For a long moment they stood toe-to-toe, slugging away at each other, each man obviously more concerned with the punishment he could deal out than with the blows he was taking. Caleb finally landed a punch to Chico’s solar plexus with stunning force. Chico let his guard down, and Caleb hammered a looping left to his face, following with a right uppercut that put Chico on the ground again.
This time Chico didn’t even try to get up. He just lay there breathing hard and whimpering. His face was swollen, bruised, and bloody. He didn’t look handsome now.
Neither did Caleb, but he wore an expression of triumph as he turned away from his defeated opponent.
“Make you feel better to beat up a boy?” Hannah asked with a sneer. “A boy who didn’t do anything wrong.”
Caleb dragged the back of his hand across his bleeding lips.
“He got too big for his britches,” he snapped. “And that’s what any man’ll get who does the same.”
“Don’t worry, Caleb,” one of the outlaws said. “We know you’re the boss.”
Eden wasn’t sure, but she thought there might have been the faintest trace of mockery in the man’s voice. Several of the others glanced at Hannah, as if they were saying that they knew who the boss was, all right…and it wasn’t Caleb.
Caleb must have seen that, too. His face darkened. But he must have figured that there had already been enough trouble for one night, because he didn’t say anything else. Instead he turned away, and a couple of the men went to help a groggy Chico to his feet.
The fight hadn’t cleared the air. Tension still hung heavy in it during supper, so that later in the evening, when hoofbeats thudded in the night the sound made all the men stand up and turn toward them, hands hovering over their guns.
Judging by the sound, two riders were approaching the camp at a good clip, but they weren’t galloping as they would have been if the posse was hot on their heels.
The horses came to a stop while they were still outside the circle of light cast by the fire. A man called, “Hello, the camp! It’s just us.”
“That’s Lou,” Caleb said. He raised his voice to say, “You and Andy come on in, Lou.”
The two men walked their horses into the light. They seemed calm, which Eden found disappointing. If they had been upset, it would have meant that the posse was closing in.
Caleb waited until the men dismounted, then asked, “Did you find them?”
“Yeah,” one of the outlaws replied. “We saw the light of their fire and got closer on foot so they wouldn’t hear our horses. It looked like a posse, all right.”
“How many?”
“More than a dozen,” the other outlaw said. “Fifteen or sixteen, I’d guess.”
“We thought about trying to cut down a few of them with our rifles,” the first one said. “They wouldn’t have known what hit ’em.”
Eden went cold all over at the thought of a bullet screaming out of the darkness to strike Bill.
“Then we figured that it might be smarter not to let them know we were there,” the second outlaw said. “They might have been able to follow us back here, and we knew you wouldn’t want that.”
Caleb rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought.
“I was hoping we’d lose them on the rocks,” he said. “They must have managed to stay on our trail, though. How far back are they?”
“Six or seven miles.” The man who had spoken nodded toward Chico, who stood off to the side wearing an angry glare on his battered face. “What the hell happened to Flynn?”
“He got too friendly with our hostage,” Caleb snapped. “I had to keep him in line.”
The two men who had gone on the scouting mission glanced at each other and shrugged. Eden thought they looked like they were just as glad they had missed the ruckus.
“If those damned lawmen are still that far behind us, the chances of them catching up to us before we make it to the badlands are pretty slim,” Caleb went on. “We’ll keep moving fast, though, just to make sure.”
Eden felt her spirits sinking at Caleb’s words. She wanted to remain hopeful, but it was getting more and more difficult.
“Maybe they’ll give up and go back home before they ever get that far,” one of the men suggested.
“Maybe. I wouldn’t count on it.”
Eden couldn’t speak for the other men in the posse, since she didn’t know who had come with Bill, but she knew in her heart that her husband would never turn around and go back to Redemption without her. He would keep coming until he found her, no matter how far he had to go or how long it took.
If he had to come alone, though, what chance would he have against this band of ruthless killers? Maybe it would be better if he did give up and assume that she was lost to him. He would be safer. He could go on with his life…
And that would never happen, she thought. Not Bill. “Quit” wasn’t in his vocabulary.
Chapter 24
Virgie hadn’t snuck out of the house the previous night, but Tom didn’t expect her to go two nights in a row without seeing her lover.
So he wasn’t surprised when he heard the faint creak of the floorboards in the hallway as he lay in the spare bedroom, pretending to sleep.
Not wanting Virgie to hear him reacting, he remained motionless. It was possible that she wasn’t going to leave the house, that she had gotten up for some other reason. Tom didn’t believe that, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to be certain of what she was doing.
Things had been chilly as always between them. He had ridden out to the ranch to work some more with the gray stallion, and she had spent the day—so she said—at her parents’ house. When he’d asked her how her father was doing after the bank robbery, she had said that he was all right but still angry that he hadn’t been able to go along with the posse.
The idea of dried-up old Walter Shelton riding with a posse after a bunch of outlaws was laughable to Tom. He could imagine his own father doing that, but not Virgie’s.
He supposed he believed her about where she was during the day. It would be hard for her to rendezvous with Ned Bassett in broad daylight. Somebody would be too likely to see her sneaking into his house. He might have customers calling, too. He was a watchmaker and both sold and repaired watches and clocks.
After a minute Tom sat up and noiselessly swung his legs out of bed. He hadn’t undressed tonight, except for taking his boots off. He stood up and moved to the window, parting slightly the curtains that hung over it.
A shadow moved outside the house.
With his heart pounding, because a part of him—still, after all this time—hoped he was wrong, he watched. The slender figure moved through the shadows in back of the house, and Tom knew he was right.
There she went, off to meet Bassett.
Tom left by the front door, hurrying but not being careless. He didn’t want his wife to know that her affair had been discovered, not just yet. He would take a different route to Bassett’s house. He actually knew the streets of Redemption better than Virgie did. He had lived around here longer.
He was ensconsed in the thick shadows under the tree when she ghosted past and went to the house. He held his breath, but his heart seemed to be beating so hard and so loud that he was a little surprised she didn’t hear it.
His heart slugged even harder when his fingertips brushed the butt of the gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers.
It would serve them both right, he thought. He could burst into the house, catch them all tangled up with each other, and empty the revolver into them. Bassett wouldn’t be able to stop him. The man probably didn’t even have a gun of his own in his house.
Nobody else would do a damned thing about it, either. It was the unwritten law. A man had every right to kill an unfaithful wife and her lover.
The more he thought about it, though, the less Tom wanted to kill Virgie. He might hate her, but he still loved her at the same time. He supposed he could even forgive what she’d done, if she would just go back to t
he way she used to be, before she decided that she hated him.
Bassett, though…that son of a bitch deserved to die.
Not tonight, Tom told himself. Soon, maybe, but not tonight. And once Virgie saw the light, maybe Bassett would just slink on out of town and Tom wouldn’t have to kill him at all.
Tom stood there for an hour or so that seemed more like a day. Then the back door of Bassett’s house opened and Virgie snuck out, the same way he had seen her do several times in the past. She and Bassett embraced and kissed, then she started toward home.
Home, thought Tom. That was laughable. The house he shared with Virgie wasn’t a home and might never be. Not unless he was able to set things right.
He waited until Virgie was gone before he approached the house. Bassett couldn’t get off scot-free from what he’d done. And there was no hurry about getting back. Virgie might worry if she found that he was gone, but let her worry. Let her stew in it.
Tom knocked on the back door, not loudly but insistently enough that Bassett had to hear it.
The door swung open, and Bassett said, “What’s wrong, Virginia? Did you forget—”
He stopped short as Tom raised the gun, pointed it at his face, and eared back the hammer.
“Yeah, she forgot something,” Tom said. “Forgot that she had a husband, you bastard.”
“Gentry! My God, man, be…be careful with that gun.”
Bassett’s voice held the accent of his eastern origins. He held his hands up as he backed away. Tom stepped into the kitchen and kept the gun trained on him.
Bassett wore a shirt and trousers but was barefooted. His brown hair was in disarray, probably from rolling around in bed with Virgie. He was handsome, in a weak way, Tom supposed. Virgie probably thought so, anyway.
“My wife’s been paying you visits,” Tom said. “I thought it was past time I did, too.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, it…it’s wrong, Gentry,” Bassett protested. “There’s nothing going on between Virginia and me. We’re just friends. We were acquainted in Wichita—”
“I’ll just bet you were,” Tom cut in. “So you knew her before I did, eh? I’ll bet that’s not the only thing you did before me.”
“Please don’t be crude. There’s no need for a scene—”
Tom interrupted him again.
“What there’s a need for is for me to pull this trigger and splatter your brains all over the wall.”
Bassett’s eyes widened with terror.
“But I’m not gonna do that,” Tom went on. “I don’t think a sorry son of a bitch like you is worth the price of a bullet.”
He tipped the gun barrel up and lowered the hammer. Relief flooded Bassett’s face.
That reaction lasted only a second. Then Tom took a swift step forward and smashed the gun across Bassett’s face.
Bassett cried out in pain and went down. Blood poured from his broken nose and welled from the long cut on his cheek that the gun had opened. He clapped his hands to his face and might have screamed if Tom hadn’t kicked him in the belly, driving all the air from his lungs. After that all he could do was lie there gasping.
“Stop your damn sniveling,” Tom said as he loomed over the fallen man. “You deserved a lot worse, messin’ around with a married woman that way. I could kill you and most folks would think I did a good thing. You better remember that. And if I was you, I’d pack up and leave Redemption, first thing in the morning.”
He turned away. Behind him, Bassett mewled in pain. Disgusted by the man, Tom stalked out of the house and turned toward his own place.
He seemed to be walking in a daze. He hadn’t really planned what he was going to do tonight. He hadn’t actually known that he was going to confront Bassett until his steps were carrying him to the man’s back door.
Now, though, he knew that he couldn’t wait any longer about letting Virgie know how things were going to be. The secret was out. If he waited, Bassett would tell her that he knew about their affair, and Tom wasn’t going to let that happen. He wasn’t going to deprive himself of seeing the look of surprise on her lovely face.
He slammed the door as he came into the house. Virgie popped instantly out of the bedroom, showing that she was still awake. She came toward him, tying the belt of her robe around her waist and saying, “Tom? Is that you?”
He struck a match and lit the lamp in the living room.
“It’s me,” he said as he turned toward her. “Didn’t even bother to check and see if I was still in the spare bedroom, did you, Virgie?”
Her gaze dropped to the gun he still held in his hand. Maybe she saw Ned Bassett’s blood on it. Her eyes widened and she cried, “Oh, my God, Tom! What have you done?”
“Something I should have done a long time ago. You won’t be havin’ any more truck with Bassett.” A humorless laugh came from him. “Hell, the way I left him looking, you won’t want to have anything to do with him.”
“You killed him,” she said in a hushed voice.
Tom shook his head.
“No, he was alive when I left. Hurting, but that’s all. It’s over between the two of you, Virgie. I’ve seen to that. I told Bassett to get out of town.”
He set the gun on the table next to the lamp.
She breathed, “You can’t…Tom, what do you think was…was going on?”
“I know damned well what was going on! You want me to spell it out for you? Better yet, why don’t you tell me all about it? Why don’t you tell me all the things that he did to you…and that you did to him?”
He saw the look of cold hatred that swept over her face, along with pain as his words lashed at her.
“Why don’t you just go to hell?” she snapped.
Unwanted though it was, a feeling almost of contrition came over him. He shook his head and said, “I didn’t want this, Virgie. I just wanted you to love me again.”
She shook her head.
“That won’t ever happen.”
“No, I guess it won’t.”
He had thought when he came in that he would beat some sense into her, but that seemed futile now. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, she loved Bassett, he supposed. And the hot rage inside him had been replaced by a cold feeling of emptiness.
He started past her, saying, “I’ll get my gear and move out to the ranch in the morning.”
She moved behind him. He heard a noise, the scrape of metal on wood, and some instinct warned him what she was doing. He whirled around to see that she had picked up the revolver from the table and was pointing it at him. The barrel shook as she said, “Don’t look so surprised. You’ve got it coming.”
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Chapter 25
When nothing happened, she looked shocked. So shocked that Tom had to laugh.
“You have to cock it first,” he said.
He didn’t give her a chance to do that. Instead he sprang forward, his left arm coming up and around in a sweeping blow that struck her right arm and sent the gun flying from her fingers. She let out a cry.
The next instant, he buried his fist in her belly.
Tom Gentry had never hit a woman in his life, not even a whore. But what was that Virgie had just said? The words echoed in his head.
Don’t look so surprised. You’ve got it coming.
She sure as hell did.
The pounding on the door of the marshal’s office roused Mordecai from his restless sleep. He had locked the door before he turned in, but the key was still in the lock. All he had to do was go out there, turn the key, and open the door.
Easier said than done, he thought as he used his good arm to lever himself up from the cot in the storage room. His wounded arm ached, but not too bad. The injury slowed him down, though, as he climbed to his feet and started from the back room into the office.
“Hold your dang horses!” he yelled to whoever was out there hammering a fist on the door. “I’m gettin’ there, I’m gettin’ there.”
/> It occurred to him that the door pounder might be looking for trouble. Lawmen had enemies, after all. He hadn’t made any really bad ones in the time he’d been working as Marshal Bill Harvey’s deputy, at least as far as he could remember, but there was no telling about these things.
Getting rousted out of bed like this in the middle of the night was nearly always bad news, Mordecai told himself. He detoured back to the desk and slipped the revolver from the holster and coiled shell belt he had left there.
When he reached the door, he realized he was going to have trouble holding the gun and turning the key at the same time. Since he only had the one good hand right now, he called through the door, “Who in blazes is out there?”
The pounding stopped. Somebody said something, but the voice was so thick and muffled that Mordecai couldn’t make out the words. He leaned closer to the door and asked, “Who is it? What’s the trouble?”
This time he understood when a man said, “I need help…I’m hurt…”
More likely drunk than hurt, Mordecai thought. On the other hand, the hombre really could be injured, and he had promised Bill he’d look after the town. It wouldn’t be fittin’ for Bill to get back to Redemption and find that Mordecai had let somebody die on the doorstep of the marshal’s office.
“All right, hold on,” he grumbled. He was wearing only his long underwear, so there wasn’t really any place to put the gun. He bent over and set it on the floor, then reached for the key.
As he swung the door open, the man outside said, “You’ve got to stop him…I think he’s going to kill her!”
The man had been leaning against the door as he knocked on it, and when Mordecai opened it, that threw him off balance. He stumbled toward the deputy, who thrust out his good hand and caught the man by the shoulder.
“Whoa there!” Mordecai exclaimed as he held the man up. “Who are you, mister? What’s that you said about somebody gettin’ killed?”
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