She guessed that he’d left the doors unlocked and open because he thought she’d remain tied to the bed. Every time she thought of him, the audacity of his actions, she gritted her teeth. Think about it later, she told herself. Don’t let it stop you from getting out of here.
She reached the hallway door, fully expecting to have to dart between the two brutes dressed in black. But they weren’t flanking the door at their usual posts. They weren’t anywhere she could see, but she wasn’t going to give them a chance to see her standing motionless. She dashed forward, the jagged remains of the drinking glass clutched in her hand, the white dress fluttering against her legs. She wished she had her boots.
Cinda. She had to get to Cinda at the livery. She had to get home. That was all she could think of doing. If she could get away from town, maybe she could figure out what to do next. Part of her wanted to believe what the liar had told her, that he hadn’t actually burned her home. But the wiser, skeptical part knew that everything he said was a lie. Had to be. Nothing he’d said yet had added up. Why else would he tie her up?
She rabbited down the flights of stairs and made the lobby without seeing another soul. She paused in the lobby—same thing. Not a person in sight. It wasn’t until she reached the wooden raised sidewalk that she saw other people and felt the coldness of the bright dawning day. Several people glanced her way. Most of them stopped and stared.
“Help!” she said, running toward them. They backed away from her, and when she kept advancing, they hustled away from her. One woman dropped her shopping basket, and an apple popped free and rolled across the street.
Two horses tied outside the hotel fidgeted. The livery was at the east end of the street, and she broke into a run toward it, and looked down to see the jagged glass gripped in her hand. It had cut into her fingers, and blood ran down her fingers, spattered on the pristine white dress. She threw the glass away between two buildings and wiped her hand on the dress, held it tight to the fabric. She didn’t care; all she wanted to do was get on her horse and get home. Arliss and Samuel had to be okay—they just had to be.
Off to her right, she spotted the monster himself, pounding hard down the steps of the doctor’s office, his two black-clad men trailing close behind.
Tarleton saw her at the same time and shouted across the street, “Stop her! She has become violent, deluded. She tried to kill me. I only want what is best for her!”
As he spoke, his two henchmen fanned out, intending to close in on her from each side. Emma turned, ran up the middle of the street, the cold earth painful on her feet, but the sensation doing more to revive her than the brisk air did. It felt like snow air, and this time it might well bring with it snow that stayed.
She suddenly wanted a mouthful of snow, she was so thirsty. But she had to get to the livery—and yet that was at the opposite end of the street. She could skirt the buildings along Main Street, head down the alleys, run through backyards.
But would they have thought of that already? That she might want her horse?
“Get her! Please help me save poor Emma!”
His voice trailed after her and she knew she had to do something soon. They wore boots and had guns and would soon have horses, and no one in the town, it seemed, wanted anything to do with her until she was wed to the killer.
“He set our house on fire! He burned our ranch! He stuck me with a needle, tried to kill me, put me in this stupid dress!”
“She is ranting, people. My dear sweet bride is under tremendous strain. She needs rest. I can take her away to a special place where they will care for her and nurse her back to health.”
She turned, looked over her shoulder at him. He advanced, his arms out, his nose bandaged. He looked like a duck all dandied up for a day at church. His arms reached toward her from halfway down the street, his head tilted to one side. But she knew that look, knew the evil behind it. What did he want with her? Because he had taken a fancy to her and he wanted whatever he couldn’t have? Is that all I am? she thought. She stopped in the middle of the street, looked at the faces of the people lining the sidewalks, all staring at her, shielding their eyes from the rising sun warming the length of the street.
“Is that all I am to you? To him? A head of cattle to be sold off for a song so you can all sleep easier knowing your loans won’t be called in? You honestly believe what he’s telling you?”
“That’s about enough, Emma.”
She turned to see Marshal Hart stepping down from the boardwalk in front of the jail. He had on his star, big hat, wool vest over a blue shirt. She used to think he was so fancy, such a kind man and so brave with that star and those handcuffs. Now she saw an old, sagging man prone to fatness. He walked up to her, kept his hands wedged under his belt.
“What is this, Emma?”
“Marshal, look, I know you and I have had our differences lately, but I’m here to tell you, he’s trying to kill me. He burned the ranch down last night. I heard him give the order. I heard it myself!”
“Emma, this isn’t like you—”
“You’re right! It’s not like me, so listen to me for once—”
“No, Emma. You listen to me—your uncle Payton had a big loan out on the place. He lost the ranch to Grissom when he couldn’t pay it off. Then Lord Tarleton came in and bought up Grissom’s bank and all its loans for a fair price. Hell, he bought a handful of businesses in town too. Claims he is going to launch a new business that is going to make every man, woman, and child in Klinkhorn rich, and the town a place on a map and not just a struggling old mine town filled with people who ain’t got nowhere else to go.”
“So for all that I’m supposed to marry this man? He stole my family’s land, he burned my home and hell, for all I know, Arliss and . . . well, he might have been in the fire! Marshal, at least let me get to the livery so I can get my horse and ride home.”
The marshal closed his eyes and sighed. “Emma, there wasn’t any fire.”
“How do you know?” As Emma said it, she saw the marshal’s eyes flick to something over her shoulder. One of the men in black had closed in without her seeing him, and he was now just a few strides away.
Before she could get her next words out of her mouth, the big man reached out and clamped a big paw around Emma’s arm. She struggled and kicked at him, but without her boots, there was little she could do. His grip tightened the more she struggled. The man in black came up and stood close enough by her side that she moved away, and bumped into the other man in black. They’d succeeded in bookending her, and right behind her she heard footsteps, turned to see Tarleton just a few feet away. The sidewalks were lined with townsfolk.
She finally slapped the marshal’s meaty face. “You buzzard! You sold your soul to this . . . this puffed-up dandy.” She looked beyond the close cluster of men and shouted at the gathered townies, “You all sold out to him—all for the promise of something that he’ll never give you! You’ll never see it, mark my words! He’s killed Arliss and the other man! He’s worse than Grissom.”
“That’s about enough, Marshal Hart. I should think we could have her arrested and locked up until she calms herself. Don’t you?”
“Lord Tarleton, she’s a little angry right now, but I can’t just lock her up. . . .” The marshal looked at the bandaged Englishman. “On what charges?”
“I should think that would be obvious, Marshal.” He pointed at his face. “The little vixen assaulted me, with intent to kill me. Do you not see that now?”
“Don’t listen to him, Marshal. He drugged me, locked me up! Hell, he even changed my clothes—I didn’t put this dress on myself!” She struggled more, but the marshal wasn’t about to let her go. He had both of her wrists gripped tight in his meaty paws. She twisted her arms and struggled, but to no avail.
Emma saw the searching look the marshal gave Tarleton. And the Englishman gritted
his teeth, shook his head. Something unspoken transpired and Emma knew she was sunk. She suddenly felt horrible. She was barefoot, Arliss and Samuel might well be dead, and no one would believe her—or if they did, they were too afraid of losing whatever it was they’d been promised by this man.
She was tired, cold, thirsty, and her head hurt. None of this was fair. She stopped struggling, looked around at the faces of the people she’d known her whole life, people she thought she knew. And among them stood Louisa Penny, her old friend. Emma felt her heart beat a little harder when she saw Louisa, but then the older woman turned away, couldn’t hold Emma’s gaze. So that’s how it’s going to be, she thought.
“Marshal, if you’re going to be spineless and not let me go, then you can at least let me go to the jail and get warm before you lock me up in a cell.”
He mumbled something but, like Louisa, couldn’t meet her gaze.
Behind her, Lord Tarleton said, in a voice loud enough for the entire street to hear: “Don’t forget to lock it tight, Marshal Hart. We know how . . . porous your cell block can be. I’ll be by later to personally check in on dear Emma, make sure she has been given proper accommodation, and perhaps by then she will have come around to reason. Perhaps she will stop being so selfish and realize that denying the keys to the golden city is unwise not only for her own future life, health, and happiness, but also for those very things for all her dear friends in this perfect little frontier town!”
Lord Tarleton ended his brief speech with his arms upraised, as if advising everyone to look to the heavens to see the glorious vision of the way their lives would be, should Emma only marry the man. All she could think of was how satisfying it had been to drive her forehead into his perfect nose and hear it snap.
Come what may, she thought, for the rest of his days, at least he’ll remember me every time he looks in a mirror.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Okay, fat man.” Arliss gave himself a rubdown with canteen water, then donned new boots—a couple of sizes too big—and clothes—even bigger. Tucker suppressed a smile, especially when he considered that he too wasn’t much heavier than Arliss and he had to pull on similar clothes. But clothes of any sort were a warm and welcome relief.
“You say you have a plan, Grissom. Let’s hear it. And don’t try to negotiate with us. It won’t take much for me to leave you alone with him. And don’t mistake that calm demeanor for someone who wouldn’t harm a fly—Arliss is as savage as they come.”
Both the other men looked at Tucker as if he had two heads. He shrugged, his attempt at levity lost on them.
“You have a piece of that ham you might share with me?” Grissom looked hopefully at Arliss, who was noisily gumming a thick hunk of gristle-rimmed meat.
“Why, sure, Bentley. Soon as you fill us in on your master plan—and it had better include all the doings that English rascal has planned for Klinkhorn.”
The fat man licked his lips. “I can’t . . .”
Tucker reached for the ham and carved a thick slab for himself. Aside from trying to get Grissom to talk, he was just plain hungry. He had wanted to head on out away from that camp right after Vollo had left, but Arliss had insisted they stay awhile, that Vollo, even if he managed to stay alive, would take forever to get to town. If that was the man’s destination, and if he lived that long.
“Okay, okay, but I have to have food, I tell you. I can’t hardly think without food.”
“That’s a shame, Bentley, because I ain’t inclined to give you a thing until you give over with what we need to know. And that’s my final word on the matter.”
Tucker was impressed with Arliss’s negotiating skills. And even more so when Grissom relented and began blurting out his thoughts, eyeing the meat all the while, sniffing and licking his lips as he spoke. “A long time ago I recognized that there were plenty of other ways in the world to make more money than just by digging for gold. This entire region is prime for logging—”
Arliss threw his hands up. “Oh, here we go again. I tell you, them trees are best left alone, right where they are. You and your kind all want to log it off, leave us a stump field, and vamoose with the pickings. Why—”
“Arliss, let the man speak. It’s a little late for opinions, don’t you think?”
The old man looked offended, and set to work on his ham with renewed vigor. Tucker nodded to Grissom to continue.
“So anyway, I heard about this English fella, some sort of big moneyman, who was buying up all manner of prime forest land along big rivers. He’s been setting up logging operations all over the West.”
“I’ll just bet he has.” Arliss glared at them both.
“So I contacted him, told him about Klinkhorn, told him how I might know some folks who could use some cash for the timber on their land.” He looked at Arliss. Bold of him, thought Tucker. “Might just be a way to save their property.”
“Let me guess,” said Tucker. “And then just when Lord Tarleton is due to arrive, lured to Klinkhorn on the promise of your vividly painted descriptions of riches beyond his belief, of logging off forests belonging largely to the Farradays, you get paid a visit by one of those pesky Farradays—namely, Payton.”
Tucker looked at Arliss, who had slowed his chewing and alternated his concerned gaze between Tucker and Grissom.
Tucker continued. “And it just so happened that Payton paid off the loan he had to take out—much to his regret—to keep his ranch floating until he could get paid for the next season’s stock. Which he did. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it, Grissom? You had to have that paper you’d been forced to sign, the one you never thought you’d have to sign because when you gave Payton Farraday that loan, you did your best to make sure he’d not be able to pay it off. You secretly made life tougher for the Farradays while that loan was out.”
“No, I—”
Tucker turned to Arliss. “You have lots of unusual losses of head of cattle? High numbers of aborted calves? Start to thinking maybe rustlers had come into your range? Strange sicknesses in the herd?”
“Hey, yeah! That’s the way it was. But we just knuckled down harder and worked like devils, all of us, me and Payton and Emma. Poor girl worked like two grown men just to keep hold of the place. Never asked for a reason, just assumed it was what we all had to do to make it through till next season.”
Arliss turned to Grissom. “I knew some of what was going on. Payton told me about the loan, asked me to keep it under my hat where Emma was concerned. Mostly because he’d made his brother a promise that he’d not ever bargain with the likes of you. But there comes a time for some folks when you’re left with no other option but to make the best of it. Swallow your pride and beg for forgiveness from the dead for going against a deathbed promise.”
He rasped a hand across his burned face. “By golly, how that ate at Payton. He worked like a madman to make sure we’d pay off that loan. If me and Emma worked double hard, Payton drove himself ragged. But it worked. We got that loan paid off. We was going to have a little celebration that night. He was also going to start courting Louisa Penny more regular now that the debt had been cleared up.”
“But he never got the chance.”
“No, sir, never did.”
Arliss wasn’t a large man by any stretch, but he seemed to Tucker to loom and glower in a seething rage over the fat form of Grissom, who had propped himself up against the side of the bunk on which he’d been napping.
Grissom tried to cover his face with his bound hands. “It’s true that Vollo and Rummler were in my employ, but I never told them to kill him. I just wanted that slip of paper. You have no idea the pressure I was under. I couldn’t let down Lord Tarleton. I knew he’d show up soon. My whole future rested on this deal—the future of Klinkhorn. You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty.” Tucker wanted to hit the man in the h
ead again with a pistol butt, maybe keep on hitting him until the pig never awoke. But that would not help Emma, and would make him no better than Vollo and Rummler. He turned away from the man. “Arliss, how long will it take us if we left now, headed straight north, to get to the cabin?”
Arliss rubbed his chin. “Hard ridin’? Couple hours. Why, what are you thinking, boy?”
“I’m torn. We’re not in good shape, but I’ll bet anything Emma’s in trouble. I have to get to town. And if she’s been hurt at all, it won’t matter.”
“How’s that?” said Arliss.
“Because I’ll kill every last one of the men who hurt her—or stood by and watched.”
“And then they’ll string you up.” Grissom shook his head, a disapproving smirk on his face.
“Yep,” said Tucker.
“I suppose we got to drag his carcass around with us.” Arliss nodded at Grissom. “Don’t worry, tubby. It’s a figure of speech. We need you alive, at least for a while. Might be you’ll be useful in knowing where Tarleton keeps his important papers, or in getting us closer to that dandy than we might get on our own. You better hope so anyway. Elsewise you don’t stand a snowball’s chance. Then we throw you to the wolves.”
“Wolves?” said the fat man.
“Yeah,” said Tucker. “The townsfolk. You know, the ones you’ve been shafting for the past three years.”
“I thought we had come to an agreement!”
“I didn’t agree to anything. Except that I’d give you a piece of ham if you yammered long enough. I reckon you lived up to your end.” Tucker picked up a piece of gristly meat. “Open your mouth.” Grissom did, and Tucker stuffed the meat in.
“We’ll have to skirt Tarleton’s men. They’ll be headed here. I figure if we ride north, then angle east to town, we’ll have a shot at sneaking in come dark.”
Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770) Page 23
