River Bound: Bound and Tied, Book 3 (7 page)

BOOK: River Bound: Bound and Tied, Book 3
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A man stepped up to the table. “Mind if I join you?” He spoke perfect English with a hint of a French accent.

When Dalton looked up, he instantly pushed the image of Rosalyn’s naked body to the very back of his mind and focused on the newcomer, Pierre Saulnier.

A slight nod across the room to where James sat confirmed to his friend their man had arrived. Now all they had to do was push him to reveal anything he might know about the dead soldiers.

Dalton settled in to what he did best, playing poker. The first few hands he deliberately threw, offering paper currency each time. He waited until he had a sure thing for a hand to play his trump card.

Saulnier tossed some of the money he’d won from Dalton into the center of the table. “You out?”

“No. I got more gold—a whole bag, should I need it.” Dalton dug into his pockets for the gold coins he’d pulled from the bag of stolen gold he’d recovered from beneath a board on the Marie-Dearie. He tossed one of the coins into the center of the table and waited for Saulnier’s reaction, watching him from the corner of his eye.

Saulnier’s gaze pinned Dalton, his eyes narrowing. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

Dalton shrugged, tossed a card onto the table and added another to his hand. “You meet a lot of different people if you play enough cards.”

Saulnier continued to stare for a moment then returned his gaze to his hand.

A steward wearing a freshly starched jacket, his hair slicked back from his face, handed Saulnier a folded paper and left. Saulnier broke the wax seal, opened, read the missive and frowned. He stuffed the paper in his pocket and lifted his cards.

Dalton won that hand and dealt the next.

His gaze on his cards, Saulnier said, “I could swear we’ve met before.”

“Can’t recall. Haven’t been on the Marie-Dearie for over a year.” Dalton shot a direct look at Saulnier. “What about you? Play the Marie-Dearie often?”

“Not for a…” The man looked up, his face paling. “No. This is my first time on the Marie-Dearie.” He tossed his hand facedown on the table. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I just remembered I have an appointment I can’t miss.”

Dalton’s pulse quickened. He’d seen recognition in the other man’s eyes, and something else. Fear?

Saulnier hurried from the room.

James’s feet dropped to the floor, and he sauntered out of the game room after Saulnier.

“Gentlemen, I fear my hand is equally dismal. Excuse me, I have a matter to attend to.” Dalton pushed back and stood. In seconds he was out the door and following James.

The sound of footsteps on the gangplank alerted him to his friend’s location. He broke into a run, his pace picking up as he cleared the narrow outer corridors. James was across the ramp and running along the dock to the riverbank, where he slipped in and out of shadows, noise from his footsteps barely audible.

Dalton hesitated, not eager to leave the boat or Rosalyn, but anxious to prove his innocence. From his position on the boat, Dalton couldn’t make out Saulnier, but if James had gone ashore, he must have Saulnier in sight. Dalton leaped across the gangplank and ran along the dock to the shore. He followed James along the shoreline until his friend crossed toward the buildings lining the riverfront road.

Before long, James eased to a stop at the corner of a hotel. Light streamed out of the window of a saloon, the noise inside spilling into the night.

Dalton slowed, walking past the saloon’s open door, casually continuing to the corner, his breathing hard, his lungs screaming. He looped an arm over his friend’s shoulder, pretending he’d just stepped out for fresh air. “Where is he?” he whispered.

“Shh.” James jerked his head toward the dark gap between buildings. “He went down the back alley to the street behind the hotel.”

“Why aren’t we following him?”

“He’s talking to someone.”

Dalton leaned around the corner.

Saulnier stood in the shadows with another man who wore a gentleman’s hat and carried a cane.

A noise behind Dalton made him look around. A man stumbled out of the saloon.

Dalton let his arm fall from around James’s shoulder and ducked his head. “We need to get out of sight. I can’t risk the law finding me.”

James slipped between the two buildings, squatting low, remaining hidden.

Dalton followed suit.

Around the corner of the saloon, the noise wasn’t nearly as loud. However, they still couldn’t make out the other two men’s conversation.

Their voices rose and the stranger pushed Saulnier.

Saulnier didn’t retaliate. He stood as still as stone, stiff, unbending, silent.

The gentleman said something else.

Saulnier took off, headed toward where James and Dalton hid.

Dalton ducked lower, slipping behind an abandoned wine barrel. James clung to the shadows, motionless.

Saulnier walked right by them, his face taut, his head down. The gentleman turned the opposite direction and disappeared out of sight.

“I’ve got the other guy,” James said.

“I’ll have a few words with Saulnier.” Dalton followed Pierre Saulnier out of the alley and onto the street.

After they’d passed several buildings, Saulnier became aware someone was tailing him. Before Dalton could close the distance, the other man dodged into the gap between two hotels.

Dalton raced after him.

Too late, he realized his mistake when a fist connected to his chin, sending him flying up against a brick wall. Dazed, Dalton shook his head and ducked the next punch.

His instincts kicked in and he sent a right hook to the other man’s gut, lifting him up off the ground with the force of the blow.

The man grunted and doubled over, then charged head first into Dalton.

Dalton crashed into the brick wall again, the breath knocked out of him, his only thought that of finishing this fight before the other man broke all of his bones. He twisted to the left at the next swing and shoved the man headfirst into the wall.

Saulnier crumpled to his knees.

Taking advantage of the man’s weakened condition, Dalton slammed him to the ground on his belly and jumped on top of him, pressing his arm into the back of the man’s neck. “Did you kill the soldiers that night a year ago?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man gritted out, spitting dust from his mouth.

“Tell the truth or die here.” Dalton leaned harder into Saulnier’s neck, squashing his face into the dirt.

“That marshal should have killed you when he had a chance,” Saulnier said.

“You planned that all along, didn’t you?”

The downed man snorted. “I didn’t plan it. I just planted the gold in your room.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Ask the man who hired me.”

“Who?” Dalton demanded. “Who hired you?”

Saulnier grunted. “You’re so damned smart, you figure it out.”

Dalton pressed harder until Saulnier’s eyes teared.

“I tell you, I don’t know. He found
me
, he always does.”

“Why set me up to take the fall?”

“I don’t know.” The man’s body went limp. “But I didn’t kill the soldiers. I’d bet the gentleman who hired me did, or he hired someone else to do it.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I lie? He set you up. If you don’t take the fall, I will for putting the gold in your room. I didn’t know he’d killed those soldiers until I heard about the theft and murders the next day.”

As much as Dalton wanted to blame Saulnier for killing the soldiers, the man’s words held a ring of truth. “Who were you talking to just a few minutes ago?”

“The gentleman who hired me. He said if I didn’t meet with him and tell him what I knew about the gambler on the Marie-Dearie, he’d kill me, my wife and my daughter.” The man beneath Dalton sighed. “I didn’t kill the soldiers. I needed money and he offered it to me to slip the bag into your room. I’m guilty all right. Of being gullible.”

Dalton continued to press the man into the ground for another moment, then he stood, pulling Saulnier to his feet.

“You really don’t know his name?”

Saulnier stood, rubbing the goose-egg-sized bump on his head. “I don’t remember. But he has to be from Memphis. That’s the only place I’ve met up with him. That’s all I know. God’s truth.”

Last year the marshal had shown up with a lynch mob. Someone with a great deal of influence had to have tipped him off, pointing the finger at Dalton. The man had to be someone the marshal trusted.

Dalton wondered if that man knew more than he’d shared with the marshal about the murdered soldiers. In order to find out who had identified him as the murderer, Dalton had to ask the marshal who had provided the information naming Dalton as the murderer. Not that he could walk up to the marshal and ask him. The marshal would shoot first and sort through the questions later.

“When I catch this man, I’ll need you to testify that he hired you to plant the money.”

With a nod, Saulnier straightened his jacket and bowtie. “Gladly. He’s caused me enough trouble.”

“What did you tell the gentleman about me?”

“That you were the same man we’d played cards with a year ago and that you were staying on the Marie-Dearie.”

His eyes widening, Dalton asked, “The same man in that card game with the soldier?”

The Frenchman nodded.

Dalton’s pulse quickened. The killer he’d been searching for had to be Tyler King. “Anything else?”

Saulnier hesitated. “I told him I’d seen you with the dark-haired woman staying on the boat.”

Dalton’s blood ran cold. Rosalyn. If this man had gone to the trouble of murdering two soldiers just to set him up, what would he do to a lone woman associated with Dalton Black?

He spun on his heels, calling out over his shoulder, “Don’t leave Memphis.” Then he was running as fast as he could toward the Marie-Dearie and the beautiful Rosalyn. He’d lost her once, he’d be damned if he lost her again. This time for good.

Chapter Six

 

Rosalyn had been all over the boat and seen no sign of Dalton or James. The steward in the gaming room had indicated Dalton had been playing cards earlier but had left abruptly. Where to, no one knew. She’d checked his room, but Dalton didn’t answer at her knock. Where had he gone? Why had he left the boat?

Bigger question was why was
she
still on the boat? As the hour grew later, she’d begun to suspect he wasn’t coming back, and she’d been a fool to stay and wait for the man.

She stood at the railing near the gangplank leading down off the Marie-Dearie, her gaze on the shoreline, hoping to see Dalton moving along the riverfront road.

Several men appeared on the road, rushing across the dock, headed straight for the Marie-Dearie.

Before they made it to the gangplank, Rosalyn could tell who the lead gentleman was—the marshal who’d come aboard a year ago, ready to string Dalton up on the nearest tree.

Her pulse racing, Rosalyn turned and hurried down the stairs to the cabins below. She went straight to Dalton’s room and, using a hairpin, picked the lock and entered. A few minutes before she’d been angry that he wasn’t on the ship. Now she breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t in his cabin or anywhere else aboard. Were they back to arrest him? Had someone tipped them off that he was here under an assumed name? Would they discover additional evidence in his room to find him guilty?

Rosalyn conducted a hasty search of Dalton’s cabin. Inside a trunk, nestled in a saddlebag, she found a heavy burlap bag. Letters painted on the side of the fabric indicated the United States Army. Her heart fell to her stomach as her fingers wrapped around the gold that had been stolen from the soldiers a year ago. The gold that had cost the soldiers their lives.

Footsteps pounded on the floor above, shaking Rosalyn out of her stupor and spurring her into action. She tucked the bag of gold into the voluminous folds of her skirt, opened the cabin door and checked the hallway outside Dalton’s room. When it cleared of all patrons, she scurried to her room, the bag of gold weighing in her hands and in her heart. As she crossed the threshold into her cabin, the boat’s purser with his ring of keys, the marshal and his followers descended the stairs at the other end of the passage, guns drawn.

Rosalyn closed her door softly in order to avoid drawing attention to herself. Her hands convulsed around the heavy bag of gold. Now that she had it, what could she do with it? A horrible thought occurred to her.

What if the marshal conducted a complete search of the Marie-Dearie, including her room? They’d find the gold, accuse her of stealing it and that would be the end of her freedom. All for the misguided love of a gambler turned thief and murderer.

As quickly as she could, she lifted her skirts, and with a length of ribbon, she tied the bag of gold around her waist, allowing it to ride low at her pelvis. The folds of her skirt would hide the bump, if she could keep from walking oddly or jostling the coins against each other.

As she’d suspected, the marshal ended his search of Dalton’s room and barged into the rest of the rooms along the hallway.

Rosalyn took the time to settle a large hat on her head, dipping the brim low over her eyes to cast a shadow on her face. If she kept her head down, the marshal might not recognize her as the same woman who’d been with Dalton a year ago.

A knock on her door set her heart to racing.

“Ma’am, open up,” the purser called out. “The marshal needs to speak with you.”

Reminding herself to appear calm and curious like any other passenger, she opened the door. “May I help you?”

The marshal looked past her into her room. “I’m looking for a passenger. Dillon Green.”

Rosalyn swung away from the marshal, sure to keep her head down, her hat concealing the majority of her facial features. “You’ll see that I’m not hiding a man in my room, gentlemen.”

“Mind if we search?”

“Not at all.” She waved her hand, encouraging the marshal and his men inside. While they searched, Rosalyn stepped out into the hallway on the pretext of giving them room. Their closeness made her nervous. If they should bump against her, the ribbon precariously tied around her waist could break and the bag of gold would drop to the floor, spilling gold pieces. Now wouldn’t that be a fine kettle of fish? Explaining her way out of jail would be thorny, to say the least. The ridiculousness of the situation tugged at her funny bone and a smile curved her lips.

BOOK: River Bound: Bound and Tied, Book 3
4.97Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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