The Stranger from Abilene

Kelly holstered his gun and started to step around the desk to help Terry to his feet. But the man suddenly straightened and stood up. It was very fast for a grossly overweight man, and Kelly was taken by surprise.

He drew as Terry’s Colt came up, but the fat man surprised him again.

Instead of turning his gun on Kelly, Terry shoved the muzzle against his temple and pulled the trigger.

The Colt roared and blood and brains splattered the marshal’s face.

“You killed him!”

The bank clerk ran inside and cast a horrified look at Terry’s body. The fat man lay facedown on his desk, a pool of blood spreading around his head.

“He killed himself,” Kelly said. “Damned coward couldn’t stand proud and take his medicine like a man.”

“Hell, what did he do?” the clerk said.

“Everything,” Kelly said. “Everything that’s bad.”

Chapter 72

Cage Clayton watched the hazy play of light and shadow on the wall as he regained consciousness one hazy memory at a time.

The gunfight with John Quarrels and his bushwhacking buddy . . . the bullets thudding into his body . . . Lee Southwell and Shad Vestal mocking him from the shadows . . .

Ghosts of his imagination they’d been, those two, with as little substance as the filmy memories that now came and went in his head.

He raised himself up off the pillow, a movement that hurt him badly and one he did not care to repeat.

Where the hell was he?

From outside he heard a hammer clang on an anvil. Closer, a woman’s voice, singing a song he didn’t know.

Emma’s voice.

Then a sound he recognized, the slow tock . . . tock . . . tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway of the Southwell ranch house.

Steeling himself for the pain he knew would result, Clayton propped himself up on an elbow.

“Emma!”

The girl responded immediately. She walked into the room, her smile as bright as a spring morning.

“My patient is finally awake,” she said. “It’s about time.”

“And he’s hungry,” Clayton said.

Emma sat on the bed. “And that doesn’t surprise me.”

“How long . . .”

“Three weeks. You’ve been out of your head most of the time.”

The girl made a face. “And who, may I ask, is Dallas Laurent?”

“Huh?”

“Dallas Laurent. You talked about her quite a bit, made me blush at times.”

Clayton looked like a shy schoolboy. “Oh yeah, she was a woman I knew in Abilene.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Last I heard she was in Denver, opened her own house.”

“Now a lot of what you were saying makes sense.” Emma sniffed.

Clayton was spared a further female interrogation when Nook Kelly stepped into the room. It was the first time he’d seen him without his guns.

“How are you doing, old fellow?” Kelly said.

“Peachy. Apart from carrying a ton of lead inside me.”

Kelly laid a reassuring hand on Clayton’s shoulder. “No, the doc got it all out, saved your life. Well, him and Emma. She hasn’t left your side in weeks, and you raving like a madman, jumping in and out of death’s door.”

“Raving about Dallas Laurent?”

“Yeah, her, and less important stuff like cows and grass and winter snows.”

Emma rose to her feet. “I’ll fix you something to eat, Cage. Any preference?”

“How about burning me a huge steak with six fried eggs, a loaf of sourdough bread, and a gallon of coffee?”

The girl smiled. “Two soft-boiled eggs and a piece of toast, it is.” She looked at Clayton. “I’ll see what I can do about the coffee.”

“Emma knows best, Cage,” Kelly said, grinning. “That’s something you’ll learn.”

After the girl was gone, Clayton said, “And Lissome Terry? Did I rave about him?”

“He’s dead, Cage.”

Kelly answered the question he saw on Clayton’s face.

“He shot himself.”

“But when? I mean, how—”

Using as few words as possible in the face of Clayton’s growing impatience, Kelly told him about Quarrels’s letter and the confrontation in the fat man’s office.

“Terry couldn’t take his medicine,” he said. “I don’t know what scared him worse, me or the Rangers. I guess he realized them boys would’ve taken him back to Texas and hung him for sure.”

Clayton lay back on his pillow, his face a tangle of conflicting emotions. “Then it’s over.”

“Yes, it’s over, and Bighorn Point will never be the same again.”

Smiling, Kelly shook his head. “You played hob, Cage.”

The marshal stepped to the door, then turned. “I’m shoeing the black for you. Feels good to work with my hands.”

Clayton said nothing.

“Cage, it’s over and now your life is just beginning,” Kelly said. “Marry Emma and be happy and forget you ever heard the name Lissome Terry.”

Chapter 73

After Clayton ate what Emma described as “an invalid’s meal,” she helped him sit up on the pillows.

“I’ve never been one to lie in bed,” he said. “Hell, Nook is even shoeing my horse.”

“You’ll be very weak for a while yet,” the girl said. “Dr. McCann said you can get up and start walking around in another couple of weeks.”

Clayton shook his head. “Not here. Not in this house. Help me on my horse and I’ll head back to the hotel.”