He tucked the rifle under his arm as if he didn’t have a care in the world, then stepped out of the circle of light cast by the campfire. Instead of heading toward the sound he had heard, he moved off in another direction.
As soon as the thick shadows underneath the trees had enfolded him, he turned and shifted the rifle so that it was in his hands, ready to fire. He began working his way around the camp.
When Joseph was a boy, his father had been friends with Gabriel Dumont, the famous hunter and plainsman who was Louis Riel’s second-in-command. Dumont had taught Joseph how to track game, and that involved being able to move silently through the woods, even in darkness.
Joseph used those lessons now, taking care each time he put a foot down not to make any noise. It was slow, painstaking work, but such caution could save a man’s life.
He paused frequently to listen, but he couldn’t hear anything except the faint crackling of the fire as it burned down. Had he been too suspicious? Was there really nothing dangerous out here?
“Joseph?” That was Charlotte calling out to him. “Joseph, are you all right?”
Blast it, Joseph thought bitterly. He couldn’t answer her without giving away his position, but if he failed to respond and there really was someone out here watching the camp, that silence might warn the lurker that he had been discovered.
Joseph was trying to decide what to do when the brush crackled again, right in front of him this time. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness since he had been away from the fire for several minutes, saw a patch of deeper darkness shift and reveal itself to be the rough shape of a man.
Certain now that something was wrong, Joseph lunged forward and thrust the barrel of his rifle into the stranger’s back. “Don’t move!” he shouted. “Charlotte, stay where you are!”
Instead of obeying the order, as would any sane man who had a rifle barrel prodding him in the back, the stranger suddenly twisted around and threw himself out of the line of fire. Joseph started to pull the trigger anyway, but his finger froze on the trigger as he realized the rifle was pointing toward the camp. If he fired, he might hit Charlotte by accident.
That second of indecision was enough. The man grabbed the rifle barrel and wrenched upward. That move made Joseph jerk the trigger involuntarily. The shot was deafeningly loud under the thick canopy of tree branches.
The stranger drove the rifle toward Joseph, ripping the weapon from his hands and slamming it into his chest. The impact made Joseph stagger backwards. He felt stunned, as if the blow had caused his heart to stop beating. He couldn’t seem to get his breath. While he was off-balance and struggling, the man barreled into him and knocked him off his feet.
Joseph landed hard on the ground, stunning him even more. A knee dug painfully into his belly and pinned him there. The next second, he felt the cold, hard bite of steel as the stranger pressed a gun muzzle into the soft flesh of his neck.
“Don’t move, mister,” the man warned, “or I’ll blow your head off.”
He was about to die, Joseph thought, and things couldn’t get any worse.
But then they did, as Charlotte’s voice, tight with fear, said, “No, m’sieu, it is you who should not move, or I will blow your head off!”
Chapter 8
Joe Palmer had been threatened plenty of times in his life. He had a pretty good feeling for when somebody actually meant to kill him, and for when they didn’t.
The gal who had just called out might think she meant the threat, but she really didn’t. When it came down to the nub, she wouldn’t pull the trigger.
He was betting his life on that.
Palmer didn’t take his gun away from the man who’d tried to jump him. Instead he said, “Lady, you better be careful. Even if you shoot me, you can’t do it fast enough to stop me from killin’ your husband.”
“He is not my husband,” she said. “He is my brother. And all I have to do is pull the trigger—”
“All that’s holding back the hammer of this revolver in my hand is my thumb,” Palmer interrupted her. “You shoot me, and the hammer falls. Your brother dies. Simple as that.”
For a moment, a tense silence filled the darkness. Then the woman said, “What do you want me to do?”
Something inside Palmer eased. He wasn’t going to die tonight. Not from being ventilated by this woman, anyway. His bet had paid off.
“Look,” he said, trying to strike a reasonable tone, “I don’t mean any harm to you folks. Your brother’s the one who jumped me. He stuck a rifle in my back. I’m just defending myself here. Why don’t you come around where I can see you?”
She didn’t respond right away, but after a second he heard her moving. She circled through the brush and stepped into his line of sight. In the shadows under the trees, he couldn’t make her out very well, but he saw that she had lowered the rifle.
“Put the gun on the ground,” Palmer ordered.
“Charlotte, don’t do it!” the man choked out. The gun barrel pushing into his neck half strangled him. “Shoot him!”
“Better not,” Palmer warned. “Damn it, I’m tryin’ to be friendly here.”
He wasn’t actually interested in being friends with these two, although from what he had seen of the woman as she sat by the fire while he eavesdropped on their conversation, he wouldn’t mind getting better acquainted with her.
However, they had mentioned that they were waiting for somebody, and the word “guns” had been dropped casually. Palmer found that intriguing. He wanted to know more about what they were doing out here, hundreds of miles from anywhere.
“Don’t trust him,” the man warned his sister again. “Shoot him, Charlotte!”
“I … I cannot,” Charlotte said.
“You got no reason to,” Palmer said. He took another gamble. “In fact, to prove that, I take back what I said. You hang on to that rifle, miss. That way, if I do anything to show that I’ve been lyin’ to you, you can shoot me then.”
“I would be more inclined to believe you if you got off my brother.”
Palmer looked down at the man he had pinned to the ground. “How about it, mister?” he asked. “If I let you up, are you gonna behave?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” the man said between clenched teeth.
“There’s always a choice, friend. Sometimes we make good ones, and sometimes we don’t.” Palmer eased the revolver’s hammer back down. “I’m gonna take a chance here and hope I made a good one.”
He pulled the gun away from the man’s neck and stood up, stepping back so that he’d have plenty of room to move if he needed to.
The man sat up and rubbed his neck where the gun barrel had dug in painfully. Palmer kept the revolver in his hand. If the bastard tried anything, Palmer knew he’d have time to shoot him, then plug the girl, too, if he had to.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He’d much rather get friendly with Charlotte than shoot her.
When he needed to, he could be pretty damned charming. He tried that now, saying, “Look, folks, I just smelled your fire and thought maybe I could get a little coffee and maybe some hot food. Not to mention some company. This is mighty lonely country out here.”
“You were spying on us,” the man accused. “I heard you moving in the brush. You were listening to what we said.”
Charlotte said to her brother, “Then you lied to me when you told me nothing was wrong.”
“Be quiet,” the man snapped.
“Sure, I was eavesdropping,” Palmer admitted. “I wanted to find out who you were and whether you’d be likely to shoot me if I walked into your camp. A man who’s not careful about what he does out here deserves whatever happens to him.”
“You don’t sound like a frontiersman.”
Palmer laughed. “Maybe I ain’t one, not by choice, anyway. I spent most of my life in cities. But I’ve knocked around out here in this big lonely enough to have learned a few things.” He paused. “My name’s Joe Palmer. What’s yours?”
Telling somebody your name usually caused people to let their guard down a little, Palmer knew. He didn’t mind telling these people who he really was. He wasn’t wanted in Canada, and anyway, if he decided that they were a threat to him, he’d just kill them. Simple as that.
After a moment, and with obvious reluctance, the man said, “My name is Joseph Marat.”
Palmer grinned. “See? You’re Joe, and I’m Joe. Just a couple of Joes. That ought to tell you right there we should be pards.”
Marat nodded his head toward the woman. “This is my sister Charlotte.”
Palmer lifted his free hand to the brim of his derby. “Mademoiselle Marat. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“You speak French?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Not really,” he replied with a chuckle. “I’ve picked up a little, here and there.”
Marat started to get up. Palmer stepped forward and extended his left hand.
“Let me help you there.”
Marat hesitated, then clasped Palmer’s hand. Palmer hauled him to his feet. Marat still seemed suspicious, but the tension in the air definitely had eased.
“Let’s go back to the fire,” Charlotte suggested. “We have a little coffee left, but no hot food. I am sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Palmer told her. “I’m just obliged for the offer of coffee.”
He turned his back on them and started toward their fire, which was visible through the trees. It was a risky move, he knew, but so far tonight his bets had paid off and he was going to continue to ride his luck.
The Marats, brother and sister, followed him. They didn’t shoot him in the back, so he figured that for now, he was ahead of the game.
“Where is your horse?” Marat asked as they reached the clearing where the campfire was burning down to tiny, flickering flames.
“I’ve got a couple of them, a saddle horse and a pack animal,” Palmer replied. “I left them tied up a ways off. When I smelled your smoke, I wanted to check it out, but I knew the horses would make too much racket.” He grinned. “If I had seen that you folks were dangerous, I would have snuck back to my horses and gone around. You never would have known I was there.”
“I knew,” Marat snapped.
Palmer shrugged. “So I’m not much of a woodsman. No offense, but you two don’t exactly look like Daniel Boone, either.”
It was true. All three of them were a little out of place here in this vast wilderness.
Marat took offense at the comment, though. “This is our home,” he said. “We are Métis.”
“Half-breeds, you mean?”
Marat’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “Mixed-bloods. Our ancestry is mostly French, with only a little Indian.”
“Oh,” Palmer said. He didn’t care. A redskin was a redskin, as far as he was concerned. These two might not look it, but they were tainted with savage blood.
He had heard about the Métis. You couldn’t spend much time in this part of the world without hearing about them. Descendants of the French fur trappers who had been the first white men to venture into western Canada and had taken Indian women as wives, they had spread all over the plains and mountains.
When the British had come to spread the dominion of the Crown all the way from one side of the continent to the other, the Métis had tried to get along peacefully with them at first. It hadn’t taken long for the mixed-bloods to realize, though, that as far as the British were concerned, they had no real voice in their fate.
Led by the highly intelligent and charismatic Louis Riel, twice the Métis had tried to rise up against the British. Both times the rebellions had been shortlived. The Métis had scored a minor victory or two, but then the British had crushed their resistance. The first rebellion had led to the formation of the North West Mounted Police.
After the second rebellion, Louis Riel had been found guilty of treason against the Crown and hanged.
That had happened less than fifteen years earlier, but to Palmer, it was ancient history and had nothing to do with him. Or at least, it hadn’t had anything to do with him until now. The earlier talk about guns had sure made him curious.
“Didn’t mean any offense,” he went on. “I’ve heard about you folks. The way those damned Britishers treated you never seemed right to me.”
He might as well make them think he was on their side, he told himself. That was the quickest, easiest way to worm himself into their confidence and find out what was going on.
Charlotte got a tin cup out of their gear and lifted a coffeepot from the edge of the fire. She poured the last of the coffee in the pot into the cup and handed it to Palmer.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. He knew he wasn’t a particularly handsome man, but he was big and rugged-looking and women seemed to respond to him when he smiled.
Charlotte Marat was no different. She lowered her eyes and blushed.
“What are you doing out here?” Joseph Marat demanded, still scowling suspiciously at Palmer.
“I could ask the same thing of you, you know,” Palmer responded. He sipped the coffee, which was bitter and had grounds in it. He didn’t let his face show how bad it tasted.
“Our business is our own,” Marat said.
“Likewise.” Palmer shrugged. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m on my way to Calgary, though. I’ve heard that some friends of mine have gone into business around there. I thought maybe I’d join up with them.”
That was actually true. The criminal grapevine that stretched across even vast areas of frontier wilderness had carried the rumors that Owen Lundy and Jericho Blake were operating in Calgary now. Palmer had worked with Lundy and Blake in Chicago, before they had all moved farther west and north, and he figured they could probably use another good man.
But they would be even more likely to let him throw in with them if he already had a lucrative scheme lined up.
These two innocents might be the key to that.
“If you’re headed to Calgary,” Palmer went on, “maybe we could travel together. On the frontier, it’s always safer for a group.”
With a stubborn look on his face, Marat began, “Our destination is—”
“Your own business, I know,” Palmer cut in. “Look, if you want, I’ll go back to my horses and won’t bother you folks anymore. I don’t like sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted.”
“It’s not that, M’sieu Palmer,” Charlotte said. “It’s just that we are engaged on a matter of great importance. We must be careful about everything we do.”
Her brother glared at her, as if she had already said more than he wanted her to.
Palmer took another sip of the bad coffee and nodded. “Hey, at least I got to see some more humans. This is lonely country, and a man gets tired of looking at nothing but elk and moose.” He drank the last of the coffee and managed not to grimace. “I’ll be pushing on, I guess.”
“Good luck to you in Calgary,” Marat said, but his surly tone made it clear that he didn’t mean it.
“And good luck to you in whatever you’re doing.” Palmer handed the empty cup to Charlotte and smiled again. He nodded, adding, “So long.”
He left the camp, making quite a bit of racket as he tramped through the woods. That was just for show, because he stopped when he was a couple of hundred yards away and listened intently. He heard them moving around and talking to each other, and a few moments later, the sound of horses’ hooves drifted through the night air. The orange glow of the fire was gone now.
They were moving their camp. Palmer wasn’t the least bit surprised. He had expected Marat to insist on it.
It didn’t matter. They might be native to this land, but he had cunning to spare and never lost a trail when there was the promise of a payoff at the end of it. He would find them again and track them until he discovered what was going on here. The delay would give any pursuers coming after him more of a chance to catch up, but it couldn’t be helped.
Whatever Marat and his siste
r were up to, Palmer intended to cut himself in on it.
And when he had done that … well, maybe he would just take himself a share of pretty little Charlotte as well.
Chapter 9
Frank, Salty, and Meg took up the trail again the next morning, riding east through the mountains. The terrain was rough enough to make their progress frustratingly slow.
That frustration increased when Salty’s horse pulled up lame in the middle of the day. When the horse began to limp, Salty let loose with a flood of angry exclamations that sounded like curses even though they actually weren’t.
“Take it easy,” Frank told him.
“Take it easy?” the old-timer repeated incredulously after he had dismounted and checked his horse’s bad leg. “We’re gonna have to let this jughead rest a day or two. Wouldn’t do no good to switch out the packs on one o’ the mules and slap a saddle on it. Those supplies weigh just about as much as I do, so it wouldn’t help the hoss to have to carry ‘em.” He jerked his battered old hat off and slammed it down on the ground in exasperation. “That varmint Palmer’s gonna get that much farther ahead of us!”
“We’ll make up the time,” Frank said, “and even if we don’t, we know where he’s headed. We’ll just have to catch up to him in Calgary, that’s all.”
“It’s gonna be that much harder to find him once he gets to a settlement,” Salty pointed out. “Calgary’s big enough he’ll be able to find a place to hide.”
Frank couldn’t argue with that. He just said, “We’ll find him, Salty. You’ve got my word on that.”
They dismounted, unsaddled the horses, and took the packs off the mules.
“If we had to make camp sooner than we expected, this isn’t a bad place to do it,” Meg said as she looked around.
She was right about that. The ground was fairly level and there was an open stretch along the bank of the creek, with evergreens towering above it. The valley was narrow here, running between rocky, steep-sided slopes.
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