by Starla Kaye
They were riding hard still, just as they had been since tearing out of town. The horses were tiring, sweating heavily. She didn’t know how much longer they could go on without resting. Worse, they smelled water from the river nearby, which made them both keep struggling to turn in that direction. Rafe held firmly to both his horse’s reins and hers. He refused to slow down or rest. Killing his horse clearly meant as little to him as killing that stranger had.
Once more her horse tried to pull his big body toward the river.
Rafe jerked him cruelly back.
As her horse whinnied in desperation, she battled to remain seated. She rocked perilously back and forth in the saddle even though she couldn’t fall off. Her hands were tied to the saddle horn and the ropes were cutting into her wrists. Blood trickled from the cuts. And her feet were tied to the stirrups, which caused her legs to ache almost unbearably from the strain of keeping upright with her weight evenly balanced.
She had to keep her mind off the pain screaming through her body and keep her thoughts focused on surviving. She bit out, “You ambushed my brother and Morgan a few months back, didn’t you? You left them for dead.”
He turned in her direction, grinned that awful evil grin again. “They deserved it, particularly Rydell.”
His eyes darkened with hatred. “Rydell and your brother tracked down my younger brother, Jose. Tracked him down and killed him. According to witnesses, Rydell put the bullet in Jose’s head. He will pay for that.” He nodded at her. “You will pay for his action as well.”
She couldn’t think about his vow; she couldn’t show weakness. Instead she focused on what fueled his anger. She’d overheard most of the story.
“Your brother butchered an old couple in El Paso, other people before them. But that was the time the law finally caught up with him. Not Taos and Morgan. Other lawmen. He was tried by Judge Rydell and rightfully sentenced to hang.”
“Weren’t nothing rightful about the sentence. They were old; they didn’t matter. He wanted their horse and they wouldn’t let him have it. Poor choice.” His expression turned even harder and his face reddened. “Like I told you, I took care of that judge.”
Her stomach clenched. They’d been murdered, horribly from what she’d overheard, because they hadn’t wanted to give up their only horse. Then he’d murdered Morgan’s father for trying to apply justice. Don’t think about that. Don’t.
“Somehow your brother escaped before they could hang him.” She looked at him in disgust. “You, wasn’t it? You got him away.”
He nodded. “Fool kid thought it would be better if we went our separate ways after that. I’d’ve kept him safe, alive.”
“Maybe you would both have died when Taos and Morgan caught up with you, not just your brother.” It hurt to talk, but she had to let him know how much she detested him.
He snorted. “No. It would have been your brother and that Rydell who died that day.” He glowered and added, “I should have gone back that time in the mountain valley, should have made sure they died.”
Tired of the conversation, he clamped his legs tighter around his horse’s belly and demanded the animal run harder. Her horse was forced to race faster as well.
They rode full out for another mile until the horses just couldn’t go on any longer at that pace. Dusk was upon them and she prayed they would camp somewhere for the night. Not that she wanted to be alone with him in the dark, but somehow she would find a way to get free. She just had to. This was not a sane man.
They’d gone maybe another couple of miles when her horse stumbled to his knees. His sides heaved from struggling for each breath. She fought not to slide down his neck. Her arm muscles strained; her legs as well. They hurt so much that tears sprang to her eyes. She saw the fury in Marino’s expression, the danger. What would he do now?
Her answer came quickly. He all but leaped off his horse, still holding its reins. Then he sped to her and jerked the knife free. While she froze in fear that he would just end her life now, he cut the ropes holding her legs tied and then the rope around the saddle horn.
He tugged her down beside him, jammed the knife back in its place, and pulled out his gun. Before she could even blink again he put a bullet in the poor horse’s head.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she cried in horror, tears falling for the innocent, abused animal.
Furious with the change in their situation, he shoved his gun back in the holster and pulled out the knife again. He grabbed her braid so hard that more tears filled her eyes. The knife came up and he slashed off a good foot of her braid. Seeing the blood on her wrists, he wiped the chunk of hair across it to coat the ends. After that he tossed the hair on top of the fallen horse.
She gaped at the sight, shocked by the sudden loss of hair. “Why did you do that?”
He yanked her toward his horse and once more shoved her stomach down over the saddle. What was left of her hair slid from the now destroyed braid and fell around her head.
“I’m leaving the marshal a message: that I got his woman.”
She had known all along that Morgan and her brothers would be riding after them. She just hadn’t wanted to think too much about it. She didn’t want any of them to die because of her. With this “message” they would come after her even more determined. Someone would die before much longer. Please let it not be Morgan or my brothers. Please God.
* * *
Hours ago Morgan and Whiskey’s brothers had found the dead man on the trail they’d been following. Marino wasn’t attempting to hide his tracks by riding down the river bed. He wanted them to follow him. He wanted them to see how cruel he could be, with the man shot dead center in the forehead being his first show of power. They hadn’t been able to afford the time to take the stranger into town for proper looking after, just hoped somebody else found him and did right by him.
No one had spoken a word since then. Every eye scanned the tracks ahead across the thick prairie grass, but it was getting harder and harder to see with the sun almost down. Their horses were tired, but they’d stopped a couple of times to let them rest a few minutes. They’d even taken them down to the nearby river for a long drink of water once. The three of them had needed the rest as well. But still, in spite of the brief stops, he knew they weren’t far behind Marino and Whiskey.
He tried not to think of all the terrible things Marino could do to her, might have already done to her. His gut churned every time he remembered seeing the pressed down grass near the dead man, the blood splattered that they knew wasn’t from the man.
Stop thinking about that.She’s strong, she’s a fighter. She won’t give up.
He wouldn’t give up either. None of them would.
“We’re going to have to make camp soon,” Keno said, although the reluctance to do so rang in his words.
“We can go a while longer,” Taos insisted. “Maybe we can’t ride as hard, but we can make a few more miles at least.”
Morgan, too, understood not only the desperation to continue on but also the danger of one of their horses stepping into a prairie dog hole or tripping in some other way. But even if he had to get down and walk with Demon, he was going to follow after Marino as long as he physically could. He hated the idea of the outlaw spending the night alone with her. God, keep her safe. He hadn’t been much of a praying man for years, but he figured this was a damn good time to start again.
Doggedly they traveled on, having to back track a couple of times because they’d missed spotting the tracks of two horses ahead of them. Then Keno squinted into the dimming light and asked, “What the hell is that ahead?”
Morgan squinted, too, his heart thudding with dread at the large mass of something pressing down the grass a dozen or so feet from the river ahead of them. Too big to be Whiskey, he told himself. But what…
He couldn’t stand the not knowing and pressed his horse forward. He pulled up sharply when he saw the horse lying dead on his side.
All three of the men slid f
rom their saddles and moved closer, and then spread out to scan the area on foot for any signs of Whiskey. He prayed he wouldn’t spot her lying equally dead nearby.
Finally he walked back to the horse just as Taos and Keno also headed back. Something dangled across the horse’s neck; something he’d first thought was simply the halter.
He hunkered down and his fingers shook as he picked up what he now realized was a foot of her braided hair. He held it close, moaned in protest, and then stood to face his friends. Holding it out so they could see, he said, “It’s Whiskey’s hair.”
Taos reached for it and froze as he stared at it. “There’s blood on the ends. Damn it, there’s blood!”
For a second Morgan thought he would be sick, but he refused to think negatively. He couldn’t. “Marino is baiting us. She’s not dead, you and I know it. We all know it.”
He jammed the hair in his pocket and stomped back to Demon where he’d left his horse ground hitched. “Let’s go!”
* * *
The sun had finally set and, to Whiskey’s relief, Marino had decided to stop for the night. They’d run across an abandoned shack, a building so near falling down that it couldn’t be called a cabin. It was small, though, and they would be too close to one another for her comfort. But then he didn’t care about her comfort. He didn’t care about her at all except as a way to get even with Morgan.
“I need to…” She needed to relieve herself but it was humiliating to ask for permission.
He’d tied her to a post holding up part of the drooping porch roof while he took his bedroll into the shack. He glanced back at her. “Rope’s long enough. Take yourself around side the building and do it.”
Having no other choice, she did so. When she walked back around to the front, she found him staring off into the distance. The moon was already out and nearly full. It would be difficult to see, certainly to track them, yet she knew Morgan and her brothers would be doing so. Especially if they’d found her horse and her hair.
“Tomorrow I figure everything will come to a head,” Marino said, looking at her. “If not tonight.”
Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten since the night before, had been too worried about Morgan not returning to eat breakfast. Being hungry was the least of her problems. She’d taken care of one problem: the need to relieve herself. Her biggest problem was getting free. With her hands tied and being tethered to the post freedom seemed impossible. But she wouldn’t give up.
His horse snorted and pawed the ground in a demand for attention. Marino grumbled a curse but then went to pull the saddle off. After that he poured a small amount of water from his canteen onto the grass in front of the horse. Evidently the horse would have to lap up whatever he could manage to quench his thirst.
At that moment she realized how thirsty she was as well. It was difficult to beg for anything from this man, but she had to. “What about me?”
He walked over to her, held the canteen out of her reach, and taunted, “How about you earn it, chica?” He nodded down his body.
“I’m not that thirsty,” she snapped. The idea of doing anything at all to his body or with him more than disgusted her.
His hand shot out and slapped her already bruised cheek. “You will be.”
A whisper of sound somewhere close captured their attention.
He sneered. “So it will be tonight. Good.”
She, too, was certain Morgan and her brothers were nearby. Not on horseback any longer. No they’d have to be sneaking their way on foot. She was truly scared now, not for herself but for them. She had to do something. Had to keep Marino distracted long enough for them to take him down.
Another whisper of sound.
Deliberate? She didn’t know, but suspected so.
Marino went back into the shack and returned with his rifle. He stopped next to her and tried to scan the area as best he could with only the partial moonlight to aid him. She felt tension radiating from him and he set the rifle against the building to pull out his handgun. Then he grabbed her braid and tugged her against him, holding the barrel of the gun to her head.
“I know you’re out there, Rydell. You’d best be careful.”
He jerked on her braid and made her squeal in pain. “Hear that? I’ve got your woman. There’s a gun to her head and I’ve no problem at all killing her. You know that, don’t you?”
“You’re not leaving here alive,” Taos called out and he didn’t sound all that far away, in her opinion.
“She ain’t either. I’m hoping to kill at least one of you as well. Preferably Rydell.”
She thought she saw movement off to her right. Then movement to her left. They were trying to surround the shack. What had Marino seen?
“Give me Rydell and I just might let this woman go,” Marino taunted. The lie was in his tone.
“No, he won’t,” she yelled out only to have him knock her upside the head with the gun. It wasn’t a hard enough hit to knock her out, but it hurt like blazes.
They heard a growl and she knew it had come from Morgan. Her brothers had cursed, but it was Morgan who appeared more threatening at the moment. Also in more danger. She couldn’t let anything happen to him.
Marino was peering as best he could into the area around them when she was certain she spotted Morgan about to race in their direction.
Her heart pounded. She silently screamed “No!” And then she managed to dip her head down and away from the gun long enough to shove her full body weight into Marino.
Knocked off balance, he managed to keep hold of her braid and take her down with him. But his gun hand hit first and, amazingly, the gun slipped from his grip.
Everything was a blur after that. Taos and Keno raced out of the dark and were only a few feet away, guns leveled on Marino, but he was using her as a shield and they couldn’t fire.
Morgan burst around from the side of the shack and froze at the sight of Marino’s knife now held to her throat. Both she and Marino had reached for his knife as they went down, but she’d been hampered by the rope around her hands. He’d won, but she wasn’t giving up yet.
“Let her go,” Morgan gritted out. “You can have me instead.”
Marino snorted. “I am not stupid, marshal. And I am not afraid to die.”
He moved the knife just enough that a small line of blood trickled across her neck. “I will settle for seeing your misery as you watch your woman die at my hand.”
She knew she’d be taking a huge risk and wasn’t even sure she could do it. But she’d only been able to come up with one way to possibly distract Marino long enough for Morgan or her brothers to shoot him. If he did manage to slice her neck… Well, at least she would save the others.
As he glared at the man he hated so much, she reached sideways and took fierce hold of his testicles with her tied-up hands. Her brothers had long ago taught her the best way to hurt a man was to go for his private parts.
The knife cut for only a second, not deeply, not deadly. He yelped and looked down in shock.
Three shots rang out simultaneously.
Marino’s body jerked and then tilted over on top of her.
She shoved at his dead weight, cried out, “Get him off me! Get him off me!”
Morgan was there in a flash. He picked up Marino’s body as if it weighed nothing at all and flung the dead man a good six feet away. Then he pulled her to her feet and crushed her against him. His whole body seemed to shudder and she felt his heart pounding against her own.
“Don’t you ever scare me like this again! Ever!” His voice shook with the depth of his emotions.
“Brandy? Tyler? Are they all right?” Whiskey asked, tears of relief streaming down her face. She snuggled even closer to him, not wanting him to ever let her go.
Taos picked up the knife and looked pointedly at them. “Let’s get her cut free. Then I need a hug of my own.”
Keno stepped over Marino and walked up next to them too. As Morgan inched back so Taos could cut the rope t
ying her hands together, Keno looked at her face. Fury threaded his voice as he snapped, “What the hell did he do to you?”
Now that it was all over, she fully felt the pain of her injuries. Her nose ached, as did her mouth. Her ribs still throbbed from their abuse against the saddle. But it was her jaw that really throbbed. Then there were her wrists with severe rope burns, and now her neck hurt, too.
To her dismay, she gave into weakness and whimpered, “I want to go home.”
Morgan gently touched her jaw, thumbed her lip. At the same time, he pulled a handkerchief from around his neck and then carefully wiped at the thin line of blood. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill the sonofabitch again.”
* * *
Whiskey sat up in bed as dawn’s light first crept through the curtains. She had been in bed at doctor’s orders for over two days now. Brandy had been ordered to bed as well until she could stand without getting faint. So far that hadn’t happened, although she’d heard that her sister kept trying to get up. Chase had taken it upon himself to make sure she didn’t. He guarded her like a hawk, which confused and amused her brothers. But while Morgan had stayed by Whiskey’s bedside immediately upon their return to the ranch, she hadn’t seen him for over a day now.
She was frustrated, bored, and feeling neglected. He was avoiding her, probably because she’d tried to get him to talk about that whole marshal business. He’d admitted to her that he’d received a telegram telling him to report back to work, but he’d refused to say any more about it. They were not getting married until she was reassured once and for all that he was giving up his badge.
Her brothers, too, had stopped babying her, probably because she’d started pressing them about Morgan and why he was staying away from the house now. Manuel had told her this morning that Taos had moved to town, to live in the room above his law office. Keno was also settling permanently in town in the room above his saloon. When she’d complained to Manuel, he’d shrugged and reminded her that the ranch and house now belonged to her and Morgan. That fact that hadn’t made her happy, since he was steering clear of her.