Read Online Dead Man's Trail (9781101606957) by Frank Leslie - Free Book Online Page B

replaced by a steely, self-satisfied, often overbearing determination coupled with an acerbic glint in his brown eyes. Which was why she was taken aback by the expression she now saw in his eyes—or thought she saw:
    Fear?
    â€œWhat is it?” she said, sitting up in bed. “Don’t tell me they’ve hanged another of Neumiller’s deputies!”
    He glanced at her sharply, embarrassed. He let the curtain drop back into place and reached for the pitcher on the marble-topped washstand. “Of course not,” he said with what she perceived to be a feigned casual air. “And who do you mean by ‘they’?”
    He poured water into the washbasin and reached for a washcloth and soap cake.
    So he is afraid. . . .
The revelation startled her. She’d never seen that before in him. It would have been endearing, had he not tried to hide it so well, had he allowed it to become a bridge between them.
    Glendolene sank back against her pillows, crossing her arms on her breasts over the sheet and quilt. “Who else would have done such a thing?”
    â€œOh, you think Floyd Betajack slipped into town, cut his son down, and hanged Harrison?” Lee chuckled as he scrubbed his face with the soapy cloth.
    â€œDon’t you?”
    â€œBetajack doesn’t have that much imagination. Or, forgive my language, balls.”
    â€œWho does have that much balls?”
    Lee gave her a quick look of reprimand. He hated when her language verged on risqué, as though he thought she might carry it over into dinner parties with his respectable associates. “My guess is some man or men around town had a bone to pick with Harrison and took advantage of this whole affair with Betajack to shoot him and hang him. Neumiller is probably right now going over the list of men he’s had in jail over the past couple of months.”
    He lifted his head to scrub his long neck. “Former prisoners or friends of former prisoners, most likely. Maybe friends or kin of one of the other rustlers we’ve hanged in recent weeks. I’m not worried about it.”
    â€œDon’t you think you should be? You would have had a hand in those killings.”
    â€œKillings?” Lee turned to her, scowling again with his particular brand of haughty disapproval that made her recoil like a sensitive child. “Good Lord, Glen. That isn’t what you think I’m doing, is it?
Killing men?
Dear, I am
executing
convicted stock thieves and killers.”
    She drew another ragged breath, not wanting to get into an argument, because she knew she couldn’t win but only be made to feel smaller in his eyes than she already was. Still, she couldn’t help saying, softly, “I guess it depends on what you’d like to call it, doesn’t it?”
    â€œOf course it doesn’t!”
    â€œAll right, Lee.”
    He walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, half turned toward her. “Bringing law and order to this chunk of Wyoming is what I intended to do, Glen. And that means hanging killers and stock thieves. I’m sorry if it seems savage to you, but sometimes savagery is the sword that is needed to bring savagery to ground.”
    â€œYou don’t think savagery begets savagery?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.” Lee shook his head vehemently, drilling her with those assured, wide, dark eyes, his brown, carefully trimmed mustache and beard set against the ruddiness of his otherwise long, narrow, young-looking face. “Crime is down in Wolfville, as well in the country surrounding it. True, Claw Hendricks is still running wild south of here, with his ragtag band of renegade Utes and Arapahos, but he’s mostly wreaking his havoc on the mining camps in Colorado. He rarely ventures into Wyoming,” Lee added with a shrewd, self-satisfied smile, “because he knows if he does, I’ll bring hell down on him. Neumiller doesn’t have enough men