A Lady of the West Read online

  “Don’t be so goddamn stupid,” Garnet snapped, abruptly out of patience. “We killed the little bastards, remember? I put lead in both of them.”

  Once McLain would have turned on him like a rabid wolf for talking back, but now he only wagged his head. “We never found their bodies. We looked, but we didn’t find them.”

  “They’re dead, I’m telling you! Shot up the way they were, no food or water, no way of getting to a doctor, there’s no way they could have lived. You’re worrying about damn ghosts and it’s spooking the men.”

  McLain peered at him with owlish concern. “If they died, why didn’t we ever see any buzzards? The buzzards would’ve found ’em even if we couldn’t.”

  “They’re dead,” Garnet hissed. “It was twenty years ago. You think they wouldn’t have been back long before this if they’d been alive?”

  There was no logic that could penetrate McLain’s feverish certainty. “They waited until I got married. Don’t you see? They want to kill my wife, the way I killed theirs.”

  “You didn’t kill their wives, you killed their mama.” Garnet thought he would explode with frustration. The idiot couldn’t even think straight!

  “But they can’t kill my mama, so they’re going after my wife!” McLain shook his head at Garnet’s lack of understanding. “They’re doing it because she’s mine, see? But they won’t get me; I’m keeping a lookout for them, every night, waiting. The bastards are gonna try sneaking up on me, but they’ll be the ones surprised because I’m waiting for them.”

  “Jesus.” Garnet looked at the man and shook his head, seeing the futility of arguing. He’d worked for McLain all these years because the Major had been even dirtier and sneakier and more brutal than he was himself, but now all he saw was a loony, stinking old man. McLain’s deterioration had happened quick, but Garnet felt neither sympathy nor loyalty for him. While McLain had been strong, Garnet had run with him. Now that he was weak, Garnet planned to destroy him with no more compunction than he would squash an insect.

  “Why don’t you go back in the house and let me worry about the men,” he told McLain. “I’m the foreman, ain’t I?”

  McLain gave a hollow chuckle. “Yeah, but I’m the boss and don’t you forget it.” He peered at Garnet with rheumy eyes. “You think I’m crazy, but you should be watching for them, too. They’re after you just the same as they are me. You’re the one shot their daddy.”

  Nodding at the indisputable truth of what he’d just said, McLain shambled back toward the house. He was tired, so tired from all the nights of keeping watch, but every time he slept he saw that damn little bastard coming at him with that knife. He didn’t dare even lie down in his bed anymore, but sat up in a straight chair so that if he nodded off he’d fall and wake himself up. He didn’t get much sleep that way, but neither did he dream.

  Disgusted, Garnet turned his back on McLain’s retreating figure. “Hey, Tanner!”

  Ben walked up. “Yeah?”

  “The old man’s got a bee in his bonnet about you. Stay out of his sight.”

  “Sure.” Ben started to walk off.

  “Wait a minute.”

  Ben stopped and again said, “Yeah?”

  “You done any work with that gun?”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. You know what kind of work. You ever killed anybody for pay?”

  Ben took a drag off his cigarette. “I reckon I’ve faced a few for my own reasons, but not for nobody else.”

  “You willing to hire out?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what? How much money?”

  “Nope. On who’ll be on the other end of my barrel. There’s some men it just don’t pay to rile.”

  “You yeller?” Garnet sneered, hoping to goad him.

  “Nope. Just careful. Are you just making conversation or have you got somebody in mind?”

  Rather than answer directly, Garnet said, “What do you think of Roper?”

  Ben bared his teeth around the cigarette. “Like I said, some men it don’t pay to rile.”

  “You don’t think you could take him?”

  “Let’s just say I’m not sure enough of it to risk my life on a fight that ain’t mine.” Ben walked off, careful to keep his cold rage from showing on his face. The son of a bitch wanted him to kill his own brother! But why? He didn’t dare let himself be seen talking to Jake, to maybe find out a reason. All he could do was worry and feel his anger grow. If Garnet kept asking, sooner or later he’d find somebody willing to go up against Jake. Likely as not, it would be a back-shooter, and that worried Ben.

  Twenty years they’d waited, and now the waiting crawled on his skin like ants. For the first time in twenty years he was home, standing on Sarratt ground, looking at the house where he’d been born and where his parents had been murdered. By God, nothing was going to stop them now, not Garnet or anybody else on this ranch, not even the woman inside that house who ultimately held the ownership of the kingdom in her hands. She would marry Jake because they wouldn’t allow her any other course of action.

  Ben wondered what she was like. He hadn’t even asked Jake her name. He didn’t think much of her, though, marrying a man like McLain. He’d watched the house as much as he could without being obvious, but he hadn’t seen any woman who could possibly have been her. Three Mexican women, two middl-eaged and one young, had come and gone from the house; they were obviously servants. Another young Mexican woman who apparently slept out back of the bunkhouse had hung around all morning eyeing him like a buzzard waiting for a steer to die. He’d heard her name was Angelina and she was lushly beautiful, but Ben was too edgy to be interested in the sex she was clearly offering him.

  In fact, there was no point in hanging around. He’d made contact with Jake, satisfied himself that his brother was all right, and they’d planned where and when to meet. He might as well saddle up and ride out, give himself a little extra time to intercept Lonny and make certain their men didn’t blunder too close to the ranch and alert McLain. Just as soon as he managed to get word to Jake that Garnet was looking to hire someone to gun him down, he’d leave.

  He walked around after supper, just wandering and smoking like he had the night before. Jake was nowhere in sight, but he hadn’t expected him to be. He just waited, put out his cigarette, and wandered some more. When he paused under a big cottonwood tree, Jake murmured, “Here I am.”

  The shadows under the tree hid them from view, especially since Jake was squatting with his back to the trunk. It was another moonless night and some clouds had drifted in to blot out the stars, making the night dark enough. Ben leaned back against the trunk, too, lifting one leg to plant his boot against the wood. “Garnet tried to hire me to kill you,” he said, making certain his voice was too low to carry.

  Jake grunted. “I’ve been watching my back since the day I got here.”

  “Why is he after you?”

  “He’s got a bad itch for the little sister and I won’t let him scratch it.”

  Ben grunted. He couldn’t see getting that worked up over one particular woman, but he had seen it happen to too many men for him to be surprised.

  “I guess I’ll take myself on out of here tomorrow, then. We’ll wait for you.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Keep watching your back.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben rode out early next morning, without saying anything to anybody. He hadn’t done any work to speak of, so he didn’t ask for any pay. He just saddled up and left.

  Jake didn’t watch his brother ride out or say anything when Ben’s departure was commented on later. In two days he planned to follow him. Before he left, however, he had to see Victoria and tell her to stay in the house and make certain Emma and Celia did, too. But how the hell was he going to talk to her when she hadn’t poked her nose outside in days?

  He saw Emma the next day, late in the afternoon when she had stepped into the courtyard for a moment. He