The Devil You Know (33 page)

Willa looked sharply at Happy, who held up his hands and swore he was not entertaining any notions. She cocked an eyebrow at Israel and asked, “How did you leave the boat?”

He grinned. The dimple made a showboat appearance. “By the Texas deck the last time,” he said wryly. “And you know it.” He explained to Happy and Annalea what that meant. “Willa just wanted me to say it again. I suppose she thinks it's a good reminder; however, I sat at tables on the
Thomas A.
more the once. It was only the last time that I was flung overboard. They don't invite you back after something like that.”

Annalea giggled. Happy chuckled deeply.

“Don't encourage him,” said Willa.

Israel sighed. “Right. Don't encourage me.”

Happy checked the soup, removed the cornbread from the oven, and told Annalea to set the table.

Willa asked, “Where are Zach and Cutter?”

“It was late when they decided to ride out to Monarch Lake. They had gone their separate ways in the morning, looking after the cattle and opening frozen watering holes, but Zach noticed some tracks on the ridge that made him think we had trespassers. He figured he'd wait for Cutter to get back and they'd go out together. That was shortly before you returned. I'd give them another hour or so. It's been quiet. No shots, so I'm figuring they're fine.”

Israel thanked Annalea as she set the place in front of him with a bowl, spoon, and napkin, then asked Happy, “Does Zach think what he found has something to do with Easterbrook?”

“Hard to think otherwise, but no one's drawing conclusions. We always have to consider the Barbers when there's proof someone's been poking around over that way.”

Willa lifted her bowl so Happy could ladle soup into it.
“Thank you. What did Easterbrook look like? Anything familiar about him?”

“Good-lookin' fellow, I suppose, but nothing to distinguish him from twenty other good-lookin' fellows.”

Annalea blew onto a spoonful of soup. “Nowhere near as pretty as you, Israel.”

Before Israel could comment, Willa interjected dryly, “I doubt that's Israel's concern.”

Israel winked at Annalea. “It was a little bit my concern.”

Annalea beamed at him and then gave Willa a reproving look. “See?”

Willa returned an identical reproving look then asked her father, “What else, Happy?”

Happy sat down with his bowl and dug in. Between shoveling hot soup into his mouth, he gave the best description he could of Samuel Easterbrook. Annalea filled in as she was able, but in the end they all agreed Easterbrook could be anyone.

Willa said, “It's passing strange that he'd say his friend was Thomas A. Wyler. Why would he do that?”

Israel shrugged. “Probably because when Happy pressed him for the name of his friend, Easterbrook needed to come up with something he could recall if he was tested, and he needed to come up with it quickly. There's no question that he's familiar with the riverboat, but whether he performed on it, worked on it, or played cards there, there is no way of knowing.”

“Hmm.” Happy slowed the intake of soup to his mouth and applied himself to buttering a square of cornbread. “I'm thinkin' about that bowline. You recall it, Israel?”

“Not when it was used on me, but I remember Willa showing it around. I don't know that it helps narrow down what Easterbrook might have been doing on the riverboat, but it seems to be more evidence that he was associated with it.”

“And also associated with what happened to Buck McKay. We all understand that, don't we?”

“I'm clear,” said Israel.

Happy and Annalea nodded.

Willa said, “Easterbrook suspects you're alive, Israel.”

“Or he was trying to confirm that I'm dead.”

“But why now? It's been months. And if you died out there, how would we know you were Buck McKay?”

“She has a point,” said Happy. “You lived through that and we didn't know you were Buck McKay. Of course, another possibility is that Sam Easterbrook is only carrying four rounds in his six-shooter, if you take my meanin'.”

Israel chuckled. “Not very smart and making it up as he goes along. I think I got it.”

Happy said, “What do you imagine you might have done, Israel? What would it take to make Mr. Easterbrook want to do what he did and hunt you down after?”

“I can make some guesses, but the only way to be sure is to confront him.”

Annalea frowned. “I'm not in favor of that. Even with Mama's spectacles, you ain't much improved as a gunslinger.”

“Confrontation doesn't have to involve a gun.”

“Uh-huh,” said Annalea. “If you still think you can talk your way out of whatever you did, you didn't take to the lesson Samuel Easterbrook and his friends tried to teach you. Maybe that's not your fault, you being without a memory of that wild ride you were on at the end of a rope.”

Israel stared at her while Willa noisily cleared her throat. Happy scratched behind his neck and cast his eyes at the ceiling.

“What?” asked Annalea. “Why's no one talking?”

The silence went on another few seconds before Israel finally broke it. “No one's speaking because you put it all on the table in language so plain there's no argument to be made.”

“Hmm. Usually you try, though.”

His mouth turned up at the corners. “I know when I'm facing a worthy adversary.” He felt Willa's boot tap the toe of his under the table. He looked at her.

“We'll figure it out,” she said. “Samuel Easterbrook is not a worthy adversary.”

He nodded, and because of Willa, he knew it was true.

*   *   *

Willa sat on a padded stool in front of the mirrored vanity, brushing her hair and occasionally looking past her
reflection to where Israel was sitting at the head of the bed. He was quiet; he had been since supper. Even when Zach and Cutter returned from their ride up to Monarch Lake, he had not inserted anything into the questions and answers that followed. It would have been easy to believe that he was content to allow everyone else to deal with the reality of the trespass onto Pancake land, but Willa thought she understood him better than that. He was plotting.

“Have you ever run from anything?” she asked, smiling when he required a moment to shift his attention from the inner workings of his mind to her out-of-the-blue question.

“Run? I suppose that depends on your perspective. I never ran from a fight, if that's what you mean. The folks I scammed over the years might characterize what I did as running away when I vanished on them, but to me, I was just done. The marshals would tell you I ran once while I was in custody. I call that an escape. I didn't try to get away because I was afraid of going to prison. I just had other plans.”

Willa stopped dragging the brush through her hair. “You had other plans?” she asked, incredulous, but also a little amused.

“Uh-huh. And they didn't include prison.”

“You, Mr. McKenna, were truly running your own game.”

“I was.” He offered no apology for what was in the past. “It's different now.”

“Are you sure? You were thinking very deeply there. I suspect plotting.”

“Oh, well, that's true enough.”

“And . . .” She set the brush down and twisted her hair into a rope. “What do you have in mind?”

“I was entertaining the notion of inviting Easterbrook back to the valley. Maybe send Cutter into Jupiter so he can drop a hint or two about Buck McKay.”

“Draw him out, you mean.”

“Yes, but not only him. His friends, companions, associates . . . whatever you want to call them. I don't believe he'll come alone. I don't believe he came alone last night, but that's only supposition, not fact. We know that what was done to me wasn't done by a single man. It's hard for me to
believe he's acting on his own now. There are two other men who have reason to be sure I'm dead.”

“You certainly pissed in someone's soup.”

“I must have.”

Willa crawled into bed beside Israel. She lay on her side, head propped on an elbow, while he remained sitting up against the headboard. “Are we agreed that it was you who walked into the Viceroy in Jupiter looking for a room?”

“Yes. It seems likely.”

“Mr. Stafford told Cutter you were carrying two bags. Tell me what you think might have been in them. You must have some idea even if you have no memory.”

“It's likely that at least one of them held clothes. My parents met me when I was released and gave me money for clothes and sundries to make a fresh start. I don't remember buying anything, but I would have done that after I purchased my ticket. I told you that walking to train station is the last thing I clearly recall.”

“I understand, but you know where you meant to go with the ticket. You've never said, Israel. Isn't it time you did?”

“You think it's important. It's not.”

“So tell me.”

The headboard thudded dully as Israel dropped his head back against it. He closed his eyes for a moment. “You're right. It's time. I've known where I was headed from the beginning. I just did not want to bring him into it. I thought—”

Willa could not let him finish without interrupting. “You're talking about Quill. That's where you were going.”

“Yes.”

“He's here? Temptation? His ranch is in Colorado?”

“Mm-hmm. By train, a couple hours south of Denver.”

“So close,” she said more to herself than him. “And you didn't tell him where you were when you wrote. I understand that you don't want to involve him in what happened after you left Chicago, but telling him where you are and what's gone on doesn't necessarily mean he'll arrive at the front door.”

“You're wrong. It pretty much means exactly that.”

“He was
expecting
you, Israel. Don't you think Quill will be worried? I would be.”

“Worried? I don't know. Over the years he's learned to set his expectations fairly low.”

“I don't think you're being fair to him.” When Israel said nothing, Willa found his thigh under the blankets and ran her hand along it from hip to knee. “I'm not sure I understand why you were going to visit your brother. Of all the places you could have gone after your release, you chose there. Why?”

“He invited me. Quill asked me to come work for him.”

Willa's eyes widened ever so slightly. “At his ranch?”

“I know,” he said. “The irony is not lost on me either. I had it in my head that I'd learn about ranching, help him out, maybe even come to like it. I knew that his offer was partly prompted because he wanted to keep an eye on me. I guess I could have been insulted, being the older brother, but the hand he put out to me never felt like a slight. I was grateful for the chance, and I wanted to do right by him. I promised myself . . .” He fell silent for a time before he picked up the thread again. “I meant to be different. Dependable. Steady. Responsible. Accountable to someone outside of myself. During the time I spent behind bars, I made myself believe this leopard really
could
change his spots. And then I woke up in a place I'd never heard of, battered and bloody, and knew only one thing for certain: This time, I managed to disappoint even me.”

“Oh, Israel, you don't know that you did anything to deserve what happened to you.”

He lifted one eyebrow in a skeptical arch and said dryly, “History would indicate otherwise.”

“But—”

“Don't, Willa. I'm not martyring myself, and I'm not looking for sympathy. Easterbrook knew me as Buck McKay. There are only two explanations for that. He either recalled me from riverboat days or I introduced myself to him as McKay. The former is actually preferable because one of the things I meant to do was put that name behind me. If I used it on the train somewhere between Chicago and Jupiter, it means I was playing cards again. That's not a good sign.”

“I asked you this afternoon what it would take to get you to play. You told me that if someone were cheating, that could hook you. I think if you took up cards on the train, something like that must have compelled you. You might very well have taken the high road.”

“As opposed to . . .”

“Getting liquored up and not know what you were doing.”

His mouth curved sardonically. “Definitely a low road.”

“Well, I'm just trying to make sense of it. I know you don't drink much, not to excess, but you just got out of jail. That'd be cause for a lot of people to celebrate until they were blind with drink.”

“If I drank that much, then I wasn't sitting in a poker game. The two don't go well together, not if I mean to win, and if you recall what I told Annalea, I always mean to win.”

“Maybe you were drugged. What about that?”

Israel chuckled. “You're reaching, but I appreciate the effort.”

“It's not as far a reach as you seem to think. We know you made it to Denver because that's the only place you could have boarded the train to Jupiter. We also know your destination was Temptation, so something—or someone—influenced you to take the spur. You arrived with two bags, according to Mr. Stafford, and had none when we found you. It doesn't seem a stretch to me that you were drugged to get you on the train to Jupiter and robbed not long after you arrived.”

“Robbed of what? My clothes?”

“Maybe Easterbrook and his friends thought you were carrying something more valuable.”

Israel was quiet, mulling it over. “We just don't know, Willa. We can't. Other people hold answers to our questions, and I'm not so sure the answers matter any longer. Whether I am entirely at fault for bringing this trouble down on myself—and now all of you—or whether I merely contributed to it in some way, I am still part of it. What we are going to do about it matters. If you don't like the idea of trying to draw Easterbrook and his friends to the valley, then I need to leave for a while.”