Rescuing Diana (20 page)

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Loveswept
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Read on for an excerpt from Sandra Chastain’s
The Redhead and the Preacher

L
ATE
A
PRIL
—
1860

M
CKENZIE
K
ATHRYN
C
ALHOUN
consoled herself afterward by saying that she hadn’t intended to commit a crime the day she took part in robbing the Bank of Promise in Promise, Kansas.

But the morning it happened, it wouldn’t have done her any good to claim innocence. It was far too late. The people in Promise had long ago given up on the rangy, red-haired girl who wore men’s clothes, quoted from the classics, and called herself Macky. She was considered as peculiar as her father and as wild and out of control as her shiftless brother had been.

Had Macky been anybody else, the town might have shown some consideration over her having buried her peace-loving father one day and learning the next that her brother, Todd, hadn’t shown up for the funeral because he’d dealt himself four aces in a crooked poker game. There was nothing unusual about that, except this time he’d been shot to death by another gambler who caught him cheating.

Macky could have told them that she had to sell her father’s horse to pay for his funeral and her own horse to pay for her brother’s, but nobody asked. All she had left the day of the holdup was a mule named Solomon, her mother’s cameo, and a worthless farm with the mortgage due. All she wanted to do was buy a stone for Papa’s grave and find a place where she could belong. Her plan to get even with the banker who’d cheated her father might fail, but that morning it was the only hope she had.

It was late April, the time of year when spring crops should be planted, but not on Calhoun land in Promise, Kansas. It was fitting, Macky thought, that a light snow had fallen the night before, scalloping the prairie with white ruffles like the fading memory of frothy waves back home in Boston’s harbor. Like everything else in her life, even the earth seemed to be moving away from her.

She closed her eyes for a moment to stop the spinning in her mind while she considered what to take with her. Deciding that it would be warmer to wear her clothes than carry them, she donned two of her brother Todd’s shirts, his trousers and his work boots, stuffed with rags so that she could keep them on.

Instead of the braid she normally wore to restrain her unruly mass of red hair, she tucked it beneath her papa’s felt hat. Finally, she rolled her only dress in her bedroll, along with the last of the cheese and bread.

Macky never had cared much about looking like a woman, but today even Papa wouldn’t have recognized the washed-out shell of a person she’d become. With her mother’s brooch tucked into the pocket of Papa’s coat, she mounted the mule and started into town.

As she rode away, she looked back. There was nothing else of value left; there were no more livestock, no food supplies, only a rundown house ready to collapse in the wake of the next windstorm. If her father hadn’t died of heart problems, he’d have died of starvation for there was no money left for seed that wouldn’t grow.

The only thing that gave her pause was leaving her father’s books. Carrying them would have been only a sentimental gesture for she’d memorized them long ago. Of all the things she’d lost, her conversations with her father would be the things she’d miss most.

Pulling her gaze away from the dismal scene, she gave the mule a slap on the rear. Today was Friday and payday for the banker’s cowhands. She had better hurry if she was going to catch the man before he left for his ranch. As she rode, she rehearsed her plea to the smart-talking money-man who’d sold her gentle, scholarly father a worthless piece of land where nothing would grow but rattlesnakes and sagebrush.

If the banker-turned-land-dealer refused to buy back the land, Macky would sell her mother’s cameo for enough money to buy a ticket on the noon stage heading for Denver. The brooch was the last thing she owned of any value, that and Solomon, a mule so ornery no one would buy him.

Macky gave little thought about where she would go now. Her family had been outcasts every place they’d ever been; Papa with his fine education and inability to earn a living and Mama and Todd who always refused to try.

She didn’t expect to find a place where she fit in. God only knew where she’d ever find something she was good at. No man would want her as a wife; she was too outspoken, too plain, and she couldn’t cook. She might have been a schoolmarm, if she’d had the temperament and had been submissive enough to satisfy those who paid her salary. She might have been a governess if she’d paid more attention to her mother’s lessons of deportment.

But Macky was taught to think, to express herself and to do it openly as an equal. Macky sighed. The only thing she had to offer was something nobody would want—a quick mind.

About a mile outside of town, a hawk swooped down, clasped a frightened jackrabbit in his talons, and flew away. The sound of his wings spooked the mule, who stepped into a gopher hole and bolted. He deposited Macky in the middle of the trail and, braying at the top of his lungs, took off with her bedroll.

Macky let out an oath as she watched him race away. She was still fuming when four hard-riding men crested the hill and came to a stop where she’d fallen. One man was leading a horse with an empty saddle.

“Looks like you got trouble, boy!” The stranger who seemed to be the leader glanced at the disappearing mule, then moved closer. He had a scruffy gray beard and a bloody bandana tied around his forehead. He was riding a black horse with a fancy silver-trimmed saddle.

Boy?
One look at the cold expression in his eyes made Macky decide that being a boy at this point was much safer than being a girl. She nodded and came to her feet.

“What’s your name, son?”

“McKenzie,” she answered in the deepest voice she could manage.

“Heading to Promise?” another asked.

“Yep.”

“Folks there know you?” the leader asked.

Again, she nodded. They knew her, but that wasn’t likely to do these men any good if they were looking for someone to put in a word for them.

“How’d you like a ride the rest of the way to town, pick up a dollar or two? We got an extra horse.” The leader nodded at the black horse trailing behind them. “One of my men had a little accident a ways back and—stayed behind.”

Macky would have said no, but if she walked, she’d miss the noon stage. Once she made her decision to leave, catching that stage had become the most important thing she’d ever do.

She studied the man making the offer. She had nothing for them to steal and, as long as he didn’t know she was a girl, accepting his offer was less likely to give her away than refusing. Besides, Promise was only a short way down the trail, and once she reached town, she’d separate herself from these rough-looking men.

“Much obliged.”

Macky grabbed the saddle horn and vaulted onto the horse, kicking him into a steady gallop to keep up with her new companions. She wondered where they’d come from and what had happened to the man who stayed behind. All the horses had been ridden hard; their coats were icy with frozen perspiration. Why were they heading for a town that had little claim to fame other than the attempts by a few homesteaders to raise crops in an area where the only year-round water belonged to one man?

The leader slowed his horse, allowing Macky to come abreast of him. “What kind of place is Promise, kid?”

“Small,” she answered.

“We’re heading there to do a little banking. You can watch our horses while we’re inside.”

That hadn’t been part of Macky’s plan. At the moment, however, she couldn’t see a way out. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. The bank, standing between the blacksmith’s forge and the dressmaker’s shop, was the first thing they’d come to.

The men reined in their horses in front of the rustic building and slid to the street mushy with melting snow. Macky, anxious to separate herself from the strangers, stopped her horse in front of the smithy’s shop. She was already in enough trouble with the town; riding in with a group of strangers would only make matters worse. She’d just tie the horse to the hitching rail and disappear.

She soon found
that
wasn’t going to work. “Watch the horses, boy,” the man with the beard said as he climbed down and dropped the reins to his horse.

Two of the riders stationed themselves beside the front door of the bank while the leader and the other man went inside. Before Macky could figure out how to get away, gunshots rang out. Seconds later the two men ran out of the bank.

“That’s far enough, Pratt,” the sheriff’s deputy called out from the roof of the general store across the street.

“Drop the money and throw down your guns,” Sheriff Dover ordered. Macky couldn’t see him where he was standing in the alley between the bank and the blacksmith’s shop. “We got word from the federal prison that you were heading this way. Just let me have the money.”

Pratt? The sheriff had called the man Pratt. Everybody in the West knew about the infamous Pratt gang. One outlaw suddenly dropped to the ground, rolled away from the door and got off a shot. The deputy fell, but not before he’d wounded one of the robbers.

The man by the door found cover and opened fire. The sheriff responded with a barrage of bullets, grazing the horse’s haunches as Pratt mounted. The frightened animal reared up. In his attempt to stay on his horse, Pratt lost control of the flour sack he was carrying, flinging it behind him toward the startled Macky who caught it instinctively.

Macky, who’d been paralyzed by what was happening, suddenly realized that Pratt and his men had robbed the bank. At any moment the sheriff would step out from the alley and see her. With the money in her hand, he’d believe that she was a part of the gang. She’d come to town to ask the banker for money and she’d been caught in a holdup.

Desperately, Macky kicked her horse into action and rode into the blacksmith’s barn. She slid to the ground and slapped her horse on the rear and watched him gallop out the back.

Macky followed the horse. When she’d hoped to find something she was good at, she hadn’t expected it to be a crime. She could only pray that all the attention had been on the shooters and that nobody had recognized her in Papa’s coat and hat. No matter, her chance of selling her brooch had been ruined and it was almost time for the stage. The stone for Papa’s grave would have to wait.

Desperately, she looked around. Perhaps the dressmaker would buy the cameo. Macky knocked on the shopkeeper’s back door, found it open and slipped inside. “Hello?”

Moments later a woman peered furtively from a small room opening off the shop. Seeing that Macky was alone she came forward, facing Macky with distaste and disbelief.

“Yes?”

Macky had never visited her shop and nobody knew that better than the proprietor. “Yes, I wonder if you can help me?” Macky started to reach in her pocket and realized she was still holding the flour sack filled with money.

“What are you looking for?” the seamstress asked icily.

“I’d like—” Macky reached for her cameo, heard the sound of coins jingle in the sack and stilled her movements.

Considering how she was dressed, she could understand the dressmaker’s attitude, and after what her brother had done, the sheriff would never believe that Macky was an innocent pawn. Now she could be in even bigger trouble with the outlaw Pratt. He was sure to come after his money. Becoming a criminal was the final insult in her life.

Then it came to her. She didn’t have to sell the cameo now. She had money for her ticket if she wanted to use it. Granted, it wasn’t hers, but she’d been handed a means to administer justice to the man who’d cheated her father and so many others. She’d take the money her father had been swindled out of, plus interest. It would buy her a ticket out of Promise and stones for both Todd’s and Papa’s graves—at the banker’s expense. Later, she’d return the money that wasn’t truly hers.

Macky calmly considered her next move. The sheriff hadn’t seen her, only the outlaws and the deputy, and from what she’d seen the deputy’s wound looked fatal. The dressmaker didn’t know what had happened for she’d obviously been in her workroom with no view of the street. If Macky was lucky she still might get out of Promise.

Macky made up her mind. Providence had provided.

“I’d like to buy a dress and a bonnet and cape. Quickly, please. I—I have a pressing engagement.”

The seamstress studied her as if she thought Macky’s pressing engagement might be with a ragman, then turned to her rack. “I do keep a few skirts made up but they might be a little small for you and the only blouses I have are probably too big. I could alter a dress by tomorrow.”

“No, get the skirt and shirtwaist. I’ll wear them.”

The woman pulled the clothing from the rack and handed it to Macky. “You can try them on behind the changing screen.”

Keeping an eye on the door, Macky quickly shed her brother’s clothes and pulled on the unfamiliar women’s garments, wondering how on earth anybody could wear such things. By the time the commotion outside died down, Macky was wearing a pale blue shirtwaist and darker skirt over her brother’s drawers and had covered it all with a dark blue serge cape.

She reached inside the sack and withdrew enough money to pay for her goods and buy her ticket on the stage. Then she looked around for a means to conceal the rest. Getting on the stage holding a flour sack would only call attention to herself.

Hurrying now, she selected a tan-colored portmanteau in which she placed her old clothes and the flour sack. She added a second shirtwaist, a flannel nightgown, and a petticoat.

“Might I suggest this?” the seamstress said, holding out a blue velvet drawstring purse. “For your traveling money.”

Macky took the purse, paid for her purchases, and placed the remaining money inside. When the coins clanked together she looked around and picked up a lacy handkerchief to cushion the sound.

At the last minute she selected a blue bonnet with a pink rose on its crown and poked her red hair beneath it.