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  “It was a girl’s room,” Flintlock said. “Her name is Louise Smith and yesterday her father was killed by the Old Man’s gunmen. She was taken prisoner.”

  Bridie was shocked. “You mean a young girl is in the clutches of Jacob Hammer?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Flintlock said. “He wants her as his bride.”

  “Then God help her.”

  “Me and Sam mean to rescue her,” O’Hara said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Bridie said. “You’d both be killed and the girl would still be a prisoner. That is, if Hammer hasn’t murdered her by now.”

  “Like I told you, the Old Man wants her as a bride,” Flintlock said. “She’s still alive.”

  “Then she faces a fate worse than death,” Bridie said.

  At that moment, O’Hara, scowling, was all Apache warrior. “All right, you’re the damned detective,” he said. “How do we save Louise?”

  “I don’t know,” Bridie said. Then, without much conviction, “I’ll think of something.”

  “Then think of something fast,” O’Hara said.

  “First things first. My horse is down the trail a ways. You two bring me my saddle and bedroll and there’s a carpet bag, bring that, too.”

  “Hell, lady, it’s raining and still thundering,” Flintlock said.

  “I know. But I need the female fixings in the bag.”

  “I thought you did your own hunting,” O’Hara said.

  “I do. But there are some jobs that need only a strong back, for which men are more suited. Getting a saddle out from under a dead horse is one of them.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I tell you we shouldn’t have done it, Sam,” O’Hara said. “We should’ve said, Go get your saddle and women’s fixin’s your ownself.”

  “That’s what we should’ve told her, all right,” Flintlock said. “Truer words you never spoke, O’Hara.”

  “Then why didn’t we?”

  “Because . . . well . . . just because.”

  “Because she’s a woman?”

  “And a right pretty one at that.”

  “So that’s why we’re out here in a damned storm? Because she’s pretty?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Then what’s the other part?”

  “She’s a bad woman to cross. That’s the other part. She carries a big revolver and she isn’t scared to shoot it.”

  “Well, she doesn’t scare me. Right now, I’d like to have her scalp hanging from my bridle.”

  “You’re just mad because she called you Geronimo.”

  “No, I’m mad because she’s a nag. Nag, nag, nag, as hard on the ear as an out-of-tune banjo.”

  “Be sure to tell her that when we get back,” Flintlock said, hiding his grin.

  “Damn right I will, and I’ll take a switch to her,” O’Hara said.

  Now Flintlock laughed out loud. “O’Hara, if you even pick up a switch in Miss O’Toole’s presence she’ll put a bullet in you for sure. I guarantee it.”

  O’Hara peered through the lashing rain and said, “I think I see her dead horse up ahead.” Then he grinned and turned his head to look at Flintlock. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

  “Damn right she would,” Flintlock said.

  * * *

  It took two hours and a lot of cussing to remove Bridie O’Toole’s saddle from under her dead horse. By that time, Sam Flintlock and O’Hara were exhausted and soaked to the skin.

  “Got the carpetbag?” Flintlock said.

  “Yeah,” O’Hara said. “It’s heavy. What’s she got in there?”

  “Probably a brace of Colts.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me none.” O’Hara glanced at the sky. “It’s clearing,” he said.

  “About time,” Flintlock said. “I reckon it lasted—”

  He stopped abruptly. A man leading a gray horse walked slowly toward him, his slicker pushed back from his holstered gun. The man was tall, granite-faced and clean-shaven, unusual at that time in the West. His mouth was hard, his blue eyes harder.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said.

  “Retrieving this saddle for a lady,” Flintlock said. “Her horse broke its leg and she had to shoot it.”

  “She should’ve stripped it first,” the man said. “Pity. It was a good-looking sorrel.” Then, “Who is the lady?”

  “A friend,” Flintlock said.

  “There are no friendly women out this way,” the man said.

  “Well, you’re right about that. When you come right down to it, she ain’t too friendly.”

  “She pretty?”

  “No.”

  The blue-eyed man said, “She a Pinkerton?”

  “How did—” Flintlock bit his tongue, aware that he’d made a mistake.

  The man’s smile was neither neighborly nor pleasant. “Heard there’s a couple of female Pinks hereabouts. Seems like the army and the regular law are scared to come anywhere near Balakai Mesa, so they send their womenfolk.”

  “You work for the Old Man?” Flintlock said.

  “Mister, what do you think? And Injun, move your hand another half inch in the direction of that gun butt and I’ll drop you right where you stand.”

  “O’Hara, do as he says,” Flintlock said. He smiled at the gunman. “Well, it was right nice meeting you, but now we’ll be on our way.”

  The man consulted his watch—gold, Flintlock noticed—then snapped the case shut. “I’m headed for Flagstaff, but I guess I can make a detour. Take me to the Pinkerton.”

  Flintlock shook his head. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “Then show me to the place where you were taking the saddle.”

  “We were just going to leave it here, let her pick it up, like.”

  “You’re a liar,” the man said. “Name’s Ryker Klein. Mean anything to you?”

  Flintlock had heard of a South Texas hired gun by that name who was said to have run with King Fisher and that hard crowd, but irritated as he was at being called a liar he shook his head and said, “I don’t ever recall hearing your name mentioned.”

  “Pity. Your deafness could be the death of you.”

  Flintlock knew what Klein saw: O’Hara, a bedraggled Indian who’d seen better days, and a tattooed man wearing a stained buckskin shirt, baggy pants, a battered, sweat- and smoke-stained hat and scuffed, down-at-heel boots. Nothing in that picture, even the Colt shoved into his waistband, suggested he was a man to be reckoned with. All in all, he looked more saddle tramp than shootist, and Klein badly underestimated him. Too many easy kills, too many terrified townsmen, ham-handed rubes and latterly toughs from the festering slums of New York and other cities who knew the ways of the knife, billy club and garrote but not the revolver, had given Ryker Klein an inflated opinion of his gun skills. A more careful man would have read Flintlock’s eyes and realized that this man had been up the trail and back many times and was hardened to the violent, sudden ways of the West. He’d stand his ground, take his hits and still be upright when the shooting was done and the smoke cleared. Klein ignored the warning signs and would soon learn how dangerous a man like Sam Flintlock could be.

  Klein’s voice rang like a billet of hardened iron falling on a marble floor, his hand close to his gun. “I won’t ask you again, mister. Take me to the Pinkerton or I’ll shoot out both your eyes.”

  Every man who carries a gun knows there’s a time for talking and a time for shooting. Klein had threatened Flintlock and there could be only one answer, spelled out in lead, not words.

  Flintlock drew and fired.

  Ryker Klein’s jaw sagged and his eyes grew wide as he stared at Flintlock. His gaze dropped to the scarlet rose that bloomed across the middle of his chest. His own gun had not cleared leather, and now as he realized that the game was over he let it drop back into the holster.

  “You shot me,” he said. “Damn you.”

  “Seems like,” Flintlock said, his smoking Colt still on the gunman.

&
nbsp; Klein’s face was ashen. “Nobody shades Ryker Klein.”

  “I just did,” Flintlock said.

  “Damn you, you did, and you’ve killed me.”

  Klein fell to his knees, stunned at the manner of his death, then fell on his face, took a last, gasping breath and died.

  O’Hara looked at the fallen man and said, “I reckon he thought there was nobody faster than him.”

  “Klein wasn’t fast. He just thought he was and it’s that kind of thinking that gets a man killed,” Flintlock said. “The hell with him. Bring his gray for Bridie.”

  O’Hara had been rifling through the dead man’s saddlebags, tossing out shirts and socks, but now he held up a wad of banknotes. “There’s money in here, Sammy. A pile of money.”

  “Let me see that,” Flintlock said. He poked through the saddlebags for a while and then said, “At least ten thousand.” He glanced at Klein’s body. “Where were you going with all that cash, huh?”

  “Bridie O’Toole will know,” O’Hara said.

  “She’ll tell us that this money belongs to the Old Man of the Mountain, and that we know already,” Flintlock said.

  “We can’t keep it, Sam. Can we?”

  “Who said anything about keeping it? We’ll let the Pinkerton lady decide who keeps it . . . and it will probably be us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Louise Smith reached a decision. She had not been searched and her .32 caliber revolver, a parting gift from Miss Brown, was still in her skirt pocket. She would use the pistol to shoot her abductor and then fire again to kill herself. She was determined to be no one’s bride, especially of the man who was responsible for the murder of her father.

  The girl was being held in a small bedroom in a strange house like one she’d seen in a picture book about the far-off and mysterious land of Cathay. Louise stepped to the small, rectangular window and looked into an open courtyard about two acres in extent. The house was flanked on both sides by what looked like barrack blocks, a row of partitioned units, each having its own door and single window. There was a large stable and a scattering of outbuildings, one with a smoking chimney that she took to be a kitchen and mess hall. The high sandstone walls surrounding the enclave were sharp and scarred and showed no sign of erosion, suggesting that gunpowder had blasted the clearing out of the heart of the mesa. Armed men patrolled constantly, including sentries placed on the rim of the surrounding heights, and in the center of the quadrangle a brass bell hung on an A-shaped stand, ready to sound the alarm. The entire compound smelled of a heady incense that drifted from several bronze burners in front of the house, as though the occupant preferred the odor of musky perfume to the tang of clean, mountain air.

  Louise realized the place was a fortress and no escape was possible. She felt the reassuring weight of the revolver in her pocket and accepted her fate. It was a hard thing to die at sixteen, but preferable to years of a living death.

  Then, the girl got a foretaste of the horror that was in store for her.

  A hatless, barefooted man wearing only a long white robe emerged from a door to the left of Louise’s window and stepped into the courtyard. He was boxed by four rifle-carrying gunmen and walking behind them strode a tall, stately and solemn Oriental man carrying a steel jian, the long, traditional straight-bladed executioner’s sword of ancient China. With the older man were two Chinese youths, possibly his sons, dressed alike in black pants and a scarlet tunic. Both carried wooden buckets that seemed to be heavy and at a certain point they emptied the contents onto the ground. It was sand that they then spread into a circle with their sandaled feet.

  Louise recognized the bound and robed man as Bill Simpson, the rider who’d pushed up her skirt and tried to fondle her breasts and made jests about her wedding night. The girl realized with dawning certainty that Simpson had been betrayed by another gunman and was now about to pay the ultimate penalty for his indiscretions.

  Louise held her breath, alarmed. The man’s behavior had been deplorable, certainly, but he’d done nothing to merit a beating with a sword. But then, as the two younger men forced Simpson to his knees, she fully understood what was about to take place . . .

  There would be no beating—this was a beheading.

  * * *

  Simpson, ghastly pale, his thin hair sweat-plastered across his scalp, was not meeting his death well. Louise couldn’t hear what he said, but his head was tilted upward and his mouth moved constantly as he desperately pleaded for his life, begging mercy from stone-faced executioners who had none.

  The two young men—now the girl pegged them, correctly, as apprentices—each grabbed an arm and forced Simpson forward so that his heaving chest was parallel with the ground. The executioner took up a position on the condemned man’s left, tapped the edge of the blade once on the back of Simpson’s neck and then raised the sword, two-handed, high above his head. A moment later the blade descended in a gleaming arc and severed Bill Simpson’s head neatly from his neck. The head hit the ground and rolled like a melon fallen from a farm wagon, and Louise gave a little gasp of horror and looked away. When she finally glanced out the window again the courtyard was empty and only a spreading scarlet stain on the sand remained.

  A bronze key turned in the lock to the girl’s room and two young Chinese women entered, both with colorful clothing draped over their arms. The women were followed by the two young men who’d assisted at the execution. They carried a brass bathtub and one of them got his ears boxed by the women after he let hot water slosh over the rim. The men were dismissed and despite Louise’s struggles, the women, remarkably strong peasant girls, stripped her naked and forced her into the tub. She was bathed in perfumed water, and when she emerged she was forced to endure being waxed to remove all the hair from her body. Now the girls giggled and made a fuss as they dressed Louise in a daxiushan, the traditional floor-length dress of aristocratic Chinese women, its sleeves four feet long. The gown was of gold silk, embroidered with peacocks and flowers, and the bodice covered only the bottom half of Louise’s breasts. Her long hair was left unbound, she guessed at the whim of her captor.

  The Chinese women stood back to admire their handiwork and the younger of the two, after a struggle with the unfamiliar English word, clapped her hands and said, “Princess!”

  Louise said nothing, but her mind raced . . . her .32 was still in the pocket of her skirt that had been carelessly tossed aside before her forced bath. Somehow, she must retrieve it.

  In what had been an ill-omened day, Louise finally got lucky, if lucky can be applied to her recovery of the gun with which she planned to kill herself.

  One of the Chinese girls left the room, and the other turned her back on Louise as she picked up towels, combs, perfume bottles and other detritus scattered around the floor. It took Louise only a moment to reach into the pocket of her skirt and grab the little revolver. She crossed her arms, her hands and the .32 hidden in the voluminous drapes of her sleeves. The two young men came in, carried out the tub, and then the remaining Chinese girl bowed to Louise . . . and left her alone amid a menacing, sinister silence.

  * * *

  After an hour, the key turned in the lock and the two young men entered, this time carrying a small table. The Chinese girls returned and laid out plates and several covered dishes on the table. Louise thought the smells were wonderful. The girls returned with wine and glasses and placed two thin sticks on top of each napkin. The girls then bowed and left. This time the door was left ajar and a moment later a man stepped inside.

  He was very tall, muscular, with a wide mouth and pitiless eyes. His mane of gray hair was brushed back and tied at the nape of his neck and he had no beard or mustache. He wore a long black robe embroidered with silver dragons and there were black slippers on his feet.

  “I am Jacob Hammer,” the man said. He waved an elegant hand that had a gemstone ring on every finger and said, “Please be seated at the table.”

  Louise shook her head. “I will not eat with you. Yo
u’re the Old Man of the Mountain and you murdered my father.”

  “Then I’ll eat by myself,” Hammer said.

  The food smelled delicious, but the girl had no appetite. For ten minutes, she stood in silence and watched the man eat. He used the sticks to pick up morsels of sauced pork and chicken without spilling, as deft and delicate a diner as a cloistered nun. When he finished eating, Hammer laid down his chopsticks and looked at Louise. “Wine?”

  The girl shook her head. “I want nothing from you except my freedom.”

  “You are my bride and this evening is our wedding night. That is the heart of the matter. After you give me a son”—Hammer waved a disdainful hand as though the rest of his sentence were unimportant—“you can go wherever you please.”

  “I will never agree to marry you,” Louise said.

  Hammer smiled. “Agree? There is no agreeing, no preacher, no marriage vows. I will bed you and our union will be consummated. In other words, you little tramp, tonight we begin the process of making my baby.”

  “You sorry piece of murdering trash,” Louise said. She rose to her feet, took a step back and her hand went for the .32 in her pocket. The girl thumbed back the stiff hammer of the little revolver but, moving with incredible quickness, Hammer tipped over the table, and dishes of food splattered over the bottom of her gown. Louise was distracted for a heartbeat, but it was time enough for the man to reach her. As his hands went for her throat she leveled the gun and fired.

  The Old Man of the Mountain screamed, a shattering, nerve-shredding shriek, a combination of pain, surprise and spiking hatred. Louise backed away, trying to put space between herself and the raving man as she desperately tried to cock the recalcitrant revolver.

  She never made it.

  Driven by rage, Hammer’s vicious backhand hit Louise too low and landed on her neck instead of her jaw. But the force of the blow was enough to send her staggering backward, and she crashed against the wall behind her and slid to a sitting position. Hammer, glistening blood staining the right side of his robe at the waist, was on her in a flash. He wrenched the gun from the girl’s hand, threw it across the room and then hauled her to her feet.