by Carol Finch
He mumbled something under his breath, then took off, following the tree-lined stream that eventually became Triple Creek—the main water source for her ranch and his.
Adrianna swore softly when she saw Ches grab fence cutters from his saddlebag. Methodically, he clipped the wires as if he’d done it countless times—and chances were, he had. The two rustlers trotted off to sort out a dozen head of Cahill steers, then sent them through the opening in the fence. Then they herded a dozen longhorns that Adrianna planned to send up the trail to Dodge City in a few weeks.
She nudged Buckshot, determined to catch the thieves red-handed but Cahill grabbed her reins, bringing the gray gelding to an abrupt halt.
“Not yet. Let’s see if anyone else is involved and where they’re taking the cattle for safekeeping.”
Adrianna chastised herself for jumping the gun. Quin was right. They needed to know if a third cowboy was waiting at another site to herd the cattle away from the two ranches or if they would pen them in a makeshift corral.
A half-hour later, the two rustlers veered toward an isolated, dead-end ravine on McKnight property. Adrianna glanced around but she didn’t see another rider waiting to join Chester and Ezra.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cahill muttered sourly.
Adrianna glanced in the direction he pointed to see the men ride up to a rock ledge halfway up the hill. They picked up a note, then divided up the money waiting for them.
“What the devil is going on?” Adrianna murmured as the men pocketed the money, then rode downhill.
“Stay here, Boston,” he whispered. “If gunfire breaks out and you start shooting, try not to hit me.”
She waited in a grove of trees east of the ravine, despite the urge to join Cahill while he confronted those low-down, double-crossing rustlers who pretended loyalty to the 4C and McKnight Ranch. But she supposed Cahill was right. She was the element of surprise—if he needed reinforcements. But he had better not get himself shot, either, or she’d never forgive him!
With both pistols drawn, Cahill made his presence known to the thieves. When they tried to grab their pistols, Cahill growled threateningly. “Toss ’em in the dirt. Now.”
Ezra defied him and went for his weapon but Cahill shot his gun hand, then hit the cartwheeling pistol in midair, making it dance sideways before it hit the ground.
“Try it again, Ez, and I’ll take you in, jackknifed over your saddle. Your choice.”
Adrianna decided right there and then that Cahill had gone easy on her during their previous confrontations. The man possessed amazing shooting skills and he could sound unnervingly vicious and deadly when he felt the need. In the scant moonlight and flickering torchlight, she could see Ez’s and Chester’s Adam’s apples bobbing apprehensively.
Good, she thought, they deserved to be scared half to death after all the rotten things they had done.
When Chester tossed aside his weapon, Cahill pointed at the torches. “Drop those in the dirt.” When they did as ordered, he called out to her—without taking his eyes off his captives. “There’s a rope in my saddlebags, Boston. Let’s tie them up and retrieve their discarded weapons.”
Both men jerked up their heads when Adrianna appeared from the shadows of the trees. She didn’t display her pistol or the dagger she kept tucked in her boot for desperate occasions. Those weapons were her aces in the hole.
Without a word, she reached into the leather pouches to retrieve ropes, noting the extensive length of each. She wondered if Cahill had planned it that way.
“It’s a long walk in the dark but the fresh air will do you both good,” Cahill remarked.
She approached the men on horseback, then demanded, “Get down, and do it carefully. Just so you know, I voted to shoot you both and be done with it, but Cahill decided to let you live…if you behaved.” She tossed Cahill a quick glance. “I still vote to shoot ’em dead and bury ’em with their boots on. Either that or use the ropes to hang ’em high. I haven’t attended a lynching yet. This will be my first.”
“We’ll see how it goes, Boston. For now, tie their wrists, then wrap the rope around their waists…in case I feel the need to drag them behind the horses until they tell us what we want to know.”
Their Adam’s apples bobbed again and she could see the whites of their eyes in the moonlight. Clearly, they didn’t put the threat past Cahill. “I’ve heard of the tactic, but I’ve never seen it,” she commented offhandedly as she wrapped Ezra’s wrists—thrice—then encircled his hips with rope. “Is it true that you can drag a man’s skin off his bones when his horse is racing at full gallop?”
“It is,” Cahill confirmed grimly. “I’ve seen it happen accidentally during cattle drives. A cowboy can fall off and get his foot stuck in the stirrup. He can be pretty torn up by the time you stop his horse and prop him upright.”
Ezra and Chester glanced uneasily at each other while Adrianna bound Chester in a similar fashion, then tied the ropes to the pommels of their saddles. When she swatted both horses on the rumps, the men gasped, then stumbled forward in an attempt to maintain their balance.
Adrianna stepped up behind Ezra to fish into the back pocket of his breeches. She retrieved the note and the money. Then she confiscated Chester’s money on her way to pluck up the discarded pistols. There wasn’t enough light to read the note so she tucked it, and the money, in the pocket of her jacket before she mounted Buckshot.
“Now then,” Cahill said ominously, “whose idea was it to torch Boston’s house?”
“We don’t know,” Chester muttered as he jogged to keep up with his trotting horse.
Cahill didn’t give them a second warning, just eased up to swat both horses, forcing the captives into a dead run to keep up. When Ezra tripped and fell, he yelped while his horse dragged him across the rocky, uneven terrain.
“Who is giving you orders?” Cahill snarled.
“We don’t know. God’s truth!” Chester howled, then stumbled and bumped along, his chin bouncing on the ground.
Adrianna watched unsympathetically as the rustlers skidded across the ground. They were a long way from having their hides peeled off but to hear the cowardly bastards wail and yelp you’d swear they had been skinned alive.
“Let’s try this again,” Cahill barked harshly. “Who is paying you to rustle cattle, cut fences and set fires?”
“We don’t know, I tell you!” Ches shrieked as he tried—and failed—to bolt to his feet.
“The same person who killed one of your partners at Phantom Springs and set me up to take the blame for murder?” Cahill snarled.
“What? Hell, no!” Ezra panted. “We don’t know nothing about that. We were paid to steal cattle, set fires and keep you and Miz McKnight at odds and that’s all!”
Cahill growled like an enraged grizzly, then sent the horses into a faster clip. “Who…hired…you?” he demanded.
“We don’t know, I swear,” Ezra gasped as his horse dragged him across the ground. “Somebody left notes and money in our trunks and told us to contact each other over a year ago. Now we receive our instructions and payments at the rock ledge.”
“Why did you kill your partners? What do you know about Ruby and Earl’s wagon wreck?” Adrianna interrogated sharply.
“Nothing!” Chester railed, then yelped in pain. “We had nothing to do with that. Just rustling and fires.”
“How long have these men been cowhands?” she asked Cahill.
“About two years, give or take,” he replied.
“Long enough to be involved in the wagon wreck at Ghost Canyon,” she decided.
“What? No! I told you we don’t know nothing about that,” Ches denied frantically. “Nobody said nothing to us about a wagon accident. I swear.”
Quin was beginning to believe the men. Which was even more troubling. It suggested that whoever was stealing from 4C and McKnight Ranch, as well as others in the area, were not necessarily involved in the robbery plot and wagon wreck that had claimed his par
ents’ lives.
Damn it to hell! He might never know the truth. He couldn’t locate or identify the three men who rode off that night from Phantom Springs, even when Burnett and Dog helped him follow the outlaws’ tracks.
Well, at least one thing went right tonight, he mused as he halted the two horses and allowed his captives to mount up. Boston had gone along without suffering a scratch. That was a gigantic relief.
He glanced at her, watching moonbeams bathe her elegant features in light and shadows. He couldn’t imagine why any man wouldn’t appreciate her fiery spirit and courage, rather than seeing her as a meal ticket that could make his life comfortable.
There was so much more to Boston than her wealth and outer beauty. She had a strong sense of self and she was teeming with irrepressible intelligence. She knew who she was and what she wanted, as he did. He couldn’t fault her for that.
“Something wrong, Cahill?”
He snapped to attention when she caught him staring at her. “No. Just thinking.” But he didn’t tell her about what.
“Me, too,” she said pensively. “Should we take these two men to jail or lock them in the smokehouse for the night?”
“I’ve seen more of Marshal Hobbs than I care to recently,” Quin mumbled. “These two men can spend the night in the shack, nursing their wounds. Tomorrow is soon enough to haul them to town and press charges.”
An hour later, Quin had the captives bound and tied in the shack. When he exited to lock the door, Boston was waiting for him. The reins to her horse dangled from her fingertips.
“I suppose Butler and Company are fretting about where you are,” he remarked as they walked uphill to the house.
“No, I told them I’d be gone awhile and you would be assisting me in solving the mystery about the rustling.”
“Yeah?” He smiled wryly. “But Butler fusses over you. How long before he sends out a search party?”
Boston returned his grin. “I have a couple of hours to spare,” she assured him.
Quin took the reins and tethered both horses near the front door. The moment he shut the door behind them he scooped Boston off the floor and headed up the steps. She didn’t object when he took her to the master suite—and showed her how grateful he was for her help in capturing Ezra and Chester….
“Well? Did your evening adventure come to a satisfying conclusion, Addie K.?”
Adrianna glanced up the staircase in her home to see Butler looking as casual as she’d ever seen him. His white shirt hung outside his black breeches and he was in his stocking feet. She didn’t tell him that her evening had come to a fiery, explosive encounter in Cahill’s bed. That was intimate and private information she wasn’t about to share with anyone. Besides, Butler was referring to her attempt to track down the rustlers and arsonists.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she confided as she climbed the steps. “One of my cowhands and one of Cahill’s has been plotting against us and we intercepted a note with orders to set a fire at one of Cahill’s line shacks this week.”
“Did you haul the scoundrels to jail?” Butler asked hopefully.
“No, they are spending the night in Cahill’s smokehouse, awaiting transport to jail in the morning.”
“Good.” Butler breathed an audible sigh of relief, then sidestepped to let Adrianna pass. “Now that we have that settled and out of the way, the marshal can interrogate the perpetrators concerning their roles in the Phantom Springs murder…and Beatrice and I want to get married this weekend,” he said in the same breath.
Adrianna didn’t correct his assumption that she and Cahill had established a connection between the rustlers and the recent murder. She didn’t want to spoil his grand announcement.
“That’s wonderful!” she enthused. “I’ll plan a par—”
“No,” Butler cut in. “We prefer a private ceremony without fanfare to begin our new life together in Texas.”
“I’m giving you and Bea full use of this house,” she said generously.
His hazel eyes nearly popped out of his head. “That is too kind, Addie K. Besides, where will you and Elda live?”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I can build another house instead of restarting the new addition. As for Elda, she seems happy working for Cahill.”
He clutched her arm when she started past him. “Cahill hasn’t asked for your hand?”
“No, why should he? He doesn’t need mine since he has two hands of his own,” she teased.
Butler didn’t smile, just watched her intently. “Would you marry him if he asked?”
Adrianna didn’t want to have this discussion. It was bad enough that she’d fallen head over heels in love with Cahill. The prospect of admitting her feelings aloud to him terrified her. She suspected Cahill’s affection for her only lasted until they lay exhausted and content in bed.
“I don’t know, Hiram,” she said, then cast him a pointed glance. “Maybe in ten years. That seems to be the proper length of time for a courtship, don’t you think?”
While he grumbled at her sassy retort, she strode to her room. That should keep him quiet, she mused as she undressed. Furthermore, she didn’t have time to fret over the unrequited love she harbored for that silver-eyed rancher. They were in the midst of their private investigation to determine if his parents’ wagon wreck was or wasn’t a robbery turned disaster.
At least Cahill had included her in the search for the truth so she could spend more time with him. For now, it would be enough, she told herself before she fell asleep—with dreams of Quin’s incredible passion dancing in her head.
Bright and early the next morning Adrianna rode to 4C to accompany Cahill and their prisoners to town. “I can’t wait to pass along the information about these two thugs using the supposed curse as a cover to rustle and set fires,” she said confidentially.
“I’m wondering if we should also let it slip that these two scoundrels might be involved in the murder. Whoever is responsible might become careless if someone else is blamed.”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “But we don’t want to give Marshal Hobbs an excuse not to search out the killer and his conspirators.”
Cahill shrugged his broad shoulders, then glanced back to ensure Chester and Ezra were still bound tightly and weren’t plotting an escape. “I keep wondering if these two incidents are somehow connected, but I can’t put it together.” He blew out an exasperated breath. “It’s pure torture, not knowing if my parents’ accident was caused by a robbery. My chance of finding out might have died with the unidentified man at Phantom Springs.”
Adrianna reached over to give his muscled forearm a sympathetic squeeze. “I know it must be maddening. Maybe you should contact your brothers and sister and let them know the possibility exists—”
“No,” he interrupted quickly and decisively. “My family moved on with their lives. Until I’m certain whether it was an accident or disastrous robbery, I’m not dragging them into it. I sure as hell don’t want them to think I used this as an excuse to bring them home.”
He sounded so intense and determined that she decided not to debate with him. Obviously, the resentments and conflicts between siblings still existed. Cahill was too proud and stubborn to ask for help. He’d asked for assistance with the ranch duties after the funeral, only to watch his family ride off to chase their own rainbows.
As she had chased hers by coming to Texas. She cast him a pensive glance. Did he secretly hold that against her, too?
Adrianna stared into the distance, hearing the whistle announcing the morning train’s arrival at Ca-Cross. She recalled the first time she’d stepped down from the passenger car to view the town. She’d been full of anticipation, excitement and dreams of making a place for herself as a successful lady rancher.
Thus far, all she’d done was embroil herself in a private feud with Cahill, become the victim of rustling and arson, add fodder for local gossip…and fallen in love for the first—and likely the only—time in her life.
“What are you smiling about, Boston?” Cahill asked.
“Just wondering what adventure awaits me next,” she lied convincingly. “I’ve been here about six weeks and my life is brimming with excitement and mystery. Those dime novels about the Wild West have become my life. I have no complaints.”
“That’s Texas for you. Never a dull moment.” He winked at her. “As for me, I’d die of boredom in a place like Boston.”
“I did,” she replied, and grinned impishly. “I’m feeling much better now.”
Although Quin tried to persuade Boston to chitchat with her cousin at the boutique while he incarcerated the prisoners, there was nothing doing. According to Boston, she had discovered the connection between Ezra Fields and Chester Purvis so Marshal Hobbs could deal with her, like it or not.
Which Hobbs didn’t because he seemed to have an aversion to headstrong women like Boston who were quick of wit and sassy of retorts. Hobbs, like so many backward-thinking males—in the East and West—thought women should stay in their places.
Quin almost chuckled, remembering how he’d made the foolish mistake of telling Boston to go home…and stay there. Now, the thought of her living a few miles away from his ranch, while he was stuck home alone, was pure and simple torment. He’d be miserable if she moved back to her hometown.
Quin cast aside his meandering thoughts as he untied Ezra and Chester. He quick-marched them into the marshal’s office. As usual, Tobias Hobbs wore his stylish three-piece suit and his bowler hat hung by the door. Hobbs raised a curious brow when he noticed the prisoners’ scuffed-up condition.
“Now what?” he muttered. “You taking the law into your own hands and bringing along your sidekick?”