by Micki Miller
Table of Contents
Excerpt
The Marshal’s Pursuit
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Garrett knew the instant Penny awoke.
Her body stiffened, and he was sure he’d frightened her with the intimacy of his presence. But when he drew back from her, Penny’s hand clutched at his shirt. Her head tipped upward, and he looked down to meet her gaze. The firelight caught in her wide eyes, giving radiance to the emerald color. Her skin was sleep-flushed, looking soft as a fairy wing in the glow of the moon. She spoke her words in a quiet voice. The pull of them, however, was as strong as a locomotive.
“Stay, please. Just a little while longer.”
The Marshal’s Pursuit
by
Micki Miller
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Marshal’s Pursuit
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Michelle Miller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Rae Monet, Inc. Design
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Cactus Rose Edition, 2016
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0998-9
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0999-6
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
Randy, you took care of business
so my mind could be free.
I love you always.
Chapter 1
Mill’s Creek, Missouri 1880
An outlaw was robbing the bank!
Although she stood personally witnessing the abomination of her father’s business, twenty-year-old Penny Wills could hardly believe it. These things happened in bigger towns, more lucrative towns, St. Louis, Kansas City, even Brighton. But here in Mill’s Creek where every face was at the very least familiar? Well, it just didn’t happen.
Penny cocked an ear and listened for movement from behind the counter where Neil, the young teller, fainted when the gun swung in his direction. She didn’t hear so much as a sniff or a groan and worried Neil may have hit his head in the fall and suffered a serious injury. She considered asking the lone robber if she could tend to him, but when the foul-smelling man turned from the counter to the three other people in the bank, Penny stared into his cold, flat eyes and saw he held no mercy.
The grimy outlaw lacked the height and fine build of her father, Frank, who stood a few feet to her left, but he was taller than Bentley Werner, her father’s starchy clerk, who was directly to her right and only a couple of inches taller than her five and a half feet. The robber’s brown hair was likely shaded darker by the countless layers of filth, just like his long-lived jacket and trousers. Dirt caked his old boots in patchy layers. At his waist hung a sheathed knife, the wood handle with a nickel inlay surprisingly clean compared to the rest of him.
His eyes peered out between his ragged hat and the frayed and dusty red bandana tied around his face, dark as deep pits, narrowed, glinting with the power he held over his captives.
Penny clutched her beaded reticule tighter and rolled it into the folds of her lavender skirt. She’d only just collected her allowance from her father, and she didn’t want this scoundrel to get his thieving hands on it.
“You!” the robber growled, stabbing the gun toward her father.
Penny gasped and moved to go to him, but Bentley grabbed her hard by the arm.
Penny raised her eyes to meet her father’s. Her papa gave her a smile and a wink, instantly calming her. He glanced at Bentley then, stern meaning tight in his gaze. Bentley moved to stand in front of Penny. She bent her neck to peer around him.
“Easy,” her father said to the robber. “I’ll get the money for you.” Frank then removed a burlap sack from a shelf behind the counter and opened the cash drawer. He spoke calmly to the outlaw as he filled it. “See, no trouble.”
“Be sher you git all of it,” said the robber. His voice sounded as dirt-clogged as his appearance, as if tiny stones rolled in his chest.
Bentley spotted her looking and again placed himself in front of her. For a few moments, all Penny could hear was a quiet rasping of bills and the jangle of coins. Glancing up at the back of Bentley’s head, she caught him giving a quick and subtle nod. Was he sending a signal to her father, or maybe receiving one?
Peeking around Bentley, she caught only a brief glance at her father and the robber behind the counter before Bentley once more tucked her behind him. For almost a full minute or so, she heard nothing. They must have gone in the safe to get the money stored there.
At the sound of their footsteps, she moved on silent feet around Bentley. Her father walked to her side and turned around. He had his hands raised even though the man hadn’t told him to do so. Her father looked at her again, gave her another smile, another wink, before facing the outlaw who held his gun in one hand and a burlap sack in the other. For the first time since she’d seen the rough man walk through the door, face covered, gun in hand, Penny knew some relief, for the ordeal was almost finished.
He must not have tied his bandana tight enough, for it hung loose at a slant, showing a bit of the left side of his face. He had a beard, the unkempt kind that grew from neglect rather than intent. It was scraggly, uneven, and looked as filthy as his hair.
“You got what you came for,” Frank said in a calm, steady voice. “Now go on while you can, before somebody comes in, or sees you through that big window and gets the sheriff.”
After shooting a brief look out the front window, where encroaching rainclouds dampened the sun-flow, the outlaw took a single step back. Then he took another. His boots made heavy thuds on the wood planks, and before he could catch it, the bandana slipped from his face and fell to the floor.
The right side of his face bore a thick scar, pale, raised, and running from an inch or so beneath his eye, slashing into his beard, forbidding hair to grow on its shallow mound. His thick lips twisted in an ugly grimace, baring brown and yellow stained teeth.
The outlaw turned a quick glance toward Bentley and Penny. A flicker of panic passed through his eyes, but it vanished in a single beat of her racing heart. His left hand brushed the hilt of his knife. He then pointed the gun directly at Frank, and before anyone could say a word, he pulled the trigger three times.
Penny screamed and ran to her father, falling beside him. She didn’t hear the pounding footsteps of the outlaw as he ran from the bank. Bentley was speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear anything over her own cries, couldn’t see anything but three pools of blood growing on her father’s chest, and the vacant stare of his eyes.
Chapter 2
Shelton, Missouri 1880
The late day sun surrendered its futile efforts to
break through the ceiling of ill-omened clouds. Night was going to come early. Street dust hovered low, kicked up with the bustle of folks, most heading home for their supper, walking or on horseback, some in wagons filled with supplies and chattering children. More than a few men, ranch hands, drifters and such, headed for one of the saloons for a night of drinking, or gambling, or fancy women, maybe for all three. No one took notice of the two men riding toward the jail.
Marshal Garrett Kincaid pulled up on the reins of his sable stallion, but at this point, it was little more than a tug. His well-muscled horse was as tired as he was. Even the cold wind, too stubborn to give way to the imminence of spring, wasn’t enough to revive him. Though he was only twenty-eight years old, today Garrett was so worn he could have been at least five decades older.
He glanced over to the horse tied to his, where his prisoner sat with his cuffed hands resting on the saddle horn. The Red Devil, the only name he’d been able to get out of him, named so by the newspapers for his numerous crimes of arson, looked just as tired after their long chase and the ride back. He was a slender, slicked-down man wearing a fine suit now marred with wrinkles and dirt. His waxed mustache had long wilted, and several coats of road dust now buried the shine of his shoes. For the first time in days, Garrett took notice of his own canvas duster. He looked no better.
Garrett dismounted and walked around to the criminal he’d hunted down for months, the man responsible for many thousands of dollars in damages, and far worse, the death of two people. Looking up at the bruised face of his prisoner, the marshal found himself wishing the man had put up more of a fight. Garrett yanked him from the saddle without regard for the hard fall.
“Sir!” the Devil shouted from the ground. A thin cloud of dirt swirled around him. “You’ve captured me already. You needn’t be so rough.”
“Needn’t I?” Garrett mocked as he “helped” the Devil up by lifting the back of his shirt collar, causing him to gasp for air. “You needn’t have set those fires costing businesses their livelihoods and good people their jobs. You needn’t have burned any of the other structures you decided to torch, for that matter.”
Garrett didn’t touch on the deaths. He didn’t trust himself to bring the miserable bastard in alive if he let his mind think on those two innocent people who woke up to find themselves trapped in a burning building.
“Only two were businesses, and it was after hours so no one was there. The rest of them were abandoned buildings. I was doing the towns a favor, getting rid of eyesores.”
Garrett shoved him hard between the shoulder blades, propelling the Devil up the wooden steps and onto the board sidewalk. “One of them was occupied. A young couple died in the last fire you set.”
“Squatters,” the arsonist replied with disdain. “They were no one.”
Garrett gave the Devil a good kick in the ass. It sent him flying through the partially opened door into the sheriff’s office. The arsonist couldn’t catch his balance and landed face down on the floor. Garrett walked in behind him, feeling a bit more revived.
Sheriff John Gladwin jumped up from behind his desk, his pen falling from his hand and smearing ink across the page on which he’d been working. He scowled at the mess and looked up again to see Marshal Kincaid walk through his door.
Glaring at his old friend, Garrett said, “Don’t look at me like that, John. I’m cold, hungry, and tired. Besides, I brought you a special guest.” He grabbed the Devil’s collar again and yanked him up, once more making him momentarily struggle for breath.
“Sheriff,” the Devil said when he could speak, his bound hands rubbing his throat. The chain linking his cuffs rattled slightly. “This man is a brute. I’ve been subjected to inhumane treatment since the moment we met.”
Gladwin, a neat man even in his daily wear, five years older than Garrett and almost as big, looked over the new arrival. “Well, if it isn’t the Red Devil himself. Look at that, you’re flesh and blood after all.”
Garrett didn’t miss his friend taking note of the ugly bruise on the prisoner’s jaw and the one beneath his still swollen eye.
Gladwin turned to Garret. “He does look a mite damaged.”
“He falls down a lot.” Had the Devil possessed the powers of his namesake, the glare he shot Garrett would have burnt the marshal to a smoldering crisp. Garrett barely noticed, and he cared even less. He also ignored Sheriff Gladwin’s raised eyebrow. “You got my wire, I take it.”
“I did,” answered Gladwin before turning back to look at the Devil. “And we got a real nice cell all ready for you.”
Garrett fished a key from his pocket and unlocked the handcuffs. Sheriff Gladwin then escorted the Devil around the corner and down the hall to his cell. As the prisoner’s complaints faded, Garrett stepped over to the potbellied stove in the corner and poured himself a tin cup full of coffee. Compared to his mother’s special brew, it tasted like boiled soil. After the long, cold days and nights he’d just spent, though, the fact that it was hot and fresh elevated it to just a few notches below mediocre.
He leaned back against the wall where the stove had warmed the bricks, closed his eyes, and took another swallow. It tasted worse than the first. His hair had grown too long, and the curls that tended to form poked into his neck, irritating his skin till it matched his mood. He tipped his head forward and gave his neck a vigorous scratch, and then did the same for the growth on his face.
A moment later, the sheriff returned and poured himself a cup. He then rounded his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and removed a tall bottle of amber liquid.
“A little early to be dosing your coffee, isn’t it?”
“It’s for yours.” Gladwin set down his cup and crossed the room. He opened the bottle and poured a splash of whiskey into Garrett’s coffee before going back to his desk and returning the bottle to the drawer. The sheriff sat down, then motioned toward the chair on the other side of his desk.
Garrett pushed off from the wall and took the seat. He didn’t know what the news was; only that he wasn’t going to like it. “What?” he asked after taking a bracing sip. At least the coffee tasted better.
“A telegram came for you this morning.”
“And?”
“There’s been a bank robbery. Mill’s Creek.”
“Mill’s Creek,” the marshal said slowly, chewing on the name for a moment. “Yeah, I’ve passed through there a time or two. Nice little town. Pretty big news for a place like that.”
“It gets bigger. Garrett, I know you tend to take these things personally, after what happened to your father and all.” The sheriff paused and shot a longing glance at the drawer where he kept the whiskey.
“Out with it, John.”
“The proprietor of the bank,” the sheriff said as he shuffled through the orderly stack of papers on the corner of his desk. He found what he was looking for. “Frank Wills. He was killed in the robbery.”
“Damn,” Garrett whispered, closing his eyes for a moment. He knew all too well the depth of grief a murder left in its wake. Even after all these years, there were still moments when he struggled to keep his head above it. He scratched at his neck again.
“You’re supposed to head down there first thing in the morning. You’ll have time for a good night’s sleep, a bath, and some barbering.”
Garrett turned his gaze to the window. Droplets of water had begun to fall. People dashed across the street this way and that trying to get to their destinations before the inevitable downpour.
“Maybe,” John said, reading his friends thoughts, “the storm will have come and gone by then.”
Garrett lifted his cup to his lips and tipped it, finishing the bolstered coffee to the last drop.
Chapter 3
A clap of thunder loud enough to rattle the windows caused the room full of somberly dressed people to jump. Several of the women gasped, clutching their tear-soaked linens to their chests. What had started as an early spring sprinkle halfway through the funeral turned into
a downpour by the time the preacher said his final words. Nobody left early, though. And the growing storm didn’t keep anyone from coming to the house after.
Huddled in her home with all those who came to pay their respects, the storm lashing at every wall and window, Penny could almost believe the Grim Reaper himself was pounding to get in, trying to claim what was left of her.
Soft murmurs of sympathy brushed by Penny like the waves of heat issued by the fireplace, neither quite touching. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling comforted or warm again. Occasionally, someone would sit beside her and put an arm or both around her, and she wanted to garner solace from their efforts, but she was too numb to feel and too desolate to care. Her dear, sweet father, the last relative she had left, was dead.
Sitting on the green, tufted sofa in the front parlor of her home, Penny gathered up some of the good manners taught to her by Miss Priscilla during her time in Boston and at least met the eyes of her guests. It was a grand and taxing effort. They’d come for him, her papa, so she would do her best to graciously accept the kind things said about him and wait until they were gone before drowning in her tears.
Everybody loved her father. Most of the town had shown up for his funeral. Wet and cold, they flooded into the house now, she could see through the open double doors of the parlor where she sat, as if washed in by the storm.
She saw Pearl, willowy, and yet somehow sturdy, manage the influx of mourners with tireless grace. Pearl had been their housekeeper and cook since her mother died when Penny was seven years old. Pearl stood at the door offering towels to people from a stack on a nearby chair as soon as they walked in. Many handed over cloth-covered dishes, others brought jars of something they’d canned in the fall, all of which Pearl, or some other helpful soul, carried back to the kitchen. Before the door could close, someone else was coming through it.
No longer able to keep up the pretense of conversation, or knowing how or wanting to respond, Penny lowered her eyes. Mud splattered her dress. She brushed at it out of habit, not because she actually cared. The black crape was damp in places, soaked where the umbrella Pearl held over their heads offered little protection.
