“Flynn!” Rose hissed urgently, pulling at his chains again. “If you don’t move, they’ll have us both just like all the others! They’ll kill me if they recognize me!” He was nearly pleading as Flynn turned and met his stare.
For perhaps the first time, he thought he saw true fear in the shootist’s eyes. And Rose was right, if the shipment of gold was being taken, then the men doing it wouldn’t hesitate to kill a famous gunman in their midst. Or the deputy US marshal escorting him.
“Unlock me,” Rose urged, “and give me a gun!”
“Hell, no,” Flynn hissed as he closed the door again. He engaged the flimsy lock and then reached across the small cabin for the chair that sat at the writing desk. It was a sturdy piece of furniture, with the Anchor Line’s trademark anchor logo carved into the back of it. He jammed it under the doorknob and then grabbed for his bag.
Rose watched him as he riffled through his things, searching for his backup shooters and ammunition.
“Do you plan to leave me here?” Rose asked him calmly. His voice was suddenly detached, as if he expected Flynn to leave him to his fate and was already calculating his odds of survival and how to get away.
“No,” Flynn grunted distractedly, “shut up!”
He pulled out his spare six-shooter and a belt of ammunition and slung it over his shoulder as he looked around the tiny cabin.
“Think you can get through that window?” he asked with a nod at the porthole.
“Sure, have you got some butter and lard to grease me?” Rose asked sarcastically.
Flynn looked down at him seriously. A loud bang came from the cabin adjacent to theirs. Rose held up his chained hands without a word. After a brief moment to second-guess himself, Flynn extracted the keys from his pocket and unlocked the man, then stepped back warily as Rose stood.
“Any tomfoolery on your part and I’ll kill you,” Flynn warned in a low voice. “The rules just changed.”
“I understand, Marshal,” Rose whispered. “The man you love is out there.”
Before Flynn even knew what he was doing, he had hit the other man, sending him crashing back into the flimsy cot. “You watch your damn mouth,” he snarled as he yanked the disconcerted Rose back to his feet and shoved the cot out of the way and against the door.
Rose merely cleared his throat and nodded as he rubbed at his cheekbone, not even protesting the punch.
Flynn stepped up to the porthole and pushed the glass outward, judging the size and whether they could even attempt it.
“You won’t make it with your holsters,” Rose advised quietly as the doorknob to their cabin rattled.
Flynn hesitated. Rose was right; he had to remove his belt if he was going to fit. He could either toss his guns through ahead of him and risk being unarmed in the tiny room if he couldn’t fit through the porthole, or hand them to Rose and risk being shot in the back by his prisoner as he tried to shimmy through the small opening.
Neither option was a particularly honorable end.
A shout sounded at the door and someone banged heavily, cursing. It was followed by the very distinct sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.
“Get the lead out, Flynn!” Rose hissed as he gestured for Flynn to give him the guns.
Flynn gave him a hard glare and then shoved his old slim jim holster and ammunition belt through the window. They landed with a thud on the outer deck. He’d be damned if he trusted Rose with those guns.
Rose looked back at the door as there was another shout, then knelt under the porthole and linked his fingers together. Flynn stepped his booted foot into the cup of Rose’s hands and let the man lift him to the window. He squeezed his shoulders through one arm at a time with difficulty, and then pushed on the outer shell of the ship, forcing himself through as Rose helped him from behind.
He hit the promenade deck with his shoulder first and grunted in pain as his body rolled gracelessly. He looked back up at the window as Rose peered through, then he scrambled to his feet to reach for the porthole and help him.
Just as Flynn got to his feet, a shotgun blasted from the side of the ship. He hit the deck again as Rose disappeared from view. Flynn pushed up and scrambled for his guns, grabbing them and strapping them on as he ran for the side deck that encircled the upper levels and led to their cabin door. When he rounded the corner, he found that the door to their cabin had been blown open by the shotgun. Two men grappled on the floor in the ill-lit causeway, one straddling the other. The man on top held a double-barreled shotgun, pressing it down against the other man’s throat, choking the life out of him.
The man on the floor wore a dirty handkerchief over the lower half of his face. He kicked and clawed at his attacker, slashing viciously at his side with a short-handled knife in a desperate attempt to dislodge him.
Rose lifted the shotgun and brought the butt of it down like a club against the stranger’s face. Flynn heard the bone of the man’s face crunch and Rose’s chest and faced were splattered with blood even through the kerchief. He brought the shotgun up again and jabbed it one last time for good measure.
Flynn winced at the sickening, wet sound of the impact.
Rose lurched to his feet and turned to face Flynn, chest heaving and his face and shoulders speckled with blood. He swung the shotgun around and leveled it at Flynn as soon as he saw his shadowed form. For the first time, Flynn really saw the killer all the stories talked about, his eyes black and lifeless and his handsome face marred by shadows and blood.
Flynn stopped and gasped, realizing that he might as well be a dead man as he met Rose’s eyes. Even if Rose did recognize him in the darkness, that certainly didn’t mean he wouldn’t still pull the trigger.
To his eternal surprise, Rose blinked at him and lowered the shotgun. He stumbled closer, his breathing coming in difficult gasps and looking slightly dazed. His side was bleeding heavily where the man’s short knife had ravaged his ribcage.
Flynn stared at him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had witnessed such a brutal act that hadn’t been personal or performed in battle. But then, he supposed this was a battle now.
A shout from below brought them both out of their stupor with a lurch. Rose looked over his shoulder and then began to limp toward Flynn, who was hastily affixing his holster and gesturing for Rose to hurry. Rose threw his arm over Flynn’s shoulders as soon as he was close enough.
“Are you okay?” Flynn asked breathlessly as Rose leaned on him.
“Yes,” Rose gasped unconvincingly. “We’ve got to hole up somewhere. They’ll be looking for us.”
“
W
HAT
’
S
the matter, boy, cat got your tongue?” one of the men taunted as he roughly shoved Cage and the marshal toward the elegant curving stairwell.
Cage was one of the only men not kicking up a row about the way they were being prodded like cattle, and his conspicuous silence had drawn the notice of their captors. He didn’t even bother to shake his head in response.
“He’s too good to talk to you,” another man sneered as Cage felt a gun barrel jabbed at his lower back to quicken his pace.
“Maybe we’ll just have to teach him some manners,” the first man cackled.
Neither Cage nor Wash looked at each other as the men herded them across the main cabin and toward the salon with several other passengers and officers of the ship’s crew.
Cage pressed his lips tightly together and was careful not to react like he wanted to the baiting. He had counted at least four men just in passing while being led through the main cabin of the ship and toward the stairs. All of them were heavily armed, each with a piece of cloth covering his face. Any moves Cage or the marshal made could be misconstrued as putting up a fight and wind up getting one or both of them shot. And they hadn’t even managed to bring a knife to this gunfight.
The man behind him jabbed Cage’s back harder and Cage stumbled. He balled his fists, telling himself again not to fight back.
“Leave him the hell alone,” Wash finally growled to the man, who continued to jab Cage in the back even as he tried to right himself.
“Shut your mouth, mister,” the man ordered angrily. “Move it.”
Cage wished he could point out to the man that prodding one prisoner for not talking and then yelling at another to shut up gave a lot of insight into why he might not be the lead hoof on the horse. That meant that this particular man was probably going to be killed by his more intelligent colleagues when he finished whatever job they needed him to be doing. One always needed a few expendable men. Stupid ones, preferably. They never saw it coming.
The thought of that pending vengeance made Cage smile.
The man shoved Cage harder and he staggered through the doors of the main salon. There were roughly ten people crowded into the corner near the stove
—
all gamblers or hard men who had probably already been in the salon when the ship had been boarded. The little group of angry men were all being made to sit on the floor as two men with strips of linen over their faces stood guard over them with double-barreled shotguns. Across the room, along the long wooden bar that normally served the salon’s guests their alcohol, sat an array of guns and knives and other weaponry that had obviously been taken from the gamblers.
Out on the foredeck, several bodies were being pushed overboard into the river.
Cage assumed they had been passengers or deckhands who had initially fought the boarding party, or possibly members of the boarding party itself, killed by resistance. He found himself worrying about Gabriel. If anyone was likely to put up a fight, that man would do it, if for no other reason than just because it was what no one else was doing.
As they were forced into the room, Cage and Wash were both searched for hidden weapons. Cage, of course, had none. He was thankful that the marshal had unlocked him, though. If these men had found him in hand irons they would have either killed him or put him to work for them, and Cage really wasn’t keen on either option. He was even more thankful that Wash didn’t sleep with his badge still on. The men had not searched their cabin. They didn’t know Wash was a lawman, or Cage was certain they would have killed him on the spot.
A woman in a long white nightdress and green brocade dressing gown was shoved into the salon behind Cage and Wash. The man who’d rousted her from her sleep pushed her roughly past Cage’s shoulder, and once she no longer had someone at her back to force her onward, she fainted dead away. Cage turned his head and watched her fall to the ground impassively, without even attempting to catch her. He didn’t dare move quickly, not for any reason. She was better off down there, anyway.
The man behind Cage holding the gun in his back laughed heartily as the swooning woman was dragged to the corner and deposited none too gently on the ground. Several other passengers who were cowering and crying pulled her into their arms and watched the intruders with the odd sort of hopeful wariness Cage had seen on captives before. He had always wondered what they were thinking when they looked at you like that. Were they hoping that after all the planning and effort to capture and restrain them had been expended, their captors would have a change of heart and just let them go?
Cage supposed it wasn’t normal to be calm and logical under stress. That was one thing the West did to men, though. Stress and danger were part of everyday life; if you weren’t calm and logical, you were dead.
A trickling stream of passengers filtered into the salon under the watchful eyes of several armed men. Cage estimated there were fifty or so people present so far, and the number was growing as more groups were led in. The ship only held about one hundred and fifty. Cage couldn’t understand why no one was fighting back. He knew why he and the marshal hadn’t. Their cabin had been on the first passenger deck. They had been given almost no warning, were caught unaware and unarmed, and had been overtaken quite handily. If they’d fought, they would have died, and died needlessly at that. But Cage would not believe that the people in the higher decks didn’t know what was going on by now. He wondered where Gabriel and Flynn were, whether they had managed to put up a fight or if they had gone docilely like the rest of the people being herded in.
Like cattle.
“What have you got there?” a man called from the other side of the room.
Cage halted at the sound of the voice, his entire body going as cold as if he’d been thrown overboard into the rushing Mississippi. He knew that voice.
“Cleared out the first floor, Caporal,” one of their captors answered with a gratuitous shove at Cage’s back. They referred to the man in charge as if they were ranch hands, speaking to the roundup boss. Cage knew they were anything but.
Cage stumbled forward and Wash was shoved against him, yelping softly when his injured arm collided with Cage’s elbow. Cage paid him no attention, eyes locked on the big, dark man who was strolling toward them. Cage straightened and raised his chin to meet his eyes. His lower face was covered, but Cage would know those eyes anywhere.
Bartholomew Stringer slowed when he caught sight of Cage, obviously surprised to see him there. But he recovered quickly and continued toward them in his usual, self-assured gait.
“Well, well, well,” he murmured when he got close. He reached up to pull down the faded kerchief that covered his face and Cage could feel his heartbeat speed up as he looked at the man for the first time in almost a year. “Hello, Cage,” Stringer drawled, lips twitching into an ominous smile.
“You know this feller?” one of their captors asked incredulously.
The grandfather clock on the far wall of the salon began to chime the hour. Cage counted nine of the low, mournful tolls as he looked into Bat Stringer’s familiar, dark eyes. The man was taller than Cage by an inch or so, and his unshaven face and unruly hair made him look even larger and more dangerous than he really was. And Cage knew he was plenty dangerous.
Stringer grinned as his brown eyes raked over Cage. “He and I go a ways back,” he murmured, just before rearing back and hitting Cage with all his immense strength.