Chapter 38
Matt and Randall went down three flights of stairs to the mansion's ground floor. Randall led the way to the Colonel's library, where Ritchie had gone after calling up the stairs to them. The door was open, but Randall stopped in the hall and rapped a knuckle on it anyway.
“Come in, Randall,” the Colonel called from inside the big room lined with bookshelves. Matt glanced at the titles and saw that most of the leather-bound volumes were histories, biographies, or books about military tactics. That didn't surprise him. The Colonel didn't strike him as the sort of hombre who read dime novels.
The Colonel stood behind his desk wearing a plain gray suit. He was a big man, although not quite as large as Randall or Matt. His build in the suit said that once he had been a very powerful man physically, but he had started to run to fat. He would probably still be a pretty formidable opponent in a fight, though.
“Who's this?” the Colonel snapped as he looked at Matt. He didn't seem to be too pleased that Randall had brought a stranger into the house.
“His name's Matt Stevens. He gave me a hand a while ago when there was some trouble.”
The Colonel didn't greet Matt. Instead, he asked curtly, “What sort of trouble?”
“Page tried to gun me down from behind while we were in the Emerald Palace.”
The Colonel's eyes narrowed. He asked, “Did you kill him?”
“I didn't have to. I broke his jaw and his wrist, though.”
“I assume he's no longer working for us?”
“You know I leave decisions like that up to you, Colonel. But I'd prefer not to ride with him anymore. I can't trust him. Besides, he's laid up. He's not going to be any good to anybody for a while.”
The Colonel's cold gaze flicked over to Matt for a second.
“And you want to hire this man to replace him?”
“Like I said,” Randell replied with a shrug, “he gave me a hand. I'm not saying Page would have killed me if Stevens hadn't stepped in, but it made it easier to handle the situation.”
“Very well. You're riding for me now, Stevens.”
Matt said, “Thank you, Colonel.”
The Colonel turned his attention back to Randall and said, “I suppose Page had been drinking, or he never would have attempted such a foolish thing.”
“Yeah, he polished off a whole bottle of rotgut. He's lucky that didn't give him the blind staggers and kill him, right there. He's been brooding all week about what happened to Dwyer.”
“Dwyer?” The Colonel frowned. “Oh, yes, the man who shot the Indian woman.”
“That's right. Page didn't think I should have killed him.”
“What else can a man who disobeys orders expect? Whether it was vital that the heathen survive or not, I ordered her brought here. You were right to execute the man, Lieutenant. However, a firing squad would have been more in line with proper military protocol.”
“Yes, sir. I'll remember that if the situation ever comes up again.”
Matt managed not to frown in confusion. The way the Colonel addressed Randall as “Lieutenant” and the mention of a firing squad made it seem almost like Ritchie believed they still held their ranks and were back in the war.
Matt had heard of men who lived in the past and sometimes had trouble distinguishing the present from days gone by. Was it possible that the Colonel could suffer from such an affliction and still be able to come up with elaborate plans involving murder and kidnapping?
Matt supposed it was. In the past, he had run up against men who were both dangerously intelligent and downright loco. One thing didn't rule out the other.
The Colonel stepped over to a sideboard, pulled the stopper from a decanter that contained amber liquid, and poured some of it into a snifter. Matt assumed it was brandy. The Colonel didn't offer either of them a drink. Instead, he turned to face them, holding the snifter and moving it in little circles so that the brandy swirled a little inside it.
“What about the old man?” he asked.
“I was just about to have another go at him when you called, Colonel,” Randall said. “I can go up and do it now if you like.”
The Colonel shook his head and said, “No. I've decided that it's not worth the effort. We're not going to attempt to beat any information out of him anymore. I don't believe he brought any of the savages with him. If he had, we would have seen some sign of them by now.”
“Maybe,” Randall said. He sounded like he wasn't sure he agreed that it was time to stop questioning Preacher. “I've had men searching the basin, but they haven't found anything so far. Redskins are pretty good at hiding.”
Matt was relieved that Preacher wasn't going to have to suffer any more beatings, as well as grateful that he wouldn't have to reveal his true identity in order to stop that from happening. That was good news . . . maybe.
It wasn't long before that hope was dashed. The Colonel said, “I think we can safely dispose of him now. Take care of that, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir. Right away?”
Matt waited tensely for the Colonel to finish pronouncing a death sentence on Preacher. If the madman told Randall to go up and kill Preacher right away, Matt would have to act. He thought he could get both of them, go upstairs to free Preacher, and then try to fight their way to safety. It would be a long shot, but he had gambled his life plenty of times before.
Those thoughts flashed through his head in the couple of seconds the Colonel took to ponder Randall's question. Then the Colonel shook his head and said, “No, it can wait until tonight, after Mrs. Dayton goes to bed. She's been taking care of the old man, you know, and I believe she's grown a bit fond of him. I'd rather it was done while she's asleep, so that in the morning when she gets up, he'll simply be gone and I can tell her not to trouble herself about him any longer.”
“Yes, sir,” Randall said. “That's fine with me.”
“In the meantime, I have nothing else for you to do. In a few days I should receive a response from Two Bears. Until then, all we can do is wait. If the man has any sense, he'll agree to my demands and move his filthy tribe off that land so I can give the order to commence construction on the rail line.”
Randall nodded and said again, “Yes, sir.” He jerked his head at Matt. “Come on. We'll get some supper, and I'll fill you in on the way we work guard details around here. You'll be handling some of those.”
“Fine by me,” Matt said as he followed Randall out of the Colonel's library. A glance back told him that the man was standing there by the desk, sipping the brandy and looking pleased with himself.
Matt had seldom felt a stronger urge to put a bullet through somebody's brain.
He had to wait, though. He had been lucky. Preacher's execution had been postponed until sometime tonight. That gave Matt some time to come up with a plan to rescue the old mountain man.
More importantly, it gave him a chance to find Smoke and let him know what was going to happen if they didn't move fast. Matt had a hunch it was going to take blazing guns from both of them to free Preacher and put a stop to the Colonel's plans.
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By the time night was beginning to settle over Hammerhead, Smoke had visited a number of the businesses in town. He had stopped at the blacksmith shop to have the smith take a look at one of the shoes on the 'Palouse and see if he thought it needed to be tightened. It didn't, of course, but that gave Smoke the chance to engage the man in conversation and find out that not only did he rent the shop from Colonel Ritchie, the Colonel had loaned him money to start the business. The same was true at the livery stable where Smoke rented a stall for the big Appaloosa, and at the gunsmith's where he asked about a busted sear, and at the apothecary where he picked up a bottle of rejuvenating tonic that he didn't intend to drink. In fact, the story was the same everywhere he went: Business was all right and slowly getting better, but the owners faced a precarious future that was largely dependent on Colonel Hudson Ritchie giving them time to build up their establishments.
They would get that time, Smoke thought . . . and then the Colonel would take everything away from them.
In his wanderings around town, he still hadn't seen Matt. He hoped that whatever mysterious fate had befallen Preacher hadn't claimed Matt as a victim, too.
So far Smoke hadn't visited the Emerald Palace Saloon. After leaving the small café where he had eaten supper, he looked across the street at the saloon and decided to get a beer. If he got a chance to talk much with the bartender, he would try to find out if the Emerald Palace might also be one of the Colonel's targets for a takeover when the railroad arrived in the basin.
As Smoke angled across the street, he spotted two men striding toward the saloon on the opposite boardwalk. One of them was instantly familiar to him. A feeling of relief went through him as he recognized Matt's tall, broad-shouldered figure.
The other man was even bigger than Matt. Smoke could tell that even in the shadows on the boardwalk. As they passed a lighted window, Smoke got a glimpse of the man's face. He had never seen him before, but he knew a cold-blooded, ruthless killer when he saw one.
Matt seemed friendly with the stranger, so Smoke knew he was carrying on some sort of pose. The younger man had adopted a swaggering, arrogant gait, and that told Smoke he was probably pretending to be a hired gunman. From the looks of it, Matt had worked his way into the Colonel's good graces in a matter of a few hours.
Smoke increased his pace a little, timing it so that he stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon's entrance at the same moment as Matt and the other man. To a casual observer it would have seemed that Smoke wasn't watching where he was going, but in reality he knew exactly what he was doing as he rammed his shoulder into Matt's.
The collision staggered both of them. As Matt took a step back, he exclaimed, “Hey! Watch where you're going, mister.”
“I could say the same thing to you, amigo,” Smoke responded, standing tensely like he was ready for trouble.
“All right, back off, both of you,” the big gunman snapped. “Come on, Stevens, we've got enough to do tonight without you hunting up another ruckus.”
“Yeah, I guess you're right, boss.” Matt followed as the big man headed for the bat wings. He looked back over his shoulder at Smoke and added with a sneer, “You're lucky. If we didn't have a bothersome old geezer to deal with for the Colonel tonight, I'd have time to see about handing you your needings.”
“Didn't you hear me?” the other man snapped. “Come on.”
Smoke kept the hostile expression on his face, too, until Matt and the other man disappeared into the saloon. He didn't follow them inside, despite his earlier intention to get a drink in the Emerald Palace. What Matt had managed to tell him made all of that unimportant.
Smoke still didn't know all the details, but somehow Matt had infiltrated their enemies, and the message he had just delivered was clear.
They were going to “deal with” an old man tonight, and the only old man Matt would be interested in was Preacher. That meant the mountain man was still alive.
But unless Smoke was mistaken about Matt's meaning, Preacher was marked for death . . . and soon.
Chapter 39
Smoke knew from his conversations with the various businessmen in town that Colonel Ritchie lived in the big house on the slight rise at the western end of town. That's what Smoke would have guessed anyway, but it was nice to have that confirmation.
If Preacher was the Colonel's prisoner, chances were that he was locked up somewhere in that mansion. The Colonel could be holding him somewhere else, but Smoke had a hunch the man would want to keep Preacher close.
At least the old mountain man wasn't dead. That was a relief. Smoke headed for the Colonel's house to do some scouting.
When it came to stealth, Preacher was probably the only man alive who could beat Smoke at that game. Smoke blended into the shadows, and anybody who happened to be watching might have sworn that he disappeared into thin air.
Hammerhead wasn't that big yet, so it didn't take him long to reach the mansion. He paused in the trees to one side of the place to have a good look at it. The house had three stories, with a broad, porticoed verandah in front of it. Smoke had no idea where in the mansion Preacher was being held, but he figured that if he got a chance, he could find his old friend.
A couple of men stood on the verandah, smoking. Guards, Smoke thought. That made him look more closely at the area around the house that he could see from where he was, and sure enough, over the next few minutes he spotted several dark shapes that he recognized as men standing watch.
He would have to get past them, and for that he might need a distraction. But the first thing he really needed was to talk to Matt and find out what was going on here, so he blended back into the shadows and returned to the settlement.
Because some time had passed since his phony run-in with Matt, he thought he could go into the Emerald Palace without it appearing that he was looking for more trouble. He pushed the bat wings aside and walked casually toward the bar, and as he did so, he looked out of the corner of his eye and saw Matt and the big man playing pool at a table in the rear corner.
“What'll it be for you, mister?” the bartender asked Smoke.
“Beer will do fine,” Smoke replied. “Is it cold?”
“The coldest you'll find in the whole blamed territory.” The bartender rolled his eyes. “That's what the boss always tells people, anyway.”
Smoke chuckled and said, “Sounds good. I'll take my chances on how cold it is.”
The man drew the beer and placed it in front of him. It was cool and good, and drinking it gave Smoke an excuse to stand there and keep an eye on Matt and his companion in the mirror.
Smoke was sure that Matt had seen him come in. After a few minutes, when they had finished the game they were playing, Matt set his cue stick aside and said, “Reckon I'd better go check on my horse.”
“Don't take too long,” the other man said as he started to rack up the balls again, evidently planning to run some shots by himself. “We've still got that other chore to take care of.”
“I'm not likely to forget,” Matt said. “I feel kind of sorry for the old coot.”
“Don't,” the big gunman snapped. “It was his choice not to cooperate.”
That was Preacher, all right, Smoke thought, smiling to himself. Anybody who tried to force Preacher to do something he didn't want to do was going to discover whole new levels of stubborn.
Matt ambled out. Smoke waited until the man at the pool table was concentrating on his shots and not paying attention to what else was going on in the saloon, then he paid for his beer and left the place as well. He paused on the boardwalk outside the bat wings and heard a faint hiss from the black mouth of the alley to his left.
Smoke walked in that direction, apparently aimlessly, and turned to enter the alley. As he did, someone lightly touched his arm.
“It's me,” Matt said.
“I know that,” Smoke replied quietly. “I wouldn't let anybody else slip up on me like that.”
“You heard what they're going to do? They're gonna kill Preacher tonight!”
“No, they're not,” Smoke said. “They may try, but we'll have something to say about that. Where is he?”
“In an attic room above the third floor in the Colonel's mansion. You take the main staircase to the third floor, and then there's a door to the right with a smaller set of stairs that leads up into the attic.”
Smoke nodded, even though Matt couldn't see the movement in the darkness, and asked, “How bad is he hurt?”
“A couple of bullet grazes, one in his side and one on his arm, but the worst of it is that they've been beating him for the past week, trying to get him to tell them where Standing Rock and the rest of the warriors are.”
“I don't reckon they had any luck with that,” Smoke said.
“Not a bit. But he's covered with bruises. I don't see how he stood up to that much punishment.”
“People have written Preacher off for dead plenty of times. I did it myself once, before I knew better. But that old man will always surprise you. He can stand up to just about anything.”
“Maybe not what they've got planned for him,” Matt said. “The Colonel's decided none of the Indians came here with Preacher, so he figures it's all right to go ahead and get rid of him.”
“They're going to find out different.”
Anger filled Smoke at the thought of the beatings Preacher had been forced to endure. They had even more of a score to settle with the Colonel now, he thought.
Matt's hand gripped Smoke's arm.
“That may not be the worst of it, Smoke,” he said. “Wildflower is dead.”
That terrible, unexpected news made Smoke catch his breath. He stiffened, his hand instinctively going to the butt of his gun as he asked, “Are you sure?”
“I heard all about it from Randall. He's the ramrod of the Colonel's crew of gun-wolves. While they were bringing Wildflower and Little Hawk here after they kidnapped them from Two Bears's village, she tried to get away. She got hold of a knife and stabbed one of the men, and he lost his head and shot her. Then Randall killed him for disobeying orders.” Matt paused. “I get the feeling that Randall and the Colonel are both a little loco, Smoke. They rode together in the Union cavalry during the war, and the Colonel especially seems to think he's still commanding an army unit about half the time.”
“Just because a man's loco doesn't mean he's not dangerous.”
“I thought the same thing,” Matt said.
“What about Little Hawk?”
“He's in the mansion, too. The Colonel's housekeeper has been taking care of him. As far as I've been able to find out, he's doing fine. He's too young to understand that his ma is dead.”
“Poor little varmint,” Smoke muttered. “When we take Preacher out of there, we'll have to bring Little Hawk with us, too.”
“A shootout with a baby in the middle of it?” Matt sounded pretty doubtful about that.
“Maybe there won't be a shootout.”
“The Colonel's got a dozen men standing guard. I don't see how we'll get in and out without swapping lead with them.”
Smoke rubbed his chin in the darkness and said, “Those hombres need something else to keep them busy. Maybe I can come up with something to accomplish that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Since they know you already, stick close to the house. I'm going to head back out to Standing Rock's camp and break the bad news to him. Then he and his men are going to pretend to attack the town in order to draw off the Colonel's guards. When that happens, you and I will get Preacher and the little boy.” Smoke paused, then asked, “How'd you get in good with them so quickly, anyway?”
“I pitched in to help Randall when one of his own men tried to bushwhack him. The fella was a friend of the man who killed Wildflower. He'd been nursing a grudge against Randall ever since that happened.”
“That was a lucky break for us,” Smoke said, “but bad luck all around for everybody else. This whole thing is about the railroad, isn't it?”
“Yep. The Colonel sent a message to Two Bears saying that he has both Wildflower and Little Hawk, and if Two Bears wants them back he and his people have to get off the land the Colonel wants.”
Smoke's eyes narrowed as he said, “If the Colonel and this fella Randall happen to get in our way when we go in there . . .”
“I'm sort of hoping they do,” Matt said. “We need to hurry, though, Smoke. The Colonel told Randall to wait until after the housekeeper had gone to bed to kill Preacher. She's been taking care of him, and the Colonel didn't want her to find out about it until after everything was over. I don't have any idea what time she turns in, but it might be soon.”
“I'm on my way to fetch Standing Rock right now. Good luck, Matt.”
“Reckon we can use all of that we can get,” Matt said.
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If the hostler at the livery stable thought it was odd that Smoke was taking the 'Palouse back out only a couple of hours after bringing him in, he didn't say anything. Smoke handled the saddling up himself and rode out of town at a leisurely pace so as not to draw attention, and then put the big horse into a gallop toward Standing Rock's camp as soon as he was clear of the settlement.
Even though Smoke had been over the route only once, and that during the day, he didn't have any trouble finding the place he was looking for. Once he had been over a trail, he was always able to retrace it. He turned up the canyon and began following the little creek.
He expected Standing Rock to have sentries out, so when he came close to the camp he called softly, “It's Smoke Jensen. Hold your fire.”
Standing Rock himself was standing guard. Smoke recognized the warrior's voice when he said, “Jensen. Come ahead.”
Smoke wasn't looking forward to telling the man that his wife was dead. Even after all these years, he remembered how hearing about the tragic fate of his first wife, Nicole, had been like a knife in his guts. For a long time, he had been almost consumed by grief and the hatred for her murderers that gripped him. The fact that their son, Arthur, had been killed, too, had just made it worse.
At least Standing Rock would still have his son, once they succeeded in rescuing Little Hawk from the Colonel. That would be scant comfort for Standing Rock at first, but any comfort was better than nothing.
Smoke dismounted and led the 'Palouse forward into the trees. He said, “Standing Rock, I have to talk to you.”
Standing Rock came out of the shadows. He asked, “Have you found my wife and son, Jensen?”
There was no good way to do this. Smoke said, “I know where Little Hawk is. He's all right. But I'm sorry, Standing Rock, Wildflower is dead.”
He heard the hiss of breath through Standing Rock's clenched teeth. Other than that there was silence for a second. Then the warrior said in a low, intense voice, “No! You lie!”
Standing Rock took a step forward, and Smoke knew that the man's first instinct was to strike out at him. He was ready to stop Standing Rock without hurting him too much, if he had to.
“I'm sorry, but it's true. She was killed while they were bringing her here to use her as a hostage to force your people to move. For what it's worth, the man who shot her when she tried to escape is dead, too. And your son is alive and unharmed, Standing Rock. Remember that.”
Smoke heard the harsh rasp of the warror's breathing as Standing Rock struggled to come to grips with the awful news he had just heard. Minutes went by. Smoke didn't want to rush him because he knew how much Standing Rock was hurting right now, but Preacher still had that death sentence hanging over his head.
Finally, Standing Rock said, “My son . . . where is he?”
“Little Hawk is in the house of the man responsible for everything, the man who owns that settlement and almost everything in it. And Preacher is there, too, being held prisoner. He was captured when he tried to rescue Little Hawk. That's why he never came back from scouting the town.”
“We will ride in and free both of them. And anyone who tries to stop us, we will kill!”
“I understand why you feel that way, Standing Rock,” Smoke said.
“You do not know!”
“The hell I don't,” Smoke replied with a hard edge in his voice. “I was married to a woman who was killed by evil men, too. They murdered my child as well. So I know good and well why you feel like riding in there and shooting everybody you see. But most of the people in the settlement are innocent. They don't have anything to do with the Colonel and his plans.” Smoke paused. “Anyway, you ride in on a rampage like that and you'll just get yourself killed along with all your men, and the Colonel will still have Little Hawk. Matt and I have a plan, though, and we need your help to carry it out.”
Again Standing Rock didn't say anything while precious time slipped past. But then he asked, “If this plan of yours succeeds, my son will be free? He will be returned to me?”
“That's right.”
“And the men responsible for this evil? They will pay with their lives?”
“I reckon you can count on that,” Smoke said.