“I suppose it is,” Luke said. At least when he was a kid he’d had his ma and pa, as well as his younger brother and sister, so he had known what it was like to have a loving family before he went off to war and everything changed.
His parents were dead now, and Smoke had told him that their sister, Janey, had passed away several years earlier, too. Luke regretted never seeing her again after he enlisted. She had made some foolish decisions in her life and had come to a bad end, and he thought that if he’d been around he might have been able to help her avoid that fate.
She had left home before the war was even over, though, so logically he knew that wasn’t the case. Nothing he could have done would have prevented Janey from following her own trail in life, no matter where it led.
When the wagon team was ready to go, Glory came over and climbed onto the high seat. Luke swung into the saddle, and they set out for Painted Post as the sun rose over the hills to the east, on the other side of Sabado Valley.
Luke didn’t think Elston’s men would try anything else so soon after the attack on the ranch, especially not anything as blatant as bushwhacking the MC’s owner. But as he rode beside the wagon, his gaze remained in constant motion anyway, roaming over the rangeland around them in search of anything that might signal danger. Such caution was a requirement in his line of work. Without it he might not live long.
To make conversation, he said, “I was told that you came west for your health. If you don’t mind my saying so, you appear to be a remarkably healthy individual.”
“I don’t mind,” Glory answered, “but who told you that?”
“I heard it on the ranch,” Luke said. “I don’t recall exactly who mentioned it.”
He didn’t want to take a chance on getting young Ernie Frazier in trouble with the boss, even though Glory didn’t seem bothered by the question.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s common knowledge. I had a problem with my breathing, but it got better almost immediately in the drier air out here.”
She would have had trouble with her breathing if she’d stayed back in Baltimore, Luke thought. It was hard to breathe past a hang rope.
“That’s just one reason I’m glad I came to Texas,” Glory went on. “The other is that I met Sam, of course. The day we were married was the happiest day of my life.”
“Is that so?”
She looked over at him and smiled.
“You sound skeptical. Don’t you believe in marriage, Luke?”
“I believe it exists.”
“But not in its benefits.”
He shrugged and said, “I can’t really testify one way or the other. I’ve never indulged in the state of wedded bliss, myself.”
“You’ve never been married?”
“Never even came close.”
She flicked the reins and clucked to the horses, then said, “That’s a shame. I’m sure you’d make some woman a fine husband.”
That caused a genuine laugh to erupt from his lips. He shook his head and said, “Lady, you are about as far wrong on that score as you could be. I’d feel sorry for any woman who got herself saddled with the likes of me.”
“Maybe you underestimate yourself.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
They rode on in silence for a few seconds. Then Glory said, “Well, I believe in marriage. I’ve been married twice, in fact.”
He was a little surprised that she would admit that, but he kept his face and voice only casually curious as he said again, “Is that so?”
“Yes, I was married back East, before I came west. My husband . . . passed away.”
“I’m sorry.” He figured she might think it odd if he didn’t comment on what she had just said, so he went on: “It sounds like you haven’t had very good luck when it comes to husbands.”
“On the contrary. I’ve had very good luck. Both of them were fine men. Wonderful men. They were the ones who were unlucky.” A trace of bitterness tinged her voice as she added, “Unlucky enough to have married me.”
“I don’t see how you figure that.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m a jinx. At least my first marriage lasted for several years before something terrible happened. With Sam, it was only a matter of months.”
Luke wondered just how much she would confess to, now that she had started talking. He said, “What happened to your first husband?”
Glory shook her head, though, and replied, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s still too painful.”
“All right,” Luke told her. “I didn’t mean to open up old wounds.”
“That’s all right. I’m the one who brought it up. Perhaps we should talk about something more pleasant . . . like this blasted range war.”
“You mentioned the sheriff in Painted Post. You reckon he’ll step in and do anything about Elston?”
“I think it’s highly doubtful. Jared Whittaker is a politician, first and foremost, and I think he’s betting that in the long run Harry Elston will be more powerful and influential in the county than I will. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that he’s in Elston’s pocket, but I don’t think he’ll go out of his way to help me, either.”
“He’s a lawman,” Luke said. “It’s his job to do what’s right and legal.”
Glory laughed and said, “You’re not such a babe in the woods as to believe that, are you, Luke? Carrying a badge is like any other job. In the end you wind up working for whoever has the most money.”
Luke thought that was a pretty cynical attitude, but in most cases she was probably right.
Not in all of them, though. There was such a thing as justice in this world, and in his occasional philosophical moments he liked to think that he served that end. Hunting down fugitives wasn’t just a matter of collecting the bounties on their heads.
The road followed the hills, and as the ranges on both sides of the valley petered out, it continued southeast across semi-arid, chaparral-dotted flats that ran all the way down to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. Luke had come through Painted Post the previous day, so he knew it lay only a few more miles ahead of them.
It wasn’t long before he spotted the elevated water tank at the railroad station and a couple of church steeples. Those were the highest structures in town.
Painted Post owed most of its existence to the railroad and to the ranches in the hills to the north and west. It was also close enough to the border to serve as a supply point for the gold and silver mines in the mountains across the river in Mexico. So it was a dusty, sleepy little settlement most of the time, when the ranch crews or the miners weren’t there on payday, spending their wages on a blowout of whiskey, women, and cards.
The town’s main avenue was McDowell Street, which ran north from the railroad depot for several blocks. It was a wide, sun-blasted road crossed by several smaller streets lined with businesses for the first block before becoming residential neighborhoods where the town’s inhabitants lived in a mixture of frame and adobe houses.
Most of the businesses on McDowell Street were frame as well, some with false fronts, but the bank was constructed of large blocks of sandstone, as was the county courthouse and jail. A few cottonwood and aspen and willow trees struggled to grow here and there. This region was more suited to cactus and bunch grass when it came to vegetation.
It was midday when Luke and Glory reached the settlement, so quite a few people were moving around. In another couple of hours, as the temperature began to heat up more, a lot of those folks would disappear until late afternoon when things began to cool off. Right now, though, wagons were parked in front of the stores, horses were tied at hitch racks, and people made their way along the boardwalks in front of some of the buildings. Many of them paused to turn and look as Glory drove by with Luke riding beside the wagon.
He was a stranger in town, having spent only a few minutes there the day before. Some of the citizens probably recognized Glory, and they would have looked at
her anyway, especially the men.
Luke didn’t get the feeling that Painted Post was overly friendly toward Glory MacCrae.
She kept her gaze directed straight ahead and her chin up. If the stares bothered her, she wasn’t going to show it. Instead, she drove to the courthouse and pulled back on the reins to bring the two horses to a stop there.
Luke reined in as well and dismounted. As he looped the roan’s reins around a hitch rail, he saw two men lounging in the open double doorway of the courthouse. One was a burly hombre whose hat looked a little too small for his block of a head. His face was sun-blistered, and the hair that poked out from under his hat was prematurely white.
His companion was smaller, but still broad-shouldered and well-built, with a black Stetson thumbed back on reddish-brown hair.
Luke turned to the wagon and said to Glory, “Let me give you a hand down.”
For a second she looked like she was going to tell him she was perfectly capable of climbing down from the wagon by herself, but then she relented and let him assist her. With both hands on her waist, he set her on the ground and asked her in a half-whisper, “Who are the two gents in the door?”
“The big one is Whitey Singletary,” Glory replied, equally quietly. “They’re very original in their nicknames around here. He’s the chief deputy. The other man is Jared Whittaker.”
“The sheriff.”
“That’s right.”
As the wagon had passed the people on the boardwalks, some of them had noticed the blanket-wrapped shape in back, and now they came along the street to find out what was going on. Anything out of the ordinary, anything that might break the monotony, was of extreme interest in a place like this.
Sheriff Whittaker straightened from his casual pose with one shoulder propped against the doorjamb and started toward the wagon. Deputy Singletary fell in behind him, hulking along like a bear. A polar bear, Luke thought, considering the white hair and pale skin.
“Mrs. MacCrae,” Whittaker greeted Glory as she and Luke turned to meet the two lawman. He lifted a hand and carelessly touched a finger to his hat brim. “What in the world have you got there?”
Singletary leaned to the side to peer past them and said, “Looks like a body to me, Sheriff.” The words seemed to have to strain to get past the muscles in his thick neck.
“It is a body,” Glory said.
“One of your men?” Whittaker asked.
“No. One of the raiders who attacked my ranch last night and tried to burn down my house and kill me and my crew.” Glory’s voice was sharp, lashing the words. “In other words, one of your friend Harry Elston’s men.”
CHAPTER 9
Whittaker stiffened. He said, “That’s a mighty serious accusation, Mrs. MacCrae. You know for a fact that this dead man worked for Mr. Elston?”
“Who else would send hired killers skulking through the night against me?” Glory demanded.
Whittaker cocked his head to the side and clucked his tongue.
“We’re not that far from the border, you know. I try to keep an eye on things, but there’s a lot of empty country out there. It would be easy enough for a bunch of bandidos to slip across the river, circle around the town, and raid some of the ranches around here.”
“This man isn’t a Mexican bandit,” Glory said. “You can have a look for yourself.”
“Oh, I intend to. Let’s get that blanket off of him.” Whittaker motioned toward the wagon. “Whitey.”
Singletary stepped to the back of the wagon and pulled a folding knife from his pocket.
Before he could cut the ropes holding the blanket around the corpse, though, Luke said, “There’s no need for that. Just untie the knots, deputy. That’s easy enough.”
Singletary’s moonlike face twisted in a sneer. He said, “Who’re you to be givin’ me orders, mister?”
“I’m a man who doesn’t believe in cutting a perfectly good rope that can be untied.”
Luke started to step past the deputy.
He didn’t really care that much about the rope, but Singletary rubbed him the wrong way. The man’s piggish eyes had a brutal cast to them. Luke had seen plenty of men like this before. Pin a badge to their sweat-stained shirts and they thought they had a right to lord it over other men. That made Luke want to get a rise out of him.
He did. Singletary grunted and swung a hamlike fist at Luke’s head. It was the fist with the knife in it.
Luke jerked his head back. The blade flashed in front of his eyes, missing his face by bare inches. Singletary was off balance because of the miss, so Luke threw a looping, overhand left that smashed into the right side of the deputy’s jaw and knocked him in the direction he was already going. Singletary stumbled and fell. He sprawled on his belly in the dust of the street.
Moving quickly, Luke brought his right foot down on Singletary’s wrist, not hard enough to break any bones, but with sufficient force to keep that hand pinned to the ground. He reached down and plucked the knife from the deputy’s fingers, then straightened and stepped back. He closed the knife and tossed it in the back of the wagon.
Sheriff Whittaker looked angry. He had his hand on the butt of his holstered Colt as he said, “You’re under arrest, mister!”
“On what charges?” Glory demanded.
“Interfering with an officer of the law and assaulting him!”
“Deputy Singletary attacked Mr. Jensen with no provocation,” Glory insisted. “Mr. Jensen was just defending himself. We all saw it.”
Mutters of agreement came from some of the people in the crowd. Glory might not be a favorite of theirs, but evidently Singletary wasn’t, either. That came as no surprise to Luke. He had been able to tell by looking at him that the deputy liked to run roughshod over people. Some of the citizens probably felt like they had been treated unfairly by him in the past.
“Now hold on there,” Whittaker said. “I told Whitey to cut those ropes. Jensen had no right to stop him.”
Luke said, “Actually, you didn’t say that. You just told Deputy Singletary to get the blanket off the corpse. Cutting the rope was his idea. All I tried to do was untie it, and he nearly cut my throat.”
From the ground, Whitey Singletary growled and said, “I’ll do more than that, you son of a bitch. I’ll bash your brains out!”
He surged up from the ground and charged at Luke like a maddened bull.
“Sheriff, stop this!” Glory cried.
Jared Whittaker just stood there, though, with an interested look on his face.
Singletary swung a wild punch that had the power of his burly body behind it. His fist moved slowly, however, and Luke had no trouble avoiding it.
But then he discovered that Singletary was smarter than he appeared to be, at least when it came to fighting. When he dodged to the side, Singletary’s other hand was waiting. That was when Luke realized that the telegraphed punch had been a feint. Singletary grabbed the front of his shirt and swung him hard against the wagon’s sideboards.
The impact jolted Luke and sent his hat flying into the street, but it didn’t knock the breath out of him. Singletary let go of his shirt. Luke guessed the deputy’s next move would be to throw those bearlike arms around him and try to crush his ribs. He couldn’t let that happen, so he snapped a short but powerful punch to Singletary’s nose, jabbing it with enough force to make Singletary jerk his head back and howl in pain.
Luke bored after him. His left pistoned back and forth a couple of times, landing with stinging splats on the deputy’s nose. Luke felt hot blood gush over his knuckles. Singletary staggered back a step as he tried to get away from the persistent punishment. That gave Luke room to swing another right. It crashed into Singletary’s slablike jaw.
That punch would have been enough to knock most men off their feet. It actually carried more strength than the blow that had landed the deputy in the street a few moments earlier.
But even though he was a little off-balance now, he was able to catch himself and swing hi
s right arm around in a scything backhand. Singletary might lumber when he was walking, but he moved fast in a fight. Luke couldn’t avoid the sweeping blow. It caught him on the side of his head and knocked him spinning to the ground.
Vaguely, he heard shouts from the crowd as he rolled over. Glory yelled at Sheriff Whittaker to stop the fight, but the lawman ignored her. Mainly, though, what Luke heard was the blood roaring in his head.
Singletary was roaring, too, as he charged after Luke, evidently intent on kicking and stomping him to death. The deputy had lost his hat, and his thatch of white hair was in wild disarray.
Luke rolled desperately as Singletary launched a kick at him. Singletary’s boot scraped Luke’s shoulder hard enough to hurt, but without enough force to do any real damage. Luke twisted on the ground, grabbed Singletary’s leg, and heaved. At the same time he scissored his legs around the deputy’s other leg and swept it out from under Singletary. The white-haired man landed so hard it seemed like the whole world should have trembled under the impact.
Luke got a hand on the ground and levered himself up. A dive landed him on top of Singletary. He drove his knee into the man’s stomach, then clubbed his hands together and sledged them down into Singletary’s face. Singletary’s nose was already broken, and the terrific blow just flattened it that much more. The bottom half of the deputy’s pale face was smeared crimson with blood, and more splattered out across his pale skin.
That ended the fight. Singletary wasn’t completely unconscious, but he lay there in a battered stupor, unable to move. Luke knelt on top of him, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
He heard the unmistakable metallic sound of a gun being cocked.
“That’s it, mister,” Sheriff Whittaker said as he leveled his Colt. “Make another move and I’ll kill you. I said you’re under arrest, and I meant it.”
“But you were willing to stand by and let this thuggish bruiser of a deputy beat me to death if he could,” Luke accused. After the exertion of the fight, it was a strain for him to keep his voice steady, but he managed.
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