Sabrina's Man (32 page)

“All right. Tell us how this thing works. How are we supposed to know when that train with the gold moves?” LeBeau said.

They were all in the main room, even Sabrina and Marianne.

Waco said, “All right. Here's the way it will work. I've got a man out there, an in-between sort of fella. But I don't know about your bunch. It's going to take all of us. What about these women?”

“I'll take care of mine. You take care of yours.”

“Who will take care of me?” Callie grinned like a cat.

“Here's what'll happen,” Waco said. “I got us a man between me and Helen's father. As soon as her father finds out she's all right, he'll send the information about the shipping.”

“So he's got to have proof that she's alive. How will we do that?” Trey demanded.

“All she has to do is write her dad a letter. Tell him to send the money. That she's been treated good.”

They were talking for some time about the plan, and finally Trey said, “How are you going to contact him? You're stayin' with us until we get the job done.”

Waco leaned back and said, “Well, Trey, if I told you everything I know, you might not need me. So I'm not telling you, but I've got a meeting place and I'm not telling who he is, but I will tell you this. When I get the lowdown, which is what train to hit, I know the place to hit it.”

“They're bound to be carrying plenty of guards with a big shipment,” Al Munro said.

“Nope. That's one thing I found out about Richards. They don't send out a whole lot more guards when they ship the real stuff. They figure it'd be sort of like posting a sign saying that gold and silver are on this here train.” Amused laughter ran through the room. “Sometimes they don't even send out one guard more than usual, and that's what's going to happen this time.”

No one said anything for a time. Waco was leaning back in his chair, and he dropped it with a crash and slapped the table. “Come on, Trey, look at it! No guards, lots of money, one train. Hit it, we're gone, and that's the last you'll see of me. Any of you.”

A thick silence fell over the room, and Waco knew they were greedily weighing the possibility. His eyes surveyed all their faces. “What do you think, Al?”

“I put no trust in any man,” Munro said. “But I think Waco's hungry enough to pull it off.” Then his voice changed slightly, and his heavy lips twisted with cruelty. “We're going to watch you, Waco. You're going to be in the crosshairs at all times. One thing goes wrong, you get a bullet in the brain. You got that?”

“Sure, Al. I know that. But don't you forget. I want to be rich more than any of the rest of you.” His tone couldn't have been milder, but every person there recognized the seriousness in his words.

“All right. Let's do it then,” Rufo Aznar said. “I'm tired of penny ante stuff.”

LeBeau said, “All right, but one thing more. I get some cash out of this girl. I'll get word to her man to lay his hands on some cash and give it to me or I'll send her head in a sack.”

“That'd be hard to do two things at once,” Zeno Shaw said.

But Trey was adamant. “I'll send a telegram to her old man. Tell him to have the cash in Fort Smith and we'll hand the girl over.”

Finally LeBeau turned to Callie. “You've been awful quiet, Callie. What about it? You for it?”

“It's all right with me. I think it'll work.”

“When's this message coming?” Callie asked.

“I got a spot staked out. I'll have to ride out and check it every day until we hear from the old man.”

“You ain't goin' alone,” Trey said.

“No, he's not. I'll go with him,” Callie said.

“I don't think I trust you either.”

“Shut up, Trey,” Callie shot back. “You do your job, and I'll do mine. That's the way it'll be.”

“Might as well ride out today,” Waco said. “I don't think it'll be there, but I don't want to risk missing it.” He nodded to Callie. “Whenever you're ready, Callie, we'll take a little ride.”

“All right, Waco.”

The two were ready at once, and as they left, Marianne came up to Sabrina and said, “I can wash your clothes if you need some help.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said.

As soon as they were alone, Marianne fell against the other woman, crying out, “Oh, Sabrina, I'm so glad you're here! But what are you doing here?”

Sabrina was holding on to Marianne and felt the tears come to her eyes. She was so glad to see her sister, and there was at least a hope of getting her away. “We've come to get you out of here.”

“Who is that man that's with you? He looks like an outlaw himself.”

“His name is Waco Smith. He's been made into one of the marshals, and his job is to get you out of here.”

“Just one man?”

“We have another man outside there, and we've got a scheme. But you and I, we're going to have to be sure that they don't suspect that we're sisters.”

“I don't see how anybody can do it, especially with that man. He looks so rough.”

“He's a good man, Marianne. He's been—well, a little wild, you might say, but now he's risking his life to get us out of here.”

“I'll have to lock you in, but I've got to go clean up. Why don't you lie down and get some rest, and we'll have time to talk tonight.”

Marianne clung to Sabrina fiercely and began crying. “I'm so glad to see you, sister. I thought I was lost forever.”

“No, we're going to get out of this. You lie down now.”

Marianne said, “I'm afraid. What if Waco goes away and doesn't come back?”

“He'll be back,” Sabrina said briefly.

Looking sharply at Sabrina, Marianne said, “Well, who is he? What kind of man is he? The others talked about him and Callie being sweethearts once.”

The words cut Sabrina much deeper than she cared to admit, but she gave no answer.

“I suppose he's just another hired killer like everybody else around here,” Marianne said bitterly.

“A man should learn to fight or let him put skirts about his knees,” Sabrina rasped, trying to hold her anger in check.

Marianne had never seen her sister so passionately defend a man. “I'm sorry, Sabrina. I didn't mean it, but I'm so scared.”

Sabrina closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. Finally she said, “Don't worry about Waco. He's a hard man, and in this situation I think that's a good thing. He will get us out of here. He will.” She stared at the two riders disappearing into the distant shimmer of the heat on the horizon. “I don't know what he'll do after that, but I know he'll never quit until he does what he sets out to do.” They continued washing, and all Sabrina could think of was the long ride that Callie and Waco would take and what that ride would entail.

Waco said little as he and Callie rode steadily east, but her presence had a powerful influence on him. From time to time he turned slightly, and vivid memories came trooping through his mind.

She broke the silence, saying, “Well, Waco, do you ever think of when we were together?”

Waco was startled and could not come up with an answer. He was shocked when Callie laughed, and when he turned he saw that her dark eyes were alive with an emotion he couldn't name.

“It's an easy question,” Callie said and waited for an answer.

“Sure I do,” Waco said slowly and faced her as he added, “but it's ancient history, Callie.”

“Is it?”

“I don't think people can go back where they once were.”

“You're wrong about that.”

Her blatant reply startled Waco, and he demanded, “Would you want to go back to that time?”

“It was a good time, wasn't it?”

For a moment he was silent and confused, then he said slowly, “I remember the good times.”

“We could go there again.”

“You're Trey's woman.”

“I'm not his woman. I'll never belong to any man as I did to you.”

The cry of a far-off bird came to Waco, and he could not remember a time when he'd been so shaken. He had never once thought that he might find what he'd once had with Callie, and now she was offering him herself.

“I don't think it would be smart to go back to that time—not with this job in front of us. It's going to be tough, and no matter what you say, Trey won't let anything of his go.”

“Maybe he is, but you're a strong man, Waco. I'm a strong woman.” She kneed her mare, and when they were close, she put her hand out and gipped his arm. Her touch startled Waco, and she whispered huskily, “We had something once—and we can have it again. . . .”

At that moment, Waco Smith realized he was not as strong as he had thought himself to be.
She can stir me up—and I don't know if I can say no to her!

W
aco Smith had always considered himself to be basically a simple man able to make up his mind quickly and then follow through. But something had happened to change all that when Callie had urged him to pick up their love affair where it had left off years ago. It had caught Waco off guard so that he spent long hours simply walking alone out on the territory surrounding the hideout house, and he did so now this Tuesday afternoon. He glanced up and saw the horizon fading as the late afternoon sun seemed to be melting into the earth. He had always had an appreciation for the world of nature and had taken an unspoken delight in the sky, the woods, the animals and birds, but now they seemed to give him no pleasure.

“Waco, just a minute.”

Quickly Waco turned to see Sabrina, who came walking toward him. She had some wet clothes in her arms, and she was headed for the wire stretched between two posts to dry them out. Waco glanced toward the house and saw that Breed Marcos, the Apache halfbreed, was watching carefully. Turning quickly, he walked toward her and said, “Be careful, Sabrina, you're being watched.”

“I know. I'm always being watched. I feel like I'm an animal in the zoo.”

“You better start putting those clothes on the line or they'll send somebody out here to see what we're talking about.”

“All right. I will.”

Waco stood back, ignoring the hideout and Breed watching from the porch. He knew what she was talking about, for he himself had been under surveillance ever since he had arrived with her at LeBeau's house. He turned so that he seemed to be facing away from Sabrina and said softly, “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I'm just afraid.”

“I guess we all get afraid of some things.”

She was pinning a dress on the line and she didn't turn, but after a moment she said, “I wouldn't think you'd be afraid of anything.”

“You'd be wrong there.”

“What are you afraid of?”

The question caught Waco off guard, and for a moment he had to stop and think. “Lots of things. Afraid of growing old and nobody with me, nobody to take care of me. Afraid of getting crippled so that I can't take care of myself.”

“Are you afraid of death?”

“Well, not so much death. I face that pretty often. It's what comes after death that scares me.”

She continued to hang up the clothes, and finally she picked up a petticoat and, hanging it on the line, said, “You're worried about your soul, then?”

“I never put it like that, but I guess that's right.”

“I know what you mean, Waco. I've been so selfish all my life, and now that I've hit something really hard, I just don't know how to handle it.”

“We have to take it as it comes, Sabrina.”

Suddenly her voice changed, and he turned to face her fully. He had always considered her a weak woman, softened by the life that she had led, but now he saw that there was something different. In her eyes and lips lay flexible capacities carefully controlled as though she was determined to do something, and Waco felt he had a view of the undertow of her spirit. For that moment she forgot her reserve and was watching him with the fully open eyes of a woman momentarily and completely engrossed. The lines of physical fatigue showed in her face, and the hard usage that she had taken had made her shoulders sag, but he saw in her, despite this, a fire burning that had not been there when he had first met her. Her skin was lightly browned by the sun, and her lips were broad and on the edge of being full, the lips of a giving woman but not a pliant woman. He asked her, “Sabrina, have you ever been truly in love with someone?”

“No,” she said, and bitterness tinged her voice. “I've been in love with myself. I didn't know it until I lost Marianne. What about you?”

“I thought I was once.”

“With Callie?”

“Her and the other woman who betrayed me. I guess I don't learn very quickly.”

“You have a distrust for women. Two women were dishonest, and you're afraid to trust any other woman.”