Autumn Lover (31 page)

“I’m here,” she said in a low voice. “I was—worried—about you.”

Hunter let out a long breath.

“So was I,” he said. “I was lucky. Damned lucky. All of us were.”

“Yes, suh,” Morgan said. His smile flashed again. “We’ll all be churchgoing, Bible-thumping sons of God from now on.”

Hunter’s smile was rather grim.

“You were the luckiest of all,” Elyssa said to Hunter. “I’m surprised those raiders let you through.”

“They couldn’t see enough of me to shoot at. I was hanging on the side of a mule.”

What Hunter didn’t say was that there had been no need for the Culpeppers to waste a good mule in order to kill him. They had the ranch surrounded, all ways out blocked, and all the time in the world.

They could kill Hunter—and everyone else on the Ladder S—at their leisure.

“Those Culpepper boys value their mules too much to kill one just to get at Hunter,” Morgan said. “If you were riding Bugle Boy, though…”

“That’s what I thought,” Hunter said. “Bugle Boy is too good a stud to kill on a stunt like that, so I just stripped off his tack and turned him loose.”

“How did you get a mule?” Elyssa asked.

Hunter’s smile was as cold as a knife coming out of its sheath.

“They were beating the brush for me,” he explained.

A chill went over Elyssa as she thought of Hunter being pursued like an animal.

“I came up out of cover,” Hunter said, “pulled off the mule’s rider, and sifted into the shadows. By the time the raiders figured out what had happened, it was too late to stop me.”

“What now, suh?” Morgan asked.

“Divide the men up. You know the drill.”

“Yes, suh. I sure do.”

“I
see fire,” Case yelled.

Then, moments later, Case called out the bad news.

“Hunter, they’re going to burn us out! I’m going up on the roof!”

“Mickey,” Hunter yelled. “Start opening water barrels. The rest of you, stop the men carrying torches!”

The men moved to carry out Hunter’s orders, but not as quickly as he wished. Three days of battling the raiders had worn the Ladder S men down to the bone. Half of the raiders could sleep while half fired at the ranch house.

It took every Ladder S man to defend the place.

In the cellar dispensary, Elyssa went down the row of sleeping men, quickly waking the ones who were fit to fight.

“Upstairs,” Elyssa said in a low, urgent voice. “The raiders are coming with torches.”

The men rolled off the cots fully dressed. They grabbed the weapons they had stacked by the stairway and ran up the steps.

Penny sat up on the last cot in the row. Her eyes were dazed with exhaustion.

“What is it?” Penny asked.

“Raiders.”

“Again?”

“Get into those pants I brought you,” Elyssa said. “We may have to leave. A skirt will just be in the way.”

“Leave? But—”

Penny was talking to empty air. Elyssa had turned and was running up the stairs, her carbine in her hand.

When Elyssa stepped out into the first floor, she didn’t notice the crack of rifle fire and the sound of brass casings hitting the floor. The sounds of battle had become so familiar to her that they no longer registered.

The first man Elyssa saw was Hunter. She ignored the kick of her heart and the shivery sensation in the pit of her stomach that came at seeing him. She had been very careful not to make any special claims on Hunter’s time and attention just because they were lovers.

Hunter had slept little since the first attack. He barely sat down to eat. He spent most of his time on his feet, walking from man to man, checking on their needs. If he stopped to talk, it was about angles of fire and rationing ammunition and shifting watches to accommodate men whose stamina had given out.

Elyssa knew that the demands on Hunter were so great he barely had time to breathe, much less to soothe the fears of a girl whose only claim was on his sexuality.

A carefully shielded lantern provided the sole illumination in the kitchen, which had become Hunter’s command post. The red light gave a hellish tint to everything.

In a single yearning look, Elyssa memorized Hunter’s face. His black hair was disheveled, as though he had just run his fingers through it. His skin was drawn tautly over his cheekbones and forehead. His jaw had a black shadow of beard. He had dark smudges beneath his eyes, yet the clarity of his glance was unchanged. He gave orders in a quick, calm tone.

“Ma’am?” Sonny said. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs?”

“I can shoot as well as most men here and considerably better than the men who are still downstairs.”

Sonny started to argue. A curt order from Hunter sent the young man running to his post.

“Go downstairs,” Hunter said to Elyssa.

“I’m more use up here.”

Hunter hesitated. He wanted Elyssa down in the cellar, where it was safer. But he needed more riflemen, especially now.

If the house caught fire, everyone in it would die.

“Morgan,” Hunter said.

“Yo.”

“Take Case’s post upstairs. Elyssa will take yours.”

Morgan grabbed his rifle and extra ammunition, tipped his hat to Elyssa, and went past her to the stairway.

Without a word to Hunter, Elyssa went to Morgan’s post and looked out.

The mountains loomed over everything, blacker than night itself. Elyssa was surprised to see that it was still dark. Time had lost all meaning down in the cellar, where night and day were the same.

Overhead came the sound of rifle fire as Case spotted a torch. Elyssa saw it too. The raider must have been coming at a gallop toward the ranch house. The torch bobbed and jerked at each lunging stride.

Abruptly the torch flipped end over end, fell to the ground, and lay there burning sullenly.

Rifle fire came from all sides now as other men rushed toward the house with torches. Elyssa fired at the raider who was nearest. So did the men on either side of her. She didn’t know who hit the raider. She only knew that the torch came no closer.

It was the first of many attacks. Sometimes the raiders
were merely feinting to draw fire or to cover a more earnest attempt from another quarter. Some of the raiders came at a gallop. Some came at a trot.

The smartest crawled forward on their bellies with unlighted torches. Only after they were next to the house did they set the torches ablaze. That was when the cry for buckets would go out inside the house.

Methodically Elyssa fired, reloaded, fired, and thought of nothing else. When she ran out of ammunition, she called for more like the other men.

It was Penny who brought the ammunition. Every other able-bodied person was either hauling water or firing at the raiders.

By the time dawn came, Elyssa was so tired she was leaning against the shutter just to stay upright. Her arm muscles were locked and trembling from the strain of keeping the carbine leveled and ready to shoot at any instant.

Tongues of fire licked downwind from the ranch. The house itself was scorched in places, but intact. The same couldn’t be said of the grasslands and some of the piñon uplands. They were burned blacker than night. The rising wind stirred ashes and lifted smoke to the sky.

In the end, it was the wind that had saved the Ladder S from the raiders. At dawn the wind had shifted, driving the fire from fallen torches back at the raiders.

Numbly Elyssa wondered who the wind would favor tomorrow night.

“
Elyssa
.”

She turned her head toward the voice. As she did, she realized that it wasn’t the first time her name had been called. It was merely the first time she had noticed.

Hunter’s breath came in hard when Elyssa turned toward him. Her eyes had the blank stare of exhaustion that he had seen before, when men were pushed too
hard, too long. He wondered when she had last eaten. Or slept.

Belatedly Hunter realized that he had kept track of the men under his command, but hadn’t thought to do the same with Elyssa. He hadn’t thought it would be necessary, because she wasn’t standing watches.

So, like Hunter, Elyssa had ended up sleeping and eating less than the men around her.

Gently he lifted the carbine from her hands.

“It’s over for now,” Hunter said gently. “Go get something to eat.”

“The men…cellar.”

“Gimp is seeing to them.”

“Penny?” Elyssa whispered.

“She’s asleep. You should be, too.”

Elyssa looked at Hunter, but her eyes didn’t focus. She closed them, leaned her forehead against the shutter, and wondered how she would have the strength to walk down the stairs.

Same way the men do
, Elyssa told herself wearily,
One step at a time.

She pushed away from the shutter and started taking one step at a time. But it was toward the cellar she walked, not toward her bedroom.

Hunter reached out to stop Elyssa. At the last minute he withdrew his hand. The wounded men needed tending after the long night. Someone had to do it. Elyssa had the skill.

Cursing silently, Hunter headed for the upstairs.

Case looked up as his brother walked quietly into the nursery. The men no longer noticed the stark contrast made by mounds of spent rifle shells stacked in a cradle and butterflies dancing over the walls.

“Let me start going out at night,” Case said without preamble. “I can guarantee there will be less raiders before dawn.”

“Not yet.”

“When.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a blunt demand.

“When there’s no other chance left and not a moment before,” Hunter said just as bluntly.

“Just what chance are you seeing that I’m missing? We damn near burned to the ground last night.”

There was no anger in Case’s voice, no hope of a miracle, no real curiosity as to his own fate. He simply wanted to know what he had overlooked that Hunter hadn’t.

“The army could get interested after three days of gunfire and columns of smoke coming from Ladder S lands,” Hunter said tersely. “Even a drunk has to have noticed.”

Case made a sound of disgust.

“The army is on the far side of the Rubies, chasing Indians and making maps,” Case pointed out. “The handful of men left at Camp Halleck doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about the Ladder S.”

Hunter didn’t argue.

Nor could he bring himself to send Case out to his death alone.

“When you go,” Hunter said. “I’m going with you.”

“No. You’re needed here.”

“Morgan can—”

“
No.
”

Case’s interruption was soft and final.

“The only way you can stop me,” Hunter pointed out calmly, “is to kill me.”

“What about Elyssa?” Case asked. “Have you thought about her?”

Hunter’s eyelids flinched. Between battles with the raiders, he had found some time to think about Elyssa.

Not one of his thoughts had been comforting.

During the long days and nights of the siege, Elyssa
hadn’t spoken to Hunter of love. She made no special effort to come and stand near him, to talk to him, to touch him, to take comfort from his presence or to give him comfort in turn.

Elyssa hadn’t even rushed into his arms after he had outrun raiders by riding a mule right to the kitchen door. She simply had said she was “worried” about him.

Nor had Elyssa turned to Hunter this morning, when she was so tired she could barely stand up. She had walked by him as though he was a stranger.

No wonder she didn’t want to marry me after we made love in the cave,
Hunter thought bleakly.
She had already figured out that she didn’t really love me.

But she wanted me. God, I’ve never been wanted like that by a woman.

Brave, passionate, reckless…and too damned young to know her own mind. I knew that from the first time I laid eyes on her, but I couldn’t stop wanting her.

It’s just as well she stopped thinking she loved me. Sure as hell I would have married her.

Sure as hell we both would have regretted it.

Too young. Elyssa and Belinda are alike in that, if in no other way.

Sin in haste and repent forever.

“Well?” Case pressed. “What about Elyssa?”

“She’s young,” Hunter said neutrally. “Whether I live or die, she’ll be over me before Christmas.”

Case’s left eyebrow rose in a black arc.

“You haven’t slept worth mentioning for three days,” Case said. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“I’ve gotten as much sleep as you.”

“Is that what Elyssa said?” Case persisted. “That she doesn’t love you?”

Hunter’s eyes darkened as he heard again Elyssa’s denial of her previous declaration of love.

We’re just lovers.

He didn’t know why Elyssa’s statement should cut him so deeply. He only knew that it did.

“Yes,” Hunter said distinctly. “That’s what Elyssa said.”

Case started to speak, then shook his head. He made no claim to understanding women, but Elyssa had seemed different, at least where Hunter was concerned.

“She fooled me,” Case said finally.

In silence he looked from rifle slit to rifle slit. The openings were a vivid contrast to the dark shutters. The light coming into the room was blue-white, intense, pure; burning fragments of the brilliant autumn morning.

“When it’s full dark,” Case said, “I’m going out. I’ve an idea where I might find Ab.”

Hunter closed his eyes for an instant, then nodded.

“We’ll go at full dark,” he agreed bleakly, knowing it would be the last thing he ever did.

When Hunter looked around the dispensary that afternoon, six of the seven cots were occupied. Some of the men were merely sleeping. Others were injured. Fox was one of them. He had taken a bullet in his side and was in the grip of pain and fever.

Despite that, Hunter expected Fox to be on his feet in a day or two. The war had taught Hunter that a few days generally told the story with wounds. Heal or die.

Penny walked by each cot, checking the men. Her quiet competence was as comforting to the gunfighters as the gentle touch of her fingers on fevered skin.

“Where is Elyssa?” Hunter asked in a low voice.

“I made her go to bed hours ago. She hadn’t slept for nearly two days.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I’ve had more sleep than anybody.”

Hunter looked around the dispensary again. No one needed him here.

He needed no one here.

“Hunter?”

He turned back to Penny.

“We aren’t going to make it, are we?” Penny asked quietly.

“Case and I are going to change the odds.”

“How?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Penny looked at Hunter’s eyes. Quickly she looked away.

“When?” she whispered.

“Tonight.”

She bit her lip and nodded. Then she looked up at him with beseeching eyes.

“If you find Bill out there,” she whispered painfully, “remember that…”

Penny’s voice died.

“I don’t expect to find Bill,” Hunter said carefully. “He wouldn’t help the Culpeppers rape and murder his own daughter.”

Tears ran down Penny’s cheeks.

“You think he’s dead, don’t you?” she whispered. “You think they killed him.”

“I don’t know. Neither do you. Bill knows this land better than anyone else alive. If he’s half-smart, he went to ground as soon as he was sure the Culpeppers were going to attack.”

Blindly Penny nodded. Tremors ran through her, telling of the strain she was under.

“Penny?”

“I’m all right,” she whispered.

Hunter drew Penny into a gentle hug.

At first she resisted. Then she put her face against Hunter’s chest and wept for all that had never been…and likely never would be.

After a time Penny stirred, blotted her cheeks with her
palms, and gave Hunter a watery smile. Then she pushed away from him and began walking slowly up the row of sleeping men again, checking them for signs of fever.