The address Jack had given him was a four-storey timber tenement in the most dismal back street of the Rookery, and that was quite a feat. The light was dying when they arrived, leaving what sky they could see striated with reds, pinks and purples. Flynt and Cain stood in the muck-ridden road, staring up at the dirty windows of the rickety dwellings rising up on either side like footpads about to pounce. The air was heavy with the noisome aroma of human and animal waste mixed with the rot of damp wood and smoke from cooking fires. Pedestrians stepped around them, most taking care not to step in any of the filth, others not caring, as if immune to the reek. Those individuals carried about themselves a miasma of their own thanks to unwashed clothes covering skin that was a stranger to soap and water.
Cain grimaced slightly. ‘In the name of sweet Jesus, that’s a smell I can never forget.’ He took a step back to study the building again. ‘I was raised in a shithole like this. My old mum made sure I had my letters, said she didn’t want me turning out like my father, whoever he was, because she never breathed his name. She said she wanted me to get out of St Giles and make something of myself but she lived there all her life, died there before her time. I was away by then, serving queen and country.’ He fell silent but Flynt understood that it was not an invitation for him to speak. ‘She deserved better. Better than the stinking hovel she lived and died in, better than whoever it was that sired me, better than me, in truth. She never had a chance in life.’ Another period of reflection followed, then he said, with an element of forced levity, ‘So what is our strategy?’
Flynt considered for a moment. ‘I get in the room, and if the Trasks aren’t there convince the girl to come with me.’
‘And if the Trasks are there?’
‘Kill them, then convince the girl to come with me.’
Gabriel smiled. ‘Subtle as ever, Jonas.’
‘Sometimes subtlety is not required, Gabriel. Sometimes all you need is Tact, Diplomacy and a steady hand.’
Flynt led the way into the gloom of the building’s entranceway, flicking his coat open to thrust his silver cane into his belt.
Cain followed, shaking his head as Flynt drew both pistols. ‘I never understood why you gave them names.’
‘It’s a foible.’
‘It’s not a foible, damned strange, is what it is. I often used to wonder if you spoke to them when in your private moments.’ Gabriel lowered his voice as he stared into the darkness of the hallway. ‘I met a fellow in the north who gave his pecker a name. Conversed with it, too.’
Flynt listened to the sounds of the building but asked, ‘What name did he give it?’
‘Dick.’
‘Somewhat obvious, is it not?’
‘Believe me, the thing was somewhat obvious. It was so big it frightened my mare.’
Voices from above were carried through the gloom. A baby cried. A dog barked. Life existed in these dismal surroundings.
‘What floor?’ Cain whispered.
‘Top.’
Cain sighed. ‘Of course it is. When is it ever not the top floor?’
Flynt smiled. It felt good to have his friend at his side again.
‘Do you think the Trasks are already here?’
Flynt didn’t reply immediately. His ears were alert for anything untoward. Raised voices, perhaps, boots on sagging floorboards, a woman’s cries, the sound of blows. He heard nothing but that didn’t mean they weren’t already up there. He felt his fingers tingle and his heart beat a little faster at the prospect. He had no desire for conflict but if it was to be, then he would be prepared for it. ‘They’ve had a sufficiency of time to reach here. What do you think?’
Cain thought about this, then reached under his coat to produce his own brace of pistols. ‘I think you’re right.’
Flynt paused at the foot of the stairs. The dying light reached the next landing through either a grimy window or gaps in the slats but it remained heavily shadowed. ‘I need you to stay down here,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because my arrival will not be welcome, especially if Bess is still here, for the girl is no friend to me. Two of us appearing of a sudden might be perceived to be heavy-handed.’
‘Heavy-handed has never concerned you before.’
‘I can be subtle on occasion.’
‘Let’s hope this is not the wrong occasion.’
Flynt began to climb the stairs. ‘Come running if you hear shooting.’
Gabriel melted back into the darkness of the ground floor, his footsteps signifying that he was moving to the rear of the passageway where there was little chance of him being seen should the Trasks appear. Flynt continued his ascent, pistols raised, every sense alert. Alleyways and stairways, he thought. How many times, he wondered, had he walked down one or scaled the other while preparing himself for whatever encounter awaited him above? He had visited the Rookery months before and it had resulted in a man’s death. Previously, he’d had call to seek another in a locale indistinguishable from this Rookery across the river in Southwark. That, too, had ended with the one he sought lying dead but also himself nearly succumbing to the tender embraces of a Russian brute. That was the way of it, however. His work always brought him to hovels such as this in search of a person or an item, which more often than not ended in loss of life and violence. Such was his life. How many more times would he do similar? And which one would prove to be his undoing?
He crept along the first-floor passage, head craned upwards to detect any movement on the next flight of stairs as he attempted to reduce the thud of his boot heels on the ageing floorboards. He passed three doorways, detected voices beyond each, the crying child still wailing but now joined by a woman’s soft voice attempting to soothe it. He wondered if the baby was ill, or teething, or just upset. Or hungry with no sustenance available. Behind each door men, women, children, families lived out their lives in a shared single room within a building that was broken down almost as soon as it was constructed, living side by side with the funk of effluent and sweat and the memories of meals gone by. And rats, of course. He could hear them, scurrying in corners and behind the walls. Of all creatures of the earth, those were the ones he detested, feared, the most. He shuddered as he paused halfway up the second flight of stairs to look downwards between the flimsy bannisters to the ground floor but could not see Gabriel. He would be there, though, of that he was certain. And if trouble lay ahead, he had someone at his back. It had been a long time since he’d had that luxury and it gave him pleasure.
The second floor was identical to the first, the only difference being the barking dog in one room and along with it the laughter of a child as he or she played with the animal. He smiled. Even in the grimmest of surroundings there was pleasure to be had.
He eased up the next flight, the top floor ahead, where he came to a halt. The note Jack had given him said Cheshire Sal was behind the third door, to the front. His ears cocked for sounds emanating from the room at the far end of the corridor. If the Trasks were there he believed he would have heard something, even a woman’s tears, but nothing reached his ears. He paused at each of the other two doorways to listen but no sound issued, so the tenants were not at home or the rooms were single occupancy and whoever was within had nobody to converse with, apart from their own thoughts and remembrances. And their failings. Flynt did not hold discussions with his pistols, as Gabriel had suggested, but he was well acquainted with those conversations of the mind.
He pressed his ear to the final door, detected voices, two women, one he was certain being Bess, her tone normal, conversational. Confident the Trask brothers were not there, he replaced his pistols, but in his belt, not in the special pockets sewn into his coat. What would happen next did not require firepower but some actual tact and diplomacy, though they had to be within easy reach for he felt sure the Trasks’ appearance was imminent. He draped the folds of his coat over the pistol butts, slid his cane free, then rapped his knuckles on the door.
Inside, conversation stopped as if it had been cut by a knife.
Flynt waited, his ear still close to the wood, but no further conversation reached him from within. He imagined the women holding their breath as they considered whether to answer. The door’s flimsy wood would be very easily broken down but he had no wish to alarm them further. He stepped back to peer over the bannister to the ground floor, saw no movement, heard no voices, then moved back, leaned in closer and raised his voice slightly, hoping it would carry no further than into the room.
‘My name is Jonas Flynt, Sally. I’m here to give you aid.’
He thought he heard a few muttered words, then swift footfalls and the door jerked open to reveal an angry Bess, her eyes spitting fire, her lips thinned, her tone like a dagger blade.
‘You followed me, you bastard! You let me think you was honourable but you tails me and…’ She stopped, understanding bleeding into her eyes. ‘No, you had Jack do it, ’cos he would do anything for you, the little bastard. He can kiss goodbye to any tupping now…’
‘Jack had nothing to do with it.’ Flynt brushed past her. If he waited for an invitation he would still be standing there when the cock crowed.
His tone was brusque, for he had no time to assuage Bess’s rage at what she saw as a betrayal of trust. He plucked his hat off and looked to the woman lying on a cot against the far wall, a threadbare blanket wrapped around her shoulders even though the night was clement. She did not appear unwell, so it was fear that sapped the heat from her bones. Sally was an attractive woman and even in the dim light of the candle he detected the features of John Duck in hers, but whereas her brother’s handsome face was unlined, hers bore the marks of the life she had led. Providing men with pleasure, and the bodily abuses that go with it, often aged a woman before her time. Bess was another example. She was Jack’s senior only by a few years but she had the face of a woman fifteen years older. She also had the tongue of a grog-addled labourer.
‘You are a fucking bastard, Jonas Flynt, a damned slippery weasel.’
‘I apologise for the intrusion but time is of the essence…’
Bess closed the door. ‘Don’t trust him, Sal, he’s a goddamned rogue and a cheat and he will sell you to the highest bidder sooner than I can spit.’
Flynt ignored her. ‘Madame, I am come to take you to your brother, where you’ll be safe.’
Sally’s head shake was forlorn. ‘Nowhere is safe, mister, and I can’t expose my brother to the peril.’
‘He’s already been exposed to it and equipped himself right well, for he still breathes. He’s gathering your family and friends to rally to your side when you’re returned home. The Trasks won’t get to you while you’re in their care.’
At mention of their name, she shrank against the wall. ‘They mustn’t get me.’
He held out a hand. ‘They won’t, but we must leave this place.’
‘She’s quite safe here,’ Bess insisted.
‘No, she’s not,’ Flynt said, his voice firm, ‘they know you’re here.’
Sally’s terror increased and Bess folded her arms, her face still sculpted by defiance, but she swallowed hard and shot a look over her shoulder to the door. ‘How did they find her?’
‘The same way I did.’ She knew the truth of it so there was little point in denying it. ‘You were followed, Bess.’
Guilt flashed in her glance towards Sally. ‘I was right careful, honest I was, Sal.’
Flynt felt sympathy for her self-reproach but had no time to be charitable. ‘Not careful enough. We’re ahead of them but I’d hazard not for long, so we must leave and leave now.’
Bess was not for letting go. ‘Don’t listen to him, Sal, he’s a liar. He just wants to know where Chris is…’
‘That’s true, but there’s little time for such discussion. I beseech you, madame, gather what belongings you have here and let us get you to into your brother’s care. I assure you that you’ll be safer there than here.’
‘I was proper careful,’ Bess insisted, perhaps in an attempt to reassure herself. ‘There weren’t nobody at my back, of that I is certain.’
Flynt’s gaze in her direction was stern. ‘Then how came I to be here?’
He waited for an answer but his logic had silenced her. She muttered something about Jack being a sly little shit and Flynt felt brief remorse over possibly queering the lad’s relationship with the girl, but he returned his attention to Sally. ‘Madame, it is with deep regret that I have to say this, but at this juncture you have a choice – if you wish to live you either come with me willingly or I’ll wrap you in that blanket and carry you off. One way or the other, we’re leaving.’
Sally’s dark eyes moved from him to Bess, as if expecting the solution to her quandary to be written upon their foreheads. Finally, she reached a decision and began to rise.
Relieved, Flynt held his hand out to assist her to her feet. She seemed weak and frail. ‘When was the last time the lady ate?’ he asked Bess.
‘She won’t eat nothing,’ Bess said, one finger jerking towards bread and cheese on a table. ‘I brung her food, some broth earlier, but she won’t touch it. She’s bad scared, she is.’
When Sally cast off the blanket, he saw how thin she was. He gripped her by both shoulders and stared into her face. ‘Tell me true. Can you walk?’
A barely imperceptible nod was her answer.
‘Very well,’ Flynt said. ‘We’ll take a hackney, but we must clear the Rookery before one can be found. Bess, help the lady to dress and gather what she needs, I’ll…’
He stopped when he heard the thunder of booted feet on the floorboards outside the door and he spun, pulling Tact and Diplomacy just as it crashed open to frame two men, each with a brace of pistols in their fists. They were not large men, both being short but bulky, as if they were nothing but walking muscle. Their faces were broad, their noses squashed, whether by nature or violence Flynt knew not. The eyes, though, were sharp and they swiftly overcame their surprise at seeing him.
‘Look who it be, brother,’ said one.
‘Jonas Flynt, as I live and fart, brother,’ said the other.
They were as near identical siblings as he had ever seen, but Remus was slightly taller and his voice was more nasal. He sported a deep gash to one cheek while his brother had lost the top part of an ear, both wounds still red and raw, so Flynt felt it safe to assume they had been caused by John Duck’s blade. The lacerations did not undermine the men’s good looks for they were far from fetching in the first place.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, politely, keeping a pistol trained on each of them. ‘I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you once more, but I’m giving up lying for Lent.’
Remus smiled, revealing two rows of very small, brown teeth, some pointed as if they had been filed. ‘Lent is well past.’
‘I am most devout.’
Romulus narrowed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know you was papist, Flynt.’
‘He’s having sport with us, brother,’ said Remus.
Romulus covered his shame at being fooled by leering towards the women. ‘You here for a bit of business, Flynt?’
‘He is certainly fully cocked and ready, brother,’ said Remus, waving one pistol at the two pointed towards them.
Romulus raised his twin pistols a little higher. ‘As are we, brother, and we is four barkers to his two. I’d say that means we has the advantage, what say you, Flynt?’
Flynt, who knew that it didn’t take a Sir Isaac Newton to compute that arithmetical problem and reach a similar conclusion, wondered where the hell Gabriel was. ‘It only takes one well-placed shot to rearrange matters more in my favour.’
‘If you gets it off,’ Remus observed. ‘But there ain’t no need for such unpleasantness between us gentlemen. All we wants is that whore yonder and we will be on our way, sweet as you please. You can have the other one to do with as you wish.’ His eyes roamed over Bess as though they were a pair of hands. ‘She looks a fine lay, she does, so I reckons you has a right bargain. That is, if you shows good sense.’
‘I regret, gentlemen,’ Flynt laid some heavy irony on the word, ‘good sense and I are often distant acquaintances. It’s a flaw in my character.’
Remus licked his lips. ‘That is a crying shame, that is, ain’t it, brother?’
‘It be a real sin, brother.’ It was Romulus’s turn to smile, his discoloured teeth sporting a gap on the lower set. Flynt had seen such before, caused by a powerful blow of a sword hilt to the mouth, and he wondered if that was another indicator of how the brothers had come off the worst in their encounter with John Duck.
‘That it is, that it is,’ Remus said, almost sadly. ‘But if that be the way of things, then so be it.’
Flynt was about to throw himself to the side when another voice joined the conversation.
‘Now, now, boys, let’s not be too hasty in applying finger to trigger, eh. This space is a great deal confined and the sound of gunfire would be most deafening.’
Gabriel’s face appeared behind the brothers, a pistol in each hand and pressed against the back of their heads. To their credit, they displayed no fear, for they had been under guns before. They both whirled further into the room, fanning their arms so that each had one weapon trained on Cain, the other on Flynt.
Cain covered his surprise at the speed of their reaction with a grin. ‘Nimble buggers, aren’t they?’
Remus took a moment, then said, ‘Gabriel Cain, ain’t it? I heard you’d been dangled out west somewheres.’
‘I also heard that, and most relieved I was to learn that it wasn’t true, but as you can see I am very much alive and the only thing that has kissed this neck are the lips of some beautiful women. And my horse, once, but that’s not something I like to discuss.’ Cain seemed to take note of the women for the first time and he gave them a courteous nod, while maintaining his aim on each of the brothers. ‘Ladies, I regret this manner of meeting, believe me it was not of my choosing.’
Bess and Sally had backed against the wall, but Bess had picked up a three-legged stool as if preparing to hurl it at the Trasks. She showed little fear, her rage being extremely evident in both stance and glare. Flynt suspected it was not directed solely at Romulus and Remus.
The four men were ranged in a tight circle, arms splayed, weapons ready. At this range, if shooting began, there was little chance of the balls missing their mark.
‘Well now,’ said Romulus, his only sign of nervousness being that his voice was slightly higher than before. ‘Ain’t we got a pretty picture here. This is what we would call an impasse, right brother?’
‘That’s right, brother. An impasse.’
‘My goodness, d’you hear that, Jonas?’ Cain seemed surprised. ‘The lads here used the word “impasse”.’
Flynt allowed himself a tight smile. He had seen him do this before, fill tense situations with banter until either it was resolved or some form of action could be taken. ‘It’s right impressed I am, Gabriel.’
‘Impressed? I’m stunned. D’you think it possible – and I’m merely floating this as a theory, of course – but you think it feasible that they have perhaps… read a book?’ Cain paused to mull this over. ‘No, I think it more likely they heard it used by someone else. Is that the way of it, lads? You heard it from someone who actually has a read a book?’
Romulus sneered. ‘You can mock all you wish, Cain, but you ain’t so learned yourself, despite your airs and graces. You talks well, but you is from these here streets, same as us, ain’t that right, brother?’
‘That be the correct of it, brother. Thinks he’s better than us, they both does. But Cain’s just the son of a slut, gawd knows who his father is, and Flynt here is a Scotchman, and you don’t gets much lower than that, does you?’
Flynt ignored the insult, recognising it for a way of hitting back, even though he carried little doubt they believed it.
‘D’you notice they call each brother, Jonas?’ Cain observed, his eyes dancing in a familiar way. ‘Do you think it’s because they’re so stupid they’ve forgotten what the other is called?’
‘Or they can’t tell themselves apart,’ Flynt added.
Cain wrinkled his nose. ‘Nobody can be that stupid. Can they?’ He looked the brothers over as he reassessed. ‘Well, perhaps they can…’
Romulus spat a gob of phlegm between them. ‘Gabriel Cain, you always had tongue enough for two sets of teeth.’
‘Aye,’ said Remus, ‘are we going to jaw here all night or get to it?’
Flynt had no desire that the situation become a bloodbath, for despite the proximity there remained the risk of a stray ball hitting one of the women. He decided it was time for some reason.
‘Gentlemen, let us take a moment to consider our situation. We are evenly matched now, as you can see, and a pistol exchange would result in all four of us dead or at least mortally wounded. And to what end? Who does such a bloody outcome profit?’
‘We wants that there girl,’ said Romulus, jerking his head in Sally’s direction while maintaining his attention on both Flynt and Cain.
‘And right now I have her,’ said Flynt.
‘Right now nobody has her, if we is being precise,’ observed Remus, correctly.
‘And if we are being even more precise,’ Cain said, ‘if we are dead that’s the way it will remain.’
The brothers digested this truth for a moment.
‘We can’t go back to our employer and tells him we had her but she slipped through our fingers,’ said Romulus.
‘Then don’t tell him.’ Flynt would dearly love to know who had paid them but he knew they would not divulge the name. There was no honour in their business but such information was only to be used to escape the noose, or when it became more profitable.
The brothers exchanged a look, each perhaps understanding his sibling’s thoughts without words being required.
‘Gentlemen,’ Flynt said, ‘we are all professionals. There is nothing personal in this, just a job. Consider this, is this lady worth dying over? Is it not prudent to simply ascribe this to the exigencies of fate and we all walk away?’
Romulus spat again. ‘Aye, but which of us walks away with the girl?’
Cain laughed. It was an easy laugh, for he was enjoying this. He always did find pleasure in extreme situations. ‘As our learned friends here said, we have an impasse. So let’s get to the shooting and when the smoke clears we’ll see who are the last men standing.’
They fell silent, eight guns loaded, cocked and trained on four men. Eyes flicked back and forth, searching for a sign that a trigger was about to be pulled. Bess still hefted the stool but she seemed to have forgotten it. Sally had wrapped her arms over her breasts, as if hugging herself to keep warm. Flynt forced his breathing to remain even and his arms steady. Cain seemed relaxed, as was his custom, sporting a half smile that Flynt knew so well, as if he dared the brothers to make a move. The Trasks, however, began to display nervousness. Beads of sweat broke out on their brow that were not the result of the warm evening air. Romulus licked his lips, Remus’s hands trembled just a little, but enough to show that his resolve might be wavering. Finally, their eyes locked and that unspoken message passed between them again.
It was Romulus who spoke. ‘He what fights and runs away, eh?’ he said with a wavering smile. ‘Ain’t no need for us all to meet Old Mr Grim over a bobtail bitch.’
He and his brother edged towards the door, their weapons still trained. Cain moved back into the hallway to allow them to pass.
‘You show wisdom I never thought you to possess, lads,’ he said.
‘Don’t need no book-learning to know a lost cause, do it?’ Romulus sneered as he and his brother backed towards the top of the stairs, Flynt marking them from a position by the door. ‘But we will have us a reckoning, you and us, and that is a sure bet.’
Both Cain and Flynt recognised that there was no further point in exchanging more jibes, so they watched the two men descend the stairs, weapons trained until the last possible moment. Once he was satisfied they had reached the ground floor and there was no sign of them returning, Flynt whirled back towards the room.
Cain followed. ‘First impasse, then he quotes Tacitus.’
‘Misquotes.’
‘True, but Romulus Trask seems to have hidden depths.’
‘Hidden shallows, more like. And there’s more to that quote.’ Flynt looked to the ladies. ‘We must go. Now.’
Bess looked confused. ‘But they’s gone, ain’t they? And who is this Taciturn cove you be talking about?’
‘Tacitus. He was a Roman orator who said, “He that fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.” I’m not sure if the Trasks are aware of that section but I’m unwilling to bet our lives upon it. Sally, gather what you need. Bess, help her.’
Gabriel stood sentinel by the door, his attention on the stairway. ‘You believe they will lie in wait?’
Flynt joined him. ‘Do you not?’
Cain’s lips thinned. ‘Yes.’ He remained silent for a moment. ‘They may split up, one to the front, one to the rear. Or they may simply ambush us on the stairs.’
Flynt nodded his assent to the latter. ‘Confined space, lots of shadows making it easy to attack, less likelihood of us making our escape than if they came at us in the street or back yard.’
Cain crept to the bannister in order to peer below then stealthily returned. ‘I can’t see a damned thing down there, nor hear anything.’
‘They are exceeding accomplished at such ambush. We won’t hear them until they wish us to.’
Cain looked beyond Flynt to where Bess and Sally bustled around the room, finding clothes and thrusting what few possessions the latter had into a sack, then lowered his voice even further. ‘The ladies are a liability, Jonas.’
‘The ladies are why we are here.’
‘I know that, but it will be difficult to defend ourselves and them if, or when, the Trasks make their move.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘We take the fight to them. We go down there alone. Deal with them. Then we can transport the ladies to the brother.’
Flynt thought this over. The suggestion was a gamble, but there was sense in it. Confrontation was inevitable but this way they wouldn’t need to worry about Bess and Sally being caught in the mêlée. ‘If just one of the Tasks gets by us, they’ll be vulnerable.’
‘They don’t want Sally dead, do they? They want the same information you seek. They won’t harm her.’
‘But they will harm Bess.’
‘Don’t you be worrying about me, Jonas bloody Flynt.’
Flynt turned and saw that Bess was holding a pistol. ‘Where did you get that?’
It was Sally who responded. ‘It’s Christopher’s. He left it with me for my protection but I fired it by accident one night when I took fright at a noise and I have nothing with which to load it.’
Flynt placed his own pistols in his belt and took this new weapon from Bess’s hand in order to examine it. It was far from new but he thought it functional. ‘Would you be able to wield this efficiently?’ he asked Bess.
She gave him a scornful look. ‘There ain’t no great trick to making it bark. You cock it, point the end with the hole at what you want to hit and pull the trigger.’
‘There is more to shooting at a man than that, Bess. You need to be deliberate, need to be aware that when you pull that trigger you may well take a life. That should never be easy.’
‘From what I hears you finds it easy enough.’ Her withering look deepened. ‘Just load the damned thing, let me worry about how deliberate I is. If one of them Trasks shows his beak around that door, I’ll blow it off.’
Cain shrugged, as if to say that they had little choice, so Flynt began to load the weapon, taking a ball from a leather pouch attached to his belt and a powder flask from the pocket of his coat. He poured the correct amount of powder into the muzzle before placing a patch of wadding over the barrel’s end and positioned the lead shot in the centre of the bore. He then slid the ramrod from the underside of the pistol barrel and wedged it all in tightly. Once the ramrod was back in place, he lifted the frizzen, the metal hinge in the shape of a raised L, to reveal the pan. Here he placed a small amount of primer, poured from another flask in his pocket, then eased it in place with his thumb. He clicked the frizzen back in place, protecting the primer, then took Bess’s wrist to place the butt of the pistol in her hand, ensuring it was aimed at the floor.
‘You cock it by pulling back the hammer here then, as you say, point and fire. Don’t aim it unless you mean to use it and if you have to use it, for God’s sake don’t try to be fancy, you’ve one chance to put him down and you have to take it. Don’t hesitate, don’t think about it, it has to be as if the weapon is part of you. As soon as he comes through the door, take aim at the centre of his body and fire. Don’t think of him as a man, just tell yourself that if you don’t put him down then he’ll put you down, understand?’
‘Whichever of those bastards comes here, he ain’t no man. He comes through that door, he’s dead meat.’
‘And for God’s sake,’ Cain said, ‘have a care that it’s not Flynt or I.’
A little smile softened Bess’s taut lips. ‘We shall see.’
Still unconvinced she knew how difficult it was to intentionally take a life, Flynt merely grunted and moved back to join Cain beyond the doorway.
‘She’s a tough girl,’ Gabriel said, ‘but will she be able to handle it if the time comes?’
Flynt pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. ‘Let’s do our best to ensure that she is not put to the test.’ He hefted Tact and Diplomacy once again. ‘Are you ready?’
Cain grinned. ‘Let us pray for good fortune, eh?’
‘Good fortune is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,’ Flynt said.
‘Are we prepared, Jonas?’
Flynt gave a final look to the women. Sally was again sitting on the cot, her sack beside her, her face drawn and terrified. Bess stood over her, her right hand holding the pistol cradled in the left across her stomach, determination etched deeply on her face.
‘As prepared as we can be,’ he said, and stepped into the hallway.
Cain followed. ‘Then let us once more unto the breach, dear friend…’