Judith E French (13 page)

A picture formed in her mind of Ash lying near to death, leg swollen, and skin burning with fever. She shuddered. “After that?”

He gestured with his hands. “Hostile Indians and cutthroats were raiding outlying ranches—stealing, burning, murdering innocent folks. When my leg mended good enough to ride, I gathered a few friends and we organized a home defense force.” Ash shrugged. “Never did get back into the war proper.”

“At least you volunteered,” she replied. “Even if it was for Lincoln.” She sighed. “More than I can say for Atwood.”

“How did he die?”

She didn’t miss the suspicion in his voice. “Don’t look at me. I was at a church meeting the night he drowned in a mud puddle behind Lacy Satin’s River House. Nine gentlemen swore that Atwood left the establishment stone broke and too drunk to ride.” She shook her head. “Not that it mattered. He didn’t have a horse left to ride home on. He’d just lost my gray Tennessee walker, Alabaster, to a Yankee lieutenant in a hand of poker.”

Ash frowned. “Sounds fortunate for you, to be rid of such a husband.”

“Yes and no. I’d not wish Atwood dead, although I did wish him in China many a night. I’m glad to be rid of him, but he cost me dear. A woman may as well be a slave under the law. Her husband has complete control of her funds.”

“Slavery’s done with.”

“Not for wives. If we had the vote—”

“Why stop at the vote? Why not a woman governor of the territory?”

“You’re making fun of me,” she said. “Do you truly believe that women are born inferior to men?”

He pushed his hat brim up with a long forefinger. “I’ve known women who would put most men to shame when it came to thinking. My Becky was one. But I never heard her clamoring to vote. I expect she was content to leave such matters to me.”

“But why?” Tamsin demanded. “Why should only men have the vote?”

Ash scoffed. “Damned if I know, Tamsin. It’s always been that way. It’s not a thing that’s ever kept me awake nights wondering about.”

“Maybe you should.” She remained silent for a few minutes, then leaned toward him slightly and asked, “Were you really a prisoner of the Comanche when you were a child?”

He shook his head. “Outlaw Comanche. No self-respecting Indian would have them in his village. They were outlaws, torturing, bloodthirsty killers. They robbed the Texans, other tribes, and the Mexicans.”

“How did you survive?”

He made a tight, bitter sound in his throat. “Who says I did?” He stared off into the trees. “I wanted to die, God knows. I prayed to die.”

“How did you get away from them?”

“I put a bullet through the man who murdered my father, took his horse, and rode south to Texas.”

“At ten? Eleven?”

Ash shook his head. “Twelve. I told you. I was with them for two years, give or take a month. It’s not too clear in my head.”

“They didn’t come after you?”

“Maybe. They sure as hell didn’t catch me.”

“Texas was your home? That’s where you grew up?”

He nodded. “Daddy was a Texas Ranger. I was born in the back of a wagon, somewhere north of Austin. I can’t tell you much about my mama, only that he claimed I got her black hair and that she came from a highfalutin family in New Orleans. He said her folks were French, that they’d lost all their money and come west to make a new start. I wouldn’t know about that. She ran off with a man named Jules Valjean when I was two weeks old, left Daddy a note telling him that she couldn’t abide Texas or raising a child on the frontier.”

“Your mother just left you?”

“Left us both. Daddy never married again. He brought me up himself. He was a federal marshal when he was killed.”

“Did you have family to go to when you got back to Texas?” she asked.

“Uncle Matt and Aunt Jane took me in. They weren’t real kin. Uncle Matt was a ranger, same as my daddy. The two of them were close as brothers. I was loco as a bee-stung mustang and half-starved, but Aunt Jane filled me full of hot soup and biscuits, scrubbed off two years’ worth of dirt, and tucked me into her feather bed. I must have slept for three days straight. When I woke up, Uncle Matt was sitting there beside me with tears rollin’ down his cheeks.”

Ash’s voice grew husky with emotion. “I needed somebody, and I guess they did, too. They never had any kids of their own that lived. I stayed with them until I was seventeen. Then they died of spotted fever, and I quit school and hired on to drive a herd of cattle out here to Colorado.”

“It must have been very difficult, losing your father and then your … your aunt and uncle.”

“Aunt Jane didn’t have more than eight years of
schooling, but she was the finest lady I’ve ever known. As for Uncle Matt, just ask any decent folks in Texas about Matt Bell. They’ll tell you that they don’t make men like him anymore.”

“I never knew my own mother,” Tamsin began. “She—”

Suddenly Dancer threw up his head and whinnied. Fancy sidled close to him and stared down the valley, the way that they had come the day before.

Tamsin tensed and her heartbeat quickened. “The cougar?” she whispered urgently. “Do you think—”

“Quiet!” Ash went to the campfire and retrieved his rifle. His pistol hung around his waist. He’d recovered the handgun earlier. “Bring the horses into camp,” he said.

“All right.” She tried to whistle, but her mouth was so dry that it came out a squeak. But Fancy’s keen ears caught the sound. Instantly, the mare turned to look at her. Tamsin whistled again, and Fancy trotted toward her with the nervous stallion close behind.

Ash scanned the woods line as she put a rope on Fancy and tied her to a tree. A jay screamed a warning overhead. On the ground, a few yards away, a squirrel raced by, then scampered up a trunk and vanished in the green leaves.

“Shall I fetch Shiloh as well?” Tamsin asked. She pressed her hands against her sides so that Ash wouldn’t see her trembling. She could imagine the mountain lion leaping on her as it had before. Her legs felt as though they were made of wood.

“Might as well.” Ash’s dark gaze continued to rake the surrounding forest. “Something spooked the horses. It may be nothing, but you don’t make many errors in judgment in these mountains and survive.”

Then, as Tamsin forced herself to step out of the shade and into the sunlight of the clearing, she caught a flicker
of movement on the far side of the creek. “There!” She pointed. Something black appeared, then vanished again in the thick foliage.

Ash took careful aim at the bushes with his rifle. Dancer snorted and muscles rippled beneath his glossy hide. Tamsin didn’t move.

She waited, expecting to hear a bear growl or the cougar snarl. But to her surprise, the sound that rose from the brush was a whine.

“It’s all right,” Ash called.

“I don’t—” Tamsin broke off as the Utes’ black dog emerged from hiding. The wretched animal’s tail curled between his legs and his belly hung close to the ground.

Ash crouched and slapped his knee. “Come here, War-et.”

Instantly the little dog plunged into the stream and paddled across. Wet and shivering, still whining pitifully, the dog slunk to Ash’s side.

“Where’s your master?” Ash murmured. “Where’s Mountain Calf?”

Tamsin grabbed the strawberry roan’s bridle and hurried back to the fire. “Why did the dog come back here?” she asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know.” He patted the animal’s head. “Poor pup. He looks as though he’s had a rough time.”

Tamsin saw that one of War-et’s ears was bloody and that he was covered with scratches.

“Nothing deep enough to be a puma attack,” Ash said, answering her unspoken question. “But it’s odd he’d leave on his own.”

“He looks hungry. Do you want something to eat?” she asked the animal. Sad eyes stared back at her. She glanced at Ash. “Can I—”

“Yes, cut him off some of that venison. We’ve more than we can eat before it starts to turn anyway.”

Tamsin sliced off bits of raw meat and fed them slowly to the dog. When she decided he’d had enough, she shook her head. “That’s it. You’ll be sick if I give you more.”

War-et’s tail flicked hopefully.

“No more,” she said.

With a final whine, he curled at her feet.

“Maybe it chased the mountain lion and got separated from the Utes,” Tamsin suggested.

Ash remained alert, rifle cradled in the corner of his arm. “Maybe,” he replied. He didn’t think so. And suddenly, this hollow didn’t seem like a perfect campsite anymore. An uneasy feeling gnawed at his innards. “Saddle the horses,” he said to Tamsin.

“What?” She rested one hand on her hip and stared at him in puzzlement. “But you said—”

“Forget what I said. We’re backtracking. Now!” He began to kick dirt over the fire.

“You said that Shiloh’s leg should rest today. You—”

“Damn it, woman. Can you never accept a simple order?” He didn’t owe her any explanations. He had none to offer. And he’d already said too much to Tamsin. He’d told her about Glorieta Pass and Aunt Jane and Uncle Matt, private things he hadn’t spoken of to another living soul in years.

Something about Tamsin made him want to trust her with his innermost secrets, but common sense told him that was foolhardy. If he wasn’t careful, he’d let his personal life interfere with his job, and that was one rule he never broke.

He had an itch for Tamsin. Hell, it was more than that. He wanted her. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She made his hands sweat, and his blood race, and his
imagination run wild. The way she moved, the tilt of her head when she laughed, the sparkle in her green eyes, all drew him like a thirsty mustang to water.

He’d been too long without a woman when he’d let his ballocks rule his head. It would have been far better for him if he’d accepted Shelly’s offer. He could have pulled her into Maudine’s tub and scrubbed her from head to toe first. Shelly was none too bright, but she gave a man honest reward for his money.

And he didn’t have to worry about Shelly shooting him in the back.

He tried to think of Shelly. She barely came up to his shoulder, and her hands and face were lily-white and soft. Her cupid mouth was painted scarlet, her eyes outlined in kohl as black as her hair. What clothes Shelly wore were feminine, tight-fitting, lacy, intended to entice a man.

How was it that he’d rejected a willing little baggage like Shelly to be tempted by a tall, freckle-faced outlaw’s woman with callused hands and a will of iron?

Hellfire and damnation. Another night rolled in a blanket with Tamsin and that southern-sweet whiskey voice of hers would convince him that Henry Steele had murdered his own brother, and she was the next thing to a cross-wearing nun.

He stirred himself from thoughts of Tamsin and glanced around. Birds and squirrels still rustled in the trees; the horses seemed to have lost their fear once they saw the dog. Yet, he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Maybe Jack Cannon and his boys were near, or maybe it was just his nerves stretched too tight.

Tamsin tightened the cinch on Shiloh’s saddle. “Which way are we going?”

“You have to ask?” He motioned to the narrow passageway that led east.

“This canyon ends here?” Tamsin eased a snaffle bit into the mare’s mouth and slipped the headstall behind the animal’s ears. Fancy stood unmoving, ignoring the stallion who pranced behind her, showing his teeth, and laying back his ears.

“It narrows again, then opens into a valley. But it runs west. We’re going back toward Sweetwater.”

“Oh, I just wondered.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Then I was going in the right direction. West, through the mountains.”

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

She nodded and turned away from him, toward the big bay.

“Will you tell me one thing?” Ash asked as Tamsin swung the plain Texas stock saddle over the mare’s back. “Why is it you put a western saddle on that sweet-tempered chestnut, and an English rig on that devil stud? Why not the other way around? I’d think you’d need more saddle under you to ride him.”

“I don’t ride him much,” she said. “Dancer’s full of surprises.”

“If you’d had him properly broken, he wouldn’t be so damn flighty.”

“The Texas saddle seemed more practical for such a long journey,” Tamsin continued. She approached the stallion carefully, crooning softly to him.

The animal squealed and shied away, but she kept talking and moving closer. Finally, she was able to grab his halter and snub him to a tree. Ash kept watch as Tamsin secured her packs and tied them to Dancer’s saddle. “All done except for your bags and bedroll,” she said. She undid a strap on a leather pouch and adjusted the contents.

“It will just take me a minute,” Ash answered. He switched his rifle to his left hand and reached for his blanket with his right.

“Stop there!” Tamsin said. “Drop your gun.”

“What—” He spun toward her, then froze in his tracks when he saw the big Navy Colt in her hands.

“I said drop the rifle.”

“You won’t shoot me.”

She squeezed the trigger, and a bullet whizzed past his left ear and thudded into a tree behind him. “I mean it,” she warned. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ash, but I’m not going back to face that judge.”

Ash was certain he could get at least one shot off, but the bullet would tear a hole in Tamsin a man could throw a steer through. His muscles coiled, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to kill her. He dropped the rifle onto the stony ground.

“Shall I turn around?” he demanded. “Would you rather take aim at my back than look me in the eye and shoot?”

“I’m a good shot, Ash. I could have put that lead between your eyes if I’d wanted to. Step back.”

He swore an oath that would melt leather, but he did as she ordered.

“Now draw your gun with two fingers. Don’t make me kill you, Ash.”

He watched her eyes, saw the moisture pool in them, read the determination there.

“You won’t get away. Murder me, and more men will come after you. California isn’t far enough to run, Tamsin.”

She kicked his rifle away. “Do as I say.” Her voice cracked, but her hands held the Colt steady. “Throw your revolver into the creek.”

“There are hostiles on the move. That strawberry hair
of yours will end up on some young buck’s scalp belt. And if the Indians or the cougar don’t get you, you’ll lose your way in the mountains and starve.”