The Lone Sheriff

The sheriff’s eyebrows did their little dance again.

“And a scoop of ice cream on top, please.”

The sheriff looked at her as if she had cotton bolls growing out her ears. “You don’t like rhubarb?” she asked.

“Love rhubarb. Just lost interest in the idea right now. We were talking about the train to Chicago.”

“You were talking. I was not.”

“Look, Mrs.—Cousin Madison—”

“Maddie,” she reminded.

“The Tucker gang’s not just dangerous, they’re mean. All five of them are escaped convicts, and they’re desperate.”

Her coffee cup paused midway to her mouth. “Do you know their identities?”

“Only one of them. Tucker. I saw the whole gang once, after they pistol-whipped a train engineer so bad he couldn’t see for a month. Saw their dust when they rode off, and counted five horses.”

“Did you recognize any of the horses?”

“Yep. All stolen from the Bevins ranch up north. Didn’t see the gang again until the next gold shipment was stolen.”

“Is that when your arm was injured?”

“Yeah. I was on the train, but just as I got to the mail car, one of them fired on me. Bullet caught my wrist.”

She fished her notepad and pencil out of her reticule. “And how long ago was that?”

“Eight days. Why all the questions if you’re leaving in the morning?”

“Sheriff Silver...Jericho.” She smashed her spoon into the scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of her piecrust. “The Smoke River bank manager hired me for a reason, Sheriff. I have a job to do and I intend to do it. The last thing—the very last thing—I am going to do tomorrow is leave.”

A forkful of rhubarb-stained ice cream disappeared past her lips.

Jericho sat back in his chair and stared at the woman across from him. What she was doing to her ice cream was exactly what he felt like doing as well, only not with a slab of pie.

“I don’t need you, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

“I am not leaving tomorrow,” she replied calmly. Her lips, he noticed, were colored rhubarb pink.

“Yeah, you are.”

“No,” she said calmly, “I am not. For one thing, with your arm in a sling you are not strong enough to force me onto the train. And for another, you do need me. I am a crack shot.”

She couldn’t be. She was full of baloney and a liar to boot. He had to get rid of her before she got all tangled up in something she didn’t know squat about and got herself hurt.

The thought sent a knife into his gut, a knife he’d thought long since forgotten.

“You realize I could have my deputy arrest you.”

She just grinned at him. “Your deputy is already swoony over me. He would never arrest me.”

Well, damn. He couldn’t let her stay. She could be dangerous to have around. He couldn’t shoot straight enough left-handed to protect himself, let alone protect her, too.

Somehow he had to scare her off.

“Listen, lady, I don’t know any way but blunt, so here it is. It’s no dice. You’ll get us both killed.”

“I would not. I would be an asset.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’d spend more time looking after you than catching up with Tucker. I can’t risk it.”

Her eyes flared into green fire. “You mean you won’t risk it. All outlaw chasing is risky and every Pinkerton agent accepts that. I did not take you for a coward, Sheriff.”

Jericho stared at her. She could sure talk a blue streak. Pretty convincing, too, with her chin jutted out like that and those ivy-colored eyes boring into him.

He massaged his chin. “You wouldn’t be a help, lady. You’d be a damn nuisance.”

She stabbed her fork into the center of her ice-cream-soaked pie. “Would you care to bet, Mr. High and Mighty? Within the next fifteen minutes, I will prove my worth to you. And when I do,” she added in a voice that could cut glass, “you can buy my breakfast tomorrow morning. Is it a deal?”

Hell’s bells, she made him so mad he couldn’t think straight. “If you’re finished mauling that pie, I’ll escort you to your hotel room.”

She laid her fork down with deliberate care. “I said, is it a deal?”

“Deal,” he bit out.

She scooped up the last mouthful of rhubarb-flavored ice cream and folded her napkin beside the plate. “Seeing me to the hotel won’t be necessary, Sheriff.”

“Don’t argue,” Jericho shot back. “We’re not in Chicago, ma’am. In this town at night it’s necessary.”

Once outside the dining room, she marched along beside him, talking a mile a minute while Jericho clenched his teeth.

“What a pretty little town this is.” She gestured across the street. “Just look at all those lovely green trees.”

He grunted. She might talk a lot, but again he noted her gaze was always moving, taking in everything from the street to the boardwalk to the storefronts.

Jericho only half listened to her chatter. “...in Philadelphia, where I was raised...and then Papa...I guess you could say that I ended up in a fancy cage with a rich, very dull banker. Just when I couldn’t stand it one more minute, he caught pneumonia on a sleigh ride and made me a widow.”

She paused for breath. “My goodness, what smells so sweet?”

“Honeysuckle. Along the boardinghouse fence.” He gestured with his sling arm, then winced.

“Do you think the owner would mind if I picked some for my room? What heaven, to smell that delicious fragrance all night long.”

“The owner is Mrs. Sarah Rose. Lost her husband at Antietam. She won’t mind, she picks it herself when somebody’s ailing or havin’ a baby.”

She stepped off the boardwalk and darted across the street to the white picket fence. From somewhere she pulled out a tiny pair of scissors. After a few delicate snips, she returned to his side clutching a straggly bouquet in her gloved hand.

“Oh, look, there’s the mercantile. I must visit the mercantile, and I must find a dressmaker, as well.”

Jericho groaned. A woman could spend hours in the mercantile choosing flower seeds or fabric or...whatever women bought. He followed the lady detective inside, where the proprietor, Carl Ness, slouched behind the counter reading a newspaper. At the sight of Maddie, he straightened up, ramrod stiff.

Jericho didn’t like the way Carl was staring at her, but Maddie seemed unperturbed. Her gaze scanned each shelf.

“Have you any scented bath soap?”

Carl sent Jericho a puzzled look. “What kinda scent?”

“This is Mrs. O’Donnell, Carl. She’s my...”

Maddie turned her attention to the proprietor. “Gardenia is my favorite. Have you any gardenia-scented soap?”

“Nope.”

“What about carnation?”

“Nope.”

She bit her lip. “Heliotrope? Rose?”

“All I got is lavender, ma’am. Take it or leave it.”

“I will take half a dozen cakes. Large ones.”

Jericho bit back a laugh. Half a dozen! She’d be the cleanest person in Smoke River.

Carl wrapped up her purchase in brown paper and tied it with string. “Anything else?”

The answer was immediate, and for a moment Jericho thought he hadn’t heard right.

“Yes. Three boxes of thirty-two-caliber cartridges.”

Carl stared at her, then turned his widened eyes on Jericho. “That all right with you, Sheriff?”

Hell, no, it wasn’t all right. Damned fool woman, what did she think she’d do with bullets, hold up the hold-up gang?

Maddie didn’t wait for his answer. “Double-wrap them, please. So they won’t get wet.”

“Wet?” Jericho exploded. “You gonna go swimming on your way back to Chicago, cousin?”

“Of course not. But it might rain while I—”

“Hold it!” Jericho had had enough for one night. “We’re goin’ back to the hotel. Now.”

“But what about the dressmaker?”

“What about her? Name’s Verena Forester and she opens up at eight o’clock every morning. Your train back to Chicago leaves at noon.”

Jericho smiled. Maddie practically spit sparks when she was mad. Before he knew it, she’d latched on to his good arm and drawn him off to one side.

“I absolutely must see the dressmaker,” she whispered. “Tonight, if possible. I am, well...out of...some things.”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I...um, I have no extrasmall clothes,” she intoned. She waited a beat. “You know, camisoles and bloomers and...things.”

He stonewalled.

“Lingerie,” she muttered.

He enjoyed baiting her. He also enjoyed imagining what her lingerie looked like. Silky, with lace? “How come you’ve got no underthings?” he asked blandly.

“My valise was lost when I changed trains in St. Louis. All I have with me is a very small travel case, and it carries only the minimum garments. So you see—”

“Tough.”

“Really, Sher—Cousin Jericho,” she murmured. “What would Aunt Bessie say about that?”

“Bad luck, I guess. Who’s Aunt Bessie?”

“My mother.”

Jericho almost laughed out loud. “Aunt Bessie would probably say ‘plan ahead.’” He looked up at the ceiling and noted the avid interest of the mercantile owner.

“Come on, let’s vamoose.” He pulled her toward the door.

“Hey,” Carl yelled. “What about my money?”

“Put it on my tab, Carl. Cousin Maddie always pays me back.”

Outside the heat had diminished, though the night air was still warm and soft. Jericho drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, looking up at the stars. Hell, he’d like a drink. Talking Mrs. O’Donnell out of something was like pushing a pig into a pillowcase. She was nosy and outspoken and attention-getting, and he’d be glad when she was gone.

In silence they started back to the hotel. Up ahead, Jericho spotted Lefty Dorran in the alley between the mercantile and the barber shop. Lefty was a big overgrown almost-man, and Jericho had arrested him twice this summer for assault. He caught the glint of metal and instinctively put Maddie on the other side of him.

Too late. Lefty had a sharp eye for a pretty woman, and even the fact that she was walking with the sheriff didn’t deter him. The kid burst out of the alley onto the sidewalk and sidled up to her.

Jericho tried to block him with his left shoulder, but Maddie stepped to one side and then faced the towering hulk with a perfectly serene expression on her face.

Lefty kept coming. Maddie neatly stepped into his path, pivoted on one foot and swept her other leg around behind him. Then she hooked the toe of her shoe around the back of his knees. The next thing Jericho saw was Lefty’s hulking body sprawled facedown in the street.

Maddie dusted off her white gloves and smiled up at him. “I told you I would prove you needed me. You owe me one breakfast. Eight o’clock sharp.”

All the way back to the hotel and up the stairs to Room 14, Jericho thought over what she had just done. Didn’t seem possible that a slim woman like Maddie had laid that big galoot out flat. Some kind of Oriental trick, maybe. Lord, the woman was downright dangerous.

At her hotel room door she slipped the key into the lock and turned to face him, her soft-looking mouth quirked up in a smile.

“It has been a most interesting evening, Sheriff. I would not have missed it for anything.”

“Sure wish I could say the same, ma’am.”

“Good night, Cousin Jericho. Do get some rest. You are looking quite peaked.”

Chapter Three

“Sheriff? Sheriff, wake up!”

Something joggled Jericho’s shoulder. “Go ’way,” he mumbled.

“Can’t, Sheriff. You gotta wake up.”

Jericho cracked open one eyelid to see his deputy standing over him. The kid better have a good reason for breaking into a damn good dream.

“Why do I?”

“Sorry, Sheriff. Maybe you forgot you’re s’posed to meet that detective lady for breakfast?”

Jericho shot upright and instantly regretted it. His temples pounded and he snapped his lids closed against the bright light. “You sure?”

“Eight o’clock, Sheriff. Least that’s what you said last night. But that was before—”

“Yeah? Before what?” The kid’s face seemed kinda out of focus.

Sandy studied his boots. “Uh, before you polished off that bottle of whiskey.”

Jupiter, now he remembered. Sort of. His head throbbed and his mouth felt as dry as an empty well. And his stomach—

He’d think about his stomach later. He dragged himself off the cot and pulled on jeans and a clean shirt. He’d skip shaving; he couldn’t really focus on anything, much less see his face in the mirror. Besides, it was hell to shave left-handed.

“She sure is pretty.”

“Who?”

“Miss O’Donnell. Sheriff, didn’t cha even notice?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, son. It’s Mrs. O’Donnell. And she’s leaving on the noon train.”

Sunshine poured through the front windows of the restaurant like the eye-stabbing beam of a lighthouse. God help him, he could barely see through his slitted lids.

He spotted Mrs. Detective perched primly at the corner table, spooning sugar into her coffee.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

He winced. Did she have to sound so cheerful?

“Mmm-hmm,” he grumbled. He took the chair across from her, facing away from the glare. Rita appeared at his elbow.

“Coffee,” he managed.

Maddie looked up. “I will have three eggs over easy, bacon cooked very crisp, fried potatoes and some ketchup, please.”

Jericho’s stomach heaved at the description. “Just coffee, Rita,” he repeated. “And could you please bring it in the next sixty seconds?”

The plump waitress must have sensed his desperation because an entire pot immediately appeared before him, along with an oversize mug.

Jericho eyed Mrs. Detective through the steam rising from his cup. There was something annoying about a woman who looked this trim and tidy at breakfast. And this pretty. She sent him a wide smile and, without thinking, he nodded.

Big mistake. Any motion made his vision blurry and his head... He groaned. His head felt like a railroad crew was laying track between his temples.

She pulled out her notepad and pencil and plopped them onto the tablecloth beside her. “Well, Sheriff, would you care to hear my observations thus far?”

Jericho blinked. “Observations? You mean what you’ve learned so far about the Tucker gang?”

“Oh, no. I mean in general. It’s always wise to gather background information, don’t you agree?”

He gulped down another mouthful of the scalding coffee. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

She flipped open the small leather-covered book. “First, your deputy—Sandy, is it?—is too sensitive to be much help on this mission.”

Too sensitive? Exactly what did that mean? Did she think he was going to feel sorry for the outlaws? He gripped the coffee pot handle in a stranglehold and refilled his mug.

“Second, Mr. Ness, at the mercantile, does not like you.”

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Carl doesn’t like anybody much. Even his wife.”

“Has there been trouble in the past between you and Mr. Ness?”

“Yeah. Small stuff, mostly. He sold me a sack of moldy potatoes once, and I confiscated a shipment of some Chinese herb he ordered because it was half opium.”

Mrs. Detective nodded and went on. “Third, the hotel manager is cheating the Mexican couple who brought up my morning bath. Fourth—” She broke off and looked him over so thoroughly he wondered if his hair had gone curly overnight.

“You look awful, Sheriff.”

“Didn’t sleep much.” And he’d drunk more last night than he had in a dozen years.

“It appears to me you are not yet awake.”

Jericho snorted. He was awake enough to notice she smelled good, like lavender. “Is that your fifth observation?”

“My fourth, actually. My fifth observation is that there won’t be another Wells Fargo gold shipment until Tuesday.”

“Tuesday,” he repeated. He already knew that, but he was impressed that she’d talked to the bank manager already this morning. He wondered if she’d also visited the dressmaker.

That thought led to a consideration of her underclothes. Were they brand spanking new? Or maybe she wasn’t wearing any? Don’t go there, you damn fool.

“Yes, Tuesday,” she said. “That is tomorrow.”

Thank goodness, the coffee was kicking in. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Mrs. O’Donnell. You’ll be on the train going the other direction. Back to Chicago.”

And then he could get back to the plan he’d already laid out.

“I most certainly will not be.” She twiddled her fork until Rita laid a plate heaped with food in front of her. The smell of cooked bacon replaced the lavender fragrance and Jericho began to feel nauseated. He poured another mug full of coffee.

“I’ve got good reasons for sending you back, Mrs. O’Donnell. Care to hear ’em?”

“Certainly,” she retorted. She grasped a thick slice of bacon between a delicate thumb and forefinger and crunched it up in two mouthfuls.

Jericho tried not to watch. “First, you’re a woman. And being female and pretty fine-looking, that means you’re gonna draw attention wherever you go.”

“Pish-posh.” She stabbed her fork into the yolk of one fried egg. “I know how to disguise myself.”

Jericho had to look away from her plate. He’d sure like to see a disguise that would cover those curves. Even wearing a feed sack, she’d still look awful damned attractive.

“Second, you’re a woman. That means you’re not as strong as either me or my deputy, no matter what kind of fancy Chinese wrestling you can do.”

“Japanese. Judo is a Japanese art.” She stuffed a forkful of fried potatoes into her mouth.

“Third...” Jericho held up three fingers on his left hand—at least he hoped it was three. “You’re a woman, like I said, and that means you don’t think logically. Also you jump to conclusions.”

Her fork clanked onto her plate. “You are either misinformed about the capabilities of the female members of the species or you are just plain prejudiced.”

“I’m prejudiced,” he growled. “Fourth, I’m the sheriff here, not you. And on top of everything else, you don’t take orders well.”

An odd expression flared in her green eyes and Jericho unconsciously held his breath. After a tense silence, she folded her hands in her lap and her lips opened. “I have been told that over and over since I was three years old, and it is true. I do not take orders well. But I do take orders, provided they make sense and are halfway reasonable. However, I warn you those are big ifs.”

Jericho pressed on. “Fifth, you talk too damn much.”

She looked up from her breakfast, her eyes wide. “What?”

“I don’t talk much,” he offered. “I’ve got to ride the train to Portland to intercept the gang, and that train takes six hours. I don’t guess I could stand more’n about an hour of your note-taking and observations and jabber.”

Her face turned crimson. “Jabber! Why you arrogant, pigheaded, incapacitated, sorry excuse for a lawman. What makes you think I could stand an hour of your moody, bad-tempered silence?”

He delivered his final shot slowly, making every syllable count. “Let’s face it, Mrs. O’Donnell, we’re mismatched. The bottom line is we’re not about to partner up, and I’ll make it plain why not.” He made his voice as growly as possible. “You’re too much trouble.”

He could scarcely believe what he saw next. Huge, glittery tears rose in her eyes and hung trembling on her lower lashes.

“I do not care one whit if we are mismatched,” she said in a carefully controlled voice. “I am a professional detective. I have accepted an assignment. And I will follow through on it or I will die trying.”

Calmly she forked a bite of fried potato into her mouth.

Jericho seethed inside while she chewed and swallowed, her eyes still shiny with moisture. Good God, he could take a woman’s sobbing, even screaming, but tears that didn’t go anywhere, that just sat there like diamonds on her dark lashes, tore him up inside.

“Okay. Okay, Mrs. O’Donnell. You win.”

Her head snapped up and she glared at him.

“Madison,” she amended. “My given name is Madison but I prefer Maddie.”

More glaring. Hell’s half acre, now her eyes looked like chips of green ice.

“Okay, okay.” He wrapped her nickname around his tongue. “Maddie.”

She looked into his face for a long moment, and when she opened her mouth to let words fall out, her voice was so quiet it was like snow drifting onto a meadow.

“Damn right,” she said.

Jericho clenched his jaw. She had guts, he’d say that for her. She had other things, too, but he was trying like the devil not to notice.

He dragged his attention away from her soft-looking mouth. “Tomorrow’s train to Portland, with the gold shipment aboard, leaves at eight o’clock sharp. In the morning,” he said with emphasis.

“Thank you, Jericho.” She tried a thin smile, but it wavered out of her control. “I will be aboard.”

Chapter Four

At ten o’clock that night, Jericho crawled into his bed cold sober. He’d be up and bushy-tailed at dawn, and by seven o’clock he’d be on the train to Portland with forty thousand dollars in gold from Wells Fargo stashed in the mail car. Miners from all over Oregon and even Idaho brought their diggings to the Smoke River Bank, trusting they would safely ship it to the vault in Portland. And Jericho would be on board that train to make sure their diggings stayed safe.

Alone.

He hated to lie. It was one of the things he’d sworn he’d never do. Lying made him less of the man he’d wanted to be ever since he was twelve years old and on the run from the Sisters of Hope. Back then, he’d resolved he would always face up to the truth.

He lay on his narrow cot behind the sheriff’s office and tried not to flinch at the deception he’d laid for Mrs. Detective, telling her the train departed at eight o’clock when it actually departed at seven. First, he’d stopped in at the hotel and found that Mrs. O’Donnell had left a wake-up reminder at the desk. He’d suspected as much; she was the type who planned all her moves ahead. In exchange for agreeing not to arrest the hotel manager’s seventeen-year-old son for peeking in sixteen-year-old Lavonne Cargill’s bedroom window, the manager obligingly tore up Mrs. O’Donnell’s wake-up reminder note.

Next. He’d visited the mercantile for some painkiller. A skinny kid he’d never seen before lounged against the cash register, studying Jericho’s sling. “For yer arm, huh?”

“Yeah. Not too much laudanum—makes me drowsy. Where’s Mr. Ness?”

“Home, I guess. I’m his cousin from Idaho. Name’s Orion.”

Jericho nodded. He didn’t look much like Carl. “Been here long?”

“’Bout two weeks. Stopped here on my way to strike it rich.”

“Gold mining?”

“Nah. Selling Red Eye to the miners up in Idaho.” He scrabbled on the shelf behind the counter and produced a small bottle of dark liquid. “This stuff is mostly alcohol. How much of it do you want?”

“All of it.” He needed to start exercising his stiff wrist and limbering up his gun hand, and he knew it would hurt some.

The kid wrapped up the bottle and Jericho stuffed it into the inside pocket of his deerskin vest. Funny the way Orion handled the bottle—with his pinkie in the air like a lady lifting a teacup.

The last thing Jericho did before crawling onto his cot that night was slip off his sling and stretch his arm out straight. Made his wrist hurt like hell, but he managed eight stretches in a row.

* * *

Before first light, he rolled off the cot, downed a cup of Sandy’s gritty, cold coffee, and grabbed his gun belt. His deputy slept in the concrete-block jail in whatever cell was vacant. Jericho felt fine leaving the kid in charge; the jail was empty.

On his way to the train station he studied the second-floor windows of the hotel; dark as the inside of a barrel. He felt a stab of guilt, but he squashed it down and smiled instead. Mrs. Detective would sleep right on past train time. Kinda mean to trick her, but he knew he couldn’t tolerate sitting next to her for six hours.