A Murder Most Watchful by Jefferson Bonar

Author:Jefferson Bonar [Bonar, Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Lucas watched as Pedro pretended to meander through the camp, looking for something. It was quiet except for the rustling of a large pine tree overhead whose canopy gave the camp a bit of shade at this time in the afternoon. It was ancient, with a thick trunk covered in fraying scraps of rough-edged bark and lots of lower branches that had long since dropped their needles, never to grow them back. It was also a prodigious tree, with thousands of old, dead pine cones that had long since opened and released their seeds but had yet to drop from the branches.

It was one of those pine cones that decided now was a good time to drop and startle Lucas. He wasn’t sure what he thought it might be. Armada was in town for the day, Barros was doing a shift in the tower, and Captain Salinas was falling asleep in his shelter.

At least, that’s what Lucas hoped was happening. Because if the captain woke up at the wrong moment, there would be trouble.

Pedro walked past the captain’s shelter, glancing over his shoulder as he passed, then hurried over to Lucas.

“I think he’s asleep,” Pedro said.

“So what do we do now, sir?” Lucas asked.

“We? Don’t get me involved with this, joven. This is your plan, not mine. I’m going to sit over here and make fun of you if you get caught. Good luck explaining yourself.”

Lucas took a breath for courage, then stepped through the camp. The wind had died down, and the hush sound it made as it whipped through the pine trees faded away, making Lucas’s footsteps in the gravel crunch ever louder. He couldn’t help but remember how soldiers were trained to not let someone sneak up on them. And Salinas was a captain. It was possible Salinas would awaken and gut Lucas with a dagger before either knew what was happening.

But by this point, Lucas was distracted by how the target was in plain sight. A small iron key, hooked by a string to Salinas’s belt, lay glinting in the sun, as if beckoning him. He only needed to borrow it for a short time. Salinas would never miss it. He would return it a quarter of an hour later, just long enough for Pedro to shimmy up the watchtower and have a look in the shed. Then he could drop the key back down, and Lucas would have it back on Salinas’s belt in no time.

It was a simple plan predicated on the next few moments going well. Lucas was now standing over Salinas, trying not to breathe. Salinas lay on his back, his head tilted backwards on a provisions bag he’d stuffed with soft weeds as a pillow. He had one arm flopped over his eyes to keep out the sunlight, and his mouth was agape. A snore had begun to erupt from somewhere deep within Salinas’s nostrils, just as it did with Armada for the first half hour or so after falling asleep.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.