A Cowboy Christmas

by Janette Kenny

  “Did he put up a fight?” Reid asked.

  “Nope, he was docile as a lamb and admitted who he was.”

  “What happens now?” Ellie asked, fearing she knew but needing to hear all the same.

  Tavish shrugged. “He waits for the judge to come through. If he’s lucky, he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. If he pulls an unsympathetic jury, he’ll hang.”

  She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach, fearing she’d retch. “I’d like to talk to him now.”

  “I need a word with him too,” Reid said, and Ellie bit back a groan at the verbal sparring that was sure to come.

  “Don’t know about that,” Tavish said.

  “Please,” she said. “It’s Christmas Day.”

  Tavish removed his felt hat and combed his thick hair back, then took his time settling it back on. But his gaze flicked between her and Reid with cold appraisal.

  “Please,” she repeated.

  The marshal scowled, but gave an abrupt nod. “I’ll give you two ten minutes with him. The door stays open. Agreed?”

  “Yes, fine,” she said.

  Anything as long as she could talk to her pa and figure out a way to commute his sentence.

  Ellie rushed up to the cell where Kincaid sat on a cot with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. The old outlaw caught sight of her and struggled to his feet.

  “Ah, hell,” he said.

  She grasped the iron bars. “Why did you come to town and take such a foolish risk?”

  “I aimed to give you something you’d pined for instead of the grief and shame that was passed off on you all these years.” Moss sent Ellie a smile that brimmed with affection and worry before flicking Reid an uneasy glance. “I ne’er meant no harm.”

  That excuse was spewed by outlaws all across the West. Reid curled his upper lip and struggled to keep a tight rein on his anger. But it was a losing battle.

  “You sonofabitch,” Reid said, and Ellie let out an affronted gasp. “Where’s my stallion?”

  “Wish I knew,” Kincaid said. “It’s the God’s honest truth I didn’t steal your horse.”

  Reid expected the denial. “You’re a horse thief.”

  “The best that ever was for many a year.” Kincaid bobbed his white head, showing no repentance at all. “Those days are behind me. Hell, they have been for nigh on two years.”

  “Bull. You likely hired on at the Crown until you figured out how to make off with those thoroughbreds.”

  A broad smile spread over Kincaid’s craggy face and set his eyes to twinkling. “Barclay, if I was still in the business you wouldn’t have a blooded horse left to your name.”

  The same thought had crossed Reid’s mind as well. Why had Kincaid only stolen one horse when he had ample opportunity to ride off with the herd?

  “A man claims to have seen you riding off on Caelte,” he said, not about to be gulled again by the old man or his fetching daughter.

  “A man swears I killed a woman in Laramie too, but I didn’t.” Kincaid looked him dead on, letting him read the truth in his eyes—a truth that heaped guilt on him.

  “Then why’d you come to the Crown?” Reid asked.

  “I got a bone to pick with the no-account who gunned down that woman in Laramie,” Kincaid said. “Word was that Slim Cullen was working at the Crown Seven.”

  “That he is,” Reid said, and earned a groan from Ellie and a jaw-dropping look from the outlaw.

  Kincaid folded his arms over his bulging middle. “Well, I ain’t laid eyes on him yet.”

  Just what kind of bullshit was the old man trying to pull now? “You claiming Ellie didn’t point Slim Cullen out to you?”

  Kincaid jutted his chin forward and scowled at his daughter. “She sure as hell did not. Why didn’t you come to me right away, Ellie Jo? That man’s a woman killer.”

  She shook her head, looking flustered and plain bone-weary. “I just don’t know what to believe, Pa.”

  Kincaid let out a sound of disgust, wrapped gnarled fingers around the iron bars and stared dead on at Reid. “Tell me who he is. I got a right to know.”

  “You blind, old man?”

  “I must be ’cause I sure as hell ain’t laid eyes on him the whole year I been working at the Crown,” Kincaid said.

  It was Reid’s turn to wonder what the hell was going on. Not one bit of recognition was evident on Kincaid’s face. Ellie’s expression was just as puzzled.

  He’d had more than his share of lies, broken vows and double-dealings the past two years. He wanted to shed light on the truth.

  “Reid Cullen Barclay is my given name,” he said. “But since I was tall and lanky most of my life, folks called me Slim.”

  Kincaid scowled. “You can’t be him.”

  He laughed without humor. “Just what Kirby told me when they dragged me out of jail and convinced me I’d best spend a year in England with Kirby’s cousin until the furor died down.” Saved his butt, though that salvation came at a mighty hefty price.

  “I’ll be switched,” Kincaid said.

  “Your memory clearing, old man?” Reid asked.

  “Like a full sun burning off a foggy morning.” Kincaid looked him over from head to toe and nodded. “You was rail thin, all right, with hair curling down past your collar. And so damned drunk you could barely stand up.”

  “Yep, I’d spent way too many hours and all my money in the saloon that day when you came to town to steal my horse,” he said. “I’d just found out Kirby Morris was dying of cancer, and I decided to drown my grief in rotgut.”

  Kincaid downed his head. “Didn’t know Kirby was bad off then.”

  “You knew him?” he asked.

  Kincaid nodded at Ellie. “She can tell you the particulars. Suffice to say if it weren’t for Kirby Morris, I’d be dead.”

  He had no trouble believing Kirby would’ve lent a hand to the old rustler.

  “Yep, I surely wouldn’t have repaid his help by stealing your horse,” Kincaid said. “Hell, I hadn’t even known you were one of the boys Kirby spoke of until I hired on at the Crown.”

  “Sounds like you have a convenient memory,” he said.

  “My mind is sharp, boy.”

  “Then how come you couldn’t recall the face of the man who murdered Lisa True?”

  “Time’s up,” Tavish said.

  Kincaid shook his head and stared at Reid with an intensity that rocked him to his soul. “I remember him. Make no mistake about it. I’m telling you right now that you ain’t the cowboy I saw kill that woman.”

  That claim tumbled over and over in Reid’s head. He wanted to believe it was true. God, how he wanted to believe he hadn’t taken an innocent life.

  But he’d be a fool to trust the old outlaw. A desperate fool.

  “How can that be, Pa?” Ellie asked, voicing Reid’s doubts. “You swore Slim Cullen murdered that woman, and Reid is that man.”

  Kincaid jutted his chin at a belligerent angle. “I don’t give a damn what Barclay calls himself. He didn’t shoot that young woman dead.”

  Ellie stared at her pa, seeming as confused as Reid felt. “Then who did?”

  “The feller we’re looking for, is who,” Kincaid said.

  “That’s a mighty interesting story,” Marshal Tavish said from the doorway. “Barclay. Miss Morris. Time for you to be heading out.”

  “But it’s Christmas,” Ellie said. “What harm can be done if I spend a little more time talking with my father?”

  Tavish thumbed his hat back. “The sheriff has strict rules here, ma’am. Ten minutes with a prisoner.”

  “Look around you, Tavish,” Reid said. “Most folks are home with their family, including the sheriff. Well, her kin is right here in this cell. No reason why she can’t visit with him a bit longer.”

  “Please,” Ellie said.

  Tavish stared at them, looking about as obliging as a grizzly. “You got twenty minutes, then you skedaddle.”

  The marshal tra
mped away from the doorway, leaving it open as he had before. With luck, he’d hear something that would send him off hunting the man who’d stolen Reid’s stallion.

  And if Ezra Kincaid was duping him? God help him.

  “If you’re lying about what happened that day, old man—”

  “I’m telling the God’s-honest truth,” Kincaid said. “You ain’t the cowboy who killed that woman.”

  So who’d murdered her?

  While Ellie and Kincaid reminisced about Christmases past, Reid forced his mind back to that dark day in Laramie, hoping more would come to light this time. He remembered riding into town, his heart heavy over the news that Kirby was dying.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of losing the man who was like a father to him. It shamed him to admit he’d failed Kirby.

  They were in debt, and they had just a few ways left to recoup their losses or risk losing the Crown Seven. He’d stalked into a saloon and commenced drinking—inwardly crying in his liquor.

  It hadn’t taken long before the rest of that day was a blur, thanks to the fact he was a handkerchief away from being three sheets to the wind.

  Reid stared at the old outlaw, letting his claim play over and over in Reid’s mind until the truth settled into his soul. He hadn’t shot Lisa True by accident. Another cowboy had murdered her.

  Damned convenient. Believing he’d killed an innocent woman allowed Erston to strong-arm Reid into doing his bidding. It heaped guilt on him that he’d lived with for two long years.

  He saw a killer every time he looked in a mirror. He called himself a coward for letting a rustler take the blame for that woman’s death, even if Kincaid was an outlaw that would likely hang one day.

  “What’s troubling you, boy?” Kincaid asked.

  “I need to know what you saw the day Lisa True was shot down in the street,” Reid said.

  Kincaid paced his cell. “Well, it all started with me figuring out a way I could steal a fine horse I had my eye on.”

  “My horse?” Reid asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “I waited a good long time before trying to make off with that horse,” Kincaid said. “I was a hairsbreadth from getting that line untied when that woman screamed and ran from the livery.”

  He frowned. “That should’ve drawn a crowd.”

  “Oh, it did,” Kincaid said. “Thing is, most folks saw me by the horses and right off figured I was fixing to steal them. That’s when I took off running.”

  He had a disjointed memory of staggering outside and seeing the old outlaw by his horse. “I shot at you.”

  “You shot wild, blowing a hole in the sign over the livery. But Slim Cullen, or the cowpoke I thought was him, had true aim.” Kincaid shook his head, looking guilty. “It happened so damned fast. One minute that cowpoke was chasing her from the livery, and the next he pulled his gun and shot her down.”

  “Good thing he didn’t see you,” Reid said.

  “He did,” Kincaid said. “Stared me straight in the eyes. I was sure he’d drop me there on the sidewalk, but when folks started running toward the livery, he vamoosed. I damn sure did the same.”

  “How many horses did you make off with?” Reid asked.

  “Not a damned one. I lit out of town and didn’t look back,” he said. “It was later when I heard they’d arrested Slim Cullen for her murder.”

  That they had. Reid rubbed the tense cords in his nape, his memory clear about when he woke in a jail cell to learn he’d killed a woman and would surely hang.

  The old outlaw paced the cell like a caged bear. “All this time I thought that no-account was Slim Cullen. What I wouldn’t give to run into him again.”

  “Would you know him if you saw him?” he asked.

  “Damn right I would. I’ll never forget those cold eyes of his,” Kincaid said. “They glittered like blue ice. You see anybody that fits that bill?”

  “Don’t know for sure.”

  Reid paced back and forth, sorting it out in his head, trying to place where he’d seen eyes like that. When he did, his blood ran cold—not with fear, but with fury.

  “Sonofabitch,” Reid said, knowing if he was right, the killer was right here in Maverick.

  “You know who he is,” Ellie said, laying a hand on his arm, searching his eyes with hers.

  “Maybe. Had a cowpoke working for me with eyes that color.” Reid looked from Ellie’s worried face to her pa’s scowling one. “Describe this man who shot Lisa True.”

  Kincaid screwed up his face and stroked his beard. “He was rangy as a starved coyote. A mite taller than Ellie.”

  Five-eight then. So far it fit the man Reid had in mind. “Go on. What about his hair? Complexion?”

  The old outlaw shook his head, as if trying to rattle those details out of hiding. “His hair hung over his collar and was mighty dark. From where I stood it appeared to be in need of a hard washing.”

  “You said he had a scar on his cheek,” Ellie said.

  “He sure did.” Kincaid stopped pacing, his eyes widening as if something else had just occurred to him. “There were bloody tracks on his face, too.”

  “She scratched him,” Ellie and Reid said at the same time.

  Reid flicked a glance at the doorway and saw the marshal’s shadow there. He could imagine what was going through his mind as he bent his ear to their conversation.

  The real killer had either coaxed or dragged Miss True into the livery and had his way with her. She must have clawed him up in the process and got away.

  Only to get gunned down when she was moments from freedom.

  “Damn the man to hell,” Reid said, snaring Kincaid’s angry gaze with his own. “When he spied you fixing to rustle a horse, he saw it as the means to cover up what he’d done.”

  Kincaid nodded. “He knew I’d run.”

  “You listening, Tavish?” he asked.

  “Yup.” The marshal stepped into the door opening, his expression tight with anger.

  Tension crackled in the jail, gathering momentum like an avalanche sweeping down the mountain.

  “That witness in Laramie,” he said, having a feeling in his gut that he wasn’t mistaken this time. “He was Frank Arlen.”

  “Yup,” Tavish said.

  Ellie stepped close, her fingers tightening on his arm. “The man who saw Pa steal your stallion?”

  “One and the same.”

  Arlen had stolen Caelte. He tried stealing Reid’s blooded mares. He likely was the man who took that potshot at Reid the other day when he’d been kissing Ellie and dreaming of sinking into her and forgetting the world and his troubles.

  “He’s been watching the ranch all along,” Kincaid said, frowning at his daughter who didn’t seem to be aware how familiar she was with Reid.

  Not that he minded, but this wasn’t the place to tell a father that he had designs on the man’s daughter.

  “Ellie Jo, I want you to leave town tomorrow,” Kincaid said. “Go to California like you planned now before—”

  “No! I’m not leaving yet.”

  Kincaid dragged his gaze to Reid’s, and there was no denying the fact that the old man was worried sick about his daughter. “Bet Arlen recognized me and knew if I tried defending myself, I’d end up right here.”

  That fear had played into Arlen’s hands and kept the old man from venturing out. Hell, Reid could count the times on one hand that Kincaid had made a foray into town. The last time when he came to buy a gift for Ellie, he’d gotten caught.

  Now how the hell was Arlen going to view that news?

  “It’s the God’s honest truth that I’m leery of a convenient witness,” Tavish said.

  Reid felt the same, though there was nothing convenient or happenstance with what Frank Arlen had done. The man was careful to plan his moves so someone else took the blame. He just had to get the marshal to see that.

  “I always thought a good poker player made the best criminal because he had the right amount of smarts and bra
vado.” Reid glanced at Tavish, wanting the lawman to read the truth in his eyes. “Arlen overplayed his hand.”

  Tavish scrubbed a hand over his chin as if considering his opinion. “Interesting that Arlen happened to be in Laramie when Kincaid killed Lisa True. He claims he was riding near the ranch and saw Kincaid passing by. But maybe Arlen was driving off horses he’d just rustled at Rocky Point Ranch.”

  “As you said, he’s a convenient witness.”

  Tavish scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “If you’re right, then it’ll be interesting to see what Arlen does next. If you’re wrong, the rustling will stop now.”

  And if he was right? What the hell would Arlen do?

  Chapter 22

  “What are you going to do about Frank Arlen?” Ellie asked after Tavish put an end to her visit with her pa and hustled her and Reid out of the back room.

  “Nothing much I can do,” Marshal Tavish said.

  She stared at him, unwilling to believe the law could be so blind. “But my father saw him shoot that woman.”

  The marshal laughed, which only made her madder. “You expect me to take the word of a horse thief?”

  “I expect you to at least consider all the possibilities.” But the marshal had closed his mind to Ezra Kincaid’s version of that day in Laramie because he was an outlaw.

  Marshal Tavish dropped onto his chair and rocked it back on two legs. “Find a witness to back up Kincaid’s claim and I’ll track down Arlen. But even if you do, remember Ezra Kincaid is a horse thief and he has to stand trial for that.”

  That took the argument out of her. She’d always known this day would come, for her pa had spent many a year rustling. But she’d also thought she’d be removed from the brutal reality.

  At best, she expected to read of his arrest, trial and either his imprisonment or death. She’d not dreamed she’d see him locked in a cell facing an uncertain fate. She’d not realized her heart would ache so.

  Strong fingers closed over her arm. She looked up into Reid’s fathomless blue eyes and smiled, glad she had someone to turn to if only for a short while.

  “We’d best get back to the ranch,” he said.

  She nodded, hating the sting of threatening tears. This day had started with such promise. The first Christmas she’d spent with her pa in ages.