Massacre Canyon (3 page)

Despite the marshal's worries, the night passed quietly with no sign of trouble. He and Luke took turns sleeping and napping on the old sofa on one side of the office, but nothing disturbed them. Early the next morning Dunlap went over to the café and brought back breakfast for both of them and for the prisoner.

“I went down to the stable, too,” he said as he and Luke were eating. “Abner Porter told me his boy left for St. Johns before dawn. He's mighty excited to be helpin' out in something like this, Abner said.”

Luke frowned over his flapjacks, eggs, and bacon.

“He's not so excited that he'll go spreading it all over town about Kroll being locked up here, is he?”

“Well, you know, I didn't think to say anything to him about that. I might should'a told him not to say anything except to the sheriff.”

Luke bit back the sharp comment that tried to spring to his lips. Marshal Dunlap was just a small-town peace officer who probably never had to deal with anything much worse than a drunken cowboy or miner.

Luke stood up and went into the cell block. Mordecai sat on the bunk eating his breakfast. Luke looked at him through the bars and asked, “What were you doing here in town by yourself? Where's your brother and the rest of the gang?”

“You think I'm gonna tell a no-good bounty hunter where to find Rudolph and the rest of the boys?” Mordecai laughed. “You're plumb dumber than I thought, Jensen.”

“Yeah, I suppose you come and go as you please, don't you? You want to come into town for a drink, maybe a poker game, and a little slap-and-tickle with a dove, you don't have to ask your brother's permission.”

Mordecai snorted and said, “Damn right I don't. Rudolph knows better than to try to put a halter on me.”

“So he doesn't know where you are.”

“Hell, no! I don't have to tell him every time I—” Mordecai stopped short and frowned. “Blast it, Jensen, you're tryin' to trick me!”

Luke left the cell block without saying anything else. Even though Mordecai was probably a habitual liar like most outlaws, Luke thought his tweaking of the man's pride had prompted him to tell the truth without thinking. Mordecai had slipped away from the gang on his own. He had probably done similar things before. With any luck, it might be several days before Rudolph Kroll got worried enough to go looking for his little brother.

By that time, Luke would have turned Mordecai over to the sheriff of Apache County and the outlaw wouldn't be his responsibility anymore.

During the day Luke saw a number of townspeople lingering on the opposite boardwalk. They stared across the street at the jail and talked animatedly among themselves. He knew that word had gotten around town about the notorious Mordecai Kroll being locked up in there. It would have been difficult if not impossible to keep that quiet, he supposed, especially considering what had happened to the unfortunate, redheaded Sheila.

Since Mordecai's capture was already a subject of much gossip in town, there was no point in saying anything to Dunlap about keeping such things quiet. Luke just kept his eyes open and waited for the sheriff to arrive.

As Dunlap had predicted, that happened late in the afternoon, after a long, thankfully boring day. The sheriff's arrival brought even more excitement to the town, since he rode in at the head of a posse of a dozen deputies surrounding a sturdy jail wagon pulled by a team of six black horses.

Dunlap unlocked the marshal's office door, and he and Luke stepped out to greet the newcomers. The sheriff, a tall, stern-looking man with iron-gray hair, swung down from his saddle and gave Dunlap a curt nod.

“Marshal,” he said. “I hear you've got a prisoner for me.”

“You make it sound mighty simple, sheriff,” Dunlap replied with a relieved smile. “This ain't just any prisoner. It's Mordecai Kroll.”

“So I'm told.” The sheriff turned to look at Luke and extended his hand. “Sheriff Wesley Rakestraw.”

“Luke Jensen,” Luke introduced himself as he shook hands with the lawman.

“I hear you're a bounty hunter.”

“That's right,” Luke said warily. Most lawmen didn't care much for bounty hunters. He supposed they thought men like Luke were encroaching on their job of bringing lawbreakers to justice.

Rakestraw didn't appear to be that sort, however. His expression was bland and noncommittal. Maybe he was more interested in the fact that a mighty bad hombre was locked up where he couldn't hurt anybody else, rather than in who had brought him in.

“No sign of Rudolph Kroll or the rest of that bunch the Kroll brothers run with?”

Dunlap fielded that question. He said, “Nope, it's been peaceful since last night, sheriff. Kroll's locked up inside, and nobody's tried to get him out.”

“Good,” Rakestraw said with a nod. “Tomorrow morning we'll take him back to the county seat. It's going to take some time and burning up the telegraph wires to sort out exactly who has first claim on him.” The sheriff smiled faintly. “There are plenty of people lining up for a crack at hanging Mordecai Kroll.”

Luke said, “It's what, twenty miles to the county seat?”

“Twenty-two,” Rakestraw said.

“You brought enough men with you to get the prisoner there safely?”

“I think you'll find that my deputies are the best in the territory, Jensen.” A smug look came over Rakestraw's face. “We can handle anything that comes up.”

Luke wasn't so sure of that. According to everything he'd heard, the Kroll gang numbered about a dozen men, the same size as the group of deputies Sheriff Rakestraw had brought with him.

But Rudolph Kroll might be able to call on a dozen or more other hardcases to ride with him if he set out to rescue his brother from the law. That might be too much for Rakestraw's posse to handle.

What they really needed, Luke decided, was a whole cavalry patrol. He wasn't sure the army would go along with that, however, even for an outlaw as notorious as Mordecai Kroll. Besides, there was no telegraph office here, so contacting the military authorities wouldn't be easy.

Their best bet would be to hustle Mordecai to St. Johns as quickly as possible, before Rudolph Kroll found out what was going on.

“I think we should move the prisoner tonight,” he told the sheriff.

Rakestraw raised an eyebrow and repeated, “We?”

“I'm coming with you,” Luke said.

“I don't figure that's necessary. I can put in the reward claims for you, if that's what you're worried about.”

“No offense, sheriff, but I'd rather handle that myself.”

Rakestraw's weathered face tightened. Despite what Luke had said, he
was
offended. Luke didn't mean to question the sheriff's honesty, but he was accustomed to handling his own business.

“Suit yourself,” Rakestraw said, “but we're not starting back to the county seat until tomorrow morning. You're welcome to ride along with us then if you want to.”

Luke nodded. He supposed that would have to do. If nothing else, the jail here would be much better guarded than it had been the night before.

Rakestraw turned to his deputies and ordered, “Dismount and get set up, men. Tom, take the wagon down to the livery stable and see to the team.”

The deputies responded crisply. Several of them, each packing two revolvers and carrying a Winchester, went into the jail to watch over the prisoner. The others began positioning themselves around town where they commanded a field of fire all around the jail. If anybody tried to get in there who wasn't supposed to, somebody would be in position to pick him off.

There didn't seem to be anything left for Luke to do here, so he nodded to Dunlap and walked away. He had put up his horse in the livery stable the previous evening, before he stepped in the café to get some supper, and he hadn't had a chance to check on the ugly, hammerheaded dun since then. That was where he headed now.

When he reached the stable he found a middle-aged man and a teenage boy unhitching the team of blacks from the jail wagon. He said to the youngster, “You'd be Benji, wouldn't you? You followed the sheriff and his men back here after fetching them.”

“That's right, mister,” the boy said. “And you're that bounty hunter. I heard all about you.”

“Did you happen to say anything to folks in St. Johns about Mordecai Kroll being in jail here? Other than Sheriff Rakestraw, I mean?”

The liveryman said, “Now hold on a minute. Don't make out like my boy did anything wrong, Mr. Jensen. The marshal didn't tell Benji not to say anything. You can't expect a boy to keep quiet about something this excitin'.”

Luke shook his head and smiled.

“I didn't mean to imply that you'd done anything wrong, Benji,” he said. “I'm just curious how many people know about Kroll being captured.”

“Well, I reckon I did tell a few people about it . . . and you know how things get around. . . .”

Luke nodded and kept the smile on his face, although not without effort.

“That's fine, Benji. I appreciate you being honest with me.” He took a silver dollar from his pocket and tossed it to the boy, who caught it deftly. “That's for the fast ride you made today. That was good work.”

The youngster beamed and said, “Thanks, Mr. Jensen!”

Benji's father seemed mollified now. He said, “That dun of yours is a good horse, Mr. Jensen. Not much to look at, but I can tell he's got sand. You gonna be leavin' him here another night?”

“Yes, it appears that I will be,” Luke said, not bothering to add that he would have preferred to leave for the county seat immediately with the prisoner and the sheriff's posse. From what he had seen, the road between the two towns was good enough to follow in the dark.

The decision was out of his hands, though. He lingered at the stable for a few more minutes and reached into the stall to scratch the dun's head, then left. He hadn't gotten a hotel room before he ate supper the night before, and after that he hadn't had a chance to do so, spending the night in the marshal's office instead. So finding a place to sleep tonight was the next order of business, he supposed.

He was on his way along the boardwalk in search of a better hotel than the Sullivan House when a voice called from behind him, “Mr. Jensen! Mr. Jensen, if I could speak to you for a moment, please!”

Luke stopped and turned. He was curious because the voice that had hailed him belonged to a woman.

But he wasn't expecting her to be a woman beautiful enough to take a man's breath away.

She was almost as tall as he was, so she didn't have to tip her head back much for her eyes to meet his. Those eyes were a rich, deep brown, he noted, almost as dark as the thick, dark brown hair pulled into a bun at the back of her neck.

The woman wore a gray hat with a little brown-and-white feather attached to it. Her traveling outfit was the same shade of gray and had a thin layer of dust on it, so Luke knew she had been on the trail. That traveling outfit was snug enough to reveal an intriguingly curved shape.

Her skin had a golden tint to it, and her exotic good looks made her even more striking. Luke wouldn't have been surprised to see a woman like her in the finest restaurant or hotel in San Francisco, but here in this little Arizona Territory settlement, she definitely looked out of place.

At the same time, she had such poise as she smiled faintly at him that he realized she could make any place belong to her, instead of the other way around.

“Do we know each other, ma'am?” he asked, even though he was sure he had never laid eyes on this woman until this minute. He would remember if he had.

“No, we've never met,” she said. “And it's miss, not ma'am. Miss Darcy Garnett.”

Luke touched a finger to the brim of his hat and said, “Pleased to meet you, Miss Garnett. I'm Luke Jensen. But then, you seem to know that already.”

“Of course. You're Luke Jensen, the famous bounty hunter. The man who captured the notorious Mordecai Kroll. Everyone in St. Johns is talking about you today.”

Luke managed not to grimace. In his business, having a reputation sometimes came in handy, but most of the time it didn't.

“You came here from St. Johns?” he asked.

“That's right,” Darcy Garnett replied.

“Followed the sheriff and his posse all that way?”

“I certainly did.”

“Why?”

“To talk to you, of course,” she responded without hesitation.

“Then I'm afraid you've wasted your time,” he told her. “I'm about the most uninteresting hombre you'll ever run across.”

“I don't believe that,” she said. “And I'm sure my readers will agree with me.”

Again Luke had to control the impulse to make a face. As they talked, he had started to have a sneaking suspicion that Darcy Garnett might be a journalist. He had run into inquisitive newspaper reporters before and sometimes could recognize them before they started asking their questions. Usually he told them he wasn't interested in talking and stalked off, not caring whether or not he was rude.

That would be harder to do with a lady.

“You work for the newspaper in St. Johns, do you?”

For the first time Luke saw a faint crack in the cool, reserved façade Darcy Garnett put up. She said, “Actually, no. The publisher there doesn't believe in female reporters. I told him that back in Pittsburgh, a woman who signs herself Nellie Bly is writing regularly for one of the papers there, but that didn't change his opinion. I'm hoping to sell a piece about the infamous Kroll brothers to
Harper's Weekly
, and your stirring capture of Mordecai Kroll is just what the story needs to cap it off.”

“So you want me to tell you all about it.”

“If I could get a firsthand account from the man who brought Mordecai Kroll to justice, no editor would turn down the story. Especially if you could tell me about the tragic death of the unfortunate young woman who was killed, too.”

Luke felt a flash of anger go through him. He hadn't known Sheila, but she was dead and this woman regarded her death as nothing more than something that would help her sell a story to
Harper's Weekly
.

“I don't think I have anything to say, Miss Garnett,” he told her with a shake of his head. The words came out a little harsher than he intended them to, but he didn't really care.

“Please, Mr. Jensen,” she persisted. “The people deserve to know—”

“Most people know more than they really want to about the bad things in the world. And those bad things sure include men like Mordecai Kroll.”

“Then you won't give me an interview?”

“That's what I just said, isn't it?”

Anger sparked in her eyes. Her mouth tightened into a line and she said coolly, “All right. If that's the way you feel about it, I won't argue with you. Anyway, Sheriff Rakestraw has already promised me his full cooperation.”

For some reason, that rubbed Luke the wrong way. He hadn't particularly liked the sheriff. Rakestraw seemed a mite too full of himself, and his confidence when he talked about how he and his men could handle the Kroll gang if need be had bordered on arrogance. Reckless arrogance, in fact.

Even though he didn't really know the sheriff, Luke figured it would be just like Rakestraw to give Darcy an interview that made it sound like
he
was the one responsible for capturing Mordecai Kroll. Luke didn't much care what people thought about him; if a high public opinion was important to him, he never would have become a bounty hunter.

But he didn't want anybody making any claims that might damage his chances of collecting those bounties. Say Darcy Garnett did sell a story about the affair to
Harper's Weekly
or some other magazine or newspaper, and it made Sheriff Rakestraw out to be the hero. The men in charge of the banks and railroads and stagecoach lines that had put out those rewards for Mordecai might use that as an excuse to drag their feet about paying him.

Luke wasn't going to put up with that, not if all it took to prevent it was talking to an attractive young woman for a while.

“Hold on a minute,” he said. “I guess it wouldn't hurt to answer a few questions for you.”

She smiled, and this time he thought he saw a flash of triumph in those brown eyes. She had tricked him into going along with what she wanted by bringing up Rakestraw, he realized. Somehow she had guessed that he wouldn't want the sheriff trying to hog all the credit. And he had to admit that she'd been right.

“Excellent,” she said. “Were you on your way to the hotel to get a room?”

“I was,” Luke said.

“So was I. Why don't we have supper tonight in their dining room? That'll give us a chance to talk.”

He nodded and said, “All right.” He supposed he ought to clean up a little first, even though he was really too old to worry about trying to impress a woman like Darcy Garnett.

“We'll meet in the lobby at . . . six-thirty?” she asked.

“I'll be there,” Luke said.

 

 

He had misjudged her. She was really a charming, intelligent young woman with a passionate interest in justice. That was the only reason she wanted to see Mordecai Kroll and the rest of the gang get what was coming to them. It didn't have anything to do with helping her career as a reporter.

Or maybe that was what she wanted him to think, Luke warned himself as she smiled across the table at him.

Regardless of her motives, he found himself enjoying the time they spent together. He liked having dinner with a beautiful woman as much as the next man, even when he knew it wouldn't go beyond that.

And Darcy was beautiful, no doubt about that. She had changed into a dark green gown that came up fairly high but left the elegant curve of her throat uncovered. She wore a choker with a tiny gem set in it that went well with her flawless skin. Her hair had been let down, brushed until it shone, and then put back up again in an appealing arrangement of curls.

She far outclassed him, he thought, but at least he had washed up and shaved, changed into a clean black shirt, and even put on a string tie made of braided rawhide with decorative silver tips. That was about as fancy as he could get when he was out on the trail like this, hunting for badmen.

The Talmadge Hotel—a definite step up from the Sullivan House—had bottles of wine available with dinner, and Luke had ordered one. He wasn't really a fancier of fine wines, but one every now and then was nice. He'd had a couple of glasses as they ate, and that gave him a warm glow, even though he was far from being drunk.

“You really don't speak like I'd expect a bounty hunter to speak,” Darcy said. “You seem like an educated, cultured man.”

“Don't give me too much credit,” Luke told her. “My education has come largely from books. As for culture . . . I get to Denver or San Francisco from time to time. I like to take in a play when I'm there.”

“What about the opera?”

To Luke, the opera was just a bunch of caterwauling, but he had been acquainted with some young ladies who seemed to enjoy it, so he'd learned to tolerate it.

“That depends on the company,” he answered Darcy's question diplomatically.

“The opera company, you mean.”

Luke took another sip of wine and shrugged. Let her draw her own conclusions.

“I'd like to visit San Francisco with you sometime,” she said. “I think it would prove interesting.”

Luke thought so, too. He was starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't too old for her after all.

“We still have to talk about Mordecai Kroll, though,” she went on.

“That's not nearly as pleasant a topic.”

“No, but it's what my readers will want to know about.”

After he had enjoyed her company all through dinner, he knew he couldn't back out of the interview now. He downed the rest of the wine that was in his glass and told her about the trap Mordecai had set for him. He didn't try to make himself look better as he explained what had happened. She stopped him a few times to ask a question, and he answered them as honestly as he could.

“That's terrible,” Darcy said when he was finished. “That poor young woman.”

“I reckon I'm partially to blame for what happened to her,” Luke said. “I walked right into that trap Kroll set for me. Kicked my way into it, rather.”

“But he's the one who tried to murder you. As far as I'm concerned, her death was his fault, and that's the way I'm going to write the story.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” Luke said. He poured more wine for them, then mused, “Any man who makes his living with a gun has to deal with things like this sooner or later, I suppose. I know Smoke carries around a lot of old ghosts with him—”

He stopped short as he realized he had said more than he intended to say. He hoped Darcy hadn't noticed, or if she had, that she wouldn't recognize the name.

That hope was dashed right away. Darcy leaned forward with an excited look on her face and said, “Smoke? You have to tell me, Luke. Are you related to the famous gunfighter Smoke Jensen?”