Spirit of the Wolf (12 page)

"I don't know what you're yammerin
g
abo
—“

"Get your sorry
self
down here so I can hog-tie y
—“

"You don't wanna do that,"
Chance
warned, his eyes mere slits, his voice dangerously low as he
wrapped callused fingers around
Yonker's wrist.

"Why, you low-down back-shooter," he said malevolently, grabbing
Chance
's neckerchief.

"I never shot a man
—not
even in self-defense, not here, not in Lubbock." He increased the pressure on the deputy's wrist. "But if I did," he snarled, glaring into the man's fear-widened eyes, "man like you'd be smart to watch his
own
back, don't you reckon?"

Jasper had summoned a constable at the first signs of a fight. "What's goin' on here?" the officer demanded. Sun glinted from the polished brass buttons of his dark blue jacket.

"This here fella is a killer," the Texan growled. "Been on the run fer ten years." Facing
Chance
, he repeated, "You ain't
Chance
Walker. You're W. C. Atwood, and you killed Horace Pickett in Lubbock, and if you laid the wanted posters with your face on 'em end to end, you could walk on em, all the way back to Texas. You
deserve
to swing." Without breaking eye contact with
Chance
, he told the policeman, "The Texas Rangers
and
the U.S. Marshalls will back up my story. Just wire the sheriff in Lubbock if you don't believe me."

"That's the smartest thing anybody has said so far."

At the sound of her soft, musical voice, every man's head turned toward Bess. How long had she been
standing
there?
Chance
wondered. How much had she seen...and heard?

She faced the uniformed officer and, hands on her hips, said, "This appears to be a clear-cut case of mistaken identity. If a telegram will clear the entire matter up, then I think we should send it." She glared at the dirty, burly Texan and added, "Immediately."

She turned to
Chance
. "Well, have you done what Pa told you to do?" she asked, forcing a bossy, sassy tone into her voice. Without waiting for his response, she rolled her big eyes at the officer. "Good help is
so
hard to find these days." She smoothed her skirts and daintily tugged at her high, lacy collar. "He was supposed to come down here to fetch a delivery for my father, not pick a fight with the likes of
him
," she said, her voice icy and deliberately haughty. Suddenly, Bess was all sweetness and light again. "Do you know my father?" she asked the policeman. "Micah Beckley...."

The constable stood a little taller in response to what appeared to be blatant flirtation from the pretty young woman. "'Course I do, miss," he said. Then, with a jerk of his thumb, he gestured toward
Chance
. "You say this man works for your daddy?"

With a tired sigh, she nodded. "He's worked for my father for years...since he was practically a boy."

The
gruff
Texan began to protest.

"He's from Texas, I'll give you that much." And cutting a glare in the deputy's direction, she tacked on, "He never managed to lose that low accent, I'm afraid...."

A moment of tense silence passed before she
added
, "Well
, now,
shall we head on over to the telegraph office?
I'd like to get home before dark, and that'll never happen if we stand here bickering like children all afternoon."

"That won't be necessary, Miss Beckley." The constable removed his high-domed hat and tucked it under one arm. Then, grinning, he added, "It is
miss,
isn't it?"

Bess smiled and fluttered her long, dark lashes. "Why, yes, it is. But please, it's Bess. Just plain Bess." She avoided looking at
Chance
's eyes when she said it, but could see by the way he shook his head that despite the heat of the moment, he, too, remembered what he'd called her on his first day at Foggy Bottom.

The policeman blushed and grinned and twirled his nightstick.

She stepped up to him and hid her mouth behind a white-gloved hand. "I don't want that filthy man bothering my foreman for another moment," she whispered. "It's hard enough to get an honest day's work out of him without a lot of unnecessary distractions...."

The officer glared at the Texan. "I don't recall seein' you in town before."

The beer-bellied ex-deputy retrieved his cap, slapped it against his thigh a time or two to shake off the dust, then plopped it onto his head. He pointed to a ship, docked a few piers down in the harbor. "I'm a merchant marine, takin' a tour of your fine city, officer. That's all." Then, almost as an afterthought, he tensed. "Hey, why are y'all treatin'
me
like the criminal.
I'm
not the one who was s'pozed to hang for murder...."

"Hang?
Murder?
" Bess echoed, her voice trembling almost as much as the hand, pressing against her forehead. "I'm afraid all this shouting and violence
has made
me feel
as if I might
swoon...."

The constable was beside her in an instant, one arm around her slender waist, one hand supporting her elbow. "You're upsetting the lady," he growled at the Texan. "Now, get on out of here, or you'
ll
get a tour all right...of the inside of the Baltimore jail!"

As he lumbered toward his ship, the Texan leaned close to
Chance
and rasped through clenched tobacco-stained teeth, "Keep your back to the wall, Atwood, 'cause one of these days
, you’ll be alone….
"

Splinters of steel glinted in
Chance
's eyes
and the muscles of his jaw tensed, relaxed, tensed again
, but he said nothing.

Bess didn't know what had been said during the quick, heated exchange between the men, but
Chance
's narrowed, hateful glare frightened her more than she cared to admit.

She had waited for him in front of the bank for ten minutes, and couldn't imagine what could be taking him so long. But it was a beautiful, breezy day, and since it was only a short distance from the bank to the harbor, Bess decided to walk to the dock and save him having to steer the wagon back through the bustling city streets.

She'd heard the unmistakable sounds of a fistfight long before she saw it. Worse, she heard that horrible man say, "You ain't
Chance
Walker. You're Walker Atwood, and you killed Horace Pickett in Lubbock."

The man insisted
Chance
looked like the fellow he'd been hunting for...for ten years, and
hadn’t
Chance
been away from Texas...for ten years
?
Mistaken identity? Coincidence? Bess didn't think so.

It was going to be a long ride back to Foggy Bottom, that much was certain.

She thanked the officer for his assistance as
Chance
helped her onto the wagon seat. They rode in silence toward the main road, and she couldn't help but notice that
Chance
hadn't looked her in the eye, not once since she'd arrived on the dock.
Just as well,
she told herself. Because Bess had seen the way he'd looked at that Texan and didn't know what she'd do if he aimed the murderous glare in her direction.

She wondered
, too,
when he'd explain himself.
If
he'd explain himself. As they rode along, she thought about all the odd and peculiar things that made up this man named
Chance
Walker
—or
was he Walker Atwood?
—the
sullen silences. The distant, forlorn expressions. The unexplainable mood swings. That occasionally frightening, angry look in his eyes.

Suddenly, she felt very far from home. Very alone. And very unprotected. Bess wondered if she'd done the right thing in helping him out of that mess. After what she'd witnessed there on the dock, she honestly didn't know what to think any more.

So she prayed.

She prayed she'd been right when she told herself something good and decent lived inside this man.

Mostly, though, she prayed she hadn't made the worst mistake of her life when she allowed herself to fall in love with him.

Bess couldn't get the scene on the dock out of her mind.

Chance
's dark, malevolent look had been frightening, as if he had it in him to kill the Texan.

Kill....

If that man had been telling the truth--and he'd seemed mighty sure of himself--
Chance
had
already
taken a human life. Was he capable of such fury?

She sat quietly beside him on the wagon seat, fiddling with the drawstring on her purse, wishing he'd fill the uncomfortable stillness between them with
some
explanation of what she'd seen and heard....

Bess didn't like rumors. An individual's privacy, she'd always insisted, must be respected. On more than one occasion, she'd scolded acquaintances
—young
females, usually
—for
passing along tidbits of information they'd acquired. It mattered not to Bess whether the news came by way of deliberate eavesdropping or mere happenstance. Even as a child, upon joining a bevy of babbling girls, Bess would put an immediate halt to their gossiping. The practice earned her quite a reputation in the little white schoolhouse on the hill, and cost her more than a few friendships. "Here comes Miss Fuddy Duddy," the girls would whisper behind their hands. "There goes Miss Stuffy Pants," they'd taunt. She'd ignored their sharp tongues and the girls themselves, telling herself she preferred solitude to participating in their mud-slinging campaigns.

But the look on
Chance
's face when confronted by that awful man....

Telling her father and brothers wouldn't be gossip. In fact, didn't she owe it to everyone at Foggy Bottom to let them know that a dangerous man could be living among them, a man who may very well be a convicted murderer?

Bess shook her head. It was ridiculous enough to be laughable. He'd been so gentle with Matt. So gentle with
her.
Could a man like that be capable of such violence?

No!
she insisted.
It can't be true!

Then that
look
of his came to mind again...that rough-tough expression that lifted his mouth in a vicious snarl and turned his blue-eyed gaze hard and mean and....

If it's true,
she told herself,
surely he had a good reason to kill the man....

Her heart and her head went to war:

And what reason would that be? her analytical mind wanted to know.

Self-defense? Defending a woman's honor? He interrupted a robbery?
answered her heart.

Well, maybe....

Because he's a go
od man. Decent and honorable and—

How do you know these things? asked her mind.

And her heart said,
I see them in his
eyes.

Then h
er mind conjured that venomous glare, the deadly stance that gave him the appearance, at least, of a man who was capable of savagery....

She felt the hard hammering of her heart and the rush of blood pounding at every pulse point. Biting down on her lower lip, Bess fought the thoughts that flit through her brain: Why not just
ask
him!

As if on cue,
Chance
cleared his throat. Startled, Bess chanced a peek in his direction. The sun, dappling through birch and willow branches that umbrella'd Oakland Road, slanted across his face. Her stomach fluttered with an odd mix of fear and fondness, and she forced herself to look instead at the wild roses growing alongside the road.

But neither the delicate scent nor the velvety petals could distract her from his presence, for in that quick glance, she'd seen far more than his worry-rumpled brow and tension-clenched jaw. She'd also taken note of shining waves that poked out from under his wide-brimmed hat. The manly curve of his aquiline nose. Lush black lashes and high, angular cheekbones.

He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, causing the fabric of his blue cotton shirt to tighten over his bulging biceps, one powerful hand coming to rest on his meaty thigh as the other casually held the reins that controlled big, creaking wagon. That same hand that had gently brushed the hair back from her forehead after Doc left that night
,
and tenderly pressed her own
hand
to his cheek, as if sensing that her tears would not be quieted or comforted with mere words.