In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

cut her son's pant leg so she could reach his flesh. She cleaned the wound with an iodine mixture she made herself and directed Iris to hold the edges of the skin together while she made her stitches in the wound, finishing by wrapping it tightly with linen strips.

Michael had lain there in tightlipped silence while his mother worked.

"There, that should hold it," Giselle said.

"I left Stevens with the Doctor Rogers." Carlos said when he came back. "The doctor says he will be okay. What happened Mike? How did Johnson get in here?"

"He must have already been in the house. When Stevens came in hollering about fire and saying I needed to move out to the courtyard, Johnson was right behind him. Next thing I knew this Johnson whelp hit him over the head with the fire iron. Stevens went down and when Johnson saw me reaching for my pistol, he came at me with a knife. What is this about a fire?"

"The south pasture is on fire," Bethany said. "Alec hitched up the plow tricorns, and he's got men taking turns plowing a firebreak between the house, the orchards and the fire."

"C'mon Mike, let's get you out to the patio," Carlos said. He went to the bed and slung the older man's arm over his shoulder, grabbing him by his belt with his other hand. Iris came up on her father's other side and helped steady her father as Carlos took him outside.

"Did Carlos say Doctor Rogers was still here?" Bethany asked Margo.

"Yes, he set up in the parlor to tend the burns people will get from fighting the fire," she replied. "Sheriff Morrison stayed to help fight the fire too." She looked down at Johnson's body. "We will have to tell him about this one as well. The smoke is thick. If you are going out to find Morrison, take a wet bandana and wrap it around your face."

Bethany nodded and went to collect a bucket of water and some spare bandanas. It occurred to her that Emory Johnsons presence meant the fire might not have been an accident. Remembering that the Johnsons usually ran in packs, she went to the gun cabinet, loaded her favorite pistol, and buckled it around her waist.

She filled a bucket with water and grabbed as many bandanas as she could carry out of the cupboard in the hallway on her way to find Morrison and tell him there was another body.

Outside the front door was beldam. The noise was incredible, and smoke from the fire made it hard to see. Bethany stood on the wide steps searching for Morrison. She didn't see the sheriff or Alec, but she saw Ira Johnson as he rode up and dismounted from his tricorn. Deciding she had been right to connect the Johnsons with the fire, she set down the bucket and drew her pistol, keeping it hidden along her leg as she waited for the elder Johnson to come up to her.

When he was about ten feet from her, she raised the gun. "If you are looking for your son, his body is inside."

Johnson checked his approach. "His body?" he repeated.

"Yes. I killed him. I assume it was you who set this fire?"

He stared at her, noticing for the first time how much she looked like her father. St. Vyr's cold gray eyes stared back at him out of her pretty face, and her soft mouth was set in a hard line. "You killed him? You?"

"That's right. Do you want his body, or shall I just turn it over to the sheriff with the others?"

"What others?"

"The sniper you hired to kill my husband. He's dead. Alec took care of him. Carlos took out the men who were robbing the miners. If you want to claim your son's body, you will have to wait until the sheriff has seen it."

"You mean you've got another one?" Morrison had come up while they talked and now stood at the base of the steps staring up at her.

"I'm afraid so, sheriff. He is inside in my father's room. I shot him when he was trying to knife Papa."

"By the way, Johnson here probably lit this fire. I don't know if you can arrest him for that, but—"

"I want my son's body returned!" Johnson interrupted, turning to face the sheriff. "He stayed drunk for a week after she threw him over for that gunfighter. Today I found he'd headed over here, and I followed him. I didn't set any damn fire!"

"Now why do I think that is a damn lie?" inquired Carlos. He shut heavy front doors behind him and stood looking down at Johnson, his hands resting on his hips, close to his holstered gun.

"Probably for the same reason I do," answered Alec who had followed Morrison to the house. Like Carlos, he kept his hands close to his gun.

Morrison looked uneasily from one young man to the other. He had been a sheriff too long not to recognize bad trouble brewing when he saw it. He decided the safest path would be to answer Bethany.

"I'm sorry Mrs. McCaffey, but unless you have some proof, like a witness, I can't arrest Johnson for starting that fire just because you think he did."

"Maybe you can't arrest, him Morrison," Alec said implacably, "but I can damn well issue a warning. Don't come back here again, Johnson. I'm issuing orders to shoot on sight if you, or any of your riders' come onto the Golden Tricorn."

"And I will double that for the Lucky Strike," added Carlos.

Johnson glared at them. "Yeah? From what Lutz tells me you won't own either of them for long. I may just come along when he forecloses. I want to see it." He turned to Morrison, "I want my son's body brought out to the J-4 when you are done with it."

"I'll take care of that," Morrison assured him as Johnson walked back to his tricorn, mounted and rode away.

Carlos turned to look at Bethany, "What the hell