Swept Away (29 page)

Luke pointed to the back door. “If you don’t want in, get out. Keep walking straight north for a while, then hole up in a spot where no flying lead will hit you.”

“Sounds like good advice.” The man hopped up and shot out the back door.

Luke studied the street through the mostly closed livery doors, which could be swung wide to drive a wagon through. He’d seen Greer a few times years ago. But this was the first time he’d laid eyes on him since coming home.

He’d never have recognized him. Wild beard, hair on the back of his hands and showing from the two open buttons on his sweat-stained broadcloth shirt. He’d needed a haircut for a year. When Luke saw him last, Greer had been tidy. A hard man but polished. Now he looked like an
animal. Run to fat. Ham-sized fists, growling and shouting threats. Demanding to know where the sheriff was.

It was awful to think of him using those massive hands on his wife.

Picturing his father, Luke’s hand went to his gun. He could do it. Greer was just a few yards away, and Luke was deadly with a pistol. He was even better with a rifle, but his six-gun would do. He could put a bullet in Greer and end this. Greer had his back to Luke and wouldn’t even know. His men would probably ride off once their boss was dead. No one who made his living with a gun stuck around when there was no one to pay wages.

Luke could feel it. Feel the prodding from his gut.

Kill Greer. End this.

Another voice, more a whisper, came from his soul.

If you kill Greer like this, you become him.

He hadn’t forgotten Jonas’s words.
“If you want God on your side, you’d better be on His. This day is about justice, not vengeance.”

His gut spoke again.

Kill Greer. Stop this before anyone dies. One bullet. Think of Pa. Think of Big John. Picture him turning those massive fists on Glynna.

Luke heard a metallic crack and looked down to see he’d drawn his gun. He’d raised it. His finger settled rock steady on the trigger.

C
HAPTER 20

“We need to send you down first, Glynna.” Ruthy opened a loop in her rope.

“No, I want the children away from here.” Glynna slid an arm around Paul and hugged him.

Ruthy saw Glynna’s need to make the boy go, when the boy clearly wanted to take care of his ma.

“We need an adult up here and another down there. That’s you and me, Glynna.” Ruthy held up the heavy coils. “I need Paul’s help to lower you. With your arm injured, we’ll need to bear most of your weight. I don’t know if I can do that alone.” Ruthy looked at Paul. “But Paul and I, braced against a tree, along with you holding on to the rocks as much as possible to ease your weight, we can do it.” She hoped.

Glynna didn’t like it. Ruthy had a feeling the woman had gotten into the habit of sacrificing everything for her children. It might even explain how she’d ended up married to Greer.

Glynna nodded. “I can be down there and help the children get out of their ropes.”

“You go over right here.” Ruthy moved fast with getting a loop around the woman, then pointed to a spot that
didn’t look much better than anywhere else. But then she and Luke had climbed up and down with no rope at all.

Glynna sat on the ledge, turned over on her belly. With a suppressed wince of pain, she said, “I’ve found the first foothold.”

“Wait before you go.” Ruthy went to the nearest tree, not big but big enough, and circled it while holding the rope. “Paul, come and help me pay it out as your ma goes down. Janet, go watch your ma. Call out if you have any trouble, Glynna. Between us all, we can do it.”

Glynna swallowed hard, moved her right shoulder gingerly, and flinched in pain. “All right. Let’s get this done.”

Vanishing over the edge, Ruthy felt most of Glynna’s weight for just a second, and then the weight began to lessen.

“She’s climbing down pretty fast.” Janet watched over the cliff’s edge. Ruthy wanted to go see, measure the progress. Instead, she held the rope tight, letting it out hand over hand, testing it constantly for a sudden jerk that might mean Glynna was struggling.

“I’m down.” Glynna’s voice came from the base of the cliff. “I’m free of the rope. Pull it back up.”

“You’re next, Janet.” Ruthy dragged the rope up as fast as she could.

The little girl nodded as Ruthy secured the loop around her chest, tucked under her arms. Ruthy started lowering her, not waiting for the girl to find a handhold. After the little one was out of earshot, she looked over her shoulder at Paul, who was feeding out the rope as quickly as Ruthy was.

“You’re going to mostly climb down. You can do it. I’m going to stand here bracing the rope just in case you slip and fall, but you can do this without help.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped. Ruthy worried the boy might be afraid of heights or some such thing.

“I couldn’t protect my ma.” Paul’s voice was a near whisper. “I should have been able to, but I was too scared. I just stood by and let him hurt her.”

“I had a family take me in when my parents died. They were heavy with the punishment, and I felt a fist or the back of a hand or a heavy boot whenever it suited them. I couldn’t fight back. I was too small. I tried a few times and they seemed to like it; it gave ’em an excuse to hit me harder. Greer’s a bully and a brute. Any man who puts his hands on a woman in anger is a coward. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t feel the need to show his strength against someone who can’t best him.”

“If he’s such a coward, how come we couldn’t scare him off?”

“The real trouble with a coward like Greer is, if you had been bigger and faced him and fought him, then he’d get sneaky.” Ruthy thought of Luke back in town. Her husband was a man who faced trouble head on. “He’ll shoot from cover or stab you in the back.”

As she said it, Ruthy felt an almost frantic need to go to town, to back Luke somehow. She had a gun. She could keep watch, see if Greer was sneaking around, coming up from behind.

“I’m down.” Janet’s voice sounded from below. “Pull up the rope.”

“Your turn, Paul.”

The boy went to the ledge, looked over as hand over hand Ruthy recoiled the rope.

“What we’re doing right now is sneaky.” Paul studied the cliff, maybe looking for footholds.

“No it’s not,” Ruthy said. “It’s smart. Luke and Dare—”

“The doctor? He’s in on this?” Paul seemed interested, and Ruthy wondered what all had happened when Dare had treated Glynna. The rope was all the way up, and Ruthy looped it around Paul’s chest.

“Yep, the doctor helped plan it. The two of them can handle that coyote of a stepfather of yours, and they’ve got other men fighting with them. We’re carrying out our part of the plan exactly as we should. It’s never cowardly to avoid a fistfight with a man who outweighs you by two hundred pounds.”

Paul nodded as Ruthy tightened the rope. He looked at her, worried. “There’s no one to lower you down.”

“I’ve been up and down this cliff now a few times. I’m just going to climb. No rope.”

A smile popped out on Paul’s face. “Bet I can do it, too.”

“I’ll bet you can. I’ll be holding the rope, but I don’t expect to use it a single time.”

With a nod Paul went over the ledge, scampering down the cliff with the confidence of a mountain goat.

He never put an ounce of weight on the rope, and Ruthy was smiling when she looked down at her friends. “Mind the rope.” She dropped it, then turned and climbed down herself.

Now all she had to do was get them to the hiding place near town, then get her gun and go fight for her husband.

Honestly, with all the work she had to do today, she probably should’ve made a list.

Luke jerked his finger away. He’d almost done it. Shot Greer in cold blood.

“If you want God on your side, you’d better be on His.”

Greer lifted one foot and slammed it into the jailhouse door. Luke could go charging out. Brace Greer, demand a shootout. Face-to-face wasn’t murder. The chance would slip away when Greer got inside.

Kicking again, Greer splintered the door. He rushed inside. Luke heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t killed, and he hadn’t died. Waiting had been right.

From inside, Greer shouted, “Get in here!”

Every one of his men hurried inside. Luke lowered his gun. He saw Vince poke his head out the door of his law office. Luke stepped into sight briefly so Vince would know where he was.

“Bullard!” The cell door rattled. Greer yelled as he fought the door to release his hired gun.

Garbled yelling went on inside. All Luke could make out was when Greer shouted, “You three men find my wife. You two bust the window out of this cell.”

Five men burst out of the sheriff’s office. Two of them went to their horses and led them around the back of the jail. The other three fanned out, one to the general store, one toward the livery, and one down the board-walk toward Vince. Luke watched the hired gun head straight for him. He might not get Greer, but he could get someone.

Then Luke heard another crash—the back door of the jail being kicked open.

Greer kicked the front door open to the sound of shattering wood.

Dare listened from his spot behind the jail as the idiots tried to break Bullard out of jail. Their efforts, from what
he could tell, were mainly directed toward banging on the cell door and swearing.

He knew they were getting desperate when two of them led mounts to the back of the jail.

Greer kicked open the back door as his men came around and met him. “Tie ropes to the window, then yank it out with the horses.”

“Will do, boss.”

Dare recognized one of the men. He’d been at Greer’s house the second time Dare’d come out. The coyote had stood guard after Greer threatened to shoot Dare for tending his unconscious wife.

Six men in all. Two of them back here, stringing ropes from their horses’ saddles to the cell’s window. The buildings blocked his view of any other movement, except for one man angling toward the livery. Dare had seen Luke slip in there. If the two others were wandering, Dare hoped Vince and Jonas got them out of the fight.

Greer stomped his way back into the sheriff’s office, impatient with watching his men secure the ropes. A motion to Dare’s right drew his attention to Vince, who was walking bold as brass toward the two men. It struck Dare that he didn’t really need to hide—except for the very real possibility that Greer would focus his rage on the doctor who’d been out to his ranch. But honestly,
Luke
needed to hide. Dare belonged in this town. He could walk its streets. He straightened and strode toward the two men. They were distracted, working on the ropes, knotting them to the bars so they didn’t see him coming.

Vince picked up speed so they’d reach the men at the same time. Dare wondered if hitting a man over the head from behind would make Jonas proud. Dare took the one
on the left, the one he recognized. The polecat who’d stood guard to keep Dare from protecting a beaten woman. With one wicked stroke from his gun butt, he knocked the man out cold.

Vince’s man went down at the same instant.

“Get ’em down to my place, quick.” Vince, in charge whether it was his fight or not, grabbed his man by the feet and dragged him away.