He’d had a long talk with Beau and Chad before he rode out that morning and told them to cooperate with the owlhoots. The boys were scared, but they were also mad that anybody would ride in and take over like that bunch had done. Tom didn’t want them trying anything that might get them killed.
He didn’t even allow himself to think about what might have happened to Frannie while he was gone. As long as they hadn’t killed her, anything else could be gotten over, or at least put in the past. That’s what he’d been telling himself all day, to the point where he almost believed it.
Maybe nothing had happened. That man Garth seemed to be in charge of the gang, and he kept a pretty tight hand on the reins as far as Tom could see. He had told Tom all they wanted was to know everything he could find out about Joshua Shade. Since Tom had information to report, that gave him a shred of hope.
But it wasn’t good news he was going to give to Garth, and that prospect worried him greatly.
Everything looked peaceful as he came in sight of the ranch. A tendril of smoke curled up from the stone chimney, just as it normally would. The outlaws had put their horses in the barn the night before, so there was no sign of them.
Tom rode up to the house, reined his mount to a halt, and swung down from the saddle, nervously eyeing the house as he did so. Normally, he would have tended to his horse before doing anything else, but he was too anxious to do that. He dropped the reins and hurried to the door.
As he jerked it open and stepped inside, a cold ring of metal was pressed to the side of his head, just in front of his right ear. Tom stopped short, knowing that it was a gun barrel prodding him.
“Take it easy, sodbuster,” the outlaw called Jeffries drawled. He was the one Tom feared the most, since he’d made no secret of how he felt about Frannie, practically licking his chops every time he looked at her.
Jeffries went on. “If anybody happens to be watching, we don’t want you acting like anything’s wrong.”
“Sorry,” Tom breathed. His eyes were adjusting to the dimness inside the house now, and to his huge relief he saw Frannie, Abigail, and the boys all sitting at the table, apparently unharmed. Wide-eyed with fear, but not hurt.
The six outlaws stood or sat around the room. Jeffries, Garth, and the Mexican, Gonzalez, had their guns drawn. Garth pouched his weapon, though, and motioned for the others to do the same.
“What about it?” Garth demanded as he came toward Tom. “Is Joshua still alive?”
Tom forced his head up and down in a nod. “He’s alive. Sheriff Flagg’s got him locked up, just like you thought.”
“What are they gonna do with him?”
“The sheriff sent word to Tucson about what happened and asked for a judge to come out so they can put your boss on trial.”
“When’s that supposed to happen?”
Tom shook his head. “Hard to say for sure. Whenever the judge gets there. A week or thereabouts from what I heard. Maybe a little less.”
Gonzalez said, “
Tom grimaced, and Garth noticed the reaction. “What?” the outlaw asked.
“I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to bust Shade out of there,” Tom replied honestly. “The whole town’s worked up over the men who got killed last night, and every able-bodied man is walking around with a gun. The sheriff’s got lookouts on top of the hotel and the bank again—”
Jeffries laughed. “That didn’t do them much good last time, now did it?”
“Everybody’s more alert now,” Tom went on. “Plus Sheriff Flagg’s got a couple of gunfighters helpin’ him out. They’re holed up inside the jail with the prisoner.”
“Gunfighters?” Garth repeated with a frown. “What gunfighters?”
“Matt Bodine and that half-breed sidekick of his, Two Wolves.”
Garth let out his breath strongly enough so that it fluttered the mustache hanging over his mouth. “Bodine and Two Wolves,” he said in disgust.
“Who are they?” Jeffries asked. “I never heard of them.”
“Bodine’s a slick iron artist,” Garth replied. “Supposed to be damn near as fast on the draw as Smoke Jensen. And Two Wolves is right behind him. They’re a pair o’ first-class fightin’ men, that’s for sure.”
Jeffries shrugged. “Two men against all of us. With odds like that, it doesn’t matter how good they are.”
“Yeah, you can say that all you want, but nobody’s gonna want to be among the dozen or more of us they’d kill before they went under,” Garth pointed out. “I’m gonna have to do some thinkin’ about this.”
He winced as if the idea of thinking itself gave him a pain.
Tom took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to hold anything back from these men. Complete cooperation was his best chance of getting his family out of this alive.
“That’s not all,” he said. “A lynch mob tried to take Shade out of the jail last night.”
“That don’t surprise me none. What happened?”
“The sheriff talked them out of it…and I don’t reckon anybody wanted to try Bodine and Two Wolves either. But there’s a rancher named Hightower who won’t be turned away so easy. His father-in-law was one of the men who was killed, and from what I heard in town, Hightower wants to settle the score for the old man.”
“Can he do it?”
“He’s got a tough crew. And the townspeople are liable to throw in with him. They’ll have a better chance of
