Kit Gardner (27 page)

“Git up, Logan, or I’ll blow a path through yer brain ol’ Spotz could drive a herd through.”

Rance remained limp, lifeless, even when the hammer of the rifle clicked into place. The muzzle burned under his chin. He could almost feel the quivering of Bartlett’s finger squeezing the trigger.

No...Bartlett wouldn’t kill him...not yet. At least he was gambling he wouldn’t. Then again, a man like Bartlett could find losing a game of faro more than enough reason to kill a man.

Time stood still. The sun shone. The wind blew. The smell of late summer on the prairie mingled with the smell of death already filling the air. And somehow Rance thought he could detect the smell of lemons on that breeze.

Bartlett growled a curse and rammed the butt of the rifle into Rance’s jaw. Pain spiraled through Rance’s head, forcing a groan from his lips. Still, he barely flinched, and he kept his eyes shut tight. He heard Bartlett’s saddle leather creak and his boots meet with the ground. The wagon bed swayed as Bartlett hoisted himself with another foul epithet that never had the opportunity to leave his tongue completely. Instead, all breath was driven from him and his rifle flew from his hand when Rance swung his bound legs upward with all the power he could muster. The blow caught Bartlett full in the ribs with a crushing force that threw him from the wagon to land flat on his back in a patch of burnt grass. In the instant that Bartlett lay stunned, the wind knocked from his lungs, Rance worked the last of the rope free from his ankles and yanked the gag from his mouth.

Just as Bartlett rolled to reach for his rifle lying just beyond his fingertips, Rance leapt from the wagon, atop Bartlett. As one, they rolled in the dust, hands clamped about each other’s throats, seeking to crush windpipes. Bracing one boot in the ground, Rance arched above Bartlett and drove a fist into his nose, sending blood spurting from his mouth and nostrils. Bartlett countered with a crushing blow to Rance’s exposed ribs, and another to one eye. Rance buckled, then rolled again, one fist twisted into Bartlett’s shirt, dragging Bartlett with him. Before Bartlett could counter, Rance plunged a fist up under Bartlett’s ribs and drove his knee with punishing force between Bartlett’s legs. With a groan of pure agony, Bartlett froze, then doubled over and sank to his knees, his hands clutched to his groin.

In the next instant, Rance shoved the rifle muzzle up under Bartlett’s stubbled chin and clicked the hammer into place. Bartlett froze.

Lifeless stare met lifeless stare. Rance’s index finger slipped over the trigger and gently squeezed. No witnesses. Just the wind and wide-open prairie. And God knew Bartlett had it coming, just for murdering those innocent farmers.

Rance gritted his teeth. “That was for all the widows you’ve made of farmers’ wives. And this is for what you dared to even think about doing to my woman.”

He lifted the rifle and, with one vicious swing of his leg, caught Bartlett under the chin with his boot, snapping his head back with a loud click. Bartlett flipped back into the dust, legs and arms sprawled, blood gushing from his face. He didn’t move, save for the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Still, Rance bound his hands to a wagon wheel before he located a small shovel in Bartlett’s gear and began to dig a grave for Avram Halsey.

* * *

Late that afternoon, just as darkness began to shadow the streets, as some folks would come to tell the tale, Black Jack Bartlett rode smack down the middle of Wichita’s main street, right past Sheriff Earl Gage, dozing in front of the jail, straight to Judge Clarence McClain’s house at the end of the street. On the back of his black horse, trussed and gagged and twitching every now and then, lay Bartlett’s most recently bagged prey.

No doubt about it, no matter how peculiar it seemed, it was Black Jack Bartlett tethering his horse to the hitching post in front of Judge McClain’s freshly painted white clapboard house. There was never any mistaking the long, faded black duster and wide-brimmed black hat pulled ominously low over his face, shadowing all but his darkly stubbled chin, which from a distance seemed to be sporting the evidence of a good brawl, swollen and bruised purple as it was. No one dared venture too close for a good look-see. Still, no other man in these parts threw so tall a shadow in the dust. Folks could only assume Bartlett had come to finally kill the judge, a man who’d made it plain he was after Black Jack and Cameron Spotz for murdering innocent farmers staking legal claims on land Spotz used for grazing. The judge had never proven this, of course. Never were there any witnesses to come forward and testify against a gun like Black Jack and a powerful cattleman like Spotz. Most folks wanted to see the sun rise the next day, so they just looked the other way and said little.

And, though they might not like it, most folks understood who exercised the most sway in Wichita.

Still, the judge, noble and true to his pursuit of justice and fairness for over thirty years now, had made it abundantly clear, particularly to Black Jack, that he would see him hang for his crimes, or die trying. Evidently Black Jack planned to keep the old judge to his word. After all, what other reason, save the no-good ones, would bring Black Jack Bartlett to the judge’s house, and at suppertime?

They all watched as Black Jack knocked once, then, without pausing, pushed open the door.

* * *

Judge Clarence McClain was enjoying his typical late-day dinner of bleeding roasted beef, boiled potatoes and green beans, all swimming in his wife’s overly salted gravy, a meal that had been known to mercilessly haunt him throughout the night and into the next day. His dyspepsia and the reason for it had been widely bandied about in Wichita ever since the judge came to town, ten years prior, and particularly the hour the judge insisted upon eating. Perhaps in some vain attempt to ease the onset of indigestion, he always allowed time for a brisk walk about town afterward.

Rance had often wondered why a man with such an impressive history of jailing some of the most dangerous outlaws known in the West would make his eating habits public knowledge, to the precise hour. Then again, Rance hadn’t known until the instant he stepped into the dimly lit dining room that Judge Clarence McClain ate with his derringer within fingertip reach upon his lace-draped dining table.

Still, McClain could well be the sort who thrived on taking risks. Rance certainly hoped so.

“Not another step, Bartlett,” McClain said with surprising calm, his ruddy jaws working furiously on his food, the derringer leveled at Rance. Beneath shaggy white brows, McClain’s keen dark eyes squinted with certain doubt, as though he didn’t quite believe what he saw standing before him in the shadows. “Drop all the hardware, Bartlett. Now.”

Rance was rather certain McClain wasn’t the sort to murder anyone, even Black Jack, particularly in his own dining room, with his snowy-haired wife frozen in the doorway, her mouth agape. Then again, McClain had nursed a desire for vengeance against Spotz and Black Jack for so long, with such a startling lack of success, Rance could well imagine the temptation to squeeze that trigger might prove too great even for a man like McClain.

On McClain’s thirst for justice Rance was laying his every hope. And on his ability to pull off his impersonation of Black Jack, however briefly. He’d purposely waited until dusk to move, and was grateful for the dining room’s shadowy lighting.

Slowly Rance unhooked his gunbelt, Black Jack’s gunbelt, with its matched ivory-handled six-guns, and tossed it to the floor at the judge’s feet. The judge, a small but thickly made man, levered himself over the edge of his chair to scoop up the gunbelt. Hefting the leather in one hand, McClain leaned back in his chair and studied Rance with keen eyes, as though seeking to penetrate the deeply shadowed features beneath the hat.

“How bad ya want Spotz, Judge?” Rance drawled in the gruff manner common to men like Bartlett. To his ear, the voices and their drawls had come to be indistinguishable over time. Perhaps to McClain’s ear, as well, though he doubted the judge and Bartlett had ever exchanged even pleasantries.

McClain’s belly rumbled with his derisive chuckle. “What the hell kind of fool do you think I am, Bartlett? You think I would allow
you
to help me in some way to nab the man you’ve killed for for the past three years? Let me tell you something, Bartlett—you’re not even useful to the shadow you throw.”

With a flick of his tongue, Rance shoved the toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. “You ain’t got no witnesses to prove anythin’. Never had. And no confessions, neither.”

McClain gave him a disbelieving grimace. “Your word isn’t worth a dime, Bartlett.”

“And Spotz’s?”

“Even less.”

“What about the word of another man, someone Spotz confesses to?”

“Spotz isn’t that stupid. And neither are any of the folks around here. All too damned intimidated by his power, by the money...” McClain lifted the gunbelt. “By your hardware. Hell, the way I see it, Spotz has probably bought off the entire town twice over since I came here. Of course, there’s no proving that, either, and something tells me Spotz won’t be strolling in here to have supper with me to confess to extortion and murder. Perhaps it’s a meal you’re really after, Bartlett, because I’m having one hell of a time understanding why you’re here. And my supper’s getting cold, to boot.”

“Only once I know of,” Rance muttered. “‘Bout a year back.”

“What’s that?” McClain said, shoving a forkful of beef into his mouth.

“He bought the jury, the witnesses, even Sheriff Gage, to hang a man. You tried him yerself, Judge.”

McClain’s jaw worked furiously. “For what?”

“Murder.”

McClain’s jaw paused, as though he were pondering something. “Who was the fella?”

“Rance Logan.”

After a moment, McClain nodded his bald head and stuffed a heaping forkful of potatoes into his mouth. “Fella worked for Spotz. Quiet sort. Never saw much of him, but the talk about town was enough. I heard he was a faster draw than even you, Bartlett.”

The judge cocked a brow at Rance, obviously enjoying the idea of provoking a man like Bartlett. When Rance offered no reply, McClain returned to his food. “I remember. He killed a cow man from back east of here. Escaped before he could hang. Spotz almost hung the sheriff for that. Evidently had some sort of gripe against Logan. So, Bartlett, how the hell do you know Spotz bought off the jury and all the witnesses?”

“Because I was there when Frank Wynne pulled his gun on Logan in Buffalo Kate’s Saloon.”

McClain glanced up sharply, cheeks bulging. “You’re saying that’s how it happened?”

“I am.”

The jaws resumed their furious chewing. “I never believe turncoat murderers.”

“You should, Judge. A man doesn’t easily forget being drawn on like that.”

In an instant, McClain’s face drained, and he leapt to his feet, jarring against the table, his derringer pointed squarely at Rance. “Dammit, take off the hat. You’re not Bartlett, are you?”

Slowly Rance drew his hat from his head. “No, sir.”

“Hell and damnation!” McClain bellowed, his shining cheeks flooding with color. “You’re Logan!” McClain’s bulging eyes swung momentarily to his wife, still frozen in the doorway. “Get the hell in the kitchen, Margaret. Dammit, you’re Rance Logan.”

“Yes, I am.”

The judge pursed his lips, waved his derringer, and huffed, “Well, you looked just like Bartlett. Would have fooled anybody, with your face all swollen and bruised like that. Carrying his hardware. Had me fooled.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The judge gave him a sharp look.

Rance arched a brow. “You’ve a keen eye, sir, and yet even you didn’t guess that I wasn’t Bartlett. I would lay odds that Cameron Spotz could be duped, as well, given the darkness, at least long enough to incriminate himself.”

The judge blinked, his brows quivering. “A confession.”

“Enough to convince a judge of his guilt, I would think, if that judge happened to overhear.”

One corner of McClain’s mouth twitched upward, but his gaze remained fraught with suspicion. “Why the hell should I believe you, Logan?”

Rance folded his arms over his chest and jerked his head to the door. “Well, Judge, I brought you Black Jack, all trussed and tied up like a sack of flour. I surely don’t want him.”

Shoving his chair aside, McClain scrambled to the window and pushed the lace curtains aside. He stared for a moment through the glass, out into the street, where Rance had tethered his horse. His jaw momentarily sagged, then snapped closed. He scowled at Rance, studied the gunbelt held in his hand, then again stared at Rance. “You know, I could just throw you in jail and forget about all this. That’s what any sane man would do. Conspiring with convicted killers— I could be thrown from the bench for this, Logan. Yep. I should just throw you in jail.”

Rance gave him a level stare. “You won’t. You want Cameron Spotz’s hide almost as much as I do, Judge.”

“Looking at you standing here, hell, Logan, I could almost believe that. But I don’t.
I want him more.
” McClain set his jaw, and for one solitary moment Rance knew an all-consuming dread that he had somehow misjudged McClain. And then, with a growled expletive, McClain tossed the gunbelt at Rance, his lips baring over a mirthless smile. “So, Logan, what’s the plan?”

J
essica would forever remember riding into Wichita that hot late afternoon. The main street loomed twice as wide as Twilight’s and extended a good half mile farther into the prairie. Stagecoach traffic clogged the street in front of an endless row of hotels and saloons. Wagons clattered past, heavily laden with goods. Men on horseback weaved erratic paths through the mayhem, and an occasional pedestrian ventured from the haven of the bustling boardwalks to attempt to cross the thoroughfare. Just ahead, several cowboys were driving a herd of cattle through town, leaving a choking wall of dust in their wake. A train’s whistle could barely be heard above the din.

But to Jessica’s eye, the hustle of the town, as normal as it might appear to others, seemed draped with an ominous foreboding. The men, to the last, wore masks of complete indifference, as though knowledgeable of some heinous secret they would never divulge. Even the glances she received from the women venturing past in their fine afternoon frocks, though impenetrable, seemed somehow cloaked with sympathy. All skewed...or perhaps it was just her imagination running far afield, buoyed by the irrefutable knowledge that she could not imagine drawing breath another day without Rance Logan at her side.

“We have to save him.” She didn’t realize she’d spoken until John French shifted on the buckboard seat beside her, no doubt in yet another vain attempt to assuage the merciless ache in his back. Two days and nights driving hard across the prairie had left them both sun-bitten, dust-blown, and stiff in every muscle and joint.

“I wonder, Jessica,” John French replied, “if Logan might think you believe him incapable, if he heard you say that.”

Jessica clamped her teeth into her lip and stared at the backs of her sun-browned hands, clutched in her lap. “You didn’t see him, John, when Black Jack and Avram took him. I did. And he didn’t look the least bit capable to me. No man could escape that. Not even Rance. And God help him if he tried something foolish, because Black Jack would kill him. I saw it in his eyes.”

“Rance knew that, Jessica.”

She felt her chin quiver, and tears somehow formed in her parched eyes. “Indeed he knew. But I believe Rance would rather take a bullet in the back trying to escape and content himself with dying for the sake of honor and pride than allow himself to be hung by a man like Bartlett. His innocence matters very little, even if he could somehow prove it, which he can’t possibly. There are no rules where money is boss, John. Look at what Avram did to my boy for the sake of the almighty dollar. When money is involved, there’s only guns and death. What are you doing?”

John pulled back on the reins and drew the buckboard to a stop in front of the Garter Saloon. Swiveling around, John motioned the other wagons and riders in their caravan behind him. “We’re going to stop here a minute. No place like a saloon to get information...not to mention a good hot meal at some point.”

Jessica felt his thoughtful gaze, then the comforting warmth of his hand covering hers. “Listen, Jessica. Don’t mistake bravery for foolishness. Sometimes there’s not even a hairbreadth of difference between the two. Most would say that depends on the outcome. I say, no matter what he’s done in his past, Rance Logan has proven himself a courageous man, and a smart one.”

She lifted her eyes to his. “He is, John, braver, smarter, stronger, more capable, than any man. But I love him...so much that at the moment I would rather he be none of those things, if only to keep himself alive until we can find him.” A lone tear slipped to her cheek and she shoved her hand across its wake. “I could not bear it if—” She clamped her teeth into her lower lip. “We’ve got to find him, John.”

John pressed his handkerchief into her hand and squeezed her fingers. “We will, Jessica. Surely you didn’t think I would leave my pregnant wife and ride clear to Wichita in this damned wooden box with half of Twilight along to witness me
fail?
Hell, even if I did, Hubert McGlue would come up with a scheme. Now, chin up. We’ve got an entire contingent here of character witnesses who
know
Rance Logan fired his gun in self-defense because they
believe in him.
That’s tough to do with folks in Twilight, and yet you knew they’d all rally behind him and come with you all this way to do what they could. They wouldn’t do it for a man who was half as brave or deserving, Jessica. Or a woman. Now hold these—” He handed the reins to her and jumped down from the buckboard. “I’ll just go in and ask a few—”

With a surety of purpose, Jessica set the reins aside, hoisted her dust-choked muslin skirt and jumped to the ground beside John. “I’m going with you,” she announced, adjusting her straw hat upon her head.

“The hell you are.”

“Quit arguing with me, John French.”

“I’m not arguing.
You
are.” Shoving his bowler back on his head, John rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Do you give Rance Logan this much trouble?”

“More.” She turned on her heel and walked swiftly toward the saloon, aware that he marched along just at her heels.

“First you refuse to wait for the train—which would have been a hell of a lot more comfortable.”

“But then Rance wouldn’t have had his horse,” Jessica tossed over her shoulder. “He needs his horse, John. Now stop grumbling. Louise thought it was a marvelous idea.”

“Ha! My wife has been in some sort of altered mental state since the moment our child was conceived. Furthermore, she’s a woman.”

Jessica paused, one hand upon the saloon door, and glanced back at John. “So?”

John lifted his hands with feigned resignation. “I need say nothing more, Jessica. That says it all.”

“Even so, you look awfully anxious to return to her.” With a hint of a smile, Jessica pushed open the saloon door and stepped into the dimly lit, smoke-filled interior. With little hesitation for a woman who’d never been in such an establishment, she picked her way through the tables, clustered with all manner of menfolk, from the gruffest of cowpokes to the dandiest of gamblers. She ignored their ribald comments and vivid epithets as she brushed past, her teeth set with determination. Only when a painted and powdered saloon girl carrying a tray of glasses blocked her path did Jessica pause to allow the girl to pass in a wave of musky perfume. Heavily kohled eyes slanted her way as the girl jiggled by, her ample curves barely contained by the abbreviated version of a corset and pantalets she wore. Jessica watched as the girl giggled her way among the tables, depositing drinks, allowing any man who wished a fondle or two of her plump backside. She paused and seemed to deliberately linger beside one particularly nattily dressed gambler. He glanced up from his cards, snuck a hand about her waist and pulled her onto his lap. As the cheers went up from the men surrounding, the gambler grinned wickedly, then cupped one generous breast and all but pushed it from the corset. The girl merely giggled and looped her arms about his neck when he buried his face in her bosom.

“Hey, Garner!” a ribald shout rang out. “What about yer wife?”

The gambler lifted his head and arched a brow, his lips curving sinfully. “What wife? I don’t seem to remember having a wife.”

The saloon girl, obviously delighted with his reply, let out a shrill giggle and drew his head again to her breasts. A moment later, the gambler stood with the girl in his arms and, wearing a lascivious smile, strode toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

Jessica felt suddenly ill. Deep in the pit of her soul. Even now she could remember the same musky smell of perfume lingering on Frank’s clothes whenever he had returned from Wichita....

But the anger, the bitter rage, both were gone. And in their place, pity, for all those saloon girls, the wives left at home, the men who couldn’t find happiness.

John French caught her elbow and guided her to the bar. Behind it, polishing glasses, stood a mustached barkeep in a candy-striped shirt and black sleeve garters.

“What can I get you folks?” he asked without glancing up from his work.

“We’re looking for Black Jack Bartlett,” John said.

The barkeep glanced up sharply. “You must’ve just rode in, mister, ‘cause not even an hour past Black Jack rode right down the middle of the street. Never seen nothin’ like it. Folks linin’ the streets jest to watch him an’ Judge McClain, both ridin’ along nice as you please, an’ them hatin’ each other like they do. We all thought Black Jack was goin’ to kill the judge, but they jest kept on ridin’. One fella even said the judge was smilin’.”

Jessica gripped the edge of the thick mahogany bar. “They were alone?”

The barkeep resumed polishing his glasses and gave a swift shake of his head. “Nope. Black Jack had some fella tied over the back of his horse. Bleedin’, an’ his face all smashed up so no one could recognize him. They took him over to the jail. Sheriff Gage got him all shackled up good, seein’ as what happened last time. Nope, he ain’t goin’ nowhere, ‘cept the nearest hangin’ tree, him bein’ wanted fer murder an’ all.”

A dull roar filled Jessica’s ears. Avram...it must be Avram. Let it be Avram...some mix-up in the telling of the tale as it was bandied about town. Yes, Rance had already escaped. Even now he was on his way back to Twilight. Yet a grim foreboding congealed in the pit of her belly. “Who is he...this man in the jail?”

“Logan,” the barkeep replied, as though from some distance, through a compressing haze and darkness. “Rance Logan.”

Jessica spun about, crashed into a chair and shoved it aside. She felt John’s grip upon her upper arm and yanked free with a choked cry. Gripping her skirts in one hand, she fled the saloon, bursting through the doors and into the blanketing heat. Dusk shadowed all, yet she plunged into the street, heedless of the danger, uncaring of anything except the man they had beaten and thrown into jail.

Rance Logan...

An angry shout rang out above the din, and then the thundering of horses’ hooves bearing down upon her. Instinct snapped her head up, and she felt herself lifted and yanked from the street just as a stagecoach roared past, its four horses churning the dust beneath their thrashing hooves.

“A dead woman has never been any use to a man,” John French barked, setting her so soundly before him on the boardwalk, her hat slipped from her head. “Good God, but you’re worse than Louise. When will you women get it into your heads that you can’t just go recklessly running off to fix everything by yourselves?”

Jessica shoved her hat back on her head and set her jaw. “Never. Now you can stand here and harp for the remainder of the day about us ‘damned females’ if you wish, but I’m going to get Hubert McGlue and his blunderbuss and I’m going to free Rance from that jail.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” John shot back with a marked puffing up of his chest in its fine broadcloth. Arms folded over his belly, he looked as though he thought himself quite ominous. Jessica knew better. “
I’m
the solicitor here, Jessica. If anyone is going to free Rance, it will be
me,
lawfully done, in front of a judge, with witnesses to testify. Strong-arming some sheriff will do us no good whatsoever, unless you’d like to find yourself locked in some cell and— Hey! Where the hell are you—?”

But Jessica had already spun on her heel, and with a stout call to Hubert McGlue, who lingered beside the wagons, she proceeded at a brisk clip down the boardwalk. Soundly ignoring John’s dire shout of warning, McGlue set out waddling along beside her, blunderbuss carefully holstered inside his flapping Prince Albert coat. With a grumble of complete frustration, John French hastened after them.

Minutes later, the three descended upon the small jail, getting no farther than the front stoop before they were met by three tall men wearing badges and grim expressions beneath their wide-brimmed white hats. They planted themselves before the jail door, their hands hovering over their holstered guns as though they were not altogether hesitant about drawing them with little provocation.

Neither this nor John French’s grumbling gave Jessica the slightest pause, and she thrust out her chin with self-righteous determination. “Step aside, please, gentlemen. I wish to see my fiancé.”

Two of the men stared at her with the same unflinching eyes.

The other spat into the dust just at her feet. “I’m the sheriff here, ma’am. Sheriff Earl Gage. An’ until Rance Logan is hung or I’m told otherwise by Judge McClain, no one’s gonna set one foot in my jail. Last time I let someone in, Logan escaped an’ left Cameron Spotz’s wife tied in his cell.”

Frustration welled in Jessica’s chest and twisted like a fist. She felt the hysteria creeping into her voice, the helplessness quivering in her limbs. To be this close, yet be denied. “You cannot deny me seeing him.”

“I can do whatever I damned well please, ma’am. I’m sheriff here.”

“But—”

“We need reassurance that he’s alive,” John French said, shouldering forward and thrusting out one hand to the sheriff which went ignored. “John French, attorney-at-law.”

A stream of brown goo flew again through a gap in Gage’s top teeth, scattering the dust at John’s boot tips. “Logan’s breathin’, John French, attorney-at-law. An’ he’s squawkin’ that we got the wrong man. Jest like a coward. Now, that’s ‘bout all yer title’ll git ya. An’ no one’s gittin’ any closer ta Logan ta see fer hisself. Even with a face looks like pulp, no tellin’ what a man like Logan could still do.”

The fist in Jessica’s chest twisted tighter and the image loomed of Rance, his skin mottled, swollen...
pulp.
“Then he must see a doctor. At once.”

Gage braced his boots wider, as though digging in for a good long fight. “I ain’t fetchin’ no one, ma’am. Not until the judge comes an’ tells me otherwise. Now, y’all jest go on an’ mind yer own business.”

Jessica’s teeth clicked together. “Mind my own—?” She jabbed an arm at the jailhouse window. “The man I love is in your rotting jailhouse, Mr. Gage, no doubt in need of medical attention. My concerns can hardly be labeled misplaced, whereas you, Mr. Gage, seem to care solely for protecting your own flea-bitten hide from Cameron Spotz. I wonder where your allegiances truly lie, Mr. Gage. Certainly not with justice and peace. Perhaps somewhere on the other side, hmm?”