The sheriff chuckled. “Yeah, a real beauty, and then she had one that looked just like him. Must’ve been a real disappointment to them.”
Cole wasn’t sure whether he should defend the brat or not. Part of him thought he should, but then he thought of “aging gunslinger” and he didn’t defend her. Next time some whippersnapper challenged him to a duel, he ought to sic Miss Latham on him. Her words could make him bleed more than Cole’s bullets.
It was when he was whittling the fourth stick away to nothing that the commotion started. Right under the sleepy nose of the sheriff and the unwatchful eye of Cole, four men had ridden up to the bank, pulled bandannas up over their faces, and proceeded to rob the bank. The first the sheriff knew of it was a gunshot, then a man staggering out, holding a bloody hand over his stomach.
Cole had never thought that a bank robbery was any of his business. First of all, he might find himself shooting at people he considered his friends, men he had shared campfires with, so he left do-gooding to men stupid enough to pin a badge on. Yesterday he would have sat where he was on the porch and watched while the sheriff jumped up and started running, his young deputy coming from inside the sheriff’s office to run behind him.
But today something was different. Today the words She’s in there echoed in his head. That didn’t make sense, of course, because he had no interest in her. If it had been Nina or someone else he knew, that might have made sense; this did not.
He didn’t take time to think. In spite of his imaginary paunch and his advancing age and his failing eyesight, he bolted over the hitching rail and took off running, a full twenty-five feet in front of the sheriff. He was like a snake, one minute lazy and still in the sun, and the next moment moving so quickly it was difficult to see him.
The robbers hadn’t counted on a man with the reputation of Cole Hunter trying to prevent them from robbing the Abilene bank. They thought they’d have to deal with one fat sheriff and one green deputy and a lot of disinterested citizens. After all, it was a small bank, not of much interest to more than a dozen people. The thieves thought this heist would be easy, that they’d be in and out in a matter of minutes. But things had gone wrong from the first. One of the farmers had decided to play hero, and the youngest and most nervous of the robbers had been frightened into shooting him.
“Let’s get out of here,” one of the gang shouted, grabbing the saddlebags full of money and heading for the door. It was the last thing he ever did. Cole Hunter smashed the door open with his foot, then stood back to get away from the barrage of gunfire. When it had calmed down he went in, two guns blazing, and when the smoke had cleared, there were three dead men on the floor.
The fourth robber grabbed the nearest available person to use as a shield, and this happened to be Miss Latham.
“Put the guns down or she gets it in the head,” the man said from behind his mask, holding his gun to the woman’s head.
Cole was glad to see that she didn’t look terrified. He didn’t want to say anything to her to let the man know that he knew her; he didn’t want to give him any advantages. When the sheriff and his deputy arrived, he motioned them to stay outside. “They’re down,” Cole said quietly, stooping to drop his guns, all the while keeping his eyes on the man as he began to make his way toward the door. There was another gun, a one-shot derringer in his belt. He could get to it and shoot, but he had to move Miss Latham out of the way. He wished he could think of a way to tell Miss Latham to pull away from the gunman.
“What are you doin’ in this, Hunter?” the robber said. “You’re usually on our side.”
Yesterday Cole would have been pleased by that remark, would even have agreed with it, but today something was different. Maybe it was Miss Latham’s eyes looking at him with absolute trust. She’d said he was a hero.
“Just happened by,” he said, “and I needed a little excitement. A man’s gotta roll with the punches, keep himself from getting bored.”
The robber had smiling eyes over the mask. “I understand that,” he said, still easing toward the door, pushing Miss Latham ahead of him.
Just when Cole was sure that his hint about “rolling” had not gotten through to Miss Latham, she bit the robber’s arm, and when, in surprise, he released his hold on her, she dropped to the floor and rolled away. Cole drew his derringer and fired—but not before the robber did the same. His bullet hit Cole in the right forearm a split second after Cole’s gun went off.
Chapter Two
Cole leaned back against the bed, his eyes shut against the glare of the darkened room. It was difficult to believe, but his mood was worse than the pain in his head and belly, not to mention the throbbing in his right forearm. Yesterday he’d drunk a prodigious amount of whiskey because the doctor had spent what seemed like hours taking out that bastard’s bullet. And when the doc was done, he’d informed Cole that the bullet had hit the bone, cracking it so severely that his arm would be out of commission for months, first in a cast and then more time as he regained the use of his shooting arm.
It had taken all of Cole’s self-control not to rage in front of the doctor and the sheriff. Considering how drunk he was when he heard the news, he should have been given a medal for his restraint. All he’d been able to think of was the fact that he wouldn’t be able to take on his next two jobs. One was e
asy: a rich man wanted to own more land so he’d hired Cole to persuade some little farmer that he and his family would be better off selling their few acres to the rich man. It was the kind of thing that Cole was good at, because all he had to do was talk and paint a splendid picture of land elsewhere. Usually, all it took was mentioning that there was the possibility of gold somewhere else and the overworked farmer was more than ready to leave his plow behind.
The second job was more difficult. A rancher was running some cattle through the territory of an enemy and he was hiring several men with guns to protect the cows and his wranglers.
So how could Cole do either job with his shooting arm in a cast? He couldn’t go to the first rancher and tell him the truth: he could do the job without a gun. If that news spread, pretty soon the men would hire the local preacher to do the talking. If he wanted to keep getting clients, he had to make them believe that each job was dangerous and needed a man with a fast gun.
But now he would be laid up for months. And why? Because some snippet of a woman had said some things that had hurt his feelings, that was why. He felt about as old as a first grader, getting his first bad score on an arithmetic test. And that’s what the skinny little Miss Latham reminded him of: his first teacher, an unhappy old buzzard who used to tell him and the other students that they were nothing and would never amount to anything. Miss Latham had made him feel that he had to prove himself to her and maybe to himself as well. She’d made him want to show her that he wasn’t a criminal.
Right now questions were echoing in his head about whether he’d been shot because his eyesight was failing or because his reaction time was too slow—both problems due to his great age.
Shifting his position in the bed, trying to make his body comfortable even if his mind wasn’t, he opened his eyes a crack, then almost gave a yelp of surprise. Standing silently by the bed in the darkened room, looking like a ghost, was Miss Latham.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded and his voice conveyed his conviction that everything was her fault, that he wouldn’t be where he was now if it hadn’t been for her.
“I came to offer my apologies,” she said, her voice calm, not giving him any idea of what she was thinking. He was used to women who wept and threw themselves on him in anguish, saying things like “Help me. Help me.” But this little fish was as cold as ice.
“And to offer my thanks,” she said. “If you hadn’t interfered I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
He was almost mollified by her statement and was about to mumble something nice when she said, “Of course if you hadn’t barged into the bank, guns blazing, the robber would never have grabbed me. But I guess it’s the thought that counts.”
Cole put his head back against the pillow and rolled his eyes skyward. “It looks as though I’m going to spend some time in hell before I get there.” He looked back at her. “Miss Latham, if you want to help me, why don’t you show me your train ticket out of this town? I hope you are going somewhere very far away from me and I hope you go soon, because I still have a good arm and two legs left, and I’m afraid that you might make something bad happen to them.”