After Sundown (16 page)

“But it’s
Valentina
, sir—Miss Lazarillo! There’s drifters givin’ her an awful time and her pa’s down in Leadville and—please, you’ve got to help!” The boy shook the cell door, his expression frantic. “
Please!
”

~ ~ ~

Women.

Difficult, emotional, impossible little bundles of trouble. The world would probably be a saner place without them. His
life
would definitely be saner without them, Lucas thought with a grimace, standing in the darkness next to the front window of Fairfax’s Saloon and Gambling Emporium.

His Colt drawn and cocked, he kept to the shadows as he edged closer to the window, his back pressed against the rough pine boards of the wall. It had finally stopped raining, but the clouds overhead blotted out the moon. He should be nearly invisible, especially in his dark clothes. The streets were deserted, the night air cold. He could see his breath as he peered through a corner of the glass to assess the situation.

By the light of oil lanterns hung from the saloon’s ceiling, he counted three gunmen and nine townsfolk inside—with two others stretched out unconscious on the floor. Tables had been overturned, chairs were scattered. What the hell Miss Lazarillo was doing in there, he didn’t know, but one swarthy-looking hombre had her cornered against the bar. She was struggling against his hold, crying.

Another man—a tall, heavily built half-breed with waist-length black hair and a nasty sneer—was waving a twelve-gauge shotgun at Fairfax and the saloon’s patrons, herding the prospectors and homesteaders to one side of the room with their hands raised. A third accomplice Lucas could only see from the back—but he appeared as big as the half-breed, and he had some poor idiot pinned to one of the tables, a pistol at his head.

“Oh, great,” Lucas hissed under his breath as he recognized the poor idiot. It was Holt. “Just great.”

There was a lot of shouting going on. It seemed like the drifters intended to relieve the locals of their valuables. Lucas had run into their kind before: two-bit thieves with more firepower than smarts, trying to steal from folks who barely had fifty dollars between them. Best thing would be to disarm the thugs, run them off, and make them some other lawman’s headache—someone with a jail.

Lucas shifted his attention back to the girl. It looked like he’d better move fast. The swarthy drifter was heading for the rear exit, dragging her with him—and he clearly didn’t have robbery on his mind.

Lucas turned and ducked around the corner of the saloon, slipping into the alley between buildings, running for the back.

He heard her scream. Blocked it out. Didn’t allow anything to penetrate the icy cool descending over him, flooding his veins When he reached the corner of the building, he darted a look around it.

In the darkness, he could just make out the silhouettes of three horses that had been left behind the saloon.

And the fact that the scum now had Miss Lazarillo pressed up against the wall. She wasn’t screaming anymore. Like her mouth had been covered.

There was no time to waste. Lucas holstered his pistol and moved forward with quick, silent steps. The hombre was so intent on satisfying his lust, he never realized he was no longer alone.

“Excuse me, friend,” Lucas said softly as he came up behind him.

The drifter whirled, eyes wide with surprise.

Lucas hit him with a quick left hook. His fist smashed into the man’s jaw. The drifter staggered sideways and the girl broke free, sobbing, falling in the mud. Lucas struck again, with a kick to the groin that knocked the man off his feet. Even as he went down, groaning, Lucas grabbed his arm, forcing him onto his stomach and landing on top of him, one knee in the middle of his back.

“Kidnapping and rape is no way to treat a lady,” Lucas snarled as he jammed the drifter’s arm up behind him, twisting it at a sharp angle. A strangled sound came from the man’s throat. His breath reeked of liquor. Lucas searched him quickly, confiscating a Smith & Wesson, which he slipped into the waistband of his own trousers.

And a bowie knife, which he unsheathed and pressed against the drifter’s throat.

“Nice knife,” Lucas said coolly, drawing a bead of blood with the point of the blade. “Now then, I’m willing to consider this a moment of drunken stupidity, but I’d advise you to change your ways. I’d also advise you to leave town. Lets you and I not meet up again. Nod if you agree.”

The man nodded, very carefully.

“Good. In fact, I think it’d be best if you left the state. Tonight. I hear Utah’s nice. Nod if you agree.”

The man nodded again. Very carefully.

“Glad you see things my way. Now get out of here. Real quiet like.”

As soon as Lucas released him, the drifter scrambled to his feet and limped over to his horse, grabbing the reins. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Lucas drew his Colt.

The hombre jumped into the saddle with an exclamation of pain and kicked his horse into a gallop. Lucas kept his pistol trained on him until he rode out of sight.

Then he turned to the girl. “You all right, Miss Lazarillo?”

“Oh,
s-señor
...” she sobbed brokenly, still crumpled in the mud, holding up her torn dress. “H-He was going to, he w-was going to—”

“It’s all right now.” Lucas walked over and helped her to her feet. “You go on home—”

“But... But my friend is still in there!” She looked toward the saloon’s back door.

Lucas groaned inwardly.
Women
. “What were you and your—never mind. Get out of here.”

“But my friend, Lily—”

“Go,” Lucas ordered more sternly. “Head on over to the jail. Travis is there. I’ll take care of Lily.”

“Thank you,
señor
, thank you.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gratitude, and with tears that glimmered in the darkness. “Y-You saved me. I will never forget this,
señor
. Never!”

She went running off in the direction of the jail. As soon as she was safely away, Lucas stalked over to the two remaining horses and confiscated every weapon he found on their saddles and in their saddlebags.

Then he headed back around toward the front of the saloon, his jaw clenched.

Sometimes a direct approach was best.

Concealed in the darkness, he walked to the line of horses at the hitching post out front. After setting the weapons at their feet, he grabbed a canvas rain slicker tied behind one of the saddles and pulled it on. Then he unloaded the various guns and left them in the mud—except for his own .45 and a short, double-barreled shotgun.

He concealed both beneath the slicker, the .45 against his belly and the shotgun down his back. Then he affected his best drunken swagger, started whistling off-key.

And stumbled right in through the saloon’s swinging doors.

“Fairfax,” he called in an inebriated yowl, “gimme a glass o’ your finest tonsil varnish...” He staggered to a halt a few feet inside the doors, lifting his eyebrows as he glanced around. “Well, I’ll be a poisoned pup, whatta we have here?”

Fairfax recognized him immediately, as did a few of the others, but Lucas tried to tell them with his eyes not to say anything as he looked around.

He didn’t see another girl anywhere. The only person in any immediate danger was Holt, damn him. He was still pinned with a gun to his head.

“Come on in, cowpoke,” the half-breed ordered, while the prospectors and homesteaders at the business end of his shotgun emptied their pockets. “But first get your hands up and hand over any guns and money you got.”

Lucas pasted a terrified look on his face and raised his hands, still swaying drunkenly. “Ain’t got no cash money. And ain’t got no guns. Don’t like violence. Hate violence.” He staggered backward, away from the half-breed.

Toward the table where the other drifter—a tough-looking bastard with a scarred face and missing teeth—held the doctor hostage.

“Stop right there,” the toothless one snarled.

“Ya mean right”—Lucas took one more stumbling, backward step—“here?” He whirled, drawing both his weapons at once, aiming the shotgun at the half-breed and pressing the barrel of his Peacemaker under the other drifter’s jaw, forcing his head up.

“Shit,” the toothless one said.

“Exactly.” Lucas thumbed back the hammer on his .45.

The drifter’s eyes just about bugged out of his head. But he didn’t remove his Remington from Holt’s temple.

“Like I said, I hate violence,” Lucas said lightly. “So let me explain this to you. I don’t much care if you shoot this son of a bitch or not.” He nodded to the prone doctor, who had a bruised face and a split lip. “But if you pull that trigger, then I’ll have to pull this one. Just sort of on principle. And poor Fairfax here’ll be cleaning brains off his floor for days.”

Nobody moved a muscle.

“You,” Lucas shouted, flicking a look at the half-breed. “You give a damn about your friend here, I’d put that shotgun down and start giving these folks back their valuables.”

The half-breed hesitated, glancing from Lucas to the sack in his hands.

“Do it!” the toothless one shouted.

Swearing, the half-breed put his weapon on the nearest table.

“Fairfax, do me a favor,” Lucas asked calmly, “and pick that up.”

Fairfax obliged while the other men started digging coins and cash and watches and weapons out of the sack. Two of them pushed the half-breed up against the bar.

“Now then,” Lucas said reasonably to Toothless, who still hadn’t released his hostage. “I know Doc Holt here can make you feel madder than a rattlesnake on a hot skillet. Frankly, I can understand how you came to have him pinned like that. But the town’s only got one doctor. And unfortunately, he’s it. So put down the pistol and let him go.” He forced the drifter’s chin up another notch with the barrel of his gun. “I’m a federal marshal, by the way. Did I forget to mention that?”

The man’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “We was told there weren’t no law in this town—”

“Looks like you were told wrong, doesn’t it?”

“I ain’t goin’ to jail!”

“Well, that’s just fine, because my jail doesn’t have a vacancy at the moment.”

Sweat trickled down the man’s scarred face. “You kill me, I ain’t dyin’ alone!”

“I think we can find a more peaceable solution than that. I’m kind of fond of peaceable solutions at times like this.” With the shotgun, Lucas gestured toward the saloon’s rear exit. “I was thinking maybe you two could join your friend who went out back. He’s on his way to Utah Territory. Should be nearing the border about now.”

The drifter still hesitated, clearly having a hard time weighing the value of his miserable life against walking out of here empty-handed.

But finally, carefully, he put the gun on the table.

“Good. Now back away,” Lucas said. “You gonna get up anytime soon, Doc?”

“Thanks,” Holt bit out, rolling off the table with a curse.

Toothless backed up, his hands raised.

Than without warning the drifter darted sideways and lunged for his pistol. Lucas moved to block him and Toothless threw a hard left that hit him in the belly, grabbing the Colt. Lucas’s pistol and shotgun both went off with a deafening roar, the shotgun blowing a hole in the wall, the Colt shattering one of the lanterns overhead. On the other side of the saloon, the half-breed tried to make a break for it.

Within seconds, the room became a free-for-all of flying fists, shouts, gunfire, and thrown glasses. Lucas and Holt pummeled Toothless to the floor, but the man was slippery as a snake. The heel of his boot struck Lucas in the jaw. Lucas grunted in pain, seeing stars for a second.

Holt managed to wrestle the .45 away from the man, who then grabbed a bottle and smashed it, swinging it at both of them. Holt rolled out of the way and the jagged edge sliced through Lucas’s rain slicker and his shirt and shoulder. With a vicious curse, Lucas threw a punch that connected with someone—either the drifter or the doctor. Either would be satisfying at the moment.

When the dust finally settled, Toothless and the half-breed were bleeding and running for their lives, leaving their guns and even their hats behind as they fled through the rear exit.

Lucas stumbled to his feet, gingerly holding his bruised jaw as he scooped up his .45. “I only want to know one thing.”

“And what is that?” Fairfax asked mournfully, standing in front of the bar and surveying the wreckage of his saloon.

“Where in the
hell
is a girl by the name of Lily?” Lucas took off the rain slicker and threw it on a chair.

Some of the men laughed, the sound breaking the tension. They started helping Fairfax clean up the mess, righting tables and chairs and picking up broken glass.

“Allow me the honor of introducing Miss Lily Breckenridge,” an expensively dressed young man said in the smooth accent of the old Louisiana aristocracy. He walked over and knelt beside one of the two unconscious figures stretched out on the floor, while Holt tended to the other one.

The gentleman from Louisiana grabbed a half-empty glass of bourbon off a nearby table and splashed the dusty face of what appeared to be a boy of about eighteen.

Lucas blinked in astonishment as the person in question sat up looking dazed and groggy, spitting curses, wiping at cheeks that were sprinkled with freckles. Clad in indigo trousers, boots, and a baggy wool shirt—all covered in dried mud—she didn’t look like a Lily. She didn’t even look like a
she
.

“I thought that was a prospector,” Lucas said, shocked to find a young
girl
of about eighteen hidden beneath the layers of dirt and denim.

“I
am
a prospector,” she declared, frowning in his direction, taking off her hat. Two long blond pigtails fell to her shoulders. “I just don’t happen to be a man.”

“Yes, our Miss Lily is a lady,” the aristocrat kneeling beside her said with a grin, tugging at one of her pigtails. “No man in Eminence dares say any different—if he wants to avoid a black eye.”

Miss Breckenridge gave him a dirty look. “I didn’t see
you
rushing to Val’s rescue, Morgan O’Donnell. You’re nothing but a high-falutin’ tomcat who’s no good for any—” As she dabbed at the blood on her lip with slender fingers, the girl’s gray eyes suddenly filled with alarm. “Where
is
Val? They didn’t—”