The gap wasn’t all that long, and she could see gray against the pitch black past Tom’s broad shoulders. She swallowed audibly.
“You all right?” The varmint sounded kind, like he was reading her mind. Or maybe he’d noticed that Mandy hadn’t corrected Catherine when she’d said, “Pa,” and from that he judged she was either ready to stop arguing or in a complete mindless panic.
She was neither. She was just resting up to start all over again nagging until the man saw sense.
“I—I just haven’t been outside this gap in—in …” She was whispering, and so was Tom, as if they were in church. At a funeral. She hoped it wasn’t their own.
“In over a year. I know. I’ve talked to Luther and Buff and to a few of Wise Sister’s guard dogs.”
“They’re not guard dogs!” Mandy hissed this time. Now she was turning rattlesnake. Well, it was bound to happen as upset as this had made her. She had an Arkansas toothpick in a sheath in her skirt, and it would stand in nicely for a set of fangs.
“They are the finest, bravest, most generous people in the world.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Tom laughed softly. “I meant guard dog as the highest compliment. It’s a fine thing to be able to protect someone from harm.”
The laughter seemed unnatural. It wasn’t his usual state of mind. He seemed more comfortable being a bad-tempered grouch. “They let me past, didn’t they? I love those folks. How’d you get a tribe of Shoshones to protect you?”
“I own the land all around here. Sidney bought it for miles in all directions.”
“Your husband bought a mountain’s worth of wasteland? He was an idiot.”
Mandy didn’t argue. “So now I own it, but it’s really their hunting ground, always has been and, to their way of thinking, it always will be. So they don’t respect the fact that I own it one bit.”
“Neither do I, but for a completely different reason.” Tom’s horse neared the exit to the gap.
“Wait.” Mandy’s soft cry of fear made Catherine jump and Tom pull his horse to a quick halt.
“Did you hear something?” Fumbling with the fuses, Cord froze.
Fergus had stayed at his side. The others had eased back behind a bigger pile of rocks. Cord intended to follow them the minute he hit the plunger.
“Haints, called up here by that devil woman.” Fergus knelt at Cord’s side.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, nor the devil neither.” Cord didn’t believe in that because he didn’t believe anything survived after a man was dead. And it made no sense to believe in the devil if one didn’t believe in God, and Cord didn’t. But still, he felt the blood thundering in his ears. Which was probably what he’d heard.
He turned back to his fuses, just a few more seconds. He’d set three blasts. He’d blow the gap closest to the house first, so the fuses closer to him didn’t get torn loose by falling rock. But they’d all go almost at once. He intended to detonate all three of them as fast as he could.
“Fergus, here’s the first one.” He handed the plunger to his brother.
Fergus lifted it and grabbed the handle to shove it down.
“Not yet!” Cord worked frantically now, wanting this done. “Wait until we can blow them almost all at once. I go first. You hit yours after the second explosion I set off.”
“Hurry it up then. I’m eager to turn that woman into the walking dead, leave her alive inside her own tomb.” Fergus laughed with ill-concealed greed. “She’s killed her last Cooter.”
“What?” Tom jerked his horse to a stop so hard it reared up, but he brought it instantly under control and kept the children safe. He turned to Mandy with his Colt six-shooter in hand, aimed upward, as he scanned the gap.
“Don’t you feel it?”
He felt nothing but irritation. “Feel what?”
“There’s someone out there.” Mandy rode close enough that her horse’s head drew even with Tom.
“No, there’s not. What is the matter with you?”
“I’m afraid for you to go out the mouth of that gap.” The gap was so narrow Tom could block her from passing him simply by turning his horse sideways.
“Don’t go out there. Please. We can turn around.” She tried to push past.
Tom would have to move for her to get ahead of him, and he wasn’t budging.
Leaning forward, she caught Tom’s gun arm. “Let me go back. Then you climb back down that cliff. Don’t go out that entrance. Just leave us.”
“I’m not going back, and I’m not leaving these children. You can come if you want.” Tom jerked against her grip.
“We can’t.” Her nails bit into his forearm through the fabric of his shirt and he flinched. Her voice dropped even lower. “Tom, they’re out there. I can almost hear them breathing, waiting. You’ll die. We’ll all die.”
“No, they’re not out there. Wise Sister’s friends made sure there’s no one near abouts. They went all over the area to make sure. Now they’ve dropped back to let us pass. We’re safe, Mandy.” He wished she’d believe him, but it didn’t matter. They were going out.
“We’re not safe. If they’re cleared out tonight, then they’ll be back tomorrow. If I’m gone from here, then they’ll find out and come to where I am.”
“How’d this start anyway?” Tom asked.
“Sidney’s bodyguards shot two Cooters. You remember Cord. He was Sidney’s bodyguard when Sidney bought these horses from you.”
“Yep, I met him. Never cared for the man.”
“No one did but Sidney—and that only lasted until I convinced him Cord was after his gold.”
“Convinced him? What do you mean? Wasn’t Cord after the gold?”
Mandy shuddered, and Tom was glad she was holding his arm or he might have missed the telling reaction in the dark.
“What is it? What did Cord do to you?” Tom figured out enough from that one little shiver.
“I had to convince Sidney Cord was after gold, but Cord didn’t really do anything. He was a man with bad things on his mind. The reason I didn’t like him was the way he spoke to me. I knew he was dangerous.”
“Which means”—Tom’s disgust for Sidney deepened, which Tom hadn’t believed was possible—“if Cord bothered you, that wouldn’t have been enough to make Sidney fire him?”
“He did nothing except frighten me. And even that was mostly what I sensed. I knew it wasn’t enough to make Sidney fire him. So I lied. I made up a threat to Sidney’s precious gold, which wasn’t a lie. Cord wanted the gold right enough. Sidney sent the man packing almost instantly. He made a trip to town then fired Cord in Helena so the man was well away from our cabin. Sidney hired a new bodyguard and ran for home, hoping to beat Cord here. I warned Sidney it might come to shooting trouble.”
“That’s where Sidney was when Jarrod was born. I remember. And Luther and Buff and Wise Sister and Sally ran afoul of Cord, along with that painter greenhorn.”
“That greenhorn is my brother-in-law now. Be nice.”
Tom snorted. “I remember them talking about Cord teaming up with a brother of his. When Luther and the rest of ’em got to your house they were pushing hard, sure the Cooters were on their way straight to you. But they never came.”
Mandy nodded.
“Your worthless husband was in town. He’d left you alone to have his child and came straggling back in after you’d had him all alone.”
“Not alone, Tom.” Her claws relaxed, and Tom felt her gratitude. “You were there.”
It had been the finest experience of Tom’s life. He could barely speak past the feelings that recalled themselves when he thought of how he’d been there when Jarrod had come into the world. This boy was Tom’s regardless of who had fathered him. No one would ever convince him otherwise. And since the boy was Tom’s, it figured his sisters were, too. He was the father of three. And he was coming to the job a lot later than suited him.
“I remember your husband getting all excited about his longed-for s
on and ignoring the girls who were begging him for attention.” Tom had thought Mandy could’ve used some attention, too, but he didn’t see any reason to point that out. “I wanted to stomp the man into the dirt right then.”
“Luther did it for both of us,” Mandy said. “But firing Cord wasn’t what caused the worst of the trouble. That started when a Cooter died.”
“Before that, Cord and Fergus teamed up to get the gold.”
“Yes, and brought in some cousins. They attacked us, but we had a lookout at the gap by that time, and a couple of those cousins died. Turns out they’ve got a passel of cousins and a taste for vengeance against anyone who does their family wrong. I heard someone say that Cooters really stick together.”
“Then they’re fools. They think they can attack honest folks and if those folks fight back they’ve got good reason to start a feud over that?”
“So it would seem,” Mandy replied. “And Sidney hired more guards. I didn’t like them either, but they fought for the brand while they were here. They ended up in shooting trouble with the Cooters, and a couple more Cooter cousins died. There have been several clashes, and Sidney was killed in one of them. That was before Wise Sister’s Shoshone family moved into the woods around our house. Killing my husband wasn’t enough for ’em. I’m alive, and to their way of thinking, I still need to pay.”
Tom had heard the rumors. A blood feud. “What kind of polecats turn their blood feud on womenfolk?”
“The Cooters have made it clear all of Sidney’s family would die.”
“Even the women and children?”
“Everyone. That’s what I heard, and hard as it is to believe, I got a bullet lodged in my shoulder one time, and another shot missed. The hate in those people makes me sick. It’s obsessive, murderous.” She let go of Tom, and he had to stop himself from checking to see if her nails had drawn blood. The woman had herself a grip.
“If I could give them all my gold to buy peace, I’d do it, though it galls me to pay the Cooters for their brutality.” Mandy ran her hand over the front of her dress in a way that drew Tom’s attention. “But their hate is a deadly thing.”
That got Tom’s eyes back where they belonged.
“Cooters died at the hands of Sidney Gray’s guards. It’s a blood feud that they’ve sworn will last until the last Gray or the last Cooter is dead. There seems to be no end of the Cooters, but there are very few of us Grays.”
Tom was quiet, watchful in the dark. Mandy wanted to scare him off, but he knew better. He knew deep down she was terrified he’d leave her. She did want to be saved. But she was so unselfish, so honorable, so brave, so sweet, that she’d chosen a life of pure loneliness rather than endanger someone else.
He cupped her chin, leaned in, and kissed her.
Half expecting her to fight him, knock him back, his heart burned with pleasure when she kissed him back.
When the kiss ended, she whispered, “They’re out there.” She sounded just this side of crazy. But Tom suspected anyone who had survived what she had would be right on the ragged edge of losing her mind. But she’d held on. And now he was here to take over all her worrying.
“No, they’re not.” Tom flicked the tip of her nose.
“Yes, they are. I can feel them.”
“You can’t feel nuthin’.”
“They’re out there.”
“No one’s out there.”
“They’re waiting.”
“You’re making up something to worry about.” Tom went straight back to kidnapping her children, knowing she’d follow along.
“You sound loco, Mandy girl. I’m purely worried about you.”
She made a sound that made him glad he hadn’t given her the rifle back. She was a crack shot, he’d heard. Chances are she could pick him off and not harm either of her youngsters.
“I’m telling you to get back here.”
Tom turned his horse and headed out of the gap. “Quit yapping and let’s move out.”
“You’re going to die, Tom. I know they’re out there and ready.”
Four
Are you ready?” Cord set both his plungers on the ground and took a grip on both handles. In the dark, Cord could just make out Fergus’s nod and his own hand on a third plunger. “Ready.”
“On the count of three, I go. One.” Cord leaned his weight forward. “Two.” He braced himself for the blast. “Cord! Fergus! We got trouble.”
Cord jerked his hand away from the detonator like he’d been struck by lightning. Fergus pulled back, too. Both were kneeling. Cord didn’t stand. He whirled around and looked through the underbrush.
J.D. was scrambling forward with Dugger on his heels. “What?” Cord tried to penetrate the darkness but could see no danger.
“Two of the men’re gone.” J.D. tripped and fell on his belly, breathing hard like he was scared to death
“What?” Fergus’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “You heard me.” Thrashing forward, J.D. got to his knees, facing Cord and Fergus. Dugger stood back, leaning over them like the halfwit he was. The three of ’em on their knees might well be attending a prayer meeting.
“I thought you were going to stay together.” Cord realized as he’d said it that the men with them hadn’t stayed together at all. They’d left Fergus and Cord to wire the dynamite and faded back into the woods. Cord had forgotten all about what his cousins were doing.
“We were together, all four of us. Keeping low, waiting for the blast. My brothers were right behind me.” J.D.’s eyes were as wide and round as a spooked horse, and Cord didn’t blame him. They could look for the brothers, but Cord knew it was a waste of time. They’d never find a trace of them. “And now they’re gone, without a sound, no trace of them anywhere. Just like the others. I tell you these woods are haunted.”
Cord did not believe in ghosts. But there was something out there. There had to be.
“Let’s blast that hole and get out of here.” Fergus reached toward his plunger.
Tom rode on with two of her children.
The big, dumb kidnapper.
She watched and waited for one of those awful, vicious Cooters to shoot Tom right out of the saddle. Her eyes burned, and she fought it, but there was no stopping the tears. She could not believe she would pick a moment like this to waste her time with such nonsense. “Tom, don’t ride out there yet.” No gunfire split the night. “You’ve got to give me that rifle back. I want to be able to fight.” She’d have said more, but her voice wasn’t working.
“Come on up and get it.” Tom rode straight on out.
There was no shot. Only silence, broken by quiet hoof beats and the sounds of the forest at night.
Mandy stopped the tears by getting mad. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m marrying a crazy hermit with three children. I reckon that makes me an idiot all right.” He just kept on riding. And he was still alive. “But Sidney was an idiot, and you married him. You’ve shown a bent for that. So why not do it again?”
“Maybe I learned my lesson.”
“Doubt it.” Tom turned to the south.
“And you have no survival instincts.”
He was out of the gap, still riding.
Mandy goaded her horse and caught up to Tom in seconds.
Without looking at her, he pulled her rifle out of the boot of his saddle and held the gun out straight at his side.
She snagged it. She felt more in control when, with economical motions, she slung it across her back, butt side up by her left shoulder, muzzle down within grabbing distance of her right hand. She could breathe again.
“I’ve got my stallion picketed off this way. We’ve got to stop for him.”
“Let’s move fast. If you want to get away from here, let’s not dawdle.” She kicked her horse and didn’t even threaten to shoot Tom but rather listened and smelled and opened herself up to the land around her, watching for trouble.
“So, the Shoshone like you, huh?” Tom asked, catching up to her
and matching her blistering pace.
“Yep, there was some trouble between them and Sidney.”
Tom snorted. “No surprise. There was trouble between Sidney and everyone.”
“But they’ve forgotten him, I guess,” Mandy would probably have hit Tom if she hadn’t been busy looking for two-legged predators. “Because they work well with me. They live on that land. My title to it keeps others away—except those vermin Cooters—so the Shoshone can have the land to themselves, and I get some credit for that in their minds. They know the Cooters mean me harm, so they watch out for me. It’s as simple as that.”
“They’re mighty fierce protectors.”
Mandy knew that to be the honest truth. It was a blessing pure and simple, and she owed it almost entirely to Wise Sister, Buff’s wife of two years. “They haven’t set up a regular village because the government might send troops and move them if they realized they were here. They live quietly in the woods, and I stay on my side of the gap. We have peace between us.”
Mandy and Tom rode side-by-side, though he was picking their trail. She remembered Belle Harden had lived quite a ways from Helena. She’d mentioned the town of Divide, and Mandy had learned vaguely where that was. Belle’s mare had unexpectedly given birth to a foal bred to Tom’s stallion. Which must mean Tom lived near Belle. Mandy felt her throat close with the thrill of getting to see Belle again.
They found Tom’s stallion exactly where it was supposed to be. The horse did his best to fight Tom every second while Tom saddled and bridled the big animal. Then Tom swung on its back. Their three horses were a matched set—black and strong with beautiful lines. Mandy’s pair so obviously offspring of Tom’s stallion.
Tom led the second horse as they headed out. With every step, Mandy remembered death rode with her. She would be bringing it straight to Tom. It wasn’t a possibility; it was a certainty. She had to get away, get back to her fortress. But for now, with her baby strapped on Tom’s back, she had to follow.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 63