Texas Blue (36 page)

One of the guards pulled Em to the nearest tree, raised her arms above her head, and tied her up, leaving her hanging like about-to-be-butchered meat.

“I need to make sure she’s alive.” Lewt walked toward her. “I don’t want to waste my time playing for a dead woman.”

The troll laughed. “It don’t make all that much difference to me one way or the other long as she’s still warm.”

While the others laughed, Lewt moved his fingers along the side of Em’s throat and felt for a pulse. It pounded strong and fast in his palm even as blood dripped from a cut at her hairline.

“Let’s get on with the game!” someone yelled, and the men circled a stump that had already acted as Lewt’s table. They’d been passing around bottles since they’d stopped to rest, and the whiskey had begun to take effect. None of the others wanted to play, but they all wanted to watch.

Lewt leaned close to Em, praying she was conscious enough to hear him. “When I say run, turn and run into the trees and keep running. Do you understand? No matter what, don’t stop.”

He thought he felt her nod slightly, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“She’s barely breathing,” he shouted. “If she dies before the game is played, all bets are off.”

“Then let’s get to it,” the troll yelled. “I’ll look mighty good in that fancy vest of yours.”

Lewt moved away from her, forcing himself not to look back. If he did, if he saw her hanging there, hurt and helpless, it would be his undoing. He moved to the center of the circle and began the most important card game of his life.

The rain poured above them, and now and then it managed to filter through the trees and sputter in the fire.

Lewt laughed and kidded with the men, but he counted every minute. Finally, after several rounds of play, he saw Em’s feet shift beneath her and take her weight off her bound wrists. He knew she was awake.

He won one hand, then lost one, but slowly his twenty pieces of twigs that served as chips began to multiply and the troll’s dwindled. The man seemed to be enjoying the attention from his peers and wasn’t too concerned about losing a little. After all, it wasn’t real money, and the tall, thin woman wearing the clothes of a man didn’t really appeal to him. He even told everyone that since he’d knocked her senseless, she probably couldn’t play the way he liked to play.

By the time he’d lost most of his sticks, he was bragging that he liked his women best when they were yelling and screaming even if he had to break a few bones to get their attention. The others teased him that the only women he could catch in the saloon were the new girls, and he only caught them once.

Lewt didn’t say anything; he hoped Em wasn’t listening to any of the rough talk. She was frightened enough of men.

Unfortunately, he knew she probably was, because he’d seen her shift a few times, balancing her weight, turning her wrists so blood would circulate.

Finally, the last guard, a morbid outlaw who did nothing but complain, woke from his sleep. The big man stood, his worthless arm swinging at his side. “What is everyone doing?” he yelled. “We need to be on the road. If we don’t bring that girl of Toledo’s back, I’ll see to it you all are hunted down and murdered in your sleep.”

Lewt thought he recognized the man as the guard who’d been in front of Duncan’s prison. The thought crossed his mind that the cooks were right; he should have left the man dripping blood and not just tied him to the bed.

The crowd was drunk enough to argue, and the leader of the band, Binns, appeared to have had enough of the bossy slob they called Ramon. The two men faced one another and began poking and shoving.

As the shouting escalated and fists began to fly, Lewt slipped a thin knife from his belt and in one quick shot sent it flying toward Em.

The rope above her hands sliced in half.

“Run,” he shouted, knowing that she might make it free, but he’d be trapped. It didn’t matter.

Before Em’s arms dropped in front of her, she was moving into the brush, heading for the water. When she broke from the trees, she realized how hard it was raining. Her one hope was to hit the water and let it take her downstream.

Downstream. Back to Duck and Wyatt. Back to life.

As she jumped into the current, one thought filled her. She was heading away from Lewt.

Underwater, she jerked the wet ropes off her wrists and began to swim. Long, powerful strokes like her papa had taught her the first year she’d come to Whispering Mountain.

Teagen McMurray would yell, “Half our land is framed by water, so my daughters need to swim.” Then he’d pick her up and tell her to gulp in air just before she hit the water.

She’d learned the lessons well, and now they might save her life.

When she finally broke the surface and tried to breathe in the rain, she heard shouts, but they seemed far behind her. She cupped her mouth, gulped air, and floated in the center of the stream, where the water pushed her along. Away to freedom. Away from Lewt.

D
UNCAN WAS SPITTING MAD. HE��D TOLD EMILY TO return in one hour, and they’d waited for her half an hour before they’d decided to head upstream and find her. “Surely she can tell time,” he mumbled, simply because he didn’t want to allow himself to think of the other reasons she might be late.

He watched along the left side and Wyatt searched the right bank as they pushed through the rain and shallow water. They needed to rest the horses. Hell, he thought, he needed to rest, maybe drink the last of the coffee, but what was he doing? Looking for his cousin. She’d never followed orders; he didn’t know why he expected it now. When she’d been little, her mother was constantly insisting that Em wear a dress to school. Half the time she was taking it off and switching into trousers and a shirt on the way home. The only person she listened to was Teagen, and everyone listened to him. It was hard not to. The man came into the world at full volume and worked on getting louder.

After several minutes, Duncan spotted her horse near the stream. He’d been running.

Wyatt caught the reins. “You think she fell off?”

Duncan swore, deciding it would become an incurable habit if he stayed around her long. “Maybe. More likely she decided to walk the bank a little farther. Tie the horse; we’ll pick him up on our way back. Right now we have to find her.” Silently he hoped it would be faceup and not facedown in the water.

They rushed on.

“She couldn’t have gone much farther,” Wyatt finally said as they neared a bend in the stream.

“Of course she could. She’s probably forgotten all about the time.” Duncan was into his rant. “At least I’m not worried she’s kidnapped. Who’d want to take her? If anyone ever thought of kidnapping a McMurray for ransom, she’d be the last one picked. She’s bullheaded. She never listens. She’s never going to marry and settle down, not her; she’s got to have control of everything and everyone.”

Wyatt jerked his horse toward the center of the stream. “She’s in the water!” he yelled, a second before he dove off his mount.

Duncan grabbed the horse as he watched Wyatt pull Em up. For a moment she kicked and fought as if she thought him a stream monster, and then when she finally opened her eyes and looked at him, she stilled.

“Lewt’s in trouble.” She pointed to the bend. “Hurry. They’re going to kill him.”

Wyatt carried her to the bank and set her down. “Stay here. We’ll get him.”

She looked like she might argue, but she was gulping air and slinging her wet hair. The ranger swung up on his horse and joined Duncan, already heading upstream.

Em buried her head on her knees and began to shake. She had no idea if it was the cold or the fear or the exhaustion. All she knew was that she wanted to help Lewt. With no horse or gun she had little chance. So she waited in the rain, feeling more broken and alone than she ever had in her life.

Gunfire rattled in the storm like the echo of thunder. Em knew she should move back in the trees for shelter, but she couldn’t unfold her arms from around her knees. All at once she was six years old again and frightened of everything. She knew she was by the stream in the middle of a thunderstorm, but in her mind she went all the way back to the small room over a bookstore in Chicago.

The room seemed always cold and damp. Her mother slept on the bed with them most nights, but now and then they’d hear her father climbing the stairs and her mother would lift them onto the floor beside an old wardrobe. Rose was younger, she never woke, but Emily did. She always did.

She’d lie there knowing she had to be still. She’d face the wall and try not to listen as her father hurt her mother. Her mother never cried out, not even when he finished and sometimes slapped her while he called her names, but after he left she cried sometimes until dawn.

In the days he was rarely there, and when he was, Em remembered that the smell of whiskey circled around him. He never spoke to her or Rose except to order them to leave. When they’d return to the kitchen or bookstore, their mother would be crying.

When he died, Em hadn’t even thought to cry. She’d just helped her mother pack. By then Bethie was born. Em remembered the days of trains and boats and finally the stage. The trip seemed endless, but it didn’t matter. They were heading away from the man who’d hurt her mother.

When they finally got to Texas, they found Teagen McMurray, her papa. He was a big, strong, powerful man who took care of them all, and once he put his arms around her mother, Em never saw her cry again. But somehow the ink of Chicago nights had blotted her soul. Until Lewt, she’d never let a man close enough to hurt her.

Until now, she hadn’t cried. She cried so hard her body shook. She cried so hard not even the rain could wash her tears away.

When she finally ran out of tears, she raised her head and realized that it had stopped raining. The air was still cold, with a wind rumbling in the trees. Clouds hid the sun, making it seem more like twilight than day.

Like shadows floating on the water, she saw three men riding toward her. Their heads were down, hats low, but she recognized them. Duncan. Wyatt. Lewt.

Em slowly stood, watching them, almost afraid they were ghosts leaving a battle.

None of them said a word when they reached her. Lewt leaned down from his saddle and lifted her up in front of him. Em wasn’t sure she could speak. She just felt the solidness of his chest and let him hold her tight as they moved on down the stream.

A hundred questions came to mind, but she let them wait. Somehow, he was alive, and that was enough for now.

When they reached the camp they’d used the night before, they stopped. Duncan took care of the horses, Wyatt built a huge fire that warmed the whole clearing, and Lewt doctored the cut along her forehead as best he could.

A warm feeling of being safe washed over Em’s tired body as she leaned her chin on Lewt’s knee and closed her eyes.

“They found your horse,” he said simply, as if there were nothing else important in the world to tell her.

Em opened one eye and looked at him. She’d left him at an outlaw camp about to die, and all he could think of to say was that they’d found the horse. She considered yelling at him, but she didn’t have the energy. “What happened?” she asked, as Wyatt and Duncan stretched out on their bedrolls around the fire.

“I lived,” Lewt said with a smile, as if he were amazed.

“He wouldn’t have if we’d been a few minutes later,” Wyatt added.

“But I thought they’d shoot you immediately after I ran.”

Lewt grinned. “They wanted to, but to my surprise, they got in an argument over who got to kill me. The big guy with only one arm that worked seemed to think he had the right, but the stump of a man who found you claimed he was the one cheated. They tied me up to argue about the time Wyatt and Duncan hit the camp firing at everything that moved. I pulled a knife from my boot, cut myself loose, and took cover until the firing stopped.”

Em turned to stare at Wyatt. “Did you kill them all?”

Wyatt shook his head.

Lewt answered, “Your date to the party, the short guy, took a bullet to the head. It wasn’t a pretty sight. What little brains he had departed. The big slob of a man who claimed he was little Anna’s future husband had three slugs in him, and both these rangers say they only shot him once, so I’m thinking one of the other guards put a bullet in him while he had the chance. There were several wounded, but apparently two rangers were too much for them. The gang surrendered.”

“We didn’t want to mess with paperwork at the station, so we made a deal. They bury the dead, get the wounded to a doc, and all promise not to go back to Toledo’s place.” Duncan smiled. “Surprisingly, they all agreed to get out of Texas as fast as possible, heading any direction but south.”

Lewt laughed. “You didn’t give them much choice. You said you’d shoot them on sight if you ever saw them again.”