a few bullets into the crate before he sent it cartwheeling into space. It would certainly be the civilized thing to do. Then again, Longstreet wasn’t a civilized man, and this wasn’t a civilized country. He fingered the arrowhead imbedded beneath his skin and decided he might just need his ammunition for a more worthy cause, like saving his own hide.
Jasper climbed into the back of the wagon. It took all of his wiry strength to inch the crate along until gravity finished the job. He watched the crate somersault end over end until it was the size of a die and disappeared into the chaparral at the bottom of the gorge.
Of course, someone would stumble onto it…eventually…an Indian looking for a lost colt or a bandit running from the law. It could happen tomorrow. Then again, it might not happen for a hundred years.
In time he’d forget Longstreet’s face. He’d even forget his name, but he’d never forget leaving behind them fancy silver spurs.
LADY SHERIFF SEES RED! by Barbara L. Bonham
Stephanie Lawson shifted the big gun which lay across her knees and took a firmer grip on the driver’s seat atop the stagecoach. Her movement caught the attention of Andy, the grizzled old driver, and she flushed, feeling his eyes upon her.
Thinks I’ve gone in over my head this time, she thought angrily. I’ll show him. I’ll show them all that I can do as good a job as sheriff as any man. They won’t be sorry they let me take over when Uncle Mort died. He was the best sheriff Red Rock ever had, and I’ll finish out his term if it kills me! She started. And it might do just that if I’m not careful. This job is by far the biggest I’ve come up against yet. I’ve got to stop these stagecoach robberies. The railroad has lost its pay-roll gold three times already, always when it’s being shipped from Ben Walters’ bank to the railroad office in Pine Junction.
She ran the toe of her boot over the top of the iron chest which lay at her feet and smiled. Ben didn’t have to worry about the railroad getting its gold shipment this time. She’d see that the gold arrived safely at the railroad station or know the reason why. The smile erased the tense lines that had pulled at her attractive face, and her full mouth softened. Eyes that matched the summer sky above her blond head examined the surrounding countryside carefully.
Nothing. This was too good to be true. The sunlight gleamed on the sheriff’s badge which was pinned to her shirt as she turned to look back over the road the stagecoach had already traveled. The heavy metal star-shaped badge looked strange on such an unmistakably feminine breast.
The gleam of sunlight reflected by the badge flashed squarely in the driver’s eyes, and he smiled. “Steve,” he shouted above the din of coach wheels and horse’s hooves, “what do you think you could do if those two bandits held up this here stage again?”
Steve turned around and looked up at Andy. Her eyes flashed angrily and her voice was stern with determination. “You can bet your boots I’d do a whole lot more than that lily-livered deputy who rode gun with you last time.”
“Now there, gal, don’t be too hard on Jed. He didn’t have a chance to fire a single shot. They were too fast for us. He tried and got a bullet in the shoulder for his trouble.”
Steve thrust out a chin which was ridiculously soft despite its stubbornness and remained silent.
“Why don’t you marry Ben and quit this job, Steve?”
Startled at the abrupt switch in the conversation, Steve answered sharply: “Reckon that’s my business.”
“Reckon it is,” the craggy old driver agreed, “but I know it isn’t ’cause he hasn’t asked you. He’s made no bones about wanting you to marry him for the past couple of years. If I—”
His next words were cut off by the sound of a shot. The bullet whizzed high over their heads, and almost in the same instant, it seemed, a voice at Steve’s elbow shouted, “Don’t reach for your gun!” and to Andy, “Stop the stagecoach!”
Steve whirled and found herself looking down into a pair of blue eyes that glinted as coldly as the gun barrel which was pointed directly at her. A mere wiggle of her little finger would have sent a bullet ripping into her chest.
Andy stopped the horses in a matter of seconds, and the stagecoach stood rocking on its wheels after its abrupt stop. The two squealing lady passengers and a fidgety little drummer didn’t even rate a glance from the lone bandit.
“Keep quiet and you won’t get hurt,” the gunman yelled at them. “Now, miss, just hand down that iron box there under your feet.”
“I will not,” Steve said defiantly.
Just for a moment the masked man stiffened, and then his eyes above the black kerchief which covered the rest of his face crinkled. “Throw it down, old timer,” he said to Andy without taking his eyes from Steve.
“Yes, sir,” Andy replied, scrambling to obey.
He dropped the iron box in the dust at the feet of the bandit’s, horse. Reaching out quickly, the masked man snatched the big gun from Steve’s knees, snagged the iron box by one handle, and pulled it some distance from the stagecoach. All this without a single waver of his eyes or gun.
Then came the most surprising move of all. The big bandit shot out a long arm and lifted Steve right off the driver’s seat and deposited her across the saddle in front of him.
The suddenness of the move paralyzed Steve for a moment, and then she gasped and started fighting like a wildcat, a captured wildcat, for captured she was. Bound by an arm strong as an iron band, she could do little but wiggle and kick feebly. Her face was pressed so tightly against the man’s broad chest, she couldn’t even yell.
Rage shot through her like a hot flame and set her blood pounding in her ears until she hardly heard the bandit’s orders to Andy.
“Don’t move an inch, old-timer, and don’t try any funny tricks or your pretty companion here will get a bullet through her heart.” His eyes crinkled again. “What I’ve got to do will only take a minute anyway.”
Steve felt the laughter rumbling in his huge chest as the horse wheeled and galloped to the shade of a nearby tree:
“And now, my fiery beauty,” he said pulling the horse up short. The words, Steve found as she leaned back far enough to look up into his eyes, were meant not for the horse but for her.
The way his glance stole over her made Steve blurt out hastily, “You touch me and I’ll—I’ll scratch your eyes out!”
The man yelped with laughter. “I don’t doubt your word or your ability, but don’t you think you’re a little late seeing as how I’ve already got you in my arms.”
His laughter and his cocksureness infuriated Steve even further, and her fury gave her added strength.
She managed to twist an arm free and quick as a flash she reached up and yanked off the bandit’s mask. She had only a quick glimpse of red hair above the ears, freckled, pleasantly-homely face, and a clefted chin before the wide grinning mouth came down on hers hard.
She began flailing him with her one free arm, but she might as well have beat against a brick wall. Rage and the vise-like arm around her made it almost impossible to breathe. For a moment she thought her lungs would burst from lack of air, and then suddenly his mouth moved ever so slightly so that her nose
