curious passengers, Grant hissed, “I'm not taking this train; I'm waiting for the Katy!”
The false smile disappeared. “Very well, Mr. Grant, if you want to wait and talk to the sheriff.”
He glanced quickly at the ticket agent who was hurrying into the depot and knew that she was right. He couldn't afford to talk to a sheriff; there were too many questions that he couldn't answer. Still, he didn't like the idea of heading west toward the Oklahoma country—civilization was too strong there, law enforcement too rigid for his liking.
“Well?” she asked when they reached the coach.
Grant looked cautiously into her blue suspicious eyes. “I can't say this was in my plans, but it looks like we'll be taking the same train after all.”
She nodded. “I thought we would.”
Grant handed her up to the coach and moved away from the excited crowd of passengers. “How long before the train pulls out?” he asked the conductor.
“Right away. We're behind schedule now. Say.” He grinned. “That was some scrap! The young lady ought to be real proud of you.”
Grant then went back to the depot to recover his saddle.
The train started moving again as Grant hefted his saddle into the rack overhead. Rhea Muller was watching him now, coolly and speculatively, and as he settled into his seat she said, “May I talk to you, Mr. Grant?”
It seemed that she never ran out of surprises. He frowned, then stood up to let her move in next to the window. “I'd like to talk to you, too, Miss Muller. First of all, I'd like to know why you lied to that deputy marshal today.”
She sat very erect as usual and stared straight ahead. “Perhaps,” she said quietly, “it was my woman's intuition.” She indicated the black satchel with a nod. “It was no surprise when those men tried to take this. I was afraid some such thing would happen and I needed the protection of a... a man like you.”
“A favor for a favor. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
But Grant was not satisfied. “I still don't understand it. It's clear that you don't like me, so why did you pick me to protect you?”
“Sometimes,” she said blandly, “it takes a thief to catch a thief.”
Grant felt the heat of anger rushing to his face. Sure, he had robbed Ortway at the point of a gun but he had never thought of himself as a thief. He had simply taken by force what Ortway was trying to cheat him out of. “How,” he asked stiffly, “can you be so sure I'm a thief?”
I saw your face. I saw the fear in your eyes when you learned the deputy marshal was making an inspection of the train.”
And maybe she was right. Maybe everybody could have seen it if they had bothered to look. They rode in strained silence for several minutes, and then Grant looked at her. “Would you mind telling me what's so important about that satchel you're carrying?”
For a moment he thought she was not going to answer. Then she said, “Money, Mr. Grant. A great deal of money, and it is very important to me.” Then she looked straight at him, her eyes perfectly sober. “I want to hire you, Mr. Grant, to see that nothing else happens to it.”
Grant started. “I'm a thief. Remember?”
“But we understand each other,” she said evenly. “Do you want the job?”
“No.”
“The pay is not very good,” she continued. “But there is very little law where I am going, which should prove attractive to a man like yourself.”
It suddenly occurred to Grant that Rhea Muller was a very handsome young woman. Stiff and distant, but in her way almost beautiful. “You think you've got me pegged, don't you? Bank robber, gun shark, thief....” He leaned back on the seat and nudged his hat forward on his forehead. “Where is this place that has no law?”
“A place called Kiefer, in the Creek Nation. Until a few days ago it was a Pacific flag stop. Then a wildcat on the Glenn ranch blew in a gusher and...” She saw the puzzled look on Grant's face and allowed herself a small, tight smile. “Oil, Mr. Grant.”
He shoved his hat back and came erect. “What would a girl like you know about oil?”
She appeared to give the question serious thought before answering. At last she turned to the window and seemed to speak to the night. “I was not born on a derrick floor, as my father is apt to tell you, but I did grow up in the oil fields of Pennsylvania—and Ohio—Tarport, Petrolia, Grease City. My father is a wildcatter, Mr. Grant; that's how I know about oil.”
Grant had already noticed the strangeness of her speech and dress, and now he realized that Rhea Muller came from German stock, or Pennsylvania Dutch. Well, she's a long way from home, he thought. But Rhea Muller had that look of determined self-sufficiency about her; her own independence threw up a barrier against sympathy. Something in the back of his mind warned Grant to keep his distance. Here was a girl with ambition, and too much ambition always meant the same thing—trouble.
Still, Rhea Muller had the power and the looks to attract men, and Joe Grant was not immune to the attraction of pretty young women. He said at last, “You still haven't told me about the satchel, except that it has money in it.”
“That's all you need to know.”
“Not if I'm going to protect it,” Grant said. “How do I know the money isn't stolen?”
Her face colored but her words were controlled when she spoke. “Perhaps you have the right to know. The money is borrowed—five thousand dollars. Everything my father owns went up for collateral: his leases, a small producing well near Bartlesville. But we had to have the money to buy tools and a rig; we were in no position to bargain.”
Grant whistled softly. “It sounds like a big gamble.”
“Wildcatting is always a gamble. But Glenn Pool is going to be the biggest oil strike in history; it's the once- in-a-lifetime chance that all oilmen look for.”
Grant frowned, but the talk of oil interested him, if only because he knew nothing about it. “Well, maybe it isn't such a gamble. If your father's going to drill where he's sure there's oil, that seems like a pretty safe proposition.”
The girl turned and fixed her cool blue eyes on Grant's face. “It isn't as safe as it seems. Our lease expires in thirty days unless we get a well spudded in within that time. That's plenty of time now that we have the money, provided we're able to get rig timbers, machinery, tools...” She paused for a moment, and Grant thought he saw worry in the faint lines about her eyes. Suddenly she looked away. “Mr. Grant,” she said, “do you know what a 'top lease' is?”
“I never heard of it.”
“It's used by land speculators, especially around new oil fields. Sometimes a man has a good lease but can't promote the money to drill. If it looks like he won't be able to get his well started in time to fulfill the contract, a speculator will buy a lease on top of his. Do you understand?”
“I think so; it sounds the same as betting against the shooter in a crap game. If the first man doesn't get his well started in time, the speculator takes over the lease.” Then he thought of something else and suddenly understood why Rhea Muller was worried. “Does somebody have a 'top lease' on your father's land?”
She nodded, still looking the other way. “A man by the name of Ben Farley.”
“Do you think this Farley had anything to do with what happened in Vinita?”
She did not have to answer. A drilling lease in a new oil field was at stake—a fortune for the speculator if he could stop the Muller well. Derricks and machinery cost money-even Joe Grant knew that much about the oil business. If the speculator could somehow get his hands on the money that the Mullers had borrowed...
Grant breathed deeply, frowning hard. He didn't like it; it smelled of trouble. And he was in enough trouble as it was.
CHAPTER FOUR
SUCH TOWNS AS Dodge, Wichita, and Abilene had not prepared Joe Grant for Kiefer. The depot was a shunted boxcar. The week-old town was a churning sea of black mud, working with animals and humanity. Mule skinners turned the air blue with profanity as heavy freighters dragged through the axle-deep mud. The main street
