William Johnstone - Dead Before Sundown

However, they had mentioned that they were waiting for somebody, and the word “guns” had been dropped casually. Palmer found that intriguing. He wanted to know more about what they were doing out here, hundreds of miles from anywhere.

“Don’t trust him,” the man warned his sister again. “Shoot him, Charlotte!”

“I … I cannot,” Charlotte said.

“You got no reason to,” Palmer said. He took another gamble. “In fact, to prove that, I take back what I said. You hang on to that rifle, miss. That way, if I do anything to show that I’ve been lyin’ to you, you can shoot me then.”

“I would be more inclined to believe you if you got off my brother.”

Palmer looked down at the man he had pinned to the ground. “How about it, mister?” he asked. “If I let you up, are you gonna behave?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” the man said between clenched teeth.

“There’s always a choice, friend. Sometimes we make good ones, and sometimes we don’t.” Palmer eased the revolver’s hammer back down. “I’m gonna take a chance here and hope I made a good one.”

He pulled the gun away from the man’s neck and stood up, stepping back so that he’d have plenty of room to move if he needed to.

The man sat up and rubbed his neck where the gun barrel had dug in painfully. Palmer kept the revolver in his hand. If the bastard tried anything, Palmer knew he’d have time to shoot him, then plug the girl, too, if he had to.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He’d much rather get friendly with Charlotte than shoot her.

When he needed to, he could be pretty damned charming. He tried that now, saying, “Look, folks, I just smelled your fire and thought maybe I could get a little coffee and maybe some hot food. Not to mention some company. This is mighty lonely country out here.”

“You were spying on us,” the man accused. “I heard you moving in the brush. You were listening to what we said.”

Charlotte said to her brother, “Then you lied to me when you told me nothing was wrong.”

“Be quiet,” the man snapped.

“Sure, I was eavesdropping,” Palmer admitted. “I wanted to find out who you were and whether you’d be likely to shoot me if I walked into your camp. A man who’s not careful about what he does out here deserves whatever happens to him.”

“You don’t sound like a frontiersman.”

Palmer laughed. “Maybe I ain’t one, not by choice, anyway. I spent most of my life in cities. But I’ve knocked around out here in this big lonely enough to have learned a few things.” He paused. “My name’s Joe Palmer. What’s yours?”

Telling somebody your name usually caused people to let their guard down a little, Palmer knew. He didn’t mind telling these people who he really was. He wasn’t wanted in Canada, and anyway, if he decided that they were a threat to him, he’d just kill them. Simple as that.

After a moment, and with obvious reluctance, the man said, “My name is Joseph Marat.”

Palmer grinned. “See? You’re Joe, and I’m Joe. Just a couple of Joes. That ought to tell you right there we should be pards.”

Marat nodded his head toward the woman. “This is my sister Charlotte.”

Palmer lifted his free hand to the brim of his derby. “Mademoiselle Marat. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“You speak French?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Not really,” he replied with a chuckle. “I’ve picked up a little, here and there.”

Marat started to get up. Palmer stepped forward and extended his left hand.

“Let me help you there.”

Marat hesitated, then clasped Palmer’s hand. Palmer hauled him to his feet. Marat still seemed suspicious, but the tension in the air definitely had eased.

“Let’s go back to the fire,” Charlotte suggested. “We have a little coffee left, but no hot food. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Palmer told her. “I’m just obliged for the offer of coffee.”

He turned his back on them and started toward their fire, which was visible through the trees. It was a risky move, he knew, but so far tonight his bets had paid off and he was going to continue to ride his luck.

The Marats, brother and sister, followed him. They didn’t shoot him in the back, so he figured that for now, he was ahead of the game.

“Where is your horse?” Marat asked as they reached the clearing where the campfire was burning down to tiny, flickering flames.

“I’ve got a couple of them, a saddle horse and a pack animal,” Palmer replied. “I left them tied up a ways off. When I smelled your smoke, I wanted to check it out, but I knew the horses would make too much racket.” He grinned. “If I had seen that you folks were dangerous, I would have snuck back to my horses and gone around. You never would have known I was there.”

“I knew,” Marat snapped.

Palmer shrugged. “So I’m not much of a woodsman. No offense, but you two don’t exactly look like Daniel Boone, either.”

It was true. All three of them were a little out of place here in this vast wilderness.

Marat took offense at the comment, though. “This is our home,” he said. “We are Métis.”

“Half-breeds, you mean?”

Marat’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “Mixed-bloods. Our ancestry is mostly French, with only a little Indian.”

“Oh,” Palmer said. He didn’t care. A redskin was a redskin, as far as he was concerned. These two might not look it, but they were tainted with savage blood.

He had heard about the Métis. You couldn’t spend much time in this part of the world without hearing about them. Descendants of the French fur trappers who had been the first white men to venture into western Canada and had taken Indian women as wives, they had spread all over the plains and mountains.

When the British had come to spread the dominion of the Crown all the way from one side of the continent to the other, the Métis had tried to get along peacefully with them at first. It hadn’t taken long for the mixed-bloods to realize, though, that as far as the British were concerned, they had no real voice in their fate.

Led by the highly intelligent and charismatic Louis Riel, twice the Métis had tried to rise up against the British. Both times the rebellions had been shortlived. The Métis had scored a minor victory or two, but then the British had crushed their resistance. The first rebellion had led to the formation of the North West Mounted Police.

After the second rebellion, Louis Riel had been found guilty of treason against the Crown and hanged.

That had happened less than fifteen years earlier, but to Palmer, it was ancient history and had nothing to do with him. Or at least, it hadn’t had anything to do with him until now. The earlier talk about guns had sure made him curious.

“Didn’t mean any offense,” he went on. “I’ve heard about you folks. The way those damned Britishers treated you never seemed right to me.”

He might as well make them think he was on their side, he told himself. That was the quickest, easiest way to worm himself into their confidence and find out what was going on.

Charlotte got a tin cup out of their gear and lifted a coffeepot from the edge of the fire. She poured the last of the coffee in the pot into the cup and handed it to Palmer.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile. He knew he wasn’t a particularly handsome man, but he was big and rugged-looking and women seemed to respond to him when he smiled.

Charlotte Marat was no different. She lowered her eyes and blushed.

“What are you doing out here?” Joseph Marat demanded, still scowling suspiciously at Palmer.

“I could ask the same thing of you, you know,” Palmer responded. He sipped the coffee, which was bitter and had grounds in it. He didn’t let his face show how bad it tasted.