a doorway or rushing into a building. More than once, Nick thought he would be called out on his attempts to draw Kinman’s attention away from those desperate faces.
Fortunately for those frightened souls, Kinman seemed more intent on talking up Hale’s plan to blow up the railroad tracks. As he spelled out the plan to Nick, he acted as if he was sharing the details of a surprise birthday party. Nick listened, nodded and kept looking for another way to keep from having to put another local in harm’s way.
“I need a drink,” Nick said as they walked down another street.
Kinman shook his head and replied, “You’re out of luck there. The saloons are closed.”
“What? Why would they be closed?”
“The barkeeps are trying to keep from adding fuel to the fire by getting these arsonists liquored up. Don’t try talking your way in either, because I gave it my best shot. Some of these saloon owners say they’re trying to settle things down, but my guess is that most of them just don’t want to be blamed for making things worse.”
Nick nodded and looked at the darkened windows of the nearest saloon with newfound respect. “They may be onto something,” he said.
“They’re just covering their asses.” Kinman grunted. “I’m inclined to toss a brick through one of these goddamn windows just so I can get my hands on a bottle. In fact…”
Recognizing the glint in the man’s eye from all the other times he’d been around dangerous men with too much time on their hands, Nick reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out a dented flask. “Here,” he said, handing the flask to Kinman. “Maybe this’ll help.”
Kinman looked at the flask and then back up at Nick. “I thought you wanted to head into a saloon to get a drink.”
“I just didn’t want to take a dent out of my personal supply.”
Kinman seemed more than a little skeptical. But once he screwed open the flask and sniffed the contents, he grinned and nodded. “Ah. Now I see. This ain’t your typical gutter-brewed whiskey.”
“I can’t even find it in most saloons,” Nick said. “Sometimes, there ain’t anyone in town who’s ever heard of vodka.”
Kinman tipped the flask back just enough for a healthy taste of the clear liquor. His eyes closed as the liquid heat worked its way through him and warmed his stomach. “That’s a hell of a treat,” he said, handing back the flask. “Thanks.”
Nick took a drink as well, savoring the taste and the feel of the liquor the way some folks savor a cigar or a finely cooked meal. When he let out the breath he’d been holding, Nick felt as if he were exhaling steam from the potent liquor burning its path down his throat.
“Seems like the fires are being put out,” Nick said as he put the flask back into his pocket.
Kinman nodded and spared a quick glance toward the section of town that had been ablaze. “Maybe we do got the saloon keepers to thank for that. The men who set them fires only burned down Chinese houses.”
“Houses?” Nick asked. “Not businesses?”
Shaking his head, Kinman replied, “Chinese businesses may have a few white investors. Chinese laundries may have some white folks’ clothes hanging in the back. Nope, they just stuck to the houses because that’s where they could burn down the most Chinese with the least bit of fuss.”
Nick felt his stomach shift within him in a way that had nothing to do with the vodka. He was taken slightly aback when he found the same disgusted look upon Kinman’s face. “Why would you take money from someone like Hale?” Nick asked.
“Why wouldn’t I? You think someone else wouldn’t just step up and do what I done? It’s easy work and it was gettin’ done with or without me. Sheriff Young’s got his hands full with the fires and the assholes setting them for now, but he’ll crack down on Hale so hard that prick won’t know what hit him.”
“What about the Federals?” Nick asked.
Kinman looked over at him. “Those Federals will roll into town sooner or later,” he said. “All we need to do is make it later rather than sooner and we can ride outta here as rich men.”
“It could be messy if any Federals get hurt.”
“Not if nobody knows who did the hurtin’.” As Kinman broke into laughter, he slapped Nick on the back and added, “We’ll just skin that rabbit when we get to it, as my grandpappy used to say. Speakin’ of rabbits, it looks like the Chinese rabbits are all back in their holes. Let’s get to work on our other business.”
The town had fallen into an eerie sort of calm. More folks were poking their heads out of their doorways and walking the streets, and there were more lawmen making their rounds. Nick figured that many of the men wearing badges were newly deputized or even part of a posse meant to regain order. The look in their eyes said they were both anxious to use their guns and afraid at the same time.
Kinman must have picked up on the same thing, because he became more and more silent as the folks around him got the courage to walk outside again. Even though the night air was filled with more cautious voices and less with gunfire, Kinman glanced around as if he was suspicious of every face he saw.
“Don’t let these folks get too good a look at you,” he said. “Once the law gets here, they’ll be apt to tell them about every stranger they’ve seen.”
“They’ve got to know about Hale,” Nick said. “A man like that surely hasn’t been silent while this mess was brewing.”
“Oh sure. And I’m positive none of these folks pointed out a Chinese or two to Hale out of spite. I’m also sure none of these folks happen to be miners as well and are looking to get anyone but Hale into trouble for this bloodbath.”
Nick nodded and choked down his disgust for his fellow man. “Point taken. Where are we headed?”
“There’s a hardware store just up the street. Hale said he’d meet us there with the supplies we need.”
True to his word, the hardware store was up the street and marked by a single lantern glowing in the window. As he approached the store, Nick felt like he’d been swept up by a passing twister and tossed a hundred feet into the air. Where he’d been before didn’t matter, and he was too busy to think about where he was headed. Looking back on it, Nick might have thought a week or two had passed since he’d been sitting on that train aching for a way to get off of it. Now that the twister had come, all he could do was try to position himself for the best landing he could manage.
As he followed Kinman around to the back of the store, Nick was reminded of something Barrett had once told him. His friend’s words drifted through his head like a phantom breeze, bringing a hint of a smile to his face.
“A man don’t get rich without taking a wrong turn now and then,” Barrett had said during one of the many wrong turns their old gang had taken. “He’s gotta follow his nose no matter where it leads.”
“Most folks know better than to live life like that,” Nick had said at the time.
Barrett had looked at him and nodded. “That’s why most folks are dirt poor, breaking their backs and cursing every minute they got to spend on this earth without the sand to do a damn thing about it.”
At the time, Nick had liked the sound of that.
Now, it struck him as true but not quite as amusing.
He knew there was something important brewing in Rock Springs the moment he’d spotted the flames. Getting off the train was a bonus, but Nick had to admit he would have preferred to be one of the other folks that Barrett had talked about. At least that way he would still be on his way to Cheyenne with only a few loud children and smelly old men to gripe about instead of carrying an armful of guns and a crate loaded with dynamite.
Those things were handed over by a trio of men with faces that were so dirty, they might never have been clean. Those stern faces were unwilling to meet Nick or Kinman’s eyes as they followed through on Hale’s commands. Hale, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier.
“These are the only weapons we could get on such short notice,” Hale said. “But that shouldn’t be a concern to…men like yourselves.”
“Yeah.” Kinman grunted as he selected one of the shotguns from the pile and hefted it over his shoulder. “We got plenty of guns already. You need help with that crate?”
Nick got his fingers under the crate and lifted it. Since the crate was less than half the size of one of the coffins he’d built over the years, he managed to get the crate up onto his shoulder without much trouble.
“I got it,” Nick said.
Hale nodded enthusiastically and pulled a watch from his pocket. “Good, good. You’d better get moving,
