but Clay didn’t relax. He kept a steady eye on the landscape ahead.
“Swing station is up ahead, just a couple of miles other side of Waterbow Curve.” Buck shoved his chin in that direction. “Looks like we’re going to make it.”
Clay shifted on the seat. “Maybe so.”
The horses pulled the big coach up the next hill, and Buck tightened up on the reins as they headed into a long, slow curve. On the left rose a dense wooded hillside, and to the right a meadow dotted with elms.
“What the hell? Whoa!” Buck pulled back hard on the reins. The stage came to a halt.
Clay braced his boot against the footboard and pushed his hat back on his head. “Holy…”
From the branches of the elms dangled women’s undergarments. Lacy corsets, embroidered stockings, taffeta petticoats, chemises with tiny bows, all hung from the limbs, waving gently in the breeze. Across the ground, ruffled, delicate clothing lay piled in mounds. A saddled horse grazed near the elm, the reins dragging as it walked.
Buck and Clay looked at each other, then at Mick. Stunned, the three men turned back to the meadow.
“I never—” Mick’s voice cracked. “I never saw so many unmentionables in one spot in my whole entire life.”
“Look at all them ruffles and lacy things.” Buck shook his head in awe.
Clay swallowed hard and shifted on the seat. He’d been on the trail way too long.
“I’ll see what’s going on.” Mick climbed down from the coach.
“Watch yourself,” Clay called. His gaze swept the wooded hills to the left, then settled on Mick as he picked his way around the silks and linens. “Check behind that—”
“Drop ‘em, lawman.”
Clay froze as cold, hard steel pressed against the base of his neck. He tensed and lifted the Winchester.
Buck turned toward him and his eyes widened. “What—”
The gun barrel pressed harder against Clay’s neck, a silent command. He lowered the rifle onto his lap again and chanced a glimpse behind him. Black lace ruffled in the breeze. Clay’s stomach knotted. The widow.
A boy stepped from behind an elm, wearing a red bandanna and an oversize hat. He pointed a rifle at Mick, who dropped his gun.
The Schoolyard Boys. Clay mumbled a curse.
A low, raspy voice spoke from behind him once more. “I said drop them, lawman.”
The gun barrel jabbed his neck. Clay cursed and threw down his rifle and pistol. Buck did the same.
A horse emerged from the trees on the left, and the third Schoolyard Boy lifted a rifle and aimed it at the stage. Positioned in their cross fire, with no weapon and two passengers in the stage to consider, Clay could do nothing.
From the corner of his eye, Clay saw the pistol at his back wave at Buck, and he mumbled and cursed, too, but tossed down the strongbox. It landed with a thud in the soft earth. The boy under the elm poked Mick in the ribs, and he headed back to the stage. He climbed up top while the widow made her way to the ground on the other side.
Clay looked down at the widow below him. Both arms extended, she held the pistol on him. If a boy was under that dress, it was a hell of a good disguise. For an instant, he considered jumping her, to see if she would shoot. But the sound of her voice rang loud and clear in his memory. Hard, gritty determination. He wouldn’t chance it.
Buck picked up the reins and shouted to the team, and the stagecoach pulled away. Clay watched as the third rider followed them through the hills for several hundred yards, until they reached the crest of the next hill. The boy pulled up and waited, keeping an eye on the stage, making sure no one got off and doubled back.
“Damn it to hell…” Anger coiled in Clay’s belly. He was going to get those Schoolyard Boys.
Clay left the stage at the swing station, got a horse from the stationmaster and rode back to the scene of the robbery. He’d questioned both passengers before leaving, but neither could tell him anything about the little widow. Like Clay himself, the men had hardly noticed her, feeling uncomfortable in her presence.
She’d kept to herself. Then she’d done her talking with the pistol she took from her reticule and made the men draw the shades on the stage windows. The. last they’d seen of her was her dress flapping in the breeze as she climbed up the side of the coach.
He’d tracked the Schoolyard Boys through the hills after finding the empty strongbox under the elms, then lost them after they rode into a creek. Whoever they were, they knew the countryside. Local boys. They’d be harder to catch than outlaws like Scully Dade, who kept on the move.
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