Love’s Sweet Revenge(176)

So what the hell had happened, dammit?

Rangers who’d ridden up told Sam they’d seen no one. He’d laid on the ground with the rope loosened around his neck, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Those questions and others haunted him, and he wouldn’t rest until he got answers. Somehow he knew Weston was the key.

At ranger headquarters, he took a deep breath before opening the door. He pushed a mite too hard, banging the knob against the wall. Captain O’Reilly jerked up from his desk. “What the hell, Legend? Trying to wake the dead?”

“Sorry, Cap’n. It got away from me.” It seemed a good many things had, recently.

The tall, slender captain waved him to a chair. “I haven’t heard this much racket since the shoot-out inside that silo with the Arnie brothers down in Sweetwater.”

Sam removed his drenched hat, lowered into the chair, and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I hope I can talk you out of your decision.”

O’Reilly sauntered to the potbellied stove in the corner and lifted the coffeepot. “What’s it been? A month?”

“An eternity,” Sam said quietly.

“Want a snort of coffee? Might improve your outlook.”

“I’ll take you up on your offer but doubt it’ll improve anything. I need this job, sir. I need to work.” Revenge burned hot. He’d not rest until he found the men who’d hung him, and when he did, they’d pay with their blood.

“What you need is some time off to get your head on straight. I can’t have you seeing things that aren’t there.” O’Reilly sighed. “You’re gonna get yourself or someone else killed. I’m ordering you to go home. Rest up, then come back ready to catch outlaws.”

“Finding the rustlers and catching Luke Weston is my first priority.”

“That wily outlaw has been taunting you for the last year.” O’Reilly’s eyes hardened as he handed Sam a tin cup. “It seems personal.”

“Hell yeah, it’s personal!”

Weston had been there. That much he knew for damn certain. The outlaw could have strung him up himself. Why else would Sam remember those green eyes, so pale they appeared silver?

In addition to that, and though it sounded rather trivial when compared to a hanging, Weston had taken Sam’s pocket watch during a stagecoach holdup a year ago. Sam tried to protect a payroll shipment, but Weston did the oddest thing. The outlaw took exactly fifty dollars, a paltry sum compared to what remained in the strongbox, and left the passengers’ belongings untouched. He did, however, seem to take particular delight in pocketing Sam’s prized timepiece. The way the wily outlaw singled Sam out was downright eerie. Weston knew exactly where to find the treasured keepsake. No rifling his pockets. No fumbling. No uncertainty. Memories of how Weston had flipped it open and stared intently at the inscription for almost a full minute before tucking it away drifted through Sam’s mind.

“Makes me mad enough to chew nails.” The thought filled Sam’s head with so many cuss words he feared it would burst open.

The captain leaned back in his chair and propped his boots on the scarred desk that Noah must’ve brought over on the ark. To make up for a missing leg, someone had cut a crutch and stuck it under there. “Sometimes we all get cases that sink their teeth into us and won’t let go.”

“I just about had him the last time.” And now the captain was forcing him to take time off. Sam would lose every bit of ground he’d gained.

Luke Weston had led him on a chase this past year from one end of Texas to the other. To this day, other than a vague outline of his figure, Sam had yet to glimpse anything solid except a pair of cold, pale green eyes glaring over the top of a bandana. Eyes that only held contempt and anger. Except for this last time, when they’d seemed to hold concern. But maybe he’d imagined that.

Damn! He really didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

Maybe the captain was right.

Reaching for a poster that lay atop a pile on his desk, Captain O’Reilly passed it to Sam. “Got this yesterday.” Bold lettering at the top of the page screamed: WANTED! $1,000 reward for capture and conviction of notorious outlaw Luke Weston. Sought for robbery and murder. Armed and considered extremely dangerous.

The murder charge was new since the last poster Sam had seen. The reward had been only two hundred dollars then. He stared at the thick paper and narrowed his eyes, wondering whose fate had intersected with Luke Weston’s.

“Who did he kill?”

O’Reilly’s face darkened. “Federal judge. Edgar Percival.”