Pariah (3 page)

“Actually, I think I may just come back in a while,” Clint said. “I wasn't expecting to stay here for long, so I'll need to put my horse up for the night.”

“I've got a little stable out back,” Madeline offered.

The longer Clint stayed put, the more anxious he became. “I wouldn't want to impose. Besides, it looks like you've got your hands full with those two.”

“You wouldn't be imposing.”

“Do you think those three men from the street will stay away for a while?” he asked, letting her know what he was truly concerned about without spelling out even more grisly details.

Madeline shook her head and immediately shifted back into the defensive posture she'd had before, her arms folded across her chest like a suit of armor. “They keep to themselves unless my children and I walk down a main street.”

“Yeah, well, I'd like to make certain of that.”

“And when you're through hunting for those wretches, should I expect you for supper?”

“The day I turn down a hot, home-cooked meal is the day when you truly know the entire world has gone off- kilter.”

After retrieving Eclipse, Clint rode through the entire town, searching for any hint that those three men were lurking somewhere, waiting to answer back for the beating they'd received. As he moseyed down the largest streets, he also made himself available for any ambushes that the men felt like setting up. Clint slouched in his saddle and kept his eyelids drooped as if he'd had one too many whiskeys and had forgotten where he was headed. Every one of his senses was at its peak, however, and he was prepared for anything that might be coming his way.

To that end, Clint was almost disappointed when he wasn't allowed to vent all the steam he'd built up inside. The only hint of trouble he spotted was a glimpse of one of the three men as the filthy bugger walked from one saloon and into another. The man averted his eyes and walked away even faster when he caught sight of Clint. After he ducked into a saloon, he didn't come out again.

Clint tied Eclipse to a post outside that saloon and walked in. The place was about half full, which made it easy to pick out where the other man had gone. The fellow stood at the far end of the bar, flanked by the same two assholes who'd joined him in harassing Madeline in the street.

Clint approached the three men and stood near them, leaning with his elbows upon the bar and ordering a beer. Without looking directly at the three men, Clint asked, “You fellas have anything to say to me?”

Just as he'd done earlier that day, the same spokesman was the only one to make a sound. “You talkin' to us?”

“Yeah,” Clint replied as he turned to face the three. Not only had the trio not tried to surround him when he wasn't looking, but they pulled back a little when Clint faced them directly.

“What would we have to say to you?” the spokesman asked.

“I don't know. You seemed to have plenty to say to Madeline Gerard.”

The moment Clint mentioned that name, he noticed several people within the saloon perking their ears up.

“Do you even know that bitch?” the spokesman asked.

“Easy, Lang,” the barkeep warned. “I don't want any trouble in here.”

The spokesman nodded and acknowledged the barkeep with a few pacifying waves. “Do you know what she does, mister?”

“Does she murder folks?” Clint asked.

The question obviously caught Lang off his guard. “N- . . .no.”

“Does she steal? Is she a horse thief?”

“No.”

“Does she hurt anyone or break any laws?”

“Not as such, but—”

The tone in Clint's voice cut Lang off just as sharply as a blade. “Then what the hell did she do to deserve getting shoved around in the street by three assholes like you? The way you were grabbing at her, it seemed pretty obvious that you meant to do a hell of a lot more than that.”

“She gives comfort to Indians, Mexicans, killers, and thieves alike,” Lang snapped.

“She offers shelter to folks in need!”

“Were you here last spring when them redskins came back to claim the whelps they left behind?” Lang asked.

“Those savages tore apart half the town lookin' for them little brats. When Miss Gerard handed them over, the redskins damn near burned us all out of our homes. Or what about the night when them Texas Rangers rode in looking for some worthless prick wanted for rustling cattle? Were you here when them law dogs faced those rustlers and half a dozen of our friends and neighbors were killed in the cross fire?”

Clint kept his eyes locked on the three in front of him as he replied, “No. I wasn't. Do you mean to tell me that Miss Gerard has anything to do with that?”

“None of them things would'a happened if she hadn't been around to offer herself to every transient that drifts through here. Sorry,” Lang added with a filthy grin. “I mean she offers her
house
to them.”

“What about you?” Clint asked as he shifted his gaze to the barkeep. “Does everyone around here approve of pushing around ladies and children?”

Reluctantly, the barkeep said, “No, but she does bring a bad kind into this town. We do our best to keep undesirables away from here, but she offers them room and board. Them kids she puts up belong to someone and the folks that come around to claim them ain't always the most charitable kind.”

“Is that why no lawmen have come along to speak to Miss Gerard yet?” Although he didn't get a direct answer to his question, he saw enough guilty sneers upon the faces around him to do the job.

After a heavy silence, one of the other men with Lang finally spoke up. “We ain't got anything against kids, but that Miss Gerard ain't what you think she is. She's been warned plenty of times to leave town, but she won't go. Worse than that, she keeps bringing them strays here to attract more trouble that would otherwise pass us by.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “It is.”

“The only thing that bitch cares about is them wayward little pups she collects,” Lang continued. “You want to find out for yourself? Then go ask the sheriff. He'll tell you.”

“I don't need to talk to the sheriff about anything,” Clint said. “If Miss Gerard is breaking the law, then she would've already been arrested. That is, unless your town's law doesn't have the gumption to pay a visit to a woman. In the meantime, stay away from her. That goes for you, Lang, as well as anyone else.”

Nobody else spoke up, so Clint took a healthy drink of the beer he'd ordered and left.

As much as Clint would have liked to discount everything that had been said at the saloon, he still had a little time to kill before supper, and the sheriff's office was on his way to Madeline's house. The little office took up less space than the dry goods store beside it and was only occupied by one man when Clint stepped inside.

“Are you the town law?” Clint asked the young man sitting behind a short desk.

The man looked up, showing Clint a clean-shaven face and bloodshot eyes. “I'm Sheriff Bailey. What can I do for you?”

“Did you happen to know a woman was attacked in the street a little while ago?”

The sheriff stood up and asked, “Who was it? Is she hurt?”

“It was Madeline Gerard.”

That was enough to convince the sheriff to take his seat again. “Oh,” he grunted. “Her.”

“That's right, her. Does she somehow fall out of your jurisdiction?”

“From what I hear, she wasn't hurt. Just called a name or two.”

“It was going to be more than that if I hadn't stepped in,” Clint said. “What gets under my skin even more is the fact that nobody around here seems to care what happens to Miss Gerard. Some folks seem to think she deserves a lot worse.”

“Then she should have brought the situation to my attention,” the sheriff replied as he got himself situated behind his modest stack of papers. “I can't exactly know about every little thing that goes on during the day.”

“What's she done to deserve so much grief?”

Flinching at the directness of the question that had been posed, the sheriff folded his hands upon his desk and replied, “She tends to attract an unsavory bunch to this town.”

“You mean children that don't happen to be from local families?”

“The children aren't the problem,” Sheriff Bailey replied. “It's the folks that come around to claim them. And it's not just children she looks after, you know. There have been fugitives from the law as well as a few individuals who were hiding out from a gang known to kidnap anyone with a family rich enough to pay a ransom. That's a particularly rough bunch run by a man named Kyle Morrow. Ever hear of him?”

“I recall the name.”

“Then maybe you recall all the men, women, and children he killed when he robbed that Federal Reserve bank in California? Some of those survivors wound up in Miss Gerard's care.”

“What's so wrong with that?” Clint asked.

“Nothing, until one of Kyle Morrow's boys came looking for someone he thought might be planning to tell what they knew to the U.S. Marshals. Shot the hell out of this whole town just to find out where Miss Gerard was. Another one of her neighbors was gunned down before me and my deputies showed up.”

“Isn't that part of your job, Sheriff?”

Bailey nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is. There's only one problem. Do you see any deputies now?”

Clint took a quick look, which was mostly out of reflex. The office was quieter than an undertaker's parlor, even with the conversation that was taking place. “No, I don't see any deputies.”

“That's because they were killed by that gunman who came looking for Miss Gerard,” Bailey pointed out.

“Is that her fault?”

“No, sir, it isn't,” the sheriff said with a heavy sigh. “But the folks she cares for bring in a dangerous element to an otherwise peaceful town. They gun people down. They set fire to places. One man she sheltered was set to hang for burning down part of a mining camp in the Sierras. He escaped from the lawmen, she sheltered him, and when he slipped away from her he went and set another fire. And those kids she sees to might be little angels, but a lot of them were abandoned because they have good-for-nothing parents, and when that kind comes around looking for their offspring, they tend to get rowdy. Rowdy good-for-nothings bring more trouble. You see where I'm headed with this?”

“Yes, I do. A woman living alone has the audacity to care for children and others in need who are trying to get away from a bad situation. When the cause of those situations comes skulking about, the law and damn near everyone else brand her as a pariah instead of helping to fix the situation before it gets worse.”

“My men were killed by an element that she brought here!” Sheriff Bailey snarled.

Instead of backing down, Clint placed his hands on the edge of the lawman's desk, leaned forward, and said, “The whole reason for law is to keep killers and thieves from harming innocents. You'd rather hang a woman like Miss Gerard out to dry instead of actually working for the pay you receive?”

The sheriff had been angry, but that fire was already dying out. “I can only do so much without any deputies.”

“All of them were killed?”

“Three out of five,” Bailey replied. “The other two quit after seeing their friends slaughtered in the street.”

“And what happened to the man who killed your deputies?”

“He shot the woman he was after and rode off. It was the bloodiest day this town has ever seen. Perhaps the bloodiest for the whole county.”

“And everyone thinks Miss Gerard brought it on?” Clint asked.

“Whether folks think that or not, they'd be right in saying it wouldn't have happened if she would have left things alone instead of hiding fugitives in her root cellar.”

“Fugitives?” Clint scoffed.

Sheriff Bailey nodded. “The woman she was hiding was wanted by the U.S. Marshals for questioning regarding Morrow's whereabouts. Instead of handing her over when the Marshals came, Miss Gerard kept her mouth shut so that fugitive wouldn't have to put the affair to rest. Once that came out, it left a bad taste in a lot of mouths around here.”

“I suppose it would.”

“So, is there anything else I can do for you?”

There were plenty of things Clint wanted the young lawman to do. But since Bailey clearly wasn't about to step in on Madeline's behalf, he kept those requests to himself. The sheriff hadn't even asked for Clint's name, which spoke volumes as to how much effort he was willing to expend on anyone associated with her.

Clint left the office without another word and Sheriff Bailey didn't lift a finger to stop him.

When he returned to Madeline's place, the entire house smelled like freshly baked bread. The children were still chasing each other in another room somewhere and Madeline answered the door wearing an apron spattered with gravy and flour.

“Pardon the mess,” she said as she stepped aside so he could enter. “It's pretty much always like this when there are little ones about.”

“Perfectly all right,” Clint replied.

“What's wrong? You look . . . stunned.”

“Nothing's wrong. I just feel like I stepped into another man's life.” Seeing the perplexed look on her face, Clint shook his head and moved along. “Never mind that. I'm probably just hungry.”

“Well, that's good, because I've put together a little bit of everything. Nothing too fancy, but hopefully you'll find something you like.”