Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 48

He glanced over at her; she was straightening her slip and pulling her dress back on over her head. He slipped his own arms through the sleeves of his s.h.i.+rt.

"I'm already involved, Marie."

She pursed her lips and he knew he'd said the wrong thing. It wasn't as if he could just walk away, though. Why couldn't she see that?

"I just don't want to see you getting yourself hurt," she said finally, fitting a pin into her hair that almost hid the chaos that had overtaken it a few minutes prior.

"I won't. You made your point."

She gave him a long, tired look. He understood it, but there wasn't anything else he could do. And then, a moment later, she was gone. He fit his pistol around his waist and took a deep breath. It would be easier to deal with his brothers himself. He could just lay it all on the line and if it went wrong, then he was the only one who got hurt.

But Chris already knew that wasn't an option any more. It had already gone wrong, if other people were getting hurt, and sure as the sun rose in the morning, Mick was layed up in the doc's, likely as not to succ.u.mb to his injuries. Someone needed to set things straight, and clearly, the bartender's way of doing things wasn't doing the job no matter how much he wanted it to.

The Sheriff didn't look surprised when he walked in. Roberts never gave Chris the impression of being surprised. It was a trait that worked well in Sheriffs and bartenders both. A Sheriff has to deal with all kinds of craziness that normal people never see. A bartender hears all sorts of stories and has to sit with a straight face while some drunk tells them. In a sense, they were practically the same.

"Sheriff, I got some information for you. It ain't much, but it's something. I hope."

He told the short version of the story, as short as he could get it. By the end of it, the Sheriff was leaning back and thumbing cartridges into a rifle idly, as if he did it every day.

"You know where they're hiding out?"

"Sure," Chris answered. "They told me to go meet 'em."

"Then you could take me there."

The bartender answered by way of a solemn nod.

"I don't like the notion of taking a civilian along, no offense, but I suppose it has to be done."

"Suppose you're right," Chris said.

That was the last thing they said for a while. The bartender followed the Sheriff out the door and slipped onto the back of his horse. He took the lead, in spite of the fact that he shouldn't have been there. He shouldn't have been going at all, if Marie had her way. She had the right look, too, but there wasn't much choice.

Finally, the sun settling into an evening twilight, they crested a hill, and Chris saw what he'd been looking for. A big tree, half the branches missing and the trunk bent and gnarled like an old woman's spine. "There," he said, and pointed.

The Sheriff nodded; Chris could guess what he was thinking without the man saying anything. This was about where one would expect outlaws to be hiding out. Far enough out that n.o.body was going to come looking if they didn't know where to find what they were looking for. On the other hand, it was close enough that you could make it in an hour or two-little enough time to cause as much mischief as you might need.

Chris took a deep breath.

"You need me any further?"

The Sheriff sat for a moment, not answering. The faraway 'pop' that echoed through the hills and ripped through Roberts's thigh ended up answering for him. The Sheriff let out a yell and slipped off his horse.

Chris could about hear the sound of a voice calling out: 'I said you oughta come alone!'

He eased himself off his own horse and grabbed the Sheriff, who clutched at his leg. He needed to get them out of there, and he needed to do it in a hurry.

Thirty-Five.

Marie watched Jamie as he took a deep breath and then put the skillet on the stove and crack a couple of eggs. He was surprisingly capable. He had to be, with his parents away as often as they were. Now, with them never coming back, he'd only have to be more independent.

The egg let out a hiss as he poured it in. A quick look around before he threw it away, as if he needed to find it again. And no doubt, he did. He was functioning again, on a basic level, and that was an incredible achievement all by itself.

After all, it was barely a week past finding out that his parents were dead. Only a week past his entire life being turned upside down. A teacher wasn't a replacement for parents; it was a simple reality, and one that she wasn't afraid to confess to.

She hadn't known him for years. She'd been here four months. But someone needed to do something. She wasn't going to see a child hurt. No one deserved to suffer, but it hurt especially to see such a sweet, caring boy put into a bad spot.

The bad spot in this case, the worst spot of all, was that his promised protector had gone off to talk to the Sheriff, and he hadn't come back. Not all night, if she was in a position to know. Now Jamie was making himself breakfast, and if he worried then he was doing a good job hiding it for now.

The smell of food started to fill the little hotel room. To fill her nostrils. Marie smiled without being able to help herself. She pushed herself up from her seat on the sofa, pushed her mood out of the gutter.

"Smells good," she offered as she stepped over to the meager stove.

Jamie looked up at her with a mixture of emotions. Then, after a long time, he murmured, "thank you." He didn't comment any further.

"What do you think we should do today?"

Jamie's lips pinched together. "Don't we have cla.s.s?"

Marie shook her head. "Not today, Jamie. We're taking a holiday. Tomorrow, though"

His eyebrow furrowed. "Can we go see Mr. Chris?"

Marie's lip found its way seemingly all on its own to between her teeth. She hid the expression before Jamie could see it, or so she hoped.

"He's at that bar, Jamie, you know it's not appropriate"

"He'll come out to talk to us, though, if you ask him."

Marie took a deep breath and made an effort to keep her face neutral and smooth. "Not today, Jamie. He's been taking too much time off work, his boss is very upset with him."

Jamie's face fell. "Oh."

Marie let her eyes drift shut. She hadn't meant to upset him, justjeez. Why did it have to happen this way? She wasn't trying to do anything mean, but how much meaner would it have been to let him know that she was worried? To a child, barely ten years old, if an adult was worried, then just how bad could the situation be?

With all the bad situations that he'd been through in recent days, it wouldn't be a great leap.

"We could go see Ruby. I'm sure she's got something a boy your age would like, over at the store."

He made an attempt at looking like that cheered him up. Anyone could have seen through it. She smiled at him, though. Baby steps before giant strides.

"But can we stop in and see Mr. Chris, at least? Just a moment."

Marie didn't have a good answer for that. There was no reason that they couldn't, not if he were there. They could just stop in a minute. There was nothing wrong with that.

Nothing wrong except that it relied on him being there, and she didn't know what they would find when they stepped into the bar.

So the teacher did what she always did when there wasn't a good answer: she changed the subject.

"Did you sleep alright?"

There was a faint hope that he would let the subject drop, but it was quickly apparent that he had noticed the s.h.i.+ft. From the look on his face, he didn't like it.

"Is there something wrong with Mr. Chris? Is he okay?"

Marie didn't know what to tell him. 'I don't know' was about as comforting as a bed of nails, and Jamie wasn't exactly in an emotionally stable position right now. She didn't want to create more problems for him, not when he already had so much to deal with.

"He said he had a little business, but he'd be back today," she lied. It sounded right.

"So we can go see him, then," Jamie reasoned. He looked at her out of the side of his eyes as he took his first bite of eggs.

"We can try, but if he's not here until this evening, then he won't be there."

It was the best she could do, given the circ.u.mstances. Now she just had to hope that he was going to accept it.

"He didn't know when he'd be back?"

"He went out to meet a friend the next town over. If they get to talking, it could be a few hours. You know how men are," she said, as if he might have done it himself, knowing he wouldn't have.

But he wasn't going to deny the chance to pretend to be a man, certainly not in front of her. That was what Marie gambled on, anyways.

"Oh, sure. That makes sense," he agreed. He looked down at his eggs and pulled another bite onto his fork with a piece of bread. "But we should still go see him. He'll want to talk to me, after all."

Marie smiled. "You're right, Jamie. He absolutely will. He wouldn't miss it for the world, if he knew you were coming."

She ran her fingers through his hair and let him eat. Now she just had to hope that in spite of everything, he'd be there. The chance that he wouldn't wasn't one that she particularly wanted to take.

Thirty-Six.

Chris ought to have gone faster. That would have been the best chance at getting the Sheriff back home safe, with most of his blood still in his body. The good news was that he still grunted a little, if the bartender shook him. It was a poor consolation, compared to the paleness of Roberts' skin.

Minutes counted in keeping the Sheriff's wife married. But riding hard, he quickly realized, was just too much of a risk. The big man could barely keep the half-conscious Sheriff on the saddle in front of him at any decent speed, and the cries of pain left little question of how well he was enjoying the ride.

So it was slow going in spite of Chris's best hopes and intentions, and as the sun started to slip down the horizon, he finally rode into town. If he'd been able to make it to the doc's office before someone noticed, that would have been enough. All he'd needed, no more.

That wasn't what happened. Someone noticed him riding in, and once they'd looked his way it wasn't hard to notice the body, halfway laid out along the horse's neck, a position that couldn't have been pleasant for any involved. Then the shout went on ahead and before he could say 'boo' there were folks coming out of the woodwork to come and see what was happening.

Chris let out a yell and tried to force his horse through. This was exactly what he'd expected to happen. Like clockwork, they'd done what they always did, and he wasn't going to be surprised by something like this. Just work through and try to get the Sheriff to help. The folks would figure it out and let him through, though they'd be clinging real close to see how it all went down. To see the exact moment when they can start claiming that he got the Sheriff killed. 'Almost' just didn't hold the same sort of appeal.

None of that surprised him. He was even a little bit used to it, as if he'd have been disappointed by the town if they hadn't bothered. But he was surprised by the horse pulling up in front of him, blocking what little gap the bartender was able to make for himself.

"I wasn't done talking to you, you yellow-bellied coward."

Chris's jaw tightened, but he didn't answer, heading his horse off to the side. He got the response he expected when his brother moved to intercept him. He worked the action on his rifle, a little threat to remind him that it was loaded.

"I need to get this man to a doctor. He's hurt bad."

Jack lowered the barrel of the rifle until it was leveled at his younger brother. "Yeah? That's a d.a.m.n shame to hear."

"You can't do this, Jack"

The murmur of the crowd rose in a ripple. With the name, suspicions were being confirmed. A face to go with the name. 'Smiling' Jack wasn't smilingnot that he ever did. But at least he'd managed to keep Chris's name out of the papers, and off the wanted posters.

"You watch me. You think I have a problem watching some law-man bleed to death? You got another thing coming."

"Jack, I don't know what your problem is, but you got no quarrel with him. You want me, you got me, but let this fella get help."

There was a glimmer of something in Jack's face that might have been consideration. Then his flat expression returned and he reaffirmed his target was dead on.

"I ain't gonna have you running off again. You're good at that, boy, and I ain't lookin' forward to another five years trackin' you down again."

"Is that how long it was? How long did it take to decide I weren't dead when you left me behind?"

There was a moment, in Chris's head, when he'd hoped that Jack was going to be so stung by the comment that he would let them both go, at least just long enough. The way that he tightened up his jaw, though, told the whole story of how naive that idea had been.

"f.u.c.k you. If you were fine, y'ought to have come along behind. Sammy'd still be around if you had brought up the rear."

"If I'd been a quick shot, you mean. If I took on a posse by myself, I might have had a chance."

Jack's expression s.h.i.+fted from righteous fury to stubborn fury. It was a subtle s.h.i.+ft, but to Chris, he might as well have moved a mountain.

"I don't care what kind of clever words you got to say. You left us to die."

Chris bit back the words in his chest, and then looked at the hexagonal barrel of that rifle, pointed right at his chest.

"I ain't done nothing. Not to Sammy and not to you. You're foolin' yourself."

"f.u.c.k you, you son of a b.i.t.c.h. It was in your power, but you were too weak to do what needed doing."

"Jack, look at yourself, and when you're doin' it, realize that you're the one got Sammy killed. If we'd given up that life when we was aheadh.e.l.l, if we'd picked at the dirt a little"

"Is that what you thought they wanted? Live life with nothing to look forward to? Just dirt-farmin' and barely making enough to survive?"

"Better than looking forward to a bullet."

Jack's snarl deepened. "You always think you're so smart. Go on, go for that pistol of yours. Think you're so tough"