The Gunslinger's Man (2 page)

“May take you up on that,” the stranger mumbled. He swept his narrowed gaze over the saloon and, apparently satisfied with what he saw, resumed his slow, lazy stroll to the counter. The sign by the door drew no reaction.

Asher clasped his glass in a sweating palm and tried hard not to draw attention to himself—a hopeless task, given that vampires had a knack for detecting the slightest change in a man’s heartbeat. Perspiration beaded on his upper lip and stuck his shirt to his back. He was vaguely aware of Romero filling three glasses and sliding them along, then filling three more and reaching for a fourth.

The ringleader stopped her with a raised hand. “Lookin’ for a man named Ambrose.”

“What for?”

“Does it matter?”

Romero weighed this for a moment. “You see that big house in the heart of town?”

The rider nodded. “Thought that was town hall…”

“It is,” Romero answered, furrowing her brow.

With a headshake, the vampire propped his elbows against the bar. “Was afraid you’d say that.” Even beneath the folds of his duster, his broad shoulders and thick biceps were easy to discern.

Asher’s heart threatened to vacate his chest. He was almost sure he had a handle on who these men were and what they were here for. Not many vampires would be displeased to find the way to the mayor’s door. But if this turned out to be the reason they turned tail, then all those risks Asher had taken would be in vain.

“You ain’t from around here, are you?” he blurted, half addressing the man and half- speaking to the whiskey in this glass. Miraculously, he somehow failed to trip over his words.

The ringleader spared him a glance, eyes hidden by the brim of his low-crowned hat. A crimson sheen dappled his bottom lip, but somehow he’d managed to keep the blood out of his ginger beard.

Asher swallowed hard. “Only askin’ ’cause I hear there’s a band of outlaws pillaging towns from Provo to Santa Fe… They’re calling themselves the Red Horn Riders?” Anticipation pooled like acid in the pit of Asher’s stomach.

“Dangerous times,” the vampire opined tepidly. Asher wasn’t interesting enough to hold his attention for long. “I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

Asher deflated. “Oh.” He contemplated medicating the sting of disappointment with more whiskey, but he was already feeling slightly queasy and Octavian might be on the hunt for a scapegoat again.

“You said there’s a bathhouse ’round back?” asked the vampire.

“Sure,” said Romero. “Soap in there too… Let me get you the key.” Like any sensible soul in Sargasso, she kept her doors locked and her questions to herself.

There was precious else anyone could do. The town wasn’t theirs. It would never be theirs. Asher could run, like Angel Eyes, and leave his uncle to suffer the consequences, or he could grow old in the shadow of monsters like Octavian. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“Much obliged.” Spurs scraped the floor with a tinny jangle as the vampire snatched up the key in a meaty fist. “We’ll have this back to you in an hour.”

“It’s two dollars a head,” Romero said evenly. She could well afford to demand payment from her clients, vampires or not. The neatly carved plaque behind the bar said
Property of Ambrose Solomon
for a reason.

The ringleader must have noticed. He didn’t quibble at the price, merely gesturing to one of his men, who stepped forward to settle the fee.

A human traveler stopping in town would’ve had to pay double that. Then again, a human traveler would’ve been better served riding right on by Sargasso, unless he had his master’s token with him.

Though she was only one woman and they were seven potentially volatile vampires, Romero gathered up the coins and tested one between her jagged teeth. Her eyes never left the men.

“Are we square?” her client asked.

“If you want your clothes washed, too I’ll send one of my boys to take ’em.”

The ringleader assured her that wouldn’t be necessary.

“Don’t know, boss,” crowed one of his companions. “Blackjack here stinks like a dead mackerel.”

Blackjack stood a head taller than Asher and sported a nasty scar on his face. When he started gritting his teeth about biting the sights off a six-gun, Asher shrank down into his seat, a prickle of fear creeping down his spine. His pals seemed to take it in jest.

“You know,” said their leader, tilting close so that his murmur reached no other ears but Asher’s, “as I hear it, them Riders ain’t ever been to Provo.” His voice was low and intimate, and his wink just before he stalked away made Asher’s stomach flip.

The saloon doors fluttered shut in his wake.

Asher let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Best watch yourself, boy,” Romero hummed.

He met her gaze with a scowl. “What?”

“Way you were starin’ at that curly wolf, you’d think you saw the face of God.”

Asher tracked the dusty shadows with his gaze. They passed before the window in an unhurried procession, their holstered Colts catching the sunlight.

Romero had no idea just what a vision he’d seen.

Chapter Two

The night was velvet black beyond Asher’s bedroom window. Clouds had rolled in over the valley sometime in the early afternoon and blotted out the sunset. The gray cover might have grown darker and darker with the fading light, but in Asher’s room there was always that faint spill of radiance creeping through the floorboards from his uncle’s workroom.

Asher heard him in there at all hours of day and night, tinkering beneath the hazy glow of the gas lamps. His clocks marked the hour, the half hour and all the arbitrary intervals at which Uncle Howard had to be reminded to brew himself a cup of Arbuckle’s so he wouldn’t fall asleep at his desk.

The noise hadn’t bothered Asher in years. His uncle was as immovable as time itself, so getting used to his quirks was the only way to live. Yet that night, Asher couldn’t stop tossing and turning. He’d barely had any supper. His nails were bitten to the quick.

It was little consolation to think that in beds all over Sargasso, his friends were just as agitated. He’d spent the day putting the word out that their plan had come to fruition—carefully, so as to avoid anyone else getting wind that something was afoot—although it gnawed at him that he couldn’t be more specific. When would it happen? How much longer did they have to wait?

Was he certain?

There, at least, Asher had been able to convince them.

The Red Horn Riders were in town, asking after Ambrose. He wouldn’t have done it so openly, had he been walking in their shoes, but he was a watchmaker’s clerk and courier. All he knew about gunslingers was what he had read in the newspaper and gleaned from traveling merchants. The accounts were surely embellished to draw an audience, but without them he couldn’t have come this far.

With a halfhearted punch to his pillow, Asher rolled onto his stomach and willed anxiety away. As the saying went, worry was as good as a rocking horse—something to do without getting anywhere. The money had been spent months ago, passed from Asher to a middle-man and into the capable, gloved hands of the bandits themselves. Either the Riders kept up their end of the bargain or they went out in a blaze of glory.

Please, God. Let them succeed.

The prayer became a mantra, became a silent hymn lulling Asher to sleep. Anticipation burned itself out beneath its cheering repetition.

In his dreams, Sargasso was no longer a divided town. Asher saw the town hall in ruins, the ruin covered with sand and stone, Main Street turned into a playground for children no mother would have let out of her sight before. He walked from one end of town to the other with no one to stop or look askance at him, unafraid that some mudsill would run to his masters to say Asher Franklin was making a run for it.

And he
was
running all of a sudden, his boots eating up the dirt with every footfall, the sun beating down on his back like a bolstering caress.

Octavian was gone. His goons would never again hold a gun to Asher’s head.

Somewhere at his back, thunder roared over the valley. It wasn’t enough to stop Asher. He was running, he was free—he was falling, his feet pulled clean from under him.

He came to on the hardwood floor, light from the lamps still on in his uncle’s workroom prickling his eyes. Through a gap in the boards, he glimpsed movement—Uncle Howard crumpling against his desk, tools and fine little gears spilling over the edges. Blood on his uncle’s face. Blood on his clothes.

A fist knotted in Asher’s hair and yanked him back.

He shouted in pain, his scalp stinging as he fetched up against the bedframe. His left elbow took the brunt of the impact, but the pain that shot up his arm soon had to contend with a more overwhelming sensation.

Five men converged on him. The room was not meant to hold so many souls, the space around the bed too narrow to avoid stepping on each other. But that was what they’d come for.

They laid into him with fists and steel-toed boots, trampling him like a rat.

Between blows, Asher recognized Octavian among his attackers, but none of the others. He couldn’t risk more than a glance before someone aimed another kick at his face. He tried to duck, to bring his arms up to his head. Doing so only exposed the soft flesh of his stomach, his bare thighs where his sleep shirt had ridden up.

Pain exploded in his skull. He should have told Octavian what he wanted to hear. He should have said Angel Eyes had run off to Florida. Anything to spare himself this agony.

No matter how much it hurt, a small part of Asher’s mind was aware that they were still holding back.

They’re not allowed to kill me. They’re not allowed to do permanent damage.

Although how Octavian could be expected to estimate that, Asher wasn’t sure.

One particularly strong kick to his stomach made his vision white out. The air in his lungs evaporated.

Someone was shouting his name. It could only be Uncle Howard.

“Get him up,” Octavian commanded. His fangs had dropped, flashing in the moonlight like a pair of knives.

Asher made a valiant attempt to lock his knees, but his muscles wouldn’t obey and he slumped in the grip of two particularly unfriendly-looking vampires, their features unfamiliar. Their hold tightened around his arms when he made to recoil.

“Ambrose wants you alive,” Octavian growled, up close and snarling like a dog. “For now.”

“A-Ambrose?” In agony, Asher scrambled to understand. What did Ambrose have to do with Angel? Had Octavian somehow convinced the mayor that Asher was involved in her disappearance?

Octavian chuckled mirthlessly. “Did you think he wouldn’t find out? He’s going to make an example out of you.” The prospect seemed to broaden his grin. “You miserable waste of space. You’re gonna regret bein’ born.”

With a jerk of the head, he sent Asher’s captors in motion—down the stairs, past Uncle Howard with no explanation given. The gas light hurt Asher’s eyes, but no more so than the stricken expression his uncle directed his way. Incomprehension filled his expression. A bruise had already begun swelling on his cheek, and his glasses were askew.

Chaos in the shop was usually comforting, but tonight it bore the evidence of a brawl. That couldn’t be. Uncle Howard always kept his head down. He was among Ambrose’s protégés.

It wasn’t until Asher was dragged, stumbling, into the lane that he saw the rest. Doors gaped open in every house up and down Main Street. Worried faces filled the windows. Some townspeople were crying, others had taken to pleading for mercy from the bands of vampires holding them back. Torchlight ringed a makeshift pen in the center of the road, where the dried-up fountain still stood.

Asher’s stomach sank into his knees as he was tossed in with the other prisoners. He knew them all. Wesley Foley was a cowherd up at the New Morning Farm. Brent Turner had moved to Sargasso with his forty-niner father after the Rush. Austin worked on the railroad. The reverend was there, too, bleeding from a vicious bite that had taken off most of his right ear.

“What…” Asher started, but couldn’t find it in him to see the question to the end.

“One of you bastards talked,” Wesley growled, his gaze mutinous.

A few protesting murmurs attempted to shoot down the suggestion. It was unconscionable. Trust had been their only commandment. With that gone, they were as good as dead.

“Look around you,” said Wesley, which was how Asher realized he’d spoken at least a portion of his thoughts aloud. “Whoever ain’t here,
that’s
who killed us.”

Despite himself, Asher cast his gaze over the beaten, bleeding faces around them. It was easier than glancing up to see Uncle Howard holding up the shop doorframe, pleading with one of Octavian’s brethren to understand that this was a mistake. Asher was blameless.

Asher would never conspire against their rightful leader.

In short order, the remaining six members of his group had been dragged out of their homes and thrown in with their fellow criminals. Asher caught Connie Pinkham when she tangled her feet in her nightshirt and came down hard into his lap.

“They know,” she whispered fervently, her cheeks damp with tears. “Oh God, they know—”

“Shh. It’ll be all right.” Asher wrapped his arms around her, heedless of the impropriety of holding a woman so close when she wasn’t even wearing a corset. He and Connie had grown up together, as close as siblings for the better part of their lives. Now was not the time to let decorum claim the upper hand on their friendship. “It’ll be all right.”

“How?” Connie wheezed, her voice muffled by the crook of his neck.

Asher cast about for an answer, but all he could see were blazing torches and vampires in their dozens circling them. They didn’t even need to hold back the weeping mothers and fathers looking on. Sargasso was all about knowing one’s place.

Pounding horse hooves shook the ground. Asher was reminded of his dream as he turned, Connie tearing free of his embrace.

“This all of them?” Ambrose Solomon’s mount was as black as his glare, but between the tip of his lit cigar and the torchlight, the silver in his hair and beard stood out.