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Trip and Will exchanged stony glances, and Oat just looked depressed.
Paulie shook her head. “I meant, why would he want her specifically? Killing three men is one thing, but he’s bound to know that kidnapping a woman is going to cause big trouble for him.”
“You bet it is.” Will’s voice was thick with determination.
A creeping dread began to snake through Paulie’s body.
The two other men turned to him with questioning glances.
“I’m going after her,” Will announced.
“After Night Bird?” Trip asked.
“After Mary Ann,” Will clarified.
Oat was startled. “You’re going?”
“I’ve known Mary Ann a long time, Oat,” Will explained. “I promised her father I’d look after her.”
“Well, sure,” the old fellow rasped, “but after all, I’m her husband.”
“Of course, you can come along if you want to,” Will allowed.
At that suggestion, Oat looked even more startled than before. “What I meant was, I should be the one to go get help.” Even given his marital tie, the old man didn’t look at all eager to chase after a renegade Comanche to find Mary Ann. And who could blame him?
“There’s no need for you to go anywhere, if you don’t want to,” Will said sharply. “I’ll find her.”
The room was thick with tension. Paulie felt she was going to pop if she didn’t say something. “Why should either of you go after Night Bird? Oat’s got the right idea. Go fetch the army—or the Rangers. It’s their job!”
“That’s true,” Trip said.
“Should I ride all the way to Fort Stockton?” Will asked them. “Why waste precious days while Night Bird might be dragging Mary Ann into Mexico or God only knows where?”
Because you’ll be killed! Paulie couldn’t voice the fear in her heart. It wasn’t necessary anyway; Will obviously knew the risks involved. So did Oat, who, wisely, was still hesitating. He took his third swig of tequila, bracing himself.
A kind of hysteria began to build in Paulie. Here she’d been thinking that her problems were almost over—thank ing her lucky stars that Will was back. She’d thought Will would be around for a while, had even fancied the idea that he might develop a yen for her, even if he did think she looked like a crazy lady in her dress. But instead, no sooner had he arrived than he was going to ride off and get himself scalped or worse.
“You sat there a while ago telling us that people attribute all manner of things to renegades, just to suit their own purposes,” she argued.
“You think I want to believe that Mary Ann’s been kidnapped?” Will asked.
His look of accusation was more than Paulie could bear. Of course he. didn’t. No one would, but for Will it was even worse. He might convince Oat that he was running after Mary Ann just because of some promise he’d made to Gerald Redfern, but Paulie knew better. He was in love with Mary Ann. More than Paulie had even suspected, apparently—enough to risk his life for her. But she couldn’t bear the thought of his going. “Bad enough that we have to worry about Night Bird coming after us,” she said, “without us going after him.”
“Maybe if I go after him, we won’t have to worry anymore.”
“You won’t have to worry if you get your throat slit like those three other men,” Paulie said, too upset to mince words, “but where does that leave the rest of us?”
The thought of something happening to Will nearly drove her to distraction, but she faced him, holding back tears.
Will stared evenly at her, his expression softening. “I’m not going to get killed.”
He appeared so determined, so sure of himself and of what he had to do, in that instant even Paulie couldn’t imagine Night Bird getting the best of Will Brockett. But Will was a cowboy, not an Indian fighter! Sure he was good with a gun, but so were plenty of army men who had lost their lives to the Indians.
“Can’t let Will ride off alone,” Oat said out of the blue. Clearly, he’d been off in his own daze struggling with this moral dilemma. “Me being her husband and all.”
Will stood. “Come or don’t,” he told Oat. “I’m leaving in an hour.” And with that, he turned and strode out of the saloon, headed for Dwight’s mercantile.
“Guess he’s going to get provisions,” Trip said.
Paulie felt like running after him, but what purpose would that serve? She wasn’t going to change his mind. Once Will Brockett got it into his head to do something, that something always got done. She caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar. Her face was worried and pinched. And suddenly, she looked unbearably silly with her wild hair and her mother’s white dress. She didn’t want Will to ride off remembering her like this.
She didn’t want him riding off, period. “Watch the bar for me, Trip.” She went back to the narrow stairwell that led to her room above the saloon. Her mind was racing, trying to think of some way to get Will to stay. As she was halfway up the stairs, she heard the sound of Oat gulping down his fourth glass of tequila.
“Gol-darn it!” he hollered decisively, bolstered by spirits. “I’m a goin’ with him!”
Poor old man, Paulie thought. Poor Will, too. Oat wasn’t going to be much of a help. She’d feel a lot better knowing Will had somebody along who would really watch out for him.
Paulie froze for a split second as an idea began to hatch. Why not? Why shouldn’t she follow along with Will? She would be as much use to Will as Oat would!
As decided as Oat was himself—only more so, because she was sober—Paulie ran the rest of the way up to her room, a blur of white frills and lace, smashing her hoop skirt close to her body as she took the stairs two at a time. Maybe it was a good thing that she looked silly in dresses, she thought, her mood picking up. They sure were a nuisance!
When Will finally emerged from Dwight’s mercantile, he was nearly flattened by Paulie on her way in. He almost didn’t recognize her, though she had changed back into the shirt and breeches that should have been most familiar to him. For some reason, he couldn’t get the thought of her in that white dress out of his mind.
“I’m going with you,” she told him in passing.
By the time the words registered, Paulie had slapped the door shut behind her and disappeared inside. Will stood on the porch of Dwight’s building for a moment, sure he’d heard wrong. Or seen wrong. That was Paulie he’d just bumped into, wasn’t it? He pivoted and went back inside to check.
Sure enough, there was Paulie, her crazy hair braided and smashed under one of her pa’s old hats, moving along the shelves of Dwight’s, scooping up matches, pointing to dried beef and fruit and quickly calculating the amounts of corn meal and coffee she could take along with her.
Will strode toward her. “Never mind, Dwight,” he told the store’s short, balding proprietor. “You can just put all that stuff away, Paulie. Unless you’re buying it for Oat.”
His words barely fazed her. “I’ll be more of a help to you than Oat will,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she turned back to the store owner. “I guess a pound of coffee will do, Dwight.”
Will rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paulie. For heaven’s sake. I can’t be hauling a girl along with me.”
“Why not? You can haul an old boozy whiskey trader.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“He’s a man, that’s why.” He’d be damned if he was going to spend precious minutes explaining the facts of life to Paulie. “Now be reasonable, Sprout.”
She put her hands full on her hips and glared up at him. “You can’t go out alone, and if you go with just Oat, you’ll be as good as alone. Now I’ve told you my opinion on the matter. You should call out the proper authorities. But since you won’t take my very sound advice, you’ll just have to put up with my company.”
Will looked away from her, annoyed. Dwight still had his hand in a large sack of coffee, not certain whether he should start scooping it out or not.
“You’ll slow us down.”
Paulie hooted at that idea. “I can ride better than Oat, and I can shoot better, too. And see better.”
“Leave Oat out of this. As far as I’m concerned, adding you to the crew will be travelling with two handicaps instead of one, only you’re a different kind.”
“What kind?”
“The female kind,” he said.
She screwed her lips up wryly. “That’s a fact I suppose you’re just apt to notice when it suits you!”
“You’re not going,” he repeated, more forcefully.
“You can’t stop me,” she said. “If you don’t allow me in your party, then I’ll follow you. And that would be even more dangerous, wouldn’t it?”
He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Darn it, you know chasing an Indian is no job for a girl.”
“It’s no job for a cowboy, either, but that isn’t stopping you.”
He sighed, then appealed to Dwight for assistance. “Will you please tell this stubborn girl that she can’t just pick up and chase after Night Bird?”
Dwight had been standing in blank confusion, but now that he understood exactly what they were up to, the wrinkles disappeared from his endless forehead and his mouth dropped open in awe. “Night Bird!” Dwight exclaimed, in the same fearful tone that everybody used when referring to the infamous criminal. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s chasin’ him—as long as they chase him away from these parts. I haven’t slept a wink for weeks.”
Thanks, Dwight, Will thought with disgust.
Paulie beamed at him triumphantly. “See?” she asked, taking her purchases up to Dwight to tally up. “Even Dwight wants me to go.”
“What I don’t see is why you feel so all-fired determined to tag along with me and Oat. Don’t you think we can find Night Bird ourselves?”
“It’s the part after you find him that’s worrying me—and it would be worrying you, too, if you had the sense God gave a garden slug.”
“She’s right, Will,” Dwight put in. “Night Bird is one mean hombre to mess with.”
Paulie paid for her purchases, and they left the store. She was headed straight back across the way to the saloon, but Will stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.
She flinched under his grasp, and two splotches of color appeared on her cheeks. Funny, he couldn’t remember the old Paulie blushing before—except occasionally when he’d teased her. Now she was turning pink all the time.
He chalked it up to nerves.
“Look at you,” he said. “You’re already skittish. Have you considered how you’ll feel when we’re that much closer to finding Night Bird?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.” She ducked her head, and lowered her voice as she assured him, “I’ll take care of you, too, if you’ll let me.”
Something in her tone, in her gaze, made him assure her, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He squeezed his hand more firmly on her shoulder. “Honestly, Paulie. There’s got to be some reason why you’re willing to risk life and limb by going on this expedition.”
She looked up at him for a long moment, studying his face. He could see his own concerned reflection in her green eyes. And then she glanced away. “You might find this hard to believe, but while you were away, Mary Ann and I got to be friends.”
He did find that hard to swallow. Not that Paulie wouldn’t befriend Mary Ann—Paulie would talk to anything that talked back. But what would delicate, feminine Mary Ann have in common with a rough ragamuffin like Paulie Johnson?
She licked her lips, then looked up at him again. “Pretty good friends,” she continued. “So you see, I’ve got my own reasons for wanting to go. I’m just going to look after somebody I care about, too.”
He nodded curtly, touched by her words. Somehow, her claim of friendship changed things. He had a respect for friendship, for people looking after one another. Maybe it went back to the way Mary Ann’s dad had always looked after him. “I admire you, Paulie,” he said. “Not many people feel the bond of friendship so strong, especially for someone as different from themselves as Mary Ann is to you.”
She shrugged modestly. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any number of people.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Will. “What you were saying before, about Mary Ann going to San Antonio...she didn’t confide any such scheme to you, did she?”
“No,” she replied, “it was just a hunch.”
They crossed to the old lean-to Paulie used as a stable and she began readying her saddlebags with the things she’d bought at the store. Will did likewise. As they stood side by side, Paulie finally piped up, “Are you sure you aren’t going after Night Bird just to prove something, Will?”
“Prove something? Like what?”
“Well, maybe that you were the man who truly deserved Mary Ann.”
He felt a muscle in his tense jaw twitch. For a moment, he considered confiding in her, telling her how guilty he felt for sending that letter, for not just waiting till he got home to explain to Mary Ann why he just couldn’t see them getting married. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gone off and married Oat, and then been kidnapped by that madman.
But he couldn’t think about that now. He just had to concentrate on his responsibility toward her. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to find her. It’s not right for people to sit around and do nothing when a renegade is snapping innocent young women out of their beds.”
They saddled up Paulie’s horse in silence and then led their mounts out to the front of the saloon. “I’d better go in and get Oat,” Will said.
But Trip was already pushing the older man out the door. “Don’t forget this,” he joked as he presented Oat to them. He looked over at the sight of Paulie’s own saddled horse. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “Are you goin’ too, Paulie?”
She nodded.
Trip looked from Paulie to Oat. “Then it looks like I’m settin’ out again.”
“No, you can’t,” Paulie insisted “Who’ll mind the bar?”
“Heck, Paulie, I’m your best customer,” Trip argued. “Besides, you don’t have anything to sell.”
Will let out an impatient sigh. “This is beginning to look like a posse.”
Well, he thought, trying to keep his spirits up by turning to more practical matters, if he was going to search for Mary Ann and Night Bird, posses weren’t actually such a bad idea. After all, there was safety in numbers—even when that number included a cranky geezer, a switch of a girl, and a man who couldn’t stay upright.
Chapter Three
Paulie whistled four notes of “Oh! Susanna,” keeping her eye on Will’s ramrod-straight back. For the past four hours he’d been riding ahead of them, and was wound tighter than a pocket watch. Though so far their journey had been completely uneventful, Will was ever-alert, tense. She was just waiting for some part of him to snap.
“‘I Gave My Gal a Penny Candy!’” Trip guessed.
Paulie sent him a sidelong glance. “Honestly, Trip, you’ve got a tin ear.”
He looked offended. “It’s you that’s got a tin whistle.”
She whistled again, this time five notes. Their old game cut down on the endless monotony of the day-long ride, but every once in a while she thought she caught Will glancing back at them, annoyed.
He looked close to madness already, in Paulie’s opinion. “Land’s sake, Will, don’t get your dander up. It’s just a song.”
“Well, it’s a damned irritating one.”
