Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Chapter 14

  Shea hurried up Sixteenth Street clutching the tails of her flapping shawl in one hand and a bag of licorice candy in the other. She'd put off this errand for the best part of a week, but Ty would turn eleven tomorrow, and she wasn't about to let his birthday pass without some small notice.

  She was just approaching Holladay Street when she heard a quick, sharp crack that sounded for all the world like someone firing a pistol. She hesitated and glanced toward the corner just in time to see the man leaning against the hitching post in front of the bank snap to attention. A second man who'd been lounging on the steps tossed away his cigar. A third, the one nearest Shea, whisked back his weather-stained duster to reveal the gun strapped low on his hip.

  Shea realized in an instant what was happening. Someone was robbing the Bank of Denver!

  Before she could think where to go for help, the staccato rattle of gunfire rent the midwinter afternoon and five armed men poured out of the bank. As people on sidewalks ran shrieking in all directions, the gunmen charged down the steps toward their horses.

  Shea bolted into the narrow brick doorway between two shops. From where she pressed back against the wall, she could see how the noise and confusion had spooked the robbers' horses. Several men managed to swing into their saddles, but others were still struggling to rein in their animals.

  As a few more managed to mount, the bank guard burst out of the building's double doors and started firing. One of the thieves toppled out of his saddle. A man who had been grappling with his horse spun backward and fell.

  The outlaw leader turned in his saddle and shot down the guard. He reeled back against the doors of the bank and crumpled.

  Shea mewled in horror as the man she'd spoken to and smiled at more times than she could count sprawled dead on the steps. She cringed further back into the doorway.

  More of the robbers were clambering into their saddles when one of the sheriff's deputies pelted up the street yelling and shooting. The outlaws shot back.

  When one of the townsmen wandered into the line of fire and fell dead, civilians joined the fusillade. They fired around the corners of the buildings on both sides of the intersection, and from behind the horse trough and a delivery dray. Two men peppered the robbers from a building across the street. Shea saw Mr. Johanson race past from the direction of the livery stable, a pitchfork in one hand and his shotgun in the other.

  Under the rain of heightened fire, one of the outlaws grabbed his shoulder and went down hard. Another of the town's defenders tumbled from the roof of a building and into the street.

  The shop window to Shea's left exploded in a thousand glittering shards of glass. She yelped and dropped to her belly in the doorway as the firing escalated around her.

  She lay with her nose in the dirt and only raised her head when she heard more yelling and the approach of hoofbeats. As the outlaws thundered past, she caught a glimpse of the first man's flapping duster and high-crowned hat. The second man's chest-length chin whiskers and the bullwhip looped over his saddle horn seemed somehow familiar. The third man blurred past clutching a battered valise, his luxuriant blond hair flowing well past his collar.

  Shea pushed up onto her elbows and stared after him. She knew that hair. She knew that face. She'd photographed him in the mining camp.

  The town's defenders ran past shouting and firing. But the mounted outlaws quickly outdistanced them.

  Then all at once, the city fell still. The townsmen stood as if frozen in the pockmarked street. The air hung thick with the acrid singe of gunpowder. The wind blew cold, scudding scraps of papers up the block.

  The instant of silence seemed to echo forever. Then from somewhere up beyond the bank a woman set up keening.

  As if her weeping had shattered the spell that held them all immobile, the townsmen holstered their guns. People ran toward the bank from all directions.

  In the doorway, Shea pushed slowly to her knees. Her legs were quivering, and it took some time before she was able to get to her feet and wobble as far as the corner.

  A crowd had gathered in front of the bank. They whispered among themselves and stared at where the bank guard sprawled in a pool of blood. Abe Nicholson's new young clerk lay dead at the fringe of the intersection. Bile churned up Shea's throat when she realized who he was.

  Two of the robbers lay limp as bundles of old clothes between their horses' hooves. Two more sat moaning in the street, one wounded in the shoot-out, and a second who'd hurt his leg when he'd been thrown from his horse. A third man knelt in the mud, his hands raised and his body swaying in entreaty.

  Armed, grim-faced townsmen stood over each of the men, clearly looking for an excuse to shoot them.

  Just then Sheriff Cook and two more deputies came dashing around the corner from the direction of the jail.

  "Just what the hell happened here?" Dan Cook demanded and detailed one of the men into the bank.

  Shea felt someone step up close behind her and turned to find Cam at her elbow. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

  The question seemed to take the last of the starch out of Shea's knees. She tottered against him, and he wrapped her close against his side, holding her up.

  "It's over, Shea," he murmured. "You're going to be fine now."

  Shea nodded and pressed her face to the warm, woolly folds of his jacket, breathing in his sharp, clean scent. She let his solidity and the feel of his hand against her back soothe and settle her. Only when Sheriff Cook's deputy came out of the bank did she raise her head.

  "The outlaws got away with all the coin and bank notes," the man reported. "Seems Mr. Simonson locked the vault before they shot him, so the gold and treasury bills are safe."

  "Bill Simonson's dead?" Cook's face went hard.

  "And Frank Justice, too. He must have been in there making his afternoon deposit."

  "Dear God!" the sheriff mumbled.

  Another deputy came from up the street bringing news of three wounded and two dead among the town's defenders.

  Hot dread crept up Shea's throat as she turned to Cam. "I know who did this," she whispered. "I recognized two of the robbers as men I've photographed."

  Cam didn't move, but his muscles seemed to have turned to stone. "Who was it?" he asked, a raw, deep thread to his voice. "Who did this?"

  "It was a man called Wes Seaver."

  Cam bowed his head even closer to hers. "Are you sure it was Wes Seaver?"

  "Why? Do you know him?"

  Cam waited an instant too long before he denied it.

  Something about his evasion chilled Shea's blood. Something in the taut, bleached look of the skin across his cheekbones and the narrowing of his mouth made Shea suddenly and irrationally afraid for him.

  Before she could say another word, Cam gestured to where the deputies were hauling the captured robbers to their feet. "Do you know any of those men?" he asked her.

  The first man, who stood clutching a bloody handkerchief to his shoulder, was short, brown-haired, and nondescript. "I don't remember him specifically," Shea murmured, "but the second man is Seaver's younger brother, Jake."

  As the deputies dragged the third outlaw to his feet, Shea recognized the man in the dome-crowned Stetson and mud-stained duster. A chill of shock ran through her. She pressed her hand to her mouth and choked back a gasp.

  Mary, Mother of God! It was Ty's father.

  She looked around wildly, wondering where Ty was. Did he know his father and his cronies had robbed the bank?

  Seeing Sam with these men made sense now—made sense of a mining camp where no one worked the claims, of the rowdies who drifted in and out of the Morrans' cabin. Of the gold piece she'd seen Sam cash at the bank not a week before.

  "The robbers are men from the mining camp," she whispered half to herself.

  Cam's hold tightened at her waist. "The mining camp where the boys spent the blizzard?"

  "Do you think that's where they've been hiding out?"

  Cam cur
sed under his breath and maneuvered her through the crowd of gawkers. "Sheriff Cook will take his prisoners back to his office before he heads out with a posse, and I think you can tell him where to look."

  As they moved down Holladay Street, Shea looked back toward the bank, back to where Sam Morran stood between two tall deputies with his head bowed and his hands manacled.

  Shea turned to Cam. "Will Sam Morran come out of this all right?"

  Cam compressed his lips for a moment before he spoke. "Things don't look very good for him."

  * * *

  Cam braced his hands against the windowsill at the sheriff's office and stared up Eleventh Street. They'd been waiting half an hour for Dan Cook and his deputies to bring in the robbers they'd taken at the bank, and Cam was about out of patience.

  Less than a week before, he had warned the sheriff that the Seaver gang was operating in the Denver area. Now the Seavers had killed people, stolen money, and endangered the citizenry. Would it have made any difference if Cam had begun to investigate his suspicions about Seaver sooner? Could Cook and his men have located the gang in time to prevent what had happened today?

  "Cam, are you all right?" Shea asked from where she'd settled in the chair beside the sheriff's desk.

  How could he be all right when his reticence to expose his past might have cost men's lives?

  "I'm fine," he snapped and wished Shea wasn't so damned perceptive. He was furious at his cowardice and unnerved by how many connections he'd had to Seaver all along. Shea had met the man in the mountains and taken his photograph. Tyler Morran's father rode with Seaver. Rand had been in Seaver's camp.

  The very idea chilled Cam's bones.

  What would Seaver have done if he'd known Rand was his son? Would Seaver have played cruel games with the boy to settle old grievances? But then Seaver wouldn't have recognized the Gallimore name. Cam hadn't been reckless enough to use his real identity when he joined up with the guerrillas.

  Just then Dan Cook and his deputies prodded the three bank robbers into the office. "Put them in the cells out back," Cook instructed. "Then go get a doctor to look them over. I don't much care if they're hurt, but the taxpayers will expect them to be healthy for the hanging."

  Though he could hardly keep from noticing them, Sam Morran didn't acknowledge either Cam or Shea as the deputies hustled the three prisoners toward the cells. Nor did Shea attempt to speak to him.

  Once Cook had locked the outlaws' guns and belongings in a brass-bound trunk, he turned to Shea and him. "Now what the hell do you want? I'm supposed to be getting up a posse to track those bastards."

  "I saw who robbed the bank!" Shea answered.

  The sheriff nodded and scowled. "We already know it was the Seaver gang. That's Jake Seaver locked up in there. He's been outlawing since right after the war."

  "Wes Seaver was with them, too," she confirmed.

  "I got half a dozen witnesses who'll swear to that."

  "But can your witnesses tell you where Seaver and his men might be headed?" Cam asked with some asperity.

  Cook looked up from the shells he'd been loading into his rifle. "And how would you know that, Mrs. Waterston?"

  "I photographed Seaver and a goodly number of his men in a mining camp about a day's ride west of here," Shea began. "I even had some of their likenesses on photographic plates until the night my studio was—"

  Cam felt her look across at him. She'd just come to the same conclusion he'd been harboring, that Wes Seaver was behind the photograph that had been stolen at the opening, Shea's midnight visitor, and the destruction of her studio.

  "You say Seaver's hangout is west of here, Mrs. Waterston?" Cook asked.

  Shea nodded. "It's tucked way back in the mountains and will be hard to find unless you know what you're looking for. But I could show you—"

  "Hell's bells!" Cook exclaimed, pulling a second rifle out of the gunrack. "I'm sure not having a woman on this posse. Can't you just tell me where Seaver's camp is?"

  "Would you like me to draw you a map?" she offered.

  Shea had never offered to draw a map for him, Cam realized.

  Dan Cook nodded. "Fair enough."

  Shea was just finishing up her map when the door to the office burst open.

  "Is my father here?" Tyler Morran demanded. He was white-faced and breathing hard. Dread emanated from him like waves of heat.

  Before either Cam or the sheriff could answer, Shea crossed the room and clasped Ty by the shoulder. She drew him into the office and hunkered down beside him.

  "I'm sorry, Ty," she murmured, closing her hands around his arms. "They brought your pa in a little while ago."

  The boy swallowed hard. "Was he one of the men who robbed the bank?"

  "Yes, son, he was," Cook confirmed.

  Ty stiffened and turned to the sheriff. "He—he didn't kill anybody, did he?"

  No man alive wanted to tell a boy his father had done murder, and Dan Cook was no exception. He came around the corner of his desk and looked down at Ty. "We don't think so, son."

  Relief softened the set of Ty's shoulders. He let out his breath. "I knew he couldn't hurt anybody."

  "No, of course not," Shea said, easing him toward her.

  "I—I could tell they were up to something," he told her so softly Cam was sure he hadn't meant anyone else to hear. "More of them came into town every day, and Pa was sneaking around meeting with them. I found a pistol under the mattress. He'd never kept a pistol there before, so I should have figured something bad was going to happen."

  "Oh, Ty, no," Shea murmured and tried to draw him into her arms. "How could you have known?"

  "I should have known. I—I should have told," he said and his eyes began to shine. "I should have told someone, so they could stop it. I just didn't know what it was they meant to do. I didn't know so many people would get k-k-killed..."

  Shea slid her arms around his back and drew him against her. This time Ty let himself take the comfort she was offering. He pressed his face into her shoulder, and Cam saw Ty's ribs bellow as he fought to keep from crying.

  Shea hugged him tighter. "This wasn't your fault," she whispered fiercely. "Bad men did this. Grown men, outlaws did it. You're just a boy, Ty. There's nothing in this world you could have done to stop it."

  His breathing stuttered. Ty shook his head. He believed the robbery was his fault—and nothing anyone could say was going to convince him otherwise.

  Cam knew how that was.

  Instinctively he stepped toward where Shea was swaying with Ty in her arms. He laid his hand on Ty's shoulder and waited for the boy to raise his head.

  "You know Wes Seaver would have killed both you and your pa before he let you interfere with this." He spoke softly, man to man. "None of this was your fault, Ty. I won't have you blaming yourself."

  The boy gave a jerky nod as if he'd taken Cam's word, but it was a minute or two more before he got control of himself. Once he had, he rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, then looked up at the sheriff.

  "D'you think I could see my pa?"

  "That'd be highly irregular..." Dan Cook looked across at Cam, half in concern for the proprieties, half in concern for the boy.

  Cam gave the sheriff a nod. God knows, no one was going to begrudge this child time with his father when the man—however lacking—was all he had.

  "Well, it is highly irregular," the sheriff reiterated, "but I don't see any harm in making an exception just this once."

  He unlocked the door that led back to the cells and motioned Ty through. "Don't be long, boy."

  Ty snuffled, wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt, and straightened his shoulders. "Thanks," he said and went back to the cells to see his father.

  Chapter 15

  BANK ROBBERS' TRIAL BEGINS TODAY

  JUDGE GALLIMORE TO PRESIDE

  Cam stared at the paper spread across his desk and swallowed, doing his best to keep from losing his breakfast. It had been a scant two weeks since the ba
nk had been robbed and five of Denver's citizens killed. Two weeks of Dan Cook and his posse fruitlessly combing the countryside for the rest of the Seaver gang. Two weeks of angry mutterings in anticipation of a hanging.

  For all of Colorado's respectability and impending statehood, Denver was still essentially a vigilante town. Only seven years before, mobs had strung up members of the Musgrove gang. Now, whenever two men got together for a drink or a smoke, the question they pondered wasn't whether the robbers would hang, but whether the hanging would take place by sanction of the court, or by mob rule.

  Cameron braced his head in his hands and stared at the headline. It wasn't as if he thought these men were innocent. They'd been caught coming out of the bank; they'd shot down prominent citizens in front of witnesses. What distressed him most was that Sam Morran was going to die for being part of this, and Cam was going to have to pass sentence on him. What clawed at the pit of his stomach was the fear that something in the trial would bring the whole of his past to light.

  Cam groaned and pushed to his feet. He'd be calling his court to order at ten o'clock, and he needed to get over to the courthouse ahead of time.

  As he walked the few short blocks, he was aware of groups of men loitering in the streets; more were smoking on the courthouse steps, waiting to be admitted to the courtroom. The halls were jammed with prospective jurors, and Cameron had to elbow his way to the doors.

  At his knock Sim Cummings, the deputy marshal who was serving as bailiff for the trial, let him in. His boot heels rang on the wooden floors as he made his way up the central aisle. He swung past the defense and prosecution tables, and the jury box that stood behind a wooden baluster off to his right. Cam stepped up behind the bench. As he looked over the rest of the courtroom, his heart lay cold inside of him. Never had he felt such dread at the start of any proceeding as he did now.

  In spite of it, he opened his satchel and began carpeting the judge's bench with piles of books and papers. He was almost done when someone rapped on the door to the courtroom. Cummings opened it a crack, and Cam caught sight of Shea and Ty just outside. He acknowledged them with a nod and motioned for them to be admitted.