Just then, cutting into Angel’s thoughts, Daltry shifted his stance, looked up at her, and again met her gaze. “What happened to your ma?”
Angel felt the weight of the surrounding men’s stares. Daltry’s question had her jaw working around the truth, which she spat out. “You did. You happened to her.” With her gaze, Angel swept the crowd of twelve gathered around her. “All of you. You and your kind. Every one of you who laid his money down and crawled into her bed and gave her his diseases. You happened to her. You killed her.”
The men set up a fuss, but Daltry quelled it with no more than his raised hand. He then jerked to her. Under the wide brim of his hat, the man’s blue eyes narrowed. “I never laid down with your ma, Angel. Never. I always—” He cut off his own words to take in a breath and exhale it. Then he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly sorry. I know how it feels to lose someone you love.”
Angel turned a heart-of-stone look on the man and his sympathy. “I never said I lost a loved one. Just my mother.”
Daltry’s eyebrows shot up, he opened his mouth, meant to say something. But no words came out. Then, as if he’d changed his mind, he firmed his lips together and stared up at her. From the horse’s height … with a hangman’s noose around her neck, with Jeb Kennedy’s blood dotting her bodice … Angel leveled a challenging look right back at the man, daring him to tell her she should love a mother who’d made herself and her daughter the outcasts they were in this forlorn and godforsaken trading post called Red River Station.
But all Daltry did was look away and then down, as if concentrating on his muddied boots. After a moment, he raised his head, avoiding Angel’s steady gaze as he again turned to address the waiting men. “I’ve had about all of this I can stand. You men—the same as me—know Jeb Kennedy’s ways with women. He liked to force himself on ’em. Now I’m asking you … is that what he did to get himself killed today? Did he force himself on Angel—and her no more’n a grievin’ girl?”
No one answered. Daltry focused on the tall, rangy cowhand named Evans. “I asked a question. Is that what your good-for-nothin’ trail boss did?”
Sitting as still as death, moving only her eyes, Angel searched the faces of the men. A few of them—catching her gaze directed his way—had the decency … or felt guilty enough … to look away, to look at his boots, or at the man standing next to him. So it was up to her, she realized, to say the words. In a voice no more than a whisper, she said, “That’s what he did.”
Daltry flinched, as if he’d been punched. He pivoted to face her. His blue eyes squinted against the sudden illumination of a lone shaft of sunlight that pierced the bruised rainclouds overhead and bathed them all in its weak yellow glow. For some reason, Angel felt compelled to add, “Or tried to do, anyway. I got him before he got me.”
“Good for you,” was Daltry’s response. Beyond that, he didn’t move or say another word. Instead, he held her gaze, seemed to stare right through her, seemed to be searching for her very soul. Angel wondered if she had one for him to find. Then—as if they were alone in a parlor somewhere, as if she weren’t sitting here with a dead man’s blood coloring her clothing—he said, “Tell me what happened, Angel.”
Angel’s stomach quivered, making her shiver. The remembered fear, the feel of the man’s hands on her, his mouth groping, hurting … No. She didn’t want to talk about it. She opened her mouth to tell Daltry just that, that she didn’t owe him an explanation. But a new voice inside her screamed not to do that. For once in your life, it echoed, let someone help you. Tell him, it said. Tell him and live.
This clamoring inside her that willed her to reach out for help, to accept it, halted Angel’s rebellious thoughts. And focused her attention inward. What was happening to her? She never questioned herself, never doubted the validity of her gut reactions, the one thing that had kept her alive thus far. So, what was this she now felt? Every nerve ending screamed at her to cooperate with Mr. Daltry, just as the men who comprised this mob were doing. The mob was slowly turning into individual men … all of whom appeared relieved that someone was stopping them.
So, given that, why shouldn’t she cooperate? Why shouldn’t she tell these men what their precious trail boss had tried to do? Why, indeed? Angel decided to speak. “I was in the back room of the Silver Star … clearing out my mother’s things … when he—Mr. Kennedy—came in, all liquored up and feeling randy. I told him to go away, that Virginia Devlin was dead.”
“But—” A ragged breath escaped Angel, surprising her and cutting off her words. She swallowed, tamped down her emotions, and hurried on. “But Mr. Kennedy said … one whore’s the same as another. I told him I wasn’t like my mother. But he kept coming at me. I told him to stop. And he said he’d kill me if I … didn’t let him. Then he jumped me.” Angel closed her eyes against the memory, realized what she was doing and opened them again, and caught sight of Mr. Daltry, and finished. “When he did, we fell to the bed. And in the struggle, I got his knife. And I killed him. As for the rest … well, it’s sitting here looking at you.”
In the ensuing silence, Angel willed herself not to look away first. Finally, Mr. Daltry blinked, nodding as if acknowledging her words as he turned again to the men. “It seems to me that if Kennedy did what she says, and she killed him for it, then he had it coming. Anyone care to see it differently?”
He stopped … waited. Angel’s heart thumped leadenly. When no one offered an opinion either way, Mr. Daltry broke the silence. “I’ll give you two minutes to think about it and speak your mind. Then I’m cutting her loose. So if you got something to say to me, or to her, say it now.”
Again, Angel held her breath, certain she could hear the seconds ticking by, like the hollow booming cadence of an Indian war drum. But no one in the mob said a word or made an abrupt move. They just shifted their weight … eyed a neighbor … shrugged a shoulder. Angel sat up straighter in the saddle, sought Daltry’s profile, and kept her attention focused on him. If she walked away from this ruckus, it’d be because of him.
As if he felt the weight of her stare, Mr. Daltry flicked a glance her way. The glint in his eyes clearly counseled caution, told her it wasn’t over yet, said she need look no further than the rope knotted around her neck for the truth of that. Renewed apprehension caught at Angel’s breathing. With only the briefest of nods she let him know she understood. But tell that to her mind, which raced with thoughts of the immediate future, ranging from what she needed to collect before she got out of Red River Station forever … to where she would go … and to what she would do when she got there.
“Time’s up,” Mr. Daltry said, his words shattering the leaden silence that had fallen on them. “Seeing as how you don’t appear to have any objections, I’m guessin’ you all agree that Miss Devlin is free to go.” He pointed to Evans. “Get that rope off her. Now.”
Evans immediately stepped around him and began climbing the hangman’s tree. Daltry pivoted, watched him a moment, as if making sure the drover was carrying out his orders, and then turned to the eleven remaining men. “Whose cayuse is she sitting on?”
Angel’s legs tightened reflexively around the roan under her, the horse in question. After a moment’s hesitance, a young wrangler whom Angel’d heard brag more than once about having been with her mother, called out, “It’d be mine, Mr. Daltry.”
Daltry swung his gaze to the kid. “How much you want for it?”
The boy’s face clouded. “I don’t want nothing for it, ’cause it ain’t mine to sell. That’s a top cow pony and belongs to the Henton brand. I’m just the horse wrangler. An’ if I sold that horse, Mr. Henton would have my hide.”
“Is that so?” Daltry drawled, drawing his pistol from its holster, ignoring the cowhand while he fiddled with the weapon’s chambers … all to make a point, a loaded one not lost on Angel. Or on the trail crew facing her, she could see.
Done with his gun play, Daltry again leveled his blue-eyed gaze on the hapless wrangler. “I know your
Mr. Henton. A fine, upstanding cattleman. He won’t be none too pleased with the news you men’ve got to bring him. That your trail boss got himself killed and then you and your crew involved yourselves in the near lynching of a young girl who’d done nothing but defend herself. But since you’re letting her go—and you are—the way I see it is, all you’ve got to report is you need a new trail boss … and you’re short one horse.”
He paused, cutting his gaze from one man to the next, until he’d looked each of them in the eye. “Is that the way you see it? Or do I need to go talk to John Henton myself?”
Angel was so enthralled with the conversation between Mr. Daltry and the trail crew that she only belatedly realized that Evans had lifted the noose from around her neck. Now all she needed to do was reach forward, grab the dangling reins, dig her boot heels into the horse’s ribs, and send him in a tear through the loose knot of men surrounding her. If she did, they’d both be free, her and the roan. Her muscles twitched, aching with the desire to do just that. But she didn’t, couldn’t. And had to wonder why.
Then, it hit her. Some insane sense of loyalty that she hadn’t known she possessed. Could it be that she figured she owed Mr. Daltry her life and should stick around to make sure the guilt-wracked, and therefore still dangerous, trail crew didn’t turn on him? If they did turn, she told herself, she could use the horse as a weapon, maybe even the odds out a bit by wedging it between him and them, or urge it into a charge that would scatter them. Is that what she was thinking … that Mr. Daltry might need her?
Angel examined that notion for a moment and realized that … yes, she was thinking that. No one had ever needed her before. But Mr. Daltry did. And she intended to stick by him. So there it was. She could stick by someone, even if her mother couldn’t. Virginia Devlin’d pushed her child away, telling her it was the only way she could keep her safe. Well, Angel hadn’t accepted that then, and she wasn’t about to accept it now in herself. She, for one, would stay with this man—until she knew he was away safely.
And after that, she had her freedom and would disappear into the Western wilds and begin a new life for herself. A good life, free of the stench of cattle and saloons and liquored-up cowhands. Free of the scorn heaped on her by decent folks because of who her mother was. And free of want, of never enough clothes to wear or food to eat. Or her own roof over her head. Yes, she’d have all that. She’d see that she did. But for now, she sat her horse, a free woman, one with a debt of gratitude keeping her in place.
In the space of time it took for all this to occur to her, Mr. Daltry had continued to address the men. Angel listened in, knowing that whatever passed between them … affected her directly. “I believe you men have made the right decision here today. I know if I heard the same tale about my men—men I was prepared to trust with thousands of dollars’ worth of steers—that they’d kept their heads, buried my trail boss, and got back to work, I’d be most likely to think highly of them. And not worry one bit about one lost cow pony.”
With that, Mr. Daltry reached into an inside pocket of his oilskin slicker and pulled out some silver coins, which he threw at the wrangler’s feet. “That’s more’n that roan’s worth. So do yourself a favor, kid—pick the money up and count the horse gone.”
For a moment, the young wrangler didn’t move, except to stare at the money in the mud and then to exchange glances with his fellow drovers. Angel’s throat constricted. The air seemed to thicken. She inched forward over the roan’s neck, meaning to grab for the reins, the better to control him, should she need to assist Mr. Daltry. But in the next second, urged on by his friends’ gestures, the kid picked up the silver coins, scooping the pieces up with more mud than bravado.
Angel exhaled her relief. It was over.
The now peaceable cowhands turned and wandered off in the general direction of the Silver Star Saloon. Angel couldn’t believe it. She was alive. Only moments ago, she’d been as close to dead as she’d ever been. But now, she could go. Even though she’d never thanked anybody for anything before in her life, she thought to thank Mr. Daltry.
But her words no more than tipped against her tongue before they were cut off by Daltry’s called-out question to the departing men. “Hey, kid?” The horse wrangler, along with the other men, turned as one and waited for him to continue. “Buy a round at the Silver Star and have everyone drink to Virginia Devlin’s memory. You owe her that much.”
A heavier quiet seemed to settle over the men. They stared back in silence. A few of them sought Angel’s gaze. She raised her chin a notch, willed her solemn, unforgiving expression to speak for her. Then, the young wrangler tipped his wide-brimmed hat in acknowledgment to Mr. Daltry … and then to Angel.
Her guts tightened, her jaw firmed. If her mouth weren’t so dry, she told herself, she’d spit on the ground to show her opinion of his gesture. Did he mean it as an apology? She doubted it. Mocking disrespect? Most likely. Or could it be he sought her forgiveness? Is that what he and his friends wanted? Forgiveness?
Well, they’d not have it from her. They’d all die first before they’d see that day. And probably would. Because she had no intention of returning to Red River Station. Ever.
Two
The Henton cowhands finally turned away, fading into the backdrop of dingy, muddied, clapboard buildings.
Her eyes burning, her heart full, Angel exhaled. And then—without warning—reaction set in. Realization dawned. Today, she’d lost her mother. Killed a man. And nearly been lynched for it. She could right now, this moment, be dead herself … her neck broken, her lifeless body swinging limply from the scrub oak branch.
Bile rose to her throat. Angel clamped a hand over her mouth, swallowing convulsively. She gripped the roan tightly with her legs, clenched a fist around the pommel. The merest wisp of a breeze could have blown her off the animal, so weak with fear was she. With her eyes closed, she breathed in and out … deeply, slowly … refusing to acknowledge either the abject wail that tore through her soul, or the big, warm hand that gripped her thigh.
“You okay, Angel?”
She nodded, unable to speak—not even to the man who’d saved her life … for reasons still known only to him. But right now, it didn’t seem important what his reasons were. Because all she wanted was for him to take his hand away so she could go off by herself and empty her roiling stomach of its sickness. Then, she’d get her few belongings together and ride out of this hellhole that had never been home to her since she and her parents had arrived here when she was five years old.
But Mr. Daltry’s hand stayed where it was. After another moment or so, he squeezed her leg gently. And asked again, “Are you really okay?”
This time, realizing she was breathing easier, that she was more in control, but mostly that he wasn’t going to let her be, Angel lowered her hand, opened her eyes, and met Mr. Daltry’s concerned gaze. “I’ve been better.”
His abrupt chuckle greeted her words. “I expect you have.” He patted her leg and then removed his hand, gesturing to indicate her neck. “That’s a nasty rope burn. I might have some salve that could help it along.”
Grateful for his practical words, when sentiment or sympathy would have unseated her, Angel put a hand to her throat and rubbed the raw skin there, wincing as she did. “No need to trouble yourself. It’ll heal on its own.”
He nodded. Under the wide brim of his hat, his blue eyes earnest, he frowned and looked around, as if he didn’t know how to proceed from here, what to say to her, what to do. This awkward moment, Angel knew, was as good as any to say her good-byes—to him and to Red River Station. But she had some questions first. She put the first one to him. “You stepped in for me with those men. Why?”
Mr. Daltry sobered, stared up at her. His answer was slow in coming. “Why? Because I had to. I owe you. It’s as simple as that. Hell, Angel, saving your life is the least of what I intend to do.”
Angel cocked her head at a challenging angle. “It’s best you not have any intention
s where I’m concerned, Mr. Daltry.” She meant to leave it at that, but heard herself blurting, “What is it you think you owe me? What’d I ever do for you? I don’t even know you.”
The tall, gray-haired man, suddenly looking haggard, slowly exhaled. “You know me. You just don’t remember me. And you didn’t do anything for me, Angel. It’s what I did to—Well, all you need to know is I owe you more than I could ever pay back. But even so, I’d like to try … the best way I know how.”
“The best way you know how?” Angel chuckled, a sound that had nothing to do with humor. “How do you intend to top saving my life, as worthless as it is?”
He looked up at her. “I’m going to give you a home you can live out that life in.”
Angel was stunned. Finally, she recovered enough to speak her mind. “You’re just going to give me a home? Just give it to me?” Her words dripping with derision, she shook her head. “Everyone and everything has a price, Mr. Daltry. And I don’t have a hankering to know what yours is.”
Having had her say, Angel leaned over the horse’s neck, intent on gathering the reins and wheeling the animal around to head for her small room at the back of the clapboard hotel down the street.
But Mr. Daltry, moving with a swiftness that belied his years, caught up the leather reins first. Angel stiffened, but then retreated to an upright position. Wary now, she readied herself to swing her leg over her mount’s other side, drop to the ground and run, should it become necessary. But she hoped it didn’t … because she needed the danged roan to get out of Red River Station. Preferably before sundown. And certainly before those drovers got drunk enough to change their minds about setting her free.
Captive Angel Page 2
