Judith E French (22 page)

Thirty miles of hard riding brought Ash to a ridge overlooking a two-story log house and a ramshackle barn. Years before the war, Texas Jack’s uncle, Leon Cannon, had built this place.

The word was that Jack, Vernon, and Boone had been raised near San Antonio by an aunt and uncle after Comanches wiped out the rest of the family. Leon came to Colorado after he’d stolen so many of his neighbors’ cattle that they banded together and set a price on his head.

The place didn’t look lived in to Ash. Maybe Leon was dead or had moved on. The cabin roof had patches on it and the barn leaned heavily to one side, but the corral looked in good shape. If Jack Cannon had a home this
side of hell, Leon’s old place was it to Ash’s way of thinking.

Ash had hoped that Jack and his boys might be hiding out here after all the excitement they’d caused in Nebraska. But it seemed Ash had had a long ride for nothing. No smoke came from the chimney, and the weeds around the back door were waist high.

He’d been careful not to leave fresh signs of his own. He’d crept near enough to water Shiloh and fill a canteen from the spring a few hundred yards behind the house. Then he’d climbed up on the roof and covered the chimney hole with sticks and boards. Finally, he’d backtracked, hidden his horse in a gully, and climbed up here to this overlook to consider whether he’d guessed wrong again.

If Jack Cannon wasn’t here, he could be anywhere from Kansas City to Mexico. He’d hoped for a little luck. Finding the outlaw, capturing or killing him, would have made explaining to Tamsin why he’d left her at Jacob’s cabin a lot easier.

He was sure that she’d be safe with Jacob until he could get back to her. Whether she’d understand why he had to ride off on a hunch was something else. He’d chased Cannon so long that he wondered sometimes what his life would consist of once he caught him.

And he would find Jack. It was just a matter of time. Which of them killed the other one would be the toss of a coin. The outlaw was a crack shot, and he was smart. Ash only hoped he was smarter.

Ash stretched his legs and rubbed at the healing bullet wound. Dusk had fallen. Far off to the west a coyote howled at the moon. Other than crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl, it was as quiet as a Quaker funeral.

His belly rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since noon. There was bread and dried meat in one of his
saddlebags, but going down to where Shiloh was tied would mean leaving his lookout, and he wasn’t ready to chance that yet.

He took a sip of warm water from his canteen. It tasted tinny, but it was wet. Most folks thought that a bounty hunter’s life was exciting, one chase after another. Truth was, a lot of what he’d done these past years was to sit and wait. It developed a man’s patience.

Tonight that quality would be put to the test.

“Patience, Boone,” Jack Cannon advised his older brother. “You’ll never get ahead if you don’t learn that. We don’t want to be the first ones in. The vault may not be open yet.” He tipped his hat to an elderly woman walking by. “Morning, ma’am.”

“I don’t like standin’ around, is all,” Boone replied, tugging at his starched shirt collar. “And I don’t like wearin’ these fancy duds.”

“Clothes make the gentleman. You walk in the Goldsborough Trust in dirty work clothes and scuffed boots and already they’re suspicious. What’s an owlhoot like that doin’ in our bank? Maybe he’s up to no good.”

“No need to talk to me like an idjit. That crap gets old. If we wasn’t blood kin, I’d of put you in the ground a long time ago.”

Jack smiled and ignored Boone’s insult. He had no doubts about whether or not his brother could be trusted. There were just the two of them left, and Boone felt the same way about family as he did. They were a team. Boone might be woolly around the edges, but Boone would walk through hellfire and pull the devil’s tail if Jack said so.

Two horsemen rode slowly into town and reined in across the street from the bank. Billy dismounted and
pretended to check his pony’s left foreleg while Tom looked on.

Jack could just see the brim of Carlos’s hat above the false front of the blacksmith’s shop. The big Texan was too slow on the ground, but put him on a high spot with a clear shooting range, and Carlos was worth any three men with a rifle.

Jack hoped Goldsborough’s bank wouldn’t be a disappointment. He’d read an article in the Wheaton newspaper about the growth of the new Colorado town, but the dirt streets were nigh on to deserted this morning. The door to the saloon was still shuttered, and only a half dozen customers had gone in and out of the general store. He’d seen an old prospector with a mule, two cowboys, and the blacksmith.

Billy glanced at him anxiously. It was time. If he held off much longer, the boys would begin to get edgy. Jack nudged Boone and walked across the street and into the bank.

He paused just inside the door, letting his eyes get accustomed to the shadowy light after the bright sun outside. The main room was small. One corner of the building had been partitioned off to make an office for the manager. The metal safe was built in to the back wall, and it stood open.

“Good morning, sir,” a mustached teller called. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, indeed,” Jack said. “I’d like to speak to the manager about opening an account here.”

The clerk hurried forward. “I can help you with that.”

“No, I have a large sum to deposit.”

“Mr. Dresser! A customer to see you, sir!”

A portly, balding man appeared in the office doorway. “I’m Mr. Dresser, the bank manager. Can I help you?”

“You can,” Jack said. Boone whipped a sawed-off
shotgun from under his coat and pointed it at the bald man. Smiling, Jack opened his leather satchel. “We’ve changed our minds, gentlemen. We want to make a withdrawal.”

Billy rushed in from the street with his forty-five drawn and ready. “Street’s clear,” he said.

“Grab a handful of clouds!” Boone ordered.

The clerk blubbered and reached for the sky. Dresser’s face turned red, and he glanced back toward his open office door.

“Now.” Jack didn’t raise his voice. Shouting made Boone nervous, and bad things happened when Boone got spooked.

“Robbery!” Dresser yelled. “Get out, Mrs. Rivers! Run!”

Jack threw Boone a warning glance, but it was too late. Boone’s shotgun roared, deafening them and cutting down the manager in the expensive suit.

A woman screamed.

“Damn it all. Didn’t I tell you not to go and do that,” Jack said. He pushed past the trembling clerk and began to scoop money off the vault shelf as Billy plunged into the dead man’s office and dragged out a heavily rouged woman by the hair.

“Let me go,” she wailed.

“Please.” The teller’s eyes were big, and he was sweating. “Here. Take my wallet,” he began as he reached inside his coat. “Take the money and—”

Boone’s second barrel silenced him.

Jack began to swear as he grabbed the last of the bills and started for the door. Billy put his pistol to the female’s head, and Jack slapped it away. “Bring her along,” he ordered. “We may need her.”

Outside, the horses were waiting, and Tom was already in the saddle, eyes scanning the street for trouble. A rifle
fired from inside the saloon as someone took a shot at them through the window. Glass shattered, but the slug went wild.

A small man came out of an alley, both pistols blazing. Bullets flew around Jack’s head like angry bees. Then Carlos’s rifle cracked, and the shooter toppled facedown.

Billy tossed the shrieking hostage in the red dress over his saddle horn and swung up on his horse. Dust rose as Tom spurred his pinto down the street with Jack and Boone right behind him.

At the first corner, they turned left and circled to meet Carlos. They were out of Goldsborough before half the citizens dared to show their faces.

A mile away, Jack signaled a halt. “Split up. We’ll meet where I told you tomorrow night.”

“What about her?” Billy demanded, shoving his sobbing captive onto the ground. “Want me to finish her off now?”

Jack looked at his brother. “Boone? What do you think?”

“No!” the woman moaned. “Don’t kill me.”

“She ain’t nothin’ but a whore,” Boone said.

Jack glanced down at her long legs and low-cut dress. Her scarlet cheeks and too yellow hair proclaimed her trade. “Are you?” he demanded.

“Yes, yes. I am.” She sobbed. “Don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want.”

“What were you doing in a bank so early in the morning?”

“Mr. Dresser was … was a customer,” she gasped. “He was a regular every Tuesday morning.”

Boone laughed. “Got his self blowed away for you, didn’t he, bitch?”

Billy slid a pistol from his holster. “She seen our faces, Jack. What’s your rule? No witnesses.”

The woman covered her eyes and sobbed hysterically.

Jack shrugged and looked at his brother. “Up to you.”

“Hell, let’s take her,” Boone replied. “We can always kill her tomorrow.”

Jack smiled. “My thoughts exactly. You keep stretchin’ that brain of yours, and there’s hope for you yet, big brother.”

When Ash appeared at Jacob’s cabin four days after he’d left her, Tamsin didn’t know whether to kiss him or push him off the cliff. “Damn you,” she shouted at him. “Damn you! I thought you were dead. I wish you were dead.”

Ash grinned at Jacob. “Told you what she was like.”

The trader chuckled. “Spoke the truth, too. Thought I’d have to chain her to a tree to keep her here. ’Course I’m use to that. My woman’s either lovin’ me or tryin’ to kill me.”

Ash went to the spring and splashed cool water over his face and head, then drank deeply.

“Well?” Tamsin demanded. “Did you catch your outlaw?”

Ash shook his head. “Didn’t see hide nor hair of him.”

Jacob drew a long puff on his pipe. “Some days is like that, son. Reckon you had a long ride for nothin’.”

“At least I found out where they weren’t.”

Jacob laughed. “Truth to that, too.”

Ash and Tamsin rode away from Jacob’s cabin the following day. The horses were rested and full of ginger as they rode east down the mountain. They found a stream and followed it until dark. Ash was afraid to risk a fire, so they ate cold rations.

It was an uneasy night. Tamsin dozed fitfully in his arms, often tossing and crying out. Once, she woke, soaked with sweat and trembling, but couldn’t remember what had frightened her. And despite his fatigue, Ash snapped awake at every rustle of brush or call of a night bird.

Morning broke soft and misty. They ate and were in the saddle in minutes. They drove the horses hard all that day and the next, stopping only to skin and dress a deer that he shot in midafternoon.

That night, Ash was too restless to sleep. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and his skin stretched drum tight over his body. Once, he thought he heard a cougar cough, but it was far off and he couldn’t be certain enough to worry Tamsin about it.

Ash was concerned about her. She didn’t complain, but dark shadows formed under her eyes, and she seemed unnaturally subdued. The long days in the saddle sapped strength from a man, let alone a woman, and he knew she was tired. But he wouldn’t rest easy until he’d put the wilderness behind them, and they reached the white settlements.

Late the following afternoon, Ash called a halt at the sulfur springs where Tamsin had stolen his supplies. “We both could use a hot bath and some rest,” he said. “The horses need a day or two to graze. They’re getting thin.”

Tamsin wrinkled her nose as she stared at the rising columns of steam that dotted the rocky meadow. “You expect me to wash in that scalding water?”

He laughed. “It’s not that hot. You’ll love it, I promise.”

Tamsin looked doubtful.

“Think of the horses. Their feet are sore. Fancy threw that shoe this morning.” The animals were bone weary. Of the five, the stallion seemed the strongest. Despite
what he’d said about the thoroughbreds not being able to take rough country, Dancer had thrived on the high game trails and stony ground. “Suit yourself, woman,” Ash said with what he hoped was an endearing grin. “But I intend to scrub myself to some semblance of a human being.”

“Meaning I’m not?”

He shrugged.

Once the animals were unsaddled and hobbled to graze, Ash led Tamsin across a sloping green field strewn with multicolored wildflowers: purple prairie smoke, pink and white cat’s paws, brown-eyed Susans, and golden-tinged broadleaf yucca. They circled a half-dozen rock outcrops and bubbling springs to reach a larger pool near the edge of the pine forest. Here the mineral water was clear enough for them to see the clean sandy bottom and the natural stone ledge along one side that formed a perfect bench.

Tamsin felt the blood rush into her cheeks as Ash stripped and lowered himself in. As the sulfur water rose over his legs and hips, he groaned with pleasure. He closed his eyes, lay on his back, and let himself float.

“You expect me to take off my clothes and swim stark naked?” A true Tennessee lady would have refused to join him in such a shocking venture. But it was hard to remember what a Methodist girl should do when a man like Ash Morgan wore nothing but a self-satisfied smile.

He opened one eye and grinned devilishly at her. “Is there anything I’ve haven’t seen, darlin’?”

“I guess not.” She chuckled. He was right, she thought. After what they’d been through, there was no need for false modesty.

And Ash was a stirring sight with his coal black hair floating around him, and his shoulders as wide as a farrier’s.

She loved him, she realized. She loved this beautiful,
dangerous man who wanted to take her back to face a hangman’s noose. But how far could she trust him? And how long before he ran off on her again?

Ash had promised that they’d camp here tonight. She’d be a bigger fool than she was to give up what he was offering her here and now because of what might happen tomorrow.

“Are you coming in, or are you chicken?”

“We’ll see who’s chicken.” Quickly, she pulled off her clothing and leaped in.

The water closed over her head, not icy cold like all the creeks she’d bathed in for the last few weeks, but deliciously warm. “Oh,” she sighed. It was heaven. “I thought it would be boiling.” Reaching down, she picked up a handful of sand and began to scrub away the sweat and grime.