Only Love (18 page)

Even though Whip was furious, he had thought of her welfare rather than his own.

“Whip!” Shannon called. “Come back! I can’t help loving you any more than you can help not loving me!”

Only silence answered Shannon, a silence that echoed with Whip’s good-bye.

I want you like hell on fire, but I won’t give up my soul to have you. That’s what love is, honey girl. Giving up your soul.

P
RETTYFACE
nudged Shannon and whined deep in his throat. The movement and the sound reminded her that she was standing in front of her cabin with tears cold on her face. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on the long list of things that must be done if she was to get through the summer, much less the coming winter.

Crying definitely wasn’t on the list.

She put one hand under Prettyface’s big jaws and rubbed his head with her other hand. His shrewd wolf’s eyes glazed with pleasure. She smiled slightly, smoothed thick fur back into place, and put her cheek against his broad head.

“I’ll be all right, Prettyface,” she said. She straightened and released him. “Go rustle up your dinner while I unpack Crowbait and Razorback and picket them in the meadow.”

Prettyface stood, head cocked, watching Shannon.

“Go on, boy. I know you’re hungry. The pickings were pretty slim for you up in Grizzly Meadow. Go.”

Waving her arm in the direction of the meadow
and forest beyond the cabin, Shannon repeated her soft command.

After a moment Prettyface turned and trotted off to the edge of the meadow. He put his nose to the ground and began quartering the area for scent of game.

Shannon turned to Crowbait and Razorback. She unsaddled the mule, switched bridle for halter, and turned to the packhorse. As she worked over the neat diamond hitches securing the supplies, she felt tears crowding her eyes again. It had been Whip’s hands that had tied the knots, Whip’s hands that had loaded the pack saddle, Whip’s hands that had smoothed the blanket pad in place and adjusted the halter.

“Don’t think about it,” Shannon whispered. “There’s too much to be done. Crying over a stubborn yondering man won’t butter any biscuits.”

Shannon tried not to, but her hands still lingered over the pack saddle and supplies, touching everything that Whip had touched, until finally everything was put away in its place. Numbly she led the animals into the meadow to picket them so that they could graze their fill of the sweet grasses.

Just as Shannon was driving in the second picket pin, she heard Prettyface break into savage barking. Her heart hesitated, then beat frantically.

Prettyface made that sound only when strangers came too close.

Motionless, cursing herself for being so addled by Whip’s leaving that she had forgotten to carry the shotgun, Shannon scanned the meadow’s edge for any sign of men.

Abruptly two long-legged mules appeared at the edge of the concealing forest and came swiftly toward Shannon. She leaped to her feet and spun
toward the cabin, only to find two more Culpeppers between her and the shotgun she had stupidly left behind.

Shannon didn’t waste any breath calling for help. There was no one around but Prettyface, and he had already warned her. She whirled away from the two-pronged attack and raced for the forest, praying that she had enough speed to make the cover of the trees ahead of the racing mules.

Before Shannon was halfway to the forest, the beating of hooves sounded louder and louder in her ears. Even as she strained to run faster, she knew she was losing the race. She simply wasn’t quick enough to reach the trees before the Culpeppers caught her.

A long, wiry arm reached out and grabbed Shannon just beneath the rib cage. Darcy wasn’t strong enough to lift his struggling prize into the saddle, but he hung on no matter how hard she clawed and bit and screamed.

“Clim was right,” Darcy crowed, slowing his mule. “She’s plumb full of piss and vinegar!”

Beau grunted. It had been the extent of his conversation ever since he had learned just how fast and accurate a bullwhip could be.

“Hold still, darlin’,” Darcy said. “I’m just as ready for it as you are, but Beau gets firsts, him bein’ the oldest and all. I get thirds, so save your fightin’ till—
eeeiow!
”

The words ended in a cry of shock and fear as Prettyface came up on Darcy’s blind side and leaped straight for his throat.

Darcy dropped Shannon in order to protect himself. An instant later, one hundred and forty pounds of enraged dog slammed into Darcy’s
shoulder. The force of the attack knocked him right out of the saddle.

Prettyface followed Darcy down, snarling and snapping the whole way.

Shannon landed on hands and knees on the other side of the mule from the fight. No sooner did she hit the ground than she was on her feet and running again. As she ran, she yelled at Prettyface to break off the attack and flee, for she knew the Culpeppers would have no mercy in them for the loyal hound.

Just as Shannon reached the forest, she glanced back. There was a snarling, swearing tangle of flesh and fur on the ground. Beau was still in the saddle. His six-gun was drawn. The barrel tracked the fight, waiting for an opening.

Inevitably, it would come.

Tears streaming down her face, her breath tearing at her lungs, Shannon raced into the forest, taking the chance Prettyface had given her to escape. And as she ran, she prayed that she could circle back up the mountainside, sneak into the cabin through the cave and grab the shotgun before it was too late to help Prettyface.

Shannon was only partway up the mountainside behind the cabin when Beau’s six-gun opened fire.

W
HIP
reined Sugarfoot to an abrupt halt at the edge of one of the trail’s many crossings of Avalanche Creek. The horse chewed unhappily at the bit, but was otherwise quiet.

Listening intently, motionless but for his eyes, Whip probed the shadows and forest in all directions. He neither saw nor heard anything to explain his deep unease.

“You’re imagining things,” he muttered.

Yet still he heard Shannon’s voice calling his name with every shift of the wind, every stirring of the forest, every swirl of water over rocks.

Whip, I really didn’t mean to ask for your love.

His big hands clenched into fists.

“Damn you, Shannon. You’re tying me in knots.”

I love you, yondering man.

Whip closed his eyes. His fingers were so tightly clenched that the reins cut even through his riding gloves.

“I don’t want your love,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t want to feel beholden. I can’t stay in just one place, honey girl.”

Suddenly Sugarfoot’s ears pricked and his elegant gray head whipped around to watch the trail behind him.

His rider heard the sounds, too.

Back toward Shannon’s cabin, someone had opened fire with a six-gun. Shannon didn’t own a weapon like that.

But the Culpeppers did.

Whip spun Sugarfoot around and spurred him. As the horse leaped forward, Whip checked that his repeating rifle was safe in its scabbard. There were times when a bullwhip just wouldn’t get the job done. Whip was certain this was one of those times.

Bending low over his mount’s neck, Whip urged the horse to a reckless pace. Rocks and trees raced by, but it seemed to him that he was nailed to the ground, moving at a snail’s space, slow as dawn on the longest night of winter.

He would have sold his soul to be able to reach Shannon before the Culpeppers hurt her.

Sugarfoot pounded back up the Avalanche Creek
path, taking the fork in the trail at a dead run, leaping rocks and rotting logs without a break in stride. When the forest thickened again, Sugarfoot slowed just enough to be able to avoid or jump over the natural obstacles that were strewn across the trail. Small runoff channels and big boulders, freshly fallen trees and trees that had long ago fallen, all of them flashed beneath the hooves of the hardrunning horse.

Whip rode Sugarfoot like a big cat, never coming loose no matter which way the horse jumped, always ready with a steady pressure on the reins to help Sugarfoot gather himself after a difficult jump.

As Sugarfoot hurtled yet another log, more shots came from up ahead. The sounds were much closer now. There was no doubt that it was a six-gun. Several six-guns, in fact.

No rifle answered.

No shotgun boomed.

“Run, you big gray bastard,” Whip said through his teeth.
“Run!”

Spurs reinforced Whip’s command. Sugarfoot flattened out and gave everything he had. Nose stretched into the wind, tail streaming behind, the horse tore through the forest at a flatly dangerous speed. One misstep, one mistake, and both man and horse would go down in a tangle of broken limbs.

Whip knew it but didn’t care. In his mind was the memory of how the Culpeppers had watched Shannon with eyes that were even more lewd than their words.

And now she was at their mercy.

The trees ahead thinned, telling Whip that the meadow was immediately ahead. As much as he wanted to gallop right up to the cabin, he knew it
would be stupid. He wouldn’t be much good to Shannon if he got cut down in a Culpepper crossfire.

And he had no doubt it was the Culpeppers who were after Shannon.

Whip pulled hard on the reins. Sugarfoot sat on his hocks and slid to a stop in a turmoil of dirt and forest debris. The meadow was only thirty feet ahead. Rifle in hand, bullwhip over his shoulder, Whip kicked his feet free of the stirrups and jumped off. He landed on his feet, running hard.

Before he reached the edge of the trees, a rope shot out of the shadows and tangled around his feet. He rolled as he fell, yanking free of the rope and regaining his balance with a feline twist of his body.

But it was already too late.

When Whip stood, he was looking right up the barrel of Floyd Culpepper’s six-gun. Whip could tell the man was Floyd because he was holding his gun in his left hand. His right wrist was wrapped tightly in rags that might have been clean once, but no longer were.

Pale blue eyes watched Whip with an expression somewhere between malice and glee.

“Lookee here, Clim. Darcy was right about this ol’ boy hotfooting it back here if n he heard shots.”

Clim turned aside and spat a brown stream of tobacco juice.

“And here you thought Darcy was just trying to cut me out of my rightful turn in that little widow’s saddle,” Clim added.

Rage and something more gripped Whip, a feeling as though his guts had been cut out and were falling away, leaving him cold all the way to his soul.

“Whoever touches Shannon is a dead man walking,” Whip said.

Floyd’s smile revealed sharp, uneven teeth.

“Right fine sentiments,” Floyd said mockingly, “but you ain’t in no position to be making no brags. Drop that long gun, boy. And that bullwhip, too.”

Whip obeyed, but his gray eyes never stopped measuring the distances between himself and Floyd’s drawn gun and Clim’s holstered weapon.

“You see a knife, Clim?”

“Nah. ‘Sides, no thick-chested West Virginia boy can hold a candle to me in a knife fight.”

“Walk,” Floyd said to Whip, gesturing with his bandaged wrist toward the meadow. “You try to get away and I’ll kill you quick as a rabbit.”

Whip didn’t doubt it.

“Give the signal,” Floyd said to Clim.

Clim whistled shrilly, three short blasts of sound followed by silence.

After a few moments, a whistle answered.

“Move it, boy,” Floyd said to Whip. “They’re waiting for us, and Beau ain’t a waiting kind of man.”

When Whip moved forward it was with a peculiar, gliding grace. His weight was always poised on the balls of his feet, ready to jump or lash out in any direction at the first sign of carelessness from his captors. He held his hands oddly, just away from his sides, his fingers slightly curved as though in relaxation.

“Told ya,” Floyd said to Clim after a few steps.

“Told me what?”

“This here ol’ boy ain’t much account without his bullwhip and rifle. He’s as heedful as a welltrained hound.”

Clim grunted. “Damn big hound. Even bigger than the one Beau shot. We’d of had that gal if’n that cur hadn’t jumped Darcy when he grabbed her.”

Hope stabbed through Whip. It sounded like Shannon might have gotten away.

“Don’t git yer water hot,” Floyd said to Clim. “Beau ain’t much on talkin’ lately, but he can still track slick as sin. He’ll get the widow ‘fore she gets too far. Hell, ain’t no place for her to go to anyways.”

Clim eyed the big man walking in front of him. Despite Whip’s surrender, the coiled ease of his stride made Clim nervous.

“Why don’t you just shoot him and get done with it?” Clim asked.

“Beau,” Floyd said succinctly. “He’s got a bone to pick with this ol’ boy. You want to be the one to tell Beau he can’t have no fun ‘cause you done gone and killed him?”

Whatever Clim said was too guttural to understand.

Whip walked from the shadows of the trees into the full sunlight of the meadow.

To the girl hiding and catching her breath after a reckless scramble down through Silent John’s bolthole to the cave and from there into the cabin, Whip’s appearance was dream and nightmare combined.

It can’t be Whip! He rode away.

Seeing Whip captive to the Culpeppers wrenched Shannon’s mind away from her fear for Prettyface, forcing her to concentrate on saving herself, for only then could she save Whip.

Still unable to believe that Whip had come back,
Shannon leaned forward and peered through the ill-fitting shutters again.

There was no mistake. Sunlight flashed on hair as pale as corn silk. Sunlight outlined clean, powerful limbs and wide shoulders. And sunlight showed that Whip’s hands were empty of weapons.

Nor did the bullwhip lie in quiet coils on his shoulder.

Shannon bit her lip against a hunger to cry out to Whip, to tell him that he wasn’t alone, that she would help him. But crying out would be as foolish as walking barefoot through a campfire.

Quickly Shannon turned away from the shutters, went to the front door, and lifted the shotgun down from its pegs. As she reached to open the door, she heard a voice call from just beyond her cabin.

“Told ya you’d get him!”

“Yah. Easy as shootin’ a hen on a nest,” called someone from the meadow.

Heart beating wildly, Shannon shifted the shotgun and lowered the heavy bar into place across the door. She tiptoed back to the shutter and peered out again.