Remember Me (Defiant MC) (30 page)

Mercer looked toward the closed door where James waited on the other side.  “I don’t know,” he said sadly.  “I really can’t say what he knows or doesn’t know.  But one thing’s for damn sure.  He’s more Swilling’s friend than mine.” 

Annika leaned her head against the bars and cried.  Cutter and the rest of The Danes had abandoned Mercer.  She knew it.  And Mercer’s own brother would stand idly by and watch him hang as the good folks of Contention City screamed for the blood of a gold thief. 

Mercer brushed an escaped lock of hair from her forehead.  “My fair Swedish maiden,” he choked.  “Dry your tears and tell me about our land.  The land where we’ll live out our lives and where I can love you in soul and body every day.”

Even though it was a lost dream she told him about it anyway.  The blue sky and open space sought by anyone with even a touch of western wanderlust.  The freedom to live unobserved and unjudged by other members of humanity.  A place to live and to love. 

When she could no longer speak he leaned over and kissed her. 

“Go on now, Anni.” 

“No,” she said stubbornly.

“Annika,” he tried again.  “You see how the cracks of sunlight around the door have faded?  It’s dark now. If Cutter doesn’t come I can’t have you watching what will happen…” He faltered, trailing off.  

When the door to the jail burst open Annika shrieked and flattened herself against the bars. They wouldn’t take him.  They would have to kill her first. 

Mercer’s voice was light, glib.  “Hello, brother.  Have you come to pay your final respects?”

James was quickly unlocking the cell.  “Come on, there’s no time.  It’s the supper hour and no one is looking right now.”

Annika looked at him in disbelief.  “You’re helping us?” 

James’s face broke its stone veneer and he gave her a wounded look.  “I’m not quite the villain you think, Annika.” 

James picked up a nearby sledgehammer and heaved it against the back wall of the jail.  The adobe crumbled away and he peered into the deepening darkness.  There was no one in sight behind the Contention City Jail. 

“I may be a lout and a rotten excuse for the law but by god I’m not giving my brother over a pack of murderers.  Now, Misty is tied to a tree about a hundred yards out.   You can make it.” 

Mercer stood next to him, looking out of the makeshift opening.  He cocked his head, listening. 

“No,” he argued, shaking his head.  “We can’t.” 

Annika heard it then.  The furious whoops and yell
s of men on the hunt.  It was the mob. 

A loud voice boomed from the street.  “Dolan!  Hand over your prisoner to reap the winds of justice!”

James had tensed and grabbed his Winchester.  Mercer, however, laughed, prompting his brother to stare at him in incredulity. 

But Annika had recognized the mocking drawl.  “It’s Cutter, isn’t it?”

“Told you he was my friend,” said Mercer quietly. 

James opened the door cautiously.  Annika saw the glow of fire on his face and tried to peek around him.  She glimpsed a half dozen men on horseback standing on Contention Way, just west of the courthouse.  Their faces were eerily covered with gunnysacks and they held torches. 

The tall man in the center of the pack, Annika knew, was Cutter Dane. 

James sucked in his breath suddenly and cursed.  He brought the rifle up. 

“They your friends too?” he asked Mercer, pointing in the other direction. 

Annika heard the gunshot before she saw the second group of men.  They approached from the east and there were more of them. 

“They are not,” observed Mercer soberly.  “Annika, down on the ground.  Don’t move until I say.” 

Annika saw Mercer accept a pistol from his brother and crouch in to doorway.  She didn’t know who shot first and she could not see into the street.  She heart shouts and the painful shrieks of horses as gunshots popped and screamed from all directions. 

She saw smoke and from the yelps of chaos in the street she figured at least one building had been set afire. Annika saw Mercer and James side by side at the abyss of the mayhem.  She had never known the sound of so many bullets.  Every one tore her nerves a little bit further.  She understood then how the bedlam of the war had altered her father.   She closed her eyes as a man’s voice howled in agony.  No one could listen to these sounds for very long without losing a bit of reason.

The hand on her back emerged from nowhere.  Annika cried out and fingers automatically covered her mouth.  She was faced with the terrifying sight of a faceless man.  Then he pulled off his mask and she breathed with relief.  It was Como Medici.  He trained his weapon on James. 

“No!” Annika shouted, pulling his arm.  The shot went wild and she struggled to stand between the men. 

“We are all on the same side in here,” she said breathlessly.   

“Annika!” Mercer yelled, pulling her to the ground as bullets whizzed past.  He looked over at his friend.  “Why not some Tuscan royalty?  Mighty glad to see you, Como.” 

Como still watched James with wariness.  “They can’t be held off long,” he warned.  “We’ve got to try now.”

Mercer tightened his grip around Annika.  “What about Anni? James, you need to shout out to them.  Tell them there’s a woman inside and she’s coming out.”

“I will not,” Annika yelled, clutching him.  “I swore I wouldn’t let you go and I won’t.  Not while we’re both breathing, Mercer Dolan.” 

“Mercer,” said Como, as a bullet came through the wall.  “Now.”

The hole James had made, which was evidently the one Como had crawled through,
was unguarded.  The Italian stepped cautiously through it first.  Mercer followed, holding Annika behind him as James brought up the rear. 

“Stay down,” Mercer hissed as the battle continued to rage on the street.  Annika thought the Mercantile might be on fire.  The smoke added to the confusion. 

Annika felt disoriented as she clung to Mercer in the turmoil.  She heard James at her back, struggling to suppress his coughing.   Howls and gunshots continued from the smoke-filled street as Mercer dragged her through the turmoil.  It seemed they had managed to get at least a hundred yards away.  The sounds of the chaos were fading. 

Como had flattened himself against the side of a building.  He spoke urgently to Mercer.  “The horses are tied up behind The Rose Room.”

Mercer shook his head.  “Too far.  Can’t risk bringing Anni through this.”

Como glanced at Annika.  “You’ll need to leave her.  She’ll be safer here than riding out with us. Mercer, you know it’s true.” 

Mercer was silent.

Annika began to feel a panic.  She would not be left behind while Mercer rode out to an uncertain fate.  She embraced him ferociously.  “No, goddamn you men!  This is my choice and I’m going where you go.” 

“Mercer.”  James’s voice was loud and unwavering.  “I will keep her safe until you can send for her.”  He coughed painfully and then righted himself, gasping, as Mercer quietly stared.  “I swear it.  I swear it on our name.” 

Annik
a saw how Mercer’s face grew tender.  “James,” he said and reached a hand toward his brother. 

James extended a hand in return and for a brief second love and forgiveness between brothers conquered the raw mania of the world around them.  James gave his brother a wry grin and then
his eyes went wide as his body convulsed.  He looked down in disbelief to the place where an errant bullet, likely fired with a different target in mind, had caught him just above the heart. 

“Mercer,” he gasped and then fell. 

Annika cried out in despair as Mercer caught his brother in his arms. 

“James
!” he choked as Como kicked in the door of the building and gestured to Annika that she should enter. 

Mercer carried James inside as Annika hovered, her hand over her mouth as she saw how James’s eyes rolled back into his head.  The wound, she knew, was bad.

“James,” she said softly, taking his hand as Mercer laid him down on the floor and determinedly sought a pulse. 

“He’s alive,” he said, but there wasn’t much relief in his voice.  He winced as he ripped open James’s shirt and saw where the bullet had entered. 

  Como had crept to a window and was peering outside.  “It’s quieting,” he observed, setting his pistol down as he crouched next to Mercer on the floor.  “They must have scattered.”  Annika saw the way the Italian’s eyes searched their surroundings and frowned.  For a moment she didn’t realize why a stab of familiarity tugged at her.  Then, as she glimpsed the elaborate crystal perched on an ornate wood carved table she realized why.  She had visited here before.  They were in the parlor of the Swillings’ home. 

She was on the verge of communicating this alarming fact when a deafening shot rang out.  Como Medici clutched his arm and cursed in Italian.   Mercer threw Annika a desperate look and lunged for Como’s discarded pistol.

“Stop,” said a voice and it was an ugly voice, full of amusement.   There was a chuckle.  “Quite an exotic little tableau here.  Is that the city marshal lying dead on my floor?”

“I’m not dead, Swilling.”  James struggled to rise as blood trickled out of his mouth.  “Not yet.”  He collapsed onto his back, gasping for breath. 

Mercer stood and glared hatefully at the mine boss.  He held Swilling’s eye as he spoke.  “Go on now, Anni.  You’re nearest the door.  Swilling ain’t real swift with the iron.  Now that he’s not shooting at our backs he knows damn well he’s got one chance.  If he wastes it I’ll grab that there pistol on the floor before he can spin sideways.  And I aim straight, boss.  Always.”   He spread his arms wide.  “Need me dead, do you?  Well boss, here I am.”

“No!” shrieked Annika, desperately trying to claw her way to Mercer.  Como caught her in a bloody embrace and forced her bodily behind him. 

Swilling regarded Mercer cheerfully over the barrel of his rifle.  “I need someone dead,” he agreed and cocked the hammer.

“You forget something,
capo,
” spoke up Como Medici in a singsong voice.  Henry Swilling paused, uncertain, as the Italian broke into a grin between his long whiskers. 

“In the last few hours,
signore
, have you confirmed the location of your precious metal?”

Swilling blinked
. 

“The safe,” Mercer said, catchin
g on with a laugh.  “Your confidently unguarded gold hoard.  The Danes have seen fit to ah, relocate it.”

The aim of the rifle wavered. Swilling’s fat face appeared sick.  “You lie,” he said.  But there was no surety in his voice. 

“Sometimes,” agreed Como, grimacing with pain as he shrugged.  “But not today,
capo
.”  

Annika could read Swilling’s face.  He didn’t know what to do.  He was a man used to slithering behind the scenes, recruiting others for the thorny tasks which spelled danger.  And though his finger was the only one in the room trembling over a trigger,
she knew he was unsure he could pull it.

Mercer pressed the advantage.  “Anni’s life,” he said, taking a bold step forward. “Como here will point you in the direction of your pile of gold once she’s safely away.”  Mercer glanced to James, who had ceased to move.  “Look at the marshal, Swilling.  He ain’t breathing no more.  There won’t be no one left to believe but you.  Como can manage his own way out and I’d reckon he won’t be keen on returning, ain’t that right, friend?”

Como spoke softly.  “That’s right, Mercer.”

Swilling’s eyes narrowed.  “And you?”

“Shoot me in the parlor.  Or hand me to the mob.”  Mercer laughed to himself and ran a hand through his dark hair.  There, in the moonlight of a terrible moment, Annika still marveled over the beauty of him.  Then she realized he would be taken from her.  Soon.  Mercer continued in a dreamy voice.  “Hell, maybe this was an end I could never get away from.  I made a deal with the devil long before I met you, Swilling.  Blood was always going to find me.”  The man she loved paused and turned to her.  His voice was impossibly gentle, with the burden of a thousand regrets and lost days. “I love you, Anni,” said Mercer Dolan.  “I’ll be with you again.  In this world or another one.  Now you get her out, Como.” 

“I love you too,” whispered Annika. At the sound of the shot she felt the death of her soul and shut her eyes.  She would not look.  She would never look at anything again.  Swilling would likely kill her anyway and by god she would leave this world without having seen Mercer’s lifeless body.  It would be the last thing she prayed for. 

“Anni.”  The ring of the shot faded and she heard his voice at her ear.  She wondered if she were dead already and had reached whatever lay beyond. 

Annika opened her eyes.  Mercer was there, he was
whole.  He kissed her hard and she knew the heat of his mouth on hers was a privilege reserved for the living.  But her surge of joy was brief as her mind tried to sort through the confusion of events.  She saw Swilling lying still on the floor, the contents of his skull gruesomely painting the wall above him.  And she saw the pistol in James’s steady hand.  Then he dropped it and let out a thick moan. 

Mercer left her and knelt at his brother’s side.  He grinned.  “I kne
w you were playin’ possum.  Just like when we were kids and would hide in Lizzie’s hay loft as she called for us to do our chores. You remember that, James?  Do you?”  His voice took on a desperate quality at the end.