TITLE: Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

AUTHOR: Kirsten T.

FEEDBACK: robin-t@clear.net.nz

DISCLAIMER: The Young Riders don't belong to us. They belong to the folks at
MGM/UA Television. No copyright infringement intended.

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

By Kirsten T.

Amanda locked the door and picked up the empty glasses up off of a nearby
table. It had been a long night. She had, had to get Jimmy in twice to break
up fights. She didn't usually have trouble with the locals, but some of the
men were drinking rather heavily this evening. She wondered if it had
something to do with the shooting at the Carter place. The doctor was till
with Rebecca Carter. No one seemed to know how it had happened. If one of
Amanda's girls hadn't gone to visit Rebecca that afternoon, she would
probably have died. Suzanne was fairly new to town, but she and Rebecca had
hit it off straight away. Rebecca preferred to judge people by what they
were like on the inside, rather than what they did for a living. It had hit
the town hard that anyone would hurt such a sweet person.

A knock on the back door jerked her out of her thoughts. It was too late for
it to be a customer. Amanda reached for the gun that she kept under the bar
before carefully opening the door. She breathed a sigh of relief as she
recognized her visitor.

"Marshall Hickok, isn't it a bit late to stop by for a drink?"

Jimmy grinned at the beautiful brunette. "Just checking up on you, Amanda.
We can't be too careful after what happened to Rebecca." His face lost his
smile as he told her what she had somehow expected to hear "Rebecca's past
away an hour ago."

Amanda nodded and beckoned him inside "Come on in. I'll make you a coffee."
Jimmy seated himself by the bar. Amanda put his coffee in front of him and
poured one for herself. "Have you found anyone that saw what happened or
maybe heard something?"

Jimmy shook his head and sipped his coffee. "No. You know Abilene is a small
town. You would think someone would have seen something, but nobody is
saying a thing. The really strange thing is, Rebecca was such a popular
person. There was always someone around there. I called in on Jacob this
evening. Understandably, he hates being in the house without his wife.
Rebecca was everything to Jacob. He's as puzzled as I am, as to who would
have killed Rebecca." He ran his hand over his face. It had been a draining
day for him. Rebecca had been a good friend. He had been the best man at
Jacob and Rebecca's wedding.

Amanda wrapped her arms around him. She knew how tough this was on him. "I
guess it's times like this that being the Marshall is a really lousy job."

Jimmy smiled. "You know, being the Marshall isn't too bad when you can help
someone. It's not being able to help that really gets you."

Amanda kissed his forehead. "Try and get some sleep. Maybe you'll find
something out in the morning." Locking the back door, she turned and made
her way upstairs.

Jimmy got off of his stool, rinsed his coffee cup out and started up the
stairs. "Yeah, maybe."

Jacob Carter paced in front of the fireplace. He couldn't believe Rebecca
was gone. The house seemed so empty. If he listened hard enough he could
still hear her laughter ring through the house. How he ached to have her
standing next to him telling him everything would be all right. The thought
of never being able to see her again felt like icy fingers tearing at his
heart.

"At last we're alone." The voice jumped out at him. Turning, he came face to
face with Suzanne.

"It's been a long day Suzanne. Don't you think that you had better go home."
Jacob didn't have the patience to deal with his wife's friend tonight. She
had been flirting with him ever since she got to town and it had been
getting on his nerves for sometime.

Suzanne looked shocked at the suggestion that she should leave. "But I am
home. I got rid of her so that we could be together."

Jacob couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I don't want you. I want my
wife back. What would I want with a whore?" He looked at her in disgust.
"Get out of my house!"

Suzanne just stood in front of him, tears streaming down her face. "I
thought that you loved me. Rebecca was all that was standing in the way of
our happiness."

"You're insane, woman. I never loved you. I was merely friendly to you
because Rebecca considered you a friend. Now get out!" Jacob moved towards
Suzanne to steer her out of the house. The sound of a gun going off
surprised Jacob, just as much as the burning pain in his chest.

An evil smile crossed Suzanne's face as she watched Jacob drop to the floor
clutching his chest. "You'll never betray me again." Turning her back on
him, she calmly walked out of the door.

Jimmy had been dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, only to find out
Jacob had been murdered. As with Rebecca, nobody knew what had happened.
Jimmy had been racking his brains trying to find a reason for the two
murders.

Teaspoon rode into town with Kid and Lou that afternoon. They spotted Jimmy
and Amanda immediately, but their two friends seemed very distracted.

Kid looked at his wife "What do you think is going on with those two?"

Lou shook her head "I don't know, but the whole town has an uneasy feel to
it. I wonder what happened here."

Teaspoon cast a look over the town. "Well, there's only one way to find out
what happened and that's ask."

Amanda was overjoyed to see Teaspoon and Kid and Lou seemed to cheer Jimmy
up a bit. It reassured Jimmy to have Teaspoon as a sounding board. As they
all sat down, catching up over coffee, Jimmy filled his three friends in on
what had been happening.

"Well son, somebody knows something." Teaspoon could understand Jimmy's
frustration all too well.

"Yeah Teaspoon, but they ain't saying nothing and what's worse is, I think
it's someone in town that's doing the killing."

Lou frowned. "What makes you think that?"

Jimmy rubbed his chin. "Well, I've been thinking about it. If it was someone
that was passing through, they wouldn't have come back to kill Jacob. You
wouldn't have met two nicer people that Jacob and Rebecca. I can't imagine
it being a revenge killing. So that just leaves someone in town."

Kid raised an eyebrow. "Have you had anyone recently move into town?"

Amanda shook her head. "The only person that has moved into town is Suzanne
and that was three months ago. Besides she was one of Rebecca's best
friends."

Teaspoon shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it's got me beat. But we're in town
for a few days and you know what they say ' two heads are better than one.'
So imagine what five can do. How much do you know about Suzanne?"

Amanda pushed a stray lock of hair off of her face. "Not much really. She
said that the last town that she worked in was over run with crime and she
ended up getting shot, so she got out of there as soon as she could."

Teaspoon frowned. "She didn't happen to say what town it was, did she?"

Amanda shook her head. "No. To tell you the truth, I needed the extra help
and she seemed to have had a bad time of it, so I didn't push for details.
Do you think that there 's something in it?"

Teaspoon shook his head. "Probably not, but I'll contact a few friends and
see if they've heard of her. Come on, you tow, I think we had better book
into the hotel."

Kid and Lou nodded. They would need a good nights sleep if they were going
to find out what had happened to Rebecca and Jacob. As they walked out of
the Saloon, somebody dropped a package in front of Kid's feet. Being the
gentleman that he was, Kid picked the package up and returned it to it's
owner before moving on. Lou, however, didn't miss the flirting glance the
blond, green eyed owner of the package gave Kid. Kid, on the other hand,
hadn't seemed to notice. He merely reached for his wife's hand and carried
on walking to the hotel. Lou also didn't miss the blond stamping her foot at
not being noticed.

Lou watched Kid sleep. She didn't know how he could sleep on such a hot
night. After a while she got fed up with trying to get comfortable and got
dressed and went for a walk. The full moon lit the town up. It was so bright
that Lou had no trouble seeing the man sitting outside of the Saloon
drinking a bottle of whiskey. As she turned to walk back to the hotel, she
heard him move.

"I'd watch that husband of yours if I were you, Miss." Lou turned back to
find him standing right behind her. "She's set her sights on him and God
help anyone that gets in her way."

"Who are you talking about?" Lou could see that the man before her was quite
sober. despite the presence of the whiskey bottle in his hand.

"Suzanne. That woman is insane." He took a gulp of the whiskey as if to dull
the pain that he was obviously feeling. "She killed my wife. She even
claimed that she did it so that we could be together. I can't stand the
woman. The only reason that I was even friendly to her was because my Sarah
said that she was her friend. When I told her, I didn't love her or want
her, she tried to kill me. I got a lucky shot off and got her in the leg. I
thought that I had seen the last of her until I came here to visit my
brother." He shook his head. "He told me about Jacob and Rebecca. She must
be stopped. I saw the way she was sizing up your husband. You be careful,
Miss. You could be next." Giving Lou one more heartbreaking look, he turned
and walked away, leaving Lou to wonder if it were really the whiskey
talking.

The next morning, they all rode out to Jacob and Rebecca's house. It was a
beautiful house. Everything had it's own place. It was perfect. Somebody had
spent a lot of time and put a lot of love into it. There had been no sign of
forced entry, so it looked as though Jimmy was right. The killer was someone
that both Jacob and Rebecca knew. Lou had told them all over breakfast about
her conversation with the stranger last night. Jimmy had promised to check
it out, but he wasn't convinced that Suzanne would even hurt a fly.
Teaspoon, Amanda and Jimmy returned to town leaving Kid and Louise to look
around some more. Kid went to check the stables. The horses would need
tending to, since no one had come near the place after Jacob had been
murdered.

Lou thoughts went back to the stranger's warning last night. His words
echoing in her head. "Be careful Miss. You could be next." The sound of
footsteps startled her, she had been miles away. "Kid?" Turning towards the
sound, Lou found herself face to face with the green eyed blond from the day
before. "You have got to be Suzanne." Lou was unimpressed that this woman
seemed to think she should just walk in without so much as a knock on the
door.

Suzanne smiled sweetly. "That's right. I suppose that Kid told you about us.
You know, I think that it would be best if you just left us alone, with
making a scene."

Lou couldn't believe the nerve of this woman. "No, Kid didn't tell me about
the two of you, because there is no two of you. And if you think that I am
just going to walk away from my husband so that you can continue a
relationship that only exists in your head, you have another thing coming."

Suzanne's face turned red with anger. "He's mine!" Her scream echoed off of
the walls. Suzanne pulled a gun out of her purse and pointed it at Lou. But
Lou had seen it coming and picked up a vase from the table and threw it as
the gun went off. The vase hit Suzanne square in the temple knocking her
backwards. The bullet merely winged Lou.

"Lou!" Kid had heard the gun go off and raced inside, to find his wife
clutching her bleeding arm.

Suzanne lunged for her gun which she had dropped when the vase hit her. But
Lou was too quick. Putting all of her weight behind her good arm, she
punched Suzanne, knocking her unconscious.

Kid holstered the gun and tied Suzanne up before tending to his wife's arm.
"I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I" He had been relieved to find
that the wound wasn't as bad as he feared.

Jimmy and Amanda had been amazed to see Kid ride in with Lou in front of him
on his horse and Suzanne tied up on Lou's horse. "What happened?" Jimmy's
first thought was for the injured Lou.

Kid helped his wife carefully down before dragging Suzanne off of the other
horse. "Well Marshall, here's your cold blooded killer. It turns out that
stranger that spoke to Lou last night was right. Suzanne here likes to kill
women to get their husbands. Unfortunately, the husbands tend to want theirs
wives and not Suzanne."

Suzanne was still screaming that Kid loved her, when Jimmy dragged her
kicking to jail.

"That is one sick woman." Kid shook his head. "Come on Lou, let's get you to
the doctor."

As Amanda and Kid helped Lou across the street to the doctors office, Lou
saw the stranger from the night before. From his horse, he waved and mouthed
"Thank-you" before he rode out of town.

The End