The Rustler by Linda Lael Miller

bank.
    Frowning, she consulted the small watch pinned to her bodice. Five minutes past the opening time of eight o’clock. She was late.
    The door was locked.
    Sarah fumbled for her key, let herself in.
    Thomas stood behind the counter, looking anxious.
    Sarah rolled up the shade.
    â€œMaybe we ought not to open for business today,” Thomas said. Perspiration glistened on either side of his nose, as well as his forehead, and he kept wetting his lips with his tongue.
    â€œNonsense,” Sarah said. “It’s payday on most of the ranches. Down at the feed store and the livery stable, too. People will want to make deposits.”
    â€œWe shouldn’t open the safe,” Thomas insisted, glancing at the rolled-up shade above the front window.
    â€œThomas, what on earth—?”
    â€œIt’s just something I overheard at the boardinghouse last night,” he said. Then he walked right past her, lowered the blind again, and locked the door. “Probably nothing to be concerned about, but—”
    Sarah laid a hand on his arm. “Thomas.”
    He shoved splayed fingers through his hair. “A couple of drifters stopped off at our place and asked to chop wood in return for a hot supper. Mother allowed as how she’d feed them, all right, but they had to eat outside because they were strangers and she didn’t like the looks of them.”
    â€œAnd?” Sarah prompted.
    â€œIt was hot, so Mother had a window open in the kitchen, and I went in there to shut it. That’s when I heard them talking outside. The drifters, I mean.”
    Sarah pressed her lips together, waited.
    â€œThey said there was money to be gotten, in a place like Stone Creek, and they wouldn’t have to ride for the likes of Sam O’Ballivan to get their hands on it.”
    Sarah remembered the dust on the horizon, and the way it had caught Wyatt’s attention. She felt a little prickle of alarm, not so much because the bank might be robbed—that was preposterous—but because Owen and her father were down by the creek, fishing, and the trail into town ran right past it. And because, if there was trouble coming, Wyatt would most likely face it alone, with Sam and Rowdy away.
    Thomas prattled on, apparently unable to stop talking now that he’d gotten started. “I wanted to come right over to your house and tell you,” he said, “but Mother said you had company and I’d be intruding.” He reddened. “Sarah, what if they mean to hold us up?”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Thomas. No one has ever held up the Stockman’s Bank.”
    â€œFolks know Rowdy Yarbro’s out of town, and Mr. O’Ballivan, too,” Thomas argued, albeit respectfully, “and this is the only place in Stone Creek where there’s any amount of cash money—”
    Sarah shook her head. “You’ve been reading too many dime novels,” she insisted. “This is 1907. The twentieth century, not the old West. Anyway, if we lock up on a Tuesday morning, it might start a panic.”
    â€œI feel sick,” Thomas said. “Can I go home?”
    Sarah sighed. Thomas was a faithful worker; he was never sick. His salary was small, but he never complained, or refused to run errands or other tasks outside his job as a teller.
    â€œVery well, then,” she said, somewhat snappishly. “Go home.”
    â€œI don’t like leaving you here alone,” Thomas fretted, but he was already making for the door, fumbling with the lock.
    â€œGive my kindest regards to your mother,” Sarah said.
    Thomas nodded, and fled.
    Sarah rolled the window shade back up, smoothed her hair and her skirts, and walked behind the counter, resigned to doing Thomas’s work, as well as her father’s and her own.
    She checked her bodice watch again. At three o’clock, she would close the bank, walk down the street toward home as usual, and duck around behind