Lone Star 05

Table of Contents

 

 

“Listen carefully to what I am about to say. Many lives are at stake here. Please hold your fire. I'm coming out with something I want you to see. Agreed?”

 

“Yes!” Jessie shouted impatiently.

 

Mueller stepped into view, an evil smile of triumph on his scarred face. “If you shoot at me,” he announced, “you might miss and hurt the young woman. And you wouldn't want to risk that, eh?”

 

His hand was locked on the arm of the Mormon girl Ki had fought to save. Her pretty eyes lifted to meet Jessie's and there was terror in them, and hopelessness. She was a hostage now and Mueller's trump card. This trick was his....

LONGARM AND THE LONE STAR LEGEND
LONE STAR ON THE TREACHERY TRAIL
LONE STAR AND THE OPIUM RUSTLERS
LONE STAR AND THE BORDER BANDITS
LONE STAR AND THE KANSAS WOLVES
LONE STAR AND THE LAND GRABBERS
LONE STAR IN THE TALL TIMBER
LONE STAR AND THE SHOWDOWNERS
LONE STAR AND THE HARDROCK PAYOFF
LONE STAR AND THE RENEGADE COMANCHES

LONE STAR AND THE UTAH KID

 

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with
the author

 

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / November 1982
Second printing / April 1983

 

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1982 by Jove Publications, Inc.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: Jove Publications, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-16889-9

 

 

Jove books are published by Jove Publications, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. The words
“A JOVE BOOK” and the “J” with sunburst are trademarks
belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

 

To the north, the high-ridged Uinta Mountains jutted into the sky, the lofty peaks even at this time of the year capped with snow. Jessica Starbuck breathed in the cool, fresh Utah air and gazed ahead at the sun-dappled hills and deep-carved canyons through which she and her companion rode. It was a beautiful sight, but Jessie could not enjoy it; she was troubled. The news she had received back in Provo threatened to destroy the cherished memory of her father and alter her plans for finding his murderers. Even the sun that hung bright and brassy in the high-vaulted blue sky shone cold on her this day.

The frigid breeze pierced her cambric blouse, raising goose-flesh on her skin. She pulled the cotton vest more tightly around her breast. On her long legs she wore a pair of blue denim pants that clung tightly to her. She was most comfortable in simple clothes like these, rather than in swirling skirts and fancy ball dresses. And, she reflected, she always had been—another legacy from her father.

Jessie Starbuck was a stunning combination of her parents: a beautiful, independent woman and a powerful, handsome man of the world. Since her mother had died when Jessie was too small to remember her well, the woman's influence was hereditary rather than direct. But her father, who had been at home as much as he could be, had molded her strongly in his own image. So this combination of beauty and tenacity, of softness and determination, of sensuousness and brains, became Jessie Starbuck—and there were few women like her in the West.

Her partner, the slender Oriental-looking man on a black gelding, rode ahead, his eyes sweeping over the trail. He knew enough to let her keep her silence and not to disturb her deep thoughts. He himself was a quiet man, his energies directed inward in an effort to maintain the strict self-control that was the secret of his art—indeed, as he often said, the secret of life itself. Having known this woman for many years, and loved her, he sensed that this time she needed to work out for herself the dilemma she faced. So he did not turn back to look into her troubled face or to speak to her.

The pair stopped at noon to rest and water their mounts, and to take care of the third horse they had with them. Jessie rode a spirited gray, and the extra animal was a chestnut mare. The two riders dismounted and led the horses to a shallow slip of water beside the clear-running Strawberry River. At this point they were at the mouth of the narrow trail, with brown and gold bluffs towering on either side of them. The river cut through the wide canyon, bubbling toward its union with the Duquesne River farther east, in the direction Jessie and her partner were headed.

They found a beachlike lip of dry sand and gravel, over which hung a shelf of rock, and they rested there as the horses drank.

“Shall I make some tea, Jessie?” the man asked. “It helps one think clearly.”

“No thank you, Ki,” the young woman replied. “Nothing will help me right now. Nothing but the truth.”

“The truth is often difficult to obtain. On the other hand, tea, which possesses a truth of its own, is easy to prepare.”

A smile caressed her pretty face, her full lips parting slightly. “All right, Ki, if it'll make you feel better.”

“I do it for you, Jessie. As I do all things.”

“I know, Ki. I know you do.”

He gathered dry twigs, built a fire, then boiled water in a small iron teakettle. After washing the two small porcelain cups he always carried in his saddlebag, he placed a pinch of powdered green tea carefully in each one. All his attention was focused on the simple task as he poured the water and carried the steaming cups over to where Jessie sat, her knees pulled up to her chin, her arms locked around her legs.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“If you wish to tell me your thoughts, I'll listen.”

Jessie shook her head. “It's nothing I can talk about right now. I refuse to believe that my father may have—” The words would not come out. “I can't believe he wouldn't have told me, Ki.” Anger smoldered in her beautiful emerald eyes. She bent to sip her tea so that he would not see the extent of her agitation and her bitterness.

“Your father was a great man, Jessie. But even great men sometimes make mistakes. However, it is probable that this young man, whoever he is, is not telling the truth. I, too, know in my heart that Alex Starbuck would never have fathered a son by another woman and not told you about it.”

“I could understand his need for another woman—after Mother died.” The awful memories washed over her as she spoke. “He was a man. Maybe he didn't even know about the child.” She looked up at Ki, her eyes shining with the realization. “He can't have known about the boy. Or else he would have told me.”

“If
there was a child, Jessie. It is likely this man is not your father's child after all.”

But I must prove it to the world!
she wanted to shout.

Memories of her father engulfed her mind. Even now, many months later, she could not imagine him dead. Not Alex Starbuck, not the empire-builder who had survived every hardship to carve out a legend for himself. No, he would always live in her heart.

She remembered his eyes—hard, hazel, unswerving. As a girl, she had found love in those eyes. Others—employees, colleagues, enemies—might have found something else there, something not necessarily to their liking; but Jessie found love. Alex Starbuck had been a big man, with a huge chest and wide shoulders. His shock of hair had gone gray in later years, after his wife's death, but he had never looked old. He had remained vital, a ruddy-faced, hard-working man until the end—until they shot him dead in a bloody ambush....

Jessie cringed at the thought of her father taking those bullets. It had been a brutal execution, as senseless as it was wrong. And it would not go unavenged.

But the years before that, the years Jessie and Alex had been together—the young woman remembered them fondly. Most of those years she had spent on the vast Circle Star spread, growing and learning under the open blue sky, roaming the land on horseback and becoming a part of the open spaces around her. There had been a sense of freedom and security, a curious blend of deep longing and unabashed satisfaction. A pretty young girl with everything she needed, she still had not been spoiled—her father saw to that. He looked after her education and well-being, but she did not get everything she wanted. Looking back, she remembered the time she had coveted a gold Arabian mare she had seen on a visit to a Mexican ranch when she was twelve. She dreamed about that horse, and she swore she would have it. But Alex Starbuck had refused, knowing it was too much animal for a little girl—even if that girl was his daughter. It took her many weeks to get over the pain of losing something she had wanted so desperately. But she did, and in later years she realized that her father had made the correct decision after all.

It was the same in so many things. It was only now, after he was gone, that she saw how her father's firm, callused hand had shaped much of her life. Even when he was away on business, which was frequently, she always felt he was there with her. All she had to do to bring him home was to step into his study, always redolent of leather and tobacco, the special blend he smoked. That was enough, sometimes—until he returned from whatever faraway place had pulled him away from her. And he always returned—always—until the day he was gunned down by the devilish conspiracy that she was now determined to break.

Although she could never recapture the security and happiness of those years with Alex Starbuck, Jessie would preserve his memory and the legacy he had left her.

Now, as she and Ki rested by the river and sipped the subtly scented tea, she pondered the meaning of the journey that lay ahead. At times like this, in the absence of her father, she wished Custis Long were near, so that she could take comfort in his strong arms and seek his advice. What would he do? The only man she had ever truly loved ... what would he do?

Ki interrupted her thoughts. “Marshal Long can't help us, Jessie. He is far away. It is only you and me this time.”

“Oh, Ki,” she exclaimed. “How did you know? Is it written all over my face? What a fool I am. Of course, Longarm is far, far away. And I have you, Ki. Please don't ever think I'm ungrateful that you're beside me.”