Texas Tall (The Tylers of Texas 3)

“He hasn’t been charged. There’ll be an inquest. But unless some new bit of evidence turns up—”

“I see.” Stella could imagine, now, what had happened. Nicky had been told to look for a dark blue pickup. On the way he’d spotted Will Tyler’s dark vehicle with a flat tire and assumed it was his buyer. He’d stopped to make contact, and Tyler had drawn his pistol. When poor Nicky panicked, Tyler had killed him.

And the Tylers, every last one of them, were going to pay.

Stella’s hand flashed across the table and seized the sheriff’s wrist. Her red-lacquered nails dug into his flesh.

“Listen to me, Abner,” she hissed. “I know you want to keep your job. You may not have broken the law, but you’ve skated the edge a few times, and I know enough to hurt you. I want Will Tyler prosecuted, hear? If you can’t find a reason to bring him in, invent one. Plant evidence if you have to—whatever it takes. The bastard murdered my brother. He’s going to pay—in blood!”

* * *

It was barely dawn when Will gave up on sleep. Gritty-eyed and restless, he dragged on his clothes, started the coffeemaker in the kitchen, and wandered out onto the front porch of the rambling stone ranch house. It was still dark, the air chilly, the clouds tinged with pewter above the rolling prairie to the east. The high escarpment, which backed the ranch on the west, lay deep in shadow, its craggy buttes and turrets still awaiting the first touch of light.

The windmill next to the barn creaked as it turned in the faint breeze. There was no other sound at this hour, not even the chorus of birdcalls that would signal the start of a new day. Everything was quiet. Too damned quiet, Will thought. He wanted to shatter the silence with the foulest curses his mouth could form. But it wouldn’t help him feel any better. And it sure as hell wouldn’t change what had happened last night.

His black pickup was parked next to the porch, where he’d left it, with the ruined tire in the bed and the spare on the right front wheel. By the time he’d finished being fingerprinted, checked for gunshot residue, and grilled by Abner Sweeney, it had been almost midnight. After the lawmen had left, he’d changed the tire and driven home to a silent house, with nobody awake to meet him.

Drawn by the smell of fresh coffee, he returned to the kitchen, poured himself a cup, and took it back outside. As he stood at the porch rail, sipping and trying to focus his thoughts, a voice from behind startled him.

“Say, Will, that coffee smells mighty good. I could use a cup, myself.”

Jasper Platt, the Rimrock’s retired foreman, had come up onto the porch in Will’s absence. He sat in one of the chairs, with the ranch’s black-and-white Border collie at his feet. White-haired now, and too arthritic to ride, Jasper shared a duplex with horse boss, Sky Fletcher, behind the main house.

“Sure.” Will strode back into the house and was back a moment later with a second cup of steaming black coffee.

“Thanks.” Jasper reached for the cup, blew away the steam, and took a careful sip. “Heard you come in last night. You got in mighty late. Did you find yourself a lady friend in town?”

“Lord, I wish I had.” Will pulled up another chair and sat next to the old man. Maybe talking things out would make him feel better. “I drove into Blanco to pick up Erin,” he said.

“Mighty late for that little gal to be out. Is she here?”

“No, she’s with Tori. Somethin

g . . . happened on the way back.”

Jasper glanced off the side of the porch, which was high enough to give him a view into the truck bed. “Judgin’ from the shape of that tire, what happened was bad,” he observed.

“The tire was the least of it.” Will drew a painful breath. “I had to shoot a man last night, Jasper. I killed him.”

The old man listened, frowning and nodding, as Will related the night’s events. “So who the hell was it?” he asked as Will neared the end of the story.

“Somebody I would never have shot if I’d known who he was. It was Stella Rawlins’s brother, Nick.”

“The dude with the tattooed head? Lord almighty!” Jasper swore. “I wouldn’t want to be you when Stella hears about that. The woman will be out for your blood.”

Will gave him a grim nod. “There’s that. And then there’s my conscience. What if I killed an innocent man, Jasper? I’ve seen Nick in town. The man looked mean enough, but I always had the feeling he was scared of his own shadow. If I’d known it was him, I’d have figured the knife was a bluff and talked him into putting it down. Damn it, I can’t say I ever wanted to find out how it felt to take a human life.”

“You had Erin in the truck. You’d have done anything to keep her safe.” Jasper scratched the dog’s ears. “I never killed a body myself, but I was along when your dad shot a couple of rustlers that were makin’ off with his cows. Bull was a dead shot. Plugged ’em both, right out of the saddle and left ’em in the dust.”

“And knowing my father, I’m sure he wouldn’t have batted an eye over it,” Will said. “All my life I wanted to be just like him. As a kid I learned to walk like him, talk like him. Later on, I made the decisions I thought he’d make. But I could never be half as tough. I don’t think any man could be as tough as Bull Tyler was.”

“It wasn’t like Bull to mention it, but he was always proud of you,” Jasper said. “He would’ve been proud of you last night, doin’ what it took to protect your little girl. You didn’t ask my advice, but I’ll offer it, anyway. You did what you had to. So put this ugly business behind you and move on.”

Will set his cup on the porch, rose, and walked to the rail. The Rimrock was stirring to life, the aromas of coffee and bacon wafting from the bunkhouse kitchen. Soon the hands would be setting out for morning chores. Sky Fletcher’s steel-blue pickup was already parked outside the horse barn. These days he was spending most of his nights in Blanco with his fiancée, Lauren Prescott. But Sky, Bull’s secret son by a Comanche woman, could always be counted on to show up early for work.

In some ways—all the good ways—Sky was almost as much like Bull as Will was. But Will’s younger brother, Beau, was cut from a different bolt of cloth. His clashes with Bull had driven him away from the ranch for eleven years. Now, as foreman, he was perpetually butting heads with his brother. Some things, Will mused, never changed.

By now, the blinding edge of the sun had risen above the eastern horizon. The yellowed grasslands glimmered with early frost that would melt away as the day warmed. A raven rose from a tall cedar, flapped its wings and soared into the dawn.