Broken Spurs

by BJ James

  Slamming a fist into the thin mattress that served as seat and bed in the tiny room, he refused to be the instrument of his own defeat. There had to be someone. A chance encounter. Perhaps, considering Angie’s tarnished finery, an assignation—a quick roll in the hay for a few quick bucks—gone wrong. Life and death at the whim of a stranger. An old acquaintance.

  “An old acquaintance! Good lord! That’s it.” Levering himself from the bed, he paced in excitement. “Tad Jasper.”

  The man was not a band sort. In fact, he never seemed to mind that he existed on the fringes of the rodeo, picking up small change, taking second-rate rides. Not the sort the buckle bunnies flocked to. Not enough glamour, not enough money. Angie was a step up for him.

  “Or was he her step down?”

  No matter the case, the man was besotted. He wouldn’t hurt her, Steve argued, playing devil’s advocate. Unless...

  “Unless be realized she was only using him.” Steve stopped his pacing. The cell block was quiet, he was its sole occupant. The only ears to hear and judge the ebullient speculations were his own. “If she spurned him, if she only wanted him when she needed him, and didn’t anymore... Would he be angry enough to kill her?”

  He answered his own question, damning it with a shake of his head. Jasper wasn’t a killer. “But if she made him angry enough, if he lost his temper. If he lashed out...”

  Breaking off his vocal deliberation, he strode to the bars. Someone other than himself should hear his theory. If not a lawyer, then Billy Blackhawk.

  “Deputy.” He tapped the bars with a tin cup left with the clutter of the breakfast he hadn’t eaten. “Deputy!”

  “Yes, sir.” The uniformed deputy who answered his summons would have been far more convincing dressed in a letter jacket, watching cheerleaders at the nearest high school, than he was as guard to an accused killer.

  “I need to speak with the sheriff.”

  The boy scuffed his feet, if he’d said aw shucks, it wouldn’t have been surprising. Instead, he blurted, “Sheriff Blackhawk ain’t here.”

  Steve was frustrated, angry, each of which made his voice sharper than he would have wished. “Where is he? I saw him earlier.”

  “Yes, sir.” Swallowing hard, the boy struggled with the speechlessness of lingering hero worship. “He had an early meeting, then the two of them rushed out. Said they’d be back in a bit.”

  “They?” Steve gripped the bars, the cup clattered to the floor, rolled to the corner and lay still. “Who was with the sheriff?”

  “Official business, Mr. Cody, and not for me to say.” Saying no to a hero was difficult, but the young guard knew his duty.

  “When will he return?”

  “I’m not privy to his schedule, sir.”

  “Will you tell him I need to see him the minute he comes in?”

  “Yes, sir.” The guard almost bowed, almost touched his forelock. “The very minute.”

  “Thanks.” Steve’s gaze dipped to the name tag on the boy’s chest. “Thank you, Deputy Bridges.”

  When the beaming Bridges had gone, Steve felt deflated, anxious, as if delay would weaken his theory. He started to pace, realized it only reinforced his awareness of the confining space, stopped. But idleness was as difficult. He had no books, no papers, nothing to pass the time.

  Sprawling on the bed, the back of his head resting on his folded arms, he stared at another ceiling. From beginning to end, in his mind he replayed every meeting with Angie, and with Tad. Tad was always there, standing on the sidelines, watching and listening as Angie made her plays. How much of it was too much? How much before he reached his breaking point?

  Hours later, Steve was still pondering, still wondering, when the squealing door broadcasted the arrival of Billy Blackhawk.

  “Sheriff.” Steve lurched to his feet. “I have to speak with you.”

  “So our starstruck deputy told me. Many times.”

  “I have to speak to you, now!”

  Billy Blackhawk was a young giant of a man, part Apache, all stoic, and one who never seemed to hurry even when he did. Utterly calm under the brunt of Steve’s urgency, he lifted a staying hand. “I have every intention of hearing what you have to say, but I’m not a man who bides well in confining places.”

  As Steve questioned what few places the big breed wouldn’t find confining, the key rattled in the lock, his cell door swung open.

  “I’d prefer to have this conversation in more spacious surroundings. My office, for instance,” Blackhawk continued with a casual ease. “Or, better yet, now that I’m off duty, the nearest open air tavern.”

  Perplexed, Steve stood before the open door. “What are you saying?”

  Blackhawk grinned a rare grin, displaying dimples completely at odds with the roughhewn features of his magnificently chiseled face. “I’m saying you’re a free man, Mr. Cody.”

  “What? How?”

  “It’s a long story that can be told in many words. But better in one.”

  “One?” Steve was completely mystified now.

  The sheriff stepped aside, revealing that he wasn’t alone, making an unneeded introduction with a natural gallantry. “Your alibi, Mr. Cody.”

  Steve’s expression was grim. When he could speak, his voice rang hollowly in the small cell. “Savannah.”

  Blackhawk chuckled. “That’s the word.”

  Chapter 17

  Billy Blackhawk leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on his desk, folded his hands over his lean midriff and waited for the fireworks.

  He didn’t have to wait long, and his ex-prisoner didn’t disappoint him. Before Savannah had time to settle into her seat, Steve was standing and glaring over her. “What the devil is this all about, and what are you doing here?”

  Glancing up at him, then at Blackhawk, taking a page from Camilla’s new rule book, she smiled a maddeningly unperturbed smile. “An unusual reaction, wouldn’t you say, Billy? I didn’t expect a brass band, but one does wonder whatever happened to ‘Hello, how are you, it’s good to see you again?’”

  Steve overrode any comment Blackhawk might have made. “I haven’t been in the mood for brass bands or etiquette for days, Savannah.”

  “No,” she murmured. “Obviously not.”

  “I told you not to come here.” His fingers opened and flexed in irritation, vexation, frustration, and countless other emotions he couldn’t fathom. One he did recognize was the mounting need to yank her from her chair and kiss that unruffled, ladylike demeanor to hell and gone. “I told you I could manage alone. What the devil did Jake say about this?”

  “I really have no idea.” A delicate shrug sent one side of her blouse sliding from her shoulder. As his eyes widened, she hid another smile and left it as it was.

  “You have no idea! What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means what I said. I don’t know what he’s thinking because I didn’t tell him.”

  Relief reeled through Steve. “I thought...”

  “You thought I told Billy you couldn’t have killed Angie because you were making love to me the whole night through?”

  “Dammit, Savannah! You didn’t.”

  “I did,” she went on serenely, as if he weren’t cursing with nearly every breath, or scowling at her as if he would gleefully throttle her. Casting a look at Blackhawk, she invited confirmation.

  “Miss Benedict has sworn to me that on the night Angie Cody died, she, Miss Benedict, was with you in your room at the Silverton Hotel. She has further sworn that between the hours of twelve midnight and seven in the morning, neither of you left the room.” Blackhawk stated facts as if he were reciting them, in a tone that offered no judgment.

  “That’s it?” Tearing his gaze from Savannah, Steve wheeled around to face the sheriff. “On a word from her, without proof, you swing the cell door wide and invite me to freedom?”

  Billy’s pale golden eyes glittered in his expressionless face. “It wasn’t quite that simple, but yes.”

&nbs
p; “And you believed her?”

  “I did. But a court might not, so I went with her to investigate an idea she proposed.” Blackhawk’s hands were still laced over his middle, his thumbs tapped one against the other in a lazy rhythm. “A hunch, a theory, call it what you like, but one that had occurred to me, as well.”

  “What theory?” Steve demanded.

  “That Tad Jasper killed Angie Cody in a jealous rage.” Nothing changed in Blackhawk’s face, his bland manner revealed nothing.

  It was gratifying to hear his own speculations echoed almost verbatim. But, despite his surprise that the sheriff had thought to look past him, given his strong motive and a preponderance of circumstantial evidence supplied by Cactus Poteat, Steve’s attitude didn’t change. “How did you go about checking out this mutual theory?”

  Something that might have been the beginning of a grin but too minute to recognize, flitted over Blackhawk’s sculpted face as his thumbs continued their tapping cadence. “I asked him.”

  Incredulous silence followed the casual comment as Steve stood apart, his stare moving from one solemn face to another. Weary from his long night, his sigh was harsh, irritable. “Ah, of course, you just asked.”

  Blackhawk’s grin came out of hiding. “You know a faster way to get at the truth?”

  “Of course not,” Steve drawled. “Not when the suspect just couldn’t wait to tell you he’d killed the woman he worshiped like a lovesick puppy.” His fist slammed the desk. “Dammit, man, do you take me for a fool?”

  “Well, now, Mr. Cody.” Taking his feet from his desk and his hands from their repose, the sheriff leaned forward. “There are a lot of things I might take you for, but whether or not one of them is a fool remains to be seen.

  “But,” he lifted an emphatic finger, “to answer your question, as a matter of fact, Jasper was more than willing to talk. You might say eager. Said he didn’t mean to do it, but didn’t mean for you to take the blame, either. Asked me to tell you he would have been on down to make things right in a day or so.”

  Startled, annoyed, afraid to be relieved, Steve couldn’t get past his wariness. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Then I think it’s about time you started.”

  “You were suspicious of Tad all along?” It would explain why Blackhawk was so quick to act on a hunch and a theory.

  “He was a strong possible.”

  A gaze as dark as night bored into the golden stare of the sheriff. “Tad isn’t really a killer.”

  “I know,” Blackhawk agreed. “It doesn’t require a degree in psychology to see he’s really a mild, noncompetitive personality. But even mild mannered folk have their breaking point. Tad Jasper was quite simply the wrong man, in the wrong place, with the wrong woman.”

  Thoughtfully Steve admitted Angie’s greed had made her the wrong woman for many people. For him, for herself, and most of all, for Tad. “Where is he now?”

  “Angie’s body has been released by the coroner. Since no family could be found, he wanted to make the final arrangements. I believe he said she was born in El Paso, and he felt she would want to be interred there.” Blackhawk paused, allowing opportunity for objection or accord. When Steve’s only response was a slight expression of acceptance, he continued in his same unruffled manner. “He’ll be along when he’s through. I left a deputy with him, as a formality, but I don’t consider it was necessary. I suspect some sort of closure for Angie was all he was waiting for before he came in to confess.”

  “Confess! He was coming in to confess!” Steve swung around to Savannah, who had sat quietly during this strange exchange. “Then Savannah needn’t have come in at all. There was no reason to expose herself to gossip and scandal.”

  “That isn’t exactly what I said.” There was the cutting steel of a rapier in Blackhawk’s hard tone. “I wouldn’t make light of what Hank did for you. Without her statement we just might have considered Jasper a crackpot looking for kicks by confessing to a crime. After all, what real evidence do we have other than his story?

  “Should I remind you that Cactus saw you in the yard. He heard you threaten her.” A steely gaze matched the steely tone. “You, Cody, and no one else.”

  Passing a hand over the aching muscles of his jaw, feeling the scrape of his stubbled cheek against his fingertips, Steve’s mouth went dry. He needed no reminders of how near he’d come to disaster. “After days locked up in a box, I don’t have to be told that I should be thankful, nor to whom I owe my thanks.”

  “I thought not.” Blackhawk amended his observation tersely, “I hoped not.”

  The skepticism, however mild, rankled, but Steve wasn’t to be swayed from his point. “Regardless of what happened, or how, the important point is that with Tad’s confession you won’t require Savannah’s statement. You said the court might not believe her, so no one outside this office should be privy to her information.”

  “You keep putting words in my mouth, then twisting them.” The sheriff complained, but without any show of the irritation expressed only seconds before. “All I can promise is that we won’t use Hank unless Jasper’s confession doesn’t hold up. In which case, we won’t be able to avoid bringing her into it.”

  Out of sheer perversity, because he felt Cody needed a short lesson in reality, Blackhawk didn’t mention traces of skin found under Angie Cody’s fingernails, a smear of blood on her palm and shirt. Signs of injury, but not to her, for other than a broken neck the pathologist had found no wound on her body. It was a natural deduction that Angie had fought with her killer, that the skin and blood were his. Steve Cody had no wounds. But it had taken only a glance to confirm that Jasper’s face and hands looked as if he’d tangled with a wildcat. Blackhawk was confident DNA testing would substantiate the rest.

  “There has to be some way you can insure you won’t have to call her,” Steve persisted.

  “Said I’d try.” Massive shoulders moved beneath the khaki uniform. “And I will.”

  “Trying isn’t good enough, Blackhawk. Do it.”

  “Steve!” Savannah intervened in the verbal sparing. “It isn’t your place to tell Billy how to do his job. If he said he would try to keep me out of this, that’s exactly what he’ll do—try. Beyond that, his hands are tied.”

  “It’s okay, Hank, your man and I understand each other on this matter.” Blackhawk leaned back in his seat again, folded his hands at his waist, but kept his feet on the floor. Cocking his head, he swept Steve with a probing look. “You know, Cody, you strike me as a man who needs to get his priorities in order.”

  “Yeah? What order would you suggest?”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Blackhawk took the question at face value. “Instead of fretting over troubles that might come to pass in the future, you would be wise to look at today and count your blessings.

  “Hank just gave you back your life.” Something like envy moved in eyes that burned like a tiger. “If I were you, I’d take her home, and I’d spend the rest of all the time she’d give me proving to her just how grateful I can be.”

  “You would, huh?” Steve said dryly.

  “Yep.”

  “You know,” his militant manner softened, his voice turned thoughtful, “you may be right. In fact, you are right, Blackhawk.” Turning, he found Savannah watching him, a smile that defied interpretation on her lips. “But I think there’s a problem with it.”

  “You think so?” Savannah asked before the sheriff could. “I wonder what it could be.”

  “For starters, one of us has some explaining to do, the other some apologizing.” As she sat quietly, still maddeningly unperturbed, he added quietly, “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Perhaps.” Her lashes drifted down, shielding her eyes as she thought of Camilla’s rules, her own new rules. A tremor of anticipation quivered in her as she decided there would certainly need to be explanations, and, if he insisted, apologies. But later, much, much later.

  Watching her, Steve found her so still, so peaceful, she hardly
seemed able to cope with the real world. Yet he knew that she could, that she had, that she would, better than anyone he’d ever known.

  She was lovely, sitting in a cracked leather chair in Blackhawk’s austere office as if it were the most natural place to be. And, as he’d found she would always be, she was many women in one. The proper gentlewoman, with her skirt brushing to top of her boots and her hands folded primly in her lap. The sultry siren, with her hypnotic scent of roses and wild flowers drifting to him.

  She was Savannah. A wonder filled, vexing mix of lady and hoyden, with her hair flowing wild and free, her calm silver gaze and her controlled little smile.

  And all the while her blouse slipped further from her shoulder.

  God help him! He wanted to forget ranches and canyons, and Jake Benedict, as much as he wanted to forget explanations and apologies. He wanted to kiss the curve of her shoulder so innocently bared, and touch his tongue to the special place he’d discovered would always leave her trembling and far from prim.

  More than that, he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, and make her his. This time forever.

  The admission didn’t surprise him. He knew without the words that it was what he’d wanted for a long, long time.

  If he just hadn’t thrown it away.

  Touching her, feeling the heat of her flesh, letting his fingertips linger on that special place only for a moment, he lifted her face to his gaze. Beneath the serenity, he saw a flare of heat turn her eyes fierce and sultry. Heat that became blazing, hungering need before her lashes dipped again like a veil.

  “Savannah,” he murmured, and then again, because he liked the feel of her name on his lips. “Savannah, what are you thinking?”

  Her hand lifted to his, holding his palm to her cheek. Then she was rising. “I’m thinking we’ve taken enough of Billy’s time. Unless there’s more to be done—papers to be signed, red tape to be cut—we should let him get back to his job.”

  “Sheriff?” Steve didn’t trust himself to say more as he backed away from her, not daring even a look.