belong.”
“Please, sir,” the young woman said to Tom. “Go and summon a policeman. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I don’t think they will do anything if they know a police officer is coming.”
“I think it may be too late for that,” Tom replied. “These gentlemen seem rather insistent. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”
“Ha!” Pete shouted. “Take care of this!”
He swung hard, but Tom reached up and caught Pete’s fist in his open hand. That surprised Pete, but it didn’t surprise him as much as what happened next. Tom began to squeeze down on Pete’s fist, putting viselike pressure against it, feeling two of Pete’s fingers snap under the squeeze.
“Ahhh!” Pete yelled. “Dutch! Get him off me! Get him off me!”
Dutch swung, and Tom caught Dutch’s fist in his left hand, repeating the procedure of squeezing down on the fist. Within a moment he had both men on their knees, writhing in pain.
“Let go, let go!” Pete screamed in agony.
Tom let go of both men, and stepped back as they regained their feet. “Please go away now,” he said with no more tension in his voice than if he were asking for a cup of coffee.
“You son of a ...” Pete swore as he started to draw his pistol. But two of his fingers were broken, and he was unable to get a grip on his pistol. It fell from his hand.
The young woman grabbed it quickly, then pointed it at the cowboys. “This gentleman may be an Eastern dude, but I am not. I’m a Western girl and I can shoot. I would like nothing better than to put a bullet into both of you. If you don’t start running, right now, I will do just that.”
“No, no. Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Pete cried out. “We’re goin’! We’re goin’!”
The two men ran off, and the young woman laughed. To Tom, her laughter sounded like wind chimes.
She turned to him with a broad smile spread across her face. “I want to thank you, sir.” She thrust her hand toward him, but when he shied away she looked down and saw that she was still holding the pistol. With another laugh, she tossed the gun away, then again stuck out her hand. “I’m Rebecca Conyers.”
“I’m Tom—” He hesitated before he said, “Whitman.”
“You aren’t from here, are you, Mr. Whitman?”
He chuckled. “How can you tell?”
Rebecca laughed as well. “What are you doing in Fort Worth?”
“This is where the train stopped,” Tom replied.
Rebecca laughed again. “That’s reason enough, I suppose. Are you looking for work?”
“Well, yes, I guess I am.”
“Meet me in the lobby of the Clark Hotel tomorrow morning. Someone will be coming to fetch me from my father’s ranch. Pa is always looking for good men. I’m sure he would hire you if you are interested.”
“Hire me to do what?”
“Why, to cowboy, of course.”
“Oh. Do you think it would matter if I told l him I have never been a cowboy?”
Rebecca smiled. “Telling him you have never been a cowboy would be like telling him you have blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Oh, yes. I see what you mean.”
“It’s easy to learn to be a cowboy. Once he hears what you did for me tonight, you won’t have any trouble getting on. That is, if you want to.”
“Yes,” Tom said. “I believe I want to.”
As Rebecca lay in bed in her room at the Clark Hotel half an hour later, she wondered what had possessed her to offer a job to Tom Whitman. She had no authority to offer him a job; her father did the hiring and the firing, and he was very particular about it.
On the other hand, before she left to go to Marshall, she heard him tell Clay Ramsey that he might hire someone to replace Tony Peters, a young cowboy who had left for Nevada to tr y his hand at finding gold or silver. Rebecca had a sudden thought. What if he has already hired someone to replace Peters?
No, she was sure he had not. Her father tended to be much more methodical than to hire someone that quickly. But that same tendency of his to be methodical might also work against her, for he would not be that anxious to hire someone he knew nothing about.
Well, she would just have to talk him into it, that’s all. And surely when her father heard what Tom Whitman had done for her, he would be more than willing.
Rebecca wondered why she was so intent on getting Mr. Whitman hired? Was it because he had been her knight in shining armor, just when she needed such a hero? Or was it because he might be one of the most handsome men she had ever seen? In addition to that, there was something else about him, something she sensed more than she saw. He had a sense of poise and self-assuredness she found most intriguing.
Because Tom liked to sleep with fresh air, he had raised the window when he went to bed. He had taken a room in the same hotel as Rebecca because she had suggested the hotel to him. He was awakened by a combination of things, the sun streaming in through his open window and the sounds of commerce coming from the street below.
He could hear the sound of the clash of eras—the whir of an electric streetcar, along with the rattle and clatter
