Death Rides Alone (5 page)

Mary brought breakfast from the café for both of them, early the next morning. Luke hated to impose on her, but he asked her if she could bring something for Judd Tyler, too.

Even cold-blooded killers had to eat . . . until they kept their date with the hangman.

“I'll bring a couple of extra biscuits for him,” she said, “but he can drink whatever sludge is left in Marshal Donovan's coffeepot.”

“You won't get any argument from me on that score,” Luke said with a smile.

The sun wasn't up yet when Mary came back with a tray containing plates of ham, fried eggs, and biscuits, along with a fresh pot of coffee. She and Luke sat down at the marshal's desk to enjoy the breakfast.

Luke washed down some of the food with a sip of coffee, sighed in satisfaction, and said, “After last night and this meal, I truly do feel like a new man.”

“I'm glad I could . . . reinvigorate you,” she said.

“Oh, you did that just fine, sure enough,” Luke said. “I'll never forget you, Mary.”

“But those memories won't be enough to make you hurry back here to Bent Creek, will they?” she asked with a faint wistful tone in her voice.

Luke shrugged and said, “My work takes me a lot of different places. I don't usually know where I'll wind up next, let alone six months or a year from now.”

“Well,” she said, a little cooler now, “you know where to find me.”

Luke thought it best to concentrate on his food for a few moments after that exchange.

When they had finished eating, Mary said, “I need to get back over to the café. I usually have it open for business before now.”

Luke put his empty plate and coffee cup back on the tray.

“I can't thank you enough for everything.”

“You don't have to,” she told him. She came up on her toes and kissed him as he bent his head toward hers. “Good-bye, Luke Jensen.”

“Good-bye,” he said, feeling more solemn than he usually did when he said so long to a woman.

She paused at the doorway and looked back at him.

“On my way to the café, I'll stop at the hotel and find out if Hardy can bring your clothes over here. You can just leave my husband's things here in the office and I'll get them later.”

“I'm obliged to you for that, too.”

“Good-bye, Luke,” she said again as she went out. Luke just nodded. There wasn't anything left to say between them, at least not now. Maybe someday.

Although he doubted if he would ever be that lucky.

Off and on during the night, he had heard snores coming from the cell block, so he knew Tyler was still in there. Mary had left the extra biscuits on a napkin. Luke picked them up and went to the cell block door, unlocking it with a key from the ring that hung on a nail on the wall behind the marshal's desk.

“Rise and shine, Tyler,” he called to the prisoner as he swung the door open.

He was ready for trouble, even though the likelihood of it was very small. A man in his line of work didn't live very long by being careless.

In this case the caution wasn't necessary. Tyler was still stretched out on the bunk. He pushed the scratchy wool blanket aside, rolled over, stretched, and groaned as he sat up. His mouth opened wide in a yawn.

“I never did get a good night's sleep on a jail cell bunk,” he said.

“And why does it not surprise me that you have experience spending the night in a jail cell?” Luke asked, although the question was strictly rhetorical.

“I've had a few scrapes with the law. I won't deny that.”

“You mean like murdering a young woman?”

Tyler came sharply to his feet, crossed the cell, and gripped the bars as he glared at Luke in the dim light.

“I told you, I didn't kill Rachel. I never killed anybody, and for sure not a preacher's daughter!”

“You just admitted to being an outlaw.”

Tyler leaned forward as his hands tightened on the bars. He said, “I've rustled some cows in my time, sure, and I even held up a few stagecoaches. I'm not proud of those things, but I won't deny that I did them. But murder . . .” He shook his head. “I'm not a killer, Jensen, but right now I don't give a damn if you believe me or not.”

Luke held out the biscuits and said, “Here. Have something to eat and cool off.”

For a second, Tyler looked mad enough to turn down the biscuits out of sheer spite. But then hunger won out and he relented. He snatched them from Luke's hand.

Luke had kept his other hand on a gun butt while giving Tyler the skimpy breakfast. If the prisoner had tried anything, he would have gotten a .44 round to go with his meal.

Tyler retreated to the bunk to gnaw sullenly on the biscuits. After a moment, he asked, “Do I get any coffee?”

“If you can call it that,” Luke replied. “I'll bring it to you.”

As he started to turn away from the cell, Tyler said, “Hey, wait a minute. Have you gotten a reply back from the telegram to White Fork?”

With everything that had been going on the night before, obviously no one had said anything to the prisoner about the wire from Sheriff Axtell in Montana.

“Actually, I have,” Luke said.

“Gonna get your blood money?”

Luke made a disgusted sound and said, “Everybody keeps asking me about that. It's a perfectly legal reward for the apprehension of a criminal. The tradition dates back centuries to England—”

“Yeah, well, I don't give a damn about what they do in England.”

“In that case . . . no. Sheriff Axtell in White Fork didn't authorize payment of the reward.”

That seemed to surprise Tyler. He frowned, swallowed the last bite of biscuit, and said, “Why not?”

“It seems there's a provision stating that you have to be turned over to him personally before the reward will be paid.”

Tyler's eyes got wide. Even in the bad light, Luke could tell that the young man's face had turned pale. Tyler said, “No. Hell, no!”

“What do you mean? You had to be aware that if you were captured, you'd be taken back to White Fork for trial. I admit, I'm a bit annoyed by this development. I expected that the sheriff up there would send some deputies to collect you, or come himself. But I suppose I can deliver you if that's what I have to do.”

Tyler leaned back against the wall and started to laugh, although there was no humor in the sound. In fact, it was downright bleak. Luke put up with it for a moment, then said, “What's so blasted funny?”

“You, Jensen,” Tyler said. “You're a damned fool. You really think you're gonna ride up there and get that reward?”

“That's exactly what I think.”

“Well, you're wrong. You'll never make it to White Fork alive, and neither will I! Axtell and that gang of murderers he calls his deputies will see to that!”

* * *

Before Luke could ask what Tyler meant by that brazen claim, someone knocked on the office door. He had locked it after Mary left, and since Donovan surely had his own key, that meant the visitor was someone else.

Luke turned and walked out of the cell block, but it was hard to put Tyler's stricken expression out of his mind. The prisoner really had looked terrified for a moment.

Drawing one of the Remingtons, which he had carefully cleaned and oiled during the night, Luke asked through the door, “Who's there?”

“It's me, Mr. Jensen,” a young voice answered. “Hardy McCoy. I got your clean clothes.”

Luke glanced at the heap of muddy clothing he had discarded after the battle with Hobson. They were piled in the corner, and there was no time to get them cleaned at the local laundry. He would have to stuff them in his saddlebag and take them with him when he left with Tyler. Maybe when they came to a stream, he could stop long enough to rinse the dried mud out of them.

Keeping the revolver in his hand, Luke unlocked the door and opened it. Hardy stared at the gun as he came in carrying a paper-wrapped bundle with twine tied around it.

“You figurin' on shootin' somebody else, Mr. Jensen?” the redheaded boy asked.

“Not unless I have to.”

“Well, I sure won't give you no cause to ventilate me.”

Luke chuckled and said, “I didn't expect that you would, Hardy. You're up awfully early.”

“Naw, Mr. Beale gen'rally has me up and workin' at some chore before the sun rises. I'm an orphan, you know, and he gives me a place to sleep, so I got to work for my room and board.”

“A boy like you, who's accustomed to hard work, will go far in this world,” Luke told him.

“I hope so. I wouldn't mind seein' Laramie or Cheyenne one of these days.”

Luke laughed again, holstered the Remington, and took the bundle of clothes from Hardy. He gave the boy a silver dollar and said, “My saddlebags and rifle should still be in the room I was supposed to use last night. Can you get them and bring them over here?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Jensen!”

Hardy hurried out. Luke took advantage of the momentary privacy to get out of the borrowed duds and pull on his own clothes. He had put his hat near the stove overnight, so the mud was dry on it. He was able to knock most of it off by swatting the hat against his leg.

Once that was done, he took a tin cup off a small shelf and poured what was left in the coffeepot into it. The brew looked pretty thick and unappetizing and didn't smell much better, but Tyler could drink it or do without.

Luke took the coffee into the cell block. Tyler had come back to the cell's door and gripped the bars again.

“Listen, you can't take me back to White Fork,” he said. “Take me anywhere else and let 'em put me on trial there, but don't go to White Fork.”

“Because we'll be killed on the way.” Luke held out the cup.

Tyler reached through the bars, took it, and gulped down some of the cold coffee. He didn't seem to care what it tasted like; he just wanted its bracing effect.

“You don't know the whole story, Jensen. I told you I didn't kill Rachel Montgomery, but I didn't tell you who
did
.”

Luke was a little intrigued by that, despite all the desperate lies he had heard over the years from criminals he had captured. Judd Tyler was probably lying, too, but he was putting on a good act. He looked and sounded like he was genuinely innocent and feared for his life.

“We have a long ride in front of us, Tyler. You'll have time to tell me plenty of stories. More than I really care to listen to, I imagine.”

Tyler's face twisted in a grimace as he said, “You're gonna get us both killed, that's what you're gonna do.”

Before either of them could say anything else, the door of the marshal's office opened. Luke turned in that direction and saw Chet Donovan coming in. The lawman stopped just inside the door and scowled.

“I thought I told you to be outta here with that prisoner by now, Jensen.”

“We were just getting ready to leave, Marshal,” Luke said. “How does it look out on the street? Any sign of lynch mobs?”

Donovan let out a contemptuous snort and said, “At this hour of the mornin'? Some folks are still asleep, and the ones who are awake ain't in any mood to start trouble.”

“Did you have a chance to look through your collection of wanted posters last night before the trouble started?”

“For that fella you shot in the hotel, you mean?” Donovan shook his head. “I looked, but I sure didn't find any paper on him. Reckon you won't get to collect on that corpse.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I stopped by the stable and told Fred Crandall to saddle your horses, if you hadn't already been there and picked 'em up. So they'll be ready to ride by the time you get over there.”

“I'm obliged to you for that, I suppose.”

“I don't want your thanks, I just want you gone.” Donovan came on into the cell block, drew his revolver, and unlocked the cell. “Get outta there, Tyler. You're not gonna be stinkin' up my jail anymore, you killer.”

Tyler gave Luke a desperate glance and said, “Jensen . . . ?”

Luke pulled out one of the Remingtons and said in a hard, flat voice, “Let's go.”

As Donovan had promised, Crandall had Luke's gray and Tyler's paint saddled and ready when the two of them, accompanied by the marshal, arrived at the livery stable.

“Hear tell you had some more trouble last night,” the old-timer said to Luke.

“Some.”

“There's been more excitement in Bent Creek since you rode in than we usually have in a month of Sundays.”

Donovan said, “A hell of a lot more excitement than we need, if you ask me.”

“Now, Chet, you got to admit, things around here can get to be a mite borin',” Crandall said.

Donovan
harummphed
.

“That's just the way I like 'em,” he said.

Hardy McCoy appeared in the stable's open double doors, weighed down by Luke's saddlebags and rifle. As he came in, the boy said, “I spotted you fellas comin' over here, Mr. Jensen. Here are the things you sent me to fetch.”

“Thanks, Hardy,” Luke said. He'd kept his gun out while they were walking to the stable, but now he pouched the iron and took the saddlebags and Winchester from Hardy. “You're an observant, enterprising lad. I appreciate all your help while I've been here.”

Hardy looked up at him and asked, “You wouldn't need a partner in your bounty huntin', would you?”

“You already have a job at the hotel.”

“Yeah, but I think it'd be fine sport to hunt down desperadoes like you do.”

“It can be,” Luke said, “but it's a bit too dangerous for a boy. You'd best grow up some more first.”

Donovan said, “Don't listen to him, Hardy. Bounty huntin's no life for anybody. It's just one step above bein' an outlaw yourself.”

Luke wasn't going to waste time arguing with the marshal, who clearly didn't like him and never would. Instead he slid the Winchester into its sheath, slung the saddlebags over the gray's back and fastened them in place, and then said to Tyler, “Mount up.”

“I sure wish you wouldn't do this, Jensen,” the young man said. “Take me anywhere else you want and turn me over to the law there. I won't give you a bit of trouble, I swear. But if you head for White Fork, you're damning us both.”

“I said mount up.” Luke's tone left no room for argument.

Tyler sighed, put his foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle on the paint's back.

Luke took a pair of handcuffs from one of his saddlebags and said, “Put your arms behind your back.”

“You're gonna cuff me like that?”

“I am.”

“How am I supposed to ride?”

“I'll be leading your horse,” Luke said. “You won't have to do anything except enjoy the ride.”

Tyler sighed and said, “It's gonna get mighty uncomfortable, riding like that.”

“Maybe, but you'll be alive. That's more than Rachel Montgomery can say.”

Tyler scowled but didn't say anything else. He had that air of despair about him again as he put his hands behind his back as Luke ordered. Luke snapped the cuffs around his wrists.

He mounted up and took the reins of Tyler's horse as Crandall handed them up to him.

“I'd tell you to be careful . . .” Donovan said as his beefy shoulders rose and fell. “Except I don't really give a damn.”

“You're a fine example of a peace officer, Marshal,” Luke said. The sarcasm practically dripping from the words made the marshal's face redden. “Exactly the sort that Bent Creek deserves, I'd say.”

Before Donovan could respond, Luke heeled the gray into motion and rode out of the stable, leading the paint behind him.

Hardy McCoy stepped into the doorway, waved, and called, “So long, Mr. Jensen!”

Luke turned in the saddle enough to lift a hand in farewell, then glanced at the café as he rode past it. The windows were brightly lit, the curtains were pushed back, and he could look inside and see Mary behind the counter, pouring coffee, serving food, and talking with the customers who were already there.

For a second he wondered what it would be like to pull his horse to a stop, step down from the saddle, go inside, into that light and warmth, and just forget about everything else. The lure of that thought was strong . . .

But he was smart enough to know that it wasn't going to happen, and even if it did, things probably wouldn't work out the way he hoped they would. He was too old, too hardened by life to change.

Anyway, justice was a powerful lure as well, and Judd Tyler deserved to swing for what he'd done.

Luke kept moving, riding out of Bent Creek as the eastern skies turned red and gold with the approach of dawn.

* * *

Tyler didn't say anything as they traveled north with the sun rising on their right. Luke glanced back at the prisoner from time to time and saw that Tyler was riding with his head drooped forward. The brim of the young man's hat shielded his face.

Luke didn't think Tyler was actually sleeping. After a while, his curiosity got the better of him, so he let the gray drop back a little until he and Tyler were riding almost side by side.

“You were so eager to convince me of your innocence,” Luke said. “What happened to that, Tyler?”

“Figured I'd be wasting my time,” Tyler replied without looking over at Luke. “Your mind's made up. Anyway, the only thing you're really interested in is that reward money.”

“That's not strictly true. Naturally, I'd like to be paid for my efforts in apprehending you, but I want to see justice done as well.”

“Neither one of those things is going to happen if you take me to White Fork.” For the first time in a while, Tyler's head lifted and he looked at Luke. “But if there's any chance that money might make a difference . . . I told you I rustled cattle and held up some stagecoaches. I've still got most of the loot from those jobs. I cached it somewhere nobody'll ever find it. Let me go and I'll tell you where to find it. It adds up to more than the bounty on my head.”

Luke laughed.

“Of course it does,” he said. “And if I take your word for it and let you go, when I get to the place where the money's supposed to be, I'll find an empty hole in the ground . . . if that much.” He shook his head. “I wasn't born yesterday, Tyler. Don't insult me by taking me for a fool.”

A look of anger flashed across Tyler's face. He said, “I can't take you to where the money is hidden, or I would. But it's too close to White Fork. There's too much of a chance we'd be spotted. Axtell and his deputies will already be setting out to ambush us.”

“That's the second time you've made it sound like Sheriff Axtell and his men are outlaws.”

Tyler snorted in contempt.

“They might as well be. They're not honest lawmen, that's for damn sure. Gus Axtell may wear a sheriff's badge, but everybody around White Fork knows that he really works for Manfred Douglas.”

Luke shook his head and said, “I don't know who that is.”

“Douglas is the big he-wolf in those parts. Owns the Circle M ranch, the biggest, richest spread in that part of the territory. He owns at least half of White Fork, too. Nobody dares cross him.”

“Except you,” Luke guessed.

Tyler shrugged and said, “I rustled more Circle M stock than from any of the other ranches around there, I reckon, but that's because Douglas's herd is way bigger than anybody else's. Besides, I figured he'd miss it less. I didn't really want to hurt any of those little greasy sack outfits.”

“Charitable of you,” Luke said.

Tyler glared at him and said, “Just because I drove off some cows that didn't belong to me doesn't make me a terrible
hombre
.”

“Just a dishonest one.”

“Well, I never claimed different, did I?”

“Go on with your story,” Luke told him. “This Manfred Douglas has Sheriff Axtell in his pocket, you said.”

“He damn sure does. And Axtell keeps the peace, I reckon you've got to give him credit for that. But that's because everybody's afraid of him and his gunslingin' deputies. Enough people have disappeared after giving Douglas trouble that folks figured out mighty quick it wasn't smart to cross Douglas, Axtell, or any of those gunslicks wearing a badge.”

“From the sound of it, you think Douglas is going to order Axtell to kill you before you can stand trial . . . and me, to boot, since I'll be with you.”

“That's exactly what's gonna happen. In fact, as soon as Axtell got that telegram from the marshal in Bent Creek, I'd bet my hat he rode out to Douglas's ranch as fast as he could to give him the news. Douglas has probably issued the order already.”

“The order to bushwhack us?”

“Yep. There are still some honest people in White Fork, even though they don't cotton to the idea of standing up to Douglas. But if the truth comes out about what really happened to Rachel Montgomery, that might stick in their craw bad enough that they'd stop letting Douglas and Axtell run roughshod over them.”

Luke frowned in thought for a moment and then said, “You're about to tell me that Manfred Douglas killed the Montgomery girl, aren't you?”

“No. Not the old man. His son Spence.” Tyler grimaced. “The sorriest son of a bitch who ever drew breath.”

They had been riding along at an easy pace as they talked. Bent Creek was several miles behind them now. Luke saw a line of cottonwoods and other trees up ahead and knew they probably marked the course of a stream.

He said, “We'll stop up there, let the horses get a drink, and rest for a few minutes. And I need to wash out those clothes that got covered with mud last night, too. While we're there you can tell me the rest of the story.”

“You mean you're actually starting to believe me, Jensen?”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Luke said. “But I'll admit, you have me a little intrigued. I wouldn't mind hearing more.”

“It's a pretty ugly story.”

“Most of the ones that involve people dying are,” Luke said.