Читать книгу Dead Man's Gold - J.A. Johnstone - Страница 8

“Annabelle, no!” the old man called from the wagon. “That’s the young man who’s helping us!”

“I’ll kill you, Fortunato,” the redhead muttered. Green eyes filled with hatred glared up at The Kid when he looked at her.

He shook his head and said, “I’m not Fortunato.” He hoped that gun didn’t have a hair trigger.

“You’ll never get the Konigsberg Candlestick,” the young woman called Annabelle went on. “Or the secret of the Twelve Pearls, either. I’ll kill you…kill you…”

Those striking green eyes suddenly rolled up in their sockets as she passed out again. Her arm fell to the side, and the gun slipped out of her fingers when the back of her hand hit the ground.

The Kid heaved a sigh of relief.

“You have to forgive her,” the old man said as he bustled back over to them from the wagon, carrying a piece of cloth he had soaked with water from a canteen. “She’s out of her head from being shot. Will she be all right?”

“I think so,” The Kid replied as he took the wet cloth from the old man and began washing away the blood around the wound. “There’s a whiskey flask in my saddlebags. Reckon you can get it?”

The old-timer frowned. “You need a drink at a time like this?”

The Kid pointed to the bullet crease on the young woman’s arm. “It’s to clean the wound,” he said, even though he was a little annoyed by having to explain himself.

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course. I’ll see if I can find it.”

While the old man was digging through the saddlebags, The Kid asked, “What’s her name?”

“Annabelle. Annabelle Dare.”

The Kid grunted. “Pretty name. She your granddaughter?”

“No. My, ah, daughter.”

That struck The Kid as odd. He would have said there was too much differences in their ages for Annabelle to be the old-timer’s daughter. She must have come along late in life for the couple.

“What about her mother?”

“I’m not married.”

“All right.” None of his business, The Kid told himself. Of course, he had tried to stick by that notion earlier, he recalled, and they could all see how that had worked out. “Have you found the whiskey yet?”

“Right here,” the old man said as he brought the flask to The Kid, who took it and unscrewed the cap.

The Kid nodded toward Annabelle Dare and suggested, “Why don’t you get up there by her head and hold her shoulders? She’s liable to jump a little when I pour this Who-hit-John over that wound.”

“All right.” The old man got in position and put his hands on Annabelle’s shoulders. He might not be strong enough to hold her down completely, but at least his grip might help steady her a little.

The Kid grasped Annabelle’s arm with his left hand and turned it slightly, so that he could get to the wound better. Then he poured the whiskey onto it, making sure to saturate the furrow thoroughly.

Annabelle reacted instantly, letting out a small cry of pain. Her back arched, but the old man’s grip was strong enough to keep her from thrashing around. Her breath hissed between clenched teeth. Her eyelids fluttered.

The Kid wiped away the mixture of blood and whiskey that ran out of the wound. With a long sigh, Annabelle relaxed slightly, and The Kid realized that the pain must have eased somewhat. After a moment, her eyes opened.

“Should I move that gun out of your reach,” he asked her, “or do you know who I am now?”

“I don’t…know who you are.”

“But you know I’m not Fortunato.”

“Of course…you’re not…Fortunato. What do you…mean by that?”

The old man leaned in and said, “A few minutes ago, you mistook our young benefactor here for that Italian brigand.”

“Really?” Annabelle murmured.

“Yeah, you threatened to blow my guts out,” The Kid said with a smile. “You sounded like you meant it, too.”

“Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes. “I…I’m sorry. I must have been out of my head.”

The Kid nodded. “Getting shot will do that to some people. You lost some blood, too. Though not enough to worry about.”

She opened her eyes and looked around. “Where…are we?”

“Some hills near those flats where Fortunato’s men were chasing you,” The Kid told her. “I reckon you’re safe here for the moment. They can’t cross those flats without us seeing them.”

“Fortunato won’t come after us this soon, anyway,” Annabelle said. Her voice was a little stronger now. “You killed two of his men and wounded another. As far as I know, he doesn’t have anyone else with him except a servant.” A bitter edge came into her tone. “But it won’t take him long to recruit some more gunmen to send after us.”

The Kid sensed that she was still waiting for him to ask for an explanation. Maybe he was just contrary, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he told the old man, “I’ll need some clean cloth to bind up this wound.”

He nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.”

While the old man was doing that, Annabelle said to The Kid, “You haven’t told me who you are.”

“Just a fella with a bad habit of sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“Well…I’m glad you stuck it in today.”

“Is that your way of saying thank you?”

“I suppose we do owe you our thanks. If you hadn’t come along and helped us, we might be dead now.” A shudder ran through her. “Or worse, Fortunato’s prisoners.”

The Kid sighed. She wasn’t going to stop until she got what she wanted. He asked, “Who is this Fortunato hombre?”

“Count Eduardo Fortunato. He’s an Italian nobleman.”

“The old fellow called him a brigand, so I figured he was an owlhoot of some sort.”

“Oh, he’s a criminal, all right,” Annabelle said. “Being of noble birth doesn’t necessarily make a person honest. He’s looted art treasures from all over the Continent.” She added condescendingly, “I’m referring to Europe.”

“Oh,” The Kid said.

He didn’t mention that as a younger man, he had spent several months touring Europe one summer, visiting every museum and historical site and soaking up the culture. That was the accepted thing for wealthy young Americans of a certain class to do. His late mother, Vivian Browning, had had her feet planted firmly on the ground and was as unpretentious as could be, but she had also believed that it wouldn’t hurt anything for her son to be exposed to some of the finer things in life.

“Fortunato will resort to any means to get what he wants, including murder,” Annabelle went on. “It’s rumored that he was involved in a robbery at the Louvre several years ago. The men who actually carried out the theft all wound up dead, and the paintings they took were never recovered. I’m certain they’re hanging on the walls of Fortunato’s villa.”

“Sounds like a pretty bad hombre,” The Kid said, not mentioning that he had been to the Louvre himself. She probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway. “What’s he doing over here in the States?”

“Have you ever heard of the Konigsberg Candlestick?” Before The Kid could answer, Annabelle waved a hand dismissively. “No, of course you haven’t. It’s a very valuable artifact that was stolen from a castle in Spain more than two hundred years ago. The castle was being used by the Spanish Inquisition as a place to hold prisoners and conduct trials. The candlestick was in a chapel inside the castle and was the property of the Catholic Church. It was stolen by an escaping prisoner and never seen again, although there were rumors that the prisoner fled to the New World, taking the candlestick with him.”

The old man came up with several strips of clean cloth. The Kid nodded toward him and said to Annabelle, “So you and your pa are on the trail of this fancy candlestick, is that it?”

Annabelle frowned. “My what?”

“Your father. The old-timer here.”

Her frown deepened as she shook her head. “He’s not my father.”

The old man sighed and said, “I’m afraid I may have misled you slightly, my son.”

“He’s Father Jardine,” Annabelle said. “He’s been sent by the Vatican to recover the Konigsberg Candlestick…and another artifact the prisoner may have taken with him.”

The Kid sat back on his heels in surprise. “If he’s a priest, then who are you?”

“Dr. Annabelle Dare.”

The Kid raised his eyebrows. “Doctor?”

“Ph.D in History from Yale University, thank you.” She moved her injured arm slightly and winced. “I believe you said you were going to bind up this wound?”

“Yeah. See if you can sit up.”

With Father Jardine’s help, Annabelle did so. Her face paled in pain, making the scattering of freckles across her nose more noticeable. The Kid knelt beside her and wrapped the makeshift bandages around her arm, pulling them tight enough to make her wince again.

“Do they have to be that tight?” she asked.

“The bleeding’s stopped. You don’t want it to start up again.”

“No, I suppose not.” She moved her arm a little, as if checking to see how bad it was going to hurt. Then she said, “You still haven’t told me your name.”

“It’s Morgan.”

“Is that your first name or your last name?”

“Doesn’t matter. Some people call me The Kid, or Kid Morgan, so I guess you could say it’s my last name.”

Actually, he had given himself that name, taking the inspiration for it from a dime novel. He had assumed that identity to conceal who he actually was, and in time, the pose had become the reality. He had no intention of going back to being the man he’d been before.

“Kid Morgan?” Annabelle repeated, and the mocking tone in her voice put The Kid’s teeth on edge for a second. “That sounds like the name of some sort of desperado or gunfighter.”

The Kid shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“Wait a minute,” Annabelle said as wariness sprang up in her eyes. “Are you an outlaw, Mr. Morgan?”

He knew what she was worried about. She had been so anxious to blather on about wicked Italian counts and valuable old candlesticks that she might have revealed too much to the wrong man. After all, they had never seen him until an hour or so earlier and had no idea what he was capable of. He might kill them both and go after the Konigsberg Candlestick himself, or he might try to sell them out to Fortunato…

“I’m not an outlaw,” he said. Whether or not she wanted to believe him was up to her.

Evidently she did, because she looked relieved. Then she said, “Then you must be a gunfighter.”

The Kid didn’t deny it. That was the reputation Kid Morgan had, and he supposed there was some truth to it.

Annabelle leaned forward suddenly and clasped his arm with her right hand. “If you’re a gunfighter, Mr. Morgan…Kid…then I want to hire you.”

“Hire me? To do what?”

“To kill Eduardo Fortunato,” she said.