Providence, thought Longarm. He looked toward the house and saw that the other three guards had run around the veranda to join the one on this side. All four of the sentries were staring toward the slave quarters.
Clement appeared in the doorway behind them, his shirt open to the waist. He yelled at them in French and waved a hand toward the fire. Three of the four sentries took off in a run, and passed within ten feet of where Longarm was hidden at the edge of the path. None of them saw him.
As he had back in New Orleans, Longarm thought about luck and how he basically distrusted it. But since nobody knew he was here, this couldn't be a trap for him, and besides, he doubted that even somebody as ruthless as Clement would burn down the slave quarters just to bait a trap.
No, this was an opportunity Longarm had to take advantage of, and he intended to do just that.
He began circling the house, working his way through the brush. He didn't know the names of most of these tropical plants, but they were persistent in clinging to him. Not wanting to make much noise, he couldn't hurry, but even so, within a few minutes he reached a spot where the sole remaining sentry couldn't see him. Longarm drew his gun, emerged from the undergrowth in a crouch, and sprinted across the clearing toward the plantation house.
When he reached the veranda, he slowed and stepped up carefully, rather than bounding. Silence was still important, although judging by the shouts in the night, none of the other sentries were paying attention to anything except the fire. Longarm glanced in that direction again and decided it wasn't the slave quarters that were burning after all. The blaze that lit up the night sky was too big for that.
It looked to him like the cane fields were on fire.
If that was the case, then no wonder Clement was so upset that he had sent all but one of his guards away to help battle the blaze. The sugarcane was all he had left to help him recoup his losses from the destruction of the slave-running ring.
Longarm cat-footed along the wall to the nearest door and carefully tried the knob. It was locked, which came as no surprise. Maybe one of the windows...
Each of them that Longarm tried was latched as well. He didn't have time to go around the entire house trying all the doors and windows. He had to get inside more quickly than that.
He went to the edge of the veranda. There was a railing around it, and it took only a moment to step up on that railing and reach up to the edge of the roof that overhung it. Longarm had to holster the gun so that he could use both hands, but he was able to swing up onto the roof of the veranda without much trouble. Maybe one of the windows on the second floor wouldn't be fastened.
He saw right away in the moonlight that none were. In fact, one of them stood wide open so that the night breezes could flutter the thin white curtains that hung inside it. Longarm slid the Colt from its holster once more as he moved to the window. The room inside was dark, and no sound came from it. Longarm swung a leg over the sill and dropped through the window.
He landed on something soft--something that let out a muffled cry and then started flailing away at him furiously.
Longarm figured out what had happened and lifted an arm to ward off the blows. "Stop it!" he hissed. "I'm here to help you! Settle down, damn it!"
The whispered words got no response, so he had no choice but to grab the figure struggling with him. She was young and lithe and naked, and he didn't have to be a genius to figure out that she was the same young woman who had been taken reluctantly into the house to serve as a plaything for Paul Clement. He managed to get hold of both her wrists with one hand and found himself sitting astride her on a fourposter bed. "Hush!" he said quickly as he heard her draw a deep breath in preparation for a scream. "I'm the law, and I've come for Clement!"
That wasn't strictly true. He was a hell of a long way from anywhere where he had jurisdiction. But he meant to bring Paul Clement to justice anyway. That fact must have penetrated the young woman's brain, because she stopped struggling. After panting for a moment, she said, "M'sieu Clement... is an evil man."
"Don't I know it," said Longarm.
"You are here to... to kill him?"
"I don't rightly know. It depends on what he does. But I can promise you this, ma'am... he won't ever bother you again."
"If you can... kill him!" The vehemence in her voice made Longarm's blood turn a little icy.
The next instant, he heard a footstep outside the door of the room, and he was already rolling off the young woman as the door opened and Clement stepped through. "It's nothing to worry about, darling," said Clement. "Everything is under control, and I have that champagne I promised you, to put you more in the mood-"
The light from the hallway fell through the open door and revealed Longarm standing beside the bed, the Colt in his hand leveled and cocked as he said wryly, "That's mighty kind of you, sweetheart, but there ain't enough champagne in the world to put me in mind of messing around with a skunk like you."
Clement didn't waste any breath exclaiming in surprise. He just flung the heavy glass bottle in his hand at Longarm's head and threw himself to the side as the lawman's gun roared.
Longarm tried to get out of the way of the champagne bottle, but fortune had guided Clement's throw. The bottle clipped Longarm on the side of the head, knocking his hat off and making bright red rockets explode behind his eyes. He was pretty sure his shot had missed. As he stumbled back a step toward the window, he saw the young woman go flying through the open door, and heard the slap of her bare feet as she fled down the corridor outside the bedroom. Knowing that she was clear, Longarm triggered the Colt twice more, firing blindly.
Clement crashed into him from the side, his hand clawing at the wrist of Longarm's gun hand. Both men went down, and Longarm's hand cracked against something hard, probably the edge of the bedside table. His fingers went numb, and the Colt slid out of them. Clement made a grab for the gun, but Longarm managed to twist around and kick it, sending the weapon skittering out of reach across the floor.
He had to end this fight in a hurry, Longarm knew. Those shots would bring the guard from downstairs, and he might summon more of Clement's men to come with him. Longarm planned to knock Clement out, recover his gun so that he could deal with the sentries, and haul Clement into the jungle with him. Then it would be just a matter of eluding the inevitable pursuit, reaching the port city with Clement as his prisoner, and taking him on board the ship that would ultimately carry them back to New Orleans.
That was all.
Longarm's right hand was still numb, so he used his left to punch Clement in the face as they rolled back and forth on the floor, grappling desperately with each other. Enough light came into the room from the hall for Longarm to be able to see what he was doing. Unfortunately, Clement was fighting like a madman, and even though Longarm was larger and heavier, the plantation owner held the advantage for the moment. Clement slammed his knee into Longarm's groin, and as agony shot through Longarm, making him double over, Clement managed to loop an arm around his throat from behind.
Clement's arm was like a bar of iron across Longarm's neck. Every time he turned around in this case, Longarm thought wildly, some son of a bitch was trying to strangle him. First it had been that blasted zombie, then one of Clement's men, and now Clement himself. Longarm was sick and tired of it.
He drove an elbow back into Clement's midsection. That loosened Clement's hold, and Longarm was able to grasp his arm and pull it away. As he twisted around, he gulped down a breath of air to ease the terrible tightness in his chest and then clubbed both hands together and swung them at Clement's head. The blow sent Clement skidding away across the floor.