The fighting was fierce but short-lived. When the prisoners-former prisoners, now-stepped back, one of the outlaws was dead and the other three were out cold.

Luke picked up a couple pistols that had been dropped during the fracas and felt better as soon as his hands wrapped around the gun b.u.t.ts. They were Colts instead of his Remingtons, but they would do nicely. "Some of you men grab those horses," he ordered. "We can't let them get away."

The wounded man's wife rushed up to fuss over her husband as Luke checked the man's injury and saw that it wasn't too serious. "He'll be all right, ma'am."

He looked around at the others. "I need three volunteers to come with me. Three who can handle a gun."

The conductor stepped out of the group. He had untied his feet and was making his way around a little unsteadily. "I'll come."

Luke shook his head. "You've done enough, friend. You've lost quite a bit of blood and need to take it easy as much as you can."

The engineer stepped forward. "If you're going after those train robbers, mister, count me in. They killed my fireman. I got a score to settle with 'em."

Two more men spoke up, neither of them married.

That was a good thing, Luke thought. They'd be going up against heavy odds and there was a good chance none of them would come back alive.

But . . . no matter how dangerous it was, Luke was going after Burroughs and the rest of the gang, not to mention McCluskey and Delia. He told his volunteers, "Grab the hats and vests these owlhoots are wearing. Here's what we're going to do. . . ."

CHAPTER 20.

Luke and the men going with him had no time to waste. They had to have the element of surprise on their side if they were going to stand any chance against the outlaws. They needed to appear at the rendezvous point before Burroughs started to wonder why his men hadn't shown up.

Not only that, but the outlaws on the boat would have heard the gunfire and had to be curious what the ruckus had been about. Luckily, only a few shots had gone off, so Burroughs wouldn't likely think that the guards he'd left behind had decided to ma.s.sacre the prisoners.

Wearing the outlaws' hats and vests and armed with weapons they had taken, Luke and his companions mounted up and headed northwest along the river. He figured the stream must have a name, but he'd never heard it. They might as well call it Blood River, he thought grimly. That was likely to be running in it before the day was over.

The engineer, who'd introduced himself as Kermit Winslow, asked as they rode, "Do you really think we can get close enough to jump those hombres without them recognizing us?"

"I hope so," Luke said. "Otherwise, they'll just sit there on that boat and pick us off at their leisure."

The other two volunteers were Craig Bolden, a mining engineer, and Ray Stinson, an unemployed cowboy currently riding the grub line. Both had handled themselves well during the fight with the guards, and Luke hoped that would continue. The odds would be at least two to one against them, so they would need some luck on their side, too.

The going wasn't easy as they rode upriver. In some places the steep slope went down almost to the water, leaving only a narrow trail they could follow. At times, the path was blocked by rocks, and they had to ride into the river a short distance. Fortunately, the stream was fairly shallow despite having a strong, steady current, so the horses didn't have to swim.

Finally, Luke spotted smoke rising into the sky around a bend in the river. He motioned for the others to stop. "I want to go ahead on foot and have a look. We need to know what we're getting into."

He dismounted and left Winslow, Bolden, and Stinson. He used the brush growing close to the water for cover as he slipped forward to reconnoiter.

Reaching the bend, he parted some branches and peered through the gap he'd made. The riverboat was pulled up next to a gra.s.sy bank about two hundred yards upstream, and a gangplank had been placed between the deck and the sh.o.r.e so the guards could ride their horses over it when they arrived.

Only those guards weren't coming, Luke thought. One man was dead, and the other three were prisoners, tied up back at the train.

That gave Luke an idea. He faded back along the bank to the spot where he'd left the volunteers.

He explained what he'd seen and what his plan was. "You three are going to ride up to the boat leading the other horse. Keep your heads down so they can't see your faces very well, and there's a good chance you ought to get pretty close before they realize you're not the men they're expecting. They're bound to have heard those shots earlier, so they probably figure some of the prisoners put up a fight. When they see an empty saddle, they'll think the fourth guard was killed in the fighting."

"What are you going to be doing, Jensen?" Winslow asked.

"I'm going to take them even more by surprise. I plan to get on the boat without them knowing I'm anywhere around."

"How do you plan to do that?" Stinson wanted to know.

"The river." Luke nodded toward the stream. "I'm going to stay underwater as much as I can and swim up to the other side of the boat."

Winslow rubbed his jaw and frowned. "That'll be quite a ch.o.r.e, swimming that far against the current."

"If I can make it, we'll have them in a crossfire."

"Yeah, there's that. I guess it's worth a try."

Stinson and Bolden nodded in agreement.

Luke checked the Colts he had taken from the outlaws. Getting wet wouldn't keep them from firing, although being immersed in water wasn't good for guns in the long run. If his plan worked, he wouldn't need those revolvers for very long. He might even be able to recover his Remingtons from whichever of the outlaws had taken them.

He stripped down to his long underwear and tied the pair of Colts into a bundle using his shirt, then tied the sleeves around his waist. "Give me five minutes before you ride around the bend. Take your time as you approach the boat. And remember, keep your heads down." He paused and then gave them a grim smile. "Good luck."

"Good luck to you, too, Jensen," Winslow said.

Luke slipped into the water and stroked out to where the river was deeper. Even though the weather was warm, the mountain streams were fed by a combination of springs and snowmelt, and that made them cold year-round. It instantly drained all the warmth from Luke's body and seemed to steal the very breath from his lungs.

He ignored that and kept moving, knowing he wouldn't be in the water long enough to be in danger of freezing to death. Moving would help warm him up a little. He reached the deeper water and swam against the current, heading upriver.

He hadn't gone very far before weariness began draining the strength from his muscles. Fighting the current was exhausting. As soon as he was around the bend, he had to be careful how hard he stroked and kicked. He couldn't afford to make much disturbance in the water or he risked someone on the riverboat noticing his approach. It would have been easier if he could have circled wide around the boat, gone into the water upstream, and allowed the current to carry him back down, but there hadn't been time for that.

He wondered if he was going to reach the riverboat before Winslow, Stinson, and Bolden did. If he didn't, they would be left on their own once the outlaws discovered they were not three of the guards who'd been left behind. They wouldn't stand a chance unless Luke could board the boat without being seen and take the gang by surprise.

Finally around the bend, he took a breath and ducked his head, going completely under the frigid water. Whenever he needed to take a breath he would have to roll onto his back and allow just his mouth and nose to break the surface. He put that off as long as possible to decrease the chances of being spotted.

With ice seeming to flow in his veins, Luke swam on.

"How long do you plan to wait here?" McCluskey asked as he stood on the deck. He held his left hand out while Delia worked on the lock of that cuff with a sharp piece of metal she had found in the boat's engine room. She had already managed to spring the lock on the right-hand cuff.

Burroughs stood with his hands tucked in the hip pockets of his trousers as he gazed back downstream. His hat was pulled down low over his eyes. "We'll wait as long as we have to for those fellas to join us. We don't run out on our partners."

"What if they're not coming?"

"They'll be here," Burroughs said confidently. "I never knew a man to turn his back on this much gold, did you? Well . . . with the exception of Luke Jensen, and he doesn't really count. Those Jensens aren't normal men. I've heard plenty of stories about his brothers Smoke and Matt."

McCluskey grimaced. He didn't care about Jensen or his d.a.m.n brothers. He would have liked to have had his vengeance on the bounty hunter, but that was in the past. McCluskey was focused on claiming his share of the gold in those strongboxes sitting on the deck and getting the h.e.l.l out of there.

He frowned at Burroughs. "We all heard those shots a little while ago. What if the pa.s.sengers from the train jumped your guards? That's the only explanation that makes any sense."

"Maybe," Burroughs admitted. "But there were only a few shots. That didn't sound like a full-scale battle to me. My men probably had to fire some warning shots to calm things down again."

"I hope you're right. With that much gold at stake, only a d.a.m.n fool would take chances he didn't have to."

Burroughs narrowed his eyes and gave McCluskey an angry glance, then turned his attention back to the river and the bank along which his four men ought to be riding any time. Obviously, he hadn't cared for McCluskey's veiled insult.

Burroughs wasn't the only one who had heard what McCluskey had to say. Several other members of the gang were standing within earshot, and from the corner of his eye, McCluskey saw them sending speculative glances toward him and Burroughs.

Maybe they were thinking the wrong man was in charge here, McCluskey mused. After all, Burroughs had spared Luke Jensen just because the bounty hunter was an old friend of his. Leaving Jensen alive had been a foolish thing to do. h.e.l.l, if it had been him giving the orders, he would have considered killing everybody on the train, including Jensen.

McCluskey wasn't that fond of killing women and children, but the idea of not leaving any witnesses behind was very simple and appealing. It could be that some of those other fellas saw it that way, too.

With a metallic click, the cuff around McCluskey's left wrist sprang open.

"There!" Delia said, pleased with herself. "I told you I was good at picking locks, Frank."

"It's a handy skill to have," McCluskey said as he rubbed the skin of his wrist where the metal had cut into it. "You think you can do the same with these leg irons?"

"Sure I can. Sit down somewhere so I can get at them."

McCluskey ambled over to the closest strongbox and sat down on it. He stuck his right leg out in front of him. Burroughs gave him a disapproving glance, but he just smirked. What harm was he doing? He wasn't going to hurt the strongbox by sitting on it.

Delia sat down on the deck, pulling up her skirt a little and crossing her legs. She lifted McCluskey's ankle into her lap and went to work on the lock.

That was a pretty undignified position she was in, McCluskey thought, but what did it matter? She was a saloon girl. She had willingly surrendered all her dignity a long time ago.

The more he thought about it, the more McCluskey wondered just how difficult it would be to wrest the leadership of the gang away from Burroughs. He hadn't planned to put together another gang right away, but sometimes opportunities just fell into a man's lap and he would be a fool not to take advantage of them. Anyway, if he took over, he could declare that he was getting a full share of the loot, not just a measly four bars.

Of course, to do that he'd have to kill Burroughs, but that would be okay. In fact, McCluskey was just fine with the idea.

"Here they come." Clearly, Burroughs was relieved, but he tried to sound confident as he looked at McCluskey and added, "I told you they'd be here."

McCluskey gazed back along the river and saw three men riding slowly toward the boat. One of them led a riderless horse. "I thought you left four men behind, Burroughs."

"I did," Burroughs said with a worried tone in his voice. "Something must have happened to one of them."

"I reckon there's not any doubt about those shots we heard. The pa.s.sengers from the train put up a fight again, and one of your men was killed."

"That's what it looks like, all right," Burroughs admitted. "I'm sorry about that. But there are always risks in this line of work."

"A smart man runs as few of those risks as he can get away with," McCluskey said, and once again his comment was rewarded with speculative looks from the other members of the gang.

Burroughs was about to say something else-something angry, judging by his expression-but just then Delia succeeded in opening the leg iron on McCluskey's right ankle.

"There!" she said with obvious satisfaction. "One more lock and we'll be done with these shackles, Frank."

"Good job." Grinning, he added, "I knew there was a reason I kept you around, Delia."

She smiled and practically purred under his praise.

In point of fact, he hadn't really kept her around, McCluskey thought. It was more like he couldn't get rid of her. But he had to admit she had helped him a lot. He put his other foot in her lap and let her get to work on that leg iron.

One of the other outlaws muttered, "Those fellas are sure takin' their time gettin' back here. We need to get movin' again."

"Yes, they're dawdling a little," Burroughs agreed. "Maybe one of them is wounded and they're taking it easy because of that. They'll be here in a minute, and we can get started." He turned and cupped his hands around his mouth to call up to the pilothouse, "Better start getting some steam up, Lynch!"

The member of the gang serving as the pilot and captain of the boat waved a hand from the pilothouse with its big open windows on all four sides. Lynch-an unfortunate name for an outlaw, but of course he hadn't started out on a life of crime immediately after being born-was a former river pirate who had been a scourge on the Mississippi and the Missouri. The boat, in fact, had been stolen from a dock in Yankton and brought into Wyoming by following the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and a network of smaller tributaries like the stream they were on.

A low rumble came from the boat's innards as the engine fired up again. The three riders were only fifty yards away.

The leg iron around McCluskey's left ankle sprang open. Delia laughed. "That one was easy. I've really got the knack of this now, Frank, if you ever need me to do it again."

"I won't," McCluskey said. "No man will ever shackle me again. I'll die first."

"Oh, don't say that," she told him as she stood up from the deck and then sat down in his lap. She put her arms around his neck. "We have the rest of our lives to spend together, and I want it to last for a long time."

McCluskey kissed her. He was fond of the crazy woman, no doubt about that, even if he didn't have any interest in spending the rest of his life with her.

A second later, a shout of alarm drove all those thoughts from his head when Burroughs yelled, "Those aren't our men!"

McCluskey bolted to his feet, dumping Delia unceremoniously on the deck. She let out a startled cry.

That sound was swallowed up by the roar of guns as McCluskey, Burroughs, and the other outlaws clawed out revolvers and opened fire on the three men on the bank.

CHAPTER 21.

Luke had to come to the surface twice to get a breath during his swim, which seemed to take a lot longer than it actually did. The second time, his face emerged far enough from the water for him to see Winslow, Bolden, and Stinson riding along the bank not far from the riverboat. Luke rolled over and stroked hard, propelling himself against the current. Time was running out.

As in most mountain streams, the water was crystal clear. He could see the boat's hull as he approached it, as well as the paddlewheel at the stern. He swam past the paddle and reached up to grasp the edge of the deck. He knew he might pull himself out of the water and find himself looking down the barrels of half a dozen guns. He was counting on the hope that most of the outlaws, if not all of them, would be on the other side of the boat watching the arrival of the men they thought were their comrades.

As his head broke the surface and he shook it to get water out of his eyes, he heard guns blasting somewhere close by.

That gave his movements added urgency as he heaved himself out of the river and rolled onto the deck. The Colts tied in the bundle thudded against the planking, but that sound was lost in the gun thunder coming from elsewhere on the boat.

He looked around, saw that none of the outlaws were close by, and tore at the knot holding the bundle closed. Seconds later, he had filled both hands with gun b.u.t.ts and dropped the wet shirt on the deck.

Most of the ten-foot-wide deck was taken up by the superstructure that housed the boilers, the engine room, storage s.p.a.ce, and a few pa.s.senger cabins. As he trotted toward the corner, intending to edge around it and get a look at the fighting, someone shouted above him and a gun blasted. The bullet chewed splinters from the deck near his bare feet.

His head jerked back as he looked up. One of the outlaws was up in the pilothouse and had spotted him. The man leaned out one of the big windows and fired again, coming so close that Luke felt the heat of the bullet as it ripped past his ear. He lifted the left-hand Colt and triggered a hurried but accurate shot.

The outlaw in the pilothouse rocked back, dropping his gun so that it landed on top of the boiler room. He sagged forward again, eyes bulging with pain, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth just before he collapsed over the window sill and hung there, half in and half out of the pilothouse.

Luke knew the shots from his side of the boat would draw attention, so he wasn't surprised when an outlaw charged around the corner, guns in hand. Spotting Luke, he tried to skid to a stop as he opened fire. His first shot went wild, and he didn't get the chance for another as Luke hammered a slug into his chest and spilled him off the boat into the river.