Luca Orvane's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Dawn found Luca with six men roped at the smelter and no way to move them. The leader sat apart, wrists bound, watching the ropes like a man counting weak spots. One guard, six prisoners, two days of desert between here and any law. Luca knew the truth. Alone, he could not haul them anywhere. Given an hour, the leader would work a knot loose and vanish again. He needed a cage on wheels and a badge to answer for it. He remembered a weathered wagon abandoned behind the smelter stables, cover torn but wheels sound. He dragged it into the yard and lined the prisoners inside. Then he searched his saddlebag for Pebble's frayed rope, the dusty coil the rock gnome had pressed on him at the mine. He lashed each man to the slats with it, double-knotted, then checked the leader twice. "That old rope won't hold me," the leader said. "It held through worse than you," Luca answered, and cinched the last knot tight. He hitched the black steed to the wagon and drove east for the nearest town. The sun climbed. The wheels groaned. By midday he reached a frontier outpost with a weathered porch and a star carved over the door. The sheriff station. A man stepped out before Luca could knock. He wore a tin star, a cowboy hat, and boots scuffed from real work. Black hair, brown eyes, a steady golden-brown face that had seen trouble roll in before. Sheriff Cole Brennan took one look at the wagon full of roped men and set his hand near his pistol. "Those are the men who burned the Orvane ranch," Luca said quick. "All six. The one on the end is their boss." Cole walked the wagon slow. He studied each face. He stopped at the leader and his jaw went hard. "I know this one," Cole said. "Posters on him for three counties." He looked at Luca. "You brought him in alone?" "Didn't have a choice." Cole whistled. Two deputies came from the stables. They hauled the prisoners into the cells, and Luca's shoulders dropped the moment the iron doors clanged shut. Six men, locked. The thing that had chased him across the desert was finally caged. Cole poured him coffee on the porch. "You've done the law a service. But you should hear the rest." He set the cup down. "Riders came through yesterday. Hard men, heading for that smelter. Asking after their boss." Luca's hand went still on the cup. "Three days out. That's what he told me." "They made better time." Cole nodded east. "They're already past the spring. A day, maybe less." The leader laughed from his cell, muffled through the wall. Luca stared at the empty flats beyond the porch rail. He had his prisoners. He had the law behind him. But the reinforcements were not three days away anymore. They were coming now, and they wanted what he'd locked in that room.