Eighteen

“Old lady Penelope is dead? How?” The news stunned Glory, who’d ridden into Santa Anna this Saturday morning to sell eggs and butter. The entire Day family tagged along. Of the clan, Hope stayed by her side. They left their mother with Aunt Dorothy, and the Lord could only guess where Squirt hid out.

The furious clanking and banging of the printing press told her Charlie was in a lather. She waited for a lull, which didn’t take long. Abrupt silence marked the time to talk.

“Someone hanged the poor ol’ soul from a tree—three steps from her back door. They found her early this morning.”

“Who would’ve done such a thing? At ninety and frail, she couldn’t have harmed anyone,” Hope put in.

“Except Papa, don’t forget! Because of her poison, they sent him away.” And ruined our lives in the bargain, Glory added to herself. Though she cringed at what fate had brought the gossipy woman.

“Where’s your stranger, Glory?” Charlie asked.

Thick tension held them in a stranglehold. Unfamiliar distrust colored the question. In all the years she’d known the kindly editor, he’d never used that tone. Darn, if only she could see his eyes. Surely he didn’t suspect she had anything to do with it. Perhaps his motives lay more or less in slinging a few other accusations Luke’s way.

“I’ve explained this once before—McClain is not my stranger, stable hand, or sheepherder.” She gripped Hope’s arm for support. She didn’t like the undertone her ears picked up.

The noise of the wind filled her head, a monster coming to destroy. She shivered.

Hope gripped Glory, her voice firm. “We haven’t seen him in almost a week.”

Dear loyal Hope. For someone who had amazing resistance to anger, she had Glory’s hand in a powerful vise.

“He left your place?”

“Are you calling us liars? Hope just said he hasn’t been around, Charlie.”

“Well, he was in town yesterday!” The arm of the press lowered with a bang. “I saw McClain leaving ol’ Penelope’s, God rest her soul, yesterday shortly after sunup.”

“You spied on him?” She knew he’d taken an instant dislike to Luke, but never thought he’d stoop to this.

“Sure the hell did. I warned you he was too closemouthed for my taste.” A screech came when he raised the top. By the soft squish, she knew Charlie had applied more ink over the letters with the roller. “The man ran from her house, jumped on his horse, and lit out. Left a lot of dust behind on his way out of town…and one defenseless dead woman hanging by the neck.”

Air surged from Glory’s lungs. After Charlie placed this edition on Santa Anna’s streets, any explanation Luke had would fall on deaf ears. That is, if he hadn’t disappeared for good. Had she driven him to the brink of desperation when they spoke of her father the last time?

She’d been quick-tempered and short, demanding he stay out of their business. By all rights he should’ve turned his back on her. Yet, he’d held her tenderly and kept her safe from the panther.

Her stomach lurched as the memory shamed her.

Charlie had the wrong man. Luke had scruples and integrity. Didn’t matter how it looked. She trusted her instincts.

A killer couldn’t make her feel the way he did.

“Ladies, hate to rush you off, but I have work to do to get this newspaper out.”

“We’ve got to be going anyway. Coming, Hope?”

Glory let her sister lead her to the door, since Charlie wouldn’t notice anything other than his precious news. Outside, she pushed away Hope’s hand. She wished to hide her loss from everyone awhile longer. A stumble wouldn’t appear quite so out of the ordinary, and she’d take that risk.

“Miss Glory, Miss Glory.” In his exuberance, Horace very nearly knocked her over.

“Hello, Horace.” She rescued her hat where it dangled precariously, scooped up her hair, and tucked it back underneath. “How are you today?”

“Reckon I got lotsa sunshine now. My eyes are glad to see you. I’m still your beau, ain’t I?”

How was it she’d never heard the frantic tone submerged beneath the repeated question? Horace said the words exactly as he always had, yet she realized she’d never truly listened. In fact, her ears picked up sounds of late in a much different fashion. She seemed to hear thoughts behind mere conversation. Why Horace held this fascination with her or why it was so important to him remained a mystery. Some sixth sense told her she was his link to the real world. Perhaps if she broke the fragile cord, he might become even more lost inside his own head.

“Ain’t I?”

“You surely are.”

“Oh boy! I gotta run tell my pa. Goodbye, Miss Hope. Goodbye, Miss Glory.”

“You probably shouldn’t encourage him like that.” Hope nudged her into the bright sunshine.

“I know, but we’re about the only friends he has. I can’t bear the way the town thumbs its nose at him.” Glory sighed and moved forward with caution. “The zealous bigots. They won’t tolerate anyone who dares to be different.”

“Do you refer to our sometime guest?” Hope asked.

“Charlie has his bullets aimed in the wrong direction. He’s no murderer.”

“I agree.” Hope’s voice came softly. “A little bit farther, and there’s a step from the walk to the street. Here’s my hand in case you need it.”

“Thank you, but I can manage.” She hoped, grateful that faint shapes and blurs hadn’t fled along with the rest of her sight. But she feared that soon they too would leave and plunge her into a bottomless pit. She’d have no choice in the matter.

A glacier slid down her spine and into her shoes. How would a life of darkness be? And when she had no one…?

“It doesn’t look good for Mr. Luke. I wish Charlie hadn’t seen him leaving the old woman’s house. Step down now. And do hurry—there’s quite a crowd at the emporium.”

“I don’t like this.” The turbulence charging the air chilled Glory’s blood. This was something that ate from the inside out, a hate she’d witnessed firsthand during her father’s trial.

* * *

Luke and Soldier rode as one with a single purpose. He’d settle one final score and then…then he’d make certain never to bother the golden-haired beauty again. Tightness in his chest grew and traveled to points south. She appeared to be lodged in his thoughts, and he didn’t see any way of getting her out—should he even have a choice in the matter.

“Soldier, I hear a man can get lost down south of the border. Rancho Del Norte should be far enough, I figure.”

Trouble would have to cut a mean trail to find him there. He unscrewed the top of the canteen, took a swig of water, and scanned the brush for his quarry.

Where had the slippery, murdering scum gone?

If he hadn’t lost his two-fingered grip on the man’s shirt, he’d have caught the fellow who’d hanged a pitiful old woman.

Much had happened since the morning he left the Day farm.

“A feller named Foster gave me twenty dollars to say I saw Jack Day rob that bank,” Penelope Tucker had confessed three days ago. “Then he told me to keep my mouth shut. I did. Till now. Cain’t live with the guilt of what I done, sending an innocent man to the calaboose. I’m not a spring chicken, you know. Reckon I’d like to clear the slate before I get called.”

Luke left that day not dreaming they’d take her life before he returned. He’d ridden to Abilene intending to get the U.S. Marshal to come verify her claims. A day late and a dollar short on that account.

“Ambushed and kilt,” a man told him of the marshal’s fate.

Telegraphing for help left him the last card to play. But that, too, had been for naught. Someone had silenced Penelope Tucker by the time he returned. What had been the good of his efforts? The word of a nobody meant nothing.

Now he had no choice but to find the man who had murdered Perkins. “Can’t believe I let the scoundrel get away.”

Soldier perked his ears and bit off some buffalo grass. Good thing the stuff didn’t need any water or it’d die right along with the other vegetation. Even the weeds seemed hard put to survive.

“I’m not giving up, you hear?” he yelled in frustration. “Better pick a big rock ’cause I aim to find you.”

Heaven help him, he’d get Jack Day out one way or another. With blindness robbing Glory of the means to provide, Luke couldn’t waste any time.

And since she wouldn’t marry him…

Damn! But oh, what sweet lips.

Thinking of her sultry gaze raised gooseflesh the size of nickels. Such daydreams should be a sin, plain and simple.

On second thought, he reckoned they were.

* * *

Glory and Hope edged near the loud group in front of Harvey’s. She yearned to block the ache in her breast and the hate she’d already heard.

“I say we form a posse. Run that no-good stranger to ground.”

“Shoot fire, we cain’t form a posse, don’t have a sheriff.”

Outrage burned in the back of Glory’s throat. An angry mob was a fearsome thing. She groped until she found Hope’s sweaty palm and held tight.

“All the more reason to form a citizen’s brigade,” came a surly roar from J. R. Fieldings. “Count me in.”

“And me.”

“I will.”

Calm accented her uncle’s voice. “Do you suppose we oughta see what the feller has to say first?”

Glory silently applauded.

“Oh, go fly your kite, Pete Harvey,” the banker scoffed.

“Yeah, leave men’s work to us. I think a bullet is all we need to wait for,” Joseph Starkweather put in.

“Nah, waste of good lead. Get a stout rope like the one he strung around old Penelope’s windpipe.”

“Oh dear,” Hope murmured. “I can’t bear this. Let’s get Mama and Patience and go home.”

They had barely moved an inch when a volley of shots erupted. Hope shrieked, pulling Glory into a crouch.

“What is it? What’s happening now?”

Dear Mother Mary, she wished she could see!

“Break it up. This meeting’s adjourned.”

She couldn’t recollect the deep drawl or the steely warning that momentarily quieted the noisy rabble.

“On whose authority?”

“You folks need some persuading?” the mystery man replied. “I can just as easy put some bullet holes into a few of you.”

“Who are you, mister?” Uncle Pete asked.

“Captain Dan W. Roberts, Texas Ranger.”

Texas Ranger? Had he come to arrest Luke?

Fieldings hollered, “We’ve had a woman murdered. Is a little justice too much to ask?”

“More like vigilantes to me. Go about your business and let me do my job.”

Good advice. She hoped the captain could restore calm and order, but when a town had a powder-keg frame of mind, the likelihood remained slim. Especially if this captain meant to bring more harm to Luke. The Rangers hadn’t given him much of a chance before and most likely wouldn’t now. Even while she hungered for his touch and couldn’t bring herself to think about him leaving for good, she prayed he stayed far, far away. Out of the clutches of Santa Anna’s upstanding and Captain Roberts.

* * *

“My stars, the entire town’s in a fine uproar,” Dorothy Harvey was spouting when they made their way inside. “Who would’ve thought that handsome young man had murderin’ in him?”

“We don’t know he killed anyone.” Defending Luke came automatically. Glory fumbled for the wooden stool Hope brought.

“That’s right, Apple Dumpling. Judge not ye lest ye be judged.”

“What do you know about scripture quotin’, Pete Harvey? Reckon you don’t darken the church doors except for marrying and buryin’s.” Aunt Dorothy launched into a fit of harrumphing.

Glory smiled at their good-natured bickering. Her mama and papa used to do the same. Despite the hard twinge such memories brought, she welcomed the warmth.

“A man don’t have to let a preacher put ’im to sleep to get religion,” Uncle Pete said in his defense. “I have a sight mor’n some.”

“Shush, you old galoot.”

“Better watch it, Sugar. You know how frisky name callin’ makes me.”

“Pete, there’s children here!”

“About time they learned something.”

The bell over the door tinkled, interrupting the exchange. Though Glory had no reason, she suddenly shivered.

“Can I help you, Captain?” Aunt Dorothy asked.

That could only mean Captain as in Roberts.

“I’m looking for a man named McClain. Luke McClain.”