“Got a bee in his bonnet ’bout somethin’,” one of the men was saying in a disgruntled voice.
“Somethin’ about that quiet feller he don’t like,” his taller companion muttered. “Steve says the boss knew him back when.”
“That quiet feller is Whistlin’ Jack Kale. Used to run tight with Stringer. Taught the auger everything he knows.”
“Think he taught him to be fast enough to take Dusty Rose?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure lookin’ forward to seein’ that showdown.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Rose interrupted in a low voice as he lunged out into their path and turned gracefully in a half-circle, sliding the knife through the air and slicing through the first man’s throat. Flynn winced back from the spray of blood. With a complete turn of his body and another arcing swing of his arm as he turned the knife outward, Rose took the second man down without so much as a shout being uttered by either of them.
Flynn stepped out onto the causeway cautiously, looking left and right, and then took a step toward Rose and the spreading pools of blood that were soaking the deck. Rose was staring at him expectantly.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Flynn asked softly.
“Their language wasn’t the only thing I learned from the Santee, Marshal.”
Flynn stared at him warily for a long moment and then merely nodded in acceptance.
“Should we hide ’em?” he asked with a gesture toward the two victims.
“Let them be,” Rose answered as he bent and wiped the knife on one of the dead men’s legs. “They’ll serve as warning to anyone who finds them,” he said grimly as he patted them down in search of all their weapons.
“Do we want them having warning?” Flynn asked as he watched Rose’s movements warily. He was sorely tempted to ask for the knife back, but Rose was otherwise armed now, anyway. There wasn’t any point in making an issue of it. Yet. He scowled at the bodies. “Seems to me we want surprise on our side.”
Rose looked up at him thoughtfully for a moment and then down at the bodies of the two men. “We can’t hide the blood no matter what we do with the bodies. We’ll just be wasting our time and vigor,” he pointed out. “Besides. They know we’re here. We won’t be surprising anyone, no matter.”
“Right.”
Rose continued to methodically relieve the dead men of their weaponry. To Flynn’s surprise, he didn’t go through their pockets looking for loot. Flynn was beginning to come to terms with that fact that Gabriel Rose was the real deal. The amusing nicknames and the self-deprecating jokes were just a façade. He wasn’t some two-bit horse thief or common grifter looking to make a name for himself. He wasn’t some dandy who’d ridden the rails out west and merely enjoyed the fame his luck had brought him. He was a deadly man, one who’d been taught and respected the hows and whys and rights and wrongs of killing. He was a man Flynn was sort of glad to have on his side tonight.
After stripping the two men of all their iron, Rose stood again and handed Flynn one of the spare guns and returned his knife. Flynn took it wordlessly and Rose nodded toward the rear stairwell.
C
AGE
was still on his knees, head lowered, his eyes closed as he prayed. He had never been a praying man, and he had always scoffed at the people who had prayed at the end, just before their lives had been taken. Most had been wretched men living wretched lives, never having believed in God and with no hope of redemption in their last violent seconds. Sort of like Cage.
He didn’t pray for himself now, though. He didn’t know how or when it had occurred, but he knew that he cared about what happened to the two marshals. His conscience couldn’t handle any more deaths, but especially not the death of someone he respected, like Marshal Washington. Marshal Flynn had his good points too. He was a decent, honest man, and he didn’t deserve to die at the hands of Bat Stringer for trying to uphold the law and save lives.
Cage couldn’t even think of Gabriel Rose without a violent shudder running through him. He thought maybe he could have loved the man, given the chance. The thought of finding that and then having it yanked away so suddenly was both terrifying and heartbreaking. He was desperately trying to think of some way to stop all this from happening, but he was no longer in a position of power or influence. He didn’t even know what was going on, much less how to stop it.
Cage opened his eyes and jerked instinctively when he heard the sound of running feet on the wooden deck outside the salon. Stringer had been observing him, apparently, watching him for cues like he’d always done. Cage’s hearing was excellent, perhaps a bit of compensation from his maker for not being able to speak.
Stringer turned away from him when Cage moved and aimed his gun at the open doorway.
“Cap,” someone called from without, before they ever came into the line of fire. The Border Scouts were still well-trained, Cage thought with a hint of pride. He was mostly responsible for that, even if these boys were all new. While Stringer had been the figurehead of the group, they had led together, teaching their men to ride and shoot and fight and think. After the moment of self-congratulation passed, Cage cursed himself for having done any of it.
Stringer lowered his gun and two men stepped into the circle of light thrown by the gaslights in the salon. Cage blinked at the unnatural darkness outside the stained glass windows. There was no moonlight. He hadn’t realized the fog had enveloped the boat so completely. It made it feel even more isolated on board the riverboat. There was no chance of outside help, no chance of anyone discovering their plight until it was far too late and the steamer had run aground full of dead passengers.
Suddenly, Cage wondered who was steering the riverboat. The captain and pilot sat trussed up with yards of flounces in the corner, just like the rest of the crew. Surely, Stringer had thought of bringing someone to take the helm. But would that person necessarily know how to navigate the tricky Mississippi?
“Did you find them?” Stringer demanded hopefully of the new arrivals.
The brawnier of the two men shook his head in answer. The thinner man was breathing hard, as if they had run to get there. “We got two men dead up top,” he said to Stringer, panting as he held his hand to his hat.
“What?” Stringer asked in a flat, stunned voice.
“Logan and that new man Harris,” the man answered breathlessly with a nod. “There’s blood ever’where. He butchered ’em.”
Cage looked up at Stringer and saw the man go pale. One thing Stringer had never been good at was dealing with the unexpected. That had been Cage’s specialty, and that was something you couldn’t teach.
As if he were thinking the same thing, Stringer glanced down at Cage and frowned. Again, Cage felt the brief pang of familiarity
—
memories of thinking their way out from between a rock and hard place while looking into Stringer’s eyes
—
and again, he missed the life and the people he had left. For a moment.
It passed quickly, however, when the two men began to tell what they had seen in more detail. Someone had attacked the two hijackers with nothing more than a blade, and quite handily at that. One of the men compared it to the aftermath of Apache attacks he had seen, their throats slit open and blood so thick the victims were barely recognizable.
“Rose,” Stringer spat angrily. “That low-dealin’ piece of horseshit. Get back out there and find him. And watch your damn backs!” he shouted after the two men as they hustled off to do his bidding.
With those men gone, just five men and Stringer were left to guard all the prisoners. Stringer didn’t seem bothered by the numbers, though. Cage slowly began to work at the cloth that bound his wrists.
“Whistling Jack Kale,” he said slowly, as if turning over the name and testing how it sounded aloud. “Know why he whistled?” he asked no one in particular. The passengers were all too scared or distressed to respond in any way.
Cage swallowed heavily and tensed.
“Whistling Jack Kale couldn’t talk,” Stringer informed his rapt and terrified audience. “But he could whistle. Couldn’t you Cage?” he drawled in amusement as he looked back down at Cage.
Cage glared at him hatefully for a moment, then closed his eyes and lowered his head again. He wished he could speak and refute it, but the fact that he couldn’t just lent more credence to what Stringer was saying.
There was a heavy silence that followed the words. Cage opened his eyes when he felt Stringer moving. The big man knelt in front of him, meeting his eyes. “Let’s you and me go have a little quiet time,” he said to Cage in a low voice, his lips curling into a smirk.
Another pang traveled through Cage’s body like lightning. “Quiet time” had been Stringer’s wry euphemism for the times they’d enjoyed each other’s company.
Cage felt nothing of the old attraction he’d once harbored. Stringer had changed. While he was still a handsome man to gaze upon, there was no hiding the hardness in his eyes. His opinion must have shone through, because Stringer narrowed his eyes and inclined his head. He glanced over a shoulder to one of the other bandits.
“Harland. Keep an eye out,” he ordered. He looked back at Cage. “Me and my
compadre
here got some things to settle.” He reached out and pulled Cage to his feet by the strip of cloth around his wrists.
Cage glanced to Wash, who was watching mutinously, looking as if he might try to intervene. Cage shook his head minutely. This was the chance he’d been hoping for. He’d see how Stringer handled himself without someone standing behind him with a gun.
F
LYNN
and Rose made their way silently down further, searching for the route to the cargo hold and hoping the back stairwell they were using would lead all the way down. It had the advantage of being far enough away from all the action that they’d managed to slip past the cabin deck and the salon without being detected.
Flynn found himself twitchy and nervous, knowing that Rose was armed. He didn’t trust the Englishman any further than he could toss him, but he was the lesser of two evils right now. He also seemed genuinely set on rescuing Cage, if not the other passengers held with him. As they moved, though, Flynn discreetly popped the leather straps off both his guns to allow himself a faster draw. Just in case Rose turned on him.
As they reached the main deck and neared what they hoped was the cargo hold, Rose stopped suddenly, holding his hand out to stop Flynn beside him. Flynn glanced around warily, thinking the other man had heard something. Rose turned in the dark corridor and Flynn stepped closer to him.
“What?” Flynn asked in a voice that was barely a breath of air.
“The government would have men guarding that bullion,” Rose pointed out quietly.
Flynn blinked in response. “You’re right,” he said in surprise. All those soldiers who’d been loading those crates, he realized, were probably down here with them.
He glanced down the hall in the direction of the cargo hold. Down here, there were no Oriental rugs covering the floors and no brocade wallpaper on the rough walls. Passengers weren’t meant to see these corridors. The lack of covering made sounds echo through the passageways. But for all the noise they could hear down here, they couldn’t hear anything from topside.
“Makes you wonder if they even know anything’s gone wrong,” Flynn mused with a furrowed brow. “There’s probably a lot of guns in that hold.”
“We could use their help,” Rose agreed. “We just have to convince them not to shoot us first.” He jerked his head that way and they continued on. Flynn felt himself growing more confident in their position. If they could reach that detail of soldiers guarding the gold, they’d have plenty of men to take on the hijackers.
Just as they turned down the final corridor, there was a commotion ahead of them. Rose ducked behind the corner again, yanking Flynn by his shirtfront out of sight just as four men emerged from another stairwell. Flynn waited a moment, holding his breath as they listened to the heavy footfalls of the newcomers. Rose slowly drew a knife he’d taken off one of the two men he’d killed and held it out, squinting at the reflection on the scuffed blade. They could just barely make out the shadows of the men as they headed directly for the door to what Flynn assumed must be the cargo hold.
Rose cursed under his breath and lowered the knife, turning his head around the corner when he was certain he wouldn’t be seen. Flynn peered around him, itching to move. He leaned on Rose and Rose jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. Flynn jabbed him back and they grumbled at each other quietly as they spied on the corridor.
He could feel Rose practically vibrating with the desire to attack, but both of them stayed hidden in the darkness of the corridor. It eased Flynn’s mind somewhat to know that the Englishman was cautious enough not to charge into the fray, no matter how badly he wanted to do so.
The man in the lead, a small, nervous looking fellow with thin blond hair, walked up to the door of the cargo hold and banged on it. “Hey!” he yelled, sounding close to panicked as he continued to hammer his fist on the door. “We been hijacked, let us in! They’re coming, let us in!”
Had other passengers escaped? These men did not look panicked despite sounding like it. Flynn shook his head in confusion as Rose cursed again feelingly.
The door swung open and a man stepped out holding a shotgun. The blond man raised his gun and fired, hitting the guard right between the eyes and sending him sprawling back into the cargo compartment. A gunfight commenced within the cargo hold as the man and his companions stormed inside.
Rose cursed colorfully. Before he or Flynn could do anything to help the guards within the cargo hold, the fight was over. One of the four hijackers had been hit in the arm, another in the thigh. But they had fared far better than the men who’d been bottled up inside the hold.
The massacre was too much for Flynn to take sitting down. Anger brimmed over into rage and he stepped out into the hallway. “US marshal!” he shouted. “Hold it right there!”