Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (20 page)

lark stretched across the stagecoach bench, resting one arm across the back. Look too nervous and they noticed. Look relaxed, they figured riding east was something that happened every day.

For some people, it did.

Amethyst perched beside him, picking at her nails, and Zachariah sat beside her, his back stiff and his fingers tapping a pattern across his thigh.
That
certainly wasn’t obvious.

“Calm down,” Clark whispered.

A man and an elderly woman sat across from them. At each bump the wheels struck, the woman grabbed a corner of her hat and squeaked.

Clark peered out the window to watch the port town fade into meadows. No one followed them: good sign.

“You think Mother and Father will be safe?” Zachariah asked.

Clark ground his teeth. They weren’t supposed to talk about them. “They’ll be fine.” The train would arrive before the stagecoach, so they would go to Amethyst’s great-uncle’s apartment. Amethyst would guide her team once they reached New Addison City.

“I hate my fingernails like this,” she muttered.

“Where are you folks headed?” the elderly woman asked.

“Home.” Amethyst leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I can’t wait. It feels as if I’ve been away forever. My brothers here,” she rolled her eyes, “wanted to see the mighty river. Whatever. I much prefer city streets.”

“Where is home?” The man leaned against the back and crossed his arms. Clark shifted on his seat to show his pistol in its holster. At least Amethyst babbled enough to nix any suspicion.

“New Addison City,” Amethyst scoffed, as if everyone should know that. “My silly brothers, right? How can they trade shopping for a river?”

“What was at the river?” The woman lifted her gaze, eyes wide.

Zachariah glanced at Clark. “Boats?”

“He”—Amethyst hooked her thumb toward him—“exchanged letters with some poor little show girl out there. He wanted to go wed her, bring her home with us. The girl wasn’t looking for marriage.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “She wanted a quick thump and she thought he’d have the right pay for that.”

Clark chuckled into his fist. Zachairah gulped. “I—”

Amethyst shrugged, settling against the seat. “How about you dears?”

“My son and I,” the woman rested her hand on his knee, “are visiting my granddaughter. She’s going to have her first child this autumn. Her husband’s a business man.”

Clark watched the meadows stretch far, and in the distance, woods dwelled. His skin crawled and he scratched his shoulder. Never had he been so far from Hedlund. They’d passed into another state long before the river, the state of Dunn. He’d never expected to even see Dunn, let alone leave Dunn for the state of Sampson. After Sampson, they’d reach Addison State.

A gunshot sounded and something pinged against the side of the stagecoach. The driver and his shotgun rider shouted from the seat outside, and the vehicle gained speed. Clark gripped the edge. A robber in Sampson? Wasn’t the east civilized, with law workers?

Amethyst shrieked and seized his arm. “Are we being attacked?”

“Reggie, do something!” The elderly woman slapped her middle-aged son.

Another shot, followed by a ping against the coach. Zachariah tried to stand, but the speeding coach knocked him onto his buttocks.

“Brass glass.” Clark stared out the window. Meadow had become woods, the trees dark, hiding whatever lurked inside. He’d craved the woods for just that reason. The army couldn’t hunt you down as fast. You had more things to hide behind.

One of the men up front shouted. A body flashed by the window and the coach veered. Had it been the driver? Clark jiggled the latch on the door’s window and forced the glass up. “What can I do to help?”

They didn’t have much money if they were stopped by bandits. Amethyst had stuffed what remained of their bills down her corset, pressed against her skin. As far as Clark knew from Hedlund, robbers took what they saw. They didn’t bother to search a victim. That took too long.

More gunshots sounded and he ducked back inside. Brass glass, just what they needed. Clark darted into the coach as the wheels hit more ruts, throwing the passengers left and right. Clark braced Amethyst against his chest and pressed his hand over her head so she wouldn’t hit it. The wall of the coach rammed his shoulder and Zachariah fell onto his leg. As the elderly woman screamed, the coach shuddered and cracked. The explosion shook the interior. Metal shattered with a
boom
, and steam puffed from the front engine.

“We hit something,” the man said, helping his mother sit up.

“Will the stagecoach explode with us in it?” Zachariah stared at Clark with widened eyes. “You’ve worked with machines.”

“Long as there’s no fire, we’re fine.” If fire touched the gears and mingled with the oil, that would make a problem. Otherwise, the steam and water would continue to leak.

“We stay in here. Get ready.” The man opened the front of his white leather coat and pulled out two pistols. Bullet sashes crossed his chest. At least one of them came prepared.

“Get ready how?” Zachariah squeaked.

“Ooh, a shootout?” Amethyst grinned. Of course she would grin.

Shouts permeated through the coach. Clark drew his pistol and checked the cylinder. He’d purchased extra bullets at the port, which he had in his pocket in case he needed more.

He really needed his father’s laser pistols.

His heart thumped. Through the window, he saw four men run toward the coach. Three of them carried pistols, the other had a rifle.

“When they come in, we shoot ‘em,” the man said.

Clark shook his head. “We should jump out for the surprise attack. We’re easier targets if they get to aim in at us.”

“Look, boy—” the man started.

“Brass glass.” Clark pushed Amethyst onto her brother and kicked open the coach door. Last time he’d been told what to do, they’d been arrested on the train.

He leapt out, aimed his pistol at the first highwayman, and fired. The bullet caught the man through the skull, knocking off his cowboy hat. He skidded on his feet and tumbled backward. The attackers hesitated, pulling up their weapons, but Clark fired at the next two, knocking them down. He ducked and rolled through the grass as the rifleman shot. Weeds slashed across Clark’s face, catching in his clothes. The rifleman shot again and someone inside the coach yelled.

Clark aimed from his back and fired. The rifleman jerked and tumbled sideways. Clark used his stomach muscles to sit up without using his hands, keeping his weapon out in case another highwayman burst out from the woods.

Silence. Then, he caught weeping.

“Clark, hurry,” Amethyst called from inside the stagecoach.

With a final scan of the woods, he hopped back into the coach. The man lay on his back with blood pooling around him from a dark splotch in the center of the chest. The rifleman’s bullet had missed his bullet sashes to embed itself into his heart. His mother shrieked from the other bench, hiding her face behind her hands.

“Clark, save him.” Amethyst lowered the man’s head to the floor to take the woman in her arms, turning her away from the body.

“He’s dead,” Zachariah said. “We can’t fix him.”

Clark swore under his breath as he grabbed the man’s hand and pulled off his leather glove to touch his skin. The scenery shifted to the wasteland of death, the desert that stretched toward the ruby sky. The man stood, turning in a circle, his hands stretched out.

“Where am I?” He blinked at Clark.

Clark took his hands. “We’re going back to your mother. She needs you.”

The man hesitated before nodding. Clark opened his eyes, gasping, back in the coach. The man sat up on his trembling arms.

“The bullet skimmed you, must have,” Clark drawled, standing. “Might want to be careful about standing too fast.”

The man wiped his hand over his face. “I… what? They gone?”

“Dead and gone.”

“You can do it.” Zachariah gaped at Clark. “That’s what the tonic did?”

“Shut up,” Amethyst hissed. She stroked the woman’s back. “See, ma’am? Your son’s fine. Everything will be fine.”

Zachariah gulped. “What do we do now?”

“We hit a tree,” Clark said. “We’re not getting anywhere in this.”

“We wait for the next stagecoach to come through or we walk on to the next station.” The man kept wiping his forehead where sweat beaded. His hat lay on the ground near him.

“I vote we walk.” Clark refilled the cylinder of his pistol. “It’d be better to reach the next station than wait here for whoever comes along.”

“We’ll wait.” The man grasped his mother’s hand while she wept. “I don’t think Ma can walk that far.”

“That’s fair.” Clark hopped into the weeds. “We’ll send someone back for you.”

Even though the man had been shot, the culprits had been dealt with—that might not have happened if he’d listened to the man’s advice and stayed inside the coach. Should he go back to Hedlund, as his gut said, or follow Garth’s lead?

lark gulped, rubbing his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath his palm, expanding and contracting, as if it would strangle him. The cities in Hedlund had houses next to each other, with narrow allies in between, and the main one where his father had that mansion contained buildings so tall he had to tip his head to see the top floor.