She wished desperately she could give him another answer. Somewhere, anywhere that was
not
the town her father considered his own. She shook her head.
There was no happy answer for them. No compromise. He’d take her to Masterson, who’d have her sent to prison. He’d take over Fresh Springs, and kill her father just a little bit.
And if becoming sheriff fixed his woes and self-hatred, she’d eat her brand-new hat.
As they rode into yet another dusty trail town, it took nigh on all of Dean’s willpower not to turn on his horse and check on Maggie. Again.
She’d taken to riding side by side with Andrew whenever the width of the road allowed. He hadn’t realized how much he liked her riding next to him until she didn’t do it anymore. She’d spent most of her time teasing, but at least she’d been talking to him.
It wasn’t like she was punishing him with silence. There were no nasty looks to go with it, and she still spoke to him for necessary tasks. Please pass the salt. Would you like some of this coffee? But it was as if she’d run out of the general chatter and smart remarks that had fueled her the entire way from Texas.
When it came to him, that was.
She and Andrew seemed to be able to keep up a running commentary, though Dean had no idea what about the sloping hillsides inspired such conversational lengths.
He clenched down on his reins tight enough that the butter-soft leather cut into his palms. Locking his neck into position, he kept his head pointed straight ahead.
He should have given her what she’d wanted. Then he wouldn’t have this devil-cursed ache in his balls every time he thought of how wet she’d been on his fingers and the abandon with which she’d writhed in his arms.
Much better to concentrate on the worn, listing remnants of a silver mining town that had somehow managed to outlast the deposits below ground. A tumbleweed took its sweet time twitching across the road. One man, hat tipped over his face, sat on a crate outside the telegraph office, the only hint of habitation.
Dean reined in Jameson and waited for Maggie and Andrew to catch up to him. Andrew pulled up alongside, and Dean had about a half-second to think maybe Maggie would flank his other side. But she moved up beside Andrew and merely leaned a forearm on her saddle horn to peer around at Dean.
The sun beat down on them, and he lifted his hat to wipe sweat from his hairline. There wouldn’t be many days left to dilly-dally on the road. Making time between towns and watering spots would become vital as the land dried into desert. “This’ll be a quick stop. Water and the telegraph office, that’s it.”
Andrew nodded and peered down the road. He let go of his reins with one hand, and hovered near his gun belt. “Won’t find no argument from this quarter.”
Watching his brother’s easy comfort with his guns, he wondered when that had happened. When Dean had left, Andrew had been happy as a rancher, and while he’d known how to shoot, it hadn’t been an intrinsic part of him. Not the way they both wore their guns now. He
knew
he ought to ask, as a good brother would, but he simply couldn’t force the words out. He hadn’t asked what prompted the land sale either. Not late in the evenings, when they gathered around the campfire, and most certainly not now, when they ranged together as if about to take the town by force. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like what he heard.
As long as it didn’t involve their mother’s safety, he’d let it go. He had to, for his own sanity. He didn’t think he could take one more failure, or hear about something else he should have been there for, if he hadn’t been so goddamned lost. Wandering without home or purpose. Drunk. Cutting and killing.
He needed Fresh Springs. A real job that would keep him on the straight and narrow.
Maggie, her bright smiles, sweet kisses and lush body be damned.
As if she had a straight line into his thoughts and knew the exact moment to bedevil him, she said, “Do we even have to stop? I don’t have a good feeling about this place.”
“We need water.” He squeezed Jameson’s flanks, and the horse moved into a slow walk. “And I need to check in with Masterson. I named this town in my last telegram in case he had directions for me. We’ve taken long enough. I can’t afford to have him think I’ve changed my mind.”
Her voice floated after him, acerbic and wry. “God forbid.”
Dingy curtains fluttered and lifted behind windows painted gold by the blinding sun. Though no actual persons seemed to be looking out, they had to be, since there wasn’t even the idea of a breeze to be doing the moving. A soft haze of dust laid over most surfaces and high above a hawk circled and swooped.
Dean kept his hand on his thigh, a blink of movement away from his Colt. Though he kept his head still, he looked left and right, peering into every dim alleyway. It didn’t seem like this town got visitors often. The lack of interest in newcomers was suspicious, especially when two out of three looked like shootists. He’d think they’d have at least someone out to check on them—a local business owner, if the tiny town didn’t have a mayor.
But there was no one, not until they pulled up to the telegraph office. They swung down from their horses as one, as if they’d practiced the movement for a traveling show. Instead, Dean had a feeling that the same nervous worry fueled them all. The lone man sitting outside the office didn’t even shift his outstretched feet, much less look up.
Dean waved to a water trough one building down. “Maggie, I’d sure appreciate it if you filled the canteens. And Andrew, you keep an eye on her.”
Maggie nodded, her eyes so wide they looked about to swallow her face. The sharp line of her jaw twitched as she fumbled the canteens’ rawhide straps free from her saddle. Andrew and Dean did theirs much more quickly and handed them over. She bobbled them in her arms, but caught the top one just as it popped free. “Can you help me out here?” she snapped.
Andrew reached out, but Dean shook his head. “I want his hands free.”
“Oh.” Skin blanched white under her tan. “I see.” She nodded and her eyes flicked toward the man who still hadn’t moved.
Dean wanted to be able to reassure her, but he couldn’t. Truth was, he didn’t know what was going on in the sleepy town. Could be lack of commerce dried the place up and all but a couple residents had moved on. Could be something worse.
All he knew was that he’d keep her and Andrew safe if it took his life to do it. If he meant to get back on the narrow path, it was best to start straight away.
He waited until Maggie and Andrew had drawn away, toward the water, before stepping onto the sagging porch. The windows of the telegraph office were gray with dirt, but a peek in showed a single clerk behind a desk. He had papers spread before him, and a pen in hand, but it didn’t seem to be moving much. Instead, he stared out at Dean and shook his head quickly, then pointed near about where the man outside sat.
Dean stopped and took stock of the situation. The clerk seemed frightened of a sleeping man. Didn’t make much sense, but he hadn’t stayed alive for the past five years by ignoring his surroundings. He stepped back down a step and raised his hand to rest on the sun-warmed wood of his gun butt. “Do I know you?”
The man moved with a slow sureness that betrayed he’d never been asleep, much less passed out. He tipped up his hat to reveal a face worn craggy by long years of exposure to the elements. His chin, nose and cheeks all seemed to draw down to a point topped by beady, dark eyes. “Not yet, you don’t.”
Dean didn’t move his hand from his pistol. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
The man came to his feet, hands raised nearly to his shoulders in an open, easy gesture that did nothing to allay Dean’s mistrust. “The name’s Ike Linkers.” He gave a surprisingly nice-looking smile, his face not quite so ratlike anymore. “Masterson sent me.”
He should have expected something like this. Their journey had already taken about twice as long as he’d told Masterson to expect. He’d have sent a man after him if he’d been the boss. That didn’t mean the sting was any less. In four years of operating on his own, he’d never had anyone try to check up on him. Hell, even when he’d been deputy sheriff, the real sheriff was content to spend his time jaw jacking at the local gathering spots. “I’m supposed to take you at your word?”
“I’d be surprised if you did,” Linkers said with another friendly grin. Dean trusted that smile about as far as he could throw it. On the other hand, Linkers came only to Dean’s shoulder, so he could probably toss him a fair distance. “If you’ll promise not to shoot me when I go for it, I’ve got a letter in my pocket. Or you could ask Miss Bullock over there.”
He risked a glance at Maggie, who’d frozen with one canteen dipped into the water. She stared up at him and Linkers, and Andrew slid up behind her, keeping an eye on the street at large. “Maggie? You know this man?”
She shook her head, then just as quickly nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”
He flexed his fingers as he ground his teeth. “This’d be the time to expand on that.”
She popped the cork back in the canteen and flicked water off her hand. “Ike Linkers
is
his name but we’ve never actually met.”
Linkers shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I say? I’ve not had the pleasure of an introduction.” He turned to Dean and winked. “I imagine that’ll change now.”
“What makes you think so?” Dean asked, but he relaxed his hand off his gun and popped his fingers again. The tension that had kept him alive in the face of several gunslingers still refused to release. The situation wasn’t to his taste.
“I can’t exactly join you on your trip back to Fresh Springs without one, now can I?” Linkers dropped his hands from his shoulders. “It’d make for some awkward times.”
Dean frowned. “I thank you kindly for your good intentions, but we should be set.” He didn’t need anyone else tagging along on the ridiculous adventure this trip had become. He was starting to believe he led a circus as it was.
“While I can understand your reluctance, I’m thinking you might not have much choice.” He slipped a hand into his vest and just as quickly yanked it out again when Dean twitched toward his gun. “Whoa now. I thought we got all that straightened out.”
Dean pulled his teeth back in a rough approximation of a smile, but from the way Linkers cringed it wasn’t particularly friendly. “Let’s just say I’m a suspicious man.”
Linkers bobbed his head. “I understand that, most certainly. But I’m just going to withdraw a letter from Mr. Masterson. You all right with that?”
He twitched his chin in a quick nod. “Fine. Just move slowly.”
The man laughed, as if Dean had meant it as a joke. “Sure enough, sure enough.” He withdrew a folded sheet of paper sealed with a blob of wax. Dean took it reluctantly. It was battered and carried with it a distinct stink from being held so close to Linkers’s body.
He flicked open the wax with one hand and shook the letter open to read, with frequent glances back at Linkers. He wasn’t yet comfortable letting the man out of his sight. The letter was much what he expected, an introduction to the man before him. And a sneaky insinuation that perhaps Margaret Bullock was more than he could handle alone.
Dean folded the paper back up, though he’d like nothing better than to crunch it up in his fist. He tucked it in a back pocket. “I suppose I have to say welcome to our little group.”
Linkers put two fingers to the brim of his flat-crowned hat. “Much obliged. Must say, this is going to be a little different. I ain’t much traveled with a group before.”
Andrew had ranged closer, leaning one foot on the bottom porch rail and an arm on his knee. “That’s not exactly what I heard.”
“What’s that?” Dean asked.
His brother tapped out a quick pattern as he seemed to consider his words. He directed them at Linkers. “If you’re the man I’m thinking of, you once used to have quite the posse. A man might even call them a gang.”
Linkers shifted. His gaze darted back and forth between Dean and Andrew before he grabbed onto the lapels of his open gray waistcoat. “I am sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.” He gave another one of his toothy grins.
Dean lifted his shoulders and looked at his brother, but Andrew only gave a tiny shake of his head. He’d have to pry it out of him later. He turned back to Linkers. “Is there some reason the townspeople here don’t like you?” Best not to mention the quiet warning the clerk had signaled through the window. If Linkers was the sort of man he seemed, Dean wouldn’t put it past him to mete out some sort of punishment.
Linkers scrubbed stubby nails up the underside of his chin. His hair was a dark brown that verged on black and was matted to his head from going too long without washing. “I might have had a bit of a run in with one of the local whores last night.”
This was the sort of man he was expected to keep company with if he went into Masterson’s employ? He kept his voice as modulated as he could. “Is that right?”
“Ayup. She said I went over time, when I know there ain’t been a whore born I take more than five minutes with.” He seemed proud of the fact, puffing up his chest. “Then her pimp tried to sneak up on me from behind and I had to take care of him.”
Dean felt the sudden and immediate need for a long bath. With lye soap. “I hope you’re ready to go. We’ll be heading out just as soon as I send a telegraph, and we don’t have time to wait on you.”
“With how long it’s taken you to get from Texas? Besides, I can’t think as how Mr. Masterson would like that much.” He laughed, as if it were all a big joke, but Dean didn’t find much amusement in the situation. “Sure enough, sure enough. I’ll be ready.”
Dean stomped toward the telegraph office’s door, but paused when Maggie called out his name. “What is it?”
She dashed up the stairs, giving Linkers a brief nod of acknowledgement as she passed. The man tipped his hat again in response, and gave her another one of those toothy grins. She set a small hand on Dean’s sleeve, and he felt the burn all the way down to his gut.
This was not the time to be remembering their tryst in the woods, no matter how much more appealing.
She turned her big, deep brown eyes up to him. “Can I please send another telegraph to my father?”
He blew out a sigh. “Is that really necessary?”
She nibbled at her full bottom lip, and Dean wished for a second he could do it for her. “Necessary? Likely not. But it’d sure be a comfort. I’m sure he’s wondering what happened to me.”
“Really?” He cocked one eyebrow. “You don’t think he figures you’ve been picked up by some upright law enforcement type. Oh, maybe because you
robbed a bank?
It’s near enough to the truth after all.”