According to Hoyle Read online

  Flynn hesitated. Rose was right; he had to remove his belt if he was going to fit. He could either toss his guns through ahead of him and risk being unarmed in the tiny room if he couldn’t fit through the porthole, or hand them to Rose and risk being shot in the back by the outlaw as he tried to shimmy through the small opening.

  Neither option was a particularly honorable end.

  A shout sounded at the door and someone banged heavily, cursing. It was followed by the very distinct sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

  “Get the lead out, Flynn!” Rose said as he gestured for Flynn to give him the guns.

  Flynn gave him a hard glare and then shoved his old slim jim holster and ammunition belt through the window. They landed with a thud on the outer deck. He’d be damned if he trusted Rose with those guns.

  There was another shout, and Rose glanced back at the door, then knelt under the porthole and linked his fingers together. Flynn stepped his booted foot into the cup of Rose’s hands and let the man lift him to the window. He squeezed his shoulders through one arm at a time, and then pushed on the outer shell of the ship, forcing himself through as Rose helped him from behind.

  He hit the promenade deck with his shoulder first and grunted in pain as his body rolled gracelessly. He looked back up at the window as Rose peered through, then he scrambled to his feet to reach for the porthole and help him.

  Just as Flynn got to his feet, a shotgun blasted from outside their door. He hit the deck again as Rose disappeared from view. Flynn pushed up and scrabbled for his guns, grabbing them and strapping them on as he ran for the side deck that encircled the upper levels and led to their cabin door. When he rounded the corner, he found that the door to their cabin had been blown open by the shotgun. Two men grappled on the floor in the ill-lit causeway, one straddling the other. The man on top held a double-barreled shotgun, pressing it down against the other man’s throat, choking the life out of him.

  The man on the floor wore a dirty handkerchief over the lower half of his face. He kicked and clawed at his attacker, slashing viciously at his side with a short-handled knife in a desperate attempt to dislodge him.

  Rose lifted the shotgun and brought the butt of it down like a club against the stranger’s face. Flynn heard the bone of the man’s face crunch and blood splattered even through the kerchief. Rose brought the shotgun up again and jabbed it one last time for good measure.

  Flynn winced at the sickening, wet sound of the impact.

  Rose lurched to his feet and turned to face Flynn, chest heaving and his face and shoulders speckled with blood. He swung the shotgun around and leveled it at Flynn as soon as he saw his shadowed form. For the first time, Flynn really saw the killer all the stories talked about, his eyes black and lifeless and his handsome face marred by shadows and blood.

  Flynn stopped and gasped, realizing that he might as well be a dead man as he met Rose’s eyes. Even if Rose did recognize him in the darkness, that certainly didn’t mean he wouldn’t still pull the trigger.

  To his eternal surprise, Rose blinked at him and lowered the shotgun. He stumbled closer, looking slightly dazed, his breathing coming in difficult gasps. His side was bleeding heavily where the man’s short knife had ravaged his ribcage.

  Flynn stared at him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had witnessed such a brutal act that hadn’t been personal or performed in battle. But then, he supposed this was a battle now.

  A shout from below brought them both out of their stupor with a lurch. Rose glanced over his shoulder and then began to limp toward Flynn, who was hastily affixing his holster and gesturing for Rose to hurry. Rose threw his arm over Flynn’s shoulders as soon as he was close enough.

  “Are you okay?” Flynn asked as Rose leaned on him.

  “Yes,” Rose gasped unconvincingly. “We’ve got to hole up somewhere. They'll be hunting for us.”

  “What’s the matter, boy, cat got your tongue?” one of the men taunted as he roughly shoved Cage and the marshal toward the elegant curving stairwell.

  Cage was one of the only men not kicking up a row about being prodded like cattle, and his conspicuous silence had drawn the notice of their captors. He didn’t even bother to shake his head in response.

  “He’s too good to talk to you,” another man sneered as Cage felt a gun barrel jabbed at his lower back.

  “Maybe we’ll just have to teach him some manners,” the first man threatened.

  Neither Cage nor Wash looked at each other as the men herded them across the main cabin and toward the salon with several other passengers and officers of the ship’s crew.

  Cage pressed his lips tightly together and was careful not to react like he wanted to the baiting. He had counted at least four men just in passing while being led through the main cabin of the ship and toward the stairs. All of them were heavily armed, each with a piece of cloth covering his face. Any moves Cage or the marshal made could be misconstrued as putting up a fight and wind up getting one or both of them shot. And they hadn’t even managed to bring a knife to this gunfight.

  The man behind him jabbed Cage’s back harder, and Cage stumbled. He balled his fists, telling himself again not to fight back.

  “Leave him the hell alone,” Wash finally growled to the man, who continued to jab Cage in the back even as he tried to right himself.

  “Shut your mouth, mister,” the man ordered. “Move it.”

  Cage wished he could point out that prodding one prisoner for not talking and then yelling at another to shut up gave a lot of insight into why he might not be the lead hoof on the horse. That meant that this particular man was probably going to be killed by his more intelligent colleagues when he finished whatever job they needed him to be doing. One always needed a few expendable men. Stupid ones, preferably. They never saw it coming.

  The thought of that pending vengeance made Cage smile.

  The man shoved Cage harder, and he staggered through the doors of the main salon. There were ten people crowded into the corner near the stove—all gamblers or hard men who had probably already been in the salon when the ship had been boarded. The little group of angry men were all being made to sit on the floor as two men with strips of linen over their faces stood guard over them with double-barreled shotguns. Across the room, along the long wooden bar that normally served the salon’s guests their alcohol, sat an array of guns and knives and other weaponry that had obviously been taken from the gamblers.

  Out on the foredeck, several bodies were being pushed overboard into the river.

  Cage assumed they had been passengers or deckhands who had initially fought the boarding party, or possibly members of the boarding party itself, killed by resistance. He found himself worrying about Gabriel. If anyone was likely to put up a fight, that man would do it, if for no other reason than just because it was what no one else was doing.

  As they were forced into the room, Cage and Wash were both searched for hidden weapons. Cage, of course, had none. He was thankful that the marshal had unlocked him, though. If these men had found him in hand irons, they would have either killed him or put him to work for them, and Cage really wasn’t keen on either option. He was even more thankful that Wash didn’t sleep with his badge on. The men had not searched their cabin. They didn’t know Wash was a lawman, or Cage was certain they would have killed him on the spot.

  A woman in a long white nightdress and green brocade dressing gown was shoved into the salon behind Cage and Wash. The man who’d rousted her from her sleep pushed her roughly past Cage’s shoulder, and once she no longer had someone at her back to force her onward, she fainted dead away. Cage turned his head and watched her fall to the ground impassively. He didn’t dare move quickly and try to catch her, not for any reason. She was better off down there, anyway.

  The man behind Cage holding the gun in his back laughed heartily as the swooning woman was dragged to the corner and deposited none too gently on the ground. Several other passengers who were cowering and crying
pulled her into their arms and watched the intruders with the odd sort of hopeful wariness Cage had seen on captives before. He had always wondered what they were thinking when they looked at you like that. Were they hoping that after all the planning and effort to capture and restrain them had been expended, their captors would have a change of heart and just let them go?

  Cage supposed it wasn’t normal to be calm and logical under stress. That was one thing the West did to men. Stress and danger were part of everyday life; if you weren’t calm and logical, you were dead.

  A trickling stream of passengers filtered into the salon under the watchful eyes of several armed men. Cage estimated there were fifty or so people present so far, and the number was growing as more groups were led in. The ship only held about one hundred and fifty. Cage couldn’t understand why no one was fighting back. He knew why he and the marshal hadn’t. Their cabin had been on the first passenger deck. They had been given almost no warning, were caught unaware and unarmed, and had been overtaken quite handily. If they’d fought, they would have died, and died needlessly at that. But Cage could not believe that the people in the higher decks didn’t know what was going on by now. He wondered where Gabriel and Flynn were, whether they had managed to put up a fight or if they had gone docilely like the rest of the people being herded in.

  Like cattle.

  “What have you got there?” a man called from the other side of the room.

  Cage halted at the sound of the voice, his entire body going just as cold as if he’d been thrown overboard into the rushing Mississippi. He knew that voice.

  “Cleared out the first floor, Caporal,” one of their captors answered with a gratuitous shove at Cage’s back. They referred to the man in charge as if they were ranch hands speaking to the roundup boss. Cage knew they were anything but.

  Cage stumbled forward, and Wash was jostled against him, yelping softly when his injured arm collided with Cage’s elbow. Cage paid him no attention, eyes locked on the big, dark man who was strolling toward them. Cage straightened and raised his chin to meet the man’s eyes. His lower face was covered, but Cage would know those eyes anywhere.

  Bartholomew Stringer slowed when he caught sight of Cage, obviously surprised to see him there. But he recovered quickly and continued toward them in his usual, self-assured gait.

  “Well, well, well,” he murmured when he got close. He pulled down the faded kerchief that covered his face, and Cage’s heartbeat sped up as he set eyes upon the man for the first time in almost a year. Stringer’s lips twitched into an ominous smile. “Hello, Cage.”

  “You know this feller?” one of their captors asked incredulously.

  The grandfather clock on the far wall of the salon began to chime the hour. Cage counted nine of the low, mournful tolls as he looked into Bat Stringer’s familiar eyes. The man was taller than Cage by an inch or so, and his unshaven face and unruly hair made him look even larger and more dangerous than he really was. And Cage knew he was plenty dangerous.

  Stringer grinned as his brown eyes raked over Cage. “He and I go a ways back,” he said, just before rearing back and hitting Cage with all his immense strength.

  Flynn had been on his share of boats, mostly as a soldier earlier in his life, being transported up and down the rivers, but he was quickly realizing that he had rarely paid attention to the way the damn things were laid out. He had no idea where anything was except for his cabin, the main cabin and dining salon. Rose kept saying words like prow and port and aft and starboard, and Flynn wanted to hit him and tell him to speak English.

  Rose was guiding them, deciding whether to turn left or right when they came to a causeway and up or down when they found stairs and pulling Flynn into empty crevices to wait out ominous sounds. Flynn just hoped that he knew what he was doing. They couldn’t afford to get lost or wander aimlessly. He at least looked like he knew what he was doing.

  He also looked hurt, his hand holding his side as blood slowly soaked through his expensive shirt and vest. Flynn took care to make sure the blood didn’t leave a trail, but that was as much thought as he gave to Rose’s wounds. He knew they needed to find something to bind those ribs before Rose bled himself weak. But first, they had to make sure they were safe.

  All of the action sounded as if it was coming from the lower decks. The screams and shouts were rising toward them as they topped the last stairwell and emerged on the Hurricane Deck. Flynn had not been up here before. The only thing he knew about it was that this was where the calliope, the huge steam-powered organ, was located. But it was obvious that there were no passenger cabins on this level. It appeared to consist mostly of an observation deck and several dark, quiet rooms used for storage. Across a vast open space, they could see the pilot house, unlit and silent. That didn’t bode well.

  Finally, they ducked into a closet full of mops and brooms and extra linens. Rose sank to the floor in front of the wooden shelves that lined one wall. He was gasping every few breaths and still holding his side. Flynn peered out the door to make certain they hadn’t been seen or left a trail and then pushed it closed with a quiet click.

  “You hit?” he asked Rose in a whisper.

  “He found me with the knife a few times.” Rose unbuttoned his ruined vest with shaking fingers.

  Flynn knelt beside him. He pushed the shotgun Rose had been carrying aside and smacked Rose’s hands away from his buttons. He helped him open the shirt beneath the vest, fighting against the rising discomfort the close contact caused him. If it had been anyone but Rose, he felt sure he would have been fine. Knowing what he did about Rose, though, and what was worse, Rose knowing about him, made it hard for Flynn to catch his breath as he tugged at Rose’s clothing. He could feel Rose’s eyes on him, but he refused to look up.

  He told himself that it shouldn't make a difference, knowing that Rose liked men, or knowing that Rose suspected it of him. But it did make a difference, nonetheless.

  Rose straightened with a wince and pulled the shirt aside as soon as Flynn had undone it, grunting in pain as he twisted. Flynn carefully lit a match, shielding it with his hand as he frowned and examined the series of shallow cuts the knife had made in Rose’s side. None of them were very deep. They looked to be shallow slashing wounds. They were surely painful, but they weren’t going to kill him.

  “You’ll live.” He shook out the flame, then took his kerchief from his pocket and pressed it to Rose’s side.

  “Ow.”

  “You attacked a man with a shotgun already aimed at you,” Flynn said harshly. “You’re lucky all you got was cut up.”

  “At least I had the advantage of surprise,” Rose said softly, voice amused but still strained and tight.

  Flynn couldn’t help but smile and huff a small laugh. He supposed that a man launching himself at you through a door while you held a shotgun to his face would indeed be a bit surprising. Rose was just lucky the man hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  “Thank you for coming back for me,” Rose murmured as Flynn tried to staunch the bleeding.

  “Wasn’t ’cause I like you,” Flynn said gruffly. He searched around the small closet, relieved to find several stacks of clean linens on the shelves. He got them down, tearing them with his hands and teeth to make strips.

  “All the same, Marshal,” Rose whispered with an embarrassed nod as Flynn tended to him. “You didn’t leave me there to die like a caged dog. I thank you for that.”

  Flynn looked up to meet the man’s eyes briefly. He looked and sounded sincere. Flynn was certain Rose didn’t have much need or inclination to thank people in his life.

  He turned his head as he reached around Rose’s body and tied one of several strips of linen around his ribcage.

  “Yeah, well,” Flynn muttered as he finished tying the last of the strips. “Don’t mention it.”

  He took Rose’s hand and slapped a hand iron on him.

  Rose gave a stifled shout of surprise and jerked his arm away, but not quickly enough to prevent Fl
ynn from hastily turning the key and attaching him to the wooden shelves behind him.

  Flynn stood up and looked down at him, putting the key in his breast pocket pointedly. Rose stared up at him in silent disbelief, his mouth ajar and his eyes wide.

  “Keep quiet, you won’t get hurt,” Flynn told him.

  “You can’t leave me here, Flynn.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  In the unearthly silence of the besieged ship, the grandfather clock in the salon began to ring out the hour. Flynn held his breath and listened to the mournful chimes until the echo faded away over the water. Nine o’clock.

  “I’m going to go find Wash,” he told Rose determinedly, and turned toward the door.

  “Flynn, you can’t just leave me here!” Rose hissed. “I can help you!”

  Flynn closed the door on his protests and moved away carefully.

  Cage was on his knees, head hanging and blood dripping down his cheek and off his nose as he tried to clear his head. Bat Stringer still hit like he was holding a hammer.

  “I liked your other name better,” Stringer mused, squatting next to Cage. “Had more of a ring to it.”

  Cage looked up at him as he turned his head. Stringer’s brown eyes were glinting.

  “Whistling Jack Kale,” Stringer drawled ominously, low enough that only Cage could hear. “Strikes more fear into the heart, don’t it, Cage? That what they call you now? Do you just go by Cage again? I reckon that has its own . . . charm.”

  Cage shivered violently as he looked up into Stringer’s eyes. Memories, both good and bad, were flooding him. But he shook his head minutely in denial. He wasn’t that man.

  “Oh, but you are,” Stringer whispered maliciously, understanding Cage’s meaning perfectly. “Just ’cause you’re back to your Christian name don’t mean you ain’t Jack Kale no more, Micajah,” he went on in a voice meant only for Cage.

  Cage glared back at him, trying not to let his upset show.