by Jane Toombs
““Funny thing, Doc, I can’t rightly recall getting shot, don’t even remember why I was in that field.”
“Don’t worry about it. That often happens with head injuries. You’ll be all right.” “I’m obliged to you,” Hank said. “And to the ladies.”
Tessa didn’t like the way his eyes rested speculatively first on Susan, then on her.
“He works for Mr. Dolan,” she told the doctor.
Hank nodded. “That’s right, I do. But it ain’t safe for me to go outside, what with McSween’s boys in that warehouse in back of here and them others in Montano’s store across the way. No, I reckon you’re stuck with me, but I don’t aim to cause no trouble.”
Tessa mistrusted every word he said. She was glad she’d had sense enough to hide his pistol before he regained consciousness.
“You could leave after dark,” she said. “The moon’s not half-full.” Again he eyed her. She didn’t care for his probing look.
“I’m a mite dizzy at the moment,” Hank said, leaning his head against the back of the chair he sat in. He closed his eyes.
Dr. Ealy shook his head at Tessa and she turned away. After all, Hank Kilgore did have a concussion and could well be dizzy and in pain. Why did she feel so strongly he was faking?
Jules walked into the room.
“Can we go home now?” he asked.
Dr. Ealy put his hand on Jules’ head. “You look fine to me, young man.”
“I’ll take him home then,” Tessa said. “Thank you, Doctor, for helping Jules. I was so--”
In a whirlwind of motion, Hank Kilgore sprang from the chair, knocked Jules aside and grabbed Tessa from behind. Hooking his arm about her neck. In his other hand he brandished a knife.
It was in his boot, Tessa thought confusedly. He had a knife in his boot sheath, and she’ hadn’t thought to look for one. Jules sobbed, but Hank held her so tightly she couldn’t turn her head to see if he was all right. She could hardly breathe.
“I’m taking her with me so they won’t shoot,” Hank growled. “You don’t try to stop me and I won’t hurt her.”
He tightened his grip on her throat, making her gag. Black specks danced before her eyes.
“Where’s my gun?” he hissed into her ear.
“If you know, tell him,” Dr. Ealy advised.
“Jules?” she managed to choke out, for she could hear him crying.
“He’s all right. I’ll take care of him,” the doctor said.
“The gun,” Hank snarled.
“Hall cupboard,” she gasped.
Hank pulled her with him as he backed through the door. Without releasing her, he yanked open the cupboard, bent to put the knife in its boot sheath and yanked the Colt from his gun belt. He thrust the gun into the front of his pants, leaving the belt on the shelf.
He pushed her ahead of him through the front door of the store. The sudden glare of the sun and his arm still tight about her neck made her stumble. Hank yanked her to her feet, warning, “Keep walking.”
Since having him carry her would be even worse, she tried to stay on her feet as best she could as they made their way west toward Dolan’s store.
No shots were fired and she saw no one but she knew men from both sides were watching them walk along the road under the lowering sun.
Someone will shoot, she told herself. Billy or one of the other expert marksmen. There must be a way they can miss me, but still hit him.
Not a shot was fired as they passed McSween’s, the Stanley’s, then Mills’. They came even with the Whortley hotel. Dolan’s store was across the street, but Kilgore turned toward the hotel instead. He freed the Colt from his pants, jamming it into her side as he hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her as someone opened the hotel door to let him in.
Once inside, he set her on her feet. She put a hand up to her neck, drawing a deep breath.
The room was filled with men. Hank grabbed her wrist, holding her firmly as everyone began to talk at once.
“…can’t keep a woman captive.”
“Wish I’d got myself one like her.”
“McSween’s filly.”
Tessa looked desperately from one bearded face to another, hoping against hope that she’d see Mark.
He wasn’t in the room.
“Hell, Hank, you’re gonna have to let her go,” a man with a drooping mustache said,
“She ain’t no dance-hall floozy. It don’t look good, one of us kidnapping a lady like her.”
“She’s McSween’s whore, That don’t make her a lady in my book.”
Tessa swallowed, feeling herself flush under the hot, avid stares of the men nearest her. She straightened her shoulders, then turned to glare at Hank. “Is this how you thank someone for saving your life?” she demanded.
He blinked. Before he could speak, she rushed on.
“I demand to be released this instant. I tried to help you, not harm you. You have no right to bring me here.”
“Hush up!” Hank snapped.
“Jim Dolan ain’t gonna like ...” the man with the mustache began.
“You shut up, too,” Hank told him. He pushed through the men, pulling Tessa after him.
When she saw he meant to take her up a flight of stairs, she began to struggle. Hank lifted her onto his shoulder and carried her up the steps. He threw open a door into a sour-smelling room where dirty covers trailed off a bed. He shut the door. Locked it. Threw her onto the bed.
Tessa scrambled to her feet. He shoved her backwards onto the bed again. She kicked at him. He grabbed her feet, thrust her skirts up and wrenched her legs apart, wedging his body inbetween them. She struck his face, her fingernails clawing, and he slapped her hard, twice.
“You gonna be nice or you gonna fight?” he asked. “You want to fight, the next time I’ll use my fist.”
“Let me go!” she cried.
“Afterwards,” he said. “You can go afterwards.”
He wrenched at the bodice of her gown and buttons popped off as it opened. He hooked two fingers in her camisole and ripped it from her breasts.
His eyes glittered as he looked at her exposed body.
“No!” she screamed, trying to twist away from him. “No!”
Chapter 9
Mark came out of the back room of Dolan’s store where he’d been closeted with Jim Dolan. Damn it, He’d ride the hell out of town this minute if it wasn’t for those marksmen of McSween’s.
He didn’t want any part of what was going on and he’d just told Jim he didn’t mean to use his gun on any man. He’d added that Jim ought to get things quieted down—stop the shooting.
“You tell McSween that,” Jim had growled. “He started it.”
Mark didn’t believe him, had said so and had been called a stupid son-of-a-bitch.
Mark stalked over to the barricaded window at the front of the store. Willis Jones turned from his gun hole.
“You missed all the excitement,” he told Mark, who shrugged.
“Kilgore took a woman into the hotel,”
“I’m not interested in Kilgore’s putas,” Mark snapped, turning away.
“She wasn’t no whore. She was a pretty little blonde. Looked like that gal who lives with the McSween’s.”
Mark whirled. Grabbed Willis’ shirt front. “What the hell are you talking about?” “Hey, let me loose,” Willis protested.
“The woman,” Mark demanded. “Who was she?”
“Don’t know. She looked like that gal from McSween’s.
“Kilgore took her into the hotel?”
“Yeah.”
Mark let go of Willis and strode to the front door.
“Wait,” Willis called. “You’ll get shot, Halloran. They got men posted.”
“Mark flung open the front door, slammed it shut behind him and ran zigzagging across the street toward Whortley’s Hotel.
He heard a rifle crack. Another. Dust puffed ahead of him. More shots. Something stung his arm. Three more steps and he was i
nside the hotel.
“Jesus, man, you’re bleeding,” Matthew told him as he closed the door. “Your arm…”
Mark scarcely heard him, pushing past, looking from one side of the room to another. He saw only men. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“Who?”
“Tessa Nesbitt. Where is she?”
Matthews grinned. “Old Hank carried her upstairs a while ago. Reckon he’s having himself a bang-up good time.” He nudged Mark, laughing.
Mark raced for the stairs, took them two at a time, reached the top and flung open the first door he came to.
A stubble-faced man snored drunkenly on a bed.
Not bothering to close the door, Mark strode to the next room, slammed the door open.
Empty.
The third door was locked.
“Kilgore!” Mark shouted
No answer. He hesitated, was about to go on to the next door when he heard a woman’s muffled scream from behind the locked door.
Mark raised his foot and slammed against the door. The heavy wood resisted his kick. The corridor was too narrow to give him room to run at it, so he drew his Colt and blasted the lock.
The door swung open.
Kilgore stood beside the bed, gaping at Mark, a knife in his hand. Blood dripped from the blade.
Redness clouded Mark’s vision. He thrust the Colt into the holster as he went for Kilgore. Kicking the knife from his hand, knocking the man to the floor, fingers gripping his throat.
Kill. Kill the bastard.
A woman called his name over and over. He could barely hear her voice above the thrum of rage that blotted out sound.
“No, Mark, please. Mark!”
Someone tugged at his arm, He came to partial awareness.
St. Louis. Brendon York’s fat neck under his fingers. Kill Brendon. Kill him like the murdering sneak he was.
“Mark, he’s dead! Stop!”
Tessa’s voice. Tessa didn’t belong in St. Louis. Mark blinked and his vision cleared. He let her pull his hands away from Brendon’s throat.
No, not Brendon. Mark stared down at the mottled face of Hank Kilgore.
Tessa was on her knees next to Mark, clutching at his arm, still calling his name.
He rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.
“The knife,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“I stabbed him with that knife,” she said, her eyes widening with remembered horror. “I pulled it out of his boot and shoved it into his side. Then he—he stood up and grabbed the knife and . . .” She put her hand to her mouth.
“After that he meant to kill me.”
Mark saw her disheveled hair, her torn dress. He clenched his fists.
“He tried to—to force me, Mark. That’s why I grabbed his knife.” She reached for him, burying her face against his chest. “Oh, Mark, it’s so dreadful,” she sobbed. “Take me home.
Please take me home.”
He held her close, stroking her hair. At his feet, Kilgore groaned.
Mark turned his head to look at him. Color had seeped back into Kilgore’s face. Blood stained his shirt on the right side.
Mark felt both relieved and angry that he hadn’t killed the man. Not that Kilgore deserved to live any more than Brendon York had. Still, Mark had made a vow seven years ago he’d never take another life except in self-defense.
The Whortley was no place for Tessa. Kilgore might be out of commission, but the hotel was filled with men Mark didn’t trust. Come to that, he didn’t trust Jim Dolan any more either.
“Your arm’s bleeding, Mark,” Tessa said, pulling away to look at him.
“A scratch. We’ve got to get out of here, Tessa. I’ll see you to McSween’s.”
The men downstairs stared at Mark and Tessa, but no one tried to stop them when he pushed open the front door and they stepped into the street.
Someone shouted from Dolan’s store as he headed east along the road. Tessa pressed close to his side, her arm in his. He ignored the shout, tried not to think of the Winchesters aimed at them. When they neared the McSween house, Tessa said, “Thank God you’re on our side now.”
“I don’t know if your side is in the right,” he said, “but I’m damn sure Dolan’s in the wrong.”
Inside the house Mark confronted McSween and the Kid. “Dolan’s convinced Peppin to send for the army,” Mark told them. “Colonel Dudley’s been trying to find a reason to help
Dolan and my bet is he’ll come riding in with troopers by sundown.” Billy and McSween eyed one another.
“Dudley hates your guts,” Billy told McSween. “We can’t fight the army.” “I’d advise getting out of town under cover of darkness,” Mark said.
“I’m through running,” Alex said grimly. “A man’s home is his castle, and I’ll defend mine.”
Mark nodded. He understood how McSween felt. There was a time to run and a time to fort up and defend what was yours.
O’Folliard, who’d come up to stand beside Billy, asked, “How do ya know this turncoat’s telling you the truth?”
“Well now,” Billy said, “Mark and me road the river together awhile back and he never lied to me yet.”
O’Folliard shrugged and turned away.
“I expected to see Rutledge here,” Mark said.
Billy grinned. “Seems like he’s one sinner who gets religion when the shooting starts, except the church he picks is out of town. Seems he had important business in Santa Fe.”
Ezra sauntered up and Mark resisted the impulse to raise his eyebrows. The boy had Billy’s walk down pat and even tied his kerchief at the same rakish angle as Billy’s. Only the fact that Ezra didn’t have buckteeth made his smile different from Billy’s.
“Glad to have you join the outfit,” Ezra said. “Knew you’d change your mind someday.” “I’d feel better about it if you and Jules and Tessa were out of this house,” Mark said.
Ezra’s smile faded. “Jules is already over with the Ealy’s. Maybe Tessa and the other women ought to leave, I won’t argue that. But I aim to stay here as long as I’m needed. Right, Billy?”
“I can always count on Ez,” Billy said.
Ezra beamed. “Always!” he said fervently.
Mark didn’t see Tessa that evening, except briefly when she helped the other women serve the supper. He watched her, and when their eyes met, Mark felt his heart leap in his chest.
When the army gets this damn feud settled, he told himself, I have to do something about Tessa. Have to straighten out my past so I have a name to offer her. Lies aren’t for Tessa.
If the army does settle anything. And if the past can ever be righted.
At ten-thirty the next morning, Colonel Dudley rode into Lincoln at the head of forty soldiers, both officers and men. He brought not only cavalry and infantry but a Gatling gun and a mountain howitzer. He halted the troops in front of the Whortley Hotel and spoke to Sheriff Peppin, then proceeded east and set up camp in a field across from Montano’s store, between Ellis’ and McSween’s.
Ezra, peering from a gun port, announced, “They’ve got the cannon pointed at Montano’s. Reckon they’re going to blast it?”
“Whatever happens, for God’s sake don’t shoot a soldier,” McSween warned. “We’ve no quarrel with them and we’ll really be in for it if one of them is even wounded, much less killed,”
Men crowded to the ports to watch as the twenty-five pro-McSween Mexicans in the Montano house filed out the front door and trudged east down the road, past the army camp. “Going for their horses at Ellis’.” Billy said. “Hard to face a cannon.” “The men at Ellis’ will leave next,” Mark predicted.
“Not Bowdre,” Billy said. “Middleton and Skurlock’s there, too. They won’t give up any more than I would.”
During the night, some of the men at McSween’s had slipped over to Ellis’. Manuel and Rosalita had gone with them. Ezra counted how many there were left in the house. Thirteen men, but Mark had no rifle with him, just a Colt, and Alex did
n’t shoot at all. Three women, five children.
The lookout on the roof was the first to spot the men riding from Ellis to cross the Rio Bonito.
“More than just the Mexicans leaving,” he reported to Billy. “They’ve all gone. Bowdre, too; I’d know that old hat of his anywhere.”
“Here comes Peppin, bold as brass,” O’Folliard said a few minutes later. “I reckon I could pop him off--”
“No!” McSween ordered. “Hold your fire. I can see soldiers behind him.” “Ain’t gonna hit none of them black bastards,” O’Folliard muttered. “Just Peppin.” “Don’t shoot,” McSween repeated.
Peppin halted some yards from the house, the soldiers stopping behind him. Deputy Turner, with five of Peppin’s posse, came up, turned in the gate and walked to the door.
“I hold a warrant for the arrest of Alexander McSween,” he called. “Come out, McSween.”
“Yeah? Well, we got warrants for some of you,” Billy shouted back.
“Damn it then, come out and serve them!” Turner called.
“A bullet’s the only warrant I mean to serve,” Billy replied.
McSween, who’d said nothing, sighed when he saw Turner turn away and walk back to where Peppin waited. The sheriff, his men and the soldiers all withdrew from the road.
“I’m not giving myself up to Peppin,” McSween said. “It’s certain death if I do.”
“Then I think we ought to get the women and children to safety,” Mark said. “The house is bound to be attacked.”
“Wait,” McSween said, sitting down at his desk. “I’ll write an appeal to Colonel Dudley.
Surely he won’t let his men stand by while Dolan tries to force us out.”
“Send the note if you want,” Billy said. “Can’t do any harm.”
McSween handed his note to Minnie, one of the Shield children, and sent her to the army camp two houses away. She brought back a reply from the colonel’s adjutant, informing McSween that Colonel Dudley refused to correspond with him in any way.
McSween sat at his desk chewing his lip. “I’ll try once more,” he said. “I’ll offer to give myself up to Dudley but to no other.”