Once an Outlaw (4 page)

The saloon girls edged out of their hiding spots as Clint and Pete Spoon reached the double doors.

“Thanks, mister,” Florry Brown said softly. She pushed a strand of toffee-colored hair behind her ear and smiled woefully at the cowboy in the blood-spattered green shirt.

Pete Spoon shot her back a crooked smile, then winced as his cut lip bled harder. “Wasn’t no trouble at all, ma’am.”

Once they reached the jailhouse, Clint put his prisoner in the second cell, then scanned the young man as he shut
and locked the cell door. In the first cell, the miner snored on.

“Hold on, while I find some liniment for those bruises.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Pete Spoon growled.

“Don’t intend to.” Clint hooked the keys onto his belt. “Is Jake Spoon your uncle?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“So Miss Emily Spoon is your sister.”

“What of it?”

Clint regarded him coolly. “She tell you and Jake I stopped by?”

“Mentioned it.”

“Your uncle back yet?”

“Could be.”

Clint’s tone was as hard as the bars that separated him from the outlaw. “Then why didn’t he show up here? I’m sure your sister told him I want to see the deed to the ranch.”

Pete pushed away from the bars and sank down on the cot against the wall. Gingerly he touched the bruise over his eye. “Ain’t no law says we have to come in here and show you the deed to our ranch any time you say, is there, Sheriff? I reckon Uncle Jake’ll get around to it when he’s good and ready.”

“By then, maybe I’ll have thrown you all out of town, making it a moot point.”

Pete Spoon stiffened, flashing the sheriff a hostile glance. “You can’t do that.”

“Care to make a wager on that?” Clint drawled. “I don’t know yet what you’re all up to, but I know you’re trouble. And I don’t tolerate trouble in Lonesome.” Clint swung away. “At least, not for long.”

“I didn’t start that fight tonight,” Spoon called after
him. “That low-down buzzard insulted that girl and I called him on it. The others jumped in against me.”

“The bartender didn’t back up your story.” Clint was digging through his desk for liniment.

“The bartender’s afraid of those boys. Maybe you are too,” Pete taunted.

Clint had noticed Big Roy’s strange behavior and he sensed that Pete Spoon just might be telling the truth. He hadn’t had any trouble with Jenks before, but still…

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to let Spoon off the hook so easily. He’d been warned not to throw another punch, and he’d done it anyway.

Digging the liniment out of his desk drawer, he returned to the cell and tossed it through the bars to the prisoner stretched out on the cot.

Spoon caught it without a word.

After the outlaw had lowered himself back onto the cot, facing the wall, and Clint had settled back in his chair, he picked up the wanted posters and checked them all again, making sure none of them depicted any of the Spoons.

He didn’t know if they were wanted men now. But they had been for a while, back in Missouri. And he remembered hearing something about Pete and Lester Spoon—cousins—mixed up in some gunfighting in Texas a few years back.

An image of Emily Spoon popped into his mind, that cloud of midnight hair framing her beautiful face. “We’re just a family looking to set up ranching,” she’d said.

Sure you are, lady. And I’m Napoléon Bonaparte
.

“Pop! Emily! We got trouble.”

Emily was cracking eggs into the sizzling butter in the
fry pan when Lester burst into the kitchen the next morning, his perspiring face so pale his freckles stood out even more than usual.

“It’s Pete—I don’t think he ever came home from town last night!”

Emily froze.

“What do you mean?” Jake had been helping himself to one of the buttermilk biscuits Emily had already set on a plate in the center of the table, but at these words he paused, his hand in midair as he peered hard at his son. “You sure?”

“He and his horse are both gone. I never heard him come in, and there’s not a sign of him this morning.” Lester dropped into a chair, wiping his sweaty face with his shirt sleeve. “And usually he’s the one to fix coffee first thing—and look, Emily, there’s not a drop in the pot.”

“Could he have just decided to spend the night in town?” Emily was trying not to panic, but her expression was worried as she turned imploringly toward Jake. “He could have met a… a saloon girl, and had too much to drink … and … maybe slept it off somewhere … right?”

“Sure, honey, I’d bet my boots that’s all it is.” But they left unspoken the more dangerous possibilities: that some bounty hunter might have found him, recognized him from his days of being wanted in Missouri—then decided to bring him back there—dead or alive. Knowing Pete, Emily thought, her heart growing cold with fear, they’d never take him alive.

Or some cocky young gunfighter could have crossed his path—and decided to make a name for himself. Pete would never turn away from a dare or a fight. Her good-looking younger brother was too impulsive and sure of himself—and too hot-tempered.

“Uncle Jake, I’m scared.” She swallowed past a lump in her throat and whispered, “Who knows what kind of trouble he’s gotten himself into?”

At that moment Joey wandered into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes, his hair still tousled from sleep.

“Who? Me?” he asked, peering at Emily in alarm. He immediately started backing away.

“No, Joey, of course not. We weren’t talking about you. It’s Pete we’re worried about. He…” She took a deep breath. “He seems to be missing.”

“Did a bad man get him?”

Emily shook her head. “No. Come sit down.”

When he obeyed, and was seated across the table from Jake, she returned to frying the eggs. She made a pot of coffee and set out a pitcher of milk and some dishes of butter and jam to go with the biscuits. But all the while her mind was spinning.

By the time she had poured a tall glass of milk for Joey and slipped into her own rather wobbly chair at the table, she had made up her mind.

“As soon as the dishes are done, I’m going into town to find Pete and bring him back,” she said.

Her uncle swallowed a forkful of eggs. “Nope, Emily girl. It’s best you stay here with the young’un—me and Lester will go.”

“You don’t want to run into that sheriff, Uncle Jake,” she said quietly.

“Sure I do.” His eyes blazed. “I want to give him a piece of my mind for coming out here and scaring you like that the other night. And if he wants to see the deed to this place, let him ride up here again in daylight and ask me for it!”

“You see, that’s just what I’m worried about. Your temper is even worse than mine.” In dismay, Emily pushed
her plate away, too distraught to eat. “The wisest thing is for you to steer clear of him—you stay here with Joey and let me find Pete.”

She saw his frown deepen and knew what he was thinking: that as the patriarch of the family he ought to be the one to go.

But deep down, Uncle Jake knew as well as she that he needed to lay low until folks in Lonesome got used to having him around and realized that none of the Spoons were going to cause them any trouble. As the one who’d served prison time for stagecoach robbery, the only member of the gang to be caught red-handed with loot from the holdup, he was the most notorious member of the gang and the acknowledged leader. His presence was the one most likely to get folks riled up—especially the sheriff.

Jake hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Lonesome’s resident lawman, but he knew in his bones that situation would be rectified soon. Still, right now, they needed most of all to find Pete, and maybe Emily
was
best suited to that.

“All right, honey.” He nodded. “You go ahead. See what you can find out. Lester, you stick by her—don’t cause any trouble, boy, but don’t back down from it either.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Pop.” Lester tugged his gun from its holster and checked it for bullets. “We’ll be fine.”

Joey’s eyes widened and Emily saw the worry in their brown depths. She glanced at her uncle and nodded deliberately toward the boy.

“Say there, son.” Uncle Jake’s gruff voice took on a jovial tone. “Looks like you and me will have to fend for ourselves this morning. What do you say we take on
kitchen duty and wash these dishes so Emily can get on to town? Think we can handle that?”

To Emily’s relief, Joey nodded and actually smiled at her fierce-looking uncle as she jumped up from the table and grabbed her bonnet from its peg by the door.

“Take care not to break any dishes—we scarcely have enough to go around as it is,” she admonished breathlessly as Lester stomped out the door. “We’ll be back soon—with Pete,” she added over her shoulder. Then she was hurrying toward the barn on Lester’s heels, wondering just what she’d find when she reached Lonesome.

“Good thing that kid takes to Pop,” Lester said as he helped her mount Nugget, the golden-maned palomino mare they’d bought for her in Denver. “You’d think he’d be scared of someone who looks like him. He’s scared of everyone else. Even me,” he said with a sigh.

“Uncle Jake does have a way with kids—he always has,” Emily said absently, frowning into space as Lester mounted his dun gelding and they started toward the ridge.

“No need to worry so, Em.” Her cousin threw her a swift glance. “I’ll bet Pete’s just having himself a good time with some pretty saloon gal, or something like that.”

“We’ll see,” Emily muttered. But she prayed he was right as she spurred the mare to a gallop. The vast land swallowed them as they rode hard and fast across the sloping trail, the fierce sun beating down on their shoulders as they headed toward town.

The first places to check were the saloons, Emily knew. Lonesome had two of them, and she and Lester decided to start with the bigger, fancier one—Coyote Jack’s.

The moment Emily saw the boarded-up windows, her heart sank. And when she and Lester stepped inside the dim, red-carpeted interior and saw the broken mirrors,
shattered chandelier, overturned chairs and tables, the carpet stained with spilled whiskey, she knew.

A saloon fight
.

She threw Lester a stricken glance.

“Ten to one it was over a girl,” he murmured.

The bartender, still sweeping up broken glass behind the bar, frowned gloomily as they approached, picking their way through the debris. “We’re closed. Until further notice, folks.”

“You haven’t by chance seen a man about six foot tall, wearing a… a…” Lester’s voice trailed off and he glanced at Emily for help.

“A green shirt,” she supplied. “He has black hair like mine—it’s parted in the middle and there’s a scar on his right hand …”

Her voice trailed off as the bartender straightened and scowled at them.

“I wish to hell I
hadn’t
seen him—but I have.” He grimaced. “Beg your pardon for cussing, ma’am. But that fellow’s the one who started the fight. In ten years, my saloon’s never been torn up this bad before.”

Emily swallowed. “Where is he?” she asked, dreading the answer.

The bartender came around the bar and began whisking the broom beneath a table where shards of a broken whiskey bottle were scattered. “In jail. Where he belongs,” he said darkly. “Thanks to Sheriff Barclay. He can rot there as far as I’m concerned.”

“Sheriff
Barclay?”
Emily gasped as Lester gaped at the man. “Do you … mean …
Clint
Barclay?”

Clint Barclay
. That name was seared into her brain for all time—he was the lawman who’d sent Uncle Jake to prison. The one who’d tracked him mercilessly, arrested him, testified against him in court.

She felt like she was going to faint.

The bartender eyed them both from beneath bushy brows. “Yep. Clint Barclay. You know him?”

“Not… exactly,” Lester said grimly.

“Well, let me tell you, Clint Barclay’s the best sheriff this side of the Rockies. Cleaned out the Duggan gang a few years back. Single-handed too. He’s the best damned shot I ever did see … Hey, where’re you going?”

His last words were drowned out by the slamming of the double doors.

The black-haired girl and the moon-faced man were gone.

HEN ARE YOU PLANNING TO LET
me
out of here, damn you?”

As the sour-smelling old miner shuffled out of his cell, past the sheriff, and headed for the door, Pete Spoon gripped the iron bars and glared at the implacable lawman.

“You have twenty bucks to pay the fine for fighting, Spoon?”

“Not on me, but—”

The sheriff cut him off, turning to the miner. “Cuddy, you keep out of trouble. I don’t want to see you back here for at least a month.”

The old miner, bent and bleary-eyed waved a vague hand in the air. “Hmmmph. I’m headed to Leadville. They’re not so quick to lock a body up over there.”

The jailhouse door creaked shut behind him. Ignoring the glowering prisoner who remained behind bars, Clint strode to his desk and dropped the keys inside a drawer.

“How long you planning to keep me locked up?” Pete demanded.

“Until I’m good and ready to let you out.” Clint was already reaching for the ledger crammed full of paperwork,
all of it demanding his attention. The sun was hot and bright as a griddle full of grease, and the office air was stifling. He wished like hell he was out fishing instead of stuck in town half-buried in work, but there was a stack of correspondence, warrants, and directives from the federal marshal’s office that had piled up while he was away at Wade’s wedding, and then there was this prisoner to keep an eye on, and the rest of the Spoon gang to consider …

The thought had no sooner passed through his mind than the office door burst open and Emily Spoon swept in with sparks flying from her eyes. She was wearing a most becomingly fitted white blouse and a dark blue riding skirt that swished around her ankles as she crossed the floor with quick precise strides. Right on her heels came a huge, burly man in his early twenties, clad in buckskin, with red hair and a neck thick as a bull’s.

“Sheriff Clint Barclay!”
Emily Spoon spat out the name like poison, her face ablaze with fury and contempt.

“What?
Clint Barclay?” Pete Spoon lunged up against the iron bars. “Em, is that
him?”

It was Lester who answered, his hard gaze locking on the sheriff who came slowly, nonchalantly to his feet. “It sure is, Pete. The bartender at Coyote Jack’s just told us.”

“Morning, Miss Spoon.” Clint strode easily around the desk. He towered over Emily, threw Lester a swift, coldly appraising glance, then shifted his gaze back to the woman who stood trembling furiously before him.

“Is there something I can do for you, ma’am?” he asked coolly.

Emily’s fingers itched. Oh, how they itched. She wanted to slap him. Or kick him where it would really hurt. Or scratch his eyes out. But she did none of these
things. She glared at him, shock and anger and distress raging through her like a wild and uncontrollable storm.

Clint Barclay, damn his cold, ruthless lawman’s eyes, stared right back.

“So you’re the man who tracked down my uncle and had him thrown in jail.”

“That’s right.” He had the nerve to look as calm as if they were discussing the chance of rain.

“You broke up my family. Ruined my aunt’s life! She died calling for him, never seeing him again—”

Her voice quavered and broke, and it was Lester who clapped a hand on her shoulder and said tersely, “Don’t tear yourself up like this, Emily. He’s not worth it.”

“You’re right.” Emily took a deep breath, fighting for control. But it wasn’t easy. Visions of Aunt Ida growing weaker and weaker were embedded in her mind. She’d never forget how her aunt had suffered, her heart failing, her body slowly giving in to death. And all the while, every morning, every night, she’d called out for Uncle Jake, even with her last rasping breath.

“The other night—why didn’t you tell me who you were?” she demanded. Her voice shook. “If I’d known—”

“What would you have done, Miss Spoon? Shot me with that rifle I took away from you?”

Clint regretted the words the moment he said them. The truth was, he was fighting against an unexpected surge of pity. He didn’t regret putting the leader of a feared outlaw gang behind bars, not for a moment—but he regretted the very real pain on Emily Spoon’s lovely face.

“Look,” he said quickly, “try to be reasonable for a minute. When I tracked your uncle down six years ago, I was just doing my job. I put lawless men behind bars, and I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize for that—”

Emily slapped him. The ringing thud of her hand striking
his face seemed to echo for one shocking instant through the jailhouse. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy the passionate rage swirling through her—her temper wholly snapping, she lifted her hand and tried to do it again.

But this time he caught her wrist and held it fast, his eyes going flat and hard—the eyes of a man without pity.

“I don’t think so, Miss Spoon,” he said softly.

Lester rushed at him then. “Let her go, damn you, Barclay!”

The hard shove he gave the sheriff should have sent him reeling backward, but it didn’t. Instead Clint Barclay only stepped back a pace, quickly releasing Emily’s wrist. Then in one lightning motion he landed a bone-crunching right to Lester’s jaw, a blow that sent the red-haired man spinning to the floor.

“Lester!” Emily cried in horror.

Lester clambered up dizzily and charged again, but the lawman hit him once more, and he fell back with a grunt, crashing into a chair.

“Emily—grab the keys from the desk drawer and get me out of here. I’ll teach him a lesson!” Pete was shouting.

But the next instant, as Lester and Barclay traded blows again, Lester suddenly was knocked to the floor and this time he struck his head. Clint stepped in front of Emily so she couldn’t reach the keys in his desk, but she made no attempt to get past him; instead she flew to her cousin and knelt beside his still form.

“Lester! Lester, are you all right?” she asked frantically as his eyes remained closed. “My God, what have you done to him?”

Clint made no reply.

Lester Spoon moaned, and Emily let out her breath in relief, even as she cradled his head in her lap.

“Don’t try to move yet. Just wait. Pete, are you all right?”

“I will be soon as you get me out of here and I can say a few choice words to Barclay!”

Clint leaned against his desk, watching Emily fret over the fallen man. “I can hear you through the bars just fine.”

“You’re despicable!” Emily cried. As Lester struggled to a sitting position, clutching his battered jaw, she scrambled to her feet and faced the lawman.

“You’re nothing but a bully!” She was shaking. Never had she seen anyone fight like that. Lester was tough—he and Pete, she knew, had started and finished more than a few barnyard and saloon brawls—but the sheriff had knocked him down as easily as if he were no bigger than Joey.

“You have no idea what you did to my family. And now … this! Why is my brother locked up in that cell?”

“He was fighting in a public place. And disturbing the peace.”

“Let him out. Now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Miss Spoon. He has to serve two days’ time, and then there’s the matter of a twenty-dollar fine.”

A twenty-dollar fine! Emily’s heart sank.

“You have twenty dollars, Miss Spoon?”

“I’ll get it, damn you!”

“Fine.” Clint nodded, pushing away from the desk to stand towering before her. “Bring it in tomorrow, and he’s all yours.”

Emily stepped toward him again, her hands clenched into fists. Oh, how she wanted to hit him. But it would only lead to more trouble. She struggled once more to
control her temper, but rage filled her, and she knew she was trembling from head to toe.

“From the looks of that saloon, I’m sure Pete wasn’t the only one who was fighting. Why isn’t anyone else locked up?”

“He was the one who started it all.”

“I think you’re lying.” Emily stalked closer. “You’re just trying to harass him—and all of us so we’ll leave.”

“I’m trying to keep the peace. Anyone who can’t live peaceably like the rest of our law-abiding citizens can clear out.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Pete yelled from inside the cell.

“Hell, yes. I would.” But Clint was watching Emily Spoon’s pale, angry face and feeling a twinge of something that made him downright uncomfortable. He didn’t know why. He believed in what he did for a living, believed in it down to his very core.

After losing his own parents to a murderous outlaw gang when he was nine, a gang that left him and his two brothers orphaned, he had no sympathy for those who broke the law and terrorized others. The outlaws who’d killed his parents all those years ago had never been captured and made to pay for their crime, but he’d spent his life bringing other lawless men just like them to justice. He’d worked hard trying to make the West safer. Using his gun, his wits, his fists, and his own strength, he’d dedicated himself to protecting people from the human vultures who roamed this land.

But Emily Spoon didn’t see things that way. Her loyalties were firmly entrenched with those on the wrong side of the law.

“No, Lester—don’t.” She grabbed her cousin’s arm as
he finally gained his footing and tried to stagger toward the sheriff. “Just stand still a moment. Lean on me.”

“Dizzy,” he muttered. “Otherwise I’d give him what he deserves…”

Noting his glazed eyes and battered face, Emily’s stomach clenched. She threw a helpless glance at Pete, watching wrathfully from behind the bars, and then turned her frustration on Clint Barclay.

“See what you’ve done! He’s hurt!”

“If you ask me, he’s damn lucky. I could lock him up too.”

“Oh, my, aren’t you the soul of kindness.”

Barclay folded his arms across his chest. “Come back tomorrow with the money, Miss Spoon. Better yet, send your uncle instead—with the deed to the ranch.”

“Go to hell!” Pete yelled from behind bars.

“You … want to see … my pa, you’ll have to … go to him,” Lester said in a thick tone.

Clint’s dislike for both of the Spoon boys was growing by the moment. They didn’t strike him as being low-down-mean and brutal like the Duggans, or like some of the gunmen he’d encountered over the years, but they were hot-headed, arrogant, and full of themselves—and he had no patience to deal with rough young pups who needed to learn manners and respect for the law.

“Miss Spoon, allow me to get the door. It appears your cousin needs to rest a spell.”

He had to admire the way she looked at him. As if she’d skewer him alive if she could and leave his heart for the buzzards.

Miss Emily Spoon had spunk—and just as much arrogance as her brother and cousin. But she was a lot nicer to look at, he had to admit, his gaze flickering over her lush figure and that luxuriant cloud of hair. For a moment
he wondered just what it would feel like to tangle his hands in those dark velvet curls that so enticingly spilled down her back and framed her face.

Or to kiss that wide, pretty mouth.

He wondered if she’d taste as good as she looked.

Whoa
. Clint drew in a deep breath and dragged his thoughts back to business. This was no ordinary woman, to be admired, enjoyed, perhaps squired to a picnic or church social, he reminded himself grimly.

She was a Spoon.

But he noticed that when Lester leaned on her while they made their way to the door, it was all she could do to support him and he gritted his teeth.

“Want some help?”

“Not from you,” she returned scathingly.

Fine. She didn’t want his help, he wouldn’t offer it again. Even if her damned cousin fell flat on his face in the middle of the street.

As they brushed past him going out the door, he caught the scent of lilacs drifting past. Nice. Real nice…

But nothing that ought to make a man’s blood surge through his veins, he admonished himself, startled by his own heated reaction.

It wasn’t exactly sultry French perfume, like Estelle over in the saloon wore, or that musky, oily rose scent that enveloped most of the other saloon girls at Coyote Jack’s.

This was clean, soft, pretty. Like her, Clint realized, grimacing.

Next thing you know you’ll be following her
, he thought.