Wicked Wyoming Nights (53 page)

“Ira! Eliza!” It was Croley screaming down below.

“Stay down,” Eliza whispered urgently.

“If you don’t come down, I’ll come after you.”

“Go on, get out if you can,” Ira urged. “I’ll see if I can hold him off.” He took her hands in his and kissed them. “I’ve been a great fool. It took that beast down there to make me see what I should have seen ten years ago, but it’s too late now. Don’t make the cost of my stupidity any greater than it already is.”

Eliza could hardly see for the tears. “You can straighten this out after we get out of here,” she said, forcing him to his feet.

“I can’t,” he said pitifully.

“You must,” Eliza commanded harshly.

Croley spotted them when they moved out into the open, but they were beyond the range of his gun and his bullets expended themselves harmlessly on the rocks.

“I’ll kill you when I get my hands on you,” Croley shouted, and began to climb up after them.

“I can’t go any farther,” Ira said kneeling in the dust. “You’ve got to go for help. Listen to me,” he insisted when Eliza started to refuse once more.

“It’s you he wants, and it’s you he’ll hurt. Get out and bring help. That man of yours can’t be far away. He’ll know what to do. He always has.”

Still Eliza hesitated. They were little more than half the way up the canyon wall.

“You know it’s the only way.”

“Hide,” Eliza said. “He’ll never catch me once I get to the top. I brought a buggy.” She gave her uncle a quick kiss and began climbing as fast as she could; Below Croley climbed rapidly up after her, bellowing his fury as he went. Eliza climbed frantically, but she was exhausted from carrying Ira, and the last of the climb was so steep, she was barely able to make any progress and Croley gained on her. She looked back often to gauge his progress, to see if she could gain the rim before he reached her, but he was gaining much too fast. He would catch her.

The pistol! It was still in her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at it stupidly. She had never fired any kind of gun, but she had only one bullet and it was her only chance. She leaned against a rock and steadied her shaking hand against its surface. There was no time to remember that it was another human being she was trying to kill, no time to force down the bile rising in her throat. There was only time for one shot, and she had to make it count. Carefully, she took aim and squeezed the trigger. The shock of the recoil caused the pistol to fly from her hands, but it didn’t matter; the bullet had missed Croley and he was climbing with redoubled fury.

“Run, Eliza” her uncle’s voice called out. “I’ll stop him.” With the last of his strength, Ira raised a rock above his head and threw it at Croley. It fell uselessly short.

“Nobody’s going to stop me,” Croley spat, and shot Ira again. This time Ira did not move. Eliza screamed, caught between her desire to go back to her uncle and the realization she must still try to escape, knowing Croley was bound to catch her either way. She was only twenty feet from the rim of the canyon, but Croley was less than that distance away from her and climbing twice as fast. Eliza’s strength was gone; she was trapped.

In that instant a huge body came catapulting over the rim of the canyon, leaping down the side with the agility of a mountain goat, his enormous strength providing the only inspiration Eliza needed.

“Cord!” It was at once a cry of relief, exultation, and warning. He stopped only long enough to see her bruised and bloodied face before descending on Croley in a whirlwind of fury. Blaine saw death staring him in the face and his anger turned to fear; the repeated click of his gun told him he had used his last bullet on Ira. The old man had saved both Eliza and Cord.

Cord’s hurtling body hit Croley with the force of a charging steer, knocked him to the ground, and drove every ounce of breath from his body. Cord’s hands closed around Croley’s throat as they rolled over and over sending rocks catapulting down the cliff into the pass. They came to a jarring halt, lodged behind a rock a short distance above Ira, yet Cord’s hands still encircled Croley’s throat; Croley’s face turned black and his body thrashed about in its death agony, but the remorseless grip did not lessen, and the last thing Croley Blaine saw was the face of the one man he had never been able to defeat.

The body went limp, and Cord stood up, the mask of murderous rage relaxed at last. He returned quickly to Eliza, but she sped past him to where Ira lay. She knelt beside the inert body and gently smoothed the hair from his brow; miraculously his eyes opened once more.

“Croley?” he asked as she cradled his head in her arms.

“He’s dead,” she told him.

“And Cord?”

“He’s right here. He’s all right.”

Ira closed his eyes. “Then I haven’t been a failure at everything,” he whispered, and breathed his last.

Wracking sobs shook Eliza’s exhausted body. None of his selfishness and cruelty mattered now. He was the man she had lived with for ten years, the person who had protected her and provided for her as she grew to womanhood, and his death was a grievous loss.

Cord came up behind her, but he made no attempt to comfort her. She was grieving for years he had taken no part in, and she must do it alone.

Somehow Eliza sensed his presence, and her weeping abated. “He looks peaceful now,” she said without looking up, “like he’s glad to be free of this world.” She dabbed uncaringly at her eyes with her torn sleeve. “I guess that’s what he wanted all along. All his anger was just unhappiness at being separated from Aunt Sarah and Grant.”

Mechanically she straightened his tie. “He saved our lives, you know, me down there and you up here.” His fancy coat was bunched under him, and she tugged at it until it was free, then took great care to make sure it was straight. “He said he was sorry for what he did to both of us. He tried to help me get away, even though he knew Croley would kill him.” She raised her eyes to Cord, and her lips started to tremble uncontrollably. “I guess maybe he loved me after all.”

“Just about every rustler we were looking for is here,” Franklin observed as the column of bound men paraded past.

“They were easy to catch after Mr. Stedman started that rock slide,” Sheriff Hooker said. “Those boys by the river had them in their sights when they came running out from behind the boulders. Simple as rounding up milk cows after that. And no more than a few flesh wounds to show for it.”

Franklin gestured to Eliza and Joe Hooker fell silent. It was impossible for any of the men to enjoy their triumph in the face of Eliza’s grief. He’d never seen anyone look so pitiful as she did when she stumbled down that hill, following behind Cord as he carried her uncle’s lifeless body in his arms. They could fetch Croley’s body later. It would be indecent to force her to carry her uncle’s murderer in the same wagon. Poor girl. With someone she loved on both sides of the conflict, she was bound to get hurt, but he couldn’t see any call for Croley to beat her like that. And her not the kind to hurt a fly.

He sighed. Oh, well, she was about to be married. She’d get over it. It was often violent in. Wyoming, and people learned to recover from their losses quickly. She would too.

Chapter 39

Eliza continued to be listless. Her uncle bad been buried a week earlier and nearly all traces of her brutal beating were healed, but there seemed to be a wound inside her that would not respond to any kind of treatment. The whole town had turned out for the funeral, and she had had as many visitors as Ella and Lucy would allow, but she’d continued to be uninterested in anything.

Cord had come to see her every day, making plans for the biggest wedding ever seen in Buffalo, and she’d languidly agreed to everything he said.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her” Ella told Cord for the dozenth time. “From the way she’s carrying on, you’d think that old man treated her like a precious treasure instead of a slave.”

“He made his peace with her before he died.”

“It’s easy to say nice words when you know you’re not going to have to live up to them,” Ella said uncharitably. “He was nasty when he was alive, and I don’t see any reason to think he would have been any different now.”

“I don’t care about Ira, then or now,” Cord replied shortly. “I just want Eliza back on her feet again. I never saw her look so miserable.”

“You never saw her lose her only living relative before either.”

“I suppose you’re anxiously awaiting your wedding day,” Jessica Burton said coldly, sitting rigidly across the width of Ella’s parlor from Eliza.

“Of course she is,” Ella answered for her. “Every girl looks forward to her wedding.”

“You couldn’t tell it to look at her,” Jessica replied with a tight smile. “She looks positively haggard. Not at all like someone who has just cornered the most eligible bachelor in the state.”

“She did that long ago, when you were still thinking he was just a cowboy grown too big for his britches.”

“Gossip has it Cord had lost interest, that she got up that posse to keep from losing him.”

Eliza looked stricken.

“Who dared to spread such a lie?” Ella demanded, rising majestically from her chair. “Just tell me their name and I’ll see they don’t spread any more.”

“My dear Ella,” Jessica tittered with false sympathy, “you may be able to intimidate people with your overpowering personality, but you can’t stop them from talking. And they always say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“The only fire you’re going to see is the one I light under your tail feathers, Jessica Burton, if you repeat one word of that malicious gossip.”

“How dare you,” retorted Jessica, swelling with indignation.

“Easy,” Ella fired back. “Especially when you come into my house intending to mortify this child just because she got the man you couldn’t trap for Melissa. Yes, you can color up, but everybody’s been gossiping about that too. You got your own back when Cord started his own bank and took away half your customers. After what he’s done now, I expect he’ll get the other half.”

“Sanford’s customers are most loyal,” Jessica said emphatically.

“What you mean is Cord wouldn’t do business with the half of them. You don’t fool me, Jessica Burton. You came here meaning to be nasty because you know you won’t be undisputed queen of Buffalo any longer. Eliza’s gone and pushed you right off that pedestal you built for yourself. Well, you’ve got no one but yourself to thank for putting her mere, you with your pushing and shoving ways and Sanford’s determination to corner every dollar in the county.”

“Please,” begged Eliza, feeling like her head was going to burst. “I don’t want to replace anybody, and I don’t want to be queen of anything. All I want is to be left alone.”

“I can assure you that I shall grant your wish,” declaimed Jessica, slamming out of the house with none of her habitual majesty.

“Forget everything that old biddy said,” Ella ordered, shepherding Eliza off to bed. “You get a nice nap and men I’ll fix you some supper.”

“You don’t have to watch over me so. I can still take care of myself.”

“I know that, but your ideas and mine don’t seem to fit too well these days. You used to be the sweetest, most biddable gal, but here lately you’ve become as slippery as a cake of wet soap. All I have to do is turn my back, and you’re up to your neck in trouble.”

“Is there ever going to be any peace here, Ella? It seems ever since I came to this town, everyone’s been fighting everybody else. I’m sick of the killing and I’m sick of living in fear of what’s going to happen next. My uncle is dead, but he might still be alive if I hadn’t fallen in love with the one man he hated. I saw Cord kill a man, and not just some stranger. He killed a man I knew, a man who talked to me and even shared meals with me. And who knows when he’ll have to do it again. Now, just when I think the fighting’s all over, it’s starting all over, only it’s a different kind. Does it ever end?”

“Not for the likes of Jessica. She won’t ever forgive you for being more beautiful than her daughter and getting the man she wanted for a son-in-law. And she won’t forgive Cord for taking away her husband’s customers and choosing you for his wife. Jessica will never be happy unless everything about her family is better than anything anybody else has.”

“All I want is to be left alone to marry Cord and have his children. I don’t want to lead society or have people coming to me for things.”

“Neither you nor Cord is the kind to go after fame—or money, for that matter. All he wanted was his own ranch and you. All you wanted was Cord. But Fate put both of you in the way of great things, and when others were backing away or hurrying to do nothing, you pushed ahead and emerged the winners. You have so much courage and talent and determination you’re always going to be successful at what you do, and people will just naturally look up to you.”

“I don’t think I can stand it,” Eliza said with a hiccupping sob. “This country makes everybody hard and brutal, killing before they can be killed, thinking only of their possessions instead of the human lives being wasted on every side. I can’t live like this. It’ll drive me crazy.”

“You will because you must,” Ella assured her. “You’re still in low spirits because of your uncle, and unless I miss my guess, you’re feeling guilty at finding yourself the owner of a prosperous saloon and rooming house. You can soothe your conscience knowing you had nothing to do with your uncle’s death, and there wouldn’t be any saloon or rooming house if it wasn’t for your singing. Now you get some sleep. You’ve got to stop tormenting yourself with all this thinking and worrying. I don’t say it’s not a bitter draught to swallow, but swallow it you must.”