Brigg let out a shaky laugh. “Rest, huh? Never been good at that.”
Anthony leaned in close. “Then you’d better learn. Because I didn’t drag you back to Silver Cross just to watch you die on an undertaker’s table.”
Brigg’s eyes flickered, softening with a rare, unguarded look. “Appreciate that, Hawk,” he replied. “Even if you are a miserable fool.”
Anthony chuckled, the sound short and rough.
The undertaker finally cleared his throat from the corner. “Never seen the like,” he muttered. “Shoshone in my parlor, a deputy on my table, and Miss Abigail playing doctor.”
Abigail turned, her expression sharp. “Unless you want to trade places with him, I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”
The man paled and said no more.
Anthony let his gaze sweep the room, from Abigail’s determination to Brigg’s battered stubbornness, to the watchful calm of Red Hawk and Black Wolf. Against all odds, they had survived.
He straightened, resting one hand on the Winchester slung across his back. “We’ll stay here until he’s steady enough to move. Then we figure out the rest.”
Abigail met his gaze, exhaustion in her eyes but fire in her voice. “We’ll keep him alive, Anthony,” she said. “I promise.”
Anthony gave a single, firm nod. “See that you do.”
The air hit Anthony like a wall when he finally stepped out of the building. It might have been dry, hot, and heavy with dust, but it was cleaner than the reek of blood and carbolic inside. He pulled in a long breath, trying to settle the roil in his chest.
It didn’t help that half of Silver Cross was staring at him.
He could feel their eyes crawling over him. Their faces were tight, whispers carrying across the street.
He knew what they saw: a man covered in dust and blood with his shirt torn open. And worse, everyone in town knew he’d broken out of Muldoon’s jail not long ago.
Anthony didn’t flinch under their stares. He’d lived with worse. But when his gaze drifted across the street, it froze.
The sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Winston Muldoon stood on the porch, rocking back on his heels like he had all the time in the world. His thumbs hooked casually into his gun belt, his wide frame blotting out the sunlight on the planks behind him.
Anthony felt the weight of the moment settle in his gut.
Sheriff Muldoon had been Vanburgh’s man for years. His pet lawman, his shield against the town’s anger. If Vanburgh wanted a deed signed, Muldoon found the ink. If Vanburgh wanted a rival silenced, Muldoon found the excuse.
Anthony knew it, the Shoshone knew it, and half of Silver Cross knew it. But nobody had ever spoken it aloud.
Now Vanburgh was dead. And Muldoon was standing right there.
Anthony adjusted the strap of the Winchester on his shoulder and crossed the street. The whispers behind himswelled, the kind of nervous chatter that prickled at the back of his neck.
Muldoon didn’t move. He just watched him come.
Chapter 42
Anthony didn’t break his stride as he closed the distance between himself and the sheriff.
Sheriff Winston Muldoon watched him come. The man hadn’t aged gracefully. His belly had thickened, his jowls sagged, and the gray threading through his beard gave him a wolfish look that had lost its edge years ago.
But the way his thumbs rested on his gun belt said he still thought himself quick enough to draw.
“Well, well,” Muldoon said when Anthony reached the porch. His voice carried easily. “Look what the desert coughed back up. Thought I had you tucked in nice and proper a few days ago. Funny how jail cells don’t seem to hold you.”
Anthony planted himself at the bottom of the steps, his shadow long in the dust. He kept his gaze steady on the sheriff’s. “Cells built on lies don’t hold forever,” Anthony replied.
