That was when the brilliance of the idea came to him. Sloan's smile took on a sinister aspect as he regarded her rifle thoughtfully. "Want to bet?" he asked casually.
That stopped her in her tracks. She looked at him as if he were crazed. Perhaps he was. But Sloan had gotten where he was by knowing how to manipulate people and situations. He knew damned well he'd have a war on his hands if he tried a physical show of strength against these women. Perhaps there was a better way.
She watched him warily. "What are you talking about?"
He gave her rifle a meaningful look. "You don't want a battle over this any more than I do. Someone might get hurt. So let's settle this like men, just between us."
Mrs. Neely gave an irate hiss. "Mr. Talbott! Samantha is a young lady. It's unfortunate that she dresses as she does—"
Sloan cut her off with the wave of his hand, keeping an eye on Sam. "How good are you with that thing?" His nod indicated the weapon in her hands. He recognized the make. An old Sharps—it was known for its deadly accuracy, but the single-shot action and primer cartridges had seen their day.
As she caught the drift of his thoughts, Sam began to smile. "Damned good, Mr. Talbott. Are you ready to get beat by a woman?"
"The idea of even competing with a woman is reprehensible enough, Miss Neely, but if that is the only way I can get you peacefully out of my town, I'll do it." He hated taking advantage of a woman, but it was for their own damn good that he did this. With malice aforethought, he added, "I'll have Joe set up the targets. The first to knock them all down is the winner. I win, you leave town tomorrow. You win, you can stay the winter."
"Oh, how very generous of you," Samantha snarled. "The whole entire winter. I'm overwhelmed." When he scowled at her sarcasm, she suddenly smiled. "Obviously my reputation precedes me, and you fear losing, so you're hedging the bet. Well, I'll excuse you this time. By spring my father will have returned, and we'll prove that this place is ours. I can afford to be magnanimous."
The sudden spread of that wide smile left Sloan momentarily paralyzed, but her words jolted him into speech quickly enough. He gave her a look of disgust, then started down the stairs to the street. "Remember that when you're climbing back in that wagon in the morning," he called over his shoulder.
Samantha smiled serenely as he strode across the muddy plaza. The promised snow hadn't come, and the sun today took the chill from the air. It was a perfect day for hog killing.
"Sam, do you know what you're doing?" Mrs. Neely inquired anxiously behind her. "You don't know anything about this man. What if he cheats? You've given our word we'll leave. Where will we go?"
Samantha smoothed the long bore of her rifle. "Don't worry, Mama. Sloan Talbott is too arrogant to lower himself to cheating, but he'll take every advantage he can. Arrogance doesn't pay in the long run. It leads to underestimating one's opponents."
Still smiling, she returned to the house to clean her weapon and find her ammunition pouch.
By the time Injun Joe had the duplicate targets set up on the edge of town, word of the challenge had spread rapidly. Men came riding in from the hills to watch the show. Doc Ramsey found himself a ringside seat and declared himself judge. Even Chief Coyote took an interest, positioning himself on an empty whiskey barrel beside the splintered trunk of a dead pine. A crowd had begun to form before either of the participants made an appearance.
Samantha tried to persuade her mother and sisters to stay behind, away from the unruly crowd of men, but they refused. She knew better than to argue with her mother. The twins pulled on matching poke bonnets that successfully concealed most of their faces. Their long woolen shawls might hide their figures with some degree of success, but Sam didn't think that mattered any to those women-hungry men out there. She gave a sigh of exasperation and prayed she wouldn't have another battle on her hands before she could end this one with Talbott.
But her mother's dignified carriage and the modest appearance of the twins served to keep the crowd respectful when they appeared. Amos Donner acted as escort for Mrs. Neely, giving her his arm to lean on. Sam kept a lookout for Jack, but he'd disappeared earlier that morning. She didn't think he would miss this spectacle, but she wanted to make certain he didn't have any of his little "surprises" in store for her.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she found him talking with a group of the idlers from the saloon. She wished there were other boys his age around here so he didn't have to hang around with that crowd, but at least he was where she could keep an eye on him. Her relief lasted long enough to see an exchange of money. He was taking bets on the outcome of this shoot-out.
Tapping her mother's arm and nodding in Jack's direction, Samantha left her to deal with the rascal. She had better things to do.
She found Sloan leaning nonchalantly against a fence rail, his rifle laid to one side as if of little importance while he gossiped with his companions. He was taller than any man here, and the blinding white of his shirt front emphasized his dissimilarity from his workers. Wearing clothes that needed professional laundering was just one of the ways he displayed his arrogance, Samantha noted with irritation. Leaving that magnificent rifle lying about as if it were nothing was another.
She felt her stomach grip uncomfortably as she took careful note of his weapon. Among his many interests, her father counted weaponry one of the more fascinating. He avidly kept up with all the latest developments and corresponded regularly with men like Smith and Wesson and lesser known inventors like himself. At one time or another he'd possessed prototypes of almost every gun on the market. Samantha recognized this one all too well. Her father had declared it one of the best he'd ever seen: a Henry repeating rifle.
Well, she'd known Talbott would take advantage where he could. She wished she had her father's Spencer, but wishing wouldn't get her out of this predicament. Only quick thinking and good shooting would.
She ambled up to the men at the fence rail as if she hadn't a worry in the world. Nodding to a few of the familiar faces, she turned directly to Talbott and indicated the targets with a gesture. "Either you haven't got much confidence in your abilities, or you're planning on making this easy for me, aren't you?"
She hit Sloan right between the eyes with that one, she could tell. Another man might have turned purple with the insult, but she had to give Talbott credit for control. His eyes merely narrowed a fraction, and his jaw muscle contracted as he regarded her as if she were a particularly venomous insect.
"By all means, Miss Neely, have Joe adjust the targets to your specifications. Never let it be said that I denied a lady."
She was conscious of all eyes upon her and did no more than nod agreement. She'd got what she wanted. There was no sense in antagonizing the man completely. Some men might get reckless when angry. She suspected this man would only get even.
Joe looked surprised and started to protest when Samantha directed the targets be moved back another hundred feet. But one look at her face and his employer's stifled that notion. Grudgingly, he hauled the wooden crates farther from the crowd. Someone else carried the bottles that would be the targets.
As Joe set the last bottle on the last crate, the crowd grew quiet. Samantha was conscious of her family standing near Doc Ramsey and Donner. Those were her allies, the ones who counted on her to win today. She couldn't afford to lose. They had nowhere else on earth to go.
If she had other supporters in the crowd, she couldn't tell. All these men worked for Talbott some way or another. They couldn't openly defy him. But she suspected most of them had an interest in keeping the women around town. They wouldn't be men if they didn't. She wondered what that made Talbott.
A mechanical man, she decided, as her antagonist approached from the right. Talbott’s face could have been molded from steel. He moved with the grace and precision of fine machinery. Lord, if she didn't know better, she'd say her father had invented this mechanical man to specifications guaranteed to tempt any woman alive. Broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips
and long, powerful legs. Beneath that fancy coat she knew he had muscles that rippled with strength. She suspected if she aimed a bullet through his chest it would pass right through without making any contact with his nonexistent heart.
She just prayed that Talbott didn't shoot like a mechanical man. Her only advantage was in the range and accuracy of her old Sharps rifle, and the fact that her father had adapted it to take the new metallic cartridges. Talbott wouldn't know about that. He would be thinking she'd have to prime the gun after every shot, taking seconds off her time. The bastard. Even with her little surprise, she couldn't beat the quickness of a repeating rifle. She'd just have to win on her greater accuracy—unless, of course, he was a better shot.
Feeling nervousness finally stealing over her insides, Samantha held out her hand to her opponent. "May the better woman win," she said without a smile.
Gravely, he took her hand, and she felt a shiver go up her arm at the touch. She saw a flicker of something, surprise perhaps, behind Talbott's eyes as if he felt it, too, but then his expression was as blank as before. He dropped her hand and made a polite bow. "Ramsey will give the starting signal."
At the crack of the judge's whip, both competitors began firing. Samantha ignored her opponent, concentrating on felling a target with every shot. With the need to reload everytime, she couldn't afford to miss even one. But she seldom ever did. She was placing her money on Talbott missing. It was her only hope.
She could hear the shrill screams of the twins over the explosion of cheers from the rest of the crowd as she took out the third bottle in a row. Maybe it would be better to take her sisters out of this place and back to civilization. Maybe she was doing the wrong thing by keeping them here. But it was too late to consider any alternatives now. She was primed to win. She had to win. She had to shake the conceit out of the man beside her, make him stand up and take notice.
He was calmly emptying his repeating rifle. He had eight shots before he had to reload. There were eight targets. He'd done that on purpose, the arrogant bastard. Samantha jammed a new cartridge in her weapon, knocked down the fourth bottle, and loaded again. She was quick, and she was good. She knew that for a fact. She just didn't know how good Talbott was.
She heard a roar from the crowd, but couldn't take the time to see what it was about. Talbott was still firing, so he hadn't won yet. He must have missed a bottle. She splintered the fifth bottle. Three more to go.
Beside her, Talbott stopped to reload, and Sam's heart began to sing. He'd missed! He'd missed a target! She jammed another cartridge into the breech, fired, repeated, and took out the sixth and seventh bottles. One more to go. She loaded again just as Talbott lifted his rifle beside her to take his final target.
The crowd shrieked and yelled and jumped up and down as both bottles shattered at the same time. All the targets were down. Gritting her teeth at this defeat, Sam reloaded her rifle. Gun smoke drifted across the field when she finally turned to the man lowering his fancy repeating weapon.
He just looked down at her for a minute. She thought maybe he saw her heart pounding against her chest. He was so damned tall, even taller than she, and not many men could claim that. He was broad and hard and could probably break her in half if he tried. He looked like he would like to try. But he was dressed in the formal garb of a gentleman, and she prayed he would behave like one.
"You are very good, Miss Neely." The voice rumbled grudgingly up from his chest.
She was terrified he would suggest another match. Her father had given her the modified Sharp when he'd grown dissatisfied with the cartridges occasionally jamming instead of expelling. It didn't make much difference when hunting, but if the gun barrel got heated, the problem developed more frequently. Her gun barrel was heated now.
Sam said nothing that would antagonize Talbott. She was too terrified to say anything at all.
He seemed to accept her silence as reply enough. He removed the rifle from her hands and examined the modification that had allowed her to fire so much more quickly than he had expected. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Your father's invention, I suppose?"
Sam nodded. Carefully, she glanced at his rifle. "He kept the Spencer for himself. Personally, I think the Winchester is going to be a better rifle now that they've got the kinks worked out of the ammunition."
For just a moment a smile hovered around the corners of Talbott's mouth. It disappeared instantly, but there was no anger in his voice when he replied, only a certain degree of respect. "Your father should have stayed back East to aid in that quest. A rifle that shoots fifteen rounds is a formidable weapon. I think we've reached a draw, Miss Neely."
Verbally as well as physically, Sam thought. He knew as much about rifles as she did. She nodded and became aware that the crowd had grown silent, waiting.
As if realizing this, Talbott raised his voice so it could be heard easily. "I'll concede defeat when a woman can match me to a draw. You and your family are free to stay the winter, Miss Neely, but I beg you to reconsider. This is not the kind of place where you'll be comfortable."
She wanted to kick him in the shins for the insult to her gender, while the crowd roared its approval of his decision. But she managed a syrupy smile as she answered, "Oh, we'll be comfortable, Mr. Talbott. You're the one who will squirm before it's over."
His look as she walked away wasn't a pleasant one.
Chapter Eight
From her window on the east end of the house, Samantha could see the majestic rise of the mountains they had crossed to reach this place. In the weeks since they had been here, she'd heard all sorts of stories about the treacheries and magnificence of those mountains. Even if only half the stories were true, they were worth exploring. She wanted to see the giant trees and the waterfalls that practically fell from the heavens. But most of all, she wanted to see her valley.
None of the men seemed to know about the valley her father had described, the valley to which she held title. Her father had said it had running water even in summer, that the grass was greener than Tennessee, and the weather perfect for every kind of crop. Of course, he had recommended horses and grain, but Sam had heard they grew grapes and peaches farther down the mountain in the flatlands below. She wondered if her valley would support fruit.
Not if it was much farther up than where she stood now, she decided as she watched the clouds covering the peaks. It was snowing up there. Besides apples, she couldn't think of too many fruits she could grow in snow.
It had always been her dream to have a farm of her own. Left to herself, she would need only a one-room cabin, but she wanted a huge barn, one large enough to house any variety of animal. She could support herself easily once she had that. She'd been saving her money for as long as she could remember. She had enough to make a good start.
But the dream didn't seem as clear as she remembered. She had always imagined herself alone in that cabin, but she shied away from that thought lately. She'd always known her sisters would grow up and get married and her mother would follow her father, so alone was the only way she could be. But she wasn't at all sure that was what she wanted any longer.
She didn't think about it too much. She knew the valley was out there somewhere, waiting for her. She would find it one of these days. Right now, too many other things needed doing. She certainly didn't have time to consider who might share a valley with her.
With the use of some of Emmanuel Neely's tools, Donner had built a washstand for Samantha's bedroom, and she admired his handiwork as she bent over it to splash her face. Donner might be a lousy miner, but he had a natural talent with wood. This stand wasn’t the expensive mahogany of her mother's stand, but he'd made the knotty pine shine just as handsomely. If this had been a civilized town, he could make a living at woodworking.
She heard a door slam as Jack erupted into the house. Her cousin never calmly walked. He ran, leapt, jumped, and occasionally, erupted. Just exploded all over the place. She wondered what had caused his excitement this time.
She wandered into the hall just in time to hear his words carry from the front parlor.
"There's a wagon train coming over the pass! Bradshaw saw it. Says they're up to their ears in snow already and they'll never make it. He says we ought to send out a rescue party."
"And what does Mr. Talbott have to say about that?"
Samantha entered the parlor in time to hear her mother's inquiry. She could have answered it without Jack's help. She trusted her cousin wouldn't repeat the language Sloan Talbott no doubt had used.
Talbott had pretty much stayed out of their way these last few weeks. He'd taken some of his quicksilver and cattle down the mountain to sell, so he hadn't even been around much of the time. And when he was here, he stayed over at the hotel. Still, she always knew when he stood on that gallery, smoking his cheroots. She could feel his gaze bore holes through her no matter where she went.
"Talbott said if anybody went out there, they'd have to lead the train down the mountain instead of back here. He said anybody fool enough to cross the mountains this late was too stupid to be of any use here."
Samantha laughed silently at Sloan's assessment of the wagon train's inhabitants. He probably wasn't too far wrong. She hadn't been overly impressed by the caliber of some of the people with whom they had traveled. But there would be women in those wagons—and children. It would be good to have someone besides men around.
She reached for her boots and began pulling them on. Alice Neely gave her a hard look.
"Where do you think you're going, Samantha Susan?"
She jerked the knee-high leather on. "Out to find us some new neighbors. Is Doc Ramsey going with the rescue party, Jack?"
Jack made a scornful grimace. "Nah, he's in his cups again. But you'd better hurry if you're goin'. Bradshaw and the others about have their mules ready."
"Go find some snowshoes for me, then. I can be over there in a few minutes." Sam pulled down the rabbit coat she'd made for herself last winter. It shed like heck, but it was warmer than the thin wool mantles her sisters wore.
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