To Hell and Back (2 page)

The stranger gave her a wicked grin. “Matter of opinion, I reckon, but that’s why I want a bank draft,” he told her with a wry twist of his lips.

Amanda laughed softly, gesturing toward the bag the stranger’s hand still rested on with a protective air. “I’ll have to count it. Will you be staying long in Phoenix Mr . . .?”

“Hollander,” the stranger filled in for her. “Jake Hollander. Hadn’t thought about it.”

He was enjoying her presence, just being near this woman and it gave him some ideas he had not ridden into town with. But first he had to get the draft sent off to Eli back in Texas. Then he’d contemplate what seemed to be an invitation.

John Berglund, anger reddening his vision, stared intently at Amanda. She was being much more than polite with this filthy, trail-crusted, stranger! Despite everything he’d done for her, he had never been the recipient of the easy manner, the soft smiles, the cow-eyed looks.

Berglund stiffened and drew himself up straighter, hands momentarily crushing his lapels. He offered her everything, had done so more than once, but all she did was sweetly remind him of his wife. And now, she sidles up to a drifter; a sweaty cowhand. It was intolerable. His eyes narrowed and he made a decision in that instant that curled his colorless lips into a cruel smile. No one made a fool of John Berglund. The little half-wit would find that out soon enough. Oh yes, she certainly would.

The bulging money sack was passing beneath the bars of the teller’s cage when the bank door swung open with a bang, three men piling into the room, guns drawn, neckerchiefs covering the lower half of their faces.

Amanda froze. Blood drained from her face and she was awash in a tingling, cold sensation.

Eddie’s head snapped up and from the corner of her eye she saw the lines in his young face deepen when he clamped his jaws tightly shut. Behind her she heard a sharp intake of breath from Berglund, and in front of her, across the money bag her hand still rested upon, Hollander’s gray eyes, the color suddenly flattened to hard slate, locked with hers in mute warning.
Be calm
.
Don’t panic
.

Each muted click of the clock was a hammer blow to the heavy silence blanketing the room. Each moment ticked into eternity.
 

Still Hollander’s eyes held hers. “Smile and breathe,” he whispered to her softly. Funny, she had forgotten to draw a breath. She almost hiccuped, felt a quick stitch in her side, and somehow willed herself to draw her next breath, a long steady one, easing the tightness in her chest a bit so she could suck in another before the leader of the gang stepped forward.

Bank robbery. She had never really believed it could happen here. Her small hand threatened to tremble, but she gathered the will to clamp down and hold it steady.
 

The leader positioned himself before the tellers’ cages, while one of his partners stood near the door to watch the quiet street. The third eased up close to Hollander, gun barrel, black and hollow, level with his chest.

“You keep your hands right where I can see ’em and stay put,” he said to Hollander who had half turned into his gun. Then he turned slightly toward Amanda. “We want all the money you got, and be quick about it.” His dark eyes held hers, daring her to do something he wouldn’t like.

The second man snapped at Eddie, “You, too!” Slimmer, darker than the first, probably of Mexican or Indian blood, he was no less imposing, his gun sweeping the interior of the bank.

Berglund had given strict instructions to his employees not to take chances if ever such a thing as this were to happen. Such an admonition had hardly been necessary for Amanda who was naturally cautious. Eddie was another matter. Only a couple of feet separated them and she saw it clearly when he calmly reached into the cash drawer; going for the gun squirreled away there.

Behind them, Berglund was silent. She allowed her hand to slide off Hollander’s canvas sack and reached for the first of the cotton bank bags stashed under the counter.

Nervously stuffing the drawstring bag with bills, Amanda studiously ignored the canvas sack right in front of her and nudged it slightly to one side, pushing one filled bank bag after another through the grate in front of her. Maybe they would not think to take Mr. Hollander’s bag. Perhaps at least that much would be salvaged. Stealing a quick sideways glance at Eddie as he, too, filled bags she almost groaned. His hand passed very near the gun butt. No reaction from the other side of the cage. They couldn’t see his hand. Oh Lord, he was going to try something. What remained to be seen was what type he would be, dead or alive.

“Hurry it up,” the outlaw leader growled.

“Easy,” Hollander murmured, his eyes a study in kindness even as the lines in his face deepened and hardened.

She could actually feel the tension radiate from Hollander’s body. Her stomach clenched with a wave of nausea and then, with tingling fingers she forced herself to move faster, flinging a desperate glance in Hollander’s direction. Willing him to know what Eddie was up to, but he was not looking at her now, his eyes flicking over the three bandits.

The outlaws had the bags of money bundled up in their arms preparing to leave when the bull-headed man in charge spotted Hollander’s battered canvas sack.

“Reckon we’ll just tote that along too,” he said matter-of-factly, dark, pig eyes challenging above his kerchief mask.

Helplessly Amanda looked again at Hollander, but he was looking past her, over her shoulder in Berglund’s direction and his gray eyes had taken on the icy pall of winter.

Beside her, Eddie curled his fingers around the butt of that damned gun. Amanda barely had time to cringe before chaos ripped through the bank.

Eddie bolted around the counter, gun swinging brazenly into sight. The weapon roared and the tension splintered, everyone moving, triggering fear and anger, a mix of powerful emotion. The thinner, darker thief near the door fired. Eddie’s shot went wild. The bank robber’s didn’t. Eddie dropped like a felled log.

Hollander, Amanda learned in the instant it took to draw a panicked gasp, was not a man slow on the uptake. He was out in the open with impossible odds, but there was no stopping it now. The weapon at his hip appeared to leap into his palm, spitting flame and lead in a brief instant.

Blood bloomed on the darker man’s dingy shirt front, gun snapping from his hand and skittering across the floor. But he hung onto the bags of money and spun toward the door. The leader’s gun boomed.

A streak of blood, crimson and wetly gleaming suddenly streaked Hollander’s head. He blinked folding to the floor, one hand clutching at the counter, the other refusing to relinquish his gun a that didn’t matter since he was already unconscious or dead.

Stunned, Amanda gagged. Sweat plastered clothes to her body and time dragged out each second. She what was revealed of every face above each colorful neckerchief, clearly. She would have sworn she felt the hollow in time when Eddie’s soul left his body. But not Hollander’s. He was alive. Body and soul clung together still.

Nothing in her Boston upbringing could have prepared her for this. Fear washed out through the soles of her feet and in its place fury raged, heating her blood and knotting her muscles. Suddenly, without thought, she moved.

Ears ringing from the gunshots, she swung around the counter , sweat-slicked grip on the worn wood to propelled her forward as the outlaws made for the door. She swooped down, taffeta skirts rustling, and snatched up the gun which had been flung from the hand of Eddie’s murderer.
 

Adrenaline, in a pulsating rush, had obliterated caution. She had not even realized what she had done until she glanced up, gun in hand, to find all three of the men already gone.

Her eyes fell then on Eddie. He would never again give her one of his sly smiles or banter with her when things were slow. He would not tease her or ever again force her to realize her own strength and determination.

She realized that she was breathing fast, like she had just run a mile. She turned to Jake Hollander and gently rolled him over.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.
 

He was breathing. A deep gouge along the side of his head, having taken out skin and hair in a long groove, was awash in blood staining the floorboards.

During the chaos, John Berglund had completely escaped her thoughts. Now, he intruded upon them, solid footsteps leaden as he walked up behind her with a deliberate stride. Why hadn’t he done anything sooner? Why did he move so slow?

“He needs a doctor,” Amanda blurted over her shoulder. “He’s bleeding! I don’t know what to do!” She grabbed the hem of her skirt and ripped a piece of fabric from her precious gown without a thought, using that to attempt to stem the flow.

Amanda, on her knees, half turned, staring up at Berglund who stood before the teller’s cages, gun dangling casually in his hand one instant, abruptly jerked level and businesslike the next. His mocking brown eyes flicked past her to the open doorway which was now filled with Sheriff Carson, gun drawn, eyes darting suspiciously to every corner of the bank lobby. He edged inside, putting his back to the wall.

“What happened?”
 

“Bank robbers. Four of them—and her,” Berglund answered before Amanda could open her mouth to again ask for a doctor.

“That fella she’s so het up over, bleeding on the floor is one of them too.” Berglund’s tone was convincing, his face honestly pained as he gestured with his gun toward Hollander.

“I got him and winged another one.” He fixed His unwavering gaze on Amanda. “She killed Eddie.”

“What? Don’t be an idiot! I didn’t kill anybody!” Amanda sprang to her feet, the gun she’d picked up from the floor still clenched in her hand.

“He’s lying, Sheriff. There were only three of them, Eddie tried to stop it, and . . .”

“There’s the gun that killed Eddie that she’s holding.” Berglund interrupted her outburst. “Smell it. It’s been fired. She’s doing the lying. She’s been lying to all of us since she arrived with her story about coming all the way out here from Boston. She was part of that gang all along. They bided their time and now poor Eddie’s dead.”

The dry, funeral sense of mourning in his voice was enough to make Amanda want to scream, that or puke on his shiny black leather boots.

“For God’s sakes, will you please get this man a doctor?”

The Sheriff tossed Hollander a sideways glance, then eyed Amanda with more than a little doubt. He’d never had reason to get to know her well. She had always been as elusive as a butterfly. A loner, not one to mix, getting to know no one.
 

John Berglund, on the other hand, had long been a respected man in Phoenix. His words carried some weight.
 

“Give the gun to me, Miss,” the sheriff said evenly, his voice soft, his hand reaching out to her, but he took no chances and kept his gun leveled steadily on Amanda.

She handed him the gun. She didn’t want it, didn’t even know how to use it. Her green eyes clamped on Berglund in a questioning glare. Why? She kept asking herself the question over and over again. Why would he tell such lies?

The banker smirked in the face of her questioning, no, it was more a
demanding
, gaze. “She must have been keeping the others apprised of our schedules and when we would have the most money in the bank. Maybe she even planned it.”

The Sheriff put the gun barrel close to his nose and took a whiff.
 

“Of course it was fired, Sheriff. It was fired by the man who shot Eddie.”

“Or the woman,” Berglund murmured.

“You’ll have to come with me, Miss,” Carson said, stiffly formal. “Mr. Berglund, will you keep an eye on the other one until I get a couple of men over to haul his carcass over to the jail?”

“Glad to, Sheriff,” Berglund affirmed, voice solemn, playing the part of the injured banker.

Stunned, Amanda didn’t resist. It was all a mistake. It would be straightened out soon. Her flesh recoiled at the touch of the Sheriff’s hand when he firmly gripped her elbow, guiding her swiftly toward the jail.

After only a few steps she felt like a witless ninny.
 

“This is all a mistake, sheriff,” Amanda said in breathless protest. “Eddie and I were getting ready to close. Mr. Hollander, the injured gentleman, had just asked me to make up bank draft when three masked bandits came in and robbed the bank!”

“And how do you know this Hollander fella?”

He never stopped hurrying her along.

“I
don’t
know him!”

“But you know his name.”

“He introduced himself!”

“John Berglund tells me you were involved I got no reason to doubt him.”

Amanda lifted her feet briskly to keep pace. “But you doubt
me
. Why?”

“Don’t have no reason not to.”
 

She was dumbfounded into silence by the man’s logic.

Chapter 2

They stumbled up the jailhouse steps, Amanda tripping over her skirts. Beneath the brilliant orange and turquoise-streaked sky, they staggered through into the dim interior of the jail.

Amanda glanced over her shoulder in time to see a couple of men carrying a third between them, under John Berglund’s supervision, heading their way. Plainly, he was seeing to it personally that Jake Hollander, was delivered to the jail cell with alacrity.