The criminal turned and smiled. "Nice of you to return my horse. I missed her."
"Well, I didn"t," Mae said, the memory of bats and snakes still too tender. "And I"ve not missed you, either." She stuck the Colt in his gut, then shoved him to the ground and s.n.a.t.c.hed up his pistol. Ed kicked like a mule, but she"d learned her mule taming from the best. Sidestepping his boots, the fair creature reached for her lariat and made short work of hog-tying the fellow at the ankles. Rather than waste a bullet, Mae used the business end of the Colt to knock Ed out cold.
This time when she climbed onto Lucky, she made sure she didn"t look back. Ed wasn"t about to give chase now, with her rope around his boots and a headache that wouldn"t soon leave him.
Thus, with the villain dispatched, the race home began.
If only she weren"t riding Lucky.
Jeb Sanders sat across the desk from Daniel, a tired expression on his unshaven face. "Mr. Beck, I know those boys are kin, but I didn"t have nothing to do with the jailbreak or the accidents at the mine."
When Daniel said nothing, Jeb rolled up his sleeve and offered his arm as evidence. "See that there?" He pointed to a bandage, frayed and browned at the edges. "That"s from trying to stop your mule team before they went over the cliff with the wagon."
Daniel nodded.
"And that there?" He gestured to his trouser leg, where a spot near the knee wore a sizable patch. "That"s what I got for the trouble. I"m just now walking right, and it"s been near to a week."
Only three days had pa.s.sed, but Daniel didn"t figure the fact was worth mentioning. He leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. "What exactly can I do for you, then?"
Jeb seemed to think on the question, though Daniel suspected the man had planned his speech ever since he jumped on that wagon just before it went over the cliff. "I"m not fit for mining right now, sir," he said, "but I do need the work. Don"t tell n.o.body this, but I"m not keeping much of what I earn. That goes back home to keep Mama and the little ones fed."
"I see."
The revelation was not particularly surprising in its content, as most miners posted their earnings back east or west or down south to family. Whether it was true in Jeb Sanders"s case would remain to be seen. Finding the truth of it was a simple matter Hiram could handle in an afternoon.
"So"s a job of some sort where I can earn an honest living until I"m not so stove-up would go far to getting me back on my feet." Jeb chuckled. "Didn"t intend that, but that"s right funny, ain"t it? Asking for a change of job "cause I can"t walk good until I"m back on my feet."
Daniel tried to logic it out and failed. "Indeed."
Jeb sobered. "Look, I"m nervous, and when I"m nervous, I make jokes." He leaned forward. "Here"s the honest truth, Mr. Beck. I know I got a long way to go to make up for the reputation I lost just by being related to those knuckleheads."
"As long as we"re being honest," Daniel said, "I"ll admit you"re right. Other than the usual Sat.u.r.day-night scuffles, your record"s been clean since you came to Leadville. I know, because I talked to the marshal this morning." He paused to let the statement sink in. "That doesn"t mean I trust you, Sanders. It means I want to. Do you understand?"
The miner looked Daniel straight in the eye. "I do, sir."
Daniel rose and Jeb followed suit, albeit a bit slower. "Sanders, I appreciate your coming here today." He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the miner.
"What"s this?" Jeb weighed it in his hand. "Unless I miss my guess, that"s money in there."
Daniel watched the man carefully as he spoke. "It is."
Sanders let the packet drop to the desk, then shoved his hat back onto his head. "Sir," he said slowly, "I don"t mean no disrespect, but I don"t want charity, nor did I ask for it."
"Excuse me, sir." Hiram stuck his head inside the office and gestured to Daniel. "There"s an emergency at the hotel. You"re needed right away."
"Emergency?" He yanked on his hat and pushed past Hiram. "What"s happened? Is it Charlotte?"
By the time he reached the street, Hiram had told him s.n.a.t.c.hes of the problem. Charlotte had been caught playing some sort of prank on a rough character, and he"d gone into the Mountain Palace after her. In the process of chasing the child around the lobby, several items had been damaged or broken. To make matters worse, her governess had actually aimed her pistol into the crowd. All three of them waited in the lobby for someone from the marshal"s office to come and sort things out.
Daniel stormed through the doors of the Mountain Palace, and the crowd a.s.sembled in the lobby parted. Charlotte raced toward him and fell into his arms, babbling something about a mean man and a rope. Mrs. Stegman bounded toward him next, promising to evict the lot of them if the situation was not remedied. A few others, including a rough-looking character who appeared to have come straight from either the mine or the saloon, expressed opinions on what should take place.
"Quiet!" Daniel finally shouted. When the noise ceased, Daniel handed Charlotte over to Hiram and made his way to Miss Cooper, who sat on a brocade sofa with the pistol on her lap. "All right," he said, "what happened?"
Before the governess could open her mouth, several people around her began talking at once. Meanwhile, she stared up at him with eyes dampened by tears.
"Enough! Let the lady speak," Daniel said, and once again quiet reigned. "Miss Cooper?"
She gave a shuddering sigh, then handed Daniel the pistol. "Here, take this before I shoot that awful man."
"Now see here," the rough character said. "You"ll not shoot me, gal, else the law"ll take you in. "Sides, I done nothing to be shot over."
Slowly the governess rose. "You, sir, are an awful man who chases innocent children and frightens them half to death." She took a step past Daniel toward the man. "And furthermore, you had no right to-"
"What"s going on here?" Daniel turned to see the marshal making his way toward them. "You got this figured out yet, Beck? I heard tell your girlfriend"s been threatening to shoot people."
"I am not his girlfriend," Miss Cooper said, "and if anyone needed shooting, it would be that awful man there."
The miner took a step forward. "Maybe you"re the one who needs to be-"
"See here." Daniel shouldered his way between Miss Cooper and the man, blocking her path and, hopefully, a shooting. "Look, man," he said, "I"d not make her any more upset if I were you."
The marshal put his hand on the miner"s chest. "Settle yourself down, Batson." When the fellow had calmed a bit, the marshal nodded. "Perhaps you"d like to tell me what"s got her so angry."
Batson looked sheepish, though the veins in his thick neck still bulged. "Well, it all started with a pie."
"A pie?" The marshal looked more perturbed than amused. "You mean to tell me I got pulled away from a perfectly good nap because of a pie?" He looked beyond Daniel to Miss Cooper. "This better be good."
"I don"t know about good," Miss Cooper said, "but I can tell you the truth." She pointed at Batson. "That man there was the victim of a practical joke by Miss Charlotte Beck and two local children. I saw it myself."
"What did you see, miss?" the marshal asked.
Miss Cooper related the story of watching Charlotte and two new friends hiding behind the wagon, then running in three directions. "I didn"t know what was tied to the string. All I saw was Charlotte running back toward the hotel and that man chasing her, making all sorts of awful threats."
The governess came around Daniel to stand at his side. A second later, Charlotte broke free from Hiram to run toward them. To Daniel"s surprise, she aimed herself at Miss Cooper.
"She saved me," Charlotte said. "That man was going to kill me!"
Daniel glared at the miner, his fists itching to connect with Batson"s smug face. If the marshal hadn"t restrained him, he might have done just that.
"Don"t make me add you to the list of folks going to jail, Daniel," he said.
"I don"t want to go to jail," Charlotte wailed as she held on to Miss Cooper, "and I don"t want her to go, either. She didn"t steal the pie. I did."
The marshal exchanged glances with Daniel before releasing him to focus on Charlotte. "Miss Beck, maybe we ought to hear the rest of this story." He leaned toward Daniel. "We could handle this in a more private place if you"d like."
When Daniel nodded, the marshal called to Mrs. Stegman, who led them to a dining room off the lobby.
"All right now," the marshal said to those left grumbling in the lobby. "You can all go home now. If anyone"s got any statement to make, stop on over to my office and leave it with one of my deputies." He gestured for Daniel to follow him. "I"ll need her gun."
Daniel handed over the pistol, then watched as the marshal checked to see if it had been fired. When he was done, he dropped the pistol into Daniel"s palm, then gave him a sideways look. "This weapon has no ammunition in it."
Daniel nodded. "I didn"t think she"d have need of it. At least not the first hour we were in town."
The marshal shook his head, then shrugged. "Lesson learned, and yet I"m awful glad that pretty girl didn"t have anything she could cause damage with." He gave Miss Cooper an appreciative glance. "Well, at least nothing in the way of ammunition."
When Daniel didn"t respond, the marshal elbowed him. "Pretty and full of s.p.u.n.k too. You"re a lucky man, Beck."
"No," he quickly said, "she"s just the governess."
The marshal"s eyes narrowed. "A woman of that caliber is never just the governess, son. If you haven"t figured it out yet, you will."
Before Daniel could offer an opposing viewpoint, the marshal walked over to Charlotte, Miss Cooper, and Batson, and pointed to the dining room. "Let"s get this over with so I can go back to my nap."
When the last one had filed in, the marshal closed the doors and gestured toward Charlotte. "All right, now. Let"s hear about this pie thievery you"ve been up to, Miss Beck."
Charlotte"s lower lip trembled as she climbed into Daniel"s arms. "I wasn"t trying to be bad, Papa," she said. "It just happened."
"What just happened?" the marshal asked.
"It was supposed to be a trick."
"What kind of trick, b.u.t.tercup?" Daniel pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away his daughter"s tears. "Tell the marshal the truth, now."
His daughter nodded slowly. "See, my papa was having a meeting, so I had to behave myself because I didn"t want to go upstairs. I saw these children who looked like they were having fun with a rope and some other stuff, so I went over and talked to them. At first they called me names because of how I was wearing this dress and all." She gave Miss Cooper a pointed look. "I told them it was my new dress that my governess made me wear, and then they laughed at me some more."
She paused to swipe at her eyes.
"And then what happened?" the marshal asked gently.
"Well, they told me if I wanted to play with them I had to take a dare, so I told them I would take any old dare they wanted because I"m not afraid of nothing."
"Of anything," Miss Cooper corrected.
"Of anything," Charlotte said. "So then I did it."
"Did what?" Daniel asked. "You must tell the officer what you"ve done."
"She tricked me, that"s what she did," Batson said.
"You"ll have your turn." The marshal pointed at Charlotte. "Exactly what was your dare?"
Charlotte seemed reluctant to speak again. "There was this pie on the windowsill in the house behind the hotel. Those children told me if I took it for them and got away with it, they"d be my friends. It was easy, "cause I"ve done it-" She stopped short and put her hands over her mouth.
"Before?" the marshal supplied.
Charlotte nodded slowly.
Daniel stood transfixed. "You"ve stolen pies before? You mean to tell me you"ve committed-"
"Better we stick to the topic at hand," the marshal urged. "I"m sure you and your daughter can discuss her other criminal infractions out of earshot of a lawman."
"Indeed we will," Daniel said, biting back the rest of the things he would say in the privacy of their rooms.
"So you stole the pie," the marshal offered. "Then what happened?"
"They still wouldn"t be my friends." She bit her lower lip and appeared ready to cry again. "They wanted me to do one more dare, then they promised they would be my friends."
"And what was that dare?" he asked.
Charlotte gave Daniel a sheepish look, then regarded the marshal with tear-filled eyes. "I had to tie a rope around the pie and set it where someone would find it. When they stopped to pick up the pie, I had to yank it back under the wagon. I didn"t think the mean man would fall and land on his face. And I didn"t mean to laugh at him, because even though it was funny, it wasn"t really funny at all. That"s what Miss Cooper said, and she was right. And then when she told the man he shouldn"t have been so mad, he told Miss Cooper she had soup for brains."
Daniel could tell the lawman was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Is that right?" the marshal said.
Daniel, however, was still stunned over his daughter"s admission. If he"d missed Charlotte"s tendency toward theft, what else had he missed?
"Is that all, Miss Beck? Or is there more to the story?"
Charlotte shook her head. "No, that"s all, except he chased me back to the hotel, yelling and saying bad words my papa would whip me for and telling me I wasn"t going to get away with anything just because I was Daniel Beck"s brat."
Again her tears spilled over, and Daniel caught them with his shirt sleeve since the handkerchief had long since seen its limit. "Shh," he whispered as he cradled his daughter, "Papa won"t let the man hurt you."
"And neither will the city of Leadville. We have laws against hurting innocent children." The marshal looked at Charlotte again. "Did he say anything else?"
She nodded as she stepped away from Daniel to entwine her hand with Miss Cooper"s.
The governess patted Charlotte"s shoulder. "I heard him say there were miners in this town waiting for a way to get back at Charlotte"s father. He told her they"d be glad to see that Charlotte suffered just as they had."
Outrage filled Daniel, and then dread. He looked at Hiram, who was already making notes.
"I never said any such thing," the miner sputtered.
"You did," Miss Cooper said. "I heard it."
"And that"s when she pulled out her gun and saved me." Charlotte looked up at her governess. "Isn"t that right, Miss Cooper?"
"Yes." The governess patted the girl"s back and soothed away a tear.
The marshal seemed to consider the statement a minute before turning to the miner. "Batson, you"re lucky that woman didn"t have any bullets in her gun."
"She didn"t?" The miner seemed surprised and then, by degrees, embarra.s.sed. "Well, it doesn"t matter whether she had bullets or not. She ought not to be waving that weapon around and frightening people like that."
"Me frightening people?" Miss Cooper let go of Charlotte"s hand and moved toward the miner.