Authors: Christine Michels
She was just leading the horse outside in preparation for mounting when Metter shouted, "Mrs. Sterne?"
She turned. "Yes?"
He came forward in a fast walk. "I blame near forgot to tell you that the sheriff said he'd catch up with you on the road. He had to ride out 'fore dawn this mornin'.” Metter frowned. "There was more trouble last night. Some of Joshua Kane's men surprised them rustlers, and Jamie Cox got hisself shot right outa his saddle. He was a damn good hand too, if you'll pardon me for swearin' ma'am."
"Of course, Mr. Metter. Is he. . . deceased then?"
Metter nodded. "Deader 'n a doornail.” He shook his head sadly. "What a waste.” Then taking a deep breath he returned to the message at hand. "Anyways, ma'am, the sheriff asked me to tell ya to just stay on the road and be careful until he can join ya. Okay?"
Delilah nodded and mounted. "I'm always careful, Mr. Metter. However, I do thank you for the message."
"Yer welcome, ma'am."
Metter stared after the straight-backed young widow as she rode out of town. Somehow he didn't doubt her words. Not one bit. If he was a betting man, he'd bet there was more to Mrs. Sterne than met the eye. Way more. He sent a prayer of thanks winging heavenward that he had a good, solid woman waiting for him at home who was exactly what she seemed to be. Then, with a shake of his head, he dismissed the young widow from his mind and returned to his barn. There were stalls to muck out and halters to mend.
* * *
Samson studied the area in which he'd lost the trail. Nothing. Not the scuff of a shod hoof on stone. Not a broken twig. Not a single print. He'd lost them.
How could three men on horseback simply disappear? It didn't make sense.
Samson scanned the surrounding rocky bluffs for the umpteenth time. What was he missing?
But he saw nothing.
With a frown, he conceded defeat for the moment. Checking the position of the morning sun, he decided it was time to be on his way. He wanted to be back in Red Rock by the end of the day, and he had a goodly distance to go yet to get to the Lazy M. The Lazy M, like a number of other ranches in the vicinity, had been losing cattle to rustlers. And Carter McTaggert had demanded to see Sheriff Chambers about the latest theft. With the herds so seriously depleted after the winter just past, no one could afford the loss. Not even McTaggert, who up until this spring had been one of the area’s most affluent and tyrannical ranchers. Of course, he still tended to be tyrannical. It was just the affluent part that had changed a mite.
But there was another reason Samson was anxious to be moving too. And that reason came in the form of a pretty young black-haired widow who was travelling his way.
Damn! The woman infuriated and enticed him at the same time.
With a cluck of his tongue, Samson set his horse, Goliath, into motion and did his best to ignore the sense of exhilaration invoked by the thought of once again meeting Mrs. Delilah Sterne. But, as his memory plagued him with a vision of how she'd looked the previous evening in the Lucky Strike, he discovered that ignoring his anticipation at seeing her again was not an easy thing to do.
He'd been surprised to see her still in her high-necked, concealing widow's garb. And yet, as the evening progressed, it became quite evident that she'd not needed the artifice he'd expected. Delilah Sterne, quite simply, had made the saloon her parlor. She'd had a calming influence on the men gathered there, and no one present would have ever suggested that Mrs. Sterne was anything other than a lady.
She was simply a lady who also happened to be a gambler.
And that was where the problem lay. He could not abide gamblers. Yet he couldn't deny the fact that he found Delilah Sterne damnably attractive. How did he reconcile the one with the other?
At that moment, Goliath went skittish on him, pulling at the reins and chomping at the bit as he side-stepped on the rocky mountain trail. Fighting to control the draft-size horse, Samson's attention returned to the present with a snap as he scanned the area, searching for the reason behind the big animal's distress.
The screaming roar of a mountain lion pierced his consciousness at the same instant that a streak of tawny fur launched itself toward him from a ledge above. There was no time to spur Goliath into motion. No time to draw his gun. No time for anything more than twisting to meet the attack as he kicked his feet free of the stirrups so that he could roll with the force of the big cat's strike.
And then he hit the ground with a couple of hundred pounds of raging, screaming wildcat upon him. Samson was desperate. Even as big as he was, a seething, savage cougar bent on his demise offered a significant danger.
Ignoring the painful but less-life-threatening damage the beast's claws inflicted as they raked his chest and arms, Samson wrapped his fingers around its neck and concentrated on keeping its deadly fangs away from his throat.
Something was wrong here. Mountain lions rarely attacked people, and almost never one on horseback. But the instant Sam saw the blood-flecked foam edging the snarling creature's mouth, he knew the reason for its assault.
Rabies.
His heart almost stopped.
He felt the cat's warm breath on his face as he stared into wild, hate-filled golden-green eyes. Tightening his grasp, he felt the corded muscle in the neck beneath his fingers, the heaviness of the animal's body upon him, and the heat of its fur against his bare forearms. And he saw the exact moment that the lion realized the tables had been turned. Yet still it fought on, the unreasoning madness induced by the rabies eradicating any instinct for self-preservation and survival.
Had the animal been healthy, Samson would have hesitated to kill it. Most cougars would have run as soon as he'd begun to fight back. They preferred to kill swiftly, taking their prey by surprise. But this animal made the choice for him. It would not run.
Altering the grip of his fingers slightly, he twisted the big cat's neck. Then, with a final jerk, he snapped its vertebrae. As the coiled tension faded from the beast's body, Samson thrust its carcass aside and sat up.
He immediately jerked his shredded shirt from his body and began a diligent search for any hint of a bite that had broken the skin. He had seen a man die from rabies once, and he'd sworn that he'd put a gun to his head and pull the trigger before he'd let himself die like that.
No bites. Nothing. And he didn't think any of the animal's disease-tainted slobber had fallen onto the scratches inflicted by its claws. He was winded and scratched up pretty good, and the left thigh of his denims had been shredded, but otherwise he was all right.
Closing his eyes briefly, he exhaled in relief. Then he scanned the rocky slopes for his horse. Goliath was nowhere to be seen. The horse had been well-trained, however, and Samson knew he wouldn't have gone far. Putting his fingers to his lips, he released a series of piercing whistles, then leaned back to catch his breath while he waited.
Moments later, his sweat-flecked mount came clopping up the trail. If a horse could look sheepish, Goliath did. Still, he stopped a healthy distance away from the corpse of the lion. Samson rose, wincing as the scratches began to bother him, and discovered a few new aches and pains as well. Somehow, he seemed to have hurt his thigh. Probably when he'd been propelled out of the saddle. Limping over to his hat, which had been knocked off in the struggle, he slapped the dust from it and put it back on. Then he turned to Goliath.
The horse's head hung nearly to his knees. Goliath always seemed so ashamed of himself in the aftermath of an incident when horse instinct took over that Sam thought the animal must be part human. "It's okay, boy," he soothed as he stroked Goliath's sweaty neck. "It's okay."
Reassured, Goliath lifted his head and tugged affectionately with his lips at the shirt Samson held in his hands. There wasn't much left of the garment. The fabric had been cut to ribbons by the cougar's sharp claws.
Opening his saddle bag, Samson removed the blue chambray shirt that he always carried as a spare and considered. He needed to do something to stop the bleeding before putting on his clean shirt, or he'd simply have two ruined shirts. He'd bind the wounds with his torn shirt and hope that would suffice.
* * *
Delilah had been on the trail, more generously termed a road, for a couple of hours, and there was one thing she could now say with certainty. Montana territory contained some of the most beautiful country she'd ever seen.
Majestic
was the only word she could find to describe it. From its enormous blue sky to its distant snowy mountain peaks, it was an endless vista of natural beauty. She saw deep green forests, valleys bright with new grass and spring flowers, and colorful rocky crags striated with multi-hued stone. She saw bighorn sheep, bald eagles, and a herd of deer. A gaggle of Canada geese, a pair of bluebirds, and a porcupine. At every turn, as each new vista became visible, she gasped anew at some glorious sight.
She was observing a trickle of glacial mountain water that seemed to ooze from a rock face next to the road when suddenly she heard the sound of a horse approaching. Glancing over her shoulder, she immediately recognized the sheriff's form for, even at a distance, he looked enormous. After waging a brief internal struggle, Delilah pulled up and politely waited for him to join her, though she found herself averting her eyes as he drew closer. Knowing the effect that his strange steely-eyed gaze had on her, the last thing she wanted to do was meet his eyes.
"Good morning, Sheriff," she said, barely sparing him a glance, as he drew abreast of her.
"Ma'am.” He greeted her with a nod.
Did his voice seem somehow tight? "Did you catch the rustlers?"
"No, ma'am. Lost the trail."
Delilah set Jackpot into motion and the sheriff followed suit with his huge black horse. Yes, there was some new aspect to his voice, but she was uncertain what it was. "That's unfortunate.” Grief perhaps? "Did you know Mr. Cox well?"
"Just in passing, ma'am."
"Is something wrong, Sheriff Chambers?"
Silence. Then, "Nothing you should concern yourself about, ma'am."
Delilah's lips tightened. A condescending male response if she'd ever heard one. "I assure you, Sheriff, that I am quite capable of understanding the intricacies of law enforcement. My father was a bounty hunter."
No response. Delilah risked a glance in his direction. Did he seem paler than he had earlier?
"I'm afraid you've lost me, Mrs. Sterne," he said as he met her gaze. "Were we talking law enforcement?"
Delilah quickly looked away. "I believe so, Sheriff. Unless whatever is bothering you has nothing to do with your profession."
"Actually it doesn't, ma'am."
"Then, pray tell, what does it have to do with?"
Silence.
Delilah looked over at him to see that he was eyeing her consideringly. This time his dark eyes caught hers and held. Her heart fluttered, robbing her of the ability to breathe properly. Desperately, she sought the thread of their conversation. "Well?" she prodded.
"Well what, ma'am?"
"Are you going to tell me what is bothering you, or not?” She frowned. He definitely looked a bit pale beneath his tan. "You don't look well, sir. Are you ill?"
He eyed her for a moment and then appeared to come to a decision. "In a manner of speaking, ma'am.” He mopped his brow. "I got jumped by a rabid cougar back there."
"Jumped by a . . . ," Delilah broke off as the words sank in. "Good heavens! Were you bitten?"
He shook his head. "Scratched up pretty good, but not bitten."
A horrifying possibility occurred to her and she hastily scanned the area. "Is it still alive?"
"No, ma'am."
"Thank goodness!” Her most immediate fear eased, Delilah turned her attention once more to the man at her side who was quite obviously in considerable pain. More concerned than she ought to have been, but refusing to examine that emotion, Delilah sought a suitable place to stop and spotted a downed tree. "Pull up over there. I want to take a look at those scratches."
She urged Jackpot in the indicated direction, then dismounted and secured him to a nearby tree limb. Turning, she expected to see Sheriff Chambers behind her, but he wasn't there. Rather, he was still sitting astride his mount in the middle of the narrow road they'd been following, watching her expressionlessly. "Are you coming, Sheriff?"
"I've already bandaged the scratches."
Delilah placed her hands on her hips. "Really? You cleansed them, disinfected them, and bound them with clean cloth."
A pause. "I can't rightly say I disinfected them. I didn't think about it."
"Just as I thought. Do you have any whiskey in those saddlebags of yours?"
"I might have a bit."
"Good. Then I suggest you allow me to look after those scratches before they fester."
"You think it's that important?"
Delilah nodded. "Unquestionably, Sheriff. My mother saw two brothers die during the war from infections that she was positive could have been prevented. She made certain her daughters understood the importance of cleansing any wound."
He looked away, staring off toward a distant mountain peak. Delilah waited. Then, with a small shake of his head, the sheriff nudged his horse toward her and dismounted slowly, his face tensing with the pain of his injuries. After dropping his reins to ground-tether his mount, he removed the whiskey bottle from his saddlebag and turned to face her. "Over there?" he asked, indicating the fallen tree.