Drew (The Cowboys) (17 page)

“I don’t wear ribbons,” Drew announced. “And I don’t wear pink.”

“I’m not asking you to wear this for yourself,” Cole said, wondering what it would take to convince Drew he didn’t mean this as a personal insult. “I’m asking you to wear it for the men in the audience who will respond to you as a beautiful, desirable woman.”

“I’ve already warned you about lying, Cole Benton.”

“And for the women who see you as the kind of woman they’d like to be if Mother Nature had only given them the chance.”

“Women do like to see a pretty woman look like a woman,” the saleswoman said.

“What do you think I look like now?” Drew demanded in a tone so stern the saleswoman nearly swallowed her tongue.

“You look very nice, but… well, it’s just that… I think some other colors would make you look even prettier.”

“What she’s trying to say,” Cole said, driven by frustration to brutal frankness, “is that you’d make a better impression if you didn’t look like you’d just come from a winter spent trapping beaver in the Colorado.”

“The beaver were trapped out decades ago.”

“Good. Now you’ve got no need to go around looking like your grandpa.”

“Both my grandfathers were successful businessmen who would never have been caught dead wearing buckskin.”

“Then why do you?”

“Because I like it.”

“Fine. Wear buckskin on your ranch. Wear it on the train, at the hotel, on the street if you must, but wear something pretty and feminine when you go into the ring.”

“I’m not dressing up queer for anybody,” Drew said, looking at the pink dress as though it was a coiled rattlesnake.

“You’ve got to appeal to an audience any way you can.”

“If they don’t like the way I dress, they don’t have to watch me.”

“You’ll never get to be a star, thinking like that. You’ve got to ask yourself what the spectators want and give it to them.”

“They want fantastic shooting,” Drew said, her eyes bright with anger, “and that’s what they get.”

“If that’s all they wanted, Earl could hire an Arkansas coon hunter or a Colorado mountain man. They want more. They want a show. That means spectacle, making everything bigger than life, making it as bright and exciting as possible.”

“Now you’re saying my shooting isn’t interesting enough to make people want to come see me. If that’s the way you feel about it, I’m surprised you bother with me at all.”

Cole had been around many women during his life, but never one more determined to take everything he said the wrong way.

“It’s exactly like entering the ring on horseback,” he said, “shooting the bull’s-eyes and candles from horseback rather than on the ground. Those things may not be difficult for you, but they look impossible to the audience. That makes it more exciting.”

“Then think up some more
exciting
tricks.”

“I will, but changing the way you dress would work better than two or three new tricks.”

“We have dresses in lots of other colors,” the saleswoman said. “Blue has been very popular this year.”

“Do you have something with a white pinafore?” Cole asked.

“Pinafore!” Drew exclaimed like he’d uttered a dirty word. “You expect me to wear a pinafore, like some poor, helpless female who has no more gumption than to do everything a man tells her?”

“You don’t like bright colors, you refuse to wear ribbons, you threatened to shoot my ears off when I brought up cosmetics, and now you cringe at the mention of a pinafore. What have you got against looking like a woman?”

“I look like a woman. I’m wearing a skirt.”

Cole looked down at the heavy brown skirt that stopped at the top of her boots. She wore a brown shirt over a white blouse buttoned up at the neck, and gloves. This morning she had coiled her hair under her widebrimmed hat There was no way anyone could mistake Drew for a man, but her manner of dress effectively diminished her feminine appeal.

“It takes more than a skirt to make a woman look like a woman. You should get rid of that hat, and wear a ribbon that brings out the color of your eyes, a dress that accentuates the shape of your body.”

“You’re just like all the rest of the men in this world,” Drew snapped. “You want to tart me up until I look like one of those women men pay to spend time with. Well, you can mark me off your list If my shooting isn’t good enough, Earl can find himself another sharpshooter. I joined this show to work, not turn myself into a painted hussy concerned only with what men think when they see her.”

“I’m not talking about men.”

“Indeed, he’s not,” the saleswoman added, fearful Drew would leave without buying anything. “Women like to see another woman looking pretty and feminine. That way, if she can best a man at something, it makes it all the more exciting. We feel if you could do it, maybe we could, too.”

But Drew wasn’t listening. She’d turned on her heels and marched out of the store.

“Oh dear,” the saleswoman said. “And that pink dress looked so lovely on her.”

“Pack it up,” Cole said.

“But she said she wouldn’t wear it.”

“I know, but maybe I can get her to change her mind. Give me two more, something in bright yellow if you have it and that blue dress you mentioned, but no pinafores. That might be too much.”

A short time later Cole walked out of the store with three complete outfits. He told himself he was a fool, that he ought to be trying to gain her confidence, not fighting over ways to make her more attractive. But he wasn’t nearly so worried about that anymore. He didn’t know who could be pulling off all these robberies, but it couldn’t be Drew.

She resisted his suggested changes because she felt it diminished her talent and turned her into a woman with a gimmick. She wanted to be appreciated for her talent alone. Nothing else. She’d invited several old people to retire to the ranch with her. She might not want to take care of a husband and children, but she did intend to take care of these retired show people.

That wasn’t the description of a woman who robbed banks. This was a woman who, despite her loud protestations to the contrary, wanted to love and be loved. Something had made her think she disliked men, couldn’t trust them, but the way she talked about her adopted brothers showed that once a man proved himself trustworthy, she could be attracted to him.

And Cole wanted Drew to be attracted to him.

He’d been fighting his attraction, telling himself over and over again he couldn’t let himself become interested in a criminal, that it would destroy his objectivity, make it impossible to bring the case to a suitable conclusion. But if Drew was not responsible for the robberies, he could let his feelings off the leash. He didn’t have to be careful anymore.

But he did have to tell his captain they were investigating an innocent woman while letting the real culprit continue unhindered.

Deciding a telegram would be the quickest way, he turned toward the telegraph office in the post office. He took a form, wrote his message, and handed it to the operator.

“I got a telegram for you,” the man said when he saw the name at the bottom of the message. “Just came in a few minutes ago.”

The captain knew the Wild West Show’s itinerary. Cole was supposed to check for messages each day. He’d done that before he took Drew shopping. Cole took the telegram handed to him and broke it open. The message was brief.

ROBBERY AT THE MILLVILLE BANK EARLY THIS MORNING. SAME GANG.

“Give me back my telegram,” Cole said to the operator. “I’ve made a big mistake.”

Chapter Ten

“I know you don’t trust banks,” Drew said to Ben, a man who’d gotten too old to be an acrobat and was now responsible for some of the props needed by the cast of the Wild West Show. “But it’s better than putting your money under your mattress and having it stolen.”

“Or gambled away,” his wife said.

“Banks get robbed all the time,” Ben said, ignoring his wife’s comment.

“I know, but this bank is part of the Randolph Bank in Chicago. They’ll give you back your money if anybody steals it.”

“How do you know they’ll do that?”

“Because the people who own it are friends of my parents. I’ve been on cattle drives with Monty and Hen Randolph. If they promise to make good on any losses, they will.”

“I never heard of anybody doing that,” said one of the men who helped with the horses.

“That’s how banks work,” Drew said. “You deposit your money. When you want it back, they give it to you.”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “It doesn’t sound right to me.”

“Stop arguing,” Myrtle said. “Has Drew ever steered us wrong yet?”

“No, but—”

“Then be quiet and put your money in the bank. You’re an old man, Ben Oliver. You’ll need it before you know it”

For the last two years, almost from the moment she’d discovered that most of the elderly people who worked for the show had no savings, Drew had been urging them to take half of their earnings and put it in the bank. She hadn’t been able to convince anybody at first. They didn’t trust banks, and they didn’t trust her. But when Myrtle decided to open a bank account, others followed suit. Before long Drew was escorting about a dozen people to the bank each payday. Drew kept a record of every account, showing them how much money they had deposited and how much interest it had earned.

At the end of last season, one of the men had been injured by a buffalo. When he was able to withdraw all his money plus interest, the remaining doubters were convinced.

Having reached the bank, Drew went inside and stepped directly up to the teller’s window. Seeing her deposit her money encouraged the old people to keep up their accounts. Having made her deposit, Drew found a seat, opened her book, and prepared to enter the new deposits. She was engrossed in her work when Cole entered the bank.

“Have you talked Cole into saving his money, too?” Myrtle asked.

Despite their argument, Drew’s immediate response was to look up and send Cole a welcoming smile. She couldn’t help being pleased he continued to seek her company.

When she saw his expression, she changed her mind. He looked ready to commit murder. She got up without hesitation and hurried toward him. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Has someone been hurt?”

He looked shocked and hurt, like his best friend had hit him in the face.

“When did your train leave Wilton Springs?” he asked.

Drew had anticipated many responses, but not that one.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Answer me! It didn’t leave last night, did it?”

He was angry, aggressive, and accusing. She didn’t know what was bothering him, but she resented his taking it out on her.

“I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but I decided I wanted some time to myself. I knew there’d be another train this morning, so I stayed overnight.”

“Did Zeke and Hawk stay with you?”

“Of course.”

He looked ready to do something drastic, but she had no idea what, because she didn’t know what was bothering him “What’s all this about?”

“Are all these people with you?” he asked, pointing to the people busy depositing their money. Myrtle had taken over recording the deposits in the book.

“Yes.”

“What are they doing?”

“Depositing their money in the bank. What does it look like?”

He looked about ready to attack one of them. Drew didn’t know what had gotten into him, but his behavior was making her uneasy.

“Are you sure it’s not your money?”

“I’ve already made my deposit.”

“But that would be too much money to deposit at one time without making people suspicious.”

Drew laughed. “I don’t know how much money you think Earl pays me, but I can promise you it’s not enough to raise eyebrows at any teller’s window.”

He seemed unable to take his eyes off her friends.

“How big is your ranch going to be? You don’t need a million acres.”

“It’s a good thing. There aren’t that many acres in the whole valley.”

“What valley?”

“Jake’s valley in the Texas Hill Country. Ward and Buck already have ranches close by. Isabelle hopes we’ll all come back there someday.”

“Who?”

“My brothers. Who did you think I was talking about?”

“What is Myrtle doing?”

“Writing down the amount of the deposits for me.”

His expression grew even wilder. She’d never seen any sign of it before, but Drew wondered if Cole might have a secret drinking problem. She couldn’t think of anything else that could account for such bizarre behavior.

“Why?”

“It’s none of your business.” She was irritated with his attitude. She didn’t understand it or find it excusable.

“Humor me.”

“Why? You’re acting like a steer with a cactus thorn in its nose.”

He walked over, took the book from Myrtle, and looked through several pages. That made her so furious she marched up and snatched it from his hands.