“Kiss that pretty little gal you’ve got your arm around?” Matt asked with a grin.
“Later,” Seymour said. “Later . . . for sure . . .”
Then his eyes rolled up and he fainted, not from fear this time, but because of the blood he had shed defending everything that was dear to him.
Chapter 30
“The . . . hero . . . of . . . Sweet Apple!” Cornelius Standish said, barely able to force the words out because of the fury that threatened to choke him. He slammed a fist down on the newspaper in front of him on his desk. It was an Eastern paper, but it had picked up a story from Texas, a story about the fierce battle between out- laws and Mexican bandits on one side, and the army and the citizens of Sweet Apple on the other. According to the paper, those citizens had been led in their valiant defense of the town by their fighting marshal, Seymour Standish.
“Was he badly hurt?” Rebecca Jimmerson asked. She had brought the newspaper to Standish, but hadn’t had a chance to read the story thoroughly.
“He’s fine! That boy has more pure dumb luck than anybody I’ve ever seen! Obviously, Grant and Morelli failed. For all I know, they may even be dead by now.” Standish snorted. “Seymour probably killed them. According to this he’s turned into some sort of . . . of pistoleer!”
Rebecca didn’t see how that was possible. The Seymour she had known had been terrified of his own shadow. How could he have transformed himself into an actual lawman?
And yet it seemed undeniable that was what had happened. The newspaper story made it clear that Seymour had spearheaded the defense of the town and played a major role in routing the bandits. Rebecca picked it up and read it while Standish fumed.
“Well, look at it this way,” she finally ventured. “From the sound of this, Seymour intends to remain in Sweet Apple. At least he’s out of your hair, Cornelius.”
“The hell with that! He still owns half the company. He’s still a threat to my plans.” Standish leaned back in his chair and chewed on his lower lip for a moment as he frowned in thought. When he spoke again, it was with a cool, deadly calm. “Clearly, my mistake was to trust someone else with such an important job. I’m going to have to supervise it personally.”
Rebecca stared at him. “You mean—”
“I mean I’m going to Texas! And once I’m there, I’ll make sure that spineless little worm never comes back to ruin things for me again!”
Rebecca’s heart started to pound. From what she had read in the paper, Seymour wasn’t as spineless as he had been when he left New Jersey. Somehow, he had grown a backbone. But would that be enough to protect him against his own uncle?
Rebecca didn’t know . . . but she had a feeling Cornelius Standish would have a surprise waiting for him when he got to Texas.
And so might she, because she knew suddenly that she was going, too. She had to see the new Seymour Standish with her own eyes.
* * *
Hiding in a cave like animals! It was disgraceful! But yet, the remnants of his “army” had been forced to flee when they encountered a patrol of Rurales not long after crossing the border into Mexico.
Alcazarrio had ordered the retreat because he had lost too many men in Sweet Apple and the survivors were too shot up to mount an effective fight against the Rurales. After a running battle, they had finally shaken the pursuit and slunk off into the hills to hide.
Florio Cruz came into the cave, his knife-thin figure silhouetted for a second against the light outside. His wounded left arm hung in a crude sling. Alcazarrio himself was sitting propped up against the wall of the cave. Two bullets had torn through his body, but they had gone all the way through and the wounds were now bound up tightly. Alcazarrio was too tough to be killed by only two bullets. He would recover to fight again, and soon.
Cruz hunkered on his heels. “I have posted sentries as you ordered, Diego. No one will get in . . . or out.”
“Some of the men still want to go home, do they?” Alcazarrio said. “The dogs! I am tempted to let them go, so they will not hinder us when we assemble another force of real fighting men!”
“It may be harder to find men who want to ride with us now,” Cruz pointed out.
“Once the story of what happened at Sweet Apple is known far and wide—”
“Sweet Apple!” Alcazarrio spat. “How I hate the name of the place!” His eyes narrowed. “The men will come, but we need some plan to attract them. Something daring and audacious. Something that will strike at the gringos.”
Cruz frowned. “I thought our goal was to overthrow that pig of a Díaz.”
“It is.” Alcazarrio shrugged his broad shoulders, wincing a little at the twinges of pain that caused in his torso. “But everybody hates the gringos. Díaz will still be there after I have my revenge on that damned Sweet Apple, and everyone in it!”
* * *
Seymour still moved a little stiffly from the bandages wrapped tightly around his midsection under his clothes. But several days had passed since the battle around the railroad station, and he was determined not to neglect his duties any longer. Matt and Sam had been filling in as his deputies—unofficially, since the town couldn’t afford to pay them anything and the blood brothers didn’t want a real job anyway—but today Seymour had gotten dressed and was walking down the street with a shotgun tucked under his arm. Sweet Apple had been very quiet and peaceful since all the trouble with Mallory’s gang and Alcazarrio’s bandidos, but Seymour figured that all hell could break loose again at any moment. All hell would break loose again sooner or later. That was just the way these frontier towns were. He took a deep breath, wincing a little as that pulled at his bandages. He didn’t care. It felt good being back to work. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed lying in bed and being fussed over by Maggie for the past few days. They were closer than ever now, and Seymour found himself filled with the real hope that they might have a future together.
Because he intended to stay in Sweet Apple from now on. He needed to get in touch with Cornelius, he told himself, and let his uncle know that he needed to find a new salesman to handle this territory. Seymour’s days of selling dry goods were over.
Matt and Sam were sitting in front of the hotel, their chairs tipped back as they took life easy for a change. Matt’s leg was still a little stiff and sore from the bullet crease on his thigh, but the wound was healing well and he knew he’d be able to ride again before too much longer. He wasn’t in any hurry to leave, though. His restless nature hadn’t reasserted itself just yet.
Sam nudged him in the side and said, “Look who’s coming.”
Matt grinned as he let the front legs of his chair settle down to the porch. He stood up and leaned on the railing as he said, “Howdy, Seymour. It’s good to see you up and about again.”
“It’s good to be up and about again,” Seymour replied with a smile of his own. “I take it everything’s been quiet?”
Sam nodded. “That’s right. We thought there might be some trouble a little while ago when folks from the Double C and Pax came in about the same time, but they went on about their business.”
The Double C was the ranch owned by Shad Colton, so named because of his wife Carolyn’s initials. Pax, of course, was the Paxton spread. The wagons that had come into town from both ranches carried the Colton and Paxton women, evidently intent on picking up supplies and doing some other shopping. Those wagons had been trailed by an escort of cowboys from each ranch, and those tough rannies had eyed each other suspiciously as they passed in the street. There was certainly no love lost between the two spreads, although Jessie Colton and Sandy Paxton still seemed to be good friends and had greeted each other warmly. They had been back East at school when the rift between their fathers developed, and so far they weren’t having any part of it.
Matt didn’t know how long that could last, though, with the obvious hostility that the ranchers felt for each other. That attitude was passed on to the men who worked for them, since cowboys had a tendency to ride for the brand abo
ve all else.
In this case, the riders from the Double C had gone to the Black Bull while Jessie and her mother were shopping, and the Pax hands had gone to one of the other saloons. As long as the groups kept their distance from each other, there likely wouldn’t be any problems.
“I can’t thank you two enough for everything you’ve done,” Seymour said now as he stood on the hotel porch with Matt and Sam. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, the town might have been wiped out.”
“Nah, you’d have figured out what to do, Seymour,” Matt said. “You’ve got a lawman’s instincts.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Seymour said with a faint, rueful smile.
“Believe it,” Sam said. “That’s the first step to making it come true.”
Seymour nodded slowly. “You know, that’s probably right.” He squared his shoulders. “Now that I’m back on my feet again, I can’t ask you to stay here and help me. I’ll be all right.”
Matt slapped his injured leg lightly and said, “I don’t reckon I’m in shape to ride just yet.”
“We don’t mind hanging around for a while,” Sam added. “Sweet Apple sort of grows on you, despite all the rough edges it has.”
“Yes,” Seymour said, and from the expression on his face Matt and Sam knew he was thinking about Maggie O’Ryan. “It certainly does grow on you.”
Before they could say anything else, shouts suddenly sounded from down the street. The three men swung around and looked to see that a confrontation was going on in front of the general store. Both ranch wagons were pulled up in front of the high porch that served as a loading dock, and the Colton and Paxton women stood there looking distressed while the cowboys from each of the spreads jawed angrily at each other in the street. The punchers had gotten their drinks and then headed to the store to accompany the women back home, and bad luck had seen both groups arrive there at the same time.
“That’s not good,” Seymour muttered as the shouts grew louder and fists were clenched. “I’d better get down there and put a stop to that before it turns into a real ruckus.”
“A real ruckus,” Matt said with a grin. “You’re startin’ to sound like a Westerner, Seymour.”
The marshal gave them a nod and said, “There’s nothing I’d rather be.” Then he started toward the scene of potential trouble, moving quickly despite the stiffness from his injuries.
Before he could get there, somebody threw a punch, and in the blink of an eye a brawl was going on in the middle of the street between the Double C punchers and the Pax riders, despite the shouts of the women for the men to stop it.
Matt and Sam glanced at each other. “Looks like Seymour may need a hand after all,” Sam said.
“Oh, yeah,” Matt said. “Let’s go!”
And with grins on their faces, the blood brothers plunged right back into trouble again.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Texas Gundown Page 27
