A Big Sky Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  One man screamed suddenly and reeled backward, pawing frantically at the side of his neck, startling his companion enough to give Bodie an opening. He jabbed a stinging left into the man’s face and followed it with a right cross that landed solidly on the hombre’s jaw, sending him spinning to the sidewalk.

  The one who had started yelling staggered into a slanting ray of light coming from a window in a nearby building, and for the first time, Bodie got a good look at his face. A second later, he realized where he had seen the man before.

  Earlier, the big bruiser had been with the rich, blond gent who had bumped into Bodie outside the theater. That meant the second man was probably the other bodyguard.

  Based on what Savannah had said, the rich, arrogant son of a gun would be Gideon Kane, Bodie supposed. Not that it mattered. Anybody who wanted to hurt Savannah McCoy, for whatever reason, was his enemy.

  The yelling man finally plucked whatever was bothering him from his neck and shouted, “Shoot him! Shoot that cowboy!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For a second, Bodie didn’t know who the man was talking to, then from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the driver fumbling under his coat, trying to pull a gun.

  Nobody would ever mistake Bodie Cantrell for a real gunfighter like Wild Bill Hickok, but he could get his Colt out of its holster fairly fast, and he usually hit what he aimed at. He drew the revolver and smoothly eared back the hammer as the barrel came up. He had beaten the carriage driver cleanly to the draw, so he expected the man to give up.

  But the driver fumbled out a pistol and thrust it toward Bodie.

  That took the decision out of Bodie’s hands. He squeezed off a shot before the man could pull the trigger. The Colt roared and bucked against his palm.

  The bullet smashed into the man’s shoulder and slewed him around. He yelled as the pistol flew from his fingers.

  Savannah grabbed Bodie’s arm and tugged on it. “Come on!” she urged. “Maybe they won’t chase us as long as you’ve got that gun!”

  Bodie didn’t figure they could count on that. He fired again, aiming low so that the bullet hit the sidewalk near the two men who were still on their feet. The one going after the driver’s pistol forgot about it for the moment as they both leaped for cover.

  Bodie wheeled around and started to run. He took Savannah’s arm and pulled her along, making sure he didn’t outdistance her with his long-legged strides.

  He was a little surprised she was still there. He had hoped she would take off running as soon as she got the chance. But she had waited for him and they needed to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the three men.

  Bodie didn’t know where he was going. He wasn’t familiar with any of Kansas City except the area around the hotel, the Bella Royale Saloon, and the theater. But as an open stretch of ground loomed up to his right, he saw the wagons parked there and steered Savannah in that direction.

  “We’ll hide among those wagons,” he told her in a whisper. “They won’t be able to find us.”

  She didn’t say anything, but she went with him willingly. Even though he knew perfectly well who she was, she wouldn’t have any idea as to his identity. All she knew was that he was trying to help her, and he supposed that was enough for the time being.

  They ducked around the closest of the big, canvas-covered vehicles. The wagons were arranged in a rough circle, the same formation the immigrants would use when they were traveling out on the prairie. The difference was that away from town, the livestock would be kept inside the circled wagons, not in a corral adjacent to the lot where the wagons were parked.

  The big campfire in the center of the circle had burned down to mostly embers and a few faintly flickering flames that didn’t cast much light. The wagons were dark and quiet. Everybody in the camp seemed to be asleep.

  Bodie led Savannah farther away from the street. When he thought they were deep enough in the camp, he dropped to a knee beside one of the big wheels and urged Savannah to kneel beside him. He didn’t like the idea of her getting her dress dirty, but they needed to hide in the shadows in case the three men came looking for them.

  He leaned closer to her, and suddenly felt a little lightheaded from the fight or from the clean, tantalizing scent of her thick brown hair. He didn’t know which.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in a whisper. “Did those varmints hurt you?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she replied, keeping her voice as quiet as his. “Just scared.”

  “You don’t have to be scared, Miss McCoy. I won’t let them get you.”

  “You know who I am?” She sounded a little surprised.

  “Why, sure I do. I was in the audience at the theater tonight. Right in the center on the fourth row.”

  Their shoulders were touching as they knelt beside the wagon. He felt her tiny start of surprise and wondered what it was about.

  She whispered, “I saw you while I was singing my first number.”

  “It was a mighty pretty song. My name’s Bodie, by the way. Bodie Cantrell.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cantrell. Under the circumstances, very pleased indeed.”

  They crouched there for a moment in silence, catching their breath. Then Bodie asked, “Why were those fellas trying to grab you?”

  “To take me back to their employer’s mansion, I expect. They work for a man named Gideon Kane.”

  “Fancy dressed fella with blond hair and a mustache?” Once again he felt Savannah react slightly.

  With a note of worry in her voice, she said, “That’s him, all right. He’s not a friend of yours, is he?”

  “Not hardly. Me and a pard of mine had a run-in with him earlier this evening. I didn’t like him then, and now that I know he likes to have girls kidnapped, I don’t cotton to him that much more.”

  “I think he’s probably a bad man to have for an enemy.”

  “I’ve heard it said you can judge a man by his enemies. In this fella’s case, I reckon it says some pretty good things about us.”

  She was quiet for a second, then she laughed softly. Bodie had seldom heard a nicer sound.

  “I think you’re right about that, Mr. Cantrell.”

  They were quiet again, and Bodie listened intently, searching the night for any indication that Kane’s men were coming after them. When he didn’t hear anything that seemed unusual, he asked, “Do you know how come that fella started screaming and grabbing at his neck?”

  “I certainly do. I stuck a hat pin in the side of his neck as hard as I could.”

  It was all Bodie could do not to burst out laughing. He held it in check and chuckled softly. “I didn’t notice you wearing a hat.”

  “I wasn’t. But I always carry a hatpin in my bag, anyway, just in case. Tonight it came in handy.”

  “It sure did,” Bodie agreed. “That was pretty brave of you, jumping in like that. They had me in a pretty bad spot. I might not have been able to get away from them if you hadn’t given me a hand.”

  “You were risking your life to help me. It was the least I could do.”

  Bodie was about to tell her that he would have given his life to save her, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything else. At that moment, an arm looped around his neck from behind, closed on his throat like an iron bar, and jerked him to his feet. He felt the cold, hard ring of a gun muzzle pressed to the side of his head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  One thing about growing older, Jamie had discovered, was that he didn’t seem to need as much sleep as he once had. He found himself awake at night fairly often, and he wasn’t the sort to just lie there in his bunk or bedroll and stare at the darkness. He felt better getting up and moving around. He liked to stay busy, always had.

  Besides, even though the wagon train was camped in a city and surrounded by civilization, it didn’t mean there were no dangers lurking in the darkness. In some ways, the situation was more precarious than if the immigrants had been out on the prairie
. The threats were just different, that’s all.

  For those reasons, Jamie was up and taking a pasear around the camp when he spotted a couple figures skulking beside one of the wagons.

  They might be two of the immigrants, he told himself. Maybe a boy and a girl who weren’t supposed to be courting had slipped out of their families’ wagons for a midnight rendezvous. In that case, it wouldn’t be any of his business. Young love could run its course—or not—without any meddling from him.

  However, in one way of looking at it, anything that happened involving the wagon train was the wagon master’s business, he thought. Anyway, something about those two struck Jamie as suspicious, and he had long since learned to trust what his gut was telling him.

  With the same stealth that had allowed him to sneak up unnoticed on countless enemies over the past five decades, he approached the two shadowy forms. One of his Colts came smoothly out of its holster with only the faintest brushing of steel against leather.

  The two people were whispering to each other and seemed to have no idea he was right behind them. Jamie’s eyes, still keen despite his years, made out the fact that one of the figures was male and the other female, but they didn’t sound like a couple of love struck kids.

  Actually, they were talking like they were in some sort of trouble, maybe with the law. Regardless, they were strangers and didn’t belong there. Since Jamie had taken the job of getting the pilgrims safely to Montana Territory, his first responsibility was to protect the wagon train.

  Because the man was armed, Jamie decided the best thing to do was make sure he couldn’t yank that gun out and start blazing away. With so many folks around, flying lead could tear through the canvas covers on the wagons and would be a real danger.

  When Jamie made his move, it was swift and sure, grabbing the man from behind, hauling him to his feet, and pressing the Colt to his head. “Take it easy, mister,” he rasped into the man’s ear. “It wouldn’t take much to make this gun go off and splatter your brains all over that canvas.”

  The woman sprang to her feet, and for a second Jamie thought she was going to bolt.

  But she didn’t. She said urgently, “Please don’t kill him! He doesn’t really have anything to do with this. Just let him go and . . . and I’ll go with you to Mr. Kane’s house.”

  The fella Jamie had hold of made a squawking sound, like he was trying to object to what the woman had just said, but he couldn’t get any words past Jamie’s iron grip on his throat.

  “Miss, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Jamie told her. “I don’t know anybody named Kane. I just want to know why you’re sneaking around these wagons. You plan on robbing some of them?”

  “No!” the woman exclaimed. “We’re not thieves, I swear. We’re just trying to hide from some men who . . . who wanted to kidnap me.”

  The story came pouring out of her in disjointed fashion, some wild yarn about her being an actress and a rich fellow who had taken a fancy to her and was used to getting what he wanted, even if that meant taking it by force.

  Jamie could believe the part about the woman being an actress, because the story she told sounded like something out of a play penned by some crazy scribbler. When the flow of words from her finally ran down, he asked, “So who’s this hombre I’ve got hold of?”

  “His name is Bodie Cantrell. He risked his life to help me get away from those terrible men. That’s all I really know about him.”

  Despite being a little lurid, the woman’s story had the ring of truth about it. Jamie had a hunch she wasn’t lying to him, and since he was in the habit of following his hunches, he let go of Bodie.

  There was nothing wrong with being careful. Now that he had a hand free, Jamie reached down and plucked the man’s revolver from its holster before Bodie had a chance to stop him. The man was too busy at the moment dragging air back into his lungs after being choked for a couple minutes.

  Jamie had been careful not to squeeze hard enough to kill him or even make him pass out, so he recovered quickly. Still a little breathless, he asked, “Who . . . who are you?”

  “Jamie Ian MacCallister. Wagon master for this bunch that’s headed to Montana.”

  “You didn’t have to try to kill me,” Bodie complained.

  Jamie chuckled coldly. “Mister, if I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing there right now. You’d already be shaking hands with St. Peter.”

  He was about to say something else when one of the numerous dogs that belonged with the wagon train started to bark. None of the curs had raised a ruckus when Cantrell and the woman, whatever her name was, had sneaked into the camp a few minutes earlier, but several of them began to carry on.

  A shaft of light played around the camp from the direction of the street. Somebody had a bull’s-eye lantern, Jamie realized. The light darted toward them like a searching finger in the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Get under the wagon,” Jamie told the two strangers in a low, urgent voice.

  “What?” Bodie said.

  “Under the wagon,” Jamie repeated. “That’s probably the varmints who were after the gal.”

  They didn’t need any more urging. Bodie took hold of Savannah’s arm and helped her crawl underneath the wagon. Jamie moved so that his buckskin-clad legs would help shield them and planted his feet solidly on the ground as several men approached. One of them carried the lantern.

  The Colt .44 was still in Jamie’s hand. He raised the weapon, pointed it at the intruders, and called softly, “Lower that light, by God, or I’ll shoot it out!”

  The light played over him, but only for a second before it dipped toward the ground. It was long enough for the men to have seen that he had the drop on them.

  “Take it easy, mister,” one of them said. “We’re not lookin’ for any trouble.”

  “You may have found it anyway,” Jamie snapped. “I’m the boss of this wagon camp. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  “We’re looking for a woman,” another man said. “She’s a thief. She stole something from our boss, and we’re just tryin’ to get it back.”

  “That’s right,” the first man added. “She’s got this cowboy with her. I think he’s an outlaw. He must be in on it with her.”

  Once again Jamie’s instincts passed judgment on what he was hearing . . . and he didn’t like it. These men were lying—which meant Cantrell and the woman were probably telling the truth.

  “Well, there’s nobody like that around here,” Jamie told the three men. “I’ve been standing guard all night, and I’d know.”

  The man with the lantern came closer, but he kept the light pointed toward the ground.

  “No offense, old-timer, but we’re not going to just take your word for it. We’ll have a look around—”

  “I don’t think so.” Jamie’s voice was hard, flat, and dangerous as he interrupted.

  “Look, you may have a gun, but there are three of us—”

  “Which means I’ll have two bullets left over in this old Colt of mine when I get through with you, since I carry the hammer on an empty chamber.” There was no mistaking the threat in Jamie’s voice. He wasn’t bluffing. The men were strangers, and they had bullied their way into the wagon camp uninvited. As far as he was concerned, he would be well within his rights to ventilate all three of them.

  The moment stretched out tensely until one of the men muttered, “That old coot sounds crazy enough to do it. I’ve already been shot at once tonight, and I ain’t in the mood to have it happen again.”

  The man with the lantern argued. “The boss won’t like it if we come back without—”

  “He’s smart. He can figure out what to do about it. Come on,” interrupted the other man who had spoken.

  Two men started backing away, and the one with the lantern wasn’t going to stay there and take on Jamie by himself. He blustered, “You don’t know how much trouble you’re getting yourself into, mister,” then turned and fo
llowed his companions out of the camp.

  After a few moments, Jamie said quietly to the couple under the wagon, “You two stay right where you are until I get back.”

  He walked to the edge of the camp where he could look along the street and make sure the three intruders were gone. He saw them walking quickly away from the camp, already more than a block away. He supposed they were on their way to report to the man who had ordered them to kidnap the young woman. If she had told him her name, he had missed it.

  He pouched the iron and turned back to the wagon where he had left her and her rescuer. He knew it was possible they might have crawled out and lit a shuck without waiting for him, as he had told them to do. However, when he reached the right wagon and said, “Come on out of there,” they emerged from under the vehicle.

  Bodie stood up first, then helped the woman to her feet. “Are they gone?”

  “Yeah. I made sure of that. Of course, they might circle back and try to slip into the camp again, so why don’t the two of you come with me?”

  “Where are you taking us?” the woman asked nervously. If what she had told him earlier was true, Jamie didn’t blame her for not being very trusting.

  “I want to get the two of you out of sight while we hash this out. We’ll go to my friend Moses’s wagon. He won’t mind us disturbing him. He’s a preacher, sort of, so he ought to be used to folks waking him up and needing his help in the middle of the night.” Jamie led them across the camp and stopped beside one of the wagons. It was a little hard to tell them apart in the dark, so he hoped he had the right one as he hissed Moses’s name through the opening above the tailgate.

  A moment later, he heard a sleepy mutter from inside the wagon, then Moses stuck his head through the opening. “Jamie? What’s going on? It’s awfully late.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve got a couple people here who need a place to get out of sight for a little while. Reckon you can let them stay here?”