“I can’t. I promised—”
“Maybe so, but do you know what happened in Tombstone last night? A lynch mob stirred up by your pa’s foreman Charlie Porter attacked the jail. They were gonna take me outta there and string me up to a cottonwood limb. They were gonna hang me, Jessie. Is that what you want?”
“No!” she cried, horrified by what she had just heard. “Good Lord, of course not, Dallin. I never dreamed you’d get in that much trouble.”
“They string a fella up for attackin’ a gal. At the very least, they send him away to prison for years and years and years. If that’s what you want ’em to do to me—”
“No,” she said again as she shook her head miserably. “No, no, no—”
“Williams!” The roar filled the hen house, making Jessie and Dallin spin around.
Little Ed McCabe loomed in the doorway. “Get away from my daughter!” He charged forward like a furious grizzly bear.
Chapter 16
Without thinking, Dallin thrust Jessie behind him as if trying to protect her from her own father. He knew he couldn’t stand up to the rancher’s maddened charge, so he went low, diving at McCabe’s legs.
McCabe slammed into Dallin. His own momentum betrayed him, pitching him headlong, out of control. He crashed to the dirt floor of the hen house.
Dallin rolled over and came up on his knees. Instead of surging to his feet and kicking McCabe while the bigger man was down, he leaped up and grabbed Jessie’s hand. “Come on! We’re gettin’ out of here until your pa comes to his senses and stops tryin’ to kill me.”
“No!” she cried. “You can’t—”
Dallin ignored her protests and jerked her into motion. He hauled her with him as he dashed for the opening at the far end of the hen house.
Behind them, Little Ed McCabe struggled to his feet and yelled, “Damn you, Williams! Come back here!”
Dallin didn’t slow down. He didn’t dare.
Jessie tried to hang back and pull free from his grip, but she was no match for his strength born of desperation. He knew if he got caught there, in all likelihood he would never leave the Bar EM alive. He had known that when he went there.
But he had been willing to run that risk because his life wasn’t worth anything without his freedom, and Jessie was the only person who could give that back to him. He had to convince her to tell the truth.
Now that he’d been discovered, he had no choice except to take her with him. She was his only chance.
They pounded out of the hen house with McCabe lumbering after them. Dallin glanced over his shoulder and saw the rancher draw the revolver holstered on his hip.
McCabe thrust the gun right back in the holster, though, obviously realizing that he couldn’t risk shooting at Williams as long as Jessie was so close to the fleeing cowboy. Instead, McCabe started bellowing for help.
Dallin ran for the little clump of brush and rocks where he had hidden the horse he’d stolen in Tombstone. Unwillingly, Jessie went with him, staggering and gasping and begging him to let go of her.
Dallin wished he could, but that was no longer an option. If anything, his daring visit to the McCabe ranch had made the situation worse, but he still clung to Jessie’s hand . . . and to a shred of hope.
Thankfully, the horse was still where he had left it. As they lunged toward it, Jessie said, “Please, Dallin, don’t do this, please—”
The roar of a gunshot interrupted her and made her squeal in fright and maybe pain. Dallin slowed and looked back at her, hoping she wasn’t hurt and hardly believing that McCabe had taken a shot at them.
He hadn’t, as it turned out. It had been a warning shot. McCabe’s gun was pointed almost straight up in the air. But as the young people kept going, McCabe roared a curse and lowered the weapon to point it in their direction. It looked like his rage was about to get the better of him and make him risk a shot despite the danger to his daughter.
His wife charged up behind him, reached around, and grabbed his arm to force it up just as McCabe pulled the trigger. His second shot went into the air, too, just like the first one, although not at such a steep angle. The bullet went well over the heads of Dallin and Jessie.
They reached the horse, and Dallin pulled Jessie closer to him. He got his hands under her arms, and lifted her onto the horse, setting her down in front of the saddle.
Moving fast, he jerked the reins loose from the bush where he had tied them and vaulted into the saddle. It was a testament to his skills as a top hand and a talented horseman.
He looped one arm around her to hold her on the horse’s back and dug his heels into the animal’s flanks, sending it leaping ahead. Another glance over his shoulder revealed Little Ed McCabe struggling with his wife as she tried to prevent him from firing another shot at them.
After that, Dallin concentrated on his riding. He headed northwest. McCabe would come after them, no doubt about that, and Dallin knew the terrain was more rugged in that direction. More places where he could give his pursuers the slip, he thought.
He became aware that Jessie was trying to say something over the noise of the hoofbeats. He raised his voice and asked, “What’d you say?”
She turned her pale, frightened face toward him. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you? What the hell! Why would I do that?”
“Because . . . because of what I told my folks and the sheriff about you.”
“Shoot, you’re my only chance of gettin’ out of this with a whole hide. I never wanted to hurt you. I just want you to tell the truth.”
“I can’t. I promised.”
“Promised who?”
She didn’t answer.
Dallin didn’t think she would. She was still too scared and upset. But maybe once they got away from the ranch and he had a chance to talk to her some more, he might be able to make her see that his life depended on her. All he needed was some time, and a little peace and quiet. He had always been able to make gals believe they were doing the right thing by giving him what he wanted. In this case, it would even be true, so he didn’t see why he couldn’t convince her.
With that thought in his head, they galloped on, putting more distance between themselves and the Bar EM headquarters.
* * *
Stonewall was insistent that he was going to be part of any posse that went after Dallin Williams. Slaughter understood why his young brother-in-law felt that way. He blamed himself for Williams’s escape, although as far as Slaughter could tell, Tommy Howell was really more at fault. Tommy was the one who had gotten close enough to the bars of the cell that Williams had been able to grab him.
Blaming Tommy for being careless was like blaming a puppy for being clumsy and enthusiastic, though. There was just no point in it.
Stonewall didn’t seem to be suffering any lingering effects from that wallop on the head, but despite that, Slaughter leaned toward ordering him to stay in Tombstone while somebody else went after Williams. Too much personal interest in a pursuit could cause problems.
Of course, he had led the posse after the outlaws who’d kidnapped Viola, he reminded himself. Nobody could have had a more personal interest than that.
He had sent Stonewall back to the boarding house to get a little rest and was pondering his next move when one of the citizens stuck his head in the door of the office. “There’s some trouble down the street, Sheriff.”
“What sort of trouble?” Slaughter asked.
“Dead man in an alley.”
Slaughter frowned. He immediately thought of the shooting involving Steve Drake and Lady Arabella Winthrop and wondered if the would-be killer had struck again and succeeded.
“Who is it, do you know?” he asked the townsman as they left the office.
“No, I don’t. Looked like a stranger to me.”
The man led him to an alley that ran between Allen and Toughnut Streets although he didn’t really need directions. Several people were gathered around the mouth of the alley.
&
nbsp; Death always drew a crowd.
“Step back, I say,” he ordered.
The knot of people parted to let him through.
A man lay sprawled in the litter of trash about halfway down the alley. He was on his side, but Slaughter could see his face. It was only vaguely familiar, but after a moment of thought, Slaughter recalled where he had seen the man last. In the Top-Notch Saloon.
Burt Alvord came along the alley from Allen Street. “Heard there was trouble back here, Sheriff.” He looked down at the corpse and grunted. “Sure enough is.”
Slaughter hunkered on his heels to examine the dead man. “Do you know him, Burt?”
“Can’t say as I do. What killed him?”
Slaughter pointed to the bloodstain on the man’s vest. “Looks like somebody stabbed him. He wasn’t shot, I’m sure of that. That’s not a bullet hole in his coat.”
“Didn’t think I’d heard a gun go off in town since Williams busted out of jail. Speakin’ of which, what are we gonna do about that, Sheriff?”
“I’ll send a posse after him,” Slaughter replied with a touch of impatience. “But right now I’ve got a killing to deal with, not just an escaped prisoner. Go to the Top-Notch, Burt, and bring Morris Upton back here.”
“Upton? You reckon he had something to do with this?”
Slaughter wouldn’t have put much of anything past Morris Upton, but he was just looking for information.
“I saw this man in the Top-Notch, and Upton might know who he is.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense. I’ll be back with him quick as I can.”
Burt hurried off toward Allen Street while Slaughter remained beside the corpse. He pulled the bloody vest and shirt aside, revealing the wound on the left side of the man’s chest. As he had suspected, the size and shape of the injury confirmed that the dead man had been stabbed with a rather narrow-bladed knife.
Slaughter also checked the man’s pockets and found them empty. No wallet, no watch, no other valuables.
He heard the murmur of conversation at both ends of the alley as the townspeople speculated among themselves about who the dead man was and who had killed him. Slaughter wanted to know those things himself. Unlike the past, murder was uncommon in Tombstone and it caused quite a stir.
Burt came back with a sleepy-looking, somewhat disheveled Morris Upton. The saloon owner looked like he’d been rousted out of bed, which was probably what had happened.
“What’s going on here, Sheriff?” Upton demanded. “The deputy wouldn’t tell—My God! That’s Angelo Castro.”
Slaughter straightened from his crouch next to the body. “So you know him?”
“Of course I know him. He’s a gambler. He’s one of the players in my tournament.” Upton frowned. “Or he was playing in my tournament, I suppose I have to say now. He is dead, isn’t he?”
“Dead as he can be,” Slaughter said. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say he was killed sometime in the past couple hours.”
“Why? Who would do such a thing?”
“I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”
Upton shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it, Sheriff. Castro was fine when the games broke up for a while earlier this morning. He left the saloon, so I assumed he was going to get some sleep or find something to eat. That’s the last time I saw him.”
“Do you have any idea who might want him dead? Did he have any particular trouble with anybody in the game?”
Again Upton shook his head. “I don’t know of any trouble. He was doing well in the game, though. Probably had quite a bit of money on him. Have you checked his pockets?”
“They’re empty,” Slaughter said.
“Well, there you go. Somebody robbed and killed him.” Upton’s voice took on a faint sneering tone as he added, “I thought you had cleaned all the cutthroats out of Tombstone, Sheriff Slaughter.”
Suppressing the urge to knock the smirk off the saloonkeeper’s face, Slaughter said, “If you hear anything about this, Upton, I expect you to let me know.”
“Why do you think I’d hear anything about it?”
“People talk in saloons, especially when they’ve had too much watered-down liquor. Just keep your ear to the ground, all right?”
“Of course, Sheriff.” Upton was still smirking.
Slaughter turned to his chief deputy. “See about getting this body carted down to the undertaker’s, Burt.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. What are you gonna do?”
“I need to put together that posse to go after Dallin Williams.”
Still standing there, Upton’s smirk grew larger and more self-satisfied. “Yes, you have an escaped prisoner to worry about, don’t you, Sheriff?”
Slaughter ignored him and strode away.
The wheels of his brain turned rapidly as he walked back toward the courthouse and thought about everything that had happened. He wanted Dallin Williams caught and brought back, of course. Nobody was going to knock two of his deputies unconscious and break out of his jail, Slaughter vowed to himself.
But at the same time, the murder of Angelo Castro was particularly troubling because of the circumstances. Castro was in town only because of that damned poker tournament, and from the looks of things, the tournament had contributed to his death. Somebody in the saloon must have taken note of Castro’s success and followed him out to relieve him of his winnings.
It was just the sort of thing Slaughter had worried would happen as soon as he heard about Upton’s blasted tournament. Despite his anger at what Williams had done, the sheriff was reluctant to leave Tombstone at the moment. He felt like he needed to stay to keep a lid on things.
Williams didn’t have any history of violence until his attack on Stonewall and Tommy. Slaughter figured Jeff Milton and Lorenzo Paco could handle him. Paco was the best tracker, anyway.
His mind made up, Slaughter decided to send those two after Williams, and he would stay in Tombstone to find Angelo Castro’s murderer.
Before anybody else wound up getting killed.
* * *
Stonewall’s head was starting to throb pretty good by the time he got back to the boarding house. The sun beating down on it didn’t help matters. The heat wave that had settled on the town had been in full force only for a couple days, but he felt like it had been burning up for weeks.
Even worse than the pain in his head was the anger that churned his guts.
He had told his brother-in-law he wanted to go along with the posse, but Stonewall had a hunch Slaughter would order him to remain in Tombstone . . . out of concern for his injury and because he had doubts about Stonewall’s competence.
Stonewall couldn’t blame the sheriff for feeling like that. He had allowed Dallin to escape, hadn’t he? He opened the door and went inside.
The elderly widow lady who ran the boarding house greeted him with a worried smile. “Are you all right, Stonewall? I heard rumors that one of the prisoners attacked you.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Mumford,” he assured her. “I just came by to pick up a few things and see if you could rustle up some sandwiches for me. You know, for the trail. I’m fixin’ to set out after that varmint.”
He wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but as soon as he spoke them, he knew it was the right thing to do. He wasn’t going to wait around and let the sheriff order him to stay in town.
He could track and read sign, couldn’t he? Maybe not as well as Lorenzo Paco, but good enough to trail Dallin Williams. He had been in such a hurry to get out of Tombstone that he probably hadn’t been very careful about hiding his tracks.
Something else odd was nagging at Stonewall’s aching brain, too. Williams had said something about how maybe it wouldn’t matter if a posse caught up to him. What in the world had he meant by that?
A vague possibility shifted around in Stonewall’s mind. Dallin had sworn up and down, ever since Jessie McCabe had leveled the accusation of rape at him, that he wasn’t guilty. Maybe he int
ended to prove that. Since the only evidence against him was Jessie’s word, he would have to get her to change her story.
Stonewall’s heart slugged a little harder in his chest as the idea became clearer. Although it seemed unbelievable that Dallin would do something so crazy as to head for the McCabe ranch, it was the only way to clear his name.
The more Stonewall thought about it, the more he was convinced that it would be worth his time to take a ride out to the Bar EM. If he could find Dallin Williams and bring him back, it would go a long way toward clearing his own conscience, too.
“Stonewall, are you sure you’re all right?” his landlady asked.
“Maybe not, ma’am”—Stonewall gave a shake of his head—“but I’m gonna be.”
Chapter 17
Stonewall kept his horse in a corral behind the boarding house, so he didn’t have to go very far to saddle up. He tied the bag of sandwiches Mrs. Mumford had made to the saddle and swung up.
As he started to ride along the back alley, he realized it might be a good idea to buy more cartridges for his Winchester. He didn’t expect to have a big fight on his hands when he caught up to Dallin Williams, but it was impossible to predict what would happen.
A desperate man was capable of almost anything.
He left his horse ground-hitched beside the general store instead of tied up at the hitch rack out front and kept his head down with his hat shielding his face as he went inside. He wasn’t sure Sheriff Slaughter would forbid him from going after the escaped prisoner, but he didn’t want to take a chance on that.
The store wasn’t busy. Roy Corbett stood behind the counter at the rear. “What can I do for you, Stonewall?”
“Box of .45s, Roy.”
“Going hunting?” Corbett asked as he got the box of cartridges off a shelf and set it on the counter.
“You could say that,” Stonewall replied without offering any further explanation. He paid for the cartridges and walked back to the front of the store.
As he went out, he thought he felt Corbett’s eyes on him, watching him. He supposed the clerk was curious. As a deputy, the county usually paid for Stonewall’s cartridges, but the cost had come out of his own pocket.
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