Manhunter's Mountain (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series Book 4) Page 2

  Cash could see the place was going to become engulfed in flames but he also was aware that, while his attention was diverted by the bartender, Ames had bolted through the open door and was making a break for it. Damn! Realizing he had no chance to quell the fire all by himself anyway, the marshal made the decision to go after the fleeing fugitive.

  Running awkwardly, his arms pinned behind his back, Ames didn't get very far before Cash came up behind him and slammed the Winchester down across his shoulders. Ames staggered and dropped to his knees in the muddy street. Cash stepped closer and sliced the butt of the Yellowboy across the side of his head, knocking him cold.

  Quickly catching his breath, the lawman aimed his rifle up into the night sky and fired off three rapid rounds, at the same time shouting, "Fire! Fire! Come a runnin'!"

  That done, he reached down to grab Ames by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to the nearest hitching rail. There he undid the cuffs long enough to loop the chain around one of the upright posts and then re-fastened them again. Even if Ames came to before Cash got back to him, he wasn't going to be able to run again unless he was willing to gnaw off one of his hands to get free.

  By this time men were boiling out of the tents further along the street and flames were visible through the windows of the saloon.

  A burly miner in a black-and-red checkered coat came lumbering up to Cash. "What the hell happened?"

  "Saloon's on fire."

  "I can see that—what the hell happened?"

  Cash flashed his marshal's badge. "I was recovering a fugitive from inside—that jasper cuffed to the post over there—when the loco barkeep tried to interfere. Pulled a scattergun on me. His shot went wild and blew the chandelier off the ceiling, place went up like a tinder box."

  "That damn fool Oscar! Where is he?"

  "Still inside. Dead."

  "Shit!" the miner spat. "Flames get to that lard-ass corpse of his, we'll have a grease fire bigger'n Hell itself!"

  Some other miners had gathered by now. Swinging his arms wildly, the burly man—who evidently had some position of authority—began shouting orders to them. "Get a bucket brigade started from that creek down behind Bushberry's livery! No way in hell we're going to be able to save the saloon, so start watering down the general store next to it. We may lose our whiskey but we damn well can't go without the winter supplies in that store!"

  After the other men had scattered at his command, the man turned back to Cash. "Anybody else inside there?"

  "Oscar said he had two whores. I didn't see them come out. Unless there's a back way?"

  "There's a back door on the ground level. But if they was upstairs where they usually—Look!"

  The burly man pointed and, following the line of his thick finger, Cash looked around and spotted a woman in one of the second story windows of the saloon. It wasn't the red-haired girl he had seen earlier in Ames' room, but rather a somewhat older woman with a thick pile of blonde hair. Below her, the first floor of the saloon was an inferno, flames crackling and smoke billowing out in thick black clouds.

  "Help us!" the woman called.

  "She's gonna have to jump for it," the boss miner said.

  Cash's eyes scanned the street and then he said sharply, "No, we can do better than that—give me a hand." He began running toward a buckboard parked a ways down from the saloon. When he reached it, he lifted the heavy tongue and began tugging the rig toward the burning structure. "Push from the back and I think I can steer in under her," he instructed.

  "That bottom floor goes, the whole building will come down," the burly miner said. "You get too close, it'll get you, too."

  "We've got time ... Push!"

  The two men got the rig in motion and Cash steered toward where he wanted to get to. "Hang on!" he called to the woman in the window.

  The heat from the burning building was intense. Cash could feel beads of sweat popping out all over his face. On his cheek closest to the flames, the droplets were immediately baked dry.

  Once he had the buckboard positioned in close and beneath the woman, Cash dropped the tongue and clambered up into the bed of the rig. "Get clear!" he said, motioning to the big man. Then he looked up at the woman and raised his arms. "Jump! I'll catch you."

  But instead of doing as he said, the woman disappeared momentarily. Then she reappeared, pushing the red-haired girl Cash had seen earlier ahead of herself. "Take her first!" she called down, giving the girl a shove. The redhead shrieked in descent and then was wrapped securely in Cash's arms. The marshal swung her easily and handed her down to the boss miner who had not heeded the advisement to get himself clear. Turning back, Cash raised his arms again and called once more to the blonde. "Now you!" The blonde leaped out far more gracefully, minus the shriek, and a moment later it was she who was secure in the lawman's powerful arms.

  Baring her teeth in a dazzling smile, the blonde said, "Do you always meet women in such a dramatic fashion?"

  Cash jumped to the ground with her still in his arms and, following on the heels of the redhead and the burly miner, moved in hurried strides toward the opposite side of the street. Behind them, the saloon creaked and crackled and then buckled in on itself, collapsing in a fiery heap that sent a mushroom of flame roiling high into the night. A section of flaming wall fell outward, crashing down on the recently abandoned buckboard.

  Flashing his own grin, Cash responded to the blonde's question. "Wouldn't you like to think so."

  –FOUR–

  It took an hour of dousing the general store building while at the same time beating back flames and sparks from the blazing pile that had once been the saloon before the threat of spreading fire was fully eliminated.

  In the meantime, Marshal Laramie removed his prisoner to the old jail building and locked him in a still-functioning cell. Actually, the jail's interior, though neglected and covered with a thick layer of dust, proved to be serviceable. There was a pile of coarse, thick blankets in a storage bin, two working lanterns, a dented old coffee pot along with a half-used tin of coffee, and a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room beside which sat a small stack of split wood. After looking the place over, Cash reckoned it wouldn't be such a bad spot to spend the night after all. But first—in spite of Ames' lament-ations not to be left alone in the dark and the cold—he figured he owed it to the town to help fight the fire he'd had a share in causing.

  Once the flames were under control, however, it didn't take long for Cash to discover that his participation had done little to put him in good graces with the miners. With the burly man—Parley, his name turned out to be—acting as spokesman, they confronted him in a loose semi-circle of scowling, soot-streaked faces. Abe Bushberry was among them and even his formerly mild expression looked grim and demanding.

  "Now then, mister," Parley was saying, "now that you've burnt up our winter's supply of whiskey and beer and damn near our whole town to boot ... mind tellin' us just what the hell it was all about?"

  "Like I explained at the outset," Cash reminded him, "I'm a Deputy U.S. Marshal out of Cheyenne. Name's Laramie, Cash Laramie. The man you saw me lock up in your old jail is called Lobo Ames. He's a convicted bank robber and fugitive, broke out of jail back in Lusk where he was awaitin' transport to the territorial prison. All marshals out in the field got word to be on the lookout for him and, as luck would have it, I happened to cut his trail a few days back and followed him here."

  "What brought him the hell and gone up this way?"

  "Don't know for sure, haven't had much chance to discuss anything with him. If I had to guess, I'd say he was aiming to pass through the mountains, before winter shut down all the passes, then keep on heading west. Lucky for me, again, he stopped to tarry with one of your saloon gals long enough for me to catch up."

  "Lucky for you maybe ... Sure as hell not lucky for us," Parley muttered. "And you say Fat Oscar tried to help this fella when you went to haul him out in cuffs?"

  "Don't know that he necessarily was try
in' to help Ames," Cash allowed. "More like he had a grudge to settle with me. I had to rough him up a little to get him to cooperate in the first place, see, and that didn't set too well with him." Cash looked through the crowd and spotted the faces of a couple of the card players who'd been in the saloon when he first arrived. "Those two men were there, they can back up what I say."

  One of the men nodded. "Marshal's tellin' it straight. Oscar gave him a hard time when he showed up askin' for that Lobo fella. After the marshal boxed him around some and then went upstairs to take his prisoner, Oscar started actin' crazy mad. Told us who was there in the saloon to hightail it out if we didn't want to be part of any trouble, because when the marshal showed again he was gonna get himself some by-God payback."

  "Those were his exact words—he was gonna get some by-God payback," the other card player agreed.

  Parley looked at Cash. "And you say he did that by tryin' to back shoot you when you was headin' out the door with your prisoner?"

  Cash nodded. "Pulled a scattergun from behind the bar. I managed to plug him first and his shot went wild, blasted down one of those big chandeliers off the ceiling. Candles rolled every which way and a fire was blazing in a matter of seconds."

  Parley rubbed his jaw. "That damned fool Oscar ... He had a crazy-ass wild temper, no doubt about that."

  "Not no more he don't," somebody in the crowd murmured.

  "Well, Marshal," Parley said resignedly, "I guess you didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter ... What's done is done, even if it leaves us in a sorry damn pickle ... But I guess nobody can blame you for doin' your job and defendin' yourself."

  "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it came to what it did," Cash said.

  "Appreciate that. What I'd appreciate even more is if you can get your prisoner out of here early as possible in the morning ... Before some of my boys get to contemplatin' on havin' no whiskey all winter and maybe start lookin' to lay blame on your Lobo fella for bein' the real root cause of it all."

  "Don't worry. My aim is to get out of here soon as I can—I want to be sure and beat any early snows that might hit suddenly in the lower passes."

  "Good enough, then." Parley heaved a sigh. Turning to the other men, he announced, "Not much more to be done here tonight, fellas. We've had quite a full evening already ... I'll need a couple volunteers to stand watch and make sure we get no flare-ups from this pile of smoldering timber, everybody else might as well go ahead and turn in for an early day tomorrow ... "

  * * *

  When Cash returned to the old jail, he had some surprises waiting for him.

  For starters, there was someone inside—someone besides Lobo Ames locked in the cell, that was. Through the cracks in the boarded-over windows he could see the glow of lantern light and the plume of smoke curling out of the chimney pipe poking up through the roof indicated a fire had been lit in the stove. Plus there was the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee assailing his nostrils as he stepped up to the door.

  With Colt drawn and ready, Cash turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  The blonde woman from the saloon was seated at the battered old sheriff's desk, which had been cleared of dust and debris. A tin cup of steaming coffee rested at her elbow and she was in the midst of playing a game of solitaire with a deck of worn playing cards. A cigarette hung from one corner of her mouth.

  Without looking up, she said, "Come ahead and close the door. You're letting the cold in."

  Cash entered, holstering his Colt and heeling the door shut behind him.

  The blonde woman played a red eight on a black nine and then looked up. "Hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of tidying up and moving me and Little Red in. Our last place of residence sort of fell apart on us."

  Cash looked past her and saw that Ames was still behind the bars of the one cell. He sat on the edge of the rope cot holding his head in his hands. In the jail's only other cell, a shape wrapped in blankets was stretched out on the cot in there and appeared to be asleep. A spill of tinted hair identified the sleeper as the red-haired girl Cash had seen earlier in room seven of the saloon.

  His eyes returned to the blonde and Cash said, "Long as you didn't turn my prisoner loose, we got no quarrel."

  Ames raised his head and called out, "That bitch not only wouldn't turn me loose, she wouldn't even give me a taste of that coffee she's been brewin' and torturin' me with the smell of!"

  Over her shoulder, the blonde called back, "I could only find the one cup and I don't favor sharing it with the likes of you."

  Ames got up and came over to the bars, sneering. "No, but you'd've been willin' to share a bed with me when I first hit town two nights ago, wouldn't you, you whore? You're just spiteful because I chose the younger, prettier gal instead."

  The blonde looked up at Cash. "You in a hurry for some of that coffee, Marshal? You, I'll share my cup with. But if you can wait, I'm thinkin' I might empty what's left of this first batch on that pencil-dicked loudmouth in there and then brew you a fresh pot."

  Ames' eyes went wide. "You wouldn't let her do that, would you, Marshal?"

  "If it wasn't such a waste of good coffee," Cash said, "I wouldn't necessarily object. But, as I recollect, that tin didn't have too many beans in it to begin with. Probably best to save 'em for a better cause."

  The blonde took the cigarette from her mouth and pushed out her lips in a pout. "Spoilsport."

  From his shoulder, Cash swung down the saddlebags he'd retrieved from the livery stable. "Luckily I brought my own cup ... and I sure would admire a cup of that fine-smellin' brew."

  The blonde stood up and motioned him to a rough-hewn wooden chair pulled up before the desk. "Take a load off. I'll pour you some."

  "Obliged," Cash said, digging a cup from his gear and handing it to her. Then he settled with a weary sigh onto the chair and fired up a cheroot.

  The blonde filled the cup and then turned back to hand it to him. "I'm Faye, by the way."

  Cash took the cup. "Your voice ... you're the one who called that warning when the bartender was aimin' to blast me."

  "That's right."

  "Not that I ain't grateful ... but why?"

  "Why wouldn't I? I hated that fat pig Oscar's guts. I should stand by and be a part of letting him commit murder?" She smiled. "Besides, it worked out for both of us ... I saved you, you saved me."

  Cash shrugged. "You probably could have made that jump okay without me being there. Me, on the other hand—that scattergun would've snuffed my candle for certain if you hadn't called out."

  Faye's expression took on a hint of shrewdness. "So are you saying you're still beholden to me?"

  Cash paused with the coffee cup partly raised to his mouth. He studied her a moment and then said, "Could be ... What are you getting at?"

  "You're going to be leaving soon with your prisoner, right?"

  "First thing in the morning."

  "Good. Take me with you—me and Little Red in there."

  "That's a good idea, Marshal," Ames said from the cell. "If we're gonna be a couple nights on the trail, those two whores will make good belly-warmers in our bedrolls. I'll take the redhead, you can have the ornery old blonde."

  "You don't keep your mouth shut," Cash replied, "you can still earn yourself a pot of scalding coffee flung in on you ... Now lay back in that bed and keep quiet. Don't make me tell you again."

  "He ain't all wrong, though," Faye said after Ames had slunk back to his cot. "Me and Little Red won't be no trouble on the trail. We can cook and do camp work. And we can ... well, do other things. If you want, that is. For you, not him ... We can both keep you warm in your bedroll at night."

  Cash held up a hand. "Now hold on a minute, gal. That's a right tempting offer, don't get me wrong. But gettin' down off this ol' mountain is bound to be mighty rough going, especially this time of year."

  "We've been surviving in this rugged mining camp, haven't we?"

  "So why is it suddenly so important to get out?"


  "For one thing, in case you didn't notice, our place of business just burned to the ground. But even before that we've been wanting out of here—wanting out bad. Oscar used to have eight whores, now it's just Little Red and me and he was hanging on to us practically like slaves."

  "What happened to the others?"

  "They managed to find somebody willing to cross Oscar and take them away. We haven't been that lucky. There's no money left in this sorry place because the silver is played out. The so-called miners who are left are either too stupid-stubborn to give up or too lazy to move on. So Oscar was forcing us to give pokes practically for nothing just so's he could keep drawing in drinkers for his watered-down rotgut. Bad as he was, now that he's gone ... well, once winter sets in that will leave Little Red and me to be fought over like a couple pieces of meat thrown to a pack of wild dogs."

  Cash gritted his teeth. "Damn, girl, that's a tough way you're describing. But still and all, expecting me to—"

  Faye interrupted him, her eyes holding his with a steady, flat gaze. "If I have to, I'll remind you what you said your own self just a minute ago ... I did save your life."

  –FIVE–

  Cash was just emerging from the general store, the two women in tow, when he heard the grumble of voices. Looking up the street, he saw a knot of miners, about ten in number, coming their way. A scowling, red-faced Parley was marching at the head of the pack.

  "And here it commences," Cash muttered under his breath.

  The morning sun had only just reached above the higher eastern peaks and the acrid smell of ash and smoldering timbers still hung heavy in the air. The hot breath of the miners made a swirling, vaporous cloud around their heads as their heavy footfalls crunched through the frozen crust of mud covering the street. The sound made Cash think of snapping bones.