It was a decent-sized mercantile town. Casey had figured it would be, if it had two banks. And as they rode down the main street on the way to the sheriff’s office, she eyed both the First National Bank and the Condon Bank just across the street from it, then glanced around to find a good place nearby from which she could keep an eye on them.
Workmen were busy on the street and had temporarily removed the hitching rails in front of both banks. As she wound the horses around the men, Casey wasn’t sure she was glad to see that.
Bank robbers tended to count on being able to tether their horses within easy access for their getaways, which meant directly in front of or at the sides of their targets. If the Daltons rode in and saw no rails, they might decide not to hit the banks after all and ride right back out.
That would be good for the town, but it wouldn’t put these particular outlaws out of commission. In that case, Casey would have to depend on the descriptions she had of them in order to recognize them, if she was going to hold any hope of still bringing them to justice.
But presently everything was quiet, so it looked like she would have enough time to dispose of her current prisoners and get prepared to take on the next bunch.
She still hadn’t decided whether to tell the sheriff here what was planned. There was always the chance that he might thank her for the information and advise her to stay out of it from here on, wanting all the glory for himself. As well as the money. There was also the chance that he might scoff, not believing her. After all, the Dalton gang was well known in these parts for train robbing, not bank robbing.
Then there was the fact that she knew what she was capable of, but she couldn’t say the same of others. On the other hand, she’d never attempted to apprehend so many at once before, either. She’d just have to decide after she met the sheriff, she supposed, and she was about to do that, having reached his office.
The group of them had drawn attention, coming in doubled up on their mounts as they were, with Billybob and Vince obviously tied as well, so there was a lot of help from the town’s most curious, getting the two men off their horse and into the sheriff’s office. As it turned out, there was a small reward offered for both men, this not being their first stage robbery, so Damian’s account of what had happened wasn’t needed, other than to report the crashed stagecoach and the missing driver.
There was a bit of confusion, since, for some infernal reason that annoyed Casey no end, it had been assumed by one and all that Damian had done the capturing. Just because he was so damned big, she thought, while she, on the other hand, was so young-looking—stupid first impressions.
But Damian was out the door as soon as the sheriff dismissed him. Casey followed to bid him farewell before she finished her business.
“Good luck on the rest of your journey,” she said, offering her hand in parting.
“I’ll settle for uneventful—at least until I reach Texas,” he replied.
“Ah, that’s right, you’re on a manhunt yourself. Well, good luck with that, too.”
Damian took her hand, giving it a hard squeeze. “Thanks for all your help, Casey. I would probably still be wandering around lost out there if I hadn’t noticed your campfire that night.”
That was debatable, but Casey didn’t say so. She yanked her hand back, then blushed because it was so obvious that his touch had unsettled her. But he didn’t seem to notice. He was already distracted and impatient to be on his way, looking up and down the street at what the town had to offer in the way of amenities.
“Good-bye, then,” she said, and abruptly turned back into the sheriff’s office.
It would more than likely be the last she would see of the tenderfoot. He’d probably check into the best hotel the town offered, while conserving money was one of her main priorities, so she’d search out cheaper accommodations. She’d spend time in the saloons at night, a good place to gather information. He’d go to the theater, if there was one.
In her opinion, he ought to go home. The Western regions could be very unkind to folks who weren’t raised there. Hadn’t he already found that out firsthand? But had he learned from it? Hell, no. Easterners were like a whole different breed of people. They looked at things differently, knew next to nothing about surviving without the things they took for granted…Casey was doing it again, thinking about that man when she shouldn’t be.
She got back to the business at hand and deciding whether to confide in the sheriff or not. She couldn’t say much for his deputies, having to listen to the usual wisecracks about her tender age, that she must have come across the outlaws asleep or drunk, that there was no way she could have captured them otherwise. She didn’t try to correct their mistaken assumptions. She never did. The fewer folks who knew what she was capable of, the better.
It was a good twenty minutes more before the sheriff had finished with her and told her to come back the next day to collect her two hundred dollars. It wasn’t much for a couple of stage robbers, but then, Vince and Billybob had only just started down the path of crime.
And then the decision to share or not share her information or not was taken out of her hands. Gunfire was heard, unmistakable, and not just one shot. Ignoring her, the sheriff and his deputies dashed out of the office.
Casey hoped, she really did, that the Dalton gang hadn’t come to town yet. But with an inward groan, she was afraid her hope was a vain one. And from the sound of it, their plans had definitely gone sour.
Chapter 9
Damian stood there with his hands raised, incredulous that he was being robbed again, and of the exact same money. Casey’s warning as they sat by the fire last night came back to him clearly now, word for word.
“Chances are, the money that Vince and Billybob stole from you is in their saddlebags or on them. Better to get it now, Damian, because whether the sheriff will turn it over to you any time soon is debatable. I’ve waited upwards of a week to collect a reward. I swear, lawmen and paperwork just don’t get along.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Damian had told him. “I can have funds transferred. In fact, I should go to the bank as soon—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just take my word for it, Damian, and stay out of the banks when you get to town.”
The kid had changed the subject after that. And Damian had retrieved his money in Vince’s saddlebag—only to hand it over now to a bank robber.
The three men who had entered the Condon Bank were heavily armed with Winchesters and handguns. If that wasn’t enough of a clue to what they intended, they had immediately put the few customers and employees in the bank under the nozzles of those guns.
Two of the robbers were wearing obvious false whiskers. They all appeared young, though, in their early twenties. And they were deadly serious. There would be no bungling here, Damian was sure. It was in their eyes, that each one of them would kill without a moment’s hesitation if they didn’t get full cooperation.
Damian—again—didn’t have a weapon to be uncooperative with, even if he wanted to be. He’d turned the extra handgun that he’d been carrying in to the sheriff.
Robbed again. It was beyond belief. And in broad daylight, in the heart of town, with the streets teeming with people and workers. And the kid had known it was going to happen. He’d tried to warn Damian away. But Damian had decided he was just being overprotective—or being ornery, by trying to make Damian more nervous than the kid already figured he was. What could happen bright and early in the morning, after all, with people everywhere?
There were a few minutes of tense waiting around for the vault’s time lock to open at nine forty-five, during which time the customers had been ordered to empty their pockets. No one else entered the Condon Bank during that short period, but Damian did notice someone outside peering in the window. The fellow must have seen the drawn weapons and figured out what was happening, because in the next moment, the alarm was being shouted out in the street.
&
nbsp; That put an abrupt end to the robbery. One of the robbers swore. Another paled. They didn’t look too confident now, and in fact, they forgot about the vault and ran out the door with their guns firing. But the town was quick to defend its money. Guns had been grabbed all along the street. Pandemonium reigned out there.
Most of the people in the bank had hit the floor with the first shot. Damian didn’t notice, or think to do the same. He walked slowly to the door, where he witnessed the first casualty. Across the street, two more gunmen fled from the First National Bank with their stolen loot, and one man stepped out to intercept them. He was gunned down with a Winchester. Seconds later, two more bystanders died as they got in the way of the outlaws’ attempt to escape down the street.
And then a bullet flew past Damian’s ear, so close he could feel the sting of it, the one bullet out of all those flying around that broke his temper. But he had nowhere to direct his sudden burning anger—until he saw Casey run right by him in the direction the outlaws had gone.
It was a total bloodbath. Casey reached the alley where the Daltons had stashed their horses about a block down the street from the banks before the last shot was fired, but only in time to see it fired and Emmett Dalton go tumbling off his horse.
The gunfire had actually lasted only about five minutes. But in that time, four citizens had been killed, including a marshal who had been in town and had traded gunfire with Grat Dalton there in the alley, neither of them surviving it. That alley had become a death trap. The outlaws had all reached their horses, but there were just too many bullets coming their way by then for it to do them any good.
Robert and Grat Dalton were dead, as were Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers. Doolin, whom Casey had overheard talking about the robberies, wasn’t even there.
In fact, his horse going lame that morning had kept him behind, though he obviously didn’t learn from the mistake of his dead friends, because he went on to start up his own gang after that to continue his lawless ways. Emmett Dalton was the only one to survive that day, and he was to face a life sentence in the Kansas State Prison when he recovered from his wounds.
Staring at the aftermath, Casey was spitting mad. She could have taken them all alive, at the very least, got them all down and disabled with some very painful leg wounds that would have had them surrendering in short order.
That way they would have survived. Not that she felt sorry for their demise. But they’d taken innocent bystanders with them, and that always turned her stomach.
All those deaths she might have been able to prevent if she had just gotten to Coffeyville a little sooner. And she should have. In fact, she would have arrived yesterday or even the day before, in plenty of time, if not for the excess baggage…
Damian and his damn stage robbers.
Vince and Billybob alone wouldn’t even have detained her. They would have slowed her down just as they did, but she wouldn’t have felt obliged to go out and hunt for them this morning, knowing she was close to turning them in. It wouldn’t have bothered her at all if those two had gone a little hungry for a few extra hours. She still could have arrived in town in time.
But Damian was another matter. It hadn’t even occurred to her to tell him that the next meal would have to wait until they reached town, not when it was a known fact that most big men like him had voracious appetites. And he was an Easterner, which equated in her mind with helplessness on the trail. She had accepted responsibility for him when she had let him share her camp, which meant she had to feed him.
But he shouldn’t have been here. A big-city man like him never should have come West in the first place. That he was here was solely his doing, a decision he’d made, and because of that, she could place the blame for this whole fiasco on his shoulders. But he wasn’t right there in front of her, which was fortunate—the way she was feeling, she’d probably shoot him.
And then he was…
Casey became aware of that fact when she was slammed up against the nearest wall, her feet dangling far above the sidewalk, her poncho, shirt, and even the camisole under it all grasped in Damian’s large fist that was holding her up. His other fist was drawn back, aimed right for her face, just seconds from doing some serious bone breakage.
Casey should have been screaming for help by then, but she didn’t even flinch. She didn’t think he had it in him to hit a boy the age he thought her to be, and to her everlasting relief, she was right. With a low growl of disgust, he let go of her, then pierced her with his eyes, a turbulent, stormy gray at the moment.
She didn’t know what his problem was, but her anger was unabated. And Casey’s scruples were a mite different from his, as least when her temper was running high. Without hesitation, her fist landed right between his eyes, not exactly what she’d been aiming for, but with him being so tall, it was hard for her to gauge. That, of course, had him reaching for her again, whether to throttle her or restrain her, she didn’t wait to find out.
She drew her gun. He halted immediately, clenching those large fists at his sides. His face was turning red with what was now impotent fury.
Oddly enough, Casey’s temper was gone, now that she had the upper hand. Hitting him had helped some as well, not that she’d hurt him any, using her left hand as she did. But she knew better than to use her gun hand for hitting things. And she ignored the present throbbing in her left hand.
“Real fair about this, aren’t you?” he gritted out in a sneering tone.
“Considering your size, you betcha.”
The calmness of her tone served to enrage him even more. “You knew those banks were going to be robbed, didn’t you? Didn’t you!”
Casey didn’t answer that, said instead, “Let’s take this off the street, tenderfoot.”
Not that they were drawing any notice or being overheard, with half the town crowded in front of that alley trying to get a look-see. In fact, the nearby store that she pushed Damian into was quite empty, the owner just as curious as the rest of the citizens in town about what all the shooting had been about so early in the morning.
But as soon as she closed the door behind her, he repeated his question. She saw no reason to deny it now.
Her curt nod didn’t satisfy him, because he demanded, “How did you know?”
She saw no reason to keep that to herself any longer either. “I was in this hellhole a few weeks ago down south, and recognized one of the gang members. I was going to take him, was moving in for it, when I heard what he was talking about, or I should say bragging about, to his friend.”
“About robbing the banks here?”
“Yes.”
“The man was actually discussing it where he could be overheard?”
“He didn’t know he was overheard. I can be good at going unnoticed when I want to be. Besides, he was swimming in rotgut that night. He wouldn’t have noticed a fly on his nose, much less me.”
“So you knew exactly what was planned here and said nothing. Dammit, Casey, I could have been killed in that bank. Couldn’t you have mentioned this last night when we spoke of it?” he asked, disgruntled.
“I only share that kind of information with lawmen. You should have trusted me and taken the warning as it was intended—to keep you safe and out of the line of fire. Why the hell didn’t you?”
To give him credit, Damian did flush slightly, having been so obviously caught ignoring her advice. “I was only going to be in that bank for a minute or two. I just wanted to make sure that I could get funds transferred out here if I needed them. And now they are needed, since those bank robbers relieved me of my cash again.”
“The least you deserve for not listening to me,” Casey said unsympathetically. “And let me tell you something else. There’s folks laying dead all over the street out there, if you hadn’t noticed, when they shouldn’t be. I could have prevented that if I had gotten here yesterday as I should have, and why didn’t I? Because you showed up. It’s also cost me a lot of money, your slowing me up, more’n ten thousand do
llars in rewards for that bunch.”
He stiffened at that point. “Just a damn minute, kid. You can’t put the blame for those deaths on me, or any lost rewards. Or are you under the impression that you could have captured them all single-handedly, without a shot fired?” Damian scoffed. “I hardly think so.”
Casey sighed. “It’s what I do, Damian, remember? I track, hunt, and capture outlaws, while they do their best to avoid it. If I find a bunch of them gathered together, all the better. Most men aren’t foolish enough to draw a weapon when they’ve already got one aimed at them. That’s just asking for a visit from the undertaker.”
“Desperate men will. You’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise. In fact, you probably would have gotten yourself killed for trying. If you ask me, it sounds more like I saved your life by keeping you from trying.”
Casey came just short of rolling her eyes. “We’ll never know for sure, will we? All I know is, I would have had enough money to retire after this, but now I don’t. I’m going to give you one last piece of advice, Damian. Go home. You don’t belong out here. Actually, here’s another piece. Stay the hell away from me.”
Chapter 10
Damian spent the next few days quite literally cooling his heels. He pampered his feet to give his blisters a chance to heal, which meant staying in his hotel room, even taking his meals there so he could avoid shoes. He’d also arranged for the town doctor to visit and have a look at his head wound, and after much tsking was told that the wound should have been stitched, but there was no point in doing so now, since it was already mending.
It was no hardship, remaining in the hotel. The room certainly wasn’t what he was used to, but it was nicer than some he’d stayed in since heading West. And there was nothing he cared to view or visit in this Western town anyway. He’d buy a new derby, hopefully, before he left—and a rifle. He wasn’t going to be caught again without a weapon. But that could wait until he was ready to catch the train to continue his journey south.
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