Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)(56)

“The food smells wonderful, Molly. If you think I dare risk it, I’d love some.”

“You’re long overdue for a good meal.” Molly smiled. Her relief was matched only by her delight. “Come and join us. We had chicken stew, which is just a bit up from chicken soup. I think you can have some.”

Rachel sat down in the chair John had been sitting in.

“I’ve been on a train and now at the table for so long it feels good to stand,” he said. He quickly ran through all he’d found again.

Rachel listened and added a few details that she hadn’t yet written down, especially about Randall Kingston.

“He’s being held in Casper,” Cheyenne said. “They already arrested him for shooting you, but they were waiting to see if the charges would rise to the level of murder.”

Rachel paused her eating and scowled for a bit. “Glad I couldn’t accommodate them about the murder. But I’d like to know how much he knew about Hawkins. We might be able to question Kingston in a way that makes it possible to charge him as aiding in all of Hawkins’s crimes, including murder.”

Silence fell as Rachel ate. John retrieved his cobbler and leaned against the kitchen wall.

Into the silence, Molly asked, “So which one of those men shot Wyatt?”

That got everyone’s attention.

“I’ve sort of figured it was one of the outlaws Cheyenne and Falcon shot,” Wyatt said. “Two men died when they brought those rustlers in. They weren’t all accounted for when we were hunting Ralston.”

“I thought so, too,” Cheyenne said. “It’d be real tidy if the man who shot you was dead. But the way Kingston shot Rachel was so similar to how you were shot, it really made us wonder.”

“If Kingston and Clovis are brothers, Kingston should have been loyal to Wyatt,” John said. “Clovis managed to have three sons, and he cared enough about you all to leave you land. Why would his brother try to kill you?”

“Did Pa really care?” Kevin asked quietly. “Or did he want to flaunt how he’d fooled everyone? What better way than, after he was dead, to let his big secret out of the bag. It was a way to hurt Cheyenne, too, and take a big old gouge outa Katherine Hunt, his third and final wife, who made no secret of her contempt for him.”

“So Clovis left the land to his young’uns,” John said. “That still doesn’t explain why they’d hurt Wyatt. Or which one of them did it.”

“My dislike of my pa was no secret. Could that be enough?” Wyatt asked.

John came to Rachel’s side of the table. “You’re one of the best agents we have. How do you read this?”

“Kingston might admit to my shooting under questioning. Shooting a woman is a serious business out west and nowhere more so than in Wyoming Territory, where women have the right to vote. If we convince him he’s going to hang, he might be willing to admit to a second shooting—again with no one dying—to escape the noose.”

“Especially if we can prove he knew about Hawkins being a murderer and covered it up. Those would be hanging offenses.” John took his last bite of cobbler.

“He might turn on Hawkins to keep from having his neck stretched.” Falcon looked at Wyatt. At Kevin. “We’ve all been shot in this mess.”

“But you and Kevin were shot by the rustlers.”

That gained another lengthy silence.

“Hawkins couldn’t have been in on rustling his own cattle, could he?” John asked.

“Except, did he rustle his own cattle, or were the bulk of them from the RHR, and he just ran some of his cattle in with them?” Wyatt asked. “Or maybe turned a blind eye when his men did it, as long as they left his main herd alone?”

Shaking his head at all the pieces that needed to fit together, John said, “We’ll arrest Hawkins tomorrow and see about bringing Kingston over here to face charges. While Hawkins is in jail, we’ll search his house and see what else is in that safe.”

Rachel finished her chicken stew and managed a small bowl of cobbler. Then she said, “After a week in bed it feels foolish, but I need to get some rest.”

“Let me help you back upstairs,” John said. “I’d like a moment of time talking in private.”

Kevin and Win began washing the dishes. Molly cleared the table and wondered what John McCall didn’t think he could say in front of all of them.





Twenty-Four




Wyatt hitched up the buggy the next morning. They didn’t use it often because they usually either rode horseback or needed a wagon to bring home supplies. But Rachel, worn down but determined to go, needed the easiest ride they could find for her.

When they arrived at Sheriff Corly’s office, Wyatt was surprised to find him talking to Sheriff Gatlin from Casper.

Both men greeted them in a friendly way, but whatever they were talking about ended.

“We’ve got an investigation going that concerns Randall Kingston, the man who shot Rachel Hobart,” Sherriff Corly said.

Gatlin’s eyes shifted to Rachel. “I’m glad you’re doing well, miss. Real glad.”

“How’s Kingston?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m over here for.” Gatlin nodded at the jail cell. Stretched out, sleeping like an innocent child, was Randall Kingston.