To Hell and Back

By P. A. Bechko

Straight-laced Amanda Clery arrives in Phoenix to work as a bank teller. Ramrod Jake Hollander enters the bank to deposit the monies for the sale of his boss’s herd just as a robbery is taking place. In the ensuing chaos, Amanda and Jake end up accused, tried and convicted of masterminding the event. When they escape, Jake teaches the prim easterner all the survival skills at his command. They work together to expose the banker who set them up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TheFictionWorks
• Release date: Nov 24, 2010
• ISBN: 9781581242836

Book preview

Author

Chapter 1

Shadows stretched long and dark across the dusty, red street. Graceful fingers of oncoming coolness intruded from the west, traveling on the lateness of the day and with the golden glow of approaching sunset, came much freshened air that washed through the open door of the bank in a steady breeze.

The bank would be closing soon, and Amanda Cleary turned tired, red-rimmed, eyes of dusky green toward the clock hanging on the far side of the room, counting the minutes remaining. The day had been unusually warm, especially for a time of year everyone tried to convince her was winter.

She had arrived, in the new desert town of Phoenix in the Arizona territory only a few months earlier. The few people she knew to speak to here, as well as Laura, the one real friend she had, swore this was hotter than anyone remembered and promised there were even times when it snowed. But, all Amanda could think of was, if this is winter, summer had to be an inferno. When she had stepped off the stage at the end of her seemingly endless journey west, it had already been the cooler season. Now it was swinging toward spring and though she took pains to keep out of the direct sun as much as possible, she felt constantly sunburned. She feared she would have to relocate again. But what would she do? She had been fortunate to get this job.

Not quite twenty, her eyes large and soft, her thick, wavy, black hair glistening in the desert sun, she commanded attention from first glance. After that it was an uphill battle for any man in the territory to take his eyes off her. She wasn’t just female, though God knew that was enough to get any man’s attention in these parts. No, she was a striking beauty as well, fair-skinned and slight of form. Her face was a perfect oval, provocatively accented by a widow’s peak arcing down in a graceful sweep at the center of her high smooth forehead. The only distraction from her unusual beauty was the tense, brooding look which shadowed her every expression. That coldness kept most people at a distance.

She smiled as one of the last customers of the day completed his business at the window adjacent to her own.

Have a lovely evening, Mr. Evans.

Sure will, missy, soon as that ol’ sun sets and gives us some peace.

Amanda laughed softly.

Now I know it’s not my imagination, she retorted, it’s got to be bad when the desert rats complain.

Marcus Evans scuffed out the door, settling his battered brown hat on his head, canted over his eyes.

Eddie, the young, cheerful, man working the teller window beside her own, gave her an encouraging smile and nodded toward the clock. Plainly, they were both hoping the last few minutes would tick off the clock with no further business.

She glanced toward the back and John Berglund’s office. He was bent over his desk, sable-colored hair with the sheen of a fine beaver pelt glinting in the fading rays of the day’s end.

Hey, Eddie asked Amanda, sparing Berglund a look of his own, you all right?

Yes, of course.

You look distracted.

I guess I’m not used to the heat yet.

Takes a while, Eddie admitted, but wasn’t convinced by her abrupt explanation.

He wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the way Berglund looked at his newest employee. There was something of the stalking animal in that look. It wasn’t the first time. Berglund had a reputation in some circles.

I’m going to dinner at the hotel dining room after closing. You want to join me?

Amanda smiled her best smile and the tenseness in the set of her jaw softened just a little.

I’d like that, Eddie.

And she wasn’t lying. Eddie was one of the most genuinely nice people she’d met since her arrival. He was young, very skinny, and wore his brown hair in a tight cap of skull-hugging short curls. He was the complete antithesis of what she had run from in Boston.

Eddie noticed her glance again in Berglund’s direction. The man was getting to her and she really needed this job. It appalled Eddie to think of someone as refined as Miss Amanda going over to the saloon to see what kind of a job she could pick up there.

You aren’t getting homesick, are you? Eddie asked after a moment’s silence.

Amanda shook her head. I can promise you that’ll never happen. The heat would have to curl the streets before I’d even think about going back there.

Eddie smiled, exposing large, even teeth. Just thought it might be good for you to hear yourself say it again.

He was right. It was good to hear the words ringing in her ears again. They brought back all the anger and loathing. She had defied her greedy father and the man who had been her fiancee. The man she had, at one time, believed herself in love with. The twisted man her vile father had been determined she would marry. Her mother, a cowed, mousy, oppressed woman, had been of no help when Amanda had announced she wouldn’t marry James Webster, one of the wealthiest men in Boston.

Her father, determined to gain by using her as a pawn, had beaten her senseless and promised total disinheritance when she had broken off her engagement to James. The reality of her life had been made suddenly clear, and as she had seen it, left her with only one option. That was to run. And that she had done, with great gusto, putting great distance between herself and her former life.

As her destination she had chosen Phoenix because of the warmer climate and newness of the desert town and never did she regret what she had done. She hoarded her tiny remnants of the nest egg which had brought her here like a jealous miser. She tended her lovely wardrobe, just the thing for working in a bank, like it was the garb of royals since she would have to make her gowns last a very long time. And she reveled in the heady feel of freedom she had never known before in her life. Eddie had told her the West was a new land and people got new starts here if they were strong and willing to learn. She fervently hoped he was right.

* * *

The day was a scorcher. Not the kind Jake Hollander much liked. Still, it was better than the blizzards Wyoming had to offer. He was heading back to West Texas. It was hard to guess what mother nature would offer him there. Maybe it was time to be moving on, maybe California. Maybe he was just tired.

He rode his appaloosa into Phoenix late in the day, lively gray eyes scanning the street for a bank, the kid’s sorrel on lead.

The Kid wouldn’t be going anywhere ever again. He was laying in a grave in a hilly patch of green just short of drive’s end. Jake wasn’t any good at this and he sure did hate having to be the one to bring the kid’s plunder back on a riderless horse. Wouldn’t you know it would be a neighbor’s boy, experienced with cattle, but on his first trail drive, who would end up dead just so Jake could bring his horse and gear back. Couldn’t have been some rootless drifter out to make a few bucks and then move on. Nope, had to be the amiable, hard-working kid, eager to impress everybody with his freshly minted manhood, who rode his pony full tilt into the pack of spooked cattle and got tumbled head-first into a boulder. Snapped his neck like a green stick. Everybody close by had heard the sound and nobody was likely to forget it.

He drew his horse up to the hitching post outside the bank, swung down, collecting the battered canvas sack off his saddle, and looped the pony’s reins over the rail. Then he urged Kid Keller’s sorrel forward and tied him off. Hollander patted the sorrel on the neck, then stepped up on the boardwalk in front of the neat, well-kept bank and boot-stomped his way to the door, knocking off dirt in chunky clots. He smacked his hat against his thigh, sending dust billowing in clouds as he stepped inside.

Usually Hollander didn’t have much use for banks, but this was what old Eli wanted him to do, so he would do it. He would change the good hard cash in his saddle bags for a bank check to send back to Eli’s West Texas ranch. Safer than toting cash all that distance Eli claimed. Jake would beg to differ, but Eli Sanders was his boss. And the way Jake saw it, the man who was paying his wages, got what he wanted. Someday when he had his own place, if he ever settled down to his own place, he would do things his way.

* * *

Amanda and Eddie were in the process of closing up when the door swung abruptly open. Heavy footsteps pounded across the wooden floor.

Eddie never bothered to look up. It was a man who had entered—he could tell it by the loud thump of the boots, and he was headed for Amanda’s cage as unerring as a homing pigeon. There were damn few women of any kind in the territory, let alone one as good looking as her. It was what most men did. He grinned to himself, shaking his head.

It was probably good for her to have some attention directed her way other than that which she received from Berglund. Always she treated their boss coolly, politely, with the proper demeanor fitting an employee. Eddie had seen the anger flare in Berglund’s long, angular face in the past, but the man had not yet fired her. He was determined to succeed it seemed. Maybe he figured he would be able to break down her defenses in time, no matter her resistance.

Out of curiosity, Eddie cast a quick glance in the new arrival’s direction as the fella stopped in front of Amanda’s cage. This one was a stranger. Always interesting. Eddie kept his nose elevated out of his books.

Amanda smiled a greeting at the tall man who moved with the long easy stride to her station. She seemed to bask in the aura of controlled power, and panther-like grace. She noted the shock of blonde hair he wore in an uneven, sun-streaked mop. And his skin, though obviously normally pale, was dark as tanned leather, his eyebrows sun-whitened. Sparkling gray eyes met hers in frank appraisal. A nose straight and broad, and a wide mouth over a buttress of a chin set in a hard square jaw, spoke of raw power and quiet strength. A short, full beard, sandy-colored, and glinting with reddish highlights, fringed the rock-hard jaw. Gaunted by hard living on the trail, his shirt hung on him like a sack though broad shoulders stretched the fabric at the yoke.

His ready smile that flashed surprisingly white teeth triggered an immediate liking in Amanda from the moment she laid eyes on him. When he stopped at her cage she wondered if he would be in town long.

May I help you? Amanda’s smile broadened, her tone was mellow and lilting.

Sure can, ma’am, his low, resonant voice rang with authority long unquestioned.

He couldn’t be much past thirty, but age hung around him like a mantle. The kind of aging that comes with experience rather than the passage of years. And, he wore it well.

He swung a canvas sack up on the counter.

I have twenty thousand dollars here. I’d like to have a bank draft made up in that amount.

The words were strung out on the air when Berglund strolled out of his office.

Amanda’s eyes grew a little larger. Isn’t it dangerous, carrying around that much money in cash?

The stranger gave her a wicked grin. Matter of opinion, I reckon, but that’s why I want a bank draft, he told her with a wry twist of his lips.

Amanda laughed softly, gesturing toward the bag the stranger’s hand still rested on with a protective air. I’ll have to count it. Will you be staying long in Phoenix Mr . . .?

Hollander, the stranger filled in for her. Jake Hollander. Hadn’t thought about it.

He was enjoying her presence, just being near this woman and it gave him some ideas he had not ridden into town with. But first he had to get the draft sent off to Eli back in Texas. Then he’d contemplate what seemed to be an invitation.

John Berglund, anger reddening his vision, stared intently at Amanda. She was being much more than polite with this filthy, trail-crusted, stranger! Despite everything he’d done for her, he had never been the recipient of the easy manner, the soft smiles, the cow-eyed looks.

Berglund stiffened and drew himself up straighter, hands momentarily crushing his lapels. He offered her everything, had done so more than once, but all she did was sweetly remind him of his wife. And now, she sidles up to a drifter; a sweaty cowhand. It was intolerable. His eyes narrowed and he made a decision in that instant that curled his colorless lips into a cruel smile. No one made a fool of John Berglund. The little half-wit would find that out soon enough. Oh yes, she certainly would.

The bulging money sack was passing beneath the bars of the teller’s cage when the bank door swung open with a bang, three men piling into the room, guns drawn, neckerchiefs covering the lower half of their faces.

Amanda froze. Blood drained from her face and she was awash in a tingling, cold sensation.

Eddie’s head snapped up and from the corner of her eye she saw the lines in his young face deepen when he clamped his jaws tightly shut. Behind her she heard a sharp intake of breath from Berglund, and in front of her, across the money bag her hand still rested upon, Hollander’s gray eyes, the color suddenly flattened to hard slate, locked with hers in mute warning. Be calm. Don’t panic.

Each muted click of the clock was a hammer blow to the heavy silence blanketing the room. Each moment ticked into eternity.

Still Hollander’s eyes held hers. Smile and breathe, he whispered to her softly. Funny, she had forgotten to draw a breath. She almost hiccuped, felt a quick stitch in her side, and somehow willed herself to draw her next breath, a long steady one, easing the tightness in her chest a bit so she could suck in another before the leader of the gang stepped forward.

Bank robbery. She had never really believed it could happen here. Her small hand threatened to tremble, but she gathered the will to clamp down and hold it steady.

The leader positioned himself before the tellers’ cages, while one of his partners stood near the door to watch the quiet street. The third eased up close to Hollander, gun barrel, black and hollow, level with his chest.

You keep your hands right where I can see ’em and stay put, he said to Hollander who had half turned into his gun. Then he turned slightly toward Amanda. We want all the money you got, and be quick about it. His dark eyes held hers, daring her to do something he wouldn’t like.

The second man snapped at Eddie, You, too! Slimmer, darker than the first, probably of Mexican or Indian blood, he was no less imposing, his gun sweeping the interior of the bank.

Berglund had given strict instructions to his employees not to take chances if ever such a thing as this were to happen. Such an admonition had hardly been necessary for Amanda who was