Strong Convictions: An Emmett Strong Western (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 1)

by GP Hutchinson

  “We’re stuck here, Mr. Blaylock,” Lewis called out. “Damn buffalo gun got three of our hitched-up horses and one of the spares.”

  Seth glared at Lewis.

  Once Lewis’s gaze landed on Ettie, leaning unconscious and bleeding against Seth, he hurried to say, “I’m sorry, Mr. Blaylock. I’m real sorry.”

  “I’m guessin’ the fella on the buffalo gun is out of cartridges,” Seth said. He looked around. “Otherwise I suppose all our horses would be dead by now.”

  Only two things mattered to Seth right now. Above all, he didn’t want Ettie to die. Everything else paled by comparison, with one exception—what Lucian McIntosh would think and do once he found out about this mess.

  “The China girls?” he asked.

  Cole stepped out from behind the other wagon and pointed to where he’d just come from. “Right over here.

  “You keep ’em real safe, Cole. I’m puttin’ that responsibility on you. You hear?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” Cole stuttered. “If I may ask, where you goin’, Mr. Blaylock?”

  Seth deliberated whether he could leave the China girls out here in the open, even if his excuse was to get Ettie to a doctor. He was already on thin ice with Lucian McIntosh. And one China girl out of the four was already dead. He’d had to shoot her, though, on the odd chance that she and that Chinaman had gotten away. He couldn’t have either one of them identifying him or his boss. He shook his head and sniffed.

  “Gotta get some help for Ettie here, Cole. Don’t know how bad she is, but she’s bleedin’ a lot.”

  Seth’s mind was beginning to clear. He surveyed the scene around the wagons once again. “How many hit? How many dead?”

  “Only other one hit’s me.” It was Charlie.

  Seth found Charlie lying on the ground behind the first wagon. He had a neckerchief pressed against his upper arm. A couple more, fairly soaked with blood, were tossed onto the ground nearby.

  “You gonna make it?” Seth asked.

  “’Spect so,” Charlie said. “Hurts like hell, though.”

  Seth hoped it hurt like hell. As he looked down on Charlie, a slow fuse burned inside. It wasn’t the time or place to bring it up, but as far as he was concerned this entire mess could be chalked up to Charlie’s stupidity. If he hadn’t shot that Texas senator—right there in full sight of his Texas Ranger brother—this attack wouldn’t have happened. And Ettie wouldn’t be bleeding all over him right now.

  “Boys,” Seth said, “listen real careful. I’ve gotta get some help for those that’re bleedin’. And I’ve gotta get us some horses and some reinforcements. Those Texans on the ridge up there are more’n likely out of bullets.”

  “Why don’t we just wait’ll after dark? We could hitch up the remainin’ horses and head on back to Reno,” Zeke said.

  “Uh-uh. Mr. McIntosh told us to deliver these China girls to Genoa, and that’s where we’re damn well gonna deliver ’em. If we don’t”—he looked from face to face—“don’t reckon any of y’all oughta plan on returnin’ to Reno again. Ever.”

  “Why not? I ain’t the cause of all this trouble,” Milt Porter said. “’Sides, stealin’ them China girls was your idea, not mine.”

  In a heartbeat, Seth’s pistol was shucked and leveled at Milt. “So far none of our crew is dead from this unfortunate turn of events. You wanna be the first?”

  Milt held his hands up in front of him and shook his head.

  “Besides, it don’t matter who first came up with the idea to steal the China girls—Mr. McIntosh is real partial to ’em now. Nevada and California together ain’t big enough for you to hide in if you go and mess up Mr. McIntosh’s plans. Comprende?”

  Milt nodded.

  “Now you’ve got plenty of ammunition, food, and water on the supply wagon, so sit tight,” Seth said. Then he turned to his brother. “Get on your horse, Charlie. Might as well get you and Ettie to the same doctor.”

  While he waited for Charlie to climb into the saddle, he turned back to Cole. “The men on that ridge up there’ll have to go farther than Carson City to find someplace that’ll sell ’em bullets. I can get to Carson City and back long before they take care of their needs.”

  “What about Washoe City?” Cole asked.

  “No doctor in Washoe City,” Seth said. “The Texans have a wounded Chinaman with ’em. They’ll be lookin’ for a doctor. Unless he’s dead already.”

  “I s’pose we got a handle on it then,” Cole said.

  “Good enough,” Seth said, glancing at Charlie. “Once I’ve got Ettie squared away, I’ll be back directly…with fresh horses and a slue of Thaddeus McIntosh’s men.”

  Charlie circled his sorrel and pulled up alongside his brother.

  Seth shifted Ettie in his arms, then gigged his horse hard.

  Once out of earshot, Charlie asked, “What happens if them Texans overtake ’em while we’re gone?”

  Seth glowered. “Shut up, Charlie. All you need to worry about is Ettie here. If she don’t make it, those Texans’ll be the least of your concerns.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  By the time Emmett got back to the arroyo, Yong Xu was conscious again and grimacing in pain.

  Emmett recalled what he’d seen just before Yong had tumbled into the gully. “You hurt anywhere other than the shoulder?”

  Yong shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He struggled to sit up.

  Emmett helped. “Take it slow.”

  Yong gripped Emmett’s forearm tightly and looked him in the eye. “Guiying?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The girl, Guiying—did she make it?”

  A lump in Emmett’s throat made it difficult for him to answer. “I’m sorry, Yong. Very, very sorry.”

  Yong Xu put his hands to his face and wept bitterly. “This just gets worse and worse.”

  Emmett gave him a moment, then said, “If you can move, we’d better get outta here. They may come back for a second go at us.”

  Safely back on the ridge, Yong hissed in pain as he gingerly let himself down from the saddle. Emmett carefully released the girl’s body to Juanito and Sikes. While they in silence arranged the body on the ground, he swung down and headed over to take a better look at Yong’s wound.

  “Need to get this cleaned up,” he said. “I know it hurts like the dickens, but it looks like it just skimmed the muscle—plowed a shallow furrow in that shoulder meat.”

  Yong Xu appeared not to have heard what Emmett said. He shuffled over to the dead girl and dropped to his knees beside her. “Guiying was my close friend Wei’s daughter. Losing her is like losing my own.” He blotted his eyes and nose.

  Emmett squatted beside Yong, remorseful he hadn’t hit that dandy back in the chaparral with the first shot. His sorrow was genuine, but so was his relief that the dead girl was not in fact Yong’s own daughter. He stared in the direction of the kidnappers’ wagons and wondered whether Li might possibly be just that near.

  “Would you like a moment alone with her?” Emmett murmured.

  Yong nodded.

  Emmett clapped his friend on the shoulder, then trudged to the crest of the rise.

  Sikes followed him. “Hell of a thing.”

  Emmett nodded and gazed out at the enemy below. In the last rays of the day’s sunlight, he spotted the four horses, motionless on the ground—two in front of one wagon, one in front of the other wagon, the last in between. After a moment, he said, “Good job with the buffalo gun.”

  “Pretty difficult to hit a man behind cover that far out,” Sikes said. “But horses standing still in the open…”

  “Wonder why they didn’t swap ’em out, use the remaining horses to take the wagons back to where they came from. Unless they’re waiting to do it under cover of darkness.”

  Juanito joined them. “A couple of riders took o
ff a little while ago. Gone for help, I imagine.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Just before you and Yong Xu cleared the chaparral.”

  “You say a couple of riders?”

  “Three actually. Only took two horses though.”

  “You spot Charlie Blaylock?”

  “Charlie was on a horse by himself. A fellow with no hat was doubled up with somebody else on the other horse,” Sikes said.

  The dandy—Seth Blaylock, I’m willing to bet. With the one I know for sure I shot. Emmett’s gaze drifted toward the arroyo. “In the scrub down there I managed to hit one of ’em.”

  Juanito peered over his shoulder at the now-praying Chinaman. “Speaking of being hit, how bad is Yong Xu?”

  “Won’t be able to handle that shotgun too well, but I think he’ll be OK.” Emmett pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “Plans, gents. What do we have on our hands here? And what’re we gonna do about it?”

  “The Chinese girl who ran wasn’t the only one in that wagon,” Sikes said. “During the heat of battle, they pulled three more out and hid them behind the second wagon. I had to keep that in mind all the while I was shooting.”

  Emmett’s heart lurched. “Only three?” He recalled that a total of six had been abducted.

  “Only three. I don’t know what’s become of the other two.”

  Emmett chewed on his thumbnail. He couldn’t decide whether he liked Li Xu’s chances better behind the wagons right there below them—where he might have a shot at rescuing her tonight—or elsewhere, out of the line of gunfire.

  “Looks like Cromarty got it right,” he said.

  Juanito kept his eyes on the wagons as he spoke. “Charlie Blaylock—Seth’s brother—just happens to be out here in the middle of nowhere with the same Chinese girls we’re looking for. Sí, I’d say it’s a fair guess. Seth Blaylock’s in the business of kidnapping girls for his boss’s bordellos.”

  “I think the one with no hat was him.” Emmett kicked a small stone, sending it clattering down the slope.

  “Who? Seth?”

  “Yep.” And I should’ve had him.

  After a moment, Sikes asked, “So what do we do, Strong?”

  “How’re the bullets holding out?”

  “No more cartridges for the buffalo rifle,” the former British soldier said. “Low on everything else.”

  “Figured as much.”

  “I fired more shots than I probably should’ve,” Juanito said. “Just trying to keep them pinned down.”

  “So in other words,” Emmett said, “even though we might gamble our four going up against their five before Seth and Charlie get back, we don’t have enough lead to guarantee an acceptable outcome.”

  “How long do you figure we have till they get back?” Juanito asked.

  “I assume they’ve gone for fresh horses and more men,” Sikes said, knocking some of the dust off his shirt and trousers.

  “And medical help,” Emmett said. “Speaking of which, Yong needs to have somebody clean up that shoulder before it becomes more than just an inconvenience.”

  “They’ve probably gone where?” Sikes asked. “Carson City?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Washoe City’s closer. Is that an option for us?”

  Emmett shook his head. “Yong said Washoe City is too small for McIntosh to bother with. Might have bullets. Might not. Probably don’t have a doctor.”

  “Then can we chance a visit to Carson City ourselves?”

  Hands on his hips, Juanito said, “Thaddeus McIntosh’s town? I don’t think so.”

  “Considering the reception we got there the first time,” Emmett said, “I doubt we could slip in and out unnoticed. Not with a gunshot Chinaman and the need for a few hundred bullets.”

  “And if that’s where Seth and Charlie have gone, they’ll raise the alarm before we get there.”

  Emmett rubbed the back of his neck. “Probably. So the surest thing for us is to return to Virginia City.”

  “They’ll be back long before we will,” Sikes said.

  “So we’re gonna have to split up. You and Juanito’ll have to stay here and keep an eye on ’em.”

  “And if they come back in force?”

  “Stay hidden. In fact, let’s make it look like all four of us are leaving. Only you two scout out a fresh vantage point you can watch ’em from.”

  Sikes cradled the buffalo rifle. “But if they manage to hitch up and leave, you want us to follow, right?”

  “Exactly. You’ll have to tail ’em…wherever they take those girls.” Once again it began to gnaw away at Emmett—not knowing whether Li Xu was among the three captives only a few hundred yards away. “If they take ’em, get a telegram to me in Virginia City somehow. Let me know where to meet up with you. But don’t mention the girls in the telegram.”

  Juanito nodded as the three headed down the back slope toward the horses.

  “Yong and I’ll get what we need,” Emmett said. “And if Yong can’t ride back with me, I’ll try to get another man who can.”

  “Just one?” Juanito asked.

  Emmett threw up his hands. “I’ll do what I can.”

  They approached Yong Xu, who sat silently beside Guiying’s reposed body.

  “She sure was pretty,” Sikes said softly.

  “Very pretty,” Yong Xu said.

  Emmett stood in silence for a moment, then said, “Did you hear our planning up there, Yong?”

  The Chinese man nodded. He met Emmett’s gaze. “Tell me the truth. Do you believe Li-Li is down there by the wagons?”

  Emmett said softly, “I don’t know, my friend. But we want Li back alive. And to be sure that’s the way we get her back, you and I really need to go for supplies. Pronto. And—if possible—for more help.”

  Yong Xu got to his feet. He clenched his fists. “One part of me wants to…”

  “I know,” Emmett said, putting a hand on Yong’s chest. “Juanito and Sikes will keep ’em in sight until we get back. Those men won’t hurt her. They want her—” A pang gripped his insides. “Well, they won’t hurt her.”

  That’s what he told Yong Xu. But his guts wrenched within him. Unprincipled men like the ones just up the trail might give in to their passions regardless of their boss’s instructions. Even if they didn’t…He brooded over the nature of Blaylock’s business.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  In the carpeted upstairs hallway of Thaddeus McIntosh’s opulent Carson City home, Charlie Blaylock shifted his weight from foot to foot. He couldn’t have been sweating any more profusely if it were high noon in July under a broiling sun on the Staked Plains of Texas. Weather had nothing to do with his condition, though—it wasn’t yet daybreak. But Seth was furious. And he was venting the full heat of his temper on Charlie.

  The bedroom door opened, and the doctor stormed out. “That woman in there is in a bad way,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, blood-tinged droplets of water flying from his fingertips with every gesticulation. “If you two can’t keep it down out here, I’m gonna ask Mr. McIntosh to have the both of you removed. Now take your hollerin’ elsewhere. Do you understand me?” He glared, beet-faced, before spinning on his heels and returning to the bedroom.

  Seth thrust a finger in Charlie’s face and hissed, “If Ettie dies, I may damn well kill you myself…before I even beef that damn Texan.” If looks could do the deed, it would’ve already been done. And somebody would already be measuring Charlie’s stretched-out body for a pine box. “Now follow me.”

  Seth marched off down the hall, motioning for Charlie to follow.

  Once the two were behind closed doors in Thaddeus’s billiard room, Seth laid into his brother again. “To hell with them Texans! How could you have been so stupid, Charlie?”

  For the first ti
me since arriving in Nevada, Charlie decided—rich or not—he’d had just about enough of his younger brother lording it over him. He stepped to within inches of the Belvidere. “You blame all this on me. Well, you listen to one thing, Seth: When we was young and our brother Thomas was like a pa to us, when he didn’t come home from Adobe Walls, it was me that had to be the man. I’m the one had to go beg that damn Lieutenant Eli Strong to go out and look into the matter. I was the one had to listen to that damn young so-called officer tell me it weren’t nothin’ more’n rumors about the Comanche up there.

  “Our family got ripped apart that day. Thomas dead. You hauled off by a pair of relations we ain’t seen in years. Me on my own. How’d I know it’d all work out so pretty for you up here? You didn’t have a dime more’n me when you left.

  “All I knew was I had a debt to pay. An’ I swore I’d pay it. For Thomas. For me. And for you.” Now it was Charlie’s turn to jab a finger in Seth’s chest. “Well, I kept my oath. Took me seven years to do it, but I kept my word. Shootin’ down Eli Strong on the street in Austin weren’t my first choice. But it was gettin’ close to bein’ my last chance to do it.”

  Charlie’s heart pounded as he released his pent-up frustration. “Now, I’m real sorry your woman got shot up there today. Real sorry. But all I done was keep my word. Whoever heard of Texas law dogs wanderin’ this far from home in search of a man?”

  Through all Charlie had said, Seth hadn’t budged. Charlie had no idea how his brother was going to react, but that didn’t matter. He was done cowering.

  Seth narrowed his eyes. His voice was low now. “Why the hell did you have to tell anybody down in Texas you were comin’ up here to Nevada?”

  Charlie’s eye twitched. A shudder ran through him. In a voice aimed at matching his brother’s, he said, “’Cause I’s so damn proud of all the rumors I’d heard about you and about how well you’d done for yourself up here. That’s why. I wanted what few folks I still cared about down in Texas to know I’s goin’ up to see my little brother what done hisself so proud.”

  Seth’s cheeks flushed.

  “Now I kept one oath,” Charlie went on. “And I’m gonna make another one right here and now.”