“What did you do?”

  “I’m a Ranger. I tried to arrest him. He ran, so I fired at him. Then I realized my mistake.” Hank shrugged. “I’d gotten it wrong. I wasn’t seeing the killer, well, not directly. I shattered a mirror.”

  Temple nodded. “I saw the broken glass.”

  “I didn’t understand straight away what had happened, thinking he’d disappeared. I went to the body. Then I saw the glass and realized I’d shot a reflection. By then it was too late. Sheriff Simmons heard the shooting and he rushed in. The rest you know.”

  “And the killer ran away?”

  “He did. Simmons didn’t see him or his shadow.” Hank laughed, although his blank eyes showed he did so without mirth. “Then again the killer is only a shadow, a shadow I’d seen once before a long time ago.”

  Temple waited for Hank to continue, but having revealed this much he’d lost confidence and again he hunched over.

  “Who is he?”

  Silence reigned for a minute before Hank spoke up.

  “The man who killed James Merritt is the Prairie Man,” he said.

  “It’s about time you turned up,” Luther grumbled when Temple returned to the house. “I haven’t eaten in two days.”

  Temple tossed him the bundle of food he’d bought in town and then sat at the table as his unwelcome guest tore it open.

  “I’ve been busy,” he said. “I’m a Ranger now.”

  Luther broke off from laying out the purchases on the floor to smile.

  “When I found you, you were drinking yourself senseless and spoiling for a fight. Who’d have thought you’d work on the other side of the law?”

  Temple frowned, noting that for once Luther was being subtle. He was reminding him that when they’d met his departure from Lucille had been troubling him, so in an odd way he’d helped him, even if that help had dragged him into even worse trouble.

  “It’s only for another day. Then everything changes.”

  Luther brightened. “We’re leaving?”

  “We could be. If I can find the man who really killed James Merritt, I’ll stay for a while. If not, there’s nothing for me here.”

  Luther wolfed down a chunk of bread before he spoke again.

  “Whatever you decide, those bounty hunters were closing in and they won’t take forever to track me down.” He bit another mouthful and frowned as he became thoughtful. “I’ll need a horse and we’ll need enough supplies to hole up somewhere for a while.”

  Temple gave a slow nod. “I’ll need two horses.”

  Luther narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “If we leave together, we won’t be alone.”

  Temple waited for Luther’s devious mind to provide him with a reason. When it did, it made him smile.

  “If I had a foster-brother and he was locked up in a cell, I’d break him out.”

  “We sure will.”

  “I’m not helping you,” Luther spluttered, spraying crumbs. “I have to keep out of sight.”

  “We could argue about who owes the other the most and who could cause the other the most problems if they spoke up, but let’s accept we’re both in deep trouble and we need to help each other. I reckon you know more about how to plan a jailbreak than I do, so you can take care of that while I take care of getting us away.”

  Luther joined Temple in sitting at the table and munched thoughtfully for a while.

  “What if you can get him out the proper way?” he said.

  “I’ll help you leave without anyone seeing you and I’ll give you the best possible chance of getting away with provisions, money, a horse, a gun. Then I never want to hear from you again.”

  “It’s a deal. I’ll. . . .” Luther trailed off and winced.

  Temple turned around as the door swung open to reveal Kate, her rounded stomach preceding her as always. They had been deep in conversation and he hadn’t heard her approach. He jumped to his feet, but he was already too late to stop her seeing Luther, who was also acting guiltily by cringing down behind the table.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, flustered. “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “That’s all right.” Temple turned to Luther. “She’s my foster-sister. You finish eating while we talk outside.”

  His voice sounded stilted to his own ears, so when they were outside he wasn’t surprised that she furrowed her brow.

  “Who was that man?” she asked.

  “He’s a friend, shall we say?”

  Kate accepted his guarded answer with a nod and joined him in a steady walk down to the creek. She bit her bottom lip pensively showing she wanted to ask him for more details, and he knew he’d struggle to find the right words to put her mind at rest.

  He also owed her an explanation. So when they reached the top of the bank overlooking the spot where fifteen years ago he’d nearly drowned, he stopped and faced her.

  “I need your help and your understanding,” he said.

  “You have it,” she said quickly, her tense tone confirming she had an inkling of the troubling news to come.

  “I promised I’d get Hank out of jail, no matter what, and I will get him out whether that’s by proving someone else killed James, or. . . .”

  He left the thought unsaid, but she was already one step ahead of him as she threw a hand to her mouth in shock.

  “That’s why that man’s here. I heard him saying something about getting him out and then you offered him some kind of deal.”

  “I’d prefer not to do that, but there’s no point proving Hank’s innocence after they’ve hanged him. We need more time and that’s where you come in. If I break him out of jail, it’ll make things tough for you, but you need to get your lawyer working on an appeal.”

  “He is already. He’s coming tomorrow to make one last plea for clemency. He probably won’t succeed, but he surely won’t if you and Hank are on the run. I don’t want to lose a brother, and I certainly couldn’t cope with losing two.”

  “We’re not related. You have only one brother, and this is the only way.”

  She opened and closed her mouth, struggling to find a response.

  “I won’t try to stop you,” she said at last. “But no matter how desperate Hank is, I don’t reckon he’d want you to do this.”

  “Hank doesn’t know what he wants anymore. I’m sorry to say this, but he’s losing his mind. He’s now gotten it into his head that he saw the killer.”

  “Who?”

  Temple frowned, now wishing he hadn’t mentioned this.

  “He must have had a bad dream or something,” he said, searching for a way to backtrack. “The person doesn’t even exist.”

  “Who is he?” she demanded more insistently.

  Temple shrugged and lowered his voice to alert her to the troubling answer to come.

  “He reckons the Prairie Man killed James Merritt.”

  Temple put on a wide smile hoping to placate her, but she uttered a pained murmur and then held out a hand for him to help her sit on the edge of the bank.

  “Could it have been him?” she said.

  Temple tipped back his hat in bemusement as he sat beside her.

  “I can’t cope with you losing your mind, too,” he said.

  “I’m not, but I can’t see how he could be right, even if it is a better solution than the ones I’ve come up with.”

  “The Prairie Man was a tale your mother made up to stop us straying too far from home.”

  For long moments she considered him, shaking her head.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew, but I guess you were still young when you left. Mother told me about it before she died. The Prairie Man was real.”

  “He was a specter.”

  “In the tales she told us he was, but they were based on a real man. It was my fault. I heard her talking about him and she put my mind at rest by telling me it was a story, and later the story grew.”

  Temple nodded. “Who was the real man?”

  “He was a troublemaker who harassed the homesteaders. He hid out of town and preyed on them, stealing food and clothes. He was always too fast and too devious for anyone to catch him. It took them a while to drive him off, but by then his crimes had worsened.”

  He caught her change in tone as her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “What crimes?”

  “I’m sorry that nobody told you before, but he killed two homesteaders. . . .”

  She gulped and was unable to continue, and although Temple could guess the answer he had to hear her say it.

  “Which homesteaders?”

  She sobbed one long gasping cry and then fought back the tears before she replied.

  “They were your parents.” She put an arm around his shoulders. “The Prairie Man killed your parents.”

  Chapter Seven

  “I remember hearing about that,” Barney Watson said. “That was troubling business.”

  While Temple had been probing him for information about the formative years of the settlement, the old man had gotten every detail wrong, so Temple doubted he remembered it. He frowned at Abe to silently convey they should move on, a look he’d had some practice giving this afternoon.

  Kate had given him a list of the original settlers who would have been here when the Prairie Man had terrorized the community, but most of the people were now dead or had moved on. James had been among the early settlers, which added weight to the possibility of there being a connection, but of the nine who had been old enough at the time to know something useful, Barney was the sixth he’d questioned and, like the rest, he knew little.

  Chasing the Prairie Man away was always something someone else had done. He had only three men left to question, and Temple had mixed feelings about the likelihood of Emerson Merritt or Sheriff Simmons helping him.

  The other man was Walt Stone, who lived to the north of the creek where Emerson had now banned the Rangers from going. Despite the lack of information, the little he had learned had confirmed Kate’s story.

  Fifteen years ago a man had loitered around the settlement. A month later he had moved on, having escalated from thieving and general mischief to murder. Nobody knew who he was and nobody thought it likely that he might have returned fifteen years later to continue where he’d left off.

  “Where next?” Abe asked when they were outside.

  The sun was closing on the horizon, so Temple judged that they should question the remaining men in order of increasing difficulty. Walt would be next. Then they would try Emerson, after which he would report his findings, such as they were, to Sheriff Simmons to see if this information might sway him.

  He didn’t hold out much hope, and that hope diminished after they’d forded the creek and they were heading to Walt’s house. They were being followed. Two riders stayed several hundred yards back, while not trying to come any closer.

  Abe reported that when he’d first noticed them he had reckoned there were four men, and when they closed on Walt’s house they discovered the truth. The riders had left to fetch Emerson, who now sat astride his horse fifty yards from the house, waiting for them.

  Flanking him were the two men they’d met on the trail earlier. When the two following men hurried closer, they, too, had the menacing air of hired guns.

  “You’re on the wrong side of the creek,” Emerson said. “The Rangers don’t come here. Soon they won’t go anywhere.”

  The two hired guns snickered, but before Temple could speak Abe moved his horse on.

  “You don’t tell us where we can and can’t go,” he said. “If you don’t want our help, we won’t give it, but you don’t decide that for others.”

  Abe continued toward the house, but the riders moved to the side and blocked his way. Temple, now sure that a confrontation was inevitable, moved on to join Abe. He faced Emerson. He waited until he had Emerson’s attention and then patted his jacket.

  “Do you have a problem with me or with the jacket?” he asked.

  Emerson took a moment to reply, suggesting he was weighing up his answer.

  “Your foster-brother killed my brother,” Emerson said at last. “Then again neither of us was in town at the time and we weren’t involved. If you want to talk to Walt personally, I won’t stop you, but you will take off the jacket.”

  Temple nodded, reckoning that Emerson either knew that Walt knew nothing or he was unaware of the nature of the questions he planned to ask.

  “When I’d finished with Walt, I’d aimed to ask you the same question, but I’ll do that now.” Temple leaned forward in the saddle. “What do you know about the Prairie Man?”

  Emerson flinched, a barked refusal to answer he’d clearly been preparing dying on his lips. He took several seconds to form another answer, giving Temple hope that, unlikely as it had seemed, the answer could lie with this formerly mythical man.

  “I don’t know why that would interest you.”

  “I’m just rooting around looking for a way to save Hank,” Temple said, backtracking to avoid confirming he’d seen Emerson’s surprise. “I’ve learned that a man who once acted suspiciously here was seen when your brother was killed.”

  “That’s impossible. The Prairie Man left fifteen years ago. If that’s what you’re wasting your time doing, you’ll never find anything that’ll save Hank. Who else are you annoying with this question?”

  “Everybody that was in town at the time. So if you have nothing useful to add, I’ll check with Walt and then with Sheriff Simmons.”

  Emerson pointed at Temple’s jacket. “You can, but not as a Ranger.”

  “I’m not. I’m seeing him as Temple Kennedy. I just happen to be wearing a jacket that I don’t take off for nobody.”

  Emerson snorted his breath through his nostrils while the men who were flanking him turned to him for directions. The men who had been following were now drawing up behind, closing them in, so Temple dismounted. Abe followed him and the two men sidestepped around the horses and strode briskly toward the house.

  “Defy me, Temple, and Hank’s death will just be the start of your problems,” Emerson called after him.

  With his head down Temple strode on. He heard the riders turn and then approach. Two men dismounted while the other riders flanked them, calling out for them to stop, but Abe and Temple ignored them.

  A hand landed on Temple’s shoulder. Temple shrugged it off. Abe attempted to do the same, but his assailant had gathered a stronger grip and Abe had to stop and then twist himself away from the hand.

  Temple’s follower grabbed his arm and tugged, halting him. So, putting all the pent up force of his accumulated anger over the last day into his action, Temple spun on a heel and delivered a scything uppercut to his assailant’s chin that sent the man reeling to the ground.

  Temple didn’t wait to find out whether he got up; instead he confronted Abe’s assailant. Abe and he were tussling, with the man trying to drag Abe away from the house. Temple carried out the tactic that had been tried on him.

  He slapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him around. Then he delivered a straight-armed punch to his cheek that sent him staggering backward into the corner of the house. The man moved to grab hold of the wall but he was moving too quickly and he tipped over to lie beside the house.

  Temple turned to continue walking to the door, but then a shadow flittered across the ground a moment before a solid weight slammed into his back knocking him on to his chest. The air blasted from his lungs as he lay pole-axed.

  A dazed part of his mind told him that one of the riders had leaped from his mount and pinned him to the ground, but he was too stunned to do anything about it. Shouting went up and the thud of flesh on flesh sounded.

  With a shake Temple struggled to regain his senses, but then the weight lifted from him and someone grabbed his arm. He shook the hand off, but then realized that Abe was trying to raise him.

  He nodded to Abe and let him drag him to his feet. Three of the men were lying on the ground while the fourth had been shoved off him. Abe and Temple moved in on this man. They slapped the man one way and then the other before Abe delivered the blow that sent him spinning to the ground. While standing over the prone man Temple faced Emerson, the sole man left for them to defeat who remained upright.

  “Now, if it’s all the same with you, we’ll see Walt,” Temple said.

  The grounded men were getting to their feet while groaning; so to avoid the distraction of a second round of their fight, Temple turned and with Abe at his side he headed to the door. He knocked but, as the men were now closing in on him, he went straight in.

  Two paces in he came to a sudden halt. A prone body lay in front of the door. Blood had pooled around the head, bright and fresh, the scalp was matted and the skull was caved in.

  “The Prairie Man got to him first,” Temple said to himself.

  Chapter Eight

  The night was warm and it was one that Temple would enjoy normally, if it weren’t for the fact this was the last one Hank might see. Earlier, after the discovery of Walt’s body, another confrontation had developed over who should report the news to the lawman.

  Emerson had been adamant it should be a friend of Walt’s rather than the Rangers. Temple hadn’t had the enthusiasm for another fight, so he’d relented. He had returned to Hank’s house, where he’d told Luther to take his horse and head into town.

  Now Luther would be examining the jailhouse to work out how they could mount a jailbreak. When he returned, Temple would go into town to talk to Sheriff Simmons and find out whether the recent events had swayed him.

  Despite the situation moving on apace, he doubted that that would be so, and no matter how much he pondered he could make no progress in finding the solution to a mystery that felt as if it were tantalizingly close. Emerson had been worried that the Prairie Man had returned and a new death supported this possibility.

 

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