by Ana Seymour
Neither Molly nor Susannah seemed surprised that Max had accompanied the men to the hotel. Evidently whatever the relationship between Smokey and the bathhouse owner, it had been simmering for some time. Molly seemed genuinely happy to see Max as the older woman engulfed her in a hug.
The two days of hard work had given the Lucky Stars crew healthy appetites and, without asking, Molly ordered steaks for everyone. Parker handed his menu back to the waiter in amusement. It was the first time since he’d been out of knee breeches that a woman had ordered his food for him.
“So, Molly,” Max boomed. “Parker tells me you saved this butchering old cook here from cutting off his ears over a little case of frostbite.”
Molly leaned back in the chair, relaxed, a rare smile smoothing out the tension in her face. “It wasn’t a little case, Max. They were a sight to see.”
“Can’t tell under all that shaggy hair. Show me them ears, boy,” Max ordered.
Parker grinned and pulled the hair up on both sides of his head. “They’re a little purple yet, but I’m kind of getting to like the color myself.”
“He was very lucky,” Susannah said fervently. “He could have died.”
She and Parker exchanged smiles that were so tangible, it was almost as if they had touched hands across the table. Max watched the exchange with interest, noting that Molly’s own smile had faded a little.
“So. What’s this I hear about Lucky Stars cattle wandering around all over the place?”
“Tarnation, woman,” Smokey put in. “Is there anything you don’t hear about? You must spend half your time kneeling down with your ear to the ground.”
Max flicked him a good-natured glance, the look of friends who no longer need to pay attention to the courtesies of conventional conversation. Then she continued to Molly. “The Dickerson brothers were over at the Grizzly mouthing off about how you’re bringing rack and ruin down on what was the finest spread in the region.”
“The Dickerson brothers can go jump off a cliff,” Molly retorted. “It’s not unusual for a ranch to suffer some setbacks when the owner dies. We’ll get back on our feet. We just need time.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Smokey said with an admiring look at his boss. “No matter how tough things get, this little filly is not giving up on her ranch. She’ll see herself planted in the ground next to her pa before she does.”
“Sometimes a little determination is all it takes,” Max declared with approval.
“And sometimes it takes a bit of money to go along with it,” Molly muttered under her breath. But by then the steaks had arrived and there was a general lull in the conversation while everyone began eating.
After they filled up on the well-done beef, boiled potatoes and onions, talk turned light, even a little silly at times. Parker made them laugh with tales of his adventures when he had first come West, a raw novice who couldn’t so much as skin a rabbit for a meal. He’d lived on jerky and cold biscuits for the first month until he’d finally gotten the hang of cooking over an open fire. His first attempt at roasting a duck he’d shot had left nothing but a few charred bones, burned beyond recognition.
“I knew you were a pilgrim the minute I laid eyes on you,” Max said, laughing and wiping her eyes. Then she winked at him and he smiled back at her in a secret conspiracy that said neither of them would reveal he’d been buck naked when she first saw him.
No one seemed eager to leave the table, but finally, after finishing their cups of the Grand’s potent coffee, Max yawned and said, “Unless I get a better offer, I’m heading for my bed.”
Parker held Susannah’s chair as they all got up to leave the nearly empty dining room. As they walked through the archway into the tiny hotel lobby, they saw a crowd gathered outside on the sidewalk.
“I wonder what’s going on?” Susannah said, pulling Parker along with her out the front door.
It had to be close to eight o’clock, a time when the street would be empty most evenings except over in front of the Grizzly Bear, but tonight it seemed there were people everywhere. Sheriff Benton stood teetering on the edge of a horse trough and appeared to be trying to get the attention of the crowd.
Molly made her way over in his direction. Jeremy Dickerson and his father were standing just behind him. “What is it, Sheriff?” she asked.
He looked down at her, seeming annoyed by the interruption. “There’s been a killing, Miss Hanks. Nothing you ladies should be involved in. Why don’t you ride on back to your ranch?”
“A killing?”
Jeremy took a step toward her. “A murder. One of our hands, Johnny the Oyster, has been found dead in the alley behind the Grizzly, shot in the back.”
“Good Lord,” Molly said, clutching her throat. Susannah, Parker and Smokey had come up behind her.
“Do you know who did it?” Smokey asked the sheriff.
Again Jeremy answered for him. “It was Ole Pedersson.”
Smokey pushed forward. “Ole wouldn’t hurt a horsefly, much less kill someone. And anyway, his brain is too pickled in liquor to be able to shoot a man. Hell, he doesn’t even have a gun.”
“He was seen leaving the alley, and he’s fled out of town on Jack Whittaker’s horse.”
Smokey shook his head sadly. “Something must have scared him pretty badly to make him do that. But I can’t believe he’s your killer.”
Sheriff Benton took his revolver from its holster and fired a shot in the air. The crowd became suddenly quiet. “All right, folks, it’s getting late, and a murderer is getting away,” he yelled. “Everyone who went with the posse last year when we pursued the Farrow brothers is hereby deputized to go along again. Do we have everyone?”
The older Dickerson said, “Ned didn’t come in with us tonight. I don’t know where’s he’s gotten off to.”
“We’ll have to go without him,” the sheriff said. “Anyone else missing?”
Like other towns in the Wyoming territory, Canyon City relied on a system of vigilante justice to deal with its miscreants. The sheriff’s sweeping deputization had no foundation in the law, but it eased consciences now and then. When a posse was needed, it was expected that each of the ranches would send a man or two. Molly’s father had ridden out on several occasions.
“You’ll need someone from the Lucky Stars,” Molly said in a loud voice.
Sheriff Benton looked from her to Smokey, then briefly at Parker. “That’s all right, Miss Hanks. We all know that Charlie’s gone. We won’t hold you to any obligation until you have a man out on the place again.”
“We’ll do our part,” Molly said firmly.
Benton’s eyes went back to Parker. “We don’t like to take strangers along….”
She took a step closer and puffed out her chest a little as she looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I don’t reckon I’m a stranger, am I, Sheriff?”
Chapter Eight
Jeremy stepped to her side and took hold of her upper arm. “Don’t be ridiculous, Molly. You’re not riding on any posse.”
Molly was feeling no charity toward the Dickerson family tonight after what Max had had to say. Jeremy was the only man who had ever shown the remotest interest in her, and even though she had told herself that his interest was largely due to the ranch, some vestiges of vanity had made her hope that he had wanted her for herself, as well. He’d certainly said so often enough. So it had hurt tonight when Max had said he and his father were disparaging her abilities to operate her ranch. It had hurt more than she wanted to think about. She pulled away from him. “Let go of me, Jeremy. This is the second time this week you’ve tried to tell me what I can and cannot do, and I suggest that you don’t try a third time.”
Hiram Dickerson interjected in a conciliatory tone, “Now, Molly, you and Susannah shouldn’t even be out here on the street. We have a murderer still at large. Why don’t you have Smokey and your new man there escort you back to your ranch before anything happens?”
Smokey stepped forward. �
�He’s right, Molly lass. Let’s get on home.”
Molly shook her head. “If there’s a town posse riding out, the owner of the Lucky Stars is going to be riding with it.”
Smokey gave a sigh of resignation and called over the crowd, “Can you reason with her, Max?”
The bathhouse owner had stayed in the background, but when Smokey called to her she moved through the people and put an arm around Molly’s shoulders. “You don’t have to do this, Molly.”
“Maybe not. But I’m going to.”
Molly looked dwarfed in the big woman’s embrace. Parker felt a quick catch in his chest as he watched her trying once again to take on all corners, her shoulders drawn up as high as she could get them, yet still looking slender in her big coat. So far, Parker had stayed out of the argument. Molly had plenty of advisers at the moment. But he hoped that for once she would give an inch on that stubbornness of hers and listen to them. After watching her the past two days with the cattle, he had no doubt that she could ride as hard and as fast as any of the men who were at this moment mounting up to start their hunt. But he hated to think of what she might have to face when they reached their quarry. He’d seen vigilante justice in the Black Hills, and sometimes it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Molly pulled away from Max. “You’re all just wasting time railing at me when we should be out hunting a murderer,” she said. She pushed through the crowd to where her horse was tied to the hotel hitching post and began to untie him. “I’ll need the rifle, Smokey,” she said over her shoulder.
Smokey shrugged and laid a comforting hand on Max’s back. “Thanks for trying,” he said, then followed his mistress over to the railing. “No, you won’t. If someone needs to go from the Lucky Stars, I guess it’s going to be me.”
“No, I’ll go,” Parker said quickly.
Molly whirled around, reins in her hand. “Neither of you will go. You’ll take Susannah back to the ranch immediately. Mary Beth’s all by herself. You think I’d leave my sisters unprotected when there’s a killer around somewhere?”
Smokey and Parker looked at each other, hesitating, but Molly didn’t wait for a decision. She reached over to Smokey’s horse, pulled the rifle out of its stock and transferred it to her own saddle. Then she mounted her horse and started to turn it toward the center of the street, causing both men to jump aside in order not to be trampled.
Smokey shook his head. “I guess she’s going,” he said, his mouth twisting up his beard in annoyance.
Parker watched for a minute as Molly rode across the street to the group of men gathering in front of the sheriff’s office. Then he walked around Smokey to swiftly untie Susannah’s horse and his own. “Come on,” he said tersely. “Let’s get out to the ranch and be sure Mary Beth’s all right.”
Parker’s partner, Gabe Hatch, had tried to teach him the rudiments of tracking back in the Black Hills, but without much luck. It had frustrated Parker nearly as much as the cattle herding these past two days. He was used to excelling at most things, whether they took brain or brawn. Within weeks of arriving out West he’d learned to operate a mine, to shoot a squirrel through the head from fifty paces, to drink half the men at Big Jim’s place under the table. But he seemed to lack some kind of inner sense when it came to directions and pathfinding. Gabe had bought him a compass finally, and had half-seriously told him to leave a trail of pebbles behind him when he was going to venture farther from his cabin than the creek.
But tonight Parker dared to hope that, for once, he was on the right track. The posse had headed out on the road south, figuring that Ole was probably too drunk to take to the hills. If they stayed on the broad, well-traveled highway, a blind man should be able to find them, Parker told himself.
He and Smokey had ridden hard back to the ranch with Susannah. He’d stopped long enough to be sure that Mary Beth was safely asleep in her bed and to change horses, then he’d headed out to catch up with the posse. He’d left Smokey keeping watch in the big ranch kitchen, two rifles and a six-gun laid out on the table in easy reach. If Ole Pedersson was the killer, the precautions were probably unnecessary. Smokey had insisted once again that there was no way Ole could have killed anyone. But the Dickerson cowhand lay dead, and there was a murderer out there somewhere.
Parker pulled a wool scarf up around his tender ears as he rode along. It was past midnight, and the air had turned sharply icy. He wasn’t quite sure what had driven him to follow her. Molly’s orders had been plain enough—he was to stay on the ranch with her sisters. Perhaps it had been something about the way Jeremy Dickerson had taken her arm so roughly, and with such an air of ownership. At any rate, he was sure she wouldn’t thank him for coming.
The flat prairie landscape turned hilly about five miles south of Canyon City. The road was still broad, but now it weaved a little with the natural curves of the land. Parker’s cheeks felt numb with the cold and he was beginning to have doubts about his impulse to ride out. All he needed was another bout with frostbite after disobeying Molly’s express orders to go home. She’d have his hide this time, he thought with a grin, ears and all.
He’d almost become convinced that the posse had left the road after all and that he must have ridden past them when he heard the sound of horses and male voices just ahead around a sudden outcropping of limestone that had sprung up from nowhere. The moonlight reflected eerily off the light-colored rock, making it look not quite real.
He spurred his horse ahead. On the other side of the promontory he found them. They had stopped and were gathered around a place where the rocks folded to form a natural shelter. Many of the men were dismounted. They must have found Ole, Parker surmised. He squinted his eyes in the darkness, looking for Molly.
But it wasn’t Molly he saw. A sick feeling swirled at the pit of his stomach. He rode forward, his eyes on a scraggly tree that jutted out straight from the rocks about eight feet from the ground. A long dark form twisted slowly back and forth just under its thickest branch. The form was a human being, and it hung suspended from a length of hemp that had been looped around his neck.
As he drew closer, he could make out the man’s features—his eyes open and bulging, his tongue lolling unnaturally to one side of thinned, purplish lips. Parker had never met Ole Pedersson in life, but he hoped the face he was looking at bore little resemblance. He searched in the darkness for Molly, and found her finally, over near the side of the rock face. Jeremy Dickerson was standing behind her, holding both her arms. She didn’t seem to be putting up any resistance, and for a moment Parker couldn’t tell if he was restraining her or comforting her. But then she spoke.
Her voice was furious. “This isn’t over, Jeremy. I intend to report—”
“Report to whom?” Dickerson said calmly. “I told you that you shouldn’t have come with us, Molly. This is a matter for men to deal with.”
“This is a matter for courts to deal with,” she said fiercely.
Parker dismounted and pushed his way toward her through the group of men. “Are you all right, Molly?” he asked in a loud voice.
For a moment he thought she looked pleased to see him, but then her face twisted into a scowl and she said, “You’re supposed to be with my sisters.”
“Your sisters are fine. Smokey’s waiting up with a whole arsenal ready to defend them if necessary. What went on here?”
Belatedly, Molly realized that Jeremy was still holding her against him. The past half hour had been such a shock that she still felt as if her head was not quite attached to the rest of her body. She twisted out of his grasp. She hated to admit it, but Parker’s face was like a little piece of sanity in the nightmarish scene.
“Are you all right, Molly?” he asked again in a softer tone as he reached her side.
She took a step away from Dickerson, keeping her head averted from the figure that still swayed grotesquely a few feet away. “No, I’m not. I’m horrified and disgusted, as every one of the rest of you should be,” she finished, glaring at the half-dozen me
n who were nearest to her. “You all may have just lynched an innocent man.”
Harv Overstreet, who held the ranch on the other side of the Lazy D, said, “I guess we all knew Ole would come to no good one of these days. If he didn’t do it, why did he run away?”
“Of course he did it,” Hiram Dickerson added. “Not much point in wasting time on a trial for the town drunk.”
Molly looked at both men, her face as hard as the limestone wall behind her. “If my father were still here, this would never have happened.”
“Where’s the sheriff?” Parker asked.
Molly gave a harsh laugh. “In his bed, I suppose. He left so that the men could act as a vigilante committee, acting on their own in the absence of any available legal means.”
“Did he know they were planning to do this?” His eyes darted involuntarily to the hanged man.
“What business is it of yours, Prescott?” Jeremy asked. He had moved away from the cliff and was standing with his hands hanging loosely at his sides. A revolver was strapped to his right hip.
Some primitive side of Parker wished that he, too, had been wearing a gun belt. Dickerson had made it pretty plain that there would never be an understanding between the two of them, and if he’d wanted to settle it then and there, that would have been all right with Parker. He had little doubt who would end up standing after such a contest. He’d seen plenty of gunmen come and go in Deadwood, and there wasn’t a one faster than Gabe Hatch. Gabe had been Parker’s teacher, and, before the lessons were over, Parker could outdraw him nine times out of ten.
But he’d followed the posse to find Molly, not to fight with her neighbor. Under her angry expression, her normally tan face was pale. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to her.
She nodded and swung up onto her horse, her fists clenched tightly in its mane. Parker led the way through the posse members. Molly looked back once as they started around the rocks to head north. Harv Overstreet and two other men were cutting the limp body of Ole Pedersson down from the tree.