Holt's Gamble (43 page)

"You d'na scare me with yer strong-arm tactics. A plain coward is what ye are, hidin' behind the likes of them. You want a fight?" he asked, holding his fists up near his face. "Let's see what ye got."

Talbot shook his head with a snort of disgust, then reached into the vest pocket of his tailored coat and withdrew a small leather drawstring pouch. He tossed it carelessly toward Asa. It landed with a thud at his feet. "Pick it up, old man," Talbot ordered. "Cut your losses and get out while you've still got two good legs under you."

The threat sent a cold chill up Kierin's spine, but Asa ignored the money and pulled her close to him. "I'm not leavin' without her."

Talbot laughed again. "You think she'll still want to go with you when you tell her how you lied about her brother?"

With a sinking feeling of dread, Kierin looked up at her father. The color had siphoned from his ruddy face. "W-what does he mean?" she insisted. "Where's Matthew?"

Asa squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his hold on her arm.

"Tell her, McKendry..." Talbot snarled. "Tell her how you lied to her about him being here. About how her brother's young scalp is dangling off the tip of some Crow warriors lance."

"No-o-o!" The half-cry, half-scream of denial tore from her throat and she stumbled backward, away from her father. "It's not true. Tell him it's not true."

"He can't. Can you, McKendry?" Talbot baited.

Asa's guilt-ridden eyes slowly rose to meet Kierin's.

His face was the color of ashes, and his lip beaded with perspiration. "I—I'm sorry, Kiery."

Bile rose in her throat and her stomach lurched threateningly. She groped blindly for the seat of the settee behind her and sat down hard. Her insides ground together like bits of shattered glass. It hurt too much to cry, too much to even breathe. How could she have been such a fool? So utterly gullible?

Asa took a step toward her and anger surged inside her. "Don't touch me!" she snapped, knocking away from his outstretched hand.
"Just leave me alone."

"Kiery..."

Tears glistened on her cheeks and slid in tiny rivulets past her jaw. "Don't you ever call me that again. I hate you. Do you hear me?
I hate you!"

Asa swallowed hard and backed up a step. His mouth opened and closed like a land-locked fish.

"Get out, McKendry," Talbot said with a pleased smile tipping the corners of his mouth. "Your daughter doesn't need you anymore."

Asa's whole body vibrated with the shock waves of what had just happened. He'd been duped, but it would do him no good to try to explain his way out of this with Kiery. His own stupidity had gotten him here. He didn't need to hear the words she'd just flung at him to know how she felt about him. She hated him and, he reasoned, she had every right to.

You're a miserable excuse for a man, Asa McKendry,
he berated himself,
and a poorer excuse for a father.
If he thought he had a chance of saving her now, he'd try to overpower one of those louts with the Colt dragoons in their hands. But he was unarmed.

He needed a gun and he needed it fast.

Asa massaged his left arm, which had gone almost completely numb. Maybe it was a fool's errand, but he had one chance left to help his only daughter and he decided to take it.

Straightening, he shot Kierin a scornful look. "Ach—the hell with it, then. Stay here with him if that's what ye want. Ye've always been a thorn in my side, girl, and the truth is, I'll be glad to be rid of ye."

Kierin's head came up with a snap and she sent him a scorching look that singed his resolve, but didn't stop him.

He bent down to retrieve the pouch of gold that lay on the floor. "I might as well have somethin' for my trouble," he said, offhandedly. "You're welcome to her, Talbot. She's a hard one, that girl."

Perched on the edge of the velvet settee, Kierin watched him walk toward the door and felt all emotion drain from her. In its place came a strange sense of calm and resolve. It didn't really surprise her that her father was leaving her here without a fight. It was his way. The truth was, he'd quit on her and Matthew long ago. Why should now be any different?

Keep your wits about you, Kierin, she warned herself. You'll need every one of them to get out of this alive.
Clay's face swam in her memory, filling her up, giving her a reason to fight.
Oh, Clay,
she thought, with a longing that tore at her heart,
will I ever see you again?

Asa turned one last time before going out the door. Kierin's chin hitched up a notch and she glared at him, her eyes the color of a storm-tossed sea.

Asa swallowed hard and his hands gripped the gold-filled pouch until his knuckles turned white. "I was wrong about yer bein' like yer ma, Kierin," he told her with a quivering lip. "Yer nothin' like her. Ye never will be."

Something snapped in Kierin. She grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on: an etched-crystal egg poised on a small teakwood stand on the low table in front of her. Her fist closed around it and she flung it with all the force she could muster toward her father.

Asa saw it coming and ducked, but not before the glass shattered against the doorjamb beside him and sent a piece splintering into his cheek. Stunned, he reached up and touched the tiny trickle of blood that traveled down his cheek.

"You go to hell!" she shouted at him as one of Talbot's men hurried to her side and grabbed her arms.

"Aye. No doubt," he replied, and without another word, he walked out the door. The heavy oak portal rattled in its frame with all the finality of a jail cell door.

Kierin winced at the tight grip of the man who held her. One tree-limb-sized arm was wrapped around her chest, flattening her breasts and cinching her arms at her sides. "Let me... go," she cried. Twisting in his arms, she struggled to free herself but he only tightened his hold on her.

"What a little wildcat you've become, Kierin," Talbot said, grinning at her. "I've always liked my women feisty. The West seems to agree with you."

"You can go to hell, too," she snapped. "Why don't you call off this grizzly bear of yours and tell me what it is you want with me." Talbot threw his head back and laughed. The man holding her gave her a punishing little squeeze and she let out a coughing gasp.

Suddenly, her fingertips brushed the butt of the gun the goliath wore strapped to his thigh. It was just within her reach. Adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream as she considered her chances to grab it before she was discovered.

"I've got what I want," Talbot replied, laconically. "Well, part of it anyway."

"Me." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," he replied, brushing his fingers in an absent gesture over the black patch on his eye. As he drew nearer, Kierin could see the puckered scar that ran across his cheek where the poker had burned his skin.

"And the rest?" she asked, forcing her gaze from the ugly scar.

"Do you see this?" He pointed to the patch.

"It's hard to miss," she taunted with a smile.

Talbot's good eye narrowed. "True. And I have you to thank for it."

Kierin tipped her head cockily and clucked her tongue. "And I thought the patch looked rather rakish."

Talbot's hand snaked out and he slapped her hard across the face. Her head snapped to one side and black spots swam before her eyes. Blinking slowly to clear them, Kierin lifted her head to glare at him. She could taste the blood on her lip.

Kierin let out a harsh breath. "You are a coward, Talbot. What's the matter? Are you afraid of the wildcat's claws? You need a big strong man like this to hold me back from you?" Her fingers poised above the butt of the gun.

Talbot smiled savagely and he gestured for the man to release her. The moment his arms loosened, her fingers closed around the butt of the revolver and she yanked with all her strength. She spun out of the arms of her jailer and pointed his gun directly at Talbot's heart.

Talbot's eyes widened with surprise. "What the—"

The man started to rush her but she'd already cocked the pistol and tightened her finger on the trigger. "Don't!" she warned. "I'll kill him. I swear to God I will."

Talbot jerked his hand up and backed up a step. "Get back, Belson," he ordered. "She means it." At the other side of the room, Talbot's other lackey, Cain, kept his hands carefully away from his gun.

"Damn right I do," she agreed, "and at this range, I could hardly miss." Kierin sidestepped the table and kept her eyes glued to Talbot. "I'm leaving now. Don't try to stop me." Her heart pounded like thunder against her ribs.

"At the moment, you seem to be holding all the cards..." Talbot's eyes flicked for a fraction of a second to a point behind her.

Too late, she saw the violent sweep of pink silk out of the corner of her eye. Too late, she tried to dodge the inevitable blow. She felt a crushing pain at the back of her head and—as if from a long distance off—she heard the shattering of glass. Like sand through her fingers, the gun slipped from her hand and a profound darkness closed in around her. And as she slid into that numbing void, she knew with utter certainty that she had lost.

Chapter 22

Clay and Matthew made a striking pair as they loped their horses down the central corridor of Kearny Street into Portsmouth Square. Dressed in beaded buckskins and riding with the savage grace they'd each acquired at the hands of the Cheyenne, the two ignored the outright stares they drew from the pedestrians crowded onto the boarded walkways of the street. Instead, their focus was directed toward the three-story brick building at the center of the Plaza, a gambling hall called El Dorado.

Clay pulled his Appaloosa to a stop and dismounted. Beside him, Matthew climbed off the pinto and tied his reins to the hitching rail under the gold-painted sign announcing the establishment they sought.

Clay tipped his hat off, raked a hand tiredly through his dark hair, then settled the sweat-soaked band over his brow again. A day or two's growth of whiskers shadowed his jaw. Fatigue etched dark blue smudges beneath his eyes. Gaunt and weary, Clay's body betrayed the evidence of the punishing weeks of travel behind them.

Twenty-four hours in San Francisco hadn't put them any closer to finding Kierin than they had been yesterday. It was obvious they'd either missed Kierin and Asa somehow back on the trail in one of the gold-mining camps, or the pair had beaten them to San Francisco.

Either way, finding them in a city this size was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Clay had been forced to take a room at the Parker House out of deference to an equally exhausted eleven-year-old. Matthew had fallen asleep before his head even hit the pillow. Clay had paced the room like a caged animal until the early hours of the morning when his body had forced him, at last, to sleep.

In the morning, after locating Johanssen's mill on the east end of town, they'd questioned the man Asa had claimed was his partner.

"Ja, he
was
my partner," Johanssen had replied, shaking his head, " 'til he started losing the company's money gambling—four, maybe five months ago. He wagered his way right out of the business."

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?" Clay had asked. "Was there someplace he went regularly, where people might have known him?"

The blond-haired man scratched his head. "I ain't laid eyes on him since he left. But if a man's serious about the gambling, there's only one place worth going to. That's El Dorado."

Clay pushed away from the hitching post and headed toward the louvered doors at the entrance to the saloon. Matthew was close at his heels. He'd come to respect Kierin's brother too much to even suggest that he stay behind, but from the sound coming from inside the saloon, it wasn't the place for a young boy.

Evening had only just begun, yet El Dorado was filled with men eager to lose what they'd worked so hard for in the goldfields. Green-topped poker and faro tables crowded the room alongside shiny roulette wheels. Scantily clad women acted as dealers.

Clay and Matthew approached the long polished bar where a heavy man with a well-trimmed beard stood wiping glasses out with a questionable rag.

"What'll it be, gentlemen?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye for Matthew.