Ralph Compton Thirteen Bullets, page 19
It came sooner than expected, and from a direction that Dan hadn’t expected either: someone fired a rifle into the air.
It wasn’t in town; it was outside—but not too far off.
That got everyone’s attention. Shouting and more shots followed.
Gwen burst out of the store and Dan threw out an arm to halt her.
“What is happening?” she demanded, eyes wild as people rushed to get indoors, and the marshal appeared with his deputy, running for their horses.
Several more shots rang out, and Gwen looked relieved.
“Trouble elsewhere,” she said.
“No. That ain’t it,” Dan said, putting his hand on her shoulder to hold her still.
Getting her, the kids, and Emma to the wagon—getting it moving—it would take too long. He pushed her back into the store and followed.
“Better get down,” he told the shopkeeper, who had his scattergun in his hands.
Dan was through being sure of anything. He’d missed too much, been wrong too many times. But he was fairly sure that there was no ruckus outside town at all. It seemed more likely that someone just wanted to get the marshal away from that new bank. It was no business of Dan’s, but the way that man watching the bank hadn’t even twitched when the shots went off didn’t leave much doubt in his mind.
“Is there trouble?” Emma was asking.
“It’s all right,” Dan said, irked. “Wait it out.”
He was about to tell them to keep their heads down, but more shots split the air, these much closer. The door that had just fallen shut behind him burst open, crashing into Dan’s back and sending him stumbling. He couldn’t keep his balance, but he still had his pistol out of its holster and twisted around to use it. The act wasn’t easy on his tender back, but he did it without thinking.
Dan pulled the trigger a heartbeat before he hit the ground on his back, his thumb on the hammer for a second shot that he didn’t need.
The robber died the moment Dan’s bullet put a hole in his head, but his body didn’t get a chance to fall.
This hadn’t been a well-planned robbery. Nobody opening a bank in a town this small would be without protection, and they weren’t likely to have been born yesterday. If Dan had seen this ruse before, surely the bankers had as well. That robber had fled into the store to get away from bullets just to walk into one. Now those other bullets caught up, punching through the door and the wooden walls.
The corpse was hit two or three times on the way down, thumping on top of Dan with coppery blood spilling from the holes as the windows broke and Gwen’s screams couldn’t even begin to compete with the chaos. Dust, smoke, and wood shavings filled the air like a thick fog rising off a lake.
It figured that the robber wasn’t a small man. Dan’s head swam, and he saw double; the impact from the falling body had knocked his head against the floorboards. The shopkeeper was on the floor, flat on his belly, praying.
A shot had burst one of the jars, sending orange candies cascading off the counter.
Gwen sat against a shelf, eyes wide, frozen. Dan’s back was gone again, and it hurt so bad that he wondered if he’d been hit.
But he fought through the alarming twinge it brought and shoved the dead man off, turning his head to look for Chris and Clara, and he found them.
They were just a few feet away, the kids on the floor, choking on the gun smoke from Dan’s shot and weeping in terror, but obscured by Emma. The maid was on top of them, holding them down, doing her best to shield them with her tiny body.
The shooting stopped, leaving just a ringing, coughs, and a few whimpers. Glass from the window tinkled to the floor, and someone worked the lever of a rifle outside.
Dan’s eyes stung and watered, but the smoke was clearing.
PART THREE
LANDSLIDE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Dan didn’t know how bad one man’s luck had to be to walk into such a mess when he had so many messes of his own already. A botched robbery; wildly irresponsible bankers who fired into a store, heedless of the people inside; a marshal who had taken the bait and chased an imaginary robber for the better part of ten miles—the more Dan learned of what happened that afternoon, the sadder it was.
Three men were dead, and one woman was wounded. The men had been the robbers, but the woman was just unlucky.
It was the first hint of trouble that Dan had even heard of in Stacker, so naturally he’d been there when it happened. Sometimes that made him sweat, thinking about how many black cats must have crossed his path without his noticing.
Head pounding, back hurting, he sent the others with the wagon back to the house so he could ride for Redding to pay a call on Howard Barnes. It was an unplanned visit and maybe not a prudent one; while no one of consequence had made it to Stacker yet, they had to be in Redding if Kingsley’s location was known.
But Dan couldn’t trust anything more to luck. He had to know for certain.
It was getting dark when Dan arrived, and Howard wasn’t in the Smiling Bird. He was at a much less reputable joint. It was still early, so Howard was drinking, but still more or less alert. He looked surprised to see Dan, although Dan moved none too quickly in the state he was in. He eased into a chair with a groan and waved for a whiskey of his own.
“Dan,” Howard said. That was all.
“What have you seen?”
“Your pardon?”
“Who’s here? I know they’re coming.”
Howard licked his lips, setting his glass down. “Who?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t understand it.” Dan wiped his brow with his handkerchief and snatched his own glass from the man who brought it. “I don’t understand it,” he repeated after a drink.
“What don’t you understand, Dan?”
“Why they keep coming. In all this time, they could’ve earned back whatever he lost them. Why? Why are they still gunning for him?”
“Dan, I think you need a rest.”
“ ’Course I do. They robbed the bank in Stacker today.”
Howard’s brows rose. “Who did?”
“Nobody I knew. Didn’t go well for them.” Dan finished his whiskey and groaned. “And my back hurts. My head too.”
“Maybe you should get a room for the night.”
Dan snorted. No chance of that. It was bad enough leaving his family unattended this long.
“So you ain’t seen nothing?” he asked.
“I have no new information for you, Dan.”
Dan let out a long breath. “Then maybe we got a little time yet.”
He toyed with the empty glass for a moment, then slapped it down and pushed to his feet. It wasn’t a long ride back in normal times, but in the dark and with a sore back, Dan wasn’t looking forward to it. No sense waiting.
He didn’t like surprises, but pleasant ones were better than the other kind. Helen was back on her feet, though alarmingly weak. Kingsley still wouldn’t leave her side, but he was at least keeping paper and pen handy, making plans for the journey.
When would Helen be strong enough to travel? In a week? Two? Maybe if they were lucky. It was late and Dan was in poor condition, but he still trudged through the gloom to make sure the traps were ready. Howard was a drunk, and something had clearly been on his mind—so he could easily have missed something. It also wasn’t out of the question that the enemy might finally have enough sense to use some discretion in their approach; they might avoid the likelier settlements to try to come at Kingsley through the wild.
If they did that, it wouldn’t be pretty.
Helen was in bed, but Kingsley was still up, standing in the glowing doorway as Dan dragged his feet back to the house. He was beckoning, probably wanting to share some good whiskey and thank Dan for protecting the kids during the excitement.
But the only thing worse than being alone with his thoughts would be being alone with Kingsley.
“I’m tired, Kingsley. Go to bed.” Dan pushed past him and headed for his bedroom, but he stopped at the stairs. His room was on the first floor, so he had no business upstairs, where the family slept.
But there was a sound coming down, and it wasn’t snoring. It was only a soft scuffing, the sound of Emma’s feather duster.
Dan arduously lifted his watch out of his pocket and opened it to check the time. Needless to say, the hour for dusting had come and gone. It was closer to morning than it was to the evening before.
“Dan?” Kingsley said uncertainly from behind him. “Are you well?”
Dan glanced back and winced from doing it.
“My back hurts,” he muttered, stepping out of the way and gesturing invitingly toward the stairs.
“I plan to remain awake a while yet. I must consider the map and our route. Dr. Gabriel tells me that Helen will be fit to travel in ten days.”
Ten? Dan grimaced, drumming his fingers on the bannister.
“All right,” he said.
“Dan, I wish to thank you for your actions. You protected the children.”
“It’s what you pay me for.”
Kingsley hesitated, then nodded and went back into his study. He was getting to where even after a few glasses, you couldn’t see him wobble the way he used to.
Dan stayed where he was, fingers still tapping.
That robber Dan had killed, purely by reflex, hadn’t been any threat to the kids at all, not compared to those idiot bankers. And if anyone had protected the children—well, it hadn’t been Dan.
He looked up at the ceiling, chewing his lip as he listened to the feather duster, still dust, dust, dusting away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The sun was so bright that the dew was gone before it even had a chance to sparkle. It was the kind of morning that Dan would’ve liked to spend lying in the straw, but his back wouldn’t allow that.
He settled into his wicker chair on the porch and stayed there, not moving a muscle. The kids were around front, and some foxes played not far away. When they scattered, Dan knew that someone was coming and that his peace was leaving with the foxes.
Gwen walked up and perched on the arm of his chair, folding her arms and scowling at the magnificent view of the meadows and mountains. She wasn’t sorry to leave it—she was sorry that she had to wait to do so. She’d grown a little since Dan had met her as a girl, but her patience hadn’t grown one bit. Dan knew how she felt; he didn’t want to stay here any more than she did.
For once she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t need to. Her mother’s condition, the restlessness of the waiting, and what had happened in Stacker—it would’ve been a lot for anyone, let alone for a kid. And she was still a kid, no matter what Kingsley thought. Gwen didn’t want to marry. Her aim wasn’t to get away from her family, only away from this place. This view had grown stale for her, but Dan didn’t feel that way yet.
Presently the kids’ chase brought them around the house, and they barreled toward Gwen and Dan. Emma appeared, hurrying after them, but she stopped to cast an apologetic look at Gwen.
Dan saw Gwen’s little nod, indicating that she’d take over watching the kids so that Emma could actually get her work done.
The children leapt up and shouted, waving their arms at something Dan couldn’t see: Helen, who was upstairs in her bedroom seated in the chair by the window.
“Give Mr. Karr a little peace and quiet,” she called down, her voice sounding very nearly normal again.
The children didn’t listen, and they were back to their madness in moments.
“You don’t find it odd that after all this time, they still want your pa dead?” Dan asked finally.
Gwen waited a while before answering. “I do not know what is odd. I have never done business.”
“You knew Miller.”
She snorted. “I was flattered by him. I know now that he was not well-meaning. He was very pleased about the gold that came from the mine that my father purchased. Their falling-out denied Mr. Miller a fortune. Maybe that is a grudge that one carries.”
“Four years is a long time to carry it.”
“Perhaps for you, Mr. Karr. But you are not like other people.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are cold. You do not form attachments.”
“I do,” Dan replied, suddenly defensive.
“Not the way the rest of us do.”
“What do you know about everybody else? You spent four years with no more than a dozen people about,” Dan told her.
“I was not always a prisoner.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “I hope you won’t have to be one forever,” he said, reaching out to knock on wood without taking his eyes off the kids.
“Not without an agreeable stable hand to occupy me,” she said dryly.
“Have you been eavesdropping on your folks again?”
“One need hardly eavesdrop in so small a house. That is a wicked accusation, Dan Karr. Very ungentlemanly.”
It wasn’t a small house, but Dan didn’t blame her. There was little else for her to do but cover her ears when Chris and Clara came near with that damned tambourine that Kingsley had bought them. It was a pity that Gwen didn’t like to read.
A few feet away, Chris came up from the grass with a magnificent frog in his hand. Dan was about to speak up, to warn him not to hurt it—but he had no plans to. The frog was just sitting in his palm. Clara hurried over to marvel at it.
“Don’t look much like you, do they?” Dan noted absently.
“In what way?” Gwen replied.
“Well, their hair.”
“Then I look nothing like my mother and father,” she replied, giving him a look.
That was fair; her hair was a pale sort of hazelnut, but Kingsley and Helen both had hair dark enough to pass for black.
It didn’t end there, though. There was nothing in the kids’ features to give them away, but their eyes were another matter. Gwen had stiffened, but still tried to appear relaxed.
Dan was well and truly lost.
Chris and Clara were not Helen’s children, but typically if a man stepped outside his marriage for a moment—or even two moments—those kids had a way of staying with their mothers, at least from what Dan had seen over the years.
And what about Helen? She had to know. It would take more than opium for two children to come into her care that she hadn’t given birth to. Had Kingsley given her some pretext? Lied to her? Dan wouldn’t put it past him. At least now Dan knew why they’d needed a wet nurse when they fled Croshank.
Whatever was behind it, the scheme had worked: Helen clearly looked at these two no different from the way she looked at Gwen.
“Is Emma their mother?” Dan asked bluntly.
“That is nonsense, Dan Karr. My mother is their mother. We are a family. A family that you are a part of,” she reminded him.
Dan had never agreed to that. It wasn’t in his contract.
So Kingsley had fathered a couple more kids and brought them along. Whether through subterfuge or his wife’s saintly goodness, that had all worked out, and Dan understood it. More or less.
What he didn’t understand was Emma. He thought she was Chris and Clara’s mother. She certainly behaved like it, like a mother ought to—but then how could she be here without Kingsley knowing it? Helen had likely never met the other woman, but Kingsley? He’d fathered two children with her and given enough of a damn to bring them along. She’d changed since Dan saw her that night four years ago, but not so much that someone who’d been to bed with her at least twice wouldn’t recognize her.
He remembered that pale, pitiful, battered skeleton bathing in the river. What the hell had a man like Kingsley been doing lying down with that? Even healthy and looking her best, Emma still couldn’t compare to Helen.
But Emma had to be their mother. Maybe a kindhearted stranger could be so attentive to the kids and might even shield them when they were in danger—but to follow Kingsley this far? No. It wasn’t for him. Dan saw that now; it was for the kids.
But that still didn’t line up. It didn’t make any sense at all.
“Dan Karr,” Gwen said uncertainly, watching his knuckles turn white.
Dan let his breath out. “Yeah?” he grunted.
Gwen knew. She knew everything. She wouldn’t talk, though.
“Mind your business,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Helen was napping, and doing it honestly. Nothing from a bottle had put her under, although it wasn’t even noon. Dan didn’t blame her; he knew that his sleep was never restful after too much whiskey, so her medicine was likely the same. Rest was what she needed.
Kingsley was in his study, charcoal in hand as he pored over the map.
“I have made a change, Dan.”
Dan circled the desk to gingerly lean over and look. Kingsley had changed the proposed route considerably. He’d made it more daring, with more stops. “You don’t want her too far from a doctor in case she needs one,” he said.
Kingsley nodded. “To strike off into the wilderness would be imprudent.”
Dan didn’t like it, but in Kingsley’s place, he’d have done the same.
“We’ll have to play games when we get to Sacramento,” Dan said, pointing at the map. “Throw them off.”
“I thought we might consider just taking the train from there. What if we split into three? You and myself, Gwen and Maryanne and Clara, with Herbert. And then Helen with Chris and Emma to help manage him. If someone is watching, surely that would fool them.”
“A month ago, maybe. Not now,” Dan said. “We don’t know who’s seen what. Fisk and Burrows came out of nowhere, Kingsley. We don’t know who they talked to. And Ephrem might have spoken to someone as well.”
