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“Mr. Shelton,” he said, “I know what you’re feelin’ right now, but I don’t appreciate you bustin’ in here wavin’ a hogleg around.” He added, “You didn’t even knock.”

“That son of a bitch you’ve got locked up back there didn’t ask permission before he did his best to kill my daughter, either,” Shelton snapped. “I want to see him…now!”

Mordecai shook his head.

“I reckon we’ve established that Tom Gentry is a son of a bitch,” he said. “But he’s also my prisoner, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a lawman if I let you go back there and shoot him, Mr. Shelton.”

“I’m not going to shoot him.”

“Then what’s that gun for?”

Shelton looked down at the revolver in his hand as if he had forgotten that it was there. He frowned and said, “I suppose maybe when I started over here I planned on shooting Tom Gentry. But now I just want to see what sort of monster could do that to a poor innocent girl like Virginia.”

Based on what he had heard the night before, Mordecai had his doubts about Virginia Gentry being totally innocent in this matter, but that wasn’t really relevant. He held out his left hand and said, “If you ain’t gonna shoot him, then you won’t mind givin’ me that gun, will you?”

Shelton stared at the gun for a moment longer, then gave it to Mordecai. The deputy felt a little better once the visitor was disarmed.

“I’ll let you see the boy,” he said, “but first I want to know how your daughter is doin’ this morning.”

Shelton was hatless, and his thinning gray hair was mussed. He tangled it up even more by running his fingers through it as he sighed.

“She’s at my house, of course. That man Morley sent word to me that she was injured, and I went right to Gentry’s house. When I saw the kind of shape Virginia was in, I had a wagon brought and took her back to my house. Her mother is with her now.”

“She was out cold the last time I saw her. Has she come to?”

Shelton nodded.

“She was able to speak to us. Morley came by this morning to see about her and told us that was a good sign. He thinks she’s going to be all right.”

“I’m mighty glad to hear that,” Mordecai said, and he meant it.

“She may recover physically,” Shelton said, “but I’m not sure she’ll ever get over what that bastard did to her.”

From the cell block, Tom Gentry called, “I can hear what you’re sayin’ out there, old man! You just shut up! You don’t know a damned thing about it!”

Shelton turned sharply toward the cell block door. Mordecai was glad he had gotten the gun away from the man. Judging the expression on Shelton’s face, he might have started trying to shoot through the door at his son-in-law.

“Let me back there,” Shelton said as his hands clenched into fists. “You told me I could see him.”

“Don’t bring that old fool back here, Deputy! I don’t want to see him!”

That rubbed Mordecai the wrong way. He raised his voice and said, “What you want don’t mean a damned thing to me as long as you’re locked up in this jail, mister.” He plucked the ring of keys from the desk and jerked his head at Shelton. “Come on.”

He unlocked the cell block door and swung it open. Shelton stalked past him.

“Stay away from the cell door,” Mordecai warned.

Shelton stopped out of reach of the bars, just in case Tom
Gentry tried to stick an arm through them and grab him. Mordecai stood in the doorway with his hand on the butt of his gun again.

Gentry was on his feet, standing about halfway between the bunk and the cell door. He and Shelton glared at each other for a long moment before Shelton said, “You worm. You pathetic excuse for a man.”

Gentry sneered.

“That shows what you know,” he said. “You’re the pathetic excuse for a man. That’s what it’d take to raise a daughter who’s nothin’ but a no-good whore.”

Mordecai expected Shelton to throw himself at the bars and try to get at Gentry. Instead the man just stood there, trembling slightly with rage.

“Here now,” Mordecai snapped at Gentry. “There’ll be more more of that kind of talk.”

“Why not?” Gentry demanded. “It’s the truth, Deputy. You know that. You talked to Ned Bassett.”

Shelton slowly turned his head to look at Mordecai.

“What’s he talking about? What’s that watchmaker got to do with this?”

Before Mordecai could answer, Gentry let out a scathing laugh.

“Don’t you know, old man?” he asked. “Bassett’s the man who’s been bedding my wife.”

“You’re a damned liar,” Shelton said coldly.

“I’ve watched her sneak out at night and go to his house a dozen times. She didn’t deny it when I accused her of it, either. She knew it wouldn’t do her any good to lie.”

Shelton still tried to look stern and angry, but Mordecai could tell that he was shaken by what Gentry had just said.

“I don’t believe you, but even if you were telling the truth, that wouldn’t justify what you did.”

Gentry laughed again.

“Doesn’t it? What would
you
have done thirty years ago if you’d found Clarissa in bed with another man? Not that anybody but you would’ve ever wanted her, but you know what I mean.”

“You really
are
a monster,” Shelton whispered.

“You’re just saying that because you know I’m right…about everything.”

From the door of the cell block, Mordecai said, “This ain’t doin’ anybody any good. I reckon it’s time for you to leave now, Mr. Shelton.”

Shelton didn’t argue. He started to turn toward the door, but he paused and pointed a finger at Gentry.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done, Tom,” he said. “I promise you that.”

Gentry just sneered.

Mordecai stepped back and motioned for Shelton to go on into the office. He closed and locked the door after them, tossing the key ring back onto the desk.

“What are you going to do with him?” Shelton asked in a dull voice.

Mordecai nodded toward the outer door, indicating that Shelton should step out onto the boardwalk in front of the office. When they were both out there, Mordecai closed that door. The office was pretty small, and he didn’t want Gentry eavesdropping from the cell.

“I don’t rightly know just yet what I’m gonna do with him,” Mordecai said. “I’ll have to talk to Judge Dunaway. I ain’t never been a lawman until just a few months ago, you know.”

“He should be hanged…or shot. At the very least horsewhipped.”

“I won’t argue with that last sentiment. But whatever happens to him, I reckon it’ll have to be done legal-like.”

“You still have my gun, you know.”

Mordecai took the revolver from his waistband and handed it back to Shelton. “Until that bank robbery the other day, I didn’t even know you had a gun,” he commented.

“I’m sure there’s a great deal you don’t know about me.” Shelton looked up and down the street. The hour was early, but Redemption was fairly busy already. “For example, did you know that I was here long before the town was?”

“You mean before Redemption?” Mordecai asked with a frown. “I thought you come from somewheres else.”

“I lived in Wichita for a long time, but I grew up right here. Well, just outside town along the creek. That’s where I camped after the Pawnee jumped my family’s wagon and killed my parents and brothers and sisters thirty years ago. The only reason I survived was because I was out hunting for some fresh meat. I heard the shots, but by the time I got back it was too late. I was twenty years old.”

Mordecai tried not to stare at the man. He never would have guessed that Shelton had such a tragedy in his background.

“In those days it was several hundred miles back to civilization,” Shelton went on, the tone of his voice telling Mordecai that the man was momentarily lost in the past. “We were on our way to Santa Fe, but that was hundreds of miles away, too. Anyway, I didn’t want to leave. I buried my family. I used to know exactly where the graves were, but now…now I’m not sure I could find them again. So much time has passed. So much has changed.”

“It has, for a fact,” Mordecai said quietly.

“And it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to leave my family. I thought that some of the Indians who killed them might come back. So I waited…and they did. Not all the members of the war party, I’m sure. Only four.”

“What’d you do?”

“I killed them,” Shelton said. “I had my rifle and one they had overlooked in the wagon, plus a couple of pistols. And a knife. It was enough.”

Mordecai had believed what everybody else in Redemption did about Walter Shelton: that the man was just a mild-mannered, retired storekeeper. But Shelton’s words had the unmistakable ring of truth to them.

The man turned to look at Mordecai and went on, “So you see, Deputy, Tom Gentry’s lucky. There was a time in my life I lived for murder and revenge on whoever hurt my family. Back then I probably would have shot you for getting in my way and then gone after him.”

“Well, I’m mighty glad it didn’t come to that. Best thing for you to do now, Mr. Shelton, is to go home and see that Miss Virginia’s well taken care of.”

“Yes,” Shelton said with a nod. “But I meant what I told Tom. He’s going to pay for what he did. I’ll see him hanged or in jail, one or the other.”

“That’ll be up to the judge.”

Shelton shook his head. “No. You tell Kermit Dunaway what I said.”

Mordecai might have argued more with the man, but at that moment he was distracted by the appearance of several riders at the western end of Main Street. They approached the marshal’s office in a hurry, dust billowing into the air from their horses’ hooves.

Mordecai recognized the man in the lead.

Burkhart Gentry had come to town.

Jesse Overstreet tilted his head back to look up at the sheer wall of the ridge that rose above them. He shook his head and said, “Not even a mountain goat could climb that.”

“The Indians did,” Bill said. “I can, too.”

“But it’s not just straight up!” Overstreet protested. “Look at the way the wall bulges out here and there. A fella’d practically have to hang upside down to make it!”

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

The torch that Josiah Hartnett held over his head to light up the ridge where the outlaw Dave Belton had brought them finally burned down to his fingers. Hartnett shook out the flame and said, “I think Jesse’s right, Bill. Maybe some wiry Indians were able to climb that, but I don’t see how we’re going to.”

“Not we,” Bill said. “Just me. If that fella Tatum can do it, so can I.”

From where the three of them stood, the ridge rose sheerly above them and also fell off in a more gentle slope the other way. They had left the horses and the other members of the posse a couple of hundred yards away at the base of that slope. The horses probably could have climbed up here, but there was no reason for them to try. Once they reached this point, there wouldn’t have been anywhere for them to go.

Belton was down below, too, tied onto the saddle on one of the horses he and his fellow owlhoot had had at Castle Rock. The dead outlaw’s horse had been brought along as an extra mount. All the way here, Belton had complained bitterly about the pain of his wounded legs. Every step of his horse had brought a fresh curse to Belton’s lips.

Bill didn’t feel any sympathy for the outlaw, knowing that he’d been part of the gang that had kidnapped Eden, even if grabbing her had been Caleb Tatum’s idea alone. And they never could have found their way through the badlands without Belton to guide them through the twists and turns of the mazelike trails.

Belton had ridden at the head of the posse with Bill, Overstreet, and Hartnett, and Overstreet had kept his revolver pointed at the outlaw most of the time.

“If I see anything that looks like you’re tryin’ to trick us or lead us into a trap,” Bill had warned, “I’m gonna tell Jesse to blow your brains out.”

“You’d never find the hideout if you did that,” Belton had said. “Hell, you might not even be able to find your way back out of here.”

“We’ll worry about that later. Either way, you’ll be dead.”

With that unmistakably genuine threat hanging over his head, Belton hadn’t tried anything funny. He had led them to the ridge, and the ancient handholds and footholds were there, just as he had promised.

Bill took off his hat and handed it to Hartnett.

“Stuff it in my saddlebags when you go back down to the horses,” he said. “It’d just fall off if I tried to wear it.”

Overstreet snatched his hat from his head and held it out to Hartnett, as well.

“You can take care of mine, too,” he said.

“What’re you doin’ that for?” Bill asked with a frown. “I’m the only one goin’ over the ridge this way.”

“That fella Belton said there were two guards on the bottleneck most of the time,” Overstreet reminded him.

“I know. I’m gonna take care of them, and then I’ll let the rest of you know that it’s all right to come on in.”

“Two against one?” Overstreet shook his head. “Those aren’t very good odds.”

“I can handle ’em.”

“Two of us would stand a lot better chance.”

“He’s probably right about that, Bill,” Hartnett put in.

“Hell, a few days ago I knocked you out and threw you in jail!” Bill said to the young cowboy.