Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights

by Leigh Greenwood

  Pamela tried to gather her wits. Her head was still spinning and she had to lean on Slade just to stand up, but she knew that the next few minutes were some of the most important in their lives. Slade was not a man to run, even when he was running from being forced to kill again. He would despise himself, and before long he would stop and face whatever was following him.

  But for her sake, and the sake of the children she hoped to have, he would try to keep going on no matter what the cost to him inside. But Pamela couldn’t ask Slade—and he would always be Slade. She couldn’t think of him as Billy Wilson—to be anything less than he was for her sake. She couldn’t tie him to a marriage that would force him to trade his honor for the safety of his family.

  “Where would you like to live? If you could choose any place in the world, where would you really want to live?”

  “I gather the mountain cabin is still out?”

  “I’m serious, Slade.”

  “I’d rather live at the Bar Double-B.”

  “So would I.”

  “There’s still the range war. And there’s still the problem of who murdered your father.”

  “That’s part of the reason.” Pamela avoided his eyes. “I want to find out who killed Dad. I want to see him dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just as sure as I am that I want to marry you. The Bar Double-B is my ranch now. Dad poured his whole life into it, and nobody is going to take it away.” Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to her. “I don’t want you to think my wanting to marry you has anything to do with finding Dad’s killer. I would marry you even if you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  “I know,” Slade said, pulling her close. “You’re going to marry me because you can’t help yourself. You tried everything you knew to keep from falling in love with me, but you failed, madame. At least you have the sense to give in gracefully.”

  “You’re no better. I don’t think you changed your mind about California until you thought that lion had eaten me up.”

  “I never wanted to go to California half as much as I wanted to stay with you. I knew that from the first. I just couldn’t believe you could love someone like me.”

  Pamela laughed. “Someone like you is exactly the kind of man I admire, the kind of man my father was. It just took me a while to discover it.”

  “And now you’re content to marry a cowboy?”

  “Perfectly, and not the least bit anxious to show him off to all my Eastern friends. If they all react the way Amanda did, I’d be lucky to get you back to Arizona in one piece. It seems your kind of physical appeal has no geographical limitations.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me,” he said, but humor danced in his eyes. “Are you done with your questions? We have some unfinished business, and I don’t want to be interrupted for a while.”

  Pamela sighed happily. “My mother warned me about men like you. Amanda, too. She said you all want the same thing.”

  “I want everything.” Slade said. “I’ll never be satisfied with anything less.”

  “I promise I’ll never offer you anything less,” Pamela replied.

  If anyone had ever told Pamela that someday she would make love next to a campfire in the Mazatzal foothills she would have been aghast. But tonight it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Everything was right and natural when she was with Slade. Just being with him made it that way.

  Chapter 20

  Dave and Marshall Alcott were waiting for them when they returned to the ranch. Slade’s first impulse was to turn around and head right back into the hills. After what Pamela had said, there could only be one reason for the marshall to come back out to the ranch. But even if Slade’s hammerhead dun hadn’t been too tired to outrun a new-born calf, he wouldn’t have turned back. He had decided to stay and marry Pamela. When he did that, he also made up his mind to stop running. No more accepting the whimsical twists and turns of Fate. No more “If I can’t…”

  “You had everybody worried sick,” Dave said to Pamela. “Nobody knew where you’d gone.” He came toward them before they could dismount. “Why didn’t you tell Belva where you were going?”

  “I’m sorry,” Pamela said as she dismounted. “I was too upset to think. I couldn’t stand it here knowing Dad was dead. I went to find Slade.”

  “At least you’re back safe and sound,” Dave continued. “You must be starved. Come inside and let Belva fix you something to eat. There can’t be much food in those line cabins.” It wasn’t a statement. It was a question. Dave wanted to know where she’d been and what she’d been doing.

  “I’m all right,” Pamela said. Slade winked at her and she quickly dropped her head so Dave couldn’t see her answering smile. “Slade found me before I starved. And you’re right, there isn’t enough in those cabins to feed a mouse. I’ll have to see that something is done about that.”

  Her answers seemed to satisfy the marshall’s curiosity, but Dave’s eyes still darted questioning glances in Slade’s direction. After all their private conversations during the roundup and the days they had spent at the ranch together, Pamela decided it was only natural for Dave to wonder what might be between them. But her private life was not his concern, and she didn’t mean to satisfy his curiosity.

  “Won’t you come inside, Marshall?” Pamela said. “There must be some momentous reason for you to ride out this way twice in one week. I can’t wait to find out what it is.”

  “You’re not going to like it much. I have to take Mr. Morgan in for questioning.”

  “What for?” Pamela had already turned toward the house, but at the marshall’s words, she spun around to face the three men. Her gaze went from one to the other. All three were hard and sober. Dave knew what the marshall wanted. Slade could guess.

  “I’d like to know a little more about how Mr. Morgan came to be here just when he did. You see, after Jud said he saw Slade on the same trail as your father, I talked to Dave here. Josh was carrying quite a bit of cash on him, but we didn’t find any money on the body.”

  “And since Slade walked in here with enough money to buy a second-hand saddle and a horse nobody would ride, you figured he must have killed my father and robbed him. Is that it, Marshall?”

  “The thought did cross my mind, but lots of people could have that much money.”

  “Then what do you want?” Pamela looked at Slade, but he kept his face blank. He might as well have been wearing his beard again for all she could read his thoughts. But oddly enough, he wasn’t looking at her or the marshall. Instead, he stared at Dave.

  “A man rode into Maravillas two days ago,” the marshall explained. “Says he’s from Texas, a little town called Brazos. He’s looking for that man I was telling you about, the one who killed those three brothers. Seems there’s a right big reward for him. As a matter of fact, they’re offering a thousand dollars. Now that’s a fortune out here. Anyway, this man says he knows what this fella looks like. Known him since they were boys. Said he’d know him without his beard. Dammit, Pamela, I just can’t ignore all the things piling up against Slade. First Mongo swears Morgan shot him, then Jud, and now this Ben Warren shows up describing a man that’s got to be the spitting image of Slade if you put a beard on him.”

  “Ben Warren did you say?” Slade asked. “And he says he’s known this man since childhood?”

  “Swears he’d be able to recognize his skeleton,” the marshall said. “I told him I’d bring you in so he could have a look see.”

  “He’s not going,” Pamela said, fighting down the panic which threatened to deprive her of her ability to think rationally. “All you have are unfounded accusations, circumstantial evidence.”

  “Why can’t he come here?” Dave asked.

  “He’s got business in California,” the marshall explained. “Can’t stay past tomorrow. There wouldn’t be time to go get him and bring him out here now.”

  “Then you’ll just have to wait until he comes back through,” Pamela
said. “I see no reason for everybody to suit his convenience.”

  “Look, Pamela,” the Marshall said, “I don’t like this any more than you do, but there’re some pretty serious charges being made against Slade.”

  “I’m not trying to stop you from asking him any questions,” Pamela said, not backing down an inch. “Slade has nothing to hide, but I don’t see why you want to take him into town.”

  “I just told you.”

  “Well, I don’t believe you. I think you mean to put Slade in jail and send him back to Texas whether he’s the man they want or not. Besides, who’s to say this Ben Warren isn’t the man they’re really looking for?”

  “Because he doesn’t fit the description any more than you do.”

  “And why should you believe a description from people you don’t know?”

  “I know Mongo Shepherd and Jud Noble.”

  “But Mongo is trying to get my land,” Pamela said grasping at straws. “We told you at the time Slade couldn’t have fired that shot. There were dozens of witnesses who saw him in camp all morning.”

  “But we don’t know when Mongo was shot.”

  “He was shot hours before Slade left,” Pamela said. “I’ve seen enough wounds to know when one is fresh.”

  “I still have to take him into Maravillas,” the marshall said. “I only want to ask him a few questions and let this man get a look at him. As an officer of the law, I can’t do any less. There’s a warrant out for his arrest. I’ll let him come right back if this man can’t identify him.”

  “No!” Pamela cried. She whirled, grabbed the rifle from her saddle, and pointed it at the marshall. “Run, Slade,” she cried. “I’ll hold them both here until you get away.”

  “Now, Pamela, you …” the marshall began.

  “Put the rifle down,” Slade said. He no longer looked at Dave or the marshall. Just at Pamela. “I have to go with the marshall.”

  “But I don’t trust this Ben Warren.”

  “To be frank, neither do I, but I can’t run away from questions like these. Not if we ever hope to have a decent life together.”

  “What?” Dave demanded. Her disclosure had shattered his usually unshakable composure.

  “Slade and I are going to be married,” Pamela said.

  “And we plan to stay right here,” Slade said to the marshall. “So I can’t be running off to the hills every time you decide to drop by. Will you saddle me another horse, Dave? Mine’s about done in.”

  “Sure,” Dave said, and he led the hammerhead dun away.

  The horse bit him.

  Pamela still held the rifle on Marshall Alcott. “I don’t think he ought to go with you,” she said, anger, and the marshall thought hatred as well, flashing from her eyes. “Trouble has plagued him from the moment he set foot on this place. He would have been gone long ago if I hadn’t virtually forced him to stay.”

  “You told me someone shot at him when they tried to burn your barn.”

  “And Mongo picked a fight even though he knew Slade’s shoulder was injured. He helped me through the roundup, he went after those people who shot at Amanda and Frederick …”

  “You didn’t tell me about that,” the marshall said.

  “Why should I? There’s been no end to the things that have been happening. And you haven’t done anything to stop it.”

  “This really isn’t my jurisdiction, not this far from town.”

  “Then you’ve got no right to arrest Slade.”

  “I’m not arresting him.”

  “Aren’t you requiring him to go with you?”

  “More or less,” the marshall admitted.

  “Then there’s no difference. Who’s going to protect me and the ranch?”

  “They won’t bother you,” Slade told her. “They’re after me right now.”

  “What are you talking about?” the marshall demanded.

  “I’ll tell you later. Well have plenty of time to talk.” He turned to Pamela. “Put up your rifle. I can’t kiss you with you pointing a barrel at my chest.”

  “Oh Slade,” Pamela cried and threw herself into his arms. “Why didn’t you run away when you had the chance?” The rifle clattered unheeded to the ground.

  “When I decided to marry you, I decided to stop running. If I run now, you’ll never see me again. Is that what you want?”

  “No, but I don’t want you at the mercy of some stranger. How do you know what he’ll say?”

  “I won’t until I face him. Now listen to me for a moment. I don’t want you to leave the ranch for any reason. Tell Dave to find Gaddy and send him back. And I want you to bring Belva up to the house. I don’t want you here alone.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “But I am.”

  “Slade, what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know I’ll be back. Nothing is going to keep me from you.”

  Marshall Alcott managed to busy himself readjusting the cinch on his saddle. He didn’t like having to take Slade into town, but he preferred it to watching people kiss in public. He just didn’t understand why respectable men and women couldn’t save that sort of thing for the privacy of their bedroom. He hoped he wasn’t too old-fashioned, but these modern morals were something he just couldn’t get used to.

  “I’m going to hold you personally responsible for Slade’s safe return,” Pamela said to the marshall. “If anything happens to him. I’ll kill you.”

  “For a woman who doesn’t believe in violence, you’re sounding rather bloodthirsty.”

  “You’re damned right, I am,” Pamela said, surprising Slade and the marshall by the vehemence of her language. “Somebody killed my father, and now Slade’s in danger. I never knew what it meant to lose someone you loved because of somebody else’s greed, hatred, or carelessness. But I know now, and I guess I’m just not as much of a humanitarian as I thought. Someone killed my father. I mean to see that man dead. The same thing holds for you if anything happens to Slade.”

  The marshall was silenced. Whatever he had expected when he came out to take Slade in, he hadn’t expected to run into the flood-tide of hot emotion he had uncovered this afternoon. And he didn’t like it. People could be dangerous when they got worked up, and a wronged woman could be more dangerous than a man. Partly because no one expected it of her. To look at Pamela, who would think she could be dangerous? But the marshall needed only one look to know she meant what she said.

  Let anything happen to Slade and somebody was going to get hurt.

  “While I’m gone you can decide where you want to spend your honeymoon,” Slade said to Pamela, trying to ease the tension. “The marshall and I will deal with Ben Warren.”

  “Don’t you patronize me, Slade Morgan. I’ve taken all the handling I’m going to take. For days you’ve been telling me that a man has to do what a man has to do, that there are things in this life worth fighting for, even worth killing for. Well, I finally agree with you, so don’t you start backing down on me now just because you think it’s more suitable for a man to do the killing. A woman can suffer just as much as a man, more probably, so I have just as much right to pull the trigger as you.”

  “Now Pamela …” the marshall began.

  “Not another word out of you, you traitor,” she spat, turning on the marshall. She stooped to retrieve her rifle and came even closer. “It’s all your fault, you and your determination to believe any stranger that happens along, just because he’s a man rather than me. You bring Slade back without a scratch on his hide, not even one do you hear me, or I’ll make sure you leave here in the back of a wagon.”

  Tears hovered in her eyes. Slade started to step forward then changed his mind.

  “Here’s your horse,” she said as Dave came up leading a large-boned sorrel gelding. “Go if you have to, but if you’re not back here before noon tomorrow, I’m coming into town after you.” She grabbed Slade, gave him a quick, fierce kiss, and ran inside the house.

  “I guess
you get to unsaddle her horse,” Slade said to Dave.

  Alcott would have been disgusted if anyone had called him a romantic, but even he considered that a particularly prosaic response.

  “Make sure she has Gaddy and Belva with her at all times. She’s too upset just now to know what’s best.”

  Dave nodded his agreement, and Slade swung into the saddle. “Let’s be going if we must. I’ve been riding all morning and I’m anxious to have this done with.”

  They didn’t talk for the first few minutes. Oh, Marshall Alcott spoke often enough, but Slade didn’t answer him. The marshall studied S lade’s face, but he couldn’t decide what he thought of him. He was undeniably handsome. No wonder Pamela was crazy about him. If he was only half as good as she thought, he was surprised he didn’t have dozens of females offering to give him their ranches and just about anything else as long as he married them.

  He wondered if Josh White would have preferred him to Mongo as a son-in-law. And just as soon as he decided that he wouldn’t, he realized that Slade was exactly the kind of man Josh had been himself. They might not have gotten along, but he would surely have respected him.

  That is if he wasn’t a killer.

  And Marshall Alcott couldn’t believe that either. He’d had occasion to be around a number of killers in his time, some of them female too, and Slade just didn’t fit. There were some so good looking you couldn’t believe they could be evil. Some acted so pious you’d think they passed up a calling in the church to go out and murder. Then there were some so quiet and mousey you’d swear they were scared of their own shadow.

  But none of them rode tall in the saddle like Slade; none of them looked you square in the eye without flinching; none of them gave him the feeling that here was a man who would stand by you no matter what the odds; none of them was the kind of person for whom Pamela would have decided to stay in Arizona rather than go back to Baltimore. There was something missing here, and he didn’t have any idea what it was.

  “I can’t let you take me into town,” Slade said unexpectedly, breaking into the marshall’s reverie. “If I do, I’ll be killed.”