_{Green River Revolt}

_{Alice Blue}

 

---

_{www.classactbooks.com}

Copyright ©2009 by Alice Blue

* * * *

_{GREEN RIVER REVOLT}

Published

by

CLASS ACT BOOKS

P.O. Box 726

Lusk_f Wyoming 82225

www.classactbooks.com

Copyright © 2009 by Alice Blue

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

_{ISBN 978-1-935048-45-9 1-935048-45-7}

Credits

Editor: BJ Haynes Copyeditor: Jewel Adams

Cover Art: BJ Haynes

Printed in the United States of America

GREEN RIVER REVOLT

by

ALICE BLUE

CLASS ACT BOOKS

classactbooks. com

_{GREEN RIVER REVOLT}

In the 1880s Lucille Martin revolts against men who will not allow women to vote or own property. In spite of all her work at home her brother inherits the family farm, so possessing a teaching degree, she finds it easy to leave her family. A tall woman, with the masculine occupation of teaching, she joins a wagon train to Wyoming, where women have the privileges she covets.

The wagon train members are captured and held prisoner. Their outlaw captors claim the property legally belonging to the members. Lucille is forced to cook in the outlaws¹ restaurant and watch the property meant to be hers snatched by a man named Gorman, whom she assumes is one of the outlaws.

Gorman sets out to prove his innocence, while Corey Black, outlaw and killer, gambles for the women in town. Lucille must work hard to protect her friends.

Together Lucille and Gorman fight to reclaim the valley, but he is badly wounded. He escapes with the help of friends and Lucille must decide if she will accept him if—or when—he ever returns.

_{[Back to Table of Contents!}

Prologue

"I will win the right to vote! I will win the right to have property in my own name!" Lucille stormed about the big farmhouse living room. She stopped in front of her six-foot father, who stood only two inches taller than she did. 'You say I can't own property or vote here, so I will win those rights in Wyoming!"

"Wyoming? And how will you get there?" scornfully asked her petite stepmother.

_{No one answered her.}

"You earn your keep plenty here," her father admitted. "We ain't chasin' you out. You got your teaching certificate if you don't like living on the farm."

"Why would you want such silly things? You don't need to vote or do those unladylike things. Women shouldn't control property. They haven't the ability."

"Unladylike things!" Lucille gave an unladylike snort. "I can throw hay on a wagon like a man! I'm expected to milk cows for the creamery. Who plows the garden? Me, that's who. It's all right to be unladylike for those things, but not a word about owning my own cows, or my own privilege to say what our taxes will be, even though I help earn the income."

"Why do we deserve this tirade?" Lucille's stepmother held a dainty handkerchief to her tiny mouth. Lucille considered it like her to put her own feelings first.

"Tirade?" Lucille said between long paces. "What have you done to me? I'll tell you what. Look at you. Look at Agnes and Agatha. Barely five feet tall, any of you. You make me feel like a big, clumsy old cow. And that isn't all. When I was skinny and pretty you shoved me in the kitchen so any beaus couldn't see me. You insisted the older girls needed courtship and marriage first. Look me now. Five foot ten and four hundred pounds!"

"We didn't tell you to eat all that pie and potatoes," Ardith Andrews Martin said defensively. "And especially those chocolates. Why do you want to get away?"

To get away from the simpering, brainiess females in this house. Lucille didn't want to make things worse, so she refrained from saying it.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," said her father. He, too, paced the floor. "Since you don't have a husband, you'll get a share of my estate. Your brother Horace will inherit the farm, of course. He is wanting an advance on his share when he marries Agnes so he can start farming at Hibold's place. I'm giving him cows and pigs."

"I'll take cash," Lucille said. Somewhat mollified Lucille added, "I'd appreciate cash. Women vote and own property in Wyoming. They don't here. I can teach and have my own life in Wyoming. I'm taking the train to St. Louis in the morning."

"I'll get your money and wire it to the bank in St. Louis." Her father's voice sounded weary and sad. "It will be there by the time you are. Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

"I've already contracted with a wagon train out of Council Bluffs to teach for all the children who are going to Wyoming with their parents."

Hubert Martin drew a big sigh. Lucille caught the fleeting accusation in his eyes as he glanced at his second wife of only a couple years.

"I'm sorry, Pa," Lucille said. "I just feel I'm destined to be in the forefront of this move for women's rights."

"So be it, Lucille, so be it."

[Back to Table of Contents!

_{CHAPTER 1}

^{Wyoming 1882}

Sparks flew! The big man's glinting green eyes met hers. Lucille Martin was furious! She marched forward to confront the wretched man. Too late she realized, using her five foot ten inches of height, to chastise this one would not work like encounters with smaller men. Worse yet, she'd come all these hundreds of miles, now this! She couldn't afford to back off. She resisted the urge to jump up and down in rage like one of her school pupils.

" Outlaw! Renegade! You shot at us! You put holes in my Conestoga canvas and broke the hoop. You could have killed us!" How dare the man sit on that fancy horse, big as a mountain, his curling red hair flowing in the breeze from under that monstrous hat, and stare at her like she was crazy. He acted as if they intruded on his personal territory, when the territory really belonged to her and other members of the wagon train.

"Could have, lady, could have." He nudged his Appaloosa horse back and forth before them all, ignoring her as he looked out over the Conestoga wagons as though counting them, before returning his attention to her. His beard jerked with the emphasis he put on each word. "We outnumber you folks two to one. If we wanted to kill anybody, they'd already be dead. I want you all out of this valley! I'll gladly let you go peaceably, and there will be no harm done. There are other places you can settle."

She stomped her foot and dust flew up in a choking cloud. That hulking brute put an end to all her hopes and dreams for a place of her own. One for which she had already paid good money. Words failed her, for the moment.

Banker Shafer moved up beside her, his head even with her shoulder. His jowls wobbled and his hands clenched. He shook one pudgy fist at the red haired giant. "We have legal title to land in this valley. It's registered in Cheyenne. You are the one trespassing, sir."

"Paper doesn't mean a thing if you can't hold the land. If you come any farther you will not be allowed to leave." He removed his big white hat and ran long fingers through wildly tousled hair, before replacing it on his head.

Lucille gasped incredulously. "We'd be prisoners on our own property? Prisoners? I cant believe this!"

"Well not give up our property!" Sixty-year-old Hiram Clovinei reached for his gun. A blow to the head from a gun butt promptly struck him down. Lucille rushed to his side, glaring up at his assailant.

"That red haired outlaw is on the Wanted posters," Martha Adams said softly as she too came to Clovines side. "It's lucky Ben got away, and I think young Shafer is missing." The two of them helped Clovine to his feet.

"So is the one in the black bowler hat—wanted," whispered Lucille. The man in the round hat seemed big and broad, and so serious featured he made her frown.

From beside Mr. Clovine, Lucille put shaking hands on her ample hips and stared up at the man on the horse. "You can't mean to keep us all prisoners!"

"Watch me." The big red headed outlaw dismounted from his Appaloosa horse and strode right up to her. She drew in an anxious breath, but refused to back down.

"By gosh, you are tall for a gal," he said.

How dare he look at her as if he was a starving man that had just discovered chocolate cake. The next moment his eyes narrowed and he frowned, then he gazed out over her head and shouted to his men. "Get all those workable wagons to the edge of town in a row like houses. Push the cattle on the range east and north along the river where there's grass."

"How dare you order us about like ... like..."

"Like so many slaves," he finished for her. "Or prisoners?" His grin infuriated her more.

"We will not be prisoners." She put all the sarcasm she could muster into her next words. "I suppose you've never heard of the 1877 Desert Land Act." Emphasizing every word clearly she continued, "We have title to this land, bought and paid for. We each have one thousand one hundred twenty acres, sir. Eight hundred of that we paid One Dollar and Twenty-Five cents per acre. Don't you dare try to keep us from our land. My house lot is all paid for, and it^Ts in my name."

"You may have title, lady, but we're on it. I have money invested and buildings on town property. Now get your butt up on that wagon with the rest of the women and move along. You give me any more back talk, I'll personally take you across my knee and paddle your lace trimmed drawers.¹¹

With red hair and long beard rippling in the wind the man strode about shouting instructions and orders while Lucille fumed in-outrage. She'd fled Wisconsin because her father and brother had denied her the right to have property in her own name. Now, this oversized galoot intended to keep her from property she bought and

paid for with money her grandmother left her. It was more than a modern day woman should have to put up with.

She watched helplessly as armed men stopped by each wagon. Dust from running animals billowed about her in choking clouds. Thundering hooves of more horses deafened her as riders raced past and out of sight. With her right hand, she shaded her eyes from the noon sun. A half circle of outlaws held guns on men from the wagon train. Her own driver had disappeared to safety in the boulder field beside the trail. Thankfully, young Jodie Adams and Tom Shafer, with others on horseback rode into the boulders on the mountainside. Defiantly she lifted her skirt in front with both hands and ran to climb aboard her own wagon. Cora, her female companion, cowered on the wagon seat, right where she'd left her.

Lucille brought a Henry rifle, belonging to her driver, to her shoulder and pulled the trigger as an armed man galloped by. It snicked a disheartening click. She'd forgotten to lever a shell into the chamber.

As more shooting broke out her horses lunged in terror. To keep balanced, Lucille wildly clutched at the broken hoop of her wagon,

but tumbled backward from the bench seat. Her voluminous white pantalets fluttered before her eyes as her legs tilted higher than her head. One elbow settled in the slimy contents of an upended lard bucket. The sleeve of her yellow gingham blouse got smeared as she tried to right herself and get to her feet. Her last box of chocolates were crushed.

"Oh, you wretched beasts!" Lucille shrieked. "You dirty outlaws!" Unable to sit upright she rolled to one side, further plastering lard and chocolate from shoulder to hip.

Grasping the wagon's wobbly corner support, she struggled upright and pitched forward across the seat back. With the heavy Henry in one hand, she grabbed wildly at the brake with the other hand.

"Whoa!" She shouted and shouted at the four terrified, runaway horses. One big black animal stumbled and fell in the traces,

bringing others to their knees. The leader tore loose and ran,i dragging broken straps.

Lucille stumbled to the ground from the joggling, stalled wagon, holding the big weapon, her only protection. Ahead of her, Reverend Bricker sat straddle-legged beside his overturned covered wagon, his hands raised above his head, facing a young gunman. His wife and daughter skittered about, wringing their hands. Bricker's young son stood beside his father, staring at the outlaw.

"Chaos," Lucille muttered despairingly as she surveyed the scene. She hitched her brown skirt from around her feet. She trudged around sagebrush, through the dust, to the wagon of her friend, Bettina Belon. A dressmaker's dummy stood incongruously intact by the seamstress's overturned wagon. Lucille found no humor in it. Bettina's driver had also disappeared.

"Lucille!" Bettina screamed as two well-armed men dismounted beside her.

"Leave her alone! How dare you!" Lucille rushed between Bettina and the two men. Lucille glared at the scrawny man and the shorter, chubby kid, daring them to advance. In one smooth, swift motion, she swung the rifle, making a satisfying thud with the barrel on Scrawny's head. Her back-armed swing knocked the kid to the ground.

Just let that big galoot try paddling me. I'll give him a knock side the head, too.

"Cmon, big gal, give up," yelled the kid on the ground. Lucille stared in dismay down his pistol's black barrel. She lowered her trembling arms as she realized what she had done. Lucille dropped the gun. Her wobbling knees could barely hold her up. Scrawny nursed a sore head but prodded Bettina over beside her.

"Boss ordered no women shot," snapped the cadaverous man with the big pistol, "or by Gawd, big gal, I'd put a bullet in thet loud mouth of yourn."

A new rider, unkempt and toothless, leered at them. He gleefully told the men, "Its over. There's a big bank safe in one wagon. Lotsa store goods. We'll eat good for awhile."

'"Bout time," the kid said. "This tall drink of water done knocked Tede in the head. He ain't feelin' none too good."

"Too bad," Toothless told them. "Get 'em to the wagons. We're takin' 'em to town. I wonder how Gorman will control all these outsiders."

Lucille and the two women stared at each other for a moment before moving toward the wagons. The thick sable brown hair she was so* proud of straggled in a dusty curtain before her eyes. Stalking in stiff-legged fury, she moved along. She stopped, pinned up her hair_f drew two deep breaths, and moved forward with Bettina and Cora. While trying to straighten her pink sunbonnet, Bettina stumbled, then clutched Lucille's left arm. Cora sobbed as she trudged on their right.

Lucille breathed in hurting wheezes from the high altitude, unlike her native Wisconsin. She already hated Wyoming's barren country. Besides that, she hadn't eaten today. The brown twill skirt caught

under her sturdy walking shoes and her clothes were a mess. With squared shoulders, she tilted her head defiantly, refusing to let fall the tears burning behind her eyes.

"Git yerselves aboard those two wagons, ladies."

Lucille glared at the man called Tede as he spat tobacco juice to one side. She joined the other women, girls and frightened children of wagon train members.

"Come, little ones, face these ruffians like real pioneers." Lucille urged as she helped the parents calm their children. Men slashed the canvas from the wagon hoops, so they could watch the prisoners. Lucille's arm stung from being stabbed on the jagged edge of something. Crimson blood stained her yellow blouse sleeve amid the lard smears and she blotted most of it away. The broken Conestoga hoop must have snagged Tier arm as she climbed down

from the wagon. She sat down hard on a wooden chest in the wagon as the resistive horses jerked this way and that

When the dust settled Lucille saw the banker and Delbert Hack, the storekeeper for their planned town, held in the half circle of attackers.

Big Red rode to the wagons. His long hair and beard showed auburn and gold in the bright sunlight as he dismounted from his colorful Appaloosa horse and strode forward. He looked daring and wild, handsome and arrogant. Standing out against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains, green pines and fresh leafed scrub willows he made her pulse rate zing like bees on a flower. Lucille felt shame at her attraction to him. It had to be fear that made her heart thunder in her chest.

"I am Red Gorman of the town of Gorman. You have invaded my valley!" His shout rang out to every stalled wagon and every remaining wagon train rider. "Your leaders refuse to go back!

have no choice but to keep you here until I decide what to do about you all."

Lucille shaded her eyes to see better. She stared in fascination. His broad shoulders strained the seams of an expensive looking green silk shirt. Levi's clung to long, powerful legs and his polished boots shone black in the sunlight. Lucille gave a delicate snort in derision. One knee of those revealing pants had a fray-edged tear. An open buttonhole allowed his shirt to spread apart on his massive chest. She sobered immediately. He looked dangerous.

"These men won't hurt you if you follow orders!" He removed his big white hat and waved a signal to men scattered among the wagons. Lucille heard their shouts to drivers to move the wagons forward. The slow procession started down the slanted, sagebrush covered, grade into the valley. She looked back at her stalled wagon. The loose horse stood beside the others, waiting patiently by his familiar teammates, now that the noise and chaos had ended. Overturned wagons or those with missing horses were left behind, hers included. To Lucille the valley ahead didn't look much better

than the desolate route they had just come, traveling through sagebrush and the dried grasses of a winter not yet turned to spring.

She watched Hack and Shafer, along with numerous ranch hands, being hustled afoot, like so many sheep, as the wagons were driven down into an immense valley bordered on all sides by rugged hills and snow capped mountains.

"This is supposed to be home?" Lucille said bitterly. In a hazy corner of her numbed mind, she noted the Green River really flowed in greenish cascades as it kinked and tumbled its way over and around huge boulders on its way down the valley. From the rushing current, the river formed a small lake nestled to one side. What would they do now? How could they claim their land?

Wedged together, the women sat silently until Martha Adams whispered, "My husband is missing. I wonder how he got away."

No one answered, but they gazed hopefully around them into the rugged foothills and scrubby trees along the roadside.

They rode slowly past Red Gorman as he sat astride the beautiful Appaloosa. Lucille felt his relaxed attitude could change in a splits second. The green of his deep-lidded eyes met hers for a moment. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he grinned. The rascal had the nerve to wink at her! Lucille hastily averted her eyes and concentrated on scrubbing sticky goo from her fingers with a pocket-handkerchief. Her heart thundered in her chest. Like the others in her group, she was surer than ever she'd seen that face on a Wanted poster in Cheyenne,

Men swore furiously as they plodded in the trail ruts behind the wagons. She heard a commotion. "I hope more of our people escape. This is ridiculous. I haven't heard any shots, have you?" Lucille said to no one in particular.

_{No one had.}

On a level stretch of trail Lucille stared at a crudely lettered sign reading "Gorman." The few buildings ahead looked like the usual small town.

On her right, she heard the clang, clang of a blacksmith pounding on metal. His small corral had only three animals in it. As their wagon turned right, down what must be the main street, she immediately looked left. All eyes were on the monstrosity of a house set among towering cottonwoods. Three stories high, with a huge porch on two sides, it dominated the landscape. If this was the main street, then that obscenely big structure sat right on what should have been her town lot. Lucille shuddered as they went on past. Vacant lots were interspersed with rough little buildings on the right. On the left, beyond the monstrosity, a long, low building had two big plate glass windows and a door at the far end.

A new building, long and well built, centered the block beyond a side street that boasted only one small building. This must be where they planned to take the wagonless people.

The titled lands of the Bascom wagon train people included the entire valley and several lots marked off on their map for a town. It didn't look like holding title to something meant they would get it.

The two town streets were covered with businesses and houses. She again heard the blacksmith striking metal.

Miserably dejected, Lucille realized her inheritance had been stolen by Gorman's men. There would be no fine Tiome. Nor did she see any school building.

"All out!" With crudely phrased orders, the prisoners were shoved into the long, warehouse type structure. Lucille smelled raw wood? and saw that high windows lined each side of the room. Plank tables with tall, heavy legs were scattered in the long narrow room, as though ready for store goods.

Families huddled together, comforting frightened and hungry children. Lucille looked out over the crowd, but couldn't find the banker's twenty-year-old son, Tom, among the disgruntled people. She knew rancher Clem Adams, his one daughter, and several drovers were missing as well as her own driver

"What have we gotten into, Mr. Clovine?" Lucille asked the eldest man there. "That red haired man is the killer on those Wanted Posters in Cheyenne."

"Are you sure?"

"Red hair, green eyes, six-foot-four, favors green silk shirts, Appaloosa  horses   and   is  fast  with  a   gun.   He  was  labeled

dangerous."

"Damnation, I don't know. It ain't likely he'll let anyone free to tell where he is."

"I didn't think outlaws really looked like ordinary people."

"Well, the size of him ain^Tt ordinary. Handsome devil. I don't know anybody fast with a gun unless it's Ben." Clovine said.

_{"Ben isn't here."}

Hiram Clovine surveyed the wagon train people beyond her shoulder. "Ben will get us out of this," he told the people calmly. "Mark my words. Ben will do it." Clovine had a bruise on his high

forehead below his shock of thick white hair.

Lucille wondered if he meant to convince her, the people, or himself. She hoped Ben lived up to the sturdy old man's expectations. According to Bascom people's assumption, she and Ben were to have had the first wedding in Bascom. Now Ben was gone. He could be wounded or even dead. She clung to the hope he had escaped unscathed and would be back to rescue them.

Lucille turned wary eyes as Scrawny and a man with a big nose entered the warehouse. She was pleased to see the welt she'd put on Tede's forehead. The men threw rough blankets to the prisoners, along with brightly patterned quilts very obviously from the homesteader's own wagons. There was no sign of the red haired outlaw. She'd like to see him up closer. No doubt he had scars or warts. An outlaw should not look so handsome. The two men left as quickly as they had come.

She wiped the bloody scratch on her arm with a strip from her white petticoat. She scraped most of the thick lard from her brown skirt.   «

"Mr. Clovine, your head wound needs to be cleaned properly," Lucille said. He grimaced as she prodded and wiped at the big bleeding bruise with another bit of petticoat, then wrapped a clean strip around his head.

"I had to let them know I didn't like what they were doing."

"I hit that skinny one on the head, but he had a gun. I don't think they mean to kill us, do you?" Lucille finished the bandage on the old man's head.

"Hard to say," Clovine replied. "I wouldn't aggravate them right

_now."

Families picked their own areas of floor space and clung together. As dark descended, Lucille slipped into a fitful doze on the hard floor, using a hunk of wadded up petticoat for a thin pillow. The long, miserable night passed slowly.

In the morning's chill air, the guards hustled the prisoners outside to the privy. Lucille saw that some of Ben's stolen Morgan horses were in the town's corral. A drover she remembered as Forie Drescher, eyed the horses as well.

"You try fer them broomtails, mister, 111 shoot the next man in line," a lanky guard told him. No attempts to escape were made.

"If I have to feed you folks until your wagons are organized, you can damn well earn it." Lucille stared all around but could not locate the unmistakable owner of that deep voice. Big Red arose

early.

The male prisoners were prodded across the street, and the women returned to the warehouse. Lucille watched out one window. The men were lined up, nailing boards together for a boardwalk in front of a building. Did he mean to use them as slave labor to finish the building of his town?

Their captors gave them no breakfast. At noon all prisoners were hustled out to the hard, rutted street. Lucille stared around her. To

her right was the livery stable where six of Bens horses either rolled in the dust or ate from a pile of hay. Closer, and across from the warehouse, stood a gaudy saloon with an upper full length porch, all freshly painted cream and red.

Lucille looked to her left and her heart gave a sickening thud. That monstrous house really did stand exactly where her town lot should have been, toward the edge of town. Before she could stare long at the big, gray painted building they were hustled across the portion of newly constructed boardwalk and to a much older, restaurant type building.

Two big, very dirty, plate glass windows faced the walk. They reflected Lucille's bedraggled brown hair, smudged round face and angry blue eyes, before she followed Clovine through short, flopping half doors. Inside, Lucille looked around at a small liquor bar in one corner to her right. To the left plank tables and scattered benches filled the space down the long room. In another room, behind a long, wide counter she saw the rusty pipe of a big black cook stove. Her nose crinkled at the smell of burnt and spoiled food.

Scrawny Tede, that none-too-clean oldster, wearing a perpetual scowl and a big gun weighing down his right side, stood behind the long plank counter filled with eating utensils. Thick plates, scorched biscuits, a heavy kettle, big coffee pots and cups were set out. A huge skillet held some kind of dark meat. It, too, had a burnt smell to it.

"Do you expect us to eat that horrible looking, and smelling, food?" Lucille said aloud even though guards glared in her direction. The cook glared at her from under beetling gray brows.

Guards ushered the prisoners into a line by the counter behind Red. Lucille stared at the back of the very tall, broad shouldered man at the head of the line. His brick red hair and beard curled around his face. Red Gorman. Her eyes kept returning to him like humming birds to a red flower. He took one forkful of food and bellowed, 'Tede, get your scrawny arse out here! You expect us to eat this scorched, half raw, greasy slop?"

Lucille winced as the cook's face turned gray. The big man roared, "Gawdamn, I can't stand your rotten cooking." He drew his big gun and fired. Splinters flew and a big yellow gouge appeared in the square post at the end of the high counter.

Prisoners and outlaws scattered in every direction. Some went to the floor. Lucille held her breath and stood like a stone statue.

Tede, jumped ignominiously. He threw his thin arms over his head
defensively, ducking flying wood splinters as Gorman fired again.
"Dammit, Red," he whined, "Cut it out. Git somebody else to
cook." He looked around in desperation. "Let thet fat complainin¹
female standin¹ there do it. She looks like she allus et good." He
pointed a gnarled, dirty finger at Lucille.                                                                                                                                                                                         ^

All eyes looked at her. Her mouth turned dry. She swallowed and gritted her teeth. She stared at Scrawny, who was called Tede, and opened her mouth to protest.

"You cook?" The big man swung around to her.

She stood silently, glaring at him. "I asked, do you cook?"

"I'm a schoolteacher, not a cook. Anyone can do better than this. And I am not fat!" She raised her eyes up to meet the big man's green gaze. Stubbornly she glared back, pursing her lips tightly in anger.

His jade eyes suddenly twinkled as he looked her up and down. She stared back. She would not quake before that wretched man.

"No, not fat," he said, "but a good looking, blue-eyed, plump partridge all the same. I'm Red Gorman, woman. I run this town. If you want your people to keep eating, you better cook until we get these damn land titles straightened out. Either that or put up with Tede's meals."

The green lightning of his stare jolted her clear to her toes. She couldn't look away. Outlaws weren't supposed to be that handsome,

^{that   fascinating   or  that  magnetizing.   She   set  her  lips   in  a}

disapproving downward curve and finally succeeded in looking at his shirt collar. It seemed the big redhead enjoyed staring her up and down to embarrass her. Plump partridge indeed!

"Woman, you got yourself ajob." He continued to look at her. "Get to that kitchen. I want a decent meal by six o'clock. No watery spuds nor burnt meat. Understand?"

Lucille returned his green-eyed stare in stupefaction, too furious to think of a proper retort. Would he actually shoot her? Where had her schoolteacher discipline gone? Her fellow prisoners were speechless.

"Move it, woman. Don't wait all day. Six o'clock."

The murmur of suddenly protesting prisoners" voices faded as she stomped over into the big room beyond the high counter.

Tede waited in the middle of the kitchen. "Anyone can do better than this," he mocked in a high falsetto voice. In a lower tone he growled, "Well, it's all yourn, woman. It's all yourn." Yanking off

his soiled apron he threw it on the floor at her feet and strode out the kitchen's back door.

She stared after him as the door slammed. "Well, Lucille Martin," she told herself, "for a school teacher, you're stupid. You opened* your big mouth at the wrong time again. Now you've really done it, like you know all about cooking for fifty people."

Stiff legged, Lucille turned a slow circle in the dirtiest, smelliest, most unorganized kitchen she had ever seen in all her twenty-three years.

_{* * * *}

Red turned his back on the kitchen. He took long legged strides over to his friend Stoke's small bar in the corner of the big dining area.

"Do you think the lady can cook?" Stokes asked. He raised his hard crowned bowler hat and scratched his bald pate, before hanging the hat on a nail. Appearing completely unconcerned he polished a glass with a big towel and set it on the bar in front of Red.

"She can't do any worse than Tede. Damn, I hate bad food." He forked a pickled egg from the jar Stokes placed before him.

"Arch, you're upset over folks trying to take our valley." The big bartender was one of the few who used his given name. He reached for a bottle under the counter. "Have a brandy and relax. Maybe she'll do better than Tede."

"I can^Tt relax. How did I know titles were issued for this land? We were told to ride in and take it. There wasn't any Land Act of 1877 then. As long as we could hold it, the land belonged to us." He grimaced at a second pickled egg but ate it, along with a handful of crackers from a big wooden bowl.

"Making Wyoming a territory could have changed that." Stokes said. "They haven't gotten their records straight at the land offices. People get careless all the time."

"I'm not giving up my town. I worked too hard for it. They can have the damn valley, as long as they don't try to leave. What the hell do we do now? We still have Ed Hutchins trial to go to court. We just

barely got Joe Texas proven innocent. I hate bein' a wanted man, but Blaine has a family. We have his case to prove yet."

"What if you talk with that white haired gent from the wagon train? He seems level headed, now that he's cooled down. Maybe he can reason with the rest of them. He might even be able to get that school teacher to quiet down."

Archie tossed off the brandy. "Until we come up with answers they
may as well earn their keep. They can finish the boardwalk for
starters. And we^Tll all hope the lady can cook." He walked to the
door of the building.                                                                                                                                                                                         &

He spun about and strode over to the high plank counter by the kitchen. He leaned across toward the woman who still stood as though petrified. She looked at him, her blue eyes wide and shooting angry sparks, now that he'd come close. Damn, she had long, black eyelashes.

"Ijust want to check if your eyes are really as blue as I thought." He whirled away from her and pounded his heels to the outer door.

What the damn hell did he think he was doing? Attraction to a good woman, especially a concerned schoolteacher, could not be. Not until he'd turned his sorry life around, if that ever happened.

"Six o'clock, lady," he roared from the doorway, as he went out into the early afternoon sunshine.

_{* * * *}

Six o'clock! How could she possibly find anything in this filthy place to feed forty or fifty people? The most she'd helped cook for was thirty threshers on the farm in Wisconsin. With closed eyes, she shook her head from side to side.

"Aunt Molly, I wish you were here!" She opened her eyes slowly and peeked between rigid fingers. Facing the far end of the room, with an ugly, dirty cook stove at her left, a stained feed sack curtain hung several feet ahead of her. Lord only knew what hid behind that.

"Six o'clock, lady," his big voice reminded her from the doorway.

"Oh my, oh my." Lucille turned and faced the dining room. No help could come from that direction. Not one of her wagon train friends remained in sight.

She looked back at the stove. Its grease coated top had rust around the edges. The crooked stovepipe went into a fieldstone chimney beside the same outside door the angry ex-cook had slammed. Lucille shuddered as she took in a very large wooden table with stump-like legs. The top was puddled with water and smeared with food. On the right side of the kitchen, was a long open counter. It divided the kitchen from the dining area. On that counter sat piles of dirty, half-filled heavy pottery plates. The potato kettle sat cold and blackened on the counter's scarred surface. Lard congealed in the meat skillet.

Dried mud crunched under her sturdy trail shoes as she walked to the counter and looked out into the restaurant's bare-bones table area. The Bascom prisoners were no doubt still hungry. Poor food was a minor problem, Lucille thought, after all they'd endured in the* last few days, but to Red Gorman, food was apparently a major

concern. He seemed to want good food. What had he done before they came? She could only guess and felt sorry for the cook.

Most of the Bascom party were prisoners. What would Gorman do about those missing, like Ben Menkin, Clem Adams, the two young people and several of the drovers? They might not even be together since they had fled separately, in different directions. Would he and his men hunt them down?

Her personal disaster seemed nothing judging by that. Her throat squeaked a dry swallow as she surveyed the daunting pile of dirty dishes. She thought of what Gorman demanded, with no idea what he was capable of. He'd sent bullets flying around the previous cook. It scared her half to death; she'd never been shot at before. Why had he returned to look at her eyes? Attraction? Curiosity? Her heart hammered a drum roll on her ribs. Her own reaction scared her even more.

Another circling view of the kitchen revealed a small pile of split wood by the outside door. A barrel of water stood beside it. With a

small pail, she filled the big, battered dishpan on the cook stove, then stoked the dying fire with wood pushed through a small door in the firebox.

In a second dishpan, she assembled dirty dishes and bent spoons from the dining area. Suddenly, she saw a very large, bald-headed man standing quietly in the far corner of the outer room, at a small, well-stocked liquor bar.

"Oh/ she said, "Who are you?"

"Name's Stokes." He continued polishing bar glasses. His bald pate gleamed.

"Well, I guess we'll get to share a building."

"Madam, you stay in your end and I'll stay in mine." His black eyes were cold and aloof. He reminded her of the description of old English butlers. Lines in his high forehead deepened as he glared

down his large nose at her.

^{"Yes, sir." Lucille strode angrily to the kitchen with the load of}

dishes. A big, gray rat scooted across her feet. Startled, she dropped the pan onto the table. The clatter of plates echoed in the barn-like room.

Lucille looked despairingly at the rusty stove where dishwater steamed. Thick, rancid grease coated another mammoth skillet. On the table an uncovered bowl held what she thought might be biscuit?* starter. Its edges were crusted and dirty. Rotting onions raised a stench under the table. A rat's unblinking eyes stared from the cobwebbed corner of the room, before it skittered out of sight. The door blew open and swayed back and forth until she closed and re-latched it.

Shaved soap foamed in the steaming water as she poured it over the pan of messy dishes. She cleaned the battered tabletop and refilled a pan to heat rinse water. The dishes air dried by slanting them every which way. Three hours later she drew a deep, deep breath. At least she had clean dishes and cookware to work with. On a shelf by the grimy window sat a loudly ticking clock that read half past three

o'clock. Only two and a half hours remained in which to get a meal for everyone. The stove! She'd forgotten wood in the stove! Lucille lifted the stove lid and groaned. The fire was almost out! It seemed like only minutes ago she had put wood in the stove. Grabbing a butcher knife, she stabbed at a dry piece of wood for shavings and added them to the few red coals in the bottom of the firebox. When they refused to ignite she angrily yanked out the overflowing ash box. By scraping red coals and smoking pieces together the air finally circulated enough so the chips flamed. She added larger pieces gradually. The ash drawer could be emptied later.

Four o 'clock, I'm getting desperate, talking to myself.

A knock sounded. Warily she opened the back door a slit and peeked out.

"Forie Drescher," she said with a smile of relief, recognizing a fellow prisoner. "I was afraid that ornery little cook came back."

"The big outlaw sent these potatoes, Miss Martin," said Forie.

^{"I don't have much time, do I?"}

"I'd help if I could, but he ordered me right back to unload wagons."

Lucille peeled and peeled the potatoes until the back of her right hand ached and blisters formed on her fingers. Finally finished, she set them directly over the cook stove firebox. With two stove lids removed, it didn't take the potatoes long to release steam around the warped covers on two large kettles.

The wood was nearly gone again! She rushed out the back door and saw other wagon train women busily scrubbing and hanging laundry. She scarcely had energy to wave to them. At a woodpile* were half a dozen pieces of wood. She hurried back inside with them then she rushed outside again, split three big wood chunks into pieces with an ax and carried them inside. She hadn't done that since leaving home for teacher's training.

Exhausted, she dropped onto the one hard chair by the table. It crashed in splinters dumping her to sprawl all over the mud-caked

kitchen floor. Tears of frustration streamed down her hot cheeks as she hoisted herself to her knees. She looked up.

"Well, you gonna cook, gal, or you gonna lay there an" beller? Brag, brag, brag." The wiry cook stood, arms akimbo, his cheeks pouched out and again mocked her. "Anyone can do better than this." He leaned down, nearly suffocating her with whiskey breath. "Well, fat gal, you got your chance. An¹ you ain't gittin' no help from me neither." He left, stomping his heels in echoing thumps across the dining area.

Lucille grasped the edge of the heavy wooden table to pull herself up. She set her jaw and with lips thinned, smoothed her forehead frown lines away with stiff fingers.

"You don't need to hassle me, you skinny little pipsqueak!" She was furious at him and at herself for letting him bother her peace of mind.

He hastily disappeared.

A leg of ham hung against the wall inside a small burlap curtained area. Half a beef and a small pork haunch hung beside it. She pulled down the ham and within a short time had thick slices on to fry in the cleanest big skillet. Biscuits. You always had bread or biscuits. She wiped out a large blue granite bowl with the cleanest of the rags, and added biscuit starter from a crusted bowl. She scooped flour, adding some of this and some of that. Making biscuits was a habit from home. With arms aching from stirring and kneading, chopping and hauling, she fervently wished Aunt Molly were here for guidance, instead of back in Wisconsin.

"Well, where is it?"

Lucille jumped, held her breath and felt her eyes go wide in spite of herself. Quickly squinting them shut in anger she squared her shoulders and turned. "Not quite ready, Mr. Gorman."

She watched as Gorman strode to a small corner table and sat down, facing the kitchen. Conscious of him watching, she stacked plates,

^{set the pile of bent forks and spoons on the counter and stirred a*}

kettle of canned peas.

Perspiring from the heat of the stove and nervousness, Lucille rubbed a hand across her forehead. She pushed back the hair tickling about her hot face. She strained the ham slices from the hot grease and loaded them onto huge platters. She sprinkled flour to brown in the skillet, gradually added water and stirred swiftly to make a smooth gravy. She hoisted kettles of drained, boiled potato chunks onto the high counter. Her shoulders ached and her feet hurt. She heard the clatter of feet coming down the boardwalk and into the restaurant.

At her nod, Gorman, two of his men, and the waiting hungry prisoners surged forward to see what kind of meal they'd get. Wearily Lucille ladled tinned peaches into sauce dishes. She hadn't done this much physical labor since leaving the farm.

The prisoners looked exhausted. The children drooped, eyeing the outlaws warily. Martha Adams whispered,  "Are you all right,

Lucille?"

"I'm fine, thank you, just tired."

Martha nodded and hurried down the line of food with her two younger boys.

The food disappeared in minutes. Lucille, very carefully lowered her aching body onto the lumpy cot she'd found at the far end of the kitchen next to the meat larder behind the grimy burlap curtain.

"Where's my coffee?" Gorman roared from the dining room. Chill goose bumps bounced their way up Lucille's cheeks. She'd completely forgotten coffee. She surged upright and hurried to the counter, expecting to be shot. She could barely breathe and her

knees wobbled, awaiting possible gunshots in her direction.

"The potatoes were good and the ham fried well," Martha said to the outlaw chief as she faced him. "You didn't give her much time

to find things and make coffee, too."

Red glared at Mrs. Adams but she refused to look away, daring him to disagree.

In relief Lucille heard him say, "I believe you are right, ma'am. And

it was better than Tede's." He turned to Lucille with a terse, "Just don't forget it again." He strode away with his men, herding the prisoners out ahead of them.

Lucille looked at the clock. She hadn't eaten. Half a potato remained. No gravy or biscuits. A half cup of cold peas. Exhausted, she ate without tasting a thing.

_{[Back to Table of Contents]}

_{CHAPTER 2}

Get organized! She admonished herself for the hundredth time that morning. It could be worse. He could have shot her. Everyone was gone. Quiet pervaded the entire building. Wood first. Arm muscles protested wildly as she chopped chunks of wood into usable pieces. She rested a dozen times before the pile was big enough to keep the fire going for the next day. Her schoolteacher mind wondered what about the altitude here as she wheezed and stumbled with weariness while stacking split wood both inside and outside the kitchen door.

While soapy water heated on the big old stove, she eased down onto the creaking cot at the far end of the room. A half full barrel of flour sat at its end with a big covered lard can next to it. A mouse leaped from an open topped cracker barrel and Lucille felt too tired to do more than lift her skirt out of the way as it scooted under the big table.

She pushed a straggle of long hair behind an ear, grimacing at its dusty feel. It was getting dark in this dingy room and she needed a

lamp. More dishes were stacked on sagging shelves, plus bowls and baking pans, even a stack of dusty pie tins. A huge cake pan leaned against the wall, dirty and dented in one corner. Tins of soda, sacks of salt and a couple cans of spices sat about.

"Find everything you need?" Gorman's deep voice shattered the quiet. On sore feet, Lucille stepped from behind the feedbag curtain between the kitchen and the cot.

"I'm still exploring," she told him, while her insides did grasshopper leaps and her traitorous mind conjured up visions of the man leaning toward her lips instead of just resting his big forearms on the high counter as he studied her. Where had that unlikely thought come from?

The way he strode toward the outer door seemed on the verge of anger. What did he have to be angry about? He wasn't being held prisoner, forced to do chores he hated.

Red suddenly turned and retraced his steps. "Lady, where did you get title to a house lot? Some fly-by-night land developer? Where

did your man get these papers you talk about?"

"I'm a schoolteacher. I don't have a husband. The land office man certainly seemed legitimate. Banker Shafer looked over all the papers. My land is in my own name." She put both hands on her hips and stared at him with all the frustrated anger that filled hei system. "Wyoming passed laws allowing women to vote, own property and hold office. Or didn't you realize that? Besides, more people make a better town. Why are you so against people coming here. "Gorman" I think your sign read. Your people certainly don't act very friendly. Are you all a bunch of outlaws and this is your hideout?"

"Most people are leery of strangers, lady."

The strange, fleeting, half-guilty, half-angry look on his face made Lucille really curious. She opened her mouth to say more.

"Whoa, lady, that's more damn ... I mean dang, words than I've heard all at once in a month. I'll have to give it some thought. In the meantime I'll see about supplies. That's what I came here to discuss, not arguing with you."

He didn't really lean toward her like she had envisioned, but his gaze roamed from her lips to her hair to her eyes and back to her mouth. She wet her suddenly dry lips and he looked back with half a grin. How could he be so arrogant? Did he think every woman fell for his looks just because he'd combed his hair and beard?

"I'll see what can be done about proper supplies." Gorman stared at her for another long moment, then spun around and strode down the dining room toward the street door. He stopped at Stoke's small bar.

_{* * * *}

Red wished he could have slammed a door or pounded a wall as he left Lucille Martin's presence. Damn woman had no business taking his mind from his chosen goal. Building a town filled with men accused of crimes they didn't commit never would be easy. He

hadn't even planned his valley that way until Stokes had shown up out of his past, running from the Pinkerton detectives. Stokes had been like a father to him when his own ne-er-do-well sire had disappeared when he was ten.

"Stokes, what do we do now? Danged woman is full of questions. Do you know anything about a Land Office in Cheyenne?"

"The government gave men, and women, the right to sign up for

free land, and some could buy more land, I did hear something like that." Stokes set a glass on the bar.

Red sipped at the brandy Stokes put before him, contemplating its color for several minutes. "I never heard much about female schoolteachers either. I thought teachers were all either men, or nuns."

"I don't doubt Miss Martin could teach school. Bein' tall like she is would probably keep the older boys behavin'."

_{"She is tall, Stokes, for a woman."}

"You'd best get your facts on her permits when the time comes for a school, of course. There's a few children here now." Stokes dusted off a bottle and replaced it on the shelf.

Red finished his brandy in one swallow, adjusted his hat and strode out the door. He didn't dare look for the woman or he'd be tempted to go argue with her some more, just to see her blue eyes brighten and shoot angry sparks.

_{* * * *}

He finally left. Lucille sighed and looked around at various canned goods boxes, assorted barrels, jugs, and wooden crates with eggs. It was hard to see with only lamplight and the smoky glass chimney didn't help at all. Onion bags hung from the rafters. The smell of rotten potatoes assailed her nostrils as she poked among sacks and cartons on the floor. Mouse and rat droppings crunched dryly under her feet. A straw broom, never used, hung from a nail.

All the while images of the outlaw's handsome face danced around the edges of her mind. Straight dark brows above dark lashes and

those haunting green eyes. His firm lips and straight nose. Not a wart or a blemish on him. And he sure could sound angry.

While washing dishes in hot soapy water she planned the morning meal. Coffee, first of all, or he'd be very angry, again. She set her chin firmly. If the people wanted food fit to eat, they could eat on her schedule. As she finished the dishes, it came suddenly to mind that she wouldn't be taken with the rest of the prisoners to the warehouse. They had to leave her here. She hurried across and peeked out the dingy dining area windows into the half dark of evening. Gorman's men relaxed in several places between her and the warehouse. There would be no contact with her fellow prisoners, and no escape.

Back in the kitchen, the cot at the far end was better than the floor of the warehouse. She blew out the lamp and trudged behind the dirt stiffened burlap curtain. Too exhausted to think beyond sleep she eased onto the cot and pulled the smelly wool blanket up around her ears. Her last thought was that, with all that had happened to her today, she dare not think what more could go wrong tomorrow.

Luckily, a rooster's crow outside her window at dawn woke Lucille or she could have slept all day. Carefully turning her head on thp lumpy pillow, she moved aching neck muscles gradually. Blisters pulled loose from shredded stockings and she groaned aloud, not even remembering removing her shoes.

Early morning light revealed more of the dingy room. With difficulty, she pushed up on one elbow and immediately dropped back with an exclamation of pain. Her arms and shoulders hurt. Greasy hair straggled in her burning eyes.

Trying again, Lucille pushed upright on the squeaky cot. She had slept alongside barrels of flour and bags of sugar, too exhausted to even notice if mice ran about freely. Tugging first one shoe on and then, slowly, the other, she half laced them. Once she made it to her feet she twisted her corset in place. Putting one sore foot carefully ahead of the other she looked out the small back window. Through the dust and grime she saw a man headed toward a long, low building. Another guard? So much for thoughts of escape. Besides, where could she go? Or obtain food? She couldn^Tt outrun anyone.

What did all those men do besides guard, eat and sleep? Why did they have to keep the Bascom people prisoners? What secrets did all those outlaws have? She'd never gotten, or was likely to ever get, a real answer from Red.

It grew lighter in the chilly room. First, she had to build a fire. She moved, agonizingly slow, toward the stove.

A loud thumping at the front door made her turn to peer over the counter separating the kitchen from the main room.

"Good morning," she said.

Stokes, the bartender, scowled in her direction, gave a half-hearted growl and trudged behind the bar with a heavy box. The batwings at the newly opened door swung back and forth.

"What time is it? The clock stopped."

"You have to wind it." Heavy black brows came together in a frown. His black eyes glared at her in the dim light. "You're late. It's five-thirty."

Lucille's heart thumped as she wound and set the clock, then hurried to the back door. "Oh my, oh my." Stiff muscles protested and she groaned. How could so many places hurt so much, all at once? Privy first no matter what.

On her way back inside, she carried split wood and thought of the bright, sparkling clean kitchen in Wisconsin. Remembering the ruffled yellow gingham curtains at the windows and pink geraniums on the windowsills was like comparing a palace to a hog wallow.    ^

By blowing on tiny red coals mixed with crumpled, age-dried newspaper in the stove, a little smoke curled. She added small wood chips and a fire ignited. With a self-congratulatory smile, she

watched the flames burn brightly.

"Where is my coffee?"

Lucille dropped the stove lid and lifter with a clatter. "Mr. Gorman, I'm getting the fire going." Did he have a reason to be so surly in the morning?

"Hurry it up!" Gorman stormed out, making the batwings clatter.

Lucille rushed to the well with two big coffee pots and filled them with water. With grounds ready she placed them on the front griddles and opened the draft on the stove. She next brought down the cleaned granite bowl to mix biscuits. Here I go, running in circles again. A strip of rag held her hair at the back of her neck. A sigh of relief came as the second big pan of biscuits went in the oven. She pulled boiling coffee to the back of the stove with padded fingers and found a new case of eggs.

"Damn it, woman, I smell good coffee. Where are my eggs?" Red Gorman stood by the counter. Had that really been a twinkle in his eyes?

"Right away. Don't be so impatient." She emptied eggs into a smoking skillet. They spit, splattered and added painful blisters on

the back of her hand. She stirred frantically, put part of the scrambled eggs in a bowl, stacked a plate with biscuits, filled a small coffee pot and added a honey pot on the counter. Maybe that would sweeten him up.

Start how you mean things to go. Don't carry to them.

Lucille called from behind the wide counter, "Eggs, biscuits, honey and coffee are ready."

Three men, halfway to the corner table, paused, and glanced at Red.

"There's plenty for all of you," Lucille said, bracing her quaking knees on the wall holding up the counter. Outlaws were a strange, frightening new type of being. She white-knuckled the coffee pot as

though clinging to life.

"I'm starved," announced a huge Scandinavian appearing giant. He switched directions. "Moving them cows took all my energy."

"Hell, Swede, you^rre always hungry," said Red.

The three men took plates at the counter. Lucille still waited with shaking insides, but kept an angry frown on her face. Who did these men think they were? Red Gorman followed the last man in line.

"At least the coffee is damn good," Gorman said as he sipped, "h feel better after Ive had my morning coffee." He grinned and winked. He strode to a smaller table with his plate full of food. He didn't look her way once after that.

Lucille weakly trudged back to the kitchen table, her legs so wobbly her skirt fluttered. Yesterdays' exertions still quavered her muscles. Remembering yesterday noon, when Gorman had furiously fired several shots at the terrorized Tede, she felt extremely lucky. If that outlaw had killed before, and shot at his own cook, what might he do if her work did not please him?

She felt worn out and the day had barely started. The prisoners were herded through the door. The way Gorman and his men wolfed down food she worried that there weren't enough eggs and biscuits to go around. Four guards trailed after the prisoners.

Lucille stuffed wood in the glowing firebox, made more biscuits and practically threw the pans into the hot oven. The wagon train people helped themselves at the counter. Plates disappeared. She ran out of cups. Dirty dishes piled up. Food vanished. Lucille's mouth was dry as sandpaper and her hair fell in her face as she tipped up the pot for herself and found that no coffee remained. Sighing, she turned to replenish the biscuit starter. When she looked up again, guards herded the people out the door and suddenly, the room became very quiet.

At last, with one biscuit and a cup of cold water she carefully lowered her stiff, sore body onto the lumpy cot and sighed. She'd forgotten to set aside any breakfast for herself. Her muscles twitched with aches and weariness. At least the biscuits were good. The only sound came from the terrible ticking clock speeding the time away.

Her arms were coated with flour, her skirt hem dragged in filthy sags and a long run of something streaked her front. Lucille sighed heavily. Wood again.

Lucille groaned to herself as she went outside. She was out of the
warehouse but what good did it do? At least she was busy instead of
moping, if that was any consolation. She tightened her belt and
folded the sagging skirt over it to keep from tripping. She wondered
what Ben Menkin, the wagonmaster, ate these days? His dreams of
starting the town of Bascom had been shattered. Had he had made it
out of the valley alive? No mention had been made of anyone from
the wagon train actually being shot.                                                                                                                                                                                         ^

Her own dreams of a town where women had something to say about their own destiny, faded fast before the dreadful necessity of staying alive.

What about Red Gorman, the fiery haired outlaw chief who checked on her blue eyes? Did he have dreams, too, or did he have nightmares over what to do with twenty-eight prisoners and all the chaos he'd created with the people who were really entitled to the valley? She grinned to herself. It served him right. He had no business keeping people prisoners. Someone would eventually revolt. What would he do then?

Where did all the wood go that I split yesterday? Coming back from the woodpile with kindling, she tripped over her skirt front and fell amid clouds of dust and gritty sand. Crying out at the pain in her tired arms, she levered herself upright. She picked up the fallen wood pieces and looked around at a strange sound.

Tede, his scrawny frame by an old tree, stood laughing. He went to the woodpile and threw split wood into the brush. "Think yer smart, Fat Gal. Let's see how you do with no wood."

A shot rang out! Lucille dropped wood all over her feet. But the shot did not come in her direction. Tede cowered down by the big tree, hands up. A light colored gouge showed in the tree well above his head.

"The only decent biscuits we've had in six months. Don't you stop her cooking." Red Gorman spoke from the outside wall of the kitchen. Tentatively she smiled her thanks. His concern didn't extend to helping carry wood however. He disappeared around the

corner, leaving a foul-mouthed Tede shaking his head and trudging out of sight after Red.

It was a long, exhausting day, one Lucille was anxious to put behind her, if only she could rest a little while.

_{* * * *}

Restless, agitated, feeling completely out of his element, Archie Gorman sat on his Appaloosa mare on a foothill overlooking the town. The light in the restaurant went out. Only the lights by Stoke's bar remained.

Would the blue-eyed, round-faced cook work out all right in that grimy kitchen? He felt shame that he'd allowed Tede to let the room become such an unclean shambles. The counter was scrubbed now, and the big table clean. Until the woman entered the room he hadn't concerned himself with its appearance. With so much else on his mind, he hadn't noticed the condition of the kitchen. Complaining* about the food had never done any good before. It was hard to get anyone to cook in a restaurant.

How upset was she? Could she make good food besides good biscuits? Were her eyes really that blue?

No wonder she was supposed to be the schoolteacher, thought Archie as he sat the restive mount. She likely controlled unruly boys with ease. He wondered if she would ever call him by his given name, Archie, or would it always be Red or Mr. Gorman?

He wondered how she accepted being forced into all the work of the kitchen. She wasn't really a prisoner, yet he couldn't let the Bascom people go until they reached some solution to the double land ownership. They were adamant about not giving up their land. He bet Lucy had answers. Now it was too late anyway. He couldn't let them out of the town to describe the present inhabitants, especially him and Stokes. Or any of the others in town with wanted posters on them or secrets in their past.

He rode toward town, stopping his big horse by the restaurant hitch rail, wondering what Lucille planned for dinner. He dismounted and went inside.

She automatically poured him a cup of coffee, like she was used to men appearing in her kitchen at odd hours. As he sipped, he watched.

Tomorrow he would have the white haired oldster, Clovine, the banker and the storekeeper taken to his house for a meeting and talk about land titles. Those Bascom people would have to work around what land he'd already built on. Tonight he'd rather think about the blue-eyed cook he had in his restaurant.

Damn, if she didn't have the longest black eyelashes he'd ever seen. She'd told him not to be impatient. Her defiant blue eyes snapped sparks if he tried to rush her cooking.

"We're not really outlaws like you think," he said as he held out his coffee cup for more. "Most of us just have to prove we haven't done anything wrong. The others need a chance to start new lives." He spread his hands, palms up, mentally cursing himself for giving in to a need to explain their situation, especially to this woman who

upset his equilibrium, and his plans, besides raising havoc with his nether regions.

"So you have a whole town of innocent outlaws. How do any of us know if you all are innocent?" Lucille^Ts eyes flashed blue fire.

"This isn't right and tight little Wisconsin. What people do here ir^ Gorman is the important thing."

"That's one outlaw vouching for another."

Archie snapped back, "That's right, lady. Believe what you want. You will anyway." He stomped off; surprised he'd lost his temper over such a trivial conversation. One that shouldn't have taken place at all. Who was she to question his life?

The woman's rounded arms and plump fingers made short work of all those batches of biscuits. Her round face grew red from the oven's heat. Her blue-eyed glare in his direction that morning had nearly made him choke on his second helping of eggs, and she hadn't changed during the day.

It couldn't go on like this. He footed the bill for the food in the restaurant. The prisoners paid nothing, though their supplies were used. He had to bring order out of the confusion of too many people.

The only kind of chaos he wanted to create was in the thoughts and heart of a blue-eyed cook. He must get her to believe him. Why? What should her thoughts matter to him? He knew he wasn't a killer. He'd been on the run, and away from civilized women too much. He definitely needed to leave the valley for another attempt to put his life back in order.

Chaos! Shouting and rearing horses, tumbled wagons and roiling, dark clouds around her. Lard oozed between her fingers. A horse's hooves came straight at her head.

A gunshot sounded outside the restaurant building, causing Lucille to smother a sharp cry behind her fist. A previous shot must have brought on her bad dream. Wisconsin did not have wild cowboys. The long trip had not alerted her to the boisterous ways of the young

riders on the way. What terrible foolishness to leave a green and pleasantly settled state to come to a brown and mountainous

territory in the hopes of a right to vote and own property?

Being honest with herself, she'd wanted adventure. An impossible family situation had contributed as well toward her decision. Her stepsisters had made her life miserable and in spite of all her hard work, her brother had inherited the entire farm. She was lucky to have inherited from a grandmother with women's rights notions of her own, as well as having what cash her father had allowed her.

Lying on the lumpy cot she reminded herself to tell Martha Adams she'd seen her daughter high on the side hill of boulders. Whatever else she recalled from the horror would have to wait. She needed rest. Bone-weary and aching, she tossed about. After the noise finally ended at Stoke's bar, and the streets quieted down, she dropped into a heavy slumber.

The clattering of the alarm clock roused her to face another day. Behind the grimy feed sack curtain, she tightened the loosened

lacing of her corset and buttoned on the shirtwaist she had washed in the dark the previous night. Her damp skirt band needed two roll-ups to keep it from underfoot. It wadded in thick gathers at her waist when she tied on the freshly washed and dried apron.

Finger combing her heavy hair she took a second to acknowledge its improved color and feel. It had taken two rinses to get it clean. Whipping it quickly into one long braid, she tied a rag strip at its end while hurrying to the privy beyond the woodpile.

She paused to admire the fresh blue sky and sparkling green river. Lucille breathed deeply of the cool morning air. She looked off toward the far mountains where the brightness of dawn crept up their backs, admitting the scene was beautiful without being a Wisconsin green. Remembering the missing men of the wagon train being in those mountains brought a serious turn to her thoughts. Had Charlie, her driver, made it to a safe place? How did young ones and the Shafer's son survive out there? Maybe someone would rescue them all. Clovine thought so.

"You'd never make it, fat gal." The voice grated on the morning's serenity.

Lucille quickly faced the man with the rifle. "No fatter than you_f" she retorted.

He grinned and continued to stare. "You got a name, lady? You sure can cook."

"You may call me Miss Martin, I^Tm a teacher." She refused to enter the privy while that man stood there.

He grinned some more and shook his head. He ambled off toward the long bunkhouse building with a look of good humor on his face. Lucille hurried to the privy. On her way back she gathered wood. She continued her breakfast work, puzzled by the half-friendly, half-surly attitude of the man.

With coffee boiled, pancakes piled on pans and platters, molasses on the tables and everything ready,  it wasn't hard keeping a

^{watchful eye. For Martha, she told herself, but her eyes kept}

straying to Red Gorman.

"Has anyone told you Jodie is safe with..." Lucille told Martha.       "

"Shut up, Cookie, you ain^rt got time for jawin," interrupted a surly

looking guard. Then he suddenly grinned at her for no reason she could tell. It scared her as much as his surly growl. She didn't need outlaw admiration. But what about Red Gorman? He was an outlaw.

"Thank you," whispered Martha as she went on her way.

"I hope you're not still mad at Ben. He may need supplies smuggled to him," Clovine said softly when he came for his breakfast. "Him not stopping in South Pass City for you shouldn't count against him in a case like this."

Lucille did not look up. "I did want to see where Esther Morris worked so hard for women voting rights. But no, I'm not mad at Ben." Even Clovine had the idea she and Ben were romantically involved, which really wasn't true. It was only that their ages were

similar and people assumed things. It did seem impossible she might never see Ben or some of the others of the wagon train again. While thinking of Ben it really upset her that, instead, the outlaw chiefs handsome face jumped unbidden into her thoughts. What were his views on women voting? Would the two town builders clash in a mighty battle for control?

Being cut off from the rest of the Bascom people was both good and bad. She had the only access to supplies they might need, but she had no one to talk with except when people were ushered in like cattle for their meals.

"Maybe I'm wishful thinking that he'll be back," Clovine said.

"Ben's like a horse with blinders, he sees only one path. That's him building a town and being an officer in it." Lucille visualized the

wagon master's tall frame, broad shoulders, long legs and flat waist. He wasn't as big as Gorman, but with dark hair. Where did that thought come from? I'm not comparing them, am I?

"Move along, Clovine," Red said. Where had he come from? He moved quietly for such a big man. He frowned at the two of them. ¹⁴And damn it, woman, answer me! You got a name?"

"My name is Lucille Martin, and I'm a school teacher." She looked directly into his green eyes. He stared back. Her pulse rate doubled and her mouth dried like cornhusks.

"Lucy, you go in the wagons Stokes hauled in and pick up supplies. I want food fit to eat_f that clear?"

"My name is Lucille, Mr. Gorman," she repeated, "and yes, that is

_{clear."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       ^}

The day disappeared so fast Lucille hardly had time to sit. Her feet ached, though not like the first couple of days. In the dark, she took time for a quick sponge bath.

The small north window now sparkled with cleanliness. Opening it slightly in its loose frame, she breathed in fresh air smelling of the river. A spot of red glowed against the big boulder on the slant of

the riverbank. The watchful guard stood there as usual. Shadows wavered as buckbrush and tag alders swayed slightly. Beyond the guard, a darker shadow did not sway in the breeze. She watched intently, losing sight of it_f then catching it again.

Is Ben out there? Or Clem Adams? Some of Clem's men are missing, too, along with my driver. Anticipation of possible rescue filled her mind. But what can I do?

Poof, that dream shattered as the guard fired a shot into the wavering brush. The harsh reality was too many Gorman people guarded against all coming and going by anyone. Had his shot hit anyone? Ben, or Clem Adams? Young Tom Shafer had disappeared in the confusion, too. Several drovers who'd been with the Bascom cattle herds had disappeared.

Why were these people so anxious to keep everyone in the town? Most of them seemed like ordinary people. What crimes had they committed? Were they all the men really innocent?

_{* * * *}

"I just got back, Ben," reported the excited young cowboy. "I crept along the river in the buckbrush. There's guards all over the place. One shot in my direction so I hightailed it. It's like they made their own country in there. They won't let anyone out of town."

"Good boy, Tom." Painfully, Ben pushed himself up on the pillows rancher Brown's wife had provided. "Did you see any of our folks?"

"Did you see my mother?" asked fifteen-year-old Jodie Adams

anxiously.

"Your ma and most all the women were scrubbin¹ dirty clothes by the river. Those outlaws got the lady schoolteacher cookin¹ for them. Mr. Clovine and the men are buildin¹ boardwalks and such. Ben, six of your horses are fenced in at the stables."

"The rest ran off then. Damn, I feel dizzy." Ben shifted his bandaged arm. "You've had a busy night, Tom. Get some rest."

"Yeah," Tom agreed. "Me an¹ a couple of Mr. Brown's boys are gonna try for those horses in a few days. Your studhorse looks all right."

"Don't you get Brown's men in trouble. We're lucky we found thate cave tunnel coming through the mountain so we're safe here. The horses can wait. Just wait until I'm fit to ride with you." Ben felt thoroughly disgruntled.

"They won't hold the horses that long, Ben. You really took a roll coming out of that cave before you saw where it dropped off. We know where to go so we can lead those horses out. We'll need them for our people to ride when we rescue them."

Ben jerked upright to protest but Tom had already disappeared out the bedroom door. Damnation, how could a man build a town all stove up with a broken arm and battered body stupidly gotten from tumbling over a cliff edge? Thankfully, his big stallion was with the other horses and had not been hurt. In the quiet of the night, he heard the animals shuffling about in the corral.

* * * *

All was quiet in Gorman. Even the surly Stokes had gone. A few male Gorman citizens had come in then left right after an early breakfast. Lucille yawned. It would be a perfect time to sit down with a good book and a cup of hot tea, if any were available. If only her questioning mind wasnt filled with other happenings. Instead of relaxing, she listened and watched over the batwing doors across from Stokes unoccupied bar.

From careful listening she learned the big Scandinavian named Swede and a crew were bringing in cattle that had scattered when the wagon train people had been captured.

Red stood close by, leaned against the outer building wall. She heard him but couldn't see him without peering out over the batwings. She stayed back in the shadows. A chill gust of wind under the swinging doors occasionally came to where she stood and she shivered but refused to leave her post.

"Hutchins is taking a crew up on the mountain to cut wood for next fall," Red was saying.

So, that's why they came in so early, Lucille realized. What next? Four of her Bascom friends had been brought in to eat early. There were over twice that many on the wagons that now rumbled by, loaded with men, saws and other woodcutting equipment.

"Virgil, it^Ts too damn early for drinking. Put down that blasted whiskey and take your building crew out to put up a line cabin for watching the cattle Swede and his men are bringing in."

Lucille backed tightly against the inner wall, out of sight, as she heard Gorman pace up and down the boardwalk right outside.         *

"Tede, Frank, Butch and I are going after Shafer's bricks for his bank. I have the proper papers right here. Right now I'm going to have breakfast."

Lucille picked up her skirt front and dashed across the dining area. She already had coffee pots and a few cups in place when the men came in.

"Whew!" She drew in a deep breath. Red Gorman was a sight that nearly made her faint. His neatly trimmed red hair and beard set off the jade green of eyes bright with anticipation. His straw boater hat slanted jauntily on his head. She had a terrible time keeping her mind on the meal when her eyes kept returning to his magnificent physique.

Would bringing back the bricks be his only occupation out of the valley? His talk with Clovine, banker Shafer and storekeeper Hack must have given him ideas. He was now giving instructions to Virgil to build the framework for the bank building. Shafer must have given him dimensions.

Perspiration ran down her face as she scrambled more eggs at the hot stove. Moisture curled the hair that stuck to her neck. She hitched up her skirt over the tight belt of one of the tattered and

scorched aprons Tede had left in the kitchen. The men had wolfed down flapjacks and molasses so fast she worried whether to make more.

"Lucy, come here!" Red's voice carried into the kitchen.

She spun around so quickly she almost lost her balance. With clenched jaw, ready to do battle, she went toward him.

His big strong hands grasped her upper arms and pulled her halfway across the counter with ease. Apprehensively she stared into his green eyes and he stared back. Unexpectedly he twitched his larger nose across her small one, at the same time whispering, "Know what I would really like, my plump pigeon? You'll get your wagon and your books when Stokes gets back. I want a big, thick chocolate cake with thick chocolate frosting on top when I get back." He let her back onto her feet.

Lucille thought her legs would never support her. She half giggled in embarrassed relief. She'd been prepared for unpleasant retaliation

for her snappy remark about getting his own coffee if he wanted

_some.

"I might manage a cake/' she choked out somehow.

Gorman joined his waiting men, grinning. They left, banging the batwings behind them. Lucille backed up and sank onto the sturdy" chair she'd brought from the dining room. Her heart slammed against her ribs. With a mouth as dry as old newspaper and knees twitching under the brown skirt she'd worn all week Lucille drew in a gulp of air to calm herself. What did Gorman^Ts strange behavior mean? What was she supposed to do now? She looked around. Who had seen Red's actions? Why did her heart flutter, and all the room's heat settle in her belly and down her inner thighs?

Only four guards remained that she could account for, plus three saloon girls, the Elite Saloon bartender and the men at the livery stable she supposed loitered around someplace. She did not count the man from the small general store, or the blacksmith, because

they rarely ate at the restaurant. The rest would show up to eat, that was certain, but she could cut way down on the cooking.

Since their capture, it had been quite a week. She held up her left hand in the dim light of the kitchen lamp. The knuckles of her fingers showed. She held up her right hand. Sure enough. She ran fingers along her wrist. Well, really, she reasoned, it wasn't logical her wrist bones would stick out yet, but she needed her skirt shortened to adjust to her lost weight.

Lucille thought back to when she was fifteen. She'd attracted every man and boy in her small town. Now, only eight years later, she'd escaped the taunts of her two bony stepsisters. To them she had bulges. They declared no man would be interested in a woman tall enough to look most men in the eyes while she took a man's occupation of teaching school. Nor should women be so unladylike as to want to vote, or own property. Well, darn it, come hell or high water, or Red Gorman, she was going to own property, and vote on how much tax would be on that property.

Maybe no man would be interested in her, Lucille's mind said. Except an outlaw like Red Gorman because lean cook?

It was still very early in the morning. Lucille yawned again. She blew out the kitchen lamps as daylight brightened the dining area. The guards would bring the remaining prisoners for their breakfast soon.

Something seemed different about the male prisoners as they
entered, though they tried to disguise it. Lucille noticed Clovine's
pale blue eyes sparkled under his shock of white hair. Forie
Drescher eyed the guards with a look of challenge.                                                                                                                                                                                         «

"Young Tom came last night," whispered Clovine as he exchanged an empty platter for one full of flapjacks. His back was to the guards. "Tell Martha that Jodie is safe at a ranch outside the valley."

_{"And the rest?"}

"Move along, old man. Cut the palaver. Move it!" Some of the guards appeared nervous and edgy but usually not surly. Lucille thought one was the blacksmith.

Forie cleared tables, putting everything onto the counter. Without looking up, Lucille whispered to him, "Arent the prisoners all together? Where are the women and children?"

"At the Elite Saloon and Hotel, to make sure the men don't run off. Us men are workin' on the..."

"C'mon, Drescher," yelled a guard. "Gotta git back to work."

"Aw, Foley," Drescher said in an exaggerated drawl, "I did reckon we'd all go on a picnic now the bossman is gone."

"Picnic, my ass,¹' said the guard with a grin. "We gotta have that store ready in two weeks with shelves all full and ready for business. Your man Hack better know what he's doin', gittin' them goods arranged. I need a new shirt."

The men left, the guards watchful but with a return of good humor that hadn't been present before. They were scarcely gone when two more men brought the women and children in and the bustle of breakfast started all over again.

"Clovine says tell you Jodie is safe with some ranch people," Lucille told Martha as she picked up a platter of flapjacks for one of the tables of women.

Martha's eyes widened and she drew in a deep breath. Her full lips slightly parted and trembled. Her chin puckered. "Thank you very much." She quickly moved aside and drank her coffee, set down the cup and, with a nod to Lucille, moved toward the door with the rest

of the women.

As Lucille sat with her own cup of coffee she wondered how soon Red would be back. Would he greet her with more than a twitch to her nose? She smiled to herself. What a strange man. What kind of relationship would the outlaw expect from her? If he expected anything but a business relationship, he could darn well think again.

She enjoyed their arguments, his scarce compliments, his almost advances before he grew sober faced and backed away with no emotion on his face.

"I bet he's a good gambler," Lucille said to herself. [Back to Table of Contents!

_{CHAPTER 3}

With most of Gorman's men still gone, Lucille cut cooking time in half. Early in the morning, the rumbling of well loaded wagons in the street announced the return of Hutchins and his wood cutting crew. They were back with loads of wood after only a few days.

Mid-morning she walked calmly to the restaurant door, and looked right and left on the street. One guard remained. She waved to him as nonchalantly as possible while her heart thumped hard in her chest. She hadn't ventured out into the street before. Would he think she'd try to escape? There would be only an hour for what she'd longed to do for weeks. Outside the restaurant, she hurried down to a short side street. The perpetual Wyoming winds whipped her skirts as she found the cobbler's small sign on the front of a building housing the shop. She noticed living quarters were at the back, with flowers in the window. No one followed her or stopped her. She went inside the small shop.

"You been losing lots of weight, missy, or them shoes you're wearing belong to somebody else. I noticed when I hed guard duty." Hutchins stood behind a short counter piled with leather pieces.

Lucille stared into interested brown eyes. She gnawed a lip corner before running her tongue nervously over them. "Could you sort of keep that a secret, just between us?"

"Everybody in this town has secrets," he said. "That's why we're here. I can keep one well as most. What you want done?"

"Make me shoes that fit so they don't give me blisters.'¹ Looking at the calm appearing man, she wondered what crime he had committed in the outside world. How would he prove his innocence ... if he was innocent?

"How you gonna pay for them?"

Lucille puffed out a short breath. "Mr. Hutchins, if that's your name,"  she said stoutly,   "if Gorman can unlawfully hold me

prisoner, then I can use his flour and lard. I hope you'll accept pies or cakes in exchange for doing my shoes."

The brown eyes suddenly twinkled in his lined face. "Miss Lucy, any friend of Stokes is a friend of mine. Me and the missus sure would enjoy apple pie. My name is Ed Hutchins and your shoes will be ready quick as I can make them when we get the winter wood finished."

Lucille was happy to talk with him a few more minutes, while he* measured for her shoes. She didn't often get to visit. She hoped Mrs. Hutchins would appear, but she did not. When Lucille left the shop, the guard merely nodded in her direction as she walked down the street and entered the restaurant. She returned to her kitchen feeling shed made a friend. Hutchins certainly didn't act like an outlaw. It amazed her, however, that the taciturn Stokes counted her a friend.

Just before noon rattling harness and a rumbling in the dusty street brought Lucille to the front window. Wiping soapy hands on her apron, she peered out.

Her very own wagon! With Stokes on the high seat.

Stokes and the wagon disappeared to the rear of the building and Lucille hurried to the back kitchen door. "Mr. Stokes! This is great! Are my clothes there? And my school teaching books?"

Stokes allowed half a smile, then immediately hid it behind a stiff manner.

"I've promised Mr. Gorman a chocolate cake for this."

"Very good, miss," Stokes replied. "What will you require first?"

Lucille clambered up into the wagon. Her trunk was open and upside down amid moldy chunks of bread, but there were fresh clothes only a little dusty, a real nightdress, and underclothes. She was elated and threw all she could into the trunk. Stokes hoisted it to a big shoulder and took it inside the kitchen. It had been a challenge to Lucille to get the laconic Stokes to talk. She counted it a major step forward the day the middle-aged man finally said 'Good morning¹ when she did, instead of a surly grunt. If she called

him Stoic Stokes to his face, she'd lose what little progress she'd made with the man. Now here he was, being exceptionally helpful, no doubt at Red's instructions.

Lucille felt a blush heating her face as she remembered her last encounter with Red, but she still had to ask, "Have you known Mr. Gorman very long, Mr. Stokes?" as he thumped her big trunk down on the kitchen floor.

"Long'nuff."

"Since he was very young?" Lucille persisted. She^Td noted some sort of invisible bond between the two men.

"Knew his Mum, too," muttered Stokes as he walked away.

That so startled Lucille she said no more. Besides, she had her trunk to occupy her, before starting dinner. She pushed kettles of beans^ and ham bones to the front of the stove to cook while she sorted clothing from her trunk.

"Where you want these books?" Stokes was surly again.

"By the curtain, please." She stared after the dark haired, dark eyed man as he lowered the heavy wooden box with a bang. Tipping her head to one side, she considered his earlier speech. Very good, miss. What will you require first? It was not so much the words as the stiff and precise way he sometimes said them. And now he'd said, "Knew his inuin, too." She'd known a newly arrived immigrant from London, England who had called his mother, "Mum." When the wagon train stopped in Cheyenne, she'd seen several black clad butlers with the Irish and English Lords immigrating to Wyoming. Was he one of those butlers?

_"Stokes?"

"Gotta tend my bar." His accent changed again. He hurried away.

Lucille smiled. She'd made a little headway with the man. Happily, she flung clothing about, overjoyed that three brand new ten-dollar corsets were still safely wrapped. The one she wore was threadbare

and sagged, giving her sore welts where it rubbed. In the heat of the kitchen, she was tempted not to wear one.

Later, while biscuits baked and beans boiled, Lucille carried hot, soapy water to the dining area. 'Two blessed weeks, Mr. Stokes," she said as she scrubbed the two big plate glass windows and their frames. She thought, two blessed weeks with less cooking and scrubbing pots and pans. Two weeks without Red in her dining room. Two long weeks without the exasperating big galoot grinning and winking at her, or checking on her blue eyes. Two long, long weeks. She shook herself back to the present and the question she had for Stokes. "Would you know where there are two long nails?"

"Might."

Lucille smiled when he returned with the long spikes. He even pounded them at each upper corner of the small kitchen window. She immediately draped yellow flowered material from her trunk across the nails for curtains to liven up the kitchen.

"You are very proficient, Mr. Stokes."

"Call me just Stokes, miss, as is proper." He stalked off to his corner.

At noon, the guards herded the prisoners to the restaurant as usual. Some were missing along with some of the guards. She'd heard" they'd gone back to cutting wood up in the mountains. The remaining men were here, standing in line. Martha Adams led the Bascom women down the line. She was very sober, and especially unhappy over being separated from her two young sons. While getting a refill of bean soup Clovine told Lucille, "Ben's hurt bad, but he's alive, and Tom Shafer is with him."

"Clem Adams?" "Don't know."

After passing what information she could to Martha and the other women, and the prisoners had gone, Lucille sat down in the dining room next to Stokes with her own bowl of soup.

"Was Red born in England, too?"

"Not him. Just Ferdie."

"But you were."

Stokes glared at her, rose and took his bowl over to his bar.

Back in the kitchen Lucille smiled all through doing dishes. Help would be coming. Ben was alive! Mr. Adams was out there somewhere, and many of the cattle drovers, including Charlie, her driver, were inside the valley. Stokes had sent several families to live in their own undamaged wagons close by, but some still ate at the restaurant now and then. Those with damaged Conestoga's, like Mrs. Adams, remained in provided rooms. The Hacks lived in the store. No one was allowed to leave the valley, however.

Ben would heal quickly, he was healthy, big and strong. It was unthinkable that his injury would cripple him. He might come into her kitchen late in the night and say it was time to leave this valley and join him ... where? Would she be eager to go with him? It was Bascom people's assumption they were romantically involved. She thought it came about because of their similar ages, not any action

on their part. They did indeed tend to argue a lot, but that was hardly romantic.

Jade green eyes and red hair intruded on her thoughts. Gorman was gone, too. Would he be in danger? Was he really the killer the Cheyenne poster claimed? Who but Red Gorman would be so bold as to rub noses with a woman in her kitchen?

_{* * * *}

"You two go with me this trip, Butch, Frank." Even as he had given the order Red's thoughts remained on a small, soft nose between two wide, extremely surprised, very blue eyes. He sucked in his cheeks to keep from grinning.

"Red, dammit, I just asked you. Cheyenne this trip?" Frank Fetters^ sat his fidgety bay horse beside Red's appaloosa mare.

"Yeah. Yeah, Cheyenne." Red brought his mind back to the present with difficulty. Beside him rode the faithful, long-suffering Tede, and Butch Lang, as well as Frank. Earlier he hadn't explained

anything, just ordered the men to be ready to go on a two-week jaunt. He had to keep away from the brown haired cook. Giving in to the temptation of her presence would only mean disaster. Stokes had trimmed his hair and beard in the middle of the previous night without blinking an eye. He'd also readied hot water in the big bathing tub at the huge three-story house.

They walked the horses out of town to keep from raising a dust storm.

Tede yelled across to him. "Now that youVe showed the lady your fancy straw cartwheel hat you better pack it or your horse will git hisself a bite outta it by mistake."

He scowled at Tede and pointed a long finger at the little man, who promptly snapped his jaw shut.

"I intend to." Without another word he exchanged the straw boater hat for a Stetson more suitable for hard riding. No one else said a word.

"You ain't gonna shoot at me agin, are you?"

"It might be better for all of us if I shot a nip from that long nose of yours, Tede. It's going to get you in real trouble some day."

Tede grinned, banged his heels into his horse and raced on ahead, yelling "Ee-hah!" as he waved his hat in the air like a schoolboy freed from lessons.

They all nudged more speed from their mounts until they were all riding together again. "Frank, you and Butch get a day and night in Cheyenne while I take care of bank business, and a poker game or two, in a different direction." He patted his upper shirt pocket. "It seems a Mr. Bertram Shafer has a paid-in-full order sheet for bricks to build a small bank in a town called Bascom. You two will take whatever wagons and teams you need to deliver those bricks to a town named Gorman. I want that bank safe out of my house and into a real bank as soon as possible."

"You betcha. We'll have us a right upstandin¹ town quicker than scat. You 'spose if we was to have our own law officers them

outside dogooders an¹  lawdogs would leave us alone?"  Frank* nudged his horse closer to Red's mare.

"Most of you have no worry on that. Those outside aren^Tt all lily white either, even the lawmen." Red shrugged big shoulders and kept to a steady gait with his horse.

"Especially the one after you. I heard he's got your posters as far north as Cheyenne. That's too darn close, Red." Frank shook his head.

Red felt an anvil's weight plunk inside him. Did the blue-eyed cook know about the wanted posters? The wagon train had come from that direction.

He gloomily thought of the town of Gorman. It had the required hotel, not quite finished, and a saloon with gambling. He had persuaded Virgil, a drunken carpenter no one else would hire, to direct the work getting the proper buildings prepared. They had a restaurant, cobbler, barbershop and livery stable. They still needed a doctor and a lawyer. They needed a sheriff and jail and courthouse.

He wondered if that lady schoolteacher would insist on voting for a sheriff or a judge. He'd have to think about that.

So far, Virgil had remodeled an old stage station into the restaurant and built cabins for the three women who worked in the saloon. Tede located the cobbler their last trip to Denver. His shop opened only a month ago.

"You reckon Virgil will get anything done in those rooms over the saloon while we're gone? Or have the bank building framed up for the bricks?"

"I threatened to take away his liquor supply if he doesn't do some work in the upstairs rooms at the Elite Saloon. I get this awful feeling it's not going to satisfy my father when he comes, no matter what gets done on it. He's the one paying for it."

"The Elite has the fanciest polished bar this side of Cheyenne," Tede said. "That oughta make brother Ferdie happy."

Mention of his relatives always made Red unhappy. He fingered the two big diamond rings in the watch pocket of his green brocade vest. One would get him in a big stake poker game in the city. He pulled a wad of bills from his other pocket.

"Here, Tede," he said. "When we get to South Pass you buy a team and wagon. Load it up with all the tinned goods and restaurant supplies it can carry and head back to Gorman. Get one of those big school slates for teaching youngsters. Make sure you get plenty ofr chocolate for cake. If that Joe Texas cowhand is still looking for work have him take a second load. Better dicker for more chickens. The restaurant will need all the eggs you can get. Pop is partial to chicken stew. He'll have to do without mutton."

"Tede gonna start another restaurant, now that Miss Martin has yours?"

"Go to hell, Butch." Tede^Ts snort startled the horses and Red grinned.

"Tede will have all he can handle guarding that damn safe and keeping Virgil sober enough to finish the rooms over the Elite and the rooms above Hack's General Store."

"You gonna let Hack run that store?" Frank asked.

"Why not? That's what he came for. He must know the business."

"He's got some right pretty daughters to help him." Butch grinned around at them all with raised brows.

"You better keep Ferdie from messin' with their women or there'll be hell to pay with them people," Tede warned.

"Ferdie won't be around unless he needs money or a place to lay low awhile." Red glumly considered the prospect of his half-brother coming to Gorman. He didn't like it. If he was lucky the man would shun the quiet little town. If he was even luckier his father would also stay in the big cities. Just thinking about his parent and Ferdie made him physically ill. Almost as ill as the prospect of being hung if Sheriff Harry Danforth should catch him.

"Hell's bells, Red," Tede said. "More'n likely you were lucky your Pa deserted you when you was young. You'd still be pickin¹ pockets in New Yawk 'steada ridin' high, wide and handsome with all us."

"That bulldog Danforth wouldn't be after me though. Wish me luck finding a witness this trip. Young Danforth's dying was all his own fault."

"You reckon your Pa really will show up way out here?" Butch asked.

"If he runs short of cash he will," Red said tersely, then he added, "All right, you yahoos, let's ride and get these chores over with. Get yourselves home safe." He put his mount into a mile eating lope.

_{* * * *}

"Riders!" In Gorman the word passed from person to person like a spring flood, Lucille thought as she crossed the dining room to the big windows.

"It ain't Red. I don't see thet fancy App of his'n." A cowboy jangled
his spurs as he entered and headed for the small bar.                                                                                                                                                                                         s

Lucille listened to the spreading speculation about who entered the secluded valley. Another unlucky wagon train?

Several riders mounted handy horses and went to see who it could be. Lucille and Stokes craned their necks at the restaurant's big

windows.

"If it be who I think," Stokes said to her, "the fat is in the fire. All chaos will break out. I wish Archie had returned first." A worried expression remained on his face.

"Archie?"

"Red is Archie. Archibald Gorman."

"Oh. Then, who is coming?"

"By the outriders and fancy coach I would guess it is Humphrey, Archie's   father,   and   his   half-brother,   Ferdie."    Gloom,   not

anticipation, hung on every word.

"That's not good?" Lucille felt a lump like lead settle in her stomach. If Stokes was worried it had to be bad news.

"It is very bad. It will be a little time before they enter the town. I must get rooms ready in the palace."

"In that fancy house I saw in the cottonwoods? The one that sits on my lot?" Lucille couldn't resist adding that last sentence with a dose of bitterness.

"Yes, miss." Stokes refused to be baited about who that lot belonged to. He hurried from the restaurant, leaving his bar attended by Foley, the guard Forie had joked with.

Lucille returned to her kitchen. What kind of chaos would Archie's relatives create? No matter what, coffee would be needed. Biscuits and honey would only take a few minutes.

Cooking these last days had been comparatively easy. A few townsfolk wandered in, knowing the food was good. They always dropped money on the counter. Martha Adams and Laura Hack helped clear dishes and the friendly guards merely waited without comment. Bettina paused for a word or two and told her how busy she was with mending and making a shirt for Darcy's small son.

"Who is Darcy?" Lucille asked.

"She deals cards and sings at the Elite Saloon. Her son Georgie is five."

_{"He should be in school. I'd sure like to start classes."}

"I don't know if shell let him come." Bettina was already at the

bat wings.

"Try her. There are seven children from the wagon train who need schooling. I don't think Stokes will object. I'll talk to Red when he returns. See you again soon, Bettina. Ill have more sewing for

Archie, Lucille corrected herself as the seamstress left. Yes, the name suited him. She liked the name Archie better than calling him Red.

Gunshots sounded in the street. Red ... Archie, usually kept the town quiet. Martha and Laura looked to Lucille. They were reluctant to go to their quarters above the Elite Saloon. All three stood at the big windows looking out on the new boardwalk and the rutted street

A bullet splintered the restaurant's door frame. Wild yelling stirred the tethered horses at the hitch rail as five riders thundered past. They circled at the end of the street by the livery stable and raced back again. Lucille herded Martha and Laura ahead of her to refuge far back in the kitchen. As the riders disappeared the women cautiously returned to the windows. They watched the men all dismount and enter the Elite Saloon.

Quiet lasted all of five minutes before the most ostentatious and unusual procession Lucille had ever seen, paraded up the street.

Four riders, two by two, rode sedately ahead. A black coach, ornamented with silver whip holder, and silver door latches, had a silver and red coat of arms decoration on the door. Its red painted wheels barely stirred the dust, as though the passengers wished to prolong view of their entourage as long as possible.

"Oh, for goodness sake," Martha declared.

The coach was pulled by four matched dapple gray horses with black and silver harness. They pranced on by the restaurant. The women stretched to look around the door and window. Four more riders followed the coach half a block, than all eight riders disappeared. Stokes hurried to open the coach door as it stopped before the sparse shrubbery in front of the huge house next door to the restaurant.

"Oh, my lord." Lucille stopped a giggle with a hand tight to her mouth.

The man was tall, almost cadaverous, very stiff in his bearing. He wore purple satin knee breeches, a brocade vest and lace trimmed shirt. Highly polished, tasseled black boots were on his feet.

"I don't believe this." Martha turned to Lucille. "Who is he?" "You mean, what is he?" Laura said.

"I believe he is Archie's father. The other is his half-brother, Ferdie,"  Lucille said.  "I think this is the disaster Stokes was* dreading. I'm not sure yet why."

Ferdie was attired in dark green velvet with a bright something in yellow at his throat. Both men wore top hats and gloves. Each carried a walking stick. They disappeared from sight.

"Back door," said Laura. "We can see the side of the house." She ran through the kitchen with the others following right behind her. They watched and listened intently.

"Humphrey, what have you done?" Stokes" baritone sounded across the bushes dividing the restaurant yard from the palace yard.

"Call me Sir Humphrey or Sir Gorman, Stokes. Know your place, sir."

Lucille didn't catch Stokes' lengthy, and quiet, answer.

"You old fool, Stokes, the man gave me $10,000. I'll have another $10,000 next month." Humphrey's high pitched voice reached the women.

"For what? For hiding them in this valley, away from the law?" Stokes¹ outraged tones carried to the watching women. Those are real outlaws, not accused ones. Archie won't like it at all... Sir."

A door slammed, hard.

The ornate coach disappeared around the far side of the big house. The three women, with heads poked out the restaurant's back door,

heard the rattle of horses being unhitched at the large stables behind the house.

"I think Clovine said he helped build those stables for horses on the other side of the palace. That's what the guards call it." Martha told them.

"I'd sure like to explore this town," Lucille said. "With all the guards watching my every move and cooking for all those people doesn't give me time to see more than kitchen walls, the woodpile and the well." She didn't mention the cobbler's shop.

"Ben will be disappointed. He and Clem had their town so well planned. Now this." Martha tossed her shawl around her shoulders. Laura prepared to leave with her.

Lucille admitted Ben and Mr. Adams had planned their town well. Except for one thing. She and Ben had argued the whole trip about women's rights. She had teased him unmercifully on occasion that he could not prove men were smarter than women. Now the town was in other's hands, so no solution could be reached.

A few seconds later Laura rushed back into the building. Lucille
turned and waited for what the white-faced girl had to say.                                                                                                                                                                                         ^

"There's more men out there," Laura squeaked. 'The street in front of pa's store is full of them. They look more like outlaws than anyone here."

"I wish Stokes would come back. Foley disappeared, too." Lucille

_said.

"One of them yelled at me." Lucille saw Laura swallow convulsively. She ran around the counter just as four men pushed through the batwings at the bar end of the building. Lucille quickly indicated the gunny sack curtain that separated her bedroom from the kitchen. Laura whisked behind it.

"Hey, no bartender." The man was coarse featured and heavily armed with a big pistol and shell belts crossed over his chest.

"We'll help ourselves. Gibb, play bartender and set 'em up."

Lucille stood her ground and reached for her biggest meat cleaver. "Hey, Cookie, where'd the good lookin¹ dame go?" "Out back." Lucille white knuckled the meat cleaver. "Hell, I'm dry as dust under the bed. Drink up. Free, ain't it?" "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Lucille demanded.

"Hell, woman, we^Tre part of his majesty's Englandia army. Here's to Sir Humphrey Whatever-Whatever Gorman-Jones. He acts like one of them infernal foreigners who think they can run a ranch while they sit on their fat asses in Cheyenne. Guess we'll show them a thing or two."

"Hey, woman, what's burning?"

Lucille didn't wait to check who spoke. She dashed to her oven. She

^{saved most of the pan of biscuits from turning really black.}

"We'll have some of those." The coarse featured fellow leaned across the counter. 'They don't smell bad as the ones we had comin'

up here from..."

"Shut yer face, Dude. She don't needa know where we come from."

Lucille slammed the big pan on the counter, set out a pot of honey and some knives.

_{"How much?"}

"Five cents, since they're scorched."

Lucille gathered all the coins as the biscuits disappeared. What would Archie say? Would Stokes raise a fuss? Did Archie supply all the food for her restaurant? The supplies the Hacks had brought in for their store wouldn't last forever, not with the crowd of riders she'd just seen enter the town.

^{"Miss Lucy."}

Lucille spun around as Stokes entered the kitchen's back door. "His lordship requests scones and tea, miss, delivered immediately.

"Scones and tea?" Lucille stared at the middle-aged man. Her brain waves went full tilt. She drew a deep breath, bit her lower lip and warily eyed the waiting Stokes. He stood like a stone statue, grim-faced and bleak-eyed. Like her version of an English butler.

"Tell his lordship there will be biscuits and honey, with coffee, over

_here."

"Very good, miss." Lucille thought she caught a very slight twinkle in Stokes dark eyes as he backed out the door and closed it.

Lucille sat on her cot, thinking she didn't feel so good. In fact, she felt rotten. Like someone tossed her up in the air and forgot to tell her how to land.

Why did the surly Stokes, who bossed everyone else around, take such treatment from Sir Humphrey Gorman-Jones?

* * * *

Ben Menkin didn't feel good, and as lively as watered down whiskey. His bruised arm flopped like his mother's noodles as she hung them to dry. The other arm was really broken and lay in a sling across his chest.

With worry over the chances young Tom Shafer took going back to the Bascom valley, he was glad Jace Brown had allowed his son, Steve, and another daredevil young cowhand to go along this trip, but that, too, added anxiety.

Impatient, as the sun slipped behind the western mountain range, Ben scooted up on the large pillows to watch out the window. The boys were already two days overdue. Thank goodness for the safety of Adams, and the generosity of the Brown family at this great ranch.

"They'll be in soon, Ben," Jace told him as he entered the room. "Don't fret none. My boys are resourceful even when they're wild.

They can't impress Miss Jodie if they don't get back safe to do a little braggin¹."

"You've been more than generous, Jace/ Ben said.

"Don't worry about it. It's to our advantage to get those rustlers out of there. They've gotten bolder in the last two weeks. It ain't just two or three cows at a time like before. Now it's fifty or sixty prime animals they make off with."

"We'll help all we can when I get my people organized. We want the lands we're entitled to."

"It's too dark to see the corral, but I hear horses raisin' a ruckus." Jace strode over to the bedroom window. "Here's your man and my two, comin' across the yard. You'll hear them clatterin' up the stairs* soon enough."

Tom burst into the room, followed by Steve Brown and his pal. Steves mother and Jodie joined the rest and all crowded into the small bedroom.

"Sorry were late," Tom apologized. His brown eyes sparkled.

"Well, out with it," Ben said. "I can see you found out something in Bascom."

"Plenty. Red Gorman is chief man in the town. They call it Gorman. He and most all his men left the valley, for two weeks, Lucille Martin told Clovine. They went all different directions."

"Yeah," Jace said bitterly. "Almost two hundred head of my prime stock got moved this past couple weeks. Half of them scattered but we're missing the rest. Strange thing though. I don't think the rustlers came from Gorman's valley. They came from someplace between here and Cheyenne."

"Mr. Clovine, Forie Drescher, my dad and Mr. Hack got the warehouse fixed for Hack's store. They moved the women upstairs in the saloon to keep the men from trying to escape. They took other men in the mountains to build cabins and get wood."

"Maybe I can get out of this bed before they get back and..."

"Don't get all fired up," cautioned Mrs. Brown. "You wouldn't last longer than snow in a hot kettle."

"My crew won't be back for another week either," Jace warned Ben.

Ben settled back disconsolately. "What else is going on in my town?"

Tom said quietly, "There's a cobbler and a doctor's office in town, but no doctor. Miss Martin does the doctorin'."

"Tell him! Tell him!" Steve Brown urged.

Ben smiled at Tom's effort to report soberly. The younger man's eyes snapped with excitement and kept returning to Jodie Adams.

"We let the corral bars down and roped three of your Morgan horses. The others followed like lambs, ma saw us from a window. She called in one of the guards so he wouldn't see us while we got away." The three young men wore jubilant grins. "We got 'em right outside in the corral!"

"No wonder your eyes are shooting sparks. Thanks, fellas. That's great!" Ben didn't want to dampen their enthusiasm but a look at Jace confirmed he also worried the outlaws were being warned too soon about retaliation.

"We made it look like they trampled down a gate," offered Tom smugly, and Ben nodded, hoping for the best.

"Its been a long day, fellas," Jace said. "Now that the excitement is over, Im for the bed." They all trooped out but Tom, who had a cot in Ben's room.

"One of the friendly guards told Forie Dresher that Gorman's in an almighty hurry to get buildings up. Some guy named Stokes brought wagons in so Hack can run his store. Some folks are living in their own wagons. Anything else?" Tom blew out the lamp, stripped down and settled on the cot.

"You get some rest. Seems like all I do is rest." Ben turned and faced the wall, trying to quiet his discontent. How the hell could he show his folks he was as good as his older brother if everything he

planned went wrong? He debated whether he wanted to be a mayor like his dad, or would he rather be sheriff of Bascom?

He wondered if his own wagons had been pulled into town. Were his town and valley maps safe? He thought of Lucille Martin and the pretty Hack sisters, especially young Dora. Damn, his battered body hurt. This would be another miserable night.

_{* * * *}

Bean soup, with ham pieces, seemed the only meal Lucille could fix that would stretch far enough to feed everyone. There were groans that the men had lived on beans the last two weeks, but her feather light, unburned biscuits turned the grumbles to sighs of pleasure. The coins they dropped in the cash bowl soon piled up.

She didn't have time to check the wooden box of books Stokes hauled in, until after the evening meal. Someone had broken into it, hoping for valuables, no doubt. So much for Archie's noble outlaws. After   seeing   the   first   books   she   moved   others   with   sick

apprehension. Dirt crusted the covers, corners were bent, and pages smeared from lying open on the ground. Luckily, it hadn't rained.

"Here's the book for chocolate cake." Talking to herself Lucille continued, "Here's my four first grade readers." She stacked the books in their various categories. At the bottom, dirt covered, with pages torn, was a strange journal. One page had a town map, hand drawn to scale with river and mountains, looking remarkably like Gorman.

A series of numbers at the bottom of the page made her feel like a spy. The bank combination? She looked quickly over her shoulder* and out the small window. She put the journal on a high shelf in a hurry, added her dictionary, the old law book her brother had given her, and her school books. She'd bring down the school books when she started a class in the back of the dining room. Survival came first.

Next morning, as the prisoner's lined up at breakfast Martha surreptitiously confided, "Tom got Ben's horses from the corral last night."

"Archie will be back in a few days. Is there time for a rescue?" Lucille's lips formed a small, silent oh-oh. Calling the outlaw 'Archie¹ was a bad sign. Did Martha notice? Just how much of an outlaw was he? He claimed this land and this town. To him the Bascom people were the interlopers.

"We don't know. We're all crowded together again. With Gorman's father here, what will happen?" Martha asked. "The saloon noise kept us awake most of the night. I hope aching heads pay for it." Martha and her three children lined up for breakfast.

"There isn't much peaceful about the town now, that's sure." Lucille said.

"I think a man got shot last night. I wish Mr. Gorman was back. At least he kept it safer and quieter, even though we're prisoners in our own valley."

No more excitement livened the day as Lucille went through a set routine, competent and busy. She smoothed a frown from her forehead. She slammed skillets and pans, now and then holding up hands with slim, tapered fingers. If only the rest of her body would lose weight more quickly. Then again, if Ben didn't rescue them soon all this work would have her body melted down to a puddle of skin and bones. And if Archie didn't quit giving those smoldering green stares at her she'd melt down to a puddle anyway. Which was worse?

By evening she worked herself into such a state of nerves she didn't know whether to pray for rescue or was terrified if it came. The evening's fried potatoes were a little scorched.

A scream from the dining area caused Lucille to look up from scrubbing shelves below the dividing counter. An outlaw with a jagged scar down his face had cornered Laura Hack. His big hands, black with thick hair, caressed Laura's arms and she screamed again.

A loud bang sounded as Stokes hit the bar with a long club. "None* of that, boys," his deep voice sounded distinctly in the sudden quiet. "Mr. Gorman won't like you messing with the women."

The men stared at Stokes' implacable obsidian glare and went back to their original positions. Laura ran to the other women.

Lucille sighed in relief. Did Gorman have such a reputation that mention of his name made hardened criminals pause and think? She returned to shelf cleaning. Her heart thunked unhappily in her chest.

In a few moments the guards herded the women out one direction and the men another. The tall, big shouldered silhouette at a warehouse window, just before the lights went out, had to be Clovine, being watchful. For what?

"Do you suppose Mr. Gorman will be back soon?" Lucille asked as

she heard Stokes come to stare out the other bay window.

_{"I would think so, miss."}

"Is Ferdie his real brother?"

"Half brother. A worthless fop, that one," Stokes said tersely. "And the father as well." He stalked back to his bar and extinguished the two lamps there, before leaving.

Puzzled, Lucille continued to stare out the window. She felt her face go warm as she thought of Archie's last visit to the kitchen. Rubbing noses? Good lord. Very weird, but kind of cute. His request for chocolate cake seemed logical enough. She could handle that. But if the green-eyed outlaw made further advances, what then?

They needed a sheriff to uphold law and order. Wyoming women already had the right to vote in elections. With a sigh she wondered how she and the other women could go about getting an election in Gorman. Would Archie fight the idea, especially of women being allowed to vote?

As she blew out the first kitchen light Bens stern and serious gray eyes came to mind. He had been opposed to women obtaining the vote all through the wagon train trip. He probably wouldn't change.

Sparkling jade eyes next bounced into her thoughts. Archie. His thick, curling auburn hair drew the looks of even the captive Hack sisters and blonde Caroline Bricker, the daughter of the pastor who had died of a heart attack. Where did he stand on women's rights to their own land, and voting?

Explosively, Lucille blew out the last kitchen lamp. [Back to Table of Contents!

_{CHAPTER 4}

Several miserable, scary days later Stokes called out across Hucille's kitchen counter, "A carriage is coming in. I saw at least three women, very obviously women of the night. They also have a lot of trunks. They'll likely want a meal."

He caught Lucille^Ts disapproving look. He reddened slightly and looked uncomfortable. He attempted his most aloof butler manner.

Lucille shook her head and her finger at him. "Don't pull that stiff Englishman look on me, Stokes," she said. "You know very well you're as worried as I am about the character of this town. We don't need women who cause men to fight over them and possibly get

someone killed."

"You're right, Miss Martin, I do not approve of this kind of activity. We do not need this, but we have it whether we like it or not."

"Who is sending them here? Archie?" Why did she care?

"I suspect it is Corey Black, or those other two Gormans."

It was obvious to Lucille that Stokes hated to speak of Archie's father and brother any more than absolutely necessary. "We'll have to make the best of it. Coffee is hot. I can have biscuits and stew heated by the time they unload all those trunks." Her first guess would be Sir Humphrey or Ferdie had invited these women, making promises of some sort to them.

"Very good, miss."

Lucille watched Stake's departing back in puzzlement. He stalked away with stooped back and pounding heels while staring at the floor. He sounded like a butler again. He must really be upset about something. She hurried a few steps after him, stumbled on her skirt hem and almost plowed into the man.

"Stokes, were you ever a butler?" Lucille didn't look at him while she tied her apron belt tighter and bloused the waist of her dress over it.

He turned and stared at her with dark, unreadable eyes. "Almost," he snapped, and immediately turned away. Well, that didn't tell her much. He certainly was an enigma. She rolled up the overly long sleeves of her plain gray dress.

The next couple days Lucille had barely time to squeeze in a meal for herself. She noticed that the new brand of outlaws Sir Humphrey had brought into the valley eyed the slim and lovely young ladies of the Bascom wagon train way too often. If she continued to lose

weight at the speed she now did, she would soon be prey for their lecherous ogling as well. And what else? One of the Elite Saloon women had come for laudanum to ease the pain of bruises and a black eye.

Something had to be done to put the town back in a better, mood than it had been since the arrival of Corey Black and his outlaws. Even Stokes, who had lost his surly demeanor with the Bascom people over the last several weeks, became touchy natured and frowned a lot. The Gorman branch of the people talked considerably about wishing Red would hurry back.

Surprisingly, Lucille caught Stokes in a really good mood one day and got approval for Bettina, the dressmaker, to do some sewing. Corey Black's ladies of the night had nagged about needing mending done. Why they came to her, Lucille could not guess. She decided she would be one of Bettina^Ts first customers.

"Stuff a little more around the hips," Lucille told the dressmaker as she twisted left to see her friend. "If we get enough more at the waist it will keep my skirts from dragging under my feet. I about broke my neck yesterday when I tripped on the skirt hem."

"Lucille, dearest girl," Bettina said plaintively, "stuffing your corset will make you look fat. Why would you want to be fat?"

"If those outlaws want a woman in their bed they will surely pick a pretty one with curves, not a fat one with bulges. Since that Corey Black started pestering Caroline Bricker and that horrible blond man with Black started ogling me up and down, I just don't trust any of them.'¹

"With those big dark blue eyes and long black eyelashes, do you really think looking fat will keep those outlaws from being attracted to you?" Bettina said softly.

"I better do something. Swede keeps staring at me, too. Stokes looks at me strangely, like he's seen I've lost weight."

"And Archie Gorman has always been attracted to you, you know that," Bettina insisted. She shook her head and with hands on slender hips looked Lucille up and down.

"No, I don't know that. He likes my cooking."

"Think what you will. At least he's more interesting than Ben Menkin, even though he was wagon master for us all the way here,"

"It will be our secret that my new gain in weight comes sewed inside my corset. Promise?" Too late Lucille wondered at her lack of immediate defense of her supposed future husband. She rationalized that it was rumor that had them betrothed, not a

proposal from Ben or an acceptance from her. Later she would worry about that. They just weren't suited, that's all.

Bettina promised. They set up her sewing machine in a small room in a corner of the warehouse that was to be Hack's General Store. The three Hack sisters were thrilled at having a seamstress readily* available, especially Dora Hack, the youngest, who hated to sew.

_{* * * *}

Excitement built anew as more wagons were reported. Guards hurried to the valley entrance to intercept more strangers coming in. Upon recognizing their own men the Gorman guards still made sure no one else followed them in.

An entire wagon train of lumber arrived in town and finally the brick for Shafer's bank. Lucille's ears perked up when she overheard the newly returned Tede tell Stokes, "Arch says no booze for Virgil until he gets the bank building framed up and the bricks done."

"You'll have to keep an eye on him. And Foley says he needs a break from guarding that safe in Archie's house. Did Archie find out who that Texas rancher is who could testify for him?"

"The witness he needs? Archie heard he was at Colorado City so Arch headed there. If the yahoo aint a danged lily-livered coward maybe they'll get them charges dropped," Tede said.

"I sincerely hope so." Stokes shook his big head as though still worried.

Lucille pulled back into the darker corner of the vast kitchen. What rancher? What charges? Did those charges make Archie Gorman an outlaw? Where was he? Why hadn't he returned? With trepidation Lucille watched as Corey Black and his friend Hank, entered the dining area behind the Bascom people, but they only motioned for coffee and food. And they did pay for it. What a surprise! These men would undoubtedly rob a bank, steal cattle or take a man's life without a second thought, but they paid for meals. She glanced at the growing pile of coins. Perhaps it wouldn't amount to a fortune,

but considering all her hard work she deserved something. An extra pair of comfortable shoes would be nice. When the men departed she emptied the coins into a small sugar sack, knotted the top and

put it behind the stack of sauce dishes that were seldom used. Lucille gave a relieved sigh, and continued her never-ending kitchen work.

Women and children were crowded into the upper floor of the warehouse, now a store, when Corey Black demanded the fancy ladies brought in have the space over the Elite Saloon. The Bascom women were now brought across the square with the male prisoners, and the stylishly dressed women followed.

Black sat with a blond giant of a man and Dude Edwards at Red's customary table, far enough from the noisy bar area so Lucille overheard their conversation without really trying.

"The men'll start hollerin' to divide thet money in the safe we heard*

^{about," said Black around picking his oversize teeth with a sliver.}

His big gold tooth shone brightly. "An¹ them people, we gotta figger somethin" with them."

"Shoot the men_f" advised Edwards. "They'll be nuthin' but trouble. We can use the women. I'd like a night with one that smells better than Clarey, that dark haired one at the Elite bar."

Brutal men had so little regard for the life of anyone but themselves.

Lucille grimaced and pulled in her cheeks as cold shivers raced up and down her spine even though the kitchen was hot. She did not like Dude^Ts coarse features, but she admitted he kept himself clean, like Black, who also considered himself quite a man with the ladies. That didn't give him the right to snuff out a life like blowing out a candle.

"Oughtta make it interesting," drawled Black with a grin. "Like a little poker game, on Saturday night. Let them win one of them

women. How does that sound?"

The three men guffawed. Dude leaned forward more seriously, and spoke more quietly, so Lucille did not hear him. She knew many of

the prisoners listened, too. She stared hard at the three outlaws. She decided there were outlaws, and there were outlaws. She preferred Archie's outlaws, not Sir Humphrey's kind of killers and womanizers, no matter how much they paid Humphrey to get into the lawman-free valley. The Gorman town really needed a sheriff to keep things in order.

Suddenly Dude Edwards said loudly, with a grin across the room, "The little Frenchy dressmaker, I'd like to see her in one uh them lacy doodad gowns you can see through enough to get a fella real interested, then blow out the lamp and feel all thet silk."

"Fair curls muh toes jest listenin¹ to you purr on." Black's words slurred as he emptied another glass of brandy. "But tell me, Dude, why blow out the lamp?" Black grinned, too, his now bleary eyes on blonde Caroline Bricker, who stayed next to her widowed mother, as far from the outlaws as possible.

Lucille saw color rise in the blonde girl's pale face and her frightened eyes go wide. Her white hand grabbed her mother's.

Bettina's dark eyes snapped spitefully and they exchanged worried looks as Lucille set a coffee pot on the counter, along with two big yellow cakes with thick icing.

"Build yourself a cabin and maybe you'll win a gal to keep it warm," suggested the huge Blondie. He was not a jolly man like the large blond Swede who worked for Archie was Lucille's immediate* thought. She didn't like Blondie at all.

"Why not?" Black said. "We need more houses. We have Hiatt's ladies and all of these. Dude, you get those builders busy again on the rooms upstairs in the Elite. I don't like sharing a room just because they ain't done. That scrawny Tede ain^Tt workin' those men hard enough. Before long old Humph will have the city he's braggin' about." He swung around in his chair. "Just so we get that money from the safe before the brick bank gets done. Hey, damn it, I smell cake."

"Stokes, bring another bottle!" roared Dude.

A woman screamed. One of Black's outlaws, a lop-eared outlaw named Colorado had Mabel_f the oldest Hack girl, against the wall. He worked on the buttons of her dress. Black's grin widened even more when Colorado gave a wild yell and leaped away from the bite of her strong white teeth.

"Get those damn women back to the warehouse!" yelled Black. "NOW! I'm gonna have cake in peace. No samplin¹ the merchandise until we're ready."

In the comparative silence Dude^Ts voice seemed exceptionally loud. "That man Swede and Ebbit Ford back yet?"

_{"Ain't seen 'em."}

The three men sat with heads together, one entire cake at their table. Since now she couldn't hear what they were saying, Lucille went about her work. Moving from wood box to stove she tripped on her skirt hem and fell with a resounding crash of wood pieces. Pans fell and added to the clatter as her head hit the corner of the solid work

table. She'd forgotten to watch the length of her dress again. It would never stay where she wanted.

Lucille mumbled as she leaned holding her head in her hands. Bettina must hurry with her sewing and hemming or she'd break her neck. Dude Edwards led three men to all leer at her over the dividing counter.

"Hey, Cookie, you all right? Can't have you miss getting our meals now_f can we?"

As she got on her feet and waved them away again, Sir Humphrey joined them, coming in as quietly as the wraith he resembled.

Black lit a wall lamp for their corner and still they talked.

Lucille began slicing tomorrow's bacon. The batwing doors at the end of the dining room flew open and heavy footsteps echoed across the dining room's wooden plank floor. Lucille peered around the corner of the counter as the big blond Swede stomped across the

dining room, followed by a much smaller Ebbit Ford. These were Gorman men, but where did they fit in now?

"Lucy, you gott kaffee?" bellowed Swede as he strode around the* dividing counter into the kitchen and grabbed her in a bear hug before she could even squeak. "Ve mist your goot cookin¹, I tell you! Next time ve take you..."

"The hell you are!" Black yelled. "Get your ass over here and quit pesterin¹ the cook. Where you been? Took you damn long enough. Ford, quit your goddam grinning and report."

"Hey, wait a minute," Ebbit protested. "Where's Red? Red's in charge of this valley."

"Yes, Mr. Black, my son and I are in charge of this valley," Humphrey said. He glowered across at the gold-toothed outlaw.

"Red ain't here, I'm in charge," Black said. "You got any objections we'll take them out in the street if you figure you're faster than me." His right hand hovered near his gun.

Lucille's knife paused mid-air, like being poised to cut through the tension emanating from the other room. She held her breath, and made ready to duck out of danger of flying bullets.

Ebbit glared at the black haired man a long moment, looked a second at the cowering Humphrey, then pulled up a chair beside Swede.

"We got them herds like you said, but Red ain't gonna like this," Ebbit Ford said.

"Forget Red. Any trouble?"

"Brown and a couple of his boys got pretty close before the boys at the pass drove them off," Ford reported. "He better have gotten close enough to see those cattle belong to the wagon train ranchers —well, most of them do. If we picked up a few of his, that's his bad luck."

"Yah, ve did goot," agreed Swede. He turned his attention to first Stokes and then Lucille. "I neet a drink, an' steak a mile tick. Ve drove enough of dem in I was ready to carve one off, I tell you."

"Twenty minutes," said Lucille. She angrily slammed the heavy griddle onto the stove and winced as the noise abused her wounded, aching head.

Swede and Ford moved to a table nearer the kitchen when Lucille set their food on the counter. Swede slapped down money. He gazed at her with undisguised admiration. "If I had a big apple pie I'd tink I died and found heaven."

Lucille couldn't help smiling but shook her head.  "No apples, Swede." She poured coffee and trudged back to the stove. Her feet hurt and her face was hot. Tomorrow she'd mend the tear in her skirt four inches up from the bottom, or get Bettina to shorten the whole thing.

The five men talked quietly as Lucille finished her work. She didn't feel safe about trying to get some sleep. Exhaustion won out. She*

kept her clothes on and went behind the burlap curtain. She dozed. Several times their raised voices half roused her. Once she heard extra loud and angry words, then feet stomped across the room. The batwings squeaked and the front door slammed and cut off the sound. With the quiet Lucille then fell into a deeper sleep.

_{* * * *}

The next morning, it seemed like a continuance of the previous night as some of the same men sat at the corner table, now eating breakfast. Sir Humphrey quite often slept until noon so he wasn't there. Lucille wondered if Swede had objected to Black's plotting since he did not come in with them.

Dude strutted in, showing off his stiff new plaid shirt with string tie and new gray trousers. Black's ebony hair gleamed like polished coal.

Left over dregs of a nightmare she couldn't remember turned Lucille wary and ill-tempered. Swede and Ford entered, but did not join the

other men. Several strange young riders ogled the female prisoners as they were brought in from across the square.

"You look tired, Clovine," Lucille said to the older man as he came to the counter for his breakfast.

"Thought I'd hear from Ben by now," he murmured. "Did he come here?"

"No." Mention of Ben^Ts name raised her hopes. She couldn't be sure Archie would chase these other outlaws away even if he could. After all, it was his father who had brought them in. The thought depressed her. They needed a town constable. She shook her head. Clovine showed every minute of his sixty-odd years as he covertly eyed the men at the corner table. He and the other prisoners looked even more worried when Dude Edwards hustled the Bascom banker, Bertram Shafer, over to their corner.

"Old Bert looks scared to death," said storekeeper Hack at Clovine's elbow. "It sure scared me when Gorman ordered a rent agreement and a complete set of account books ready, but he was never like

this." He pretended to pour coffee in an already full cup, while still keeping an eye on the men in the corner.

"We were all present with Red when they did your books," said Clovine. "This is sneaky. And it's our gold Shafer deals with."

Lucille wordlessly eyed the outlaws, too. Amazed, she saw Sir Humphrey join them at their table. His greed must have outweighed his need for sleep.

"We can talk at Hack's," Clovine said. "No use riling them. Keep your eyes and ears open, Lucille. Besides me, Shafer, Ben and Adams are the only ones who know how much gold is in that safe.** The combination is written someplace. I don't think they've tried to open it. Confronting Red is holding them off."

"For how long?" Watching the corner table's occupants as she wiped the counter and long tables Lucille saw Shafer's serious face gain color, too much color. From the corner of her eyes Lucille watched the guards herd the other prisoners out the door. Her heart thudded in her chest so hard she couldn't hear above the pulsing in

her ears. Her five thousand dollars was in that safe. It was her entire inheritance from a grandmother who believed in the independence of women as strongly as she did. Grandmother had had a much harder time in her day and age than Lucille now had. She valued

that money even more. Somehow she had to regain it.

Shafer's face whitened to a sick gray and his trembling hand raised in fear. He shook his head vehemently, but Corey nodded at Blondie. Shafer squealed in pain as his arm was twisted up behind his back. She saw moisture glistening on his fleshy face and his double chin wobbled.

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you!" screeched Shafer. His arm hung limply at his side and his face went down on the table. With one last vestige of courage he raised his head to say, "When I find the combination I'll tell you. It is written in a journal lost among the wagons. Don't ruin my safe."

"That's better, Mr. Shafer," said Sir Humphrey with a jovial laugh. "I knew you'd see it our way. The brick layer will start your bank

^{tomorrow. I'm sure we can talk Archibald's gunman into releasing}

_{the safe."}

Behind Humphrey's back Lucille caught Corey Black's lift of a dark eyebrow and the smirk on Dude Edward's face. She didn't trust either of them. Sir Humphrey should not either. The heavy safe sat someplace in Archie's big house, where Humphrey and Ferdie both slept in large bedrooms and spent their time whenever they weren't eating, drinking or gambling. She'd heard that Tede, or one of Archie's other reliable men, slept in the room with the safe. There would be hell to pay, one way or the other.

From the kitchen shadows Lucille watched pain turn to tentative hope on Shafer's round face. She gave him credit for trying to gain time before the safe would be opened. He wiped away perspiration with a soiled white handkerchief, nodded his head, his chin wobbled, then he gave a fearful half-smile. His look darted everywhere and nowhere. Finally, he nodded, stood, nodded several times to the group of men and backed away. Dude rose and escorted him out the door.

I wonder how long that agreement will hold if Black loses patience, Lucille thought.

She dared not get the journal from the top shelf now, but if the combination was in it, it was imperative something be done soon or all their money would be lost. She was the only one who had the freedom of movement to do anything. The thought was very daunting.

"Tomorrows Saturday," announced Black loudly enough to reach the far corners of the kitchen. " We'll have a big night. Ferdie, where you been? Are you in on the gambling tomorrow night?"

Before Ferdie could answer a clatter of horses sounded outside and a handsome young cowboy burst through the door, interrupting any

_{conversation.}

"Here's Joe now," Swede's voice boomed in the room. "Got 'em

_settled?"

"Eating their heads off," replied the cowboy. "Speaking of eating, I brought in a big cow elk that oughtta taste mighty good, if Tede don't burn it or boil it dry."

"Hell, Joe," boomed Swede, "ve got us a lady cook that make you tink you dont need no odder heaven."

"Take the elk around to the kitchen door," instructed Black, then he shouted, "Hey, Cookie, you ever fix elk?" Without waiting for her answer he said, "Joe, you and the boys stick around for a big card game tomorrow night. Poker. Winner gets one of the ladies for a little pleasuring."

Lucille saw the young cowboy's face go very still. 'I'll tell the boys," he said quietly and went out the door.

Frowning, Lucille returned to her work without answering Black about cooking elk. At a knock on the back door she admitted the young man.

"Name's Joe Texas, ma'am," he announced in a soft drawl as he removed his hat. "I brought the elk, all gutted and skinned, ma'am. You got a meat saw I'll quarter it or cut steaks or whatever you want."

Lucille directed him to the waist high wood chunks used for outside butchering. She now remembered that he and Tede had botched up a crude hen house back of the restaurant. The crates the hens came in were tipped sideways so the hens could use them as nesting boxes and lay their eggs in. With all that extra work she needed Laura more than ever to gather eggs and see that the chickens were locked safely in at night away from fox and coyotes.

"Ma'am?" Joe hadn't moved. He turned his big hat nervously in rope-callused hands and lowered his voice. "Would you ... would you have some real clean white rags. Don't say nuthin¹ to nobody? huh?" His face lit with sudden inspiration. "One of my pals over in the saloon had a kind of accident-like."

Lucille eyed him curiously, sure there was more behind his brief request than his words said. She opened her mouth to ask a question but Black's voice cut in with, "Got any coffee left?"

Lucille nodded to Joe and he left. She handed the small coffee pot to Black. As he returned to the corner table he motioned for Stokes to join them. Stokes didn't look happy at all.

"Where you want this back quarter?" Joe's voice from the doorway interrupted her thoughts regarding Stokes" reaction to Black and his men. As Joe dropped the meat on the sturdy table he lowered his tone, 'Those bandages...?"

"I'll have them ready. My name is Lucille, Joe."

Where is Archie? Why isn't he here to control these criminals? Thoughts of green eyes battled with Ben^Ts remembered gray ones the rest of the day. Lucille grew irritable and sick with apprehension, smiled foolishly at a remembered kindness one moment, and worried at a caressing tone, the next. She thrilled at the recalled hardness of a strong arm under her fingers as she had

been helped into a buggy for a ride with Laura. That the elk steaks turned out to taste wonderful was due more to force of habit than concentration on their timing.

"A very good meal as usual, Lucille," Martha told her quietly as she took a piece of cake. "Those guards of Black's keep leering at the girls. There's a rumor they plan to divide the women. Is it true?"

"I think they plan a poker game, with only one winner, which is better than all at once. I think Stokes did his best to gain that advantage."

Martha's white and worried face turned to her pretty daughter, Clara. "At least he is safe," she murmured as she moved away.

Lucille fidgeted until Clovine came to the counter when she had a chance to ask, "Did you notice any wounded cowboy in that bunch that rode in?"

"Didnt see any. Why?" Clovine said as he looked around.

"Why would another cowboy want a pile of white bandages then?" Lucille looked intently at the man. Would they keep including her in the Bascom group or would they be leery of where her loyalties might lie now that she worked for Red?

"Can't be Ben or Tom. They're at a ranch. Besides, that Joe Texas fella is with the Gorman outlaws." Clovine started to move away from her as guards looked their way suspiciously.

"Yes, that's right, he^Ts an outlaw," agreed Lucille. Doubt hung in voice. "The cattle they brought in belong to you, Adams and Menkin." She'd talked with Joe off and on much of the day while he butchered. She found him a likable young man, more concerned over the condition of cattle than the profits from robbing banks and stealing horses, or cows. She looked across the room at him now as he polished off a second steak as "hunter's privilege". His eyes constantly turned to the auburn haired Laura Hack as he slowly chewed. As though she felt his gaze, Laura looked over at him, then quickly away. Lucille saw the pink in Lauras cheeks.

The very air in the room became highly charged, like heat lightning danced around the edges. Black made no bones about his intention to win the blonde Caroline for his own. Flattering and unflattering remarks were tossed out like skittering and darting moths at first, then became bolder and more lewd as Stokes' brandy took effect. Blushes, borderline tears and near panic appeared on the women's faces. Several male prisoners protested but after a shot hit barely inches from Mr. Hack's foot they sullenly subsided.

Lucille noted several straining Levi's buttons as young outlaws converged on the counter for cake. "Can't hev them lady sweets till termorrer, we'll git these cake sweets tonight," said one. She thankfully saw the last of them a few minutes later. Only Stokes remained, polishing his glasses and rearranging liquor bottles.

"You look worried, Stokes," Lucille said as she perched on a stool at the edge of the bar. "Where is Archie? He should be here. Sir Humphrey and Ferdie have turned this valley into a hideout for real outlaws."

A glass dropped from Stokes¹ agitated fingers. He closed his eyes and hung his head over supporting arms on the bar. "Archie won't want this to happen. He only wants to help innocent men."

Lucille didn't mention that the Bascom people thought the Gorman people were all outlaws. She waited.

"Archie planned to build a town for his father. When he was younger he needed a father. Sir Humphrey always favored Ferdie and Archie wouldn't accept that. He thought he didn't do enough to get his attention."

_{"He wanted to win his father's favor?" Lucille asked.}

"When he first started the town and got the Elite Saloon and Hotel built, that was from selling Sir Humphrey's jewelry. Sir Humphrey

owns the big saloon."

"I'm surprised Sir H. sold any jewelry. He wears enough of it?¹ Where did he get it all?" Lucille couldn't control her curiosity. That she had finally gotten Stokes to say even this much surprised her.

Stokes stared at her. His suddenly grim features almost frightened her.

"It is the family jewels from England. Only Humphrey wasn't legitimate family." Stokes stooped and picked up the fallen glass, and searched it for a chipped edge by running a finger carefully around its rim as he held it to the light. He then polished it and returned it to the shelf.

Lucille quickly surmised there was more to the story than just

bringing jewelry from England.

"Sir H, as you call him, didn't sell it," Stokes continued, as though getting a load off his chest. "He gave it to Archie to bring west. The Pinkertons were after him and Ferdie, and the Pinkertons were after me because I brought the shipment in from England. Archie never saw England so Humphrey and Ferdie reasoned he wouldn't be accused. Besides, if they caught Archie it would save their necks."

"Then Archie sold it? How did you join him?"

"I sold it." Stokes slammed a heavy bottle onto a shelf. "Sir H wanted a damn fancy gaming hall. He could just as damn well pay for it. Ijoined Archie out here after his mum died."

Lucille had never seen the imperturbable Stokes so upset.

"Why do...?" She started to ask another question but Stokes shook his head.

"I'll say no more. I hope you'll do the same."

Realizing Stokes retreated into his own heavy thoughts, Lucille returned to her kitchen and the never-ending work there.

So Humphrey wasn't really an English Lord. She'd almost believed he could be because of all the talk in Cheyenne of the English nobility buying up ranch land in the area.

Where did Archie's mother come from? It was very evident in his voice that Stokes had cared about her and Archie.

* * * *

The big Saturday night came. Huge kettles of elk stew disappeared in moments, along with dozens of biscuits. The money bowl piled high. Lucille felt guilty when she saw the amount that came in. At this rate she needed to run the restaurant like the business it had fast become. Lucille put the money out of sight to be divided later between her leather sack and one she would keep for Archie.

By her constant rushing about it became obvious she could not handle all the work herself. She'd pay any of the help, like Laura, Martha and Clara Adams from her portion.

Laura, Martha and Clara washed the piles of dishes in the kitchen. Forie and Martha kept clean dishes available as new groups of outlaws and drovers appeared.

Lucille nodded to Joe Texas. He grinned back but his eyes were on Laura as she removed dirty dishes from the counter. Lucille scrubbed moisture from her face with a cotton cloth, wondering what Joe had done with the cotton rags she'd given him.

Everyone quieted as Stokes recited gaming rules that meant nothing at all to Lucille. The prisoners were returned to Hack's Store.

Totally exhausted, Lucille went back to her bedroom corner, sighed in relief as she loosened her uncomfortable corset and let air in around the feather padding. She longed to slip into her big, old cotton nightgown but someone might call for something from the kitchen. The gambling went on in earnest by the sounds reaching her corner.

Was Ben Menkin alive? How long could they hold out until Ben or Clem Adams rescued them? Clovine heard about Ben but no one had heard anything of Adams. Her own driver, Charlie Ash, hadn't tried to contact her. Where was he? What would the prisoners do if no one came? Would they try to do something on their own? Could they do anything on their own? She knew there were smuggled guns but how many? Would Hack with his store, and the men planning on ranches want to leave the valley? Or would they fight for their property and store?

What can I do to prevent the Black outlaws from carrying out their crimes against the Bascorn women? How can I save the Bascom bank money? Does it all have to load on my shoulders ?

Lucille wasn't sure how long she'd slept when a voice shouted in at the door, 'There's somebody running loose out here! I saw him cross the street. C'mon, you yahoos, gimme some help."

"Get lost. I got a winning hand. You find 'em.¹¹

Lucille swung her bare feet to the cold wood floor and told herself she needed a rug by her cot. She went to the small window. Orange slashed the darkness by the newly erected log cabin between her back door and the river. Gun flame exploded at the back corner of the Elite Saloon and tin cans rattled. Someone stumbled against the kitchen door, the knob was tried and turned readily. Ben? Lucille stood quietly to one side of it in her voluminous skirts and loosened blouse. Someone slipped inside, bumping her arm. She heard swearing outside and running steps around the corner.

_{Watch out, Lucille, someone is in the kitchen.}

* * * *

A breath drew in sharply. "Miss Martin?"

"Lucille," she squeaked out breathlessly, the thunder in her heacfc increasing. She could feel the warmth of a high shoulder next to her.

"It's Ben, Lucille. Are you all right? What are they doing in there?"

"I'm fine." His large warm hand rested a moment where her shoulder met her neck, just under one ear. 'They are gambling for one of the girls."

A snort of disgust sounded in the darkness and in a few minutes Ben opened the door a crack. "Thanks, Lucille. I think whoever spotted me is gone, t need to find Tom." He disappeared into the blackness

_outside.

Why did she feel disappointment that he expressed no concern for the gambled women, only his own safety? She was foolish to think

he could really do anything. What would Archie have done in a like situation? What would he do when he finally returned to the valley?

With her ear at the crack of the door Lucille listened for what seemed a very long time before she heard footsteps gradually fade to the front of the building. Her heart pounding, worried for their safety, she thought how brief the encounter had been. What did Ben plan to do here? She appreciated the darkness. He had asked if she was all right in such a calm, unloverly fashion. He'd bumped into her arm unexpectedly and her lack of romantic reaction dismayed her. She'd thought only of rescue for the Bascom people. What had he felt? No more than she had?

Calming down, wondering if a rescue was planned, and apprehensive as to its outcome, Lucille turned to the counter. No one could see her in the shadows around the corner of the wall.

The women they now brought over from the warehouse had their hair already down for comfort in sleeping, the golds and browns falling over their shoulders and wrinkled dresses. They sat at tables

near the kitchen or in chairs at the edge of the dining area. Fear filled the air like clouds roiling in a storm. One pushed heavy dark hair behind her ear and sat quietly, though her eyes were busy. With a pale hand Caroline Bricker pushed back fine blonde hair as it curled over rounded shoulders and upper arms. By the way Black cast hot looks in her direction it would mean trouble for the girl, thought Lucille.

Would Archie put a stop to this travesty if he were here?

Tables farthest from her kitchen and down into the dining area were filled with card players. The calls of 'full house", 'two pair" and "three aces" meant very little to Lucille. Mrs. Adams gazed anxiously at her pretty daughter, Clara. Lucille realized Black, aiF experienced, successful gambler, had the most to do with the gaming arrangements. Stokes had only been able to lessen their impact the best he could, by limiting the prize to one a night. She knew it galled the surly bartender that Sir H was collecting entry fees from all the players.

Lucille leaned against the wall end of the counter and looked around as someone yelled, "Corey, you still want thet blonde?"

The three Hack sisters clung together. Mabel rubbed her upper arms as if they were cold. Lucille guessed she remembered the rough hands tearing at the buttons down her dress not long ago.

Lucille waggled her fingers at her friend Bettina, while keeping out of sight of the gambling men. She visualized Bettina's mind calculating the distance to the outside door. Lucille pointed and mouthed silently to Bettina, "I'll open the back door."

Where had Archie gone? Would he condone this behavior? His father and brother certainly did; they got a cut of the entrance fees. Grave doubts assailed her about the entire Gorman family.

Calls went back and forth, with jesting and ribald jokes. Lucille blessed her forethought in looking too plump to interest those men, or was it fear of Red Gorman that kept them from including her in this fiasco? Bettina made angry motions when her nickname Trenchy' came up in conversation. Mrs. Adams sat alertly nearby,

looking ready to spring in defense of her daughter. Lucille caught the shape of an object in the hand Martha concealed in her pocket.

After punching down bread dough Lucille cracked the back door off the latch but could think of nothing further to do. Feeling slightly unwell she moved slowly past the pile of clothing she'd brought in from the clothesline. She lay down on the lumpy cot.

Blacks outlaws more often frequented the Elite Saloon down the street, so the unusual amount of noise in her dining room upset her rest as she dozed in and out of disturbing dreams. A cramping stomach pain interrupted her restless sleep. She pushed upright on the cot, appreciating the sudden absence of noise from the gamblers. It must be over. With a long cape thrown over her loose gown and slippers on her feet she trudged outside toward the privy.

To her left stood the hastily thrown together log cabin Black had had built. Muffled screams and pleading tones came from it. Black had won the game.

Lucille stopped, not sure what to do. She didn't want to hear more. She rushed toward the privy; she grew angrier and sicker by the* minute. She didn't quite reach the privy before the stew she'd bolted down during the rush of meal preparation came surging up. She gagged and lurched against the privy corner. Finally, her stomach emptied, trembling and weak, she turned back on the path. She must do something.

At Caroline's squeal Lucille picked up the ax from the woodpile and headed for the small cabin. She brought the ax down hard on the flimsy door latch.

Three shots sounded ... at her? In the scant moonlight she saw splinters jut from the thin board door right by her head. Lucille dropped the ax and rushed from the danger area. Her body was in a turmoil of continued upset stomach and her mind in a sickness of despair for the helpless girl. She ran for the back kitchen door and almost fell inside. Maybe Stokes would help.

The next gunshot shattering the sudden stillness magnified her feeling of dread. Running feet outside, followed by loud voices, convinced her to remain inside, though she kept watch from her small rear window. When the tall form of the gambler made a moving silhouette across the lantern lights outside she closed her eyes in grief that she couldn't have done more to save Caroline's virtue.

A cup of hot soda water helped her stomach but now she couldn't sleep. What had happened in the cabin? She pulled a fresh though faded, yellow flowered dress over her head. While draping the skirt's excess length over the belt, she stifled a yawn, her stomach queasy and her heart sickened by Black and his men.

She opened the kitchen's back door, intending to go to Caroline. It should be safe now since Black had left the area.

Stokes stopped her before she'd gone many steps. He shook his head. "I'll see to Miss Brickers burial in the morning. There's nothing to be done tonight. Go back to bed."

"He shot at me/' Lucille said dismally. "I couldn't help her." She stifled the first sob but the next escaped.

Stokes awkwardly patted her shoulder. She leaned her forehead on his heavy shoulder and sobbed at the futility of the whole situation in Gorman.

The sky already lightened in the east as she trudged to the still warm kitchen stove. It seemed like a person should get over being so stiff and sore, she thought. She again pulled the bloustng dress top over the belt. Quiet continued as she worked. The rooms echoed with each pan she clattered. Stokes didn't come in. A man called Fetters manned the small bar. The awful premonition about the burial thafc would be taking place gave an almost eerie foretelling of doom. Things had looked bad the instant Humphrey and Ferdie brought in the crowd of killers. It was like living on the edge of a volcano that could erupt any day, any hour. And keep on erupting whenever the urge hit.

Bitterly she resented the loss of her inheritance to Gorman's and Black's outlaws. Yet, somehow, the little restaurant offered her a chance to prove she could make it on her own. She vowed it would only be until a school was built so she could teach. As coffee boiled she helped herself to a cup.

Stokes came in late. He handled burials. At breakfast several women wiped their eyes. Mrs. Bricker and her young son did not come. The guards were edgy and extra watchful, yelling at everyone. Black did not appear.

At ten o'clock she turned the big elk roasts in the oven. Forie entered the kitchen with more wood for the woodbox. "Caroline shot herself," he said quietly. "Black claims she grabbed his gun from where he hung it on the bed post." Shaking his head, Forie went back for more wood.

Lucille realized nothing could be said. If only, did no good. Black

^{had shot at her without the least qualm. Thank goodness tonight's}

gambling would finish it until the next weekend. She wondered who the next victim would be and what she could do about it.

Stokes' big shoulders slumped when he did come to his bar.

Lucille drew her lips in a tight, down turned line. Where is Archie? Stokes needs him here.

Lucille brought her mind back to meal preparation. By nightfall she would be exhausted. Compared to the long, lazy days she used to spend eating chocolates and reading she guessed this continual rush was at least more productive and rewarding. No complaints came from the wagon train people. Gorman's town people and crew, in spite of their rough characters, made much of her cooking. She'd even seen a couple of their wives, until Black's motley outlaws arrived. Most of them were the small shop owners of the town, plus cattle drovers who appeared now and then.

Black's outlaws were too self-centered, crude and rude to say much but they all paid into her cash bowl. She wondered if Archie would claim all the money or let her keep the share she had set aside.

If Ben didn't rescue them soon, she might be imprisoned in this town the rest of her life. Feeling guilty at her own vacillation Lucille thought of Archie. He laughed a lot. He winked at her and threw her calm cooking life into an experience of trying to please^ him. Men weren't supposed to affect her that way. Men were only necessary evils who stood in the way of obtaining her property. She had tried not to please him, then tried to just stay prepared for whatever happened next.

Lucille flatly denied her one thought. Trying to please him only consisted of keeping herself from being shot. Or shot at. Tede's tolerant reaction to Archie still puzzled her, like he was a friend of long standing who wouldn't seriously intend to hurt him. He and Stokes often had their heads together at the small bar. What a strange relationship.

And what a strange town! Rumor said the blacksmith had killed a man with his bare hands. Stokes had smuggled stolen goods from England for Humphrey. The cobbler had been accused of stealing leather goods some time in his past.

When Tede and Joe Texas trudged in with the window shaped crate she wondered where another plate glass window would be put. They opened the wooden framework and dragged out a huge schoolroom slate.

Lucille nearly fainted with delight! She gleefully wrung her hands and tried out the chalk. "Archie ordered this? I can't believe it! This is great! I can start teaching."

Archie was the greatest puzzle of all. What exactly had he done that no one could be allowed out of his town to tell of his presence? Or the presence of some of his other men? What prompted him to think of a slate for school classes? When would she get a school building?

Tede didn't have answers. Did Archie want her to cook or teach? Or both? So long as it was nothing more than that, she could handle it.

Maybe Archie wouldn't shoot her. Maybe he was such a good shot Tede hadn^Tt really been in as much danger as she thought. Why else did Tede and Stokes anxiously scan the rutted entrance road into the valley, if not for Archie's safe return?

Lucille listened. She put down the breakfast pan she was scrubbing and wiped her hands on her apron before going to the big front window.

"You have good hearing." Stokes strode up beside her a moment later.

"It's Red's bay mare with the star!" Tede dropped the spyglass on a boardwalk chair and raced for his saddled horse. "Red ain't on her!"

Roused from the lethargy of doing nothing several men mounted and joined Tede in the run to the slow moving mare.

Lucille's heart pounded in dread. Where was the jolly, nose-rubbing outlaw? The man who admired her blue eyes and sent her w magnificent slate? She moved out onto the boardwalk and shaded her eyes from the morning sun. At her elbow Stokes grabbed up the dropped spyglass and fumbled it into focus.

"Gawd," Stokes breathed out. 'The mare is dragging Archie. He ain't moving. Tede got her stopped." Stokes called to Hack as the

storekeeper stepped from his doorway. "Get your wagon ready with horses. I'll get a bed mattress. You there! Help me load a mattress. Lucy, get hot water and bandages ready." The big bartender hurried down the boardwalk and disappeared from Lucille's sight. She ran inside to the kitchen box of clean rags and tied a bundle together to put in the wagon Hack pulled up before the palace boardwalk.

Irrelevantly she thought she'd one day sneak a look at that so-called palace. The next second her anxious thoughts turned to the fallen giant laid out on the rutted road that entered town from the high

^pass.

A rider galloped back into town as she shaded her eyes. Stokes turned the team of horses from the palace walk. He met the rider in front of the restaurant where Lucille was joined by Mrs. Adams, Clara and Laura.

"He's near dead, Stokes," yelled the rider. "Tied hisself to the stirrup an' let the mare drag him in. Looks like he^Ts come a fur piece. Don't reckon he'll make it."

"He'll make it." Stokes slapped the reins on the team pulling the wagon. They bounded up the rutted road away from the standing women.

Lucille didn't analyze her intense feelings of dismay. The man had only winked at her several times, rubbed nose-to-nose with her and demanded chocolate cake. She hadn't felt this much trembling anxiety when Ben had been reported wounded. Why?

Of course, she reasoned, she'd known Ben was in good hands at a ranch, likely under a real doctor's care.

"I better get back to the store," Laura told her. "If you need help, Lucille, Dora and Mabel can help Dad and I'll come over."

Lucille nodded. She returned Martha's speculating look only a second before shading her eyes to watch the slow moving procession coming toward town. Reluctantly she returned to her kitchen. After putting laudanum and healing powders, rag strips and disinfectant into a small traveling case on the counter she did breakfast dishes. A huge kettle of water heated in readiness.

Lucille sighed. While Archie ruled the town it had been a strange combination of prisoners and guards with no real violence and a sort of waiting game of minds not quite knowing what to do about the* double ownership situation they found themselves in. Now what would happen?

"Archie's father certainly threw everything into turmoil," Martha said as she reentered the restaurant.

Lucille put a stack of plates on the counter and added the box of eating utensils. "You'd think he'd feel some concern for his meal ticket. He may be sleeping off a drunk at the Elite with one of the girls."

Martha carried clean cups to the counter.

"Any word of your husband, Martha?" Lucille glanced out the big window. The procession of riders had covered half the distance. Her heart thudded dismally in her chest. What if Archie died?

"No word of Clem. He wasn't with Ben and Rob. One of Black's outlaws fired at a man in the hills last week but they couldn't find him,"

Lucille immediately thought of Joe Texas and his need for clean rags, but cast it from her mind. Joe was an outlaw. He wouldnt help a Bascom man, would he?

"Black's outlaws and Archie's outlaws are two different kinds," Lucille said. "I think Archie's reputation kept Black from doing all he wanted. It looks like Black's men will really take over now that Archie is hurt."

"Heaven help us," Martha said. "For goodness sake, stop running back and forth to the windows. Just get your things to take to the palace. Clara and I will handle things here. Laura can help when

_{she's needed."}

Lucille picked up her medical equipment. "I'm sure what medical teachings they gave us for children in school won't help much if he's shot." Lucille felt the pucker in her chin and quickly bit her lower

lip. She drew in a shaky breath. What is the matter with me? The man surely robs banks and steals cattle when his father's jewelry can't be sold to cover expenses,

"Sir H lost over $1,000 to Hank Doaks just a couple nights ago," Martha said. "Archie's expenses must be extremely high. Old Mr. H may have to earn his own living if anything happens to Archie."

"It already happened/' Lucille said. "Black has never been sure what Archie is capable of. Stokes says that fact had a little control over what his gang does. With Archie helpless I really fear what

will happen."

"If only he could prevent those wretched poker games," Martha said. "But you go now. Stokes and Tede will need your medical

supplies."

Lucille hurried out the kitchen^Ts back door with water, cloths and the medical bag. She prayed it wasn't already too late, for all of them.

_{[Back to Table of Contents!}

_{CHAPTER 5}

In order to carry her medical supplies across the narrow alley to Archie's big house, Lucille had to slip out her back kitchen door, cross her yard, then go through the brush between restaurant property and palace properly. Tede met her at the door of the big house. Corey Black pushed past Tede, looking a little too self satisfied as he left the house and circled around to the main street. She looked at Tede.

Tede was so furious he trembled with rage. "Thet dad burned idjit! Thet sonofabitch! With Archie helpless there ain't no tellin" what thet black hearted b ... pardon me, ma'am." As he ranted on he pulled Lucille into the room at the same time. She had only seconds to worry about Black before concern for Archie took over. He was their only hope of controlling Black and his men.

Archie lay in the huge four poster bed like he was ready for the undertaker. Lucille clenched her jaws to keep from crying out. She set the medical supplies on a small table with a wing-backed chair

beside it. The sodden mess of Archie's gray suit jacket and green silk shirt lay in a pile on the floor. She met Stokes' worried look.

"We have to get these wounds washed good," Stokes said. "No telling how long he's been this way."

She asked no questions as she joined Stokes in washing away trail dirt, dried blood and the dirt in the scrapes on Archie's body, from being dragged. Lucille fastened her gaze on the sparse red bristle on the backs of his big hands. Archie never moved.

Stokes covered Archie modestly with a sheet which Tede held while the bald bartender gently tugged off the unconscious man's boots, socks, blood soaked Levis and under drawers.

"He been shot sure enough," Tede said. "He been bleedin¹ like a gut shot deer too long." The scrawny man's voice broke and Lucille cast a quick look his direction, surprised at the little man's emotion. The wounded man had shot at him, for heaven's sake. She spent scant seconds on the thought as she sponged clean the powerful muscles of Archies left arm and shoulder.

Stokes stooped quickly, holding up a hand to quiet them so he could hear Archie breathing. Lucille snatched an ornate silver backed"* mirror from a big dresser and held it to Archie's lips and nose. She held her breath.

"It clouded!" Stokes grinned across at her, then proceeded with his persistent probing for cloth and the bullet in the wound.

"Bullet's under his shoulder blade. Tede, help Lucy hold him on his side. If I get it out... before he comes to..." Stokes worked while he talked. The knife turned the boiled water in the pan red and slick.

Lucille held Archie's head and shoulders against her as she knelt at the side of the bed. His beard tickled her chin. She thought her heart beat threatened to bob his head; it pounded so hard in her ears. Her mouth dried like an old paper bag and her throat squeaked when she swallowed. A tickle on her nose came at the wrong time.

"You all right, Miss Lucy?" Stokes asked without a pause in his

^probing.

"I'm fine." She would feel much finer when Archie showed signs of life.

"Got it!" Lucille heard the clink in the enamelware pan.

Tede sighed aloud in relief. Stokes let fresh blood flow to cleanse the hole, poured on whiskey, slapped a thick square pad coated with salve on it and nodded to Lucille.

She slowly released Archie's shoulders. Her fingers slid across his white cheek above his beard as she moved toward the pile of cotton pads beyond his head. She added another pad carefully over the cleaned entrance wound. A long pad went over a bullet-scraped rib under his arm. Together she and Tede bound his big chest and shoulder tightly. He still didn't move.

"Is he...?" Lucille gave a worried look across at Stokes.

Stokes tried the mirror again." He's breathin⁷." He said with relief as he arched his tired back. Tede flung aside the soiled and water

soaked sheet from Archie's lower body. Stokes frowned at him but said nothing, just flipped a clean sheet over him.

Lucille gasped and closed her eyes. When she opened them a second later only Archie's long, red-furred bloody leg and foot showed. She quickly washed his foot, ankle and calf while Stokes worked in a bloody groove across his thigh.

"This shot came from behind," Stokes told them.

Lucille's thoughts galloped as quickly as her hands moved as she sponged the dried blood. The remembered sight of his furred lower body made her hands tremble. In bed Archie's long leg would fit beside her own long legs very comfortably. She could easily run her toes over and under his. His manhood lay large even in limp condition. Aroused, it would be awesome. She hastily glanced at Stokes and Tede to see if her errant thoughts showed. Thankfully they had other things on their minds. She moistened dry lips and hurried with the washing.

"Anybody look after his horse and saddlebags?" Stokes asked. He rinsed out the rag he used on the injured thigh.

"Butch got his horse. Petters brought in his saddlebags. There's letters in his saddlebags."

Healed scars on Archie's body could only mean they'd been through this before. No wonder the two men could work so calmly. Her own breathing would not return to normal. One moment fear paralyzed her mind, the next minute her mind jumped to erotic thoughts like crickets into forbidden places. Mentally chastising herself she slid the sheet back from Archie's other foot and lower leg. Bruises had formed around the knee but there were no more bloody bullet tracks in the strong muscled, hairy leg. Her Wisconsin farm life had not prepared her for tending shot up men in a harsh, dismal countryside like Wyoming. Only the beauty of the mountains or the green of spring could bring her to tolerate such harsh lands and possibly admire the scenery.

"My good lord, what is this? Why is Archibald in my bed?" The three could not mistake the stilted accent of the fake lordship, Sir Humphrey, as he entered the room.

"Yer son done got hisself shot, Humph, and besides thet, this be his own bed." Tede made no bones about his dislike for the foppish man. He faced the taller man without fear, his sinewy arms akimbo.

"I'm sure Mr. Stokes will make you another comfortable place to sleep, Mr. Humphrey," Lucille told him. She dried her hands on her apron.

"Perhaps Sir Humphrey would enjoy a hot cup of coffee in the
restaurant, Miss Martin," Stokes suggested in his best butler voice.
He did not stop in his careful binding of Archie's leg.                                                                                                                                                                                         *

"I go for an early walk and I come home to this," Humphrey complained. "It will not do. Why was he shot? Have we been followed?"

"We don't know." Lucille looked him evenly in the eyes, took the man's thin arm and urged him toward the door. He was insufferably self-centered. He had not even asked if his son would recover; he only worried about his own bed. His early walk must have been nearly noon. She^Td finished breakfast dishes mid-morning when they had first sighted Archie's horse coming into the valley.

She led Humphrey out the door and through the opening in the bushes between house and restaurant. If going in the back door upset the wretched snob, so be it. She poured a cup of coffee, handed it to him and escorted him into the dining area to a table.

The thought of food set her stomach churning. Luckily, Martha, Clara and Laura were busily clearing noonday dishes from the counter. Martha came to Lucille wringing her hands in worry. "Black is going to start the gambling right after tonight's meal. What can we do?"

"Of course they shall gamble. One must have income," Sir Humphrey spoke up loftily. "Archibald would have it no other way.

Besides, I have a rather large wager that Mr. Doaks will be the winner. I shall retreat to the Elite Saloon immediately to collect entrance fees." He gulped the last of his coffee.

The four women gaped after the cadaverous, satin-clad man as he set down his coffee cup and left the building.

"Well, I never!" Martha glared at the batwings as they flipped back and forth at the doorway. 'That man has no more feeling than a clay brick."

"It's all his greedy fault those killers came to the valley." Laura stomped across the kitchen. "Clara, what will we do if the winner picks one of us?"

"I'll run. My dad is out there someplace. Maybe I can find him and get help. If it's you, Laura, you do the same."

Lucille remained at the restaurant only long enough to set up a menu for the  evening meal.  Elk stew,  again,  with plenty of

vegetables, would have to do. There would be many extra men to feed because of the gambling.

"I'll take Tede the small pot of coffee and the left over potatoes and: ham. I see Stokes is at his bar again. I only wish he could keep Black in line. Can you manage for a while yet?"

"You go ahead. We'll keep things going." Laura began working immediately with a pile of vegetables.

_{* * * *}

Even though she'd seen Archie made as comfortable as possible Lucille worried about infection and fever. Why did she worry over a captor who held them all prisoners in their own valley? It didn't make sense. Since Black's arrival with Dude Edwards, Hank Doaks and some of his other outlaws, she rationalized that Archie's outlaws were different from Black's outlaws, and maybe she shouldn't do that. Archie's saddle bags were proof of that. Who had he robbed, or maybe even killed, to get the loot lying in those bags? And what did the letters mean? Whose were they?

Tede agreed to stay with Archie. His cot was nearby, in the room with the bank safe. Ferdie poked his head around the corner of the bedroom as Lucille gathered up plates, empty kettle and coffee pot from their meal. She didn't hurry to leave the room.

"I say, old chap. Tede, is it?" Ferdie stepped inside the room. 'Did Arch perhaps bring a supply of funds in those saddle bags?" He entered the room and reached for the leather bags. Lucille saw bank bags inside as he flipped one saddlebag open.

"Touch them an' you'll be short a dealin' hand," Tede said. His gun seemed too big for his thin arm but it never wavered in his hand.

"I say, really." Ferdie hastily stumbled backward. "No need for temper. I'm drastically short of funds, old chap. I'm sure Arch would have no objection to a small loan, just to tide me over, you know."

"Don't you old chap me, you bloodsuckin' varmint. What's in them bags is Arch's an¹ nobody else touches 'em. Got that?"

^{"If he's not long for this world, poor chap, surely an advance on}

_{inheritance would not be out of order."}

_BANG!

Lucille nearly popped out of her skin, padded corset and all. A small hole in the floor showed only inches from Ferdie's boot toe.

_{He fled!}

Tede chuckled. The man on the bed groaned and both Lucille and Tede rushed to Archie's bedside.

Archie's eyes opened. Lucille saw their hazy green only a second as« he stared up at her and muttered, "I made it, Lucy." His eyes closed at once and he slept. Hot and cold played tag across her whole body. She clenched her jaws tight to control her ragged breathing. The outlaw's first thought was of her? He sounded like getting back to her had been his goal throughout the terrible ordeal of being shot, then dragged into his valley.

"Now thet's a damn big relief." Tede tucked a blanket around Archie's big shoulders. "I reckon you kin go now. I'll be watchin" him real keerful."

Lucille wondered if the little man was being considerate, or jealous.

_{* * * *}

When Lucille reached the back door of the restaurant kitchen the only evidence of a meal was the small stack of dirty plates next to a dishpan of cold gray water. The women must have been interrupted in their chores and sent back to the warehouse upper floor. She cautiously moved toward the dividing counter and listened.

Stokes put Joe Texas to work as bartender, since he had already lost out in the game. Stokes came to where Lucille stood in the shadows.

"I didn't even get a chance to thank him for the slate board, Stokes.

^{Do you think he will be all right?" Lucille said.}

"Barring fever, he'll be right as rain in a drought." Stokes fumbled in his pocket. "This won't do you much good, Miss Lucy," Stokes said, "but it might give you a little running time." He handed her a narrow belt with a short leather scabbard holding a small knife.

"No one will choose me/¹ Lucille said, "but thank you." The warm glow of his admiration lasted only a moment. She would remember it later and do something nice for him. And she'd do something special for Archie, because now she could teach the children using the marvelous big slate board.

"You may have need of it nonetheless," Stokes insisted.

"I thank you." Lucille put on the belt and tucked the little toad stabber under her apron band as the big bartender returned to his bar.

The winners of each poker game were into a final game, according to Stokes' report. The games moved very quickly tonight. The five players called for just the young single women to be brought from* the warehouse. Lucille gave a small sigh of relief; they would not

class her as young, even with Stokes' worry about her. She watched seventeen-year-old Clara Adams sit straight and still in one of the chairs, clutching her jacket around her. She and Bettina leaned close together for courage. The three Hack sisters sat white-faced and trembling, their own jackets ready in case they fled into the chill mountain air.

Lucille again left her outside door unlocked. The way the girls looked, Lucille knew Caroline's death occupied their thoughts. Perhaps they wondered, as she did, whether Caroline shot herself, or

was murdered in a rage at her rejection of Corey Black's advances. Lucille wished mightily for a sheriff for the town, an honest one who would investigate unlawful happenings that were becoming more and more frequent.

Cautiously Lucille moved along the kitchen side of the long counter and across the dark end of the dining room, directly behind the young women.

"Don't turn around," she warned. She crouched in the shadows. The sweated padding in her corset felt dumpy and uncomfortable as she knelt back of their chairs. The men appeared too engrossed in the outcome of the game to look their direction.

"The kitchen door will be open." She could feel and almost see the stir of hope in the girls. Their heads lifted alertly. With audible indrawn breaths they turned a little sideways for better movement in the direction of the kitchen.

"The rest of us can trip them," whispered Mabel Hack.

A wild shouting went up. The game drew to a close and the girls tensed.

_{"Deal 'em out!"}

Lucille reached her kitchen unnoticed. She ran a broom handle between the legs of an old, rickety chair. The handle touched the floor but the slant upward would trip anyone running through the kitchen. Carefully she left it where it could be pushed out in tripping

position quickly. Near the door she set a pail of water and a mop. Cautiously and quietly, she moved where she had a partial view of the gambling room.

A black haired giant of a man angrily threw down his cards and stomped from the saloon. A great cheer went up for a flashily* dressed gunman Lucille remembered as Hank Doaks. He swaggered toward the frightened women.

The women stood up, pushing their chairs in front of themselves. Clinging to each other, faces pale, they faced the crowd of waiting gamblers and curious onlookers.

"Only one chance, old chap, so don't pick until you're sure," warned Ferdie. He had evidently lost halfway through the evening.

"Thet one with light brown hair," said Hank. "The one on the end by Frenchy."

Clara Adams gasped, but didn't move. The gunman reached out a hand.

"Run!" screamed Bettina, giving Clara a push. "The kitchen! Run!" Clara turned and fled.

In the kitchen Lucille heard the women's screaming and chairs being shoved around. She threw open the back door. As Clara sped

out she pushed the water pail in front of it, and shoved the broom handle across the path, then stepped back into the shadows of the darkened kitchen.

Two men got past the battling women in the dining room, ran into the kitchen and tripped over the broom handle. They, in turn, tripped a third and all three upset the pail of water. Stumbling to their feet, cursing and shouting drunkenly, they ran on out, while a fourth and fifth man missed the broken broom. They slid on the slippery wet floor and landed on bony butts.

Lucille covered her mouth to keep her laughter silent. The cot squeaked and creaked as sfie shook with mirth, while she peeked out from behind the sack curtain.

"Grab them others!" yelled a voice. Women screamed and Lucille grew still with worry. Silently she reached for the meat cleaver.

Stokes' roar filled the room. "One chance! He got it! That's all!"

Sounds of footsteps came from all directions. Giving the girl a chance and extra minutes helped, but Lucille wondered where anyone could hide in a town of only a dozen or so buildings. Clara was on her own now. Lucille resignedly mopped up the water mess and put the pail away. She shut and barred the back door and fully clothed, lay down on her lumpy cot. Would Clara reach a place of safety? Or even find where her father might be? Exhaustion battled tooth and nail with keyed up apprehension. Exhaustion finally won.^

_{* * * *}

Clara ran blindly and without plan, other than to get away. She heard the crash of the water bucket and men, the splintering of wood. Then all she heard was the thud of her own footsteps and the wild pounding of her heart. A tin can rattled away from her foot. She stumbled and fell to her knees. Cloth ripped as she stepped on

her riding skirt hem. She struggled up and ran again, staggering to catch her balance.

Dimly she saw a shack a few feet to her right and sagged against its dark outside wall. Her breathing came ragged with sobs. Terror took her strength and breath away. A noise inside the cabin brought her erect. She moved fearfully away, edging along the cabin wall, breathing deeply and slowly, in an effort to calm herself.

The sound of galloping horses came nearer and she ran again, toward the darker shadows of buck brush along the river marshland. Rough branches caught her clothing and tore at her hair. Hitting a low tree limb at a run knocked her backwards, quickly making a sore spot on her forehead. She struggled onward. Her boots squished in watery mud of the swampy land.

As two men rode by, one swinging a lantern, she crouched close to a bush and tried to think. She remembered the row of shacks east of town where the river ran from north to southwest. She would need water soon. Her throat was already dry. With the shacks behind her,

she could either head northwest to get to the main river, or continue east and reach a stream that fed into the upper river. Since east led away from the outlaws she decided on that route. Remembering her father's map of the valley, she estimated being about six miles from the stream that crossed what should be their own rangeland. It fed into the river after it entered the valley from the northeast.

The half moon hung low in the sky. It would soon be very dark. Dawn would follow too quickly. Clara thankfully appreciated the serviceable boots and split riding skirt she wore. Frightened, but determined, she trudged along in the half dark. Noises of the rolling prairie were familiar from the safety of a wagon box or the back ofr a horse, but not when strange creatures darted from under her feet. She listened intently to the far off sound of riders. Closer to town firefly lights of lanterns appeared and disappeared among the buildings, especially near the stables. She spat an unladylike oath for not thinking of the horses there.

She kept the Big Dipper that shone in the night sky, on her left. She lay flat in a little gully when men on horses went by, their voices growling drunkenly. She trembled with weariness but trudged on.

Dawn paled the sky with mauve and rose in the quietness as it crept up the far side of the mountains. From down among the brush and trees she only caught a glimpse of the landmarks Tom Shafer had told Clovine to watch for. Clovine, in turn, had given them all directions to the cave that led out of the valley to the other side of the mountain, and the safety of Jace Brown's ranch.

The odor of wet green plants told her of water nearby. A long row of willows stretched in silhouette. The searchers must have returned to town, for she heard no more riders. She pushed aside the draping branches and kept going. Clara reached the edge of the rustling water and dropped to the ground to drink greedily where the spring bubbled from among the rocks. After quenching her thirst, she sat on a log among trailing willow branches near the waters edge to remove her boots and stockings. The shocking cold made her shudder as she gradually eased her feet into the water. With boots in

one hand and upheld riding skirt in the other she inched along in the stream, being extra careful in the dimness below overhanging willows.

Upstream Clara left the water and obliterated any tracks carefully as far as the pines. Trees were sparse here and old and new grass mingled soft and deep. Clara lay down where brush concealed her. If riders entered the brush grown area she would hear them. Overtired and filled with anxiety she finally slept from exhaustion.

Unpleasant voices aroused Clara. Her muscles jumped awake. The sun shone halfway up a cloudless blue sky. She moved from the grass to slide under pine branches that scraped the ground. She® pulled her torn brown skirt close about her and prayed. Scarcely breathing she watched as a horse and rider passed less than ten feet away, then disappeared from sight.

Clara waited several tense moments before daring to move. As sounds of the rider finally faded she slipped cautiously from her hiding place. She listened intently for any other rider, then moved

carefully over thick beds of pine needles. She headed in the opposite direction, going higher on the mountain before she stopped

to rest.

She waited a long time before daring to move again. Her stomach growled. She would give much for one of Lucille^Ts big breakfasts. Finally she moved from tree to tree. Further along she came upon a tumbledown shack that stored only broken trapping equipment. There remained nothing else, not even wood for a fire.

In utter dejection she turned away in defeat. How could she possibly survive? No berries were ripe this early in the year. As the sun started down the western sky Clara headed back downstream, listening intently for searchers. Even from the numerous hillocks she saw no sign of a place her father could be hidden. How could he be surviving out here? Only horse, cow and deer tracks showed in the gritty soil. Antelope bounded away and an occasional big eared deer stared at her from the sagebrush.

She would have to turn back. Her only chance meant a return to town to appeal to Lucille for food. No one else could help her. Hopefully, if she reached Lucille while the gunmen and other outlaws were drinking and playing cards she might get in, and out again, safely.

Sick with dread and fear she trudged downstream along the rushing river. Just thinking of the leering face of Hank Doaks made her tremble anew. It seemed to take forever to get anywhere near the town. She felt sure there would be guards out. Beyond the trees, east of the shacks, Clara knew there were areas requiring strong running. And this time she would certainly grab a horse on her way back out, if at all possible.

Twice, riders by-passed her. A pair of them stopped to rest their horses beside where she crouched in a thicket. Clara thanked the Lord their horses did not nicker and give away her presence. She^

hardly dared breathe and prayed the brown of her clothing blended in with the thicket.

"Hell, I'm done lookin'," muttered one rider to the other. "Let Doaks hunt for his own woman. Ifn they're so scared she'll bring in the law, let them find her. Ain't no law after me. Let's go feed our faces."

Clara sighed in relief, then cautiously moved from hiding. The sun still lit the western sky when she reached the buck brush at the edge of town. Carefully she peered out, keeping her eyes focused on the moving, dot-sized figures as they moved between the buildings on the boardwalks of the town.

She waited tensely as three riders loped up the road from the south, raising the dust. They circled the town, came in at the livery stable, then headed toward the Elite Saloon.

To her right scrub trees jutted closer to the town. There, too, sat the shack where Caroline had died. Clara shuddered. Carefully she moved forward. Small branches snapped. Some scraped her arms and face. As the air grew chill she donned the jacket she^Td tied around Tier waist, and tied her neckerchief on her head.

Once she thought the brush rustled behind her. She waited, holding very still. Hunger constantly gnawed and her dry throat ached. Hunched down out of sight, she waited again. Guiltily she wondered what might happen to Lucille for helping her, if they guessed. Black had cruel men in his gang who presented more danger than Red Gorman's townsfolk. Hopefully the outlaws would appreciate Lucille^Ts good cooking more than having her punished.

Clara crept closer to town. The shacks of the two prostitutes and the outlaw crew's bunkhouse could be dimly seen on her left. Further south she knew were two more shacks. Reluctantly she started to leave the protective cover of the scrubby brush.

She was grabbed from behind! A big callused hand stifled the scream rising in her throat. Her arms were pinned to her sides. She kicked wildly, hitting a shin and hearing her captor grunt. Her heart pounded in her ears. She was doomed to a fate worse than hunger, worse than death.

_{[Back to Table of Contents!}

_{CHAPTER 6}

The days got warmer and Lucille became more uncomfortable in her thick disguise. She debated whether or not Bettina should add an inch of thickness in one of the new corsets from her large traveling trunk. Stokes had brought it in from her wagon for her. Should she forget gaining weight? With the days getting so warm she would certainly consider it.

She wore a new blue gingham dress and tied her braid with a blue ribbon. It pleased her very much that Martha's sons, Kenny and Michael Adams, spent an hour at her new slate board doing addition of the figures she put there. Bright-eyed Becky Harolds, age seven, had done hers earlier. Maybe there was hope for this town after all.

Lucille pushed back tendrils of hair sticking about her face and neck. The heat of the kitchen, plus running back and forth to check on Archie, the patient, told on her red face. Her forehead and cheeks glistened with dampness. Perspiration dotted her upper lip and drizzled down her neck clear to the crease between her breasts.

"Archie, you are not a good patient, in spite of the chocolate cake I made you. I hoped it would temporarily resign you to being confined to your bed," Lucille told him. "If Tede and I hadn't caught you after your tumble from the bed, you'd be in worse shape than ever."

Archie had cursed a blue streak and started bleeding again. His left shoulder and right thigh gave him little choice in mobility, when both sides hurt at the same time. Lucille just shook her head.

"You must have everything imaginable in those upper rooms," Lucille said one day, to get his mind off being incapacitated.

Tede gave her a hostile look, then suddenly grinned a gap-toothed smile. "I don't reckon you'll see any lawdogs to tell them old Stokes brought everything from England for Humph. Got hisself in a peck of trouble he did. Old billy goat ain't worth it."

Lucille said nothing. Her nosey-bone worked overtime. Where did all this English wealth of furnishings and jewelry come from? She

knew Archie had been born in this country twenty-eight years ago. Who was in trouble, Stokes or Humphrey? Or both?

"I'm getting up today," Archie announced. "Pa's gout crutches will work fine."

"You'd be wiser to wait a day," Lucille told him. "I wish there was a real doctor here to keep you in line." Tede nodded in agreement.     ^

"With all this good food you bring me," Archie replied as he winked one green eye, "I'll be shipshape in no time, or else Til be too larded up to move. Getting up makes more sense."

Lucille ignored his statement of getting up, hoping he'd change his mind.

"I thank you very much for the beautiful slate for the schoolroom," Lucille told him. "The children are using it already. If you feel you absolutely must walk, come see them at work in the morning."

Archie laughed. "Trying to put me off until morning, are you?"

Lucille shrugged her shoulders. "It was a try." She caught a quick little breath as a corset stay stabbed, then she smiled. "You'll be fat as a toad if you keep insisting on four eggs and all those muffins with honey. I suppose a very short walk might be a start." She wondered if Archie considered that she was fat ... as a toad. She'd dug herself into a hole on that and the dirt was falling in. How could she appear slim to one man and not to all those outlaws crowding the town? Unobtrusively she nudged the corset stay to a more comfortable position as Archie swished his light blanket to cool his heated body.

With the weather warming up so much and most people not even noticing her, the thought again crossed Lucille^Ts mind that she could begin showing a loss of weight. Unobtrusively, of course. It would certainly help her mobility, especially getting through doorways.

"Not if I get out and about," Archie was saying. "I may venture over to the restaurant come noon today. Stokes says you're doing real well with the meals."

"Come ahead then." Lucille took the serving tray and extra utensils, then moved toward the door. "I have half of the money from the restaurant income set aside in a box for you. I'd feel better if you took it out of there. I don't plan to put up with your father's grumbling about that money he thinks he has a right to. I^Tm sure either he or Ferdie squawked to you about it."

Archie grinned at her. "Stokes tells me you are very careful about dividing it. I wondered when you'd get around to telling me."

"Things have been more hectic than usual, you know that," Lucille

said. "I didn't plan to deceive you."

"Never a doubt in my mind," Archie said. "Tede can bring the res?* of the dishes across," Archie told her. "Ill get the money sometime. Virgil needs to be paid for his carpenter work."

Lucille paused by the bedroom door. In the far corner sat Archie's saddle bags, full of bank money. She pulled in her lips and frowned. Who ever heard of a charming bank robber? She nipped worriedly at a lip corner. A deep sigh escaped as she left the house and entered

the restaurant's back door. Letting herself be attracted to this man would only lead to heartache. She didn't much like the thought of visiting a man in prison.

As Lucille entered the restaurant, Black and one of his men escorted Martha and Laura out the front door. They and all the rest of the women would go crazy stuck back in the living quarters in the upper floor of Hack's General Store, she thought, but there was nothing she could do about it. Lucille frowned anew but still hoped that no one would find Clara. According to what Martha overheard, Hank Doaks and the big outlaw called Blondie had gone searching again.

Lucille knew of no place Clara could find for food, unless her father hid out there with a means of killing game. Any shot fired would draw unwanted attention. She considered asking Stokes, or Archie, about the use of a buggy and horse to give her a change of scenery in an outing away from the town. That would give her a chance to smuggle the girl some food. Such a move would be immediately suspected as going to the aid of the runaway. No doubt they'd either

follow her or search the buggy, or both. She'd even be thankful for a team and wagon to remove the noisy, rat-infested pile of tin cans and meat bones. With guards on all sides of town where did they figure she could get away? She would have to be smarter than the outlaws.

Lucille readied the noon meal on her own. Though the wind blew constantly in Wyoming Territory, the hot stove took away any advantage of the breeze coming through the restaurant's front door.

Several of Black's outlaws lined up at the counter. Two more brought the women from Hack's so they could eat. Lucille watched carefully. Black's men paid into the cash bucket. The women could not. The male prisoners left in town were brought in. Their guards paid but the prisoners could not. Someone lost money on that.^ Archie? Or did he consider their labors well worth any meals he provided them?

Archie's father came next in line. He edged past the money bucket. He'd tried that before. Lucille prepared herself. It would not happen again.

"Mr. Humphrey, you did not pay." Lucille stared into his black

^eyes.

"As sovereign king of this valley I cannot be expected to pay like a commoner. Put it on my tab."

Lucille slammed down her little dagger point onto Humphrey's coat sleeve and pinned it to the counter so fast the man could not move. "You have no tab. You are a royal nincompoop, not a sovereign king. You will pay. Now." Lucille looked up with apprehension as Archie clumsily came across the big dining room on his newly acquired crutches.

"Pa, you aren't royalty and we aren't commoners. Pay up. Furthermore, this is the United States of America, Territory of Wyoming, not England. You will treat Miss Martin with the respect

she deserves as part owner of this establishment." Archie's gaze did not waver from his father's furious look.

Lucille gaped, then snapped shut her fallen jaw and withdrew her knife from the counter top.

Humphrey jerked his sleeve free of the small blade, fumbled in his pocket and threw a coin in the bowl. He looked neither right nor left, and proceeded to a long table where Black made room for him on the bench.

Lucille saw Black lean to speak to Humphrey. For a second she felt suspicion mount but then Archie was grinning and quirking an eyebrow at her and the suspicion fled. He had a 'see, I can do it" look on his face.

"How's my favorite cook?" he asked.

"Your only cook, and your waitress and one of your nurses," Lucille said. "Women's rights of equality flew out the window. Only temporarily, Mr. Gorman, only temporarily."

He leaned closer across the counter. "I can't be waitress or cook, but I'll be glad to tuck you into bed and rub your back or massage your poor tired feet."

"Archibald Gorman!" Lucille's pulse rate jumped precariously. When he tossed a coin in the pot she took a full plate to his table as soon as he dropped into a chair, but kept a good distance between them, not trusting his long reach.

"If your tongue can run that loose, Mr. Gorman, perhaps your feet will soon manage on their own," she said quietly then, from the* safety of distance. She gave him a saucy look over her shoulder as she hurried to the kitchen.

Her work piled up. Archie left by the street side door and disappeared from her range of vision. Her mind trotted around Archie's actions like a young filly in a new pen.

Mid-afternoon Tede came for his belated meal. "Arch done hisself in, comin" over at noon," Tede said. He frowned like it was her fault. "He be asleep after practicin' with his gun a bit."

^{"He doesn't trust Black and his crowd, does he?"}

"Nope. Ole Humph ain't got his other ten thousand dollars outta Black neither. Ferdie's frettin¹ over the money bags Arch brung in, an¹ him and Humph both want thet bank safe opened. Don't look good. Don't look good a-tall."

"Did anyone find out who shot Archie?" Lucille asked.

"We got our suspicions. Arch kinda suspicions Doaks or Dude Edwards. They was both comin' and goin¹ all the time. Bad thing is, Arch figgered he hed a doctor all lined up to come here. He ain't never showed up. Arch worries he got himself kilt tryin' to get

here."

As the little man walked away Lucille wondered what secret crime Tede had committed. The fact that he'd never liked her and gabbed on that way to her, of all people, measured the depth of the little gunman's worry. Her own worry increased when Doaks, Blondie and Ford rode in, alone. The black moods they were in meant trouble. Ford separated from the other two and joined Tede.

"Didn't find her again, damn it all!" Doaks threw his riding gloves on the bar by Stokes.

"Hell, Doaks, you might as well give up. There be other fillies in the pasture. Why worry about her?" Ebbit Ford said as he accepted a shot of whiskey from Stokes. He signaled for another and laid a coin on the bar.

"Ford, you couldn't win a damn card game if you tried," Doaks ground out between set teeth. "Don't be tellin¹ me what to do."

"Well, whatever you're doin¹ ain't right, more ways than one," Ford snapped out his words. He talked lower and Lucille could not hear him.

Stokes' voice carried over the rest. "I think postponing any more

card contest would be very appropriate, considering how the first two turned out."

^{"You mind your own blasted bar business, old man," Black roared.}

9G

Another lower voice chimed in and Lucille couldn't hear what was said, again.

The tension and unusual spring heat got to them all. Loud voices were raised several times by Stokes' bar. Lucille found no respite from potato peeling, dirty dishes and biscuit making to take time to talk with Stokes until after the evening meal. It stayed hot in the cubby room behind the kitchen. Her cot offered no cool comfort even out of the heavily padded corset. The noise from the small bar disturbed her rest. When Black and two of his men gave up arguing with Stokes and stormed out of the building she sat up in frustration, pushed her hair from around her face and retied the band holding her braided hair.

Lucille wiped dampness from her face. She gave in to the temptation to question the brooding Stokes about the argument between him and the outlaws. Black and his key men disagreed on how to run their operation almost continually of late. Their quarrel tonight had come close to violence. The hulking bartender would

probably not give her an answer, but figuring she could not immediately get back to sleep she resolved to try.

She threw on her light cotton robe and hoped Stokes would not have left before she got there. She slid into sloppy, quilted slippers and sluff-sluffed around the dividing counter and into the dining room. She was still tying the robe's narrow belt when she asked, "Stokes, what on earth is going on? All that noise woke me up."

Stokes' obsidian eyes stared back at her so long she thought he didn't plan to answer. He sighed deeply and said, "I'm that worried, Miss Lucy. Archie is losing control of the town and he doesn't see it. If Black and his cronies would just leave I'd be thankful, but that won't happen."

"I noticed Black and Doaks hang together an awful lot."

"They want to leave here soon, divide what money they know is here, and move on. Archie's pa and Ferdie want their share of Shafer's bank money and any money Archie has. Archie wants to stay and complete the town like he started, then buy a ranch."

Bitterly Stokes added, "His lordship wants the money, not Archie, or even the Elite Saloon Archie had built for him so he'd have a living. It ain't good enough for him."

_{"His own father?"}

"Yes, miss." Stokes polished the glass for the third time. "Recfr would rather be a happy-go-lucky feller with just a little place of his own, a drink now and then and quit playing cards. His lordship wants power, and he's greedy for money, so he and Ferdie can have all the best of everything. They've already run through a fortune. They'll break Archie's heart, I know they will, and leave him with nothing at all."

Stokes must really be upset, thought Lucille. He called his friend

^{Red, then he called him Archie.}

"But that's not fair!" Lucille said. She, too, was upset. "Why don't they work for their own goals, if they have any?"

"The gentry, back in England, don't soil their fingers with work, or trade, as they call it. Some I know are good, honest landowners who treat their tenants fair and they all gain by it. Then there are others, like Gorman-Jones, who bleed their tenants dry, punish unfairly, go wenching in the villages and gamble all their funds."

"Wenching?¹¹ Lucille saw red creep up Stokes" thick neck, and was sorry she asked. She guessed the answer before the big man spoke.

"Wenching is how Humphrey came to be. Hes the son of a village girl and the old Lord Gorman-Jones. When the lordship wouldn't acknowledge Humphrey as his son, Humphrey made off with a lot of the family goods. The money lenders were about to take possession of them anyway. Now Humph figures Archie owes him all the grand living he feels entitled to, just because Archies mum was a commoner in this country. He likes to forget his own mum was also a commoner back in England. Died of a broken heart, they say."

"But that is terrible! Can't Archie stand up to him?"

"He's beginning to. His lordship pounded it into him since he was a small boy, needling and cadging, and into his mum, too. Archie's getting over it since building this town." Stokes grinned a large toothed smile. "I was proud he made Humphrey pay for his meal. Now, miss, that's all I'll say on the subject, and I've said too much as it is. I trust you'll keep the confidence."

"Of course, Stokes," Lucille agreed readily. She realized Stokes had had to talk to someone and unburden his soul. "It certainly raises a lot more questions though."

Stokes shrugged his heavy shoulders, shook his bald head, clapped^ on his heavy derby hat and put on his coat to leave for the night.

Knowing she would learn nothing more, Lucille slowly sluff-sluffed her loose slippers back to her own quarters.

Whiskey smell assailed her even before she rounded the counter. Hank Doaks and the outlaw named Blondie had entered by the back door of her kitchen.

^{"The kitchen is closed, Mr. Doaks."}

Without a word Doaks swung his left fist right in her face, then slapped her hard with his right hand.

Lucille fell heavily backward onto the floor, one hand to her battered face. Blood oozed from a cut lip and one eye stung. She couldn't even scream.

"Damn bitch!¹¹ Blondie yelled again and again as he kicked at her flailing legs and slammed pots and pans around the kitchen like a wild man.

Through watery eyes she saw Doaks looking on; probably being smarter than Blondie, already guessing there would be trouble with Archie over the abuse of his cook. The big blond outlaw dragged her upright again. She^Td seen his cruel face as he led the outlaws in their first ride into town behind Sir Humphrey's fancy coach. He would show her no mercy.

"Where'd she go, you fat hunk of slob?" Doaks asked in a low voiced monotone as Blondie shook her.

"I don't know," whimpered Lucille. "I don^Tt know."

"You set them pails in the way!" Blondie yelled. "We trailed an' searched all day, damn you, and she escaped."

Lucillejerked away and got beyond one corner of the heavy square table. Still trembling, she gathered her anger, fiercely ashamed they had made her whimper in fright. "That was mop water! You have no right to come in my kitchen!" She grabbed a rolling pin. "You get out! You get out right now!"

"Cmon, fatty, make us." Down went another stack of pie tins and two dishpans. Blondie twisted the rolling pin from her hand as she

brought it down at him. He jerked her forward and shook her again. Her heavy braid flopped wildly against her back.

"Blondie, let's git outta here," Doaks said. "We ain't gittin¹ nuthin' found out here."

Blondie shook a heavy fist in her face. "You pull that crap again and I'll cut..."

Through  humming ears  Lucille heard  thudding footsteps  and Stokes' yell "Blondie!" from the dining area. Where had Stokes been when she needed him, she wondered hazily as he shouted® ¹⁴Stop that! Get out!"

"C'mon, Blondie," urged Doaks again. "Better not git too rough with fatty. Red might have somethin" to say."

"You're damn right he'll have something to say!" Stokes stood with a short club in his big right hand. "And so do I!"

"Fat slob!" Blondie yelled as he went out behind Doaks.

As Lucille sagged heavily across the counter, Doaks turned back into the room and said to Stokes, "I'd be careful what I told Red. That's a warning. Blondie got a little carried away, but he'd as soon run a knife in your back as look at you. He don't like you no way, no how."

"You're coverirT your butt, Doaks, like always. And that goes both ways with Blondie. I don't like him either."

Stokes turned to Lucille. "You all right, Miss Lucy?" His tough, surly nature would not allow him more concern than that, Lucille realized. Typically, he didn't explain where he'd been or why he came back.

"I'll be all right." She patted a cold cloth where her teeth had cut her lip.

"Get a hunk of beef on that eye." He paused a moment. "I'd rather not upset Archie the shape he's in, Miss Lucy." He left through the kitchen door.

With difficulty, Lucille carved a slice off the chilled beef half in the storeroom, held it over one eye and dabbed at her bleeding lip. For half an hour she sat, deep in thought. They could not get away with treating her so. What should she do? If Stokes would not report this to Archie then it was up to her to make sure it didn't happen again. She thought and thought until an idea came. She trembled inwardly

at the gamble she planned, then told herself the old quote, "In for a penny, in for a pound" and went on with her plotting.

Exhausted now, but hurting, Lucille took some medicinal powders and a glass of water. She wished she'd kept her corset on when going to talk to Stokes. It might have saved her some injured ribs. It was no surprise that neither Doaks nor Blondie noticed her difference in size. They saw what they were accustomed to seeing. Toward dawn she got a little sleep.

Her first thought on awakening and slipping into her padded corset was to marvel that Blondie had still thought of her as fat even while he shook her. She hadn't been padded at the time. His slow, cruefc mind had worked in her favor, she hoped. After the three awful years of being called "fat" by her petite stepsisters in Wisconsin it seemed insane to be relieved and happy that the outlaw thought of her as fat.

_{* * * *}

In the afternoon, at five thirty, Lucille watched from the big window as Doaks, Black and Blondie again returned to town, then headed at once toward the Elite Saloon. She waited, knowing she'd recognize their walk if they came her way. Their footsteps finally pounded the boardwalk outside the restaurant. She found herself dry mouthed and with no more starch in her knees than soupy pudding. Too late, she worried that her revenge could be answered with retaliation against the prisoners.

The prisoners were brought in at six o'clock. They sat, waiting, dread on some faces, anger and grim defiance on others. The men were alert for action. Clovine had a ready hand on the chair beside him. Rancher Ken Harold had sparkling, excited eyes. All waited to see the outcome of her gamble. Lucille surmised the news had spread fast by nose rather than by word of mouth.

Doaks wasn't about to wait for anyone at the food counter. He

grabbed a plate and looked first at the food and then at Lucille. "What the hell you think yer pullin', woman?" his voice hissed

across at her. He raised his hand in anger, but turned suddenly and let his arm fall at his side as he moved away from the counter.

Archie appeared much stronger as he clomped into view on the boardwalk, using only one crutch. Upon entering the restaurant he strode as far as Stokes¹ bar before he noticed the strained tenseness. He looked around at the waiting people. His gaze turned to the wordless Stokes, who shrugged big shoulders but said nothing. Lucille stared directly toward him from her shadowed kitchen.

"Well, Stokes?" Archie said.

"Little ruckus last night."

"The kitchen on fire?"

"You might say that. Ask Miss Lucy."

"Miss Lucy, is it now, Stokes?" Archie hobbled over to the food counter as Lucille stared at him with all the defiance she could muster. On the counter between them sat large bowls heaped with

burned fried potatoes. A huge skillet sat with scorched fried ham slices and the bread crusts were shades of brown to black.

Lucille stepped forward into a better light, closer to the counter^ glaring straight into his green eyes from her one open blue eye.

Archie's mouth dropped open. "Gawddam it to hell! What happened to you?"

"Mr. Gorman, if ever one of your goons does this to me again, your meals will get even worse. I will not cook when my life is in danger, or I am abused and misused," Lucille stated. Her heart beat like the frantic dartings of an imprisoned animal. Her mouth dried to cotton and her knees plopped together under her voluminous skirt. She struggled to keep her anger over her fear. He had shot at the last cook.

Stokes came up beside Archie. "Blondie worked her over. Him and Doaks came, mad because that girl Doaks won in the card game got away through Lucy's kitchen."

Archie stared at Lucille. "So I eat burnt spuds? Blondie isn't my man. Neither is Doaks." He stabbed the big spoon into the pile of potatoes, and slapped the same spoon down on the hard, blackened slices of ham. Lucille held up the swollen hand Blondie had twisted. She knew other bruises were purpling her battered face. She stared from her one good eye, right into the strange, greenish eyes. They were darkened to deep brown.

"Where's Blondie? Where's Doaks?" Gorman strode from the room, hitching his gun into place as he went, hardly using the one crutch now. Black followed and Ebbit Ford trailed behind.

Lucille motioned the rest of the people to come eat. She scraped back the top, burned layer of offerings, down to nicely cooked food. They fell to with a will, their relief almost tangible in the air. Stokes roared at them if they talked too much and he kept a strict eye on them all. The three remaining guards, who were Gorman town businessmen, minded their own business and ate with grinning relish.

Fifteen minutes later the sound of a flurry of shots halted all

movement for several seconds, like a hard freeze clapped in from nowhere. Filled forks were halfway to several mouths and held there, motionless. They looked from one to the other a long moment

before continuing their meal.

Archie did not return to the restaurant. Guards from both his men

and Black's men moved the edgy prisoners across to the warehouse. Some guards came back to drink at Stokes" bar. Lucille could feel the curiosity eating at them as she peered out across the counter^ catching their terse conversation. What had she done? Was Archie all right? Dread raced cold fingers down her spine. She'd only meant to teach a lesson, not create a disaster.

"Damn woman. Who she think she is?" That was a pal of Doaks.

_{Lucille didn't know his name.}

"Best damn cook this side of St. Louie and she knows it." Ebbit Ford put in his comment.

_{"Hell," said the other man.}

They drank some more as Stokes silently set out bottles and glasses and took their coins, without saying a word.

"Hell," said one again. He chuckled. "Damn if she don^Tt beat all. Got old Red right around her fat pinky." They chuckled some more.

"Ain't her pinky ... it's his belly. Can't be nuthin' below the belt, that's fer damn sure."

"You let Archie hear that talk and you'll end up like Blondie." Lucille heard Stokes warn them. "Dead. Tede just stuck his head in the back door and told me. Arch more than gave him his chance."

The chuckling stopped and they soon left.

Lucille crouched on her cot, full of misery. She should never have come to this strange and dangerous territory. No one behaved like they should. There wasn't an ounce of law and order about the place.

She glanced over toward the counter, anxious for something to do, anything to get this horror out of her mind. The swill pails under it were full of burned meat and potatoes. It took pain-filled scrubbing to clean the skillets and pans with her aching hand. Deep in regretful thought about the death of anyone, she held more cold meat to her eye. It was obvious one cheek stuck out further than the other.

As she limped haltingly across to Stokes she said, 'Thank you, Stokes. I really appreciate your help. It could have been worse if you hadn't been here."

Stokes turned red. "Humph. Get sick of them birds playin' big shit all the time. You owe me." He turned his back on her and placed

bottles carefully in line on the shelf.

Lucille tried an amused little smile at his surliness but it hurt too much and had to be quite lopsided anyway. Stokes just wasn't about to admit any human feelings. Since Stokes wouldn't talk, Lucille returned to her quarters.

Back in the kitchen she wondered just how bad she did look. It seemed months since she'd used a mirror. Brushing her hair straight* back every day from a middle part and into one braid required no mirror. She set the lamp on a small bracket next her trunk. Inside

the trunk lid was a square mirror.

Holding the lamp close she peered at her reflection, turning her head from side to side. Her swallow squeaked. Her face shone a lopsided round, her right cheek and forehead had welts, and one eye squeezed almost shut.

Oh, my God! I have a neck! She could see her neck! It was there plain as day. She turned from side to side again. Tears slid from both eyes. The double chin was gone. Her heart sang in elation.

Then it sank to her heels. How could she disguise this additional weight loss? She would be conceited if she thought anyone would notice her. What did it matter? What should she do? She didn't have time to think further as heavy, limping footsteps crossed the dining area.

"Lucy! Where you at?"

"Coming. Coming." Lucille slammed the trunk lid down, carefully wiped her wet, sore cheeks and carried the lamp from behind the curtain. She clutched her blouse up close under her chin. Archie met her halfway across the kitchen.

He stared at her, not saying a word. Lucille tilted her head and stared back. She felt heat rise in the cool side of her face.

"You'll be all right?" "Yes, Archie."

"Blondie didn't break any bones, did he? Cracked rib or anything?"

He stared a moment more while her pulse rate climbed and more heat pooled in her belly. She shook her head no. He suddenly scowled fiercely, turned his crutch and stomped from the kitchen, across the dining area and out the far door_f without looking back.

Deflating like a spent hot air balloon, Lucille slumped onto a chair. Was all this pain and agony worth it? Would Clara really escape or would she be brought in by some of Black's outlaws?

_{* * * *}

"Easy, Clara. Quit kicking. Ouch. Wait! It's Clyde," hissed the man's voice in her ear.

Finally it penetrated the girl's terror-stricken senses. She ceased fighting.

"How'd you get away?" He removed his callused hand from her mouth and slowly released her, being careful that she had her balance.

"I ran." Clara briefly told him about Black^Ts outlaws taking over the town and setting up the poker games.

"Where you headed?" Clyde asked.

"To get food from Lucille Martin. They make her do the cooking i the restaurant. She's the only one who can get supplies."

"We'll need coffee, food supplies and bandages. Do you think you can get them if I take care of the guards?"

Clara nodded. "Who is 'we¹? Is my father out there?"

"I haven't seen him. It's just us, you and me. Let's get this done while we can."

The lights went out in Lucille's kitchen at the same time they went out for one of the guards patrolling the area. Clara stumbled out in a half crouch and hurried to the back door of the restaurant. She tried the knob. Locked. She tapped lightly. Waited. Her frayed nerves made her knees weak. She tapped again, just a little louder. No answer. Frantic, she edged along the building and tapped lightly on the small window.

Thankfully she heard the creak of the cot inside. It took forever before the door opened just a crack.

"Who's there?"

"Lucille, it's Clara. Please, let me in." She slipped in through the narrow slot opened for her. The warm air felt good after the chill outside.

"Bless you, Lucille," Clara said. She was close to tears. 'Could I get

some food? Clyde Boros is with me. He needs clean bandages."

Lucille moved quietly, but haltingly. Clara watched as a loaf of bread was added to a bulging sugar sack. A couple spoons were dropped in.

"I'm so sorry to trouble you. Is everyone all right? My family?" Clara sipped at the cup of coffee offered her.

"Scared for you. Edgy, but they're all right."

Fifteen tortuous minutes dragged by. Clara became more frightened and knew Lucille was anxious for her to leave.

"Where is the guard?" Lucille asked. "You'll have to leave soon." "To the north someplace. Clyde got rid of the other two."

"I'll take a coffee pot and cup to get the guard's attention. Then you run. Be ready." Lucille picked up a cup and the small granite coffee pot.

Clara watched as Lucille limped out the door, her slim form silhouetted against the moonlight. It didn't surprise Clara, she just hoped the guard didn't notice Lucille^Ts change in size. Clara picked up the sack of food and grabbed two cups. Through the crack of the door she saw Lucille clearly as the guard moved out from the trees. Lucille changed course to meet him. In a minute she walked past him, forcing him to turn toward her as she poured coffee ancfc handed him the cup.

_{Clara ran!}

_{* * * *}

Archie ran the Appaloosa stud horse over the hard packed wagon road. His damaged thigh muscles burned and quivered in weariness. His left shoulder ached. Neither compared to the bleak, despairing lump in his chest.

He'd killed a man! Again.

When his fury-filled voice had cussed out Doaks and Blondie for their treatment of a defenseless woman Blondie had triumphantly drawn a gun.

It wasn't his fault Blondie couldn't hit a barn wall from the inside. Now Stokes had the job of burying the man. It seemed the cemetery grew faster than the town.

At the sound of the Apps labored breathing Archie slowed him down gradually, ending in walking the horse back toward town.

If he was going to react to Lucille and her safety in this manner he had better consider the fact he could hurt her far more than Blondie

and Doaks had. If she cared. If she didn't care anything about him, then it didn't matter.

Archie halted next to a scrub cedar, facing downhill toward the town. The Appaloosa chomped at a bit of new grass struggling among the dry grasses of winter.

Maybe he'd do something nice for Lucille. To take her mind off the beating, of course. Maybe a lower table and bench for her younger, smaller pupils to study at. Maybe that would make her happy.

She'd be happier of course if he had never entered her life. This was not her neat little village with neat families, neat children in her school and law and order keeping everyone safe.

Lucille would know he'd shot Blondie. She may have even seen the Wanted poster out on him in Cheyenne, for shooting Sheriff Harry Danforth's no good, glory-seeking son, Jimmy. Or the old posters on Hutchins and Tede, Stokes, Ebbit Ford and the blacksmith.

This far from town the buildings were small squares and the horses and people mere dots. As he watched another small dot moved far

out on the flat, down from the high and rocky entrance to the valley. Night fell quickly and obscured most movement. He did catch a shadow at the side of the restaurant. Could that be one of the guards by the restaurant, sneaking in to see Lucille, or could it be someone else? Jealousy streaked through him like a tornado on the plains.

_{[Back to Table of Contents!}

_{CHAPTER 7}

Beyond the bulk of the large guard Lucille saw the Adams girl leave the shadow of the restaurant and run into the moonlight. She crossed the open space just at the end of the long building Lucille had learned was the bunkhouse. From there she no longer caught sight of any movement. She took the emptied cup from the guard, who happened to be the giant Scandinavian called Swede. She didn't really want him to get in trouble.

"You get better lookin¹ every day, Lucy, yah. You stay?"

"I can't. I need rest. I hurt all over." She nodded to him and took her time getting back to the kitchen. She favored one leg very much by the time she reached the door. Once inside she sank gratefully onto the solid, straight-backed kitchen chair.

Only three men remained at the bar by Stokes. Lucille tiredly arose from the chair and peered around the corner at them as she sipped cooled tea. Her exhausted early sleep had been interrupted and now

she'd have trouble getting any rest from the pain. She thought about Archie and his wild ride on the big Appaloosa. She and Stokes had stood together on the boardwalk watching the flying figure out on the flat north of town.

Stokes' grim face had turned gray below his deeply furrowed high forehead when Archie disappeared in the livery stable, then came out favoring his injured thigh. If Archie had explained to Stokes how and where he'd gotten shot Lucille had never heard. Robbing a bank could be very dangerous. Her courage did not quite extend to confronting Archie with her suspicions of his dishonesty. Not yet, but soon. Her immediate problem with Archie Gorman returned to mind as she shoved the bank robbery theory away.

Archie couldn't be attracted to her! Still, being a big man himself, maybe he would be attracted to a taller, larger woman. Maybe losing weight showed too much in her face and made her look different to him. And Swede? Would he put some meaning into her trip with the coffee for him? She hoped not. She had enough problems without that.

She wondered if Ben would be as much concerned as Archie if he saw her injured. Did it matter to her? Her brief conversation with Dora Hack just the other day put a new light on her own relationship with Ben.

Lucille admitted she liked to argue with him. Simple as that. He was so straitlaced she liked to ruffle his feathers. She hadn't realized that before. It had nothing to do with romantic feelings at all. She sighed? in relief. It had been obvious that the younger woman showed jealousy of her supposed relationship with Ben when she said spitefully, "I don't see how someone your size can ride a horse out of here. I know Ben will rescue me. Ben can do anything he sets his mind to."

"I don't think the Bascom people should leave at all. They need to make a stand and vote our own people into the offices running the town," Lucille argued.

"Vote! Vote! All you talk about is women voting." Del Hack joined in the conversation.

"It will take all the Bascom men and all the women to count up enough people to match the Gorman population. If Black's outlaws vote we may not stand a chance unless we get the Gorman shop keepers on our side. What kind of sheriff would one of Black's outlaws be?"

"Well," Dora said, "I do think Ben needs someone to make him happy, not argue with him. Someone to adore him and make him feel good about himself instead of perturbed all the time."

"I didn't perturb him," Lucille said, with a flip of her hand. "He's like a horse with blinders. He just can't see beyond his own viewpoint."

"I like his viewpoint," Dora stated stoutly, then she grinned, "Especially when he's viewing me."

"Miss Martin, we hired you to teach the children reading, writing and their numbers, not about voting rights for women," Mr. Hack said.   "You   should   teach   Dora   about   manners   and   ladylike

deportment, not all those rights you think she should have. Voting is not feminine/'

"Pa_f" Laura said, "you're fifty years behind. Women are just as smart as men."

"Who does all your bookwork, Pa? Me, that's who," Mabel chimed in. "Do you think I can't work a budget, or make a profit, or vote as well as any man? Besides, Wyoming Territory voted to approve women's vote in sixty-nine. Why not here in Gorman? Dora doesn't have to vote if she doesn't want a say in anything."

"It will take all of us to vote or those outlaws will really control everything," Laura said. "Lucille says men ought to see getting the vote will bring more families to the territory and we'd get to be a state sooner. Just think, State of Wyoming."

"I give up. I give up." Hack threw up his hands in surrender. "You dang women been tellin¹ me what to do for twenty five years, starting with your dear departed mother. I reckon it would get my*

^{vote or I'd never have no peace. If we ever get something to vote}

_on.

11

The four Hack family members argued their way back to their store. Lucille simply smiled, watching them from her doorway before returning to the kitchen.

"Any coffee?" Stokes stood at the opening from the dining room, silhouetted against the light from the bar. Startled from her reverie Lucille stared at him. She couldn't see his features with the sunlight behind him. She poured the coffee.

Stokes cleared his throat. "What if ... what if I called in that favor you owe me?" he asked hesitantly, keeping his eyes on the poured coffee.

"That depends on whether it is something I can do."

At a call from the bar area, Lucille watched as the heavy set man shook his head and lumbered back to the men. Stokes must be in his fifties, she guessed, a taciturn man, a loner, mostly, grouchily

morose more often than not. What problems bothered him from the past? Were the Pinkerton detectives still looking for him? What favor could he possibly want?

People were strange. Stokes, Archie, Tede, most of them. They could be friendly one time and grouchy the next. Archie especially was a more complex man than she ever dreamed. He and Stokes seemed closer than any of the other outlaws. Yet they rarely spoke to one another, unless they made up for it in the big house at night. Archie had such a strange way of shifting personalities on her. One time he used proper English and another time he used the coarsest and crudest language she'd ever heard. He had bank bags in his house. Did he rob banks to buy lumber to put up his buildings? What was the man? Where had he come from?

Archie had defended her without question. She could not get the death of the blond outlaw from her mind easily, nor it seemed, could Archie. She had not anticipated a killing, nor, evidently, had Archie. He had been morose, and except for the concern for her

well-being, he had been moody and quiet since the gunfight. Until his wild ride.

Lucille was certain Hank Doaks passed all the blame onto Blondie. Stokes seemed content to leave it that way. Guarding their own backsides, she thought, but still Stokes, too, had been concerned for her. How puzzling. Why did Archie care if she was beaten? She could still cook. He surely didn't care what happened to her. Maybe her gamble with the burned food made him consider what it would** be like without her good cooking. She grinned wryly. She wondered, too, as she went behind her curtain, whether Clara made it safely away. She'd heard no outcry, yet, but it may not have gotten back to her ears.

Some time ago, out of desperation for someone to talk to, she had started saying Good morning' to Stokes. Maybe that had paid off. Maybe he was as lonely as she. They had worked together bandaging Archie. Conversation between her and the prisoners drew sharp warnings from Black and Dude, not usually Stokes, especially of late. With Clara^Ts escape the outlaws¹ watchfulness increased.

She could have gone with Clara if the night had been darker, but would she really want to? Who really controlled the town now, Black or Archie?

What was there outside of this restaurant for her? Here she had food, if she got time to eat. She now had plenty of clothes from her trunk and there was nothing more any place else. Restrictions were eased so Bettina could remodel any of her dresses, as well as sew for anyone else. Bettina also made a living here.

If she worked things right maybe there would eventually be a school for her to teach. Cooking did not satisfy her need for creativity, and to be an influence in the community for the good of everyone. She slipped out of her work shoes and unbuttoned her shirtwaist. Sliding her slim fingers close to her scalp loosened the hair from the heavy braid. What if Archie did that? She swung her loosened hair from side to side, feeling conceited as she admired its length and color. Back home her petite stepsisters had made her feel huge and very unfeminine, especially because she wanted to teach. Not here. Archie towered over even her height; it made her feel dainty and

womanly beside him. They used her height as an advantage in her teaching. Even Ben was taller than she, but not many others were.

Where was Ben tonight? Would he have defended her? Clovine said he would return to get them all out. Archie had given them the chance to turn back in the very beginning but none had been willing to give up their claim to lands in the valley. Those claims had cost them all a lot of money. Now what would they do? She sighed heavily.

Lucille laid her slim body back on the creaky cot with a sigh of relief. No hot corset. No hot padding. No steel or bone corset stays poking in the wrong places. Best of all it was cool, cool, cool.        ™

What if Archie could see her now? She leaned forward and fluffed the pillow at her back. He'd likely just grin and wink one of those jade green eyes. Other than his raging, immediate defense of her in the gunfight with Blondie, Archie's quick temper never affected her or anything she did. He hadn't confronted her over the burned potatoes.

How much longer could she stand this awful padding during the day? How much longer would she have to? Ben and Clem Adams took too long to reclaim the town and the valley. Would Archie be able to do it when he got over his wounds? Could she talk him into a vote for a sheriff to obtain the law and order they so desperately needed?

She used to daydream about Ben. He was the only man near her age in the Bascom contingent. Would Ben bother to dream of her? Her own thoughts turned more to Archie. Archie, the outlaw. Archie, the bank robber. A magnified awareness of his big body close to hers as they talked in the kitchen made her grow hot and cold all over.

Fat Slob! That's what Blondie called her. At least her disguise had worked. She wiped a tear and moaned as she brushed her sore face. All the hard work chopping wood and not being able to eat properly certainly accomplished something. She knew her clothes hung on her thinner frame. She had re-hemmed skirts several times but did that make her beautiful? With another tired sigh Lucille pulled the blankets up around her. During spring^Ts changing weather she

needed a sweater or cape when going outside, but a sweater was too warm in the kitchen. Her long cape kept the chill Wyoming winds off when she ventured down the street for a change from the four walls of the restaurant.

Moaning once or twice in a half turn Lucille finally slept. And she did dream of Archie, an Archie who came toward her but never quite reached her. Ben stood even hazier in the background.

_{* * * *}

Ben peered carefully over a ridge. Something had happened down in the valley. Why else were so many outlaws out riding? Four of them rode past, below him. He turned and made his way backward, down from the high lookout post.

It was Saturday. Traditionally Big Red^Ts gang should be coming in from the far ranges to celebrate. In some ways it would not be a very good night to raid the town and in another way a crowd of strangers could be good cover for their invasion. Likewise, th™ longer they waited, the worse things became for the prisoners. Just

before daybreak Sunday morning would be the best time. With the outlaws" senses dulled from heavy drinking Ben and his men could get in and out safely. Ben joined young Shafer among the hot, gray rocks.

"We may have to call off our raid if the prisoners aren^Tt all in one place," he told Tom. "It might be a good idea to talk with Clovine and find out what's going on. There are more outlaws than ever down there. Where did they all come from? Do my people want to pick a site in the valley and fight for possession or do they just want to get out to safety?"

"Just a minute. I hear a horse moving real slow," said Tom, his young face serious, and his eyes worried. The May sun beat hot and dry on their backs as they crouched among the multi-colored rocks.

"That rider will see our horses in a minute," Ben warned. "I'll circle and jump him from behind. You stay here and come up in front of him."

Ben quietly rounded a huge boulder, and crept up a bank beyond, just in time to see the horse and rider pass and stop below him. The rider made no move, but sat hunched over, as though looking for trail sign. Then he ever so slowly tilted and slid down the side of the horse and hit the ground.

"It^Ts Clem Adams!" Tom yelled from in front of the man.

Watchful for a trap, Ben ran out to join Tom by the unconscious man. Clem's blue shirt was clean but torn halfway down. His jacket was crusted and stiff with dried blood. A neatly fashioned bandage showed white from under it. Gaunt and feverish against Ben's arm, Clem struggled until the canteen of water touched his parched lips.

"No raid tonight," Ben muttered. His mind reluctantly refocused on this new problem. "It'll take both of us to get him to Brown's. He's in a bad way. Odd how clean his shirt and the bandages are,

compared to his jacket."

_{"Can we move him so far?"}

"Doubt he'd last," Ben replied. He made a wet pack from his neckerchief and laid it on Clem's feverish forehead. 'There's that trapper cabin we saw a mile north of here. Lift him up to me. Just as well he's still unconscious; it won't be a comfortable ride over this rough trail."

Tom scouted the nearby countryside, leading Adam's mount. The going was slow. The sun edged down the sky as Ben pulled up at the ramshackle cabin. They slid the wounded man carefully dowrci; onto Ben's shoulder and he carried him in, feeling sticky moisture on his sleeve. They laid him gently as possible on the bunk where a blanket lay neatly folded at one end. It was almost dark inside the room.

They were pleasantly surprised that the rusty stove pipe still stood upright. Mildly suspicious, Ben saw no stove lifter so he started to pick up the lid with his fingers. "Damn!" he yelped in surprise. "It's hot!" Hand on his gun he went to the door, peered outside, carefully scrutinizing every inch of brush.

"Hold it!" A man stepped from the outside corner of the shack. "Ben!"

_"Boras?"

"Who you got in there?"

"Clem Adams. Don't look like he'll make it. Can't figure how he lived this long without help of some kind."

"Clara's with me." Clyde Boras motioned toward the brush and Clara rushed forward immediately and ran to her father.

"We need water to get your dad's fever down," Ben told her. "He looks like he's been fed and cared for. Look at this shirt. It's torn but clean, and this is a fresh bandage. He's even healing good, just tore loose lately, and brought on a fever. I wonder where he's been."

The wounded man struggled, until they assured him his daughter was here and his wife was all right, but still back in the town.

How did you manage to get your wounds taken care of? We thought you were a goner," Ben said.

"So did the outlaws," Clem said with a weak grin. "Never paid me no mind at all. When Charlie Ash, Miss Martin's driver, and I got to the brush behind the town somebody shot me. Charlie got away somehow. When Jeff Dayton's horse came out of the brush, too, I just hung on the stirrup * til he got into the rocks, out of sight. Could I have some water?"

Ben sat by him, keeping cold cloths on his head while Clara started a meal and Clyde checked in every few minutes. Tom scouted the area a different direction and brought in a rabbit from Clyde's trap.

"Friendly cowboy found me in the rocks and saved my life. Joe Texas, he called himself. Said he was a drover, not an outlaw. He kept me at his line camp until a couple riders headed for the cabin. I lit out. His boss must be that big, red-haired galoot on the appaloosa. I watched them bring my critters in. Joe says he, a carpenter, and some strangers built that cabin he was using. It^Ts right

on my land, dadburn it, I know it is." Exhausted from talking his eyes drooped. As Clara came to hold his hand he fell asleep.

Ben motioned Tom and Clyde outside. "We'll rest here tonight and see what the area looks like tomorrow."

It was crowded in the small cabin. Adams lay on the one bunk. The wind whistled through the cracks. As Ben found a large stump to sit on he pondered how they could get Lucille Martin from the restaurant at the same time they got the prisoners from Hack's store across the street. Had that opinionated woman gotten the outlaws to let her vote? A chuckle escaped him briefly. He sobered completely upon realizing they might have to change their rescue strategy entirely. Clara brought him a cup of hot coffee while he considered what could be done.

_{* * * *}

^{"Any coffee?" Archie asked from halfway across the dining room.}

^{"On the stove," Lucille replied at once, pleased to hear no quaver in}

her voice. Archie seemed to have forgotten the fiasco with the burned food. The wild ride on the appaloosa must have helped him come to terms with his feelings after the gunfight with Blondie. Today was all business, brusque and impatient. His limp had almost vanished. She hurried with breakfast preparation.

"Lord, it's ajob figuring all the angles," complained the big redhead as he poured the strong black coffee.

Lucille slipped easily into shoes, though one fit tighter on the foot that had swollen from Blondie's kick.

"You're a good looking gel," Archie said. "These clods want gels with all the curves. Me, I'm satisfied you can cook. I like to eat."

"I'm supposed to be a schoolteacher, not a cook." She wondered at the way he pronounced "gal" ... English?

He drained the cup, and poured another. "A strange rider was sighted in the mountains last night. Know anything about that? I

hate keeping your people prisoner but if a U. S. Marshall gets in here my people will be lumped together with Black's killers, you

know that. We have to get those outlaws out of here first."

Lucille's heart did a double-time jig. Archie confided in her more each time they were together. The man had killed for her. How should shejudge that?

"We're going to check out who that might be in the mountains."

Lucille reasoned it couldn't be Clara they had seen because she'd
come after dark, walking. It could be one of their own gang, or
Blacks, judging by the intelligence of some of Black's men. Or it
could be Ben Menkin out there.                                                                                                                                          n*

Stiffly Lucille moved about the kitchen after Archie left. At six-thirty the prisoners were brought in. Martha, looking like she hadn't slept well, came to the counter with Laura Hack.

"Thank you so much," Martha whispered, facing away from Black's guards. "Are you all right? Hurting you was terrible! Mr. Hack saw

the gunfight from his store window. He said Blondie drew first while Gorman caught his balance. But Gorman shot straighter."

"I hope they don^Tt have any more of those wretched poker games," Laura said.

"Get done with yer damn eatin," yelled one of Black's outlaws.

The guards rushed the people through the meal, came back and hurried with their own, anxious to be gone. Lucille heard nothing that enlightened her as to reasons for the rush. Her upper arms were purple and green with bruises under her sleeves this morning and she ached all over. Her nerves tightened like fiddle strings, taut and twanging with hurt and worry.

Midmorning, strange men unloaded a buckboard full of kitchen supplies inside her door. The only one she recognized was Tede, who directed them to fill every inch of kitchen space, even under her bed.

"Three loads went to Hack's Store," Stokes reported. He impatiently turned his back and unloaded his own new supplies of liquor. Abruptly he turned and came back. "Know anything about two guards bein' tied and gagged? Lucky they weren't found until after Black left. Of course you didn't see tracks when you went out." He didn't wait for an answer, just turned and walked away.

Was that a hint she should make sure tracks were obliterated? Lucille was glad her reactions of surprise were behind Stokes' broad back. Maybe he meant to prepare her for the questioning she would soon receive. Apprehensively she put away kitchen supplies. She waited in dread all day. What if the outlaws caught Clara and Ben? Black would surely retaliate if he found out she had helped the escaped girl a second time. She wished she had gone, too, if Clara was with other Bascom people in the mountains. Swede, the guard Lucille had taken coffee to, might become suspicious. She must use that time away from the kitchen as her own safeguard. It could be to her advantage, or disadvantage, depending on how Archie viewed the situation. He might be jealous of Swede.

Lucille made thick potato and ham soup for lunch, watching that and the activity outside equally. Loads of lumber and windows arrived. She supposed the shopkeepers outside the valley were so glad of the big market for goods they never questioned the

purchaser's honesty, or really cared. One of the last loads was a complete surprise to her, one she did not really welcome. It meant more work.

Crates of squawking chickens, rolls of fencing and fence posts were unloaded behind the kitchen. Men were set to building a hen house and yard between her restaurant and Darcy's cabin, where a little boy played outside, and watched the carpenters. Lucille and Stokes also watched the progress.

"About the favor you wanted, Stokes, what is it?"

Stokes reddened, then with steady calm he drawled out, as though completely unconcerned with her answer, "Thought since you plan to teach the children you might teach me to write my name. In

private, of course." The apprehensive gleam in his eyes belied the indifference in his voice.

Very seriously Lucille replied, "I would be delighted to."

No more was said and Stokes, as if ashamed of his inability to write, or more likely, Lucille thought, ashamed he even felt it was important, stalked off behind his bar to polish bottles he'd just polished.

Late in the afternoon strange riders started arriving in twos and threes. Lucille anxiously watched from the windows, worried that they, too, must be fed. It was much later when Archie returned. He and Ford rode in ahead of Black and Dude.

Lucille learned the scrawny Tede had carried tales to Archie about

the guards being tied and gagged in the trees. It didn^Tt take long for him to appear at the kitchen, get his meal with his men and see that the Bascom people were removed in a hurry.

Archie came over to Lucille. Tve already talked with Swede. The lady must have sneaked in while you fed Swede coffee."

"Two cups are missing," Lucille reported, and could have bitten her tongue. She was so terrified of saying the wrong thing she admitted more than she needed to. She was grateful Swede had spoken up for her.

"Two?" Archie turned in surprise. "Only one got away? What else is missing?"

"Coffee, bacon, bread." Lucille was terribly conscious of Black lurking in the background. It seemed to her Archie was also aware of the man.

"I say we oughtta watch this fat cook," Black came up and put in his opinion. "She's sure gonna help 'em if she can. Where else can they* get anything? Likely that Menkin yahoo them folks brag on so much is out there with that girl. If they bring in a U. S. Marshal we can all wave this valley goodbye, you included, Gorman."

How come Lucy ain't with the rest on poker nights?" asked Swede, with a wink at Lucille. "We ain't all after puny, skinny gals."

Archie glared at the big man. "Anybody bothers Lucille answers to me. You know that." His deep voice rumbled, 'She's the only good cook we got, and I like eating regular, with no burnt stuff."

"That the only reason?" Black asked, with one black eyebrow raised in derision. "Hear she took extra good care of you when you was

shot."

Archie spun around swiftly for so large a man. His big fist knocked Corey Black flat on his back. Black's gun slid out of its holster. Archie stared at him from green eyes a moment while Lucille hastily moved back down the counter. She saw Black's malevolent glare up at Archie.

"Sorry, bucko. Gettin' pretty edgy plannin' this town," Archie held out a big hand to the man on the floor.

Corey accepted the hand up but his black eyes were unforgiving as he turned and retrieved the fallen gun. He stared balefully at Lucille as he stalked out. Right then she could almost feel his unspoken threat that Archie would pay for that blow very dearly. Black had long chafed at taking orders from the big red haired leader. She thought Humphrey's nagging for more protection money probably irritated him further. Lucille had seen it many times on his face when Archie had not been looking. Should she warn Archie or just let things go their way? Surely Stokes made him aware of Black's animosity. With Black present Archie had not condemned the gambling for women either. That bothered her. Nor did he say anything in that regard after Black walked away.

Archie turned and surveyed her as she worked in the kitchen, a new awareness in his eyes. "Seems to me like you ain^Tt as fat as you were. Swede makes no bones about your size. You been seein' him behind my back?"

Lucille saw the way he now looked at her. Warmth flooded her face, then her skin prickled as the heat went out of her cheeks. "I'll... quit cooking if you..."

She was flour clear to her elbows when Archie came to the counter. She walked over to stand behind it with knees turned to noodles. He reached across the wide counter and pulled her toward him with his big hands at her elbows.

His green eyes stared down into hers. A pulse in her throat beat so hard she feared she^Td choke.

Archie was going to kiss her!

He didn^Tt. He just stared as though memorizing the color of her eyes.

She stared back. "I thought ... redheads had freckles. You don't," she finally managed to say.

"I thought a plump little partridge would have a double chin. You don't. Someday I hope to find out why."

He knew! He didn't know, did he? Now Archie would kiss her.

He didn't. His glance slipped to her lips a mere second. He turned and stalked away. "Hell, I aint got time to bother no females," Archie said with exaggeratedly poor English. He added, with a small grin, "Not for a couple weeks anyways."

"Well, I have," said Swede. "You leave her alone, hear?"

"Yah. Yah, I hear," replied Swede good-naturedly. Then he winked at Lucille as he, too, went from the room.

_{Archie stalked out without another word.}

Lucille snatched her lower lip between her teeth. Through tear-blurred eyes she watched Stokes come her way.

"He has big, big problems, Miss Lucy," Stokes said softly. "He figures he needs to solve them first." Stokes turned and walked with slumped shoulders back to his bar to polish the constant appearing of dust on the bottles.

Lucille swiped away the moisture in her eyes with an apron corner. She rounded the end of the wide counter and had almost caught up with Stokes to ask him about Archie's problem when she heard the side door at the end of his bar open. She didn't see who was in the doorway. She only heard Stokes say "Mr. Jonathan Archibald will be in Colorado City."

The outside door slammed and Lucille spun around and returned to her kitchen, more confused than ever. She pinched her lips together in thought. Shed need to visit Bettina for another padding. Or were people seeing the thinness in her face and not the rest of her? Lord, she'd be glad when the Bascom folks made up their minds to drive out all the outlaws so she could be her natural self.

She noticed Stokes at the big front window. Was he watching as Archie rode away from the valley, or was he watching something else?

Lucille worried about Archie's wild ride up the valley. Then another moving dot caught her attention, from a different direction.

"May I borrow your field glasses, Mr. Stokes?" Lucille took them* as Stokes handed them over at once, then followed her to look through the plate glass window.

"A man in a buggy," Lucille said. She handed the glasses to Stokes. "I thought I saw something moving out there quite a while ago."

The gentleman in the black buggy had been coming slowly toward town for an hour. Lucille knew it was an hour because she'd timed him from when she'd first sighted him. With people as busy as they'd been this afternoon he hadn't been seen right away. Now he was here.

He came alone and had no badge. The townspeople who noticed him now relaxed, but they still watched. Strangers were few and far between, scarce as hair on a frog.

Lucille stepped back from the big restaurant window, carried her broom to the kitchen and waited.

"Who is the handsome stranger getting out of that fancy black buggy?" Laura asked.

"We've been watching him come down the valley for an hour," Lucille told them. She wondered how he^Td gotten past Black's outlaw guards or if one of Archie's men had let him through, and into the valley.

"He's pulling in right at the restaurant," Laura said. "He seems to

know exactly where to go."

Lucille laughed and tapped Laura's shoulder. "Of course he knows. He's probably hungry. It is getting late. Is there pork roast left?"

The man came hesitantly across the restaurant, gave one look at Lucille and headed directly to her. Lucille thought she might be prejudiced that he wasn't quite as handsome as her Archie. Where did that thought come from? Archie belonged to no one, least of all her. Nonetheless this new man presented a genteel, handsome face. The wire-rimmed spectacles gave him an educated look. He removed his high fashion straw boater hat and his thick, light brown hair fell back with every strand carefully in place.

"This is to introduce me to a Miss Lucille Martin." He held out a square envelope. "Are you Miss Martin?"

"Yes, I am." Lucille took the envelope and pulled out a single, folded sheet of heavy paper. She smiled immediately. There could be no mistaking Archie's flamboyant penmanship and blunt phrases. She glanced quickly at the signature, then read to herself. 'Lucille: This is to introduce Dillinkham Franklin Stedman III. His high society parents named him. My first suggestion is to call the man other than Dillinkham. He's had his confidence badly shattered.

^{However, he is a brilliant physician, and our town does need a goocfr}

_doctor.

No reflection on you, love, but perhaps his stitchery will be an improvement. I do not suggest he use your bedside manner. We almost tumbled to the floor when I tried catching you, remember?

"The man needs a strong dose of self-confidence, Lucy, as only you can give. I would appreciate your help. Love, Archie."

Lucille looked up at the young man twisting his hat nervously. Dillinkham? Undoubtedly some relative's surname was being used. She thought fast. What could she call him instead?

"So you are to be our new doctor," she said. 'What a relief for me! I'm thrilled to meet you. I am so happy to have you here I could almost kiss you. My medical knowledge comes from pages 147 to 201 of the 1877 copy of Moore's Universal Assistant. I'm sure you have better training than that."

"Yes, ma'am," Dillinkham said. "Extensive training doesn't always help." He continued nervously twisting his straw boater hat until

Lucille wanted to reach out to save it from being shredded. She tried to pay attention to the man and also concentrate on what Archie had written. Pride in Archie and his continued efforts in building his town almost side tracked her like the loaded boxcar of a train. With difficulty she considered the young man.

"First, there are medical rooms prepared upstairs at Hack's General Store," Lucille said. "Secondly, I believe we have a bedroom we can fix for you upstairs in the Palace and third, my sincerest welcome. I am so glad you're here." As she talked Lucille's mind skittered here and there trying to find the best way to give this scared young man more confidence.

"We have a gentleman named Virgil who will be glad to carve a shingle for you." Lucille bit her lip in sudden shyness herself, over what she was about to say. "Won't Link Stedman, MD look grand over your very own office door?" She held her breath, awaiting his reaction to her change of his name.

"Link?"

"It sounds so manly. These tough old cowboys like a manly sounding doctor to come to, and one with a short name. They'll likely all just call you Doc anyway."

"Link?" Lucille watched the questioning in his expressive face turn to a half smile. The half smile turned to a full grin. "Yes, I'd like being called Link or Doc."

"You'll find the stables for your horse and buggy at the end of street, then come here for dinner. We'll manage to put together a meal for you even if it is late."

"Yes, maam." He clapped the boater on his head and walked away. Lucille thought his stride away from her had a lot more confidence than when he came in.

_{* * * *}

Three days had passed since Clara had gotten supplies and again escaped Hank Doaks. Lucille finally had a chance to whisper to Martha that her daughter was with Clyde Boros, their ranch foreman.

Surprise played across Martha's face and her eyes grew moist. "Has

_{she food?"}

Lucille nodded briefly and Martha moved away to a dining room table. Lax guards, evidently Archie's people, let the Bascom people trickle into the dining area and Lucille continued her usual routine.

Much later, when she'd finished most of her kitchen work, Lucille crossed the dining area to the large plate glass windows. She already missed Archie's presence. From her position at the window Archie's town of Gorman resembled a thriving, bustling little town, on the surface. But danger, like tornado funnel clouds, hovered around the edges. Who would revolt first, the virtual prisoners, with help being rescued, or men from within Archie's own structure?

There were the men who did not agree with his plans for the future. Sir Humphrey and Ferdie had created a monster.

"Black's protection money returned to his own pockets in a hurry," Stokes said from his corner of the room. "Humphrey and Ferdie lost heavy last night. When they started nagging Blackie for the balance of the money promised he just laughed."

"No wonder they keep trying to cheat me out of meal money," Lucille said.

"It didn't do them any good to nag Arch for funds either. He spent his last winnings on that lumber that came in."

"I can feel the tension in the air, Stokes. What will happen next?" Part of her mind held to the conversation. Part of her mind hoped Archie got money gambling, not robbing banks. The bank bags in his house bothered her.

"Can't answer that, Miss Lucy. Wish I could."

Lucille walked out the door into the spring sunshine. What took Ben and young Shafer so long to do something? Or tell them something? Were they more gravely wounded than Clovine expected?

The unpredictable May weather let down a sprinkle or two and Lucille took refuge beneath the porch overhang. She knew the outlaws were busily preparing for a long, hot summer safe from anyi other civilization ... and dry, if they didn't keep bringing in supplies of their favorite liquors. A wagon load of boxes pulled in at the Elite Saloon.

She scanned the mountains to the east. What did those boulders and roclts and pines hide? What could they tell her if they could speak?

_{* * * *}

Ben and young Shafer held the struggling cowboy in firm hands. He'd gotten too close to the ramshackle cabin so they hauled him forcefully inside.

The tall cowboy stopped struggling and grinned at the wounded man on the cot. "Tell these two yahoos to quit manhandling me, sir. Tell them I ain't gonna report you if n they turn me loose. I worried about you, sir."

"This here's Joe Texas, the young fellow who saved my life!" Clem Adams announced. "He kept me in a line shack, taking care of me. He got bandages and medicine from Schoolteacher Martin. When one of his bosses showed up, I had to leave. The trouble is, I didn't know where to go."

"I'm not an outlaw. I'm just a cowhand," Joe Texas said.

"Where do we go from here?" Tom Shafer asked Ben as he reluctantly let Joe's arm drop.

Clara returned, only slightly surprised at the added population in the cabin, and very thankful to the young cowboy.

"I won't be tellin" nobody ya'll are here. If I could git out of the valley I would, but I got reasons I ain't about to leave." He turned a deep red.

"Like Laura Hack?" Clara said. "We've seen you two looking at each other."

Again Joe's face took on color. "I gotta git into town for the card games. I reckon you know about the poker games. If anybody but me wins Laura I'll have to kill him, that's all there is to it. I'm not lettin' anybody else get her."

"You know Clem is the only reason we trust you. We can't keep you here and feed you, that's certain-"

"I'll bring in what grub I got left," said Joe. He emptied his saddlebags of food for them. They watched as he lost no time getting to his horse and out of the area. Their safety rested on those tall shoulders, and then again, thought Ben_f it wouldn't hurt to be extra cautious.

"Make a circuit to be sure nobody else is out there," Ben said. "We'll meet back here. Down in these bushes and trees there isn't much chance anyone can see our smoke but if the wind goes right they can smell it. Be watchful. We still can't move Clem."

Ben worried. To save the lands they had title to they might have tm set up a fort inside the valley to retain possession. He knew that was the desire of Clem Adams.

The biggest worry, thought Ben, was whether Black or Gorman would kill any Bascom people left in town if they didn't get them out all at once. To his mind one man was as bad as the other.

The weather would be a deciding factor in whatever they did. He watched a small snow squall come and then dissipate up higher on the mountain. He watched as a solitary rider appeared briefly. Ben leaned against the warped logs of the cabin as Clyde trudged up the steep slope from where they pastured their horses.

"Learned all I could, Ben," Clyde reported. "Talked with Clovine last night. There^Ts seven of everything. Seven men, seven women

^{and seven young ones. Some of those are half growed, so they'll be}

no problem."

"We'll need wagons. We can't put them all on horses, even if we had them."

"They got piles of firewood all down the main street."

"To keep whichever girl gets picked in the card games from running away," Clara volunteered from the doorway. Ben saw the shiver that shook her body at the thought of another victim.

"We can't get wagons through the cave. Besides, Clem wants to make a stand in the valley. Are there wagons in town?"

"A rickety one by the stables. Hack will have one ready for us, but he won't leave his store. Gorman's got a buggy back of his place that the cook and Laura ride out in once a week. There's a fancy carriage there, too, but it would take those four fancy horses in Gorman's stable to pull that anyplace."

"Tom, your dad will need to ride in a wagon. He can drive one/' "I'll get more supplies from Browns," Tom offered as they ate.

"Clovine says there's two gangs, Gorman's and Black's," Clyde said. "Are we taking them to Browns or are we going to make a fight for the valley?"

"I darn well hate to let them have my herd," said Clem. 'Those outlaws don't know it but they are already on part of my range. Joe says they built that log building only as a line camp but we can use it even if it is real small."

"Hack has a big investment in his store. He won't leave. Miss Martin may decide to stay in that restaurant." Ben paced beneath the pines. What kind of payment did Gorman exact from Lucille by keeping her under his protection? He wondered, too, about pretty Dora Hack. She'd made no bones about being attracted to him. Sh^ was certainly more amenable than the opinionated Lucille with her outrageous talk of women voting and owning property.

* * * *

Things were not going well for Archie, Lucille decided. Twice in the last few days she watched Archie's men arguing with Black's outlaws. She swished her full blue gingham skirt as she turned and regarded Stokes standing silently behind his bar, studiously tracing his name on a bit of paper. She walked over and leaned past his heavy arm to look.

"Excellent!"

"Not so hard once you get the hang of it."

"Did you hear Mr. Hutchins and Dude quarrel yesterday?"

"Black wants to hang a sheriffs badge on Dude. Archie's in a real bind. I worry about him when he's away. We sure could use him back here."

"You and Archie go back a long ways."

"Twenty years. His old man is a real coo-coo. Fanatic, he is, like I told you, Pushing and demanding Archie give him all he wants. Him an' Ferdie are itchin' for that bank safe money. They figure Archie is an outlaw like them."

"I got that impression. His father must be the driving force behind what Archie is trying to do here, in all the wrong ways."

"His pa couldn't wait to do things honest-like. He's a sly one, working on Archie ever since he was born. Always got him to do what he's too lazy to do, him and that no-good half brother. But he'll lord it over Archie and the whole town, he gets a chance. His money built the Elite Saloon but he wants a part of all Archie's income here, too."

Lucille could not miss the fury in the bartender's statements. She fiddled with her braid, watching its dark auburn ends flop across her other hand. "How does Archie propose to civilize the town and still go along with the crime being committed by Black and his gang?"

"Keeps Arch awake nights, too. He has himself a ride on a longhorn bull and can't get off without getting gored."

"Nice talking with you, Stokes. It's time to make coffee." Lucille put on a light sweater and went to the pump for water. The wind off the hills remained cool each day. She shaded her eyes and squinted up toward the mountains, seeing the wavering of a small snow squall high up toward the peaks.

Help must be up there. It had to be. With the dread of a major battle between Black and Archie she had to have faith Ben and Clovine

would find a way to balance the situation before that happened.

_{[Back to Table of Contents!}

_{CHAPTER 8}

Archie paced the palace's big parlor. He knew he had a range bull by the horns and couldn't let go. The gunfight with Blondie preyed on his mind in odd moments. This was one of them. How did Lucy regard what had happened? He'd hunted up Blondie and Doaks, for what? Whatever it began with, it had gotten out of hand. Blondie was dead. Would she—Should she—be repulsed at having a killer who couldn't stay away from her?

Ferdie came yawning from his bedroom down the hall. It was the first they'd actually surveyed each other since Archie had gotten on his feet again.

"My gawd, little brother, how grossly large youVe become," Ferdie said as he waved a thin hand up and down before Archie's body.

In Archie's childhood his older brother's sharp criticisms had hurt. He now caught a not-quite-hidden touch of fear and envy in Ferdie's voice. Archie grinned across the room at him. "My gawd, much

^{older brother, how you've aged. The dissipation of hard living tells}

on you."

"Insolence to your betters? Pop won't like that."

"Pop hasn't liked anything but money and gambling for so long I doubt he'd notice either of us passing on."

Ferdie shrugged and headed for the door. He ran a long fingered hand over thinning dark hair, then turned back. "When will any of us see what's in those saddle bags Tede guards so jealously?"

"Most of it has already gone to pay Virgil for his work on Hack's Store."

"Virgil! You pay these serfs? Those prisoners?"

"The Bascom people aren't prisoners. Virgil is a carpenter. Hack pays me rent on his building. Anything else you want to know?"

"There certainly is. What about that bank safe you stole from the wagon train? Black and Hank and the rest of us want that money.

Pop and I are entitled to our share of the loot since Pop's jewelry financed all this." Ferdie waved his long fingered hands, encompassing all the rooms and toward the town buildings.

"Pop only financed the Elite Saloon. He gets his rent every month." "Who built all these other buildings? You?" "I'm a much better gambler than you are. Remember?" "Where's my share of the rent then?"

"Get yours from Pop, or work to earn it. Maybe Fancher will hire you as a dealer in the Elite Saloon. He leases from Pop and hires the help."

"Brother, half-brother, you have changed. Where's your respect for* royal bloodlines?"

"What royalty?" Archie purposely stretched an eyebrow high on his forehead.

_{Ferdie slammed the door behind him when he left.}

"Durned pipsqueak," Tede muttered at Archie's elbow. "Wondered how long before you got him from around your neck. You can't carry the world, Red."

"He'll get even, Tede. He always did. Or try to." Archie grinned down at the smaller man. He had bigger worries than Ferdie.

"More'n likely he'll git ole Blackie or one of his cronies to work you over or somethin' like thet. You watch your back."

"I can't straddle the fence, Tede. You, me and Stokes need to rethink this whole episode. We'll need help from our businessmen, and the Bascom people, to get rid of Black and his gang of killers."

"Don't use them dictionary words on me, Red. What we need is packed saddlebags, fast horses and skedaddle to a new range."

"And leave all these people at Black's mercy? What about our blacksmith and cobbler? What about those ranchers and storekeepers and banker ... and Lucille Martin at the restaurant?"

"I figgered thet Ben feller they brag on so much would be here by now. When they retake the town we can leave. Dont make me no nevermind if ole Humph's jools paid for the Elite building." Tede looked up at him. "What about the woman?"

Archie abruptly turned and looked out the parlor's big plate glass window. The sun glinted different colors off the leaded pane design at the top. Blue suited him, he thought despondently. But he liked a different blue, like Lucy's eyes. What about the woman? His thoughts darted to Lucille so often, yet what could he offer a woman like her? She stood for law and order, no mistake about that. And voting! She already had half the restaurant, which she'd well earned. Her friend Ben would slap a price on the heads of Tede, Stokes and him quicker than bird crap on a shingle roof as soon as the Bascom people reclaimed their valley. They'd have the U. S. Marshall in sure as snow came in winter.

"Blackie is hintin¹ at appointin¹ Dude and Hank as sheriff and deputy ever since the deal with Blondie," Tede said.

"We should have an election if that's the case."

"He wants you arrested, and hung."

"Hell's bells, I was crippled and Blondie got his shot off first."

"See what Stokes says. The restaurant woman is eddicated. She* preaches voting alia time. What's she know about elections?"

Coming from Tede the information about Lucille surprised Archie, and pleased him. It gave him a reason to see her, and just maybe Tede did have a little respect for her. At any rate, he'd seen the books on the high shelf in her kitchen. One of them was a law book, and one of them a dictionary.

"Ole Blackie will find a way to open thet safe, you kin bet on that. I think he plans to git one of his men elected sheriff, then order the safe opened for some reason or another. Maybe Shafer will do it an¹

mebbe he won't. I'm bettin" he will. Or that nimble fingered Ferdie will have a go at it. I've seen him lickin¹ his chops ever time he goes by it, even when I be settin¹ right aside it."

_{* * * *}

Election!

The very word threw Lucille into an excited frenzy of thoughts, goals and ideas. A dream come true! Now she could vote at last!

"Dude and Hank are running for sheriff and deputy," Stokes said as he lined the three lone bar stools evenly in front of the bar, even though most men just stood.

"Oh_s no! We can't let them win. Who can run against them?" "Archie?"

The bank bags in Archie's saddlebags had preyed on Lucille's mind so long she blurted, "We can't have a bank robber for sheriff."

"I won't be around long enough to play sheriff," Archie said from close behind her. Ice would have warmed his tone.

Lucille spun around, her hand to her mouth. Dismay curdled her insides into little sour lumps of regret. Archie's eyes were almost black, instead of green. His face set into lines so hard and stern she feared it would crack. She gulped in a breath and stared back at him.

"What? No sassy remarks? Are you afraid I may taint your precious farce of an election?"

"Oh, no. It's just..."

"I suppose you'll run for Justice of the Peace like Esther Morris."

"I'd do better than Corey Black. How do you know about Esther Morris?"

"Well, that's what you said about your cooking, you could do better. You were right on that. Maybe you're also right about the election."

As he stalked from the room he said over his shoulder, "I mucked out her stable one time."

"Stokes, he ... oh, hell!" Lucille stomped off to her kitchen. She almost never cussed like that. She pinched her lips together. She sat on the hard chair at the table, elbows on the spotless surface and hep? face hidden by a hand at each side of her eyes. Her heart thumped dismally in her chest. How could an outlaw make her hurt so? Who decided he was an outlaw? Everything he'd done had detained the Bascom people but had he personally ever harmed one of them?

Tears stung her eyelids. What about the stolen bank money? How did all the building lumber get paid for? Making the Bascom people work was better than keeping them cooped up in bare rooms, staring at the walls, wasn't it? Or did she rationalize his behavior because she wanted to think better of him?

Lucille charged up off the chair and across the kitchen. Her blue skirts swirled as she swung around the counter and hurried down the dining room to Stokes.

"Who is printing the ballots?"

Stokes looked at her in surprise. "Haven't heard. I just heard Hank and Dude brag about ordering that safe open or putting Shafer in jail. They got Virgil finishing carpenter work on the jail right now, when he's supposed to be doing a doctor's office. He didn't have any choice when they have the big guns."

"Did I hear my name spoke?" Dude Edwards strutted across from the batwings.

"Who is printing the ballots and who is on them?" Lucille faced him, hands on the shelf of her padded hips. "Who is qualified to run for any office?"

"Hell, woman, what do you care? You can't vote."

"Women in Wyoming have voted over ten years. Where have you been? I know several women here who mean to vote." She hoped that was true.

"Thet don't mean this valley will. What do women know about voting anyway? I heard tell they plan to fight it again in the territorial offices anyway. Fool law."

"We know more than you do, that's a fact. Who^Ts the President of the United States? The Vice President? Who got the vote passed in

this territory? Do you know?"

"Hell no. And I don't care neither. All's we need is sheriff and deputy. That's me an¹ Hank."

"What about a judge and jury? You need a judge with legal knowledge."

"Bahhh! Ain't gonna be no other votin¹. What you dumb settlers do when we're outta here makes me no never mind. An' ain't gonna no women vote neither."

"That's no election!" Lucille yelled after Dude's departing body. "Oh, Stokes, can you believe that?" Lucille stormed.

"Yes'm. Folks ain't used to women having a vote. Most women go¥* plenty to say at home. Guess men figure that's enough."

"What does Archie think?" "Ask him, Miss Lucy."

"I most certainly shall." Lucille strode back to her kitchen. She brought a pencil tablet down from her school supplies. She stared into space. Right under her nose changes had taken place and she'd had her face in the biscuit flour and her mind in the puddings. Progress for the Bascom people had come so gradually she hadn't realized it.

Storekeeper Hack and his daughters had their store. He paid rent to Archie because Archie had built the big building. Bettina had her dressmaking shop now and she paid rent. The town had grown a lot.

Ken Harolds had disappeared with his two little girls. They rode in to classes from someplace. What had Archie done with them? Forie Drescher brought her three quarters of an elk. He said he'd kept the

other quarter for himself. Where had he gone? Hutchins, the shoemaker and Elaine's small gift shop and store had been down that side street when the Bascom people were dragged into town by Archie's outlaws. But were they Archie's outlaws or were they citizens protecting what they considered their own property? What kinds of secrets did they have in their pasts?

Humphrey and Ferdie had brought in the real outlaws to gain protection money. The first thing Humphrey wanted was to get the safe ordered opened so they could divide the money and head for brighter lights and bigger gambling.

Lucille threw up her hands in despair. She had so much she absolutely had to do before there was an election day, and those probable orders from Dude Edwards to open the Bascom bank safe. She wondered what law they intended to use to make that look legal. They probably didn't care.

Much agitated, Lucille decided there was so little time and so little opportunity she must strike while Archie was gone. Stokes told her

Archie had packed his saddlebags for a ride out into the valley. Surprisingly, Tede had gone with him instead of remaining by those

saddlebags. Maybe they were already emptied.

Lucille climbed a rickety wooden ladder to reach the top shelf in the kitchen where she stored her extra school books and supplies. And the damaged journal that belonged to either Clem Adams or Ben Menkin. Perched on the ladder she searched the journal pages whiles also keeping an eye out for any intruders. She found the bank safe combination numbers and memorized them. She repeated and repeated them as she carefully replaced the books and came down from the ladder.

After full dark, her hands trembling with anticipation and guilt, she shed her padded corsets and put on a brown dress she'd cut shorter but had not yet hemmed. Wearing her voluminous dark cloak, with the hood pulled forward to hide her white face, she peered carefully all around before she dashed across the alley between the restaurant and Archie's house. She waited, alert, while sheltered in the bushes. An owl hooted above her head, in the cottonwood tree, nearly

making her drop her valise and lantern. Again she waited long moments, trying to control her agitated breathing, beside the trunk of that same large cottonwood tree. A small animal scampered away. She knew Humphrey and Ferdie were in the Elite Saloon gambling and drinking as they usually did every night. Stokes was at his bar and Tede had gone with Archie. But for how long?

Breathing heavily from fright, she prayed anyone seeing her would think it her usual trip to check on the house or do something for Archie. Her lantern, turned very low, was almost entirely hidden under her cloak.

After another good look around Lucille cautiously pushed open the door to Archie's big dining room. His big chair sat at the head of the long table and her heart did somersaults. Someone could be sitting right there in the shadows where she couldn't see them because of the high back on the ornate chair.

Silently closing the door she gasped a quick breath when a board creaked as she stepped toward the safe. She checked the closed drapes on one window and shut those on the second tall window.

With a hand to her wildly beating heart she hoped the thundering pulse sound in her ears wouldn't prevent hearing any sounds of danger. She set the lantern next the safe and tentatively tried the handle. Her five thousand dollars was in there. She turned the dial carefully. Still locked. More slowly she dialed again, half expecting Doaks, or Black and his new Mexican friend, Mendoza, to walk in on her. What if Stokes came over to check on the safe, or couldn't find her in the kitchen?

Icy rivulets dampened her collar. Her fingers were stiff. When safe door finally swung open, faintness seized her. With breath catapulting in and out she brushed the back of her hand across a wet forehead. All moisture had gone to her clammy skin, leaving her

mouth dry as bread flour.

The bags of money lay like surfeited piglets at a sow, all fat and round and still. Placing several heavy sacks into her burlap tote bag and into her emptied medical satchel, Lucille gently partially closed the safe door.

Almost blacking out from exertion and terror Lucille struggled to her kitchen door and cautiously slipped inside, with only her medical bag. She'd left the heavy burlap sack hidden beneath the split wood at the far back corner of the building, outside the kitchen's door.

Feeling braver the next trip, but urging herself not to get careless, Lucille continued until all the gold had been moved from the safe. She felt lucky to have fallen only once on the lantern-less trips across the alley.

Excitement kept her from sleeping. Would she be accused of bank robbing? She was no better than Archie if someone caught her. Her pulse rate calmed down, but her mind busily searched out safer

hiding places. She paced the kitchen. A solution finally came to her just after midnight.

Wearily Lucille moved toward her bed. As of this afternoon it had gained a feather mattress from Hack's store. Clean sheets and a nice feather pillow added to her comfort. She slipped into a light cotton nightgown and unbraided her thick hair, planning to rest comfortably even if she couldn't sleep.

Strange, she thought, Archie and Ben were both after the same thing, more or less. Each planned a town. Each planned developing the valley and each wanted to make money and a name for himself. She wondered if Ben still planned to reclaim the valley and build Bascom. Clovine had faith in his return. Did she? Did she care?

The minute Archie and Tede returned to town she must talk to Archie. Thinking of seeing him again was enough to send her pulse rate to the clouds. She'd need to apologize for jumping to conclusions, first. What would he do about the election? If no one ran for sheriff except Dude Edwards she wished there wouldn't be

an election. It would be giving up her dearest dream, but living in the town with Dude as sheriff and Hank as deputy would be a bleaks nightmare.   The   thought   of   confronting   the   complex,   giant redheaded, town builder sent flutters through her entire body.

If just thinking about the man shook her up this much, how could she make him see her viewpoint on elections without stumbling over her own tongue? How could she convince him to control the election so the women could vote? Were any of the women interested enough in voting to bother to do so? Before Archie returned she would talk to every woman in the town. If he didn't return too soon. The prospective delay in confronting Archie calmed her nerves enough so she slept a couple hours.

To Lucille's dismayed surprise, Archie was the first customer when she and Laura stacked plates on the long counter and set out the heavy stoneware coffee cups next morning, beside a ready coffee pot.

"Good morning." Archie didn't look at her but picked up a filled cup. 'The usual eggs and ham this morning, Miss Martin."

Her skin goose bumped up and down her arms under her long sleeves. Her face froze as though cast in ice. He sounded cold enough to freeze boiling water on a hot stove. She had not said he'd taint the election. She ran a trembling hand across her forehead and pushed her hair more tightly into the braid. She automatically scooped up orders as Laura gave them and set them on the counter. Her padded stomach and hips felt more in the way than ever this morning.

The progression from a crowd deluging them all at once to the few at a time paying customers had been gradual. More of Archie's doings? There were no more guards, as such, but Corey Black's men posed a constant threat around the area and no one could leave town without being followed. What else had Archie done lately?

When the breakfast crowd thinned out Lucille marched resolutely over to Archie's table where he dawdled over another cup of coffee.

"Archie, where did Ken Harolds and Forie Drescher go? What about Mrs. Bricker and her son? What happened to them? You surely didn't get rid of them. Did Black do something? Mr. Shafer is still in town and Bettina has her store. What is going on?"

Archie stared back at her at first. His green gaze sparkled. The skin around his eyes crinkled. He laughed, his deep chuckles echoing in the room. He shook his handsome head, and kept on grinning at here?

Furious, Lucille stomped back to her kitchen. He wasn't going to bother to answer her at all. She slammed a small skillet on the stove and grabbed the leg of a huge ham.

"Who but Lucille Martin would dare question what goes on in this valley?" He rose from his chair and started across the dining room, toward the door.

_{* * * *}

Archie stopped in his tracks just inside the batwing doors at Stoke's end of the room, turned and looked over to the kitchen. He needed his breakfast.

"Archibald Gorman, you still have questions to answer." Lucille leaned across the food counter, her elbows and forearms supporting her upper body. Did she realize how beautiful she looked? Her blue eyes were wide with long, dark fringes of lashes. Her dark brows arched in her earnest appeal for answers.

His feet had minds of their own. He strode across the room and leaned his own forearms close on each side of hers. Temporarily forgotten were the bank robber accusations. She just looked so earnest, so sweet and beautiful. She'd forgotten the open neckline of the dress she usually kept buttoned high. Too warm in the kitchen he guessed. He sucked in his cheeks to keep from grinning at sight of the small rise and fall of her rounded breasts. Maybe she fooled some of Black's outlaws, but his own intense observations had told him long ago she wasn't what she pretended.

Dang, he felt horny just wondering exactly what she really did look like. He hid his arousal against the hard wood of the underside of the counter.

Eye to eye, green eyes staring into blue, Archie said, "What questions?" He reached and ran the back of his fingers down her collar. Big mistake! He hurt.

With delight he saw her tremble, and color sped up her rounded cheeks from her slim neck above the dress buttons. She didn't back away though. She wet her lips with a pink tongue tip, still staring at him.

Archie put a hand to each of her upper arms and pulled her toward him. Her rosy lips parted in surprise and her eyes widened. But she didn't protest. He didn't plan on a simple old nose rub, like eons ago.

His lips came down on her soft ones. Shock waves hit him clear to his big feet. In recoil he let her slide back, but immediately brought her to him again for a longer kiss. Hell's bells, what if they wer<^ body to body? What if she trusted his honesty without proof?

Without question. But she didn't. Disappointment hit him. She thought he was a bank robber. Why? He almost dropped her, he released her so fast.

"What questions?" Ice stiffened his lips. He stood across the counter, his arousal gone soft as pudding.

_{"Where ... where are Ken Harolds and Forie Drescher?"  She}

sounded like she had momentarily forgotten her questions.

"Harolds is out at his ranch. He took your beau Forie as his foreman. Mrs. Bricker is housekeeper and she takes care of her son and the two little Harolds girls. Answer enough?"

"What about Corey Black and his men? How do we get rid of them?"

"Now you're asking questions I have no answer for." He slapped his hat on his head and headed for Stokes' bar.

Stokes already had a brandy poured. Archie downed it in one gulp and strode out the door, never remembering his scorching breakfast.

Lucille rounded the high counter. Automatically she stooped and picked up a button off the floor. She hurried toward Stokes. Tede came in through the batwings. They squeaked and banged behind him. But Archie did not return.

"I had another question for Archie," Lucille told the two men. Her face prickled from receding warmth. She grew cold all over. But she had to know.

"What, Miss Lucy?"

"The bank bags in his saddlebags. What about them?" In the back of her mind lingered the question of who was worse, she or Archie? Both had stolen bank funds.

"What about them? He's riding out today to return them. He just stopped in to say goodbye when you hit with all those questions."

Stokes rinsed and wiped the brandy glass Archie had used, but didn't look at her. His disapproval hung like a gray shroud.

_{"Return them? To the bank?"}

"Gawdamighty, woman," Tede shouted at her, "It's Archies own damn bank. Why'n hell wouldn't he return the dang things? Stokes, give me a brandy and I'll go join Arch. Foley can guard Shafer's

safe."

Archie owned a bank outside the valley?

_{* * * *}

Lucille felt no higher than a slimy green garden worm. The joke, a very bad joke, was on her. What if something happened to Archie before she could tell him she loved him? He'd gotten shot on his last trip out.

Loved him? Ohmilord. Should she tell him now? Would he believe* her when her love had had no trust in it? She didn't think so. Now

she could never tell him. He'd have an even lower opinion of her. She stared at Tede's departing back. Her one good thought was that Foley guarded an empty safe. Her very worst thought was that she was the bank robber and not Archie.

How could so many changes take place right under her nose? Archie gave the Bascom people permission to claim their property out in the valley. He had made them a part of the town. He'd given her a half interest in the restaurant, so long as she ran it. She rolled the button between her agitated fingers. Her entire body burned like fire when she realized it had popped from Archie's pants front. Heat pooled in her belly and down her inner thighs in singeing ribbons.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Hiram Clovine entered the restaurant with blood oozing from a cut on his head and Bertram Shafer cowered away from two burly guards belonging to Corey Black's gang. She guessed maybe some of the Bascom people were still under the thumbs of outlaws, a different set of outlaws.

"It doesn't pay to argue with the likes of Black," Clovine said as Lucille treated the wound on his head. "He saw Archie ride out of the valley with a bedroll and full saddlebags. I'm afraid we're in for a lot of trouble."

When Black announced that the gambling games would take place that weekend Lucille knew their ordeal was not over. This was a terrible time for Archie, or if he was now Jonathon Archibald, to leave. He must be a different person in the outside world and the gambling dens, wherever he went.

Humphrey and Ferdie started collecting the entry fees for the games. Lucille saw them give Black a share of the money.

What would they do next? It seemed like Lucille's medical satchel glowed in the dark, fairly screaming it was full of Bascom money and the outlaws should come take it. How would she hide it until she could get it to the rightful owners? Had she waited too long? If Black controlled the whereabouts of Clovine and Shafer, what about Hack and Bettina? Martha Adams and her two young boys were still

in the upper rooms of Hack's store. Clara had escaped but the three Hack sisters were still in town.

Why wasn't the mighty Menkin coming to rescue them? [Back to Table of Contents]

_{CHAPTER 9}

Ben Menkin constantly worried about the weather. Winter didn't want to loosen its hold high in the mountains. The cold air crept in between the logs of the cabin clinging high on the slanted ledge, even though they stuffed mud and dried grass in the cracks. The cold air seeped down onto the green tinged foothills as well. He and Clyde Boros turned impatient faces to a small snow squall high above them as it passed from view. They then retired inside the small cabin where they warmed their hands at the small fire, then hunched their shoulders inside their coats as they tried to catch what rest they could. They were confident Clara would wake them should anything unusual happen.

Well past midnight Tom returned from visiting Jace Brown's ranch outside the valley. Six young and eager cowboys, ready for adventure, rode in with him. Ben surmised impressing the pretty fifteen-year-old Jodie Adams, back at the Brown ranch, played a part in their eagerness to prove themselves.

"Ben, you remember Steve Brown," Tom whispered as the cowboys unrolled slickers and bedrolls. Jace sure wants those rustlers caught. Did Eden Charles find you all right after he got through the cave?"

"He's right there, sleeping, impatient to get to his partner. Orvie Lukas is hiding out someplace in the valley near their cattle. Eden's a good man, anxious to catch up with whoever shot him in the arm. Get some rest, you'll need it."

Ben looked across the small cabin in the flickering light from the stove's open door. Men lay like cordwood across the small cabin. A couple of them twisted and rolled over, no doubt keyed up over the coming events. Clyde patrolled when Clara returned to climb to the tiny loft for needed rest.

"Thank you so much for our supplies, Tom. We were getting low," Clara said. 'The medicine for Dad will make a lot of difference in his recovery." She climbed the narrow ladder to the small loft.

Tom lay down, too, before the stove near Ben, with his blanket bunched around his shoulders. Ben didn't think he could sleep, he was too uptight. He stretched out, leaning against the cabin wall near the iron stove. Through the cabin's cracks he heard a horse move a few feet with his hobbles. He mentally reviewed the items of his plan until he finally dozed.

Morning was a scramble of shifting bodies. They got ready for eating and preparing for the raid. Ben waited until all had eaten ancte assembled outside the cabin. With a sharp stick he drew a map in the dirt as Clara again patrolled for them.

"The hazy fog down there In the valley will keep our movements up here from being seen," said Ben. "Be sure your gear is in good shape for hard riding and check your ammunition. Fill your canteens at the springs. When you come out of town go to Clem's ranch cabin, which is here." He pointed with his stick and drew a line from town to that cabin, making the line twist and turn around circles in the sand that were hills and snaking lines that showed creeks. "We're taking over that cabin for our new headquarters. The

outlaw living in it will likely be in town." Ben put a big X on the crude map and drew in the route going there from the town.

"Keep your damn heads down/' Clem shouted from inside the cabin. "Clara and Twill meet you at my ranch."

Ben smiled without humor, feeling the tension in the air.

"Get rid of any jangling spurs or fancy trappings that will shine in the dark," he warned them. He wandered among them, checking gear, their mounts and canteens.

By noon, when Clara returned, Tom and Clyde had fed them all again.

"Tom, you^Tll take two men with you. Ten minutes later two more men go with Clyde. After another fifteen minutes the last two men will go with me. You all will lead extra horses for our people."

"The men down there shoot for keeps," warned Ben. "One of the

^{cowhands those dirty yahoos took out to cut logs tried to escape and}

someone shot him. Anybody wants out, this is your last chance, and no hard feelings, boys. This is dangerous."

At his designated time, riding his black gelding, Ben led two of his men out, going fast where he knew the trail, more carefully where it wound through new paths down to the fog-filled valley. Once down on the grassy prairie they were still three miles from town. He'd used the field glasses on the area often enough he remembered how the land rolled out before them though they could see but a few yards ahead. Some of this was the small amount of range land he had title to himself for his Morgan horses. He was pleased with the caliber of men trying this rescue with him, but he worried they might not all return. Brown grass, mixed thinly now with green spring grass, swished damply as they galloped along. Clouds rolled in the heavens.

He halted his men in a deep, dry draw half a mile south of the small settlement where Clyde and his two men should be waiting. Two of the six men were selected to stay with the riding horses for the wagon train people when they came. With two men he circled west

of the livery stables, every minute alert. The last man Ben posted halfway between, to guide the escapees on their way to the horses.

Timewise, he knew Tom and his two men should be sneaking up from the west side of town to locate two wagons and Gorman's buggy, then hitch up horses as quietly as they could. In the sandy soil south of the stables a walking horse made very little noise.

_{* * * *}

As one outlaw guard disappeared around the corner of Hacks Store Ben hurried to the small side window, thankful Clovine was alert at his knock.

"Clovine, are you ready in there? Who all can get through this window?"

A young Adams boy was thrust through the opening, head first. Ben lowered him to the ground quietly. Next came the other, younger Adams boy.

"Mike and Kenny, keep down now," ordered Clovine as he thrust his head through the window. "Are you ready for the next ones,

Ben?"

Ben dragged tiny, eighteen-year-old Dora through the window. Her soft curves came down the length of his body. She clung overly long as he set her on her feet. She squeezed a hug around his neck. He whooshed in a sharp breath as his body went on instant reaction while she clung to him.

Only five of the captured Bascom settlers were out of the warehouse when suddenly a bright flare of orange firelight lit up the scene. Hastily instructing the two boys and Dora where to run, Ben and a young  cowboy crouched in the  shadows of the  stable fence watching as the three disappeared in the darkness. Ben hunched down even further, in dismay seeing a short, fat cowboy with a huge black hat tilted against the light of the fires all down the street's center. He sauntered unconcernedly along the new boardwalk.

"That's Jack,"   hissed  Eden  Charles  at   Ben's  elbow.   "Taking chances, damn fool. He'll get himself killed!"

Flickering lanterns also lit the street but the light never reached Jack's features as he paused now and then.

"What's he doing now?" Ben asked Eden.

"Getting us all killed, most like." Eden stared around a corral gate.

The heavy set cowboy flipped a set of reins from the crowded hitch" rail, bounded up onto a wagon seat, gave a friendly wave down the boardwalk at some invisible person, and backed the team and wagon into the street. Slowly he drove past Ben and into the shadows at the far end of the street, beyond the livery.

"Jack will see that the girl and the two Adams boys are safe," said Eden at Ben's elbow. Ben relaxed, but only slightly.

"Did the two drovers know where to go for more horses?" Ben asked.

"Sure, out back of the livery stable. They'll head for the Adams ranch and meet us there. If they let the horses loose they can't be charged with horse stealing."

"Let's hit those guards and get out of here," ordered Ben. "If Clara is right those fires likely mean the card games are about over. If you see a woman running for her life, head her in the right direction."

_{* * * *}

Lucille watched as a brief rain tinkled against her small kitchen window. After their long postponement, the card game contest had resumed much to the dismay of the Bascom people. The outlaws probably thought it was safe because Archie had gone out of town on urgent business, according to Stokes.

She'd seen Black's men bring in a small herd of cattle belonging to Clem Adams and some that belonged to Orvie Lukas. She'd read the brands as they were pushed through town earlier in the day. At Stokes' insistence a couple had been butchered for use in the