After Sundown (8 page)

After a moment, to her astonishment, she felt Rebecca’s gentle touch again, smoothing her tangled hair in that comforting, motherly gesture. “Shh, lamb. It’s all right.”

“You’re no murderer,” Mrs. Owens added in her soft Southern accent. “Maybe not all the folks in town are going to believe you, but some of us...”

“Some of us believe in forgiveness. And second chances,” Daniel said. “Unfortunately, the marshal is never going to believe the shooting was unintentional. He’s ready to march Annie off to face a hanging judge at the first opportunity.”

“Well, we’re not just going to leave this poor dear at that critter’s mercy,” Rebecca declared.

Mrs. Owens nodded in agreement. “We’ll do whatever we can—”

“Wait.” Annie couldn’t seem to catch her breath, glancing between the three of them. “Didn’t you hear everything I just said? You shouldn’t get involved with—”

“We’re already involved,” Mrs. Owens said simply. “We’re your friends.”

Annie’s vision blurred again and she blinked to clear it. “But I took a man’s life. I’m a wanted criminal. And I lied to all of you. I claimed to be a widow when I’m a...” She lowered her gaze. “A fallen woman. I shouldn’t even... be in the same room with ladies like you.”

“You really believe that?” Mrs. Owens asked gently.

When Annie looked up, she found both ladies regarding her with the same expression as Daniel: no condemnation, only compassion.

“You’re not the only person who ever came West to leave a troubled past behind,” Mrs. Owens continued slowly. She held Annie’s gaze for a long moment, her hazel eyes brimming with emotion, then glanced down, running one hand over the faded fabric of her skirt. “Or the only young woman ever to run afoul of the law.”

“What... what are you saying?”

“We’re saying,” Rebecca told her, “that nobody walkin’ on this here Earth is spotless perfect—especially in these parts. Only saints you’ll see around here is the ones painted in the stained-glass windows up at the church.”

“And not everybody in Eminence,” Daniel added quietly, “has chosen to stay here because they’re hoping for another silver strike or can’t afford to move on.”

Annie stared up at them, unable to find enough breath to form words. She felt dizzy, like the whole room was turning upside down.

“And some folks aren’t going to be too happy that a man with a badge has come to town.” Mrs. Owens sat back in her chair, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she’d taken a chill. “Some folks here have secrets they’d prefer to keep.”

“True.” Daniel leaned one shoulder against the hearth, folding his arms. “But a lot can happen in five weeks. A whole lot.” His voice became strangely calm. “Let me tell you what I have in mind.”

~ ~ ~

“Hold the light higher, kid. I can’t do this in the dark.”

“Sorry, sir.” Travis complied so fast, he almost whacked Lucas in the shoulder with the lantern. “This better, Marshal? How’s it look, sir?”

Lucas frowned at the boy. For more than two hours now, Travis had been tagging along beside him, alternately chattering, helping, and getting in the way while Lucas set out to put his idea into action.

After stopping at the general store, he had tracked down the stagecoach driver and personally handed him three letters—one addressed to Olivia and his sisters, one to the constables in St. Charles, the third to his deputies in Indian Territory—telling them he would be returning to Missouri with his prisoner in a couple of weeks.

Then he had followed Travis to the charred remains of the jail, and began a tour of the town’s abandoned hotels.

At the moment, the kid was grinning at him in the lantern light, chewing a stick of horehound candy, looking as bright-eyed and eager as a chipmunk.

Lucas suppressed a sigh and pulled the canvas measuring tape across the window, while Travis held the heavy velvet curtains out of the way. It was at least the twelfth window they’d measured in the fifth hotel they’d visited so far tonight, though Lucas was starting to lose count. Somehow, the boy’s excitement and energy made him feel all the more trail-worn, tired... and older than his twenty-eight years.

After double-checking the height and width, he motioned wearily for Travis to let the curtain fall shut. “This place’ll do.”

“Good. Glad to hear it, sir.” Travis nodded as if in agreement, then perched on a nearby armchair, raising a cloud of dust. “So, uh... what’ll it do
for
, Marshal? I still don’t”—he sneezed so hard he almost put out his lantern—“reckon why you’d want to stay in one of these empty hotels, sir. Old man Dunlap never even finished this place. Just these here rooms he used for himself—”

“It’ll do,” Lucas repeated tiredly, wadding up the measuring tape and shoving it in a pocket of his drover’s coat. He stepped back from the window and picked up his own lantern, raising it to study the suite he had chosen on the hotel’s first floor—a large bedchamber of about fifteen by twenty feet, with a smaller sitting room attached.

The proprietor might not have finished the place, but he was obviously a wealthy sort with a taste for self-indulgence. The glow from Lucas’s lantern fell across flocked paper in shades of garnet and gold, and a hearth bordered in fancy tiles that took up most of one wall, beside the door. Across from the hearth sat a massive bed of burled walnut with a carved headboard that had to be six feet tall.

It also seemed Dunlap treasured his privacy: The bedchamber had just two slender windows, to the left of the bed, both hung with crimson drapes. And the only way in or out was through the sitting room—which made it ideal for Lucas’s purpose.

Scavengers had apparently helped themselves to the more portable, practical furnishings, but they had left behind the bed, the chair Travis was sitting on, a chest of drawers, and one overstuffed chaise longue.

And an extravagant item that hung on the wall opposite the windows: a mirror in a gold frame, so huge it almost reached floor to ceiling. It reflected Lucas’s puzzled look back at him from the lamplit darkness. “Eccentric codger, is he?”

“Dunlap? Sorta, I guess. Made a fortune in the mines hereabouts. Married himself a beautiful gal from Denver and started building this place for her as a weddin’ gift.” Travis crunched on the candy stick, swinging his foot so that it thumped the chair. “Bragged it was gonna rival the Teller House down in Central City—eight-course banquets, fancy balls, a millionaire in every room. He did up this here suite first and moved in with his wife while the rest was bein’ finished.”

Lucas nodded, stifling a yawn as he headed into the sitting room. A bridal suite. That explained the desire for privacy. And the oversized bed.

And, he thought, glancing back and arching one eyebrow, the oversized mirror. It reflected the full length of the bed perfectly.

Randy devil, that Dunlap
. “So why’d he never finish it?” Lucas stopped in the doorway between the two rooms, hunting in the pockets of his coat for a pad and pencil.

“ ’Cause he went broke when the mines went bust, and his wife up and left him.”

Lucas shook his head in pity.
Poor, misguided fool, that Dunlap
. “What a loyal and loving female,” he said dryly. He had started to think these accommodations too good for Antoinette Sutton—but maybe they suited her after all. She apparently had a few traits in common with the previous lady of the house.

“She sure broke old Dunlap’s heart.” Travis stood and dusted off the seat of his pants. “When she packed her bags, he didn’t have it in him to finish the place, so he just locked the door and left it like this. Been up for sale for months.”

The kid fell silent while Lucas leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, making a sketch and jotting down the measurements he had taken. He also made a quick list of items he would need to buy, borrow, or scavenge.

“Marshal McKenna, sir? Uh... do you think you could show me that trick you used to get past the lock? I surely would—”

“Never mind that now, kid.” Lucas rubbed his bleary eyes, then finished adding a column of figures. “Where can I find this Dunlap?”

“Don’t rightly know. Back east, south, wherever folks go when they leave here.” Travis scuffed one boot along the floor. “Hell, sir, ever’body with a lick of sense left this town months ago. I don’t know why my pa’s so danged set on stayin’ here and muckin’ out stables the rest of
his
life.”

Lucas picked up his lantern and headed into the hotel’s main room, the boy following at his heels.

“Marshal, I... I’d give my back teeth to get out of here. I always... Well, sir, it’s sorta been a plan of mine to get work down in New Mexico Territory or Tombstone or... or maybe even the Red River, like you. I know I’m young, but ain’t nobody in three counties a better shot than Travis Ballard. I think I’d make a mighty fine deputy marshal.”

Lucas paused in the cavernous main room. The walls had been plastered, but not painted. His lantern revealed a long hotel desk of unfinished oak, a fireplace in the opposite wall, a scaffolding in one corner, a chandelier on the floor that had been delivered but never installed. “You partial to sunburns, dust storms, blisters, and saddle sores, boy?” He moved on to check the rest of the hotel.

Travis stuck to him like glue. “Sir?”

“It’s not all showdowns and shoot-outs like they say in the papers, kid.” Lucas could hear the fatigue in his own voice. “Federal marshal spends most of his time on the trail. No place to call your own but a room in a flophouse. Paid two dollars a day and six cents a mile, if you live long enough to collect it. And the only thing worse than the money is the food.” He stopped, turning to meet the kid’s gaze. “That sound real exciting to you?”

The boy blinked up at him, looking like he’d just had a brightly wrapped Christmas package snatched from his hands. “But... but if it’s so... then why do
you
do it, sir?”

Lucas furrowed his brow, unable to answer, surprised that he couldn’t. He hadn’t asked himself that question in years.

All he could remember was one moment of time—bright and sharp as the point of a needle—that had filled him with a thirst for justice, a burning need to see right triumph over wrong. He’d been younger than Travis, that day when he’d learned that evil could wear a friendly face.

They said they had food to share, and Lucas had let them in. Even though he and Ma were alone. He’d let them in.

And then he’d heard his mother scream.

“Defend the weak and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked,” he said softly.

Travis smiled, looking awestruck. “That from the marshals’ code, like a book or something?”

Lucas shook his head, not realizing he’d said the words aloud. He turned away. “You never been to church, kid?” he asked, irritated at himself. “Psalm 82. Fancy way of saying somebody’s got to protect the good folks of this world from the bad ones.” He
must
be dead-on-his-feet tired. It wasn’t like him to reveal anything about himself to someone he’d just met.

Lucas decided he could explore the rest of the hotel later. He strode back into the half-finished main room, changing the subject. “So if Dunlap’s long gone, who holds the deed on this place?”

“That’d be the bank—last one in town. You’ll have to talk to Cyrus Hazelgreen.” Travis scrambled to keep up. “But, Marshal, you mean you’re lookin’ to
buy
this whole hotel, sir? There’s lots of places to stay in town—”

“None that’d let me make a few improvements. And it’s more like
commandeer
, not buy. Let’s go see Hazelgreen.”

“But it’s after eight o’clock. Shouldn’t you wait until tomor—”

“Kid, you wanted to know what it’s like to be a marshal. Well, it usually ain’t pretty and half the time you’re doing it in the middle of the night. Here’s your chance to learn firsthand.” Lucas opened the door and gestured with his lantern for Travis to proceed. “Let’s go see Hazelgreen. Then we’re going to need some tools. And some cement.”

~ ~ ~

Annie opened her eyes, moaning softly, not sure what had awakened her. Darkness surrounded the bed, and the last dose of laudanum still fogged her senses, dulling the pain that throbbed in her side. A clock somewhere chimed twelve. She remembered Rebecca helping her undress and wash up, and Mrs. Owens lighting a fire on the hearth in Dr. Holt’s guest room, and a feeling of warmth that had nothing to do with the quilt covering her. A feeling so tentative and new she hardly dared name it
hope
.

But now she shivered, all too aware of the cold handcuffs around her wrists.

And the sound of two male voices downstairs, arguing. “Can’t you just leave her be for the night?”

That was Daniel. The other, deeper voice was less familiar, but Annie knew who it belonged to.

“You the only doctor in town?”

“Yes—”

“Then you’d best get out of my way. Because there won’t be anyone to treat you if you end up bleeding and unconscious on the floor.”

Annie’s heart pounded, louder than the footsteps on the stairs. She sat up, feeling dizzy at even that small movement, as she heard a door across the hallway open and slam. Then the door to the guest room burst open.

“Well, Doc, this
is
a surprise.” Lucas McKenna appeared out of the darkness, a shadowy figure in a black coat and low-slung hat, his broad shoulders all but filling the doorway. “Here I thought you’d have her cozied up in your own bed.”

Daniel was a step behind him. “Damn you, McKenna, this woman is my patient—”

“And my prisoner.” The marshal’s arm shot out to block the doorway. “I’m taking her into custody, Holt. I’ve got a warrant. A
legal
warrant. You try to stop me again and you can have a cell next to hers.”

Even in the dim light from the hearth, Annie could see fury brewing in the doctor’s expression, and it frightened her. “Daniel, don’t... please.” The laudanum made her so drowsy, it was difficult to form words. “I don’t want... anyone to get hurt.”

The marshal chuckled, a low, mocking sound. “Yeah, Daniel, don’t,” he drawled, his gaze fastening on her. “The woman who murdered my brother doesn’t want anyone to get
hurt
.”