Tin Star

by Jackson Lowry

  “I will, you know. You’ve caused me nothing but trouble.”

  “What?” It was as if she read his mind.

  “You’re not the first man I’ve gotten the drop on, and you wouldn’t be the first to catch an ounce of lead from my six-shooter. Move faster. The marshal is going to start yelling soon enough.”

  “I don’t know why he hasn’t already,” Luke said. He rounded the building. Out back two tethered horses tugged at their reins. One was his. He stepped up and waited for her to mount. She did so with a short hop that got her foot in the stirrup and she reached the saddle horn to pull herself up the rest of the way.

  While she was mostly cloaked in shadows, he recognized her as the woman who had rescued him before. And the one who had sprung Nelson so he could march off to his death at Benedict’s hand. As they rode, she put on a floppy-brimmed hat and pulled it low to shield her face as effectively as any bandanna mask might. From the way she mounted, she couldn’t be much over five feet tall but moved with grace and power. The unwavering grip on her pistol told of familiarity with the weapon. The way she had looked at him made Luke believe every word she said about him not being the first man she’d shot—if it came to that. No obvious reason entered his mind why he shouldn’t do as she ordered. He needed allies, even if they insisted on pointing six-shooters at him.

  He bent low and put his heels to his horse’s flanks. The mare rocketed off. The woman followed on her gelding, matching his speed. He caught a glimpse of her profile. A long, straight nose and firm chin more than hinted at her determination. The set to her jaw told how she was a woman capable of getting what she wanted. If he had to guess, and he was poor at such things, she was in her late twenties, not too much younger than him. When she turned to look in his direction, he caught the light reflected off a thin pink scar on her left cheek. A knife left such a reminder.

  As feisty as she was, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine her in a knife fight to the death. If she had won the scar, her opponent had bought himself some real estate and currently resided six feet under.

  She struck him as that kind of woman.

  Once outside Crossroads, they slowed. The stars above in the clear sky shined down with enough intensity to light the road. She pushed back her hat and lifted her chin. The silvery starlight turned her into a work of art. But this marble statue moved and gestured with a deadly gun.

  “That way. Off the road.”

  “Will the marshal come after us?”

  “After us?” She laughed. It carried a mocking tone that worked its way into his brain like a saddle bur. “You’re the criminal. He has no idea who I am or how I’m involved.”

  “I’m not a bank robber, and I’m after Rhoades. I intend to bring him to justice.”

  “Keep riding.” She herded him north until they were out of sight from anybody traveling the main road.

  After almost an hour, she signaled for them to stop and dismount. He felt stiff all over and could barely straighten his legs without wincing. It had been a terrible few days, and he had spent far too much time in a cell. That had to come to an end. Capturing Rhoades and Benedict meant staying clear of the law. Somehow, the tables had been turned. Luke felt he was more notorious than the actual road agents. They had killed, stolen horses, robbed a bank and kidnapped. All he had done was try to stay alive. And he was the one Marshal Wilkes was most likely to come after. It wasn’t fair.

  The woman dropped to the ground and came over. He had been right about her height. She was around five-foot-one, though she looked taller when she wore the high-crowned hat. Other than the hat, she was dressed in trail gear, a split riding skirt and a blouse buttoned up high around her slender neck. Her boots were fancy-tooled and expensive. Matching the work there, her gun belt hung on her hip, the holster still empty. She never took the gun off him as if he were the worst desperado in all of Kansas.

  “You’ve sprung me out of jail a couple times,” he said. Her brown eyes narrowed as he spoke. She pushed her hat back and a lock of chestnut hair escaped. A quick move pushed it out of her eyes. “I want to thank you, but I don’t know your name.”

  “There’s no reason for you to.”

  “Look,” he said, exasperated at her curt demeanor. “We’re both after the gang. I’m a Pinkerton agent. See?” He pulled the star from his pocket and held it out on his palm. With a move faster than a striking snake, she snatched it from him and held it up. Stars reflected off it.

  She sneered at him.

  “You’re no Pinkerton agent. This is a fake. I don’t know or care where you got it, but it’s not real. Pinkerton isn’t even spelled right. At least have the decency to have a good counterfeit made. You left out the ‘e-r’ in the middle. Pinkton Agency. Pah.” She flung the badge and its latigo strap away. It left a silvery spiral in his vision as it sailed into the night.

  “Don’t! You can’t throw that away!”

  “It’s my right. It’s my duty.” Face twisted into a scowl, she reached into a skirt pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. With a quick flick of her wrist, she opened the wallet to show a brass badge inside. “This is a real Pinkerton badge. I’m Special Agent Marta Shearing and I ought to have let you rot in the Crossroads jail.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Luke stared at the badge. It had been stamped into a brass sheet and then trimmed neatly. He had never seen a real Pinkerton badge before, much less met a dyed-in-the-wool real agent. Never had he expected it to be a fiery woman like Marta Shearing.

  “Tell me everything you know about the robbery. And I mean everything.” She closed the wallet with an expert, practiced flip and tucked away the badge. The gun in her other hand never wavered from its target, dead center on Luke’s chest.

  “I figured Rhoades was going to hit the bank when I heard how much cattle money was deposited there. I saw Crazy Water Benedict and followed him, but he got away. The man he spoke to was probably another gang member. We both got tossed in the clink.”

  “Do you mean Geoff Nelson? I got him out to follow him. That didn’t work too well. He ended up dead, blown up out on the edge of town.”

  He nodded. That explained why she hadn’t bothered getting him out. He didn’t know where the gang was but the man Benedict had met would. Rhoades had used the local salesman to furnish dynamite, and then killed him to snip off a loose end.

  “What about the robbery?” From the set to her mouth, her patience disappeared quickly. She wanted what he knew. Giving it to her cost him nothing, Luke decided.

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t there. I only saw a map drawn up by the marshal over in Preston.”

  “Hargrove,” she said. “He got a bee in his bonnet about finding Rhoades after the way station massacre. Only he couldn’t do anything about it except make that map. I never saw it, but he knows the country like the back of his hand. Getting a posse formed to go after Rhoades cost too much, and Preston is close to being a dead broke town. If any more people leave it, there’ll be nothing but ghosts and the whisper of wind left blowing through deserted buildings.”

  “Hargrove’s map,” he went on, “had the places where he thought Rhoades might be holed up. At the time it meant nothing, but I think the map has valuable information now. They robbed the bank while I hunted for the spare horses.” He quickly explained how he had followed the trail from the destroyed way station. “They stash the fresh horses and use them to get away from posses.”

  “Why’d they blow the bank sky-high?”

  Luke turned grimmer at that.

  “Call it a hobby with Rollie Rhoades. He enjoys seeing buildings—and people—go up in a big bang. I heard tell he used to set fires until he discovered how much more fun dynamite was.”

  “A bad feller,” Marta Shearing said, her lips thinned to a razor slash. “It’s going to be hard bringing him in.”

  “You were on his trail before the robbery. What’s
the Pinkerton Agency’s interest?”

  “He held up a Central Pacific train we’d been hired to protect. He killed two agents and made off with more than five hundred dollars.”

  “Did he blow up the mail car?”

  She shook her head.

  “He filled the sides of the car with so many rounds that it looked like a termite colony had taken up residence. The wheels and floor were about all that survived. Then there’re others in his self-styled ‘family’ Allan especially wants brought to justice. It’s a personal matter with him, especially one of them.” She stepped back and made sure he saw the six-gun in her hand. “You were on the gang’s trail when Marshal Wilkes nabbed you?”

  He explained about Sarah Youngblood and how Crazy Water Benedict had driven the horses used in the actual robbery south to make it seem the gang headed for Indian Territory.

  “So Rhoades and the rest of the gang took the gold and rode north? Or northwest?”

  “More toward the northwest.” He took a deep breath. He had one more card in the hole to play. “I saw a spot marked on Marshal Hargrove’s map in that direction where they might rendezvous. We can—”

  “There’s no ‘we’ in this, Hadley. Step back. Another step.” She fished around in her saddlebags and pulled out his six-shooter.

  “But if you’re giving me back my gun, that means we’re partners. We are going after Rhoades together. Only I want to be the one bringing down Benedict, for what he’s done to me.” He found himself tongue-tied when he tried to explain about Audrey. Those words disappeared and a surprised cry escaped when Marta flung his gun into the night. He heard it land in a mud puddle with a loud splash.

  “I ought to keep your sidearm, but this is dangerous country and I don’t think you’d gun down the marshal or any of his posse.” She bounced up into the saddle and swung around to grab the reins to his horse. “I am taking this nag. As much as it pains me to say it, Rhoades is a clever owlhoot. There’s no reason I can’t learn from how he does things and use them to my advantage. Your horse will come in handy as my spare.”

  She touched the brim of her hat with the six-shooter’s barrel, then applied her heels to the gelding and galloped off to the northwest, Luke’s horse obediently following. He stared after her, too many emotions colliding for him to know whether to be furious or to laugh. He settled on cursing under his breath, turning around and putting his boots smack in the footprints she’d left when she threw his Schofield into the night. He tromped out until the ground turned muddy, then slowed and finally dropped to hands and knees to search the mud.

  “Yes!” He lifted the filthy Model 3 and wiped off as much mud as he could. Finding a stump, he sat and broke open the action. He used his bandanna to clean the gun the best he could. It needed oiling, but the Nye’s sperm-whale oil he used for that purpose rode off in his saddlebags, along with his spare ammunition and everything else that he needed to tackle Benedict and Rhoades.

  He wiped off his holster and settled the Schofield, then started after Marta Shearing. Barely ten paces on his way, he stopped.

  “I need more than my six-gun,” he said, determination filling him again. He returned to the spot where Marta had thrown his bogus badge into the field. It took the better part of an hour to find it, but when he did, he wiped it off and tucked it back into his coat pocket. Then it was time to start hiking.

  Dawn crept up on him. By the time the sun poked above the horizon, he saw a farmhouse. His nostrils flared when he smelled cooking meat. The family must be ready to eat breakfast after starting their chores. He looked down at his clothing and knew he looked as if he had been pulled through a knothole backward. There was nothing he could do about the dirty, torn clothing or his lack of belongings. Dusting himself off, he walked, shoulders back and proud, to the farmhouse. Two small girls sat on the back steps, counting eggs they had collected.

  “Good morning,” he said, hoping his appearance didn’t frighten them.

  They accepted him as he was. One yelled, “Pa! We got a visitor!”

  The other added, “He ain’t got no horse but he’s got a big iron strapped to his hip. Looks to be a S&W Model 3.”

  Mumbled words from inside provoked the response from the girl, “Naw, he ain’t no gunslinger. Just somebody on foot.”

  The girls’ pa came to the door. He nodded to the pair that he accepted their appraisal of their visitor. Luke marveled at how clever they were to size him up and how the man trusted them.

  “Morning, sir.” Luke wondered what visitors stopped by this farmhouse. The man filling up the entire door frame with broad shoulders and height topping six feet hadn’t bothered to fetch a shotgun or rifle.

  “Top of the morning to you, too, pilgrim.” The man eyed Luke from head to toe. “You have the look of a man down on his luck.”

  “That’s so. I had my horse and tack stolen, and I’ve been walking the livelong night.”

  “Coming from Crossroads?”

  Luke got a mite antsy at this. Any suggestion of reporting the alleged theft to Marshal Wilkes would land him in a heap of trouble. Marta Shearing had moved on and wasn’t in the business of springing him from jail any longer.

  “I’m on the trail of outlaws, sir.” He pulled out the strip of leather with his fake badge fastened to it.

  “It says he’s a Pinkerton man, Pa.” The more vocal of the two girls peered at the badge over her younger sister’s shoulder, then stared up at him. Her cornflower-blue eyes never blinked. “I’m in the third grade and I spell real good.”

  “I bet you do,” Luke said uneasily.

  “You really after crooks?” She studied him like a bug under a magnifying glass. He felt as if she moved the lens around and focused the sun’s rays on him. He got hot under the collar and flushed.

  “I am after the Rhoades gang. They robbed the bank and stole horses from the way station east of Preston.”

  “Did they, now?” The farmer stepped down and put hands on his daughters’ shoulders.

  “The Tomlinsons were murdered,” Luke said. “And a youngster and his bride.”

  “Beatrice and Tommy?” The shocked question came from behind the man in the doorway. A woman with the same piercing blue eyes as the little girl pushed past the mountain of a man onto the steps, a rifle cradled in the crook of her left arm. Her easy familiarity with the weapon warned Luke that she was likely a crack shot. Her husband might not be the shooting kind, but she was.

  This family split their chores up different from usual, but questions got asked and answered and no one risked their life without being protected.

  “We heard about them. A crying shame, it is,” the man said. “This gang, they stole your horse?”

  “That’s a long story,” Luke said. His belly grumbled loud enough for the two girls to notice and snicker, hiding their mirth behind their hands.

  “Susanna, set a place at the table for this here traveler. If you’d care to eat, that is.”

  “Much obliged,” Luke said. He followed the man into the kitchen. What he saw shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. The man went to the stove and began fixing eggs and frying up a thick slice of ham while his wife rested her rifle against the wall. He didn’t hesitate to unbuckle his gun belt and hand it to her. “If you’d take care of this, ma’am, I’ll be more comfortable while I eat.”

  She gave a curt nod and hung his gun belt on a peg.

  “Sven is the finest cook in all of Kansas,” she said proudly as she took a china plate from a cabinet and let her husband pile on food. With a deft spin, she swung about and put the food in front of Luke. Before he had the chance to ask for silverware, the girls furnished it, along with a glass of cool water pumped from the well in the corner of the kitchen.

  “We owned a restaurant in Fargo before moving south,” Sven said.

  “Sven is the best cook west of the Mississippi,” his wife
boasted.

  “In all the world, too. Pa is from Stockholm. That’s in Sweden,” the younger girl said. Her compliment earned her a punch in the arm from her older sister. The two began to squabble and were shooed out by their mother.

  Luke had trouble remembering his last meal. The food Marta had brought in the jail had only served as a way to get the derringer into his hands. Before that, dinner the night before had been a mess of beans and a strip of jerky.

  “Fargo lost a fine cook,” Luke said from between mouthfuls. “This is about the best I’ve tasted in . . . ever!”

  “Spices,” Sven said in a confidential tone. “No one on the frontier takes the time to cook.” He heaved a sigh, pulled up a chair and sat across from Luke. “Farming is hard work. With three women to help, it is easier, but a strong son would be a godsend.” He looked at his wife, who worked to clean the family’s dishes from their breakfast.

  “A decent plow horse would be better,” she said.

  Luke chased the last bits of meat around the plate and forced himself not to lick off the grease. That would be rude. He pushed the plate away. Susanna snared it and began scrubbing it clean to stack with the others.

  “This horse isn’t good for plowing?”

  “An ox would be better.”

  “If you have a mind, and the horse is broken for riding, I need a mount.”

  “To go after the robbers?” Sven eyed him shrewdly.

  “They are also murderers.” Luke saw this struck a responsive chord with the woman. She must have known either Beatrice or Tommy. Out here, neighbors had to be close to stand any chance of survival.

  “I cannot give you the horse. I planned to sell him in town and use the money to buy the ox from Mister Gottfried.”

  Luke patted his coat where he carried the money from the sale of his farm to the railroad. The lumps showed gold dust was still sewn into the lining.