The Rogue's Company, Part Fourteen

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: PG

Link to Part One

~

I was still annoyed with Joe as I retrieved the bricks from the fire, so I glared at him when he stepped into the kitchen. I set the bricks back down and turned to face him as he sat in a chair opposite me.

“Hey,” he said.

“What can I do for you, sir?” I asked him.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be like that,” he said.

“Like what?” I demanded. “Respectful to my master’s brother?”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” he said. “Shea, why would you want to deal with Adam bossing you around for your whole life?”

I sat down on the edge of the fireplace and cupped my chin in my hands. “Why does Hop Sing want to serve your family for his whole life?” I countered.

He sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I never thought about it before. I’ve always taken Hop Sing for granted. I don’t know why he wants to work as a cook.”

“Perhaps because there’s nothing wrong with being in service,” I said softly. “It’s honest, respectable work, isn’t it? Just as being a ranch hand, without any land to call your own, is honest and respectable. And ‘honest’ is a step up for me, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling a little. “But Shea, it’s different for you. You have real learning. I don’t know how you got it, but I know you’re bright in the way that Adam is. And he wouldn’t spend his life serving someone else.”

I managed to smile back at that. “Well, I don’t think he has a penchant for robbing safes, either,” I pointed out. “I do—didn’t I enjoy that work? But I like working here even more. And I don’t mind Adam bossing me about. That’s the whole trick to happiness, isn’t it, finding an employer you don’t mind working for?”

“What about working for yourself?” Joe shot back. “Isn’t that better?”

I shook my head. “No—I’d be a terrible master for myself. I’d only get myself into more trouble.”

Joe considered that and then broke into a reluctant laugh. “Ok,” he said, “you win.”

“Besides,” I added, “as far as I can see you still answer to your father—and to Adam.”

“Touché,” he said, mocking Adam’s voice for a moment. Then he relaxed back into his own. “I do answer to my Pa—and to older brother. I suppose I always will, at least until I move out and find me a girl to marry. And even then those two will still be barking orders!”

I grinned back at him. “Probably,” I agreed.

“And that reminds me of something,” Joe continued, moving suddenly to sit beside me at the fireplace. “Neither one of us will break our promise to Pa or Adam—but I think there’s another way we can get a peek into that safe.”

“I won’t ask Rachel for help,” I warned him. “I can’t take advantage of her like that.”

“I know, I know,” Joe said soothingly. “But you don’t have to. Look, all we promised is that you wouldn’t break into that safe—and that I wouldn’t encourage you to.”

I gave him a doubtful look, wondering what he had up his sleeve. “That’s true,” I owned.

“So I won’t ask you to crack that safe,” Joe continued, putting his arm around my shoulder as if we were the best of friends. “All I want you to do is teach me to crack it.”

I jumped up, shaking my head. “No,” I said.

“Why not?” Joe demanded.

“It would take forever,” I told him. “Did you think it was easy? Besides, what do you think your brother will do to me if you get arrested?”

Joe stared at me, measuring me with those hazel eyes of his. “Listen, Shea,” he said. “Pa and Adam will start ‘making inquiries’ about Maris. Maybe they’ll figure out what he’s up to and maybe they won’t. But just in case, don’t you think it’s a good idea for me to know how to get into that safe?”

“We don’t have that kind of time!” I insisted.

“I’ll find an excuse to stay in the house for the next few days,” Joe said. “See what you can teach me in that time. If worst comes to worst—well, there are faster ways to break into a safe, aren’t there?”

“Only if you want to use explosives,” I said.

“Good!” he said, grinning widely. “That’s our back-up plan.”

“No,” I told him, shaking my head again. “That’s a dangerous way of going about the business—and a damned clumsy one too. If you don’t blow your hands off, you might just end up destroying the contents of the safe.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I have some experience with explosives—I can manage not to blow my hands off. In fact, I can study up the explosives on my own, without your help. So don’t worry, Shea—I’ll leave you out of it. Just don’t say anything. But you won’t, will you?” he added. “You’re not one to betray a confidence.”

I shut my eyes, willing myself not to throttle Joe. I couldn’t let him try to break open the safe with explosives—he really could kill himself that way. And if he didn’t kill himself, he’d likely destroy the safe. And there’d be no way to keep an operation like that quiet, would there? He’d be caught for certain.

I opened my eyes and stared at him. He gave me an innocent shrug, as if to say we were all through here.

Damn, damn, damn.

I couldn’t run to his father or to Adam. Joe was right about that—I wouldn’t betray him that way. But I couldn’t let him go off and try the explosives either.

In the end, I rolled my eyes and sat down beside him. “I’ll teach you as best I can over the next few days,” I said, “on one condition.”

He gave me a self-satisfied grin. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Promise me you won’t think about explosives again,” I said.

“Done,” he said with as much solemnity as he could muster.

He offered me his hand, so I took it and shook it. I should have been cringing, I suppose. If I had any sense, I would have been. But instead I was starting to feel that this was a good idea.

LINK TO PART FIFTEEN