Red River Showdown (3 page)

“I wasn't exactly following you,” he told her. “Just heading the same direction.”

She nodded and looked down at the dead man. Seeing those vacant eyes staring up toward the sky seemed to hit her at that moment. Suddenly, she barely seemed able to stand up. Her gun slipped from her fingers and she pressed both hands to her face. “Good Lord,” she said through her fingers. “Is he . . . ?”

“As a doornail,” Clint replied.

“Oh God. Those others were going to kill me, too. They were shooting at me. Shooting at both of us.”

“You're just now realizing this?”

“It's not exactly every day that men like this shoot at me.” Her eyes remained fixed upon Clint as she walked toward him. “You saved my life.”

“Actually, things seemed to get bad right about when I rode in.”

“No,” she said while shaking her head. “You saved my life. They were going to kill me. They've been following me ever since I left Amarillo.”

“Do you have any notion of why they'd be after you?” Clint asked.

She nodded and walked over to where her horse was lying. Kneeling down, she reached beneath the saddle and struggled to open the flap of the saddlebag that was pinned between the horse and the ground. She held a small leather pouch, but the pouch had been pulled halfway open as she'd taken it from the crushed bag.

At first, Clint thought he was mistaken. Then again, it would have been pretty difficult to confuse a thick stack of money for anything else. “Damn,” Clint said. “How much is that?”

“Twenty-five thousand,” she replied. “Those men knew I had it on me and they knew I'd be riding alone with it.”

Clint glanced from the woman to the trail that had just been used by the surviving attackers. Neither sight brought him a bit of comfort. “If those men know about that money, we should get the hell out of here.”

“You think there's more of them?”

“I think they'll be awfully quick to get more of whatever they need to get their hands on that kind of cash. Take whatever you need and come with me.”

The first thing she did was walk back to the horse and dig around in the same saddlebag.

“Actually,” Clint said, “just come along with me now. We may not have enough time to collect all of your things.”

She kept digging around, but pulled her hands free before Clint could become too anxious. In her grasp, there was another stack of bills. This one was slightly smaller than the first one, but was still impressive. “This is the rest of what they were probably after,” she said.

“Is there any more in there?” Clint asked.

“No.” After stuffing the money into the pockets of her denim jacket, she unbuckled the saddlebag on the top side of the horse and handed it to Clint. “This is most of my clothes. If I need anything else, I can always get it later.”

“Where are you headed?”

“The
Misty Morning,
” she replied. “It's a boat docked along the—”

“Yeah,” Clint interrupted. “I know where it's docked.”

Her name was Mia Hayley. They didn't introduce themselves to each other until after they'd put the spot of the ambush well behind them. Even for a while after that, Mia sat behind Clint with her head resting on his shoulder as if she'd fallen asleep. Just to stay on the safe side, Clint kept his Colt strapped into its holster and kept one hand resting upon the grip at all times.

Once the scenery around them changed, so did the feeling between Clint and Mia. The land on either side of the trail was getting greener by the minute, and the smell of the river grew thicker in the air. Mia introduced herself in a chipper voice. Clint thought she might have gotten some sleep after all.

“How did you hear about the
Misty Morning
?” she asked.

“I got an invitation.”

“Was it like this one?”

Clint felt her hand brush over his shoulder and turned to see the same fancy lettering on a similar piece of paper. Even though he could see the similarities right away, Clint took the invitation and read it over. His eyes spent most of their time lingering over the spot where the address was inscribed.

“That's the one,” he said while handing it back to her.

“Do you know who's running this whole thing?”

“No.”

“Aren't you curious as to how you got invited?” she asked.

Clint shifted so he could look over his shoulder and found Mia grinning mischievously back at him. She was a slender woman with a strong grip. Even though her arms were fairly skinny, they held onto him as though a hurricane wasn't about to shake her loose. Her face was thin as well, with high cheekbones, a pert nose and lips shaped like a small bow. Black hair hung to her shoulders and was held back by a simple strip of leather.

“You seem pretty anxious to tell me, so why don't you start with your ideas,” Clint said.

“I'll bet a gambler got tired of riding the circuit, so he arranged to have all the players brought to him. He may have even set up a few crooked games to make sure he came out ahead.”

“I was expecting something more sinister, considering how we met up.”

“You mean those men who attacked me?”

Clint could feel her shrug as she cinched her arms around his waist a bit more.

“They had their eye on me at the bank,” she replied. “They followed me out of Amarillo and I thought I'd lost them along the way. I guess I didn't.” After a few seconds, she perked up again and asked, “What about you? What's your theory on the mysterious invitation?”

“Actually, I'd say yours sounds pretty good. It's definitely not as exciting as mine.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I play a lot of cards wherever I go,” Clint explained. “Gamblers keep track of every little detail where the games and players are concerned, so I thought someone kept me in mind for something like this. Besides, I usually get roped into something else while I'm at things like these.”

Mia laughed. “Something like guarding the money or chasing down the cheats, I'd guess.”

“Usually something like that.”

“Are you a lawman?”

Clint looked farther up the trail, silently hoping to see the riverboat so he could point Mia's curiosity in another direction. Since there wasn't anything particularly interesting in sight, Clint replied, “Not exactly.”

“You sure acted like a lawman.”

“A lawman wouldn't have charged headfirst into that much lead like I did.”

“No,” she said as she squeezed him a bit tighter. “He wouldn't.”

“Well, don't be too impressed,” Clint said. “I just hope my luck holds as well as it did when those men were shooting at us.”

“Luck is only important for folks who don't know what they're doing. I'll bet you don't need one bit of luck . . .” Mia's hand drifted over Clint's stomach and quickly brushed along the inside of his thigh. “No matter what you do.”

The riverboat came into view at the same time as the rest of the dock. Clint rode over the top of a hill, looked down and saw it all spread in front of him like a painting. Next to the dock itself, there was a strip of small buildings with people moving among them like busy ants.

“Is that the
Misty Morning
?” Mia asked.

Looking at the riverboat, Clint shrugged and replied, “I hope so. There aren't any other boats docked nearby.”

“What about the rest of it? Are those all shipping offices? Do you think I could buy some nicer clothes? I had to leave some of my dresses behind.”

Instead of trying to answer Mia's excited questions, Clint snapped his reins and told her to hang on. Eclipse started running as if he was just as anxious to get a closer look at the dock. Before Mia could catch her breath long enough to ask any more questions, they were close enough to start reading the signs painted over the buildings near the dock. Clint steered toward the clothing store before Mia even had a chance to ask about it.

The buildings alongside the dock looked like a section of street had been plucked out of a good-sized town and dropped in its current spot. There was one of just about anything a man could want, ranging from a saloon to a furniture shop. But Clint wasn't interested in getting first crack at merchandise that had been loaded off a boat. Instead, he went to the shipping office in the middle of the street.

“Excuse me,” Clint asked the tall man behind the counter.

The man stooped down with his elbows resting on the counter. His skinny nose looked like it had been stolen from a snowman's face, and his clothes looked as if they'd been donated by a scarecrow. When he spoke, it was in a low, rumbling grunt. “Can I help you?”

“Is that the
Misty Morning
out there?”

“Can't you see for yourself?”

Clint waited for a few seconds, until it became clear that the man wasn't going to say anything else. Letting out a sigh, Clint turned to look out the window where the riverboat could be seen. Actually, Clint had to step to another spot since the riverboat was so close that he couldn't see the name of it right away.

“That one says
Red River Runner
,” Clint said.

The clerk had already gotten back to whatever he'd been doing before. Shrugging, he grunted, “There you go.”

“Isn't the
Misty Morning
supposed to be docking here?”

“Were you supposed to meet it here?”

“Yes,” Clint said.

“There you go.”

Tensing his fist for a moment and then forcing himself to let it go, Clint said, “I rode all the way from Labyrinth to get here. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm also about one second away from reaching over this counter, dragging you over it and tossing you out that window.”

Hearing that, the clerk snapped his head back up as if he'd only just noticed Clint was standing there.

Clint smiled at him and said, “There you go.”

The clerk sputtered a few times to himself and turned around to the wall behind him. There were several boards hanging from nails on that wall, and each of those boards had papers attached to it by twine. After picking out one of the boards, the clerk flipped through the papers and tapped it with his finger. “The
Misty Morning
's supposed to be here, but it got delayed.”

“For how long?”

“I just got word about it over the wire and it didn't mention how long. It just said it was going to be delayed. Usually, if a boat's going to be more than a few hours late, they mention it. Otherwise, they just pass on word that they're gonna be . . .”

“Delayed?” Clint asked.

The clerk nodded.

“That wasn't so hard, now was it?”

The clerk shook his head.

“Is there a way for me to be notified when the
Misty Morning
gets here?”

“Sure,” the clerk said as he straightened up and made his way to his original spot. “Are you going to be staying around here?”

“Is there a place to stay nearby?”

“There's the Boathouse just down the way and there's some rooms for rent in the saloon.”

“The Boathouse it is,” Clint said.

“I can have someone run over there to let you know as soon as we get word on when your boat's due in.”

“That's very helpful of you.” Clint reached into his pocket, which caused the clerk to twitch. When he lifted his hand again, Clint held out a silver dollar and set it on the counter. “That's for your trouble. Sorry if I was a little short with you before.”

The clerk reached for the dollar the way a varmint might reach for a bit of cheese in the middle of a snare. When he picked it up without incident, he tucked it away and showed Clint a nervous grin. “No problem, sir. Happens all the time.”

On his way out of the office, Clint muttered, “I wonder why that is.”

After stepping onto the well-maintained boardwalk connecting the long row of buildings, Clint looked down to the clothing shop where he'd last seen Mia. She was nowhere to be found, and judging by the look that had been on her face when they'd arrived, she wouldn't be seen for some time.

The Boathouse was easy enough to spot since it was a three-floor building at the other end of the row. Clint noticed a livery a little farther down and took Eclipse's reins to see about accommodations for the Darley Arabian.

Several folks wandered up and down the row. Most of them were stepping in and out of the shops or peeking into the windows. A few of them looked like sailors, and they guided Clint's eyes directly to the saloon the clerk had mentioned. Two other men didn't seem interested in the shops or the saloon, however.

When he first spotted them, Clint tipped his hat and led Eclipse down the street. As he'd glanced over to the riverboat docked to his left, Clint turned a bit more and found that the two men had decided to walk behind him. Since he was already looking in that direction, Clint turned and took another quick glance at them.

The men were dressed in plain, dark suits with jackets worn open to expose a few spare bullets looped into their gun belts. Although they didn't acknowledge Clint's glance, they didn't look away either. Clint turned away from them and kept walking to the livery. By the time he got there, he was feeling downright foolish for being so suspicious of a few men walking down the street. If there had been more than one street, Clint might have been more concerned.

The livery was set up to keep horses comfortable for extended amounts of time, and Clint didn't mind paying a bit extra on Eclipse's behalf. When he stepped out of the livery, those men in the dark suits were nowhere to be found.