“I really hate people who treat animals like this,” he said, glaring at Billybob, who was scooting back in case any more kicks were coming. “Which one is yours?”
“Neither,” Billybob denied, an obvious lie. “They both belong to Vince.”
“Well, one can’t be ridden, and the other won’t be doing any hard riding any time soon. Took a rock out of his foot that was beginning to fester. And look at them! They’re both ripped up bloody from your damn spurs.”
Billybob scooted back even farther, but Kid was done with his tirade and continued on to the fire. “Time to move out,” he told Damian. “We’ll be lucky if we make any more distance today than if those two were on foot. They’ll have to share the one horse. The other is going to go crippled if she takes any more weight before she mends. Damn, but stupid people annoy the hell out of me.”
That was pretty obvious. Under the circumstances, Damian decided not to mention his traveling bag again. He supposed he would be able to replace it as soon as he reached civilization again. Finding new clothes of good quality was another matter…
He helped break up the camp as best as common sense would allow, which for him was washing the dishes in the river. When he came back up the hill, the fire was completely buried and Kid’s horse saddled and packed up with the large saddlebags that carried his trail gear.
This was the first time he’d noticed the chestnut gelding, which had been staked off on the edge of the camp. It was a fine-looking animal, well-groomed and spirited, or at least it seemed eager to be on the move. It was comparable to the Thoroughbreds that Damian had seen when he’d occasionally gone to the races, and he was a bit surprised that the skinny kid would own such an animal.
The boy was in the process of trying to get Billybob mounted, and from the sound of it, not having much luck. “I tell you, I can’t do it, not with my hands tied behind me,” Billybob was saying. “And even if I get up there, I’ll be falling off without something to hold on to.”
“Good. Then you’ll spend all day thinking about staying in the saddle, rather than thinking up ways to cause me trouble. Now either you get up there or you walk, and it sure don’t make me no nevermind which you choose.”
It did look like an impossible task, which was why Damian came up behind Billybob and more or less tossed him up into the saddle. The man let out a “What the…?” before he concentrated on not falling off the other side.
Kid gave Damian a genuine grin. His look said, Guess you’re not totally useless, and then he glanced at the still unconscious Vince. “If he’s still alive, you want to see if you can manage that again?”
The allusion to how hard Damian had hit the man had him blushing slightly. He nodded, and did manage to help Vince up into the saddle behind his friend after pouring half a canteen of water on him to get him awake enough to stay in it. But now that it was his own turn to mount, he was wishing someone was there to give him a hoist up as well—not that he could imagine anyone big enough to.
Living all his life in a large city, Damian had never had to deal with horses before, always having footmen or drivers to see to the carriage horses. Today would actually be the first time he’d ever been on the back of a horse, and he’d never realized what big animals they really were, particularly the spirited chestnut.
The boy, mounted and waiting, finally said, “You put your foot in the stirrup, Mr. Rutledge. Haven’t you ever ridden before?”
“Only in vehicles, not on the animals that pull them,” Damian was forced to admit.
He heard a sigh, then, “I shoulda known... Here, use my arm for balance, but push with your leg once you get your foot in the stirrup, then release it once you’re seated.”
It was easier said than done, of course, but Damian made it after the second attempt, and without landing them in the dust. His perch on top the saddle, though, was precarious at best, and he suddenly felt quite sorry for Vince, sitting behind Billybob with his hands tied behind him and no way to prevent a fall if he lost his balance.
At least Damian had Kid’s reassuring “Hold on to me if you have to. We’re not going to do any hard riding, so you shouldn’t have any problems staying put.”
They set out immediately, but it wasn’t long before Vince started his complaints, and not just about being forced to ride with his hands tied. He was quite loud and extremely insulting with his choice of swear words in telling Damian what he thought of his broken nose.
But Kid finally put a stop to it with a yelled “If you want to eat tonight, shut up,” and Vince shut up.
Damian smiled to himself. He had to admit, Kid had a no-nonsense style to be admired—at least under some situations. Actually, he was forced to revise his original opinion of the boy. Despite his less than perfect grammar, Kid was obviously intelligent. He was also extremely competent for his age, and had strong, if somewhat bossy, leadership qualities. He added up to a very intriguing, if disturbing, young fellow. Damian wished he could figure out what exactly did disturb him about the lad, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Considering the ease with which he had taken care of the two stage robbers, and his intent to bring them in to the law, he obviously hadn’t been bragging or lying about his profession, or the number of men he’d personally brought to justice. He was damned young to be a bounty hunter, but Damian had to suppose that his skill with a weapon made the job rather ideal for him—dangerous, but ideal.
His personal habits, on the other hand, could definitely use some improvements. He had just camped by a river that had offered usable, if barbaric, bathing opportunities, but he hadn’t taken advantage of them. Or if he had before Damian showed up, it certainly wasn’t noticeable. Under such close proximity, Damian soon became aware of the odor that permeated the kid, and it was far from pleasant.
When they stopped for a short period around noon to rest the horses and stretch their legs, Damian was quick to fetch a handkerchief from his bag—he’d been so pleased when he looked back and noticed it strapped to the saddle of the horse that was being led. But the handkerchief, pressed unobtrusively to his nose so as not to give offense if the kid happened to glance back at him, helped only minimally.
Normally, Damian would never have broached such a personal subject, but toward late afternoon, after smelling that odor all day, he couldn’t keep back the question any longer. “Do you live in those clothes?” he asked bluntly.
“Pretty much,” came the easy reply. “Keeps the critters away at least.”
Damian couldn’t tell if the boy was joking, so he didn’t bother to ask what critters he was referring to. He sighed, figuring he’d have to live with it until they reached town, which was another question...
“Will we see this Coffeyville by tonight, do you think?” he asked hopefully.
The kid didn’t bother to look back to answer. “We might have, without those two owlhoots slowing us down, but now? I seriously doubt it, Mr. Rutledge.”
Another sigh; then, merely to continue the conversation, Damian said, “Considering our close, if temporary, association, why don’t you call me Damian? ‘Mr. Rutledge’ sounds rather—out of place out here, don’t you think? And you must have something else that you’ve been called during your short lifetime other than Kid?”
“Well, I use ‘K.C.’ when I have to sign things legallike, if that’s what you mean.”
“What do the initials stand for?”
“Stand for?” There was a shrug. “Nothing. I was just making my mark the first time I had to sign for a reward, when the sheriff who saw me make it figured he was reading a ‘K.C.,’ and it kind of stuck after that—leastways, that particular sheriff doesn’t call me anything else.”
“K.C., eh? That’s actually a nice name, if you take it in that context, rather than as initials. Mind if I call you Casey?”
The kid noticeably stiffened for a moment, then just as noticeably relaxed. “Don’t make me no nevermind,” was all he said.
That wasn’t quite true
, but Casey obviously wasn’t going to make an issue over it. Damian smiled, imagining the boy objected to a name that was known to be used by either boys or girls. And boys his age did tend to get sensitive about such trivialities.
They fell silent again after that. For the most part, it had been a long and boring day on the trail, which Damian supposed he could be grateful for. Boring meant nothing else unfamiliar and dangerous catching him off guard and making him feel so totally out of his element.
About an hour before sunset, Casey headed back toward the river to make camp. He had a fire going in just a few minutes and quickly prepared some dough and set it aside to rise. But then he mounted up again as Damian was still seeing to getting their guests settled.
Damian was alarmed for a moment, thinking he was being abandoned, until Casey said, “Try not to break any more noses while I’m fetching dinner.”
Damian blushed furiously. Casey didn’t see it. He’d already ridden off.
Chapter 7
Casey was probably as glad to see Coffeyville the next morning as Damian was. She preferred traveling alone. She couldn’t relax and be herself when she had to be constantly on guard. She couldn’t manage a quick bath if water was at hand. She couldn’t even see to nature’s needs without slinking off to hide, while her companions just found any old spot with no thought to who else was around. But she couldn’t get annoyed about the embarrassment it caused her, since they all thought she was one of them.
And that was her fault. Not that she went to any concerted effort to appear other than she was. It had never occurred to her when she left home that pretending to be a boy would make things easier on her.
She hadn’t exactly been looking for “easy” at the time, just the opposite actually, if she wanted to get her point proved soon. The only thing she had done was hack off her hair to shoulder-length, and only because, with the clothes she needed to wear for the trail, that long braid dangling down her back would have drawn more notice, and she’d never liked being the center of attention.
The male attire that she wore was necessary, suitable as it was for riding, which was how she did most of her traveling. But it was the thick woolen poncho that fooled folks, hiding all her bumps and curves. And she wore that by preference. The poncho, wide in front, was easier to lift out of the way to draw her weapon than a jacket would be. A jacket, typically shoved behind the gun before it was drawn, would sometimes fall forward again or get in the way, and that could be detrimental to one’s health.
So folks looked at her and, as tall as she was, just naturally assumed she was a boy. She saw no reason to change that misconception. It kept her from being bothered when in towns. It kept her prisoners from thinking they could take advantage of her because she was of the fairer sex. Funny; how they would have less problems accepting apprehension from a young boy than from a woman. But it was true. Some men just didn’t take women seriously at all.
If asked, she’d be honest. After all, she wasn’t masquerading, she was merely letting folks keep their first impressions. And if no one wanted to get too close to her, which might help that person notice things he otherwise wouldn’t, that wasn’t intentional either. That she stank a bit, well, there was a good reason for it.
She had to hunt her own food, and critters could sniff out humans too easily. Masking her scent she’d learned from her father. She could occasionally get right on top of a critter that way, before it sensed danger.
Which was why Casey didn’t bother to wash her clothes unless she was staying in a town for more than a day, though she did bathe herself as often as possible. Right now, though, she knew she reeked, because her woolen poncho stank to high heaven every time after getting wet, and it had been drenched in the downpour the area had had a few days ago.
None of which would cause her any grief if she didn’t have company, but she did, and she’d been extremely embarrassed a number of times since Damian Rutledge III had walked into her camp.
She’d never met anyone who’d held her attention as much as that Easterner did. He was unusual, to be sure, a big man like that in such a fancy city suit, but he was too damn handsome, too. Brown hair so dark that it looked black in most lighting, broad cheekbones, a very arrogant slant to his jaw, and thick brows made his face very masculine, along with a sharply chiseled nose and a firm mouth. And he had piercing gray eyes that had given her pause more than once, in thinking he could see through to the real Casey.
He distracted her, plain and simple. She’d caught herself staring at him for no good reason, just because he was so nice to look at. He made her feel strange, too, which she didn’t like. And a couple times she’d even had this fool notion that maybe she ought to get prettied up, to let him see what she could be like, which was plain stupid. He’d be going on his way as soon as they reached Coffeyville, and she was glad of it. Distractions like him she didn’t need.
Casey was doing fairly well for herself, all things considered. For a while, she’d felt really bad about the way she’d left home after that argument with her father, her anger keeping her from leaving her parents any explanation. She’d simply taken off without any good-byes, sneaked off in the night, to be exact.
But she telegraphed notes to her mother every few weeks, to let her know she was fine. She didn’t want them to worry about her, though she knew they would. Still, she wasn’t going home until she had accomplished her goal.
Chandos had made his way on his own. Now Casey was merely doing the same. She was proving that she could support herself without a man’s help, and do it by doing a man’s job.
Yet sometimes she felt like the outlaws whom she tracked. Knowing her father, she assumed that he was out there searching for her, and it wasn’t easy eluding him. But all he had to go on was her description, and her present description didn’t exactly match the one he knew by heart. The irony of the initials she used he hadn’t discovered yet, at least not to her knowledge, but only a few sheriffs knew her as K.C. Most folks really did just call her Kid.
Soon she might be able to go home. At least she’d come north on this trip with that hope.
It had been a prime piece of luck, being in the right place at the right time and overhearing Bill Doolin bragging about a double bank robbery planned in Coffeyville this week. Doolin was a known member of the Dalton gang, and Casey probably could have captured him with ease—he’d been quite drunk at the time—but had decided to wait and get the entire gang at once.
Casey had done her homework about this bunch of outlaws, talking to people, reading up on past newspaper articles, just as she always did before she set out to apprehend someone. The three Dalton brothers, Robert, Emmett, and Grattan, used to be U.S. marshals out of Arkansas. It was purely a shame when lawmen went bad, but the Dalton brothers surely had.
They’d started their illegal activities only a few years ago in Oklahoma, horse stealing mostly, then had moved up to bigger crimes when Robert, the leader of the gang, moved them to California. Their attempt to rob the San Francisco-Los Angeles express of the Southern Pacific Railroad early last year, a failed undertaking since they couldn’t get the safe open, got them plastered all over Wanted posters in that area, so they hightailed it back to Oklahoma. Grattan did get arrested and tried—one man had been killed in that botched California job—ending up with a twenty-year jail term, but he managed to escape and rejoin his brothers.
Apparently they added to their numbers after that, for there were four newcomers with them—Charlie “Blackface” Bryant, Charley Pierce, “Bitter Creek” George Newcomb, and Bill Doolin—when they robbed the Santa Fe Limited at Wharton in the Cherokee Strip in May last year. No one was killed that time, and they escaped with over ten thousand dollars. Blackface Bryant didn’t live long enough to spend his share, though, dying shortly afterward in a shoot-out with U.S. Deputy Marshal Ed Short.
Later that same month, the gang got away with a reported nineteen thousand after flagging down the Missouri, Kansas & Texas train at Lelietta. But t
hey’d likely been holed up, living off their ill-gotten gains after that, because the Dalton gang didn’t appear in newsprint again until this past June, when they robbed another train at Redrock. And their last train robbery, in July at Adair, got bloody again, with three men wounded and one dead.
But apparently they were stepping up their operations to include banks now, and not just one, but two at once. Quite an ambitious undertaking for this gang of owlhoots, if it was true. Casey intended to be there to prevent it and collect the rewards.
The combined amounts offered for the gang members would be well over what she’d been hoping to have in the bank when she finished her “point-proving.” She’d be able to go home, which was what she’d been yearning to do only two weeks after she left. Instead, she’d been gone for six months. Six long months and plenty of tears in between.
Chapter 8
Just one hour further last night on the trail, and they could have slept in relative comfort. But Casey hadn’t known that, this being her first time traveling as far north as Kansas. She hadn’t figured she would run out of food, either, before she reached the next town, but having three extra mouths to feed had seen to that.
They were late hitting the trail that morning because she’d had to go hunting again for breakfast, having gone through the last of her dough and canned goods with the previous night’s dinner. She always bought just enough food staples in each town she passed through to last her to the next town, but that didn’t take into account running into lost Easterners and bungling stage robbers along the way. So even though it had been only another hour along the trail, it was still midmorning when they rode into Coffeyville.