Read Online Peacemaker by Lindsay Buroker - Free Book Online Page B

for
herself with that many pirates loitering about.
    Though Cedar might prefer night for skulking
about, he did fine sneaking up on the fellow—indeed, even knowing
roughly where he was, Kali had trouble keeping track of him. As
their target was buttoning his pants, Cedar stepped out from behind
a tree and placed a knife blade against the man’s throat. The
pirate’s hand darted for a holster on his belt only to find it
empty. Cedar had already removed the pistol. He showed it to the
pirate, then stuffed it into his own belt.
    Cedar said something to his prisoner, and
they started walking, angling away from the ship and Kali as well.
She waited, expecting him to circle about and join her, but he
didn’t. She was about to stand up and find him when a second pirate
walked into the woods, a rifle propped against his shoulder. He
faced her, his gaze skimming the forest. Kali sank lower so only
her eyes poked above the log.
    It was too soon for anyone to miss the man
who had gone to pee, so she guessed this was a guard the captain
had sent out. The pirates had to know that people would come after
them in droves if word got out that their ship had gone down. Kali
doubted that old man on the river was the first miner they had
robbed.
    A falcon on the hunt screeched overhead. The
dampness of the moss beneath Kali’s knees was starting to seep
through her overalls. She wondered where Cedar had taken the other
fellow. And why hadn’t he come to get her, so she could listen in
and ask questions too?
    The guard finally turned his gaze in another
direction, and Kali scooted backward, retracing their route to the
ridge.
    A shadow stirred on the periphery of Kali’s
vision. She jerked the rifle in that direction, her finger ready on
the trigger.
    Nobody was there.
    A strip of moss dangling from a branch
stirred slightly. Her eyes narrowed. She licked her finger and
stuck it in the air. If there was a breeze, it was too faint to do
much. Maybe someone had bumped that moss. Cedar? No, he would have
had to cross through her field of vision to get to that side of
her.
    Kali continued to back down the trail. She
watched that piece of the woods for several slow steps, but nothing
else moved. In a nearby tree, a pair of squirrels chattered as they
chased each other about. If there had been something dangerous,
they would have been hiding.
    When Kali reached the ridge, the sound of
voices drifted to her ear. She picked her way through foliage and
around stumps to find Cedar standing over his captured pirate, the
pistol pointed at the man’s head. Cedar looked at her when she
approached, but his face was hard to read. Kali assumed a peeved
expression to let him know she expected to be involved with
important things. He gave her a quick nod, but quickly focused
again on his prisoner.
    “ Why’d you have this in
your loot room?” Cedar asked, displaying one of the bead-and-hide
patches.
    “ Never seen it before.”
The pirate spat on the ground. “Told you I don’t know
nothing.”
    Cedar grabbed him by the front of the shirt
and jammed the pistol against the man’s throat. “If you don’t know
nothing, then there’s no point in me keeping you alive,” he
growled, voice savage, eyes like ice from the bluest depths of a
glacier. The prisoner’s surly demeanor vanished.
    The fierce, cold mien chilled Kali, and she
wondered if Cedar had known he would have to get tough and that was
why he hadn’t invited her to the interrogation. Maybe he didn’t
want her to see him questioning someone. Too bad. This was a
pirate, someone who had tried to capture her and would have
received a share of the reward for turning her over to gangsters.
And, if the pirates had killed that old man’s partner, they were
murderers as well as kidnappers.
    “ I don’t have anything to
do with it, I swear,” the man whispered, his eyes crossing to stare
at the pistol barrel.
    Kali straightened, staring intently at the
man. This might be the lead they’d