As much as he would have liked to preach the loftier motives, Nick knew there was one thing in particular that kept him from leaving Rock Springs. That town had a major railroad line rolling right through it. Without that railroad line, it could be months before Nick found his way back home again. Riding back to California wasn’t impossible, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be ideal, and it could very well be the last ride of Kazys’s life.
Keeping those things in mind, Nick patted the horse’s nose as he shut the gate on the stall Kazys was forced to share with another stallion. The Arabian in there with Kazys was a fine animal and wouldn’t have been left there unless his owner had some confidence in the facility. He didn’t seem to mind Kazys being in there with him, so that’s where Nick left him.
Nick stuck his head outside to make certain nobody had seen him enter the stable, just in case there were some looters who weren’t interested in Chinatown. As far as he could tell, the streets were empty.
Retracing his steps so he could follow the directions the old lady had given him, Nick moved from one street to another. He could feel the heat from the raging fires on his skin. The sound of the flames was a constant roar that reminded him of how the sea had sounded from within the battered hull of a ship. For the moment, the screams had faded away. The gunshots, however, erupted every so often like a pack of firecrackers that had been tossed into the street.
Nick’s eyes narrowed to try and focus on some shapes that were moving within a darkened building across the street. Turning on the balls of his feet, he crouched down and slapped his hand against the grip of his modified Schofield. As much as he tried to see more, all Nick could make out was a pair of figures crawling toward the front. Nick moved cautiously toward them.
“Don’t kill us!” one of the men said. “Please. We will leave. Just don’t shoot again.”
“I never shot the first time,” Nick said. “What happened to you?”
The man fought to move forward another few steps, reached out with one hand and then fell face-first onto the boardwalk just outside the door.
Nick could hear repressed sobbing coming from behind the unmoving figure. He stepped forward and only had to look at the face of the person lying on the ground to know there was nothing he could do to help him. He’d seen plenty of Chinamen in his day, but Nick Graves had seen even more dead men. The figure lying in the doorway was both.
Kneeling over the body, Nick looked further into the shadows and spotted the second figure huddled against a wall. “What happened?” Nick demanded. “Who did this?”
“You know who did it!” the woman shouted as she snapped her head forward just far enough for her to be seen. “You come here to take his body for money! Just take it and take me, too, if that’s what you want.”
Nick found himself backing away from the dead man.
“Take him!” she screamed.
Suddenly, from deeper within the building, there came the sound of wood cracking and splintering under what sounded like the blow of a large hammer. Heavy steps thudded through the room, causing the woman to sob and scramble on all fours away from the sound.
Stepping over the dead body, Nick found himself inside a modestly decorated home. There were a few pieces of furniture here and there, as well as a couple of exotic statues and small paintings. Nick recognized the style of the decorations as Chinese, but didn’t know much more about them than that. He didn’t have to know a thing about the Chinese woman cowering on the floor to know she was scared out of her mind.
Her mouth was moving but no words came out. Her eyes were clenched shut and she was curled up in a ball as if every single one of her muscles had seized up.
“There you are,” said a man who walked into the room from somewhere in the back of the house. “I knew you wouldn’t leave this place all by yourself.”
The man who spoke had a face full of stubble and a thick, untrimmed mustache hanging down over his lip. His voice filled the room like swamp gas and was tainted by a thick Louisiana accent. “Who might you be?” he asked Nick.
“I’m new in town,” Nick said.
“Heard the commotion, did ya?”
“Sure did. My train was stuck here and I needed to make sure it keeps moving along.”
“Yours too?” he asked with a surprised look on his face. “My train got stopped not too long ago. Then again, with all that’s been happening, it’s kinda hard to say just how long I been here.”
Nick had spotted the gun in the man’s hand the moment the guy entered the room. Now all he wanted was to position himself between the gun and the Chinese woman before they were introduced to each other in a violent fashion.
“That one dead?” the man asked as he nodded toward the body lying half in and half out of the house.
“Yeah,” Nick replied.
“Good.” Without another word or even a shift in his expression, the man brought his arm up an inch or so and fired a shot into the Chinese woman’s head. “You carry the heavier of the two and I’ll split the reward with you.”
Nick wanted nothing more than to draw his gun and put that killer down like the mad dog he was. He kept himself in check, though he was shocked at what he’d just seen. Although the other man’s gun arm had been fast, what had caught Nick off guard even more was the complete lack of expression on the gunman’s face. He killed that woman as if he was just stretching his arm, before Nick could do a damn thing about it.
Unfortunately, it was too late to save either of the Chinese people lying on the floor. Their killer was obviously in on whatever insanity was going on in Rock Springs, which made Nick want to play along to see what more he could do than just take a shot at this one man.
The man nodded and grinned when he saw Nick stoop down to heft the Chinese man’s body over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about splitting the reward. There’s plenty more of them Chinese runnin’ about.”
“I’d like to know who I’m splitting it with.”
“Name’s Alan Kinman. Pleased to meet ya.”
TWELVE
After taking a few odd turns and cutting through a couple of alleys, Nick found himself walking straight toward the Central Mining Company. Kinman led him there as if he’d been born and raised in Rock Springs. Whenever shooting sparked up along the way, Kinman didn’t even flinch. As they got closer to the raging fires, he seemed to revel in the heat.
Nick followed Kinman’s lead right up to the mining office’s front stoop. Once there, Kinman dropped the Chinese woman’s body onto the boards as if he was delivering a sack of grain. Although Nick wanted to follow suit, he couldn’t force himself to be so disrespectful. He was quick about it, but he set the man down gently and shut his eyelids.
“We got two more for ya,” Kinman shouted into the office.
In response to that announcement, a tall man with dark bushy hair walked outside. His face was decorated with a slender mustache and a sprout of whiskers just beneath the middle of his bottom lip. He smiled as if his teeth were a bit too big for his jaw and nodded approvingly when he saw the fresh kills piled upon his porch. “You sure as hell do, Alan. I’m starting to think you’re trying to wring me of every dollar I got.”
“You don’t wanna pay, you’d better let me know right now, because I intend on heading right back out after this.”
The man stuck a few fingers into the pocket of an expensive pearl gray vest and dug out a wad of bills. “I got you covered for a while longer,” he said as he peeled twenty dollars off of the wad. “Who’s your friend?”
“Don’t know,” Kinman said. “I didn’t ask.”
“I’m Nicolai,” Nick said in a clipped tone, hoping they didn’t pry any further.
They didn’t.
“Francis Hale,” the man in the nice suit said. “I’m the founder of this feast. I take it you’re new to town?”
“Just arrived.”
“Not by train, I know that for damn sure,” Francis said smugly.
“I’m passing through on my
way to Cheyenne,” Nick said. “I won’t be staying long.”
“Just collecting on some easy money, eh? Well, just know that you’re lending a hand to a hell of a good cause. The folks who think they can slap some damn Chinese devils into a spot that used to be filled by an honest Christian will remember what’s been happening here in Rock Springs. Once the Federals try to get here with the next shipment of them Chink bastards, they’ll be begging for the way things used to be.”
Nick glanced over to his right, where Kinman was standing. The rough-looking man rubbed a hand over the harsh stubble on top of his head. Dirt was smeared upon his scalp and face, but wasn’t thick enough to mask the annoyed expression that showed up as he rolled his eyes.
“He can make all the faces he wants,” Francis said, pointing at Kinman. “He don’t live here. He don’t know how many good men gave all their good years to work in these mines, only to have their livelihoods stripped away on account of some slant-eyes who’ll do it cheaper.”
“You really think the Federals will listen to this?” Nick asked. Although he’d been expecting to catch some hell for the question, Nick wanted to see how Francis would deliver his answer.
Surprisingly enough, Francis grinned and said, “They will when they try to ship in their troops and replacement workers on a stretch of blown-up track. And they sure as hell will take notice when the only Chinese that’re left in this town are the dead ones piled up behind this very building.”
“If you’re done with your speech,” Kinman said, “then we’ve got some more bodies to collect.”
Francis nodded and held onto the edges of his vest like a politician posing for the camera. “I won’t stand in your way. Just be careful, because Sheriff Young is out with the rest of the fucking Chinese sympathizers to make our job harder.”
Turning his back to the mining office and leading Nick into the street, Kinman looked over and grumbled under his breath, “Them sympathizers he’s talking about would be the Fire Brigade and they’re mainly out to douse the flames that the assholes on Hale’s payroll got started.”
“What about the rest of what he was saying?” Nick asked.
Kinman led him down the street a way before glancing over at Nick. “You’ll have to refresh my memory. Hale talks an awful lot and if he ain’t talking about money, I ain’t listening.”
“I wouldn’t let him hear you say that,” Nick told him. “He seems like the sort to get upset when he hears his men bad-mouthing him that way.”
After letting out a quick grunt of a laugh, Kinman said, “I’ve only been in town for less than a day and I sure as hell ain’t one of his men. I was on an eastbound train just like you that got stopped. Only reason I got off is because Hale was shouting that there was money to be made.”
“That’s a hell of a lot better than the reception I got,” Nick told him. “All I heard was gunshots. How’d you get your train moving again?”
“I didn’t. Hale stopped us and fed everyone his line about the mining companies and the Chinese. There was one fella who meant to come here, so he got off. I figured I was close enough to my destination that I could ride my horse the rest of the way if it meant earning some money while I was here. After that, Hale gave the word and his boys cleared the track.” Kinman lowered his voice a bit as he asked, “That ain’t how it happened for you?”
Nick shook his head. “The tracks are blocked off and guarded by armed men. I had to fight through those assholes just so the train could pass.”
“And you didn’t ride along with it?”
“Nah,” Nick replied with a forced smirk. “I always did have a weakness for fireworks.”
“You want my opinion, I’d say you made a hell of a good choice. There’s some real money to be made here.”
“Ten dollars a head for killing Chinamen? I can think of a lot easier ways to make a lot more money.”
“What about a thousand dollars for blowing those Federals to hell?”
Whether he was thinking about collecting the money or not, Nick couldn’t help but be startled by that. “A thousand?”
“And for becoming a man wanted for disrupting government process or whatever the hell else they try to call it once it’s done. Basically, you’d be taking a bullet for Hale once folks start spreadin’ the blame around.”
“Is that kind of heat worth a thousand dollars?”
“It is if you do it right,” Kinman said. “The way I got it figured, we might not even be spotted before this thing is done. The money will still be ours and we’re the hell out of this shit hole.”
“We?”
Holding out his hand, Kinman nodded once and said, “Sure. You got a stomach for this.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“First of all, you got off that train of yours when everyone else had to have been shaking in their boots and crying for mercy.” As Kinman took a breath, a distant rumble marked the collapse of a building in another part of town. “Second,” he said without so much as looking in the direction of the rumble, “the way you hefted that body over your shoulder. It shows you ain’t the squeamish sort.”
“I’ve worked with plenty of dead folks.”
“Yeah. I just bet you have.”
Pausing for a moment, Nick said, “I’m a mourner.”
“A what?”
Even though there was a more official and complete explanation, Nick let it slide with, “It’s like an undertaker.” Once that was said, Nick took a more careful look at the hand Kinman was still extending to him. His fingers were curled around a messy wad of money. Nick snatched it from him and worked his fingers through the bills. His half of the money was all there. As much as he wanted to toss it into the street or even back into Kinman’s face, Nick shoved the cash into his pocket.
“Oh, I see,” Kinman said. “So, do most undertakers see folks get shot right in front of them?” Glancing over at Nick as they walked another couple of paces, Kinman waited before answering his own question. “I didn’t think so. Whatever your line of work is, I’d say you’re the man I’m looking for. At least, for the hour or two it’ll take to get this cakewalk over and done with.”
“You call this a cakewalk?” Nick asked.
“For me and you? Sure. For them…” Kinman said as he nodded ahead to where a small group of people was huddled, “…not hardly.”
Nick could tell the group had already seen him and Kinman coming. There were four of them crammed into a small alcove between a laundry and a store displaying men’s suits. All of them were Chinese and dressed in black or gray pants with simple white shirts. Two were children and the other two were a man and woman who’d positioned themselves to try and keep the little ones from view.
Kinman walked with his hand resting upon his holstered gun. His arm looked relaxed, but the muscles from his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips were as tense as bowstrings. Nick knew that much because he’d walked that same way plenty of times and could recognize it in someone else. If he had any doubts, all Nick had to do was look at the hungry sparkle in Kinman’s eyes.
“See what I mean?” Kinman whispered. “Plenty of money to be made here.”
Nick reached out to hold him back with an outstretched arm. As soon as Kinman’s eyes snapped toward him, Nick said, “Let me take these.”
“Sure,” Kinman replied. “We was gonna split the money anyhow. Better make it quick, though. They already seen us comin’.”
Nick’s eyes darted up and down, left and right before centering back upon his main target. In the space of a few heartbeats, Nick had sized up as much as he could regarding the people around him, what could go wrong and routes that could best be used for escape. Even as he was looking for all of those things, Nick could feel the other man getting more and more anxious beside him.
“Stand back,” Nick said as he stepped forward and in front of Kinman. Drawing his pistol, Nick took aim and fired a shot as he moved toward the Chinese family cowering at the mouth of the narrow alley.
Nick’s shot punched into the wall several inches to the left of the Chinese man’s head. Fixing his eyes upon him, Nick rushed forward with his gun held in front of him and his chin stuck out even farther. Sure enough, it was the Chinese man’s first impulse to take a swing at Nick with a balled fist.
Even though the punch had some strength behind it, there wasn’t nearly enough to put Nick down. Nick snapped his head back just long enough to get a look behind him. Kinman was standing a few paces back to watch the show. When Nick looked back at the Chinese man, he hissed, “Hit me again.”
The Chinese man was so stunned that Nick wondered if he even understood English. Either the man understood just fine or he was fighting mad, because he quickly took another swing at Nick.
As that punch glanced off his jaw, Nick got a better look at the rest of the family as well as the spot they were in. The opening between the buildings could barely be called an alley. It was so narrow that the two children were just able to squeeze into it. The Chinese woman looked as though she might be able to squeeze through, but the man would have a bit more trouble.
“Run,” Nick said as he gave the Chinese man a punch that wasn’t much more than a tap on the chest. “Find somewhere to hide and don’t come out till this passes over.”
“You will shoot,” the Chinese man said.
“Just over your heads as you go.” He could feel Kinman’s patience wearing thin, so Nick made some noise by slamming his shoulder against the wall, adding, “I could have killed you already. Just hit me, run and make it look good.”
The Chinese man looked past Nick at Kinman. That was enough to spur him on, and he delivered a chopping blow to Nick’s stomach that legitimately doubled him over. From there, the man shoved his wife in front of him so they could both throw themselves into the narrow alleyway.
As he straightened up, Nick saw Kinman moving up next to him. Nick acted as if he didn’t know where the other man was so he could pass off his next move as an accident. He let out a few vicious curses, stepped back and knocked into Kinman along the way. Bringing up his pistol, Nick stepped back and fired into the alley. His first shot hissed straight down the alley and well over the family’s heads. His next shot tore through the side of one building and his third sent a bunch of splinters flying from the other wall.
Reaper's Fee Page 9
