The Marshal's Ready-Made Family (8 page)

Chapter Nine

T
hat evening Garrett dreamed he and his sister, Deirdre, were children again. They were living in Illinois, and he and Deirdre were sitting on the back of their pa’s wagon, their legs swinging as they bumped along the deep rivets in the muddy road. Deirdre held her stuffed bunny over the street, then yanked it back against her chest. They played the game and giggled while their parents argued. Garrett sensed the tension even though neither of them raised their voices.

As the trip lengthened, and their mother’s voice grew shrill, the game became more manic. Garrett snatched the bunny and held it over the road, pretending to drop it. Deirdre squealed in delight. Emboldened by her response, Garrett repeated the teasing bluff, only this time the wagon hit a deep rut and the heavy jolt knocked him sideways. He grasped the sideboard and steadied himself.

“My bunny!” Deirdre shouted.

Garrett glanced down in horror. One floppy ear and a single paw showed stark white against the boggy street.

“Stop!” he’d called. “We have to go back.”

There was still time. If they stopped, Ma could clean up the bunny and make it new again.

His father whipped around, a black look twisting his face. “Serves you right. Maybe now you’ll give me some peace and quiet.”

Garrett caught Deirdre’s stricken gaze. Her eyes welled with tears and she stuck her thumb in her mouth.

“Don’t be a bab—” He stopped the words.

She was ten years old and too big for such a childish activity, but he sensed it made her feel better. He couldn’t scold her.

He reached out a hand, and she pulled away. His heartbeat turned uneven and his blood grew thick like slow-moving molasses. He hadn’t meant to lose her toy, it had been an accident—a bit of tomfoolery gone wrong. They’d both lost something that day, something they could never regain.
He’d lost her trust.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she’d replied solemnly.

But she blamed him, he knew she did. He saw the betrayal in her sorrowful eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he called again, but the moment was lost in time. “I’m sorry.”

Garrett shot upright in bed, his body soaked in sweat. Disoriented, he glanced around the room. A fierce pounding from the second-floor door had awakened him. Fearful of disturbing Cora, he shot out of bed, quickly tossing on a shirt as he padded barefoot across the room.

Without breaking stride, he snagged his holster from its hiding place atop the wardrobe and strapped his gun around one thigh, then angled himself near the exit. Keeping his body protected from the flimsy door, he yanked out his pistol and cocked the next round into the chamber. “Who is it?”

“It’s me. JoBeth McCoy.”

Sensing the urgency in her voice, Garrett quickly holstered his weapon. The stubborn dead bolt caught. After a sharp twist to the left, he forced open the lock. “What’s wrong?”

Backlit by the moonlight, she huddled on the top stair, the alley a dark shadow below. A gust of wind sent tendrils of her hair sweeping across her forehead. She impatiently shoved it aside. “Trouble at the saloon.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. But it’s keeping us awake at the boardinghouse.”

Garrett waved her inside, hastily fastened his shirt and took a surreptitious look at Jo. She’d obviously dressed in haste, the buttons on her shirtwaist were mismatched with the third button skipped altogether. Her hair hung in one thick braid down her back as usual, but it was tousled and loose. Her eyes drooped, still heavy with sleep, and she flashed him a wan half smile.

His protective instincts roared to life. He wanted to wrap her in a blanket and keep her safe. Garrett steeled his focus.

He had other priorities right then. “Can you stay with Cora? I’ll take a gander. Probably just the boys tying one on.”

“I’ll wait.”

“The railroad workers got their paychecks today and they’re spending it at the saloon. This shouldn’t take long.”

She hovered near the door while he donned his socks and boots, then snatched his hat. Drawn by something he didn’t understand, he cast a last reassuring look over his shoulder before stepping outside. Once the cool evening air hit his face, he paused. He was still off kilter from his dream, his thoughts scattered back through the years. Cora’s arrival had shaken his peaceful existence. He’d locked away Deirdre’s memory, but Cora was too much like her mother. She wouldn’t let him forget.

Garrett loped down the stairs. He’d been marking time in his life, keeping the past at bay, but he no longer had that luxury.

A shot rang out, halting his wayward thoughts.

Even a drunk could get off a lucky round, and he needed his mind clear.

Seconds later he crept along the boardwalk, his hearing focused on the raucous sounds. As he reached the double bat-wing doors, a drunken cowboy with a bedraggled beard stumbled outside and collapsed into a heap on the street.

Garrett knelt down and felt the man’s neck, relieved at the strong pulse. Judging from the noxious whiskey fumes, Garrett assumed he’d passed out. The drunken man would keep until order was restored.

Drawing his gun, Garrett edged along the side of the building, when another shot rang out. He straightened his back and burst into the room. A deafening melee greeted his arrival.

At least two dozen men had paired up in fisticuffs throughout the room. Fists flew and splattered drinks covered the floor in a slick mess. Two of the enormous round tables had been tipped on their sides, scattering playing cards and betting chips over the sawdust-strewn floor.

An industrious cowboy scooted on his hands and knees between the overturned tables and scooped up discarded coins, shoving them into his bulging pockets. Garrett blew out a shrill whistle. Several startled heads turned in his direction.

“That’s enough. Everybody outside.”

A groan erupted from several of the fighting pairs as they realized the brawl was over. From the corner of his eye, Garrett caught a man cocking back his arm over another gambler.

Garrett spun around and pointed his gun. “I said, that’s enough.”

The aggressor dropped his arm with a grumble. Garrett plucked a cowboy from the floor and tossed him out the bat-wing doors. His arrival had dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm, and he felt the mood of the room calm. The weary railroad workers reluctantly dispersed. He stalked between the tables, yanking people upright and setting them on chairs. A group of painted ladies huddled near the piano, their wilted feathers a sad sight against their elaborately coiffed hair.

Garrett didn’t feel any censure toward the women, only sorrow. The West was hard, especially on women and children. “Why don’t you ladies wait next door.”

The neighboring space was taken with the rooms. This half, the part Tom liked to shoot at, featured a cavernous room with a crude two-story stage at the east end.

One of the women, a buxom brunette with rouged lips, stuck out a hip and giggled. “You’re in the wrong place for ladies, Marshal.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He felt his ears heat up beneath her amused regard. “I can’t get my job done if I’m worrying about you.”

“Well, ain’t he just the cutest thing,” one of them trilled.

With a bawdy look she sauntered away.

As they retreated through the side door, Garrett pivoted on one heel, surprised to find David McCoy stalking toward him.

Garrett crunched over broken glass toward the McCoy boy. “Did you see who started all this?”

“Mr. Stuart and Mr. Hodges were fighting about the new store.”

“That figures.”

Garrett wasn’t surprised the two men had been arguing. Mr. Stuart had been running the only mercantile in town for over a decade until Mr. Hodges had arrived from St. Louis and bought up a storefront right across the street. Garrett figured the town had grown large enough for two thriving stores, but Mr. Stuart saw money slipping between his fingers.

David glanced around the demolished room. “A couple of cowboys took advantage of the commotion and that’s when the bullets started flying.”

“Where’d they go?”

The third-oldest McCoy was tall and dark-haired like his brothers, probably going on eighteen or nineteen, twenty at most.

David scanned the room. “Don’t know.”

Garrett adjusted his hat. He sometimes deputized the mercantile owner, Mr. Stuart, when he needed extra help. But since his occasional deputy had been knee deep in the brawl, he’d lost his backup.

Garrett studied David’s sheepish expression. “We’ll talk about what you’re doing here later.”

An uneasy silence descended around them. The room had mostly cleared upon his arrival, though one or two men remained, too drunk to flee. An overturned glass of beer dripped steadily onto a scattering of playing cards like sour rain. The mingled odors of alcohol and cigar smoke turned Garrett’s stomach. He picked his way through the glass and approached the auburn-haired woman hovering near the door. She looked as if she wanted to say something, and he never turned away a witness.

Tipping his hat, Garrett offered a friendly greeting. “You’re Beatrice, right? Did you see the men who started this? Or the shooter?”

“Probably Tom.” She shook her head and the drooping purple feather in her hair fluttered. “The whole place went mad at once. There was a new group this evening. They came in from Wichita earlier in the day.”

“How many?”

“Four, maybe five. I didn’t pay much attention. They didn’t seem interested in dancing.”

A tingle of apprehension darted along Garrett’s spine. “You notice anything else unusual?”

“I noticed one of the McCoy boys in here. That’s unusual. He better hope his pa never finds out. Or his sister, for that matter.”

Garrett flashed a wry grin. “I’ll take care of David.”

The woman winked at him and he started, then fixed his attention on the sawdust-strewn floor. He sure was getting winked at a lot these days. “Thank you, Miss Beatrice. You think of anything else, let me know.”

“Oh, I’ll let you know,” she murmured suggestively.

“Don’t you get sassy on me, Miss Beatrice.”

“You’re real cute when you blush.” She twisted her waist from side to side, sending her fringed skirt fluttering. “She’s cute, too, your niece.” Beatrice fiddled with an auburn corkscrew curl resting on her shoulder. “Tell you what, because you called us ladies, I’ll help you keep an eye on that David McCoy. I didn’t see him drink or gamble, and he wasn’t hanging around the girls. He seemed more interested in Mr. Stuart than anything else. Except Mr. Stuart was busy fighting with Mr. Hodges. Besides...”

She studied her tapered fingernails. “I owe JoBeth.” Beatrice met his curious gaze. “She’s been teaching me Morse code. I’m getting a job in Denver as a telegraph operator. A real job. Not dancing with cowboys for nickels.”

“That’s a fine goal,” Garrett replied.

Another mark in Jo’s favor. He’d been raised around people who wouldn’t lift a finger for someone below their class, and that had never sat well with him. Seemed like the Bible was pretty clear on ministering to the poor as well as the poor in spirit.

Garrett touched his forehead in a brief salute. “When you and Jo finish your studies, you let me know if you need a reference.”

This time Beatrice blushed, making her appear younger, almost girlish. “You’re too soft for a marshal.”

“And you’re too smart for this place.”

With that parting comment, Garrett turned. Behind him, the steady clip-clip of heels echoed through the open building as Beatrice walked through the adjoining door.

Garrett sighted David stationed near the door and motioned him over. “Let’s straighten up.”

Together with Schmitty the bartender, they set about clearing the room. Garrett righted a chair and reached for an overturned table. A pair of boots caught his attention. Another casualty of the brawl, no doubt.

Garrett nudged one of the boots. “Wake up, mister. Time to take it home.”

The body remained ominously still. Garrett heaved the table upright, revealing Mr. Hodges. His blank eyes stared at the ceiling, glassy and unmoving. A darkening patch of red covered his white shirt and bled into his faded gray coat. Garrett flipped him onto one side, already knowing what he’d find. A bullet had passed clean through the man’s body.

The bartender, a diminutive man with unnaturally dark, slicked-back hair, leaned over Garrett’s shoulder. “He’s dead. Someone musta shot him.”

“I figured that much, Schmitty.”

To Garrett’s frustration, all of his witnesses had scattered. He’d recognized most of the faces, but there were still the cowboys passing through town he didn’t know—the kind of men accustomed to the previous sheriff’s corruption. Garrett pinched the bridge of his nose. Despite the lawless atmosphere of the town, there hadn’t been a murder in Cimarron Springs for years.

“David.” Garrett caught the younger man’s stunned expression. “Let the doc know we’ve got a casualty here.”

His Adam’s apple working, David jerked his head in a nod and turned away from the gruesome sight. Garrett ticked off another point in the young man’s favor. Though shaken, he hadn’t shirked from his duties. Cimarron Springs might have a new deputy soon.

Garrett had a feeling he was going to need all the help he could get. He drummed his fingers on his bent knee. By morning, everyone in town would assume Mr. Stuart had shot Mr. Hodges over the new mercantile store. And for all Garrett knew, he might have.

Money and business had a way of forcing men into desperate measures. Yet Mr. Stuart struck him as the sort of man who was all talk and no action. The mercantile owner rarely ventured from his uneasy vigil behind the counter, and he doted on his daughter. Garrett couldn’t see him risking a lynching.

Hushed whispers fell around him and he could almost feel the budding rumors flying through the air. If Mr. Stuart was innocent he’d have an uphill battle saving his reputation. Trying to squash gossip was like trying to put out a brushfire with a cup of tea.

The saloon doors slammed open and David burst into the room. “Come quick, Marshal. The jailhouse is on fire!”