“Wait a minute,” Stuart said. “You’re taking a woman along with you?”
“That’s right,” Jamie said.
“Yet you balked about Chester and me accompanying you and acted like it was an insane idea. But you’ll take a woman into Apache country.”
“Just a minute, mister,” Fletch said. “You haven’t even said hello yet, and you’re already talking like you don’t want my wife around.”
“I’m sorry.” Stuart quickly swept off his hat, held it in front of his chest, and nodded politely to Clementine. “My apologies, Mrs. Wylie, and I assure you, it’s an honor and a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He held out his hand to Fletch. “And I’m glad to meet you as well, Mr. Wylie.”
Still frowning a little, Fletch shifted the packages in his arms so he could shake hands with the surveyor.
“I have no objection to the two of you coming along on this expedition,” Stuart went on. “I was surprised, that’s all.”
“Because I’m a woman,” Clementine said. “It just so happens that I’m a crack shot and have been riding horses practically my entire life, so I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Mister . . . Stuart, was it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Noah Stuart. I assure you, I meant no disrespect.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” With a curt nod, she turned and headed for the wagon.
Jamie couldn’t help but notice the way Stuart’s eyes followed her for a second, although the surveyor moved his gaze away before it became too blatantly improper. Clearly, though, he found Clementine attractive.
Fletch must have noticed, too, because he gave Stuart a narrow-eyed stare, then followed Clementine. He threw a few suspicious glances back over his shoulder.
Stuart cleared his throat, put his hat back on, and said, “I should go help Chester with our wagon. Those mules can be awfully stubborn at times.” He went down the steps at the end of the porch and cut across the plaza toward the hotel.
Preacher watched him go and said quietly, “Seems to me we might have a little problem brewin’ there.”
“You mean the way that hombre looked at Clementine?” Jamie said. “I saw that, too, and so did Fletch. Stuart better make sure it doesn’t become a problem, or he and Merrick are liable to find themselves headed back to Santa Fe on their own.”
“I don’t reckon you knew anything about some surveyor comin’ along with us?”
Jamie shook his head. “Owen Charlton didn’t say anything about it to me, but I’m not surprised. Politicians always have to study on everything for a long time before they ever make a move. They never want to rub too many people the wrong way. Might cost ’em votes when the next election rolls around.”
“The way that young fella was talkin’ about how it might be years and years before anything ever gets done on that railroad makes another thought occur to me.”
Jamie looked over at Preacher and said, “That maybe Owen had another motive for sending us down there that’s just as strong as getting a look at the territory?”
“Yeah. He admitted he wants you to find his son . . . or at least find out what happened to him.”
Jamie nodded slowly. “I think maybe that’s more important to Owen than the government part. And he has to know, whether he’ll admit it or not, what a slim chance there is that his boy Damon is still alive.”
“So if he can’t be rescued, his father wants him avenged . . . by us killin’ as many of the varmints as we can.”
“I reckon that’s about the size of it,” Jamie said. “He gets his vengeance, and the Office of the Interior gets a survey.”
“Two birds with one stone, as the old sayin’ goes. Or in this case . . . two Apaches with one stone . . . and likely a whole bunch more.”
CHAPTER 16
While the rest of the supplies were being loaded into the two wagons, Fletch and Clementine went to the hotel to gather up the few things they had left there. When finished, they would move out to the campsite, so they would be ready when the time came to depart on the expedition the next morning.
It had been so long since they’d seen any sign of Clementine’s brothers that Fletch worried they would let their guard down. Preacher and Jamie hadn’t been sticking as close to them as they had at first, and it just seemed unlikely that the Mahoneys would make a move when there were so many people around. Because of that, Fletch resolved to be even more wary, so they wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
“Imagine the nerve of that man, saying that I shouldn’t come along just because I’m a woman,” Clementine was saying as they went down the second-floor corridor toward their room.
“Well, I don’t think that’s exactly what he said,” Fletch pointed out. “He was just upset because Preacher and Mr. MacCallister didn’t want him and that other surveyor to join the group. But if he had objected because of, ah, who you are, you have to admit that it’s not an uncommon attitude.”
“I set him straight, though, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did,” Fletch said.
You also impressed him, he thought, and I’m not sure I like that. He had caught some of the other men looking at Clementine with a little too much interest, most notably that Mexican gunfighter, Ramirez, but all of them had treated her courteously and there hadn’t been any real problem. Fletch knew quite well that Clementine was a beautiful young woman, and it was going to be impossible to keep men from looking at her. She had never shown any tendency to return that interest, though, and as long as that was the case, he figured they were all right.
But Noah Stuart was much different from those grizzled, scruffy, and in some cases filthy old mountain men. Stuart was younger, probably less than a decade older than he and Clementine. And despite clearly not being an outdoorsman, he was well-built and even handsome, Fletch supposed. He really wasn’t a good judge of such things, but he had no doubt that Stuart was better-looking than he was. Anybody with eyes could see that.
“Does what we’re about to do scare you, Fletch?”
The question caught him a little off guard. He said, “Ah . . . well . . . sure, a little. I mean, we’re going into an area where there’ll be a lot of danger. We’ll have to be alert all the time, and there’ll probably be some fighting. But I trust Preacher and Mr. MacCallister to do all they can to keep us safe, and sometimes you just have to take a risk. We talked about this when we decided we wanted to go along.”
“I know. And I’m not backing out, not at all. It would be even more dangerous for us to stay here or try to go on by ourselves.” She opened the door of their room. “Even though they haven’t been around, I know Clete and the other boys haven’t given up—”
“That’s right. We sure haven’t,” a harsh voice said as the door swung back.
Clementine cried out as someone grabbed her and jerked her farther into the room. Fletch’s first instinct made him charge into the room after her. He dropped the packages he was carrying and clawed for the holstered Walker Colt on his hip.
But even as his hand closed on the revolver’s grips and he started to lift it from the holster, something slammed into the side of his head and sent him spiraling down into darkness.
* * *
While the store clerks loaded the rest of the supplies into the surveyors’ wagon, Jamie and Preacher explained the plan to Noah Stuart and Chester Merrick.
“We’ll all travel together up to a certain point,” Jamie said, “and then find a good spot to make our main camp. Once we’ve done that, you and the Wylies will stay there while the rest of us scout around for Apaches.”
“You mean we’ll be by ourselves?” Merrick asked with a look of dismay.
Jamie shook his head. “No, a couple of the men will stay with you.”
Stuart said, “Two men won’t be enough to fight off an Apache war party.”
“Thought you figured those ’Paches ’d listen to reason, once everything was explained to ’em,” Preacher drawled.
Stuart flushed. “Perhaps I was being
a bit naïve. I don’t mind admitting that I’m quite inexperienced when it comes to such things. But I’m trying to understand the reality of the situation.”
“If there’s trouble, you fellas may have to pitch in and fight,” Jamie said. “I know Fletch and Clementine will. That’ll be six well-armed defenders, and most small bands of warriors won’t want to tangle with something like that. They like to have the odds on their side, and if they figure they’ll have to pay too big a price, they’ll leave you alone.”
“But what if it’s a bigger war party?” Merrick asked.
Jamie shrugged. “We’ll find a place to camp where you ought to be able to hold off any attackers for a while, at least until the rest of us get back.”
Stuart shook his head. “That isn’t going to work. In order to conduct a proper survey and map the area, we’ll have to move around quite a bit. Every day, in fact.”
“That probably won’t happen,” Jamie said bluntly. “But we’ll shift our camp as often as we can, and some days maybe you can take your wagon out and three or four of the boys will go with you while you do your surveying. I reckon we’ll just have to wait until we get down there before we find out what’s going to work and what isn’t.”
Stuart sighed and said, “I suppose. Honestly, though, this seems almost like an impossible task for all of us.”
“Not impossible,” Jamie said. “It’ll just require a lot of hard work and guts.”
“And more than a little luck,” Preacher added. He was looking across the plaza as he spoke. From where he stood, he could see up the alley that ran alongside the hotel where Fletch and Clementine had been staying.
His eyes narrowed as he spotted movement at the far end of that alley. A man was back there, swinging up onto a saddled horse. There was nothing alarming about that, but the skin of the back of Preacher’s neck suddenly prickled anyway.
The man turned his head a little and Preacher could see his profile, and that was enough for him to recognize the hombre.
“Blast it!” he exclaimed. “That’s Clete Mahoney!”
Preacher jumped down from the porch, ignoring the steps at the end of it, and started running across the plaza. Pounding footsteps behind him told that Jamie was following him.
Preacher didn’t yell. He didn’t want Clete to know that he’d been spotted. That would just cause the man to flee sooner. So far, Clete was just sitting back there on his horse, saying something to somebody. He gestured for emphasis. Preacher figured the others were behind the hotel, too, and wherever the Mahoney brothers were, no matter what they were doing, they couldn’t be up to any good.
Realizing that he couldn’t run along the alley without attracting Clete’s attention, Preacher veered toward the hotel entrance. As he bounded onto the gallery, Jamie caught up with him.
“You spotted the Mahoneys?” Jamie asked.
“Behind the hotel,” Preacher replied as he flung open the door. He charged into the lobby with Jamie right behind him. The clerk at the desk gaped at the two big frontiersmen as they rushed through the room and headed toward the back of the hotel.
Not exactly sure where he was going, Preacher ran into the hotel’s kitchen and asked the surprised Mexican cook, “Where’s the back door?”
The wide-eyed man pointed without saying anything. Preacher started to draw his Dragoons, then realized that if the Mahoney brothers had grabbed Clementine and Fletch, he couldn’t start throwing lead around without knowing what was going on. The risk was too great that his shots would hit one of the youngsters.
He slowed his rush and held up his hand in a signal for Jamie to do likewise. He grasped the knob and eased the door open a few inches, just enough to peer out into the alley behind the hotel.
What he saw made his jaw tighten with anger.
CHAPTER 17
Two of the Mahoney brothers were struggling to lift a limp Fletch Wylie onto a horse’s back. Fletch appeared to be deadweight, so they were having a difficult time of it.
The fact that they were trying to take the young man with them told Preacher that Fletch wasn’t actually dead. If he had been, they probably would have just left him in the hotel.
Another brother was already mounted and had Clementine on the horse with him, holding her securely with one arm clamped around her waist. They had gagged her with a bandanna so she couldn’t cry out, and her wrists were lashed together in front of her. It looked like the piece of rope that bound her was pulled painfully tight.
That was a mighty sorry way to treat any woman, let alone your sister, Preacher thought, but from what Clementine had said about them, the Mahoney brothers were capable of much worse. That was what she was in for if Preacher and Jamie allowed them to ride away with her and Fletch.
They probably had in mind killing Fletch and might even be planning to make Clementine watch, so that she would be too terrified to ever defy their will again.
Of course, knowing Clementine, Preacher was sure that would backfire on them and make her hate them more than ever, but he and Jamie didn’t need to let things reach that point.
“I’ll try to get Clementine away from that varmint who has her,” Preacher said quietly. “Reckon you can tackle those two who are busy with Fletch?”
Jamie jerked his head in a curt nod. “Let’s move.”
Preacher took a deep breath and then flung the door wide open. Several steps led down to the ground outside. Preacher charged through the door and left his feet from the top step in a flying tackle that carried him into the brother who had hold of Clementine. The impact knocked Clementine and her captor out of the saddle and off the horse.
A huge leap landed Jamie behind the two men who had finally just succeeded in draping Fletch’s unconscious form over the back of another horse. He grabbed them by the necks and jerked them away from the animal.
The powerful muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched as he rammed them into each other. Their hats flew off, and their heads clunked together with a solid thud. When Jamie let go of them, they collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
Preacher hit the ground next to Clementine and the brother who’d been holding her. He rolled away so he’d have some room to move around, but as he did, a gun roared and a bullet kicked up dirt only inches from his head.
That had to be Clete shooting at him, he thought as he rolled again and came up on one knee. He started to draw the right-hand Dragoon, halfway expecting to feel the shock of a bullet slamming into him before he could get the revolver out.
Someone yelled, “Hold it, mister! Drop that gun!”
Preacher glanced toward the alley that ran beside the hotel. Noah Stuart stood at the end of it, pointing a shotgun at Clete Mahoney. The gun in Clete’s hand still had a wisp of smoke curling from its muzzle.
“I don’t know who you are, boy, but this ain’t none of your business,” Clete growled at Stuart.
“I’m not a boy,” Stuart snapped, “and you appear to be trying to kill an associate of mine, so it is my business.”
Clete sneered. “You really plan on shooting me?”
“If he doesn’t, I will,” Jamie said. The distraction had given him time to draw his Walker. He thumbed back the hammer as he aimed it at Clete.
Preacher had his Dragoon out and added it to the array of weapons menacing Clete Mahoney. “I don’t believe there’s any way Stuart could miss with a scattergun at that range, but if he happened to, I reckon me and Jamie could ventilate you just fine, you skunk. You’d best drop that gun while you got the chance.”
Even with those odds against him, Clete looked like he was thinking about it for a second or two before he lowered his gun and tossed it to the ground.
“Keep him covered, Stuart,” Preacher told the surveyor. As he straightened to his feet, he turned his gun toward the brother who’d been holding Clementine and went on. “Help your sister up, you blasted varmint, and untie her. Get that gag outta her mouth, too. Hurry it up!”
Jamie covered the other two
brothers, who were starting to show some signs of regaining consciousness after he’d rapped their heads together.
“You can’t steal a girl from her own kin like this,” Clete raged. “You got no right!”
Clementine spit the loosened gag out of her mouth and shouted, “I’m not a girl! I’m a grown woman! You’re the one who doesn’t have any right to me, Clete!”
“You’ll be sorry you turned your back on your family,” he said as he glared at her.
“I’m just sorry I was ever born into the same family that spawned the likes of you!”
Clete’s face was so flushed with outrage that he looked like he was about to pop. He trembled a little, and Preacher knew that he wanted to do something, anything, to strike back at those he considered enemies.
Staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun was enough to give any man pause, though, even a loco varmint like Clete Mahoney, so he just sat there grinding his teeth and glowering.
Clementine turned away from Clete with a snort of contempt and hurried over to the horse where Fletch was draped facedown over the saddle. “Somebody help me!” she cried. “I don’t know how bad he’s hurt.”
“He’s all right,” muttered the brother who had untied her. “Jerome just walloped him hard enough to knock him out for a spell.”
Fletch moaned and shook his head a little, which made him moan even more.
Jamie kicked the other two brothers back to their feet. They were still half-stunned, but he told them, “Get that young fella off that horse. Handle him careful, too. He’s already been banged around enough.”
Lew, Harp, and Jerome Mahoney all pitched in, clumsily untying Fletch and lifting him down from the horse. When they set him on his feet, he was unsteady and almost fell.
Clementine got hold of his left arm and pulled it over her shoulders to brace him up. “Come on. Let’s get you back in the hotel so you can sit down.”
They Came to Kill Page 10
