Dave appeared to be uninjured, though, as he pointed a gun at Denny.
“Get on your feet, lady,” he told her. “We’ve been chasing you the whole blasted night. We’re tired, and we’re in no mood for any more trouble.”
Benjy said, “With you just wearin’ that shirt, I can tell you what we’re in the mood for.”
“Stop that,” Dave snapped. “There’s not going to be any of that, and you know why.”
A surly scowl replaced the leer on Benjy’s face.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said grudgingly. “I know. But a gal like her puts ideas in a fella’s head, especially when she looks like she does right now.”
Dave ignored that, waggled the gun at Denny, and said, “Come on. Get up and get dressed. We’re going back. I won’t tell you again.”
Denny was still half-stunned from sleep. She was stiff and sore from the ordeal she had endured. But her brain was beginning to work. Quickly but thoroughly, she studied the two men and her surroundings, searching for anything that might give her an opportunity.
The fire had burned down during the night until it was just a heap of ashes this morning. Benjy’s gun lay on the ground beside her, a few feet away. Dave saw her eyeing it and said sharply, “Don’t you do it, sister. Reach for that Colt and I’ll shoot you. I swear, I’m fed up enough to do it.”
Denny believed him. She saw the anger and weariness in his eyes and knew he would do what he said.
But the gun wasn’t the only weapon she had. Something hard pressed into the back of her bare right thigh where she was sitting on the ground. A few moments earlier, she had figured out that it was the hilt of the knife she was feeling. She must have moved around some in her sleep, and then when she sat up so quickly, her leg had come down on the knife, hiding it from the two men. Probably they believed she had lost it during the night, if they gave it any thought at all.
She had to make sure they didn’t think about it now, and she knew one sure way to distract them.
“All right,” she said. “I know when I’m licked. You haven’t hurt me except when I was trying to fight you, so I’ll cooperate from here on out.”
Benjy nodded emphatically and said, “Now you’re gettin’ smart.”
“I’d really like to dry these clothes some more before we head back to your camp, though,” she went on. “They’re still damp enough that they’re uncomfortable.”
She reached down, grasped the bottom of her shirt and undershirt, and peeled both garments up and over her head. She clutched the clothes in the hand she put on the ground to brace herself as she got to her feet, and as she rose, she had the knife hidden under them. When she was standing, she took a deep breath and raised her other hand to push her tangled hair out of her face.
“Let me hang these up on a branch for a little while,” she said as she stepped toward Dave.
Benjy’s eyes were about to bulge right out of their sockets, just as Denny expected. Even Dave, hard-nosed professional owlhoot though he tried to be, was staring at her. His mouth hung open a little. He lowered the gun slightly.
Denny had the clothes in both hands now. As Benjy let out a whistle of admiration and started to say “Holeee—” Denny used her left hand to fling the damp garments into Dave’s face, blinding him and causing him to take a startled step backward.
Denny dived after the clothes. She slammed her left forearm against Dave’s gun hand, driving it farther toward the ground, and at the same time she shoved the knife into his chest with her other hand. She aimed for the heart and put all the power she had behind the thrust.
The gun boomed as Dave spasmed and jerked the trigger involuntarily, but the bullet must have gone into the ground. Denny knew she wasn’t hit. The knife had penetrated Dave’s chest all the way to the hilt. She tried to pull it free, but it stuck and she knew she didn’t have time to struggle with it. Dave’s eyes were huge with pain and shock now, rather than lust. His breath rattled grotesquely in his throat as he started to collapse.
Denny made a grab for Dave’s gun but missed it. Instead, she inadvertently snagged the shirt she had thrown in his face. Unarmed now, she bulled past the dying man and ran.
Over the wild pounding of her heart, she heard Benjy’s feet slapping on the ground behind her. Now that he had recovered from his surprise, he was giving chase, and his longer legs should have given him an advantage. But she was younger and had always been a fast runner. As a child, she had run races against some of the boys in England—never Louis, because his heart wouldn’t have stood up to the strain—and Denny won those races often enough to annoy the boys.
She knew she might be running for her life now, which gave her even more of an incentive. With Dave dead and no longer able to keep his big, rawboned partner under control, there was no telling what Benjy might do if he caught her.
Well, she amended, she knew one thing he would try to do—and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
She flashed into the trees, weaved around the trunks, and ducked under low-hanging branches, barely slowing down as she did so. Benjy would have a harder time of it, since he was bigger and clumsier. Denny had to take advantage of this chance to gain ground on him.
After several minutes of desperate flight, she came to a gully that was dry at the moment, although water probably ran through it whenever there were heavy rains. She slid down into it. Brush scraped and clawed at her bare flesh. She forced her way through the growth and stumbled along the bottom of the gully.
Up ahead, a couple of trees had fallen and lay at angles to each other across the gully, forming a little niche underneath them. That might be a place she could hide for a while. She picked up a broken branch and poked around in the area underneath the deadfalls to make sure no snakes or other varmints were lurking in there. Leaves, pine needles, and other detritus had blown under the trunks.
Some rats scurried out from a nest. They appeared to be the only inhabitants of the little niche. Denny got down on her knees and crawled under the trees. There was enough room for her to sit up. She pulled the shirt back on and felt a little better once she had.
But she was still barefoot, less than half-dressed, and unarmed, and with a brute like Benjy looking for her, none of that boded well. She hefted the branch she had used to poke around under the trees. It had served that purpose well, but she didn’t think it was heavy enough to make much of a club.
She caught her breath as she heard something crunching through the brush not far away, making too much noise to be an animal. That left only one possibility.
Benjy.
Denny held her breath as the searching footsteps came closer. She clutched the branch tightly. It was all she had. If she could ram its jagged end into his already injured face, it might discourage him . . .
The noises stopped.
Still not breathing, Denny listened intently. Where had he gone? He had to be somewhere close. Had he spotted her under the tree trunks and was sneaking up on her, trying to employ stealth now? Benjy didn’t seem like the stealthy type, but she couldn’t count on that.
A moment later, she learned just how much she couldn’t count on it, as boot leather scraped on one of the trunks right above her head. Benjy jumped off the deadfall, landed in the gully, and reached into Denny’s hiding place to close a hand around her left ankle.
“Got you now!” he crowed as he roughly dragged her out into the open.
CHAPTER 38
Big Rock
Brice had breakfast at the boardinghouse where he lived, enjoying the spread of flapjacks, ham, hash browns, and fried eggs that his landlady set out. The company wasn’t bad, either. The townspeople who lived here were friendly and liked having a lawman as a fellow boarder, whenever he was in town, that is. Brice’s work as a deputy marshal kept him out on the trail quite a bit, but he maintained the rented room in Big Rock for when he wasn’t assigned to a case.
After he finished eating, he figured he would go by the telegraph office and see if there had bee
n any more replies to his wires. They were still trickling in, but so far they hadn’t achieved any positive results. The gang of bank robbers that had left a trail of looted vaults and dead bodies behind them in Wyoming seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.
Brice hoped it was just a matter of time until they struck again and he got a lead on them. That feeling sort of bothered him, though, because it was almost like he was wishing for a crime to be committed and that went against the grain for a lawman. But he wasn’t sure what else he could do at this point.
Monte Carson’s office was on Brice’s way. He stopped in to say hello to the sheriff, who was pouring himself a cup of coffee from the battered old pot simmering on the stove.
After they’d said hello and Brice had accepted the sheriff’s offer of a cup of the steaming black brew, Monte asked, “Have you had any luck with those wires you sent out?”
“I was just thinking about that,” Brice admitted. He shook his head. “So far, not a thing—”
The door of the sheriff’s office opened quickly and a young cowboy hurried in, leaving the door ajar behind him. Brice and Monte both turned to look at him in surprise. The youngster came to an abrupt halt and said, “Howdy, Sheriff. You, too, Marshal Rogers. I’m mighty glad the two of you are here together. Smoke told me to find you both.”
“Your name’s Orrie, isn’t it?” Monte said. “You ride for the Sugarloaf?”
“Yes, sir, both of them things is true. I ride fast, too, so Smoke sent me with a message. Miss Denny’s missin’.”
Brice choked on the sip of coffee he’d been taking. He set the cup down abruptly enough that some of it sloshed out.
“What do you mean, ‘Denny’s missing’?” he demanded.
“She rode up to one of the line camps yesterday with supplies for the fellas who’re stayin’ there,” Orrie explained. “But she never came back. Yesterday, after that big ol’ storm blew through, Smoke got to worryin’ that something might’ve happened to her. Her horse could have spooked, ran away with her, and threw her, maybe. So he went to look for her and took some of the crew with him, includin’ me.”
Brice didn’t think it was likely Denny would lose control of any horse unless it was that loco black stallion Rocket. She was too good a rider for that, even in bad weather.
“You didn’t find her?” Brice couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice as he asked the question.
“No, sir. We rode all the way to that line camp and back, takin’ the same trail she would have, and we never saw hide nor hair of her.” Orrie shrugged. “Of course, by then it had rained hard enough that ol’ Pearlie said he was gonna start roundin’ up some boards to build an ark, so it ain’t likely there would’ve been any tracks or other sign left.”
Monte said, “If I’ve ever known a young woman who’s able to take care of herself, it’s Denny Jensen.” Despite that statement, he sounded worried, too. “I reckon Smoke has search parties out again this morning?”
“Yes, sir. He’s mighty worried, and so’s Miss Sally. The crew’s spreadin’ out all over the Sugarloaf, and I don’t figure our boys’ll be too careful about stayin’ right on our range, neither. But Smoke thought maybe it’d be a good idea to ask for help from the town, too.”
“It sure is.” Monte was already on his feet. He reached for his hat and went on, “I’ll get some reliable men together and head out there right away.”
“You can do that,” Brice said, “but I’m going now, as soon as I get my horse saddled.”
Orrie said, “Let me swap mounts down at the livery stable and I’ll ride back with you, Marshal.”
Brice shook his head as he strode toward the door.
“Sorry, but I’m not waiting for anybody. You can come with Monte and the other men.”
Then he was outside, heading at a fast walk toward the livery stable where he had left his horse.
He broke into a run before he got there.
* * *
Denny wound up lying on her back. Being hauled out from her hiding place like that had left some fresh scratches and scrapes on her hide. She couldn’t reach Benjy’s face from where she was, so she slashed at his legs with the broken branch.
He jumped back out of range of the feeble attack and laughed.
“I don’t reckon that’s gonna do you much good, sweetheart. I got my gun and knife back now, and a branch ain’t no good against them.” His expression sobered. “I ain’t a-gonna give you the chance to do to me what you done to poor ol’ Dave. That was a mighty dirty trick, distractin’ us with your feminine charms like you did.”
Denny was angry enough that she practically snarled at him as she said, “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll turn and walk away. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but you’re going to be sorry.”
“I’ll be so sorry that I’ll never forgive myself if I pass up this chance.” He drew his gun. “You and me are gonna go back up that hill to the camp, and when we get there, we’re gonna have ourselves some fun. You might as well get that through your head right here and now.”
That was never going to happen, Denny resolved. She would fight him tooth and nail. She would force him to kill her before she’d submit.
But to do that, she had to be back on her feet. She drew her legs up under her, put a hand on the ground to brace herself, and started to rise.
Benjy grinned again and said, “Now you’re bein’ reasonable. You just go along with what I say, darlin’, and things’ll be a whole heap more pleasant for both of us.”
He didn’t understand. She was getting up so she could fight again—
“Hello!”
The man’s voice came from the bank of the gully, maybe ten yards away. Denny jerked her head in that direction. She could make out the figure standing there, but with the sun behind him, she couldn’t see him well enough to identify him.
She knew that voice, though.
Benjy whirled around at the unexpected hail. He started to raise his gun, then lowered it instead and said in a puzzled voice, “What—”
That was all he got out before the man on the bank shot him. The gun in the newcomer’s hand cracked and spat fire, and Benjy’s head lurched backward. He took a step to the side. His grip on his gun loosened so that the weapon turned over on his finger as it hung by the trigger guard for a second, then slipped off and thudded to the ground at his feet.
Benjy made a half turn caused by a last-second paroxysm of nerves and muscles. Denny saw the red-rimmed hole in his forehead and knew the small-caliber bullet had bored into his brain and bounced around inside his skull, turning gray matter to mush and completing its deadly mission. Slowly, Benjy toppled over like one of those trees that had fallen across the gully. He lay in a crumpled heap and didn’t move again.
Count Giovanni Malatesta slid down the bank, still holding in his hand the gun that had slain Benjy, and as he reached the bottom of the gully, he called, “Denise! Cara mia! Are you all right?”
Denny stepped forward quickly and scooped up the gun Benjy had dropped. She almost lifted it, pointed it at Malatesta, and ordered him to stop right where he was, but then she hesitated. He had just saved her life. Was the hostility she felt toward him just the result of old habits? Old hatreds?
She lowered the gun to her side, allowed him to rush forward, throw his arms around her, and hug her tightly against him. She didn’t let go of the gun, though, just in case she changed her mind about shooting him.
“Cara mia,” he breathed. “Thank God I found you in time. Where is the other one?”
“Dead,” Denny said. “I . . . I killed him . . . earlier.”
She tried to keep her voice strong, but it broke from exhaustion and the terrible strain she had been under and the sudden, unexpected relief of knowing that both her captors were dead.
A voice in the back of her brain stubbornly told her she still needed to get away, but she couldn’t fight anymore. She stood there trembling and allowed Malatesta to hold her. After a moment
she pressed her face against his shirtfront and started to cry.
CHAPTER 39
The Sugarloaf’s headquarters appeared deserted when Brice rode in, but someone inside the big house must have heard the swift rataplan of his horse’s hoofbeats. As he reined in, the front door opened and Sally Jensen hurried out onto the porch, followed by Inez Sandoval, the housekeeper and cook who worked in the main house.
Sally waved a hand and called, “Brice! Hello!” She came to the porch railing and rested her hands on it, closing them tightly in the anxiety that gripped her. “Have you heard any news about Denise?”
“Only that she’s missing,” Brice replied. “That’s why I’m here, ma’am.” Brice tautened the reins as his horse moved around skittishly, perhaps picking up on his own emotional state. “I was hoping you’d have word by the time I got here. Actually, I was hoping somebody would have found her and brought her back by now.”
Sally shook her head. “No. Smoke’s not back yet. None of them are.” She seemed to be trying to keep the dismay out of her voice and off her face, but she wasn’t succeeding too well in either of those efforts.
“Well, I rode out here to help with the search, and Monte Carson shouldn’t be too far behind me with a lot of other men from Big Rock, so I’m sure we’ll find her before too much longer—”
“Señora Jensen!” Inez exclaimed, breaking in to what Brice hoped were words of encouragement. “Look!”
She pointed, and when Brice looked in the direction the housekeeper indicated, he saw a rider heading toward the big house, still a couple of hundred yards away. Brice didn’t recognize the man in the dark suit and black hat at first, but then a fair-haired head poked around the newcomer’s shoulder to see where they were. Brice realized somebody was riding double with the man—and he knew who that somebody was.
“Denny!” he shouted as he wheeled his horse around and kicked the animal into a run again.
The man urged his mount to a slightly faster gait as well, and the gap closed quickly. Brice recognized Count Giovanni Malatesta and was surprised that the Italian nobleman was the one who had found Denny. Nobody had even said anything about Malatesta being out here searching.
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