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Chapter Ten

Ch 9: "If this buys us back our family, I don't give a damn about leprechauns!"

"What's your name?" Harry slapped at the man's face again and watched with a little satisfaction that his prisoner was barely holding back his fury. Adam stood beside him with his gun trained on the man's chest. His own rage was simmering away below the surface, but he held it in check as they needed answers.

"Walker! Jeremy Walker."

"Well Mister Jeremy Walker, it doesn't take a genius to know who sent you here."

"I ain't tellin' you nothin'!"

Harry grabbed at his shirtfront and smirked at him. "You don't need to tell me anything at all. But I'm going to tell you a few things. First, you are going to head straight back to your boss and tell Morgan what you found here."

The man's face flickered in surprise before he pulled his face into a stony mask once again.

"Make no mistake about it. I know exactly who you work for and what kind of man he is. He doesn't take kindly to failure. You can pretend we didn't catch you out, I don't really care. You will tell Morgan that we found the gold in the well and then you will tell your boss that if he wants to see even one ounce of this gold, bring his two prisoners here, unharmed and we'll talk about our trade terms."

"You're a damn fool if you think he's gonna let you all up and walk outta here alive!"

"Oh, now that's where you are wrong. You see, while you were having your little nap in the shade, my friend and I were hauling up gold bars out of that there well. By the time you get back here with Morgan, the gold will be hidden somewhere else. If he intends to harm my sister-in-law or his little brother," Harry thumbed at Adam beside him, "well us two older brothers are gonna be mighty upset about that. I imagine that after all this time, Morgan is gonna be mighty upset if his gold doesn't get delivered to him. Now, you don't want to see any of us getting upset now do you?"

Walker glared at him as Harry spoke calmly and quietly, knowing full well what he was winding up.

"No!"

"Good. It seems you have got a brain underneath that awful haircut of yours. So just to be sure that we're clear on things; you will bring Morgan back here tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. That should give you enough time to ride on back and fetch everybody."

Harry hauled the man to his feet and slowly released his grip on his prisoner. He felt like he was standing in front of a rattler, coiled to strike at him. "Now, you won't be needing this gun of yours or your rifle so Adam and me don't end up wearing a bullet in the back."

Harry glanced up into the sky and pointed towards the man's horse tied in the treeline. "You better get going if you're going to make it in time."

Adam held his gun trained on Walker as he moved across the open space and climbed up onto his horse.

"You're both dead men walkin'!"

Harry saluted against the rim of his hat as Walker rode out and chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "Not if I have any say in the matter!"

"You think he bought all that?" Adam moved up beside Harry and watched as Walker kicked his horse into a gallop.

"Guess we'll soon find out."

Stacey leaned back against the pillow and tried to ignore the droning noise that filled the air around her. The laudanum the doctor had given her was wiping away the last vestiges of the agony in her ankle and she felt herself sinking into the bed once again as if she was slipping underwater.

"It was a bad break. I've set it, but she's going to need to stay off her feet for the next few weeks at least. She won't be able to manage that ranch of hers and I just know she's too stubborn to allow Harry to send anybody out there to help her."

"Don't you worry, Doc, we'll make sure she's taken care of." Joe leaned across the end of the bed railing and watched as Stacey finally drifted into a drugged sleep. He'd held onto her as the doctor had manipulated the bones in her ankle to bring them back into alignment and the sound of her screams still lingered in the room. Her swollen and bruised foot now rested on top of a pillow and the blanket had been drawn up to her chin. Joe was about to settle on the far side of the bed when the doctor shook his head.

"Not yet, young man. I need to take a look at you next."

"I'm fine!" Joe began to protest, but Hoss appeared next to his elbow and glared back at him.

"No you ain't. Now let the doc check you over while he's here."

Joe glared at his brother and Hoss merely raised his eyebrows. "The quicker you let him do his job, the quicker you can come back here."

Joe reluctantly allowed himself to be led back across the room and submitted to the inevitable barrage of questions. The doctor let out a low whistle as he removed his shirt and draped it over the chair. He knew what the man was reacting to, but was in no mood to explain it. He swallowed down a sarcastic response and turned back to face the man.

"A knife wound. It's healed up just fine."

The doctor noted the flash in the young man's eyes and wisely decided to say nothing about the barely healed scar that ran diagonally across the young man's back. Instead, he began to run practiced fingers over bruises and marks that told their own story. When Joe flinched at a particularly tender spot, the doctor paused.

"Somebody worked you over, but good."

"I gave back as good as I got." The heat in the comment wasn't lost on any of them and the doctor noted how his patient kept his gaze on the young woman now sleeping on the bed. He'd known Stacey since he had arrived in Silver Falls and he'd watched her grieve through the loss of her husband. If the injuries he was now inspecting were the result of protecting her, then he knew that Luke would approve.

"You need to get these cleaned up, but I think you'll live, young man." The doctor smiled as Joe pulled his shirt back on. "You also need to take it easy for a few days and get some food into you."

Hoss clapped Joe on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. "Glen's got some food coming on up from the dining room now."

The young ranch hand pushed the door aside and carried a loaded tray across the room. "The deputy's gone on to the telegraph office to wire the sheriff in Deckler Flats. Let Harry and Adam know what's goin' on. Said he'll be back later."

Hoss walked the doctor to the door as Joe slipped back around the side of the bed. He settled down by pulling a chair as close as he could and reached out for Stacey's hand. She didn't respond to the touch and he knew the laudanum wouldn't wear off for some time.

"Well, I'd better head on over to the jail and check on that prisoner that Deputy Kennedy's holding there."

"You watch out for that snake, Doc. He's meaner than a rattler." Joe's disgust was clear to hear and Hoss patted the doctor on the shoulder as he left the room.

"He's right. Don't go lettin' yourself in to that cell 'til the deputy's back."

The smell seemed to have diminished a little as his clothes slowly dried, but Adam could still taste the sour taste in his mouth. He chewed on a strip of beef jerky and took another swig from his canteen, but the taste lingered. He would have given anything to be able to take a bath or even go for a swim to wash off the stench, but there was no water nearby other than what was in the bottom of the well. They would need to drain the well to bring up the rest of the gold bars and he'd been tossing around ideas of how to do that.

It was almost an hour since Harry had ridden off with the single gold bar to go and share a very long story with the sheriff of Deckler Flats. Adam had stayed behind in case Jeremy Walker got any stupid ideas and decided to double back on them and try his luck at fishing for gold. He knew that the lure of gold was a strong siren and many men had given their last breath to get their hands on it.

The air was growing chilly and Adam debated lighting a fire in the derelict way station, but eventually he decided against it. He figured that Walker would be well on his way to Silver Falls, but there was no guarantee that Morgan didn't have others on his payroll, just waiting to relay information or follow orders. Gold was a powerful incentive for less than scrupulous men. In the end, Adam set a camp a short way from the well within a copse of trees. He decided to forgo a fire to keep himself hidden and rolled out his bedroll on the smoothest stretch of ground. As he stared up into the night sky, Adam almost laughed at the state he was in. His clothes had dried and seemed like they had stiffened against his skin. They chafed in places that he didn't want to think about and his bare skin itched. His belly growled in protest that beef jerky was not going to assuage and he almost wished he hadn't argued the point with Harry about who would go down the well.

"You're a mess, Cartwright!" He muttered to himself as he rolled over in the bedroll, drawing his gun up in front of his face. It wasn't what he'd had in mind when he'd promised Harry could ask for his help, but he didn't regret coming. He'd seen how his brother's death had chewed at the lawman and it seemed that just maybe, they could finally lay a few ghosts to rest. His thoughts automatically followed on to his own youngest brother. He prayed that Hoss had already found their missing brother and Stacey and that they were all safely waiting in Silver Falls. If not, he didn't know how he was going to explain to his father that he'd lost Joe. It didn't bear thinking about and he groaned as he pulled the blanket up to his ear and tried to find a comfortable spot to sleep.

Morgan sat down heavily on a boulder and tried to collect his wildly racing thoughts. He'd always been a man who could think on his feet. It was a trait learned early in life when he'd been left to find his own way in the world as a ten-year-old orphan. Life had hardened him to the point where the value of human life meant nothing to him and people were expendable. It didn't mean he was alright with the loss of his man at the camp site, but it was more a case that he was inconvenienced than upset about his death. He'd heard Jack protesting that the Cartwright kid had his knife and it turned out that he was right. That oversight had cost him his guard and his prisoners were gone along with the rest of his men. He couldn't figure why they would have moved the prisoners, but the men and the horses were all gone by the time he returned to camp. It was getting on dark and too hard to track, but he'd dispatched a couple of men into town to nose around and see what they could find.

In the meantime, he was still waiting to hear from Walker after he'd sent him after the sheriff. It was several hours later when two of his men rode into camp and spilled the news that Jack was sitting in the sheriff's jail with a bullet hole in his arm. It wasn't what he'd expected, but the rest of the news was even more infuriating. Somehow his two prisoners had escaped and were safely holed up in the hotel with men guarding them.

Morgan ground a fist into the rock face and growled as he tried to think of a new plan that would get him his gold. It was entirely possible the deputy was lining up men to raid his camp as they sat there and he suddenly began to issue orders to pull up and get ready to move out. There was no way he was going back to prison, knowing that he would most likely be facing a noose. The only option he had left was to find out where Collins had gone before somebody spilled the beans on the hostages. If the sheriff still believed his pretty little sister-in-law was in danger, he could be persuaded to do almost anything, including handing over the gold he had stashed away.

By the time the last of the horses were ready and all the gear had been stowed, Morgan was irritable and itching for a fight. Somebody needed to bear the backlash for all that had happened and he had to force himself to squash it back down. He needed to think and keep a clear head.

Adam guessed it was an hour or so before dawn when he awoke with a start. He clenched his fist around his gun, certain that he'd been woken by somebody around his camp. The stillness only added to his concern, but suddenly he knew what had really woken him. He groped around for his water canteen as the roof of his mouth felt like sand. His stomach clenched itself into a knot and he felt the burning of bile rising up his throat. Before he could climb out of the bedroll, his stomach erupted. Half digested beef jerky tasted even worse coming up than it had going down the night before and he gagged on the last of it. He found himself shivering in the chilled air as he pulled himself upright and searched out the canteen. Adam swilled the water around his mouth and he suddenly spat it out as pain speared through his body as if somebody had just plunged a knife into his gut. He blindly groped at his stomach before dropping back onto the bedroll and waiting for the pain to ease up. As the first rays of dawn began to decorate the sky, Adam forced himself out of bed to gather some wood for a fire. He needed the warmth to stop the sudden chill that seemed to have grasped hold of him.