Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WayWard Wind (10 page)

Snake’s eyes narrowed. “I never forget a man I’ve tumbled and you ain’t one of ‘em.” She swept her attention down him. “But you look familiar.”

“Don’t guess there’s any reason you’d remember me,” Starnes said. “I was one of the young fools who came up for the Yukon rush. When I could afford it, I visited your place in Dawson City.”

The old woman smiled. “And damned sure got your money’s worth, I’d say.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Starnes agreed. “I always did.” His gaze shifted once more to Peyton. “Is this your granddaughter, then?”

“My grandson’s wife,” Snake stated. “She weren’t one of my sporting gals and neither was her ma. She’s quality folk.”

Starnes just nodded to the statement. “So Harper is Anna-Lucia’s son. How is she?”

“Dead,” Snake said.

The tall man winced. “Sorry to hear it. She was my ….”

“Let’s stop this jawing and get down to it, Jack,” Snake interrupted. “My grandson is out there and may be in dangerous hands.”

“All right,” Starnes said, sweeping a hand toward the lobby settees. “Why don’t we…?”

“Why don’t we talk about this while we’re shaking the dust of this town off our backsides?” Snake snapped.

Starnes’ eyebrows shot up. “You two are coming with me?”

“We sure as hell are,” Snake said and started for the door.

* * * *

For a man who had been a tracker for the U.S. Cavalry before deciding one day he’d had enough being yelled at, Jack Starnes was good at what he did. It didn’t take him long to discover the smudged earth where Harper had fallen, the drag marks left by the toes of his boots, the tracks of the horses and the trail they led out of town.

“There are three of them like the boy said and they’ve got Harper on a fourth horse. My gut tells me they knocked him out and he’s slung across his mount,” Starnes said as he pushed up from the ground where he’d been kneeling. He settled his hat my firmly on his head of salt and pepper hair. “He won’t be a happy fellow when he comes to.”

They had gone to the livery and though Harper had sold their horses to the man there in anticipation of leaving, managed to buy back Peyton’s and Snake’s steeds. Before long, they were riding beside Starnes who now had the full story of Sloan Harper.

“I imagine you’re right, Miss Peyton,” he had said. “These are most likely your father’s men sent to fetch Harper. Rangers wouldn’t have knocked him out.” His eyebrows slashed together. “My question is why they didn’t fetch you, too.”

Peyton had wondered the same thing and as they galloped across the Mexican countryside, following a well-used trail that led to the border, she couldn’t help but fear for Harper’s safety.

* * * *

His head swimming and aching unmercifully, Harper hit the ground hard as he was dragged off the horse, landing flat on his back. He growled behind the gag, glaring at the man standing over him.

“Getting more’n your taste of dirt tonight, ain’t you, Harper?” the man inquired with a snort.

Reaching up with his bound hands to pull the gag from between his throbbing jaws, Harper had little moisture in his dry mouth, but he wasn’t going to give his captors any satisfaction in cursing them. He worked his chin back and forth to relieve the ache. If the man tormenting him had been closer, Harper would have lifted his bound feet and kicked out at him, but the man was keeping his distance.

“You gotta have more balls than smarts kidnapping Dalton’s old maid daughter,” the man quipped. “Gonna pay richly for it, too.”

He’d known the moment he came to that it wasn’t lawmen who had him, but he’d figured it was bounty hunters. Hearing they were Dalton’s goons made his blood run cold. That they hadn’t brought Peyton along with them concerned him.

“Where’s my wife?” he asked, his voice husky.

“Dalton didn’t want her. Went and cut his ties to her,” the man replied with a careless shrug. “Guess he don’t want your leavings, huh?”

That news disturbed Harper. There would be no going home for Peyton if this went bad--and it looked as though it was going to. Although he knew Snake would take good care of her, knowing her father had disowned her made him feel guilty. He had set out to ruin her life and it appeared he had.

“We’re gonna take you up to one of Dalton’s line shacks,” the man informed Harper. “He wants you where no one is going to interfere if they hear you screaming when he starts in on your stupid ass.”

The other two men chuckled at their leader’s remark. They were cinching their saddles, taking a break, letting their horses drink from a small stream.

“Almost caught your ass up in Brownsville,” the leader said. “Did you know that? Kitterling saw you at the bank and recognized you. He came running to tell us, but you was already galloping outta town. Trailed you back across the border, but you gave us a slip there for awhile. Luckily them greasers heard tell you were heading for Tampico else we might have missed you. Made it there a’fore you and was waiting for you to show.”

Harper was afraid to ask after the Villareals, the family to whom he’d left the cabin. He hope these men hadn’t harmed them. Thinking how close he’d come to having them take him in Brownsville made his belly clench.

“What’s the matter, Harper?” the leader inquired. “You look like you’re gonna be sick.” He looked to his accomplices. “Get him up and astride the horse,” he said.

“How’s he gonna ride with his legs tied?” one of the men asked.

The leader turned his head and hawked up a glob of yellowish phlegm and spat it out. “Do I gotta tell you everything, Hendricks?” he snarled. “Untie his fucking feet and then toss him up on the nag.” He pointed a grubby finger at his men. “But watch him. He thinks he’s a sly one.” He drew his gun and aimed it at Harper. “I’ll take out a kneecap if you so much as look at my men the wrong way.”

Knowing he wouldn’t have a chance to get free, Harper made no move to fight the men as one plopped a foot down on his belly, pinioning Harper’s hands, while the other man put a boot on Harper’s shin to hold his legs down as his ankles were untied.

“Hurry it up,” the leader ordered. “We ain’t got all night. And it’s a long ride to Texas.”

Stepping back quickly, the men took hold of Harper and dragged him to his feet, hustled him over to the horse.

“Get your ass up there,” one of the men hissed.

Lifting his foot to the stirrup, Harper reached his bound hands up to the pommel and swung into the saddle. He would have kicked the beast into motion if the other man hadn’t been holding the reins securely.

As they sprinted across the dark desert beneath a slice of a moon, Harper knew he was screwed. Without a gun, his hands tied, he was helpless and was beginning to taste fear in the back of his throat.

Jack Starnes glimpsed at the old woman and marveled at her stamina. Though she wobbled in the saddle from time to time, she refused to allow him to stop except to water the horses.

“We’ll stop when we’re closer to them varmints,” she’d thrown at him as she reluctantly slid down from her mount so it could drink.

“They’re making good time, Miss Coronella,” Starnes said. “We won’t catch up to them that easily. We’re gonna have to rest and let the horses rest.”

“And we know where they’re going,” Peyton said quietly.

“I suppose old man Dalton will be sweet as molasses to the boy once they get him up there, huh?” Snake spat at her. “They won’t hurt him none at all.”

Peyton felt tears gathering in her eyes, but she said nothing, lowering her head from Snake’s angry glower.

* * * *

The three men who had captured him rode through the night then into an outlaw hideout that welcomed them with open arms late the next morning. The horses were winded, sides heaving, when the leader--Harper learned his name was Trace Elliott--bartered for four fresh ones.

“Don’t think we’re being followed, but just in case,” Elliott told the outlaw boss, “I’d be much obliged if you’d take care of the matter should any trackers happen this way.”

“Sure thing, Trace,” the outlaw replied. He fondled the gun slung low on his hip. He nudged his chin toward Harper. “You taking him in for the bounty?”

Harper looked up from the place where he was sitting on the ground. He didn’t think he knew the man and thought it was just a guess on the outlaw’s part.

“In a manner of speaking,” Elliott answered. “Fucked with a rich man’s daughter and Papa’s gonna bore him a new one, I’m thinking.”

“Where’s the daughter?”

“Left her fat ass down in Tampico,” Elliott said. “She’ll most likely be in one of the whorehouses next time you get there.”

Fury radiated from Harper and he dug his fingernails into the palms of his bound hands. Hearing Peyton spoken about in such a way made him want to kill Elliott even more than he already did.

“You gonna ride out again?” the outlaw asked, surprised when Elliott’s men began saddling the new mounts. “You look as tired as a one legged clogger.”

“Can’t be helped. Can’t take the time to sleep right now,” Elliott said. “Just in case we are being shadowed. We’ll stop tonight.”

Rain came later that afternoon, forcing them to stop. They’d made good time up until then, but the weather was just too harsh and the riders too tired. Harper had nearly fallen from his own horse a couple of times.

Hobbling their captive’s ankles, making sure he was bound tightly enough so he couldn’t escape, Elliott and one of his men hit their bedrolls while the third man kept guard.

Harper lay on the ground without the benefit of a blanket and stared up at the ceiling of the cave in which they’d taken refuge. His bonds were so tight his fingers were losing feeling, but he didn’t think they’d accommodate him by loosing the rawhide thongs. The only compassion--if you could call it by so gentle a name--they showed him was when he had to piss. It was difficult to relieve himself with his wrists tied, but he’d gotten fairly good at it. He hoped the late morning meal of beans and tortillas they’d shoved at him wouldn’t start working on him any time soon.

He closed his eyes, wondering what Peyton and Snake were doing. He knew they’d try to follow him, thinking--as he had--that it had been Rangers who’d taken him, hoping to somehow free him. By now, he was sure Snake would have reasoned it wasn’t a lawman, but Dalton who had had him snatched. That the old woman would attempt a rescue, he had no doubt and that worried him. He drifted off to a restless sleep thinking of Peyton riding hell bent for leather toward him, her face filled with terror.

* * * *

Peyton took aim at the rattlesnake and blew its head off, easing Harper’s gun back into the holster before turning to Starnes. “Didn’t you hear it whistling at you, Jack?” she asked.

Starnes peeled off his hat and armed the sweat from his brow. “Yes, ma’am, I heard it. You beat me to the draw.”

“Lucky shot,” Snake guffawed.

Once more Peyton took the gun from the holster, pointed it at the arm of a cactus and blew away the top of the spiny appendage. She holstered the gun and kicked her mount into motion. “Lucky shot my foot,” she commented.

Snake gave an unladylike snort and drummed her heels into the sides of her own mare. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that, girl?” she shouted, but Peyton was already too far ahead to hear.

Starnes let the women get a bit ahead of him before nudging his gelding to catch up to them. He glanced at the path that led to Swift Albert Hancock’s hideout and hoped the women didn’t notice it. There was no way he’d ride into that den of thieves and murderers with two females in tow though Al was a nodding acquaintance. The trail they’d been following most likely led that way, but he was fairly sure the men and their captive were long gone before now. The rain that had caught him and the women would have stopped the men holding Harper as well and washed out tracks Starnes no longer needed to see. Like Harper’s wife said, they knew where the men were headed.

They stopped at night fall of the fourth day on the trail and had a plate of beans and a few bites of jerky. The coffee was so strong you could have dissolved a knife blade in it, but it helped to revive them as they sat around their campfire. Pushing their horses as they were was beginning to worry Starnes and he had it in his mind to get fresh mounts in the next village they came to. Glancing across at Peyton, he smiled slightly. The woman had started off at Tampico as a concern to him for it was obvious she was not a horsewoman, but now, she rode the little roan as though she’d been born and bred in the saddle. He wondered how she’d do with a sturdier, bigger animal.

“What you thinking, Jack?” Snake asked him.

“I been considering that we need to change up on our horses,” he replied and saw Peyton look around at him. “We can’t keep up this pace without harming the beasts.”

“I was considering that, too,” Snake said. “Seems like a wise decision to me.”

“You gonna be all right with that, Miss Peyton?” Starnes asked.

“I’ll have to be, don’t you think?” Peyton countered.

“Good woman,” Snake complimented then stretched out on her bedroll and pulled her floppy hat down over her face. “Ya’ll be quiet now. An old woman needs her beauty sleep.”

Starnes laughed soundlessly, winking at Peyton, then leaned back against his saddle to finish up the cup of coffee in his hand.

After awhile he heard Peyton say quietly, “I don’t think they’ll take Sloan to the ranch. He wouldn’t want anyone to know about him.”

“Especially not the law,” Snake grumbled.

“So where do you think they’ll take him?” Starnes asked.

Peyton had obviously been contemplating that. She lay on her bedroll facing him, propped up on her elbow, her hooded eyes staring at the blanket. “My guess would be one of the line shacks along the southern part of Papa’s land. It’s the most remote and there’s less chance of anyone happening by.” She glanced up at him. “I once heard a ranch hand telling another one that Papa took someone out there to have a long talk with him.” She shuddered and looked down again. “I don’t think talking was really what was being done.”

“How many shacks you talking about?” Snake asked from beneath her hat.