Dead Before Sundown

Chapter 31

But even as Joseph fired, Mirabeau was already moving, twisting around and throwing himself to the side so that the bullet from Joseph’s pistol whipped harmlessly past his head.

The big man’s arm came up in a vicious backhanded blow that crashed into Joseph’s jaw and flung him against the wall. Charlotte screamed as Mirabeau lunged after Joseph and grabbed the wrist of his gun hand.

Bone cracked as Mirabeau gave the wrist a savage twist. Joseph cried out in pain. The gun slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers and thudded to the carpet runner in the center of the hallway.

Mirabeau kept hold of Joseph’s broken wrist and used his other hand to pound a couple of swift punches into the smaller man’s face. Joseph’s head rocked back. His surroundings whirled crazily around him for a second, then a black curtain seemed to drop over his eyes. He was still conscious, but just barely.

He heard a door open, and a second later he felt himself shoved into a room. His legs turned rubbery and collapsed, dumping him on the floor. A kick dug into his belly and drove the air from his lungs. He lay there helplessly, for the moment blinded by pain and gasping for breath.

Another sound came to his ears, but in his stunned state, it took him several seconds to figure out that it was Charlotte crying. The sharp crack of a slap silenced the sobs.

“Quiet,” Mirabeau ordered in a harsh whisper. “People will come to see what that shot was about. As far as they know, no one is in this room.”

Sure enough, a few moments later footsteps came from the hall, and a man’s loud voice asked, “Did anybody see what the hell happened up here? Who fired that shot?”

The red-shot darkness that had descended over Joseph’s vision was fading now. He could see a little again. Mirabeau loomed over him. Mirabeau had one arm wrapped around Charlotte’s waist, and his other hand was clamped over her mouth to keep her from crying out.

Joseph tried to move, but his muscles didn’t want to cooperate. He shifted just enough to draw Mirabeau’s attention. The man kicked him again. Charlotte struggled in Mirabeau’s grip, but she was no match for his brutal strength.

The hubbub in the corridor grew louder. Someone knocked on the door. Mirabeau didn’t answer, and his iron grip on Charlotte kept her from responding. Eventually the commotion died down, and the people in the corridor went away.

When Mirabeau let go of Charlotte, she tried to slap him. He caught her wrist in mid-swing.

“Settle down and behave, Charlotte, or I’ll have to hurt you like I hurt Joseph,” he threatened her.

Joseph watched through slitted eyes. His broken wrist throbbed in agony, but he found himself unable to make a sound.

Charlotte stopped struggling with Mirabeau. “How … how could you do that to Joseph?” she asked in a wretched voice.

“How could I …” Mirabeau shook his head. “That precious brother of yours tried to kill me! Didn’t you see?”

“Because he doesn’t want to be a party to hundreds of cold-blooded murders!”

“It’s not murder,” Mirabeau said. “It’s politics.”

She just stared at him, aghast at his casual pronouncement.

Joseph got his good hand underneath him and pushed himself into a sitting position. By the time he was upright, Mirabeau had drawn a gun and pointed it at him.

“Don’t make me kill you, Joseph,” Mirabeau warned. “I’m not sure your sister would ever forgive me for that.”

“You’re already beyond forgiveness,” Charlotte said in an icy voice.

Mirabeau’s broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “The cause comes before personal considerations. I understand that, even if the two of you don’t.” He looked at Joseph. “Did you really think I wasn’t waiting for you to try something, my friend?”

Joseph had caught his breath enough to say, “You are not … my friend. Never again … Anton.”

Mirabeau shrugged again. “I can live without friendship—” He glanced at Charlotte. “And without love, if it means my people will be free.”

“How can you contemplate doing such evil in the name of good?”

“There is no good or evil, only freedom or slavery.”

“You’re wrong, Anton.”

“We shall see.” Mirabeau kept the gun trained on Joseph. “But not if the two of you continue to interfere. I don’t like to do this, but I have to make sure you won’t ruin everything.”

“How are you going to do that?” Joseph managed to sneer. “Kill us both?”

Mirabeau shook his head as he stepped closer. “No. But you won’t be interfering with me anymore.”

Even if he hadn’t been in such pain he could barely move, Joseph wouldn’t have been fast enough to avoid what happened next. Mirabeau bent down, and the gun in his hand rose and fell. Joseph felt the smashing impact on his head. This time when the black curtain dropped, it enveloped him completely.

He was there, and then abruptly, he wasn’t.

“What’s to stop me from yelling for help?” Meg wanted to know as she and Palmer stood in the darkened doorway of a business across the street from the Drover’s Rest that was closed for the night.

“Go ahead and yell,” Palmer said. He pressed the barrel of the pistol he held harder into Meg’s side. “I’ll just shoot you and be out of here before anybody knows what happened. As many people as there are in Calgary right now, nobody’s gonna find me.”

It was a bluff—mostly—but he had a point. The exposition and rodeo had swelled Calgary’s population to several times its normal size, and it was already the biggest town in this part of the country. If a man wanted to hide from the law, Calgary was a good place to do it right now.

“Anyway,” Palmer went on, “you’re a smart girl, Meg. You’ve figured out by now that I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, if you play along with me, I might just give you a share of the gold.”

“I don’t want any of the gold,” Meg said coldly. “You killed Frank and Salty and Reb.”

Palmer sighed. “You’re just not gonna get over that, are you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re gonna come with me. I’ve got to find some place to stash you while I go on about my business.”

They had trailed Joseph and Charlotte Marat into Calgary from the place outside of town where the rest of the group had camped. Palmer didn’t know the big, bearded man with the Marats, but he seemed to be in charge. Palmer intended to grab the three of them and use them to force the others to turn over the gold.

He couldn’t do that if he had to watch Meg like a hawk all the time, though. He prodded her into motion now, herding her at gunpoint through the alleys of this busy neighborhood near Victoria Park.

He’d heard about a place where he might be able to leave Meg and have her guarded. He knew approximately where the house was located, and when they got there he recognized it from the description he’d heard back in Skagway. It was a big house near the railroad tracks, surrounded by aspens.

The woman who answered the door had the pinched, suspicious face of madams all over the frontier. She regarded the two people standing on her porch and said, “Men don’t usually bring girls with them, mister.”

“Your name Alice Beale?” Palmer demanded.

“What if it is?”

“Owen Lundy sent me.”

“Owen …” The madam’s face softened instantly. “Where is he?”

“He’ll be along in a day or two,” Palmer lied. “For now, he told me that if I ever needed any help in Calgary, you were the woman to see.”

Alice Beale lowered her voice. “What do you want, mister?”

He let her see the gun he had pressed to Meg’s side. “You think you could keep up with this little hellcat for me for a day or two?”

A greedy smile curved the woman’s mouth as she took in Meg’s blond, wholesome good looks. “Want me to put her to work, do you?”

“No,” Palmer said quickly. “Just lock her in a room and keep her there. Make sure she stays quiet and doesn’t cause any trouble.”

The madam didn’t ask any questions. She just said, “I reckon I could do that.” Then her eyes narrowed again. “But it’ll cost you.”

“I expect to pay. That won’t be a problem.”

“Better not be.” Alice Beale nodded. “Although if you were to skip out on me, I could get what you owe out of this one. Pretty quick, too.”

“It won’t come to that,” Palmer said. He gave Meg a shove toward the door. “Get in there.”

Suddenly she tried to break away and run. Palmer grabbed her and threw her down on the porch. The madam turned her head to call over her shoulder, “Titus!”

A massive man with a bald, bullet-shaped head loomed up behind her. “Yeah, Miss Alice?” he rumbled.

“Take this girl upstairs,” she ordered. “Lock her in Desdemona’s old room.”

“You want me to quiet her down first?”

“No, not unless you have to.” As the huge man picked up Meg, Alice Beale leaned closer to her and went on, “You don’t want Titus to have to quiet you down, missie. I promise you, you don’t.”

Meg sagged in Titus’s grip. Palmer smiled. He knew despair when he saw it. Meg wouldn’t give any more trouble, and she would be here waiting for him when he got back. He’d be a lot richer than he was now, too.

“I appreciate this,” he told the madam as Titus and Meg disappeared inside the house. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

She snorted. “Damn right you will.”

Palmer left the house and headed back toward the Drover’s Rest. When he got there, he brushed his clothes off before he went in. As he crossed the lobby, he looked around, but he didn’t see any familiar faces.

“Howdy,” he said to the clerk at the desk. “Couple of friends of mine are supposed to be staying here. Joseph Marat and his sister Charlotte. Have they checked in yet?”

The clerk obviously didn’t find anything unusual about the question. He nodded and said, “Yes, sir. They’re in Rooms Fourteen and Fifteen upstairs. Their friend Mr. Mirabeau is in Room Five.”

Palmer grinned. “Ah, so Mirabeau’s here, too. Splendid.”

So that was the big man’s name. It didn’t mean anything to Palmer.

He nodded his thanks to the clerk and headed for the stairs. No one tried to stop him as he climbed to the second floor, but as he passed several men on their way down, he heard them talking about a shot that had gone off upstairs a while earlier. No one seemed to know what it was about.

That was odd, Palmer thought, but probably none of his business.

Since he’d been lucky enough to find out what he needed to know, he went to the door of Room Five. He would brace Mirabeau first, since the man was the most likely to either have the gold or know where it was. He would deal with the Marats later, if he needed to.

The hallway was deserted at the moment. Palmer slipped his gun out of the holster under his coat and used his other hand to knock on the door.

“Mr. Mirabeau?” he called. “Telegram for you, sir?”

At first he thought there was no response. Then he frowned and leaned closer to the panel. Sure enough, he heard some muffled sounds coming from the other side of it, followed by a bumping noise.

Palmer’s instincts told him something was wrong in there, and finding out what it was might prove valuable to him. He tried the knob. Locked.

Well, there were other ways in.

He drew back a little, raised his foot, and drove his heel against the door beside the knob. With a splintering crash, it burst open.

Palmer went in fast, in a low crouch with his gun swinging from side to side. No lamps burned in the room, but enough light spilled in from the hall for him to see a couple of figures lying on the bed. They were tied hand and foot, as well as gagged. Despite the gags, Palmer could see enough of their faces to recognize them.

“Why, Joseph and Charlotte Marat,” he said. “Fancy meeting you folks again.”