horse? She had me roped and tied, and she knew it.
She settled in beside me, and I could tell she was eyeing me out of the corner of her eyes, but I just stayed real stony. I wasn’t gonna bend an inch.
“I’m sorry about what happened in town,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea or my will, but my father made me.”
“Made you what?” I asked just as cold as I could.
“Made me smuggle.”
“Smuggle what?”
“A loaded two-shot derringer, a hacksaw blade, a file, a knife, and a ball of cord.”
“You had all that stuff under…down there?”
“In my skirts. I was a walking arsenal because I also had a spare revolver if my father needed one.”
“You was hauling iron, miss. I should have pinched you.” I didn’t like how I said it. “I mean, arrested you.”
She smiled. “Maybe pinched would have been better.”
“Now see here, Miss Queen, I’m a proper sheriff.”
She laughed, and I was plumb pissed off.
“I should have arrested you and had you searched.”
“You could have searched me without even asking, Cotton.”
“Lady, you stop your nag right there and I’m riding ahead, and don’t you follow.”
I never got invited to search a woman before, and I don’t have the smarts to deal with it, so I just got huffy, which seemed to work, at least for a few moments.
She followed, and then caught up, pushing her nag until it was beside mine. I scowled at her some, but what’s a feller to do. Queen, she had a faint smile twitching her lips a little.
“Is King safe?” she asked.
“I think so. All them T-Bar riders just want to make sure he’s, ah, sent away. They ain’t trying to bust in. Truth is, Miss Bragg, they’re making sure you and your pa don’t spirit the boy away.”
“He’s innocent, you know.”
“No I don’t know. But I’m poking around some.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?”
“I don’t think it’s your business, miss.”
“If you are, maybe I can help.”
“No, when we get to the T-Bar line, I’m crossing and you’re staying put.”
“I ride the T-Bar range all the time. No one ever bothers me. That’s because I’m me. I know some things to show you.”
“Like what?”
“Unmarked graves. New brands that aren’t registered in the brand books.”
“No, that don’t have any bearing on King shooting three T-Bar men.”
“But they do. The brands are all on mavericked calves.”
“What’s that got to do with anything, girl?”
She absorbed my tone, and rode quietly beside me, saying nothing. Critter, he didn’t like that blooded mare beside him and snapped now and then. But the day was too fine for anyone to stay ornery, including a horse who’d been pining for sunshine and grass.
We got to the T-Bar line. This was still pretty much open range, but there was a gate and a drift fence here. I got down and opened the gate. She rode through.
“Hey! This is where we part company,” I said.
She didn’t budge.
I turned Critter, reached down and grabbed the bridle of that blooded horse of hers, and led it through the gate. Then I got off Critter to close the gate, but next I knew, she was back on T-Bar range. This was getting tiresome.
“You head back or I’ll head back. The pair of us ain’t going forward,” I said.
“I wish you were more forward, Sheriff,” she said.
She was sitting her saddle and smiling at me like a cat that just gulped a mouse. I just don’t know how to deal with ballsy women.
“Oh, all right,” I said, feeling grouchy. The best I could say for her was that she was different away from her pa. Around him, she was mean and always lookin’ down her nose at me. Here she smiled some when she looked down her nose at me. This Queen Bragg was a lot more pleasant to be around than the version of Queen when her old man was lording over her.
“Well, you show me the stuff, and then go hightail out of here,” I said, not wanting to surrender easily.
