Printer in Petticoats

by Lynna Banning

  They rode for about three hours, then stopped to water the horses. Someone shoved a rusty canteen at him, but with his hands tied, he couldn’t grasp it.

  A few words of Spanish from one of the men, the fat, swarthy one, and the rope around Cole’s hands was loosened. He gulped the liquid greedily, but before he handed back the canteen he managed to slip a scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket, an extra ballot from last night’s election.

  Hiding his motions, he tore it into tiny pieces, and when nobody was watching, he let one flutter to the ground. The rest he stuffed up his shirtsleeve. Just in time. Fat Man stomped over and retied his hands.

  Who were these guys? Did they work for Arbuckle? He knew he was a thorn in the man’s side because of his recent editorials. Cole just never thought he’d go this far.

  He hoped to hell someone had noticed he wasn’t at the Lark office this morning. He hoped someone would notify the sheriff, and he prayed that Jericho Silver was as good a tracker as everybody said he was.

  Another three hours passed. His throat was parched and he felt dizzy with hunger. Without his hat, the sun was frying his brains. He closed his eyes and tried to think.

  Chances were he wasn’t going to survive this. He’d bet whoever these guys were they had orders to take him out to some remote canyon and kill him, probably because of something he’d printed in his newspaper. Somehow he didn’t mind the idea of dying; what he hated was the thought of never seeing Jess again, never hearing her laugh or watching her lips turn rosy when she caught them between her teeth.

  He closed his eyes. He’d known for some while he’d have a hard time not being around her. It had never occurred to him he wouldn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

  Each time they stopped to water the horses, Cole managed to let another bit of paper drop unnoticed onto the ground. He’d give anything for a pencil so he could scratch a message to Jess.

  But what message?

  He thought of a thousand things he’d give his right arm to tell her. Right at the top of the list was I love you. Then he’d tell her to take over the Lark. Or maybe she’d know instinctively that he would want her to have it.

  He gritted his teeth at the thought he might never see her again, and his throat closed into a tight knot.

  Another stop to rest the horses and another slip of paper fluttered out of his sleeve. By now they were picking their way uphill, into a rocky canyon. Even if he could twist around far enough to deck one of them, or grab him to use as a hostage, he knew the other two would gun him down before he could take a breath.

  Arbuckle would burn in hell for this. And if he laid a hand on Jess…

  Sweat slicked the back of Cole’s neck. He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t do a damn thing to change the outcome of this day. He’d never felt more helpless in his life.

  The wind knifed through him, and he tried to pray.

  *

  Jessamine sat Noralee down and stuffed a type stick into her hand. “I will finish Cole’s articles. You set the type. We’re going to get his Friday edition of the Lark out on time.”

  Eli patted the girl’s narrow shoulder with a gnarled, ink-stained hand. “Don’t you fret none, Noralee. Sheriff Silver and the marshal and Wash Halliday rode out an hour ago, and there’s no better trackers than them three. They’ll bring Cole back.”

  Jess tried hard to believe the old man, tried not to think about where Cole might be or what he was enduring. It squeezed all the air out of her lungs and made her vision blur. After another hour at his desk, she jerked to her feet and then immediately sat back down.

  She felt like screaming, but she forced her pencil back and forth over the pad in front of her and tried to think like Cole. How would he phrase this sentence? What emphasis would he want?

  “I’m going over to the Golden Partridge,” she announced suddenly. “That was part of Cole’s news beat, and I’m going to cover it for him.”

  “Jess, you cain’t—”

  “Oh, yes, I can, Eli. Just you watch me.” She’d be darned if she would let Cole’s newspaper miss a deadline. She slipped her notepad into her skirt pocket, along with the derringer Cole had given her, marched down the sidewalk to the saloon and pushed her way through the batwing doors.

  Her first step inside the dim saloon was greeted with dead silence. Then a male voice yelled, “Hey, you can’t come in here! No ladies allowed.”

  “Maybe I’m not a lady,” Jess shot back. “You ever think of that?”

  She advanced to the bar and caught the bartender’s eye. “I’ll have a cup of hot tea.”

  “He’s right, Miss Jessamine,” he said. “Women aren’t allowed in here.”

  “Listen, Mr. O’Reilly.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the gleaming mahogany bar toward him. “Something has happened to Cole Sanders. I’m here to find out any information you might have, and I’m not leaving until I have it.”

  The barkeep shifted his rotund body toward her. “Miss Jessamine, you look like you need a shot of something a whole lot stronger than tea.”

  “I do, and that is a fact. But not until I find out what I want to know. The sheriff and Marshal Johnson have ridden out, along with Wash Halliday. Have you any idea who they’re chasing?”

  “Wish I did, Miss Jessamine. Haven’t been any strangers in town since the night your office burned, and I heard later that Sheriff Silver arrested some men, but he wasn’t sure they were the ones that did it.”

  “Maybe there are more? Have you any idea who they are? Who they work for?” This last was a shot in the dark. She’d bet her mother’s emerald brooch Conway Arbuckle was involved, but it wouldn’t hurt to fish.

  The bartender shrugged.

  “Tom,” she whispered. “Help me. Please.”

  O’Reilly grabbed a bottle and a shot glass, filled it and set it in front of her. “Arbuckle’s holed up at Lucy’s place, just outside town. You wouldn’t know it, ’cause it’s a…well, a place you wouldn’t know. Anyway, I hear he’s madder’n a wet hornet about losing the election. Might be he blames Cole.”

  Jess downed the whiskey in one gulp and choked as the fiery liquor burned its way down her throat.

  “Thanks, Tom,” she rasped. “Put the drink on Cole’s tab.”

  Arbuckle. That snake.

  Back out on the boardwalk, she headed for Lucy’s place. Oh, yes, she knew where it was. Rosie Greywolf had told her.

  The house sat on a back street lined with maple trees. It was painted white with dark blue trim, but it looked run-down. The front porch planks were beginning to warp, and what had once been a flower garden looked withered and so bedraggled she wished she had a bucket of water to dump on the struggling plants.

  She walked up onto the porch, took a steadying breath and pounded her fist on the door. No answer. She pounded again and kept pounding until a white-faced woman with frizzy red hair yanked it open. She was dressed only in a dirty chemise and a torn petticoat.

  The woman took one look at Jessamine and retreated into the interior of the house. Arbuckle’s “other wife,” no doubt. She looked terrified.

  Jessamine clenched her fists and stepped forward. “Arbuckle?” she shouted.

  “Ah, the nosy newspaper lady,” a strident voice returned from somewhere. “Go away.”

  “I’m not going away until you talk to me.” She stepped inside, noting the drawn curtains and the clothing strewn over a dingy sofa in the front parlor. She guessed the snake was packing to leave.

  “Arbuckle, I want to talk to you!”

  Something rustled from behind the tall wardrobe against the far wall, and that told Jess where he was. She drew out her pistol, cocked it and stepped around the corner of the tall piece of furniture.

  Arbuckle’s head jerked up and he glared at her with rheumy eyes.

  Jess lifted the pistol and aimed it at his chest. “You are a lying, cheating rabbit of a man, and if you don’t tell me where Cole Sanders is, I’ll kill you.”

  “Oh, God,
don’t shoot!” He peered at her face. “Nah, you wouldn’t do that,” he drawled. “Would you?”

  “Oh, no? Try me.” She took a step closer and watched his bravado crumble. His thick arms lifted into the air.

  “Where is Cole Sanders?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You lying skunk, tell me!”

  “I would if I could, Miss Lassiter. But, God’s truth, I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You gotta believe me,” he whined. “Sure, I hired a couple of men to kidnap him, but—”

  “The same men you hired to torch my office?” She wondered why her voice wasn’t shaky, or why the hand gripping her derringer was steady. Maybe it was the whiskey she’d downed at the Golden Partridge.

  “Well, it might be,” Arbuckle conceded. “Could be it was the same fellas. Isn’t gonna help knowing that now, is it?”

  “It might.”

  “Good God, Miss Lassiter, could you lower your weapon?”

  “No, I could not. Now tell me the truth.”

  Arbuckle looked right, and then left, over his shoulder, as if he was afraid of being overheard. “Well, after the election, I told some men to take Sanders out and… Miss Lassiter, for the love of God, you aren’t gonna shoot me, are you?”

  “That depends,” she replied. “Keep talking.”

  “Don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “I’ll tell you. I’ll do anything you say.”

  “Then march, Mr. Arbuckle. Out of this house and up the street to the jail. I’ll be right behind you with my pistol aimed at your cowardly back.”

  “You’ve got no right to have me arrested!”

  “Oh, yes, I do. I think you had my newspaper office burned. And if Cole Sanders is found—” she could scarcely bear to say the word “—dead, you will be held as an accessory to murder. Now march!”

  Arbuckle stumbled along the street, Jessamine a pace behind him, her pistol steady and her stride determined. Townspeople they met along the way shrank into storefronts and doorways as they passed.

  At the jail, the deputy leaped up from the paper-littered desk. “Miss Jessamine?”

  “Sandy, lock up Mr. Arbuckle until they find Cole Sanders. And if they don’t find him…” Her voice choked off. “Then throw away the key.”

  Sandy snapped a pair of handcuffs onto Arbuckle’s thick wrists and led him away. When she heard the jail-cell door clang shut, she slipped the derringer’s safety on, stowed the weapon in her skirt pocket and fainted dead away.

  *

  Federal Marshal Matt Johnson pointed to another scrap of white paper that had blown up against a spiky coyote bush. “Been following this trail for half a day, Jericho. You got a plan?”

  “Yeah. Wait till dark.”

  “He might be dead by then. Chances are these men are wanted in half a dozen territories. They might not wait.”

  “They’ll wait.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I figure they haven’t been paid yet,” the sheriff said. “So they’ll keep Cole alive until whoever hired them arrives with the money.”

  “Maybe,” the marshal said, doubt coloring his voice.

  Wash Halliday kicked at a stone. “And maybe not.”

  Without speaking, the three men remounted and rode another mile.

  “Be dark in an hour,” Matt finally said.

  “Yeah,” Jericho agreed, eyeing the position of the sun. “Let’s split up. Surround that canyon up yonder and wait.”

  “You figure it’s Arbuckle, don’t you, Jericho?”

  “I do. And in exactly fifteen days I’ll be in a position to deal out some justice.”

  “What about now?” Wash wondered aloud.

  “Now I’m still the sheriff. Let’s dismount and start crawling.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cole licked his chapped lips and wondered why his momma had never taught him any prayers. Even a little short one would do right about now.

  He’d spent the last two nights tied to a pine tree while the three men who’d taken him slurped whiskey and took turns guarding him. None too gently. The one he’d nicknamed Swarthy liked to kick his leg to keep him awake. The bastard gave an ugly laugh when he did it, and Cole tried to shut down his hearing.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could go without passing out from thirst or getting himself shot trying to escape. Dear God in heaven, don’t let the end be so bloody it’ll be hard for Jess to see my body.

  His eyes began to burn and he closed them tight. He could see Jessamine bent over the desk in the Sentinel office, scribbling away with that tooth-marked pencil she always used; see her sitting across the table from him at the restaurant, calmly drinking tea and biting her lower lip while he fought his need to climb over the platters of scrambled eggs and kiss her silly.

  And that night in her upstairs room when she touched him for the first time…

  Shoot. As exhausted and hungry as he was, he felt his groin tighten.

  Someone jerked the rope that bound his wrists to the saddle horn. “What’re ya smilin’ about, Sanders?”

  “None of your business,” Cole bit back.

  “Oh, ho,” the oily voice said. “Think you’re gonna see her again, huh?”

  Cole kept his mouth shut. He’d bet his last dollar he wouldn’t see Jess again. The thought made his throat ache.

  “Well, ya kin fergit that, mister. You ain’t never gonna see her, or anybody else, in that stinkin’ town.”

  That made him mad. “Yeah? Who says so?”

  “Arbuckle, fer one,” the voice beside him said. “He’s payin’ us.”

  “Yeah? Who else?” Keep him talking. He needed names.

  “Shut him up, Jim,” the swarthy man on the lead horse snarled.

  Cole noted that one of the men hadn’t said a word. He heard the whisper of metal against leather and knew someone had just drawn a gun. He swore under his breath. Dammit, he wasn’t going out without a fight.

  He kicked his mount hard. The animal lurched ahead, and Cole swung his leg out and drove the toe of his boot into the belly of the horse beside his. The mare shied and Swarthy hauled on the reins. The horse reared, and the man grabbed for the pommel.

  “You’re gonna pay for that, Sanders.”

  “How much do you want? I’ll double whatever Arbuckle’s paying you.”

  There was a long silence, and then the tall man spoke. “You hear that, Jim? He says he’ll double our take.”

  “He ain’t gonna live long enough to pay us anything.” He spurred ahead into a narrow box canyon clotted with salal and thick scrub. Plenty of brush thick enough to hide a body.

  Cole swallowed.

  Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a branch twitch. Purposefully he looked away and kept his face impassive. Might have been nothing but a jackrabbit or a deer. He listened hard, but he could hear nothing but the soft sighing of the wind in the fir branches overhead.

  Behind him “Jim” lashed the rump of Cole’s horse with his quirt. “Hurry up, newsman. We ain’t got all day.”

  The horse jolted forward. Cole studied the vegetation beside the narrow, unused trail for any sign that he wasn’t alone, but he saw nothing.

  “Hey!” Swarthy yelled. “Slow that nag down.”

  “If you untie my hands, I could control her better,” Cole said.

  “Fat chance, Sanders. Shut up and keep ridin’.”

  Cole kept his head down. From long years as a newspaper reporter, he’d learned to pay attention to the sixth sense he often felt inside that told him something logic had not revealed. Jess would call it her “nose for news.” Right now his nose was telling him he and the three men pushing him along the trail weren’t the only ones in this tangle of trees and undergrowth.

  They rode deeper into the canyon, and suddenly Cole knew how it would end. The men would kill him, kick his body into the brush and hightail it back to Smoke River to collect their blood money from Arbuckle. He prayed that a gun
shot would be heard; if anyone was in the area, someone would know what happened to him and could tell Jess. Jess. Oh, God, Jess.

  The trail ended abruptly at a vertical slab of vine-laced rock. Swarthy pulled his mount up, then turned it halfway around to intercept Cole.

  He watched the stubby fingers reach for the revolver in his belt. Dear God, take care of Jess. Don’t let her see my body.

  He closed his eyes and waited.

  Suddenly a sharp voice rang out from above him. “Drop the hardware! Hands in the air!”

  “Wha—?” Swarthy’s words choked off. Cole watched the sun-darkened man raise his thick arms over his head, followed by the other two.

  The underbrush rustled and three men rose, rifles pointed down at the men who held him. Cole never thought he’d want to kiss a sheriff, but there was always a first time.

  Sheriff Jericho Silver moved to jerk Swarthy off his horse and snap handcuffs on his wrists. Marshal Matt Johnson waved his rifle, and Jim and the third man sat without moving, hands raised high.

  “Now,” Jericho barked at the cowering fugitives, “dismount and put your hands behind you.”

  One of the men jabbed his boot heels into his horse, and instantly a rifle barked. Jim dismounted, cut his gaze to the side and went for his gun. Another rifle shot.

  Matt Johnson cut the rope around Cole’s wrists. “You okay, Cole?”

  Cole gave a half laugh. “If you can convince me I’m not dreaming, or dead, then I’m okay.”

  *

  “They’re coming!” Noralee burst through the door of the Sentinel office. “The sheriff and two dead men, they’re coming!” She danced up to Eli and tugged him by the hand out to the boardwalk.

  Jessamine slowly lowered her pencil and laid it on her desk. Two dead men? Oh, God.

  Was Cole one of them? She moved slowly to the doorway, slicked her perspiring palms against her green wool skirt and shaded her eyes against the winter sun.

  Sheriff Silver was in the lead, followed by Wash Halliday and two horses with inert bodies slung across their backs. Last came Marshal Johnson and a third man.

  The last man’s garments were filthy with trail dust, his face bristly with whiskers and streaked with sweat. For a moment Jessamine thought it was a fourth outlaw, and then her breath hitched.