“Brothers. An easy connection to make. Now I want you to start running.”
“What?”
“Across the desert. Run, rabbit, run.” Schofield squared his stance and settled the rifle butt against his shoulder. He intended to make Ike sweat before he shot him. In the back. As he fled like a craven.
Ike saw no way around it. He turned, then felt his heart leap into his throat. Coming fast along the tracks, horse protesting, was Lily in the buggy. She shouted to him and waved.
Ike stopped trying to find a way out of his pickle. He acted on instinct. Schofield’s attention wavered for an instant. His aim swayed from Ike, toward the approaching woman. Ike slapped leather, drew and fired into the sky. His first round was off by a fraction. It tore through the edge of the freight car’s roof and sent splinters flying. This further ruined Schofield’s aim.
Ike’s second shot was aimed better. Far better. Schofield grunted, bent double and then toppled from the top of the freight car to land with a thud a few feet away. Ike refrained from firing again. Schofield was dead, very dead, this time.
“Ike, Ike! What’s going on?” Lily drew back hard on the reins and whipped them around the brake. She spilled out of the buggy and stumbled toward him.
He caught her around the waist and turned her from the body a few feet away.
“We’ve got a decision to make,” he said.
She tried to turn and look at Schofield. He walked her away.
“What decision is that?”
“How to spend the reward money.”
“Reward money? Oh, really. Tell me more!” She locked her arm through his and let him take her away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The saloon was crowded. Ike looked around and nodded slowly. It was Saturday night, but before he had used the reward money to buy the Golden, one night had been like another—an almost-empty room. He leaned back against the bar and rested on his elbows to support himself. His legs wobbled a mite from standing all day. Never in a hundred years would he have believed running a saloon was such hard work.
He had taken a turn as barkeep all afternoon long since the man he’d hired never showed up. For a few wretched minutes he thought the evening bartender had taken off for the tall grass, too, but he had come dragging in, looking as if he’d been run over by a stagecoach. Ike glanced at a mirror across the room to catch the barkeep’s reflection. The man was a marvel. The longer he worked, the more relaxed and able he looked.
But it wasn’t the barkeep or the drinks that brought the crowd into the Golden. Ike smiled and turned toward the small stage where Lily sang. She wore a high-necked dress tonight, not showing any cleavage. But as she strutted about warbling “Froggie Went A’ Courtin’ ” she kicked up her heels enough to show some ankle. A quick spin and the ogling patrons caught sight of a calf. She knew how to get and hold an audience’s attention. Lily not only had talent, she had stage presence. Ike grinned broadly. Lily Sinclair showed what it was to be a star, and she performed in his saloon.
In their saloon.
Ike had received the reward money, but Lily was listed as a half owner of the Golden. Without her talents, he might as well have lost all his money in a game of chuck-a-luck. After all the woe he’d gone through in Houston, Ike had learned his lesson. He had learned a lot of lessons since, and it felt good.
He and Lily had been through so much together on the trip from San Antonio—and from the instant he had rescued her and her ma from the shackles Schofield had clamped on them—she deserved whatever he could give her.
Teaming up with her had been pure good fortune and, for once, Lady Luck had bestowed a grand reward on him.
That got him thinking. The areas on either side of the double doors were hardly populated with drinking customers. It wasn’t possible to see the stage from there, so no one gathered. And anyone entering went directly to the bar to order. During the busiest of times, no one congregated there. Those were perfect places for a faro table and maybe a roulette wheel. Lily said she knew someone she’d met years earlier in Denver willing to run a table. A decent split from an honest game benefited the customers and Ike. He had a few ideas how to make the games even more appealing.
After all, losing at roulette was how he had gotten so far into debt with Clement Penrose back in Houston. The more he bet and the more he lost, the more he borrowed until he’d had to hightail it from town . . . finally ending up in El Paso.
“Boss. Boss! We got trouble.” The barkeep shook him by the shoulder. “You want me to fetch the room sweeper?”
“Keep the shotgun under the bar. I’ll handle this.” Ike heaved himself onto the balls of his feet, balanced for a moment, then pivoted to face the El Paso marshal. Dallas Stoudenmire wore his usual dour expression like a shroud.
“Good evening, Marshal,” Ike greeted. “You look like somebody shot your dog.”
“If anyone kills that mongrel, it’ll be me,” the marshal said. He turned slightly. The coat with the leather-lined pockets flared, betraying pistols in both pockets. Ike wasn’t wearing his holster and gun—the holster and six-shooter he’d taken off Augustus Yarrow. That only invited trouble when a cowboy got drunk enough and heard about how the bar owner was responsible for bringing an entire gang of Comancheros to justice.
“You know you wouldn’t do that, ’less he was rabid.” Ike sized up the marshal and added, “But then, the dog’s more likely to get rabies from you if he did take a nip out of your hide.”
Stoudenmire stared at him with expressionless eyes. Then the corners of his mouth turned upward. Not much. Enough. He slapped Ike on the back.
“I like you. You got a sense of humor, unlike the rest of the folks in this town. I don’t make offers like this often. You got stones to go with your humor. What do you say to comin’ to work for me as my chief deputy?”
“I say a drink for the marshal,” Ike called out. “Set yourself down and listen to Lily belt out a tune or two.”
The marshal muttered something, took his drink and bulled his way to emptying a table. To keep the peace, Ike saw that the displaced patrons got free beers. Then he made his way into the back room he used as an office. He sank into a chair, closed his eyes and listened to Lily. He wasn’t sure what it was, but she was singing in Italian. Nothing like introducing a little culture to the border town.
And to him. This might be that opera thing she was talking about at breakfast.
His eyes shot wide-open. The office door creaked on unoiled hinges. He grinned from ear to ear as Lily came in, fanning herself.
“It’s so hot onstage. I had to take a break.”
“You’re what makes it hot,” he said. She came across the desk and sat on his lap.
“It’s nowhere near as hot since you hung up your badge, Deputy.”
“Are you going to keep poking at me about that?”
“I knew all the time you weren’t any lawman.”
“Liar,” he said, but Ike felt relieved when he had confessed to her that he wasn’t any kind of Federal lawman. To his surprise she had taken it well, making him think she had seen more in him all along than he had in himself. Bringing Schofield to justice had brought out the man inside.
“I got a letter today.” She tried to look guileless. Lily was a good actress but not that good.