She wasn’t just fixing to get out of town. She was planning to leave the state.
“What’s this one say?” she asked Doc.
Tension hummed in the air as Doc read the telegram. He passed it to her and heaved a sigh. “They’ll take you too, but their next class doesn’t start until late summer.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
Dade helped himself to coffee in hopes he’d calm down a spell. The thought of Maggie heading south or east didn’t sit well with him.
Which was stupid when he thought on it.
She wasn’t his kin or his responsibility beyond the fact that she was a lone woman living in Placid. He should be glad to see her go, for she’d be more hindrance than help as he set off in search of his sister.
“When are you fixing to leave?” Dade asked her point blank. He had the satisfaction of watching her cheeks turn a dusty pink.
“I’m not sure.” She toyed with the letter and frowned. “The school in St. Louis can promise me a place in the upcoming class, but I’m not fond of the wait or their rules.”
“Didn’t know you was a rebel,” Dade said.
Doc muffled a laugh. “Can’t say as I blame her for being hesitant about the school. It’s run by the Sisters of Charity. She’ll work and learn nursing around the clock seven days a week.”
Hell, even cowboying gave a man time off to relax some. “They give students rooms there too?”
“A ward, just like the other, though I’d imagine this is going to feel more like being in a nunnery.” He caught the nearly perceptible shift of her shoulders and guessed this was a hot topic.
Not the most inviting situation. Even Maggie’s excitement seemed to dim. Or was that simply worry he was reading on her face?
Doc tapped the second paragraph on the letter. “I know it sounds like a prison sentence to you and all, but you’ll be safer at the Mullanphy Hospital under the nuns’ tutelage.”
“The problem is remaining safe while I wait for the time that I can enroll,” she said, flicking Dade an uncertain glance that had him questioning her thoughts.
Doc bobbed his head in agreement. “I could ask a friend in St. Louis to put you up in his home until thattime comes. I’m sure he and his wife would welcome the company.”
Dade wasn’t surprised that Doc knew of someone who’d take her in. But they’d likely get more than they bargained for if Allis Carson picked up her trail.
“I don’t know.” Maggie chewed her lower lip, and he wondered if the same thought had crossed her mind. “It’s a risk no matter what I do. Staying here surely isn’t an option. It’s a fact that trouble could follow me to St. Louis, so unless I can get right in the school, I’d be better off if I kept moving.”
The curling of Doc’s fingers was the only evidence that he disliked the idea of Maggie traipsing from town to town on her own in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the bounty hunter. Carson was no fool. He’d figure out where she was heading and beat her there, catching her when she got off the train.
“You’ll never give Carson the slip if you travel by rail or stage,” Dade said.
“What other choice do I have?” she asked.
Dade took another gander at the plan that had formed on his walk over here. Maggie had a month-long wait and needed protection. He needed her to identify the man who took Daisy.
The way he saw it, his way satisfied both wants. As long as he didn’t think about those times when just the two of them would be alone God-knows-where, they’d be fine.
“Well, spit it out, boy,” Doc said at last.
“I’m heading east in search of my sister, thinking the best way for me to find out what happened to her is by visiting the last place Maggie saw her.” Dade caught and held Maggie’s steady gaze with his own. “Come with me, Maggie.”
“You think we’ll just happen on the man who took Daisy?” she asked, the incredulity in her voice loud and clear.
“It’s a long shot, but you’ve got a month to stay one step ahead of Allis Carson,” he said. “Being on the move will work to your advantage. And yep, if we’re lucky, we’ll find out who took Daisy off that orphan train.”
“You’d leave the town in the new deputy’s care?” Doc asked.
“In a heartbeat. Only reason I took on the job was because most folks believed my sister would come back here.” He flicked Maggie a look that made her squirm, but he derived no pleasure from her discomfort. “As far as folks around here need to know, my sister and I have headed on.”
“I dislike the idea of us traveling together as siblings,” she said, not mincing words. “It will be too easy for the bounty hunter to follow us.”
Dade nodded, having already deduced the same. “We’ll leave here as siblings. Didn’t say we’d stay that way for long.”
But he didn’t intend to advertise they were traveling as husband and wife unless it became necessary. Better to let folks draw their own conclusions; that way he wouldn’t be obliged to carry on an act twenty-four hours a day.
As for their nights together... Just thinking of sleeping with Maggie stirred him below the belt and promised he’d get damn little rest.
Her eyes held a mixture of innocence and anticipation that let him know she understood his plan. He held his breath, expecting another objection more forceful than the first.
Doc was the one to speak up. “You’re planning to pose as husband and wife.”
“When we have to,” Dade said.
As long as he kept his hands to himself around her, he could get through it. If he gave in to his urges, he’d likely be rewarded with pleasure and untold grief.
“I suppose that’s the wisest course to take,” she said.
The lady was scared out of her wits for good reason, yet she’d never moaned or cried about it. She used her head to find a means to escape Harlan Nowell. Would she do the same to him?
“Then it’s settled,” he said.
Dade could begin getting supplies together for their journey. He just hoped it wouldn’t be a quick escape with Allis Carson hot on their trail.
“You do know how to ride?” he asked.
That nervous shifting in her chair didn’t bode well. “I’ve been on a horse a time or two.”
Dammit, her inexperience in riding would cost them time.
“That will be an arduous journey for someone unused to the saddle,” Doc said, voicing what was Dade’s worry as well.
“Never said it’d be easy,” Dade said. “But taking the train or stage leaves a trail a blind man could follow. Besides that, it’s easier to hide if we stay off the beaten trail for the most part.”
She didn’t flinch or bitch about taking off on horseback and being isolated for the most part with him. He acknowledged another trait he admired in her. Fortitude.
“I trust that you are right,” she said.
So did Dade. He didn’t relish getting ambushed by the bounty hunter, which meant he’d best stay ahead of him at all times.
“Reckon a few lessons on a horse are in order,” he said, and she relaxed some at that. “You know how to handle a gun?”
That got her tensing back up again. She shook her head, and he tried to ignore the way the sunlight gilded strands of her hair a rich gold.
“No, but I’m willing to learn that too.”
He smiled at the determination ringing in her voice.
But it was the jolt of awareness that licked through him like fire when their gazes met that warned him this journey would be a challenge for him as well. Traveling from town to town with her was asking for trouble on several levels.
Foremost was the fact that she was a desirable woman. It would surely shred his patience to remain in close company with her on a journey and keep his hands to himself.
Though they could pass themselves off as siblings for a spell, there would still be some places where they’d be obliged to spend the night together out of necessity and safety.
God’s truth, that’d test his ho
nor as a gentleman.
Yep, he’d likely be buying into trouble when he left town with Maggie Sutten. But it was the only choice to make.
He needed her to identify this man who’d taken Daisy, and he needed to protect her from Allis Carson. That could prove a bigger challenge than he’d first thought.
Maggie had secrets he suspected that even Doc Franklin didn’t know. He just hoped to hell they didn’t land in a fix that he couldn’t get them out of.
Yep, once they found Daisy, he’d take Maggie to St. Louis and see she was enrolled in her nursing school. She’d have what she wanted and so would he.
Family. He’d do anything to make that a reality. He’d made his sister a promise that he’d find her. That they’d be reunited as a family one day.
He damn sure wasn’t going to let her down again.
“We’ll start you on riding this afternoon.” He looked into Maggie’s wide eyes and felt his gut lurch. “I want you comfortable in the saddle.”
There wasn’t a bit of trust reflected in her eyes–just wary resignation. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”
More likely she’d suffer in quiet when her backside was too tender to touch. The image that conjured up reminded him of the dangerous game he was playing with Margaret Sutten.
For more times than he cared to count, he wondered if there was another way. As before, none came to mind. With the bounty hunter breathing down their necks, their only chance was to stay off the beaten path.
He fished the pocket watch from his vest pocket, absently pausing to rub his thumb over the inscription on the back. Family. Would he forever lose those he cared for?
“Meet me at the livery in an hour,” he said. “We’ll start with a short ride.”
After he talked with his deputy. If Duane had found more signs of Allis Carson today, the ride would have to wait.
Maggie got to her feet, looking proud yet vulnerable. “I’ll be ready.”
Dade returned his watch to his pocket and tamped down the wild urge to take her in his arms and hold her close. She brought out his protective side all right, but she also stirred his baser wants more than any woman he’d met in a long time.
Best keep your grub hooks to yourself, cowboy.
He hightailed it out of Doc Franklin’s house, fixing his mind on all that had to be done in short order instead of the inviting bow of her mouth. He had to get her ready to ride hard and fast when the time came.
The folks he passed on the boardwalk seemed in no hurry as they went about their business. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and he wasn’t beset with the feeling that something was wrong.
Even the welcoming quiet of the saloon was unusual in the West, proving the town lived up to its name. But like all watering holes, men who gathered to drink tended to talk, whether it was to boast or bitch.
That fact made the bartender the eyes and ears of the town.
Dade stepped inside the room that smelled of smoke and liquor and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. A good scrubbing of the window glass would admit more light, but the accumulation of grime on the panes was proof that the owner didn’t feel so inclined.
Two Mexicans sat at a round table in the back playing poker, garbed like cowpokes but acting like drifters. The lamp suspended above them encompassed them in light, though their wide brimmed hats kept their faces in shadow.
Cy Shepard leaned on the bar with a bottle of rotgut before him, the knees and seat of his dungarees so worn they were nearly threadbare. The old prospector had been a Saturday regular since the spring thaw, exchanging what dust he’d gleaned at the assay office then ambling to the saloon to drink it away.
This was the first time Dade had seen Shepard in town during the week. He appeared to be in the process of getting seriously drunk.
Dade guessed he’d hit a vein and was celebrating, or he’d realized that his piece of the mountain was panned out. Either way Dade suspected before the day was done he’d have to lock the old man up for the night, if for no other reason than to give him a place to sleep it off.
He strode to the bar and motioned for two fingers of whiskey. If anything unusual had happened north of here, the old man would have heard about it.
One look at the fear on Shepard’s face told him something was dead wrong. Hell, even his hand shook as he poured whiskey in a glass.
“What brings you to town?” Dade asked.
Shepard paused with the glass clutched in one shaky hand. “Too damned many varmints in the hills.”
“I’m guessing they’re of the two-legged variety?” he asked as the bartender placed a shot glass full of whiskey before him.
“Yep.” Shepard tossed back his liquor like it was water and promptly poured another. “You remember Myron Zule who lived up the mountain from me?”
“Sure do. I enjoyed listening to his stories about the old days.”
Unlike this old man, Zule came to town once a month. But where Shepard panned the streams, Zule had a placer mine in the mountains that meted out enough silver for him to keep hoping he’d strike a vein.
He’d been in frail health when Dade first met him a month or so before winter hit. Come spring, he’d learned that Shepard had found him dead shortly after that and buried him.
“Turns out a gang of outlaws holed up in his mine over the winter,” Shepard said.
The whiskey blazed in Dade’s gut. Damn, could the gang be his kin? His fingers curled around the heavy glass, holding on to it like he’d held on to his memories all these years.
“How’d you find out they were there?”
The old man swallowed hard. “I caught a whiff of bacon frying a couple of days ago. Figured somebody had claimed Zule’s mine, so I went up there to say howdy. I spotted three men standing outside the mineshaft.”
“They see you?”
“Yep. I recognized those fellers right off. The Logan Gang.”
Just what Dade feared. The outlaws had been holed upin that mine all winter, likely venturing out to keep a watch on the town, likely watching Dade.
“You’re damned lucky you didn’t get shot.”
“Came close to it.” Shepard’s ruddy skin paled, and his bleary eyes went wide. “I lit out and just about reached the tree line when I heard shots. My danged feet got all tangled up, and I fell. Didn’t stop to see if I took a bullet until I crawled in the bushes.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t come after you.” Even more surprised that a Logan had missed an old man whose idea of running was more of a shuffle.
“Hell, they weren’t after me at all.” The old man splashed more whiskey in a glass and gulped it down, his whole body shaking now. “I ain’t never seen shooting like that before.”
“From the outlaws?”
“Nope, from a lone man. He was as fast with a sidearm as he was with a rifle,” Shepard said.
“You got a good look at this man?” he asked, suspecting a lawman had tracked down the gang. At the old man’s nod, he said, “Describe him.”
Shepard scrunched up his leathery face. “On the lean side. Long dark hair. Wasn’t nothing memorable about him ‘cept he had the fortitude to stare down a rattler.”
It was an apt description of Allis Carson. He poured whiskey in the old man’s glass. “Tell me the rest.”
Shepard finished off the whiskey first, then reeled back and swiped a hand over his mouth. “I tell you that feller put a bullet right betwixt the eyes of one of them outlaws before the other could pull leather.”
Dade went still as death, feeling oddly distressed to know that one of his relatives had been gunned down. It was bound to happen. When a man lived by the gun, he tended to die by it.
All these years he’d told himself he wouldn’t give a shit if his uncles or pa died the way they’d lived. He hadn’t expected to feel this sense of loss. Which one had died? Brice or Seth? Or Clete?
“What happened to the other two outlaws?” he asked.
“That bounty hunter shot one of t
hem in the leg as he was running to his horse. God almighty that man screamed something awful,” Shepard said, and Dade swore over the fact that he winced. “The outlaw wasn’t about to go down easy though. He pulled his gun, but the bounty hunter was faster.”
Dade swallowed hard and hated himself for that hesitation. He was a Logan by birth, but he damn sure didn’t have their thieving, murdering bent.
“Kill him?”
Shepard snorted. “Nope. He was still hollering when the bounty hunter hogtied him then tossed him over the saddle. Did the same with the dead man, though he didn’t complain.”
“Which direction did he head?” Dade asked.
“North,” the old man said. “Didn’t seem in any hurry either. He mounted up, smoked a cigarette, and rode off.”
Dade went still. His hunch had been right. The bounty hunter hired out to whomever would pay his wages. In between, he wasn’t opposed to making a little extra on the side by hauling in outlaws.
Anger sluiced through him like water flooding a mill-stream. If Carson got his hands on Maggie, God knew what he’d do to her when they were alone.
The bounty hunter had likely hauled the two outlaws in to the U.S. Marshal in Colorado Springs. That was the only place close where he could collect his reward off the Logan Gang, dead or alive.
“What about the third outlaw?” Dade asked.
The old man shrugged. “He got away. Heard him ride off, so he must have dodged them bullets somehow.”
So one of his relatives survived. Which one?
A sense of unease curled in Dade. No, he couldn’t feel deep grief over his kins’ death and arrest, but he didn’t like the heavy-handed way Allis Carson acted either.
He’d been hiding on a ledge above town, watching and smoking those cigarillos. He’d returned in hopes of finding Margaret Sutten.
“I gotta take a leak.” Shepard scowled at the barkeep and hiccuped. “I’m coming back, so don’t go messing with my bottle.”
“It’ll be where you left it,” the bartender said.
Dade paid the old man little heed. It’d take Allis Carson two days to ride to Colorado Springs. Longer if he had to go into Denver. It’d maybe cost him another day to get his reward.
In a Cowboy’s Arms Page 11