Elizabeth Lane (21 page)

“I’m going to scout around back and see what I can find out,” he said. “If any kind of posse shows up, can I count on you to tell them where I’ve gone?”

“That you can, young man.”

“Wish me luck, then. And don’t let any of those triggerhappy fools shoot me when I come out.” Donovan slipped into the shadows without waiting for a reply. His senses sprang to full alert as he crept down the alley. Finding out whether the back door was guarded would be the first order of business. When he knew that, he could plan the next step.

The spruces that screened the back entrance rose thick and black against the twilight sky. Edging along the wall of the alley, Donovan slipped the big Griswold and Gunnison out of its holster, cocked the weapon and, with his free hand, reached low to work a pebble out of the mud. Tensing for action, he flung the small rock into the midst of the trees.

The pebble tumbled through the branches, bouncing and rustling until it struck ground. The silence that followed was broken only by the raucous scolding of an awakened squirrel.

Sweating now, Donovan eased closer. His fingers found another pebble and tossed it through the trees to strike the closed door.

The sharp thud echoed like a gunshot in the darkness as he waited, his nerves taut and tingling, his thumb riding the hammer of the pistol.

Nothing.

He flung another pebble, a smaller one, just to be sure. Then, when nothing happened, he crept close enough to try
the door. To his surprise, he found it unlocked. When he turned the knob it swung inward on its well-greased hinges.

Reminding himself that he’d gotten in much too easily, Donovan checked behind the door. No one was there. Above him, the stairway rose open and empty in the garish mauve lamplight.

He took the stairs in long silent strides, spurred by the awareness that he was unsheltered here, open to gunfire from above or below. At the top he checked each of the rooms. All of them were empty, including the one where he had left Sarah. Donovan stood for an instant in its cool darkness, staring at the open, shattered window.

Breaking glass,
Annie had said.
And a woman’s voice, shouting
for the children to run.

But there was no trace of Sarah here. The room was in disarray, the dresser drawers pulled open, the contents of the wardrobe strewn on the bed. Fragments of glass glittered on the floor, reflecting the light from the hallway.

She was gone, Donovan surmised. She had taken her meager possessions and left in the night while he slept unaware in his solitary loft. She was gone, as he had so often wished her gone, from the town and from his life.

At least she would be safe, he reminded himself. With luck, she would be on the Denver stage by now, headed for a new life. Sarah was a tough woman. She would do all right for herself. But he would never see her again.

Turning his back on the pain, he slipped out into the hallway again, the pistol a cold weight in his hand. He had checked all the upstairs rooms and found them empty. Nothing remained but the stairs that led down into the saloon.

Silent as a mountain cat, he moved out onto the secluded landing. In the lamplight that flickered below, he could see the saloon keeper sprawled behind the bar and another man, a stranger, lying dead a few paces short of the front door.

He could see the round, empty tables, and one, near the bar, where a man and a woman sat together. The man was drinking, his massive shoulders hunched over the bottle. The woman sat leaning back in her chair, legs brazenly crossed to show her slender ankles. And she was laughing, laughing boisterously at something the man had said.

It was like looking down into a scene from hell.

Still hoping to see the children, Donovan inched closer. He recognized the man now. It was Simeon Dooley, the troublemaking ex-corporal he’d seen in Central City. But the womanDonovan’s breath choked off as she turned her head, revealing her cropped hair and finely chiseled profile.

Sarah.

Donovan felt his insides caving in, as if he’d just been gut-kicked. He was not aware of having made a sound, but something made her stiffen, made her swivel in her chair and look straight in his direction.

His eyes caught the flash of her face in the lamplight and the glint of her jeweled ear-bobs. Then something crunched into the back of his head. The room exploded in sparks that swirled into blackness as he pitched forward and toppled down the stairs.

T
he lamp was a blur of flame, its light a sickening rainbow before Donovan’s eyes as he blinked himself awake. He was lying sideways on the floor, the pain in his head a dark, pulsing throb.

His muscles jerked in a reflexive effort to sit up. Only then did he discover that his hands and feet were bound with twiny ropes that burned into his flesh as he strained against them. His gun was gone, of course, and the belt with it. In a rage of confusion, he sagged back to the floor.

“So you’re awake!” Dooley’s flat-nosed bulldog face, grotesquely haloed by the lamp, leered down at him. “Remember me, Major? How could you forget, eh?” His laughter stank of chewing tobacco and cheap whiskey. “Looks like we got ourselves a little reunion goin’. Me and you and the proper Widow Taggart. Only she ain’t quite so proper now. I wouldn’t exactly call owning a bar and whorehouse a ladylike profession, would you, Lydia?”

Lydia.

The name slammed like a hammer blow to Donovan’s aching head. Sarah, it seemed, was playing her own games. She was Lydia Taggart again, and she had taken advantage of Smitty’s murder to claim the place as her own. That much was self-evident, but not her reasons.

“Where are the children?” he muttered.

“The kids ain’t your problem, Major. In fact, if I was you, I’d be a lot more more worried about my own skin. You rode me damned hard in that regiment. And all the time I was diggin’ trenches and standin’ extra duty, I swore I’d get back at you one day. I swore I’d get you real good.”

“You were always making trouble, Dooley. Any punishment you took, you brought on your own head.”

One big ham of a hand shot down to clutch Donovan’s shirt and jerk him off the floor. “You hear me good, Major! The war’s over! Corporal Dooley’s callin’ the shots now, and it’s gonna be the greatest pleasure of my life to watch you squirm before you die!”

“Dooley, you’re out of your mind.” It was Sarah who spoke. Only it wasn’t Sarah’s voice. It wasn’t even Lydia Taggart’s voice. It was the voice of a woman so jaded by life that she no longer seemed to care about things like decency or dignity.

“The major, here, is a lawman,” she said. “A fullfledged sheriff out of Kiowa County, Kansas. If that posse catches up with you, he’ll be worth more as a hostage than as a corpse.”

Dooley let go of Donovan’s shirt, releasing him to crash back to the floor. “Hell, who needs another hostage? I already got more kids an’ whores than I know what to do with!”

Sarah got out of her chair and walked around to where Donovan could see her green high-heeled slippers below the hem of her skirt. He forced himself to lie still, without looking up at her.

“Kids are more trouble than they’re worth,” she said in a hard voice. “Let the little brats go. You won’t need them now that you’ve got a real, live sheriff.”

Dooley took a long pull on his whiskey bottle. “You sweet on this man, Lydia, honey?”

“Sweet on him?” Sarah’s laugh was razor edged. “This high-handed bully did his best to run me out of town! If I weren’t afraid of hanging for it, I’d shoot him myself!”

“Now, that could be an amusin’ sight.” Dooley chuckled under his breath. “But I can’t say as I’d trust you that far, Lydia. Besides, shootin’ would be too easy on the major here. Maybe I’ll let him sweat while I take my time to think up some real entertainment.”

He lifted his head and spoke to someone Donovan could not see. “Get the major into a chair and tie him good. I’ll deal with him after this damned bullet’s out.”

Donovan’s eyes darted to the dirty, makeshift bandage knotted around Dooley’s thigh. Things were beginning to make sense now. Dooley had been shot during the robbery. He couldn’t run far with a bullet in his leg, so he’d come through Miner’s Gulch for help. The shootings, the children—they’d tumbled into the horror like rocks pulled into an avalanche. Even Sarah-His thoughts exploded in a burst of nauseating pain as a pointed boot toe crunched into his ribs. Limp with the sudden shock, he had no power to struggle as two wiry arms hoisted him into a nearby chair.

“I wouldn’t advise you to put up a fight, Major.” Dooley grinned, covering Donovan with the rifle while the invisible hands retied his ropes to the chair. “Cherokee here’s just waitin’ for an excuse to do somethin’ real nasty.”

Cherokee.
Donovan cursed under his breath as his vision cleared. He knew the cold-blooded half-breed well. In fact, he’d had him in his jail for murder once, and would have hanged him if a slippery lawyer hadn’t gotten him off. It was an experience Donovan would never forget.

Cherokee was a man without a name or a soul, his tongue cut out in some long-ago incident that had spawned a hundred stories. He was as silent as snowfall and as vicious as a weasel.

Donovan could only glare helplessly as the half-breed ambled into full view and spat contemptuously on his boots. Fear was an icy ball in his stomach, not only for himself, but for the women and children. When it came to
cruelty, Cherokee possessed the chilling lust of a wolverine. He had no compassion and no conscience.

Dooley threw back his head and laughed as Cherokee turned away and moved toward the bar, his odd, cat-footed gait making no sound on the weathered plank floor. While the half-breed poured himself a drink, Donovan took advantage of his first chance to look around the saloon.

In the back corner, half-hidden by the piano, Greta and Zoe were tending two wounded men. The black piano player was sitting up, his back against the wall, eyes closed with the pain of his bandaged shoulder. The other man-Donovan shuddered as he recognized MacIntyre—lay flat on the floor, his breath rasping in and out with a labored, bubbling sound. Lung shot. Bad news. Donovan had seen enough of them to know.

Raising his eyes, he forced himself to look directly at Sarah. She was leaning back in her chair, facing Dooley, one slim leg crossed over the other. Her fingers toyed indifferently with an empty glass.

She would not look at him, Donovan knew. Not if she could avoid it. After all, she had every reason to blame him for this debacle. If he had not interfered, she would be safe now. The children, too, would be safe, because, as their teacher, she would have dismissed school hours before the robbers appeared.

He studied her profile as she turned in her chair. She appeared drawn and painfully thin, her ordeal mirrored in the violet shadows beneath her eyes. But even now, Donovan was struck by her beauty, by the way her hair curled to the shape of her head like an exquisite little cap, by the fine, strong curve of her jaw and the swanlike grace of her neck.

But what the devil was the woman up to?

In that first instant, when he’d glimpsed her with Dooley, he could have sworn she’d gone over to the outlaws to save her own skin. Even her urgings to let the children go had been so rough, so cynical that he could not be certain of her motive. And looking at her now…no, he could not be sure.
He had seen Sarah’s talent for playacting, and he knew how convincing she could be. But she had suffered terribly at the hands of people in this town. If she had changed, if she’d become hard and bitter, who could blame her?

Sarah, Lydia, or someone new? Who was she now?

Donovan forced his eyes away from her. No, he concluded, he could not allow himself to trust her. He would have to think and act for himself, to find his own way out of this mess.

Dooley flung his empty bottle against the bar, where it shattered with a crash. “Time to get this damned bullet out,” he growled. “I hope the hell you’re as good a doc as you say you are, Lydia, old girl, ‘cause if anything goes wrong, you’ll be a dead woman, understand?”

“It will hurt,” Sarah said in a cold, flat voice. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Hell, yes.” He swung toward the dark man at the bar. “Cherokee! Get them damned kids out of the kitchen. And that old redheaded whore, too. Spade can guard ‘em in here. After the bullet’s out, we’ll figger what to do with the high-an’-mighty Major Cole!”

Cherokee disappeared without a sound. A few seconds later, the five children came trooping out of the kitchen, shepherded by Faye and a squat, youngish gunman Donovan did not recognize.

“Uncle Donovan!”

Donovan’s heart stopped as Katy broke from the line and ran to him. Her face was milk white below the red-orange tangle of her hair. Her eyes were swollen pink from weeping as she flung her arms around him.

“Go back, Katy!” he rasped under his breath. “Go back with the others, and do exactly as you’re told!”

“But I want to stay with you! Why are you tied up, Uncle Donovan?”

“Go back, Katy!”

Stung by the vehemence in his voice, she flew with a little sob back to the cluster of children. The young gunman
maneuvered them into the far corner of the room, Faye with them, and ordered them all to sit on the floor.

Crying openly now, Katy hurled herself into Faye’s arms. “I want my uncle Donovan!” she sobbed. “I want him to take me home!”

As Faye soothed the distraught little girl, Simeon Dooley leaned back in his chair, taking in the scene with grim amusement.

“Uncle Donovan, eh?” An evil smile curled his upper lip over his teeth. “This could get interestin’, Major. Mighty interestin’ indeed.”

Where would Smitty have kept forceps?

Sarah rummaged frantically through the kitchen drawers. Surely, she reasoned, a man who ran the only saloon in a town with no regular doctor would have a few emergency medical items on hand.

She could feel icy perspiration beading beneath her dress as she searched. Cherokee, as cold and silent as a snake, leaned against a counter and watched her, one finger testing the hammer of his Colt. He would welcome the excuse to kill her, she sensed. Or to kill Donovan, or even to kill one of the children. She could not allow him that excuse.

The table had been cleared and wiped, and a spare bedsheet torn into wrappings that were more or less clean. Dooley was in the saloon, waiting for word that she was ready. All that remained was for her to find the accursedSarah’s knees sagged with relief as her hand closed on a flannel-wrapped bundle in the back of a drawer. She unrolled it to find forceps in two different sizes, a scalpel, needles, thread, scissors, and a small bottle of alcohol.

“Have Mr. Dooley come in,” she said. “As soon as these instruments are clean, we can start.”

She was using tongs to lift the forceps and scalpel from the boiling water when Dooley hobbled into the kitchen and heaved his body onto the groaning table. He had drunk enough whiskey to put down a bull buffalo, Sarah observed,
but he was still awake and alert. When the pain got bad, there would be no keeping him still.

“Go ahead! Get it over with!” he growled. “But I’m warnin’ you now, lady, if you want to live through the next hour, no tricks. Cherokee here’d just as soon cut out your gizzard as look at you!”

Sarah forced herself to laugh as she tied a cotton apron over her green silk gown. “Why, I declare, Simeon Dooley, you sound as if you don’t trust me!”

“Don’t trust no female. Least of all when I got my britches down!” Dooley hooted at his own joke as Sarah approached the table, her instruments laid out on a pewter serving tray.

“All right, Corporal, let’s have a look,” she said, bracing herself against the revulsion of touching him. “First the bandage, then the pants.”

She felt Dooley go rigid as she loosened the blood-soaked knot of the dirty rag that circled his thigh. He flinched as the fabric came stickily away to reveal the ugly purplish mass of the wound through the bullet-torn trousers and long johns.

“Bad?” The word seeped out of him.

“Bad. It’s already started to fester. That bullet can’t come out soon enough. But there’s one problem.”

“Problem?” Dooley’s head came up.

“Even with the whiskey, you’re feeling a lot of pain. And I’ll need you perfectly still while I probe the wound. Somebody’s got to hold you. One man, maybe even two.”

“Cherokee-”

“Cherokee’s not big enough. Neither is Spade. You outweigh either of them by at least a hundred pounds.” Sarah paused, giving him time to arrive at the obvious conclusion. “You’ve got to untie Major Cole,” she said. “He’s the only one strong enough for the job.”

Dooley made a choking sound. “Turn Cole loose? Hell, woman, you’re crazy!”

“Not as crazy as you might think. The major won’t dare try anything. Not while Spade’s got a gun on that little carrottopped niece of his.”

Sarah held her breath while Dooley deliberated. It wasn’t that she’d lied to him. Probing for a bullet was an excruciating business. The pain would make Dooley a wild animal; she would need the strongest man she could find to hold him down.

And it wasn’t that she planned to harm the burly excorporal. That would pose too much risk to the children. But she needed Donovan, Sarah realized. If nothing else, she needed him for herself. Whatever had happened between them in the past, she needed his strength beside her now or she would crumble and break under the strain.

Simeon Dooley sagged back onto the table, his eyes bloodshot from drink and fatigue. “No,” he grunted, “I ain’t untyin’ no lawman. You’re gonna have to do the job by yourself, lady. And Cherokee’ll be keepin’ his gun on you to make sure you do it proper!”

“All right, then.” Sarah unbuckled his belt and slipped off his leather-sheathed knife. “Here.” She thrust it between the big man’s teeth. “Bite on this. Hard.”

In a single motion she seized the waistband of Dooley’s trousers and jerked them down to his knees. His teeth clenched on the knife as the matted fabric tore loose from his wound, but otherwise he held admirably still.

“Relax, now.” She took the scissors and trimmed away a circle-cut of his long underwear around the ugly wound, then splashed the open area with whiskey to cleanse it. Next she picked up the forceps.

“Now!” she muttered, plunging the tips into the hole where the bullet had entered.

Dooley’s breath was a long suck of pain. His leg jerked wildly, forcing Sarah to withdraw the forceps.

“If that bullet stays in, you’ll die from blood poisoning,” she said calmly.

Dooley swore under his breath. “All right. Get Cole!” He motioned to Cherokee. “But one wrong move, and Little Red’s a goner. Make sure he knows that.”