them were still fighting each other, not yet aware that an even greater threat had just galloped into Buckskin.
Frank emptied his Colt at Jory Pool, but the boss outlaw chose that moment to whirl his horse and start charging back the way he had come. The bullets whined past him, all of them missing. Frank sprawled full-length behind a water trough and began reloading, dumping the empty shells from the Peacemaker’s cylinder and thumbing fresh cartridges into it.
He hadn’t seen Hammersmith or Hamish Munro since the shooting started, he realized, and he wondered what had happened to them.
But he wondered for only a second, because he had bigger worries at the moment. Several of the mounted outlaws charged the water trough where he had taken cover, and a hailstorm of lead scythed through the air around him.
Hamish Munro was shaking with fear as he scrambled up the stairs in the hotel. He had never come so close to death in his life as he just had in the street outside. It was bad enough that everyone was turning on him like that —the Fowler brothers and even Hammersmith—but then to have all that shooting going on around him, with bullets flying through the air so close to his head that he could hear them….
He hadn’t thought about it. The instinct for self-preservation had taken over and he had dashed for the boardwalk, getting out of the street as fast as he could, leaving Hammersmith behind—the traitor! If Hammersmith had been more careful…if he had hired men who were more dependable than the Fowlers…if that damned Morgan hadn’t kept pushing and poking his nose in where it didn’t belong…
Yes, Munro thought, when you got right down to it, everything was Morgan’s fault. He would see the man dead. If, of course, Morgan lived through the battle that was going on outside.
Munro became uncomfortably aware that the front of his trousers was wet. Terror had made him lose control of his bladder as he ran for cover. He hated for Jessica to see him this way, but it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like she actually loved him. At least, not nearly as much as she loved his money. As long as he had his riches, nothing else really mattered to her.
He paused at the top of the stairs to draw a deep breath and try to collect himself. He had always carried himself with dignity, and there was no reason to change that now. With a furious glare on his face, he stalked along the corridor toward his suite. Jessica had probably heard the shooting and would be scared. She was like a little girl who was easily frightened. Munro would calm her down, and then they would wait out the trouble. He was confident that Colonel Starkwell’s militia would suppress the riot going on outside, even though he was still angry at Starkwell for disobeying his orders.
Munro opened the door and stepped into the suite. He didn’t see anyone. “Jessica!” he said, raising his voice because even in here, the sound of gunfire was loud. “Jessica, where are you?”
He heard something behind him, the scrape of shoe leather on the floor perhaps, and started to turn, but before he could swing around, something hard and round jabbed against the back of his head and there was a loud noise and a white-hot explosion burst in Hamish Munro’s brain. He didn’t feel himself falling, wasn’t aware of it when he landed facedown on the floor with the back of his head a bullet-shattered ruin. He shouldn’t have even been able to think anymore with a bullet in his brain that way, but a few swiftly fading shreds of consciousness remained, just enough for him to think that he couldn’t be dying. He was Hamish Munro, damn it. He had money and power. Politicians did his bidding, and a beautiful young woman was his wife….
That was his last thought before oblivion claimed him.
Chapter 32
Jessica lunged at Hammersmith as he came stumbling in the door of the hotel, blood running down his face from the cut that Frank Morgan’s gun had opened up on his head. She caught hold of his arm and cried, “Gunther! Gunther, what’s going on out there?”
Hammersmith shook his head as if he were still groggy from the blow. “All hell’s breakin’ loose,” he muttered. “Somebody started shootin’…then some other bastards came riding in and gunnin’ people down…”
Impatience gripped Jessica. Hammersmith wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, nothing she hadn’t seen for herself through the hotel’s front window. Munro had ordered her to stay upstairs, but she had ignored him, as she always ignored him when it didn’t suit her purposes to give the appearance of compliance. She had watched anxiously as the miners and the militia confronted each other, and she had seen the big miner called Rogan fall as he was shot. Jessica didn’t know who had pulled the trigger, but Rogan’s killing had set off a firestorm in the street.
Even though she knew it was dangerous, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from the spectacle as the battle raged in the street outside the hotel. She had crouched down so that she could peer over the bottom of the window. That was her only concession to caution.
Her hope was that Hamish would be killed in the confusion. That would save her a great deal of trouble later on, and given the circumstances, there was no way anyone could blame her for his death.
But after a few minutes, he had come stumbling out of the melee, seemingly unharmed. As he staggered toward the hotel, Jessica had seen the large dark stain on the front of his trousers, and her nose had wrinkled in distaste. He was such a coward that he had pissed his pants in his fear. How could she have let such a man even touch her, let along some of the things she had allowed him to do to her?
Money, of course. That was the reason. As it always was and always would be. Hamish had the money, and she wanted it.
But she was tired of waiting for it.
She stood up and drew back into the shadows as he came in to the hotel. He never even saw her as he started up the stairs, obviously heading for their suite. She let him go without calling out to him. She had to decide what to do now.
Hammersmith’s arrival had helped her make up her mind. Munro could still die. Hammersmith could kill him and bring his body back downstairs. In all the chaos, if Munro’s body was found in the hotel lobby or out on the boardwalk, no one would ever question that he had been killing in the fighting.
So as Jessica clutched Hammersmith’s arm, she broke through his stunned reverie by saying in an urgent voice, “Gunther, listen to me. It’s time.”
