by Robin Gideon
The seeds of a solution had taken root and grown slowly. He’d even considered one thought lunacy when it had first hit him.
Who is my worst enemy? he asked himself. The answer to that one was simple—Garrett Randolph. But would Garrett, a lawyer and outspoken advocate for increased law enforcement in the territory, actually break the law?
Randolph had certainly worked to the benefit of the downtrodden, but Darwell knew something else about him, something kept from the journalists who so often devoted space and ink to praising him.
Garrett Randolph was a man who enjoyed the ladies, and every politician knew that indiscretion—even a man’s—was a death sentence to a political career. The fact that Garrett had continued with his affairs proved to Jonathon Darwell, as he sat in the dark puffing slowly at his pipe, that certain human factors drove him. Garrett was not the political machine he presented himself as. He had a darker, hidden side that flaunted convention.
Would he go so far as to become the Midnight Phantom?
Jonathon had no doubt that Garrett matched him, hatred for hatred. In fact, Jonathon highly suspected Garrett’s hatred burned hotter than his own, primarily because Garrett had more often than not failed to stop Darwell whenever they’d clashed in a courtroom over one of Jonathon’s business ventures. Could Garrett’s frustration be driving him to acts of criminality?
A crooked smile played over Jonathon Darwell’s lips as he bit down on the stem of his pipe.
Randolph could be the Midnight Phantom. Jonathon hoped he was. If he was operating outside the law, then he had the potential for being way outside it. This dent in the “knight’s” armor could be helpful since Jonathon Darwell desperately wanted Garrett in his pocket, accepting bribes and taking orders.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm his thinking. He was jumping to conclusions, assuming immediately that a single errant thought was the truth, when in fact it might be nothing more substantial than wishful thinking.
Just the same, if Garrett was the Midnight Phantom, that might explain a few things, like how the Phantom always seemed to know exactly where to be and how to strike with the most damage at Darwell’s enterprises.
* * * *
“What you need two horses for, Mr. Randolph?” the ranch hand asked, saddling up Garrett’s mount and placing a bridle on the second one.
“I want to test their stamina,” Garrett replied, his voice low, his explanation lame.
“Never seen you show any interest in either of these horses before, Mr. Randolph. Geez, we got plenty of fine riding stock on this ranch without you having to ride horses that haven’t been—”
“I’m really in quite a hurry,” Garrett said, wishing now that he’d simply saddled his own horse.
The ranch hand, though an excellent man with the horses, was much too talkative, insisting on many more answers than Garrett was willing to give.
Beneath his left arm was the blanket roll, bulging slightly with the things he’d placed in it earlier. He consciously forced himself to relax his grip on the roll, not wanting to draw any more attention to it than he already had.
“You’re sure there ain’t nothin’ I can do for you, Mr. Randolph?” the ranch hand asked. “Any man that needs two horses with him probably needs a second man riding at his side.”
“I appreciate the offer, but that really won’t be necessary. I want to ride hard, to get my thoughts clear,” Garrett explained.
Completely confused, the ranch hand squinted his eyes. Garrett suspected that never in his life had this cowboy needed time alone to think through a business proposition.
From the corner of his eye, Garrett saw Juan stepping out of the ranch house. Garrett stuck his boot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. With night coming on, he didn’t want Juan, or anyone else, slowing him down or giving him more work to do before he could leave.
“Keep the boys close to home,” Garrett told the ranch hand as he accepted the reins for the trailing horse. “I don’t want the Midnight Phantom thinking he can steal our payroll.”
The cowboy’s eyes grew big and round. “Do you really think he would come here?” The idea of losing his monthly salary was clearly a frightening one.
“Never can tell. You just never can tell,” Garrett said, tapping his boot heels to the horse’s ribs.
He felt a little guilty for putting fear in the cowboy’s heart. He had no doubt that, on his early morning return, he would see men with rifles standing guard at the gate and on the rooftops of the bunkhouses.
* * * *
Pamela peered out the window, careful not to move the curtain. She was watching Jedediah ride away. When he disappeared into the distant trees, a great weight was lifted from her shoulders.
Her brother had been acting strangely lately, asking peculiar questions, coming and going at the oddest times and for the strangest intervals. There was no one in the world she knew as well as Jedediah, but he had become a stranger to her.
For the first time in her life, his presence had begun to get on her nerves, and Pamela knew exactly what had brought about this change in her: she wanted to ride. She had tasted the excitement of attacking the evil of Jonathon Darwell, and she wanted to know that sense of accomplishment again. She would be acting, she would be taking steps toward a goal, rather than simply staying at the cabin, lamenting the fact that Garrett Randolph wasn’t the man she wanted him to be. Doing something was better than doing nothing.
From beneath the bed, Pamela removed the items she had recently purchased at the dry-goods store in town. The cotton shirt, cut for a man, was the deepest shade of navy blue. Pamela had told the clerk the gift was a present for her brother, though the man didn’t care much one way or another. At the same time, using her meager funds, Pamela had purchased a large kerchief, also in a dark blue color. The scarf would hide her golden hair. She couldn’t ever be the Midnight Phantom, but she had learned lessons from him, lessons she would not forget. She would never again be noticed because her blonde hair reflected the moonlight.
Pamela went back to the kitchen table, where her revolver and holster waited. She’d already cleaned the revolver twice, just to give herself something to do while waiting for Jedediah to leave. All was ready to strike out at Jonathon Darwell once again.
She was just tucking the overlong tails of the man’s shirt into the waistband of her Levi’s when she heard the pounding of a horse’s hooves outside. Pamela’s heart leaped in her chest. Her first thought was that Jedediah had returned. Somehow, he had figured out what she was up to, and rather than riding off to see his secret sweetheart in Whitetail Creek, he’d been waiting in the trees, hiding until this very moment so that he could catch her red-handed.
She began unbuttoning the shirt, not wanting to lie to her brother about it. She was just about to rush to her bedroom when something struck her as distinctly out of the ordinary. Stopping in her tracks, she could not fully realize what was wrong.
She listened to the sounds outside her door and recognized that more than one horse had come to a stop in front of her cabin. She rushed to the table, pulled the Colt from its holster, and went back to the window.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered, spying Garrett dressed in black trousers and a black jacket. Though his shirt was white, Pamela knew that in his saddlebags was a black shirt, cape, and mask, plus the holster and revolver, which would complete his transformation into the Midnight Phantom.
“Pamela, damn it, get out here!” Garrett called out, even before he’d dismounted.
She waited just long enough to complete buttoning her shirt before rushing outside. She knew the anger she heard in his voice was for theatrical purposes only. If anything, he was angry with himself for being unable to stay away from her, and this knowledge made her tingle inside.
“Good evening, Phantom,” she said, her face shining with love and triumph.
“That’s pretty funny. The one person in the world who knows I’m the Midnight Phantom is the very person
I most wish didn’t know.”
“At least I’m in exclusive company,” Pamela said, stifling the urge to throw herself into Garrett’s arms. “What brings you here this evening?”
“You know very well what it is,” Garrett said, turning his back on Pamela to unstrap the blanket roll from the back of his saddle.
“Actually, I don’t. I thought you weren’t talking to me anymore.”
“I’m not talking sense to you anymore because you’re too daft and headstrong to listen,” Garrett replied, his back still turned to her.
Pamela clenched inside at the insult but fought against the urge to respond. After all, she had dished out her fair share of insults to Garrett, so she had to be strong enough to take a few herself.
“I’ve got something for you,” Garrett stated as he walked past her onto the porch and into her home.
Pamela rushed quickly in behind him, no different from any other woman in the world expecting a gift from her lover, enormously pleased that he’d been thinking of her even when they were apart. Garrett still hadn’t kissed her since his arrival, though, so she forced the smile from her lips. Gifts be damned; she wanted his kisses.
“Whatever you’re bringing isn’t what I want,” she said as he stepped up to the small table. She placed his hands on her hips defiantly as Garrett looked at her, clearly shocked by her declaration.
“How do you know? You haven’t even seen it yet.”
“I don’t care. It’s not what I want.”
Garrett glared at her. “Has anyone ever told you how frustrating you are?”
“Yes. You have. Several times, in fact.” She stepped forward slowly, closing the distance that separated them. Garrett saw the expression in her soft green eyes turning from feigned anger to burgeoning passion. “But I don’t always leave you feeling frustrated, do I?”
Garrett couldn’t keep the grin from his lips. “No, not always. Just most of the time. Now tell me what it is you really want,” he said, though he had a pretty good idea of what it might be.
“A kiss, for starters. Then a pleasant howdy-do would be nice.” Pamela touched the tip of Garrett’s chin with her forefinger and let her fingertip glide slowly down his throat. She could feel his pulse, and she could almost guarantee it was racing faster than he would have liked under the circumstances. “Aren’t lovers supposed to kiss when they’ve been apart?”
Fleetingly, across the surface of her mind, she questioned her description of their relationship. She was in love with him, and she’d shared her body and her passion with him. Whether Garrett was in love with her was still unanswered. Did she really dare find out? If he were not, it would be devastating.
“You’re absolutely right,” Garrett replied.
The kiss was soft initially until, after a second or two of tenderness, their passions heightened. Garrett’s arms went around Pamela, pulling her in close, forcing her curvaceous body to conform to his.
She waited for the tip of his tongue to touch her lips before parting them. Then, accepting his tongue into her mouth, she purred contentedly. Whenever she kissed Garrett this way, so deeply and intimately, her passion skyrocketed, turning spontaneously from warm to superheated, from hot to volcanic. She raised a knee to slide it along the outside of his thigh, her upward progress stopped only when her knee bumped against the underside of Garrett’s holster. She thrilled when his hand slid down her backside to squeeze her buns firmly, forcing her pelvis to press intimately against the rapidly swelling bulge in his trousers.
“My god you e-excite me,” Pamela stammered when the kiss had finally ended.
The interior of the cabin was quite dark. She had every intention of leading Garrett straight to her bedroom, but he went to the kitchen table.
“You were going out tonight, weren’t you?” he said, lighting the lamp that illuminated her holster and revolver.
Pamela hesitated. She wanted to lie about her preparations for another raid on Jonathon Darwell’s overstuffed coffers.
“Well?” he asked, setting his blanket roll on the table.
Pamela squared her shoulders. She resented having to defend her actions to Garrett. “Yes,” she said steadily. “I was just getting ready when I heard you riding up.”
He turned to face her. “I figured as much,” he said as a slow smile spread across his face, making his dark eyes shine in the way Pamela liked so much. “That’s why I brought this with me.” He tapped the blanket roll with a finger.
“What is it?”
“Find out for yourself.”
Pamela walked to the table, perplexed and just a little worried. She unrolled the blanket carefully to reveal a cylindrical roll of black silk. When she picked it up, the silk unrolled farther, allowing a smaller piece of silk to fall to the wooden floor.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You can’t tell? Granted, I’m not much of a seamstress, but I thought I did a reasonable job of it, under the circumstances.”
On closer inspection, Pamela noticed the rough stitches along the edge of the cloth, which was accompanied by a tie and collar. And on the floor lay, not a black-silk kerchief, but a mask.
“My own mask and cape!” Pamela exclaimed with delight.
It wasn’t so much the gifts that pleased her as Garrett’s intent. He was assuring her that she could be her own woman, make decisions for herself. However stubborn he might be initially, he did see the light eventually!
The most beautiful gown in the world would not have pleased Pamela as much as the simple, primitively constructed cape and mask.
“I had to guess at the length,” Garrett explained as she brought the cape over her shoulders. “I had mine made in San Francisco by a Chinese tailor who knew enough not to ask too many questions. Naturally he was paid well for his silence.”
Pamela tried on the mask, fitting it over her eyes and nose, and then tying the ends into a knot at the back of her head. Her vision was absolutely unobstructed, and after only a second or two, she hardly noticed the silk against her face. Now she understood how Garrett had made love to her while wearing the mask without being distracted by it.
She turned to him. “How do I look? Like the Midnight Phantom?”
The words made Garrett tighten up inside. He wanted her identity concealed should anyone see them. He managed a smile, a pretense that her comment had not in any way caused him concern.
“No, you look much better than the Midnight Phantom ever did,” he joked.
Beaming, she took off the mask. Her green eyes sparkled with excitement.
“What were you going to do tonight?” she asked.
“What were you going to do?” he replied.
“The general store over at Tula Valley. As you know, Darwell owns it, and he’s extending credit to every family in the area. More credit than folks can handle. Of course, he keeps increasing the interest charged, and now some of the people can’t even pay the interest, much less the balance. Even worse, some families are so far in debt to Darwell they’re unable to buy anything else from him.”
Her observations surprised Garrett. He’d thought he kept up with all of Darwell’s moneymaking schemes, but he hadn’t even heard of this one. Though he prided himself on being a man of the people and a defender of the downtrodden, Garrett realized now just how isolated his wealth had kept him from the harsh realities of life. He’d been a protector of people less fortunate than himself, yes. Of the common man, but perhaps not as much as he’d thought.
Pamela didn’t know what to make of the expression on Garrett’s face, and uncertainties she’d thought deeply buried suddenly surfaced.
“Isn’t that a good idea? If you have a better one, I’ll do whatever you think is right.”
“What were you going to do at the general store?”
“All the records of what’s owed are kept there. Once a month, Michael Darwell comes by and picks up the money from Billy Quinn. I thought I’d just burn the records.”
Seeing Garrett’s bri
ght, approving smile, Pamela grinned with pleasure.
“What are we waiting for?” he asked.
When they were outside, she looked at the trailing horse. “Why this one?” she asked. “You’re already letting me use one horse I still haven’t paid for.”
“Yes. And your brother knows that. But what he doesn’t know, and what no one except us knows, is that these horses will be sold tomorrow, and will be on their way to Fort Richmond on the day after. Should anyone spot us, it’ll be awfully difficult to trace these horses back to the Randolph Ranch. By the day after tomorrow, it’ll be impossible.”
Pamela was thoroughly impressed. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
“Not always, but I try. Believe me, Pamela, I try.”
Chapter Eighteen
Garrett looked at the thick gold pocket watch, angling it so he could read the hands in the moonlight.
“It’s only a little after eleven,” he said, smiling sardonically. “If we break in now, the newspapers will have to stop calling me the Midnight Phantom.”
“Don’t worry, darling, I won’t tell anyone you were an hour early,” Pamela replied in a whisper.
She had tried to remind herself a dozen times that what they were doing was dangerous, and that she shouldn’t be in such buoyant spirits, but being other than joyous when she was with Garrett was impossible. He had come to her, complete with cape, mask, and horse, and he’d even agreed to follow through with her plan to strike out at Darwell.
Garrett smiled in return. What should he think when Pamela used a word like “darling”? Though she didn’t seem to need much reassurance, he rarely used endearments with her. And never far from his thoughts was the sleepy sentence uttered by Pamela moments before she’d fallen asleep in his arms. Those three words had played holy hell on his peace of mind ever since. “I love you,” she had said.
And maybe they were for Pamela, but not for Garrett. Even when women had asked him to say them, he had always refused.
Instinctively, he knew that real love was uncharted territory, and that if he cherished the future, he would not cheapen the words by blithely using them with every woman who shared his bed and took pleasure in his passion.