Holland had been following Samantha every time she rode out on the Rafter F range, ever since he’d discovered that she was carrying on with Lee Creel. Sometimes they met on one side of the creek, sometimes on the other. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, but he supposed it made sense to them.
As much sense as anything could make to a couple of youngsters all stirred up with passion.
Nick Fontaine didn’t know that Holland had been spying on his sister. That might not have set well with him.
But he did know that Holland was keeping an eye on the Star C. Sometimes Holland even risked crossing the creek, knowing that he might have to shoot his way out if he were discovered. He wanted to be sure what the Creels were up to before he reported back to Nick.
They were going ahead with the preparations for the cattle drive, no doubt about that. They had a good-sized herd bedded down a couple of miles south of the Star C ranch house. They even had a chuck wagon out there, a sure sign that the drive would be getting underway soon.
The country was buzzing with talk about the attempt on old John Creel’s life. Doc Perkins had brought word back to town about it, after he’d been summoned out to the Star C to patch up the injured rancher.
Holland didn’t know for sure who the bushwhacker had been, but he would have bet a new hat that it was Nick, giving in to his anger and striking out at his enemy.
Holland didn’t really care one way or the other who had taken that shot at Creel and wound up being responsible for the old man’s broken leg. What was important was that John Creel’s injury hadn’t stopped the rest of his family from carrying on with their plans. They were taking that stock to Rockport.
And Nick was going to do something to stop them. Holland felt that in his gut.
He wanted to be part of it. He had a score to settle with Bo Creel and that pard of his, Scratch Morton.
In the distance, Samantha emerged from the trees and rode toward the creek. Holland put the field glasses on her again in time to see her wipe at her eyes with the back of a hand with a riding glove on it.
She was crying, he thought. She was upset about something.
The most reasonable explanation was that Lee Creel had just told her he was leaving with the rest of the bunch, heading for the coast on that cattle drive.
Nick would want to know that.
Holland stowed the field glasses away in his saddlebags and turned his horse to ride down the gentle, grass-covered slope behind him. This little rise wasn’t very big, but it was enough to shield him from Samantha’s view.
He headed for the ranch house, figuring that there was no need to keep an eye on the young woman anymore.
When he got there, he found Nick at one of the corrals, watching a bronc rider busting a big sorrel with a bad attitude. While the other punchers who lined the corral fence were calling encouragement to the rider on top of the bucking, sunfishing horse, Holland sidled up beside Nick and said quietly, “Got some news, boss.”
Nick looked around, then jerked his head toward the barn.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk in there.”
The two men went into the shade of the barn. Nick, who wasn’t wearing a hat or a gun today, tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and gave Holland a level stare.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just what we were afraid of,” Holland said. “I think there’s a good chance the Creels are pulling out for the coast with that herd tomorrow. The next day, at the latest.”
Nick cursed bitterly.
“They’re going ahead with it, are they?” he said.
“I think so.”
Holland didn’t explain how he had reached that conclusion, and Nick didn’t ask. Holland was perfectly content to leave things that way.
Nick stood there frowning darkly for a long moment, then said, “Put your saddle on a fresh horse, and saddle that paint of mine while you’re at it.”
“Where are we goin’?” Holland asked with a frown of his own.
“It’s time I paid a visit to Judd Palmer.”
The two men rode east from the ranch a short time later. The farther they went in that direction, the thicker the growth of mesquites and twisted live oaks became. By the time they left Rafter F range and crossed the stage road from Hallettsville to Matagorda, they were in country that was a lot rougher going than its generally flat appearance seemed to indicate. A man had to know the trails, or it would be easy to get lost in these tangled thickets that stretched all the way to the Colorado River.
“I appreciate you bringing me with you, Nick,” Holland said as they rode. “I’ve never met Palmer. Always thought he’d be a good man to ride with.”
“As long as you don’t cross him,” Nick said. “He’s not in the habit of giving a man a second chance.”
Palmer was good at what he did, though, Nick reflected. The man was wanted in several states and territories in the Southwest for murder, train robbery, bank holdups, and assorted other mayhem. When he wasn’t being a desperado, he was a gun for hire, and he headed up an equally salty crew.
They had been perfectly happy to try their hand at rustling—for the right price, of course. Nick’s war of attrition against the Creels meant that there wasn’t a lot of profit from the stolen cattle, so Nick had had to pay Judd Palmer and his men handsomely for their efforts.
That had put a strain on the Rafter F’s finances, but nobody knew that except Nick. There was a time when his father had kept a close eye on the books, but not any longer. Money didn’t seem to interest Ned Fontaine all that much.
Money meant plenty to Danny, but as long as it kept flowing to him so he could indulge his vices, he didn’t care about anything else. And Samantha wasn’t privy to that information. Only Nick knew how much he had sunk into ruining the Creels.
It would all be worthwhile, he told himself, when the Star C was his, too, and his range stretched for miles and miles along both sides of Bear Creek.
Nick smelled a faint odor of smoke and knew he and Holland were getting close to their destination. As if to confirm that, a moment later a man stepped out into the trail from the concealment of the brush and leveled a rifle at them.
Holland’s hand started instinctively toward the butt of his gun, but Nick motioned for him to stop.
“Take it easy,” he said. “I was expecting this.”
“Might’ve warned a fella,” Holland muttered.
The sentry lowered his rifle and said, “I recognize you now, Fontaine. Might be a good idea to sing out next time you come callin’.”
“I was just about to do that,” Nick said. “I need to talk to Judd.”
The hard-faced man gestured with the rifle barrel.
“You know the way,” he said.
Nick and Holland rode past him and followed the winding trail another five hundred yards before they came out into a large clearing where several low, rough cabins sat. Off to one side was a brush corral with about two dozen horses in it.
A number of men were lounging around the little camp as well as a couple of slatternly women. The man who stalked forward to meet the two visitors looked like somebody had hacked his face out of a tree stump with a dull ax. Wiry dark hair curled under his pushed-back hat, and he sported a narrow mustache under a large nose that had been broken several times in the past.
“Hello, Judd,” Nick said.
“Fontaine,” the outlaw chief greeted him curtly. Palmer’s dark eyes narrowed as he looked at Holland. “Who’s this?”
“Trace Holland.”
Palmer nodded slowly and said, “Reckon I’ve heard of you, Holland.”
“And I’ve heard of you, Palmer,” Holland said. “Good to finally cross trails with you.”
“Huh. We’ll see.” Palmer turned his attention back to Nick. He didn’t invite the visitors to get down from their horses. “What’re you doin’ here? You ready for us to make off with another jag o’ Star C stock?”
Nick shook
his head and said, “No, that’s over and done with.”
“Good! When I threw in with you, I didn’t know that penny-ante stuff was gonna go on for so long. The boys have been gettin’ a mite restless, and so have I.”
The boys, as Palmer called them, were as vicious-looking a bunch of cutthroats as could be found anywhere in Texas. Nick knew that with a nod of Palmer’s head, he and Holland would be dead, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could do about it.
But killing them wouldn’t make any money for Palmer, and he was a man who didn’t do anything without a payoff being involved. Right now, his best hope for a big payoff lay with Nick.
“The Creels have been rounding up their stock the past couple of weeks,” Nick said.
Palmer frowned and said, “Kind of late in the season for that, ain’t it? They plan on startin’ to the railhead with a herd?”
Nick shook his head.
“No. They’re making a drive down to Rockport, on the Gulf Coast.”
Palmer threw back his head and let out a harsh laugh.
“Hell, they’ll lose money at that!”
“John Creel needs cash,” Nick said. “I need him flat broke.”
A look of understanding appeared in Palmer’s eyes. He nodded again and said, “So you don’t want that herd gettin’ to where it’s goin’.”
“I don’t care if the herd gets there. I just want it to be in your hands when it does. Do you know any place on the coast where you can dispose of it?”
“I know people on the wrong side of the law anywhere you go in Texas,” Palmer said, and Nick didn’t doubt that for a second. “You want us to steal that whole herd.”
“That’s right, and you can keep whatever you get for selling it.”
“How about the bunch takin’ it down there?”
Nick shook his head and said flatly, “I don’t care what happens to them. The less trouble they can give any of us, the better.”
“That makes it mighty plain.”
Nick nodded toward Holland and went on, “One more thing. I want Trace to go with you.”
Holland looked a little surprised by that, and not completely comfortable with the idea, either.
Evidently Palmer felt the same way. His eyes narrowed as he asked, “What’s the matter? All of a sudden you don’t trust me, Fontaine?”
“That’s not it at all. Trace is a good man to have on your side. You must know that, or you wouldn’t have heard of him—which you admitted that you had.”
Palmer rubbed his darkly stubbled chin and said speculatively, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And he’s got a personal grudge against a couple of the men who’ll be with that herd,” Nick said.
Holland spoke up, saying, “You want me to make sure Bo Creel and Scratch Morton don’t come back alive, is that it, boss?”
“That’s it,” Nick said. “Those two worry me more than any of the others. How about it, Trace?”
Holland inclined his head toward Palmer and said, “Judd’s calling the shots.”
That put a grin on Palmer’s face. He said, “Damn right I am. And I reckon I’d be glad to have you come along, Holland. Light and set, and we’ll talk about how we’ll make sure those varmints you’re after wind up dead.”
CHAPTER 20
Samantha had taken her time getting back to the ranch after her bittersweet farewell with Lee in the live oaks. She hadn’t been able to stop herself from crying, and she didn’t want to ride in with swollen, red-rimmed eyes. That would only lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.
Once she felt like she could control her emotions enough to stop weeping, she dried her eyes, waited a little longer, and then headed back to the Rafter F headquarters.
She was approaching her home when she spotted two figures in the distance, riding away from the ranch toward the east. Samantha’s eyes were keen, and she recognized the horsebackers as her brother Nick and Trace Holland.
Holland was a gunman, even though he made a pretense of being just another ranch hand. Samantha knew that and didn’t like having him and the other men like him around, but that wasn’t really any of her business, she had always told herself. She knew that when her father died, he would leave the Rafter F to Nick and Danny, so she didn’t have a say in anything.
That knowledge grated on her. What her father planned to do wasn’t fair. But she had learned to accept it.
It wasn’t unusual to see Nick and Holland together, but there was something furtive about the way they were riding off together. Samantha couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Maybe just some instinct that caused a concerned frown to appear on her face.
Nick was the one who had hired Holland, she recalled. Not only that, but he had also brought in the other gunmen. Their father had gone along with it, saying that they had to be prepared for trouble with the Creels. Samantha didn’t think that was what Nick was doing, though.
Nick was getting ready to go to war.
That thought had been lurking in her mind for quite a while now, and it had bothered her even more since she’d fallen in love with Lee Creel. If a range war broke out between the Rafter F and the Star C, a lot of people would be hurt, and there was a good chance Lee would be one of them.
She didn’t know if she could stand it if anything happened to him. It was amazing what a big part of her life he had become in such a relatively short period of time.
Maybe it was all the worrying she had been doing, plus the loss she felt at knowing she wouldn’t see Lee for a couple of weeks, that made her suspicious about seeing Nick and Holland riding off together. Whatever the reason, she reacted without thinking about what she was doing.
She turned her horse and followed them.
Samantha stayed well back where it would be harder for them to spot her, but they didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what was behind them. They rode for a long time, leaving Rafter F range and continuing into an area where Samantha had never been before. It was flat, brushy country, and the thick growth made it hard for her horse to get through.
Hanging back so she wouldn’t be discovered turned out to be a mistake. After a while Samantha realized she couldn’t see or hear her brother and Holland anymore. As she reined her horse to a stop, a feeling of despair filled her.
She was lost.
Her heart pounded in her chest, much as it did when she was in Lee’s arms, but this reaction was caused by fear, not passion. She was miles away from home, and the narrow trails that ran through the brush twisted around so much she wasn’t even sure anymore which direction the ranch was.
“Don’t panic, Samantha,” she told herself aloud. “You can figure this out.”
She peered up at the sky. Knowing that the hour was fairly late in the day, she was aware that the sun was in the west. Once she had established that direction, her nervousness eased. All she had to do was ride toward the sun, and sooner or later she would be back on the Rafter F.
Of course, that meant giving up on finding out what Nick and Holland were up to, but that was a lost cause, anyway. She had no idea where they had gone.
Samantha turned her horse and got moving again. She could tell the animal was weary and she wished she could let it rest, but the last thing she wanted to do was get caught out here far from home when night fell. She had already been gone so long that her father might be getting worried about her.
She wondered if she could ask Nick where he’d been going with Trace Holland. She decided against it. He probably wouldn’t tell her, and she didn’t want him thinking that she had been spying on him—even though she had.
The sun was almost down by the time she rode into the ranch yard. Her father stood on the porch, evidently waiting for her, and she could tell he was angry by the stiff way he carried himself when he came down the steps and walked toward her as she rode the horse into the barn.
“Where have you been, Samantha?” he demanded. “It’s not like you to be gone all afternoon.”
She
dismounted and handed the reins to the wrangler who had come to take care of the horse.
“I was riding and I lost track of time,” she said. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Ned Fontaine grunted.
“I was worried that something had happened to you,” he said. “With those Creels just across the creek, there’s no telling what they might do.”
“No, I suppose not,” Samantha agreed.
Actually, she thought that she would be safe no matter which of the Creels she might encounter. They were probably all as decent and honorable as Lee. Otherwise he wouldn’t have turned out the way he had.
She couldn’t say that to her father, though. He already seemed to be feeling poorly these days. If he found out she’d been allowing one of the Creels to court her, he might drop dead from apoplexy.
“Well, come on inside,” Fontaine said. “Danny’s ridden to town, and Nick doesn’t seem to be around anywhere, either, so it’ll just be the two of us for dinner. I swear, none of you youngsters stay home anymore.”
“Don’t worry, Father,” she said as she linked arms with him and they walked toward the house. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Not for a while, she added to herself. Not until Lee got back from the coast. And then . . .
Well, sooner or later her father would have to be told, she thought. Because she had made up her mind that she was going to marry Lee Creel.
With that thought filling her head, she forgot all about the mysterious trip her brother Nick had made with one of his hired gunmen.
The long table in the dining room of the Star C ranch house was full this morning. Idabelle Fisher had been up since long before dawn, cooking a big breakfast for the crew on the day they would start the drive to the coast.
Nearly everyone here was a relative, either by blood or marriage. The Creels hired a few hands, but most of them, along with Hank, would be staying here to take care of the ranch while the others were gone.
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