McKettrick's Choice (31 page)

The front gate sprang open, creaking on its hinges. Rapid footsteps sounded on the stone walk. A meaty hand came to rest on her shoulder. “What's happened here?” asked a breathless voice. The accent told her who it was.

“Please fetch the undertaker, Mr. Templeton,” Lorelei said, looking up at last. “My father is dead.”

 

“Y
OU'RE A FATHER
,” Holt told Gabe, through the bars. R. S. Beauregard was in the cell with him. Except for the sheaf of papers in the lawyer's hands, Holt would have worried that he'd gotten himself arrested. Most likely, the charge would be public drunkenness.

Gabe, who had been sitting on the edge of his cot, bolted to his feet, grasped the bars in both hands. “Melina—is she all right? The baby?”

“They're both fine,” Holt said, and paused to clear his throat. All of a sudden, he was a mite choked up. “You've got a boy, Gabe.”

The light in Gabe's dark eyes was something to see. He seemed to stand taller, and the jailhouse stoop in his shoulders vanished. “You're sure about Melina—”

“She had a rough time,” Holt admitted. “But Doc Brown was with her. He saw her through, with some help from the womenfolk.”

Gabe gave the bars an exultant wrench; Holt was surprised they didn't come loose from the mortar in the floor and ceiling.

“Congratulations are in order for more reasons than one,” R.S. said, rising from his wooden chair and grinning. “Judge Fellows had himself a fine fit when he found out his verdict was on shaky ground, Holt. Far as I can tell, the case against Gabe here won't hold water.”

Gabe's eyes glittered. “For God's sake, Holt,” he breathed, “get me out of here.”

“Some kind of ruckus going on down in the street,” R.S. said thoughtfully, standing at the window.

Holt got a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What?” he asked.

“How should I know?” R.S. countered reasonably. Then he called out to someone below. “Who's that in the back of that wagon?”

Holt didn't hear the answer, but R.S. did, and he let out a long, low whistle of exclamation before he turned to face Holt and Gabe.

“Judge Fellows,” he said. “Damned if he isn't deader than a doornail.”

L
ORELEI COULDN'T THINK
coherently, couldn't get beyond the simple fact that her father was dead. Her mind seemed swamped, distracted, assaulted by a storm of contradictory emotions—anger and pity, sorrow and yet a certain distance, as if this event, in some curious way, had no true bearing on her life. A sense that while this was an ending, the death of many secret hopes, it was also a setting-free. It was an ending, but a beginning, as well.

Mr. Templeton, quietly solicitous, sent a passing boy for the undertaker, and sat with Lorelei on the step until the funeral wagon came. She watched numbly as her father's body was lifted, loaded into the back of that somber carriage like so much freight, taken away.

“Come with me, Lorelei,” Mr. Templeton had said reasonably, when the sound of the hearse's wheels, rolling over the paving stones, finally faded away. He seemed so kind. How could he have been a party to the raid on her ranch?

But she'd shaken her head, refusing.

He'd left her, with the utmost reluctance, and she'd sat there on the step for a long time, her arms wrapped
around her knees, mourning not the father she'd had, but the one she'd dreamed of having.

Presently, she rose, like a somnambulist, and wandered into the house, so familiar, and yet so curiously strange. It was cool inside those walls, full of midday shadows, and the only sound was the ponderous tick-tick-ticking of the long case clock in the entryway. Lorelei folded her arms, squeezed hard, as if to hold herself together.

She paused outside the closed doors of her father's study, then, possessed by some bold and directionless compulsion, pushed them open, stepped over the threshold.

The scents of stale cigar smoke, whiskey and worn leather came at her in a wave, like ghosts. She took one hesitant step toward the desk, drawn to it by the same force that had propelled her into the room. There was something here that she wanted to find—
had
to find.

What was it?

She put her fingertips to her temples, willed the fog to clear.

Guided by some part of her mind that did not reason, she took the desk key from its hiding place beneath the judge's humidor. Smiled faintly. He'd thought no one knew where it was. She couldn't remember a time when she
hadn't
known.

Her fingers trembled as she opened the first drawer. Her knees felt wispy as feathers, and she sank into the big leather chair. The throne of authority, where she had never dared sit before. The seat she had approached so many times, with such trepidation, and such despairing hope.

There was her father's pistol, and the red leather box that held bullets. But it was the papers that drew her
attention, and the reach of her hand. She took the documents out, unfolded them, one by one, read them with dazed eyes. At first, they made no sense. Property deeds. Loan documents. Letters. A ledger book.

Stop,
warned a voice in her mind.

She ignored it. Opened the ledger to the first page.

A list of debts. A hundred dollars here, a thousand dollars there. And, in each case, the lender was the same. Isaac Templeton.

Lorelei's throat tightened as her mind slowly cleared. All of it—the house, everything, belonged to Mr. Templeton. Everything but the scrap of land and the small inheritance she'd claimed before she left home.

A sound in the open doorway made her look up, mildly startled.

Mr. Templeton stood on the threshold of her father's study, smiling ruefully, the way one might smile at an errant child, caught in an act of mischief.

“Lorelei,” he said, shaking his head. “Lorelei.”

Something woke up inside her; she felt a small, alarming leap of understanding. “You. You
owned
my father.”

Templeton closed the doors carefully behind him. “Yes,” he said, with a quiet, savage sort of indulgence. “If only you'd allowed me to buy that land. So many problems could have been avoided.”

Lorelei's mouth went dry. “You burned my place,” she murmured. “You—or your men—killed those ranchers, that poor man and his wife, and made sure Gabe Navarro was blamed.”

“Speculation,” Templeton drawled, but he smiled a wicked little smile.

She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I can understand how you persuaded my father to pass a death
sentence on an innocent man. And Creighton is weak—he would have done anything the judge asked. But how did you sway the jury?”

Templeton sighed, pushed his waistcoat back to ease his hands into his trouser pockets. Lorelei saw the gun then, a pearl-handled pistol in a holster at his thick waist, and her heart fluttered. “They all owe me,” he said regretfully. “Sold their souls, willingly enough.” He shook his head again. Sighed. “I rather enjoyed killing that rancher's wife. The way she struggled. It gave me a feeling I cannot describe. Power, perhaps. I fear I've developed a taste for it.”

Lorelei shuddered. “Dear God.”

He let his gaze slide over her, measuring. Anticipating. “Oh, Lorelei, it's a pity. Now, despondent over your father's untimely death, and the loss of your ranch, and probably a broken heart into the bargain, if what Mr. Kahill tells me about you and McKettrick is true, you'll have to shoot yourself.”

“Mr. Kahill,” Lorelei said, rousing from her befuddled state, increment by increment. “He spied for you, then?”

“I have friends everywhere,” Templeton replied, and took a step toward her. “If ‘friends' is the proper term.”

“Don't come any closer,” she said. Her hand closed over her father's pistol. Was it loaded? She didn't know. Could she kill, if she had to, to stay alive? That, she
did
know, and the answer was yes. “I don't want to shoot you, Mr. Templeton, but I will if I have to.”

Templeton smirked. “There are no bullets in that gun, Lorelei,” he said, almost regretfully. “You realize that, don't you?”

Inwardly, Lorelei flinched. The judge would not have
kept a loaded pistol around, even in a locked drawer. For all his shortcomings, he'd been much too sensible to do that.

Outwardly, she was as cool as the creek that flowed by her ranch. “Maybe you're right,” she said. “And maybe you're wrong. Do you really want to take the chance?”

The rancher rocked back on his heels, pretending to consider the possibility of his own demise, but his eyes were laughing at her. Deep down, he probably believed he was invulnerable. “Risk. It's a part of life, isn't it? The bullets are in that little leather box, you know, probably four inches from your fingers.”

Lorelei felt a chill. Her father's pistol was a cold weight in her hand.

In that moment, she made a mistake. She looked down to grope for the box, and the bullets inside, and Templeton was on her that quickly. Despite his size, he moved with deadly grace, hooking an arm around her neck and cutting off her wind.

My baby,
she thought.
Holt's baby.

A noisy clattering sounded from the street, beyond the bay windows of the study, but she couldn't make sense of it.

With his free hand, Templeton pulled the pistol from her grasp, fumbled for the bullets, shoved two of them into the cylinder of the gun.

“I'll say I tried to stop you,” Templeton fretted, breathing hard. “That will explain why your blood will be all over me. I tried to stop you. They'll believe me, Lorelei, because I own them all. Just like I owned your father.”

He cocked the pistol; Lorelei felt the sound reverberate through her very bones. She struggled, like a drowning swimmer flailing for the surface, for air, but she was no match for Templeton's strength. She closed her eyes. The
gun barrel pressed, cold and hard, at the hollow of her throat.

There was a crash as the study doors sprang open—then a flare of smoke and fire.

Lorelei fully expected to die, but it was Isaac Templeton who stiffened. Instinctively, she shifted away from the pistol, aware of his finger tightening against the trigger, and felt the discharge whisk past her neck. The roar of it was deafening.

“Lorelei!” It was Holt's voice, near as her breath, distant as the other side of the moon. He didn't round the desk, he vaulted right over it, gathered her in his arms. Held her fiercely. “Jesus, Lorelei, are you all right?”

“I—I'm not sure,” she admitted, letting herself cling to Holt. “I think so, though.”

He kissed the top of her head, held her even more tightly.

“Mr. Kahill,” she said. “He worked for Mr. Templeton.”

“Shhh,” Holt breathed.

A great clamor rose in the street. People surged inside, streaming through the study doorway. Lorelei recognized Frank Corrales—the Captain—the constable.

“Jesus,”
Frank gasped. “What happened here?”

“What the hell do you
think
happened, Frank?” Holt snapped.

“He was going to kill me,” Lorelei told Holt, burying her face in his chest. Breathing in the scent that was his alone, drawing strength from it, moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat. “I found the ledger—my father had nothing left—it all belonged to Mr. Templeton. He had those poor people murdered, probably to get their land, and blamed Gabe.”

“It's all right, Lorelei,” Holt rasped. He cupped a hand behind her head, pressed her even closer.

“Do I still get my twenty-five hundred dollars?” asked a new voice.

Lorelei turned her head to look at the stranger, a man wearing rumpled clothes and a cheerful grin.

“R. S. Beauregard, ma'am,” he said affably, as though they were meeting under the most cordial of circumstances. “I'm Gabe Navarro's lawyer. From what I've heard here, I'd say this is my client's last day in jail.” He turned to the constable, who looked flummoxed, and broadened his grin. “You heard what the lady said, lawman. And you know it's true. Since you don't have Templeton to be scared of anymore, I reckon you might be willing to own up.”

The constable stood over Templeton's body, and he looked as though he wanted to spit on it. “Get Judge Hawkins here as quick as you can,” he said.

Lorelei looked up at Holt. “The others—Kahill, and the men who worked for Mr. Templeton—”

“We'll get them,” Holt said. “Cap'n—Frank? Are you ready to ride?” His hold slackened, and Lorelei realized she was grasping his shirtfront in both hands. Reluctantly, she let go.

“Holt,” she whispered. “No.”

“Wait a minute,” Mr. Beauregard interceded, belatedly troubled. “This is a matter for the constable and his men—”

“The hell it is,” Holt said. The Captain and Frank looked on in silent, somber agreement. He turned to the constable. “You know what Judge Hawkins is going to do, once he hears the whole truth. If you've got a decent bone in your body, you'll turn Gabe loose, so he can ride with us.”

“Holt, please,” Lorelei whispered, but she knew she might as well have tossed the words into the wind. His course was set; there would be no turning him from it.

Just then, Angelina rushed in. Most likely, word of what had happened was spreading from one end of San Antonio to the other.

“Child,” she said, her brown eyes gleaming with tears.

“Oh, my poor child. Are you hurt?”

“Take care of her,” Holt told Angelina tersely. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“I have to go with you!” Lorelei cried, knowing all the while that it was hopeless, that he would not be swayed.

He pushed her gently into her father's chair, gripped the arms in his hands, and leaned over her. “Not this time, Lorelei,” he told her gravely.

She began to tremble. She knew only too well what might happen if Holt and his friends went after Kahill and the others. She could already hear the gunfire in her head.

Holt moved away.

She rose out of her chair, grabbed at his arm. Missed.

Angelina, standing behind her now, eased her back into the chair.

The constable tossed a set of keys to Holt. They jangled ominously as he caught them.

“Tell Roy I said to let the Indian go,” the constable said. “And have him send the undertaker back here.”

Holt nodded, and they were gone—Holt, the Captain and Frank. The constable and Mr. Beauregard stayed with the body.

Lorelei was careful not to look at Mr. Templeton. He'd done so much harm, and he would have killed her if Holt
hadn't come in when he did, but she was still sorry that he was dead.

“I think I have to throw up,” she said.

Angelina nodded and provided a waste basket for the purpose.

 

W
HEN
H
OLT
unlocked the cell door, Gabe shot through it like a circus performer hurtling from the mouth of a cannon. “I'll explain on the way,” Holt said.

“On the way where?” Gabe asked, cheerfully baffled, but plainly ready to do whatever needed to be done.

Nobody answered, and nobody slowed their steps.

There were three horses waiting in the street. Frank borrowed another, with a toss of a coin and a few hasty words to the rancher who owned it, and Gabe swung up onto the animal's back, Indian-style.

“Templeton's place?” the Captain asked, as the four of them rode out of town at top speed.

Holt shook his head. “John's,” he said. “Kahill's there. When he hears what happened to his boss, he'll send somebody to Templeton's ranch for firepower. We'll be there to greet them.”

The Captain nodded. “I reckon you're right about that.”

Gabe bent low over his pony's neck, his wild Indian hair flying behind him. Whatever lay ahead, he was free, and he was glorying in that. Holt and the others played hell keeping up with him, even though they were all riding better horses. Every once in a while, Navarro threw back his head and let out a whoop, just because the wind was in his face and there were no bars, around his body, or his spirit.