The Loner: Inferno

Chapter 27

Slowly, The Kid turned his head to look over his shoulder. Jess stood behind him. She had picked up Kelly’s gun, and was pointing it at The Kid as she held it in both hands. The barrel was rock-steady.

It was the first time he could recall a naked woman pointing a gun at him. It was a pretty unsettling experience.

“Jess, wait a minute. It’s me, Kid Morgan.”

“I know who you are.” Her voice was as steady as the barrel of the gun. “You’re the man who threw in with these scalp hunters.”

“Pretended to throw in with them. I only helped them so they’d bring me along and help me get to you and the other prisoners.”

What looked like doubt flickered in her eyes, but she wasn’t convinced yet. “Downstairs you told that one”—the gun jerked toward Kelly’s unconscious form for an instant, then went right back to pointing at The Kid—“that you didn’t care what happened to me.”

“What was I supposed to tell him? I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t want him using the way I feel about you against either of us.”

“How do you feel about me?”

“I want to help you,” he answered without hesitation. He was human; the fact that she was nude wasn’t lost on him. But after everything she had gone through, he knew any thoughts of intimacy were the farthest thing from her mind. “That’s all. I want to help you and the other women get away from here.”

“What about the deal you have with that Mexican officer?” She packed a lot of scorn into the word deal.

The Kid shook his head. “That bargain was between Guzman and Kelly. The only promise I made was to myself, and now I’m making it to you. I’m going to help you get away.”

Finally, she lowered Kelly’s gun. Carefully, she looped her thumb over the hammer and let it down.

Then a shudder went through her and she took a deep breath in an obvious effort to keep her emotions under control. “I need something to wear. My clothes are ruined.”

“We’ll do something about that.” The Kid nodded. “For now, wrap the sheet around yourself.”

Jess used the gun to point at Kelly. “What about him?”

“I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you.”

“Are you going to kill him?” She asked the question in a cold, impersonal voice, as if the answer didn’t matter to her at all.

“No, I’m not going to kill him,” The Kid said, hoping he wouldn’t regret that decision.

He waited until Jess had wrapped one of the bed sheets around her, then tore strips from the other sheet to bind Kelly’s hands and feet. He yanked Kelly’s arms behind his back before he lashed the scalp hunter’s wrists together, and he pulled off the man’s boots so Kelly couldn’t bang the heels on the floor to summon help that way.

The last thing The Kid did was stuff another piece of sheet into Kelly’s mouth and bind it in place to serve as a gag.

While he was doing that, Jess watched him curiously and finally asked, “Why did you come all the way down here into Mexico after us? How did you even know what happened to us?”

He answered her second question first. “I saw the light from the burning wagons in the sky and was about to come back when three Apaches jumped me. They must have been watching the wagon camp and saw me leave that night, so a few of them followed me.”

“You killed them.”

It wasn’t a question, just a flat statement.

The Kid nodded anyway. “Yeah. By the time I got to the wagon camp, it was too late. The wagons were burned, and everybody was dead ... except Milo Farnum. Before he died, he told me what had happened and told me that the Apaches had carried off four prisoners. There was never any doubt in my mind that I’d come after you.”

“Scott ... ?”

“I’m sorry. He and Horace Dunlap and all the others died fighting.”

Jess closed her eyes and lowered her head for a moment. She shuddered again. But then she looked up again. “You didn’t answer my other question. Why did you come after us, Kid? Why was there never any doubt in your mind that you would? The four of us ... we don’t mean anything to you.”

“Everybody means something to somebody,” The Kid said. “If it had been my ... wife ... I would have wanted somebody to go after her and help her.”

“You say that like you’ve got a wife.”

“I did have.”

She didn’t press him for more details, and he was grateful.

“What are you going to do now? Swing in some other window like a giant bat?”

The Kid had been thinking about that, but before he could answer, a soft knock sounded on the door and took him by surprise. He glanced at Jess, but wide-eyed, she shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know who it could be, either.

“Señor Kelly?” a man’s voice called tentatively through the door. The Kid recognized it as belonging to Luis, Guzman’s aide. “Capitán Guzman sent me to find out if you would like a bottle of brandy or anything else we might provide.”

This was a stroke of luck, The Kid thought. He beckoned Jess closer and whispered, “Let him in.”

“What?”

The Kid bent and pulled Kelly’s still senseless form behind the bed where it wouldn’t be visible from the door.

“Let him in,” he said again. “And let that sheet drop a little. He’s a man.”

Her mouth hardened into a grim line. She let the sheet fall around her midsection so that her breasts were completely bare. “How about this? Enough of a distraction?”

“We’ll find out.” In stocking feet, The Kid moved silently to the door and stood so that he would be behind it when it opened.

For a second he thought Jess was about to laugh, and he took that as a good sign. She hadn’t lost her nerve. She called to Luis, “Just a second,” and went over to the door.

When she opened it, The Kid heard Luis say in a flustered voice, “Señorita, I ... I ...”

“Come on in and bring the brandy,” she told him.

She stepped back, and Luis came into the room. The Kid was ready. Striking like a cat, he brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Luis’s head. He pitched forward, and Jess let go of the sheet completely to grab the bottle of brandy he dropped before it could hit the floor and shatter.

The Kid eased the door closed. “He’s not that much bigger than you. Get his boots and uniform off him and put them on.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get them fumigated first.”

“I’m afraid not. Your other alternative is to ride away from here naked.”

“I’ll take the uniform.” Jess bent over and started pulling Luis’s boots off, then paused. “Kid, he looks dead.”

The Kid had noticed the clerk’s glassy-eyed stare, too. “I guess I hit him a little too hard.”

“That’s a shame,” Jess muttered. “He didn’t seem quite as bad as the rest.”

“He worked for Guzman,” The Kid pointed out. “That means he helped sell hundreds of helpless prisoners into slavery. Maybe more than that.”

“That’s true. Good riddance.”

While Jess was getting dressed, The Kid went back to the door and eased it open a crack. He put his eye to the gap and looked along the corridor as best he could. A Rurale lounged at the landing, as if standing guard but not being too diligent about it.

Still, the man must have seen Luis go into the room. After a while he might wonder why the clerk didn’t come back out.

“How do I look?” Jess asked.

The Kid glanced around. The uniform was too big on her, but not by much. “It’ll do.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “Blow out that lamp.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s a matter of what you’re going to do. You’re about to join the Rurales.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Blow out the lamp so it’s dark in here. The only light in the corridor is down at the far end, so that guard won’t be able to see very well.”

Jess lifted a hand to her blond hair. “I think it’ll still be light enough for him to tell that I’m not Luis, or whatever his name was.”

“If you stepped all the way out, he might. But you’re just going to put an arm out and motion him down here. He’ll see the uniform and think you’re Luis, all right.”

“I don’t know,” Jess said dubiously. “Seems like a long chance to me.”

“That’s the only kind we have these days.”

“I guess you’re right.” She bent over and blew out the lamp. “If I can get him to come down here, what then?”

“Leave that to me,” The Kid said.

Jess went to the door and opened it. She put her right foot just outside. “Hsst!” Extending her arm into the corridor, she crooked her fingers in a beckoning motion at the guard.

The Kid heard footsteps clumping along the hall.

“Stay there,” he whispered to Jess. Just enough light penetrated from the corridor for him to see the tense, strained lines in which her face was set.

With a coarse chuckle, the guard asked in Spanish, “What is it? Does the American want an audience to watch?”

“Pull back,” The Kid breathed. “Slow.”

Jess retreated into the room, and a second later the guard’s bulk stood in the doorway. The Kid’s hands shot out, grabbed the lapels of the man’s uniform jacket, and hauled him into the room, swinging him around so that he crashed into the wall.

The guard was too surprised to put up a fight. The Kid grabbed him by the throat, cutting off any sound, and lifted a knee into the man’s groin.

Jess stepped close to the struggling figures and plucked a knife from behind the guard’s belt. She was about to stab him when The Kid saw what she was doing and knocked her away with a shoulder. He kneed the guard a second time and forced him to the floor, still choking the life out of him.

A few minutes later, he felt a shudder go through the man’s body. He checked for a pulse but didn’t find one.

Jess closed the door, then came over and whispered, “Why didn’t you let me stab him?”

“Because that would have gotten blood on his uniform, and we need this uniform, too.”

“What ... Oh.”

The Kid was already pulling the dead man’s boots off. The pearl-gray trousers and jacket came next. He pulled off his own clothes and donned the uniform, including the boots. He buckled the guard’s gunbelt around his hips. When he picked up the steeple-crowned sombrero from the floor where it had fallen and settled it on his head, he asked Jess, “What do you think?”

“You’ll pass for one of them ... from a distance.”

“I’m hoping that’s good enough.”

“What if somebody heard that crash when you threw him against the wall?”

“They’re not likely to think anything about it. They’ll just assume Kelly was getting rough with you.”

“He would have, too, the son of a bitch. Can I kick him? Maybe break his nose?”

“We don’t have time. Guzman will start wondering pretty soon what’s taking Luis so long. We have to get the other women and get out of here.”

He turned toward the door, but Jess stopped him by putting her hand on his arm. “Kid ... I appreciate what you’re doing, and Lord knows I’d rather die fighting than go through what they’ve got in mind for us ... but we’re not getting out of here and you know it. We’re going to get killed, all of us.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

She smiled, leaned closer to him, and brushed her lips across his in a brief kiss. “Then let’s go.”