“Mornin’, Dawson. I see you made it through the night all right,” the doctor said in his breezy Yankee accent. It had been quite a surprise to hear it the previous evening. To distract Thorn from the pain of having his wounds cleaned and bandaged, the doctor had told him the story of how he’d grown up in Maine, but then befriended a Confederate colonel who had been badly wounded near the end of the war. The doc had explained how he’d helped his friend journey home to Texas once the war was finally over, and had found himself falling in love with the state and choosing to make it his home. That he’d found love with a Texas belle in Simpson Creek had merely cemented it. “How’s the pain?”
“Tolerable,” Thorn said, his eyes darting from the Billy Joe to the Simpson Creek sheriff. “Billy Joe, go back in the house.” He didn’t want the boy to be present when the lawman led him off with the come-alongs he saw sticking out of his back pocket.
Billy Joe had evidently seen them, too. He leaped to his feet and faced the sheriff, fists clenched at his sides. “No! You can’t take Mr. Dawson! He ain’t one of the ones you’re really after, one of them men who went firing off their guns—he didn’t shoot nobody!” Billy Joe cried. “Besides, he’s wounded! He needs to be here where we kin take care of ’im!”
“Billy Joe, I said go into the house,” Thorn said, keeping his voice calm, even as he kept an eye on the sheriff. “Remember, we were just talking about how a man always has to take orders from someone, and this is one of those times,” he said. “Go inside, and everything will be all right.”
Billy Joe whirled to face Thorn. “I won’t let him take you!” he cried, red-faced now with fury. “I won’t!”
“Billy Joe, I said to go inside,” Thorn repeated. “Please.” His eyes dueled with the boy’s for a long moment, then all at once Billy Joe abruptly turned away and ran out of the barn. A moment later the sound of a door slamming door reached their ears. Thorn guessed the boy had been close to tears, and hadn’t wanted anyone to see that.
He glanced at the sheriff, then turned to the doctor.
“Dawson, this is Sheriff Bishop,” Dr. Walker said. “I thought it best to apprise him of your presence, and let him hear your side of the story.”
“I understand, Doctor. Sheriff.” Thorn acknowledged the lawman with a nod.
Dr. Walker said, “While I’m cleaning and changing these bandages on your wounds, why don’t you ask him your questions, Sheriff?” He set his bag down in the straw.
“Yeah, I could use the distraction,” Thorn said. “The doc’s carbolic stings a mite.” He said it with a grin, wanting to lighten the grim, cold look in the sheriff’s eyes, but the ice in them didn’t melt one little bit. Good for him. Clearly, the man was nobody’s fool. And he took his job and his responsibility to the town seriously, exactly as he should. But that admirable toughness might make it difficult for Thorn to turn the sheriff into an ally.
“All I know so far is what the doctor told me you said yesterday—that you’ve been riding with the Griggs gang, taking part in their robberies and raids, but you claim not to be one of them,” Bishop challenged. “Is that true?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Then suppose you tell me right now what you were doing, robbing a bank with them yesterday? If you’re going to stay here in my town while you recover, then I need more of an explanation than I’ve gotten so far. Unless you want to receive the rest of your care in one of my jail cells, that is,” he added.
Thorn raised a hand—the one that wasn’t clenched into a fist, since the doctor was sponging that burning liquid over the wound in his shoulder—to indicate he was willing to talk, as soon as he could do so without groaning.
“I’m working for the State Police,” he said eventually. “My orders are to infiltrate the Griggs gang so that I can warn the authorities where the gang is likely to strike next. The goal is to set a trap to catch them in the act, so they can be brought to justice.” He kept his eyes locked on Bishop’s, and as he expected, suspicion remained in the lawman’s steady gaze. “You don’t have to believe me,” Thorn said. “You can telegraph the State Police headquarters in Austin. Address it to Captain Hepplewhite and he’ll confirm my identity and my assignment.”
“You’re working with the State Police,” Bishop repeated, with the same curl to his lip he might have had if Thorn had said he was employed by Ulysses S. Grant or William Sherman.
“Yes, although at heart I still consider myself to be a Texas Ranger rather than a state policeman. I was a Ranger and stayed here to protect Texas rather than going off to war, and God willing, I’ll be able to call myself a Ranger again someday.”
He thought the frost melted a little in Bishop’s eyes at his last remark, but the lawman’s tone was as cold as ever when he spoke again. “If that was the plan, why weren’t you able to warn us before our bank was robbed?”
“I just joined the gang a fortnight ago. Griggs doesn’t fully trust me yet, so he doesn’t confide his plans to me,” Thorn said. “His closest men watch me like a hawk. Reckon it’ll take a while before they trust me enough so that I’ll know of a holdup far enough ahead of time that I can sneak away to warn the law. Meanwhile, my orders are to play along with whatever the gang chooses to do, so that I can win their trust, while avoiding harming the citizenry, of course.”
“Sounds like the kind of harebrained scheme the carpetbag government police would come up with,” Bishop said with a sneer. “What makes you think they’ll ever trust you that much, if you’re not shooting innocent people right along with them? Maybe they’re just playing along, pretending to trust you, till they catch you ratting on them.”
His last remark played right into Thorn’s deepest fear. He’d been warned that the plan was dangerous, that the Griggs gang would show no mercy if they found him out.
“Maybe they are,” he agreed. “It’s the chance I’ve agreed to take.” The gang would just continue hurting decent people until they were stopped. Thorn might not be proud to say he was a state policeman, but he’d certainly be proud to play a role in stopping Griggs and his gang. And besides, it wasn’t as if anyone would miss him if he failed and paid the ultimate price.
He’d thought his last admission would be enough to satisfy Bishop, but evidently the lawman was even harder than he appeared, for his gaze remained narrowed. “What makes a fellow willing to take such a risk as you’re taking, Dawson? Money?” he murmured, in a tone that suggested the topic was of only mild interest—though the intensity in his eyes told a different story.
“They’ll pay me well enough, if I succeed,” Thorn drawled, in that same careless tone the sheriff had used.
“Maybe so, but I don’t believe that’s all there is to it,” Bishop shot back. “What is it you’re atoning for?”
The man was too shrewd. Thorn shifted his gaze, hoping the other man hadn’t seen the wince that gave away how accurate the shot-in-the-dark question had been, and set his jaw. “I reckon that’s my business, Sheriff, especially since it has nothing to do with the Simpson Creek bank or anything else about this town. And I’ll tell you right now that Mrs. Henderson and her boy have nothing to fear from me.”
He kept his eye staring unblinkingly at the man, hoping the sheriff could see how deeply and truly he meant the words. After a long moment, the lawman shrugged. “You can keep your secrets, Dawson. But you go back on your word and do one ounce of harm to Mrs. Henderson and her boy, or anyone else in this town, and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”
Thorn could tell the sheriff meant what he said. Good thing he’d rather die than harm one hair on Daisy Henderson’s head—or Billy Joe’s. But couldn’t his