The only ones who were really upset were the men whose horses had run off, and after taking a look at Luke they appeared to decide it wasn’t worth raising a ruckus over.
All that was left was getting some clothes on Talcott’s corpse, throwing it over the saddle on his horse, lashing the dead outlaw in place, and taking him to San Antonio. The State of Texas had placed the bounty on Talcott’s head, so Luke figured the easiest way to collect would be to turn the body over to the Rangers.
That was how he came to find himself in the office of Major John B. Jones, the head of the Frontier Battalion.
The major didn’t seem to be overly fond of bounty hunters, but what Luke did for a living wasn’t illegal and there was a reward for Talcott, dead or alive, so Luke had $800 coming to him.
“Next time you should just take the body to the nearest undertaker and get a local lawman or other official to vouch for the fact that you brought him in,” Jones said. “You didn’t have to haul Talcott all the way here to San Antonio.”
“The place where I caught up with him was halfway between here and Schuelenberg,” Luke explained. “I thought I’d probably get my money faster if I brought him to you.”
Jones grunted and said, “The money’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?”
“Talcott’s killed three men in the commission of his crimes, that we know of,” Luke pointed out. “There’s a good chance he’s also the one who burned down that store in Hallettsville after it was robbed, and the bodies of two more men were found in the ashes. I’d say it’s a pretty good thing Talcott won’t be around to keep on robbing and killing, because I don’t think he planned on stopping anytime soon.”
The bearded ranger inclined his head in acknowledgment of Luke’s argument.
“I’ll have the voucher for your reward drawn up right away,” he said. “You can come back by the office and pick it up later this afternoon. Take it to any bank in San Antonio and they’ll honor it.”
“I’m obliged to you.” Luke nodded toward a stack of papers on Jones’s desk. “That looks like a bunch of new wanted posters.”
“Already thinking about where your next payoff is coming from, eh?” Jones shoved the reward dodgers toward Luke. “You can take a look at them, but don’t carry any of them off with you. My men haven’t even seen them yet.”
“Obliged again,” Luke said as he picked up the stack.
The first dozen posters he flipped through were the usual motley assortment of bank, train, and stagecoach robbers, rustlers, horse thieves, backshooters, and rapists. Many of them were illustrated with crude drawings of the wanted men, and a few didn’t have pictures at all.
But then Luke came to one that made him pause as his eyebrows rose in surprise. He said, “What do we have here?”
“What?” Major Jones asked distractedly without looking up from the paperwork he had already gone back to.
Luke turned the reward dodger around and held it out so that Jones could see the picture on it. This was a photograph, not a drawing, and the portrait was of an undeniably beautiful young woman with dark hair.
Jones grunted as he leaned forward to take a look at the wanted poster. He started rummaging through some of the papers on his desk as he said, “I think I’ve got a notice about her somewhere here. Yeah, there it is.”
He handed a couple of pages to Luke. One was a letter from the chief of police in Baltimore, Maryland, asking the Rangers to be on the lookout for a fugitive, and the other was a report from a Pinkerton Detective Agency operative.
“Gloria Jennings,” Luke mused as he studied the documents. “Wanted for murder. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”
“You’ve never hunted down a female killer before?”
“Actually I have, several times, in fact. But it’s still not all that common. I see here that she murdered her husband.”
“Alfred Jennings,” Major Jones said. “A rich man, considerably older than Mrs. Jennings, who was his, ah, second wife.”
“Funny how often it happens that way,” Luke said. “This says that Jennings had interests in banks, warehouses, even a shipping line. He must’ve had a lot of money.”
“Less when his wife got through with him. In addition to the murder, there’s a hundred thousand dollars missing.”
Luke let out a low whistle.
“I suppose that’s why the family can afford to post a five thousand dollar reward.”
The amount of the bounty was the second thing Luke had noticed, the first being the fact that Mrs. Gloria Jennings was an exceptionally good-looking woman. Most of the time he brought in outlaws who were worth less than a thousand dollars, like Joe Jack Talcott. He made a decent living doing that, but most likely he would never get rich at it.
He tapped the detective’s report and said, “It says here the Pinks tracked her to Fort Worth.”
“That’s right, and while she was there she boarded a train bound for San Antonio.”
“Do you know if she ever got here?”
“I have no idea,” Major Jones said. “I’m not a Pinkerton detective or a bounty hunter. I’ve got a big stretch of country between here and the border to ride herd on. I can’t go out looking for one fugitive who hasn’t committed any crimes in Texas that I know of, and my men can’t, either. I’ll make sure they know about Mrs. Jennings, in case they happen to run across her, but capturing her isn’t going to be a priority.”
“How long ago was this?” Luke asked.
“The dates are on the paperwork.”
Luke looked at the documents again, then said, “She killed her husband and vanished from Baltimore almost a year ago. This report saying she was in Fort Worth is almost eight months old. You’re just getting a wanted poster on her now?”
“I don’t have any control over when those things are sent out,” Jones said testily. “Paperwork takes a long time.”
“Why were these documents still on your desk?”
“They weren’t. I had a vague memory of the case, so I had my clerk go through the files and pull them out after I saw the lady’s picture on the poster. I wanted to refresh my memory on the details.”
Luke grinned and said, “You wanted to know more about the pretty lady.”
“If we’re done here, Jensen . . .”
Luke tossed the documents back onto the desk and stood up. He would have liked to take them with him, along with the reward poster, but he had a good memory for facts.
And for faces as well, when they were as attractive as the one belonging to Gloria Jennings.
“Since this particular fugitive isn’t a high priority of yours, I don’t suppose you’d mind if I took a shot at tracking her down, would you, major?”
“Help yourself,” Jones said. “As long as you don’t break the law or interfere with me or my men, I don’t care what you do. The trail’s bound to be pretty cold by now, though.”
“I’ve picked up colder ones,” Luke said.
As it turned out, it took him a week of asking questions at hotels, boardinghouses, and the railroad station before he found someone who remembered seeing Gloria Jennings. That led him to a porter who recalled helping her with her bags as she boarded a westbound train. More searching and asking questions turned up the conductor on that run, who told Luke, “The lady didn’t go all the way to El Paso, I remember that for sure. It’s not every day you come across a woman who’s so easy on the eyes.”
“Where did she get off?” Luke asked.
The conductor, a pudgy, mostly bald gent with a high-pitched voice, took off his cap and scratched his bare scalp.
“I don’t rightly recall,” he said.
Luke reached for his pocket.
“No, no, I’m not hinting for a bribe, mister,” the conductor said quickly. “I honestly don’t remember. I’m pretty sure it was somewhere pretty far west, but not all the way to El Paso. There are several little towns in that ranching country out there north of the Big Bend. That’s where it was she got off the tr
ain, in one of those settlements.”
Well, that narrowed it down some, anyway, Luke thought. He thanked the conductor, put together a load of supplies, picked up his horse from the livery stable, and headed west.
He could have taken the train and retraced Gloria’s route that way, but he preferred to ride. As cold as the trail already was, a little more time wouldn’t make any difference. Besides, if she was trying to elude pursuit she might have doubled back, and this would give him a chance to stop and ask questions in every little town he came to.
He was in a wide place in the road called Bracken’s Crossing when the man who ran the general store listened to his description of Gloria Jennings and then said, “That sounds a lot like the gal who married old Sam MacCrae a while back. She’s from back East somewhere, I hear tell. Young and a real looker, too. That ol’ dog Sam.”
“Who’s MacCrae?” Luke asked. “Where does he live?”
“He owns a ranch over on the other side of Painted Post, about fifty miles from here.”
Luke’s interest picked up at that news. He said, “A good-sized spread, is it? Or just a little greasy sack outfit?”
The storekeeper snorted.
“Greasy sack, my hind foot. The MacCrae spread is the biggest outfit in that part of Texas. Takes up the whole of Sabado Valley and more besides.”
“So MacCrae’s a rich man,” Luke said. “You called him old Sam. How old?”
“Shoot, I don’t know for sure. He’s in his fifties, I’d say.”
So far, everything Luke was hearing meshed perfectly with what he knew about Gloria Jennings. She had married a rich, older man back in Baltimore. There was no reason to think she wouldn’t marry another one here in Texas if she got the chance.
Of course, she had already stolen a hundred thousand dollars from Alfred Jennings when she killed him, so she probably didn’t need money, but for some people, plenty was never enough. No matter how much they had, they always wanted more, especially when it came to money and power.
“Do you recall the name of MacCrae’s new wife?” Luke asked the storekeeper.
“Don’t know that I ever heard it,” the man replied. “All I know is some of my customers gossiped about ol’ Sam getting himself a young, pretty wife. That’s all I can tell you, mister.”
“There’s one more thing you can tell me,” Luke said. “How to get to Painted Post.”
The storekeeper was glad to supply him with directions, especially after Luke bought some supplies. A couple of days’ ride brought him to Painted Post, a sleepy cow town not much different from a hundred others Luke had seen. While he was there, he picked up some more gossip about Sam MacCrae and the rancher’s new wife.
MacCrae had been a widower for quite a few years, and evidently he had fallen hard for the young woman who had gotten off the train and settled in at the hotel. A whirlwind courtship later, the couple had gotten married in the Painted Post Baptist Church, and the woman—her name was Glory, Luke was told—had gone off to live on the ranch with her new husband.
All that information combined to convince Luke that he was on the right trail. Glory MacCrae had to be the fugitive murderer Gloria Jennings.
All he needed to do was get a look at her to be absolutely certain of her identity. Even though it had been a while, in his mind’s eye he could still see the portrait of the woman he had seen on that wanted poster in Major Jones’s office.
Now, as he stood there with Glory MacCrae’s warm hand gripped in his, he was dead solid sure.
CHAPTER 3
“Welcome to the MC Ranch, Mr. Jensen,” Glory said. “I don’t know what brings you here, but you’ve done us a favor.” She nodded toward the dead man. “This is one less gunnie to do Harry Elston’s bidding.”
She gave his hand a final squeeze and let go of it. Luke was a little sorry not to be holding her hand anymore. She was the sort of woman whose beauty possessed a raw, primitive power over men, and Luke wasn’t immune to it . . . although he would never let it make his decisions for him, either.
“I don’t know anything about this fella Elston,” he said. “All I know is that somebody in that bunch tried to kill me, and I don’t take kindly to that. Could’ve even been this hombre. If it wasn’t . . .” A cold smile curved Luke’s mouth under the mustache. “Then I reckon he was guilty by association.”
“Elston’s men are all guilty of one thing: associating with a skunk.” Glory turned to Pendleton and went on: “Put him on a horse and take him back to headquarters, Gabe. From there one of the men can take the body to Painted Post in a wagon and leave it at the undertaker’s.”
“You aim to pay for planting him, Miz MacCrae?” the foreman asked.
“Not if there’s enough of Harry Elston’s dirty money in his pockets to pay for a pine box, I don’t,” Glory answered without hesitation. Then she shrugged and added, “But whoever takes the body to town can tell the undertaker that I’ll cover the difference, if there is any.”
Pendleton’s voice hardened as he said, “I’ll make sure you get an honest accounting, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Gabe.” Glory turned back to Luke. “If you’re not in a hurry, Mr. Jensen, I hope you’ll come on to the ranch house with us and have supper. You’re welcome to spend the night in the bunkhouse, as well.”
“That’s kind of you,” Luke said with a nod. “I accept.”
“Not at all. Like I said, you did us a favor . . . and I like to repay any favors that I owe.”
She was a plainspoken, straightforward woman, Luke thought as they mounted up. He liked that about her, over and above her good looks.
It was a shame he was going to have to take her in and turn her over to the law. It would be even more of a shame when they put a hang rope around that pretty neck of hers and stretched it for murdering her husband.
Her other husband, Luke corrected himself as he moved the dun alongside her horse and they began to ride along the base of the bluff. Behind them, a couple of the hands rounded up the dead man’s horse so they could throw the corpse over the saddle.
“Are you from somewhere around these parts, Mr. Jensen?” Glory MacCrae asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard your name before.”
“No, ma’am. Originally I’m from Missouri, but I’ve moved around a lot in recent years. I consider myself a citizen of the world.”
“I like that,” she said with a smile.
“Where are you from?” he asked. “You don’t really sound like a Texan.”
She laughed and said, “Those can be fighting words around here. Although a lot of people in Texas these days weren’t born here.”
Luke knew that was true. After the end of the war, there had been nothing left in the conquered Southern states for many of the returning Confederate soldiers. The brutal, vindictive Yankee reconstructionists and carpetbaggers had seen to that.
So most of those men had headed west, looking for new lives on the frontier. Luke’s experience had been different in some details, although there were certain similarities. He didn’t consider himself an unreconstructed rebel, though. The war was too far in the past for that.
He noticed that Glory had dodged his question about where she was from, but he didn’t press her on the issue. Anyway, he already knew the answer. Her voice had a slight trace of a Southern accent, another indication that she was from Baltimore, which straddled the cultural line dividing north from south.
To pass the time, Luke said, “Tell me about this hombre Elston. Why would he want his men to rustle some of your stock?”
“Why will a rattlesnake sink its fangs in anything that moves?” Glory asked in return. “It’s filled with venom, and that venom has to come out somewhere.” As they passed the embers of a fire that had burned down to almost nothing, she pointed at them and went on: “They were using that as a branding fire, venting the MC brand into a Lazy EO with a running iron. We’ve caught them doing it before.”
Luke frowned and said, “I don’t see how they thought t
hey could get away with that. It would be easy enough to spot an altered brand if you killed the cow and peeled the hide off. Don’t you have a cattleman’s association to send in some brand inspectors and put a stop to it?”
“The brand inspectors have been in, and they’ve warned Elston,” Glory said. “He claimed his men were doing it without his knowledge. He fired some of them, ran them off.” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Paid them off, is more like it. He put on a show of being angry about it, but he really gave the men money to go somewhere else and find another job. I’m convinced of that.”
They left the branding fire behind. Luke said, “It doesn’t seem like you could steal enough cattle that way to make it worthwhile unless you had a little outfit and were just barely hanging on.”
“Well, it’s not like Harry Elston is trying to stock his ranch. He has his own herds. What he really wants is my range and my water. Sabado Creek runs through the valley and is the best source of water around here. Elston just wants to make enough of a nuisance of himself that I’ll give up and sell out to him.”
Starting out, Luke hadn’t been sure why he was questioning Glory MacCrae about what was going on around here. He didn’t care about the ranch’s troubles. He was just here to make sure she was the fugitive he was after and then figure out a way to get her behind bars.
She had said some things that intrigued him, though, and his interest grew even stronger when he recalled how one of the ranch hands had referred to her as “the boss” when he spotted Glory approaching.
“Mrs. MacCrae,” he said, “how does your husband feel about all this?”
Glory’s horse broke stride a little, and Luke knew his question had caused her to jerk the reins. She looked over at him and said, “My husband is dead, Mr. Jensen. The MC Ranch is mine now.”
Well, thought Luke, given this woman’s history, that wasn’t really much of a surprise.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
She shrugged and said, “Since you’re a stranger in these parts, there’s no reason you should have.”
Bloody Sunday Page 2