Clint recognized Dench’s face almost immediately. In the second that they met each other’s gaze, Clint couldn’t decide if Dench was going to come out or dig into his hole. As soon as Dench moved back rather than forward, Clint knew the other man had chosen the latter of those two choices.
A fist slammed into Clint’s side, but his blood was pumping too hard for him to feel much pain. The gunman who’d punched him in the face was now reaching for his pistol, so Clint set his sights on him first.
Clint raised the modified Colt, but didn’t take a shot. Instead, he slammed the length of the barrel into the gunman’s stomach, which doubled him over. As Clint straightened himself up, he lifted his knee into the gunman’s chin. That blow landed with enough force to knock the gunman back hard enough to crack his head against the wall.
That left the man who’d punched Clint in the ribs. As Clint drove his elbow into that man’s chest, he saw Dench retreat another step back while closing the heavy door. Clint knew damn well that he wouldn’t be able to get into that room if the door was locked. He also knew that whatever hostages were in there would be dead in a matter of seconds after the lock fell into place.
Keeping his sights on that door, Clint snapped his gun arm up so the Colt caught the man on the chin. That dazed him just long enough for Clint to drop the Colt back into its holster, grab hold of the man’s collar and belt, and then toss the man straight toward the closing door.
The man didn’t exactly fly through the air, but he did stumble right where Clint wanted him to go and slammed headfirst into the door just as it was about to shut. The door flew open and knocked Dench back in the process, allowing Clint to step inside.
“All right now,” Clint said as he met the killer’s eyes. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”
FORTY-ONE
The man who was lying in the doorway started to get up, but couldn’t quite manage it after getting knocked in the head by the heavy slab of wood. Instead, he laid back down and decided to fulfill his role as a doorstop.
Dench’s hand flicked toward his belt and was suddenly gripping his knife. The move was so fast that Clint wondered if he would have survived if Dench’s weapon of choice had been a gun.
“You’re a persistent cuss, ain’t you?” Dench asked.
Clint circled along with him, making sure to stay in front of Dench at all times. “Yeah. I tend to get a little bent out of shape when someone tries to gut me.”
“Well, then you ain’t gonna like this too much.” As that last word was still hanging in the air, Dench lunged forward and swiped at Clint’s stomach.
Reacting at the first hint of movement from Dench’s blade, Clint stepped and leaned back a little more to clear a path for the knife. He could feel something brush along his abdomen, but the blade didn’t even get close enough to shred Clint’s shirt.
Dench backed off a few steps and began circling in the opposite direction. Hunkering down low, he held his knife in front of him like a scorpion getting ready to sink its stinger into its prey. “I’ll be a rich man after delivering your head on a platter,” he said.
“Only if you think you can swing that blade faster than I can fire this gun.”
“Now that ain’t very sporting. What’s the matter? You know I got you beat?”
Clint shook his head at the prodding words. “I’m not falling for that. You either put down that knife or I will shoot you.”
“You’re gonna have to shoot an unarmed man, because I’m not about to let you put your hands on me. I can already see in your eyes that you ain’t the sort to shoot an unarmed man.”
There was no way for Clint to deny that. Those two gunmen in the hallway had been able to read that much in the space of a second or two. Besides, Dench was still moving and circling like a snake, and putting him down with one shot wasn’t exactly a safe bet.
It was a much safer bet that Dench would throw that knife into Clint’s chest the moment Clint pulled his trigger.
“You talk awfully tough for a man who knows he’s got an advantage so long as he’s carrying a blade,” Clint said. “The truth is that you know damn well you’re nothing without it.”
“I could take you apart with my bare hands, mate,” Dench snarled as even more of his native accent leaked out.
Putting a disgusted edge into his voice, Clint replied, “I doubt that very much, little man.”
Hearing those last two words was enough to bring Dench to the edge of his patience. “Toss your gun and say that again.”
Clint could feel he was gaining ground. He’d pushed the right button, and now Dench was so angry that he’d become predictable. Taking another gamble, Clint threw his Colt away and said, “Come and get it, runt.”
Dench’s eyes flared open and a guttural snarl came from his mouth. He charged at Clint with the knife in his hand, but was too angry to put any finesse on his attack. Clint blocked it easily and pounded his fist on Dench’s wrist. His knuckles drove straight into the soft spot beneath Dench’s thumb and forced him to let the knife slip from his grasp.
Too angry to notice his knife was gone, Dench slammed a fist into Clint’s side and then viciously snapped his head forward to catch Clint over his right eye. Although Clint could brace himself for the first punch, the head butt caught him off guard. He felt the solid impact and staggered back while fighting to keep his footing.
Judging by the unsteadiness in his own movements, Dench was also feeling some of the effects from that head butt. He staggered forward a step, shook the cobwebs from his head and then charged toward Clint with a crazed look in his eyes.
Clint jumped to one side and reached out to steady himself against the wall. Instead of the wall, however, he felt heat searing through his fingers. Clint yanked his hand back and turned to find the furnace uncomfortably close to where he was standing. He also caught sight of a young woman hogtied in the corner closest to the furnace.
The woman looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. She was also petrified to move a muscle since she was a hair’s breadth away from allowing her head to touch the hot surface of the furnace.
Clint saw all of this in a matter of seconds. When he wheeled around to face Dench, he saw the smaller man reach for his boot and come up with a slender knife gripped in a tight fist.
Dench might have muttered something under his breath, but Clint was too close to the chugging furnace to hear it. He didn’t need to hear a thing, however, to know what Dench’s intentions were. Clint could still see the murderous look in his eyes, as well as the tensing of Dench’s muscles under his skin.
After pulling in a quick breath, Dench lunged forward. He led with his knife like it was the tip of a spear, and the rest of his body provided the momentum behind it. The only way for Clint to defend against it was to give Dench the benefit of the doubt, assume the Englishman was faster than him and react in what should have been a split second too soon.
Clint twisted himself to one side and brought both arms down in a strong sweeping motion. His hands caught Dench on the back and shoulder, allowing Clint to deflect the incoming attack while forcing Dench into the hot metal of the furnace.
Dench’s knife caught in the door used to shovel coal into the furnace and opened the square portal. His arms were skinny enough to make it into the little opening, and he sank his hands into the fire within. With Clint still pushing him, Dench slammed his forehead against the furnace and then bounced straight back as his entire body reacted to the heat and searing pain that followed.
Even after he’d pulled his arms from the furnace, Dench screamed like an animal. The knife was still in his hand. In fact, his skin might have melted around it.
Clint wasn’t behind Dench any longer. He’d already picked up his Colt and had it ready to fire when Dench charged at him one more time. Clint pulled his trigger and sent a bullet through Dench’s head. The Englishman kept coming, so Clint fired again. The second round caught Dench in the chest and knocked him to the floor like a kick from a mule.
&n
bsp; Standing over him, Clint sighted along the top of his Colt as if he still expected Dench to get up. Although Dench let out a few last gasps, he wasn’t moving anywhere.
Clint looked to the woman tied up in the corner and holstered his pistol so he could get her out of those ropes.
“You all right, ma’am?” Clint asked once he took the bandanna from over her mouth.
She seemed even younger now and was too scared to talk. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Clint and sobbed into his shirt.
When he heard someone push open the door, Clint drew his Colt and took aim in the blink of an eye.
Mia stood her ground and looked at Dench as well as the unconscious man at her feet. “Looks like I missed all the fun,” she said.
“There’s still some fun to be had,” Clint replied. “We still need to get one of these boys to tell us where Solomon’s at.”
“Not enough time for that. We need to find him before he gets wind of what happened down here.”
Clint looked past Mia and down the hall. Already, there were people poking their heads out to get a look.
FORTY-TWO
As Clint escorted Mia to the main poker room, nobody would have thought they’d just gotten finished fighting for their lives in the bowels of the boat. Clint was in a fresh set of clothes, and Mia was smiling as she walked arm in arm with him.
“What’s so funny?” Clint asked.
“I’m not genuinely impressed by a lot of men, Clint Adams, but you sure managed to impress the hell out of me.”
“What’d I do now?”
“How did you get on such good terms with that laundry lady?”
Clint looked at her and asked, “That’s what impressed you?”
Mia nodded.
“We both could have been killed, but we managed to take out that last batch of Solomon’s men. We even saved another hostage that we didn’t even know about. After all of that, you’re impressed that I was on good terms with the laundry lady?”
Mia nodded again. “What was her name?”
“Lucy,” Clint said as he shifted his eyes forward so he could open the door leading in from the deck. “Most folks call her Lucy.”
Instead of stepping through the door, Mia placed her hands on Clint’s cheeks and gave him a gentle kiss.
“What was that for?” Clint asked.
“That was just because you act like you don’t deserve it. Besides, if you hadn’t known Lucy so well, one of those workers might have run off and let the news leak to Solomon about our little scuffle in the furnace room.”
“Those workers looked too scared to do much of anything. From the looks of it, I think they were just as glad to see those men get taken out of the way as we were.”
“Still,” Mia continued, “knowing Lucy came in pretty handy. We’re actually a pretty good team. You ever think of joining the Texas Rangers?”
“I thought you said you weren’t exactly a Ranger,” Clint pointed out.
Mia shrugged. “I’m not, but I bet they’d let me in if I brought you along in the bargain.”
“I know you hate to hear this, but I don’t think you’d be as useful if they put one of those big white hats on you. You’re like a shark swimming just under the water. Nobody knows you’re there until you’ve already sunk your teeth into their leg.”
“That’s a nice way of saying those Texas boys would never let a woman in with the real Rangers, but I’ll still take it.”
Clint pulled in a breath and looked toward the main room, which was just inside the door where they were now standing. “Lucy may be able to keep those people who saw our fight quiet for a while, but I don’t want to push it. Let’s get this ball rolling before it’s too late.”
“We still don’t know exactly what to look for,” Mia said. “I’ve pieced together a few descriptions of Solomon here and there, but they could match just about any somewhat handsome man with dark hair.”
“The one thing we do know is that Solomon is out to steal as much money as he can before leaving this boat with his prisoners,” Clint pointed out. “He’s probably already robbed a few bankrolls, but there’s not much we can do about that. The best way for him to steal now is to win at a game.”
“That also gives him plenty of witnesses to say he was somewhere else when those prisoners were taken or that money was stolen,” Mia added.
“Good thinking. Since I managed to get a look at the cards he marked, all we should do is go in and try to find the game that’s got the potential to create the biggest pots.”
Mia let out a haggard sigh. “I have no idea how the hell we can find out something like that.”
Clint was about to admit the same thing when he saw a potential savior walk toward the door. He smiled at the man with the salt-and-pepper hair as the door was opened for them. “Hello, Arvin,” Clint said.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Do you have any idea where we could find a Mr. Solomon?”
Arvin didn’t even pause before answering, “I don’t believe I know a Mr. Solomon.”
“What about the man who stays in room number five?”
“I believe he’s sitting at a table in the aft poker room.”
“Are you sure?” Mia asked.
Arvin nodded. “I just delivered some refreshments to that table and they were charged to that cabin. I’ve seen that man walking into that room myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have allowed the charge.”
“Which one is he?” Clint asked.
“He has dark hair and was sitting with his back to the wall. If you’d like, I could point him out to you.”
Clint reached into his pocket and placed a few folded bills into his hand. He then placed those bills into Arvin’s hand as he shook it. “You’ve been a big help, Arvin. Thank you kindly.”
When he got a look at how much money was in his hand, Arvin actually smiled. “My pleasure, sir.” After that, he held the door open for Clint and Mia to enter.
They walked straight through the main room, greeted a few familiar faces and walked out the door leading to the room at the back of the boat. Once inside, they were fighting for space since the cramped quarters were packed with gamblers. Just looking at the tabletops told Clint one thing.
“This is where the money is,” he whispered to Mia.
She nodded toward a table at the back of the room. “And that’s where Solomon is.”
Unfortunately, all but one of the men sitting there matched the rough description Arvin had given them. Also, the table was in a corner, so nearly everyone had his back to a wall.
“Nothing’s ever easy,” Clint said as he walked over to the table.
FORTY-THREE
Clint worked his way through the crowded room and stepped up to the table in the back corner. One of the men sitting there was raking in the pot, so Clint took the opportunity to lean in and tip his hat.
“Looks like a good game,” Clint said. “Mind if I sit in?”
A few of the players recognized Clint’s face and shrugged, since they didn’t know him quite well enough to vouch for him directly. One of the older players stared at Clint as if he’d dropped his pants and asked the rest of the table what they thought of the sight.
“We got a full game,” the older man grunted.
Another of the players shrugged and looked away from Clint as if he’d already forgotten he was there.
As the deck was being shuffled, but before a single card could be dealt, Clint sighed and reached into his jacket. “There’s not a lot of seats left on this boat,” Clint said as he set a stack of money onto the table with his hand firmly on top of it. “You sure you couldn’t see your way clear to making some room?”
A few of the players looked around at one another, but they all seemed to be in agreement.
“Have a seat,” the older spokesman said. “No reason to keep a man out when he just wants to have a friendly game.”
Clint smiled and pulled a chair over to the table. “My thoughts, exactly,” he s
aid.
The moment he sat down, a young man wearing the uniform of the boat’s crew came over and changed Clint’s money into chips. Drinks were brought over and the game was under way.
“My name’s Clint, by the way.”
The man to Clint’s left nodded and said, “That’d make me Kenneth.”
The older man who’d done most of the talking grumbled and shuffled the cards. Apart from a few streaks of gray in his hair, he came close to fitting the description Clint had heard regarding Solomon. Then again, so did everyone but Kenneth. Kenneth was a slender man with light blond hair. The man sitting directly across from Clint had a heavier build. The man to Clint’s right was slightly skinnier than what Clint had expected. Rather than try to figure anything out, Clint sat back and played some cards.
The first hand he was dealt was a pair of threes. Since triple threes had seemed to be Clint’s lucky hand on the Misty Morning, he pitched the other three cards and hoped for the best.
Kenneth pitched the same amount of cards after calling the small wager that had been put out by the fellow to Clint’s right.
Sure enough, when his replacement cards were dealt, Clint not only got his third three, but a pair of sevens to boot. After another little bet was placed, Clint raised it by another twenty-five dollars.
“I’m out,” Kenneth said as he threw his cards toward the dealer.
“Me, too,” the man next to Kenneth said.
The older man rubbed his chin and nodded to himself. “I’ll see that bet . . . and double it.”
Although he’d been considering it before, the skinny fellow to Clint’s right let out a whistle and set his cards down. “Too much for me. You two have at it.”
Clint pulled in a deep breath and thought about something else as he tried to look agonized over his decision. What he truly concentrated on was the backs of the cards on the table. After studying them for a few more seconds, Clint was convinced that none of those cards were marked in the way that he’d seen in room number five.
Just to make certain the game remained interesting, Clint rattled some more chips in his hands and looked over to the only man remaining in the game. “You trying to muscle me out of this hand?” Clint asked.
Red River Showdown Page 14
