The Lady and the Outlaw

by Joyce Brandon

  The Lady and the Outlaw

  The Kincaid Family Series: Book Three

  Joyce Brandon

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1985 by Joyce Brandon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition July 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-905-4

  Also by Joyce Brandon

  After Eden

  The Kincaid Family Series

  The Lady and the Lawman

  The Lady and the Robber Baron

  Adobe Palace

  This book is dedicated to my spiritual teacher, Huzur Maharaj Charan Singh Ji, and his successor, Baba Gurinder Singh Ji, who taught me how to make the best use of this human life, guiding and supporting me as I struggled to change my focus from the tumult and chaos of family life to one more centered on love for God, resulting in greater emotional and mental comfort and contentment, worthwhile service, and a fruitful and satisfying spiritual life.

  Chapter One

  August 3, 1888

  “Why are we slowing down here?” Leslie Powers demanded of the conductor who paused, frowning, beside their seat. He was a tall man, paunchy, black-garbed, with the inevitable mustache and serviceable watch on a long gold chain hanging across his vest. He peered out the half-open window of the passenger coach, mopping his perspiring brow with a dingy handkerchief, and squinted at the endless expanse of desert that baked under the midday sun.

  “Don’t rightly know, ma’am,” he mumbled, scratching his balding head. “Never stopped here before.”

  Brakes screeched as they were applied with a heavy hand. Annette muttered something in French and clutched frantically at the yarn ball that tumbled off her lap. A woman at the front of the long passenger car stood up and threw off the rebozo that had covered her long black hair and dark, smoldering features. She whirled, brandishing the gun she held. A man in the back of the car, who had risen slowly, leveled his gun and shouted over the noise of the brakes.

  “Keep looking straight ahead! Hands on your heads! Keep it slow and easy, and nobody gets hurt. Do it!” His tone demanded compliance. Leslie could feel her arms going up of their own volition.

  “Well, I’ll be dang blasted!” the man in front of Leslie muttered as he slowly complied with the order. “A holdup.” There was a volley of darkly uttered oaths as other men followed his example. Women gasped at the language.

  The bandit started up the aisle, and Leslie turned to look in spite of the warning. The bottom half of his face was hidden beneath a red bandana, and his eyes were shaded by a dark hat pulled low on his forehead. Tawny wheat-colored hair curled crisply along the nape of his sun-bronzed neck. His lean, straight form was clad in dusty brown trousers and shirt, half covered by a vest that had long ago faded. Like her mother, Leslie usually saw colors first, because they were the tools of her trade, but in this bandit she saw motion and resolute masculine aggressiveness. His body telegraphed a clear message that no disobedience would be tolerated.

  Spurs jingled when the bandit moved. “Howdy, Ben, Sam, Three Fingers,” he said amiably, nodding as if he were meeting them on the street, his voice low and richly masculine. He took each weapon, ignoring the looks of chagrin and disgust. He dropped them into a sack he had pulled out of his back pants pocket and started to move on, but the one he had called Ben spoke in a voice loud enough for all to hear.

  “You overstepped yourself this time, mister. We were expecting you.”

  The gunman chuckled softly. “I see you were,” he said dryly. Now his eyes, a clear cornflower blue so intense in color that they reminded Leslie of mother-of-pearl, fairly danced with mischief.

  “I can’t imagine Kincaid’s making much money in the train business when half the passengers are hired guns, riding the train free. Me and my men had a helluva time finding hotel rooms in Tucson with all the special agents around. Had a hard time getting a good night’s rest with you fellows stomping in and out all the time.”

  Ben shrugged, ignoring the gunman’s contempt for their ineptitude as railroad detectives. He was listening for gunfire that would announce to this cocky bandit that the posse hidden in the closed boxcar had made its move. He grimaced. What was taking them so long?

  “Kincaid has authorized me to make you a proposition,” he said tersely, “if you’ll listen for a minute.”

  The bandit’s blue eyes narrowed into wicked slits. “Like what?” he demanded, obviously skeptical.

  “There’s a job waiting for you if you want to come work with us instead of against us.”

  The bandit laughed, a rich husky baritone that sounded completely relaxed, unhurried. “Stretching a rope?” he demanded, his smooth, low-pitched words taunting the suddenly uncomfortable detective. “Tell Mr. Kincaid I’m satisfied with our present arrangement,” he said firmly, starting to move forward again.

  “Wait!” Ben made a move to reach out but thought better of it as the gunman pointed the heavy revolver point blank at his forehead. Leslie could feel herself tensing, as if that would somehow help the man called Ben withstand the force of a bullet slamming into his forehead.

  “Wait!” Ben said again, nervously. “The offer is serious. Kincaid can arrange a pardon.”

  “Now why would Kincaid want to do that?”

  Ben, thankful to still be alive, dragged his arm across his perspiring brow. “Maybe he thinks that if you’re working for the railroad, he’ll get more silver to the bank.”

  The gunman shook his head, chuckling softly, but when he spoke there was no doubt that he meant every word. “Tell your Mr. Kincaid I’m particular about who I work for. There are some things he can’t buy.”

  Leslie was watching his eyes. The dancing lights she had seen before were gone, replaced by something almost tangible in its intensity. Was it bitterness? Hate? Irony? There was no way to tell from his coolly drawled words. Before she could decide, Ben called after the gunman. “You better think it over! This may be your last chance…”

  The outlaw didn’t look like he considered it very seriously. He had turned his attention back to the other occupants, moving up the aisle toward Leslie, gathering guns from the unprotesting men. Neither of the bandits had done anything threatening to the passengers, but Leslie could feel her heart beating a wild staccato of fear against her throat and temples.

  “Don’t move, señor!”

  Leslie’s attention was drawn back to the woman at the front of the coach. Now she was pointing her pistol menacingly at one of the men seated across from Leslie. Caught in the act of pulling his own revolver, he cursed and raised his hands slowly, and the woman, who looked no more than a slip of a girl, relaxed the snarl of defiance that had come over her pretty face. She looked too young to be robbing trains, almost childlike, with a soft golden complexion, brown eyes, and full red lips. Very Spanish-looking, with mother-of-pearl combs holding back her abundant hair. She was like one of those highly romanticized creatures from the pulp magazines Leslie had read because her father lived in what everyone called the Wild West.

  “Nice and easy,” the gunman said smoothly as he came even with her seat. Annette’s cold fingers bit into Leslie’s wrist as the p
oor woman sucked in a ragged breath. In self-defense, to keep her circulation from being cut off, she took Annette’s hand in her own.

  “Everybody does what they’re told and nobody gets hurt. Just relax. This won’t take long,” the bandit said, starting to move past her seat.

  “How very thoughtful of you!” Leslie said caustically.

  The bandit looked at her for the first time, catching her reproachful glance and holding it. His eyes, close up, were the pale blue of the noonday sky and filled with the same diffuse intensity. Now they flicked over her appraisingly, taking in the slender curves beneath her very proper traveling gown. The bandana flattened slightly, as if he were smiling, and he winked, his eyes filled with appreciation or amusement. Caught off guard, she flushed with heat. His eyes darted from her eyes to her mouth. She wanted to reject his bold scrutiny with a haughty shrug of indifference, but her hand moved up to fidget with the very proper traveling bonnet that temporarily contained the heavy black mass of her hair, keeping it chastely away from the creamy white oval of her face.

  The sudden heat in his eyes brought the realization to her that she was practically flirting with him—flirting with an outlaw in the midst of a holdup. Angry sparks kindled and flared in her long-lashed green eyes. She lifted her skirts and pulled them back as if she feared contamination. Now the gunman’s eyes fairly danced. Tiny pinpricks of light shimmered in their depths before he touched the brim of his hat and moved past her to continue his trip to the front of the coach.

  At some point in that almost wordless exchange Leslie had stood up. She didn’t know she had shrugged off Annette’s hand and was following the bandit’s lithe form with her eyes, feeling somehow bested or rejected, until the Mexican girl’s voice suddenly jarred her.

  “Keep your eyes to yourself, you gringa puta!” she snapped, her dark eyes filled with feral heat. The female trainrobber looked like a tawny gold puma set to attack; but Leslie, who had been hot, tired, and frustrated on this train for five days, felt no instinct to withdraw from the challenge in the other woman’s eyes, even if she did have a gun.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, you female cretin! You’re not exactly a magnolia blossom!” Leslie snapped, her eyes exchanging sudden hatred with the young woman. That slur would have withered any female at Wellesley College, but it was hardly devastating enough for a young savage who consorted with train robbers. It did earn Leslie a startled look from the gunman, though, before he moved forward again, tossing the sack of guns over his shoulder. He grabbed his girlfriend around the waist with one arm to keep her from leaping on top of Leslie.

  The girl squirmed wildly in his embrace. “We aren’t here so you can cat-fight with the passengers,” he reminded her, his voice firm. Chastised by the grimness of his husky voice, she became still, and the outlaw lowered her onto her feet so she could stand.

  “That gringa puta…” she snarled, switching to rapid-fire Spanish, her dark eyes spitting fury at Leslie.

  “Enough.” The gunman cut her off with the increasing pressure of his arm around her rib cage and the suddenly cold finality of that one quietly uttered word. If that hadn’t stopped her, Leslie felt sure that the look in his suddenly cold eyes, which had taken on the flat, unyielding quality of new steel, would have, had the girl turned to look.

  Going limp suddenly, the bandita said something submissive and conciliatory in Spanish, and Leslie saw him relax his grip on her. The girl stepped slightly away from him, rearranging her garments and casting a haughty, scornful look at Leslie.

  “What did that milk-faced daughter of a brood sow call me?” she asked sullenly, switching to English.

  The twinkle was back in his blue eyes. “Relax. She just returned your compliment in kind,” he said. His eyes found Leslie’s, and he winked at her again, sending that furious heat back into her cheeks.

  The Mexican girl straightened her blouse where the bandit’s hands had rumpled it and began to unbutton the waistband of her skirt. Her bold eyes swept the room, and she let the skirt drop to reveal a pair of boy’s pants. She smiled with pride and defiance, clearly enjoying the chagrin of the women, whose eyes plainly showed their outrage. She gave Leslie, whose face had remained coldly impassive, a deliberately sultry look, and smoothed her left hand over her slender hip, straightening some imaginary wrinkle in the tight fabric. Without waiting for a response, she stooped gracefully, lithe and catlike, retrieved the skirt, and tossed it carelessly over her shoulder, flashing a contemptuous smile at Leslie.

  Three gunshots rent the sudden stillness, and the outlaw became all business again. “Let’s go,” he said, swinging the sackful of guns over his broad shoulder. His brown hand closed over the girl’s, and they turned to leap down the steps.

  Leslie leaned across Annette, whose usually ruddy face had turned quite pale. She saw masked bandits leaving the other coaches, the locomotive, and the mail car. They ran purposefully, converging on a man who was leading a string of horses. Leslie saw the bandit boost the girl up onto a small red mustang, then leap gracefully into the saddle of a big black horse. The animal stretched out its long powerful neck, with the man leaning forward on its back, and she could see horse and rider, like one, stretching into the long, easy strides that would carry them away from pursuit. She watched until he was only a cloud of gray dust in the distance, blending into the monotony of the Arizona desert.

  “Well, it’s over,” she said, more to herself than to Annette. Still dazed, she glanced around at the other occupants of the passenger car and noticed that she and Annette were practically alone. The men had all rushed outside and were milling around like lost children.

  “Ohhh!” With that, Annette, who was usually entirely unflappable, swooned.

  Chapter Two

  “Oh, no!” Leslie said under her breath as she moved quickly to catch Annette before she slid off the hard wooden seat and onto the soot-covered floor.

  “Here, miss. Allow me, please.” The young man who had rushed forward to help fished a tiny bottle of smelling salts out of his pants pocket and held it under Annette’s nose.

  She revived almost instantly and pushed his hand away. “Non! I can’t breathe!”

  “Sorry, ma’am, but you fainted.”

  “Oh, non, mademoiselle! How could I? How ashamed I am!” she moaned, covering her pale cheeks with shaking hands.

  Now that the danger was past, Leslie could feel tremors in her own midriff and rushed to reassure her lady’s maid. “Nonsense, Annette. There is nothing to be ashamed of. If I’d thought of it first, I would have swooned too! It was very exciting, wasn’t it?”

  “Oui! Terrifying! Exciting!”

  “What’s happening now? Why are all those men running around out there?” she asked.

  But the young man was gazing shyly into Annette’s eyes and seemed oblivious to everything else. “Excuse me,” Leslie said, waving her dainty hand in front of him.

  Caught, he blushed and pretended to peer out the window past Annette, as if searching for the answer to her question while he composed himself. “They’re looking for our guns,” he said, his gray eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun.

  “Our guns?” she asked, frowning at the men outside who looked like they were participants in a wild and hurried Easter egg hunt.

  “They wouldn’t leave us out here without our guns. Too much danger from marauding bandits or escaped Indians.”

  “I didn’t realize that outlaws care what happens to their victims,” she said, lifting an expressive black brow.

  “Some don’t, I suppose. But that was the Devil’s Canyon Gang. Their style is easy to recognize. They take control of the whole train—every boxcar, Pullman coach, mail car, locomotive, everything—disarm the passengers, clean out the safe, and dump the guns in the bushes, then disappear into the mountains. I’ve read about them, but I never thought I would actually get to see them in action,” he said, his voice filled with awe.

  “The Devil’s Canyon Gang?” she asked, frowning out
the window. “How did they get that name?”

  “Because the one and only time they were seriously pursued, they disappeared into Devil’s Canyon, and no one could find them.”

  Leslie noticed the interest in Annette’s eyes for the young man and decided to draw him out. “My, you sound very knowledgeable about this Devil’s Canyon Gang.” He had nice eyes, and she could see him beginning to color. He looked young, probably only a few years older than her nineteen years, but he appeared to be the sort of gentleman that two women on a train could talk to without getting into trouble. She relaxed a little, smiling at the way his eyes kept slipping back to Annette’s flushed face.

  “I’ve followed their activities,” he admitted. “The newspapers print stories about the Devil’s Canyon Gang. Seems people love to read about them.” He colored suddenly, his chipmunk cheeks turning pink. “Oh, excuse me, ma’am. I entreat you to forgive my lack of manners. Would—would I be too forward if I introduced myself?”

  “Please do,” Leslie said, smiling.

  “John Loving, at your service.” The warm glow from their smiles made him bold, but not bold enough to speak directly to the young Frenchwoman. “You were magnificent against those bandits, miss. I had the feeling that if you were one of the detectives we would have seen an entirely different show,” he ended gallantly.

  Leslie laughed, a golden tinkle of notes climbing a scale. “Leslie Powers. And this is Annette Guillet. Thank you for your concern. And for being there with the smelling salts. Are you the official swoon control officer aboard this train?”

  “He ees very good at it, no?” Annette asked, beaming at him. John Loving blushed from neck to hairline, and Leslie decided that she liked him. He looked very stern and proper, until he smiled, and then he looked mischievous in a sort of quiet way.