Thief of My Heart (Watty Awards Finalist 2012)

Chapter 3

He had to come up with a plan. Sleep would not come until he came up with a plan. He'd always been like that.  Once his mind started working on something, he had to keep at it until he had it worked out.  He used to drive the Kid crazy when he was planning a job.  He couldn't help it though.  When he was planning he had to run it by the Kid.  Even if that meant waking him up in the middle of the night.  He recalled the night he'd come up with the plan to rob the Merchant's Bank in Denver.  He had tried unsuccessfully to crack the brand new Pierce and Hamilton 1878 safe that the Merchant's Bank was so proud of.  And the walls of that safe were so thick and heavy that it would have taken so much dynamite to blow it that all the money would have been destroyed.  And it had eat at him and eat at him until he had lost three nights sleep trying to figure out a way to get into that vault without loosing the booty inside.  When he'd finally awakened Kid on the third night he'd been mad enough to strangle him until he'd explained to him his plan to blow the safe with nitro glycerin.  Then his face had lit up with the aspect of conquering the only Goliath they had come up against.  And when the plan had actually worked the Kid had proclaimed him a genius...again.  He wished Kid were here now.  

Only problem was, the Kid was almost two hundred miles away in Red Rock and he was here in the middle of nowhere alone.  Well, not exactly alone.   For the first time in his life he was responsible for another human being. Except for the Kid of course.  He and the Kid had always been responsible for each other.  How would the Kid feel about helping  him watch after a young girl?  He smiled at  that thought.  Who was he kidding?   Kid Curry had never turned down the chance to help a damsel in distress.  He'd probably take over when he brought the girl to Red Rock.  And he would let him.  He'd let Kid coddle her and pamper her, while he took care of the hard stuff.  That's the way it was supposed to be.  The way it had always been.  They both assumed their respective roles with ease after all these years.   First he'd find out if she had any family and then he'd send word for them to come and collect her.  Or he'd send her to them.  Either way, the sooner she was with family of her own the better off she'd be.  And the better off he and the Kid would be.  But what if she didn't have any family?  Then what? He had to consider that possibility.  He and the Kid had had nobody after their folks had been killed.  And they'd ended up in that overcrowded orphanage.  He wouldn't let that happen to her.  She was too old to be in an orphanage anyway, but not too old to end up a whiskey soaked saloon girl depending on strange men for her next drink.  No, he would not let that happen to her.  He didn't just kill a man and  risk his own life to save her just to have her end up a drunk floozy in a bar. Who knew how differently his life and the Kid's would have turned out if there had been somebody to help them make decisions and choices.  Maybe they wouldn't be former outlaws ducking from posses and lawmen, hoping against hope that the governor of Wyoming would grant them an amnesty.  And since they had to prove to the governor that they could live a straight life before he would grant them amnesty, maybe rescuing Miss Evangeline Webb would finally tip the scales in their favor and the amnesty would be theirs.  

  But first things first.  He had to finish this job for Mac.  And she'd have to come with him.  Then when they got to Red Rock he and the Kid would decide together what their next move would be.  All this would have to be reported to the law and that was something he had to talk over with his partner.  And one thing was absolutly sure...they could not live a life ducking from the law, sleeping in the outdoors,  taking odd jobs,  running from possees and looking over their shoulders with a young woman hanging onto their shirt tails.  He'd keep his promise to her mother.  He'd see her safely in the hands of family or the authorities and then he and the Kid could  be on their way.  Simple, clean and easy.

He studied her sleeping form on the bed roll on the other side of the fire.   He'd covered her with a blanket and all he could see of her now was her hair spilling out across the sandy ground.  And what hair it was.  Even in her disheveled and unclean state he could see that her hair was glorious.  It was thick and lustrous and hung just past her waist.  If it were clean and brushed he was sure it would be prettier even that Clem's hair, and Clementine Hale had beautiful hair.   In the firelight it looked like rich brown silk.  She obviously looked like her father.  Her mother, even in death had been an extraordinarily beautiful woman.  But she had had golden blonde hair with sun washed streaks of white through it.  And her complexion had been paler.  Her form slighter.  Almost pixy like.  Her daughter was taller, darker and more curvaceous than she had been. The eyes were different too.  Mrs. Webb's eyes had been the same blue as the Kid's.  Like a piece of the sky resting in milk.  But this girl's eyes were the color of an approaching thunderstorm. 

 She'd been through so much.  How was he to know if she even wanted to go with him.  Then again what choice did she have?   He knew she'd be feeling lost and alone when the reality of her situation sank in and she'd probably be more than willing to let someone else make all of her decisions for her.  For the time being anyway.  And he had promised her mother he would take care of her.  And so he would.   He knew from their family records that Mr. and Mrs. Webb had both been born in Tennessee and both of their children in Texas.  But he had no clue if they still had family in Tennessee or here in Texas.  Or if family was waiting for them west of here,  which was the direction they had obviously been headed according to the tracks their wagon had left.  Hopefully he'd find all that out over the next week.  That's how long he figured it would take to get to Red Rock.  At least four more days ride to Alpine, if not longer, depending on how well she could ride and her state of mind.  And he figured a day to rest before another two days ride to Buckton, then a days ride on the stage to the McCreedy ranch.   So, seven days to get to know Evangeline Webb.  And seven days for that SOB in the circus clothes to find them.  Since they'd ridden toward the east and he and the girl had headed southwest over the mountains he was hoping they had seen the last of them.  But he was not going to let his guard down.  Not until he and his new companion were safe in Red Rock with the Kid.