Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (28 page)

The girl looked Joe over. “Where’d you get the good-lookin’ redheaded dude?” she asked archly.

“Now, Molly, you get your schemin’ little eyes off him,” Slade grinned, lighting a cigar. “He’s in this strictly for the money, and he ain’t plannin’ on spendin’ it on you.”

“That’s right, ma’am.” Joe twisted his hat in his hands. “The Comanche carried off my wife, I need the money to ransom her.”

“Oh.” She looked crestfallen as she sauntered around him, looking him up and down. “Couldn’t be tempted by no other woman, huh?”

Joe backed away uneasily. “No, ma’am. Not that you ain’t a purty one, but you see, Annie’s special. . . .”

“There’s some thinks I’m special.” She cut her eyes at him, winking back at Bill.

Slade slapped her familiarly on the bottom. “Just cause he’s handsome, don’t get any ideas, Molly. I don’t want you wastin’ your charm on him. There’s a teller you need to cozy up to, find out more about money shipments and all.”

“That old teller!” She made a face. “Didn’t I do enough telling you how much money I’ve seen moving in and out of there?”

Slade pulled her to him roughly. “Do like I tell you, Molly, or you’ll end up back at that shack hanging over a scrub board takin’ in laundry for a livin’ like your crazy ma.”

She seemed to consider. “Good times and money is what matters to me, Bill, you know that. I never had much of either. My hair’ll finally grow out and then I’ll do it up with fancy combs and jewels.”

Bill laughed. “Only if you play along with me, you little slut, do as I tell you.”

Joe’s hand doubled into a fist. “You shouldn’t talk to a woman like that, call her names. . . .”

“She’s mine,” Slade said, “and she’s used to it, aren’t you, Molly?”

She shrugged, staring at Joe as if Sir Galahad had suddenly ridden onto the scene. “That don’t mean I like it.”

“You’ll like it well enough when your lace stockings have money stuffed in the tops,” Slade grinned. “Maybe I’ll dress you up fancy, take you to St. Louie or San Francisco, where we can really have some good times.”

Her pouty face brightened. “What do you want me to do?”

“Like I said, cozy up to that old teller, do whatever it takes to find out when the next gold shipment’s coming in.” He winked at her, “I ain’t jealous.”

Joe felt disgust and anger. He glanced around at Trask and the Mexican who lounged against the wall. Neither of them said anything. “This ain’t right,” Joe said. “I never figured on makin’ some girl whore for us just to find out about the money.”

“Then think about your woman layin’ under some damned Injun buck and him pumping on her, passing her around. . . .”

Joe hit him then, catching Slade in the mouth and sending him flying. The image Slade had brought to his mind about his beloved Annie being violated was more than he could bear. “Don’t you say that!” he shouted. “They won’t touch her! They’re waiting to see if I got the money!”

For a moment, he thought Slade would come up swinging, but the man was a cool one. “Reckon I deserved that,” he shrugged. “Not the lowest-down white man who ever lived would want an Injun’s leavin’s, want to take a woman back who’d been raped by dirty savages.”

Molly looked at Joe with warm, sympathetic eyes. “You got heart and guts, mister. Your Annie is a lucky woman, I’d say.”

The Mexican yawned. “Enough of this,
amigos
. Let’s make plans about the bank.”

So Molly had been sent to seduce the old teller and find out when the money was coming in the next week. Then they’d hit the bank. Everything went wrong. A sheriff happened along and the teller tried to shout for help. In the confusion, Slade shot the man, but when Joe tried to stop and help him, Slade screamed at him. “Are you loco? This is a hangin’ offense for the whole gang if they catch us!”

The noise attracted help for the sheriff and Joe took a slug in the arm. They couldn’t get the safe open with the teller sprawled unconscious, so they didn’t get away with a dime. Matter of fact, the gang just barely got away with their lives.

In a hideaway up in the Ozarks, Joe rested with his injured arm while Molly looked after him. The other three went out casing a small town to see if there was another bank they could hit soon.

Joe was inconsolable. “I should have known better!” he said. “I never stole a penny in my life! I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! And we didn’t get the money, either!”

Molly came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “You didn’t shoot that teller. It was Slade’s pistol. I can tell you wouldn’t hurt anybody, Joe.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know anything about me, Molly.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I’ve seen enough to like what I see. Good times and high livin’ was always my dream, Joe, but for a man like you, I’d give it all up, live in a sod shack.”

He looked at her. She was too young to know what she knew about men. Just a girl, but her full breasts swelled above the low-cut dress like a full-grown woman’s, and he looked away. Joe had been used to making love to Annie every night and his body wanted relief. But he was faithful to his Annie Girl. “You don’t mean that, Molly. You’re just grateful because I’m kind to you. A woman shouldn’t have to put up with the way Slade treats you. I feel like killin’ him for it.”

“It was my choice,” she shrugged, running her hand up and down his arm. “If I went home, my crazy old lady would beat me for my vanity, cut off my hair again so men wouldn’t look at me.”

Her hand felt warm moving up and down his arm. He could see the hollow between her breasts and wondered if her nipples were dark rosettes. “You’re pretty, Molly, too pretty to waste your life the way you’re doin’, and I’ve got a woman already.”

“You may never see her again.” The girl leaned closer and he could smell the musky, womanly scent of her, the perfume she wore on her breasts. “I’ve loved you, Joe, from the first moment I saw you. I’d be your woman, go anywhere with you.”

She unbuttoned the cheap yellow dress she wore, put his hand on her full, bare breast.

“No,” he said, but he could feel his heart quicken as she leaned closer. Her nipple seemed to burn a circle against his palm. “No, Molly, this it ain’t right. I love Annie. . . .”

The door flew open. Slade and his men stalked in.

“You slut!” Slade screamed, and he caught her as she tried to run, slapping her face.

Joe tried to stop him. “Don’t touch her!”

The Mexican and Trask grabbed him, held him as he struggled. Slade threw the girl across the bed. “You little slut! Acting so hesitant when I want you to sleep with the teller and then diddling this bastard when I’m not around!”

Joe struggled to break free. “It wasn’t like that, Bill, I swear! I never touched her. . . .”

“You think I’m blind?” Slade roared. “You’re pawin’ her tits when I walk in and tell me that! My women are like my horses, Joe; I don’t mind loaning one to a friend for a little ride, but you oughta ask first!”

“I—I never meant to even touch her,” Joe protested, “don’t know what came over me. . . .”

“I know what came over you,” Slade grinned cruelly at the sobbing girl on the bed. “She’s a hot one all right; no one man’s enough for her. Sooner or later, she’ll end up in some bawdy house. But I’ll keep her until I tire of her.”

The Mexican slowly let go of Joe’s arms. “We have news,” he said. “That bank teller died.”

“Oh, my God!” Joe felt sick, weak.

Slade spat on the floor. “That’s the breaks. There’ll be a reward on our heads now; we’d better clear out! ”

Joe thought about Annie. “I thought we were gonna hit another bank?”

Trask swore. “With a posse looking for us?”

“Trask is right,” Slade said. “You might as well get back to Texas, McBride, see if you can find a bank on your own to rob. Maybe you can borrow the money you need.” He glanced over at the tousled girl who sat on the bed wiping her eyes. “Get me a drink, Molly.”

Joe watched the girl straighten her clothes and go over to pour Slade a whiskey. “I can’t borrow any money. I got nothin’. I couldn’t even give away that little patch of poor dirt I got.”

The Mexican shook his head. “Tough luck, hombre. But at least back in Texas, if the Rangers rescue your wife, you’ll hear about it.”

So Joe went back to Texas. When he checked in with the Rangers, the young Swede leader looked at him sympathetically. “We been looking for you.”

How could they have heard so soon about the robbery clear up in Missouri? “You been looking for me?”

“Swen” Swenson nodded and pulled at his blond mustache. “Ain’t you the one whose wife got carried off by the Comanche?”

Joe’s heartbeat quickened. “You got news? You found my Annie?”

“Maybe.” The man turned away as if he couldn’t bear to look in Joe’s face. “We’d like you to look at some clothes, see if you can identify them.”

“Clothes? What do you mean,
clothes
?”

“You just look at them first, tell me if they belong to your wife.” Young Swenson went into another part of the office, dug in a drawer, and came back. “You ever see these before?”

He spread a dirty, torn dress out on the cluttered desk—cheap blue homespun.

In his mind, Joe saw his Annie waving to him that last time from the doorway. This is what she’d had on. Hope made his heart pounded hard. He jumped up. “Yes, these are Annie’s.” He grabbed the fabric, clutching it between his big hands as if by doing so, his beloved would be in his embrace again. “Where’d you get these? Is she okay? Is she—”

“Mr. McBride, are you a drinking man?” The Ranger looked at him sympathetically.

“No, not much,” he stammered. “Annie didn’t like it.” And suddenly, he was angry, realizing the man was holding back. “Tell me, for God’s sake, tell me!”

The Ranger opened his desk drawer, taking out a bottle and two glasses. “Sit down,” he gestured to a chair. “You’re gonna need this.”

And now he didn’t want to hear, realizing the news wasn’t good. Joe spread the clothes on the desk, stroking them gently as he had often stroked his Annie Girl. The hand that accepted the whiskey trembled so badly he spilled a little of it getting it to his lips. It was cheap and raw, burning all the way down his throat to his empty stomach. Then he collapsed in the chair. “Tell me.”

“Oh, God,” muttered the Ranger, draining his glass. “Why does it always have to be me who gets the bad ones?”

Joe didn’t answer, just watched the man drink. A big clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence.

The Ranger took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “We were already sure. Your neighbor’s daughter, Hannah, was kind enough to help make the identification.”

“Identification?” He stared stupidly at the man.

“Mr. McBride, we took these off a body found over at the edge of the county.”

“No!” Joe stood up, upsetting his chair. “No, it can’t be my Annie!”

“I know how you feel. But Hannah Adams identified her. light brown hair, small build, and she was wearing these clothes. . . .”

He wouldn’t believe it. “Did the woman have gray eyes and a small face?” he asked. “I want to see that body for myself and—”

“McBride,” he hesitated, pouring himself another drink, “the shape that body was in—well, it’s already been buried. You can’t see her.”

Joe’s stomach turned queasy with the whiskey. “What—what do you mean?”

The other man fiddled with his glass, avoiding Joe’s eyes. “What I’m trying to tell you is it’d been there for a while, didn’t have no face. And the varmints had been chewin’ it. . . . .”

Joe screamed then, loud and long, stumbling over to pound his fists against the wall. “No!” he screamed. “No! No! It ain’t my Annie, I tell you! It can’t be! They’ve still got her and I’ll get her back when I can raise some money!”

And then his stomach revolted against the sight of the dirty, torn dress, the images the Ranger’s words brought to mind, and the cheap whiskey. Joe stumbled outside and vomited off the porch. “No,” he whispered. “Oh, God, no!”

But finally, he accepted the facts. The woman the kindly neighbors had buried had to be his Annie. Who else could have been wearing her clothes?

And he was grateful to the plump, homely Hannah for her comfort and sympathy, seeing a lot of her while her own rich Papa was dying. Finally, he had married her. He would find out fifteen years later that his Annie was still alive, but by then it was too late.

The buggy pulled up before the ranch house.

“Papa, are you sick?” Lynnie asked. “You haven’t said a word all the way from town?”

Trask laughed. “Maybe he just ain’t got much to say and he’s sayin’ it.”

Joe didn’t answer as Lynnie helped him from the buggy. It wasn’t bad enough that his hands were so crippled; the Comanche had burned his feet, too. “Just help me up on the porch, honey,” he said. “I want to sit a spell and think before supper.”

He limped across the squeaky boards, flopping down in the old wicker rocker. The smell of seven sisters roses drifted in the hot summer air. Joe was tired, very tired.

“Papa, are you okay?”

“Just fine, Lynnie. Quit frettin’ over me like a broody hen. Call me when old Rosita has supper ready.”

“Me too,” Trask yelled. “I’m going out to the barn.”

Joe leaned back in his chair with a sigh, reaching into his pocket for the willow whistle he’d finished earlier this afternoon. He’d promised one to the little Edwards girl and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

Unconsciously, he brought the whistle to his lips and played the old folk tune. Annie. Only one person meant as much to him as Annie had. His daughter, Cayenne. Because of his own miserable past as the town bastard, he’d hesitated a little while when that young man had brought him word ten years ago that Annie might still be alive. Had that made any difference in Annie’s fate? Swenson had said he’d look into this new information, and every once in a while, in the ensuing years, Joe still checked with him. But long ago, he’d given up hope that Swenson’s Rangers would ever find her. At least, now his beloved daughter would never be labeled a “bastard.”

Maybe it was God’s punishment or just pure irony that now, unknowingly, Cayenne might be on her way home with Joe’s future killer unless she got his wire in time. Whatever happened, the Lord moved in mysterious ways.