Rebecca shook her head. “None at all.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Although she would never admit it to Cornelius, and Seymour himself seemed to have no idea, Rebecca felt a certain affection for the young man. That was what had led her to visit his rooming house in Trenton before he left for Texas and give him a gun to take with him. She had known even then that Seymour’s uncle intended for the trip to be a fatal one. Standish had counted on the lawless element in Sweet Apple to do the job of getting rid of Seymour for him. Rebecca had been very much afraid that was exactly what was going to happen. She didn’t think the gun would really be of much help to Seymour, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him coming out here to the Wild West completely defenseless.
Somehow, Seymour had survived. More than that, he had carved out a new life for himself and become the town marshal, which was even more unlikely than his simple survival.
And now that she had seen him in this new persona, Rebecca found herself more drawn to him than ever before.
But she couldn’t admit that to Standish. She barely wanted to admit it to herself. There was no point in having any real feelings for Seymour, because with three hired killers now stalking him, his days were numbered. Rebecca knew she couldn’t do anything to forestall Standish’s plans.
Cornelius Standish always got what he wanted, sooner or later.
Rebecca was living proof of that. She suppressed a shudder of revulsion as his grip on her arms turned into a caress . . .
Seymour was still thinking about the unexpected appearance in Sweet Apple of his uncle, Rebecca, and the three new dry-goods salesmen as he went up the walk to the little house where Maggie lived. She had asked him to supper tonight, but he had suggested that they eat at the café instead, since it wouldn’t really be proper for them to be alone together at her house. Seymour didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize Maggie’s reputation.
He had put on a black jacket and a string tie to make his outfit more appropriate for an evening out. He still wore his Stetson, though, and the gunbelt. As marshal, he had to be armed, even when he was just enjoying a meal with a young lady. He was sure Maggie would understand. Having grown up around here, she knew more about such things than he did.
He knocked on the door of the neat little adobe house and then took his hat off, holding it in both hands in front of him. Maggie didn’t answer right away, as she usually did. Seymour frowned, and was wondering if he ought to knock again when the door opened.
Maggie stood there, wearing a nice dark blue dress with tiny yellow flowers on it. She always smiled prettily when she greeted him, but not this time. She gave him an intense look that Seymour, if he hadn’t known better, would have sworn was suspicious and maybe even a little angry.
But she couldn’t be angry with him, he told himself, because he hadn’t done anything. Something else must have happened to upset her, he decided. Hoping that she would confide in him, he said, “Good evening, Maggie. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was cool. “What are you doing here, Seymour?”
He was taken aback by the question. After a moment, he said, “Why . . . we’re supposed to have dinner together this evening. Have you forgotten? Or . . . do I have the wrong night?” That had to be it, he thought. Stupid fool that he was, he had gotten mixed up and called for her on the wrong night.
“No, we had a dinner engagement, but I assumed that you’d need to cancel it.”
Seymour was getting more confused by the second. “Why would I need to do that?” he asked.
“You have visitors in town. Your uncle . . . and a very attractive young woman.”
A common word that Seymour often heard uttered in disgust by cowboys who frequented the Black Bull and the other saloons in Sweet Apple crossed his mind, although of course he couldn’t actually say it in front of Maggie. He wasn’t sure he could have allowed such a coarse exclamation to cross his lips whether she was there or not.
But he certainly thought it as he realized that someone had told Maggie about him walking arm in arm from the train station to the hotel with Rebecca Jimmerson, with her pressed so intimately against him. Plenty of people in the street had seen them, so there was no telling who had carried the tale to Maggie—or why, other than as sheer gossip.
But surely Maggie would understand and not be angry once he explained the situation. “It’s true that my uncle is in town,” he said quickly. “The, ah, young lady is his secretary, Miss Jimmerson. That’s all. She and I aren’t friends.”
Maggie sniffed. “That’s not the way I heard it. Mr. Delacroix told me that the two of you seemed quite friendly when you walked past the Black Bull with her this afternoon.”
So that was who had spilled the beans to Maggie, Seymour thought. Pierre Delacroix owned the Black Bull Saloon; his son Oliver was one of Maggie’s students. Seymour knew that Delacroix was friendly with Maggie. He had even wondered if the gambler and saloon keeper had some romantic feelings for her, even though the dapper Cajun probably wouldn’t admit it. If that were the case, it would be to Delacroix’s benefit to make Maggie jealous of Rebecca. Nothing drove a wedge between people faster than jealousy.
“Mr. Delacroix was incorrect,” Seymour stated firmly. “Miss Jimmerson took my arm, but only because she was a bit nervous about being in a frontier town, especially one with a lawless reputation such as Sweet Apple enjoys. I explained to her that there’s law and order here now—”
“Provided by you, the heroic marshal.” Maggie crossed her arms over her bosom. “I’m sure you told her all about that, too.”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t even mention—” Seymour stopped short as he recalled that he had brought up the topic of the battle with Mallory’s outlaw gang and Alcazarrio’s so-called revolutionaries. “I never referred to myself as a hero,” he finished, knowing the claim sounded a bit limp.
“Your Miss Jimmerson probably read about you in the newspapers.”
“She’s not my Miss Jimmerson,” Seymour insisted. Frustration with the situation and with Maggie’s intractable attitude made him add, “If anything, she’s my uncle’s Miss Jimmerson.”
He caught his breath as he realized that was the first time he had ever put into words his long-held suspicion that there was something unseemly going on between Cornelius Standish and the young woman who worked as his secretary. It was scandalous enough that a businessman even had a woman as a secretary. Nearly all of those jobs were held by men. Seymour had always preferred not to even think about what other duties Rebecca might be required to perform for his uncle.
“You believe me, don’t you, Maggie?” he asked, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. He didn’t like hearing it there—he had enjoyed his newfound self-confidence—but there was nothing he could do about it. Even he was surprised by how important it was to him that Maggie not think anything bad about him.
After a moment, her expression softened, but only slightly. “I suppose so,” she said. “You’ve always struck me as a very truthful man, Seymour.”
“I certainly try to be,” he said. “Does this mean we can go ahead and have dinner like we planned?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve worried myself into a headache, and I don’t feel like it. But . . . another time perhaps.”
“Of course,” Seymour agreed without hesitation. Even with his relative lack of experience, he knew that when a woman said no and extended the hope that she might say yes another time, it didn’t really mean anything, but what else could he do besides accept her decision? He went on. “I hope you get to feeling better.”
“I’m sure I will . . . now.”
Now that he had promised her there was nothing going on between him and Rebecca, that was what she meant, he thought as he put his hat on and turned away. Maggie eased the door closed behind him. He sighed and started down the walk toward the street. Night had fallen while he was talking to Maggie, and the shadows were thick.
But
not so thick that he didn’t see the indistinct movement nearby—and a second later the gloom in that direction was sundered by a sudden gout of flame from the muzzle of a gun.
Chapter 7
Matt Bodine felt some familiar stirrings inside him. He and Sam had been in Sweet Apple for several weeks now. Most of the time in their travels, they stayed in a town for only a few days, a week at most. Their only lengthy sojourns had been when they returned to Montana to visit their families. Other than that, they had stayed on the move more often than not.
So when Matt felt the wanderlust growing within him, he knew what it was. As he sat behind the marshal’s desk in Seymour’s office and tipped his chair back, rocking it a little with a booted foot against the desk, he looked across the room at Sam and said, “I’ve been thinkin’ . . .”
Sam was cleaning his Winchester. Without looking up from the task, he said, “We can’t leave.”
“I didn’t say we should.”
“No, but when you get to thinking, that’s usually what it’s about. Either that or some pretty girl.”
Matt grinned. “I do have an eye for the ladies,” he said. “But you’re right, that’s not what I was thinkin’ about.”
“Do you really believe that Seymour is capable of handling things here by himself?”
Matt let the chair down. “We didn’t sign on to be permanent wet nurses. Besides, he stood up for himself just fine in that big fight with those owlhoots.”
“With our help,” Sam pointed out. “And now he has to worry about a full-scale war breaking out between Double C and Pax.”
“Aw, Jessie and Sandy’s daddies will settle all that in court,” Matt said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Do you really believe that?”
“I’d like to believe it.”
“So would I,” Sam said, “but I don’t.”
Matt sighed. “No, neither do I, if you come right down to it. Those two old pelicans are too used to getting their own way. Neither one of them will back down, no matter what some judges or lawyers say.”
Sam worked the lever of the unloaded gun and nodded in satisfaction at the smoothness of the action. He took cartridges from an open box on the table beside him and began thumbing them through the Winchester’s loading gate.
“That’s what I think, too,” he agreed. “So I don’t believe it would be a good idea for us to leave right now.”
“So what do we do? We have to leave sometime.”
“Maybe we should tell Seymour to start looking around for some permanent, full-time deputies,” Sam suggested. “If he could find a couple of good men who actually wanted the job, and if the town council would agree to pay their wages . . .”
“Now you’re talkin’,” Matt said as he stood up and reached for his hat, which he had dropped on the desk earlier. “I don’t really want to go off and leave Seymour in a bad spot, but I’ve started to get a hankerin’ to ride out to California.”
“California?” Sam repeated. “What’s in California?”
“We won’t know till we get there, will we?” Matt asked with a smile as he settled his hat on his head. “That’s sort of the whole point, ain’t it?”
Sam chuckled. “Where are you going?”
“Thought I’d go get some supper. Want to come along?”
“No, I’ll hold down the fort here until you or Seymour gets back.”
“Don’t hold your breath waitin’ for Seymour. He was havin’ supper with that little schoolmarm of his. They’ll probably go for a walk afterward, maybe do a little sparkin’. I don’t expect him back until late.”
“That’s all right. More power to him.”
“Yeah,” Matt agreed with a nod. “More power to him.”
He left the marshal’s office and turned toward the café, still thinking about California. He and Sam had been there before, and had even gotten mixed up in a ruckus or two while they were visiting the so-called Golden State—no surprise there, they generally found the nearest ruckus wherever they were—but it had been a while. He wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean again, Matt thought.
Those musings were going through his mind when he heard the sudden roar of a gunshot from somewhere along the street.
One shot didn’t necessarily mean anything bad, but a whole flurry of them did, especially when they came from different guns. Matt broke into a run toward the sounds of battle, drawing his Colt as he did so.
He saw spurts of orange flame in the gloom up ahead. One of the combatants was to his left, two more to his right behind a parked wagon. The man to Matt’s left was lying on the ground. Matt suspected that he’d been bushwhacked by the two men behind the wagon. That was how setups like this usually played out. His sympathy naturally went to the fella who was outnumbered, but as he approached, he warned himself that he didn’t really know what was going on here.
Then, with a shock of recognition, he realized that the house behind the little yard where the lone man lay belonged to Maggie O’Ryan. Seymour had been headed here earlier. Was he the one who had been ambushed?
That guess was confirmed a second later when the door of the house opened, spilling light from inside. The man in the yard saw it and twisted around, shouting, “Maggie, no! Get back inside!”
Matt recognized Seymour’s voice. Another pair of shots rang out from the men behind the wagon, and Seymour grunted as if in pain. He must have been hit, Matt thought.
That cinched it. Matt knew who the bad hombres were here, and veered to the right so that he could get a shot at the men using the wagon for cover.
They must have heard his boots slapping against the dusty street, because one of them suddenly whirled and blazed away at him. Something slammed against Matt’s right foot and knocked that leg out from under him as he ran. Thrown off balance, he tumbled to the ground and rolled over a couple of times. Slugs smacked into the dirt near him.
He came to a stop on his belly with the revolver still in his hand. Tipping up the barrel, he triggered twice. One of the bullets ricocheted off a metal fitting on the wagon. Matt didn’t know where the other one went—but he hoped it was right into the mangy hide of one of those bushwhackers.
Seymour was still firing from Maggie’s yard. Facing threats from two different directions now, the would-be killers broke and ran. Matt sent two more shots whistling after them as they sprinted for the mouth of a nearby alley, but since neither man broke stride, he figured his bullets missed.
The men disappeared into the stygian darkness of the alley. As Matt pushed himself to his feet, he heard their swift footsteps fading away. They weren’t doubling back to try again. They had given up on killing Seymour and were taking off for the tall and uncut instead.
Matt’s right foot was numb. He didn’t know if he was hit or not, but when he tried to take a step he almost fell, barely catching himself before he sprawled in the dirt again. He didn’t feel any blood leaking into his boot. He limped over to the wagon, which was the closest thing he could grab onto and use to steady himself. When he lifted his right foot and examined the boot, he saw that the heel had been shot away. His foot was numb from the impact of the bullet, but otherwise unharmed.
He couldn’t move very fast with his boots uneven like that, so he holstered his gun and yanked both boots off his feet, tossing them into the back of the wagon. Then he drew the Colt again and hurried across the street to Maggie O’Ryan’s front yard. The feeling was starting to come back into his foot, so his stride wasn’t too awkward.
“Seymour!” Matt called. “Seymour, are you all right?”
The door burst open again and this time Maggie wasn’t going to be sent back inside. Now that the shooting was over, she rushed out, crying, “Seymour! Seymour, are you hurt? Oh, Dear Lord, you can’t be dead!”
“I’m not,” Seymour replied in a strained voice as he struggled up into a sitting position. Matt and Maggie reached him at the same time and knelt on either side of him.
“Where are you hit?” Matt asked
.
“I . . . I don’t believe I am.”
“Way you grunted, I thought one of ’em had winged you.”
“No, a bullet hit the ground quite near my face and threw dirt in my eyes.” Seymour wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “It was rather painful, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything. But it’s getting better now.”
Maggie threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Thank God you’re all right!”
Matt heard more running footsteps and straightened, thinking that the bushwhackers might be coming back after all. But even in the shadows of evening, he recognized the tall, broad-shouldered figure hurrying toward them.
“Over here, Sam,” Matt called.
Sam trotted up, hatless and carrying the Winchester he had been cleaning earlier. “What happened?” he asked. “Is everybody all right?”
“A couple of varmints bushwhacked Seymour,” Matt explained. As he turned back toward the marshal, he saw that Maggie had helped Seymour to his feet and was still standing there close beside him, with one arm around him. “You sure you’re not hurt, Seymour?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“Tell us exactly what happened,” Sam urged.
Matt said, “I can tell you that. Those no-good bushwhackers were hidin’ behind that wagon over there, and they threw down on Seymour when he came out of Miss O’Ryan’s place.”
It seemed awfully early to Matt for Seymour and Maggie to be getting back from their supper, but he didn’t bring that up. Seymour could explain that part of it if he wanted to.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that way,” Seymour said, causing Matt to look at him in surprise.
“How was it then?” Sam asked.
“Those men were lying in wait for me when I came back down the walk, true, but they weren’t behind the wagon. They walked toward me bold as brass and started to shoot.”
“How come you’re not ventilated?” Matt wanted to know.
“When I saw them in the shadows, some . . . instinct, I suppose you’d say, warned me. I crouched down and leaped to the side just as they opened fire. Then I lay down on the ground, pulled my gun, and returned their fire.”
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