Renegade Most Wanted

chapter Seventeen



Morning sunlight slanted through the lace curtains beside the recovery bed in Doc Brown’s office. With his thumb, Matt traced the lacy pattern that it cast on the blanket. At home, the sun would be doing the same through Emma’s curtains.

He half wished he hadn’t made her promise to stay put, but some things were for the best. For all that he’d give a lifetime to see her smile, what he would see is her grief. Hanging was not something that a woman should see her husband do.

What he needed now was a song, but even if he could dig deep enough to find the notes, bringing them up would hurt like the devil.

At least he wasn’t dead, not yet.

Billy strode in with a cup of coffee and sat in a chair beside the bed.

“Doc says you can’t have any,” he said. “At least for a while.”

“In a while I’ll be hanged,” Matt grumbled. “Pass it over here.”

“If I believed that, I would.” Billy took a long swallow. “Guess you’ll have to just smell it.”

“I’m going home.” Matt sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The image of Emma’s smile was becoming irresistible, and as yet he wasn’t under arrest.

The room spun like a lasso twisting through the air. The next thing he knew Doc Brown was bent over the bed telling him he was too weak to do anything but lie still.

“Hell.” Matt pushed himself up with his elbows until the room settled enough to feel like nothing more challenging than a rocking boat. “I’m going home to kiss my wife goodbye.”

“There will be no goodbyes, young man, as long as you follow doctor’s orders.” The doctor eased him up so that he reclined against a pair of pillows.

He felt as if he might be sick, but the dizziness passed in a moment.

“I wasn’t the one who shot Hawker, Doc. But Pendragon will make sure I hang for it, anyway. Might as well give me some coffee and send me home.”

“You didn’t see anything?” Billy asked one more time.

“I saw my life pass before my eyes.”

Doc Brown snatched the coffee cup from Billy and took a deep swallow. “I always wondered about—”

The door to the front office opened, then banged closed. Arguing voices carried through the walls.

Doc Brown mumbled something about no respect for the sickroom and marched toward the door that separated the rooms. He had to jump back when it flew open and Lawrence Pendragon charged in with Bart close on his heels.

Marshal Deeds followed seconds later with a scowl on his face.

“See here, Marshal.” Doc Brown ignored Pendragon and Bart, lodging his protest with the lawman. “This is a sickroom. You can’t come barging in.”

“You’ve got a killer in your bed, Dr. Brown,” Pendragon said, his sneer mean to the core. “You wouldn’t want it known that you are harboring a fugitive. That’s illegal, is it not, Mr. Deeds?”

Billy jumped up with his fist clenched. “Matt’s no criminal and you know it.”

“I know for a fact that he is.” Pendragon’s fancy clothes smelled of nicotine when he moved. His grin bore the stains of his habit. “So does Bart. We both witnessed Mr. Suede gun down a man in cold blood.”

“Hawker was pleading for his life,” Bart put in. “Groveling in the dirt with his hands over his face and weeping like a woman. Didn’t make no never mind to Suede, though. He plugged him, anyway. Yes, sir, then he laughed in the dead man’s face. Told him to go to hell.”

“Pendragon,” Matt said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He stood up even though he didn’t know if his legs could do what his mind ordered, but hell would freeze over before he’d face these accusations sitting down.

“You’re lying because you want my land,” Matt said. Billy stood beside him, shoulder touching shoulder so that Matt could stand tall without being held up. “Bart was probably too drunk to know a thing that you didn’t pay him to know.”

“Marshal,” Pendragon ordered. “Take this man into custody. We can see justice done within the hour.”

“Whooeee!” Bart scraped his nose across his sleeve, grinning and giggling. “The noose has barely quit swinging from yesterday.”

The marshal stood still. He glared from Bart to Pendragon and back with his arms folded across his chest.

“Suede is in no condition to face justice.”

“I hardly see what difference it makes, Marshal.” Pendragon reached for Matt.

Marshal Deeds stepped between Matt and Pendragon’s reaching fist. “I’ll take charge of my own prisoner.”

For half a heartbeat the land baron’s eyes widened. Then they narrowed, glaring menace. “Do your duty, then.”

“My patient shouldn’t be moved!” Doc Brown appealed to the marshal.

“Shut up, old man,” Bart snarled. “He ain’t your patient no more.”

The marshal took Matt’s good arm with more support than force and led him toward the front door.

“Mighty sorry, Suede,” he mumbled so low that Matt figured he had heard wrong.

Pendragon marched in the lead. Red faced, he opened the front door and let it slam against the wall. Maybe he wasn’t used to the marshal trying to wriggle out from under his thumb.

Matt had to blink against the sudden glare of daylight as sunshine glinted off a colorful group of people strutting and puffing up the street. Bonnets and feathers, cowboy hats and derbies bounced with their long strides.

Calico-clad ladies brushed elbows with satin draped ladies of the night. Merchants and farmers marched together. Damned if they weren’t followed by the bankers.

He must be sicker than he thought to bring on this hallucination. He closed his eyes, willing the bizarre scene to go away, but soon he heard the grumble of the crowd coming closer.

Grumble?

He had expected to hang, but not at the hands of a brightly hued lynch mob.

Footsteps rushed up the porch steps, tapping lightly on the wood. A hand stroked his cheek. Gentle fingers touched his sling from injured shoulder to protruding fingertips

If this was a trick of the mind, he gave himself up to it.

He felt his head being lowered by a pair of tender hands near his ears. Petticoats rustled as though the wearer had risen to her toes. A pair of lips touched his.

“Emma?” Did he dare open his eyes and ruin the hallucination?

She hugged him around the middle and it hurt. Great blessed pain! “Emma!”

He pulled her in tight with his good arm, trying to make the feel of her last forever, but the mob did sound angry.

They looked angry, too, waving fists, farming tools and even a few bottles of…Orange Lilly? And they were headed straight for Doc Brown’s front porch.

Red faced and beginning to sweat, Marshal Deeds stepped back a few paces.

“You were supposed to stay home,” Matt whispered in Emma’s ear.

“You were supposed to come home,” she whispered back.

“Free Suede! Free Suede!” the group of more than fifty folk began to chant.

Faces that he recognized, and some that he didn’t, moved close to the bottom step. Emma ran her hands lightly over his shoulder, looking for damage. She’d find it, for sure, but his strength seemed to be returning by the second.

“Where did all these folks come from?”

“Cowboys aren’t the only ones capable of a roundup. I told some of them what was happening, then they told some others and here we are.”

Watching the Sizeloffs move forward gave him the strength to stand unaided. Jesse and his girl, flanked by Mr. Rath and Mr. Wright, made the ache in his shoulder ease. The sight of Woody, Sarah and Lenore Pendragon moving toward the front of the crowd gave him hope.

The ladies of the Long Branch, looking as colorful as a flock of tropical birds, made him a little nervous. He glanced at his wife. If Emma or anyone else was offended by their presence it didn’t show.

The anger, and there was plenty of it, seemed to be directed at the marshal, Pendragon and Bart.

“Marshal!” Pendragon roared. “Do something about this!”

“Throw ’em all in jail.” Bart waved his hand at the group, but lost his balance and rolled down the steps.

“What do I pay you—” All of a sudden Pendragon shut his mouth. He stared for a moment at the sunlight glinting off the toe of his boot. “Do what you have been elected to do.”

The marshal looked at Matt, then at Pendragon’s twitching mustache. He shook his head and swallowed hard. Sweat beaded Deeds’s forehead.

“Marshal Deeds.” Rachael Sizeloff touched his sleeve, inviting him down the steps. “A word with you, please.”

When Pendragon made a move to stop him, Joseph Sizeloff muscled between them, giving his wife the opportunity to lead the marshal across the street.

From this distance Matt couldn’t hear the private conversation, but some things didn’t need words. Rachael held baby Maude in one arm while gesturing with the other.

Head hung low, the marshal listened to the minister. He looked a bit green when she frowned and pointed a firm finger toward the dirt, shaking her head. After that, Deeds seemed to have a few things to say. He talked for a while, sometimes covering his eyes, sometimes wringing his hands. All the while the preacher nodded. When Deeds quit speaking, Mrs. Sizeloff gave him a brilliant smile and pointed toward the sky.

The marshal looked like a different man, being led back across the street and up the steps. Like a man relieved of a burden.

Pendragon, though, looked like a bull ready to charge. Only a severe scowl from Joseph Sizeloff held him in his place.

On the top step of the porch and gazing over the crowd, Marshal Deeds twisted his hat in his hands.

“I have something to confess to all of you good people,” he announced. Rachael beamed up at him, looking as proud as a mother hen. “Matthew Suede didn’t kill anyone. I did.”

Pendragon made a leap toward Deeds, but Woody Vance raced up the steps. Joseph and Woody restrained him with one arm looped through each of his.

“I shot him in the line of duty when he was about to kill Matt and his boy. The only wrong done is to the citizens of this town, by me. I’ve been influenced by power…and money.”

Every eye in the silent crowd focused on Lawrence Pendragon, who curiously looked a few inches shorter.

“So I resign.” Deeds took off his badge, looked about for someone to hand it to, then pressed it into the fist of Doc Brown. “I ask your forgiveness before I leave town.”

With a backward glare at Pendragon, he went down the steps. Mrs. Sizeloff caught his sleeve as he passed.

“Go with God, Mr. Deeds,” she said.

“Well.” Doc Brown spoke to the murmuring crowd. “It appears we need a new lawman.”

“Billy Suede would be a fine choice,” Woody Vance called out.

Sarah beamed up from the foot of the steps. “Billy! Oh yes, now there’s a man who can be trusted.”

Murmers of Billy’s name went from the front of the group to the back.

“I cast my little bitty vote for Billy Suede,” Lulu Frolic sang out, with feathers and satin bouncing.

Six pairs of red-tipped hands shot into the air. “Oooh, so do we!”

Giggles twittered. The ladies swept sideways together, their colors a moving rainbow. They circled Bart, who had been creeping toward the edge of the crowd.

“You vote for Billy, don’t you, Bart?” Lulu asked.

“Sure, honey, whatever you say.” He looked as nervous as a bug cornered by a flock of hens.

“What I say,” Lulu announced, “and we all do, is thanks for the vote and you might as well leave town with Mr. Deeds because there won’t be a drop of anything for you at the Long Branch or anywhere else!”

He backed slowly away while they shooed their skirts at him.

“I meant to leave here, anyway,” he grumbled. When Lulu took a step forward and clapped her hands in his face, he turned and ran, kicking up mud clods until he was out of sight.

“So, who else votes for Billy?” Doc Brown raised the badge in the air.

Every hand shot up except Lawrence Pendragon’s.

“Well, Billy, do you accept the position?”

Billy took the badge from the doc and pinned it on his shirt. When he rubbed it to a shine with his sleeve, a cheer went up.

“Marshal Suede.” Matt beamed at his cousin. “Is my wife free to take me home?”

Another cheer. Life’s road stretched before him with love and laughter at every mile.

“Not until later,” the doctor warned, looking at Emma and ignoring his protests altogether. “He’s healing well, but wait until sundown just to make sure there’s no fever.”

“We’ll stay.” Emma tucked her strong little body beneath his good shoulder and turned Matt toward the door.

“Marshal Suede.” Pendragon, now free of his captors, blocked the doorway.

If the land baron had been looking at Emma instead of scowling at the new marshal, he’d have seen her solid little boot toe coming for his shin. Instead he doubled over and grabbed his leg.

Laughter twittered through the crowd until the man opened his mouth again.

“I demand that you lock up Matthew Suede for bank robbery. He’s The Ghost and everyone here knows it!”

“Father!” Lenore Pendragon rushed up the porch steps. A good-size crowd had now gathered on the small veranda. If anyone else had something to say, they would have to do it from below.

Young Lenore placed her hands on her hips and raised her brows at her father. “Perhaps you would like to take a walk with Preacher Sizeloff, as well.”

“Lenore Emily Pendragon, I order you to go home without another word.” He faced his offspring, teeth gritted and short of breath. A nerve in his eye jumped in time with a tic in his cheek.

“Well, then, if you won’t come clean, I’ll have to do it for you.”

Lenore arched her eyebrows, fluffed her expensive skirt and told every eager ear the sorry tale of Lucy’s father’s death and how her own father had neglected the child’s welfare.

“And so,” she finished, “I had no choice but to become The Ghost.”

Even the bird chirruping on the roof fell silent.

“Someone had to take responsibility for the child,” Lenore said. When her father looked stunned enough to be pushed over with an accusing word, she added, “Marshal, do your duty.”

She held out her hands, dainty wrists pressed together.

“There’s no call to do that.” Woody Vance puffed his chest, nodded at Matt and winked at Emma. “I’m The Ghost.”

“No, I’m The Ghost,” confessed Jesse, while his girl beamed her pleasure.

“So am I,” insisted Mr. Sizeloff.

“We are, too!” a trio of farm wives called, each hoisting a bottle of Orange Lilly into the air.

Within a space of four minutes, no less than forty people had confessed to the crime. Only babes in arms had not.

Lawrence Pendragon’s backside had sunk to the top step some moments past. He looked pale and green all at once.

Billy lifted his hands to still the murmers washing through the crowd.

“As marshal, I declare that since I can’t arrest everyone, I won’t arrest anyone.” A cheer went up. “Let it be acknowledged by all that the ghostly spirit has finally passed on to his reward.”

Matt knew he shouldn’t be grinning, but he had passed to his reward, right here on earth. With Emma tucked here under his good arm, with Lucy on the mend and Red likely cured from his recklessness, he had everything he could ever want.

He was a rich man without money.

“One more thing needs to be made clear from the start. Most especially to you, Pendragon,” Billy declared, crossing his arms over his chest. A wink of sunlight glanced off his badge. “Best look up at me while I’m speaking, just so we all know you understand. I’m not a lawman who can be bought. If you want something done in town it had better be legal and gone about like everyone else does. No more threats, no more scaring folks off their land.”

If Matt had ever heard more cheering in one day he couldn’t recall.

Billy sat on the step beside Pendragon and spoke in a low tone. “We all expect you to be a model neighbor. A body never knows when The Ghost might be resurrected.”

* * *

Land sakes! What did a woman have to do to get her husband to listen to doctor’s orders and rest? Dance naked at the foot of the bed?

Home could not come soon enough.

They should have remained in Dodge for another day, but Matt was not proving to be the most restful of patients. Only a wifely scowl had convinced him that she would be the one to drive the wagon home.

Emma licked the prairie dust from her lips. She jiggled the reins of the rented team and glanced sideways at Matt. He sat tall even with the pain in his shoulder, watching the golden land dim with the sunset.

A bird dipped low over her land singing to the departing day. Matt’s land, too. He had earned his place here. Mercy, if he hadn’t spilled his blood to protect it and those who lived here.

Without him, nothing on this 160 acres would mean a thing.

“What are you smiling about, darlin’?”

“Going home is against doctor’s orders.”

“Doc Brown worries too much.”

“Good thing you’ve got me to keep you in line.” Emma laughed, feeling the joy of it to her toes and back. “Don’t look so stricken, Matt. I’ll take such loving care of you that you won’t even notice that wound.”

And she knew that Matt would take loving care of her, as well. For the rest of their days there would be the two of them, watching over each other and tending the land.

In just one summer Matt had turned her notions of happiness upside down. On that first ride to her land she hadn’t understood that a home was not just walls sticking up out of the earth. He had shown her that home was made of the souls living and laughing inside it.

While the blessings of home and hearth went bone deep, the blessings of family filled her soul.

Just now lights came into view, shining like a beacon across the darkening prairie.

The wheels of the buggy creaked across Suede land, bringing them closer to home. From behind, the rising moon illuminated the way.

From a hundred yards off she spotted Red and Lucy through the parlor window, sitting in the rocking chair together beside the fireplace. They were both laughing, watching Princess and Fluffy cavorting over the furniture.

Smoke curled out of the chimney, light against the now fully dark sky.

“We’re home,” she murmured.

Matt grinned at her and gave her a kiss.

Then he began to sing.

* * * * *