Once an Outlaw

by Jill Gregory

  Her husband’s parents, Bessie and Hamilton Smith, attending a banking convention, were still in Denver, as were the Mangleys for their dinner with the governor, but they were all expected to return on Tuesday. The blacksmith’s wife was expecting her fourth child any day now, and Rufus Doily had fallen off a ladder and been stitched up by Doc Calvin.

  And oh, yes, Sheriff Barclay hadn’t returned from Denver yet either, Margaret reported casually, her gaze searching Emily’s as she relayed this news, then she cleared her throat and stood up tactfully to leave.

  He can stay in Denver forever as far as I’m concerned, Emily thought that Monday morning as the horse plodded back toward the ranch. She didn’t know how she would handle seeing Clint again, how she would manage to pretend he was unimportant to her when she encountered him on the boardwalk or in the mercantile. But she couldn’t bear the thought of him knowing her true feelings, of knowing how he’d hurt her by leaving town without a word. The Spoons had never had much in the world, but they had their tempers and their pride.

  She was determined to keep mastery of both—even if it killed her.

  Deep in thought, she drove toward home—until a sudden flash of movement through the trees caught her attention. Glancing quickly in that direction, she saw a man riding a gray horse across a gully, headed toward the foothills.

  The man was Uncle Jake.

  Emily reined in, staring. Uncle Jake had planned to go to town today—for more lumber and nails, he’d said. But Lonesome was located in the opposite direction.

  She hadn’t been able to follow him the other night, but she sure could today. Emily jerked the reins, her mouth grim. She’d have to stay well enough back so he wouldn’t see or hear her. She’d risk losing him, but she’d try to track his horse’s hoofprints if need be. Fixing her gaze on the burly rider galloping fast toward some unknown destination, she turned the mare off the trail.

  She didn’t know how long she followed Jake. The sun beat down, the hot, windswept air felt heavy as a blanket, and the ground grew steeper, more rocky and treacherous. So far she had managed to keep her uncle in sight, but as the trail became more winding and steep, it became more dificult for the wagon to follow. At last she pulled the mare to a halt, jumped out, and unhitched the horse, her fingers flying. With every second that passed she feared Uncle Jake would disappear up ahead, but at last she had the horse free and she abandoned the wagon without a second thought. Standing on a rock, she managed to mount and then rode bareback, clutching the mare’s mane with trembling fingers. Just as she dug in her heels to urge the horse faster, she saw a flash of Jake Spoon’s blue shirt disappear at the slope of a ravine.

  “Come on, Nugget,” she muttered, and then she was riding hard in pursuit. Since Uncle Jake wouldn’t answer her questions, she’d just have to find out what was going on for herself. She had no idea where he was going or what he was up to, but if he was planning a holdup, Emily knew one thing.

  She had to stop him.

  Keeping well back, she followed him down the ravine, along a narrow rock-strewn trail. Once she saw a bear lumbering across a high ridge to her left, and a hawk wheeled overhead, but she tried not to be distracted by her wild, lonely surroundings. Always she kept her eyes on her uncle’s tall hunched figure in the distance, praying he wouldn’t glance back and see her following him.

  An hour must have passed. They were deep in the mountains. Jake had taken yet another path, one that wound upward and to the north. Emily clung to the mare’s mane and followed. When he again disappeared up ahead, she swore under her breath and urged the mare faster.

  By the time she reached the spot where she was certain she’d last glimpsed him, there was only empty sky above, a steep hair-raising fall into a glinting silver stream at the edge of the trail, and heaps of rocks and boulders. She paused, looking around, her stomach clenching.

  Then she saw a place where the path forked—a small pathway that appeared to squeeze between two rocks. She studied it a moment, then heard the sound of a horse whinnying.

  Another horse replied.

  Both sounds had come from the direction of that side path.

  Her throat dry as sand, Emily turned her mare onto the path and rode slowly, cautiously forward between towering rocks, her ears straining for the slightest sound.

  It wasn’t long before she realized that she’d entered a narrow pass through the mountains, a pass invisible from both above and below. Faintly, up ahead, she heard men’s voices.

  She slipped off her mare at a small dip in the path and left her to graze in a patch of grass hidden behind some rocks. Warily she crept forward, taking care to make no sound.

  When she finally saw Uncle Jake, he was in a flat clearing thirty yards ahead. And he wasn’t alone, she realized, her heart starting to thud. She pressed herself up against the rocks beside her and took a deep steadying breath.

  There were two other men in the clearing with him, and all three of their horses. She didn’t recognize the first man. He was big as a bear, wearing buckskins and cracked boots, his shaggy black hair and beard half hiding a cruel, swarthy face.

  The other man, the one standing beside the horses, taking a long deep drink from a leather flask, she did recognize.

  It was Slim Jenks.

  The bottom seemed to drop out from her stomach. Emily sagged against the rock wall and tried to squeeze herself between the cracks, slightly around the corner, so that the men couldn’t see her from the clearing. She stood perfectly still, frozen with fear and dismay, as she heard the rumble of their voices.

  “So the stage should reach Boulder Point by…” Jenks’s voice was blown away by a sudden gust of wind rushing through the pass.

  “Your boys clear on what they have to do?” The man with the black beard strode toward Uncle Jake. Though her uncle was tall, this man with his huge hulking shoulders and great height and bulk nearly dwarfed him. “Make sure those two women get shot first, shot dead—then kill everyone else. They all have to be done breathin’, including the driver, before you and Jenks and those boys start helping yourselves to the loot.”

  Slim Jenks eyed her uncle, the flask still in his hand. “There can’t be any witnesses left alive, you got that, Spoon? Not a single one.”

  “I’m not stupid, Jenks, and neither are Lester and Pete.” Irritated, Uncle Jake wheeled away from the cowboy and addressed the black-bearded man. “We’ve robbed enough stages, Ratlin, to know how to pull this off. Isn’t that why you wanted me and my boys in the first place?”

  “But you never killed anyone before, did you, Spoon?” Jenks persisted. He stuffed the flask in his pocket and stalked up to the older man.

  “Happens I shot a man once after he pulled a gun on me. But I never killed no women,” Jake growled, meeting the cowboy’s contemptuous gaze. He shrugged. “For a nice pile of money, I reckon it’ll be easy enough.”

  Jenks gave a hard laugh.

  “Just remember, none of us get paid, not one red cent, if those Mangley women don’t die,” Ratlin growled. “That’s the whole purpose of—”

  The wind swept through then, wiping out his words. Emily hugged the rock, horror crawling over her.

  The two Mangley women. Carla and Agnes. She felt as if she were slipping, slipping into a faint, and she dug her fingers into the hard, rough surface of the boulder, trying to hang on, not to faint, to listen, to think …

  But grief was washing over her. Uncle Jake, who had taken her in, given her piggyback rides, taught her to fish, was planning to murder a stagecoach full of people—and so were Pete and Lester.

  Pete would never murder anyone, she thought frantically. And Lester… dear Lord, Lester had bought Carla’s box lunch. The girl was half in love with him!

  No, no, a part of her whispered desperately, it can’t be true.

  But she had heard it with her own ears.

  “We get to keep whatever we take off the passengers, right? Plus the thousand dollars apiece Mangley’s paying?” Uncle Jake f
ixed Ratlin with a piercing glance.

  Bile rose in Emily’s throat. Mangley? Frank Mangley? Carla’s uncle?

  “Whatever you grab off of them is yours.” Ratlin nodded. “You and your boys and Jenks can split it all. But don’t stick around too long counting it,” he warned, “because once Barclay comes after you, you’re dead unless you…”

  He turned away, toward the horses and she couldn’t hear his next words. But she’d heard enough. Revulsion and a sick panic filled her.

  She started back up the path, her only thought to return home and wait for Uncle Jake, to confront him there. She didn’t care what she had to do, she would talk him out of this terrible deed. She would stop him somehow. And then she’d deal with Pete and Lester.

  Pain choked her, and she bit back sobs. She’d been living among strangers. How could they? How could they have promised her they’d go straight and all the while they were planning to murder a stagecoach full of people—including women from their own town.

  The pain in her chest tightened as another thought came. The Smiths would most likely be on that stagecoach too. She thought of Bessie and Hamilton—Clint’s friends—and Joey. He was to have supper this very night with Bobby Smith, Bessie and Ham’s grandson …

  “You headed to Denver straight from here?” Ratlin’s voice drifted to her once again, and she froze.

  “Yep.”

  “What about that niece of yours?”

  “Going to tell her we’ve got cattle business down in…” The wind snatched his words away, then a few more reached her. “… Pete and Lester will be there by tonight… we’ll plan on meeting up with you and Jenks at the Oakey Saloon …”

  Tonight. Emily nearly gasped. She had to speak to Uncle Jake now, today. She had to stop him. And what about Pete and Lester … what if she missed them, or what if they wouldn’t listen to her?

  They’d been lying all along—how could she believe they would really ride to Denver and call off the holdup instead of carrying through with it?

  How can I take that chance?

  She knew the answer. She couldn’t.

  Clint. I have to get word to Clint.

  Lives were in danger. She had to stop the holdup no matter what.

  No matter what…

  Emily wanted to weep, but she had to get away first, she had to think how best to stop the horrible plan that was about to be put into motion. Nothing else mattered now, she told herself as she clung to the feeble remnants of her self-control.

  She had to get out of there.

  But suddenly she heard someone riding behind her, coming from the clearing, and she scrambled around the rocks, trying to squeeze herself between those that flanked the path. There was a thin opening; she pushed herself into the crevice as far as she could, holding her breath as a rider thundered past.

  It was Uncle Jake. Alone. He galloped by in a blur, but not before she saw the harsh set of his face and was nearly overcome by the nightmarish sensation that she was looking at a stranger. Gritty dust flew behind his horse’s hooves, and she choked back a cough.

  Get out of here, a voice inside her head ordered. Now.

  She wriggled free of the crevice, but somehow, in extricating herself, she wedged a stone loose and it rattled onto the path.

  The sound seemed to echo through the rock.

  “What’s that?” she heard Jenks ask from the clearing.

  Ratlin grunted. “Find out.”

  For one horrid moment she hesitated, caught between trying to hide and trying to run.

  They’d see her on the path if she ran … she’d never make it to her horse.

  She squirmed back into the crevice again, wedging herself between the rocks as far as she could. All around her the granite boulders dug into her flesh and she bit back a whimper of pain. She longed to reach into her pocket for her derringer, but there was no room to maneuver. She ducked her head and held her breath as Slim Jenks appeared, moving cautiously along the trail. He halted less than two feet from her, glancing this way and that.

  Emily held her breath.

  Jenks walked a few more feet, following the dust Uncle Jake’s gelding had kicked up. For a moment he disappeared along the trail, but she knew he would be back and she forced herself to stay where she was, perfectly still, as if she were one with the very rocks enclosing her.

  Her heart was hammering so wildly she was certain he would hear it. Almost it drowned out the sound of his footsteps approaching, his boots scuffling on the rocky trail. “Must’ve just been …”

  He broke off, and Emily went cold. She heard him take a step, then another.

  “Well, lookee here.”

  Suddenly strong hands grabbed her, and she was yanked so roughly from the crevice that the surface of the rocks scraped her shoulders. Jenks pinned her against the boulder, his fingers digging into her arms.

  “What the hell you doing here? That uncle of yours send you here to spy?”

  “No! Of course not! Take your filthy hands off me!”

  Jenks’s face was dark with anger and suspicion.

  “You’re lying. You’re either spying for your uncle, or for that damned sheriff. Guess I’m going to have to find out which.”

  He struck her across the face and Emily fell back, pain crashing through her jaw.

  “We got trouble, Ratlin!” Jenks yelled. “Spoon’s damned niece!”

  He seized Emily and began dragging her toward the clearing.

  Dazed, Emily could do little to resist, and she found herself suddenly flung before the shaggy-haired giant.

  “Hell and damnation.” Ratlin’s eyes held a hard, cold gleam. “How the hell did you get here, girl?”

  Red pinpricks of light still danced before her eyes. She still felt dizzy from the blow, but she tried to speak clearly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go.”

  “How much did that uncle of yours tell you? I should’ve known that lousy old coot wouldn’t know how to keep his damned trap shut!”

  “He didn’t… he doesn’t even know I’m here … I just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Followed him. I wondered … where he was going … he was supposed to be in town and …”

  Ratlin snatched up a handful of her hair. “You’re the one Jenks says is friendly with that sheriff,” he spat out. “Is that right?”

  “No, I… I hate Sheriff Barclay. I don’t have any use for lawmen, and … least of all Clint Barclay.”

  “He stepped in one day when she and I were getting acquainted,” Jenks sneered. “That was before I knew the Spoons were our pards for this job. And he bought her box lunch at the town social. Paid twenty-five dollars for it.”

  “Ain’t that sweet.” Sarcasm dripped from Ratlin’s voice, along with an edge of something sinister that sent a tremor through her.

  “How much did you hear?” he demanded.

  “N-nothing. I’d just got here and my uncle rode past without seeing me. I thought he’d be angry, so I hid behind the rocks. Why was he meeting you?”

  She tried to look guileless and confused, but Ratlin’s hooded eyes stared at her so raptly she felt he could see through to her skull. For one fleeting moment, Emily prayed he would believe her, but all hope was dashed when Jenks exploded beside her.

  “The damned bitch is lying, Ratlin. I’ll bet a hundred bucks she heard the whole thing.”

  As Ratlin’s eyes remained on her, a flash of calculation entering them, icy fear descended on Emily. “I reckon you’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “Either way, we can’t take any chances.”

  Suddenly his thick fingers twisted painfully in her hair, jerking her closer. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you made a big mistake coming here, Miss Spoon. I don’t like mistakes. Almost as much as I don’t like nosy women.”

  Emily couldn’t help the cry of pain and terror that sprang from her lips. Desperately she tried to pry herself free of him, but he swiftly released her hair and seized her arms, hauling her u
p against the stinking filth of his buckskin jacket as he barked out orders to Jenks.

  “Get a rope. We’ll tie her up good and tight. I know exactly where to take her until this whole thing is over.”

  “No!” Panic-stricken, Emily fought against him. “My uncle and Pete and Lester will kill you if you don’t let me go right now!” She tried to fumble in her pocket for her derringer, but Ratlin wrestled the weapon away from her and easily pinioned both of her wrists in one of his huge hands.

  As Emily kicked uselessly at him, he just grinned coldly down at her. “We’ll see about that,” he sneered. He glanced at Jenks and barked, “Hurry up with that rope—we have to hide her someplace where the Spoons won’t find her.”

  “She’s right, you know.” Jenks frowned as he dug a rope from his saddlebag. “They won’t like it. Not that I give a damn much what they like or don’t like,” he growled.

  “First off, we don’t have to tell them we’ve got her—not unless something comes up and we need to keep them in line. Say they want more money once the job is done, or they try to double-cross you and take all the loot from the stage.” Ratlin suddenly spun Emily around, twisting her arm behind her back. He chuckled as she cried out. “This here gal’s our ace. The Spoons kick up any trouble, or don’t do exactly as they’re told, we just let them know we’ve got their precious little gal.”

  Jenks’s eyes shone as he advanced on Emily, swinging the rope in one hand. “But say the Spoons don’t try anything and the job goes off without a hitch—do we just let her go? What’s to keep her from running straight to Barclay?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ratlin said almost pleasantly as Jenks bound her wrists before her. He studied the knot Jenks had made, then reached down and tightened it with a cruel yank that made Emily gasp in pain.

  “I know for a fact, little lady, that you won’t say a word to the sheriff. Because I’m going to see to it—once our little job is done—that you don’t ever get the chance.”

  MILY LOST TRACK OF HOW LONG they rode. Through the pass, up to the rim of the ravine, across a winding trail that dipped and rose precipitously, always in the red rock shadow of the mountains.