by Abigail Roux
Stringer thought he might have gotten on quite well with Rose if they’d met under different circumstances.
He threw back what remained of his whiskey and stood fluidly. Stringer didn’t exactly feel restored by the interlude, but it would have to do. He needed to hunt down one more piece of the puzzle before he could relax, and it was short hours until they would have to set off again. He slid his hat on, ducking his head to hide his face beneath the brim as the blond marshal he’d seen earlier returned, without his prisoner, and headed directly for the stairs.
Flynn joined Wash outside the door to the room at the end of the hall not long after ridding himself of Hudson. He had filled the Army boys in on their situation and had been pleasantly surprised when they allowed for an extra hour to deliver Cage. What Flynn hadn’t counted on had been Wash’s decision to allow the two burgeoning lovebirds time alone in the damn bathhouse together.
He and Wash stood side by side, restless and silent. Finally, Flynn could no longer stand it and he turned to Wash with some possibly undue hostility. “You know what they’re doing in there, right? We ain’t running no whorehouse, Wash. This ain’t right. It ain’t proper.”
“Since when have you gave a damn about proper? Give them some time,” Wash said with a sigh. “And don’t be preachin’ to me. If it was you, you’d be thankful for a half hour of peace with someone you thought you might care about. Especially if you thought you was looking at the gallows.”
Flynn opened his mouth to deny it, but he knew it was true. It was human nature, the need to be close to someone when you had so little time left. Hell, even knowing he did have time, the idea of spending it all alone because he was a coward was momentarily crushing.
“Hell, it might even make ’em easier to handle. Besides, I don’t peg Cage as the type to run. And I don’t think Rose will try it without him now. I don’t rightly believe he tried it at all before.”
“What?”
“You were going to shoot his dog, Flynn.”
There was a sudden thump from within the room, and a few seconds later, a soft knock on the door.
“That was quicker’n I expected,” Wash muttered as he reached for the door.
Flynn was ready with his hand on his gun, just in case the two men tried anything.
But when Wash opened the door, Cage stood before them placidly. His face was still covered with a few weeks’ worth of beard and his long hair was tied neatly at the back of his neck, but he seemed a different man now he had managed to clean all the dirt and grime from his body. His clothes were damp, but they were relatively clean as well. He had washed them in the tub and wrung them dry, as evidenced by the dirty brown water filling the basin. Wash and Flynn stared at him in confused silence, waiting. Cage turned to the side to allow them to see, and he pointed at the window, which was open, its curtains fluttering in the soft breeze. Gabriel Rose was nowhere to be found.
“Damnation!” Flynn launched himself into the room and stuck his head out the window. He looked down and saw nothing but a long drop to the street below, and Rose’s bowler hat lying crushed in the dust. He cursed again and brushed past Cage out into the hall.
“Stay here!” Wash ordered Cage, who merely nodded his head obediently and had the door slammed in his face for his trouble.
Cage stood by the door, left alone and unguarded after the flurry of frantic activity. The two marshals had dashed off after their escaped prisoner, trusting him to remain where he was in their haste. The breeze gently tugged at the lacy curtains as Cage counted slowly to ten.
When he was done, he walked over to the tub filled with lukewarm, murky water and brushed his fingers across the calm water. Gabriel’s head broke the surface and he gasped. Rivulets streamed down his cheeks and his black hair was plastered to his forehead and over his ears. He ran a hand over his face and then through his hair, making it stick up in all directions.
Cage patted him on the head and offered him a hand. Gabriel peered around the room and then grinned widely up at Cage and pulled himself out of the tub. Cage helped him out of the water and brushed some of droplets off the man’s face.
“Did they charge off after me?” Gabriel asked.
Cage nodded, trying not to smile. He didn’t want to encourage Gabriel’s brash nature any more than he already had.
“Well, that went better than even I could have hoped,” Gabriel said to him as water dropped off his curling hair.
Cage gave him a melancholy, affectionate smile and nodded.
Gabriel adjusted the straps of his vest over his sopping-wet shirt. “Come with me,” he urged in a whisper.
Cage licked his lips and stared at the man for a long moment, then slowly shook his head in regret.
“Come on, Cage,” Gabriel begged. “I’ll watch your back, you watch mine. The dog’s already smarter than I am, I need someone to talk to.” There was a hint of mischief in his eyes.
Cage hesitated, wanting to give in to the desire to go with him. They’d made an instant connection, and that wasn’t something Cage was used to or took lightly. Most people just ignored him. He’d had few true friends in life, even fewer who seemed to see past his silence. But in the end, he knew he had to stand trial for what he had done, right or wrong. His conscience wouldn’t let him rest otherwise. For the first time in years he wanted to say something, though, to tell Gabriel why he wouldn’t go with him.
He shook his head again and lowered it, unable to voice his thoughts or emotions.
It surprised him when Gabriel looked crestfallen, and he was even more shocked when Gabriel took his face in both hands and kissed him passionately. He gave a little gasp and grabbed Gabriel’s elbows, not certain of how to touch him now that he wasn’t restrained by chains, or even if he should. Gabriel kissed him harder for his troubles and then regretfully let him go.
Cage blinked at him, and Gabriel smiled crookedly. “I’ll just find you later, then, yeah? After you’ve served your punishment.”
Cage licked his lips again, tasting the other man on them, and he nodded as his mouth curved in a smile. Even without Cage trying to articulate it, Gabriel had understood.
“And if they think they’re going to hang you, well, they’ll have to go through me first,” Gabriel promised with a wink.
Cage nodded. He was willing to serve his time, but his conscience and sense of right and wrong only took him so far. He sure as hell wasn’t willing to die for burning blankets that may or may not have been infected with disease. If the Army made an example of him, or if he became the victim of some bureaucratic oversight, they very well could hang him. If Gabriel was planning to help him out of a noose, then Cage wasn’t going to argue that point.
Gabriel mirrored the nod with one of his own, then gave Cage a brilliant smile and turned to the door, grabbing his coat as he went.
Cage reached out and snagged his elbow. When Gabriel looked back at him in question, Cage offered a confused frown and shrugged his shoulders.
“What do I plan to do?”
Cage nodded.
“No worries, my friend. I’ve always got a plan. Just tell them the truth when they question you.”
Cage let him go with a raised eyebrow, not quite understanding but willing to trust the man implicitly. Gabriel swung open the door, only to be stopped in his tracks when he found Marshal Washington standing in the hallway, waiting with his six-shooter raised, a grim smile set on his face.
“Howdy,” the marshal greeted sarcastically.
Gabriel’s shoulders slumped and he looked away from the man with a huff. “Bloody marshals.”
Wash swung his arm and hit Gabriel in the temple with the butt of his gun, sending his newly recaptured prisoner down in a heap.
Cage watched him fall without even twitching in an attempt to catch him, and then raised his eyes once more to meet Wash’s.
“Did he threaten you if you didn’t help him?” Wash growled, pointing his gun down at Gabriel’s unconscious body.
Cage
swallowed hard. Tell the truth, Gabriel had told him. Cage shook his head.
“If he threatened you, son, then it’s all forgiven,” Wash said as he placed a booted foot on top of Gabriel’s back.
Cage was pretty sure the man wasn’t going to be moving for a while. It was the fourth time Gabriel had been hit on the head in the last ten days, if Cage was counting correctly. At some point, you just stopped getting back up. He wanted to check him to make sure he was okay, but with the marshal’s good hand still on that trigger, he didn’t dare move.
“If you helped him,” Wash continued pointedly, “then I’m going to have to charge you with the offense. Helping a prisoner escape is a federal crime, son. Do you understand?”
Cage nodded, his eyes not leaving Wash’s.
“Now. Did he threaten you?” He obviously didn’t want to charge Cage. Cage could read him easily enough. But Gabriel had said to tell them the truth, and Cage had always tried to be an honest man anyway. It was easier than keeping track of your lies, even if you were mute.
Cage tilted his head apologetically, and then once more he very slowly shook it from side to side.
Wash closed his eyes and sighed heavily, then he looked back down at Gabriel.
Soon Marshal Flynn returned, breathless and incensed over being made to run all over Creation for no good reason. He glared at Gabriel, who still lay where he had fallen in a crumpled heap, and then kicked him for good measure.
“Flynn!” Wash barked.
“I say we kill the little son of a whore now and save the government the trouble,” Flynn huffed.
“We’ve had worse attempts,” Wash reminded him, then he glanced over at Cage almost sadly. “And it would appear that Cage is going to be traveling with us to New Orleans now.”
“He threatened you,” Marshal Flynn said to Cage forcefully. “Just say he threatened you and forced you to help him, son, and you won’t be charged.”
Cage looked at both men expressionlessly, and then shook his head yet again.
Flynn stared for a beat before turning away in exasperation. “The first goddamn honest outlaw I ever seen. Ain’t got sense enough to lie,” he grumbled as he stalked back down the narrow hallway.
“That man is property of the United States Army, mister,” one of the irate soldiers informed Wash.
Flynn stood back with Cage, observing the confrontation tensely and trying to keep an eye on both their prisoners and his partner. Rose was still unconscious and trussed up in the back of the wagon with a blanket covering him. Cage remained stock-still, scowling at the two soldiers. Flynn couldn’t get over how different he looked with a little help from some soap and water. Like someone Flynn would nod to in passing on the street now, even wearing the homemade oilskins.
Cage huffed loudly at the soldier’s words. Flynn glanced back at them and frowned. They didn’t need trouble with the Army, and Wash would surely give them some if he had a mind to.
“Property?” Wash asked.
The soldier gave a confident nod “That’s right.”
“That’s right,” Wash echoed with a slow sneer.
The soldier clearly recognized the gleam in Wash’s eyes as a warning one, and Flynn looked on in something close to amusement as the two uniformed men shifted restlessly in front of his partner. Even with one good arm, Wash was capable of so many things most men could never manage.
Suddenly, Wash’s gun was in his hand and he had shoved it in the soldier’s face. Flynn tensed and just barely stopped himself from lunging to interfere. Beside him, Cage jumped at the sudden appearance of the gun.
“This was property of the Army too,” Wash growled, cocking the Colt Old Model Army .44 and placing the barrel between the soldier’s eyes. “I got it when I was younger’n you and fighting against my brothers in gray. I think I have the right to say no man is property.”
Flynn took a slow step forward, watching warily. It was never easy to guess which way Wash would go when he was riled. They had known each other since they had fought together in the 19th Indiana, part of the infamous Iron Brigade, and they had been together ever since. Still, Wash was anything but predictable, even for Flynn. Usually he managed to keep his temper and he was cool and even-keeled. But the one time every blue moon that he went off, there wasn’t much that could stop him.
“How’s about we settle this without the iron, Wash?” Flynn said carefully. Behind him, he felt Cage shift, his hand irons clanging intrusively in the overwrought silence. Flynn didn’t know which way Cage would go, either. If violence broke out now, would he try to get away, after nearly a fortnight of being the perfect prisoner? Flynn didn’t suppose so, not when Rose was still safely in custody. Rose may have been ready to skip off into the sunset without Cage, but Flynn had a gut feeling that Cage wouldn’t leave Rose behind.
Wash narrowed his eyes at the soldier and then lowered the gun. Both of the soldiers released pent-up breaths and looked from Wash to Flynn.
“Now,” Wash said calmly. “Let’s start over, why don’t we? I am US Marshal William Henry Washington, and I am charging this man with aiding in the attempted escape of a prisoner. I am going to be taking him to New Orleans for a federal trial. Do we have a problem with that arrangement?”
“No, sir,” the two soldiers grumbled in unison, their tone decidedly unfriendly and resentful.
“Good, then,” Wash drawled with a congenial grin as he holstered his weapon. He ushered them away daintily with his fingers. “On with you.”
The two men backed off and then turned and walked quickly to their waiting horses. Flynn watched them mount up with a growing sense of apprehension. It didn’t do to embarrass men publicly, especially young men who still thought they had something to prove in life. He hoped the encounter didn’t come back to haunt them.
Cage stepped forward to stand beside him. George Hudson sat astride a third Army horse, with his hands tied to the pommel of the saddle, glaring at them evilly. His escorts had just taken one hell of a pistol-whipping to their pride. They would probably take it out on their prisoner, if Flynn was to guess.
Cage raised his hands and waved at the man mockingly, smirking. Flynn fought hard not to laugh at the silent parting shot.
“Well. I feel like a man again,” Wash joked as soon as the soldiers were out of earshot.
Flynn tried to be stern, but he just shook his head and smirked. “Was that something that really needed doing?”
“Probably not. But it amused me, nonetheless,” Wash crooned. He glanced at Cage and looked him up and down. “Now, let’s see to the rest of our problems. Seems like all of us is gonna be going downriver. I’ll have to find the telegraph office and wire the change of plans so’s they’re not expecting me in Natchez.”
Flynn sighed heavily. He was glad that Wash would be accompanying him downriver, though. That was the only good turn this trip had taken so far.
They secured two private cabins on the packet James Howard, a side-wheeler steamboat that was called Oil Cake Jim by the men who worked her, though Flynn had no idea as to why. He wasn’t really interested in finding out, either. She was a large boat, not lavish like the newer ones, but with nicer accommodations than Flynn was used to.
The most prominent features of the steamer were not the two large paddle wheels inside their wheelhouses on either side of the ship, but rather the two thirty-foot-tall smokestacks near the bow of the vessel. A carved wooden anchor hung between them just over the pilot house, the trademark of an Anchor Line ship.
Flynn stamped his foot to bring some warmth into his toes. St. Louis was one of the few cities on the St. Louis to New Orleans trade route that had actual wooden docks by the river. Fancy. Flynn certainly appreciated the planks under his feet this morning. River mud was something that stuck with a man after slogging through it. The swinging landing stage at the bow had been fixed to the dock. It was wide enough for two people to walk up it side by side, and it had shaky rails. Flynn could almost see Rose trying to launch himself over
the edge to escape.
When they set off, the landing stage would be swung back over the water, and it would stick straight out from the bow as the ship made its way downriver. It didn’t always have a nice solid dock to moor to, though. Flynn had seen landing stages of these huge riverboats attached to trees, rocks, and even a pair of oxen one time at the smaller stops along the route.
The ship wasn’t loading passengers just yet. The cargo took priority, and official business such as what Wash and Flynn were discussing with the ship’s captain. Even so, many people had gathered at the waterfront already, and the calliope on the hurricane deck played a lively tune. The incredibly loud steam-powered organ gave the scene a circus-like feeling. Families with small children swarmed the landing and picnicked not far off, men led skittish horses away from the noise and commotion, and loved ones bid excited farewells as they prepared to board for a luxurious trip downriver.
As Flynn and Wash stood on the dock in front of the landing stage speaking with the captain, Flynn noticed that Cage had turned away from the chaos and was staring off down the bank. The marshal’s attention was split between the conversation Wash and the captain were having, and watching Cage to make certain he didn’t dive off the docks into the water. Rose had roused not long before, and he was tied securely to the end of the wagon, sitting with his dog and watching them blankly from the muddy area full of carriages, wagons, and horses. He hadn’t said a word since waking back up. Flynn wondered if maybe he’d had his brain rattled just a bit too much.
“We’re certainly no strangers to having lawmen aboard, Marshal Washington,” the captain was saying to Wash with an amiable smile when Flynn turned his attention back to them. “As long as your prisoners are escorted at all times, we feel quite confident in your abilities to keep them under control.” He cleared his throat and looked around the dock warily, then stepped closer to Wash and lowered his head. “All that we ask is that you remain discreet. We sometimes have rough types, but our passengers are generally of a . . . gentler breed. They like to feel safe. Seeing a man come to dinner in hand irons would cause a bit of a stir.”
