As she clawed her way closer, she could see his face. His eyes were open, staring vacantly into the blinding glare of the sun. A thin trickle of blood had formed and dried at the corner of his mouth.
Even before she touched him, Jessie knew that her brother was dead.
Seconds later, Matt reached the bottom of the slope. He found Jessie cradling Frank in her arms, rocking him like a child. Her black curls had tumbled over her face, hiding her expression, but the keening sobs that rose from her throat told Matt all he needed to know.
He swore silently as he took in Frank’s glazed eyes and the unnatural set of his head on his broken neck. This was the last thing he’d wanted to see happen. He had been responsible for the safety of his prisoner, and he had failed in his duty.
Not only that, but after Jessie’s account, he’d almost begun to believe that Frank could be innocent. Now the question of his guilt would be nothing but empty debate. Frank was dead—as dead as he would have been at the end of a hangman’s rope.
Reaching down, he touched Jessie’s shoulder. Through the thin fabric of her shirt, her flesh was taut and quivering. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll help you get him up to the horses.”
“Don’t you touch my brother!” She turned on him, spitting out the words. “He’s not your prisoner anymore. This is over, no thanks to you, Marshal! Go away and leave us alone!”
Her tear-reddened eyes blazed wounded fury. Matt knew she blamed him for this tragedy. But if she hadn’t held him up at gunpoint and forced him to dismount, he would have remained at Frank’s side. With any luck at all, the two of them could have eluded the vigilantes together.
It was Jessie’s interference that had caused Frank Hammond to bolt off alone. But this was no time to point that out.
“You can’t stay here, Jessie. And neither can Frank, unless you want to leave him for the buzzards and coyotes. We need to get his body back to town.”
“No!” The cry exploded from her throat as she clung fiercely to her brother. “I won’t have him paraded down Main Street for people to stare at! Frank isn’t a convicted criminal. He doesn’t belong to you, and I won’t let you have him!”
“Your brother was arrested, Jessie. He died as a fugitive.” The words came out sounding cruel, but some things had to be said. “We have to follow procedure—”
“Hang your damned procedure! So help me, I’ll kill you before I let you take him!”
Matt hesitated, weighing his choices. It wouldn’t set well with the sheriff, reporting Frank Hammond’s death without bringing in the body. But right now there were more urgent things to consider. Jessie was half out of her mind with grief. Leave her alone, and anything could happen. He had one tragedy on his conscience. He didn’t need another.
“All right. We’ll do this your way. Tell me what you want.”
A look of surprise flashed across her face. Then, as if through an act of will, her features arranged themselves into a calm mask. “I want to take him home,” she said. “I want to bury him on the hilltop above the ranch, next to Mama and Papa. That’s what Frank would want.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell the sheriff what happened, fill out the paperwork and hope for the best.”
She nodded grimly, offering him no thanks. “Get these miserable handcuffs off him. If you hadn’t forced him to wear them, Frank would still be alive.”
Matt made no reply. It was standard procedure to handcuff a prisoner during a transfer. But Jessie would have no interest in hearing that.
Taking the small key from his pocket, he crouched beside her. Together they turned Frank’s body onto its side. For her sake, he worked gently and carefully. Frank was beyond hurting, but he knew Jessie would feel the slightest strain, twist or pinch as if were happening to her own flesh.
When the manacles were removed, Jessie lowered Frank’s body to the ground. Then, with her mouth set, her eyes brimming, she stepped back and allowed Matt to lift her brother in his arms.
Frank Hammond had not been heavy in life. His lanky teenaged body, still in the process of growing, was little more than bones and sinew. Matt needed no help carrying him out of the gully, laying him across the saddle of the spare horse and lashing his body into place. It was a shame neither of them had brought a blanket. It might have been easier on Jessie if they’d been able to wrap him.
Anxious to be done with this sad business, he swung onto the back of his chestnut gelding and waited while she mounted her mare. Without a word, she moved in front of him and headed south, keeping below the ridge. Matt savored the glint of sunlight on her raven curls as he rode a few yards behind her. He found himself missing the grip of her hands at his waist and the lightly electric pressure of her breasts against his back.
Jessie would not have an easy time of it, with her brother dead and her ranch gone. With no resource except her beauty, she could easily go the way of too many pretty girls and end up making her living on her back.
By all the fires of hell, Matt vowed, he would shake the life out of her before he’d let her do a thing like that!
His own vehemence startled him. Years ago a retired sheriff, who’d been a friend and mentor, had warned him that getting involved with any woman on a case was a surefire recipe for trouble. Matt had always followed that advice. He would continue to follow it, even now.
Especially now.
Jessie Hammond was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, and only six or seven years his junior. She was spunky and tender, with a vulnerability that roused all his protective instincts. But he wasn’t about to become involved with her. He was only concerned for her welfare. And besides, this wasn’t even his damned case!
Or was it?
Once again Matt ran her story through his mind—the ill-fated purchase of the stallion, the foreclosure on the ranch, the seizure of the horse and the fight with Allister Gates. If there was one common thread that ran through Jessie’s retelling, it was that Frank had been the one in charge. Frank had mortgaged the ranch. Frank had bought the stallion. And Frank had been the one to go and take the horse back.
That, Matt realized, was what bothered him. He had met both the brother and the sister. Frank had been quiet, almost timid, scarcely capable of violence, let alone murder. The bold one of the pair had been Jessie. Willful and audacious, she might have deferred to her brother as the man of the family, but in a crisis, she would have been the one to act—or at least to push him into action.
Matt stared at her proud, slender back, struggling against the flow of his thoughts. What if both Frank and Jessie had lied to him? What if she’d gone with Frank that night, to cover him with the rifle while he took the stallion? If Allister had tried to stop them, it would have been Jessie who’d stood in his way.
And it would have been Jessie who’d shot him.
Chapter Four
T hey rode single file over unmarked ground. Jessie led the way on her mare, her rigid shoulders betraying her tightly reined emotions. Matt followed a few yards behind her on his tall chestnut, leading the bay with Frank Hammond’s body slung over the saddle. He had hoped Jessie would talk to him, maybe tell him more about what had happened. But she hoarded her secrets as she hoarded her grief, locked in some deep place he could not reach.
Let it go, logic tempted him. With Frank Hammond dead, the murder of Allister Gates should be a closed case. Frank was beyond punishment, and if this dark sprite of a woman had fired the fatal shot, then dropped the rifle in the confusion of getting away, the consequences would haunt her to the end of her days. Surely justice would be served well enough.
The