Behind her she heard the slow approach of a second horse. She must have ridden right by Vollo in the dark—the thought chilled her.
“Now, what have you gone all quiet for, missy? Could be you’re about to shuck that rifle of yours? I wouldn’t do that, I was you, as Vollo there has got himself into an aching madness that can’t be helped but one way. And if he don’t get his way soon, why, he’s just going to have to shoot something.”
She had to buy herself a little time. She didn’t think they could see her any better than she could see them, which, at present, wasn’t any more than a dim shape, since the clouds had decided once again to hide the moon glow. For once, she hoped they stayed that way.
“Well, now,” said Emma in what she hoped was a husky voice, though she had no idea if that’s what would appeal to men. Though she figured anything at all might appeal to such dregs as these. They were what her uncle had called “bottom feeders.” With that reminder of her uncle and of the day’s harsh events, she shook her head no, bent low, and shucked the rifle from the boot, praying it was loaded. She assumed it was, because her uncle would never have carried an unloaded weapon.
“Useless as a toothless dog,” he’d say, laughing.
The dark night managed to keep her hidden, and she hoped that the men were drunk enough to become confused by her maneuvering.
“She’s pullin’ the rifle, Rummler!” Vollo’s voice croaked from behind her.
Even in the dark, he sounded odd, as if he was drunk and having trouble breathing. From ahead, she heard the tall man peel back his pistol’s hammer.
“Don’t do it, little sister!” Rummler barked, his horse jigging and stamping.
From the sound of its hoofbeats, Emma could tell he didn’t know where to turn, where to shoot. Fast as she could, Emma jerked Cinda’s reins left, then booted her hard. A throaty nicker boiled up from the horse’s throat and she lunged forward, fighting the tug of the reins.
Any hopes Emma had of bolting free of the two drunks slipped away when a zipping sound like a bee seared the air just behind her head, followed tight by the sound of Rummler’s pistol cracking the dead black of night. Emma felt a tickle at the back of her neck, and wondered if she’d been shot. Time for worry later, she thought, if there was to be a later. I’m moving now and that’s all that matters.
The sound had spooked Cinda, and the horse reared, then was knocked off-kilter by something large and heavy that pinned Emma’s leg between it and Cinda’s belly. Her horse landed hard, grunted, and thrashed with her head at the other horse, but Emma knew their route had been cut off. Taking to the side of the trail would be a dicey proposition—the spruce were too thick along the road, and the night was too dark for such a gamble. A second later she felt a rough hand snatch at her, heard one of the men, might have been Rummler, too close and grabbing at her.
She swung the rifle across the front of her and connected with something that snapped, followed by a howl of pain. Something broke. Maybe the man’s fingers—too low to be his face.
But the victory was short and not sweet in the least. For the big heavy thing rammed her again. It was one of them, riding his horse into her on purpose. As it hit her a third time, it pinned her leg again and hot pain flowered in her knee. It felt as if something pulled apart, tore inside. She put it out of her mind and concentrated on staying in the saddle. If she fell off now, in the dark amid the legs of three thrashing, confused horses, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
Cinda’s front hooves rose, slammed down, then rose again, before lurching with a fresh blow from the other horse, and staggering. Emma pitched her right boot out of the stirrup, the leg throbbing from the pummeling. Her left boot stayed in the stirrup and Cinda lunged forward, dragging Emma with her. The roan bucked, slamming Emma up and down against the saddle, in counterpoint, jarring every bone in Emma’s body, and forcing her teeth together hard.
As she slammed forward and back, her gut lurched against the saddle horn and something clunked against it—Uncle Payton’s Colt Navy! She’d forgotten that she’d jammed it in the waistband of her denims when she left the marshal’s office. And it also occurred to her that it had been emptied of bullets anyway. But it might make a decent club, should it come to that. She jammed it down, hoping the commotion wouldn’t dislodge it.
It was all Emma could do to keep her grip on the side of the saddle, the awkward curve of the cantle affording no easy grip. Then, from close behind, closer than she expected, Vollo’s voice rasped out a barking laugh. It sounded wet and raw.
“You monster!” she shouted, and drove the rifle backward, hoping to repeat the damaging blow she’d dealt Rummler a few seconds before. But at that moment, dull light bloomed over the welter of thrashing horses. Ragged banks of clouds, like thick smoke, dragged and broke across the face of the moon. Emma caught sight of the far-off orb as she felt her right boot slide back into the stirrup. She rammed each foot forward hard, securing her seat on Cinda and swinging the rifle left, then right.
One swing felt as though she’d caught Vollo. She glanced left quickly and saw that his hands gripped his already bloody face, sporting swollen lumps of flesh, and streams of fresh blood dribbling through his fingers. The stricken man offered a flat grunt and his horse dropped back.
As if to help Emma, the clouds slipped closed over the moon again, like curtains on a stage play, and Emma booted Cinda into a hard gallop out of there. They might well follow, but at least she could put distance between them.
She heard Vollo’s ragged yelps of pain, heard Rummler screaming, “You’ll regret tangling with us, damn your hide!” He cranked off another round, a wild shot.
Emma heard it whiz close by. She swung back around, reins held loose in her left hand, and levered a shot, squeezed the trigger, and let it go. The brief flash of flame gave her away, as she knew it would, but she dropped low and hoped Rummler was too scared to try another shot. She was wrong. Something whistled and whizzed close by her head. She felt Cinda give a slight lurch, then resume her pounding run down the road they’d traveled for years. She hoped Cinda hadn’t been hit, but she kept on running hard. She trusted that the horse knew her way.
She sent another shot in rapid response and was rewarded with a diminishing strangled cry of pain. It sounded as if she’d gotten him. And she hoped it was a mortal shot. The thought, which she found cold comfort in, didn’t bother her in the least. At this moment all she wanted was to get home, sit before the fire, and not think about anything that had happened that day. Her back felt chilled and wet. Too cold for dew, but the night’s cold crept into everything.
It wasn’t until she neared the long turnoff to the Farraday spread that she straightened and reined up, guessing she’d done enough damage, at least for the night, to the two boozed-up fools hoping for something they would never get from her—not while she drew a breath.
As she neared the ranch house, light glowing from within the kitchen’s two windows, she saw Arliss hefting a lantern, crossing the room, and coming out onto the long roofed porch. Emma found herself releasing a long-held breath, almost as if she hadn’t breathed the entire trip back home.
She rode Cinda through the open door of the barn into the dark within, light from Arliss’s lantern slowly approaching, illumining the hay-strewn, hard-packed earthen floor, then the walls, then Emma and her horse. She looked up, offered a tired smile to Arliss. They said nothing to each other for a few moments while she loosened the cinch. She grabbed the saddle horn and found it split, the leather ripped as if peeled apart by a big hand, the wood underneath splintered and savaged. And there was something else there too, lodged in the wood. It was a bullet from Rummler. Must have been that last one he’d fired, when she’d lain low, hoping he’d not be able to mark where her flash had come from. She’d come that close to catching it in the back.
Then Arliss held up his lantern, touched her shoulder.
“Girl? What’s happened to you?”
“Why?” she said, turning her head toward him.
“Your back’s bloodied, coming clean through to your chore jacket.”
Then it occurred to her. That first shot from Rummler. Could have been Vollo; didn’t really matter. She remembered thinking she’d felt a tickle at the back of her neck. She reached up, touched high on her neck, just where her long hair was gathered. The bullet had buzzed like a bee between her loose ponytail and her neck. So close to getting shot . . . twice. Those boys would bear a close watch. She felt colder than ever.
“Who done this to you, girl? Emma? You tell me what’s gone on in town.” Arliss’s voice shook when he spoke, and she recognized it as that rare but unstoppable anger rising in Arliss Tibbs, something that even her father and Payton did their best not to rouse.
She turned and faced him, this old man, gimpy leg, nearly toothless, hard of hearing and cantankerous, and the nearest, dearest person she had left in her life. Emma hugged him, suddenly so tired and weary. He hugged her, patted her shoulder, made funny soothing sounds.
“I’ll help you with that saddle, get Cinda here a stall, some feed and water. She looks plumb tuckered. Nearly as rough as you.” He spoke as he worked, bucked the saddle onto the rail while Emma led the horse to a stall, rubbed her down with sacking, gave her feed and water from buckets Arliss had already drawn from the well for her.
“Come on inside now, girl. We’ll get you cleaned up, fed. You can tell me all about it. From the looks of things, you got a heap of tellin’ to do too. Then we rest up. Big day tomorrow.”
“Uncle Payton?” she said.
He nodded. “Him and me, we been busy.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The sound of clanging metal cleaved straight into Samuel Tucker’s skull with all the finesse of a dull ax and pulled him into a grudging sitting position.
“Good news, soak! You made it through the night without getting lynched. You about ready to rise and join the land of the living—at least for another couple of days?”
Tucker heard the voice as if it was echoing through water before it finally dawned on him that it was the marshal. He tried to open his mouth, tried to rub his head, tried a whole lot of things, but none of them seemed to want to happen at the same time. His head pounded like a fusillade of cannon fire.
“You . . . you were in a hurry last night . . .” Tucker stopped talking. It hurt too much. He lightly touched his forehead with his fingertips. Lumps, and on the back of his head too. And what felt like dried food back there in his hair. No, Tucker, he told himself. That would be blood. His ribs ached, and his chin felt as though it had swelled to the size of a can of peaches.
“What was that, soak?”
Tucker risked opening an eye, and found out that one eye was all he could muster. But he saw the big lawman smiling at him through the bars. Daylight fingered in through a small barred window at the end of the hallway. It looked to be set in a door, maybe to the outside. He slowly shifted his gaze back to the marshal. “I said you don’t have the guts to come on in here and call me that.”
Next thing he heard was the jangle of keys. Oh, I just can’t keep my mouth shut. And now he’s going to beat me more. Tucker tried to tighten his gut, turn his face to the side so the fist might not clock him square on the sniffer.
“Relax, soak. I brought you some breakfast.”
With his open eye, Tucker saw the man set down a wooden tray with a bowl of what looked like gruel, a ragged end of bread, a cup of steaming coffee, a short wooden spoon, and a cloth napkin. The marshal left the cell and returned in seconds with an enamel basin half-filled with hot water, steam rising from its surface. “You are a wreck, boy. I suggest you clean yourself.”
The marshal left the cell again, locked it behind him.
“Hey, Marshal.”
The man turned around.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you called me ‘soak’ when you came in here. Despite my very warning against it.”
The marshal actually smiled. “Wasn’t sure you’d notice.”
Tucker slid closer to the tray, stopped to rest beside it. “I’ll let it slide this time.”
The lawman left, shaking his head and smiling.
Tucker sat in the empty cell, looking at the bars across from him forming the wall of the next cell. From what he could tell with his one good eye, there were two cells back here, one window, and a door that sounded and looked as if it led to the outside, maybe to an alley out back.
“Great,” Tucker said aloud. “So you know where you’re at, Samuel Tucker. Now what?” First things first, he had to get this food inside him, clean up as best he could, then try to convince the marshal that he didn’t do it. At least spend time thinking about all the reasons why he couldn’t have killed that man so that when the traveling judge came, he’d have some sort of defense worked out.
He set to on the food and coffee with vigor and soon left the bowl gleaming clean, the tray free of any bread crumbs, and the coffee cup drained. It tasted as though he could use more, but he’d have to wait to press his luck with the marshal. From what he recalled of the night before, that big man had been a hard case to deal with, and quick to rile. Last night, last night . . . Had there been a girl? Here in the jail? As his mind scratched at the scrim of fogged memory, it slowly revealed bits and pieces of the previous night, none of which made sense.
He knew, from previous mornings when he’d been hungover from a big night in the bottle, that time often revealed enough moments to allow him to function again for another day, relatively assured that he’d not committed any major crimes. And he knew for certain this time was no different. As he mulled this over, the marshal returned and stood before the cell.
“I can identify the men who shot that Farraday fella. In fact, I am sure of it.”
“So can I, boy.” Hart leaned closer to the bars. “’Cause he’s sitting right in front of me. And that would be you, boy.”
Tucker closed his eyes, resisting the urge to scream. “Marshal, pretend for a moment that I am innocent. Wouldn’t you want to see that an innocent man jailed in your prison doesn’t pay for someone else’s crime?”
A broad smile sprawled out on the marshal’s face. “I couldn’t care less, and you shouldn’t either. ’Cause you won’t be in my jail. You’ll be swinging from that old tree up by the pioneer cemetery.”
Tucker sighed and kept on with his argument. “Because if I am innocent, but paying for the crime, that means the two men who did it are walking around free. Odds are they’re from your community too.”
That seemed to interest the marshal. “What makes you say that?”
“Touched a nerve, did I?” said Tucker. He tried to smile, but it hurt too much. “Stands to reason, Marshal. It wasn’t but a few hours to dark when it happened, so those killers would have headed to the nearest town to hole up, spend the money they stole.”
“They stole money, you say?”
“I know they took something from the man’s pocket once he was down. Looked like a folded paper. What it was, I don’t rightly know.”
“And how do you want me to go about finding them?”
Tucker resisted the urge to ask, Wasn’t that the job of a marshal, to find people? Instead he said, “Well, I could tell you what they look like, and then you could have them rounded up somehow, bring them on in. I could tell you if they are the men or not.”
“Mm-hmm. And it never would occur to you, a man who is in jail and who is, by all accounts, a worthless drifting soak, to lie about such a thing to save your own murderous hide, eh?”
Tucker gripped the bars, rattled them feebly. “Look, damn it, Marshal—”
“Don’t you curse in my presence, mister.”
“Curse? I said ‘damn it.’ I bet you say worse all
the time.”
The big lawman leaned close to the bars. “That’s twice. I hear it a third time, and you will wish you had been eaten alive by grizzlies as a child.”
“Will you at least let me tell you what they looked like? Maybe you’ll see them around town, and then if they kill someone else, you’ll be able to tell yourself that you could have done something about it but chose not to. That should provide some comfort.”
The marshal’s face tightened and his jaw muscle worked as if he were trying hard to not do something he really wanted to. “Don’t you dare lecture me, you cowardly little tramp.”
The two men stared at each other, equal height but one a too-thin rag of a man, the other a wide-shouldered law dog with a big mustache and thick eyebrows peppered with silver. He sported thick shoulders and a round gut gone soft and beginning to spill over his gun belt. There was also a quarter century between their ages.
“But if it will make you feel like you aren’t being railroaded, then by all means, describe these coldhearted killers who gunned down one of my best friends—a man I have known since the war, a man who I came to this territory with, along with his brother, when you were wetting yourself and eating bugs off a dirt floor back wherever it is you come from. Texas is my guess.”
Tucker liked that he had touched a nerve. He had no intention of letting go of any thread that might at least allow him to wedge a boot in the door before they stretched his neck.
“There were two of them, Marshal. One wore a brown hat and was taller than the other. Or at least he appeared so on horseback.” Tucker stopped for a moment. The lawman stared at him with half-hooded eyes like those of a lizard in the sun, seeing everything that went on around him.
“The other one was shorter, sported a dark dragoon mustache, wore a black hat with what looked like silver conchos. Oh, and they looked to be shooting Colt’s sidearms. Their mounts were—”
Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770) Page 7
