She tasted the stew, then added more salt and pepper. More than once some of the men had referred to her as a woman. She had no use for this bunch of thieves, but she did appreciate being called a woman in front of Christian Mercy, who apparently had doubted she was even eighteen years old. She still wondered why he’d asked about her age. It was as though eighteen were some kind of magical number, but she wasn’t sure what for.
“I’m ready to dig into a dish of whatever you’re makin’,” one of the men told Callie. “I’m surprised a young thing like you can cook so well, especially out here on the trail. A lot of women wouldn’t know how to make do away from a real stove.”
Callie seldom looked at any of them when she spoke to them. She thought it best not to make eye contact. “Lived on a ranch all my life,” she answered the man. “We never had a real cookstove till just the last couple of years. I’m used to cooking over fires. My pa always said I was a good cook.”
“Well, we all hope he was right,” the youngest in the group told her.
Callie tasted the stew again, eager herself for it to be done. “Just a few more minutes,” she told them.
“Whooee!” one of them shouted before downing more whiskey. Callie cringed at the shout. One of the men who’d attacked her mother had shouted that word. She looked over at the man. No, he wasn’t one of them. It was just the word that was familiar.
“You guys remember what a good cook Bertha Tripp was?” Joe asked.
“Who cared about her cookin’?” another put in.
They all shared in more laughter, and Callie felt a flush come to her face. She had a pretty darn good idea Bertha Tripp was a lot like that woman Lisa. When she looked at Chris, he was also grinning.
“You can all eat now,” Callie spoke up.
“All right, you guys, pick up a plate and get in line,” Buck told them. “Take your turn and don’t be rude. Jay, soon as you and Lennie are done, go watch the herd and let Hal and Dennis come on in and eat.”
They all lined up with eager grins and empty plates, each making his own remark about how good the food looked and smelled as Callie dipped a heap of stew and then a heap of beans onto each plate. They all politely said their thank yous. Chris was last, and he smiled at her in a way he’d never smiled before, as though he truly thought she was quite the lady, as if she were something more than an uneducated kid.
Callie fixed herself a plate, and while she ate, the others carried on about how good the food was.
“Mister, you got yourself one perfect travelin’ partner,” one of them told Chris. “Pretty to look at and a good cook to boot. Play your cards right, and she’ll—”
“Shut up, Clint,” Buck interrupted. “Don’t turn a compliment into an insult.”
“Huh? Oh, I didn’t mean no harm. I just figured…hell, Mr. Mercy there, he’s a handsome fella, and if they’re gonna be travelin’ together all the way down the trail, they might as well keep each other warm at night and—”
“She’s my client and a very proper woman,” Chris said, cutting him off. “And you’re looking to get that plate of stew crammed right into your face.”
Joe laughed in a teasing cackle, and some of the others chuckled. Clint, a man perhaps a little older than Chris, and who wore his curly brown hair long, glared at Chris.
“I already said I didn’t mean no harm,” he told Chris. “Hell, I even said you was handsome. Maybe I should mess up that face of yours with my fist.”
“You’re drunk, Clint,” Buck told the man. “Finish your food and put up for the night. You’re lettin’ the whiskey talk.”
Clint glared at Chris a moment longer, then returned to eating. Callie felt uneasy at how quickly men like this could turn from polite to possibly ruthless. There seemed to be a thin line to tread when around them.
“I’m tellin’ all of you right now,” Buck said. “One insult and you can be on your way. Lay a hand on the little lady and you’re dead. Mr. Mercy here has said that if any of you touches her, he’ll shoot me first. So to keep that from happenin’, I’ll be watchin’ you myself. I don’t intend to die because one of you can’t think with what’s upstairs instead of what’s downstairs.”
“Ain’t none of us gonna insult the lady who just cooked us the best meal we’ve had in weeks,” Joe said.
“Hell no,” another man put in.
Callie looked at Buck, who watched all of them carefully. Some of the men took extra helpings, and by the time the two men riding herd came in to eat, their helpings literally wiped out every bit of leftovers. Bellies were full, and to Callie’s continued amazement, two of the men even offered to take the pans and plates to the stream and clean them themselves, relieving her of the job.
The men called Jay and Lennie remained out in the darkness to guard the horses, and the rest of them stretched out on bedrolls to smoke and tell a few more stories, more like tall tales as far as Callie was concerned. By the time full darkness fell, most of them were sleeping off their food and whiskey, a couple of them snoring.
Callie left the coffeepot on the fire and moved to her bedroll, which Chris had laid out close to his.
“Very good meal,” he told her.
“Thank you.”
“Move your bedroll next to mine,” he told her in a lowered voice. “I want you right next to me. None of them will try anything with you that close.”
The request made Callie feel both reassured and wary. “I guess that’s okay,” she told him. “Probably a good idea.”
He smiled wryly and shook his head. “I think so.”
Callie moved her bedroll close. “Will you please watch these men while I go take care of something personal?”
He grinned and lit another cigarette. “Sure.”
Callie walked out into the darkness and quickly relieved herself, hardly able to for nervousness over dropping her britches with nine men not far away. She just wished she could overcome the ugly memories of her mother’s attack, wished she could learn to trust a little more. She did not like the idea of lying right beside Christian Mercy, but she supposed it was safer than going off away from all of them to sleep.
She finally finished and gladly hiked her underwear and denim pants back in place. She hurried back and crawled into her bedroll, again leaving her boots on and laying her father’s shotgun beside her. Chris finished his cigarette, and by the light of the dimming fire Callie saw him remove his six-guns and lay them between them, along with his rifle. He turned on his side, facing her.
“If you need one of those handguns, use it,” he told her.
Callie turned to look at him. “Yes, sir.” Their gazes held for a moment, and a quick sensation of wanting Christian Mercy to hold her shot through Callie with such force and surprise that she quickly turned onto her back.
What was that? she wondered. Why did the thought of strong arms around her sound so good? She then realized she’d had absolutely no one to comfort and reassure her that way since the loss of her father. She remembered that in spite of his strict ways, sometimes she just felt better when her father would give her a rare embrace, pat her on the back and tell her everything was okay.
But that was her father, not a man who might get other thoughts if she asked for a reassuring embrace. “Good night, Mr. Mercy,” she said, looking up at the stars.
His only answer was a deep sigh.
Chapter Seventeen
It surprised Callie to realize she actually felt safe riding with Buck Brooster and his men. The night had passed with no problems, but she suspected that was not due so much to the fact that the rustlers had respect for a “proper lady” as it was due to the presence of Christian Mercy.
She could not shake the secret thoughts of the previous night and how she’d longed to be held, just for a little while…just a hug of reassurance. The Sooners had been supportive, and Betty Sooner had embraced her lightly a few times; but it wasn’t the same as her own mother or father hugging her, nor the embrace of someone strong and protective.
How could a man like Christian Mercy understand that? Didn’t all men outside of family get ideas if a woman let them embrace her? The last thing she wanted or needed was for the man she’d be traveling alone with getting the idea that she had some kind of womanly interest in him. Even so, she knew damn well that little shadows of desire had passed over her a time or two, feelings that shocked and frightened her…feelings that must not be allowed to surface.
All that next day they rode through country unlike anything she’d set eyes on, through a sweeping valley of yellow grass surrounded by mesas hundreds of feet high, their red-rock walls literally intimidating in size and grandeur. Brooster’s men rode mostly ahead of her and Chris, herding their stolen horses, whistling, calling to them, waving coils of rope, gradually heading toward one of the highest rock walls Callie had seen. It appeared to be only a day’s ride away. But by nightfall she realized they were only about halfway there. Off to the left the land rippled upward in a series of hills that had a look of velvet, while ahead of them and along the right were those rock walls that seemed to look down on them like mighty gods.
They camped another night, and another day’s ride brought them closer to the same rock wall they’d been aiming for the day before, yet still they did not reach it. Another day’s ride brought them almost there, and by the fourth day they reached an area at the base of the rock wall. The land there was peppered with huge boulders, chunks of rock that over time had broken away from the walls of the mesas around them and rolled hundreds, even thousands of feet into the valley. The way they were scattered about, it made Callie wonder if God had taken handfuls of boulders and simply thrown them across the valley like little stones.
In late afternoon Buck rode back to join Chris and Callie, pointing to the vast wall they’d finally reached. “Hole-in-the-Wall is just up top of that mesa,” he told Callie.
Callie studied the wall with apprehension. “How are we going to get up there?” she asked.
“Well, honey, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Me and my men need a good rest, and so do those horses we’ve been herding along with us, so we won’t start up till mornin’. Once we’re at the top, you’ll see why men like us like it. Up there you can see for a hundred miles, a good place to watch for the law in case they’re stupid enough to try to come after us. It’s a great place for outlaws to find some peace, and there’s good grass up there for the horses.”
Callie squinted as she took another look toward the top. “Dang long ways,” she commented.
Buck laughed. “That it is. Better ride a horse you really trust.”
“Which means neither one of us will ride Breeze,” Chris said rather absently.
“How come they call it Hole-in-the-Wall?” Callie asked. “I figured it would be some kind of big cutout in the wall itself, not the top.”
“Well, it’s kind of a cutout we follow goin’ up,” Buck answered. He sniffed and rubbed at his nose. “I reckon it’s really a short way to say a place to hole up on top of the wall. I don’t know who come up with the name.” Buck tipped his hat and looked at Chris. “We’ll make camp at the base of the wall and start up in the mornin’. I reckon we’ve got a couple more hours of light. That should get us real close.” He kicked his horse and rode off.
Callie turned to Chris. “What’s it like up there?”
Chris shrugged. “Not much of anything to speak of—just a big, wide mesa and a couple of log cabins.”
“You mean there might not even be any others up there?”
“Might not be, but we have to check it out.”
Callie sighed with frustration. “This is going to take a really long time, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. We can quit anytime you say.”
Callie shook her head. “No. We’ve been close to two weeks traveling since we left Rawlins. I’m not quitting after coming this far. If we find even some of those men, it will be worth it.”
“Whatever you say.”
Callie caught him looking her over in a rather unsettling way. Damn those blue eyes! If not for what she’d witnessed, she’d be infatuated with the man’s looks, like any normal young girl should be. She looked away, reminding herself that he was too old for her. Besides, he probably had some god-awful thing about his own past to get over, something that made him kill for money. Being attracted to a man like that could spell nothing but trouble for a woman’s heart.
She kicked her horse into a faster trot, angry with herself for again entertaining such thoughts.
Chris watched the way Callie’s small rump bounced in her saddle, finding the sight very distracting. Already he was making one big mistake on this particular job—allowing himself to become emotionally attached. It wasn’t that he loved her or anything like that. That was one feeling he would never allow. But Callie Hobbs was a fascinating cross between girl and woman. So often he saw only the kid in her. And then there were times…
Like when she slept beside him at night. A couple of times he’d caught himself just lying there, watching her sleep, seeing a little girl, then seeing sweet, full lips that had never been kissed out of passion and thinking about those young, firm breasts that had never been caressed.
He cursed his thoughts and rode up closer. The thoughts she gave him reminded him of the sensual, satisfying relationship he’d had with Val and the beautiful, sweet daughter that relationship had produced…his little Patty.
How was he ever going to get over the hurt of losing his family, the awful pain of it? Four years had passed, four years of wandering, chasing outlaws, teaching himself to be damn good with firearms; four years of not caring about a damn thing—man, woman, or animal—four years of feeling completely empty, completely emotionless.
Now comes this freckle-faced woman/child, all alone in this world, just like him. A woman/child with bad memories to overcome, a woman/child filled with hate and revenge…just like him. He’d come across a complete stranger who would probably understand everything he was feeling if he would share it with her, and maybe sharing it with her would help her overcome her own horrors. But it hurt too much to talk about it. It was so much easier to keep it all buried so deep that most of the time he could go on with life like it never happened, as long as he didn’t allow the hurt to come exploding out of the grave in his soul.
Gunslinging bounty hunters didn’t cry. They did not allow feelings of any kind to surface, and there was no use allowing sweet memories to invade daily life. After all, he would never know that kind of life again. He would never see his wife and daughter again, never touch them again, never hold them. He hadn’t been there for them when they needed him most, and that was something he would never forgive himself for.
Hatred. That was what kept him going, and he must never allow any other kind of emotion to invade his shattered heart. Trouble was, he hated himself more than he hated any of the men he hunted. He thought that hatred would end if he found his wife’s killers, but seeing them die wouldn’t bring back Val and Patty, and so the hatred probably wouldn’t end there, just as he suspected Callie would find no satisfaction in watching her mother’s rapists and killers die.
He should probably tell her that; but hell, he was getting some valuable land out of this. The pay was good, so he’d find them for her and bring them in…or kill them, whichever way they wanted it. Callie Hobbs could wrangle with her own feelings after that. It wasn’t his affair. In the meantime, he could only hope it wouldn’t take too long to find them. He could already see that being alone with the woman, possibly for months, was going to be a harder task than hunting the men she was after.
Chapter Eighteen
“Oh, Lord, my God, let me get to the top,” Callie murmured, following “Skinny” up the trail leading to Hole-in-the-Wall. The rest of Buck’s gang was ahead of Skinny, men interspersed with horses, so that the herd of approximately twenty horses was stretched out in a line of three or four in a row, then a man, then three or four more horses, making them a little easier to
manage.
Then came Callie, leading one pack mule. Chris rode behind her, leading the other pack mule and Breeze. All of them knew that any one of the horses, either those ridden or those being herded, could balk at any time and possibly cause one or more men and horses to stumble and fall. If that happened, there would be no getting up. Man and animal would just keep falling and sliding down the terrifyingly steep embankment covered with loose stone, as well as bigger boulders, any of which could come loose and come tumbling down at any moment.
“I’ve ridden horses all my life,” Callie shouted back to Chris. “I’ve herded cattle, herded horses, walked behind a horse and plow, rode up mountain trails…but I’ve never rode up anything this steep and slippery. I hope Betsy is as surefooted as I think she is.”
“Not much choice. It’s the only way up,” Chris answered. “By the way, the word is ridden.”
“What?”
“You have ridden up mountain trails and have never ridden up something this steep—not rode. You said you didn’t have much schooling. Just thought I’d give you a quick lesson in proper English to keep your mind off the danger of this climb.”
Callie rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not working, and when I go rolling all the way to the bottom of this hill or wall or whatever you want to call it, I don’t think the good Lord will care about my proper use of words when He greets me. At least I hope it’s Him who will greet me, and not something with pitchfork and horns.”
Skinny and Chris both laughed.
“I got a feelin’ it will be the horns and pitchfork for me,” Skinny shouted back.
“Better quit talking and concentrate on your horses,” Chris warned then. “Talk to them nice and gently. We’re headed for an even steeper grade.”
“Lord Almighty!” Callie whispered as she looked ahead. “If I didn’t need to look, I’d close my eyes,” she said louder.
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