A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

  Sarah remembered the dust on the horizon, and the way it had caught Wyatt’s attention. She felt a little prickle of alarm, not so much because the bank might be robbed—that was preposterous—but because Owen and her father were down by the creek, fishing, and the trail into town ran right past it. And because, if there was trouble coming, Wyatt would most likely face it alone, with Sam and Rowdy away.

  Thomas prattled on, apparently unable to stop talking now that he’d gotten started. “I wanted to come right over to your house and tell you,” he said, “but Mother said you had company and I’d be intruding.” He reddened. “Sarah, what if they mean to hold us up?”

  “Don’t be silly, Thomas. No one has ever held up the Stockman’s Bank.”

  “Folks know Rowdy Yarbro’s out of town, and Mr. O’Ballivan, too,” Thomas argued, albeit respectfully, “and this is the only place in Stone Creek where there’s any amount of cash money—”

  Sarah shook her head. “You’ve been reading too many dime novels,” she insisted. “This is 1907. The twentieth century, not the old West. Anyway, if we lock up on a Tuesday morning, it might start a panic.”

  “I feel sick,” Thomas said. “Can I go home?”

  Sarah sighed. Thomas was a faithful worker; he was never sick. His salary was small, but he never complained, or refused to run errands or other tasks outside his job as a teller.

  “Very well, then,” she said, somewhat snappishly. “Go home.”

  “I don’t like leaving you here alone,” Thomas fretted, but he was already making for the door, fumbling with the lock.

  “Give my kindest regards to your mother,” Sarah said.

  Thomas nodded, and fled.

  Sarah rolled the window shade back up, smoothed her hair and her skirts, and walked behind the counter, resigned to doing Thomas’s work, as well as her father’s and her own.

  She checked her bodice watch again. At three o’clock, she would close the bank, walk down the street toward home as usual, and duck around behind the Spit Bucket Saloon when she was sure no one was looking.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HOW MANY RIDERS would it take to raise a dust cloud like that one? Wyatt wondered, as he moved briskly toward the jailhouse, hoping poor old Lonesome could make it that far without collapsing. Much restored by a little kindness and a lot of breakfast, the dog was puny, just the same. He’d need some time to heal up proper.

  Reaching Rowdy’s office, he had to pick Lonesome up in both arms to get him over the threshold. The critter’s tongue hung to one side of his snout, and he was panting hard.

  He settled Lonesome in front of the cold stove, took the washbasin outside, and pumped cold water into it. Then, having set the basin within Lonesome’s reach, he drew his Colt, spun the cylinder to make sure it was fully loaded.

  It was, since he’d had no cause to shoot, except to pick off the occasional rabbit for his supper out on the trail. Pappy had been a great advocate of regular target practice, but Wyatt hadn’t been flush enough to waste good bullets plunking at tin cans for a long time.

  Fortunately, Rowdy kept enough ammunition in the bottom drawer of his desk to supply an artillery regiment.

  Leaving the dog in peace, Wyatt stepped back out into the street.

  He guessed at least a dozen riders were bearing down on Stone Creek, and even though they were most likely harmless cowpokes, looking to wet their whistles with a little whiskey and maybe visit a loose woman, a familiar uneasiness prickled in the pit of his stomach. He’d felt it last just before the stampede, down by the border.

  There was no fear—just a sense of standing a rung or two above it on an invisible ladder. That was another thing he’d learned from Pappy—fear was a luxury an outlaw couldn’t afford. When trouble came, a man had to stand up on the inside, ready to play whatever cards he might be dealt.

  Wyatt looked up and down the street, found it deserted, where a quarter of an hour before, the place had been bustling with morning business. He spared a moment to wish that Sam and Rowdy were around, but no more than that. Clearly, if trouble was on its way, he’d be the one facing it down.

  The riders were getting close—he could hear the hoofbeats of their horses now—probably within minutes of town, and Wyatt’s thoughts strayed to the bank. Or, more properly, to Sarah.

  He headed in that direction, not at a lope, as instinct urged, but with long, sure strides. In his head, he heard Pappy’s voice, as he often did. You’ve got to look tough, boy, even if you’re down to your last pint of blood and plumb out of ideas. Show any weakness, and they’ll be on you like wolves.

  At the moment, Wyatt had only one idea, but his blood was pumping just fine. It wasn’t a matter of looking tough, either. He knew he was. Two years breaking rocks in the hot Texas sun had given him that, if nothing else.

  He reached the bank, tried the door, found it open.

  Sarah stood alone behind the counter, pale and straight-shouldered. Relief flickered in those astounding blue eyes of hers, though, and a little color came into her cheeks.

  “Everything all right here?” Wyatt asked.

  “So far,” Sarah said, but a note of worry echoed in the air after she spoke.

  “You’re alone?” He knew she was, but it seemed odd, so he had to verify the suspicion.

  “I was,” she replied. “Until you came. Is something wrong?”

  “Probably not,” Wyatt said, though his senses told another story entirely.

  “Thomas has some silly notion that the bank is about to be robbed,” she said, in the same voice she’d used the night before, at supper, to offer him a second helping of fried chicken.

  “Where is he?” Wyatt asked, watching the street through the glass window in the front door. He saw three riders in the lead, but there were a lot more coming up behind, raising as much dust as they had on the trail outside of town. He upped his estimate of their numbers to twenty.

  “He was frightened, so I sent him home.”

  Wyatt gave a huff of disgust at that.

  “There’s no cause for concern, I’m sure,” Sarah said brightly. “It’s payday on the ranches, being the last day of the month, and cowboys come from all over to spend their wages and—”

  Wyatt glanced back at her. “Just the same,” he said evenly, “you ought to slip out the back door, if there is one, and go on home.”

  She hoisted a shotgun in one hand. Evidently, she kept it stashed behind the counter. “I’m not afraid,” she said, straightening her spine to confirm the assertion. “And besides, those men are harmless. You’ll see.”

  He had to admire Sarah’s grit, though he still wished she’d do as he said and go out the back way.

  Out front, men began to dismount, leaving their horses untethered, and tromping, spurs jingling, up onto the wooden sidewalk.

  Three of them, the same men he’d seen riding in the lead, headed for the bank’s door.

  Wyatt stepped back to admit them. The .45 seemed to vibrate against his hip, the way the ground trembled when a herd was passing at a high run, but he didn’t draw. No cause for that—yet.

  The first galoot through the door was big as a mountain. Despite the heat, he wore a long coat, and every part of him, from the top of his hat to the worn boots on his feet, was covered in a fine layer of yellowish-red dust. Wyatt noticed immediately that he’d pushed the side of his coat back, so it caught behind his gun and holster.

  Wyatt’s nape tingled, but he stood with his arms folded, a slight but deliberately cordial smile curving at one side of his mouth. An experienced desperado himself, he figured the men would have worn bandannas over their faces if they intended mischief. On the other hand, though, word of Rowdy’s absence had probably gotten around that part of the territory. With the cat away, the mice were inclined to play….

  The big ma
n’s attention went straight to the star pinned to Wyatt’s vest, and his eyes, small and set deep in their grimy sockets, sparse lashes coated in dirt, widened a little. He glanced toward Sarah, his countenance seeming to droop a little.

  “Thought you was gone to Haven,” the giant told Wyatt, his tone moderately resentful.

  Two facts registered in Wyatt’s mind: the big man didn’t know Rowdy by sight, only reputation, and finding a lawman in the Stockman’s Bank put some kind of hitch in his get-along.

  “Would you like to make a deposit?” Sarah chimed sunnily.

  A muscle contracted, hard, in Wyatt’s jaw. It was no time for feminine chatter. While the situation looked ordinary on the outside, he knew in his gut it wasn’t.

  Two more of them crowded in behind the yahoo. Their eyeballs stood out starkly in their dirt-caked faces—they reminded Wyatt of coal miners, just coming up from underground, startled by daylight.

  “Where can a man get a drink around here?” the big man boomed, suddenly jovial.

  “You don’t want to make a deposit?” Sarah asked, sounding disappointed.

  Wyatt didn’t take his eyes off the trail bum. These men weren’t riding for a brand—they were on their own, and traveling in a bunch because, at the core of things, they were cowards. “Oh,” he answered drily, his arms still folded, “maybe in one of the three or four saloons you passed getting to the bank.”

  More men crammed themselves into the doorway, clogging it like hair in a drain. The big man put up a hand to stop the flow from the street.

  Wyatt was Yarbro-fast with a gun, but he was only one man, Sarah only one woman, shotgun at the ready or not. With a score of men in the street and stuffed into the doorway, they wouldn’t have a chance. But Wyatt could take out the first half-dozen comers with no problem, and the big fellow seemed to know that, if the others didn’t.

  “You have a name?” Wyatt asked easily, never taking his eyes off the stranger. Cowards, he knew, were especially dangerous.

  “Not one you need to know,” the other man blustered, offended.

  “I can always check the Wanted posters back at the office,” Wyatt said. If I chance to live that long. “If you gentlemen don’t have honest business in this establishment, I’d suggest you go elsewhere. I hear they don’t water down the whiskey—much—over at Jolene Bell’s place.”

  “What’s your name?” the big man demanded.

  “It’s one you do need to know—and remember. Wyatt Yarbro.”

  “Oh, I’ll remember, all right.”

  “If any of you have wages to draw on one of the big ranches,” Sarah put in, “we’ll be happy to cash the vouchers for you.”

  Wyatt willed her to shut up. It proved futile, however, as it usually did with women.

  “We offer one-percent interest on our savings accounts,” she prattled on.

  The big man looked flustered. Clearly, he’d come to make a withdrawal, not a deposit, and he didn’t give a rat’s behind about interest rates.

  “Stone Creek’s a friendly town,” Wyatt said affably, still sensing that he had an advantage in this situation, though he’d be damned if he knew what it was, since he was outnumbered and the menfolks hereabouts didn’t seem inclined to stick their heads out of their homes and businesses, let alone stand with him. “We do have an ordinance, though, in regard to firearms. Drop your pistols and rifles off right there on the counter and collect them at the jailhouse when you’re ready to ride out.”

  The big man blinked. “I never heard about no ordinance,” he protested.

  His cohorts were clustered in front of the window, peering in, and Wyatt thought he recognized one of them as Billy Justice’s younger brother, Carl, but he couldn’t be sure. Like the others, Carl resembled a dust statue, come to life.

  “I reckon there are a lot of things you haven’t heard about,” Wyatt responded. “The law is the law—” now, where had that come from? “—and if you won’t comply, I’ll have to arrest you.”

  “Look, we don’t want no trouble,” the big man said.

  “Hand over those firearms and you won’t have any,” Wyatt promised. What had turned these yahoos from their obvious intention to rob the Stockman’s Bank while Rowdy was away? Surely the Yarbro name, widely known in the West and even parts of the East as it was, hadn’t been enough to stop twenty armed men in their boot prints. Most likely, they’d counted on an easy morning’s work, with no one but an elderly banker, his daughter, and a clerk to impede them, and now that they’d encountered a single deputy marshal, they’d lost their gumption. If Pappy had decided to clean out the vault, he’d have taken care of business and ridden for the hills in half the time these would-be bandits had spent jawing and jamming up the doorway.

  Reluctantly, the big man drew his hog-shooter and stepped up to lay it on the counter. “All right then,” he said, signaling the others to do the same. “But I don’t like it.”

  “No ordinance says you have to like it,” Wyatt offered, letting out an inward breath in relief. He’d never been worried for his own safety, but he’d been plenty concerned about Sarah’s.

  She watched, clearly amazed, as man after man trooped in and surrendered his firearm. Within a minute or two, the counter top was piled high with six-guns, rifles, and even a Bowie knife or two.

  “Much obliged, fellas,” Wyatt said. Carl Justice was at the tag end of the line, and when he’d laid his ancient pistol on the counter, his gaze connected with Wyatt’s, then skittered away.

  As he turned to go, Wyatt caught him by the back of his canvas duster and held him fast.

  “We’ll have a word or two,” Wyatt told Carl.

  Carl’s Adam’s apple moved the length of his throat when he swallowed, but he didn’t try to walk away.

  “Phew!” Sarah said, when all the men but Carl had gone.

  Wyatt sliced a glance in her direction. He wondered if she still thought the big man and his gang had come in to put part of their wages by for their old age. “I’ll need something to carry those guns in,” he told her mildly.

  She nodded. “There’s a wheelbarrow over at the livery stable. I’ll borrow it.”

  A moment later, she was gone.

  Fine time to clear out. For such a smart woman, she sure was naive when it came to the intentions of others.

  “What are you doing here?” Wyatt demanded of Carl, getting him by the lapels of his coat as soon as Sarah passed the front window.

  Carl smirked, though his eyes said he was scared. “I could ask the same thing of you,” he countered. “Billy’s bound to kill you dead. He knows you were in with them vigilantes that jumped us down at Haven right after you run off. Me and Billy and Clyde and Jack, we got away, but Billy’s best friend Pete got lynched, right along with poor old Hannibal. Billy said their tongues hung out and turned black while they was chokin’.”

  “Where’s Billy now?” Wyatt asked coolly. He’d taken a careful look at the outlaws as they turned in their weapons, one by one, but there had been no familiar faces among them, save Carl’s.

  “You think I’m fixin’ to tell you that?” Carl scoffed. “After what you done to us?” He glanced at Wyatt’s star, and if he’d been a braver man, Carl probably would have spit in his face. He was yellow-bellied, though, which in this case was a prudent approach.

  Wyatt felt no need to defend leaving the Justice gang to look out for themselves. He took a tighter grip on the front of Carl’s filthy coat, which was stained with tobacco juice and spilled whiskey, among other things. “That big fella, the one who did all the talking. Who is he?”

  Carl tried to shrug off Wyatt’s hold on his duster, to no avail. “Hails to Paddy Paudeen. He was a strike-breaker, up in Wallace, Idaho, and other places, too, so you’d best not push him overmuch.”

  Wyatt made a mental note of the name. It wa
sn’t familiar, but it wouldn’t be hard to remember. “You were planning on holding up this bank.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Carl’s attempt at bravado was pitiable. “Nah. We was just lookin’ for a saloon, like Paddy said.”

  “You don’t know a bank from a whiskey joint? Damn, Carl, even you can’t be that stupid.”

  Carl gulped loudly. “No harm done. Can I go now?”

  Wyatt let him go with a flinging motion that made him stumble backwards a few steps. “If you happen to have any contact with your big brother Billy, tell him I’d like to see him.”

  “Ain’t seen him since we scattered to get away from them vigilantes,” Carl lied, edging toward the door.

  “If you send him a wire, say, I’ll know it, Carl.”

  “I cain’t send no telegram. Only got so much money in my pocket, and it’s goin’ for whiskey and a woman. And, anyways, I don’t know where he is.”

  Just then, Sarah appeared in the open doorway, pushing an empty wheelbarrow. Her cheeks were pink from the effort, her hair all flyaway and stuck to her cheeks and the sides of her neck from the heat.

  Wyatt’s gut clenched at the sight of her, like it had the very first time, when he’d walked into that revival tent down by the creek.

  Carl all but scrambled over the top of the wheelbarrow to get past her.

  “I thought at least one of them would be fiscally responsible,” she said.

  Wyatt laughed outright. He could have used a drink himself, right about then, but with Paddy Paudeen and his outfit in town, he didn’t have the option.

  “What,” she demanded, flushed again, “is so funny?”

  “You,” Wyatt said. He took the handles of the wheelbarrow from her, rolled it over to the counter, and started loading up guns, emptying each one of bullets and dropping these into the bottom of the barrow in a jumble.

  Vexed, Sarah stepped inside and shut the door, whispered as though there were folks outside with their ears against the walls. “There is no ordinance against the possession of firearms in Stone Creek,” she said.