This Gun for Hire Read online

  Quill made no further comment about the revolver. It was a heavy weapon and the long barrel made it unwieldy. Calico, despite her injury, was in better condition to hold her Colt steady than Beatrice was to manage her six-shooter. The best evidence he had of the state of the woman’s nerves was that she was not yet aware that her arms were already a fraction lower than they had been less than a minute ago.

  “We are done here,” said Quill. “We heard the arguments for and against. Excepting for Chick Tatters, these men are no longer so confident in your leadership.” His eyes swept all five men and settled on Tatters. “Looks like the others agree, Chick. What about you?”

  Under Quill’s implacable stare, Chick shrank back a couple of inches.

  Quill smiled, shook his head. “Up front. Where I can see you. That’s better. How about you unstrap that belt you have on under your coat and put it on the floor? You’re familiar with the routine. We’ve been through it before.”

  “No,” said Calico. “That was Amos Bennett’s gun belt we asked for. Remember? I put Chick down with a pitcher of water and my pocket piece.”

  “That’s right. Well, Chick, I’m sure you’ve been asked to unstrap before. For instance, when you were a guest in the Reidsville jail. Nice and easy. Give him some room, men, just in case I have to shoot. I don’t like thinking I would miss my mark, but it happens. Not often, but still.” He smiled amiably as the two men on either side of Chick gave him plenty of elbowroom. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beatrice’s hands twitch. Without looking directly at her, he said. “Have a care, Mrs. Stonechurch. You move like that again and there is only one way my future wife is going to respond.”

  Calico said, “I still want a pretty proposal.”

  Quill grinned. “Working on it. How are you coming there, Chick? You are a little too slow in my estimation. There. That’s better. On the ground. You stay where you are.” Quill jerked his chin at the miner on Chick’s left. “You.” He paused and took better account of the man. “Joshua Abbot, isn’t it? Now there is a damn shame.” He shook his head. “Take the Remington out of the holster and push it over this way.” There was no hesitation on Joshua’s part, and when it was done, Quill tossed the pickaxe in his left hand behind him and picked up Chick’s Remington. “I’m not as good with my left hand as I am with my right, but I’d guess you would say that it’s relative.”

  “They would not say that,” said Calico. “No one would say that.” She offered the miners an apologetic smile. “What he means is that he is very, very good with his right hand. On the sinistral side? I’m figuring he is only competent.” Her eyes darted to Chick Tatters as his eyes swiveled to the gun in Beatrice’s hands. “Chick, I swear to God I can hear you thinking you can take Mrs. Stonechurch’s weapon and make a stand. This is what happens when you don’t have Whit making plans for you. Where is he?”

  Chick opened his mouth to speak and closed it when Beatrice told him to. He shrugged helplessly at Calico.

  “Mrs. Stonechurch?” Calico’s regard was candid. “Where is Ann?” Beatrice said nothing, but Calico noticed that she bent her elbows slightly and brought the revolver closer to her midriff. With her arms against her body, she was better able to support the weight of the gun, but she also had unwittingly changed the angle of the barrel so her aim was high. Calico almost wished she would fire; the recoil would knock her on her bustle and the confrontation would really be at an end.

  “Ann,” repeated Calico. “What have you done with her?”

  Quill addressed the miners. “Calico is surprising me with her patience right now. I cannot begin to guess how long it will last. Where is Ann?”

  Their eyes shifted left and right, but in the end, they shook their heads in unison. Chick stared straight ahead and offered no response at all. That was telling in its own right because Chick Tatters was a twitchy kind of fellow.

  Quill’s eyes bore into Chick’s and he swore under his breath. “My God,” he said to Calico. “They’re together. She’s left Ann and Whit together.”

  It was all Calico could do to keep her feet planted when she saw the truth of it on Beatrice’s face. “Can you have any comprehension of what you have done? I want to believe you do not. That you could know who he is, what he’s done, it’s inconceivable to me that you would leave her with him. Please tell he is not alone with her. There are others, aren’t there? Men who know her; men who would protect her.”

  Beatrice’s head snapped back. The venom in Calico’s voice was as poisonous as any tea she had ever brewed. “That man,” she said, her eyes sliding sideways toward Chick. “The one you call Tatters. His name is Rocky Castro.”

  Quill snorted as he looked to Chick for confirmation. “Rocky? That’s the best you could do?”

  Chick shrugged. “Simon Peter. Like in the Bible.”

  “What’s Whit calling himself now?”

  Chick had to think about it. “Marcus White.”

  Quill remembered seeing the names of both men on the lists he looked over for Ramsey and Frank Fordham. They had meant nothing, which was how Whit would have wanted it. He said to Beatrice, “Marcus White is Nick Whitfield.” When he saw that Beatrice merely looked confused, he said to Calico, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  Calico drew Beatrice’s attention back to her. “How did you know who I am? I know you did.”

  When Beatrice flattened her lips, Quill said, “It’s better if you simply tell her what she wants to know. It must be important. Think of Ann. The danger to her is very real. Chick knows.”

  Chick said, “That little girl is in some kind of mess, Mrs. Stonechurch. I don’t hold with what Whit does with his women, but there’s no pulling in the reins when he’s got his ears back.”

  Beatrice’s hands began to shake and the revolver wobbled. “What is he talking about?”

  “Answer me first,” said Calico.

  “There was a letter,” Beatrice said. “It was addressed to you. To Katherine Nash. I picked it up at the station with all the other post. I read it and I kept it. It was from Joe Pepper in Falls Hollow. You can probably guess what he wanted you to know.”

  Calico could. “It was about Nick Whitfield’s escape.”

  “It was about someone’s escape. Except for using your ridiculous alias in the greeting, Mr. Pepper was cryptic. What was clear to me was that he wanted to put you on your guard.”

  “But you would have searched the papers for the story afterwards, so you knew he was writing about Whit. Don’t bother to deny it. I am not inclined to parse your lies now. Where is Ann?”

  Beatrice hesitated, although no one there could say whether it was fear for her niece that closed her throat or some desperate idea that she could still save herself.

  Oddly enough, it was Chick Tatters who broke the tense silence. “Jesus, lady, tell them. You don’t, they’ll shoot you, and I’ll tell them. Hell, I’ll tell them anyway. That girl is—”

  Beatrice made a quarter turn and fired at Chick. The spin lifted the revolver’s barrel higher than it had been. Calico and Quill both saw it even if Chick did not. He threw himself facedown on the ground. The gun’s recoil did precisely what Calico thought it would. Beatrice dropped her weapon as she stumbled backward. No man stepped in to stop the inevitable fall. Her bustle provided all the cushioning she needed and more than anyone thought she deserved. Calico holstered her Colt and picked up Beatrice’s gun. There were two cartridges remaining in the chamber. She took them out, pocketed them, and placed the revolver on the ground.

  “Chick?” Quill stepped forward and nudged Chick’s outstretched palm. “You have something to say? Could be it’ll keep you from hanging. No guarantees. That won’t be up to me.”

  Chick’s knobby chin dug into the dirt floor as he nodded. He lifted his head. “She’s back at the storage tunnel. I would have stayed with her, let Whit come here, but he volunteered first
and I didn’t wanna spend another minute around the dynamite.”

  Beatrice started to pick herself up off the ground, but Calico put a boot into her shoulder and shoved her back.

  “You see, Mrs. Stonechurch,” Calico said. “Stomping on you this way is the sort of thing that Quill would never do. He’s real mannerly. Me? I figure woman to woman, it’s the proper response.” Calico turned to Quill. She wobbled ever so slightly as she stepped away from Beatrice. Bile rose in her throat when her stomach turned over. She observed that Quill was alert to her distress and grateful to him for not extending a hand to assist her. She drew abreast of him. “Talk to them. I’m heading out.”

  Quill nodded and let her go. He ignored Beatrice and Chick and addressed the miners. “I am going to tell you what I told David Cavanaugh, who, by the way, is either still lying unconscious at the entrance or looking for a route out of Stonechurch. We know about the sabotage. We know how you slowed production in this mine. We know that Mrs. Stonechurch has promised better wages, a higher percentage of the profits, and I find no fault with you looking out for yourselves and your family’s welfare, but coupling your caboose to Mrs. Stonechurch’s train was probably not the wisest decision. She cares nothing about your interests. She cares only about her own, and if you still harbor any doubt about that, bear in mind that she left her niece in a tunnel where the only thing more volatile than the dynamite is the man she put in charge.”

  Quill pointed to Chick and then to Beatrice but continued to speak to the miners. “You’re my deputies now. Consider yourselves sworn in. You’re not my first choice, but you happen to be the only choice. Bring these two out, keep them close, and I will speak up on your behalf when the time comes. Do anything else—anything at all—and I will find you, and I will arrest you. Chick. Tell them what Calico will do.”

  “She’ll kill you.”

  Quill nodded. He put his gun away and lowered the Remington in his left hand. “Is Whit carrying?” he asked Chick.

  “You’ll speak up for me, too, right?”

  “You killed lawmen, Chick. I take that personal. Still, better if you just chance it and answer my question now.”

  Chick nodded. “He’s always been partial to a Remington. He’s got himself a new one.”

  “All right.” Quill did not trouble himself to ask if everyone understood, nor did he answer Beatrice Stonechurch when she called out to him. He walked away, pausing once to take the pickaxe, and then he was gone.

  * * *

  Ann crouched behind a pyramid of crates. There was barely enough room for her to squeeze in, but she was oddly comforted when she settled sideways into the small space. It occurred to her that she was truly caught between a rock and a hard place, and something about that notion made her want to giggle. She pressed her lips together instead and kept them that way until the urge passed. It did not take long. The approaching footsteps froze all of her responses. That was just as well. She thought she would have begun crying when he called her name.

  “Are you hiding from me?” asked Whit. His voice was a soft growl that carried deep into the tunnel. He liked the way it filled the space. “I told you not to go far.” He stopped, listened. “I swear I can hear you breathing.”

  Ann knew he was lying. She wasn’t breathing.

  “Where did you go? Your aunt is here. She’s come back with her friends. She’s not happy that I let you out of my sight. I explained how it was, but that didn’t satisfy her. Is she always so bossy?”

  His voice was so close now that in Ann’s mind he was standing outside the room where she was hiding. She was not far wrong, she realized, because a moment later she had a fleeting glimpse of light and shadow across the entrance. It was gone quickly as he moved on, plunging her back into darkness.

  He called out to her again and continued talking. It seemed to Ann that he liked the sound of his voice, and she was grateful for that because it helped her keep his location in perspective. She understood that at some point, probably sooner than later, he would realize he had passed her, and he would turn around.

  Ann could not wait any longer. She inched out of her hiding place and found her way back to the entrance to the room, this time without stubbing her foot on the crate. She hesitated on the threshold but not for long. Her guardian had not extinguished every lantern that he passed, and she could see light up ahead.

  She ran toward it.

  * * *

  Quill caught up to Calico outside the mine. She was bent over at the waist, her hands braced on her knees. She was staring at the ground and did not look up until he was beside her.

  “Were you sick?” he asked.

  “No. Just thought I would be.” She straightened slowly. Her cheeks puffed as she blew out a breath. “I did not want it to happen in front of them.”

  “Where is Cavanaugh?”

  “Where you left him. Out cold. We should go.”

  “Can you? I can go alone.” He told her about deputizing the miners and leaving them to watch over Chick and Mrs. Stonechurch. “I know. Foxes in charge of the henhouse, but short of shooting them all, it seemed to be the most expedient solution. They’ll be coming out directly.”

  “All the more reason for me to go with you. I don’t think Beatrice is safe around me. I want to give her my headache.” She picked up the lantern. “Did you tell her that Ramsey is not dead?”

  “No.” He fell in step beside her. “I figured I’d let her find that out later. I didn’t have the sense that she would take news like that in stride.”

  “True.” Calico kept her head up, her eyes straight ahead. It helped to keep the nausea at bay.

  “Whit has a gun. A Remington, Chick says.”

  “I thought as much when I saw Chick was carrying. He will want a piece of you and all of me. I’m trying to decide how we can use that to our advantage. I want to get him as far away from Ann as possible.”

  “You’re thinking he’ll use her for cover?”

  “I would, leastways I would if I were a depraved individual in the likeness of Nick Whitfield.”

  “So divide and conquer?”

  “Yes.”

  They came to the rise overlooking the footbridge and paused. There was a hint of dawn in the eastern sky and the bridge was more than an indistinct silhouette. Calico could see it was every bit the ramshackle affair that Quill had told her it was.

  Quill said, “It’s not too late, Calico. You can cross there and get back into town. Let me deal with Whit.”

  Calico said nothing. She did not even look at him.

  “All right,” he said. “Forget I said it.”

  “Forgotten.” She extinguished the lantern and set it down. “There’s enough light now to continue, I think.”

  He nodded. The lantern would merely announce their presence. The mouth of the tunnel was still dark. If Chick had told the truth, then Whit and Ann were deep inside. “Can I at least go first?”

  “If you like.” It was the fact that he had two guns and the pickaxe that decided her, and she told him so.

  He held up the axe. “Think you can swing this if you need to?”

  “I think I can do anything if I need to.”

  “Of course you can.” And he believed it. He handed it over and led the way down the hill.

  * * *

  Ann heard footsteps pounding after her, but she could not tell if they were real or only real in her imagination. There was nothing to be gained by looking back; she could not cover ground any faster and she was afraid the sight of him on her heels would paralyze her.

  She raced from lantern point to lantern point until she was met by darkness. She had reached the place where the lanterns were extinguished. The route to the mouth of the tunnel seemed impenetrable. Ann had no choice but to proceed with caution. She had no sense of the distance she had traveled when she finally saw the vague outline of the adit
ahead of her. Moonlight was fading with the approach of dawn, and the graduated blue-gray colors of the sky illuminated the opening.

  Her heart seized when she heard him shout. She knew she had not imagined his voice because when he called out a name, it wasn’t hers. He yelled for someone whose name she did not recognize. There was a pause after that, and she thought he must have heard himself because when he yelled again, it was for her.

  She ran on. She could no longer feel the ground under her feet. In her mind, she was flying.

  Ann was still flying when she emerged from the tunnel and slammed headlong into Quill McKenna. He had no time to brace himself against her rocketing body. Her diminutive stature and finely boned frame made little difference. She brought enough force to their encounter to knock him over. He managed to toss Chick’s Remington to Calico before he hit the ground. He landed flat on his back with Ann Stonechurch sprawled indelicately on top of him.

  “How about that,” said Calico. “I sure am glad I let you go first.” She set down the axe and grabbed Ann by the collar of her coat. The young woman did not show any signs of wanting to release Quill, and he was being rather more gentle with her than their circumstances called for. She tugged hard and peeled Ann away. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  Ann shook her head. “He’s coming,” she said between labored breaths. “He’s coming!”

  Calico heard Whit’s angry bellow coming from the tunnel. Quill heard it, too. He scrambled to his feet and put Ann behind him. He took the Remington back and drew his Colt. Calico also drew her weapon.

  Nick Whitfield charged out of the tunnel, lantern swinging wildly. Calico and Quill gave him a wide berth and let him run. He was like a mad bull. They were not certain he noticed them. It was the absence of his quarry that seemed to bring him up short. He ground to a halt and slowly turned, and indeed, it was Ann he searched for. He nodded, satisfied, when he glimpsed her peeking out from behind Quill’s shoulder.

  “I would just as soon shoot you as look at you,” said Quill. “What you do next will determine which it will be. Take off your gun belt.”