A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel. Linda Lael Miller

felled a couple of trees across the track, in a place where the engineer would be sure to see the obstruction soon enough to put the brakes on. But there was a railroad agent aboard the second train, and the robbers seemed to know him. Singled him out right away, and relieved him of his weapons. A passenger tried to intercede, and he was shot for his trouble. Might never regain the use of his right arm.”

      “You suspect anybody in particular?” Rowdy asked lightly.

      “All we’ve got is a hunch,” John said. “My gut tells me, this is Payton Yarbro and his boys.”

      Rowdy did not react visibly to the name—he’d had too much practice at hiding his identity for that—but on the inside, things commenced to churning. “I haven’t heard anything about the Yarbros in a long time,” he said. “I guess I figured they’d scattered by now. Even gone out of business. The old man’s got to be getting pretty long in the tooth—might even be dead.”

      Both Sam and John were silent, and the speculation in their eyes unnerved Rowdy. He realized that if he’d followed his first impulse, which was to pretend he’d never heard of the Yarbros, they’d have been suspicious. Not to know of the Yarbros would have been the same as not knowing who the James brothers were, or the Earps.

      “It’s only fair to tell you,” Rowdy went on, “that I’ve got no experience tracking train robbers. I sort of stumbled into that marshaling job down in Haven, and just did what was there to do. I’ve been a ranch hand, mostly.”

      Sam watched him for a long moment, and with an intensity that would have made anybody but a Yarbro squirm in his chair. On the off chance Sam knew that, Rowdy shifted slightly.

      “Sam tells me you’re a good hand in a gunfight,” John said. “You could have lit out when things got rough in Haven, but you stayed on. Even helped with some of the rebuilding, along with wearing a badge. You’ve got the kind of grit we’re looking for.”

      Rowdy’s hat rested in his lap. He turned it idly by the crown. “I’m not inclined to settle down permanently,” he said.

      The major nodded once, decisively. “That’s your prerogative. Run the Yarbros to ground and ride out, if that’s what you want to do. We’d be glad to have you stay on in Stone Creek, though.”

      Rowdy studied John Blackstone. “You sure do seem to think highly of me,” he remarked, “given that I’m a stranger to you, and all you’ve got to go on is my reputation.”

      For the first time since the palaver had begun, Blackstone smiled. “I’d stake my life and everything I own on Sam O’Ballivan’s assessment of anybody’s character. I might not know you from Adam, but I sure as hell know Sam.”

      Rowdy knew Sam, too, and that was what made him wary. He was a fast gun, maybe as fast as Rowdy was, and he had a fortitude rarely seen, even in the wild Arizona Territory. Of course, it was possible, too, that Sam had already pegged Rowdy for a Yarbro, and meant for him to lead them right to Pappy’s den.

      A more prudent man would have taken his pa’s advice and ridden out, put as much distance between himself and Stone Creek as he could, pronto. Rowdy was a gambler at heart; he wanted to stay and see how the cards would fall, but that wasn’t his main reason for sitting in on this particular game.

      He had another, even more intriguing puzzle to solve, and that was Lark Morgan, though there was no telling when she’d strike out for parts unknown.

      Sam and the major sat waiting for him to announce his decision, though they probably already knew what it would be.

      “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

      “Good,” John replied, with the air of a man completing important business. “I’ll swear you in as marshal, and Sam’s got a badge in his pocket. You just remember, the rangering part is between us.”

      “I might need a posse, if I’m going after a bunch of train robbers,” Rowdy said. Whatever his private differences with his pa, he had no intention of rounding the old man up for a stretch in the prison down in Yuma, or even a hangman’s noose, but he’d put on a show until he knew what was what.

      There was an off chance, of course, that Payton had been telling the truth when he claimed he’d had no part in robbing those trains. Should time and some investigation bear him out, Rowdy would find the real culprits and bring them in.

      “If a posse is called for,” Sam said, handing Rowdy a star-shaped badge, “we’ll get one up.”

      When the major produced a battered copy of the New Testament, Rowdy didn’t hesitate to lay a hand on it. He wasn’t a believer—at least, not the usual kind—but his mother had been, and that made the oath a solemn matter.

      Fortunately, there was nothing in it about handcuffing his own pa, or any of his brothers, not specifically, anyhow. He swore to uphold the law, and he’d do that—up to a certain point.

      After the swearing in, the major went off on some errand over at the Stone Creek Bank, while Sam, Rowdy and Pardner headed for the jailhouse, down at the far end of the street.

      Would have made more sense to put the marshal’s office in the center of town, where the saloons were and trouble was most likely to break out. Rowdy figured folks wanted a lawman around, but at a little distance, too.

      The jailhouse was about like the old one in Haven, before it burned. One cell, a potbelly stove with a coffeepot on top, somebody’s old table to serve as a desk.

      It was the cabin out back that surprised Rowdy a little. It had three rooms, a good fireplace and a cookstove to rival the one in Mrs. Porter’s kitchen. The floors were hardwood and the windows were sound, with no cracks around them to let in the winter wind. The bed had a good feather mattress and plenty of blankets, and there was a sink with a working pump. An indoor toilet and a stationary bathtub with a copper hot water tank and a wood-burning boiler under it raised the place to an unexpected level of luxury.

      “The last marshal had a wife,” Sam explained simply. “Come on. I’ll show you the barn.”

      Rowdy grinned. “I’d probably feel more at home out there,” he said. Back in Haven he’d slept on a cell cot, when there were no prisoners, and with a certain accommodating widow when there were.

      “Maybe you’ll take a wife,” Sam said, making for the back door.

      “Not likely,” Rowdy replied.

      Sam chuckled. “I thought the same way once,” he said. “Then I met up with Maddie Chancelor.”

      4

      LARK AWAKENED with a start, heart pounding, afraid to open her eyes. She was certain she would see Autry Whitman looming over her bed if she did.

      The room was frigid, and the fine sweat that had broken out all over her body in the midst of her nightmare exacerbated the chill stinging the marrow of her bones. She forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply, and raised one eyelid, every muscle in her body tensed to roll off the side of the mattress and grab for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

      Autry wasn’t there.

      Tears of relief clogged her throat and burned on her cheeks.

      Autry wasn’t there.

      She sat up, fumbled with the globe of the painted glass lamp on her bedside table, struck a match to the wick. Shadows rimmed in faint moonlight receded and then dissolved. According to the little porcelain clock she’d brought with her from St. Louis, it was after three in the morning.

      Inwardly Lark groaned. She wasn’t going back to sleep.

      After summoning all her inner fortitude, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. The wooden floor felt frosty under her bare feet, and, shivering, she thought with longing of the wood cookstove downstairs.

      She would go down there, build up the fire, if it hadn’t gone out after Rowdy banked it for the night. Light