The Gunslinger (2 page)

 

Chapter 2

L
ILLIAN
M
ADISON STARED
straight ahead as she guided the wagon home. She found it impossible to believe that her brother had hired a man to protect her—or that the man seemed intent on honoring his end of the bargain until she was safe behind locked doors.

She cast a sideways glance at Chance Wilder. Sitting rigidly on a dun-colored horse, he rode beside the wagon, his face set in tight, unforgiving lines. She'd heard of him, of course. They sung ballads about him and penned dime novels based on his exploits. He had a reputation for drifting into a town and not leaving until he killed someone. She supposed now that Wade would be making use of a plot in the church cemetery, Wilder would move on in search of more excitement. She'd be glad to be rid of him. How could a man kill with no remorse? His eyes had been icy, calculating. He had moved with the grace of a striking snake when he jerked his gun from his holster, holding the weapon as though it was a part of him. She shuddered with the memories of his swift, smooth motions that had resulted in a man dying.

“Have you really killed twenty-four men?” Toby asked, bouncing energetically on the wagon seat, turning toward Wilder. She had taken her brother to see the doctor before they left town. The physician stuffed cotton up Toby's nostrils to halt the bleeding from his broken nose. He had to breathe through his mouth, and when he talked, his voice honked like a goose. She imagined the squawking could easily grate on the nerves of a man like Wilder.

“That's what they say,” Wilder replied in a flat voice.

“Reckon it's twenty-five now on account of Wade dying.”

“Reckon so.”

“How do you keep count?” Toby asked. “Do you notch your gun belt?”

Wilder remained silent.

“I heard gunslingers notch their gun belt. Want me to do it for you—notch your gun belt, I mean?”

“Nope.”

“But how will you remember?”

“Boy, I do my damnedest to forget.”

“Then how do you keep count?”

Wilder ignored the question. Lillian wanted to explain to him that she couldn't abide anyone ignoring a child, no matter how bothersome he became. But she had no desire to engage him in conversation. He may have saved her from a horrible fate, but he left death in his wake, and seemed not to be the least bit bothered by it. He was a cold, hard man. Toby had given the man his dearest possessions, and Wilder had dropped the treasured gifts into his duster pocket as though they were less valuable than dirt.

“You ever been to Houston?” Toby asked. “Me and Lil used to live in Houston.”

Silence.

“What about Austin? You ever been there? Me and Lil got to spend the night in a hotel there when we was moving here. It's only a day's ride away. I bet you come through there on your way here.”

Silence stretched between the man and the boy. Toby rolled his tiny shoulders forward, and Lillian knew Wilder's disinterest had hurt her brother's feelings. She wanted to slap the man. She'd spare Toby from all the hurt in the world if she could. It was the reason she had accepted the land and the house that Jack Ward offered her.

If only she'd realized all the trouble that bit of foolishness would cause.

Toby gave her a lopsided grin that revealed his latest missing tooth. “Don't think he likes to talk.”

“Seems not.” She slipped her arm around him and drew him up against her side, hugging him fiercely. “But you need to know: he didn't save me. You did.”

The only one in this world who loved her, never judged her.

She drew the horses to a halt in front of the white clapboard house. After climbing down from the wagon, she trudged over to Wilder. She peered up at his cold, implacable face. “We're home now—safe. I'd appreciate it if you'd head back to town.”

Only his silver eyes moved as he slid his gaze to her. “The boy paid me . . .
everything
. Never had
everything
before . . .”

Slowly he lowered his eyelids, slumped forward and tumbled off his horse. With a small startled screech, Lillian jumped back as he landed with a thud near her feet.

“Gawd Almighty!” Toby cried, scrambling down from the wagon and skidding to his knees beside Wilder, whose duster had parted to reveal a white shirt soaked in bright crimson blood. Lillian thought she might be ill.

Toby snapped his head around, fear reflected in his blue eyes. “He got shot. Why didn't he say something when we was at the doctor's?”

Shaking her head, she knelt beside Wilder and gingerly unbuttoned his shirt. Carefully lifting the material and peering beneath it, she saw the ragged, gaping hole still oozing blood from his shoulder.

“He's bleedin' something awful,” Toby said. “You gotta help him, Lil.”

Lillian hesitated. If she helped a man who made a living killing others, would she, in effect, become an accomplice to future killings? If she left him as he was, perhaps he would not survive, and no one else would die. But could her conscience live with that? Let one man die to save others, allow others to be killed to save one man? What was her debt to him?

He had come to Lonesome for a reason—to kill someone. As much as she hoped Wade had been his intended prey, she thought it highly unlikely. So someone else's name was etched on one of his bullets.

Toby slipped his small hands beneath the man's shoulders and struggled to lift him. “Come on, Lil. We gotta get him into the house.” He raised his troubled gaze to hers. “He saved you!”

She considered what Wade might have done to her if this gunslinger hadn't shown up. No one would have stopped him. Everyone in town believed she deserved that sort of treatment.

Toby strained to heft the man. Wilder's hat tumbled off his head to reveal a riot of ash blond curls. His hair looked incredibly soft, like Toby's had as a baby. She hadn't expected that of a man who killed others to make money. Unconscious, his face completely relaxed, he looked young, much younger than she'd originally thought he was.

“Help me, Lil,” Toby pleaded with labored breaths.

How could she explain her dilemma to her innocent brother? What sort of example would she be setting if she left him to die? She couldn't control this man's actions. She could only control her own. Giving Toby a sharp nod, she bent to help her brother carry the hired gun into the house.

T
HE RAGING FIRE
burned through his shoulder. Chance wanted to stay huddled behind the wall of agony, but the softness beckoned him, touched him, spoke to him.

He struggled to open his eyes. He was in a room he didn't recognize, beneath a quilt that didn't belong to him. His right shoulder was swathed in bandages. The woman sat on the edge of the bed, patting a warm damp cloth over his bare chest, humming a tune—“Red River Valley.” Ruby shadows shimmered over her hair. He decided the muted shades were caused by the flame from the lamp sitting on the bedside table. She appeared young and innocent, too innocent to be an old man's whore. He knew all about Jack Ward because the man's family had paid him to come to Lonesome.

“What's Lil short for?” he croaked.

Her hand stilled, right above his pounding heart. “Lillian. Lillian Madison.”

“Pretty name.” A tinge of scarlet crept into her cheeks, and he knew he could easily drown within the fiery blue depths of her eyes if he wasn't careful. Fortunately, experience had tempered him into cautiousness.

“You should have told someone you'd been shot,” she scolded, as though he were a child to be looked after.

“Would have brought out the vultures,” he said wearily.

Her delicate brows knit together. “The vultures?”

“Men looking to gain a quick reputation. It wouldn't have mattered that I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Killing me is killing me.”

She drew back her shoulders. “Yes, I suppose it would be quite an accomplishment to shoot the fastest gun west of the Mississippi.”

With difficulty, he rolled his head from side to side. He didn't know why he wanted her to understand, but it seemed important that she know the truth—or at least part of it. “I'm not fast at all.”

“Then how in heaven's name did you gain your reputation?”

“I'm deadly accurate.”

She bolted from the bed, the movement jarring his shoulder, sending shards of agony ricocheting through it. Groaning low, he slammed his eyes closed and gritted his teeth, waiting for the wave of pain to ease. He concentrated on the steady staccato beat of her heels as she paced the floor. In each step, he heard the anger, frustration, and disappointment. Then the pacing came to an abrupt stop. He opened his eyes, knowing what she would say before she spoke the words.

“As soon as you're strong enough, I want you off my property.”

She strode from the room in a flurry of whispering skirts. He sank further into the softness of the bed. The pain had shifted from his shoulder to his heart, the incredible ache almost unbearable.

But he would bear it as he had since he was fourteen. He'd live with the agony, the guilt, and the loneliness . . . until the day that he came upon a man who was more accurate than he was.

Closing his eyes, he drifted into the welcome oblivion where the past was merely a shrouded mist.

“
I
S HE GONNA
die, Lil?” Toby asked.

Lillian studied the man lying in her bed. When he awoke earlier, she'd thought he was well on his way to recovery. Now she wasn't so sure. Although his fever was raging, he was shivering as though he'd just emerged from a river in winter. “I don't know,” she whispered as she dipped a cloth into a bowl of warm water. She wrung it out and began to wipe the sweat from his throat. She felt his body stiffen beneath her fingers.

“Don't go for the gun,” he rasped. “Goddamn it! Don't go for the gun!”

He jerked, kicking at the blankets. She pressed her hands to his shoulders. “Mr. Wilder?” His breath came in short little gasps. “Mr. Wilder?”

“He's gonna draw, dammit!” Groaning low, he convulsed, waving his hand frantically. She wrapped her hand tightly around his, and he settled into stillness. His breathing slowly evened out and he opened his eyes. She saw pain reflected in his silver depths, pain that traveled clear to his soul. “He's dead,” he whispered.

It wasn't a question, but she nodded anyway.

“I didn't want to kill him,” he said, his voice low.

Then why did you?
hung on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to voice her true thoughts when he seemed so weak, struggling with his inner turmoil.

“I know,” she said softly, not fully understanding why she needed to comfort this man who was clinging to her hand as though it was the only thing keeping him anchored in this world. She felt him relax as though her words gave him absolution. She leaned forward. “Mr. Wilder, do you have family? Is there someone I should notify if you should . . . should die?”

He rolled his head from side to side. “No family. No one who cares.” He smiled, reminding her of a small boy about to play a prank. “I won't die in your bed, lady.”

Her stomach lurched. Her troubles began the night Jack Ward had died in her bed. “See that you don't.”

His eyes drifted closed, but his hand remained firmly wrapped around hers. He had stopped shivering, and his cheeks felt a little cooler to her touch. She sat on the bed and stared at their clasped hands. He was a killer, but for a few moments he had simply been a man haunted by demons. She wished she hadn't witnessed his vulnerability—wished she hadn't wanted to hold him close and make the pain go away.

C
HAN
CE AWOKE EXHAUSTED,
his shoulder aching. Shafts of sunlight pierced the room. A woman's room. It carried the fading fragrance of roses in bloom. Turning his head slightly, he saw the boy standing beside the bed, reverently touching the harmonica that rested on the bedside table.

“Do you—” He'd planned to ask the boy if he knew how to play, but he couldn't push the words past his parched throat.

The boy jerked his head around. “Bet you're needing some water,” he announced with authority.

Chance struggled to sit up as the boy poured water from an earthen pitcher into a glass. He felt weaker than a newborn babe. He took the offered glass, hating the way his hand shook as he gingerly sipped on the cool liquid that eased the ache in his throat. Over the rim of the glass, he studied the one responsible for his current predicament. The boy no longer had cotton stuffed up his nose, but an ugly black bruise framed one eye. “Your nose hurting?”

The boy shook his head vigorously. “Lil said it'll probably be somewhat crooked, but that it'll give me character.”

Chance couldn't prevent a corner of his mouth from lifting. “Character, huh?”

The boy nodded. “I reckon that's a good thing to have—whatever it is.”

Chance's smile grew. “Not too many people have character these days.”

“Do you?”

His smile withered away. “None at all.”

“I'm supposed to get Lil if you woke up,” he said, and hightailed it out of the room.

Breathing heavily, Chance sank against the pillow and rested the glass on his bare chest.

Wiping her hands on a crisp white apron, the woman strolled boldly into the room, seemingly not at all fearful of his reputation. Her fiery hair was caught up in a braid that draped over one shoulder. “You're awake.”

“You say that like you had doubts.”

“You ran a fever for two days.”

Shock rippled through him. “Two days? What day is it?”

“Thursday.”

“I need my clothes,” he barked.

“You need to rest,” she insisted.

Fighting not to appear as weak as he felt, he started to sit up. “I need to get some fresh air, start gathering my strength—”