His voice broke off, and he looked the other way. Sally wanted to reach out to him, but soon enough he took a deep breath and went on.
“She collapsed, right there in the kitchen. She was taking a lasagna out of the oven. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and we were talking about what we were going to do. I drove her to the emergency room. They did tests. Then they did more tests. There was something wrong with her heart. She needed surgery. And we didn’t have insurance. She had been on mine, and I hadn’t gotten any kind of grace period when I was terminated.
“The doctors gave her six months at best, six weeks at worst. I had gotten us into this mess. My stupid pride. Doing what I thought was right. I should have known you can’t stand up to a man like that. They always win. So I put together a plan. I found out where my former boss lived. In the Army, I’d been an infiltration specialist. I knew demolitions, compu—” He gave me another one of those sideways glances. “I knew security and how to bypass it. I planned the whole thing, to the tee. I broke into his house one night when he was at some bullshit fundraiser. I’d never stolen anything in my life until that point, but I pulled it off without a hitch. I came away with a hundred thousand in loose cash and three cloth bags with uncut diamonds. I even had a reliable contact to fence them.
“But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Because the day after I pulled the job, I got the call. She had gone in the night. My Natalie was go—” Now his voice did break. He pulled up his horse and turned his head away, starting to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” Sally said. “But you said it was your fault and it wasn’t. If anybody was to blame, it was that piece of dirt you used to work for.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I didn’t kill her outright, but I was responsible. I was only thinking of myself, of being right.” He took another deep breath and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “This is stupid,” he said. “It’s happening all over again. We’re riding into town, guns loaded, and it’s going to be the same thing.” He looked at her, his eyes red with bloodshot. “We need to go back.”
Sally had pulled her horse to a stop when he had, and now they stood side-by-side. She reached out and put her hand on his.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “Don’t ever feel regret for doing the right thing. That man,” she nodded towards town. They could see the outline of it now, aglow with the rising sun. “He killed my husband. I think the only reason he hasn’t killed me is that it’d make him have a harder time getting hold of my land. He needs someone to sell it to him outright, and he thinks he can force me into doing that. That ain’t right. You say men like Sturgess always come out on top. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’d like to think it ain’t. But they’re damn sure gonna keep winning if folks like you and me don’t do something about it.”
He gave her a wry little smile and squeezed her hand. “You’re right,” he said. “Of course you are.” He nodded and looked at the town up ahead. “Let’s go have a talk with the man, then.”
He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her fingers softly. The gesture was so gentle, so beautiful, that Sally got light-headed. She tensed her legs on the saddle in case she started to slip off the horse. He let go of her hand and whipped the reins, putting his horse into a gallop. Sally smiled and did the same, falling in behind him.
6: Logan
Not many people were moving about in town as they slowed, then pulled to a stop among the dozen or so wooden buildings that made up the bulk of the main thoroughfare. Logan saw the general store where Sally had gotten her supplies the day before. The sign, painted dark green with yellow letters read: Popper’s General Store.
He saw a doctor’s office, the sheriff’s, and even a saloon, though he was a little disappointed to see that it didn’t have those swinging double doors like they did in all the TV shows and movies. Just a regular old wooden door.
The sheriff’s office looked closed, and no one sat on the porch in front. He almost thought of going there first, but the sheriff was likely in Sturgess’s pocket. So what was the point, really?
“Where is he?” Logan asked.
“Likely in the whorehouse,” Sally said, and he could see her blush a little. “He owns nearly everything in town, but he’s got an office upstairs there and that’s usually where he sleeps and conducts his business. It’s up yonder.” She pointed up the street, past all the other buildings, to a two-story house, painted white.
Logan turned his horse up the street and trotted toward the white house.
“Can I ask another question?” Sally asked.
He was actually surprised she hadn’t bombarded him with questions. She’d gotten him to talk on the way here. His story, at least the important parts, had just spilled out of him.
“Sure,” he said.
“You said you stole all that money and those diamonds,” she said. “What’d you do with it all?”
He turned to her and smiled, that wry, bitter smile. “I gave it all back,” he said. “Turned myself in.”
“What?”
“Yes, ma’am. After Natalie was gone, I didn’t see the point anymore. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. I tried to do the right thing, again, and return it all.”
“They threw you in prison, didn’t they?”
He nodded. “You know how they say two wrongs don’t make a right? Well, in my case, two rights most definitely made a wrong.”
“How long were you in for?”
“Six years.”
Sally let out a low whistle, a charming little sound he hadn’t heard her make before. He hoped he wasn’t leading them to both their deaths, but she had inspired him. She was right. Men like Sturgess got their way all the time, but maybe they wouldn’t if more people stood up to them, people with guts. And Sally Macintosh surely had those.
They pulled up in front of what Sally had said was the whorehouse, though it looked like the nicest building in town: the paint fresh, the brass doorknob and lamps polished to a high shine. He was glad there was no more time for questions and answers. He didn’t want to have to explain how he got out. In a way, he hadn’t. He still lived in fear that he’d be yanked back at any time. In any case, he didn’t want to lie to Sally, so arriving at their destination was a bit of a relief.
Logan slid from his horse. No sooner had his boots hit the dirt than the front door opened. An older red-headed woman stepped out, wearing a maroon satin dress. She was immaculately groomed and seemed out of place in the dust and grime of Lockdale’s ramshackle street.
“Good morning,” she said in a husky voice. “I’m Miss Abigail. You interested in being entertained by one of my girls?” The woman glanced at Sally. “Sorry, honey, but women aren’t allowed. Unless you’re looking for a job.”
“We’re looking for Sturgess,” Logan said. “Tell him to come on out. We need to talk.”
Abigail smiled. “Mister…I didn’t quite catch your name.”
“Logan Carver.” He wondered absently about using his real name, but figured in the end it really didn’t matter.
“Well,” she said, stepping further out onto the porch. “I’m afraid you don’t know Mister Sturgess very well. You don’t go around making demands of him. He makes demands of others. If you want a roll in the hay, it’s two dollars. Otherwise, be a good boy and run along.”
“I’m not leaving until he comes out,” Logan said.
“Well, you might just be waiting—”
Someone else appeared in the doorway, a tall, lean man dressed all in white, from his shoes to a silk vest and long-sleeved shirt. He wore a silver tie tucked into the vest. His face was long, his lips thin, and his nose narrow. But Logan recognized him instantly, not from any of those features, but from his eyes, those small, dark eyes, like an especially intelligent, ravenously hungry rat.
“It’s all right, Abigail,” he said, stepping out onto the porch. He wore no gun and seemed completely at ease. “I’ll take it from here. Go on back inside.”
The woman gave Logan a nasty look, then ducked back into the house, closing the door behind her.
“Sturgess,” Logan said, the name feeling like ash on his tongue.
“I’m afraid you have me at a loss, friend,” Sturgess said. The hair was different. Most things were superficially different. But those eyes. They were exactly the same. “I know just about everybody in these parts, but I don’t know you. I know her.” He nodded at Sally, and that little gesture by itself made Logan want to draw both pistols and gun him down. He didn’t even want the man to look her way.
“My name’s Logan,” he said.
“Ah, good to put a name and a face to the one who killed my men yesterday,” Sturgess said. “And I see you like to appropriate things that don’t belong to you.” He nodded at the guns on Logan’s hips. Then he looked back at Sally. “Are you going to appropriate Miss Macintosh as well?”
Logan couldn’t help himself. He took a step forward and put his right hand, still bandaged, on the butt of his gun.
“Oh my,” Sturgess said. “More of a fighter than a thinker, aren’t you?” He arched his eyebrows and nodded over Logan’s shoulder behind him.
Logan turned his head to see a man standing behind him.
He was short, wearing a three-piece tan suit and a matching tan bowler. He wore circular, gold-rimmed glasses, and he had a strange little grin on his face as his small, bright eyes surveyed Logan.
“Turns out I’m not much of a fighter myself,” Sturgess said. “But Winston here is. He’s lived most his life abroad, studying in the Orient.”
The short dapper man with the beady blue eyes reached into his suit pocket and when his hand came out, it took Logan a few seconds to process what he was holding. They looked like slender black stones, almost the size of hockey pucks, but thinner.
Logan’s right hand was still on the butt of his gun, and he moved his other hand to the other hip as he drew.
But Winston was faster. With a lightning fast flick of the wrist, the man flung one of the dark disks. As Logan drew his gun, the flat stone hit it, knocking it from Logan’s hand with a loud clang. The vibrations from the blow reverberated all the way up his right arm. But he’d been in battle before, and he wasn’t rattled. Not yet.
He drew his other weapon, and Winston threw another disk. But this time Logan was a little more prepared, moving his body to the right to dodge the projectile. Instead of striking his gun, as the other one had, the disk grazed his hand as he raised the weapon. He fired from the hip, but Winston was as quick as a cat, and he was on the move as well. The shot fired through the space where the man was standing only a second before, raising up a plume of dust on the empty street.
Logan turned to fire at Winston again, but another disk was moving toward him. He couldn’t move his hand fast enough, and it struck him near the elbow, pain exploding up and down his arm. He dropped the second gun in the dirt.
Sally was still mounted. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw her raise the shotgun. As she did, the man reached into his vest pocket and flung yet another dark stone at her. She got a shot off, but only after the stone disk clanged against the barrel, knocking it askew. The shot went wild, blowing up another plume of dust in the street. Then Logan saw the gun fall out of Sally’s hands and drop to the ground.
This small, unassuming man had disarmed them both in a matter of seconds. Their guns all lay in the road. Who the hell was he?
Logan reached up to his chest and grabbed the hilt of the Bowie knife, his only weapon left. As he unsheathed it, Winston darted forward, closing the distance between them. As soon as the knife was drawn, Winston’s hand grasped Logan’s wrist. His other hand drove a quick blow toward Logan’s stomach, but Logan grabbed the man’s wrist.
As they grappled, Logan saw Sally slide from her horse. He wanted to tell her to stop. She was going to get herself hurt. This had been a bad idea after all.
Then a gunshot went off. Logan, along with everyone else, turned to look at the source.
A potbellied man with a handlebar moustache stood in the street. He held a pistol aloft, smoke rising from the barrel after having been fired in the air.
Logan caught the glint of the sun off something shiny on the man’s chest: a badge.
“Let’s break it up,” the man said. “Son, you go ahead and drop that knife of yours. And Sturgess, call off your man.”
Logan didn’t drop the knife, but he saw Sturgess give a nod to Winston, who immediately let go, stepping back.
The man with the badge lowered his gun to point it at Logan and took a step forward. Only then did Logan drop the knife, where it stuck in the dirt hilt up.
“What’s your name, son?” he asked.
“Logan.”
“Right. Well I’m Sheriff Willard Hoskins,” he said. “They pay me to keep the peace around here, and with you and Mister fancy-britches here rolling around on Main Street with guns and knives, you’re making me look bad.”
“Sheriff,” Sturgess began. “If I might—”
“Shut it, Camden,” the sheriff said, giving Logan a bit of hope that maybe he wasn’t bought and paid for after all. Sheriff Hoskins took another step forward, keeping the gun trained on Logan. He looked at the two revolvers in the dirt, and at the hilt of the knife.
“Where’d you get those guns?” he asked Logan.
“Sheriff, I really—” Sturgess said.
“I didn’t ask you, Camden,” the sheriff said. “I asked long, tall, and handsome here.”
“Yesterday, three men attacked Miss Macintosh on the road to her home,” Logan said. “I helped her.”
“By killing two men,” the sheriff said.
“It was self-defense,” Sally said. Sheriff Hoskins turned to look at her, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“Was it now?” he said. “I reckon that’s for a jury to decide." He turned back to Logan. "And you better come with me.”
Logan looked at Winston, who knelt ten feet away, a blank expression on his face. Then he looked at Sally, who’s eyebrows were knit with worry. Finally he looked at the sheriff, a no-nonsense man who most likely had his best years behind him, but seemed good and fair enough.
Logan stood and walked toward Sheriff Hoskins, who waved him toward the office up the street.
“What are you going to do with him?” Sally said.
“Well, ma’am,” Sheriff Hoskins said. “The judge comes in on the train day after tomorrow. Reckon we’ll try him then.” He looked up at Sturgess. “In the meantime, I don’t want to see any of your boys sniffing around my jail.” He nodded at Winston. “And keep that one on a leash.”
7: Sally
Everything had gone to hell.
Sturgess’s man had somehow snuck up from behind, getting the drop on them, and then he’d disarmed them both with whatever craziness he’d learned over in China. She wasn’t sure whether she was happy or not about Sheriff Hoskins stepping in when he did. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe the deadly little man Sturgess had called Winston would have killed Logan.
She didn’t know, but it didn’t matter now. Hoskins was behind Logan, walking him to the jail. She bent down to pick up her shotgun.
“You best just leave that where it is,” Sturgess said. Winston had joined him on the porch of the brothel, and now both men looked down at her as she crouched over her gun.
Sally drew her hand back slowly. “We just came here to talk,” she said.
“We only have one item on the agenda to discuss,” Sturgess said. “The price of your land. Your continued reluctance and outright aggression leaves me no choice but to continue to lower the offering price. I’ll give you six cents per acre.”
Sally snorted a bitter laugh. “Go to hell.” She stood up and took the reins of the horse she’d rode into town on.
“Leave the horses as well,” Sturgess said. “Those belonged to my men.”
Right, Sally thought. Everything either belongs or will belong to you, won’t it? Hot tears threa
tened to fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks, but she forced them back. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She turned to head for the sheriff’s office. She saw Sheriff Hoskins down the street, leading Logan up the office steps.
She turned back around. “You know,” she said. “On the way here, Logan said something to me.”
“Oh?” Sturgess asked, mock curiosity on his face. “Do tell.”
“He said men like you always get your way. He said it’s no use standing up to you.”
“Sounds like a wise man,” Sturgess said. “Even if his actions demonstrate otherwise.”
“You’ve got your little stooge,” she said, nodding at Winston. “Along with everyone else you bought. But maybe they’ll come a time when you find out you can’t buy everybody. Maybe enough people in this town will finally have enough of you.”
Sturgess laughed wholeheartedly at that. “Yes, I’m sure that day will come,” he said. “The day when money is no good anymore. Thank you for the refreshing dose of comedy, dear girl. You have a good day now.” He turned and headed back into Abigail’s house. Winston stood for a few seconds longer, looking at her with those odd, beady eyes in a way that sent a little shiver down her spine. Then he followed his boss inside.
Sally sighed, but managed to hold back the tears. She turned back around once again and headed for the sheriff’s office.
Doctor Gleeson was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of his office, tamping a fresh wad of tobacco in his pipe.
“Good morning, Miss Macintosh,” he said.
She stopped and looked at him. He was old, though he still had a thick mane of gray hair and a bushy silver moustache to match. He sat in long sleeves and a tweed vest despite the heat and didn’t seem to mind.
“Not especially,” she said. “You saw all that?”
“Everything,” he said. “And while I have to say I admire your temerity, I’m not quite sure I know what you meant to accomplish.”
“I guess that makes two of us,” she said.
The Time-Traveling Outlaw Page 5