by Abigail Roux
Flynn watched in stunned horror as blood gurgled up under the hand Rose kept clasped over the dying man’s mouth. He found his boots rooted to the floor, his voice gone from his throat. It wasn’t just that Rose knew how to kill people. It seemed to Flynn that he almost enjoyed it. During the act, anyway.
The struggling slowed as Rose held the man down, and finally ceased altogether. Rose waited several more long, tortuous moments before he pushed himself up and off the dead man. He wiped his hand gingerly on the man’s shoulder and then sniffed daintily in distaste as he looked down at the body.
“Nice toss, Marshal,” he said calmly. He stepped over to peer at the other man he had killed.
Flynn blinked at him several times, wondering if he would ever get the scene he had just witnessed out of his mind’s eye. He’d seen a lot of violence and brutality in his life, and he hoped this would just fade in with all the rest of it. He told himself it had been necessary.
“Nice toss yourself,” he finally replied in a slightly shocked, grudging voice for lack of anything else to say.
Rose bent and yanked the large knife out of the first man’s chest after making certain both of them were dead. He wiped the knife on the dead man’s pants leg and stood, glancing around.
“Never seen something like that,” Flynn admitted hoarsely, pointing at the large knife. “That toss.”
“Not as accurate,” Rose said thoughtfully. He shrugged as he lifted the knife and turned it over, examining it with a frown. “But it does the trick in a pinch.”
Flynn frowned at him, trying to figure the man out. He was deadly, that much was obvious, but so were many men in this country. Rose didn’t flaunt his abilities until he was required to use them, but that wasn’t anything special either. What was unusual about Rose was that he didn’t seem to want anyone to know what sorts of things he was capable of, but he took pride in them, all the same. He was an odd duck.
Flynn was beginning to piece together bits and pieces of him. He was well-bred, and he had to have been naturally inclined toward handling a gun to be as good as he reportedly was. But he had obviously been taught by the Santee and probably others to perform a variety of violent actions on top of the gun fighting. He had sought out the know-how in addition to being to the manner born, and Flynn found himself, against his will, wondering why.
Why would a well-bred Englishman turn to a life of gambling and gun fighting? Why would he want to know how to kill with his hands? He didn’t revel in the fame like some did. He didn’t flaunt his prowess. Flynn simply couldn’t figure him out. He was forming a grudging respect for the man, and not just for his abilities.
“What do you make of this?” Rose asked him, disturbing his thoughts.
Flynn cleared his throat self-consciously and stepped closer. He looked down at the black object Rose was gently nudging out of the dead man’s hand with the toe of his boot.
“Looks like a lump of coal,” Flynn answered drolly.
“Thank you, Marshal, again your powers of observation astound me.”
Flynn smirked at him, enjoying the fact that he wasn’t the only one who could be annoyed so easily. He then knelt and carefully picked up the piece of coal. It was heavier than it should have been. He put it to his nose and inhaled deeply.
“It ain’t coal,” he declared with a sigh. He knew what it was, though. He was all too familiar with it. “You ever heard of the Sultana?”
Rose frowned and shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t believe so. Should I have?”
“Might be before your time,” Flynn said as he looked Rose over. The man probably wasn’t even thirty yet, and the Sultana had met her end nearly twenty years ago. “She was a riverboat, ’bout like this one. Bigger, though. She was built to carry near to three hundred and fifty people.” He stood again and absently stepped away from the spreading pool of blood on the floor. “Towards the end of the war, the Sultana left Memphis carrying about twenty-two hundred women, children, and released Union prisoners of war back North. There was an explosion in the boiler as she sailed upriver. About seventeen hundred people died when she went up in flames, burned to death or drowned in the river ’cause they was too injured to swim.”
“I believe I have heard of her,” Rose said softly, still frowning in confusion. “A tragic story, to be sure, but what’s that got to do with us?”
“Well. I lost my only brother to her that night,” he told the other man grimly. He turned the false piece of coal over in his hand. “I spent a lot of time dwelling on it, until Wash finally pulled me back to my senses. Before that, I heard tell in the saloons of St. Louis of a man who would get drunk and claim he had been responsible for the explosion. Said there was a captain in the Rebel Secret Service who had invented something called a coal shell. I started looking into it, and I found the northern papers had called these coal torpedoes when they reported about them. Seems the Rebs used them a lot there, near the end.”
“Desperate measures.” Rose stepped closer and plucked the bomb from Flynn’s hand, examining it dubiously. “A coal torpedo.”
“It was made kind of like an artillery shell, with a mold made of beeswax from a real piece of coal. The outside of it looked just like coal,” Flynn explained as he pointed to the bomb as evidence. “Then, it was filled with black powder and all they had to do was go to the docks and set it in with the pile of coal being loaded onto a ship. As soon as it was shoveled in the fire, it’d catch and blow the boiler.”
Rose chewed on his lip thoughtfully and weighed the bomb in his hand. “Doesn’t sound easy for your average man to make,” he finally murmured doubtfully. “Means they went to a lot of trouble to procure this thing.”
“Makes me think your government man theory is getting more likely.”
“Why not just use dynamite?” Rose asked.
“They meant for this to be slipped into the coal and have it take down the ship after they’d hightailed it out of here, after the crew thought it was safe. They get the loot with nobody the wiser; people’d just think it went down with the rest of the ship in a plain ol’ boiler explosion.”
“A fair plan,” Rose said with what may have been admiration. “But if that’s the case, then why have all the passengers been rounded up?”
“Plan changed?” Flynn suggested.
“Yes. I wonder what made them change it?”
“Well, we know it weren’t us,” Flynn said with a shrug. “We weren’t even supposed to be on this boat, remember?”
Rose looked up and met his eyes, nodding almost imperceptibly as he bounced the coal torpedo in his hand. Flynn could practically see his mind working behind his dark eyes, and he found himself oddly eager to hear what Rose was thinking.
“I don’t see a way around a showdown at high noon, do you?” Rose finally said in a troubled voice.
Flynn shook his head solemnly. “I don’t like being in the dark when I’m up against something. And so far dark’s all we’ve got.”
Rose nodded. “Our only advantage is that they know that.”
“How’s that?”
“Whoever’s in charge is smart,” Rose explained, holding up the coal torpedo as evidence. “Whether it’s Stringer or someone else, we have to assume he’s already trying to decide what our next move will be. He knows we can try to sabotage their route of escape, but that still leaves us outgunned with a boat full of hijackers and hostages.”
“All right, I follow.”
“They know we have no other options but to confront them, in the end,” Rose said regretfully. “We just need to figure out how to use that against them.”
Flynn nodded but remained silent.
“Any ideas?” Rose asked hopefully.
Flynn stared at him, his mind churning with suggestions that would get them badly maimed or killed in a hail of gunfire. After a moment, he pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nope.”
“Yeah, me either,” Rose muttered as he looked back down at the coal torpedo in consternation.
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“Got any more earthquakes up your sleeve?” Flynn asked wryly.
Rose shook his head dejectedly. “But New Madrid is said to sit on a fault line.”
“A what now?”
“A fault line, Marshal. Where the earth clashes like Titans under the ground and causes such upheavals,” Rose explained. He was smiling sadly as he said it, but as Flynn watched him the smile fell and his eyes lit up. “We need an earthquake.”
“Thought you said you didn’t carry those around in your pocket.”
Rose pushed the coal torpedo against Flynn’s chest and patted his shoulder. “I do now.”
Cage sat bolt upright as the night was rent by a small explosion somewhere near the prow of the ship. Before he could move to stand, Stringer was beside him with a gun in his ear, telling him to get back down on his belly.
Cage did so slowly, putting both hands out in front of him and sliding them across the soft Oriental rug as he laid out. For the first time, Stringer appeared truly concerned. He either hadn’t expected the explosion, or it wasn’t supposed to have happened yet.
Stringer and several of his men held their breath, waiting and listening, all of them tense like they were ready to flee. When nothing more came of the explosion, they relaxed, shoulders slumping. Whatever they had been expecting to happen obviously hadn’t. That meant whatever was coming was big.
Cage searched out Wash to find the man watching him, a frown set on his handsome face and his green eyes deeply troubled. Cage just shook his head helplessly. He had no idea what was going on.
“Go find out what it was,” Stringer told one of his men. The man hesitated. Stringer narrowed his eyes. “You ain’t gonna tell me you’re afraid of him, are you?”
The unfortunate lackey swallowed hard. “Ain’t many come back after checking. Maybe we should—”
Stringer raised his gun and fired before the man could finish. There were muffled screams and whimpers from the onlookers as the man’s body hit the deck.
Stringer swung his gun around to aim at one of the others in the salon. “Go check on it.”
The man scurried off obediently.
“Dusty Rose,” Stringer murmured through gritted teeth. He turned to stare at Cage, who met his eyes from where he still lay on the ground. Stringer sneered at him, and Cage let himself smile slowly.
“What the hell are you doing?” Flynn shouted as they stood at the railing, both of them drenched from the spout of water the exploding coal bomb had produced when Rose had thrown it overboard into the hijacker’s dinghy.
“You said we needed to hobble their other boat.”
“I didn’t mean blow it up!”
“You should be more clear,” Rose said before he took off his hat and waved it around, throwing droplets of water.
Flynn swatted at the water and then reached out to grab Rose by his lapels, pulling him until they were nose to nose. He grumbled unintelligibly for a moment before taking a deep breath to regain control over his temper, then slowly released Rose without yelling or throttling him like he wanted to.
“Nicely done, Marshal,” Rose said tightly. He smoothed out his shirt and drew one of his guns, checking it to make certain it was fully loaded. Then he gave Flynn a cheerful smile. “Let’s see who comes to investigate, shall we?”
“If you live through this whole thing, I’m gonna kill you myself,” Flynn grumbled.
“I look forward to the attempt.” Rose plopped his hat back on his head. They could hear footsteps coming closer, booted feet on the deck trying to be quiet. Rose inclined his head, pushed the hat forward, and gave Flynn a rakish grin. “Let’s dance,” he said with relish as he drew the other gun and cocked them both.
More shouts sounded from outside the salon as Stringer yanked Cage to his feet. Cage doubled over and held his hand to his cracked ribs with a pained groan, playing it up a little in hopes that Stringer would drop his guard.
A man jogged into the room and waved a hand wildly behind him. “He got to the boiler room too,” he gasped. “Blowed up one of our boats! What do we do now, Cap?”
Stringer placed the barrel of his gun against Cage’s temple and pulled the hammer back with a growl.
“Let’s go talk to the man,” he said in a low, dangerous voice as he dragged Cage toward the doors to the salon.
All of the passengers were tied up, and Stringer’s men stood by, restless and anxious. The thought of Dusty Rose and a US Marshal out there playing Indian in the Grass was making them all very nervous. It was a perfect disaster waiting to happen, and they all knew it.
Cage glanced over at Stringer as the man hauled him toward the door, his head turning against the cold barrel of the gun. He met Stringer’s eyes warningly, and Stringer growled.
“I know they’re tetchy,” he snarled to Cage in response. “You just settle this feller of yours down and no one’ll get hurt.”
Stringer pulled Cage by his elbow, holding the cocked gun to his head, and they stepped out of the main cabin, into the soupy fog together. Two of Stringer’s men dragged Wash behind them.
“Rose!” Stringer bellowed into the chilly night. The sound didn’t seem to carry very far, smothered by the fog and muffled by the lapping of the water and the giant paddle wheel. Stringer eyed all the possible angles of approach, but Cage knew he was missing some. Gabriel would find the holes.
They were under the cover of the upper observation deck, and therefore it would have been nearly impossible to ambush them from above. Gabriel would have to hang upside down from his toes to fire at them from up there, and Cage just didn’t think the man had that in him. Although, Cage wasn’t going to underestimate Gabriel’s penchant for the dramatic. He wouldn’t put it past him to hang from the ceiling or ride the paddle wheel up from the water to get a shot off, no matter how difficult the feat might be.
The thick fog, on the other hand, made sneaking up on them from the main level all the easier.
Stringer shouted again, trying to make himself heard. “Dusty Rose! I got your man down here!”
Cage glanced around the ship’s deck and swallowed heavily. Despite the muffling fog, he could hear the creak of the wooden ship in the moisture of the night; it sounded like soft footsteps. He could also hear the water rushing past the riverboat and the heavy turn of the paddle wheels as they churned ever on, like the paddles of a skiff sneaking up on them. The noises played tricks in the night. It was making him tense and he wasn’t even the one being stalked. He knew Stringer was on a hair trigger, and that trigger was aimed at his head.
All else was silent as Stringer and his men waited for some sort of response. They would get more and more on edge, until someone finally went off half-cocked and started shooting shadows. Someone was going to die out here tonight, of that much Cage was certain. Maybe a lot of someones.
Even as Cage’s mind raced to think of how Gabriel and Flynn might approach them, he was fighting the instinctive urge to give orders to intercept their attack. He’d never been able to speak, but natural born leaders didn’t have to speak to have their orders followed. Someone should be watching the stairs, and someone should be watching the sides of the ship where it would be possible to climb or jump. He tried to tell himself it was because he didn’t want Gabriel walking into this minefield for him, but he couldn’t fool himself. Cage had helped to lead a band of outlaws for too long. He would never outrun the habits.
Would it spare all these lives if he just gave in and went back with Stringer and the Scouts? Cage closed his eyes in determination. No, it wouldn’t. All that left him was being a man with the pedigree of an outlaw and not a single way left to redeem himself.
He had to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands to keep himself from motioning Stringer to send men to the stairs.
“Come on down here, Rose!” Stringer shouted after long moments of tense silence. “I’ll cut you a deal for him!”
Cage shook his head minutely and rolled his eyes back and forth, trying to see the pe
riphery of the deck as Stringer’s grip around his neck tightened and immobilized him. He was starting to get light-headed. His fingers dug into Stringer’s arm.
“You even know who he is, Rose?” Stringer shouted as he pulled Cage farther out from under the cover of the awnings, and peered up at the upper decks of the ship.
There was a scuff, like a boot heel on wood, from above.
Stringer tensed and then laughed breathily. “We are the Border Scouts! I know you done heard of us!” he shouted at the landing above. “And this is Whistling Jack Kale!”
Cage struggled with him and shook his head desperately, hoping Gabriel was watching them from somewhere above.
“Don’t let him lie to you, boy!” Stringer continued as he held Cage tighter and laughed. He pressed the gun harder against Cage’s temple. “Those eyes of his don’t lie! He’s a killer! If you ever looked at him too close for too long, I know you saw it!”
Cage held his breath, listening. Stringer was right. Gabriel had looked into his eyes after he’d shot that man and had seen something there. Cage had wondered, at the time, what it was. Now he knew; Gabriel had recognized him for what he was in that moment, he was sure of it. But then he had kissed him. Cage hoped what he was didn’t matter to Gabriel. The man wasn’t exactly a saint.
After a moment of silence, there was another scuffling sound from above and then far down the upper deck, the sound of light steps running on the deck reached them through the fog. Stringer raised his gun and followed the sound, but was unable to see anything worth firing at. Cage briefly entertained the idea of trying to get free, but Stringer put the barrel of the gun back to his temple before he could follow through.
