Luke stood over them and turned slowly, guns up, ready to fire if he spotted a threat. The battle seemed to be over, though.
“Mrs. MacCrae, are you hit?” Luke asked without looking down at her.
Glory pushed herself up on an elbow. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly under her shirt as she tried to catch her breath. She said, “No, I . . . I don’t think so.”
“How bad did they get you, Pendleton?”
Luke’s question seemed to be the first time that Glory realized her foreman was wounded. She cried, “Gabe!” and sat up to clutch his arm.
“I’m fine,” Pendleton said, his voice tight. “Slug just grazed my side, that’s all.”
That might be true, but the wound was bad enough that Pendleton was losing a lot of blood, Luke saw when he glanced down. The crimson stain on the foreman’s shirt was still spreading. Luke holstered his left-hand gun and reached down to grasp Pendleton’s arm.
“Get his other arm,” he told Glory. “We need to get him inside somewhere, before somebody else decides to take some more potshots at us.”
“I don’t need . . . any help, damn it!” Pendleton insisted, but the way his weight sagged against Luke’s grip said otherwise. Luke could tell that Pendleton was on the verge of passing out.
Glory had hold of Pendleton’s other arm. Together, they hauled him to his feet and steered him past the hitch rail toward the café. The door opened before they could reach it, and the pretty young waitress Hazel stood there holding it.
“Get inside,” she urged them. “Hurry!”
They half-carried, half-dragged Pendleton through the door. Hazel told them to lay him on one of the tables. That was going to ruin the blue-and-white-checked tablecloth, Luke thought, but it seemed like the best solution.
He and Glory eased the wounded man down on the nearest table. Glory and Hazel took Pendleton’s feet and lifted them onto a chair. Luke went back to the door and peered out. The four gunmen still lay where they had fallen. He was pretty sure all four of them were dead.
A quick scan of the street told him that no other bodies were sprawled in the dirt, and he was glad to see that. With so many bullets flying around, he had been worried that one or more of the bystanders might have been struck and wounded, maybe even killed.
Two men carrying shotguns emerged from the courthouse and ran along the street toward the café. Luke stiffened for a second, thinking they were about to be under attack again, but then he recognized Whittaker and Singletary.
Of course, the fact that those two were lawmen didn’t mean he and his companions were safe, he thought. Both men bore grudges against him, and Whittaker might have decided it was time to throw in his lot all the way with Harry Elston.
Because of that possibility, Luke reloaded quickly, then eased into the doorway with a Remington in his right hand and called, “That’s close enough, Sheriff!”
Whittaker stopped, crouching. The twin barrels of the shotgun he held were pointed toward the ground, but if they started to swing up, Luke was ready to put a bullet through the sheriff ’s arm and knock him out of the fight.
“Jensen!” Whittaker said. “Put that gun down, mister.”
“Not until I’m sure the fight is over.”
Singletary moved from gunman to gunman, covering them with his Greener and using a booted foot to roll them roughly onto their backs.
“These four hombres are dead, Sheriff,” he reported.
“That satisfy you, Jensen?” Whittaker said.
Luke looked past the sheriff and saw Judge Marbright, Claude Lister, and several other men who looked like town leaders approaching. Confident that Whittaker and Singletary wouldn’t try anything in front of so many witnesses, Luke pouched his iron and stepped out into the open.
“Are you planning to try to arrest me again, Sheriff?” he asked.
Whittaker scowled and said, “I’m not going to arrest anybody until I find out for sure what happened here. I was still in the courthouse when all the shooting started. It sounded like Santa Anna was invading again!”
Glory emerged from the café and said in a clear, angry voice, “I’ll tell you what happened, Sheriff. Some of that dead rustler’s friends tried to kill Gabe Pendleton and Mr. Jensen and me. They probably would have, too, if Gabe and Luke hadn’t put up such a valiant fight.” She paused, then added meaningfully, “And of course the local law was nowhere to be found when the attack took place!”
“I told you, I was inside the courthouse,” Whittaker snapped. “Are any of you hurt?”
“Gabe is wounded. He needs the doctor.”
One of the men with Marbright stepped forward. He had a black medical bag in his hand.
“I figured my services would be required,” he said. “Where’s the wounded man?”
Glory stepped aside and gestured toward the café’s open door.
“He’s inside,” she said. “We put him on one of the tables.”
“Good thinking,” the doctor said as he hurried past her. She followed him into the café.
Judge Marbright had joined Whittaker and Singletary as they stood over the bodies. He put his hands on his thick hips and scowled down at the sprawled, bloody shapes.
“Who are these men?” he demanded. “Does anyone know them?”
Luke said, “They claimed to be friends of Dave Randall. I guess there’s a good chance they were part of that bunch doing the brand-blotting the other day.”
“Why come into town on the day of the inquest to settle the score?”
“Because they knew Mrs. MacCrae and Pendleton and I would be here?” Luke suggested. “Or maybe somebody paid them to.”
Whittaker said, “Don’t go spreading any more wild rumors. Things are bad enough without you blaming Harry Elston for this without any proof.”
“How do you know there’s no proof? Or are you just assuming that Elston’s slick enough to make sure of it?”
Judge Marbright said, “That’s enough, Mr. Jensen. I think we all know where you and Mrs. MacCrae stand on this matter. As Sheriff Whittaker points out, though, the law requires proof before it can act.” He turned to Lister. “Claude, if you could fetch your wagon . . . ?”
“Of course, judge,” the undertaker said. “I suppose these killings will call for another inquest.”
“Yes, events are keeping us both busy,” Marbright growled. He took a fat cigar from his vest pocket, clamped one end of it between his teeth, left it unlit, and heaved an exasperated sigh around it.
Glory came out of the café. Luke asked her, “How’s Pendleton doing?”
“Dr. Fleming thinks he’ll be all right. The wound is worse than what Gabe let on, though. The bullet did more than just graze him. It hit him in the side, broke a rib, and glanced off to go out his back. He’s lost quite a bit of blood. The doctor says he’ll be laid up for a couple of weeks, at least.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes, for Gabe’s sake, and it leaves me with a problem, too. I don’t have a foreman. I’ll have to promote one of the other men temporarily.”
Luke wasn’t going to volunteer to take on the job. He was no cowboy. And she wouldn’t want him even if he did. Now that she knew he was a bounty hunter, she’d probably order him off the ranch as soon as she could. Regardless of what had really happened to Sam MacCrae, she still had that murder charge from back East hanging over her head. She was smart enough to suspect that was the reason Luke had come to Sabado Valley, even though he’d denied it.
The three MC hands who had come into town with them hurried up, hats in hands. One of them said, “We’re mighty sorry we weren’t here when the shootin’ started, Miz MacCrae. We were still down the street at the Buckhorn and didn’t know what was goin’ on. We figured you was safe enough here in town.”
“I should have been,” Glory said. “Obviously, someone’s getting desperate.”
“Somebody said Gabe got shot . . . ?”
“He’s in the café. The doctor is tending to him
now.”
“You reckon it’s all right if we go in?”
Glory nodded and said, “I suppose. Just don’t get in Dr. Fleming’s way.”
The three men hurried into the café. Glory turned to Whittaker and went on: “I suppose it’s all right for us to return to the ranch when we’re ready?”
“I’m not holding anybody,” the sheriff replied. “You’re free to go as far as I’m concerned. Judge?”
Marbright grunted and waved a hand to indicate that it was all right with him.
Glory looked at Luke and asked, “Are you coming back with us?”
“Do you want me to?” he asked bluntly. There was no point in pretending that things weren’t different now.
“You and I need to have a talk,” she said, equally straightforward.
Luke nodded and said, “Then I’ll be going with you when you ride out.”
He didn’t know what Glory was going to say, but he certainly wanted to find out.
Something else had been nagging at his brain ever since the gunfire had erupted, and as he looked around the street he knew what it was. He remembered that first shot, the one that had come so close to his head as it started the ball. Something was wrong about it. It had come from behind him, not from any of the four hired killers in front of him.
He moved a hand to the side of his shirt, felt the little rip in it. Another bullet had done that, and he recalled how the slug had kicked up dust from the street in front of him. That shot had come from behind, as well, and the angle meant that it had been fired from a higher elevation. Luke’s eyes narrowed as he considered the position where he’d been at that moment.
His gaze lifted to the roof of the courthouse. Somebody had been up there with a rifle, he thought, someone who had come too damned close to killing him, not once but twice. He could think of one very likely suspect, and as he did, he lowered his gaze to the ugly, scowling face of Deputy Whitey Singletary.
CHAPTER 14
Gabe Pendleton was hurt too badly to travel all the way out to the MacCrae ranch, even in the back of a wagon, Dr. Fleming decreed. He was going to stay in one of the bedrooms of the doctor’s house until the bullet wound had healed and the broken rib had mended.
Pendleton had passed out from loss of blood, but when he regained consciousness in the doctor’s house and found out what had happened, he objected strenuously.
It didn’t do him any good. As he tried to sit up, Glory rested a hand on his shoulder and said, “You’re going to do what Dr. Fleming tells you, Gabe, and that’s final.”
Muttering, Pendleton subsided and let his head sink back down on the pillow.
“What are you gonna do for a foreman while I’m laying here useless?” he asked with a bitter edge in his voice.
“I was thinking about giving the job to Rusty Gimple,” Glory said. “Temporarily, of course. You’ll take over again as soon as you’ve recuperated sufficiently.”
“Rusty’s a good hand,” Pendleton admitted grudgingly. “You’ll need to keep a close eye on him and the rest of the boys to make sure they don’t slack off, though.”
“I will,” Glory promised. “Don’t worry, Gabe. The ranch will be fine. Temporarily.”
Pendleton nodded, then looked over at Luke, who stood with his arms crossed on his chest and his shoulders against the wall. His black hat was tipped back so that some of his curly dark hair spilled out from under it.
“What are you still doing here, Jensen?” Pendleton asked. “I thought you probably would have lit a shuck by now, since nobody wants you around.”
“It’s still a free country, Gabe,” Luke said. “Whether you believe it or not, I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Well, now you know, so there’s no reason you can’t get on your horse and put this part of the country behind you. One of the boys can gather up whatever you left at the ranch and send it on to wherever you want it sent.”
Glory said, “I don’t want Mr. Jensen to leave just yet.”
Pendleton frowned at her in disbelief.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you don’t want an hombre like this around. Bounty hunters are just about the lowest form of life there is. They always bring trouble with ’em, wherever they go.”
“That may well be true,” Glory said, “but I’ve asked him to stay anyway.”
Her tone made it clear that she didn’t want to continue having this argument.
Pendleton scowled but didn’t say anything else. After a moment Glory went on, “I’ve told Dr. Fleming that you’re to have whatever you need. You were wounded protecting me, so don’t worry about the expense. The MC takes care of its own.”
“Sure,” Pendleton muttered.
“I’ll be back in a few days to check on you and see how you’re doing.” Glory put a hand on his right shoulder and squeezed. “Just rest and get better, Gabe. That’s your job now.”
Pendleton jerked his head in a curt nod.
Glory glanced over at Luke. He straightened from his casual pose and eased out of the room in case Glory wanted to say something to Pendleton in private. She followed him out of the room right away, though, without any murmur of voices between her and Pendleton.
Dr. Fleming was in the front room. Glory spoke briefly to him, telling him again that she would take care of the expense of anything her foreman needed. Then she and Luke left the doctor’s house, which was located on one of the side streets half a block from McDowell Street.
“Do you really want me to go back out to the ranch with you?” Luke asked as they walked.
“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean,” Glory replied.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that about you.”
“Some women like to talk around a problem and hope that the man she’s talking to will figure out what she really means. To me that’s always seemed like too uncertain a method. If there’s something important enough to discuss, I’m going to come right out with it. Anything else is a waste of time and effort.”
“All right,” Luke said. “I’ll take you at your word, then.”
“That’s the sensible thing to do.”
They turned the corner and started along the boardwalk toward the Elite Café. Their horses were still tied at the hitch rail in front of the eatery. Before they got there, though, Luke saw Sheriff Jared Whittaker striding across the street toward them.
“More trouble coming, maybe,” he said quietly.
“I see him,” Glory said. She paused to let the lawman come to them, and Luke did likewise. As Whittaker stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of them, Glory asked, “Are you looking for us, Sheriff?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am,” Whittaker replied. “Judge Marbright sent me to find you. He said for me to tell the two of you not to leave town. He’s convening court again in half an hour. He’s gonna go ahead and hold the inquest on these latest deaths.”
“What?” Glory exclaimed. “It’s only been a couple of hours since the shootings. Aren’t inquests usually held a day or two later?”
“That’s right, but the judge wants to get it out of the way today.” Whittaker gave Luke a hard look. “And he says it better be the last inquest he has to worry about for a while.”
“That’s not up to me,” Luke said.
“I don’t know. Until you rode into the valley, Jensen, the last inquest we had around here was for Sam MacCrae’s death. Beg your pardon, Mrs. MacCrae, for bringing that up.”
Glory nodded but didn’t say anything.
“But since you came along, six men are dead,” Whittaker went on. “I don’t call that a coincidence.”
“I didn’t start any of those ruckuses, and you know it, Sheriff. The jury at this new inquest is just going to render a verdict of self-defense again.”
“That’s as may be, but we still follow the law here in Painted Post, and the law says there has to be a proceeding. You two will have to be there.”
“We’ll be there,” Glory said. “But tell Judge Ma
rbright that it’s a blasted inconvenience. By the time we’re done here, it’ll be too late to start back to the ranch today. We’ll have to spend the night in town.”
Whittaker shrugged as if to say that that wasn’t his problem.
“Be at the courthouse in half an hour,” he told them. “If you’re not there, I’ll come looking for you.”
“We’ll be there,” Glory said again. She stepped around Whittaker and strode away, her attitude one of contemptuous dismissal. Luke followed her, trading cold stares with Whittaker as he passed the lawman.
“I hope there’s a decent hotel here in town,” he said to her as he caught up.
“There is,” Glory said. “The Stafford House is comfortable enough, I suppose. I stayed there before, when I first came to Painted Post, and didn’t have any complaints.”
They went into the café. The table where they had put Pendleton earlier had a new tablecloth on it now, and all the blood that had leaked out of him had been cleaned up. Hazel and her mother kept the place spic and span.
The three MC punchers who had come into town with them that morning were sitting at one of the tables, eating apple pie and drinking coffee. They started to stand up when they saw Glory approaching, but she waved them back into their chairs.
“I hoped I would find you here,” she told them. “When you’ve finished eating I want the three of you to head back out to the ranch.”
“You’re comin’, too, ain’t you, Miz MacCrae?” a lanky, redheaded cowboy asked.
“No, Mr. Jensen and I have to stay here in town. The judge has decided to hold another inquest today. We won’t be riding back until tomorrow morning.”
All three of the punchers protested. The redhead said, “Then we’ll wait until tomorrow, too, so we can all go back together.”
Glory shook her head.
“No, Rusty, I want all of the crew on hand and alert for trouble. With everything that’s going on, Elston might decide that it’s a good time to make another move against us. If he hit us with everything he has, he might have every head of our stock swimming the Rio Grande by morning. Where would the MC be then?”
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