Bad to the Bone

by Debra Dixon

  The only thing that gave her pause was leaving her father’s books. Carrying them would have been only a sentimental gesture for she’d memorized them long ago. Of all the things she’d lost, her conversations with her father would be the things she’d miss most.

  Pulling her gaze away from the dismal scene, she gave the mule a slap on the rear. Today was Friday and payday for the banker’s cowhands. She had better hurry if she was going to catch the man before he left for his ranch. As she rode, she rehearsed her plea to the smart-talking money-man who’d sold her gentle, scholarly father a worthless piece of land where nothing would grow but rattlesnakes and sagebrush.

  If the banker-turned-land-dealer refused to buy back the land, Macky would sell her mother’s cameo for enough money to buy a ticket on the noon stage heading for Denver. The brooch was the last thing she owned of any value, that and Solomon, a mule so ornery no one would buy him.

  Macky gave little thought about where she would go now. Her family had been outcasts every place they’d ever been; Papa with his fine education and inability to earn a living and Mama and Todd who always refused to try.

  She didn’t expect to find a place where she fit in. God only knew where she’d ever find something she was good at. No man would want her as a wife; she was too outspoken, too plain, and she couldn’t cook. She might have been a schoolmarm, if she’d had the temperament and had been submissive enough to satisfy those who paid her salary. She might have been a governess if she’d paid more attention to her mother’s lessons of deportment.

  But Macky was taught to think, to express herself and to do it openly as an equal. Macky sighed. The only thing she had to offer was something nobody would want—a quick mind.

  About a mile outside of town, a hawk swooped down, clasped a frightened jackrabbit in his talons, and flew away. The sound of his wings spooked the mule, who stepped into a gopher hole and bolted. He deposited Macky in the middle of the trail and, braying at the top of his lungs, took off with her bedroll.

  Macky let out an oath as she watched him race away. She was still fuming when four hard-riding men crested the hill and came to a stop where she’d fallen. One man was leading a horse with an empty saddle.

  “Looks like you got trouble, boy!” The stranger who seemed to be the leader glanced at the disappearing mule, then moved closer. He had a scruffy gray beard and a bloody bandana tied around his forehead. He was riding a black horse with a fancy silver-trimmed saddle.

  Boy? One look at the cold expression in his eyes made Macky decide that being a boy at this point was much safer than being a girl. She nodded and came to her feet.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “McKenzie,” she answered in the deepest voice she could manage.

  “Heading to Promise?” another asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Folks there know you?” the leader asked.

  Again, she nodded. They knew her, but that wasn’t likely to do these men any good if they were looking for someone to put in a word for them.

  “How’d you like a ride the rest of the way to town, pick up a dollar or two? We got an extra horse.” The leader nodded at the black horse trailing behind them. “One of my men had a little accident a ways back and—stayed behind.”

  Macky would have said no, but if she walked, she’d miss the noon stage. Once she made her decision to leave, catching that stage had become the most important thing she’d ever do.

  She studied the man making the offer. She had nothing for them to steal and, as long as he didn’t know she was a girl, accepting his offer was less likely to give her away than refusing. Besides, Promise was only a short way down the trail, and once she reached town, she’d separate herself from these rough-looking men.

  “Much obliged.”

  Macky grabbed the saddle horn and vaulted onto the horse, kicking him into a steady gallop to keep up with her new companions. She wondered where they’d come from and what had happened to the man who stayed behind. All the horses had been ridden hard; their coats were icy with frozen perspiration. Why were they heading for a town that had little claim to fame other than the attempts by a few homesteaders to raise crops in an area where the only year-round water belonged to one man?

  The leader slowed his horse, allowing Macky to come abreast of him. “What kind of place is Promise, kid?”

  “Small,” she answered.

  “We’re heading there to do a little banking. You can watch our horses while we’re inside.”

  That hadn’t been part of Macky’s plan. At the moment, however, she couldn’t see a way out. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. The bank, standing between the blacksmith’s forge and the dressmaker’s shop, was the first thing they’d come to.

  The men reined in their horses in front of the rustic building and slid to the street mushy with melting snow. Macky, anxious to separate herself from the strangers, stopped her horse in front of the smithy’s shop. She was already in enough trouble with the town; riding in with a group of strangers would only make matters worse. She’d just tie the horse to the hitching rail and disappear.

  She soon found that wasn’t going to work. “Watch the horses, boy,” the man with the beard said as he climbed down and dropped the reins to his horse.

  Two of the riders stationed themselves beside the front door of the bank while the leader and the other man went inside. Before Macky could figure out how to get away, gunshots rang out. Seconds later the two men ran out of the bank.

  “That’s far enough, Pratt,” the sheriff’s deputy called out from the roof of the general store across the street.

  “Drop the money and throw down your guns,” Sheriff Dover ordered. Macky couldn’t see him where he was standing in the alley between the bank and the blacksmith’s shop. “We got word from the federal prison that you were heading this way. Just let me have the money.”

  Pratt? The sheriff had called the man Pratt. Everybody in the West knew about the infamous Pratt gang. One outlaw suddenly dropped to the ground, rolled away from the door and got off a shot. The deputy fell, but not before he’d wounded one of the robbers.

  The man by the door found cover and opened fire. The sheriff responded with a barrage of bullets, grazing the horse’s haunches as Pratt mounted. The frightened animal reared up. In his attempt to stay on his horse, Pratt lost control of the flour sack he was carrying, flinging it behind him toward the startled Macky who caught it instinctively.

  Macky, who’d been paralyzed by what was happening, suddenly realized that Pratt and his men had robbed the bank. At any moment the sheriff would step out from the alley and see her. With the money in her hand, he’d believe that she was a part of the gang. She’d come to town to ask the banker for money and she’d been caught in a holdup.

  Desperately, Macky kicked her horse into action and rode into the blacksmith’s barn. She slid to the ground and slapped her horse on the rear and watched him gallop out the back.

  Macky followed the horse. When she’d hoped to find something she was good at, she hadn’t expected it to be a crime. She could only pray that all the attention had been on the shooters and that nobody had recognized her in Papa’s coat and hat. No matter, her chance of selling her brooch had been ruined and it was almost time for the stage. The stone for Papa’s grave would have to wait.

  Desperately, she looked around. Perhaps the dressmaker would buy the cameo. Macky knocked on the shopkeeper’s back door, found it open and slipped inside. “Hello?”

  Moments later a woman peered furtively from a small room opening off the shop. Seeing that Macky was alone she came forward, facing Macky with distaste and disbelief. “Yes?”

  Macky had never visited her shop and nobody knew that better than the proprietor. “Yes, I wonder if you can help me?” Macky started to reach in her pocket and realized she was still holding the flour sack filled with money.

  “What are you looking for?” the seamstress asked icily.

  “I’d like—” Macky reached for
her cameo, heard the sound of coins jingle in the sack and stilled her movements.

  Considering how she was dressed, she could understand the dressmaker’s attitude, and after what her brother had done, the sheriff would never believe that Macky was an innocent pawn. Now she could be in even bigger trouble with the outlaw Pratt. He was sure to come after his money. Becoming a criminal was the final insult in her life.

  Then it came to her. She didn’t have to sell the cameo now. She had money for her ticket if she wanted to use it. Granted, it wasn’t hers, but she’d been handed a means to administer justice to the man who’d cheated her father and so many others. She’d take the money her father had been swindled out of, plus interest. It would buy her a ticket out of Promise and stones for both Todd’s and Papa’s graves—at the banker’s expense. Later, she’d return the money that wasn’t truly hers.

  Macky calmly considered her next move. The sheriff hadn’t seen her, only the outlaws and the deputy, and from what she’d seen the deputy’s wound looked fatal. The dressmaker didn’t know what had happened for she’d obviously been in her workroom with no view of the street. If Macky was lucky she still might get out of Promise.

  Macky made up her mind. Providence had provided. “I’d like to buy a dress and a bonnet and cape. Quickly, please I—I have a pressing engagement.”

  The seamstress studied her as if she thought Macky’s pressing engagement might be with a ragman, then turned to her rack. “I do keep a few skirts made up but they might be a little small for you and the only blouses I have are probably too big. I could alter a dress by tomorrow.”

  “No, get the skirt and shirtwaist. I’ll wear them.” The woman pulled the clothing from the rack and handed it to Macky. “You can try them on behind the changing screen.”

  Keeping an eye on the door, Macky quickly shed her brother’s clothes and pulled on the unfamiliar women’s garments, wondering how on earth anybody could wear such things. By the time the commotion outside died down, Macky was wearing a pale blue shirtwaist and darker skirt over her brother’s drawers and had covered it all with a dark blue serge cape.

  She reached inside the sack and withdrew enough money to pay for her goods and buy her ticket on the stage. Then she looked around for a means to conceal the rest. Getting on the stage holding a flour sack would only call attention to herself.

  Hurrying now, she selected a tan-colored portmanteau in which she placed her old clothes and the flour sack. She added a second shirtwaist, a flannel nightgown, and a petticoat.

  “Might I suggest this?” the seamstress said, holding out a blue velvet drawstring purse. “For your traveling money.”

  Macky took the purse, paid for her purchases, and placed the remaining money inside. When the coins clanked together she looked around and picked up a lacy handkerchief to cushion the sound.

  At the last minute she selected a blue bonnet with a pink rose on its crown and poked her red hair beneath it.

  After registering the seamstress’s haughty disapproval, Macky glanced at herself in the mirror and bit back a very unladylike oath. The dressmaker was right. The blouse needed altering, but with the cape to cover it. nobody but Macky would know that it gaped open between the buttons. There was nothing she could do to hide a skirt that fell two inches short of covering her heavy work boots.

  So be it. The people in Promise didn’t matter anymore and the citizens of Denver wouldn’t care what she looked like. She’d just keep traveling until she found a place where she could belong.

  When the driver, Jenks Malone, crawled up on the stage, he cast a dubious eye on the odd-looking young woman who ran from the dress shop to the stage office, then boarded the coach at the last minute.

  “Females,” he muttered, “always late.”

  She was looking around as if she were searching for someone. Another minute and he’d leave her behind.

  The only other traveler was polite and well mannered enough. According to the stationmaster, he was a preacher, “Brother Brandon Adams, headed for Heaven.”

  But most preachers didn’t wear fancy clothes or a black patch over one eye.

  And most preachers didn’t carry a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other.

  Still, everybody along the line knew that the folks in Heaven were expecting their new minister. And if this man looked like the devil instead of a messenger of the Lord they wouldn’t care. But he made Jenks uneasy.

  Jenks wasn’t sure that even a man of God could do much about the trouble in Heaven. If the federal marshal couldn’t find out who was running the miners off their claims, Jenks doubted the Lord would care.

  Trouble was no stranger in the West. Lately the stage line had suffered a mess of it on the weekly run from Leavenworth to Denver to Salt Lake. Five days ago, Jenks had lost his own coach to an Indian attack. He’d managed to make his way to the next way station to wait for a new assignment. When the driver on the incoming stage came in roaring drunk, the Stationmaster sent for Jenks to finish the western run.

  Giving the horses a flick of his whip, Jenks moved the coach out. They were due in Denver by the next day, and there was Indian country to get through first. Indians and the Pratt gang who’d broken out of the territory prison and robbed the bank in Promise only minutes earlier. The deputy and one of the outlaws had been killed. But the sheriff had caught one and wounded another. Only Pratt and a young boy who’d been riding with them had escaped and they were likely heading west.

  Jenks had a bad feeling about the trip, even if the Lord was on their side.

  Read on for an excerpt from Sandra Chastain’s Raven and the Cowboy

  1

  Spring, 1877

  Raven Alexander knelt by the dying man, her clasped hands resting against her knees, her head bowed. The coals of a mesquite fire burned down, breathing little warmth into the shadows. But she did not feel the cold.

  From outside the tepee came the sound of low, muffled drumbeats, growing slower and slower, like the ebbing of the old man’s heart. Then came the keening of voices, high, tight with grief, blown by the wind.

  Death was no stranger to Raven. Her mother had lost her life bringing Raven into the world. Her boisterous Irish father had been killed in a mining accident. Now she was losing Flying Cloud, the man she’d always called Honorable Grandfather.

  Suddenly the old man Opened his eyes and reached out to clasp her by the arm. “Come close, my child,” he said, gasping for breath. “I have little time.”

  “Be still, Grandfather, you must rest.” She tried to ease him back to the rug on which he lay, but he continued to hold tight.

  “No, you must listen. I have told you of the wealth of our people hidden in the sacred mountains to the south. The time has come for you to go there, to claim the treasure.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The spirits will protect you, Raven. You must go.”

  Flying Cloud let go of her arm and collapsed back to the ground.

  “Grandfather? Please, I can’t leave you.”

  “I have prepared you for this journey all your life, Raven. You will find two men. One comes to you,” he rasped, “in the form of the cougar.”

  “Cougar?” Over and over in recent weeks, she’d dreamed of a sleek golden mountain lion.

  “He’ll take you to the other, the keeper of the sacred treasure who will guide you to the place where the light of the moon touches the light of the sun.”

  “But I don’t want to leave you now.”

  “Go, my child. Promise me that you will do this thing.”

  She had no choice but to follow the wishes of this man who’d been her rock in a changing world. “I promise, Grandfather.”

  With a heavy heart, Raven stood and backed away from the man she’d loved all her life. His last words followed her from the dwelling.

  “Beware the bronze dagger.”

  In a small cantina just south of the border, Tucker Farrell watched the slim Mexican across the table blatantly deal his
Spanish friend a card from the bottom of the deck. The Spaniard wore an open jacket, displaying crossed silver-trimmed leather straps filled with cartridges for the pistol at his hip. Not only was he a crooked card player, he was a bandit as well.

  The dealer gave a sharp laugh as he slapped a card on the table before Tucker and moved on to the grizzled old half-breed miner who’d turned up earlier, and who, in order to get into the game, had bragged about finding a lost treasure.

  Nothing new about that along the Rio Grande. Tales of lost mines and treasure were routine. Tucker studied his cards. He was holding a pair of fours. Another time, he might have stayed in, but he weighed the possible loss of his drinking money against his chances and threw in his hand. He might have won, but a sure bottle was worth more than a few hundred maybes.

  The miner studied his cards, took two. When the old man raised the bid, he shuffled his cards several times, then pulled a nugget of gold from his pocket and threw it into the pot.

  The two remaining cardplayers looked at each other and nodded. The onlookers grew quiet. Tucker would have moved away had he not been caught up in the tension of the play. The hand progressed. Consternation was obvious on the old Indian’s face. Now the pot held two nuggets and what looked like a heavy gold watch fob set with a ruby.

  A sick feeling hit Tucker in the pit of his stomach. The prospector was heading straight for trouble, and he seemed oblivious to the danger.

  “The bet, it is to you, old man,” the dealer said in heavily accented English. “What do you say?”

  Tucker wondered why the miner took such a chance. If he had actually found a treasure, it had to be worth a lot more than a meager pot in a poker game.

  Must be pride, Tucker decided. Hell, he could understand that. He’d felt the same way, until he’d lost his own self-respect and given up on finding it again.