The gunman had outfoxed me every step of the way, and Lila was the one who’d paid for it.
She might have still been outside the cabin when Wingo arrived and he’d surprised her so completely she didn’t even get a chance to cry out.
She’d trusted me and I’d betrayed that trust. And that thought was like a stake through my heart.
Me, I’ve never been what you’d call a drinking man, but now I picked up the bottle of wine, knocked the top off and sat with it on the stoop of the cabin.
It took me an hour to finish the bottle, and when it was empty and I tossed it away, I felt no better. And maybe a lot worse.
Feeling sick and light-headed, I caught up the dun and it took me several attempts, my foot slipping out of the stirrup, before I clambered into the saddle. I rode back to where the paint lay, and retrieved my own saddle and bridle, then swung the dun toward the SP.
As I rode, the afternoon light began to wane, shading slowly into dusk. Above me, a pale lemon sky was streaked with scarlet and out among the shallow, shadowed hills the shameless coyotes were already talking.
Many thoughts crowded into my alcohol-fuddled brain, each one loudly clamoring for attention.
But one called out louder than all the rest.
I would not ask Ma Prather for the thirty thousand dollars. That money, earned hard, was all that stood between the SP Connected and ruin.
I would have to find another way.
If there was another way.
Chapter 22
When I was half a mile from the ranch, I stopped at a small creek, swung out of the saddle, lay flat on my belly and splashed water over my face and neck. I wet my unruly hair and combed it down flat and then remounted the dun.
Thankfully, my brain felt less fuzzy and I’d stopped seeing two of everything.
And that was probably just as well, because as I rode into the SP, Jim Meldrum was standing outside the bunkhouse, the eager, impatient way he watched me come telling me he had news.
When I reined up, Meldrum gave me a grin and a wink and told me pretty Sally Coleman was in the house, talking to Ma.
“She’s got something to say to you, Dusty,” the puncher said.
“What is it?” I asked.
Meldrum shook his head. “Best you hear that for yourself.” He gave me another knowing wink and said, “I’ll put up your horse.”
Right at that moment, I didn’t want to talk to Sally. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, even Meldrum when he stopped on his way to the barn and asked: “Where’s Lila? Did she stay on at her place?”
“Later, Jim,” I said. “After Sally leaves.”
“You going to take the bonnet you bought for her?” Meldrum asked, an odd, amused light in his eyes.
I shook my head. “Later for that too.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” Meldrum threw over his shoulder at me as he walked away, and I heard him chuckle to himself.
Now what had he meant by that remark?
I had no time to ponder the question. There was a smart-looking surrey, with a bay horse in the traces, standing outside the house and I swallowed hard and stepped toward the door.
I wasn’t in the mood to be a-courting pretty Sally Coleman, but I had to talk to Ma in private. Better to get it over with.
When I reached the porch I took off my hat and smoothed down my hair and then stepped inside. Charlie Fullerton met me in the hallway and nodded to the parlor’s closed door. “In there.”
I saw it again! Exactly the same amused expression in Charlie’s eyes that I’d seen in Jim Meldrum’s.
What was going on? And what did Sally want to tell me?
I hesitated at the door and Charlie smiled and said again: “In there, Dusty.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Sally was sitting on the same chair that Lila had sat in and one thing was immediately apparent—she was almighty big in the belly.
Standing, one arm on the fireplace mantel, grinning like a possum, stood tall, lanky Ethan Noon, one of the Coleman hands. I’d never cottoned to Noon much. The man had no chin, a huge, bobbing Adam’s apple and long yellow buckteeth. Noon had a hee-haw laugh that made him sound like a loco mule and he had a habit of stamping a foot and slapping his thigh when something amused him, which was often.
When I walked into the room, Sally smiled and rose to her feet, her hands extended to me. “Dusty,” she said, “how very nice to see you again.”
I took Sally’s hands and kissed her on the cheek, and over by the fireplace, Noon slapped his thigh and gave his hee-haw laugh.
“Sally has brought us some wonderful news, Dusty,” Ma said, her face revealing nothing. “She and Ethan got married three days ago.”
Glancing at Sally’s swelling stomach under her dress, I figured the nuptials had been just in the nick of time.
Sally still held on to my hands and her eyes moistened a little. “Oh, Dusty, I’m so sorry. You see, after you left with the herds, I fell head over heels in love with Ethan. It all happened so sudden that I simply couldn’t help myself.” She looked up at me, her face earnest. “Dusty, can you ever forgive me? I know what a terrible shock and disappointment all this must be to you, but please, please try to understand.”
I caught Ma’s amused smile, as I said, lying just a little: “Disappointed, yes, but I’m happy for you, Sally.” I looked over at Noon. “And you too, Ethan.”
Sally giggled and Noon hee-hawed several times and slapped his thigh. “The best man won, Dusty, an’ no mistake.”
Now normally a challenge like that would have earned Noon my fist to his nonexistent chin, but I was happy to let it go.
Compared to Lila, Sally Coleman looked colorless and washed out, her skin and hair the same shade of white, her eyes more rain cloud gray than blue. In her brown woolen dress she looked dowdy and plain, a corn sack tied in the middle. Gone were the red, blue or green ribbons I’d admired so much and the tightly curled ringlets that bounced on her shoulders. In their place was hair scraped straight back from the face in a severe bun, pinned in place by a long steel spike. She looked like a girl consciously trying to become a mature woman before her time and the only thing that remained of the Sally I’d once known was the giggle, still high-pitched, strident and silly.
Once I’d thought myself madly in love with Sally Coleman. Now I wondered what I’d ever seen in her.
“Well,” Ma said, rising to her feet, “this calls for a celebration. I believe I can find a bottle of champagne for us.”
“Ma,” I said quickly. When she turned to look at me, I shook my head. “We have to talk, urgently.”
Ma Prather was a perceptive woman. She knew something must be terribly wrong, something that required her attention and was far more important than Sally Coleman and her marriage.
“Lordy, Sally and Ethan,” she said, “I guess we’ll have to postpone the champagne. I think Dusty here has pressing range matters to discuss.”
Noon disengaged himself from the fireplace, and stood there grinning, all hands, feet and stoop shoulders. “That don’t make no never mind, Mrs. P,’ he said. “Me and Sally have to be moving along anyhow.” He glanced over at me, a barb glinting in his muddy eyes. “We like to get to bed really early o’ nights.”
Sally giggled and Noon hee-hawed, and Ma, sensing my urgency, hustled the pair to the door.
After farewells that took a lot longer than they should have, Sally and Noon climbed into the surrey and soon its bobbing sidelights were heading down the trail in the direction of the Coleman ranch.
“What’s happened?” Ma asked, her hand on my arm. “Is it Lila?”
I nodded. “We better go inside and talk and I think Jim Meldrum and Mr. Fullerton should hear this too.”