Bleached Bones in the Dust, page 2
Elizabeth bit her lip while one of her two customers gave a sharp intake of breath. She took longer than was necessary to find an answer to such a simple question.
“Come back when I finish up in an hour,” she whispered. Then she turned her back on him and busied herself with clearing away his plate.
Montgomery didn’t respond and left. He tried to pass an hour by making his slow way up and down the main drag, but as this confirmed that most of the buildings were derelict he found nothing with which he could occupy his time.
The derelict buildings had been abandoned recently and they had once supported extensive businesses. This observation gave him something to discuss when he returned to the saloon, but again he didn’t get any useful answers.
“Things aren’t going well for Sunrise, but then again it’s peaceful these days,” Dean said.
“Why did everyone leave?”
“The fort getting abandoned started the rot.”
“But it’s not the only reason?”
Dean opened and closed his mouth, as if he were rejecting several answers before he replied.
“Stay here for long enough and you’ll find out.”
“Then I guess I will. Sunrise was the last place Wallace headed to. Until I know where he headed to next, I won’t be going nowhere.”
With that statement of intent Montgomery reverted to silence, leaving Dean and James to stew. When the hour had passed, he headed down the darkened main drag to Elizabeth’s Eatery.
No lights were on at her establishment. He tried the door, finding it closed, and then headed to the window, but all was quiet in the black interior. He stood back and a guarded light was casting a dim aura from a back room so he made his way around the building.
The side was in complete darkness, so he walked slowly, feeling his way with care. He had reached the far corner when a rustling sounded behind him. He turned as a footfall crunched grit from the other direction.
Too late he realized the first noise had been a distraction. A sack swung down over his head and rasped down past his shoulders to his biceps. He struggled to remove it, but his assailant wrapped his arms around him and held the sack firmly in place while pounding footfalls sounded as the other man hurried toward him.
That man bundled into him, pushing him into the wall. Unable to stop himself, he slammed face first into the wall, temporarily stunning him and giving his assailants the opportunity to drag the sack down to his waist.
Then he was pulled away from the wall and disarmed. A rope was wrapped around his waist and drawn tight. With his upper body constrained Montgomery delivered several wild kicks, at least one of which connected with flesh, but then the unmistakable thrust of a gun barrel jabbed into the back of his neck.
“One more kick and you’re a dead man,” someone said in his ear.
Montgomery didn’t recognize the voice as belonging to any of the people he’d spoken to so far. He straightened up and stopped struggling.
“What do you want with me?” he demanded.
“You were looking for Wallace Sheckley.”
“I was, but there was no need to attack me before telling me where he went.”
“There was. When we remove the sack, you’ll know what happened to him.”
The man’s tone was low and his choice of words didn’t give Montgomery much hope that when he got the answer he would like it, but he figured he didn’t have any options. He nodded.
“Take me there, then.”
His assailants murmured to each other, questioning whether they could trust his apparent surrender, the result coming when the second man pushed him on while the first man kept the gun on him. They moved him back to the main drag where the light level increased, but not enough for Montgomery to make out anything through the weave of the sack.
They drew him to a halt and waited. One man moved away and presently wheels trundled closer and stopped. Then he was bundled on to the back of an open wagon where his assailants pushed him to the base, forcing him to lie prone.
One man drove the wagon while the other kneeled beside him with the gun still pressed against his neck. While he bided his time until the best opportunity to escape came, Montgomery noted that they had been waiting for him.
They had conducted the kidnapping quickly, and they had attempted to keep him hidden. So although everyone he had met so far had acted suspiciously, his abductors were still trying to keep their actions a secret from others in town.
It was also likely that this was what had happened to Wallace and that that had made everyone be guarded with their answers. Montgomery wasn’t unduly worried about Wallace’s fate yet, as he was a resourceful man and he doubted that these men would have gone to the trouble of kidnapping him when it would have been easier to kill him in the darkness.
The wagon trundled out of town. Montgomery tried to take note of where they were going. It was hard to tell if they changed direction as the wagon was shaking from side to side with a natural rhythm, but he judged that this was a sign they were following a well-rutted trail.
After fifteen minutes the wagon made an obvious series of maneuvers and then drew up. He was dragged down from the wagon, turned and then walked forward. A hand on the back of the neck encouraged him to duck as he went through a doorway.
He was walked four paces forward and then told to sit on the floor with his back to the wall. One man stayed with him while the other went outside, although as he didn’t hear the wagon leave he presumed he was standing guard.
As it was unlikely they’d brought him here purely to let him sit in a room with a sack over his head he presumed they were waiting for someone. This theory forced Montgomery to decide whether he should risk waiting for this man to arrive or whether he should try to escape while his assailants were still small enough in number to overcome.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked, fishing for information.
The man in the room didn’t reply. Montgomery gave him long enough to say something and then carried on.
“What do you want with me?”
He waited again. Then, when no reply came, he continued in the same level tone, pausing between each question.
“I’m Montgomery Drake. I’ve come to town looking for Wallace Sheckley. Have you met him?”
“Did you kidnap him, too?”
“I assume your not answering means you did, so why did you do it?”
This final question made the man grunt and move over to the door. He opened it and whispered something.
“Just ignore him,” the man outside said.
The man shuffled back inside, but clearly Montgomery’s questions had riled him. Montgomery ran those questions through his mind and he realized what could be worrying the man. He waited until the man was in the center of the room and then lowered his voice, as if he were offering the comment for his ears only.
“I know you.”
In truth he was only guessing that one of his captors was staying silent in case he recognized his voice, but it proved to be a good guess. The man stomped his heels and then paced back and forth, seemingly in a quandary.
Montgomery figured that his recognition of his captor’s voice was a problem only if he intended to keep him alive. Feeling more confident he continued in the same low voice.
“You don’t think I’m the sort of man who doesn’t know what happened to Wallace, do you?” He chuckled. “Come over here and I’ll tell you what I know.”
The man continued to pace. Then, with a muttered comment to himself as if he’d made a decision, he shuffled closer.
“Tell me,” he grunted, speaking from deep in his throat in an obvious attempt to disguise his voice.
“That letter Wallace sent. You read it, but he knew you would. So he left me the important message in his hotel room.”
The man again shuffled closer to make the obvious retort.
“What message?”
This time he didn’t disguise his voice as well as before and it tapped at Montgomery’s thoughts. He reckoned he was one of the customers in the saloon whom Dean had spoken to: Pike.
“I’ll tell you later. For now I can protect you.”
“No one can. What can you do that Wallace couldn’t?”
Pike moved closer, Montgomery’s ferreting clearly having hit upon the right thing to say. Montgomery couldn’t think what the appropriate retort was, so he mumbled under his breath.
This made Pike lean in toward him and for the first time the outline of his head became visible through the weave of the sack. Montgomery reckoned this moment was his best chance. He braced his back, mumbled again to make Pike inch forward again and then jerked his head forward.
His forehead connected with Pike’s nose with a satisfying crunch making him cry out in pain and fall backward. Montgomery carried his forward motion on and rolled to his feet where he kicked out, catching Pike a fortuitous blow that sent him rolling.
Then he stepped backward and made the only motion he thought might remove the sack by dropping to one knee while keeping his back pressed to the wall. The sack rode up his back and dragged out from under the rope that tied it around his stomach.
He bent double and tried to shake it away. While the door creaked opened and Pike got to his feet, he required three shakes to remove it. The sack hit the floor as the other guard appeared in the doorway.
In desperation to buy himself a few more moments Montgomery kicked the sack, scooping it up and sending it flying into the guard’s face. Then he turned on his heel and threw himself at Pike.
The rope that had kept the sack in place had only constrained his arms rather than tying them together and his rapid motion let him tear an arm free. He slammed into Pike’s chest and sought his gun.
Pike had already taken it in hand, but Montgomery grabbed his wrist and squeezed. His iron grip forced Pike to drop the weapon. Then he tore out his other hand and scooped it up. With a deft motion he slapped the gun up under Pike’s chin and pressed in.
Then he turned him around to face the door, but the sudden change in circumstances made the other man move away into the darkness outside. As Montgomery’s captive was shaking with fear, Montgomery decided that Pike was a minor cog in the plot to kidnap him and staying to question him was unlikely to provide any useful answers.
“Don’t come after me,” he said in his ear and then ran for the door.
Outside, the other man had reached the wagon and was turning it away to escape. Montgomery chased after it, more to work off his frustration and loosen his cramped limbs than because he thought he could catch it.
After fifty yards the wagon was already a further fifty yards ahead of him so he slowed to a halt. When the driver headed off into the night, Montgomery took stock of his situation. To his left the distant dim lights emanating from Sunrise drew his attention.
The wagon had gone to the right, so Montgomery set off for town. As he made his slow way back he recalled his brief sighting of the man in the doorway, but he didn’t think he’d met him before. Thoughtfully he drew the broken match he’d found in his hotel room from his pocket.
“Is this what happened to you, Wallace?” he said. “Did you also get away?”
Montgomery hoped so, but then he registered that the match he was holding felt odd. He halted and raised it to his face, seeking stronger light. There were two broken matches on his palm, but he had found only one match in the hotel room. He had an ally.
Chapter Four
Montgomery sat by the window of his hotel room, as he had done all morning. Last night, after escaping, he had been set to storm back into town and drag out the reason why he’d been accosted from whoever got in his way.
The discovery of the extra broken match in his pocket had made him realize that more was going on in Sunrise than he was aware of, and that he needed to tread carefully. Therefore he’d returned quietly and then walked through the saloon while noting that Dean, the customer who had spoken to him the most, was still at the bar, and so was unlikely to have been involved.
Then he’d gone up to his room where he had waited for whoever was behind his abduction to make the next move, but so far it hadn’t come. By early afternoon he was wondering if he should go to Elizabeth’s eatery to question her when Elizabeth herself headed to the saloon.
She was following two men and he decided that this was as good a time as any to go downstairs. When he arrived in the saloon room Elizabeth was standing at the bar talking with James.
His arrival silenced them both, but after a few moments they resumed talking, suggesting they might not have been talking about him, after all. This proved to be the case when they both turned to the two new men who had come inside.
These men were propping up the opposite end of the bar. They were chortling to each other and slapping each other on the back, acting in an animated manner that let everyone know they were in a good mood.
Whatever the conversation between James and Elizabeth had been about ended and James shuffled along the bar toward the newcomers, his slow pace and slouched posture showing that he wasn’t relishing serving them. Montgomery slotted in beside Elizabeth at the bar, and she cast him an easy smile that suggested she didn’t know about last night’s events.
“Whiskey, Leroy?” James asked.
“Sure,” one man said. “That’s one for me and one for Herman.”
James took a deep breath and folded his arms with a determined gesture.
“Only when you’ve paid for the damages you caused the last time you drank here.”
His voice trailed away betraying his lack of confidence, and when Leroy snarled at him across the bar he backed away for a pace.
“Arnold Hays’s men don’t pay. You need to remember that or you’ll get another lesson.”
James rubbed his jaw ruefully, suggesting the nature of the previous lesson.
“I remember it, but this situation can’t go on no longer. Sunrise is dying and Arnold is leeching every ounce of life out of us. If you men don’t back off, there’ll be nothing left.”
“Then that’s what’ll happen, unless you get yourself some guts.”
James gulped and turned aside, requesting support. The two customers drinking at a table didn’t move while Dean showed no sign of joining in. Only Elizabeth moved forward.
“He’s not the only one,” she said. “From now on if you want to eat my food, you’ll pay beforehand.”
Leroy whistled under his breath while nodding. “I might have guessed that if anyone in this godforsaken town was still man enough to stand up to us it’d be a woman.”
“There are more than you think. You got away with not paying today, but it was for the last time.”
“So that makes two of you.” Leroy smirked. “Anyone else want to get what the others got?”
Montgomery gave Leroy enough time to enjoy the lack of a response. Then he slapped his hand on the bar with an insistent rhythm gathering everyone’s attention.
“How much longer do I have to wait to get served?” he demanded.
The welcome diversion made James breathe a sigh of relief. He drew out a bottle and a glass from under the counter, bustling with obvious relish as he tried to avoid escalating the confrontation.
Montgomery clattered a handful of coins on to the counter, the noise ensuring he had everyone’s attention. He turned to Leroy and Herman and frowned, as if he’d noticed them for the first time.
Then he reached over the bar and gathered up two more glasses. With the glasses in one hand and the whiskey bottle in the other he walked down the bar past Elizabeth and Dean to stand before the newcomers, who eyed him with lively interest.
He uncorked the bottle with his teeth as he slapped the glasses on the bar. Then, with studied care, he poured three equal measures. Leroy and Herman both smirked, conveying that they knew Montgomery was setting up a confrontation, but that they were arrogant enough to enjoy playing along with him.
They tipped their hats to him, and then took their whiskeys and downed them. Montgomery ignored the third glass. They waited for him to move for it, but he merely leaned on the bar.
“Are you not drinking with us?” Leroy asked.
“That’s not for me. It’s for Arnold Hays.”
“Arnold’s at the fort. He doesn’t come here.”
“Then tell him there’s a drink waiting for him from Montgomery Drake.”
“Does he know you?”
“Nope, but I’m a friend of Wallace Sheckley.”
Leroy’s eyes narrowed, suggesting he had heard of him and that his assumption that Arnold was behind his disappearance might be right.
“We’re not messengers, but even if we were, Arnold won’t come here just to drink with you.”
Leroy smirked, defying him to retort. Montgomery moved for the glass.
“I understand. Arnold’s too yellow to come into town, so I’d better take the drink myself.”
His fingers were brushing the glass when Leroy thrust out a hand and grabbed his wrist.
“Arnold’s not yellow. He just doesn’t need to come here no more now that he has us to deal with things.”
“I’ve always believed you can judge a man by the company he keeps,” Montgomery said levelly. “So if he uses worthless men like you he must be—”
Montgomery didn’t get to complete his planned insult when Herman grunted with anger and moved in on him. He drew back his fist, but before he could deliver the planned blow Montgomery tore his hand away from Leroy’s grip and delivered a backhanded swipe to his face that cracked his head back.
He took a long pace forward and followed through with a firmer blow to the point of Herman’s chin that sent him spinning away. Herman tried to grab the end of the bar to hold himself up, but his fingers closed on air and he went sprawling.
Montgomery then moved to take on Leroy, but Leroy leaped on his back, knocking him into the bar. Leroy bore down on him, his weight forcing Montgomery to fold over the rim whereupon his opponent gripped his chin with one hand and a shoulder with the other hand.
Then he pushed downward seeking to grind his face into the wood. The acrid smell of the thousands of spilled drinks that had impregnated the bar invaded Montgomery’s nostrils, but with his belly pressed up against the rim he braced himself.
