Emmy (Gold Rush Brides Book 2) (15 page)

“I just want to say, if I don’t come back from this—“

“Hush!” she interrupted. “Don’t you dare say such things, Mason Wilder. You go get Roy Kirby, dead or alive, I don’t care anymore. You get him and you make him pay for what he’s done.”

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes but she willed them away. The last memory Mason would have of her wouldn’t be her bawling like a baby. There would be enough time for that. Right now, he would see the strength she’d found since meeting him.

“Well, I’m gonna say it anyway. It’s been a downright privilege knowing you, Miss Emmy.”
 

He lifted her hand and his lips barely brushed her knuckles. It was the lightest of touches but it might as well have been a sledgehammer for how it knocked the wind out of her. She could only stand mutely and watch as the men mounted their horses and rode east to battle, tears streaming down her face.

~ * ~ * ~

Mason and his men only had to ride a mile or two before they spotted a homestead in the distance. It was exactly where the barkeep said it would be, perched atop the last hill before the land dropped away to the river below.

As they drew closer, they got a better view of the layout. There was a long open road leading up to the small house with no cover to speak of, making it almost impossible to launch a frontal attack. It looked like the trees and chaparral had been cleared away. Low, bushy trees surrounded the house itself, offering excellent cover for anyone inside, but the barren stretch of land between the bushes and the woods offered no protection for his men. The south side of the house was no better.
 

If they took any of those routes, Kirby’s gang would be able to pop them off one by one. Even if they attacked after dark, the full moon would give their enemy plenty of light by which to kill them.

From their vantage point, the only possible way to sneak up on Kirby was by approaching the house from the river side and climb up the hill. The trees would provide enough protection from the moonlight until the were right up on the house, and then they’d get the drop on Kirby.

The only problem was that it was spring, and the snow in the Sierra was starting to melt. The river was raging and there was no way they could pick their way along the river bank because there
was
no bank — only steep-sided hills.
 

Next to him, Fred whistled. “Hoo boy, look at that river. Mace, I don’t know what you’re thinking but going up the back of that hill ain’t an option for this old codger.”

Mason nodded. “Yeah, I know. Looks like we’ll have to ride up out in the open and hope for the best.”

His men were silent, contemplating their odds under such circumstances. They weren’t good.
 

“What if we wait for them to leave and we ambush ‘em soon as they hit the tree line?” suggested David, but Mason was shaking his head before he even finished.

“No good. Sheriff Watson has no doubt been out here already. They know we’re coming. No way will they leave that stronghold, such as it is, till we’re gone or dead. Or dead and gone, whichever.”

“And if we don’t strike now, Watson might hunt up a posse of his own, ain’t that right, Mace?”

It was a possibility Mason didn’t even want to consider, but knew it to be true. If Watson was as deep in Kirby’s pocket as the barkeep said, he might already be in town rustling up a group of men to hunt
them
down. Fred was right, they had to get while the gettin’ was good. But how?

Mason had spent the last year hunting Marie’s killer, and there he was, right in front of him but he might as well have been a thousand miles away. He hadn’t come all this way only to turn back now. If he didn’t take Roy Kirby tonight, he’d die trying. Which, he had to admit, was the most likely outcome as he looked down upon his foe.

“Mace,” Fred said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “I think we should make camp for the night.”

Mason gawked at him, incredulous. “Make camp? What are you talking about, Fred? Are you going senile?”

Fred smiled at his friend. “Nope. Not one bit. Y’see, I got an idea…”

Dark had fallen on the cabin, and Roy’s men were scattered about, watching for Sheriff Wilder and his posse. Watson had rode out that afternoon to warn him they were in town. The old fool had wanted to take off for Coloma till the dust settled but Roy reminded him who was boss in these parts.
 

“You’ll stay and fight like the man you used to think you were, Watson. I’ve invested a great deal in you, and now it’s time I see some kind of return.”

Watson had cowered before the black look Roy gave him and slunk into a corner to await further instruction. Roy despised any lawman who could be bought — they were lower than the criminals, in his opinion — but that didn’t stop him from trying to buy all of them he could. They proved useful in many regards, and now Roy was delighted to have found a new use for this one.

As the hours passed with no sign of the posse, Roy wondered where they were. It was possible they believed Watson when he said there was no man by the name of Kirby in town, but it was unlikely. Watson was a crooked fool of a sheriff and a real law dog like Mason Wilder would see right through him. No, Watson’s days were numbered so he might as well spend them defending the man who got him elected.

Two of his crew, Jim and Boone, were keeping watch out of the cabin’s windows, while another, Collin, was standing guard outside the front door. Watson was still in a corner but at least he had a rifle in his hands. The only one of his crew who was unaccounted for was Frankie, who still wasn’t back from a scouting mission.
 

With the open space he’d cleared around the cabin, and the river in the state it was, there was no way for the posse to steal up on them, if they were coming at all. The moon was already peeking over the hills, illuminating the land around the cabin. If anything moved, they’d see it.

While they waited and wondered, Roy’s thoughts turned to his beautiful bride. With the sheriff standing at the back of the church, he’d had no choice but to leave her behind, but he had every intention of tracking her down after tonight’s unpleasantries were over. First, he would have to teach her a lesson about respecting her husband so she’d never again turn him in to the law. Then he’d make her his wife in every sense of the word. His mouth watered in anticipation.

He’d almost had her, almost had it all, but it had gone wrong somehow. It had taken him some time to figure it all out, but during his hasty ride out of Nevada City, he’d looked down and understood everything. She’d seen his scar during the hold-up, and then again when he signed the marriage certificate. That’s the only thing it could have been, because they were all careful to disguise themselves and their voices during their jobs.

It was dumb luck that she’d been on that coach. The irony of it all was that he’d planned to retire after that one. He was thirty, after all. Maybe it was time to settle down, get a wife to bear him some sons, see what normal life was like. He had plenty of gold hidden away to live on, maybe even start a business. The only problem was that women were in short supply out west, and the ones that were already here were either over-used or already broken.
 

He’d heard tell of a new paper “devoted to the promotion of courtship and marriage” so he sent in an ad. He only got one reply, but it was a ripsnorter. Emmy wailed on about her dead ma and pa and nasty uncle, and how she needed someone to save her. If she was anything like she described, she’d make a fine bride — pretty and completely dependent on him. And if she wasn’t pretty, there were plenty of pretty ones in town to take care of his needs.

Naturally he noticed Emmy’s beauty during the hold-up but didn’t put two and two together. She wasn’t due in till the next day, after all. But when she started going on about her wedding dress and how she was arriving a day early, he nearly died from joy. She was a bit mouthy for his taste but that could be beaten out of her easily enough.

After they tore off with the loot, Roy couldn’t get Emmy out of his mind. Could he possibly be that lucky, to not only have one last successful robbery but to have a bride that bewitching? He had to see her again, but how?

It didn’t take much cogitating to come up with a likely scenario. She didn’t know anyone in town, so she’d most likely be staying at a hotel. Being the eve of her wedding, she’d probably want a bath after a dusty ride from San Francisco, which only two hotels in town offered: The Union Hotel and Bailey House. He remembered seeing an ad for the Bailey House in
The Nuptial News
offering a discounted rate to newlyweds, so it wasn’t so far off the mark to think they’d do the same for brides on their way to their grooms.
 

His place outside Rough and Ready served as their temporary headquarters when they hit Nevada City stages — he had two more such cabins outside of boomtowns along the Sierra Nevada — and he left his crew there to clean up while he rode to town to buy them a reward for a job well-done. Might was well scout around to hear if there was talk of the robbery and, of course, to take another look at his intended.
 

He was passing Bailey House when he saw a couple of brawny fellows carrying Emmy’s trunk inside, with her leading the way like she was a queen or something. Just as he suspected.

Emmy was waiting near the counter when he walked in but she didn’t so much as look at him sideways. She was as breathtaking as ever, if maybe a little wilted. It was strangely thrilling to be standing so close and for her to be so completely unaware. He’d held a gun in her face only hours earlier, and by this time tomorrow she would be his in every way God intended a wife to be.

The moment he heard the tubby little manager invite her to dinner and the Doc Robinson show, he knew exactly how to ‘reward’ his crew for not killing anyone during this hold-up. A couple of his crew had trigger fingers so he decided to give them an incentive to restrain themselves.

It wasn’t that he had a problem with the killings, exactly, but it only made the lawmen angrier. Sure, they tried to track them down when they only robbed the coaches, but it lit a fire under them when any of their citizens were killed.
 

The last time they’d killed any passengers was a year or so before right outside Nevada City, and the minute Roy got wind that one of them was a lawman’s wife…well, the new no-killing rule went into effect immediately. The last thing they needed was for some revenge-happy lawdog to sniff them out.
 

It was only coincidence that the very same lawman was hunting them right now. There was no way for him to know they were the crew that killed his wife. He really wouldn’t even suspect it.
That
crew killed everyone so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.
This
crew did the exact opposite. They covered their faces and disguised their voices when they spoke, which was discouraged, so no one could identify them.
 

Which made Roy wonder why Sheriff Wilder had traveled with a posse as far as Auburn to track down a pack of highwaymen who’d only hit his town’s coach once — twice, if he remembered the details of the one before. It didn’t add up. Something nagged at him, like sharp fingernail picking at a scab, and he couldn’t let it go.
 

“Watson, tell me again exactly what Wilder said to you,” he said to the sheriff.

Keeping his voice low, as if Wilder might hear him, Watson said, “He asked for my help finding someone, I asked who, he said you, I pretended I didn’t know you, then came straight here after he left my office. I already told you that.”

Roy gave the man a steely look. “Word for word, tell me what he said.”

“Um, let’s see…We talked about the rush for a minute, then he said he had a madman on the loose and couldn’t find him. Asked for my advice, all nonchalant-like. When I asked who, he said…hmmm, I think it was, ‘A low-down murdering highwayman named Roy Kirby.’ Yup, I’m almost sure those were his exact words. Like I said, I told him I’d never heard of ya but I’d ask around. He said he’d be waiting at the saloon and left. Then I came here. Why you askin’, Roy?”

But Roy had stopped listening at the word ‘murdering’. So Wilder knew, but how? No witnesses were left behind, and no one on his crew would squeal. They were so careful about not wearing anything that could identify them, so how did he put it together?

That itch at the back of his brain was still bothering him. Something he’d noticed at the job sites, but it was just out of reach. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and dove back into the memory of the last hold-up, since it was freshest.

The five of them had moved their horses to block the road right after a sharp turn. The driver had to slow the coach to make the corner, and he was blind to everything around the corner. Trees and bushes lined the road in that stretch so there was nowhere for the driver to turn. He was forced to stop.

They all set about their appointed tasks: Collin atop the stage, Boone down below, Frankie and Jim watched over the passengers until Roy needed Jim to help with the safe. Everything went like clockwork till Emmy piped up. She was lucky she wasn’t dead because Frankie was easily riled these days and a crack shot.

In his mind’s eye, he watched Jim step back to wait for him to chisel the strongbox out of the stage, like he’d done dozens of times. Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw him scuffing his boot heel in the dirt, but it wasn’t random, like someone kicking at a rock to while away the time. There was a rhythm to it, a pattern. Thinking back on the last several hold-ups, he seemed to recall Jim doing the thing with his foot each time, but he couldn’t make out what the purpose was.
 

“Jimmy, why do you kick the dirt?”

Jim turned from the window for a moment, a furrow in his brow. “Huh? What dirt?”

“At the hold-ups. I seem to remember you kicking at the dirt in a funny way a few times. Why? What were you doing?”

Jim broke into a grin. “Oh, that! I was making our mark.”