Reuben Cole Westerns Collection

Chapter 9

Roose came out of Doc Evans’ home, which doubled as his surgery and stood on the porch, looking down the street towards a voice he recognized.

It was Maddie. Dressed in a cornflower blue dress, with a tiny pillbox hat set upon her mass of tumbling golden locks, she drove a small buggy, calling, ‘Sterling, what in blazes is going on?’

One of the things he truly adored about Maddie was the way her beautiful looks did not quite match the coarse sounding voice. She was a wildcat, both in and out of bed, and he smiled with a mixture of pride and joy as she drew closer. She was as hard as they come while always managing to look as pretty as a picture.

However, in her eyes today burned something he did not recognize.

She pulled up close and yanked back the wheel brake. Studying him for a few moments, her voice cracked as she spoke. “I went to your office to call in on you being as you left me without a word this morning.’

‘Ah, yes, I’m sorry about that but—’

‘And when I got there, your young deputy and another youth is manhandling a body out of the cell. So I stops, all of a flutter as you would expect,´ – he did and he pulled off his hat and went to explain but was intercepted yet again – ‘when I look and see who it was.’

‘Who it … Well, I have to admit he did mention you by name so I assumed he was a jealous lover.’ The lie came easily to him, for he knew full well the dead man was her husband but he couldn’t tell her that. Roose shot her a coy smile. ‘I am well aware you have several other gentlemen friends.’

‘He was more than a friend, Sterling! It was Gunther.’

more ‘Gunther?’

‘Yes, you dimwit – Gunther Haas, my husband!’

my husbandFor one terrible moment, Roose believed he could be in danger of over-acting as his mouth opened and his eyes bulged. Gaping grotesquely, he forced a strained, ‘Husband?’ She nodded and, to give her words more emphasis, she sniffed loudly, produced a silk handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose into it. Roose ran a shaking hand across his mouth. ‘Oh jeepers.’

‘Yes, you may well say ‘oh jeepers’!’ She gave her nose another blast then climbed down from the buggy seat and stepped up to him, hands on her hips, head tilted, mouth set in a thin line. ‘You seriously telling me you didn’t know who he was?’

‘I swear it.’

‘All right, if that is so, you tell me what Gunther is doing in your jail, dead as a post.’

your Hearing the raised voices and Maddie’s heartfelt sobbing, Doc Evans stepped from out of his surgery, assessed the situation, and helped Maddie inside. He set her down at his kitchen table while Roose, following like a chastised dog, stood in the doorway, arms folded, wondering how he was going to survive the next few minutes.

‘There, there, Mrs. Haas,’ said the Doc in soothing tones as he set a glass of water down before her, ‘try and drink that and don’t upset yourself so.’

Mumbling her thanks, Maddie did as suggested. She sat quietly, dabbing at her eyes and nose with the handkerchief, inhaled breath shuddering in her throat.

Turning from her, Doc Evans’ eyes settled on Roose, the unspoken question hanging there.

“She’s had some bad news,’ said Roose, unable to hold the doctor’s stare. ‘Very bad.’

‘He’s dead, damn your eyes, Sterling Roose!’

dead, Turning from one to the other, a deep frown forming ever more pronounced, Evans shook his head. ‘Who is dead?’

‘Her husband.’

Evans gaped and looked at Maddie, whimpering. ‘Your husband? Why I never even knew he was back in town. How long is it since you—’

‘Over three years.’

‘Well, I’ll be.’ Shaking his head, Doc Evans went over to a large, glass-fronted cabinet, opened it and carefully extracted a bell jar bottle, about three-quarters full of a brown liquid. He pulled out the stopper and filled a small glass from the bottle and handed it over to Maddie. ‘Medicinal brandy. I’m guessing you could do with that right now.’

She nodded her thanks, paused for a moment, then tipped the contents of the glass straight down her throat.

Evans gave Roose a startled look, Roose responding with a slight shrug and a knowing raising of the brows.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said, thrusting out the glass towards Evans. ‘Another if you don’t mind.’

Roose suppressed a chuckle as Evans poured out a second healthy measure. Maddie took her time with this one.

‘I’m sincerely sorry for your loss. I shall ask Miss Coulson, my nurse, to accompany you home. You shouldn’t be alone after such a shock.’ He turned to Roose. ‘I’m assuming there was foul play, so any idea who might have done such a thing?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Roose with a slight smile, ‘I have a very good idea.’

Maddie refused the offer of being accompanied home. Instead, she got Roose to steer the little buggy out of the town limits and bring it to a halt on the top of a nearby knoll, under the shade of several trees.

‘You killed him, didn’t you?’

‘Now why would you think such a thing?’

‘Because I saw the look in your eyes when the good doctor asked you.’

Roose cleared his throat, taking out his tobacco pouch. ‘I had no idea he was your husband.’

‘Would that have made any difference?’

‘Maybe, Maybe not,’ he drizzled a line of tobacco onto a paper and deftly rolled it into shape. ‘He had a g*n on me, was most likely set on shooting me dead. I did what I had to do.’ He studied her. ‘How come you never mentioned him all the times we’ve been together?’

‘We were estranged.’

‘E-what?’

‘Estranged. Separated. He’d started playing around with some Mexican harlot called Beatriz Gomez a few years back so I threw him out. Best thing I ever did. It was always my intention to tell you, Sterling …’ A fluttering of the eyelashes. ‘I promise.’

‘Bah, it don’t much matter to me none.’ He put the cigarette into his mouth, struck a lucifer on the dull metal tin in which he kept his papers, and touched the flame to the end. It flared and Roose took in a pull of smoke and blew it out in a long stream. ‘What’s done is done. I have more important things to think about. And I need your ranch hand to help me out.’

‘Cougan? He’s a live one, that man is just like his pa.’

‘I knew his pa. Knew him well.’

‘Then you’ll know his son still blames us all for what happened to his family down in Louisiana. They were hanged, fleeing from the plantation there were all working on. He doesn’t take too kindly to white folks, especially the law-making kind.’

‘I don’t make the law, Maddie, I just dish out its justice. Reuben Cole was beaten half to death by a bunch of drifters last ni—’ He stopped when he saw her face, those eyes widening, lips trembling. For a moment it seemed to him she was about to faint. ‘Are you all right?’

Taking a moment, she pulled out a small silk handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed it at her mouth. ‘Cole? Is he … I mean, beaten half to death you said.’

‘Yeah …’ He swept his eyes over her. If he wasn’t mistaken she seemed more disturbed by the news about Cole than she had about her husband. ‘But you know Cole …’ A look of alarm ran across her features.

‘Well, yes, I know him, but not in that way, Sterling.’

yes‘I never said you did, Maddie,’ Roose said slowly, eyes locked on hers now. ‘What I meant was, he is as tough as they come and they may have tried their darndest, but they didn’t succeed in killing him.’

‘Ah yes, yes of course.’ She forced a tiny chuckle and returned the handkerchief to its resting place. ‘So, what happened exactly?’

‘They broke into his house and have run off with almost all of his family heirlooms, probably worth a goodly sum, and I aim to bring ‘em back to pay their dues.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course … But why do you need Cougan?’

‘Because he is one of the best local shootin’ men and I might have need of his services. I have a couple of trackers, but I doubt they’ll be much good in a firefight.’ He laughed as he studied the burning end of his cigarette. ‘Fortuitous of you to come into town when you did. Perhaps it’s a sign.’

She sniffed loudly, emotions recovering. ‘Poor Gunther. You had no need to kill him.’

‘I had every need. He would have killed me.’

‘Well, we’ll see what the judge has to say about that.’

‘Judge? What what do you mean by that?’

‘I mean I aim to let justice take its course, Sterling. I’m only repeating your own sentiments on the matter.’

mean ‘You are a vixen, Maddie! I told you I had no choice.’

‘We shall see. There are bound to be witnesses.’

‘What? Who have you spoken to? Whoever it was, they have got it wrong, I swear to you.’

‘No Sterling, I haven’t spoken to anyone, not yet. But I think I might have a fair idea where to start.’ She smiled. ‘Now, if you’re not going to kiss me, take yourself back into town and then you can get on with your manhunt.’

They waited until late in the afternoon before they spotted Cougan coming into town astride of a large and powerful looking colt. He was a large, heavily muscled man, who wore a grey army shirt, and army blue pants held up by broad braces. In his waistbelt was a Navy Colt and, in its sheath slapping against the horse’s rump, a Spencer carbine. If it wasn’t for the ridiculously small bowler set askew on top of his close-shaven pate, he looked for all the world like a man on a mission.

‘Dear Lord, he is one big bruiser,’ said Nelson Samuels, waiting on his own horse next to Roose.

‘He is a fister,’ said Roose, ‘so try not to rile him too much.’ He looked askew at the other man he had pressed into service, Ryan Stone, a tall, wiry-looking man with sharp features. He looked mean and Roose felt a knot tightening in his middle. ‘You’re not looking too pleased with our companion’s arrival, Ryan. Why’s that? Had dealings with Cougan before?’

‘Our paths have crossed.’ He leaned over the side of his horse, hawked and spat into the dirt. ‘Never did like him. A loud-mouthed boaster is what he is. What possessed you to bring him along?’

‘He’s the finest shot this side of the Mississippi. No other reason. See that big old Sharps he’s lugging? He can take a rattler"s eye out at a thousand yards with it.’

‘That’s a Spencer carbine, Sheriff,’ said Samuels slowly. ‘Not that it matters if he can use it.’ Samuels shifted his weight in his saddle. ‘Let’s just do the niceties and get this thing done. My wife is all shook-up because of Reuben Cole and she wants those men apprehended.’

‘Or killed,’ muttered Ryan, his eyes never leaving Cougan as the big man reined in not half a dozen paces from them. He did not speak.

Roose didn’t either, giving Cougan the briefest of nods before turning his mount around and kicking it into a lazy trot. Thinking things through, he wouldn’t mind at all if those men were killed. Killing had always been something of a bed-fellow for Sterling Roose.