Echoes of a Dead Man

  Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Well, Jethro, you’ve served your time and paid your debt to society, so keep your nose clean and with luck you and I won’t see each other again.’ The craggy faced warden, a short man of wide stature and very little hair, pushed back his chair and stood up behind his cluttered desk. ‘Here’s the watch and the twenty-three dollars you had on you when you were brought in,’ he said, handing over a lumpy brown envelope. ‘The rest is the stage fare to get you back to Wagoner where you were sentenced.’

  Without raising his gaze, Jethro Davies tore the package open and tipped the contents into his hand, glancing disdainfully at the money before shoving it into the pocket of his ill-fitting suit. Like him, the clothing had seen better days and a moth flew out as he withdrew his hand. He watched it flutter towards a ribbon of sunlight coming through a single dirty window, the only brightness in a room made dark by harsh rules, neglect and the same loathing that filled the tiny prison cells beyond its walls.

  ‘Not long now,’ the warden said.

  Jethro eyed the cracked clock on the wall above the warden’s head. It showed eight minutes before midday and he set the watch by it before slipping the timepiece into his vest and returning his gaze to the scarred dirt floor.

  Neither man spoke as the clock ticked away the seconds. Maybe the warden had expected a few words of repentance, after all Jethro Davies had been a model prisoner. He had worked hard and stayed out of trouble, paying for his crime with due humility. The warden didn’t see many men like that come through his prison. Most were either swallowed into the belly of despair and wasted away, or survived using the same brutality that had brought them to prison in the first place. Jethro had done neither, settling instead into a rare middle ground. And the other men had let him.

  The warden had wondered about that in the beginning. After all, the Davies boys were known halfway across the country, their exploits alleged to range from violent robberies to mass murder. Jethro should have been a target for every would-be bad man in the prison, but from the first day he entered, a path had cleared for him. Even Porter, the vicious assistant warden, had resisted the urge to make an example of him.

  With a sigh of bewilderment, the old man sat down and made a show of shuffling through a pile of papers while furtively eyeing Jethro. In his late forties, he was a big man at over six feet. He had lost some weight breaking rocks in the hot sun, but the bulk that had added to his formidable presence when he arrived had been replaced with a tautness that reminded the warden of a tightly wound spring ready to explode.

  ‘Mind if I ask you a question?’ he asked.

  Piercing brown eyes lifted to pin him with an answer, and a shiver hurried along the warden’s spine that had nothing to do with the unnatural coolness in the small room. He almost jumped when the clock above his head finally struck twelve. Instead, he broke into a well-practised smile.

  ‘Well, you’re a free man, Jethro. I hope you—’

  ‘Save it,’ Jethro said, straightening his back and looking him dead in the eye. ‘I never met a do-gooder whose words amounted to more than a pile of manure.’

  The warden backed away, but before he found any words to say, the door behind Jethro opened and a tall, sinewy man carrying a Colt shotgun across his chest filled the entrance. ‘You ready to go, Davies?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you think, Porter?’ Jethro pushed past, raising his gaze to the sky as he set foot outside the office and breathed deep. Somehow the air that had hung hot and heavy around him for the past four years tasted sweeter today, caressing his face with the tenderness of a high-class whore.

  ‘You want to watch yourself, Jethro,’ Porter said behind him. ‘It wouldn’t take but a word for the warden to get you hauled back in a cell and left to rot.’

  ‘Really? Who’d do it? You?’ Jethro said, without any real interest before changing the direction of the conversation. ‘I didn’t think this was your shift.’

  ‘It isn’t. I wanted to see you off.’ There was no warmth in the sentiment as he prodded Jethro with the shotgun.

  A smile twisted Jethro’s lips as Porter herded him forward to where an armed man guarded the gate to freedom. Squinting against the midday sun, Jethro noticed a dust covered rider on a blood bay horse waiting on the outside. As they approached, the rider unhooked his leg from around his saddle pommel and stretched, the movement drawing into sight a black gelding standing riderless alongside.

  ‘Open up,’ Porter shouted as they closed in on the guard. ‘I’ve got some trash to put out.’

  He laughed at his own joke, but nobody else did as the guard swung the sagging gates open and glanced between Jethro, Porter and the rider outside.

  ‘Miserable son-of-a-bitch,’ Porter moaned. ‘Go help Freeman with the grub. It sounds like the natives are getting restless.’

  The guard looked confused and tipped his head to listen. ‘Ain’t been this quiet since. …’

  ‘I said, go.’

  With a shrug, the man wandered away.

  ‘That means you too. Your ride’s waiting.’

  Porter jabbed the muzzle of the shotgun into Jethro’s spine. This time, Jethro pulled up short, fanning his arms wide for balance. He nodded and the rider urged his horse forward.

  ‘Don’t start anything, Jethro,’ Porter said, stopping short of another prod. ‘You might have fooled that milk-sop warden with your meek and mild act but you and I go back a long way and I know you better than that.’

  Slowly, Jethro turned to face his antagonist. Above a fixed smile, his eyes held a disturbing twinkle. ‘Maybe you used to know me, but times change. I remember eighteen–twenty years back when you, me and Ethan were growing up, how you could have been on the end of the punishment you’re handing out nowadays.’

  Porter eased his neck inside his dirty collar. ‘Yeah, well I ain’t, so don’t you forget that the next time you back-shoot somebody and end up in this hell-hole.’

  Jethro tutted. ‘You know that’s not my style. How about we shake hands for old time’s sake and I get out of here?’

  The way Porter looked at Jethro’s outstretched hand it could have been a rattler. When he eventually accepted the gesture, he probably wished it was. In one easy motion, Jethro gripped it, pulling Porter forward at the same time turning his own body into him and rolling Porter over his shoulder and flat onto his back in a cloud of dust. By the time Porter realized what was happening, Jethro had his boot pressed against Porter’s windpipe and the Colt aimed at his head.

  He shifted the muzzle, digging it into Porter’s cheek and drawing a trickle of blood. Porter stiffened, but beyond his prison kingdom there was no fight in him, no sign of the bully who ruled his minions with fists and bullets. Jethro pursed his lips as he looked down on his old partner, his expression turning to a smile as a patch of wetness spread across the crotch of Porter’s tan pants.

  Despite his obvious fear, he sounded surprisingly calm. ‘You ain’t got any reason to kill me, Jethro. I never crossed you.’

  ‘That’s true enough, but you’ve been keeping something from me, haven’t you?’

  ‘How’d you . . ?’ Porter’s chest heaved as he sucked
in what might be his final breath. ‘I don’t know what’s given you that impression.’

  Jethro’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  ‘All right, maybe I know something that might be of interest to you …’ Porter’s admission petered away, a sudden spark of inspiration flaring before he succumbed completely to his fear. ‘But I ain’t giving it up without getting something in return.’

  Jethro chuckled. ‘Are you saying I’ll owe you?’

  Porter gulped, sweat trickling down his face and diluting the blood on his cheek as it started to crust in the heat beating down on him. ‘No, Jethro, you don’t owe me anything.’ Suddenly, Porter could feel the shadow of death on him. But he hadn’t got where he was without a bit of luck and a lot of underhand dealing and he had been saving a special ace for Jethro. ‘But what if I could tell you who killed Ethan? Would that be enough to make you just walk away from here and forget you ever saw me?’

  The rider dismounted, covering the ground between himself and the two men in a couple of long bounds. He shoved Jethro aside, falling on Porter’s chest and gripping him by the throat.

  ‘You know who killed Ethan Davies?’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Porter asked, struggling as the fight returned to him.

  ‘I’m Stone Davies, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me who killed my pa before I slit your throat from ear to ear.’

  A Bowie knife seemed to appear out of thin air and Porter looked past the long blade and towards Jethro who stood back with his arms folded across his chest.

  ‘Jethro?’ he implored.

  ‘That’s what you get for having a big mouth, Porter. I’d tell him what he wants to know, if I were you. He’s not as patient as I am. Takes after his pa that way. Once shot a man in the back just for sitting in his chair.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Porter said, almost triumphantly. ‘Like you said, you’d never shoot a man in the back. You did time for the kid. For Ethan’s kid. Jeez, payback’s a bitch.’

  Jethro shrugged. ‘Call it anything you like. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s got a knife to your throat. Like I said, I’d tell him what he wants to know, if I were you.’

  It sounded like good advice as the knife nicked his skin. ‘A kid by the name of Bartholomew. That’s all they said.’

  ‘Is that his first name? His last name?’ Stone asked impatiently.

  ‘That’s all I know.’ He winced as the knife dug deeper. ‘A couple of months after it happened, I was banged up in jail overnight sleeping off a hangover. I overheard the circuit judge talking to the sheriff over a couple of glasses of whiskey. He said the kid killed Ethan in self-defence and with what the witness told him it was an open and shut case.’

  ‘Witness?’ Stone asked, bringing the knife back into Porter’s view. ‘We heard Pa was gunned down in an alley and left for dead. No suspects. No witnesses. Are you telling us that was a lie?’

  ‘A cover up maybe. I dunno.’ Porter looked into eyes as black and cold as Jethro’s. Again the shadow of death touched him as the sun glinted off the evil-looking blade just inches away from his left eye. ‘It was a long time ago and I’d had too much to drink, but I think Ethan murdered somebody important. They tried to cover it up. I don’t know why. Money I guess. I dunno. I’ve told you everything I remember.’

  Stone shoved the knife into a sheath at the back of his waist and stood up, holding his hand out to Porter. ‘You heard any more about this Bartholomew character since?’

  Porter stayed where he was and shook his head. ‘He disappeared along with the girl who saw what happened. Probably changed his name … I’m guessing.’

  ‘What about the judge you heard talking, do you remember his name?’ Jethro asked, stepping forward with unusual urgency to grab him by the wrist and pull him up.

  ‘I think it was Ba … Bam …’ Porter wiped the sweat on his brow as he dug into the recesses of his memory. ‘Bamfield. That was it. He retired to Kansas a couple of months back.’

  Jethro smiled. ‘You did good, Porter. See you around some time.’

  Porter sucked in his breath as the Bowie slashed towards him, quickly losing consciousness as blood beaded his shirt across the stomach. Jethro staggered under the dead weight, knocking the knife aside before Stone could finish the job.

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Jethro asked, glancing back inside the prison before turning his angry gaze on Stone.

  ‘He ain’t no more use to us.’

  Jethro shook his head as he lay Porter down, then ripped open his shirt and checked the wound before placing his ear against Porter’s chest.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Stone asked, hopefully.

  ‘No, it’s just a flesh wound. He passed out.’

  Using the knife’s brass d-ring hang guard, Stone hung it from his finger and offered it to Jethro. ‘Finish him off then.’

  ‘You’re a stupid son-of-a-bitch. Put it away. Do you think I want to spend any more time in this prison? Do you?’ Jethro stood up keeping himself between Stone and Porter. ‘Let’s get out of here before that guard comes back.’

  Stone’s eyes narrowed thoughfully. ‘What did he mean about payback?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing probably.’

  ‘Didn’t sound like nothing to me.’

  Jethro shoved Stone back towards the horses. ‘Look, are we going to stand here talking, or are we going to find the man who killed your pa?’

  CHAPTER 1

  Five months later

  Matt Lomew braced his hand against the door of the Wells Fargo stage, his jangling nerves colliding with his frayed temper as it finally rolled to a stop and he disembarked. He hated travelling by coach, preferred the freedom and fresh air of being on a horse, but although the spirit was willing, the flesh was still weak. Grudgingly, he reached inside the carriage and retrieved a gnarled cane, slipping it under his arm while he waited for his bags to be unloaded.

  It was a few minutes before the driver threw down his dusty saddle-bags, and looking around at his new surroundings had improved his mood considerably. Far from being the modest trading post he had left behind a year ago, Garner Creek had grown into a thriving community that at first glance boasted two banks, several classy-looking saloons and a fine-looking hotel aptly named The Grand.

  Hefting his bags over his shoulder, he headed for the brightly painted hotel, pulling up short when a rider on a black horse reined up sharply, blocking the way.

  ‘Thought you were dead,’ the rider growled.

  Matt stood his ground, squinting against a sudden patter of rain as he looked up at the rider, covered in dust, wearing a bandanna across his mouth and a wide brimmed hat pulled low to shadow his face.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, tensing as he wondered if maybe this was the man who had put a bullet in his back and left him for dead five months earlier.

  ‘Not yet, but I know all about you.’

  The stranger laughed as he eased one leg free of a stirrup and stretched. As his movement momentarily blocked the sky, Matt stiffened under the intense stare of piercing brown eyes. They gave him a mean, sinister look and, as he twisted further in the saddle his coat fell open to reveal a well-handled six-shooter in a scuffed holster.

  ‘Judge Bamford sends his regards,’ he said conversationally.

  The name set Matt’s nerves jangling. There was no reason this stranger should mention it to him. His association with the judge had been short, the reason for it buried along with the man who had made it necessary.

  ‘If you’re looking for trouble, I’m not wearing a gun.’ Matt flicked the edge of his coat open. ‘The sheriff might not look too kindly on you shooting an unarmed man.’

  The man on the horse glanced to where a couple of men, including an officious-looking man wearing a badge on his chest, had stopped to watch the exchange. ‘You’re probably right about that. You best make sure you’re tooled up next time we meet.’ He spat a line of tobacco at Matt’s boots, smiling when minute specks
spattered the polished leather.

  They glared at each other for what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. Suddenly, Matt realized where he had seen that face before, or one very similar. The memory sent a shiver along his spine and he gripped the cane as it provided more support than he had anticipated.

  The rider swung his horse away. ‘Watch your back, Mr Bartholomew.’

  Matt held his breath. Nobody had called him by that name for years. He watched the stranger ride away, his fingers itching to find the .45 buried in his saddle-bag. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he believed in trouble, and that man was trouble with a capital T. Catching sight of the sheriff again, he nodded reverently and continued on to the hotel.

  When he entered the lobby, the polished floor squealed under the leather soles of his boots as he paused a moment to appreciate his surroundings. Everything about the place screamed quality and refinement, from the thickly papered walls adorned with paintings of foreign landscapes to the upholstered sofas and glass chandeliers.

  The man behind the reception desk looked up when he heard the tap-tap of Matt’s cane. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  ‘I need a room.’

  The man sucked in a whistling breath. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you, feller. I don’t have a room free for the next two weeks. You might try The Beacon. If you go out of here, turn right and it’s along on the left.’

  Matt studied the man carefully, looking for some hidden motive behind the refusal, but as much as he expected to see one, he couldn’t and he decided to try again. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Even if he’s not, I am,’ a new voice announced. ‘I just showed the last guest to the last available room.’

  Both men turned towards the voice and Matt grinned at the look of surprise on the newcomer’s face. Closer to forty than fifty, even though his hair was silvery white, his blue eyes held a youthful twinkle that complimented a friendly smile. If Lou Manners resented Matt’s unannounced arrival, it didn’t show.

  ‘Matt, what the hell are you doing here?’ he asked, taking his saddle-bags as he met him halfway across the lobby. ‘We thought you were laid up in Silver Springs.’