Chapter One

It was a warm spring evening near sunset in 1897, when the red-headed stranger rode into the little town of Rosarita, Texas, tied his horse to the hitching-post in front of the Little Nugget Saloon, then walked inside and shot the owner, Race Jago, dead.

While everyone was startled into immobility, he placed his pistola upon the bar top, and looked around.

"Well?" he asked. "Ain’t nobody gonna call th’ sheriff?"

When Walt Jessup arrived, buckling his gunbelt around his big belly and puffing with the exertion of sprinting the two blocks from his office, the stranger calmly surrendered the gun. He admitted that he’d shot Jago in cold blood, and then went docilely with the sheriff to jail, leaving the townspeople with Jago’s dead body and a thousand questions.

It took all of fifteen minutes before some enterprising citizen with an eye toward publicity raced to the newspaper office, and perhaps another ten before that same someone sent a messenger to the telegraph office to dispatch a notice to a key newspaper in the state capitol at Austin.

Rosarita was the kind of place the dime novel writers described as a sleepy border town, and this was the most exciting-albeit disturbing-thing that had happened in two dozen years. So exciting, in fact, that it gained the pueblo more than a little notoriety across the state.

While shoot-outs and violent deaths were an expected occurrence in the smaller towns scattered throughout the remote reaches of the Panhandle, the gunning down of an unarmed citizen in front of so many witnesses was not. The city of Dallas sent a reporter to cover the trial; straight on his heels arrived another reporter from Austin, complete with a photographer loaded with tripod, camera, and chemicals. The Austin reporter, thinking he had the ’scoop’ of the decade, set to interviewing the prisoner and found his expectations dashed.

The stranger was totally uncooperative, turning his back on his questioner, and staring out the tiny jailhouse window as if something fascinating lurked outside the bars. Undaunted, the reporter spoke to the witnesses. Surely, there would be numerous stories on which he could build a series of articles on the lawlessness that existed in the state in spite of the country’s emergence into the Twentieth Century, and his editor would think that would merit him an outstanding pay raise.

To his surprise, they all told the same story with little variation and no details:

The stranger walked into the saloon, saw the deceased standing at the bar talking to an acquaintance, and called out softly.

"Jago."

Jago turned around, saying in surprise, "Brennan?"

The killer calmly pulled his Colt from his holster, and fired. He couldn’t miss at that range. Point-blank, at six feet. There was a look of total shock-some added, disbelief-on Race Jago’s face as he fell into the sawdust covering the saloon’s floor. He died without saying another word.

In the face of this setback the reporter retired to his hotel room with a bottle of whisky and a sharpened pencil. The next day, he telegraphed to his editor the opening chapter of a total fabrication account of the dastardly act, quoting eyewitness accounts of how the "grim-visaged stranger burst into the saloon, black death in his fiery eyes", drawing his revolver and sending a spray of bullets around the walls, while crying out the owner’s name, wounding several innocent bystanders and destroying the entire inventory of liquor stacked behind the bar, before killing "the honest proprietor, Race Jago", and finally being subdued by a dozen brave souls who responded to the sound of gunshots at the risk of their own lives.

During his trial, which was held with downright haste, the stranger was equally taciturn, refusing to tell them little more than his name.

"Lucas Brennan, yer Honor," he said. He gave no reason as to why he’d killed Jago, except to say, "Th’ bastard needed killin’, so I done it."

Rather than listen to twenty-seven recountings of the same story, the prosecutor called only three witnesses. Banker Albert Hardy was as stiff and staid as his starched collar and embarrassed at having to admit that he was in the saloon at midday when he should have been protecting his depositors’ accounts. Joe Grady was a wrangler from a nearby ranch. Sadie Alvarez was one of Jago’s "girls", dusky-skinned with impossibly straw-blond hair, who sat uncomfortably in the witness chair in her respectable clothes, a long-skirted gabardine suit with a high collared, leg-o’-mutton sleeved jacket, both of which had seen better days and were made for a much slimmer Sadie.

She preened, when the prosecutor called her, "Miss Alvarez," and told her account of the incident with little embellishment and a great deal of sincerity. All the witnesses supplied the same details in almost the same words: the stranger walked into the saloon, called the owner’s name, Jago turned, recognized him, and the stranger shot him. None of them had any idea why it had happened, though many had mulled over various reasons and rejected them all.

The Little Nugget was the only saloon in town, so the stranger couldn’t be a gunslinger hired by a competitor. Jago was relatively honest in his dealings. His girls were clean and had never given a customer a dose of the clap, though the resident tinhorn cheated the players who sat in on his poker games. And he did water down his whisky and charge too much for it, but you didn’t shoot a man for a little thing like that. Did you?

When the stranger was called to the stand to testify in his own defense, the townsfolk thought that now they would learn the where-tos and why-fors of the murder.

A hush settled over the courtroom as he rose and walked to the witness seat in a controlled and steady amble, and they all leaned forward to catch his words.

They were disappointed.

The stranger placed his hand upon the Bible that the clerk supplied.

"Do-you-swear-to-tell-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the truth?"

Brennan muttered, "I do," and took his seat next to the table where the Right Honorable Jason McIntyre, rapidly earning a reputation as a harsh magistrate and a "hanging judge", was seated.

He gave his name. "Lucas Brennan.

"Place of residence?"

"Nowhere in partic’lar."

He affirmed the prosecutor’s question, that yes, he had shot Race Jago, and then his cooperation ceased. He sat mute under the barrage of questions the lawyer asked, until Judge McIntyre, uncomfortable in his formal frockcoat and high collar and tightly wrapped cravat, burst out in exasperation.

"Listen, Brennan, answer the questions, or I’ll--" He stopped as Brennan turned toward him, something in the stranger’s face stifling the rest of his words.

"What’ll ya do, Jedge?" Came the question, with barely concealed contempt. "Throw me in th’ hoosegow?"

For an instant, the judge was unable to speak, startled by Brennan’s effrontery. His face reddened and he appeared to be choking. Then he made a sharp gesture.

"You’re dismissed! Get back to your seat."

Brennan stood up and returned to the table where his lawyer sat.

By now, that worthy gentleman was tearing his hair in despair and dismay. He was Judge McIntyre’s brother and had faced his honorable sibling many times in the courtroom, enjoying the legal battles they fought, and often had won, but in the face of the stranger’s stubborn silence he had no defense, he had no plan of action. He saw no recourse but to throw his client, and himself, on the mercy of the court.

The jury didn’t even deliberate. As soon as both lawyers had finished their final speeches-and Attorney McIntyre’s was frighteningly brief-the foreman jumped to his feet.

"We have a verdict, Yer Honor," he told the judge, and then looked at Luke Brennan and spoke the word they all expected to hear.

Guilty.

There was no way it could have been otherwise. There had been twenty-seven witnesses in the Nugget who’d seen him pull the trigger, and even with the stranger’s admitting to the crime, his refusal to give a defense and tell them a reason why they shouldn’t condemn him, left them no choice.

Nevertheless, the judge was moved to ask, "Haven’t you got anything you want to say?"

The stranger looked up at him and Jason McIntyre would forever swear he was looking into the eyes of a man already dead, a man who had lost all hope and life many years before.

"Jus’ don’t bury me near Jago, yer Honor. I’d hate t’ think I was gonna spend eternity next t’ thet son offa bitch."

The sound of the judge’s gavel was lost amid the uproar from the spectators, as he pounded against the tabletop for order and silence. The prisoner was taken back to the Rosarita jail to await execution, which the judge had decreed would take place at dawn the next day, and it was there that Kip Wakefield met Luke Brennan.

Kip was Walt Jessup’s newest deputy. He was twenty-two, a sandy-haired, fresh-faced youngster, with his life as yet unsettled, which was why he had taken the job. It gave him a chance to stay in Rosarita, where he had grown up, and earn a little money while he decided which way his future was heading.

He got a lot of ribbing from Jed Rance, Jessup’s other deputy, because of his youth, as well as his name, and for a certain idealistic outlook he had concerning the hard cases who passed through the Rosarita jail. It was on account of that view of life that he was intrigued by Luke Brennan.

The man hadn’t spoken more than two dozen words since his arrest, steadfastly not answering questions, and telegraphs to various colleagues in surrounding states had elicited no information on him. As far as anyone could tell, Brennan wasn’t wanted anywhere for anything. He’d simply appeared from out of nowhere, committed a murder, and was now going to die for his crime.

Earlier that evening Kip brought the prisoner his last meal. He’d hesitantly asked Brennan what he wanted, feeling an odd quivering in his gut as he said the words. This was the first hanging in Rosarita in a dozen years. Kip had been a ten-year-old in knee-britches when the last man had had his horse driven out from under him, and he hadn’t been a witness, but tomorrow he’d see his first man die, and not very decently, if all he’d heard was true.

He looked Brennan over as he asked the question. He was a tall man, maybe six-foot-two to Will’s five-eleven, slim and tough-looking, as if he’d been a hard-worker most of his adult life. Not too old, still on the uphill side of fifty. Leastways there wasn’t much white in the red hair which was a bright copper contrast to the sun-weathered darkness of his skin, just a little sprinkling at his temples mellowing the metallic sheen to a soft gold. And yet somehow, Brennan seemed old.

It wasn’t Time that had aged the man, but something else, the same thing that had taken the life out of the hazel eyes. There were lines around those eyes that once might have been laugh-lines, little crows-feet that should crinkle whenever he smiled, making it seem as if at one time he’d laughed often, but now they were deeply grooved as were the lines around his mouth, as if chiseled by grief. It had been a long time since Luke Brennan laughed at anything. Kip was willing to bet.

Now, he regarded the anxious boy solemnly, saying, "Got no preference. Whatever’s th’ fare. Don’t make no never mind t’ me whether I meet m’ Maker on a full belly er not."

Kit brought in the tray, evicting the pesky newspaper photographer from the corridor once more.

The man had dogged the prisoner’s steps to and from the jail, hoping for some desperate act that could be captured on the photographic plate, to be sent back to Austin and splashed across the newspaper’s front page as accompaniment to more of the reporter’s fabrications. Squeezing the bulb and igniting the chemicals in the lighting tray and causing both Kip and Brennan to start at the brilliance, he quickly slipped the exposed plate into a black cloth bag, gathered up his equipment, and made a hasty exit through the front door, tipping his hat flippantly with his one free hand. Tomorrow he’d get a much better photograph; he had permission from the sheriff to set up his equipment in front of the scaffold.

Blinking rapidly, Kip stood looking at the door, which trembled from the force with which it had been slammed shut. Then, as his vision cleared, he slid the tray and the tin cup of coffee through the slit in the cell door, and watched as Brennan took the tray and returned to his cot, sitting there chewing the food, and giving no indication that he was tasting it at all. At last he looked up.

"Ain’t cha got somethin’ else t’ do, boy?"

"I--"

"Yeah?"

Kip repeated the question he had asked earlier. "Is there anyone you’d like us to get in touch with?"

Surely, there was someone who would want to know what happened to him. After all, everyone had someone who worried about him. Didn’t they?

The coppery head shook slightly.

"Nope."