He paused, then added: “Elizabeth, have I got that right?”
There was no answer to that. There was no rule book that said how much a man owed to himself and how much he owed to others. She put her arms around him and held him hard for one brief moment. “If I stopped you now,” she said, “you would no longer be the same man I married and I think that frightens me more than anything.”
Chapter Nine
It was Sunday and close to noon when Owen drove the team through Reunion's deserted Main Street and tied up in front of the courthouse. Judge Lochland would probably be in church, but someone ought to be in the sheriff's office.
Arch Deland was napping at the sheriff's desk when Owen came in. The old deputy opened his eyes and started to grin, but the expression faded when he saw the revolver at Owen's hip.
“Hello, Owen. What's the hardware for?”
“Is the sheriff around?”
“Will? He ought to be comin' out of church any minute now.”
“Would you mind catching him? I'm ready to be sworn in, if he still wants me for a deputy.”
Arch Deland dropped his boots from the desk in surprise. “Owen, that's a mighty poor joke!”
“It's no joke at all. If they still want me to go after the Brunners, I'm ready to give it a try.” He saw what Arch's next question was going to be. “Elizabeth and I have talked it out.”
The deputy said nothing for one long moment. At last he shrugged. “I don't know what's got into you, but there's somebody you better see before you light out for the hills.” He took down a ring of keys from the wall and stood up. “Owen, I want you to have a talk with one of our prize boarders.”
Puzzled, Owen frowned as he followed Deland out of the office and down the ringing basement corridor toward the cells of the county jail. “There he is,” the deputy said, pointing at one of the barred cages, and Owen made a small sound of surprise when he saw the bushy, uncombed hair, the hard young face and angry eyes.
“You recognize him?” Deland asked.
“Yes. His name is Dunc Lester.”
“Is he the one that came to your place with the hurt girl?”
Owen nodded.
“That's what I thought,” Arch said. “We've got the both of them. The girl's locked in the jury room upstairs.”
This was a turn that Owen hadn't expected. He walked forward to the cell door and the boy sat up on his plank bunk, glaring. “Hello, son,” Owen said quietly. “What have they got you in for?”
The boy made no sound, but Deland said, “Will's holdin' him on suspicion of bein' a member of the Brunner gang. On top of that, he tried to fob a crossroads store up by Willow Creek this mornin', but we caught him. Him and the girl was tryin' to get away on one scrawny brush pony.”
Owen gazed steadily at the tough, dirty, ragged young man, who looked as if he hated all the world. “Let me talk to him, Arch. Alone.”
“You're welcome to try. We haven't been able to get a word out of him since they brought him in.” The deputy unlocked the cell door, then locked it again when Owen was in. “You sure you don't want me to stick around?”
“I'm sure.” Owen stood in the center of the tiny cell, his gaze still fixed on Dunc Lester's face. “That was a fool thing for you and Leah to do,” he said mildly.
The boy rose slowly from the bunk, took hold of the iron bars, and gripped them as though he meant to tear them out with his bare hands. “I reckon it ain't the first fool thing I ever did!”
“Are you in trouble, Dunc? I don't mean just this.” He glanced around at the cell. “Have you got the hillpeople down on you for some reason?”
Dunc shot a blazing glance at him but made no sound. “Are you in trouble with the Brunners?” Owen pushed.
“I don't know any Brunners!”
Owen smiled faintly. “Son, you came to me once and I gave you what help I could; it might be that I could help you now if you told me what the trouble was.”
“I can take care of my own trouble!”
“And what about the girl? Can she take care of hers?” Owen saw that he had struck a soft spot in Dunc Lester's armor. “Dunc, why did you try to rob that store at Willow Creek?”
The boy stood rigid, part of his anger diluted with worry. “We ran out of grub,” he said at last.
“You ran out of grub,” Owen repeated quietly. “You have friends in the hills, Dunc, don't you? You have a family up there, somebody you could go to for food?”
Dunc wheeled away from the cell door, his face a cruel, hard mask. “Sure, I've got friends, only right now they're lookin' to kill me on sight!” Then he realized that he had said something that he hadn't meant to say. His trouble with the gang was personal and he had no intention of bringing outsiders into it. He turned away, his jaws locked as tight as a bear trap.
“I think you could help me, son,” Owen pressed quietly. “The people around here want me to break up the gang.
I've decided to try.”
