Rope Burn

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “I’m certain the post surgeon could manage to do without your services for one day.”

  “I don’t know. He has several patients, men who were wounded in that battle with the Apaches the other day. Have you heard about that?”

  “I have,” Howden-Smyth said. “Lieutenant Olsen sent word to me about it. He also assured me that it wouldn’t slow down construction on the road.”

  “Well, I’d hate to leave Lieutenant Driscoll on his own . . .”

  “I’ll speak to the lieutenant,” Howden-Smyth said briskly. “As for your father and your, ah, visit to your mother’s resting place, perhaps you could do that early enough in the morning that I could pick you up later and we’d still get back to the mine in time for dinner.”

  “I don’t know . . . all the way to the mine and back over those rough trails . . .”

  “It is an arduous journey at times. It will be much better once that road the army is building is finished. Perhaps you’d be interested in seeing how the work is progressing along the way.”

  He wasn’t going to give up, Evelyn thought. She would have to be blunt with him, perhaps even hurt his feelings . . .

  The door opened and her father came in, followed by Lieutenant Frank Olsen. “There you are, Eugene,” Major Sughrue said. “Frank told me you were visiting the fort today.”

  “I would have been by to pay my respects shortly, Major,” Howden-Smyth responded. “I was just inviting your daughter on a bit of an outing first. I’d like for her to come up to the mine with me on Sunday so she can have a look at it—she’s never been there, you know—and then have dinner with me.”

  “Well, that sounds like an excellent idea,” Sughrue said with a nod. He looked at Evelyn. “We’ll go out and put flowers on your mother’s grave early enough that it won’t interfere with your plans, my dear.”

  Evelyn kept smiling and bit back a frustrated response. She saw the hastily concealed smirk on Olsen’s face and knew the lieutenant had somehow gotten in her father’s ear about this, too. Hardly anything went on at Fort Gila without Frank Olsen pulling the strings. And Olsen and Howden-Smyth worked together closely enough the lieutenant probably knew what had really brought the Englishman here today.

  Frank Olsen was perfectly willing to push her into Howden-Smyth’s arms if doing so would make their partnership run more smoothly. And Howden-Smyth, the oily scoundrel, was perfectly capable of demanding such a thing.

  Howden-Smyth turned back to Evelyn and said, “Since your father has no objection . . .”

  He let the words trail off and gave her a hopeful smile.

  She was beaten, and she knew it.

  She remembered how, not long after she and her mother and father had come here to Fort Gila, one of the soldiers had discovered a den of rattlesnakes in the rocks not far from the fort. Evelyn hadn’t seen the creatures herself, but she had heard the men talking about them, how the coils of their scaly bodies had looped and entwined with each other as the ominous buzzing from their tails filled the air and their little tongues flicked in and out of their mouths as they readied themselves to strike. The description had been vivid and disturbing enough that nightmares about snakes had cropped up frequently in Evelyn’s dreams for days afterward.

  She felt now as if she were about to step into a similar den of serpents, but she forced herself to nod and say, “Of course I’ll accept your invitation, Mr. Howden-Smyth.”

  “Eugene,” he prompted her.

  “Eugene,” she said, and in the back of her mind she seemed to hear that rattling . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They had been here for more than a week now, Ace reminded himself on Saturday as he and Chance toted large but manageable chunks of rock to the side of the new road and tossed them out of the trail. In a way, it was hard to believe that that many days had passed.

  At the same time, it seemed as if they had been in this predicament forever, either locked up in the guardhouse at Fort Gila or out here sweltering in the hot sun and busting up rocks at gunpoint.

  Chance paused to sleeve sweat from his forehead. “I’m glad tomorrow’s Sunday,” he said. “Another day of this and I’d be ready to make a break for it just so they’d shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

  “Don’t feel like that,” Ace said. “We’ll come up with a way to get out of here sooner or later.”

  “If it’s much later, Ace . . . it’s going to be too late.”

  Ace hated to admit it, but his brother was right. Their bodies were young and still strong, and they were getting enough to eat, so they weren’t growing weaker at this point. The work had just hardened them that much more.

  However, it was the condition of their minds that was worrisome, not that of their bodies. Much more of this and they would give up, Ace knew. The last vestiges of hope would evaporate, soaked up by despair like the thirsty desert sands sucked up water. Once that happened, they would continue to labor on mindlessly until the inevitable physical breakdown began.

  And once they were no longer able to work—well, if they didn’t simply drop dead while swinging a pick or shovel, Ace wouldn’t put it past Frank Olsen to put bullets in their heads just to get rid of two mouths to feed. Those lost graves in the desert beckoned them...

  A sudden screech of pain, followed by an outburst of vehement cursing, broke into Ace’s bleak reverie.

  He looked around and saw one of the prisoners hopping back and forth on one foot and trying to clutch the other foot he had lifted into the air. Curses poured out of the man’s mouth. Nearby, MacDonald stood staring at the man and asked, “What in blazes did you do, Brunner?”

  The man took one hand off his obviously injured foot and waved at a chunk of rock a little bigger than a man’s head. An incoherent babble came out of his mouth. He lost his balance and sat down hard on the ground, which set off a new round of yelling and cursing.

  “I think he must have dropped that rock on his foot,” Chance said to Ace.

  “Yeah, and a rock that size weighs enough it could have done some damage.”

  “And hurt like blazes,” Chance added.

  More men were gathering around Brunner now. He was one of MacDonald’s cronies, Ace recalled, and the sergeant was one of those who congregated. The commotion drew the attention of several guards, who bustled up brandishing their rifles.

  “Break it up, break it up,” one of the troopers ordered. “What happened here?”

  Brunner was finally able to say something besides curses. “I broke my foot!” he yelled.

  “Your foot ain’t broke,” the guard scoffed. “What’d you do, drop a rock on it?”

  “That’s exactly what he did,” MacDonald said. He pointed. “And that’s it right there. It’s big enough he sure might’ve broke his foot with it.”

  The guard frowned and looked at the other troopers who had come up with him. One of them shrugged and said, “Well, don’t look at me like I can tell you what to do. How should I know? Want me to go get Parnell?”

  Corporal Parnell had taken over the guard detail again after a few days of being relieved from that task. He was already on his way, having noticed the other soldiers clustered together.

  “Stand back,” Parnell ordered as he came up to the group. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brunner broke his foot,” MacDonald said.

  “Dropped that big rock on it,” Brunner added through teeth gritted against the pain.

  “Let’s have a look,” Parnell said. “Get your boot off.”

  “I . . . I don’t know if I can.”

  “Then get up and get back to work,” Parnell said without any sympathy in his voice.

  “Hang on, hang on,” Brunner muttered. He began trying to tug his boot off, grimacing in pain as he did so.

  “Hurry up,” Parnell snapped.

  MacDonald dropped to a knee beside Brunner and said, “Lemme give you a hand.” He caught hold of Brunner’s boot and hauled on it. Brunner howled as the boot came off.

&nb
sp; “What’re you doin’?” he yelled at MacDonald. “Are you loco?”

  MacDonald dropped the boot on the ground and spread his hands. “I’m just tryin’ to help.”

  “Move back, MacDonald,” Parnell said. He handed his rifle to one of the other guards. “Brunner, let me see that foot.”

  He knelt beside Brunner and took the man’s ankle in one hand while he looked at the injured member. From where Ace stood, he could see what looked like a bloodstain on Brunner’s sock.

  “Take the sock off,” Parnell said.

  Gingerly, Brunner did so, revealing a pale foot that had a cut on the top of it and was starting to show some bruising.

  “Yeah, you hurt it, all right, but I don’t think it’s broken,” Parnell said.

  MacDonald leaned over them and said, “Looks like it to me. See how it’s swellin’ there?”

  He reached down and poked a finger hard against Brunner’s foot. Brunner howled again and flopped over backward.

  “Get that crazy man away from me!”

  “Blast it, MacDonald, step back and stay there!” Parnell said. He put Brunner’s foot back on the ground. “All right, get some of your friends to help you and you can go sit in the back of one of the wagons.”

  “You’d better send me back to the fort so the surgeon can take a look at it—”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Parnell interrupted. “Lieutenant Driscoll can look at it then. Just be glad I’m not making you keep working, Brunner.”

  He straightened, shook his head, took his rifle back, and walked away. Brunner left his boot and sock off while MacDonald and another member of the work detail took hold of his arms and hauled him upright. With them helping him, he hobbled toward the wagons, not putting any weight on the injured foot.

  “Lucky son of a gun,” Chance muttered.

  “Lucky how?” Ace asked. “His foot may be broken.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t have to work the rest of the day. And if it really is broken, he probably won’t have to work next week, either.”

  “And then it’ll heal up and he’ll be right back where he started.”

  Chance shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Before they could say anything else, one of the guards told all the prisoners to get back to work.

  * * *

  Brunner complained most of the way back to Fort Gila, until Parnell threatened to make him walk the rest of the way, broken foot or no broken foot, or else sit down and wait until the Apaches found him. Brunner shut up after that, although he still wore a surly frown on his face.

  When they got to the fort, MacDonald suggested, “Why don’t you go ahead and take the poor fella to see the doc, Corporal?”

  “He can wait for the usual chance to see Lieutenant Driscoll tomorrow morning, like everybody else,” Parnell said. “Anyway, by then the swelling probably will have gone down some, and the lieutenant can tell better just how bad the foot’s really hurt.”

  “If you say so,” Brunner responded through gritted teeth.

  “That’s how it’s gonna be. Some of you men help him into the guardhouse now. Supper will be along after a while.”

  Brunner complained constantly, but at least he kept it at a fairly low volume, and Ace and Chance were able to ignore it for the most part. The injured man finally subsided and went to sleep after he had eaten his supper. Most of the other prisoners dozed off as well, and the sound of snoring filled the guardhouse.

  Ace didn’t doze off right away. Something nagged at his brain, just enough to keep him awake, but whatever the stray thought was, he couldn’t grasp it well enough to pull it out into the open where he could take a look at it.

  Beside him, Chance’s deep, regular breathing indicated that he was asleep. Ace lay there on the hard-packed dirt, staring into the darkness as he waited for slumber to come to him, too.

  Because he was awake, he heard two of the prisoners whispering, even though he couldn’t make out the words. Whatever they were talking about, it wasn’t any of his business, he told himself.

  But then he recognized Vince MacDonald’s harsh rumble, even though the noncom was trying to keep it down. The other voice, Ace thought, belonged to Brunner, who was awake again. That stirred Ace’s interest. Some instinct prompted him to want to know what they were talking about.

  Moving so slowly that he didn’t make any noise, he eased across the ground toward the two men. He was careful not to bump into any of the sleeping prisoners, because that would probably wake them up and cause a commotion, and then MacDonald and Brunner would stop talking.

  Ace began picking up a few words. “. . . didn’t have to . . . so hard . . . hurt like . . .”

  Those bits and pieces came from Brunner. MacDonald’s response came equally sporadically to Ace’s ears.

  “. . . make it look bad . . . not really that bad . . . infirmary . . . only chance . . .”

  Ace stopped where he was, rather than trying to get closer. He had heard enough to piece together an idea. Brunner’s tone sounded peevish and angry, as if MacDonald had done something he didn’t like. The biggest thing that had happened to Brunner today—or any other day recently, for that matter—was dropping that rock on his foot and hurting himself.

  What if he hadn’t hurt himself? That question formed abruptly in Ace’s mind. What if Brunner hadn’t dropped the rock at all? MacDonald had been close to him. MacDonald could have done it—and it might not have been an accident, either.

  A few days earlier, MacDonald had indicated to Ace and Chance that he and his friends wouldn’t wait long before making another escape attempt. He had also hinted that such an attempt would take place here at the fort, not out in the foothills where the road was being built.

  Maybe the plan involved the infirmary somehow. One way for MacDonald to get inside there without being injured himself was if he was helping someone else who was hurt. Maybe he had in mind taking Lieutenant Driscoll as a hostage . . .

  Or Evelyn Sughrue. Sometimes she helped the lieutenant in the infirmary.

  Ace’s breath caught in his throat as that thought came to him. His heart began slugging harder in his chest. MacDonald might believe that Major Sughrue and Lieutenant Olsen wouldn’t come after him and his friends if Evelyn’s life was in their hands. He might well be right about that, too. The major’s continued cooperation was too important to Olsen’s plan to risk letting anything happen to his daughter. He might have to allow MacDonald and whoever threw in with him to escape and hope that they would release Evelyn unharmed later.

  Or Olsen might react entirely differently. Ace didn’t know. He didn’t know if this wild theory he had sketched together had any truth to it—even though his gut told him that he was right to suspect that Brunner’s injury was part of Vince MacDonald’s plan.

  He was certain that he didn’t want any harm coming to Evelyn Sughrue, though, and he knew Chance wouldn’t want that, either. As Ace began slipping back to where he had been lying beside his brother, he told himself there was really only one way to make sure nothing happened to Evelyn.

  If MacDonald made his attempt to escape from Fort Gila tomorrow, the Jensen brothers had to be part of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Early the next morning, before the guards showed up with breakfast, Ace got a chance to talk quietly and privately with Chance and tell him what he had overheard the night before.

  Chance frowned and said, “You really think MacDonald busted Brunner’s foot?”

  “I think he could have,” Ace replied. “And I think Brunner knew it was going to happen. MacDonald either persuaded him to go along with the plan, or threatened him into cooperating. Either way, from what I overheard, I don’t think Brunner was expecting it to be quite so bad.”

  “But MacDonald wanted to make it look good,” Chance breathed.

  “Yeah, that’s my theory. He didn’t want to take a chance on Brunner not getting into the infirmary. And when the time comes, I’ll bet a hat MacDonald is the one giving him a h
and to get there.”

  Chance grunted. “No bet. It sounds to me like you’ve figured it out, Ace . . . but what’s the point? What does MacDonald gain out of it?”

  “A hostage, maybe.”

  “Lieutenant Driscoll?”

  “Or worse. Driscoll . . . and Evelyn Sughrue.”

  Chance grimaced. “We can’t let that happen. I hate to think of Miss Sughrue winding up in the hands of a man like that.”

  “I don’t believe he’d hurt her,” Ace said. “She would be too valuable to him as a hostage for that.” He shook his head slightly. “But you can’t ever tell, and I don’t want to run the risk.”

  “Neither do I.” Chance frowned. “Do you think we should tell somebody what we suspect?”

  “Who? Olsen? I don’t think he’d believe us.”

  “Major Sughrue might. I mean, we’re talking about the safety of his daughter.”

  Ace considered that and nodded. “True, but it’s not likely Olsen would ever let us get near enough to have a word with the major in private. Any time Sughrue is out among the men, Olsen is always right beside him, controlling everything he sees and hears. That way he can be sure of keeping the major under his control.”

  Chance rubbed his chin and frowned in thought. “If Sughrue comes around after we’ve eaten, when it’s time for anybody who needs medical attention to go to the infirmary, maybe we could speak up then, instead of trying to tell him in private.” Before Ace could reply, Chance held up a hand and shook his head. “No, that won’t work. MacDonald could just deny the whole thing, and Brunner’s bound to back him up. Then we’d look loco, and we’d give MacDonald one more grudge against us.”

  “I think the only way anybody’s going to believe us is if MacDonald gets caught in the act.”

  “The act of kidnapping Miss Sughrue?” Chance sounded alarmed about that.

  “Or whatever he’s got in mind. But maybe . . . if MacDonald thinks he’s going to get away with it and puts his plan into action, but somebody’s there who’s expecting trouble and can put a stop to it before anybody gets hurt . . .”

  “Somebody like us, you mean?” Chance said.