Lynna Banning - The Lone Sheriff

He shrugged. “’Bout ten, I guess. I never knew for sure what my age was.”

Maddie’s throat felt so raw she could scarcely speak. She closed her eyes. How he must have hated himself. She would not be surprised if he still did. She shut her mouth tight. What could she say to ease a scar like that? Nothing.

He recrossed his legs. “Heard enough?”

“More than enough,” she breathed. It explained everything, his brusque manner, his hard exterior, the unreachable part of himself he kept shuttered.

He slipped the sling off his arm, flexed his wrist, and waggled each of his fingers individually. Some of them, she noticed, seemed reluctant to move.

“Does that hurt?”

“Hell, yes, it hurts.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m gonna need a steady gun hand and a trigger finger that works, that’s why.”

Go ahead, she thought. Grumble and roar all you want. She was not going to let herself be intimidated by him.

He said nothing for the next hour, just worked his wrist and his fingers back and forth, his lips thinned over his teeth. Perspiration stood out on the part of his forehead she could see; his black hair straggled over the rest.

The uniformed conductor stuck his head into the car. “Next stop Riverton,” he yelled.

Two passengers boarded, an old man, bent nearly double and a young woman, probably his daughter, who held on to one of his scrawny arms. She settled him four seats behind.

The sheriff gave them a quick once-over, then reattached his sling and pulled a small bottle from inside his vest.

“Pain medicine,” he said to no one in particular.

“What you drink is your business, Sheriff.”

He gave her a long, unblinking look. “Damn right.”

Maddie laughed out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Jericho swigged a mouthful from the bottle, corked it and stowed it in his vest pocket.

“Now, Mrs. O’Donnell, What about you?”

“Me! What about me?”

The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “What happened to you that makes you so sure of yourself and so stubborn?”

“N-nothing. It just comes naturally. My upbringing, I suppose.”

“Ladyfied and spoiled, I’d guess.”

Maddie bit her lip. “Well, let’s just say rich and protected. Actually, overprotected. My mother was English, very high society. My father was Irish and very well-off. A banker.”

“Figures,” Jericho muttered.

“I married young to get away from them, really. He was also a banker. After a while—a very short while—I realized my husband was only interested in my money and he only wanted a wife for a showpiece. So I became just that—a china doll with pretty dresses. It didn’t take long before I wanted a real life.”

He snorted. “What the hell is a ‘real life’?”

She thought for a long minute. “I am not sure exactly. Someone who loves me for myself. Real friends, not society matrons. At least I know what it is not—finishing schools and servants and a closet full of expensive clothes.”

He took care not to look at her, staring again out the window at the passing wheat fields. “Seems to me, Mrs. O’Donnell, that you’re gonna feel kinda lost out here in the West. Ought to be back in the big city, where you belong.”

She turned toward him. “I suppose I do feel lost, in a way. The West is so...well, big. Things—towns—are so far apart.”

“Yeah, that spooks a lot of Easterners.”

“But I do not feel lost when I am on an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton. Then I know exactly who I am. It makes me feel...worthwhile.”

She pulled a ball of pink cotton thread from her travel bag and began to crochet. Her fingers shook the tiniest bit.

Jericho leaned back and closed his eyes. Nothing more worth saying, or asking, he figured. He must have dozed for hours and suddenly the train screeched to a stop. A glance through the window told him they were not in a train station; they were out in the middle of nowhere.

Hell’s bells, here it came.

Left-handed, Jericho dragged his Colt out of the holster, thumbed back the hammer and started for the mail car. A swish of petticoats at his heels told him Maddie was right behind him.

“Stay here,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Try and make me!”

Damn fool woman. She’d get herself killed and he’d kick himself to hell and back. He wished he’d never laid eyes on her.

In the mail car, the white-faced clerk stood frozen, hands in the air, while a man with a bandanna covering the lower half of his face held a revolver on him with one hand and, with the other, hurled a canvas Wells Fargo bag through the open side door.

Maddie darted off to Jericho’s right, clutching a revolver.

“Get down!” he shouted. The young mail clerk dropped to the floor but Maddie went into a crouch and leveled her weapon at the robber.

“Hands up!” Her ordinarily genteel voice cut like cold steel.

The man straightened in surprise, then turned his gun toward the voice. Jericho sent a bullet zinging off the silver handle and the gun skidded across the floor in front of Maddie. She stopped it with her small black shoe and kicked it into a corner.

Three men on horseback waited outside the car. Maddie swung her pistol toward the opening and fired, winging one man. Another outlaw pointed his weapon at her but Jericho’s shot spun it out of his hand.

The mounted robbers began peppering the wall behind them with gunfire while the man inside ducked and began shoving more canvas bags out onto the ground.

A tall rider with a paunch walked his horse up to the car and took careful aim at Jericho, but before he could squeeze the trigger Maddie fired a shot that neatly spun his weapon out of his hand. Where had she learned to shoot like that?

Fat Man reined away. Maddie sent another bullet through his flapping black coattail.

The man inside skedaddled after the canvas bags, shoved one more off the car and then tumbled out onto the ground after it. He dove under his waiting horse. Jericho itched to shoot him, but with his left-handed aim off, he figured he’d kill the horse before he nailed the outlaw.

The three others hefted the canvas sacks behind their saddles, mounted and thundered off in a cloud of gray dust. The last man scrambled onto his horse and pounded after them.

Jericho raised his revolver to pick him off, but he was out of range.

Maddie put a shot through his hat, but he twisted in the saddle and fired back at her. She yelped.

The bullet tore through the sleeve of her shirtwaist, burning a path above her elbow. It felt like something scraping her skin with a white-hot knife.

Then there was nothing but dust, the audible prayers of the crouching mail clerk, the chuff of the train engine, and Jericho yelling at her.

“Dammit, Maddie, you’d think you’d be smart enough to stay out of the line of fire!” He leaped over the clerk and grabbed her arm. Right where it hurt.

She gritted her teeth. “If you do not let me go, Sheriff, I am going to shoot you, too!”

He snatched his hand away and stepped back, eyes narrowed. “Are you hurt?”

She lifted her arm and pointed to the black-rimmed hole in the sleeve. “Bullet burn.”

He opened his mouth again. She was sure he was going to yell at her some more, but she interrupted. “Sheriff,” she enunciated quietly.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

He looked dumbfounded. “What?”

“Be quiet. I am not seriously injured and I see that you are unharmed, as well.” She began to gather up the disordered mail bags.

“Hell,” Jericho muttered. “You’re not even shook up.”

She pocketed her pistol. “Stop complaining and help me.”

He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “How come you’re not shakin’ or cryin’ or something?”