Branded Page 18

  It must have been telepathy because at that exact moment the husband felt the lawman’s eyes on him and turned to look straight in Sweet’s face, locking eyes with him.

  Tension crackled in the air during that look.

  Then the husband threw a crooked grin and a little nod to the deputy. Come and get it, asshole.

  Reaching for his handcuffs, in midstep toward the husband, Deputy Sweet stopped dead in his tracks when he saw she was here.

  Puzzleface was in the casino, wearing his suit, vest, trousers, and waxed beard and mustache. And was coming right toward them. Moving boldly through the crowd, she fearlessly closed in on the poker table her husband was sitting at. What was she doing here? Sweet saw the husband’s back was to his wife and didn’t see her coming in her elegant disguise.

  At the poker table, Puzzleface pulled out a chair and took a seat directly across from her husband. She gestured for a hand of cards from the dealer while her weak hand on her wounded shoulder side tossed chips into the pot. Behind the false eyebrows and phony mustache, her eyes were fixed on her ex-husband.

  He was only three feet away across the table from her.

  The husband faced away from his wife, watching the deputy staring him down, and when the deputy suddenly broke that stare to look at Puzzleface, the husband followed his gaze and that’s when he saw his wife.

  If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it.

  What the hell was Rachel doing? Sweet thought in alarm. Her husband’s pistol was in easy reach and he looked like one of those nothing-to-lose types crazy enough to blow his wife away right here in the casino. The deputy knew he had to change position to gain tactical advantage if this thing went sideways, so avoiding sudden moves, he maneuvered himself over to the wall directly behind Puzzleface. This faced him toward the husband and kept the man in his sightline. Sweet’s eyes never left Rachel’s husband or his wife, watching their every move as they faced each other. Deputy Sweet was impressed. Rachel displayed unnerving mettle in her Puzzleface disguise. There she was, facing her abusive violent ex-husband, a man who just shot her in the back, and she sat across from her spouse looking him straight in the eye without a drop of sweat. He didn’t think she had it in her. He was right, she didn’t have it in her. That’s when Deputy Sweet realized Rachel’s plan . . . Puzzleface would be the armor of the knight she rode into battle as to overcome her abuser.

  The husband was the first to speak. “Told you I’d find you.”

  “Hello, Ike.”

  “Said you’d never get away from me.”

  “I’m just here to play cards.”

  The two locked eyes, a tricky suspicious smile snaking across his face. “What’s going on here?”

  “Let’s play cards,” said Puzzleface.

  “You’re not good enough to play against me. And that getup of yours doesn’t change anything. You’re still my property. I own you.”

  “Not after this game.”

  “You two gonna talk or play cards?” Deputy Sweet said. Rachel looked over her shoulder and saw the big lawman positioned against the wall right behind her, cradling his Winchester rifle. She was safe and felt it. He literally had her back. Rachel felt brave enough reinforced by the lawman’s presence. She had no fear of her abusive ex-husband, and after this game she never would be again.

  Ike shot a surly glance up at Deputy Sweet standing directly behind Puzzleface, watching his every move like a hawk. The marshal would be on him the second he grabbed for a gun or an ace up his sleeve, so he wasn’t going to get away with any tricks. Nothing the husband could do about it, so he slid his slippery gaze back to his disguised wife.

  “I hope you don’t have anything else up your sleeve,” Puzzleface said.

  Ike turned red. “Play cards.”

  There were four players at the table.

  The dealer was a white-haired old man who shuffled and dealt everyone five cards. “Everybody anted up?” They all pushed in their chips to the pot.

  Puzzleface picked up her cards and peered at them with a perfect poker face, keeping them so close to her chest even Sweet couldn’t see them. Rachel was a pro card player who knew how to conceal her hand, keeping her cards to herself.

  Ike grabbed his cards up off the table with lip-smacking swaggering confidence he would win and she would lose. Looking at his cards, the husband laughed with pleasure.

  He raised. Asked for no cards.

  Puzzleface doubled the raise. Asked for three cards.

  The two other cowboy players folded.

  With a slash of a grin, Ike dropped three kings on the table.

  Expressionless, Puzzleface dropped a royal flush.

  Won the pot and dragged about a hundred dollars in chips over to her side of the table. The husband couldn’t believe it, seemed shaken by it.

  “I win. You lose,” Puzzleface said.

  Ike flinched from a bolt of fear.

  They played another hand.

  Puzzleface won with a straight.

  Then she won the next five hands. Puzzleface was up six hundred and twenty-four dollars.

  Across the table, Ike was down five hundred and twenty dollars and change, close to broke. He was starting to unravel, losing to the wife who was beating him at his own game. Against the wall Deputy Sweet saw how agitated the husband was, and began to get worried about that revolver in his holster, thinking he should disarm him.

  The other two players left the table to use the bathroom, they said, but really to get away. The poker game was now just Puzzleface and Ike. Everyone else had the good sense to know this was their game, and as people gathered around to watch it, a few spectators began to suspect this game of poker had its own set of rules.

  “Well, I’ll see you and raise you. Fifty dollars.”

  “Call.”

  The two showed their cards.

  Puzzleface had a royal flush.

  The husband had a flush.

  With one arm, the wife gathered the pile of her husband’s chips to the mountain of chips on her side of the table.

  The next three hands went to Puzzleface.

  The husband lost more of his money with every hand, going officially broke when Puzzleface raised him a hundred dollars on the next hand.

  The man sweated and squirmed in his seat, checking his empty wallet. “I-I . . .”

  “I’ll raise you your gun,” said Puzzleface.

  “You want me to bet my gun?”

  “Then you can call.”

  Full of arrogance and ugly crudeness, Ike hauled his revolver onto the table, scattering chips. “Okay, call!”

  He set down three aces.

  Clapped his hands.

  Puzzleface laid down a full house, kings and jacks.

  There was a twinge of fear on the husband’s stunned face as his wife snatched his gun off the table and the man found himself unarmed.

  “You know why I beat you, Ike, why I keep beating you? It’s because I’m better than you.” Frank.” Puzzleface’s taunts dismantled her abusive husband one piece at a time. “That must really piss you off, Ike. Must make you want to shoot yourself. Too bad I won your gun. Win it back. You got something to bet with.”

  He was listening.

  “Bet your horse.”

  “The horse is bet.”

  Lost to a pair of tens and sevens.

  Leaning in with a cold-eyed stare, Puzzleface chuckled to Ike. “You lost your money. You lost your gun. You lost your horse. How does it feel to lose? And lose. And keep losing. Get used to it. Because you lost everything, including your wife.”

  Suddenly, Ike leaned savagely over the table to whisper to Puzzleface, who leaned forward so their faces were inches apart . . . “You give me all my shit back, I want everything back, or I’ll damn well tell everybody who you are!” he hissed. “Under that monkey suit.”

  “You won’t do that, Frank,” Puzzleface whispered back. “Because then everybody will know that you got busted out by your wife, who ran away
from you, and who is a woman. And you’ll look like a sissy, Ike. You lost everything you have, except maybe a shred of your reputation. I’d keep what’s left of it.”

  In hell, jerking back upright in his chair, the husband yanked his hair then smashed the table with his fist. He pointed at Puzzleface. “I’m gonna beat you. Bad streak is all. Just keep playing. Deal the cards.”

  “You need credit to play.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I need.” Ike hemorrhaged sweat.

  “I’ll give you credit. A thousand-dollar marker,” Puzzleface said. “You win the next hand, you get all your stuff back, your gun, your horse, the cash you lost, you can keep playing me, Ike.”

  “And if I lose I’m screwed.”

  “If you lose, I own your ass.” A razor-sharp smile appeared on Rachel’s lips behind the false mustache. “I own you.”

  “Deal me in.”

  There was no money in the pot.

  Souls were bet.

  “Three cards.”

  “Two cards.”

  “Let’s see your hand . . .”

  * * *

  “I’m not paying you, that’s all there is to it.”

  In the town square across from the Jackson Hotel, Rachel and Ike stood arguing on the grass. Both were so covered with falling snow nearby children thought they were living snowmen. Deputy Sweet stood nearby, leaving the ex-couple to work things out. Puzzleface’s makeup and beard had come off Rachel’s face; she was clearly a woman wearing man’s clothes but she didn’t care right now.

  “That marker is a legitimate legal debt, Ike.” Rachel said. “Deputy Sweet witnessed it.” She looked to the lawman for confirmation and when he nodded, she looked back at her husband. “You owe me one thousand dollars.”

  Pulling his pockets inside out, Ike threw his hands up in a hopeless Where am I gonna get that kind of dough? gesture. Then he waved her off with a broken laugh. After he gave her the finger. “What are you going to do, woman, chase me for it? Ha! You’re so afraid of me coming after you, running away from me for so long, you ain’t ever going after me.”

  “You’re right.”

  “So I’m walking. You got my horse. My damn gun. I ain’t paying that thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t have to come after you.” He kept walking and she kept talking. “I’ll sell your debt. And the men I sell your marker to will come after you, Ike.”

  Her husband stopped.

  “You know the kind of men those are,” his wife said. “They’ll get their money. They have guns and horses, Ike, and you’ve got neither.”

  Seeing the grim fate that lay in store, Ike turned weakly and walked back to her, close to tears. “Please.” He fell on his knees. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to know something.”

  Rachel got eyeball to eyeball with Ike and her three words made his blood run cold.

  “I own you.”

  “Please.”

  He wept on his knees.

  “But you can buy your way out,” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “Sell me this.”

  Rachel handed Ike a slip of paper. “I’ll buy back your marker when you give me this in return.”

  He opened the paper.

  One word was written on it.

  Rachel

  Their eyes met and he understood the price.

  Ike nodded, broken.

  “It’s over,” Rachel said.

  “You’ll never see me again.” It was the last thing he ever said to her.

  Getting off his knees, Ike walked away into the snow on Cache Street, heading past the bar because he could no longer afford the price of a drink. Deputy Sweet watched him go, feeling pretty sure Rachel would never have to look over her shoulder again where her husband was concerned.

  When he looked back, Puzzleface was gone. Hearing a woman’s laughter, Sweet looked around and saw Rachel a hundred yards away, arms spread, head thrown back, tongue out, feeling and tasting the fresh falling white snowflakes drifting on her like a fairy tale. She turned round and round in childlike joy, then spun her body like a top and fell on her back in the piled snow, making a snow angel, acting like a kid again.

  She was free.

  Seeing Rachel happy playing in the snow was all Deputy Marshal Nate Sweet wanted for Christmas.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Brander can see his three pursuers a half mile back through his field glasses, but they can’t see him.

  They have been on his tail since he left the town after killing the judge. He’s been observing them for the last two days from safe positions. At first he thinks it is three men, but yesterday realizes one of them is a woman; her hair, long and red beneath her hat, betrays her gender. The features of the three the fiend can’t make out because their faces are covered with scarfs worn against the bitter cold. So he doesn’t recognize two of them, not yet.

  The smaller man looks vaguely familiar because of his height and his gait—his rangy stride and the way his arms swing walking—when on two occasions he dismounts to relieve himself in the bushes. The Brander can’t be sure who this individual is but feels he has seen him before. But where? he wonders. It nags him, like an itch he can’t scratch.

  The big man of the trio, this much the fiend knows: he is the tough ornery one he fought with who gave him all that trouble several weeks ago. This bastard broke his branding iron; it had been no small difficulty finding a blacksmith to forge him a new one to replace it. It had delayed his mission and set him back days. Having his branding iron destroyed angers its owner greatly. The instrument is a family heirloom. Fearsome payback lies in store for this bastard who broke it—at a time and place of The Brander’s own choosing.

  But he has more important matters to deal with first. The three riders shadowing him must be the law, probably U.S. Marshals; their eventual appearance was inevitable because of all the bodies the fiend has left in his wake, a pile of corpses on top of corpses that steadily grows. By now, The Brander wagers he is probably wanted in at least two states with a bounty on his head for his capture dead or alive. The Brander has made no secret about concealing his identity in his killings, in fact just the opposite, leaving his signature on all of his executions with the Q brand, and this is the point: to let them know the vigilante who is raining fiery burning justice down on the heads of the guilty; yes, he wants all of them to know, the whole entire world to receive the message.

  His message . . .

  This morning, The Brander hides in the snow with his binoculars and studies the three flyspecks of the horses and riders on the clean fallen snow of the plain, when suddenly he sees they have company.

  A posse is pursuing those pursuing him.

  Seven riders are tracking the three others; this could only be Sheriff Conrad and his rogue deputies from back in Consequence. The judge’s black book has told him all about Bull Conrad, because so many entries bear the sheriff ’s name. The Brander has been reading the book on the trail since he left town after reducing Judge Bill Black to a pile of burned meat. The fiend reads each and every page. The conspiracy between the judge and the sheriff taking bribes to release criminals he already knows about. What he is surprised to learn is that it is Sheriff Bull Conrad who is pulling the strings, not Judge Bill Black. It’s all there in black-and-white in the judge’s persnickety neat handwriting. The sheriff has his hands in everything, making money hand over fist, running the crooks and taking a cut of their scores as well as a cut of the bribes they pay to the judge to get free. Conrad is behind the whole operation. And it is Sheriff Bull Conrad who had ordered the raid on the Quaid ranch that stole the cattle and burned the spread to the ground. This makes him the mastermind . . . and the lightning rod for The Brander’s rage, the Q brand’s ultimate target. The book gives the fiend the bull’s-eye—an address—Sheriff Conrad has built a safe house with those ill-gotten gains he’s stashed away, a hideout whose location is well concealed—but the fiend finds the address in the book and t
his is where The Brander now rides; it is where Sheriff Conrad will be, or soon be, and where he will feel the full wrath of the brand.

  How ironic that on this fateful trail The Brander’s hunters are themselves being hunted with he himself hunting them all . . . The hunted hunting the hunters. The elegant beauty to this notion The Brander appreciates, making him do the one thing he never ever does, and that is smile.

  For now The Brander’s enemies are all on their way heading like unsuspecting flies into a spider’s web, his dogged pursuers riding right into his trap, where the fiend will turn the tables on them. He is supremely confident knowing the fight will be in his own backyard, the battle at a time and place of his choosing; that place lies in the mountains of the highest upper elevations of western Wyoming in Yellowstone with no other human beings for hundreds of miles, a bleak inhospitable territory so hostile even angels fear to tread. For his whole life The Brander has trapped and hunted and camped in the area and the Quaids know every foot of the terrain.

  The name of the place is fitting . . .

  Destiny.

  CHAPTER 28

  The three manhunters had arrived at the upper elevations of Destiny County, Wyoming. They had chased The Brander here, into Yellowstone. Now Noose, Bess, and Emmett sat on their horses and surveyed the formidable terrain before them. Somewhere ahead lay their quarry and there was not much farther he could go before the great mountains stopped him.