Mason dreamed he was falling.
Falling and toppling.
End over end.
After a while, the toppling stopped. Unfortunately it stopped when he felt he was upside down. Instead of rolling through space, he merely hung there and swayed in short arcs like a pendulum.
His body ached.
It was an ache that soaked all the way down to the bone until it became impossible to pin down the exact spot where it started.
His stomach twisted into a knot, wringing all the bile up to the back of his throat. At least he hadn’t eaten much in the last . . . he didn’t even know how long it had been. All he could say for certain was that whatever was inside him was on its way back up. He opened his mouth, which was all it took to get the wheels turning. Suddenly his entire body tensed and he reflexively reached out for something to grab in the inky darkness that had enveloped him. What he found was smooth and yet coarse. It was moving, just under the surface. Before Mason could figure out what he’d found, he emptied his stomach in a violent wretch.
“Aw, fer Pete’s sake!” someone nearby groaned.
Mason tensed again, only this time there was nothing left to come up. Several dry heaves racked his tired body and when they subsided he felt surprisingly better.
“You make another mess on my saddlebags or did you manage to puke yer guts out onto the ground instead?”
The light that flooded through Mason’s skull was nothing divine or unusual. It was simply his eyelids peeling open after being stuck to his head by a mixture of blood, dirt, and sweat. When he allowed his body to relax, he conformed to a wide sloping shape that had a very familiar odor. He blinked, cleared his throat, and waited for his vision to clear.
“You awake?” the nearby man asked.
Mason let himself hang for a spell, swaying to the movements of a horse’s plodding steps. Before he could get used to the current state of affairs, an elbow was jabbed into his shoulder.
“Answer me.”
The first attempt Mason made to respond was just a croak from the back of his throat. He coughed, winced at the taste of the remnants of what he’d just spat up, and tried again. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I’m awake.”
When Mason tried to move, he found that he could do so rather freely. His arms hung down to dangle against the horse’s flank, as did his legs. Next, he attempted to shift the weight of his body. As far as he could tell from that small bit of experimentation, he was simply draped over the back of that horse. Placing his hands flat against the horse’s rear haunches, Mason kicked his feet until he could slide off.
“Aw, now you went and done it!” the horse’s rider said.
Mason’s vision was slowly clearing, but his balance wasn’t quite there yet. When his boots hit the ground, he remained upright for a second before his knees buckled and he dropped straight down onto his backside.
The rider brought his horse around, gripping the reins in one hand and a pistol in the other. Mason’s pistol, to be exact. Upon seeing the gun in the man’s hand, Mason slapped a hand against his belly.
“Won’t find that sawed-off model,” the man said. “You won’t catch me with that one twice.”
Mason blinked several more times and then rubbed his eyes. Between the haze in his head and the brightness of the sun, it had been difficult for him to focus on much of anything. With a little effort, though, he could make out the rider’s face just enough to learn his identity.
“Winslow?” Mason croaked.
The rider smiled down at him. “You ain’t forgotten my name after shooting my damn leg. I’m real touched. Now get the hell up.”
“What’s going on?” Recent memories came to him in a rush, sending a wave of panic through Mason’s blood. “Where’s Bob?”
“Bob?”
“He’s the man . . . about my height . . .” Between the throbbing in Mason’s skull and Bob’s distinct lack of any memorable features, it was difficult for Mason to come up with much of a description.
“Oh, you mean the fella who fell off the boat with you?” Winslow asked, saving Mason the trouble of putting more words together.
“Yes.”
“He’s gone.”
“Where’d he go?”
Winslow looked up to the clear blue sky. “Now, that’s one of life’s mysteries. I can tell you I shot him, though.”
“He’s dead?” Mason asked.
“Oh, that’s for certain. It was messy.”
Mason sighed. Part of him couldn’t help thinking about how much easier things would have been if he had just taken the shot when he had it. If Bob was going to die anyway . . . but he knew better than that. Things wouldn’t have been simpler. They would have been very difficult, but just in a slightly different way. Forcing himself to clear his head a bit more, Mason asked, “What happened?”
“Well . . . that Bob fella was mighty anxious when I found the two of you. He did something he shouldn’t have and—”
“No,” Mason cut in. “I mean . . . how’d I wind up here? How is it that you’re here as well?”
“Get walkin’ and I’ll tell you the story.” When Mason didn’t move right away, Winslow thumbed back the hammer of the Remington.
Mason started walking before the inevitable threats were issued. The river was to his right, and to his left was a thick crop of weeds and trees. Gnats and mosquitoes filled the air, buzzing amid a symphony of cicadas. The more his ears cleared up, the more Mason wished for them to close again. Since there wasn’t much of a choice of places to go at the moment, he walked in the same direction the horse had been pointed before. It must have been the correct decision, because Winslow flicked his reins to get moving that way as well.
Reflexively Mason reached for his watch. It wasn’t there, so he asked, “What time is it?”
“What’s the matter?” Winslow replied. “Got somewhere to be?”
Coming up alongside Mason, Winslow made sure the man on foot could see when he reached into a jacket pocket to pull out Mason’s watch. He flicked it open, checked its face, and said, “Looks to be a bit after eight in the morning. This might not be accurate, seeing as how this watch of yours seems to have gotten wet.”
“Just tell me how I wound up on the back of that horse.”
“Do you recall the last time we met?” When Mason turned to glare at him, Winslow said, “You seem out of sorts.”
“I remember.”
“Well, I was escorted straight off the Jack and into the office of a man who could barely call himself a doctor. He stitched me up, wrapped half a splint onto my leg, and meant to charge me as if he’d cured me of everything that ailed me. I told him to go to hell and I left.”
“You were in a condition to walk?” Mason asked.
“Not as such, but I had a schedule to keep. You see, the Delta Jack may not be the fastest boat on the water, but I couldn’t let her get too far away if I was gonna catch up to her again.”
“You seem to be in an awful hurry to get tossed off the same boat again.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten tossed anywhere,” Winslow said. “Not after I had a word with Mr. Greeley.”
Mason laughed. It wasn’t anything that could be heard from a distance, but it still hurt his aching joints. “You were trying to sign on as an overman, right?”
“Yeah. What’s so funny about that?”
“What’s funny is the thought of you as an overman.”
“Oh, that’s right. You and them have locked horns recently, huh?”
“Yes, and any one of the overmen I saw could chew you up and spit you out just like I spat out my last couple of meals back there. And,” Mason added, “whatever was left would smell just as bad as the mess that was left behind.”
“I’ve got leverage with Mr. Greeley,” Winslow boasted while using the Remington to tap his chest. “You think just anyone is allowed to sign on as one of his men?”
“No, which means you’re definitely out of the running.”
“When I was put off the Jack, it was just to teach me a lesson and get my leg fixed. After that, I was to come on back and arrange some other way for me to prove my worth.”
“Oh, so Greeley is going to make a special stop to pick up a prospective gun hand. A gun hand, by the way,” Mason scoffed, “who’s already failed at the single job he decided to take on.”
“For your information, I wasn’t supposed to kill you. I was just supposed to . . .”
“What?” Mason asked. “What were you supposed to do?”
“Forget it.”
Mason pulled in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “All right, then. You still haven’t told me how I wound up on that horse.”
Winslow smiled, relishing the fact that he was back on friendlier ground. “The man who put me off that boat told me to come back when I was healed up, but I could tell he didn’t really expect to see my face again. I could also tell he wouldn’t have many good things to say about me the next time he spoke with Mr. Greeley.”
As much as Mason wanted to throw another smart comment or two at Winslow, he kept himself from doing so. Winslow seemed happy to keep talking, which suited Mason just fine.
“I wanted to talk to Greeley again sooner than that,” Winslow continued. “And I thought if I could meet up with the Jack when she got to her next port, I should even be able to get another crack at you. Turns out I got out of that sorry excuse of a doctor’s office quick enough to follow the river and catch sight of the Jack in no time at all!”
“I assume having the law nipping at your heels lit a fire under you as well,” Mason said while shooting a sideways glance up at the other man. “That must have made it a bit easier to choke back on the pain from that leg.”
Winslow twitched. “Law? What law?”
“You mean you stole that horse without anyone knowing?” Mason asked. “When I pictured you storming out of some doctor’s office with your leg bandaged and a scowl on your face, I imagined you just grabbing the first horse you could find.”
“That ain’t how it went,” Winslow said hesitantly.
“Really? So Mr. Greeley was kind enough to have a horse waiting for you? Or maybe you were carrying enough money to buy one?”
Scowling, Winslow said, “It wasn’t the first horse I could find. Besides, ain’t none of that will matter once I get Mr. Greeley to see what I bring to the table.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“You!” Winslow was back to being full of himself as he puffed out his chest. “I been keeping up with that boat for the better part of a day, just waiting for it to dock or make another stop or even slow down so I might try to signal the captain. Even with this leg that you ruined, I woulda swum all the way out to that boat if I had to.”
“Leg that I ruined?” Mason asked. Even though he knew nothing would come of it, he couldn’t keep himself from questioning the other man’s sorrowful words.
“You’re the one that shot me, weren’t you?” Winslow said.
“Only because you meant to kill me!”
“I wasn’t gonna kill you. Hurt you, maybe, but not kill you.”
“Oh, you’re right, then,” Mason said, sneering. “I’m a cad.”
“I guess it don’t matter none. Soon as I heard gunshots coming from the Jack, I thought for certain it wouldn’t be long before the boat stopped. Maybe to let someone off or to toss off whoever was making that trouble. At least that commotion made it easier for me to figure out how far ahead she was.
“I rode along the river,” Winslow continued, clearly enjoying telling his story to a captive audience. “There was a straight stretch and I could see the Jack up ahead. I thought maybe I might catch up to her then and there. Even though I didn’t get close enough, I gained a lot of ground. Enough ground to hear more commotion and see some unlucky fellas fall over the rail.”
As Winslow kept talking, Mason kept his eyes open for an opportunity to make good on an escape. There might be some path that he could take on foot that would slow a man down who was riding a horse. Perhaps he could spot a thick branch or a rock that was large enough to be used as a weapon. There were bound to be things like that around, but just none of them in the immediate vicinity. Not yet anyway.
Winslow had his eye on Mason but didn’t seem overly concerned about him. The Remington was held in an easy grip as he kept right on spinning his yarn. “It wasn’t easy finding the two of you,” he said. “Something as big as the Delta Jack faded from sight in all that dark, so spotting two men in all that water wasn’t no picnic. In fact, I missed you both on my first look. After I doubled back for another, there the two of you were. Washed up like a couple of drowned rats.”
“And you just couldn’t help yourself,” Mason said.
“I didn’t know who it was at first. That other fella . . . what was his name?”
“Bob.”
“Yeah, Bob.” When Winslow spoke that name, he did so as if he were a hunter talking about the most dangerous bear in the woods. “He was hoppin’ mad when I found him. You know, I’ve heard that said plenty of times, but he truly was hoppin’ mad! He was hoppin up and down, carryin’ on like a lunatic when I pulled him off you.”
“I thought you would’ve let him finish the job,” Mason said.
“I didn’t even know you were the other man that fell over. You was lyin’ facedown like someone dropped you there.”
Now that he’d had some time to wake up, Mason was remembering more and more from what had happened with Bob. Walking helped get the blood flowing as well. As near as he could recall, he’d simply passed out from sheer exhaustion. It hadn’t been the first time that had happened. Normally, however, it was after days of sitting at a card table with nothing in his belly apart from whiskey and whatever greasy mess the saloon had cooked up that night. At those times, he wound up slumped in his chair, snoring while the other players snickered and tossed trash at his head.
This had been different. Mason had been put through the wringer a few times. He’d been beaten, chased, and then tossed off the Jack so he could swim for his life. Once he added in the fact that he’d been exhausted from lack of sleep to begin with, Mason was surprised he’d made it to dry land before his body gave out on him.
“Gettin’ the drop on ol’ Bob wasn’t exactly a challenge,” Winslow said. “All I had to do was climb down from my horse and walk over to him. He called me a gimping son of a bitch and I knocked him down with one good punch. I rolled you over, got a look at yer face, and convinced Bob to help load you on my horse.”
“You two found something in common, did you? Wanting to do me bodily harm?”
“Something like that. Bob wasn’t much in a talking mood, though. He surely didn’t take kindly to me tellin’ him to load up this horse. I changed his mind when I found your gun. He gave me some lip that I wasn’t in a mood to hear and then knocked into my bad leg, so I pulled my trigger. The powder must’ve been wet, because it didn’t fire.”
“What a shame,” Mason said.
“I hit him upside the head and kept pulling the trigger until I found one round that did what it was supposed to do. Bob actually looked surprised when it happened. Like he didn’t think anything bad could happen to him.”
“Bob wasn’t exactly a learned man.”
“Well, now he’s just a dead man. Since you were on my horse and still asleep, I started riding down the river. Shouldn’t be long before we meet up with the Jack. I think she was supposed to make a stop in Tennessee before too long.”
She sure was. Mason had hoped to be on the riverboat when that happened, but a man couldn’t get everything he wanted. Still, there was a bit of time before his meeting with Greeley. If he was going to make a move on Winslow, Mason had to make it good. As he’d learned through years of playing cards, the best way to pull off any move from a bluff to a giant raise was to preface it with a bit of groundwork.
“Any chance I can get back on that horse?” Mason asked.
“Oh, sure!” Winslow replied. “We’ll take turns. If you like, I’ll even let you hold the gun for a spell. Shut yer mouth and keep walkin’.”
Mason was a long way from healthy, but he was in good enough condition to move faster than he was doing so at the moment. He also didn’t need to limp so dramatically with every step, which he did to play up his fatigue to the highest possible degree. If he could pass himself off as weaker than he truly was, he should have an advantage when the time came to part company with Winslow for good.
Then again, since he was only escaping to meet up with Greeley, it was difficult for Mason to decide which option was more appealing. He could always run in another direction entirely and take his chances on his own. Mason quickly set that option aside. He was in too deep to just run away now, and he wasn’t in good enough condition to get very far anyhow.
Sometimes Mason wished he couldn’t see so many of the angles in front of him. There was a certain contentment that came along with shortsightedness.