As soon as the Shoshone wound around a curve, Cord and his kin returned to the trail and set a fast pace to put distance between them and that band.
“Those Indians will eventually see we rode along behind them.” J.D. was such a complainer that Cord was wishing whatever happened to his brothers had also happened to J.D.
“They might not,” Fergus growled.
“That’s who’s been haunting the woods around that gap.” Cord knew he was right.
“But we looked for Indians. We saw no sign.”
“Usually they’d have a village, and we’d find signs of teepees and fire. But they were laying low. Careful. Probably watching us the whole time.” Cord felt a shiver of fear race up his back. “We’re lucky that witch woman left that fortress of hers. She don’t have no protection out here.”
“Good, because we owe her.” J.D. scowled.
“Are we gonna have to get even with all them Indians, too, J.D.?” Dugger was none too smart, but he took orders well and talked very little. “They must’ve killed our brothers when we were blasting that gap. Does Granddaddy’s rule about sticking together mean we’ve gotta take on a whole village of Shoshone?”
Cord wished like crazy Dugger’d stop talking.
There was something wrong with Dugger. He’d stayed childlike in his head while his body had grown into a man. Mostly he was quiet, and when he did talk Cord always had a powerful wish that the fool would stay silent.
“I think Granddaddy will understand that we can’t start a war with the Shoshone. That’s just too big a fight.” J.D. looked at Cord nervously.
Truth be told he was none too fond of his cousins, and honestly he’d never even met his big brother, Fergus, until a year ago. Or he’d been a baby when Fergus had taken off, so it was as if they’d never met. What kind of stupid rule was it that they all had to fight to defend family?
“Then let’s make tracks.” Cord pushed hard, glad of an excuse to stay ahead of J.D. and Dugger. No sense admitting out loud that Cord didn’t want to start a war with the Shoshone neither.
Six
This is wrong, Tom. All wrong.” Mandy grabbed a handful of Tom’s soggy shirt front and got a hunk of skin while she was at it.
“Ouch!” The leaky woman had finally quit crying and commenced to scolding. Sighing with relief, Tom’d gladly admit to the whole world he preferred scolding to salt water.
“I’ve got to get into that gap and back to my house where it’s safe.”
Scolding got old, too, though. Why couldn’t the woman just ride quiet? He started looking back fondly on the last half hour or so. Sure it had been filled with sobbing and his shirt was soaked through, but at least it had been quiet sobbing.
“We’re almost to the Double L. Another hour or so until we get home. We’ll get married. Then tomorrow we’ll ride into town and get you and your young’uns some new clothes. Gray is an ugly color.” Tom waited for her to thank him for rescuing her.
She frowned so deep Tom braced himself to get walloped. But he didn’t let her go. He liked holding her close in his arms. Idly as he cantered toward home, looking at his future wife’s cranky expression, he wondered if he’d ever get to hold her when she wasn’t shedding tears or being kidnapped.
Well, he’d kissed her a time or two with her full cooperation. Right at the beginning. Of course that might have been before he’d announced his kidnapping plan. Or at least before she’d believed him. “If you didn’t want to marry me, you shouldn’t have come home with me.”
“You kidnapped my children, you big dumb—mmmph.”
Tom kissed her to shut her up. The woman’d marry him, whether she knew it or not. In fact, she was so stubborn that they’d probably be married and have three young’uns, in addition to the three she already had, before she quit squawking about it.
He had no doubts about his ability to get her to say “I do,” though. He hadn’t faced up to much in his life that he hadn’t gotten squared away to suit himself. Why should marrying an unwilling woman be any different? He was sure, despite her definite statements to the contrary, she was planning to marry him. The fact that she was letting him kiss her right now was a really good sign.
Which made him think of Mandy launching herself into Mark Reeves’s arms. Tom held Mandy closer just in case Reeves hadn’t gotten the message that Tom’d staked his claim on the woman. Mark was to keep his hands to himself.
He pulled back from the kiss, his stallion carrying both their weights without breaking a sweat. He loved this animal.
“I’m not going to marry you, Tom.” Her lips were swollen, and she was staring right at his mouth. He decided that outweighed her words. “It would be a death sentence for you. I might as well just pull the trigger myself.”
“I appreciate you worryin’, but I’ll be fine.” Tom sped the horse up, and his men fell in until the pounding hooves and fast pace made talking impossible. He contemplated exactly what he’d say to get her to come around to his way of thinking.
Poetry, flattery, bribery?
Nope, none of that would work.
He needed to kidnap one of her children again. He mulled over just how to arrange that. How did a man hold a child on the far side of a wedding vow and force the child’s mother to come on across the line?
Tom glanced down and saw a little spitfire in his arms, shooting daggers with her eyes, arms crossed, completely trusting him to keep her on his saddle. He wondered if she realized what that trust meant. No sense pointing it out.
With an effort he kept the grin off his face. He contemplated getting all that fire into his life, into his cabin, into his heart. He was determined to do it before the sun went down. Just because she said no was no reason to change his plans.
Mandy McClellen wasn’t going to spend one more day … or night … not being his wife.
Mark Reeves controlled himself when he reached for his gun. But he was shocked by that sudden reflex to protect his Mosqueros nemesis, Mandy McClellen. He’d never felt such a thing before. For anyone.
He was raring to protect Mandy, and her children to boot. He noted, even though he could only see Linscott’s back, that the man was kissing the livin’ daylights out of Mandy.
Mark’d have his hands real full stepping in there and taking Mandy back. Then he saw Mandy’s arms go around the boss’s neck and suspected Mandy wasn’t going to cooperate if Mark went to saving her right at this time.
“It don’t look like she’s being hurt at all, Mark.” Charlie Cooper smirked.
Mark would have never made this trip out west without company. He’d had a herd of boys around him all his life. When none of his brothers would come, he’d ridden to see his cousins and talked Charlie into heading for the frontier. His aunt Hannah had almost skinned him for making off with one of her children.
Mark had done a good job of getting around Aunt Hannah and persuading Charlie. They’d signed on with Tom Linscott early in the spring.
“I see that look in your eye, Mark. If you mess with Linscott and get yourself fired and run out of the country, can I have Emma?”
Mark whirled to face Charlie and saw him fighting not to laugh.
It calmed Mark down some. “You stay away from Emma Harden.”
“But we’re a team. You as good as dragged me away from Sour Springs, right when Ma and Pa were fixing to have another baby. Now you’re gonna up and get married and leave me alone.” Charlie sounded like he was teasing, but Mark wondered if there wasn’t a spark of truth about it. Charlie was crazy for family, having lived the first ten years of his life without one.
Which reminded Mark of a very simple solution to Charlie’s worries. “You know Emma’s got a sister, right?”
“Really?” Charlie lost the teasing gleam in his eyes. “I wasn’t in town the day you saw Emma. You never mentioned a sister.”
“Guess I’ve been mostly talking about Emma, huh?”
Charlie’s blue eyes flashed mischief. “That’s a fair statement.”
“Well, she’s got one. A woman grown, too, though young. Her sister wasn’t in town. I found out about her when I went calling. I barely saw her when I was at Emma’s house. But Sarah Harden is about the most beautiful thing in the whole world next to Emma. Red hair that looks like it’d be hot to touch. Green eyes that I noticed even though I only saw her for a few minutes and was only thinking of Emma. You could marry up with her and stake a claim, and we could settle here and build our ranches side by side.”
Charlie smiled. “You always were one for making a plan, Mark. I need to be careful or you’ll talk me into marrying some woman I’ve never even clapped eyes on. I’d never even heard of Belle Harden until you started talking about Emma. Not too many women out here.”
Mark slapped Charlie on the back. “Better get a look at her before you make any wedding plans. But you’re going to be real interested.”
Mark’s eyes slid back to Mandy, and all his pleasure in teasing Charlie faded. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
Charlie nodded and Mark kicked his horse to ride over to Abby Sawyer, carrying the bigger of the little blond girls in her lap. The tyke reminded him of one of the McClellen girls from back in the day.
Looking down, Mark saw the front of his shirt was still wet from tears. Mandy was powerful upset. What if she didn’t welcome Tom’s advances? What if she was so vulnerable she couldn’t stand up for herself and she grabbed onto whoever was closest?
“That’s Lady Gray?” Mark asked Abby, Tom’s sister.
Mark had been working for Tom Linscott since the spring branding. He’d learned that Tom’s sister was almighty tough. She’d come over for a visit and found out Tom wanted a group of his hands to ride out to meet him on this trail and escort him back to the ranch, riding shotgun to protect Lady Gray.
Abby had decided to come along. When Linscott’s foreman told her no, she’d taken to sharpening her knife until the foreman said yes. The woman didn’t take orders worth spit. She reminded him a lot of Belle Harden. And Emma for that matter.
Riding her horse with a grace and ease Mark had rarely seen before, Abby kept an arm wrapped around the little girl with dandelion wisps of white hair. “I understood my brother was going to fetch Lady Gray,” Abby said. “So that must be her. The woman has a reputation as wide as these mountains, but I’ve never seen her before.”
“No one’s ever seen her.” Mark had heard talk, too. “She lives in seclusion on that mountain in a fortress. The bits I’ve heard made it sound like she was loco. Crazy.”
And it was Mandy.
Mark felt sick wondering what had brought one of the toughest, smartest young women he’d ever known to such a place. The McClellen girls were impossible to tease or torment. A boy learned soon enough that doing it only brought pain. Mark knew that from personal experience.
His big brother, Ike, had been sweet on Mandy for a few years, but Clay McClellen was a scary man, and Ike hadn’t been enough in love to risk his neck.
“I’ve heard she’s deadly with her rifle. I admire that.” Abby patted the little girl and smiled down at the upturned face. “I’ve never been so good with a firearm.”
Mark wanted to know more, but he hesitated to even speak to Abby Sawyer. He hated calling her Abby. It felt improper. But she took to sharpening her knife when anyone called her Mrs. Sawyer, so Mark didn’t dare do that.
“Not loco,” Abby went on, “not according to my brother. He spoke of her only in passing. A few words in a few years’ time, but enough that I thought he knew more than most.”
Riding up beside Abby came Wade Sawyer. Wade Sawyer was the largest rancher in the area since his pa’s death. Silas and Belle Harden were second. Tom’s Double L was a close third.
Mark had filed on his modest little homestead in a valley he’d scouted out in the mountains, not all that far from Belle Harden’s spread. He needed to have a cabin built on it before snow fell so he could set to proving up on it. Between now and then he was earning his living with Linscott, who had promised to pay him in cattle instead of cash money.
Mark knew Abby Sawyer lived in a teepee in the woods near Wade’s huge ranch. Rumor had it that sometimes when it was really cold she deigned to move into the house. But mostly Wade lived in the teepee with her, or so Mark had heard. It was some cock-eyed deal Wade had made with her when they’d moved to Wade’s ranch.
Wade had a slightly older girl in his lap. Mark swallowed hard at the sight of the two girls. They were the image of those little girls he’d known from school and church. They were Mandy McClellen’s children through and through.
He opened his mouth to tell Wade and Abby what he knew then closed it. Maybe Mandy didn’t want everyone to know where she’d come from. Why did she live up there like that? How had she become Lady Gray? Mark knew he had to talk to her alone before he ran off at the mouth.
“I heard someone call her a witch.” Wade spoke quietly, their words not for Mandy’s and Tom’s ears.
All three of them stared as Tom pulled farther ahead. Mandy’s arms were still tight around his neck.
“They said she put a curse on the hills around her mansion. A curse that would swallow up anyone who came to bother her.”
“It looks like my brother got through.” Abby sounded smug.
He did indeed appear to be through whatever defenses Mandy had built around herself.
Tom twisted in his seat and yelled, “Let’s get home. Pick up the pace.”
The dark-haired baby boy on Tom’s back jumped and hollered. The little girls started squirming and fussing, too. The girl on Wade’s lap looked up and behind her. She took one long look at Wade and squalled.
“Better go let her see that her ma hasn’t run off.” Wade patted the baby with the big hand he rested on the girl’s tummy. Wade grinned at his wife, who also had a fussing little girl.
Mandy was looking around Tom’s shoulders, a furrow on her brow.
Wade kicked his horse gently and picked up speed. Abby fell in and left Mark behind. Full of questions. Twisted up inside with worry for his old friend.
Tom Linscott was a tough boss. The man was quick with a fist, and he’d sent a few no-accounts down the road since Mark had signed on. But the ones he fired deserved it. Tom rewarded hard work with decent pay and good food. They had a clean bunkhouse, Sundays off if there wasn’t trouble, and Tom treated them with respect, something Mark was grateful for beyond everything else.
With a grim clench of his jaw, Mark knew he wasn’t going to just let Tom sweep Mandy off her feet and plunk her into his house, not if it wasn’t Mandy’s wish. If it meant losing his job, Mark was going to make sure Mandy was safe and happy. He’d even take her back to Texas to her folks if that suited her.
Except what about Emma? How was he supposed to get to know Emma better, get himself a cabin built, and earn enough money to get a start on a ranch, if he was traveling half the country to get Mandy and three children home?
And yet right now, he knew that taking care of Mandy was something he could not shirk. Shaking his head, Mark picked up the pace just as he was told.
They came into a valley that was part of Linscott’s vast range, and Mark saw the herd of prized Angus at the far end of this pasture. They were beautiful. Mark had never seen a black cow such as these before. A few Herefords and plenty of longhorns in all colors, including black, but these cattle of Linscott’s were famous in this corner of Montana. And his name was rapidly spreading. Mark had come to this ranch particularly because of Tom’s reputation.
As they rode past them, Mark spotted the old bull that had started all of this. He stood proud and watchful on land a bit higher than the herd. A mean old beast Mark had been warned to steer well clear of. Mark had heard the same warning about the boss’s old black stallion.
Tom’s Angus cattle, his thoroughbred stallion. The boss was a strong man, but he had brains, too, and no one could deny it.
Mark studied the massive shoulders on those Angus, the de
ep bellies, the wide backs and hindquarters. Linscott had found himself a goldmine without lifting a pickax. Mark had heard enough about Linscott’s ideas and the financial risks the man took … and the amazing wealth he’d amassed in a few years because of the sleek black cattle and the stunning thoroughbred foals ranchers were willing to pay a premium for. There’d been plenty of talk about Linscott’s success as Mark roved around the West, working cattle drives, hunting for a place to put down roots.
Finding the Linscott ranch felt like going to college, which three of his brothers had chosen rather than do the respectable work of ranching. Mark could have been a doctor like Ike or aimed for lawyering like John or studied business like Luke. Mark knew he was uncommonly smart, and his ma, a teacher, was all fired up about education.
But Mark wanted the land.
When Abe decided to stay on and ranch with Pa, there just wasn’t anywhere for Mark. The Reeves ranch would support two families, but not three. Mark struck out on his own, looking for a likely place and saving money for the day he found it.
He’d lived for a while near his aunt Hannah and uncle Grant and their passel of kids. Mark had been sweet on their daughter Libby, but Libby’d had other ideas, and Mark had moved on.
He thought he’d found his place here in Divide, Montana. He’d scouted out a likely valley and homesteaded. And he’d met Emma Harden. He could picture his life laid out tidy before him.
Except here was Mandy McClellen. Mark could no more deny his need to protect her than he could stop breathing.
He could figure out a way to do everything he wanted. If he just had a plan.
“I seen ’em, Cord.” J.D. came riding in, back from scouting the trail. “There’s a passel of ’em, though. The four of us can’t take ’em all on.”
“How many?” Since the Indians had left off guarding Lady Gray, Cord had been sending out the men to find an overlook, a likely spot to finish this. They knew a crowd rode with her, but they’d been pushing to catch up and hadn’t taken the time to sort out all the tracks.
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