Rising Fire Read online

  “Place don’t hardly look big enough to have a bank,” one of the men said with a sneer of contempt. He added to the impression by leaning over in his saddle and spitting on the ground. “That’s a one-horse town if I ever seen one.”

  “The place is small and that’s the way the folks who live here like it,” a thickset man dressed all in black replied. “But all the ranchers who own big spreads on up the valley have to have someplace to put their money, and Harkerville’s the closest town. Yeah, they’ve got a bank, Curly.” He chuckled. “You can bank on that.”

  Curly Bannister, whose tangled mass of brown hair that fell to his shoulders had given him his nickname, said, “I’m not doubtin’ your word, Alden, just sayin’ that looks can be deceivin’, I reckon. If you say there’s a bank down there and it’s worth takin’, I believe you, one hunnerd percent.”

  Alden Simms nodded. Curly was his second-in-command, and a good one, so he was in the habit of cutting Curly some slack whenever he got mouthy, which was too often, to tell the truth. One of these days, Curly would catch Alden in a bad mood when he made one of his snide comments, and Alden would put a bullet through the snaggletoothed varmint’s brain. He’d be sorry to kill Curly, he supposed, but he’d get over it.

  Another rider edged forward to join Alden and Curly, who were slightly ahead of the rest of the gang. “How much do you believe is in there?”

  The rider’s husky but undoubtedly female voice, along with the long, straight dark hair that hung down her back from under the flat-crowned black hat, marked her as a woman. So did the lack of beard stubble on her lean face, which otherwise was as hard-featured as those of the male outlaws.

  “Could be ten, twelve thousand, I’d say,” Alden replied.

  “That’s only a little more than a thousand apiece.”

  “How else you gonna earn that much money, Juliana?” Curly asked. “You sure never did when you was workin’ in the Duchess’s place in Rapid City.”

  Juliana Montero fastened a cold gaze on Curly and said, “That’s because the Duchess’s customers were cheap owlhoots who never had any money because they were stupid. That description remind you of anybody, Curly?”

  Curly’s cocky grin disappeared and he tightened his grip on his reins, as if he was about to turn his mount toward Juliana’s. Alden said sharply, “Hush up that squabbling, you two. I swear, the way you pick at each other, I’m surprised neither of you has shot the other one yet.”

  “Could happen any day now,” Juliana said.

  “No, it won’t. We’ve got a job to do, and we’re all going to get along.” Alden turned to look at the rest of the men. “Isn’t that right, boys?”

  A couple of the outlaws muttered their agreement, and the others nodded.

  Alden looked hard at Curly and Juliana and said, “Well, what about you two? A truce? No more arguing until we finish this job?”

  The two of them looked at each other. Curly sniffed. Juliana said, “All right. Truce. For now.” She pointed a slender finger at Curly. “But you keep your dirty cracks to yourself.”

  “Just remindin’ you of where you came from, darlin’,” Curly drawled.

  “It doesn’t matter where somebody came from,” Alden snapped. “The only thing that’s important is where they wind up. And for me, I plan on that being San Francisco, once I’ve got enough money saved up.” He nodded toward the settlement. “This is just one more step along the way.”

  It was true that Harkerville didn’t look very impressive. A single street lined with maybe a dozen and a half businesses. A scattering of dwellings ranging from substantial houses to log cabins to ramshackle hovels with tar paper and tin roofs. Not a single building in town was constructed of brick or stone. The largest and most impressive structure was a false-fronted saloon. But almost as large was a building made of thick beams. Alden pointed to it and said, “That’s the bank. Billy Ray said he saw several gents who looked like successful cattlemen going in there.”

  A small young man with a ratlike face nudged his horse ahead as if responding to hearing his name spoken. “That’s right,” he said eagerly. “I done a good job of scoutin’ the place, didn’t I, Alden?”

  “You sure did. Nobody ever noticed you hanging around, did they?”

  “No, sir! Nobody ever notices me.”

  That was the truth. Whenever folks looked at Billy Ray, they immediately dismissed him from their thoughts. That made him a valuable asset for the Simms gang. They never rode into a town to pull a job without Billy Ray going in first to have a look around. Twenty-four hours in a town and he knew it intimately.

  Juliana crossed her hands on the saddle horn and leaned forward. She dressed like a man, in a long, dark brown duster over jeans and a gray shirt. She carried an old Colt Navy in a cross-draw rig on her left hip.

  “So when do we hit this bank?” she asked.

  Alden pulled a turnip watch from the pocket of his black trousers and flipped it open. “No time like the present,” he said after checking the time. “The bank’ll be closing in half an hour. We’ll split up and ease into town between now and then, so folks won’t be as likely to notice this many strangers showing up. You and Curly and me will go in and get the loot. Billy Ray, you’ll be in charge of the horses, as usual.”

  Billy Ray bobbed his head and grinned.

  “Childers, Hamilton, Britt, Dumont,” Alden addressed the other four members of the gang, “you’ll wait outside the bank and try not to look too suspicious. But if there’s any trouble, it’ll be up to you to keep those townspeople from getting in there until we’re ready to light a shuck . . . especially the local law.”

  Alden knew from Billy Ray’s scouting that Harkerville had a town marshal, a fairly young man with a wife and two little kids, but he was the settlement’s only star packer.

  The plan was identical to the one they had followed in holding up banks in half a dozen other towns in Wyoming. They had been working their way south and now weren’t far from the Colorado border. Only one of the robberies had played out differently because Juliana hadn’t been feeling well that day and Childers had had to take her place inside the bank. But everything had gone all right and the substitution hadn’t caused any problems.

  Since everyone knew what they were supposed to do, there wasn’t any point in waiting. A few of the men wished each other good luck, and then they scattered to ride into Harkerville from different directions. None of them would arrive together except for Alden, Curly, and Juliana, who would be siding each other as they entered the bank.

  They angled down the slope and struck the road that led into the settlement from the east. They didn’t get in a hurry as they approached the edge of town. They wanted to walk into the bank no more than five minutes before it was supposed to close for the day.

  As they rode, Curly said quietly, “Hey, Juliana, I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You know I didn’t mean nothin’. I just like to pick at you a little. Shoot, I don’t care what you used to do for a livin’.”

  “I wouldn’t think so, since you were one of the regular customers at the Duchess’s place.”

  Curly grinned. “We had some good ol’ times there, didn’t we?”

  “Good for you, maybe. You just got what you came for and left.” Juliana shrugged, then reached over and patted him on the leg. “But you were always nicer than some, I’ll give you that. You talked too much, but there are worse things.”

  “You was always my favorite, you know.”

  “I know.”

  The three of them were ambling along the street now, with the bank up ahead to their right. They angled toward an empty hitchrack that wasn’t directly in front of the bank but was nearby. They left their horses there, and as they stepped up on the boardwalk, Alden glanced both directions along the street and spotted the rest of his men, Britt and Hamilton on this side of the street, Dumont, Childers, and Billy Ray on the other. None of them paid any attention to the others. Once Alden, Curly, and Juliana were inside th
e bank, Billy Ray would start gathering up the horses and bring them, one by one, to the hitchrack where the three ringleaders of the gang had left their mounts. He was very good at being unobtrusive about what he was doing, but when the time came for them to make their getaway, all the horses would be waiting together.

  The bank had double doors with glass in the upper halves. One of them opened when the three outlaws were less than twenty feet away. They didn’t slow down as a man stepped out of the bank and started to turn in the other direction. That fella had had a close call and didn’t even know it.

  But he didn’t keep going. Instead, he stopped, looked back over his shoulder, and then turned around to face the three of them. He was young, medium-sized, wearing a gray suit and vest and a black hat. He looked at Juliana and exclaimed, “Caroline?”

  All three of the outlaws stiffened. Caroline was the name Juliana had used when she was working for the Duchess in the house in Rapid City. What were the odds that they would run into one of her former customers in this one-horse town, as Curly had called it, hundreds of miles away?

  Gruffly, Juliana said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister. That ain’t my name, and I don’t know any Caroline.”

  “Well, you look mighty different dressed like that,” the man said, “but I would’ve sworn—”

  “Sorry, friend,” Alden said. “The lady told you you’ve made a mistake. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have some business we need to take care of.”

  “Sure, sure.” The man held up both hands, palms out. “No offense meant. It’s just that there’s a remarkable resemblance between this lady and a, uh, woman I used to know . . .”

  The motion he had made had caused his coat to swing out a little, revealing a five-pointed star pinned to his vest. Alden’s mouth tightened, and Curly’s eyes got wide with surprise. The man must have noticed that reaction, because his voice trailed off.

  Then he said, “Hold on a minute. Three of you, going into the bank . . . just before it’s supposed to close . . . Seems like I’ve read something like that, in notices from other peace officers . . .”

  “Well, you’ve put it all together,” Juliana said. “Drat the luck.”

  Her Colt Navy came out of its holster fast and smooth and flame spurted from its muzzle as she fired, almost touching the marshal’s vest with the star pinned to it. The .36 caliber round slammed into his chest at close range, driving him off the boardwalk with his arms flung out to the side. He landed in the street on his back so hard that his legs flew up in the air for a second.

  “I guess you shouldn’t have been frequenting houses of ill repute,” Juliana said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Big Rock

  According to Arturo, who had asked the desk clerk in the hotel about it, the best place to eat in Big Rock was Longmont’s, a combination dining, drinking, and gambling establishment that had food to rival any of the fancy restaurants back East. The owner, Louis Longmont, who had once been a deadly gunman with a reputation that almost rivaled Smoke Jensen’s, brought in the best chefs he could find and paid them more than they could have made in New York, Chicago, or San Francisco.

  As a result, when Count Giovanni Malatesta dined there that evening, he enjoyed a delicious, perfectly cooked steak with all the trimmings, along with an excellent bottle of red wine. It was a French vintage, not Italian, but Malatesta was willing to forgive that.

  Unlike in most frontier saloons, a number of women came to Longmont’s with their husbands. That was because they felt safe in these refined, comfortable surroundings. Yes, there was gambling on one side of the room, but the games didn’t get loud and raucous like they sometimes did in other saloons because nobody wanted to get on Louis Longmont’s bad side. He was middle-aged and distinguished, with considerable gray in his dark hair, but most folks in Big Rock knew how dangerous he had been in his earlier days. He had sided Smoke Jensen in more than one epic battle against a variety of badmen. Nobody wanted to test whether he might have lost any of his edge.

  That was what Arturo had gathered from asking around, anyway, and then passed on to Malatesta. Arturo was very good at coming up with information, and he was patient about waiting for his salary. If things didn’t work out the way Malatesta planned and he had to leave Big Rock in a hurry, he would owe Arturo a considerable amount that would never be paid. He almost felt a little bad about that. Almost.

  One of Longmont’s hostesses paused beside the table and asked, “Would you like more wine, Count Malatesta?”

  The women who worked here dressed in a more subdued fashion than run-of-the-mill saloon girls and soiled doves. No short, low-cut, spangled dresses that showed off their sometimes dubious charms.

  But they were undeniably lovely. Longmont clearly had a good eye for feminine beauty. Malatesta smiled up at this young woman, a brown-eyed blonde, and said, “I believe I’ve had enough, especially since you’re so intoxicating, my dear. If you’d like to sit down with me, I could easily spend another hour just drinking in the exquisiteness of your eyes.”

  She smiled and said, “You are a flatterer, aren’t you? Mr. Longmont said he wanted to speak with you when you finished your meal. I’ll send him on over.”

  “I’ll be happy to meet him,” Malatesta said, “but he will be a poor substitute for you.”

  She laughed, shook her head, and went toward the bar.

  A few minutes later, a tall, well-dressed man sauntered up to the table and said in a voice that retained just the faintest of French accents to mark his Cajun heritage, “Count Malatesta, I’m Louis Longmont. I own this place.”

  Malatesta stood up and extended his hand. “A pleasure and an honor to meet you, signore.” After shaking hands, he waved toward the empty chair on the other side of the table. “Please, join me.”

  “Thank you. Don’t mind if I do.” The two men took their seats, then Longmont went on, “I hear there was some excitement when your train arrived this morning.”

  “Indeed. One of your notorious western gunfights. I was fortunate to escape with my life, thanks to the intervention of Sheriff Carson, Marshal Rogers, and Miss Jensen.”

  Longmont cocked an eyebrow. “Who then slapped you, from what I hear. Miss Jensen, I mean.”

  “Indeed she did,” Malatesta said with a chuckle. “I make the assumption, Signor Longmont, that you, too, have been slapped by a beautiful woman in your lifetime?”

  “Once or twice,” Louis agreed drily. He took a couple of cheroots from his vest pocket. “Cigar?”

  “Grazie.” Malatesta took one of the cigars, smelled it, and nodded in approval.

  “I have to say, I’m curious why Denny would do that. She’s not usually the type to fly off the handle.”

  “You know her well, I imagine, since you and her father are good friends?”

  “You seem to know quite a bit about the folks who live in Big Rock and hereabouts,” Longmont said without actually answering the question about the friendship between him and Smoke.

  “My valet makes a habit of learning what he can about the places we plan to visit. As for the lovely Denise . . . she and I became acquainted when she and her brother visited Venice a few years ago, on a tour of the Continent while they lived in England.”

  “And you became friends with them?”

  “Friendly,” Malatesta said with a shrug.

  “It must not have ended that way, though, for her to have slapped you like that as soon as she laid eyes on you.”

  Malatesta laughed and said, “You know how women are, signore. Volatile. They lose their temper easily, especially with men they care about.”

  “And Denny cared about you?”

  “Modesty prevents me from saying more,” Malatesta replied, trying not to smirk.

  “Uh-huh.” Longmont put the cigar in his mouth and clamped his teeth on it without lighting it. “I’m going to speak plainly, Count Malatesta.”

  “Please do.”

  “What brings you to Big Rock? Are you h
ere because of Denny?”

  “Seeing Denise was as much of a surprise to me as it was to her,” Malatesta said. “I’m simply making an educational excursion across your vast and fascinating country, as Denise and her brother were touring the Continent when we first met.”

  Longmont nodded slowly. “All right,” he said, apparently accepting Malatesta’s story. “My apologies if it seemed like I was prying into something that’s none of my business. Out here in the West, we try not to ask too many questions about a man’s past. I don’t mind admitting, though, that I feel somewhat protective of Denny, considering that she’s the daughter of my oldest and best friend.”

  “No need to apologize,” Malatesta said, waving casually with the hand that held the cigar. “Your concern is perfectly understandable.”

  “But probably unnecessary,” Longmont went on. “I suppose you noticed during that incident at the train station . . . Denny’s pretty good at taking care of herself.”

  Malatesta threw back his head and laughed, drawing some curious glances from diners at nearby tables. “That, my friend, is very much an understatement. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a woman more capable of taking care of herself than Denise Jensen.”

  “You’re right about that.” Longmont got to his feet. “Can I interest you in another bottle of wine? It’s on the house.”

  “Now that you mention it, I believe I will accept your kind offer. Providing, of course, that you can arrange to have the lovely blonde in the green dress deliver it.”

  “Sophie?” Longmont nodded. “I think I can do that. She is lovely.” He held out his hand. “Good evening, Count. Enjoy your stay in Big Rock.”

  “Oh, I intend to,” Malatesta said as they shook hands again. He sank back in his chair and watched as Longmont went to the bar and spoke to the blonde called Sophie. A few minutes later she came over to the table with a bottle of wine in her hand, along with two glasses.

  “Mr. Longmont sent this over,” she said. “It’s one of the best vintages we have.”