Читать книгу The Third Western Megapack - Johnston McCulley - Страница 10
ОглавлениеLADY SHERIFF SEES RED! by Barbara L. Bonham
Stephanie Lawson shifted the big gun which lay across her knees and took a firmer grip on the driver’s seat atop the stagecoach. Her movement caught the attention of Andy, the grizzled old driver, and she flushed, feeling his eyes upon her.
Thinks I’ve gone in over my head this time, she thought angrily. I’ll show him. I’ll show them all that I can do as good a job as sheriff as any man. They won’t be sorry they let me take over when Uncle Mort died. He was the best sheriff Red Rock ever had, and I’ll finish out his term if it kills me! She started. And it might do just that if I’m not careful. This job is by far the biggest I’ve come up against yet. I’ve got to stop these stagecoach robberies. The railroad has lost its pay-roll gold three times already, always when it’s being shipped from Ben Walters’ bank to the railroad office in Pine Junction.
She ran the toe of her boot over the top of the iron chest which lay at her feet and smiled. Ben didn’t have to worry about the railroad getting its gold shipment this time. She’d see that the gold arrived safely at the railroad station or know the reason why. The smile erased the tense lines that had pulled at her attractive face, and her full mouth softened. Eyes that matched the summer sky above her blond head examined the surrounding countryside carefully.
Nothing. This was too good to be true. The sunlight gleamed on the sheriff’s badge which was pinned to her shirt as she turned to look back over the road the stagecoach had already traveled. The heavy metal star-shaped badge looked strange on such an unmistakably feminine breast.
The gleam of sunlight reflected by the badge flashed squarely in the driver’s eyes, and he smiled. “Steve,” he shouted above the din of coach wheels and horse’s hooves, “what do you think you could do if those two bandits held up this here stage again?”
Steve turned around and looked up at Andy. Her eyes flashed angrily and her voice was stern with determination. “You can bet your boots I’d do a whole lot more than that lily-livered deputy who rode gun with you last time.”
“Now there, gal, don’t be too hard on Jed. He didn’t have a chance to fire a single shot. They were too fast for us. He tried and got a bullet in the shoulder for his trouble.”
Steve thrust out a chin which was ridiculously soft despite its stubbornness and remained silent.
“Why don’t you marry Ben and quit this job, Steve?”
Startled at the abrupt switch in the conversation, Steve answered sharply: “Reckon that’s my business.”
“Reckon it is,” the craggy old driver agreed, “but I know it isn’t ’cause he hasn’t asked you. He’s made no bones about wanting you to marry him for the past couple of years. If I—”
His next words were cut off by the sound of a shot. The bullet whizzed high over their heads, and almost in the same instant, it seemed, a voice at Steve’s elbow shouted, “Don’t reach for your gun!” and to Andy, “Stop the stagecoach!”
Steve whirled and found herself looking down into a pair of blue eyes that glinted as coldly as the gun barrel which was pointed directly at her. A mere wiggle of her little finger would have sent a bullet ripping into her chest.
Andy stopped the horses in a matter of seconds, and the stagecoach stood rocking on its wheels after its abrupt stop. The two squealing lady passengers and a fidgety little drummer didn’t even rate a glance from the lone bandit.
“Keep quiet and you won’t get hurt,” the gunman yelled at them. “Now, miss, just hand down that iron box there under your feet.”
“I will not,” Steve said defiantly.
Just for a moment the masked man stiffened, and then his eyes above the black kerchief which covered the rest of his face crinkled. “Throw it down, old timer,” he said to Andy without taking his eyes from Steve.
“Yes, sir,” Andy replied, scrambling to obey.
He dropped the iron box in the dust at the feet of the bandit’s, horse. Reaching out quickly, the masked man snatched the big gun from Steve’s knees, snagged the iron box by one handle, and pulled it some distance from the stagecoach. All this without a single waver of his eyes or gun.
Then came the most surprising move of all. The big bandit shot out a long arm and lifted Steve right off the driver’s seat and deposited her across the saddle in front of him.
The suddenness of the move paralyzed Steve for a moment, and then she gasped and started fighting like a wildcat, a captured wildcat, for captured she was. Bound by an arm strong as an iron band, she could do little but wiggle and kick feebly. Her face was pressed so tightly against the man’s broad chest, she couldn’t even yell.
Rage shot through her like a hot flame and set her blood pounding in her ears until she hardly heard the bandit’s orders to Andy.
“Don’t move an inch, old-timer, and don’t try any funny tricks or your pretty companion here will get a bullet through her heart.” His eyes crinkled again. “What I’ve got to do will only take a minute anyway.”
Steve felt the laughter rumbling in his huge chest as the horse wheeled and galloped to the shade of a nearby tree:
“And now, my fiery beauty,” he said pulling the horse up short. The words, Steve found as she leaned back far enough to look up into his eyes, were meant not for the horse but for her.
The way his glance stole over her made Steve blurt out hastily, “You touch me and I’ll—I’ll scratch your eyes out!”
The man yelped with laughter. “I don’t doubt your word or your ability, but don’t you think you’re a little late seeing as how I’ve already got you in my arms.”
His laughter and his cocksureness infuriated Steve even further, and her fury gave her added strength.
She managed to twist an arm free and quick as a flash she reached up and yanked off the bandit’s mask. She had only a quick glimpse of red hair above the ears, freckled, pleasantly-homely face, and a clefted chin before the wide grinning mouth came down on hers hard.
She began flailing him with her one free arm, but she might as well have beat against a brick wall. Rage and the vise-like arm around her made it almost impossible to breathe. For a moment she thought her lungs would burst from lack of air, and then suddenly his mouth moved ever so slightly so that her nose lay lightly against his cheek. Strangely enough, Steve found it just as difficult to breathe as before. And it wasn’t rage now which made the blood pound in her head.
The arm, which only a moment before had been beating desperately against the bandit’s broad chest, now crept up around his neck, and her mouth became warm and alive beneath his.
Tearing his mouth away from hers, the bandit gazed down at her for a moment, breathing heavily. Then jabbing his heel sharply against his horse’s flank, he sent the animal galloping back to the stagecoach.
By this time, Steve had recovered her poise and put up a pretty good fight for the benefit of Andy and the passengers inside the coach. It was only a half-hearted struggle, however, she was chagrined to discover. What was wrong with her? She should have been thoroughly enraged but all she felt was weakness and a fluttery feel-ing in her stomach.
“Let me go, you brute!” she shouted with as much indignation as she could manage.
“Anything for a lady,” the bandit said, swinging her up on the driver’s seat. Chuckling through the mask he had pulled back up over his face, he remarked, “And you are a lady, I find. I’m amazed. You dress and behave like a man, but you kiss like a woman. You’re wasting your time as sheriff, believe me. That is what that star on your chest means, isn’t it?”
Choking with sure enough rage now, Steve noted the man’s glance, lingering on the spot where the badge was pinned to her shirt.
“Oh!” she gasped and cracked the driver’s whip over the backs of the horses, sending-the stagecoach off in a cloud of dust.
She felt rather than heard Andy’s laughter, and it made her even more furious. She cracked the whip over the backs of the horses again and was rewarded by the screams of fright which emanated from the rear of the stagecoach.
“Easy there, gal!” Andy shouted. “No need to wreck this here stagecoach just ’cause you’re mad at that black-masked, gun-totin’ Cassanova,” and he grabbed the whip out of her hand, which suddenly went limp.
“I’ll have his hide for this!” Steve swore, shaken and close to tears from anger and humiliation.
Andy, who had seen everything that happened, knew what was troubling Steve most. He hadn’t missed that soft arm which had stolen of its own will around the bandit’s neck.
In an effort to divert Steve’s mind from that one moment of weakness, Andy said, “That feller wasn’t the same one that held me up last week. This one was a lot bigger and had red hair. Besides, that hombre last week had a short, pudgy pal helping him.” Andy chuckled. “This boy didn’t need help, did he?”
Ignoring Andy’s last remark, Steve asked, “Are you sure this wasn’t the same one who stole the gold shipment last time?”
“Stake my life on it. This one was different, even acted different. Never have seen a hold-up man act like he did.” Andy chuckled again.
“I’ll appreciate it if you’ll keep your remarks to yourself,” Steve said sharply.
“Anything you say, miss. I was just— Well, I’ll be!”
The cause of his exclamation was a cloud of dust to the right and two masked horsemen emerging from it. The sun glinted blindingly on their drawn guns. There was no use trying to outrun them.
“Whoa! Whoa, there,” Andy yelled at the horses.
Speechless with amazement, Steve watched the two strangers approach the stagecoach. Two holdups within a matter of minutes! It was unbelievable!
“What do you want?” she shouted down at the two men as the stagecoach came to a quivering stop.”
“The gold shipment,” the thin dark one who was covering her replied. “Hand it down.” The other one was keeping watch over the passengers.
“You’re a little late, fella,” Steve said; “we were held up a few miles back.”
A dry chuckle escaped her at the sight of the man’s sagging jaw and the consternation which appeared in his face at her news.
At the sound of her chuckle, he recovered himself. “Stop the funny stuff, sister, and hand over that box,” he demanded.
“But I don’t have it,” Steve insisted.
“She’s telling the truth,” Andy put in; “some feller stopped us back aways and took the box full of gold.”
“What’s the trouble up there?” the short, pudgy gunman called from the rear.
“Says they were held up several miles back and haven’t got the gold,” the thin man called without shifting his glance from Steve and Andy. His gray eyes were cold and menacing. “You’d better be telling the truth or the both of you’ll end up as buzzard meat.”
Steve shrugged her shoulders. “Look for yourself.”
The man stared at her for a moment and then yelled over his shoulder to his companion, “See if the chest is back there.” He moved forward carefully and proceeded to search every corner of the driver’s seat with his sharp eyes. His gun never waivered. Steve knew it would be hopeless to try anything.
“Nothing back here,” the man from the rear announced.
“Humm. Nothing up here, either.” His attention snapped back to Steve’s face. “If this is some trick,” he said, his eyes glinting dangerously, “you’ll pay for it.”
“You’re a suspicious cuss,” Andy said sourly. “How long do we have to sit here?”
“In a hurry, grandpa? Well, we’ll help you get started.” The man fired his gun in the air, and the horses were off like lightning.
* * * *
“Now, those are the fellers that took the gold last time,” Andy explained when he had got the horses under control again. “They kinda got crossed up this time. Can’t understand it. Where’d that red-headed bandit come from?”
Shaking his head musingly from time to time, Andy drove the rest of the way to Pine Junction in silence. Steve too was puzzled about the events of the past few hours’. She was grateful for Andy’s silence. It gave her a chance to do some thinking.
She tried to figure out the meaning of the two holdups, but the answer kept eluding her. Every time she neared a solution, the red-headed, gunman’s face came back to her and the feel’of his kiss was once again warm on her lips. What a nerve he had had! She’d—she’d. Well, what wouldn’t she do if she could only capture him. And her time would come, she told herself.
It wasn’t easy for her to explain to the man at the railroad office that she, the sheriff, had allowed the railroad’s gold to be stolen from the stagecoach while she was on it. The man’s ungraciousness increased her hurt pride. When she finally left the office she was still stinging from the man’s obvious contempt.
Explaining to Ben was even harder. “He came up out of nowhere, Ben; we didn’t have a chance. It would have been curtains if either Andy or I had made a move.”
She was sitting on the edge of his desk in the little office at the rear of the bank building. Ben had been leaning back easy and relaxed in his swivel chair until she came to the part about the lone bandit. When she mentioned the fact that there had been only one bandit, he stiffened suddenly and sat up straight.
“Only one man?” he asked, surprise very evident in his pleasant low voice. “But always before there have been two.”
Steve nodded and described the red-headed holdup man. She watched Ben’s handsome face as he digested her news. Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t accept his proposal and marry him. He was certainly everything a girl looked for in a man. He was good looking, with dark wavy hair and brown eyes fringed with thick sooty lashes. His figure, though not tall, was muscular and well-proportioned. And what was more, he always made her feel like a lady, and that was an unusual and delicious experience for Steve. Especially since she’d become sheriff.
But this was no time to be thinking about that. Something had to be done to stop those stage holdups.
“Where was it he jumped you?” Ben asked finally.
Steve thought for a moment. “It was just this side of Box Butte. He must have hidden in those rocks.”
“I see.” He looked quite disturbed.
“Look, Ben. I’m awfully sorry. I thought by riding gun on the stage myself I could prevent the gold shipment being stolen again, but I failed. However, I won’t fail again. I’ve had a chance to do some thinking, and I’ve got a new plan.”
The troubled look in Ben’s eyes gave way to one of amusement. “Now, Steve. You don’t mean to tell me you’re going to try again. Why, isn’t it plain enough now that this isn’t a woman’s job? Why don’t you appoint a new deputy until Jed’s arm heals and let him ride with Andy as guard.”
Steve shook her head. “Nothing doing. This is my job, and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. And I’ll stop those robberies and see those bandits behind bars or my name isn’t Stephanie Lawson.”
Ben smiled as he rose from his chair and went toward her. “Speaking of names, how about changing yours to Stephanie Walters. How many proposals does this make? Four? Five?” Close to her now, he pulled her up off the edge of the desk and into his arms. “How about it, Steve, honey? Don’t you think you’ve kept me waiting long enough?”
“Ben, I—” she began, but his mouth came down hard on hers, stopping the words. Always before, Ben’s kisses had set her tingling but now the hot, leisurely kiss did nothing to her. She found herself remembering the thorough job of kissing she had undergone that morning in the arms of the redheaded bandit. His freckled, homely face swam before her now, and against her will she recalled how she had thrilled to his kiss. She was still remembering when Ben’s kiss ended and he looked down at her. Something of the feeling her memory had evoked must have shown in her face for Ben drew in his breath sharply.
“I didn’t realize you found my kisses so stirring,” he murmured. His tone was slightly amused, but it couldn’t hide the fact that he was left shaken by the kiss.…
Steve slowly opened her eyes, and when she saw Ben’s dark, handsome face where the grinning, freckled one had been, she was brought sharply back to the present.
“Oh,” she said sharply and pushed herself out of Ben’s arms. For heaven’s sake, what had she been thinking of! A bandit’s kiss, of all things!
Ben was gazing at her in complete puzzlement, and before he could say anything, she made a vague reference to some work she had to do and left the office hurriedly.
Outside, the air was hot and f full of the dust that., rose from Red Rock’s main street. As she made her way along the rough wooden walk to the sheriff’s office, she thought, What on earth is wrong with me? What made me think of that red-headed varmint? And right when Ben was kissing me, too. I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do! She meant the bandit. I hate him! Lord, how I hate him! But that the warm feeling she had inside when she remembered his kiss wasn’t like any hatred she’d ever felt before.
* * * *
When the stage started out on its run from Red Rock to Pine Junction the next week with its shipment of gold, Steve was on it once again. Only this time she rode inside the coach and Jake Davis, an old friend of her Uncle Mort’s and a dead shot with a rifle,’ rode gun up on the driver’s seat beside Andy. This was the’ new plan she’ had mentioned to Ben. Riding back there alone, she’d have the element of surprise on her side because it wasn’t likely anyone’ would expect trouble from someone inside the coach. There were no other passengers. She had seen to that. She didn’t want innocent people getting hurt.
The stage’ had barely left Red Rock behind when trouble struck. Steve had just situated herself on one of the seats in a position which would give, her a vantage point to the rear and each side when she heard a shot from up front and a chorus of yells. For a few brief moments, the stagecoach strained to outrun the hold-up men, but it was no use. Finally, Steve heard Andy’s loud “whoa” and gradually the stage came to a lurching stop.
. Cautiously; taking care not to let herself be seen, Steve peeked through a side window. Two masked men rode up in a choking cloud of dust. One of them pulled his horse up right beside the driver’s seat and, with drawn gun, forced Andy and Jake to drop their guns. The other masked rider was coming straight to the rear of the coach. Steve swung her gun into position and fired. The man yelped and grabbed for his right shoulder, dropping his gun as he did so.
“It’s the sheriff,” he shouted to his companion, and before Steve could fire again she heard the man up front yeli, “Hold your fire or your pals up front here will get a bullet through their brains.”
It was no use. She didn’t dare fire another shot. The tone of the bandit’s voice made it plain he meant every word he said. Biting back tears of anger and frustration, Steve held her fire as she heard Andy comply with the gunman’s orders to hand over the strong box full of gold. Then the team of horses leapt forward in response to a shot in the air from the man’s gun. Steve fired her own gun in a last attempt, but the coach was swaying so violently her bullet, went wild.
Unable to choke back her disappointment any longer, Steve gave vent to bitter tears. She had failed again. What was she going to do? Maybe, the job was too much for her; maybe she should resign and let them put a man in her place. She could marry Ben then and settle down to a nice quiet life. Surely she could make a better wife than a sheriff.
This was the pattern of her thoughts for the next few miles until she’ felt the stage drawing, to a stop. Pine Junction already? She wiped her eyes on a sleeve and leaned out the window. What she saw left her spluttering with rage. They weren’t in Pine Junction! The red-headed snake who had held them up last trip had appeared again. Only this time, it was he who was out of luck. Wild, hysterical laughter burst from Steve’s lips and it wasn’t until she felt a stinging slap on her face that she regained her senses. Both Andy and Jake were bending over her and the red-head was looking on, his gun „ barrel poked inside the window.
“Stand back. Let her have some air,” the gunman ordered. Above his mask his blue eye» were concerned.
“You all right now?” he asked gruffly as she leaned back against the seat.
She attempted a sharp retort but could only nod weakly.
“Get back up front,” he told the other two men. “And no funny business unless you want the lady to get hurt.”
After shooting a couple of helpless looks at her, Andy and Jake made their way back to the front of the stage. The masked rider dismounted and pulled open the coach door. For one wild moment as he leaned over her, his face only inches away from her own, Steve thought he was going to kiss her and she felt a warm weakness invade her body. She hadn’t the strength to fight him off. What’s more, she didn’t want to.
But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he said savagely, “You little fool! Don’t you know you can get hurt playing this game? This is a man’s job. You’ve got no business playing sheriff.” And with one swift movement, he was mounted and gone.
His words had given Steve new life. How dare he call her a fool! She’d show him; she’d show them all. Next time the gold was due for shipment, she’d take it herself on horseback. She’d take the short cut to Pine Junction alone. She’d get that gold through to the railroad office if it was the last thing she did.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she shouted to Andy. “Let’s make tracks.”
She heard the whip crack, felt the horses spring into action and the next instant the coach was off in a cloud of dust.
She didn’t go to Ben this time and admit her failure. Rather he came to her. And it might have been her imagination but she thought she saw triumph written in bis handsome face.
“Look, Steve. For the last time, won’t you give up this nonsense? Marry me and forget about being a sheriff and concentrate on being a wife.” She felt the hard muscles of his body under his impeccably tailored’broadcloth jacket as he pulled her close.
“Give up?” she asked in astonishment. “Never; I’ll die first,” and frightened by her own remark, she pulled away from him and ran upstairs to her room.
* * * *
A few weeks later when the gold was due to be shipped once more, the stage left for Pine junction on schedule and beneath old Andy’s feet was an iron box. But there was no gold in it, only sand, and this amazing secret was known only to Steye.
An hour after the stage left, Steve mounted Star, her palimino, and sneaked out of town. Across her saddle was the iron chest containing the railroad’s’ gold. This time there would be no slip ups., She’d take a short cut to Pine Junction and with the iron box on the stage as decoy, she could carry the real chest to its destination without trouble.
But she was rnistaken! She hadn’t covered half the distance when a rider suddenly appeared from out of a tiny grove of trees and cut her off.
Oh, no! It couldn’t be I But it was. It was the red-headed bandit. This time he was without his mask but not without his gun. It remained pointed squarely at her until she obeyed his barked order to;drop her gun;
“Now get down off that horse,” he said sharply.
Steve started to protest but knowing it was useless, she shrugged and dismounted, dropping the chest to the ground before she did so.
WHEN SHE stood before him, defenseless and dismounted, the gunman replaced his gun in its holster and dropped down beside her. His freckled, pleasantly homely face was grim, and his blue eyes hard as he said, “I thought you’d pull something like this. You haven’t a grain of horse sense in that purty head of yours, have you?”
“Why, you— I don’t have to stand here and let you insult me,” Steve said, spluttering with rage.
“Well, you’re going to.” The man smiled, but it was a tight angry smile. “Do you know what you’ve been risking your neck for? Here, I’ll show you.” With one movement he shot the lock frcrin the iron chest and lifted the lid with the tip of his boot.:
Steve gazed down in stunned amazement. There was no gold in that box. Just a lot of old Iron.
“But, I don’t understand,” she gasped.
“Then I’ll explain it.” His voice softened a little. “Your boyfriend, Ben, has been shipping a box full of iron to the railroad instead of the gold he was supposed to ship. He had a couple of his boys hold up the stage each time the box was shipped so no one would find out about his crooked little game. That gold never left the bank; he kept it all nice and safe for himself.”
“But how do you fit in the picture?” Steve asked, ’her confusion growing by the minute.
“I’m an agent for the railroad,” he announced and seeing relief mingle with the’ surprise on her face, he grinned for the first time.
It was an engaging grin and Steve wasn’t sure whether the warmth that spread through her was relief at finding herself in the hands of a railroad agent instead of a bandit or something else.
“The railroad suspected there was dirty work afoot and sent me to find, out. I held up the stage and found iron in that box instead of gold. That gave: us all the evidence we needed. We’ve been waiting for the Federal authorities to come out to Red Rock and make the arrest. We got word they were arriving today. They’re probably making the arrests this very minute.”
“Bien—a crook?” Steve asked incredulously. She shook her head dazedly. “But why did you hold us up last time if you already had the evidence? And what are you doing here now?” This time the red-head’s grin threatened to split his face. “As for holding up the stage again, a little more evidence wouldn’t have hurt anything. Besides I wanted to keep an eye on you. That’s why I’m here now. You made it pretty plain you didn’t have sense enough to take care of yourself, so I decided to do it for you.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. The next instant his mouth closed over hers and a wild searing flame which started at her mouth swept through her body. Her hands flattened against his back and pressed him even closer until she felt his heart beating against her like an untamed thing.
Finally he leaned back and asked, “Do I get the job?”
Steve shook her head to clear away the fog which enveloped it. “What job?” she asked faintly.
“The job of taking care of you, of making you give up this sheriff business and making you into a wife.”
“Why, sir, I don’t even know your name,” she replied coyly, making a nest of kisses under his ear.
He drew, back and gazed down at her a moment before declaring with an absolutely straight face, “My name’s Red.”
“Oh, no!” she cried and broke into peels of laughter that left her gasping. She just had time to catch her breath before Red’s grinning mouth claimed hers again and she knew beyond a question of a doubt that he got the job. But definitely!
