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“Either, or,” Wyman said. “I’m sworn in as both.” Turning a chair away from the table, he said, “But I do prefer Curtis, or just Curt.”
Cole liked the man’s attitude, and now that she was inside, he liked the fact Maddie’s strength was returning. She’d lifted her head, eyeing the marshal with all the attitude she held toward most men.
“If that is Mad Dog Rodriquez, he has a list of charges that cover most every state west of the Mississippi,” Curtis said.
“It’s him,” Maddie said.
“You know him, Mrs. DuMont?” Curtis asked. “Rodriquez?”
“She shot him,” Cole answered, surprised at how much pride he had for her actions. Though it had to have been dangerous, she’d taken on the outlaw with all the gusto and stamina she’d displayed from the beginning.
She glanced up at him, and color touched her cheeks as she said, “Mad Dog used to ride with my father. Bass Mason.”
For a moment, Cole imagined he looked as taken aback as Wyman did. He shook it off to frown. “Rode with your father?”
Before she answered, Wyman asked, “Bass Mason? You mean Boots Smith?”
“Yes.” Lifting her gaze, she shrugged slightly. “He changed his name, too. Outlaws do that.”
“Outlaws?”
Cole’s question happened at the same time the other man asked, “You’re Smith’s daughter?”
She nodded.
“The same one who lived in the mountains north of Cutter’s Gulch with an old miner?” Wyman questioned.
She nodded again.
“I’ll be damned,” the man muttered.
Cole had the same sentiment.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the marshal apologized. “I’m dumbfounded to say the least. I was part of a group that searched those hills for you for years.”
Cole’s insides were growing cold and bitter. “Why?”
“Smith, or Mason, kicked Rodriquez out of his band of outlaws after—” Curtis cleared his throat “—a disagreement. A year or so later, Smith turned himself in. He was granted amnesty upon his agreement to help capture Rodriquez.”
Maddie’s head had snapped up. “Amnesty?”
Curtis nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” The man then met Cole’s gaze. “Perhaps you and I should step outside.”
“No.” Maddie leaped to her feet and crossed the room to grab his arm. “I should have told you, but please, Lucky, I need to know what he has to say.”
The desire to shield her was great, figuring what Wyman had to say wasn’t going to be pleasant, but he also knew Maddie. She’d want to know every detail. “You’re sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“Go ahead,” he told Curtis.
The man nodded, but it was a moment before he spoke, probably to curtail some of the details of his story. “Rodriquez had never been a kind man, but after leaving Smith’s gang, he turned bad. Real bad. Carnage littered his trail. Mainly soiled doves. He’d been shot in the thigh and infection had set in, causing him to lose...” The lawman’s face took on a red hue. “Certain abilities.”
Cole had no doubt what abilities Curtis referred to, and that shocked him. He’d always assumed Alan Ridge sampled the girls he shanghaied.
“I shot him,” Maddie said, “a long time ago, in Colorado after a train robbery when they were all celebrating. He—”
“Shh,” Cole said, rubbing her shoulders as he led her back to the bed. Her desire for that big house, one full of food and servants so she’d never have to leave, made sense now. She wanted a fortress, one Mad Dog—or Ridge—couldn’t penetrate. Her distrust of men, people in general, made sense, too.
“I shot him today, too,” she said softly.
Cole sat down beside her and rubbed her back.
“Good for you,” Curtis said. “I’m sure you had no choice, ma’am, and you did the world a favor. Your father would be proud.”
She shook her head. “My father was—”
“Was, Mrs. DuMont,” Curtis said. “Your father was an outlaw, but he died with a badge pinned on his chest. Not so unlike this one.” He pointed to the one on his shirt.
In an effort to make her hands stop trembling, Maddie folded them in her lap. She couldn’t comprehend, not fully, what the marshal was saying. There was no way her father could have died a lawman. “How?”
