He was inside a stable.
The logical conclusion was that he was inside Silas Grant"s livery stable in Pine City. However, he couldn"t be sure of that. He wasn"t sure about much of anything except that he never should have trusted Marshal Gideon Kent or Dave Harmon.
Unfortunately, he hadn"t had any reason to think the two men were anything other than what they appeared to be-a small-town star-packer and an honest rancher. He still wasn"t sure exactly what had happened out there by the river, but his aching head confirmed the important thing.
They had double-crossed him, knocked him out, and were after that gold for themselves.
Luke opened his eyes and flinched at the brightness that struck painfully against them. It was actually pretty dim and shadowy inside the little room where he lay on a hard-packed dirt floor, but enough light came through cracks around the door to half blind him for a moment.
When his eyes had adjusted, he looked around. He was in a small, windowless room, eight feet by eight feet square. A number of bridles, harnesses, and other pieces of tack hung from nails driven into the walls.
He was convinced that he was in Silas"s stable. Biting back a groan in case a guard stood right outside the door, he rolled onto his side and pushed himself into a sitting position.
The pounding inside his skull made him sick and dizzy for a moment. When that subsided, he lifted a hand to his head and gingerly explored his scalp, finding the tender lump behind his ear where he"d been hit. It was sticky with dried blood, and touching it sent fresh waves of pain through his brain.
That died down to a dull ache. Ignoring it, Luke climbed carefully to his feet, bracing a hand against the rough planks of the wall.
Another wave of nausea and vertigo hit him once he was upright, but that soon pa.s.sed, too. When he felt steady on his feet, he moved over to the door and put an eye to one of the cracks.
His field of view was pretty limited, of course, but he could see enough to confirm that he was in Silas Grant"s tack room. In fact, he could see Silas himself, forking some hay into a stall on the other side of the barn"s broad middle aisle.
The liveryman was a little the worse for wear, with a sc.r.a.pe on his cheek and a left eye swollen partially closed. Luke wondered who had been knocking him around.
He didn"t see or hear anybody else, didn"t smell any tobacco smoke to indicate that someone was nearby puffing on a quirly. It seemed he could risk trying to get the liveryman"s attention, so he put his mouth next to the crack and hissed, "Silas! Silas, can you hear me?"
Silas paused in what he was doing and leaned on the pitchfork for a moment as he looked around with a frown on his face. Then hurried over to the tack room door. "Mr. Jensen, you"re awake in there!"
That seemed pretty obvious to Luke, but he didn"t say anything about it. He could tell that Silas was upset and asked, "Is there a guard out there?"
"Not right now." Silas kept his voice low as he replied. "One of Mr. Harmon"s men was here until a few minutes ago, but he went over to Herndon"s store to buy some tobacco." Silas grunted. "And when I say buy, I mean take it without payin" for it. None of the Leanin" H men ever pay for anything around here. Not with Dave Harmon havin" this whole town right smack-dab under the heel o" his boot."
"It was Harmon"s men who beat you up?"
"Yeah," Silas admitted. "Reckon I didn"t cooperate quite well enough to suit "em when they dragged you in here and said they was gonna lock you in my back room. They"re used to folks jumpin" whenever they say so, same as Mr. Harmon is."
"You didn"t say anything about that earlier."
"Didn"t know you was gonna get mixed up with the man. Mr. Harmon, he generally don"t hurt n.o.body unless they get in his way . . . or unless they got somethin" he wants."
Like a small fortune in stolen gold bars, Luke thought with a sigh.
"What about the marshal? He"s crooked, too, I take it?"
Silas grimaced. "Not crooked so much as he won"t cross Mr. Harmon. That man owns the bank, so that means he pretty much owns the whole town. Ain"t n.o.body here in Pine City who don"t owe him money, me included. Like I said, he lets things go along peaceful-like most of the time."
Luke had run into men like that before-men who considered themselves the monarchs of their own private little domain. Harmon"s hearty, friendly, helpful demeanor had been just an act.
And he had fallen for it, leaving him in an even worse position than before.
"All right, let me out of here," he said harshly.
Silas shook his head solemnly. "I can"t do that."
"Look, I know you"re afraid of Harmon and his men-"
"d.a.m.n right I"m afraid of"em," Silas broke in. "Bad things got a habit of happenin" to men who stand up to Mr. Harmon. That might put my wife Tillie in danger, too, and I ain"t gonna do that. But I mean what I say, Mr. Jensen-I can"t let you outta that tack room. There"s a padlock on the door, and I ain"t got the key."
"Use that pitchfork," Luke suggested. "You can pry the hasp loose-"
Silas"s head jerked toward the barn door. He grimaced again. "Somebody"s comin"!"
Before Luke could say anything else, Silas scurried away. He went back to pitching hay into the stalls, trying to make it look like he hadn"t been anywhere near the tack room.
Luke heard footsteps and figured the guard was back.
Moments later, a man"s voice drawled, "You hear anything from inside there, Silas?"
"No, sir," Silas answered without hesitation. "Quiet as the grave in there, it is."
Luke heard a match sc.r.a.pe and then smelled tobacco burning, along with the sulfur stink of the lucifer.
"Could be Jensen"s dead," the guard said. "Kent really walloped him. Might"ve stove in his skull."
"If . . . if he"s dead, you can"t leave him there. This ain"t no undertakin" parlor."
"He"ll stay in there until the boss says otherwise," the man snapped. "Don"t forget who"s runnin" things around here."
"No, sir," Silas said, hanging his head. "I sure won"t."
A second later, he lifted his head and glared, which made Luke think the guard must have turned away. The hatred on the man"s face made Luke realize just how much Silas resented the heavy-handed treatment he got at the hands of Harmon and his men. Many of the other citizens of Pine City probably felt the same way.
That resentment might come in handy, Luke thought-but only if he could get out of there.
McCluskey sat with his back against the wall and his arms around Delia, who was still trembling violently and whimpering now and then. They were in the back room of the marshal"s office, which was used for storage and also had a cot in it that looked like it hadn"t been slept in for quite some time.
Both of them were still damp from being dunked in the river, but Delia wasn"t trembling because of that. She was still on the verge of hysteria.
From everything McCluskey had seen of her so far, Delia Bradley was the most coolheaded woman he had ever known. She had gunned down those guards in the caboose without batting an eyelash, and she had blasted Derek Burroughs.
Yet she had almost lost her mind at the prospect of jumping in the river. He knew that if he hadn"t dragged her kicking and screaming off the riverboat, she would have stayed on it until the boilers exploded.
Of course, they had wound up in a pretty precarious position anyway. McCluskey had seen the lawman"s badge pinned to the vest of the Pine City marshal and figured they were being arrested. It was worse than that.
They had landed in the hands of another ruthless bunch of outlaws-only those men worked for the cattle baron called Harmon.
The surviving members of Burroughs" gang were locked up in the cells. Marshal Kent would have put McCluskey in with them, but when the time came, Delia refused to let go of him. Still frantic with fear, she clutched him like a lifeline.
Rather than going to the trouble of trying to pry her loose from him, Kent had just told Harmon"s men to put both of them in the back room. It didn"t have any windows, so it was almost as secure as one of the cells.
They had been there ever since. McCluskey kept waiting for Delia to calm down, but he wasn"t sure that was ever going to happen.
As he patted Delia"s shoulder and made comforting noises, he thought about Luke Jensen and felt fires of rage burning inside him. The bounty hunter was responsible for their current predicament. McCluskey had expected him to come after them but hadn"t figured that Jensen would get ahead of them somehow.
He certainly hadn"t expected that Jensen would be waiting at Pine City with a dynamite ambush.
And yet, as soon as he"d heard the first blast go off, he had known in his gut that Jensen was responsible for it. It felt like he was going to plague him for the rest of his life.
Of course, how long that life would be was a good question. McCluskey had no idea what Harmon intended to do with them.
"You"re all right now. You made it out of the river," he said to Delia. He heard a key sc.r.a.pe in the lock and sat up straighter.
Delia clutched at him more desperately, but he got hold of her wrists and inexorably unwound her arms from his neck. "Stop it. You don"t have to act like this."
Under his breath, he muttered, "Crazy woman."
The door swung open. Marshal Kent stood there, a double-barreled Greener in his hands.
McCluskey thought the man looked like a store clerk or a preacher, but there was no mistaking the evil glitter in Kent"s eyes as he warned, "Don"t try anything, you two, or I"ll splatter both of you all over the walls in here." He motioned with the shotgun. "Get over there in the corner, next to the cot."
McCluskey scooted in that direction, taking Delia with him. Her reaction to being threatened with a shotgun was interesting. If anything, she seemed to calm down a little right away, he thought. It was like she could deal with that threat a lot easier than the thought of jumping in a river.
When the two of them were in the corner, Kent moved out of the doorway and let Harmon come into the room. The marshal stayed there to keep the prisoners covered as Harmon regarded them with what looked like a friendly smile on his face.
McCluskey knew better. He recognized the cold, snake-like eyes of a killer above that smile. He knew that look well. He had seen it enough times in his own shaving mirror.
"Well, now, is the little lady settlin" down yet?" the cattle baron asked.
Delia surprised McCluskey by answering Harmon"s question herself. "Don"t call me little lady," she spat. "In case you hadn"t noticed, I"m not any d.a.m.n lady."
Yeah, thought McCluskey, she was back to her old self again. And he was glad of it. She was a formidable ally. If they were going to get out of this, he might need her help . . . as he had several times previously.
"What are you going to do with us?" McCluskey asked.
"How do you know I won"t just kill you?" Harmon asked in return. The smile never budged from his face.
"If you wanted us dead, you"ve had plenty of chances to do it before now. I think you"ve got something else in mind."
"Well, you might be right about that," Harmon drawled in his folksy ways. "I had a look through the marshal"s wanted posters. He told me your name sounded familiar to him, and turns out there"s a good reason for that. You"re wanted in a lot of places, McCluskey, for a lot of different things-all of "em bad."
"You"re not telling me anything I don"t already know," McCluskey snapped. "Get to the point."
"You"ve got a lot of bark on you for a fella who"s in such a bad spot. I sort of like that. Here"s what I was thinkin", McCluskey-I might be able to use a man like you."
The outlaw frowned in surprise. "You mean you want me to work for you? I"m no d.a.m.n cow nurse."
"You know better than that. You"re good with a gun, and you don"t much care who you use it on. Those are valuable skills to a man like me, who"s got a heap of enemies in the world."
"Don"t you have enough hired killers working for you already?"
Harmon tut-tutted. "A man can never have enough good workers. But what I really need is a man to take charge of those workers. I"m gettin" up in years. Can"t get out and do all the things I once could. And I got to admit"-he looked at Delia, and his smile became more of a leer-"it"d be nice to have a good-lookin" gal around the house again. You could bring your little friend with you."
Delia simpered a little, going from angry to coy in a heartbeat. McCluskey figured that was a purely instinctive reaction with her. Some man-any man-flattered her, and she instantly started trying to work it to her advantage.
He didn"t care. Let her play up to the old man as much as she wanted to. He didn"t even care if she wound up sharing Harmon"s bed. Only one thing mattered to him. "If you want me to boss that crew of gun-wolves for you, I can do that. But there"s something I want in return."
"A share of that gold," Harmon said with a knowing nod. "I can go along with that. Probably won"t be as big as you would"ve gotten if you hadn"t run into me, but just think of it as a start on a lot more loot."
"d.a.m.n right I want a share of the gold, but that"s not what I"m talking about." McCluskey leaned forward and his lips drew back from his teeth as he said, "I want to kill Luke Jensen."
Harmon just smiled and nodded. "Oh, I reckon that can be arranged."
CHAPTER 29.
Luke spent some time examining the inside of the tack room, looking for a way out or anything he could use as a weapon if he got the chance. He found a set of reins that might work for wrapping around somebody"s neck and choking them, but he would have to get close and take his enemy by surprise for that tactic to do any good.
He rolled up the reins and put them in his pocket anyway, just on the chance that they might prove useful later.
Like the rest of the barn, the tack room was solidly built and in good repair. Silas was conscientious about taking care of his business. Even if he hadn"t been, the building was relatively new. There weren"t any loose or rotted boards. Luke didn"t see any way he could get out unless Silas pried that padlock off or somebody came along to unlock it.
Silas couldn"t do anything with one of Harmon"s men standing guard right outside-and if they unlocked the door it would probably be because they didn"t have anything good in mind for the prisoner.
The light coming through the cracks around the door had started to fade a little, telling Luke that it was late afternoon when he heard voices outside the tack room. A moment later, a key sc.r.a.ped in the lock.
He stood with his muscles tensed for action. He wanted to be ready if he got a chance to jump one of his captors and maybe get his hands on a gun. Going down fighting would be better than anything they might have planned for him.
When the door swung open, no one was there. They were all standing back well away from the tack room.
"Come on out of there, Jensen," Dave Harmon ordered. "And don"t try anything. There are two scatterguns pointed at that door, and if you don"t come out slow with your hands in plain sight, there won"t hardly be enough left of you to sc.r.a.pe up and bury."
Luke stayed where he was without saying anything.
Harmon sounded irritated as he said, "d.a.m.n it, I know you"re awake in there by now. Maybe if you heard ol" Silas yellin" in pain out here, you"d be a mite more cooperative. I"d just as soon not do that, since Silas is a good boy, but if that"s the way you want it-"
"Leave Silas alone," Luke said. "I"m coming out."
As Harmon had ordered, he stepped out of the tack room in deliberate fashion and made sure his hands were partially raised where they would be visible to Harmon and his gunmen.
The cattle baron laughed. "Got somebody out here who wants to see you, Jensen."
Luke wasn"t surprised when he saw Frank McCluskey and Delia standing there. McCluskey had a gun belt strapped around his waist and a holstered Colt on his hip. Delia wore a smirk.
Once again, the outlaw and the blonde had landed on their feet. No matter what sort of predicament they found themselves in, no matter what sort of loco stunt they tried to pull, somehow they survived. Not only survived, but thrived.