Trackdown (9781101619384) (31 page)

Bill drew his Colt again and slipped around the side of the cabin. He stopped at the front corner and tilted his head back to look up. When Overstreet struck a match and lit the crude fuse, Bill saw the brief flare. A couple of seconds went by…

Then the inside of the cabin lit up brightly. The flash of fiery illumination was visible through the loopholes. A man screamed. The walls wouldn’t burn, but the floor and the furnishings would. Bill began to smell smoke almost instantly
and wondered if Overstreet had blocked the chimney somehow.

It didn’t take long for the flames and smoke to drive the outlaws from the cabin. One of them threw the door back and charged out, the revolver in his hand spitting death.

Bill fired from the corner of the building. His bullet ripped through the man and spun him off his feet.

Two more men burst out. Overstreet downed one of them with a shot from the roof. The posse members, who had taken cover anywhere they could, riddled the other man with lead.

An eerie silence settled over the bowl as the echoes of the shots faded away across the badlands.

Overstreet dropped from the roof and landed at Bill’s side.

“You reckon we got ’em all?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We’re gonna have to check, and that could prove to be a dangerous chore.”

“Did I see that you had your missus with you a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah.” Bill could hardly believe it. Relief was setting in and making his knees a little weak. “I think she’s all right.”

“Well, you go check on her and leave those owlhoots to Josiah and the other fellas and me,” Overstreet suggested. “After all this, you don’t want to get yourself killed now.”

“I’m still in charge of this posse,” Bill said stubbornly. “I’ll do my job.”

Hartnett and the others were coming forward slowly now, rifles held at the ready. Bill called to them to cover him and Overstreet as they checked on the bodies of the three men who had fallen in front of this cabin. The outlaws were dead, just as Bill expected.

He started toward the far cabin to check the men in there, but he was still in front of the middle cabin when someone lunged through the door, rifle in hand. A scream of hate blended with the crack of the Winchester. The .44-40 round whipped past Bill’s ear.

He reacted instinctively, thrusting the gun in his hand toward the rifle-wielder and pulling the trigger. The muzzle flash revealed the long red hair and the face of a woman as the slug drove into her chest between her breasts and flung
her backward. She landed half in the cabin and half out and didn’t move after that.

Bill felt hollow inside. He had just killed a woman, and even though she had done her damnedest to kill him, that fact sent a shock all the way to his core.

“You didn’t have a choice, Bill,” Overstreet said as if reading his fellow Texan’s mind. “It’d bother me, too, but you did the only thing you could.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Bill said. His voice sounded strange to his ears.

“Reckon I’d better check this cabin, too.”

Overstreet stepped over the woman’s body and struck a match so he could look around. He emerged a moment later to report that the middle cabin was empty.

By that time, Hartnett and a couple of posse members were investigating the third cabin. When Hartnett came out, he walked over to Bill and Overstreet and said, “There are two dead men in there and a third who’s not going to last five minutes. It looks like we cleaned them all out, Marshal.”

“Good,” Bill said with a nod. “Did we lose any men?”

“A few wounded, but nobody’s hurt too bad, as far as I know. I think we’ll all make it back to Redemption.”

Bill was extremely glad to hear that. The woman’s death still bothered him, but he told himself to put it behind him. He had other responsibilities now.

“Bill!”

He turned at that cry and saw Eden hurrying toward him. Her hands were free now, so they were able to hold each other as they came together.

“Thought I told you to stay behind that boulder,” he murmured as he felt the soft touch of her hair against his cheek.

“I had to make sure you were all right,” she said.

“I am now,” he whispered, and he knew he would be for as long as he could hang on to her.

He intended for that to be quite a while.

The posse rode away not long after dawn over the badlands, taking the extra horses and the bank money they had recovered
from the center cabin. They had dug a grave for the woman and heaped the bodies of the other outlaws against one of the bowl’s walls. Overstreet climbed up the slope and started some rocks rolling. That turned into a small avalanche that slid down and covered the corpses.

Bill made sure to keep Eden well away from that grisly sight. He hadn’t let her get a good look at any of the dead men.

If he had, she would have been able to tell him that Caleb Tatum was not among them.

Roy Fleming and Benjy Cobb were still standing in front of the marshal’s office. Mordecai knew that the mayor wanted to find out what was going on, but that could wait.

Instead he turned the other direction and headed for the Shelton house. Roland and the other gun throwers were still in the saloon. Mordecai ought to have a few minutes before they rode back up the street to report in to Walter Shelton.

He wanted to find out exactly what Shelton had planned. The man might refuse to tell him, but as far as Mordecai could see, Shelton had always been a law-abiding man. If a deputy marshal demanded answers from him, he might…just
might
…give them.

Clarissa Shelton answered Mordecai’s urgent knocking on the front door of the big house. She gave him a weak smile and said, “Why, hello, Deputy Flint. What can I do for you?”

“Is your husband here, ma’am?” Mordecai asked. “I need to talk to him.”

“Yes, of course. Please come in.” She ushered him into the foyer, then went on, “Walter is in his study. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Ma’am…?” Mordecai said as she started to turn away.

“Yes, Deputy?”

“Uh, how’s Miss Virginia doing?”

Mrs. Shelton smiled again and said, “Why, she’s fine, just fine,” and Mordecai understood that was the only thing the woman was going to allow herself to believe.

He waited, awkwardly holding his hat in his good hand, while Mrs. Shelton went and got her husband. When they came back, Shelton had a frown on his narrow face. He asked, “What’s this about, Deputy?”

Mordecai hesitated, glanced at Mrs. Shelton, and said, “Well, uh…”

Shelton took the hint. He turned to his wife and said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and see if Virginia needs anything, dear?”

“Yes,” she said with the false, bright smile. “I’ll do that.”

When she was gone, Shelton turned back to Mordecai and said harshly, “Well?”

“You gonna have some visitors in a few minutes,” Mordecai said. “Jack Roland and some of his pards just rode into town. I talked to ’em in the Prairie Queen.”

Shelton didn’t smile, but a look of grim satisfaction came over his face.

“So they’re here, are they? That was fast. But with what I’m paying, I expect fast service.”

Mordecai struggled to control his temper.

“You admit that you hired those…those gunfighters to come here? They’re nothin’ but hired killers, Mr. Shelton. Are you gonna send ’em after Tom Gentry and the rest of his family?”

“You have that backward, Deputy,” Shelton replied. “I hired Roland and his friends as bodyguards. They’re here to protect Virginia.”

Mordecai frowned in confusion and asked, “Protect her from what?”

“Tom Gentry sent a note to her asking to see her. He’s contrite now and wants to try to talk her into giving him another chance. But if he can’t, he intends to take her with him anyway, back out to that ranch. He says that’s his right, since she’s his wife.”

Mordecai stared at the man.

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I read the note when one of the Gentrys’ ranch hands delivered it, of course. I didn’t let Virginia see it. That boy has caused her enough trouble.”

“But you didn’t think to come tell me about it? You took it on yourself to hire some gunslingers instead?”

“Bodyguards,” Shelton said again, this time with a thin, cold smile.

“You said the other day you were gonna get even with Tom Gentry. You said you knew folks in Wichita—”

Shelton waved a hand.

“You can’t put much stock in something said in the heat of the moment, Deputy. I’m not interested in vengeance, only in the safety of my wife and daughter.”

The man was lying, and Mordecai knew it. Shelton had to have sent for those gun wolves
before
Tom Gentry sent that note to town, and the only reason to send for Jack Roland and men of his ilk was because you wanted somebody dead.

Roland and the other gunnies were already here in Redemption, so it was too late to do anything about that. Mordecai asked, “Did that note say when Tom Gentry was gonna come to town and try to talk to Miss Virginia?”

“Tomorrow,” Shelton said. “Tomorrow at noon.”

That didn’t give Mordecai very long to ward off the trouble, but he had to try. He said, “I’m askin’ you, as a favor to the law, to tell Roland and those other fellas to turn around and ride back to Wichita, Mr. Shelton.”

“I can’t do that, Deputy. I can’t take a chance on my daughter being harmed any more than she already has been.”

The answer didn’t surprise Mordecai. He nodded and turned to leave.

Shelton said, “There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt, Deputy. Tomorrow you should stick close to the marshal’s office.”

“Sorry, Mr. Shelton, but I can’t do that.”

Shelton shrugged and said, “I suppose we all have things we can’t do…and things that we have to do.”

It was dusk by the time Mordecai reached the Gentry ranch. After leaving Walter Shelton, he had gone straight to the livery stable where Josiah Hartnett’s hostler had saddled his horse. Then he’d fogged it out here, knowing that this errand probably wasn’t going to bear any more fruit than the last one had.

A couple of men on horseback rode out to meet him as he approached the ranch house. He recognized one of them as one of Tom Gentry’s brothers, but he didn’t know which of the young men was which. The other man was one of Burk Gentry’s hands.

“Hold up, Deputy,” the Gentry boy said. “What brings you out here?”

“I got to talk to your brother,” Mordecai snapped.

“You mean Thurmond?” the youngster asked with a cocky smile. “What’s he gone and done now?”

“Dadgum it,” Mordecai said. “You know which brother I mean.”

The boy shrugged and inclined his head toward the house, which was still a hundred yards away.

“Come on, then.”

By the time Mordecai pulled rein in front of the house, Tom Gentry and his father had come out onto the porch. Tom stood with his hands tucked in his back pockets, his stance casual. He didn’t look like the sort of hombre who would do what he’d done to his wife, but Mordecai was old enough to understand that you couldn’t tell what someone was capable of just by looking at them.

“What are you doin’ here, Deputy?” Burk Gentry asked. He glared at Mordecai with undisguised hostility.