Sabrina's Man (33 page)

“I guess you're right. I don't like to admit it.”

“Do you think you'll ever find a woman you can trust?”

“I don't know, Sabrina. Sometimes when I'm riding along and dark is falling, I pass a cabin, and I can see the yellow glow from the fire inside. Sometimes I can see people laughing, can hear them, and it never fails to make me sad.”

“Why should that make you sad?”

He shifted his shoulders, and his lips tightened. “Because they have everything, those people, and I don't really have anything.”

She continued to hang clothes, and finally she asked, “But you thought you loved Callie.”

“It wasn't the kind of love you could build a marriage on.”

“What kind of woman would that take?”

Waco suddenly had a moment's insight. “I thought it might be you, Sabrina.”

His words startled her, and she exclaimed, “Me? Why, we're as different as night and day!”

“I guess so, but still, who can explain what a man sees when he looks at a woman? I guess,” he said slowly, “every man carries a picture in his head or in his heart or wherever things like that take place, and they carry a picture of a woman, the one they want. But I thought that sometimes it was a picture built up of many women, not just one.”

“Well, that's not very fair for the woman a man finally gets. How can a woman be everything a man wants?”

Suddenly Waco smiled. It made him look much younger. “I guess when a man finally gets the right woman, he sees all the things in her that he wants to see.”

“That's a whole lot like saying that love is blind.”

“No. I'd say it's like a very strong light. It makes a man see things he otherwise wouldn't. There's some sweetness, some honesty in the woman and things that he always admired, and he suddenly realizes that this is the woman he's been looking for, although he didn't know it.”

“Until she hurts him.”

“That goes with love, I guess.”

“Even people in love hurt each other, don't they?” She hung up the last garment and now picked up the basket and said, “I'd better get inside.”

He said suddenly, “I never would have imagined that you had thoughts like this, Sabrina, and I guess I embarrassed you by telling you that I have feelings for you that I never thought I'd have for any other woman.”

Sabrina was shocked. She had felt the masculinity of Waco Smith. It was the kind of strength that a woman loved to see, but she had not featured herself being in love with this man so different from herself. “I guess we're both surprised then.”

Suddenly he caught a glimpse of movement on the porch and saw that Trey and Callie had come outside. “They're watching us,” he said. “I'm going to have to treat you rough. I'm going to have to push you around. Act like you're hurt. I'm going to tell 'em you won't write the letter.”

“Go ahead. Do what you have to.”

Without looking toward the two who were approaching suddenly, Waco reached out and seized Sabrina by the arm. He saw her eyes open wide, and he swung his open hand and slapped her on the face. She cried out slightly, and then he slapped her again. “This has to look good,” he muttered.

“What's going on here?” Trey asked.

“This woman's getting some kind of religion. She said she wasn't gonna write that letter, but she knows now she will or she'll be sorry.”

“I'd hate to have you mad at me.” Callie laughed. “Of course, if you slapped me around, I'd shoot you.”

Waco suddenly grinned. “I expect you would. Well, let's get that note written, and I'll take it.”

“I'll go with you.”

Waco shrugged. “That's fine.” He went inside and found a piece of paper, had Sabrina write a note simply saying to her imaginary father that she was well but that she was frightened and needed him.

Waco took the note and shoved it in his shirt pocket and stepped outside. “I've got it.”

“I'm going with you this time,” Trey said.

“You stay out of it,” Callie said. “We'll do what we've been doing.”

Temper flared in Trey LeBeau's features, and he glared at her, but she merely laughed at him. “We don't need you along. I'm not your woman anyway.”

“You will be when we get out of this,” Trey said.

“Come on. Let's go get this note in the bottle, Waco.”

The two left at once, and as they were riding out, Waco said, “You're going to go too far with LeBeau. He's capable of hurting any woman bad.”

“He'll never touch me. He knows I'd kill him if he did.”

They rode slowly, and she asked finally as they approached the site of the bottle, “Did you think about what I said?”

He was silent for a while, and then he said, “You know, a friend of mine was kind of a scholar. He liked to read the old Greek writing. He read about one Greek philosopher that said you can't step in the same river twice.”

“I don't understand that.”

“Well, it means the rivers are moving all the time. You step in them and ten minutes later that river's gone and another's come. I always took it to mean you couldn't start all over again with anything that's dead.”

She pulled her mount up close, reached out, and grabbed him, and he leaned toward her. She kissed him and laughed. “I'll show you what's dead! What we had wouldn't die. It may have been asleep for a while, but it'll come back.”

The two found the bottle, and she watched as he put the note in it. He concealed it and said, “Now we just have to wait until we get the information we need on that train.”

“Let's take our time going back. That place depresses me.”

During the ride back, more than once, Waco was aware that she was trying him out. She made several allusions to the love they had had, and despite himself he had memories, sharp and keen, of how she had come to him in a way that a woman comes to a man that he never forgets. He tried to shake it out of his mind, but he found himself instead thinking of Sabrina and their brief conversation.
I don't see any good in that
, he thought.
No matter what I try to do she's above me
.

Judge Parker looked up, for the door to his office had opened with no knock and Charles Warren and Frank Morgan entered. “We need to talk to you, Judge.”

“Sit down,” Parker said at once.

“This is Frank Morgan.”

The judge saw that the young man looked soft but had a determined look in his eye. “Sit down and we'll talk about this thing.”

For the next half hour, Parker managed to get both men calmed down as he told them of the plan he was working out with Waco and Sabrina. “We've been exchanging notes. Waco and Miss Sabrina have convinced LeBeau that she's the daughter of one of the officials of the railroad in charge of shipments of gold and silver. They've told him that they can find out which train the shipment will be on and that there'll be no guard.”

“You think they'll believe that?” Frank Morgan demanded.

“Depends on how good a front Sabrina and Waco put up.”

“So what we're doing now is waiting on a signal,” Warren pressed.

“Well, it's farther along than that. There's an Indian that's been helping them out. He brought this in yesterday.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper much folded.

Warren took it and stared at it. It said:

“There won't be any gold on that train. Instead of that, we'll have every marshal, and I'll hire some new posse members. We'll load that train up with men who are good with guns. We'll stop Trey LeBeau's clock.”

“I'm going along,” Warren said.

Instantly Frank Morgan nodded. “Get me a gun. I'll go, too.”

“Could be dangerous. You could get shot.”

“I don't care. I've got my wife here, and I'm staying until we get both our girls back. If I get shot in trying it, it won't bother me. I've got to do what I can for my family.”

Parker studied the two and finally said, “Well, we can always use more guns. I've already written the answer and sent it by way of the Indian.” Parker studied the two men and said gently, “I'm sorry for your trouble, but I'm hopeful that it will come out all right.”

LeBeau looked up and saw Callie and Waco coming back. It had been three days, and they had sent the letter from Helen, and now he got up and said, “Well, at last here they come. They better have somethin'.

“Sometimes I think this whole thing is gonna blow up in our face,” Al Munro said. “There's something I don't like about it.”

“The one thing I don't like about it is Waco Smith.” The anger and rage had been building up in LeBeau, and when the two got off and entered, he said, “What did you find?”

“Answer to the letter.” Waco handed him the bottle with the paper inside. “Won't need to be any more letters passed.”

Taking the bottle at once, LeBeau fished the paper out. He read it out loud. “  ‘Two ten out of Lake City will be carrying a huge shipment of gold. There will be no guards on the train. There will be one man on board wearing a blue suit. You give my daughter to him. He will get you into the gold car. They'll open the door for him. Please let my daughter go.' ”

“I know that train,” Waco said. “And I know a good place to hold it up. There's some sharp bends in the road there, so they can't make much speed.”

“What are we going to do with these women while we're doing the job?” Al Munro demanded.

“I know what we can do with them,” Waco said. “I don't want any murders in this thing. None of you need it either. There's a deserted cabin not far from where this hook in the railroad is that makes the train slow down. It's less than a mile away. It's empty now. We can lock 'em in there while we're doing the job and then we can turn 'em loose.”

Trey was staring hard at Waco, but finally he nodded his head slowly. “All right. That's the way we'll play it, but I'm telling you, Waco, I'll kill you if you even blink.”

“I won't be blinkin'. I want this gold as much as you do—more, I think.”

“Well,” Trey LeBeau said, “the note says it'll be in two days. We'd better get everything ready and be on the spot.”

The gang spent most of the time getting their guns oiled and polished and packing ammunition. There was a sense of expectation about it, and Rufo Aznar moved close to Waco saying, “Don't think you can pull anything on us, Smith. You're tough, but you're not tougher than the whole band here. Everybody will be watching you.”

“They better be watching that train.”

“We can do both at the same time.”