The Devil's Badland: The Loner by J. A. Johnstone Page A

I appreciate it.” Conrad took a deep breath. “I guess I’d better go in.”
    “Would you like for me to come with you?”
    Conrad thought about it, but only for a second. Again, the more people who knew who he was and why he was here, the better. So he said, “Thank you, Father. I’d like that.”
    The two men walked through the gate. Father Francisco asked, “What is your wife’s name?”
    “Rebel Browning.”
    “Ah! Such a tragedy! I remember. I conducted the service.” The priest looked over at Conrad with a frown. “But as I recall, it was the poor woman’s brothers who made the arrangements, because her husband had been killed as well.”
    “That’s what they believed at the time. I just…couldn’t make it here.”
    Father Francisco’s lips pursed in obvious disapproval. “You couldn’t make it to your own wife’s funeral?”
    “I was injured,” Conrad said. That wasn’t a lie. He’d been wounded during the battle with Rebel’s kidnappers. In fact, after leaving Carson City on that horrible night, he had passed out from loss of blood and probably would have died if a Paiute Indian named Phillip Bearpaw hadn’t found him and taken him to a doctor.
    “Well, at least you’re here now,” Father Francisco said. “I’m sure your wife knew how much you cared for her.”
    “I hope so,” Conrad said.
    “What happens after people are gone is much less important than how we treat them while they’re still here. That’s one of the things I try to make my parishioners understand.” The priest stopped and waved a hand at one of the graves. “This is where your wife is buried, Mr. Browning.”
    Conrad had been through a great deal in his relatively short life. Outlaws had murdered his mother. Some of those same desperadoes had kidnapped and tortured him. Bushwhackers had shot at him from ambush on numerous occasions, and in recent months he had been mixed up in several gunfights. He knew all too well the smell of powdersmoke, the sound of a bullet whining past his ear, the terrible, flesh-ripping impact of a slug hitting his body.
    But he had never felt more like turning and running away than he did at that moment. He wasn’t sure he could face it.
    This was all part of his plan, he reminded himself. Anyway, he owed it to Rebel. She had lost her life because someone had a grudge against him. The least he could do was take a look at her final resting place.
    One of the cottonwoods dotted around the cemetery cast sun-dappled shade on the grave. An expensive marble headstone with an angel’s wings engraved on it gave Rebel’s full name, the dates of her birth and death, and then underneath, an epitaph that read B ELOVED D AUGHTER , S ISTER , AND W IFE .
    For a second, Conrad was annoyed that the acknowledgment of Rebel’s marriage came last in that ranking, but he reminded himself that it was her brothers who’d been responsible for the stone. It was reasonable that they would hold Rebel’s place in their family higher. She had been a daughter and a sister for a lot longer than she had been a wife, after all.
    But it should have said more than that, he thought. Rebel deserved more.
    What Rebel had really deserved was a long, happy life, surrounded by the children that she and Conrad would never have. That was forever out of reach.
    Conrad’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the bouquet of fresh-cut flowers lying on top of the gravestone. He nodded toward them and asked Father Francisco, “Who put those there?”
    “The flowers?” The priest shook his head. “I have no idea. I didn’t see whoever it was who left them. But it could have been almost anyone. The cemetery is open day and night, you know. Anyone can come in, any time.”
    “Have you ever noticed anyone showing an interest in this grave?”
    Father Francisco frowned in thought. “No. I don’t believe…Wait a moment. There was someone…A woman. I’ve noticed her here in the cemetery. She could have brought the flowers, I