After Sundown (20 page)

Fairfax polished the bar with his apron. “That we did, Morgan, that we did.”

“These days, all we’ve got left are a bunch of hardworking pioneers too damned careful with their dollars,” O’Donnell said with distaste. “Half of them hoping for another strike they’re never going to find—”

“Oh, Hell, Morgan, don’t sink into one of your melancholy moods,” Holt said. “You can’t blame everything on the silver going bust. You know damn well Indigo was right. You should’ve done right by Ivy or left her alone.”

“Don’t
you
start in on me, Danny boy. I never told Miss Ivy any lies and I never made her any promises.”

Lucas choked out a derisive breath. “Much as I hate to agree with the doc,” he said, turning to face them, “any man worth a bucket of warm spit does right by a woman. If she’s a proper lady, you marry her—and if she’s a whore, you pay her. You don’t just help yourself to a girl’s favors and then toss her aside.”

O’Donnell shoved his chair back and stood up. “Now I’m not worth a bucket of warm spit? Would you care to take a boxing lesson out back, Marshal?”

Lucas stepped away from the bar. Punching something would feel damned good about now. “Anytime, O’Donnell.”

“Do we have to have a fight in here every week?” Holt gathered up the cards on the table and calmly started shuffling them. “This keeps up, I’m going to stay home and play solitaire.”

Fairfax chuckled. The prospector at the bar started laughing.

After a moment, O’Donnell shook his head, looking chastened. “Yeah, and with your luck at cards, you’d still lose.” He sat back down and pushed away the bottle of bourbon that sat in front of him. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Marshal.”

“Forget it.” Lucas finished his beer and tried to decide whether to have another. Since he had turned down Miss Indigo for some idiotic reason, and it didn’t look like another saloon brawl was going to present itself, getting good and drunk seemed about the only distraction he was likely to get at the moment.

“How about you boys smoke a peace pipe.” Fairfax grabbed an open box of cigars from behind the bar, tossing one to Lucas and one to each man at the table. “Another beer, Marshal?” He refilled the glass before Lucas had a chance to reply.

Then the saloonkeeper lit a cigar for himself, took off his apron, and walked over to take a seat next to Holt.

“Since you scared off half the players, Marshal,” O’Donnell said, clipping the end off his cigar, “the polite thing would be to sit in for a hand or two.”

Lucas regarded the three of them warily, turning the fragrant Cuban cigar in his fingertips. This was another of Fairfax’s recruiting efforts, and he wasn’t going to be drawn in by it. He didn’t want to get mixed up in the lives and problems and big plans of this town. He was
not
staying here. He was leaving. Soon.

But since he was leaving soon, he thought, a hand or two of poker probably wouldn’t do much harm.

He picked up his beer and walked over to the table. “Deal me in.”

~ ~ ~

The snow was falling more thickly through the dim light of afternoon as Lucas walked back to the jail, past the stage that was just pulling out of town. He felt a little better, another cigar clamped between his teeth, his pockets heavier by forty dollars, much of which used to belong to the good doctor.

Travis was no doubt starving—the kid was always starving—and eager to get home for his supper. And Lucas had two letters to write.

Which should be enough to keep his mind off Antoinette, he thought with a grimace. At least for the evening. The night was another matter.

He opened the hotel’s front door. And stopped dead in his tracks.

Travis was sprawled on the floor, facedown.

Lucas cursed, closing the distance in two strides and bending over him. He found a pulse at his throat, but the back of the kid’s head was wet with blood. There were broken pieces of a heavy china plate scattered on the floor around him.

Lucas’s heart hammered as he ran to Antoinette’s cell.

He cursed, vividly. Furiously. The door was hanging open.

She had escaped.

T
he layers of blackness gave way slowly, one by one, until Annie could feel again. Could feel icy dampness pelting her cheek. And hard ground beneath her. And snow, bitterly cold through the fabric of her dress and undergarments. Pain throbbed at the back of her head. Where the stranger had hit her.

“You still alive, miss?”

The voice was soft, oddly polite. A booted toe nudged her in the back and Annie moaned. Everything hurt. The pounding ache in her head. Her ribs. And the muscles in her arms. Her hands were tied behind her. Her ankles were bound. She was lying in the snow, on her side. She opened her eyes and the cloudy sky and the white ground spun dizzily for a moment.

Then her vision steadied and she could see pine trees scattered around her. Mountain peaks everywhere. And the evergreens’ limbs glittering with ice. A buckskin horse grazed a few feet away, pawing at the snow, its reins trailing on the ground.

The stranger stood over her in the faint light of... evening? Early morning? She couldn’t tell. Didn’t know how much time had passed.

Her mouth went dry with fear as he crouched beside her.

“I’m so glad you’re still with me.” His smile was warm, almost friendly. He wore a gray suit with velvet lapels, a striped satin vest, a string tie in his starched white collar. The falling snow stained his fashionable, wide-brimmed felt hat. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, almost looked like some prosperous young shopkeeper or lawyer.

Except for the spots of blood on his fine clothes and shiny black boots.

“Sometimes I don’t know my own strength,” he said, reaching down to brush a strand of her hair out of her eyes with his gloved fingers. “But I’m relieved I didn’t kill you, Miss Sutton. A live body’s so much more pleasant to transport than a dead one. Learned that the hard way. Dead body gives off such a disagreeable odor after a few hours—and then there’s rigor mortis. You have no idea what a headache that can be.” He tilted his head to one side. “You’re really much prettier than on your wanted poster.”

A bounty hunter
. Annie stared up at him, numb with cold, with shock.
He was a bounty hunter.

Terror seized her—just as it had when he’d stalked toward her cell and drawn a gun, threatening that if she made a sound, he would kill her, and Travis as well. Annie had watched helplessly as he’d unlocked the door with some kind of key. She’d had no weapons, no way to protect herself when he came inside, when he had grabbed her and struck her so hard, and the world had gone black.

He sighed, brushing his gloved hand along her cheek. “Didn’t expect you to be this pretty.” With a smile, he lifted a strand of her long hair to his lips. “And you smell so good. Think I’d like to keep you that way. At least for a while. I so rarely get the pleasure of bringing in a woman.”

He looked up into the falling snow. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time for this now, and good old Buck here has had enough rest. Better get back on the trail. People will be coming after us.” He straightened and walked over to the buckskin. “Or rather, coming after
you
, the escaped outlaw.”

Annie rolled onto her side, gasping at the pain, and managed to struggle to her knees. “What are you talking about?” She tried to keep her voice from wavering. “What did you do to Travis?” Quickly, she looked around for anything she might use as a weapon or to cut through the ropes. A broken stick. A sharp rock. Anything.

“The kid? I told you I wouldn’t harm him as long as you cooperated,” the bounty hunter said mildly. “I don’t break promises, at least not to women. Always had a soft spot in my heart for the ladies.” He bent down to tighten up the loosened cinch on the horse’s saddle. “All I did was hit him good and hard. By the time he wakes up, I’ll have collected my five thousand and be long gone.”

Annie hoped that he was telling the truth, that Travis was all right. “And what makes you think you’ll be
paid
the bounty?” she asked in disbelief, leaning to one side, biting her lip at the pain. Her numb fingers closed around a small, broken piece of rock. “I was already in jail. You
stole
a prisoner from a lawman’s custody.”

“No, no, you
escaped
,” he corrected lightly. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, you know. I prefer to let someone else take care of the tracking and capturing, then I just bide my time, wait for an opportunity.” He led the horse over to her. “Even your lady friend fit nicely into my plan. It’ll look like she helped you get free, then you ran off. I left my skeleton key behind on the floor, next to the basket. Nice touch, don’t you think?”

Annie felt sick. “I suppose hurting Travis was a
nice touch
, too.”

“Yes, in fact, it was. I made it look like a woman had done it. Took one of your dinner plates and busted it over his head. Something larger might’ve been nice, but I was in a hurry.”

Annie shook her head, choking back a sob. It sounded like he had enjoyed every step—planning it, doing it. “Nobody will believe I would hurt Travis.”

“Really?” He reached into one of his saddlebags and withdrew a creased, tattered piece of paper: the reward poster with her picture on it. “You’re a wanted murderer, Miss Sutton.”

Annie stared at the paper in his hand, shivering with cold. With shock. She had never seen the actual handbill that showed a sketch of her face beneath the words WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE. The picture made her look cold, hard. Like an outlaw.

She shut her eyes, hanging her head. She
was
an outlaw. And Travis had been hurt because of her. Because she was worth five thousand dollars to any man who wanted to collect it.

The bounty hunter walked over and grabbed her bound arms, yanking her upright, ignoring her cry of pain at the sudden movement. “I’ll be celebrated as a hero when I bring you in—an escaped lady outlaw wanted for murder, who also attacked a most unfortunate, gullible boy.”

Annie wrenched her arm free, blinking hard. “It’ll be my word against yours.”

“No, you see, it
would
be your word against mine.” He recaptured her easily, his grip tightening like a vise as he hauled her to her feet. “But when you tried to escape from me, I was forced to shoot you.”

Annie froze, staring at him in horror. He had planned
every
detail.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.

“Don’t worry,” he said, dragging her over to his horse, “it’s a long way to Central City. You have several whole
days
left on this earth. And we’ll have time to get to know each other much better, you and I.”

He stepped up into the saddle and pulled her after him, slinging her across his lap, facedown. Annie inhaled sharply in pain. Her ribs felt like they were on fire and the saddle horn dug into her belly. She struggled, but he held her still easily, linking one strong arm through her bound hands, pressing his elbow into her spine.

“What’s this?” He found the rock she had clutched in her fingers, taking it from her. “A weapon?” He threw it away.

As he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and set off at a gallop, he was laughing.

~ ~ ~

One horse, two riders.

Didn’t add up.

Lucas knelt in the snow, staring at the hoofprints. As the last light of day began to fade into violet shadows, he turned up the lantern he had brought, studying the marks more clearly.

His first reaction when he had found Antoinette missing had been fury—that she had escaped, that he had been tricked. After he had carried the injured kid over to Holt’s place, he had given the doctor a blistering earful.

But both Holt and Mrs. Greer, who had been at his house, had reacted with shock to the news that Antoinette was missing. As Holt went to work on the unconscious Travis, he insisted he knew nothing about any plan to help Antoinette escape tonight. And Mrs. Greer had been frantic, crying that she wanted to launch a search, telling some wild story about Antoinette hearing a prowler outside her windows at night.

Lucas had refused to believe any of it, refused their help, and set out alone to hunt down his escaped prisoner. He didn’t want any more civilians getting hurt, and he didn’t know who he could trust, who might be trying to help Antoinette.

The snow had made her path easier to follow down the twisting, treacherous mountain trails. But it kept coming down, thick and fast. For the first snow of the season, it had quickly become one hell of a storm—and the hoofprints began to disappear too quickly. Lucas had galloped down the mountainside at reckless speed, trying to catch up before nightfall, before the snow covered Antoinette’s trail completely.

But now as he knelt and studied the tracks more closely, he realized they’d been left by one horse carrying two people. And he felt a growing sense of unease.

From the beginning, some nagging, stubborn part of Lucas’s brain hadn’t been able to believe that Antoinette would hurt Travis.

And if someone was helping her escape, why would that person think the best chance to get away would be to share a horse?

Lucas stood, lifting the lantern and looking down the trail, through the snowfall and the deepening shadows. His instincts told him something was wrong—but he wasn’t sure he could trust his instincts where Antoinette was concerned.

His eyes on the hoofprints, he walked over and mounted the iron-gray gelding he had taken from the livery stable and set off again. It was getting dark, the icy white snowflakes kept falling, and the wind had become so cold it sliced through his drover’s coat and chilled him to the bone. But he didn’t want to stop for the night. Not yet.

Within an hour, the tracks led him to a copse of pine trees, where he found a crushed place in the snow. Like the two riders had stopped here to rest.

But when he dismounted for a closer look, he saw only
one
set of footprints.

Made by a man’s large, booted feet.

Lucas went still. It looked like the man had taken some burden from his horse and laid it under the trees. Maybe a bundle of supplies.

Or maybe a person.

A person who was tied up. Or dead.

Lucas felt like a lead weight had just dropped through the pit of his stomach. He didn’t see Antoinette’s footprints anywhere.

Maybe Holt and Mrs. Greer hadn’t been acting. He remembered how the gray-haired woman had burst into tears, the look of panic on her face. And her story about a prowler outside Antoinette’s windows.

Bounty hunter.

Lucas swore. He should have guessed. Didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it earlier.

But then he knew why: because he was always willing to think the worst of Antoinette.

He returned to his horse, grabbed the reins and vaulted into the saddle, three words ringing through his head, over and over.

Dead or alive.

The reward Olivia had offered was for Antoinette dead or alive. Five thousand dollars. There were plenty of ruthless bastards in the West who would do anything for that kind of money. Anything.

Lucas spurred the gelding down the steep mountain trail, into the night. It was too dark to keep going, the moon and stars almost blotted out by the clouds and falling snow. He didn’t stop to question why he was risking his neck.

Especially when he knew the son of a bitch could’ve killed Antoinette already.

Duty
, he told himself, unable to explain his racing pulse. She was his prisoner—and if some goddamn bounty hunter had taken her from his custody, it was Lucas’s duty to get her back.

If she was still alive.

Every muscle in his body had bunched up tight. He forced himself to relax. To stay levelheaded, his hand easy on the reins.

Until a half-hour later, when he rode into a valley and lost the trail. He couldn’t make out the hoofprints in the snow anymore. Or even the trail itself, not in the darkness. The storm had obliterated everything. And there were three different passes that led out of the valley.

He should stop, he thought logically, reining the gelding in ever-widening circles, looking for some sign of which direction they had taken. He should stop and wait until morning. Getting through the passes would be one hell of a lot safer in daylight. If the bounty hunter was smart, he had already stopped somewhere.

The thought of what he might do to Annie before dawn—what he might already be doing—brought a sound from Lucas’s throat, a snarl of anger and frustration.

He tried to calm down. Think rationally. Find the usual detached, icy cool he had always relied on in situations like this.

But for the first time, he couldn’t find it. Couldn’t feel logical or steady or rational anymore. His heart was drumming in his chest and he was soaked through from the sleet and practically frozen solid, and he just kept riding in circles through the hopeless mess of snow and darkness, refusing to give up.

And then he saw the shoes.

Annie’s shoes, small patches of black against all the white.

They had either fallen off—or she had kicked them off. As a signal. A trail marker. To show which pass they had taken.

Smart girl
. Lucas smiled grimly and hoped the latter was true. Because it would mean she was still alive. He dug his heels into the gelding’s flanks and reined the horse forward.