“Looking for this?” He raised his arm high so the gun was silhouetted against the starlit sky.
The growling noise in Mandy’s throat surprised her. Yes, she was definitely feeling again. Rage, terror.
God forgive me, I feel attraction, caring, desire. Worst of all, hope.
Shaking her head to dislodge that ridiculous notion, she couldn’t wipe away the hope. And really hope was the worst because she knew better. Tom letting her believe there was a way out was the cruelest thing he could do.
Running her thumb over her trigger finger, she liked it better when her emotions were dead. Going back to that thrilling fear that the sky might be falling would be wonderful.
He reached the house, that stupid gray monstrosity Sidney had named Gray Tower after himself. Sidney Gray. He’d named his son after himself. He’d have named the whole wide world after himself given half a chance. It was a wonder he hadn’t tried to pay the state of Montana to change its name to Gray.
She glared at her home. It looked like a castle out of a fairy tale. All they needed was a moat and a fairy godmother.
Tom grabbed the knob and went in, slamming the door behind him. He’d never find the children in there. Too many rooms.
She dashed after him … not to help him find the children … to get her long gun back.
Two
We’re not setting up camp for the night. Not this time.” Cord Cooter jerked his reins so hard the horse reared up and fought the bit.
“Eight of us dead.” Cord stayed in the saddle but not without some difficulty. “The Grays have killed eight of our kin. I’m ready to settle accounts.”
He wheeled his temperamental horse around and looked at the six men with him. They were barely visible in the dim light of the heavily wooded trail.
One of his cousins, rattlesnake-mean J.D., rode up beside Cord. “I ain’t gonna ride into that gap. She’s got it staked out by ghosts. I swear we’ve lost men without hearin’ ’em die nor findin’ their bodies. There’s somethin’ ain’t right about the mountains around her. They’re cursed. The woman’s a witch. And that place is surrounded by haints.”
“She ain’t no witch. I’ve talked to her. I’ve had my hands on her.” Cord had touched her one time. One time only. And he could still feel her slender shoulder … and her fear. It made him hungry to feel both again … and more. “She’s human enough.”
One hand, for one second, two years ago. He didn’t tell his family that. Cord’s fingers clenched into a fist, and only the memory of a broken nose and two black eyes—barely healed from the last fight with one of his cousins—kept him from swinging a fist at his cowardly, superstitious cousin, J.D. He was an old man more interested in sitting on a rocking chair than avenging their family.
“I’m content to stake out the trail to Helena in shifts and wait to pick her off if she rides to town.” J.D. looked around and nodded.
Cord heard a lot of agreement in the grumbling.
“You’re gonna let that woman kill all those Cooters and not pay? Grandpa’d skin you yellow bellies alive if he could hear you now.” They were about five miles from the gap that led to Lady Gray. Mandy Gray—Cooter didn’t like thinking of the reputation she’d earned up in these parts. They could be there in an hour, and Cord was tired of waiting. They should strike tonight and be done with it. He’d given up on having Mandy and the gold and had a plan that would let him be done with the rugged life he’d been living for the last two years.
“Grandpa set it down that we’d back each other.” J.D. snarled like a hungry wolf. “Cooters stick together. We done that, Cord. But corralling Lady Gray in that gap is good enough. She can’t enjoy all her gold. She can’t get out. No one can get in. I don’t have a belly for killin’ a woman anyhow, and what happens to her children if we kill her? I think blasting that gap closed is worse than killing her without getting blood on our hands. You’ve seen her standing on that cliff, late at night, aiming her gun at the stars like she’s aiming to shoot God right out of heaven. She’s in league with the devil. We’ve got her trapped, and I say as long as she stays trapped, we’re getting our due for our cousins. Getting more of us killed ain’t gonna make nuthin’ better.”
Cord looked at the men. The faces were different, but no one would look twice and not know they were family. The white shock of hair was mostly covered by their hats and concealed by darkness, but their stocky build was the same. They all had a few weeks’ worth of grubby dark whiskers on their chins. And the set of their jaws and the cold eyes were of a kind. He was mighty proud of his family, but he was by far the youngest. The rest of ’em were getting soft.
“More Cooters should be drifting in to Helena soon.” Fergus turned his horse so he stood side by side with Cord. They were brothers. Two of a kind. And even Fergus had no belly for that gap and that witch woman. “Cord’s right that we’ve gotta make her pay for what she’s done.” Then Fergus turned to Cord. “But not till there’s more of us, brother. Let’s keep the trail covered and wait for the train. There’s something ain’t right about that gap and the land around it. We’ve lost too many men.”
“It’s Old Nick, I’m telling you,” J.D. shouted. “She sold her soul, and now she’s under the protection of the devil hisself. We’ve lost men right while we could see her. We know it ain’t her what killed ’em because we could see her standing all the way up there, her rifle aimed at heaven, with her out of range so she couldn’t’a shot any one of us anyway. And if she did, there was no crack of a rifle. And never a body found.”
A chill went down Cord’s back. J.D. had the right of it. His cousins had vanished as if the ground had opened and they’d been sucked right down into the brimstone. But Cord didn’t believe in God, so that meant there was no devil neither. Couldn’t have one without the other to his way of thinking. His cousin was just a superstitious fool. Chances are those no-account cousins had picked their moment, slipped away, and run off. Their horses were gone, too, weren’t they?
“We know she’s not shooting anybody.” Fergus urged his horse a step closer to Cord. “But we’re down to five of us. If this is a blood feud, then we’re losing too much blood. Instead of a head-on attack, let’s wait for more help and go at her hard.”
Cord appreciated his brother standing by him physically even if he didn’t support Cord’s plan.
Fergus went on, now looking at Cord. “Until then, she’s stuck in that fool’s house. Judging by the way she stands up there, every night, and aims her rifle at God, I’d say she’s lost her mind. And we’re the cause. I like your idea of trapping her behind a pile of rock where she lives. Make it her tomb. We’ll as good as kill her without drawing the blood of a woman. But we need to wait for more Cooters.”
“But this is different than when we’ve tried to get through that gap and take her. We don’t have to go far in. We just dynamite it shut. We wouldn’t have to stay around to put a bullet in her.” Cord almost agreed that the gap was haunted. He’d felt a hot brush on his neck a time or two like the breath of the devil, as if someone was out there, watching, ready. Rushing at his back. But he’d whirled around and there’d been nothing.
Fergus’s eyes flared. “Dynamite would do the trick.”
Cord and Fergus had ridden into Helena for it a few days ago, but now no one had the belly to plant it.
“If we slipped in quiet and set it off,” Cord said, trying to sway his stubborn family, “we’d be done with this.”
“Last time we rode in we lost two men, and that was long before we got to the gap. Why’re you so sure we can even set the dynamite?” J.D. groused.
“We’ll do it because we’re Cooters, and when we stick together we can’t be stopped.” Cord nodded.
His cousins did, too, grudging but tempted to do this and be on their way. They’d been stalking this woman for too long. Cord and Fergus had been at it for two years, though they’d waited awhile for their family to come at first. None of the men here tonight, except for Fergus, had
been in on the start. Those men were all gone. Somewhere.
Lady Gray was proving to be mighty hard to kill.
“This time we all stay together. Before, when we’ve lost men, it happened when we got separated.” He looked at his cousins and saw the stubbornness, but they wanted this done. They wanted to go to town and forget the woman holed up on that mountaintop.
Shifting his horse around, Fergus clapped J.D., the oldest of the Cooter cousins, on the back. “We’ll set the charges. Then we’ll blow that gap and leave that woman in there.” Fergus looked at the cousins one by one and added, “Buried alive.”
They all nodded.
With grim satisfaction that they were doing something instead of standing watch on a trail, J.D. said, “This is gonna be over before the rest of our clan even show up.”
“We’ll do for that woman what she done to us.” Cord jerked his chin, satisfied. “And people’ll learn the price they pay for hurting a Cooter. The family’s pride will be upheld.” He wasn’t all that eager to ride into the teeth of that witch woman’s gunfire. The dynamite suited him fine.
Cord reined his horse in a circle and led the way for the old codgers. This group was so motley he was almost ashamed to be a Cooter. But this would restore their name and show that Cooters were men to be reckoned with. Strange to be ashamed of his family at the same minute he was ready to kill for their pride.
With Fergus galloping at his side, Cord knew that, finally, tonight was the end of this. There’d be no gold for him, and he’d never get his hands on her again, and that chafed. But it was almost enough to picture Lady Gray buried alive.
The vicious pleasure told him they were doing the right thing.
“Tom, you get out of my house.” Mandy rushed up behind him and caught his arm as he grabbed for the doorknob on the second room down her entry hall.
Tom purely liked her hanging from him, so he didn’t protest. He just dragged her along. “Quiet, woman.” Tom had decided before he’d started this he wasn’t going to discuss any of it with her. He was telling her, and that was that. “I’m hunting for your children so I can save them. I’m getting them out of here and taking them to my ranch, with or without your cooperation.”
She held on as he kept walking, and he heard the heels of her boots skidding along on the stone floor.
“This is the dumbest house I have ever seen.” Tom reached the next door and swung it open.
“Try living in it.” Mandy threw herself in front of Tom as he pulled his head out of the store room he’d just checked. “Try heating it.”
“You can’t stop me.” Tom glared at the stubborn female. “I’m taking your children and, just like a wild mama longhorn, I’m betting you’ll traipse along behind them. If you’re real good, I won’t make you stay in the barn when we get to my ranch.”
“You did not just compare me to a cow.”
“If you’re real good, I’ll let you live in my ranch house and be my wife.”
“Wife?” Mandy’s throat moved as if she were swallowing hard.
“It’s about time, don’t you think?” Years past time, Tom thought.
“It is never going to happen.” One pretty little hand, rough with calluses, caught his arm as he tried to go around her.
“It’s already happened.” Tom peered down into her eyes in the shadowed hallway. “We’ve been meant for each other from the beginning.”
“We have not!”
Remembering the day he’d come to her home to visit the foal born out of his stallion and Belle Harden’s mare, Tom could still feel the connection that had sprung up between them. He refused to believe a word of her denial. “Why do you think I’ve stayed single?”
“Because no woman would have you?”
Tom shook his head. “Nope.”
“Because there are no women in Montana?” She might have actually growled when she said that.
“No women wouldn’t have stopped me. I’d have gone and hunted one up if I’d’ve wanted someone else. Nothing much stops me once I’ve got my mind set on something.”
“To—o—om!”
A single lantern burning in the long stony hallway barely dispelled the gloom enough so he could see her face. He saw a lot of defiance, but he also caught a glimmer of hope. This was no time to be a pessimist, so Tom refused to believe he imagined it.
But, being a man of action, just in case the defiance outweighed the hope, he picked her up and kissed her again. That seemed to have a persuasive effect on her before, at least in the sense that she quit trying to punch him.
By the time he was done being a man of action, he was tempted to just grab ahold and tote her off to a preacher-man. From the way she kissed him back, he was hopeful she’d cooperate … eventually.
But first he had to find those children. Setting her on her feet like a bucket of fresh milk, he said, “Tell me where they are. With or without your help, I’m finding them and taking them. So you might as well help. Getting out of here in the dark is a lot safer than waiting till daylight. You want your children to be safe, don’t you, Miz Gray?”
Taunting. He knew it. He was so disgusted with her for marrying that worthless Sidney Gray he could hardly keep from turning her over his knee. Knowing she’d probably find a way to shoot him if he did helped keep him from acting on that impulse.
“But they won’t be safe if you take—”
Tom walked around the little road block.
“Come back here.”
He went on down the hallway. “I’m gonna start yelling pretty soon, Mandy girl. That’ll wake ’em up, and I’ll just follow their cryin’.” He stopped and looked back.
She was dogging his heels, still yapping like an ill-tempered hound. Convincing her wasn’t part of his plan. Who had time for that?
“Are these rooms all full of furniture?”
“Of course. Who has a house without furniture?”
“It’s coated with dust and looks like you’ve never been in the room.” Tom kept moving.
Open the door. “Kitchen.” Slam.
Open. “Pantry. Not much food.” Slam.
Open. “Closet.” Slam.
“I’m getting a sense that the kids are upstairs.” Tom wheeled and headed back toward the front door, where he’d seen a flight of stairs. He almost ran over Mandy while he walked.
She jammed a shoulder into his belly.
“That does it.” He hoisted her and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Tom Linscott, you can not come in here and just take over my life!” Her yelling near to raised the rafters.
And Tom heard a thin cry of “Mama” from overhead.
“Shame on you for waking your babies, Miz Gray.” He almost swatted her on the backside, it being within convenient swatting distance. But the thought of how much he’d enjoy that convinced him it was sinful. “By the way, we’re changing all the children’s names to Linscott.”
“Put me down.” She pummeled him in the center of his back.
She had a good wallop, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He held her legs real tight though. She could do some damage with those feet.
He was glad he’d tucked her rifle into the first room he’d searched and she’d been too busy scolding and fussing to notice and go hunt it up. If he’d have slung it over his shoulder as he’d originally planned, she’d no doubt be unloading it into his backside about now.
Dealing with Mandy Soon-to-Be-Linscott, the sharpest shooter and fastest draw anyone in the West had ever heard tell of—male or female—was a powerful sight easier if she was disarmed.
He trotted up the steps, shaking her a bit more than was absolutely necessary. When they reached the top, he needed his hands to carry the young’uns, so he swung her back in front of him and caught one of her flying fists with the hard slap of flesh on flesh. She took another swing and he caught that hand, too, just as she’d have slugged him in the nose.
Again.
“Mama!” A new voice, tearful but a bit more ma
ture than the squalling baby, was added to the racket. A little girl. Probably Angela—she’d be four years old by now. Tom was partial to her because she’d learned his name the last time he was here. Nearly two years ago. He fancied the notion that she might remember him, though he knew it was unlikely.
Didn’t matter anyway. She was going to have to start calling him pa.
“You can’t take three little children out of here, Tom. You don’t have enough hands.”
“I’ve got it planned.” He smirked. She was so cute in the dim light of another long hallway. “The oldest can ride piggyback, and I’ll carry the two younger ones in my arms. I also intend to steal a horse.”
“Now you’re a horse thief?”
“That’s right, Miz Gray. I’m planning to steal the two horses I sold to that fool you were married to. They deserve better than to live stuck away up here. So it’s more like I’m rescuing them. Get the sheriff if you object. Except, whoops, you’d have to leave your fortress to do that, now wouldn’t you? Well, since you’re runnin’ to the law, maybe you’ll carry one of the youngsters for me. I can get by without any help, but I wouldn’t refuse it.”
“How did you get in here anyway? How could you have slithered past all the guards?”
“I had Wise Sister talk to her Shoshone family and convince them to look the other way whilst I climbed that mountain.” Tom relished telling her that. Her trusted guardians had betrayed her. By letting him in, they’d as much as said they were picking him for her.
“She did not!” Mandy sounded horrified and also loud.
A new voice added to the mix. “Mama!” An outburst of tears followed the word.
That must be the three-year-old, Catherine. “You know a decent mother wouldn’t stand here yelling, scaring her babies. What is the matter with you anyway?” Tom frowned and gave her one more chance. “You want to carry one? Or do I have to handle them all while I turn horse thief?”
“That is kidnapping. A worse crime that horse thievin’, Tom Linscott!”
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 61