Thanks to my wonderful betas Patty, Em, Beth, and Ros for their help on this part. I hope you all enjoy. Char :-)
THE GUNMAN'S WOMAN: PART 4:
Johnny watched the man ride away. A small smile spread across his face. Tracks would be easier to follow with blood mixed in them. He walked over to Keller and knelt down. He picked up the note covered rock that lay near the body and started heading back toward the house. Johnny lost the smile as memories of Murdoch lying still on the floor crossed his mind. Picking up the pace he ran to the house. "Scott, it's me," he called out in warning, announcing his presence to the occupants of the house. He almost jumped onto the small porch, his heart pounding in his ears, and he threw open the door. Anxiety filling his entire body. "How's Murdoch?"
"I'm fine, Son," Murdoch's deep voice replied.
Relief washed over Johnny as he took in the sight of his father sitting in a chair, Jessie tying off a make-shift bandage around Murdoch's upper forearm. Johnny dropped to one knee beside his father. "I thought --"
Murdoch clamped his hand on Johnny's shoulder. "I'm fine, Son. I just hit my head when I went down. It winded me."
Scott closed the door his brother had burst through as he holstered his weapon and asked, "What about the shooters?"
"One dead, one winged. He'll be easy to follow in the morning." Johnny slipped the note-covered rock in his jacket pocket when he stood. "I'm heading out at first light."
"Did they say anything about Grady?" Jessie asked. She picked up the bowl, scissors and leftover cloth and headed toward the sink.
Johnny shook his head, his hand still in his pocket fingered the note. He did not want to tell Jessamie about the note until he had a chance to know what it said. Picking up a lantern, Johnny struck a match. "I'm gonna go check on the horses."
Scott watched his brother leave the small house and stride off toward the barn. He could tell there was something more. Something that was weighing on Johnny. Something his brother wasn't saying. He looked back at his father and their eyes met. Murdoch nodded at him and Scott followed his brother out the door.
Scott stood in the entryway of the barn watching Johnny. His brother was reading something. Johnny stuffed it in his pocket and started working Barranca over with a curry comb. "Want to talk about it?" Scott asked.
Johnny turned toward his brother and then resumed brushing his horse. "Ain't much to talk about."
"More than what you said inside."
"Yeah," Johnny's downward brush stroke paused and he sighed. He turned to Scott, reached in his pocket, and pulled the note out. "Stryker was sending me a message. Grady's still alive."
"That's a good thing," Scott replied. He raised an eyebrow quizzically as he watched his brother resuming his brushing. "What do they want?"
"Me. They want me to come. Alone."
"They want to trade Grady for you? For you to give yourself up to them?"
Johnny shook his head. "Nope. They want me to watch ... like Stryker watched me shoot his son." He sighed and bowed his head, his hands resting on his golden horse.
Scott closed the distance between his brother and himself. "That's not going to happen, Johnny."
"I know." He looked up and flashed Scott a cocky grin. "I got a plan."
"What are you going to do about it, Sheriff?" Emmet Palmer asked. The assembled crowd in the Cavitt Springs Church echoed his sentiments as they all watched Sheriff Corbin looking for guidance. "We don't want gunfighters in our town!"
"I understand your concern," Corbin replied. "Madrid is a killer, a half-breed gunhawk. An awful expensive gun for hire. His presence brings other gunfighters and outlaws."
Rachel Martin stood up to speak. "They're not fit to be around decent people. That gunfighter, his woman, and their ... child." She looked around at the crowd for support. The gleam of hate and fear in her eyes mirrored in the crowd's eyes surrounding her. She opened her arms encompassing the area as she turned to make her case. " We're tainted by their presence. Our children need to be protected from them and their influence. We have to protect ourselves."
"Perhaps these other men will do the job for us," the sheriff answered.
"We need to purge them from the town. Purge the filth from Cavitt Springs!" another man in the crowd shouted out.
"What do you want to do about it?" Sheriff Corbin asked. His eyes gleamed like a feral animal as he watched the crowd working itself into a frenzy.
"Run 'em out!"
"Burn them out!"
"Clean up the town!"
"Get rid of Madrid! And his whore!"
A smirk crossed Sheriff Corbin's face. He hated gunfighters. He hated half-breeds. Madrid was both. He had hated him when they last met in Laredo. With any luck, they would never meet again.
"You think we can do it?" Scott asked his brother.
Johnny chewed on a piece of hay, arms resting on the stall door. "Yep. No choice really, we gotta."
"Are you okay?" Scott asked concerned.
Johnny shrugged and sighed. "I'm fine."
Murdoch's deep voice announced his arrival. "I doubt that."
Johnny turned toward his father. He glanced at the white bandage wrapped around his father's forearm. It was whiter than his own bandages normally were. He always did things he wasn't supposed to do, always caused his stitches to pull or the wounds to re-open. Laying and resting and doing as he was told had never been things that he was good at. Even when it came to his health, Johnny had never been a man good at taking orders, it seemed that was something he inherited from his father. "I ain't the one walking around with a bullet graze, ol' Man," he grinned.
"It was a flesh wound. One which Jessamie tended quite nicely," Murdoch replied.
Johnny smiled and ducked his head. "Guess I owe you two an apology." He lifted his head slightly so he could eye his family. Shrugging, he continued. "For not telling you 'bout Jessie and me. About all this."
"Johnny," Murdoch started. He held on to the end of the name as he always did when he was about to impart some parental wisdom to his younger son. A vocal emphasis, Scott had called it one day. "You're a grown man. You don't have to ask our permission about anything you do. You don't have to tell us about every move you make."
Johnny looked over at his brother who nodded his head in agreement. He felt the tension wash over and off of him. He moved over to sit beside his brother on a bale of hay and looked up at his father. "Thank you. It's been complicated. At first, I was just coming to help out. I liked Jessie and Grady and they needed a man's help around here. I knew they couldn't pay for it. I didn't ... I mean ... I never thought that Jessie and I would --"
"Sometimes, that's how it happens Little Brother," Scott said, his voice resonating with experience.
"Yeah," Johnny replied. "It's like one day we were friends and then bam ... it was something more. I wanted to tell you about it ... especially after our trip to Sacramento last month. But, well, Jessie wasn't sure. She didn't really want to go. Grady and I talked her into it. We just ... it was good, you know?" He looked down before continuing. His fingers fidgeted with the hay picking at the strands through the twine straps binding the hay into a neat golden box. "We grew closer. We just didn't know how to explain it," he said, looking up to see understanding in their faces.
"You've done a pretty good job tonight, brother," Scott said.
Johnny shrugged. "You two are easy. We don't have a clue what to tell Grady. All his life he's been Grady Lancer. I couldn't just say 'Oh by the way, my name's really Johnny Lancer'; and I figured he'd figure it out once when rode under the arch at home. How do you tell an eight year old that his real father forced himself on his mother? How do you tell him Jessie killed the man? Grady's idolized this image of his father all his life. How do you tell him everything he knows is a lie?" He turned toward his own father, his blue eyes pleading with Murdoch to help him.
"I'm not sure he's old enough to understand the truth of everything, especially his own conception, but you can't lie to him forever," Murdoch replied with a steady gaze.
"Yeah ... its just ... maybe the lie is easier." Johnny stood with a start, pacing like a caged tiger. "Maybe I should just let him keep thinking what he already is. Let him think I am his father."
Murdoch stood in Johnny's path, stopping his son's pacing. "If you thought that was the right thing to do, you wouldn't be chewing on it so hard."
Scott nodded. "Murdoch's right, Johnny. If you lie to him, then he's going to want to know why you abandoned him for seven years. I know you don't want Grady to think that."
The brothers looked knowingly at each other. Johnny dropped his head with a sigh. "Yeah, I know. I don't want to lie to Grady. No one should lie to a child, especially about his father."
Murdoch's jaw flexed as he watched his sons. The pained looks on their faces mirrored each other. His sons were acutely aware of how lies could damage lives. Both of his sons had been lied to growing up ... lied to about him. Scott by Harlan and Johnny by Maria, Johnny's life had been more than disrupted by his mother's lies, it had been endangered. Those lies had kept Johnny from coming home, from being safe, after Maria's death. Her lies led to the birth of the gunfighter Johnny Madrid. "I don't have the answer, Son, but we'll deal with it ... together."
Johnny nodded. "Yeah." He was grateful to have his family with him, supporting him. "Thanks. I'm gonna go talk to Jessie."
Murdoch clapped Johnny on the shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, then watched as his youngest headed for the small farm house. He felt Scott's presence come up beside him.
"He'll be all right. He's pretty self-sufficient."
"Maybe too much so," Murdoch answered as he watched Johnny enter the house and close the door.
Johnny Madrid ran from boulder to boulder, his six gun singing in his hand as he took out the fifteen members of the posse that had trailed him from Laredo. The dangerous desperado would not be taken in --
Grady Lancer sat up with a start when he heard a creak. He knew the bad men were coming back. He folded his book, hid it in his shirt, and waited. He heard the heavy steps on the small porch of the line shack they were occupying. He watched the door slam open. Sam Stryker and his son Davey were helping the one called Short in. Grady's eyes grew wide when he saw the red blood streaming down the man's arm.
"He shot me! That sonuvabitch shot me!" Short cried out as he half sat half fell into one of the wooden chairs around the small plank table.
"You'll live," Sam Stryker replied as his hands probed the wound. "This bullet's gotta come out though."
"He killed Keller. Madrid walked right up to him and killed him. Put a bullet in his brain. Blood and brains flew everywhere --"
"What were you doing at the time?" Davey asked.
Short looked up at him, his eyes somewhat glazed from the pain and blood loss. "Getting the hell outta there," he answered. His anger flashed as he saw Davey's reaction. "Don't get on your high horse. You peed your pants when Madrid had his gun on you. You'dve hightailed it too, and you know you would, Davey Stryker."
"Aw right! You two stop! I don't wanna hear no more. We just need to get ready for Lancer to come." He dug his knife around in Short's shoulder until he felt it hit metal. The injured man writhed under his not so gentle ministration. Grimacing, Stryker got his knife under the bullet and slowly lifted it out of the sweating man's shoulder. "You need some whiskey."
"L-Little.. late." Short wheezed out in pain.
"You know, he didn't come alone, Pa." Davey said, moving to the cupboard. He pulled out a bottle of rye and passed it to the injured man.
"That's what I'm counting on," Sam Stryker said. He dropped the bullet and bloody knife on the table and turned his attention to the small boy they had chained to the bed. "You hear that. Your Pa killed one of my men."
Grady stuck his little chin out defiantly. "He'll kill you all, too. You watch. Johnny's the fastest gunfighter in the world."
Stryker advanced toward the boy, his stance menacing as he loomed above Grady. He laughed deep and hoarsely. "I don't care how fast he is. He's not getting the chance to draw. Johnny Madrid's going to throw his guns down and then your famous father ... the cold blooded killer that he is ... is going to hang."
Davey laughed at that. "Yeah, all murderers hang. It's justice."
Stryker grabbed Grady by the hair pulling the child's head back. "And he's gonna watch you die first. That's also justice."
TO BE CONTINUED ...