by Angela Lain
“Travelling, like I always do. I thought to swing by and see how the Duncan’s were doing, but…”
“But they are not where you expected.” Bonner grinned. “However, they are still here, in Broken Ridge, they have just relocated.”
“To where?”
“After you left, Craig Duncan came in to town to stay with the doctor and his wife while he recovered. Miss Faith and Flynn suggested it would be better for him since the house was in ruins and the bunkhouse was hardly suitable. While he was in town, Duncan got talking with friends and neighbors, all of whom had suffered at the hands of Marston and his men. The decision was made for the Duncan family to take over Marston’s house and ranch buildings. The man had no heirs that could be found. He had the largest holding of land, and those who had suffered carved up the sections, including the old CD range, into sensible portions. Everyone gained a fair acreage, and the Duncans didn’t need to rebuild the house.”
“Sounds reasonable. So the Duncans are at Marston’s place?”
“Yup, and it is renamed the CD ranch, that is where you need to go if you want to go visiting.”
Hawk glanced at the window; the pale sun was dipping below the horizon.
“I guess I had better find a bed for the night and head over there in the morning.”
“I would think so. I am about to head for home, let me come to the hotel with you. When you are settled, you can come over to my place for supper, I’m sure my wife would be happy to see you.”
“You are married now?”
“Yes sir! Married last summer, to a local girl. I’m sure she will remember you. All the women remember you!”
Hawk threw him a jaundiced look. “I will take my horse down to the livery stable. I will be back in a short while.”
“I’ll be here.”
CHAPTER SIX
Y et again Faith had a restless night. Part of the problem was the inactivity which now ruled her life. Before Claudia had married her father, she had been constantly active. She had ridden with the hands, she had cleaned the harness, she had cleaned the barn, she had even helped tend the small vegetable patch. Now all that had ceased; it was servants work, or it was unladylike. Claudia had condemned her to a boring, sedentary existence. Faith wasn’t surprised that Flynn had questioned her acceptance of this, she wondered at herself!
Her early morning ride had been her salvation, and this morning she would ride, lack of sleep or not. She rose before the sun, pulled on those forbidden britches and headed for the barn.
Her pony Juno nickered a welcome. By the time a hazy daylight had crept across the land, she was aboard and riding.
Today she would ride further and for longer, and she would accept the consequences. Her future was, according to Claudia, set in stone. What could the woman now do to her which would be any worse than what was already decreed?
She rode until the sun was well above the horizon, then she circled around and headed for home. The trail led her past the clearing where she had been held prisoner two years ago. That summer, the summer when Marston had tried to steal their land.
She rode into the clearing and stop to look about, to remember those frightening, but exciting days. Men had died, she shouldn’t remember it with any sort of fondness, but it had been a time when she had felt so alive.
It had been the time she had fallen in love!
How deep had she now sunk? Forced into marriage with a man she couldn’t ever imagine liking, let alone loving.
Daniel Black Hawk.
This was where he had crept through the bushes to free her from the clutches of evil men.
Hawk.
She owed him her life, and he had broken her heart.
Maybe she was wrong to compare Edward Shelton to Daniel Black Hawk. In truth, no man would ever measure up in her eyes, but Edward Shelton was a very long way from the sort of man she had ever wanted to marry.
She rode home, wondering how she was ever going to get through this.
***
It was mid-morning, Hawk mounted the steps, hat in hand. He paused before the door, gathering courage to knock. Then he heard angry voices from behind the door, and it flew open before he had the chance to knock.
Faith was leaving, and not quietly, she still had her face turned towards the front hallway.
“I will not! I don’t care how much you try to persuade and cajole, I will not get rid of Juno. You will have to hog-tie me and steal her from me first.” She swung to leave the building, and stopped short when she saw him standing uncertainly on the porch.
Her eyes, at first narrowed and angry when she had turned from the hallway, widened in shock as she saw him. Then they filled with tears.
“You! A lot of good you ever did me!”
She barged past him and stamped off down the steps and across the yard.
Hawk turned to watch her leave. This was not how he had envisaged their first meeting in two long years.
A voice floated after her, and Hawk turned back to see who was speaking.
“You are an ungrateful hussy, after all we have done for you, I would think…” The small woman following, and shouting, after Faith, pulled up with a gasp. For maybe a heartbeat she was silent, then she let rip with scream.
“Indians! We are being attacked by indians!”
Hawk stepped back, surprised and shocked at the violence of her reaction. The woman flew from the doorway, lace and satin skirts all aflutter, and began to ring the large bell which hung under the eaves, obviously an alarm bell rather than a door bell. The sound rang loud across the yard, while the woman continued to scream about indians.
Hawk moved down the steps, uncertain how to deal with this problem. In seconds men appeared from the surrounding buildings, three from one place and one from another, there were also two women, presumably wives of the hands. From inside the house another two women appeared, and they added to the noise.
Hawk glanced around in horror, it would only take one fool-hardy person to draw a gun, and this could be deadly, for him.
He was innocent!
He couldn’t help but wonder if Faith, who knew precisely who he was, and had confirmed that fact not a minute ago, was about to leave him to his fate. They did, of course, have history!
Then he spied salvation. Heading towards him at a run was a man he recognized, Jim Carter.
“Hawk! As I live and breathe, it’s good to see you.” Jim clasped his hand, turning towards the porch as he did so. “It’s all right Mrs. Duncan, he is a friend.”
“A friend?” she squawked. “He’s an indian! A savage!”
Hawk held his tongue and allowed the man to answer for him.
“No, Mrs. Duncan. This is Mr. Daniel Black Hawk, and he is only half indian.”
“And that makes a difference?”
“Indeed it does, some of us here, Mr. Duncan and Miss Faith in particular, owe their lives to this gentleman. You should make him welcomed!”
Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. The two women at her side, maids of some sort by the look of them, were whispering behind their hands.
“Well!” Mrs. Duncan let out a mighty huff. Exactly what she meant was unclear, but she turned her back and vanished into the house, pushing the two other women before her.
Jim continued to pump Hawk’s hand.
“How have you bin? Life treating you good? How’s Morgan and his pretty little wife?”
“They are well, they have a son.”
“Good, good.” He glanced at the house. “I guess you surprised Mrs. Duncan.”
“It didn’t go too well, did it?” Hawk observed, “Where is Craig Duncan?”
“On the range with the boys and young Flynn.”
“And why is Faith not with them?”
“Huh, since Mrs. Duncan arrived things have changed a bit. Miss Faith is not to ride with the hands any more. Mrs. Duncan says it is unladylike and spoils her chance with the young men. She ain’t what you call happy about it.”
Hawk looked over to the big barn, the direction in which Faith had fled.
“You think she is in the barn?”
“I would guess so. You’d better go find her, she needs a friend right now. She will tell you what’s going on. The girl is being… pushed to do something she don’t want.”
Hawk gave a nod of acceptance and turned towards the barn. Maybe his first port of call should have been the house, to speak with the new Mrs. Craig Duncan, but he’d had enough of having his ear bent for at least a few moments. Faith might be just as unwelcoming, but at least she wouldn’t be as loud.
He stepped quietly between the stalls.
“Faith?”
“I’m over here.”
He moved along the stalls to join her. She was stroking her pony.
“That wasn’t exactly how I had envisaged our first meeting.”
“And exactly how did you expect it to go? You abandoned me.”
“I did not. I had made you no promises of any kind, I’d not even… well… we had done nothing which counted for anything.”
“So kissing me counted for nothing?”
He regarded her solemnly. Of course it counted for something, a great deal, truth be told, but at that time he’d honestly not realized.
“You know I had to leave. Your father wanted me gone, he never liked me.”
“So why are you back, now? Do you expect your reception to be any different?”
“I can only hope, but if you step-mother is anything to go by, I am still persona non grata.”
***
Faith watched him with hungry eyes. He looked just the same; tall, dark and so very handsome, dressed as ever in dark clothes, with that gun on his hip. It hung there as if part of him. He had told her he was not a gunman, but a cowboy who carried a gun. That distinction mattered to him, but she knew from experience that the gun was far from an ornament.
She should not have shouted at him that way, but seeing him had been such a shock.
Or had it?
Only yesterday she had stood in that clearing and pictured him standing there. He had been so real in her memory.
Now he was here. What fate had led him back here just when she needed him the most? Was he honestly here to see her, or had simple chance led him back this way? Would he rescue her once again? Was there anything he could do to rescue her this time?
“Why are you here, Hawk?”
He gave a small shrug. “I guess I needed to… know.”
“To know what? Stop talking in circles. Tell me!”
“Before we get to that, there are a couple of things you might be interested to know. Howie Capel is dead. He took another girl, he paid. She got home safe.”
Capel! The man who she had feared most while held captive.
“Dead? Did you shoot him?”
Hawk gave another small nod. “Also, Niagret is dead too, the man who threatened Beth.”
“I know, she wrote me. We have exchanged a number of letters, but not recently. I know she has a son, named after you.”
Hawk smiled. “My godson.”
“That’s all good, but it doesn’t tell me why you are here.”
“I wanted to know… how you are getting along.”
“Badly! Everything here has gone wrong. Father has married a shrew of a woman who hates me, treats me like a child, and has now decided she wishes to be rid of me, so she has arranged my marriage.” Faith was well aware she sounded as shrewish as the woman she criticized.
“Arranged? As in you have no choice?”
“None whatever, and I’d never even met the man before yesterday.”
“He’s not… what you want?”
“No, he is not! Far from it. I want to choose who I marry. At least then if it all goes wrong I will only have myself to blame.”
“Ahh, and that was why you were arguing with your… step-mother?”
“Not exactly, she just told me I have to get rid of Juno, which I will not. Of course I argued about the marriage. You can’t expect me to just accept it.” She watched his face, trying to gauge his thoughts, but as usual he revealed little. “Although… I seem to have little choice as things stand.”
“And your father agrees to this?”
“My father allows Mrs. Duncan free rein where house and family are concerned, all he wishes to control is the ranch. I don’t think he cares one way or the other, certainly I can’t seem to catch him alone to speak with him.”
“What does your intended think of it? He is happy with the arrangement?”
“Don’t call him that!” she snapped. “I have no idea. As yet I’ve not had chance to speak with him alone. I can hardly discuss it in front of his parents and her.” She grimaced. “After lunch I have to go to town and meet him, again. I will try to ask him.”
“Maybe he is as reluctant as you?”
“I can only hope!” She paused, stroking her pony’s nose. She was well aware that her tone was a little desperate. “Please Hawk, I am not being overly dramatic here, I am telling it like it is. What am I going to do if he does want this to happen? Our parents have organized the wedding already. We are to be married on Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas Eve? That is only four days’ time.”
“I know! I am not ready for this!” she returned. “Maybe I should, as my step-mother says, be married. But I don’t think I deserve to be pushed into it with someone I don’t know. All I can do is run away, and I have nowhere to go. What am I going to do?”
She could hardly ask him straight out what she really wanted to know. Was he here for her? Would he take her away from all this madness? Did he actually care? The first thing she had felt when she saw him was a rush of anger. Anger that he had taken so long to come back. Now she harbored a desperate hope that he truly had come back for her, in the very nick of time.
“Hawk, are you going to help me?”
She watched him as he gnawed his lip indecisively. Indecision was never a trait she had associated with Daniel Black Hawk, he was forthright and positive, he knew who he was and what he was about, until now.
“I will try,” he acknowledged. “I will speak with your father, maybe even with your step-mother, if she will allow it. I suppose I could even speak to… your intended. What is his name?”
“Mr. Edward Shelton, son to Mr. Joseph Shelton, who has set up his law business in the town.”
Talking to people wasn’t what she wanted from him, but it was a start. If he could stop this, or even just delay it, maybe she could make him fall in love with her this time. Lord knows, she’d been in love with him since almost the day she had met him.
“Where is your father?”
“They are out on the west range, bringing cattle in closer before the real bad weather sets in.”
“Faith!” Claudia’s voice was shrill. “Faith, come in here this minute.”
Faith gave a dispirited sigh. “See? See what she is like? I have tried to like her, I have tried to get along, but everything I ever do is wrong. And now she does this to me. The woman hates me.”
“Surely not?”
“Surely she does. Why else would you treat someone this way? If you do meet Edward Shelton, you will understand. He is… not right somehow.”
“Faith!” The shriek was getting louder.
“I will have to go.”
Hawk caught her hand. “I will do my best to help.” He hesitated. “It’s good to see you, Faith.”
“I’m happy to see you too. Now I must go.” She pulled away and hurried to the house, tears blinding her eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
E arly afternoon saw Hawk out on the range in pursuit of the CD cowhands. He had promised Faith he would speak with her father, and sooner rather than later seemed advisable. This seemed to be the best way to catch the man alone, or at least with some privacy.
Dust on the horizon told him he had found his quarry. As he drew closer he could see a small group of cattle being herded back towards the ranch buildings.
Willis saw him and reacted with a shout. “Howdy, there! Hey Flynn, look who’s here!”
From the far side of the cattle, Flynn Duncan appeared.
“Whoowee, Hawk! Great to see you!”
Hawk acknowledged the two men with a wave, his attention was centered on the older man now riding up to join Flynn.
Craig Duncan. Faith’s father.
He headed to speak with the man.
“Good afternoon to you, I hope you are well?”
“Black Hawk,” Duncan nodded a greeting. “Tolerably well, thank you.”
He wasn’t chatty, but he never had been, and Hawk knew well that he harbored a deep-seated distrust of anything and anyone indian. It was testament to how grateful the man must have been for the help he had received two years since, that he even spoke to Hawk. Before he had ridden away two years ago, Duncan had thanked him, all be it grudgingly, but he had never invited him to return.
Now here he was, about to interfere in Duncan’s affairs once again.
“Mr. Duncan, I have just come from the ranch house.”
“No trouble is there?” Duncan was instantly on the alert.
“No, nothing like that but… there appears to be a problem.”
“Go on.”
Hawk flicked his gaze to Flynn, who had bulked up and grown in stature since their last meeting.
Flynn tipped his hat, “I will catch up with you later, Hawk. It’s good to see you.” He had also grown in perception; he rode off leaving Hawk alone with his father.
“I was speaking with Faith.” Duncan’s saturnine gaze centered firmly on Hawk’s face. “I understand she is to be married soon.”
“What concern is this of yours?”
“She tells me she is not… very happy about it.”
“Happy? Why should she be happy about it? The girl is twenty one years old, she should have settled with a man long since, but she’s been too busy playing around. Claudia… Mrs. Duncan, tells me I have indulged her far too much. It is time she was a dutiful daughter. She needs to marry and leave the ranch. We have found her a good match, she will want for nothing.”