Luke Jensen: Bad Men Die Part 22

"Then there's n.o.body to testify against me, is there?" Luke pointed out.

The sheriff looked at him for a long moment. "I've been talking to Ben McGill, Silas Grant, and a bunch of other folks in town. I'm pretty well convinced that Harmon had Tom Walton murdered and had a hand in the deaths of several other men, as well. So I'm not going to push this any further than it's already gone. But I'd suggest that's what you should be, too, Jensen-gone. Get out of this part of the territory and don't come back for a good long while."

"That's all right with me, Sheriff," Luke said honestly, although he was going to miss eating at the cafe, and Georgia's company, to boot. "I've got a prisoner who has an appointment in Cheyenne."

While McCluskey sat in prison in Cheyenne, Luke returned to Rattlesnake Wells on the train as soon as the railroad bridge was repaired, to pick up his horse and see how Sundown Bob Hatfield and the other friends he had made were doing. He used part of the reward money to pick up a new pair of Remingtons, a new gun belt, and a set of holsters. He was breaking in the weapons, and it felt good to be fully armed again.

There was just one more thing to do before he left that part of the country. With his horse in the animal car, he rode the train back to Cheyenne. McCluskey was scheduled to be hanged, and Luke intended to be there. He took no pleasure in it. It was more like something he had to do to close the last page of a book.

All the way from the jail, up the thirteen steps to the gallows, while a black-suited preacher droned a prayer and the federal marshal in charge of the hanging asked McCluskey if he had any last words to say, the outlaw looked around, jerking his head from side to side as if waiting for something to happen.

Waiting for someone to come along and save him from his fate.

But Delia wasn't there. She was buried two hundred miles away in Pine City's cemetery, with a plain marker giving only her name and date of death. There was n.o.body else to help a vicious, two-bit owlhoot like Frank McCluskey.

McCluskey was still waiting for that miracle, though, as the hangman put the black hood over his head, fitted the noose around his neck, and nodded to the marshal who held the lever. From under the hood, McCluskey said in a m.u.f.fled voice, "Wait! This isn't-"

The marshal shoved the lever, the trapdoor dropped out from under McCluskey's feet, and Luke heard the sharp pop of the outlaw's neck breaking as he hit the end of the rope.

So much for visions, Luke thought as he went to his waiting horse. He swung up into the saddle and rode out of Cheyenne without looking back at the figure dangling from the gallows.

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CHAPTER 1.

"You had to do it, Miz Kerrigan," Sheriff Miles Martin said, hat in hand. "He came looking for trouble."

Kate Kerrigan stood at her parlor window, stared into moon-dappled darkness, and said nothing.

"I mean, he planned to rob you, and after you fed him, an' all," Martin said.

Kate turned, a tall, elegant woman. Her once flaming red hair was now gray but her fine-boned, Celtic beauty was still enough to turn a man's head.

She smiled at Martin.

"He planned to murder me, Miles. Cover his tracks, I guess."

"Where is Trace?" Martin said.

"Out on the range, and so is his brother," Kate said.

"And Miss Ivy and Miss Shannon?"

"My segundo's wife is birthing a child. Doc Woodruff is off fly-fishing somewhere, so Ivy and Shannon went over to Lucy Cobb's cabin to help. Lucy has already had three, so I don't foresee any problems."

Then as though she feared she was tempting fate, Kate said in the lilting Irish brogue she'd never lost, "May Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints in heaven protect her this night."

"He was a city slicker," Martin said.

The sheriff, a drink of water with a walrus mustache and sad brown eyes, stood in front of the fire. He had a Colt self-c.o.c.ker in his holster and a silver star pinned to the front of his sheepskin.

The fall of 1907 had been cold and the winter was shaping up to be a sight worse.

"He had the look of one," Kate said.

Martin looked uncomfortable and awkward, all big hands and spurred boots. He chose his words carefully, like a barefoot man walking through a nettle patch.

"How did it happen, Miz Kerrigan? I need to ask."

"Of course, Miles," Kate said. "Why don't you sit and I'll get you a brandy. Only to keep out the chill, you understand."