Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (37 page)

“Shut up, Sam,” Travis said harshly, holding his bleeding hand against his chest.

Sam pursed his lips. “It ain’t her, Alaina, is it? It’s Kitty you’re aching over.”

Travis struggled to his feet, gripping the edge of the table with one hand. He knew Sam only wanted to help. But there were times when nobody could help. “Sam, I appreciate your concern, but…”

His voice trailed off as he looked up into the blazing eyes of Stewart Mason, who was standing very close to Travis.

“I’d like a word with you, Marshal. And I’ll tell you here and now it don’t make no difference that you’re wearing that badge.” His eyes went to his bleeding hand. “And it don’t make no difference that you’ve already been in one fight tonight, either.”

Sam started to speak, but Travis quickly replied, “If you got something to say, Mason, say it. Don’t worry about the badge or the blood.”

Sam got to his feet. “Travis, I don’t think—”

“Stay out of it, Sam. We’re on our way back to the office, Mason. If you want to talk to me, you can come along.”

Sam and Travis moved through the swinging wooden doors and out, leaving Stewart Mason behind.

Out in the damp night, Sam shook his head, murmuring, “Damn it, what’s he all riled up about?”

“I’m plenty riled up, old man,” Stewart yelled, lunging through the doorway after them. “Get out of my way.” With one shove, he sent Sam sprawling to the boardwalk.

Travis turned in time to see the punch coming. His injured right hand was of no use, so he brought up the forearm to block the blow while hitting Mason with a left uppercut to the chin.

Mason staggered, and Travis hit him at his midsection, doubling him over. Mason fell to his knees. In the dim shadows, Travis was barely able to see the quick movement Mason made to his holster, but he caught it in time and lifted his right foot to kick Mason’s face. As Mason fell backward, Travis brought out his own gun. By the time Mason’s head hit the ground, he was upon him, the cold steel barrel pressed against his neck.

“Now what in the goddamn hell is this all about?” he asked through gritted teeth as a crowd began to tumble from the doors of the saloon. “What’s got you so riled up that you’re about to get yourself killed?”

Mason’s eyes glittered, his body trembling with rage as he spat, “You know what it’s about, you sonofabitch! You know what you did to Alaina! You better go ahead and kill me while you got the chance, ’cause you’re a dead man if I ever get up from here and get my hands on a gun.”

“The hell!” Travis roared, holstering his gun. With his left hand, he reached to jerk Mason to his feet. “My gun is holstered,” he challenged. “You want to draw on me, you do it!”

Mason spat blood, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced up at the onlookers, thinking of the gossip that would run rampant about Alaina, thinking, too, that this was not the time to kill Coltrane. “Not now,” he muttered, glaring at Travis.

Travis took a deep breath. “Come with me to the office. We’re going to talk.”

“I ain’t going nowhere with you.”

“You’ll come if I have to pull my gun again, Mason. Make it easy on yourself.”

Mason glanced around once more. His mouth was still bleeding, and he knew the crowd was not going to break up if he kept standing there. They were waiting to see what was going to happen. He moved forward, Sam and Travis following close behind.

Once in the office, Sam motioned Travis to the chair behind his desk and snapped, “You two are gonna have to wait to settle this thing till I see to that hand.”

“We’ll talk while you work on it,” Travis said quietly.

Sam gathered a pan of water, rags, a needle, and a small knife. He sat down next to Travis and pulled his hand forward. “Just grit your teeth, you goldanged fool. It’s gonna hurt, but you ain’t got nobody to blame but yourself.”

Travis bit his tongue. He was not about to show any pain no matter how damn much it hurt. He saw Mason watching with a gloating expression. “All right. Start talking.”

Mason’s upper lip curled. “You know what it’s about. Alaina.” He sat on Travis’ desk, glad to be looking down at the marshal.

Travis raised an eyebrow. “What about her?”

“She told me. About you and her. She says she won’t marry me ’cause of you. If you think I’m gonna let a fucking Yankee take my woman away, you’re full of—”

“Hold it, you redneck sonofabitch!” Travis jumped to point the finger of his left hand as Sam cursed and struggled to keep his other hand still. “Don’t start telling me what I can and can’t do. If Alaina were ‘your’ woman, she wouldn’t be seeing me. I will continue to see her as long as it’s what
I
want and what
she
wants. You must have a wish to die if you’re thinking of telling me what I can do. Now suppose you just back on out of here while you’re still in one piece.”

The two locked eyes, standing only a foot apart.

Sam looked from one to the other, then said, “Why don’t you take his advice, Mason? There’s been enough trouble for one night.”

“She’s going to marry me,” he said quietly. “Alaina’s young and flighty. She always has been. Her old man spoiled her, but I’m the one who knows how to handle her. She’s just using you to try to make me jealous.”

“I would say she has done a fine job.”

“It’s going to stop,” Mason yelled. “Her daddy told her she couldn’t see you no more. You keep on messing with her and, marshal or not, you’re gonna wind up dead, if not by my hand, then by her daddy’s. If your hand wasn’t cut up, I’d take you outside right now and we’d settle this in the street. But it ain’t gonna be said that I drew on a man with his gun hand messed up.”

“How do you look in white?”

Mason blinked. “What?”

Travis smiled. “You seem like the cowardly type who would wear the white robe and hood of the Klan. Why don’t we talk about that instead of Alaina?”

Mason fought for control. Forcing a feeble smile, he said, “You ain’t gonna goad me into drawing, Marshal. Not here. And the Klan ain’t none of your business.”

He leaned forward to place his knuckles on the desk. “You been in town long enough to know by now, Marshal, that you ain’t never gonna find out nothing about the Klan. Why not clear out before you wind up hanging from a tree like a nigger?”

Travis looked over at Sam, who was still picking glass from his hand. “Sam,” he said in a calm, deadly voice, “get him out of here or let me have my hand back so I can strangle the sonofabitch.”

Without looking up, Sam thundered, “Mason, get the hell out or I’m going to kill you myself. You’re lucky you’re still breathing.”

Mason stepped toward the door. He was almost out when he whirled around and bellowed, “You ain’t seen the last of me, either of you. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll both clear out of town. People around here don’t want you nosing in what don’t concern you.”

“It concerns us when cowards hide behind masks to hurt innocent people,” Sam said, still not looking up. “We won’t be leaving till we stop you, Mason. Carry that back to the Klan.”

Mason’s laugh was taunting. “You dumb shitheads really think you’re gonna bust the Klan? You’re crazy. You’re gonna get yourselves killed, that’s all you’re gonna do. Running your mouths like them dumb niggers. The only reason you’re still alive is because the Klan knows you’re too dumb to know anything. Keep talking like that, and they’ll take care of you.”

Travis laughed. “You’ll tell them, right, Mason? The next time you put on your robe and your hood, you’ll stand up and tell them.”

“You can’t prove I got anything to do with the Klan,” Mason snarled. “I may know what’s going on ’cause I know everything that goes on around here, but you can’t hang nothing on me.”

Travis sighed. “I’m getting bored with you, Mason. I’m not going to tell you again to get the hell out of here.”

Mason’s lips worked nervously for a few seconds, and then he stepped outside, slamming the door behind him with a crash.

Sam gave a long, low whistle. “Boy, you sure do get yourself in some messes. You just had to start fooling around with the Klan leader’s woman, didn’t you? That’s about the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”

“She brought it to me, Sam. I didn’t go after it.”

“I can’t recall you ever going after it, but I
can
say that you’ve turned down a few. Why couldn’t you have done the same thing with her? Now you’ve gone and gotten yourself all involved.”

“I’m not involved,” Travis interrupted sharply. “Not the way you think.”

“Then why am I picking glass out of your hand?”

“Kitty.”

Sam was contrite. “I might’ve known.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “You can’t go on this way, Travis. It won’t bring her back.”

“I don’t want to talk about her,” he said shortly.

“All right, then. Let’s talk about Alaina. How come you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved with her? We’ve known for quite a spell that Mason’s the ringleader of the Klan. This could complicate things.”

“Not really. We’ll move on Mason and his followers when the time is right. I’m still not sure he
is
the leader, though.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s simple,” Travis shrugged. “He’s not smart enough. It’s got to be somebody else, somebody smart enough to call the shots
and
keep his identity secret so nothing can be traced to him.”

“You said you saw Mason get up in front of the Klan rally the night you dressed up like one of them and slipped in.”

“I did. But that doesn’t mean that he was acting on his own. I think he was just following someone’s orders.”

“And who do you think that someone is?”

“Jordan Barbeau.”

“Goddamn!” Sam yelped, straightening. “Are you sure?”

Travis nodded. “I can’t figure out a better reason for Marilee to be spying on the Klan.”

“Now, wait a minute.” Sam held up his hands, knife in one, needle in the other. “You better explain.”

Travis did, and soon Sam bent over and began working on his hand once more, shaking his head in astonishment. “I found this out from Israel.

“Anyway,” he paused to grit his teeth as Sam went after a particularly deep sliver of glass, “I followed her a couple of nights ago.”

“That’s quite a story,” Sam said and whistled. “So you think Marilee is doing all this to help the Negroes instead of going to the law with the truth about her father?”

“That’s bound to be at least the biggest reason. I think it’s safe to say that Barbeau is behind all of it. Mason is just his puppet.”

Sam held Travis’ hand over a pail and poured a bottleful of whiskey over the wounds. Travis cursed and jerked his hand back. “It needs a bandage,” Sam told him.

“Never mind that. It won’t bleed much more.”

Sam shrugged. “It’s your hand. There’s still some glass in there, but I can’t get it all out.”

“It’ll work out sooner or later. Hell, with you picking at it, it’s really starting to hurt.”

“So what are you going to do about Marilee?” Sam wanted to know. “It’s damn dangerous for her. She may be Barbeau’s daughter, but if she gets found out, that won’t help much.”

“Exactly,” Travis said grimly. “That’s why I want to bust this thing wide open as soon as possible. I want her out of this mess.”

Sam was thoughtful for a few moments, watching Travis pace. After a while he asked, “How much longer do you think it’s going to be?”

“We’ve got to move slowly.”

“I know that. I also know it’s time we moved on, Travis. You’ve got a son back in North Carolina who needs a father. You’ve got that silver mine out in Nevada that is probably making you a rich man. Hell, you’ve never even been there to look at it. You need to see to both. Staying here only means trouble, especially now that you’ve got yourself involved with another woman. That’s a match I can’t see.”

Travis turned to stare at him, a stunned expression on his face. He laughed. “There’s no way I’m ever going to be serious about a woman like Alaina. So there’s not going to be any match.”

Sam decided to let it all out. “I’ve known you a long, long time, Travis. I’ve seen you involved with more women than I can count. But there’s been only one time…one time, mind you, that I’ve seen that look on your face, and that was when you fell in love with Kitty. Now, I’ll be the first to say Alaina Barbeau is not your type, just as I was the first to say Kitty was. This whole thing’s got me puzzled. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you think more of Alaina than you’re admitting.”

No,
Travis began to realize. It was coming back to him. Just before the glass had shattered, Kitty’s face had faded and been replaced by Marilee’s. Not Alaina’s.

Marilee’s.

He closed his eyes. Spirit. Courage. These were what had drawn him to Kitty. Marilee lacked Kitty’s ethereal loveliness, but her grit was almost equal to Kitty’s.

“It isn’t Alaina,” he said quietly with finality.

Sam had been watching him carefully, and suddenly he wondered why he hadn’t realized it before. “Marilee?”

Travis nodded. “Yeah. She’s quite a woman.”

Sam took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I think, my friend, that you’ve outdone yourself this time. You’re involved with two women, both of them a daughter of the Klan leader, and one of them the fiancée of a Klansman. I’d say you’re going to be in quite a mess if we don’t hurry up and finish our business and get the hell out of here.”