Out of the Past

by J. R. Roberts

  “You never answered my question,” she pointed out around a mouthful of steak and potatoes.

  “What question was that?”

  “Did you love my mother?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why didn’t you ever marry her?”

  “I’m not the type to get married,” he said.

  “Because of your reputation?”

  “And my nature.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s my nature to travel. My . . . inclination. I can’t stay in one place for too long. I get . . . itchy.”

  “I’m like that,” Sandy said. “I want to travel. My mother says—said—I got it from you. I mean, from my father. That was before she told me who you were.”

  “When did your mother die?”

  “A week ago.”

  That surprised him.

  “Where?”

  “In Kansas City.”

  “How?”

  “Somebody killed her.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody does.”

  “I don’t understand. Was she working?”

  “She didn’t do that anymore,” she said. “She was murdered. ”

  “How did you know where I was?” Clint asked. “Who sent you to me?”

  “My aunts.”

  “Aunts?”

  “My mother’s partners,” she said. “Sandy and Katy.”

  “Sandy . . .”

  “My full name is Sandy Littlefeather Archer,” she said.

  “Where are your aunts now?”

  “In Kansas City,” she said. “We heard that you were here. I took a horse and rode here.”

  “You stole a horse?”

  “Borrowed,” she said. “I’ll bring it back.”

  “We’ll bring it back,” he said.

  “You mean?”

  “Eat up,” Clint said. “We’re going to Kansas City.”

  FOUR

  Clint got Sandy a room at his hotel and told her to get some sleep, they’d be leaving early the next day.

  In his own room sleep eluded him. Once before a young boy had claimed to be his son, and that had turned out to be a hoax. How was this one going to turn out? Back then he’d had a bit of a hard time remembering the woman the boy said was his mother, but this was different. Anne Archer was a woman who, under different circumstances, he might have married and settled down with, but neither of them were bred for that. They spent more time on horses than in hotel beds and wore a gun wherever they went.

  He was pleased that both Sandy and Katy Littlefeather would be in Kansas City. At least he could talk to them about this. God, he hadn’t seen any of them in . . . nine or ten years.

  Wait a minute. Nine or ten years? And Sandy said she was almost sixteen?

  He put his boots and trousers back on and went down the hall to her room. She answered his first knock, stared at him expectantly.

  “Sorry to wake you,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I wasn’t asleep. Come in.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I have one question and I can ask it out here.”

  She had washed her face and he could see now that she was very pretty. He wondered if she kept her hair short and wore boy’s clothes all the time.

  “You told me that you’re fifteen?”

  “Almost sixteen,” she corrected.

  “But . . . I saw your mother and your . . . your aunts about nine or ten years ago.”

  “I was wonderin’ when you’d get to that,” she said. “I would’ve been around six. My mother said she didn’t want to tell you about me back then.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged.

  “Only she knows why she kept me from you,” Sandy said. “Or maybe you could ask Aunt Sandy.”

  “I guess I’ll have to,” he said. “Okay, you can go back to sleep . . . or to whatever you were doing.”

  “Can’t sleep,” she said. “Can you come in and talk a while?”

  He looked up and down the hall, didn’t see anyone, then said, “Sure,” and stepped into the room.

  Outside the hotel two men stood in the doorway of a building across the street.

  “You think that was him?” one of them asked.

  “Of course that was him,” the other man said. “He got the girl a room, didn’t he?”

  The other man grinned and said, “Unless he put ’er in his room. Maybe he likes ’em young.”

  “You’re a pig,” the first man said. “She’s supposed to be his daughter.”

  “Yeah, but maybe he ain’t so sure,” the second man said. “I mean, I seen that girl in a dress. She’s kinda tasty.”

  “You’re the one that likes ’em young,” the first man said, “and that’s because you’re a pig.”

  “And I suppose you like old women.”

  “You know what?” the first man said. “Just don’t talk to me. We’re here to watch.”

  “I thought we wuz here to kill the Gunsmith and make sure he don’t get to Kansas City.”

  “Yeah, well,” the man said, “that, too.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “What about her?”

  “We supposed ta kill her, too?”

  “My orders is to make sure the Gunsmith don’t get to Kansas City. That’s it.”

  “Good,” the second man said with a leer. “That means we don’t hafta kill the tasty little girl.”

  The other man looked at him and said, “You’re a pig.”

  FIVE

  Clint woke the next morning actually looking forward to spending the day on the trail with Sandy. They had sat up in her room for hours with her asking him questions about her mother and Clint telling her stories about the two of them as well as her two aunts.

  “They ever tell you stuff like this?” he’d asked her.

  “They said I didn’t need to hear these stories,” she told him, “but they’re wrong. I need to know everything I can about my mother.”

  Clint agreed. Sandy and Katy might be mad at him for telling her the stories, but he’d argue for the girl that she needed to hear it. She had to know who her mother was, especially now that she was dead.

  As he left the room, a lump came to his throat. He remembered that this was all about Anne Archer being dead. He hoped that the modernized police department in Kansas City would have a lead on who her killer was, or might even have caught him by now.

  He walked down the hall carrying his saddlebags and rifle and knocked on young Sandy’s door. She answered right away and smiled at him. That was another thing he had discovered about her last night, that smile. It was definitely her mother’s.

  “Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Let’s go see what kind of horse you, uh, borrowed.”

  “They’re comin’ out,” the first man said, nudging the second man awake.

  “Jeez,” the second man said, stretching, “why’d we both hafta stay out here all night?”

  “What do you care?” the first one said. “You slept the whole time.”

  “Slept pretty good, too,” the second man answered. “Dreamt about that sweet little gal.”

  Ed Presser turned and stared at his partner, Hal Chance.

  “Do you say stuff like that just to annoy me?” Presser demanded.

  “What, you’ll kill a man but you won’t fuck a fifteen-year -old girl?”

  “Damnit, Hal—”

  “Okay, okay, forget it,” Chance said. “Look, they’re headin’ for the livery stable.”

  “Good,” Presser said. “We’ve got to get to our horses and get ahead of them.”

  “Why don’t we just trail ’em?” Chance asked.

  “Because that’s the Gunsmith, Hal,” Presser said. “He’ll spot us before we go a mile.”

  “He ain’t seen us out here,” Chance said.

  “You don’t think.” Chance frowned. “Come on. Lucky we left our hors
es at the other livery.”

  “We got time for breakfast?” Chance asked as he hurried to keep up with his partner.

  Clint inspected the horse Sandy had ridden in from Kansas City. It was a mare that was about ten years old, sturdily built but not something that would be able to keep up with Eclipse if they had to run.

  “She’ll do,” he said. “It may take us all day to get there, but she’ll make it.”

  “I like her,” Sandy said, patting the horse’s neck.

  “Good,” Clint said. “If you like her so much, you can saddle her.”

  When they walked their horses outside, Sandy’s eyes widened.

  “Wow! He’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah, he is,” Clint said. “This is Eclipse. He was a gift from a very famous man named P.T. Barnum.”

  “I heard of him,” she said. “You know him?”

  “Yes, I do,” Clint said.

  She approached Eclipse and reached out to pat his neck.

  “Be careful,” Clint warned. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

  But Eclipse stood by very quietly as the girl stroked his neck.

  “I guess he likes you,” Clint said.

  “Sure he does,” she said, “don’t you, big boy?”

  Her hands were gentle and Eclipse actually closed his eyes while she stroked him.

  “Okay,” Clint said, “that’s enough of that. You’ll put him to sleep. Let’s get mounted up.”

  “Can I ride him?” she asked.

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why? He won’t hurt me.”

  “No,” Clint said, “but he might like you so much that he’ll hurt me when I try to ride him again.”

  SIX

  The girl rode well, sat the horse just like her mother did. Clint told her so.

  “You think so?” she asked, obviously pleased. “Aunt Sandy and Aunt Katy always said Momma was the best rider of the three of them.”

  “What else did they have to say?” Clint asked.

  “Well, Aunt Katy told me never to tell Aunt Sandy she said this, but she said my mom was also the brains of the three.”

  “I think she was the one with the most ideas,” Clint said.

  “And was she the best looking?” Sandy asked. “I mean, Aunt Katy is really pretty . . .”

  As Clint remembered, all the women had something to recommend them, and he’d never tell Sandy that he’d been to bed with all three when he first met them. After that, though, it was only Anne he took to his bed when they all crossed trails.

  They continued to talk about Sandy’s mother while they rode, and from time to time Clint stopped to allow the girl’s mare to take a breather. It was about thirty-five miles to Kansas City and Clint knew Eclipse could have covered that much ground in half a day, but he wasn’t pushing.

  He was enjoying the ride.

  Presser and Chance positioned themselves about five miles farther on. They found a good vantage point for an ambush, a place where they could be on high ground and catch the Gunsmith in a cross fire.

  “I hate ambushes,” Presser said.

  “Why? It’s the easiest way to kill a man,” Chance said. “I heard that Wild Bill Hickok shot most of the men he killed from ambush.”

  “That’s just stupid,” Presser said. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I just heard it,” Chance said. “Kinda ironic that he got shot in the back, huh?”

  “Hal, I don’t even know why I ride with you.”

  “Yeah, ya do,” Chance said. “You’d be dead without me.”

  Chance left Presser and went to take up his own position on the other side of the road. Presser considered putting a bullet in the back of his partner’s head, but the Gunsmith might have heard the shot.

  He got comfortable on his stomach with his rifle next to him and waited.

  Clint passed his canteen over to Sandy, who took a short drink and passed it back.

  “What did your mother tell you about me?”

  “Not much,” Sandy said. “She didn’t have time.”

  They hadn’t talked about exactly how her mother had been killed. He didn’t want to make her go through it again.

  “You ain’t asked me how she got killed, exactly,” she said, as if she’d been reading his mind.

  “I wasn’t sure you want to talk about it.”

  “I can tell you she was shot from ambush,” Sandy said. “I heard my aunts say that. She didn’t die right away, though, which is why she was able to tell me about you— but only just.”

  “So you came to find me just to see if I was really your father?”

  “You’re my father,” Sandy said. “My ma told me so. I didn’t need to see you to find out.”

  “So you just wanted to meet me?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “But?”

  She turned in the saddle and stared at him.

  “Mostly,” she said, “I want you to find whoever murdered my mom and kill them.”

  Normally, he would have tried to talk her out of that frame of mind. He would have told her that the law had to handle it and bring the killer to justice. But he didn’t really feel that way, so why should she?

  “You ain’t gonna tell me I shouldn’t feel that way, are you?”

  “You’re a little mind reader, aren’t you?” he asked. “I was thinking about it, but no, I’m not going to tell you that.”

  “Good,” she said, “’cause I ain’t gonna change my mind about this. I want whoever killed my mom to die for it.”

  “How do your aunts feel?”

  “The same, but they won’t tell me that.”

  “Well, I will tell you that,” Clint said. “I want the killer to die, and I’ll do my best to make it happen. That’s a promise.”

  SEVEN

  Clint moved even before the sound of the first shot started echoing. His first instinct was to knock Sandy from her saddle, and then hit the dirt himself. Lead chewed up the ground around him, which confirmed his first thought, that he was the target. It also confirmed that they were in a cross fire.

  “Find cover,” he yelled to Sandy, waving. “Stay away from me.”

  The horses took off, which was good. They wouldn’t be hit by any stray lead.

  Clint pulled his gun and looked for cover. He spotted both men and knew instantly that they’d made a mistake in their choice of location. There was cover for him on the right side of the road in what looked like a small dry wash, and from that position the man firing from that direction wouldn’t be able to see him. Clint would be below him.

  Sandy was still on the ground, but now she started to scamper over to him.

  “No,” he said, “stay away!” But she didn’t heed him.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the dry wash with him.

  “I told you to stay away from me,” he scolded her. “They’re shooting at me.”

  “But why?”

  “Just because,” he said.

  “Give me a gun,” she said. “I can shoot.”

  “I’d give you a gun, but I’ve just got the one.”

  “There are two of them,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, “one across the road and another one above us.”

  “We’re in a cross fire.”

  “Yes, but the one above us can’t see us now,” he explained.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “You’re going to stay right here,” he said, “and I’m going to get us out of this.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll have a plan,” he told her. “Soon.”

  She folded her arms and glared at him like an angry mother.

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  Ed Presser knew he’d made a mistake, although he’d never admit that to his partner. Clint Adams had found himself some cover that had defeated the cross fire. Presser could not see him now and he waved at Chance to stop firing.

  They were going to have to try this again somewhere els
e.

  Hal Chance saw Presser waving at him. The two men had ridden together long enough to be able to interpret each other’s hand signals. Presser wanted him to stop and move out. He’d meet him farther ahead with the horses.

  Chance left his position, smiling because he knew his partner had made a mistake and would never admit it.

  “What’s happening?” Sandy asked. “Why aren’t they shooting anymore?”

  “I think they’ve realized their mistake,” Clint said. “We’re not in a cross fire anymore, and that was their advantage. ”

  “So then they’re . . . what? Quitting?”

  “I think they’ve done it,” he said. “They’ve quit. They’re gone.”

  “But . . . why?”

  He looked at her.

  “Any man who would shoot at another man from ambush is a coward,” he said. “Now that they’ve lost their edge they’re running.”

  “Then we can stand up and get out of this hole?” she asked.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and shoved her back down.

  “I’ll stand up and we’ll see what happens,” he said. “You wait here.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said.

  “I never said you were afraid,” he said. “I’m just telling you—asking you—to wait here. Is that all right?”

  “That’s fine,” she said, “but hurry. I don’t want the horses to get too far away.”

  “We’ll go and collect the horses as soon as I make sure the shooters are gone.”

  “Okay,” she said, folding her arms again. “And hurry up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  EIGHT

  The horses had not gone far. Eclipse was too smart to wander away, and Sandy’s horse had simply stayed with him. Clint felt sorry for the mare if she had designs on Eclipse, because he was a gelding.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, after giving her a lift into the saddle.

  “I’m fine, Father,” she said. “Can I call you Father?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “If you don’t want me to,” she said, “if it makes you uncomfortable—”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” he said, patting her on the leg. “Don’t worry about it making me uncomfortable. It’s just going to take some getting used to.”