Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(27)
When Steeldust Jack rode to where the scream had come from, with White Eagle and the other braves just behind him, he found a man holding a Comanche girl by the hair. She struggled against the man, and he yanked her head farther back until her eyes were facing the sky.
“Whatcha all think?” he said to five other men, who had their pistols out by then. “Should I scalp her or what?”
The man grinned and held his bowie knife up to catch the sun. Dismounting, Steeldust Jack’s mind worked fast, matching the clothes and holsters of these men to that of the body found just outside the reservation. And matching their demeanors to the kind of gunmen placed in long supply by the destruction wrought by the Civil War, bitter and hardened men turned into nomads. Many had become bushwhackers and criminals, offering their well-seasoned and practiced gun hands to anyone who had need and could pay.
But there was something different and unsettling about this lot, starting with the quality of their clothes and the fact that their Colts were shiny and new—practiced with on the range rather than in the genuine battles they’d left behind in their pasts, but not their souls.
Steeldust Jack took a step forward, careful not to place much weight on his bad leg, and peeled his coat back to reveal his own more weathered Colt, making no move to draw it yet. “You can let the girl go now,” he said calmly, feeling the braves take up position behind him, holding in place reluctantly with bows and arrows held at the ready which didn’t seem to bother the gunmen at all.
The head gunman yanked the young Comanche woman in closer. “Who says?”
“The Texas Rangers.”
“Oh, so you’re a lawman.”
“Nope. Told ya, I’m a Texas Ranger.”
“What’s the difference?” another of the gunmen asked, a trail of tobacco juice following the words out of his mouth.
Steeldust Jack rotated his gaze among all six of them. The way they held their pistols already cocked told him they were hardened gunmen, no stranger to triggers, with the exception of one who looked no more than fifteen. Steeldust Jack’s biggest fear at that point was that the Comanche behind him would let loose with their arrows, thereby catching him in the certain crossfire to follow.
“Well, a lawman, by nature, is answerable to the law. A Ranger’s answerable only to Texas. But this ain’t Texas here. Not really.”
“Coulda fooled us,” said the second speaker. “Then what is it?”
“Indian land by the law, as provided by the United States government.”
“Thought you weren’t answerable to the law, Ranger.”
“I’m not. But I am answerable to the government of both the country and the state. And the word of both says you’ve got no place upon the land on which you’re currently standing.”
“Somebody should’ve told that to our dead friend, who looks like someone put him through a meat grinder,” said a third gunman.
“And we ain’t leaving,” added the man with knife in one hand and girl’s hair in the other, “’til these Injuns give up the one of their stinking kind that done it.”
“It’s my job to find the man who done it, whether that’s here or somewheres else,” Steeldust Jack told them all. “So why don’t you boys get yourself gone and let me go about my business and find out who killed your friend?”
“’Cause it’s our business too, Ranger,” the knife wielder said, touching the tip of his blade to the young woman’s throat firmly enough to make her wince.
Steeldust Jack saw a trickle of blood running down her neck. He realized she was far more girl than woman, probably no more than thirteen. Her dark eyes, leveled on him once more, were filled with fear and a desperate plea for help. It made him think of someone holding his own daughter in a similar spot.
“Maybe you should tell me exactly what business it is brought you here in the first place,” he said.
The man who’d done the most talking, the one Jack Strong now took to be the leader, took a few steps ahead of the rest. “Tell you what. Why don’t you ride yourself out of here and let us serve as your deputies?”
“Fine by me, so long as you boys go first. I’ll be right behind.”
The leader made a show of poking a finger in the air five times, one for each of his men. “Seems there’s six men here standing against you and them Injuns who won’t be standing long once the lead starts flying.”
“Five men,” Steeldust Jack corrected, gesturing with his eyes toward the kid. “One of you looks like he still wears his diapers.”
The kid stepped forward, hand ready on his gun. “You wanna see how fast I am?”
“In my experience, son, any man needs to say that ain’t nearly as fast as he thinks he is.”
“I already killed tougher men than you.”
“You shut your hole, Jimmy Miller,” the leader said, angling himself in front of the kid. “Boy spoke out of turn, Ranger. I smack him upside his head or shoot him myself, it’s still five against one.”
“You as good with measuring as you are with counting, friend?”
“Huh?”
“Fifty-two feet.”
“What?”
“Fifty-two feet—the distance between us when I stopped. I know it real well, ’cause it’s how far I was away when the Texas Brigade took Devil’s Den. Had a bullet in my leg, so that’s where I stayed for the charge. Down to the last of my ammo, so I didn’t dare miss. And know what? I didn’t.” Steeldust Jack squared his shoulders to face all six figures at once. “Fifty-two feet. Same distance I am to you.”