The Vigilante's Bride (2 page)

“Not that drunk. Bart Axel stole the ranch and a thousand dollars from your pa, and that’s a fact. I helped him do it.” Willis talked fast, his voice thick and desperate. “I worked with Axel. We did it lots a times. Bart set them up, and I was the stranger who sat in at the last minute.”

“Why?” Sullivan slid the coils together.

“Axel wanted your pa’s place. He thought the railroad was coming through there.”

“It didn’t. They laid it ten miles west.” Sullivan’s voice rasped like steel files grating together. He’d been six years old then, and his little world had collapsed. His whole family had died because of that card game. Pa lost everything.

Two ranchers pulled Willis to his feet. Roughly, they bound his hands behind him, boosted him onto his big spotted mare, and led her under the oak tree. Sullivan rode alongside.

Willis looked over at Sullivan. “Let me go, and I’ll help you get Axel. I swear I will.”

Granville Stuart, owner of the giant D-S cattle outfit and leader of the vigilance committee, walked his horse next to Sullivan’s and lowered his voice. “They were running off two hundred head today. We can’t let him go.”

“I know – didn’t ask you to.”

Stuart nodded and moved off to another group of men.

Sullivan watched him swing down from the saddle to help collect their gear and rifles. The snow had started again, coming down hard, big wet flakes that clung to hat brims and coat sleeves. They were all anxious to leave. Some of the men had already mounted their horses.

Willis sobbed. His shoulders shook, and tears added to the wetness on his face. “Sullivan, I’m sorry ’bout your ranch and your family. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”

Sullivan stared at him. He rarely thought about his family. It’d been so long he couldn’t remember their faces anymore.

He tossed the free end of the rope up to a worker straddling a tree limb overhead. The man hauled up the rope and fastened it tight. Another rancher stepped under the tree to hold Willis’s horse.

The empty noose turned slowly in the air.

Sullivan caught it, settled it around Willis’s neck, and slid the rope high under the left jaw. He snugged the knot tight behind Willis’s ear to make certain the neck snapped clean and death was instant. That was the most he could do for him.

Sullivan backed his horse away. “May God have mercy on you. I don’t.”

He gave a curt nod to the waiting rancher beside Willis.

At the signal, the rancher threw his hand back and slapped the rump of Willis’s mare, hard. She snorted and bolted from under the tree. Overhead, the branch sagged under the sudden weight.

Willis kicked once.

Snow sifted down and blanketed the ground in white silence.

Sullivan reined his horse around and galloped off alone.

He’d grown up with the harsh justice of range law, even believed in it. Frontier justice was better than no justice at all, he’d always thought. Until tonight.

When he got back to the D-S ranch that night, the biggest cattle spread in Montana, Luke Sullivan walked up the front steps of Granville Stuart’s house and told his boss he quit.

“You’re leaving on account of tonight, aren’t you?” Stuart said.

Luke blew his breath out hard and nodded. “I know what we’re doing is necessary, but I got no stomach for it anymore.” He turned toward the door.

“Where you headed?” Stuart asked.

“Back to New Hope. Don’t know after that.”

Stuart stood up. “Luke, I hate to lose you. You’re the best ranch foreman I ever had. Stay and I’ll take you off the committee, if that’s what you want.”

“Thanks anyway.”

Stuart slammed his hands on the desktop. “Willis could’ve been lying about Axel and your pa!”

Luke paused with his hand on the doorknob, not turning around. “I doubt it,” he said slowly. “A man don’t lie with a noose around his neck. Not even his kind.”

“Willis deserved to die three times over,” Stuart said, and leaned forward. “He was a killer as well as a thief. We got him for rustling, but he was wanted in three states for murder, convicted in Kansas for one. You know that?”

Luke nodded. “Yeah, I know that. And I still quit.” He closed the door quietly behind him.

CHAPTER
2

YELLOWSTONE SALOON
BILLINGS, MONTANA
DECEMBER 24 , 1884

One month later, Luke sat at a corner table, a plate of beef stew in front of him, the first hot meal he’d had in two days. Eyes lowered, he turned his head and listened to the conversation at the bar.

A banker from Laurel, Montana, twelve miles west, was killing time with the bartender until the next stage left for Repton, the nearest town to Billings. Luke gazed across the rim of his coffee cup and studied the heavyset, fancy-dressed stranger with his stomach pushing over his belt.

Luke’s jaw tightened. Two hard knots of muscle bunched below his ears as he mulled over who the fat gent had just said he was.

Martin. Phineas Martin.

Small world. The man in the yellow-flowered vest, sipping whiskey with his little pinkie raised, was Bart Axel’s banker.

“You might say I’m making a” – Martin smacked his thigh and wheezed with laughter – “a delivery to Mr. Axel tonight.”

Delivery? A corner of Luke’s mouth dug in. Delivering money, no doubt, and Axel probably stole every dime of it.

Martin pulled a gold watch from his vest pocket and flicked the cover open with a flourish. He clucked his tongue. “I have to go. What’s taking so long?”

“The horses, I reckon,” the bartender said. “It’s mighty cold out there tonight.”

“Mr. Axel will not be pleased if I’m late. Should’ve been out there by now. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

The bartender, polishing a glass, held it up to the light, then set it down, saying, “Never did.”

“You know him?”

“Everybody round here knows him. Sells a lot of beef to the government.”

Martin beamed. “Fine man.”

The bartender pursed his lips and dried another glass.

Fine man?
Luke snorted under his breath and scraped his chair back, his appetite gone. Axel was a thief and a killer.

Both men looked over as he rose to his feet, leaving the plate of stew unfinished. He shrugged on the heavy sheepskin coat hanging on his chair and pinched the buckles closed with sharp, metal pops. Black felt Stetson squared over his eyes, he strode across the room for the door, drawing a pair of leather gloves from a side pocket as he passed. The spring bell over the door jangled. Cold Canadian air rushed in.

“Stop in again, mister, you hear?” the bartender called. “And a Merry Christmas to you.”

Head down, Luke stopped in the doorway and blinked in surprise. He’d completely forgotten tomorrow was Christmas. With a faint smile he touched a finger to his hat brim. “Right,” he said. The door slammed shut behind him.

At the hitching rail in front of the saloon, his horse Bugle, a big sooty-gray with a black mane and tail, sawed his head and stamped in place as Luke approached. Luke chuckled, gave him an affectionate scrub between the ears, and led him down the street to a water trough in front of a closed dry-goods store. He pulled a Colt .45 Peacemaker from his right holster and used the gun butt to crack the thin crust of ice. He waited while the horse drank.

Across the street, two men led horses through the double doors of Stuncard’s Livery and backed the animals into position, hitching up two fresh teams to the green and yellow Overland Stage and Express coach waiting out front.

Billings was nearly deserted. Down the street, the Northern Pacific train station was closed and dark. The clock on the depot tower said six o’clock, the last train from Chicago come and gone hours ago. The next one, an eastbound, wasn’t due in until seven tomorrow morning, or whenever it got there.

Luke swung into the saddle and headed toward the end of town and the stage road that snaked across the frozen prairie to Repton, nearly twenty miles east. New Hope, his destination, wasn’t that far, less than a two-hour ride. In the saloon he’d debated with himself about staying at the inn until morning, but decided against it. The road was good, and he didn’t mind riding at night. Liked it, in fact. The moon was already up over the horizon, and the sky glittered with stars. With the heavy snowpack and a bright moon, visibility would be good, too.

A razor-edged wind flailed across the high prairie, spitting snow in his face. He pulled his hat lower on his forehead and tucked his chin out of the cold into the sheepskin storm collar, thinking again of the warm bed he could have had if he’d stayed in town. For four days he’d been riding south for New Hope. Ten more miles and he’d be there. Leaning forward, he patted the neck of the big gray. Bugle frisked his feet like a colt, as if he understood they were almost home.

About an hour outside Billings, he spied a squatter’s sod hut, its domed roof outlined against the sky. A window shone with the oily yellow glow of a lantern. As he drew closer, a hound dog ran out partway and bayed at him, its tail stiff. After Pa lost the ranch, they’d lived in a sod house. Luke wrinkled his nose, remembering the damp stink of the place, the dirt floors, the mud walls. A dirt house for a dirt-poor family. He touched his heels to the horse and picked up the pace, anxious to pass by. The house had always smelled like worms to him.

And all because of a crooked poker game. Axel had cheated a good man and his family out of everything they owned. The anger he felt in the back of his mind flared into flame. The ranch and a thousand dollars – that was a lot of money.

Wheels and hooves rumbled behind him on the road from Billings.

The Overland Stage and Express driver cracked a whip out over the horses’ backs. “Hiya-ha-ha! Ha!”

Luke turned toward the shout.

“Ha! Ha!” The whip split the air again. Rocking, swaying, the stagecoach clattered around a bend – the horses’ breath steaming in the frigid air.

Pa always said Axel rigged that card game, and nobody believed him. Not even his own son. But that rustler Willis had confirmed it. And though he’d been only a little boy then, Luke would regret that as long as he lived. He believed him now. Too late.

Guilt, cold and sour, backed into his throat.

Bart Axel’s banker was on that stage.

Luke gripped the reins and set his jaw. It was time to even the score for Pa.

With a tug of the reins, Luke took the horse off the road into a thick stand of jack pines. From the protection of the trees he watched the stage approach. As he did, he loosened the red and white bandanna around his neck and pulled it up over his nose and mouth as a mask. What he was about to do was wrong, but he wasn’t doing it for himself; he was doing it for Pa. He made a small squeak with his lips and gathered the reins. Instantly Bugle stepped closer to the road, poised like a statue, waiting. On command, he could break from a standstill into a full, flying gallop.

The moon slid out of the clouds again.

Chains jingling, four horses thundered past, the stagecoach a blur of wheels and spokes. Luke pressed two fingers against the gray’s neck. The horse tensed, his heavy haunch muscles trembling with excitement.

“Go, boy,” Luke said softly.

Bugle exploded from the trees. Neck stretching, he charged like a racehorse alongside the stagecoach. Luke pulled the Colt from his holster and fired once into the air.

“Pull up!” he shouted.

The driver fisted the reins, braced his feet, and stood in the boot, dragging the teams to a halt. Without a word he tossed his rifle over the side and snaked his hands into the air.

“I don’t get paid enough to get shot, mister,” he said. “I’m carrying no money.”

“I know different.” Luke held the gun steady.

“No money, and that’s the truth. Passengers only tonight.”

A curtain moved aside at the darkened coach window. A face peered out.

“You – inside the coach,” Luke called. “Get out here and be quick about it.”

Phineas Martin opened the door a few inches and called through the crack, “What do you want?” His voice quavered.

“The money.”

“You heard the driver. There is no money.”

Luke’s voice dropped. “Hand it over, I said.”

Up front, one of the horses blew its lips and stamped a hoof in the cold. Martin hesitated. Luke stared down at him and waited. A cloud of snow lifted, whirled into a small snow devil, and ghosted across the road. With a metallic
click-click
, Luke thumbed the hammer back, the unmistakable sound of a revolver cocking.

Martin threw the door of the stagecoach open and scrambled out. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’m just a courier.”

Luke pressed his lips together. He had no intention of shooting anyone.

Martin clutched a small leather satchel against his paunch.

“You’re gonna be sorry for this. You picked the wrong stage tonight. Mr. Axel will track you down for stealing this money – and for frightening his future wife.”

Martin touched his hat to a small, dark-caped figure backing down from the coach. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you should stay inside.”

Luke snapped his head up. He’d assumed Martin was alone. Instead, a petite form backed out of the stage and turned around. A lacy white fascinator draped her head and neck. In the moonlight, everything looked gray, shades of black and pearl.

Hands hidden inside her fur muff, she raised a startled face to Luke. As she did, the scarf slipped back and a mass of long, light-colored hair sprang free and framed her face, pale ivory in the dim light. His heart reacted with a funny little bump that surprised him. She was beautiful.

“What do you mean ‘his future wife’?” Luke growled. “She’s young enough to be his granddaughter.”

Her mouth fell open. “His
granddaughter
?”

“If you missed that, lady, you’re either blind or silly.” Luke motioned her with his gun away from the stagecoach and out into the road where he could see her better.

With a prissy little walk she stepped away as he directed, then whirled around. Legs planted, she frowned up at him. “His
grand
daughter?”

Luke sniffed and frowned back, not knowing what to make of her. She seemed more concerned about Axel’s age than having a gun pointed at her.

“What’s your name – and how do you know Bart Axel?” he demanded. The bandanna hiding the lower half of his face muffled the words.

Her chin shot up. “My name is Emily McCarthy, and I am neither blind nor silly, thank you. I simply haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Axel yet.”

Luke stared at her and shook his head. This night was just full of surprises. “What do you mean you haven’t met him yet?”

“He advertised for a wife in the newspaper.”

“And you answered it?” Disgust thickened his words. “A mail-order bride.”

“It’s quite common these days,” she said primly.

“Not where I come from.”

He edged the .45 away from her and stared down at Martin.

“Give me the bag, man.”

With a wary look, Martin handed the satchel up to him.

Luke opened it, counted off a wad of bills, and stuffed them into an outside pocket.

One thousand dollars – close enough.

He swung his arm. The satchel, still full of most of the money, thudded into the snow at Martin’s feet. Luke reeled the horse around and raced for a line of trees up the hillside, leaving the two passengers standing in the road beside the stagecoach.

For a hundred yards he rode hard. The image of a small, pretty woman trying to be brave streaked across his mind. She was on her way to marry Bart Axel without knowing what she was getting into. Not if Luke had any say in it.

He turned the horse. Bugle raced back down the hillside, slipping and sliding toward the road, toward the stage. In a cloud of snow, the deep-chested gray rushed out of the dark straight at the passengers. The stagecoach driver shot his hands into the air again.

Luke fastened his eyes on Emily McCarthy.

She snatched up her skirts and ran for the stage, her heavy cape billowing behind her.

Bugle pounded alongside. Leaning far out of the saddle, Luke swept her up easily and slung her across his shoulder.

“Yaaah yaaah!” He kicked the horse into a leaping run, heading for the woods with Emily. She dangled down his back like a rag doll, screaming as if he were slitting her throat.

At first he tried to ignore her, but she wouldn’t stop. She hammered her fists into his back and shrieked and shrieked. Bugle snorted and tossed his head.

“Stop that racket!” Luke yelled. “You’re making my horse nervous!” He gripped an armload of squirming woman with one hand and struggled to control fifteen hundred pounds of agitated horseflesh with the other.

So much for slipping silently through the woods
, he thought. By now everyone in the territory knew something was going on.

“You put me down!” A bony knee jabbed him in the stomach.

“Oooff !”

Then her other knee connected above his navel and nearly knocked the wind out of him. He had a wildcat in his hair! He clamped her calves tight with one arm and pinned her legs still against him. “Stop it! I won’t put you down till you realize what you’re doing.”

“This instant – you put me down this instant, you hear? I know what I’m doing. I’m getting married tomorrow.”

“To a man you’ve never seen?” He grunted. “You don’t look stupid. How come you’re marrying a thief and a murderer?”

“You’re the thief and the murderer!”

“Listen, lady. I never stole a thing in my life that didn’t belong to me, and every man I ever killed deserved to die.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice and stopped hitting him.

“Now, you tell me how you got involved with a rat like Bart Axel.”

“That is none of your business.”

“Yeah, well, I just made it my business.” He swung her off his shoulder and sat her sideways onto the saddle in front of him.

He turned the horse off the road and headed cross-country. They’d make better time on the road, but they’d be visible, and the risk of being seen – and chased – was too great. He cut into a woods of dense scrub oak and headed east until they were clear of the roadway.

As he took the horse up a small rise and into a clearing, he caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight. Eyes closed, her lips were moving.