A Good Man for Katie (3 page)

After two weeks of living with the distrust and skepticism from the people in this godforsaken town, Chase liked to think he had become inured to their attitude, but such was not the case. The treatment he received irritated him. No one gave him the benefit of the doubt. He supposed they had reason to look upon him with distrust—a stranger in their midst who wore a tooled leather holster slung low around his hips and tied to his leg in gunfighter fashion.

How much easier it would have been if he’d ridden into town in uniform, medals glowing, Captain’s stripes emblazoned on his arm.

“Whether you like my
kind
or not isn’t the point.” Chase’s hands balled into fists at his sides as he inhaled and exhaled to keep a tight rein on his temper. “I stopped in to report what happened to your stagecoach. Your driver took a nasty blow to the head. He’s dead. The coach he drove is destroyed.”

All three chins quivering, Oren spat tobacco juice on the floor. He pointed a sausage-like finger at Chase. “We don’t need your help, Hunter.” His voice quavered, at odds with his demeanor.

“Fine.” Chase backed toward the door then stopped with his hand on the knob. “In case you’re wondering, the passenger will be fine. A little bruised, a little scared, but unharmed. She’s with Doc Leslie’s wife right now.”

He closed the door behind him and stood facing the street. The fine hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Someone was watching him. Intently. Without moving his head, Chase’s eyes shifted left then right. The raised boardwalk was full of people going about their business, but none seemed to pay him any notice—for a change. He glanced across the street to the town square.

Not one, but two deputies leaned against a huge tree that provided shade to a cluster of benches. Gabe Montrose and Jesse Long had their eyes pinned on him. Though their stances appeared casual, Chase knew they were primed for action. One suspicious move on his part and they’d have their guns drawn.

He saw how the tableau would play out, saw himself shot dead where he stood. Chase’s eyes narrowed to slits as he adjusted his hat and stepped into the street. Beneath the unrelenting stares from the deputies, he untied Champion’s reins from the hitching post and climbed into the saddle with exaggerated slowness. Muscles tightened in his back and his jaw clenched when he thought he heard the metallic click of a revolver being cocked, but he didn’t turn to face them. He wouldn’t put it past either one of them to shoot him in the back, but not in front of so many witnesses.

Eyes straight ahead, he pulled fresh air into his lungs then kneed the horse’s sides and rode out of town, back the way he’d come.

“Damn!” he muttered. If he could leave this town, he would. Right now. But he couldn’t. Two weeks had come and gone since the morning his brother Evan left Camp Verde with a wagonload of rifles, bound for Fort Whipple. Evan never made it. Neither did his companions. Or the rifles.

Crystal Springs was the last place Evan and the three men who traveled with him had been seen before they disappeared. Trapped here until he learned what happened to his brother, Chase had to accept the suspicious stares and vicious gossip.

“I can live with it. I’ll do what I must.” He spoke the words aloud to convince himself, but even so, he had a hard time believing it. His eyes drifted heavenward. “Help me, Evan. Give me a sign. Where the hell did you go after your steak dinner at the Wagon Wheel?”

No answer came from above.

He lowered his head. The scent of Kathryne O’Rourke’s perfume lingered on his clothes. The delightful fragrance of vanilla tickled his nose as he kicked Champion into a gallop up the mountainside. Chase admitted being impressed by the beautiful stranger he’d saved from the runaway coach. No screaming hysterics, no pathetic caterwauling. Despite her harrowing experience, she’d kept her composure until the moment Emeline Leslie answered the door.

He liked that in a woman. He also liked the way she looked at him—dark lashed, wide brandy-colored eyes full of trust. Since coming to Crystal Springs, no one gazed upon him in such a way.

She’ll have a hard time of it because of me
. The thought careened through his mind and filled him with remorse as he remembered the stares they received riding through town.

She
had
looked like she’d spent the afternoon in the throes of unbridled passion—rich chestnut hair cascaded down her back in wild curls, and framed her face, cheeks rosy with color, clothing torn.

“What the hell am I thinking?” Champion gave a short whinny in answer. “Yeah, I know, boy. I shouldn’t be thinking about her at all. I have a job to do. I need to find Evan.”

Champion chuffed and came to a stop at the top of the mountain pass. Chase slid from the saddle beside the wreckage of the coach. He pulled a pale blue gown from beneath the rubble and tossed it over the horse’s saddle. A frilly petticoat followed, as did a beautifully embroidered corset.

She wears expensive clothes. She must have money. Or her family does.
The assumption didn’t bother him at all, but did rouse his curiosity.
Who is she? Why is she here?

A guilty smile twisted his lips as he rubbed the silk of a chemise between his fingers before adding it to the growing pile slung over Champion’s saddle.

Rays of the setting sun glinted off something in the canyon below as he bent over to retrieve an emerald green gown stuck under a broken wheel. He stood, removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow, all without taking his eyes from the ravine’s floor.

Chase sidled closer to the edge of the dirt road. Soft sand and small pebbles shifted beneath his weight to cascade downward. Again, something sparkled between the trees, beckoning him. He squinted as he tried to decipher what it could possibly be.

Wind whistled through the treetops of Dead Man’s Drop, the haunting sound filled with the voices of the ghosts of those who had lost their lives on this lonely road. In the whisper of the wind, he thought he heard his name. Gooseflesh rose on his arms and the fine hairs at the back of his neck bristled.

Step by careful step, he made his way down the steep mountain. Fallen pine needles and decaying leaves created a thick shifting mat beneath his feet and twice, he fell. The ground beneath the pine needles remained moist from the last rain—mud and dead leaves stuck to his now-damp trousers, but he didn’t care.

His heart thundered painfully in his chest as he slid the last couple of feet to the canyon floor. His eyes widened and his breath stuck in his throat. “What the hell?”

Between the trees, in a clearing where all the grass had been scorched black, rested the charred remains of a wagon and beside it, the item that glittered in the sunlight. Chase’s heart lodged in his throat.

Sweat rolled into his eyes as he ran toward the small clearing. The pain in his soul nearly took the breath from him as he skidded to a stop, fell to his knees and picked up the sparkling object from its bed of ashes.

Chase could only stare at the partially melted, misshapen ring in his shaking hand.

The stone was the blackest onyx. A small diamond complemented the gold H overlaid on the gem. Evan’s ring. Which meant only one thing—Evan was dead—as his brother hadn’t removed this ring from the moment their father had given it to him on his sixteenth birthday. It matched the one Chase wore on his own finger.

A muscle jumped in his jaw and he blinked to remove the sudden sheen of tears from his eyes. “Oh, Evan.” He closed his fist around the ring, felt the sharpness of the diamond cut into his palm and welcomed the pain.

He breathed deeply to regain control and glanced around the clearing, his mind refusing to understand what his eyes saw. What the fire hadn’t taken, the insects and scavengers did. Pieces of burned uniform, a few misshapen buttons, a Saint Christopher medal, and Evan’s ring were all that remained of his brother and his companions. Bile rose in his throat. Without warning, he vomited.

Still on his knees, he wiped his mouth and looked up toward the top of the ridge. Shallow grooves created a haphazard path through the trees and ended where he knelt. Broken branches littered the ground, their leaves singed black.

He could only assume what happened. Evan and his small contingent of men must have been ambushed, the rifles they transported stolen, the wagon set ablaze and pushed from the road to settle in this clearing at the bottom of the canyon. He only hoped Evan’s death had been quick and merciful.

Chase swallowed over the lump in his throat and tasted bile. He took a breath then another, forcing the air in and out of his lungs. The pain in his soul overwhelming, he cried out. The howl sent heavenward flushed birds from the trees and echoed off the canyon wall, but did nothing to stop his heart from breaking.

He removed his own ring from his finger, stuffed it in his pocket, and slid Evan’s ring onto his pinky. Shaken, he rose to his feet, determined to find out who had killed his brother. And why.

****

Chase waited in the semi-darkness of Alexander Barstow’s kitchen at Camp Verde. Moonlight streamed in through the window to make a crosshatch pattern on the floor. Light from a single kerosene lamp on the table cast a warm glow. Neither reached into the corner where he stood in perfect stillness.

Nervous energy filled him. He couldn’t sit, couldn’t rest. He couldn’t pace, either, worried the sound his hard-soled boots and their spurs might alert Alex’s sleeping wife of his presence. He dared not even breathe hard, afraid some small sound would bring the presence of Sarge, the mongrel dog he’d saved as a pup, running down the stairs again. They’d shared a warm welcome, the dog’s tail wagging furiously before Chase ushered him back upstairs.

Hands clenched into fists, mouth drawn into a thin line, he dreaded the task ahead of him, hated having to tell Alex his son was dead.

Moonlight brightened the room for a moment as the door swung open and closed. Chase remained motionless as Alex strode to the table and turned up the lamp Prudence, his wife, had left burning.

“Sir.”

Alex jumped. His Army-issue revolver cleared the holster as he spun around. Pistol trained on the shadows, his body stiffened as he peered into the darkness. A moment later, he uncocked the firearm and shoved it back into the holster. “Shit, Har—!”

Chase cut him off. “Careful, sir, you never know who might be listening.”

Alex glanced toward the ceiling and the room he shared with his wife. His voice a whisper, he asked, “Prudence?”

“Doesn’t know I’m here. No one besides Sarge does. I made certain I wasn’t seen.”

“Good.”

Chase squirmed as Alex eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension then sighed as the colonel pulled a chair away from the table.

“What are you doing here? We agreed―”

The spurs on his boots jingled as Chase crossed the kitchen and slumped into the chair. “I couldn’t wait until our appointed meeting time.”

Alex said nothing as he pulled a bottle of fine sipping whiskey from a cabinet and poured two shots. His hand shook and drops of the amber liquor spilled on the counter. With a dishtowel he pulled from a drawer, he wiped up his mess then placed the glasses on the table. He pushed one of them toward Chase before taking a seat.

Chase ignored both the glass and the colonel’s raised bushy eyebrow. His heart hammered in his chest and he opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. He tried again and still couldn’t find the right words. Nor could he look Alex in the eye. He took a deep breath to quell the tremor coursing through his body, fisted his hands against the anger taking control of him, and blurted, “They’re dead, sir.”

Alex stiffened. His face paled in the soft glow of the lamp. “Excuse me?” he wheezed, his voice as shaky as the hand he used to reach for his glass of whiskey.

Chase swallowed over the lump in his throat and tried to relax the tenseness in his body. He failed. His voice tight, he repeated, “They’re all dead.” He dropped Evan’s ring on the table. It bounced and rolled several times before coming to rest. Brass buttons, melted and misshapen, joined the onyx ring. “Your son. My brother. Wilcoxon. Hampton. All dead.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.” He placed the last item, a St. Christopher medal, in his commander’s hand. “I believe this was Jeremy’s.”

Tears shimmered in the older man’s eyes as he looked at the medallion then at Chase. “Where did you find this?”

“Dead Man’s Drop, a canyon outside Crystal Springs.”

Alex’s hand balled into a fist around the medal. “What happened?”

“I believe they were ambushed, sir.” He didn’t mention what he’d found at the bottom of the canyon, hoping to spare the man some of the grief he had not been spared.

The colonel cleared his throat. He stood and paced the kitchen, arms folded across his chest as if he held himself against the pain. He took a deep shuddering breath then another and another. “The rifles?”

“No sign of them, sir. I assume the rifles were why our men were killed.”

Chase watched him and waited. Alexander Barstow had always been a man in complete control of himself. Stoic. Rigid. Unemotional, except when it came to his wife and son. Anger glimmered in his eyes as he stopped pacing and met Chase’s gaze. His voice trembled when he asked, “How am I going to tell Pru?”

In the next moment, he crossed the room so fast, Chase jumped out of his chair. They stood face to face. A muscle thrummed in Alex’s jaw and matched the one Chase felt throbbing in his own.

“I want you to find the thieving bastards who murdered my son and kill them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Chase replied automatically though the order went against every fiber of his moral being. He opened his mouth to argue the point, to let Alex know it would be better to have the men stand trial and let the law execute them, but one look at the colonel’s shining eyes and hard features changed his mind. Alex would never hear the words.

He saluted, slipped into the darkness and left the camp, his heart heavy. As difficult as it had been to tell Colonel Barstow about his son, telling his parents and Evan’s fiancée would be a hell of a lot worse.