“McCord? Ash McCord?” Davis asked.
Ash shot the man a look. What was in Davis’s eyes? Curiosity, certainly. But something else. Something that kept Ash from riding off on his own. He nodded slowly. “I’m McCord.”
“Then this is your concern,” Davis said, “in a roundabout way.”
“What are you talking about?” Jamison asked.
Davis reached inside his coat and withdrew a packet of papers. “I think this will explain.” He handed the papers to Jamison.
Ash watched, wondering what any of this could have to do with him. The man didn’t look like a lawman. Besides, Ash had served his time. It couldn’t have anything to do with him.
But curiosity kept him there. The sheriff read the papers, his face turning whiter with every word.
Jamison jerked his head up. “Where’d you get this?” he demanded.
“I hired the man who wrote it to do some investigating for me. As you can see, he was good at his job.”
“Where is he? I wanna talk to him.”
“Storekeeper found him the night after he wrote that.”
“Found him?”
“In an alley. With his throat slit.”
Jamison stared at Davis another moment, then resumed reading. “Sonofabitch!” He looked up a moment later, face flushed, eyes glazed with fire. “You’re on your own, McCord. I’ve got to get back to town.”
“Baxter’s not in town,” Jamison said coolly. “That’s why I’m here. They said at the bank he went home sick yesterday.”
“What the hell is going on?” Ash demanded.
“Read this.” Jamison thrust the papers at Ash. “And consider yourself deputized.”
Ash started reading.
“Is that the direction to the Bar B?” Davis asked in a tight voice.
“Sonofabitch,” the sheriff said.
Ash looked up from scanning the papers and followed Jamison’s and Davis’s gazes. A black column of smoke boiled up over the far hill. The Bar B was on fire!
Chapter Twenty-Four
The three men raced down the road toward the hill. Ash’s heart pounded. He hadn’t had a chance to read more than ten words on the papers now crumpled in his fist. But those ten words were enough to get his attention. Davis had obviously hired someone to investigate Baxter. The man who wrote the report—the dead man—had started his investigation by getting Gus drunk and questioning him.
That was one report Ash intended to read!
He was neck and neck with Jamison and Davis when they rounded the last hill before the Bar B headquarters. They were just in time to see the roof of the house collapse. A plume of flames shot fifty feet in the air. It hung there, like some ghastly painting of hell, a giant, fiery monster licking at the crystal blue sky, trying to devour it, then collapsed into itself and disappeared in the roiling black smoke. Debris and ashes spewed out and twirled along the spiraling air currents.
Ash kicked his mount forward. Davis and Jamison followed.
Nearly a dozen men rode in from the north. Baxter’s men.
The sheriff immediately organized a bucket brigade to wet down the barn, bunkhouse, and stables. It was too late for the house.
In a matter of minutes it was over. The flames had devoured themselves. The fine Victorian house, Ian Baxter’s pride and joy, was nothing more than smoldering embers.
Ash stared at the ruins, feeling the heat from the dying fire blister his face.
“Where’s Baxter?” the sheriff shouted.
Nobody seemed to know.
Ash had a sick feeling about Baxter’s whereabouts.
It took another thirty minutes of dousing what was left of the house with water before the smoke cleared enough to see anything.
The destruction was nearly total.
Here and there a section of wall still stood, as did the brick fireplace on the east end of the house. One charred column on the southeast corner of the porch, the iron cookstove in the back, along with pots and pans, some of which were no more than lumps now. At the front of the house a small potbellied stove stood next to what was left of something resembling a dresser. And every few feet, a pillar of smoke danced among the ruins.
Ash looked on the remains with a feeling of numbness. Where was Baxter?
His eyes traveled over a blackened iron bed frame in the near corner. He started to turn away, then stopped. His stomach protested what his eyes saw.
Bare bed frame. The mattress and the ropes holding it were of course nothing more than ashes. But there on the floor, as though someone had merely yanked the bedding from beneath it, was the grisly remains of something once human.
Ash looked away, then wished he hadn’t. Next to the bed lay two iron wheels. The remains of Baxter’s chair.
“Godamighty,” the sheriff said next to him. “Baxter?”
Ash swallowed the bile in his throat. He forced himself to look back at the charred corpse. Something small and shiny drew his gaze. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s him.” For there on the corpse’s left hand was a distorted clump of gold, still recognizable as Ian Baxter’s steerhead ring.
A strange emptiness stole over Ash. Baxter was dead.
He’d hated the man for so long, it was hard to think of him dead. Odd as it seemed, Baxter had been his reason for living for the past five years. Ash’s desire for revenge had kept him alive in prison and on the plantations when he’d been hired out as convict labor to vicious overseers with nasty dispositions.
Baxter had been his reason for coming back to a town where he wasn’t wanted. Where he was, in fact, despised and mistrusted.
The driving force that had propelled him through the last years was the determination to clear his name and see Ian Baxter pay for murdering Ash’s father.
And now the bastard was dead. Burned alive in his own bed.
Ash shuddered. God. As much as he’d hated the man, even he wouldn’t have done that to Baxter. Oh, he’d wanted Baxter to pay for what he’d done to the McCords, and to Sunny and her family. Pay with his life. But Ash had thought more on the lines of a bullet, or a noose.
Burned alive in his own bed.
The thought sickened him. He turned away. “Any sign of Gus? Or Maria?”
“Not yet,” Jamison said.
A shout came from behind the house.
Baxter went to investigate. Ash walked away from the smoking rubble trying to come to terms with what had happened.
Had all his efforts been for nothing? Would he carry the stigma of back-shooter and ex-convict the rest of his life?
He felt cheated. Robbed of the chance to clear his name.
Robbed of the right to stand beside the only woman he’d ever loved.
Sunny!
If he couldn’t clear his name…
“McCord! Over here!” Jamison called.
With lagging steps, Ash headed that direction. He wasn’t in any particular hurry to see any more grisly remains.
He was fiercely glad now, for Sunny’s sake, that he’d kept his hope to himself. Hope that when he cleared his name, when the people in town knew just what kind of man Ian Baxter was and that he’d murdered Ash’s father, that their attitude about him would change. That he’d be accepted again.
Not that he cared what anyone thought of him. But what they thought of him would reflect on Sunny, if he and Sunny…
He couldn’t even finish the thought. It hurt too much. She was so far out of his reach now. There was no way in hell he would subject her to the jeers and taunts that would be thrown her way if she took up with him.
“McCord! Hurry!”
The urgency in Jamison’s voice made him rush the rest of the way around the house. Jamison knelt in the dirt about twenty feet beyond the house. Knelt over a patch of red. The red fluttered in the slight breeze.
A skirt! Maria? Dear God, had she survived?
Ash ran the rest of the way.
Maria, her hair singed, her face and arms covered in raw, angry burns, lay on her back in
the dirt. Ash knelt beside her. She looked at him as though she’d expect him to show up.
“She’s been shot.”
Ash jerked his head up to look at Jamison, stunned. He looked back down at Maria and saw it then. The way her burned hands clutched at her stomach, the blood oozing between her fingers.
Gut shot.
She was dying. The look in her eyes said she knew it.
“Must have dragged herself out by the skin of her teeth,” Jamison said with awe. “It’s a miracle she made it at all.”
With a trembling, bloody hand, Maria reached up and stroked the side of her face. It was her sign for Ian. She was asking for Ian.
For the first time in five long years, Ash felt his hatred of this woman drift away with the ashes from the house. Whatever she’d done, she had done for love of Ian Baxter. Was it her fault her affections were fixed so totally on the wrong man?
She stroked her face again, looking at Ash intently.
“Ian…didn’t make it, Maria. I’m sorry.” He said it, and oddly enough, meant it.
Maria closed her eyes and rolled her head slowly from side to side. The effort sapped what little strength she had.
“He was in bed,” he told her softly. “He never made it out.”
Again Maria rolled her head. She lowered her hand.
Ash thought she was going to grip her stomach again. Instead, she placed her hand on her hip. Her sign for Gus, referring to the gun he always wore.
“We haven’t found Gus yet. Was he in town?” The sheriff’s voice, too was soft.
Maria didn’t take her eyes from Ash, but rolled her head again.
“Was Gus here when the fire started?” Ash asked.
She nodded this time. Then grimaced.
Ash grimace with her. Blistered and burned from head to toe, and a bullet in her gut. Her pain must be unbearable.
She brought her hand back up to her face. Ian. Then put a trembling forefinger to the middle of her forehead and moved her thumb back and forth. Her finger left a bloody spot.
“Ian was shot?” Ash asked carefully, not sure he understood what she was trying to tell him.
She rolled her head from side to side. No.
She repeated her gestures, this time adding one. Hand to face, finger to forehead, hand to hip. Ian shot Gus.
Ian shot Gus? Stunned, confused, Ash repeated his question aloud.
Maria nodded. Yes.
“Ian shot Gus…in the house? You mean that was Gus we found in Ian’s bed?”
Maria grimaced and nodded again, this time with tears in her eyes.
“Maria,” Ash said earnestly. “Where is Ian?”
Another pained look crossed her face. This time Ash had the uncanny notion that it wasn’t a physical pain she was feeling. She loved Ian Baxter, he knew. She’d been in that fire. Had seen him shoot Gus. And Baxter had left her there to burn.
The bastard!
“Maria, where is Ian?”
This time Maria had to struggle to move her arm. She gestured weakly toward the sky, then to her hair.
“I don’t understand,” Ash told her.
She started over. This time he noticed she made an effort to point in one particular spot overhead.
“The sun?”
She nodded. She pointed to the sun again, then to her hair, then to Ash.
Sun. Hair. He took a stab in the dark. “Sunny? Are you trying to say Sunny?”
A look of relief crossed her face as she nodded.
“What about Sunny?”
She ran her hand down her cheek again. Ian.
“Ian went to Sunny?”
Again Maria nodded.
“He couldn’t have, Maria. His wheelchair was in the house. We found the wheels.”
Maria swallowed and closed her eyes. Then she ran her hand down her cheek again. Ian. Next she walked her fingers across her chest.
Walked?
“Ian can walk, McCord,” Jamison said. Ash stared at him, stunned. “It’s in that report you didn’t get to read. He can walk, he can ride, and he did both the day of the bank robbery. He was in charge of it. He’s the one who killed the other robbers.”
Ash shook his head, certain he hadn’t heard correctly.
Maria closed her eyes and nodded her head again.
“How did anyone find this out?” Ash asked.
“When Gus drinks, his tongue wags.”
Maria tugged on Ash’s arm. When she had his attention she pointed at the sun again, then at him.
Slowly he realized what he should have understood immediately. “Sunny’s in trouble!”
Maria nodded.
Ash reached out and touched a clear spot on Maria’s cheek tenderly. “Thank you, Maria.”
Then he stood. For a moment the fear in him—fear for Sunny—was so great he couldn’t speak. He swallowed twice. “I’m going to Sunny. I don’t know what Baxter’s up to, but he’s got a hell of a head start on us.”
The sheriff motioned him on. “I’ll be right behind you. I’ve got one more question to ask Maria.”
Ash ran for his horse and kicked him into a mile-eating gallop. And it wouldn’t be fast enough, he knew. Baxter had too much of a head start!
Sunny was draping the second sheet on the clothesline when she heard the rider. Her first thought was of Ash. He’s come back! She gave the sheet a final tug to keep it out of the dirt, then raced around the side of the house.
She stood in front and shaded her eyes with her hand. He was coming in fast and hard, a cloud of dust churning up behind him.
Erik came out onto the bunkhouse porch on his crutches.
Sunny stared hard at the rider. She had to fight to keep the sudden tears at bay. It wasn’t Ash. She thought it was someone she knew, although she couldn’t tell who just yet, but it wasn’t Ash.
She didn’t want to see anyone else. She wanted to run into the house and slam the door and cry, dammit!
Why wasn’t it Ash?
As the rider drew nearer and she could make out his features, her mind refused to believe what her eyes were telling her.
“Miss Sunny, get back in the house,” Erik called.
She wanted to. She wanted to run, but this time for an entirely different reason than to hide her hurt. This time she wanted to hide from the truth of what she was seeing.
It was impossible!
Ian Baxter rode into the yard, bringing a choking cloud of dust with him, and reined in before Sunny. “Afternoon,” he said.
Sunny gaped at him. She had never seen him dressed in anything other than an impeccable suit. Yet there he sat, wearing dark blue denims, a gray shirt, and a brown leather vest.
Good heavens! Who cares about his clothes! Ian Baxter was riding a horse! Before she could comment on that unlikelihood, he did another impossible thing. He swung down from the saddle and walked toward her, silver spurs jingling with every step.
“You can walk!”
He squared his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and gave her a slow, menacing grin. “Yeah.”
Sudden, unreasonable fear froze her to the spot.
The thump of Erik’s crutches on the bunkhouse porch drew Baxter’s attention. Without a pause, Baxter pulled his gun and fired.
Sunny jerked and gasped.
The force of the shot knocked Erik back through the bunkhouse door. He crashed to the floor with his feet still hanging outside.
Sunny screamed.
Baxter whirled and slapped her across the face so hard her head snapped back. “Shut up! I don’t have time for your screeching. If you want to live to see the sun set, you’ll do exactly what I say. Now stand there and don’t move. You move, I’ll kill you.”
She couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it. Erik! He’d killed Erik! And he could walk!
Baxter left her there, too shocked to move, and walked toward the bunkhouse. He leaned in the door and bent down, then stood and headed back to her.
It wasn’t until he was almost upon her that she realized
there was something…something she should know. Something familiar about…something.
Then it came to her like a flash of lightning. His walk!
He walked with a slow, shuffling gate, with stiff, bent knees.
“It was you!” she whispered. “You robbed the bank!”
His grin was slow. And evil. “Smart girl.”
“You’re the one who shot Ash in the back!”
“Right again. Wanna try for three out of three?”
Sunny stumbled back from him. “Wh-what do you mean?”
He chuckled and grabbed her arm. She barely noticed the tug at the back of her waist. She stared down at his boots. She vaguely felt her apron come loose, but didn’t care.
Boots. Spurs. A tug on her arms.
A shaft of fear shot through her. He was tying her hands behind her back!
She shrieked and tried to jerk away.
Baxter tightened something—her own damned apron strings!—around her wrists. Her fingers started going numb. She kicked out at him and missed. She ended up on the ground, her heart whacking against her ribs as her mouth went dry.
Good God, what was he going to do to her? Why was he here?
But she couldn’t get the words out. She blinked the sand from her eyes and stared a long moment at the boots. Spurs.
Silver spurs.
Erik’s words from weeks ago—the day the posse rode back empty-handed—echoed in her head. Had on silver spurs. Not steel ner brass, but silver.
Rage so strong it dwarfed her terror shot through her. “It was you!” She somehow got her knees under her and pushed to her feet. “You murdered my father!”
Baxter merely laughed as he grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the cellar.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The ground rushed by beneath the horse’s hooves. Ash prayed like he’d never prayed before. He prayed for Baxter’s horse to be slow and clumsy. He prayed for Sunny to be gone to town or to a neighbor’s—anywhere but home when Baxter got there. He prayed for wings.
But his horse was already tiring. This mad gallop on top of the trip from town was too much. If Ash wanted to get to Sunny at all, he’d have to slow down.
Impatient and frustrated as hell, terrified for Sunny’s safety, he slowed his horse to let the animal catch its breath.
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