by Linda Broday
“You want others to overhear and know what sort you are?” Vallens touched her face, running a finger across her cheek.
The contact repulsed her. “I’m who I am and that’s enough.”
“Cain’t rightly think of any other purpose you’d stroll over to see ol’ Zeke. Figured you to hunger for a man’s body.”
Darkness surrounding her soul turned to pitch under the cynical stare.
“I haven’t time or inclination to argue with you. I wish to strike a bargain.” Releasing the knife, she moved to the small canvas bag it rested on. Adopting brazen courage she didn’t feel, she jerked it out.
“What kind of deal are you proposing, little missy?”
“This two hundred dollars is free and clear money. I believe you’ll find it adequate, considering no one will pay you a cent for anyone in Redemption.”
“You’re sure hell-bent on convincing me of that. Causes a man to wonder.”
“Take it and leave. It’s as fair a bargain as you’ll get.”
“Ain’t in no hurry. I haven’t completed my stay.”
“You might reconsider. There’ll be no more payments. The milk cow has dried up.”
A quick pitch found the bull’s-eye on his chest. He made no move to catch it. The blackmail money fell to the floor, scattering like dry leaves on a blustery fall afternoon. She whirled and beat a hasty retreat.
“I’m betting different,” Vallens snarled after her.
* * *
Three days passed after the unsuccessful venture. Despite Laurel’s efforts, Vallens remained a fixture. The man’s ominous presence cast a dark shadow over the town. No one knew why he’d appeared or why he stayed. Speculation that he stalked someone ran rampant. But who? Each person whispered a different name.
“If the Blanchard gang hadn’t laid Sheriff Tucker to rest, he’d find out what the devil keeps Vallens here,” George Adams had grumbled at a hastily called town meeting.
Laurel hadn’t pointed out the obvious. Had the sheriff escaped the bullet, he still couldn’t help because it would be his job of facing the murdering child thieves instead of Brodie.
And her heart wouldn’t ache with uncertainty that perhaps the love of her life would never find his way back.
“How will we run the likes of Vallens out of town when he keeps us shaking in our beds? That dog of his snarls and we break our fool necks running backward. Someone should stand up to him.” Jake the barber twirled the ends of his mustache.
“Like you, Jake? I could put a drop or two of strychnine in his whiskey,” Curley suggested in a low tone.
Ollie took out her pipe and tapped it against the floor. “Your whiskey is poison enough. Don’t rightly understand how that sidewinder keeps standing with the bottles he’s poured down his gullet lately.”
“What does that leave? Talk him to death?” John Miller, the blacksmith, quietly rose in the back of the room.
“Jeb Prater could’ve helped if he hadn’t tried to bully Brodie Yates. Prater’s not afraid of much ’cause he don’t have a lick of sense.” Jake leaned his matchstick frame against a wall.
The meeting had adjourned shortly after with simply a hearty wish for Brodie’s return. Everyone knew without a doubt he could end the unwelcome angel of death’s visit.
Laurel was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the café the following morning when a subtle change rustled the air.
Half expecting to find Vallens nearby, she did an about face, staring in surprise at the Appaloosa trotting down the street. Her pulse raced at the sight of the lean figure riding tall in the saddle.
Thank God.
The girls? She clutched the broom tightly. From this distance she couldn’t tell who rode the other horses following. Shielding her eyes against the sunlight, she spotted two small heads bobbing on a dappled mare. Brodie held the reins of the third animal that carried a man whose hands were bound.
The broom went flying one direction, her feet the other.
“Ollie, come quick!”
When the woman poked out her head, Laurel swung her around.
“Tarnation, girl. You got buffalo fever or something?”
“Brodie’s here and with little Darcy and Willa.”
“Well, I’ll be the son of a bug-eater.”
The group halted at the hitching rail. Laurel tried to wipe away the smile, but it pulled rank and did as it pleased.
“You’re back,” she breathed, reaching up for Willa and swinging her down. She spoke to Ollie before helping Darcy. “Mrs. Hatcher just went into the mercantile and I think I saw Mrs. Carver head toward the livery.”
“I want my mama,” Darcy sniffled.
“Hold on there, sweetie. I’ll get her here before you can say Singapore Jack.” Ollie’s skirts became a swirling wind.
“You brave darling.” Laurel smoothed Willa’s tangled hair, picking out a piece of straw. “We’ll fix you up in no time.”
Both girl’s dresses hung in tatters from thin shoulders. Would their redemption be like hers—nothing but a dream?
Darcy’s blue gaze gripped Laurel. “I’m scared.”
“Not a soul will hurt you here. We won’t let them.”
Warmth of a certain gray-eyed rebel trapped her in his snare. He threw a leg over Smokey’s back and dismounted, the motion setting off the snake rattles.
Lord, how she’d missed hearing that.
Breathless, her chest ached as though she’d run the length of the bayou.
A weary scowl deepened the lines around his mouth. It told her how difficult the task had been. Dust flew when he brushed at his clothes. Beneath the layers of trail grit, she noticed scratches on his arm. And dark bloodstains.
“You’re injured.”
Looping three sets of reins over the railing, he grinned. “A scratch. Nothing to get upset about.”
“I can see perfectly well that it’s more than that.”
He stepped from reach, stiffening. “How’s Murphy?”
“Doing quite nicely, thanks to Nora. You’ll be surprised.”
Until then, she hadn’t taken account of the man on the other horse. He wore a sullen sneer. “What’cha staring at, Miz Uppity? I ain’t no sideshow.”
Repulsed, Laurel turned away.
“My baby!” Mrs. Hatcher hugged her daughter as the curious half of town gathered.
“Good work, son.” Ollie had to go up on tiptoe and stretch to slap Brodie on the back. “I knowed you was made of fine-grained leather.”
Since when? Come to think of it, Laurel supposed the change of opinion drifted to the more favorable side when Vallens moved in permanent-like.
Mrs. Carver arrived out of breath, her arms outstretched. “Willa, child, come to your poor mama.”
“What about the bank’s money?” George Adams huffed from scurrying to get in on the commotion.
Brodie opened a saddlebag, pulled out a scorched canvas bag, and lobbed it at the banker.
Adams dumped out a handful of charred bank notes. “What happened to all the rest?”
“You accusing me of stealing?”
“I’d check his pockets there if’n I was you folks,” Blanchard warned. “Can’t trust these hired guns, you know.”
“I’m saying it’s mighty suspicious, with your reputation and all.” George Adams shuffled his feet when Brodie advanced. “But then, I’m sure we have no reason to doubt your word.”
“How did it get burned, Yates?” Jake demanded.
Thank goodness Jake wasn’t a piece of raw meat or Brodie’s glare would’ve seared him. A shake of disgust set the rattles in motion. He jerked the reins from the rail and led the horse carrying the robber toward the empty jail.
Ollie whacked Jake’s arm. “You crazy fool. Let the man be. Cain’t you see he’s worn plumb to the soles of his boots?�
�
Darcy and Willa ran after the man who’d rescued them. “Mr. Brodie! Wait.”
He stopped in his tracks. When he turned, both threw their arms around him. Laurel watched the tough gunslinger scoop up first one then the other through a misty gaze. She was so wrong. Brodie truly cared. It hadn’t been merely a job she asked him to do.
“I don’t know how to thank you proper, Mr. Yates,” Darcy’s mother said. “I don’t have much money, but you’re welcome at our door anytime day or night.”
“Ours, too,” Mrs. Carver added. “I can cook real good.”
Eighteen
Once Brodie made Blanchard nice and cozy behind a locked cell door, he hurried to the frame house on State Street. Color in Murphy’s face reinforced Laurel’s claims of progress.
After keeping vigil for half an hour with no sign of Murphy awakening, Brodie turned to needs of a more liberal sort.
The Dry Gulch Saloon had a fair amount of business for a Saturday morning. He hooked his heels on the metal rail and gulped a lukewarm mug of beer. The liquid wet down the first two coatings of dust inside his mouth but little else.
“Let me buy you one.” Ollie brushed his elbow.
Sweet Georgia clay. The jackanapes was harder to get rid of than stink on a fresh cow patty. He wasn’t in the mood for company. Leastways not of the ill-tempered sort.
Let him quench his thirst, soak in a tub for about a week, and he might possibly feel human again. Then he’d venture over to the café for an extra helping of pecan praline pie before all hell broke loose when the Yanks came for him.
Had he more than a speck of sense he’d ride on before the soldiers came.
Jake pushed Ollie aside. “Reckon the town owes you, Yates.”
Brodie stared at the sloshed beer dripping from his hand. The thought of leaving became more attractive by the minute. Deep irritation grew at the circus that had followed him in.
“You should’ve recovered more of our hard-earned money though,” George whined in a nasal twang.
“Son of a bluejacket. He done more than any of you sniveling two-bit chorus girls, including you, Adams.” Ollie refilled the pipe from a pouch Brodie decided she slept with.
“Yates, would you be of a mind to reconsider the previous offer? We need a sheriff in a real hurtful kind of way.”
“Goldarned it, Jake. You can’t pour piss out of a boot. Don’t you see the man’s tuckered out? Let him get some shut-eye and put food in his belly before pestering him.”
“Ollie Applejack b’Dam, don’t you tell me what to do.”
“Watch it there, Jake.” The saloon owner entered the fracas. “Don’t use that tone with the lady. You can take your flea-bitten hide outta here if you can’t button your trap.”
The gilt-edged mirror above the bar reflected a man in black who rose from a corner table. Patrons hastily parted, clearing a path through the hubbub. Brodie’s hand moved to rest on the smooth walnut of the Colt without thought.
He swung from the long mahogany bar to face the stranger before he glanced downward. Beside the man stood a dog with its lips curled back. Snarls swept the area clear. Brodie returned the primal stare until knowledge he didn’t scare easy penetrated the glittering depths. Finally, the beast cowered.
The mysterious stranger’s low hat shaded his eyes. Yet some keen sense told of a dangerous glint. Although the man’s threatening demeanor jabbed needles into each nerve ending, it was the jagged, diagonal scar that left bitterness in Brodie’s mouth that no amount of spirits could sweeten.
He’d crossed shadows with such a disfigured man.
“Something’s got the good folk of Redemption mighty stirred up. Quite a celebration I’d say,” the stranger sneered.
“What do you want, Vallens?” Brodie cut to the chase.
“Ahh, Shenandoah. Wondered if you might remember me. Been a while, I recollect.”
“Not a face I ever wished to see again. Now, what’re you here for? Brodie had once stopped Vallens when the man had tried to burn down a house with a woman and children inside just to get her husband.”
“Hey, mister,” Jake yelled at a safe distance from the far end of the bar. “Better watch it. Yates just went up single-handed against the Blanchard gang. I warned you not to get him riled.”
Vallens’s sunken cheeks twitched. The funerary attire suggested an undertaker come to claim the next victim, with a devil-dog by his side.
“Or what? No lawman around to stop me from doing whatever I please. Town don’t have no sheriff.”
The guttural dare gave the wolf-dog courage. A growl rumbled. The animal leaned on his haunches ready to spring.
“Better think again, Vallens. It does now.” Brodie’s clipped answer stunned, leaving the rival at a loss for words.
* * *
“I see someone managed to lasso you.” Murphy smiled weakly the next day, pointing to the silver star on Brodie’s shirt.
“Sorta looks that way.” Brodie touched the shiny badge that burdened him. “I swore and be damned I’d go to my grave before I’d wear a tin star.”
“You could do worse, big brother.”
Brodie placed his hat at the foot of the bed and rubbed the weariness from eyes that hadn’t seen decent sleep in a week. “Thing is, I’m not cut out for upholding law or order.”
He knew the Ten Commandments by heart simply because he’d broken every one.
“Beats me why you took it on.”
“Zeke Vallens and his damn defiance. I had to put him in his place. Claiming the job just slipped out. I only meant to wipe the sneer off the smug piece of slime.”
“He’s here to cause trouble, isn’t he?”
“Feel it in my bones.”
Vallens had expertise at creating mystery. He took extra pleasure in making folks jumpy, unable to predict the next move.
Murphy’s struggle to sit up ended in total failure. An ache swept Brodie as he gathered the narrow shoulders and raised him. He propped a mountain of pillows behind his brother, hoping to hide the concern that must show despite the mask he tried to wear.
“Appreciate it. Ollie says I’m so weak I can’t even lick my upper lip. And I hate to admit she doesn’t lie.”
“It’ll pass. When I left here I wouldn’t have given a plug nickel for your chances of making it.” Brodie wouldn’t tell him how dearly it cost to ride out. Some feelings a man didn’t wish to discuss. From experience those were better left unsaid.
“Getting back to Vallens…are his sights on you?”
“Aside from the army, I have no price on my head.”
Although he did once, after a scrape out Tucson way when warring ranchers attempted to pin the murder of a prominent landowner on him. It’d taken might near a year to track down the culprit and clear up the mistake.
“I’d say having the army’s target on your back would give Vallens reason enough.” Murphy groaned from sudden movement, but waved Brodie away. “The scuttlebutt I hear says the man doesn’t require much excuse to start trouble.”
Brodie extracted the tobacco and papers from a vest pocket and rolled a smoke. “Want one?”
“Does a garden need water? These darn womenfolk coddle me worse than a newborn.”
The complaint applied balm to the ache. Younger brother wouldn’t be laid up too long. Brodie licked the edge of the paper to stick it and twisted one end. He no more had it lit and stuck in Murphy’s mouth when Nora slipped through the door.
“Mr. Murphy! I tell you no smoke. Bad. Very bad.”
“Get away, woman.” He shooed her. “It’s my house, by God, and I’ll smoke if I darn well please. Don’t you have some nasty-tasting potions to grind up or something?”
The pretty Indian swelled like a toad, her dark glare slinging arrows in all directions. Brodie ducked before one landed his way. One thing he’d le
arned—don’t go up against anyone on the warpath, particularly one who wore skirts.
“Maybe half-breed go back to swamp. Maybe sick man not need Nora now.” She crossed her arms and glared. “Maybe Nora let leeches suck you dry.”
“Now, Nora darlin’, I didn’t mean it that way.” Sugar dripping from Murphy’s plea snapped Brodie’s head around.
“Hmph!”
“You know I’m not well enough for you to leave.” Sensing Brodie’s curious stare, Murphy’s tone became abrupt. “And don’t let me hear that half-breed remark again. The color of a person’s skin only proves our Creator likes variety. How bored we’d be if we all looked the same. You’re a fine, intelligent woman, albeit far more handsome than most.”
“And you are stubborn yellow-eyes.”
The cigarette fell from Murphy’s grasp onto the sheet. “Hellfire and damnation.”
Quickly plucking the danger, Nora’s hand collided with the patient’s. For a brief moment a spark sizzled, held captive by the shimmer in their gazes.
Surely Brodie hadn’t imagined it. Yet, the possibility intrigued. So much he trembled when he held a match to the slim, paper-encasement propped in his mouth. He couldn’t stop the hope that tingled up his spine.
The supple doeskin garment Nora wore made no sound as she smoothed the sheet, tucking it around Murphy. Each gentle movement revealed extraordinary care.
Nora turned to address Brodie. “I offer prayer for safe return. Great Mighty One answered. My heart smiles.”
Brodie met the brown warmth of her features. “Your heart isn’t the only thing smiling, Miss Whitebird.”
“The little ones?”
“A few days and the girls’ll be fine.” He emptied his lungs, aiming the smoke toward a cracked window in case her anger flared. “They suffered no worse than a bad case of fright.”
Mere minutes had stood between the girls and an uncertain fate. Distaste lingered in his mouth. He’d rather not consider the what-ifs.
“They have a lot to thank you for.” Murphy eyed the cigarette with longing. Nora held it outstretched by two fingers to avoid the smoke.
