The drunk left her to starve. Bret Sterling killed the only man who was even close to kin right in front of her, took her from home, and left her with people who tried to force her into prostitution.
And he was going to leave her with more strangers soon.
She had no right to run with her arms outstretched as if embracing the morning, to weave flowers in that excuse for a horse’s mane. Or to hum in the evening as she groomed the horse. Or to smile at him as if he should share all these delights. Or to laugh.
Gunner sat beside Packie as Bret positioned the pack saddle, loaded up, and lashed everything in place. The dog looked as pleased with life as his owner.
“You have nothing to smile about either,” Bret muttered. “You’re a liar and a cheat.”
Twice in the last weeks, a cold nose and warm tongue had awakened Bret. He had no memory of the nightmare starting either time. Still, every two weeks was about how often the dream had haunted him since the first battle he’d been in.
Bret finished with the packhorse and tossed the dog a piece of jerky before saddling Jasper.
Days before they came to the little settlement rumored to be a haven for outlaws, Bret turned off the trail. The rolling hills of open prairie provided no cover for miles in any direction, and he didn’t want to stumble on the town unexpectedly.
When they came to a secluded spot near a small lake, he left Mrs. Petty there and scouted ahead until he located the town. Even with his spyglass, finding a place in the nearby hills where he could observe anyone moving between the few buildings of the town took half the day.
Satisfied, he slid back down the hill to where he’d left Jasper. Mrs. Petty and the horses could stay in this hollow behind the hill while he kept watch. Pulling a thief out of a nest of thieves would take a little planning, but he’d done it a time or two before in the last six years.
A
T FIRST
H
ASSIE
was glad to move closer to where Bret had set up his observation post. As each hour of waiting passed more slowly than the one before, the necessity of staying in the small hollow between the hills began to chafe.
She read for a while, groomed each horse and gave it some grazing time on a lead rope, made Yel—Gunner a necklace of grass and flowers. The sun had barely moved from the eastern to western sky when she finished all those things and looked around for something else to alleviate the boredom.
Her searching eyes lit on the panniers. Bret had amazing things squirreled away in there, and she hadn’t seen everything yet. Taking inventory would keep her busy for a while.
The first curious thing she unearthed was a tin box, a shallow rectangle. She turned it over, gave it a little shake.
Whatever Bret kept in there was none of her business. Photographs of his family maybe. Or letters. Temptation proved too much. She wouldn’t read any letters. Would just take a peek at photographs.
The box didn’t contain photographs or letters. It contained wanted posters. Sheet after sheet of descriptions of men and their crimes. Some of the posters had penciled notes in the margins or on the reverse side, Bret’s notes, written in exactly the neat, strong hand she would expect.
The poster on top, Moses Jensen, was the man Bret hoped to find in this ugly little town. Jensen had been one of five men who robbed a Missouri-Pacific train, and the only one of the five identified. The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Company was willing to pay three hundred dollars to see Mr. Jensen brought to justice.
Her restless boredom evaporated. Hassie sat and read about one criminal after another. Most were thieves. Some, like Rufus, had through intent or happenstance killed during a robbery. They had stolen from stage companies, railroads, and businesses. They had killed in order to steal, in order to get away, and from the descriptions, out of pure meanness.
By the time she finished reading about each man, the light was almost gone. She wiped the black smudges of ink from her hands on tufts of grass, but what she really wanted to scrub was her mind. Fascinating as the descriptions were, so much evil was overwhelming.
Bret didn’t come down from the hill until it was too dark to see words on her slate. Confessing to going through the box would have to wait until tomorrow.
“Not a sign of him,” Bret said. “Either he’s not there, or I didn’t start watching early enough. We’ll stay here tonight, and I’ll start at first light tomorrow.”
The thought of sleeping so close to men like the ones on the posters made Hassie shiver. Gunner would growl if strangers approached, but sometimes his growl wasn’t very loud.
“I’m going to keep watch,” Bret said as if he sensed her uneasiness. “You get some sleep.”
She didn’t need the slate to tell him how she felt about that. She pointed to herself, to her eyes.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll wake you in a few hours, and you can take second shift.”
But he didn’t wake her.
B
Y THE SMALL
hours of the night, Bret’s eyes grated in the sockets every time he blinked or moved. He’d gone without sleep a lot longer during the war, but fear kept a man on his toes better than the thought of dragging one more thief to jail, collecting one more reward.
He should let Mrs. Petty keep watch for at least a few hours, but that idea grated worse than his eyes. He’d rest after sunset today, and he’d worry about what Mrs. Petty would think of his plan for Jensen’s transportation once he had to tell her.
She was still asleep when he crawled up the hill an hour before dawn. No one moved below until well after sunrise. After that men moved from one building to another now and then. Hotel or rooming house to saloon probably.
Staying awake with the sun warm on his back and shoulders became more and more difficult as the hours passed. The spyglass drooped in his hands, his eyes closed.
Bret startled awake as a lithe female form crawled up beside him. She had her message all written out and ready.
“You sleep. I’ll watch.”
“You don’t know what to watch for.”
She flipped the slate over and showed him her second message.
“Short man about 30, black hair, bushy sideburns and big mustache, pockmarked, blue eyes, silver on hatband and belt, fancy boots.”
Bret glared at her. “Did that nose of yours get turned up on the end from sticking it where it doesn’t belong?”
The chalk pencil came out. She rubbed out some words, wrote others.
“I’m sorry. I was bored.”
Anyone could watch better than a sleeping man, and much as he hated to admit it, Bret knew she was right. “You have to stay down in this tall grass.”
She nodded.
“What are you going to do if a snake shows up?”
“Run.”
Too tired to argue, Bret gave up and slid down the hill. He’d sleep a couple of hours and chase her back down again.
His couple hours had passed twice when Mrs. Petty shook him awake, her face alight with excitement. He didn’t have to read the words she’d written to know she’d seen Jensen, except the words on the slate said,
“I saw them. I saw them both!”
“You saw Jensen and another man?”
She dropped the slate, ran to the packs, and brought the box of posters back. Her fingers flew through the papers until she reached one near the bottom and held it out. Ollie Hammerill, thief and murderer, had killed a Western Union operator and made off with less than the five hundred dollars he was now worth.
“You’re sure?”
Her head bobbed. Her fingers traced a line from the corner of her left eye to her jaw. The line the poster described as a knife scar on Hammerill’s face.
Bret stared at the poster, considering the changes taking custody of two men at once would mean. Mrs. Petty’s excitement faded.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Yes, I do, and I may be able to get two of them out of there without much more trouble than one, but transportation is a problem.”
Her brows furrowed.
“One man I could put on your horse, and you could double up with me from here to the nearest town. Two of them means taking two horses.”
“Good. Brownie is not carrying bad men. They can walk.”
That was about the reaction he’d expected out of her, and it didn’t matter now anyway. He wasn’t passing up a second even larger reward, which meant he’d have to take not only the men but horses.
He quizzed her about what she’d seen. The spot on the prairie below hardly qualified as a town. A few ramshackle buildings clustered on either side of the road. Mrs. Petty had seen a wagon drive in from the north and stop by the saloon. Half a dozen men had come outside, talked to the wagon driver, and helped roll a few barrels inside.
The wagon still stood in the road when Bret went to look. It was still there when night fell.
Bret moved their camp back to the lake and cooked a decent meal. In the pre-dawn darkness, he brought the horses in among the trees, saddled them all, and loaded the packhorse.
He didn’t have to wake Mrs. Petty to tell her what he was going to do, what she needed to do. He felt rather than heard or saw her coming close, sheltering from the morning breeze beside him in the lee of Jasper’s bulk.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve done this too often to count, and I’ll be back before you know it, but you need to be ready to move out fast then.”
Her hand rested on his cheek, fingers soft by his temple, palm warm even through the growth of several days’ beard. Her body pressed close. She hugged him and was gone.
The cool wind blew in vain as he rode toward the town. The memory of her touch warmed him every step of the way.
H
ASSIE TOOK EACH
of the horses in turn to the water and waited patiently until sure each one had quenched its thirst. She checked saddles, bridles, and canteens. An extra trip to the bushes assured her own bladder was empty and she was ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
After that she paced. And paced.
If only they were still camped near the town, she could climb the hill and watch. She shook her head ruefully. Probably a good part of the reason they weren’t still camped near the town was to keep her from doing just that.
He’d be back soon, back with those men trussed up and helpless. Except how would he truss them? Did he have rope? Enough rope, the right kind of rope? She couldn’t remember.
Her hands were on the packs, ready to finish the inventory she had started the day before, when she brought herself up short. Opening the packs and spreading their contents around now would be a very bad idea.
She resumed pacing. Gunner whined where he was tied. Tied with rope that Bret probably forgot he used for the dog. Rope Bret needed right now and didn’t have.
The eastern sky still showed traces of the pink of sunrise when the horses shifted, ears pricking. Packie gave a low whicker of greeting. More suspicious than the horses, Gunner growled.
Hassie’s knees trembled with relief. Bret was all right. The two men on the strange horses wore heavy metal handcuffs, not ropes. Only their angry, sullen presence kept her from running to Bret.
He dismounted and led Jasper to the water. Hassie fumbled with the slate and pencil.
“How did you get them?”
His eyes gleamed for a moment as if he might laugh. “Waited by the privy. It doesn’t make for a sweet-smelling wait, but it makes for catching a man when he’s not in a position to argue.”
Hassie did laugh, and Bret’s expression changed. “You mount up. We need to get going fast.”
“Their friends will follow us?”
“Men like this don’t have friends, but I had to take the first two horses I could catch and throw the first saddles I came to on them. They may come for the horses, and right now I’m a horse thief. Mount up and stay behind me. I’ll get the dog.”
Jensen and Hammerill both tried to hold their horses back until Bret threatened to tie their cuffed hands to their saddles and drive the horses. The pace he forced them to set was relentless, and neither man showed signs of paying attention to Hassie or recognizing they rode with a woman until the first time they stopped to give the horses a breather.
“That’s a woman,” Jensen said. “I can’t believe it, the bounty hunter has a woman in trousers with him.”
Hammerill ran hot eyes over her the way Marshal Dauber had. “Damned if you ain’t right, and a nice little package she is.” His gaze shifted to Bret. “You’re a dead man, bounty hunter, but maybe I’ll let you live long enough to watch what I do to your woman. I’m going to....”
His words were so vile, so beyond her knowledge or experience, Hassie didn’t react. Bret cut off the stream of filth by stuffing his bandana in Hammerill’s mouth and tying the man’s own neckerchief over that.
After taking a long drink from his own canteen, Bret screwed the cap back on and eyed Jensen, “How about you? It’s going to be a long, dry ride, you want to make it with a mouthful of cloth to chew on or are you going to keep quiet?”
Jensen licked his lips and swallowed hard but didn’t say a word.
“Nice to know one of you is smart,” Bret said. “Now get going.”
The angry, brooding presence of the strange men frightened Hassie, but so did the way Bret treated them. He had reverted to the icy-eyed stranger who had killed Rufus, all traces of the man who shot an extra rabbit or quail for Gunner every day gone.
When they stopped a few hours later, Bret let both men have a drink. Hammerill gulped greedily first and started with more invective right after. Bret jammed the bandana back in his mouth.
This time Hassie understood some of what the murderer said. She shuddered, no longer bothered by how Bret shut the man up.
They pushed steadily through the day, stopping near a creek an hour before dark. Horses, humans, and dog all drooped with exhaustion.
Bret adjusted the handcuffs on the outlaws so each one sat with his back against a tree, his arms behind him and around the tree. After hobbling Jasper, Packie, and Brownie, Bret turned them loose to graze and got busy with a hot meal.