No Other Man (42 page)

"Lord
Douglas!"

He paused.

Senator Dillman had rolled himself back into the foyer. He
was a man possessing a certain dignified charm. He had a rueful smile that made
him seem trustworthy, one with the common man. Level eyes, a square jaw. A
voice that quietly filled space and seemed to command it.

"Senator Dillman, you'll have to excuse me—"

"You've married my girl, eh, sir?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Dillman sighed deeply, looking down. "She didn't tell
you anything about herself? She ran away, you know." He looked around,
assuring himself no one else was within hearing distance. "She's my
stepdaughter. She pushed me down the stairs and ran away."

"What?" Hawk snapped out, all courtesy forgotten in
his astonishment.

Dillman inhaled. "Your father was a fine man, a very
fine man. I'm sure you're one and the same. I'm so sorry to tell you this, but
the girl has been filled with delusions since she was a child. Her father was
killed during the war; I was with him. I didn't die. She blamed me. I tried.
All those years since, God knows I tried! But I married her mother, you see.
She couldn't forgive me for living when her own true father was dead."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"Skylar, Lord Douglas. Your wife." He shook his
head sorrowfully. "Sir, I am ever so sorry. She's gone completely mad.
Her mother's death sent her over the brink, I believe. I wanted to get doctors
for her. The best money could buy. I tried to keep my patience with her, but we
quarreled, and she has tremendous strength, tremendous strength! She sent me
flying down the stairs, but she is my stepdaughter, my dear departed Jill's
beloved flesh and blood. I couldn't call the police. But I knew that I had to
find her. Help her."

Hawk crossed his arras over his chest, staring at the man. He
had felt the lull of the man's voice, his persuasion. It was easy to understand
why he was such a successful politician. He was so convincing.

"She's afraid of you," he said bluntly. "Why?"

"Why? God alone knows, Lord Douglas! Have you been
listening, sir? The girl is delusional, poor, poor creature!"

The worst kind of monster, Skylar had told him.

"I'm perplexed. Why did you follow her here?"

"I have business here, my good man. But yes, I did need
to find her. She is my stepdaughter. I care for her welfare. And for yours.
Before Almighty God, sir, I do swear to you that the girl put me in this
chair!"

She had told him she needed to talk to him. Now he needed to
talk to her. He couldn't forget the look on her lace, and he still couldn't
understand her terror and despair. I )illman was in a wheelchair. What kind of
a threat could he be?

"My wife has shown no signs of delusion. Or of violence,"
he added, even if it was a bit of lie. She'd only been violent when she'd been
under attack.

Could Dillman possibly have been responsible for those
attacks? How had he maneuvered renegades to his will?

"Then I'm glad for you, Lord Douglas. Yet still anxious
to see my stepdaughter. You wouldn't deny me the right to see her? Why, Lord
Douglas, you are, in fact, my stepson- in-law!"

"Indeed," Hawk murmured.

"I imagine that her sister is on her way here,
attempting to be with her. Poor Sabrina! She is well aware of how dearly her
sister needs help. We even believe she might be at risk of taking her own life.
Still, I can't let Sabrina cast away her life! No, the child is still under my
guardianship, and I intend to do the very best I can for her, in memory i>l
my dear, dear wife!"

Damn, Dillman was good. So convincing that he was as hypnotic
as a rattler. He could almost be believed except that . . .

David Douglas had been no fool. Hawk realized with sudden
clarity that his father had stumbled upon Skylar when she had been in a
desperate situation. David had certainly been captivated by Skylar. She must
have shown a tremendous strength under adversity.

He killed my father,
she
had said. Dillman told it a different way. The war—Skylar would have been
young at the time. But still...

He didn't know what had happened. He didn't know the truth of
the matter. But he was determined to discover it.

"Excuse me. Please do make yourself comfortable with
your companions in my absence."

He exited the house quickly, looking anxiously about the
yard. He hurried toward the stables. He nearly collided with Willow, who had
been hurrying toward the house.

"Where's Skylar?" Hawk demanded quickly.

"She came out here, completely ignored me, bridled
Nutmeg, and took off—hell-bent. I was coming for you, wondering if I should
have been going straight after her instead."

"I'll go straight after her. She's expecting her sister
to have either arrived in Gold Town and be heading here. She's trying to reach
her. Willow, I need you to go back to the house and give Senator Dillman my
excuses. Tell him he's welcome to stay as long as he wishes. In fact, have
Meggie do her best to keep him there."

"I'll see to it, Hawk."

In seconds, Hawk was mounted on Tor.

Seconds too late.

Skylar had scarcely left Douglas property
when the attack came.

They'd been waiting for her.

Too late she realized her mistake. She damned herself,
realizing that again she had underestimated Dillman.

They came from the copse of trees to the west of the property
line. This time, there were eight riders. They were all dressed in war paint,
though even as she lay against

Nutmeg's
neck to turn her horse and urge her to speed back toward Mayfair, she saw that
they weren't all Indians. Dili- man had called upon the dregs of the army, so
it seemed. And probably prospectors, too. Men who had come for gold and hadn't
managed to strike it. Dillman promised them gold without digging. All they
needed to do was kill one woman.

And make the murder look like an Indian attack.

Even as
she rode back to Mayfair, she realized the men had stationed themselves behind
her. As she tried to race back, she was circled.

She had
so foolishly run. It had been time to meet Dili- man face-to-face, with Hawk.
He hadn't denied her. He had merely been stunned. Because she had made no
attempt to explain any of it before. Because she had never imagined that
Dillman could break in upon her life here. She had felt...

Safe.

She was Hawk's wife.

But she had run away from Hawk.

And now ...

She
tried to move Nutmeg to the left. A rider, his face painted black, was there.
She forced the horse to rear. Nutmeg pounded down to the the right.

Then
one of the men, laughing, leaped from his own horse to hers, dragging her down
from Nutmeg ...

Down, down, down ...

Monsters had come.

Twenty-five

Hawk hadn't ridden more than five minutes before he saw a
familiar figure racing toward him.

Sloan.

He
continued forward until they met; both men reined in hard. "Did you come
in from Gold Town? Did you pass Skylar?" Hawk demanded.

"Skylar's gone?" Sloan demanded in turn.

"She just rode toward town—"

"She
isn't on the way to town. I would have seen her. Hawk, you have to listen to
me. I overheard a conversation at the Ten-Penny. There's been a bounty out on
your wife. Huge money, payable in gold, for Skylar. Dead or alive. That weasel
Abel was passing the word on it. There was money, and power, behind the
offer."

"Dillman!"
Hawk muttered. "Dillman is in my house right now. He was trying to tell me
Skylar is insane, that he was crippled because of her."

"He
might be crippled, but he has the dregs of the territory out to find
her."

"Did you see signs of a struggle anywhere—"

"I wasn't looking. I was trying to reach you."

"Let's look now. Time, Sloan, time
might mean everything."

They kneed their mounts, rocketing mercilessly out along the
trail once again. As they rode, they could see a wagon coming in the distance.
Hawk slowed his horse, nearing Slown. "It's Henry's wagon. He must have
Skylar's sister with him. That's why Skylar lit out of the house so wildly—she
was afraid of Dillman getting his hands on her sister."

"We'll send him back to town."

Hawk shook his head. "We'll send him to the cabin."

But even as they rode closer to the approaching wagon, riders
burst out from the westward edge of the forest. Shots were fired; the wagon
started careening wildly.

"The whole damned world has gone mad!" Hawk exclaimed.
He was unarmed, except for the knife he wore in his ankle sheath.

Sloan pulled his Colt army pistol from his holster. He fired
off several shots, taking careful aim at the half-dozen painted men shrieking
toward the wagon. The attackers, looking to the north, hadn't seen them observe
the assault.

Hawk saw that Henry was no coward. He rose behind the reins
of his small flatbed wagon, firing off his shotgun. Then he was hit in the
shoulder. He fell back against the seat. The woman beside him, her face hidden
by a wide- brimmed hat, shrieked, bending over poor Henry.

Sloan picked off two of the attackers with his Colt while
they thundered down upon the wagon. Bullets sizzled by their ears in turn. Hawk
would have been hit straight in the heart, but he had learned how to ride as a
Sioux. When the bullet came, his body was on Tor's side, and the lead ball of
death hurtled on by him. He straightened and came upon one of the dressed-up
white men in time to leap from Tor's back and hurtle his opponent to the ground
before the man could get off a shot. His wife's life was at stake. His own
life, now, too. He reached his knife in seconds.

He killed the man with merciful speed, then stole his pistol.
It was out of date, but it had three shots left. He spun just as he heard a
rustling behind him, shooting another painted white man who would have
attacked him. He rose, just in time to see Sloan leaping atop the step of the
wagon to kill the last of the attackers, a man now bent over the woman, trying
to wrest her from the wagon. Sloan wrenched the fellow up to a stand with a grip
upon his shoulder, then felled him with a blow against his neck. The man
silently catapulted from the wagon. The woman kept shrieking.

"Stop it!" Sloan shouted, holding her back taut to his chest,
grappling her arms to her sides and twisting her around so that she faced Hawk.
"Hawk, this isn't—" "Hawk! You're Hawk! Oh, my God, get this
man—" "Sabrina?" Hawk said. She was striking. Auburn hair now
wild and tangled around a beautiful face. Her features were something like Skylar's,
but her coloring was completely different. Her figure was an hourglass form.
Together, the sisters were like a perfect pair of fairy-tale princesses, Rose
Red and Rose White, perhaps. "Hawk, this woman—" "Lord Douglas,
this man—" "She isn't Sabrina, Hawk, she's—" "I am Sabrina
Connor!" the woman exclaimed. "She's not! She's—"

"Who the bloody hell is
this
wretched bastard?" she hissed.

Hawk's brows shot up. "Sabrina Connor, a very good
friend and associate, Major Sloan Trelawney. Sloan, my sister-in-law, Sabrina
Connor."

Sabrina Connor had something of her sister's fighting spirit
about her as well. She stamped hard upon Sloan's booted foot.

"Will you let go of me, please, Major?" Sloan grated out,
"I still don't believe—" "Wait!" Hawk said, putting up a
hand when it looked as if both would begin arguing again. "Riders coming

again, from the south. Sabrina, see if Henry is breathing;
Sloan—toss me Henry's gun."

He ducked down, taking aim at the half-score of riders now
coming toward them. Sloan sank down as well, his Colt leveled upon his arm.

They came into view. Dillman's two aides first. Then two
other men, white men, strangers to the territory. They had a look about them.
Professional gunfighters, Hawk thought.

Behind them rode Dillman.

With Skylar seated before him on his mount.

For a crippled man, he was riding damned well.

"Are you going to shoot, Lord Douglas?" Dillman
called out. "It wouldn't be a very good idea. I'd kill her before you
could even pray to hit me."

Hawk stood, shoving the pistol into his holster. The group
remained perhaps twenty-five feet away from him. He met Skylar's eyes. He could
see them clearly at this distance. They were filled with misery and more. A
wealth of sorrow that she had involved him in this. Love. Aching. She didn't
move, but he could see it all there. So much that he had missed for so long.
She wanted to come to him ...

She sat dead still. Staring at him with those silver eyes.
They misted. "Hawk, I'm so sorry—" she began.

"I nearly had to kill her to get here, Douglas. Or do
they call you Hawk. Lord of the Plains! She thought she could keep you safe if
she bargained well enough with herself. But then, I'm a gambling man. I've
always been a gambling man. If this territory wasn't filled with idiots, she
might be dead now, and you might be a grieving young widower. I hate to be
forced to show my hand. If you'd agreed that she was mentally unbalanced, I'd
have been happy to take her back east and leave you a free man. Unfortunately,
this territory is filled with incompetent fools."

"Not everyone would have been fooled, no matter what
your offers of gold might have accomplished. You wanted to escalate the Indian
problems in the West, didn't you, Dillman?"

Dillman shrugged. "I don't give a damn about the In-
dians. They don't need me to escalate their problems. Let's just say that I
meant to use a situation already well under way. Sabrina! How nice to see you.
What a pity you hadn't the good sense to figure out where a decent future
awaited you!"

"What a pity I didn't have the damned good sense to realize
what a lying pathetic fake you were! You're riding damned well for a cripple,
Dillman."