Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) Read Online Free Page B

Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles)
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that Eastern European accent of hers.
    Lazarus was stumped. There appeared to be just the three of them in the carriage. He stood up slowly, holding his gun away from him in the universal signal for truce, but gripping it tight enough should he suddenly need it. “I don’t know what the devil is going on here, but I’ve no interest in killing either of you.”
    “Bloody idiot...” began the woman.
    “Holster it, lady,” said Vasquez. “He ain’t one of them. Come forward, partner, but if you try anything, we’ve enough firepower between us to give this carriage a nice new red coat. Now what say you tell us what you’re about?”
    “My name is Longman.”
    “You’re a limey, ain’t you?”
    “I am in the service of Her Majesty, yes. I am here to escort you to the Confederate government on a matter of utmost importance.”
    At this Vasquez broke out into guffaws of laughter. “I sure am the main attraction, ain’t I?” he hooted, slapping his grimy britches and holstering his gun. “Here I was in manacles on my way to Great Salt Lake City for a pow-wow with President Blake, when this fine young thing bursts in here to seduce my guards right where I can see it all. Just when I thought my luck couldn’t get any worse, somebody starts shooting at the train and all but one of them get up and high-tail it out of the carriage, leaving their comrade to guard me and have this fine lady all to himself. Lucky fella, I thought, until she shot him, of course.” He indicated a body shoved behind a seat. Blood pooled under it. “I thought my number was up but then she cut me loose and gave me back my gun. Now you’re here.”
    Lazarus glared at the woman. “What’s your story? First you take a shot at him on the Mary Sue and now you’re handing him his gun back?”
    “There was a change in my orders,” she replied, her tone curt.
    “Orders from whom?”
    “You work for your government and I work for mine.”
    “Which is?”
    “That of His Majesty Tsar Alexander, the third of that name.”
    “She’s a goddamn Russkie, friend,” added Vasquez with a grin.
    “I should have guessed as much,” said Lazarus. Are you Okhrana?” The Okhrana were the Tsar’s secret police, tasked with hunting down revolutionaries and anybody else who displeased the powers of Saint Petersburg. This did not limit them to Russia’s borders. “What is Russia’s interest in Vasquez?”
    There was the sound of gunfire further down the train.
    “Do you want to discuss our foreign policy, Mr. Longman, or do you want to get off this train alive?”
    Vasquez hooted. “I like this one! Now if my ears don’t deceive me, that was a Golgotha rifle. Too heavy for ordinary men to carry. Is my pal Hok’ee aboard?”
    “He got aboard some time ago,” said the Russian. “But his horse was shot in the process. I saw it from the window. He managed to get aboard the last carriage.”
    Vasquez gave a low whistle. “He’ll be mighty sore at that. He loved that horse.”
    “Well that throws a spanner in the works,” said Lazarus. One horse between three... have you brought your own, Miss?”
    “No.”
    “Well how did you get on board? And how were you planning to get Vasquez off?”
    “I was already on board as a passenger before the train left Yuma. And I read the cargo inventory, which apparently you did not. The second to last car is loaded with horses.”
    “So your plan was to leap from a speeding train on horseback?”
    “We’ll have to uncouple the carriage and let it slow down, but yes, that was the essence of it.”
    “Sounds like a good enough plan to me,” said Vasquez, drawing his revolver. “But we ain’t gonna see it through if we stand around here jawing. Hok’ee is coming this way—I can hear his rifle talking—so the bounty hunters will be trapped between us.”
    “Agreed,” said Lazarus.
    “I didn’t intend on carrying any extra weight off this train...” began the woman.
    Lazarus smiled. “And I
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