Shadow's Stand (11 page)

“We have not time for this.”

“It’s not like I’m having a drink here.”

Jumping back, he evaded the other man’s next lunge.

“Kill him.”

“Bloodthirsty little thing, isn’t she?” the stranger grunted.

The man feinted in. He was quick, but not quick enough. He also favored his right side where Shadow had kicked him. Shadow brought his elbow down on the back of the man’s neck. He fell but rolled to his feet.

“She’s just got an eye for what’s not worth saving.”

A sulfur scratched across rock. Fei stood there, a lit sulfur in one hand, dynamite in the other.

“Don’t do it, Fei.”

The other man swore and stopped short. “That’s dynamite.”

“Yup.”

Now the odds were even. The other man was as worried about Fei as he. Just for different reasons.

Fei touched the match to the fuse. It immediately began the familiar sizzle.

“Hell!”

Fei brandished the stick. “Get away from him.”

“You letting a woman fight your battles?”

Shadow eyed the sputtering fuse. It didn’t look nearly long enough. “Apparently, I’m not getting a choice.”

“Tell her to put it down.”

Shadow obliged. “Put it down, Fei.”

“I said, get away from him.”

Shadow shrugged and met the other man’s gaze. “She doesn’t want to.”

The man backed up, one step, two, but not far enough for Shadow to be safe from the blast if Fei tossed the dynamite. “No wonder her family let her marry up with you. She’s fucking crazy.”

The fuse was getting dangerously low. “They don’t know yet.”

“In that case, give her back.”

Shit,
he hated dynamite. It was unpredictable, unstable and rarely gave the results one hoped for. “I might just do that.”

He could see from the wildness in Fei’s eyes that she was operating on nerves and fear. “We don’t need the dynamite.”

“He will hurt you.”

The hell he would. “We’re just having a discussion.”

He glanced pointedly at the other man.

“You might be having a discussion, but I’m—”

Shadow jerked his chin in the direction of the dynamite. The man raised both hands and stepped back.

“Two dollars a week ain’t enough for this shit.”

Shadow turned back to Fei. “See, he was just about to leave.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t have to. Just trust me.”

“It’s not safe.”

It was safer than that dynamite. She’d told Lin it was unstable and she was holding it in her hand as if she had all day. Son of a bitch.

“What do you have against this guy, honey?”

“He hurt my cousin.”

The man shook his head and took yet another step back. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“You lie!”

“I just signed on today.”

It might be true, or it might be a lie. Either way, it didn’t matter. That fuse was going to take the choice away from all of them. “Honey, do you remember me telling you all you had to do is ask?”

She nodded.

“Ask me now.”

“I can’t.”

The man took another step back.

With a shake of his head, Shadow drew him back with a soft warning, “Don’t.”

Immediately realizing his mistake in putting distance between them, the man stepped back into the safe area. Shadow was waiting. With a sharp uppercut to his chin, Shadow sent him flying backward. He hit the ground with a thump. He didn’t get up.

“It’s about time,” Fei snapped. Gone was the irrational, panicked woman. In her place was the Fei he was used to seeing. Calm and composed. As cool as a cucumber, Fei plucked the fuse from the dynamite and dropped it on the ground.

It took Shadow a moment to comprehend. “You were bluffing?”

“I bluff much better than I kill.” She shrugged. “Is he dead?”

“He’s out cold.”

“I would prefer him dead.”

Very carefully, Shadow took the dynamite from her hand. Shit, this stuff made him nervous. Always had. The fuse sputtered on the ground. He ground it under his moccasin while sliding his knife back into his sheath. “He’s going to have a hell of a headache when he gets up
and
be out of a job.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be about blowing us both up just to get even.”

“I won’t.”

She was glaring at the man, rage darkening her eyes, tightening her lips. She wanted revenge. Shadow understood that, understood the rage that demanded retribution against any and all. Hell’s Eight had been formed under such rage. When the Mexican army had devastated their village leaving eight boys orphaned, they could have just given up and died. Instead, they’d banded together, scrabbled to stay alive and sworn revenge against the men who’d killed their families.

Not that Tracker’s and his family was anything to mourn, but Caine’s family had been. The Allens’ house had been the Ochoas’ sanctuary. There, he and Tracker had always been able to get their bruises treated, their bellies filled and, even though it had made them uncomfortable, they’d gotten a few hugs. The Allens had been the embodiment of every fairy tale Shadow had ever heard. A loving family who hugged, not hit, who laughed, not raged. Who’d open their doors to two boys who’d only had them slammed in their faces. And those people had been viciously murdered.

As Shadow had dug their graves, he’d felt the first touch of what purpose could do to rage. As he’d tossed the first shovelful of dirt on the mutilated bodies, he’d made a vow. The ones responsible would die. That vow had been picked up by each and every one of Hell’s Eight. And it had been kept.

Eventually, they’d hunted down and killed all those who had murdered their families. And in the process, they’d developed skills and a hell of a reputation. When the last man had been killed, Shadow had waited for the satisfaction to fill the hole where the rage had lived so long. It hadn’t come. There’d just been rage with no purpose. So when the Texas Rangers had offered him a job, he’d accepted, as had all of Hell’s Eight. Not because he’d wanted to uphold the laws of Texas—he had no use for any laws except those he made himself—but because rage without purpose could eat a man alive.

Hiking his sleeve over the heel of his hand, he wiped a smudge of dirt off Fei’s cheek. He didn’t want that empty rage consuming Fei from the inside out. For her, he wanted a future filled with light and love. A home like the Allens’ with a man who saw her as the best part of his day. For that to happen, this needed to be settled.

He palmed his knife. “Do you want me to kill him?”

She blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Make up your mind, but make it now. Don’t carry it around like a cancer in your gut.”

She bit her lip. “It’s not the same, killing him now.”

“As killing in the heat of the moment to defend yourself? No, it’s not, but in the end, killing is killing.”

She touched her hand to her throat. “You would really kill him for me?”

“Ask and find out.”

“What kind of man are you?”

Picking up her pack, he emptied out the last few sticks of dynamite onto the ground. “The kind you need right now.”

CHAPTER SIX

T
HEY
WERE
MAKING
GOOD
TIME
, all things considered. It was doubtful Lin had ever been on a horse before, so anything faster than a walk was likely to pitch her to the ground. He didn’t know, however, how much longer they could go on. The horses were tired.
They
were tired. He looked over his shoulder to see how Lin was faring.

“We need to stop,” Fei said.

Shadow held her a little tighter, remembering those moments when he’d heard the gunshots and her screams. “No, we don’t. Culbart is going to want revenge for what you did.”

“I only took revenge for what he did.”

“That’s the way it goes. Someone starts something and then someone feels the need to get even. And then that revenge begs its own retaliation.”

“He bought my cousin as if she were a bag of flour.”

“Fei!”

Shadow felt sorry for Lin, who appeared as if she wanted to sink into the ground.

“When I tried to explain the mistake, he would not release her. He laughed and said I would have to pay twice as much to get her back.”

Enough for a new beginning.

“That’s why you wanted the gold.”

“Yes. To buy her freedom and to leave.”

“Who sold her in the first place?”

It was Fei’s turn to look ashamed. “My family has lost much face over this.”

“That a fancy way of saying your father?”

“Yes.”

“So Culbart thinks he made a deal, fair and square?”

“No one has right to buy another.”

“I agree, but that doesn’t change the man’s belief that you just stole something from him.”

“I will go to the claim and get his gold.”

“I think the opportunity to make a deal is pretty much dead and gone.”

“He will want the money.”

“By the time you get that gold cashed out, you’re going to have every yahoo in the territory on your tail.”

“For this, I have you.”

Shit.
“For a plan that stupid, you’re going to need the whole U.S. Army.”

“The army that doesn’t like you?”

Shadow nodded. “That would be the one.”

“Then there is no choice. We go to the claim.”

“Only if you want to kiss your gold goodbye. You won’t be able to go back there until things calm down. Likely for a few months. The claim is too close to the Culbart ranch. There’s no place to hide the horses. No way to hide your presence there. And unless you’ve got a supply of jerky there, there’s no way to cook without the smell carrying.”

Lin gasped. “You think they hunt us?”

“I’d bet my horse on it.”

She exchanged a glance with Fei. “We must go home.”

“That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”

“Uncle is there alone,” Lin countered.

“Is this the uncle that sold you to Culbart?”

“Yes.”

“I’m having a hard time working up to concern.”

“He is ill.”

“So?”

Fei made a motion with her hands. “In his head. He does not always know where he is, what he does.”

He didn’t care how crazy he got, Shadow couldn’t see himself selling his niece. “No.”

Fei’s chin came up. “He is my father. I have a daughter’s duty.”

He noticed she wasn’t making a claim of love. “And I’m your husband, which means I have a few duties of my own.”

“And that duty extends to my family.”

“It does?”

“If you claim the role you must claim it all.”

“All or nothing?”

“Yes.”

He turned Night south, toward her house. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

T
HERE
WAS
NOTHING
LEFT
of the small house and barn except smoking ruins.

“No, no. Oh, no!”

Fei slipped from the saddle and ran to the barn, dropping to her knees in front of the collapsed beams. Lin followed more slowly. Shadow urged Night over, taking in the scene. Smoke hung in the air in an acrid cloud, along with the odor of charred flesh. Animal or human, it was hard to tell. A lot of anger went behind this much destruction. Lin didn’t look the type to instill such passion in a man, but some men could be funny when it came to their possessions. Shadow swung down from the saddle, dropping Night’s reins to the ground, effectively tying him.

Suddenly Fei jumped to her feet and lunged toward the ruins. He barely caught her before she burned herself on the smoking timbers. Her shoulders were delicate, fragile beneath his hands.

“My father!”

The stench of charred flesh took on a more sinister connotation. Shit, had her father been in there?

“There’s nothing to know, honey. If your father was in there… There’s nothing left.”

“He was in the barn.”

Lin covered her mouth with her hands and shuddered.

“How do you know?”

“I locked him in.”

Way too slender to take on that kind of guilt.

“Why?”

“He lost his mind, but not his skill. He would believe strange things. Do strange things. I couldn’t trust him.”

“Not to blow something up?”

She nodded.

“Oh, Fei, it was you,” Lin whispered.

Fei nodded.

“All this time?”

Another nod. “We needed the money.”

Shadow looked between the two girls. “What are you two talking about?”

There was another of those looks between the cousins that gave him the uneasies. Turning Fei so she faced him, he asked, “What did you do?”

“I pretended to be my father. I did his work.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “For the railroad?”

“Yes.”

Now the cloth she’d left behind on the bush made sense. She’d wanted people to assume her father had been there.

Handling explosives for the railroad was one of the most dangerous of jobs. And not only because of the materials used, but because the railroad regarded Chinese workers as disposable so didn’t waste much time and money on safety. “How did you pull it off?”

“To the whites, we all look alike,” Lin snapped.

“You don’t look like a man,” he retorted. No matter what, he couldn’t imagine thinking Fei a man.

“If I stoop my shoulders, dirty my face and wear the large hat my father favored, I do. No one gets too close to the explosives.”

That he could believe.

“And Uncle was…” Lin made a motion with her hands, searching for the word.

“Eccentric,” Fei finished for her. “Always, he made his wishes known through me.”

“His English was bad,” Lin explained.

Fei continued as if her cousin hadn’t interrupted. “When he insisted no one be within a hundred yards on blasting day, no one questioned him.”

“You had it all figured out.”

Fei stared at the rubble, silent tears running down her face. The shiver that went through her snaked its way up his own spine. “No. I did not know how to restore Jian Tseng’s mind. I did not know how long I could fool the railroad. I did not know how to control him when he went from the father I knew to the man I didn’t.”

Shadow touched the fading bruise on her cheek. “He’s the one who hit you?”

“Yes.”

“So you started locking him in the barn.”

She shook her head. “He was in the storm cellar below.”

Lin took a step forward. “Maybe he survived.”

Shadow felt like a heel, killing off their hope. “If the heat didn’t get him, the smoke did.”

Fei moaned and wept. He didn’t know what to do to ease her pain. She pulled away. She stood beside him, her arms wrapped around her waist, so isolated that she might as well be halfway across the world. He’d kept the rage out of her life, but how did he protect her from the guilt?

“At least he’s at peace.” It was a poor offering. Shadow was surprised when Fei nodded.

Lin brushed off her hands. “He must be buried properly.”

Fei nodded again.

Shadow had to be the bad guy once more. “It’s going to take days for that rubble to cool down.”

“We will wait.”

“If Culbart doesn’t have someone watching this place, he’s a fool.” He looked at Lin. “Did the man strike you as a fool?”

She shook her head. “He is mean and cunning, like a snake.”

The cousins had a thing about reptiles. First he was a dragon and now Culbart was a snake. From the little Shadow had heard when he came into town, Culbart had a reputation as a hard-ass and for being ruthless when it came to protecting his property lines, but he had never heard anything particularly bad rumored about him. But a woman might see him differently.

“Then we can’t hang around for a funeral.”

“My father’s soul will not rest without a proper burial,” Fei argued.

“Then say a few words to settle him down.”

Both women gave him a dirty look. He didn’t care. The old man was dead. The women were alive and it was his job to keep them that way. Gentling his tone, he pointed out, “There’s nothing you can do here.”