The Loner: The Big Gundown Page 14

  “So we’re sort of taking each other on our words, aren’t we?”

  Black smiled thinly. “That’s all anyone can do in this world, isn’t it?”

  He had a point there. The Kid nodded and left The Birdcage Saloon. He walked back to the hotel, taking note of the fact that Titusville’s main street was still crowded despite the fact that the evening was wearing on. In a boomtown like that, things might not ever quiet down completely.

  When The Kid reached the hotel, he walked upstairs to his room. In the second floor corridor, he stopped short in front of his door and looked down at the place where he had shoved a matchstick between the door and the jamb and broken it off. It was an old trick but an effective one if a fellow wanted to know whether or not somebody had been in his room while he was gone.

  In this case, the answer was yes, because the broken matchstick wasn’t where he had left it. The tiny piece of wood lay on the floor where there was a gap at the edge of the door. It had fallen straight down when someone opened the door.

  Morgan glanced up and down the hall. He was alone at the moment, so he slipped his gun from its holster and held it ready beside his hip. He took out his key and slid it into the lock, not trying to be quiet about it. The key rattled as he turned it.

  Then he grasped the knob, twisted it, and flung the door open. At the same time he took a quick step back, then threw himself forward in a lunging dive that carried him halfway across the room, moving low and fast. He hit the floor, rolled, and came up on one knee with the Colt in his hand, ready to pull the trigger.

  “Oh, my God!” Glory Sheffield said from where she sat on the side of the bed, eyes wide with surprise. “Do you always come into a room that way, Kid?”

  Chapter 23

  Morgan came to his feet with a lithe motion and glared at the beautiful young redhead sitting on the edge of his bed.

  “Breaking into a man’s room is a good way of getting yourself killed…or worse,” he said.

  “A fate worse than death?” Glory shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not the way I’ve been throwing myself at you, and yet you continue to steadfastly ignore me.”

  The Kid holstered his gun. “I imagine most men find you pretty hard to ignore, Mrs. Sheffield.”

  “That’s true. Generally, they’re falling all over themselves trying to give me what I want.” She stood up and came toward him. She wore a different gown than she had been wearing earlier, having changed for dinner. This outfit was just as stylish and expensive as the other, and it hugged her body equally sensuously. “You truly don’t seem to give a damn, Kid. Maybe that’s why I find you so intriguing. And I told you to call me Glory. Calling me Mrs. Sheffield reminds me too much of Edward’s first wife.”

  Maybe she needed a reminder that she was currently married to Edward Sheffield, Morgan thought. He said, “Whatever happened to her, anyway?”

  Glory made a face. “She died. She was sick for a long time, and she couldn’t be much of a wife to him, if you know what I mean. Not that she would have been, even if she hadn’t been sick. She was a dried-up little woman. Very cold-blooded.”

  “Just the opposite of you.”

  That brought a wicked smile to Glory’s face. “No one has ever accused me of being cold, Kid. Hot-blooded, is more like it.”

  Morgan could believe that. He asked, “How did you wind up married to him?”

  She shrugged. “My father is the Assistant Secretary of War. He has a lot of business contacts with Edward. They thought it would be beneficial to everyone if he and I were married.”

  So his guess had been right, The Kid thought. Glory’s marriage to Sheffield had been a business arrangement as much as anything. He wasn’t surprised. A little disgusted, maybe, but not surprised. Over in Europe, the kings sold each other their daughters and sisters and cousins. Here in America, the politicians and the business magnates took the place of royalty.

  “What are you doing here in my room, Mrs. Sheffield?”

  “Glory, damn it.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were pretty mad at me,” The Kid reminded her. “You’d gone back to calling me Mr. Morgan.”

  She shrugged. “I’m easily irritated. It’s a failing of mine. But I get over it quickly. Let’s face it, you’re the most interesting man in Titusville, and quite likely the most handsome, too. I’d rather spend the evening with you than with anyone else.”

  “What about your husband?”

  Glory grimaced again. “Edward barely stopped worrying about business long enough to eat supper, and then he went back to the mining company office. If he did manage to quit worrying about that, he’d be too scared of Gideon to think about anything else.”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she caught her breath sharply and looked like she wished she could draw them back in. The Kid had already noticed the familiarity with which she had referred to Colonel Black, and it fit right in with the vague theory that had started to form in his mind earlier.

  “You and Black know each other, don’t you?” he demanded, stepping closer to her.

  She moved back and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know who he is, of course. He’s the outlaw who’s trying to ruin Edward’s business by holding up the trains and stealing those ore shipments.”

  “No, there’s more to it than that,” The Kid insisted. “If your father is the Assistant Secretary of War, that means he has a lot of contacts in the army, too. You knew Black before he retired.” Something occurred to him. “Or was he kicked out of the army? Cashiered, as the British say.”

  Glory’s composure had been cracking ever since she’d made that slip. Now it broke all the way, and she said, “My God, why couldn’t you just agree to go after him and kill him? That would solve everything!”

  “You’d better tell me what this is about.”

  She shook her head. “I-I can’t.”

  “That’s the only way I can help you…Glory.”

  She drew in a deep, ragged breath and then started pacing back and forth across the hotel room as if she couldn’t stay still. Her hands knotted together in front of her and then unknotted. Finally, she said, “Yes, I knew Colonel Black…Gideon Black. Have you ever seen him?”

  The Kid nodded. “I have,” he said, without telling her how recently he had seen the colonel, in fact.

  “Then you know that he’s a handsome devil. Quite a bit older than me, of course, but still…very virile.”

  The Kid would agree about the “devil” part. He didn’t know about the other, but Glory obviously did.

  “The two of you were romantically involved?”

  “We were lovers.” She said it bluntly, with no real inflection in her voice. “I thought I might actually marry him someday and be the colonel’s lady. Although he would have been a general sooner or later if…if everything hadn’t gotten ruined.”

  “What happened?”

  “Gideon was involved in some rather shady dealings connected to the quartermaster corps. My father was part of them, too. But he was more prepared for trouble, and when things began to go wrong, he was able to get rid of all the evidence linking him to what had happened. Gideon wasn’t that well prepared.”

  “So he had to take the blame,” Morgan guessed.

  Glory nodded. “He was court-martialed. He would have been sent to prison for years, but my father interceded on his behalf, and in the end, Gideon was only dishonorably discharged. Father thought that Gideon would be grateful to him for his help, but he didn’t feel that way.”

  Morgan wasn’t surprised. “He hated your father instead and blamed him for everything that happened. Am I right?”

  “Of course. I can see now it was inevitable. I think it made Gideon go a little mad.”

  More than a little, Morgan thought. Colonel Black was consumed by hatred. But most of it seemed to be directed at Edward Sheffield, and Morgan didn’t understand that yet.

  “What was Sheffield’s part in this? Why
does Black hate him?”

  “Because Edward was involved in the graft and corruption as well. He was a silent partner in the whole thing. And when it all began to fall apart, Gideon got it in his head that Edward was responsible, too. Actually, he blamed Edward even more than he did my father, because he thought Edward arranged things to ruin him so that…so that he could…”

  “Have you,” The Kid guessed when Glory seemed unable to go on.

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded silently.

  The Kid thought she was overacting just a little. She probably wasn’t as devastated by the things she had revealed as she pretended to be. Even though he hadn’t known her for very long, he was convinced that at heart, she was rather cool and calculating, despite that hot blood she claimed to have.

  “So you can see why Gideon hates Edward,” Glory went on after a moment. “Because of the court-martial, and because he lost me to Edward as well.”

  “Did Sheffield blackmail your father into going along with the marriage?”

  Glory shook her head, and this time her words sounded completely genuine as she said, “He didn’t have to do that. I was perfectly willing to marry him. My God, he’s worth a fortune, and he’s getting richer all the time. That is, he will be if someone can put a stop to what Gideon’s trying to do.”

  “That’s why you wanted me to help your husband.”

  After backing off from him for a while as she talked, Glory now came toward The Kid again, close enough so that she could lay a hand on his arm. Close enough so that he felt the warmth of her breath.

  “After seeing what you did today, Kid, I know you could handle the problem. You could find Gideon and—”

  “Kill him?” The Kid cut in.

  Anger flared in Glory’s eyes. “Yes, damn it! He was a criminal when he was in the army, and he’s an even worse outlaw now. Don’t make it sound like we’re asking you to hunt down and murder an innocent man.” She laughed harshly. “Gideon Black is far from innocent, I assure you!”

  As he recalled what had happened to the Williams family and their vaqueros, Morgan knew that she was right about that. Gideon Black was cunning and daring, but he was also a mad dog who needed to be put down.

  Morgan just wished that in doing so, he wouldn’t be doing a favor for such an unsavory trio as Sheffield, Glory, and her father.

  “Well?” she said after staring into his eyes for a moment. “Will you do it?”

  The Kid said, “I don’t guarantee that I’ll kill him…but I will see to it that he and his gang are stopped. I’ll see that he’s brought to justice.”

  Although if there was any justice in the world, he thought, Gideon Black wouldn’t be the only one who was punished. Edward Sheffield and Glory’s father had been mixed up neck deep in the criminal activities that had gotten Black court-martialed.

  But they weren’t running around shooting off cannons, so dealing with them wasn’t quite so urgent. Once the renegade colonel had been dealt with, then maybe The Kid could pass the word through Claudius Turnbuckle to some high-level contacts of his own. Sooner or later, there might be an investigation into the dealings between Sheffield and the Assistant Secretary of War. That might wind up hurting Glory as well, but The Kid had no doubt that she would land on her feet.

  Or on her back, as the case might be.

  Those thoughts went through The Kid’s head as Glory threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m working for your husband, though,” he warned. “We just have some common goals, that’s all. I’m not interested in taking orders from him. Anything I do, I’ll do in my own way.”

  “That’s fine, as long as we don’t have the threat of Gideon Black hanging over us anymore.” She still had her arms around his neck, and her body was pressed boldly and brazenly against his. The warm mounds of her breasts prodded his chest as she went on, “You’re going to be glad that you decided to help us, Kid. I’m going to make it worth your while. You have my word on that.”

  She lifted her face to his and kissed him.

  Her mouth was hot and sweet and demanding, and there had been a time when he would have taken her to bed eagerly and with great pleasure. But that was before he had met, married, and ultimately lost the only woman he would ever love. Before Rebel.

  Instinctively, The Kid’s arms had gone around Glory’s waist. Now he lifted them and took hold of her arms, intending to unwind them from his neck and step back from her.

  “You don’t have to—” he began.

  “I want to,” she whispered. “I want to, and Edward doesn’t care. Why don’t we just—”

  The Kid could have made a guess what she was about to suggest, but he never knew for sure.

  Because at that moment, he heard a high-pitched whine, and a second later the wall of the hotel room blew in, blasting them both off their feet.

  Chapter 24

  The impact was so devastating, the crash so deafening, that for a moment The Kid was stunned, unable to move or even think. Then awareness flickered back to life within him, and he realized that he was lying on top of something soft. Whatever it was moaned and stirred underneath him.

  He moved a hand to try to push himself up and realized that he had just gripped a woman’s firm, full breast. Surprised, he let go, then his brain began to work even more and he figured out that he was lying on top of Glory Sheffield.

  He shifted his hand to the floor beside her and levered himself up. From there he was able to stagger to his feet. The air was full of dust, or maybe it was smoke. Whatever it was he was choking on it, and he couldn’t see anything.

  With his ears still ringing from the blast, he bent over and grasped her shoulders. He shook her and shouted, “Glory! Glory!” The words sounded odd and muffled to him. She didn’t respond. He worried that she was dead.

  Then, a moment later, he heard a faint groan that he was pretty sure hadn’t come from him. He shook her and called her name again, and she said, “Wha-what happened?”

  The Kid slipped his hands under her arms and straightened, hauling her upright. She sagged against him, but there was nothing arousing about the contact. She was only semiconscious. In the haze of dust that filled the room, he barely saw her shaking her head, and he wouldn’t have been aware of that if her face hadn’t been within inches of his own.

  The floor suddenly tilted a little under their feet. Glory cried out in fear. The Kid tightened his grip on her. As his brain began to function better, he had a pretty good idea what had just happened. He didn’t know what the extent of the damage was, but he knew they needed to get out of there before the floor collapsed.

  With one arm around Glory, he used the other hand to feel his way along the wall until he came to the door, which hung askew on its hinges. He shoved it aside and stumbled into the hotel’s second floor corridor. People were shouting curses and questions and frightened cries. Half dragging and half carrying Glory, The Kid turned in what he hoped was the direction of the stairs.

  “Kid…Kid, where are we?” she murmured.

  “Still in the hotel,” he told her.

  “There was some kind of…explosion…”

  “I know.” Somewhere outside, a heavy boom sounded. “Your former lover is shelling the town.”

  Glory gasped. “Gideon!”

  “That’s right.” The Kid now knew why Colonel Black had insisted that he meet him on top of the ridge overlooking the town in half an hour. Black had already had this attack planned, and he wasn’t going to call it off on account of Kid Morgan. If The Kid kept the rendezvous, fine; if not, he could take his chances with the citizens of Titusville when the bombardment started.

  Was it just happenstance that the first shot had struck the hotel room where The Kid and Glory Sheffield were? He figured that was probably the case. The hotel was one of the most prominent buildings in town, after all, and as such it would be a tempting target. The Kid wa
sn’t sure if that shot had been a direct hit on his room or if it had landed in one of the neighboring rooms. It was close enough to have wrecked his room, that was for sure, and could have easily killed him and Glory.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her as they made their way along the hallway. “Can you tell if you’re injured?”

  “I-I don’t think so.” His ears had almost stopped ringing, and he could make out her answer fairly well even with all the hubbub around them. “My legs work. I don’t think I’m bleeding anywhere. I just sort of hurt all over.”

  That didn’t surprise The Kid. He felt the same way. He was sure they would both be covered with bruises by the next morning. Assuming, of course, that they survived the Cannon Gang’s attack on the town.

  Through the walls of the hotel, Morgan heard the big gun boom every couple of minutes. The colonel’s gunners were working efficiently up on the ridge, and they were really pounding the settlement. Panic and chaos gripped the whole town.

  Instinct wouldn’t allow him to remain cooped up inside the hotel while an attack was going on. They reached the stairs and started down toward the lobby. Several guests who were choking and coughing followed them.

  As they descended The Kid definitely smelled smoke as well as dust. Some of the strikes must have started fires in town. For all he knew, Colonel Black might even have explosive rounds, as well as solid cannonballs. He had no idea how Black had gotten his hands on a cannon in the first place, let alone what sort of ammunition the outlaws had for it.

  Just as The Kid and Glory reached the bottom of the stairs, another wrenching crash sounded from upstairs. Either another round had struck the hotel, or the place was just collapsing from the damage that had already been done to it. Whichever, they didn’t want to stay in there.

  He closed his hand tightly around her arm and called over the madness around them, “Come on!”

  They pushed their way through the crowd of terrified people that had gathered in the lobby and finally reached the street. It was full of shouting, frightened people as well. As they stumbled out of the hotel, The Kid saw several buildings on fire down the street, the flames leaping high into the night sky and casting an orange pall over the entire town.