The Outlaws by Jane Toombs Page A

position to see Roberts’ doorway, disappearing from Ezra’s sight.
    “Damn, that’s Brewer’s hat sticking up over the logs,” Billy said suddenly, pointing. “He ought to know--”
    A sharp crack cut off Billy’s words. Brewer’s hat vanished behind the logs.
    Billy took off across the road at a run. Ezra, racing behind him, stopped abruptly when he saw Brewer’s body sprawled on its back, a dark and bloody hole between his eyes.
    Billy shook his head. Done for. Old Buckshot always had a good eye. Ain’t no way we’re going to flush him out, he’ll pick us off one by one till he’s dead.” He jerked his head toward the rest of the Regulators, still waiting across the road. “Best thing to do is vamoose.”
    As Ezra hurried to the corral with the others, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong to leave Brewer where he’d fallen.
    “Blazer’ll bury him,” Billy said. “Him and Buckshot, too, ‘cause he’s a goner.”
    Even the Apaches always tried to come back after their dead, Ezra thought. Still, Billy was right about needing to get away in a hurry. Fort Stanton was too close for comfort if Blazer decided to get soldiers down because of the shooting.
    No one had argued with Billy--it was plain he’d be the leader of the Regulators now. If Brewer had listened to Billy, Ezra told himself, he’d still be alive instead of lying in the dirt with a bullet in his head.
    That’s where trying to go by the letter of the law got you.
    Dead.
    Billy had wanted to throw down on Roberts the minute the Regulators spotted him and that’s the way it should’ve been handled.
    Billy made the kind of leader a man could trust.
     
    * * *
     
    In the parlor of the McSween house, Tessa turned abruptly away from Calvin Rutledge.
    “I didn’t ask for a lecture,” she said, I asked for your help.”
    “I’m sorry Tessa. God knows, I don’t mean to offend you. But you’ll have to learn sooner or later that no fifteen-year-old boy wants to be tied to his sister’s apron strings. Let Ezra go his way.”
    She whirled to face him. “But the killings! And Sheriff Copeland claims the Regulators have been rustling cattle. Ezra isn’t the kind to be mixed up with thieves and murderers.”
    Calvin spread his hands. “There’s nothing I can do, much as I’d like to.”
    Tessa tried to smile, but she was far too upset. “I don’t mean to be cross with you, Calvin. Naturally I don’t expect you to ride out alone to find Ezra.”
    The trouble was, that’s exactly what she had half-expected he might offer to do. After all, Calvin was a friend of Alex’s as much as any of the Regulators and certainly they wouldn’t harm him.
    She stared out the window into the courtyard where a blue-green yucca thrust its candelabra of creamy white flowers skyward. May already. She hadn’t seen Ezra since around the first of April, right after Sheriff Brady’s murder. He’d sworn he hadn’t fired at the sheriff or his men, but others had been shot since then and the Regulators blamed for it.
    “I promised Alex I’d look in at the store,” Calvin said, “but I’ll stop by to see you again tomorrow, with your permission.”
    Jules came into the parlor and seated himself on the piano stool. He began to play “Home Sweet Home” with both hands.
    The song always reminded Tessa of her father’s death. She was fond of both Alex and Susie—they’d been wonderful to her and the boys despite their own troubles—but it wasn’t the same as when Papa was alive. Would she ever have her own home again?
    Calvin touched her arm. “Tessa?”
    “Oh. Yes, of course, do come by,” she said hastily.
    When Calvin was gone, she stood beside Jules, watching his fingers on the keys. How determined he looked at the piano, earnest and frowning. Yet he loved to play. He was so different from Ezra. More like Papa, perhaps.
    Calvin couldn’t seem to understand her worry over Ezra. She mustn’t be so upset because he wouldn’t ride in