Kendrick: Outlaw's Bride Part 28

"Come in, Ethan," Mrs. Felber said. "You'll want to hear this, too."

Patch and Ethan exchanged uneasy glances. Mrs. Felber was obviously agitated, her eyes wild-looking, her voice harsh and guttural.

Ethan came and stood at Patch's side, his hand on her shoulder. "You have something to say, Mrs. Felber?"

Lilian Felber gave a shuddering sigh. "Horace wanted to put Chester in an orphans' home when he found out he was slow-witted. Did you know that? But I loved my boy too much to send him away. I think Horace learned to love him, too. Otherwise, he would never have done what he did."

She remained silent for so long that Ethan asked, "What did Horace do, Mrs. Felber?"

"He saved his son from the law. He paid and paid and paid again to keep the truth hidden. For seventeen years he paid."

"Paid what?"

"Blackmail."

"Someone blackmailed Horace? Was it Careless? Did the sheriff know who did it all along?" Patch asked.

"What? No, not Careless. Boyd Stuckey."

"You're lying!" Ethan said. "Boyd wouldn't need to blackmail anybody. Why are you accusing him?"

"Because it's true. Where do you think he got the money to buy that ranch of his?"

"His aunt left him money," Ethan retorted.

Mrs. Felber laughed. It was a jarring sound. "Meet Boyd's aunt Lilian," she said, spreading her arms wide. "Because all the money Boyd ever got came from Horace and me."

"Why was Boyd blackmailing you? What did he know that you wanted kept secret?" Patch asked.

"Boyd was there."

"Where?"

"Boyd was there with Merielle and Chester when Horace found them. Boyd said Chester had raped Merielle. He hated Horace, and he gloated about how Chester was going to hang for what he had done. Horace took one look at the fingernail scratches on Chester's face and knew there wasn't a court in the world that wouldn't convict his son. So he offered Boyd money to keep his mouth shut."

"And Boyd took it?" Ethan said in a raw voice.

Mrs. Felber nodded. "Over the years, he kept coming back for more. And more. We paid. And paid.

"Now Chester is dying. We won't have to lie anymore. We won't have to pay Boyd any more to keep our awful secret."

Mrs. Felber raised her eyes to Ethan and then lowered them again. "I'm sorry you had to be the one who took the blame. But you could take care of yourself. My Chester, they would have hanged him like a dog. I'm sure he didn't meant it to happen. I'm sure it must have been an accident. He isn't right in the head, you know."

Ethan left the storeroom and walked into the empty store. He crossed behind the counter and fingered the gla.s.s candy jars. Licorice. Cherry b.a.l.l.s. Cinnamon candy. Boyd had liked the licorice best.

Ethan's stomach rolled and acid bit his throat. His best friend had taken money and hidden the truth. Ethan had spent ten years of his life running from the law, had spent seven h.e.l.lish years in prison, because Boyd had cared more about money than he had cared about his best friend.

Ethan picked up the jar of licorice and hurled it against the wall.

The shattering gla.s.s brought Patch to the opening between the two rooms. "Ethan? Are you all right?"

"Sure. I'm fine," he muttered bitterly.

Patch closed the distance between them, but Ethan moved away from her to the other end of the counter.

"Do you know what Mrs. Felber's confession means?" Patch asked.

"It means my best friend betrayed me!" Ethan snarled.

"It means you're free!" Patch retorted. "Jefferson Trahern has no reason to want you dead anymore. He'll call off his gunfighter." Patch hesitated and said, "We can be married."

Ethan turned on her like a cornered wolf. "Free? My father was murdered. My inheritance has been destroyed. I've lost years I can never get back. My best friend is a Judas. If you can call that free, I'm free."

Ethan turned agonized eyes on Patch. "How could he do it? How could Boyd watch my life being destroyed and do nothing to stop it? All those years. Maybe at first I could understand him taking the money. He always hated being poor. But later, when he had so much, couldn't he have said something then?

"I want to kill him. I want to strangle him with my bare hands. I want to empty a gun into him and watch him die. All those years, Patch, I never had anyone except Trahern to blame for what happened to me. At least he had an excuse. What excuse is there for what Boyd did to me? I trusted him!"

Ethan flung himself toward the door.

"Ethan! Where are you going?" Patch cried.

"I don't know."

"You're coming back home, aren't you?"

"I don't know."

The bell jangled for several moments after Ethan slammed the door behind him. Patch realized suddenly that Ethan might actually go after Boyd. Maybe even kill him. Then it would start all over again. Ethan would run, and the law would chase after him. And she would end up living miserably ever after.

When Ethan rode out of Oakville, he wasn't aware of heading in any particular direction. His thoughts had turned inward. It was hard to imagine a life where he didn't have to be constantly looking over his shoulder. It was hard to believe he could marry Patch and settle down and raise a houseful of kids with her. But knowing who had raped Merielle Trahern didn't resolve all the questions in his life that needed answers.

He believed, because he had no evidence to the contrary, that Jefferson Trahern had murdered his father and poisoned his mother. Unfortunately, he had no proof of Trahern's perfidy. The one man who could have told him the truth was clinging to life by a thread.

So what should he do now? If Trahern called off his dogs, could Ethan in good conscience leave his father's death unavenged? Simply retreating from the field of battle would end the armed conflict between himself and Trahern. But would he ever know a moment's peace while his father's murderer ran free?

Without evidence, he couldn't accuse Trahern. But how the h.e.l.l was he going to prove that Trahern had given the poison to Chester, if Chester died? There had to be some clue he had missed, something that would point a finger at Trahern. He would just have to go back and find it.

Ethan reined his horse to a stop. And realized he could see the gate to Boyd Stuckey's ranch on the horizon.

Ethan wasn't ready to confront Boyd just yet. He was still too angry. And confused. How had he so misjudged his friend? How had Boyd been able to sit at Ethan's dinner table, drink with him, smile at him, knowing all the while that he had betrayed him?

"Howdy."

Ripped abruptly from his thoughts, Ethan found himself confronting death in the form of the bounty hunter Jefferson Trahern had hired to kill him. Calloway's eyes were cold, merciless. But his gun was still in his holster.

Ethan felt a flash of hope. At least he had a chance to outdraw the other man. "I wondered why you were taking so long to come after me. Now I see you were just waiting to catch me with my pants down-figuratively speaking, of course."

Calloway shrugged. "Don't like to shoot a man in the back. Ambush isn't my style. Figure it's more sporting to give the other fellow a fair chance."

Which meant he must be d.a.m.ned fast with a gun. Forget trying to outdraw him.

Ethan wanted to laugh. Talk about bad timing. He felt confident that once Trahern knew Chester had been the rapist, he would call off Calloway. Unfortunately, Ethan was in the awkward position of trying to convince the gunfighter that it was no longer necessary to complete his job.

"What would you say if I told you I'm innocent of what Trahern has accused me of doing?"

"You'd be amazed how many guilty men say that."

"But I really am innocent. The man I brought into town draped over his saddle today is the actual culprit."

"Awful d.a.m.ned convenient to let another man take the blame, wouldn't you say?"

Ethan snorted in disgust. "Then shoot me and get it over with."

Calloway kneed his horse and closed the distance between them. Ethan thought of Patch. What would happen to her if he was killed? Would she go back to Montana? Would she end up with Boyd? That thought made his neck hairs stand on end. He would be d.a.m.ned before he would allow that to happen. Maybe the chance he was about to take would get him killed, but he was probably going to die anyway.

Ethan saw his opening and took it. He spurred his horse, and as it lunged forward, he launched himself at the gunfighter. The force of his body knocked Calloway off his horse, and they tumbled to the ground. The horses shied away as the two men rolled beneath them. Calloway got off one shot as they fell, but it went wild. They struggled to see who would end up with possession of his Colt.

Ethan grabbed Calloway's wrist and banged it against a rock. The gunman released the .45, but before either man could recover it, they were rolling in the opposite direction. Ethan tried to get to his own gun, but the instant he freed it from its holster, Calloway knocked it away. Fingers gouged. Fists landed vicious punches to face and belly.

At last they stood across from each other, staggering and b.l.o.o.d.y, waiting to catch their breath before they went at it again. Ethan was leaning forward with his palms braced on his thighs when the sun caught the swaying medallion he wore on a thong around his neck.

"Where'd you get that medal?" Calloway asked.

Ethan tucked the medal back inside his shirt. "It's just a worthless piece of tin."

"Where'd you get it?" Calloway demanded.

"Man gave it to me."

"What man?"

"Ran into him late one night. Never got his name. Never even saw his face, it was so d.a.m.n dark. He was gone before first light."

"h.e.l.l," Calloway said. He walked away from Ethan, picked up his gun from the ground, holstered it, and headed for the shade of a mesquite.

Ethan picked up his own gun, wiped it clean of dust with his bandanna, and put it back in his holster. He followed Calloway into the shade.

"Mind telling me what's going on?"

"I gave you that medal."

"That was you I saved?"

Calloway grinned. "Afraid so. Nice to know I can finally return a ten-year-old favor. I'll tell Trahern he has to get another man for the job."

"I always wondered who you were, what happened to you," Ethan said, leaning against the mesquite and putting one booted foot against the trunk. "With that posse chasing you, it wasn't too hard to guess you were on the wrong side of the law. At the time, so was I."

"Wasn't a posse," Calloway said. "It was personal. I was much obliged to you for hiding me, for taking care of my wounds, for feeding me and giving me your horse. Not many men would have done that." Calloway dabbed with his bandanna at the blood dripping from his lip.

"That horse of yours was a pretty good cayuse once he got some rest and a little green gra.s.s in him," Ethan said.

"I'm surprised to see you're still wearing that medal. I wondered if you'd hang on to it."

"It's my good luck charm," Ethan said. "After all, the way I figure it, you had to be a pretty d.a.m.ned lucky man to outrun that bunch."

Both men laughed. Calloway stuck out his hand. Ethan shook it.

"So long, friend," Calloway said.

"You'd do to ride the river with."

Calloway mounted up first and headed for the Tumbling T. Ethan stood in the shade of the mesquite for a while longer, trying to decide what he should do next. He might as well give Calloway a chance to deliver his news to Trahern before he made his own peace overtures. Maybe he would go see Boyd after all and ask for some answers.

Ethan mounted up and turned his horse toward Boyd Stuckey's ranch.

Patch arrived at the front door of Boyd's ranch house half expecting to find him already dead. Ethan had left town a half hour earlier, and knowing his state of mind, Patch had been certain he would seek Boyd out and demand an explanation. When Boyd answered the door with a huge smile on his face, Patch knew he was unaware that his treachery had been discovered.

She wasn't about to enlighten him. There was no telling what he would do if he knew Ethan was looking for him with murder on his mind.

Patch hadn't formed any notions of what Boyd's ranch would be like, but she was nevertheless surprised. It wasn't ostentatious, as she might have expected from someone who had been very poor and become very rich. The house was the typical wood frame, single-story dogtrot Texas home, with a central hallway leading to rooms on either side of it.

The inside was tastefully if not richly decorated. Patch might have been more amazed by how neat and clean it was, except almost the first thing Boyd did was introduce a shy, sloe-eyed Mexican girl as his housekeeper. Patch had never seen a housekeeper quite so young or lovely in a bachelor household. But since the house was immaculate and smelled strongly of the beeswax used to shine the hardwood floors to a polished sheen, she kept her speculation to herself.

"Come on into the parlor," Boyd said. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Theresa, bring us something cool to drink. Is lemonade all right?" he asked Patch.

Patch ignored the first question and answered. "Lemonade will be fine."

"Welcome to my home," Boyd said. "Please sit down and make yourself comfortable."

Boyd had arranged a bra.s.s-studded leather couch and chairs in the parlor around a stone fireplace, with a Navajo rug on the floor. A rolltop desk and swivel chair faced the front window, which looked out over a vista of rolling prairie that stopped with a line of pecan and willow trees that grew along the river. A longhorn skull, with impressive horns at least six feet across, hung over the oak mantel.

There were no photographs of family on the mantel, no knickknacks placed here and there to reveal the character of the man who lived here, or to preserve the memories of a past life. Perhaps the absence of those things spoke more loudly than their presence would have.

As Patch looked around, she realized this was what Boyd had bought with his ill-gotten gains. A home. The home he had never had as a boy. She wanted to feel sorry for him. He had been given a choice between honesty and fulfilling a lifelong dream. He had chosen the dream. Morally, it was the wrong choice. Boyd had bought seventeen years of the kind of life he could never have hoped to lead. But at what price?

"Do you ever feel guilty?" Patch blurted.

"What?" Boyd had settled on one of the two leather chairs that faced each other in front of the fireplace. He stared in confusion at Patch in the chair opposite him. "Guilty about what?"

"About making your own dreams come true at Ethan's expense."

"If you're referring to my offer to buy the Double Diamond before Ethan got out of prison, I spoke to Mrs. Hawk because I was afraid otherwise she would end up with nothing."

Patch bit her lip, realizing that Boyd had misinterpreted her question, knowing she shouldn't say any more. This whole situation was a powder keg, and she didn't want to be anywhere near when it blew up. She changed the subject. Sort of. "Chester Felber was shot today."

Boyd's eyes widened. "I didn't know. That's too bad. Now Ethan will have a devil of a time finding whoever gave Chester that a.r.s.enic. Too bad Chester's secrets died with him."

"He isn't dead." Patch bit her lip again.