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

by GP Hutchinson

  Thaddeus shifted his weight.

  “Texans had to go for more ammunition,” Seth said to him. “They won’t get back before us, even if we wait two more hours.”

  “Unless they decided to shave some time off,” Thaddeus said.

  Seth frowned. “How would they do that?”

  “Comin’ back by train—at least as far as Carson City.”

  Seth shot him a sharp look. “Offload their horses right here under your nose? They wouldn’t dare.”

  McIntosh shook his head. “They’ve shown a lot of gumption. I’ve got some boys down at the station just in case.”

  “Well, if you’ve got boys on it, then we’re covered. Right?”

  Thaddeus stared back coolly. He shoved off the wall. “Two more hours, Seth. After that I’m ridin’—with or without you. I’ll just tell Lucian you were preoccupied.”

  He ambled out and pulled the bedroom door behind him.

  Seth squeezed Ettie’s hand. “Don’t you go and leave us just yet, you hear, Ettie?”

  Doc’s expression was somber as his gaze met Seth’s.

  Me or Charlie—one of us—is gonna be the man to kill that Texan. I got a whole lot more reason to see him dead than Thaddeus does.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Marsh covered acre after acre at the north end of Washoe Lake. In a grove just above the marsh, Emmett squatted on his heels, eating a rice ball. “Never figured plain old rice could taste so good,” he said.

  Although the sun had already set, he could see by the gleam in Yong Xu’s eyes that he was proud of his people—the women who had prepared their rice rations no less than the volunteers who had come along.

  “We may turn you Chinese yet,” he said with a hint of a smile.

  Emmett considered what it took for Yong Xu to smile at all, given how little the man knew about the fate of his daughter.

  “A spot of fine black tea would finish things off delightfully,” Sikes said.

  Emmett shook his head. “No fires tonight. No light, no smoke, no smell of food.”

  The Englishman harrumphed. “Barbarian. Dispensing with tea. Why, even the Zulus delayed hostilities until after we’d had our tea.”

  “Don’t recall reading that they’d given Her Majesty’s finest that kind of consideration,” Emmett said, standing and adjusting his gun belt. “Anyway, we need to move. We’ve caught a break. Don’t wanna waste it.”

  The others rose and began readying themselves as well.

  Juanito inspected the cylinder of his revolver yet again. “I never imagined we would be doing this before Blaylock got back with reinforcements.”

  “Yep,” Emmett said. “Something seems off. What was the mood out there around the wagons last time you checked?”

  “They’ve got a campfire going. They’ve got food. I heard them laughing from time to time.”

  Emmett looked for a reaction from Yong Xu. He hoped the laughs Blaylock’s boys were having out there weren’t at the expense of the girls.

  Yong’s fists tightened, but he said nothing.

  “Horses?” Juanito asked.

  “We’ll picket ’em back here,” Emmett said. “Go in on foot.”

  “That’s a decision you may regret,” Sikes said. “They’ve got five horses and five men. Three could grab a girl each and ride away into the night. You might never see them again.”

  Emmett scratched his forehead. “The way I figure it, if they were gonna do that, they’d have gone with Charlie and Seth. Just left the wagons here.”

  Sikes wore a leery expression. “If there’s one thing I learned from the military, it’s that if something can go wrong, it probably will. I say you’ll regret not bringing the horses.”

  Emmett’s stomach knotted. Sikes might be right, but tonight any premature noise would probably result in a failed rescue attempt. Maybe worse.

  “We need to cover that last hundred yards of open ground Apache style—in absolute silence,” he said. “Our numbers, plus the element of surprise. Those are our advantages.”

  He studied his Chinese contingent. Some of them might have been scared, but armed the way they were, they looked as frightening as hell.

  “Hermano,” Juanito said, tapping Emmett’s arm. He took a few steps away from the posse. A grave look came over his face as he searched the dark outline of the ridge to the south.

  Emmett frowned and held up a hand for quiet. He squinted toward where the road crested the rise, straining to see and hear what Juanito was listening to.

  Blazes! In the dimness he couldn’t see them, but he could now faintly hear what Juanito had picked up on—the sound of horses. Plenty of horses.

  Juanito glanced at the Chinese volunteers, then leaned in toward Emmett. “I think we may have just lost the advantage of numbers.”

  Emmett nodded grimly. He turned to the posse. “Gents, the clock just ran out on us.”

  The apprehension on the faces of the Chinese showed that they too had already heard the distant hoofbeats.

  “But even this can work in our favor,” Emmett said. “Provided we get moving right away.”

  Sikes looked at him quizzically.

  “Trust me,” Emmett said. “They’ll let their guard down. They’ll think they’ve got more than enough hot gunhands.”

  “And won’t they?” Sikes said.

  Emmett shook his head. “Arrogance.”

  A half grin creased Sikes’s features. “Isandlwana.”

  Emmett’s next remark was for the whole party. “Just don’t give up our biggest remaining advantage. They don’t know we’re here.”

  Yong motioned for silence.

  Emmett marched to his horse and retrieved a gunnysack, then summoned Yong with a wave.

  “Once we’re in place up there,” he said, “pick out the two or three men most experienced in mining. Bring ’em down into the arroyo.”

  Yong cocked his head.

  “I’ll fill you in once we’re there.”

  The Chinaman nodded.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the dry creek bed where Guiying had fallen. The sad truth that more of them would likely die before the night was over gnawed at Emmett. He only hoped it wouldn’t be another of the young women.

  Before joining Yong and the miners in the gully, Emmett knelt beside Sikes and Juanito at the edge of the mesquite thicket, no more than a hundred yards from the Conestogas, and surveyed the slavers’ camp.

  One of the five McIntosh men who had stayed with the Chinese girls used his shotgun to prod the three women back into the canopied wagon.

  A moment later, from across the open ground, came a bawdy cry. “About damn time!”

  There was laughter and indistinct banter around the wagons as Blaylock’s relief column swung down from their saddles. Before long a second campfire was going.

  “How many do you count?” Emmett asked.

  “They keep moving in and out of the firelight,” Juanito said. “It’s hard to get an exact number, but I think about twelve new ones arrived.”

  “Fourteen,” Yong Xu said, looking certain.

  “Nineteen total then,” Juanito said.

  Emmett eyed Yong. “Your porters won’t fight, huh?”

  Yong tightened his lips and shook his head.

  Sikes pushed aside some of the brush. “Recalculating the odds?”

  “Odds don’t matter anymore. Considering any town would be as good as a fort to Blaylock’s boys, we have to take ’em here and now. Come with me.”

  Emmett had the porters remain at the edge of the chaparral to keep watch on the men around the wagons while he took the rest back into the arroyo to explain his plan.

  Pulling a stick of dynamite from the burlap sack in his hand, he said, “Any of you miners experienced in the use of this stuff?”

 
Even in the dark, Emmett could see Yong’s eyebrows shoot up. Yong chuckled quietly, then winced and clutched his shoulder.

  Emmett grinned.

  Three men in a mix of traditional Chinese and Western garb edged forward. “We’ve worked with dynamite,” one of the three said.

  “How experienced are you?” Emmett asked. “We can’t risk injuring the women.”

  All eyes were fixed on the miners.

  An older man—quite thin—with a sparse beard said, “Very experienced.”

  “OK then,” Emmett said. “We crawl in silence close enough to Blaylock’s men for you to throw a few sticks at ’em. And then the rest of us rush ’em like madmen before they know what’s happened.”

  He looked from one miner to the other. “So how many sticks do we need?”

  The older man held up three fingers. “Three only,” he said. “More too much.”

  “They can’t be thrown too close to the wagon,” Emmett said. “They might take a bad bounce and blow the girls to high heaven.”

  “We will just have to crawl very close,” a younger miner said. “Maybe just thirty yards from the wagon. Then light the sticks.”

  “And you can throw them close enough to shock McIntosh’s men, but not so close that the girls are injured?”

  The three nodded.

  With his fingertips Emmett held the fuse away from the papered explosive. “I don’t know dynamite,” he said. “But I do know that we can’t leave the fuses this long. Either Blaylock’s men’ll spot us waiting for the fuses to burn down and start shooting or—if we throw ’em with long fuses—they just might scoop ’em up and throw ’em right back.”

  The older man with the sparse beard said, “We cut fuse very shorter.” He turned to his friends. “You two work with short fuse before?”

  They both affirmed they had.

  “I cut them very shorter,” he said. “You know fuse. Very tricky. You know. Could blow up self.” He pointed two fingers at his own eyes.

  The youngest miner looked at the others, then with a resolute jaw said, “We’ll take that risk.”

  At that, Emmett took out three tins of parlor matches. “Thought these would be safer than lucifers.”

  All three gave a bow of the head.

  Emmett clapped the closest two on their shoulders and said, “Let’s go rescue your women.”

  As they clambered out of the arroyo, he muttered softly, “Stay safe, Li Xu. Your friends, too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Clouds blanketed more of the sky than not. The two campfires the McIntosh gang had made did little to push back the inky darkness of the night. In that blackness, twenty-six men inched forward on their bellies toward the wagons—toward the precious cargo Blaylock’s bunch had come to recover.

  Seventy yards was a long way to crawl undetected across open ground. Thorns, burrs, and bits of rock weren’t making the ordeal any easier. Emmett’s forearms and knees were taking the brunt of the abuse—not that the gravel that found its way into his trousers and boots was any treat either.

  But each yard he and the posse covered brought them a yard closer to the abducted girls. Closer to Li Xu, he eagerly hoped, so her captivity might end tonight. So he himself could ensure her freedom and safety.

  The old Chinese miner to his right hissed softly. Emmett held up his slow crawl and peered that way. The miner nodded.

  This would be close enough. The posse lay motionless in a broad arc on either side of Emmett. He glanced right and left trying to see whether they had drawn too close—whether firelight reflecting off their faces might be visible to those guarding the girls.

  Though the ground was relatively flat here, the men advancing with him had instinctively sought cover behind even the skimpiest clumps of grass or in the most subtle dips in the terrain.

  Indistinct yammering, broken by an occasional round of chortles, drifted from the campfires into the gloom.

  Emmett looked to Juanito on his left. His brother-in-law nodded.

  Turning again to the old-timer on his right, Emmett breathed, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  The wiry Chinaman looked up and down the line of rescuers, then toward Blaylock’s men around the campfires. Rising to his knees, he struck his parlor match.

  Only six feet away, Emmett’s heart picked up a beat. As he readied himself to scramble to his feet and rush the kidnappers, a thought flashed through his mind: the moment that match touched that snipped-off fuse…the last thing he might ever see on this good earth was one splendiferous blast.

  Two more matches flared.

  The three dynamite men leapt to their feet and heaved the lit explosives toward the kidnappers. The strongest of them threw for the campfire farthest from the wagons—and the eight or so men lounging in its orange glow. The other two lobbed their sticks to either side of the encampment.

  Hoping the latter two explosives wouldn’t kill so much as confuse and terrorize men and horses alike, Emmett gritted his teeth.

  The concussion from the clustered blasts punched deep into his chest.

  One side of the nearer wagon heaved up—two wheels lifting completely off the ground—and dropped violently again to the earth.

  From fear of what the explosions might have done to the girls, Emmett’s stomach tightened. His ears rang as he staggered to his feet.

  Bits of debris and a good deal of sand pelted the wagon’s canopy and rained down on everyone. Clumps of dry grass burned on both sides of the Conestogas.

  Now the entire posse was up and rushing the camp. They let fly. Along with the booming of shotguns and the cracking of handgun and rifle fire, cries and shouts filled the air. And the initial effect on the McIntosh men was everything Emmett had hoped it would be.

  But not for long.

  McIntosh’s boys began to recover and shoot back. The Chinese miner to Emmett’s right staggered and fell.

  Several of Yong’s volunteer porters raced to the wagon the girls were in. Taking hold of its tongue, they made draft animals of themselves to get the Conestoga rolling away from the shootout. Those armed only with knives and pickaxes took up positions to shield their brother Chinamen.

  First one, then another of the straining porters fell to gunfire.

  Two McIntosh men rushed the back of the Conestoga, six-guns blazing. Emmett—now directly alongside the wagon—chambered a round, took aim, and dropped one of them.

  The second one seemed determined to kill the girls rather than give them up to their rescuers. With little time to think, Emmett swung the butt of his rifle. His uppercut caught the desperado under the chin. The man’s head snapped back, and he spun to the ground.

  And then Emmett spotted the dandy—the one whose hat he’d shot off down by the arroyo. Had to be Seth Blaylock. He was at the campfire, thumbing and firing his Schofield with a vengeance. Emmett levered the Winchester again, swung it to his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. Out of cartridges.

  His heart pounded.

  The dandy paused shooting, reached down, and plucked a chunk of wood from the flames. He reared back and flung it at the wagon the Chinamen were now effectively hauling away. Landing squarely atop the canvas canopy, the burning branch instantly ignited the dry fabric. Screams resounded from within the wagon.

  Li might burn.

  Torn momentarily, Emmett was relieved to see that the Chinese fighters surrounding the burning wagon were already extracting the girls from the rapidly spreading flames.

  He returned his attention to Seth Blaylock. The five or six McIntosh men who remained on their feet rallied around the dandy. And one of them was Charlie.

  Still clutching his empty Winchester, Emmett drew his Colt. Just as he took aim, his left hand flew back and the Winchester went flying. Below the little finger his hand burned as though pressed against a branding iron.

  More lead
rent the air.

  Sikes arrived at his side to help. But the Englishman got off only a few rounds before taking a bullet in the leg and going down.

  “Saddle up!” Seth Blaylock was shouting as he swung up onto his huge, dark mount.

  Charlie turned to follow his brother’s lead.

  No, you don’t. Emmett dashed for the murderer.

  With an uncooperative, bandaged arm, Charlie took an extra hop trying to hoist himself into the saddle. He had one boot in the stirrup and both hands on the saddle horn when Emmett collared him. Emmett’s own wounded hand screamed in pain.

  Charlie sent an elbow flying upside Emmett’s head. Willing himself through the stars that danced before his eyes, Emmett coldcocked Charlie with the butt of his Colt. And the outlaw wilted to the ground.

  In the melee, Emmett felt a horse wheeling around behind him. Over his shoulder, he glimpsed the other Blaylock, pistol drawn, getting the drop on him.

  A shot sounded, and a bullet cut a crimson line across Seth’s white shirtsleeve. His face twisted in pain and rage. Swearing, he gigged his horse and cut dirt into the darkness. Behind him, three other McIntosh men hauled tail into the night.

  A few reports sounded from out of the gloom. Then the shooting was over.

  Emmett turned to find Juanito right there.

  “Couldn’t let that gallo kill you, hermano.”

  “Te lo agradezco, cuñado,” Emmett replied without thinking. I appreciate it, brother-in-law.

  He felt strangely numb…as though everything that had just happened was part of some fever-induced nightmare. But his senses confirmed it was all too real. The comingling of pungent burning smells. The groaning of wounded men. His throbbing hand.

  Pivoting in place, he took in the devastation. Both sides had taken losses. Thankfully McIntosh’s crew had gotten the worst of it.

  “Handle Charlie Blaylock,” he mumbled to Juanito.

  Without awaiting an answer, he trotted toward the still-burning wagon.

  Several yards away, the men who had gotten the girls out were tending to them. One girl cried out in pain, her arm badly burned, her face flecked with droplets of blood where debris had peppered her.