Gunpowder Tea (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) (8 page)

“What a pity the Bard made no mention of tea in his plays. A terrible oversight, don’t you agree?”

Miss Walker frowned. “If the man was as smart as he wrote, then coffee would have been his beverage of choice.”

“Like Balzac?” Annie had read somewhere that Balzac was addicted to coffee. “I do believe that Shakespeare wrote with all the sensibilities of a tea man. Balzac, on the other hand, was quite an awkward writer.”

“If Shakespeare was a tea man as you say, then perhaps that explains why Hamlet is such an incessant talker. The man never would have survived here in the West.”

Annie giggled at the thought, which garnered a look of rebuke from the direction of the bed. Miss Walker’s expression was every bit as intimidating as the shotgun by her side.

“Well?”

“Oh, I do apologize.” Annie slipped an arm beneath the ranch owner’s neck and ever so gently lifted the woman’s head off the pillow. Miss Walker took a sip of the hot beverage and wrinkled her nose before pushing the cup away.

“Dishwater couldn’t taste worse.”

Annie straightened and set the cup on the saucer. “It’s not my favorite tea, but like I said, it does help heal bones.”

“Coffee is the glue that holds these bones together and that’s what I want. I want it now and I want it strong.”

“The doctor said—”

“Fiddlesticks! I don’t care what Dr. Fairbanks said,” Miss Walker snapped. “What does he know? A man barely dry behind the ears. Anyone who drives a heap of—”

“I believe it’s called a horseless carriage,” Annie said.

“I don’t care what it’s called. Horsepower should be left to horses. It’s noisy and smelly and riles the cattle. Anyone with the bad sense to drive around in one has no right to dictate what I should and should not do.”

Ignoring the woman’s protests, Annie picked a spoon off the tray and scooped up a bite of soft-boiled egg. She faced the woman with her most determined stance. Miss Walker looked about to argue but apparently thought better of it.

Annie slipped the spoon between Miss Walker’s thin, parched lips. The woman sputtered and coughed and pushed Annie’s hand away. “Dishwater and lye soap.” She spit it out. “Enough of that garbage!”

Annie set the spoon down. She reached for the linen napkin and
wiped egg off the blanket. “If you prefer, I’ll have Able make you oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal?” Miss Walker made it sound like arsenic. “Forget food. Don’t just stand there, girl. Get my coffee. And after that you can fetch my foreman.” She stopped and grimaced as if in pain but then picked up where she left off. “Tell him I want to see him pronto.”

Annie sighed. It appeared that tracking down the leader of the Phantom gang would be easy compared to caring for the old lady. “The doctor said you need to rest.”

“I don’t have time for such nonsense. I’ve got a ranch to run! After I finish with my foreman, bring pen and paper from my office. I need to dictate a letter. Then I’ll meet with each ranch hand individually. I don’t want them thinking they can slack off just because I’m temporarily indisposed. Oh, and make sure Ruckus takes proper care of my horse.”

Never had Annie met a woman more stubborn—or demanding. “I’ll write your letter for you, but you will be allowed no more than two visitors a day until the doctor says otherwise.”

Miss Walker’s chest heaved beneath the covers, but then she suddenly surprised Annie by laughing.

Frowning, Annie straightened Miss Walker’s pillow and covers. On second thought, perhaps two visitors would be too many.

Miss Walker’s expression grew serious. “I guess you’ll do anything to prove that you’ll make a worthy heiress, even if it means putting up with my demands.” She twisted her head to look Annie square in the face. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

Miss Walker pushed hard but apparently she liked people who pushed back in kind. Annie met the woman’s gaze. “I guess that makes us equal.”

Miss Walker narrowed her eyes and snapped her mouth shut.
Fearing she might have overstepped the line, Annie picked up the tray and moved away from the bed. “You’d best get some rest.” Without another word she left the room, closing the door just in time to avoid the thrown clock.

Chapter 6

The path of least resistance often leads to the hoosegow.

J
ail fare consisted of hardtack and cold coffee and Taggert didn’t have the stomach for either. He marveled at how the other two men attacked the stale, dry biscuits with such relish.

To quench his thirst, he finished the last of the dark brew and spit out the grounds. “So when’s the boss gonna spring us?” Grady had talked half the night but said little of any consequence. The man was of no use. He knew a tenth of what he claimed to know, maybe less.

As if on cue, Marshal Morris entered the office and Taggert set his cup on the tray. It was about time.

Morris plucked the keys from a hook by the door and ambled over to the cell. “I decided to give one of you a suspended sentence,” he announced.

Grady’s eyebrows shot up. “Does that mean you’re gonna let us go?”

“Let you go?” The marshal chuckled. “A suspended sentence is just a fancy term for a good ole-fashioned hangin’. Haven’t had one of
those in a while. Should liven things up a bit. Hangings don’t eliminate crime but they sure do stop repeaters.”

Squint turned three shades of gray and for once Grady’s bravado deserted him, or at least he fell silent.

“You ain’t got no right to hang any one of us without a trial,” Squint said. “It’s the law.”

The marshal shrugged. “You know the law and I know the judge. I guess that makes us even.” He scratched his belly and studied each man in turn. “Don’t feel bad. It’s been my experience that outlaws are greatly improved by death.”

“So are martyrs,” Taggert muttered.

Ignoring his comment, Morris let his gaze travel from man to man. “So who’s itching for improvement? You choose or I choose. Don’t matter much to me.”

“It’s gotta be one of them two,” Grady said with as much graciousness as a host offering a guest refreshment. “I’ve got what you call seniority.”

“If that’s what we’re goin’ by, then he’s the one,” Squint said, pointing at Taggert. “He was the last to come on board.”

“That true?” the marshal asked, staring at Taggert. “You the last to join the Phantom gang?”

Taggert glared at his two cellmates. “Yes, which means I have less restitution to make.”

Grady waved his hand. “This ain’t about restitution. It’s about feeding the wolves.”

“To be fair, we should draw straws,” Taggert argued.

“I ain’t drawing no straws,” Grady said. “He’s your man, Marshal. It’s two against one.”

“Sounds fair to me.” The marshal pulled out his Peacemaker. “Now step back, all of you.” He waited for the three men to crowd
against the back of the cell. Gun in one hand, he unlocked the door with the other, keys jiggling. He motioned to Taggert.

“All right, now move. And keep your hands up.”

Hands raised shoulder high, Taggert shuffled out of the cell. The marshal slammed the door shut, locking in the other two. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

Taggert did what he was told and the marshal snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists, the iron bracelets cold against his flesh.

“It was nice knowing you,” Grady called.

“Wish I could say the feeling was mutual,” Taggert muttered, casting a dark look at his former partners in crime.

The marshal pressed the muzzle of his gun against Taggert’s back. “Move. Try anything and I’ll shoot you full of lead. Makes no difference to me if we improve you here or wait till you get to the gallows.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather hang,” Taggert replied. “These are the only clothes I’ve got and they don’t need no improving.”

Eleanor Walker stared at the ceiling. There wasn’t much else to look at when one lay flat on one’s back. Of all the ridiculous and aggravating things to happen. A broken leg!

Now that she’d flung the mechanical clock across the room, she didn’t even know what time it was. It seemed like hours since that annoying woman traipsed out. It had to be at least noon, if not later. And the pain. The pain!

Where was the doctor? Where, for that matter, was anyone? And where, for pity’s sake, was that cowbell?

She ran her hand over the bedside table, knocking the bell to the floor.

She had just about reached the brown glass dropper bottle the doctor left when a tap sounded at the door. It was about time.

Thinking it was her foreman, she moved her hand away from the pain medication and barked, “Come in!”

The door opened and the woman named Annie stuck her head through the crack. “Someone here to see you. A Mr. Stackman.”

Robert Stackman was Eleanor’s banker and friend—and would be so much more if she would let him. At the moment, he was the last person she wanted to see.

“Tell him I’m occupied,” she said.

Robert’s voice drifted from beyond the door. “You can tell me that yourself.” He walked into the room and bowed to Annie. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here.”

Even in his sixties, Robert cut an impressive figure with his silver hair as neatly trimmed as his mustache and goatee. Eleanor never saw him when he wasn’t impeccably groomed in dark trousers, white dress shirt, vest, bow tie, and polished oxfords. Robert had been after her for years to sell the ranch and marry him. A bad idea on many counts.

He closed the door and stooped to pick up the clock. “I see time’s trying to get away from you,” he said, grinning. He set the clock on the bedside table. It was a little after 11:00 a.m.

He picked the bell off the floor and set it next to the timepiece. “I see you have a leg up. Trust you to be ahead of the competition.”

“I’m in no mood for your jokes,” Eleanor snapped. “What did you come here for? To gloat?”

“I heard you had a nasty fall and I came to see how you are. It might surprise you to know that’s what friends do.”

“If you are truly a friend, I trust you won’t say ‘I told you so.’”

“I wouldn’t think of it.” He lifted a chair and moved it to the side
of the bed. He then sat, pulled off his straw hat, and balanced it on his knee. “I see you have another heiress.”

“Yes, and I plan to get rid of her as soon as possible.” If she had her druthers, she would have ordered Annie out of the house that very morning. “Not only is the woman a menace, she’s as stubborn as a cornered rattler.”

Robert arched his brow. “Then you two should get along quite famously.”

Eleanor made a face. “She gave me boiled eggs and weak tea for breakfast. Now, I ask you, does that sound like someone who can be trusted around cattle?”

Robert chuckled before growing serious. “Actually, this isn’t entirely a social call.”

“I should have known.” It wasn’t like him to travel to the ranch during bank hours just to be friendly.

“I hesitate to mention this while you’re . . . indisposed, but I suspect there’ll be all hell to pay if you found out I kept something from you.”

“Oh dear.” She brushed aside a strand of hair. “This sounds ominous.”

“I’m afraid it is. I don’t know if you heard but the Phantom gang struck again. The train
and
bank were robbed yesterday.” Resting his elbow on his crossed arm, he stroked his goatee. “It’s odd that two robberies occurred on the same day, don’t you think?”

“Odd, but not too surprising.” Arizona Territory had gone through many changes since her family settled in the area more than forty years earlier during the ’50s. But one thing that never changed was the criminal element. As a ranch owner, she’d battled her fair share of renegade Apaches, cattle rustlers, fence cutters, and water snipers.

She placed her hand on her forehead. She felt groggy and so unlike herself that she had difficulty concentrating. “That annoying girl mentioned something about a train robbery.” Or at least Eleanor thought she did. Or maybe it was the doctor. “But the bank too?”

“The marshal apprehended some, but by no means all, of the men responsible.”

“Hmm.” She studied him. “So how does this affect me?”

Robert glanced at her suspended leg and hesitated.

“Speak up,” she snapped. “I will not be treated like an invalid.”

“And I wouldn’t think of treating you like one.” He coughed and cleared his voice. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“Then stop beating around the bush.”

He drew in his breath. “The marshal believes the Phantom is connected in some way to this ranch.”

Eleanor stared at him. Did he just say what she thought he said? “How do you mean, connected?”

“Morris thinks the Phantom is using the ranch as a hideout.”

“Hogwash!”

He splayed his hands. “I’m just telling you what he thinks.”

“That’s absurd.” She had little regard for the marshal. He hadn’t even been able to capture the outlaw Cactus Joe. It took a dime novelist from Boston—and a woman at that—to capture the man. “I’d know if my ranch was being used for nefarious purposes.”

“You employ many ranch hands. Any one of whom could be the Phantom.”

“I know my men.” True, she suspected that some had checkered pasts, but she demanded hard work and loyalty from them and she got it. Anyone caught loafing or breaking the law was immediately dismissed. “No one working at the ranch has time to play outlaw.”