Marshal of Hel Dorado (12 page)

 
    
F
our
days after tending Scarlett in the sick house, three days since he’d returned
to Dorado and Sam couldn’t get the woman’s face out of his mind. He told
himself it was her face he was thinking of, he shouldn’t have knowledge of the
way she was formed. Not her round, curvy breasts, her strawberry colored
nipples or the pale hips that flared out from her tiny waist.

 
    
No, he shouldn’t have knowledge of any of
it.

 
    
But it didn’t stop him thinking about her.

 
    
Wanting her.

 
    
So he stayed in Dorado. He was needed here,
regardless. The town was on edge. The strange circumstances surrounding the
bank robbery coupled with the denied lynching had left the good people of Dorado
blood thirsty and foul tempered. Even the good church ladies were given him
sour looks. Miss Millicent, the town’s only octogenarian had left her clapboard
home long enough to walk down to the Marshal’s office and pray for him.

 
    
She didn’t speak to him or even look at
him. She’s just stood in his office, wizened hands clasped together, shaking
like a leaf in a tornado, reciting the Lord’s Prayer before exiting on the arm
of her granddaughter, Miss Amy. Amy had looked at him, with censure and disappointment.

 
    
Word circulated that Sam stole the prisoner
away because she’d seduced him.

 
    
Apparently, Miss Amy had purchased a stake
in that ill-favored gossip and disapproved. He’d thought about courting Amy
come the autumn, she was a sweet girl, a fresh faced eighteen with apple
colored lips and a gentle disposition, but the pinched expression she bestowed
on him told him that was a bad idea, now.

 
    
It was a worse idea that he compared her
fresh, soft cheeks to Scarlett’s more refined features and fiery temper.
Scarlett didn’t hesitate to meet his eyes, even as shame and embarrassment
deepened the ruddy pink of her skin. She’d maintained her defiance, her raw
spirit and strength.

 
    
Amy was sun-ripened fruit, ready to fall
from the tree, but likely just as easily to bruise.

 
    
Scarlett was made of sterner stuff. Even
ill, overcome with burning fever and wild hallucinations, calling out in a
tongue he knew was Native American, she’d still seemed strong, vibrant,
exquisite.

 
    
Desirable.

 
    
Sam scowled at the direction of his
thoughts. He let the chair he was leaning back in thump to the boardwalk. The
sun was sinking below the western horizon, flaring a brilliant red and orange.
His body hardened, complaining, he longed to saddle Corona, ride for the Flying
K and check on the lady himself.

 
    
Which was exactly why he stayed in town, as
far from the siren as he could manage.

 
    
“Riders coming,” Cob called from the
opposite corner of the boardwalk. He’d taken to lingering at the Marshal’s
office, prepared to support Sam if Ryker and his boys who’d spent every late
afternoon in the saloon, swilling back hard liquor and bitter recriminations.

 
    
Sam stood, one hand coming to rest
comfortably on the butt of his gun. He’d had to draw it four times since
returning to town. Fortunately, he’d only had to shoot it once, straight into
the air, to separate a brawl that spilled out of the saloon. The brawlers were
currently sleeping off their drunk in the cell.

 
    
Far less attractive than his last prisoner,
he preferred to sit out front than inside where their snores threatened to
rattle the wooden shingles.

 
    
Cob’s gaze pointed west and Sam could make
out the outline of the riders loping towards town, the bleeding sun shadowing
them. It was Kid’s group. A spear of relief punctured the bubble of concern
he’d nursed since returning to town and finding that of all the search parties
that went out, Kid’s was the only one that hadn’t returned.

 
    
Sam walked to the top step and waited, the
riders were hooting and hollering. But the count only showed eleven men riding
with his younger brother, suggesting that if they caught up with the thieves,
they’d not brought back any prisoners.

 
    
He just hoped Kid hadn’t strung them up in
the desert. It would make Scarlett harder to protect, particularly if Ryker and
his crew got wind of it.

 
    
Coated in dried sweat and dust, Kid’s teeth
shown in a white smile amidst a grimy face.

 
    
“Sam.”

 
    
“Kid.”

 
    
The boy was safe. He was filthy, his
stallion nearly as dirty as he, the horse’s sorrel flanks gray with dirt. The
pungent smell drifting off the two was a mixture of horse, sweat and desert.

 
    
“We got the gold.” Kid nodded to the men
who were passing heavily laden oil sacks to Cob. The older man accepted each,
until they were stacked, ten in all, at his feet.

 
    
Shoving back his Stetson, Sam chuckled.
“I’ll be damned. How?”

 
    
The men around Kid just shook their heads,
obviously not interested in telling his story for him. Sam nodded to them all.

 
    
“Tend your horses and head over to the
saloon. Drinks on me tonight, boys. I’ll send word to the restaurant to send
over some food. You have the next week off.” They were all Flying K men and Sam
could authorize all of it. His father would agree. When one demanded hard work,
one rewarded it.

 
    
The men whooped and hollered. Kid nodded
his appreciation when the men offered to see to his stallion. He slid off the
saddle, freeing his rifle and his saddlebags before turning the horse over to
be led to the livery.

 
    
Sam grabbed the bags and dropped them on
his chair. Cob was off to fetch the banker.

 
    
“Grab a drink.” Sam pointed Kid towards the
water barrel. “I’ll get the story in a minute.”

 
    
Kid nodded, stripping off his hat to pull
the dipper out of the barrel and dump it over his face. Sam left him to wash
off the dirt as the banker arrived and he helped him haul the gold back to the
vault. He left the banker to take account. But the man’s dizzy excitement
suggested that most of it was there.

 
    
The return of the gold would temper
Dorado’s malcontents and raise the estimation of the Kane name, since Kid was
the one who rescued it.

 
    
Kid had dragged a second chair out of the
office and was sitting, his feet propped up on the rails, drinking straight out
of his canteen. His soaked hair clung to his damp, stubbled face.

 
    
Traces of dirt were apparent in the streaks
of moisture, but he was at least not gray anymore.

 
    
The familiar smell of his brother’s favored
cheroots greeted him. “Cob headed down to the restaurant to pay for the food.
He said he would stop at the bathhouse and ask them to keep it open for the men
and then he’d take care of the saloon.”

 
    
Sam chuckled. Cob didn’t wait for anyone to
ask, he just did what needed doing. It also gave the brothers a chance to catch
up. Sam sank back into his own chair, mimicking his brother’s pose, boots on
the railing.

 
    
“Did you hang them?”

 
    
“Nope.” Kid shook his head. “Talked them
into leaving the gold behind.”

 
    
“You spoke to them.” Sam yanked his own hat
off and set on his lap, running his fingers through the sweaty hair. He should
be one of those heading down to the bathhouse as well.

 
    
Staring at Kid, he hoped to hell the boy
was joking.

 
    
“After a fashion.” Kid nodded, tipping his
canteen up for three long swallows of water.

 
    
His voice was hoarse, roughened with
exhaustion and likely too much trail dust.

 
    
“Kid.” Sam forced patience into his voice,
choosing his next words evenly. He didn’t need rumors that the Kanes were
colluding with the thieves. The rumors about Scarlett were bad enough. His
youngest brother didn’t have the best reputation in town or out of it. Their
father’s disapproval notwithstanding, Kid struggled with expectations if he
bothered to take notice of them at all. “Explain.”

 
    
The younger man shrugged. “Not much to
explain, Sam. They knew we were on ‘em. We couldn’t have been more than a few
hours behind them at any given time, but they were pushing hard and would have
kept pushing. So I told them we had their girl and that with tempers in the
town, she’d likely be dancing at the end of a rope for their trouble.”

 
    
“And they just gave you the gold back?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. What had Kid done?

 
    
“Well, I might have mentioned that
returning the gold could save the girl’s life or at least help it out some.
They left the gold, so I would wager it made an impression.”

 
    
Sam resisted the urge to slap his brother
with the Stetson. The boy meant well. But too often he acted like a boy,
without thought for consequences. “Kid, you can’t make promises like that.”

 
    
“I didn’t make a promise.” Kid said evenly,
a hint of censure nipping at the heels of his words. “I told them it could
help. I told them Pa was a pretty powerful guy. And I told them if they gave a
damn at all for leaving a lady behind they’d do the right thing. Ain’t none of
that a promise.”

 
    
“No, but it’s an implication.”

 
    
Kid snorted a laugh. “You have been talking
to Jason. What a man implies and what a man says are two different things. You
know Pa doesn’t take a man at his implications, why should we?”

 
    
This time Sam did slap him in the back of
the head with the Stetson. “Because they're thieves. They robbed the bank. If
they did it once, that means they can do it again and you just told them where
Scarlett is. If they gave up the gold for her, they’re coming back for her
too.”

 
    
His brother’s chair rattled as he dropped
his boots from the rail and stood. “But she’s not here. Cob told me you took
her to Pa. I’d rather not see the pretty lady get hung if it’s all the same to
you. And I got the gold back,
Marshal
.
So you’re welcome.”

 
    
Kid stomped off and Sam bit his tongue
rather than call the boy back.

 
    
“You had no call to be mean to the boy.”
Cob, on the other hand, had no problem speaking his mind. The older man stepped
out of the shadows of Main Street to lean on the rail post. “He did his job. He
got the gold back.”

 
    
“And if word gets around that he told the
thieves we’d let go of Scarlett for the gold?”

 
    
Cob shrugged. “Folks will forget in no
time. The gold is back. The town is safe. The Kanes did their job. Only a
handful of the blood thirsty folk are going to want to see her hung, but
without the rest, they’re just the bitter drops at the bottom of the barrel.”

 
    
Sam scowled at his father’s oldest friend.
Cob met the look unflinching. And why shouldn’t he? He’d had occasion to put
Sam over his knee when he was younger, paddling his backside or slapping him
down when the occasion called for it.

 
    
“It’s the principal of the thing. They’re
still out there. The gold is here. They done it once, they’re just as likely to
do it again. Not to mention, we don’t need a gang shooting up the town to get
Scarlett back.” They weren’t taking her either. Maybe his father was right and
they’d held her captive or maybe Sam was right and she’d been a willing part of
it, but she was safe now. He wasn’t letting the Rykers of the world or anyone
else take her away.

 
    
“And that’s your problem there, boy. You
ain’t worried about the gold.” Cob chuckled.