Dead Before Sundown

Chapter 27

Reb Russell gave Frank a friendly smile in the strengthening dawn light.

“What are you talkin’ about, Frank?” he asked. “I told you who I am. Reb Russell. Just a cowpoke from Texas headin’ for the rodeo.”

“A cowpoke who knows about the Métis and their troubles with the Canadian government?”

Reb shrugged. “It was in all the papers. How do you know about it?”

Reb had a point there, Frank supposed. It was true that he had read newspaper stories about the previous rebellions up here north of the border.

That wasn’t enough to get rid of all of Frank’s suspicions, though.

“That was a fast draw you made a few minutes ago.”

“I have a lot of time to practice,” Reb said. “And I won’t lie to you. I’ve run into my share of trouble in my time. Too many hombres still seem to think the best way to settle an argument is with a gun.”

“Funny I haven’t heard of you, then.”

“I’ve been lucky. I never had to kill anybody until I came up here to Canada.” Reb gave a rueful chuckle. “Maybe I should’ve stayed home.” He grew more serious as he hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt. “Look, Frank, if you and me are gonna have a problem here …”

Frank shook his head. “No problem. Just forget I said anything, Reb. With everything that’s happened, I’m just naturally a mite leery, I guess.”

“Well, yeah, I can understand that.” Reb grinned again. “I’m glad you understand that you and I are on the same side, Frank. Seems to me that right now, you and me are all we got.”

“And Salty,” Frank pointed out.

“Yeah, sure, Salty, too, when he gets back on his feet.”

Frank looked around for his hat. He found it, picked it up, and put it on.

“I’m going to take a look around. Maybe some of those horses didn’t run off too far. If we can round up even one or two of them, it’ll help.”

“You bet it will,” Reb said. “We’re goin’ after Meg, aren’t we?”

Frank nodded. “Of course we are. And the sooner we get on Palmer’s trail, the better. Take care of Salty, will you?”

“Sure. If he wakes up and needs anything, I’ll be right here.”

Reb was right about one thing: Frank had no choice but to trust him. They would have to work together if they were going to get out of here and rescue Meg.

As he walked through the hills looking for the horses, Frank tried not to think about the fact that Meg was Palmer’s prisoner. He knew she was good at taking care of herself, and he told himself that she would be all right until they could catch up to her and her captor.

If she wasn’t, he would kill Palmer himself, even if it took him the rest of his life to track the man down.

A feeling of frustration grew stronger in Frank as he continued to search without finding any of the horses. Palmer might have taken several of the animals with him, but he couldn’t have led all of them away. Some of them had bolted in panic from all the shooting after Palmer turned them loose. They ought to still be around here somewhere.

But he didn’t see any, and when he stopped and turned around to scan the hills around him, he realized that he was out of sight of the camp, too. He didn’t want to go too much farther. Like most Westerners, he wasn’t used to walking when he could ride. His feet already hurt.

Disgusted, he turned around and started back toward the camp. He could search again later. In the meantime, it was possible that some of the horses would wander up on their own and save him from having to look for them.

When he reached the camp, he saw that Salty was awake and propped up against a log. Reb knelt beside him, holding a canteen. The young man looked back over his shoulder at Frank and asked, “Any luck?”

Frank shook his head. “Nope.”

“I was afraid that was what you were gonna say, when you didn’t bring any of the horses back with you.”

Frank sat down on the log. “How are you feeling, Salty?”

“Like I been shot,” the old-timer replied. “Hurts like Hades, too. How bad am I hit, Frank? Am I gonna die?”

“Not from that bullet crease in your side,” Frank said with a smile. “You’re weak because you lost some blood, but you’ll be all right.”

Salty took the canteen from Reb and swigged down a long drink of water. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and said, “I sure wish I had a drink right about now. Danged if I don’t.”

“Reckon that’ll have to wait until we get back to civilization,” Frank told him.

“Civilization … bah! Civilization’s full o’ crooked varmints like Palmer and fiendish contraptions like them devil guns and a bunch o’ skunks who ain’t got nothin’ better to do than stir up a whole heap o’ trouble. Why, for a nickel I’d chuck the whole blamed thing and go live in a cave somewheres like a danged ol’ hermit!”

“Then you’d never get a drink,” Reb pointed out.

Salty scratched at his beard. “Well, that’s true,” he allowed. “I reckon there’s a few good things about civilization … but mighty dang few!”

By now the sun was well up. Frank said, “We need to get some breakfast going.”

“I’ll handle that,” Reb offered. He patted Salty on the shoulder. “You just sit there and rest, old-timer.”

Reb bustled off to gather more wood and prepare a meal. While he was doing that, Salty said quietly, “The boy tells me Palmer ran off with Meg. Is that true, Frank?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Dadgum it! You got to get after ‘em. You and Reb just leave me here and get on the trail. I’ll be all right. I can take care o’ myself.”

“I’m sure you can,” Frank said, “but we don’t have any horses.”

“Well, then, you’re just gonna have to go after ‘em on foot. You can’t leave Meg in that bastard’s hands, Frank. You just can’t.”

“I’m not going to,” Frank promised. “But we’ll never catch up on foot. We’ve got to find some horses somewhere. Maybe there’s a trapper’s cabin or a little ranch around here. I’ll have a look again later.”

“I don’t like it. That son of a bitch could be doin’ ‘most anything.”

Frank nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m trying not to think about it right now, until I can actually do something about it.”

“One thing we can count on,” Salty mused. “Ol’ Meg ain’t gonna cooperate with him. If there’s one thing that gal knows how to do, it’s put up a fight!”

The blonde took Palmer by surprise, kicking him in the chest as soon as he untied her wrists from the saddle horn. He had thought she was only half-conscious after the long, hard ride and not really a threat.

But suddenly her boot thudded into him and the impact sent him staggering back a couple of steps. A rock rolled under his foot, and his balance deserted him. He went down, sprawling on the ground.

The wicked kick had thrown the woman off balance, too. She grabbed at the horn, and even in his pain Palmer knew that if she stayed in the saddle, she could gallop away from him and might succeed in escaping.

Her hands were still lashed together with her belt, though, and that made her grab an awkward one. Her fingers slipped off the horn, and she toppled to the ground with an angry cry.

Like a flash, she was up and running. Palmer struggled to his feet and went after her.

She was fast, and Palmer wasn’t in the best shape in the world. She began to pull away from him.

He ought to just let her go, he thought. Out here alone and on foot, with no gun and no supplies, she wouldn’t last long.

But she would be a loose end, and he didn’t like those. He thought he might still be able to get some use out of her, too, even if it was just to warm his blankets. Looked like he wasn’t ever going to get any comfort from Charlotte Marat, so he might as well take it where he could find it.

He ignored his pounding heart and summoned up some more speed. When he was close enough behind the blonde, he launched himself in a diving tackle that brought her down and sent both of them rolling in the grass.

The woman cried out in anger as she tried to get away from Palmer. He grabbed her and threw himself on top of her. The belt had come loose from her wrists. She flailed punches at him until he managed to grab her wrists and pin her arms to the ground. With him lying on top of her, she bucked and heaved but couldn’t throw him off.

“Damn it, stop fighting!” he told her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You son of a bitch! Let go of me! Oh!”

Palmer was well aware that he was lying on top of some nicely curved female flesh. He couldn’t help but respond to that.

She must have felt his response, because she started struggling even harder. Palmer bore down on her and said, “Blast it, I’m gonna knock you out if you don’t stop fightin’!”

“Try it, you bastard!” she yelled in defiance.

Palmer let go of her left wrist and tried to use his right hand to clout her on the jaw. She was too fast for him, though. Her hand shot up. Her arm blocked his punch, and she reached across to grab his wounded ear and give it a vicious twist. Palmer howled in pain.

He hurt so bad that his grip on her loosened. She twisted away from him and tried to get up so she could run again. She had made it to hands and knees when he lunged after her and snagged her leg. He yanked it out from under her, which sent her plunging face first into the dirt.

Palmer tried not to think about how much his ear hurt or how he could feel the hot, wet trickle of blood down the side of his face. He scrambled on top of her again, and this time since she was face down she couldn’t muster as much of a fight. He got hold of an arm and twisted it behind her, making her cry out.

He put his other hand on the back of her neck and held her down. “I oughta kill you, you little bitch!” he roared.

“Go ahead,” she urged him through clenched teeth. “Go ahead, damn you!”

“Not hardly.” He kept her arm trapped behind her and slid his other arm around her neck, tightening it into a choke hold that cut off her air. After a minute he got his legs underneath him and heaved to his feet, dragging her up with him. He marched her back toward the horses.

When they got there, Palmer threw her on the ground so hard that she rolled over a couple of times. She lay there struggling to catch her breath as she lifted her head and glared up at him.

Palmer’s gun had stayed in its holster despite all the ruckus. He drew the weapon now and pointed it at the blonde.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. There’s a lot more at stake here than just you.”

“What are you … talking about?” she asked.

“Gold,” he said. “And plenty of it. Does that interest you?”

“Not near as much … as killing you would,” she managed to say with a sneer.

“Yeah, well, that’s not gonna happen, so you might as well forget about it,” he said. “But if you cooperate with me, you might come out ahead on this deal.”

“You’re trying to … buy me off?”

“I’d rather do that than shoot you.” Palmer smiled. “Better gold than lead, right?”

She stared at him for a long moment before saying, “What’s to stop me from telling you I’ll cooperate and then double-crossing you?”

“The fact that you know I’ll kill you if you try something like that. And the fact that your hands are going to be tied most of the time. But I can take it a little easier on you if you promise you won’t try to get away again.”

She appeared to consider what he was saying, then asked, “You’ll stay away from me? You won’t lay a hand on me?”

“Not like that, if that’s the way you want it. You’re pretty good-looking, but to tell you the truth, I’m more interested in that gold than in anything you’ve got.”

She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “You’re a vile son of a bitch.”

“And the more you remember that, the better off we’ll both be,” Palmer said with a chuckle.

She sighed. “All right. I’ll cooperate … for now.”

“Good. You can get up, build a fire, and fix us some coffee and something to eat.” Palmer paused. “I remember you from that bunch of mail-order brides in Skagway, but I don’t recall your name.”

She got up and brushed herself off, saying with obvious reluctance, “It’s Meg.”

“All right, Meg, get to work. You play along with me and you’ll come out of this all right. Maybe better than all right.”

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You know Frank’s going to come after you and kill you, don’t you?”

“Frank Morgan?” Palmer smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Morgan’s dead. I shot him myself and saw him go down.”

Meg caught her breath as a stricken look appeared on her face.

“So are the other two who were with you,” Palmer went on. “It’s just you and me now, Meg, and that’s the way it’s gonna be from now on.”

Even as he spoke, Palmer hoped he was right. He didn’t know for sure that Frank Morgan was dead.

But even if the gunfighter was still alive, Palmer had himself an ace in the hole.

A blond ace in the hole, and he was going to hang on to her until the time was right.