MacCallister: The Eagles Legacy: The Killing by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone Read Free Book Online

esteem of just about everyone in the valley.
    But there was something else about him too, something deep and dark. It took a while before Duff was comfortable enough with Meghan to tell him about the love he had lost in Scotland. That had left this otherwise very powerful man with a wounded and vulnerable soul. And as much as she wanted to have a deeper relationship, the thought of doing further emotional damage to him was more than she wanted to deal with.
    She would have to go slow.
    Meghan finished the hem, then hung the dress up so it would be ready for Mrs. Abernathy tomorrow. After that, she went upstairs to her apartment, which was over her shop. She had baked cookies today, as she did every day, to provide a treat for her customers. She took one of them, then walked out onto the front balcony. The sky was filled with stars, from those so bright that she felt almost as if she could reach up and pluck one down from the sky to those of lesser and lesser brilliance, to those that could not be seen as individual stars but provided a blue haze against the black velvet vault of night.
    From across the street, she could hear Mrs. McVey’s baby crying. From down the street she could hear the piano and laughter coming from Fiddler’s Green. She could also hear choir practice from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which was right next door.
    What did he mean by “there may come a time when this information would be of much greater interest?”
     
     
    After Elmer delivered Duff’s letter to Meghan Parker, he stepped into Fiddler’s Green. He was feeling pretty good about things because, while he hadn’t read the letter, he knew from their conversation that Duff was going to ask her about the dance.
    Sky Meadow needed a woman on the place, and Duff needed a wife. Elmer knew about Skye McGregor, and he could understand a man grieving over the loss of a true love, but Duff needed to get on with his life. Otherwise he would wind up wasting it away, the way Elmer had.
    He had not started out to waste his life. When he was young, he’d had plans like every other young man. All he wanted to do was have a farm, marry Alma Dumey, and raise a family.
    But all that changed with the war.

    “Alma’s dead, Elmer,” Jesse James told him. “A bunch of red-legged bastards from Kansas killed her and her whole family.”
    Elmer gripped the handles of the plow so hard that he could feel the blisters forming.
    “Was it Doc Jennison?”
    “Worse,” Jesse said. “They were led by one of our own. Crack Kingsley.”
    “Kingsley? Kingsley did this?”
    “I heard it from Alma’s dying lips.”
    So far, Elmer had managed to avoid the war. He was in Missouri and he knew that there were men of good conscience fighting on both sides. But avoiding the war did not mean he was avoiding its price. He had already lost a brother, two cousins, and several friends. And now Alma Dumey, the girl he had intended to marry, was dead.
    Elmer pinched the bridge of his nose to keep himself from crying in front of this man, who had been his boyhood friend and was now an experienced warrior.
    “I know you haven’t ever had any trouble with him before, but never did like the son of a bitch,” Jesse James said. “So, to be truthful with you, I wasn’t all that surprised when he crossed the border to join up with the Kansans. But I never thought he would do anything like this to one of his own.”
    “It’s my fault. She wanted to marry this spring, but I wanted to put it off ’til after the crops were out. If she had been here with me, she would still be alive.”
    Jesse James reached out and put his hand on Elmer’s shoulder. “You can ride with us, Elmer,” he offered. “I guarantee you, we’ll find the sons of bitches who did this, and we’ll make them pay.”

    Elmer did ride with Frank and Jesse James, and with Quantrill, and they did find some, but not all, of the men who had murdered the Dumey family. Crack Kingsley, the one who had led the