The Inheritance (18 page)

He threw the first few hands, keeping an eye on the door and on the fellow across the room. The man was only a means to an end, not Grady Polk, the man he was after.

Watching the dealer shuffle the cards, Wyatt’s thoughts turned to the telegram back in his room—a commendation on a job well-done. The Marshals Office was more positive than ever about his future with them. His superiors were more than pleased at his recent progress. He’d caught another of Ben Slater’s accomplices—two of them, actually, including Ben’s younger brother, Jimmy—though only one was alive to stand trial.

For the hundredth time, the scene from a week ago played out before him. He’d reexamined his options, and each time his gut told him the same thing—that his final decision had been the right one. The only one. And it had saved an innocent woman’s life . . .

At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

But all he could see—both in waking hours and those spent chasing sleep in recent days—was the look on Jimmy’s face the instant he realized he was going to die. It was a look Wyatt would never forget, but would spend a lifetime wishing he could.

Fifteen was too young for a boy to be living that way. Much less, dying.

SIXTEEN

S
unlight streamed in through a slit in the curtains, and Wyatt slung an arm over his eyes to block the glare. He rolled over in the bed, every muscle in his body aching. He’d gotten in late last night. The man he’d been waiting for had never shown.

Enjoying the comfort of bed sheets and a freshly ticked mattress, he remembered a time when he’d thought marshaling would give him a break from the rigors of ranching. The pillow muffled a bitter sigh. Right now, he’d gladly trade a few days of ranching for these endless days in the saddle.

He stared at the empty place beside him and ran a hand over the rumpled sheets. A woman’s face entered his mind. Only it wasn’t Caroline’s this time. And the realization was disarming.

Mindful of where his imagination was taking him, Wyatt swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Still, images of Miss Ashford crowded the corners of his mind. He stretched, pulled on his trousers, and walked to the window where he edged back the curtain. From his second-story room of the boardinghouse, he had a view of the Chinese Quarter, as this section of Copper Creek was called.

Shoppers crowded the boardwalk below—mostly Asians, a few whites—and wagons lined the street. Typical for a Saturday morning, and all under the watchful eye of the Rockies standing sentinel above. He liked Copper Creek, liked these mountains, and was glad his travels brought him through here on occasion.

Which reminded him—he needed to stop by the livery to see if the saddle he’d ordered was ready. He’d like to have it come Monday when he rode out again.

He turned from the window, then quickly looked back.

It was
her
.

He could tell by the way she
carried herself, self-assured and seemingly in command. Two men tipped their hats as she walked by. Either unaware or too intent on her task, Miss Ashford offered no response from what he could tell. But it didn’t stop her admirers from turning to appreciate her lovely aftermath.

Seeing their reactions struck a chord of protectiveness inside him. And yet . . .

McKenna Ashford
was
a striking woman. But she’d made it plain she didn’t desire his company. Short term, or long. Which somehow still didn’t diminish his appreciation of the sway of her hips, the curves of her waistline, and the way she filled out her—

Realizing his own stare had grown too bold, he turned away and let the curtain fall back into place, reminded of something she’d said to him the first night they met, while she rode behind him out to the Talbot’s.
“Marshaling must be lonelier work than I
thought, Marshal Caradon.”

He sighed, staring at the empty bed. The woman had no idea . . .

He dressed quickly. When he reached the boardwalk ten minutes later, he turned in the opposite direction Miss Ashford had gone.

A few doors down was the restaurant where he’d taken his meals the last time he’d stayed in Copper Creek. The food— different from his normal fare—was good, served in generous portions, and was fairly priced. Nearly every table in the dining room was occupied.

The majority of patrons looked up when he entered, pausing from their meals. And he knew why. He was the only white man in the room.

Nearly every mining supply town had a Chinese Quarter—a place where the Asian population seemed to migrate. And while some of the white townsfolk looked down on the foreigners, said they weren’t hospitable and didn’t belong here, he’d found their boardinghouses cleaner, their services more affordable, and their work ethic second-to-none.

“You back, Marshal Caradon.” Mr. Ming, the proprietor, bowed low. “You honor my family by eating with us again.”

“Good to see you, Mr. Ming. And you honor
me
with your wife’s cooking, sir.” He enjoyed Ming’s smile, glimpsing the spark of a boy in the wizened face of a man. He looked forward to more of Mrs. Ming’s steamed dumplings and hoped they were serving them for breakfast like last time. He followed the older man to an empty table by the front window.

As they walked, Ming caught him up on his family’s news. Like many Chinamen, Ming had come to America first, made some money, then brought the rest of his family over, along with other relatives.

“You like house breakfast this morning, Marshal? My wife fix it special for you.”

“Sounds good to me, sir. Thank you.” Wyatt took his seat at a table for two, glad to see the patron before him had left a copy of the
Copper Creek Herald
behind. “But I may need two of them. I’m awful hungry.”

“My wife be pleased.” Ming thrust his thin chest out. “She like big man with good appetite!” He laughed before bowing and disappearing into the kitchen.

When Wyatt’s meal arrived, he wasn’t disappointed. His plate was piled high with food, and even though he didn’t recognize every serving, without exception it was all delicious. As he ate, he scanned the latest issue of the
Herald.
His attention snagged on the word
Brinks,
and he brought the paper closer. Two more Brinks stagecoaches had been robbed, one outside of Denver and another on the way to Copper Creek. More lives lost. It wouldn’t be long before the Marshals Office got involved.

Staring out the front window, he sipped a cup of hot tea, sifting through the details reported about the robberies, and wondering what brought McKenna Ashford to this side of town. The Chinese Quarter was safe enough during the day. He just didn’t know why she’d be over here. And why Emma wasn’t with her.

Sensing someone watching him, he turned to find Ming’s wife peering around the corner through the kitchen doorway. He smiled and raised a fork in mock salute. She grinned and ducked back around the side. So much for the Chinese not being a hospitable people.

He finished his meal and paid his ticket, then offered a peeking Mrs. Ming one last grin before he left.

He chose the dirt-packed street over the crowded boardwalk, and each step kicked up more dust. A summer sun beat down and, without benefit of cloud cover, the mid-July day promised to be a scorcher. Ming had said they needed rain, and Wyatt believed him.

Passing by the jail, he thought of Slater, who still awaited trial in Denver. He’d delivered Slater to the jail there, glad to be rid of him. But as he’d headed from town, court authorities caught up with him and said the circuit judge had been delayed in another murder trial. They called on him to officiate in the man’s stead.

Bringing a felon to justice was one thing. Holding that man’s life in your hands, judging what to do with his future, and whether he should live or die, was a responsibility Wyatt never wanted. To his great relief, the circuit judge arrived before the trial was underway.

Wyatt turned down a side street toward the livery, his thoughts turning with him. Sometimes justice was meted out slower than he liked, and other times, it was rendered swiftly. As was the case for Ben Slater’s kid brother last week.

He’d cornered the fifteen-year-old boy in a shack on the outskirts of town. And just like his older brother, Jimmy Slater had refused to surrender. “Toss the gun out the window and walk on out, Jimmy,” Wyatt yelled. “I don’t want things to end bad for you here.”

Jimmy answered with gunplay. Wyatt fired back, and the boy dove for cover.

“Sorry, Marshal,” the kid shouted, his voice carrying through a paneless window. “But there ain’t much chance of that happenin’!”

“I’ll make sure you see your brother again. Before he hangs.”

Wyatt ducked, anticipating the gunfire that comment would draw—emptying the boy’s gun faster. Bullets whizzed past him. One came especially close to his right ear, and he inched farther to the left. Jimmy was a crack shot, just like his older brother, and was headed down the same destructive path.

“You take me in, Marshal, and I’m gonna hang. That don’t sit too well with me!”

Wyatt couldn’t argue that point. A handful of witnesses in Denver said they’d seen the boy shoot a man down in cold blood, for not liking the way the fellow had looked at him. Jimmy Slater also allegedly took part in the rape of a teenage girl in a neighboring town. She’d been about the same age as Jimmy—fifteen. Wyatt had spoken to her and her family some weeks afterward, gathering information, trying to piece things together, and he still remembered the haunted look in the young woman’s eyes.

“You promise to let me go, Marshal, and I’ll come out. I know why you’re after me . . . it’s that girl over in Bixby. But you can’t do nothin’ to me for that. You got no witnesses. My brother says you don’t make deals you don’t keep. So tell you what, you just give me a two-minute start on you, then . . .”

Wyatt bided his time, listening to the boy talk nonsense and move around inside the shack.

There were no windows or doors on the back or far side of the shack where Jimmy was holed up. The only exits were within Wyatt’s sights. If Jimmy tried to leave, he’d be shot. And the kid knew it.

His orders were to bring the boy in, dead or alive, and the boy was right. He would hang, same as his brother. But Wyatt didn’t want to kill this kid. No, it was more than that. He didn’t want Jimmy Slater to die this way. It felt wasteful to snuff out a life this young, even with it being squandered.

Jimmy suddenly emerged out the side window, gun raised, and got off two shots—both hitting way too close to Wyatt’s head. Wyatt answered once, grazing the boy in the shoulder. Jimmy staggered back but stayed standing. He held his shoulder with one hand, his gun clutched loosely in the other.

Senses alert, Wyatt rose and slowly moved toward him. “Put it down, Jimmy.
It’s over.”

A wildness glazed the boy’s eyes, and Wyatt felt he was reliving the scene with Jimmy’s older brother all over again. Behind him, down the street from the sound of it, Wyatt heard a door open but didn’t dare turn. Jimmy suddenly raised his gun.

But he aimed for something past Wyatt. Or
someone
.

Wyatt fired a hair breadth before the boy got off his shot. A woman’s scream competed with the gun’s blast as Jimmy fell back, shock twisting his youthful features. A crimson pool formed in the dirt around him. Certain of the boy’s fate, Wyatt turned to find the woman shaken but unharmed. He stood there for what seemed like forever, a part of him wishing he’d met Jimmy Slater earlier in life. Maybe he could have made a difference in his life. One thing was certain—he would have tried.

Wyatt blinked and the memory began to fade, but the feelings stayed strong within him. What bred such meanness in a boy so young? Such lack of respect for innocent life? Staring at the dirt his boots kicked up as he walked, he wondered how much longer he could be a U.S. Marshal before this job completely jaded him. He used to have such faith in people. In what a person could accomplish if they only put their time and talents toward something worthwhile, something good. Maybe he needed to give some serious consideration to doing something else with his life.

He spotted Casey Trenton up ahead in the livery. Trenton glanced up, and their eyes connected.