The humor bled from Jack’s face, as did some of his color. He winced as if against a sudden pain and then turned away, looking straight ahead. Angel wanted to kick herself. In the ensuing heavy silence, she watched his Stetson-shaded profile, watched him look down and eye his pommel as if he’d just now realized his saddle had one.
“I’m sorry,” Angel blurted, even before she knew she was thinking it. Jack looked over at her, frowning as he did. She wondered why this had to be so hard. Quickly, though, before she lost her nerve, she explained. “About your father—I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’ve said it yet. And if I haven’t … well, I am. I’m sorry.” No wonder she never expressed her feelings. Doing so hurt, like a stomachache.
A sudden, unbidden image of her mother came into her mind. She was the one who had taught her that folks were supposed to say something nice about the dead, had taught her good manners. But she’d had no sympathy, no kind words for her own mother. Angel blinked away the image and said, “Your father … he was a good man.”
Jack nodded, looking uncomfortable as he shifted his weight in the saddle and directed his gaze to the far horizon. “Yeah, he was. But there was a time, not so long ago, when I would have disagreed with you.”
Angel’s stomach fluttered. Full of unquenched curiosity, she stared at his profile. This was her opening, she realized. With only a few questions, she guessed, she could probably find out why Wallace Daltry hadn’t left everything to this son. Seth Daltry spoke for himself. But Jack? She watched him now, watched him as he continued his silent scrutiny of the prarie around them.
No, Wallace Daltry’s decision didn’t make any sense to her. With a son like him—Angel recognized the grudging respect for Jack inherent in those words—why leave the Circle D to her? Why come looking for her and save her, only to toss her into the middle of the heartache and mystery here? Just like Jack said, they were missing something—a fact, a bit of knowledge—that would clear everything up. Still, no matter how strong her compulsion to ask Jack what had caused the bad blood between him and his father, Angel knew she wouldn’t. Because to do so invited confidences.
And there was just no sense in getting to know Jack Daltry any better than she already did. Because the day loomed when she’d most likely have to throw him off her land. Just how she planned to achieve that, given their difference in sizes, if not temperaments, she couldn’t even begin to fathom. But another question—how to get him to stay thrown off—occupied most of her waking thoughts, it seemed. Would she have to kill him or marry him to hang on to his father’s legacy to her? Angel didn’t know which idea she hated the most.
A grimace of indecision captured her features. Maybe she could have killed him—she’d certainly been prepared to—on that first day he rode up, when she hadn’t known him yet. But now? Now that she knew his kiss, knew his laugh, knew his touch? Knew how much he was like his father, meaning kind and decent for the most part? Angel’s jaw chose right then to throb and thereby remind her of yet another side of him. And to raise suspicions of him that she’d thought she’d put to rest.
Put to rest? What was wrong with her? Was she not allowed to doubt the man’s sincerity? Angel mentally shook herself, disappointed with what she now realized she’d done. She’d placed on Jack’s head all the respect she’d had for his father. And once there, it was hard to retract. Oh, this was awful. If she stayed, she’d have a showdown with Jack, as sure as the sun was about to set. But there was something else she’d better face: he might not be the one who ended up lying on the ground. It could be her.
And most likely—she eyed the serious six-shooter strapped to his hip—it would be her. She could handle a Winchester, all right. Back at the hotel in Red River Station, she’d sneaked Saul’s away when she could and had taught herself to use it. And now, Jack had let her keep his old pistol, which rode her left hip. But she knew she wasn’t a real gunhand, not like Jack Daltry was. Angel sighed in frustration. For the second time today, she asked herself why then—if it was this hard—why she didn’t just ride away and forget the Circle D?
Because, she realized—and the thought stiffened her spine—for all she knew the papers weren’t here because they’d already been filed, in her name, in Wichita Falls. Maybe she didn’t really have to sign anything at all. Maybe that was what Mr. Daltry’d used to get her here. After all, she didn’t know any of the fine points of the law.
So until she found those papers, or got to the county seat to see for herself if they’d been filed or not, she needed to behave as if she already owned this place. Just the thought, the idea, of owning all this land quickened Angel’s pulse. But there was another reason she couldn’t just ride away. And that reason rode to her left. Angel crooked her neck, pivoting to peer over at Jack and consider again the bad blood between him and his father. For all she knew, Mr. Daltry might not have wanted Jack to have the Circle D because of something horrible—perhaps something to do with Jack.
So who was she to deny the old man his last wish? Angel was too smart to believe he’d just been angry at his sons and, in a vindictive mood, had picked the first ragamuffin he crossed paths with to be his heir. No, there was more to it, she now knew, because of what Wallace Daltry had told her. She wondered if it had something more to do with him and her parents than she’d credited before now. Some huge reason why Wallace Daltry, at the expense of his own sons, owed Tom and Virginia Devlin’s daughter a world of wealth. But what could it be? Until she had that answer … she wasn’t giving an inch.
Well, this is just plain crazy, Angel decided. The more she thought about her predicament, the worse it got. One minute she trusted Jack Daltry. And in the next, she didn’t. One minute she trusted herself with Jack Daltry. And in the next, she couldn’t. What was she supposed to—
“Angel,” Jack snapped, his voice low as he grabbed her arm and reined in his horse. Startled out of her thoughts, her heart pounding, Angel pulled back on her own reins and looked over at him. His features hardened as he exchanged a glance with her and then fixed his concentration straight ahead.
Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat, Angel did the same thing. And found what had riveted his attention. Big, dark birds swooped and circled in the sky. Angel lowered her gaze. And a gasp was torn from her. She put a hand to her mouth, nearly retching. Sick inside, hot and heaving, suddenly sweaty in the day’s coolness, she stared in horror.
Up ahead, a slight but measurable distance away, and scattered over the wet and rolling land like so many broken branches … were broken bodies.
A slaughter had occurred here. And now provided a feast for the coyotes and vultures vying for position and settling among the carcasses. The snarling, snapping, wing-flapping, and screeching were deafening. Angel couldn’t seem to look away. Men. Cattle. Horses. Dogs. All dead. “Oh, my God,” came her sickened whisper.
“Stay here,” Jack said, not looking at her as he released her arm and drew his gun.
“No,” Angel snapped. “I’m going with you. I can help. They’re not going to give up their find easily.”
Jack wasn’t happy with her announcement. He contemplated her from under the low brim of his Stetson. Angel watched the ice-blue chips that were his eyes, saw no emotion, barely any recognition in them. Then he said, his voice flat, not brooking any argument, “That’s why I want you to stay here.”
His voice, chilling her, streaked fear through Angel. But she swallowed and shook her head, saying, “I’m going. How do you intend to stop me?”
Jack stared steadily at her, his gaze, his will, locking with hers. Finally he exhaled, saying, “All right. But stay behind me.”
“I’ll do that,” Angel conceded. Nodding, Jack tensed, readying himself, Angel knew, to send his horse in a galloping foray right into the middle of the feeding frenzy up ahead. “Wait,” she entreated, recapturing his attention. “Who do you think that is out there? I mean the men.”
He blinked, firming his mouth as he turned to stare at the scene spread befo
re them. Angel watched him, saw the hard lines form to either side of his mouth, and waited for his response. Behind her question lay her concern that he might have more family she didn’t know about, family he could find among the victims. She told herself she cared only because she wasn’t about to go through another three days with him being drunk and belligerent.
Finally, Jack gave a constricted shake of his head and turned back to her. “I don’t know who they are. Not by name. We’re too far away. But it’s got to be my hired men and some of my cattle. Jesus, I just hope it’s not the cows we meant to grow our herd with. If it is, I’m ruined.”
He was ruined? Angel’s belly tightened. This was her land. Not his. So if there was ruination to be had, it would be hers. Her mood bleak, Angel kept that observation to herself—now was not the time for that fight—and watched Jack stare at the scene ahead.
After a wordless space of time, he turned to her and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” He kneed his mount, urging Buffalo into a ground-covering gallop over the treacherous, rain-slippery ground.
Taking a breath for courage, Angel put her heels to her roan and followed Jack, her heart pounding in time with her horse’s hooves. All too soon, she was beside him among the carnage and mimicking his actions, firing her pistol into the air and yelling at the carrion eaters as she danced her roan in tight, dangerous circles. The coyotes cringed and snapped, showing blood-reddened muzzles. The vultures shot up in the air amid a flapping of wings and bared talons.
Within moments, though, the creatures had either slunk away or flown away. But only to the edges of the carnage, a chilling reminder of their sly patience, of their hungry intention to return when Jack and Angel left. In the death-quiet aftermath, sickened by all that she looked upon, by the rotting stench that burned her nostrils, Angel reined in her horse and, like Jack, sat there … numbly shaking her head as she tried to take it all in. But couldn’t.
They were all dead. There was no doubt about that. Two men who, given their positions and those of their horses, had been shot right out of their saddles. And the cattle—all cows, that she could see—lay clustered almost on top of each other. Shot where they stood, apparently, with no time even to stampede. And the two cow dogs … Angel swallowed. Dead. Just shot down.
“Goddamm-it! Son of a bitch!” came the hoarse cry off to her right.
Tightly reining in her white-eyed roan, already skittish from the scent of blood and death in its nostrils, Angel turned the horse until she faced Jack. About twenty feet away from her, he was swinging down from his saddle, his face contorted, his gaze intent on the two fallen men. He knelt between them, going down on one knee as he felt first one rain-soaked, torn, and bloodied chest, and then the other. Was he checking against hope for a heartbeat?
Angel wanted nothing more than to stop him, to pull him away, but knew she couldn’t, didn’t dare. She supposed that Jack knew he wouldn’t find any life here, but maybe felt he needed to make the gesture. Because he could see the signs as clearly as she could. What they’d happened onto here wasn’t a first feeding. Angel swallowed the sourness at the back of her throat. She’d seen her share of dead men back at Red River Station. That cow town seemed to grow nothing but misery and death.
But this way of dying—she forced herself to look upon the ravaged bodies of the dead men, men who most likely had been in their prime—was the worst. To have the life forced from you … it seemed to be the worst way to go.
Like Mr. Daltry. Again she saw the older man with that bone-handled knife protruding from his chest. All that blood—the knife! Angel’s breath caught. She hadn’t thought about the blade since she’d pulled it from the old man’s chest, had wiped his blood off it, and brought it with her, only to hide it under her mattress. She couldn’t have said right then why she was thinking of Mr. Daltry now, except that his death was more removed, less immediately dreadful, than the murdered men facing her now.
But the knife. Under her mattress. It’d been such a natural thing for her to do. Because that was where, all her life, she’d kept those few things that meant something to her. And still did. It remained the safest place, since she still didn’t intend to allow anyone close enough to her to share her secrets. Or her bed. Or her life.
Sitting there on her roan, surrounded by the ugliness of death, terrified by the reality of it, Angel recalled her treasures, her comforts. A small and tattered old rag-cloth doll from her childhood. A yellowed scrap of lace from a hat of her mother’s. And her father’s rusted-out pocket watch. Yes, they were all under the mattress, stuffed up against the bed-boards and wrapped in some oilskin … together with the knife that’d been used to kill Jack Daltry’s father.
Fear shot through Angel once more. How could she have forgotten to tell him about the knife? Because now she would look guilty, even to her own way of thinking. But they’d hardly discussed his father’s murder, Angel thought in self-defense. And too much had happened in too short a space of time for her to think of everything. Truth be told, she’d simply forgotten about it.
But now, suddenly the knife loomed large in her mind. She needed to show it to Jack. He might recognize it, might even know its owner … the man who’d murdered his father. Yes, she needed to show it to him before he, for whatever reason, under whatever circumstances, found it himself in her room. Angel worried what he’d think, what he might do, in that event. She’d seen his grief, his temper … so she figured he’d kill her, no questions asked.
Suddenly, Angel knew with gut-tightening certainty what she and Jack had only supposed a few hours ago. Wallace Daltry’s murder and that of his hired hands were related. She put her knuckles to her mouth, rubbing them agitatedly over her lips as she focused on Jack’s hunched figure. She wondered if he suspected what she did, or if he already knew it. She wanted to say something, to ask him, but didn’t dare, fearing that her guilty feelings about the knife might be written plainly on her face.
Just then, as Angel watched, Jack’s fist closed around a torn sleeve, the soggy material wadding, ripping under the onslaught of his grief-strengthened grip. Angel stiffened, forcing herself to be still, to let him work through this. Jack covered his face with his other hand. But still, his muffled cries carried to her. “Who could have done this? Why? Why, dammit? What the hell is going on here? Will somebody please tell me?”
Angel swallowed around the tear-clogged lump in her throat and blinked against the wetness invading her eyes. She wanted to go to him, to put her arms around him. She wanted to comfort him, as she’d never wanted to comfort anyone before in her life. But as hard as it was for her just to acknowledge this compassionate urge in herself, she knew that acting on it would be even harder. Because, her own considerations aside, she simply didn’t know whether or not Jack would appreciate her doing such a thing. She wondered if he’d push her away … like her mother had, more than once.
Angel figured that if she didn’t know him well enough to know how he’d react, it was best if she did nothing. Unable to help, she simply looked away from such raw emotion, leaving Jack his privacy with his fallen friends.
But immediately she wished she hadn’t.
Her gaze lit upon the poor dumb cattle. She grimaced, eyeing the bloated bodies, counting them. Ten head. And the dogs … their bodies lying in sprawling heaps next to the cattle. Those two hadn’t gone down without a fight. That was a cow dog for you. He’d give his life protecting his charges. Angel’s heart, full of a special tenderness for the dogs, went out to them. She’d long admired the breed’s fierce loyalty and hardworking spirit. And the way they loved you whether you deserved it or not.
But the dogs, the cattle, the men, none of them deserved the end they’d met. Someone—more than one someone, given the numbers—had just cold-bloodedly killed them. Angel silently wondered who’d do such a thing, and why. What was worth this? She inhaled deeply, and exhaled just as sharply. What a shame—
A hand grabbed her right arm. “Angel, get down—”
A yelp
of fear tore through Angel, her heart pounded against her ribs. Her roan’s head came up, his ears laid flat against his head. Angel pulled back on the reins and saw it was Jack who had grabbed her horse’s bridle and held on, helping her regain control. When she had recovered, she put a hand to her heart and said, “You scared me out of ten years’ growth.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Get down. I need your horse.”
Angel frowned at that. “You need my horse?”
Jack nodded, looking back over his shoulder at the dead men, and then turning again to her. “To get my men, Tex and Calvin, back home. I can’t leave them here. They need to be buried. You can ride behind me.”
Considering his clipped, emotionless tone, Angel eyed first him, then the bodies littering the ground. A good, practical solution. What else could she say? “All right.” With that, she dismounted and, leading her trailing horse as she walked alongside Jack, sidestepped her way around the animals’ carcasses. “What about the dogs? They shouldn’t be left here.”
Without breaking stride, Jack glanced over at her. “The dogs? There’s nothing we can do—”
“I know that.” Her voice hardened. “There’s nothing we can do for your men, either. Except bury them. Those dogs died working for your father, Jack. Doing their jobs. Protecting his property. Same as these men did. Let the vultures and the coyotes have the rest. But the dogs … well, you owe ’em.”
Jack stopped. Angel did, too, halting her roan as she stared up into Jack’s face. He looked away from her. Then, apparently having made his decision, he looked down at her. “All right. Let’s go. It’ll be dark soon. We’ll get Tex and Calvin … and then the dogs.”
With a nod of her head, Angel silently agreed. She was glad he agreed with her, didn’t think she was overly sentimental. Then she spared a glance at the setting sun, since he’d mentioned the day’s end. Sure enough, in less than an hour, it would slip below the horizon. Angel looked for Jack, saw he’d already made his way over to the first of the men. She followed after him.
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