Marshal Jeremy Six #7 by Brian Garfield

Author:Brian Garfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: death wish, colt revolver, piccadilly publishing, pulp westerns, westerns ebook, lawmen of the old west, brian garfield, westerns 1880s, jeremy six western
Publisher: Piccadilly

Six

Destiny went back through the office to the corridor that separated the jail’s two rows of cells. The drunk he had arrested last night was still asleep; it amazed Destiny that anybody could have slept while last night’s and this morning’s events took place.

He woke the drunk, let him out and sent him on his way, a hungover man with a sour taste in his mouth and a gingerly way of walking. When the drunk was gone, Destiny sat down behind Six’s desk and planted his elbows on it and began to sort things out.

There wasn’t enough evidence, unexplained cigar or no cigar, to convict Garrett Mainwaring of the murder of his son. Nobody could prove it had been murder, because it had not been murder. Destiny knew that for a fact. He knew Mainwaring hadn’t even been in the house when Earle died. He knew a lot of things, since he had been there when Earle died, but the question was not how much he knew but, rather, how much he was willing to tell.

I should have stayed put in the first place. Should have stayed put and told the truth. I didn’t. I ran away.

Why?

There was no explaining the instant’s blind panic that had driven him out that door … and forced him into a tangled web of deceit, guilt and bluff. God, God, if I had only—

The door broke into his thought; a wide skirt flowed past the opening door and then the beauty of Lisa Mainwaring stood before him. Instinct made Destiny get to his feet.

She said, “I hoped I’d find you here.”

“Thinking,” he muttered. “Trying to figure out where to get started.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I know you have to stop and add things up before you start. Nobody wants you to run around like a headless chicken.”

He smiled vaguely. It did not escape his notice that she had changed into a black dress. It made her tanned face seem more pale; she looked more fragile, more delicate, than she had this morning. The tracks of grief stained her eyes. He had the impulse to wrap his arms around her protectively.

He stood still, behind the desk. He could not think of anything to say. She cocked her head slightly to the side and studied him. After a while the silence became awkward and Destiny cleared his throat. The girl said, “How old are you?”

It was a strange thing for her to say; it surprised him. Finally he said, “Ninety-five, I think. But I don’t feel a day over seventy.” He smiled slightly at his awkward joke and spread his hands in an apologetic gesture. “Twenty-two.”

“My brother was the same age. Did you know that?”

“No,” he said, startled. Here I was thinking of him all the time as a kid.

“Twenty-two,” she murmured. “It took twenty-two years to make him what he was—and I admit that wasn’t as much as it should have been. But it only took three seconds to end that. Or was it less than that? How long does it take to fall that far?”

A damned long time, he thought, remembering.

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