In the Brief Eternal Silence (74 page)

I won't be makin' me appointment, I don't
think.

I 'spect ye know what he'll be about. Too
many good people have died already fer him t'let it go.

I leave this knowledge in yer hands, which I
know to be capable.

Tyler

She closed the heavy, creased lids of her
eyes, and remembered the old adage that one should be careful of
what one prayed for, for one might have it answered.

But she allowed this weakness for but one
moment, and then she banged her cane again, and this time, as the
news had spread that no one had come to harm with the pistol shot
heard, Soren arrived by her side in an instant. The dowager bade
her, “Pack, please, Soren, for we shall be going home now.”

“Yes, milady.”

“And send someone to the stables to have my
coach made ready and to fetch my grandson.”

“Milord Duke, milady?”

“No. Earl Larrimer.”

St. James caught sight of Steven driving the
cart before they had reached the end of the lane. He pulled his
horse to a sharp halt beside the lad. “I'll have some answers,
Steven,” he began. “Was Tyler or was Tyler not driving the
curricle?”

Steven, looking guilty, allowed that there
had been a slight change of plans.

“And will I find that man on the road between
here and Morning-side, or am I to be looking for him somewhere
along the route to London?” St. James asked.

Steven hung his head, unable to meet those
gold, damning eyes. “'Twixt here and t'junction, m'lord. But only
'cause we doubled back from t'main road to London and shot across
this way t'warns ye when's we run's into trouble.”

St. James was very still, even his horse
seemed leery of moving and he did not curse nor rage. He only
snapped out another question. “Is it possible you lost them at the
junction?”

“Tyler, 'e said 'e thought we 'ad. For t'time
bein' at least. But won't take overlong for them t'get to yer manor
and find ye not there, and then they'll sure to come here. That's
what Tyler said, m'lord.”

St. James paused further, calculating the
distance, the time, time wasted by Steven having to walk the last
mile, time with—! Damn it! He spurred his horse, then yanked back
on the reins so that it jumped forward and then slid to a halt
again, and he turned in the saddle, asked harshly, “You have the
gun I gave you, Steven? And extra loads?”

“Aye, m'lord,” Steven said with more
enthusiasm. “For Tyler, he said I may need it!”

St. James nodded. “Very likely you shall.
Remember that Red's seen you and by now he knows you were meaning
to cross him. He'll kill you out of spite if he gets the
chance.”

“I ken, m'lord,” Steven said a good deal more
somberly.

St. James turned his horse back to the cart,
knowing that he was wasting still more precious time, but he had to
say it. “You can't count on me, Steven, do you understand?” he
asked. “It's going to be every man for himself. If you're not up to
it, turn back now.”

And Steven looked stunned, but his eyes did
not flicker, and St. James had no doubt that he was making an
informed decision (for had not St. James seen to just that
particular tutelage by in fact killing that boy's father?) and
Steven only said, “I'm going, m'lord, for I know that Tyler needs
me.”

And St. James spared a nod at this. “He does,
indeed, Steven. He does indeed.”

And then at last, he spurred his horse
forward with a great unleashing of power.

He judged that it would be a very close
thing, whether he would reach Tyler first, or whether Red and his
hired man would find Tyler before him as they made their way toward
the Squire's home. If the luck were really against him, they had
found Tyler already, finished him off if he were not already dead,
and could be waiting for him now around most any bend in the
road.

The horse that Steven had ridden to
exhaustion had wandered quite a bit now that it had no rider on its
back, and St. James did not see it until nearly two miles from the
Squire's property. It startled him when he came across it, for the
sun had become obscured behind fast moving and dark clouds, and it
was becoming overcast and muted, so that he caught sight of it
abruptly.

He passed it by, but the unpleasant shock it
gave him, combined with his thoughts of his foe being closer than
he may anticipate led him to fill both hands with his pistols, so
that he rode with the reins cupped between palms and butts, which
could at times be as much a hindrance as an advantage. But for
coming across someone heading toward him that was perhaps not as
well prepared, it could be quite handy, if he did not shoot his own
horse in the head in his haste to fire while his target was still
reaching for his own weapon.

It was less than a gentlemanly approach to
combat, but St. James was not feeling particularly gentlemanly.

It was not yet an hour before noon, but the
sky continued to darken, and when the road led into a copse of
woods, it was shadowy and dark. But St. James only put his heels to
the horse he rode with all the more vigor, for he did not fancy
Tyler lying out in the coming rain as well as being injured and
mayhaps having unsought for company.

And it was in this little copse, as the sky
brewed with clouds above the naked branches of the thickly growing
trees and there were the beginnings of vague flashes of lightning,
that he came around a bend in the road and met the very men he had
prepared for but had not really expected.

His fingers moved in simple and automatic
reflex to both triggers, and he raised his pistols for a clear shot
over his horse's head. But his brain screamed warning and he jerked
his horse to a halt and did not fire. There were three men on the
two horses. One red-faced and blue-eyed on one mount and two men up
on the other mount. The man in front was covered with blood, his
hands were tied and only the rider up behind him held him in the
saddle.

And it was Tyler, bound and unconscious.

As quickly as St. James recognized Red and
Tyler, Red recognized St. James. He reached across the narrow space
between the horses and tipped Tyler to in front of him. All three
horses were now halted and danced with nervousness within only a
few feet from each other. St. James, finding himself hindered by
his unorthodox handling of both weapons and reins simultaneously,
did some frantic working to keep his horse under control. Red's
hired man, exposed to St. James' aim now that Tyler was half tipped
in front of Red, dug with haste for his own weapon.

For a moment only curses were heard. St.
James cursed at his horse. The hired gunman cursed his employer for
leaving him naked to the duke's gun while covering his own ass
admirably. And Red cursed as he struggled to control his own horse,
keeping it close to his co-hort's as Tyler's legs were still on
that man's mount, and at the same time trying to bring his own
weapon to bear on St. James.

The hired assassin next to Red succeeded in
drawing his gun, as he had the least amount of confusion going on
and had made full use of it. St. James straightened his mount, drew
a quick bead on the accomplice and snapped a shot. That man toppled
from the saddle. The horses squealed and spooked. Red was delayed
in his own aiming as his horse danced to the side and Tyler's legs
were left to dangle. St. James well knew that his groom was not
light, but the muscles in Red's body that Steven had marked off as
flab were not entirely gone to waste, and he managed to pull Tyler
more fully in front of him on his own horse.

Then he and the duke faced each other, Red
using Tyler as a shield. There was a brief silence that was nearly
loud after the chaos of before and Dante heard the wind picking up
in the trees above them.

His one loaded gun was aimed at Red, but
although Dante was an uncommonly good shot, he dared not try
anything of such precision from the back of a nervous horse and
where if he were off by but a hair, he would splatter Tyler's
brains instead of Red's.

Red damningly had his gun on St. James. And
St. James had no such protection as a hostage in front of him.

“When you shoot me, are you going to let him
go?” St. James asked.

“T'won't make no difference. He's 'bout dead
already,” Red pointed out.

“Are you sure of that?” St. James asked. “For
if he's going to live, there'll be someone along shortly to doctor
him. If he's going to live that long, you may as well let him go
and let him have his chance.”

“Sure,” Red said. “If it'll make ye happy.
Never want it said old Red didn't try to accommodate a man's dyin'
wish. Don't think it'll matter at any rate. Plugged good and proper
through t'leg there, ye can see fer yerself, and without no tight
wrappin' he been bleedin' right an' proper. Did me heart good to
know I hadn't missed.”

St. James' horse sidled in unrest and his
hand and unfired gun wavered with the motion.

“May as well jus' drop it, now, duke,” Red
advised. “For if ye be hopin' that I'll fire and by some miracle
miss, or only wing ye, and ye'll get off a shot while I'm fetchin'
another gun out, you'd do yerself a care to look at t'piece I'm
holdin'.”

St. James recognized it. “Samuel Colt
pistol.”

Red grinned, or at least the part of his face
that St. James could see behind Tyler's unconscious head grinned.
“Aye! Six shots, duke, and right quick. If'n I miss ye on t'first
one, I got five more to yer one!”

“And you are but the first of a new era, I
can see,” St. James said. “For I had not thought they were common
any where but to the officers of the war going on in America. But
my groom there, you'll let him go then?”

“I said I would, did'n I?”

“Even though you think he'll just die at any
rate?” St. James asked. “You're certain he's going to die?”

“Well, duke, I ain't no doctor, and I'd lay
odds he's gonna live longer than you,” and Red chuckled, “and
certainly longer than my man you done already plugged, but in
t'end, I don't figure he'll ever wake from—”

But his words were cut off as St. James
snapped his pistol into line and fired with near carelessness. He
could not be sure if he hit Tyler, but if he had, it did not
deflected the shot to any great degree, for the side of Red's face
that had been peeping from behind his hostage exploded outward.
Even as he fell, his arm did not slacken from his grip on the groom
but pulled that man to the ground with him, like a constrictor or a
python that even though its head has been cut from it, still coils
about its prey.

St. James sat astride his horse and reloaded
his pistols, and he nudged his horse around in a slow circle and
glanced piercingly into the woods on either side of him. The wind
blew the trees in hard earnest, and it was very dim except for when
lightening lit up the copse, and that was even worse for it ruined
his vision for a small length of time after each flashing. A faint
groan came from on the ground beside the two riderless horses that
nuzzled each other as though in consolation.

St. James moved his mount around the horses,
pointed his pistol down at the back of Red's head, but he was quite
certain that man was dead, and the other he had shot as well, and
so he stowed his pistol, dismounted and pried the dead man's arm
from around Tyler. He had resigned himself to the fact that he had
killed his groom as well as his man and his hands shook as he
rolled Tyler over.

There was a monstrous amount of blood on his
face and St. James took out one of his fast dwindling supply of
hankies and with tenderness wiped the blood from him. It was not
all Red's either, he saw, for his bullet had creased Tyler's cheek
before finding its final target, and although it would not have
been fatal, he could not quite reconcile himself to the fact that
he had nearly murdered his groom. And the last thing Tyler needed
was to be losing more blood.

He unbound Tyler's swollen wrists.
“Tyler?”

Another groan, but the old, familiar eyes
twitched open. “Aye,” Tyler murmured. “Was tryin'. . . t'play. . .
'possum. . . Waitin'. . . on

a. . . chance t'help. . . Just too. . . damn.
. . weak t'do. . . anythin'.” “I'm afraid I shot you as well as
him,” St. James told him softly. “Aye. . . Felt. . . it. Killed. .
. 'im?” “Yes.” “Did. . . good. . . lad,” and his hand twitched as
though it wanted

to pat St. James, and St. James took it and
held it tight.

“Stay with me awhile, Tyler. Steven is coming
with the cart and it should not be overlong.” He dug in his coat
pocket for another handkerchief with his other hand and tried to
stem the bleeding from Tyler's leg, but it was up near the hip, the
bone shattered. “Miss Murdock has already sent Ryan for a doctor,
and we will cart you there in quick time and they'll sew you up
right again.”

“Don't. . . doubt. . . it,” Tyler agreed.

There was a dreadful boom of thunder and the
skies that had been threatening let loose with a great deal of
fury, and the rain spattered down into the groom's face. Dante
struggled from his coat, only removing his hand from Tyler's when
he could immediately reclasp it with the other, and he lay the coat
over the groom. He held Tyler's hand beneath the coat, the rain
soaking his dark hair and pouring into his eyes.

He did not know how long he remained in that
manner, but he did not stir or look up until there was the sound of
horse hooves. He glanced up and saw a cart with a very wet Steven
in the flash of the lightning.

Steven pulled up in that same flash, for the
scene before him was something from a nightmare. Two bodies dead in
the muddy, rain splattering road, pink rivers of diluted blood
running from them. Three horses huddled in nervous resignation
beneath the trees, their empty saddles shedding water. And St.
James in only his shirt sleeves with the white fabric plastered to
him, hunched and shivering over a third form lying beneath his
coat.