“What makes you think you can give me orders?”
Haskell had shouldered his rifle and turned to start down the ridge. Now he turned back to her where she stood, sort of balancing on her left foot, arms crossed on her well-filled blouse. She regarded him angrily, her badly mussed, honey-colored hair blowing in the breeze. “Let me suggest you pick up your rifle and find your horse unless you wanna be caught on this ridge after nightfall. Gonna be a late moon, damn little light.” He paused, looked at her boot. “Your foot hurt?”
“No.”
She turned toward her rifle but when she stepped toward it, her right knee buckled. She nearly fell, sucking a sharp breath. “Goddamn you, anyway!” she intoned throatily, sitting down on a rock. “I think you broke my foot!”
“Oh, for chrissakes!”
“It’s my fault that you smashed my foot with your rifle, you unwashed brigand?”
“Oh, you’re right,” Haskell said. “It’s my fault you were trying to ventilate me with your carbine. I should have just let you, and left you with two good feet!”
“I had no idea a lawman was out here. I thought all the lawmen were dead in this godforsaken neck of Texas!”
“Stop your caterwauling and stay there. I’ll fetch your horse.”
“I wasn’t caterwauling! And how do you know where my horse is?”
“Just stay there and try to keep your mouth shut!”
As Haskell walked away, the princess—whose name he had not yet caught—gave a raking, exasperated yowl through gritted teeth. He shook his head. Normally, seeing a pretty, alluring girl—especially one he’d had a good, old-fashioned romp with—would have been a welcome distraction. But out here, with shooters roaming the range ... and possibly the nastiest shooter of them all roaming the range with a high-caliber, long-range rifle ... he needed no such distractions.
Besides, he had a bone to pick with Miss Uppity Pants. She had, after all, profoundly insulted him by throwing him out of her room, naked as the day he was born but a whole lot bigger and hairier.
She’d threatened to have him incarcerated for rape! The little bitch deserved to be behind bars for such a blatantly phony accusation.
A Pinkerton, eh?
Well, Haskell would be damned. He’d been a Pinkerton himself, and he’d run into quite a few operatives after he’d turned his resignation in to the Old Man, Allan Pinkerton himself, to join the U.S. Marshals Service. Bear had even known a few female operatives over the years. But none of them could have held a candle, looks-wise, to Miss Uppity Pants.
Haskell wondered if Allan had any idea what the princess did in her spare time—namely, lure unsuspecting gentlemen to her room and, when she’d damn near mauled the hell out of them while taking her satisfaction, throw them out, nude, under threat of being charged with rape!
Despite his peevishness at the complication of running into Miss Uppity Pants out here, now having to assist her after the indignities he’d suffered at her hands, including the most recent one of damn near getting his head blown off, he found himself chuckling dryly. He was somehow able to see the humor in the complicated tableau of his and the girl’s relationship. It helped that she’d been such an enticing and exhilarating catamount under the sheets, not to mention atop the dresser and on the floor, as well.
Haskell chuckled again then brushed the humor from his lips with his fist, resolving to get back down to business.
The princess’s claybank was jittery after the shooting and spying the big stranger walking up on it, so Haskell had to take a minute to sooth the beast before untying its reins. He led the reluctant mount back up toward the crest of the ridge, picking his way more carefully now, as shadows were gathering along the slope, making the footing uncertain. When he came in sight of the princess again, she was an inky shadow flanked by the slope. She was wearing her hat.
The shadow shifted. A vagrant ray cast by the fast-falling sun glinted off steel. There was the loud, raking rasp of a rifle being cocked.
“Who are you really?” she raked out, tightly, aiming her carbine at the lawman.
Haskell stopped about ten feet away from her. “Oh, for chrissakes!” He continued forward, jerking the horse along behind him.
“Stop right there!”
“Or you’ll what?” Haskell said, tossing the mount’s reins to her. They bounced of her carbine’s barrel and dropped to the ground. “You’ll shoot a deputy U.S. marshal?”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know you’re not one of the men shooting each other out here? You could have killed a deputy marshal and stolen his badge.”
“Put the rifle down, Miss Uppity.”
“Not until I’m certain you are who you say you are.” She frowned at him askance over the Winchester’s barrel. “You don’t seem very professional. Not one bit.”
“Oh, you seemed real professional in San Saba!” Haskell chuckled.
“Stop talking about that!”
He extended his hand to her. “I’ll help you up on your horse. When we get down to my horse, I’ll show you the file I have on Jack Hyde.”
“Jack Hyde?” Her frown deepened. “How do you know about Jack Hyde?”
“That’s who I’m lookin’ for. He has a federal warrant on his head, and my boss back in Denver think he’s working for one of the sides in the land war brewing in these parts.” Haskell lowered his hand and scowled. “Isn’t he what you’re out here for? Or ... just what are you out here for, Miss Uppity Pants?”
“Stop calling me that!” She lowered her carbine and extended her hand to him. “Of course, he’s what I’m out here for. What else? We’ve been hired by several parties to find Jack Hyde ... the Jackal.”
Haskell took her hand in his, helped her to her feet, and wrapped his hands around her slender waist. She gave a startled “Oh!” as he lifted her off her feet and set her easily onto her saddle.
“You might have given me a little warning before you did that,” she scolded him.
“Sorry.” He curled his upper lip again when even in the quickly fading light he saw the wine-red flush rise into her cheeks again. “I hope I didn’t make you feel funny.”
“Brigand!”
“No need for name-callin’.” Haskell pinched his hat brim to her then grabbed her horse’s reins and began leading the mount down the slope. “Bear Haskell’s the name. At your service.”
“I’ll take my reins.”
“I don’t mind leading your hoss for you.”
“You don’t need to. Only my foot is injured. My hands are just fine.”
Haskell tossed her the reins. She caught them against her chest and reined the claybank away from him. “Good day, Marshal Haskell!”
“What—you’re too good to camp with me?”
She walked the horse between two large rocks, glancing at him as she said, “I prefer to camp alone.”
“Where’s you camp?”
“I don’t have one. I’m traveling incognito, alone.”
Haskell smiled at that. “Well, you can travel incognito with me. We could compare notes, maybe, since we’re both on the trail of the same man. I just have my prisoner down there waiting for me, is all. He’s all trussed up, so he’s no threat. Not that he was much of a threat even before I cuffed an’ tied him.”
She’d stopped her horse and looked at Haskell over her shoulder. “Who’s your prisoner?”
“Son of the big mucky-muck rancher in these parts—Jordan Tifflin. His father is—”
“Ambrose Tifflin.” She’d said the name with a pensive air, looking down at the ground beside her horse.
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Of course, I have,” she said, peevish again. She looked at the ground again, as though seeking counsel from a gremlin down there. Then she cast her gaze back to Haskell. “I tell you what, Marshal Haskell ... if you really are who you say you are ... I’ll take you up on your offer to share your fire with you this evening.”
Haskell contin
ued walking down the slope, carefully picking his way in the thickening shadows. “That’d be wise.”
“Why would it be wise,” she said, putting her horse into step beside him.
“Because you’re a girl alone. And this is contested range. Hell, I’m sure you’ve heard that several rangers were killed out here some weeks back. One even more recent.”
Proudly, she said, “I may be a girl, as you say, Marshal Haskell, but I guarantee you that I can take care of myself as well as you can take of yourself. Mister Pinkerton gives me assignments the same as he would any man, with no regard to my sex or the danger involved.”
“What’s your name?”
She rode along in silence for a time, her horse choosing its own footing. Finally, with a little, relenting sigh, she said, “Arliss Posey.”
“Arliss Posey.” Haskell ran the name through his memory lobes. It sounded familiar but it didn’t snag on any recollections.
“One more thing about sharing your fire, Marshal Haskell.”
“What’s that, Arliss Posey?”
She gave him a direct look, mussed hair jostling across her shoulders as she continued down the slope. “Your fire will all I’ll be sharing. Nothing more. And I want you to promise you will never again, under any circumstances, mention San Saba.”
“Ah, San Saba,” Haskell said with a dreamy sigh.
“Marshal!”
“Oh, all right, all right. I won’t mention it again.” Bear gave an ironic snort. “But you can’t keep me from thinkin’ about it, Arliss. It was a helluva night!”
Chapter Thirteen
When Haskell and Agent Posey reached the bottom of the slope, it was almost dark. She followed him across the dry wash and then up the opposite bank.
Haskell stopped suddenly. He could see his horse and Tifflin’s horse—two brown smudges in the velvety shadows—on the far side of the trail. But there was no sign of Jordan Tifflin. The rock Bear had left him on shone pale as whitewash in the darkness.
“Oh, shit,” Haskell said.
“What is it?” Arliss asked, stopping the clay a few feet behind him.
“Stay here.”
“I don’t like taking orders from you or anyone else,” she muttered behind him.
Haskell walked forward, stopped near the rock. “Tifflin?”
A thrashing sounded in the brush beyond. Both horses started at the noise, and switched their tails. Tifflin’s roan whickered and shook its head.
Haskell loudly racked a cartridge into his Henry’s action, and strode over to the brush and cacti. A deer path led into the bramble. Haskell followed it, calling, “Kid?”
Silence.
Then, after Bear had walked a few more feet, a man’s low voice said, “Leave me! Leave me be! Hyde, that you? You leave me be, now, ya hear?”
Haskell followed the quavering voice to a cedar. Something lay between the cedar and a low shelf of rock that appeared to have issued a spring at one time. The figure, partly curled, moved a little.
It was Tifflin though Haskell couldn’t see him clearly in the dim light. What he could see was that the kid’s feet were still bound and his hands were still cuffed behind his back. His face was turned away from the lawman.
“Leave me alone, damnit!” Tifflin sobbed. “I ain’t out here cause I wanna be!”
Haskell move a little farther forward, crouched, and poked his Henry’s barrel against young Tifflin’s left shoulder.
“No!” the kid cried, turning his face toward Haskell. His eyes flashed umber with fear. “Leave me be, Hyde! I got nothin’ to do with ... ”
He stopped, narrowing his eyes in recognition at the lawman.
“Got nothin’ to do with what, Jordan?”
“Huh?” Young Tifflin was breathing hard.
“Got nothin’ to do with what?”
“I thought you was dead.”
“I gathered that. And you thought I was Jack Hyde.”
Tifflin gave a little, old-woman cackle. “I reckon I did at that.”
“Come on out of there.”
“I can’t, dammit. You got me trussed up like a pig!”
Bear slid his bowie from its sheath and sliced through the ropes binding young Tifflin’s feet together. He gathered up the cut rope in his hand, and rose. “Come on out of there,” he repeated.
Awkwardly but probably not as awkwardly as he’d slithered into his hiding place behind the cedar, he climbed out from behind it. He stood before Haskell, looking sheepish.
“You had a scare,” Bear said with mock sympathy.
“I thought you was dead. I figured ole Jack Hyde got you and he’d get me next.”
“Why were you so sure it was Hyde?”
Tifflin hiked a shoulder. “I don’t know. He’s sorta like the bogeyman. Everyone around here thinks the Jackal’s gonna come stalking and put one o’ them fist-sized rounds through his back.”
Haskell wagged his rifle. “Get moving. Back to your rock.”
When Haskell had followed Tifflin out of the brush, he saw Arliss Posey standing beside her horse, again not putting much weight on her right foot, and aiming her carbine again.
“Don’t you think you’ve used that enough for one afternoon?” Haskell said.
There was a soft click as she depressed the Winchester’s hammer. “That your prisoner?”
“He’s not Santa Clause.”
“A Tifflin, huh?”
Jordan whistled. “Damn, where’d you find her?”
“Shut up and sit back down on your rock,” Haskell told him.
Arliss Posey walked up to Tifflin. “So, you’re the son, huh?”
“That’s right.” Tifflin whistled as he brashly ogled the young woman. “Damn, you’re a sight for sore eyes! Who are you, anyway? Gonna be a long night. We might as well start getting acquainted!”
“Shut up, you limp-peckered little rascal!” Arliss snarled.
Haskell rolled his eyes and gave a low groan as he looked around for a sheltered place for a fire. It was going to be a long night, all right.
Hopefully, a quiet one.
~*~
Bear chose a camping spot another thirty yards west of the trail.
When he had a small fire going and had made coffee, he looked over to where Arliss Posey was leaning back against her saddle, legs stretched out before her, ankles crossed. She was nibbling a blueberry muffin she’d plucked from a small burlap pouch on the ground beside her. Her coffee cup sat near the pouch, curling its steam up into the darkness.
Arliss was speculatively studying Jordan Tifflin who was grinning back at her from the other side of the fire.
Tifflin was munching jerky from his cuffed right hand.
“What’s your interest in the seedling here?” Haskell asked the young woman.
“I think she likes me,” the young man said. “Can’t take her eyes off me.”
Arliss flared a nostril at him and said to Bear, “I hate spoiled brats.”
“So that’s your interest?” Bear said, skeptical.
“That’s my interest.”
“You’re sure there’s nothin’ else?”
“What else would there be?” Arliss said, flatly.
“Yeah,” Tifflin said, still grinning lustily. “What else would there be?”
Haskell glared at him. “If you don’t shut up, I’m gonna shoot your other ear off.”
Tifflin turned his mouth corners down.
Haskell returned his gaze to the pretty young Pinkerton. “You’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, aren’t you? That Jack Hyde is shooting for the Tifflins.”
“They would have the money to pay him whereas I doubt the small ranchers the Tifflins are trying to squeeze out would.”
Haskell looked over at young Tifflin again, who was biting another piece of jerky from the ragged chunk in his cuffed hands and which Haskell had found in the younker’s saddlebags when he’d unsaddled his mount. “Why did you think I was the Jackal stalking you a while ago? You were so scare
d I thought you were gonna piss your pants.”
“You told me to shut up,” Tifflin said, chewing. “I don’t wanna get another ear shot off. I’m a good-lookin’ feller. Just ask Miss Posey.” He cast a mocking, wet-lipped smile at Arliss, who flared a nostril at him again.
Haskell studied them both. He had far more questions than he was getting answers from either of them. He had a feeling that Arliss knew far more than she was telling. Why? Or was she just the sort of Pinkerton operative who had a habit of playing it close to her vest?
Haskell leaned his rifle against the log he was sitting on, and dropped to his knees beside her. “Let me have a look at that foot.”
“What? No. Get away from me!”
Tifflin laughed.
Haskell grabbed her right foot and set it on his thigh. “Let me take a look at it. I’m a right good sawbones of sorts.”
With a painful grunt, she pulled her foot off his lap and dropped it to the ground. “The foot’s fine, Marshal Haskell!”
Haskell gave her a sincere, direct look. “I can tell you’re in pain. If any bones are broken, that foot should be wrapped. Otherwise it’s just gonna swell until you’re never gonna get that boot off without cutting it.”
“No one is cutting that boot off! It cost me a pretty penny on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and”—she cast an accusatory look at young Tifflin again—“money doesn’t grow on trees. At least, not for me.”
Haskell said, “His old man runs the San Rafael for a big English syndicate. He can’t be all that rich.” He looked at Tifflin. “Can he?”
“Ah, hell,” Tifflin said. “She just has her bloomers in a twist.”
Arliss opened her mouth to give a curt response but Haskell cut her off with, “Let me slide this boot off while I still can, and set that foot if it needs setting.”
“All right,” said the pretty Pinkerton. “But leave my sock on.”
Haskell pulled off the boot. Her sock came with it. Her bare foot was copper colored in the light of the fire’s dancing flames.
Young Tifflin whistled. “Now, that there’s a foot!”
The Jackals of Sundown (A Bear Haskell Western Book 2) Page 10