Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights

by Leigh Greenwood

  “Maybe I’d better see this Slade Morgan.”

  “He’s out on the range somewhere. He ought to be back by dinner.”

  “You want one of us to go find him, marshall?”

  Pamela thought Jud sounded too eager.

  “No, I don’t think it’s necessary.” He started to follow Jud, but he stopped and turned back. “By the way, I got some information about a week ago on a man they want in some Texas town called Brazos. Seems he killed three men, all brothers. There’s a good bit of curiosity about how he did it.”

  “But that’s hundreds of miles from here,” Walter Nilson pointed out. “Why would they be sending you information?”

  “He’s disappeared and nobody knows where he’s got to. There’s always the chance he’ll drift through sooner or later.”

  “I don’t know,” Nilson said doubtfully. “That’s a pretty slim chance.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “That’s another problem. Seems this fella wears a beard. Had it since he was a kid. If he shaved it off, there ain’t nobody that’d know what he looks like.”

  Pamela felt the earth move under her feet. Slade said he had worn a beard his whole life! He also said he was drifting in from Texas by way of Mexico. Surely he couldn’t be the man they were looking for.

  “Is it murder?”

  This time Pamela knew Jud asked his question with too much eagerness.

  “Don’t know. There was a good bit of money involved, the man’s own it seems, but there’s bound to be questions when one man kills three people, especially when they’re known to be right handy with a gun.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not much, just that he was about six feet tall, in his late twenties, and pretty damned good with a gun himself.”

  Pamela felt too sick at heart to follow the marshall over to see Mongo. He couldn’t have given a better description of Slade the day he walked in off the desert if he’d seen him himself. But Slade couldn’t have killed those men. Not for a reason as silly as money. Frantically, she shoved aside all the evidence that Slade could have been the very man to do just that. She knew Slade, and no matter how callous he pretended to be about guns and life in the West, he wouldn’t just kill people. She knew he wouldn’t.

  She wandered up to the campfire and poured herself a cup of coffee. She had to think, to figure out what to do, but her mind wouldn’t work. She couldn’t think of anything except that Slade couldn’t have killed those men.

  “Might be a good idea if you gave a listen to what Mr. Shepherd’s telling the marshall.”

  “What?” Angus’s warning roused Pamela from her reverie. She had to ask him to repeat his remark.

  “I said Mr. Shepherd’s telling Marshall Alcott Mr. Morgan shot him. He’s even hinting he might have something to do with your father’s not being back yet.”

  Pamela jumped to her feet and headed toward the wagon so fast she didn’t see Angus’s smile of satisfaction or hear him mutter, “Old Mongo’s done burnt his bridges for good this time.”

  Pamela burst into the center of the group like a windstorm. “What have you been saying behind my back, Mongo Shepherd?” she demanded so furiously the man’s perpetual air of superiority almost deserted him.

  “Just what ought to be obvious to anybody,” he said after he’d recovered from the shock of her words. “I haven’t passed a harsh word with any man in the whole territory until that Morgan fella arrived. From the time I met him at the ranch, he hasn’t stopped crowding me.” Mongo realized that lying in his bed, still dangerously weak from his wound and speaking in a harsh whisper, made the audience sympathetic to him. He unwisely decided to press his advantage. “He’s been hiding behind those guns of his thinking nobody will touch him. But I told him I was coming back. He did this to try and stop me.”

  Pamela saw Mongo with new eyes.

  “Liar,” she snarled. “Slade took off his guns to fight you that day at the ranch. And even though he was wounded, he might have beaten you if I hadn’t stopped the right.”

  “Slade’s been shot, too?” the marshal asked. There seems to have been one helluva lot of shooting going on out here.”

  “One of the men who tried to burn the barn did it,” Pamela answered the marshall before turning her anger back on Mongo. “You saw what he did to those coins. If Slade had shot you, you’d be dead, not lying here telling lies.”

  “It’s not a lie that Slade had a beard when he arrived at the ranch.”

  “A man would naturally have a beard after traveling two weeks in the desert. He shaved the minute he got a chance to clean up.” Pamela didn’t know why she said these things, but words just popped out of her mouth. “You can ask Gaddy or Belva. They both saw him.”

  “You don’t know anything about this man except that he can use a gun,” Mongo insisted. “You had no business hiring a stranger.”

  “Dave knows him. Besides, we’re short-handed.”

  “I kept begging you to let me help. I’d have given you all the men you wanted.”

  “No, thank you,” Pamela said, drawing herself up. “We can manage just fine. Dad will be home any day now.”

  “That’s another thing.”

  “You say another word, Mongo Shepherd, and I’m liable to shoot you myself,” Pamela exploded. Mongo’s accusation touched on her growing concern over her father’s absence and made her temper even more brittle. “Dad told me before he left he might not get back in time for the roundup. He said Dave and I could handle things just fine ourselves.”

  “He hadn’t counted on Dave’s getting shot just about the time Morgan got here.”

  “Slade never left the ranch the first week, not for a minute. Belva and Gaddy will tell you that, too.”

  “You seem mighty anxious to defend that man.”

  “I’m as anxious as anyone to put a stop to all this shooting,” Pamela said, “but I refuse to listen while people are accused of things they didn’t do. I didn’t listen to Slade’s accusations about you, and I won’t listen to yours about him.”

  “What’s Morgan been accusing me of?” demanded Mongo.

  “Maybe accusation is the wrong word,” Pamela said, “but he did wonder why you decided to stop here. You brought in too many cattle, and there’s plenty of open range west of here.”

  “I stopped because I fell in love with you the minute I saw you,” Mongo stated. “Otherwise I might have gone to California before I stopped.”

  “We won’t get anywhere just talking,” the marshall said getting to his feet. “Anyway, I can’t hang around here waiting for this Morgan fella to ride in. I have to go over to Botalla and pick up a prisoner, but I’ll be back in about a week. I want to talk with Slade Morgan.”

  “The roundup will be over in two days,” Pamela said. “He may be in California by then.”

  “In that case, he won’t be my problem.”

  But Pamela couldn’t dismiss him that easily.

  Chapter 15

  Pamela tried to keep her eyes on the surrounding desert, to concentrate on the backlog of work awaiting her at the ranch—the longer her father was away, the more she had learned about running the ranch—but she couldn’t see or think of anything for worrying about Slade. But why should that surprise her? She had been trying unsuccessfully to put him out of her mind for the last four days.

  He had to be the man the marshall told them about. There couldn’t be any real doubt. He fitted the description right down to the last detail. True, she hadn’t asked Slade himself, but she didn’t want to hear him admit he was a gunslinger and a killer.

  Or was she afraid he would lie and deny it?

  Unable to reach any decision, she had sidestepped the problem by avoiding Slade. She used the excuse of having to nurse Mongo, but that fooled nobody, not even Angus. She didn’t know what upset her more, the fact that Slade had probably killed three people or the death of her hopes that somehow their special relationship wouldn’t have to end.

&nbs
p; They would be back at the ranch in a few hours. A letter would be waiting for her from her father explaining his absence and telling her when to expect him back. Already Dave had resumed his position as foreman of the Bar Double-B. Slade had no job; he had no reason to stay. It would be best if he left for California tomorrow morning.

  But Pamela wanted him to stay, and that appalled her. She was even more deeply shamed by her desire to say that none of this mattered, that nothing mattered except her feelings for Slade. But feeling the way she did about all the pain and suffering caused by guns, how could she ignore what he had done?

  What else might he have done? What had he done to make Trish leave him?

  Pamela’s shoulders sagged at the thought of the endless crimes Slade could have committed. With his expertise with a gun, who could stop him? And he would continue to attract trouble. People like him usually did. It would be far better if he left the ranch as soon as possible.

  But no sooner had Pamela argued herself into that position than her heart rebelled. Maybe Slade wasn’t the man the marshall described. Maybe this was all a mistake or a coincidence. She never had asked him. Nobody had. There might be a perfectly good explanation for everything.

  She had a sudden impulse to ride right up to him and ask. And she would have if he had been there. But Slade had ridden ahead. He said he was still worried about her safety. She decided he was tired of talking to her and getting only monosyllables or a shake of her head for an answer. But she didn’t dare talk to him. Once she started, she might not be able to stop.

  “Bet you’ll be glad to be home again,” Angus commented. He was bringing in the chuckwagon because the cowhands didn’t need it anymore. They were scattered all over the range now, and each man would carry his own supplies.

  “Yes. Even though I didn’t get to see very much, I did enjoy it.”

  “Just as well you stayed in camp. There’s been too much shooting lately.”

  Pamela didn’t have to tell Angus that Slade hadn’t allowed her to leave camp. Everybody knew that. “Do you believe what Slade says,” she demanded suddenly, “this stuff about someone maneuvering everybody into trouble?”

  “I don’t know that I’d put it like that exactly. I don’t know that Mr. Morgan would either, but something’s going on. The boys all know it.”

  “But what? Who’s doing it?”

  “Somebody wants your land. Maybe they want everybody’s land, too. As for who, I couldn’t say.”

  “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

  “Can’t say because I don’t know. Most likely wouldn’t because it could get me killed. I ain’t no gunhand, ma’am, not like Mr. Morgan. They could shoot me dead before I could even find my rifle.”

  Angus had fought by her father’s side through the War Between the States and twenty years in Arizona. Now over sixty, his figure bent from the hard life in the saddle, his grey hair but a thin stubble, Pamela never doubted that he considered the Bar Double-B his home, one he’d be willing to fight for.

  “I wish my father were here,” Pamela said, utterly aloud a thought which had been running through her mind since Mongo’s shooting. “He would know what to do.”

  “That he would, Miss. He surely would, but you listen to Mr. Morgan. You two may not see eye to eye, but that man’s got a long head on his shoulders. There’s deep trouble here. I have a notion it’s been festering out of sight for some while without nobody suspecting. But in one week he’s come closer to figuring it out than anybody else. You do what he says. Any low-down skunk as would shoot Jody in the back, and Dave and Mr. Shepherd too, well, he might not stop at shooting a female either.”

  They followed the curving trail around the base of the ridge until the entrance to her valley came into view. Slade blocked the path before her, still astride his horse, staring at something in front of him. Apprehension stirred in Pamela and she spurred her horse forward. When she reached the canyon opening, however, she halted as well, completely mystified by the collection of junk strewn across the opening to her valley.

  It was Gaddy’s barricade.

  “Very clever.”

  “What is it?” Pamela asked.

  “Apparently it’s Gaddy’s insurance policy.”

  “I warned you not to depend on him for anything important.”

  “You underestimate that boy. What is this?” Slade asked and spurred his horse forward. Pamela followed, but she couldn’t see what had caught his attention.

  “Apparently someone did try to enter the canyon. The tin is scarred. At least two horses.”

  Pamela could see the abrasions on the smooth surface of the metal, but it didn’t mean whoever made them had intended to do anything wrong. They could have been bringing a message from her father. Why was Slade so suspicious of everyone?

  Slade slid from the saddle and stepped up to the rope stretched across the opening. He pulled on it. He broke out in delighted chuckles when eleven crystal bells started to ring all at once.

  “My Christmas bells!” Pamela exclaimed as she jumped down and immediately removed one of her precious bells from the limb of a mesquite bush.

  “I imagine your visitors got quite a scare. From the looks of the tracks, they didn’t waste any time getting out of here.”

  “You can tell all that from the ground?” asked Pamela, bewildered. The looked like just a bunch of hoofprints to her. She sighed. It was one more thing she had to learn if she was going to superintend the ranch properly.

  She almost yielded to the temptation to think Slade had made this up to support his accusations, but it only took a moment for her to cast that idea aside. It had been her experience that Slade didn’t much give a damn whether anybody believed him or not. He had to be right.

  “You can collect your bells later,” Slade said as he removed the rope and pulled the sheet of tin off the trail.

  “I’ll collect them right now. Ornaments of this quality are impossible to find in Arizona.”

  “It won’t matter since you’re going back to Baltimore.”

  Pamela couldn’t deny his logic, but it only made her more determined to collect her bells. By the time she reached the house, he had gotten the whole story from Gaddy.

  “That boy stayed out in that canyon every night,” Belva added, just as proud of Gaddy as if she’d been his own mother. “He couldn’t be watchful day and night, nobody could, but his trap sure did make a fuss.”

  “When was that?”

  “Four nights ago, but Gaddy was taking shots at them so quick they practically hurt themselves trying to get away.”

  Slade turned to Pamela with an I-told-you-so look, but she withheld her praise. It would be some time before she could forgive Gaddy for breaking one of her precious crystal bells. “Where’s Dad’s letter?” she asked. “I need to know when he’s getting back.”

  “There’s only one letter, and that’s from your friend in Baltimore.”

  “But there’s got to be a letter from him,” Pamela protested, unbelieving. “He promised he’d write. And he always does.”

  “I’m sorry. Miss White, but no letter came from your Pa.”

  “No message either?”

  “Not unless those men were bringing it.”

  “If they’d been honest, they’d have come back,” Slade said.

  But Pamela didn’t hear anyone. She could no longer deny the prowling fear that something had happened to her father. She didn’t know who could have wanted to harm him or how or why, but her brain’s inability to provide her with specific answers didn’t lessen her anxiety.

  “Exactly what did your father say when he left?” Slade asked.

  Pamela jumped. Her worry over her father had made her forget Slade’s presence for the first time in two weeks.

  “He said he was going to Santa Fe to buy some barbed wire and hire some extra hands. He said he would be back before the roundup, but if he couldn’t for any reason, he would write.”

  “And you think he would have written?”
>
  “Dad didn’t talk much, he and Mama didn’t have much to say to each other, but he loved to write. He wrote me every week while I was at school. Without all those letters to tell me what he was really like, I wouldn’t love him so much.”

  “What route was he taking?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Dave.”

  “I think someone ought to go to Santa Fe.”

  “Do you think … ?” For the moment, all her reservations about Slade were forgotten.

  “I don’t think anything,” Slade said quickly. “It’s just better to know.”

  “I can be ready to leave by noon. Will you go with me?”

  Odd, his reputation didn’t seem in the least objectionable now. In fact, it provided her with solid comfort. She felt a twinge of guilt. She couldn’t condemn his use of guns one moment and then depend on it the next without being two-faced. She’d already done that with the roundup. She wouldn’t do it again with her father.

  She didn’t have time to worry about the probity of her ethics just now. She’d worry about that after she found her father.

  Then she read Amanda’s letter.

  “They’ve changed their plans,” she said looking at Slade in consternation. “They’re arriving earlier than they thought.”

  “When?”

  “Today. I’ve got to be here. I can’t go off and let them come into an empty house.”

  How could she ask Slade to go look for her father, especially after the things she had thought about him? Not to mention what she had actually said! But who else could she ask?

  “I can go,” Gaddy volunteered. He looked unsure of himself, even a little shocked at his own temerity, but he held to it. “After all, he is my uncle.”

  “You’re the perfect choice,” Slade said before Pamela could voice the rejection on the tip of her tongue. “What’s more natural than a boy looking for an uncle he hasn’t seen in years?”

  Pamela started to protest, but abruptly changed her mind. “You think he ought to keep his purpose a secret?”

  “If your father’s all right, it won’t matter what he says. If not, then we don’t want to make anybody suspicious.”