Trackdown (9781101619384) (3 page)

The two lawmen left the office together, Mordecai setting off to finish the evening rounds and Bill turning toward the side street where he shared a big old house with his wife Eden and her father Perry Monroe, who owned Redemption’s biggest and best general store. Living with your father-in-law maybe wasn’t the best arrangement in the world, but Bill got along well with Perry Monroe.

One of these days, though, he and Eden were going to have to start giving some thought to getting a place of their own. Especially once kids started arriving. Bill had been thinking about that more and more lately, too.

Redemption was quiet behind him as he quickened his pace, the limp barely noticeable now.

The alley behind a residential street near the edge of the settlement was thick with darkness. The windows in most of the houses along here were dark as well, as the hour was late enough that most people were asleep.

Then the yellow glow of lamplight sliced across the alley like a knife blade as a back door opened. Only for a moment, though, as someone inside blew out the lamp. Shadows closed in again.

A deeper patch of darkness moved in the gloom, drawing closer to the house where the rear door still stood open. The shadow stopped and stood motionless in a tense, listening attitude.

The moon was only a sliver in the sky overhead, but enough light filtered down from the stars for the watcher to make out the shape of a man that appeared in the doorway. The man turned his head and said quietly to someone inside, “It’s all right, there’s nobody out here.”

Ah, but he was wrong about that, the watcher thought.

The man in the doorway moved aside to let another figure slip past him. The watcher heard the rustle of skirts and
knew the second person was a woman. She paused and said something to the man, but the words were too low for the watcher to make them out. The timbre of the woman’s voice was familiar, though.

The man in the doorway whispered something in return. The two figures moved toward each other as silently as fog drifting. They seemed to merge and stayed that way for a long moment before breaking apart again.

How tender, the watcher thought. How touching. A good-night kiss shared between lovers.

The woman turned from the door. The man who had just kissed her stood there watching as she crossed the small rear yard and turned down the alley. Her path took her right past the frozen figure lurking in the shadows. The man in the doorway kept an eye on her until he couldn’t see her anymore, then went back in the house and closed the door softly behind him.

The watcher in the shadows still hadn’t moved, even when the faint scent of perfume drifted tantalizingly through the night air. She passed so close that the smell of her was a torment, but an even worse torture was knowing that her scent clung to the man inside the house.

Something had to be done about this. It was intolerable.

And something
would
be done…soon.

But not tonight. Tonight the charade would continue. The watcher had to think about everything and decide what to do. Once that decision was reached…

Preferring not to think about that just yet, the figure moved again, taking a different route through the streets and alleys of Redemption, hurrying now.

Places to go, things to do.

Vengeance to be taken.

Three riders sat their horses atop a slight rise…which was the only sort of rise to be found in this part of Kansas. Even so, it was enough for them to be able to see several miles across the dark prairie to a scattering of lights.

The man on the left of the trio took a cigarette from his
mouth, pinched out the butt, and snapped the quirley away into the darkness.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” replied the man in the center, whose name was Caleb Tatum. “Redemption, they call it.”

The third man said, “Place is full of churches, is it?”

“Not that I know of,” Tatum said. He was a man in his thirties, slightly barrel-chested, handsome enough to have a touch of arrogance to his features. His black hat was thumbed back on crisp black hair. “Why would it be full of churches?”

“Well, with a name like Redemption, I just figured—”

“I don’t know why whoever founded the place called it by that name, but when I rode through last week to take a look, I didn’t see but two or three churches. I don’t think the name has anything to do with religion.”

“I ain’t interested in churches,” the first man said, “just banks.”

“It’s got one of those,” Tatum said. “A pretty prosperous one, too, from the looks of it. There are a lot of successful farms and ranches around here, plus the cattle drives from Texas still come through these parts and pump some money into the town. It’ll be a good haul.”

Tatum hoped he was right about that. He had heard that some fellas had tried to rob the bank in Redemption a while back and gotten killed for their trouble.

But those hombres were rank amateurs compared to the hardened gang of owlhoots who rode with him, Tatum thought. He had nine men, and every one of them knew how to ride and shoot and didn’t mind killing if it was necessary.

A few of them, he had to admit, liked killing a little too much. But he could ride herd on them and keep them in line. He had done it so far and would continue to do so, because no matter how tough they were, they all knew that he was tougher.

“They have a lawman there?” the first man asked.

“A marshal,” Tatum said. “Some Texas cowboy who decided to put down roots.”

The third member of the trio said, “Those Texans are all gunslingers.”

Tatum grunted and said, “That’s what they’d like you to believe. I got a look at this fella. He’s just a gimpy kid. He won’t give us any trouble, and neither will his deputy, who’s some stove-up old geezer. Those two aren’t fit for anything except breaking up bar fights and wrangling drunks.”

“I hope you’re right, Caleb,” the first man said.

“I haven’t steered you wrong so far, have I?” Tatum snapped.

“No, I reckon not.”

Tatum turned his horse and said, “Let’s get back to camp. We’ll ride into Redemption tomorrow, and we’ll be a hell of a lot richer when we ride out.”

Bill stopped and took his boots off downstairs so he wouldn’t make as much noise when he went into the bedroom. Eden was probably asleep already, and he didn’t want to disturb her. He unbuckled his gun belt, too, and coiled it around the holstered Colt.

The stairs creaked a little under him as he went up them, but that was the only sound in the house. When he reached the second-floor hallway, he heard snores coming from behind the closed door of Perry Monroe’s room. Monroe was pretty good at sawing logs, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Mordecai Flint when it came to sheer volume.

Thankfully, the room Bill and Eden shared was all the way down at the other end of the hall from her father’s room. Bill slipped inside, moving by feel as he placed the coiled gun belt on the small table next to his side of the bed. He and Eden had been married long enough now that he didn’t need light to find his way around in here. He peeled off his duds, down to the bottom half of a pair of long underwear.

He was about to slip under the covers when Eden said, “You thought I was asleep, didn’t you?”

Bill jumped a little, then said, “Dadgummit, Eden, were you just layin’ there in the dark waitin’ for me?”

She laughed. “That’s right. I want a good-night kiss before I go to sleep.”

Bill got into bed and reached out for her, drawing her into his arms.

“If I start kissin’ you, it’s liable to be a while before either of us get to sleep, and I’m tired.”

“So am I,” she said sleepily, “but I’m willing to risk it.”

So was Bill. He found her mouth with his. The kiss had enough passion in it that it might have turned into more, as he had warned, if both of them hadn’t yawned at the same time and then broken down laughing.

“Any problems in town tonight?” Eden asked as she pillowed her head on his shoulder.

“Not really. One fella got a mite too liquored up in the Prairie Queen and wound up sleeping it off in a cell.”

“The Prairie Queen…That Hudson woman’s place?”

“Yep. She seems pretty nice.”

Eden lifted her head from Bill’s shoulder and said, “Oh, really?”

“For a saloonkeeper, I mean. And an older woman.”

“Uh-huh.” Eden settled back down against him.

Hoping that he had responded correctly, Bill suppressed another yawn and said, “I could probably stay awake a little while longer…”

Eden’s deep, regular breathing told him that she couldn’t, though. She had dozed off.

That was all right, Bill told himself. He was tired, too, and he enjoyed holding her like this while she slept.

Besides, they would both be more rested in the morning and could make up for missed opportunities.

When Bill woke up, he was alone in the bed, tangled in the sheet from thrashing around, as he sometimes did. The gray light of dawn came in around the curtains over the bedroom window. He smelled coffee and bacon and knew that Eden had gotten up early to fix breakfast.

Although he was disappointed that she wasn’t still here beside him in bed so they could make love, he wasn’t going to complain about coffee and bacon. He grinned and stretched for a minute before sitting up and swinging his legs out of bed.

By the time he was dressed and downstairs, he was even hungrier. He detoured by the living room to hang his gun belt on the hat rack next to his hat, then went into the kitchen.

Eden was at the stove. She wore a robe over her nightgown, and her short blond hair was still a little tousled from sleep as it curled around her ears and jaw. Bill thought she looked mighty pretty and said so.

“You’d say that to any woman who was cooking bacon for you,” she told him with a smile.

“Not hardly,” he insisted as he came up behind her and put
his arms around her waist. He pressed himself against her and planted a kiss on the side of her neck.

“Go sit down and I’ll bring you some coffee,” she ordered, although she didn’t seem displeased by his attenton. “My father will be stirring any minute now, if he’s not already.”