Lassiter Tough (20 page)

“Not many would agree on the latter,” he said with a short laugh.

When the dishes were done and she had given him a towel to dry his hands, their eyes met. He dropped the towel and impulsively reached for her. And she responded, her arms warm against the back of his neck. He picked her up and carried her to the rear of the big house. He forgot about the healing shoulder.

“Not in there,” she said softly when he approached
the bedroom she had shared with Rep Chandler.

“I didn't figure to,” he said and, in a back bedroom, lowered her gently to a bed. Moonlight filtered through lacy white curtains and turned the room to pale yellow. There was a headboard of polished dark wood. A strip of Mexican rug put color in the room. A night table beside the bed held a lamp with a rose-colored shade.

After a time of heady exploration, they came together, their eager bodies struggling in an ancient ritual. Occasionally, her muted cries of pleasure broke the stillness of the lonely house. Tree branches gently scraped across roof tiles as a breeze came up.

The only time he froze was when her arms locked across his broad back and she cried out, “Now I've got you, got you
forever!
”

Then she collapsed. For several minutes while he held her close, she did not open her eyes. When she did, it was to smile happily up into his shadowed face.

When the funeral for Buck Rooney was finally held, it was not well attended. Business establishments in Santos closed for the ceremony. Isobel Hartney in a new dress, her favorite color of green, was there with parasol over a shoulder.

“I don't believe in morbidity,” she explained when one of the women mentioned that she wasn't wearing black.

Isobel smiled. Her busy eyes searched the sparse crowd and settled on Lassiter, who was late in arriving. Clinging to his arm was Millie Chandler, her dark hair shining in the sun. Isobel realized she suddenly hated her.

A solemn Brad Sanlee rode in from his ranch. For
once he was alone. He seemed unusually reserved, most everyone thought, and decided he apparently was deeply affected by Buck Rooney's death. No one had realized they were that close, a man near Lassiter was explaining to a neighbor. Lassiter smiled grimly.

Marcus Kilhaven spoke gravely to Millie and shook hands with Lassiter. He mentioned his late friend, Rooney, in his usual quiet way. A black suit, obviously purchased some years before, did not quite fit his tall, raw-boned frame.

This time a traveling reverend happened to be on hand, so the ceremony was lengthy, not abbreviated as had been the case with Rep Chandler.

Tate, Kilhaven's nearest neighbor with the exception of the deceased Buck Rooney, was not present. When someone whispered a question, it was revealed that Tate had sold out to Brad Sanlee, suddenly, and left that part of Texas. Upon overhearing this low-voiced exchange, Lassiter couldn't help but be reminded of the list Sanlee had shoved under his nose at their initial meeting that day in O'Leary's Saloon. Kilhaven, Tate and Rooney. Now only Kilhaven remained.

All during the ceremony, Sanlee avoided Lassiter's eyes. The reverend was extolling the earthly virtues of the late Buck Rooney, whom he had never met.

When Brad Sanlee was riding out, Millie stared at his broad back and whispered, “He's up to something. I know him so well.”

Lassiter was also staring at Sanlee, a look of cold blue winter in his eyes.

“Suddenly, I'm afraid,” Millie said shakily. She clung to Lassiter's arm as if it were an anchor to keep her from slipping off the face of the spinning earth.

The funeral had purposely been delayed so as to
give the sheriff time to come down from Tiempo. But he hadn't come. Nor had there been any word from him regarding the letter Lassiter had sent.

After the funeral, Millie found herself encircled by women firing questions. How was she getting along since the death of her husband? Some of them cast sly glances at the tall, dark Lassiter standing nearby. Isobel came gliding up with a rustle of her stylish dress.

“You see, I was right,” she said softly with a tight smile. “You didn't like it when I pointed out a fact to you one day.”

“What fact?” he snapped and instantly regretted it.

“A charming widow and a ranch . . .”

Lassiter's attention was drawn to Arthur Hobart, who stood a few feet away. There was a secret smile on the banker's smooth, round face. When he found Lassiter watching him, he averted his gaze but did not lose the smile. Seeing it caused a chill to slide down Lassiter's backbone. He thoughtfully fingered the clean white bandage Millie had placed around his throat that morning. Something deep within warned him to get out before he brought disaster to Rep's widow. He had lingered much too long in this Texas brush country.

On the way back to Box C, Luis Herrera and three of the vaqueros trailed the buckboard. Lassiter was driving. The subject of his leaving Texas came up. But each time Millie interrupted with her bright and eager voice, pointing out exceptionally colorful huisache blossoms or pointing at the sky where giant clouds were whipped into gargantuan shapes by the wind.

“They look like castles,” she exclaimed. “Can't you see castles up there, Lassiter?”

“Millie, listen to me. . . .”

“I think the tribute to Mr. Rooney was sweet but much too long. When my time comes, which I'm sure will be years away, I hope we'll be buried together in the ranch plot. I'm sure Rep wouldn't mind.”

Lassiter felt a dull pain that wasn't altogether from his healing wounds.

The trouble came with the suddenness of a spring storm where the sky is the bluest of blue one minute, then spouting rain and violent wind a quarter of an hour later. He had gone into Santos to confront Arthur Hobart at his bank. He was remembering the banker's sly smile the day of Rooney's funeral.

“I want you to show me in your books where you credited the $37,000 dollars to the Chandler account.”

Now that Hobart was alone with Lassiter, with not even the gaunt clerk nearby, he was not so cocky. With trembling hands, he got out a ledger, flipped pages and then pointed to an entry.

Lassiter nodded. “Just figured to make sure.”

“Anything I can ever do for you, Lassiter, just say the word.”

Lassiter looked at the round face, the mound of belly and the nervous hands. Why was Hobart so obsequious all of a sudden? he asked himself. Was it fear? Or was it knowledge that coming events would set things right in his favor?

“I'll be leaving here,” Lassiter said coldly. “And I expect you to treat Millie Chandler decently.”

“As you've been treating her, I expect,” Hobart said with a straight face.

“What'd you mean by that?”

Hobart paled. “I . . . I . . . it just slipped out. I meant nothing.”

“I know what you meant.” Lassiter gave him a look that caused the banker's jaw to drop. “Watch your talk, Hobart. Or I'll find some way to wash the dirt out of your mind with lye soap.”

As he rode along the alley behind the bank, he saw from a corner of his eye Isobel Hartney dash from the rear of her store and wave to him. She was wearing a large apron, the inevitable pencil under the yellow hair at her ear. When he ignored the wave, she called to him. But he rode on, his face tight. In his present mood he didn't trust her any farther than he could throw an ox.

He set his horse to a canter. By the time he arrived back at Box C, the animal was lathered and Lassiter's clothing sticky with perspiration. It was an overcast day that kept the growing heat pressed to the ground as if with a giant tent. There seemed to be no one around the corral or bunkhouse. He thought it strange. Usually there was at least one man at the home place. Cottonwood branches seemed to droop in the heat.

Esperanza Herrera had just washed her hair and was drying it on the porch of the small house she shared with her husband. He rode over and asked about her husband and the crew. Where were they? She threw back the long damp hair over a shoulder and looked up at him in the saddle of his lathered horse. “Luis say you give orders.”

“Orders for what?”

“To take the whole crew and go over east to move cattle away from Kilhaven's boundary. To clear out that end of the range.”

“I said that?” Well, to tell the truth, he had been thinking it. With Tate having sold out and Rooney dead, Sanlee's next move would logically be against
Kilhaven, one way or another. Perhaps he had mentioned it to Herrera. He couldn't rightly remember. But he was a little miffed that Herrera had taken it upon himself to do the job without talking it over first.

“I don't understand why Luis thought I ordered him to do it.”

“It was Señor Barkley who bring word.”

“Barkley?” He was the new man Herrera had hired on to replace one of the vaqueros who had quit after Rep Chandler's funeral. Lassiter stared down at the woman. “What's Barkley got to do with it?”

“He come an' he say he run into you on the way to town. An' you give orders for Luis to take the whole crew an' go over to Kilhaven's line.”

“The whole crew, eh?” Lassiter stiffened in the saddle, his blue eyes sweeping the ranch yard. He looked at the big house in the cottonwoods some distance away. “Is Mrs. Chandler home?”

“I do not know for sure, señor.” The woman explained that she had been out back washing the family clothes and then her hair.

“How long ago did Luis and the men leave?”

“Right after you go to town.” Her brown face showed concern. “Is something wrong?”

“I dunno. Maybe.” The whole damn thing didn't add up. Barkley telling Luis Herrera that he, Lassiter, had issued orders to move cattle away from Kilhaven's line. And to take the whole crew. It smelled worse than a dead skunk in July heat. He turned his horse and started for the house.

Earlier that morning, Isobel Hartney and her two clerks were using feather dusters in the store. Her blond hair was pinned up, making her look quite regal despite a voluminous apron with its straps across her slender back. She had been dusting a windowsill when she happened to look out to see Brad Sanlee enter town with some of his men. They dismounted in front of O'Leary's. The men went inside and Brad came walking toward the store.

She could tell by Brad's tense face that something was up. Usually she didn't open the store this early, but it was Saturday and yesterday had been the first of the month, payday on the ranches, a double reason for being ready for business.

At first she thought of having her clerks tell Brad that she was indisposed. She hadn't seen him since the day she had abruptly left his guests and driven herself home in one of his wagons. But she had to face him sometime. Why not today?

A scowling Brad jerked open the side door, letting
it slam back against its stop. “I figured you'd still be in bed,” he said in a nasty voice. The two clerks lost the color in their faces. When Sanlee was in one of his moods, there was no telling just what the next few minutes might hold.

He swaggered over to her, big and bearded, a gun swinging at his hip. He got her by an arm and hurried her at a stumbling run to the foot of the rear stairs where they would be out of earshot of the clerks.

“You ran out on me the other day,” he accused, leaning close so she had the full impact of his glittering gray eyes. But she didn't flinch.

“I'd had enough of you for one day.” Her chin lifted.

He grinned. “I just thought you'd like to know about Buck Rooney.”

“What about him?” Something made her heart lurch.

“Lassiter murdered him.”

“Come now, Brad, that's preposterous and you know it.” But her mouth was dry and her eyes enormous.

“We got a witness.”

She tried to slow her pounding heart. “What witness?”

“Doc Clayburn.”

“You're making this up to . . . to frighten me.”

“Doc had been worryin' about my sis losin' her husband. He was on his way out to Box C to find out if she might be needin' a tonic or somethin'.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Doc witnessed Lassiter murder Buck Rooney?” She sounded incredulous.

“He was right there in the brush. Rooney an' Lassiter
wasn't more'n twenty feet away. He could see an' hear most everything. Lassiter didn't like some-thin' Rooney said to him, so Doc says. Doc was too far away to really know what Rooney said. But he sure seen Lassiter whip out a gun an' kill him.”

“You're making this up to frighten me.” She was clasping her hands at her breasts so tightly that her knuckles were white as bleached bone. The sounds of her two clerks arranging merchandise in the store were faint. Her heart pounded.

“Doc's ready to swear in court,” Sanlee said triumphantly.

“Somebody should get word to Sheriff Palmer.”

“He's already got word from me.”

The shaft of cold fear that had pierced her heart was now shifting to anger. “You and the sheriff,” she said, her red lips barely moving. “Yes, I begin to see it all now.”

“Once Lassiter's done for, maybe I'll come around to see how you feel about marryin' up with me. But then again, maybe I won't.”

“Brad, if you do something to Lassiter it will
really
be murder. The law will . . .”

“Hell, honey, I
am
the law.” Grinning broadly, he pulled out a badge. He showed it to her. She wasn't surprised. The sheriff and Brad's late father had been close. At election time, the elder Sanlee had made sure that most voters chose Doak Palmer to remain in office. And Brad had taken over from his father.

“So you see, if I should happen to arrest Lassiter an' he makes a break for it . . . well, I got no choice but to bring him in.”

“With a shot in the back,” she flung at him bitterly.

“I'll yell myself hoarse tellin' him to halt. But finally
I'll have no choice but to get him. 'Course I'll aim for a leg, but you know how things go when a fella is runnin' full tilt, tryin' to get away. A bullet don't always go where you aim.”