Pay the Devil (v5) by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online

Claremont; this was one he intended to solve. He went downstairs silently, boots in one hand, and paused in the kitchen to put them on. A moment later, he was crossing the courtyard to the stables.
    He opened the door, allowing the moonlight to stream inside, and as he moved toward the black mare through the darkness, she whinnied softly as if she had been expecting him. He found a saddle and bridle hanging by the stall. They were of English make and lighter than he was used to, but he quickly led the animal out of her stall and saddled her.
    As he tightened the girth, there was the scrape of a shoe behind him and he turned quickly. Joshua was standing there, reproach large upon his face. “Damn your eyes for an old night owl,” Clay told him.
    Joshua sighed. “What you do nights is your own affair, Colonel, but going by what’s happened already, you’d be doing me a favor if you took this.” He held out a belt from which was suspended the Dragoon Colt in its black leather holster.
    Clay took it from him and buckled it about his waist. “Anything for peace. I swear you’re more fussy than an old woman.” He swung up into the saddle. “Now go back to bed—that’s an order.” He clicked his tongue and the mare moved out of the stable door and across the courtyard before Joshua could reply.
    When he reached the rim of the valley, he paused and looked about him. The dog still barked hollowly in the distance, the sound somehow bringing back to him so many hot summer nights in Georgia, when, as a boy, he was unable to sleep and had longed to do just this.
    He urged the mare into a canter, and as they came out onto a stretch of springy turf, broke into a gallop. It was an exhilarating experience as he crouched low over her neck, the wind cold on his face. They must have covered a good mile when he started to rein in and halted beside a clump of trees.
    He leaned down and gently rubbed the mare’s ears. “You beauty!” he said softly. “You little beauty!” And the mare tossed her head and rolled her eyes as if understanding what he said and liking it.
    A horse whinnied from somewhere nearby, and as the mare replied, he hastily turned into the trees and dismounted. Several horsemen appeared over a small rise no more than twenty or thirty yards away. They paused and he heard one of them say quite clearly, “It was a horse, I tell you, and not far from here.”
    Clay placed a hand over the mare’s muzzle and waited. One of the men laughed. “You’re jumpy tonight, Patrick, and that’s the truth of it. What’s there to be worrying about, with Burke and his men waiting at the north end of the estate for poachers who’ll never turn up?”
    They moved forward and a string of pack animals followed them from behind the rise. Clay waited until they had disappeared over the skyline a quarter of a mile away before following them.
    As he topped the rise, a strong wind started to blow in his face and he ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the salt and knowing that he must be very near to the sea. The string of horses had disappeared and he paused and examined the landscape.
    The moor itself was clearly exposed in the bright moonlight, but a narrow valley cut through it, dark with shadow, and he realized that this was the route they had taken. He started to move forward again and reined in sharply as a stone rattled somewhere behind him. He turned in the saddle, but there was no one there.
    He waited for a little while, but nothing moved and he shrugged and took the mare down the slope, her hoofbeats silent on the turf, and entered the valley.
    A well-defined path lay clearly before him and he urged his mount into a canter, eyes probing the darkness ahead. Ten minutes later, the track started to drop steeply and he stopped. Somewhere below, the sea surged against rocks and he heard voices.
    He took the mare straight up the sloping side of the little valley and emerged onto a flat spread of turf that ran gently down to the