This Gun for Hire (36 page)

Ann could not wait any longer. She inched out of her hiding place and found her way back to the entrance to the room, this time without stubbing her foot on the crate. She hesitated on the threshold but not for long. Her guardian had not extinguished every lantern that he passed, and she could see light up ahead.

She ran toward it.

*   *   *

Quill caught up to Calico outside the mine. She was bent over at the waist, her hands braced on her knees. She was staring at the ground and did not look up until he was beside her.

“Were you sick?” he asked.

“No. Just thought I would be.” She straightened slowly. Her cheeks puffed as she blew out a breath. “I did not want it to happen in front of them.”

“Where is Cavanaugh?”

“Where you left him. Out cold. We should go.”

“Can you? I can go alone.” He told her about deputizing the miners and leaving them to watch over Chick and Mrs. Stonechurch. “I know. Foxes in charge of the henhouse, but short of shooting them all, it seemed to be the most expedient solution. They’ll be coming out directly.”

“All the more reason for me to go with you. I don’t think Beatrice is safe around me. I want to give her my headache.” She picked up the lantern. “Did you tell her that Ramsey is not dead?”

“No.” He fell in step beside her. “I figured I’d let her find that out later. I didn’t have the sense that she would take news like that in stride.”

“True.” Calico kept her head up, her eyes straight ahead. It helped to keep the nausea at bay.

“Whit has a gun. A Remington, Chick says.”

“I thought as much when I saw Chick was carrying. He will want a piece of you and all of me. I’m trying to decide
how we can use that to our advantage. I want to get him as far away from Ann as possible.”

“You’re thinking he’ll use her for cover?”

“I would, leastways I would if I were a depraved individual in the likeness of Nick Whitfield.”

“So divide and conquer?”

“Yes.”

They came to the rise overlooking the footbridge and paused. There was a hint of dawn in the eastern sky and the bridge was more than an indistinct silhouette. Calico could see it was every bit the ramshackle affair that Quill had told her it was.

Quill said, “It’s not too late, Calico. You can cross there and get back into town. Let me deal with Whit.”

Calico said nothing. She did not even look at him.

“All right,” he said. “Forget I said it.”

“Forgotten.” She extinguished the lantern and set it down. “There’s enough light now to continue, I think.”

He nodded. The lantern would merely announce their presence. The mouth of the tunnel was still dark. If Chick had told the truth, then Whit and Ann were deep inside. “Can I at least go first?”

“If you like.” It was the fact that he had two guns and the pickaxe that decided her, and she told him so.

He held up the axe. “Think you can swing this if you need to?”

“I think I can do anything if I need to.”

“Of course you can.” And he believed it. He handed it over and led the way down the hill.

*   *   *

Ann heard footsteps pounding after her, but she could not tell if they were real or only real in her imagination. There was nothing to be gained by looking back; she could not cover ground any faster and she was afraid the sight of him on her heels would paralyze her.

She raced from lantern point to lantern point until she was met by darkness. She had reached the place where the
lanterns were extinguished. The route to the mouth of the tunnel seemed impenetrable. Ann had no choice but to proceed with caution. She had no sense of the distance she had traveled when she finally saw the vague outline of the adit ahead of her. Moonlight was fading with the approach of dawn, and the graduated blue-gray colors of the sky illuminated the opening.

Her heart seized when she heard him shout. She knew she had not imagined his voice because when he called out a name, it wasn’t hers. He yelled for someone whose name she did not recognize. There was a pause after that, and she thought he must have heard himself because when he yelled again, it was for her.

She ran on. She could no longer feel the ground under her feet. In her mind, she was flying.

Ann was still flying when she emerged from the tunnel and slammed headlong into Quill McKenna. He had no time to brace himself against her rocketing body. Her diminutive stature and finely boned frame made little difference. She brought enough force to their encounter to knock him over. He managed to toss Chick’s Remington to Calico before he hit the ground. He landed flat on his back with Ann Stonechurch sprawled indelicately on top of him.

“How about that,” said Calico. “I sure am glad I let you go first.” She set down the axe and grabbed Ann by the collar of her coat. The young woman did not show any signs of wanting to release Quill, and he was being rather more gentle with her than their circumstances called for. She tugged hard and peeled Ann away. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

Ann shook her head. “He’s coming,” she said between labored breaths. “He’s coming!”

Calico heard Whit’s angry bellow coming from the tunnel. Quill heard it, too. He scrambled to his feet and put Ann behind him. He took the Remington back and drew his Colt. Calico also drew her weapon.

Nick Whitfield charged out of the tunnel, lantern swinging wildly. Calico and Quill gave him a wide berth and let
him run. He was like a mad bull. They were not certain he noticed them. It was the absence of his quarry that seemed to bring him up short. He ground to a halt and slowly turned, and indeed, it was Ann he searched for. He nodded, satisfied, when he glimpsed her peeking out from behind Quill’s shoulder.

“I would just as soon shoot you as look at you,” said Quill. “What you do next will determine which it will be. Take off your gun belt.”

Whit was breathing hard. He indicated the lantern in his hand. “All right if I put this down?”

Quill nodded.

Whit’s eyes darted to Calico. “That all right with you, too?”

“I’d just rather shoot you, but yes, do what Marshal McKenna says.”

“Marshal?” He turned his attention back to Quill. “Since when?”

Quill used the barrel of the Colt to point to the ground. “Set it there.”

Shrugging, Whit started to comply but then did two things simultaneously. He threw himself sideways and tossed the lantern at Quill. Calico fired. Her shot was just wide of the mark, and Whit rolled out of the way so that her second shot slammed into the ground near his head. At the same time, Quill threw up an arm to deflect the lantern. The barrel of the Remington broke the globe. He and Ann were showered by shattered glass, oil, and then fire.

Calico saw that Whit was on his feet, but she holstered her Colt and let him go when he started to run. Sheer frustration made her heave the pickaxe at his retreating back. She did not wait to see where it landed. She stripped off her duster instead and threw it over Quill and Ann as they rolled on the ground. It did not take long to smother the flames, and neither Quill nor Ann sustained any burns, although the smell of burnt wool and leather made them check themselves twice over.

Calico let Quill fend for himself and helped Ann to her feet and patted her down for hot spots. She stopped abruptly
when she felt Ann’s bulging pockets. “Holy Mother of God,” she said softly. “Ann? Is this what I think it is?”

Ann’s face crumpled as tears flooded her eyes and dripped past her dark lashes. To her credit, she did not shy away. Her voice, when she finally had the wherewithal to answer, was hardly more than a whisper. “Do you think it is dynamite?”

“I do.”

Ann sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded. “I forgot about it.”

Quill stepped closer to the pair. “Someone tell me I did not hear what I just heard.” When neither woman spoke, he swore feelingly. “Calico. Back away from her. Ann. Don’t move. Think of it this way—since you and I haven’t already blown ourselves to kingdom come, the chances are very good that you are in possession of sticks that have not been compromised.” He waved Calico away. Not surprisingly, she did not go eagerly, and she did not go far.

Quill took up Calico’s place in front of Ann. “I am going to unbutton your coat. Do you understand?”

She nodded and bravely said, “I c-can do that.”

“I know, but allow me.”

Uncertain, Ann looked at Calico.

“Let him,” said Calico. “He’s a preacher’s boy. Sometimes he just needs to do good works.”

“All right.”

Quill smiled. That short exchange was all he needed to unfasten Ann’s coat. He was removing it from her shoulders before she realized it was open. He carried the coat closer to the entrance and laid it on the ground. Over Calico’s protests, he emptied the pockets and examined the sticks. There were no crystals on the sticks or in the pockets. Keeping his back turned, he slipped two of the sticks inside his jacket, and when he returned to Ann, he gave her his coat and helped her into it. It swallowed her whole.

“How did you get the sticks?” Calico asked Ann. “Did Whit make you take them?”

“No. Whit? Is that his name? That does not seem familiar, but I couldn’t remember.”

“Maybe he told you it was Marcus White, but he’s Nick Whitfield.”

“Oh. Yes, you’re right. I heard both. But no, he did not force them on me. He let me wander down the tunnel. I think it was only so he could chase and trap me. I hid, and that’s when I found them. There is a room filled with them, or at least I suppose that’s what was in the crates. I took four sticks. I don’t know why I did that. It was an impulse. I was afraid and I thought they might be useful. I swear I forgot I had them.”

She blinked back tears as she looked from Calico to Quill and back again. “Tell me what’s happened to my father. I shouldn’t have left him. Aunt Beatrice said . . . no, it doesn’t matter. I should not have left him.”

Calico pulled Quill’s coat more tightly around Ann. The gesture was both a hug and a shake. “Your father is going to recover. He was conscious when Quill and I left the house. He spoke to Quill. We know some—not all—of what happened. No one blames you. Ann? Look at me. None of this is your fault.”

“But I gave him the—”

Quill said, “We know. Listen to Miss Nash. You are not responsible.”

Unconvinced but hopeful, Ann nodded.

Calico stepped back and looked over at Quill. “I missed Whit. Twice.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Ann said, “He tripped when you threw the pickaxe. I saw him go down as Mr. McKenna was tackling me. I think you might have hit him with it.”

Calico’s expression was a mirror of Ann’s earlier one: unconvinced but hopeful. “He was heading toward the footbridge,” she told Quill.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll catch up. Find cover, Calico. Don’t try to take him in out in the open.” As she hurried away, he asked Ann, “Are there more lanterns in there?”

“Yes. But you have to go a ways before you’ll come to one that is lit.”

“Can you go back in there and bring one to me? You’ll have to come in the general direction of the footbridge. I’ll meet you.” He could see she was scared, and he did not wait for her answer. She would either do it or she wouldn’t. He left her shivering inside his coat and went after Calico.

Quill had no difficulty finding her. She was tucked behind the concrete block that supported an old water cannon. The monitor had not been used since gold mining days, but no one thought it was worth the time or effort to remove. Quill had reason to be glad that it was left in place because Calico was reasonably safe as long as she kept her head down.

Whit was crouched on the near side of the footbridge, partially hidden by rocks and a large mound of ice and snow that had been cleared from the bridge. His cover was almost as impenetrable as the support block Calico was using.

Quill did not have a clear shot. Crouching, he sprinted toward Calico. Whit fired once. The shot kicked up bits of rock half a yard in front of Quill.

“Waste of a cartridge,” Quill said as he squeezed in beside Calico. “He wasn’t close.”

“His shot was forward.” She added dryly, “Maybe he thought you were faster.”

“Amusing. Why hasn’t he crossed the bridge? I didn’t hear you fire at him.”

“He’s been hiding there all along. I saw him before he saw me. He didn’t have a chance to fire before I got this far. I can’t figure him. It’s getting lighter out. He is going to be visible from the other side when the miners start reporting to work.”

“You think they’re going to show? I have to believe there are folks who already heard shots. Maybe they’re curious, but they are also keeping their distance.”

Calico inched her head above the block and cannon. “He’s still there. I can just make out the top of his hat against the snow.” She dropped back. “In his place, I would have made a run for it into town. Better opportunities to hide there.”

“He might be injured. Ann could be right, and you really
did hit him with the pickaxe. It would explain why he didn’t get very far. Depending where you hit him and how the axe struck, he could be in a bad way.”

“I would really like to believe that.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Holding up. I should have been able to hit him with at least one of my shots. I pulled to the right both times.”

“Maybe, but I appreciate you stopping to help put out the fire. I’m sure Ann does, too. I did not expect that move from him.” Quill edged sideways to take a peek at Whit’s location. He caught him poking his head above the rocks and snow and looking in their direction. “He’s trying to figure out what we’re doing.”

“So am I.”

Quill said, “Do you suppose he’s afraid to cross the bridge?”

“What?”

Quill shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just wondering if he might be scared to go across.”

“I’ll be darned. That never occurred to me. The bridge can hold him, can’t it?”

“Sure, but maybe he doesn’t realize it. Or maybe he’s afraid of the deep drop under it. Some of the miners take the long way around to avoid the bridge.”

“If you’re right, he’s stuck there until the snow melts.”

“I don’t know about you, but I am not in favor of waiting for the spring thaw. Maybe we can get him to go for the bridge.”