Two Brothers (36 page)

Tristan ground the bastard’s face into the dirt. “She’d better be all right,” he warned, in a voice that would have frightened him, coming from someone else. “My friend Black Eagle is going to keep an eye on the both of you until I get back. As God is my witness, if there’s so much as a scratch on that woman, I’ll jerk your insides out, set them on fire, and stomp out the flames.” He stood up, and Black Eagle signaled two of his braves, who promptly bound the outlaws hand and foot with strips of rawhide.

“I ride with you,” Black Eagle said staunchly, and Tristan could see by his expression that there would be no changing the man’s mind. There wasn’t enough time to work out an agreement anyway.

Tristan swung up onto his gelding and reined it toward the high country. Black Eagle was mounted as well, and he spoke to his men in an earnest undertone before catching up with Tristan.

“What did you just say?” He was only mildly curious as to whether or not the captives would be alive when they got back.

The Indian’s black eyes glittered. “I tell them, if the woman-killers try to get away, shoot them.” Black Eagle probably knew every fold and hollow of the hills above, and Tristan was glad to have his company, though he wouldn’t have admitted as much. With this particular companion at his side, he had a much better chance of getting Emily back safe, though he would have preferred Shay.

He’d seen a half-dozen cabins in varying states of collapse while exploring in the mountains; some had housed miners, some the families of settlers who’d died out or given up long
ago. Some were line shacks, where cowboys riding a fence line could get in out of a storm. Emily could be in any one of them, or none.

“We need dog,” Black Eagle said, and for a moment, Tristan, riding hell-bent for nowhere, couldn’t grasp the meaning of the statement. Then he remembered Spud, and wheeled the gelding around in a wide circle, racing back toward his own ranch house.

It probably took thirty minutes to get there, and Tristan begrudged every second of that time, but if he was going to find Emily he had to have the animal’s help. The gelding was still moving when he dismounted, bounding into the house, slamming the front door open, taking the stairs two and three at a time. In his bedroom he found what he sought: the tattered serape Emily had been wearing when she entered his life.

He didn’t have to whistle for Spud; the dog, though injured, sensed calamity, and he was pacing nervously back and forth on the rug at the base of the stairs, making a sound somewhere between a snarl and a bark, when Tristan came down. He let the animal smell the serape, and the result was more than he would have dared hope for—Spud shot through the gaping door like a Chinese rocket, and Tristan went stumbling after him.

Both he and Black Eagle rode full out to keep up with the dog, and even then they probably would have lost him if he hadn’t been forced to slow down on reaching the timber line. Of course, they couldn’t travel as fast either, and time was passing, and Tristan was about as scared as he’d ever been in his life.

His greatest fear was for Emily, of course; her captors were just stupid enough to hurt or even kill her. Every atrocity he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty, replayed itself in his mind as he rode, with Emily as the victim. He felt stark, cold terror, and the messages rising from his gut were no comfort at all.

At last the dog paused, prowling along the edge of a ridge.
His ruff stood out in bristles, and he snarled and yipped like a wolf with prey in its sights, waiting impatiently for the pack to catch up.

Tristan might have ridden straight down into the gully if Black Eagle hadn’t extended an arm and stopped him by taking hold of the gelding’s bridle.

They dismounted, and Black Eagle led the horses farther back into the woods, after giving Tristan a warning glance. The shack below, a weathered board structure leaning far enough to one side that a stiff wind would blow it over, was clearly occupied. There were two horses out front, and a ribbon of smoke curled from the crooked chimney pipe, making a gray smudge against the sky.

Black Eagle returned, crouched beside Tristan. “No guards,” the Indian said. By then, Tristan had to restrain the dog to keep him from flinging himself at the cabin, a pretty good indication that Emily was inside and probably alive, too, though there was no telling what shape she was in. He closed his eyes for a moment, and silently implored a God he had long since stopped believing in to protect her.

“Not worry,” Black Eagle said, in a whisper. “She talk them to death.”

He’d no more than uttered those words when the shack’s rickety door creaked open and one of the Powder Creek men came outside, unbuttoned his pants, and took a long piss in the brush at the side of the cabin.

Tristan squinted, straining for a glimpse of Emily through the open door, and in that moment he relaxed his hold on Spud just long enough for the dog to break free and dash, growling ominously, for his target. The cowboy, still holding his pecker in both hands, was taken by surprise and gave a little whoop of alarm that might have been funny, under other circumstances.

The dog was on him, at his throat, when the second man came out of the shack. He had Emily crushed against him, facing forward, and his pistol probed deep into the side of her neck. She looked pale and understandably rumpled, but
otherwise unhurt, and Tristan’s relief was so great that he almost forgot she was in imminent danger of being shot to death.

“Come on out, Saint-Laurent,” the big man called, getting his name right, and Tristan recognized him then. Once a Texas Ranger, Elliott Ringstead had gone bad a long time ago, and made himself a reputation as a thief and murderer of no little imagination and enterprise. He was the one man Tristan had ever tracked in vain, and the bounty on his head had probably compounded half a dozen times over the years. “No sense hidin’. I know you’re out there.”

The man with his pants down was still wrestling with the dog, and shrieking like a frightened spinster all the while. Emily looked down and spoke to the animal in a quiet, firm tone. Reluctantly, Spud withdrew, but he didn’t go far, and he kept looking from one outlaw to the other, awaiting his chance.

Ringstead cocked the pistol and thrust it harder against Emily’s neck. “You gonna make me shoot her, Saint-Laurent? A ladies’ man like you? Why, I don’t believe it!”

“All right,” Tristan shouted back. He stood and tossed the .45 down the hillside, and it struck the ground with an audible thump. “Let her go.” He started the descent, his hands raised.

Emily’s bright eyes widened with alarm when she saw him, then she squeezed them shut and shook her head slightly. Her lips formed a soundless word, once, then again. “No—no.”

“You know, Saint-Laurent,” Ringstead drawled, “I’ve always wished I had your way with the women. This one here’s uncommon pretty—you outdone yourself this time, yes indeedy.”

“I should have tracked you down a long time ago,” Tristan said evenly. He met Emily’s gaze and saw a reprimand there; she had not wanted him to come out of hiding. Of course, he couldn’t have done otherwise, and right then her opinion on the matter was of little concern anyhow. “I
believe the posters read, ‘Dead or Alive.’ The first will do as well as the second.”

Ringstead laughed, showing a row of tiny brown teeth and a lot of gum. “Looks like you’re goin’ to be the one that’s dead,” he observed. With the toe of his boot, he gave his partner a nudge calculated to bruise. “Get up, Homer. In case you ain’t noticed, we got the upper hand here.”

Emily flashed a warning look at Tristan and then bit said hand with as much force as she could. Ringstead bellowed a curse, and she brought her heel down hard on his instep for good measure. Tristan made a desperate dive for Emily and flung her to one side, and during that interval Ringstead recovered enough to raise and sight in the pistol. He was so close there was no need to take aim; he simply drew back the hammer.

“No!” Emily screamed.

A shot was fired, and Tristan waited for it to hit him. And waited.

Ringstead went down instead, graceful as a dancer, despite his bulky, awkward build, a crimson stain spreading across his chest and belly. Tristan realized that Black Eagle had just saved his life, but a shout from Emily brought his attention to the fact that the partner, heretofore wriggling on the ground, twisted up in his own pants, had gotten hold of the discarded .45.

“Put it down,” Tristan said calmly.

Emily had collected Ringstead’s gun, and she was standing over the other man, the pistol steady in her hands. “If you pull that trigger,” she told Homer, with bitter sincerity, “I will kill you.”

The outlaw considered his situation and then handed the .45 over to Tristan, butt first. Tristan jerked the man to his feet and tossed him to Black Eagle, who was ready with more rawhide to secure the prisoner’s hands and feet, but his attention, all of it, was fixed on Emily.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. They might have been alone, for all the notice he took of the world around him; it was
merely a pounding, blurry void, an aura of light at the edges of his vision.

She flung herself against him, hurled her arms around his neck and held on like a drowning swimmer. “They were saving me for after they killed you,” she replied, trembling against him. “Oh, Tristan, thank God you’re safe!”

He held her very tightly and closed his eyes for a moment, dizzy with relief. Then he thrust her to arm’s length and looked her over again. His fear had crested and then ebbed, but his mind was still spinning in the backwash. He opened his mouth to tell her precisely what he thought of her reckless interference, but she was alive, and unhurt except for a few bruises and scrapes, and that made the rest of it unimportant. He wrenched her close again and buried his face in her hair.

Black Eagle leaned over Ringstead’s body, peering at him curiously. “You knew this man?”

Tristan let Emily go at last and turned to look down at the dead outlaw. “I spent two years hunting him,” he answered numbly.

Emily came to stand beside Tristan, gazing anxiously into his face. She was a tough little thing; many other women would have swooned, or at least burst into tears, during and after such an ordeal, but she hadn’t given Ringstead’s corpse a second look. “Hunting?” she echoed.

He had not wanted her or anyone else—not even Shay—to know about his years as a bounty hunter, little better than a hired gun. But the choice had been taken from him; he would have to tell the tale, admit that for most of his life he had made his living by tracking men like any other prey, dragging them to the authorities when they would surrender, killing them when they wouldn’t. He had in fact enjoyed the hunt, the way he would a challenging chess match or a high-stakes game of cards, and as long as they’d been the first to draw, he hadn’t minded killing them, either.

“Tristan?” Emily prompted, when he didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her.

Finally, she turned away to crouch down in front of Spud, ruffling his fur gently and praising him. He gave a series of happy yips and licked her face until she laughed and struggled back to her feet.

Only later, when Ringstead’s body was strapped facedown onto his horse, and his more fortunate partner perched in his own saddle, with his hands bound to the saddle horn, did she press the point. Since she was riding behind Tristan, her arms tight around his waist, her mouth close to his ear, he could not pretend he didn’t hear her question.

“Are you going to tell me who you are?”

“Yes,” he answered, after a long time. “Later. At home.”

Mercifully, she settled for that.

The ranch house was a blessed sight to Emily, for she had not expected to see it again. Near the kitchen door, Tristan handed her down from the horse’s back without dismounting himself. Black Eagle kept a tactful distance, the exhausted Spud sprawled across his lap like a sack of grain.

“Shall I hold supper?” she asked.

He sighed and shook his head. “No.” He indicated the dead man and the prisoner with a grim nod. “Shay will have a lot of questions, Emily. Black Eagle and I left a few bodies scattered around today, and that calls for some explaining.”

She pressed her lips together briefly, biting back a protest, and then managed a wobbly smile. “Thank you for coming after me, Tristan. Even though it was a stupid thing to do.”

He gave her a wry look. “We’ll discuss stupid things to do when I get back,” he said. “Save me a slice of that rhubarb pie, unless Fletcher and Polymarr have already gotten to it.”

Her eyes burned, and she blinked a couple of times. Spud leaped down from Black Eagle’s horse and limped over to her, dirty and sore and all but spent by the afternoon’s heroics. “Hurry back,” she said to Tristan, and started toward the house, walking slowly so the dog could keep up.

There was plenty to occupy her hands, but her mind was with Tristan while she washed Spud’s wounds again, and treated them with medicine, while she took a sponge bath in
the spare room and changed into another of the dresses Aislinn had given her. Downstairs, in the kitchen, she peeled potatoes and turnips and put them in a pan of cold, salted water to be boiled later.

The sun was setting when Fletcher rapped shyly at the open door and found her sitting at the table, her hands folded in front of her, staring into space. She started, then summoned up a smile.

“I brung you these here grouse,” he said, and held up a brace of birds, already plucked and cleaned. “They’re good when you fry ’em in bacon grease.”

Emily had not thought beyond the turnips and potatoes, and she was genuinely pleased by the boy’s gift and the generous spirit behind it. “How wonderful,” she said. “Thank you. If you’ll give me half an hour, I’ll have a meal on the table.”

Fletcher swallowed, and she knew he was going to ask about Ringstead and his companion. There was no way to stem the question; it was a marvel that he’d waited this long to approach her. “Looked like there was trouble up in the hills today. Sounded like it, too.”

Emily met his eyes. “Everything’s fine now,” she said soothingly, and hoped she was telling the truth. She had a feeling that her whole future depended upon what Tristan would say when he came home that night. “I’d better get busy,” she said, with forced good cheer, “if we’re going to have supper anytime soon.”