After Sundown

by Shelly Thacker

  His rage toward the bounty hunter hadn’t stopped until the son of a bitch was dead.

  Lucas blinked hard, feeling dizzy, like he’d lost his balance. And not just because of the .44 that had knocked him flat.

  He had killed men before, but never like today. Never in a blind fury.

  And never over a woman.

  God almighty, the way he had charged down on them like some kind of avenging demon. Then climbed a steep rock face in the middle of an ice storm. And come up suddenly on his opponent at close range.

  Too close, he thought, closing his eyes and swearing at the pain that kept ricocheting through his head. Stupid, stupid moves, every one of them.

  Even worse, he didn’t regret any of them.

  Because he had done what he needed to do. Protected her. Saved her. Taken her back from the man who had taken her from him.

  One corner of Lucas’s mouth curved downward. He reached up to gingerly probe the wound alongside his head, clenching his teeth. Maybe the bullet had done more than just crease his skull. His brain didn’t seem to be working right.

  Annie stirred, lifting her head with a sound of discomfort, blinking sleepily.

  Annie. Lucas stared at her, almost choking on his own breath. When the hell had he started thinking of her as Annie?

  Their eyes met. He couldn’t speak. And she remained just as silent. The sleet that pelted them and the rocks and everything in the mountain pass made the only noise.

  Her face looked pale, too pale, her eyes huge and dark beneath her wet, straggly curls. She was trembling as she brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  And then she smiled.

  That was when it struck him—truly struck him, like a bolt from the blue: She hadn’t left him.

  She could’ve left him. Escaped. Done more than that. His gaze shifted to his Colt—which was still lying in the snow a few yards away, where he had dropped it.

  She could’ve picked up the weapon, finished the job the bounty hunter had started, taken the saddlebags, and walked out of there. To safety. To freedom.

  Why hadn’t she escaped?

  Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she was hurt. He looked at her through narrowed eyes and tried to speak, his voice a dry croak. “You all right?”

  “Me?” She looked like she was going to cry, though she was still smiling. She picked up his canteen from beside her and opened it. “I’m not the one who got shot. I thought you were going to bleed to death.”

  “Why...”

  She shook her head, looking puzzled at his unfinished question. “Because a bullet hit you in the head. And you were bleeding. A lot.” She gently held the canteen to his lips.

  That wasn’t what he’d meant. But as he drank greedily, he decided he wasn’t going to ask the question. Didn’t want to know the answer.

  Didn’t want to think about any of it anymore.

  He handed the canteen back. “Scalp wounds bleed a lot, Antoinette.”

  His curt, sharp tone made her flinch away from him, her smile fading. “Well, I didn’t know that. I don’t happen to know as much about guns and bullets as you do.”

  He pushed himself up onto one elbow, wincing, his empty stomach threatening to reject the water he had just gulped. “How long was I out?” He pressed one hand to his head.

  “Most of the day.” She nodded to the west, where the sun was disappearing behind the mountains, beneath clouds that threatened more snow.

  He started to sit up.

  “Lucas, are you sure you should—”

  “We’d better find shelter before nightfall.” He shut his eyes against the pain that every small movement brought. Hunched over, he rested one hand on the ground, cursing as he waited for his surroundings to stop spinning.

  His bandage slipped down to droop over one eye. Like some kind of lacy pirate patch.

  She set the canteen down. “I can fix that for you,” she said gently.

  He pushed her hand away and adjusted it himself. Then he grabbed his coat in one hand and stood up. Unsteadily.

  “Lucas—”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  She looked stung, lowered her gaze. “Sorry, Marshal,” she said tartly. “Go right ahead and walk around. I forgot, the newspapers said you’re tough enough to chew nails and spit tacks.” She took the blanket he’d left on the ground, wrapping it around the one she already wore. “Do what you want. Fall right off a cliff for all I care. And by the way,” she added, “you’re welcome.”

  Lucas turned away without thanking her. He couldn’t find the words, couldn’t think straight. He felt dazed—and wasn’t sure if it was from the way she was looking at him, the pain rattling around inside his skull, or both. He shrugged into his bloodstained black coat and walked toward his pistol, his steps wobbling like he was slightly drunk.

  “In case you’re interested,” she called after him, “the bounty hunter said there’s a shelter of some kind down the trail. He said he left another horse there. And some supplies.”

  Shelter? Lucas turned toward her, too fast, and almost lost his balance. Almost fell over. A shelter and a horse?

  Why the hell hadn’t she left him and tried to escape? “How far?”

  “About an hour. At least, that’s what he said.”

  He picked up his Colt, his head pounding with agony as he bent down, his stomach lurching again. He wiped the ice off the weapon as he walked back toward her, one careful step at a time. “We’ll just have to”—as she stood, he abruptly noticed that her feet were clad only in a pair of fancy-looking moccasins—“walk. What in God’s name are you doing sitting out here with nothing but those on your feet?”

  “My shoes weren’t in your saddlebags,” she said defensively. “I thought you might find them, but I guess you didn’t. I kicked them off to show which—”

  “I found them.”

  “And you didn’t bring them with you?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of your feet at the time.” He flipped open the cylinder on his Colt, ejected the spent cartridge, loaded a new one, and snapped it shut. That familiar action, at least, seemed easy enough to manage.

  “Well, the moccasins are better than nothing,” she said. “They’re lined with fur—”

  “Why didn’t you take his boots?” He gestured toward the bounty hunter before he holstered his gun.

  Her eyes widened, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. She looked like she might be ill. “Take bloodstained boots off a corpse and wear them?”

  Lucas sighed. “No, of course you wouldn’t.” He started to shake his head, then stopped himself, wincing. “You are so...”

  He didn’t finish.

  “What?” she asked archly.

  Sensitive. Delicate. Tenderhearted. “Impractical.” Frustrated by the pain and dizziness and assorted other feelings that threatened to knock him off his feet, he forced himself to ignore them all and stalked over to the dead bounty hunter.

  Lucas pried both pistols from his hands, then rifled through the man’s nearby saddlebags for anything that might be useful.

  When he turned, he found Antoinette watching his actions with that same wide-eyed, faintly ill look. A visible shudder went through her. “Are... are we just going to leave him there?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we at least bury the body?”

  “Take too long. We spend an hour burying him, next person who comes along will have to bury us.” Slowly, a bit more steadily, Lucas returned to the rocky overhang, stowed the bounty hunter’s belongings in his own saddlebags, then picked them up along with his canteen.

  Then he turned toward Antoinette. She looked frightened, and he regretted his comment about someone burying the two of them.

  She had never seemed quite so vulnerable before, her slender body wracked by shudders beneath the two blankets, her hair wet, her skin ruddy with cold. It was a miracle she hadn’t died of exposure already. He doubted that she had enough strength left to walk more than a few yards, never mind a few miles.

  He
r lower lip quivered as she glanced from his bandaged head to the western sky, which had already darkened to shades of violet and purple. “Well, Marshal,” she said lightly, as if she were trying to sound brave, “it’s almost sundown. What are we going to do?”

  He wished he could pick her up and carry her, hated that he felt too weak to even try it. “Get to that shelter before nightfall.” He walked over and removed the blankets from her shoulders, then took off his coat and wrapped it around her.

  “You can’t give me your coat,” she protested as he buttoned it. The garment swamped her, the bottom trailing on the ground, the sleeves hanging several inches below her hips. “You need it, or you’ll freeze.”

  “The exercise will keep me warm.” He tucked both blankets around her.

  She immediately slid them off and handed them back. “At least take the blankets.”

  “I’ll be all—”

  “You’re wounded, you’ve been bleeding all day, and you need some protection from the wind.” She held them out toward him.

  Reluctantly, he accepted them and put them on over his shirt. Before he could turn to start leading the way down the trail, she moved to his side and slid one arm around him.

  “Put your arm around my shoulders,” she said firmly.

  He started to pull away. “You’re barely strong enough to walk—”

  “And you won’t make it a quarter mile unless you let me help you.” She hung on to him, looking up to meet his gaze. “And we have to get to that shelter before dark, or we’ll both freeze to death.”

  He frowned at her. Stubborn, determined little elf. Her grit and tenacity caught him by surprise.

  Unfortunately, she had a point. Lucas fought off the waves of dizziness, ignored the pain throbbing between his temples, and allowed himself to lean on her.

  As they set off, she muttered some comment he didn’t quite catch about his head being harder than any bullet.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tough enough to chew nails and spit tacks. The newspapers hadn’t exaggerated, Annie thought, after they had been walking almost an hour, leaning on each other—Lucas helping her as much as she helped him.

  It was snowing again, thick flakes that turned the darkness white around them. But despite all her fears, and the chills that raked her, and the danger they were in, somehow having him beside her made her feel... safe.

  A short distance ahead, across an expanse of moonlit snow sprinkled with pines, their branches heavy with ice, the shelter finally came into view—an odd little cabin, built right up against the side of the mountain.

  “We did it,” she said in astonishment, her voice a raspy croak.

  “Looks like a dugout.” Lucas sounded exhausted. A few yards away from the cabin, they stopped in the trees. He slipped his arm from around her shoulders and settled her against a pine, handing her the blankets. “Wait here.”

  “Why—”

  Before she could even finish the question, he vanished into the darkness, looking shaky on his feet as the night swallowed him up.

  A few minutes later, she saw him circling around toward the front of the cabin, with his gun drawn, and she understood. The place might not be as empty as it looked. The bounty hunter might’ve had a partner.

  She held her breath as she watched Lucas nudge open the door and disappear inside. He was in no condition to face any kind of enemy.

  But a few minutes later, he came out, his pistol back in its holster.

  “Deserted,” he said as he returned to her side. “It’s not much, but right about now, it looks damn good.”

  Annie sighed, too tired even to speak. He put his arm around her again, they crossed the last few yards, and trudged through the open door.

  A dank, musty smell filled the place, which appeared to be a single room with no windows. Annie couldn’t see much else in the darkness, other than her breath on the cold air. Lucas eased her down onto a hard, wooden seat and lit a lantern that hung on the wall with a tin of matches next to it.

  By the flickering glow, she saw that the dugout matched its name: half-cave, half-cabin, carved right out of the mountainside—no doubt for protection from the snow and wind. It looked like it might be an old trapper’s place from fur-trading days.

  Lucas had been right. It wasn’t much, but at the moment, it did look damn good. A suite at the fanciest Denver hotel couldn’t have looked better.

  The back and part of each side wall were rough-hewn rock, the rest of it logs and mortar, and it had a dirt floor. Lucas set the lantern on a potbellied stove in the middle of the room, taking a few pieces of wood from a metal bucket nearby.

  Annie started untangling herself from the blankets and his coat while she looked around. When she was very young, she had lived in a place much like this.

  Before Papa ran off.

  Other than the stove, the dugout had few furnishings: a couple of plain chairs and a table in one corner, some animal pelts and antlers on display. An old trunk sat against the rocky back wall, beside a bed of chipped white iron, with a striped ticking mattress rolled up at the foot.

  She also noticed a black frying pan and some cooking implements hanging from hooks above the table, and dared hope there might be food somewhere as well. With a violent shiver, she set the blankets and Lucas’s coat aside, and started rubbing her arms, trying to get some feeling back into her muscles. Her dress and undergarments clung to her body, damp and cold, and her feet felt numb, despite the moccasins.

  Lucas arranged the logs inside the stove and lit the fire. Black smoke leaked from the wide metal pipe that led up to the roof—which also made an odd chirping noise. He coughed and whacked the stovepipe a couple of times with his fist.

  There was the sound of something skittering up the pipe.

  “Squirrels,” Lucas said. The smoke stopped pouring into the room and flowed out through the metal chimney. Lucas took the rest of the wood from the metal bucket and set it on the floor. “You all right by yourself for a minute?”

  Annie nodded, mute, still staring at the spot where she had heard claws skittering on metal. It had been a long time since she had lived in a place like this. A very long time.

  Lucas picked up the empty bucket and went outside—as usual, without telling her where he was going or why.

  Annie frowned as the door closed behind him. Lucas McKenna was definitely a man of action, not words. That was something else the newspapers hadn’t exaggerated about.

  She supposed a marshal had to be decisive and independent, that he had gotten used to just making decisions and carrying them out. Without asking what anyone else might think.

  Or feel.

  She looked down at the dirt floor. There was a lot between them that needed to be said. A whole lot. And neither one of them seemed to be saying it.

  She wanted to ask why he had risked his life, gotten shot, to save her. But she was almost afraid to ask. Was it purely because he wanted to take her back to Missouri to stand trial? Was he so bent on seeing her punished? Did he still believe she was capable of cold-blooded murder?

  Annie sighed, closing her eyes, shuddering with cold. If she knew one thing, it was that Lucas was not the most understanding, forgiving man. And she wasn’t up to an argument. They were both exhausted, hungry, hurt.

  Tomorrow, she thought wearily. Tomorrow would be soon enough to bring up everything that had happened, and what might happen in the future. Tonight they had more immediate problems to worry about.

  She stood up and tried to scoot her chair closer to the stove, but quickly sat back down. Her feet and legs had started tingling painfully, like she was being jabbed with a thousand needles all at once.

  A gust of cold wind and snowflakes blew through the door as Lucas returned. “No sign of any horse,” he said, carrying the bucket, now heaped with snow, over to the stove. “Or supplies.”

  Annie whispered a curse, partly because of the pain in her legs, partly out of anger at the bounty hunter. “He lied,” she said in disgust.
r />   “Maybe. Or the horse might’ve got spooked by the ice storm and ran off,” Lucas said, his voice low and tired. “Or some traveler happened along and helped himself when he saw nobody was around. Storm wiped clean any tracks that might’ve been out there.”

  He left the bucket of melting snow on the stove and carried the lantern over to the steamer trunk in the corner, crouching down to examine it.

  “I don’t suppose there might be food in there,” she said hopefully.

  “Let’s find out.” He straightened, drawing his pistol and aiming at the lock.

  “Wait—” Annie winced, covering her ears as the roar of his Colt echoed off the stone walls. “Was that really necessary?” she asked in irritation.

  “It was practical.” He lifted the trunk’s lid and started hunting through the contents, taking out an old quilt, a woven coverlet, a few tools of some kind, and a couple of small burlap sacks, one of which seemed to be empty. “Looks like there was some food.”

  “Was?”

  “Something got to it first. Mice or some such.” He dug a handful of grain out of one sack. “There’s a hole in the bottom of this trunk.”

  Mice... or some such? Annie lifted her feet off the floor, drawing her knees in and wrapping her arms around them as she peered at the dirt in the dim light of the lantern. She didn’t want to think about what some such might include, out here in the mountain wilderness.

  Lucas closed the lid of the trunk, setting the quilt and coverlet on top and opening the other burlap sack.

  “No horse,” Annie said tremulously, beginning to understand the seriousness of their situation. “No food—”

  “Coffee.” Lucas held up the sack with an expression of pleasant surprise.

  “I’m so happy the mice left the coffee for you,” she said dryly.

  He set it on the trunk, glancing toward the stovepipe. “Roast squirrel’s not too bad.”

  Annie blinked, trying to tell if he was serious. “Is this what it’s usually like on the frontier—living in a cave, competing with mice for food, roasting squirrels?”

  “Colorado doesn’t count as the frontier anymore. It’s an official state. Frontier’s a ways west of here.”