“Heck, he’s long gone into the Nations by now. We’re playing a busted flush.”
“Sorry bastard’s got more lives than a cat.”
“I’ve been sittin’ here studying on that. Appears to me there’s only two ways we’ll catch him. One’s by pure accident, the right place at the right time. The other’s through his wife.”
“You got a point,” Thomas agreed. “He’s sure enough been bit by the love bug.”
“No doubt about it,” Tilghman said. “For a smart man, he takes lots of risks to be with that girl. Ingalls ought to be the one spot he avoids at any cost.”
“Which is just where he was last night. Before he rode out to the Dunns’ place.”
“Well, I imagine the girl being in a family way has a lot to do with it. Doolin strikes me as a man who takes his obligations pretty serious.”
“Life’s funny,” Thomas said without mirth. “Here’s a goddamn robber and killer with all the conscience of a scorpion. But he’s true blue to his woman. What a joke.”
Tilghman chuckled. “You’re startin’ to sound like a philosopher.”
“A plumb pissed-off philosopher. I thought for sure we had him this time.”
“The accident went against us this time, Heck. Bad luck in spades when we stumbled across that girl.”
“Cattle Annie?”
“Miss Annie McDougal, every outlaw’s sweetheart. Except for her, we would’ve caught Doolin sound asleep.”
Thomas grunted. “Somebody ought to pull her drawers down and spank her butt.”
“That’s a dandy idea.” Tilghman suddenly grinned, nodding to himself. “Why go back to Guthrie empty-handed?”
“You talkin’ about arresting the girl?”
“Don’t see any reason why not. We’ve got her on obstruction of justice and aiding a fugitive. All federal charges, too.”
“By God!” Thomas’s mood brightened. “I like it.”
“Another thing,” Tilghman added. “Lock her up and she won’t be giving Doolin the tip-off anymore. Starts to sound better all the time.”
“What about her pardner, Little Breeches? Wonder how the hell she got that name?”
“However she got it, she’s in thick with Doolin too. We’ll arrest her on the same charges.”
Thomas took the small, galvanized coffeepot from the edge of the fire. He poured himself a cup, his expression abruptly solemn. “You know we’re gonna get razzed for bringin’ in girls instead of Doolin. Christ, I can hear it now.”
“You forget,” Tilghman advised him. “Annie was carrying a pistol and a rifle. Threatened to blow our heads off, as I remember.”
“You really think they’d fight?”
“I think we’d be smart to approach it that way. A gun doesn’t care who pulls the trigger.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Thomas said thoughtfully. “That could be downright embarrassin’!”
“What?”
“Gettin’ yourself shot by a girl.”
Tilghman started laughing, and a moment later Thomas joined in, struck by such a preposterous notion. But later, as they lay in their bedrolls, Thomas stared soberly at the star-studded sky. He hoped Tilghman was wrong, that they wouldn’t fight. He’d never before killed a woman. Or even worse, a girl.
Tomorrow, he told himself, wasn’t the time to start.
* * *
Late the next afternoon, west along the Cimarron, they sighted Council Creek. They turned northwest where the tributary emptied into the river, sticking to the shoreline. Their information, squeezed from the horse thieves at the Dunns’ ranch, was that the girls had a hideout a mile or so upstream. Half a mile farther on they dismounted, leading their horses.
A short while later the wind shifted and they caught the scent of woodsmoke. Up ahead, through trees crowding the creek bank, they saw the outlines of a small cabin. As they approached nearer, it became apparent that the cabin was a crude one-room affair thrown together with logs, a stovepipe sticking out of the roof. On the wind, they heard the sound of girlish laughter.
Tilghman motioned a halt at the edge of the treeline. Beyond was a clearing, the cabin set back a short distance from the creek. At the far corner of the cabin, hitched to a metal ring in the wall, two horses stood hip-shot and saddled in the heat. The door was open, and through it, they saw shadowed movement as one of the girls moved across the cabin. The sound of voices was followed by another burst of laughter.
The lawmen left their horses in the trees. Then, circling through the woods, they approached the cabin from the rear. Their pistols drawn, they flattened themselves against the wall and moved to the front of the cabin. As they stepped around the corner, one of the horses at the opposite end awoke with a start and snorted in alarm. Swiftly now, afraid the girls had been alerted, they hurried along the front wall of the cabin. But even as the horses reared back in fright, there was still another round of laughter from inside. They jumped through the open door.
“Hold it!” Tilghman ordered. “Federal marshals.”
The girls froze, their laughter stilled. Little Breeches, a tiny waif of no more than fifteen, was stretched out on a bunk bed. On the opposite side of the room, Cattle Annie stood silhouetted before an open window. They were both dressed in men’s clothing, holstered pistols strapped around their slim hips. For an instant, thunderstruck, they stared with their mouths ajar.
“Easy now,” Thomas said in a loud voice. “Don’t try anything foolish.”
Cattle Annie dived through the open window like a dog through a hoop. Tilghman turned back toward the door as Little Breeches leaped off the bed. Thomas crossed the cabin in three swift strides and caught her wrists as she pulled her pistol. He bore down, squeezing hard, and the gun dropped from her hand. Holstering his pistol, he smiled down on her.
“Now I know why they call you Little Breeches.”
She slugged him in the balls. His mouth ovaled in a whoosh of air and he bent double, clutching at his groin. The girl loosed a shrill screech and attacked him with the ferocity of a wildcat, clawing and scratching as he hopped around with fire in his crotch. Her nails raked his face from forehead to chin.
After several moments, battered and savaged by her assault, Thomas
