Salvation in the Rancher's Arms(85)
“Had the sense you two were right cozy up there.”
“We were,” Caleb admitted. “Until I told her I’m the one who killed her husband.”
Donovan stiffened and his hand automatically went to the gun at his hip, his fingers playing against the handle. The sheriff was a smart man. It didn’t take him long to make the connection. It was a testament to his courage that his hand remained on his gun. And testimony to his intelligence that he didn’t draw.
“You’re Sinjin Drake?”
Caleb nodded and, with little preamble, gave him the same story he’d relayed to Rachel three days earlier. It didn’t get any easier to tell the second time around.
“The law cleared you?”
“You know they did.” The sheriff had investigated Robert’s death. In another town on another day maybe Caleb would have hung for it, but the law in Laramie had been happy to send the notorious gunslinger on his way, get him out of their town and the body with him. Sweep the whole thing under the rug as if it had never happened.
“I take it Rachel wasn’t quite as charitable.”
“Would you have been, in her shoes?” Donovan didn’t answer, his silence summing up what Caleb already knew. What he had done was unforgivable.
He stared down at his empty glass, tilting his head at the deed. “You’ll see she gets this?”
“I will. Take it this means you’re leaving town?” Caleb noted the hopeful sound in Donovan’s voice. He was a good man. Probably the one Rachel should have chosen all those years ago. How different her life would have been.
“I have one more thing I need to take care of.”
“Kirkpatrick?”
“Kirkpatrick.” Caleb turned to the sheriff, his coat falling open to reveal the guns strapped to his hips.
“You plan on confronting him, or killing him?”
Caleb didn’t answer.
“You’ll swing for it, regardless of how vile the man is. If you go out there and intentionally kill him there isn’t anything I can do to help you.”
“I’m not asking for your help.”
If killing Kirkpatrick kept Rachel and her family safe, he’d gladly accept the noose. What did he have left to live for, anyway? Without Rachel, the rest of his life stretched out like a vast wasteland. He’d spent his life living by the gun. Every time he tried to leave that life behind, it tracked him down. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe everything he had done up to now simply led him to this moment.
“See that Rachel’s taken care of.”
The idea of her with another man made him sick, but she deserved someone to lean on, someone to share the burden with. Someone better than him. She could do a lot worse than Hunter Donovan. Despite that, Caleb couldn’t help but hate the man a little for being able to step into the life he wanted for himself.
Donovan folded the deed and slipped it into the front pocket of his shirt behind his badge. He sat silent a moment before speaking again.
“Maybe I’ll ride out to see Rachel today.”
“I appreciate it.”
“In fact, maybe I’ll even forget you and I had this conversation, or that I saw you wearing those guns.”
Caleb looked at Donovan, but the sheriff was staring at the glasses lining the shelf behind the bar.
“It’s even plausible that, after you finish your business with Kirkpatrick and ride out of town, I’ll remember you had left much earlier than you did so as to make it impossible you could have met with him at all.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“Ain’t doing it for you.” Donovan stood and headed for the door. “I’m doing it for Rachel. She might hate you now but it will pass. And when it does, I don’t want her stewing in guilt or crying over your grave.”
Caleb didn’t want that, either, though a small part of him embraced the idea that she would still care enough to miss him. He would miss her, too. He would feel her absence keenly with every breath he took, from this day forward. “Do what you have to.”
“You, too.”
Caleb waited for the sheriff to leave, took one last sweeping glance around the saloon, empty save for a couple of tired old whores and a drunk in the corner. They wouldn’t remember him, their memories conveniently vacant. He could kill Kirkpatrick, ride out of town and keep on going as if he’d never seen or heard of Salvation Falls.
Except that he had, and whether he swung from a rope or rode out of town a free man, he left here a ghost.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The damp white sheet flapped around Rachel like a ghostly specter as she struggled to peg it onto the clothesline. She’d thrown herself into helping Freedom with the laundry, anything to escape the unending regret at her angry reaction of three days ago.