“Well, I dunno. Let me have a look-see at that head of yours.”
He had pulled off the bandana before he had her permission and was lifting her hair out of the way—hair that had gotten stuck already. The new pain brought tears to her eyes, but she gritted her teeth and let him poke around for a minute.
“It could use a stitch or two, I suppose,” he said. “Want me to fetch a needle?”
“It’s actually that deep?”
“Well, no, but stitchin’ never hurts.”
Like hell it didn’t. “I’ll pass, thanks. But maybe some water to clean it up? And my saddlebags—I ought to have a change of clothes in them, don’t you think?”
He was very cooperative, all things considered. And he did take her into Sanderson, straight to the train depot, where he bought her a ticket himself. She was hoping they’d have to wait for the train so she’d have time to figure out what she should do next, but no such luck; they were just in time for him to escort her right onto it. Why did she get the feeling she was being run out of town?
He left her with this parting advice: “If, that is, when your memory comes back, missy, do us both a favor and forget why you came to this part of the state. Be a shame if I still had to kill you.”
It would also be a shame if she had to kill him. In a roundabout way he’d saved her life—by deciding to spare it. But she would be back. Her job wasn’t nearly done here. She’d just try to avoid Bucky, was all.
Chapter 34
It had been days since he’d seen Casey. Damian had very quickly reached the point where if someone even looked at him wrong, he’d probably take the man’s head off. He was completely frustrated in his inability to discover what had happened to Casey. It had taken him a day and a thorough search of Sanderson to finally realize that she might not have gotten up and left under her own steam. That last ambusher could have found her and carried her off.
Why, though? was the agonizing question that had run through his mind that entire sleepless first night. Had she walked off? Had she seen the gunman leaving and tried to follow him? Or had he followed her? Clearly both had left, since he’d found only his own horse around the area.
He’d quickly gone back to Sanderson and fetched the sheriff later that day. But the horse tracks had been impossible to follow: They crossed too many other tracks, ending that avenue of pursuit.
The sheriff claimed not to know either of the dead men, and he flat out denied having any idea who the third man might be. Damian didn’t know whether to believe him or not, though the man hedged enough for Damian to lean toward the “not.” Yet there wasn’t much he could do about that without any proof.
But that left him with only one alternative, to confront whoever had hired the ambushers. And he didn’t doubt that the gunmen had been bought. Curruthers.
Within a day and a half he returned to Culthers, not bothering to stop for sleep. His pinto wasn’t very appreciative, nor was his body, but he was too worried about Casey to be concerned with comfort.
He arrived in the middle of the night and went straight to the boardinghouse that Casey had stayed in, not because he thought she might be there, but because he figured the schoolteacher probably wouldn’t be on Jack’s payroll. A hotel clerk, in his opinion, was far less trustworthy.
Unfortunately, the landlady was difficult to rouse, nor was she very anxious to let him in at that hour. He had to give her a quick explanation of the events of the past few days before she would agree to offer him a room. Luckily, she detested Jack Curruthers.
Much as Damian wanted to immediately search out Curruthers or one of his buddies, he was about dead to the world and simply had to get a little sleep first. But he asked to be wakened at dawn, and the landlady obliged him. She also gave him the names of all the men who she knew worked for Jack, and the address of at least one, which was where Damian headed first.
He found Elroy Bencher still in bed at that early hour, and fast asleep, which had made getting into his house simple. The man actually left his doors unlocked and most of his windows open. And he was alone, fortunately. Damian didn’t want to be scaring any women with what he was about to do—which was to beat the man senseless if he didn’t get the answers he needed.
The landlady had failed to mention, though, how big Elroy was, and Damian hadn’t really noticed when he’d last seen him, his full concentration having been on Jack at the time. But he noticed now, when he put the cold barrel of his rifle against Elroy’s cheek before nudging him awake and the man sat up bare-chested and growling.
“Don’t move too much, Elroy,” Damian warned. “Or you might find your head traveling to the other side of the room without you.”
Elroy squinted up at him. The sun was just barely rising, and the bedroom, located on the west side of the house, wasn’t receiving much of its light yet, so his question was understandable.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Does the name Damian Rutledge sound familiar? I tried to arrest your boss, remember?”
“Oh, you,” Elroy grunted. “Didn’t expect you to be stupid enough to come back here.”
“And I didn’t expect you and your friends to be stupid enough to try and prevent me from returning. Sort of admits to guilt, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elroy said belligerently.
“Sure you do,” Damian disagreed. “But if I have to spell it out, I will. I’m talking about the three men you sent to attack me and the kid on our way back here. Two of them are dead, by the way.”
He noticed the tensing of those thick muscles at his added remark. And as far as he was concerned, that was all the confirmation of guilt he needed. But Elroy was determined to play dumb.
“You’re crazy. Some no-account saddle-bums attack you and you blame it on Mr. Curruthers? Like he cares where you go or what you do? He’s got nothing to fear from you, Rutledge. He’s not the man you were looking for.”
“No? Well, that’s a moot point at the moment, because oddly enough, Elroy, all I want from you are the names of those men and where they lived. It’s the one who’s still alive that I want.”
Elroy snorted. “Can’t help you there, and wouldn’t if I could. And you got your nerve, breaking into my house. We got laws in this town, you know.”
“Do you? The sheriff in Jack’s pocket, too?”
“Just get the hell outta here before I get annoyed,” Elroy growled at him. “I ain’t got no answers for you one way or the other.”
“I disagree,” Damian replied calmly. “And you will tell me what I want to know—one way or the other.”
“Yeah?” Elroy smirked now. “And just how are you going to make me? You shoot off that rifle, you’ll have the sheriff here arresting you, U.S. marshal or not. So how do you plan to make me tell you, little man?”
Damian knew he was being deliberately goaded. Elroy was just itching to take him on; he could see it in his eyes. And although it had been many a year since he had enjoyed a good fistfight, one in which he didn’t have to worry about breaking someone’s nose, there was the possibility he might not win this one. But what the hell. He’d been itching to pound out his frustrations on someone, and at least Elroy Bencher promised a good fight, not one that would be over after just one good punch.
Damian stood his rifle against the table next to the bed and said, “Well, let’s start with this, shall we?”
Amazing how his fist always managed to connect, but Elroy’s nose was as susceptible as most were—breaking with one single punch. The big man howled, blood dripping onto his bare chest. In the next instant, he tried to bring Damian down by launching himself toward him. Not very wise, starting from a sitting position. Damian merely stepped back and Elroy’s large frame ended up sprawled on the floor at his feet.
He should have kicked him while he was down, he really should have, but Damian’s sense of fairness wouldn’t let him. However, allowing Elroy to get to his feet was one of the bigger mistakes of his life
. The man’s fists were like solid steel hammers, and he had an incredible amount of strength backing each punch he landed. And he immediately started landing them far too frequently.
Damian managed to stay upright by dint of will, despite the pounding he was taking. And he was still getting the occasional punch in, though they didn’t seem to be doing much damage. A long fight? He was beginning to think it would never end. But then he got lucky…
A single punch managed to crack not one but two of Elroy’s ribs on his right side, causing him to gasp with pain. From that point on, the man protected that side with his right arm. And either the pain was also affecting his left-handed blows, or he simply had a weak left-hand punch to begin with.
In a few more minutes, Elroy was back on the floor, and this time Damian wouldn’t have hesitated to do some kicking, principles or no principles.
“Unless you want my foot coming down on those broken ribs, you’ll give me the names I want.”
Elroy did.
Chapter 35
It was the middle of the following afternoon by the time Damian reached Bucky Alcott’s farmhouse outside Sanderson. To reach that town so quickly, he’d gone with very little sleep. The house was located about a mile out of town, just where Bencher had said it was.
There was the possibility that Alcott would recognize him right off, despite the bruises he was wearing on his face and his having one eye nearly swollen shut. But Damian didn’t care.
Smoke coming out of the chimney indicated Alcott was home, so he simply rode up to the narrow front porch, dismounted, and knocked sharply on the door. If Bucky had seen him coming and fetched a gun, well, he guessed they’d be having a shoot-out. Damian would just have to make sure he didn’t kill the man until he had his answers.
The door opened. The man standing there wasn’t holding a gun. He was middle-aged, not very tall, but exceptionally thin. Brown hair that was fading and brown eyes went with a weathered face. And he had the peculiar bowed legs that some people developed from spending too much of their lives on the back of a horse.
He didn’t recognize Damian either, at least not right off. Damian must have caught him cooking, because he was wearing a full-length chef’s apron, seriously stained, and had smudges of flour on one cheek. He was also wiping flour from his hands on the lower half of the apron.
What Bucky did recognize, however, was an aggressively held rifle. He was frowning as he said, “It’s bad manners to go knockin’ on someone’s door with a weapon in hand, mister. Gives the wrong impression in most cases.”
“Not in this case,” Damian replied, then asked, just to be sure, “Bucky Alcott?”
Bucky nodded, but his frown got much deeper as he inquired in turn, “Do I know you?”
“Since you tried to kill me a few days ago, I guess that qualifies as a yes, you do. Now, you tell me what happened to the kid before I—”
“Whoa, there!” Bucky exclaimed. “Someone’s led you up the wrong creek. I got no idea—”
Damian backhanded the man, sending him sideways to trip over a crate of rubbish parked by the door. He moved into the room to stand over him, in no mood to deal with denials again before he got at the truth.
“My knuckles are sore from beating your name and address out of Elroy Bencher,” he said, rubbing the scabs on those knuckles. “I really don’t want to have to do the same with you—but I will if you insist.”
“Now hold on there, mister,” Bucky said, raising his hands defensively. “I don’t know no Elroy Bencher. Whoever he is, sounds like he lied to you about me, just to tell you what you wanted to hear so you’d leave him alone. If you think about it, why would he tell you anythin’, let alone the truth? Just ’cause you beat him up a bit?”
It sounded logical, too logical, and, dammit, too sincere as well. Damian was beginning to have some real doubts now. A harmless-looking middle-aged man like this, a hired killer? A man who was apparently very serious about his cooking, a hired killer?
The man was a farmer, for crying out loud. Damian had seen the barn as he rode up, the chicken coop next to it, the pigpens, though no nearby crops, but this was a farm. And Bencher, that belligerent bear, he could have lied there at the end, said anything just to get Damian to leave his house—and his broken ribs—alone.
Damian took a step back. If he’d been led wrong, and it looked like he had been, then he was seriously out of line here, having just accosted someone who appeared to be an innocent man.
He was about to apologize, and profusely at that, when he happened to glance down at that old crate of rubbish next to Bucky—and noticed a blue denim pant leg, splattered with blood, hanging out over the edge of the crate.
Casey’s denim jeans…
His rifle came up immediately and aimed at Bucky’s head. It was all he could do to keep from pulling the trigger right then and there, he was that furious over how easily he’d been gulled.
“Those are her clothes in that pile of rubbish you just fell over,” he told the now cowering man. “You’ve got five seconds to tell me what the hell you were doing taking off her clothes. And then you’ll tell me exactly where she is. If you even think about lying again, you’ll be left here to rot—quite dead. One…”
“Wait! Wait! Okay, mister, I give up. It won’t be the first time I didn’t finish a job I got paid for. And considerin’ I lost two good friends on this one, I don’t feel a bit obliged to return the blood money.”
“Two…”
“I didn’t take her clothes off! Hell’s fire, what kinda fella do you think I am?”
“Three…”
“Will you stop with the countin’? I’ll tell you everything I know. I helped her, for cryin’ out loud. I didn’t want to kill no young un, even when I thought she was a he. I certainly don’t kill no women.”
Damian didn’t lower his rifle yet. “And just how did you find out he was a she?” he asked doubtfully. “It’s not something she goes around mentioning.”
“The heck she didn’t. She told me, and she was plumb indignant about it, too, for me callin’ her a boy. That purely ticked her off.”
“You’re lying again…”
“I’m not, I tell you! It was like this. She got shot in the head. The wound wasn’t all that bad, but because of it, her memory went fishin’. She couldn’t rightly recall nothin’ ’bout herself, and I guess that included why she was pretendin’ to be a boy.”
Damian sighed at that point, his own suspicions confirmed. He lowered the rifle, then said, “She’s really lost her memory?”
Bucky nodded, adding, “She was a mite upset about it, too. Understandable, though. Think I’d go crazy myself if I couldn’t remember my own name.”
“You said you helped her. How?”
“I was gonna try and talk her into leaving the area; that’s why I brought her here. But when I figured out she didn’t know why she’d been shot, well, I fetched her some clean clothes, helped her get all the blood off her head, and put her on the train headin’ back east.”
“What?!” Damian exclaimed incredulously. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“’Cause it ain’t safe for her around here. And ’cause she wanted to find out who she is.”
Damian was about ready to shoot the man again, this time for his idiocy. “And how is she supposed to find out who she is on a damn train, not knowing where to go or who to talk to to ask?”
“Sheese, mister, I didn’t send her off blind,” Bucky said indignantly. “She’s headin’ over Waco way, to the K.C. Ranch. Her horse comes from there, leastways that’s where it got its brand from. Figured someone there might remember her, or at least remember the horse, fine-lookin’ as it is, and they’d be able to tell her who she is.”
Very well, so the man wasn’t a complete idiot, but still…
“It didn’t occur to you that I could do that? After all, we were traveling together.”
“Mister, with the kind of men that are after your head, I didn’t figure you’
d be alive long enough to help anyone. And I didn’t want that little lady involved in the hornet’s nest you stirred up. So I sent her lookin’ for answers where she might find them and not get shot at in the process. And hopefully, if she gets her memory back, she’ll be smart enough not to come back here.”
Damian sighed. There was no point in berating the man further, when all he’d done was try to help her in the end. He couldn’t have known that Casey’s father had given her that horse, nor would she have had the memory to point that out. And there was no telling whom her father had bought the animal from, or how many owners it had passed through before that. Casey was off chasing needles in a haystack.
And all Damian could do was follow…
Chapter 36
It was a frustrating dilemma, whether to chase down Casey immediately or finish with Curruthers first. Curruthers was only a day away, just needed a final confrontation. But Casey, there was no telling how long it would take Damian to catch up with her.
And where would she go after she reached Waco and found no help there? Would she even think to come back to Sanderson to find her answers? Or had she lost her amazing deductive reasoning along with her memory?
The train schedule decided the matter for him. The next eastbound train due to depart Sanderson wouldn’t be leaving for another four days. Damian could finish his business here in that amount of time. He could even catch up on some much-needed sleep before heading north to Culthers in the morning, which was what he did.
He should have skipped the sleep, however. Timing turned out to be more important than he’d figured. If he had only gotten back to Culthers a few hours sooner, he might have been able to prevent the gunfight he arrived to witness—and the all-out battle that followed…
Entering Barnet’s Saloon in Culthers dressed as she was wasn’t a good idea. So Casey waited, and sure enough, Jack and his campaign crew filed out of the saloon around lunchtime to head to the restaurant across the street.
All I Need Is You Page 18
