Lone Star 04

by Ellis, Wesley

  “Get down!” Feodor shouted. Ki hugged the dirt as a shot parted his hair and Feodor’s rifle opened up. Ki saw a rifle barrel disappear from a dark window, and sprinted across the street under Feodor’s covering fire. Jessie came to her feet and scrambled around the side of Feodor’s mount.

  “Did he make it all right?”

  “He’s inside,” snapped Feodor. “Keep down, Jessica!” He leveled another shell into the Winchester and fired into the window where the gunman had disappeared. Keeping one eye on the building, he clawed a handful of shells out of his saddlebag and stuffed them in his jacket. “I’m going around back,” he told Jessie. “If your friend flushes him out, maybe I can get him when he makes a run for it.”

  “Good idea,” Jessie agreed. “Glad you showed up when you—”

  Feodor stopped in mid-stride. “Jessica, where do you think you’re going?”

  “With you. What do you think I’m going to do? Stay here?”

  “It seems like a good idea. That gunman was after you, you know.”

  Jessie’s eyes flashed. “You sound just like Ki! Everyone thinks they have to take care of poor old Jessie!”

  Feodor gave her a narrow look and started across the street. “Now why would anyone think that?”

  Jessie caught up with him and glared. “Making love to me does not give you branding privileges, mister. It’d be a good idea if you remembered that!”

  Feodor didn’t even bother to answer.

  Ki edged quickly up the narrow wooden stairs, his slipper-clad feet making no sound at all. The door at the top was open. Fancy gold lettering on frosted glass read LANSDALE & SHINER, INC., FERTILIZER & FEED. Ki flattened against the wall, listened a brief moment, then threw himself into the room and rolled for cover. The small office was empty, but the floor by the far window was littered with empty brass casings. Ki turned and swept his eyes across the room. There was a back window, leading to a narrow walkway over the alley. He grasped the two three-pronged sai in one hand, moved a leg over the sill, and peered up the side of the building. The gunman could have jumped into the alley, but Ki figured he hadn’t. It was a long drop onto a pile of splintered crates and broken glass. The roof was the easy way, with no chance of breaking a leg or running into pursuers coming around from the street. Ki thrust the weapons into his belt, grabbed the high coping along the window, and jerked himself onto the flat roof. He came to his feet in a roll, the weapons already in his hands. Something moved on the roof next door. Ki threw himself flat as the rifle fired twice. He jerked to the left, then reversed himself and came to his feet where the rifleman wouldn’t expect him. Another shot rang out, but Ki wasn’t there. He whirled the sai in his hand and set it flying. A silver blur flashed through the air. The gunman threw up the rifle and cried out, stunbled back and nearly fell, then limped to cover under a pile of new lumber.

  Ki muttered a curse and leaped the space between his building and the next. The gunman wasn’t hurt, the sai had only nicked him. And it wasn’t a him at all, damn it, it was the redheaded assassin Torgler had so kindly released from jail. She was wearing a man’s clothing, but Ki wasn’t blind. He’d been shot at before, and none of the gunmen had ever looked anything like Lucy.

  He went to his hands and knees behind a tar barrel and peered cautiously around the side. “Give it up,” he called out. “There’s no place to go, Lucy!”

  “I’m hurt real bad . . .” Lucy said softly. “What the hell did you cut me with?”

  “Come out of there and I’ll show you. And you’re not hurt, so don’t give me that.”

  “Ha! Fat chance. You’ll kill me is what you’ll do. That lady friend of yours wants me dead!” Lucy wailed.

  “Lucy,” Ki said wearily, “forget the little-girl act. I am not the late town marshal.” Ki waited. “Lucy? Give it up. All right?”

  Lucy didn’t answer. Ki wasn’t about to swallow a trick like that. She was still right there, behind the pile of lumber. If she tried to get off the roof, he’d hear her for sure. If she stayed where she was—

  Lucy cried out, and Ki came suddenly alert. He cocked his head to listen, realized with a start what was wrong, and scrambled desperately for the stack of boards. The scream hadn’t come from there at all—it had come from somewhere else!

  Ki froze in his tracks and cursed himself for a fool. Lucy was gone. There was a small trapdoor behind the lumber leading down into the building. She’d tripped on the stepladder or he’d never have heard her at all.

  He flew down the ladder, hardly touching the rungs. The ladder went farther than he thought, clear down to street level. The building was a dark, two-story warehouse and stank to high heaven. Ki soon saw the reason. The warehouse belonged to the office he’d entered next door. The room was full of big bales marked LANSDALE & SHINER. Ki walked cautiously around a corner. A dusty beam of light from high above glanced off the floor. Ki went to his knees and listened. A rat scampered by on a rafter. Sounds drifted in from the street. Other than that...

  Lucy moved, a shadow to the right less than twenty yards away. “Don‘t!” Ki warned her. “I’ll use it, Lucy!”

  The girl turned, leveled a pistol at him, and squeezed off two quick shots. Ki threw the sai into darkness and dove for cover. Bales exploded behind him and showered him with foul-smelling dirt. He jerked to his feet and moved fast. Hazy light flooded the room and he caught a quick glimpse of Lucy Jordan slipping through an outside door. Ki ran, found the street, and jerked to a stop, searching both ends of Main. He saw her then, keeping to the board sidewalk and racing for the far end of town like a deer. Ki went after her, gaining on her fast. “Stop that girl!” he called out. “Stop her!”

  Men and women turned in the street to stare. “Stop her!” Ki yelled angrily. “She’s a killer!”

  Suddenly, Lucy disappeared in a small crowd of men clustered in front of the Morgan Dollar. Half a second later she burst out the other side, a different Lucy Jordan altogether.

  “Rape! Rape!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Oh, God help me—the Chinaman’s gone and raped me!”

  Ki came to an abrupt halt. A few of the men turned on him and glared. Some had trouble taking their eyes off Lucy. She’d ripped her blouse clear down to her waist, baring one delicious breast altogether, and offering a provocative peek at the other.

  “Get him!” a hefty cowhand bellowed. “Get the goddamn chink!” One man took up the cry, then another, and the whole crowd surged toward Ki. A dozen men boiled out of the saloon. They had no idea where they were going, but it sounded like something to do.

  Ki turned on his heel and ran down Main toward the tracks. The men behind him shouted out warnings ahead. Helpful citizens raced to cut him off. Ki cursed under his breath and bolted into an alley.

  “Hold it right there, mister!”

  Two hammers clicked louder than any Ki had ever heard. He raised his arms fast and stared into the cavernous double bores of a Greener shotgun. A calm blue eye squinted back from over the barrels.

  “This is a mistake,” Ki said evenly. “Be careful with that thing.”

  “Yeah, an’ you’re the one made it!” the man snapped.

  “By God, you tell ‘im, Sy!”

  “If he moves, shoot his yeller eyes out!”

  Men crowded into the alley from both sides. Ki backed up against the wall. One man drew his Colt and emptied it into the air. That started the others, and the alley soon sounded like a small war.

  Deputy Mac Delbert shouldered his way through the crowd, Jessie and Feodor close on his heels. Ki breathed a sigh of relief. Delbert held up his hands to stop the noise.

  “Pete, Joe Bob—what in the hell you think you’re doin‘?” He looked about the circle in disgust. “You all get on back to drinkin’ or whatever ’twas you was doin‘.”

  “Mac,” blurted a man at the rear, “this feller here—”

  “—hasn’t done shit. Now go on, git!” The men muttered their disappointment, turning their anger from Ki to the
deputy. “Sorry about this, mister,” said Delbert. “You’re all right, I guess.”

  “Fine,” said Ki. “Anyone see which way Lucy Jordan went?”

  Delbert grinned. “Hell, I reckon every man in town can likely tell you that. Never seen such—uh, sorry, ma‘am.” He looked sheepishly at Jessie and bit his jaw.

  Jessie ignored him. “South, I think, Ki. Someone was yelling down Main about his horse.”

  Ki nodded and turned on Delbert. “How many men can you get together fast?”

  Delbert looked blank. “Uh—get together for what?”

  “To go after Lucy Jordan! Deputy, that girl is a cold-blooded—”

  “Yeah, I know.” Delbert waved him off. “Wish I could help, but I ain’t really a deputy no more—since there ain’t no one to be deputy to.” Delbert stopped and scratched his head. “An’ if there was, it’d be a town marshal, wouldn’t it? Which means I got no business twice-removed goin’ after that gal, do I? Thing is—”

  Ki wasn’t listening. He was already stalking angrily toward the stable, half hoping one of the patrons of the Morgan Dollar would get in his way...

  Chapter 12

  Jessie deliberately hurried Feodor through his errands at the store, getting him on his horse and out of town as quickly as possible. Jessie’s manner irritated him no end, but she stood her ground and refused to answer his questions or even grant him a friendly smile. When Roster was well behind them, she breathed a sigh of relief, brought her horse up to Feodor‘s, stretched out of her saddle to kiss his cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him, “I really had to get out of there, and there wasn’t time to talk about it. An awful lot’s been happening, Feodor.”

  “So I gather,” he said shortly. “Jessie, will you please pull up a minute and stop this business?” He reached out for her reins, and Jessie jerked away.

  “Just listen, all right? And trust me, Feodor. I don’t want to stop now.”

  “Then we won‘t,” he shrugged. “You’re not worried about that Lucy Jordan, are you? I doubt she’ll hang around here with Ki on her trail.”

  “No, but Lucy’s friends might—and she’s got plenty of them around Roster.” Jessie hurriedly brought him up to date on the events of the night before, starting with Torgler’s involvement with Lucy and Marshal Gaiter, and Gaiter’s death in the street later on, in front of both Ki and herself.

  “What!” Feodor sat bolt upright in the saddle at the mention of the wolf. “Are you certain, Jessie? The—the creature killed this man in Roster?”

  “I saw it happen, Feodor.”

  “And the bullets did not harm the thing,” he said tightly.

  “No, they didn‘t, and before you ask me why not, I’ll tell you I don’t know.” She turned on him and held his eyes with hers. “I do know that was an honest-to-God American wolf—not some creature out of a Transylvanian fairy tale.”

  “And your American wolves are immune to bullets, yes?” he said wryly. “This must be a great inconvenience to your farmers and ranchers.”

  Jessie caught his tone and ignored it.

  “I’m not going to tell you I’ve got all the answers,” she said quietly. “But I’ve sure got a few you don’t know about. Which makes it a lot easier for me to understand what’s happening here. There’s more to all this than I’ve told you, Feodor.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that,” he said without looking at her.

  “Please don’t be angry, now. I’ve got my reasons.” She hesitated, then went on. Choosing her words carefully, she told him about the European cartel that was her enemy, the organization’s awesome power, and their goals in America.

  “It’s not just your wheatfields they’re after,” she said. “Multiply that by a hundred, a thousand different villages throughout the Midwest. What it adds up to is millions of acres of wheat, Feodor. And control of that wheat means control over people. That’s sort of frightening, having that kind of power over lots of hungry folks. The ground we’re standing on right now couldn’t be worth more if it was solid gold. There’ve been some pretty bad harvests in Europe, you know. Right now, I guess we’re the world’s breadbas ket, with a lot of people depending on us, and it could stay that way for a long time.”

  Feodor looked grimly thoughtful. “That is not a good thing, Jessica. I have seen men kill for a loaf of bread.”

  Jessie nodded. “It could come to that again, too. The cartel could make it happen, use hunger like a weapon. They would, believe me, if it served their purpose. And wheat’s just part of the picture, just one of the things they’re after. They mean to strangle this country by controlling its railroads, its industry, the government itself—”

  “—and the men who run these things,” Feodor added quickly. “All this is true, Jessica? There are people with such power?”

  Jessie didn’t have to answer. He could see by the look in her eyes that the things she’d told him were true.

  “And this Torgler is behind it?”

  “Part of it. A very small part. Here in Roster, and maybe in other sections of the wheat belt.”

  “He is not the man Marshal Gaiter told Gustolf about. The man who wants to buy our land.”

  “Whoever that was, he’s one of Torgler’s people. Torgler will take over now. He’s got your folks stirred up with this werewolf business. Ready to get out at any price.” She caught Feodor’s look and shook her head. “I don’t know how he’s doing it. But he is. You can believe that, friend...”

  Ki had no trouble at all following Lucy Jordan’s trail. The girl was running her mount hard, moving fast over the prairie and cutting a swath through the knee-high grass as straight and clear as an arrow. At first he thought she’d simply panic and kill her horse and make his job easy. Soon, however, he saw that she’d slowed to an easy gait. Ki nodded and almost smiled. In a way, anything else would have been a disappointment. Lucy Jordan wasn’t a lady who was used to losing her head. He had nothing but contempt for what she was, but he had to admire her skill. She’d outfoxed him good back in Roster—twice, as a matter of fact. She was clever and cunning and could think on her feet. You didn’t have to like your enemies, but it was foolish to underestimate them. He wouldn’t make that mistake again with Lucy Jordan.

  Ki reined in his horse at the top of the hill, and let his gaze sweep over the land ahead. It was poor country to run in, a bad place to throw off pursuers. Every way you turned was exactly like the place you’d just been. There were no twisting gullies or canyons for hundreds of miles, only the gently rolling prairie that seemed to stretch out forever.

  Ki thought about that. Lucy Jordan knew what she was facing as well as he did. She knew who was after her, too, and that he’d stay on her tail till he got her. Knowing what she did, what was she likely to do next? She sure as hell wouldn’t quit—he was dead certain of that. And if she was half as smart as he thought she was . . .

  Ki stopped and came suddenly alert. That was the thing that had been plaguing the edge of his mind. Lucy Jordan was running flat out, making no effort to cut left or right, or make a broad circle and slip through behind him. It was the only thing you could do on the prairie, and Lucy hadn’t even considered it. Why? Ki asked himself. What else did she have in mind? He knew the answer just as well as he knew his name. It was exactly what he’d do himself. They were much alike in that respect, foxes instead of hares. She’d run so far, then turn around and fight. He was certain she’d already made that decision. Now they were both hunters, and both the hunted. Ki, though, figured he was still a few steps ahead. He knew what the girl had in mind, and he had a few tricks up his sleeve that she’d likely never heard of.

  He looked at the line of trees a long moment before he realized what he was seeing. The trees hid the creek that wound its way past Gustolf’s settlement. He’d circled out of town in an unfamiliar direction, and come in on the other side. Stopping to get his bearings, he guessed the settlement was a good ten miles back to the right.

  Ki slid o
ff his horse and studied the ground. Lucy’s tracks went off ahead, paralleling the creek, but showing no sign of going near it. Not yet, anyway. He climbed back in the saddle, rode another hundred yards, and stopped abruptly. There—just as he’d figured. Ki grinned and followed the trail with his eyes until it disappeared in high grass, then he extended the path farther in his mind. Lucy had suddenly veered straight for the creek. If he followed her trail and she was waiting for him, he’d be dead in a few minutes. From the cover of the trees, she could see him coming forever—and he already knew she could handle a gun.

  Of course, Lucy knew he wouldn’t do that, ride straight into a trap. He’d follow the land a good mile or so, then head down the creek himself, cross it, come in behind her, and catch her flat.

  Like hell, thought Ki. She isn’t anywhere near that creek, not anymore. She’s already been down and come back, and she’s waiting for me right up ahead. He was sure he was right, but he wouldn’t bet his life on it. He’d underestimated Lucy Jordan once before. If she’d guessed that he’d figure what she might do . . . Ki tossed that thought aside. It was like the intricate little ivory balls they carved in Japan, one inside the other, and then another and another. You could worry about it forever, and end up doing nothing. He might be wrong, but he wouldn’t go near the creek to find out. Instead, he mounted up again and kicked his horse into a run, making a long half-circle over the land. There was always the chance she might break through and pass him, but Ki didn’t think so. Lucy was a professional assassin. She’d wait, and rid herself of him once and for all.