The Loner (20 page)

Danny fished a key from his pocket and slipped it into the padlock on the shack's door. "I don't know why we keep it locked. We don't have nothin' that's worth anything inside."

"My friends and I kept our hideout locked to keep the girls out." He gave the boy a wink, then added, "Later on, we invited them in."

Danny's face flushed, the tips of his ears turning beet-red as he busied himself opening the shack's door.

Logan ducked inside. A quick glance around revealed a couple of bedrolls, a lamp, cane fishing poles and a bag of marbles. Marbles. Perfect. Except, he needed more room.

He scooped up the bag of marbles and carried them outside, where he hunkered down beside the creek. "How about a game of square ring?"

Danny hesitated. "Don't you need to look around and search for clues?"

"I have time." Logan knelt on one knee and drew a square in the dirt. He spilled the marbles onto the ground outside the circle and gestured for Danny to make his choice. Taking turns, they divided up the marbles. Logan chose a gold-banded aggie as his shooter, then placed a marble in each corner of the square and one in the middle.

Danny chose a jade-green sphere for his shooter, then placed marbles beside Logan's inside the square. "You want to lag for who goes first?"

"Sure."

Danny drew a line some ten feet away. On his hands and knees, Logan took aim and flicked his shooter out of his fist with his thumb. It stopped six inches from the line. Danny's shot halted within an inch.

"You're up," Logan told the boy.

He waited as Danny made his first shot, sending one marble out of the northeast corner and leaving his shooter inside the square. The second shot cleared the southwest corner, but the shooter stopped outside the square making it Logan's turn to shoot. As he eyed his shot, he casually asked, "What really happened that afternoon, Danny?"

"'Scuse me?"

Logan knocked two marbles out of the box. His shooter stayed inside. "You know why I have the nickname Lucky? It's because I have a sixth sense that warns me when something isn't right. My sixth sense started talking to me the minute you walked into my wife's kitchen."

The boy neither spoke nor lifted his gaze from the marble game.

Logan took another shot and a blue aggie rolled out of the square. "You and Will didn't split up and go your separate ways, did you, son?"

The boy's tone betrayed a slight note of panic as he said, "Yes, we did. It happened just like I said."

Logan rolled back on his heels and pinned Danny Glazier with a piercing stare. "Why would you lie about your best friend, I wonder? Put him in danger?"

"I'm not lying!"

"I suspect you have powerful motives, and I reckon those would go two ways. Either you made a promise you don't want to break or you're being threatened in some way."

Danny tossed down his marbles and scrambled to his feet. "You're crazy. I'm not going to talk to you."

"Sit down, Dan," Logan ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.

"You can't make me. You're not my father!"

"That's right." Logan rose and braced his hands on his hips. "I'm not your father. I'm Will's father and I'll do any thing...
anything...
to bring him home. Now, I didn't want to threaten you, son, but you need to understand that I mean business."

At the word
threaten
the boy's eyes went round and fearful. His breaths came as shallow pants. "You have it all wrong."

"Then make me understand."

"You don't know what you're doing. Can't you just leave it alone!"

"He's my son."

"And he's going to be all right! If we just leave things alone, Will is gonna be just fine. He swore it."

"Will swore it?"

"No. The man who—" Danny broke off abruptly when he realized what he'd just said. "Oh, no. No." He dropped his chin to his chest and linked his hands behind his head. "Dear Jesus God."

"He isn't here to save you right at the moment, so I suggest you start talkin'."

But Danny Glazier had another round of resistance in him. "The man from the Wild West Show. He came through town looking to hire marksmen for the show. Once he saw Will shoot, he hired him on the spot."

Logan stared at the boy for a few beats, then grinned. "I like you, Dan. Damned if I don't. You've given it a good effort. However, it's time to let it go. Tell me about the man."

When the tears pooled, then overflowed, Logan knew the boy had broken. Considering the circumstances, the words Danny finally spilled didn't shock him or even surprise him. They did, however, make Logan go grim.

"He said he'd kill my ma if I told. He told me how he'd do it. It was.. .awful. I gotta protect her, Mr. Grey."

The mother.. .of course. The one thing the kid would protect at all costs. "No one is going to hurt your mother, Dan. You have my word on that. Who was he?"

"I don't know his name. He isn't from around here, Mr. Grey. But, I don't know about my mom. I think he could get her. He said he killed Mrs. Whitaker, that he pushed her down the stairs and that no one is the wiser and if I didn't keep my trap shut he'd see to it that my ma got the same treatment as her!"

"Tell me exactly what happened."

Dan swiped the back of his hand across his cheeks, wiping away the tears. "My ma..."

"He'll never get close to her, Dan. Look at me." Logan waited until the boy had met his gaze. "He's a dead man. The moment he laid a hand on my boy, he forfeited his life. You hear me?"

Danny stood frozen for a long moment, then as Logan's vow seeped in, his tension drained like beer from a brand-new tap. "You won't let him near my ma?"

"That's right."

"Nothing against my pa, but he's a lawyer. He'd want to arrest him and put him on trial and send him to jail. Mr. Grey, I looked that man in the eyes. The only time he won't be a danger to my family is when he's in the grave."

"I respect the law, Dan. One of my best friends is a Texas Ranger. But a big chunk of Texas is still as wild and uncivilized as a peach-orchard boar. Out there, men like myself sometimes have to take a shortcut to justice."

"Sometimes range detectives put men in jail."

As much as Logan wanted to push him, he could tell the boy needed the extra reassurance. He swallowed his impatience and said, "Not this time. He confessed to murder and he's guilty of kidnapping. He's earned a death sentence and I aim to carry it out."

Danny gave his eyes another wipe, then began his story. "I didn't go on to the school yard like I said. That was a lie. I went home with Will and we walked inside and there was a man sitting at the dining room table drinking a glass of Mr. Ben's best whiskey. He looked at Will and then at me and said, 'Which one of you is Ben Whitaker's grandson, Will?'"

The boy closed his eyes and shook his head. "I've been thinking ever since that I should have said it was me. Maybe we could have confused him and distracted him and somehow got away. But for a minute there, we thought maybe Ben had come home. We thought maybe he was a friend of Ben's. After all, he was in his house and making free with his whiskey."

"That's understandable," Logan said in an effort to encourage.

"Will stepped forward and said, 'I'm Will,' and then—" Danny blew out a heavy sigh "—the man stepped forward like he was going to shake Will's hand but instead he drew his gun and put the barrel right up against Will's head."

Bastard is dead,
Logan silently repeated.
Stone-cold dead.

Danny continued, "That's when he looked at me and asked me my name. Again, I did the stupid thing and told the truth. He said, 'Here's the deal, Danny Glazier. I need Ben Whitaker's help with something and he's not cooperating. Will is gonna come along with me and help the old man to listen to reason.'"

Danny dropped his gaze to the ground and gave a red marble a hard kick. "That's when Will got his mule look on and—"

"Mule look?"

"Will can be stubborn, sir. Real stubborn. Mr. Ben likes to say that the way to handle Will is to treat him the way you would a stubborn mule you're fixin' to corral. Don't try to drive him in, just leave the gate open a crack and let him bust in."

Logan's stomach took a hard dip. "What did he do?"

"He tried to get away. Fought the man. The son of a bitch hit him on the head with his gun and knocked him senseless."

Stone-cold graveyard dead.

The tears welled up in the boy's eyes once again, but he valiantly blinked them away. "I didn't know what to do, sir. For a minute there, I was afraid Will was dead. Damned near pissed my pants. The outlaw started cussin' a blue streak and he drew back his boot, so I threw myself in front of Will. Took the kick for him. At least I did that much."

Stone-cold graveyard worm-eaten dead.

"He was mad," Danny said, then the words came in a torrent. "He started muttering how he'd tie Will to the saddle if he had to. He ordered me to go get a glass of cold water, that if I wasn't back in fifteen seconds he'd shoot Will. Then he threw the water on Will's face and he woke up and the man yanked him onto his feet and his voice got mad-dog mean and he told Will if he tried another stunt like that he'd come back here after he turned Will over to the others and give Will's mom the same treatment he gave Mizzus Suzanne. That's when he said he'd pushed Miz Suzanne down the stairs. He described how she lay there all crumpled and broken, her eyes open and staring and glassy. It was like listening to the devil himself speak. Then he looked at me and promised to k-k-kill my ma if I said anything about him coming for Will."

"Did he ever say his name, son?"

"No, sir."

"Describe him as best you can."

Danny dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, then nodded. "Okay. He was tall, but shorter than you. 'Bout my dad's height. He had brown hair and brown eyes and a mustache. He didn't look like a killer. Could have been a banker if he was in a suit rather than denims and a shirt."

Logan needed more than that. "Anything unusual about him? Think hard. Did he wear something peculiar? Was his hat shaped funny? Did he have any unique scars or markings?"

"No, sir. Not that I noticed."

Well, hell. Guess that would be too easy. "All right, then. He said he needed Will's help to convince Ben Whitaker to cooperate. Did he mention Black Shadow Canyon at all?"

The boy's eyes widened at the question. "Black Shadow Canyon!" He shook his head rapidly. "No. No, sir. He didn't say a word about that."

"Tell me the rest of it."

"He asked what Will and I were supposed to be doing and Will told him we were supposed to meet a whole bunch of friends to play baseball and that they'd miss us and come looking for us if we didn't show up. The man told me to git and not to say a word about seeing him. He said to think about my mama, that it's a son's duty to do whatever was necessary to protect her. He said that one time this fella threatened his mother with a knife and he tracked the fella down and skinned him alive."

Logan stiffened, but the boy didn't notice and continued without a break. "I believed him, Mr. Grey. He had the devil's own look in his eyes when he said it. It occurred to me afterward that since he'd just threatened my mama it was a stupid thing for him to say, but at the time, all I could think about was him taking that knife of his to a man."

"Deuce Plunkett," Logan murmured, putting the clues together. Of course. The pieces were all there. The letter from Fanny Plunkett to Ben Whitaker had been enough to lead Logan in that direction; skinning a man alive sealed the deal. The Plunkett twins were famous for their devotion to their mother. The rumor about Deuce and the man who had once cut Fanny Plunkett's arm had floated around for years.

"You know him?" Danny asked, his eyes going round and wide.

"I do. You've given me the information I needed. I know the identity of Will's kidnapper and I have a good idea where they've gone."

"So you can go save him. Save Will. And my mother will still be safe."

"Exactly."

The boy exhaled a heavy sigh. "Good. That's really good. Except that..."

"What?"

"I don't suppose we could keep this to ourselves?"

"Worried about your folks?"

"They're gonna be pur-dee unhappy with me. Pa will probably tan my hide to where I can't sit down for a week."

"Well." Logan rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm new to this father business, but it seems to me that the reason you kept your mouth shut just might spare you a whippin'. It would if you were my boy."

"Really? It might help if you'd say that to my pa."

"Hey, I have your back, Dan." Logan slung his arm around the boy's shoulders. "Shall we head on to the house, then?"

Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed in the direction of Caroline's house. "I wouldn't mind finishing our game of square ring first."

Logan considered the idea. "Does another westbound train come through today?"

"No, sir."

"Then I can't do anything more for my boy this afternoon. Waiting is the hardest part. I can use the distraction." He cocked his head and gave the marbles on the ground a speculative look. "I like the looks of that blue aggie of yours. Wouldn't mind winning it."

Danny snorted. "Like to see you try."

They ended up playing the best two out of three. Logan figured the boy had earned a respite, considering he'd been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for the past few days. Besides, he did need the distraction, and he'd enjoyed learning more about his son through Will's best friend's eyes. For instance, Caroline probably didn't know that Will could spit a watermelon seed farthest of any boy in school and that he'd kissed Jo-Ellen Knautz behind the Knautzes' barn on Christmas Eve.

Danny pocketed the final marble in the third game, thus securing the victory. "You wanna go four out of five?" he asked hopefully. "You might have better luck gettin' my aggie."

Logan might have agreed—he honestly did like the looks of that aggie—but during Danny's final shot, he'd noted movement up the creek. Caroline stood watching them, her hands on her hips and storm clouds in her face.