“Settle down,” the man warned in a gravelly voice, “or I’ll squeeze you and bust ever’ bone in your body, kid.”
Luke moved in, poked the Henry’s barrel into the man’s back, and said, “I don’t think so. Now let him go.”
The man looked over his shoulder at Luke. His face was lumpy and misshapen, and his ears stuck out at right angles to his head. He sneered defiantly. “I don’t know who you are, mister, but you just made one hell of a mistake.”
“I’m that boy’s friend,” Luke snapped, “and you’re not going to hurt him.”
“I might hurt you.”
“You’re welcome to try, any time you want.” Luke pushed harder with the Henry’s barrel.
The man’s craggy face twisted even more with hatred, but he loosened his grip on Aaron. The boy dropped to the floor, lost his balance, and fell to his knees.
Thad had caught his breath, glared at his brother, and demanded, “What the hell did you think you were doin’? Why’d you start hittin’ me that way?”
“Because you’ve got it comin’!” Aaron raged back at him, fighting to hold back sniffles. “You never should’ve run off and left Ma and me in the lurch like you did.”
“You don’t know nothin’ about it. You don’t know what I was goin’ through.”
“The hell I don’t! I was right there, too, remember?” Aaron struggled to his feet. “What about Pa? Is he here?”
Stockbridge nodded toward Aaron and said to Luke, “This boy is Three-fingered Jack’s son as well?”
Luke nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the man whose back he had poked with the rifle. He still had the Henry pointed in that hombre’s direction. “That’s right.”
“And are you a member of the family? An uncle, perhaps?”
“Just a friend,” Luke said. “I was headed in this direction anyway, so when the kid asked me if he could come along, I told him all right.”
“And now Ma’s there alone,” Thad said accusingly.
“You abandoned us first,” Aaron shot back at him.
Thad ignored that and frowned at Luke. “You’re no friend of the family, mister. I never laid eyes on you before.”
“That’s because you’ve been gone for a while.” Aaron jerked a thumb toward Luke and went on. “Him and Ma, well, they’ve been courtin’ lately.” He was just making that up off the top of his head, Luke knew, but he supposed the story was believable enough. Amelia McKinney was certainly still an attractive woman. Luke wouldn’t have minded getting to know her better, under different circumstances, even though he had no interest in settling down at that point in his life.
If there had ever been such a point, he reflected, it had surely come and gone. Maybe all the way back in the spring of ’61, when he might have married the schoolteacher Lettie Margrabe if the Yankees hadn’t embarked on the War of Northern Aggression.
Luke pushed those fleeting memories out of his mind. He needed to concentrate on what was happening in the here and now in the Black Castle. If Thad McKinney was there, it was a good chance that Three-fingered Jack was, too.
“I don’t believe it,” Thad said in response to the bit of fiction Aaron had just come up with. “Ma’s still married to Pa. She would never take up with some other man.”
“Why not? For all she knows, Pa is dead, and you are, too!”
“I don’t care. It just wouldn’t be right!”
The jug-eared man ignored the McKinney brothers and pointed a blunt finger at Luke. “You and me got a score to settle, mister. I’m callin’ you out.”
“A gunfight?” Luke asked.
Stockbridge said, “Actually, since you were the one challenged just now, Luke, the choice of weapons in this duel is yours.”
“I don’t want to fight any damned duel. I didn’t come here for that.”
Stockbridge’s face hardened. “Unfortunately, you have no choice. There are rules here, you see, and the main one is that any offense to a man’s honor has to be settled.”
Luke let out a humorless grunt of laughter. “Maybe we should joust, then.”
“Don’t make fun of my heritage,” Stockbridge said. His voice was dangerous.
“My apologies,” Luke said immediately. “I should take this seriously.”
“Indeed you should.”
“So if the choice of weapons is mine . . . I choose bare hands.”
A grin spread across his opponent’s face. “I’ll break you in half, mister, and I’ll enjoy every second of it.”
“We’ll see.” Luke had thought about declaring that guns or knives were his weapon of choice, but he didn’t necessarily want to kill this man. Whipping him in a hand-to-hand battle might be enough to settle things.
At the same time, he didn’t expect his opponent to hold back any. The man intended to kill him . . . and he just might do it.
“I still want to know if Pa’s here,” Aaron said.
“I can answer that,” a new voice spoke up from elsewhere in the room.
Luke turned to look. The man who had spoken had come into the hall through the same door Luke, Aaron, and Stockbridge had used earlier. He was an inch or so under medium height, slender, and had a close-cropped brown beard. At first glance he wasn’t very impressive to look at, but then Luke noticed the piercing, deep-set eyes surrounded by lines of experience that hard years had put there. This man had plenty of drive and leadership lurking within him despite his rather mild-looking exterior, and Luke was sure that under the right circumstances, his true personality would come out like a brilliant flame burning through a flimsy barrier.
Luke wasn’t a bit surprised when Aaron cried, “Pa!”
For one thing, he had noted that the little finger and ring finger of the newcomer’s left hand were missing.
It probably took a lot to shake Jack McKinney’s calm demeanor, but he was upset at the sight of his younger son. As he walked closer, he said, “Aaron, is that really you? I . . . I can’t believe it.”
Aaron’s face was a study in mixed emotions. Obviously, he wanted to run to his long-lost father and embrace him. At the same time, anger had driven him to come on this quest, and that same anger, currently directed at his father, still blazed inside him. He recovered from his initial shock at seeing McKinney and said, “I’m surprised you still remember me, Pa. You’ve been gone a long time, and I was just a little kid when you ran off and abandoned us.”
McKinney stopped short and looked like he’d been slapped, which was probably just what Aaron intended.
From behind, Thad cuffed his little brother on the side of the head. “Don’t talk like that to him. You don’t know a damn thing. He’s your old man. Show him some respect.”
Aaron turned fiercely toward Thad, hands clenching into fists. “I’ll show you—”
“Boys.” McKinney’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp enough to stop Aaron from swinging a punch. “Both of you stop it.” He walked toward them again and came to a stop where he could look Aaron up and down. “You’ve grown a lot. Look like a mighty fine boy.”
“No thanks to you,” Aaron snapped.
McKinney smiled sadly. “Yeah, you hate me, don’t you? You think you’ve got good cause to, and you know what? Maybe you do.”
“No, Pa,” Thad said quickly. “He’s just a dumb kid—”
McKinney held up his maimed left hand to stop his older son. “Aaron’s got a right to feel whatever he wants to, just like you did when you decided to come looking for me. I never wanted you to do that, remember? That was all your idea.”
“It’s best we’re together again,” Thad argued. “Family belongs together.”
“Well, now I’m here, too,” Aaron said, “and by God, if the two of you are gonna be outlaws, then so am I!”
CHAPTER 21
Jack McKinney stared at his younger son for a couple of seconds before he started shaking his head. “That’s loco. You’re just a boy.”
Aaron pointed at Thad and said, “I’m only four years yo
unger than him. If he’s old enough, so am I.”
“Absolutely not—”
“This family discussion will have to wait, Jack,” Henry Stockbridge interrupted. “I promised our new arrivals food and coffee. Why don’t you join us?”
McKinney looked warily at Aaron and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. But we’ve got a lot to talk about.” He glanced over at Luke. “Such as who this hombre is.”
Thad said, “Aaron claims he’s Ma’s new beau.”
Well, that impulsive move on Aaron’s part had just backfired nicely, Luke thought. McKinney looked at him with a mixture of anger and regret. “Is that true?”
Since the fiction was established, Luke decided it would be best to play along with it for now. “A man who would ride off and leave such a woman behind doesn’t have any right to complain when someone else appreciates her, my friend.”
“We’re not friends,” McKinney said coldly. “If you’ve been looking out for my boy, I’m obliged to you for that, but you never should’ve brought him here and you shouldn’t go sniffing around other men’s wives.”
“Don’t insult her by talking about her in such a degrading fashion.”
Stockbridge held up his hands and said impatiently, “Gentlemen! I’ve already told you that you can talk about all these domestic matters later.”
The massive, jug-eared man pointed at Luke and asked, “What about him and me settlin’ our grudge?”
“You can join us for dinner, Creager, if you’d like, and we’ll determine the particulars of that matter. If you promise to behave in a decent manner.”
“I’ll behave,” Creager rumbled, but he didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea.
It was going to be a mighty uncomfortable meal, Luke mused. A jealous husband, a vicious outlaw, and a mad Englishman who fancied himself a knight for dinner companions . . .
He supposed he had been in worse situations, but he couldn’t remember when.
* * *
Three attractive young women served dinner—one Mexican, one Chinese, and a cool, slender blonde who, when she spoke, sounded like she came from back east somewhere. Philadelphia, maybe, Luke thought. How she came to be at the outlaw stronghold in the Arizona Territory badlands was quite a mystery, one Luke wouldn’t have minded solving, but he had more urgent matters on which to concentrate.
Stockbridge sat at the head of the long table. Three-fingered Jack McKinney was to his right, the burly Creager to his left. Thad was next to his father, and Aaron sat next to him. Luke would have taken a seat on that side of the table, but Stockbridge smiled and waved him into the chair beside Creager. The outlaw looked at him like a wolf casually regarding a lamb that he would get around to slaughtering later.
The food was decent—venison steaks, beans, potatoes, biscuits. The coffee was excellent, hot and strong the way Luke liked it.
As they ate, Stockbridge said to McKinney, “You remember old Badger O’Donnell, don’t you, Jack?”
“Sure,” McKinney replied. “What about him?”
Stockbridge pointed to Luke with the fork he held, a piece of fine silver that might have come from England. “Our new friend brought him in a short time ago. Badger was wounded in a fight with some Apache renegades. Dr. Mitchell is tending to him right now.”
McKinney frowned and said to Luke, “You did that?”
“Badger has become a friend in the short time I’ve known him. We fought side by side against the Apaches. If I could save his life, I was going to.”
“Well . . . I appreciate that. Everybody likes old Badger. We never pulled any jobs together, but we crossed trails now and then, usually here at the castle.”
Stockbridge smiled. “Everyone in these parts comes to the Black Castle sooner or later.”
Luke could believe that. He wondered for a second just how much all the reward money the place represented would add up to. Then he pushed the thought away. It would take an army of bounty hunters to capture the Black Castle and its inhabitants, and he wasn’t sure it would be possible even then.
Right now he was only interested in Jack McKinney. Somehow, he had to get McKinney away from the castle.
Without any apparent prompting except his own maliciousness, Creager leaned toward Luke and said, “I’m gonna rip your arms off and beat you to death with ’em, you son of a—”
“That’s not polite dinner conversation,” Stockbridge broke in. “Try not to be a complete brute, Creager.”
“You said we could talk about it. I want to know when I can kill this hombre.”
“You two can settle your differences this evening. Say, in the courtyard as the sun goes behind the western cliffs?”
“That’s hours from now,” Creager objected. “I want to tear him apart right now.”
“Postponed pleasures are often the sweetest.” Stockbridge’s voice hardened as if to signal that he wouldn’t tolerate any more disagreement. “Sundown it is.”
Creager grimaced but nodded in acceptance of that decree. He would have to wait for his bloody fun. The cruel grin he directed toward Luke made it clear that he was looking forward to it.
Dr. Mitchell came into the hall as they were finishing the meal. “I was told you fellows were in here and thought you’d like to know how Badger is doing.”
“Doing well, I hope,” Luke said.
Mitchell nodded. “Actually, yes. I was able to clean out the wound and found some blood vessels that hadn’t been cauterized, so I tied them off and that took care of the bleeding. Now we have to wait for the infection to clear up and the fever to break, but I’m guardedly optimistic that he’ll make a full recovery. He’s resting fairly peacefully now.”
“That’s excellent news, Doctor. Thank you.” Stockbridge waved toward the food still on the table. “There’s plenty if you’d care to join us.”
“Thank you, Sir Henry, but I’m a bit weary. I thought I’d go back to my quarters for a while.”
Remembering the smell of whiskey on the medico earlier, Luke suspected that Mitchell wanted a drink more than rest, but it didn’t matter. He was grateful for the man’s efforts and said, “You have my thanks as well, Doctor.”
“You didn’t do a bad job treating the injury. I think if you hadn’t run into more trouble, there’s a good chance Badger would have been all right.”
“That’s kind of you to say, but I’m not a professional.”
“Not at medicine, maybe,” Mitchell said, “but I’ll bet you provide a lot of work for doctors . . . and undertakers.”
Creager said, “He’ll be needin’ the services of a gravedigger when I get through with him, that’s for damn sure.”
“That’s enough, Creager,” Stockbridge said. “Your bluster has worn out its welcome.”
McKinney said, “Creager rides with me, Sir Henry. Does that mean I’m not welcome here anymore?”
Stockbridge shook his head. “I didn’t say anyone was no longer welcome here. I just think Creager should go somewhere else until the time for his appointment with Luke.” He scraped back his chair. “And I should leave you and your sons alone as well, since you have a great deal to talk about.”
“Thank you.” McKinney looked over at Luke. “You stay put. You’re part of this, too.”
“Not really,” Luke said.
“You brought Aaron here. You know my wife. I want you to stay.”
Luke wasn’t sure where else he would go. If he wandered around the Black Castle, Creager might lurk somewhere and wait for him, hoping to speed up their confrontation. Luke wasn’t afraid of the outlaw, but he didn’t see any point in hurrying things along. He shrugged and said, “All right.”
Stockbridge ushered Creager out of the hall. The outlaw cast a hate-filled look over his shoulder at Luke as he left the room. The servants topped off everyone’s coffee, and then they withdrew, as well.
McKinney lifted his cup and peered intently over the top of it at Luke. “I want the truth.”
“About?”
&n
bsp; “You and my wife.”
Luke’s response was truthful, although open to interpretation in some respects. “Mrs. McKinney is a fine woman. I admire her and would like to get to know her better, if circumstances ever permitted such a thing.”
“Does that mean that the two of you haven’t . . .” McKinney’s question trailed off as he glanced at his sons, both of whom looked uncomfortable at the course the conversation was taking.
“I try to conduct myself as a gentleman,” Luke snapped, “for what that’s worth. It seems to me that the one you should be talking to is your wife. But you’d have to go home in order to do that. What do you think, McKinney? Is it time to give up the outlaw trail?”
“You know I can’t do that,” he replied in a voice tinged with regret. Luke was a little surprised to see regret on the man’s face and in his eyes. Almost as if McKinney hadn’t wanted to abandon his home and family and take up an owlhoot’s life.
That was an intriguing thought, but one that Luke didn’t have time for. He said, “I’m not going to gossip, McKinney. You might as well accept that.”
McKinney turned to look at Aaron. “What about you? Do you have anything to say?”
“About Luke and Ma?” Aaron crossed his arms over his chest and glared stubbornly. “You’d do better worryin’ about the sheriff, Pa.”
“Collins?” Thad said. “Is he still mooning around?”
“You didn’t think he’d stop just because you ran off, did you?” Aaron asked. “Hell, he probably thought that’d just make Ma more likely to take him up on whatever he suggested.”
Distractedly, McKinney said, “Watch your language, boy. So Sheriff Collins has his eye on your ma, does he? I never liked that fella, badge or no badge.” He shook his head. “We’ll put that behind us for now. What in the world made you decide to try to find me, Aaron? Was it because Thad did?”
Thad said, “Don’t blame me for whatever this loco little kid did, Pa.”
Aaron started up out of his chair. “I’m not loco!”
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