The Stranger from Abilene

“I am not. Just long enough to conduct my business. I’m told you have a stage through here.”

“Day after tomorrow at noon.”

“Then I’ll be on it.”

“Have you found a ranch yet, or are you just looking?” Clayton asked.

“Oh, I’ve found one all right, if it stands up to my scrutiny. For the last couple of months, I’ve been dealing with the lassie who’s selling it through my lawyers in Boston.”

Suddenly Clayton was interested. “Would that be Lee Southwell?”

“Aye, it would. Do you know her?”

“We’re . . . acquainted,” Clayton said.

The hotel doors were opened to catch the nonexistent breeze and McLean looked past the two men into the lobby. “Weel, I’d better get my room and lay doon my bag. I can’t stand this infernal heat.”

Then, as though he’d just remembered something, he said to Kelly, “Is there somebody who can drive me oot to the ranch?”

The marshal nodded. “Moses Anderson has a gig. He can take you out to the Southwell spread.”

“You mean the brigand that just robbed me?”

“Either him, or you can rent a horse at the livery.”

“Damn it all, man, I canna ride a horse.”

“Then Moses is your man,” Clayton said.

A suspicious look crossed McLean’s face. “Are you two in cahoots?”

“No.”

“How much will he charge me?”

“I don’t know,” Kelly said. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“He’ll rob me.”

The marshal smiled. “Probably.”

McLean’s narrow shoulders slumped. “I’m going to end up in the poorhouse, so I am.”

The Scotsman checked into the hotel and reappeared ten minutes later, his black frock coat just as dusty as it was when he went inside. “Where do I find that Hindoo highwayman?”

Kelly pointed the way and McLean said to Kelly, “If I’m no back by dark, come looking for me, Constable. Not that it will matter. You’ll probably find me robbed of my purse and my throat cut.”

Chapter 38

“If McLean’s lawyers have been talking to Lee Southwell for the past couple of months, she planned to sell the ranch before her old man was even in the ground,” Clayton said.

“Seems like,” Kelly said.

“Maybe Southwell was murdered.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Probability, I’d say.” Clayton looked over at Kelly on the next rocker. “How’s the beer?”

“Warm.”

Clayton took his own schooner from the porch rail and tried it. “Well, it’s wet.”

“Yeah, it is at that.”

“Can you arrest Lee Southwell and Shad Vestal on suspicion of murder?”

Kelly sipped his beer. “No.”

“But if she planned to sell the ranch—”

“Who’s to say that it wasn’t Park who wanted to sell it? Lee always talked about going east to live in Boston or New York. Park could have finally caved and agreed to her demands.”

“But it was Lee who contacted McLean.”

“You ever married, Cage?”

“No.”

“Figured that. Married men often let their wives handle business deals. Keeps peace in the happy home. Park could have been no exception.” Kelly lazily turned his head. “In other words, I’d be laughed out of court, especially when everybody knows Parker Southwell died gallantly leading a cavalry charge.”

“Yeah, but Vestal could’ve popped him and blamed the bandits.”

“He could, and I believe he probably did, but believing and proving are different things.”

“So Lee and Vestal take McLean’s money and run.”

“Right now, that’s how it’s shaking out.”

“And the dead Apaches?”

“I can’t take that to court either. The whole town believes outlaws attacked the train at the spur, and they’ll believe any lawyer who says the same outlaws murdered the kidnapped Apaches.” He looked at Clayton again. “You really believe a jury of eight men could look at Lee Southwell on the stand, sobbing into her little lace hankie, and find her guilty of anything?”

“Damn beer is getting warmer,” Clayton said. He sighed. “No, they wouldn’t find her guilty.”

“Case closed,” Kelly said.

A silence stretched between the two men. A Cooper’s hawk glided across the blue bowl of the sky, then dove, and somewhere beyond the town a little death happened.

Dust kicking up from his feet, a dog crossed the street and vanished into an alley. A bottle clinked, marking his passing.

The last of Mayor Quarrels’s watermen quit, took off his hat, and scratched his bald head. The empty street was as dry and dusty as ever, the water already evaporated.

Down at the church a woman stepped outside, applied a polishing cloth to the door brasses, then thought the better of it and went back inside.

A lizard ran along the porch rail, then stopped, its sides heaving.

Kelly watched the lizard for a while, then said, “Cage, ain’t you bored with it yet?”

“Bored with what?”

“This town . . . waiting for a man to reveal himself so you can kill him.”

“I’m running out of money,” Clayton said.

“Maybe Lissome Terry, whoever he is now, knows that. Maybe he figures he can wait you out.”

Clayton shook his head. “No, Nook, he’ll make a move. He’s just been lying low, biding his time.”

“Well, I sure hope so. I’m getting bored all to hell again.”

Irritated slightly, Clayton said, “If I got shot, would that help?”

Kelly brightened. “It sure would. Give me something to do.”