High Desert Cowboy (High Sierra Book 2)

by G. L. Snodgrass

  And then there was his life in the west. He spoke of being a saddle tramp. Moving from job to job. Never settling down. Why not? There was land out there. More than enough for a man to make his own home.

  Yet this Mr. Rhodes chose to not put down roots. Why?

  And then there was the way he treated her. As if she were a child to be dismissed. A non-entity. The thought tore at her very identity. She was Miss Rebecca Carson. She would not be ignored.

  “You don’t like me, do you, Mr. Rhodes?” she said suddenly before thinking it through.

  His brow furrowed for a second but then he shrugged. “I ain’t rightly thought on the matter, Ma’am. Why do you ask?”

  She could only shake her head at his honesty. He hadn’t tried to deny it. He hadn’t agreed with her either. She held her breath as she waited for more.

  At last, he nodded slowly. “It’s not that I dislike you, Ma’am. Don’t know enough to form an opinion on the matter.”

  “Then why?” she began. “You have been rude and short with me since the moment we met.”

  He smiled slightly. “Ma’am. Don’t take it personal. In all honesty. I pretty much treat everyone like that. Maybe that’s the problem. You ain’t used to being treated like everyone else.”

  Her stomach clenched into a tight ball when his words struck home as if he’d used his hunting knife.

  Was he correct? she wondered. Was the problem her expectations?

  “Miss Carson,” he said in that slightly patronizing tone of his that drove her up the wall. “It’s different out there. Where a person is from. What they left behind. Who they were. None of it matters. Not really.”

  She frowned at him. How could it not matter? People were categorized by their social standing, their wealth. Who they married. It was the same the world over. It wasn’t fair, but it was the way of the world. It was why people worked so hard to rise up the ladder.

  He continued to watch her then shook his head. “One of the first things I did after the war was work on driving a heard up from New Mexico to the Kansas stockyards. On that crew was a Reb Colonel who lost everything in the war. A professor from some college in Boston. A coalminer’s son out of the hills of West Virginia and a French Count’s son from Paris. A Minnesota farm boy who couldn’t even sign his name and a Navaho who barely spoke English, but knew three different Indian languages.”

  Her mind whirled as she tried to understand.

  “It didn’t matter where they came from,” he continued. “It mattered what they did. Especially when things got rough. Did they pull their turn at drag without complaining? Did they help wrestle a steer out of the mud?

  “Did they stand and fight when a band of Arapaho tried to cut out a few head? These were what was important. Not who their father was in some distant city. Not who they used to be. But who they were. At that moment.”

  Rebecca frowned as she tried to process everything.

  “Like I said. It’s different out there. People leaving pasts they want to forget. Starting over. It makes everyone equal. That and a good gun,” he added with a smile as he patted the weapon on his hip.

  “Let me guess,” she said to him. “You were the coal miner’s son.”

  “Well, I weren’t the professor from Boston, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh.

  “Nor the Nobleman’s son, I would wager,” she said, joining him in the laugh.

  It felt nice to share a laugh with this man. He wasn’t cold and sparse. There was a depth to him that was hard to see. But it was there.

  “Why didn’t you become a miner?” she asked.

  His smile dropped away as he turned to look out the window. She held her breath, wondering if she had offended him in some way.

  “My Pa was killed in a cave in when I was thirteen. The owner had been skimping on the supports. Spacing them out too far. It about ruined my ma. I swore then and there that I’d never go down into one of them holes. And I’d never leave a family poor and alone.”

  She nodded. Maybe that explained his wandering lifestyle. No responsibilities. No family to leave destitute.

  “It is never an easy thing to lose a parent,” she said. “I lost my mother when I was a young girl. And my father only a few months ago. I know how devastating it can be.”

  He turned back from staring out the window and looked at her deeply. For the first time, she felt as if he saw her for who she truly was. He grimaced slightly at her words about her parents, then nodded, acknowledging their shared pain. Nothing more. But it spoke a thousand words. Two people sharing a common hurt.

  “What about siblings?” she asked, desperate to keep the conversation going and to move beyond bad memories.

  He sighed heavily. “My littlest sister, Becky, died of diphtheria not long after she started walking. My older brother, Ben, was killed at Shiloh. My younger brother, Esau, at Gettysburg. We weren’t but four hundred yards apart and I didn’t learn of it for weeks.”

  Her insides tightened. She shouldn’t have pushed him.

  “I think it broke my mother’s heart. She didn’t last but a month after they got word about Esau.”

  She watched as he took a deep breath and obviously pushed aside the pain of his loss.

  “Margaret’s still with us,” he continued. “Married to a miner. On the way east, I stopped to visit. I think I might have convinced them to come west. I don’t want to see those two nephews following their father down into the mines.”

  Rebecca could only nod. Such loss. So much pain. She knew what he had gone through. Or at least had an idea.

  A silence fell over them. Not as awkward as before. But still there. The silence that falls over a man and a woman when they are both very aware of each other.

  “Well, Ma’am,” he said, breaking the quiet. “I need to keep an eye on things. While I would enjoy talking, I should probably return up forward.”

  She nodded as a sudden sense of loss filled her. Her world just felt better when this man was part of it.

  He gave her a quick smile then got up and left her. She could only watch his strong back and narrow hips as he strode up the aisle to the far door. When he opened it, he turned slightly and looked back, catching her staring at him.

  Her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment as she quickly looked away. But not before she saw the hint of a smile on his face.

  What was it about this man that he constantly caught her at her worst?

  Chapter Six

  Dusty took up station in his familiar seat at the tail end of the passenger car. He pulled his hat down to relax, but not so far down that he couldn’t keep an eye on the four cowboys up forward.

  Would they really try for the payroll? A haul like that could set up a man for years. Of course, only if they didn’t throw it all away on women and whiskey. Smiling to himself he shook his head. He was no one to talk. He’d been known to win a year’s pay at the poker tables only to see it all flitter away within a month.

  As he watched them from beneath the brim of his hat, he tried to work out what was going to happen. His gut told him that the stranger back in McPherson had telegraphed ahead. Probably telling his comrades that there was a valuable horse in the stock car and to be sure to take him. These men would meet-up with waiting desperados.

  But there was no proof. Nothing that he could point to and say for sure these men were going to rob this train. Nothing he could use as justification to take action.

  Of course, if he waited until there was proof it would be too late.

  The thought of losing Prince made his insides turn over. He would have failed. What is more. He would have failed in front of Miss Carson. The thought bothered him to his very core.

  What was it about the woman that made him care what she thought? She was an upper-crust high toned woman from back east. Prettier than a summer sunset and as stiff as a Ponderosa pine.

  When she saw him, she saw nothing more than an employee of her brother’s. A man bought and paid for. Like any of a dozen other
s. A man to perform a task and then ignore until another task needed completing.

  And when you thought of it, she wasn’t far wrong, he realized with a sinking feeling. He’d been roaming most of his life. Either getting ready to leave or showing up someplace new. Never putting down roots. Never building anything worth keeping.

  Working for other men. Making their world bigger, better. And up until now, he had always been fine with that. The freedom to move on. Never having to worry about someone else’s happiness.

  But now. A pretty woman had smiled and his world view had shifted.

  Letting out a deep sigh, he allowed this strange new feeling to fill him. She was right, he realized. She’d never say it out loud, but she was right. He was nothing more than another man’s employee.

  As he thought about this new realization, he continued to watch the cowboys up forward. For hours and hours, he sat on that hard seat without moving. Worried that if he left, something would happen and he wouldn’t be in place to stop it.

  But the army, or really, Sargent Tanner, had taught him patience. Taught him the ability to put aside pain and stiffness. To ignore everything and focus on the mission at hand. And at the moment. Those four cowboys were his mission.

  It was fast approaching time for the evening meal when something changed. The cowboy on the far right, back-facing seat, pulled out a pocket watch and glanced down at it.

  Dusty’s gut tightened up. In almost seven years of riding with hundreds of cowboys. He couldn’t name one that owned a pocket watch.

  He might have dismissed it as circumstance, but the blond cowboy was getting fidgety, repeatedly glancing out the window. Trying to look forward to what was down the track. Then one of them pulled off his bandanna and re-tied it around his neck again. This time facing forward like he was about to ride drag behind a thousand head of cows.

  Every alarm tripped.

  Dusty reached out to grab the passing conductor.

  “Any way to get word to those men back there with that payroll?” he asked.

  The conductor’s eyebrows rose halfway to his receding hairline. Obviously, the man didn’t think anyone was aware of what they were transporting. He studied Dusty for a moment then shook his head.

  Dusty was trying to come up with a solution when a heavy clang and a shift in the train made him hiss with anger.

  “Why are we slowing down?” he demanded of the conductor.

  The conductor shrugged his shoulders. “Peterson station. A water stop mostly. Nothing more than a station and a telegraph operator. Not even a town.” Then the conductor’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Dusty. “You thinking there’s going to be trouble.”

  Dusty nodded. “Maybe. Any way to get word to the engineer not to stop. To keep going.”

  The conductor continued to frown as he shook his head. “I can get him to stop with lamp signals. But I can’t get him to keep going. Besides. It wouldn’t do any good. We’d run out of water in the middle of nowhere. And this beast don’t move without steam.”

  Dusty took a deep breath then let it out slowly. It was what he had feared. The thieves had planned it out perfectly. The train would be vulnerable. Four men on the inside to keep the passengers calm and stop them from taking potshots at the robbers. They’d have more at the station. Waiting to help. No, they had it laid out good. After they had the payroll, they’d walk through the train and relieve every passenger of their purse, then unload Prince and ride off to never be seen again.

  “Any men you trust on this train?” he asked. “Men good with a gun?

  The conductor smiled slightly. “I’ve got a Sharps fifty caliber at my station. The best buffalo gun ever made.”

  Now it was Dusty’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “You know how to use it?”

  The conductor scoffed. “Rode with Sherman.”

  Dusty nodded. “Get it. I ain’t sure, but be ready.”

  “Those four, up front?” the conductor asked without looking at the men in question.

  “Yes,” Dusty said as he got up. The train lurched as it started coming to a stop. He didn’t have long.

  He’d gone only a few feet when a high feminine voice called, “Mr. Rhodes,” from behind him.

  His stomach fell. Leave it to Miss Carson to show up now. The woman had a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  He glanced back with his worst scowl and shook his head. “Not now, stay there,” he hissed at her then turned to finish what he had started. The look of anger in her eyes would have made him laugh at any other time.

  As he made his way forward, he purposely didn’t look directly at the cowboys. Like wild animals, they would sense anyone interested in them. He needed them calm until he got into position.

  The car carried a dozen innocent people. A family of four with a cute little girl in pigtails and a boy squirming with boredom. Businessmen on their way home to their families. A young couple. Probably only recently married by the way they looked at each other.

  His gut turned over. This could go so wrong, so fast. People who didn’t deserve it might die. Yet, if he did nothing, others might die.

  The train screeched to a stop, the car lurched, then shifted backwards. Dusty slid into the seat across the aisle from the cowboys, pulling his gun as he sat.

  “Boys, there’s been a change of plans,” he said as he held the gun across his lap, pointing directly at the four men.

  The color drained from each of their faces as they registered the fact that Dusty had them dead to rights.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” the cowboy with the pocket watch asked. Their obvious leader, Dusty realized.

  “Ain’t no meaning,” Dusty said. “Just a precaution. If’n I’m wrong. I apologize. You four don’t give me no problem, and everyone can go on their way. If not, then …”

  The leader took a deep breath as he got ready to argue. His eyes darted to Dusty’s gun. Dusty could see the man running the figures. Trying to determine if he could pull his own gun before Dusty fired. The three others were thinking the same thing.

  “You can’t get all four of us,” the leader said. “Not before we get you.”

  Dusty laughed as a loud snap of a rifle being cocked echoed through the car.

  “That there, gentleman,” Dusty said with a smile. “Is a Sharps Fifty. Shots slug the size of your thumb. At this range, it will pass through two of you, out the train, and for another half mile. And the shrapnel from the bone splinters will probably kill the third. Which leaves only one for me.”

  All four of them swallowed hard as they turned to see the conductor pointing his large rifle at them.

  Behind the conductor, the passengers were scrambling to exit the area, rushing for the door to the dining car. A murmur of angry voices mixed with frantic glances over the passenger’s shoulders. From the corner of his eye, he caught Miss Carson reaching beneath the hem of her dress and coming up with his knife.

  He laughed to himself, leave it to Miss Carson to bring a knife to a gunfight. This wasn’t exactly the time for it.

  “Now then,” Dusty continued as he once again focused on the foursome. “We’re going to sit here until the engineer finishes topping off the water.”

  “This is our stop,” the head cowboy said as his eyes narrowed with anger.

  Dusty shrugged. “It’s a beautiful day. Spend a little while enjoying it. It’d be a terrible day to die. Worse than most.”

  The cowboy continued to stare solid hate but Dusty ignored him, keeping all four under watch, looking for that telltale sign of pending doom.

  Beyond them, on the train station platform, two rough-looking cowboys stared at them with questioning glances. Obviously, their compatriots. Dusty stomach rolled over. These would be the men with orders to take Prince.

  Wisely though, the men on the platform held in place, obviously waiting for the others to initiate the action. He could see it now, two of the thieves would gather the passengers in one place and keep them out of the wa
y. One would take the engineer and keep him and his engine here at the station until they were done.

  The others would take the payroll.

  And Prince, he reminded himself with a shudder.

  Well, not today they wouldn’t.

  Time seemed to creep by. The day was hot and a trickle of sweat worked its way down his back. One wrong move and someone would die. Some idiot who thought he could get away with it would lead to disaster.

  It was the blond in the far corner that worried him the most. The boy couldn’t be twenty. His eyes kept darting from Dusty’s gun to his boss, silently pleading for permission to start something.

  “You,” Dusty said, pointing his pistol at the boy. “Stand up.”

  The young cowboy swallowed hard then slowly rose to his feet.

  “Careful like, shuck the gun,” Dusty told him. “And by careful, I mean very careful. Or your friends are going to become full of lead from that Sharps.”

  The boy hesitated for a moment, his eyes staring at Dusty then back at the conductor. Dusty stared back just as forcibly, then slowly cocked his pistol, letting the boy know he was serious.

  Swallowing hard, the cowboy unbuckled his belt and let it fall to his feet.

  “Kick it out here,” Dusty said, then pointed his gun at the leader, “You’re next.”

  Within a few minutes, all four cowboys were disarmed and he was able to relax. Unless those idiots out on the platform decided to try something stupid. In which case, all bets were off.

  “Now we wait,” he told them. “And you better hope your friends out there don’t start anything. You four would surely go down in the crossfire. I’d make sure of it.”

  “If he don’t, I will,” the conductor said from behind them.

  At last, the train whistle blew, letting them know it was preparing to leave the station. The car lurched as the engine slowly picked up speed.

  “I do believe that is an indication, you boys should be leaving,” Dusty said as he pointed to the door.

  The four of them studied him for a moment. “What about our guns?” the leader asked. “You wouldn’t leave a man out in this country without a gun? Would you?”