“I see your point,” Wash muttered dejectedly.
“I see nothing to do but wait them out.”
“And what about Cage?” Flynn asked before he could think better of it.
“What about him?” Rose asked coldly.
“Not two hours ago, you were preaching to me about attacking and saving someone you loved. Now, you’re playing it safe?”
“That was before we knew who he really is,” Rose argued heatedly. The pain in his voice was all too obvious. “For all we know, Cage is in league with them and he used me to get himself on this boat. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not one for self-sacrifice.”
“He’s here because
you
tried to escape.
You
pulled
him
along, not the other way around.”
“I don’t think he’s in cahoots with those boys,” Wash murmured immediately. “They ain’t been kind to him. Got a few broken ribs, I’m sure of that.”
Rose looked at him almost angrily for a moment, and Flynn recognized the heat in the Englishman’s eyes as frustration. He didn’t truly believe what he’d said, he was just trying to deal with the feeling of helplessness.
“What do you care if he’s really Jack Kale?” Flynn asked him, understanding what he might be dealing with.
Rose glanced at him warily.
“You might love him, right?” Flynn continued gently. “You certainly care about him. Don’t make the same mistake you kept me from making. Save him now. Question yourself later.”
Rose stared at him uncertainly for another long moment before shifting where he knelt. “Why do you care?” he asked.
“I don’t. I just need your guns,” Flynn answered with a shift of his weight from one knee to the other, hoping the observant shootist didn’t see through the lie. He didn’t know why he cared, but he did. He didn’t want to have to try and explain why he cared about the lives of two outlaws, much less cared that they were happy.
Rose snorted and shook his head. “I do love your honesty, Marshal Flynn,” he grumbled as he began loading his other gun. “Okay. We’re going after them before they can move,” he drawled evenly without looking up from his pistol. “So what’s the plan, Marshals?”
Flynn and Wash looked at one another, mutually stumped by the predicament.
Rose looked back up at them and sighed impatiently. “Have either of you stopped to wonder who’s steering this blasted thing?” he asked as he spun the cylinder and flicked it back into place.
Flynn blinked at him and shook his head. He hadn’t given it much thought. But someone had to be guiding the cumbersome paddle steamer through the treacherous waters of the Mississippi. If not, they would have long ago run aground.
“You two cover those doors,” Rose ordered as he slid his last two rounds of buckshot into his shotgun. “I’ll go see if I can’t shake loose some varmints,” he practically growled before slinking away into the fog.
Flynn watched the eddying mist open up to admit him and then swirl closed to cover his tracks. He shivered violently, then licked his lips and met Wash’s eyes. They stared at one another, at a loss after essentially giving up their authority to their own prisoner, until Wash edged closer and kissed Flynn again gently.
“We better hope he don’t get himself killed,” Wash finally murmured, his breath gusting over Flynn’s lips enticingly.
“Why? ’Cause he’s the only one knows what the hell’s going on?” Flynn asked dazedly, distracted by Wash’s body so close to his.
“Well, there’s that,” Wash said. Then he gestured between them and smirked. “But mostly ’cause he’s the only one can tell us how to go about doing this sort of thing,” he practically snickered into one last kiss.
“
G
ET
up,” Bat Stringer murmured as he tugged at Cage’s arm.
Cage managed not to groan in pain. Stringer slid his arm under Cage’s chin, choking him as he tightened his grip. He lifted him to his feet, then wrapped one arm around Cage’s chest to hold him securely from behind.
Cage hung his head and breathed in deeply, his breath hitching with the pain as he inhaled and his body was forced to stretch out. He fought not to lean his weight against Stringer. He didn’t have much strength left, but he was determined not to lean on the very man who was probably going to kill him.
He looked up to see what was left of Stringer’s boarding party gathering the women up and tying their hands behind their backs, then looping them together like a line of prisoners going to the hangman’s noose. Cage craned his neck, trying to look back at Stringer, shaking his head and opening his mouth as if begging Stringer to reconsider.
“I ain’t dying here,” Stringer whispered to him in response. “I don’t give a lick if they do.”
Cage’s brow furrowed and he started to shake his head again, but Stringer wrenched his head around and pressed their lips together violently. Cage didn’t struggle this time, even though he told himself to. All the activity in the large room seemed to fall away. The pain in Cage’s ribs faded to a dull throb. Nothing mattered but the kiss he was sharing with a man he had once cared for. It mattered because he realized in that moment that it meant absolutely nothing to him. The memory of what they had been was no longer strong enough to make up for what Bat Stringer had become.
Cage gasped against Stringer’s mouth, trying to wrench away. Stringer kissed him hard one last time and then turned him around to hold him once more, Cage’s back pressed against Stringer’s chest and facing away from him. The barrel of Stringer’s gun came to rest against Cage’s jaw.
“Let’s go,” Stringer whispered into his ear.
Cage closed his eyes as he saw the men lining the women up in front of the door, guns to their backs and forcing them forward. They were crying and pleading with their captors, begging them to find some other way even as two men moved aside the things they had piled against the door.
Cage turned his head against the gun, letting the side of his face brush against Stringer’s nose and mouth. It was his silent way of pleading, and Stringer knew it well enough. He felt Stringer’s breath catch and hope swelled briefly within him.
The boat lurched under their feet, making them both stagger. The echo of a shotgun blast sounded in the distance. Cage and Stringer both froze, apparently the only ones who had heard it. Moments later, they both jerked and went tumbling to the deck as the ship beneath them made a radical change of direction.
Several guns went off as men lost their balance. Cage’s ribs sent blinding pain through his entire body as he landed, making it impossible to even breathe for a moment, and he didn’t have the presence of mind to even think about what had happened, much less try to escape. He only had time to be thankful that Stringer had merely released the gun he’d been holding to Cage’s head rather than squeezing the trigger. He foundered on the deck, the muscles between his ribs wracked with spasms, paralyzing him as Stringer rolled away from him. He was back to his knees, looking around in confused alarm as Cage tried desperately to get up.
Stringer and several others had just regained their footing when the paddle steamer came to a jarring stop and sent everyone to the ground again with shouts and screams of alarm.
Around the room, no one had managed to keep his or her feet. People were piled on the floor near the door and cautiously struggling to gain their balance once more. Several of the women got to their feet faster than Cage would have thought possible and raced for the unchained door. They threw it open even with their tied hands and ran, leaving behind their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons, dragging the ladies that were still tied to them and not able to keep up. Some of the prisoners still crowded against the far wall were struggling with their bonds, taking advantage of the sudden chaos and attempting to free themselves.
Cage struggled to his knees and then shakily to his feet as he looked around at the disarray the salon had been thrown into.
Someone had stopped the riverboat.
F
LYNN
and Wash both lurched forward, unable to keep their balance even though they had braced themselves after hearing the shotgun. Wash grunted in pain as he landed on his bad arm, and he rolled onto his back, holding his arm and wincing as Flynn’s gun skittered out of his hand and across the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” Wash shouted as he tried to get to his feet.
The deck was tilted and Flynn found himself sliding even after he found his footing. He bent and helped Wash up, still blinking around in confusion. Rose must have fought with the man in the wheelhouse before he fired the shotgun or the crash would have been delayed much longer. Flynn glanced to the wheelhouse worriedly, wondering if Rose had even been the one to fire the gun.
How many people had been inside the wheelhouse? How many people could Rose take on before he lost a fight?
Wash cursed creatively again as the door to the salon was thrown open and people started pouring out. Flynn grabbed for his gun and raised it, aiming and waiting until he saw a target that wasn’t wearing a dress. Wash was beside him, breathing hard and aiming his own gun with one hand.
The women scrambled out into the main cabin and hit the curved staircase like a herd of stampeding cattle, all tied together and so frightened that they didn’t even notice the two marshals standing there. Flynn and Wash both lowered their guns and watched them, jaws lax in shock as the cavalcade of gingham and lace stormed by.
A moment later, they were gone, up or down the stairs to what they thought was safety. Flynn looked at Wash and shrugged helplessly. Even if they had been thinking to try to stop them, they wouldn’t have been able to make a dent in that kind of panic.
“At least they didn’t jump overboard,” Wash muttered to him.
Flynn had to purse his lips to keep himself from smiling.
Seconds later, the sound of running feet shook them out of it and Flynn raised his gun again. Beside him, Wash fired once, twice, three times in quick succession. Two men fell as they tried to escape the salon. One got back up and began limping toward the doors, trying to get away. Flynn hesitated, uncertain as to whether these were actually the hijackers or if they were escaping passengers. Even when one of the men fired back at Wash, Flynn couldn’t make himself pull the trigger. If the prisoners were escaping, they could also have armed themselves, he reasoned hastily.
Then more people poured out of the doors, some of them wearing nightshirts and in their bare feet, others dressed as if for a late dinner, all terrified and oblivious to any danger as they hurtled past the marshals and their guns. Wash held his fire and began shouting for them to go back into the salon; they were safer inside, not in the midst of a gunfight. He may as well have been reasoning with a herd of buffalo, for all Flynn could see.
Several of the hijackers used the cover of their escaping prisoners to scuttle away. Flynn cursed inwardly and opened fire, aiming for those few men who were fully dressed, armed, and dusty. They headed out the doors and for the railing, leaping over it into the raging Mississippi. Flynn thought it was suicide to jump. Now that the steamer had stopped moving, the rushing water of the river was even more treacherous than it had been. A man would be swept away in the strong current and never so much as get his head above water before he drowned or was slammed into something hard enough to crack his head open. That, or when they leapt over the edge they would land on the same thing the steamer had snagged on and break every bone in their bodies.
Two more of the men dropped to the floor under their fire, either rolling in pain or motionless and bleeding. They began firing back as they tried to make their escape, heedless of any innocent bystanders whom they hit. Puffs of thick, choking gunpowder began to obscure the scene even as the moonlight diffused through the fog and gave it an eerie blue backlight.
They were firing at sound now, rather than at men. Anyone dumb enough to still be standing would be shot. Flynn knelt behind the upturned table to reload and out of the corner of his eye caught sight of a figure behind them, running through the main cabin from the direction of the aft berths. Flynn whirled and fired. The man stopped moving forward and fell backward to the floor amidst a jumble of disturbed furniture as Flynn belatedly realized that he may have just shot Rose as he ran back from the wheelhouse. Then again, it could also have been the man Rose had gone and failed to kill....
It was with mixed relief and dread that he saw the figure rise once more and begin limping toward them. He kept his gun trained warily on the man until he spoke.
“Don’t shoot me again, you blasted Yank!” Rose shouted through the gunfire as two more wounded men managed to leap over the side of the ship and escape a bullet.
Rose slumped beneath another heavy table as Flynn returned his attention to the fight. Rose sat with his back to the table, legs splayed in front of him and obviously hurt, but still covering the only other route of escape for the men trapped in the salon. Flynn was reloading as Rose fired off five rapid shots that dropped the two last men trying to make a break for it. The passengers had all fled. The hijackers were all either gone or dead or dying. The movement seemed to come to a standstill with all the suddenness that had begun it, and Flynn held his breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop as the smoke and fog swirled angrily.
Gradually, an unusually large shadow materialized out of the cloud of gun smoke, silhouetted by the light from within the salon. Flynn and Wash both watched from behind their protective table, vibrating with tension.
“Nice shooting,” the shadow called out to them calmly. The smoke from the guns and the fog from without swirled in the light of the salon, dissipating quickly as the wind off the river kicked up.
Flynn licked his lips and shifted restlessly. As the distorted shadow grew larger, it became obvious that it was, in fact, two men. Cage was barely standing under his own power. Wash had said the man had been sorely mistreated, and it looked like he was weakening from his injuries. He was certainly in no shape to assist them.