West of Paradise Read online

  Katherine tried not to stare as she walked and hoped no one was watching her, reminding herself that she was simply a wealthy widow, staying overnight before taking the train west to visit family. Surely people would be too busy with their own concerns to pay her any mind. Largely this proved true, until she stepped up onto the raised sidewalk.

  He was sitting on a long narrow bench outside the barber’s, legs stretched out in front of him, practically blocking traffic. Light-colored eyes flicked at her from beneath the rim of his hat. She wished suddenly she’d left the veil down and wondered if that was why he stared, or, perhaps he was simply rude and uncouth.

  She stared back, letting her own gaze sweep over him, noting the mud-caked boots, faded jeans, and stained vest. His face was hard and unshaven and his hair too long beneath his hat. Probably a ruffian or a cowhand on one of the ranches, she decided, or maybe a gambler come to town to try his luck. Certainly not a gentleman, she thought as she stepped around him. But even as she marched toward the hotel she felt his eyes following her, boring a hole in her back.

  Chapter Three

  Leavenworth, August 20, 1881

  Jack took a deep breath. Impossible, it couldn’t be her. His mind rebelled against what his eyes told him. She had to have aged. Christ, it had been nearly five years! People didn’t turn up after five years of running from the law looking younger than when they started. Not here.

  Think, Jack, he told himself. Think back and make sure it’s her. And so he did, wincing a little at some of the images, but replaying them all in slow motion from the moment he’d left Louis Cade’s lab to the moment he’d arrived in Leavenworth, five years ago.

  He hadn’t been in town more than an hour when he saw her, dressed in royal blue satin. He remembered how bright the gown had seemed. No one else wore anything like it. The other women he saw were dressed in calico prints and plain cottons, muslin shawls and wide hats to keep the sun from their fair skin, practical low-heeled boots. But there she was, dressed to the hilt in a blue satin gown with crochet gloves and high heels that tapped the wooden sidewalk with the rhythm of her stride. She’d looked at him then, too, and in much the same way; letting her gaze travel over him briefly before dismissing him with her eyes.

  Cold eyes, he’d thought, and that hadn’t changed either. Her eyes were still the chilled blue of a winter sky, fringed by thick, black lashes. Her hair was dark, pinned beneath a lacy hat, and her face aristocratic, prim even, except for her lips. They were full and sensuous, lips that asked for kissing. He had guessed her to be in her early twenties and he was sure she had money. Not only did her dress indicate wealth but her entire manner was that of someone accustomed to the better things in life.

  He stayed the night at the hotel, drank more than he should have, and rose in time to catch the train west. He had an idea where he was going though not what he would do when he got there. But for the first time in years he was interested.

  He’d hardly settled into his seat before he saw her again, stepping into the railway car, his car, and wearing the same blue satin gown. She glanced from side to side, examining everything as she moved down the aisle. She sat only a few seats away, joining a man who looked like Jack felt. She bent her head down and the two of them began to whisper in a way that was more than friendly.

  From that moment on everything happened as if it had been perfectly choreographed; the train rushing along the tracks and him watching her while he listened to the raucous sound of the wheels clicking over the rails, the occasional toot of the whistle, and the chaotic sound of conversation all about him.

  There were other women, young and old, talking to one another quietly, children’s chatter, a baby’s whimper, laughter, a sneeze, a cough. There was a train butch selling handbooks and maps and magazines. In the next car Jack heard the conductor calling for tickets. The smell was unpleasant, especially with the heat, and Jack was hard pressed to pretend he didn’t notice. He purposely averted his eyes when the man in front of him spat a great wad of chewed tobacco toward a spittoon, a wad which had no chance whatsoever of hitting the intended target.

  Later, when the woman in blue rose from her seat, Jack watched her from beneath the brim of his hat. A minute or so after she passed him her companion rose and followed, and Jack knew something was up. Something was about to happen.

  When the shots rang out, his instincts took over. He went for his gun as he moved through the cars, pulling it free of the holster. There were frightened gasps and cries from the passengers who cowered at his passing; but he ignored them, moving forward quickly until he reached the express car, pulling the door open.

  It took only a second for him to realize how stupid he was.

  There were six of them, including the woman who had discarded the gown in favor of men’s clothing. The men about her were moving boxes aside, away from a huge safe. A dead man lay in the middle of the car and she was standing over him, the gun still smoking at her side. He backed away but not before she caught his movement. Her eyes held his for a split second, until she raised the gun, aimed, and fired. The bullet caught him in the shoulder, slamming him into the open passageway between the two cars.

  He’d been shot before, but damn, he’d forgotten the pain. It was like a live flare burning right through to the bone, making him dizzy and sick at the same time. He inched back, hearing himself groan as he did, reaching for the safety of the car he’d come from. He pulled the door closed as a second bullet ricocheted off the metal frame. With his good hand he ripped the bandana from his neck and wrapped it around his shoulder, pulling it tight with his teeth. Then he laid himself flat on the floor, pushed the door open, and started firing.

  He remembered shots being fired in return and the sound of footsteps and shouting coming up on him from behind. But then his grip slowly loosened and it all faded away in a dark haze.

  When he awoke it was to a dull throbbing pain and the dim outline of bars. There was a tiny open window through which he could see the night sky and feel the cold night breeze. Some ten feet away was a table with a lamp on it and the shadow of a man.

  Jack propped himself up and called out. His voice was a dry whisper, and the throbbing intensified. The shadow moved, bringing the lamp closer, and Jack saw a tall, heavyset man with a beard and mustache. Dark eyes peered at him through the bars of the cell and then the face smiled.

  “Good to see you awake,” the man said in a deep, gravelly voice, “How you feelin’?”

  “Not so great,” Jack answered.

  “Somethin’ to drink, right?”

  “That would be nice,” Jack managed.

  “I’ll be back in two shakes,” the man said, “Then maybe you an’ me can have a talk.”

  “Sure,” Jack agreed, immediately rehearsing the identity he had chosen for himself.

  By the time the man returned Jack had his story ready, but the man didn’t ask about Jack’s past. Instead he introduced himself as Harlan Harris, Federal Marshall, and unlocked the door to the cell. He handed Jack the bottle and pulled in a chair from the table, sitting himself down and tipping the chair back until it touched the bars.

  “That’s whiskey,” Harlan Harris said, pointing to the bottle. “I mean the real stuff, not that cheap shit they hand out to the customers. It’ll keep that pain to a level you can tolerate an’ quench your thirst at the same time. ’Course, it’ll give you a wicked hangover, too, but I guess there’s a price fer everything.”

  Jack took a swallow, not caring much about a hangover, wanting only to push the burning pain down to a manageable point.

  Harlan Harris watched Jack with his dark eyes, idly rolling a cigarette between his big, meaty fingers. He flicked a match against the wall and gave a deep sigh after inhaling.

  “Yep, nothin’ like a good smoke,” he said. “You want one?”

  “No, thanks,” Jack said.
>
  “All right then, maybe later,” Harlan said with an easy smile.

  “Am I under arrest?” Jack asked.

  “Hell, no!” Harlan said. “We were just keeping you here till we found out who you were.”

  “And?”

  “You ain’t wanted as far as we can tell. The telegraph came back sayin’ there weren’t no one fittin’ your description that was wanted anywhere. We woulda moved you to better quarters but the doc said it was best to leave you be for as long as we could.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “About three days.”

  Jack took another long swallow and felt the pain begin to ratchet down. He scrutinized Harlan, knowing there was more.

  “And?” he asked.

  “Well, some of us was wondering where you learned to shoot like that. You got three of them, you know.”

  Jack gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Oh. I was in the war . . .”

  Harlan squinted at him. “The war? What war? You ain’t old enough.”

  Jack felt a moment of panic then, realizing he’d messed up. Forgotten where he was. When he was.

  “Sorry,” he said, recovering. “Not here; it was down in South America. A little war you never heard of.” Which was entirely true. He had been in the war—just not any war Harlan was familiar with.

  God only knew why he went, even now he couldn’t have explained, couldn’t fathom how he could have thought that going off to war was a good idea. He’d never even seen a dead body before and certainly never thought of killing anyone—except maybe his father. But of course, it was too late by then; he’d already signed on the dotted line. Eighteen months in exchange for four years college tuition. It had seemed like such a bargain when he’d put pen to paper.

  Ten months later he was back in the States with a jagged scar and a pretty medal and a lot of pictures he wished he could delete from his head.

  Why his senior thesis paper, How the West was Won, was included in one of the college chapbooks was another mystery; but while that looked good on his resume it didn’t get him a job, and somehow he ended up drifting. From east to west, north to south, and too many places in between. And always that feeling, that vague sense of dissatisfaction he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He ended up in San Francisco with a girl he met, but they parted in Mexico a year later—no surprise. It was there he saw the ad for Paradise Tours.

  Jack blinked, looking at Harlan who was studying him just as hard. “What about the rest of them?” he asked.

  “The woman and the other two got away. They pushed the safe out and jumped. There was someone meetin’ them; we found horse shit and prints around the empty safe.”

  “How much did they get?”

  Harlan gave a shrug. “According to the Pinkerton man they got $38,000 in cash and bonds. ’Course, they didn’t get it all, at least not as much as they planned on, thanks to you. There was another safe, but they left that one behind. Anyhow, we were kinda wonderin’ how you happened to be on that train and how you got there before anyone else.”

  “I heard the shots,” Jack said, “and I guess I was closer. That’s all. As far as being on the train, that was just luck. Bad luck, I guess.”

  “You sure you ain’t wanted somewhere?”

  “Sure as I’m sitting here in this cell,” Jack said with a pained grin. “Keep searching if you want, but you won’t find anything.”

  Harlan nodded, flicking his cigarette away. “What’s your name?”

  “Jack, Jack McCabe.”

  “Well, Jack, you want stay where you are or move on over to the hotel?”

  “I guess I’ll stay here,” Jack said. “I don’t feel much like moving.”

  “I bet you don’t,” Harlan said, letting the chair down and rising. “I’ll leave this door open so you don’t get mistook for a criminal. An’ if you need anything you holler. I’ll be sittin’ at that table till mornin’ comes. Then maybe you’ll feel like movin.’ The others’ll want to talk to you.”

  “What others?”

  “The Pinkerton men. They wired from St. Louis, should be here tomorrow. Seein’ as how you got the best look of anyone they figure you might be able to help. You willin’ to help, Jack?”

  “I’ll help,” Jack said, remembering the woman.

  And so he had, spending most of the following day with Harlan Harris and the Pinkerton men, repeating his story over and over and giving a description of the woman and her companions as best as he could remember.

  The likeness that was drawn of her was a good one, all things considered. Word came from back east that she traveled with a fair-haired fellow and they may have killed a man in New York City. The Pinkertons claimed they were responsible for a number of other robberies, including the Adam’s Express in 1875 in which over $700,000 in cash, bonds, and jewels had been stolen.

  Jack couldn’t give as much of a description of the others. As it turned out it didn’t matter. A few days after the train robbery they found one of the other men, near where the safe had been left, shot in the back. The woman and her fair-haired companion managed to slip away, and Jack vowed then he would hunt them both down.

  That was how he, Jack McCabe, became a bounty hunter. It was all due to a chance encounter with a beautiful woman. Now, five years later, he might finally have her. He had been from east to west a number of times since then and had learned a few things about the woman he was hunting. Her name was Alanna McLeod, or at least, that was what she called herself, and she traveled with a man called Will Cushing.

  The two of them were quite a team. They had robbed the train that Jack happened to be on and in the five years since made a name for themselves with a string of eight more train robberies, netting them a total of $321,000 in cash, bonds, and jewelry. That in addition to their haul from the Adams Express had made them the most wanted criminals since Jesse James and his gang. Jack thought he had gotten close once or twice but they seemed to have an uncanny knack for disappearing.

  In the meantime, Jack had managed to bring in a number of other people who were wanted, most of them alive. The federal marshals knew him now, sometimes asked for him. The thing was, it wasn’t what he’d planned on doing. But he couldn’t seem to forget her face and the calm way she’d raised her gun and taken aim. She’d tried to kill him, and he figured he owed her one.

  He drew out the old wanted poster from his shirt pocket, smoothing the creases away. It has to be her, he decided. No one else could possibly look like that. But as he started for the hotel he wondered why she had come back here of all places. And where was Will Cushing?

  Jack stepped inside the dimly lit lobby, surprised to find the place a little drabber than when he’d last been there. Then again, the décor had been Vera’s area of expertise, and Vera had run off with a gambler in ’78. Or so he heard.

  Shorty soon appeared from the closed door that led to his apartments, peering at Jack for a minute with a frown before breaking into a yellow-toothed grin. “Well, well, well,” Shorty said, “Ain’t seen you in a dog’s age. Not since . . . well, not since you was here after gettin’ shot. You caught that woman yet?”

  “Nope, but I’m still aiming to do so,” Jack said. He pulled out the wanted poster and spread it out over the desk, “Remember this?” he asked.

  “Sure I do, we had ’em all over this town, why . . . hey! Hey now!” Shorty plunked a finger down on the face, “I think I seen her!”

  “Shh,” Jack said. “Don’t get all excited. I think so too, but let’s keep it quiet, all right? Tell me about the woman you saw.”

  “She looked jus’ like that,” Shorty said. “Real pretty, an’ all dressed in widows’ black.”

  “What room is she in, Shorty? You got an empty one nearby?”

  “She’s in the one on the end, corner room. I
can give you the one across the hall. It’s empty.”

  “I’ll take it,” Jack said.

  “You’re not gonna make a ruckus are you?” Shorty asked, getting a worried expression, “I don’t want no shootin,’ you know. This is a respectable place.”

  “I know that, Shorty,” Jack said, “And you have my word I’ll be quiet. You won’t even hear us go. But if she comes down tonight for supper you have to be nice and not let on you know who she is. Can you do that?”

  “Sure I can,” Shorty said.

  “Good,” Jack said, having his doubts. Christ, the man was sweating already. “Now, can I have a key?”

  Shorty gave him one and Jack went up the wide staircase, following the hall to the end. He opened his door and went to sit by the window. He imagined barging into her room now, wanting to get it over with. But he knew it would be better to wait. Later, after it was quiet and dark he could take her by surprise. If he went in there now she might be the one doing the surprising. And he didn’t particularly want to end up dead.

  Food, he thought, that was what he needed. A good hot meal and a couple of drinks. It had been a while since he’d had either of those two things. He supposed if he missed anything from before it was the food. Especially vegetables. No one knew how to cook vegetables. They generally boiled them until they turned to mush and served them up covered with gravy or some kind of sauce to hide the bland taste. And you had to be careful what you ate and where. He’d gotten food poisoning once and that was enough. But he was pretty sure Shorty was careful about what he served. After all, this was a respectable place.

  Jack smirked as he pulled his door closed, locking it. He turned and stuffed the key in his pocket and there in the hallway, standing not five feet away, was the object of his revenge. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  Such blue eyes, he thought. Did she remember him? Jack wondered. He hoped not. That could make things ugly.