The smaller fellow hadn’t taken two steps before Geneve began to sob and claw against the stringy-haired one who’d been holding her back.
“No,” Sikes said. “Wait.”
The shorter fellow paused in place.
Squatting beside Sikes, the shooter cupped his hand behind his own ear. “Yes?”
Was this, then, the only way he could protect her? Through the nausea and the pain, Sikes felt sorrow deeper than any he had ever known.
He looked past the shooter toward Geneve. “I’m sorry, my dear. My best wasn’t enough.”
She wept bitterly.
“Your friends?” the gunslick said, pistol casually leveled at Sikes’s chest.
“Gone to El Paso. Left on this morning’s train.” Sikes gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Tears ran down his face. The betrayal was complete. “Be merciful to the girl,” he breathed.
“A realist,” the gunman said softly. “I admire that. Tell you what: if I find Strong and your other friends in El Paso like you said, I’ll show Miss Geneve some mercy. If you’ve lied to me, though…I’ll take it out on her. What d’you think of that?”
Sikes shook his head. “You won’t need to take it out on her. I’m not lying.”
“So El Paso—that’s the place?”
Sikes nodded.
“Good man.” The gunslick pulled his back-up gun from its holster and laid it on the floor, grips toward Sikes, near the pool of blood below his hands. “Wanna have a go at me? One last chance to end things your way?”
What was this? Why did he have to humiliate him when it was clear that he was already crushed!
“Wanna try to shoot me?” the gunslick said.
Pointless, Sikes thought. But he’d rather die with a gun in his hand than let this bloke blow his brains out with no resistance.
He stared straight into the gunslick’s eyes. Drew a deep breath. His voice was low. Firm. “Be merciful to the girl.”
In his mind, the move was fast. He could almost feel the grips in his hand.
An explosion of light and sound preceded the darkness and silence.
Following the dull bang of the discharge, there was only the sound of Geneve’s muffled crying and wheezing. Cage glanced over his shoulder to glimpse Jarvis’s hand clamped over the girl’s mouth. Little energy remained in the girl’s struggle to pull free now, her strength seemingly having been lost—along with her hope—at the crack of the last shot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Why, Emmett Strong! Didn’t expect to see you back in San Elizario so soon.” Hotel owner Sid Singleton blinked several times and broke into a broad grin.
“Didn’t expect to be back so soon.” Emmett stepped through the open doorway, crossed to the front desk, and extended his hand to the thin, white-haired hotelkeeper.
Sid gave a hearty handshake. “Figured you’d be settlin’ in over in San Antone with that pretty little bride of yours. How is she?”
The corner of Emmett’s mouth turned up spontaneously. He trusted Sid, and he was tempted to tell him that Li was right outside. Nonetheless, he decided to play it extra safe. “She’s just fine. Not too happy I’ve had to leave her behind so soon after the nuptials, but fine all in all.”
“So you’re here all by your lonesome?”
“No, Juanito, Jack VanDorn, and…another friend…are right outside under the ramada.”
“Well, tell ’em to come on in outta the heat. Mrs. Singleton will be delighted.” Sid reached for the hotel register, turned to a new page, and dated the first blank. “How many rooms will you be needin’, then?”
Emmett had already thought through the seemingly simple matter. If he asked for only three rooms, Sid might wonder why he and the unnamed friend were sharing quarters, while Juanito and VanDorn were rooming individually. And VanDorn and Juanito would most definitely want separate rooms. So he had his explanation ready.
“Only three rooms, Sid. We’ll check in now, but all four of us will be riding out on business tonight. Jack VanDorn aims to stay on in El Paso. The other three of us’ll return sometime tomorrow, maybe the next day.”
Sid turned the guest ledger around and slid it across the counter to Emmett. “Are you gonna sign for all three or just for yourself?”
Emmett flipped the pages of the ledger back two weeks and let his finger run down the page to where he, Juanito, and Sikes had each signed for a room. The page was dated, but Sid did not customarily mark the time of day when his guests checked in. Would this serve as adequate evidence that he and his amigos had not been in El Paso on the day when Taft claimed to have been robbed?
“Do you recall what time of day our party arrived here last time, Sid?” Emmett tapped his signature on the ledger.
Rubbing his chin, the hotelkeeper said, “Hmm. It was mornin’, wasn’t it? You and your group had ridden through the night.”
Emmett nodded. “And Mrs. Singleton could vouch for that, as well, don’t you reckon?”
Sid cocked his head. “Somebody suggestin’ you were elsewhere at that time?”
“Appears so.”
“Personal dispute? Or somethin’ a little more complicated?”
Emmett met Sid’s gaze. “It’s complicated enough. Might be rooted in something personal.”
Sid furrowed his brow. “So would the missus and me be vouchin’ for you on the witness stand then? In a court of law?”
“I’m inquiring just in case it comes down to that.”
After craning his neck to peer into the dining room, Sid murmured, “Don’t mean to pry, but are you in some kinda trouble, Emmett?”
“Can’t rightly say, just yet.”
“Well, bein’ as Mrs. Singleton served you all your breakfast that mornin’, I’m sure she’d be pleased to verify your whereabouts.”
Emmett flipped back to today’s page and signed his name. “May never come to it, but if it does, we’d be much obliged.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Another question.”
“Yeah?”
“Would it put you out too much to let me borrow your guest register here for a while?”
Sid scratched his scalp through his thinning hair. “Wish I could let you have it, pard. But it’s still got a number of unused pages yet. And I don’t have another one.”
“Nothing else you could use temporary-like while I show this to some folks? Might make a heap of difference. Might nip this whole thing in the bud.”
“Well…” Sid looked back and forth along the backside of the counter. He rubbed his jaw. “Well, I s’pose this is one reason why we even keep a guest ledger—official proof of who stayed here and when.” He met Emmett’s gaze. “I’ll be able to get it back, won’t I?”
“Sooner or later,” Emmett said. “Sooner, I hope. Meanwhile, I can try to bring you a new one when I come back from El Paso tomorrow or the next day.”
“I guess so, then.”
Emmett pulled a couple of paper bills from his pocket and laid them on the counter. “For the three of us that’ll be coming back. Ought to cover tonight and tomorrow night, shouldn’t it?”
Sid nodded. “Just right. Thank you, sir.”
Emmett closed the guest register and tucked it under his arm. Touching his hat brim, he gave a single nod. “Thanks, Sid. We’ll be back.”
He’d just turned for the door, when Sid said, “Hey, pard…”
Emmett looked back.
Sid wore a solemn expression. “You come back in one piece, OK?”
In his coming and going through San Elizario over the years, Emmett had never seen the hotelkeeper turn so sober so suddenly. It made him feel peculiar. He forced a grin. “I’ll be back, Sid. Count on it. I haven’t had a piece of Mrs. Singleton’s peach pie in weeks. And I don’t have time for it today.”
Sid didn’t matc
h his grin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jack VanDorn strolled into the El Paso marshal’s office expecting the same sort of cordial welcome he always got from Alonzo Perry. Instead, he was greeted with a hard stare.
“Got somethin’ you need to tell me, Jack?” the marshal said, hands on his hips.
“Well, howdy-do to you, too, Marshal,” Jack shot back. “Burr under your saddle?”
Marshal Perry walked to the open door and peered out toward the hitching rail. “Thought you and your fellow Texas Rangers would be back in just a couple days. I’ve got a saloon owner breathin’ down my neck, accusin’ me of shirkin’ my duties by not gettin’ up a posse the day he was robbed, and further accusin’ me of stretchin’ the truth when I promised him you’d be bringin’ Emmett Strong and his amigos back directly. Now—unless my eyes’re playin’ tricks on me—looks as if you and Mr. Strong weren’t able to work things out. Where is he?”
VanDorn folded his arms. “Emmett Strong and his friends didn’t do it.”
“That’s fine for you to say, Jack, but I’ve got folks to answer to, includin’ the city council…whose ears the saloon owner has been bending night and day, by the bye. You just takin’ your friend’s word for it?”
VanDorn held up his hand and ambled out to his horse. As he reached into his saddlebag, he watched Alonzo Perry, still frowning over in the doorway. The ranger drew Sid Singleton’s black hardcover hotel register from the bag and headed back indoors. The marshal’s scowl eased just a bit.
After laying the register on the nearer of the two desks, VanDorn thumbed to the page where Emmett and his compadres had signed two weeks ago. He pointed. “The folks your saloon owner is accusin’ weren’t even in El Paso the day the robbery happened. This ledger’s from the Monarch Hotel over next to the railroad station in San Elizario—twenty miles from here.”
“Humph.” The marshal rubbed the back of his neck. “Gives a date. Doesn’t state a time, though.” He met VanDorn’s gaze. “How do we know they didn’t do the robbery in the mornin’, then ride hard to San Elizario and sign in that evenin’?”
“Hotel owner and his wife said they’d testify. Said they served Strong and his party breakfast that very mornin’.” VanDorn tapped the dated page. “Fella over at the livery said he’d vouch for ’em, too. Told me they stabled their horses with him from shortly after sunup till just before they loaded the animals on the train that afternoon.”
The marshal stared at VanDorn for a long moment. “Maybe so. But Franklin Taft’s got witnesses, too.”
“And have you questioned Taft’s witnesses any further? In a manner so they couldn’t play off of one another to prop up their story?”
“You yourself told me to give ’em some rope, just to watch ’em and see whether they behaved peculiarly.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t reckon I’d be gone quite so long.”
The marshal picked at the edge of the desktop with his thumbnail. “Well, I haven’t questioned ’em yet.”
“That means they’ve had about two weeks to talk over their version of things, smooth out any contradictions.”
“Dammit.” The marshal smacked his desktop then looked up again.
“Forget it,” VanDorn said. “We can’t turn back the clock.” He pushed a stack of papers aside and sat on the edge of the desk. “What I need you to do now is to head on over to the Wild Hog. Tell Mr. Taft to get his witnesses together for us by tomorrow noon.”
“I can do that. You want ’em to meet us here?”
VanDorn shook his head. “Not here. Can you think of a place in town where we can stash three or four men, so we can question ’em one at a time without lettin’ ’em feed each other answers in between?”
“No place except maybe a hotel. Borrow a few rooms for a couple of hours. Let my deputy keep watch in the hallway while we do the questionin’.”
“That should work fine. One thing, though: in the process, we don’t wanna make ’em feel as though they’re already in jail. They’ll clam up on us. We want ’em feelin’ righteous.”
“I’ll see to it.” Marshal Perry stood a little straighter. “Now, you still haven’t told me anything about where your Texas Ranger pardners are, Jack. They’re still the accused in this case, you understand.”
Before VanDorn could answer, Warren Livingston, Alonzo Perry’s deputy, stepped through the front door into the office. He held a paper in hand and wore a deep frown. Catching sight of Jack, he stopped in his tracks, glanced at the marshal, and then held the paper out to the ranger. “Welcome back, Mr. VanDorn. I was gonna give this to Marshal Perry, but since you’re here, I reckon it oughta go to you.”
The marshal cocked his head.
Jack accepted the paper and unfolded it. It was a telegram, addressed to Emmett Strong’s brother-in-law, Juan Carlos Galvez. “Well, I’ll be…”
“What?” Perry said.
VanDorn’s mind was abuzz. He ignored the marshal for a moment and focused his gaze on the deputy. “I s’pose you read this, hmm?” If he had, it might be difficult to keep Emmett and Juanito’s presence here in El Paso a secret from the two of them.
“Yes, sir,” the deputy answered. “Tim Buckner over at the telegraph office handed it to me unfolded. Asked me if I knew who this Juan Carlos Galvez was. So I gave the message a once-over.”
“Juan Carlos Galvez,” the marshal said. “Isn’t that—”
“Emmett Strong’s brother-in-law,” VanDorn said. “The other Texas Ranger Taft is accusin’. Yes.”
“Well, is the telegram for Mr. Galvez, or is it about him?”
VanDorn hesitated. Deputy Livingston would know. If he didn’t tell Alonzo Perry himself, the deputy, no doubt, would. “It’s for him. It says the English fella, Sikes—you’d know him as the third man accused in the robbery. It says Sikes was found dead, all shot to hell and back, in the saloon he was fixin’ to open up over in San Antonio.”
Marshal Perry stared Jack down. “So one of the accused is dead. Just so happens he was fixin’ to open up a saloon in San Antonio. And it just so happens he stole Franklin Taft’s prize lady of the evenin’ from the Wild Hog Saloon. And it just so happens Franklin Taft’s own saloon profits were stolen from him. And the telegram was sent to another of the accused, who must be back here in El Paso. Is there anything else you’re not tellin’ me, Jack?”
VanDorn stared back. “The girl from Taft’s saloon, Geneve…she’s disappeared.”
Eyes wide, the deputy looked back and forth between Marshal Perry and VanDorn. “You think she killed Sikes?”
“I don’t know the woman.” VanDorn picked up the hotel register from the marshal’s desk. “The madam over at the Wild Hog might be able to tell us whether Miss Geneve is made of the kind of stuff that could plug a man full of lead. Lot of things to ask the folks over at the Wild Hog.”
“And lots of questions to ask those two Texas Ranger friends of yours, Jack,” the marshal said. “Now where are they? Telegraph came here to El Paso. Are they here with you?”
VanDorn nodded. “They’re here.”
“Well, why the hell have you been holdin’ out on me? This town is my jurisdiction. I’m responsible for lookin’ into this whole affair.”
“They’re good men,” VanDorn said. “They can help us solve this thing.”
The marshal shook his head emphatically. “They’re the accused.”
“Don’t you think I know that? That’s why I haven’t told you where they are.”
“But they can’t be objective in this case. Hell, evidently you can’t even be objective in this case, Jack. You’re already convinced they’re innocent.”
“I’ve got evidence right here in my hands that says they are innocent.” VanDorn held up the hotel guest register.
“Pshaw. It’s evidence, all right. But it’s not conclusive.” Perry reached out. “N
ow give me the book so I can lock it away for the trial. And tell me where Emmett Strong and Juan Carlos Galvez are.”
VanDorn clutched the ledger under his arm and headed for the door.
“You can’t withhold that evidence, Jack.” The marshal followed VanDorn out of the office. “Obstruction of justice. You’re gonna mess things up but good for your friends…if they are innocent, like you say. And I need that telegram, too.”
VanDorn stopped beside his horse. He was deliberate in choosing his words. “Alonzo, we’ve known each other a long time. Worked together more’n once. Always trusted one another as professionals. Now I’m askin’ you to trust me again. Meet me at the Cantina Las Flores. Tonight, half hour after dark.”
“Cantina Las Flores? That lice-infested bed house?”
The ranger tossed a nod toward the deputy in the doorway. “You can bring Warren along. But don’t bring anybody else.” He put a boot in the stirrup but stopped before swinging up into the saddle. “And don’t go talkin’ to anybody else, except like we already agreed on—tell Taft to get his witnesses over here tomorrow at noon.”
The marshal rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a long exhalation. He nodded. “Tonight, then. Cantina Las Flores.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Emmett, Li, and Juanito sat in stunned silence side by side on the edge of the narrow bed that filled much of the tiny, second-story, stucco-plastered room. Jack VanDorn occupied the room’s sole chair—a simple ladder-back piece opposite the bed and next to a rough table with a washbasin and a well-worn towel on it. Light from a lone, small window set high in the short span of exterior wall beside the door filtered through a single panel of coarse curtain.
It was Juanito who broke the silence. “I’ve got a bad feeling—a feeling that whoever went after Sikes also did something to Geneve.”
“You’re assuming the girl wasn’t in league with whoever shot your friend,” VanDorn said. “Or that she didn’t shoot him herself.”
Strong Suspicions (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 2) Page 12