“Damn right I’d have to,” Corbett said. “I’m not going to let some little ranch slut ruin my career. If I married you like you wanted, I’d have to keep clerking at that store just to make ends meet. I’d never save up enough money to go to school and become a lawyer.”
“All that talk about the law and how you wanted to do good,” Stonewall said bitterly. “That was just a pile of horse droppin’s.”
“I do want to be a lawyer,” Corbett insisted. “And when I am, I’ll marry somebody better than this . . . this . . .”
“Whatever it is, don’t you say it,” Dallin warned with a tone of menace in his voice. “You’ve already talked bad enough about this fine little gal.”
“Fine little gal?” Corbett laughed. “Her lies nearly got you lynched, you idiot!”
Dallin moved a step forward. “Only reason she lied was because you got her so scared she didn’t know what she was doin’. You’re the one to blame for all of it, not her.”
“Think whatever you want, I don’t care.” Corbett motioned with the gun in his hand. “Both of you take those pistols out and put them on the ground. Be careful about it, too. I don’t have anything to lose by shooting you.”
Things had changed so fast Stonewall felt a little dizzy trying to wrap his brain around the situation. He had considered Roy Corbett a friend, but obviously he had never really known the man at all.
As for Dallin Williams . . . well, Stonewall hadn’t forgotten how the cowboy had bent a gun barrel over his head. But he had been desperate, fighting for his life as he saw it. Who was to say that he wasn’t right about that? The attempt at lynching him could have turned out very differently.
“I’m not going to tell the two of you again.” Corbett’s voice shook a little with anger and desperation. “Drop your guns.”
Dallin shifted a little, putting himself between Jessie and Corbett.
“I ain’t sure we can do that, Roy. Seems to me that since Stonewall and me know the truth now, you can’t afford to let us live if you’re gonna get what you want.”
“He can’t let me live, either,” Jessie said from behind him. “Because I’m going to tell the truth. I see how wrong I was. I never should have lied about you, Dallin. Can you forgive me?”
Without taking his eyes off Corbett, Dallin smiled. “Why, sure I can. I wouldn’t hold a grudge against somebody just ’cause they got scared and didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m glad to hear that, because I know what to do now.” She slapped a hand against the horse’s rump and yelled at the animal. The already nervous horse whinnied wildly and leaped forward, straight at Corbett.
He tried to get a shot off, but the horse’s shoulder struck his arm just as he jerked the trigger. The gun boomed, but the bullet went high in the air.
The next instant, Dallin crashed into Corbett and drove him backward off his feet.
Stonewall dashed in and kicked the gun out of Corbett’s hand, but it didn’t really matter. Dallin was smashing his fists into the man’s face and Corbett was already knocked senseless.
Stonewall grabbed hold of Dallin and hauled him off. “Settle down! You don’t want to kill him.”
“The hell I don’t! Lemme go, Stonewall. He’s got it comin’.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him, all right,” Stonewall argued, “but first we’ve got to get back to Tombstone, all of us, before the Apaches find us.”
Mention of the Apaches seemed to cut through Dallin’s anger. He gave his shoulders a shake and nodded. “You can let go of me now. I won’t stomp him to death, no matter how much I want to.”
Like anybody who had cowboyed for a living, Stonewall carried a rope on his saddle. He got it and tied Roy Corbett hand and foot. They would have to sling him over a saddle and tie him on.
Dallin said to Jessie, “That was a pretty smart move, stampedin’ that horse. Corbett might’ve killed all of us if you hadn’t done that.”
“I couldn’t let that happen. Not now.”
Stonewall didn’t ask her what she meant. He didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t forget that Dallin and Jessie had spent quite a bit of time together, and he knew how women just naturally seemed to get around Dallin. . . .
He put that thought out of his head and said, “Let’s get out of here while we’ve got the chance. We’ll move back out toward the flats. The Apaches might not chase us out of the hills.” He knew that was a slim hope, but it was better than nothing.
They lifted Corbett onto his horse and tied him in place.
The horse Dallin and Jessie had ridden away from the Bar EM had stopped a short distance away and settled down. He led it back over and helped her get mounted before he swung up behind her.
By that time, Stonewall was in the saddle, too. They set off in an easterly direction with him leading Corbett’s horse.
It was possible they would run into Little Ed and the rest of the bunch from the McCabe ranch. That would be just fine. As long as there was a chance of being jumped by Apaches, the more men to fight off the attack, the better.
Corbett came to after a while and started cursing through swollen lips. Stonewall got tired of listening to the abuse and stopped long enough to gag him with a bandanna.
The sky began to lighten in the east as morning approached. They continued in that direction and soon neared the edge of the foothills. Another half mile or so and they would be out of the Santa Catalinas.
Dallin and Jessie were in the lead as they went through a little gap between hills. A flicker of movement to his right warned Stonewall and he glanced in that direction just in time to see a knife-wielding Apache in leggings, breechcloth, and a blousy shirt leap from the top of a rock in an attack aimed at Dallin and Jessie.
Stonewall’s Colt came up, and he fired faster than he ever had in his life. He knew it was pure luck that guided his shot as the bullet smashed into the leaping Apache and spun the warrior around in mid-air.
Dallin drove his heels into the horse’s flanks and sent the mount leaping ahead. The wounded Apache landed right behind the horse.
With savage war cries on their lips, more Apaches swarmed out of the rocks.
As Dallin galloped forward, he told Jessie to lean forward and swung Corbett’s Winchester from side to side, blasting shots at the Indians as fast as he could work the Winchester’s lever.
Stonewall was right behind him, emptying the Colt at the attackers. “Head for the flats!” he shouted over the pounding hoofbeats. “Maybe we can outrun them!”
It was possible the Apaches didn’t even have mounts. They tended to think of horses more in terms of food than transportation, Stonewall knew.
It was a desperate few moments as he and Dallin fought their way through the ambush. Bullets whipped past their heads, and the acrid bite of powdersmoke stung their eyes and noses.
As one of the Apaches leaped at him, Stonewall jerked his foot out of the stirrup and kicked the warrior’s bare chest. The man flew backward from the impact with his arms and legs flung out wide. He landed with the sharp edge of a rock slab in the middle of his back. Stonewall would have sworn he heard the Apache’s spine break.
Quickly, the riders were past the hills and galloping toward the flats several hundred yards away. The terrain at the edge of the foothills was still rugged. The horses sailed out from more than one ridge top, hooves scrambling for purchase as they landed and continued running.
Shots kept blasting behind them. Stonewall glanced back over his shoulder and saw at least a dozen Apaches mounted on tough little ponies pursuing them. The Indians fired their rifles, but the back of a running horse was a terrible place for accuracy.
Blind luck was always a danger, and that was true as a bullet struck the horse Dallin and Jessie were riding just as they reached the flats. With a sharp cry, it staggered but stayed upright. The horse slowed from the pain of its wound, and Stonewall had to haul back on his reins to keep from running into the animal.
“Take Jessie and get ou
tta here!” Dallin shouted. “I’ll fall back and hold ’em off !”
“No!” Jessie cried. “After everything that’s happened, I can’t let you die for me now!”
“You gotta think about the baby!” Dallin argued as the horse slowed even more.
Stonewall looked back again and saw that the Apaches were gaining on them. “We’ll make a stand! That little rise over there!” He waved a hand to indicate the slight irregularity in the ground.
The flats, as usual, weren’t completely flat when you got a close look at them.
The rise wouldn’t offer them much protection, but it was better than nothing. They angled the horses toward it. Just as they got there, the front legs of the Bar EM horse buckled and the animal collapsed. Dallin slid from the saddle and was able to catch Jessie before she fell.
Stonewall leaped to the ground, dropped to one knee behind the rise, and fired his Winchester over it. One of the Apaches flew off his pony, but the others kept coming.
Dallin lifted a protesting Jessie onto the saddle of Stonewall’s horse and cut the lead rope attached to Corbett’s horse. “Go!” he cried. Without giving her a chance to argue, he snatched off his hat and slapped it on the horse’s rump. The horse lunged away.
He dropped behind the body of the slain horse and propped his rifle on its corpse. A few feet away, Stonewall stretched out on his belly behind the rise and pointed his Winchester at the charging Apaches, too.
“You know they’re gonna overrun us!” Stonewall called.
“Yeah, but maybe Jessie’ll have a chance to find her pa!” Dallin replied.
Stonewall glanced over at him. “I’m glad I got a chance to know the truth before it was too late.”
Dallin grinned and nodded. “Yeah, me, too,” he drawled. “I’d hate to die with you thinkin’ I was worse than I really am.”
There was no time for anything else. They both opened fire. A couple more Apaches dropped, but there were too many of them and they were too close . . .
Stonewall’s Winchester ran dry, and he didn’t have time to reload. His Colt was empty, too.
Then he felt a sudden vibration in the ground and heard a sound like thunder. He looked up, but the sky in the east, crimson and gold, was clear. He looked around, not knowing what he was going to see.
Out of the rising sun charged a large group of men on horseback, their guns spurting flame. They swept past Stonewall and Dallin.
Stonewall recognized not only Little Ed McCabe, but also his fellow deputies Jeff Milton and Lorenzo Paco. He knew in that moment what had happened. A posse from Tombstone had run into the McCabe bunch and joined forces with the Bar EM to hunt for the fugitive Dallin Williams.
They had found Dallin, all right, but they had also found a lot more. As bullets flew around the Apaches, the warriors turned to flee, but they had no chance. The men from Tombstone cut them all down in a matter of moments.
Dallin climbed wearily to his feet. “Well, what do you know about that? Never thought I’d be so happy to see ol’ Little Ed again.” He extended a hand to Stonewall, who gripped it and stood up, too. They watched as several members of the posse dismounted to check the bodies of the fallen Apaches.
McCabe, Milton, and Paco turned their horses and trotted toward Stonewall and Dallin.
“Remember, I’m your prisoner,” Dallin said under his breath. “I’m countin’ on you not to let Little Ed kill me.”
“He won’t do that,” Stonewall promised.
As the riders reined in, Dallin began, “Now, Little Ed, you just listen to what Stonewall here has to say—”
“I don’t have to listen to anything,” McCabe cut in gruffly. He blew out a breath. “I’ve already heard plenty from my daughter.” He nodded toward the east.
Stonewall and Dallin looked around and saw Jessie riding toward them. Dallin let out an excited whoop.
“You made it!” he told her as she rode up.
McCabe said, “And she, ah, told me the truth about what happened, Williams. She begged us to come save your sorry butt, along with Deputy Howell here.”
“Does this mean you don’t want to lynch me no more?” Dallin asked with a grin.
Jessie saved her father the trouble of answering that. She slid off the horse and threw her arms around Dallin’s neck.
Jeff Milton said dryly, “I don’t think there’ll be any lynching in these parts today.”
McCabe’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We’ve still got to round up Corbett. He’s got to be around here somewhere. Jessie said he was tied up and had to go wherever the horse went.”
“That’s right,” Stonewall said. “But when we find him, you’re not gonna string him up, Mr. McCabe. He’s going back to Tombstone to face justice the right way.”
McCabe spat and said darkly, “We’ll see.”
Chapter 28
As it turned out, they were both wrong.
Half an hour later they found the horse with Roy Corbett tied across the saddle. The animal was grazing peacefully on some sparse grass in the shade of a yucca plant. Corbett’s head hung down motionless. When Paco took hold of his hair and lifted, they all saw the bullet hole in Corbett’s temple.
One of those Apache bullets had found a deserving target and ended forever the threats Corbett had made against Jessie and her parents.
It had ended his hopes of someday having a law career, too, Stonewall thought, but then he corrected himself. Corbett had started that chain of events in motion himself when he decided to be the sort of lowdown snake who would do the things he had done.
But they would take him back to Tombstone, anyway, and bury him.
Jessie rode double with Dallin. Little Ed looked like he didn’t care much for that arrangement, but he just cleared his throat, shook his head, and rode on without saying anything.
Sometimes, Stonewall thought with a smile, a fella had to just throw his hands in the air and give up.
* * *
“You can give up now,” Arabella said, “or we can draw this out right to the bitter end.”
Morris Upton glared across the table at her. He wasn’t interested in flirting with her, not with the large pile of money in front of her and the small one in front of him. “I’m not going to fold,” he muttered.
“Very well.” She gauged the amount he had left and picked up a sheaf of greenbacks. As she tossed it into the center of the table, she went on. “I’ll raise you five thousand.”
It would take all he had left to see the bet. He stared at his cards. Silence gripped the saloon, a quiet so profound that Arabella heard a clock ticking somewhere.
She glanced over at Steve Drake, who sat at the next table watching the final showdown. His left arm was in a black silk sling, and the bandages on his wounded shoulder made a slight lump under his suit coat.
Despite his injury, despite the fact that he was no longer in the game, he looked quite pleased.
Beulah Tillery sat with him. She didn’t seem to mind that Arabella had beaten her, either. There was always another game in another town, she had said when she was cleaned out.
Alex Connelly had gone somewhere to get drunk after he dropped out of the game. He was still largely a cipher to Arabella. She hadn’t exchanged half a dozen words with the man.
The saloon was packed, which didn’t help with the heat. Even Sheriff Slaughter was there, leaning an elbow on the bar as he watched.
“Well, Morris,” Arabella said softly. “What are you going to do?”
Upton drew in a deep breath and pushed the rest of his stake forward. “I call.”
She laid down a full house, kings over jacks.
Upton threw his cards on the table. A flush. A good hand.
But not good enough.
“I believe we’re done here,” she said when the cheering and applause from the spectators finally died down.
Upton looked like he didn’t know whether to curse or cry. He said in a voice that shook a little, “One more
hand. The Top-Notch. Everything I own, against whatever you want to stake.”
Arabella smiled and shook her head. “I have no desire to own a saloon again, Morris. I’ve already done that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He nodded. “I suppose I should congratulate you. You played well, especially considering all the distractions.”
“Such as nearly being murdered?”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry that happened here. I didn’t intend for there to be so much trouble.”
Arabella began gathering up her winnings. She looked over at Slaughter. “Sheriff, do you think you could make arrangements for this money to be locked up in your local bank?”
“It’s well after hours,” Slaughter said with a smile, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll leave it with you, then.” She stood up, every inch a regal beauty. “Steve, if you could escort me to the hotel . . .”
“It would be my honor, Bella.” Drake got to his feet.
As they went out, Arabella heard Beulah Tillery say, “Yeah, she’s the big winner, all right,” then let out a bawdy laugh.
Once they were on the street, Drake said quietly, “Bella, I hope you can forgive me—”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Steve. I never believed you were pining away for me all the years we’ve gone our separate ways. I was a bit upset, yes, but I shouldn’t have been.”
“And I shouldn’t have been such a damned fool.”
“Well,” she said as she smiled to herself, “we’re all capable of it now and then, aren’t we?”
* * *
By midnight, Slaughter had seen to having Lady Arabella’s fortune locked in the bank’s vault. He was making a last turn around the town when he paused in front of the Top-Notch and looked through the window. Morris Upton was sitting alone at one of the tables, looking gloomy even though the saloon was still doing a booming business.
Upton just didn’t like being beaten, thought Slaughter, but he would get over it soon enough. He still had the saloon and plenty of money. Slaughter was sure that Upton would remain a thorn in his side for a long time to come.
He walked back to the courthouse. As he came up to the building, he heard hoofbeats in the distance. With a frown, he wondered if more trouble was on the way and shifted the shotgun tucked under his left arm, just in case.
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