CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Red, I know you wanted to go with the posse,” Augusta Addington said. “Thank you for staying close to me.”
“I don’t think you’re out of danger yet,” Red Ryan said.
“You mean Gideon Stark?”
“More likely one of his boys,” Red said. “And Manuel Garcia is still in town.”
“After what I told Sheriff Ritter, I don’t think Stark would dare make an attempt on my life,” Augusta said.
“Ritter didn’t believe you,” Red said.
“He might believe Della.”
“If he even talks with her.”
Augusta watched a teamster try to right a shifted load of lumber on a flat wagon and then step back and scratch his head, puzzling over his next move.
Then she said, “I’m not sure that Della really believes her father hired the killers. And who could blame her?”
“So where do we go from here?” Red said.
“I send Della my bill, and then resign from the Pinkertons.”
“Resign because of me?” Red said. “Because I asked you to marry me.”
“That is part of the reason, but it’s mainly because I failed my assignment,” Augusta said. “I was sent here to save Ben Bradford’s life, and now he’s dead. I’m hardly a credit to the Pinkertons and their other female detectives.”
“We all failed him, Augusta,” Red said. “Me, Buttons, and Ritter, and on top of that I failed Chris Mercer. He’d changed, and I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want him to change. I wanted him to stay a drunk, remain someone I could look down on and make fun of.”
“We’re flogging ourselves because of a combination of self-love and self-loathing,” Augusta said. “In the end, it will get us nowhere. Ah, here we are at the Alpenrose.”
Red stopped and took the woman’s hand. “Listen to me, Augusta, you did everything you could and you did it better than most. If Ritter had gotten here to the inn earlier, he could’ve caught those four gunmen in the act of changing from monks to murderers, and Bradford would still be alive.”
“Or Ritter and me would be dead along with the doctor,” Augusta said. “Red, let me have a while alone. I have much to think about.”
“Will you marry me, Augusta?” Red said.
“Yes, I will, Red. And I say that with all my heart. But I don’t want to talk about it right now. Wait until we’re out from under this cloud and all the muddy waters run clear.”
“Hey, Ryan, where’s Muldoon?”
Esau Pickles stood in the road, his face concerned.
“Out with the posse,” Red said.
“After them two monks?”
“Yeah,” Red said.
“I knew them fellers was up to no good,” Pickles said.
“You got a problem, Esau?” Red said.
“I reckon one of them swings of yours has the colic. He’s sweated up some and breathing hard. I’d call in Doc Anderson the vet, but Buttons Muldoon has to sign off on the bill.”
“I’ll come see the horse,” Red said. And then to Augusta, “Supper tonight?”
The woman smiled. “I look forward to it.”
* * *
Gideon Stark led his horse into the livery stable and said to the towheaded kid who greeted him, “Unsaddle him for me.” He flexed his left arm. “Damn arm is paining me, and I got a headache to beat the band.”
“Too much sun, maybe,” the kid said. “You ride far?”
“A fair piece,” Stark said. “Brush the roan down good and give him oats with his hay.”
“You missed all the excitement, mister,” the kid said as he threw Stark’s heavy silver saddle onto a rack.
“What kind of excitement?” Stark said. Sudden unease spiked at his belly. Had his hired assassins been discovered? He spotted Manuel Garcia’s flashy palomino in a stall. What did that portend?
“Four fellers burst into Doc Bradford’s house and killed him,” the kid said. “The doc shot two of them but the other pair escaped. There’s a posse out looking for them right now. They say once they’re brung in, Sheriff Ritter is gonna hang them.” The kid smiled. “That’ll be a sight to see. There ain’t been a hanging in this town in a coon’s age.”
Stark hesitated, afraid to ask the question, but he steeled himself and said, “Why did they kill the doctor?”
Busy with a brush, the kid turned his head and said, “The way I heard it from Tom McCabe over to the hardware store, the four men were the brothers of some feller who died under Doc Bradford’s knife at a hospital back east. They wanted revenge for their brother’s death and they sure got it.”
Stark felt a flood of relief. No one had tried to connect him with the shooting . . . and the only one who could was the damned, interfering Pinkerton woman. She had to die . . . and soon. A careful man, Stark knew he couldn’t risk a gunshot. But his homemade garrote, a thin length of buckthorn barbed wire attached to a pair of wooden handles, would cut deep and silently strangle the life out of her.
Stark untied a small canvas sack from his saddle, stepped around his horse, and walked toward the livery door. He turned his head and said to the yellow-haired kid, “Do a good job, and I’ll give you a dollar when I get back.”
It would prove to be an empty promise . . . because Gideon Stark would never come back.