Lawman

“Well, if it ain’t the prodigal son, returned from the dead,” began one, whom Cal recognized as the livery owner, a man who had never darkened the door of the Episcopal church, nor, it was well known, of the Baptist church, either.

“Eww, I thought I smelled something” jeered another man, stopping his whittling to eye Cal.

“You did, Asa. A no-good skunk,” the third man chimed in.

“Good day, gentlemen,” Cal said evenly, and went on in. He heard the creak of the boardwalk as they rose to follow him. Apparently he wasn’t even going to be allowed to purchase Annie’s thread in peace.

As his sight adjusted to the dim interior of the mercantile, he noticed a pair of ladies studying a bolt of blue calico. He nodded to them, hearing one of them gasp as he turned toward the proprietor. The latter was standing behind the counter, favoring him with the glare Cal was now becoming all too familiar with.

“What do you want?” the man said.

“Just some yellow thread for my sister, Mr. Ames.”

“Yella? He wants yella thread, did you hear that, Asa? Ain’t that the appropriate color fer him t’buy?” chortled one of the idlers behind him.

“What kind of yellow, Devlin? We got two-three shades here,” the proprietor said, fishing around in a case and holding out several hanks of thread.

“Oh, I expect he’ll take coward yella!” the liveryman announced, before Cal could say anything.

Cal felt his temper fraying. He didn’t want to raise a ruckus, not in a store or in front of ladies, but he didn’t think this trio of no-goods was going to be content to let him go without one. He knew as a man of the cloth, even an unemployed one, he ought to just continue to ignore them, but he wasn’t sure how long he could. Turning his cheek had never been his strong suit.

“I’ll take that one,” he said, pointing at random to a hank of thread the color of the daffodils that came up in February here. He laid a five-cent piece on the counter, not even waiting to see if he had paid too much. He just wanted to get out of there before these idlers made him do something ugly in the confines of the store.

“Bill, I guess he’s too yella to say anythin’ to ya,” jeered Asa, just as Cal was turning around.

“No, I’m not,” he countered. “I’ve just been raised not to call you what you are in the presence of ladies,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the two women, who were already shrinking back against the far wall, watching them.

They let him get all the way out of the store and halfway down the street before they challenged him again, but Cal could feel them following him, like a pack of wild dogs waiting for the right moment to attack. He kept walking, his head held high, his back straight. He had never been a coward, and he wasn’t now—he just thought the fight that was going to result was going to be so…useless.

He heard one of them clomp up onto the sidewalk and shout through the bat-wing doors of the Bonny Blue Flag, “Hey, boys, guess who’s back in town? Traitor Devlin, that’s who! Why don’t ya all come out fer a second and give him a rousin’ welcome like he deserves!”

Three or four cowboys heeded the summons and came running out.

Cal wasn’t armed, hadn’t thought it appropriate for a preacher to strap on a six-gun. That was both a blessing and a curse, for although no one could pull a gun on him fairly if he wasn’t armed, wearing one himself might have kept the beating he was about to receive to merely verbal abuse. But damnation, if he was going to receive some bruises he was going to mete out some, too.

“Hey, blue belly! Devlin! Reckon I’ll be the first t’show ya how welcome ya are here!”

Cal heard the thudding of the cowboy’s boot heels as he ran up from behind, intending to jump him, and met the man’s advance with his fist instead. He was pleased to see the cowboy fall like a rock, a crimson stream spurting from his nose.

So much for turning the other cheek. Lord, what he wouldn’t give to have Sam at his side right now. There’d still be a fight—likely it would have happened sooner, but it would have been a little less lopsided.

After that it was chaos, with the other six men all jumping him at once, fists flying, calling out to every loitering male within earshot to join them. Cal fought desperately, landing punches on every body part of anyone he could reach, and receiving curses and blows in return. A cacophony of noise filled the dusty air.

He never saw the blow that felled him, for it came from the right, on his blind side. All he knew was that suddenly the struggle was over and he was cloaked in a cloud of velvet black.

The woman just mounting the buckboard to begin her drive home had seen the scarred man with the eye patch go down and had wondered what he had done to incur the enmity of so many men at once. To say he was outnumbered in the situation was putting it mildly.

She knew what being the underdog felt like, right enough, and she hated the feeling. Still, she wasn’t inclined to intervene; she’d been on the receiving end of male wrath entirely too much lately.

Probably the man had done something to deserve the drubbing he was getting, like welshing on a poker debt or cheating another man on a horse trade, so she probably shouldn’t let it trouble her conscience. And yet… She paused, about to cluck “giddap” to the horse, when she heard one of the ruffians yell something about getting tar and feathers.

She wasn’t going to let that happen—wasn’t going to let her reluctance to confront any more angry males extend so far that she would meekly allow them to do such a barbarous, painful thing. Not while she had breath in her body. She had been unable to save Francisco, but perhaps she could help this man, at least until she could find out what he had done.

Setting the brake and securing the reins, she picked up her shotgun and aimed it into the air, letting go with one barrel. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use the other one. Then she pointed it at the stunned attackers, who were still bent over their unconscious quarry. The man who’d started to run to fetch the tar and feathers froze in his tracks.

“Y’all ought to be ashamed of yourselves, all of you pickin’ on one man!” she shouted in the sudden silence, jumping down from her buckboard and stalking over to the fallen man. “Go on, get out of here! I’m sure you got better things to be doin’!” She kept her shotgun aimed at the half-dozen men, who obediently backed away. A couple of them slipped back into the saloon.

“You know this man?” one of them asked.

She darted a glance at the crumpled form, but he was lying facedown. “No, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you bullies kill him. He was unarmed,” she said with a calmness she was far from feeling.

“Ma’am, I’m sure you mean well, and I shorely do honor yore sense a’ fair play,” one of them began with an ingratiating smile, “but I think you oughta know this here yella-bellied coward fought for the Yanks, and then hid out for the rest of the war.”

No, it couldn’t be…

“So?” she asked belligerently, not lowering the shotgun or letting herself think about who it was she was protecting.

“So we was jest treatin’ him like such traitors deserve t’be treated,” the dusty, sweaty ruffian answered. “So perhaps you oughta get back up on yer buckboard, ma’am, and ride on t’wherever you was goin’ and don’t worry yore purdy little head—”

Were they going to rush her and try to take away her shotgun? Was she going to have to shoot one of them to prove she meant what she said? Could she shoot one of them?

“You heard the lady,” said a voice from behind her. “Now get on outa here.”

Olivia Gillespie turned to see a man behind her, his Colt drawn and aimed at the four who still remained. He touched the brim of his hat to her, then his eyes went back to the other men.

There was a long silence as they eyed each other, and finally the liveryman said, “Well, all right, Devlin, we’ll let him go this time. But mebbe ya better tell yore brother we don’t like his kind in Bryan no more.”

“I reckon you’ve more than made your point,” retorted Sam Devlin, with a meaningful glance at his brother’s still form. “But if you ever lay a hand on him again it’s gonna be you lyin’ there, not my brother. Now get on outa here, like I said before.”

He watched the four until they had slunk into the saloon, then turned back to Livy.

“Miz Gillespie, I’m much obliged,” he said as he walked over to see to his brother. She watched as he gently turned him over onto his back, and winced as she heard Cal groan.

If she hadn’t been told it was Caleb Devlin, she never would have been able to guess. The eye that wasn’t patched was rapidly swelling shut, and he was covered with scrapes and bruises. There was a laceration on his unscarred cheek that would likely make a new scar, and another over his lip. The hair she remembered as being black as a crow’s wing was now streaked with gray. The patch had been shoved out of place, and she gently pulled it back in place over the closed lid.

“Cal, it’s all right. They’re gone now,” the younger Devlin said softly, but the injured man didn’t react further. He was still unconscious.

“It’s a good thing you came along,” she said, glancing briefly at the tall, dark-haired cowboy, who looked like a younger version of Cal. “I’m not sure I could’ve held them off forever, even with old Betsy here,” she said, with a nod toward the ancient shotgun.

“Oh, they probably wouldn’t’ve had the gumption to try any thin’ else,” he said with a reassuring grin. “They’re just braggarts and bullies. I had a feelin’ that things might not go right the first time my brother showed his face in Bryan, though, so I thought I’d better check and see how it was goin’. Looks like I shoulda come a mite sooner.”

She didn’t want to add to his self-reproach, and so she changed the subject. “You’re Sam, aren’t you? Last time I saw you you were just a skinny boy flirting with the little girls at the annual church picnic on the river.”

Sam smiled. “I reckon I’ve grown a little since then. Now, I think I spotted Cal’s horse down the street a piece. If you could just wait with my brother, I’ll bring him up, but I reckon my Buck would mind less than his stallion about carryin’ Cal home over his saddle,” he said, nodding toward the placid buckskin gelding that stood at the hitching post, switching at flies with his black tail.

“Nonsense,” replied Livy. “There’s no need to do that when I’ve got my buckboard. I’ll help you load him onto the bed of my wagon, and you can tie his horse on the back.”

Chapter Three (#ulink_639ff609-6124-5ed6-b43c-748b3b9bc99a)