by James, Terry
‘C-Cade,’ Jimmy stammered.
The Colt exploded in her hand. Glass shattered behind her. Smith – or Cade – fell back against the wall, blood spreading across his chest. His mouth opened in a question that wouldn’t come. She cringed as his eyes stared past her for a moment, widening with surprise, then his lashes fluttered and he slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER 15
Over at Becky’s café, Jake heard two shots close together, almost simultaneous. He rounded the bend in time to see Doc Bailey standing at the window, staring past the smashed glass. Running inside the house, he kept close to the walls, his gun preceding him before he ducked his head into each room. Nothing stirred and he gave a cursory check to the stairs as he passed en route to the sick room.
Finding a man slumped against the wall, Jake felt for a pulse in his neck. Amazingly, considering the blood covering his torso, he wasn’t dead. Jake holstered his weapon then checked the wound. A .45 calibre judging by the size of the entry. Ros’s shot had been true. It was a miracle he was still alive.
Jake stepped over the man’s legs, ignoring him as his attention switched to Ros lying face down across Jimmy. The Colt lay several inches from her outstretched hand, and for a split second, he imagined the worst. A whimpering noise snapped him out of his initial shock and he shifted Ros carefully, relieved when he realized it was Jimmy he’d heard.
The boy stared past him with wide, liquid brown eyes, fear physically manifesting to rock his small body beneath the blankets.
‘Easy, Jimmy. It’s all right. You’re safe.’
Doc Bailey joined them, immediately checking on the gunman.
‘Try and keep him alive, Doc. I need him to help me put Swain away for good this time.’
‘I’ll do my best, but don’t put money on it.’
Jake waved him away and knelt beside the bed. ‘Is he the one, Jimmy? Was that the man who tried to kill me?’
The boy’s mouth opened as though he might speak, but he couldn’t seem to say a word. His breathing increased to short pants, his whimpers growing louder as his agitation mounted.
Jake’s soothing did no good. The boy’s anxiety heightened, his body jerking beneath the tightly tucked blankets as his eyes rolled and his gaze darted around the room – and then it was over. His eyes closed, his body went limp and he slipped into unconsciousness as suddenly as he had awakened. Jake leaned close, listening for his breath. It tickled his cheek and Jake relaxed a little, composing himself before he turned to Ros.
‘You all right?’
She nodded, the fear in her eyes telling him more than she’d admit.
‘Think you can help the doc?’ he asked her. ‘I need to sort out a few things here.’
She nodded and followed Tom as he hauled his patient into the hallway.
‘Marshal.’
Jake turned to face the deputy peering in through the window. The young man looked pale and confused as he rubbed the back of his head.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Where were you, Brady?’ Broken glass crunched Jake’s boots as he stalked to meet him. ‘I told you to watch the house. Why did you leave your post? Why did you let him in?’
‘I’ve been out cold in the bushes. He tried to get in the house but I told him he couldn’t go in. Then when I was walking round, checking to make sure everything was quiet, somebody hit me from behind.’
‘And I suppose you didn’t see who it was?’
Brady shook his head, winced and stopped. ‘No, sir. The last person I remember seeing was him.’
Jake filed the information away for later. So far he had nothing to go on, except Swain’s hatred of Ros. But the facts were too slow in coming, the motives vague. What he needed were hard facts and evidence, a lead that would help him make some sense of this crazy town and the people in it.
One thing at least was obvious: his control of the situation was dissolving quicker than snow in the sunshine. Also, the doc’s house wasn’t safe. He reached a snap decision and gave the deputy his full attention.
‘Get this window boarded up.’
Deputy Brady gulped nervously, then spun on his heel and disappeared.
Jake glanced at Jimmy. The boy was sleeping, but his mouth moved constantly with whatever nightmare haunted him. Unfortunately, it was impossible to make out anything more than a whimper, which was more than could be said for the argument raging along the hall.
Jake moved to stand in the doorway, unwilling to leave Jimmy alone, but intrigued by the furore.
‘You can’t leave,’ Tom shouted.
‘I sure ain’t staying here waiting to be murdered. Me getting shot at has become a daily occurrence.’
‘What about Matt? You can’t just run away again.’ Tom’s voice was thick with anger. ‘He needs you, more now than ever with Bill gone.’
‘Matt seems to be doing fine. He doesn’t need me with a wife and a child on the way.’
‘God you sound bitter. Has it got that bad for you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you forgotten what it’s like to be happy, if not for yourself, for somebody else?’
Something clattered. ‘Happiness is for fools. Survival is all that matters.’
‘Then you keep your fight away from Matt and Ava because if anything happens to her and that baby he won’t survive. Surely you remember what it means to value someone else’s life above your own?’
Jake half expected to hear a slap, but instead, there was silence.
‘I remember some of where it got me,’ Ros said after a short while. ‘Working for Emmett in a stinkin’ saloon, too afraid to show my face back home, cut off from my life like a mad dog.’ Ros’s voice grew louder as anger loosened her tongue. ‘God only knows what else I did. Maybe it was so bad that’s why I can’t remember. I know I’ve been no angel since.’
Jake wanted to tell her she had nothing to be ashamed of. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d believe him.
Bailey’s approach was less gentle. ‘Oh, stop it. Didn’t you tell Matt that if you have the conviction to do a thing, then have the dignity to live with the consequences? You made your choice when you ran off after Emmett. Seems to me what’s happening now is just more of those consequences.’ There was a noticeable pause. ‘And what about the marshal? Where does he figure in all this?’
A hesitation. ‘I don’t know.’ Ros sounded calmer, disheartened. ‘He’s part of those missing memories. One thing I do know, he’s in as much danger as I am. Anyhow, we’re not talking about him.’
‘Damnit!’ Bailey stamped into the hallway, stopping abruptly when he saw Jake. ‘Cade’s dead. There was nothing I could do.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything anybody can do.’
CHAPTER 16
Ros was standing beside the window, itching for a fight when Jake joined her. ‘Shut the door. I’ve got a message for Jay Langerud,’ she said, glancing at him.
He met her straight on, not even an eyelash fluttering to betray what effect her revelation had on him. ‘He’s been dead a long time,’ he said, coolly.
‘That’s not what Emmett told me.’ She took a deep breath, but it did nothing to fortify her flagging spirits. ‘Whether or not you want to admit who you are, you’re in this deep.’
She hesitated. Her troubles were enough to bear without bringing his into the mix. But if he lived long enough, he might be the extra gun she needed in a fight. And there was a fight coming, sure as night followed day.
She considered her next words carefully. ‘I didn’t know if I could trust you before but it’s not just about my survival now. There’s a war coming, and whether you like it or not, you’re on my side unless you saddle a fast horse and ride the hell away from here.’
His face darkened with curiosity. ‘That’s big talk and war’s a strong word. What did Swain say to you last night?’
‘He wants the L, but I already knew that.’ She hesitated,
annoyed by his nonchalance, but sure about getting his full attention. ‘He talked about what happened in Hays.’
Jake’s brow arched in a question.
‘He said when he tells Radley that the man who killed his pa, Parley Jones, is in town.…’
She left him wanting to know more. Wanting to know more herself as suspicion that he was Jay Langerud shaped into certainty.
‘Radley is Parley Jones’s son?’ he asked.
The unspoken admission of his identity jolted her memory as surely as a bolt of lightning. She relived the nightmare of a corpse lying face down at the bottom of a ravine. Blood soaking the back of a pale blue shirt stretched tight across broad shoulders. She remembered running from the scene, back to a hotel, and packing her bags. She’d meant to leave, but there’d been a full bottle of whiskey on the dresser and she’d drunk it all until it numbed the pain and washed away the picture imprinted behind her eyelids.
Later, when she woke from a drunken stupor, she knew what she had to do. The clock struck twelve as she banged the door behind her and ran to the stage stop. She bought the last ticket, then fidgeted impatiently on the edge of the boardwalk as she waited for the coach. Someone told her the stage was always late, and she started to pace. A few feet. A few yards. Further. Willing the carriage to appear. The reverberation of hoofs and the creak of wheels announced its arrival as it thundered into town, six powerful horses foaming at the bit while the driver yelled for clear passage through. She started to run, back to her bags, jostled by a crowd of people gathering to meet the new arrivals.
Suddenly, someone shoved her in the back. She careened into the road. The driver hollered and hauled back on the reins but it had little effect on slowing the racing team. In her imagination, she could hear them snorting, see their nostrils flare—
‘Ros!’
She shoved Rudd away as he tried to get hold of her. ‘I’m all right.’
‘Good. I thought I’d lost you there for a minute. Somewhere between you saying Radley was Jones’s son and …’ He stroked her cheek and she realized she was crying. ‘Come on, sweetheart, it’s all right. Don’t cry about what’s past. Jay died a long time ago, but me and you, we’re still very much alive.’
She walked away from him, rubbing her hand across her eyes to hide the tears. ‘You left me. Why? If I hadn’t seen that body, Jay’s body, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near that coach.’
‘It’s a long stor—’
She threw him a warning glare. ‘Stop it! If you’re really in this with me, I want the truth. I want to know why I thought you were dead, why you never tried to find me.’
For a minute, the self-assured veneer peeled. ‘I wasn’t who you thought I was.’
‘Well now I don’t know who you are or who you were, so you might as well tell me everything.’
He stalked to the desk, aimlessly shifting papers and books. ‘All right, but it won’t make sense and you won’t like it. I was a gunfighter working for Sheriff Riley. He asked me to join a gang that had been robbing stages and leaving bodies all over Kansas.’
His story came as an anti-climax and she couldn’t keep the disdain from her voice. ‘You couldn’t have told me that? We were as close as two people can be and yet you couldn’t trust me with the fact that you were a good man and not some…some murdering outlaw!’
She expected a heated argument, wanted one, but all she got was a weary sigh.
‘You weren’t truthful with me either.’ He laughed sardonically and started pacing, for once looking more prey than predator. ‘You never told me where you came from, about your family, why you were dealing blackjack in a saloon when every swing of the doors made you tremble in your satin shoes. For all I knew, you could have been part of the gang I was trying to smash.’
Realization made her chuckle. ‘So that was the lie. I never meant a thing to you. I was just … a suspect.’
‘No. That’s not what I said. How could I tell you I was working with the law when you were obviously running from something you didn’t want to confide in me?’
His logic infuriated her as much as the fact that she couldn’t recall the details of anything he’d told her. She wanted to shake him, force him into doing the same to her and rattle down the door that refused to let her through to the truth. Instead, she hurled her anguish at him.
‘You’re very smooth, Mr Rudd,’ she said, chuckling ironically. ‘It’s easy to see how a frightened girl could fall in love with a man like you.’
He stopped walking and stared at her. ‘You remember you loved me?’
She hesitated, giving his question more consideration than it needed. How could she say she’d loved a man she didn’t recall as more than a dead body or a few shadows in her imagination?
‘I’m guessing a frightened girl loved a dead gunfighter,’ she said, hiding her feelings behind a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Nothing more. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find my brother and tell him we’re leaving.’
She tried to get out before he stopped her, but he grabbed her arm. ‘Hold on just a minute. You can’t just swing in here and start giving him orders as though you own the—’ He bit his lip. ‘What I mean to say is, you’ve been gone a while and Matt’s been running the ranch; can’t you at least give him a chance to say his piece before you pull the rug out from under him again?’
She scoffed. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. He’s just a kid, seventeen. And, don’t forget, he’s the one who brought me back here.’
‘Now who’s being dramatic?’
‘All right, a simple question then: what do you think he knows about fighting?’
His fingers bit into the tender flesh around her wrist, making her wince, but it didn’t weaken his grip or his temper. ‘What do you know? You’ve always run away from trouble. You were running the first time I met you and it looks to me as though you’ve been running ever since.’
She hesitated, thrown off balance by the derision in his accusation. ‘You sound pretty sure about that. Maybe you’re the reason.’ She took a deep breath and stared at him. ‘Why don’t we get it all out in the open while we’re being so honest? Go ahead. Tell me, what is it I’ve been running from?’
She saw temptation flicker in his eyes. He wanted to tell her the truth, and the red in his cheeks proved he was just about mad enough to do it. Instead, he took a deep breath and spoke gently. ‘I remember you used to tread more carefully on people’s feelings. Seems to me you were a stronger person for it.’
She ignored the insult. ‘So you think I should back off, let Matt handle it alone?’
‘That’s not what I said. If you want my advice, you’ll ease off, sit down and give Matt a chance to tell you what he wants to do, find out who he is, not who you think he is.’
‘He’s a fancy talker, isn’t he?’ Matt said, killing her argument as he filled the doorway. He swept off his hat and peeled off his gloves. ‘Makes a lot of sense too. I think I should have some say in what’s happening around here.’
She was cornered and she knew it. The fight left her quick as a random thought, but she stayed focused, betraying nothing when she looked Matt in the eye.
‘I agree with everything you’ve both said, but this is about more than the L. How much more I’m not sure, but taking one thing at a time, I guess I should really find out what you wanna do.’ She faltered, her gaze flickering between Matt and Jake. ‘Emmett made us an offer.’
‘An offer?’
‘We can let him have the L and you and Ava can ride out of here, or he’ll take it.’
‘Let him have your ranch?’ Jake chipped in.
‘Just like that,’ Matt added incredulously. ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’
Her composure crumbled a little more. Beneath Jake’s fingers, still wound tightly around her wrist, her hand trembled.
‘There’s something you should know about Emmett.’ She choked on the truth. ‘He’s our brother – half-brother.’
The denial was unanimous between
Jake and Matt.
‘Yes. That’s why he left Langley, why our father gave him a thousand dollars to leave and start a new life.’
‘No,’ Matt said again.
‘It’s true. When Pa stopped me from marrying him, he said it was because he couldn’t be sure. I believed he was wrong, that’s why I left, followed Emmett halfway across the country. But when I caught up with him, he showed me a letter from Pa saying he was sorry for what he did and offering him a thousand dollars to stay out of our lives. I didn’t want to believe it, but he had proof.’
Matt’s feelings were as easy to read as an open book. Disbelief. Denial. Wonder.
Finally, he said, ‘I don’t blame you for going after him, but why didn’t you come back when you found out the truth?’
She didn’t know, and she couldn’t help thinking her silence condemned her. Frustration settled in a hard knot in the pit of her stomach. Maybe she couldn’t get those years back, but if she could recall them, maybe it would at least help to lay some ghosts to rest.
‘I don’t know.’ She glanced towards Jake, looking for answers, but his expression was guarded.
Matt started to back away. ‘Sorry. I just thought … well … it’s none of my business. I guess I just wanted a reason not to believe.…’
‘It’s all right, kid. Maybe this is as good a time as any to get everything out in the open.’ Jake’s gaze held on Ros, his last words meant for her more than Matt, she was sure. ‘I might be able to fill in some blanks. What is it you want to know?’
Matt stopped, his attention darting from one to the other, before settling on Jake. ‘We heard stories after Ros left…lies about the life she was leading. They said she was shacked up with a gunfighter, working in a saloon and—’ He jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘I thought they were lies but after what I just overheard.…’
Jake slowed his answer, suddenly bound to tell the truth, yet obviously nervous about riling Matt or Ros when their mood was already uncertain. ‘It’s not the way it sounded.’