Marshal of Hel Dorado (2 page)

 
    
No more flashes of light and no sound
greeted him. He slid the key into the lock and turned it carefully, motion as
cool and controlled as he would use dealing with a spooked horse.

 
    
The faint snick of the lock giving way
seemed to boom loudly in the quiet night air, and Sam waited, but still no
sound escaped the bank.

 
    
If not for the earlier flashes, he would be
certain he chased summer lightening. But the itch between his shoulders was a
burning fire. Someone was inside Dorado’s bank. It was Sam’s job to deal with
them.

 
    
Pocketing the key, he brought the colt up
close to the opening and turned the knob.

 
    
Careful as entering a lady’s bedroom, he
peeked inside. Nothing moved in the dusky darkness.

 
    
Sam allowed his eyes to adjust before
slipping inside. He made his way through the front office with the slated
windows and banker’s desk.

 
    
The rear vault was located in the backroom,
secured by another door. Pressing close to the door, Sam listened. Whispered voices
punched through the wood. He tested the lock and found it fixed, so he shuttled
the key into the door handle and turned it gently, the lock surrendered.
Stroking his finger over the trigger, Sam led with his gun again, dipping low
as he pushed the door open.

 
    
The seemingly impregnable vault door stood
closed, but the whispered voices that called through the wood were louder in
here. Sam paced the edge of the vault slowly, peering around the corner. A
flash of light burned his eyes as a body vanished through the wood. Standing at
the edge of the vault, holding an oiled leather satchel was a slim figure. The
flash reappeared and the figure passed it over, to a second man?

 
    
Sam frowned.
Where the hell had the second man come from?
 

     
“Last
one, I think, Rudy.”

 
    
More startling than the man’s sudden
appearance was the slim figure’s distinctly feminine voice. Her sultry, low,
throaty tone went straight to Sam’s britches and tightened them uncomfortably.

 
    
“You first then, Scar.” The man’s equally
hushed voice was low, the consonants and syllables running together in familiar
fashion.

 
    
“Take this out to the boys so they can load
up. It’s hard to carry more than one thing at a time through. We need to make
sure we have it all.”

 
    
Her words spurred Sam into action. They
were taking the gold. He wasn’t sure how they’d gotten in the bank or how they
were getting out of it, but he was of a mind to keep them from taking any more.

 
    
Clearing the corner, he cocked the hammer
on the colt and drew a bead on the slim figure. “Hands up.”

 
    
“Go!” The feminine figure shoved the other
man, the flash of light drew sparks across his vision, but he kept the gun
steady.

 
    
“I said hands up.” He yelled the order this
time, but as the shadows sharpened and redefined, he saw the woman, alone, was
standing there, hands up, facing him.

 
    
Her male companion was gone.

 
    
“Marshal.”

 
    
"Stop." He held up a finger, gaze
sweeping the walls. Men didn't walk through walls.

 
    
Gun trained on the woman, he rapped his
knuckles on the wall.

 
    
Solid.

 
    
He kicked a foot against the metal vault.
It just wasn't possible.

 
    
Solid.

 
    
 
Where the hell was the man?

 
    
Gunshots echoed from outside. Sam rushed
forward, seized her arm and hauled her with him out of the bank. His brother
met him on the boardwalk, Stetson pushed back from his forehead, revealing a
younger, more eager version of himself.

 
    
The smell of gunpowder hung thick in the
air. Up and down the street, kerosene lights flared as shopkeepers in long
johns stepped out, armed with rifles.

     
“There
were six of them, Sam. I chased them off, but I saw seven hor—” His brother cut
off when he spotted the woman in Sam’s grasp. Under the faint light of his
brother’s lantern, Sam saw a cascade of red hair, an up tilted chin and a
sprinkle of cinnamon colored freckles across a pert nose. Between the alabaster
skin and the red hair, she was a picture.

 
    
He barely took notice of the gingham shirt
with its rolled up sleeves and haphazard buttons which opened at the throat and
dipped invitingly down to flesh a lady should never be revealing or the tight
breeches that hugged her slender shape. Boy's clothes should not look so fine
on a woman.

 
    
But her curves made them more attractive
than Miss Pontfour’s dancing girls in their silks and feathers.

 
    
“Ma’am.” Kid doffed his Stetson and tucked
it against his buckskin shirt.

 
    
“She’s not a ma’am.” Sam growled, irritated
at the lascivious direction of his brother’s gaze and the fact that he shared
the sentiment. “Roust some of the boys together and follow the horses. Wake Mr.
Reynolds up. We’ll need to know how much is missing.”

 
    
Sam turned to the shopkeepers who lingered
in the night air, taking it all in. “Check your shops. I need to know if
anything else is missing.” He firmed his grip on the woman’s arm, giving it a
warning squeeze as she backed up a pace. He pulled her firmly up to his side.

 
    
“What about her?”

 
    
Kid still stood there, mouth agape at the
woman. Even the lantern seemed to flicker eagerly in her direction.

 
    
“Never you mind. Get a move on.” He
resisted the urge to cuff his brother. A few months shy of his nineteenth
birthday, Kid hadn’t shaken his fascination with the feminine sex.

 
    
Grinning sheepishly, the boy doffed his
Stetson again before capping it on his head and jogging down the boardwalk to
the cabins where the hands could catch shuteye if they were in town too late.
The Kanes didn’t approve of overindulging, but they recognized the need and saw
to it their men had a safe place to lay their heads when they needed to sleep
it off.

 
    
Even in town.

 
    
Ignoring the curiosity of the shopkeepers
not rushing to check their wares, Sam dragged his charge across the rutted
street to the Marshal’s office. He’d lock her up first, and then check the
vault with Mr. Reynolds. Unlike most women, she didn’t seem to have much to say
and he tried not to notice the way her britches clung to her round bottom as
they entered the office and he got his first look at her in the light.

 
    
Shouts rallied from the western end of
town. Horses snorted as they were pulled from their stalls. He had some good
trackers in his team, they would have fresh hoof prints to work with, but the
moonless night would be against them.

 
    
Sam had to holster the colt to grab the
keys off the hook next to his desk. He unlocked the only cell his office
sported and tugged her inside.

 
    
“Are you armed?” He demanded, ignoring the
way her lush lips parted over white teeth.

 
    
Most of the ladies at Miss Pontfour's were
yellowed by this age and even sported a gold tooth or two of their own. Not
this red haired filly with her sassy nose and pert ass.

 
    
He scowled at the direction of his
thoughts.

 
    
“No, sir. I don’t believe in guns.” The
warm honeyed voice laughed at him and Sam’s mouth thinned.

 
    
“What about knives, Miss…?”

 
    
“Knives are useful.” She bobbed her head,
but the hint of humor perfuming her words set his shoulder blades to itching
again.

 
    
“Hand it over.”

 
    
“I didn’t say I had one Marshal.” Now she
was playing coy, her eyelashes dipping over her summer green eyes. The shade
was a miracle of spring, a color not favored in their high summers when grass
yellowed and drooped in the Texas heat.

 
    
He released her, taking a step back and
bringing his gun out of his holster again. His father would give him the back
of his hand for pointing a gun at a lady, but this lady had been in the bank
vault somehow, robbing it. Sam tried not to focus on the how's and the why's.
That meant she was a thief, pure and simple. The law had one solution for her
ilk and it delivered that promise at the end of a rope.

 
    
“Hand it over.”

 
    
She sighed, smoothing a hand over her
sleeve as though he’d bruised her, but Sam ignored the purely feminine
invitation to feel bad for his manners. Thieves didn’t deserve manners. But
when she rolled up the sleeve, he frowned. Strapped to her forearm was a
four-inch piece of metal dovetailed into a white boned handle.

     
Two thin
leather ties fastened it in place against the pale skin. She stretched out her
arm expectantly, a glint of amusement in those green eyes daring him to take it
himself.

 
    
He obliged, pulling the ties loose and
pocketing the knife.

 
    
“Anymore?”

 
    
“No, sir.”

 
    
He was mighty suspicious of her cooperation
and gestured for her to move over to the single cot sitting in the corner. She
lifted her eyebrows, challenging his authority, before deigning to stroll over
and sit down. He’d seen that look on his father’s horses, the strong-willed
ones who didn’t cotton to breaking. Those horses had to be gentled, persuaded
that they wanted to do what was asked of them, but even the most successful
behaved as the woman did.

 
    
As though she were allowing him to be in
control and if he turned his back, even for an instant, he might find himself
on the sharp end of a hoof slash.

 
    
“Much obliged.” He bobbed his head and
backed out of the cell, closing it with his foot and holstering the gun to lock
it again.

 
    
In the cell, the fiery haired vixen sat
down and leaned back against the wall, her arms crossed under the full, firm
curves of her breasts that seemed to be straining at their confinement.

 
    
Sam forced his attention away and dropped
the knife in the top drawer of his desk. He stuck his head out the door and
whistled, Cob was making his way up the boardwalk and double-timed it at the
whistle. The older man had served as his father’s right hand during the initial
settling in Dorado. They’d built the ranch and town together.

 
    
At fifty, Cob preferred the town to the
ranch. He acted as overseer to the shipments when the horses and cattle were
pushed through the town and though he refused to be deputized, he enjoyed
helping Sam.

 
    
He would keep an eye on the prisoner while
Sam dealt with the bank. Sam refused to glance back at the woman in the cell,
or think about how pretty the freckles were on her nose or how her curves all
but begged for a man’s hands to test their shape. He didn’t think about the
urgency to his steps as he filled Cob in and damn near ran across the street.

 
    
The woman was a thief. She’d likely be hung
as soon as the territorial judge made his rounds.

 
    
Sam fixed his Stetson on his head and
re-entered the bank. The manager was already there, the vault door wide open
and a look of abject horror etched into his face.

     
Unsurprisingly,
the gold was gone.