Free Kid Calhoun by Joan Johnston

who had come calling were a lot more interested in Window Rock.
    “You wouldn’t believe the proposals I’ve gotten,” she told him. “Young and old, rich and poor. I think I’ve had a visit from every man within a hundred miles of here. A few of the offers I’ve received seem sincere; most of them aren’t. And then there’s Will Reardon.”
    “What’s special about him?”
    “Last fall Sam decided to buy out a rancher who was heading back East, but he didn’t have enough money. So he borrowed from Reardon. He was sure he could sell his cattle this spring and pay Reardon back. Only all the gold Sam got for the cattle was stolen when he was killed.”
    “And Reardon wants payment on the note anyway,” Jake deduced.
    Claire’s eyelids lowered to conceal the bleak hopelessness she felt. “He said he’s willing to marry me and forget the note.”
    “Hell and the devil!” Jake muttered. “How much do you need to pay him off?”
    Claire mentioned a figure that was considerably more than Jake made in a year with the Rangers.
    She leaned forward in her chair and crossed her arms on the scarred wooden table. “I don’t want to marry again, Jake, but I won’t have any choice if I can’t come up with the cash to save the ranch any other way.”
    “Have you thought about selling out?”
    Claire’s hands fisted. Her eyes flashed with anger. Her voice was all the more intense because she struggled to keep it calm. “I never wanted to leave Texas and come to New Mexico in the first place. I never needed the ranch, Sam did. He planned for Jeff to carry on after him.”
    Claire fought the emotion that threatened to chokeher into silence. “Now both of them are gone. Window Rock is all I have left. I’ll be
damned
if I’ll give it up without a fight!”
    “If I can recover the gold, will that solve your problems?”
    “It would be a good start,” Claire replied.
    “I’ve got some questions to ask at the Overland Stage office. Do you want to come with me?”
    Claire shuddered, remembering how Sam had looked lying on the wooden-planked floor of the stage office. Blood had left rust-colored stains on his long johns surrounding the single bullet wound near his heart. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wait here for you.”
    The Stationmaster stiffened when Jake’s shadowed body appeared in the door to the stage office. He visibly relaxed when he spied the five-point star on Jake’s chest. “Howdy, Ranger. What brings you to town?”
    “What can you tell me about the holdup that killed Sam Chandler?” Jake asked.
    The Stationmaster took out a pocketknife and began sharpening his pencil. “Well, sir, that was a bad day for sure. Three men killed, one wounded.” He clucked and shook his head at the tragedy. “Quite a miracle, that one man surviving,” the Stationmaster added. “Gus Hemp is one lucky fella.”
    “Oh?”
    The man chortled. “All trussed up like a pig for the spit, he was. Supposed to be gutshot. But Gus was carryin’ a Bible in his shirt. Bullet hit the Bible ’stead of his innards. Gus was bleedin’ some, but rarin’ to go when we found him.”
    “Did Gus see any of the robbers? Can he identify any of them?”
    The Stationmaster nodded vigorously. “By golly, he did! One of them, the one called Kid, pulled his bandannadown when Mr. Chandler was shot. Gus said he’d know that face anywhere.”
    The Stationmaster crossed to the wall and pulled down a piece of paper that was tacked there. “Here’s a picture right here of the Kid, the one Gus saw. Stage company had it drawn up and posted with a thousand-dollar reward for the Kid’s capture, dead or alive. Heard tell there’s a kid rides with the Calhoun Gang. Don’t know if this is the same one.”
    Jake took the WANTED poster from the Stationmaster and looked at the youthful face with the name Kid Calhoun below it. Jake whistled softly. The reward for the Kid’s capture was nearly as much as Claire needed to pay the note.