Give My Love to Rose (2 page)

All of Marston’s sharp senses were suddenly
on high alert as he pulled up on the gray’s reins and brought the
horse to a stop. He waited several quiet moments, scanning his
surrounding to ensure he wasn’t being watched or followed, before
clicking his tongue quietly and urging the gray forward. When he
topped the small hill ahead of him he saw the horse who had been
snorting.

It was a brown mare with white feet and she
was standing over the body of a man. She had her head down, grazing
on the long grass as her reins dragged the ground. It was a nice
horse and would fetch a good price in town if Marston could get his
hands on her.

Marston dismounted and stepped closer,
prepared to pull his gun quickly if need be. He relaxed
substantially when he saw the dark red blood covering the front of
the man’s shirt. He stood over the old man and frowned down at him.
The man’s eyes were closed, his skin was pale and his face was
drawn. His frail chest was rising and falling rapidly but very
shallowly and Marston could hear the gurgling of blood in his lungs
as the same red substance oozed from the hole in his chest.

This man was on the darker side of dead and
that was for sure and for certain. There wasn’t a thing Marston
could do that would help that and so he might as well just help
himself to a few things and be on his way. If he didn’t do it then
someone else much less deserving than himself would come along and
do it for him.

Marston crouched and reached for the dying
man’s pocket. His hand was stopped in mid-air when the old man’s
eyes suddenly flew open and pierced Marston with a dark blue stare.
Marston found himself unable to look away from the man’s gaze as
his colorless lips worked up and down, in an effort to speak.

Assuming the man wanted someone to hear his
dying words and since Marston had nothing better to do, he figured
he could humor the man and listen. “What is it, old man?”

The man coughed. Blood flew from his mouth
and splattered against Marston’s cheek. “I n..need a favor,” he
gasped, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

Marston swiped at the crimson droplets on
his cheeks and inclined his head to better hear the old man’s weak
voice. A favor? Why would this man think that Marston would do him
any favors? Then again, no harm could come from telling the man
he’d do as he asked. After all, he’d be dead in a matter of minutes
and never know that Marston had been lying.

“
What do ya need,
fella?”

“
I..I was on my way
h..home to Louisiana. I’ve spent..the last ten y..years in prison
in ‘Frisco p..paying for past crimes…” the man said between
shallow, rattling breaths.

Marston nodded. “I heard that’s a rough
prison,” he acknowledged, wishing this man would simply get on with
it and die more quickly so he could be on his way.

“
Harper Louisiana… I
need.. You to go there.”

Marston pulled off his hat and ran his hand
through his thick brown hair. Harper Louisiana? Harper was barely
more than a pinpoint on any map and was about a week’s worth of
riding away. What could possibly be so important there?

“
Why?” Marston
questioned.

“
I need you to.. Take my
money…to my wife.. And to my s..son.” the man winced with pain.
“I..was…hoping to get to know…my son.” The man’s blue eyes were
growing weaker by the second and Marston knew he’d be passing on
soon enough.

“
Sure,” Marston lied.
“I’ll take care of that for you.”

The man reached out and grabbed a leather
bag from beside him. He shakily raised it and shoved it into
Marston’s chest. “H..here’s all the money. I wish…I had more to
offer…They’ve been w..waiting ten years for me. Tell my boy..that
I’m proud of him.”

The man’s eyes began to slip closed and
Marston couldn’t believe his luck. This man had just handed over
his money willingly!“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll make sure they
get the message,” Marston lied again unable to wipe the grin from
his face.

He was about to stand when the man’s cold,
pale hand closed around his arm. He looked back down and found the
man’s sharp blue eyes once again staring up at him. “I’m..trusting
you. Thank…the Lord for..sending y..you here to me.”

Marston felt an uncomfortable pang in the
pit of his stomach. He’d never in his life had anyone thank God for
him and he didn’t like it a damn bit. “Sure, mister,” he grumbled
as he tried to pull away.

He was surprised when the man’s grip
tightened and held him in place. Marston wouldn’t have guess a man
this old and this near to death would be so strong. “My..name is
Langston. Please…give m..my love to Rose. Tell..her I love her… And
to buy h..herself something nice…with the money.”

Marston jerked his arm away and stood
straight. “Sure. Whatever you want.” He wiped his hands on his
pants. There was something about this man that Marston just didn’t
like. Something about the way his blue eyes were so piercing and
seemed to be looking straight through him and inside of him that
made him uneasy. It was no wonder someone had shot the man and left
him for dead. Hell, Marston was thinking of doing the job a little
better than the last man had.

“
You..don’t understand… I
want you..to give my love..to Rose,” Langston repeated.

Marston nodded. “Sure, mister. I’ll tell
your damn woman that you love her.”

“
No..give love..to her…”
Those were the last words that the dying man uttered before his
eyes slipped closed and his chest ceased to rise.

Marston let out a sigh of relief before
pulling a string on the leather sack in his hand and looking down
inside. His eyes widened when he realized there had to be close to
six hundred dollars in that bag.

Where the devil had an old man who had spent
the last ten years in prison get that kind of money? Marston looted
the dead man’s pockets and smiled with victory when he found the
tobacco and rolling papers inside. He also found a release paper
from the prison with Langston Howell wrote on the top and the man’s
name signed at the bottom.

Marston folded up the paper and stuck it in
his pocket before grabbing the brown mare’s reins. He led her over
to the gray secured her to the other horse. Marston prepared
himself to hop up onto the gray’s saddle but paused when he glanced
over his shoulder at the dead man lying on the road.

With a low grumble, Marston stomped back
over to Langston and took him by the arms. He dragged his body away
from the glaring sun and tossed him under the shade of a tree.
Marston had no shovel to dig with and there weren’t enough rocks
around here to cover a body. He was a good couple days ride from
any town and he wasn’t about to drag a body with him. He could only
hope that someone else would happen by and discover the man’s body
before it rotted or critters got a hold of it. Chances of that
seemed good since this was a fairly well-traveled road.

Without looking at the man again, Marston
walked back to the horses and swung himself into the saddle. As he
rode away the man’s words kept clawing their way into his mind and
replaying themselves.

Should Marston do as he had promised and
take the money and horse to Harper Louisiana and the wife and son
Langston had waiting there? Surely the wife would be an old woman
and the son a grown man and surely neither of them would be in need
of this money after living for so long without Langston. Marston,
on the other hand, needed this money. He had debts to pay and
ammunition stocks to refill and while he had money stashed away
he’d just as soon not have to use it.

‘
But the man thanked God
for you,’ a small voice inside his head reminded him.

“
There ain’t no such thing
as God,” Marston shot back, not caring that replying to the voices
in his head made him seem more than a little crazy. He figured if
anybody heard him he’d just tell them that the summer sun had fried
his brain.

‘
Langston trusted you,’
the voice added.

Marston chuckled quietly. That wasn’t his
fault. It wasn’t his fault the man had gotten himself shot before
he’d made it home to his wife and son. Nope, Marston didn’t owe the
man or his family a damn thing.

He was now six hundred dollars richer and
had not only one horse but two. Yes, life was certainly looking a
lot better than it had just yesterday.

Chapter Two

“
Deal me in,” Marston said
as he sat down in a rickety chair at a ramshackle saloon four days
later. The dealer, an elderly man employed by the saloon owner,
nodded and included Marston in the next deal of the
cards.

Marston won the first hand and earned
himself a dirty look from one of the three other players at the
table. When he won the second and third hands as well, the scowling
man threw down his cards.

“
How do you keep
winning?!” he demanded harshly.

Marston shrugged and used his cards to
scratch at his beard before tossing them down on the worn green
felt of the table. “I guess cuz you keep folding.”

The man’s eyes flashed with anger. He threw
back his chair and stood, weaving slightly on his drunken legs.
Clearly the man had been enjoying his liquor and beer a bit too
much tonight. “I say you keep winnin’ because you’re a damn
cheat!”

Marston felt his own temper rise. “You don’t
call a man a cheat unless you’re willing to die for it,” he warned
as he stood much more slowly than the other man had and let his
hand hover over the gun in the holster.

The drunken man’s eyes dropped to the gun
and then came back up to Marston’s face as he swallowed hard. “A
man shouldn’t cheat at poker unless he’s willing to die,” he
warned, with a shakiness in his voice that hadn’t been there
before.

“
Is that so?” Marston
asked as a smile curved his lips.

The man didn’t reply. Instead, he lowered
his own hand toward his own revolver. The men surrounding them
quickly scattered to the left and right to ensure they’d be out of
the path of flying bullets.

“
You say when,” Marston
urged, the smile never leaving his face. He’d been told before that
it was the smile that he kept on his face that seemed to scare
people the most. They claimed it was unnerving to have a man
smiling at you as he threatened to end your life.

Dead silence had fallen over the crowd
around them. Marston saw the twitching of the other man’s hand as
it hovered just above the handle of his revolver. He watched the
man’s throat bob as he swallowed hard. He saw the tension come over
his shoulder as he prepared to draw and went for his gun. Marston
didn’t give him time to clear leather before pulling his own
revolver and shooting a hole through the drunkard’s chest.

As the blood pooled around the man and
soaked into the wooden floorboards, Marston shook his head,
gathered up his winnings and downed the last of the dead man’s
beer. He gave a wave to the bartender, tipped his hat to a whore
and made his way out into the night.

There wasn’t any law in this pitiful excuse
of a town. Marston tried to never play poker in a town that law
enforcement frequented. He was walking toward his hitched horses
when an angry voice called out behind him. “He was drunk, mister!
You didn’t have to kill him!”

“
I beg to differ with you
about that last part,” Marston replied calmly, without turning
around.

“
My brother didn’t know
what he was doing! You could have just walked away!” the angry man
insisted.

Marston rolled his eyes as he unhitched the
gray and climbed up on his broad back, never once looking in the
angry man’s direction. “Your brother wanted to die or else he would
never have called me a cheat.”

Marston heard the unmistakable sound of
metal rubbing leather and knew the man was drawing on him and
hoping to shoot him in the back. With a sigh, Marston drew his own
gun, twisted in the saddle and fired a single shot ensuring the man
met the same fate as his brother.

Marston rode out of town before any more
family members could show up to avenge their kin. Despite his
reputation, Marston didn’t enjoy killing people and tended to try
to avoid it whenever possible. But there were times when a man had
to do what a man had to do and in those times it was foolish to
waste his energy on remorse or guilt. Those emotions would only
serve to get him killed the next time he faced someone.

After riding several miles out of town and
off the beaten path, Marston stopped for the night and set up camp.
As he sat in front of his small campfire in the dark, he let his
mind drift back to that old man he’d found dying four days before.
The man’s words had been haunting him since that day and, try as he
may to ignore it, the guilt of Marston’s broken promise was laying
heavily on him.

Marston was not a man of his word. He wasn’t
known for being honest or trustworthy and he had never pretended to
be any of those things. He wondered why his conscience was
bothering him now, but he supposed it was because he had never
before made a promise to a dying man. The trust that had been in
Langston’s eyes kept working its way into Marston’s memory and
eating at him.

Hell, he hadn’t even sold the man’s horse or
used any of his money yet! Maybe he should simply return it to
Langston’s wife and son the way he had promised. It would be the
only decent thing Marston had ever done in his life since he didn’t
make a habit out of being decent--it gave him indigestion.

Marston took a long draw off his cigarette
and stared into the dancing flames of the campfire, willing them to
tell him what he should do. Marston had always been a man who
prided himself on doing what he wanted when he wanted and never
feeling guilty over his actions and so it surprised him that he was
having these thoughts and doubts now.