“If Kingston and Clovis are brothers, Kingston should have been loyal to Wyatt,” John said. “Clovis managed to have three sons, and he cared enough about you all to leave you land. Why would his brother try to kill you?”

“Did Pa really care?” Kevin asked quietly. “Or did he want to flaunt how he’d fooled everyone? What better way than, after he was dead, to let his big secret out of the bag. It was a way to hurt Cheyenne, too, and take a big old gouge outa Katherine Hunt, his third and final wife, who made no secret of her contempt for him.”

“So Clovis left the land to his young’uns,” John said. “That still doesn’t explain why they’d hurt Wyatt. Or which one of them did it.”

“My dislike of my pa was no secret. Could that be enough?” Wyatt asked.

John came to Rachel’s side of the table. “You’re one of the best agents we have. How do you read this?”

“Kingston might admit to my shooting under questioning. Shooting a woman is a serious business out west and nowhere more so than in Wyoming Territory, where women have the right to vote. If we convince him he’s going to hang, he might be willing to admit to a second shooting—again with no one dying—to escape the noose.”

“Especially if we can prove he knew about Hawkins being a murderer and covered it up. Those would be hanging offenses.” John took his last bite of cobbler.

“He might turn on Hawkins to keep from having his neck stretched.” Falcon looked at Wyatt. At Kevin. “We’ve all been shot in this mess.”

“But you and Kevin were shot by the rustlers.”

That gained another lengthy silence.

“Hawkins couldn’t have been in on rustling his own cattle, could he?” John asked.

“Except, did he rustle his own cattle, or were the bulk of them from the RHR, and he just ran some of his cattle in with them?” Wyatt asked. “Or maybe turned a blind eye when his men did it, as long as they left his main herd alone?”

Shaking his head at all the pieces that needed to fit together, John said, “We’ll arrest Hawkins tomorrow and see about bringing Kingston over here to face charges. While Hawkins is in jail, we’ll search his house and see what else is in that safe.”

Rachel finished her chicken stew and managed a small bowl of cobbler. Then she said, “After a week in bed it feels foolish, but I need to get some rest.”

“Let me help you back upstairs,” John said. “I’d like a moment of time talking in private.”

Kevin and Win began washing the dishes. Molly cleared the table and wondered what John McCall didn’t think he could say in front of all of them.

Twenty-Four