Solitary Horseman (18 page)

He framed her face in his hands and held her still, studying her as if he were memorizing the colors in her eyes and the freckles on the bridge of her nose. “Sometimes I manage to convince myself that I should just leave you be, but most of the time I burn for you, Banner. I want you more than I want my next breath.”

She sensed that he was fighting an inner battle and she knew for certain which side should win. “I want you, too, Callum. So much.”

He stared into her upturned face, surprise lifting his eyebrows. Smiling, she raised herself on tiptoes to press convincing, swift kisses on his neck and jaw. A tingling erupted in her stomach and slid down between her legs when he groaned her name and then then took her mouth again, his tongue mating with hers as his hands moved down to her hips to pull her flush against him.

The thundering of hooves registered through her haze of desire at the same moment that Callum tore his mouth from hers.

“Callum Latimer?” a man called.

“Yeah!” Callum answered. He brushed aside a lock of her hair that curled along her cheek, pressed his lips to hair, then nuzzled behind her ear, sending shivers of delight down her spine. He heaved a sigh of regret before he let her go to stride to the front of the house. “I’m here.”

Banner took a moment to run trembling hands over her hair, checking to see if any pins had come undone. She spotted her bonnet a few feet away. A breeze lifted it and it tumbled across the brown grass toward her. She snatched it up before walking around the house to see who had come looking for Callum. Ben Echohawk sat astride his spirited pony, his handsome face streaked with dirt and set in lines of distress.

“Goddamn it to hell!” Callum bit out as he whirled away from Ben and marched toward the tree where he’d tethered his horse.

“What’s happened?” Banner asked, looking from Callum to Ben.

“The herd is scattered to the four winds,” Ben said. “Someone opened the pens and spooked them.”

“Who would do that?” Banner flapped her arms in a helpless gesture. “All that work . . .”

“Yes. It has set us back.” Ben looked from Callum to her. “Where’s your brother? We could use him.”

“I’m not sure . . .” She tried to imagine where Hollis might escape to. “I’ll change out of my Sunday clothes and saddle up. I’ll find him for you.”

“Okay. The other men are already out there rounding up the herd again.”

“Let’s ride,” Callum called, swinging a leg over the saddle and reining Butter around. His gaze caught on Banner’s and held for a few heart-pounding moments before he looked away and spurred his horse into a race with Ben’s.

Whoever had stampeded the herd did a damn fine job of it. For three days, they’d rousted heifers and calves out of piney woods and testing wills with stubborn bulls that didn’t want to be penned up again. The herd had been scattered to the far reaches of both ranches.

It had snowed last night, which hadn’t improved the mood of any of the cowhands or the cattle, for that matter.

Driving four cows and two calves up the creek bank, Callum gripped his coiled rope in one fist and waved his arm up and down as he shouted at the lumbering animals to get a move on. He was all out of patience and his back and shoulder muscles burned with fatigue. Urging Butter up the ice-coated grassy slope, he whacked the backside of the nearest cow with his lariat to make her move a little faster. As he topped the bank, the sound of raised voices floated to him. In the near distance, he spotted Hollis and Eller shouting at each other over the backs of cattle being herded toward a makeshift pen. They were so busy cussing each other, he was right up on them before they noticed him.

“What’s all the yelling about?” Callum asked, looking from one angry expression to the other.

“Hollis is pissed because I interrupted his damned nap!”

“It’s none of your business what I do! You’re not my boss,” a red-faced Hollis said, then spit on the ground to better illustrate his feelings about it.

“He was sitting on his horse over there under those trees fast asleep,” Eller charged, giving Hollis a murderous glare as if he were accusing the man of cattle rustling instead of snoozing. “I rode up to him and nudged him. He damn near fell off his horse! We’re not out here for a siesta, boy.”

Hollis’s eyes blazed with hatred. “I won’t be called ‘boy’ by no one, but especially not by a lily liver like you.”

Callum saw Eller’s fingers twitch, but he had his own Remington in his hand before Eller could barely blink. “Eller, simmer down. I mean what I say.” He holstered his gun again when Eller crossed his wrists on top of his saddle horn. “We don’t have time for name calling like kids in a school yard. Shut your traps and get the cattle into the goddamn pen.” With that, he turned Butter and headed toward the creek to look for more stragglers.

Although the snow on the ground was less than an inch, it made it all the more difficult to maneuver horses and cattle. His breath misted in front of his face as he moved up and down in the saddle, his backside aching every time it made contact with the hard wood and leather. While he could understand how Hollis might want to grab a little shut-eye – hell, he could lie down on this cold ground right now and sleep like a baby! – there was no excuse for actually sneaking off for a nap while everyone else worked the herd.

He’d noticed Eller needling Hollis more often than usual. Everyone was short-tempered now, but Eller and Hollis circled each other like a couple of teeth-baring wolves. It was getting downright irritating and putting everyone on edge. He wasn’t sure what Eller was up to, but he had a goal in mind. He was picking on Hollis for a reason. Could be he wanted to direct Callum’s attention to Hollis so he wouldn’t notice that Eller wasn’t working as hard as the others. Because nobody did lazy better than Eller Latimer Hawkins. Since he was barely out of nappies, Eller had been content to let others do for him while he ran off his mouth, grinned at the girls, or found some trouble to dip into.

Callum gripped Butter’s sides with his knees as the big blond mare picked her way down the bank again to the edge of Mossy Springs. As he rode beside the gurgling, slow-moving water, alert for the slightest movement, Callum tucked his chin close to his coat collar. The north wind gusted in his face and felt like icy branches slapping against his cheeks and nose. He spied a few tracks on the snowy ground and followed them while his thoughts meandered to Banner, as they so often did.

She was staying at his ranch day and night, looking after Seth while Callum and the other ranch hands camped out with the herd. There could be no more stampedes or they’d never get the calves sorted and branded and the herd off to the winter wheat pasture to fatten up for the spring trip to market.

He missed her. At night, he listened to the wind and heard her laughter in it. He stared at the stars and saw her twinkling eyes. In the dancing flames of the campfire, he felt the heat rise in him with thoughts of her and how her body felt against his.

But during the light of day, his thoughts darkened. Should he be chasing after her? Yes, she made him feel things he’d assumed had been massacred during the war, but what was best for her? It was damned hard to think about that when he was close enough to her to smell perfume and see the flecks of gold in her tawny eyes. Parts of who he used to be were still missing, lost forever on far-away battlefields. She was such a beauty and full of fire and spirit. Did she see him as a man of action, of sound mind and body? Or did she dwell on the man who sat up many a night, shaking with the sound of screaming bullets and moaning men echoing in his head, who saw flashes of cannon fire from the corner of his eyes instead of sunlight streaking across damp grass?

He hunched his shoulders, disturbed to think that she could see him as an emotional cripple who needed her help. He didn’t want her damned help! He wanted her moaning under him with her legs wrapped around his hips, and her golden eyes all molten with passion.

He wanted her to need
him
, depend on
him
, lean on
him.
Not the other way around.

###

Four long days and three nights crawled by without Banner laying eyes on Callum. He’d sent word through Mary, asking Banner to stay at the ranch and look after his father. Since Hollis was never home and taking all his meals at the Latimer table, Banner had agreed that she might as well remain there and be useful. Mr. Latimer had told her to sleep in one of the extra rooms – rooms that had once been slept in by Maxwell and Harrison – and make herself at home.

Their herd had scattered all over creation and had become mixed together so that it was almost impossible to tell which ones belonged to what ranch. Because her cattle hadn’t all been branded, Callum had kept her herd apart from his until he could correct that, but the stampede had finished that plan. Not that it mattered all that much. She trusted Callum to do right by her. He’d sort the cattle fairly. She didn’t doubt that. Not anymore.

Callum had ordered that two men remain with the cattle every night to be sure they weren’t stampeded again. Hollis was spared the all-night watches because he refused to carry a weapon. In other words, the men had orders to shoot and ask questions later. So far, Callum had taken the all-night and all-day watches. Banner packed food for him, and one of the other men who straggled in for breakfast and dinner would take it to him.

On the fourth day after she had finished the dinner dishes, Banner wandered into the parlor where Seth sat by the fire. Rowdy stretched out beside the chair and yawned hugely before flopping over on his side for a nap. Banner’s thoughts returned to a newspaper article the men had discussed during the midday meal. Two Indians had been found hanging from trees just outside of town two days ago. Mary had told Banner about it yesterday, having heard the news through her relatives. Mary didn’t personally know the men, other than they were young Cherokees.

“They laughed too loud and drank too much fire water,” Mary had said. “And for that they swing from nooses.”

The newspaper reported that townspeople were nervous because “savages raced their horses up and down the streets, guns and knives in their fists, and spitting on ladies.” A councilman said that he believed the Indians were responsible for stolen horses throughout the county.

“That’s vigilante justice,” Seth Latimer had surmised. “Nothing good comes of it. People get riled, start shooting off their mouths and then their guns. Before you know it, somebody gets killed for doing nothing but being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“There have been more town meetings with people making all kinds of crazy claims against Indians,” Franklin had told them. “They blame them for setting barns on fire. They’re saying that freed slaves around here are stealing food and robbing folks.”

“Darkies and Indians get hungry just like the rest of us.” Flint had patted his stomach. “If they can’t find work and they’re run off their land, desperation tramples a clear conscience.”

Dangerous times, she thought as she looked outside and watched two dogs snarling over a bone.

“You know what I find peculiar?” Seth asked, tamping tobacco into his pipe. “The men who seem to be behind all this speech making and fist shaking are the ones who didn’t see much, if any, fighting in the war. Men like my son, who fought every damn day and rode into battle at the front of the line instead of behind it, aren’t looking for another fight. Naw. It’s hot-heads like Eller and Gus Bransetter who are banging the drums of dissent. They’re all flapping gums and lazy butts.”

She nodded and turned away from the door. “Yes, you’re right. Lately, it seems that I feel recklessness in the air. The cowhands are nervous and jittery. It’s almost if they’re waiting for the earth to crack open or the sky to fall. It reminds me of how it was right before war was declared. Everyone was anxious and ready for anything – or so we believed. We quickly learned that we weren’t ready for years of fear, starvation, and heartache.”

Seth pursed his lips and wiggled them from side to side. “I’ve felt it, too. Seems like someone’s lit a fuse and everybody’s waiting for the big explosion.”

Catching the faint sounds of an approaching horse, she went to the window and recognized the solitary horseman immediately. “It’s Cal!” Her heart tripped over itself. Get hold of yourself, she thought. You have no claim on him, so stop acting like you do. Seth pushed up from his chair and moved stiffly to the door, using only one cane. He opened it, blocking her view. She knew he must be as relieved as she was that Callum was finally checking in.

At night, she’d had trouble sleeping in the big bed that had once been Maxwell’s. She’d flipped and flopped, wrestling with the linens as she’d tried to block out visions of Callum and Hollis being set upon by marauders, highwaymen, and crazed vigilantes. Last night, she’d awakened from a nightmare about Hollis stumbling into the bedroom in a blood-soaked shirt and dropping to his knees before her as the light of life blinked out of his hazel eyes.

Seth stepped back, letting her gobble up the sight of Callum – a very alive, but weary Callum. He walked as if he had a horse draped across his wide shoulders, each step measured and heavy.

“You look like hell, son,” Seth said. “But I’m still glad to see you.”

“I feel like I look.” Callum’s voice was scratchy from the raw wind that whistled in through the open door and made the flames in the fireplace leap and roar. “We’ve rounded them up and they’re contained again. Tomorrow morning we’ll start separating the calves and branding them.”

“You’ve made up a lot of time, Callum. You’ve done good.” Seth shoved his shoulder against Callum’s as he moved past him into the room.

“The men have worked hard, but we have a lot more work ahead of us before we can breathe easy. I decided to . . .” His words faltered when he noticed Banner. He swallowed hard. “Banner. Thanks for staying here with Pa.”

“It was no hardship.” She smiled at his father, grateful that they’d finally forged a civil, if not almost kindly, relationship. “I bet you’re hungry.”

“I am.” He glanced down at his wrinkled, mud-splashed clothing. “And I need a bath. I hitched Pansy to your wagon so you can head home while it’s still light outside. Hollis will be there tonight and I’m sure he’d like to see you. The Echohawks are watching the herd tonight.”

“But I can fix you some—”

“I can rustle up something to eat,” he interrupted.

“She’s always got something to fill your gut in that kitchen.” Seth lowered himself into his favorite chair again.

“I don’t mind staying . . .” She let the rest fade because she could tell by Callum’s expression that he didn’t want her to cook for him tonight. Well, fine! When she felt her lower lip begin to tremble, she bit down on it and wrenched her emotions under control. “I do want to speak to you for a few minutes before I head back to my place. If you’re not too tired.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“The cowhands said that you think Jeb Johnson might have stampeded the herd.”

“That’s right. I heard that Johnson was in town a couple of days ago. He had help though. He couldn’t have done all that by himself.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Mind if we talk while I heat up water for my bath?”

“No, of course not.” She led the way into the kitchen, and would have picked up the big kettle to fill it, but he grabbed it before she could.

“I can do this. Be right back.” He headed out the door to the pump at the side of the house.

She sat at the kitchen table, drumming her fingers on the scarred wood surface and then tracing the initials of three boys etched into it – M.P.L., C.J.L., and H.T.L. Callum had added two dots for eyes and one for a nose so that the curving bottom of the C made a smiling mouth. She smiled down at it, finding it sweet and out of character for him now. Maybe one of the other brothers had carved that silly face to rile him. He strode into the kitchen and set the big kettle on the stove to heat.