‘Thank you.’ Alec quickly opened the bag, took out her fine, woollen shawl, and refolded it into a neat square. Putting it on the pack saddle, he vaulted easily aboard the pack horse. Kneeing it into motion, he took one of the reins of Lacey’s mount, and led her away from the train, with the band of outlaws.
CHAPTER TWO
The group was soon moving at a steady jog. The bandits crossed the river, the horses splashing icy cold water as they picked their way across, and headed up one of the steep-sided gulches that entered the main valley where the railroad ran. The April sunshine was warm, but snow glittered on the peaks that surrounded them, and towered overhead.
Alec kept an eye on Lacey, who unashamedly held on to the horn of her saddle as they splashed through the river and when going over rough ground. The deep seat of her saddle, with the high pommel horn and cantle, held her securely, and he could see her beginning to relax as she got used to the feel of riding cross-saddle. Even with the shawl as padding, his own seat was far less comfortable, and he had no stirrups. However, Alec had ridden for many hours in the lightweight McClellen saddle used by the cavalry, so he set himself to simply endure his discomfort while it lasted.
As they moved further up the valley, some of the gang members changed position to ride alongside Lacey and talk to her. She simply ignored them, refusing to even look at them as they spoke. Manford and Houston quickly got bored at the lack of response and moved away. Hannigan was more persistent, cajoling her at first, and calling her name. When she continued to stare stonily at her horse’s ears, Hannigan began a new tack. He started talking about what he’d do to her if her family didn’t pay out for her. His descriptions began to get more detailed and lewd, his enjoyment of the situation increasing as Lacey’s face flushed red. She shook her head as if trying to shake his filthy words from her ears. Alec could stand it no longer.
‘Hauld yer wisht!’ he barked, lapsing into his thickest Scottish. ‘Have ye no respect? Keep your filth to yourself!’
Hannigan laughed at him. ‘Am I embarrassing you, Turner?’
As Alec started to snap back an answer, Bill Alcott halted his horse, bringing the group to a stop, and interrupted.
‘Hannigan, shut your mouth. We don’t all want to share the depths of your imagination. Save it for the whores you throw your money at. Turner’s right, Miss Fry there’s a decent woman and you’re all to treat her like one. No man’s gonna speak foul to her, or lay a finger on her unless I say so. Either no one gets her, or we all do, so there ain’t no point in fighting about it. Now, we got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get moving.’
Hannigan spat on the ground between his horse and Lacey’s. He cast a sneering look across at Alec before firing his last retort. ‘Ain’t no use you playing all chivalrous to her; you’re scum to her, the same as the rest of us.’ He turned his horse and nudged it into a faster jog to get away from them.
Alec bit his tongue and managed not to let fly with the insults he wanted to hurl. He simply couldn’t risk provoking the other man too much at the moment. Lacey turned to him, and he saw there were tears in the corners of her eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
Alec merely nodded, too angry still to speak in a civilized tone. He turned his gaze to the beautiful country around them, and waited for the blue skies and fresh smells of the pine forests to work its usual magic on him.
The rest of the bandits talked intermittently amongst themselves as they rode. There was the occasional bout of laughter, at some joke told, and Houston occasionally sang something in a good, bass voice. Alec and Lacey spoke very little, and most of it was to do with their ride. They climbed out of the head of the gulch and turned northwards, entering one of the grassy plateaux that were known in Colorado as parks. Alec studied the surrounding peaks and valleys carefully, trying to get a sense of how this area fitted with the valley where they had ambushed the train. He didn’t know this part of the state very well, though he knew roughly where the railroad lines ran, and where the major towns were in relation to them. Studying a printed map was an entirely different matter to finding the way on the ground, especially in the mountains, but he had a good sense of direction, and was building a mental map as they rode.
Alec was also thinking through his situation as they travelled. He couldn’t let Miss Fry stay in the hands of these men for any longer than absolutely necessary, even if he was with her. He simply didn’t trust them, and he couldn’t keep watch over Miss Fry for twenty- four hours every single day. Bill Alcott had ordered her to be left alone, but it was obvious that he wasn’t that dedicated to the whole idea of the kidnapping. If there were any difficulties – if they couldn’t get a sufficiently prompt reply from her family perhaps – then Alcott might easily decide to give up with the plan and just let his men have her. There was no way Alec would be able to protect her from the rest of the group by himself.
So the only choice he could see was to reveal his identity to her, and to escape with her during the night. He would leave behind his share of the loot from the train, and hope that the bandits would be satisfied with that. Some, no doubt, would want to pursue them though. He’d make for Leadville, where the local law should be good enough to protect them, and wire both the state marshal, Lindstom, and his own deputies in Lucasville. A lot depended on how well Miss Fry could ride. It was time to start talking.
‘How are you feeling, Miss Fry? In the saddle, I mean.’
She looked around at his quiet enquiry and Alec saw her hesitate and think, before deciding to answer. ‘It’s not too bad, thank you. Riding cross-saddle seems to use different muscles to riding aside, and I think I’m going to ache in the morning. But at least I’m not getting sore yet. I hope that pack saddle isn’t too bad?’
Alec smiled. ‘It’s not as good as a proper saddle, but it’s a sight more comfortable than sitting bareback on a horse with boney withers.’
Lacey smiled slightly in return. ‘I never did ride bareback, of course, but I can guess what it feels like.’
‘Have you done much riding back east?’ Alec asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes, often. I love fox-hunting, especially. It’s so thrilling, trying to follow hounds wherever they go. We scramble through some pretty awkward places during a run. It’s nothing like this, of course,’ she added, gesturing at the mountains.
‘The west is a fine place to go riding,’ Alec said. ‘And I’ve seen some ladies riding cross-saddle in divided skirts.’
Lacey looked pleasantly shocked at the idea. ‘Oh, I wonder if Uncle will let me ride cross-saddle. . . .’ The words dried up as she remembered her situation. She looked away again, and Alec thought he heard a faint sniff, as though tears were being held back.
‘Keep up your courage,’ he said quietly, and let the silence settle back.
Everyone was tired and hungry when they stopped to make camp that evening. Alcott noticed Turner continuing to look after the girl. He helped her down from her saddle, holding on to her as her stiff legs buckled on reaching the ground. She groaned with pain, and clung to him until she recovered her balance. Hannigan jeered at them from beside his own horse.
‘Hey, Bill said no one was to touch the lady!’
Turner didn’t respond to the taunt, though Alcott saw the girl flinch slightly.
‘You can sit here,’ Turner said, leading her to a patch of clean grass a short distance from the trees that edged one side of the campsite. ‘Wait here an’ I’ll fetch you your shawl to sit on.’
O’Leary spoke up. ‘You just going to leave her standing there, Turner? You should hobble her, like the horses.’ The fair-haired, wispy looking man laughed at his own suggestion.
‘There’s no need,’ Turner replied calmly. ‘You can see she can barely walk. She canna outrun any of us, she canna mount a horse on her own and she canna carry more than a blanket at most. She’s more likely to get hurt or killed trying to run away by herself than if she stays with us.’
‘He’s right.’
Alcott decided to back Turner. ‘She’d be as dead as beef in no time iffen she tries to make off on her own.’ He stared at the young woman as he spoke and saw the resignation on her face as she accepted the truth. Alcott was pleased; he didn’t want the bother of trying to confine her, or guard her. Convincing her not to even try escaping in the first place was much simpler. As he unsaddled his horse and laid out his bedroll, Alcott surreptitiously watched Turner and the girl.
Having settled the girl on her shawl, Turner went to see to the packhorses. Alcott had given him the duty, as the newest member of the group and was pleased by his decision, as Turner had turned out to be knowledgeable and dedicated to the welfare of the animals. Turner brought over the packs with the loot from the robbery and Alcott sorted through it while Turner arranged the rest of the harness to his own satisfaction, and the camp was set up.
Once Turner was done with the horses, he laid out his bedroll close to where the girl was sitting and picking at the dish of beans and rice she’d been given. He spread the saddleblanket beside it, and put one of the blankets from his roll on top of that.
‘You can use ma bedroll,’ he told the girl, sitting cross-legged beside her. ‘It’s not fresh an’ clean, I know, but it’ll be warm enough.’
‘Oh thank you,’ she answered, as Hannigan sniggered. Lacey looked around at the bedroll and the two blankets beside it. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’
It was going dark now, and a chill was setting in.
‘Och, I’ll manage,’ Turner replied.
‘You’d be nice an’ cosy iffen you two shared that bedroll,’ Hannigan said, making a suggestive gesture with his hands.
‘Eli, give Turner one of your blankets,’ Bill Alcott ordered.
Hannigan swore, while O’Leary cackled with laughter. ‘Why the hell, boss? He’s the one fool enough to offer his bedroll to her.’
‘Because I warned you about behaving respectful, and I don’t want anyone freezing to death in the night,’ Alcott answered sharply. ‘If Turner ain’t around to tend to the packhorses, it’ll be your job.’
O’Leary burst into more cackles of high-pitched laughter, which continued into gasps as Hannigan pulled a blanket from his roll and threw it across to Alec, the wind of its passage almost blowing out the small campfire.
‘Thank you,’ Turner said, aiming his nod of appreciation to Alcott.
Alcott finished up his own plate of hash and lit a cigarette as he mused about the situation. Hannigan was loyal enough, but his crude humour got mighty tiresome after a while. It could be ignored when aimed at gaudily-dressed saloon girls, but didn’t seem right when speaking about a decent woman, as Lacey Fry clearly was. Alcott found himself suddenly grateful for Turner’s quietly assertive presence. He rather wished he hadn’t given in to his brother’s idea of kidnapping the woman; Jacob’s impulsive ideas could be more trouble than they were worth. In the morning, he’d decide where they were going to take the woman while they waited for her family to pay up, and how to arrange it all. He could talk it over with Chuck, and maybe Turner too. The Scotsman seemed smarter than most of the outlaws Bill Alcott had known. He had an air of quiet confidence, he didn’t brag about his doings and he did chores efficiently. Alcott wondered why Turner had turned criminal; he certainly wasn’t some feckless ne’er-do-well like O’Leary, or fundamentally lazy, like Hannigan. Alcott suspected Turner would be good at pretty much anything he turned his hand to. If he was reliable, a smart man like Turner would be a good partner for more ambitious things. Taking him on might have been a stroke of luck after all.
Soon after finishing her food, Lacey silently took herself off to the relative privacy of Turner’s bedroll. She only removed her boots and then her jacket, rolling it up for a pillow, before wriggling herself inside the quilts and tarpaulin cover. The men lingered around the dying fire for a little longer. Jacob made a last check on the horses, picketed close by the camp. Pots and dishes were wiped and left ready for the morning. Bill Alcott, Manny Houston, Chuck Manford and Turner played some low-stakes poker as the fire began to die away and Jacob blew a couple of tunes on his mouth organ. After a few hands, everyone was ready to turn in for the night.
Alec woke, shivering and curled into a ball. He took a deep, chilly breath, and stretched out, wriggling his toes and fingers. He rolled onto his back and looked for the moon. From its position, he guessed it to be sometime after midnight, and smiled to himself. He’d wanted to get some sleep, and had been relying on the cold to wake him during the night. His inadequate blankets had certainly made that happen. He let his eyes adjust to the faint light, then rolled again to face Lacey. Alec caught the faint gleam of her eyes looking at him before she closed them, pretending to be sleep.
Fumbling slightly with cold fingers, Alec dug a pocket-knife from the small bag he’d tucked into his roll of blankets. He carefully cut the stitches that had held closed a small pocket added to the inside front of his grey vest, hidden inside the cotton lining. Taking out the small item that had been hidden there for weeks, Alec slithered out of his blankets and held it out to Lacey.
‘Take this,’ he whispered. ‘If you trust me at all, listen to me and take this.’
Her eyes opened and regarded him steadily. Alec found himself holding his breath, and slowly, her arm emerged from the bedroll and took the metal star he was holding out to her. He watched as she felt it, then brought it close to her face and examined it. It was a six-pointed metal star, with a ball tipping each point. The engraving on the centre, barely visible in the moonlight, read Deputy US Marshal.
‘Ma name’s not Turner,’ he whispered. ‘It’s Alec Lawson. I’m a deputy US marshal, and sheriff of Dereham County,’ he added with a touch of pride. ‘The Alcott brothers and their gang have pulled off some pretty rich robberies in the last couple of years, and killed some folk along the way. Marshal Lindstrom wants them brought in.’ He paused, studying Lacey’s face. She was looking at him warily, but he felt that she wanted to believe him. ‘We’ve been planning this since last fall. Turner doesn’t exist; we made him up so I could pretend to be him. We thought the Alcotts were wintering up near Steamboat Springs so come February, I set out as Turner, hit the outlaw haunts up that way and got myself introduced to them.’
It had been a daunting, nerve-wracking experience, posing as an outlaw and working without the company and backup of his loyal deputies, but Alec didn’t have the time to go into the details now.
‘I was supposed to get them to rob a specific train, and ma deputies would be waiting for them, but I failed,’ he said, frowning slightly. ‘Jacob Alcott heard a rumour about a payroll on the train you were on and insisted we went for that. I was hoping it would fail, and I could get them to go for the one we planned. I’m sorry you ended up in this mess,’ he finished.
There was a short silence before she spoke. ‘It would have been worse if you hadn’t been along. They’d have attacked that train anyway, and taken me anyway. And you wouldn’t have been there to stop them . . . hurting . . . me.’
Alec let out a silent sigh of relief: she believed him. The relief was immediately followed by a spurt of adrenaline.
‘We’re leaving now,’ he whispered. ‘We can get away and make for Leadville. I know you’re sore, but I don’t know this part of the state too well, and the longer we stay with them, the harder it will be to find ma way to somewhere safe.’
Lacey nodded, and held Alec’s badge out to him. He took it with a smile.
‘Lie quiet now while I get two horses ready.’
A quick look around, and a chorus of snores, reassured Alec that no one else was awake. After strapping on his gunbelt, he quickly rolled up his blankets and carefully skirted around the sleepers to reach the picketed horses, picking up his saddle and bridle on the way. His bay greeted him with a low nicker as he approached. The others were all used to him and took no notice of his presence among them. Alec had picketed his horse on the far side of the bunch, so it couldn’t be easily seen from the fire. Wit
h the rest of the horses as a screen, he quietly tacked up his mount, then drifted back through the group, reassuring them with quiet sounds and light touches.
Alec paused in the shadows by the last horse and looked out; everything seemed quiet. He began to step softly forwards, then stopped dead as he heard a grunt and a rustling from the trees. He knew at once that there was too much noise for it to be a wild animal. Alec acted immediately, darting towards the nearest trees, but whoever it was must have been barely out of sight within them. A man appeared in time to glimpse Alec’s quick movement, and automatically turned to see what was moving. They were just a few feet apart, close enough to identify one another in the moonlight. Alec saw Jacob Alcott recognise him, see his gunbelt and take a deep breath in order to challenge him. He did the only thing possible: he attacked.
CHAPTER THREE
Jacob hesitated a moment, taken by surprise, then instinctively stepped back half a pace, raising his hands. Alec reached him before he could gather his wits, and punched him hard in the stomach. A half-formed curse burst out as a gasp. Before Jacob could gather breath again to cry out, Alec grabbed the loose neckerchief he wore and pulled it tight around the man’s neck. He twisted Jacob hard, getting him off balance so he fell facedown. Alec contrived to fall with him, still grasping the neckerchief, and landed with his knees driving into Jacob’s back.
There was a harsh choking sound, swiftly cut off as Alec twisted the neckerchief still tighter, his knuckles digging into the side of Jacob’s neck. The outlaw’s chest heaved, as he struggled to draw breath. One arm was pinned beneath himself, but the other flailed vaguely. Alec hung on grimly, using his weight to pin Jacob down as he looked towards the camp, searching for any movement among the sleepers. Every sound of the desperate struggle seemed loud to him in the night. As he watched for fresh danger, Jacob abruptly went limp beneath him.
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