Lady Outlaw. Stacy Henrie

Colt revolver.” Horace lifted it up for her to see. “His isn’t as fast-loading as mine since he can’t just slip a full cylinder in.”

      “How do you load it? Can you teach me that?”

      Horace nodded. He pushed the revolver’s cylinder to the left side and pointed to the six chambers. “The bullets go in there, but you see how you wanna leave one hole empty so the gun don’t fire if it’s dropped?”

      “May I try?” Jennie asked, swallowing back the panic rising in her throat. If Horace gave his brother back the gun, her plan wouldn’t work.

      He looked from her to the gun and over to Clyde. “I s’pose.” He dumped out the bullets and extended the gun toward her. “Here you go.”

      She took the revolver and stuck out her hand for the bullets. Horace rolled them into her palm, but as she drew her hand back, she purposely let the bullets slip from her grip to the floor. “Oh, dear. How clumsy of me.”

      “I’ll get them.” Horace knelt in the tight space and tried to capture a bullet that rolled and jumped with the stage’s movement.

      Clyde sat up, rubbing his jaw. “What in tarnation are you doing, Horace?”

      “Pickin’ these up.” He finally got a hold of a bullet and held it up for Clyde to see. “We dropped ’em.”

      Cursing softly, Clyde leaned down to help gather the ammunition.

      Now’s my chance. Keeping an eye on the two men, Jennie tossed both revolvers out her window. Her heart crashed against her rib cage as she reached inside her purse and cocked her pistol. She slowly removed the gun. Forcing herself to breathe evenly, she aimed the pistol at Horace and Clyde.

      “What were ya doing with the bullets out of the gun anyway?” Clyde barked as he shoved bullets into his pocket. Neither of them paid any attention to Jennie, which gave her enough time to steady her hands and plaster a no-nonsense expression on her face. “Where’s my gun? If you ruined it, so help me, Horace...” Clyde gave a vehement shake of his head.

      The back of Horace’s ears reddened with anger. “I ain’t done nothin’ with your gun. I was just showin’ the lady here how to use one.” He turned to Jennie, and his eyes went wide as saucers at the sight of the pistol in her hand. “Where’d you get that?”

      “Go sit by your brother,” Jennie ordered in an even tone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Clyde’s face blanch, then turn scarlet.

      “You idiot.” Clyde whopped Horace on the side of the head as he scrambled onto their seat. “Looks to me like she already knows how to use a gun. What’d you tell her while I was asleep?”

      Horace blinked in obvious confusion. “I...uh...told her about home. I didn’t say nothin’ about us robbing the stage, honest, Clyde.”

      Clyde lifted his hand to strike his brother again, but Jennie pointed the gun in his direction. “Leave him alone. He didn’t say anything. I learned all I needed to know from your drunken whispers earlier.”

      “Whatya goin’ do with us now?” Horace asked, frowning.

      Instead of answering, Jennie pointed the pistol at the floor and fired a bullet between the men’s boots. Both of them yelped and jumped aside. “That’s a warning,” she explained. “I shoot even better at long-range, so I wouldn’t suggest making a dash for it. You’d likely break every bone in your body if you tried to jump anyway.”

      The stagecoach came to an abrupt stop, as Jennie had hoped, and the driver soon appeared beside the door. He had a shotgun in his hand and a look of pure annoyance on his weathered face.

      Throwing open the door, he glared at Horace and Clyde. “What do you mean firing a gun while we’re moving? You’ll scare the horses, or the lady here.” He glanced over at Jennie, and seeing her pistol, his eyes widened.

      “Forgive me. That shot was meant to alert you.” Jennie smiled apologetically. “I overheard these men talking. I believe they’re the bandits who robbed that stage yesterday.”

      “Well, I’ll be.” The driver scratched at his head beneath his hat, his gaze flitting from Jennie to the brothers and back again. “And the money?”

      Swallowing the twinge of guilt that rose inside her, Jennie pointed her gun at the bag by Horace. “I believe it’s in there.”

      The driver leaned into the stage and proceeded to grab the black bag, but Clyde snatched the other side of the handle and refused to let go. “You can’t have it,” he argued. “We worked and planned for months to get this cash.”

      “Let go, young man, or you’ll be eatin’ bullets.” The stage driver trained the shotgun on Clyde. The two locked gazes before Clyde finally released his grip on the bag. The driver passed his shotgun to Jennie. “Hold this on ’em for a minute, miss, while I grab me some rope.”

      Jennie nodded and took the shotgun in hand. Shifting the pistol in Clyde’s direction, she pointed the driver’s gun at the sullen-looking Horace.

      As soon as the driver disappeared from view, Clyde glowered at her. “You won’t get away with this, missy,” he hissed. “If you think I’m going to rot in jail and lose two thousand dollars ’cause some female has a hankering to be brave, you don’t know me.”

      “Perhaps you ought to have considered that possibility before you robbed the stage,” Jennie said, edging her pistol closer to him.

      The stage driver returned and tied the men’s hands and feet together. With Jennie holding both guns on them, neither one made an attempt to struggle.

      “You might want to ride up with me, miss,” the driver said when he’d finished.

      “I believe I will.” She handed him back his gun, but kept hers in her grip. The driver climbed out, and after gathering her purse, Jennie hurried to follow.

      “We’re goin’ to find you,” Clyde shouted as she descended the steps. “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done this. Horace and I will—”

      The stage driver slammed the door against Clyde’s protests and led Jennie by the elbow to the front of the stage. “Don’t pay him no mind, miss. You’ve done a brave thing. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He helped her up onto the seat. “Afraid we’ll have to turn back though, so we can turn those two rascals over to the law in Fillmore.”

      Jennie nodded in agreement as she tucked her pistol into her bag alongside the cash.

      The stage driver joined her on the seat and gathered the reins. He turned the stagecoach around, heading north again. Jennie did her best to ignore Clyde’s occasional shouts from below. She concentrated instead on the thrill she felt as she imagined marching into the bank tomorrow and slapping the five hundred dollars on Mr. Dixon’s desk. Let him wonder how she came up with it so fast. At least the ranch would be safe from his greedy hands, for now.

      Chapter Two

      Seven months later

      Caleb let his horse Saul pick its own way along the faint trail through the sagebrush while he sat in the saddle, finishing his cold supper of dry bread and jerky. He didn’t have time to stop to eat if he was going to find lodging and a warm meal in Beaver by sundown.

      He brushed the bits of bread from his chaps, and almost of its own accord, his hand rose to pat the pouch hidden beneath his shirt. Three hundred dollars sat inside—three hundred dollars his parents couldn’t complain hadn’t been earned through honest labor. Not that any amount of honest work would reconcile them to the fact that he wasn’t coming home to the Salt Lake Valley. They hadn’t liked it when he’d left, and they certainly hadn’t been pleased when he’d become a bounty hunter. But the real divide had come when he’d stopped bounty hunting...and still refused to come home.

      Didn’t they understand how hard it was for him to think of returning to the place