First Class Male (10 page)

“They’re out there.” The back of his neck crawled, the pit of his stomach twisted. He could feel trouble coming like a storm bearing down on the town. “Anyone here want a break? I’ll stand in.”

“That’d be mighty appreciated.” Deeks grabbed his rifle and stepped away from the wall. “I need fifteen minutes is all. Enough to cool off, grab a bite. We’ve been rotating out for lunch and I haven’t had anything to eat yet.”

“Then go.” Mason accepted the pair of binoculars Deeks handed over. “Take your time. It’s gonna be a long day and probably a longer night.”

“That’s the truth,” Pauly agreed, not taking his attention from the back of the lot behind the jail. “If we had more men, we could hunt them down.”

“I’ve thought of that.” Mason adjusted the glasses, scanning the east road into town. Empty, just dust devils swirling in the wind. “I don’t want to leave the patrols and lookouts short. I’ve telegraphed the territorial headquarters this morning. More men should be coming before nightfall.”

“The Folsom Gang aren’t men who wait around.” Clem, one of the sheriff’s men, spoke up. “I’ve been reading up on them for Bart. My take on things is that they move fast, hit hard, it’s always a surprise.”

“I appreciate hearing that, Clem.” Mason considered the information, moving his line of sight from east to north, carefully taking in details in the town along the way, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Mrs. Arnold crouched in her backyard garden pulling weeds, three teen boys played dodge ball on a dusty side street, and a black-haired young lady in a blue dress walked down the road leading to the Clark Creek Dairy, in the town’s northern outskirts. She stepped off the road, making room for a farmer hauling a wagonload of hay to town.

“It matches my information on the gang.” Mason frowned, trying to imagine just how they might do it. A direct raid would put the outlaws at a disadvantage, they’d be far outgunned. Plus, Mason and his men had the high ground. They could see the attack coming. It would be a foolish plan, but Mason couldn’t rule it out. “Whatever they wind up doing, we know the gang is going to hit fast and hit hard.”

“Whatever happens, we’ll see ‘em coming,” Clem promised from behind his binoculars.

“Maybe, but keep an eye out for the less obvious,” Mason said. “If they want in, they might do it undercover. As a farmer, so I’ve already checked that hay wagon. I know the man driving, so that’s safe there. Maybe they’ll walk in, keeping to the shadowed side of the buildings. Going from building to building, street to street. That would be harder for us to spot, and the gang would know that.”

“Then we might need another pair of eyes on the rooftops,” Pauly suggested, his attention firmly on the jail.

“I’ll talk to Bart when Deeks gets back,” Mason promised, swinging his binoculars along the ribbon of country road disappearing into the tawny foothills. All clear there, but the foreboding in his stomach grew. He had to listen to that. He drew his focus back to town, saw again the woman with the blue sunbonnet walking into the dairy’s milk barn, then spotted the farmer and hay wagon along the outskirts of town now, rolling down a residential street.

That wasn’t too unusual. Lots of folks in town bought hay for the upcoming winter for their horses. He swung the binoculars west, intending to check the main route in to town when he spied Mariel’s bright blue boardinghouse with its hard-to-miss bright pink trim. A slender, golden-haired young woman was in the side yard, among colorful blooms.

Callie. Seeing her was like a cannonball to his chest. He reeled, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The world faded, his every sense zeroing in on her, just her, standing next to a big pink rosebush gently cupping a bloom in her soft hand. She inhaled the fragrance with her eyes closed, her lips uptilted and a satisfied look on her heart-shaped face, and he could practically hear her moan of pleasure. He wished he was close enough to hear it, to know that sound. He wished that he’d been the one to make her moan.

His blood heated, hell if he could stop it. He shook his head trying to keep them back, but the images came anyway. Of her completely naked in the starlight, pale and creamy skin and tantalizing womanly curves, the blush of her nipples, the V of her inner thighs. He gritted his teeth, willing the binoculars away from her, but to no avail. The binoculars wouldn’t budge. Apparently not even his powerful will was as strong as his feelings. He wanted her. He wanted all of her.

Framed in the glass of his binoculars, she looked up from the rose she held and smiled at someone just out of his view. She took a step, her forehead crinkling, walking toward the side street. The back of his neck buzzed, his stomach clamped and he felt the danger like a brick to the back of the head. He swung the binoculars and spotted the farmer’s hay wagon stopped along Mariel’s property. Quick as a flash, an armed man popped out of the back of the wagon and grabbed Callie. She didn’t have time to scream or run, he was upon her. Mason’s heart jumped, slamming against his ribcage, recognizing Lew Folsom. The outlaw’s rough hands wrapped around Callie’s waist, swung her onto his shoulder and ran back to the wagon.

To her credit, she was fierce. She kicked, she hit, she bit, but it happened so fast. In a blink of an eye she’d been snatched and Mason was running, shouting orders, pounding toward the stairs, running, desperately running. Every breath, every step, every terrified fear in his heart focused on her. On getting her back. On cursing himself for not keeping an armed man two feet from her at all times.

“Why’d he go after her?” Deeks shouted from the alley, tossing his sandwich aside to untie his horse and the marshal’s. “It makes no sense for them to take her.”

“She should have been safe in my town.” That was the only truth that mattered. Mason pounded through the side door and onto the street. “There is something about that woman. She attracts trouble.”

“Can’t argue with you there.” Deeks mounted up, kicked his gelding into an all-out gallop and took off, rifle in hand.

“Keep that jail safe!” Mason shouted to the sheriff, who stood on the nearby boardwalk where he’d been on patrol, and swung up into the saddle.

He grabbed his horse’s reins and before he was fully in the stirrups, Indigo took off, focused. They were on the hunt. All he could think about was Callie. He leaned forward in his saddle, rifle slick against his sweating palm, as the gelding ran all out, eating up the ground. Thank God Deeks was up ahead, the street in front of Mariel’s was in sight now but not the hay wagon. He stood in his stirrups, straining to get a good look around, to see where the outlaws may have gone. Deeks disappeared around a corner, his horse kicking up dust.

Indigo followed without instruction, gaining ground, his every muscle straining to catch up. The wagon was in sight, now, stopped. Deeks was close to it, coming into range.

“C’mon, Indigo,” Mason ordered, willing the horse faster, jaw clenched, total concentration on the chase. The wagon stopped, Deeks dismounted, rifle up, moving in, not waiting for backup.

Couldn’t blame him. All that mattered was Callie. Mason dismounted before Indigo could stop, hitting the ground hard with a bone-jarring thud and kept running. Sweat sluiced down his forehead as he raised his rifle, out for blood, fury pounding through him with each booming beat.

“Don’t shoot!” The farmer hopped down, hands up, cowering. “Please don’t shoot me. It wasn’t my fault. They pulled a gun on me.”

“Where is she?” Mason marched to the tail of the wagon bed, saw the disturbed hay, the impressions where three bodies had lain. But no sign of Callie.

Where did she go?
The question charged through him with cold hard fury, and he raced off the road and through Mrs. Ferris’s lilac bushes. There, that’s where they went. He followed the imprint of three sets of footprints in the clipped grass of the Ferris’s back lawn. His senses peeled, he listened to the wind whisper through leaves, a dog barking an alarm a few houses over and he whistled for Indigo, running, rifle in hand, instincts punching. He landed in the alleyway just in time to see two horses bolt out of a small stable, careening down the narrow lane. He caught a quick glimpse of Callie’s iris-blue dress skirt ruffle before the horses broke left, into the Thomas’s backyard and out of his line of fire.

Indigo skidded to a halt beside him and Mason mounted up, pulse pounding, driven in a way he’d never been driven before. Callie. She was all that mattered, all he wanted, everything else faded to the background. He was only distantly aware of the marshals rushing in to help or of the orders he barked out—pull in the off duty men, double the jail guard, form a posse, they were going hunting. All that mattered, all that he could focus on, was his raging iron-hard desire to get Callie back. Alive.

Nothing else was a possibility.

Indigo charged through the Thomas’s backyard, head stretched forward, ears laid back, full out, safely bolting around the Thomas’ little boys (who’d been playing with their toys on the lawn), and careened around the side of the house, following the trail. A cat on the front step darted into the bushes as they charged onto the next street, following the rise of dust. Mason caught sight of a horse’s black tail swishing out of sight around a house, two doors down, and Indigo followed without direction, his gait full-out.

They were gaining. Encouraged, he leaned forward in the saddle still clutching his rifle, charging past the Newberry’s kitchen window. There. Gotcha, he thought, spotting them not ten feet ahead. A flutter of blue ruffle caught his eye, letting him know Callie was still clutched on Lew Folsom’s lap, so Mason lifted his rifle.

“There he is!” One of the outlaws shouted. “Shoot him.”

“Kill him!” another outlaw bellowed, but Mason didn’t care, he didn’t pay them a whit of attention. He heard the pop of gunfire, felt something graze his arm, and Indigo sidestepped, staying a moving target as bullets peppered the air.

Calm, focused, steady, Mason aimed at the back of the Lew’s head and carefully squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately Folsom’s stolen horse shied at that exact moment and the bullet slid past one ear and into the small garden shed at the corner of the Newberry’s property.

“What’s going on out here?” Norman Newberry’s kitchen door slammed open with a bang. “Mason, is that you?”

But Mason was already firing again. This time the bullet hit, nothing but a graze to Lew’s ear and then Folsom was out of sight behind the Newberry’s border bushes.

Close, but not close enough. Mason grimaced, cursed, frustrated. He wanted Lew Folsom’s hands off Callie, whatever it took, and he wanted it now. As if in total understanding, Indigo stormed after them, Mason lowered his rifle, sitting back into the saddle as they followed the outlaw’s trail into the alley. The empty alley. He glanced around, but nothing. Where were they?

There, up ahead on the intersecting street, where fresh horses waited for them. They weren’t alone. Three other members of the gang laid down steady fire, meaning to kill, and Mason kept his saddle while Indigo reared back, taking shelter behind the Scott’s chicken coop. They were trapped. Mason let out an aggravated growl. Callie, beautiful Callie, was not going to die today.

Okay, she’d had better afternoons. Callie felt the stolen horse beneath her circle around and around, fighting his bit as if he wanted nothing more than to get back to his nice safe home (she completely agreed with him on that one). But the rough, brute of an outlaw holding her clamped against his chest, yanking on the reins so hard, the animal’s knees went weak.

Apparently not happy with that, the outlaw resorted to whipping the ends of the reins viciously against the horse’s side until the creature took off in abject fright, barreling down the dusty stretch of road, around a corner. The
pop-pop-pop
of gunfire grew distant, then faint until she had to strain to hear it. Until she heard nothing at all.

They were out of town now, racing through the wild country, made up of rough bluffs and mountains looming over head. The hot dusty wind blew against her face, the sun smarted her eyes as they kept tearing up. She was worried about Mason. She’d caught a few glimpses of him chasing her through town. She’d witnessed his concentrated, mighty will as he’d tried to save her, he really did, but circumstances had conspired against him. Now he was caught in a gun battle, and he could be getting shot at any second. All on account of her.

A sob caught in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut against the dizzying whirl of the ground whizzing by so fast. The poor horse was running with all his might up the sloping land and into the shadow of a bluff. What about Mason? Would he be okay? She remembered how furiously those outlaws had been shooting in his direction. Her chest pinched with concern for him, for the man she’d never gotten to kiss.

And she wanted his kiss more than anything. Ever. It was the only thing she wanted before she died—because she knew she was going to die. The beefy arms that clamped around her meant business. He had no mercy. She’d been innocently dead-heading Mariel’s roses for her, trying to help out with a few chores, and this outlaw had grabbed her. His cold mocking laughter still rang in her ears along with his deadly threat.
Stop kicking me or I’ll kill you right here on the street.