The Rustler

“Then I’ll drag a washtub into the jailhouse and you can heat water on the stove,” Rowdy said, rising to his feet, the baby in the curve of his arm. “I’ve got some extra clothes you can wear until we get you some duds.”

“Pump water will do,” Wyatt said. “If it wasn’t for that revival, I’d go down to the creek to bathe.” He swallowed a good-size portion of his pride. “And I’ll pay you back for the new rigging, Rowdy.”

“I know,” Rowdy answered.

An hour later, alone in the jailhouse, Wyatt poured the last bucket of water into an old tin washtub, dented and spotted with rust, peeled off his clothes, and sank into it.

It wasn’t the Blood of the Lamb, but for the time being, it would do.

CHAPTER TWO

GIDEON ALMOST GOT HIMSELF SHOT, banging into the jail like he did, in the middle of the night, with Wyatt sleep-flummoxed and in the altogether and all. He had the .45 cocked and aimed before he realized where he was, and who he was dealing with.

“Shit,” Wyatt said, wrenching the thin blanket up over himself and falling back on his cot with a sigh of relief, the pistol still in his right hand. “You oughtn’t to bust in on a man like that. I nearly put a bullet in you.”

Gideon slouched onto the cot opposite Wyatt’s, illuminated by a beam of moonlight straying in through the barred window, and wrenched off one of his boots. “I live here,” he said, and it was clear from his tone that he was none too pleased to be sharing his quarters. “Except when there’s a prisoner, of course. Anyhow, it wouldn’t have been the first time somebody put a bullet in me.”

Therein lies a tale, Wyatt thought.

“Hell of a place to call home,” he said, grimacing a little at the irony of the whole situation. After two years in the hoosegow, he’d ended up sleeping behind bars again. He reckoned it was God’s idea of a joke. “Where do you sleep when somebody gets themselves arrested?”

“Around,” Gideon said, after a long and studious pause. “I’ll be heading out for college pretty soon. I mean to be a Pinkerton man, or sign on as a Wells Fargo agent.”

The underlying message was clear enough: Don’t go thinking I mean to be an outlaw, like you, just because we’re kin.

“Who’d have thought it,” Wyatt mused, in a wry undertone, staring up at the low, shadowed ceiling of the cell. “Two of Payton Yarbro’s boys turning out to be lawmen. He must be rolling over in his grave.”

The boy stripped to his skivvies and stretched out on the cot. “Pappy died fighting for what was right,” he said. “What are you doing here? In Stone Creek, I mean?”

“Just looking for a place to be,” Wyatt answered. He didn’t expect the kid to trust him, the way Rowdy did. He and Gideon might have the same blood flowing through their veins, but in every other way, they were strangers. In fact, he kind of admired his younger brother’s caution, figuring it must have come from their ma’s side, since Pappy had never—to Wyatt’s knowledge anyway—exhibited the trait. “Who shot you?”

“Happened at a dance,” Gideon answered. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.” For a few minutes after that, he was quiet, except for some creaking of the old rope springs supporting his mattress as he settled his sizable frame for sleep.

The silence, though blessed to Wyatt’s ears, did not endure. “I saw you walking Sarah Tamlin home today,” Gideon remarked. “And I reckon you know her father owns the Stockman’s Bank.”

Wyatt smiled in the darkness, though a wing of sadness brushed the back of his heart. Most likely, he’d never really know Gideon, or be known by him, since the boy was bound for some far-off place. College. It was a thing Wyatt couldn’t imagine, though he’d read every book he could get his hands on. “You figure I’ve switched from holding up trains to robbing banks?”

“I’m just warning you, that’s all. Rowdy takes his job as marshal seriously. Brother or not, if you break the law, he’ll shut that door on you and turn the key. Don’t think he won’t.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Wyatt said dryly.

Another pause descended, long and awkward. The boy was brimming with questions, Wyatt knew, but asking them required some pride-swallowing.

“Tell me about the others,” Gideon murmured.

“The others?” Wyatt hedged.

“You know who I mean—Nicholas and Ethan and Levi. Pa told me their names, but not much else.”

“It’s late,” Wyatt answered. “If you want to know more about the family history, why don’t you ask Rowdy?”

“He won’t talk about them.”

“Maybe he’s got reason, and you ought to accept that and let the matter rest.”

“I’ve got a right to know about my own brothers, don’t I?”

Again, a sigh escaped Wyatt. He cupped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, but sleep, the delicious, dreamless refuge he’d been enjoying earlier, eluded him. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be better all around if you didn’t? It isn’t always so, but there’s some truth in that old adage about ignorance being bliss.”

“Tell me.”

“Will you shut up and let me sleep if I do? I’ve got things to do in the morning—like find work.”

“I will,” Gideon agreed staunchly.

“I’m the eldest,” Wyatt recited dutifully. “Nick is a year younger. He’s always been a bit on the delicate side, not much for outlawing. Last I heard, he was living in Boston, writing poems and starving. By now, he’s probably contracted consumption—he’d enjoy a disease like that. Then come the twins—Ethan and Levi. Levi’s a little slow—and Ethan is a born killer. Rowdy is next in line, and I figure you probably know as much about him as he wants you to.”

“What was he like—before?”

“Tough. Fast with a gun. Smart as hell. Not much he was ever scared of, as far as I could tell. That’s how he got the nickname. Ma called him by his given name, Rob—she had a soft spot for him.” Wyatt thought he heard the boy swallow hard, over there on his cot. It struck him—with a brief but hard pang—that he probably knew more about Billy Justice and the members of his gang than he did about Gideon, his own brother.

“Pappy said Ma died having me,” Gideon said quietly, revealing a great deal more about himself in that one statement than he’d probably intended.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Wyatt said.

There was a shrug in Gideon’s voice when he answered. “She’d be alive now, if it hadn’t been for me,” he argued.

“You can’t know that for sure,” Wyatt pointed out, feeling sorry for the kid. It was a rung up the ladder, he reckoned, from feeling sorry for himself—he’d done enough of that in prison.

Gideon was quiet again, but just long enough for Wyatt to start hoping the palavering was over, so he could drift back into oblivion. He slept like a dead man, and rarely remembered his dreams, if he had any, and he considered that a blessing. Other men he’d known, back in Texas, hadn’t been so fortunate.

“There are some things a man just has to let go of,” he told Gideon.

“I reckon,” Gideon agreed, but without much conviction.

Wyatt rolled onto his side, with his back to his brother, and punched down his pillow, though it was already flat, figuring his saddle would have served better. Been cleaner, too. “Good night,” he said, with a yawn.

“What was she like?” Gideon asked. “Ma, I mean.”

Wyatt suppressed another sigh. Stayed on his side, eyes wide-open, staring at the splintery, raw-timbered wall. “She was a fine woman,” he said. “Half again too good for Pappy, that’s for certain. She loved him, though.”

At last, Gideon fell silent, though Wyatt knew there would be more questions, right along. With luck, they’d be ones he could answer.

* * *

THE MORNING AFTER Wyatt Yarbro walked her home from the revival picnic, Sarah overslept. She bolted awake, flustered, and scrambled out of bed, groping for her wrapper, wrenching it on, not bothering to shove her bare feet into house slippers.

“Papa?” she called, from the top of the back stairs leading down into the kitchen. “Papa!”