Lady of the Gun (8 page)

"Maybe, maybe not," answered Sharky. "Not too many
fellas want to play poker with me more than once." He started to laugh quietly as he scraped the last of the money off the table and into his dusty, tattered hat.

Brett was still grinning as he watched Ramsey head
toward the door of the saloon. He wanted to ask him some questions about the murder of Cass's family, but this was not the time to do it. Ramsey would need some time to cool off before he'd want to talk to anyone about anything.

The marshal crossed the room instead and stopped at the
table where Sharky was counting his winnings. "You already know how much is there, don't you?" he asked.

Sharky didn't look up. "To the penny, Marshal. To the
penny."

Brett's grin widened. "Then why count it?"

Sharky raised his gaze for just a second. "To make sure that young fella didn't palm any of it before he left."

Brett stood still and pondered the old man's words. He
didn't think Ramsey was the type to steal a man's poker winnings, but there was something about Hunt Tylo's son that he didn't like, something about the stifled anger that had been so apparent in his stance as he'd left the saloon. "You'd better be careful around here for a while," he advised.

"Have a seat, Marshal," Sharky offered, pushing a chair
out with his boot. "You think I should be worried about that one?" he asked, tipping his head in the direction of the door.

Brett turned the chair around and straddled it, his arms
resting on the back of it. “Maybe."

"You think he'd do something to me to get even?"

"Maybe," Brett repeated.

Sharky leaned back, putting his winnings deep inside his
trouser pocket. Meeting the marshal's gaze, he shook his head. "I don't think I have too much to worry about. That one doesn't usually do his own dirty work. Leastways, not when there's a chance of getting caught."

Brett was surprised. "You know Ramsey?"

"Yep. He just doesn't remember me. I've been in and out of this town off and on for the last twenty years or so. That boy didn't gamble much before he left town, mostly just drank himself into oblivion and spent his daddy's money on whores." He shook his head in memory. "Never did see a boy set so much store on spending time with whores. Randy as a young bull, he was." He glanced back briefly toward the door. "He's been gone a long time. Didn’t remember me at all, and he didn't spend any money on the whores."

Brett looked at the women, who were standing against
the bar, waiting for their next customers. "I guess he's changed," he offered.

"Guess so.
”

"Which is why I think you should be a little careful for
a while."

"Aw hell. I didn't get t
his old by bein' careless."

Brett grinned agai
n "All right, Sharky. I won't pester you about it anymore."

Sharky smiled his wrinkled smile at the yo
unger man. "You don't feel like a game, do you?"

"I don't thi
nk so," Brett declined. "I don't make enough money at this job that I can afford to give some of it to you."

Sharky chuckled and began picking up the cards still ly
ing across the table. "Too bad, I reckon you'd be a real challenge. I doubt I could beat you."

"Do
n't try to hustle me," Brett warned in a friendly tone. "By the way, how'd you know I was a marshal when I walked over? You didn't look up."

"I make it my business to know the law before the law
knows me."

Brett raised his
eyebrows.

"I was in here earlier, when t
hat gunfighter, Henry Fleet, was looking for Cass. Went outside in time to see the whole thing," Sharky explained. "I ain't never seen anyone as fast as that girl. 'Course, I can't blame her. Not after what happened to her family."

"You kno
w about that?"

Sharky gave the marshal an incredulous stare. "Everybody
around here knows about it."

"Were you here when the family was murdered?" Brett
questioned.

Sharky remembered for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, I
was here. I was even part of the posse that went out looking for the murderin' bastards that did it," he said, his eyes vacant with the memory. “It was real strange,” he mumbled.

"What was?" Brett asked, grasping at the old man's
words.

"The way we lost 'em."
He raised his eyes to meet the marshal's. "They all scattered, every one of 'em. You'd think some of 'em would have stuck together. Criminals usually do have partners. But these fellas just went their separate ways. It was almost as if they'd come together just to commit the one crime, then went off about their business." He shook his head again. "And poor Cass was left behind. Terrible thing. Never saw her cry, though."

Brett remembered that Sheriff Jackson had said the same
thing. It was odd she'd never cried. Instead, she had strapped on the twin Colts and become one of the deadliest shots in the West. She'd managed to track down four of the killers and was now back in Twisted Creek, hoping to find the last one. And she thought it might be Hunt Tylo, the father of the man Sharky had just beaten badly in a poker game. The man who'd just come home after a five-year absence. Was his return a coincidence? Suddenly Brett wanted very badly to see Cass, to see if she was all right. Pushing himself up from the chair, he looked down at Sharky. "I've got a few things I need to take care of. Are you planning on being in town for long?"

"You asking me to leave, Marshal?"

Brett smiled down at him. "Just the opposite. I was hoping you'd stay around for a while, in case I start feeling like I need to play a hand or two""

"Sure thing, Marshal. I'll be here when you want
me. I've got a room at the hotel."

Brett nodded good-bye quickly and headed out of the
saloon. As he walked toward the sheriff's office, his thoughts continued to focus on Cass. Was she on the right track with Tylo? Did Ramsey's coming home now have anything to do with her? His gut tightened with dread. "Damn it," he fumed, realizing he had no idea where the Wayne ranch was.

Cass followed the fresh horse tracks down a wash along
the base of a ridge. The sheriff's horse was getting more and more skittish by the minute, and her own mount had begun sidestepping nervously. "Calm down, boy," she soothed. "Just keep going a little farther. I think we're about to find something." Nudging her horse to increase his gait, she felt the sheriff’s horse pulling on the lead.

"You had a real scare, didn't you?" she asked,
turning in the saddle. The horse's eyes rolled wildly, seemingly in response.

The tracks led Cass up out of
the wash and along a narrow path at the very base of the ridge. She was definitely on a course leading to the Lazy T. Her blue eyes narrowed as the path widened and turned away from the ridge, curving into a more open area of the range. Ahead of her was a dark bump on the landscape. A bump that looked, sadly, as if it could be the curled-up body of a man. "Come on, boys," she urged as she spurred her mount, leading the sheriff's horse along behind.

Cass's heart sank as she neared the form. It was Sheriff
Jackson, and the whole right side of his head was caved in. "Oh, no," she breathed, swinging herself out of the saddle and ground tethering her horse. Rushing to the body, she knelt beside it and pressed her fingers against the sheriff’s throat in a frantic and hopeful search for a pulse. Closing her eyes, she sighed sadly at the firm, cool feel of his skin. "Damn, damn, damn, this is all my fault," she breathed, "If I'd gone to talk to Tylo myself, you'd still be alive." She straightened a bit, more certain now of Tylo's involvement in the massacre of her family. "You must have asked the right questions, Sheriff," she whispered. "If I'd done the asking maybe it'd be Mr. Hunt Tylo's body cooling under the late afternoon sun right now," she said through clenched teeth.

It took some doing to get the heavy, stiffening body of
the sheriff over the back of his horse, especially since the animal kept shying away from the smell of blood. "'Whoa, boy," she kept coaxing until the job was done.

Finally, with her saddle blanket tied over the upper half
of Jackson's body as he hung across the saddle, she started back toward town. The sound of the horse's hooves behind her, plodding heavily with the body, pounded against the earth like a steady heartbeat, a heartbeat that matched her own and caused the anger and need for revenge to burn hotter in her chest. "I'll finish this yet," she vowed quietly as she rode.

Brett had found out where the Wayne ranch was by asking
the blacksmith, and was readying his horse to make the trip when he saw Cass riding into town leading a horse behind her. It took him a second to realize the horse she led was carrying a body.

A few of the townspeople also saw Cass and ran to see
who she was bringing in. Brett heard Sheriff Jackson's name being spoken in hushed, saddened tones as he walked to meet her in the street. "Cass, what happened," he asked when he neared.

Cass pulled her horse to a stop and looked down into the
gray eyes of the marshal. "He's dead . . . and it's my fault," she told him stonily.

A murmur of disapproval and anger floated through the
crowd of people growing larger by the second. "Wasn't killing one man already today enough for you?" a voice from the crowd asked.

Cass turned her head only slightly in the direction of the
voice. This was what her life had become since the murder of her family. This was what it would be until she finished what she'd started. So be it.

Brett watched Cass's reaction to the words. He could see
the stern set to her jaw, the stiffness in her neck as she turned a bit. He could see the way her hands gripped the reins of her horse so tightly her knuckles turned white. But the thing that bothered him most was the death in her eyes. Eyes so beautiful the sky should have been envious of their color. Eyes that should have been turned up in sparkling laughter or drooping slightly in the loss of a tear. But he saw no possibility of those emotions in the eyes of the woman before him on horseback. He saw only the death there. The cold, harsh reality of human mortality and the frustration and anger that went along with it. "Bring him to the office, Cass," he told her. "We'll take care of things there."

Cass glanced back down at the marshal. Was it possible
she'd been kissed by this man earlier that same day? Had Ramsey Tylo really surprised her with his attentions? She'd been confused by the feelings Brett had caused in her. She'd been startled and a bit unnerved by Ramsey's unexpected behavior, but she had at least felt something. Now she felt nothing. Only a cold, stony emptiness and the need to finish the job she'd started. "All right," she answered, nudging her horse in the right direction.

"Aren't you going to do something about this Marshal?"
Jaybird Johnson asked from the crowd.

Brett found the bartender among t
he onlookers. “Yes," he answered. "I'm going to find out what happened." He looked around at the people of Twisted Creek. For the second time in one day he was going to have to send one of them after the undertaker. Cass had been the direct cause of the first killing, and by her own admission, she was somehow involved in the second. No wonder some of these people didn't seem particularly fond of her.

Finding
a familiar face in the midst of the crowd, Brett singled him out. "Would you mind getting the undertaker?" he asked quietly.

Bill Conroy nodded and turned away.

Brett then scanned the crowd once more. "Go on about your business, please. I promise I'll get to the bottom of this."

"Yeah, unless you're too busy getting to the bottom of
Cass," another anonymous voice called from the back of the group.

Brett suppressed the urge to rebut the statement. Obviously
, his behavior with Cass earlier had been quickly reported from neighbor to neighbor. Ignoring the whispers that floated through the crowd, he turned and headed toward the sheriff’s office. "I deserved that," he told himself when he was out of earshot of the crowd.

He was still mentally kicking himself when he reached the
office. Cass had left the sheriff’s body tied to his horse and gone inside. He took a look at the body before heading following her." When he opened the door he saw her standing in front of the woodstove staring down at the coffee pot.

“
I made him his coffee this morning," she said softly when she heard the door open and close behind her.

Brett crossed the room to stand next to her. "What
happened?"

Cass turned slowly to face the marshal. "It's my fault he's
dead," she said in a monotone.

"You didn't kill him," Brett told her.

"No, but I might as well have. I sent him out to the Lazy T  to question Hunt Tylo." She turned abruptly and slammed a clenched fist against her gun belt. "Damn it, I should have gone out there myself. This is all my fault."