Hired Guns Read online

  “Of course,” Roland said, the gang leader’s pleading tone making him feel somewhat back in control. He swept his gaze over the men regarding him half angrily, half anxiously. “Of course my father has some severe punishment in mind for Jensen. I don’t know exactly what, but I do know he’s harbored a hatred for the man a long time. And that’s enough for me to be able to assure you that, whatever he metes out, you will find satisfactory.”

  “What about Eagle?” a voice demanded.

  Roland bared his teeth in a cold smile. “Oh, I’m sure my father will not overlook our former sheriff. He’s fully aware what a nuisance Eagle has made of himself these past months. And whatever he has in store for Jensen . . . well, I’m confident there will be enough for Eagle to share in it as well.”

  “There you have it,” declared Ferris. “These curs are going to pay and pay hard. And we’ll all have a front row seat for enjoyin’ it!”

  There was a general grumbling of satisfaction from the men.

  And then, right on the heels of that, came another extended sound, the sudden murmur of numerous voices. The display taking place out front of Roland’s private cabin, it turned out, had drawn the attention of several miners—a crew just finished with breakfast and ready to begin their shift down in the bowels of the Gold Button dig—who were filing out of the mess hall fifty or so yards away. This crew, one of several that worked a cycle of staggered shifts, appeared to be made up almost entirely of Chinese workers. Their expressions were guarded, impassive, yet their interest was obvious by the murmur of curiosity that rippled through them and the way their faces stayed turned to stare even as the movement of their feet dragged with a reluctance to carry them away.

  Roland took quick notice of this attention and his reaction showed he wasn’t pleased by it. “Here now. What are you slackers staring at?” he demanded. “You’ve filled your bellies at the company trough, now off with you to work!”

  “You’re right about that,” Ferris was quick to chime in. Turning to glare at the Chinese workers, he inadvertently jerked on the thong around Luke’s neck and caused the leather to dig into already raw flesh. “I won’t have no lazy, slant-eyed heathens gawkin’ at me. You heard what the boss man said—off with ya, and be quick about it!”

  The door of the mess hall opened and Mace Vernon emerged. Behind him stepped a second man, another Caucasian, a dour-faced individual near fifty, with thinning, gray-streaked hair and a pair of round spectacles perched on the end of a long, narrow nose. Vernon paused, first glancing at the line of workers strung out before him, then turning his gaze to Ferris. The scowl on his face seemed to indicate he had heard the gang leader’s harsh words.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” he wanted to know.

  “You’re the one with the problem,” Ferris responded. “You got yourself a string of Chinee so-called workers there who seem to be more interested in stoppin’ to gawk at something that’s none of their business instead of movin’ their lazy asses on to what is supposed to be their business.”

  “You got a problem with any of my men,” Vernon grated, “you speak to me about it, you don’t raise your voice to them. Better yet, keep your opinions to yourself and your yap shut altogether where me or my men are concerned.”

  Vernon swung his attention back to the workers, focusing on one in particular up near the head of the line. “Chang-Ha,” he addressed him. “Move the men along. Report to Henderson down in Shaft Number Six, that’s where you’ll be working today.”

  Chang-Ha nodded acknowledgment and then, in Chinese, spoke sharply to the other men and motioned for them to get a move on. They fell in behind him and strode away briskly toward the Gold Button’s main vertical shaft and the pulley system for the transport cage that lowered and raised workers as well as brought up the loads of ore from the tunnels below.

  As the workers marched away, the second man who had come out of the mess hall with Vernon made no effort to mask his own interest in the group gathered before Roland’s cabin. Frowning deeply, he advanced toward the group. Vernon followed, although with notably less eagerness.

  “What have we here?” muttered the man in glasses as he drew nearer. And then, a moment later, he exclaimed, “It’s Sheriff Eagle!”

  Managing to stand a little straighter and turn the grimace he’d been wearing ever since the rifle butt blow to his kidneys into a lopsided grin, Eagle greeted him with, “Hiya, Doc. How’s the pill pushin’ business?”

  Chapter 41

  Dr. Henry Carstairs drew to within a couple feet of Eagle, surveying his wounds and the way he was bound, then turned and aimed a fierce scowl at Roland, demanding, “What is the meaning of this inhumane treatment!?”

  “Looks to me,” Roland replied, “like the meaning is clear. We’ve captured a pair of dangerous hombres and are keeping them restrained so they can cause no further damage.”

  “What about the fact they’re both in need of immediate medical attention?” Carstairs said.

  “What about it?” Roland said sarcastically.

  “They’re in need of medical attention?” Ferris sputtered. “What about these other men? Do you see Big Olaf there? And are you forgettin’, Doc, that I got burns and bruises on the back of my neck you ain’t checked on for days?”

  “How could I, with you galloping all over the countryside and never coming back around?” Carstairs reminded him. “What was I supposed to do, go out and chase you down?”

  “Speaking of the other men,” Vernon cut in. “Where are the rest of the fellas I loaned you, Ferris?”

  Ferris glared at him. “They’re dead, that’s where, thanks to these two varmints the good doctor is so concerned about medically treatin’.”

  “Now just a minute!” Vernon exploded. His eyes whipped back and forth between Ferris and Roland. “What are things turning into around here? Some kind of bloodbath? A war? I loaned you a half dozen good men only a day ago and now you’re telling me they’ve all been gunned down?”

  “It was the risk they took when—” Roland started to say.

  “No, it was the risk I took for them,” Vernon corrected him. “Those men were used to hard work and danger—the kind of danger to be found in a mine shaft—not from the muzzle of a gun. You said you needed men to cover more ground in order to run down that Jensen character. You never mentioned the chance for shooting on a scale that would wipe out the whole lot of them.”

  “Things don’t always go as planned,” Roland said coldly. “You know what a thorn in the side this half-breed has been. We weren’t aware he had a connection with Jensen. Plus other leftover troublemakers from the valley who unexpectedly reared their stupid, stubborn heads and decided to pitch in.”

  Carstairs smiled a thin, rather curious smile. “The sheep didn’t all knuckle under as easily as your father calculated, did they? Not like me.”

  “Watch what you say, medicine man,” Roland warned him. “You made your deal. Your family was let out safely and set up nice and comfortable in a place far away from what goes on here. You’ve still got time left to serve before your end of the bargain is satisfied. Be careful you don’t let your mouth or your attitude screw it up before then. My father will be here later today in case you want to tell him how lacking his calculations were.”

  Carstairs blanched and his curious smile turned into a flat, tight line.

  “What’s this about your father coming?” Vernon said. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

  Roland sighed in exasperation. “I only found out myself late yesterday, after the telegraph lines were once again repaired. This is the first chance I’ve had to mention it to you. In case you haven’t been paying attention, a few other rather pressing matters have been taking place.”

  Nobody said anything more for a minute. Then Ferris looked at Vernon and said, in a voice that sounded sincere, “I’m sorry about the loss of your men, Vernon. I truly am. I got to know them a little, they were good boys. If it makes any difference, I los
t some good fellas, too. A few of them friends I rode with for a long time.”

  Vernon met his gaze and acknowledged with a faint nod.

  “Ain’t no gettin’ any of ’em back,” Big Olaf added, casting his own baleful gaze on Luke and Eagle. “But there’s a way for those who done it to pay . . . and when Big Boss Dixon gets here, that’ll get took care of soon enough.”

  “Indeed it will,” said Roland, his tone returning to a more in-command one. “But before then there are steps to be taken. Mr. Vernon, I believe you have a mining operation to see to. Dr. Carstairs, as you so astutely observed, you have some patients in need of medical attention. If you repair to the infirmary, Mr. Ferris will bring his men over shortly.”

  Carstairs’s eyes went to Luke and Eagle. “What about them?”

  Roland shook his head. “I see no need to tax your skills unnecessarily. They’ll keep well enough until my father gets here. Then he can decide what treatment is warranted.”

  Carstairs didn’t move for a minute. Then, with effort, he turned away. “Whatever you say.”

  Vernon fell in step beside him and they walked off together.

  As they did so, Ferris asked, “What do you want to do with these two skunks, Boss? You got some kind of shed or something we can lock ’em in until your old man gets here?”

  Roland’s expression hardened. “How did things work out the last time you had a pair of prisoners locked away? In a room where you assured me they were quite secure, remember?”

  Ferris squinted and shuffled his feet uneasily. “Well, uh . . . yeah. Yeah, but—”

  “No ‘buts’!” Roland said sharply. He thrust out one arm and pointed at a telegraph pole that stood ten yards off from one corner of his cabin. It rose up from bare ground and nothing else was anywhere near it. “I want them chained to that pole, completely in plain sight. I want two men with rifles standing watch over them at all times. The watchmen can sit in the shade of that wagon across the way. They can have canteens, they can be relieved for a meal if lunchtime rolls around before my father arrives . . . but the prisoners get nothing. No one goes near them unless I say otherwise. Understood?”

  Ferris nodded. “You bet. You got it, Boss.”

  “See to it, then,” Roland told him. “And get that neck looked at again by the doctor first chance you have.”

  With that, Roland turned on his heel and started back toward the front door to his cabin. For the first time he realized that Ying-Su was standing there with the door slightly ajar, peering out through a six-inch opening.

  “What are you looking at? Get back inside,” Roland ordered her harshly.

  The exotic beauty wordlessly melted back and disappeared. Roland followed her in and slammed the door shut behind them.

  * * *

  Some time later, after he and Luke had been chained with their backs to the telegraph pole and everyone else had vacated the area except for the two guards sitting a dozen yards away in the shade of a high-wheeled freight wagon, Eagle said quietly, “Look on the bright side. We’re prisoners at a gold mine. That’s a step up from some dark, musty old cell. Right?”

  “Not necessarily,” Luke told him. “Not if Parker Dixon takes his time showing up and we start to turn crispy and well done, plunked out here in the sun waiting for him.”

  “You almost sound like you’re eager for him to get here.”

  “Only for the reason I just said. That, and to finally find out what it is about me he’s got stuck so tight in his craw.”

  Eagle grunted. “No mystery about that where I’m concerned. I’ve worked real hard to earn myself a spot in his craw.”

  “If you could go back and do it over, would you do any different?”

  “Not one bit.”

  Luke chuckled dryly. “About what I figured.”

  Eagle was quiet for a minute, then he said, “No. On second thought, I would do part of it different. I’d get my family, Jane and Belinda and Davy, away somewhere, out of the valley. Then I’d come back and make my fight. Sorta like Doc Carstairs did.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be making much of a fight of it,” Luke observed.

  “Inside himself he is. Didn’t you see the look on his face when Roland reminded him of the hold they’ve got over him? I don’t know the exact deal he made, but the Dixons wanted and needed a doctor for their miners and gang members. You heard the terms. His family is safe, but he’s got to stay behind and serve some specified amount of time. I don’t know how long, but it appears every minute of it is eatin’ him up more and more.”

  “You make a deal with the Devil, you’re likely to get the horns before it’s through,” Luke said.

  They went quiet again for a spell. Until Eagle said, “That ol’ sun up there is gettin’ a mite warm, ain’t it?”

  “Going to get warmer right along, the higher it climbs. There’s hardly a wisp of last night’s clouds left in the sky, either, nothing to slide across and provide even a whisker of shade.”

  “Yeah,” Eagle grated. “But Ferris’s pet skunks over there under that wagon have got shade, and plenty of it. And canteens of water, too. Watch ’em look our way whenever they tip one up and take a long, gurglin’ drink. Just tormentin’ us, the lowdown snakes.”

  “Don’t look, then. Don’t give them the satisfaction,” Luke said.

  There followed another stretch of quiet. It was Eagle who broke it again, this time saying, “I reckon somewhere in here, while I still got the chance, I oughta say I’m sorry for gettin’ you into this, Jensen.”

  “Way I recall, I rode to Hard Rock with no invitation from you.”

  “In the beginnin’ maybe. But I’m talkin’ about here. Now. You likely wouldn’t be in this particular fix if you hadn’t agreed to stick with me and my people for a while and then ended up on that raid to get back my daughter and young Heath.”

  “Which we succeeded at,” Luke reminded him. “And, in the process, if I’d shot and killed Big Olaf the way I should have instead of just thinking I did, then you might also say we likely wouldn’t be in this particular fix. So blame at this point doesn’t matter. The only thing we can do is deal with it the best we can.”

  “You got an idea on how to do that?”

  “Not a one.”

  “I don’t suppose you got any kind of weapon hid away on you, either?”

  “Nope. They plucked me good and thorough while I was unconscious.”

  “Well . . . hell.”

  “Yeah. Or something close to it.”

  * * *

  The sun climbed to its zenith and the air hung motionless except for distorting currents of heat.

  Big Olaf and another man came out of the mess hall and relieved the original set of guards who had otherwise never ventured away from their wagon. Big Olaf was now sporting a large bandage that covered most of his head and slanted down just above his right eye. As if to prove that the medical attention hadn’t improved his disposition any, before taking up his watchman’s post he walked over to Luke and Eagle and shoved his face close to call them some filthy names. Then he kicked dirt on each of them and leaned over a little closer to give Luke an extra clout alongside the head.

  As he sauntered slowly away to join the other new guard in the shade of the wagon, Luke said, through the fresh trickle of blood running out the corner of his mouth, “In case you’re wondering, I’m real annoyed with myself for not blowing that big slob’s head off when I had the chance.”

  Spitting out some dirt that had gotten in his mouth, Eagle said, “Rankles me a fair amount, too.”

  Another half hour passed before the door to Roland’s cabin opened and the Oriental beauty Ying-Su emerged. She was dressed, as always, in black silk that hugged her curves and shimmered in the sunlight like her long, flowing hair. In her hands she held a large ceramic pitcher, maroon in color, with beads of moisture visible on its sides. In long, bold strides that revealed flashes of her ivory legs through slits in the silk skirt, she moved straight toward Luke and Eag
le. When she reached them, without saying a word, she began giving them drinks of water from the pitcher, starting with Eagle.

  Big Olaf stood up. “Here now! What are you doing there?”

  Ying-Su paid him no heed. She moved around the post and put the spout of the pitcher to Luke’s mouth.

  Big Olaf lumbered forward. “Are you supposed to be doing that? Mr. Roland said nobody but . . . I think you’d better stop. Stop that, you hear me?”

  He moved up beside Ying-Su, looming over her. But he was obviously flustered, feeling confident this was not something condoned by Roland yet at the same time fearing to actually lay a hand on the girl in order to try and make her stop.

  Olaf’s indecision was solved by Roland’s voice suddenly shouting from the doorway of his cabin. “Ying-Su! What is the meaning—Stop that! Get away from that filthy vermin immediately!”

  Roland covered the distance from his cabin in a rush. Olaf backed away. Reaching Ying-Su, Roland roughly grabbed a fistful of hair and silk in one hand and swatted away the water pitcher with the other. The pitcher hit the ground and shattered into a score of pieces.

  Still gripping a combination of hair and garment, Roland shook the girl viciously. She finally spoke, rattling off a string of words in Chinese. They were words Roland apparently understood and very clearly did not like. His free hand flashed in an open-palmed slap that cracked sharp and loud.

  Ying-Su quit struggling and went silent again. Roland stood glaring at her for a long moment and then released his grip and gave her a shove that sent her staggering back toward the cabin. “Get back inside, you slut,” he snarled in English. “Wait for me there, and get ready for a lesson on never flaunting yourself or humiliating me like this in public ever again!”