Desperate Hearts (2 page)

Mitch Brady ordered the two remaining outlaws to strip to their
drawers.

“You bastard!” one of the men growled as he began undressing. “You just murdered
Cal!”

“And either he or one of you murdered Billy and Juno, caused this accident, and meant to put the woman there through hell and maybe kill her too. Now, get your clothes
off!”

“Whaddya gonna do, Mitch?” the second man grumbled. “Hang us right here? Lord knows, you and them vigilantes you run with wouldn’t think nothin’ of
it.”

Mitch grinned. “Be glad there is a woman along. I won’t hang you in front of her.” He waved his six-gun at the men. “That doesn’t mean I won’t shoot you if you don’t hurry up getting those clothes off. You aimed to humiliate her. Now you can suffer some of the same by stripping in front of her. Besides, a man in his underwear and no boots has a hard time of running off to hide, in this country. I’m going to have to leave you here for a while, so I’m not taking any chances, even though I intend to truss you to that stagecoach till someone comes for you.” He walked closer, carrying
handcuffs.

“Leavin’ us here in the hot afternoon sun—chained like animals?” the first man asked. “You gonna leave us some
water?”

“Be glad you’re alive, boys, water or no water. Billy and Juno would love to be sitting here chained to a wagon wheel rather than lying over there
dead!”

The men hurriedly finished undressing and sat down. Mitch cautiously approached, holding his six-gun in one hand, the cuffs in the other. He warned both men that if they tried anything, they knew damn good and well they would die. Elizabeth could tell the men knew it. They could have tried attacking Mitch, but they sat still while he cuffed them to a wagon wheel. Profanities spewed from their
mouths.

Mitch stepped back and holstered his gun. “You’re just describing yourselves, boys.” He walked over to Elizabeth. “You injured? You look like you’re in a lot of
pain.”

Elizabeth managed to find her voice. “My left shoulder. I think it’s broken or
something.”

Mitch leaned down and grasped her good arm, helping her to her feet. He turned her around and plied her shoulder. Elizabeth screamed from the pain. “Please don’t touch
it!”

He turned her back around, his blue eyes holding her gaze intently. “It’s dislocated. I can fix that for you. It’ll hurt bad when I do it but will feel a lot better
afterward.”

Elizabeth backed away slightly. “How would you know that’s what’s wrong? I’m not sure what you are, mister, but I know you’re no
doctor!”

He grinned again, his teeth surprisingly straight and white. “Ma’am, out here you soon learn to do your own doctoring. Real doctors aren’t much handy, and if I can do something to help your pain right now, why wait? The pain will only get
worse.”

Elizabeth started to object, but he suddenly grabbed her left wrist and gave her arm a jerk. The surprising move brought a choking gasp and shocking pain that nearly caused Elizabeth to pass out. She bent over from the pain and Mitch grabbed her around the waist to support
her.

“Why did you do that?” Angry tears came to Elizabeth’s eyes. “I never said you
could.”

“Needed doing, that’s all. If I’d warned you, you would have kept resisting. It’s easier to set a bone or a bad sprain when the person is completely relaxed and
unprepared.”

“Well, right now I’m agreeing with some of the names those men called you,” Elizabeth fumed, fighting more
tears.

“Call me what you want. You’ll soon learn that things out here are a lot different than where you came from. I don’t know exactly where that is, but it sure as hell isn’t any place west of the Missouri River.” He led Elizabeth to the shade of a tall pine. “Sit down here. You’re bruised up pretty bad—could be hurt in other ways I don’t know of. I’ll take you to the doctor in
Alder.”

Elizabeth sat down on a flat rock, appreciating the shade. She hated to admit it, but her shoulder truly did feel a bit better. She met Mitch Brady’s eyes and looked him over. He was indeed tall, with shoulder-length sandy hair and a square jawline. His blue checkered shirt looked decently clean under the leather vest he wore over it, with the crossed cartridge belts over that. He was the picture of danger and had an air of outlaw about him, even though he’d just saved her from the same kind of men. “I know your name is Mitch Brady, but what are you doing here? Are you an outlaw, too?”

Mitch removed his hat and ran a hand through his thick hair. “Some say I’m no better than one, and I guess I came close to that side of the road at one time, but the thought of jail or hanging at the end of a rope just doesn’t set well with me.” He nodded to her and grinned again. “I’m the local law in
Alder.”

“We told you he’s a damn vigilante!” one of the outlaws yelled out. “And he’s right—he ain’t any better than us. You saw him shoot our friend in the back! If you weren’t here, lady, we’d be hanging from the nearest tree already! Don’t trust that sonofabitch! Vigilantes is the lowest form of Montana justice, and more ruthless than any outlaw ever thought of
bein’!”

“My brothers will come after you for this, Mitch Brady!” the other warned. “You’ll regret
this!”

“You just remember what happened to Henry Plummer and his bunch because of their underhanded robberies. You know what happens when you try to rob a stagecoach and kill men doing
it.”

“Someday
you
will be the one at the end of a rope!” one of them
answered.

Elizabeth cringed, totally confused about this man who apparently meant to help
her.

“Don’t listen to those two,” Mitch told her. “They are Hugh Wiley and Jake Snyder—troublemakers who just went over the line. They’ll pay for
it.”

Elizabeth frowned. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Will you help me get to
Alder?”

Mitch crouched in front of her. “’Course I will. I have a couple of things to take care of here first, but I’ll get you there.” He squinted, studying her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. “And you know my name, but I don’t know yours. What the heck is a beautiful young woman like you doing, headed for a hellhole like Alder? You aren’t much more than a
kid.”

Elizabeth looked away. If this man truly was the law and apparently showed no mercy, she certainly didn’t want him knowing the truth about what brought her here. “My name is…”
Emma…
“Elizabeth…Elizabeth Wainright,” she answered, “and my reason for coming here is nobody’s business, including
yours.”

“Makes no difference to me.” Mitch rose, grimacing.

Elizabeth noticed a growing bloodstain on his lower left side. “I’m so sorry! You’ve been shot! I’ve been so wrapped up in what just happened, I didn’t realize you could be badly wounded yourself. Can I do
something?”

He waved her off. “I’ll be all right. It’s just a flesh wound. You stay here and rest a minute.” He walked into the distance to bring back the team of horses that had broken loose from the stagecoach. They were still hitched together, and he tied the four of them to a wagon wheel. Elizabeth watched as with great effort he picked up the driver and shotgun one by one and slung their bodies over the backs of two horses. He rummaged around behind the driver’s seat then, finally pulling out a metal box. He held it
up.

“I reckon this is what you fellas were after,” he shouted to the outlaws. “This money is badly needed at the bank in Alder, and a lot of people there need it to keep their businesses going and food in their
bellies.”

Amid more curses and name-calling from the outlaws, Mitch tied the metal box to his horse. He returned to the coach and did some more searching, coming up with a leather mailbag and a gunnysack. He tied the mailbag to the stage team, and amid more curses he took another pair of handcuffs from his saddlebag and walked over to where the outlaws sat. He knelt down and added to their misery by cuffing their ankles to each other, then picked up their clothes and shoved them into the gunnysack. “Just making sure you two stay in your drawers,” he told them. He proceeded to add the gunnysack to the items tied to the team of
horses.

“You know who’s going to be the angriest about you two trying to steal that money?” he asked as he
worked.

The one called Hugh spit at
him.

Mitch rose. “All the men who visit the saloons, and that’s most of the town,” he continued. “How mad do you think those men will be, knowing you tried to steal the money saloon keepers need to buy more whiskey?” He shook his head. “Hell, I can’t think of a better reason to hang a man. The crime of withholding whiskey money is worse than jumping a claim or stealing a
horse.”

Elizabeth could only wonder at the remark. What a strange way of thinking men had out here. They hanged a man for stealing whiskey money? She watched as Mitch gathered his own horse and one of the outlaw’s horses. The others had run off. He brought the two horses over to
Elizabeth.

“Can you
ride?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Only
sidesaddle.”

He towered over her, handing her the reins to one of the horses. “Well, out here you’ll have to learn to straddle a horse like a man.” Before she could take hold of the reins, he stepped back a little, looking her over again. “I have to say, ma’am, you’re the prettiest woman I’ve seen around these parts in a long time. Something about you just doesn’t fit out here, but I have to ask—might you be a, uh, lady of the evening, so to
speak?”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in dismay. Was that all the men out here thought about? “Certainly not! And I am already getting tired of answering that
question.”

He pushed his hat back. “Lady, you’re going to get asked again once you reach Alder, I guarantee it. You’d better be prepared for it.” He shook his head. “I have to say it’s a disappointment finding out you’re not here for that. I would have been your first customer, you can bet on
that.”

Elizabeth stomped away, her anger giving her strength. She used her right hand to untie and pull her bags from the top of the stage, now on its side. “I’d like to take my things with us,” she demanded, fighting tears of anger, pain, and plain old fear. She still wasn’t so sure she could trust Mitch Brady, whose size reminded her of another man, a brute and a murderer who would love to find her and take her back with him…or maybe kill
her.

Mitch walked up to her and took the bags. “Yes, ma’am.” He carried the three bags, one small and two larger carpetbags, to the stage horses. Elizabeth tried to untie a small trunk she’d also brought with her, but the pain in her shoulder made her step away. Mitch came back to where she stood. “I’ll have that trunk brought to you when I send men back out here to get those two no-goods,” he told her. “I can’t tie anything more onto the horses.” Elizabeth noticed him cringe again, and when he turned away he stumbled
slightly.

“That’s it!” she told him, leaning down to pull up her dress slightly. With great difficulty thanks to the pain in her shoulder, she ripped away some of ruffles from her petticoats. “I’m tying something around that wound before you bleed to death. All I need is for you to pass out and leave me here lost in no-man’s-land.” Ruffles in hand, she walked closer. “Raise your arms,” she ordered. “This won’t be easy, with all these gun belts and weapons in the
way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mitch answered with a slight grin. “And if I should pass out, all you have to do is keep following this road north and you can’t help but get to Alder. There’s no other way in or
out.”

Elizabeth worked the cloth under the cartridge belts and wrapped his middle tightly. “I prefer not to finish this trip alone, after what happened here, although I’m not so sure I’ll be any safer with
you.”

Mitch grunted. “Hey, leave me some room to
breathe.”

Still angry, Elizabeth gave the cloth an extra yank, which caused her to gasp from her own pain. Ignoring Mitch’s soft chuckle, she tied off the strips. “There. I hope that will do until we get to Alder.” She looked up at him, suddenly self-conscious about how she must look, bruised and filthy, her hair coming undone, her dress torn and covered with blood from Spittin’ Joe, her hat gone. It seemed almost comical to realize she was still wearing
gloves.

The man who returned her gaze was disturbingly handsome, and she couldn’t quite read the look in his eyes—part humor, part concern, part admiration, and a hint of danger. How safe was she truly with a man who was so disappointed she wasn’t a whore? He’d shot down three men with no reservation, and the remaining two seemed to truly think he might hang them on the spot. She stepped back. “I’d like to get to Alder now and find a room and take a bath and feel human again,” she told
him.

“I wouldn’t mind the same for myself,” Mitch answered. He led her beside one of the horses. “You’d better let me help you up,” he told her. “You can’t pull yourself up with that bad shoulder. You’ll mess it up all over
again.”

Elizabeth put a foot in the stirrup and reached up with her right hand to grasp the saddle horn. It was too high for her, so Mitch grasped her about the waist, grunting as he lifted her into the saddle. Elizabeth was surprised at the strength she felt in the lift in spite of his injury. “It’s the same for you,” she said with true concern as she settled into the saddle and pulled her skirts down over her legs as best she could. “Helping me up here could have made you bleed even
worse.”

“I’ll make it,” he told her, looking a bit
pale.

“Mitch Brady, you dirty, low-down bastard!” Jake cursed. “You leavin’ us here all night? You’ll never get to Alder and back before dark! What if wolves come? Or a
grizzly?”

“You two should have thought of that before you tried to rob this stage,” Mitch told them. He managed to get on his own horse, then bent over and groaned. He straightened then and looked over at the cuffed outlaws. “If a grizzly comes and makes a meal out of you, it will just save us a hanging. Right now the best I can do is send some men back here soon as we get to Alder. I’ll be sure to send some of the town’s most avid whiskey drinkers. I just hope they save your hanging for a town picnic and don’t decide to do it right here. A hanging makes for right good
entertainment.”