A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel. Linda Miller Lael

hated to be called Pappy, which was why Rowdy had addressed him that way, but he had to give the old bastard credit for self-control. The only reaction was a reddening above the collar of his tidy white shirt. “Now why would you make a rude inquiry like that?”

      Rowdy thought before he spoke, even though he’d planned what he would say all during the two-hour ride over from Stone Creek. He’d left Haven, where he’d drifted into a job as town marshal, for two main reasons—first, because he’d gotten that cryptic telegram from Sam O’Ballivan and Major Blackstone, summoning him north for a meeting in the lobby of the Territorial Hotel, and second, because a Wanted poster had landed on his desk with his real name and description printed on it.

      He was taking a chance, continuing his acquaintance with O’Ballivan. Rowdy believed in hiding in plain sight, moving on when his feet itched, with most folks none the wiser for knowing him.

      Sam O’Ballivan wasn’t most folks.

      “I need to know if you’re still robbing trains, Pa,” Rowdy reiterated. “The railroad’s laying tracks from here to Stone Creek, and then all the way down to Phoenix. I’m hoping it’s a coincidence that you’re here in Flagstaff and two trains have been boarded and looted, not ten miles from here, in the past six months.”

      Payton drew on his cheroot and blew a smoke ring. “You find religion or something?” he hedged. “Or maybe you’re just looking to make an extra dollar or two by riding my coattails.”

      Rowdy leaned forward in his chair, lowered his voice. “Listen to me, Pa,” he said. “I came to Stone Creek because I was asked to, by two Arizona Rangers. I don’t know for sure what they want with me, but I’ve got a hunch it has to do with the railroad coming in. Most likely the territorial governor is putting some pressure on them to put an end to the robberies. If folks don’t feel it’s safe to settle and do business here, the men back in Washington might not be willing to grant statehood.”

      Payton’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “What the hell do you care if Arizona ever becomes a state? You’re an outlaw. There’s a price on your head, Rob. You can’t afford to cozy up with rangers!”

      “If Sam O’Ballivan had me figured for an outlaw, he’d have tried to arrest me by now.”

      Payton went pale as limestone in a creek-bed. “Sam O’Ballivan?”

      “I see you know him,” Rowdy observed.

      “Hell, everybody in the territory knows him!”

      “He’s a good man,” Rowdy said.

      “He’s a ranger,” Payton returned. His hands tightened like talons on the arms of his chair, and he looked as though he might bolt out of it, crash through the window and hit the ground running. “First, last and always, Sam O’Ballivan is an Arizona Ranger. You have truck with him, and you’re likely to find yourself dangling at the end of a rope!”

      Rowdy looked around, spotted a decanter half-filled with liquor, and got up to pour a dose for the old man.

      “Drink this,” he ordered, holding out the squat glass. “And calm down. Otherwise, you’re likely to bust a blood vessel or something.”

      Payton clutched the glass, and his hand shook a little as he raised it to his lips, closing his eyes almost reverently, like a man taking a sacrament. He swallowed, shuddered, opened his eyes again.

      “You bring the rangers down on me, boy,” Payton said, when he’d recovered enough to speak, “and I’ll die in a jail cell. It’ll be on your head.”

      “I came here to warn you,” Rowdy replied, hooking his thumbs under his gun belt. “That’s more than you would have done for me. From here on out, you’re on your own—Pappy.”

      With that, Rowdy figured his business was concluded. He turned and made for the door. Took his hat from the fancy three-legged table, held it in one hand.

      Payton hoisted himself out of his chair and turned to face Rowdy. “You don’t owe me any favors, boy. I won’t argue that you do. But if you have an honorable bone in your body, you’ll ride out of here and keep on going, without a parting word to Sam O’Ballivan or anybody else.”

      Rowdy put his hat on, laid a hand on the fancy glass doorknob. “You’re right, Pa. I don’t owe you any favors. And I’m not going anyplace until I’ve heard Sam out. If you don’t want him coming after you, don’t rob any more trains.”

      “I gave that up a long time ago.”

      All of a sudden, the backs of Rowdy’s eyes burned, and his throat drew in tight. He didn’t know what he’d expected—it had been five years since he’d ridden with his pa’s gang—but it wasn’t this, whatever this was. “For your sake, I hope that’s the gospel truth. At the same time, your word and two cents would buy me a cheap cigar.”

      “I guess we understand each other then.”

      Rowdy nodded glumly. “One more thing,” he said, his voice coming out hoarse. He oughtn’t to linger, he knew that, but he did it just the same. “Is Gideon all right?”

      “He’s fine.”

      “You haven’t brought him into the family business, then?”

      “He’s only sixteen, Rob.”

      “I was fourteen, the first time I rode with you.”

      “I’m a different man than I was then,” Payton said. Now that the whiskey had hit his bloodstream, he was his familiar, cocky self. “Older. Wiser. And one hell of a lot sadder.”

      Rowdy didn’t reply to that. He simply nodded, opened the door and went out. He looked neither to the right nor the left as he strode through the saloon beyond. The swinging doors crashed against the outside walls when he struck them hard with the palms of both hands.

      * * *

      GIDEON PAYTON CROUCHED beside the small grave outside the picket fence surrounding the churchyard. The monument was white marble, the finest to be had, and there were no dates, no Bible verses or lines of mournful poetry—only two plain words, chiseled into Gideon’s heart as well as the stone.

      “Our Rose.”

      In the ten years since his sister had died, Gideon had visited this spot under the spreading limbs of an oak tree on all but a handful of days. He’d been a child himself when Rose was killed, only six, but the memory was as vivid as the town surrounding him now, the people coming and going in wagons and on horseback out there in the street, the bell tolling in the little steeple of yonder church.

      In spring and summer he brought her flowers, usually stolen from someone’s garden. In the fall the leaves of the great oak blanketed the long-since-sunken mound in glorious shades of crimson and russet and yellow and gold. In winter he offered trinkets—a bright bottle cap, a woman’s ear bob found on a sidewalk, a colorful stone from the banks of Oak Creek. Sometimes he read to her out loud from a storybook.

      Rose had loved stories, but he hadn’t known how to read yet when she was living.

      He supposed he ought to have gotten over the loss of her by now, since he was sixteen and almost a man, but some wounds never heal, no matter what the preachers said.

      Today Gideon laid a letter at the base of Rose’s headstone.

      “It’s from a college back east,” he told her quietly. “Pa went and signed me up for it.” He paused, frowned. “I don’t even like school that much, but I guess I’m good at it. Pa and Ruby say nothing worthwhile can come of my staying here, once I finish up my lesson-work this spring.”

      A flicker of motion at the edge of Gideon’s vision interrupted his speech before he could get to the part that sorrowed him most—he knew he’d have to go, and that would mean he couldn’t pay Rose any visits for a long time.

      A rider sat watching him from the road. His horse was