Wilderness Double Edition 22, page 10
“He’s not here,” Lou said.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” the officer said, and yelled, “Mr. King? Zachary King? May I have a minute of your time?”
“I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” Lou said, and brushed past him. Her dander was up. She refused to answer as Bannister trailed after her, asking her repeatedly to stop. Finally he grabbed her and spun her around.
“Must you be so pigheaded?”
“Are you married?” Lou asked him.
Bannister blinked. “No. Why?”
“I didn’t think so.” Lou continued walking, leaving him no choice but to join her or be left behind.
“You’re taking this too lightly, Mrs. King. As a soldier I have known some deadly men in my time, and Largo impresses me as one of the deadliest. He could lift a bull over his head without half trying.”
“You have your pepperbox.”
“And you have your—” The major blinked again. “Where are your weapons? That was the whole purpose for the detour to your apartment.”
“I imagine my husband has them and is searching for me as we speak,” Lou surmised. “We’ll make do without.”
Bannister’s jaw muscles twitched, but he held in his irritation until they rounded a corner and saw The Armistead. A carriage was pulling up. It blocked their view of the entrance.
“It’s not too late to reconsider,” Bannister said. “I can’t guarantee I can protect you if we go any farther.”
Lou was patient with him. “Major, I’ve lived in the Rockies for years. I’ve had grizzlies try to eat me. I’ve had hostiles try to turn me into a pincushion. I’ve been kidnapped and shot at. One time my horse stepped in a prairie dog hole and broke its leg, and I had to walk for two days to reach our cabin.”
“Your point?”
Lou’s patience ran out. “I can protect myself quite well without help from anyone.” She pointed at the hotel. “You say a woman who wants my husband dead might be waiting in there for him. I say we go in and find out, and if she’s there, I’ll borrow your pepperbox, and that will be that.”
“You can’t kill someone in cold blood,” Major Bannister said.
“She intends to kill Zach and me. I’m only doing as Scripture teaches. An eye for an eye, remember?”
“It also teaches something else. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”
Before Lou could reply, a window on the third floor of the hotel exploded outward with a tremendous crash. She glanced up and saw a human form plummeting earthward. A form she instantly recognized.
It was Zach.
Thirteen
Zach King had checked all the rooms in suite 304 except the second bedroom. As he stood in the doorway a sense of unease came over him. He could not say what caused it, but he stopped and strained to hear the slightest sound. From outside came the clomp of hooves from a passing horse and rider. Somewhere in The Armistead a baby was crying. But that was all.
Zach leveled the Hawken and took a cautious step. He felt much as he had the time he had been about to explore a cave in the Rockies and sensed something was amiss. A roar had reverberated through the cavern, and a female grizzly came charging out of the darkness. He’d dodged behind a boulder and the mother bear and her cubs barreled on by and went off down the mountain. Fortunately for him. No creature in all creation was more fierce than a mother bear protecting her offspring.
Zach scanned the bedroom. It was much like the first one: a bed, a vanity, carpeted floor, the curtains drawn. He was about to go farther when the reason for his uneasiness dawned on him. It had to do with the window. With the drawn curtains. Every single window was the same. He had been to a few hotels with his parents, and the curtains in those had always been left open so the room was bright and airy.
The only explanation Zach could think of was that maybe no one had used the suite in a while and someone on the staff had closed the curtains to keep out the dust.
Zach warily moved toward the middle of the room. His feeling of uneasiness grew. He studied the bed but could find nothing out of the ordinary. It had been made to perfection. The pillows had been fluffed, the quilt was flat and unruffled.
Slowly easing onto one knee, Zach used the Hawken to lift the bottom edge of the quilt high enough to see under the bed. No one was there.
The vanity was too close to the wall for anyone to hide behind it. That left the closet, which was cracked open a few inches.
Zach started around the bed, then stopped again. The inside of the closet was darker than the room. That was to be expected. But there was a patch of black even darker than the rest, a hint that someone or something was in there. “Come out with your hands where I can see them, or I will shoot through the door.”
Time crawled by on snail’s feet. Zach was about convinced he was making a fool of himself when the closet door was slowly pushed all the way open and a gigantic shape unfurled from within. It rose toward the ceiling, its arms out to either side. He had never seen anyone so huge.
“You’ve caught me,” the words rumbled from the giant’s chest, and he smiled. “I’m impressed. How did you know I was in there?”
“Your silhouette,” Zach said.
“Your eyesight is extraordinary,” the man complimented him.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m a thief,” the man said. “I was looking for things to steal when I heard you come in.”
“I didn’t make any noise.”
“My senses are extraordinary too,” the man said. He wasn’t boasting, just stating a fact. “What now?”
“I’m taking you downstairs to the desk clerk.” Zach would let the hotel staff deal with the intruder.
“Why go to all that bother? You caught me before I could take anything.” When Zach did not reply right away the big man said, “I haven’t stolen anything of yours, haven’t harmed you in any way. Let me go my way and you go yours.”
There was something about the way the man said it, something about his expression, that made Zach suspect there was more involved. This was, after all, the room the “Good Samaritan” had reserved for Lou and him. He motioned. “Step around the bed and head down the hall.” He backed to the wall to give the other man plenty of room.
“Come on, mister. Be reasonable.” The man in black smiled. “What is this hotel to you that you should care? Let me go. I promise you’ll never set eyes on me again.”
“Start walking.”
“Is it because I’m a thief? I only do it because I’m down on my luck. Haven’t you ever stolen anything?”
No, Zach hadn’t. His father had impressed on him from an early age that stealing was wrong. The Shoshones frowned on it too, among their own people. Stealing a horse or gun from an enemy, though, were praiseworthy feats. “For a man down on his luck, you wear mighty nice clothes.”
“I could be hanged,” the big man said. “Would you let someone’s neck be stretched for something so trivial?”
“When did stealing become a hanging offense?” Zach could tell the man was stalling. “Enough talk. Stay in front of me and don’t try anything.”
The man’s broad shoulders slumped and he started around the bed. “I guess I have this coming for being so stupid. Since I’ve never run into anyone who can hold their own against me, I take it for granted no one can. That’s a mistake.”
Zach disliked the ceaseless chatter and was about to tell the so-called thief to shut up when the man did a remarkable thing. Exhibiting startling speed, he bent and grabbed the quilt and in a single wrench ripped it off the bed and flung it straight at him. Zach tried to dart to one side, but the quilt fell across his shoulders and wrapped itself around him. Before he knew it, he could barely move. He grabbed a fold to tear off the quilt, but bands of iron encircled his chest, pinning his arms, and he was hoisted into the air until they were nose to nose.
“You’re good, boy. I’ll give you that.”
Zach swore the man was looking at him with a strange mixture of respect and something else.
“To be honest, I never liked Artemis or Phineas all that much. They always treated me with contempt because I’m an indentured servant. If they ever suspected the truth they’d have shot me.”
Zach struggled, but the other’s strength was prodigious.
“Just so you know, my mistress wants you alive. That’s the only reason I haven’t crushed you.”
Zach tried to get at his knife, but it was buried in folds of the quilt. Now he was the one who needed to stall. “So this was a trap?”
“My mistress wants vengeance for her brothers. I have no personal stake in this other than carrying out her wishes.”
“I heard a rumor of a sister,” Zach said. “Three pups and they all turned out rotten.”
The big man glowered. “You would be well advised to speak of my mistress with respect. I will no more tolerate insults to her than you would tolerate an insult to your wife.” He gazed toward the hall. “Where is she, by the way?”
“Safe from you,” Zach said. By then he was ready. Snapping his head back, he butted the man on the jaw, not once but twice. It was like slamming his forehead against an anvil. For a few moments pinpoints of light flickered before him. But it had the desired effect.
The man in black staggered. His grip slackened. Not a lot, but enough for Zach to give a powerful heave of both arms and break free. He tripped and fell against the wall but stayed on his feet and the next moment he had shrugged the quilt off. He attempted to level the Hawken.
A hand as huge as a haunch of venison gripped the barrel. Zach clung to the stock and was jerked to his knees. A foot twice of the size of his flashed at his face. Dropping onto his shoulder, Zach rolled toward the door. He never made it. Fingers as strong as steel dug into his shoulders and he was heaved off the floor and thrown against the wall with bone-jarring force. His rifle went flying.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, boy,” his attacker calmly said. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than is necessary. My mistress reserves that honor.” He bent forward, his huge hands opening.
Dodging, Zach swung a looping right that caught the man on the neck. Not hard enough to crush the other’s jugular, but it caused him to clutch his throat and take a step back, grunting in pain.
Zach grabbed one of his pistols. As it cleared his belt his wrist was gripped in an inhumanly strong vise. For a few moments he thought the bone would shatter. The pain was excruciating. Involuntarily, he let go. Those same steel fingers seized him by the front of his buckskin shirt and he was raised almost to the ceiling, then slammed to the floor.
The carpet spared Zach from being gravely hurt. As it was, the room spun and he nearly blacked out. Scrambling to one side, he reached his knees just as the man in black reached him.
“Why won’t you stay down?”
Again Zach was lifted into the air. This time he aimed a punch at the other’s face and connected with a cheek. It was not enough. Once again he was brutally slammed to the floor.
“I should have known,” the giant said.
Zach made a stab for his other pistol. He thrust out his arm and thumbed back the hammer, but a new vise was applied to his wrist and his elbow, and his arm was nearly wrenched from its socket. Again he had no choice but to let the gun fall.
“You can’t win. No one has ever beaten me.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Zach said.
He still had Lou’s knife, and drawing it, he lunged. The man in black skipped from his reach and suddenly was holding a Bowie. Their blades met, separated, met again, the ring of metal-on-metal loud in the confines of the bedroom.
The giant circled. “Poor choice of weapons, boy. I’ve killed a score of men with my blade.”
The Bowie flicked at Zach’s eye, but he tucked at the knees and lanced his knife into his adversary’s redwood-thick thigh. It bit deep, and he danced out of the way of the Bowie.
Taking a long step back, the giant looked down, then at Zach. His eyes showed white in the dark. Not the white of fear but the white of red-hot rage. “If my mistress didn’t want you for herself—” He closed in, weaving the Bowie in a glittering display of superb skill.
Zach parried, shifted, countered, spun away. He was hard pressed to keep from being stabbed or cut. Several times he attempted to reach the door, but the giant was always right there, always pressing him, as relentless as an avalanche.
It hit Zach that the man in black wasn’t trying to kill him but to disarm him and take him alive. But Zach had some skill with a knife himself, and he would be damned if he let the other prevail.
Suddenly the big man sprang back out of reach. “You continue to surprise me. You have real talent. But not enough. We both know how this will end.”
“With you dead or behind bars?” Zach said. “All I have to do is yell and people will come running.”
“You won’t,” the other said smugly. “You’re not the kind to call for help.”
“I might surprise you,” Zach said. But the man was right. He fought his own fights. Feinting, he speared his knife at the giant’s other leg. This time, though, the manservant was ready. Their blades met, parted, met again. Whirling, slashing, always in motion, Zach sought to exploit lapses in the other’s guard. But there was none.
Suddenly they were next to the vanity and the chair.
Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, Zach grabbed the chair and flung it. His foe swatted it to the floor with no more effort than it would take Zach to swat a mosquito.
It bought Zach the seconds he needed to whirl and dart from the bedroom. He came to the main room and spun. The man in black was almost on top of him. Once more their blades rang. Each time their knives made contact, Zach’s arm was spiked by pain. There was no denying the other man was far stronger. Even so, newfound confidence flowed through Zach’s veins. He had realized something; the giant was stronger but Zach was a shade faster.
Maybe the man in black was winded, Zach thought. Or maybe it was the thigh wound and loss of blood. Whatever the reasons, his swings were not as quick, his parries had lost some of their power.
Zach leaped to the offensive. He was no longer just trying to stay alive; he was out for blood, out to kill. He was a Shoshone warrior with an overwhelming urge to count coup, and he would not be denied.
The giant was limping. Twice he put his free hand to his thigh, but each time he had to remove it to ward off Zach’s flurries. He was also breathing heavily.
Zach faked a stab to the left, pivoted, and stabbed to the right, opening his enemy’s forearm. Not deeply, but the man backed off and stared at the cut and growled deep in his chest. “Damn you, King. That’s twice now. There won’t be a third time.” He set himself. “My mistress will be upset with me, but it can’t be helped. It’s you or me and it won’t be me.”
“Are you sure?” Zach taunted.
“I’ll gut you and strangle you with your own intestines.”
The man renewed his assault with a ferocity Zach could never hope to match. Once more he was on the defensive. Blocking attempt after attempt to end his life, he slowly backed up until he bumped against the cart with the wine bottle.
Grabbing the bottle, Zach kicked the cart and sent it rolling at the other’s legs. The man moved nimbly aside but not quickly enough. The cart struck his wounded leg and he staggered and nearly toppled.
Instantly Zach sprang. The giant looked up just as Zach brought the wine bottle crashing down onto his head. Glass shattered into a hundred fragments and red wine splashed them both.
For most men, breaking a bottle over their head would be enough to knock them out. But not this one. The big man teetered, regained his balance, and retaliated with a vicious swing that came within a hairsbreadth of cleaving Zach’s head from his shoulders.
Zach backpedaled.
Roaring like an incensed beast, the man fought like a madman. He swung the Bowie from right to left and left to right, from high to low and low to high.
It was only by the grace of God and his wilderness-honed reflexes that Zach kept the Grim Reaper at bay. Backing against a table, he shoved it out of his way. Only he shoved too hard and the table upended instead, and in doing so, its legs became entangled with his. He tried to stay upright but couldn’t.
In a bound the Goliath reached him. Zach’s arms were seized and he was whipped violently about, first in one direction, then another. Zach aimed a kick that connected with the other’s knee. A hiss escaped the giant’s lips. He pushed with all his might.
Zach braced for impact with the wall. But he struck something softer. The curtains, as it turned out, which were not enough to slow him down and stop him from striking the window itself. He clutched for the jamb, but then cool air was on his face and he dropped like a rock toward the ground three stories below.
Fourteen
Shakespeare McNair was adrift on a tranquil lake. Not in a canoe or bull-hide boat, but floating serenely on his back, a blue sky overheard, a gentle breeze caressing his face and beard. He felt a sense of supreme peace.
Shakespeare was content to drift in bliss forever. Restful interludes like this were all too rare. In the Rockies life was a never-ending struggle for existence. Predators and hostiles posed a constant threat. A person must never let his vigilance lapse or it could prove fatal.
The soft rhythmic lapping of the water was melodious to Shakespeare’s ears. He didn’t wonder how it was he could be floating in water and still be dry, or how he got in the lake. He only knew he was happy. He only knew he did not want anything to spoil the moment. So naturally something did.
It started as a bleat in the distance, like the cry of a lost lamb, and grew gradually louder. Someone was saying the same words over and over, and began shaking his shoulder.
“—up, husband. Wake up.”
Shakespeare cracked his eyes open, and sighed. “Away, wench, or I’ll sic the three witches from Macbeth on you.”
