Fire Eyes

by Pierson, Cheryl

  * * * * *

  Spreading out to comb the area had been Tom Sellers's idea, once they'd come across the tracks again. Fallon's men had all been together by the river. Then the tracks took off into all directions, as if the men were running, or searching for something.

  Frank would never admit it, but he was afraid. He rode with a false air of confidence, several yards from Jack Eaton, sometimes losing sight of him in the dense brush of the woods. Jack seemed to take it all in stride, stopping every so often to check for sign. Frank tried to look for evidence of Fallon and the girls as well, but wasn't truly sure what he should be looking for, or what he would do if he actually found them

  From far away came a sound of high-pitched squealing. Frank knew that sound. Wild boars, with teeth and tusks that could slice through flesh like a fresh-sharpened razor. And they were getting closer. The once-faint sounds now drifted clearer and more frequently on the breeze.

  He looked across the distance that separated him from Jack. As their eyes met, Jack's lips curved upward sardonically in a wordless, "What the hell are we doing here?"

  Frank guided his sorrel to within a few feet of Jack's bay. He appreciated the big man staying close, trying not to appear as if he was keeping an eye on him. But Frank knew that was exactly what Jack Eaton had been doing. He and the others had gotten over their anger and were trying to train him as Lem Polk never had. They were taking an interest, and for once, Frank had begun to feel as if he belonged.

  A few moments later, the older marshal drew up short and slid to the muddy ground. "Tracks!" He bent and touched the moist rim of the print that was deepest. It had barely begun to get crusty. "Fresh prints here, Frank." He moved on to examine the tracks further down the trail. "They're close. No more'n fifteen minutes ahead. And just two of 'em." He nodded. "Tom was right. They've split up."

  "To try to get away from us?" Frank asked.

  "That, or they're looking for something. Or someone."

  "Like those captives, maybe? The girls?" Frank couldn't help thinking of the girls' mother. The marshals had found her body, what was left of it, along with another of Fallon's men, buried in a shallow grave near their abandoned campsite, but there had been no sign of the girls. And in this case, he was mighty glad. Fallon had left a trail of murderous destruction from northeastern Indian Territory to south central Missouri and parts of Arkansas. Eaton had mentioned earlier that he hoped the girls were still valuable enough to Fallon that he wouldn't kill them for the sake of convenience. Frank hoped so, too. He'd seen enough death to last him a lifetime.

  Eaton looked up at Frank from where he knelt on the soft ground. He waved his hand at the closest track. "We're closin' in, Frank. They've split up, for whatever reason, so we're gonna have to be extra careful. Don't want to ride into a trap."

  Frank shook his head. "How do we know, though? In this fog and all?"

  Eaton smiled, as if he understood the uncertainty of Frank's thoughts. "Stay close by me, son. You'll do all right." He stood up and mounted his horse once more, and the two marshals cautiously rode forward, together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "How're you feelin' boy?"

  Kaed turned a little too quickly in the saddle at the sound of Tom Sellers's gruff voice. A sharp jolt of fire ripped down his side.

  Sellers nodded. "Hurts, huh? I hate to say ol' Jack was right 'bout you stayin' behind, but—"

  "Then don't," Kaed said shortly. "I'm not holdin' you up, Tom."

  Sellers shook his head with good-natured humor. "No, you'd never do that, would you, Kaed? Not even with a broken arm, cracked ribs, a bullet just taken out of your hide. You'd never dream of slowin' us down." He smiled. "Or stayin' behind. I'm just worried about you, son. You and Trav push harder'n anybody else I've ever known."

  Kaed arched a dark brow. "We learned it somewhere, Tom. The sooner we find those girls and kill Fallon, the sooner we can all go home."

  Tom chuckled. "You're in a powerful hurry this time, aren't you?" Without waiting for an answer, he asked, "Did you find anything?"

  Kaed shook his head. "Not really." He held up a scrap of faded yellow gingham. "I found this piece of material a few yards back, caught on a branch, but who's to say it belongs to the girls?"

  "You figured it too, huh? They've split up. Had to be somethin' they didn't plan on to make 'em all separate. Either they know we're tailin' 'em close, or those girls got away from 'em and they're in a scramble to find 'em before we do."

  Kaed nodded. "Yeah. I've been thinkin' the same thing. Those girls could be anywhere, but they'll be so scared they won't know we mean them no harm."

  "We've got to get to them before Fallon does. You know that."

  "Yeah, I know," Kaed said. The image of White Deer and Two Stars lying dead at his feet crashed into his mind, staggering him. He raised his eyes to the other man's steady gaze. "Fallon'll kill those girls if he gets to them first, Tom. They'll become a liability for him, tryin' to get away from us quick like he'll be doing."

  Sellers nodded. "They're here somewhere. All we have to do is find them first."

  * * * * *

  "Soo-wee pig," Archie Gilpen breathed quietly. He was lying on his stomach on a rise that overlooked a thicket of underbrush a few yards away.

  Matt Baker lay beside him. He grinned. "I wouldn't mind havin' a roast pig supper myself." The wild pigs squealed and grunted, lifting their noses to scent the breeze from time to time. "We ain't had a decent meal in God knows how long," he grumbled. "The General, he don't allow for much rest, and don't seem like he cares if we eat or not."

  Gilpen gave him a sideways glance. "I reckon he—he does what he can, Matt. Times is hard."

  Baker gave a snort of disbelief, and Gilpen plunged on. "An' besides, once we sell them girls, why, we'll all have plenty of money." He grinned at the thought. "I intend to take my share and buy me a steak dinner and a woman—and I'm a-gonna keep her all night long!"

  "I don't want no whore. I just want that little girl." He didn't tell Archie, but he could feel himself getting hard just thinking about Victoria Kramer. His pecker was digging a hole in the dirt where he lay.

  Oblivious to Baker's discomfort, eager to change the dangerous subject, Gilpen raised his rifle. He sighted along the barrel. "Let's see how many of them bastards we can shoot, Matt."

  Baker gave a short laugh. "I been itchin' to kill somethin'."

  Gilpen grinned and began to squeeze back on the trigger as he sighted the leader of the pack of pigs. "Settle for killin' right now. Maybe you'll get a chance at that little girl what's got you so fired up later…"

  The rifle shot seemed deafening in the misty stillness.

  The lead boar turned toward Gilpen and Baker with a loud squeal of pain. It grunted, lowering its snout to the ground for a moment.

  Gilpen hastily began to reload the rifle as Baker pulled the trigger of his own longarm, sighting another fat boar. The kick of the rifle jolted him, and he reached to reload.

  A sudden movement from the pack caught his eye, and he glanced back up. "Damn!"

  "What's the matter?" Archie Gilpen completed his reloading and once more raised the rifle. "Did ya miss?"

  Baker was already scrambling to his feet. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

  Gilpen looked down the sight of his Remington, seeing what Baker had already glimpsed.

  The pack of pigs was on the run, heading directly for the rise where Baker and Gilpen lay. Their heads were lowered, their eyes wild, as they followed their wounded leader across the clearing, as if they knew exactly where their enemies were hidden.

  Gilpen tossed the gun aside. He jumped to his feet, following Baker, who had already begun to run for a nearby sycamore tree. Sweat beaded his forehead and neck, and the bile rose up in his throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the pack of snorting, snuffling boars was almost on him. A muffled scream erupted from his throat, and his stomach flopped and turned like a landed fish.

  "Ohmygodohmygodo
hmygod—" He tripped, nearly fell in a sprawl, but managed to right himself. "Damn pig! Why didn't you go down?"

  The pigs were gaining. Matt Baker could almost feel their fetid, hot breath on him. His skin crawled and tingled in a wild mixture of horrified imagination and anticipatory fear of the impending reality.

  He reached the sycamore tree just steps ahead of Gilpen and was futilely jumping for the lowest bottom branch. It remained a scant two inches from his fingertips, no matter how hard he tried, how high he jumped.

  "Get… out… of…my…way… " Gilpen panted.

  Baker turned, and in that awful moment, he could see in Gilpen's eyes that he knew—he was not going to make it to the tree.

  A razor tusk ripped across his thigh, and he yelped. One of the boars hit him from behind and he stumbled, falling hard. They were upon him, then, slashing and biting, his blood turning the already-muddy ground a dark red, his screams slowly subsiding to an eerie wail that tapered to nothing but the sounds of the milling pigs, rooting in their bloodlust.

  "Jesus!" Baker's blue eyes were wide as china saucers. His fists balled at his sides momentarily, and then he leapt for the branch one last, desperate time, falling short yet again.

  The force of the angry boar knocked his legs from beneath him, sending him rolling headfirst into the trunk of the tree, then sprawling across the ground just a few feet from where Gilpen lay.

  Dazedly, he looked up into the slobbering bloody jaws of the wounded lead boar.

  "Die, you bastard!" His voice was no more than a helpless croak. He wanted to cry as his own urine warmed the ground beneath him. All thoughts of Victoria Kramer and what he would do to her, of Fallon's Brigade, even of Drew Fallon himself, disappeared as the boar lowered its head and ripped off the left side of Matt Baker's face.

  He meant to scream, but the blood in his throat was too thick, suffocating him. The razor sharp teeth were the last thing he was aware of as his skin ripped apart, and for a moment, he watched his killer from his own separated eyeball, until blood spattered the blue orb, and his world turned blessedly black.

  * * * * *

  Tori lifted her head, her neck stiff. She'd fallen asleep in the spreading arms of the elm tree. From somewhere nearby, she heard the sounds of wild pigs, their squeals and grunts echoing in the fog-shrouded air.

  Tori's mind registered the noise that had awakened her, but she questioned it now that she was alert. Had it been a gunshot?

  As if in answer to her silent question, the roar of a nearby rifle sounded again, and she flinched.

  They were close!

  Lily hung draped over a sturdy bough, exhausted. Tori shook her sister gently. Lily rubbed her eyes, and Tori steadied her so that she wouldn't lose her precarious position.

  "They're very near, Lily," Tori whispered.

  "Let's get down. We gotta run!" Lily's eyes were wide.

  Tori shook her head. "No. Let's stay here. Even if they pass right under us, they'll be looking at the ground, trying to see where they're going."

  Lily shifted to a more comfortable position and nodded. Her cobalt eyes narrowed. "I'd like to see ol' Andrew Fallon walk right under us and not even know we're here. I'd spit in his hair." She lifted her head, her pert nose in the air. "What's that sound, Tori? Sounds like wild animals or somethin'."

  "It's pigs. Wild pigs with long razor tusks." Tori shivered. "We'll be better off up here because of them, too."

  "I bet we could outrun 'em."

  "No. Pa told me once that a grown man can't even do that. Gotta climb a tree or something so they can't get at you. 'Specially if they're hungry."

  "Well then, I 'spect us already bein' up here in this tree is real lucky, don't you, Tori?"

  Tori couldn't help but smile at her little sister's words. "Yes. Real lucky."

  * * * * *

  "Drew? What the hell has come over you?"

  Fallon could see that his brother found it hard to believe he had turned so cold. The War had done strange things to many of the survivors, but Fallon prided himself on his wild, reckless streak. Some called it mean.

  Dave dismounted and started toward Drew, but when he met Fallon's gaze, the .45 was pointed at his midsection. "What, Drew?" Dave raised his hands in supplication. "You're family! The only family I got now. Everyone else is gone. It's just you an' me."

  Slowly, Fallon raised the pistol a little higher. The white grin widened. "Nah, Dave. Now, it's just me."

  The trigger snapped, followed by the fiery blast of the powder. The bullet found its mark, true and straight.

  Dave groaned and clutched at his belly, slowly sinking to his knees, as the crimson river filled his hands and spilled over the useless dam his fingers formed. He raised dazed eyes to his brother's.

  "Why?"

  "Why? Because I can, Dave. I ain't goin' home, brother." He sneered. "An' now, neither are you."

  Dave crumpled to the ground, his face contorted with the harsh pain. "I'm glad Ma's dead. Can't see what you are…"

  Andrew Fallon knelt beside his brother and began to rifle his pockets with a methodical precision that brought a flare of anger to Dave's eyes. The money and tobacco, Fallon stashed in his own jacket. The pictures he left on the muddy earth, scattering them with a disgusted flick of his fingers as his older brother tried to reach for them.

  "Well, you can tell her when you see her, Dave. Tell her what a disappointment I am. Shouldn't be much longer now."

  "D-Damn you." Dave closed his eyes, shuddering.

  "Not just yet." Drew chuckled. He stood up and ground his boot heel into the tintypes his brother had treasured, pictures of the family that was no more. "I've got me somethin' else to do, now that you've given me that most interestin' information. Ridin' as the crow flies, I bet I can slit Mrs. Kaedon Turner's throat and make it back up here before sundown tomorrow." He gave a short bark of laughter and turned to swing into the saddle. "Let's just see if I can." Without a backward glance, he mounted his horse and headed through the dense saplings to find Dobie Perrin and let him know he had urgent business—with Mrs. Kaed Turner.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kaed and Tom both lifted their heads at the sound of the nearby pistol blast. The mist was so thick it was hard to see but a few feet, and it muffled all noise, making it impossible to tell from which direction the gunshot had come.

  "Sound like one of ours?" Tom asked.

  Kaed shook his head. "Can't tell in this damned mess. I think it came from that way." He nodded, indicating the path before them through the trees.

  The two marshals made their way forward through the grove of birch saplings. Suddenly, Kaed's black stopped and lifted his head, giving a soft whicker. A few seconds later, Tom's big roan did the same. The sound of an answering whinny drifted to them, and within less than a minute, they practically rode over the faithful mount standing guard beside his dying master.

  "Jesus God!" Tom Sellers dismounted hurriedly to see to the man who lay at their feet in a pool of blood. He knelt beside him in the muck.

  Kaed drew his pistol, scanning the trees, looking for any possible sign of ambush as he stepped from the saddle and joined Sellers beside the fallen man.

  "Can we move him, Tom?"

  "No need, Kaed." Tom gently turned the man over.

  "Kaed…Kaed Turner?" The man's weak voice shook.

  Kaed nodded grimly, hiding his own surprise. He glanced at Tom, then back at the fallen man.

  "You one of Fallon's men?" Tom asked gruffly. "Where's the rest? By God, if this is the makings of an ambush—" His fingers tightened at the wounded man's shirtfront.

  Fallon's breathing was shallow, and he trembled with the shock of his wound, not answering Tom's accusation.

  Kaed met the man's eyes, swearing softly at what he saw. There was no denying the similarity.

  "You know him?" Tom asked.

  Kaed kept his eyes on the wounded man. "Do I? Do I know you?"

  The stranger's eyes drifted shut, and he grimaced
when he tried to shift. "Reckon you know my brother, Drew."

  Tom sucked in his breath, but Kaed was ready for the news. Had to be related, somehow. It was in the eyes. Not the expression so much as the color, the structure.

  "Where is he?" Kaed asked.

  "G-Gone. Back to your place."

  "My place?" At first Kaed didn't understand. He hadn't had a place for so long.

  He stood up quickly, suddenly realizing what Dave Fallon was trying to tell him. "Jessica." His breath left him and he felt as gut-shot as the man at his feet. He turned and lunged for his horse's reins. "Catch me when you're able, Tom." His voice was tight as he swung into the saddle. "How long?" His gaze bored into Dave Fallon's. "How long, dammit!"

  "'Bout three, four minutes." Fallon's teeth sank into his lip. "Couldn't even wait for me to die."

  Kaed turned his mount southward, headed home.

  * * * * *

  "Tori, them pigs sound like they're gettin' closer."

  Tori heard the anxious note in her sister's voice before she turned to look at her. She shifted on the limb. Her backside was numb from sitting in this position so long. She pasted a reassuring smile on her lips and reached to pat Lily's thin, small hand. "Never you mind, Lily. Those razorbacks can't get us up here."

  "I just hope we don't fall."

  Tori squeezed Lily's fingers, noticing they felt cold. Her own smile slipped momentarily. "We won't."

  Tori turned her gaze back to the undergrowth around them, half expecting the boars to come thundering into the clearing at any moment. Their squeals filled the heavy air, the thick misty fog seeming to hold the noise close.