around the back of his neck. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the grazing touch of those fingers, but Nick casually wondered if it would be his last.
And in a flash, those thoughts were forced out of Nick’s head as he was flung straight back into the world of the living.
The rest of the dynamite went up in a thunderous roar, but Nick and Kinman were riding away from it as quickly as their horses could take them. Nick didn’t recall snapping his reins, but he also didn’t recall covering enough ground to get where he was now.
Flames crackled and sputtered, but there wasn’t much of the wagon left to burn. Nick found himself on the other side of the railroad tracks, watching charred wooden hunks hit the ground. Kazys was panting like a dog that had been left out in the sun. The horse’s sides swelled like a set of bellows against Nick’s legs.
For a while, Nick could only hear his own heart beating. Then, the sounds of his own breathing rushed through his ears. After that, the rest of the world made itself known to him as shouts and clanging bells rippled through the air.
The fire brigade was coming. Nick could see a large wagon racing from town toward the explosion. Now that he’d collected most of his wits, Nick looked down to find the railroad tracks still crossing the ground in front of him. They were a bit cluttered, but otherwise fine.
All Nick could think about was the trainload of Federals still bound for Rock Springs. Despite the grit in his teeth, smoke in his eyes and ringing in his ears, Nick couldn’t help but smile. When he finally caught sight of Kinman riding up to him, Nick saw a similar grin on the man’s face.
“Crazy bastard got what was coming to him!” Kinman shouted so he could be heard above the ringing in his own ears. “Let’s get the hell out of here, before the rest of his men get here!”
Nick wished he could stay long enough to see the Federal troops blast apart any of Hale’s remaining gunmen. Then again, those gunmen could very well be just a bunch of angry locals who’d been pushed too far by their circumstances and whipped into a frenzy by a man who liked the taste of blood. That part struck a little too close to home for Nick’s tastes.
Pulling on Kazys’s reins, Nick pointed the horse eastward and touched his heels to the animal’s sides. Kazys was more than willing to get moving again and the smoking remains of the wagon were soon lost behind him.
On his way out of town, Nick spotted more than a few grateful Chinese faces looking out at him from darkened windows. He hoped the Federal train would arrive before the situation in Rock Springs could get any worse.
FIFTEEN
Nick’s mind wandered as he rode out of Rock Springs. Tearing out of a town with the grit of smoke in the back of his throat and the law possibly on his heels was nothing new to him. In fact, running away sometimes felt more natural than walking. He was ashamed to consider that it was more natural than any of the skills his father had taught him.
After taking a moment to get his bearings, Nick steered Kazys toward the northeast, making certain head away from Rock Springs. He couldn’t be precise, but that put the Dakotas more or less in front of him.
When he heard another horse coming in his direction, Nick reflexively reached for his gun. He stopped short of clearing leather as Kinman drew to a stop a good distance away from him.
“Keep riding that way and I’ll catch up to you,” Kinman shouted.
Nick waved him off and kept moving. “Don’t bother. I’ve got business to tend to.”
“Yeah,” Kinman grunted. “So do I.”
Rock Springs felt as noisy and crowded as a saloon, even at the late hour that Kinman returned to it. Folks walked the streets, talking hurriedly to each other or shouting out to familiar faces they passed along their way. Lawmen rode in pairs either dragging someone to jail or keeping their eyes out for another man to toss into a cell.
All Kinman had to do was keep his head down and his gun out of sight. He wasn’t too worried about being recognized, since the only men who’d been close enough to spot him before the wagon exploded were either dead or miles away.
Staying well away from the smoldering Chinatown district, Kinman rode to a small house behind a blacksmith’s shop. A quick glance into one of the windows made him fairly certain that the little house was still empty. He wasn’t too worried if the owners had stopped by, though. Kinman only hoped that none of them had needed to relieve themselves before heading out again.
Kinman rode around the house, swung out of his saddle, and walked over to an outhouse that leaned partially against a tree. The narrow shack wasn’t quite as tall as Kinman, himself, and was decorated with a star pattern cutout in the door. Stopping with his hand on the knotted rope threaded through the door, Kinman peeked through the star-shaped hole.
Lester looked right back at him.
“You done in there?” Kinman asked.
Although Lester glared intently at Kinman, he didn’t even try to make a sound. After all the screaming he’d done already, he knew well enough that the bandanna that had been stuffed into his mouth was more than enough to keep him from being heard.
Kinman pulled open the door to admire his handiwork. Lester was just as he’d left him: both ankles bound tightly together and both arms tied to up and stuck between his legs. Using his boot to shove Lester’s legs aside, Kinman double-checked that the rope was also still looped through the hole he’d knocked in the commode. Sure enough, if Lester wanted to go anywhere, he would have had to drag the entire outhouse along with him.
“Damn, Lester,” Kinman said with a wince. “What the hell have you been eating?”
Lester glared silently at Kinman over the bandanna hanging from his mouth.
“Anyone been around here since I left?”
When he saw that Lester wasn’t moving a muscle, Kinman placed his right hand upon his holstered pistol and used his left to pull the bandanna from Lester’s mouth.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Lester snapped the instant he was able. “This whole town’s going to hell and you decide to take off and stretch your legs?”
“Not just stretch my legs, Lester. I turned a pretty profit as well.”
“Doing what? Setting fires? I’ve been smelling smoke the whole time I was in here. You know those flames we saw when our train was stopped? I think they’re still burning somewhere.”
Kinman’s grip tightened around the bandanna he’d used to silence his prisoner, but his spirits were too high for him to put the dirty cloth back into use. “You’re gonna have to be quiet, now. There’s something I need to talk about.”
“Now you wanna be polite? Now you wanna be neighborly? Why don’t you start off by untying me and then we’ll see how polite and neighborly I can…” Lester’s words trailed off when he heard the subtle brush of iron against leather and found himself looking down the barrel of Kinman’s gun. “You were saying?” Lester squeaked.
Leaning against the outhouse door, Kinman announced, “I’ve acquired a partner for our little venture into the Badlands. His name’s Nicolai Graves.”
As much as he wanted to respond to that, Lester found himself without enough breath to utter a single word. Filling his lungs was difficult work. It was also not very rewarding considering where he was sitting. “You mean the same Nick Graves who used to ride with Barrett Cobb?”
Kinman nodded.
“This is the Barrett Cobb whose grave we’re going to see,” Lester pointed out. “You do realize that?”
“Oh, I sure do realize it. And it just so happens that Graves the
“It’s in there,” Lester said quickly. “I swear it!”
