Wildfire in His Arms (26 page)

That location hadn't been determined yet, though Degan was leaning toward a town in the center of the territory. He was questioning every railroad employee on the train and at the stations they stopped at. He had found out that only the westbound trains that carried the railroad's payroll were being hit, which was why the train she and Degan were riding hadn't been robbed and likely wouldn't be. One employee had agreed to show him where along the tracks the last robbery had occurred, but that wasn't going to help much in locating where the Nolan gang were hiding. Soldiers, railroad detectives, and other US marshals had been searching for these outlaws for months, and no one had come close to finding them yet, not even when there had been fresh tracks for them to follow.

“You need a tracker,” Max pointed out when they finally disembarked from the train at Bismarck, on the east bank of the Missouri in the Dakota Territory.

Degan led them to the animal cars to wait for the horses to be unloaded. “A hunter who doesn't track?”

Was he joking? He had to be. She snorted. “I can track game, but I've never tried to track people.”

“It doesn't matter. A tracker would only be useful right after a robbery. What I need is a scout, or at least someone very familiar with this territory who can suggest places where a group of men might hole up.”

“Have you been through here before?”

“Almost.”

She peered at him. “Almost?”

“I had to choose which direction to go in when I left home. I'd heard the railroad had gotten pretty far up here. But winter was approaching so I decided to forgo a northern route. And then I decided to forgo trains altogether and just head West.”

“It's hard to imagine you as a greenhorn.”

“Then don't.”

She laughed. “But you were, weren't you?” He didn't answer. Of course he wouldn't. “Did you leave home with the palomino?”

“No. I had a Thoroughbred racer, but he went lame about halfway through Kansas, stranding me on a road between towns—until an old woman came along driving a wagon that looked older than she was. Adelaide Miller, the most cantankerous woman I've ever come across. Bossy, argumentative, and set in her ways, as different from the women I knew in Chicago as night is from day. It took a while to get used to her.”

“Rescued by an old woman. I'll never tell,” she teased.

He ignored that. “She took me home with her, promising to take me to town in a week or two when she had to go back there again. Nothing I said or offered would get her to change her mind about that time schedule. It ended up being a month. I figured out pretty quick that she just wanted things done around her place that a man could do easier than she could. At least she was a good cook.”

Max chuckled over that point's being important to him. “She lived alone?”

He nodded as a railroad employee handed the reins to his horse to him. She was still waiting for hers. “She raised pigs and a few cows. And had several vegetable gardens. It was a big homestead out in the middle of nowhere, no neighbors in sight, some twenty miles from the nearest town. Her husband had farmed it before he died.”

“Don't tell me she had you plowing fields. I'd never believe it.”

“No, she only planted vegetable and flower gardens after he was gone. What she could handle on her own. But she wanted some painting done, repairing, fixing, hauling.”

As interesting as Max found his tale, simply because he so rarely opened up like this, she began to wonder why he was telling her—until he added, “Learning to shoot.”

“She wanted you to teach her?”

“No, she castigated me for not carrying a gun and browbeat me into learning how to use one. She gave me her husband's Colt to practice with and wouldn't let up until I hit everything I aimed at.”

Max started laughing and couldn't stop. An old woman had taught the fastest gun in the West how to shoot? He walked away from her. She grabbed her reins and hurried after him.

“Wait up. You have to admit that's funny, so don't get mad at me for laughing.”

“Adelaide did me a favor. It wasn't long before I needed that gun, before I even got out of Kansas. But you pegged it right. I came West a greenhorn. I just didn't stay one for very long.”

She was incredulous that he'd told her this. She had a feeling he'd never shared that story with anyone else. Why her? Max couldn't help smiling. Was she growing on him? The same way he was growing on her? That was an interesting thought.

“So are we heading out now?”

“One of the station attendants suggested that the Nolan gang might be hiding in the Dakota Badlands.”

She frowned. “Then maybe we should just let them rot there. You know areas like that are next to impossible to travel through.”

“I didn't say we were going there.”

“Good, because it's no place to live for any length of time. I got close enough to Wyoming's Badlands to know I didn't want to travel through them. Sinking sand, steep crags, no greenery to speak of. I doubt the Badlands here are any different. And the gang has been robbing this line in the warmer months for over a year now, eight robberies in all. They aren't going to camp out for that long, certainly not over the winter.”

“I know all that, and that Nolan's gang only targets the trains coming west loaded to the brim with new settlers, or the ones bringing in the railroad's payroll. But the Badlands suggestion was just one man's opinion, and since that area is back in the western part of Dakota, which we've already passed, we'll only backtrack as a last resort. Besides, I'm inclined to believe the gang is more centrally located. It's a big territory, after all, and the robberies have occurred up and down the line.”

“I enjoyed riding the train.” She grinned. “We could just board one of the trains carrying a payroll and wait for the gang to rob us like you were hoping they would.”

“That hope was based on my impatience, and it didn't take into account the possibility that innocent people could get hurt. I'd rather find them myself.”

“You do realize that they could be hiding in plain sight like I tried to do. They could even be living here in Bismarck and just acting like normal folks. Who would know?”

“Someone here will. This is the biggest train hub in the territory. Information about what's on the trains from the east comes through here in advance. Someone here is feeding that information to Willie Nolan.”

“So you
do
have a plan?”

“Of sorts.”

He didn't elaborate. Actually, she was amazed he'd said as much as he did. But then he added, “The first item on the agenda is a bath and a good night's sleep. If I get lucky and find the gang's inside man, we might wrap this up quickly. If not, I want to scout out the outskirts of Bismarck tomorrow.”

“You could at least hire a scout for that.”

“I was already warned the army employs all the good ones and isn't willing to loan them out.”

“So find a bad one. Anyone familiar with this territory is better than no guide a'tall.”

J
ACKSON BOUCHARD WASN
'
T A
scout, but he was familiar enough with the surrounding areas to be a guide for a few days. He was a half-breed Indian. At least, he boasted that he was. Max had her doubts, though, because he looked no different than any other Westerner. He appeared to be in his late twenties, was not tall, and was stocky. He was handsome with remarkable turquoise eyes and short brown hair. He didn't wear a gun on his hip, but he rode with a rifle in one hand and his reins in the other, and he kept the rifle cradled in his arms when he wasn't mounted.

He expected to be fed and not have to hunt for his dinner. Those had been his conditions aside from his fee. He was nosy, asking a lot of questions. It fell to Max to answer them, or not, since Degan wouldn't. Jackson knew that she was a woman because she hadn't tried to hide that after she'd left Bismarck. That's how safe she felt in Degan's company.

But Jackson didn't know that she was considered an outlaw. Her wanted poster hadn't reached Bismarck or any of the train stations between Billings and Bismarck. She'd looked. The last place she'd seen one had been in Billings, back in Montana.

She'd pulled Degan aside yesterday to ask why he'd hired Bouchard if the man wasn't a scout. “Because he knows the territory. He's going to take us to places
he
thinks a band of men could hole up in without notice.”

She supposed that was one way to go about locating the gang. Then she'd asked, “So you didn't find the informant last night?”

“I checked a few disreputable saloons, but no one would own up to it. But I have a feeling it's Bouchard. He was too quick to offer his help. He either wants us to find the Nolan gang, or he's going to lead us astray—possibly into a trap.”

“So we don't trust him?”

“No, we don't. But in case he wasn't lying, let's see where he leads us.”

Jackson was too well fed not to have some sort of normal job in Bismarck, yet he hadn't had to quit one to come with them. He'd been evasive when she'd asked him about his work. In fact, for all the questions
he
asked, he didn't answer many in return, so she was inclined to agree with Degan that he might have ulterior motives.

Quite a few farms were within an hour or two of Bismarck, homesteads established by settlers who'd probably come in soon after the railroad had arrived. But the farther north they went, the fewer thriving homesteads they saw. Most had been abandoned, a few even burned to the ground. Max figured the Indians had still been active in the area when the railroad first came through. Sporadically they spotted cabins, most of which were deserted. Jackson was leading them to the ones he knew were occupied so Degan could stop and question the inhabitants.

They stopped under a lone tree for lunch the first day of their search. Degan's food sack was filled with the usual fare he favored that would last several days without spoiling. They'd been riding hard, so he rubbed down his horse before eating.

Max sat down and leaned against the tree as she ate. She'd removed her coat as soon as the day heated up, so the gun she wore was in view now. Jackson sat next to her, his rifle across his lap.

“You know how to use that?” he asked curiously, staring at her Colt.

Max supposed this was one of those times when it didn't matter that her gun was empty because Jackson didn't know it. All she said was, “Wouldn't wear it if I didn't.”

He watched Degan for a few minutes before he said, “You and him?”

She'd been staring at Degan, whose back was turned to them, and Jackson had noticed it. Sometimes she just couldn't keep her eyes off him. She knew what Jackson was implying.

“No. I've hired him to do a job,” she lied. “He won't do it until he finishes this one.”

“But he's a marshal,” Jackson pointed out. “Why would he work for you?”

Not until that moment did she realize that Jackson Bouchard wasn't aware of Degan's reputation as a gunslinger. That surprised her because other people in Dakota they'd spoken to had known exactly who he was. She almost laughed. Not that it mattered. With Degan paying him, Jackson had no reason to be wary of Degan—unless he was exactly who Degan thought he was, which
would
make him wary of a lawman.

“We have an arrangement,” she said offhandedly. “I help him with this, he helps me with my problem afterward.”

“Which is?”

“Personal.”

“Too bad.”

That comment drew her eyes to him because she wasn't sure what he meant by it. Was he interested in her? She hadn't sensed that he might be. Until now.

But he got up before he added, “You should go back to town. I can get him where he needs to go.”

That was said a little too confidently. She no longer doubted that Bouchard was somehow involved with the Nolan gang, either as their informant or one of the actual robbers. He obviously knew where they were. And his pointing his rifle at her and Degan and turning them over to Willie Nolan could well be his plan. But Degan was prepared for that. Jackson wouldn't get away with it, even though he always kept his rifle in his hand. If he tried, he would be surprised by how fast Degan was.

They slept in a trapper's shed on the edge of a small woods that night. It was mostly empty except for a few metal traps with dried blood still on them. The trapper, Artemus Gains, lived in a small cabin next to the shed. Strung up between the two buildings were lines hung with animal pelts of all sizes.

Starved for company, Gains had invited them to share his dinner and offered them the shed for the night. He knew Jackson. At least they talked as if they were old friends. Artemus even tried to get Jackson to stay for a week or so to keep an eye on his place, so he could go to Bismarck for supplies and to visit his brother. Max couldn't understand why he was so worried that someone would try to move into his little, one-room cabin while he was gone. But Jackson promised to return when his current job was done.