Outlaw (9 page)

Trying to bolster her courage anew, Amelia
surveyed the knot. It was probably as easy to untie as a shoelace,
she told herself. She only had to find the correct piece of rope to
pull, and the rest would come free. With that thought in mind, she
caught hold of a likely looking dangling section and tugged.

Nothing happened. Blowing her bangs upward
to clear her vision, she straightened her stance and tried again.
Digging her fingers into the knot, Amelia pulled hard. The rope
slid! It budged mere fractions of an inch, but it was progress, all
the same. Working with both hands, she just managed to loosen the
center of the knot.

Encouraged, she gripped the topmost hank of
rope and tugged with all her strength. Just as it came untied, the
horse shifted—and so did her satchel. Its weight pulled the rope
against itself, making the twisted fibers hiss and rasp against
each other as the knot finally slithered free.

Heavy with books, her satchel plopped to the
ground in a flurry of dust, landing halfway atop the sagging picket
rope. The horse skittered backward at the suddenly increased
weight, drawing the tether taut. Her satchel snapped free like an
arrow released from a bow. Success! Amelia scooped up her satchel
and rounded the horse. Only one more knot to go.

From the direction of the stagecoach,
feminine wails sounded, mixed with a rumbling undercurrent of men's
voices. Frightened passengers, Amelia supposed. Something about the
sound of them sent a shiver of foreboding fluttering through her
stomach. Frightened, cornered animals were dangerous. Were people
the same way?

She couldn't think about that now. Doing her
best to ignore her churning stomach, she scanned the outlaw's
saddle, looking for the knot fastening her second satchel to
it.

There wouldn't be much time before Mason
returned. She had to get on that stage, now, before it was too
late. Her jaw clenched with determination, Amelia examined the
knot.

Thank heavens, it appeared similar to the
one she'd already untied. Dropping her first satchel, she set to
work undoing it, trying not to steal glances toward the stagecoach
as she worked. What was happening? Was Mason all right?

The rough woven rope abraded her fingers—she
could almost feel her knuckles and fingertips reddening from
constant contact with it—but, only two broken fingernails later,
she'd untied it. She bent to scoop the heavy black case into her
arms, then picked up the other one. Hefting them both, Amelia
headed toward the road. Toward rescue.

She hadn't gone three steps into the open
desert before the horse whinnied.

It sounded loud as a gunshot in the silence
surrounding her. Surely a sound like that would attract the
outlaw's attention. Frantic, her feet seemingly glued to the desert
soil, Amelia glanced about for a hiding place. A few feet away, she
spotted a tall, spiny cactus—and all-but dove behind it.

The plant's branches—or whatever they were
called on a cactus, she didn't know—reached for the sky like two
thick green arms, high above her head. The spiky plant's base
squatted atop the thirsty desert soil, looking barely wide enough
to conceal her. Dropping her satchels, Amelia crouched behind it
anyway, afraid to breathe.

When nothing happened, she dared to lean
carefully around the inches-long needles protruding from the cactus
and peer toward the stagecoach.

It was just as she'd hoped—a red lacquered
passenger stage, pulled by three teams of horses. Wooden boxes and
luggage piled atop its metal-framed top and almost spilled from the
boot. Inside, there were only a few wailing passengers, most of
them hanging from the windows to see what was happening, just as
Amelia's fellow passengers had done. She almost sighed with relief
at the sight of it. Civilization! Safety, only steps away.

And there, only steps away himself, stood
Mason. His rifle, like the driver's, rested with deceptive
casualness over his shoulder. He spoke quietly with the driver, but
Amelia couldn't make out the words. Both looked intent on their
conversation—too intent to notice her. For a moment longer she
watched him, some sense of foreboding prickling down her spine.

Why should that be? Amelia wondered, rubbing
her arms for warmth against a sudden chill. Mason was an outlaw
engaged in dangerous work. He'd probably robbed a hundred
stagecoaches, just like this one, and lived to tell about it.
Surely there was no cause for her to worry about his safety.

Especially with her own safe rescue parked
just a few steps away. Breathing deeply, Amelia hoisted her
satchels and ran for the stage.

Chapter Six

"They were on your stage, then?" Mason asked
the driver, hardly able to credit what the old man had told him
only moments before. "You're sure?"

"Yessiree." Hooking both his thumbs into a
cracked leather cavalryman's belt small enough to fit Miss Curly
Top's waist, the driver squinted into the sun, deepening the
creases in his leathery skin. "'Bout two days ago, maybe three.
Dunno for sure." He spat into the gritty road between their feet
and glanced at Mason. "Been lookin' for 'em long?"

Mason nodded. "Too long," he said, yanking
his black bandanna from his face. He didn't need it now. The breeze
swirled in cooling currents against his newly exposed skin as he
shoved the square of cloth into his duster pocket. No point
antagonizing the man who'd given him the first piece of useful
information he'd had in seven days' time.

The Sharpe brothers
had
passed this
way. He'd begun to wonder if he'd misjudged them somehow, if he'd
lost the trail—and his last chance for redemption along with
it.

"The boy was with them?" he asked the
driver. "Small, dark-haired boy about this high?" He raised his
hand to hip height, and a shaft of longing seared through him at
the memory of all he'd lost. First Ellen, and now—if he failed
again—their son, too. Ben. For an instant, he closed his eyes,
beating back the need to hold his child, his blood, his life—and
see him safe.

"Yep," the driver said. "Damned ruffian
'bout sent my passengers screaming 'cross the desert with his
antics. Them three with him had their hands full, I'll tell
you."

Mason smiled. "That's my boy."

"
Your
boy?" The driver looked
startled for a second, then nodded, as though he'd known the right
of it all along. "Such a hell-raiser I ain't never seen." Looking
over Mason's black outlaw clothes, full gun belt, and rifle, he
added, "And no wonder, with a sire like you, sir."

Mason tipped his hat. "I'll leave you on
your way," he said, too relieved at what he'd learned to waste time
wondering if the words had been an insult or not. He'd wager
not—not if the old man's gap-toothed grin was anything to judge by.
"Thank you."

He turned away amidst the driver's
good-byes, his step lighter than any time since he'd left his
homestead on the Gila with the sheriff on his trail. Mason only had
a few day's gain on the lawman following him. But lawman or no,
barring disaster or capture, in a few days' time he'd see his son
returned to him.

And by the first sunrise after, he'd see the
men who'd taken Ben repaid for their part in the thieving, else
know no rest until he had.

The Sharpes had taken his boy to Tucson,
only two or three days' ride southeast. Even with Miss Twirly Curls
along for the ride, Mason could reach the former territorial
capital in that much time.

Behind him, the harnesses holding the
stagecoach's teams of horses jangled—stirred by the animals'
movements, Mason supposed, as the driver climbed into his high-set
seat. Glancing backwards, he just glimpsed the hollow-cheeked old
man as he took up the reins again. Mason raised his hand in a
solemn farewell. He owed the man much—not least of which was
thanks. He was one of the few drivers who hadn't pulled iron to
claim an outlaw's head for bounty at his approach.

The driver returned the gesture, then pulled
his teams into line. At the same instant, a blurry flash of pink
caught Mason's eye. Something darted from behind a gnarled saguaro,
then crashed through the rocks toward the stagecoach. For one
confused moment, he thought it was a bizarrely dressed Indian
laying siege to the stagecoach—until he saw the blond hair.

Amelia.

Escaping.

He'd barely registered that fact before a
high-pitched whinny called his gaze toward the sheltering stand of
creosote bushes where he'd tethered his horse. A rustle of leaves,
a scrape of iron across stone—and then his horse shot across the
desert at a dead run. The iron picket post, dug from the ground
somehow and useless to hold the animal, banged loudly along in the
mare's wake, doing a fine job of scaring the hell out of his
horse.

Mason didn't know how, but he'd lay odds
Amelia Josephine O'Malley was involved.

Damn.

He wavered an instant, trying to decide if
he should go after his horse or follow Curly Top and find out what
she was up to. A glance backward showed him Amelia's long,
stocking-clad legs as she scrambled onto the stagecoach, her gaudy
pink dress swinging wildly in the breeze. She barely made it aboard
the metal steps before the stage began rolling forward.

A woman he could do without right now, Mason
decided—a horse, he couldn't. An unmounted man in the desert this
far from water was as good as dead. His decision made, he slung his
rifle over his shoulder and ran toward the panicked mare.

Something blasted behind him, then heat
whizzed past his rifle arm. Shotgun fire. One of the passengers
must have found his courage renewed by the outlaw's retreat.
Another shot came, too wild to strike anything, but too close to
ignore. Mason dropped to the dirt, landing hard on his shoulder.
Rolling onto his belly, he grabbed for his rifle strap and swung
the weapon around.

A woman's scream pierced the air, shrill
enough to cut through the dust clouds billowing behind the
stagecoach.

Amelia.

"Stop!" she yelled, her voice garbled but
undeniably snooty enough to belong to no one else. "Stop
shooting!"

Mason squinted past the scrub brush
littering the ground and over a pile of broken rock, looking in the
direction his horse had gone. He could just make out the animal as
it rounded a low mesa and trotted in a wide arc toward the road.
Its tail streamed behind it in the breeze, a beautiful display of
animal grace—except for the iron picket still clunking along behind
it.

If the shooter on the stage would pack up
his weapon for a minute, Mason knew he'd be able to catch his horse
and get the hell out of there.

Instead, another shot came. His hat blew
backwards and his heart whipped into double-time rhythm as he
realized how close the bullet had come to making his son an orphan
in every sense.

Mason flattened himself into the prickly
soil and leveled his rifle again. He didn't want to open fire on a
stage full of innocent passengers, but if this went on much longer
he'd be left with no choice.

"What are you
doing
?" screamed
Amelia. The sound of her voice could've split logs in winter. Mason
lifted his head just high enough to see the whole carriage sway as
the driver yanked his teams to a stop. In the middle of the
vehicle, Mason spotted little Miss Twirly Curls...wrestling with an
armed man nearly twice her size.

"You've probably killed him!" she cried,
both hands clamped onto the man's shotgun. They tugged it back and
forth between them, like children playing a particularly vicious
game of tug-of-war. Cursing, the shooter suddenly heaved his
weapon, slinging Amelia hard onto another passenger's lap.

"Thieving desperado deserved it!" came the
snarled reply.

Mason had to agree. From their point of
view, he was a known outlaw—the infamous poet bandit. Taking
advantage of the opportunity their argument afforded him, Mason
shouldered his rifle again and began creeping away from the road.
If he could only get to his horse, he could...

"There he is!" yelled another passenger.
"He's gettin' away!"

Mason moved faster, only inches away from a
sheltering mesquite. In the distance, his horse still ran like a
creature of the wild, despite its heavy pack saddle. He had a
feeling he'd never catch it now.

"Don't shoot!" came Curly Top's imperious,
high-pitched command. Footsteps plunked down the Concord's steps
and across the rocky soil, and then were drowned out by the
passengers' shouted arguments inside the stage. Hell. Mason halted
mid-stride, a sense of foreboding overtaking him. He wasn't clear
of this yet.

"
Oh, Mason
!"

He straightened warily, reluctantly. An
instant later, Amelia O'Malley barreled into him, all arms and legs
and messy perfumed hair. The impact of her soft, small body sent
him swaying as he absorbed the force of her lunge into his arms.
Her forehead bashed into his chin.

"I thought you were dead!" she gasped, her
voice muffled against his chest. Her nose pushed into his
collarbone, making a warm spot just above his shirt.

Mason's eyes watered, set off by the
stinging impact of her forehead against his chin. The woman's skull
must be made of solid rock. He wanted to rub away the hurt, but her
head was in the way. At least the damned shooting had stopped. He
blew a strand of curly blond hair from his lips.

"You should've stayed on the stage," he
said.

"I couldn't! You were hurt."

He set her away from him, trying to look
severe. "I'm not hurt."

Undaunted, she latched onto his upper arms
the moment he released her. Her fingernails dug through his coat
and shirtsleeves as she leaned back to examine him. Her gaze,
openly and irritatingly skeptical, roved clear over his body.