West of Paradise Read Online Free PDF

another mystery; but while that looked good on his resume it didn’t get him a job, and somehow he ended up drifting. From east to west, north to south, and too many places in between. And always that feeling, that vague sense of dissatisfaction he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He ended up in San Francisco with a girl he met, but they parted in Mexico a year later—no surprise. It was there he saw the ad for Paradise Tours.
    Jack blinked, looking at Harlan who was studying him just as hard. “What about the rest of them?” he asked.
    “The woman and the other two got away. They pushed the safe out and jumped. There was someone meetin’ them; we found horse shit and prints around the empty safe.”
    “How much did they get?”
    Harlan gave a shrug. “According to the Pinkerton man they got $38,000 in cash and bonds. ’Course, they didn’t get it all, at least not as much as they planned on, thanks to you. There was another safe, but they left that one behind. Anyhow, we were kinda wonderin’ how you happened to be on that train and how you got there before anyone else.”
    “I heard the shots,” Jack said, “and I guess I was closer. That’s all. As far as being on the train, that was just luck. Bad luck, I guess.”
    “You sure you ain’t wanted somewhere?”
    “Sure as I’m sitting here in this cell,” Jack said with a pained grin. “Keep searching if you want, but you won’t find anything.”
    Harlan nodded, flicking his cigarette away. “What’s your name?”
    “Jack, Jack McCabe.”
    “Well, Jack, you want stay where you are or move on over to the hotel?”
    “I guess I’ll stay here,” Jack said. “I don’t feel much like moving.”
    “I bet you don’t,” Harlan said, letting the chair down and rising. “I’ll leave this door open so you don’t get mistook for a criminal. An’ if you need anything you holler. I’ll be sittin’ at that table till mornin’ comes. Then maybe you’ll feel like movin.’ The others’ll want to talk to you.”
    “What others?”
    “The Pinkerton men. They wired from St. Louis, should be here tomorrow. Seein’ as how you got the best look of anyone they figure you might be able to help. You willin’ to help, Jack?”
    “I’ll help,” Jack said, remembering the woman.
    And so he had, spending most of the following day with Harlan Harris and the Pinkerton men, repeating his story over and over and giving a description of the woman and her companions as best as he could remember.
    The likeness that was drawn of her was a good one, all things considered. Word came from back east that she traveled with a fair-haired fellow and they may have killed a man in New York City. The Pinkertons claimed they were responsible for a number of other robberies, including the Adam’s Express in 1875 in which over $700,000 in cash, bonds, and jewels had been stolen.
    Jack couldn’t give as much of a description of the others. As it turned out it didn’t matter. A few days after the train robbery they found one of the other men, near where the safe had been left, shot in the back. The woman and her fair-haired companion managed to slip away, and Jack vowed then he would hunt them both down.
    That was how he, Jack McCabe, became a bounty hunter. It was all due to a chance encounter with a beautiful woman. Now, five years later, he might finally have her. He had been from east to west a number of times since then and had learned a few things about the woman he was hunting. Her name was Alanna McLeod, or at least, that was what she called herself, and she traveled with a man called Will Cushing.
    The two of them were quite a team. They had robbed the train that Jack happened to be on and in the five years since made a name for themselves with a string of eight more train robberies, netting them a total of $321,000 in cash, bonds, and jewelry. That in addition to their haul from the Adams Express had made them the most wanted criminals since Jesse James and his