Explaining Herself (33 page)

Papa, Thad, even Ross would say,
You'll feel alive. You'll feel safe.

But she also knew she would feel like a coward. The one thing that had ever mattered to her, beyond her family, her friends, and Ross Laurence, was knowing things. Who better to take a few careful pictures of the rustlers before riding back for help? Who better to make sure that the truth about this came out?

If she did not do this, she could never compare herself to Nellie Bly again.

Before she could lose her nerve, Victoria peeked out from around the tree, then crept in the direction from which she'd heard the noise. She saw the rock ledge well before she reached it, saw the orange of firelight playing across the other wall of the small canyon despite the daylight. Her hands felt clumsy as she retrieved her leather-bound camera from around her neck, extended the lens on its brass fittings, advanced the film. All she needed were a few shots.

I
am a lunatic
,
she thought mournfully.

Then she thought,
I'm only four feet from getting it done.
So she crawled the last four feet and very carefully peeped over the edge.

It was a small operation, only three men. They'd tied a bull calf's legs and two were going about the ugly process of branding him with what looked more like a bent poker than a branding iron.
A running iron,
Victoria realized; in some counties, men could be hanged for even owning them. It must take longer than a regular branding, which made it cruder. Suddenly, she felt wholly justified in her reckless choice. She lifted the camera and started to quietly snap pictures.

Two men she did not recognize, and the back of a third. A bunch of other cattle held against the back wall of the box canyon, some of them wearing a brand she'd never seen. Horses, hitched near the arroyo's mouth.

And when he turned to pick up a coil of rope, Sheriff Ward himself.

Victoria's sense of satisfaction, as she snapped that picture, ranked among the best feelings in her life
— even kissing Ross! Learning something this important felt like the first gulp of water on a dusty day, the relief of a feather bed after hard work—the fit of a puzzle piece sliding into place. She'd discovered the truth.

Her.

And now everyone would know.

Despite the temptation to finish off her film on this, the need to get to safety was stronger. Quickly, she folded the camera back into itself and crawled backward, careful to dislodge no stones, to make no noise. When she reached the cover of the trees, she breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief
—and started to smile.

Nellie would be so proud!

She crept to where Huck waited, walked him a ways off until she found a fallen log, hooked her camera strap on the curved saddle horn, and mounted.

Then she reined Huck in the direction of where she'd left Alden
—and found herself staring into both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun.

Chapter Twenty-three

This,
thought Victoria nervously, as she rode ahead of Deputy Franklin and his double-barreled friend, is
why I should only take outings with men I trust.

Not that Alden Wright had gotten her captured; he wasn't even there! Which was maybe the problem. Ross wouldn't be resting under a tree right now. Then again, Ross might have shot Deputy Franklin, which seemed a drastic solution. And he probably would have protested her taking the photographs. Which reminded her
—

She subtly unhooked the leather carrying strap of her Kodak from over the saddle horn and used her fingers to inch the camera itself up into her grasp, all within the cover of her overfull riding skirts. Then, twisting around to see Deputy Franklin, she shrank with a frightened cry from a nearby pine tree.

Just as she'd hoped, Franklin fell for the distraction and aimed his shotgun at the tree for a moment.

Victoria used the time to toss her camera into some brush, well off the path, near a rock formation she hoped she would recognize later. Assuming nothing stepped on it. Assuming it wasn't broken in the fall.
Assuming she ever got back.

But she had to.

Franklin quickly pointed the shotgun back at her. "Don't you go thinkin' you can make a run for it, Miss Garrison."

"Make a run for what?" she demanded. "Deputy, I have no idea why you're behaving so rudely, but I don't like it. I was out riding, is all. Is it
—am I trespassing?" She assumed one of her innocent looks. She didn't have to feign concern; her mouth was dry with it! "I thought this was Colonel Wright's land, but if it isn't, I promise you I didn't know I was doing anything wrong."

He looked uncertain.
He isn't sure that I saw anything,
she decided, relieved. Then he told her to "Hold up," and whistled loudly, through his teeth.

Victoria reined Huck back and waited with him, her mouth drier with each passing moment. Overhead, a hawk screamed. Then she heard footsteps.

Sheriff Ward appeared around some rocks
—pistol drawn.

Victoria let her shoulders sink dramatically. "Sheriff! Thank goodness you're here. I was out riding, and the deputy pointed his shotgun at me, and I don't know what to do!"

The sheriff looked from her to Franklin and back, clearly annoyed. "Well, hell," he said, catching his thumbs in his suspenders.

"She was comin' from the canyon," protested Franklin.

Victoria decided against asking,
What canyon}
Too obvious. Instead, she bit her lower lip and made certain to look confused and frightened and girlish.

Only the confusion was a lie.

"Well, hell," said Ward again. "Miss Garrison, I'm afraid you've ridden yourself into a bit of trouble."

"Trouble?"

"See," continued the sheriff, "you might be tellin' the truth, in which case we could've just sent you on your way. But I'm thinkin' you're here on account of you've heard tell what this arroyo gets used for. I'm thinkin' it has somethin' to do with how you've been spendin' so much time with them Bohunk graves down at Mount Hope."

Darned gossips, anyway.

"So," said Ward with a sigh, cocking his pistol and aiming it at her, "why don't you get down off your horse, nice and slow, and let us make you comfortable until we figure this out?"

For once, obeying seemed the better choice, what with two weapons pointing at her. She might still escape this, after all. Alden was bound to realize she'd gone missing, sooner or later. Once he did, he would either come looking for her or fetch her father and brother, wouldn't he?

She rather hoped the second. Alden was too benign to rescue her himself. Of the two evils, she preferred Ross's type. With every gun pointed at her, she preferred Ross's type even more.

"Why should you do anything about me?" she asked warily, going where the sheriff pointed, toward what she now recognized as the entrance to the box canyon. Scrub trees and an old rock slide naturally camouflaged it.

Rounding the bluff, she could see the whole operation
—the horses, the two remaining rustlers, the fire, the rope corral holding the cattle. Were she still up-top the rock wall, she would be in her own photograph.

She also
noted
a large tree with high,
heavy
branches, and felt a shudder in her chest. She could imagine it too easily
—the night, the ropes over the tree limbs. It had really happened, and Ross had been forced to endure it. Why wouldn't he want vengeance? That he had any compassion at all was a miracle.

"I'm not being kidnapped, am I?" she asked, since kidnapping would be preferable to anybody getting killed. "Just because my parents have a great deal of money doesn't mean they'll take kindly to any ransom demands."

She felt hope when Franklin said, "You know, the Garrisons
would
pay an awful lot to get her back."

"Her and everythin' she's seen today," countered the sheriff, pushing her toward a large stone when she took too long looking around her. "You jest sit there and be quiet, Miss Garrison. Like a good girl."

A good girl?
She glanced over her shoulder, at the mouth of the box canyon. If she picked up her skirts and ran very fast
—

The muzzle of the sheriff's pistol appeared, just in front of her nose, to catch her attention. "If you try to get away, I
will
shoot you," said Ward. "And if we have to resort to that, your folks won't even get your body back. An accident would be kinder to them, now, don't you think?"

It didn't much sound like he meant to ask for ransom.

Victoria had to try more than once just to swallow. It was the fear. But imagining how her family would suffer if she died, she also knew building anger. How
dare
he!

Was this what it felt like to want someone dead? She sat stiffly on the rock Sheriff Ward indicated, and she understood Ross better than ever.

Ward smiled an ugly smile as the other men, clearly more nervous, went back to their branding. " 'Course, that might not be so bad a thing at that, honey girl,"
he drawled. "If they won't find your body, then it won't matter what we do to. it before we kill you. Them high-and-mighty cattle barons been riding my tail long enough, it'd be mighty sweet to get some of my own back."

He meant to
molest
her? Now she couldn't swallow at all. She definitely wished him
very
dead
—and she wondered whether she could, if given the chance, do it herself. A lightning strike or a stampede would be neater.
Or Ross . . .

What she needed was Ross.

But the oak tree, nearby, reminded her that sometimes people didn't get what they needed.

The man Laramie assumed was Alden Wright seemed to be asleep on a checkered picnic blanket in the autumn sunshine. His boater tipped across the upper half of his face, and he was alone. One horse grazed nearby, and it wasn't Victoria's.

Dismounting, Laramie wasn't sure if he felt relief or building fear. He hadn't lied to Mariah MacCallum. He loved Victoria, but he couldn't predict what she might be doing.

Wright slept through a shadow falling across him, but sat up fast enough when Laramie extended a booted toe and kicked his foot, spurs jingling. "What? Huh?"

"Where's Victoria Garrison?" If Wright had already taken her home, or she was off seeing to personal matters in the bushes, Laramie would feel very foolish.

He was willing to feel foolish, to know she was safe.

"What?" Now the fellow sat up. Laramie's memories of Alden Wright, who hung back during the lynchings, were vague, but this man did resemble them. "Who are you?"

Surely Victoria didn't want this man. "You Wright?"

"I am." Alden Wright
stood, then looked crestfallen
when his head came up only to Laramie's nose.

"You were with her, weren't you?"

"I don't see how that's any of your interest."

It was a fair enough protest, but Laramie didn't like lingering to explain, especially if Vic had given her supposed escort the slip. He leaned forward, putting them at eye level. "Where is she?"

Wright sighed in defeat, too soon for Ross's respect. "She rode ahead to a box canyon she wanted to see. Gruesome interests for a girl, but she's pretty enough."

Laramie glanced in the direction Wright indicated and felt his insides go still.
The
box canyon? The one where ...

He remembered
a pebble skittering down the ar
royo wall, horses' cries, the hiss of ropes thrown across the thick branch of a nearby oak. And him, pulling the trigger on a human being. He swallowed, hard.
That
box canyon.

"The place has bad memories for me," Wright continued. "So I let her go on ahead."

Bad memories for YOU?
"How long ago?"

Wright removed his watch from his vest pocket and checked it. Then he frowned, glanced up at the sun, and frowned down at his watch again. "Say, it's been almost two hours."

Damn!

Laramie strode back to Blackie, pausing only long enough to take off his spurs and shove them into his a saddlebag before remounting. "Come with me."

"What?"

He wasn't denying his instincts this time. No matter how disreputably he'd earned them, they clearly had their uses. "She's got to be in trouble. Come with me."

"But
—" Wright picked up the blanket to fold, clearly torn.

"Now," prompted Laramie dangerously.

To his credit, Wright dropped the blanket and moved to tighten the cinch on his horse. "I'm only doing this because I am the lady's escort," he announced. "Not because of you."