Page 41 of Charlotte's Reckoning
“Don’t you think I know that, Ned?”he replied, wiping his mouth and then throwing down his napkin. “We can’t let this menace keep picking offpayrolls coming and going from town. I’m just gonna have to match the reward offered bythe stagecoach line.”
“How much will that be?”
“Five hundred dollars each,” Sheriff Willard replied.
The other man whistled. “For that kind of money, I may go after him.”
“He’s slippery. And mean. If you go, don’t go alone.”
Ned dropped his napkin beside his plate and leaned back, frowning. “If I took someone with me, I’d have to split the reward.”
“Better that than him splitting yer head open with a bullet.”
Having heard enough, Seth pushed back his chair and sauntered over. “I’ll bring him in for you,”he offered. “Got a name? Better yet,a wanted posterwith a picture?”
“You!”Ned hooted. “You’re just a kid.”
That ran all over Seth. “I haven’t been a kid since I turned eighteen, six years ago.”
“Twenty-four,”the sheriff scoffed. “I got callouses on my ass older than that.”
“Sounds like that’s your problem,”Seth replied curtly.
The sheriff eyed him a moment. Grunting, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a tattered paper. “It’s not my job to stop a fool from being one,”he said as he held it out.
Seth didn’t respond other than to take it and unfold it. Then he stared into a face from his past. He always suspected something funny had happened to his uncle. With Thorn the last to see him, he felt sure he’d had a hand in Ike’s disappearance. Had he killed him? Seth would never forget his cool indifference to his brotherbleedingin thedirt. And he was long gone after the fire, along with Seth and Judd’s share of the loot.
Motivated by more than money now, he refolded the wanted poster and stuffed itinto his pocket. “I could almost do this one for free.”
“You know him?”
“We’ve crossed paths, unfortunately.”He met the older man’s gaze. “It doesn’t say dead or alive. That matter?”
“Not to me.”
“I’ll need to be deputized, in case it comes to that.”
“You bring him in, boy, I’ll hand you my badge.”The sheriff, a large man, heaved himself out of his creaking chair and slapped some bills on the table. “Let’s head overto the jailhouseand make you official.”
With his appetite for revenge now stronger than for food, Seth moved to the door. Outon the boardwalk, withthe sun settingand a welcome breeze blowing, he saw a couple approaching. The man was tall enough to block outthe setting sun, the petite woman at his sidewitha wealthofdark-auburn hairgleaming gold, red, and copper in the sunlight. She was beautiful and hauntingly familiar.
“I’d like to have a bath and go to bed early, Fen,”she said, her voice as smooth as honey.
“To hell with that. After being cramped up on that stinking train all day, I’m half-starved and need whiskey, pronto.”
“You go on. I’m not hungry.”
“I’m not eating alone, Lottie. You’re joining me.”
Seth tried not to stare at the young woman as they passed but wasn’t sure he pulled it off. She bore an uncanny resemblance to the girl he’d saved from the Pleasure Palace fire. Her voice was less raspy, which was expected since she wasn’t swallowing smoke with every breath. He recalled dark hair, and the name was wrong. The madam had spoken of her only with contempt. The others clammed up when he asked about the dove in the attic, except for one who let slip the name Jade.
It sounded like an alias, a common practice among ladies in the trade, and she sure as hell didn’t look like a Lottie. She was too beautiful. Could it really be her?
“You got a name, son?”
He turned. The sheriff had caught up with him. “Seth Walker,”he replied, dropping his last name without hesitating.
After searching for Ike for six months, his funds had run dry. One day, while passing through a small town in northern Arkansas, he saw a wanted poster offering a $10 reward. He located the man within a day, hauled him in, and got paid. One bounty led to another. Soon, he was collecting three and four rewards a month. After years on the run, nobody understood a fugitive’s mind better than him. The income was more than enough to cover the costs of a hotel room and apple pie whenever he found himself in a town that offered both.
