Bad Men Die (19 page)

Delia put on the same dress she'd been wearing ever since she got on the train in Rattlesnake Wells. It was the only thing she had to wear.

McCluskey suggested she leave the top two buttons undone. “We might as well distract Harmon a little,” he said with a grin. “That might help us get the drop on him.”

“I don't mind doing that.” Delia adjusted the garment. “Especially if it helps us get that gold so we can find some safe place to spend the rest of our lives.”

Not for the first time, McCluskey wondered how she would react when she found out, somewhere down the line, that they
weren't
going to be spending the rest of their lives together. She had a tendency to turn violent when she didn't get what she wanted.

Maybe what he ought to do instead of cutting her loose was to wait until some night when she was sound asleep and put a pillow over her face and hold it there until she stopped breathing. That way she would have spent the rest of her life with him, just like she wanted, he mused.

He put those murderous thoughts out of his head. For now, they were a team, and a good one, at that. He said, “All right. Let's go.”

As they went down the hall toward Harmon's suite, McCluskey thought it unlikely the cattle baron had any bodyguards with him. Harmon seemed to feel he was the lord and master, making him absolutely safe in Pine City.

They paused in front of the double doors. McCluskey knocked loud enough to rouse a sleeping man from slumber.

After a moment, a groggy voice asked from inside, “Who the hell is out there? This damn well better be important!”

McCluskey nodded to Delia.

She raised her voice a little and said, “I need to talk to you, Mr. Harmon.”

“Oh. Miss Bradley.” Harmon sounded surprised but not displeased that Delia had come calling on him in what seemed like the middle of the night. A key rattled in the lock, and one of the doors swung inward. “Please come on—” The invitation stopped short as Harmon saw that McCluskey was in the corridor, too. “What is this?” the rancher growled.

McCluskey said, “We need to talk to you. It's about the gold.”

Harmon looked suspicious, but he opened the door the rest of the way. His white hair was rumpled from sleep. He wore a red union suit and had a revolver in his right hand. “All right. Come on in, both of you.”

McCluskey and Delia stepped into the suite's sitting room. With the door to the bedroom open, they could see that Harmon had lit a lamp on one of the tables beside the bed.

 

 

Luke and Silas split up, Luke heading for the hotel while the liveryman went back to the café to rally the townspeople ready to throw off Harmon's brutal rule. He moved quickly at an angle across the street so as not to be spotted by any of Harmon's men who happened to be up and about at the early hour.

Reaching the alley beside the hotel, he ducked into its welcoming shadows. The gloom was so thick he had to move slowly to avoid tripping over anything and creating a racket.

He almost ran into an outside stairway that led to the second floor. Holding the shotgun ready, he stayed close to the wall where the boards would be less likely to creak and went up the stairs.

At the small landing at the top, he tried the doorknob. It was locked, but he gripped the knob tighter, put his shoulder against the door, and pushed and heaved.

The lock wasn't sturdy enough to withstand that much force and popped open. He swung the door back, stepped into a dimly lit corridor, and looked around.

The doors nearest him looked like they went to regular hotel rooms. More likely, the double doors at the other end led to Harmon's suite.

 

 

“What's this about the gold?” Harmon said sharply.

Even though he was worried about that, McCluskey noted the cattle baron's eyes kept straying to the shadowy, enticing valley between Delia's breasts that the unfastened buttons revealed.

Delia spoke quickly. “Oh Mr. Harmon, we're sorry we woke you. We have some information we think is important.”

“Well, get on with it. Tell me what is so important you woke me in the middle of the night.” Harmon looked from Delia to McCluskey.

“I think some of your men are planning to double-cross you,” McCluskey said. “They're going to take the gold and try to get away.”

Harmon snorted. “They wouldn't dare! All my boys are loyal to me. Besides, they're smart enough to know that if they ever did something like that I'd track 'em down and peel all the hide off'em a strip at a time, just like the Apaches do.”

“Maybe, but I swear I overheard some of them plotting to take the gold,” McCluskey lied. “I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to go down there and take a look, just to make sure.”

Harmon glared at him. “If you're so certain of this, why didn't you come tell me before now?”

Delia moved closer to him. “Frank was going to, Mr. Harmon, but I told him he ought to wait and not stir up trouble. Then I got to thinking about how kind you've been to us, and about how much we owe you, and . . . and I couldn't just stand by and let anything happen that would cause trouble for you.” She put a hand on his arm. “It's already going to be hard enough for us to repay you.”

Harmon breathed a little harder with Delia standing so close to him. He nodded. “All right. Let me get dressed and we'll go have a look. I still think you're wrong, McCluskey, but I reckon with that much gold at stake, it don't hurt anything to be careful.”

As he turned toward the bedroom door, Delia looked back at McCluskey and smirked in triumph.

Unfortunately, Harmon had paused and swung back around, either to say something else or to get another look at Delia's cleavage, and he saw the look that passed between his two visitors.

Harmon stepped back quickly and raised the gun as his face darkened in anger. “What the hell was that?” he demanded. “I saw that look. You two are plottin' against me, ain't you? This is some sort of double-cross!”

“Oh, no, Mr. Harmon!” Delia cried. “We'd never do that. You're mistaken—”

McCluskey bit back a curse. Delia's overconfidence in her own charms might have ruined everything. His hand moved instinctively toward the gun on his hip as he told her, “Get out of the way!”

Luke eased the door closed behind him so no one would notice it standing open and started along the carpet runner toward the far end of the corridor.

He kept the shotgun level so he could fire instantly and watched the doors as he approached and passed them. If someone opened a door behind him and tried to get the drop on him, he wouldn't have much warning, so he listened intently.

As far as he could tell, everyone in the hotel seemed to be asleep. He heard snores coming from behind some of the doors. Whether those sleepers were Harmon's men or innocent bystanders, he had no way of knowing, but if they stayed where they were, they would be all right.

Harmon's men wouldn't stay put, though, if they heard shots. They would come to investigate immediately, and Luke didn't think they would likely listen to reason.

If they didn't, they'd have to negotiate with some buckshot.

That walk along the second-floor corridor seemed longer than it was. Finally, Luke reached the doors of Harmon's suite. A tiny sliver of light showed through the crack between them, indicating a lamp was lit inside.

As he leaned closer, he was surprised to hear voices. Harmon wasn't alone. A woman spoke inside the suite, and a man responded.

That explanation seemed the most likely. Luke figured she was trying to improve her standing with Harmon the only way she knew how.

But then a second man spoke, and Luke recognized Frank McCluskey's voice even if he couldn't make out the words. The realization that the outlaw was there, too, put a frown on Luke's face.

He ignored the words since he couldn't make them out, telling himself it didn't matter what they were doing. The three varmints he wanted the most were together in one place, so that was a stroke of luck for him. He drew back a little, preparing to kick the door open and get the drop on them.

Suddenly, someone shouted and a gunshot blasted inside the suite.

 

 

“Damn it!” Harmon yelled. He pulled the trigger and flame spouted from the muzzle of his gun.

 

 

Luke didn't wait any longer. His boot heel crashed against the door, kicking it open. He went in fast with the shotgun leveled.

Instantly, his keen eyes took in the scene. Harmon was on one side of the sitting room, near the bedroom door, with a gun in his hand. McCluskey was on the other side of the room, also holding a revolver.

Delia was between them with one hand pressed to her breast as crimson blood welled between her fingers.

McCluskey whirled toward Luke, but Harmon was still trying to draw a bead on the outlaw for another shot. Even though she was wounded, possibly mortally, Delia cried out and launched herself at the rancher, ramming into him just as he pulled the trigger again. His shot went wild, smacking into the ceiling.

McCluskey took one look at Luke and thought better of trying to shoot it out with a man holding a shotgun. He kept turning and dived toward the window, just as Luke fired one barrel.

The glass shattered outward as McCluskey crashed into it and toppled over the sill. Most of the buckshot had torn into the wall next to the window, shredding the wallpaper. It hadn't had time to spread much.

Luke didn't know if he had hit the outlaw. He recalled that a little balcony ran along the front of the hotel and wondered if it was outside the window or if McCluskey had fallen to the street.

He got his answer as he started forward. Colt flame bloomed in the darkness as McCluskey, crouched on the balcony outside, fired at him. Luke felt as much as heard the bullet whip past his ear.

He was about to fire the scattergun's second barrel when a shot erupted behind him and plaster leaped from the wall nearby. With McCluskey on one side of him and Harmon on the other, he was caught in a crossfire.

He twisted around and dropped to one knee as he spotted Harmon coming toward him, face contorted with hate. Harmon had pushed Delia aside and was about to cut Luke down at almost point-blank range.

Luke fired first, blasting the second load of buckshot into Harmon's midsection, then rolling across the floor to take cover behind an armchair.

The deadly charge blew the rancher backward, all the way across the room to the far well. He thudded against it and hung there for a second, staring down at his ruined belly in shocked disbelief.

He slid down to a sitting position, leaving a terrible smear of blood on the wall behind him as his head sagged forward in death.

Luke reloaded the Greener.

No more shots came from the window. McCluskey must have fled, Luke thought. With two fresh shells in the shotgun, he snapped it closed.

Delia moaned as she lay in a limp, bloody heap on the floor a few feet from Harmon's body. Luke's first instinct was to go to her and see how badly she was hurt, but two of Harmon's men rushed in, brandishing guns. They caught sight of their boss's gruesome corpse, then spotted Luke and opened fire. Their bullets sizzled over his head as he unloaded both barrels into the gunmen.

They went down like wheat before a scythe. Neither of them would be getting up again. Once more, Luke broke the shotgun open and thumbed fresh shells into it.

Outside, more gunfire erupted in the street. It sounded like a small-scale war had broken out in Pine City. Silas Grant, Ben McGill, and other citizens had launched their uprising against Harmon's men. The hired guns wouldn't know yet that Harmon was dead, so they would fight to protect what they thought were their boss's interests.

Knowing the strongboxes full of gold were still in play, Luke thought it was likely McCluskey had gone after them. The outlaw would use the distraction of battle going on around him to try to get his hands on the wagon.

Luke was damned if he was going to let McCluskey drive away with a fortune in gold. He surged to his feet and was about to leap over the bodies of the men he had cut down when he heard a faint voice calling his name. He turned and saw that somehow Delia had pushed herself up on her elbows even though the front of her dress was soaked with blood.

She had even found the strength to pick up the gun Harmon had dropped, and as Luke turned toward her she pulled the trigger and sent flame lancing from the barrel at him.

McCluskey hung from the balcony and dropped the remaining couple feet to the ground. His right leg buckled under him as he landed, pain shooting through it from the wound in his thigh where one of the buckshot had caught him.

The wound wasn't that bad, he told himself. It hurt like blazes, but that was all. He caught his balance and limped as quickly as he could toward the rear of the hotel where the wagon was parked.

He stopped as more shots rang out along the street. Doubling back, he saw some of Harmon's men trading shots with hombres he didn't know. Must be some of the townsmen fighting back at last, he decided. Jensen probably had something to do with that.

McCluskey turned and headed for the back of the hotel again. He didn't give a damn what happened to Harmon's men or to the people of Pine City. All he cared about was the gold.

Well, he was a little sorry that Delia had gotten in the way of a bullet, he reflected. But she had kept that bullet from hitting
him
, so he was glad about that. She had died helping him, and that was what she would have wanted.

Helping him to be a rich man, he thought with a savage grin as he limped along the alley.

As he came out at the back of the hotel, he saw the wagon immediately, with two of Harmon's men standing beside it holding rifles. As they swung the weapons toward him, he called out quickly, “Don't shoot! It's me—McCluskey!”

“What're you doin' back here?” one of the gunnies demanded.

McCluskey could tell they were nervous and on the hair trigger of shooting him. “The boss sent me,” he said, thinking rapidly. “The townspeople have started a war.” His eyes fell on the team of mules standing under a shed a few yards away. “Mr. Harmon said to hitch up those jug heads and get the wagon out of here. Take it back to the ranch where it'll be safe.”

“How do we know you ain't lyin' to us?” the other guard asked suspiciously.

“Didn't you hear the boss say this afternoon that he was taking me on as the ramrod of this bunch?” McCluskey snapped as if he were offended by being questioned. “Anyway, you're taking the gold to the ranch. I wouldn't tell you to do that if I wasn't acting on Harmon's orders, would I?”

That seemed to make sense to the men, but still they hesitated.

McCluskey yelled, “Get moving before some of those townies come back here and try to grab the gold for themselves!”

Used to following orders, the guards put their rifles aside and began hitching the mules to the wagon. McCluskey kept an eye on the alley, hoping the battle going on elsewhere in Pine City wouldn't move in their direction and disrupt his plans.

After several tense minutes, one of the men announced, “All right. The wagon's ready to go, McCluskey. Are you comin' with us?”

He strode over to them, stiffening his wounded leg against the pain. “I'm going. You're staying.”

“Wha—”

McCluskey shot the guard between the eyes. The other man howled a curse and made a grab for his pistol, but he wasn't anywhere close to fast enough. McCluskey put a bullet through his brain, as well.

Then he hauled himself onto the wagon seat, picked up the reins, and slashed viciously at the team. He knew how balky mules could be, so he didn't give those a chance to do anything except cooperate. The animals surged forward against their harness. As they broke into a run, he wheeled the wagon around and headed away from the hotel.

He was going to be a rich man. Things were going to work out for him again. They always did.

 

 

Luke felt the wind-rip of the slug past his ear and brought the shotgun up to return Delia's fire.

That wasn't necessary. She slumped forward and the revolver slipped from her fingers. As the echoes of the shot died away, he heard the blonde's last breath rattle in her throat.

Delia was dead, having fought to the last to help Frank McCluskey.

Luke turned and pounded out of the room. As he turned toward the stairs leading down to the hotel lobby, two more of Harmon's men emerged from one of the rooms. Seeing him armed and on the loose, they opened fire. Luke crouched and swept the corridor clean with another double-barreled blast from the Greener.

He reloaded on the run as he weaved past those crumpled bodies, then took the stairs three at a time on the way down. The lobby was deserted. If there was supposed to be a clerk on duty, the man had wisely hunted a hole.

Luke ran out onto the boardwalk and looked around. He saw muzzle flashes to his right as several men behind parked wagons traded shots with other men in the saloon. He spotted Silas Grant as the liveryman stood up and tried to dash to a better location.

Silas never saw the gunman who emerged from the shadows behind him, but Luke did.

He broke into a run and shouted, “Silas, get down!”

Silas dived to the ground as Harmon's man opened fire. Luke was close enough to let loose one of the barrels. The shotgun went off with a boom and threw the gunman back against a hitch rack. He flipped over it and landed in the limp sprawl of death.

Harmon's men in the saloon chose that moment to break out, slamming through the batwings with guns blazing. They charged across the street, which turned into a hornet's nest of flying lead. Luke went flat on his belly to avoid the deadly storm and fired the shotgun's second barrel, bringing down two of the hired killers. The other gun-wolves spun off their feet as shots from Silas, McGill, and other townsmen ripped through them.

As the gun-thunder died away, echoing into the nearby mountains. Luke heard hoofbeats. He remembered McCluskey and the wagon loaded with the strongboxes full of gold.

Every instinct in his body told him that McCluskey was getting away.

He broke into a run back toward the hotel, feeling in his pocket for more shotgun shells. When he didn't find any, he threw the empty Greener aside.

He reached the place where the wagon had been parked. It was gone, just as he expected. The sky was light enough for him to spot the vehicle heading south, away from Pine City. He had a revolver tucked into his waistband, but the wagon was already too far away for a handgun to have any chance of hitting its driver.

Two dead men lay on the ground nearby, murdered by McCluskey so he could take the gold. Luke looked around, knowing that cowboys never liked to be far away from their horses, and his heart leaped as he saw two shapes in the shed where the mule team had been kept.

He ran to the shed and swung open the gate in the fence around it. The horses were unsaddled and skittish, but he didn't let that stop him. He managed to calm down one of them enough that it let him grasp its mane and swing onto its back. He dug his heels into the horse's flanks and sent it racing after the wagon.

Loaded down the way it was with the gold, the wagon couldn't go as fast as the horse Luke was riding. He urged the mount on, and slowly the gap began to shrink.

Some instinct warned McCluskey that he was being pursued. He twisted on the seat, and flame spurted from a gun barrel. Luke leaned forward to make himself a smaller target, but he wasn't really worried about McCluskey hitting him. Going fast in a bouncing wagon, that would be pure luck.

Luke was going to trust his luck over McCluskey's. The outlaw's uncanny good fortune had to run out sometime.

Luke drew closer and closer until he could see the strain on McCluskey's face when the man looked back. He emptied the pistol toward Luke, but none of the shots came close.

Luke brought the galloping horse alongside the wagon bed. He could see the strongboxes as he left the horse's back in a dive that carried him into the wagon, landing hard enough to knock the breath out of him and stun him for a second.

McCluskey seized that opportunity to abandon the reins and dive over the back of the seat. He tried to slam his empty gun down on Luke's head, but Luke twisted aside at the last second and grabbed McCluskey's wrist. He banged the outlaw's gun hand against the edge of a strongbox, causing McCluskey to cry out in pain and lose his grip on the revolver.

It was a desperate hand-to-hand battle in the back of the careening wagon as each man gouged, kicked, tried to gain strangleholds, and basically fought for their lives. McCluskey broke away from Luke and surged to his feet. Luke followed and clung precariously to his balance as he and McCluskey stood toe-to-toe, slugging away at each other.

McCluskey buckled first, his wounded leg giving way underneath him. Luke straightened him up again with a left hook and added a roundhouse right that landed on the outlaw's jaw with smashing force. McCluskey went backward, tripped over one of the strongboxes, and flipped completely out of the wagon.

Luke leaped to the seat, grabbed the trailing reins, and brought the runaway mules to a halt as quickly as he could. He turned the wagon and drove back to where McCluskey lay motionless on the ground, afraid the outlaw might have broken his neck in the fall.

He was relieved when McCluskey groaned and lifted his head. Luke picked up the gun that had fallen from his waistband during the fight and checked the cylinder. It still held three rounds. He vaulted to the ground and approached McCluskey. “Get up,” Luke said harshly.

“Why don't . . . why don't you just . . . go ahead and shoot me?” McCluskey asked.

“Because I want to see you hang.”

By the time they got back to Pine City with McCluskey lying in the back of the wagon next to the strongboxes he had desired so badly, his hands and feet tied with strips Luke had forced him to tear from his own shirt, the fighting in the settlement was over.

It didn't take long to confirm which side had won the war. Silas Grant emerged from the marshal's office, carrying a rifle and grinning. “Mr. Jensen! We were all hopin' you were all right. Did you get him?”

“I got him.” Luke looked around. “What about here?”

Silas leaned his head toward the marshal's office. “All the cells are plumb full in there, between the outlaws left over from that riverboat, Harmon's gunnies we rounded up, and ol' Marshal Kent his own self. He ain't the marshal no more.”

“I can think of someone else a lot more suited to wear that badge . . . if you think you can fit a lawman's duties in with your work at the livery stable.”

“I was thinkin' on it,” Silas admitted. “Mr. McGill, he done said somethin' about that already.” He looked into the back of the wagon. “What are you gonna do with this one?”

“Think we can cram one more prisoner into those cells?”

“Oh, we'll find a place for him,” Silas said, nodding. “We'll find a place. And as soon as we do, you best get over to the café. Miz Walton and my Tillie, they're already gettin' breakfast ready.”

Luke looked at the café, thought about Georgia Walton's smile—and her coffee—and decided that was about the most appealing combination he had heard in a long time.

 

 

None of the townspeople had been killed in the fight with Harmon's men. The element of surprise had helped them, along with the fact that Luke had accounted for several of the enemy himself. Three days later, a rider who'd been sent to the county seat on a fast horse returned with not only the sheriff and a posse of deputies, but also several railroad detectives who were trying to track down that stolen gold.

They promised Luke a sizable reward for recovering it, but he told them, “You'll be splitting that reward between me and the good folks here in Pine City. They deserve it as much as I do. Maybe more.”

The sheriff approached him later about Dave Harmon's death. “Harmon was an influential man in these parts,” the lawman said. “Some of his friends are liable to say what you did was murder, Jensen.”

Luke frowned. “He had just gunned down a woman, and he was trying to shoot me. That's a pretty clear-cut case of self-defense.”

“You don't have any witnesses to that. Harmon and the woman are both dead.”

“Then there's nobody to testify against me, is there?” Luke pointed out.

The sheriff looked at him for a long moment. “I've been talking to Ben McGill, Silas Grant, and a bunch of other folks in town. I'm pretty well convinced that Harmon had Tom Walton murdered and had a hand in the deaths of several other men, as well. So I'm not going to push this any further than it's already gone. But I'd suggest that's what you should be, too, Jensen—gone. Get out of this part of the territory and don't come back for a good long while.”

“That's all right with me, Sheriff,” Luke said honestly, although he was going to miss eating at the café, and Georgia's company, to boot. “I've got a prisoner who has an appointment in Cheyenne.”