Desperate Hearts (3 page)

“
Yeah? What do you want
with me, Kyle?” He went along with the steps of this dance, but he
knew where it was headed.

“
I want to hire you to kill
a man.” The young voice was cold, flat—devoid of anger or any other
emotion. His eyes matched his tone.

Rankin stopped in his tracks and glared at
him. That sure as hell wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He tossed
away the cheroot. “Not interested.” He turned and walked on.

“
I can pay you,” Kyle
called after him. “Isn’t that what you want?" He could hear Kyle’s
steps and the horse’s on the hard-packed dirt as they trotted along
behind him.

Rankin had his standards, and his anger
flared at the insulting question. “You’d better get your facts
straight, kid. I’m a bounty hunter, not a hired gun.” He
sidestepped a mule skinner who came staggering out of a noisy
saloon.

“
You’ve killed men.
Everybody knows that, and I saw you shoot that drifter today. I saw
it through the window.”

Rankin’s hand tightened on the Henry. “If
you were watching, then you saw it was self-defense. It always has
been self-defense. Anyway, I guess you don’t know why I was after
Clark.”

“
It don’t matter to me.
Some people need killin’.”

Rankin stopped again and faced the kid. His
curiosity got the best of him. “Like who?”

As if a grim memory cut across his mind,
Kyle let his gaze drift to the mountains that embraced Silver City.
The horse whickered and nudged his shoulder. Catching his balance,
the boy wiped his nose on his shirt cuff; then tucked his hair
behind his ears.

“
His name’s Tom Hardesty.
He murdered a man over in Blakely, Oregon, and stole a ranch there
that rightfully belongs to me.”

“
What makes it
yours?”

A sharp autumn wind rushed down the street.
Keeping one fist clamped on the horse’s reins, Kyle hunched his
thin shoulders and shivered. "My pa left it to me. But Tom—he’s one
of Luke Jory’s bootlicks. Jory heads up the Vigilance Union. He
arranged for Tom and the Union to come and force me off the ranch
so’s Tom could take it."

Rankin hadn’t been to Blakely in several
years; vigilantes there were news to him. “So? Tell the
sheriff.”

The boy hitched up the waist of his jeans
with his free hand, then absently stroked the dun’s nose. “I did
tell the sheriff, but it didn’t do no good. The Vigilance Union
owns Blakely. They can make the law do whatever they want. They’re
just a bunch of lyin’, thievin’ bastards who murder men so they can
steal their cattle and land. There’s been a lot of that goin’ on.
That’s why I set out to find you. The Vigilance Union has to be
wiped out.”

Rankin had never been a defender of widows
and orphans, and he wasn’t about to take up the chore now. “Forget
it. Too messy. I’m only interested in bounties. And this isn’t my
fight.” He looked up and saw that he’d stopped in front of the
undertaker’s dark windows. “Besides, I’ve got business to take care
of in Misfortune, and that’s where I’m headed in the morning. You
get on your horse, go back to Blakely, and try to stay out of
trouble. Those miners could’ve carved you up for dinner back
there.”

A tinge of desperation crept into Kyle’s
voice. “I got no place to go to, not in Blakely, not anywhere. If
you won’t help, I’ll find someone who ain’t afraid to. Or I’ll do
the job myself.” He rested his hand on the butt of the revolver in
his holster. “I swear to God I will.”

“
Yeah? Have you ever shot
anybody?”

A sigh and downcast eyes were Kyle’s
answer.

Rankin nodded. “It doesn’t make you feel
better, and it doesn’t mean you’re a man. Besides you’d probably
get yourself killed for your trouble.”

“
Well, I gotta try, at
least!” Kyle curled a hand over the dun’s bridle. “I got nothing
left to lose, anyway.”

Rankin stared at the boy in the gathering
darkness. He was too young to feel that way, but Rankin understood
it. There seemed to be a number of things about this kid that he
understood. And one or two that he didn’t. But he had a lot of
stubborn courage despite his wispy build.

That brought memories back to Rankin of a
boyhood spent first running from bullies, then eventually standing
up to them and taking the inevitable beatings that resulted. The
worst ones had come from his stepfather, until the day he strapped
on a gun and threatened to pull the trigger.

And now, after thirty years of a hard life,
he faced another cold winter and another youth who reminded him of
all those beatings. Maybe it was something in the kid’s eyes. Later
he’d probably kick himself, but he asked, “Can you prove that
Hardesty killed anyone?”

“
I saw him do it,” Kyle
answered, shivering again. He leaned against his dun’s shoulder for
a moment.

Rankin shrugged. "I don’t give a damn about
politics and I’m no do-good, so I’m not about to tangle with
vigilantes. And I won’t take this job to kill Hardesty. I’ll see to
it that he’s delivered to the law in another town to stand trial.”
Seeing that Kyle was about to object, he cut him off. “Believe me,
that’s a sight more trouble than just shooting him—but it’s the
only way I’ll do this. I have to go to Misfortune first, though.
Are you still interested?”

“
But it won’t help to get
rid of Hardesty if Luke Jory and them damned vigilantes are still
around. They ain’t gonna leave me in peace."

“
That’s my offer. Are you
interested or not?”

The kid looked disappointed. “Yeah," he
grumped. ‘I guess.”

“
How much are you planning
to pay?”

Kyle stared at him dead on. “I’m not sayin’
how much I’ve got.”

“
And I’m not asking. The
bounties I go after usually start at about five hundred
dollars.”

“
F-five?” Kyle
stammered.

“
But I’m willing to help
you out for half of that. Two

fifty.

“
Well . . .”

“
Damn, kid, you don’t think
I’m going to do this for free—”

“
No!” The horse sidestepped
nervously. “I’m gonna pay you, but I ain’t got the money with
me.”

"Where is it?"

“
It’s in a strongbox,
buried in a secret place.”

“
Let me guess—I’ll bet this
‘secret place’ is at the ranch.”

Kyle hunched his shoulders and nodded.

Figuring he already knew the answer, Rankin
had to ask anyway, “Have you got any money with you?”

Kyle wiped his nose on his sleeve again and
glanced at his scuffed boots. “Yeah, seventy-eight cents.”

“
Have you got a place to
bed down tonight?”

“
I’ve been sleepin’—out—”
He gestured over his shoulder in the general direction of the
scrubby hills outside of town.

Rankin shook his head—this was getting worse
by the second. The kid probably didn’t have one penny more than
seventy-eight cents anywhere, and there were too many things about
this situation that bothered him. He sure as hell didn’t want to
take on the job of nurse-maiding this weaner. It was hard for him
to imagine how the kid had even gotten this far from Blakely. He
knew he should walk away from this situation right now.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he dug into the pocket of his jeans
and pulled out two silver dollars. “Here,” he said and tossed the
coins to Kyle, who scrambled to catch them with one hand. “Take
your horse to the livery, then get a room at the hotel. If you
still want my help, be out front at daybreak.”

Kyle gave him an even stare, and a moment of
silence passed. Finally he looked at the money, then closed his
fingers around it. “I’ll pay you back,” he insisted, “just as soon
as I can get to the strongbox.” He turned, hauled himself up into
the dun’s saddle, and headed toward the livery down the street.

Rankin regarded the lift of the youth’s
chin—proud, defiant, foolhardy. The kid had guts, if nothing else.
And he had to admire that.

* * *

The boy who had introduced himself as Kyle
Springer closed the door to his hotel room and turned the key.

He threw his hat and the poke carrying his
belongings on the mattress, then fished through his pockets for a
match to light the plain bedside lamp. Purple dusky shadows gave
way to the bright kerosene flame, and he looked around to see what
Jace Rankin’s dollar had bought. It ate at him that he’d had to
take money from the bounty hunter. Kyle usually paid his own way or
did without, and if he weren’t so dead-dog tired, he’d have
refused. But his struggles, first with the miners, then with
Rankin, had drained the sap right out of him.

It wasn’t the best room in the place—faded
green paint clung to chipped walls and the shabby jumble of
furniture sported threadbare upholstery. But the iron bed looked
clean and inviting, and it beat the hell out of spending another
night in the open. The earth was like granite, and the cold made
his hands ache. These past few mornings he had awakened to a hard
chill and frosted landscapes.

Bouncing once on the mattress, Kyle decided
that the springs wouldn’t screech enough to wake him. At any rate,
he was so weary he imagined he wouldn’t move once he closed his
eyes. He stood and unbuckled his gunbelt, slinging it over the
bedpost where it would be close at hand.

After pulling the shades on the two windows,
he walked to the cloudy mirror hanging over the washstand and
stared at his reflection, taking in the lank, uneven hair and dirty
face. He knew he was lucky, that he played his role so convincingly
no one ever questioned his identity, but sometimes he got tired of
this masquerade. The bad grammar was becoming a habit. So was the
swearing. And graceless acts like belching and using his sleeve for
a handkerchief were almost second nature.

But they worked. For a moment, though, he
had thought the saloon girl Gracie had caught on to him just as
Rankin intervened. Her look of surprise—naw, he was probably
imagining things.

Hell, he had even fooled Jace Rankin, a man
who bad a reputation for seeing through people as if they were
panes of glass. But he didn’t suspect the truth.

Still watching the reflection, he unbuttoned
his shirt and long underwear with hands that shook with fatigue and
strain. Beneath the thin shirt was a length of fabric, wrapped in
tight circles around his ribs. He removed the safety pins,
releasing the constricting pressure.

And Kyle Springer, the boy, was transformed
into Kyla Springer, an ample-breasted, twenty-four-year-old female
whose nipples felt as if they’d just been unbuttoned from her
backbone. An ache spread over her chest as circulation surged into
her compressed flesh.

The binding prevented her from taking a
decently breath, but it also prevented the world from seeing the
curves that would put her in far more peril than she had
experienced at the Magnolia Saloon. Certainly that had been
frightening enough. It had taken every bit of bravado she could
muster, false and real, maintain Kyle’s angry hostility, and to
keep his voice deeper than her own. Traveling as a boy for safety
might have its drawbacks—it hadn’t saved her humiliation—but not
nearly so many as traveling as a woman. Her life might depend on
her disguise and she did everything she could to protect it.

She even made sure she carried nothing with
her might give her away; no sweet soap, no silver-backed mirror or
hairbrush, no feminine trappings of any kind. Not that she owned
many.

Kyla sucked air into her lungs and scratched
her rib cage where the fabric had pressed red grooves in her skin.
After pouring water into the washbowl, she went to retrieve a piece
of plain soap from her gear. What she really wanted to do was pull
off her clothes and crawl into bed. But she’d had to abandon enough
of the things that made her a woman—washing wouldn’t be one of
them.

Yes, she was tired, but nudging aside that
fatigue was grim triumph. She had finally caught up with Rankin.
After a month on the road, following rumors and news that he had
been someplace but had left the night before or two days earlier,
she finally tracked him to Silver City. After that, it was easy.
Word of Jace Rankin’s presence in town buzzed through the streets
like St. Elmo’s Fire.

That he had rescued her from certain
disaster at the Magnolia Saloon did not make it easier for her to
like him. In fact, much as she needed his help, she didn’t like him
at all. There was something despicable about a man who made his
living by hunting his own kind.

Kyla knew her attitude was hypocritical.
After all, wasn’t that why she had hired him, for his reputation?
But her situation was different; Tom Hardesty had stolen more from
her than she could count, more than she could ever replace. Her
personal vendetta against him had nothing to do with bounties or
rewards.

Rankin might have said he wouldn’t shoot
Hardesty, but he had the look of a cold-blooded killer if ever
she’d seen it. His face was young, but she saw it in his eyes—ice
blue eyes as old as the grave. She’d find a way to change his mind
by the time they got to Blakely. She had to.

She looked up at her reflection again. Some
people needed killing.

Tom Hardesty was one of them.

CHAPTER TWO

Kyla stamped her feet and burrowed deeper
into her saddlecoat. She had been standing here in front of the
hotel for fifteen minutes, and she was getting cold. Streaks of
pink and gold lighted the eastern sky but there was no warmth in
the sunrise. She could see her own breath, and her horse’s,
too.

Across the street, a shopkeeper came out to
sweep the walk in front of his hardware store. A few doors down,
the bakery windows opened. Wood smoke from breakfast stoves drifted
on the air. The town was just beginning to stir. But not so much
that it made enough noise to drown out the heartbeat of Silver
City’s mines. In the dawn quiet, Kyla heard the distant muffled
roar of powder blasts coming from the mines, and the dull racket of
the stamp mills pounding ore into gravel.