The Backstabbers Read online

  “Come on over to the fire, Daphne,” Crystal said. “We won’t get a lick of sense out of those jackasses tonight.”

  Both women turned on their heels and flounced away.

  * * *

  Fifty miles north of Johnny Teague’s camp as the crow flies, Luna Talbot hid in the brush and shivered in the evening cool. Rain clouds covered the moon, and she was grateful for the darkness. The Rathmores made a search after she shot Elijah but finding a slender woman in a wilderness of brush and cactus was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and Papa Mace called off the search when the day shaded into night.

  Luna was sure Red Ryan, Buttons Muldoon, and Arman Broussard were already dead, and that grieved her. She’d liked all three of the men, and she admitted to herself that she was attracted to the Cajun gambler and his gentlemanly ways. The woman hugged her knees and planned her next move . . . though the choices were limited. She could head south toward her ranch or . . . or . . . There was no other option. She’d foot it south and the rising sun would give her direction. Luna considered her chances of making it to the ranch, and they were slim. She’d be at least two days on the trail, maybe three, under a burning sun and without water. Walking at night and resting up during the day was a possibility, but the desert was treacherous, more so in the dark, and her chances of survival would not improve any.

  Her head on her knees, Luna Talbot came to a decision. She’d start walking south at first light . . .

  “And God help me,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “What do you think, Broussard?” Buttons Muldoon said. “I mean, how badly hurt is he?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Arman Broussard said.

  “Then Red is in a bad way, huh?”

  The gambler nodded. “I don’t know if he has any broken bones and I don’t know if he’s got injuries to his insides.”

  “Hell, man, what do you know?” Buttons said.

  “One time in Wichita I saw a puncher who’d been caught in a stampede,” Broussard said. “He looked pretty much like your friend does.”

  “Did the puncher make it?” Buttons said, hope in his eyes.

  “No, he died.”

  The mine shaft was lit by a single oil lamp, and the Mexican who’d been whipped for Elijah’s sins was dying. The other slaves clustered around him, their lips moving in prayer. Red Ryan lay near the entrance where he’d been dragged.

  Broussard stared at Buttons in the evening gloom, the only sound the whispering of the Mexicans and the constant cough from one of the Rathmore guards. “I’ve got to get to my gun.”

  “Easier said than done, my friend,” Button said. “Your gun, my gun, Red’s gun, they could be stashed anywhere.”

  “Muldoon, I can’t fight them without a Colt in my hand.”

  “Seen that already. You ain’t real handy with your dukes.”

  “If the good Lord wanted us to fight with our hands, he would’ve given us claws,” Broussard said.

  “That’s a thought.” Buttons placed his palm flat on Red’s chest. “He’s breathing easier. I’m pretty sure he’s breathing easier.”

  “He’s tough,” Broussard said. “I think he’ll make it. Damn, he looks bad, though, with the shadows gathering on his face.”

  “I’ve seen that on the faces of dying men,” Buttons said. “But Red isn’t a dying man. He’s too tough and ornery to die.”

  “You’re right,” Broussard said. “He’s not dying.” Then, after some thought, “I need my pistol. I’m not much of a hand with a rifle.”

  “Then your education is sadly lacking,” Buttons said, his hand still on Red’s chest. Red’s breathing was shallow but not labored.

  Broussard said, “My father taught me to shoot. He was a gambler on the Mississippi riverboats. I’d like to say he was a fine man, but if I did, I’d be a liar.”

  “Then he taught you how to put a bullet in a man across a card table,” Buttons said.

  “You hit the nail right on the head,” Broussard said. “Draw fast and place your first shot where it counts. That’s what he always told me. It was his way.”

  “Did he kill many men?” Buttons said.

  “I don’t know, but I guess so. My mother never talked of it. But maybe she knew, because she left him when I was eight, said she didn’t want to be wed to a gambling man any longer. He never talked about that, either, only he told me one time that she’d ran off with a steamboat engineer.” Broussard smiled. “When I was a boy I wanted to catch up with that engineer and put a bullet in his brisket, but I never did find him or my mother.

  “You’re right. Ryan is breathing easier and I think the color is coming back to his face.”

  As though he’d heard, a guard left the entrance and stood over Red. He prodded him with his rifle and Buttons angrily swatted it away.

  Like all the Rathmore brothers, the man was tall and thin, but this one had a wispy chin beard. “Will he live?”

  “Damn you, yes, he’ll live,” Buttons said.

  “Good,” the guard said. “Papa Mace intends to burn him at the stake.”

  The second brother, who stood just inside the entrance covering Buttons and Broussard with his Winchester, sniggered. And then said, “You and the other slaves will watch.”

  Broussard, at that point thinking more rationally than the enraged but severely weakened Buttons, said, “When will the burning take place?”

  “When he’s strong enough to stand,” the bearded man said.

  The guards walked away to take up their posts at the mine entrance, and Buttons watched them go, hate burning in his eyes. He put his hand on Red’s chest again and said, “Don’t get better, old fellow. Best you die peacefully. I don’t want to see you burn.”

  Arman Broussard heard sadness and genuine affection in Buttons Muldoon’s voice, and he wondered at the bond that could develop between a stagecoach driver and his shotgun messenger. Before tonight, he’d considered a stage a necessary evil, a hot, dusty, and uncomfortable means of getting from one place to another, and he’d paid little attention to the two usually profane men up in the box. Now he was seeing them in a different light. Men capable of grief and feelings like any other . . . like himself.

  The truth would hurt, but maybe a lie would do. “Buttons,” Broussard said, “Red will be just fine, because we’re going to get him out of here.”

  “Red isn’t going anywhere,” Buttons said. “He can’t even stand. How is he gonna walk?”

  “He doesn’t have to walk. We’ll carry him,” Broussard said.

  Buttons shook his head. “Think about where you are, Broussard. How are we going to carry Red out of this arroyo surrounded by Rathmores who’d like nothing better than to put bullets in all three of us?”

  “I don’t know how,” the gambler said. “But we’ll find a way.”

  “There’s always a way, ain’t there?” Buttons said.

  “Sure there is,” Broussard said.

  Buttons said, “Not here. There’s no way out of here.”

  “There’s got to be,” Broussard said. “We need to come up with a plan, that’s all.”

  Buttons looked at the man and said nothing, but his eyes were dead. Like gray river stones.

  * * *

  Her name was Clementine, a thin, slack-breasted woman with gray showing in her brown hair. She was the mother of three children and had almost died delivering the last one. Her common-law husband, Asher Rathmore, wanted to force another pregnancy on her. He said Papa Mace needed more babies to increase the numbers of the family, especially now that Elijah had been killed. Asher had beaten her—Clementine’s fingers strayed to the bruises on her cheek—and forced himself on her in full view of anyone who cared to look. There was no privacy in the arroyo that was the Rathmore hovel. Asher said things would get better, that Papa Mace was going to lead them to a safer place, with plenty of gold to set them up. Only there wasn’t plenty of gold. Clementine had heard from one of the other wives that the quar
tz vein had been a big disappointment and that most of what the slaves had mined had gone to pay for the supplies they’d bought in the Forlorn Hope settlement. Papa Mace was penniless, and if the gold seam didn’t start to produce soon, they’d likely starve.

  Clementine made up her mind. She had to leave this terrible place and the vile Asher Rathmore who wanted to make her pregnant again, a man who held her life so lightly, a man she’d grown to hate. She could take her children and run, but if she didn’t die in the desert, she’d soon be caught and given a beating. Yet she had hope . . . the three men who’d arrived with the stagecoach. All three seemed tough, though one of them might die soon, either from the licking he’d taken or by fire. The man dressed in a gambler’s finery could be her salvation. She’d seen cardsharps before when she’d worked in a Dallas cathouse, elegant, well-mannered men but men best left alone. In a fight, they quickly went to the gun, a bold new breed of shootists the newspapers had taken to calling draw fighters, fast as a lightning strike and just as deadly.

  Clementine was sure the Louisiana gambler they called Broussard was such a man.

  Asher had taken his revolver. It was a plain blue Colt with a much-worn gutta-percha handle and was wrapped in a blanket along with his watch and gambler’s ring. The woman made up her mind. That night she planned to take the slaves their supper, tough boiled meat from one of the stage horses, and something extra . . . the gambler’s gun. If he could shoot himself to freedom, Clementine planned to be with him. As she retrieved the Colt from the blanket, she knew the chances of her plan succeeding were slim . . . but a chance that offered little was better than no chance at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A woman used to picking up after children, Clementine Rathmore had sewn a large pocket onto the front of her ragged skirt. The blue Colt was in there, but by moving carefully she didn’t think it showed, and besides, her pocket usually sagged with the chunks of quartz and interesting rocks the children used as toys. She saw Clara Rathmore standing beside the cooking fire, stirring a steaming, soot-blackened cauldron, and said, “Clara, I’ll take the slaves their supper tonight.”

  Clara, maybe ten years younger than herself, may have been pretty once, but she wasn’t any longer. The woman shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, go right ahead,” and then, “Why?”

  “Just being nice,” Clementine said.

  “Being nice doesn’t abide in this place.” Clara frowned. “Here, are you hiding something?”

  Clementine felt a pang of alarm. Oh, dear God, did Clara know she had a gun? Was she about to take her play away from her? She blinked and said, “What would I be hiding?”

  Clara smiled, a joyless grimace. “That maybe you’re sweet on one of the slaves.”

  Pretending to join in the joke, Clementine said, “Yeah, I am. The one Papa Mace is gonna burn to a few cinders.”

  It was hard to tell if Clara thought that funny or not. The woman turned on her heel, gave a wave, and walked deeper into the moonlit arroyo. Clementine realized she’d been holding her breath. She sighed and began to ladle the pungent meat into the earthenware bowl she held. Later she’d fill another for the Mexicans.

  Fires were burning, casting a scarlet glow on the arroyo walls, and people were scattered about, reclining or engaged in conversation. Nobody paid attention to Clementine as she walked to the mine entrance. But the two guards—a couple of the Rathmore brothers she hated as much as she did her husband—were alert.

  “What’s in the bowl?” one of them said.

  “Horsemeat,” Clementine said. “Want some?”

  The man shook his head. “No, we’ll eat later.” He nodded in the direction of the mine shaft. “One of them dying in there, the one with the red hair.”

  “He won’t eat much,” the other guard said.

  “Good, that means more for the others.” Clementine hardened her face. “Keep up their strength for digging.”

  “Papa Mace had a great vision, did you hear?” said the guard with the stingy beard.

  Clementine shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “He said an angel took him into the mine and showed him what lies behind the rock,” the man said. “The quartz vein is five foot thick, stretches for half a mile, and holds so much gold, it glitters like sunlight on snow. That’s what Papa Mace said.”

  “That is wonderful news,” Clementine said. “Soon we can all leave this place.”

  “Leave the mountains?” The guard was genuinely surprised. “No, you stupid woman, we won’t ever do that. Papa Mace said we’ll use the gold to hire gunmen and then use them to wipe out that devil’s spawn Ben Kane. After his ranch and cattle are ours we will live in peace and prosperity forever after.”

  Clementine was not stupid. She was intelligent enough to realize that if Papa Mace’s vision was real, he would keep the gold for himself. His sons trusted him . . . but she did not.

  “Ah, now I see the future Papa Mace has planned for us and I’m most happy and grateful,” Clementine said. “All praise to our great leader.”

  “I should think so,” the bearded Rathmore said. “Woman, I know you trust Brother Asher, your husband. I know you do because he told me so, and soon you will be with child again. But above all you must trust Papa Mace in all things. Remember that. Now, take the meat inside and feed the dogs.”

  Clementine smiled and nodded, the very picture of the subservient wife and mother, and carried her reeking bowl into the mine shaft.

  * * *

  Clementine entered the shaft, stopped, and looked around. The Mexicans were gathered around the slave Papa Mace had killed with his whip that day, and the white men sat a distance from them, keeping vigil over the redheaded man from the stage. An oil lamp cast a fitful light, and the only sound was the whispering of the Mexicans praying to their god.

  What she had to do had to be done quickly and without anyone noticing, even the slaves. Her heart racing, she took a few deep breaths to steady herself, placed a bowl of meat near the Mexicans, and then stepped to the gambler, his fine clothes stained and torn by his work in the mine.

  Clementine stood in front of him, staring into his eyes. “Food,” she said, laying down the bowl.

  The gambling man looked up at her and said, “Is that what you call it? I have another word for it.”

  For the benefit of the guards, the woman yelled, “Pig!” and slapped Broussard across the cheek, a blow that made a satisfyingly loud smack.

  There’s no telling what the gambler would have done next had Clementine not reached into her pocket and dropped his Colt into Broussard’s lap. For a moment in time he and the woman froze, fearing discovery, but the instant passed, and the gambler grabbed the revolver and quickly shoved it under his coat.

  Raising her voice, Clementine yelled, “And the next time you complain about the food, I’ll dump it over your head!”

  The guards were still grinning at that when she stepped out of the mine. Scowling, her back stiff, she walked back to the cooking fire. “Time to feed the Mexican slaves more meat,” she sang out to no one in particular . . . and no one in particular looked in her direction.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Use it, Broussard,” Buttons Muldoon said. “Get yourself out of here.”

  “We’re all getting out of here,” the gambler said. He looked around, then checked the loads in the Colt. “Six, that’s perfect. I can make a good accounting of myself.”

  Buttons shook his head. “Red isn’t going anywhere. You’re on your own.”

  “Then leave him,” Arman Broussard said. “We can get help and come back for him.”

  “Get help where?” Buttons said. “There is no help. We’re in the middle of a stinking desert.”

  “Muldoon, Red might never recover. You’ve got to think of yourself. Stay here and they’ll work you to death. You’ll leave your bones in this mine.”

  “I won’t leave Red,” Buttons said. “He’s my shotgun guard, he’s my friend, and he’s saved my life
more times than I can count. If he does die, I want to be around when it happens. Say a prayer for him maybe. Maybe say a lot of prayers.”

  “You’re an honorable man, Muldoon,” Broussard said.

  “I don’t know about that, but I won’t desert a friend. Never quit on a friend in his hour of need. I think that’s wrote down in the Patterson stage rule book.”

  “And where does that leave me?” the gambler said. “It leaves me feeling guilty for running out on you.”

  “Why should it? You ain’t my friend or Red’s either,” Buttons said. “Hell, Broussard, you ain’t even a bona fide, fare-paying passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company. You got the gun, now look to save yourself. And you’d better git going.”

  “If I escape and gun some of the Rathmores, they’ll kill you for sure.”

  “Then that’s the chance I’ll have to take,” Buttons said, a stubborn man with no backup in him. “I’ll stay right here with Red to the end.”

  Broussard sat in silence for a while and then said finally, “I have to try it. The woman gave me my opportunity and I must take it.”

  “Of course, you do.” Buttons managed a smile. “And when you reach civilization, send the Rangers, a whole passel of Rangers.”

  “Buttons . . . I . . . I mean, I wouldn’t last long with doing pick-and-shovel work. I’ve never done a day’s hard labor in my life.”

  A Mexican sniffed his tears and the shifting light from the oil lamp crawled over the wall, back and forth, moving a little at a time. Outside, a woman laughed and a man cursed as though he’d just stubbed his toe.

  “Don’t justify your actions to me, Broussard. If I was the man with the gun, I’d do the same thing you’re doing.” Buttons nodded to the far wall. “There’s a full canteen over there. Take it.”

  “Muldoon, no hard feelings?” the gambler said, his face anxious, as though he feared what Buttons’s answer would be.

  “No hard feelings. Get it done, gambling man, and good luck.”

  Broussard rose to his feet and the mourning Mexicans turned and stared at him. He put his forefinger to his lips and whispered, “Silencio.” He picked up the canteen, put the strap over his shoulder, and then walked on cat feet to the entrance.