Lone Star 05 (14 page)

“Glad you're here with that well-packed saddlebag of yours,” Scott laughed. He left to tend to his part of the business. The door closed quietly behind him.

Ki had sharpened his
ho-tachi
knife and checked his supply of arrows—he had three dozen in his lacquered
ebira
quiver. Then he tested his
take
bow; it was still taut and strong. Like the true warrior he was, he paid careful attention to the maintenance of his weapons.

Thad consulted his pocket watch. It was encased in silver, with a majestic eagle engraved on the lid. He noticed Jessie's curious glance. “It was my old man‘s,” he explained. “I stole it, too—before I left home. The only thing of his I have. Let's see, it's half past one now. In another thirty minutes we move out.”

The time passed quickly, and they soon found themselves in the street. It was deserted and strangely quiet after a night of much activity. The moon had fully risen and glowed like a polished pearl. The rutted main street was lit just enough for them to see their way without stumbling, and they kept to the shadows most of the time. To get from the hotel to the jail took them only a few minutes, moving stealthily and carefully, making certain they were not seen by anyone.

As had Hodges and Monkston earlier that night, they hid across the street from the courthouse for a moment before breaking across to the side of the building. Ki then left Jessie and Thad there to stand watch as he went to a nearby unlit window and tested it. It was open.

Now, like a large cat, Ki slithered inside, landing quietly on his bare feet in a dark room inside the courthouse building. A quick inspection told him that it was a storage room. Buckets and mops lined one wall, with shelves containing books and papers and boxes along another. He went to the door and tried it, and found it unlocked as well. Slowly, without making a sound, he pried it open slightly. With his eye to the crack, he could see out into the lighted office where the same deputy sat with his back to Ki, his feet propped up on the desk as if he had not a care in the world.

Ki took in as much of the rest of the room as he could, and saw no sign of other guards or lawmen. So far, so good. Holding his breath, Ki pulled the door open far enough to allow himself to slip through. Then, noiselessly, he stalked up behind the unsuspecting sentinel. First he cupped a hand strongly about the young man's mouth to stifle any attempt at screaming. Then, using his thumb and forefinger as pincers, he located a point behind the man's ear and applied
atemi,
a pressure-point technique he had learned from his teacher in the Japans.

The deputy slumped down in his chair, a look of painful surprise on his wan face, and Ki released his mouth. The man was dead to the world—and it had been accomplished without raising any alarm. Ki searched the desk for keys, found a ring with a half-dozen keys on it, and removed it. He stopped to listen for sounds of anyone else. From behind a heavy door he heard voices. He went to the door and put his ear against it. Yes, at least two people were talking. As he had before, Ki pushed this door open, careful to keep listening. The voices were below him, down a staircase. That was where the cell was, according to Jessie's account of her visit.

One by one, Ki took the steps with his bare feet, easing his weight down to minimize any creaking of the boards. It was much cooler down here, and the walls were carved out of rock. He caught the words of the men's conversation.

“Is it true, boy, that you killed a woman once? I heard tell that you did.”

“You'll hear a lot more about me before I'm through,” Thomas Starbuck stated confidently. “I ain't saying it's true, and I ain't saying it's not—but I've killed some folks along the way. Only when I had to, mind you.”

“Yeah, well, you'll pay for it,” the guard said, with loathing in his voice.

Ki reached the bottom of the steps. Ahead of him was a short corridor that ended in a turn to the left where the men must be. It was a narrow passage that two people could not negotiate side by side. With short strides, he made his way to the corner. A faint light came from the area of the cell. Ki managed a brief, one-eyed peek around the corner. The guard was there, leaning against Starbuck's cell door, his back to Ki.

Ki took one deep breath and moved. Edging along the wall, he checked once more to be sure he was undetected, and reached out for the Mormon guard's neck. This time the attack was so swift he did not have to muzzle the man. He crumpled at a touch from Ki, his mouth open soundlessly. His carbine clattered to the stone floor beside him.

“What the hell?” the prisoner said. He pressed his face to the bars and saw Ki step around the fallen guard. “Who are you?”

Ki did not answer the boy. Instead he whipped his right hand around behind Thomas Starbuck's neck. He held the boy's head fast, pressing his face tighter against the iron bars. The prisoner gurgled a protest, but not for long. With his left hand, Ki applied the same pressure to the point behind the boy's ear. Through the bars he caught the falling kid's shirt and let him down gently to the floor.

The third key on the ring opened the cell door. Ki stepped in and, with another key, released him from the chains that held him to the wall. He took Thad's handcuffs from his own belt and quickly bound the prisoner's hands behind his back. Then, dragging him across the dusty floor, he got him to the steps. There he hauled the boy's limp form up over his shoulder and carried him upstairs.

At the desk, the deputy was still out cold. It had been a bad night for that poor fellow. Ki extinguished the lantern on the desk, plunging the front rooms of the courthouse into complete darkness. He decided he might as well use the front door, which would make it easier than putting Starbuck out through the window. So he exited that way, securing the door behind him.

He hurried around to the back of the building. There, Jessie, Thad Hill, and Ulysses Scott were mounted and waiting for him.

“Any trouble?” the deputy marshal asked him.

“All is quiet,” Ki said with a grin. “I'll secure the prisoner in his saddle, and we can ride.” He did so, wrapping Starbuck's legs tightly to horse and saddle with a sturdy rope. Then, with that horse's reins in his hand, he mounted his own animal.

“What happened to the guards?” Jessie wondered.

“I put them to sleep for a while. When they wake up they'll be sore. But it will wear away. Then they'll know the pain of Carpenter's anger.”

“And Mueller‘s,” Jessie added.

“We'll be feeling that same pain if we don't get along,” said Thad.

The four riders and their cargo then rode off, Marshal Scott in the lead. He took them, as promised, out to the north. They cut through a narrow, little-used trail which would have been impossible to find without the lawman's knowledge of the territory.

From the first, it was rough going. Jessie rode between Thad and Ki, who brought up the rear with the prisoner. All the while she and the others had waited for Ki, a dread had been growing within her. She knew the difficult journey had really just begun. Now that they had Thomas Starbuck, they had to protect him—and themselves—from attack. An attack would come, certainly, but where or when she couldn't know.

Again she wondered why this man was pretending to be her brother. That conversation with Elkin—which kept haunting her for some reason—seemed weeks ago, when in fact it had only occurred within the past few days. The ride to Skyler with Ki was like a peaceful dream now, and her meeting with Thad Hill—was it only a few hours since they had made love under these same stars?

As she rode, she felt the now-familiar weight of her revolver at her side. When the time came she would use it again, as she had many times before. She would cut down the enemies of her father,
her
enemies. The tool of revenge—that was how she thought of the gun her father had given her. For him, for all he stood for, she would use it against Mueller or anyone else who attempted to thwart her. A chill ran up her spine as she realized how coldly thoughts of killing and death now came to her, how cold she herself had become since Alex Starbuck's death.

There was no turning back for Jessie Starbuck. And as much as it hurt—the memory of her parents' deaths, the loneliness, the great burden of her father's wealth, the deadly mission upon which she had embarked—she knew it could not be any other way. It was what Ki's people called
karma.
It could not be any other way.

On his part, Thad Hill, as he rode ahead of Jessie, pondered the circumstances that had gotten him involved with her. He realized, though, that once he had seen her, he had become bound up with her life—whether she wanted him to be or not. He was glad that she wanted him to be. Now, as he followed Scott's lead through the twisting darkness, his horse stepping agilely along the narrow trail, he felt a twinge of excitement in his gut. What lay at the end of the trail for him and Jessie? Assuming they ever got there.

He looked up, beyond the almost invisible walls that shot up on either side of the riders, into the wide velvet-black sky. Always before, he had ridden alone. So for him this was an extraordinary journey. He had forfeited his possible share of any bounty—for what? To be with Jessie, of course. Something he had never done before. He wondered if he was changing. All the years of drifting, of drinking warm beer and sleeping with whores who smelled worse than he did. A part of him had always felt that there was more to be had out of life. But he had never known what exactly. Now he had at least an inkling; Jessie had shown him what
purpose
can do to turn one's life around and give it meaning. She was possessed with a need to exact revenge from her father's enemies, and she would not rest until she had done it—a task that could take her years. Yet she was still a woman—all woman—and no one who looked at her could deny that plain fact.

Thad fumbled in his pocket for a cheroot. He lit it with a sulfur match that he struck on the tin matchbox. The bitter smoke cut into his lungs. The clip-clop of the horses' hooves sounded hollowly in the dead night. And the creaking of leather spoke eloquently of the riders' discomfort. Yet he would rather be nowhere else this night, Thad thought.

As he smoked the cheroot, he caught the sharp scent of danger in the air. Already the party had put at least a dozen miles between themselves and Skyler. But enough time had passed for the town to discover the missing prisoner and the downed guards. How long would it take them to organize a posse? Once they did, they probably would wait for light before setting out after Starbuck. That would mean that Jessie's party might make it till nightfall without being caught—and maybe the battle would be delayed until the next morning. When it did come, it would be bloody. Thad shuddered to think of the woman in the Mormons' line of fire. And there was Mueller to reckon with, along with his two new men, Fagan and McKittrick, as well as the other two hardcases who stuck to the Prussian like glue. An altogether ugly crew.

Thad tossed the cheroot away. The next twenty-four hours would tell the tale.

The hours passed and they ate up the miles. Scott led them as quickly as he could along the chosen route that brought them through the rock-strewn foothills. The horses picked their way along the trail and over the humping hills, winding this way and that until they found the path that took them south in an almost straight line to the river that Jessie and Ki had traced on their way from Provo.

Lost in her thoughts, Jessie let her mount have its head. She was jolted from her reverie by cries from behind.

“What the hell is going on here?” It was the prisoner; he had awakened. “What—where the fuck am I?”

Ki told him, “Lie quietly and don't cry out. You're safe with us.”

“What are you talking about?” Thomas Starbuck lifted his head, hair stringing down over his crazed eyes. “Oh, you're the fellow who busted me out. You killed the guard.”

“No, I did not kill him. I put him to sleep.”

“He sure looked dead to me.”

“Please be quiet,” said Jessie. “We'll stop soon and untie you. We didn't want you to fall off the horse.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“I'll answer your questions later. Now you must keep quiet,” she said.

The kid snorted in dissatisfaction. “You don't know what you're doing. You'll get us all killed.”

No one answered him. “Where are you taking me?” he croaked insistently. “You better tell me or I'll scream my lungs out.”

“Save your breath, kid,” the marshal called back to him. “There's no one within five miles—unless you count the wolves. And we might just leave you to them if you don't shut up.”