“He’s mostly just trying to scare us into dropping this rope,” Eagle Jack told her, nodding at Molly.
“He could have all his pockets and both his boots full of ammunition, for all you know.”
He gave her an infuriating grin. “Aw, come on, Susanna. Let’s not borrow trouble.”
“Eagle Jack, what are you doing? You’re not going to let them get any closer, are you?”
“Not yet.”
Another shot rang out.
Eagle Jack laughed. “What did I tell you? Three more to go, if he started with a full load.”
He slowed a little more, and the smile faded from his face as he turned to look at her full-on.
“When they catch up to us, be sure you let me stay between you and them,” he said.
“Why would you let them catch up?” Susanna asked.
“I owe them a visit,” he said.
Suddenly, his tone had turned flat and hard. He set his jaw and he looked dangerous. She could think of no other word for it. Eagle Jack Sixkiller was a dangerous man.
That thought had come to her before, and it was right.
“I know they beat you up and stole your horse,” she said quickly. “But Eagle Jack, don’t you think it’d be better to let the law take care of them? There must be some lawmen not too far away.”
“I’ve got a herd to drive,” he said. “I don’t have time to hunt for the law.”
Susanna looked back. The two pursuers were getting closer. They still had as many as three bullets.
“Let’s go on,” she urged. “We’ve got Molly. That’s all that matters.”
“They’re horse thieves,” he said. “They deserve to hang.”
“Too bad you’ve led them away from the trees,” she said, trying to lighten the look in his eyes.
Trying to put a smile on his face.
“You don’t have anything to hang them from out here,” she added.
He didn’t change expression. He slowed their pace even more and looked back to see the men again.
“There’s more trees than those,” was all he said.
“Eagle Jack…”
He ignored that and rode on, for quite a long way.
“Nothing will go wrong,” he said, finally. “But if, by some stroke of bad luck it does, get on Molly and ride for the wagon. Nothing on four legs can catch her.”
He glanced at her once, sharply, to see if she’d heard, then he looked back at their pursuers.
“You can ride bareback, surely, since you sit a saddle as well as you do.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I’m not leaving you, so forget about that.”
“Remember what I told you to do,” Eagle Jack said. He kicked up the pace. “Let’s get this done,” he said.
They rode at a short lope, farther out into the open country, back in the direction of the herd, but not exactly the way they had come. While Eagle Jack guided them into a rough patch, rocky and sandy, with less grass and more mesquite, they heard another shot.
They rode another mile or more before he slowed the horses again. The stubborn men began to gain on them.
It wouldn’t be long now. Susanna’s breath came hard. Surely she wouldn’t have to watch him hang them. Surely that wasn’t what he intended.
One of them, Oates or Folger, yelled, “Hey, you! Horse thief! We’ve got you now.”
The call came faintly on the wind, but when Susanna looked to see them, Oates was coming closer all the time. Folger, on the buckskin, was still some distance behind him.
“Whoa,” Eagle Jack said. “Whoa, now.”
Without a word to Susanna, he turned his horse.
Then he said, “Stay behind me, Annie,” and started back at a brisk trot to meet the skinny man on the tall gray.
Susanna stayed close behind him. She saw him dally the end of Molly’s lead rope around his saddle horn to free his hand for the gun he wore on his hip.
“Drop your weapon and step down, Oates,” he yelled. “I’m gonna show you what happens to a real horse thief.”
Susanna would have laughed if she hadn’t been so scared. Oates had a look of surprise on his face that looked to have been painted there.
“Sixkiller?” he said.
Eagle Jack’s gaze flicked to Folger, just for an instant, and Susanna realized he was waiting for the buckskin horse to get within range of his gun.
“Yep,” he said, focusing on Oates again, “the same Sixkiller you hit over the head from behind with that two-by-four.”
He rode up to within a few yards of the man and stopped.
“That wasn’t me,” the skinny man protested. “That was Folger snuck up on you like that.”
“Drop your weapon, Oates.”
Oates’s gun appeared frozen in his grip.
“You’ve got to believe me, Sixkiller.”
Eagle Jack drew his gun and shot Oates’s gun out of his hand before Susanna could comprehend what was happening. It bounced once, then came to rest against a rock.
“Down,” he said.
Oates’s hand tightened around his reins for a split second.
“Don’t even think about making a run for it,” Eagle Jack told him. “I’d much rather shoot you than hang you.”
So Oates stood up in his stirrup, wavering a little, and got down from his horse. Behind him, Folger finally realized what was happening and turned his mount around, seeking escape.
Eagle Jack fired again and put a hole in his hat.
Folger pulled up and got off the horse.
“You two partners get together now,” Eagle Jack said. “Right over there by that big mesquite tree.”
Susanna’s heart stopped. Would he actually hang them? He had every right to. No law could fault him for it.
“I can’t watch this, Eagle Jack,” she said. “Please don’t.”
He ignored her.
He gestured with his gun from one of the thieves to the other.
“Now.”
The one word, spoken low and quiet, was so powerful that both men moved at that same moment, both trying to walk over the rough ground without stumbling and watch Eagle Jack at the same time. Oates hardly dared to look down.
“Don’t be shootin’ us, now,” he said.
“Shooting’s too good for you,” Eagle Jack said. “Horse thieves hang.”
“We was gonna bring her back to you,” Folger said. “All we done was borry her a little while.”
Eagle Jack fired at his feet.
“Dance,” he said. “Entertain the lady.”
Then he fired at Oates’s feet.
Both men began to shuffle.
“Faster,” Eagle Jack said, and thrust his fingers into the pockets of his vest.
He pulled out more bullets, fired once more, then commenced to reload.
Even though these were the men who had beaten him so badly with a two-by-four, and from behind, in a sneak attack, Susanna couldn’t help but feel pity. Their legs were shaking so hard they could hardly stand, but they danced anyway. Their boots scraping the ground in that tremulous rhythm made her stomach turn.
It was fear, fear raw and savage as any she had ever felt in her childhood that was emanating from every pore in their bodies. Pure fear, growing by the second to surround them and fill the very air she was trying to breathe.
“Eagle Jack,” she said quietly, from behind him. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer. She didn’t even know if he’d heard.
“Keep dancing,” he said, “and then when I say so, Oates, you can go get that rope off your saddle.”
“Eagle Jack, please,” Susanna said. “I don’t want to see this.”
But all of Eagle Jack’s attention was on his enemies.
“I’ll use my rope on you, Folger,” he said. “I’ll sacrifice it for that, because nobody ever needed hanging like you do.”
Their faces paled even more, which didn’t seem possible. Susanna felt the blood pounding hard in her head.
He fired at their feet again.
“I cannot stand this, Eagle Jack,” she blurted. “Let’s go and leave them here.”
He was unsnapping his coiled rope from its place on his saddle.
“Please,” she said.
Her voice came out loud, although her mouth was almost too dry to speak. “I know how it is to feel such fear,” she said.
Eagle Jack looked up.
It must have all been in her eyes, in her voice. He must have seen and heard her memories flashing through her consciousness, memories of her little-girl self whose life was at the mercy of adults who were strangers to her.
He searched her face.
“Tolly died,” she said, more softly. “Isn’t that enough death for a while?”
He kept on looking at her with his dark, hooded eyes. They told her nothing.
But when he turned away, he left the rope where it was.
“Sit down,” he said, to the still-dancing men. “Take off your boots.”
Oates made a strangled sound, as if he were trying to say something, but he obeyed without a word. Folger followed suit. When both men were in their sock feet, Eagle Jack looked them over.
“Now your socks,” he said.
“Susanna, would you mind?” he said. “Pick up their horses’ reins and bring them over here.”
He glanced at the horses.
There was a canteen tied to the saddle on the gray horse but the buckskin, of course, had neither.
“I’m doing this for the lady’s sake,” he said, turning to look at the men again. “You’ve got no water, no food, and no boots, but you can make it back to the farm. Let’s see you hoof it.”
He gestured with the gun for them to get up. They obeyed.
“I tell you now that I’ll set the Rangers on your trail at the first opportunity,” he said. “So y’all might want to consider heading in the direction of the Indian Territories or maybe Louisiana. Your life in Texas will be hell from now on.”
The two horse thieves started walking when he pointed the gun at them again.
“Get on out of my sight,” he said, “before I change my mind.”
When they were a dozen yards away, trying to hurry and pick their way over the rocky terrain at the same time, he got down, gathered up their boots, and tied them together with his rope. They dangled from his saddle.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Maybe some of the men can wear those boots,” Susanna said. “We lost a lot of clothes and stuff in the river.”
He didn’t answer.
Wordlessly, they tied the other three horses to their saddle rings—one on each side of Susanna’s Fred, and Eagle Jack kept Molly. They rode on, also in silence.
Finally, she tried again.
“Those are nice boots,” she said, “probably they could afford them with the money they won with Molly.”
He threw her an impatient glance.
“Folger and Oates dressed well,” he said. “That was part of their fakery as Kentucky gentlemen.”
He didn’t look at her again. He didn’t say anything else, either. They rode on.
Maybe he was angry with her. If so, she wanted to know it. She was through with that time in her life when she lived on the edge of relationships, trying to guess how the other person felt about her.
“Are you sorry you let them go?” she said.
“Not too much,” he said, staring off into the distance. “A hanging’s never pleasant.”
“I know it’s the code, though. I hate to think maybe you’ll feel you didn’t do your duty as an honorable man. You let them go because I asked you to.”
He looked at her then, fully into her face. He was listening.
“I thank you for making that decision based on my feelings, Eagle Jack. I will always remember what you did.”
She saw the humor gradually come back into his eyes.
“If we ever run across them again, you’ll have to hang them yourself,” he said. “My feelings will require it.”
She held his gaze, freely letting her appreciation and affection for him show.
“Fair enough,” she said. “We’ve got a deal.”
She leaned from her horse and held out her hand. He took it and shook it, then squeezed it when he let go.
“At least we’re going back to the herd with something to show for our scouting trip,” he said. “The gray’s pretty fast. And he’s good-looking. The boys will be fighting to get him into their mounts.”
“And you have to remember, Eagle Jack, that what you did to Oates and Folger is poetic justice,” she said.
He smiled.
“It is,” he said. “No telling how many other men they’ve left afoot. I hope they have to walk all the way back to Kentucky, providing they live that long.”
“Let’s drink to that,” she said, reaching for the canteen of water that hung from her saddle. “To a long, long walk for the Kentucky gentlemen.”
As the drive moved steadily north through good, grassy country with plentiful water from the recent rains, Susanna decided this was the best time of her whole life. She’d never been around so much laughter and teasing or had feelings of closeness with so many people. She realized that, until now, she’d never truly been a member of any group, never really belonged, and she loved the safe, secure pleasure it gave her.
The whole crew had endless fun with the new horses—racing Molly and the tall gray with horses from the other outfits they encountered and passing both the thieves’ horses around to decide how they liked them. There were also the two saddles and other tack to replace some that had been lost, and it took many discussions, bargainings, gambling games, and deals to decide who got them.
It had perked everyone up considerably to have some good news for a change, and as soon as Susanna and Eagle Jack rode in from their lucrative scout that day, the crew had started playing cards and mumblety-peg and betting on their two new running horses. Other questions were who should get the fine boots that had belonged to Oates and Folger, plus the gear that was in their saddle bags. Finally, they were raffled off and then the winners sold them to someone who could wear them and, since none of the crew had any cash money, the deals became so complicated that they entertained everyone on the drive for days and days.
After they’d passed Fort Worth—where she did buy supplies on her own credit and Eagle Jack visited the office of the Texas Rangers—they pushed on to the Red River Crossing. There they swam the cattle and horses and ferried the wagons, all without a tragic or even a disturbing incident.
This went a long way toward restoring the confidence of every man in the outfit as they left Texas. They drove almost straight north, skirting the western edge of the Cross Timbers and the eastern edge of the Great Plains. It was powerful, fascinating country on either side, and the rolling hills seemed to surround her and Eagle Jack as they rode together out ahead of the herd.
“Sometimes I wish we were going to trail them on to Colorado or Wyoming,” she said, one day when an overnight rain had washed the sky and the earth and the sun was making everything sparkle.
“By the time we get to Abilene, you’ll be so happy to see the end of this trail, you’ll jump up and shout,” Eagle Jack said.
He was laughing at her a little.
She pretended to be offended. “And just how can you say that?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. “You think you know me so well?”
They were letting their horses amble along as the cool breeze played in their manes and tickled Susanna’s and Eagle Jack’s bare forearms. It was a day when the sun on naked skin felt like a caress.
“Well, yes, now that you mention it, I do,” he said, with that flashing grin she loved. “But even if I didn’t, I could say that because you’re human.”
He was in that happy, teasing mood she loved. Carefree. That was the word for Eagle Jack most of the time and that was what drew her to him the most.
She realized that truth with a start. Carefree was s
omething she had hardly even been, until this trip with Eagle Jack.
Even with the troubles and dangers they’d already endured, even if they encountered many more, when she was ninety years old sitting in a rocking chair on her porch, she would remember this as the most carefree time of her life.
“Oh?” she said. “And I’m just like every other human?”
“No-o,” he drawled, looking her up and down in that slow, provocative stare that never failed to thrill her, “I’m not saying that at all.”
He let his gaze linger on her mouth while he smiled at her foolishness in jumping to that conclusion.
Then, with a sweep of his heavy lashes, he lifted it to meet her eyes.
“We’ll come back to that in a minute,” he said. “But right now I want to make the point that any human being gets tired of sleeping on the ground. Any human being gets tired of having no buttermilk biscuits, sand in the stew, and no table to eat at.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, as if none of those inconveniences had ever come to her notice before.
“No problem for me,” she said, with a grin. “So what’s your point, Eagle Jack?”
“That you’re like everybody else in those ways whether you’ll admit it or not,” he said, “but…”
He looked around at the hillside gently rising in front of them, where the little orange wildflowers called Indian paintbrush waved at the snowy clouds and the green grass spread its blanket to meet the blue of the sky. Then he turned back to Susanna.
“But what?” she said.
“You’ll have to get down and let me show you,” he said, and stopped his horse.
He dismounted and dropped the reins.
“Come on, Annie,” he said, as he came to her. “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s have a picnic.”
He reached up and lifted her off her horse.
His first touch made her go weak. In his arms, she had no strength at all.
The only thing she could manage was to put her arm around his neck.
He carried her to his horse and, holding her in one arm, took down the blanket rolled behind the saddle.
She chuckled.
“I’m not used to a blanket to sit on,” she said. “This is a fancy picnic.”
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