Chasing Rainbows (42 page)

A shudder ran down her spine as her eyes moved back to Snakeskin. “You figured right. I walked in just as he was about to set the kitchen on fire. He could have killed everyone.” The realization that the women she’d convinced to stay on — women she now counted as friends — might have lost their lives on account of her past suddenly took hold. She started trembling and couldn’t stop.

Jake didn’t miss it. He locked his arms around her and ran a soothing hand down her back. “It’s over, Annie. It’s all over now.”

Unable to stop herself, Annie leaned into him, trying to absorb his strength and certainty. She would have been content to stay huddled in his arms like that for the rest of the night. But within what seemed like mere seconds, the sound of thundering footsteps racing down the stairs echoed loudly around them. The kitchen door burst open once again. Dora stood in the entry, her buffalo gun in her hands. Jennie Mae, Carlotta, Francine, and Belle crowded in behind her.

Jake gently released Annie from his embrace. He stood, then offered her a hand up as well. “One of you run over and tell Johnny Dill to get the sheriff,” he said. “Tell him we just took care of the ‘accident’ problem that’s been plaguing the hotel.”

Jake eased Weed into a light canter as he rounded a bend in the trail that took him out of Cooperton. He shifted in the saddle, feeling stiff and sore. He hadn’t slept all night. It had taken hours to straighten things out with the town sheriff, and even longer to get the blood cleaned out of the kitchen and the women settled down enough to go back to bed. He’d had no time to speak with Annie, no time to do anything but ride out and keep his appointment with Walter Pogue.

He tipped back his hat and scanned the horizon. Scrub brush spread over the ground, threatening to choke out the narrow band of packed dirt that had once been the road. The Old Tabbot Trading Post stood dead ahead. The original outpost had long ago been burned to the ground during a vicious encounter with a renegade band of Apache Indians. A new trading post had been built in its stead but now stood deserted, having fallen victim to the more banal circumstance of too little business — after the Indian attack, the route was rarely traveled.

He eyed the ramshackle trading post and counted the horses in the lean-to. Six. A full posse. He let out a sigh and spurred Weed down the dusty, weed-choked road toward the outpost. Sheriff Walter Pogue greeted him at the door, a cocked shotgun in his hands.

Jake swung out of the saddle and nodded toward the gun. “Nice way to say hello, Walt.”

Walter shrugged and set the shotgun down. “Just a precaution. We expected you last night.”

“I was busy.”

They moved out of the chill air and into the relative warmth of the cabin. Jake glanced around the room, giving his eyes a minute to adjust to the dimness of the interior. The furnishings were sparse. A rough-hewn table, a crude stone fireplace, and a battered stove completed the space. The five men who had accompanied Walter lounged on the floor on their saddle blankets, warming themselves before the fire. They held cards in their hands and had a five-dollar pot between them.

Jake quickly sized them up. Sheriff Walter Pogue had done well in selecting his deputies. They were hard and lean, with the hollow-eyed stares of men who had faced death before. Judging from the weapons they carried, they were not afraid to face it again.

Brief introductions were made, then Walter lifted a whiskey bottle from the table. “You want a drink?”

Jake tilted his head toward the pot bubbling away on the stove. “Coffee’ll be just fine.”

Walter poured him a cup and sat down, gesturing for Jake to do the same. “I would have been here sooner, but a group of rowdy cowhands came through Two River Flats and roughed up the town a bit. I locked a few of them up, but I didn’t want to leave until their sentences were over and they were out of town for good.”

“Fine,” Jake answered, brushing that aside. Rather than issue a lengthy preamble and waste either his time or Walt’s, he cut straight to what he wanted to say. “I don’t think Annie’s involved.”

“What?”

“I don’t think she’s involved with the Mundy Gang. At least, not anymore.”

Walter let out a sigh of disgust and shoved his chair back from the table.

“Jesus, Jake.”

“Sorry, Walt.”

Walter’s face tightened. He nodded over Jake’s shoulder at his men, who obeyed the unspoken command and stood, stepping outside to give the two men privacy.

“I take it that means you bedded her, and now you changed your mind,” Walter stated, coming swiftly to a conclusion that was both harsh and accurate. He shook his head and let out a hollow laugh. “Dammit, Jake, I thought you were smarter than that.”

“You don’t know her,” Jake replied, reining in his anger. “She’s gone legitimate, I’ve seen it myself. She’s left the gang and turned that hotel of hers around. She’s making an honest living.”

“You think she’s the first outlaw to set up a legal front? You think there aren’t any seemingly upstanding ranchers out there rustling their neighbor’s cattle any chance they get? You think there aren’t any seemingly honest shopkeepers weighting their scales to cheat their customers out of their gold?”

“I know what I’ve seen, and she’s no outlaw, Walt. I’d stake my life on it.”

“She sat there and told both of us that the men in the Mundy Gang had all been killed. That they’d been dead for at least three months. But I’ve got over a dozen witnesses who saw those boys pull a bank robbery out in Abundance just a few weeks ago.”

“There’s probably a good explanation for that.”

“You got one? ’Cause I’ll be happy to hear it if you do.”

The problem was, Jake couldn’t explain a damn thing — not even to himself. He couldn’t explain where Annie had been on the afternoons before the robberies, or why a man who fit Pete Mundy’s description had been looking for her the morning after the robbery in Abundance, or the note from Pete he had found in her saddlebag. He couldn’t explain why she had fired the shot that had warned off the man who had been following them, or why the town hall fire had been started at exactly the same moment the gang was trying to break into the bank. He couldn’t explain any of it.

Walter’s eyes narrowed as he studied him in silence. He toyed with his glass for a minute, then suggested coolly, “You’re a wanted man, Jake. You don’t help me out, I got the legal right to haul you in right now.”

“You could try.”

A humorless grin touched the sheriff’s mouth. “You gonna draw on me, Jake?”

“You gonna lock me up?”

“I should.” Walter gave him a dark look. “You stubborn son of a bitch, that’s exactly what I should do. I oughta just slap your ass in jail and let a jury sort the whole mess out. At least then my men and I wouldn’t go home empty-handed.”

“That’s fine. Just keep your hands off Annie.”

“Goddammit, Jake!” Walter banged his fist on the table, breathing hard. “Do you know who you’re protecting here?”

“Annie. And you’d do the same for Elena.”

“Bullshit. This ain’t about Annie — and you leave Elena the hell out of this. You’re protecting a gang of outlaw scum that ain’t fit to suck mud out of a cesspool. You know how they got that teller to let them into the bank out in Abundance?”

Jake shrugged. “I heard. They broke into his home and forced him out at gunpoint.”

“That ain’t all they did. They tied his hands, roughed him up a bit, then sat him in a chair and let him watch while they took turns defiling his wife. They did it just for sport, Jake, just because they could. The teller had already agreed to let them into the bank.” He paused and shook his head, looking both disgusted and furious. “That bit of news wasn’t exactly public knowledge.”

Jake tightened his fists, sickened. “You sure about that?”

“I’m sure. I stopped in Abundance and read the sheriff’s report.”

Jake silently absorbed the news. Annie couldn’t be involved with men like that. It wasn’t possible. But was there a side of the boys she didn’t know? She had said that Pete was rambunctious and wild. Did her loyalty make her turn a blind eye to his greater faults?

“They’re getting rougher every day,” Walter went on. “You want to be the one to tell the next batch of widows that we could have brought the gang in, that we could have stopped it all, but you were too busy getting your pecker wet to do anything about it?”

Jake jerked to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him. “Goddammit, Walt, that’s enough.”

“Sorry, Jake, but some things have to be said. If you didn’t want the gang brought in, you shouldn’t have dragged my men and me halfway across the territory.”

“She wasn’t lying about Snakeskin Garvey,” Jake said after a moment. “I know at least that much. I killed him last night when he broke into the hotel. Maybe he’s the one who’s been running with the gang, and not Annie.”

Walter sat in silence, studying him carefully. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was that Snakeskin fella all along, and Annie’s as pure and innocent as newly driven snow. But I reckon the only way to find that out is to test her. That’s why my men and I are here.” He paused for a moment, then finished in quiet, firm tones, “I’m just asking you to do what’s right. If Annie’s not involved, she’ll walk away clean, with no trouble from me or my men, I promise you that.”

Jake turned away, staring into the flames of the fire. What it all came down to, he supposed, were the fundamentals. There were three things that any gambler had to decide before sitting down to play: the rules of the game, the stakes, and quitting time. He had known that all along. The rules? Using Annie to lead him to the gang. The stakes? His own neck. He had been after the Mundy Gang, and now he had them within his grasp. Clearly it was quitting time.

As Jake struggled with his decision, he remembered feeling this way once before, in a small, unrenowned Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg. He had been ordered to lead his men across a bare field toward a small hill known as Cemetery Ridge. As he had looked across that vast, unprotected stretch of land, he had known it was impossible, just as he had known he would do it. Known he had to do it; that he had no choice. He had led his men to their deaths as though watching himself from a distance, as though he were an actor in a grossly written, tragic play.

He stared now into the flames of the fire, burdened with the same sense of idiocy, inevitability, and loss. No matter which way he looked at it, he was betraying Annie, pure and simple.

“What did you have in mind?” he finally asked.

“We need you to be with Annie at the hotel around six o’clock tonight. Fella I know works out in the mines in Surreysville. He’ll drop by to see you and just happen to mention that the mine changed their payroll date to Wednesday. You just listen and then go about your business. That’s all I’m asking you to do, Jake.”

“You’re setting up the gang.”

“Damned right, I am. We’ve been going at this the wrong way the whole time. We’ve been waiting for the Mundys to hit someplace, then trying to chase them down. Makes about as much sense as a fool dog chasing his tail. I’d say it’s about time we turned that around.”

It was a good plan. Jake couldn’t fault him for that. “Six o’clock. I’ll be there, so will Annie.”

“The fella’s name is Porter. Bill Porter.”

Jake nodded and turned to leave, but Walter’s voice stopped him. “I’m sorry you came to care for her, Jake, but that don’t change facts. Outlaw Annie has run with that gang all her life. I ain’t saying that’s her fault, just that it’s all she knows. Why, I knew a man once who was out hunting and shot himself a wolf. When he found out that it was a she-wolf with a couple of cubs in her lair, the fella got softhearted and brought the cubs home with him. He gave them names, fed them every day, played with them. Treated them like they were his own children. Then one day, out of the blue, one of them cubs took a wild turn and bit off four of his fingers. The fella was never able to fire a rifle properly again.”

“That story got a point, or you just like telling it?”

“You can’t domesticate wild creatures, no matter how hard you try.”

“Uh-huh.” Jake put on his hat, adjusted the brim, and slipped on his riding gloves. “Go to hell, Walt.” He strode out the door without another word.

Considering how difficult it had been for him to make the decision, getting Annie alone at the appointed hour and the appointed place proved relatively simple. Jake found her in the front parlor, going over the hotel’s grocery receipts. Despite last night’s ordeal with Snakeskin Garvey, she looked relatively calm and composed.

Glancing around the parlor, he saw that the room was nearly empty. A travel-weary young couple with two small children sat at a table near the window, drinking tea and eating cookies. Peyton VanEste sat with Jennie Mae on a settee, furiously scribbling notes in his pad.

Good enough, Jake thought. Knowing that if he hesitated, he wouldn’t go through with it at all, he stepped into the parlor and said to Annie, “Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you could show me where you keep the ledgers for the saloon. I need to make some adjustments.”

Annie ducked beneath the long front counter, retrieved a thick ledger, and placed it between them. “What’s the matter, Jake?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just look at your face. I’ve seen happier undertakers.”

Jake shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong, Annie. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” He turned his attention to the book, making small adjustments to the column of numbers before him.

“If you lost money, don’t worry, we’ll cover the bets somehow.”

Jake looked up to see Annie’s soft smile, her eyes sweetly encouraging, and nearly groaned. “I’ll remember,” he managed to reply.

The door swung open behind him and a voice boomed out, “I thought I’d find you here, Moran. Like I told you before, Bill Porter may be down, but he ain’t out. Now, are you going to give me a chance to win back my money or not?”

Jake turned to see a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard, a jovial grin, and a slight paunch at his belly. “How are you, Porter?”

“Two hundred dollars poorer than I was the last time we met. But I’m feeling lucky today.”