Long Road to LaRosa (West Texas Sunrise Book #2) by Paul Bagdon

Author:Paul Bagdon [Bagdon, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781441239501
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2003-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

7

* * *

Ben sat as if he’d been poleaxed, and for a few moments he was too stunned to speak. But when he did, his tone was harsh. “That’s pure crazy! What you’re going to do is set out at first light tomorrow and find your way back to town, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

Lee reined in ten yards or so from where Snorty was ground tied. The horses glared at one another in the dimming light, neither willing to make the first overture toward acceptance. Ben slid off Dancer, and then Lee dismounted.

“Whether or not you want to hear about it, it’s what’s going to happen. I’m going on with you, and I’m going to help you put an end to the Stone gang.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely not?” she said, mocking his tone. “You sound like a schoolteacher telling a ten-year-old she can’t bring her new puppy into the classroom! Who do you think you are to tell me I should run home because things might get sticky!”

“I know who I am. I’m the marshall of Burnt Rock, Texas. I’m in the course of my work, and I’m giving you a direct order. And I’ll tell you something else: Things are going to get a lot more than sticky before this thing is finished.”

“A direct order? What makes you think—”

“There’s no reason for more arguing, Lee. You’re heading for Burnt Rock tomorrow.”

Her face was crimson with anger, and she swallowed a couple of times before speaking. “You chowderhead!” she snapped. “I thought at least you, of all the men in town, would have enough sense to realize that a woman is every bit as brave as a man, and every bit as ready to fight for what’s right!”

“Look, the—”

“No, you look! You and every other cowpuncher and sodbuster in the West think women aren’t good for anything but looking pretty and keeping quiet when the menfolk are talking. The whole silly bunch of you with your antiquated ideas are going to find out different real soon, Ben Flood! Women were already saving lives with the surgeons on the battlefields—Shiloh, Gettysburg, Antietam—and now back East we’re being recognized as real people who can accomplish as much as a man. Why—”

“All I said was that you aren’t going to get caught up between me an’ a bunch of desperados who’ve already proved they’d just as soon kill as not! ’Course women deserve better’n they get. My point is that you don’t have the skills to be of any help to me.”

Her voice was suddenly arctic; icicles seemed to hang from each word. “What skills are you referring to?”

He spoke before thinking. “Shooting and riding and being able to—”

“You, sir, are terribly mistaken!” she shrieked. “On the worst day I ever had, I could outride you! And do you think the rabbit I ate volunteered to become food? I got it with a pistol that’s probably twenty years old and that I’d never even tried before I had to fire it!”

“There’s a lotta difference between dropping a rabbit and killing a man.

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