American Blood

by Jason Manning

  As the two of them rode for Blackwood, snow began to fall. Delgado was oblivious to the cold. He was numb with fear. Fear for Sarah, for she was at the mercy of a man gone mad.

  "He won't be alone," Falconer told him. "I reckon we'll have four or five men to deal with."

  "Who are they?"

  "Backwoodsmen, mostly. Men who've been beholden to the Horan family for years."

  "How could they stoop so low as to do this for Brent Horan?"

  "In one way or another they feel they owe him."

  "Owe him enough to kidnap Sarah? Perhaps to die for him?"

  "We'll find out soon enough," said Falconer.

  2

  They checked their horses where the road emerged from the dark old woods to angle across the cultivated fields toward the big white house. Delgado was inclined to go charging straight in, and when he saw the house, the urge was nearly too strong to resist because he was sure Sarah was in there. In there, with Brent Horan, that dangerous lunatic, and Delgado was afraid of what he might do to her. Or might have already done. He still could scarcely believe Horan had sent his minions to abduct her. After all, that wasn't a very honorable thing to do—something a gentleman would never even contemplate—and Delgado realized he had been relying too much on Horan's carefully nurtured self-image. The facade had crumbled. Horan didn't care anymore. He could let his true self shine because he was dying, and because of the letter printed in the Enquirer, and because he would go to any lengths to destroy Delgado before he died. Which meant there was no telling what he would do.

  But Falconer was wise in the ways of war, and Delgado curbed his impatience and waited while the frontiersman carefully surveyed the house and the approach to it. Delgado didn't see anything moving. The house was dark and seemed lifeless. Not even any smoke came out of the chimney. But Falconer could see things the average man would miss. Of this Delgado was convinced, and he waited, putting his trust, and Sarah's life, in Falconer's capable hands.

  Finally, Falconer drew a deep breath, flexed the tension out of his shoulders, and turned to Delgado. "I knew a man once," he said, "who kidnapped a woman and staked her out to draw his enemies into the open where he could get a shot at them. It worked, too. They rushed out to rescue her, and some of them got killed. That's what this is all about, Del. Horan doesn't want Sarah. Not really. It's you he's after. And here you are."

  "He is accustomed to getting what he wants," said Delgado bitterly. "Had I known he would go this far, I would have accepted his challenge."

  "Now he's got help."

  "So much for honor. How much help do you think he has?"

  "That's the problem. We have no way of knowing in advance."

  "So what do you suggest we do?"

  Falconer was gazing at the house again. "An old Indian trick might work." He told Delgado what he expected of him. "Are you game?"

  Delgado nodded. He was surprised to find himself so calm, and deliberately began to check the loads in his over-and-under derringer.

  "I've got something for you that has a little more sting," said Falconer, and he drew a .36 Colt Paterson from under his capote. It was just like the pistol Langdon Grail had used to such devastating effect in Truchas.

  "Where did you get this?" asked Delgado as he took the revolver.

  "I bought two of them just the other day. One for you, and one for Jeremy." Falconer took a second Colt from under the capote. "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to give this to him."

  "We've evened up the odds," said Delgado with grim satisfaction, testing the balance of the revolver in his hand.

  Falconer gave him a long, solemn look. "Don't go getting yourself killed."

  "You either."

  Falconer smiled and nodded approvingly. "You'll do," he said and with a tap of his heels put the horse under him into motion.

  They rode out of the woods stirrup to stirrup, holding their mounts to a walk, going up the road between the snow-covered fields toward the Horan house. The only sound Delgado heard was the crunch of snow beneath the hooves of the horses. No birds were singing. Thank God, he thought, I don't hear a mockingbird. It was a sound he would always associate with death.

  The distance between the house and the woods was about four hundred yards. It seemed like four hundred miles to Delgado. He watched the darkened windows, but still there was no movement, no evidence that anyone saw them. But someone was bound to be watching. Here I am, Horan, you bastard, he thought. This is what you've wanted all along. Ever since that day on the Sultana. So what's keeping you?

  Three hundred yards. Two hundred. They were halfway to the house, and still nothing, and Delgado began to entertain doubts. Maybe the house was as empty as it looked. Maybe Horan had taken Sarah somewhere else. Maybe, God forbid, he was having his way with her at this very moment, using her the way he used Naomi. Delgado tried to drive the maddening thought from his mind.

  One hundred yards—and then Falconer shouted at him to look out. The mountain man had seen something he had missed, but Delgado didn't waste time looking for it. He steered his horse sharply right while Falconer cut left and kicked the animal into a gallop across the field. The gunshot rolled across the open ground and bounced off the line of trees behind them, echoing in the brittle winter stillness. Delgado bent low in the saddle, knowing Falconer was galloping hard in the opposite direction. More gunfire. Delgado glimpsed blossoms of flame from two of the downstairs windows, but still he had no idea how many men stood between him and Sarah, or even why they would. Not that it mattered anymore. If they tried to stop him from reaching the woman he loved, then he would kill them.

  Suddenly, his horse stumbled and went down, and Delgado thought at first that the animal had been hit. The deep snow softened his fall. He managed to hold onto the Colt Paterson as he rolled and came up on one knee. The horse got up, shook itself and trotted off. Not hit—it had only lost its footing among the furrows of hard frozen ground concealed beneath the snow. Delgado saw Falconer circling his house on the far side, clinging to the side of his pony so that the men in the house had no clear shot at him, and firing the Colt Paterson that had been meant for Jeremy Bledsoe beneath the horse's neck; the Hawken, in its fringed and beaded buckskin sheath, remained tied to his saddle. Delgado caught just a quick look, and then the mountain man disappeared round the house, the snow flying up from beneath the hooves of his hard-running horse.

  Steeling himself, Delgado got up and ran for the corner of the house.

  A gun barrel protruded from a window and swiveled toward him. Delgado blazed away with the Colt, sending three bullets through the partially closed wooden shutters. Splinters flew. He heard a man cry out in pain. The gun barrel disappeared. Reaching the house, Delgado threw open the unlatched shutters, stepped back, and then plunged headlong through the glass.

  He fell over the body of the man he had shot. The room was dark, and Delgado didn't get a good look at him. Didn't want to. The man was writhing on the blood-slick floor. Delgado doubted that he was a threat any longer, but he knew it would be foolhardy to leave an enemy behind him, even a semiconscious and badly wounded enemy. He brought the butt of the Colt down hard on the man's skull and the movement ceased.

  As Delgado got to his feet, a door on the other side of the room swung open. He saw the shape of a man, then the blossom of flame that was a muzzle flash, and realized he was silhouetted against the window. Then he gasped as the bullet grazed him high on the left arm. The gunshot was deafening in the confines of the room. The bullet slammed into the wall behind him. He dived for cover behind a pair of chairs bracketing a small table, fired once lying on his side, and knew the shot was wild. But it drove the man back out of sight.

  Delgado's first instinct was to stay down, but he thought of Sarah and, leaping to his feet, overturned the table and one of the chairs as he ran full tilt at the door, hurling himself through, hitting the floor and sliding across the slick marble of the main hall, seeing the man clearly in better light—a rough-hewn charac
ter in homespun, his back to a wall, reloading his single-shot rifle. Still sliding across the floor, Delgado fired once, and the bullet slammed the man against the wall. A look of surprise on his bearded face, the backwoodsman let the rifle slip from his hands and pitched forward to the floor. Delgado knew he was dead.

  To the sound of splintering wood Falconer crashed through the door at the far end of the hall. At that instant a man emerged from one of the rooms opening onto the hallway. Seeing Delgado, he turned and raised a flintlock pistol, and Delgado's heart lurched in his chest as he pulled the Colt's trigger and heard the hammer fall on an empty chamber. But before the man could fire, Falconer's Colt spoke once. The man sprawled forward. His pistol hit the floor and discharged, the bullet drilling harmlessly into the wall. He rolled over, clutching at his shattered shoulder and hissing at the pain through clenched teeth. He looked up to see Falconer standing over him.

  "Nothing's worse than dying for the wrong cause," said the mountain man.

  "Reckon," said the man.

  "You've paid your dues to Horan. Now go home."

  With Falconer's help the man got to his feet. He looked bleakly at Delgado. "Right glad I didn't kill you."

  "Where's Sarah Bledsoe?" snapped Delgado.

  "Upstairs. She ain't been harmed. Not a hair on her head. Mr. Horan promised, or I wouldn't have done what I done."

  "Get," said Falconer. "And don't look back."

  The man nodded and went out the way Falconer had come in.

  Delgado didn't wait to see the man leave; he was bounding up the staircase. He tried every door he came to, and the one door that was locked he kicked open. Sarah was standing over by a window, head bowed, hands clasped together. She looked up with a gasp as Delgado barged in, and then she smiled.

  "I was praying that you would come through unharmed," she said calmly.

  He took her in his arms and embraced her so tightly that it took her breath away.

  "Did he . . . did he hurt you in any way, Sarah?"

  "No."

  "Thank God."

  "Clarisse. Is Clarisse all right?"

  "She's fine. Where is Horan?"

  "I don't know."

  "Come on." He took her by the hand and led her out of the room and down into the main hall. She stared at the man Delgado had shot to death. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had to do it." He wondered if the man had a family. Probably. Which means I've made some poor woman a widow. And how many children would never see their father again?

  The doors to the room where Delgado had met with Brent Horan a few days earlier stood open, and Hugh Falconer straddled the threshold.

  "Is he in there?" asked Delgado.

  Falconer was staring at something, or someone, in the room, and he didn't look around, just nodded.

  "Wait here," Delgado told Sarah and started to sip past Falconer into the room.

  The sight that greeted him stopped him in his tracks.

  Brent Horan sat in the same chair as before. The room was dark and cold; the fire in the hearth had burned down to orange embers in a mound of gray ash. Horan's head was slumped forward on his chest, and Delgado wondered if he was unconscious or dead. He glanced at Falconer.

  "Is he . . . ?"

  "I don't know. I thought you'd want to handle it."

  "Yes. Yes, of course." He had admitted to Falconer that he was scared of Horan. It wouldn't do for someone else to resolve the bitter feud that had developed between the two of them. Falconer was right. He had to be the one to deal with Horan.

  With a hand in his coat pocket, gripping the loaded derringer, Delgado entered the room and crossed to stand in front of Horan's chair. Even this close he couldn't tell if the man was breathing.

  "Horan?"

  No response. Delgado leaned closer, reached out with his left hand, and shook Horan's shoulder.

  Horan's eyes snapped open. He clutched Delgado's extended arm, making an incoherent, animal-like sound. Delgado withdrew the derringer from his pocket and thumbed the hammer back. Seeing the gun, Horan laughed, an unpleasant, wheezing sound.

  "You're too late, McKinn."

  He threw aside the blanket that covered him from the chest down—and Delgado saw the knife. A big kitchen knife. It had been thrust to the hilt into Horan's belly. His clothes were soaked with blood.

  "She couldn't wait," hissed Horan.

  "Naomi?"

  Horan nodded. "Poison was too slow. She knew she was out of time. She put this blade in me and ran. But she . . . she won't get far. Talbott . . . Talbott is on her trail. By now the bitch is probably dead."

  Delgado pulled his arm free. Horan's grip was weak. He was bleeding to death, and he had very little strength left. Lowering the hammer on the derringer, Delgado pocketed the pistol and drew a ragged breath.

  "Why the long face, McKinn? You can watch me die. That should please you."

  Delgado shook his head. "But I'm glad you won't be hurting any more people."

  "I have no regrets."

  "Then I am truly sorry for you."

  "I don't want your pity!" rasped Horan, and then a spasm of pain contorted his face. His skin, noticed Delgado, was white as alabaster. Looking under the chair, Delgado saw a pool of blood. He couldn't believe Horan had held onto life this long. No doubt he had known that to keep the backwoodsmen at their posts he had to conceal his condition from them.

  "McKinn? McKinn, are you still there?" Horan's eyes were open, but he could no longer see.

  "I'm here."

  "Damn you, McKinn," he whispered. "You win again."

  He slumped forward, and Delgado heard the death rattle in his throat.

  Falconer was waiting with Sarah in the hall. The mountain man had kept her out of the room.

  "He's dead," said Delgado flatly. "That slave, the one called Naomi, knifed him, and he bled to death. But he held on, hoping his men would kill me. They didn't know he was dying. They wouldn't have stayed to fight had they known. Dead, he had no power over them."

  "Let's go home," said Falconer.

  They went outside. Falconer's horse was standing nearby, and the mountain man rode out to collect Delgado's wayward mount, which had strayed down to the edge of the trees that marked the course of the creek running behind the Horan mansion. Delgado climbed into his saddle and helped Sarah on behind him, and they took the road across the snow-covered fields and into the woods.

  A hound was standing in the lane and bayed at them as they drew near. "That's one of Talbott's dogs," said Delgado and checked his horse. A moment later, the slave catcher emerged onto the road, leading his horse, with several other hounds following in his wake. A body was draped over the saddle. Seeing them, Talbott froze. A shotgun was racked across his shoulder, and he brought it down as though he was thinking about using it, but Falconer already had the Hawken mountain rifle out of its buckskin sheath, and Talbott wisely tossed the shotgun aside.

  "I didn't have nothing to do with it," he said gruffly, glancing at Sarah.

  "Did you hear the shooting?" asked Delgado.

  "Sure, I heard. But I didn't want no part of that business. I'm just the overseer here. I catch a few runaways. I take care of my own job and that's all."

  "You're out of business," said Falconer. "Your boss is dead."

  "Is that a fact? Well, I always knew he'd come to a bad end." Talbott shrugged his indifference. "There's other plantations."

  Delgado was out of the saddle now, and Talbott watched him warily as he approached, but Delgado moved past him to the body draped over the slave catcher's saddle. A closer look confirmed Delgado's fears. It was Naomi.

  "I think she was sick," said Talbott, as though that was a good excuse for killing her. "Leastways, she didn't go far."

  The look Delgado gave him made Talbott take a step back.

  "Look here, mister," said the slave catcher. "Don't go gettin' riled at me. I was just doing my job."

  "One day soon," predicted Delgado, "they'll call this murder. And I will do everything in my
power to bring that day about." He returned to his horse.

  Emboldened now that he was reasonably sure Delgado would do him no harm, Talbott lifted Naomi's head by grabbing a handful of her hair. "She was right purty, for a nigger. I was halfway sorry I had to shoot her."

  "Halfway isn't good enough," said Falconer.

  "Look at that," said Talbott, disgusted. "Nigger blood all over my saddle."

  "That's American blood," replied Delgado curtly. "As American as yours. Or mine."

  He swung back up in the saddle behind Sarah, put his arms around her, and, taking up the reins, urged the horse into motion. Giving Talbott a final, steely look, Falconer followed, and soon the lane took them out of the dark old woods and into the cold sunlight.

  Look for these reissued ebook titles by Jason Manning:

  HIGH COUNTRY SERIES

  High Country

  Green River Rendezvous

  Battle of the Teton Basin

  FLINTLOCK SERIES

  Flintlock

  The Border Captains

  Gone To Texas

  TEXAS SERIES

  The Black Jacks

  Texas Bound

  The Marauders

  MOUNTAIN MAN SERIES

  Mountain Passage

  Mountain Massacre

  Mountain Courage

  Mountain Vengeance

  Mountain Honor

  Mountain Renegade

  FALCONER SERIES

  Falconer's Law

  Promised Land

  American Blood

  ETHAN PAYNE SERIES

  Frontier Road

  Trail Town

  Last Chance

  Gun Justice

  Gunmaster

  The Outlaw Trail