CHAPTER 30
Slash found Jay strolling pensively along the water, arms folded across her chest.
He moved up behind her. Hearing his footsteps, she turned toward him, one brow arched over a pretty hazel eye. The morning sun danced in her copper hair spilling down over her shoulders. Clad in a gray plaid shirt tucked into her form-fitting denim trousers, the cuffs of which were tucked into the tops of her high-heeled black boots, she had one of Pistol Pete’s old Colt Navy pistols stuffed into a back pocket.
“Are you going after them?” she asked.
“That can wait.”
“Can it?” Apparently noticing the anger burning in his eyes, Jay turned to face the stream, and said, “Don’t be angry with me, Slash.”
He closed his hand around her arm, turned her toward him. “Don’t be angry? You sold us out, Jay!”
She drew her head back in shock. “Sold you out? I saved your life, you idiot!”
“Yeah, okay, you got me there. Thanks for keeping that girl from drilling our fool hides last night. Much appreciated. Still, I’d like to know—”
“Wait,” Jay said, interrupting him, frowning at him curiously. “I wasn’t talking about last night. At least, not only last night. I was talking about selling you out, as you so inappropriately called it, to Chief Marshal Bledsoe. I did that because he promised to spare you, you utter fool!”
“Oh, come on,” Slash said. “What about the things he gave you? The jewelry! The new wardrobe! Enough money to start a new life in San Francisco?”
Jay stared at him as though in total befuddlement, her eyes large and round, lower jaw hanging. Suddenly, anger sparked in her eyes. She slapped him hard across his right cheek. He felt the full burn of her anger as the blow aggravated the pounding in his head.
He bunched his lips defiantly against it. The slap enflamed his own anger and he had to restrain himself from slapping her back.
Jay said, “Thank you for proving just how right I was to call you a fool! You an’ Pecos both. Fools!” She gave a frustrated groan and turned away, again crossing her arms on her chest.
Gritting his teeth, Slash said, “Are you denying he gave you those things in return for betraying us? Hell, Jay, for all you knew, me an’ Pecos might’ve really hanged!” He paused, thoughtful. For a few seconds he stared off over the water, then turned back to her and said, “Hey, wait a minute—how did you know where to find us, anyways? Why were you so sure me an’ Pecos were going after the Marauders?”
“He told me!” Jay said, curling her upper lip back from her gritted teeth. “He told me all about the whole hanging ruse. He told me he was going to spare your lives in return for you two going to work for him.”
She balled her fists at her sides and leaned forward at the waist, her face brick red with rage. “That’s why I sold you out! It had nothing to do with any gifts, because—listen, you idiot, and listen hard!—Bledsoe didn’t give me one goddamn thing except your lives in exchange for me telling him about that narrow-gauge train you were going to rob! I bought that dress and those fake pearls with the money Pete left me. If that crazy old marshal had given me enough money to start a new life for myself in San Francisco—believe me, I’d be drinking fancy drinks on the Barbary Coast right now!”
Not only the woman’s fury, but the information she’d just imparted, almost literally rocked Slash back on his heels.
Haltingly, incredulously, he said, “Bledsoe . . . he said that . . . he said he gave you—”
“He lied, Slash,” Jay said, enunciating her words clearly, as though talking to a simpleton. “Obviously, he lied!”
“Why would he . . . why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just for the fun of it. You saw how eccentric he is. Maybe he . . .” Jay shrugged, looked off again, her cheeks coloring again slightly, this time with embarrassment. “Maybe he wanted you to forget about me. Just focus on the task he gave you—of running down . . . and killing . . . the Marauders.”
Slash thought it through, the heat of his anger changing to a burning shame.
“Jesus,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Slash looked at her. “What are you doing out here? Why didn’t you take the stake Pete left you and . . .”
“Go to Mexico?” Jay shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess I’d never been in Mexico alone. It didn’t seem all that appealing. And . . . well, I thought maybe you two could use a hand bringing down the Marauders. If what Bledsoe . . . and Miss Thompson . . . said is true, they’re not your old gang. They’re far different. Far more savage than the men you once rode with.
“Not that I’d be much good against them directly, but I’m right good at getting information between shootouts.” She smiled, adding wistfully, “Like finding out when that ranch train was going to pull through the mountains, and how much money was aboard. I mean, of course it all went for nothing . . . after Bledsoe’s operative recognized me . . . but I did quite well up to that point—wouldn’t you say?”
Slash smiled, nodded. “You sure did.” He paused. “Even afterwards you did just fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Jay. I never should’ve doubted you. You didn’t deserve that.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said with a wry smile.
Slash hadn’t realized how heavy his heart had been, believing that Jay had double-crossed him and Pecos to Bledsoe. Believing that she’d literally sold their lives to the half-crazy chief marshal. He realized it now, however. Now, suddenly, his ticker felt as light as a newborn bird.
He found himself reaching out, taking her hand, squeezing it. He stared at her, his soul opening like the wings of that baby bird. Jay gazed back at him, her eyes soft, lips slightly parted. Slash leaned toward her. He began to slide his mouth toward hers.
He stopped, hesitating. Jay gazed back at him, her eyes vaguely curious. She’d parted her lips slightly farther, as though ready to accept his mouth with her own. Seeing him hesitate, she drew her lips together and turned away.
The breeze tussled her hair, blew several locks across her cheek, obscuring her expression.
“I reckon we’d better get back to the camp,” Slash said, his heart suddenly feeling heavy again, a vague frustration vexing him. “Them pancakes are gettin’ cold.”
“You go ahead,” Jay said. “I’ll be along in a bit.”
Slash headed back toward where the fire danced and smoked. He paused to kick a rotten log in frustration. Glancing toward the camp, he saw Pecos standing at the edge of it, holding his coffee cup in his hands, gazing skeptically toward his partner.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Slash said testily as he approached.
“You.”
“Yeah, well, stop lookin’ at me.”
He stopped before Pecos, then glanced away as he said, “She didn’t double-cross us the way we—”
“I know—I heard.”
“All of it?”
“Enough to know we were dunderheads to believe that crazy old man.” Slash stepped around Pecos and moved toward the fire. “Enough to know I’m a dunderhead for a totally different reason,” he added.
“What’s that?”
Slash knelt by the fire and glanced back at Pecos. Beyond Pecos, Jay was crossing the stream via a beaver dam, holding her arms out slightly for balance. Returning his gaze to his partner, Slash said, “Huh?” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken that last sentence aloud.
“What else have you been a dunderhead about, Slash?” Pecos glared at him, his voice reproving. He glanced over his shoulder at Jay.
Slash’s cheeks warmed as he used a leather swatch to remove the coffeepot from the iron spider. “Nothin’.”
“Nothin’,” Pecos mocked.
Slash grabbed a pancake off the plate, then sat down again by his saddle. He glanced at the girl, Myra Thompson, who sat as before, her eyes on him now, vaguely speculative.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked grumpily, and took a bite of the hotcake.
“She’s in love with you.” Myra arched her brows, incredulous. “Even I could see it and I don’t even know her. You’re in love with her back. I can see that, too.”
Slash wheeled away from her. “Like you said. You don’t know her . . . or me!”
Myra shrugged. “Have it your way.” She paused, hesitated. “What . . . what’re you gonna do with me?”
“It’s a fair question, Slash,” Pecos said, leaning against a pine at the camp’s far edge. “What are we gonna do with her?”
Chewing, Slash said, “By rights we oughta shoot her.”
“You might as well.” Myra’s voice trembled slightly. “If you don’t, Billy will. If he ever sees me again.”
Slash narrowed a skeptical eye at her. “Is that really how it is?” He just couldn’t wrap himself around this new, black-hearted version of Billy Pinto.
Myra gazed at him directly. “That’s really how it is.”
Slash glanced at Pecos. He took another bite of hotcake, sipped his coffee, then set the cup down and rose to his feet, wincing against the hammer-wielding little man in his head. He walked over to where Myra was tied to the tree and shucked his bowie knife from the sheath on his right hip, behind the .44 holstered on that side.
Myra looked up at him from beneath her brows, her wide eyes cast with fear.
Slash crouched beside her and cut through the rope tying her to the tree.
“What’re you doin’?” Pecos asked.
“Yeah,” Myra said. “What’re you doing?”
“What’s it look like?” Slash cut the girl’s hands free. “If Billy really is as evil as you claim, you got more to fear from him than you do us.” He pulled her to her feet, canted his head toward the horses. There were now four, including Jay’s steeldust, tied to the picket line. “Mount up. Light a shuck out of here.”
The girl looked up at him uncertainly, rubbing her wrists.
“Well, now, look at that,” Pecos said, smiling over the steaming rim of his cup. “The old cutthroat’s heart ain’t completely stone, after all.”
Slash touched the point of his knife to the underside of the girl’s chin. “You’ll find out how hard my heart is if I ever see you again, little girl. Go on. Hightail it out of here, and stay out of trouble!”
No sooner had that last word left Slash’s lips than he heard Jay yell, “Slash! Pecos!”
The yell was followed by a gunshot. Jay called out again but this time it was more like an agonized grunt.
Slash and Pecos both wheeled to stare off toward the stream. It was from that general direction the shot had come.
“Jay!” Slash cried, breaking into an all-out run. “You see her?” he asked Pecos.
“There!” Pecos said, pointing.
As Slash ran past Pecos, he shucked a Colt .44 and stared off toward the stream. About twenty feet beyond the stream, he saw where Jay lay on the ground. He couldn’t see much of her but he thought he saw her moving, extending her Colt Navy straight out in front of her.
Jay turned to yell back over her shoulder, red hair winking in the sunshine, “We got company, boys!”
She swung her head forward again and fired up a low ridge beyond her, and which was probably a former stream bank before the tributary had changed course.
“Hold up!” Pecos shouted. “I’m fetchin’ my rifle!”
But Slash didn’t slow his pace until more gunfire erupted from the ridge above and beyond Jay. Smoke and flames jetted from a tangle of brush topping the ridge. One bullet screeched over Slash’s left shoulder while another curled the air off his right ear and thudded into a tree behind him.
Slash threw himself to the ground and extended his Colt, triggering three rounds toward where the smoke was still billowing atop the ridge. The shooter fired again. Slash couldn’t see the shooter himself, only the smoke and flames from his rifle. The bullet plowed into the soft, spongy ground only a few inches in front of Slash, who scrambled to his feet and ran to a tree just ahead and on his right.
The bushwhacker’s next bullet hammered the side of the pine just as Slash took cover behind it. Bits of bark sprayed out past Slash’s left shoulder.
Slash edged a look around the left side of the tree. Jay lay on the other side of the stream from him, another twenty feet beyond the sliding water that flashed in the intensifying morning sunshine. The forest was thin enough over there that Slash could now see Jay clearly. She lay prone, legs spread, her copper hair fanned out across her shoulders. Her right hand and pistol were still thrust straight out ahead of her, but her head was down. She wasn’t moving.
“Jay!” Slash yelled.
No answer.
“Jay!” Slash shouted, his heart pounding fiercely. “Jay, are you hit?”
Running footsteps sounded behind Slash. He glanced behind to see Pecos running through the forest toward him, weaving around trees, holding his Colt revolving rifle nearly straight up and down in his gloved hands.
The ridge-top bushwhacker fired toward Pecos.
Slash cut loose on the shooter, emptying his right-hand Colt, the hammer pinging benignly down against the firing pin. Pecos ran up to a tree about fifteen feet to Slash’s left and dropped to a knee. He looked at Slash, red-faced, breathing hard.
“Jay?” he asked.
Slash shook his head. He edged a look around his covering pine and a cold stone dropped in his stomach when he saw Jay’s unmoving body, head tipped toward the ground.
“She’s still alive!” the shooter called from the ridge. “But she ain’t gonna be for much longer unless you two show yourselves!”