Stoner's Crossing (Lone Star Legacy Book #2) , livre ebook

Lone Star Legacy Book Two
Stoner's Crossing
Judith Pella
Copyright © 1994 by Judith Pella
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6298-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Cover illustration by Joe Nordstrom
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
To my son Jon, whose good-natured spirit is the model
for the character, Jonathan Barnum.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
Matthew 5:8, KJV
Acknowledgments
I’d like to take a moment to offer thanks to some folks who had a special part in this book. First, to my friend, attorney William Barnum, who initially suggested that Deborah needed a good lawyer; he also gave me many helpful tips. Also, I’d like to mention the invaluable assistance of Angela A. Dorau, Assistant Archivist of the State Bar of Texas; she gave me much information on the legal history of Texas. Finally, some very special thanks to my friends, Don and Ame Cook, and their children, Beth, Mike, and Ben, for their wonderful hospitality in the true Texas style! while I visited that grand state in which this book is set.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part 1: Pursuit of the Past
Part 2: Capture
Part 3: Leonard’s Daughter
Part 4: Sam’s Quest
Part 5: Carolyn’s Legacy
Part 6: Pursuit of Hope
Part 7: Into the Fray
Part 8: Two New Friends
Part 9: Questions, but Few Answers
Part 10: Confusing Encounters
Part 11: Day in Court
Part 12: Mysterious Arrival
Part 13: Guilty or Innocent?
Part 14: Secrets Revealed
Part 15: Frontier Justice
Part 16: Truth and Peace
About the Author
Books by Judith Pella
Back Cover
Part 1
Pursuit of the Past
1
The high plains stretched out before the tall rider like an endless horizon of searing death. And it was only May, not even summer yet.
The palomino mare picked her way across the rocky, broken ground with as much care as her anxious rider would allow. The rider had to force himself not to drive the animal faster, to push her to keep pace with the pounding of his own heart. He glanced back several times but saw only the undulating heat waves that dogged him as relentlessly as any human pursuer.
If only he had checked his water supply before he had been forced to take flight! That had been purely stupid, like a greenhorn kid or one of those city dandies who had lately been trying their hand at ranching. He knew better. He had been riding this wild country for more years than he cared to admit.
He reached for his canteen just to see if…maybe…
One quick heft told him it was only half full and would never be enough to see him across the Llaño Estacado. But he hoped to heaven he wouldn’t have to go that far.
Perhaps a prayer or two wouldn’t hurt right now, but that wasn’t exactly his style. Now, if the preacher were here, the rider thought, I sure wouldn’t stand in his way if he wanted to send a word heavenward.
The rider had to admit to himself that he might not be in this fix if he had listened more to the preacher in the first place, walked the straight and narrow, and all that. But he was more apt to act first and think about the consequences later if he ever did. Usually the thrill of some wild and dangerous challenge far exceeded any retribution that might happen as a result. In the old days, being wanted by the law with a noose ever dangling in his future had never stopped him; in fact, that had only heightened the thrill. Sure, he had settled down some since then. What man doesn’t as he begins to feel his age and his mortality?
But, unfortunately, Griff McCulloch was no saint. He doubted he ever would be.
Griff twisted in his saddle once more to view the ground he had just traversed. Nothing. Only heat following him, and heat in front of him heat, and no prospects of water for miles. His mouth tasted like dirt and tumbleweed, but he couldn’t afford to indulge himself. He’d need water a lot more later on.
He was about to swing his gaze forward once more when he saw what he had been both dreading and anticipating for hours. It was faint, but there was definitely a cloud of dust southeast of him, some five miles off. Griff had been almost certain he had lost him, but that Pollard was a better man, at least a better tracker, than Griff had given him credit for.
Well, it was probably best this way. They had been destined for a showdown ever since that day nineteen years ago when they had first crossed paths. And then again, some ten years ago when he had seen the fellow at Fort Griffin, Griff thought it was going to blow up in his face. But nothing had come of it. Griff had managed to get himself and Deborah away without being seen. He had been ready to kill Pollard that day, but the ex-sheriff had disappeared, not to turn up again until last night in the Double Eagle Saloon in Danville.
Griff dug his heels into the palomino’s flanks. This was no time to ruminate over past mistakes. Pollard was on his tail and closing fast. If there was going to be a showdown, Griff would just as soon be the one to choose the battleground. In the distance ahead, about a mile away, he could make out a pile of big boulders that would give him some cover in a gunfight.
He had no doubt this was about to turn into a fight. He had sworn ten years ago to kill Pollard if he brought danger to Deborah, and he hadn’t changed his mind since.
“Geeiup!” Griff urged the mare. She held back a little, for she had enough good sense to know this wasn’t the kind of terrain you raced over carelessly. Griff was no fool either; he knew
It happened quicker than thought, faster than he could berate his foolish panic. The palomino went down, a hoof caught in a crevice in the dry, cracked earth. Griff rolled away from the animal as it fell, but escaping personal injury would hardly matter if his horse was hurt. She was a fine beast better, even, than the palomino he had lost years ago in the battle with the Comanche.
It didn’t take him long to see that he had another score to settle with Pollard.
The horse would have been back up on her feet if she were uninjured. When Griff came up to her, she lifted her head and shook her golden mane a bit as if in affectionate response. But she made no attempt to stand.
“You okay, girl?” Griff murmured as he examined each of her legs. He groaned inwardly as he felt the bones grind unnaturally in her right foreleg. She gave a pathetic whinny, and he gently eased the leg back to the ground.
Griff cursed bitterly. He wanted to blame Pollard, but he knew it was his own fault. If he hadn’t panicked…if he hadn’t let that drifter rile him last night…if he hadn’t been drinking…
But there had been a celebration. A cowhand friend of his from another ranch was getting married and having his last fling before tying the knot. And Slim, off selling horses in Fort Worth, hadn’t been there to keep Griff from the bottle. Griff knew he ought to be careful, but one thing just led to another, and before he knew it, he was drunk. The problem was, liquor always made him ornery as a polecat. When that drifter accused him of cheating at cards, he just got horn-mad.
“You take that back, you low-down sidewinder!” Griff had slurred.
“Make me!” challenged the drifter.
“You calling me out?”
“You bet I am!”
Everyone in the Double Eagle had scattered, and someone had gone after the sheriff.
Griff and the drifter faced off, and even though Griff had easily twenty years on the kid, he still outdrew him without so much as losing his breath.
When Pollard showed up, Griff was still drunk but not too drunk to immediately recognize the man who had officiated at the attempted hanging of Deborah Stoner, now Deborah Killion. When the saloon doors burst open and Pollard appeared, Griff was still standing over the dead drifter holding his smoking gun. Both men exchanged shocked looks. Griff didn’t wait to find out if Pollard recognized him or made the connection to Deborah. He holstered his Colt and bolted.
He had been too drunk to think straight. He probably should have hid out somewhere close by, but, instead, he lit out west, figuring to draw Pollard out on the barren plains and kill him there so no one would be the wiser.
For all these years it was 1884 now he and Deborah had managed to keep a low profile and not cross the path of anyone who had been involved in those proceedings at Stoner’s Crossing. They stayed away from town as much as possible, Deborah hardly ever going in, and he only when necessary for business and the occasional evening of recreation. A man couldn’t live like a hermit, no matter what. Deborah seemed to prefer the solitude of the ranch, but Griff had to have some action, even if just three or four times a year.
There was no reason why they couldn’t have gone on like that forever. Who would have thought Pollard would find a sheriffing job in Danville, a little more than a day’s ride from the ranch?
It occurred to him that Pollard might have told someone in town about him and Deborah, but Griff couldn’t worry about that now. For the present, he just had to concentrate on Pollard. Get him…or die trying. And dying was becoming a strong possibility, for without a horse he