Coming Up Roses (27 page)

“
You can?” H.L. couldn’t.

“
Well,
I
can,” she amended.

He didn’t argue.

“
Oh! And look here!” She pointed at
something else that was invisible to H.L.’s eyes. “Bear’s in
there!”

“
How can you tell?”

“
He’s left his mark.”

Oh. Well, damn. There was more to this
tracking business than H.L. had hitherto imagined. Rose had started
smiling, which he took as a good sign.

She brushed her hands together. “So, what do
we do now?”

Reaching into his pocket, H.L. reassured
himself that a Colt revolver he knew how to use in a vague sort of
way still resided there. He’d practiced, although he wasn’t a great
shot. “I’m going to try the latch and see if it’s open. If it
isn’t, I guess I’ll have to kick the door in.”

“
We’d best make sure that’s possible
before you try it.”

Their voices were so low, H.L. could scarcely
hear them himself. “How do you propose doing that?”

“
Let me do it.” She didn’t explain, but
he watched with fascination as she silently perused the door latch,
lifted it, and then inspected the door itself as well as its
hinges, all in absolute silence. When she was through, she nodded.
“It’ll give way if you aim at the center panel and kick it hard
enough. Do you have the strength to do that?”

Irked, H.L. said, “Of course, I do.”

“
Don’t get upset. I just wanted to make
sure. We don’t want to make any noisy mistakes and alert that
horrid man, do we? After all, Bear is probably tied up, and we
can’t afford to waste any time.”

“
I suppose not,” he grumbled. He knew
she’d used the royal we so as not to ruffle his feathers. Damn it,
you’d think he was the woman here and not her, the way she talked
to him. He realized he was miffed because she was the more
competent tracker of the two of them. She was probably the better
shot, as well.

Well, hell, a man couldn’t be all things to
all people. H.L. May was a damned good reporter, and that’s what
mattered to him. He still felt sort of small and insignificant, but
he vowed not to allow the feeling to interfere with his
mission.

“
Let me get ready before you kick in
the door,” Rose whispered.

H.L. goggled as she pulled a revolver
from her jacket, shrugged, and reached around to the back of her
trousers to retrieve another one. She looked like a dime-novelist’s
conception of Billy the Kid, standing there in her trousers and
Stetson, aiming two guns at the dilapidated door of the hovel. He
decided,
What the hell
, and
drew his own gun out of his pocket. Who was he to buck
tradition?

“
Ready?” he asked. His heart started
scrambling to catch up with his breath. He’d never performed a
rescue before; it was tough breaking new ground, especially when
there probably wouldn’t be any room for error.

Rose nodded. She looked more grim than H.L.
had ever seen her, even when she’d been angry and hollering at him
for some reason. He backed up, braced himself, sucked in a bushel
or so of air, nodded once, quickly plotted his trajectory, and
said, “Here goes nothing.”

With his gun held out before him in both
hands, he made a dash at the door, raised his foot and flexed it so
that the sole of his shoe would make contact with the wood, and
with all his weight behind him, smashed into it. A deafening crash
ripped through the air as his foot ripped through the rotten wood.
The accompanying bellow of rage and alarm from Pegleg made for a
truly horrific din.

H.L. hadn’t counted on getting his foot stuck
in the splintered wood. Swearing a blue streak, he extricated
himself, aware as he did so that little Rose Gilhooley had already
rushed past him into the room.

“
Stop right there, you!”

When he got himself upright again, which
didn’t take more than five or six seconds, H.L. was aghast at the
spectacle of Rose aiming two revolvers at the enormous gut of the
one-legged man. Unfortunately, Pegleg in his turn had what looked
like a cannon directed straight at Rose.

“
Get out of here, little lady, and take
that skunk with you.” Pegleg sneered at Rose and jerked his head at
H.L.

H.L., scared to death on Rose’s behalf,
decided this wasn’t the time to dally. Lifting his revolver, he
aimed straight at the villain’s ugly face and pulled the
trigger.

An explosion so loud it made his ears ring
filled the room, along with a whole lot of black smoke.

“
Shit! You scurvy cur, you shot me!”
Pegleg roared.

Something hit H.L. in the stomach, sending
him over backwards. H.L. realized a second later that it had been
Rose. His brain scarcely registered her weight on his body before
another explosion, louder even than the one from his own gun,
boomed through the air.

“
Get Bear, Mr. May! I’ll take care of
this man!”

Huh? His head swimming, H.L. scrambled to his
feet in time to see Pegleg swat Rose away as if she’d been a fly.
Rage consumed H.L. in that instant; a rage so large and fierce, it
later scared him because he hadn’t realized he was capable of such
mindless fury.

With a roar that matched Pegleg’s in volume
and ferocity, H.L. plowed into the huge man’s belly, head first.
With a grunt, Pegleg staggered backward, fetching up against the
wall behind him. Drawing on a youth spent defending himself from
taunts about his name, H.L. didn’t give the scoundrel time to
recover, but attacked him with lefts and rights and upper cuts and
jabs, whaling away at Pegleg’s face and body with a strength he
hadn’t known he possessed.

“
Mr. May!” Rose screeched at his back,
but H.L. didn’t care. He was going to kill the man who’d hurt Rose
or know the reason why.

Through teeth clenched so tightly, his jaw
ached, H.L. managed to pant out, “Get the kid.”

Without looking to see if she was obeying
him, he continued his assault on the kidnapper. Time and time
again, his fists bludgeoned Pegleg’s chest and belly. The sickening
crunch of bone smashing against bone filled the air as he took time
out from the cursed fiend’s body and concentrated on his face for a
while.

H.L. had no notion of time. When, with a
whimper that would have done justice to a babe in arms, Pegleg
crumpled to the floor, H.L. wasn’t through with him. Leaning over,
he administered about a hundred or two parting blows.

Through the murderous fog of his rage, other
sounds penetrated slowly, one by one. It wasn’t until Rose’s
frantic, “Stop it! Oh, stop it, please!” filtered into his head,
that H.L. realized he’d given up on his fists, since he had to lean
over too far for convenience, and had begun kicking the bastard.
Hard.

“
Stop it! Mr. May! You’re killing
him!”

“
Good!” His breath had started coming
in shallow gasps before H.L. finally understood that the danger had
passed.

“
Oh, my land, is he dead?”

Dazed, H.L. blinked down at his fallen
foe. Shoot. Was he dead? At the moment, H.L. felt only triumph at
the notion. By God, there was
one
kidnapper who’d never ply his wicked trade again. He managed
to gasp,

“
I dunno.”

Rose squatted next to Pegleg and put two
fingers to the pulse in his neck. “He’s still alive,” she said
doubtfully.

Hot anger sloshed through H.L. again,
consuming his rational thought process in an instant. He reached
down, grabbed Pegleg by the dirty bandanna tied around his neck,
and started to heave him to his feet.

“
Oh, Yeah? Well, then, I guess I’m not
done yet, am I?”

He got in one good punch before Rose threw
herself across the arm holding Pegleg up, causing his grip to
loosen. “Stop it!” she screamed. “We’ve got to get Bear out of here
before somebody comes!”

Feeling as if he were waking up from a very
bad nightmare, H.L. stared at her. He shook his head hard. He
discovered he couldn’t breathe and slammed a hand over his heart.
For a second, he feared he was dying of a heart seizure. Then it
occurred to him that he was only winded.

He said, “What?”

Rose reached up and patted him on the cheek.
Enunciating slowly and clearly, she said, “We need to leave now,
Mr. May. We need to get Bear out of here before somebody else comes
and realizes he’s been rescued.”

“
Bear? There’s a bear in here?” H.L.
glanced around uncertainly.

“
Yes. Come along now. Bear’s not been
hurt, but he’s been tied up since this morning, and his circulation
is bad and he’s a little unsteady on his feet.”

“
Oh.” H.L. shook his head again. He
realized his hands were hurting really badly and lifted them to
take a look. “Good God.”

“
Mercy sakes, you’re a mess, Mr. May.
Come along. We need to soak those hands in antiseptic
water.”

“
You fight good,” a strange,
young-sounding voice said at H.L.’s back.

Turning, he staggered slightly. Rose kept him
from falling flat on his face by looping an arm around his waist.
Her arm felt good there. For the first time, he noticed Bear in
Winter, who was standing up, rubbing his wrists as if he were
trying to renew the circulation therein. At last he remembered what
he’d been fighting for. “Oh. I guess you’re Bear,” he muttered
inanely.

The small boy grinned up at him. “Yes. You
fight good, mister.”

By God, he did fight well, didn’t he? A
sudden burst of pride filled H.L.’s chest. By God. He’d rescued a
child from a kidnapper! “Thanks.” He hoped he sounded modest. He
didn’t feel modest. He felt swell.

“
Let’s get out of here now,” Rose said
firmly. “This is a terrible neighborhood. We’ll have to find a cab
somewhere, I guess.”

“
Right.” With one last hard shake of
his head, H.L. decided he’d have to wait to gloat over his victory.
Rose was correct; they had to get the hell out of the lakeside dock
district, and the sooner, the better. H.L. had no idea how Pegleg
made contact with the buyers of the children he kidnapped, and he
didn’t particularly want to find out with Rose and Bear in Winter
along.

God, this was going to be a good story!

He was disappointed when Rose unlooped her
arm from his waist. Glancing down at her, he saw her pretty,
piquant face peering up at him. She looked worried. He gave her the
cockiest grin in his repertoire. “Hell, Miss Gilhooley, you don’t
have to let me go. I might fall down without your support.”

She turned so pink, he could see the color
bloom even in the dark. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

With that, she took Bear’s arm and led him
out of the ruined hovel. They had to step over Pegleg, since his
body was so large it covered most of the floor. H.L. heard the man
groan as they went through the smashed door and thought about
turning back to kick him a few more times, but Rose, apparently
sensing his thoughts, grabbed him by the tail of his jacket and
wouldn’t let him.

# # #

Rose knew it was probably wrong of her, but
she couldn’t help it. She was so impressed by the skill H.L. May
had demonstrated in dispatching that awful villain, she wanted to
kiss him.

Not that wanting to kiss him was a new
sensation, she reminded herself. Annie would be upset to know of
Rose’s secret daydreams about this outrageous, unruly newspaper
reporter.

“
There’s a cab,” H.L. said, startling
her and making her heart leap in her chest. Bother. She was really
on edge. Small wonder, after their recent encounter with that
dreadful man back there. “Good. We need to get Bear back to the
Wild West as soon as we can.”

“
I’m hungry,” Bear announced suddenly.
“That man, he don’t feed me nothing.”

Rose glanced at the boy and frowned. “Well .
. . I think we really ought to get you back to your family,
Bear.”

The boy shrugged, resigned. Rose’s heart
pinched. She knew very well how much the reservation Sioux were
made to suffer these days. They were supposed to be supplied with
adequate amounts of food on the reservation, and they were being
taught farming techniques so that they’d eventually be able to
support themselves.

But the Sioux weren’t farmers by nature, and
the Department of Indian Affairs was probably the most corrupt
department in the entire government. The Sioux were forever being
given bad meat and wormy grain to eat—and that’s when their
shipments weren’t subverted entirely and they received nothing at
all.

Glancing from Bear to H.L., she said
doubtfully, “Do you think we could stop somewhere and get something
to eat?”

H.L. pondered the question for a minute as he
hailed the cab. “Why not? I could use something to eat, too. That
brouhaha back there made me hungry.”

The arrogant grin on his face tickled Rose.
She returned it with one of her own. “Yes, I imagine you do.
Beating people to a pulp must be hungry work.”

He beamed down at her. “You betcha!”

“
You mean we get to eat?” Bear said
eagerly.

“
Yes, Bear. We’ll get you a
meal.”

“
Meat?” His dark eyes
sparkled.

“
Meat.” Rose patted his arm.

H.L. stepped aside after he opened the cab
door to allow Rose and Bear to enter before him. Rose was surprised
he’d remembered his manners, since he was obviously under the
influence of victorious euphoria. She didn’t begrudge him his
moment. He’d performed heroically. She heard him speak to the
cabbie before he climbed in the cab after them.