Chapter 2 #2
“But whoever took her left this.”
Anderson slid a cream-white sheet of paper across the desk, stained by mud and soot.
Luke leaned forward, taking it.
“Where’d they leave it?”
“On my front step…” the man barked. “Can you fucking believe that?”
Luke fought the urge to smirk.
He could believe it.
A lot of men had balls. Some were stupid. Some just confident. He needed to figure out which one these men were.
Luke unfolded the dirty piece of paper. Five thousand dollars or she dies. No law.
He read it once, then again, then folded it back down.
“Who do you think took her?” he asked plainly.
Anderson didn’t hesitate. “Well, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinking…”
His tone was mostly breath. Fast. Abrupt. Like he’d been waiting for someone to ask.
“There are several possible culprits…” He took a puff of his cigar.
“There’s a mining operation that has been scouting Puma Mountain.
They’re looking to open a new camp. They’ll need land for it and they don’t got a lot of money from what I hear.
But there’s also a gang… and men I’ve crossed over the years.
” A few more puffs from his cigar left the room a gray haze. “My own personal enemies.”
Luke crossed his arms in front of his chest as the man’s eyes fell to his desk—almost in guilt, Luke sensed.
“Business has a way of making enemies,” the older man continued, as if he was making some sort of excuse for himself.
Luke shrugged and tapped the note with his thumb. “And you think this is which one? What’s your gut tell you?”
Anderson leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s Ransom Pike wantin’ ransom.” The man seemed to study him.
“That so?” Luke asked, looking out the window, over the pastures. It was beautiful out here. Didn’t look like a place with a bunch of thugs running about.
“He runs a gang of thugs,” Anderson blurted, angrily.
“He’s a miserable old bastard. I caught him tryin’ to steal my cattle a while back and damn near carved his face up to brand him the thief he is.
He’s held a grudge against me ever since.
” The man’s lip twitched in anger. His fists clutched atop the desk.
“It fits the pattern best. And they’ve done things like this before. ”
“And you think it’s a coincidence your daughter just happened to be taken while digging into this stuff about people drivin’ poor folks off their land?” Luke asked, his brow raised, head tilted. He wasn’t convinced.
Buck didn’t answer that directly. He was quiet a moment, turning his cigar in his fingers.
“As I said, the mining outfit has been scouting Puma Mountain,” he said.
“Looking to sink a new shaft, set up a camp. And the railroad’s been eyeing the pass for a new line.
Both of them need land.” He paused. “She was digging into finding out who’s been runnin’ folks off their land.
Could be either one of them, I suppose, too, that maybe she sniffed a little too close—but I doubt it. ”
Luke took a deep breath to calm the nerves that spiked at the mention of the railroad. “If the railroad’s involved, I’m out,” he said simply enough.
“That so?” Anderson asked him, mimicking his own words.
“It’s a fight no one walks away from,” Luke said.
“I think it’s Ransom Pike. But I can’t swear it…” he said. “But I feel it in my gut that he’s got something to do with it.”
“So you are takin’ that note at face value?” Luke asked him.
He grumbled a word under his breath Luke didn’t quite catch and then dipped his chin. “I think it’s that son of a bitch, and I tell you… he’s fucked with the wrong man.”
Luke hesitated. The gang might’ve taken her, but the fact that she was snatched just as she was supposedly stirring the pot—whether that be a mining outfit or the railroad—seemed suspicious.
And he knew better than anyone that if it was the railroad, those sons of bitches got what they wanted no matter what it cost someone else.
It had cost him his entire family. It had cost him his soul. And he wasn’t willing to go up against them again. Not in this lifetime or the next.
Anderson seemed to catch it. The hesitation in Luke. But then again, he hadn’t bothered trying to hide it. Anderson’s mouth tilted. “I’ll double your rate for your help,” he grumbled, pushing himself back up off the desk, standing up straight.
Luke’s brow lifted before he could stop it.
That changed things.
Not if the railroad was involved, but he’d be willing to stick it out until he knew for sure. His job was already dangerous enough. He’d gotten greedy in his line of work. Had begun charging more for it because he did it so goddamned well.
But because of that, the men that could really afford it didn’t do so lightly. There was a reason for it.
Men like Buck Anderson didn’t hire for something easy. They had plenty of men for that. It was already clear this was risky.
The fact that the railroad could be involved, though, that made it rise to a level of danger that Luke wasn’t willing to take on. But cash was king until he knew for sure.
Money had a way of cutting through everything else. It always had for Luke.
He’d learned that early, but he’d learned it a hard way.
Without it, a man would starve. Money meant power. Power meant survival. And Luke intended to have both.
That was why he took the jobs no one else would touch. The ones whispered about, passed over, left to rot because the cost of failure was too high. Because failure meant death.
He’d gotten good at those jobs.
It was what set him apart from everyone else.
He was as far from yellow-bellied as they came. He was hard, tough, and not afraid of any man. He didn’t have time to be. He had chosen to step into that small space where the pay was steep enough to match the danger that came with it.
There had been times where he’d worried about himself—about his own soul.
Pride of a job well-done wasn’t what drove him. Neither was his integrity or the care of his reputation. It was just the simple fact that the harder the job, the better the payout. And that meant security for the future. Something no one could take away from him.
No hobbies, distractions or foolishness to bleed away hours where he could spend time earning money. No woman to keep his bed warm at night. He was too busy on the go. No liquor to pass the time. None of it.
He did absolutely none of it.
Every day not spent making money was another day losing what little a man could claim as his own.
He’d lost everything before.
He would never let himself lose anything else.
“Double…” Anderson repeated. “That sound fair?”
Luke exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing in on the older man. “Ain’t that generous,” he muttered. But he didn’t say yes. Not yet. Even though two-thousand dollars was a lot of money.
He’d taken the job at one thousand. Two? That was an entirely different level. Especially for one missing girl.
“The railroad ain’t part of this, I’ll do it,” Luke said. “If I find out they are… if I even get a whiff of it, I’m done. I walk. Don’t matter when, don’t matter where. I’ll leave.”
Anderson said nothing.
“Those are my terms.” Luke pushed up from the chair and settled his hat back on his head. “You don’t like them, find somebody else.”