Sabrina's Man (31 page)

He reached out and grabbed her by the hair and said, “Eat something or I'll shove it down your throat.”

Callie was watching all this. “She's not your woman, I take it.”

“Well, in a way she is. I'll introduce you to her after we eat.”

The cabin seemed to be charged with electricity. Only Waco seemed to be at ease. He kept slicing pieces of the roast off and eating it with great enjoyment. “Your woman is a good cook, Trey. We've been eatin' prairie dog lately. About ready to eat a hawk.”

Calandra was watching Sabrina carefully. “She's scared to death of you. What are you doing with her? Did you steal her?”

“Now Callie, don't be hasty. This is going to be a long night. I've got lots of business to talk to you.”

They ate, Waco eating heartily and Sabrina picking at her food.

As soon as Waco was finished, Callie sat down across from him and said, “All right. What's all this about, Waco?”

“He's threatenin' to make us rich,” LeBeau said. “I think he's just a lot of hot air.”

“You won't think so after I tell you the whole story. Let me have some of that coffee, and I'll lay it out for you.” Waco smiled as if he had not a care, but he saw the hatred in Trey LeBeau's eyes, and understood that with one false move he and Sabrina would be doomed.

F
rom the moment she had faced Trey LeBeau, Sabrina had been truly afraid. It had occurred to her for the first time that since LeBeau had been in her home, he might well have seen one of the pictures of her, for there were many in the house. But when he stared at her with no sign of recognition, she suddenly realized,
I don't look much like I did then
. Indeed, the trip had worn her down and her hair was now stringy and she looked very little like the Sabrina Warren who had come on this quest.

She noted that Waco, after one glance at Marianne, paid her little attention, but finally he put his gaze on Marianne and said,“Well, Trey, I see you got yourself a new lady friend.” His glance went to Callie, who merely smiled at him. “It looks like you got your time beat, Callie.”

“No, nothin' like that, Waco. I picked this little girl up back East. She's got a rich daddy, and you don't have to talk about makin' me rich. As soon as I get tired of her, I'll sell her back to him. I expect he'd pay a pretty good ransom for you, wouldn't he, honey?”

He had spoken to Marianne, who refused to answer.

“Not very talkative, is she, Trey? Well, this one of mine's not either.”

“You two aren't on a honeymoon. I can see that, Waco.”

“Why, it is kind of a honeymoon. She's not used to the idea yet, but she'll be fine when she is.”

Trey was watching Waco carefully and said, “Well, this ain't exactly a hotel for honeymooners, Waco. Was you thinkin' to stay the night?”

Waco drank from his coffee and leaned back and nodded with sleepy satisfaction. “Good meal. Thought we might, Trey.”

LeBeau said, “You're losin' your bedroom tonight, Breed. We'll let the lovebirds have it. You go sleep in the shack.”

All the outlaws were waiting to find out what Waco was up to, and finally Trey said, “Well, what's this all about?”

“So you didn't get rich on that train robbery?”

“No, I've told you we didn't. It's not my fault.”

“We wasted our time. It wasn't worth the trouble,” Zeno Shaw said. He stared at Trey with discontent in his eyes.

“I can't guarantee what a train's carrying,” LeBeau snapped.

Waco studied Callie carefully and openly.

She held his gaze and said, “What's on your mind, Waco? We've got no secrets here.”

Waco said, “All right with me. How about you, Trey?”

“Just say what you got on your mind,” Trey said. “For all I know Parker might have got you out of jail to be one of his marshals. You might be wearing a badge under that vest.”

“No badge,” he said, pulling his vest away from his shirt, “but if Parker wants me to work for him, that shows you what a good cover I have, doesn't it? I've got a job coming up, Trey, but I'm not sure your bunch is able to handle it. You're down a few men, aren't you?”

“We're able to handle any job you come up with, Waco. What is it? Spit it out.”

“All right.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Here it is. My lady friend is Miss Helen Richards. Her father's name is Charles R. Richards. That mean anything to you?”

Nobody spoke, and Waco grinned. “Mr. Richards is in charge of the Express Company over in Durango.”

Suddenly everybody in the room grew alert. They obviously were well aware that the Western Express handled large amounts of gold and silver. There were no mines where the offices were located, but they received shipments of gold and silver coins from the Treasury in Washington and transported them over different parts of the country.

Al Munro's eyes gleamed. “Western Express! You're not dumb enough to hold that place up I hope, Waco. They've got enough guards to furnish an army.”

Waco grinned at Munro. “No, nothing like that. What I've got in mind is helping the ‘transport' end of things.”

Trey said impatiently, “You know every train robber in the country has tried that, Waco, but they're clever. They ship out empty boxes one day. Then boxes loaded with rocks the next day, and any day they might or might not ship the real stuff. Anything to throw us off. Nobody ever knows what or when.”

Waco leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his dark hair. He glanced over at Trey and said, “That's right. We don't know—but Helen's dad knows.” The silent tension built up in the room. “Her dad's in charge of the shipping. He always knows.”

An electrifying current went around the room. Rufo Aznar said, “Why, if we knew which train to hit, we'd all be rich.”

“Shut up, Rufo!” Trey snapped. He leaned forward and stared at Waco. He was silent for a moment then stared at Sabrina. “That's right, is it? Your daddy runs that express?”

Sabrina said, “Yes, but he'll never tell you about the shipments. Men have tried to get at him before. You wouldn't believe how much money he's been offered just to tell them when things are shipped.”

Waco laughed broadly, his eyes gleaming in the twilight. “But they didn't have his only daughter held in Indian Territory away from the law, did they, honey?”

“He'll see you hanged if you do this!” Sabrina muttered. “You won't get away with it.”

An excited babble rippled through the room, everybody talking at once. Sabrina watched them. Each one of them was visibly excited.
This is going to work
, she thought triumphantly.
They're going for the bait
.

Suddenly Callie's voice commanded the attention of the room. “And how do we know all this is true?” Her dark eyes were a feline glow in the lantern light, reflecting its yellow flame. Coolly she stared at Waco and Sabrina. “These two come out of nowhere and have this big scheme, and I don't believe a word of it.”

LeBeau gave Callie a thoughtful glance. “You may be right,” he said. He turned back to Waco. “You've never done anything like this before. You may have done a little holdup work, but you've always been a lone wolf.”

“What have I got to show for it?” Waco shrugged. “A horse, a gun, and a blanket.” Every eye in the room was locked on him. This was the moment in which they would stand or fall. His voice grew rock hard as he said to LeBeau, “I'm not proposing to join you, Trey.” Looking around scornfully, he went on. “I don't want to live in a shack out in the desert somewhere running from Parker's marshals. Not me! I'm gonna do one job, make a pile, and buy a ranch somewhere far out of this forsaken territory.” There was a loaded silence in the room, and Waco banged his cup down on the table and told the group curtly, “But I can see you're more interested in listening to Callie than anything I've got to say.” He rose to his feet and said, “Come on, honey, let's get a little sleep. Tomorrow we'll pull out of here and see if we can find somebody else. I've been thinking about Jack Chambliss.”

“Jack could do the job,” Callie said.

Callie's words infuriated Trey.

“We can do anything Chambliss can do!” LeBeau snapped. “But we don't need you, Waco.”

LeBeau was on the verge of pulling his gun and shooting Waco, at least so it seemed, but Al Munro said, “Wait a minute. We can do this job, Trey.”

“All right, put these two in the room, Al.”

Munro led them to a room at the end of the hall. “You two can stay in here tonight.”

“Get in there, Helen!” Waco said and pushed Sabrina through the door. He shut it at once and took a deep breath. “Well, all right so far.”

“Oh, Waco,” Sabrina whispered. She was feeling weak, and she put her hand on his arm. “I was so scared.”

“That's good. I wanted you to look scared.”

“I think they all believed you… except that woman.” She watched his face as she mentioned Callie, but Waco's expression didn't change. She thought for a moment then said, “I saw how she stared at you. She hates you.”

“How do you know that?”

“A woman doesn't have that kind of animosity unless she loved a man once.”

Waco ran his hand through his hair and wiped his forehead. “We were friends at one time,” he said briefly.

From that one sentence Sabrina knew what she had suspected was true.
Waco and Callie were lovers. That's why she hates him. He must have walked off and left her or done something awful
. Bluntly she asked him, “So you were lovers?”

Strangely enough, her words seemed to embarrass Waco. He looked into her eyes and asked, “Why do you care, Sabrina?”

“I don't care.” Even as she said it, she realized that she
did
care. Resolutely she thrust the thought away from her. “But she was in love with you once. You may have to use her to get us out of here.”

“No.”

The refusal was so flat that Sabrina knew instantly there was no use in pursuing it. She was embarrassed by the scene and agitated by her own show of jealousy when faced with Waco and Callie's relationship. Confused and conflicting thoughts crowded her mind. She said, “Well, Marianne's here and she's all right, so we have a chance.”

Waco breathed out heavily. “Yeah, we got a chance, and I don't want to mess this up, but it's going to be tough. They're gonna be watching us like hawks no matter what we do.” He pushed himself away from the door, walked to the window, and looked outside. “They've already put a man out front. We've got to be careful because they could sneak up here. He's probably watching through this window, and someone will be watching it all night. They're not about to let us leave here unexpectedly.”

Sabrina's shoulders drooped. The hard ride and the immense strain of the past few hours had begun to affect her.

Waco glanced at the single bed. “You take the bed, and I'll take the floor.” It was early, and they were both tired. “I'll blow out the light, and you can get undressed.”

“I'll just sleep in my clothes,” she said hastily.

Waco didn't reply. Finding a blanket in the gear they had brought in, he made a bed beneath the window, took off his boots, and started to lie down. Instead he rose, walked over to the single chair in the room, carried it to the door, and shoved it underneath the doorknob. “Somebody might want to come bustin' in here, Sabrina. They'd expect us to be in the same bed.”

Sabrina didn't reply as Waco lay down. For days now she and this man had slept within five feet of each other beside a campfire, but somehow being in a bedroom with him was totally different. She was apprehensive, almost afraid. She lay down on the bed, pulled the blanket over her stiffly, and lay unmoving and tense until she heard his even breathing. Then she relaxed.

Sleep didn't come all at once though. Sabrina lay quietly thinking of the strangeness of it all. Her other life, her life of teas and parties and balls and fancy dresses—those all seemed a million miles away. With a mental start, Sabrina realized that she could not easily go back to such a life. It would seem so tame after all she had gone through.

She began to worry about the next day, when suddenly Waco's voice came quietly. “I'm glad Marianne's all right.”

“Yes, I was afraid. She's going to have a hard time even when we get her away. She's ashamed of what she's done.”

“Never easy to get over your bad deeds.”

His words intrigued Sabrina. “You're speaking from experience.”

Waco didn't answer her for a few moments, but finally he said, “We're not on this earth here for very long, and sometimes I think it doesn't mean anything. But then once in a while I meet someone who's found more meaning and purpose than I ever thought about. Like Silas.” His voice grew soft as he spoke of the marshal. “I've thought a lot about him. He was a good man, and his life meant something.”

“He did die well, didn't he? I've admired him very much.” When Waco didn't reply, Sabrina turned over and allowed sleep to claim her.