Christie and the Hellcat, page 1
C hristie and
the Hellcat
Barbara Davies
Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company * Fairfield, California
© 2006 Barbara Davies
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
0-9759555-2-7 paperback
978-0-9759555-2-9 paperback
First published 2006
cover art and design by C. A. Casey
frontispiece from a photograph by C. Stout Nuance Books
a division of
Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
Fairfield, California
http://www.bedazzledink.com/nuance
In memory of Gareth,
without whose encouragement I would probably still be talking about writing a story “some day.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Christie and the Hellcat owes its genesis to Elmore Leonard’s classic Western short story, Three-Ten to Yuma. Leonard’s deputy protagonist is a farmer by occupation and he carries out his prisoner-escorting duties alone. I wondered what would happen in similar circumstances if the deputy were a woman, an ex-outlaw at that, and a civilian were willing to help her . . .
“What made you give it up?” Prescott’s voice was a croak.
“It?”
“The excitement, the money, the pretty women falling over themselves to share their favors with an outlaw.”
“I got caught.” Zee gave him a sardonic smile.
PART ONE
The Hellcat Gets Her Gal
Chapter 1
Zee wiped the back of one gloved hand across her clammy forehead and resettled her hat. The mist was dampening everything it touched, but at least it was cool. They had left the sheltering pines of the mountains behind a while ago, and as the sun rose, so would the heat and the dust. Still, they should be in Contention before things got too bad.
Prescott slowed his horse to a trot, twisted in his saddle as much as his bound hands would allow, and looked back at her. His black eye was developing nicely, and the rope burns on his neck looked sore.
“My boys’ll find you, you know.” His voice carried on the still air.
“Yeah?”
“They’ll figure out Hogan’s a decoy and start looking for me elsewhere.”
She shrugged. “Be too late then.”
“Bisbee, Fairbank, Contention—”
She sensed he was looking for a reaction to each town named and steeled herself not to give it.
“—they’ll stake them all out,” he continued, “you can bet on it.”
“Have to keep out of their way then, won’t we?”
Prescott frowned at that and started to say something more.
She raised the sawed-off shotgun that had been resting across her saddle. “Keep moving.”
He hesitated, and she gave the rope coiled round her saddle horn a pointed pat. His last escape attempt had ended painfully. She had roped him and dragged him from his saddle, almost throttling him in the process. With obvious reluctance, he kneed his gelding into a canter.
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For a good long while after that, all was quiet except for the thud of hooves, the occasional nicker of horses, the creak of saddle leather, and the distant, melancholy cooing of mourning doves. Zee relaxed yet kept her senses alert for anything out of place. Prescott would reward handsomely the men who freed him; they wouldn’t give a damn about killing a deputy.
She’d parted ways with Hogan just after midnight, hoping the gang hot on their trail would follow her boss and the spare horse instead of her and Prescott. She was hungry and tired now, and in need of a bath. Bluford Hayes should be able to take care of the food at least. Hogan had said the young man, whose house was close to the station depot, was the kind who’d be only too happy to help out a lawman in pursuit of his duties.
Lawman. She suppressed a grin. It was taking some getting used to, being on the right side of the law.
The trail brought them to a dried up riverbed, and the horses scrambled across it and up the other side in a noisy scatter of dust and pebbles.
Zee wiped the sweat from her upper lip. “Hold up,” she called and waited until her prisoner pulled the gelding to a halt. She reached for her canteen, unstoppered it, and raised it to her lips. The water inside it was tepid, but it felt blessedly cool as it slid down her gullet.
“What about me?” croaked Prescott.
She took another careful swallow, poured some on her bandanna, retied it, and relished the coolness on the nape of her neck. Then she kneed her mare forward, bringing it alongside the gelding. Shotgun in one hand, canteen in the other, she leaned over. “Open wide.”
He guzzled the water she trickled into his open mouth, losing only a little down the front of his striped silk shirt. After a couple of mouthfuls, she took the canteen back and moved out of range.
He looked round at her, water droplets sparkling in his beard.
“Thanks, Hellcat.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said, as she’d said a dozen times already.
She stoppered the canteen then gestured with the shotgun. “Move.”
They rode on in silence for a few more miles, the sun inching higher, the heat intensifying, until finally, through the shimmering haze, she saw the unmistakable outline of buildings in the distance.
She pulled out the pocket watch Molly had given her and flicked open the case. They had made good time.
Christie and the Hellcat
13
As they neared the outskirts of the little mining town, which, since the railroad’s arrival, had expanded to both sides of the San Pedro River, Prescott turned to regard her once more, his gray eyes glittering.
“Contention,” he said, with an air of satisfaction. “My boys’ll be waiting outside the jail.”
“Just as well we ain’t going there, then.” She gestured with the shotgun, and he turned the gelding toward the newer part of town.
As she rode along the rutted road, past houses made of clapboard, keeping the horses’ speeds nice and easy so as not to attract attention, Zee pulled a slip of paper from her vest pocket and peered at Hogan’s spidery scrawl.
Bluford Hayes.
Last house before the station depot.
White picket fence. Roses round the porch.
She snorted. In Arizona? But as they neared the rendezvous, she saw it was the literal truth. Still, if Hayes wanted to waste water on roses . . .
She urged Prescott past the cast-iron hitching post out front—two strange horses would only attract attention—and round to the enclosed back yard of the neat little house, where signs of a woman’s presence were evident: hanging from a line were a pair of drawers, a petticoat (rainbow colored), and a button-to-the-neck gingham dress.
“It’s not too late, Hellcat,” said Prescott, as they came to a halt beside a woodpile and Zee dismounted and tethered the horses in a shady spot by the fence. She unbound his hands from the saddle horn, but not from each other, and dragged him out of the saddle.
“You can still let me go . . . Oof!”
“I can,” she agreed. “But I ain’t gonna.”
She shoved him up the back steps to the porch, jammed the shotgun in his side, and rapped her knuckles against the wooden door.
“But Yuma . . . you can’t send me back there.” His voice cracked a little. “You of all people—”
“Yeah,” she said. “Wearing a ball and chain ain’t no picnic, that’s for sure.”
She raised her hand to knock again then heard sounds of movement from inside. About time.
The door opened.
Chapter 2
Christie had been tidying away the bread-making things when she heard the knock at her back door. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind one ear, shook the dust from her skirt hem, smoothed down her apron, and went to answer it.
When she saw the two figures waiting on her back doorstep, her first instinct was to slam and bolt the door, but she didn’t.
The woman was very tall and shockingly, she was wearing men’s clothes: a shabby black Stetson, check shirt, Levi’s, boots, and a pair of well-worn guns at her hip. As for her companion, an overweight man who only came up to the woman’s shoulder, one eye was swollen half shut and there were rope burns round his neck. Not only were his hands bound at the wrists, a shotgun was pressed against his ribs.
The woman tipped the broad brim of her hat. “Is this the Hayes place?”
Her eyes, Christie noticed, were a very pale blue—very striking against the deeply tanned face.
“Ma’am?”
She was staring, she realized. “I beg your pardon. Who wants to know?”
Belatedly she registered the metal star pinned to the tall woman’s vest. A female sheriff? She had never heard of such a thing.
“I’m Deputy Brodie. And this,” the woman dug her shotgun into the man’s ribs, “is my prisoner, Ches Prescott.”
“Oh.” Christie gathered her wits. “Yes, this is the Hayes place. I’m Bluford’s sister, Christie.”
“Then could we get under cover, ma’am?” asked Brodie.
“Someone might see us standing out here.”
Christie stepped back and gestured. “Won’t you come in?”
Christie and the Hellcat
15
While Brodie and her prisoner stepped into the kitchen—the latter helped on his way by a sharp jab in the kidneys with the shotgun—
Christie noticed the two horses cropping her flowers. They had clearly come a long way; their flanks were covered with alkali dust and sweat.
She gave her doomed flowers a mournful glance, then closed the door and went to join her guests.
Deputy Brodie was pulling out two of the four kitchen chairs and, even as Christie watched, she put a hand on Prescott’s shoulder and sat him down on one—unnecessarily hard, it seemed to Christie. She turned the other wooden chair round, straddled it, and rested the shotgun barrel on its back.
“I’m afraid my brother was called away on business,” said Christie, taking one of the remaining chairs.
Brodie frowned. “That puts me in a bind. Sheriff Hogan told me I could rely on Mr. Hayes to help me out of a fix.”
“He did?” Christie hesitated. What would Blue want her to do?
“Well, perhaps I can help.”
“I’d be much obliged to you. We need to hole up here for a few hours. And for you to take care of the horses.”
Christie blinked. “Won’t you be needing them?”
“We’re leaving on the afternoon train to Yuma.”
“You hope.” Prescott’s interjection earned him a quelling glance from Brodie.
“I’ll be back to pick them up in a couple of days,” added Brodie.
Christie considered. “All right.”
Brodie’s frown smoothed. “Thank you.” She took off her hat and placed it on the kitchen table. Her close-cropped hair was so black it was almost blue, and sweat had plastered it to her head.
“You look like you could use something cool,” said Christie, rising.
“I surely could, Miss Hayes. The horses could use some water too.”
The zinc sink was full—the water wagon had been by the day before—so Christie had no qualms about filling a couple of pails and carrying them out to the appreciative horses. (There was now no sign of her flowers, she noticed sadly.) She returned to the kitchen and fetched the jug of lemonade from the pantry.
Brodie pulled off her gloves, finger by finger, and began feeling 16
Barbara Davies
in her shirt pocket for something. By the time Christie had poured three glasses of lemonade, Brodie had smoothed out a crumpled piece of paper and was holding it out to her.
“My authorization.”
As Christie took it, Brodie’s gaze flicked over her in what she could only describe as appraisal. She was used to men looking at her that way—Blue’s friends often flirted with her—but this was another woman. It made her feel strange, hot yet cold at the same time.
Brodie pressed her glass of lemonade against her forehead before gulping it down. She put down the empty glass with a loud sigh.
“That hit the spot.”
The words on the paper swam and made no sense. Christie took a breath, regained her composure, and had started to read when a muffled exclamation made her look up. Prescott, his bound hands making it difficult to hold his glass, had spilled a good deal of the lemonade over himself.
Brodie reached over, took the glass from him, and set it out of his reach. “Wouldn’t want you breaking this now, would we? Might come in handy to saw through those ropes.”
She made no attempt to mop up the sticky liquid soaking his trousers. Christie frowned. Should she say something?
Maybe it would be better not to get involved. She took refuge in the closely written paper again.
The letter, from Cole Hogan, Sheriff of Cochise County, was straightforward enough. Its bearer, Deputy Brodie, was authorized to escort escaped felon Chester Prescott back to Yuma Territorial Prison. Members of the public were asked to render all assistance where possible.
“That seems in order,” agreed Christie, handing it back.
Brodie folded the letter and tucked it in her pocket.
Christie turned her attention back to Prescott. Those marks on his neck . . . it was only right to help him, surely? “Can I get you anything for those burns?”
“Leave him be, Miss Hayes,” said Brodie, before he could answer.
“He ain’t come by nothing he didn’t earn.” She rose from her chair and walked across to the kitchen window where she peered through the glass. After a moment, seeming satisfied with whatever it was she saw, she stalked back to her chair and straddled it once more.
Christie and the Hellcat
17
“Deputy Brodie,” said Christie. “I have a salve that will soothe those burns. It is only Christian to ease the poor man’s suffering.”
“Christian compassion don’t come into it where the Hellcat is concerned.”
Prescott’s entry into the conversation startled Christie. She gaped at him, then his words registered. The Hellcat? She hadn’t heard that name for . . . oh, it must be five years. Blue would have known all about it right off—he had collected Wanted posters for a while, the way boys do—but the details were muzzy in her mind.
“I’d welcome your kind attentions, Miss Hayes,” continued Prescott. “And if there is anything I can do in return.” He winked the eye that wasn’t swollen. “Attractive young woman like yourself, no man to satisfy her needs . . .”
Her thoughts otherwise occupied, she barely heard him. Wasn’t the Hellcat the woman bandit who had robbed the stage so often and so successfully that Wells Fargo had been on the verge of bankrupt-cy? She’d been caught in the end, of course . . . sent to Yuma Prison.
What was her real name: Zee something or other? And why had Prescott mentioned her? Oh, my Lord! It was Zee Brodie.
A chair thudding over brought Christie back to her surroundings.
Brodie was standing over Prescott, hands gripping his coat lapels, holding his face only inches from hers. “Keep a civil tongue in your head,” she snarled, “or I’ll gag you.”
“See what I mean?” he managed. “Dangerous as a rattlesnake.”
Brodie made a small sound of disgust, released him, then returned to the chair she had knocked over in her haste and righted it with one booted foot.
Christie’s heart was pounding so hard she felt dizzy. An infamous outlaw sharing lemonade with her in her own house! She became aware that Brodie was studying her and fought to keep her breathing calm, her expression unchanged.
How in the world had the outlaw come by a deputy’s badge and letter of authorization? Maybe she had killed the real deputy and taken his. Maybe, despite appearances, Prescott was not her prisoner but her accomplice. Maybe—her heart skipped a beat—they were planning to rob the Yuma train.
“Don’t let this animal upset you, Miss Hayes.” Brodie indicated Prescott. “He’s just trying to stir things up enough so he can escape.”
“I’m not upset,” said Christie quickly.
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Brodie clearly didn’t believe her. “Then have I done something to offend you?”
“Of course not.” Her mind was whirling, proposing and rejecting various scenarios. “Would anyone like breakfast?”
The abrupt change of subject made Brodie blink. “I could sure use a bite,” she said, after a pause that seemed to stretch forever. She turned to Prescott who was looking balefully at her. “Him too . . .
though he don’t deserve it.” She muttered the last part under her breath.
Glad of something to do, Christie crossed to the pantry and brought out ham, butter, and some rolls she had baked that morning.
She fed fresh logs into the stove and put coffee on to brew. As she took down a skillet from its hook, she realized she had left the eggs in the pantry.
It was then that the idea came to her. The Hellcat didn’t know she already had eggs. Maybe, just maybe, it would be excuse enough for her to get out of the house for a moment, to get help.
“I need to fetch some eggs from a neighbor,” she blurted.
Brodie shrugged. “No need on our account, Miss Hayes.”
“Ham without eggs? What would my brother say if he knew how I had fed my guests?” Already, Christie was untying her apron and fetching her sunbonnet and a little wicker basket. “It’ll only take me a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
Afraid that any minute Brodie would realize what she was up to and stop her, she headed for the back door. Placing her trembling hand on the handle, she opened the door. Then she stepped through, out into the morning sunshine . . . and freedom.
