The Bandit Princess

by J. Roberts

  “They’re going to try to steal your horse?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” he said.

  “Well, let’s arrest them!”

  “No,” Clint said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we could follow them.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “I think they’re buying supplies for Pearl Starr,” he said. “The girl I talked to told me they said something about supplies.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they’re buying them for Pearl Starr.”

  “The sheriff reacted when I described these two men,” Clint said. “He knows who they are. I think he knows they’re part of Pearl’s gang. That’s the only reason he’d be so nervous.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I’ll go in and keep them from stealing my horse, but I’ll let them go.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we track them.”

  “Follow them?”

  “No,” Clint said, “if we follow them, we might be seen. We track them. That way they’ll be far enough ahead of us that we won’t be seen.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “Right now, nothing,” he said. “You wait out here while I go in.”

  “I thought I was supposed to watch your back.”

  “You can watch it from out here,” Clint said. “If the sheriff comes along, stop him. Don’t kill him, just stop him.”

  “I would never kill a fellow lawman.”

  “I doubt Sheriff O’Neal thinks of his badge the same way you think of yours, Alice—but you’re right. Don’t kill him.”

  He started away and she grabbed his arm.

  “Are you sure I can’t come in with you?”

  “Next time, Alice,” he said. “I really need to do this alone. I don’t want anybody getting shot.”

  “All right,” she said, “but if there’s shooting and you don’t come out—”

  “Alice,” he said, “this is important—don’t come in unless I call you. Understand?”

  She sighed heavily and said, “I understand.”

  TWENTY

  Clint walked into the stable as if he thought it was empty. The two men had just finished saddling their horses and were turning toward Eclipse’s stall. One of them was holding a bridle in his hands.

  “Hello,” Clint said, stopping. “I was just checking on my horse.”

  “Oh, yeah?” the one with the bridle asked. “Um, which one is it?”

  “That one,” Clint said. “The one you’re standing in front of with a bridle.”

  The man with the bridle looked down at it, as if he was surprised to see it in his hand.

  “You fellas look like you’re riding out pretty late,” Clint said. “You, uh, weren’t planning on taking my horse with you, were you?”

  “Tate,” the other man said.

  “Easy, Del,” the man with the bridle warned.

  “Let’s all take it easy,” Clint said. “After all, it’s not every day I find two men trying to steal my horse.”

  “We weren’t trying to steal it,” Tate said.

  “What were you doing, then?”

  “We were . . . admiring the horse.”

  “Yeah,” Del said, “admiring.”

  “Well, that’s okay, then,” Clint said. “We don’t have a problem, do we?”

  “No,” Tate said, “we don’t.”

  “Then why don’t you put down the bridle,” Clint suggested.

  Tate dropped the bridle to the ground.

  “And make sure your friend stays calm,” Clint said. “He looks nervous.”

  “Del, stay calm,” Tate said.

  “We can take him, Tate,” Del said.

  “No, Del,” Clint said, “you can’t.”

  “What makes you think so?” Del asked with as much of a sneer as he could muster.

  Clint did something he hated to do, but it was in the interest of not having to kill these men.

  “Because my name is Clint Adams.”

  “Adams?” Del asked.

  Tate looked at Del and said, “The Gunsmith?” “That’s right,” Clint said.

  “How do we know that?” Del asked.

  “There’s one way to find out,” Clint said. “Go for your guns and die over a horse.”

  Then came that tense moment when a decision had to be made.

  “Tate, you seem to be the smarter one,” Clint said. “You call it.”

  It took him only a few seconds.

  “Del, don’t go for your gun. I don’t wanna die here—and neither do you.”

  “What do we do?” Del asked.

  “What do you want us to do?” Tate asked Clint.

  “Get on your horses and get out of here.”

  “That’s it?” Tate asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “You’re not gonna get the law?”

  “No. Just go. I don’t want to get mixed up with the law any more than you do.”

  Tate looked at Del, who gave him a helpless look.

  “Okay,” Tate said, “we can do that.” He looked at Del again. “Come on!”

  The two men mounted their horses. Clint moved out of the way, but kept his eyes on the two of them until they were out the front door. Then, after hearing the sounds of their horses’ hooves fade as they rode away, he walked out.

  “Alice?”

  She came running, gun in hand.

  “Put the gun away.”

  “They rode out.”

  “Right.”

  “Now we follow them?” she asked.

  “Track them, remember?”

  “In the dark?”

  “Just for a while,” Clint said. “They’ll camp soon.”

  “So we saddle?”

  “Yep,” Clint said, “we saddle up.”

  They saddled their horses and left Briartown without ever having picked up additional supplies.

  “We’ll have to eat beef jerky until we get to another town,” he told her.

  “Okay.”

  “And drink water.”

  “None of your trail coffee?” she asked. “I think I can live with that.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll come to appreciate it the longer we’re on the trail.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  “Until we catch Pearl Starr,” he said, “and this is the first step.”

  “As long as these two are part of her gang,” she pointed out, “and not just two men who were trying to steal your horse.”

  He thought of several ways to respond to that, and then just said, “Right.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Clint and Alice watched as the two men, Tate and Del, walked their horses onto a ferry that would take them across the Canadian River. They had tracked the men as best they could the night before in the dark, and finally came upon them camped for the night, as Clint had predicted. They then backtracked and camped themselves, making it a cold camp and supping—as Clint had warned—on beef jerky and water.

  “We could at least make a fire for warmth,” Alice had complained, pulling a blanket around her.

  “Just be glad it’s fall, and not winter,” Clint had replied.

  Now they watched from safety as the two men took the ferry across.

  “We’ll lose them for sure now,” she said.

  “No, we won’t,” Clint said. “When the ferry comes back, we’ll take it over. They’ll only get so far ahead of us. We’ll still be able to track them. And the ferryman might overhear something that will be useful to us.”

  She shifted impatiently in her saddle. Either that, or her butt was still sore.

  “Patience, Alice,” Clint said. “Patience.”

  They had to wait almost forty minutes for the ferry to return. They were waiting right on the dock.

  “Hello,” the ferryman said. “Waitin’ long?”

  “We saw you go across,” Clint said.

  “Shoulda shouted,” the man said. “I coulda came
back and picked you up.”

  The man opened the gate for them to board his wooden ferry. There was room for more than a dozen horses.

  “What’s your name?” Clint asked.

  “Abner Brassfield,” the sixtyish man said. He had a shock of gray hair on his head, and gray stubble on his face. “Not a lot of people ask me that.”

  “My name’s Clint Adams,” Clint said, “and this is Deputy Marshal Eads.”

  “You’re a deputy?” Brassfield asked Alice, looking surprised.

  Alice showed the man her badge.

  “And you’re the Gunsmith?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Had me Belle Starr on this ferry a time or two, but nobody as famous as you, sir.”

  “Can we get started?” Clint asked.

  “I gotta wait, see if anybody else—”

  “Abner, we’re trailing those two men you just took across, and we can’t afford to let them get too far ahead of us.”

  “They lawbreakers?”

  “They are,” Clint said.

  Brassfield fell silent.

  “You’ve taken them across before, haven’t you?” Clint asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t know they were lawbreakers?”

  “I had an idea.”

  “Let’s get started, Abner,” Clint said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Abner closed the gate and they pushed off, headed for the other side.

  “What’s on the other side?” Clint asked.

  “Town called Whitfield.”

  “What’s there?”

  “It’s where Belle Starr used to go to buy supplies. Lots of other folks, too.”

  “What about Pearl Starr?”

  Abner shrugged as he steered the rudder.

  “Don’t know.”

  “She’s never been on here?”

  “Mr. Adams,” Abner said, “I ain’t looking for any trouble.”

  “I’m not looking to give you any trouble either,” Clint said, “but our job is to find Pearl Starr.”

  “Well, all I’ll say,” the man replied, “is that you’re goin’ about it the right way if you’re followin’ them two.”

  Clint watched the play of muscles in the man’s arms as he steered the ferry. Abner was well over six feet, and had a lot of upper body strength. Clint couldn’t force him to talk, and if he threatened the ferryman with a gun, what was Clint going to do, shoot him?

  “Okay, Abner,” he said, “just get us to the other side as fast as you can.”

  “All depends on the current, Mr. Adams,” the older man said. “If I don’t have to fight it much, the trip won’t take too long.”

  Clint looked at Alice, who was holding her horse’s head still.

  “We’ll catch up to them,” Clint assured her. “Don’t worry.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  When they got to the other side, Abner opened the gate so Clint and Alice could walk their horses off the ferry.

  “Abner,” Clint said, “you seen Belle Starr in a while?”

  “Not in a long while, Mr. Adams,” he said.

  Clint shook the man’s hand.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  Abner nodded, then tipped his hat to Alice. They watched as he closed the gate and pushed off for the trip back to the other side.

  “Why didn’t you tell him what you told the sheriff?” Alice Eads asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “That you’d take it personal if word got back to Pearl Starr.”

  “I doubt if he gets off his ferry very much, Alice,” Clint said. “He’s got a bedroll on there with him.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Besides,” Clint said, “I believe him when he says he’s not looking for trouble.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  They mounted up and Clint found the trail left by Tate and Del. As they followed it, Clint tried to give Alice some tips on reading sign.

  “Find something unique about the sign,” he said. “Something about one of the hooves—something identifiable.”

  “These look the same to me,” she complained.

  “Yes, but there’s something unusual about the gait of one of these horses.”

  She went so far as to lean down from the saddle to take a closer look, then sat up straight.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  “Look at the left front hoof of that horse,” Clint said, pointing to the tracks left by one of the horses. “That horse comes down heavier on its left front hoof than its right.”

  “So it’s lame?”

  “Not lame,” Clint said. “It’s just an idiosyncrasy of that particular horse. If we happen to lose the trail, just keep an eye out for that horse.”

  Alice nodded, continued to study the tracks as they went along.

  As Tate and Del rode into Whitfield, they were still talking about how lucky they’d been back in Briartown.

  “If we had killed the Gunsmith,” Tate said, “we woulda had to explain to Pearl what we were doin’ in Briartown.”

  “Yeah,” Del said, “that’s the reason you didn’t wanna throw down on Adams.”

  “Were you afraid of him?” Tate asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, neither was I,” Tate said, “but I don’t want Pearl to kick us outta the gang. Now I wish Adams would follow us here.”

  “Yeah,” Del said, “if he follows us here, we can kill ’im and we won’t have nothin’ to explain to Pearl.”

  “That’s right.”

  They rode down Whitfield’s main street, reined in their horses in front of the general store.

  “We’re gonna need a packhorse for these supplies,” Tate said. “Go over to the livery and rent one.”

  They’d rent the horse for an unspecified period of time, and whoever was next to ride into Whitfield would bring it back.

  “Yeah, okay,” Del said.

  “And stay outta trouble,” Tate said.

  “Hey,” Del said, “you’re the one who wanted to steal the Gunsmith’s horse.”

  “And I still want it,” Tate said. “He follows us here, I’m gonna kill him and take that horse.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Del said, “we’ll use it as a packhorse.”

  “Idiot,” Tate said as Del walked away. “You don’t use an animal like that as a packhorse.”

  Shaking his head, Tate went into the general store.

  Clint and Alice stopped to read the road sign that said: WHITFIELD, 5 MI.

  “They’re probably there already,” Alice said.

  “No problem,” Clint said. “If they’re going there, it’s probably for supplies. Once they’re leading a packhorse, they’ll be even easier to trail.”

  “So why are we even going to Whitfield?” Alice asked. “Why don’t we just camp here on the road and wait for them?”

  “I want to make sure that’s where they went,” Clint said. “We could be sitting here and they’d never come back. Could be they’re supposed to meet Pearl Starr and the rest of the gang somewhere they don’t have to cross the river to get to.”

  “A lot more thought goes into this business than I imagined,” Alice said.

  “You’re a smart woman,” he said. “You’re well educated.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think I’d have to use my brain so much when I wore a badge.”

  “You mean you wanted to wear a badge because you thought the job would be easy?”

  “Well, not easy . . . I thought it would be mostly physical.”

  Clint looked at her and shook his head.

  “You thought you’d have an advantage because you think you’re smarter than everybody else,” Clint said. “On either side of the badge.”

  Alice blushed, caught in her arrogance.

  “That ego could get you killed, Deputy,” Clint warned.

  “I know it,” she said. “I know I was wrong, Clint. That’s why I’m saying this job takes more smarts than I thought it
did. But I’m smart enough to know I have a lot to learn, and I think I’m smart enough to learn it.”

  “Well, that’s good, Alice,” Clint said. “Lose the ego and you will learn more—a lot more.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Del walked the two horses—his saddle mount and the packhorse—back to the general store, found Tate standing out front, smoking a quirley.

  “You done?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we just got to load.”

  “How about a drink first?”

  “That’s just what I was thinkin’,” Tate said. “Tie both horses off here and we’ll go across the street to the saloon.”

  Tate went back inside to the tell the clerk they’d return for the supplies.

  “I’ll have ’em ready, Tate,” the man said.

  They knew each other from other trips to Whitfield, although Tate did not remember the clerk’s name.

  Outside Tate put his arm around Del’s shoulder and said, “Come on, partner. Let’s get some whiskey.”

  “And maybe another girl before we leave?” Del said.

  “Why not?” his friend replied.

  Clint and Deputy Alice Eads entered the town of Whitfield, but did not ride down the main street. They stopped just inside the city limits, dismounted, and secured their mounts.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Clint said. “If they’re here, we should see their horses either on the street, or in the livery.”

  “Should we split up?” she asked.

  “No,” Clint said, “let’s stay together.”

  “You still don’t trust me?” she asked.

  “It’s got nothing to do with trust,” Clint said. “I don’t think you’re ready to run into these two men without me . . . do you?”

  She made a face and said, “Fine, we’ll stay together.”

  They stopped at the livery, did not find Tate and Del’s horses, which Clint would have recognized from Briartown. The liveryman told them nobody had ridden in all day, except for a man who had bought an extra horse.

  They walked down the street carefully, not wanting to run into the two men. Clint stopped when he saw the two horses and pointed.