Free The Devil's Badland: The Loner by J. A. Johnstone

Circle D with me?”
    “I’ll be along later,” Whitfield told her. “Jack and I are going to stay here in town for a while.”
    Conrad understood what Whitfield was doing. The rancher didn’t want it to look like he and his pet gun-wolf were turning tail and running. Maybe Whitfield really had business here in Val Verde, but Conrad doubted it.
    “I wish you’d come with us,” Angeline said.
    “Just do as I told you.” Whitfield’s voice was sharp, and Conrad saw the sudden flare of hurt in Angeline’s eyes.
    She firmed her jaw and lifted her chin, though, and said, “Of course, Father. I’ll just get a few of my personal things that Brody doesn’t need to be messing with.”
    She stalked back into the hotel.
    Since Jack Trace had holstered his gun, Conrad did likewise, but he kept an eye on Trace as he walked over to James and Margaret. Margaret had hold of her brother’s arm and was urging him to come with her, back to the general store.
    “We already have everything we need, James,” she said. “Mr. Hamilton had our usual order all packaged up ready for us. If you’ll go settle up with him, we can be on our way back to the ranch.”
    “You know there’s not gonna be any settling up,” James said, his voice bitter. “All I can do is ask Hamilton to add the supplies to our bill.”
    “Ah, but you’ve forgotten about this,” Margaret said as she slipped a twenty-dollar gold piece from the pocket of her dress. Conrad knew it was the double eagle he had given Rory a few days earlier. “We can pay him for what we’re getting today, and some on account.”
    James grunted. “Yeah, I reckon you’re right.” He glared at Conrad. “You didn’t have to interfere again, Browning. I would’ve been all right.”
    “You’d have been dead is what you would have been,” Conrad said. His voice was flat and hard. “Trace would have killed you without any trouble.”
    James jerked his arm loose from Margaret’s grip and took a step toward Conrad. “What makes you think that?”
    Conrad stood his ground and said, “Because it’s his job to kill reckless hotheads like you.”
    For a second, he thought James was going to take a swing at him. But Margaret grabbed James’s arm again, this time with both hands, and pulled him back. “That’s enough,” she said. “Come on, James.”
    He looked at her. “You shouldn’t boss me around. I’m older than you, you know.”
    “Then act like it.”
    James didn’t have an answer for that. He glared at everybody, then allowed Margaret to tug him back toward the general store.
    From behind Conrad, Dave Whitfield asked, “Are you really a rich man, Browning, like my daughter claims?”
    Conrad turned and shrugged. “Some people would say so.”
    “Then why the hell are you gettin’ mixed up with trash like the MacTavishes? You could probably buy and sell the whole lot of ’em a dozen times over.”
    “No,” Conrad said with a shake of his head. “I could buy and sell you a dozen times over, Whitfield…not that I’d want to.”
    With that, Conrad started back toward the hotel, ignoring the angry glower on Whitfield’s face.
    He had just stepped onto the porch when he noticed something that froze him in his tracks. He saw a woman walking past the church, a woman in a long dress, wearing a shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders so that he couldn’t see her face or even tell what color her hair was. He stood there watching her, waiting to see what she was going to do.
    When she reached the corner of the building, she turned onto the little path that ran alongside it to the graveyard.
    Conrad’s breath caught in his throat. His heart seemed to shudder to a halt in his chest and lie there like a lump, no longer beating. He heard a roaring in his ears.
    That’s her, he thought. Even though she wasn’t carrying any flowers for Rebel’s grave this time, he felt certain that was the woman who had visited the cemetery before and left the