“B-e-e-f s-t-e-w? C-h-i-c-k-e-n? H-a-m?”
Hassie laughed, her appetite returning. Under the table she threaded her fingers into his and held on until their food came.
C
OFFEE SCENTED THE
chilly late afternoon air, and biscuits were already baking as Bret dropped pieces of rabbit into the frying pan. At least Gunner wasn’t sitting close drooling and pretending imminent starvation. The dog had crunched his way through his own rabbit already and taken off into the brush.
And Hassie. Bret smiled to himself. Hassie was over in the middle of some bushes she had tied the horses around head to tail. Good thing even Jasper, who could be a mite touchy now and then, wasn’t a kicker. She was changing her drawers and doing that double modesty thing.
At first he’d thought she’d gone off to deal with the monthly blood flow. It was about that time. She had to know he knew, but she still went to great lengths to hide every sign. Marriage might mean tangled, naked, sweaty bodies, but it didn’t mean letting him get a glimpse of menstrual blood.
The one time he’d half-seen her washing rags, she’d all but fallen in the creek trying to hide the things. At least a simple change to clean underclothing wouldn’t take as long.
With supper under control, Bret picked up the tin box of posters and started leafing through. Daylight would disappear faster here amid the pines of the foothills than out on the plains, and he wanted to find a particular poster.
“Halloo the fire. Care for some company?”
On his feet before the man finished the greeting, Bret drew his revolver and moved back into the trees. No, he didn’t want company. Refusing wasn’t an option, but caution was. Hassie knew to stay put until he called her, and she’d be spending a boring evening there in the bushes unless this fellow proved harmless.
Three men moved through the trees. They’d left their horses back out of sight. Bret thumbed back the hammer.
“Now that’s not friendly.”
The voice was behind him, as was the gun in his back. The man behind took the revolver from Bret’s hand.
“Let’s go see what you’re cooking.”
Four of them.
Bret walked out of the trees to the fire. When he stopped, a man came out from behind him, but the gun stayed in his back. Five. He dared a quick look over his shoulder to be sure. Only five in sight. As if that weren’t enough.
With luck, they’d steal everything and ride away, but the wolfish look in the close-set eyes of the pock-faced man facing him made that unlikely.
Bret held his hands against the light gray background of his shirt and began spelling. “R-u-n h-i-d-e. R-u-n h-i-d-e.” He kept it up until one of them noticed.
“What the hell. You having fits or what? Quit that.”
“Just twitchy. I get twitchy with guns pointing at me.”
Two of the men helped themselves to the coffee, using the two cups by the fire, not yet asking why there were two. Another one started pawing through the posters.
“Hey, these are wanted posters. I bet I’m in here.”
“Let me see that.”
Posters fluttered to the ground, a few fell in the fire and flared up for a moment before turning to ash.
“Bounty hunter!”
Bret’s own heavy revolver smashed into the side of his face. Before his head cleared, a sharp sound split the air, flame spurted from the gun, and his right leg collapsed as if poleaxed. He hit the ground, the leg numb and useless. The pain came later, a wave so intense the world turned black for a moment.
Pock Face’s eyes glittered with pleasure. “You’re a dead man, bounty hunter, but don’t think it’s going to be quick and easy. By the time I’m done, you’ll beg to die.”
The second shot hit Bret’s right shoulder. Fighting to stay conscious he curled on his side, fingers scrabbling for the gun in his boot. He prayed Hassie was gone, running through the night and gone.
W
HEN SHE FIRST
heard the stranger call out, Hassie crouched down amid the bushes. Bret would not want her showing her face around a stranger. She didn’t believe every man who saw her immediately planned a criminal attack, but considering what had happened in Werver and with the Quentin boy and his friends, she had no urge to argue the matter.
After a moment, she crawled forward and peeked through Packie’s legs. Five men—five—stood around Bret, and something was wrong. The setting sun and the tall trees all around made it hard to see, but Bret was signing, spelling. Three repetitions, and she understood.
She backed away and rose to her feet. Once she was among the trees, evading pursuit would be easy. Night would help her hide.
A gunshot cracked. Forgetting to stay down, she looked over Packie’s back, saw Bret on the ground. Without thought, her hand went to the gun Bret insisted she carry. Reason prevailed. She could never hit one of those men, and there were five.
As if from far away, a man’s voice said terrible things to Bret. A second shot rang out followed by furious barking and growling.
“Hell and damnation, shoot that dog.”
More shots. She had only ever hit any target with one gun. Two strides and Hassie reached Jasper and yanked the shotgun out of the scabbard on the saddle. She ducked under Packie’s neck and thumbed back both hammers.
The men had all turned toward the trees, still shooting at Gunner even though he had disappeared. Bret was alive, one arm moving. Hassie raised the shotgun and jammed it tight against her shoulder. She aimed high, afraid more than anything her wild shot would hit Bret. Her eyes squeezed tight shut against her will as she pulled the first trigger. The shotgun boomed.
Hassie opened her eyes as the man who had shot Bret crumpled to the ground. A reddish cloud hung in the air where he had been and slowly dispersed. Three of the remaining men froze. The fourth reached for his gun, and Bret shot him, the little boot gun barking three times.
The man Bret shot fell. None of the others moved. Hassie stood frozen, her finger curled around the second trigger of the shotgun. Gunner charged back out of the trees, circling the three men still on their feet, darting in, snapping, biting at their legs.
Bret called the dog, twice, three times before Gunner backed off, still growling. It also took Bret several tries to make it to a sitting position, but once he did that he pulled his pistol from the hand of the dead man near his legs, kept both guns pointed at the three men standing.
Blood covered half Bret’s face. More blood soaked his shirt and trouser leg. Hassie wanted to run to him but couldn’t move.
“Hassie. Hassie, sweetheart.”
His voice didn’t sound right. She managed to turn her head a fraction.
“Let the hammer down easy and go get the handcuffs. Get a set of hobbles too.”
Hassie fought through the haze in her mind and finally remembered how to do that. Swiping angrily at the tears running down her face, she went to get the handcuffs and hobbles.
Without Gunner to help, she never would have been able to do it. Bret ordered the men one by one to back up to a tree and put their hands around the trunk. There were only two sets of handcuffs. She used them on the first two and the hobbles on the third.
By the time she was done, the guns were wavering in Bret’s hands. He sagged back to the ground when she had finished. “Take Jasper and head for the next town. It’s only four, five hours ahead. You can get help there, and you can be back by morning.”
She ignored him. The clean cloths she used for her monthly flow would have to do for bandages. Bandaging the leg was easy, but there was something about it....
“It’s broken,” Bret said. “Better a broken shin than the knee he was aiming for. I think he did better on my shoulder.”
The shoulder was harder to bandage too. He was going to lose consciousness soon. His eyes kept losing focus, snapping back, then drifting again.
She brought Jasper close. The Thoroughbred was used to gunfire, but he didn’t like the strangers, the blood, and the pacing, growling dog. He fiddle-footed, sidled, wouldn’t stand still. Jasper was faster than the other horses. His saddle was the one with stirrups the right length for Bret.
Hassie stopped fighting the nervous horse, took him back to the bushes and tied him. She pulled his saddle off and re-saddled Brownie with it. It was too narrow for Brownie and would bruise her back. Bruises would heal with time. Gunshots needed a doctor.
Brownie stood patiently. Bret came awake enough to argue. “No, I can’t.... No way to get on a horse. Go for help.”
“I am not leaving you here bleeding,” she signed.
“You have to.”
No, she didn’t. She pulled her pistol out of the holster in her pocket and approached the man held by the hobbles. He sprang to his feet fast when she undid one cuff. She waved the gun at him, at Bret, at the horse.
“Sure, and I bet you’re going to let me go as thanks for heaving him on that horse.”
She shook her head and imitated the way Bret had pointed his guns at the heads of Quentin and his son. It worked. The man cursed and muttered, but he went over to Bret, got his shoulder under Bret’s good arm and lifted him to his feet. Once he had a foot in the stirrup, Bret managed to struggle up a little, get the broken right leg over Brownie’s back, and grab hold of the saddle horn.
Hassie saw the outlaw’s hand creeping toward the rifle, still in its scabbard on the saddle. She shoved the muzzle of her revolver in his ear. The hand came away.
She gestured toward the tree. He started for it then stopped a few feet away. “I ain’t going back there. I don’t believe you’re going to shoot me in cold blood just standing here.”
This close she couldn’t miss, could she? She raised the gun higher, and he lunged for it. She shot him in the upper chest. He staggered back and fell, fell close enough she managed to pull his arms around the tree and fasten them there.
“I’ll bleed to death if you leave me here like this.”
Maybe he would, and she didn’t care. Bret’s was the only blood she cared about, and Bret looked as if he was going to fall off Brownie any minute. She hurried to him, tied his hands to the saddle horn and his feet in the stirrups.
She had to climb up on Jasper and use him to get on Brownie’s back behind Bret, but she managed it. After that all she had to do was keep Bret’s sagging weight in the saddle until they reached town.
T
HE TRAIL WAS
narrow and rough, steep in places. Before long, Hassie’s arms burned with the strain of keeping Bret’s weight balanced in the saddle. At first he seemed to regain consciousness now and then, help her, but as the hours passed, that stopped. He grew heavier. Or her arms grew weaker.
She considered tying her own wrists to the saddle but couldn’t see how to do that from where she was and wasn’t sure it would keep him from falling. Brownie plodded on through the night, slow but so blessedly steady.
Resting her cheek against Bret’s back, Hassie prayed, her tears soaking his shirt. Dark shadows of buildings rose on each side of the road before she realized they had reached the town. How was she going to rouse anyone and find a doctor?
The tinny sound of a piano drifted on the night air, and a speck of light floated in the darkness ahead. A saloon. She urged Brownie on.
Yesterday the thought of walking into a saloon by herself in the middle of the night would have scared her silly. Tonight she made sure Bret was balanced in the saddle as best possible and slid down off Brownie in front of the saloon.
Her knees buckled when she hit the ground, and she staggered her way onto the walk. Pushing through the doors, she stood just inside, unsure how to ask for help. The slate was hours away, forgotten in the saddlebags on the ground behind Brownie’s saddle.
One of the men looked up, glanced away then looked back and stared. “Looky there. That’s a female in trousers.”
Every head turned. Every pair of eyes stared. The piano stopped. She touched her blood-covered wedding ring, gestured outside. No one gave any sign of understanding.
“Look at the blood,” someone said. “She must be hurt bad.”
Several of the men rose from their tables. One headed toward her. Hassie backed up. He kept coming. She backed out through the door, ran to Brownie and Bret. And Gunner, who was still ready to take on anything that moved.
The man stopped, so did two others who had followed him out.
“Is that dog going to bite if I come see your man?”
Hassie put a hand on Gunner, and he quieted, although inaudible growls still vibrated under her hand.
The first man approached, touched Bret.
“Is he dead?” another one said.
“Nope, but he ain’t very alive either. We better get him to Doc’s.”
Hassie almost sobbed with relief. They were going to help.
M
ORE MEN POURED
out of the saloon, and a small crowd followed Brownie through town to a house on the outskirts. The first man who had come after Hassie pounded on the door of the darkened house until someone answered.
The men untied Bret from the saddle and carried him around to a side door with surprising care. Hassie abandoned Brownie at the gate to the yard, but Gunner was determined to stay with her. He almost made it into the house before one brave soul blocked him with a leg and closed the door in his face.
A middle-aged woman, wrapped round with a woolen robe, face still heavy with sleep, met them with a lamp as the men carried Bret through a small room furnished with only chairs to another where the light reflected from dozens of bottles on shelves all around. The men gave every sign of having done this before as they laid Bret on a long table without instruction.
Hassie held Bret’s left hand, touched that side of his face. All the damage was on his right side.
“This is his woman,” the first man said as he was leaving. “She don’t talk much.”
A wish she could thank them flitted through Hassie’s mind but vanished in her fear for Bret. His tan looked like paint on his deathly white skin.
A thin, sandy-haired man about the woman’s age came into the room, still pulling suspenders up over a rumpled shirt. “What have we here?”