The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (28 page)

“I appreciate the offer, but
no
!” He saw their confused expressions and explained. “Too many men
make it hard to travel quickly. And Marino gets jumpy easily. A big posse would
make him anxious, make him more dangerous.”

He looked at Taos and Keno, who nodded agreement.

“It’d be best if just the three of us went after
them,” Taos confirmed, which as her older brother, convinced the other men to
not ride along.

Chase stepped forward, still holding a barely
aware-looking Brandy in his arms. “I’d ride with you, but I’m staying here to
watch after Brandy and Tyler.”

“You take good care of them.” Morgan focused on Tyler
as he moved next to Chase. “Which way did they go, Son?”

Tyler pointed to the West. “Be careful, Pa.” His lower
lip wobbled and he was clearly fighting back tears.

Emotion clogged Morgan’s throat. How many other times
had Tyler worried he might never see him again? What the hell had he put the
boy through all these years? He owed Tyler a lot, a real father who was there
day in and day out.
By damn, he would be
that father!

Taking a final look at the men asked to remain behind,
he saw their disappointment and their understanding as well. Most of them knew
and adored Whiskey. Everyone wanted her back, safely, and hopefully unharmed.
They would do as he instructed.

Wyatt met his gaze. “I have to agree with you on the
posse matter. We just wanted to help. But we’ll keep a sharp eye out here in
case the bastard decides to circle back.” His expression turned steely. “Marino
won’t be sneaking into town to do harm to Brandy or your son. I can promise you
that much.”

With a curt nod of appreciation, Morgan wheeled his
horse around. The three of them rode out of town in a hurry, already a good
hour or more behind Marino. He would get Whiskey back. He just hoped like hell
she didn’t do something to irritate the outlaw. And that was asking a lot of a
woman who specialized in irritating a man.

* * *

It was good to have a horse
of her
own to ride
. Although they had only gone maybe thirty miles, traveling
earlier at a brisk pace while lying draped over the hard saddle had nearly
shattered all her ribs. Even now it hurt to breathe too deeply. At least she
could
still breathe. Whiskey tried not
to look at the spots of dried blood on the horse’s neck, blood from the man
Marino had shot out of the saddle. The unfortunate man had been riding toward
them as they rode over a rise near Cimarron.

She planned to escape the first chance she got. And if
she got a chance, she would kill the cold-hearted Comanchero. She’d never
killed anyone and it went against her nature, but she
could
and
would
take a
life in this case. He’d made the mistake of hurting her sister.
Please, God, let Brandy be all right
.
And he’d threatened to kill Tyler as if the boy were no more than a pesky fly.
She also now knew that he had, in fact, murdered Morgan’s father. He had
bragged about that almost from the second they’d ridden away from Dodge City.
His pleasure in having done so sickened her.

“Awful quiet now,” Marino said as he looked in her
direction. He grinned cockily, revealing tobacco-stained teeth and a big gap in
the front where several teeth were missing. “You sure done a damn lot of
threatening for a spell there. Not that it mattered. Little thing like you
threatening to kill me.”

He laughed and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened.

“Promises, not threats,” she countered, although it
cost her pain to speak at all.

In those few seconds while he’d been busy getting her
off his horse and tried to shove her onto this horse, she’d managed to get away
from him. Unfortunately she’d been too weak at that point and he’d easily
caught up with her. For her daring, he’d slapped her around a few times,
leaving her with a bloody nose and a bloody lip. She’d still fought him.
Finally in order to subdue her enough to get her on the other horse, he’d hit
her hard in the jaw. Her head still spun with stars every once in a while. She
was lucky he hadn’t broken her jaw.

“You’re a powerful lot of trouble.
If’n
I didn’t take pleasure in knowing I’m torturing that marshal of yours, I’d slit
your throat now. Be done with you.”

His eyes flashed with heat, with lust. He chuckled and
it sounded dirty to her. “Bet you’re the type of woman who’ll be hell fire in
bed.”

He chortled again. “Reckon poor old Rydell don’t know
about that yet. You been
savin
’ yourself for your
husband, haven’t you?” He grinned evilly. “Guess I’ll be the one
takin
’ you first.
Gonna
enjoy it, too. Getting’ a firsthand taste of all that passion.”

She shuddered at the very idea of this man’s filthy
hands intimately touching her. It had been horrible enough to ride close to him
for that first hour or so. His smell alone had been enough to gag her. She
would rather die than have him…
No!
She did
not
want to die. She would
survive whatever he did; survive so she could slit his throat with that big
knife he wore strapped to the side of his leg.

They were riding hard still, just as they had been
since tearing out of town. The horses were tiring, sweating heavily. She didn’t
know how much longer they could go on without resting. Worse, they smelled
water from the river nearby, which made them both keep struggling to turn in
that direction. Rafe held firmly to both his horse’s reins and hers. He refused
to slow down or rest. Killing his horse clearly meant as little to him as
killing that stranger had.

Once more her horse tried to pull his big body toward
the river.

Rafe jerked him cruelly back.

As her horse whinnied in desperation, she battled to
remain seated. She rocked perilously back and forth in the saddle even though
she couldn’t fall off. Her hands were tied to the saddle horn and the ropes
were cutting into her wrists. Blood trickled from the cuts. And her feet were
tied to the stirrups, which caused her legs to ache almost unbearably from the strain
of keeping upright with her weight evenly balanced.

She had to keep her mind off the pain screaming
through her body and keep her thoughts focused on surviving. She bit out, “You
ambushed my brother and Morgan a few months back, didn’t you? You left them for
dead.”

He turned in her direction, grinned that awful evil
grin again. “They deserved it, particularly Rydell.”

His eyes darkened with hatred. “Rydell and your
brother tracked down my younger brother, Jose. Tracked him down and killed him.
According to witnesses, Rydell put the bullet in Jose’s head. He
will
pay for that.” He nodded at her. “
You
will pay for his action as well.”

She couldn’t think about his vow; she couldn’t show
weakness. Instead she focused on what fueled his anger. She’d overheard most of
the story.

“Your brother butchered an old couple in El Paso,
other people before them. But that was the time the law finally caught up with
him. Not Taos and Morgan. Other lawmen. He was tried by Judge Rydell and
rightfully sentenced to hang.”

“Weren’t
nothing
rightful about the sentence.
They were old; they
didn’t matter. He wanted their horse and they wouldn’t let him have it. Poor
choice.” His expression turned even harder and his face reddened. “Like I told
you, I took care of that judge.”

Her stomach clenched. They’d been murdered, horribly
from what she’d overheard, because they hadn’t wanted to give up their only
horse. Then he’d murdered Morgan’s father for trying to apply justice.
Don’t think about that. Don’t.

“Somehow your brother escaped before they could hang
him.” She looked at him in disgust. “You, wasn’t it? You got him away.”

He nodded. “Fool kid thought it would be better if we
went our separate ways after that.
I’d’ve
kept him
safe, alive.”

“Maybe you would both have died when Taos and Morgan
caught up with you, not just your brother.” It hurt to talk, but she had to let
him know how much she detested him.

He snorted. “No. It would have been
your
brother and that Rydell who died
that day.” He glowered and added, “I should have gone back that time in the
mountain valley, should have made sure they died.”

Tired of the conversation, he clamped his legs tighter
around his horse’s belly and demanded the animal run harder. Her horse was
forced to race faster as well.

They rode full out for another mile until the horses
just couldn’t go on any longer at that pace. Dusk was upon them and she prayed
they would camp somewhere for the night. Not that she wanted to be alone with
him in the dark, but somehow she would find a way to get free. She just had to.
This was not a sane man.

They’d gone maybe another couple of miles when her
horse stumbled to his knees. His sides heaved from struggling for each breath.
She fought not to slide down his neck.
Her arm muscles
strained; her legs as well.
They hurt so much that tears sprang to her
eyes. She saw the fury in Marino’s expression, the danger. What would he do
now?

Her answer came quickly. He all but leaped off his
horse, still holding its reins. Then he sped to her and jerked the knife free.
While she froze in fear that he would just end her life now, he cut the ropes
holding her legs tied and then the rope around the saddle horn.

He tugged her down beside him, jammed the knife back
in its place, and pulled out his gun. Before she could even blink again he put
a bullet in the poor horse’s head.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she cried in horror,
tears falling for the innocent, abused animal.

Furious with the change in their situation, he shoved
his gun back in the holster and pulled out the knife again. He grabbed her
braid so hard that more tears filled her eyes. The knife came up and he slashed
off a good foot of her braid. Seeing the blood on her wrists, he wiped the
chunk of hair across it to coat the ends. After that he tossed the hair on top
of the fallen horse.

She gaped at the sight, shocked by the sudden loss of
hair. “Why did you do that?”

He yanked her toward his horse and once more shoved
her stomach down over the saddle. What was left of her hair slid from the now
destroyed braid and fell around her head.

“I’m leaving the marshal a message: that I got his
woman.”

She had known all along that Morgan and her brothers
would be riding after them. She just hadn’t wanted to think too much about it.
She didn’t want any of them to die because of her. With this “message” they
would come after her even more determined. Someone would die before much
longer.
Please let it not
be
Morgan or my brothers. Please God.

* * *

Hours ago Morgan and Whiskey’s brothers had found the
dead man on the trail they’d been following. Marino wasn’t attempting to hide
his tracks by riding down the
river bed
. He wanted
them to follow him. He wanted them to see how cruel he could be, with the man
shot dead center in the forehead being his first show of power. They hadn’t
been able to afford the time to take the stranger into town for proper looking
after, just hoped somebody else found him and did right by him.

No one had spoken a word since then. Every eye scanned
the tracks ahead across the thick prairie grass, but it was getting harder and
harder to see with the sun almost down. Their horses were tired, but they’d
stopped a couple of times to let them rest a few minutes. They’d even taken
them down to the nearby river for a long drink of water once. The three of them
had needed the rest as well. But still, in spite of the brief stops, he knew
they weren’t far behind Marino and Whiskey.

He tried not to think of all the terrible things
Marino could do to her, might have already done to her. His gut churned every
time he remembered seeing the pressed down grass near the dead man, the blood
splattered that they knew wasn’t from the man.

Stop
thinking about that.
She’s strong
,
she’s a fighter
. She won’t give up
.

He wouldn’t give up either. None of them would.

“We’re going to have to make camp soon,” Keno said,
although the reluctance to do so rang in his words.

“We can go a while longer,” Taos insisted. “Maybe we
can’t ride as hard, but we can make a few more miles at least.”

Morgan, too, understood not only the desperation to
continue on but also the danger of one of their horses stepping into a prairie
dog hole or tripping in some other way. But even if he had to get down and walk
with Demon, he was going to follow after Marino as long as he physically could.
He hated the idea of the outlaw spending the night alone with her.
God, keep her safe
. He hadn’t been much
of a praying man for years, but he figured this was a damn good time to start
again.

Doggedly they traveled on, having to
back track
a couple of times because they’d missed spotting
the tracks of two horses ahead of them. Then Keno squinted into the dimming
light and asked, “What the hell is that ahead?”