According to Hoyle

by Abigail Roux

  Then more people poured out of the doors, some of them wearing nightshirts and in their bare feet, others dressed as if for a late dinner, all terrified and oblivious to any danger as they hurtled past the marshals and their guns. Wash held his fire and began shouting for them to go back into the salon; they were safer inside, not in the midst of a gunfight. He may as well have been reasoning with a herd of buffalo, for all Flynn could see.

  Several of the hijackers used the cover of their escaping prisoners to scuttle away. Flynn cursed inwardly and opened fire, aiming for those few men who were fully dressed, armed, and dusty. They headed out the doors and for the railing, leaping over it into the raging Mississippi. Flynn thought it was suicide to jump. Now that the steamer had stopped moving, the rushing water of the river was even more treacherous than it had been. A man would be swept away in the strong current and never so much as get his head above water before he drowned or was slammed into something hard enough to crack his head open. That, or when they leaped over the edge they would land on the same thing the steamer had snagged on and break every bone in their bodies.

  Two more of the men dropped to the floor under their fire, one rolling in pain and the other motionless and bleeding. The rest began firing back as they tried to make their escape, heedless of any innocent bystanders whom they hit. Puffs of thick, choking gunpowder began to obscure the scene even as the moonlight diffused through the fog and gave it an eerie blue backlight.

  They were all firing at sound now, rather than at men. Anyone dumb enough to still be standing would be shot. Flynn knelt behind the upturned table to reload and out of the corner of his eye caught sight of a figure behind them, running through the main cabin from the direction of the aft berths. Flynn whirled and fired. The man fell backward to the floor amidst a jumble of disturbed furniture as Flynn belatedly realized he may have just shot Rose as he ran back from the wheelhouse. Then again, it could also have been the man Rose had gone and failed to kill . . .

  It was with mixed relief and dread that he saw the figure rise once more and begin limping toward them. He kept his gun trained warily on the man until he spoke.

  “Don’t shoot me again, you blasted Yank!” Rose shouted through the gunfire as two more wounded men managed to leap over the side of the ship and escape a bullet.

  Rose slumped behind another overturned table, his back to it, legs splayed in front of him, obviously hurt. Still, he was attempting to cover the only other route of escape for the men trapped in the salon. Flynn was reloading as Rose fired off five rapid shots that dropped the two last men trying to make a break for it. The passengers had all fled. Stringer’s men were all either gone or dead or dying. The movement seemed to come to a standstill with all the suddenness that had begun it. Flynn held his breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop as the smoke and fog swirled angrily.

  Gradually, an unusually large shadow materialized out of the cloud of gun smoke, silhouetted by the light from within the salon. Flynn and Wash both watched from behind their protective table, vibrating with tension.

  “Nice shooting,” the shadow called out to them. The smoke from the guns and the fog from without swirled in the light of the salon, dissipating quickly as the wind off the river kicked up.

  Flynn licked his lips and shifted restlessly. As the distorted shadow grew larger, it became obvious that it was, in fact, two men. Cage was barely standing under his own power. Wash had said the man had been sorely mistreated, and it looked like he was weakening from his injuries. He was certainly in no shape to assist them.

  “Stringer!” Wash called out. “You can’t win this fight!”

  “We’ll just see about that. Unless you aim to see Micajah’s blood on this deck, you’re going to let me pass!”

  “You don’t think I can shoot you between the eyes before you take a step?” Rose murmured in the gloom, his voice carrying eerily through the darkness and fog.

  Flynn found himself shivering.

  Stringer moved, pulling Cage to face where Rose was crouched. He obviously thought Rose the greater threat. Flynn heartily agreed.

  “Cage!” Rose called, voice rough.

  Cage jerked in response, but the larger man held him firmly, using him as a shield with his gun held to the underside of Cage’s jaw.

  “I’ll kill him,” Stringer said, though Flynn thought the man’s voice wavered with the threat.

  Rose answered with the very distinct sound of the hammer on his gun being pulled back.

  Stringer lowered his head until he was peering around Cage, completely hidden unless Rose chose to shoot through the very man he claimed to care so much about. Neither Flynn nor Wash had a clear shot. Stringer knew where they were and he knew how to stay out of their line of fire. He was certainly no greenhorn.

  Even though their numbers favored them, Flynn couldn’t help but feel like they still held the disadvantage. There was no expecting help from inside. All the passengers who could escape had already done so, and none of them had chosen to stick around and aid in their salvation.

  Suddenly, Rose removed himself from the darkness where he had taken cover. He stood and faced Stringer, lowering his head as he very deliberately eased the hammer down on his gun and slid it into his belt. The challenge was painfully clear. Flynn and Wash watched in morbid fascination, unable to do anything other than stare as the first rays of the sun’s light began to stretch across the deck.

  Cage held out his hand pleadingly to Rose, shaking his head. Flynn uncharitably wondered which man he was trying to protect. Stringer was careful not to allow him too much freedom of movement, obviously not trusting him any more than Rose did at this point. Stringer’s grip on his gun tightened, but he still had it aimed at Cage’s head rather than at Rose. He moved sideways, out the door and onto the deck. Rose stood stock-still as he watched and waited, his head down and his stolen hat throwing his dark eyes into even further shadow. He moved deliberately, following them outside. Flynn and Wash crept along after them.

  “What are you waiting for, Stringer? Noon?” Rose finally asked with a maddeningly cocky smirk when he had reached the doorway.

  Stringer moved, shoving Cage out of the way almost as if he was afraid the man would be caught in the crossfire, and he lifted his gun and took aim. Rose drew his weapon, the motion so fast and smooth that Flynn wondered if he had somehow been holding the gun in his hand all along. He fired from his hip at almost the same moment that Stringer pulled his trigger. The guns went off with resounding simultaneous blasts, echoing each other in the heavy air of the dawn.

  Flynn knew that the advantage in a draw was not, as most people thought, who drew the fastest. Fast helped, of course, but you had to aim too or you were a dead man. Stringer and Rose both obviously knew that. Neither would have lived so long west of the Mississippi if they didn’t.

  The two men stumbled back from the showdown, both of them hit and bleeding but still very much alive.

  Flynn stood and aimed his gun, but Wash stopped him just as Cage moved into his line of fire and tackled Stringer to the ground. They slid across the tilting deck of the boat toward the doors and grappled as Rose fell to his knees, stunned and bloody. Flynn could see two blood trails on his body in the diffused dawn light filtering through the skylights and the doors, one at his side as if the bullet had grazed his ribs, and one at his thigh. Flynn knew he himself had hit Rose once. He wondered which shot had been his, and which had taken Rose down this time.

  As Flynn watched him, Rose kept his eyes on Cage and Stringer and raised his gun again. “Cage,” he shouted in warning.

  Cage turned his shoulders, abandoning the punch he had been about to land, inadvertently shielding Stringer as the man rolled to his knees and brought his own gun up. Rose hesitated even as Stringer took aim, then he jerked his gun and quickly fired two shots, missing Stringer and hitting the gas lamp hanging from a hook near the ship’s hull. Sparks flew as the bullets glanced off the metal lantern and splashed the hot oil inside, and both Stri
nger and Cage flinched away from them. Rose lunged to his feet and held his gun in both hands, limping closer to the two men, who were both on the ground now that Rose had stolen the advantage.

  “Dust the iron,” he ordered in a strained voice.

  Stringer glared at him, still on his back from taking cover on the deck. Flynn finally forced himself to move. He and Wash both stood, circling around the man and covering him from all angles.

  Stringer looked around at them all mutinously, but then very slowly set his gun on the ground. Cage was on his knees next to him, one hand pressed to his ribs as he hung his head either in pain or defeat. Rose edged closer, his wary eyes on Stringer as he knelt next to Cage and placed a hand on his head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, so softly that Flynn barely heard it.

  Cage peered up at him and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed. The hard lines of Rose’s face seemed to soften, and he ran his hand through Cage’s hair and knelt to whisper something in his ear.

  Flynn’s eyes were drawn to the sight. He never saw Stringer move. Wash did, but not in time to do anything aside from shout out a warning and raise his gun.

  Stringer lunged at Rose and Cage with a large knife drawn. It flashed wickedly in the dawn light as he brought it down toward Rose’s back. Cage’s arm shot out to block the blow, catching Stringer’s wrist between his forearms and twisting it away from Rose as Rose reeled to the side. Cage lunged to his feet, Stringer’s arm still in his grasp, and they wrapped around each other as they fought for control.

  The knife plunged into Stringer’s ribcage as the two men stayed locked in the violent embrace. Cage didn’t seem at all shocked or regretful as the knife slid home, but Stringer certainly did. Cage let him go, and he staggered backward, toward the railing of the ship.

  He looked down at the knife Cage had shoved into him, then up at Cage with a mixture of rage and confusion. He lurched sideways, then wrapped his arm around Rose’s neck, and threw himself backward. Rose kicked his feet out, pulling on the arm that held him and struggling to get away as Stringer used his larger body mass to send them both over the railing. The two men seemed to hang suspended in the air for a moment as Rose kicked and struggled against the pull. His hands closed around Stringer’s forearm at his neck, but with one last gasping breath, both men went tumbling into the darkness and swirling fog.

  A splash below into the rushing waters of the Mississippi was all that signaled their passing.

  The sun was rising toward its zenith by the time the steamer was tugged off the sandbar. The workers had been forced to bank much of the cargo, taking it to shore in order to lighten the ship enough to be able to pull it off the sandbar. Manpower was scarce, and the riverboat captain in charge decided that there was no need to post a guard on the riverbank. There was nothing left of value there anyway, and no one left to try to steal it.

  Once the ship was free of the sandbar, all those boxes of fake gold were loaded back on her, along with the bags and sacks of sugar, cotton, and tobacco, and they were under way.

  Bodies were lined up in the salon and covered with rough canvas as the boat limped toward port in New Madrid, Missouri. Several lawmen boarded the steamer after it began heading back up the river, including an aide from the territorial Supreme Court Justice.

  “We received your telegram, Marshal Flynn,” the aide told Flynn when he boarded just north of where they had gone to ground.

  “What telegram?” Flynn asked.

  The man produced a folded yellow piece of paper, and Flynn looked it over. It warned of an impending hijack and begged the local authorities to meet the riverboat at New Madrid to give aid. There was no name on it. How the hell had they known the boat would be stopped at New Madrid?

  “I didn’t send this,” Flynn said as he handed it back.

  “If you didn’t, Marshal, then who did?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you, son.”

  The confused aide nodded, then thanked the marshals for all they had done aboard the ship that night and wandered away to join the investigators who were questioning the other passengers.

  “You think it was Stringer who sent it?” Wash whispered just as soon as they were alone again.

  “Can’t imagine who else it would be,” Flynn said with a frown.

  “Why would Stringer warn anyone about what he was about to do? And how in the hell could he know we’d go aground near New Madrid? No way he could’ve known we’d be tugged here.”

  “Why did he do anything he did?” Flynn asked with a shrug. “He hijacked a steamer full of fake gold and did nothing but herd people back and forth and get bunches of folks killed. I’m not going to waste my brain on figuring it out. He’s gone. He took a good man with him. I’m going to leave it there.”

  Wash nodded, but he looked troubled as Flynn turned away.

  There was a lot of preening and huffing as the various and sundry law officers tried to reckon who should be in charge, and Flynn and Wash sat idly by and watched until someone decided to hear from them what had happened.

  They both told their stories, as did many of the ship’s officers and the passengers who had been rounded up. The authorities were still trying to decide what to do about the incident when the port of New Madrid came into view.

  Wash and Flynn stood side by side, watching as the port grew larger. They were silent, unable to think of anything more worth saying after the events of the previous night. Even the elation of the few small kisses they had shared and the promise the future held for them now could not cut through the overwhelming sorrow of the loss of a man neither of them had known they even liked. Gabriel Rose had proved himself in the end, and Flynn was sorry to see him go the way he had.

  Cage sat alone, his head hanging and his eyes closed. To Flynn, he seemed even more silent than usual, drowning in sorrow and pain. His wounds had been tended and his bruised ribs had been wrapped tight, so that even if he had wanted to slump as he sat, he would not have been able to do so.

  They had searched the river as best they could that night, calling out for any hint of life from the rushing water below. But no sign of Gabriel Rose or Bat Stringer had been found. They had simply disappeared, like so many before them, into the muddy water of the Mississippi.

  “Gentlemen,” the Justice’s aide said as they stood at the railing.

  Flynn and Wash both turned to face him, greeting him solemnly.

  “It has been determined that this was not an escape attempt on the part of your prisoner.”

  Wash and Flynn stared at him. Flynn fought hard not to scoff at the man, and even harder not to hit him. A day ago, he probably would have thought the same thing. Rose had tried to escape several times and in creative ways. But, at the end, he had stuck with them. He had given his life to save innocent people, even if his reasons had been selfish. That had to stand for something. The measure of a man was when he did the right thing even if no one was watching.

  “We have also taken into consideration your suggestions,” the aide continued officiously, “and both your prisoners will receive a full pardon for their heroic efforts.”

  A weight seemed to lift off Flynn’s chest, and he nodded gratefully. A posthumous pardon for Gabriel Rose wouldn’t do the man much good. It would probably even have irked him, Flynn mused fondly. But for Cage, a pardon would mean everything. Wash turned away from the aide and went to join Cage where he sat. He knelt in front of the silent man, unlocking his irons and telling him the news.

  Cage nodded woodenly and looked over at Flynn, his eyes sad and lost. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and extracted a small, shiny object and handed it to Wash. Flynn realized it was Wash’s badge, hidden away and saved from the hijackers. The gesture both warmed his heart and made him inexplicably ache all over.

  They had told whoever would listen what Cage had done, trying to prevent anyone from being hurt and taking most of the punishment on himself. Flynn knew he would never really learn what had happened or what the tru
th behind the whole matter was. Cage was the only one who knew, and he couldn’t tell them. Or wouldn’t tell them.

  They had neglected to mention that they’d actually had the man known as Whistling Jack Kale in their possession all this time. It turned out that Cage, aka Jack Kale, was considered dead and gone by most, and therefore was now one of the lesser wanted fugitive outlaws in the territories. There wasn’t all that high a price on his head. Ratting him out wouldn’t have done any of the passengers much good, but Flynn had still expected someone to talk. To Flynn’s eternal surprise, not one of the passengers on board had mentioned who Cage really was. Whether they just hadn’t believed Stringer or were willing to leave Cage be in exchange for what he’d done for them, Flynn couldn’t guess. Mostly he figured keeping quiet about it was just the way of the West.

  “Well, son, you had me fooled,” Flynn said as he sat down beside Cage. The man gave him a wary look, his brow furrowing. Flynn smiled kindly at him. “I thought you were nothing but a broke horse when we picked you up. Whistling Jack Kale. Goddamn, son.”

  “Language,” Wash said.

  Cage smiled wanly and shrugged.

  “I got one question for you,” Flynn said to Cage. He waited until Cage nodded in agreement. “How in the hell do you go from riding with a posse like the Border Scouts to burning blankets in an Army fort?”

  Cage was still frowning as he dug in his shirt pocket for the little pad of paper they’d purchased him. He scrawled a single word across it in neat letters.

  Atonement.

  Flynn stared at the word for a long time, until Cage finally closed the leather cover and slid the pad back into his shirt. Wash put a hand on Cage’s shoulder and gave him a pat.