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  “That was only a copy of the letter,” Carrie informed Baca, pleased to have outguessed him. “I have kept the original locked safely in my trunks. No, Mr. Riggins,” she said, sounding as confident as she could with her blood running cold with fear, “it is you who will have to leave, and I have decided it would be best if you did so immediately. I’m sorry I can’t permit you to stay the night, but I don’t think it would be wise.”

  “Can’t permit me to stay!” Baca roared in a gobbling rage. “Look, lady, nobody tells Baca Riggins to get out.”

  “The letter says you’ve got to go,” Bap insisted.

  “Who’s going to make me? You with your guns?”

  “It will not be necessary for Mr. Turner to employ his guns,” Carrie said, starting past the curious passengers who had gathered around to listen. “If necessary, I shall throw your things into the yard myself.” Baca blocked her path.

  “You’d better get back on that stage and forget you ever came to Green Run Station. You come back with your husband, and you’re going to leave a widow woman. Now I don’t like to have to tell people something more than once, so you just turn around right now.”

  “Move out of my way, Mr. Riggins,” Carrie said, mad enough now to have no trouble keeping her voice steady. “Mr. Turner is not the only one who can use a pistol.” She reached inside her purse and pulled out a small derringer. “I would hate to be required to use this, but I will not hesitate.”

  Baca looked at the small pistol and broke into a shout of laughter. “I ain’t afraid of no pistol, especially in the hands of a woman.”

  “A bullet makes the same kind of hole whether the gun is fired by a man or a woman,” Carrie warned him.

  “It would if you had the guts to fire it or if you could hit what you aimed at. Now git on that stage before I put you on it.”

  “As I’ve already told you, Mr. Riggins, you have been fired, and I want you off this place within the hour. You’ve allowed this situation to degenerate into a hog wallow. I’m surprised the passengers have the courage to taste your food after getting a look, and a whiff I might add, of your person.”

  Baca moved toward Carrie with a virulent curse, but just as she squeezed the trigger, Bap rushed to throw himself in Baca’s path. In so doing, he brushed Carrie, throwing off her aim, and the bullet went through the fleshy part of Baca’s hamlike shoulder rather than his heart where Carrie had aimed. Baca paused a split second, unfazed by the bullet wound but amazed that Carrie would actually have the courage to fire at him, then he rushed in with a roar. He plowed into Bap before he could draw his gun; then Baca threw that unfortunate man at least twenty feet before he hit the ground so hard the breath was knocked completely out of him. He slapped the pistol from Carrie’s hand and shook her like a rag doll.

  “I told you to git on that stage,” he shouted, “and when I say something, I mean it.” Carrie struggled to break free, but she knew it was hopeless. Instinctively she looked for the man called Lucas, but Baca had her in an iron grip, and she couldn’t turn her head more than a few inches either way. There was no one else to help her. Bap was out cold, and the passengers stood staring at Baca, too frightened of the huge man to move.

  Anger such as Carrie had never known flooded over her, and she forgot to be afraid. She kicked at Baca’s groin with all her strength, and the sound of an agonized moan just before he released her let her know she had found her target. Then before he could straighten up, she slapped him cross the face as hard as she could, leaving a bright red impression on his cheek. With a vicious curse, Baca drew back a fist, prepared to smash it into Carrie’s face. Knowing a blow from Baca’s fist would probably break most of the bones in her face, Carrie dropped to her knees.

  “Touch that lady again, and I’ll kill you.” The words were spoken quietly and in a slow Texas drawl, but there was something in Lucas’s voice that made Baca’s body freeze.

  “This ain’t none of your concern, Lucas,” Baca hissed, crazy with rage. “It’s between me and this woman.”

  “Not after you laid a hand on her. No man mishandles a lady, or stands around and lets anyone do it.” One of the male passengers, spurred on by the contempt in Lucas’s voice, helped Carrie to her feet. Another came to life and helped her brush the dust from her clothes.

  Tm warning you, Lucas, stay out of this. You ain’t got no business here anyway. Why don’t you take this here woman back to where she comes from if you’re so particular about her?”

  “The lady told you what to do.” The lazy insolence of Lucas’s drawl was like a whip laid across the open wound in Baca’s pride.

  “And I ain’t doing it,” he roared, whirling around to face Lucas. “There ain’t nobody can make me, not without a gun in their hand.” Lucas patiently unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to Bap, who had just gotten to his feet.

  “I can.”

  Just two words, but for Carrie they were more than sufficient.

  “There ain’t going to be enough of you left for one of your horses to find when I get through,” Baca promised, a red light of triumph glowing in his evil eyes.

  “Don’t, Mr. Lucas,” Carrie begged, certain no one could stand up under Baca Riggins’s attack. “I think it will be best for me to leave now and return with my husband and Mr. Bickett.”

  “There’s no reason for you to be put to that much trouble.”

  “But this isn’t your fight.”

  “It is now.”

  Carrie hardly knew what to say. She knew if she left now she would never return, but she didn’t know how she could make Riggins leave, not without killing him. And although she had been willing to shoot in self-defense, she couldn’t shoot a man with the intention of killing him.

  “Come on, Baca, or pack up,” Lucas taunted him.

  His relaxed and confident posture was an affront to Riggins’s pride, and the huge man charged his opponent with a roar. Carrie wanted to close her eyes, afraid of what she would see, but she kept them open, and like everyone else in the stage yard that afternoon, she was stunned by what followed. In a short, vicious fight which would soon become a legend in Colorado, Lucas brought the lumbering behemoth to his knees without ever receiving a blow himself. “Apologize to Mrs. Simpson,” Lucas ordered as Baca gathered his shaky legs under him.

  “I’ll see you in Hell first.”

  “Really, Mr. Lucas, it’s not necessary—” Carrie began then stopped abruptly. Lucas had hit Baca in the stomach hard enough to double him up. Then getting behind him, he gave him a push with his foot that sent him forward at a stumbling run, aimed directly at the watering trough. Baca pulled himself up enough to veer to the right, but Lucas caught him by the nape of the neck and the seat of the pants and plunged him bodily into the large basin. Then he reached in and pulled Baca’s head out of the water by the hair.

  “I asked you to apologize.” When Baca continued to blubber angrily, Lucas shoved his head underwater and held it there. Several seconds went by and the assembled spectators watched apprehensively as Baca’s body thrashed about in the trough with increasingly frantic movements. Just when Carrie was sure Baca would drown, Lucas lifted his head from the water.

  “You ready to apologize?” Baca started to mutter something that could be taken for an apology.

  “Please let him up,” Carrie begged. “I’m sure he won’t bother me again.” Lucas looked at Carrie as if he didn’t quite believe his ears, but he stepped away from the trough. Baca climbed out, stumbling as his unsteady legs tried to hold him up, water cascading down into the dust and turning it into thick mud.

  “Empty this trough and fill it again,” Lucas said to Cody, the cook, who had watched the fight from the station porch. “It’s not fit for the horses to use anymore.”

  “Are you crazy?” Cody stammered. “Do you know how big that trough is?”

  “Empty it or swim in it,” Lucas said, and after a moment’s hesitation, Cody picked up a bucket and started bailing water.

  “Buck, ge
t down here,” Lucas called toward the station. When no one appeared, he took his gun belt from Bap and calmly shot out one of the second-floor windows. Immediately they could hear the scrambling of feet from inside the house and a young man, as unkept as Baca and as thin as he was fat, stumbled out onto the porch.

  “Thought you might hear that. Pitch Baca’s gear out for him. He’s in a hurry to leave.” Buck looked at Baca, still dripping water and barely able to stand, and at Cody, glumly bailing water from the tank, and decided to do what he was told.

  “They won’t give you any more trouble, ma’am,” Lucas said almost nonchalantly to Carrie. Then he buckled his gun belt around his waist, tied his guns down with strips of rawhide, and turned toward his chair under the tree.

  “Mr. Lucas,” Carrie called after him. “I must thank you for your intervention. I hadn’t expected to receive a warm welcome, but neither did I anticipate such a reception as this. Then it was too late to turn around and wait for my husband.”

  “You should have.”

  “Possibly,” replied Carrie, irked by his brusk reply, “but I am not in the habit of running from trouble. Nevertheless, Mr. Lucas, I want to thank you.”

  “Barrow.”

  “What?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Barrow. My name’s Barrow.”

  Chapter 2

  “But Mr. Riggins called you—”

  “First name’s Lucas.”

  “Oh,” Carrie replied, now thoroughly irritated by his attitude. “Thank you, Mr. Barrow, Mr. Lucas Barrow,” she emphasized. “You’ve done me a very great service.”

  But Lucas was already moving with an unhurried stride toward his chair under the tree. Think nothing of it, ma’am,” he said, tugging at the brim of his hat in a salutation before sitting down and leaning back in his chair the way he was when Carrie had first seen him.

  Carrie didn’t know whether to make a second effort to voice her gratitude or to turn on her heel, march off to the station, and forget him. She had been favorably impressed when she’d first seen him and she was enormously thankful he had disposed of Baca for her, but that was canceled out by the abrupt, almost rude, way he had rebuffed her attempt to express her gratitude. She knew nothing about him, or any other man of the West for that matter, but she assumed good manners were pretty much the same everywhere. If that was so, Mr. Lucas Barrow was just as rude as he was disturbingly attractive.

  Yet as the passengers began to climb back into the stagecoach, Carrie conceded she could take Lucas’s rudeness better then Baca’s murderous hatred. An angry shout from the ex-station manager drew her attention to where Buck had just tossed a suitcase into the yard; it had broken open when it struck the hard, packed ground and spilled Baca’s clothes into the dust. After a short altercation, Buck began to pick up the clothes while Baca headed for the barn. Carrie decided she would stay where she was until Baca left.

  “This is the last of your luggage, ma’am,” Bap said, handing Carrie a battered suitcase from the roof of the stage. “I’d offer to stay and help you take it up to the cabin, but I’m already behind schedule.”

  That’s all right. Maybe I can get Buck or Cody to carry them up for me.”

  Bap looked as if he was about to make an objection, but he changed his mind. “You sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” he asked instead. “I could take you back to Denver, and you could wait for your husband there.”

  “No, I’d rather stay.”

  “I don’t feel right leaving you here by yourself.”

  Tm sure there’ll be nothing to worry about once Mr. Riggins is gone. Besides, there’s always Mr. Barrow”

  “I suppose so,” Bap muttered, clearly dissatisfied with the way things were being left. “He seems like a dependable sort, he wrangles horses for the stage line, but he’s only been here a couple of weeks. Nobody knows much about him.”

  Tm sure I’ll be quite safe. Now you’d better get started. Won’t you get into trouble if you’re late?”

  “Naw. There’s so many things that can go wrong, nobody except the home office expects you to be on time, and they’re too far away to know anything about it.”

  “Just the same, you’d better be going.”

  “I’ll be back in a couple of days to check on you. I wouldn’t want anything to cause you to leave and Baca to come back. I’m looking forward to sampling some of your cooking.”

  “I’ll see you get a first-rate meal,” Carrie promised and waved a cheerful good-bye. But when she turned back to the station and saw Baca leading three saddled horses from the barn, she felt anything but cheerful. Cody and Buck tied bedrolls to their saddles, then all three riders mounted and rode toward where Carrie still stood in the yard.

  “My orders said nothing about replacing you, Mr. Cody, or you, Buck. You still have jobs here if you want them. In fact, I will need your help to run the station.”

  “What kind of man would I be if I was to stay here?” Cody demanded, glaring at Carrie out of vacant, pale blue eyes. “I ain’t working for no woman.”

  “Me neither,” added Buck. “And you won’t find nobody else around here anxious to work for you.”

  “Won’t be no need,” Baca threatened. “She won’t be here long.”

  “My husband and I intend to make this our home, Mr. Riggins.”

  “Don’t make no difference what you intend. You ain’t heard the last of me. Nobody pushes Baca Riggins out of any place he wants to stay.”

  “I think you’d better go, Mr. Riggins, and take your friends with you. But let me give you a piece of advice before you go. No one pushes me out of any place I mean to stay either. I have a right to be here, I am here, and I intend to stay. If you value your good health, you won’t come back.”

  “Why you …” Baca’s eyes cut nervously to where Lucas still sat under the tree. He hadn’t moved, but the very intensity of his stillness signified his alertness. “I’ll be back,” Baca blustered, almost more for the benefit of his friends than Carrie. “This is my station, and I mean to keep it.” He spurred his horse forward, the others following quickly and Carrie had to move swiftly to avoid being showered with the dirt thrown up by their mounts’ flying hooves. In a very short time the three men had disappeared down the trail, and Carrie was alone.

  Carrie wasn’t sure what to do first, but she knew she couldn’t give way to the feeling of despondency that was creeping through her body like oil through a wick. She couldn’t be sure until she looked at the schedule, but she was certain there was another stage coming through sometime before night. That meant a hot meal had to be ready when it arrived, and she was the only one present to cook it. She certainly didn’t expect the sleepy cowboy under the tree to help, even if he could, which she doubted. With a weary sigh, she bent over to pick up one of the smaller suitcases. When she stood up again, she noticed an exceptionally tall young woman approaching from the direction of the manager’s cabin; she was a big-boned girl, generous of flesh, and rather plain but of a cheerful and open countenance. Carrie put her suitcase down again and waited, surprise and a feeling of relief flooding over her. At least she wasn’t alone.

  Til be asking your pardon for not offering to help you in that ruckus with Mr. Riggins,” the girl said in a heavy Irish accent, “but I thought for certain he meant to kill you, and I didn’t want him killing me too before he got the chance to cool down. Whatever did you do to make him leave? And what is a fancy-dressed woman like you doing in a place like this by yourself?”

  “I’m Carrie Simpson. My husband is the new station manager, and I’ve come ahead. As for the clothes,” she added with a blush, “they’re all I have.”

  “I best be asking your pardon again,” the girl said, blushing rosily herself. “Pay no attention to me spiteful words. It just be jealousy that I don’t look like you, though I know there be no clothes this side of heaven that could turn a peahen like me into a beautiful lady like you.”

  “Thank you,” Carrie replied, feeling more embarras
sed than ever. “And you don’t have to apologize for not having the courage to face Mr. Riggins. If I had known about him, I doubt I’d have gotten off the stage.”

  “For sure you would. Some people just naturally step up to the line when there’s trouble, and you be one of them.”

  “The courage of desperation,” Carrie said with an embarrassed laugh.

  “’Tis possible, but I doubt it. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re here. Now maybe I’ll be getting something to eat without being afraid of what those wicked creatures had a mind to do if only they weren’t so scared of Mr. Barrow. Ah, I be forgetting me manners. I’m Katie O’Malley, and you can tell from me accent I’ve only just come from Ireland.”

  “How long have you been here?” Carrie asked, skipping over the mention of Lucas, but making a mental note to get back to it as soon as possible.

  “I be waiting for me husband-to-be to come for me. I’m wondering whether he has got himself held up or if I got the date wrong. I have been here six days already, and I can tell you I was hard set to get through six days of Baca Riggins. Besides,” she said, gathering in a little slack in the waist of her dress, I’m naturally plump, and if I don’t start getting something to eat, I’ll soon be a withered twig like you.”

  “Come on inside,” Carrie said. “I’ve got to find something for dinner. I’m sure I can find something for you, too.” Carrie picked up her suitcase and started toward the station.

  “I’ll be there afore ye,” Katie said. I’m nigh unto starving. I been staying in the cabin up the road, that’s your cabin by the by, because I couldn’t trust that Mr. Riggins and his friends not to go getting ideas in the middle of the night.”

  “Didn’t they offer to feed you?”

  For certain they did, anytime I was hungry enough to come down to the station, but I couldn’t eat much, not after the first mouthful, and I was frightful of being in the room alone with those three. No matter, I would watch for the stage and hurry down while the passengers were here.”