The Lone Sheriff

And, he admitted, there was more to it than that. He couldn’t stand to see a woman get hurt, especially not one he felt responsible for. The Tucker gang could be vicious.

The train was already puffing smoke out the stack as he swung himself aboard and entered the passenger car.

What the—

Maddie O’Donnell sat in the first seat, smiling at him like a self-satisfied fox with a chicken in its belly.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She patted the faded red velvet cushion next to her with a gloved hand. “We settled all that yesterday, Sheriff. There is no need to go through it again.”

He couldn’t help staring at her. She wore a different hat, yellow ribbons with flowers and a veil rucked up on top. A crisp yellow ruffled skirt boiled around her ankles and a lacy yellow shirtwaist was tucked into as trim a waist as he’d ever seen. She looked like one of those daffodils that poked up each spring in the orphanage garden.

Her outfit looked brand-new. He wondered if her underclothes were new as well. He forced his gaze away.

The train lurched forward and Jericho grabbed onto the upholstered seat back. Maddie swept her skirt aside to make room for the sheriff beside her. He did not sit down for the longest time, just stood swaying in the aisle, staring at her. What on earth was he looking at? Oh, of course—her new hat. True, it was too gaudy, but it added to her disguise. Besides, once Mrs. Forester, the dressmaker, had warmed to the idea of the flowers, it was hard to stop her. The woman had grumbled at being roused at such an early hour, but Maddie had purchased enough clothing to make it well worth her while.

Carefully, she unpinned the creation, ripped off all but three daisies, and resettled it atop her pinned-up hair. She secured it with her longest hatpin; it was also the sharpest of her collection. In a pinch, it made an effective weapon.

“Why do you not sit down, Sheriff? I promise not to talk.”

He frowned down at her. “Don’t want to muss up your skirt, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

“You won’t. It’s made of seersucker. Wonderful fabric for traveling on an assignment—it never wrinkles, no matter what I do.”

The train picked up speed and swung around a sharp curve, and the sheriff edged onto the seat as far away from her as he could get.

Maddie huffed out a breath. “You do not like me much, do you?”

His eyes—a dark, inky blue—flicked to hers for an instant, then dropped to the boots he’d stretched out and crossed in front of him. “Not much, no.”

She pursed her lips. “Tell me something, Sheriff.”

He did not answer.

“Why are you so unfriendly?”

The sheriff gave an almost imperceptible jerk, and then he turned those eyes on her. Now they looked angry. Almost feral.

After a long silence he started talking, his voice so low she could hardly hear him. “Don’t really like most people.”

“But whyever not? What has happened to make you so...well, surly?”

“I watched a friend die in my place,” he gritted. “After that, I didn’t like being close to anyone.”

Maddie blinked. “Who was he?”

He looked past her, out the train window, and she watched his gaze grow unfocused.

“She.”

“She? Your...?” Maddie hesitated. He was so rough around the edges she doubted he’d ever been married. A lover, perhaps? She was keen to know, but it would be highly improper to ask. She said nothing, just noted the tightness around his mouth.

“She, uh, died for something I did.”

“Why, that is perfectly awful! How old were you then?”

He shrugged. “’Bout ten, I guess. I never knew for sure what my age was.”

Maddie’s throat felt so raw she could scarcely speak. She closed her eyes. How he must have hated himself. She would not be surprised if he still did. She shut her mouth tight. What could she say to ease a scar like that? Nothing.

He recrossed his legs. “Heard enough?”

“More than enough,” she breathed. It explained everything, his brusque manner, his hard exterior, the unreachable part of himself he kept shuttered.

He slipped the sling off his arm, flexed his wrist, and waggled each of his fingers individually. Some of them, she noticed, seemed reluctant to move.

“Does that hurt?”

“Hell, yes, it hurts.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m gonna need a steady gun hand and a trigger finger that works, that’s why.”

Go ahead, she thought. Grumble and roar all you want. She was not going to let herself be intimidated by him.

He said nothing for the next hour, just worked his wrist and his fingers back and forth, his lips thinned over his teeth. Perspiration stood out on the part of his forehead she could see; his black hair straggled over the rest.

The uniformed conductor stuck his head into the car. “Next stop Riverton,” he yelled.

Two passengers boarded, an old man, bent nearly double and a young woman, probably his daughter, who held on to one of his scrawny arms. She settled him four seats behind.

The sheriff gave them a quick once-over, then reattached his sling and pulled a small bottle from inside his vest.

“Pain medicine,” he said to no one in particular.

“What you drink is your business, Sheriff.”

He gave her a long, unblinking look. “Damn right.”

Maddie laughed out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Jericho swigged a mouthful from the bottle, corked it and stowed it in his vest pocket.

“Now, Mrs. O’Donnell, What about you?”

“Me! What about me?”

The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “What happened to you that makes you so sure of yourself and so stubborn?”

“N-nothing. It just comes naturally. My upbringing, I suppose.”

“Ladyfied and spoiled, I’d guess.”

Maddie bit her lip. “Well, let’s just say rich and protected. Actually, overprotected. My mother was English, very high society. My father was Irish and very well-off. A banker.”

“Figures,” Jericho muttered.

“I married young to get away from them, really. He was also a banker. After a while—a very short while—I realized my husband was only interested in my money and he only wanted a wife for a showpiece. So I became just that—a china doll with pretty dresses. It didn’t take long before I wanted a real life.”

He snorted. “What the hell is a ‘real life’?”

She thought for a long minute. “I am not sure exactly. Someone who loves me for myself. Real friends, not society matrons. At least I know what it is not—finishing schools and servants and a closet full of expensive clothes.”

He took care not to look at her, staring again out the window at the passing wheat fields. “Seems to me, Mrs. O’Donnell, that you’re gonna feel kinda lost out here in the West. Ought to be back in the big city, where you belong.”

She turned toward him. “I suppose I do feel lost, in a way. The West is so...well, big. Things—towns—are so far apart.”

“Yeah, that spooks a lot of Easterners.”

“But I do not feel lost when I am on an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton. Then I know exactly who I am. It makes me feel...worthwhile.”

She pulled a ball of pink cotton thread from her travel bag and began to crochet. Her fingers shook the tiniest bit.

Jericho leaned back and closed his eyes. Nothing more worth saying, or asking, he figured. He must have dozed for hours and suddenly the train screeched to a stop. A glance through the window told him they were not in a train station; they were out in the middle of nowhere.

Hell’s bells, here it came.

Left-handed, Jericho dragged his Colt out of the holster, thumbed back the hammer and started for the mail car. A swish of petticoats at his heels told him Maddie was right behind him.

“Stay here,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Try and make me!”

Damn fool woman. She’d get herself killed and he’d kick himself to hell and back. He wished he’d never laid eyes on her.

In the mail car, the white-faced clerk stood frozen, hands in the air, while a man with a bandanna covering the lower half of his face held a revolver on him with one hand and, with the other, hurled a canvas Wells Fargo bag through the open side door.

Maddie darted off to Jericho’s right, clutching a revolver.

“Get down!” he shouted. The young mail clerk dropped to the floor but Maddie went into a crouch and leveled her weapon at the robber.

“Hands up!” Her ordinarily genteel voice cut like cold steel.

The man straightened in surprise, then turned his gun toward the voice. Jericho sent a bullet zinging off the silver handle and the gun skidded across the floor in front of Maddie. She stopped it with her small black shoe and kicked it into a corner.

Three men on horseback waited outside the car. Maddie swung her pistol toward the opening and fired, winging one man. Another outlaw pointed his weapon at her but Jericho’s shot spun it out of his hand.

The mounted robbers began peppering the wall behind them with gunfire while the man inside ducked and began shoving more canvas bags out onto the ground.

A tall rider with a paunch walked his horse up to the car and took careful aim at Jericho, but before he could squeeze the trigger Maddie fired a shot that neatly spun his weapon out of his hand. Where had she learned to shoot like that?

Fat Man reined away. Maddie sent another bullet through his flapping black coattail.

The man inside skedaddled after the canvas bags, shoved one more off the car and then tumbled out onto the ground after it. He dove under his waiting horse. Jericho itched to shoot him, but with his left-handed aim off, he figured he’d kill the horse before he nailed the outlaw.

The three others hefted the canvas sacks behind their saddles, mounted and thundered off in a cloud of gray dust. The last man scrambled onto his horse and pounded after them.

Jericho raised his revolver to pick him off, but he was out of range.

Maddie put a shot through his hat, but he twisted in the saddle and fired back at her. She yelped.

The bullet tore through the sleeve of her shirtwaist, burning a path above her elbow. It felt like something scraping her skin with a white-hot knife.

Then there was nothing but dust, the audible prayers of the crouching mail clerk, the chuff of the train engine, and Jericho yelling at her.

“Dammit, Maddie, you’d think you’d be smart enough to stay out of the line of fire!” He leaped over the clerk and grabbed her arm. Right where it hurt.

She gritted her teeth. “If you do not let me go, Sheriff, I am going to shoot you, too!”

He snatched his hand away and stepped back, eyes narrowed. “Are you hurt?”

She lifted her arm and pointed to the black-rimmed hole in the sleeve. “Bullet burn.”

He opened his mouth again. She was sure he was going to yell at her some more, but she interrupted. “Sheriff,” she enunciated quietly.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

He looked dumbfounded. “What?”

“Be quiet. I am not seriously injured and I see that you are unharmed, as well.” She began to gather up the disordered mail bags.

“Hell,” Jericho muttered. “You’re not even shook up.”

She pocketed her pistol. “Stop complaining and help me.”

He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “How come you’re not shakin’ or cryin’ or something?”

Maddie straightened, gripping one corner of a heavy canvas bag. “Why should I be?”

Jericho shook his head. “How much do you figure they got away with?”

Maddie cocked her head. “How much?” She found she liked teasing him. It made his eyes even darker blue, and the way he was staring at her now caused a little flip-flop inside her chest.

“How much?” she repeated. “Well, to the best of my calculation—did I tell you I was a whiz at mathematics at school? Let’s see now...”

He planted himself within spitting distance and propped his good hand on his hip. “I’m waiting, dammit.”

“The amount of money—” she smiled into his glowering face “—is exactly zero.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, zero. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Those Wells Fargo bags are decoys. The bank manager and I decided they would be filled with rocks, not gold.”

His eyes went even darker. “You mean this whole exercise was just a farce?”

Maddie straightened her skirt. “You could call it that, I suppose.”

“Then what the hell did we risk our lives for?”

“For observation.” She dropped the canvas bag in her hand, which landed with a clunk, and fished her notebook out of her pocket. Not her Pistol Pocket, he noted, but the Observation Notebook Pocket.

Jericho waited while she circled the pencil around like a branding iron. Part of him wanted to laugh. Another part of him wanted to wring her neck. He’d be damned if he’d risk getting shot for some damn decoys!

“Well,” she began, a note of relish in her voice. “We got a good look at the robbers, didn’t we? There are five of them.”

“We already knew that.”

“One of them,” she continued, “is lame. His leg is stiff.”

“And?”

“And one of them wore a bandanna from Carl Ness’s mercantile. I recognized the pattern and the color, a sort of pinky-red. Did you notice?”

Jericho said nothing. He had to admit she had sharp eyes and a keen mind. Her “observations” were valuable.

Dammit, anyway.

The trembling mail clerk slid the railcar door shut. The train tooted once and jerked forward. Maddie stumbled and bumped his injured wrist. He sucked in a breath. Hurt like blazes.

With his good hand he holstered his Colt and turned back to the passenger car. “Better let me take a look at your bullet burn,” he said as they made their way down the aisle.

She plopped down into her seat, pressing her lips together. “No, thank you. The bullet just skimmed my arm. I’m sure the skin is not broken.”

He settled beside her with an exasperated sigh. “Yeah? Show me.”

“No.”

He reached for her wrist. Before she could stop him he’d unbuttoned her sleeve and pushed it up above her elbow.

“Hurt?”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

He ran his gaze over her slim upper arm, noting the angry red crease above her elbow. From his inside vest pocket he grabbed the bottle of painkiller.

“What is that?” she said.

“Painkiller. Alcohol, mostly.”

She rolled her eyes. He uncorked the bottle with his teeth, lifted her elbow away from her body and dribbled the dark liquid over the abrasion. Her breath hissed in and she moaned softly.

Jericho closed his eyes for an instant. He hated hearing a female in pain. “Sorry.”

“It is quite all right,” she said, rolling her sleeve down. She poked her forefinger through the bullet hole and sighed. “Another visit to the dressmaker, I suppose.”

“Maddie, maybe you ought to see a doctor when we get to Portland.”

She shook her head. “What is that you poured over it?”

He recorked the bottle. “I told you, painkiller. For my wrist.”

She gave him a lopsided smile that made his insides weak. “We are a pair, are we not?” she said, her voice just a tad shaky. “A one-armed sheriff and a Pinkerton detective with a bullet burn.”

“Yeah,” he said drily. “We’re a team, all right. Listen, Maddie, tomorrow I think you should go back to Chicago.”

“No, you don’t, Jericho. Whether you admit it or not, you need me. This is my job—apprehending lawbreakers. I’m your right arm, so to speak, so you’re stuck with me.”

He felt more than “stuck” with her. He felt bowled over. Something told him his lady detective wasn’t going to back down and go home to Chicago anytime soon. Torn between worry over her safety and his need to see this job through, his insides were in an uproar.

With a sidelong glance at her, he settled back to think about how he could keep her alive while he did what he had to do, apprehend the Tucker gang. The townspeople always wanted him to get up a posse, but Jericho preferred working alone. Always had and always would. He did what any sheriff worth his salt had to do, and he’d never wanted to get anyone else involved.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to get a lady detective mixed up in a manhunt, even if she could shoot straight. She had to go back to Chicago.

She picked up her crocheting again and worked a row of stitches before she said anything more. “Do you suppose there might be an opera or a play of some kind in Portland?”

“Might be. You miss the city, huh?”

“Yes,” she said. “To be honest, I enjoy cultural things.”

“Bet you feel like a fish out of water on this assignment.”

“Oh, no. I am not that easily discouraged. This fish likes doing something worthwhile, Sheriff. Catching train robbers is worthwhile.”

Jericho nodded. He felt the same way, when he thought about it. He had a job to do. But he’d been on his own since he was a kid, and that’s how he liked it. Wasn’t responsible for anybody’s skin but his own. Every time Sandy begged to come along on a manhunt, Jericho neatly evaded the issue.

He liked Sandy. Maybe that was the problem. He was beginning to like Maddie, too, and that was an even bigger problem.

Chapter Five

To calm her nerves Maddie paced up and down the passenger car aisle until Jericho glared at her. She would never admit to the sheriff how shaken she felt after her encounter with the train robbers, but there it was. She’d come close to being killed for the first time in her career as a Pinkerton agent. Mr. Pinkerton had trained her in the use of firearms, but he’d used her to carry messages and smuggle maps, nothing so violent as being caught in the middle of a gun battle.

After four round trips from the back of the car to the front, she sank onto her seat. Still jittery, she hunted up the wooden crochet hook and resumed work on her edging. Jericho sat next to her, exercising the fingers of his right hand.

Was his heart pounding as hard as hers was? She shot a look at his impassive expression and almost laughed. If it was, he hid it better than she did.

The train jerked, and her ball of crochet thread rolled down the aisle, leaving a trail of pink string. She huffed a sigh and began to rewind it, but the ball settled into a crack in the floor.

The sheriff stopped flexing his injured wrist, got to his feet and chased the ball of thread into a corner. He snatched it up, stomped back and dumped it into her lap. Then he plopped back down in his seat without saying a word.

Well! He had no right to be angry with her. She had probably saved his life; he might at least say thank-you.

The train rolled smoothly forward through wheat fields and cattle ranches. The peaceful scenery soothed her to the point where she could review the events that had occurred in the mail car. One thing she couldn’t forget was the look on the sheriff’s face when she’d first drawn her pistol, part shock, and part fear. She could understand his surprise, but fear? She would bet a barrel of fancy hats this man didn’t fear outlaws or anything else.

And then suddenly she understood. He feared for her.

Maddie laid her hands in her lap. “I had no idea you could shoot left-handed. Why did you not tell me?”

“You never asked. You just jumped to a conclusion. That’s another reason why you should skedaddle back to Chicago, you jump to conclusions.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t. That is not why you don’t want me along. Is it?” She pinned him with eyes as hard as green stones. “Is it?”

He waited a long time before answering. “Nope.”

“Then would you tell me what the real reason is?”

“Nope.”

She waited. The train picked up speed and the car began to sway. “Sheriff, I deserve to know. I am waiting.”

“Okay,” he growled. “Here it is in plain English. You are the reason I don’t want you along.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake! Sheriff Silver, you are irritating enough to drive a person crazy.”

He gave her a tight smile. “But not irritating enough to drive you away.”

She blanched. “Well, of course not. It would take more than a stubborn, bad-tempered, set-in-his-ways man to make me give up on an assignment.”

“Damn,” Jericho muttered. What would it take, he wondered. He couldn’t forget the picture she’d made in that yellow dress, firing her shiny pistol at armed outlaws. He knew she’d been covering his back, and he should be grateful. A wrong-handed sheriff was no match for outlaws with revolvers.

But deep inside, where he never allowed himself to venture, something began to tighten. God, he hated that. Made him sweat. He couldn’t let her continue with this Pinkerton business. If she didn’t get him killed, she’d get herself killed, and that would be even worse.

Two hours passed in uneasy silence. Maddie crocheted carefully on what looked like a lace edging; Jericho tried not to watch her slim fingers.

“Last stop, Portland,” the conductor boomed. “Ten minutes.”

Maddie smoothed out her skirt, shook her petticoat ruffles into place, and stowed her crochet work in her oversize reticule. “What do we do until the train leaves for Smoke River?”

“Find a hotel.”

“A hotel!” Her eyes went wider and even more green. “What do we want a hotel for?”

“Don’t know about you, but I’m grabbing an early dinner and getting some sleep.”

She eyed him with a look that could fry eggs. “You mean we are stuck here in Portland? All night?”

“Yep. Train east doesn’t pull out until tomorrow morning. Thought you would have researched that, Mrs. Detective. Distances out here in the West are...long.”

Maddie set her jaw. She was hungry, she admitted. And bone tired. But the worst part was that she was surprised at this turn of events. She hated being surprised. Back in Chicago, trains ran both east and west every hour. Somehow she thought trains out here would run every hour, as they did in Chicago. It never occurred to her the distance between Smoke River and Portland would mean an overnight stay. Why, she hadn’t even brought a night robe.

* * *

The streets of Portland were jammed with people—merchants, travelers, ranchers with wagons full of children, some fancy men who looked like gamblers, ladies driving trim black buggies, townspeople, schoolboys, even a few dusty-looking Indians. After battling the crowds, Jericho stepped into the foyer of the Kenton Hotel with Maddie at his elbow.

The desk clerk looked up and thumbed through his registry. “’Fraid I got no rooms left, mister. Big carnival from San Francisco in town and we got lotsa visitors. You could try the Portland Manor, just across the street.”

The Portland Manor had only one vacancy. “Two beds, take it or leave it. Town’s full up.”

Jericho turned to her. “That okay?”

Maddie stared at him. “You don’t mean one room for the two of us?” she whispered. “Together? Why, that is scandalous!”

“Huh! That’s real funny coming from a lady who said she was bored to death with her marriage.”

“But—”

“Look, Mrs. O’Donnell, my arm is hurting like a sonofa—billion beeves. I’m worn out and hungry enough to eat just about anything. We’re here, and we’re staying. Like the man says, take it or leave it.”

“But—”

“And,” he added with a lopsided smile, “you can relax. I’m too flat-out tired to threaten your virtue.”

Her cheeks went pink. “This is highly unusual. Mr. Pinkerton will certainly hear about it.”

“No, he won’t. You let one word slip about our arrangement and I’ll tell Pinkerton it was all your idea.”

Maddie turned crimson, then white, then crimson again. “You would not dare!”

“Try me.”

Stunned into silence, Maddie watched him sign Mr. and Mrs. J. Silver on the register. She wanted to protest, but everything was all so mixed up and tense between the two of them that...well, she would just have to act as if things like this happened every day to a Pinkerton detective and make the best of it. For her next assignment she would research geographical distances more thoroughly.