The Outlaw And The Runaway. Tatiana March

with bags of gold. Roy swept a look over the hostages. The manager was trim and dapper, in his sixties, dressed in a fine broadcloth suit. The expression on his face conveyed more anger than fear, and Roy suspected his inability to recall the combination had been a deliberate delaying tactic. The other man was gaunt and pale, with thinning brown hair that pulled into tight curls.

      In that instant, recognition struck Roy. It was the man he’d seen talking to Celia Courtwood on the day of the box lunch. He must be her father, for there was a resemblance, and he bore the signs of a man suffering from terminal illness. Instinctively, Roy took a step closer. From the corner of his eye, he could see Curtis lift his arm and take aim, pointing at the teller’s chest.

      “What are you doing?” Roy blurted out and darted forward.

      A gunshot boomed around the bank. Roy felt a slam at the back of his shoulder. The room dimmed in his eyes. He dropped the bags of gold. Stumbling forward, he braced his hands against the wall to remain upright. He could feel no pain. From experience he knew that the shock numbed the nerves. The pain would come later.

      Behind him, Curtis swore. “You fool. Why did you get in the way?”

      Keeping his right hand against the wall, Roy pivoted to face the outlaw boss. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded to know.

      Curtis lifted his gun, pointed the barrel at Roy. “Can’t leave no loose ends.”

      With effort, Roy stood straight. He sucked in a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m fine,” he said sharply. “I can ride.” To prove his fitness, he bent down and picked up the two bags of gold from the floor.

      Curtis gave him a quick perusal and nodded. He glanced at the hostages cowering against the wall and shrugged, as if to say it didn’t really matter. Then he ushered Roy out of the building. Roy could tell Curtis was keeping an eye on him. The gang leader wanted no injured man left behind, for he did not trust any of his associates to keep their silence if captured by the law.

      Out in the bright sunshine, Roy felt his head swim and his mouth go dry. He tossed the bags of gold to Keeler. Saldana and Davies were already cantering away. Roy gripped the pommel of the saddle, gathered his strength to climb up on Dagur. Spooked by the smell of blood, the buckskin took a frightened sidestep, causing Roy to stumble. The others got on their horses and thundered out of town, dust billowing in their wake.

      From the boardwalk came the rapid clatter of footsteps. Roy turned to look. The girl was heading the formation of people charging toward the bank. The elderly clerk from the mercantile and the barber in a leather apron followed close behind. Still farther back, three men had burst out of the saloon. One had hurried to his mount at the hitching rail and was pulling a rifle out of a saddle scabbard.

      Roy vaulted on his horse, pain throbbing in his shoulder. Once more, he glanced back, as much to look at Celia Courtwood as to assess the danger. The girl had jumped down at the end of the boardwalk, only a few paces away from him. Their gazes collided. From the way he saw her against the backdrop of the weather-beaten buildings and the dusty street, with a full depth perception instead of the flat vision of a one-eyed man, Roy knew the protecting tuft of horsehair in his wig had shifted aside. And from the way the girl came to a halt, the shock of recognition stamped on her pretty features, he knew that she had noticed his mismatched eyes—had identified him despite the disguise.

      For a moment, time stood still as they stared at each other, the air between them charged with unspoken questions and apologies and explanations. Then Roy turned to face forward, dug his heels into the flanks of the buckskin and shot down the street. Behind him came the girl’s frightened scream. “Papa! Papa!”

      Your father is fine, Roy thought with a trace of irony. I took the bullet meant for him.

      He couldn’t understand what had happened, why Curtis had fired at the teller, unless it was a random act of violence. Some men went crazy with the outlaw life, got into the habit of using gunplay as a means to demonstrate their power, or simply to alleviate the boredom of being shut away in the hideout for months on end, with little to amuse them apart from gambling and drinking and brawling.

      A rifle shot cracked through the air. The rancher who’d burst out of the saloon must have fired, and soon others would fetch their hunting weapons and start shooting. Roy heard the bullet whizz by, chasing him. He squatted low in the saddle and urged Dagur on. One hole in his hide was enough.

      As he left the town behind, the sun in the sky seemed to grow hotter and hotter. His vision wavered, making the landscape hazy. Pain rolled over him in waves that appeared to swallow him up. Sweat coated his skin, mixing with the stream of blood from his shoulder.

      In the distance, he could see a cloud of dust where his associates were making their escape. He twisted awkwardly in the saddle to survey the trail behind him. A burning pain sliced through his side at the motion, but he saw no sign of anyone chasing him.

      He slowed his pace, teetered in the saddle. He was losing too much blood. Unless he attended to his wound and got some rest, he’d never survive the long ride north, to the maze of canyons where the law didn’t reach.

      The gang had arranged to regroup at an abandoned mine, to inspect the haul and to retrieve the provisions they had stored there for the return journey to the hideout. However, Lom Curtis might feel that leaving behind an injured man posed too great a risk. He had a cast-iron rule that any man who joined the Red Bluff Gang could never walk away or be left behind, and in his weakened state Roy would be no match for the outlaw boss—not with fists, not with guns, nor in terms of outwitting him.

      Taking a sharp turn into an outcrop of boulders, Roy pointed the buckskin toward the west, along a trail overgrown with sagebrush and creosote. Unlike Saldana and Davies, who’d spent their idle hours gambling, Roy had roamed the surrounding hills. He’d come across an abandoned homestead, with a log cabin and a spring.

      If he could make it that far, the cabin would offer a place to hide, a refuge from both a posse and the outlaw leader who placed no value on loyalty.

      * * *

      Celia shook herself free from the trance she’d tumbled into when she’d recognized the man with mismatched eyes in his Indian disguise. She jumped up the front steps of the bank, shoved the door open with both hands and hurtled through.

      “Papa! Papa!” She could hear the shrill ring of terror in her voice, could feel her heart hammering in the confines of her chest.

      She raked a frantic glance around the room, divided by a polished oak counter and a glass partition above. Her father and the manager, Mr. Northfield, sat sprawled with their backs against the wall on the customer side. Celia rushed up to them, sank to her knees in front of her father.

      “Papa! Are you all right? Are you all right?” With searching hands, she patted his freshly laundered shirt and the suit coat that hung on his emaciated frame. No blood. No blood. But a glazed look filled her father’s eyes and beneath her searching palms Celia could feel his frail body trembling with fear.

      While she completed her examination, her father sucked in a calming breath and expelled it on a sigh. “I’m fine, Celia girl,” he reassured her. “Just a bit shaken up.”

      She turned to the manager. From an affluent Baltimore family, Mr. Northfield had employed her father on a recommendation from shared acquaintances. In his sixties, cool in manner, trim in appearance, with neatly clipped graying hair and a pencil moustache, the manager kept himself aloof from his employees. Celia possessed no fondness for him, but she was grateful for the opportunity he had extended to her father.

      “Mr. Northfield, are you all right?”

      “I am unharmed, if that is what you mean.” The manager sat upright on the floor and tugged at the lapels of his broadcloth suit. “But I am far from all right. They emptied the vault, all of it. Forty thousand dollars’ worth of gold, the most we have ever held in the bank.”

      Her panic receding, Celia twisted on her knees to survey the disarray. A crack ran across the glass partition and ugly scratches marred the front of the oak counter.