Killer Poker

Chapter 27





The Kid enjoyed the meal and ate plenty. One thing a man on the drift learned in a hurry was to eat when he got the chance. You never knew when the opportunity might come around again.

McKinney started to get impatient. “There’s no use in you stalling, Browning. Things are gonna turn out the same no matter what you do.”

The Kid drained the last of the coffee in his cup and set it down on its saucer of fine china. “Do what you have to do, McKinney,” he said coolly.

“Damn right I will.” McKinney gestured toward the guards who had stood by during the meal. “Get him on his feet,” he ordered.

The Kid stood up without waiting for the men to force him to leave the table. He wanted to get out of there, wanted to have a chance to move around again and plan his strategy to turn the tables on the rancher.

The first order of business would be to get his hands on a gun but that would have to wait. At the headquarters of the Double Star, he was surrounded by dozens of hardcases toting Colts and shotguns. No matter how good he was, he couldn’t buck those odds.

McKinney scraped his chair back, too. “Tie his hands behind him and take him out to the wagon. Be careful. Don’t let him try anything.”

The Kid smiled faintly. He wasn’t going to try anything . . . yet.

McKinney looked at the woman sitting at the other end of the table. “Are you coming along?”

“No, you don’t need me. I’ve done my part. Just make sure he dies.”

McKinney grunted. “Count on it.”

While a couple men covered The Kid with their shotguns, another of McKinney’s punchers came up behind him, jerked his arms behind his back, and lashed his wrists together with several strands of rawhide. The man jerked the knots so tight The Kid’s fingers began to get numb right away as the circulation was cut off.

That might prove to be a problem later, he thought, but he would deal with it when the time came.

Once his hands were tied, the guards prodded The Kid toward the front door of the ranch house. He stumbled a couple of times when one of the men poked him hard in the back with a shotgun. The others laughed.

Keep laughing, The Kid thought. The time was coming when it wouldn’t be so funny anymore.

They went outside into bright morning sunlight. A wagon was parked in front of the house. Probably the same one that had brought him out there, The Kid decided. He hoped they wouldn’t cover him up with some damn stinking blanket again.

“Get him in the back,” McKinney ordered as he followed them out onto the porch.

Men grabbed The Kid’s arms and hustled him down the steps and across the yard to the wagon. He didn’t put up a fight. The wagon’s tailgate was already down. When they reached it, the men took hold of The Kid and literally lifted him and threw him into the wagon bed. His sore muscles protested as he thudded down and rolled across the rough planks.

Awkwardly, because his hands were tied behind his back, The Kid worked his way into a sitting position. A couple of men climbed onto the wagon seat. One of them took hold of the reins while the other turned around and leveled a revolver at The Kid. Other men moved up on horseback, flanking the wagon on both sides. The shotguns had been put away, but half a dozen Colts were pointed at The Kid, and he knew they could shoot him to pieces in a matter of heartbeats.

“You know where to take him,” McKinney said from the porch, where he rested his hands on the railing and watched with a satisfied expression on his brutal face.

“Sure, boss.” The driver lifted the reins, slapped them against the backs of the team, and called out to the horses. The wagon lurched violently into motion, making The Kid sway back and forth since he couldn’t use his hands to brace himself.

The slashing hooves of the team and the swiftly turning wagon wheels raised a cloud of dust as the vehicle bounced and rattled away from the ranch. The guards galloped alongside it, except for one man who trailed behind the vehicle, eating the dust. The Kid didn’t waste any time feeling sorry for the man riding drag, since the varmint probably would be trying to kill him before the day was over.

It was a rough ride. The wagon headed northwest, toward the foothills and the snow-capped Rockies beyond that formed a majestic backdrop for the ranch headquarters. The sky was a brilliant blue with a few white clouds floating in it. Denver’s crowded streets and the smoky gambling rooms of the Palace seemed a million miles away, not just forty or fifty.

The Kid sat in the back of the wagon with his head down. It probably looked like an attitude of despair to McKinney’s men, but it wasn’t. He was gathering his strength and clearing his mind, preparing himself to face what seemed like overwhelming odds.

The way to deal with odds like that, The Kid knew, was to whittle them down bit by bit. In order to do that, he had to make them think he had given up, so they wouldn’t be expecting him to fight back later on.

A couple hours passed as the wagon penetrated deeper into the foothills. The sun climbed higher in the sky and made the temperature rise. The Kid didn’t bother wishing he had a hat, knowing that would be a waste of time.

Finally, the driver hauled back on the reins and brought the wagon to a halt in front of a long line of rugged gray and brown cliffs about half a mile away. He turned and told the men on horseback, “All right, get him out of there.”

A couple guards dismounted and approached the wagon while the others continued to cover The Kid. They reached into the back of the vehicle, grabbed The Kid’s legs, and roughly hauled him out. He fell off the tailgate and landed hard, knocking the breath out of him for a moment. While he lay there half stunned, one of the men drew a knife and bent over to slash the rawhide bonds around The Kid’s wrists.

“He’s loose!” the man called as he stepped back quickly. “You got an hour, Browning. Then the boss and the rest of us are comin’ after you.”

The driver moved the wagon away and turned it around, leaving The Kid lying in the dirt. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his hands were like lumps of dead meat and went out from under him. He slumped back down onto an elbow, drawing chuckles from the hardcases who surrounded him.

“Maybe you’d rather we just ventilated you now,” one of the men suggested. “It’d sure be quicker, and you’re gonna wind up dead anyway.”

“McKinney wouldn’t like that,” The Kid said. “He’s got to have his fun.”

“We got our orders,” snapped the man in charge. “Let’s go.”

He and the other men who had dismounted swung back up into their saddles. The driver of the wagon whipped the team into motion. Dust billowed and swirled in the air again as McKinney’s men headed back the way they had come.

They wouldn’t return all the way to the ranch headquarters, though, The Kid mused as he watched them gallop away. The spokesman had said they would come after him in an hour’s time. They would rendezvous with McKinney somewhere between there and the Double Star ranch house, and the hunt would begin in earnest.

The Kid flexed his fingers and welcomed the fierce stabbing pain that shot through his hands. The blood was flowing again. He turned his head to gaze at the rugged cliffs. They stretched as far to the north and south as he could see. He couldn’t get around them, not in the time McKinney was giving him.

The rancher had stacked the odds in his favor by choosing that place for his men to dump The Kid, planning to drive his quarry toward the cliffs and trap him there. Like an animal, he’d said more than once, and he meant it.

Cornered animals were often the most dangerous, though, The Kid thought as a grim smile touched his mouth. He flexed his fingers again. His hands were starting to work, and he pushed himself up. He made it to his knees, then climbed to his feet.

The rocky ground was rough on his feet as he started toward the cliffs. He ignored the discomfort and lifted his gaze to the heights beyond those cliffs. The terrain rose in a series of bluffs and canyons that climbed steadily into the mountains. He needed that high ground, and as far as he could see, there was only one way to get there.

McKinney probably thought it was impossible for any man to climb those cliffs.

Kid Morgan intended to prove him wrong.

His feet began to bleed before he reached the cliffs, but he didn’t slow down. He didn’t have much time. He had to get there, find a way up, and make it to the top before McKinney and the rest of the killers returned. If they caught him out in the open, trying to pull himself up a few inches at a time, it would be like target practice for them. They could sit down there and take potshots at him all day until one of them decided to put him out of his misery.

The cliffs seemed to loom higher and higher as he approached them. In reality they were probably about a hundred feet tall, he judged. Although from a distance they looked smooth and sheer, as he came closer he saw that they weren’t. They had a slight slope to them in places, and there were rocky outcrops and fissures here and there. If he’d had plenty of time and maybe a rope to help him, climbing the cliffs would be a challenge but certainly not impossible.

He didn’t have either of those things, he reminded himself. But even though he couldn’t change time, he might be able to do something about the other.

As he trotted toward the cliffs, he stripped his shirt off. The sun was going to blister his skin, but that was a minor worry. The shirt was made of sturdy fabric that resisted tearing, but he was able to get a place started with his teeth and began ripping strips from it. When he had enough of them, he began weaving them together and knotting them into a makeshift rope.

A short time later he reached the base of the cliffs. He estimated that a quarter of an hour had gone by since McKinney’s men had galloped off, leaving him with about forty-five minutes before they returned. He tipped his head back and searched the face of the cliff above him.

No handholds were within arm’s reach, but he spotted a rocky knob he might be able to catch with the rope he had made from his shirt. From there he could reach other places where he could get a grip and hoist himself higher. If he could angle over a short distance, he might be able to get into a narrow crack he saw zigzagging toward the top. It petered out, but there was another outcropping above it that might give him a handhold.

Quickly, his eyes traced a possible path to the top. Following it would require clinging to the rock with fingers and toes like some sort of human insect and stretching himself almost beyond his ability to reach.

There might be an easier route somewhere else, he thought as he formed a loop in the makeshift rope, but he didn’t have time to search for it. It was that way or nothing, and The Kid wasn’t anywhere close to being ready to give up.

He had never worked as a ranch hand, but his father had taught him a little about handling a lasso. He gave it a few easy twirls, then cast the loop at the knob that was his target. The loop fell short. The Kid bit back his impatience and tried again.

It took five casts before the loop caught well enough to support his weight. The Kid leaned hard on the rope to make sure it was going to hold, then began walking up the cliff as he pulled himself along hand over hand.

He had a nervous second as the loop slipped a little. He wasn’t high enough to hurt himself if he fell, but he didn’t want to waste the time it would take to start over.

The rope held, however, and he continued climbing. A moment later he was able to hang on with one hand and reach higher with the other. His fingers clamped over a rough spot that stuck out far enough for him to get a good grip. He pulled himself up, loosened the rope and slung it around his neck so he could take it with him, and used the knob as a foothold.

The minutes flowed past with maddening speed. The Kid couldn’t pull himself up more than a few inches at a time. If he lifted himself an entire foot at one try, it was a huge victory. When he reached the crack he had spotted from below, he realized it was a little bigger than he’d thought. He was able to worm his whole body into it and lift himself by pressing with his feet and back. He left bloody streaks on both sides of the crack as the rocky surface tore and scraped his skin, but what was a little blood when his life was at stake, he asked himself.

And it wasn’t just his life at stake. If he was ever going to find his children . . . if he was ever going to make a life for them with him . . . he had to survive.

He had escaped from Hell Gate Prison, he thought, and he had made it through quite a few other ordeals. He could do this. For his sake . . . for the sake of little Frank and Vivian . . .

His body was slick with sweat and blood, and he began slipping. The rocks dug into his flesh as he caught himself. He had lost track of time and didn’t know how long it would be before McKinney and the other men who wanted to kill him showed up. Turning his head, he looked out across the flats and saw dust boiling up. A groan came from deep inside him.

They were on their way. And he was only about halfway to the top of the cliff.

The Kid started climbing again. He reached the top of the crack and moved onto the face of the cliff again, clinging desperately to it. He was high enough that a fall would probably be fatal. Exhaustion made his muscles tremble. He forced them to work and pulled himself higher. When he reached an outcropping that was big enough for him to lie down, he stretched out for a few moments, knowing he couldn’t afford the time but also aware that his body could be driven only so far without a little rest.

After he had taken about a dozen deep breaths, he struggled back to his feet and looked up, studying the path that rose above him. He had to use the rope again to lasso another jutting rock. Above that, he picked out several handholds and footholds that would get him almost to the top. He had a chance, he told himself, a real chance.

He didn’t look to see how close McKinney and the others were. There was no point in it. He would make it or he wouldn’t, simple as that.

After a couple casts, the crude lasso caught the rock. The Kid pulled himself up and was almost there when the rock pulled loose with a sharp cracking sound. For an instant, he seemed to hang in midair as he let go of the rope and his hands shot out to claw at the cliff face. The fingers of one hand caught in a tiny opening. He scrambled to find another hold as his weight felt like it was going to tear those fingers right off his hand.

His toes went in a crack in the rock, his other hand found a grip, and he was safe again. The broken rock bounced and clattered to the ground far below, taking the rope with it.

He didn’t need the lasso anymore, The Kid told himself. He could make it from there without it. He dragged in a breath, set himself, and reached higher, ignoring the fear that made his heart hammer madly in his chest.

Ten feet . . . five . . . he could see the top of the cliff, tantalizingly close. He shifted a foot, dug his bloody toes into a narrow opening, and lifted himself. Reaching again, he closed his hand over an outcropping. He was almost close enough to stretch out and grasp the rimrock itself.

It exploded right above his head in a shower of rock splinters and dust as rifles began to crack somewhere below him.