by Lola Rebel
Barrett didn't act surprised. Perhaps he wasn't, and this was how it went. Not in Glen's experience, but then, his experience was Army experience. The folks they had sent him out to get, he rarely gave the chance to come in quietly. They weren't that kind.
Glen let the Deputy pass him. The big man went first, then the Deputy, and Glen came last. His hand sat on his pistol, but he kept it light. Any moment he might have to grab it and have it out.
They went through the door. Nice and easy. He was just jumpy. Still, he stayed jumpy. It was going to keep him alive, he hoped. The brewers were watching, now, wearing an expression somewhere between surprise and anticipation.
Glen made the trip through the door halfway backwards, keeping his eyes out for someone to rush him. Then he turned to follow Barrett.
A shot rang out and the Deputy fell. Glen's hand was quick, and he'd been afraid of this. He turned the direction he'd heard the shot from and a second shot rang out. The man holding a gun grabbed at his gut and fell back against the brick wall behind him. Glen's other hand smacked the hammer back a second time and he let off another shot, winging a man but sending him wheeling to the ground as well.
The blow that came down on his head took a second to register. Nobody could hit that hard, he thought, and his horse was still tied to the post. Couldn't have kicked him from this distance.
His body knew what to do on its own, though. Glen fell to the ground. The gun slipped out of his fingers, and then with the last fading bits of consciousness he clutched for it, turned himself over, and pointed it at the big redhead behind him.
"Let me go, or I'll end you. I may not get out of here alive, but I guarantee you, you son of a bitch, neither will you."
The man was already going through Barrett's pockets, and the Deputy wasn't moving to stop him. "You're the guy from Billy Howell's old ranch, eh?"
"What if I am?"
"How's his wife doin'? You tried her yet? Best cunt in town, I tell you. And that mouth—"
Glen thumbed back the hammer. "Let me go," he repeated.
"G'on. Since we's so close, and all." The man gave a wink. "Tell Catherine that Roddy sends all his love. We'll be by later an' talk."
"You're a liar."
Rodney found the key to the manacles and undid them.
"You'll find out soon enough, man. I don't need to lie, little thing like that. Ask her." He turned toward the brewery. "Ace! Come here, get this cowboy on his horse, will ya?"
Twenty Five
Catherine was waiting on the porch. She didn't want to look desperate, but they should have been back by now. Hours ago. If she was right to be worried, then she would be fine looking like she worried about the man.
He had been such an important concern for her these past weeks. He'd even found, at least seemingly, a solution to the massive rustling problem that they'd been having. If she was just being a worry-wart…
Well, she could accept that, too. It was no big deal. As long as he was home safe, she frankly didn't give a God damn.
The horse coming back off in the distance worried her. There was no rider, so that either meant that it wasn't him, or that something was very wrong.
She turned to Grace. "Stay here with your brother, I'll be back in a minute."
Then she stepped off the porch. As she got closer, she became more and more convinced. This was Glen's horse. The coloring, the size, it all pointed to being his. Which made it that much more worrying that Glen's horse didn't have Glen sitting on it.
Once she was within a hundred yards or so, though, she saw him. He was hanging from the saddle by one foot caught through the stirrup, and he looked like he had been dragged for a while. It was lucky for him, she thought, that he hadn't been stepped on already. Or perhaps he had.
He probably wouldn't think any part of it was lucky, though. She lifted her skirt and broke into a run, caught the horse's reins and slowed her down.
Then, once the horse was slowed and calmed down, she turned to Glen. He was in bad shape. She tried to recall her life back in Baltimore, when she had been training as a nurse. She checked his pulse. He was alive. The pulse was strong, to boot.
But when she pulled his leg free, he didn't react. When she slapped him, just a bit, he didn't wake up. Nothing. So she shifted his weight until she could get her arms wrapped around him, lifted as hard as she could, and took a step back.
He came off the ground just enough so he wasn't being dragged across the dirt. Not enough. Catherine lowered her hips as far as she could, got her weight under him, and pulled again, digging deep for strength she didn't know if she had.
His weight tipped and shifted until he was leaning against her shoulder. She took him, then, his feet still dragging in the dirt even as his head lolled back on her shoulder, but there was nothing she could do about that.
The stairs were the hardest part. He wasn't moving, wasn't helping. She took them one at a time, gathered her breath and heaved to get him up. By the time she dropped him on the couch, her chest burned when she took a breath and her muscles ached already.
Then she went to the well-water, wet a cloth in it and then wrung it out. That was the first thing. Keep him cool. Someone hurt this bad, she would need to make sure they didn't catch a fever.
His hair was caked with soil, his clothes sticking oddly to his frame. She undid the buttons on his shirt to check on him, started looking up and down to figure the extent of his injuries.
His cheek looked bad, and dried blood from a broken nose caked around his mouth. No visible cuts, but bad bruising. Bad enough that he might have had a broken rib. With him not moving, though, she couldn't check a whole lot else. So she took another cup of water and dripped it on his face.
His eyes blinked open after a moment.
"Where am I?"
"You're back home. Do you remember what happened?"
Catherine saw his face darken. "No."
She wasn't an expert card player, and she wasn't a master of reading people. She couldn't keep a straight face, not like she knew Glen could, when he had to. Which made it that much more worrying that she knew he wasn't telling her the truth.
"What happened?"
"I don't remember."
"Stop lying to me."
"We went to get Rod Dawson. They—" he stopped a minute, reached down for his ribs, and put a hand on them. As soon as his fingers touched the sensitive flesh, though, he thought better of it as pain shot through, and he pulled away like he'd touched a hot stove. "They shot the Deputy."
"How did you make it out alive?" He looked at her for a minute, and she knew. She had been afraid that it was going to happen, and now it had. "What did he tell you?"
"Enough."
"Glen—"
"You do whatever you have to do, Catherine. I ain't your husband."
She kept her hurt feelings in check while she daubed the blood from around Glen's mouth. She wasn't going to let him get to her. She already knew who she was. He was right to be upset, but he didn't know the whole story, and when he did…
Would it matter?
"No, you're not," she agreed. She kept the hurt and the anger out of her voice as best she could.
"So since you and Rod was so close and all, he figured he might as well let me go."
"We weren't close." She hadn't wanted the edge in her voice. She'd wanted to be calm, collected. Sound cool. But she didn't. She sounded angry, because she was angry. "You say you're not my husband, and you aren't."
Catherine looked at the twins. They didn't need to be hearing this, but she needed to say it. "Billy Howell was the worst no-good scoundrel this side of the Mississippi. He was the worst gambler, too, and when he finally ran out of my money to play around with he figured out another way he could pay off his debts. Or—a way his wife could, at least."
The anger in her voice seeped out more with every word until she couldn't hide the bitterness any more.
Glen looked at her, that inscrutable expression back on his face. The face
he used at the table, she knew, and the face that he used most of the time when he was with her.
"So fine. You feel free to think what you want to think, but Rodney Dawson is a creep, and cattle rustler or not I wouldn't have a thing to do with him."
"Did you—"
"I did what I had to do, for a man who didn't deserve one tenth of what I did to support him."
Glen was still watching her. His hand came up, traced a line on her face.
"I'm sorry."
Twenty Six
Glen wasn't sure what the hell to think. She was defiant, that much he knew. As if she was daring him to doubt what she was saying. As if it were a serious concern.
"Have there been others?"
"What do you mean?"
"Since… you know."
"Since he left?"
Glen nodded. He didn't like asking these questions, and she clearly didn't like being asked them, but he had to know. It was pulling at him, taunting him.
"Not before…" She looked over her shoulder again at the children. "Go on, kids. Go to your room."
"Why?" Cole asked.
Glen wanted to tell him to listen to his mother. He didn't, because that would have been something that the boy's father should have said to him. Not only did he not have a father, but the father he might have had might not have cared too much about that sort of thing.
After all, the man seemed to have skewed morals in every other regard. Why not let a boy talk back to his mother? Catherine didn't seem to give his lack of support a second thought.
"Go on, now, I said. Get!"
They picked up the toys they'd spread out on the floor and headed for their room. Grace went first, and then Cole shut the door after.
"I'm sorry about that—they're good children, it's just—"
"There's no need to apologize. I understand."
"Thank you, then," she said. He wasn't sure if she meant it.
The thought was running through his head, over and over. She had offered, that first time he had gone to ask for help dealing with the cattle. She'd offered, and he had refused. She'd offered him money, too, and he refused that.
What if she was just doing this so he wouldn't kick her off the ranch? The thought hadn't crossed his mind before. That she might have done it with him just because she wanted to have a hold over him.
"That night, up in Caspar." She looked at him. He could see how distressed she was looking, how worried she was about what he was going to ask next. "Was that, all that, because you…"
He couldn't finish the sentence. A twinge in his side exploded in pain, and it gave him a good excuse not to ask the question he suddenly realized he didn't want answered. Glen didn't want to find out if the answer was yes.
She finished it for him. "To get you on the hook? Keep me on the ranch?"
He opened his eyes just enough to see that she was angry that he had asked. He couldn't deny that he'd meant to ask that very question.
"Well? Did you?"
He could see the hurt in her eyes. "No, Glen Riley. No I did not."
He was silent for a moment, trying to ignore the pain in his side, trying to ignore how bad his face hurt. Trying to ignore the doubt that he was feeling about all of this. She could have told him the sky was green and he'd have believed her right now. Because he wanted to.
"Tell me it's not true. Tell me you never had nothin' to do with that man. With anything like that."
"I can't," she said softly. He fought to open his eyes. She was crying, now. Like she had before.
Glen forced himself up, trying to ignore the screaming pain that racked his body. He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her head into his chest. She didn't fight him.
"It's alright."
She leaned into him and cried. It wasn't alright, he knew. He would get over it. Things for him, they weren't too bad. The knowledge didn't change him. As much as it hurt, it didn't change how he felt about her, neither. But for Catherine…
He pressed his lips into her forehead.
For Catherine, it might not be alright at all.
Twenty Seven
Catherine looked in on Glen. He couldn't see her, and that was what made it alright for her to ignore him telling her to leave him be. She couldn't let him be—he was hurt, and bad. She could see a worrying glint in his eyes, one that she wasn't sure the source of, but it made her feel like she barely knew him.
She let herself go inside the front room. He jumped when he saw her, like he'd been too deep in thought to believe anyone would come in.
"Y'alright?"
He scowled for a moment. "Yeah, I'm alright."
"You look tired."
"I'm fine." He laid his head back against the arm of the sofa, though, and she realized exactly how tired he looked. Glen looked like he might not be able to keep himself upright too much longer if he didn't get some sleep.
"You need to rest, Glen."
"And I will." They'd already gone through all this, she knew. But that didn't mean that she could just ignore the fact that he wasn't sleeping and didn't seem to have any intention of doing so any time soon. "Once you stop fussin' over me."
"Does it hurt?"
"No." He was lying, but she wasn't going to call him on it.
"Do you need anything before I go to sleep?"
"No," he said again. She didn't believe him this time, either, but she let it go.
"I'll just get you a cup of water and head to bed."
She dipped the cup in and pulled it out most of the way full, walked it across the room, and handed it over.
"Good night, Glen."
Then she left him to his own problems and his own devices. Whatever he was worried about, he didn't want to talk to her about it. She understood not wanting to discuss something. Their conversation earlier had been one she'd hoped to avoid forever. But it hadn't worked out that way.
Having her privacy ripped away had a way of making Catherine feel like it was more important.
Glen watched her retreat into the bedroom, heard the door close, and set his head back. His eyes ached, and all he wanted to do was sleep. It was what he should have been doing an hour ago. And it wasn't as if it were for a lack of trying.
He closed his eyes again, and again he felt the burning inside. Remembering what had happened earlier. Getting his ass kicked in. Two wasn't enough. He'd known that, but he had gone along with too few in spite of that. Because it had been necessary.
But what the hell did that even mean? Why was he getting beat half to death to back up a man who he barely even met? Justice? Revenge? What was it?
There had been a time that the reasons didn't matter so much. He'd been good at something, so he did it. The truth was, the orders didn't matter much. They gave him direction, sure. It wasn't patriotism, either.
He joined the Army because it would be steady pay. He'd learned to be quick with a gun, and more than that, though it upset him now to think about it, he didn't have much trouble pulling the trigger.
So many folks do. It's hard, once you realize what you're doing. What you're taking away. If you think about it too much. But not for Glen. When he wanted the doubt to go away, it was gone. No problemo.
Was he still that man? If anyone was going to deal with Dawson and his thugs, it would have to be him. But could he still be the person he was ten years ago? A guy who could just sit there and pick off a dozen men, snuff their lives like candles?
It would be a tough job, regardless of whether or not he'd be able to bring himself to it. Twenty men, maybe more, if he took them in a frontal assault. He'd have to have a plan, and a damn good one.
Then again… there were other choices, as well. Things that weren't twenty-to-one odds that had to be evened out as best they could by trapping them like rats.
Glen let out a breath.
Why was he even considering this? If he wanted to shoot a few men, he could have stayed with the Army. He had promised himself that wasn't his life any more. Had mustered out, to get a
way from fighting. To get away clean.
Now that he was truly on the straight-and-narrow, all he could see to move forward was going right back. Back to the killer he had decided he couldn't keep on being.
Glen reached down for his gun-belt, undid the strap, and set it aside on the ground. He could pick it back up, sure as sin. But that was a choice he'd have to make in the morning. He closed his eyes again and forced his mind to quiet itself.
The only thing he knew for sure, the only decision he had to make in truth, was whether or not he was going to let that lawman die for nothing.
And as much as he didn't like it, as much as he wanted to get away from shooting men down, he already knew the answer to that. There was no way he was going to do that. He didn't want to get involved in any of this.
Now that he was here, though, they were going to have to deal with him one way or the other. The thought wasn't one that he liked, but it was all he could do. After all, he had only ever really been good at one thing. Now that he was being dealt into the game, they would have to deal with him.
The question was, how was he going to close down Dawson's numbers advantage? Glen thought for a moment, still feeling the tug of sleep. Still hoping that any moment, he would succumb to it and then he would be able to rest.
It would be easy. Find one of them, alone. Getting a man to talk wasn't too hard. All you had to do, was do something he desperately hoped you didn't. And make it so he couldn't stop you—except, perhaps, if they tell you what they know.
Making sure they knew it, that was the hard part, because men lie about as easy as they tell the truth. Easier, even. But in this case, that wasn't going to be a problem. After all, he'd seen the perfect man already. Gotten a real good look at him.
He was broad-shouldered, with a wide, flat nose and short-cropped blonde hair, and he answered the door at Dawson's Brewery. The doorman thought he was tough. That would make it that much easier to break him, in the end.
