She shook her head. “I won’t be able to see who’s standing in every doorway from up there.”
“She’s right,” Juanito said.
Emmett gently clutched Li’s arm. “I’ve got eyes, too,” he said. “I’ll be looking over my shoulders.”
“Why don’t we all go out together?” she asked.
“If anybody’s lying in wait, I want to draw them out. Make it so enticing, they won’t be able to resist the temptation—”
“The temptation to kill you.” She stepped away, and Emmett dropped his outstretched arm.
“We could all three go,” Juanito said. “Just spread out along the street.”
Emmett studied Li. She wasn’t being petulant. Not at all. She was as smart as she was beautiful, and she was thinking about the options and the possible outcomes—just like he was. But if they followed Juanito’s idea and spread out along the street, she might become the nearest and choicest target for any lookout Livingston might have out there. Having Li back him up in a gunfight was one thing. But he wasn’t ready to put her out there one-on-one against an enemy of unknown talents or scruples.
“No,” he said to his brother-in-law, “Li in the steeple, you at the door.”
Li glared at him, then spun and proceeded up the ladder without a word.
Juanito held out the coach gun, his lips twisted. “You want this?”
Emmett shook his head. “Nope. Use it to cover me.” Biting his tongue, he watched Li disappear through the steeple hatchway and then headed for the door.
Cattycorner across the street from the Baptist church with only a narrow side street separating him from Doc Simons’s place, Lester Whitley peered out through his grimy side window and observed the badged lawman exit from the front door of the house of worship.
“Well, I swannee,” he muttered to himself. “Just like Deputy Livingston said he’d be—brazen as Jezebel’s man Ahab.”
Lester, the sometimes-barber, sometimes-dentist, felt a measure of satisfaction in performing his civic duty. No, sir, he wouldn’t be the one to let a ranger-gone-bad continue his owl-hoot ways unfettered. Gunning down the town marshal over in the Wild Hog Saloon the other night. And before that, robbing the saloon’s owner of every penny the poor man had just started to earn from the place. How low could a man stoop and still walk around hiding himself behind a badge?
Squinting through the edge of the window, Lester thought, Look at him parading across the street there—just like the deputy described him. Shameless cock-o-the-walk.
Yep, just as soon as this Emmett Strong fellow entered Doc Simons’s place, Lester was ready to flip his Shop Open sign and skedaddle on over to the marshal’s office to let Deputy Livingston know.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“Yes, sir, you have done the right thing, Lester,” Warren Livingston said to the frumpy codger standing before him.
Livingston drew another cartridge from the box on his desk and inserted it into the second of the two converted Colt Navy revolvers he always carried. If a pair of these were good enough for Wild Bill, he thought, they’ll serve me just fine.
“I see you’re totin’ a marshal’s badge now.” Lester pointed.
“That’s right, Lester,” Livingston answered patronizingly.
He thrust his revolver butt-forward into its holster and then practiced a quick-draw with both guns at the same time.
“Duly appointed, I reckon?” the old-timer asked.
“By the town council, with full rights and responsibilities.” Livingston turned back to Lester. “And it is within my full rights to deputize you right here and now, Mr. Whitley, if you’ll do me the honor of assisting in the arrest of Emmett Strong.”
“Why, I don’t know what to say.” Lester worked his jaw like a fish out of water. He patted his hip. “I don’t even pack iron.”
Livingston crossed the marshal’s office in four long strides and thrust a key into the padlock on the rifle rack. He pulled down a well-worn Winchester ’73—probably the most neglected long iron of the bunch—and held it out to the barber-cum-dentist. “Give that a heft, and see how it feels.”
Lester accepted the weapon, looked it up and down, and worked the lever. “Well, I reckon—”
Clapping him on the shoulder, Livingston said, “I need a mature, experienced man like you, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
“All right, then. I suppose…I do get a badge, right? Don’t wanna go shootin’ nobody in the name of the law and havin’ ’em turn around and call me a murderer just ’cause I weren’t wearin’ a proper badge.”
Livingston deposited a box of .44-.40 cartridges on the desk in front of Lester, then pulled a deputy marshal shield from the drawer and placed it alongside the bullets. “There you go, my friend. Now, we’d better be off before our quarry escapes.”
“Aren’t you gonna swear me in?” Lester scratched his tousled gray hair.
Livingston pursed his lips and inhaled deeply through his nostrils. “Raise your right hand.”
Lester did so.
“Now repeat after me,” Livingston said. “In the absence of a Bible, I still swear to uphold the laws of the town of El Paso, so help me God.”
Lester swallowed. “In the absence of God, I swear to hold up the law…”
Livingston strode briskly around his desk, took Lester’s hand, and pumped it heartily. “Congratulations, Deputy. Now, let’s ride.”
“But I didn’t finish the oath.”
“You did just fine.”
Emmett was glad to have seen Jack VanDorn face to face, even if only for a few minutes. While he thought Jack looked bad—pale, all shrunk in on himself, and in obvious pain from the two vicious bullet wounds—Doc Simons had promised him that, given time, Jack would once again become every bit the wildcat he’d always been. With those reassuring words somewhat assuaging his conscience, Emmett was now anxious to get back to Li and Juanito and to wait with them for Warren Livingston’s likely arrival.
He stepped cautiously through the doc’s front door onto a porch awash in the blinding rays of a sinking sun. Pulling his Stetson low over his eyes, he squinted into the stretch of street before him.
Across the way, to the left of the church, stood a clean, modest house. Must’ve been the parsonage. On the opposite side of the church, across a narrow drive, was a meat market. Its open front doors created a dark rectangle into which Emmett could barely see. Blasted sun!
With his gun hand close to his holster, he hastily studied the front of the next building over. Lettering painted directly onto the adobe told him it was a dry goods store. A shooter from over there would have to overcome a tough angle to hit him. A good marksman might finesse it.
Emmett stepped away from the doc’s front door, closer to one of the thick posts that supported the porch roof. He didn’t like the looks of the barbershop on this side of the street, directly to his right, where a pair of dust-coated windows faced him. Tarnation. Between the grime and the glare, he couldn’t see a thing through them.
Motion to his left caught his attention. He whipped his head that way just in time to spot a scrawny yellow cat scampering into the alley. Emmett exhaled.
Beyond the alley was a bakery, already closed for the day. An ordinary enough couple approached and lingered there, peering through the glass at the pastries inside.
Not wanting to remain a target any longer—out in the open with the glaring sun right in his eyes—Emmett hurried across the street and vaulted the steps into the church building.
Li was already making her way down the belfry ladder. She wasn’t beaming, but at least she seemed to have let go of the anger or frustration or whatever it was she’d been feeling toward him before he’d left. “How’s Mr. VanDorn?”
“Well enough,” Emmett said. “Looked kind of puny to me, but Doc Simons says he’ll be right as rain in no ti
me.”
Juanito glanced over his shoulder. “Did the doctor say anything about unexpected visitors? Any suspicious muchachos wasting time in the street out there?”
Emmett pursed his lips and shook his head. “None.”
Brushing off the dust she’d apparently just noticed all over her dark-blue trousers, Li asked, “So what now?”
“While I was inside the doc’s place”—Emmett motioned toward the belfry—“did you see anything peculiar from up there?”
“I don’t know whether to call it suspicious or not, but right after you went inside the doctor’s house, a man came out of the barbershop. He seemed to be in a hurry, as though he was late for some appointment. He didn’t look dangerous, though.”
“What did he look like?”
“Nothing remarkable—an older man, gray hair, messy clothes. No gun that I could see.”
“And which way did he go?”
“That way.” Li pointed.
“That way” was straight toward to the marshal’s office. But an unarmed, out-to-pasture old geezer? Would he be the kind of fellow the deputy would have chosen for a lookout?
“Anybody else?”
Li shrugged. “A few people passed along the street. Nobody extraordinary, though. Nobody lingering.”
This close to making Livingston face the music, Emmett was done taking needless chances. “Maybe the fella from the barbershop was watching me. Or maybe somebody from the meat market—somebody you couldn’t see from up there.” He gestured with his chin. “We need to assume Livingston is on his way over here.”
Juanito stepped back to the front door and opened it just enough to take a quick peek toward the doc’s place. “He won’t want us to slip away again. And if he has any backup left, he’ll bring them along.”
“I expect so.”
Li turned to Emmett. “Don’t let him put you back in that jail. I’ve got a bad feeling about that—about how things would turn out this time.” Concern showed in her dark eyes.
“Doc Simons said that if there’s a posse—any kind of ruckus like that—he aims to step out and tell ’em that there’s plenty enough evidence to prove our innocence, if they’ll just hold their horses and call the San Elizario town marshal over.”
“They’ll listen to the doctor?”
Juanito pulled the door closed again. “That deputy won’t bother trying to arrest us this time.”
Emmett raised a brow. “You figure he wants to go ahead and settle this once and for all?”
“That’s the way I see it—after he sent those hombres to finish us off in San Elizario and after what he did to the Singletons and Augusto.”
Emmett’s gaze dropped to Li’s holstered Colt Lightning. The glance wasn’t lost on her. He imagined what she must’ve been feeling, ginning up the courage for yet another shoot-out. You never got used to it. You always wondered whether this one would be your last.
“Livingston’ll get nervous,” he said. “He’ll make a mistake we can exploit.”
“We hope,” Juanito said, sardonically.
Emmett shot him a glower that said, Now why the hell did you have to go and say that?
His brother-in-law looked away and rubbed the back of his neck.
Li bit her lips.
Emmett took her by the shoulders. “You’ve done fine so far, Li, in some sticky situations. If it comes down to it—as far as Livingston is concerned—don’t hesitate. Shoot first, and we’ll talk it over later.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something but then nodded without speaking.
Warren Livingston pressed himself up against the wall just outside of Doc Simons’s back door while the newly deputized barber knocked urgently.
Doc brushed aside the curtain and peered out through the door’s glass pane. “All right, all right, I’m unlocking it now, Lester. What’s so all-fired important, and why didn’t you come in through the front like always?”
The doctor had one foot on the stoop when Livingston stepped away from the wall, handed the Winchester back to Lester, and said, “Evenin’, Doc.”
Simons’s face grew pale as his gaze darted from Lester to Livingston and back. His eyes narrowed once he spotted the badge on Lester’s chest. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked flatly.
“A criminal’s been here to visit you this afternoon,” Livingston said. “Don’t bother denying it—Lester saw him, comin’ and goin’.”
The doctor focused on his next-door neighbor. “You’re throwing in with the wrong lot, Lester,” he said. “Trust me on this one.”
“You’re wrong, Leonidas.” Lester’s voice was tinny. “Those out-o’-towners shot up the Wild Hog the other night. Killed Marshal Perry. Deputy, er, Marshal Livingston saw it all. Now, who’s word are you gonna take? The law we’ve known around these parts for some years? Or some off-the-reservation rangers?”
Doc Simons waved them off. “I’ve got nothing to say to either of you.” He took a half turn to go back inside.
With catlike reflexes, Livingston stopped the door with one hand and skinned one of his Colts with the other. He climbed the two back steps and looked the doctor in the eye. “Where did Emmett Strong go when he left here, Doc? And don’t tell me he didn’t say. I won’t take that for an answer.”
“Go easy now,” Lester said from behind him. “The doc’s a good man. Heart as big as a saddle blanket. He’s just been taken in by them rangers, like what happens to big-hearted folk all the time.”
“I believe you, Lester,” Livingston said. He took another step forward that forced the doctor back into his own kitchen. “Like Lester said, you got a big heart, Doc. Been taken in by some bad hombres. Now, I need you to help me. Where’d they go?”
Lester followed Livingston into the kitchen.
The doctor said, “I can’t tell you where Strong went, Livingston. But I will tell you where you can go.”
At that, Livingston shoved the muzzle of his revolver into the doctor’s belly. “Why don’t I send you on ahead of me so you can tell the devil I’m a-comin’?” He thumbed back the gun’s hammer.
“Y-you don’t have to do it this way, Marshal,” Lester said.
“Maybe you don’t know your neighbor as well as you thought you did. This man’s givin’ aid and comfort to outlaws.”
“Just tell us, Doc,” Lester implored. “I know the marshal don’t wanna hurt you. Why’re you bein’ like this?”
“Because the only outlaw that’s been in this house today is the one presently poking my gut with a gun.” Doc Simons was still backpedaling through his kitchen.
The sun had gone down, and daylight was just beginning to fade. Livingston didn’t want to fight this match in the dark. Not if he could help it. He wanted to get things moving. And he didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be able to.
Up until this point, Doc Simons had remained remarkably cool. Just now though, Livingston noted beads of perspiration beginning to form on the doc’s temples. Given the proper application of the right kind of pressure, he could make the old sawbones cooperate.
“Lester,” Livingston said, “you take that Winchester and go keep watch through Doc’s front window. I’ll wager that in just a short minute, Emmett Strong and his outlaws are gonna come a-runnin’. And when they do, you go right on ahead—bust out that window glass, and go to town on ’em with that smoke pole, you hear? I’ll be right behind you.”
Lester edged toward the hallway door but gave Livingston a dubious glance. “You sure?”
With a sharp nod, Livingston said, “Very sure.”
Past the kitchen doorway, Lester hesitated again.
“Who’re you?” came a voice from beyond the deputized barber. “Doc, what’s goin’ on?”
Livingston knew well it was Jack VanDorn. From what eyewitnesses had said, the ranger had been shot in the gro
in. Wouldn’t be walking for some time yet. Maybe never.
When he saw that the doc was about to respond to his patient, Livingston pointed his Navy revolver at the sawbones’s foot and squeezed the trigger.
The doctor howled.
VanDorn yelled feebly, “What the hell?”
Lester spun. “What’re you doin’, Marshal?”
“Questioning a witness. Now, get to that front window, and see if I’m not right. Hurry, before those outlaws are all over us,” Livingston barked.
Lester wavered, then trotted dutifully to the front parlor.
CHAPTER FIFTY
From inside the Baptist church, Emmett, Li, and Juanito heard the crack of the handgun.
“That came from right across the street.” Juanito was already rushing to the church’s front doors, coach gun in hand.
“Whoa, pard.” Emmett drew his Colt. “Don’t you reckon Livingston knows this is where we are?”
Juanito stopped at the door. “So you want to just stand there and let him box us in?”
“Better that he comes to us.”
“What if he shot the doctor? Or VanDorn?”
Earlier Emmett had thought about calling Li and Juanito over to the doctor’s house and holing up there. But VanDorn was in no condition to fight. And he didn’t want to risk seeing Doc Simons go down. Blood bucket that this town was becoming, El Paso needed folks skilled in the medical arts. Even more, it needed people of sound moral fiber. And that was what Doc Simons was.
“You think Livingston would beef the doctor? Just like that?” Emmett asked. “Especially when he’s trying to play us off as the outlaws?”
“I don’t know. He might shoot Jack, though, since he’s one of us.”
His brother-in-law had a point. Livingston—or some of his compañeros—had cut the throats of three innocent people over in San Elizario. For all his boyish, greenhorn deputy act, Warren Livingston was as cold-blooded as a Gila monster in the dead of winter.
Strong Suspicions (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 2) Page 28
