“We’re not stickin’ to the road?” Rash asked nervously.
“No,” Lee answered. “We’ll save time by cutting across the ranch straight to the foot of the mountains.”
Rash did not like it, Lee could tell. By taking the direct route instead of following the road all the way to the river and then bearing north until the cutoff into the foothills, they slashed hours off the time it would take them to reach the Russell claim. It would thwart any idea Kemp might have of sending riders on ahead of them to silence Russell.
Other than the thud of hooves and the creak of saddles, they rode in silence. Lee thought about why Kemp had not murdered Russell sometime during the past couple of weeks. It would have been the smart thing to do, and whatever else could be said about Allister Kemp, the man was as shrewd as a fox. He figured that the cattle baron must not have known that Russell was alive.
The oversight would cost Kemp dearly. Once Russell identified Rash, it would link the Englishman to the murder of Jim Hays, and for that Lee would love to see Kemp swing.
After many miles of waving grassland, sloping foothills rose into the stark mountains. They came on a narrow trail used for centuries by the Indians who had called the valley home before Kemp drove them off. It wound ever deeper in among the crags and ravines.
Eventually they turned eastward and were soon among the clustered tents and shacks that sprinkled the landscape. Since Lee knew where the Russell claim was located, he took the lead. As before, many of the pocket hounds glared in open hostility, especially at Rash, who, being a cowboy, was universally hated.
The sun was high in the sky when Lee spotted the site and rode down an incline to the clearing. “This is the place,” he announced, puzzled that Claire did not appear to greet them. She would not wander far from her husband’s side in the condition he was in.
Vint climbed down to stretch his legs. Matt Rash, fingering his reins, stayed in the saddle.
“Claire? Frank?” Lee called out. The same horrible stench assailed him, but this time he had girded himself. When no one replied, he took the liberty of parting the flap and going in. “Frank, I—”
The words choked off in the Tennessean’s throat. Goose bumps prickled his flesh.
Both husband and wife were there, after all. But they were dead.
Frank lay in the same spot with the same stained blanket pulled up to his chin, his lifeless, glazed eyes staring at the top of the tent. Sprawled across his chest, a small blue hole in her left temple, lay Claire. A derringer clutched in her stiff left hand explained the bullet hole. Her eyes were closed, her face oddly peaceful.
Lee squatted and examined Frank. No gunshot wounds were to be found. Evidently the gangrene had finally taken its toll sometime the day before. Claire must have decided she would rather join her man in death than go on without him.
The woman’s suicide touched Lee deeply. He never would have expected a Christian woman to take her own life, and he judged her act as more evidence of the abiding love she had for her fool of a husband.
Lee rose to leave when a troubling thought occurred to him. What if Claire had not died by her own hand? What if someone had shot her and arranged her body to make it appear that she had? Kneeling, he inspected her for powder burns. If she had shot herself, there should be smudges on her temples, traces of black powder in her hair. There were neither.
Then Lee saw a flannel shirt lying near Frank’s shoulder. It had not been there during his last visit. Coincidence? Or had someone used the shirt to smother Frank Russell?
Profoundly upset, Lee stood and pondered. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Killing an innocent woman was a vile deed, certain to earn the culprit a necktie social in his honor. Would even Allister Kemp stoop so low?
Possibly. If Kemp was having Old Abe’s operation watched, and if the Englishman had learned that Lee paid a visit to the Russells, disposing of the pair would ensure that Kemp could not be linked to the murder of Jim Hays.
Maybe Kemp had known all along that Russell was alive but had not acted because he believed Russell was going to die soon anyway.
A whinny outside reminded Lee that Evers and the cowboy were waiting. He wrestled with the dilemma of what to do. Matt Rash was now free to ride off scot-free, and that infuriated him. He was sure that Rash had been Kemp’s go-between, that the skinny cowboy had donned miner’s clothes and mingled with them in town, buying drinks and inciting them so they would play right into Kemp’s hands.
A clever idea made Lee grin. It would only work, though, if Rash did not know the pair were dead, and from the cowboy’s nervous manner, Lee doubted that he did. Leaving the tent, the southerner let out the breath he had not known he was holding.
“Is Russell fit enough to see Rash?” Vint Evers asked.
Lee faced the cowhand. “He sure is. Step inside, mister, and we’ll find out if you’re the coyote who went around masquerading as a miner.”
Something inside of Rash snapped. “Like hell I will,” he cried wildly, and went for his gun.
Some would say it had been unwise of the lawmen not to disarm the cowboy earlier. Matt Rash, though, had not been formally accused of any crime. Until the lawmen had cause to take him into custody, he was free to pack his iron.
Lee Scurlock slapped leather with a quick flip of his wrist, pulling his Colt as fast as he ever had. Yet his pistol was just clearing leather when the Texan’s twin revolvers boomed with one voice.
Matt Rash was flung backward off his sorrel and smacked onto the unyielding ground. Landing on his left side, he rolled onto his back. Rash wheezed, sought to rise, and sagged limply. His revolver slid from fingers gone weak.
Vint moved forward, his smoking Colts held down low, both hammers cocked. The light of life was fading fast from the cowboy’s dark eyes. “Can you hear me, Rash?” Vint said.
The weasel gazed blankly upward. His lips moved, but only crimson froth bubbled out.
“We need to know the truth, Rash,” Vint said. “Clear your conscience before you shuck this life.” He bent down. “Kemp had you pay some miners to bushwhack Scurlock and gun down Jim Hays, didn’t he?”
Rash’s head swiveled from side to side. He bleated like a stricken sheep, the froth spreading across his chin.
“Damn it! Speak to me!” Vint said. “If you don’t talk, a lot of people are going to die. One word from you and I can stop the madness before it gets any worse.”
The cowboy steadied himself. Looking at the Texan, he whispered feebly, “Come closer. Listen good.”
Vint bent so his ear was above the other’s mouth. “Go on. What can you tell me?” In his eagerness to end the bloodshed, in his haste to implicate Kemp before Rash died, he made the kind of mistake only a greenhorn would make, as he learned when the cold end of a pistol barrel gouged into his neck.
A feral gleam animated Rash. “Did you really think I’d turn on my pards?” he hissed. “I’m done for, but at least I can take you with me, bastard!”
A shot rang out. Vint jumped, expecting to feel searing pain and the sticky warm sensation of his blood gushing from his veins.
But it was Matt Rash who had sprouted a new bullet hole, above the ear. The cowboy twitched a few times, then lay quietly, taking the secret of his involvement with the miners into eternity with him.
“Damn!” Vint said. It was a serious setback, and the repercussions were bound to prove costly. He glanced at the Tennessean. “I owe you my life.”
Lee was replacing the spent cartridge. “You would have done the same for me.”
Holstering his six-shooters, Vint turned to the tent. “Now the best we can do is tie this varmint to the miners. Help me drag the body in there so Russell can get a good look at him.”
Lee paused. The ruse had not worked out as he had hoped. “We have a slight problem there,” he said, afraid that the Texan would throw a fit on learning the truth.
“What kind of problem?”
“You’d better have a look inside.”
Lee waited tensely. It wouldn’t surprise him if Evers demanded his badge. But how was he to know that Matt Rash would be stupid enough to throw down on a man with Evers’s reputation? He’d expected Rash to surrender peaceably.
The worst part of it was that it left Allister Kemp free to continue scheming and murdering to his heart’s content.
The flap parted. “Of all the harebrained, dim-witted, loco stunts I’ve ever heard of, the one you pulled takes the cake!” Vint Evers declared. Suddenly grinning, he clapped Lee on the shoulder. “But it was worth a try. You’re an hombre after my own heart, Scurlock.”
The levity was short-lived. Lee walked to a pile of tools and helped himself to a shovel. “I’ll start on the graves,” he offered. “But what do we do once we get back to town?”
“There’s nothing we can do, pard, except wait, and hope that when the lid blows off, we’re not caught in the blast.”
Chapter Eighteen
A week went by, a week of relative tranquility in Diablo, a week during which no one was murdered. There were only a few incidents the lawmen had to deal with.
One night a group of drunken miners decided to see who could shoot out the most windows. A few days later a pickpocket was caught in the act and had his arm broken by his victim. Several dogs were reported as being a nuisance, but they eluded capture.
There was one gunfight. A prospector accused a gambler of cheating during a game of five-card stud at the Dust and Nugget saloon. When the angry gambler made an insulting reference to the pocket hound’s mother, the prospector drew a pistol and got off a shot that hit an innocent bystander.
The irate gambler produced a hideout, a modified Colt with the barrel shortened to two inches and the trigger guard sawed off. He fired once, but his aim was little better than his rivals. The slug seared the prospector’s right cheek and nicked the leg of a man standing behind him.
About that time the rest of the patrons decided that enough was enough, and they pounced on the pair before anyone else could be hurt.
The drastic drop in the number of brawls and gunfights was directly due to the new town marshal. Vint Evers made it known in no uncertain terms that he would not abide the wild discharge of firearms within the town limits. It was also common knowledge that anyone who went on the prod must answer to him.
Few in their right mind would be so inclined. His skill as a shootist discouraged most hardcases. When fistfights broke out, his hasty arrival on the scene was enough to bring the combatants to their senses and prevent them from resorting to their hardware.
And everywhere the Texan went, he was backed up by either Ike Shannon or Lee Scurlock.
For Vint, it was business as usual. He had done the same time and again, in other towns.
Only this time there was a subtle difference, known only to Vint. For as he made his daily rounds, as he went about locking up drunks and breaking up fights and doing the hundred and one petty tasks that were part of a lawman’s job, always at the back of his mind there gnawed the aching pang of failure that made him question not only his ability to serve effectively, but his very manhood.
Vint visited the Applejack only twice. On both occasions Nelly was tipsy. Each time she avoided him, although her haunted eyes marked his every movement, and it seemed to him that they grew more haunted as the days dragged by.
The peace and quiet lulled Lee Scurlock into thinking that maybe the worst was over. Maybe they had been all agitated over nothing. Maybe, just maybe, Allister Kemp was content to let the courts decide the issue.
On a bright, crisp morning eight days after Matt Rash was slain, Lee sat in the Delony parlor talking to the love of his life. They had spent every available minute together since her father was killed, and the more he saw of her, the more he wanted to see.
On this particular morning she was sharing family history. How she had been born in Indiana. How her father had practiced law there for several years before the urge to move west hit him. How the family crossed the Plains in a covered wagon and settled in Denver.
Jim’s practice thrived. The family had a nice home in a well-to-do section of the Mile High City. Their future had looked bright and promising.
Then Allison’s mother died. Jim became restless. Plagued by bittersweet memories, he had considered relocating. Diablo had fascinated him, and he had come up with excuse after excuse to justify paying Bob Delony a visit. Naturally, when Delony asked for help, he had selflessly gone to do what he could.
Now he was dead.
Lee fretted that talking about Jim would upset Allison, but she did not seem to mind. Seated across from her on the settee, he gazed into her wonderfully warm eyes and marveled that she should feel the same way about him as he felt about her. He half wanted to pinch himself to verify he was not dreaming.
For Allison’s part, she was dizzily happy, yet plagued by guilt that she should feel so vibrant with life so soon after her father’s death.
Still, when Lee was beside her, she could not help but feel as if she were floating on a cloud. She drank in the sight of him, her heart set to beating faster by the looks he gave her and by the gentle touch of his hard hands.
Allison had always heard stories about so-called “true love.” As a girl, the tales had fired her with visions of romance, of a gallant knight-errant sweeping her off her feet and taking her off to live in his glorious golden castle.
In later years she had come to dismiss the notion as folly. True love happened to other people. It would never happen to her. She’d had no intention of ever marrying and settling down, because she honestly never expected to meet a man who would affect her as Lee had done.
Her? Fall head over heels for a man? The notion had been preposterous.
Yet now that it had happened, it made Allison realize that, she was no different after all from the tens of millions of women who had lived before her and the tens upon tens of millions who would live after her.
Men and women had been falling in love and rearing families since the beginning of recorded time; they would probably go on doing so for as long as the human race endured.
Now, Lee’s hand clasped in hers, she ran a finger over his calluses and wished that it were night so she could lavish his lips with hot kisses. The thought made her blush.
“Are you feeling all right?” Lee asked, jumping to the conclusion that she must be coming down with something.
“Fine,” Allison said hoarsely.
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a cold in the works,” Lee said. “Should I ask Ethel to make you some lemon tea?”
“No need,” Allison responded. To cover her embarrassment, she mentioned, “I’ve heard from my uncle. He’s written to suggest that I go live with his family in Indianapolis. They have a spare room, and his wife has always been kind to me.”
Lee blanched at the prospect of being separated from her.
“But not to worry,” Allison soothed him. “I’m staying right here. Ethel and Bob have graciously offered to put me up until—” She stopped, reluctant to broach a subject that both had danced around but never addressed.
Lee sensed the truth, and froze. She was waiting for him to voice the most important question of their lives. But each time he went to do so, he choked, literally, on an unreasoning dread. Here he had already told Vint and Ike and even Allister Kemp that he fully intended to marry her, yet he could not bring himself to propose. It was too ridiculous for words.
Cold feet, some would call it. All he knew was that he felt like a skittish horse about to be ridden for the first time. He wanted to run and hide. A fine attitude for a grown man to take!
“I should be moseying along,” Lee said. “Evers will be fit to be tied if I’m late again.”
“Send someone to tell him you’re sick,” Allison proposed.
Lee smirked. “Why, Miss Hays, you brazen hussy! What would your pastor think?”
Huffing, Allison pretended to be scand
alized. He playfully poked her ribs and she laughed, then, on an impulse, kissed him. At that they both flushed and an almost savage hunger came into his eyes. He leaned toward her to satisfy it. Unfortunately, the front door banged and excited voices trailed down the hall to the parlor.
Ethel and Bob Delony entered, arm in arm, beaming in delight.
“Bob!” Allison exclaimed, rising and smoothing her dress. “You’re back from Phoenix so soon?”
Delony could scarcely contain himself. “That I am!” he declared. “And with outstanding news!”
Ethel tittered. “He snuck up while I was tending flowers in the front yard. About scared the living daylights out of me!”
“What’s this about good news?” Lee asked. “How did the hearing go?”
“Better than any of us could have hoped,” Delony said. “Based on the preliminary work Jim did before he died, the judge disallowed every last one of Allister Kemp’s motions.”
“All of them?” Lee said in disbelief. So much for the judge being under Kemp’s thumb.
Nodding, Bob moved to a chair. “Let me sit down. I’ve been a bundle of nervous energy since the hearing began, and I still haven’t wound down.” He pulled Ethel into his lap, and she squealed in mock dismay. “You should have been there. All three of Kemp’s high-priced lawyers were strutting like peacocks. They really thought they had the upper hand.” Delony sobered. “I only wish Jim could have been there to see the looks on their faces when the judge put them in their place.”
Lee saw Allison sadden, so he took her hand and gave it a shake. She brightened, though not much. “Give us the particulars,” he said.
Bob Delony wore a dreamy look as he recounted the events. “Judge Kramer turned out to be a no-nonsense jurist who was not about to let the wool be pulled over his eyes. He must be in his sixties, yet he’s as spry as a spring chicken and as sharp as a steel trap.”
“Bless him!” Ethel said. “This is simply marvelous!
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 20
