Remember Me (Defiant MC) (28 page)

Annika let out an exasperated sigh.  She had already sold her moral center to be with the man she loved.  It had marred her assessment of good and bad, right and wrong.  Or maybe it was a new clarity.  The truth was that life was not orderly.   There were usually motives behind those who insisted it was.   

Contention Way was fairly quiet.  A new post office building had been set up adjacent to the Mercantile.  Annika hoped for a letter to take her mind off her troubles. 

She was not facing toward The Rose Room but a familiar cough made her turn in that direction.  James stumbled out of the smoky depths holding a handkerchief to his face. Annika stopped the horse and stared at the man who was still legally her husband.  He looked more than ill.  He looked dreadful.  Annika felt a keen sorrow as she looked at James Dolan struggling to catch his breath beside Contention Way.  Presently one of the fancy girls emerged and guided him back indoors.  Annika was grateful he hadn’t noticed her.  She did not know what to say to him if he had.

She knew Mercer had gone to see his brother once since the flood.  He would not tell her exactly what had been said but the way he had stared mournfully at the sky for an entire night told her of the trouble in his soul.   

There were no letters and Annika was quite sorry she had made the ride to town.  As she slowly walked the horse back to the ranch, she looked sorrowfully down into the low valley as she crossed the Scorpion Road.  It was difficult to believe the tragedy which had occurred only a few weeks earlier. 

When Annika heard a rider fast approaching she eased Misty to the side of the road to allow passage.  When the rider pulled the horse to an abrupt stop beside her she looked up in surprise. 

“Annika,” said Carlos de Campo, the urgency in his voice as well as the unusual use of her first name provoking dread in her heart. 

“What is it?  What’s happened?”

The man caught his breath and looked wildly around.  “I’ve just come from the Scorpion.  Mercer was caught.  They say he was stealing gold.  Swilling brags he’ll be strung up at daybreak.  Says it will be a warning to other would-be thieves.” 

“Swilling.”  Annika hissed the name.  “Cursed double crosser.”

Carlos nodded with sympathy.  “I know.  Believe me, there are many who know what that man is.  But it doesn’t matter because the law is with him.  Mercer will never sit before a judge.  Swilling has sent for the city marshal to arrest him, but he will meet the same end as Emilio at the hands of the mob tonight.” 

“James is still the city marshal.” Annika shook her head.  “No, James won’t watch his brother hang.” 

Carlos paused.  “Annika?  Are you sure of that?” he asked and she realized she was not. 

The jail had been expanded the year before and the adobe structure which loomed at the far north end of Contention Way was perpetually populated by Contention City’s various transgressors.  Annika could see the excited bustle from a distance as she rode Misty back through the center of town.  

James saw her coming.  He stood stone-faced in front of the jail with his arms crossed.  Mercer must have already been thrown inside.  Mayor Townsend stood before the small crowd with a beatific smile on his fat face.  Annika saw several men spit into the dirt as the mayor shouted about ‘justice’.   Swilling lounged against the side of the building as if he did not have a trouble in the world. 

Annika cared nothing for any of them.  She tied Misty to the nearest post and walked right up to James. 

“I would like to see him please.” 

James Dolan stared right through her.  “The prisoner will not be allowed any visitors.” 

“James,” she whispered in agony.  “He is your brother.” 

Her husband’s eyes, so similar to Mercer’s
, were unbearably cold.  “I know who he is, Annika.  Do you?” 

Annika backed away, grief already coupling with her horror.  She had wishfully claimed that James would never hand his brother over to a mob to be hung from the nearest cottonwood tree.  She now knew how wrong she was.  She had seen it in his eyes. 

She stared at the pompous men who ran Contention and hated them.  She knew what they really were.  If Mercer’s doom was already sealed then she would lose nothing by saying so. 

But even as Annika opened her mouth and prepared to shout the allegations which might very well get her hung too
, a hand grabbed her arm. 

“Do not,” warned a voice.  Annika looked into the gruff face.  It was unfamiliar to her.  The man
nodded and the knowing intelligence in his brown eyes made Annika pause.  “I am Mercer’s friend,” he said in a quiet, faintly accented voice.  “And I know who you are, Annika.  Meet me a half mile north of the Scorpion Road bridge.” 

A few in the crowd began to clap over whatever inanity had sprung from the mouth of Mayor Townsend.  Likely some harsh words about hellfire and punishment.  The same words which had been howled when Emilio Rodriguez was briefly imprisoned before the Contention City mob hauled him out to his doom. 

Annika realized the mysterious stranger had disappeared.  She tried to catch James’s eye again but he stood stoically in front of the jail, expressionless as if he possessed no more heart than a block of wood. 

Swilling, however, smiled at her.  Annika looked into his rapacious grin and saw a cavern of evil.  How many men had he ruined and murdered under the guise of respectability?  The word around Contention was that Swilling was among President Harrison’s finalists for governorship of the Territory.   The ide
a made her wonder whether all men in positions of power were appallingly corrupt. 

No one appeared to pay Annika any mind as she rode out slowly, casting a despairing look over her shoulder toward the jail where she knew Mercer was being held. 

The man was waiting just where he said he would be.  He calmly sat atop his horse and watched her approach. 

“
Bella signora
,” he called in an appreciative voice.  “You are lovely as ever.” 

Annika had little patience for pleasantries.  Even now
, Swilling and Townsend might be gathering their allies to raid the jail that night.  Annika did not know the nature of The Danes’ arrangement with those men and she did not care.  Whatever it was, it had gone horribly wrong and Mercer was to be the scapegoat.  Annika thought of Carlos de Campo’s words.  Mercer would not be their first sacrifice.   

“Who are you?” she asked the stranger.   

The man smiled.  He was younger than she had originally supposed.  “In the old world I was a remnant of nobility.  In this new one I am
penale
, a reviled outlaw.” 

“I have no time for riddles,” Annika grumbled, turning the horse. 

“I ride with The Danes,” called the man.  When she turned around again he tipped his hat soberly.  “Indeed, I ride with Mercer.  My name is Giacomo Medici but I am called Como.”

Annika remembered the name.  Mercer had spoken of him.  

“He won’t die,” Annika said, setting her jaw.  “You take me to your leader.  You take me to Cutter.  I already know he’s holed up not five miles from here.” 

“And if I refuse, sweet Annika?”

“I’ll find him anyway.”

Como Medici watched her.  Even bearded and dusty there seemed to be something regal about the strange Italian.  “I recall the day you first arrived in Contention, though you never saw
my face.  Yes, I was one of the masked men.  Did you know that Mercer guarded you every night in those early days, even when you thought he had gone?  He let it be known that any man who harmed you would not see the privilege of another sunrise.  And Mercer Dolan doesn’t utter empty threats.”  Como turned his horse and stiffened in the saddle.  “Ride quickly,” he said and launched straight into a full gallop without checking to see if she followed. 

Annika drove Misty hard to keep up with Como.  When they were within sight of a handful of crumbling buildings a rifle shot rang out.  Como yanked on his horse’s reins and held out a hand, warning Annika to stop.
She did not obey. 

Annika didn’t stop even when she noticed
than the man standing at the threshold of a crumbling structure was trailing a rifle on her.  She didn’t stop until she was within feet of the outlaw.  She recognized him.  He was one of the men who had visited Mercer only the day before. 

“Where is Cutter Dane?” she demanded.  She heard Como riding up quickly behind her. 

The man holding the rifle curled his lip.  “Como, what in the name of Christ are you at, bringing her here?”

“Mercer has been arrested,” said Como in a flat voice.  “Gold theft.  Swilling’s mob will get him.” 

“Aw, shit.”  The man lowered the rifle with a scowl.

“Cutter!”  Annika screamed. 

“Schoolteacher,” said a pleased voice behind her.  “What brings your sweet calico out here?”

Cutter Dane stood not ten feet away regarding her as if she were nothing more than a mild amusement. 

Annika did not hold back.  “They’re going to kill him.  Mercer is going to die because he was committing your goddamn thievery.  Now what are you going to do about it?”

Cutter’s blue eyes were impenetrable.  Lazily he removed a large knife from its sheath and began absentl
y toying with it.  “What should I do about it?  And you get yourself off that horse.  I don’t talk up to any man and I’d sooner swallow saguaro needles than talk up to a woman.” 

Annika dismounted.  She heard the waver in her voice and fought to control it.  “Mercer is your friend.  What he was doing was because of a deal that you made, Cutter.  Now you need to do the right thing and –“

“The right thing!”  Cutter burst into ribald laughter.  He looked at her merrily.  “You think those bastards who are running the show, bastards such as your husband, give a flat fuck about doing the right thing?  I was only twelve when I watched a pair of uniformed men shoot my momma dead.  And I’m sure someone somewhere told them it would be the right thing.”  He took a step toward her and she struggled to suppress the urge to retreat.  “The right thing would have been for you to grow old lying beside a man you hold in contempt.”  Cutter stopped only inches away.  “But you didn’t,” he said softly.  “You threw his tin ring at him and spread your legs for a man no decent woman would want.  And why?  Because he got you hotter than the sand in July.  And because you recognize he’s worth ten of those upright louts in town.  Ain’t that right, Annika?”

She didn’t balk
.  “Yes.” 

Cutter nodded, seeming pleased with her.  He motioned to Como that he ought to help Annika back onto her horse. 

“If we ride tonight,” he said loudly, “it won’t be because it’s the goddamn right thing.  I don’t even know what the hell that means.  It’ll because Mercer is our brother and would risk a gut shot for any one of us.”  The other men grumbled in agreement.  Como smiled at her as Cutter Dane addressed her one final time.  “Now you ride your pretty little hide back to town, schoolteacher.  And wait.” 

Annika looked in the direction of Contention City.  She didn’t know what to make of Cutter’s declaration.  She figured The Danes, a rogue band of men of uncertain character, were Mercer’s only hope against the mob which was likely being formed by Swilling at this moment.   But there was nothing else she could say.  She had no choice but to leave. 

With a fearful eye cast toward the high sun, Annika walked the horse back to Contention.   It was midday.  The lynch mobs came only in darkness but darkness would arrive too soon. 

Contention City, Arizona

Present Day

When he reached Contention Way, Maddox was gripped by the abrupt urge to go fast.  He rolled onto the highway without thinking.  There was always something spellbinding about accelerating on the open road in the desert.  If Mad squinted he could believe it was another time and that there was a breathing horse beneath him instead of cold mechanical gears.  It was an idea which would have appealed to him as a kid.  He made a mental note to repeat it to Miguel later. 

Maddox passed a sign which spelled out the fact that Phoenix was only sixty miles away.  He tensed slightly, awaiting the restless temptation which would push him in that direction, away from Gabriela and all the emotional chaos which came from investing himself in someone else.  But the temptation never came.   He had promised Gaby a talk later.  He didn’t know what would come of it.  He had little desire to remain in Contention City and couldn’t imagine leaving his Defiant boys permanently.  Yet she wouldn’t be able to come with him, to move Miguel two hundred miles away from his father.   

Maddox exited the freeway in order to swing around back to town.  What was he doing, anyway?  Mad McLeod didn’t have relationships.  He had long ago figured he wasn’t built the same way as the men who were satisfied with the same woman every night.  But then he remembered the way Gabriela’s eyes a
lways widened as he gave her that first hard thrust.  He remembered the soft fall of her hair over his skin as she lay in his arms and the scrutinizing way her brown eyes would pass over him as if she were trying to translate a language she only halfway understood. Maddox loved her.  It was that simple. 

Maddox was back in the center of Contention within a few short moments.  As he idled on the corner of Baseline and Contention Way, he
glanced at the Scorpion Grill.  It was something of a local landmark.  Priest and Tildy had often taken their boys there as a special payday treat.  Priest would throw darts at the board as he downed one beer after another.  His booming laugh would echo over the din while Tildy scolded Mad and Jensen for their inevitably poor table manners.