“We’ll find that peaceful life. And sooner than you think. I’m sure of it.”
She kissed his hand, and he yearned to be alone with her, far from crowds and troubles. On a honeymoon. Li deserved a real honeymoon. He realized, though, that the only way that was going to happen any time soon was if he resolved their predicament here in El Paso. Once and for all. And that meant dealing with Warren Livingston.
“I’ve been cobbling together a plan for going after that deputy,” he said.
“You’re always thinking, aren’t you?”
“Of you.”
She smiled.
“Anyway,” he said.
His revelation was delayed by the opening of the shop’s front door.
Juanito and Geneve stepped in and stood close beside one another. Both looked a bit flushed. Juanito slipped his arm around Geneve’s waist. Her cheeks colored even more, then she reciprocated.
Li’s eyes widened.
“Worked things out, did you?” Emmett gave a wry smile.
“You could say that,” Juanito answered.
He and Geneve both grinned sheepishly.
Li turned back to Emmett. “Did you know anything about this?”
“Wouldn’t have been proper to betray a man’s confidence.”
“Not even to your wife?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t know whether Geneve felt the same as Juanito. Guess we have a better idea now.”
Geneve let a laugh escape. “I was afraid Juanito didn’t like me. I feared he was only looking out for me on account of his friendship with Sikes.”
Li gave Emmett a playful shove. “You still should have told me.”
Tipping his head toward his brother-in-law, Emmett said to Geneve, “You’ll never find a more devoted man. He won’t let you down.”
When her gaze turned to Juanito, he cleared his throat and glanced at the curtained doorway to the back room. “Perhaps we should save the rest of this conversation for another time.”
Emmett stood and offered his chair to Geneve. Coffee mug in hand, he said, “We can change the subject—I was just about to tell Li my latest thoughts on going after Deputy Livingston.”
Just then, the curtains parted, and Carlson came back out. He placed a brand-new pair of russet leather cattlemen’s cuffs on the countertop. “So are we all friends again, now?”
“We never were anything else,” Juanito said, this time with a bit less antipathy toward the leatherworker.
“Glad to hear it.” If Carlson was bothered that Juanito and Geneve stood there, arms around each other, he didn’t show it.
In part because he wanted to turn the man’s attention away from the couple’s newly revealed affections and in part because he wanted to get on with the matter of dealing with the deputy, Emmett asked, “Carlson, what can you tell us about the El Paso County sheriff?”
The leatherworker folded his arms casually. “Not much. He has a lot of work on his hands. El Paso is growin’ like jimson weed—mostly Americans. Uh, whites.” His gaze darted to Li.
With a meek shrug, he continued. “This town and all the little pueblos round about are full of trouble these days. What with all the white folk movin’ in, some of the Mexicans—poor as most of ’em are—well, they’re gettin’ a mite anxious lately. Sheriff Crawford had to swear in a couple of Mexican deputies to help him deal with situations out in Socorro, Ysleta, places like that.” His gaze now paused on Juanito.
“You have any idea how Sheriff Crawford and Marshal Perry got along—before the marshal met his demise the other night?” Emmett asked.
“All right, I guess. I never heard any different.”
“How about Sheriff Crawford and the deputy, Warren Livingston?”
Carlson shrugged. “Truthfully, I don’t know.”
Emmett stared at nothing in particular for a few seconds while he put his thoughts together. He finished his last swig of coffee. “Geneve tells us you’ve just recently found religion, Mr. Carlson.”
Carlson glanced at Geneve, smiled easily, and then returned his gaze to Emmett. “That’s not the way I’d put it. I’ve only come to have a deeper appreciation of what the Lord Jesus has done for us all.”
Emmett nodded. “I’d enjoy talking with you about that sometime. But for now, I trust we can agree that truth matters.”
“Of course.”
“We came to El Paso a few weeks ago because a friend of ours had a mind to give Miss Geneve a new start,” Emmett said. “Got here only to find out that Franklin Taft, the new owner of the Wild Hog, was being ungentlemanly toward her.”
The leatherworker’s brow creased.
“Miss Geneve happily came with us,” Emmett said. “We left town that very night for San Antonio. However, the next morning—by which time we were already over in San Elizario—something peculiar happened here in El Paso. Before noon Taft was convinced it was us who had dry-gulched him and robbed him of somewhere around two thousand dollars.” Emmett fixed his gaze on Carlson’s. “Truth matters, right?”
Carlson eyed Emmett’s badge. “I believe your story. But if you weren’t in town, how could he blame it on you?”
“Whoever did the deed knocked Taft out cold. Biffed his shotgun man, Clive Mackey, too. Mackey claimed he saw me just before the lights went out.”
“Mackey?” The leatherworker grimaced. “That fella’s told more yarns, stretched more truths, and lied outright for so long…Anybody knows him knows you’d better lap up a whole entire salt lick before you swallow anything he says.”
“Said.” Juanito rested his hand on Geneve’s chair back. “The grass is waving over Mackey now.”
“Dead?”
Juanito gave a nod. “Lead poisoning.”
“You folks?” Carlson searched Emmett’s face, then Juanito’s.
Geneve spoke up. “No. Mackey got in the way of a drifter—a fast gun from out of town.”
After staring at her for a moment, as though trying to decide whether there really had been any fast gun from out of town, the leatherworker set about rearranging the holsters on display on the countertop, though they had already been perfectly spaced and aligned. “You asked me about Deputy Livingston a minute ago.”
“That’s right,” Emmett said.
“I never could figure how a quiet lawman like him and a habitual liar like Mackey could be such good friends.”
“Long-time friends?”
“Oh, yeah.” Carlson looked up from the holsters. “Amigos, pards—ever since they were a coupla young ’uns.”
“Then it shouldn’t come as any big surprise that we have a dying man’s testimony—Mackey and Livingston were both behind the robbery of Franklin Taft.”
Carlson’s jaw dropped. “Mackey’s no surprise. Always was a hellion. But Livingston, too?”
Emmett took a glance at Li before nodding at Carlson. “We’ve got the dying man’s word, plus Livingston took a few shots at Taft before hot-footing it out of the shoot-out in the saloon the other night.”
“So who was it that accused Livingston…before givin’ up the ghost?”
“Billy Thornhill.”
“Thornhill wasn’t from around here. Just showed up maybe a year ago. What happened to him?”
“Came out to San Elizario with a few of his compadres and tried to finish off the four of us.”
The leatherworker’s gaze rested on Geneve. She nodded.
“Livingston doesn’t know we’re back in El Paso yet,” Emmett said. “But he’s about to find out.”
“What do you have in mind?” Carlson finally quit fiddling with the holsters.
“Depends on whether he wants to make a fight out of it. In any event, he’s going to pay for all the lying, thieving, and bloodshed he’s instigated and tried to pin on us.”
The leatherworker was somber.
<
br /> “That’s why we want you to look after Geneve,” Emmett said. “As far as Livingston knows, she left El Paso weeks ago, probably for good.”
Geneve eyed Li but this time didn’t protest staying behind.
“As I said before, Geneve’s welcome here.” Carlson motioned toward his upstairs living quarters. “When were the rest of you planning to set out?”
“As soon as possible,” Emmett said. “This afternoon.”
Carlson stepped from behind the counter and spoke to Geneve. “Truth be told, I’d heard you’d left the saloon, left town.”
“I had,” she said.
“I was glad. Hoped you’d found a new life for yourself.” He gestured toward Juanito. “If you believe this man can give you that, then I wish him and his pardners Godspeed today. Maybe by tonight you and he can get on with that new and better life.”
She got up, crossed the room, and threw her arms around Carlson’s neck. “Thank you, Matthew,” she said.
Juanito shifted his weight.
Geneve returned and clung to him once again.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“If I were Livingston, waiting and watching for us to come calling on Jack VanDorn, I’d put a lookout man right up there.” He pointed toward the church steeple.
From where he, Li, and Juanito sat saddle three blocks away, they could see the tip of the spire above the rooftops. Doc Leonidas Simons, who was looking after the badly wounded VanDorn, worked out of his home. The Baptist church was directly across the street from the doc’s house.
While Emmett was anxious to find out how his amigo VanDorn was coming along, he was more than ready to put an end to Warren Livingston’s dogged intent not only to frame him and Juanito but now evidently to kill them all. Sid Singleton and his sweet wife—good folks, murdered in their bed, in their sleep, over in San Elizario. Augusto, too. Then the men who claimed to have witnessed him and Juanito robbing Taft show up, mounting yet another attack. Taft dead. Livingston’s name on a dying man’s lips. What further evidence did they need?
“If he’s up there,” Li said, her brow furrowed, “Won’t he shoot you before you ever get to the doctor’s door?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why not?”
“Livingston’s got to take all three of us into account. If I approach the doc’s place alone, and the lookout man shoots me from up there, you and Juanito would likely catch him before he could get down from the steeple, out of the church, and away on foot or horseback.” Emmett glanced at Juanito to see whether he agreed.
His brother-in-law nodded.
“So if he’s not up there to shoot you—or us—is he only there to let Livingston know we’ve come back?” Li asked.
“Maybe to follow us once we’re done visiting Jack VanDorn.” Emmett shifted in his saddle when he heard the sound of a broom going to work on a nearby boardwalk. The weathered old woman who was doing the sweeping kept a cool eye on the three of them.
Juanito’s gaze still rested on the steeple. “So maybe we should go to church before we go to the doctor’s.”
Li brushed aside a tendril of her hair. “And when we catch Livingston’s lookout?”
Emmett grinned. “We turn him loose again.”
“Why?”
Emmett waited for a fellow who looked like a prospector—riding one mule and leading another—to pass by, then said, “I’ve got a feeling Livingston is itching to finish us off before we cause him any more trouble. Nothing he’s come up with so far has managed to stop us. Once he knows we’re here, he’ll come along soon enough.”
Juanito’s dun exhaled loudly. He patted the animal’s neck. “We’d better look around then and decide where it is that we want Livingston to face us.”
“The church is probably as good a place as any. We’ll see.”
Li kept flicking her thumb off the leather of her reins. Her gaze was restless.
Emmett edged his horse up alongside hers and reached out to pat her knee. “It’ll be OK. You’ll do fine.”
“I know,” she said, her voice unconvincing.
“Try not to worry, angelita,” Juanito said. “His plans usually turn out to be better than they sound when he first explains them.”
She nodded but said nothing more.
Emmett, Li, and Juanito rode a circuitous route through the crosscuts near Doc Simons’s house and wound up one block behind the white clapboard Baptist church. While Livingston’s lookout might take an occasional glance this way, he would probably keep his attention focused on the doc’s place and on the streets and sidewalks in that direction.
They left their horses in front of the two-story clothing emporium that screened them from the steeple. After making their way through a narrow side alley, they darted across a tiny lot to the back door of the church. Emmett carried his twelve-gauge coach gun in addition to packing his new Colt.
“What if the padre is inside?” Juanito asked.
“Baptists don’t have padres,” Emmett said.
“You know what I mean.”
“If the pastor’s there,” Emmett said to Li, “it’ll be your job to pull him aside and whisper to him exactly what we’re here for.”
“Won’t he know there’s a man up in the steeple?”
Emmett held up a hand then pressed his ear to the door for a minute. “If anybody at all’s inside,” he said, pulling away, “it’ll be the deputy’s lookout. Maybe Livingston himself.”
“So if I don’t have to explain anything to the pastor, what do I do?”
“Keep watch just inside the door here. Juanito, you go to the front entrance. I’ll coax the lookout down out of the steeple.”
Juanito nodded. Li flicked the leather hammer loop off her Colt Lightning. Emmett gave her an affirming nod and opened the door.
It was hot inside. And quiet. Dust floated in the sunlight that fell through the tall, narrow windows. There’d be no sneaking up on the lookout—not without moving painfully slowly. Emmett didn’t care about that anyway. Once Juanito had the front door covered, the watchman would be trapped with no easy escape.
As planned, Li covered the back door while Emmett and Juanito, weapons in hand, made their way to the far end of the sanctuary. Their boots sounded on the plank floors. The jingle of their spurs hung lightly in the still air.
With Juanito in place in the front foyer, Emmett paused at the base of the ladder that led up the wall into the steeple. He called into the dim void of the open hatch above him, “You can come down now. The folks you’re looking for are right here below you.” He stepped back quickly and pressed his back to the wall, shotgun ready.
Not a sound in reply.
“Come on down,” he called again. “Livingston will be waiting for a report from you.”
Nothing. No creaking of wood. No flutter of pigeons.
“All right, then,” Emmett called. “We’ve got all night. What about you?”
Still, only silence.
He felt his heart throbbing—gently, not as hard as he’d imagined it might be. He listened so intently that he could hear a soft ringing in his ears, but not a thing from up in the spire.
“You think maybe he has a way out onto the roof?” Juanito asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Wouldn’t we hear him moving up there if he did?”
Li peered from the doorway of the pastor’s office out into the sanctuary. Emmett waved her over.
Once she arrived at his side, he whispered, “You and Juanito cover me. I’m going up.”
Her brows tightened.
Emmett motioned his brother-in-law over and handed off the coach gun.
“Cuidado,” Juanito breathed. Careful.
Emmett nodded and began his cautious ascent.
Just three rungs up, the ladder creaked painfully. He froze, listening hard, a moth-like tickl
e running down his spine.
Not a peep from above.
Once his heart slowed, he resumed the climb, staring into the shadowy opening in the ceiling above.
Immediately beneath the open hatchway, he stopped again. His mouth had gone dry. No surprise, since about two seconds from now he could end up with his head shot off.
He clenched his teeth and cocked his drawn Colt. He couldn’t help but steal a quick glance down at Li.
All business now. He had to finish this.
With a firm grip on the topmost rung, he drew a deep breath and launched himself through the opening.
He twisted on the dusty landing, ready to let fly.
But the belfry was empty—nothing more than grit and cobwebs all the way up. His unbelieving eyes scoured every inch of the space.
Yes, there were louvered openings on all four sides. Yes, this perch would have been ideal for keeping tabs on the doc’s place across the street. But there was nothing whatsoever to indicate that anybody had been up here for that purpose.
He exhaled audibly. Better wrong than dead.
With no further effort to keep quiet, Emmett made his way down.
“Well?” Juanito said.
“Plenty of dust. No sign of a lookout.”
“Doesn’t mean Livingston doesn’t have one somewhere else around here.”
“I know. Question is, where?”
Juanito shook his head. “Shops and businesses all up and down the street. Anybody in any one of them could be the deputy’s compadre.”
“So what now?” Li asked.
“New plan.”
“Which is?”
“You two become the lookouts. I become the bait.”
Li crossed her arms. “I don’t—”
“I know, you don’t like it.”
Planting her hands on her hips, she said, “Then explain it to me.”
“You scoot up into the steeple and keep watch through the louvers up there. Juanito waits down here just inside the front doors. When I cross the street, if you spot anybody who looks like he’s setting up to get the drop on me, you call out the location to Juanito—left, right, straight ahead—and he’ll throw open the door and let ’em have it.”
Strong Suspicions (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 2) Page 27
