Unbroken Hearts (31 page)

    
Cal heard the hoof beats, too. Both men
were as edgy as mares in heat. Lightning fast they unshucked their weapons.
They saw a lone rider leading another horse, rushing up the main path to beat
the stage into town.

    
A man was slung belly down over the horse
behind.
 

    
Roy and Cal immediately recognized both
mounts as Mineral Creek geldings, and they holstered their guns. At the same
time Bailey called out that it was Red Hanson, one of the men Roy had sent to
town to fetch the doctor. Hanson's face was white as a new store-bought sheet.

    
He stopped when he reached Cal and Roy.
 

    
They gaped at the man strung over the
second mount.

    
"Oh, God," Roy moaned, his face
crumpling.

    
Cal's involuntary gasp whistled through
clenched teeth. "Ned."

Chapter 29

    
The shot had leapt from a tangle of barbed
bushes. Slapping his hand to his thigh, Ned pitched forward in the wagon seat.
The pain seared a grimace across his sunburned face.

    
No time to think, Sarah grabbed the lines
from his hands. She paid no heed to the rough leather burn biting into her
palms.

    
Horses were coaxed into a steady gait.
Frantically she pulled at Ned's arm to lean his body against her.

   
Then Sarah's stomach lurched into her throat.

    
An outlaw, face half covered in bandanna,
dashed up to stop her team. Another brushed alongside the wagon, six-shooter
drawn. Smug eyes betrayed the amused grin lurking beneath his bandanna.

    
Emily was gasping like a wheezing calf,
her face pale as fresh snow.

    
The man pointed at Sarah.

    
"Stop yer team," he commanded,
"or we'll shoot the all of ya'."

    
"Whoa, whoa." Her voice
squeaked. Sarah brought the pair of geldings to a halt.

    
Swiftly the men swung from their mounts
and loped to the wagon. The taller one grabbed a handful of Ned's duster, and
he jerked Ned's half conscious body to the ground. Ned's limp body didn't have
the strength to fight back.
 

    
Sarah jumped to her feet in the wagon
box.
 

    
"What's wrong with you! He's
wounded," she shouted. She flew down to Ned, who was lying in the dust,
groaning.
 

    
But before she could tend Ned the short
one seized her arms and half dragged her back through the dirt. He pushed her
roughly into the wagon bed. Then he gripped Sarah's wrists tightly and bound
them with rope.
 

    
"Yer man's the lucky one," he
snarled fiercely.

    
He can't die. Ned can't die
.
 
Sarah
chanted the words silently, a wish and a prayer. The other outlaw was tying
Emily's squirming hands and kicking feet, and she was added to the wagon bed.

    
"Let her go. For heaven's sake, she's
a little girl." Sarah argued breathlessly. "Take me. I'm what you
want."

    
"Shut her up," yelled the man
behind them.
 

    
The outlaw tying her hands removed his
bandanna and twisted it, pushed it into her mouth. He tied it round the back of
her head, brushing a chubby hand through her loose hair.
 

    
When he finished Sarah turned her head and
saw her kidnapper's full face for the first time. She choked on the whiskey and
sweat-dried gag. His hand held three fingers.

    
Her heart sank. She turned around and
looked at the other man, also now fully revealed. Scar-face.
 

    
The nightmare was back.
 

    
Scar-face saw recognition flash in her
eyes.

    
"Hank, I think she remembers."

    
Hank scowled. "Sonofabitch, Suds. I
knews she saw us. Aiken told the boss she didn't see nothing, but I
knews," he spat out angrily.

    
"Then we was right, Hank, tryin' to
rattle her out of the whorehouse. Damn them Eastons."

    
Suds loosed a string of scorching curses.
"An' damn. If the bossman weren't wantin' to poke her hisself I'd have
kilt her over at Mineral Creek. We could've taken care of Easton, too," he
boasted.

    
Sarah's eyes widened.
 

    
Suds looked at her, tossed back his head
and laughed devilishly.

    
"That's right fancy lady. It was
us." He eyed her slowly and licked his lips, like a wolf moving in on an
abandoned buffalo carcass. "Heard you married up with old Easton." He
leered, and spit shot from between his missing teeth as he spoke.

    
Sarah glared. Heat rose in her chest.
Emily curled into a ball and pushed her face into Sarah's side.

    
Sarah thought about the derringer hidden
in her skirt pocket. If she could work the ropes off her hands . . .

    
The one called Hank hoisted himself up to
the seat and took up the reins. Suds tied Hank's horse behind the wagon and
stepped into his saddle behind. They rode along the trail a mile or so and then
Hank turned toward the west and a bone-jarring trek across open prairie.

    
Sarah furiously worked at the ropes binding
her wrists by rubbing them against a rough nail on the side of the wagon box.

    
They crossed the creek and continued west
for what Sarah judged to be two miles until they came to an abandoned sod hut
near a cottonwood grove. Hank reined in the horses.

  
Sarah and Emily were plucked from the back of the wagon like seed sacks.
The men carried them over their shoulders to the hut, and they entered,
clearing cobwebs and grunting through the musty dryness of the place. Sarah and
Emily were hastily deposited on the dirt floor.

    
Hank peered down at them through narrow
slits. "Don't go gettin notions about no rescue. Eastons'll never find you
here." He removed the bandanna gags from their mouths. "No use
buckin' or screamin'. Not a soul fer miles."
 

   
He yanked off his hat but kept his gun belt fastened about his girth,
and he opened the dusty shutters on the two small windows. Slices of sunlight
poured into the small space, and Sarah could see crude furniture:
 
a table and four chairs, two bunks,
some shelves. She sat with Emily close, and again she twisted at the ropes
behind her back.
 

    
Hank poked his head out the open front
door and yelled to Suds who was outside tending the horses.

    
"When's Dullen gettin' here?"

    
Suds reeled around to face Hank, and he
grinned. "Dunno." "I got a fire started and coffee brewin'.
Dullen will come round when he finishes at Eastons."

    
"What we doing til then?" Hank
yelled out but kept his eyes fixed on Sarah.
  

    
"We wait," came the answer.

    
Hank's eyes raked Sarah again. He kicked
the dirt, pulled his hat on, and went out to dig for tobacco in his
saddlebag.
 

    
Sarah scooted to the table where she'd
spied a rough edge. She rubbed the hemp against it. Her wrists were soon
bloody-raw, and sticky.

    
Half an hour passed. Sarah heard the
sounds of the men laughing and eating.

    
She whispered to Emily. "Roy and Cal
will be here soon. They are on their way."

    
But she couldn't even be sure that Cal and
Roy were alive.
They had to be.
 
She closed her eyes and felt Cal's lips
brush across her cheek, as they had when he kissed her goodbye at the house
that morning.

    
Thank God he had the repeater rifle, and
lots of armed hands on the ranch. By now someone surely would have gone looking
for her and Ned and Emily. By now they must know Emily never made it to
school.
 

    
And God please help Ned.

                                   
*
          
*
              
*

    
The sun sank lower. Sarah heard muffled
hoofs approaching. Hank and Suds instinctively drew their weapons but shucked
them back again when Dullen whistled
the
arranged signal.
 

    
Suds motioned toward the hut. "We got
'em boss."

    
But Dullen was in a foul mood. He spat and
cursed.
 

    
"Damn good, damn those fools! They beat
a retreat from Easton's," he growled. "They got the jump on Easton
after Kingman left the place, but damn, men was inside the house, and in the
barn. The bastards had guns and fired at our side and four were wounded,"
he admitted more to himself than to anyone else. "The good-for-nothings
came running back when Easton's guard rode in from the range. Claimed they were
surrounded."
 

    
Dullen was red with anger.

    
But now he had his ace. Cal Easton's pride
would do him in as he died fighting for his woman and the young sister.
Dullen's lips turned up in a smile as he strode confidently to the sod hut.

    
His dark figure filled the small doorway,
large enough to block the low orange sun.
 

    
"Welcome to my hell
Mrs. Easton
," Dullen hurled the words at her. "Make
yourself at home, 'cause you'll be staying a while." Sarah couldn't see
his face, but there was no mistaking the sharp bitterness in his voice.
 

    
Dullen sidled up to her position on the
floor, squatted by her side, and raked a soft hand through her hair. She leaned
away.
 

    
"You'll be here long as it takes for
your husband and good-for-mules brother-in-law to give up their property."
Color crept up his neck, and he clenched his hands into fists. "Which is
rightly mine," he hissed like a wildcat. "After that damn lawyer
stepped up with a will and claim deed I had to pay them off. Then the bastards
used my money to double the size of their herd."

    
He bent over, stroked her cheek.
 

    
She jerked away.

    
Evil laughter spewed from his thin lips.
"Oh I got them good though," he continued the torment. "John
Easton died in an accident. Oh yes, oh yes, I helped it along just a mite.
Should've run them out of business long ago. Damned Cal Easton was smarter than
I took him for," he muttered.
 

    
Sarah stiffened. Her expression fed his
fire and he grew bolder. He ran a hand over her bodice and up along her throat.
She barely appeared to notice.
 

    
Mama knew
, she thought.

    
Dullen sputtered on with his loathing
croon. "You think you're something special, don't ya? Not to Cal Easton
you ain't," he growled. "He ever tell you about his pretty little
Gracey?" He wagged his head violently. "Whoa no. I wasn't good enough
for her. But she was whore enough to spread her legs for your husband."

    
He stopped and laughed at the tight
expression creeping across Sarah's face.

    
Sarah turned her head away from the awful
words spewing out of the evil man but Dullen grasped her jaw angrily, and he
pulled her to face him. His eyes glared down into hers.

    
"You know how I know? Doc Chandler
works for me! So I knew your bastard husband put a baby on my Grace." He
scowled. "Hell, Easton didn't even know it; she was going to tell him. But
I followed along to take care of that problem -- the same as I can take care of
you!" Spit was streaming down his lip and glistened on his chin.
"Would you rather fall off a horse or down a well?" He hitched his
hand into her hair and wound the strands between his fingers. "Oh, but
don't you worry . . . yet. You'll be here a good, good long while. We'll have a
dandy time together . . . you'll be as you were meant to be . . .
a whore
." His eyes raked her powerfully, hungrily.
"Now you're mine, just as you'd have been if Roy Easton hadn't butted in
with his damn pranks." He vice-gripped her upper arms, pulled her
close. "I got so many bones to pick with the Eastons I could fill a damn
graveyard."