Gambling on the Outlaw

by Margaret Madigan

  I glanced in his direction. He puffed his cigar and blew the smoke toward the ceiling while Dawson chuckled at the thought of Dearborn and Beth. The rage began to gather again. I didn’t want to think of Dearborn touching Beth, much less rutting on her. She belonged to me, not him, even though I’d never given her the courtesy of telling her I loved her. That’s why I’d begged her to promise never to marry him. That she’d break that promise while I was locked up and unable to confront her about it, only added insult to injury.

  He noticed he’d got a rise out of me and he pushed his advantage. “Yessir. I will definitely enjoy taming that little filly. It may take a firm hand, mind you, but she’ll learn her place.”

  I didn’t know why she’d agreed to marry him, and breaking her word almost made it easier not to care, but not quite. Why couldn’t she have waited until I was gone? As if dying wasn’t bad enough, I had to suffer a broken heart first.

  I wondered what in God’s name had been so all-fired important that she’d gone to him. The only thing that made any sense was that she’d done it to save me, and that only made me angrier. She had to know I’d rather be dead than see her with Dearborn.

  Clay was right. I must not have known her as well as I thought. I ground my teeth to keep from spitting a string of curses. Damn her for not keeping her word.

  I rolled myself up to sit on the cot, then stood and glared at Clay. He didn’t move other than to raise a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me. I stepped to the bars, never taking my eyes off him. I didn’t care that I’d let him get to me, or that I was letting on that he had. All I cared was that he saw just how dangerous I really was. He’d spent so much time painting me as a killer—it was time to live up to that reputation. Being locked up, I couldn’t see Beth and shake some sense into her, so the least I could do was save her from her own bad judgment.

  Up close, Clay stood his ground, contempt written all over his face. He was sure he was safe, but he was just close enough. I reached through the bars and snatched the front of his shirt so fast he dropped his fancy cigar. I had him hauled up against the bars before Dawson could draw his gun.

  “I’m still gonna kill you, Dearborn. You won’t have a chance to lay a finger on Beth.”

  I grabbed his neck with both hands, ready to squeeze the life out of him. His eyes finally registered some doubt and I felt a measure of sweet revenge. Maybe I’d be able to kill him after all and save Beth by doing it.

  I didn’t even hear Dawson unlock the cage, but I did hear the click of him pulling back the hammer of his gun, and the cool ring of it on my temple.

  “Let him go,” Dawson said.

  I loosened my grip a bit, but didn’t let go. Dearborn heaved for breath between my fingers. “Why should I?” I asked, still glaring at Dearborn. “What difference does it make if I die now or at the end of a noose? It’s just a bigger mess for you to clean up if you kill me here.”

  “Don’t,” Dearborn wheezed, his eye shifting to Dawson.

  “Don’t what?” Dawson asked.

  “Don’t kill him now.”

  “Why not? We’re going to kill him anyway.”

  “Public,” Dearborn said.

  I squeezed tighter again, feeling the muscles and cartilage in his neck compress. It was a glorious feeling. He wanted my death to be public and humiliating. One final blow to me, and probably Beth, and a triumph for him. I wanted him dead first.

  But before he collapsed in a dead heap at my feet, the muzzle of Dawson’s gun disappeared from my temple. Too late I realized why. The butt of the gun came sailing in and slammed into my head. Everything went black.

  The clank of keys finally woke me. It was dark, but I had no idea what time it was. Either way, I’d be dead in a few hours. Couldn’t they just leave me the hell alone?

  The door between the sheriff’s office and the holding cells creaked open and a dimmed lantern cast shadows across the room. Summers came into view, followed by two shadowy figures I didn’t recognize until the group approached closer.

  “You got visitors,” Summers said.

  “Mr. Collins?” a hesitant female said.

  I sat up. My head still throbbed from the pistol-whipping I’d taken earlier. “Who’s there?”

  A slender woman slipped out from behind Summers, but kept her distance. A buxom woman followed her, but stepped up to the cell without hesitation. Even in the shadows I recognized Beth’s friends.

  “Mr. Summers,” the busty redhead said. If I remembered right, her name was Daisy.

  “Will you please come closer with that lantern? We can’t have a proper conversation in the dark.”

  “Make it quick, ladies,” Summers said, bringing the lantern closer.

  Daisy crowded him as he took his last step, and in the small space he stumbled, grabbing the bars of my cell for balance.

  “Dammit,” Summers grumbled, struggling to find his footing.

  “Oh my word,” Daisy said, grabbing his arm and tangling herself in his limbs while she tried to right him. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Summers. I’m so clumsy.”

  He pushed her away, flustered as he disentangling himself from her. “Here, you take the lantern,” he said shoving it at her. “Just don’t be long.”

  She took it and he backed away, bumping into quiet Lydia standing behind him, before he turned and left.

  When he was gone, Daisy raised her other hand from the folds in her skirt and dangled Summers’s keys in front of me. “Hey there, cowboy. Good to see you again.”

  Dawson must have hit me hard because this had to be a hallucination.

  “How did you do that? I didn’t even see you take them.”

  “I learned some sleight of hand back in my working days. It was a good way to make more money.”

  “By stealing it?”

  “You bet.”

  “Lydia, take the lantern.” Daisy handed it to the other woman, then set to unlocking my cell.

  “What are you two doing here?”

  “We’re here to rescue you,” Daisy said.

  “What about the other one? The one with the babe?”

  “Nellie’s outside with the horses, keeping watch. We tried to talk her into staying home, but she’s stubborn,” Daisy said.

  “This is no place for a baby,” Lydia said.

  The door swung open and Daisy grinned, pretty damn proud of herself by the look of it. “You’d better hurry so you can catch Summers by surprise.”

  “What time is it?” I asked, holding my hand out for the keys. “Won’t do you any good to be caught with those.”

  “About supper time,” Daisy said. “The horses are out back. We need to get moving.”

  I’d slept through my whole last day.

  “This is a bad idea, you know,” I said.

  Lydia held the lantern up high and scrutinized me in the light. “Well, Beth loves you. Enough that she’s willing to sacrifice her life for yours.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Not wanting to know the answer, I asked anyway, just to confirm my worst fears. “What do you mean sacrifice herself?”

  “Last night while we were all sleeping she left. This morning we found the letter she left. She plans to marry Clay in exchange for your release.”

  “How can she be so—”

  “stubborn?” Daisy said.

  “selfless?” Lydia said.

  “I was going to say foolish,” I said. “I’m supposed to hang in the morning. Didn’t it occur to her Dearborn would double cross her?”

  “Why do you think we’re here?” Daisy said.

  “She swore she’d never marry him. No matter what,” I said. “I made her promise.”

  My heart clenched again when I thought about her and Dearborn. At this point I didn’t even care what happened to Dearborn anymore, I just wanted Beth free of him, especially since she was marrying him on my account.

  “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Beth will do anything for the people she loves, even break promises,” Daisy
said. “She’s taken care of us, and now that she’s in love with you you’re part of our family. So that means we all do for each other.”

  I took a step for the door into the sheriff’s office, but Lydia stepped in my way.

  “What?” I said.

  She dipped her head, studying the floor. “I need to apologize to you.”

  “Why?” I had no idea what she was talking about, and we needed to get out of there.

  “Lydia, this isn’t the time,” Daisy said.

  Her head came up and there were tears on her cheeks, but determination in her eyes. “Yes, it is,” she said to Daisy, then turned to me. “It’s my fault all this happened. I turned you in to the sheriff. I could have just talked to you, but I was afraid and I didn’t really think about it. I just wanted you off our property, so I did what I thought was the right thing.”

  Daisy rested a hand on my arm. “She was just trying to protect us from a wanted man.”

  I took Lydia’s hand in mine. “Don’t worry yourself about it. You did what you thought you had to do. I’m just grateful you’ve come to get me out of here, even though it is the most blastedly dangerous thing you could do.”

  I patted her hand to reassure her. I envied Beth a family who cared about her enough to put themselves in danger to save her. Because she was willing to give that up for me, I had to see that she didn’t.

  “When we go back into the office, you need to behave as if you’re frightened. I don’t want you implicated in my escape.”

  Daisy made a face that said she didn’t care what Summers thought, but Lydia laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “He’s right. We did what we came for, but we can’t get ourselves in trouble, too.”

  “Fine,” Daisy huffed.

  I hurried into the sheriff’s office where I found Summers sitting behind the desk. His eyes flew wide when he saw me, and out of reflex, he looked down and patted his pocket for his keys. I held them up. “Looking for these?”

  “How?” I couldn’t tell if he was afraid I’d kill him or if he was surprised I’d managed to escape.

  I took the space between us in three quick steps, lunged across the desk to grab him by the front of his shirt and punched him square in the face, knocking him cold.

  I checked the clock on the wall—6:25 p.m. Just after sunset. At least the women had waited for cover of darkness for this foolhardy mission.

  I rummaged around and found a set of handcuffs I used to cuff Summers to the desk. Some rope trussed him to the chair. At the gun cabinet I found the right key and opened the cabinet. Inside I selected a collection of guns and ammunition. While I loaded a Colt revolver, Summers groaned as he regained consciousness. His eyes got even wider when he saw the gun, and this time there was definitely fear in his face.

  “Don’t worry, Summers. My beef ain’t with you. But I do need you to tell me where I can find Dearborn.”

  “Out at the ranch, I suspect,” he said, working his jaw to relax it. “How’d you get out?”

  “Snatched the keys when you tripped. Dearborn’s planning to marry Beth tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Right after you hang. He was in town today picking up supplies for the celebration. He even fetched the minister and took him out to the ranch as his guest for the night.”

  None of that was going to happen now. I may not live to a ripe old age, but at least I wasn’t going to die tomorrow. Not at the end of a rope anyway.

  “You’ll never kill him,” Summers said. “He’s too smart for you.”

  I huffed a laugh at him. “As much as I’d like to see him dead, I’m more interested in stopping that marriage.” I recognized the irony.

  Before Summers could respond, the door burst open and the sheriff waltzed into the middle of my escape. He saw Summers first, tied to the chair. His face twisted into a look of confusion, as if he wondered why Summers would tie himself up. Then he saw me and the women, and froze. Even given the situation, his reaction was amusing. His jaw fell open as he took in the scene, but he recovered quick enough.

  He went for his gun, but I was faster and had mine pointed at his head before he could aim.

  Lydia turned white as a sheet. Daisy just smiled.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Dawson bellowed.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  He moved to free Summers, who was white as a sheet and frozen in fear, but I tut-tutted him, keeping my aim steady between his eyes. My hand was rock steady.

  He waived his gun at Lydia and Daisy. “What are they doing here?”

  “Came to visit.”

  “I knew you were no good. Dearborn made a good choice.”

  “He’s not going to think so when I’m done with him.” He leveled his gun at me. “I’ve got nothing to lose, Dawson, so I suggest you just get out of my way. Trust me, I’d like nothing better than to kill you right now.”

  “You’re not getting out of here alive.”

  “The hell I’m not. Drop the gun.”

  He hesitated and I read in his face the calculations going on in his head. Could he get off a clean shot before I did? What if he missed and hit one of the women? What would the repercussions be if he shot the town’s schoolteacher? How badly would his reputation be affected if he let the “stagecoach killer” escape? The thoughts may as well have been written all over his face for how easy they were to read, and the last one—the affect on his reputation—was the one that clinched it. He wasn’t about to let me out that door.

  He cocked the hammer, and I knew he was a crazy enough son of a bitch to shoot, so I pushed Lydia into Daisy and I dove for the floor. Dawson’s gun thundered in the small room. I rolled to a spot behind the desk and popped up long enough to take a shot. He pulled the trigger again and the bullet zinged past me and buried itself in the wall behind me.

  “May as well give up now. You can’t win.” He taunted me, and I heard the glee in his voice.

  I peered around the side of the desk, rather than rise above it as he’d expect me to. He was waiting for me to make a move and took another shot when he saw me. I pulled back behind the desk, then leaped to my feet long enough to get a bead on him and pull the trigger before falling back under cover. I heard him bellow before crumpling to the floor with a thud.

  After that it was quiet except for Lydia’s whimpering and Summers’s wheezing. I peeked from behind the desk. Dawson was down, a bloody hole in his right shoulder, just where I’d aimed. I’d have been happy to kill him and be done with it, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to prove everyone’s suspicions of me by killing the sheriff.

  He was down, so I stood and approached him. His arm was too weak to raise the gun, but I didn’t take any chances. I kept my gun on him, and kicked his away.

  The look on his face was pure hate.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he said.

  “Not today,” I said, “And not tomorrow morning, either.” I grabbed Dawson by the arm and yanked him to his feet, shoving him toward the door to the cells. When we reached the cell where I’d been locked up, I shoved Dawson inside and locked the door.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Sheriff.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “So you said.”

  I left him to stew and headed back out to the office. I handed the keys to Daisy.

  “Ladies, thank you for visiting me,” I said, winking at them when my back was to Summers. “I apologize if I caused you any pain or distress.”

  Daisy fanned herself. “It’s more than we anticipated. We just wanted to pay our respects.”

  “It’s the Christian thing to do, to visit the condemned and offer succor and prayer,” Lydia added.

  I raised a brow, surprised she’d played along. “I don’t want you to be in any trouble with the law, but I’d appreciate it if you’d wait a few minutes before setting the sheriff free.”

  Around back of the jail I found Nellie with the horses.

  “I brought Little Sister for you. She already knows you.”


  When she handed me the reins to the paint pony, I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Nellie. I appreciate your help. With your babe, you didn’t need to be here. It’s dangerous.”

  “Go. Bring Beth home.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  ~Beth~

  Clay kept me locked in my room overnight and only let me out in the morning under his supervision while he explained his rules, which amounted to a pile of threats. If I didn’t do exactly as he said, when he said it, everyone I loved would be in jeopardy of every horrible consequence I could possibly imagine.

  I’d spent the night mentally numbing myself to the next few days. The more I could disconnect myself from my body, the easier it would be to survive. I tried not to wallow in misery. The one thing that made it easier was knowing Isaac wouldn’t hang. I reminded myself of that fact every time Clay came to mind. I didn’t want to think about when Isaac learned that I’d married Clay.

  Breaking my promise to him meant saving his life, but I knew how much it would hurt him. It broke my heart, but I kept telling myself I could tolerate the idea of him hating me as long as he was alive to do it.

  After I knew Isaac was free, and after I was officially married to Clay, I could start planning my escape. I’d have to wait until I was sure Isaac had time to get far away, and the girls had time to find a new place to settle. But after that, all bets were off. If Clay thought I’d stay with him for the long term, he had another thing coming. I agreed to marry him, not commit my life to him. The trick was just to survive until I could get away.

  “You know,” he said settling himself into an armchair in my room, “I’m a much better choice of husband than your last one.”

  I shot him a sour look. “How do you figure that?”

  “The last one was a fool.”

  “His name was Frank. At least have the courtesy to call him by name.”

  “Frank was an idiot.”

  “How would you know? You didn’t even know him.”

  “I didn’t need to. If he’d had any sense, he would have been home with you instead of accusing other players of cheating.”

  “What do you know about it? Were you there?”