Chapter Four--To Be a Lawman

Back to mid-October….and earlier…
          Allie Summer had been in difficult situations before and she was in another one now. But she did not—never had—regretted becoming a territorial Ranger.
          The desire began very early in her life. When she was five years old, her parents gave her a kitty. Allie loved the kitty, but one day it jumped out of her arms and ran off. Allie chased her pet, crying because she couldn’t catch it. She was so afraid she’d never see her kitty again. The little animal ran up a tree and perched on a branch about six feet above the ground. Allie stood below at the foot of the tree, still crying, begging her kitty to come down. It wouldn’t. But after a few minutes, a tall man in a cowboy hat came by. He saw what was happening and gently reached up and took the kitty from the tree branch and gave it to Allie. The little girl was so happy. The tall man smiled at her and patted her head. The only thing Allie remembered about him was that he had a star on his chest. She didn’t know what that meant, so she asked her mother when she got home.
          “He’s a lawman, dear. Maybe a sheriff or marshal or a Ranger. They do nice things for people and catch outlaws.”
          From that moment on, Allie wanted to be a lawman—or lawwoman, though there was no such thing as “political correctness.” Maybe that was because there was no such thing as a female Ranger. Allie was determined to become the first one. Her dreams were further inspired by the dime novels, many of which were written about lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Wild Bill Hickok. As she grew older (in her teens) she realized that the novels were embellished to a great degree, but that didn’t discourage her at all. Her father was whimsically agreeable, thinking that his daughter would grow out of it. But she never did.
         He put a pistol in her hand when she was 10—and she fell in love with that, too. She practiced every chance she got, and became very accurate—and very fast. Her decision was made, for good, when she was 17 years old. Her father and mother were killed by a riotous mob in the town where they lived. Allie escaped only because she could hide under a rock and/or move in the forest as stealthily as an Indian. And considering she was half-Indian, that wasn’t too terribly surprising.
          Nobody liked “breeds,” and she was one, but the mob that killed her parents—and would have killed her, if they had caught her—was especially after the father. Allie’s father, Winter Wolf, was a full-blooded Cheyenne; her mother, Sandra, was a blonde-headed Norwegian who had come west with her parents many years earlier. Cheyenne had killed Sandra’s parents, but captured the girl when she was seven. She was raised in the Cheyenne camp and eventually married Winter Wolf. When the Cheyenne were (largely) subdued by the army and given a reservation, Winter Wolf and Sandra were allowed to live off the Indian land because of her. They had the one child, Allie. Winter Wolf wanted to name her Summer Rain, but Sandra called her Allie, after her grandmother. Eventually, the girl simply called herself Allie Summer.
          The mob that killed Winter Wolf and Sandra were the typical prejudicial group who didn’t like Indians and especially didn’t like Indians who married white women. They might not have killed Sandra, but she defended her husband and died in the process. Allie ran for the hills and escaped. She knew what she was going to do. She made her way to the territorial capital and found the Rangers’ office.
          “I’d like to see the head Ranger,” she said to the man at the desk.
          The fellow behind the desk looked Allie up and down, and apparently liked what he saw. And there was a lot to like. She had jet black hair, like her father, but ice blue eyes, like her mother. Her skin was medium, about halfway between Indian and Scandinavian. She wore an Indian headband around her forehead. She was, in a word, a beautiful woman, even at 17 years of age. The attendant Ranger said to her, “Well, the ‘head Ranger’ is Captain McConnell. May I ask what you’d like to see him for? He is a busy man.”
          “I want to become a Ranger,” Allie said simply.
          The man was a sergeant named Pine, and he threw his head back and laughed. “You can’t be a Ranger, you’re a wo—“
          Allie had a gun, an old .36 caliber Remington Navy, stuffed into the back of her pants, and in a jiffy, she yanked it out and stuck it in the sergeant’s face. “I said I want to see the head Ranger, whatever he’s called. Are you going to tell him I’m here or am I going to have to go introduce myself with your head lying on the floor behind you?”
          Sergeant Pine had never seen anyone, male or female, move as fast as Allie had. He stared at the gun in his face, then up at the girl. Looking at her thoughtfully, he slowly nodded his head. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” And he got up and went down the hall.
          He was back about 3 minutes later. “The Captain will see you now.”
          Allie walked down the hall without saying another word to the sergeant.
          The Captain’s door was open, but Allie respectfully knocked anyway. McConnell was sitting at his desk doing some paperwork. He didn’t look up for about 15 seconds, then he did. He stared at Allie for a few seconds, and said, “So you’re the little lady with the quick gun. Come on in.”
          Allie walked in and sat in front of McConnell’s desk and examined him.
          The Captain appeared tall, had a grey mustache, and grey hair. He looked strong, however, and his facial features were still handsome and masculine. Somehow, he seemed familiar to Allie, but she couldn’t place him.
          “So you want to be a Ranger,” he said, with a smile, but not a condescending one.
          That smile…and she recognized him. “Yes, I do.” Before he could go on, she said, “Captain McConnell, do you remember, about 12 or 13 years ago, pulling a kitty out of a tree for a small girl?”
          He frowned, obviously thinking. “No, I can’t say I can. Where did it happen?”
          Allie named the town. McConnell nodded. “I was sheriff there at the time. It could have happened, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
          “It did happen, Captain, and I’m that little girl. And it’s because of what you did that I want to become a Ranger. I want to help people, like you did me.”
          The captain grimaced a little. “What’s your name, miss?”
          “Allie Summer.”
          “Miss Summers, there’s a lot more to being a Ranger than just pulling kitty cats out of trees for children.”
          “Would you like to see me shoot? I’ll bet I can outshoot any man you have here.”
          McConnell was in some angst. “Well, that’s fine, it’s just...you’re… you’re…”
          “I’m a woman.”
          McConnell sighed. “Yeah. And it just isn’t done.”
          “But you’ll make an exception in my case, won’t you.”
          McConnell smiled again. “Persistent, aren’t you.”
          “Did you hear about the massacre—killing—in Caliente a few weeks ago?’ Caliente was the town Allie and her parents had lived in.
          “Yes. Bad business. An Indian and a white woman were killed by a mob, I believe.”
          Allie nodded. “That was my parents.”
          McConnell winced. “I’m sorry to hear about that, Miss Summers. But…” He shook his head, still in some distress, “outlaws can be awfully mean and vicious. It’s nice that you can shoot straight, but hand-to-hand…you’re only, what? 5’6, a little over 100 pounds…”
          “5’7”, 120 pounds.”
          “Some of those outlaws would be double your weight.”
          “How much do you weight, Captain?”
          “About 210.”
          Allie stood up. “Please come here” and she moved to the center of the room.
          McConnell started to say something, then shrugged, stood, and moved around his desk to stand in front of Allie.
          “Attack me,” she said.
          McConnell smiled, “Miss Summers, we’re trained—“
          “Humor me.”
          McConnell sighed, feeling a little foolish, but thinking he’d go ahead and get this over with. Maybe this will convince her she has no business being a Ranger…He feinted, and started to grab Allie. Within two seconds, he was on his back, and Allie was over him with a knife at his throat. Her father had taught her Indian wrestling, too, and very few white men knew it or knew how to counter it. McConnell looked into Allie’s ice blue eyes and saw—ice. Or fire. He wasn’t sure which. He just knew that he was almost afraid, and if this had been for real, he would have been afraid. The captain had never seen such terrifying eyes in his life.
          "And it's 'Summer,' Allie said, with a frozen smile, "not 'Summers'."
          The Ranger Captain slowly nodded.  “You can shoot, too, you say.”
          In less than a second, the knife was gone and a cocked pistol was at McConnell’s neck. “Yes, I can shoot, too.”
          McConnell looked at the girl above him, thoughtful. “Would you kindly remove that cocked gun from my throat?”
          Allie smiled, but it wasn’t necessarily a warm smile. She didn’t remove the gun. “Do I have a job?”
          “You’ll need a little training. In our methods,” McConnell hastily added.
          “That’s fine.” The gun still at the captain’s throat. “Do I have a job?”
          McConnell almost smiled. “I could always say I was under some duress when I hired you.”
          “Do you really want to explain how you ended up on your back with a 17 year-old girl’s gun at your throat?”
          The man laughed. “No, I don’t. And, yes, you have a job. There’s not a man in my outfit who could have done what you did.”
          Allie smiled and pulled the trigger on the gun. McConnell jumped—as best he could—but the hammer fell on an empty chamber. “I’m also a good bluffer,” Allie said. “The gun isn’t loaded.” She stood up.
          McConnell scowled as he arose. “You little witch, I ought to fire you before I hire you.”
         “But you won’t, will you? I can have a job as a Ranger?” Allie’s hopes soared.
          McConnell smiled. Maybe I DO remember that little girl and the kitty…”Yes, you have a job—provided you pass the training and probationary period.”
          Allie squealed her delight and hugged the captain. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve wanted to be a Ranger ever since…” Tears came to her eyes. “Ever since that nice man got my kitty out of that tree.”
          McConnell laughed. “Now, none of this crying stuff, you hear? I don’t allow my men to cry.”
          Allie wiped the tears away. She was determined to become the best Ranger she could be……………
       
          And for the next five years, Allie Summer did indeed prove to be one of the best Rangers in the territory. Captain McConnell started off with relatively easy assignments, of course. Go with another Ranger to pick up an outlaw to transport him to another town. Guard a prisoner overnight. Ride with a stage for a short trip to protect a gold shipment. Deliver a message to an army fort. Allie did the best she could, but she wanted something a little more challenging.
          But because she was a woman, McConnell was a little leery about giving her something too dangerous. For a few reasons. One, she was very young—still a teenager, and thus, by far, the youngest Ranger in the force. Two, the male Rangers resented her a little; it was supposed to be an all-male group and McConnell was afraid he might have some trouble if Allie “showed up” the men by outperforming them. Which the Captain was quite worried that she might do. Plus, she was a woman, and he didn’t want to be known as the Captain who sent a woman to an assignment that got her killed. He feared for his own job if that circumstance happened.
          But she did everything he asked, and she did it very well. And finally, she forced him, and everybody else in the Rangers to take notice when she saved the hide of three of her co-workers. McConnell finally let Allie go on a “hunt”—searching for a gang of ruffians that had been robbing banks and rustling cattle. Three other—experienced—Rangers went with her, and he hoped they would protect her as much as find the outlaws. Still, it bothered him because the men might decide to be “chivalrous” and protect the lady rather than do their job. Besides…
          “We don’t want her goin’, Captain. She’s inexperienced and liable to git us all killed,” Bob Kramer told McConnell. “What if she can’t hold up her end of the deal?”
          “She will Bob, she will. Wait and see,” McConnell told him, with a whole lot more confidence than he felt.
          Anyway, the four Rangers were riding through a valley in the direction of the outlaw hideout. They were heading for a mountain pass through which they would go to reach that hideout.
          “That looks like a good place for an ambush,” Allie warned. She knew, from stories her father told her, that Indians loved to ambush whites in mountain passes.
          “Naw, they won’t hit us there. Too obvious,” Flip Arnold told her. Then muttered, “Dumb woman” under his breath, but just loud enough for Allie to hear. She let it slide. She’d had to do a lot of that the first year or so of her work.
          But she had been correct. When the Rangers got about 100 yards into the pass, gunfire erupted from the trees to the north. Two of the Rangers were hit, though not mortally. All four of them managed to get cover behind some rocks on the other side of the road, but they were pinned down.
          Allie surveyed the situation. There were a few trees on the south side of the pass, where she and her fellow Rangers were. The north side was heavily wooded and sloped up at a more severe angle than the southern part of the pass. But Allie saw a way…
          “You all wait here. Keep them occupied.” she said, and she started moving, stealthily among the trees on the south side of the pass.
          “Hey! Where you goin’? Git back here!” Bob Kramer called after her, but Allie didn’t stop.
          It has already been noted that Allie could move in the woods like the half-Indian she was. Slipping from tree to tree, then across the road, she made it to the north side of the pass undetected. Silently, she made her way through the trees. There were five outlaws, and they were spread among the trees. One by one, she crept up behind each outlaw and knocked him unconscious with a rifle butt to the head. She then tied his hands and feet. Her biggest concern was getting hit by a stray shot from the Rangers below. When she had all five outlaws down, she called out to her companions.
          “Ok, boys, I’ve got them all. Let’s round them up.”
          Kramer, Arnold, and Jeff Kaberle, the third Ranger, looked at each other. Kaberle had taken a bullet in the shoulder and Arnold had been grazed on the hip, but they could both walk. Kramer called out. “Allie? Is that you?”
          “Yes, of course it’s me. Now come help me. They are all spread out.”
          Within 10 minutes the five outlaws, now all awake but groggy, had been captured and taken down to the road. Allie found their horses and they were loaded up to transport to the nearest jail.
          Kramer said to her, “Miss Allie, I apologize to you. That was one fine piece of work. We all’d been dead if you hadn’t done what you did.”
          Allie modestly brushed it off, but secretly she was pleased with her fellow Ranger’s words, which were echoed by the other two men. Kramer’s report praised her highly for her quick thinking and decisive, effective action, and she won a commendation from the territorial governor. Now maybe I can get some better assignments…
          She did. And she handled them all expertly. It bothered her a little when she killed her first man. “The first one is always the hardest,” she was told. “Don’t ever get used to killing people, but better them than you.” Allie thought that was good advice.
          And, five years after she started, Allie Summer stood facing the lights of The Man outside his house. She felt it was her most important assignment yet, and she had blown it. Well, not yet. But at the moment, with three rifles pointed at her, she didn’t have a plan of how she was going to un-blow it.

Chapter Five—The Wind Blows in Big Trouble

Back to mid-September, a day later….
          I actually stayed out of trouble the rest of the day, but not the next. I had a bath, and Ben and I ate at a local Chinese food place. “He doesn’t get much business, either,” Ben told me, speaking of the Chinese restaurant owner, “so I come here about once a week or so.”
          The following day was Friday, and as noted, tribulations found me. I was planning on leaving that day; I saw no reason to stay. I went and picked up Ol’ Paint, and on the way out of town, we stopped at the general store so I could replenish my depleted supplies. I’m especially fond of beef jerky, so I bought quite a bit of it, but the proprietor also had some dried apples and oranges that looked good, so I stocked up on those, too. I could hear some commotion outside as I paid for my stuff, and figured—knowing my luck—that I’d be right in the middle of whatever mess was brewing.
          Yep.
          I left the store with my bundle and there was a group of people standing about while some ugly fellow was pointing at Ol’ Paint.
          “That’s my hoss,” he was saying. “Whoever stole him is a hoss thief and needs to be strung up.”
          I walked over and laid my new purchases down. “And just what makes you think this is your horse, mister? I’ve had him for seven years now. He was born at my ranch so I think you’ve made a bit of a mistake.”
          He looked at me at scowled. “Yore a-lyin’, you sidewinder. This here is my hoss and I want him back.”
          I looked around at the crowd. “Does anybody know this cretin?”
          A man standing a few feet away had a bit of a sour look on his face. “Yeah. He’s Race Canton. One of Colt Reese’s men.” He nodded his head down the street. “And here comes the man himself, though I’m not sure which one wears the pants in that house, Colt or Isabel.”
          I looked where he nodded. Riding in on a wagon were a man and woman, with four horsemen tagging along behind—the four sons Sheriff Braniff had mentioned, I supposed. Colt Reese was a square-faced, square-jawed man with dark blue eyes and iron grey hair—at least what I could see under his cowboy hat. He had a bit of a cowed expression on his face. His wife, Isabel, rode with a ramrod straight back. Her wrinkled face was hard, she had thin, colorless lips, and almost non-existent eyebrows with brown eyes that showed nary a bit of friendliness or kindness. The four boys riding behind ranged from a pot-bellied, bearded ox, to a skinny, but tall, weasel. The other two were fairly non-descript, except they weren’t looking too sociable, either. An impressive, if fierce, looking species, though I wasn’t too sure of what kind of species they were. Homo sapiens might be stretching it.
          Race Canton was speaking again so I turned my attention back to him. “Are you ready to give me my hoss back, thief? Let me have ‘im and I’ll overlook it this time.”
          I just shook my head, a wry expression on my face. “Can you read that brand on the horse’s left hip?”
          He looked. There was a double R brand, for “Rob and Robin.” I was hoping it would fade away at some point, but it hadn’t yet. “Don’t matter none. You coulda put that brand on at any time.”
          “How long has the horse been…gone?” I asked him.
          “Six months. Now give him back.”
          I shook my head again. “Tell you what, buddy. You get on his back, and if you can stay on for ten seconds, you can have him. That is, if you can get on his back at all.”
          The Reeses pulled up, the four boys dismounting and scattering. “What’s goin’ on here?” That was Isabel.
          Race spoke up. “Miz Reese, this here is my hoss. You remember. Had him fer a long time. This here feller claims he belongs to him, but I know he musta stole him. It’s my hoss and I want him back.” Race was beginning to sound like an echo.
          Isabel looked at Ol’ Paint, who I could tell was getting a little fidgety. He knew he was the subject of the conversation, but, of course, he didn’t know what was being said. He inched a little closer to me.
          “Yep,” Isabel said. “That’s your horse, Race. Git him and git on back to the ranch.”
          It had gone far enough. “Lady, that man is getting this horse over my dead body.”
          She shrugged. “That can be arranged.”
          “Watch it, mister,” somebody muttered to me. “That’s Isabel Reese. She usually gets what she wants.”
          I was staring at the woman. “I don’t care if she’s Mary the Mother of God, she’s not getting this horse.” Ol’ Paint was close enough now so I quickly reached up, pulled my rifle out of its scabbard, and pointed it at Canton and the Reeses. “Any of you touch this bay and I’ll blow you to the far side of eternity.”
          The place got awful quiet awful quick. I could see fire in Isabel Reese’s eyes. Colt looked a little angry, too. But it was the woman who spoke. “How dare you point a rifle at me!”
          For an answer, I chambered a bullet into the Winchester.
          Isabel didn’t exactly appear afraid. “Mister, you just signed your death warrent.”
          “If any of your thugs try to take my horse, la—excuse me—woman, you’re going first.” I looked over at Colt Reese. “Reese, can’t you control your wife and men? That horse is not Canton’s and you know it.”
          Reese responded, “Mister, I suggest you give him the horse. He’s going to end up with it anyway when you end up dead.”
          I saw a smile slowly come across Isabel’s face. “Go ahead and shoot him, Billy. Git him out of the way.”
          I had been paying so much attention to Isabel that I had lost track of the sons. One of them was behind me, and I assumed had his pistol pointed at my back. “Drop the rifle, fella,” he said. “I don’t want it goin’ off accidental like when I plug ye.”
          “It won’t go off ‘accidental like’ if you shoot, Billy. You pull that trigger and, believe me, your ape-faced mother is going with me. And maybe the old man, too. I don’t die easy.”
          We had a standoff and it was more than a little tense. I didn’t know if, at any moment, I was going to get a bullet in the back. And, given the fact it had never happened before, I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d react. I just hoped I could bluff well enough to where Isabel Reese wouldn’t want to take the chance and would call her boy off. Her facial expression didn’t lend a lot of support to that prospect.
          However, the stalemate was broken from a surprising source. A man behind Billy said, “Billy, maybe you ought to drop your gun. You’ll be one of the dominoes to fall once the shooting starts.”
          Ben Baker.
          We were in a bit of a conundrum, but I pivoted on my left foot and pointed the rifle at Billy. “I’d do as he says Billy. That’s an awful mean .45 he’s got pointed at your head.”
          Ben cocked the gun, a sound that must have been heard down in the valley.
          Billy gulped. “Ma,” he started.
          Just about that time—and finally—the sheriff showed up. “What’s going on here?”
          This time I spoke first, turning back to Isabel and Colt Reese. “Sheriff, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that this piece of human garbage”—and I nodded towards Race Canton—“is wanting to steal my horse, claiming it’s his. That prune-faced hag I’ve got my rifle pointed at said he could have him. I respectfully disagree and announced my intention of putting a bullet into anyone who so much as touches Ol’ Paint.”
          Braniff winced at my “prune-faced hag” comment, but he walked over to Ol’ Paint. “An R-R brand. What does it stand for, Canton?”
          “Uh—“
          “Rob and Robin,” I cut in. “Me and my former wife.”
          The sheriff looked at me. “Sound like the horse is yours. I’ve never believed a word Race Canton said anyway. Now everybody put away their armor before I haul all of you in.”
          “You first, Billy,” I said to him, shifting my rifle back in his direction. “You’re sandwiched in between.” Ben and me, I meant.
          Billy gave me an acid look, but holstered his pistol. Ben uncocked his and lowered it. But kept it in his hand. His eyes met mine. I nodded my thanks. He nodded in response.
          “Who are you, mister?” Isabel asked.
          I turned back to her. “Rob Conners, if it’s any of your business.”
          That got a reaction. Colt inadvertently sucked in his breath. Isabel’s eyes narrowed. “I heard of you. Fast with a gun. But all I wanted to know was the name to put on your tombstone.”
          “Sheriff, that sounded like a threat to me. Can I go ahead and do the world a favor and shoot that witch?”
          “If I wasn’t sheriff, Conners, I’d let you do it and pin a medal on you. But I’ve sworn to uphold the law.”
          Just then we heard a scream from inside the general store. Everybody sort of looked around, stunned, and then an old man came running out of the store. “Somebody’s gotta help. He got my daughter. He took her out back and he’s gonna…” He swallowed and couldn’t finish.
          Sheriff Braniff wanted more information. “Now, hold on just a minute, fella. Who took your daughter?”
          I didn’t bother waiting. I had all the information I needed. A woman was fixing to be abused and it wouldn’t be solved by cross-examination. I ran into the general store. The clerk behind the counter looked frightened.
          “Ou-out back,” he said, pointing. “Blin Reese—“
          I didn’t hear any more, I took off around the counter towards the back door. I heard somebody behind me and gave a quick glance. Ben. I stared at him a moment.
          “What are you looking at, Conners? He’ll have that girl raped ten times by the time you quit gawking at me.”
          I couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll take the girl, you take the guy,” I said, as I headed towards the back door.
          “Kinda what I figgered,” I heard Ben mutter, and he was on my heels.
          We got out the back of the general store and saw…a long alley with lots of doors. “Oh, geez,” I said. “Ben, you go right, I’ll go left.” He nodded.
          Another scream, then muffled. It was hard to tell exactly where it came from, but it wasn’t far away. I bolted to the first door and kicked it in—nothing. Ben was unsuccessful, too.
          But we were getting close and I thought I had it targeted when I heard a man laugh and a long riiiiip as if fabric was being torn. Another female cry.
          Ben looked at me. “Second door on the left,” he said.
          “That’s how I make it, too. Me right, you left this time.” He nodded his acquiescence.
          We were there in a jiffy. The door was part-way open and I went in low, to the right, Ben followed me, low to the left. The room was an old, dusty storeroom, with a few broken, empty boxes scattered around. The place looked like it was about to fall down.
          But my attention was directed towards the center of the room. Sure enough, a man was standing there, trying to tear the rest of the clothing off a young woman. He had the dress off her right shoulder, but it was still clinging to her left. She was whimpering and struggling.
          He reacted quickly when Ben and I came in. He pulled his gun, grabbed the girl, pinning her in front of him, and put the gun to the side of her neck. I had witnessed this scene very recently, or one similar to it. A bank robber with a gun at the throat of an innocent boy…
          “She’s mine, wranglers,” he said, with a grin that showed two missing front teeth. “Maybe I’ll let you have a piece of her when I finish.” Then his face turned fierce. “Now git outta here or I’ll blow her head off.”
          Ben looked at me, not quite sure what to do. I slowly stood up. I could have shot the man—his face was showing over the woman’s shoulder and I’m that good—but he had a cocked pistol at her throat and it might go off just by an involuntary reaction if I fired. “All right, Reese,” I said, and lowered my gun. “But I hope you know that rape is a capital offense out here.”
          He grinned again. “Not with my ma and pa runnin’ this town, it ain’t.”
          I nodded to Ben to lower his gun as well. His face became hard, but he could see the predicament. The girl spoke, pleadingly. “Please don’t go. Please help me.”
          I shook my head. “He’s got a gun to your neck and the coward is hiding behind you. There’s nothing we can do that won’t get you killed.”
          She sobbed and closed her eyes. “Please…” she begged again.
          I started backing out of the room and Ben moved with me. And then Blin Reese did what I hoped he’d do. He lowered his gun. Or at least, he quit pointing it at the girl.
          I raised my pistol and fired. The bullet struck Blin in the forehead and went on through, shattering his skull and sending some brain matter flying in every direction. Blin grunted when the bullet struck and the girl screamed. Some of what little brains Reese had landed on the girl and she groaned and cowered, whimpering some more.
          Ben pursed his lips and glanced at me. “I heard you were good. That was as fine a shot as I’ve ever seen.”
          “No,” I replied. “A good shot wouldn’t have scattered his brains everywhere.”
          The young woman was trying to wipe some of the offal from her body. I pulled out my handkerchief and held it out to her, but I could tell she was about to be sick. She turned, went into the corner of the room, and spilled her guts.
          As if right on cue, i.e., always late, the sheriff showed up. The old man who had cried for help was there, as well as Colt and Isabel Reese.
          “What happened?” Braniff asked.
          “That should be fairly obvious, sheriff,” I replied.
          He shot me an annoyed glance and spoke to Ben. “Baker?”
          "Should be fairly obvious, sheriff,” and I grinned. “That fellow was about to rape that nice lady over there and Conners…helped her out a little bit.”
          Isabel was staring at her son, who was sprawled out on the floor, the blood from his wound slowly leaking out. “You…you shot my boy.”
          “Do your sons make a habit of raping women?” I asked her.
          She was still staring at Blin’s body. “You shot my boy,” she repeated, and then looked at me with as hateful and as fierce an expression as I had ever seen in my life. “You killed a Reese, Conners. Nobody kills a Reese and lives to tell about it.”
          I wasn’t intimidated. I walked right up to her and said, “Woman, I’m going to take what you just said for what it was—a threat on my life. So let me tell you something. If I ever see your face again, or the face of your husband, or any of your sons, I’m going to shoot to kill and leave your bodies to the buzzards. Although I doubt they’d touch you.” I looked at Colt Reese. “Get her out of here, Reese, and keep her away from me.”
          Isabel wasn’t intimidated, either. “Oh, you’ll never see me again, Conners, that I assure you.”
          I grunted. “A dry-gulcher. Why am I not surprised? All cowards are.”
          She sneered and turned. “Come on, Colt,” she said.
          “What do you want to do about the body, Isabel?” her husband replied.
          “He’s dead. There ain’t nuthin’ we can do for him, you dolt. Sheriff’s problem now.” And she left the building, her husband meekly tagging along behind.
          Braniff looked at me. “Don’t take her threat lightly, Conners. She meant what she said.”
          I sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
          The girl had finished throwing up and came over to us. “I’m…sorry. I just…”
          “Yeah, he made me sick, too,” I said. I took my handkerchief again and wiped a little more stuff from her face. “I’m sorry it was so messy.”
         “No…no,” she said. “Thank you so much. If you hadn’t showed up…”
          The girl’s father had been with his daughter, and he finally spoke. “Yessir, we are almighty grateful to you. Thanks so much. That…bully. There’s no telling what he mighta done.”
          Well, it was pretty evident what he was going to do, but I let it slide. The man introduced himself. “My name is Clem Everett, and this here’s my daughter Rachel. We’s mighty grateful to you, mister, mighty grateful.” I got the point.
         I held out my hand to him and he took it. “Rob Conners,” I said, “and this man who helped me is Ben Baker.”
          Everett looked at Ben for a few seconds, then nodded. “Obliged to you.” Then back to me. “Rob Conners, did you say? I heerd of you.”
          My creditors all know me, too.
          Everett wasn’t as old as he first appeared. He had a bit of a stoop to his back, which made him look beyond what his age probably was, and his hair was grey, but there weren’t a lot of lines in his face. About 45-50 years old, I guessed.
          Rachel was a fair-looking blonde, maybe 5’6, fair features, fair blue eyes, fairly proportioned. I’d seen worse, but I’d seen better. She had the modesty to pull her torn dress up over her shoulder as much as possible and she was holding on to it tightly.
          I turned to Sheriff Braniff. “Is there anything else you need, Sheriff?”
          “Well, I’d appreciate you dropping by my office and making a statement.”
          I frowned. “Can Ben do it? I was getting ready to leave town when all this ruckus started.”
          “Well, I guess so.” He didn’t seem to favor the idea.
          Clem Everett spoke up. “Mr. Conners, can I…talk to you fer a few minutes? I’d like to discuss something with you.”
          Frankly, I was in a hurry to get out of Windy, but I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. “Ok.”
          “Which way was you headed?”
          “West. North.”  Up.  Down.  In.  Out.  I didn’t know.
          “That’s where we’s headed, too. We got a wagon train with about 500 cows out o’ town aways. Good land fer sale up north, we hear, and gonna go git some of it. Can you give me a few minutes to buy some supplies and then we kin ride that direction together.”
          I nodded. I had a feeling I already knew what he wanted. “All right. I’ll go make that statement the sheriff wants. Catch me in his office.” He nodded and headed out. Rachel smiled at me as she passed me. Frankly, if there was anything behind that smile—and I detected nothing, but I can be pretty dense—I wasn’t interested.
          “Ok, sheriff, lead on….”

Chapter Six—The Wind Blows Me Out of Town

          Clem Everett had a wagon that he had parked a few doors down from the general store. He apparently made a few stops, but I didn’t have to wait for him very long at the sheriff’s office. Braniff wrote down what I said and asked me and Ben to sign it, which we were happy to do. It was a justifiable killing in his eyes, so the matter would be pursued no more.
          “At least, I won’t pursue it,” Braniff said. “But, again, watch out for Isabel Reese. If she’s got revenge in her eyes, and it appears she does, then she won’t rest till one of you is dead. Probably both of you. And she won’t play fair, either.”
          “That’s nice to hear,” I said, sarcastically. “Can I ride out there and shoot the lot of them?”
          He half-chuckled. “I wish it were that easy.” It was that easy, to me, but I didn’t especially want the law chasing me again.
          So, with all that done I was ready to leave town. When Everett was ready to go, we headed west. He had bought Rachel a new dress, a pretty green one, and she sat next to him on the wagon seat. She thanked me again for saving her. I was her hero, I supposed, though I didn’t see any stars in her eyes. I figured her at late-teens, early-20s.
          Ben had disappeared, so I didn’t get to say good-bye to him like I wanted to. I rode alongside the wagon, on Clem’s side so that we could talk easier. The land continued to gently slope down, and we quickly got out of the foliage and into rolling, grassy plains. With the descent, the weather became a little warmer, so I shucked my coat.
          “I’s wonderin’,” Clem began, “if’n ye’d be willin’ to ride along with us, you headin’ north an’ ever’thing.”
          “Tell me about it,” I said.
          “Got 10 families or so. We all come from an area just across the Colorado line, but none of us was doin’ very well. Plots of land were too small, too little rain the past few years. So we heard there was a valley up north where land—at least a quarter section, whatever a body could afford—was sellin’ pretty cheap. We decided to pitch in and head up that way and buy some of it. Left a few weeks ago. Haven’t made as good a time as we’d hoped.”
          Kinda risky, I thought. There were a lot of speculators—and railroads—announcing that there were Gardens of Eden everywhere out west. People took the bait and ended up with a lizard-infested desert. But there was some good land up there; I hoped these people weren’t being sold a bill of goods. Leaving in the fall, right before winter wasn’t terribly brilliant, either, but if they could get up there mid-October or so, they might survive the winter. I wasn’t sure about the cattle, though.
          Speaking of which…“You said something about cattle?” I asked him.
          “Yeah. 500 head or so. Started out with 650, but we keep losing ‘em. Rustlers mostly, we figure.”
          “You camp near water every night?”
          “Well, no. Sometimes we cain’t find none, so we park when it gets dark.”
          Ugh. They probably had a number of bunch quitters, who were thirsty and headed back the way they came. Cattle were pretty stupid, but they could remember the last water they had, and if they got thirsty, they’d turn around and return to it unless they were persuaded otherwise. That’s one reason why cowboys rode on all sides of a trail drive, and the larger the herd, the more cowboys needed, of course. But a herd of 650 could be handled by half a dozen cowboys, at most.
          “How many cowboys do you have working the herd?” I asked him.
          He seemed a bit embarrassed. “Well, Mr. Conners, that’s part of the problem, too. None of us is really cowboys. Most of us are farmers, but the land up north, we heard, was cattle grazin’ country, so we all pitched in, bought a herd, and was gonna split ‘em when we got the new land. We got a couple of fellers with us that has done some cattle workin’, but they ain’t too trail wise themselves.”
          This sounded worse and worse the longer we rode. “How big is your horse remuda?” Horses get more tired than cowboys on these trail drives, and it was a good idea to have at least three or four for each rider. More is even nicer.
          “Well, we got 15 horses we shuffle around.”
          I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. What we had here, folks, was the classic definition of “tenderfoot.” Or “greenhorn.” Or maybe just plain “stupid.” They didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and they certainly needed all the help they could get.
          “What do you want from me?”
          “We’ve heard they’s Injuns ‘twixt us and Clearwater Valley where we’s headed. We’d…feel a lot better if’n you’d come along with us, kinda scout and so forth. Help us if we run into trouble.” Then, hastily, he added, “We’ll be willin’ to pay you, of course.”
          I hardly heard the last couple of sentences he said because my mind went into overdrive when he said “Clearwater Valley.” Land for sale. River Bend. Kelly Atkins. Gail Sanders….It might not be the same Clearwater Valley, of course (see Book Three of Whitewater), but it would be awfully coincidental if it wasn’t.
          Do I want to see Gail and Kelly again? Gail didn’t inspire me much—well, maybe a little—but Kelly…she and I had had a pretty good thing going when I was up there, but decided not to get married because she was only 19 at the time and I was too close to Julie. And too enamored of Robin. Let’s see…Kelly would be…22 now, maybe. I wasn’t sure. Robin was still awfully close, in time, closer than Julie had been when I was first in River Bend. I had pretty well decided after getting Robin’s divorce letter that I was through with the opposite sex. Hurt way too much. Now, to see Kelly again…or Gail…
          Clem Everett was saying something. “What do ye think, Mr. Conners? Are ye game to go with us?”
          I had to make a quick decision. Come to think of it, no, I didn’t. “I’ll ride with you a little ways,” I told him. “But I can’t say for sure that I’ll go all the way to Clearwater. You don’t need to pay me since I’m heading that way anyway. But I reserve the right to cut out any time I want to.” But I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. And I was almost boiling angry with myself. I want to see Kelly…I was cursing myself for being so weak.
          “Well, that’s fair enough,” Clem said. “Thankee.” I looked over and Rachel smiled at me, and I smiled back, and that’s as far as it went.
          “There’s one stipulation, though.”
          “Oh?” Clem sounded a little concerned.
          “I take over your cattle drive. I’ve done it before so I know what to do. I’m not a gunman, Mr. Everett, despite my reputation. I’m a cattleman and I want a ranch of my own. I’ve been to Clearwater Valley, and it sure is beautiful, and there is a lot of good land up there, with water, if they haven’t sold it all. But I’m not sure I want to live there.”
          “Why not? If you don’t mind me askin’. I mean, if you know somethin’ bad about the valley…”
          “No, it’s not that. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been up there, and they had some problems at the time, but they had been cleared up by the time I left. So, as far as I know, everything is ok. My reasons for not wanting to settle there are…personal.”
          “Well, ok. I shore won’t pry. Regardin’ the cattle, you may be a godsend. I don’t thank innybody in our camp will object to you takin’ over and directin’ the thing. Hopefully, we won’t have any Injun problems, and with you leadin’ the drive, I ‘spect that would stop the rustlin’, too.”
          We were almost in a flat valley now, and up ahead I could see what appeared to be a camp with covered wagons and cattle grazing to the north. I also saw, about a half mile north of the road, a couple of horsemen chasing a couple of cattle.
          “I assume you made a dry camp last night,” I said to Everett.
          He saw the chase at the same time I did. “Yeah,” he said, sheepishly.
          “Never do that again, Everett,” and I took off after the cattle.
          Ol’ Paint could run and wanted to. He also knew how to work cattle and when he saw the steers on the run, he headed out after them without me even pointing him in that direction. The men chasing the cattle had caught them, but were making no progress at all in turning them back to the herd. When I got close, I waved them off.
          “I’ll turn them,” I yelled.
          They didn’t know me, of course, so they were a little hesitant to do what I said. I went over to one of them and rode beside him. “Let me have your lariat,” I hollered at him.
          “Who are you?” He looked like a farmer.
          “Just let me have the blasted thing and I’ll explain later.”
          He tossed me the rope and I went out after the nearest steer. When close enough I lassoed him and Ol’ Paint hit the breaks. I jumped off, wrestled the cow to the ground, and tied his hind and forelegs with piggin string, something I always carried with me because…because cattlemen always carry piggin string with them. I was a little put out that I didn’t have a rope. I usually did.
          I was about to get up and go after the other steer, when I saw that somebody had already caught and downed him, about a quarter mile away. I was a little shocked at whom I saw. I rode over.
          “Ben, what in tarnation are you doing here?”
          Ben Baker looked up at me from where he was standing over the bawling cow. “Shut up,” he said, kicking the cow. The animal obeyed. Then, to me, “I saw you working cattle and thought I’d help. What are these, bunch quitters?”
          “Yeah. These people set on a dry camp last night. Clem Everett told me they’d lost about 150 cows since they left Colorado a few weeks ago.”
          Ben just shook his head and looked at the two men who rode up—the men who had been vainly chasing the fugitives. The two fellows looked barely old enough to shave; one of them probably didn’t. “Don’t you know what you’re doing?” Ben asked them.
          Both young men appeared embarrassed. “No, not really. We thought the cattle would stay together and be pretty easy to lead.”
          Ben grunted. “Then you don’t know the first thing about cattle. If you don’t give them water every day, they’ll turn and head for the nearest they can remember. That’s what you’ve got here.”
          “Oh,” was the only response he got.
          Ben and I looked at each other with a “what a bunch of clowns” expression on our faces. Then I said to him, “Ben, what are you doing here?”
          “Let’s get these cattle back to the herd and I’ll tell you.”
          So, he released his cow, which immediately headed towards the water again, in other words, away from the herd. It didn’t take Ben long to persuade him to go back from whence he came. I rode over and released the other cow, and he decided he’d be better off among friends and gave no more trouble.
          The two “cowboys” rode with us. “Will you tell us now who you are and how you came to be here?” one of them asked.
          “I’m Rob Conners and this is Ben Baker. I met Clem Everett in town, by accident, when some thug was trying to rape his daughter.”
          “Rape Rachel?” one of the men said in horror.
          “Yeah, but he didn’t get away with it.” I briefly told him the story. “Everett asked me to join your drive north and I told him I would. At least for a time. Provided he let me ramrod the drive.”
          “Wow,” the younger of the two men said. This fellow was a freckled face kid, probably not over 16 or 17. The other was older, but not by much. I continued. “I don’t know what Ben is doing here.”
          “Watching your backside,” he said. “I decided I’d had enough of Windy and would ride north, too. I’ll go with you, if you’ll have me, or I’ll go my own way if you don’t want me.”
          I was frankly very happy to have Ben around. “You’ve worked cattle.” It was a statement, not a question. His experience with cattle was quite evident from the way he had handled the bunch quitter.
          “Yeah. Did that for a few years when I came out west, till the boss discovered the color of my face.” The cow he was herding was giving some evidence that he might want to turn around again, so Ben busted his backside, hard, with the lariat and the cow opted for continuing on his current course—back to the herd. “Plus, I didn’t like the way that old hag was talking to you back in Windy. I figured you might want a helping hand.”
          “You pretty good with a gun?”
          “Not in your class, but I can handle one.”
          I smiled at him. “What are the people in Windy going to do with a barber?”
          He didn’t smile back. “I don’t really give a rat’s rear what they do.”
          I laughed and had a distinct feeling Ben wasn’t going to miss the town and people of Windy. He said, “What have we got here?”
          I filled him in on what Everett had told me. Ben glanced at me and said, “Maybe I’ll head south.”
          I grinned. “Wouldn’t blame you.”
          “We’re going to have to do all the work, you know.”
          “Oh, no, we’ll help you,” the older of the two “cowboys” said to us. “We just need a little…guidance.”
          I met Ben’s eyes again and the skepticism in his was evident. “What’s your name?” I asked the fellow.
          “I’m Ronnie Pickens and this is my younger brother, Arlie.” Arlie said “howdy.”
          “I’m Rob Conners and this is Ben Baker.” I had told them that once, but I wasn’t sure they would remember if they could or could remember if they would. “We’ll help you out for a while, until maybe you can handle it yourself.”
          “Thanks. We really appreciate it. You fellas look like you know what to do around cattle.”
          Arlie was staring at me. “Are you the Rob Conners?”
          I always hated that question. I’m sure there were more people named Rob Conners than just me, so there was another “the Rob Conners” somewhere else. But I knew what he meant, too.
          “Well, I’m Rob Conners,” is all I said.
          “I heard of you. Man, are we glad to have somebody like you around.” I hoped this kid didn’t become a puppy dog. I didn’t feel like scratching his ears.
         “Thanks. I hope we can help.”
          We had arrived at the settlers’ camp. Clem Everett was already there, unloading his wagon. I rode over to him. “Mr. Everett, why don’t you just keep that stuff in the wagon? We need to move these mongrels out. There’s still enough daylight”—it was barely noon—“and they need water badly.”
          Everett stopped with a sack of flour in his arms. “Oh. We was figurin’ on stayin’ here another night.”
          I leaned on my saddle horn. “Mr. Everett, if you don’t get those cattle to water, tonight, you won’t have any cows left tomorrow morning. They’ll all backtrack to the last watering hole, and Ben and I aren’t going to chase them.” I didn’t even bother to wait for Everett to answer. I looked at Ben. “Go find the nearest water, heading west, northwest.”
          “Yes, Massa,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
          “Get outta here,” I said to him, smiling at him, and he headed out. I liked that big Negro and was glad to have him along. Then I spoke to Clem Everett again. “Get your people ready to move out in 15 minutes. I’m starting those cattle.” I called out to the Pickens brothers and told them to get ready to start the drive. “I want one man at point, two on each side, and I’ll ride drag.” That was going to be tough, handling the stragglers all by myself, but if I could keep them tightly bunched, then maybe I wouldn’t have too many bunch quitters. One of us—Ben or myself—was going to have to search for water every day, and I would probably take that job myself. I don’t like eating dust.
          Miraculously, Everett got his caravan rolling within 30 minutes. Ronnie and Arlie Pickens were going to help with the cattle, along with three other men that I hadn’t met yet. I asked Ronnie, “Which of your men is best with working cattle?”
          He thought a moment, “Well, actually, Arlie is probably the best.”
          “All right. Tell him that if he’s not too busy on the side to drop back and help me. Oh, and tell him to get a fresh horse. In fact, all of you get a fresh horse. You don’t want to kill the ones you are on.” Even though nobody had done much riding today, I suspect they all had been riding the same horses almost every day. I could tell those mounts were hanging their heads a little.
          As I had said, Ol’ Paint was an excellent cattle horse and could last longer than most horses, but he was human…well, a horse…and he’d get tired, too. I just hoped we wouldn’t have too much trouble with this herd of cattle, but I wasn’t optimistic—at least what I’d seen so far.
          “Keep the cattle as tightly bunched as possible,” I told Ronnie
          The cattle bellowed their protest when we got them moving, and sure enough, some of them started heading back the way they had come. Ol’ Paint had quite a workout and Arlie dropped back to help, and he did help. We got all the cattle back into the bunch and I told him to follow them closely, as I was doing.
         “If they even give a hint that they might turn around then bust their backsides, hard, with your rope. Like this…” and I whacked a slow-moving steer hard. He bellowed, but sped up and joined the other group. “I don’t want these cattle seeing anything but the rear end of the cow in front of them.”
          He grinned. “You’re the boss.” I’m glad he recognized that.
          Ben showed up about an hour later. “Water about three miles ahead.”
          “Good. We’ll stop there for the day. When these cows get within a mile of the stuff, they’ll smell it in we’ll have a stampede on our hands.”
          “Yeah. Who’s riding point?”
          “Some fellow named McKenzie is what Ronnie Pickens told me. Why don’t you get up and there and tell him to get out of the way once the cattle bolt.”
          “Done.” And he rode off.
          Sure enough, when the cattle got about a mile from the water Ben had seen, they started bellowing and picked up steam. Arlie said to me, almost in a panic, “They are going to stampede!”
          “Let ‘em go,” I told him. “They’ll stop at the water. Go tell those two fellows riding on the right wing, and I’ll tell the men on the left.”
          “Ok.”
          The cattle took off in a rush and I waved the men away from them. “Let them go!” I shouted, and I guess they heard me because they moved away. By the time we arrived at the water—a shallow but fairly wide stream—the steers were all drinking and having a ball. Or some of them were have a bawl.
          “I didn’t know you could let them go like that,” Ronnie Pickens said to me. “We’ve tried to stop them.”
          “No, when they smell water, you’ll never stop them. That’s all they want—the water. They won’t wander far.”
          I met the other men who were working the cattle—Ryne McKenzie, who’d had the point, Fred Cameron, Angus McCoy, and Elbert Edison, who had been managing the wings. We didn’t lose any cattle, so everything went well.
          “T’day’s the fust day we ain’t lost none,” Edison said. “Mighty obliged to ya, Mr. Conners. You, too, Mr. Baker. Hope you fellows will stay with us the whole way.”
          “We’ll see,” is all I said.
          The rest of the settlers arrived about an hour later. They were moving much slower, partly because the road they were traveling wound around a bit, while we had driven the cattle straight to the water.
          The camp that night was almost a jovial affair. The water crossing the next day shouldn’t be a problem; the stream was no deeper than two feet so that wouldn’t hold anything up too long. “We’ll go on ahead with the cattle,” I told Clem Everett, “and you can catch up with us. I’ll send Ben or one of the other riders back to direct you to where we are.”
          “Ok. That sounds fine to me. Maybe you won’t get too far ahead of us.”
          “We may not. I don’t intend to drive the cattle too hard, unless watering holes are few and far between. Hopefully, we can find water something like every 8 to 12 miles; that’s a good day’s drive. If we have to go beyond 12, the cattle are going to start getting thirsty and we’ll have our hands full of bunch quitters.”
          Everett nodded. “You’re the boss. I’ve already told ever’body that.”
          “Ok. Ben’s my segundo”—second in command—“and if anybody has any problem taking orders from him, they’ll answer to me.”
          Clem looked a little skeptical. “Well, if you say so…” I was hoping we wouldn’t have any problems with Ben’s color.
          I met the rest of the settlers; I’m not good with names, so I didn’t remember them right off, but eventually I learned most of them. Rachel Everett always smiled at me, but I never made any attempt to talk to her and she largely stayed away from me, too.
          The cook was a man named Otto Demars, and he was a grouch. I’ve never known a cook who wasn’t. I guess it was standing over a hot fire for much of the day, but for some reason, those guys were always grumblers. Most of them had a good sense of humor, though—a lot of grumbling was put on—and nearly every one of them could be trusted almost to a fault.
          “Wish we had some more meat,” Demars muttered as he was dishing out the beans for supper. “Gettin’ tired of cookin’ beans, beans, beans.”
          “I’ll see if I can get a deer or antelope tomorrow,” I said to him.
          “We could butcher one of them cows,” he muttered, but he said it with a twinkle in his eyes.
          There was only one problem that night and that was with the camp bully. Big fellow named Carson, who thought he ought to run everything and tell everybody what to do. Everett said that the rest of the people just tolerated him; they’d tell him “yeah, yeah,” then go on and do what they wanted to anyway. Clem told the whole group that I was now the “trail boss,” and they’d all take orders from me first, and Ben, second.
          Not surprisingly, Carson objected. “I ain’t takin’ no orders from you, Conners, and I shore ain’t takin’ orders from a nigger.”
          “Yes, you are,” I told him. “You’ll either do what you’re told or I’ll kick you out of this wagon train. Your choice.”
          He came over to me. “You ain’t big enough, Conners, to do that.”
          Before he got half way to me, I drew my gun and parted his hair with a bullet.  He stopped, his eyes as big as a frog's.  He ran a hand through his hair to make sure it was all there.  I gave him a wicked smile.  "Oops," I said.  "I missed.  Maybe if I aimed a little lower...." and I shifted my gun down a few inches.
          Carson backed up, lowering his head as he did.
          “Any of the rest of you have a problem with taking orders from me?”  I asked.
          Nobody did, but, unfortunately, there were some serious problems with Ben being second-in-command.
          There were a group of them. “Sorry, Conners, but we ain’t takin’ orders from Baker and that’s final.” That from a man named Joel Hartenstein.
          “You’ll take orders from him or you’ll find yourself a different trail boss. And you can chase your cattle all the way to Texas for all I care, because that’s where they’ll probably end up, given the way you men have handled them so far.”
          The situation got quiet and serious. There were 10 of them, almost the whole contingent of men in the caravan. I didn’t see many friendly, positive expressions on the faces looking at me.
          Finally, McKenzie spoke up. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to ride then.”
          I was about to say, “fine,” and “adios,” but Ben spoke up. “Rob, it’s ok. I’ve been here before. I’ll head back to Windy. I’ve got a shop there.”
          “No, Ben…”
          “Rob.”
          I looked at him. He just shook his head.
          I was really angry now. I looked back at McKenzie and the other men. “I’ll compromise on one thing. He stays, and rides with us, but you don’t have to take any orders from him that don’t come directly from me.”
          The ten men looked at each other, and there were some nods. “All right, but he sleeps outside the camp, not with us.”
          I sighed, disgusted, and glanced at Ben. He nodded. “Somebody needs to keep an eye on the cattle anyway.”
          “We’re going to have nightly watches, Ben, you know that.”
          “I know, but I’ll stay close to the herd just in case. I’m a light sleeper.”
          I stared at him, my face hard. I didn’t like any of this, except for the fact that Ben would be staying with the drive. He was a proud man, so I knew this had to be hurting him some, but then, I suspect he’d had to put up with it a lot in his life. I resigned myself to the situation.
          “All right,” I told Hartenstein and the others. “But I think you’re all a bunch of louses and the whole lot of you put together don’t make one Ben Baker.” They didn’t like that, but I didn’t care. “We’re dividing up into three watches. Carson, you, McKenzie and McCoy take the first watch. Edison, Hartenstein, and Kliegel the second, and Ben, Frazier, and I will take the third. The rest of you men get a good night’s sleep. We’ll switch it around every night and let everybody have a chance to sleep the night through. The shifts will go from nine to midnight, midnight to three, and three to six. Any comments?”
          “How come you get the last shift, Conners?” That from Carson, who was still a little sore and was trying to save face, I suppose.
          “Because I’m the boss and I say so, Carson. Plus, a lot of rustlers hit about that time because it’s usually when men are at their most tired or deepest sleep. I want a fresh team out there, especially me and Ben, at that time. What are you complaining about? You have the first watch and will be able to get to bed at midnight and sleep the rest of the way through?”
          He mumbled something I couldn’t hear but let the matter drop.
         “Any more questions, comments, or complaints? Get them out now so we can deal with them and not let them fester.”
          Clem Everett spoke up. “Mr. Conners, we been a’puttin’ our wagons in a circle or semi-circle ever’ night. You thank that’s a good idée?”
          “Yes, I do. And men, keep your rifles and pistols cleaned and loaded. We want to be ready in case we’re hit by outlaws or Indians.”
          Edgar Frazier’s wife, Marge, spoke up, and her voice cracked a bit with fright. “Mr. Conners, do you think there’s a chance we’ll get attacked?”
          I shrugged. “Always a chance, Mrs. Frazier. The Indians between here and Clearwater aren’t as bad as you’ve been led to believe, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some young bucks around who won’t try to win a few points with a kill or kidnap. And rustlers are always a concern. But, frankly, I’m more worried about finding water than anything. I’ll start out early in the morning and scout ahead. Hopefully, we won’t have to travel farther than 10 miles in any one day to find some.” I looked around. “There will be no more dry camps, even if that means we have to push the herd 20 miles. They can do it. You’ve lost cattle, not to rustlers, but to watering holes.” I glanced over at Ronnie Pickens. “Do you have an exact count of how many cattle you have?”
          “Well, not exact…”
          “Get it, first thing in the morning. I need to know exactly what we are dealing with. How will we know if we’ve lost any if we don’t know how many we have to start with?”
          “Yessir.”
          “I think we ought to take turns lookin’ for water.” Carson again, still trying to reassert himself.
          “Carson, I want to ask you something.”
          “What?” He was looking at me suspiciously, his bushy eyebrows almost hiding his eyes.
          “What’s a piggin string?”
          He stared at me blankly, and his mouth flexed a couple of times. “I…I dunno.”
          I gave him a disgusted look. “I doubt you’d know a cow from the back end of a horse. You haven’t the foggiest how much water these cattle need at night, and I wouldn’t trust you to find some, or find your way back here if you did find some. I’ll thank you to just do what you’re told and quit bothering me.”
          He grumbled again. “We ain’t finished, Conners, you and me.”
          “Anytime you’re ready, Carson.”
          He wasn’t ready at the moment.
          I took my eyes off him and looked around again. “Any other questions?”
          "Uh, Mr. Conners?"  Ronnie Pickens.
          "Yes?"
          "What is a piggin string?"
          "That piece of leather I used to tie that cow's legs with earlier today.  Get you some of it.  You'll probably need it."
          "Yessir.  Thank you.  I don't know much, but I'm willing to learn."
          I nodded.  I liked the boy's attitude.  "Anything else?" I asked.
         There wasn't, so I said, “Ok, first watch get to work. Keep the remuda of horses close to the herd so you can watch them as well.”
          People began to slowly scatter back to their wagons. I walked over to Ben. “I wouldn’t blame you if you cut out,” I told him. “What a bunch of horse’s backsides.”
          He half-smiled at me. “I’m used to it, Rob. You still need me to watch your back.”
          I grunted. “But who’s going to watch yours?”
          “You are,” and he walked away into the dark.
          With all that solved—and unsolved--I was hoping for a peaceful drive. At my estimate, we were about 250 miles from Clearwater Valley. If we could average ten miles a day, we could get there about mid-October, which would—hopefully—be before bad weather hit and the settlers could get their land and get under some kind of shelter before the cold weather set in. I shook my head again. Whoever planned this trip wasn’t thinking very clearly.
          But if I was hoping for a peaceful journey…I was hoping in vain. It was anything but that. I’m not sure why I even expected it might be.

Chapter Seven—Prisoner

Back to mid-October…
          “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, little lady,” The Man told Allie. “Please—very carefully—remove any other weapons you might have on your person, although I assure you we are going to do a very thorough search of your body to make sure you aren’t hiding anything dangerous. Oh, and drop the pouch, too, please.”
          He got a few chuckles over his “thorough search” statement, but Allie wasn’t amused in the least. She hated being called “little lady,” so that was just another mark against The Man. And indeed, she had a veritable arsenal on her person. Not only did she have a .36 in her holster—which she had already dropped—but a derringer in her right boot, a knife in a sheath on her left hip, and a straight razor with a handle in a small scabbard hanging inside her shirt and down her back from a leather string around her neck. There was also a wire garrote, formed into a pretty bracelet, around her left wrist.  She always carried all of them and each had served its purpose more than once over the past few years.
          Allie was also under no illusions as to what might happen to her. She didn’t know, for sure, what The Man had planned—if she were him, she’d just kill Allie, throw her body to the wolves somewhere deep in the mountains and be done with it. She hoped he didn’t think of that, though she figured he would. It was what he might do before then that also concerned her.
         But, for the moment, she could perceive no way of escape. She couldn’t see any of the men. The one who had removed her hat—Curt—had returned to his position behind the lights, so Allie could see nothing but very vague shapes. The three rifles pointed at her were noticeable, however, because the barrels were sticking out beyond the lights where she could clearly see them. That was intentional, she was sure.
          So, slowly she disarmed. The pistol and the knife. And the pouch. She kept the derringer, garrote, and razor hidden—until The Man said, “Is that everything? If we find anything else, I’ll throw you in the bunkhouse, lock the door, and go back to bed.” The implications of that were clear.
          Allie made a sour face, but said nothing, figuring he’d probably do all that anyway. She debated whether she should just keep the other three weapons and let The Man find them on his own. But he was going to find them, and he would probably make good his threat so Allie shrugged, and removed the derringer, bracelet, and razor.
          “Wow,” one of the men said. “A one man—woman—army,” he chuckled.
          “Is that all?” The Man asked Allie.
          “That’s it,” she replied.
          “I’ll do what I said if I find anything else.”
          “I said, that’s all,” Allie said, acidly. She wasn’t so much angry at him as at herself for getting caught. What went wrong? Well, she’d analyze that later—if she lived to do it. Right now, finding a means of escape was the paramount consideration.
          “Let’s retire to my study, shall we?” The Man said.
          “You want me to go through the window again?” Allie asked. She wasn’t so frightened that she couldn’t think.
          He laughed. “No, we’ll use the back door this time. Curt lead the way, will you? Just remember, Lady Ranger, I still have two rifles trained on your back. Bob pick up the pouch and her hardware.”
          “Yessir.”
          Allie didn’t need to be reminded about the rifles. She followed Curt around the back of the house, through a door into the interior, and then the short walk down the hall to the study on the left. Curt, upon entering, lit two oil lamps, one on each side of the room. The thought went through Allie’s mind to quickly shove the nearest lamp to the floor, hoping it would shatter and start a fire. Then maybe try to dive through the window. That thought was quickly extinguished…
          “Please keep your hands to yourself, little lady,” The Main said from behind her. “Take the seat in front of the desk, please.”
          He’s reading my every thought…Allie sat down in a nice leather chair and glanced around the room. Three windows—possible escape routes—two on the east wall, one of which she had entered, and the third on the north wall. A leather couch against the south wall, bookshelves on the south and behind the desk, with the painting hiding the safe in between. There were a couple of nice chairs at an angle behind her, some Colonial design end tables in the corners. Expensive red carpet covering the floor. Pictures on the paneled walls. It all said “money” very loudly. Stolen money…
          Two of the men stood behind Allie and off to each side. Another man was at the door, all of them pointing rifles at her. The Man took his seat behind the desk in an exquisite, plush leather swivel chair. He lit a cigarette, and asked Curt to get him a drink.
          “Would you like to have a glass of sherry?” he asked Allie. “Imported from France, of course.”
          “Of course,” she said sardonically. “No, thank you.”
          “Your loss,” he said, and took a sip from the crystal glass Curt set before him.
          Allie studied him for a minute. He was wearing a red patterned dinner jacket with black trim. She knew he was 35 years old. He was fairly tall, close to 6 feet, but rather slender; he probably didn’t top 170 pounds. His raven black hair was thick, and straight, except for one little curl that made a comma over his forehead. Sexy, Allie couldn’t help but thinking. He had blue eyes, with a superior look in them and a rather taunting smile, as if he knew he was better than everybody else and wanted them to know it, too. But Allie had to admit that he was an extremely handsome man. Beauty that’s only skin deep…She quickly glanced around at the other three men. They weren’t bad looking, either; as noted earlier, The Man hired only clean-cut, well-groomed men. “Image” was extremely important to him, and while his cowboys—outlaws—could and would have a good time in town, they knew the limits that The Man would endure. He had fired more than one rowdy who had raised an unnecessary ruckus; and by doing so, he enhanced his already firm reputation amongst the townfolks as a morally upright, decent man who brooked no untoward behavior in his employees. Allie knew all of this and it sickened her that he could bamboozle people so easily. Finding a jury to convict him in that town wouldn’t be easy.
          "Well, let’s see what we have here,” The Man said, dumping the contents of the pouch onto his desk. “Ah,” he said upon seeing the papers Allie had confiscated. He looked through them briefly. “Yes, you are a dangerous little lady, and a smart one, too.” He sorted through the rest of the materials in the pouch. A couple of tools to open the window. “So here’s how you got in,” he said, examining the flexible file and wire with interest. “Ingenious. I should get some of this.” The only other thing in the pouch was the candle and matches. He held up the candle and looked at Allie. “This is what got you caught,” he told her, “but I will admit, it was pure, dumb luck. One of my men had to make a late night trip to the privy out back and happened to see the light through the window.” He motioned to the north wall. “If nature hadn’t called him…” He let it hang.
          Allie was frustrated. So she had done everything right. Just…the unforeseen. How can you plan for somebody needing to go to the privy? She didn’t have an immediate answer to that, and it wasn’t a problem that occupied her mind for long. Her immediate circumstances were a little more pressing.
          “But,” The Man continued, “that’s our luck and not yours. The immediate concern is what am I going to do with you.”
          Allie didn’t respond.
          “First off, let’s get introduced. I assume you know who I am, but I’d like to know who you are. A lady Ranger is a unique phenomenon, indeed.”
          Allie thought about giving him a fake name, but could see no advantage to it. “My name is Allie Summer.”
          One eyebrow shot up. “Allie Summer? I’ve heard of you, but I just thought you were a man with a strange name. You have quite a reputation, lady.” He looked over at Curt. “Did you know that Allie Summer was—is—a woman?”
          “No, I didn’t. I never really thought about it. I just assumed the Rangers only hired men.” He smiled crookedly, but Allie wasn’t looking at him. “They must be desperate to be hiring women.”
          “I’ll try to change sexes for you, if you’d like,” Allie said. “You’ll have to give me a few minutes, though.”
          The Man laughed. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think of having you do that. You’re a beautiful woman; you’d probably be an ugly man. And I don’t know about the Rangers being ‘desperate,’ Curt. You know Allie Summer’s reputation. Probably the best of all McConnell’s men…uh, personnel.” He shook his head as if in disbelief. Speaking basically to himself, he muttered, “Allie Summer a woman. That is a bit shocking.” Then to Allie, “How long have the Rangers been hiring women? Are there others?”
          “Five years, and I’m the only one.”
          “Well, I hope McConnell doesn’t find any more like you or the outlaws in this territory will be in really serious trouble.” He laughed. “I’m certainly fortunate to have caught you.” Then, he made a thoughtful face. “That leaves me with the problem of what I’m going to do with you. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to kill you and dump your body in the mountains somewhere where nobody could find you.”
          Reading my mind again…Allie spoke up. “No, the easiest thing to do would be to just let me go.”
          The Man’s eyebrows shot up. “And let you try again? I don’t especially like that option.”
          “Listen,” Allie said. “Don’t you think McConnell knows where I am? Of course he does; he’s the one who gave me this assignment. If I don’t show up, he—all the Rangers--will know something happened, like you killed me and dumped my body somewhere in the mountains, and they’ll be on you like a fly on honey.”
          “But they won’t be able to prove anything.”
          “But they won’t give up, either, until they do.”
          “So what would letting you go solve? You’re not going to give up.”
          Allie leaned forward in her chair and looked directly into The Man’s eyes. “Let’s don’t play games here and don’t try to put one over on me. You’re a criminal. You know that, I know that, the Rangers know it, and every law enforcement official in the country knows it. The law will never stop until it has you behind bars.” She leaned back and shrugged. “If not me, then somebody else. And they might be better than I am. Can you take that chance?”
          The Man looked skeptical. He didn’t seem to be buying Allie’s reasoning. But before he could say anything, she spoke up once more. “And if you kill me you’ll have a murder rap pinned on you, too.”
          “But, again, they’ll have to prove it.”
          “McConnell won’t stop until he does.” She smiled. “I’m his pet, you know.” She wasn’t, McConnell didn’t play favorites and he wasn’t handling Allie with kid gloves any more. But she was a woman, a pretty one, a young one, and it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a male boss to favor such a creature. At least, The Man didn’t know that the head of the Rangers didn’t favor Allie.
         The Man studied Allie thoughtfully. “So I let you go and you keep trying to prove I’m guilty of something.”
          Allie shrugged again. “It’s me or somebody else. Your choice. At least with me you know who you’re getting. Actually, since I flubbed this up, McConnell will probably take me off the case and appoint somebody else. You’ve got nothing to lose by letting me go, and everything to lose by killing me.”
          The Man was clearly back on his heels some. Releasing Allie wasn’t an alternative he had considered when he captured her, but she was making a queer sort of sense. Still looking at Allie, he said, “Curt, what do you think?”
          “She’s dangerous, boss, way too dangerous to turn loose. If I caught a wildcat, I’d kill it, not let it go to try to kill me again.”
          “That’s kind of what I think, too. Bury her and that will at least set the Rangers back some in their investigations. And maybe by that time, I can find some more legal ways to cover our trail.”
          Allie didn’t like the sound of that. If they were going to kill her, she’d go down fighting.
          The Man continued, “But I want to think about it a while. She’s right about one thing, if she disappears the Rangers won’t let up till they find out what happened to her.”
          Curt spoke again. “Can’t we make her death look like an accident? We can break her neck, make it appear a horse threw her.”
          Allie tried to thwart that one. “They won’t buy that. Way too coincidental. I’m hot on your trail and all the sudden, I have a convenient accident. What would you think?”
          The Man smiled. “I’d think the same way you’re thinking. But again, proving it is the difficulty.”
          “They’ll just redouble their efforts, put more pressure on you.”
          The Man stifled a yawn. “Well, I don’t need to make a decision right now.  I’ll think on it awhile. In the meantime, you’ll be my…guest.”
          “With freedom of movement, I trust,” Allie said.
          The Man laughed. “No, I don’t think I can allow that.” He finished his cigarette and downed the last of his drink. “There. That will make me sleep better. In what’s left of the night.” Then, “Curt,” speaking to his foreman, “put her in the loft. She’ll have some degree of comfort there but won’t be able to escape.”
          “Keep a guard on the door?”
          “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. She hasn’t got a key and the door is too heavy for her to break down. And if she did, we’d hear it. Well, put somebody at the bottom of the stairs with a shotgun, just in case.” He spoke to Allie. “You’ll have a bed, a water closet, a lamp for light—please don’t try to burn the house down—and there’s a window for air, but it’s way over your head and too small for you to get through anyway. You’ll be…safe…up there.” He laughed again, and this time he sounded a little insane to Allie.
          “You want us to search her, real thorough like, boss? Like you said? Just to make sure she isn’t hiding anything else somewhere?”
          Allie stood up, turned to him, and, with fire in her eyes, said, “Don’t you dare touch me, you weasel. I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
          Curt just laughed. The Man had a smile on his. “Actually, Curt, I do think that’s a very good idea. She may have a file or a wire or another weapon of some sort somewhere.”
          Allie looked back at him. “I told you that I didn’t.”
          “Would you believe me if our situation was reversed and I told you I had nothing else hidden?”
          No, I wouldn’t…And though she didn’t respond, the expression on her face answered the question.
          “Besides,” The Man said, still smiling. “It’s not often a man gets to gaze on such beauty.” He nodded at his foreman, indicating that the process should begin.
          Allie clenched her teeth and fists. She was about to fight, regardless of what it cost her. But, as she always did on a case—and this was why she was so good—she thought rationally and bowed to reality. She wouldn’t win a fight and could possibly get hurt badly. And they’d still search her. Better to stay healthy; better chance of escape…When she heard two rifles behind her each chamber a bullet, that clenched her decision. There were some things worth dying for, but, to Allie, this wasn’t one of them. I can’t put this creep behind bars if I’m dead. I’ll get away somehow. Of that, she had no doubt. But if he lets his hired thugs rape me, I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do…
          Curt walked over to her. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
          “What does that mean?”
          “You can do it yourself, or I’ll do it for you.”
          Allie’s eyes blazed, but she started unbuttoning her blouse. “I don’t want your filthy hands on me,” she told him.
          So Allie suffered the humiliation of stripping in front of a bunch of ogling men. She was doing a slow boil during the process…the indignity of it all…She wasn’t surprised, of course, but this was the first time, since she had become a Ranger, that such ignominy had been forced upon her, forced being the operative word here. And while it angered her, she thought back to a conversation she had had with McConnell during her training period……………….

Five years earlier…
          “You realize, of course, what will happen to you if you are ever caught by a group of outlaws and taken prisoner,” he said to her.
         “I think so,” Allie replied hesitantly. She had been so desirous of becoming a Ranger, so sure of her abilities, that the thought of failure and capture had never entered her head.
          “Allie, you must be aware that there are some brutal, heartless men out there who have absolutely no conscience. I promise you that, given the chance, they will abuse you endlessly, and more so because you are such a…an attractive…woman. They will just kill a man. They’ll have their fun with you, and then kill you.”
          Allie just looked at him.
          “Are you willing to accept that risk to be a Ranger?”
          “Well, hopefully, it will never come to that.”
          McConnell leaned forward in his chair and looked at her sternly. “Allie, are you willing to accept that risk? If not, then you cannot, must not, become a Ranger.”
          “Captain McConnell, I’ll do what it takes to be a Ranger, and the best one I can be.”
          The Captain leaned back and looked at Allie. She thought she saw some skepticism in his eyes. Sure enough, “Those are noble words, Allie, but you have to face the reality of the job you’re wanting to do. This isn’t a dime novel where the good guy shows up at the nick of time and saves the day. This isn’t a sheriff being there to pull a kitty cat out of a tree for a little girl. We’re talking the real world here, girl, a hard, callous, cruel world, that isn’t fair, never has been and never will be. The men you will be chasing, most of them, will have no compunction at all at having as much fun with you as they want. And yeah, you may be good at Indian wrestling and might be able to take a man one-on-one—might be, I said—but as often as not, you’ll be dealing with multiple outlaws because these wolves travel in packs. I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t have a chance.” He stared at her, hard. “Have you ever been raped, Allie?”
          “No,” she said softly. She’d never been with a man, period.
          “Then you have no idea the horror of it. It will be the last thing you ever experience because, when they are through with you, they will kill you.”
          Allie smiled at him. “Are you trying to scare me away from the job, Captain?”
          He didn’t smile back. “No, I’m not. I’m trying to let you know what to expect out there. I hope you never face it, either, but I don’t want you getting into this blinded by unreal fantasies.” He paused a moment, then said, “Allie, why do you think we don’t hire women?”
          She stared at him blankly. “Well, I…it’s…I mean, it’s…always been a man’s job. Women stay at home and raise kids…”
          “And you don’t want to do that?”
          “Well, some day, but not right now.” Allie looked at him with some angst. “I’ve just had this dream for a long time, Captain McConnell, ever since you pulled my cat out of that tree. I’m young enough, I can do other things when I get older. Like get married and have a family.”
          “What I’m telling you, though, Allie, is that you may not live long enough to do that. This is dangerous work, I lose men occasionally, and I can see this job being doubly dangerous for a woman. You’re good—good with a gun, a rifle, a knife, good at wrestling. With some of those things, you’re as good as or better than any man I’ve got. But a practice range isn’t the real world, either. And we don’t hire women because it would be very hard for us to explain why we even hired you if you were abused and killed. I’d have some tough questions to answer.”
          “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you in a difficult position.”
          “Well, you are, but that’s not near as important as the difficult position you might find yourself in some day.”
          “But all your men face the danger and the possibility of death.”
          “But not rape.”
          “Well, if the decision is mine, Captain, I’ll take the chance. It’s my body. I want to be a Ranger and I’ll do what it takes to get a job done…”
          Those last words came back to haunt Allie a couple of times over the years. Well, not really haunt her, she made the decisions on her own, and she never regretted them. Almost. But it was her job, as a Ranger, to do what was necessary. At least that’s the way she thought of it.
          The first instance was an assignment to follow—only follow—a gang of ruffians led by Tate Crandall. McConnell wanted to know the location of their hideout; Allie was to find it and report that location to the Captain. He would then send a contingent of men to capture and arrest the outlaws.
          Allie did her job and, as always, did it well. She tracked Crandall’s gang—her Indian father had taught her how to track a snake across a bare rock— to a hideaway in the mountains. She rushed to the nearest town and wired McConnell, giving him the exact location of the hideout, and also telling him she would continue to watch them in case they decided to move on.
          Which they did—decide to move on, that is.
          There were six of them, rough-looking characters but not a dumb-looking meatball among them; intelligent, wily men. Allie observed them from a safe hiding spot for the rest of the day on which she had wired McConnell and, when she was convinced that they intended to stay the night, she rode back to town. She anticipated returning the next morning to continue her surveillance. Before she left the town, she stopped by the telegraph office to see if there was any word from McConnell. There was. He and several Rangers would be arriving that day, probably early in the afternoon. He wanted Allie to stay on the scene and do whatever she could to prevent the outlaws from leaving, if it appeared they were going to do so. Allie hurried back to her lookout location. She moved nearer the cabin, hoping to hear what was being said. What she saw, and especially, what she heard was not what she wanted to see and hear.
          The six men were loading their horses in what were apparently preparations to depart. That was verified by the conversation Allie heard.
          “Tate, which way are we headed?” a short, young, curly headed fellow asked.
          Crandall responded as he was tying down a blanket on the back of his horse.
          “East.”
          “Why east?” This question from a tall, burly man who had stopped cinching his gelding in order to look at Crandall.
          “Because I say so,” Crandall responded. “I have no doubt that the law expects us to head west—which is the way we’ve been traveling. So we’ll do what they don’t expect and double back. They’ll keep going west and we’ll put a lot of miles between us and them.”
          “Smart thinking,” Burly said.
          Allie thought so, too. She felt confident that she could track them wherever they went, but here they were, McConnell would be there in a few hours, and it would be frustrating—to say the least—to let the outlaws move on when they were so close to being apprehended.
          Allie considered her options. She could let the men leave, wait for McConnell, and then follow. The Rangers would be only a few hours, at most, behind the outlaws. Allie dismissed that idea almost at once. Letting them out of her sight was not an alternative, as far as she was concerned. She could go in and try to hold the men at gunpoint until McConnell arrived. But that was extremely risky against six cunning men. One slip-up and she’d be dead and the outlaws gone. Allie was as brave as any Ranger on the force, but she wasn’t stupid by any means. As she thought about it, she felt there was a safer—and easier—way.
          She hurriedly ran back to her horse, kneeled down, and with her knife, worked the horseshoe off the left front hoof. This hobbled her mount, of course. She stuffed all her weapons into her saddlebag. Then she took the horse’s reins and walked…directly into the outlaw camp. Deliberately. And her heart was thumping. Hard. This wasn’t in the Ranger playbook and she knew it.
          “Oh,” she said, as if in surprise. “I didn’t know there was a house here.”
          Crandall and his men stopped what they were doing and looked at Allie. “What are you doing here, lady?” Tate Crandall said, and not kindly.
          “Well, I was…I was riding through the mountains and my horse threw a shoe. I’m…kinda lost,” she said sheepishly. “I got turned around and wasn’t quite sure how to get out.” Then she looked at Randall and his men, appraising them as if with interest. “I didn’t know I’d run into six…men…up here. Can you…shoe my horse for me?”
          The men were eyeing Allie now—with interest unfeigned. “Well, we were just getting ready to leave,” Crandall replied.
          “But my horse…” Then Allie smiled, suggestively. “I can pay you.”
          Tate Crandall and five other men, almost involuntarily, started walking towards Allie, and they were smiling, too. “Oh?” Crandall said. “How much can you pay?”
          “Well,” Allie said, “I don’t have any money…” And she started unbuttoning her blouse…the outlaws smiled more widely, and continued coming towards her…this is too easy….
          Allie went into the cabin, and for the next three hours, kept the six men distracted, in ways the details of which are irrelevant to this story—as interesting as they might be. After those three hours, McConnell hadn’t appeared yet and Crandall was ready to leave. Allie was concerned, fearing she might have to resort to firearms, and ready to do so, if necessary. But, fortunately, just as she finished dressing, McConnell’s men surrounded the house and forced Crandall to surrender. The capture and arrest were swift and sure. “And I thought you told me that the good guys never arrive in the nick of time,” Allie said, teasingly, to McConnell.
          He was perplexed. “Did they kidnap you?”
          “No,” she said with a cheeky smile. “I kidnapped them.”
          The Captain looked at her suspiciously but never asked what she was doing inside the outlaws’ cabin.
          The second time Allie had to use…her wiles…wasn’t long after that. Her assignment was to break up a racketeering operation in a sizeable town not far from Ranger headquarters. The man heading the operation, Oliver Schott, owned the liquor, gambling, prostitution, and rustling “concessions” in the town. They were all crooked—extortion, bribery, theft, blackmail, shakedowns, and a few dead bodies to boot. “Just get him on one of them,” McConnell told Allie. “That’s all we need. But be careful and take your time. We’ve been after this fellow for a long time. He’s as slippery as a snake. It will probably take you several months, maybe over a year, but it’s that important.”
          Of course, Allie was willing to take on the assignment; anything the Rangers wanted her to do. She considered carefully how she could best approach it. Well, going into a saloon would be way too conspicuous, so drinking and gambling are out. Staking out and finding rustlers could take forever; there are over a dozen ranches in the area, how would I know where the rustlers were going to hit next? And how could I capture them all by myself? And get them to talk? No, not good. That leaves only….
          And Allie smiled.
          Three months later, Oliver Schott was behind bars and McConnell was debriefing Allie, praising her for solving the case so quickly. He asked her how she had done it. She told him.
          “You did WHAT?” he said, rising from his chair, knocking it to the floor.
          Allie smiled and shrugged. “To me, it was the best and quickest way. Talk to the other girls, visit with the men who came in. Believe me, a lot of high rollers who were about to lose their shirts to Schott were ready to help put him away. They talked and talked and talked, gave me all kinds of leads. It was easy, actually, especially after I discovered that Schott himself came in regularly. Come on to him, pump some liquor into him, spread my legs for him a few times…he would have given me the key to his vault.” Her smile turned mischievous. “Nice looking man, too. And, boy, could he ever—“
          “All right, all right, I don’t need a blow by blow account,” McConnell said irritably. Then he put his hands on his hips and stared at his only female Ranger. “Allie…not that way. I never intended--“
          She didn’t back down. “That man needed to be behind bars, Captain. He was draining that town dry, leaving people destitute, and he didn’t care one whit. I’m proud to have had a part in putting him away.”
          McConnell still seemed peeved. “Yeah, I’m glad he’s in jail, too. But what you did is not the Ranger way.”
           Allie laughed at that. “No, I guess not. I do hope you don’t have any of your men working in whorehouses.”
          The captain turned angry again, more at her flippancy than anything else. “It’s not funny, Allie. I don’t want my—I don’t want you working in a whorehouse, either. If you do that again, I’ll—“
          Allie stood up and picked up her bag, obviously intending to leave. “You’ll do nothing, Captain McConnell. You gave me an assignment. I did it, the best way I knew how. And I was successful. To me, having that man in jail, not hurting other people, is a whole lot more important than anything it cost me.” She looked directly at him. “Is that so bad? To sacrifice in order to help people? It was my decision. And it worked.”
          McConnell stared…at his best Ranger. He shook his head, turned away again and looked out the window. “Get out of here, Allie. Take a few days off and come back in next Monday. I’ll have another assignment for you.”
          Allie started to leave the room, then, with that mischievous smile on her face again, said to her boss, “Oh, Captain, I understand that part of my contract with the Rangers is not to work at another job on the side. Does that mean I’m going to have to turn over the other wages and tips I earned during this assignment?”
          McConnell closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Then he looked back at her. “Allie—“
          “I sure hope not because I made a lot of money, a whole lot more than you pay me.”
          “ALLIE!”
          And she laughed and left the room.
          Shaking his head again—and trying not to smile—the boss turned back to the window. Staring at…nothing…Captain William Travis McConnell only wished he had a company full of Rangers as resourceful—and successful—as Allie Summer…I had men trying for over a year to catch Schott. two of them were killed. and she puts him behind bars in three months…..if I had more Rangers like her, we’d clean this whole territory of outlaws…
          Then he smiled wryly. But I don’t think I’ll ask her about her methods any more…

Back to the future, at The Man’s house…..
          The mind is an amazing thing. All of that flew through Allie’s head in just a few seconds as she stood nude in The Man’s study. And she realized that she didn’t regret one thing she had ever done. I’m a Ranger, I’m proud of it, and if that—this--is the price I have to pay…But then, inexplicably, she felt tears coming and she fought to hold them back. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t the shame of her current nudity, but the shame of failure—the first time she had bungled an assignment. Well, I haven’t really failed yet…this is just a temporary setback. That’s what she told herself, but the words weren’t having much effect at the moment. I’ve failed and I’m suffering the consequences…It didn’t matter to her why she had failed; the dumb luck of having that cowboy going to the privy. She had botched the job, and that was a bitter, bitter pill for her to swallow.
          Curt started ripping her clothes apart. “Hey, what are you doing?” Allie said angrily.
          “Making sure you aren’t hiding anything in the seams. That’s where something small and dangerous would be, wouldn’t it?” And he laughed, cutting the seams of her pants with a knife.
          She turned to The Man. “Are you going to let him do that? Haven’t you got any decency at all?”
          His eyebrows went up. “You break into my house, open my safe, steal some very important papers from me…and you lecture me on decency?” He snorted. “Physician, heal thyself.”
          “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Allie said, her voice filled with sarcasm. “Next time I’ll knock on your front door and just ask you for the proof I want to put you in jail for the rest of your life.”
          The Man smiled. “You’ve got a feisty tongue, Lady Ranger. Especially for someone standing buck naked in front of four men. And, might I add, you are very, very lovely.” His eyes roamed up and down her body.
          There was nothing Allie could do about it but stand there and fume. Curt was humming to himself as he shredded her clothes. Allie looked at him. He wouldn’t be bad looking if he wasn’t such a creep. And that creep’s probably going to…She shuddered and pushed the thought away. She’d deal with it if—when—it came.
          Curt finished his search. “Nothing that I can find, boss.” He tossed Allie’s clothes to her with a laugh. “Here you can put them back on.”
          There wasn’t, of course, much to put back on. Her pants were totally ripped, every seam, top to bottom. They were completely beyond wearing or repair. As were Allie’s underclothes. The only thing that she could put on was her shirt. Curt hadn’t totally ripped the shoulder seams apart. But the buttons were gone and it was torn up each side. Allie slipped it back on. It wasn’t much consolation, but it was long enough to cover her backside and she did the best she could with the front. The Man watched her, smiling his taunting little smile, but said nothing.
          Until he spoke to Curt and the other two men. “Take her up to the loft, men. All three of you. Keep your rifles trained on her. Like I said earlier, I don’t trust this little lady an inch. She’s dangerous, regardless of what she’s wearing.” That smile again. “Or not wearing.”
          Allie didn’t bother responding to that. She tried to stay on the offensive, as much as possible. “What are you going to do with me tomorrow? Or rather, this morning? Am I going to get something to eat? Are you going to replace my clothes that this ape tore apart? If I’m going to be your…’guest,’ then treat me like one.”
          The Man yawned again. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t know the answer to all of those questions. I imagine we’ll feed you something. I don’t have any female clothes, and you might not need any anyway. We’ll see what happens. You haven’t let me sleep much tonight so I may not be in a very good mood. Perhaps you’d better be grateful just to be alive and not make so many demands.” He motioned with his head to his men. “Take her away.”
          Before she could think of anything to say, Allie was pushed from behind. One of the other men opened the door and went out first. Curt and the third man followed her. Down the hall, and up some winding red-carpeted stairs with a polished, cherry wood railing. The chandelier hanging in the living room wasn’t bad, either. But Allie wasn’t terribly interested in the accoutrements of the mansion. Maybe I can get the rifle of the man in front of me…yeah, and get a bullet in the back….She had to admit, they knew what they were doing. They had her surrounded, and that made immediate escape impossible.
          On the second floor—much of which overlooked the huge living room—Allie was led down a hallway towards the back of the house. There were several closed doors on each side of the hall; Allie thought of dashing through one of them, shutting it as rapidly as possible, and trying to get out a window. Dumb idea…But her mind was churning, and it would continue to do so until a good idea came along. At the very end of the hallway, the man in front opened a door. The only thing behind it was a narrow stairway leading up. Allie stopped, but Curt, who was immediately behind her, gave her another shove.
          “Go on. Up there.”
          She had no choice but to proceed up the stairs. She could see a closed door at the top. After counting 13 stairs, she stopped as the man in front of her unlocked the door and opened it. Allie noticed that, as The Man had said, the door was heavy. And thick. It looked, to Allie, like a medieval dungeon door. The key had been big and heavy, too.
          The man went inside and, with a gentle nudge from Curt, Allie followed. Man In Front…Bob? Or is Bob the guy behind Curt? Allie couldn’t remember because she hadn’t been able to clearly see faces. The third man hadn’t been named. Well, Man In Front is good enough for now…MIF lit a lamp and the room brightened. Almost.
          Allie looked around at her new…home. For how long? It was maybe 20 feet by 20 feet, with a closet off to one side—the water closet. I remember him saying there was one. The whole room was of unpainted pine wood, with an A-framed ceiling that was probably 15 feet high at its apex. There was, as The Man had said, only one window—at the very back of the room, a small porthole about 10 feet from the floor. There was a long pole with a metal gripper on the end of it on the floor beneath the window. Curt went over, picked it up, and, reaching up with the gripper, opened the porthole window.
          He gave Allie a smile, albeit not a warm one. “There. You’ll have some air. I’ll keep this pole.”
          “Yeah,” is the only response Allie gave him.
          The rest of the room consisted of a bed with a thick quilt on top, a table with the lamp on it, one chair and…that was it. Allie could tell right off that, even if she stood on the chair, she couldn’t reach the window. And, as The Man had said, even if she could reach the window, it was too small for her to squeeze through. The only way out of the room was via the door.
          “Have a nice night,” Curt said, with a mocking smile as he and the other two men backed out of the room. Allie watched them helplessly.
          And then, the final indignity. Right before Curt exited, he said, “Oh, one more thing.” And quickly, he reached out to Allie, grabbed her torn blouse, and ripped it off of her. Laughing raucously, he left the room, shut and locked the door. Even through the thick wood, Allie could hear him and the other two men guffawing as they walked down the stairs. Then, the door at the landing closed, and there was silence.
          Allie fought back mounting frustration. She had never dealt with a situation like this before. Failure. Being taunted and mocked. Humiliation. A total sense of helplessness. She sat on the bed and wanted to cry, but she fought against that. She grabbed the quilt and pulled it over herself, trying to hide her nakedness from…whom? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Ok, Allie. Think like a Ranger. What should I do? Try to escape, of course. She looked around the room and spotted nothing of obvious benefit in her desire to flee her prison. The window was too high. She walked over to the door and examined it. Old fashioned bolt key lock, locked from the outside, obviously. She didn’t even try to tug on the door; don’t waste time….
          She stood still and looked around. She could probably have started a fire with the oil burning lamp, but she would be the first to die—and probably the only one. Walking over to the water closet, she opened the door and saw a chamber pot on the floor, and a shelf with a pitcher of water and a bowl. She considered ways she might be able to use some of those objects. Bashing somebody over the head with the pitcher or chamber pot might work—unless there were two or three men to deal with, which Allie suspected was most probable. Yet, she didn’t totally discount the possibility of using the pitcher or pot. Be creative. Make use of what’s available. She’d think on it some more.
          Allie was very tired—she hadn’t had any sleep and it was the wee hours of the morning now. But she wasn’t ready yet for bed. She started searching the room, literally inch by inch. The walls, the bed, the floor…a long, tedious search….
          She searched…and searched…and searched….and then Allie smiled…..