Red River Showdown (14 page)

“Not particularly. Just some marked cards and a note written on his copy of the invitation that said DCRM1.”

“Are you sure that's what it said?”

Clint nodded. “After all the trouble I went through to get that little bit of nothing, I think I'd be able to remember it.”

She stayed in her spot for a few seconds and then asked, “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

“Why didn't you tell me you were a Texas Ranger before?”

“I'm not a Texas Ranger.”

“You know what I mean.”

After conceding the point with a nod, Mia said, “So we're even. I just don't know if it's worth the trouble for me to get in there and have a look around.”

“That room was barely big enough for two people,” Clint said. “I doubt he'd be in there if he's got his own men and some prisoners with him. He's probably somewhere else by now.”

Suddenly, Mia turned on her heels and started heading for another door. “There's a few places I want to check,” she said. “While I was looking around last night, I saw some suspicious men spending a lot of time in places where there shouldn't have been much going on.”

“A boat full of gamblers and you only found a few suspicious men?” Clint asked.

“Suspicious, armed, and not playing cards,” she clarified.

“That is suspicious.”

“Since there's two of us now, there's no reason for us to stay together every second. One of us should check out those places I found, and the other should check on room number one.”

“Why room number one?” Clint asked.

“That note, DCRM1, remember? Isn't RM short for room?”

Realizing he'd somehow let that slip past him made Clint feel like an ass. Keeping his best poker face on, he nodded and said, “You can check that one out after you tell me where those places you found were. If those men are armed, I'd rather be the one to face them.”

She nodded and then patted his cheek. “It's all right, Clint. I'm sure you were just in a hurry to get your arm back around Gretchen or you wouldn't have missed that.”

Clint decided his poker face needed a little work.

Apart from the fact that he'd somehow overlooked something as obvious as RM1 meaning room number one, Clint had an even better reason for wanting to switch tasks with Mia. It was a good way for him to check out her information while allowing her to check on his. He didn't really feel too bad about telling her what he'd found on that note, since he might not have done anything with it until it was too late anyhow.

There were three spots that had caught Mia's attention. One was the furnace. Another was a storage room off the main kitchen. The third was a good-sized structure on the middle deck, close to the paddle wheel. Considering that the main kitchen was probably in use at the moment, Clint put that one and the furnace off for a while and headed for the room at the rear of the boat.

Before he headed in that direction, Clint stopped in his room to change back into his suit. That way, if anyone asked any questions, he could easily play the part of a gambler who'd lost his direction. The longer coat also made it much easier for him to hide his gun from any of the armed men who were looking to disarm the passengers.

Clint tipped his hat and put on the best smile he could manage as he passed other gamblers and a few men who actually kept the boat running. It was a beautiful day, so the
Misty Morning
was making good time moving along the Red River. Once the paddle wheel slowed down a bit, Clint intended on checking out the furnace. For the moment, however, the noise from the churning water was just what he needed to cover his approach to the small structure at the rear of the boat.

It took a while for Clint to find the spot Mia had told him about. The directions had seemed simple enough when she told them to him, but Clint soon began to wonder if he was remembering them incorrectly somehow. After his second trip around the deck, all he had found was a few doors leading to the poker rooms and some wooden walls separating him from the paddle wheel.

On the third trip, Clint spotted a small hole on one of those paddle-wheel walls. At first, he'd thought that hole was just an imperfection in the wood, but then he realized that that side of the paddle wheel was wider than the other side. Since riverboats generally weren't built that way, Clint figured he'd found his structure.

When he examined the wall around that hole, he eventually found the recessed hinge of a door. Placing his ear against the wall, Clint could hear something else beneath the constant sound of the turning wheel.

“If you . . . your mouth . . . ,” a voice on the other side of the wall said, “I'll kill . . . dump . . . overboard.”

Clint's hand moved aside his jacket so he could place his hand on the grip of his Colt. He didn't need to hear every word that had been said to know that he'd found the right place. He also knew he needed to move quickly before the situation got any worse for whoever was inside.

With his one hand still on his pistol, Clint stretched out his free hand and knocked on the wall.

A few more voices came from the other side, but they were too quick and too hushed for Clint to make out what they were saying. Just to be safe, however, he stepped away from the wall so his back was to the paddle wheel.

The wall shook a little and a section of it swung inward less than an inch. Clint was standing at the wrong angle to be able to see inside, so he waited there without moving a muscle.

After a few seconds, the door's hinges squeaked again. The section of wall swung in a bit more, and a man stuck his head out to get a look around. Since most of the boat was to his right, that's where the man turned. Clint was standing to his left and wasted no time before grabbing the man by his tussled hair and pulling him out of the hidden room.

“What the hell?” the man said in surprise.

Clint kept pulling until he got a look at the man's whole body. Once he saw the gun gripped in the man's hand, Clint turned so he could direct the top of the man's head toward the railing behind him. Skull met iron with a satisfying clang. When Clint let go of the man's hair, the man staggered and fell awkwardly onto his backside.

Stepping in front of the door, Clint managed to get a quick look inside. There were several large tools hanging from the walls, one man tied to a chair and one other standing there with a rifle in his hands. Clint moved away from the doorway as soon as he saw that rifle, and just managed to clear it before a shot was fired from the room.

Although Clint could hear the distinctive crack of a gunshot, most of that sound was swallowed up by the paddle wheel, which was only a yard or two away. Clint looked around to see if anyone else was coming or if someone had heard the shot.

There wasn't a window allowing the back poker room to look at the paddle wheel, so nobody in there could have seen anything. As far as Clint could tell, the rest of the deck in the vicinity was clear, so he shifted his attention back to the more important matter of staying alive.

The first man was still shaking off the effects of being knocked headfirst into the railing. He staggered to his feet and quickly realized he'd dropped the gun he'd been holding.

The second man wasn't so quick to charge out of the room. In fact, it looked as though he wasn't even going to leave his spot. “Who the hell's out there?” he shouted from inside the room. “You come any closer and this man in here with me's gonna die!”

Clint had been standing with his back against the wall, which he now knew was the side wall of that hidden room. With his ear pressed against the wall, he was able to get a feel for where the man inside was standing. Pressing the Colt's barrel against the wall, Clint adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. The shot was a bit louder than the rifle shot, but most of it was still washed out by the paddle wheel.

Before the man inside could do anything, Clint hurried through the door and into the little room. Just as he'd figured, his shot had punched a hole through two walls, but was too high and wide to hit anyone. It did, however, come close enough to put a fright into the rifleman.

Clint moved toward the rifleman and took a swing at him before he had a chance to think better about the idea. His fist knocked squarely into the man's jaw, sending him backward to trip over the fellow tied to a chair. As his back hit the wall, it looked as if he was going to fall down and fire a shot from his rifle, but he caught himself before doing either.

The man tied to the chair sputtered and squirmed as all of this was happening around him. Mostly, he pulled his head down and tried to curl up just to keep away from the guns and fists being thrown around so close to him.

Clint turned sideways and stretched out his left arm to grab the rifleman's shirt front and slam him once more into the wall. The man still didn't drop his rifle.

Catching a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, Clint turned in that direction and was just in time to see the first man standing there. There was a red line running down the middle of that man's face and blood dripping from his nose. He scowled at Clint and brought up his pistol.

Clint's right arm snapped out in that direction and fired out of pure instinct. He then pulled his gun arm in to crack the handle of the Colt against the rifleman's forehead to finally drop that man to the floor.

Hearing steps knocking against the deck nearby, Clint hurried out of the room to find the first man still wobbling there. The man's eyes were rolled up into his head, and he was only upright because of the rail behind him. Clint could hear several people hurrying around the corner, so he pushed the standing corpse over the rail, ducked back into the room and shut the door.

“Please help me,” the man tied to the chair groaned.

Clint was pressed against the wall and waved toward the sound of the man's voice. He turned toward the fellow in the chair just long enough to whisper, “Shut up and sit still.”

After seeing what he'd just seen, the man was content for a little while longer to stay in his chair and not squirm against his ropes.

Clint turned so his face was once again pressed against the wall. That way, he was able to get a look outside through the bullet hole he'd created less than a minute ago. The hole wasn't too big, but it was enough to allow him to see three men in dark clothes rush around the corner. Clint could also feel those men's footsteps as they walked closer and closer to the wall.

“Are you sure you heard something over here?” one of the men asked.

Although the second man was standing closer to the wall, he was standing too close for Clint to get a look at him. Instead, Clint could hear the man shuffling back and forth less than a foot away from him.

“I heard something,” the second man said. “Didn't you?”

“What?”

Raising his voice to be heard over the paddle wheel and churning water, the man asked, “Didn't you hear anything?”

“I thought I heard something, but I don't know what the hell it was. For all I know it was some kid hunting squirrels on the shore somewhere.”

Clint could feel the second man moving around. It wasn't anything concrete, but more of the sort of feeling someone got when he knew he was being watched. Closing his eyes, Clint eased his boot against the door to hold it shut if someone tried to push it open.

After a tense couple of seconds, the man stepped directly in front of the hole Clint was looking through.

“I can't even hear myself think so close to this goddamn wheel,” he grunted.

There were more steps knocking against the deck nearby, but Clint couldn't hear much more than that.

Apparently, the first man heard something else, because he turned and shouted, “It's nothing. Just like I said it was.”

“Let's go play some cards before someone steals the money I had on the table,” the man closest to the wall grunted.

After that, all those sets of footsteps moved away from the room until they were swallowed up by the constant sound of the paddle wheel.

Clint turned away from the wall so he could get a look at the man tied to the chair. That man looked like he was in his early twenties, but still outweighed Clint by at least thirty pounds. Sweat rolled down his face and glistened in the dim light cast by a single, sputtering lantern that was burning just enough to remain lit.

“Are you going to kill me?” the man asked.

“I was thinking about getting you out of those ropes,” Clint replied. “How's that sound?”

The man nodded with his mouth agape, as if he was waiting for the offer to be retracted at any moment.

Since he didn't have a knife on him, Clint set about loosening the ropes the old-fashioned way. As his fingers dug into the knots, he spoke to the man in the chair in the calmest voice he could manage.

“What's your name?” Clint asked.

“Marty.”

“You're a gambler, Marty?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No need for the formalities. My name's Clint. Even though I'm not going to hurt you, I'd appreciate it if you kept your voice down just in case any more of these assholes come back around to check on their friends.”

That seemed to put Marty's mind at ease. Feeling his hands start to come free also gave him a boost of confidence as he straightened up and spoke in a quicker rush of words. “Who the hell are these guys? Why'd they come after me? I don't even know who they are!”

“Remember the deal, Marty. Keep quiet.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Sit still and I'll have you out in a bit.” As he pulled on the knot that Marty had just tightened thanks to his sudden movements, Clint asked, “What happened to land you in here?”