The Deadly Chest
Page 11
“You’re makin’ this hard,” Duffy said.
“Yeah,” Clint said. “On you.”
“H-he ain’t backin’ off, Duffy,” Franks said. “We got him two to one and he ain’t backin’ off.”
“Shut up!” Duffy said.
Franks licked his lips and acquired a twitch in his left eye.
“Is a thousand dollars worth dying for?” Clint asked. The question was for either one of them.
“Damn you,” Duffy said, and drew.
Clumsily, Franks also went for his gun.
Loretta’s sharp intake of breath was very audible, followed by two quick shots.
“Gaw-damn!” Angus Foster said.
FORTY-FIVE
Clint and Loretta drove into Westbrook with the chest on a buckboard. Clint was driving, Eclipse was tied to the rear.
They drove much of the way in silence. Loretta had seen two men gunned down in front of her, and did not seem to be reacting well. Clint was thinking about how things had worked out, and he wasn’t reacting well, either. He had ended up killing two men over a framed photograph.
On the bed of the buckboard, firmly tied down, was the black chest that everyone was so curious about.
Sheriff Lane came out of his office, saw Clint and Loretta riding in, and nodded his head. Duffy was nowhere to be found. That was what he’d expected. He’d had little or no confidence in Duffy being able to outdraw the Gunsmith. Of course, the man could always have gotten lucky. But in the end Lane had always felt he’d have to deal with the Gunsmith himself.
Clint pulled the buckboard to a stop in front of the hotel. He stepped down, and helped Loretta.
“I’ll get some men to take the chest to your room,” he said. “You can go and wait there.”
“All right, Clint.”
As she went inside, Clint thought this was an entirely different woman than the one who had gotten off the stage the other day.
Too different.
Clint found two men on the street who wanted to make a dollar each. They were about to take the chest off the buckboard when Sheriff Lane came over.
“Looks like you found it in one piece,” he said.
“It’s well made,” Clint said. “It can take a lot of abuse.”
“Like somebody tryin’ to open it?”
“Exactly.”
“You got it into town pretty easy, Adams,” Lane said. “Gonna be a lot harder to get it out of town.”
“I don’t think so, Sheriff.”
“Why’s that?”
“I think you’ll change your mind once you see what’s inside.”
Lane’s eyes widened. “You already looked?”
Clint nodded. “So did your man Duffy, only he made a bad decision right after that. He won’t be coming back.”
Lane chuckled and said, “That don’t surprise me.”
The two men got the box off the buckboard with a grunt.
“Excuse me,” Clint said. “I’ve got to make sure they get the chest to Miss Burns’s room.”
“That’s fine with me,” the sheriff said. “I’ll be up there presently.”
Clint nodded and started into the hotel after the two men lugging the chest.
“Oh, by the way,” Lane said.
Clint turned.
“You might be interested to know the woman’s brother came to town yesterday. Name’s Randolph.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep. Him and me, we had a long talk. He’s probably upstairs right now, greeting his sister.”
Clint remembered what Loretta had said about her brother, that he’d kill her for what was in the black chest.
Clint ran into the hotel, past the two men who were lugging the heavy chest.
FORTY-SIX
Clint ran down the hall to Loretta’s room, slammed the door open and saw two people in the center of the room in a clinch, kissing.
Loretta and . . . her brother?
“Randolph, I presume,” Clint said, as the two people leapt apart.
“That’s right,” the man said. He was tall, handsome, well-dressed in a black suit, in his thirties, and—with his momentary surprise gone—seemed very confident.
“Randolph, this is Clint Adams,” she said. “He’s the man who got the chest back for us.”
“Ah,” Randolph said. “Loretta’s just been telling me how we almost lost it.”
“Yes,” Clint said, “quite a coincidence, falling off the back of the stage like that.”
“Coincidence? She told me two stage line employees conspired to steal it. Luckily, they couldn’t get it open.” The man chuckled. “You’d have to use dynamite to do that.”
Clint stood there, staring at the two of them. Loretta only had eyes for Randolph, and did not look at Clint once.
“Is there something else we can do for you?” the man asked.
At that moment, the two men arrived carrying the chest.
“Where ya want this?” one of them asked.
“Oh, excellent,” Randolph said. “Just put it in that corner.”
They did as he asked, then stood there, panting.
“I assume this gentleman has paid you,” Randolph said. “That’s all.”
The two men exchanged a glance, and then trudged from the room.
“This is just a wild guess,” Clint said, “but you two are not brother and sister.”
“What?” Randolph laughed and looked at Loretta. “Is that what you told him?”
She shrugged and said, “I had to tell them something. I had to convince them there was nothing valuable in the chest.”
“Ah, I see,” Randolph said.
“So this is about more than a framed photograph.”
Randolph laughed again.
“That photo?” He looked at Loretta. “The one of your father?”
“Well,” she said, “it has a lot of sentimental value to me.”
Clint walked to the window and looked out. Sheriff Lane was in the street, flanked by about five other men. Seemed the sheriff had decided that there was safety in numbers.
“Well, maybe you can convince the sheriff of that,” Clint said.
Loretta went to the window and looked out.
“Oh, no,” she said.
Randolph joined her.
“What do they want?” he asked.
“The chest,” Clint said, “or what’s in it. And I mean, what’s really in it.”
Loretta and Randolph looked at Clint.
“You can’t let him come up here and get it, Clint,” she said.
“Me? Why should I care? You’ve obviously been lying to me from the start—about a lot of things.”
“I understood you worked for us,” Randolph said.
“I was working for Loretta,” Clint said. “Actually, I haven’t been paid yet. At least, not in money.”
Randolph looked at Loretta and said, “Oh?”
“I had to do something to keep him interested,” she said. She went to the bed and took the roll of money from her drawstring purse.
“Here,” she said to Clint. “A thousand dollars. You have to keep us safe until we can get out of town.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m not interested.”
“I count six men down there,” Randolph said. “And is that the town sheriff?”
“It is,” Clint said. “And he’s very interested in the chest. Unfortunately, I’m not.”
He started out of the room.
“Wait!” Loretta said. She looked imploringly at Randolph.
“I see my love wants to let you in on our little secret.”
He walked to the chest, knelt down, touched his hands to each side near the bottom. Suddenly, a drawer slid out from the bottom. He pulled it out farther so Clint could see what was in it.
“That looks like gold,” he said.
“Hammered flat as we could get it,” Randolph said. “The bottom and the sides are lined.”
“That’s what makes it so heavy,” Clint said.
“And strong,” Randolph said. He slid the drawer shut and Clint heard it lock. The man stood up and faced Clint. “I suppose we have to include you, now. A three-way split.”
“I’m going to assume it’s stolen.”
“Does that matter?” Loretta asked. “It’s gold!”
“Actually, it doesn’t matter,” Clint said. “Not to me, anyway. I’m still not interested.”
“What?”
Randolph chuckled nervously. “Not interested in an equal split?” the man asked.
“Any split.”
“There’s six men out there,” Loretta said. “They’ll kill us for this, once they find out what’s in it.”
“I suppose they will.”
“Half,” Randolph said, now openly nervous. “Half for you.”
“No,” Clint said.
“You’re crazy, man,” Randolph said.
“Maybe,” Clint said. “But I’m done.”
As he started out, Loretta ran to him and grabbed him.
“You can’t,” she said. “You can’t leave me like this.”
“You’ve got Randolph,” Clint said. “He looks competent.”
“Not against six gunmen!” she said.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Randolph said. “How much can we offer you?”
“You can offer me all of it,” Clint said. “I’m still not interested.”
He left both of them there, mouths open, gaping after him.
Clint went downstairs, through the lobby, and outside. He walked to his horse.
“Leavin’ ?” Lane asked.
Clint mounted up and looked down at the sheriff.
“My part’s done”
“What’s in it?” Lane asked.
“You’ll find out,” Clint said, “and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. But you should know one thing.”
“What’s that?” Lane asked.
“You can get it without killing them.”
“That would be nice,” Lane said. “Preferable, in fact.”
“Yes,” Clint said, “Yes, it would.”
He turned Eclipse and rode out of Westbrook.
Watch for
CROSS DRAW
354th novel in the exciting GUNSMITH series from Jove
Coming in June!