Wolf Creek (12 page)

“You do that and I go straight for the
marshal’s office. I’ll give you tonight to think about it.”

She flipped her skirts and slid through the
crowd. Chance couldn’t move for a moment, just stood against the
wall with his mind churning. There was new blood in the room
tonight. He didn’t need any distractions as he felt the players
out, learned their tells, and figured out how to beat them. He most
especially didn’t need this sort of distraction. How was he going
to get them out of this? How could he prove that they were
absolutely
not
those reprobates, Devon Day
and the Sweetwater Kid? They had no friends in Kansas, the way they
did in Denver and San Francisco, who would swear that Messrs.
Knight and Devon were simply respectable businessmen.

They certainly didn’t want any lawmen asking
awkward questions. That bag in the bank vault still had some of the
original bills from Kansas City – bills that could be traced. And
if they simply grabbed it and ran, Deborah was sure to spill the
beans.

Of course, there was no way for Deborah to
be certain of their identities -- nobody could be certain of that,
not without accurate wanted posters, not without photographs. No,
she was just blowing smoke. And what kind of sister would even
think of turning her own brother in, anyway?

Chance forced his thoughts back to business.
He’d need his wits if he wanted to advance to the next round of
play. He pasted on a Happy-To-Be-Here Face, strode firmly to a
table, and lost himself in the quiet frenzy that was professional
poker. Little was said outside the bare necessities of the game.
The piano player sat behind the bar, nursing a beer. Even the
onlookers spoke in hushed tones. This wasn’t your friendly Saturday
night sit-down, where players were as eager for the latest news as
they were for a good hand. This would be the round that
differentiated the true professionals from those who merely aspired
to be.

But what if Deborah wasn’t blowing smoke?
What if the damned girl was actually hard enough to point out her
own kin to the law? And if she was, what could convince her that
she was barking up the wrong tree?

He was the one with the ideas. Why couldn’t
he come up with one now? If he ignored Deborah’s demand, took her
boyfriend down, what guarantee would he have that she wouldn’t go
straight to the law and start pointing out resemblances? But if
Chance bowed out of the game, even if he lost to a better player,
wouldn’t the girl assume it was confession of guilt? Wouldn’t she
decide to bleed the mark a little more?

There had to be a way out of this. There was
always a way out.

The game swirled around him. He responded
without thought. Fold, raise, call ... he was surprised to reach
the first break and find he still had more chips than the others. A
break was a great idea. He needed to table this whole thing until
he could have a good, hard think. He needed time to come up with
something.

What he really needed was to talk to his
partner – but he couldn’t. There was no way Chance was going to
help “save” Kye’s sister, not now that she’d shown her true colors.
Her presence in the town would have to remain a secret. And speak
of the devil! No sooner did he get back inside (the good citizens
of this benighted town seemed not to have heard of indoor plumbing)
than the girl in question sidled over to him, putting so much extra
sway into her thin hips that he half expected the players between
them to be batted aside. He felt his brows pull together, and made
no effort to put on a more reasonable Face for her.

“If you’re giving me the night,” he said
shortly, “then leave me alone to think about it.” He’d never hurt a
woman, but the urge was rising.

“Is that any way to treat your partner’s
sister? A gentleman would buy a lady a drink.”

He closed his hand around one arm, whirled
her around to face the way she’d come, and gave her a shove off.
“If I see a lady in this place, I might do that.”

She shot him a pouty look and sashayed back
to the corner. Her boyfriend had been forbidden to use her as a
distraction, so she’d had to find a chair in plain sight instead of
perching on his lap.

In plain sight ... that rang a bell
somewhere deep inside him, and a genuine smile stretched his lips
as he resumed his seat. His brain worked best when it had something
to gnaw on under the table, while he concentrated on the surface.
Once this was all over, once he was relaxing on that hotel bed,
he’d see what devious thoughts had coalesced down there. It took
some doing, but he put Deborah out of his mind as the game resumed.
It helped that this was the last round of the evening, the one he’d
have to win if he wanted to return. He put his brain to counting
cards and calculating odds, spotting tells and judging his
opponents. Time enough to worry about Kye’s sister after he’d won a
place in the next round.

He could feel his brain chewing away at
something as he collected his bets, as he ate breakfast and stopped
by the bank, as he tried to unwind enough to get a little sleep.
When he woke that evening, he had it.

“I hope that ain’t your ‘I’m About To Get Us
In A Mess Of Trouble’ Face,” Kye said sourly. “I got to head back
to the forge after dinner.”

“How’d you like to walk away with the
winnings of the poker tournament?”

“I thought that’s why you was here.”

Chance hiked an eyebrow. “I mean everything,
not just first prize. How’d you like to take the bank while we’re
here?”

Kye dropped into a chair, waving away the
cloud of dust that rose as his cinder-covered backside met the
upholstery. “Have you been hitting the hard stuff, kid? We ain’t
done no work on that bank. I got no blueprints. I don’t even got no
explosives.”

“You won’t need any for this one, old man.
I’ve got the combination. You’ve still got the bar spreader in your
bag. Think of all that lovely poker money, just sitting there doing
nothing.”

Kye snorted. “Likely got the prize money
locked up at one of the gambling houses.”

“You always look on the dark side. You can’t
lose this time. All you’ll have to do is pop the back door, put the
bar spreader to work, and twirl the dial. Shouldn’t take you more
than an hour, tops.”

“‘Shouldn’t take me’? Where in hell are
you
planning to be?”

“Sitting in plain sight at the poker table,
of course.” Chance dropped into the second chair and leaned
forward. This is where it got tricky. Kye was awfully good at
spotting when his partner was stretching the truth. Chance had to
convey the very real danger without spilling the beans about
Deborah. “One of the deputies has been giving me the eye. I can
hear the little gears whirling in the man’s head, adding you and me
together with Kansas and money.”

As this statement agreed with Kye’s general
suspicions concerning the law, he bought it. That line appeared
between his brows, the one that said he was thinking of pounding
something … or someone. “I said this wasn’t your brightest idea,
dammit! We ain’t had long enough to look like our real selves
again. You got a pale strip under your nose, and your hair’s barely
long enough to curl up good.”

“Fine. It wasn’t my best idea. You
happy?”

“You’re admitting it? You have been
drinking.”

“Just pay attention. We need a way to divert
suspicion from Chance Knight and Kye Devon. What time do you
usually wrap up your blacksmith stuff?”

“Oh, midnight or so.” Kye’s brows drew even
closer together. “Why?”

“Because you’ll need to hit the bank after
that. Tonight.”

“Have you plumb lost your mind?”

Chance shoved out of the chair. He could
never sit still when the thinking urge was on him. He ticked off
his points as he paced. “Devon Day and the Sweetwater Kid need to
take the bank when Chance Knight is in plain sight at the poker
tournament. The safe needs to be cracked, not blown, because Dev
can’t crack safes. Your friends at the smithy need to be able to
testify that you put in a full day’s work and headed off to bed,
then showed up at the ass-crack of dawn for more.”

“You ain’t planning on me getting much
sleep.”

“Think of it as another job. One that’s
going to put that deputy off our trail for good. I’ll unlock the
side door for you on my way out tonight, then you just need to get
through the bars.”

Kye scrubbed a hand over his chin. “I can’t
believe I’m even thinking about this cockamamie plan.”

“It’ll work. And we’ll put a note in the
safe to make certain they know it’s us.”

“Just sign it ‘Devon Dunce and the
Sweetwater Idiot.’“

Chance ripped a blank page from his
notebook. “Heard about your big poker game while we were in Kansas
City - you should try it again next year.”

“I bet they get a laugh out of that.”

It’d be enough if he and Kye could get a
laugh -- after their safe arrival in Denver or San Francisco. He
had to make this work.

Just to be on the safe side, however, he
detoured to the railway station after dinner. He and Kye could
catch the evening train after they hit the bank. Everything would
work out just fine. The bank would go down as easily as that side
door.

Banks never failed to amuse him. They spent
all that money on the latest safes, on thick iron cages to surround
those safes, and then skimped on the deadbolts. Five minutes with
his picks, and anybody could have walked into the building. The
trick was going to be getting through that cage, but he’d bet his
poker winnings that Kye wouldn’t need a whole hour with his bar
spreader.

Chance’s belly was complaining again as he
neared the gambling house. There were just too many ways for this
to go to hell. Kye was right: this was damn near no planning at
all, and he probably deserved to have it blow up in his face. But
Kye didn’t deserve to go down with him. Should he table the whole
thing, just call Deborah’s bluff and take the consequences?

Too risky. He couldn’t let the law get their
hands on that carpetbag in the vault. No, he’d have to go through
with the plan, flimsy as it was. Knowing that didn’t make his heart
slow down or calm his churning stomach.

Deborah was waiting just inside the door.
She’d probably been lurking in that corner for an hour, waiting
like a trapdoor spider to pounce. “You had your night to think,
mister.”

Finesse, the girl didn’t have. He reined in
his irritation. This was one time he needed to stay cool and in
control. He closed his hand on her arm, none too gently, and pulled
her outside.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said softly.
“First, you have no idea who we really are. And second, if I was
the man you claim I am, do you think you’d walk away from
this?”

Enough light shone from the window for him
to see that hit home. Her grand schemes of blackmail hadn’t
included actually dealing with the outlaw she’d backed into the
corner. He put on his Desperado Face and pulled her closer.

“You think The Sweetwater Kid would just
fold up and let you take him, that Devon Day would just ride off
without a shot? And yet, here you are in the dark with a
stranger.”

She swallowed hard and pulled at his hand.
“All I got to do is scream. Everybody’d hear and come running.”

“You’d be dead before they even got to their
feet.” Chance let his eyes grow even colder. Her face was snow-pale
in the darkness. He let the silence build for a long count of
three.

“You won’t – I’m Kye’s sister!” Her free
hand rose to slap him, and he captured that as well.

He might not be as strong as her brother,
but he had no difficulty yanking her into the darkness of the
alley. Deborah opened her mouth, presumably to scream, but all that
came out was a high-pitched squeak, like a mouse facing a rattler.
She trembled like an unbroken colt in his hands.

Chance waited in silence for another long
moment, then dropped the Desperado Face along with her hands.
“However, like I said, you’re wrong. Chance Knight is not a killer,
and neither is your brother.”

She stumbled away from him, slamming against
the wall of the next building. “I’ll still go to the marshal. I’ll
tell him you told me who you was.”

“You won’t, because I’m bowing out, just
like you wanted.”

“What?” She braced both arms against the
wall behind her. “You just said...”

“I said we weren’t who you think we are.
That doesn’t mean I want the law giving me a good, hard look. I
don’t have the time it’d take to clear my name.” He took two quick
steps forward, and she cringed back, holding up an arm between
them. He grabbed it and pulled her close again. “Don’t think that
makes me an easy target. A man doesn’t have to be an outlaw to be
dangerous.”

He hauled her back onto the boardwalk. Her
mouth hung open, and she stared at him like he’d sprouted a third
eye. Chance leaned in one more time. “Now, we’re going back inside
so I can finish this farce. And once we leave town, if you so much
as
think
of getting more money out of either of us, you’re
going to find out how dangerous I really am. And you’ll wish you
just had a bank robber to deal with.”

She walked beside him as though she were
sleep-walking. He let go of her arm, watched her wobble to her
corner chair. Silas was already seated at one of the tables, and
Chance took an empty seat there. High time to get this over
with.

It wasn’t easy to lose convincingly. He
anted up on what he knew were bluffs. He raised on nothing. He
folded good hands. He even drew to an inside straight. And all the
time, his stomach churned. Had a passing deputy discovered the
unlocked door? Was the law waiting for his partner within the bank?
What if they heard the bar spreader and surrounded the building?
What if the manager had changed the combination on the safe? His
mind kept throwing out possibilities, each of them worse than the
one before. His shirt was wet with sweat before the first break.
The bartender took one look at his face and passed him the
bottle.