Outlaw (37 page)

Whoever it was, they'd have to find another
seat. Moving slowly, trying her best not to call attention to
herself, Amelia sat beside the abandoned water cup and spread her
skirts neatly around her. She propped her plate on her lap, her
drink on the ground beside her, and what she hoped was a nonchalant
expression on her face, then listened.

"...after what them easterners said," said
one of the posse members, his voice muffled around what sounded
like a mouthful of food, "I don't reckon he would."

They had to be speaking of Mason! Excitement
thrumming through her, Amelia leaned slightly sideways.

"...neither," came another voice. "But that
ain't—" the guitars played louder, drowning out his next few words
"...chase out there."

A stooped, white-haired woman passed by
Amelia's rock, carrying several lightened lanterns hung from their
handles on a thick pole. Stopping a few feet away, she slid one
from the pole and hung it from a tree branch instead, illuminating
the area beside the
cantina
where the cottonwoods grew
closer together. A group of children played amongst them, blinking
up at the lantern light like months drawn to a bright window.

Move on
, Amelia pleaded silently to
the woman, afraid her activities would draw the lawmen's attention
toward her listening post. Hunching her shoulders, she nibbled at
her
enchiladas
without tasting them, waiting for the woman
to carry her too-revealing lanterns elsewhere.

One of the children yelled something.
Amelia's gaze snapped from her plate to the sheriff. He looked
toward the sound, frowned, then resumed his conversation. Craning
her neck slightly, she peered toward the children—who now seemed to
be playing a game of tag—trying to see them through the sheriff's
eyes.

He couldn't see them from his place at the
cantina
bench, she realized; none of the posse could. Her
shoulders eased with relief. At least the shouts of the children
wouldn't call undue attention to her. Pushing her food around on
her plate in an attempt to seem preoccupied, Amelia waited for the
lantern woman to move on.

Finally, she did. Feeling slightly more
well-concealed without a whole string of lighted lanterns gleaming
a few feet away, Amelia peeked from beneath her bangs in the
lawmen's direction.

"...find him," came the sheriff's voice. It
wavered in and out, at times overwhelmed by the music and at others
coming to her more clearly. "Don't want...owe it to...tonight."

A hoarse shout from within the cottonwood
trees at her back overrode his next sentence. The children, still
playing. She glanced back to see them circled together, leaning
over something in the center of their group. She wished they'd play
their game a bit more quietly, however impossible a wish that might
be.

Under the guise of setting down her tin
plate, Amelia leaned forward on her rock to catch the next
statement, made by one of the burliest members of the posse.

"Ain't them no good son of a—"

Another yell from the children drowned out
whatever else he said. Amelia frowned and swiveled on her rock,
intending to quiet the rowdies with a schoolmarmish frown or a few
quick-spoken words. Instead she stared at the group, shocked into
stillness.

This was no game at all. The group of
perhaps six or seven children she'd seen had clustered around
another child—one nearly a head smaller than them. Now that she
heard them aright, the shouts were jeers, obvious from the cruel
tones used to deliver them. While she watched, a young boy kicked
hard into the center of the circle, and the yelling grew
louder.

Amelia glanced quickly at the sheriff. He
went on talking, not looking toward the stand of cottonwood trees
at all, obviously unaware of what was going on only a little ways
away. Then she remembered he couldn't see the group from his place
beneath the
ramada
, and looked back toward the children
again.

Another boy on the edge of the circle
scooped up something from the dirt and held it overhead. A rock,
she guessed, peering closer. Seconds later, more children scrabbled
in the dirt, looking for rocks of their own. Abandoning her plate
and cup, Amelia stood, torn between listening further to the
sheriff's plans in the hope of helping Mason somehow, and putting
an end to the children's taunting. Surely one of their parents was
nearby, surely they or a neighbor would...

The first rock flew into the circle's
center.

Amelia's temper flared. No more rocks would
fly toward that smaller, outnumbered child. Lips pressed tight
together, she marched straight toward the taunting group with all
the authority she could summon. Their faces grew more distinct as
she approached, and she realized none of them could be more than
nine or ten years old. Mostly boys, wearing farm clothes and the
occasional child-sized
sombrero
that shielded their features
from her. So young, and already so cruel?

"You there!" she called. "Stop that at
once!"

Oblivious to her, they pushed together as a
group, kicking toward the center of the circle. Muffled cries rose
from within it, then the awful sound of pounding fists. Her blood
racing, Amelia ducked a poorly aimed rock and grabbed the nearest
bony-shouldered boy she could reach. She dragged him from the
group, creating an opening to wedge herself into.

"Stop it, all of you!" she cried, hauling
another child—a pink-ribboned, jeering girl—away from the circle.
The girl stumbled backward, wide-eyed at adult intervention, Amelia
supposed, and ran toward the
plaza
.

"Stop it!" Coughing from the dust their
scuffles had raised, Amelia pried a rock from the hand of the next
youngster she saw and shoved herself further into the circle.
Almost as one, the group stepped back as they became aware of her
presence. Still yelling insults, two more ran through the
cottonwood trees.

Two remained in the center, both boys. One
stood almost as tall as Amelia, albeit stockier and meaner-looking.
Recognizing him as the first rock-thrower, she grabbed his shoulder
just as the smaller boy landed a punch in his belly.

She caught only air. The boy doubled over,
yelling, between gasps, a stream of profanities such as she'd never
expected to hear from a youth.

Furious, she grabbed his ear and pulled as
hard as she could. The tactic worked as well for her as it always
had for Miss Fitzsimmons back at Briarwood. The boy yelped and
immediately straightened, his lips compressed with pain.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Amelia scolded, feeling for all the world like pushing the ruffian
into the dirt where he belonged. Picking on younger, smaller
children, indeed!

"Where are your parents? I've half a mind to
turn you over to the sheriff. Perhaps you didn't realize he's right
over there," she threatened, nodding in the direction of the
cantina
.

With the instigator in hand, Amelia looked
past him to see if the younger boy had been badly hurt. At the
sight of him, though, whatever else she'd meant to say dropped
straight from her mind.

The poor child stood panting, staring at the
dirt, one leg bent as though he favored it. Was that where they'd
kicked him? Fresh anger surged through her. The boy was surely
hurt, and quite likely scared as well. He kept his head down,
swiping blood from his lip with his torn sleeve. Would he allow her
to help him?

The youth she held used the moment's
distraction to wrench himself free from Amelia's grasp. He made a
horrible sound in his throat, like a person choking, then spat
heavily, straight toward the hurt boy. Turning with one last bold
look at Amelia, he ran from the cottonwood trees, his parting words
echoing behind him.

"At least my pa ain't no murderer!"

"Neither is mine!" shouted the younger boy,
coming up from wiping his lip with his fists doubled, angling his
whole small body into a fighter's stance. "I'll kill anybody who
says he is!"

Left alone with the boy, Amelia held her
breath, careful to remain motionless. She felt almost afraid to
approach him, lest she scare him away. Ignoring her, the child
stared at the older boy's retreating back. Only his profile was
visible to her, but determination and defensiveness fairly vibrated
in the air around him.

His dark hair stood on end, ruffled during
the fight. His face was blackened with dirt all along the side
facing her, as though someone had rubbed his cheek into the ground.
From a rip in his pants his bony knee showed through, making him
seem fragile somehow—despite the angry stance he showed to the
world. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight years
old.

"Let me help you," Amelia whispered,
carefully stepping closer. "It looks as though you've been hurt,
and I—"

He jumped back a pace, everything about him
screaming wariness. His eyes met hers, dark in the swinging
lamplight from the tree branch, and within them she glimpsed
fear.

"I won't hurt you," she said, holding out
her hand to touch him. The way he stood, so proud but alone, made
her heart want to shatter. Ducking his head, he brushed his
fingertips over his eyelids, smearing a streak of dampened dirt
over his brow bone.

He was crying, Amelia realized. "Please,
I—"

The boy raised his head and met her gaze
full-on, despite the tear smudges on his freckled cheeks. His hair,
his eyes, his demeanor...something about them was powerfully
familiar. Almost as though she'd seen the boy before, although she
knew she hadn't, and...and then she knew.

Amelia gasped, her fingers trembling just
inches from his slender, straight-held shoulders. She wanted to
weep at the sight of that small, lost face. The face so like his
father's.

So like Mason's.

"B—Ben?" she whispered. "Ben, is that really
you?"

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mason wove through the
fiesta
crowd,
careful to avoid the hanging lanterns that might reveal his
presence to the sheriff or one of the men in his posse. With George
Hand long-gone to Cruz's house, none of the Sharpes in sight, and
night falling quickly, his chances of finding Ben looked bleak. His
last hope was the group of children he'd glimpsed playing beneath
the cottonwood trees near the
cantina
. Maybe Ben was with
them.

Leaving the
plaza
, he approached the
cantina's ramada
—and saw the sheriff sitting at a bench
beneath it. Mason swore beneath his breath and ducked behind one of
the
ramada's
support poles, then headed around the kitchens
instead. Rounding the back corner, he nearly slammed into two boys
running full-out from the cottonwood grove.

"Whoa, boys," he said, holding out both
hands to stop them. His palms touched their shoulders, and both
boys looked up...and up...until their gazes reached Mason's face.
"Watch where you're going, there."

Their eyes bulged wide. "Ahhh!" Screaming,
they scrambled from beneath his hands. Feet pounding hard, they ran
past him down the alley as though the devil himself were chasing
them.

Frowning, Mason watched until they
disappeared into the
fiesta
crowd. If those boys were any
indication, the children's games he'd seen were already finished.
Even if Ben had been among them, he'd likely be gone, too, by
now.

Instead of checking within the cottonwood
grove, maybe he ought to go search the crowd in the
plaza
one more time, before it got any darker. Turning, Mason headed back
down the alley.

Footsteps pounded up behind him. Another
child ran past, this time a girl with long, pink-ribbon-bound
pigtails streaming out behind her. Her dress billowed, kicked up by
her long strides toward the
plaza
. She vanished into the
crowd, just as the two boys had.

Mason's steps slowed. What the hell had made
them run like that? He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Nothing but empty, deep-shadowed alley and the surrounding adobe
buildings met his gaze.

Curious now, he turned and headed back
around the corner of the
cantina's
kitchen. Maybe fifty
yards away, the cottonwood trees rose into the sky, backlit by
intermittent fireworks. At least two people still stood within the
trees, but Mason was too far away to make out their features. The
smaller of the two was almost certainly a child. The other looked
tall enough to be an adult. The same person who'd set those first
children running like their feet were on fire?

Hand on his gun belt, he moved closer,
keeping to the
cantina's
back wall to remain hidden as well
as he could. Their voices, too low to make out the words, reached
him as he stepped away from the wall. Snaking into the deeper
shadows beneath an overgrown mesquite, Mason climbed over the
picket fence separating Levin's Park from the rest of the town. He
hunkered down to listen, squinting into the darkness toward the
pair ahead.

Muffled words came toward him, borne on a
warm breeze between the cottonwoods. The sound mingled with the
farther-off music in the
plaza
, making it nearly impossible
to hear clearly. Mason shifted impatiently, edging closer. The
child was a boy, he saw, a boy with dark hair. He kept his face
turned away, talking intently with his companion.

He reminded Mason of Ben.

But so had so many others. He couldn't just
charge out into the grove without knowing for sure. All the same,
his fingers flexed on the butt of his Colt with excitement. His
pulse sped up, his heartbeat roaring in his ears. Mason looked
toward the person talking with the boy—a woman, he saw as he neared
the tree they stood beneath—and his breath stopped.