The Loner (8 page)

Finally, he turned away from the glass. The storm would pass and sunup would be here before he knew it. Everything had to be ready so they could make as many miles as possible before tomorrow night. He must get Cathleen out of this area where the horse was known so well before they slowed their pace.

He needed to stop calling her Cathleen. Even in his mind.

She was The Cat and she was an outlaw.

And he might as well wake her now. She needed to get up and move around for the rest of the day to prepare for a long day in the saddle. He wasn't going to tell her that, though; he wouldn't give any indication that they would be taking to the trail in the morning.

Crossing the room with long, quick strides, he knocked on the door.

“Cathleen?”

He bit his tongue.
Why
couldn't he stop that?

“Cat. It's time to wake up or you won't sleep tonight.”

He waited but there still was no answer.

A cold fist of foreboding squeezed his stomach into a knot. Had she passed out? Had her wound started bleeding again? Oh, God, had she been bleeding for a long time?

He laid his hand on the knob, turned it, and stepped into the room with his eyes already searching for her bright hair rioting over the pillow.

The bed was empty.

S
omething crashed in the woods somewhere not far behind her, and Cathleen looked back. By now, Black Fox would have discovered she was gone and come this far in pursuit. She had taken too much time to saddle her horse and even now her shoulder was throbbing like mad from the effort and sending pain all the way down her arm. She rode with her arm tucked against her belly and her thumb in her belt loop to hold it there.

She tried to stare through the thick rain while she pulled her hat down tighter. If she lost her hat, she'd be done for because, even with it on, the
overhanging tree limbs snatched at the ends of her hair and when she took to the woods she was liable to hang her self by her hair.

Hanging was what she'd better remember, instead of recalling riding on Black Fox's horse with him holding her in his arms. How could she have felt so safe there? How could she possibly be wishing to feel those arms around her again?

It was hard, because she felt so miserably sore and cold from being soaked through by the rain, but she had to think what to do. Surely Black Fox wouldn't be thrashing around in the woods back there if he could see her on the road.

Or maybe he would. Maybe he was hurrying ahead to set up an ambush. Maybe he was trying to stay out of sight while he caught up with her.

When she heard even more noise, she whipped her head around to face front again and urged her horse to go faster. Somebody or some animal was back there. It very well might be Black Fox.

Should she take to the woods or not? From his pasture, she had cut through the woods to the trail—really more of a road, since it was wide enough for a wagon—that ran from Sallisaw up to Sequoyah and then on to the northeast, eventually reaching all the way to Swimmer. Normally, she avoided roads and trails, but this time she was in a terrible hurry. Rushing through the woods and underbrush was terribly jarring, sometimes
not too fast at all, and here in the road, the rain was washing out her tracks. In fact, it was faithfully doing that as it quickly created a sloppy kind of mud.

But on the road, she could be seen from a long way back. A long way in either direction, actually, in spite of the rain.

No matter how much she was hurting, she'd better take to the woods.

She'd almost reached the downhill slope into a long, angling valley called Takatoka. Along the top of it ran Rattlesnake Ridge. She could follow it for miles and come out at the far end very near one of her hideouts—the one she'd been trying to reach when the wound dropped her from her horse and Black Fox caught up with her.

This time, her situation wasn't nearly that dire. If she would think about that, it would help her be thankful for this pain instead of the horrible weakness she'd felt then. She could make it to safety if she didn't panic.

“Come on, Little Dun,” she said, even though the wind blew her words right back into her mouth, “let's get off this road.”

At least being in the trees afforded a little bit of protection from the weather. And being high on the ridge gave her an advantage in case someone should approach from below. At least it would be a help for as far as she could see through the woods and rain.

As the wind and rain died down, she heard noises again. Same direction. Coming closer.

Up ahead, to the left of the narrow trail, there was a thicket of blackberry brambles. She couldn't ride into it because of the thorns but she could hide behind it.

Her insides were in turmoil, with one instinct urging her to ride on as fast as she could and another sending her for cover as the loud noises came closer. It wouldn't be Black Fox. How could she have ever thought that? Even in a rush to get ahead of her, he wouldn't make this kind of racket. This sounded like an invading army.

Her heart was crowding up into her throat in her haste to get out of sight and she was gasping for breath by the time she finally reached the thick cover and eased Dunny in behind it. This wasn't a good spot, since she couldn't see very well, but she didn't dare move now.

She listened. When she heard the snuffling and rooting sounds, she slumped in the saddle with a deep relief.

Hogs. It was a herd of wild hogs. They might be rooting for food along the ridge beneath the many oak trees, but they seemed to be moving fairly fast. Maybe they were simply going to another range.

Her heart began its drumming again. These were dangerous animals, and besides that, she needed to know whether there were men nearby,
either hunting or driving them. Carefully, slowly, she eased her mount out to where she could see.

Most wild hogs were dangerous creatures and would attack a horse if cornered and, many times, a person on foot whether they were cornered or not. She didn't intend to try to hunt them, but she made every effort not to draw attention to herself or Dunny. Their long tusks were lethal weapons and more than one good horse had had its belly ripped open by them.

There were at least fifty or sixty head of hogs, traveling along at a brisk pace, as if they'd been spooked by something. Maybe the lightning and thunder. A few slowed to root around for an acorn or two as they passed within a stone's throw of her, but they didn't lose much time.

They were ugly and they looked mean, with their long snouts and long tails, long bodies, and long tusks. They even had a long squeal, as some of them demonstrated as they passed her by. She jumped, afraid that the noise meant they had seen her, but they gave no sign of it.

She watched the woods closely, but even as what appeared to be the last of the hogs came into view, she saw no people, mounted or otherwise. This was truly a wild bunch, foraging entirely on their own.

Or was it? Until they were gone way past her, she didn't dare move. She kept watching for people somewhere around—that could have been the
reason they were trotting along so fast—although her nerves were screaming for her to run. Black Fox could be close behind her.

But she waited, mostly for fear that one of the old boars would hear her and turn back. Finally, when she was sure that they were gone and no drovers or hunters followed them, she left the cover of the bramble bushes and started riding west along the ridge.

Almost immediately, she came up on a high spot that didn't have many trees and when she twisted in the saddle to look back, she could see all the way to the road. The rain had lessened to a sprinkle.

There the hogs were, spilling out of the woods into the muddy road. And there was a man on a tall gray horse coming down it. Black Fox. Even from this distance, she knew him and not just from the horse he rode, either.

She'd never even seen him ride, she realized with a shock. But it was Black Fox and he was right out in the open with the razorback hogs pouring into his path.

Her breath caught in her throat. They were all over the place, swarming around his horse. If they attacked, he'd be helpless.

Then his horse reared and the blood turned to ice in her veins. If Black Fox was thrown, the hogs would kill the man, for sure.

Far down the hill, too far for her to get there in
time to help in any way, the gray horse stood frozen with Black Fox clinging to his back. All she could do was watch and wish she could turn away. All she could do was pray.

They were like a tiny statue set in the muddy road.

The gray horse came down to earth again and he must have had the bit in his teeth because he began to run, heedless of the hogs, heading into the woods on the opposite side of the road from where she was. Black Fox bent low over his neck and stayed on him. The hogs in the back of the herd began slowing to roll in the mud and some in the front of it turned back to join in.

For a foolishly long time, Cat watched the spot where Black Fox had disappeared. Finally, she turned Dunny's head and started west.

It was the hardest thing she had ever done. What she wanted, more than she could believe, was to ride
to
Black Fox instead of away from him.

 

Black Fox made himself smile at the desk clerk and respond to the man's chatter when he checked into the Talking Leaves Hotel in Sequoyah. He hated staying in towns; he always camped just outside of them except when he had to be in Fort Smith.

He hated being around so many people.

That thought actually helped him smile—a bitterly ironic smile—on his way up the stairs with
his saddlebags. He hated being a failed Lighthorseman even more, and to rectify that, he would make himself be around people. And not only that, he could force plenty of smiles and be the friendliest man in town.

Never in his seven years as a Lighthorseman had he ever lost a prisoner. Cathleen was his first woman prisoner and his first escaped prisoner.

She was the first prisoner he'd ever gone after with a coat, trying to protect her health.

When he had run to get his saddlebags, in those first awful moments of discovering her gone, he had realized that the thin jean jacket was the only coat that Cat had. So, he grabbed both the slickers hanging on the wall of his back porch and took out after her with it thrown across the pommel of his saddle.

All he could think about was the cold, hard rain and the fact that the weather could give her pneumonia and, without care, she could die. He'd been well into the woods before he asked himself which he was trying to do—take care of her or capture her?

After that, he'd tried to toughen his feelings for her. He would put the slicker on her, all right, but backwards, with the sleeves knotted together. He would lash her to her saddle—hands to the strings and feet to the stirrups.

Because she
had
taken time to get her saddle. She had gathered all her things, sneaked out the
back, and ridden away from his place and he had not heard or sensed a thing. Fine Lighthorseman he was.

He hadn't seen or heard her escaping because he'd been too busy sitting on the porch pretending to be her lover. Wishing that he was her lover.

Talk about insanity!

Her clean escape was nothing but his own just comeuppance since he'd been sitting there the whole time thinking that poor, young Willie was such a fool. Truth was, he, the famous Black Fox Vann, was nothing but living proof of the saying, “There's no fool like an old fool.”

At first he'd ridden a little way toward Sally's and Muskrat's, thinking that Cat might have taken Willie up on his shouted invitation, but then he'd decided that she hadn't even heard it. Considering the time it had taken her to get to the barn, saddle her horse and vanish, she had already gone out the window before the silly kid started yelling directions at her from the porch.

That was when he had decided his only hope of finding her was to come to Sequoyah. She might be his first woman prisoner and his first escapee, however, she was not the first prisoner he had gone after by listening to hearsay and gossip.

What galled him so much was that gossip and hearsay were
all
he had to go on because he had taken too long to get on her trail. Once he'd gotten
Gray Ghost under control after the incident with the pack of hogs yesterday, he had searched the road and the woods for another hour before he'd headed home for his supplies and his camping gear.

An endless, useless hour. Before he arrived at the hog crossing, he'd thought he saw a fresh hoofprint or two perhaps left by Cat's little dun horse. But, of course, after the road became a hog wallow, there was no hope of following and beyond that spot, he'd found nothing, no matter how hard he'd searched.

So he had given up the chase for the day. Which was the most likely day of finding her, as any lawman would tell you.

Because
anyone
, lawman or not, with a grain of sense knew that he needed to get to her before she reached her lair. That fact had haunted him, now, for twenty-four hours.

Had he turned back before he had to? Never before had mud or rain—no matter how unseasonably cold—stopped him, or even slowed him down. He'd been wet and cold and hungry and hurt many a time on the trail and kept going.

Did I give up too soon so she could get away? Was that what I really wanted?

If she escapes now, I won't have to take a woman in to Judge Parker. I won't have to live the rest of my life knowing I'm the reason she was hanged.

Would I do that?

No, he would not do that. Or if he did, he'd never do it again. He was going to find her now if it was the last thing he ever did.

He had found The Cat the first time, purely by chance after he had looked for her for days and days. Fourteen, to be exact.

He didn't have the patience for that again.

Plus she might not have that kind of time. If she tore her wound open and started it bleeding again…

He slammed the door of his mind on that thought as he threw his bags on the bed. Enough! He would not let himself hold one more concern about her. Not one. From now on, he would think of her as he would any other prisoner, and he would find her.

He turned the key in the hotel room door, then the knob, and pushed it open with his shoulder. After depositing his saddlebags on a table near the bed, he strode to the window and looked down at the street. Across, on the corner, with its front facing the woods, stood Tassel Glass's store. From here, Black Fox could see part of the back of it and most of one side.

Of course, when she robbed it, Cat probably didn't go in any of the doors or windows visible from the street. And she might never rob it again.

Or if she did, it might be weeks from now. It would probably take her a long time to heal com
pletely and she'd need to have her usual agility and quickness back again.

Except that she had enough of both to get away from me in a heartbeat
.

And now she should be scared that her luck was turning, since she'd been both shot and captured. She would want to end her campaign as soon as she could.

Besides the logic of it, his gut instinct told him that she would steal some more from Tassel Glass very soon. What else would she be doing? The Cat had endured a lot of hardship for the sake of revenge and she wasn't stopping now.