A Restless Wind (22 page)

     After they left Eminence behind them, a heavy fog began to rise from the ground.  Topping a rise, Hetty looked up and saw two riders racing across the valley towards them.  One of the riders was a woman.  Her dark, unbound hair trailed behind her.

     “Stay here with the women,”  Pierce said to the driver and spurred his horse to meet the riders.

     Hetty watched and waited until the three came riding back.  To Hetty’s surprise, the woman turned out to be Amiline.  The man riding with her was one of the two missing cowboys from the Circle I.

     Hetty was shocked at Amiline’s appearance.  Her long dark hair was loose and disheveled.  Her face was badly bruised.  Her lip was cut and swollen.

     Pierce’s jaw was taut as he said,  “We aren’t going directly back to the Circle I.  We’ll be taking a ride to the McLaren ranch.”

     “I don’t understand,”  Hetty began.

     “There’s no time to explain now, Hetty,”  Pierce cut in.  “We’ve got to ride.”

     As they turned the wagon around, Pierce rode close to Hetty and said,  “She’s in trouble, Hetty.  She risked her life to warn us that-  “  Pierce frowned as he stared off across the valley.  “There’s no way to keep it from you.  Outlaws are up ahead, between here and the Circle I.  They’ve set up an ambush.”

     “Why?”  Hetty asked,confused.  “What do they want?”

     “Me, Hetty,”  Pierce replied soberly.  “And you.”

     Maybe he had made a mistake.  Maybe they should have abandoned the wagon.  It had slowed them down.  But all Lieta’s paints and canvases, and the drawings
that she had worked so hard on, were in one of the trunks.  Pierce hadn’t had the heart to leave them behind.

     It was a tense ride, but they reached the McLaren ranch safely.  Once there Amiline could not sit still.  Despite the other women’s attempts to calm her down, she continued to pace the parlor.

     In the kitchen Hetty asked Pierce,  “Are you going to tell me what is going on?”

     He explained that Amiline had escaped to warn them about the danger they were in.  But Hetty still didn’t understand.  How could Amiline know anything about the plans of outlaws. 

     “Escaped from whom?”

     “From the man they call Thrall.”

     “Thrall?”  Hetty echoed.

     Pierce went on to explain that the missing cowboy, part of their escort, was to lead them into a trap set up by Thrall.

     “You mean a man from the Circle I would be a part of that?”  It was hard for Hetty to believe.

     “That’s just what I mean,”  Pierce answered grimly.  “There are plenty of men who can be bought for the right price.  Thankfully Brin wasn’t one of them.”

     “But what would Thrall want from us?”

     “He wants me dead.  And he
wants-  ”  He stopped when Will entered the kitchen.

     “It’s all right, Will,”  Pierce tried to reassure the boy.  “You stay here with your mother.”

     Hetty followed Pierce out of the kitchen and into the parlor.

     “Do you think they will follow us here?”  she asked.

     “Yes, Hetty.  Thrall isn’t going to give up.”

     Amiline stopped her pacing.  She let out a shaky breath.  “Pierce is right.  He won’t stop.  Not until he gets what he wants.”

     Amiline pressed her hands over her eyes.  “It seems so long since I-  ”  she faltered.  “He is going to kill me for what I have done.  I know things that you don’t know.  I know him better than you do.”

     None of this made any sense.  How could Amiline know Thrall?  Hetty wondered.

     She watched as Amiline lowered her hands.  “He found me years ago in a saloon.  He offered me a way out of there.  I was desperate.  I didn’t know then what he was capable of. 
You
don’t know what he is capable of.”

     “I still don’t understand,”  Hetty said.

     “No, you don’t,”  Amiline told her.  “That’s because you know him as Brent Marsten.”

     “It’s true,”  confirmed a voice behind Hetty.

     Hetty turned and stared in astonishment at the woman who had just come into the parlor.

     “Sara,”  Hetty breathed.

     Sara Cade stood before her.  Her daughter was by her side.

     “It’s true, Hetty,”  Sara said.  “Brent Marsten is Thrall.  And he is all that she says he is.  He is the one who kidnapped me and my daughter.”

     John Forbes came into the parlor.  “The fog is getting thicker,”  he informed them all.  “That will help.”

     Hetty followed Pierce back into the kitchen and listened while Pierce, John and Brin, the cowboy from the Circle I, discussed what they would do.

     “We can’t risk a gun battle with the women and children in the middle of it.”

     John agreed with Pierce.

     Everyone turned to look as Emma came into the kitchen.  She was breathing hard.  Her cheeks were flushed as if she had run a long way.

     “I watched like you told me, Papa.  I saw them from the hill.  They are coming across the bottom.”

     John asked,  “How many were there, Emma?”

     “Six, I think,”  Emma replied.

     Pierce turned to Will.  “That cave you talked about, Will.  Do you think you could find it in this fog?”

     Will nodded.  “I know where it is, Pierce.  You just have to follow the creek.”

     “Can you get the women down there, Will?”

     “Yes, Pierce.  I can do that.”

     Pierce laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.   “All right, Will.  I’m counting on you.”

     Will stared up at Pierce.  He was frightened, but at the moment, Will looked like he’d aged by years.  “I won’t let you down, Pierce.”

     “I know that, Will.”  Pierce turned to John.  “John, you go with them.”

     “I’m not leaving you here to deal with this alone,”  John protested.

     “I’m not dealing with anything, John,”  Pierce told him.  “We’re going to see that the horses are hidden in the woods.  And then we’ll be right after you and meet you at the cave.  I think I can find it by a shortcut.”

     With no time to discuss it further, they quickly gathered the women and children and headed out for the cave.

     “Stay together,”  Pierce told them.  “I don’t want anyone getting separated in the fog.”

     The fog was thicker along the creek.  It had grown denser since arriving at the McLaren ranch.  When they had almost reached the cave, Hetty turned to Will who was behind her.

     “Where’s Emma,”  she asked the boy.  “I thought she was right behind you.”

     Will looked afraid.  Hetty knew him well enough to know that he was trying to keep something from her.   He almost started to cry.

     “Emma made me promise not to tell.  She went back for her cat.  She couldn’t find her.  She was afraid they would burn the house down with Princess inside.”

     Hetty’s heart sank within her.  “Will,”  she said.  “You catch up with your mother.  I’m going to look for Emma.  I’ll be back just as soon as I find her.”

     Hetty quickly retraced her steps.  The fog swallowed her up as she hurried along the creek.  She didn’t have her own gun, but Pierce had given her another one.  She knew she would shoot if she had to.  She would protect Emma if it became necessary.  The men that were after them deserved shooting.

     Besides her own footsteps she heard no noise.  When she finally came in sight of the house, she paused for a moment to catch her breath. 

     There was no sign of Pierce or the other cowboy from the Circle I.  She heard the snap of a twig to her left.  She heard it again, but closer this time.

     A door slammed on the other side of the house.  There were heavy steps upon the porch.  Suddenly the kitchen door burst open and a man stepped outside dragging Emma along with him.  Emma was clutching the kitten to her chest.

     Sara and her child had been taken by outlaws.  Hetty didn’t know what terrible things might have happened to them.  She was not going to let anything happen to Emma.

     She was acutely aware of everything around her.  Her heightened senses registered the heaviness of the air in her lungs, the earthy smell of the woods.  The dripping of moisture from the trees and the way the fog drifted over the ground.

     The gun was in her hands.  She was gripping it so tightly that her fingers hurt.

     A man appeared to her left.  He stopped when the gun swung in his direction.  The man on the porch with Emma also stopped short when he saw Hetty with the gun.

     After a mocking snort, he said to the other man,  “She won’t shoot.”

     The other man shifted slightly to one side.  His muscles tensed.  Hetty knew that he intended to spring forward, overpower her and take the gun away.  He probably expected little resistance from a woman.

     But Hetty was strangely calm.  She knew that she was going to shoot in spite of what the man on the porch had said.  Maybe she would kill the man.

     The instinct to protect Emma was stronger than her fear.  And these men had also come to kill Pierce.

     Her hands tightened on the gun.  She didn’t think when the man leaped forward.  She only reacted.  The
deafening roar of the weapon reverberated in the mist-shrouded air.

     Hetty saw the man stagger back.  She watched his face register shock.  He brought both hands up to his chest as blood began to spread across the front of his shirt.

     Emma had escaped the other man, who had also been taken by surprise.  With her gun threatening the man on the porch, Hetty grabbed Emma by the hand.  “Run, Emma.  Hide.  I’ll be right behind you.”

     Emma hesitated for a moment, and then she disappeared quickly into the fog.  With her weapon still holding off both men, Hetty backed away towards the woods.  When she thought she could safely do so, she turned and ran as fast as she could.  Not in the same direction as Emma.  She did not want to lead the men to the cave.  She ran blindly through the woods.

     She soon found herself on a steep slope down to another loop of the creek.  The mud was thick as she slid down to the water’s edge.  She splashed across the shallow stream.   She was climbing the opposite bank when she caught her foot on a root and went down.

     She lay still for a moment, catching her breath.  She was scrambling to her feet when she was grabbed from behind by a heavy hand that gave her a hard jerk.  The gun was pried from her hand. 

     She struggled wildly.  She kicked the man.  She drove her fist into his ribs.  But the man was much bigger than she was.  He cursed profanely and, swinging his arm back, he delivered a stinging blow to the side of her face.

     “You damned hellcat,”  the man panted.

     Hetty still didn’t stop fighting.  Although the end was inevitable, she knew she was buying Emma time.

     Another man ran up.  She gasped as a rope was wound tightly around her wrists.  It was the missing cowboy who had worked at the Circle I.  Hetty glared up at him and saw that he at least had enough conscience left to lower his gaze.

Chapter 21

     The campfire glowed red in the mist-shrouded dusk.  The heavy fog muffled the voices of the men who were gathered around it.

     “Whose stock?”  one of the men asked.

     “Houser’s,”  came the short reply.

     “How many?”

     “Sixty, I reckon.  Maybe more.”

     “When we runnin’ ‘em?”  another man asked.

     “Tonight.  If the fog doesn’t get any worse.  There’ll be a moon.”

     The robbing, the rustling, the killings, these men were behind it all.  They were hard cases.  Any one of them would put a knife into a man’s back merely for the sake of a few dollars, or just as callously shoot a man to prove who was faster with a gun.  And Jesse had been accepted as one of them.

     They had been suspicious of him at first.  Trust didn’t come easily to their kind.  Their natures didn’t allow it.  His reputation with a gun was well known, however.  And so, while he was viewed with caution, he was also given a kind of grudging respect.