Chapter Two
Gray kicked dirt into the coals of the fire, efficiently snuffing it out as he prepared to give his brother, Luke, yet another lecture. The morning air was crisp and chill, the sounds of morning birds singing as the sun began to rise. Gray huddled into his jacket to keep warm as he sipped a cup of coffee.
“Don’t be stupid and get yourself caught.” Gray pinched his lips together in a thin line. They had been living on the road for months now, camping while on the run. He was used to being outside most of the time, but having to hide from the law was different. His brother didn’t seem to be fazed by it or seem to care at all.
Luke scoffed, dismissing his scolding. “It’ll be fine. We haven’t gotten caught yet. You worry too much, and your face is going to get stuck like that if you keep making that expression.”
Luke dusted his Stetson hat off briskly with his hand. He placed it on his head, and grabbed a cup of coffee from the kettle as well.
Gray’s frown deepened at the comment. Luke never took anything seriously, even when he was accused of murdering a man in cold blood and was now wanted by half the lawmen in Montana Territory. He usually found his brother’s lack of caring to be useful, but today, he found it irritating. When Luke was like this, Gray had to remind him of how serious the situation was.
“It only takes getting caught one time,” he said with a thread of warning in his voice.
Luke shrugged, not paying attention to Gray again, as he set his coffee on the ground and shoved items scattered around their camp into his saddlebag.
“We have to be close to Casey. We don’t have time to talk this to death. We just need to find him, and the best place to start will be the saloon,” Luke said. He tried to shove a cooking skillet into his bag, but it was so stuffed full that he couldn’t get it in. Cursing, he ripped everything from the bag and started over, shoving items in just as recklessly as before.
Gray shook his head in disapproval. Gray preferred to be careful and calculated, but ever since they were young, Luke lived life by leaping before he looked or acting without thinking things through. Just like shoving items into a saddlebag without even attempting to organize it.
Luke’s attitude often meant Gray had to fix all the messes he left behind him. It was how they’d ended up in this situation to begin with.
They had been searching for Casey for months now. He was the man who Luke was accused of murdering, but since no one had produced a body, Gray didn’t believe the man was actually dead. Casey was a wanted criminal who had been caught for train robbery and murder. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone in the West had faked their death to get out of paying for a crime, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Well, if you want to go get yourself killed, then what’s it to me?” Gray said. He didn’t mean it, but if Luke wasn’t going to take this seriously, he couldn’t do anything about it.
Luke looked at him and grinned, slapping his shoulder in brotherly affection. “That’s the spirit!”
They’d tracked Casey all the way to Livingston, Montana, and arrived mid-morning to find him. Livingston was a popular town for fur trading, and the promise of money from the furs had attracted a large group of people to settle there. Wooden buildings lined the roads on either side, and the town was busy with fur traders selling their pelts for profit.
The town was too busy, in Gray’s opinion. Crowds of people swarmed the streets, making it difficult to get anywhere without having to deal with being slowed down by other people getting in the way. They had to fight their way through the crowd to make it to the saloon, and he had to shove others aside as they bumped into him. Screw being polite. They needed to get to the saloon and get the information on Casey as soon as possible so they could leave this damn town.
A burly man slammed into Gray, hitting his shoulder with enough force that Gray stumbled. Gray shoved him back, hard, and cursed loudly.
“What the fuck!”
The man spun around to shove Gray back, but instead threw his hands up in defense, seeming to change his mind when his gaze landed on the gun on Gray’s hip. People were uncomfortable around Gray, and didn’t want to risk getting into a fight with someone who could beat them. If they were smart.
The man had to be a fur trader, based on the satchel of overflowing pelts slung across his body. Fur traders had been toughened from living out in the wilderness and traveling across rough land. That toughness made them egotistical, but Gray didn’t let them get away with their arrogance.
The man backed away, still holding his hands in a defensive gesture.
Damn. Gray was itching for a fight since Luke refused to get into it that morning. He needed to blow off steam somehow, and a brawl sounded like a great way to do it.
“Don’t be stupid and get yourself caught,” Luke mocked, exaggerating every word as his face contorted into a sneer meant to mimic Gray at camp.
Gray sighed and looked up to the sky for patience. “They aren’t looking for me. They’re looking for you.”
“Well, if you keep picking fights in the street, I’m sure they’ll find me faster,” Luke said as they stepped onto the wooden porch leading up to the saloon.
The doors opened, and they were enveloped in the sounds of men chatting, and laughter. The room was crowded, making Gray groan in displeasure. The furniture was mismatched, as if the saloon owner had thrown together anything he could get his hands on to fill the space. The bar was at the front of the room, and there was a long line of fur traders and cowboys in line to get a drink.
Great. Long waits for drinks too.
In a booth in the corner, several men played cards, and men were playing dice at a nearby table. Deep looks of concentration covered the faces of the card players, and cheers filled the air when one of the dice players won.
Saloons were places where people went in towns to get away from their normal lives and have fun. Luke loved being in the busiest towns with the loud saloons. The more people, the better. Gray preferred to be in saloons that were always dead. If there were one or two people inside, he loved it. Being in a crowded bar put his nerves on edge, and having to deal with locals was aggravating. He wished he was alone right now.
Luke’s face spread into a huge grin, and he gave out a cheer as he made his way over to the bar to join the men getting a beer. They welcomed him like he was an old friend, probably because Luke had offered to buy them a round. He was good at getting others to like him and could fit in anywhere.
Gray needed to figure out if any of the men in the saloon knew anything about Casey. Luke was good at getting information out of people, if he remembered to try. But Gray was better.
Making his way over to the group in the corner playing cards, he waited for the next round to start and bought in. The players eyed him with suspicion, most likely trying to decide if he was a good player or not. He kept his face controlled to give nothing away as he looked back at them. They were all tanned from working in the sun, with harsh lines on their weathered faces from working outside their whole lives. None of them seemed to be the sort of men who would run with Casey, but he had learned never to assume who broke the law and who stayed within the boundaries of the law.
“Not from around here, are you?” one of the men asked. He had a large black beard that covered his face, and his hat covered most of his head. He was smoking as he inspected his cards with an unreadable expression on his face.
Gray picked up his cards. Excitement coursed through him when he saw the cards he held. High pairs of kings and jacks. He tamped his competitive side down as he remembered Luke’s earlier dig. He was there to get information on Casey, not win at cards.
Black Beard raised the bet by a few bucks, and Gray stifled a grin. It couldn’t hurt to win at least a few hands.
“Nope,” Gray said as he matched and threw a card down to be dealt another by the dealer. He got another jack. Full house. “Just traveling through, looking for a friend. Maybe you’ve seen him. Big guy, large scar from his eye to his chin?”
Gray tossed more coins into the center of the table for the final raise.
The man eyed him appraisingly before he shrugged. “Good luck with that. There’s a lot of people who just pass through here. I don’t make it a habit of looking at them all.”
Gray nodded. “His scar is pretty memorable. He’s also an asshole, so that might ring a bell.”
The men at the table laughed, but they all shook their heads, saying that they didn’t remember seeing someone come through who fit that description. Hopefully Luke was having better luck than he was.
He didn’t want to make it look obvious that he was only interested in information gathering, so he waited a few more hands before moving on.
A hush slowly fell over the crowd. Gray stiffened as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Something was wrong.
He made eye contact with Luke, who was standing by the bar. Luke was frozen in place, and his eyes darted to the side, as if trying to tell Gray something.
Gray stood up to leave, but stopped abruptly when he saw Kit Davis standing just a few feet away from Luke, a wolfish grin on his face, his Colt Single Action Army revolver pointed right at Luke.
Kit was a well-known gunslinger who they had associated with a few times over the years. He was fast with a gun, but not always accurate.
Fuck.
Kit’s eyes and gun were trained on Luke, so Gray knew that the gunslinger hadn’t spotted him yet, even though he stood only a few feet away. Everyone in the saloon waited silently to see what would happen. Many of the patrons had their own hands on their guns in anticipation while others left the saloon to get out of the line of fire.
“Take it outside.” The bartender raised his revolver and pointed at Kit in warning. “I don’t care what your problem with each other is, but you won’t play it out in my saloon.”
The fact that the bartender had his revolver trained on Kit was the only reason Gray didn’t pull his own gun and shoot Kit right there. He could take Kit out before he shot Luke, but he couldn’t shoot Kit and the bartender before one of them shot Luke.
“Fine by me,” Kit said. He gestured to Luke to move outside. Gray decided their best chance of getting out of this would be if he could surprise Kit.
Gray made his way toward the back entrance, getting lost in the crowd of bar patrons on his way. People this far back in the room had already returned to their poker games and chattered as he passed with forceful strides.
He silently opened the back door to the dusty alley, gun drawn and ready. Crouched low, he stalked around the side of the building toward the front. The end of the alley came into view, and he could see the streets of the town ahead of him. A crowd of people walked by, unaware of the trouble in the saloon.
Gray heard the sickening sound of a gunshot, and his stomach lurched into his throat.
Screams erupted in the streets and people ran into buildings for cover, obstructing his view as they darted into the alley with him, and into various buildings.
He sprinted toward the sound as more gunshots rang through the screams, and he shoved people out of the way as they ran. Gray froze in place next to the building, and intense relief burst through him when he saw Luke coming down the saloon steps. He flipped over a horse trough and hid behind it to protect himself from gunfire that hailed down around him.
Kit lay dead at the saloon entrance, a bullet through his head and blood pooling around him. He must have been shot as soon as he left the building.
Gray’s head snapped away from Kit to see who was shooting at them, and saw six gunfighters across the street, guns trained on the water trough where Luke was hidden.
It was an ambush.
Gray dove behind a stagecoach for cover as he shot at the men, trying to provide cover for Luke at the same time. He managed to shoot one of the men, taking the man down and causing all but one of the ambushers to scatter into nearby buildings and out of sight.
The gunman advanced on Luke, coming within arm’s reach of the water trough. Luke stood up without warning and shot at the man on the other side, killing him instantly.
Without hesitating, Luke ran to Gray and they both ran, not saying a word to each other. They knew they were outnumbered.
Gray darted for the nearest building and ripped open the door, Luke fast on his heels. They dashed inside. Women wearing hardly any clothing screamed as they ducked behind the men in the brothel, using their clients as cover in the parlor.
Gray paid them no attention and darted up the stairs, taking them three at a time. When he reached the top of the stairs, he raced down the hall. Behind him, Luke gave a low whistle intended for the women, and Gray rolled his eyes.
Gray ignored the sounds of exaggerated moaning coming from inside the rooms as he checked each door, and finally found one that was unlocked. Dashing inside, he ushered Luke in with him. Several gunslingers were right behind them, almost making it to the door before Gray slammed it in their faces and locked it. Thank goodness brothels had locks on every door.
The men banged on the door, screaming at Luke and Gray to open it up. The sound ricocheted off the walls in the otherwise quiet room.
They were trapped, and it wouldn’t take the gunslingers long to shoot the door open.
Gray spun around to start formulating a plan with Luke, then stared in open mouth shock as Luke disappeared through the open window with a cheer.
Fear gripped Gray as he rushed to the window and looked down, expecting to see Luke on the ground with a broken leg. Instead, Luke was standing on the roof of the covered entryway below them, unharmed.
Gray grinned and jumped down to meet his brother. Gunshots fired behind them and then the sound of the door being kicked in.
Even if Luke didn’t think everything through, his attention to small details and his recklessness came in handy sometimes.
They swung off the covered entryway, dangling from the edge of the roof by their hands before dropping to the ground. Swiftly untying the reins of their horses from the hitching posts, they swung up onto them and raced away from Livingston.
They rode as fast as they could to get away from Livingston before night fell. The sun was setting in the distance, and darkness was fast approaching. Gray finally felt they were far enough away to slow down several hours outside of town. He wasn’t sure if they were followed, but they couldn’t go any farther once it got dark or they’d risk the horses getting hurt and being unable to travel at all.
They didn’t have time to find a clever place to camp for the night, and had to settle for a camp just off the road. They rode their horses off the path and into some trees, pushing through grass so tall it hit Gray’s feet from the saddle as the horses pushed through it.
Being exposed left Gray feeling uneasy. He wished there was something other than trees and grass to hide behind. His hand hung over his revolver reflexively, a gesture that brought him comfort. Nobody was going to take him by surprise again.
“What happened back there?” Luke asked in a hushed whisper, even though they were alone. He dismounted and looked back toward Livingston.
“I don’t know,” Gray growled. His mind spun with the possibilities of what had happened. “Kit knew about the bounty on you a few months back and he did nothing. Him coming after us now just doesn’t make sense.”
The three had an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other’s business, and the reward for $1,000 on Luke wasn’t enough to draw the attention of someone like Kit, who bragged about finding only the criminals whose capture offered the biggest rewards.
Luke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, a look of seriousness crossing his face that Gray hadn’t seen in a long time. “I don’t know why he was suddenly after us, either. But Wyatt Jones was there.”
Kit Davis and Wyatt Jones.
Two of the most well-known hired guns in the territory. They were never seen together, and if they were both after Luke, it wasn’t good.
Gray cursed under his breath. He dismounted, and tied the horse to a tree so it wouldn’t wander off. “Did we get him?”
Luke had killed one man, and Gray had at least wounded another. If Wyatt was one of the two they had shot, then it would make things a little easier. Wyatt was ruthless and resorted to unethical and dangerous methods to obtain whoever he was after. Nothing stopped him.
Luke shook his head, still looking grim.
“What would cause them to ambush us now, out of nowhere? There were seven of them after us at once. We haven’t had any issues with bounty hunters in months. Why are they suddenly all after us?” Gray’s anger was mounting. He didn’t like not knowing what was happening, and he didn’t like puzzles.
Luke unpacked the horse and got a bed together for the night, pulling out a thin blanket from his saddlebag and laying it on the ground in a makeshift bed. “I don’t know. Everything was fine, and then all of a sudden Kit was there with a gun pointed at me. He was determined to get me.”
Gray considered the options. “Did he say anything to you?”
“No, you saw everything that happened. One second, I was alone and then the next he had a gun pointed at me. He didn’t say anything.”
They stared at each other in silence, thinking it over.
Gray ventured, “It has to be Casey. If he knows we are close to him, he’s put a higher bounty on your head to get you captured.”
It made sense. It’s what he would do if he was in the same situation. Except there was no way Casey could pay any bounty if he offered a higher reward. The man had no money to his name. He’d faked his death months ago, and any money he had saved must have run out by now.
“It could be someone else we’ve pissed off,” Luke said.
Gray shook his head. “If that was it, all they’d have to do is wait for you to get taken in. This has to be personal.”
Luke considered, rubbing his jaw. After a moment, he nodded. “That has to be it then. It’s Casey. Which means we must be close to him.”
The look of worry left Luke’s face and was replaced with a mischievous grin, making Gray dread what he was about to say. That look on Luke’s face was never good.
“If he put the bounty on me, that means we can get him. Before he gets us.” Luke settled onto the makeshift bed and laid his head on his saddlebag as a pillow, looking up at the stars that had started to peek out from behind the mountains.
Gray nodded, looking back at Livingston again. “What if he’s in town?”
“We go for him.”
We. Gray wasn’t so sure that was the best idea anymore. Things might be different if the bounty on Luke’s head was high enough that people who had once been allies of theirs were now going to turn against them. The danger they were in had gone up significantly.
Luke wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, but Gray had to convince his brother of the next course of action to protect him. “I think it’s best we avoid towns for now. Or if we need something in town, you shouldn’t go with me.”
Luke scoffed, his eyes filling with defiance and anger as he dismissed Gray.
Why was Luke was so determined to act like his life wasn’t in danger? It was reckless, and put them both in danger, because Gray would do anything to protect his brother.
“It’s only for a little while,” Gray said. “The wanted posters have bounty hunters looking for us together. If only one of us goes into town, we stand a better chance of not being recognized. We are close to finding Casey already, and we won’t have to worry about the bounty hunters recognizing us.”
“It’s an option,” Luke relented. Gray was surprised Luke hadn’t shot the idea down in an instant, and that he might be willing to listen.
It was necessary to do anything they could to avoid being recognized. Gray and Luke weren’t the fastest shots in the west, but Gray considered them damn close. He wasn’t going to go looking for trouble, but if trouble found him, he wasn’t afraid to fight.
“Wyatt will recognize you just as easily as he would me,” Luke pointed out.
It was Gray’s turn to scoff. “He might. But others won’t. It’s safer this way.”
Luke ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and his once-defiant eyes softened. A weary expression covered his face as he stubbornly didn’t speak.
Gray was starting to feel almost uncomfortable with how this conversation was going. Was this too easy?
Luke must have been tired of being on the run, just like him. Even if Luke wouldn’t admit it, and hid behind an exterior of laughter and fun, his lack of arguing told Gray a lot. The dark circles that had started to form under Luke’s eyes also spoke volumes. It seemed like he hardly slept any more, and when he did, he was easily startled awake by the smallest sounds.
“We should go to Bozeman,” Gray said. “I don’t think Casey was in town, or he wouldn’t have been able to resist being in the bar to see us get ambushed.” Gray lay down on his pack, punching the bag into a respectable headrest as best as he could.
Luke sat on his bed and gave him a curt nod. “Agreed. We have to go to Bozeman and find him. That’s where he’ll be.”
The ring of hope in Luke’s voice caused Gray’s heart to constrict. He prayed he was right, and they would finally get out of this mess and be free again.