She hurried out and climbed on Clown, a decrepit dun horse that could barely manage a trot, let alone a canter or gallop. The poor beast even smelled ancient, with the whiff of an incontinent about him. Susanna urged him on. She’d have to find Connor before he did himself harm, going off like that, to tackle hard manual labor before he was fully recovered.
On her left, the river flowed slow and wide beneath the muddy banks, replenished by the winter storms. The sun, already high in the sky, reflected from the ripples in the surface.
Clown tossed his mane and let out an exited neigh. He dipped his head and charged forward, as though reliving his youth. Scrub and cacti flashed by. The fence line closed in on the right. Soon she would reach the edge of the property where she would find Connor occupied with outdoor chores that he had no business doing until he’d regained his strength.
A rifle shot echoed in the air.
Beneath her, Clown stumbled, a sudden lurch that sent Susanna sailing over the horse’s head. The ground hurtled at her, a solid expanse of brown and gray. She tucked her chin into her chest and spun around in the air, landing in a rolling somersault that left her sprawled on her back, her body bruised and shaking, but essentially unharmed.
She scrambled to her feet. “Clown, boy, are you all right?”
The horse lay inert—a huge, dun colored heap that blended in with the barren landscape. Torn with guilt, Susanna sank to her knees by the horse’s head. The gelding’s eyes were closed, his nostrils silent, his body still.
Blinking back tears, Susanna stroked his neck. She’d pushed him too hard. His old heart must have given in. “Oh Clown, boy, I’m sorry,” she crooned, her tone full of regret. “But you would have wanted to go like this, wouldn’t you, boy—with the wind whistling in your mane and the ground thudding beneath your hooves?”
As she knelt beside the horse, something wet and warm soaked into her legs. She scooted aside and inspected the ground. Blood had pooled beneath the horse, and a sticky, dark ribbon of it was flowing out toward her. Flies had already gathered to buzz around the carcass.
Thoughts rushed through her head.
The crack of a rifle. Blood.
Someone had shot Clown.
Fear sharpened her senses as she surveyed the landscape around her. Her hand fumbled at the leather holster by her side. Too late. Barely ten yards away, a man stepped out from behind the huge boulders that marked the bend of the river. Gun in each hand, he pointed them at her as he edged closer to her with light, almost soundless footsteps.
“Don’t make a move,” he warned her.
Susanna ignored him and pulled out her gun. Anger drove the foolish act. Fight back. Don’t let the bullies win. The lessons learned at boarding school ruled stronger than any amount of rational thought. She cocked back the hammer, raised her gun, and took aim.
With a curse, the man threw himself down. Big and burly, he sent pebbles scattering as he rolled over on the ground to take shelter behind the nearest boulder. Susanna pulled the trigger, but not fast enough. Her shot echoed back from the rocks, and she knew she had missed.
A gruff voice came from behind the boulder. “Put your gun away. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then why did you point a gun at me?” she yelled back.
Silence. Then a volley of shots burst out. Bullets rained left and right of her, but they all landed in patches of soft earth, with little risk of ricocheting from the ground and hitting her. The man was telling the truth, Susanna realized. He was trying to avoid hurting her.
“What do you want?” she shouted.
“I want you to raise your arms and point your gun toward the sky.”
“Why?”
His voice grew harsh. “Because I’m telling you.”
The reckless surge of foolhardiness inside her was quickly ebbing. Susanna lifted her arms and pointed the big silver Remington up toward the sky.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
A gunshot, a violent wrench in her hand, the clip of metal on metal. Her revolver flew through the air and clattered to the gravel ground several yards behind her. She heard the thud of footsteps, and saw the big man who’d been shooting at her hurtle toward her. Another man, a smaller one, surged up from a mound of earth and launched himself forward to grapple with her.
The smaller man seized her from behind, clamping his arms like a vice around her. Susanna jerked her head back, felt the rear of her skull smash into his face. He gave a high pitched squeal. His grip on her eased, and she dipped down, breaking free from his hold.
As she darted away, the bigger man grabbed the sleeve of her coat and flung her about in a big circle. For a moment, her snakeskin boots lost contact with the ground. Pawing with her legs, like a rearing horse, she managed to land on her feet as the momentum of her spin came to a halt.
She found her balance, took a quick backward step and ducked her head to ram it into the big man’s chest. Cursing, he fisted his hands in her tumbling hair and yanked her back. “Get her,” he yelled at his companion. “Grab her by the waist and pull her away from me.”
Susanna felt the small man’s arms close around her once more. She fought, in a blind panic now. She kicked and flailed and punched and wriggled. She clawed with her nails. She sank her teeth into a bony wrist that tasted of sweat and unwashed skin. The men cursed and dipped and darted, trying to restrain her without causing her injury.
Eventually, the struggle drained her strength. Panting for breath, shaking and exhausted, she slowed her movements, and then she grew still, unable to resist when her assailants twisted her arms behind her back and tied a rough, scratchy piece of hemp rope around her wrists.
“Son of a bitch,” the smaller man muttered. “We ain’t getting paid if we kill her, but I’d like to put a bullet in her anyway. The bitch bit me. And she damn near broke my nose. She ain’t no lady like we was told, she’s worse than a mad dog.”
Susanna glared at him. Small and thin, the man had a receding chin and huge, protruding teeth, yellowed from tobacco. His eyes were small and mean, and his rancid breath was nearly making her gag.
The bigger man was not so unkempt. He wore expensive leather boots and a well cut coat, and had a silver band around his hat. His features were rough and his skin pockmarked, but he strutted with the arrogance of a man who considered himself handsome.
Moving behind her, he shoved her forward. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” she demanded.
“That way,” he said, and jerked the rope upward, twisting her arms.
She cried out in pain. “What do you want from me?”
He gave her another shove. “Walk.”
“I’m going to scream.”
The smaller man grinned, baring his yellow teeth. “Scream all you want,” he said, his beady eyes glittering. “I like hearing a woman scream.”
Susanna gritted her teeth, unsure of what to do. Then she screamed. “Connor!” she yelled, as loud as her lungs would allow. “Connor! Connor! Help me!” The forlorn cry rippled around the desert landscape and faded into silence.
Beside her, the smaller man made a funny little sidestep, like a jig, and burst into a nasty, gurgling laugh. The bigger man joined in, and the sounds of their mirth whirled in the air, whipping about her.
They were pleased, she realized. They wanted her to scream.
Of course. The knowledge sent a chill through her.
Connor was their quarry, and she was the bait.
****
Susanna tried everything. She tried throwing herself on the ground, but the big man jerked her to her feet and shoved her along. She tried to negotiate, offer them money, but the small man laughed at her and told her to go to hell.
She tried to plead. She tried to make threats.
And then there was nothing more she could do except to pray.
The small man, whom the other called Errol, went off to fetch their horses. He came back leading a chestnut mustang almost as old as Clown, and a glos
sy black gelding whose saddle and bridle were decorated with silver studs.
The bigger man was called Morrison. He gave orders and Errol took them.
For fifteen minutes, the three of them marched along at a steady pace, following the course of the river. When Susanna dragged her feet, Morrison shoved her forward, prodding her along as if she were a reluctant head of cattle. Errol walked behind, leading both horses. He had wrapped rags around the horses’ hooves to muffle the clattering sounds.
The sun baked down, drawing beads of sweat on Susanna’s brow. With her hands tied, she had no means of wiping away the moisture, and it ran in salty rivulets into her eyes. She blinked against the sting, but her eyes watered anyway, blurring her vision.
Up ahead, fifty yards away, the fence met the river. She could see Brutus and two other horses grazing by the bank. Ramirez was hammering a nail into a wooden post, and the rhythmic clangs covered the sounds of their approach. Neither Garret nor Connor was in sight.
Morrison yanked her to a halt with a force that made the rope cut into her wrists.
“Call them,” he ordered his companion.
Errol moved forward a step. “McGregor!” he yelled.
Still no sign of Connor or Garrett. Ramirez kept up his hammering.
“McGregor!” Errol shouted. “We’ve got your wife.”
“Go closer to them,” Morrison ordered him. “They can’t hear you.”
Errol bared his huge teeth in protest, like a snarling dog, but he moved forward another five yards. Before he had time to yell out again, another voice cut through the silence. “That’s far enough.” The barrel of a handgun peeked out above the mound of dirt directly ahead of them. Susanna felt Morrison yank her hard against his chest, a sudden motion that let her know he was using her as a shield.
“State your business,” the voice called out.
Susanna recognized the crisp, clear enunciation of Garrett. Around thirty, he had the manner of an educated man. Connor had told her that in his youth Garrett had studied to be a banker, but a weakness for gambling had ruined his prospects.
“We want to make a trade,” Errol yelled. “McGregor for his wife.”
“All right,” Garrett shouted back.
The rhythmic banging had ceased. Susanna glanced over to the fence line. Ramirez had dropped the hammer and was now holding a rifle aimed at Errol. Another man, obscured from full view, was moving between the three horses, and then she could see Connor mount on Brutus and set off at a slow walk toward her.
“No,” she yelled. “They won’t hurt me. They have orders not to.”
“Shut up.” Morrison wrapped his left arm around her throat and squeezed. His right hand pressed the barrel of his gun against her temple.
Susanna fought back, but his grip was too tight, choking off her air.
“I want to deal with McGregor,” Morrison shouted, his voice booming by her ear.
“You’ve got to let him closer,” Garrett called back. “You last bullet pierced his lung and until it’s fully healed he can’t holler the way you do.”
What? Susanna wriggled in the burly man’s hold. Something odd was going on. The bullet hadn’t punctured Connor’s lung. And he seemed to have somehow shrunk. Baffled, she watched the man on Brutus advance at a slow but steady pace.
“Stop!” Morrison yelled. His arm around her neck tightened and he gun rammed harder against her head. “Stop or I’ll shoot your wife.”
Brutus came to an abrupt halt about thirty yards away.
“Don’t give yourself up,” Susanna yelled. “He won’t kill me.”
“Shut up.” Morrison shook her, hard enough to make her teeth rattle.
“You’ll die,” she told him in a low voice. “It’s three armed men against two. If you pull the trigger on me, there’ll be three bullets in you before you can blink.”
“Shut up.”
“Let the woman go,” Garrett shouted. “Let her go, and we’ll lower our guns.”
“You think I’m a fool?” Morrison made an angry gesture with his right hand, lifting the barrel of the gun from her temple for a fraction of a second.
Susanna twisted against his hold. She dipped her shoulders and slammed the heel of her boot into his shin. The man jerked, nearly stumbled. His hold on her slipped. As she struggled to break free, she heard two gunshots. Morrison’s fist closed over the collar of her coat. He yanked her back and tossed her sideways, sending her into a tumbling dive that rolled her onto her back in the dust.
A weight crushed her chest, choking the breath out of her.
And then everything went black.
****
Fear seized Connor as he watched Susanna fall. Had he devised a daring plan to ensure their safety, only to see his wife crushed to death under a two hundred pound outlaw? Ignoring the throbbing in his healing wound, he jumped out of his hiding place in the riverbank and hurtled up the slope toward her.
The bigger of the two gunmen lay on top of her, his hips crushing her chest, their overlapping bodies forming the shape of a cross. The man’s hat, pierced by a bullet, was rolling in the sand. The hem of his black wool coat had flared wide and was obscuring Susanna’s face.
Connor fell to his knees beside her and flung the fabric aside. “Susanna!”
Her eyes were open, panic reflected in them. “Can’t…breathe…” Her words came on a labored, wheezing sound.
Connor sprung up to his feet. His injury hurt like a blade twisting in his chest, but he didn’t care. He grabbed the man by the ankles and dragged him off Susanna, lifting the man’s legs high and pivoting him aside. For some crazy reason, it seemed important not to let his blood drip on Susanna—as though the evil of the man could somehow soak into her.
Sinking to his knees beside her once more, Connor examined her body with frantic eyes. He could see no blood. No torn clothes, no protruding bones. No visible signs of injury. Only dirt, and dust, and bits of grass sticking to her hair and clothes.
“Tell me where it hurts,” he said.
“Not…hurt…can’t…breathe…”
He pressed his palms to her chest and ran his hands lightly over each side, testing for broken ribs that might have penetrated a lung. Susanna didn’t flinch, didn’t cry out in pain, didn’t even emit a muffled moan.
“Feels…choking…” Her voice was still a rasp but getting stronger.
The terror that had seized Connor abated. It appeared that she was merely winded from the impact of the fall, her lungs refusing to work. He leaned down, slipped one arm around her shoulders and lifted her up to a sitting position. Tipping her forward, he pounded her on the back with the flat of his palm.
“Easy,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Susanna took wheezing breaths. Her shoulders heaved up and down in the circle of his supporting arm. “Connor…” Turning her head a fraction, she raked a puzzled glance over him. “Where...how?”
He rubbed her back with a steady motion and felt her lungs start to expand again. “I switched clothes and horses with Pete.” He kept his tone calm and soothing. “I left Santiago beneath an overhang downstream and dug a small cave in the riverbank and hid out of sight. Pete faced them, pretending to be me. I knew that once Pete got close enough, the man holding you would make an instinctive move. For a fraction of a second, he’d point his gun at Pete instead of you, and I’d have a clear shot. Thanks to you, I didn’t have to wait that long. You dipped your head, which made if safe for me to fire.”
“They’re…dead…?”
“Yeah.” His mouth flattened with satisfaction. “I got them both. This close, I’m almost as good with my left hand as I’m with the right, and Ramirez made sure with the rifle.”
Susanna strained against his hold, craning toward the bodies that Garrett had rolled face up in the dirt. Connor hesitated. He didn’t want her to look. She seemed to be handling the situation surprisingly well, and he didn’t want anything to shatter her calm. And yet, he knew that she would resen
t him if he tried to cosset her.
“They deserved to die,” he told her in a low voice. “They came to kill me.”
The smaller man had blood oozing from his chest where Ramirez had got him with a rifle, as well as a ragged exit wound in his forehead from Connor’s bullet. The lower half of his face looked grotesque, with his mouth hanging open to expose a set of long, protruding teeth. On the bigger man, there was no exit wound, only blood seeping into the sand from the bullet hole at the back of his head. He lay with his eyes open, his features frozen in a grimace of death.
As Connor relaxed his supporting arm, Susanna wriggled around in his embrace to make a slow, thorough survey of the gruesome sight. Connor felt a shudder travel over her—a long, slow ripple that made her body shiver against his, but she showed no other reaction, no sign of revulsion or fear.
He brushed a hand over her tangled hair. “Are you sure you’re all right? Does your head hurt? Do your ribs ache when you breathe? Try coughing.”
She coughed, twice. “I’m okay.”
Finally, he dared to haul her against his chest and hold her tight. The last fading waves of terror faded away, leaving him lightheaded with relief. She felt warm in his arms, warm and alive, strong and fragile at the same time. Despite the pain that pierced his chest, he tightened his hold on her.
“Thank God, Susanna,” he muttered, tucking her head in the crook of his neck. “I sweated blood every second I knew they had you. I was certain they wouldn’t hurt you, but there’s always a chance that something might go wrong…”
She burrowed into him, and they clung to each other in silence. A few moments later, Susanna stirred against him, distracted by the dragging sounds and grunting noises they could hear. She pulled away, far enough to twist around in his arms and glance behind her once more.
While they’d been talking and hugging, Pete had dismounted, and was now helping Garrett to search the pockets of the two gunmen. “Nothing on this one,” Pete said, crouching beside the smaller man. “No letters, no papers.”
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