The Rustler. Linda Lael Miller
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O’BALLIVAN MUST HAVE BEEN an important man, Wyatt concluded, because they held the departing train for him. He arrived driving a wagon, with a boy and a baby and a pretty woman aboard, a string of horses traveling alongside, led by a couple of ranch hands. While all the baggage and mounts were loaded into railroad cars, Lark and Sam’s wife chattered like a couple of magpies on a clothesline.
Rowdy made the introductions, and Sam and Wyatt shook hands, standing there beside the tracks, the locomotive still pumping gusts of white steam. Sam was a big man, clear-eyed and broad-shouldered, with an air of authority about him. He not only owned the biggest ranch within miles of Stone Creek, he was an Arizona Ranger, which was the main reason he and Rowdy had been summoned to Haven.
“I hear you’re a fair hand with horses and cattle,” Sam said, in his deep, quiet voice.
The statement gave Wyatt a bit of a start, until he realized Sam was talking about ranch work, not rustling. “I can manage a herd, all right,” Wyatt confirmed.
Sam gave a spare smile. His gaze penetrated deep, like Rowdy’s, and it was unsettling. “I’m looking for a range foreman,” the rancher said. “Job comes with a cabin and meals in the bunkhouse kitchen. Fifty dollars a month. Would you be interested?”
Rowdy must have seen that Wyatt was surprised by the offer, given that he was a stranger to O’Ballivan, because he explained right away. “I told Sam all about you.”
“All of it?” Wyatt asked, searching his brother’s face.
“I know you did some time down in Texas,” Sam said.
Wyatt stole a glance at the pretty woman laughing and comparing babies with Lark a few yards away. A tall boy stood nearby, waiting impatiently to board the train. “And that doesn’t bother you? Having a jailbird on your place, with your family there and all?”
“Rowdy’s willing to vouch for you,” Sam said. “That’s good enough for me.”
Wyatt looked at Rowdy with new respect. What would it be like to be trusted like that?
“I figure we ought to appoint Wyatt deputy marshal,” Rowdy said. “Being the mayor of Stone Creek, you’d have to swear him in.”
Sam nodded, but he was still looking deep enough to see things Wyatt didn’t want to reveal. “Do you swear to uphold the duties of deputy marshal?” he asked.
“Yes,” Wyatt heard himself say.
Rowdy handed him his badge just as Gideon showed up, a pair of bulging saddlebags over one shoulder, the old yellow dog padding along behind him.
“Pardner’s going, too,” Gideon said, apparently braced for an objection.
Nobody raised one.
Inside the locomotive, the engineer blew the whistle.
“Guess we’d better get going,” Rowdy said, with a grin. “The train’s got a schedule to keep.”
With that, there was some hand-shaking, and some fare-thee-wells, then the whole crowd of them boarded, even the yellow dog. Wyatt stood there, Rowdy’s star-shaped badge heavy in his left hand, and wondered how he’d gotten himself into this situation. It was all well and good to figure on running for it before Sam and Rowdy caught up to what was left of the Justice gang and learned that he, Wyatt, had ridden with the sorry outfit. The trouble was, except for stealing one of his brother’s horses, a thing Rowdy had rightly guessed he could not do, and taking to the trail, he didn’t have any choice but to stay right there in Stone Creek.
Hell, he might as well just shut himself up behind the cell door over there in the jailhouse right now and be done with it.
He watched, feeling a strange combination of misery and anticipation, as the train pulled out of the depot onto a curved spur, Stone Creek being at present the end of the line, and snaked itself around to chug off in the other direction. Steam billowed from the smokestack as it picked up speed.
When he turned to walk away, he almost collided with a small boy in knee pants and a woolen coat.
The kid’s gaze fastened on Rowdy’s star as Wyatt pinned it to his shirt.
“You the law around here?” the boy asked, squinting against the bright August sun as he looked up at Wyatt.
“For the moment,” Wyatt said.
“Owen Langstreet,” the child replied, putting out a small hand with manly solemnity. “I got expelled from school for throwing a girl named Sally Weekins down the laundry chute. Not that you can arrest me or anything, Sheriff—?”
“Name’s Wyatt Yarbro,” Wyatt told young Mr. Langstreet, “and I’m not the sheriff. That’s an elected office, one to a county. Reckon my proper title is ‘deputy marshal.’ Why would you go and dump somebody down a laundry chute?”
“It’s a long story,” Owen answered. “She didn’t get hurt, and you can’t arrest me for it, anyhow. It happened in Philadelphia, and that’s outside your jurisdiction.”
Wyatt frowned. “How old are you?”
“Ten,” Owen said.
“I’d have pegged you for at least forty.” Wyatt started back for the main part of town, one street over, figuring he ought to walk around and look like he was marshaling. He wasn’t looking forward to going back to the jail; it would be a lonely place, with nobody else around.
“There probably aren’t any laundry chutes in Stone Creek,” Owen went on, scrambling to keep up. “Papa says it’s a one-horse, shit-heel town in the middle of nowhere. Even the hotel only has two stories. And no elevator.”
“That so?” Wyatt replied. The kid talked like a brat, using swearwords and bragging about poking a girl down a chute, but there was something engaging about him, too. He wasn’t pestering Wyatt out of devilment; he wanted somebody to talk to.
Wyatt knew the feeling.
“He’s going to take Aunt Sarah’s bank away from her,” Owen said.
Wyatt stopped cold, looked down at the kid, frowning. “What?”
“Papa says there’s something rotten in Denmark.”
“Just who is your papa, anyhow?”
“His name is Charles Langstreet the Third,” Owen replied matter-of-factly. “You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”
“Can’t say as I have,” Wyatt admitted, setting his course for the Stockman’s Bank, though he had no business there, without a dime to his name. If Sarah was around, he’d tell her he was Rowdy’s deputy now, out making his normal rounds. It made sense for a lawman to keep an eye on the local bank, didn’t it?
“He’s very rich,” Owen said. “I’m going to have to make my own way when I grow up, though. Mother said so. I needn’t plan on getting one nickel of the Langstreet fortune, since I’m a bastard.”
As concerned as he was about Sarah, and the fact that some yahoo called Charles Langstreet the Third was evidently plotting to relieve her of the Stockman’s Bank, Wyatt stopped again and looked down at Owen. “Your mother called you a bastard?”
Owen nodded, unfazed. “It means—”
“I know what it means,” Wyatt interrupted. “Does this papa of yours know you’re running loose in a cow town, all by yourself?”
“I’m not by myself,” Owen reasoned. “I’m with you. And you’re a deputy. What could happen to me when you’re here?”
“The point is,” Wyatt continued, walking again, “he doesn’t know you’re with me, now does he?”
“He knows everything,” Owen said, with certainty. “He’s very clever. People tip their hats to him and call him ‘sir.’”
“Do