and spun him round.

Rusty’s head crashed into the wall and with the
blow he slid, boneless, to the ground.

Salvador squirmed out from beneath Gideon, then dragged him up on to his knees. Gideon
struggled
but with his hands tied behind his back, he could only jut his chin defiantly.

Salvador rolled his shoulders, then slammed a long punch to Gideon’s jaw. As Gideon crashed on to his back, Salvador darted a glance at Rusty, but he was lying slack and slumped against the wall. Salvador sneered, grabbed Gideon’s shoulder, and pulled him to his feet. He held him straight, then pummelled his cheek.

Gideon landed heavily, but his respite was
short-lived
as Salvador pulled him to his feet again only to slam a blow deep into his guts, then crash another blow to his jaw that sent him sprawling.

‘Stop,’ Hannah shouted.

Salvador snorted. ‘Be quiet. When I break Gideon in two, I’ll start on you.’

‘You want to bargain with us,’ she shouted. ‘You won’t get anything if you kill us.’

‘My choice.’ Salvador dragged Gideon to his feet and pushed him to Rodrigo. He spat on his fist and rolled his shoulders. ‘Now, hold him up while I give my fists some exercise.’

Rodrigo chuckled. Then his mouth fell open in silent shock. He bundled Gideon away, but a gunshot blasted into his shoulder, spinning him round, and a second shot to the back knocked him flat.

Salvador swung round towards Rusty, who was grinning up at him. A single shot ripped into
Salvador’s chest.

Salvador’s feet left the ground before he slammed down on his back, spread-eagled. He hurled his hands to the ground and levered himself up a foot, but another bullet ripped into his forehead.

Salvador twitched once, then lay flat.

From the ground, Gideon nodded to Rusty.

‘Thought he’d killed you,’ Gideon said.

Rusty rolled to his feet, clutching his shoulder. He winced, then shrugged.

‘I just reckoned that playing dead had to get them closer to me. And as Patrick knows, I don’t miss from five yards.’

Rusty dashed to Gideon’s side. He tugged on his ropes, and with Gideon’s squirming help, untied him.

As Rusty untied Hannah, Gideon edged to the doorway and glanced outside.

The parade ground was still deserted but after the gunfire in here, he guessed they had only another minute or two before Jack sent someone to see what was happening.

He turned back to face Rusty.

‘Did you get Patrick out?’ he asked.

‘Yup,’ Rusty said.

Gideon nodded, then turned to Hannah.

‘I’ve been risking my life to save you, but you were right. I never consulted you on whether you wanted saving. So I reckon that now is the time to ask you. Do you want to leave with me and Rusty, or do you want to stay and take your chances with Jack?’

Hannah hung her head a moment, then looked up and appraised Gideon with a firm gaze.

‘Maybe now is the time to head back to Destitution.’

Gideon nodded, then turned to Rusty.

‘I assume you have a way out of here?’

‘Several ways, actually.’ Rusty batted his hands free of dust. ‘But as you ain’t miners, we’ll have to take the long way.’

Rusty led them into the second room. There, he paced over the three scattered bodies and pointed to a trapdoor in the roof that led to the raised platform.

Gideon noted Rusty’s bloodied shoulder, then stood before him and swung Hannah up on to his shoulders to push the trapdoor open. When she’d rolled on to the roof, Gideon jumped and grabbed the side of the door. With Hannah tugging on his shirt back he rolled over on to the roof. Then he thrust an arm down and helped Rusty, one-handed, on to the roof.

They lay a moment, orientating themselves.

The roof opened on to the raised platform. A three-foot-high fence ran the length of the platform, providing cover from the parade ground. To Rusty’s instructions they crawled behind it with Rusty
leading
and Gideon at the back.

Periodically, the gaps between the logs were wider than normal and Gideon guessed that if anyone from below was looking their way, they couldn’t help but see them, but he didn’t linger to encourage that chance.

But at the corner of the fort, Gideon paused a moment to peer through a gap into the parade ground. Don was stalking around the far stockade, arcing in towards the officers’ quarters. Leland was matching his stealth on the other side.

Gideon judged that they had less than a minute before they discovered their escape.

He hurried on to catch Hannah and Rusty.

When the raised platform passed behind the stable, they reached a ladder. They hurried down it and scurried through the stables to emerge facing the powder magazine. They grouped and on the count of three scurried across open ground to the side of the magazine, then dashed around the back until they reached the collapsed bastion where Gideon had seen Rusty earlier.

With Rusty leading, they clambered over the timber pile towards Rusty’s bolt-hole.

Rusty dropped to his knees and waited a moment for Hannah and Gideon to join him, then edged into the hole. He’d crawled in for three feet, and had disappeared down to his knees, when he screeched, then backed out.

With a gun aimed at Rusty’s head, Strang followed Rusty from the hole and stood to his full height.

‘You,’ he muttered, ‘are going nowhere.’

Strang pulled Rusty round so that his back was to him, slipped his gun from its holster, then pushed him forward a pace.

Rusty and Gideon shared a pained glance. Then with Strang two paces back and urging them on, Hannah, Rusty and Gideon strode around the
magazine
and into the parade ground.

There, the remainder of Jack’s men were
scurrying
around, checking on each of Salvador’s men. Aside from Jack, Gideon counted five men who were still alive.

Don had dragged Salvador’s body into the open and Jack was standing over him, but to Strang’s holler, Jack swaggered across the parade ground to face Hannah. Any hint of his former tolerance of her antics had gone as he glared at her with his one harsh eye.

‘Trying to escape, eh, Hannah?’ he muttered.

Hannah shrugged. ‘I just wanted to get away from the shooting.’

Jack sneered his disbelief, then reached into his
top pocket and extracted the pack.

‘Don’t,’ Hannah said. ‘You said you wouldn’t ask the cards again whether you should trust me.’

‘I did ask the cards if I should trust you.’ Jack lowered his voice to a grating whisper. ‘Trouble is, the cards said I shouldn’t.’

Hannah gulped with a pronounced sound.

‘You got me wrong, Jack.’

Jack snorted and glanced at Rusty.

‘Suppose that was your work in the officers’
quarters
?’

‘Yeah,’ Rusty said, jutting his chin. ‘I killed Salvador for you.’

Jack nodded. ‘Obliged. The only question is – am I grateful enough to let you three live?’

Rusty shrugged. ‘Suppose you’ll ask the cards.’

‘Yeah.’ Jack glanced around his diminished troop of men, grinning.

‘Cards, cards, cards,’ Leland said, clapping his hands and looking around, smiling. Eventually his good cheer forced the others to join him.

‘Cards, cards, cards,’ Jack’s men intoned. ‘Cards, cards,
cards
.’

Jack held the pack aloft.

‘A non-face card says you all die. A two-eyed card says only Hannah lives.’ Jack licked his lips. ‘A
one-eyed
card says you all live.’

Gideon sighed. ‘Those ain’t good odds.’

‘Yeah,’ Hannah muttered. ‘You can’t give us those odds.’

For long moments Jack glared at Hannah, then
fanned the cards and held them out to her.

‘But I have,’ he said. ‘Take a card. It’s your only option.’

With her gaze set firmly on Jack, Hannah edged a pace towards him.

‘Wait!’ a voice shouted.

Everyone glanced to the side to see Patrick stagger out from beside the powder magazine. Blood soaked his jacket and he was stumbling with every pace, but he’d aimed his gun squarely at Jack’s head.

‘You again,’ Jack muttered.

‘Yeah,’ Patrick said. ‘Now move away.’

Jack folded his arms and faced off to Patrick.

‘You’re facing six men. You ain’t in a position to order us.’

‘I ain’t giving orders. I just want to kill Rusty.’ Patrick flinched. Pain creased his face, but as Leland feinted for his gun, Patrick wrestled the gun back into his hand and turned it on Leland. ‘And nobody takes me before Rusty dies.’

Leland glanced at Jack, and to Jack’s nod, he strode to Rusty’s side. He grabbed Rusty’s arms and swung him round to face Patrick.

Without complaint, Rusty let Leland manhandle him and faced Patrick with his chin held high.

‘You can’t kill Rusty in cold blood, Patrick,’ Gideon shouted.

Patrick staggered forward a pace. He raised his gun and aimed it firmly at Rusty’s head.

‘And I reckon I can.’

‘Wait!’ Gideon shouted. ‘I know you, Patrick.
You’re a bull-headed idiot who doesn’t think things through, but you’re a decent man.’

From the corner of his eye, Patrick glanced at him.

‘I can’t let Rusty live.’

‘And he probably won’t. If the cards say Rusty should die, let that be on Jack’s conscience, not yours.’

‘Killing Rusty won’t tear me up for long.’ Patrick glanced around the semicircle of men facing him. ‘From the look of things, none of us will live to see another sun-up.’

‘Perhaps.’ Gideon held his hands wide. ‘But this all started when a card said you and Rusty had to face each other down with just one bullet apiece. That terrible position forced Rusty to do something equally terrible.’

‘It doesn’t excuse him.’

‘It doesn’t. But perhaps if that’s how it all started, that’s how it should end.’ As Patrick shrugged, Gideon turned to Jack. ‘Am I right in thinking that when you ask the cards, you give them three choices?’

Jack hefted the pack of cards in his right hand, then nodded.

‘Yup. The choice you want has the greatest odds. The choice you’d prefer not to take has the lesser odds. And the least odds is the unthinkable.’

Gideon nodded, then folded his arms and drew himself to his full height.

‘In that case, Rusty, then me, then Hannah will each fight a showdown with you. The cards will say
who gets the gun with a bullet.’

‘Go on,’ Jack murmured, rocking his head to one side.

‘A non-face card says only you get a bullet. A
two-eyed
card says both and your opponent get a bullet. A one-eyed card says only your opponent gets a bullet.’

Jack rubbed his chin as he appraised Gideon, then turned to Patrick, who nodded. Jack pulled his gun. He punched out all but one bullet and hurled the gun to Leland.

Leland pulled his own gun and punched out the bullets while Jack fanned the cards and stalked to Rusty’s side.

‘Ask the cards,’ he muttered.

Rusty reached out a shaking hand, then withdrew it. He blew on his fingers and stretched out the hand again, but the fingers were shaking even more than before.

‘If you aren’t feeling lucky,’ Gideon said, ‘I’ll ask for you.’

Rusty gulped. ‘No. I’ll decide my—’

‘I don’t reckon you’re a lucky man,’ Gideon snapped. As Rusty turned to look at him, he set his firm gaze on Rusty’s eyes and lowered his voice. ‘Let me ask for you.’

For long moments Rusty glared at Gideon, then backed a pace.

‘Then do it. But be lucky.’

Gideon smiled and paced to Rusty’s side. He patted Rusty’s uninjured shoulder with a friendly
hand, then turned to Jack. He stared into his eyes as he pulled a card from the fanned-out pack and
without
looking at it, slammed it flat to his chest.

He turned and paced back to stand ten yards from Jack, then swirled round. With the tip of his finger, he lifted a corner of the card and glanced at it. He smiled and closed his eyes a moment, then showed Rusty, then everyone else the card.

A line of raised eyebrows and low whistles followed Gideon’s revelation of his card – the jack of spades.

‘I got lucky,’ he whispered as he turned the card to Jack. ‘I got a one-eyed jack.’

Jack’s mouth fell open. He muttered under his breath, then flared his one eye. Even his ruined orbit seemed to redden.

‘How did you do that?’ he grunted.

‘Like I said,’ Gideon murmured, holding the
one-eyed
jack aloft, ‘I just got lucky. And you just got unlucky.’ He glanced at Leland. ‘Now give Rusty and Jack their guns and we can get this showdown started.’

‘I ain’t accepting that,’ Jack roared.

‘You have to,’ Leland muttered. He hurled the unloaded gun to Jack’s feet, then the gun with the single bullet in it to Rusty’s feet. ‘The cards ordered me to do plenty of dangerous jobs. It’s tough luck, but you have to trust that Rusty’s aim is bad. That’s how we do things.’

‘I don’t have to,’ Jack muttered, backing a pace as Rusty reached down and grabbed the gun.

‘You do,’ Gideon shouted. He folded his arms and
faced Jack. ‘Because if you don’t. I’ll tell Leland why you’re so surprised that I got lucky and drew the jack of spades.’

Jack snorted, narrowing his one eye.

‘It had to come up eventually. The cards have just turned against me.’

‘That isn’t it.’ Gideon held the card aloft. ‘This card is clean. It looks as if nobody has drawn it before.’

‘Nobody has.’

‘But you have other cards that haven’t been drawn and they’re dirty.’ Gideon widened his eyes and flicked the card to the ground at Jack’s feet. ‘It’s almost as if this one wasn’t in the pack before.’

Jack grabbed the card and shook it at Gideon.

‘You cheated,’ he snapped.

‘I did. But so do you. You never ask the cards anything. You just cheat every time, then blame the result on random chance.’

Jack glared at Gideon, his face reddening by the moment.

‘No!’ Jack roared, the sound reverberating in the gathering night.

As one, Jack’s men backed, any hint of their former arrogance gone as their shoulders slumped and they glanced at each other, then at Leland.

In open-mouth shock Leland stared at Jack. Then he dashed to Salvador’s body and scrambled over him to get to his gun.

Jack rocked back and forth on his heels. Then, with his hands raised and held as claws, he charged
Rusty. But Rusty hurled his arm up and blasted his sole bullet into Jack’s chest, skidding him to a halt and spinning him back a pace. Jack clutched his chest, staggered another pace, then tumbled to the ground to lie on his back.

As Hannah screeched and dashed to Jack’s side, Patrick dropped to one knee and with a burst of gunfire, sprayed lead across the remainder of Jack’s men.

Don and Brady fell to the ground, clawing at their chests. Strang, Leland and Armstrong wavered a moment, then hurtled for the powder magazine.

Patrick blasted his last shot at their backs, but it ripped into the magazine’s wall as they scurried inside.

Rusty dashed to Brady’s side and kicked him over. He ripped his gun from its holster, then joined Patrick in kneeling and covering the magazine.

Gideon hung his head a moment, then wandered across the parade ground to stand over Hannah and Jack.

‘Gideon,’ Hannah whined, tears cascading down her cheeks as she looked at him. ‘Help him.’

Gideon knelt beside Jack, noting the torrent of blood that was rapidly coating his shirt. He patted her shoulder and shook his head.

Hannah threw a hand to her mouth, then turned it over and bit the knuckle, stilling her shaking. She hung her head over Jack’s face, but as his lips were moving, she placed her ear beside his mouth.

‘Tell me what I want to hear,’ he whispered.

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘You always cheated.’

‘I had to.’ Jack lifted a limp hand with the jack of spades clutched between two fingers. ‘But I guess you found the cards that weren’t in the pack.’

‘Yeah. The hand that lost you Amber.’ Hannah sat back. ‘Full house, jacks over kings.’

‘Containing all the one-eyed cards.’ Jack snorted. ‘Wilton cheated and mocked me while he did it.’

Jack glanced at Gideon, who with an encouraging nod from Hannah, reached into his pocket and
gathered
the remaining cards from the fateful hand. He threw them on Jack’s chest.

Jack nodded his thanks, then pointed to the side, asking Gideon to move away.

As Gideon backed out of hearing range, Jack
gathered
the cards and passed them to Hannah. He forced a grin and with a finger, beckoned her to place her ear above his mouth.

‘Go to Black Rock and find Wilton Knox,’ he murmured, his voice weakening with each word. ‘At the right time, give the hand back to him.’

‘And when is the right time?’

‘When you’ve done to him what you did to me.’ Jack brushed a kiss against her cheek. ‘Worm your way into his affections. Then, when his guard is down, double-cross him.’

Hannah lifted so that she could look Jack in the eye. ‘I didn’t double-cross you.’

‘I don’t care. All the women I’ve cared for have turned against me.’ Jack’s head keeled to the side, but with one last clawing swipe of his hand, he
grabbed Hannah’s collar and dragged her close. ‘Just do it to him too.’

Hannah sobbed. ‘I can’t let you die thinking that I double-crossed you.’

‘But you have. I saw what you did. Just call it
blood-money
, or maybe …’ Jack’s one eye twitched as his voice faded to oblivion. ‘Blood-gold.’