Once she was off the horse, she looked around in a daze. The expression on her face indicated that she hadn’t expected to make it that far. Now that she was on her own, Abigail turned her back to Gus’s horse and started running.
All of that kicking and squirming had caused the horse to get its dander up. The big fellow shifted upon its hooves and let out a few snuffing breaths. With a bit of coaxing from Gus, the horse quieted down and came to a rest. Soon it looked toward Abigail with wide confused eyes. Gus was doing pretty much the same thing.
He watched her run for about sixty yards over a wide stretch of rocky ground that had some scrub bushes sprouting here and there. Beyond that, there were some thirsty-looking trees, a whole lot of open ground and the mountains. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
Without looking over her shoulder, Abigail replied, “Away from you! And away from that other one!”
“On foot?”
She stopped and stared at the mountains to the east. Her shoulders rose and fell with a series of deep, panting breaths. Placing her hands upon her hips and keeping her back to him, Abigail asked, “Are you going to give me your horse?”
“No.”
“Then it’ll have to be on foot.”
Sitting with one hand propped upon his saddle horn and the other upon the grip of his Colt, he told her, “I can’t just let you walk away.”
Abigail turned and stared at him. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Then why won’t you let me go?”
“Because,” Gus replied simply, “you’ll die.”
“Oh, is that a fact?”
“Near as I can tell, yeah. That’s a fact.”
Crossing her arms, Abigail cocked her head to one side and let a sneer sink into her face like water settling into a perfectly good patch of dirt to create mud. “And what makes you so certain of that? Is it because I’m just some weak little woman? If that’s the case, I’ll have you know I gave those kidnappers so much of a fight that they stopped coming near me. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll give you even more of a fight.”
“That’s not why I’m so certain,” Gus told her.
“Then why do you think I’ll die without some man and his gun to protect me?”
“Because you don’t have a horse or any water.” Holding up his hand, Gus ticked off his fingers one by one. “You also don’t have any shelter, a map, proper clothes or any weapons to fight off animals or anyone else that might come along. On top of all that, I’d wager you don’t have the first notion of where you’re headed.”
“You’re not the only one riding through this stretch of land, you know. I’m sure there are nicer men passing through who are willing to treat a lady like a lady.”
“True enough. Is that why you decided to jump off my horse and run straight onto an Indian burial ground?”
Abigail hopped up so quickly that both feet cleared the dirt. She scrambled to gather up her skirts with both hands and looked frantically at the ground on all sides. “I’m walking through a burial ground?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Gus chuckled. When she glared up at him, he added, “But neither do you. Do you even know which way it is to get back to Last Chance?”
“I wouldn’t go there if my life depended on it.”
“It’s the only town within a day’s ride of here. Since you’re walking, better make that three or four days. Maybe a week.”
“Perhaps I’ll walk along a set of train tracks.” She perked up at the thought of that and looked around. “That’s a very good idea. If you were any sort of man, you’d let me be on my way. What does an outlaw care what happens to me . . . unless you need to keep me alive for some filthy ransom?”
Gus gave his reins a gentle flick to get his horse moving. His intention had been to draw up a little closer to Abigail, but he only succeeded in driving her away. She whipped around fast enough to send her long blond hair swirling around her head and snapped her skirts with the quick back-and-forth movement of hands that moved like pistons in a steam engine.
“Don’t come after me!” she said. “I’m warning you!”
Following behind her, but not moving quickly enough to catch up, Gus replied, “You’re not a prisoner.”
“The way that partner of yours looks at me, I have a hard time believing that.”
“He rubs most folks the wrong way,” Gus said.
“When he watches me, he whispers like some sort of fiend.”
“A fiend, huh? Doyle will get a kick out of that.”
“You go ahead and tell him!” she shouted. “It’ll give you two something to say after you’ve patted each other on the back for killing a defenseless woman.”
“Why would we drag you all the way out here to kill you?” Gus asked.
“Maybe you just want to take me somewhere nobody will find me. For all I know, you could be dragging me to another bunch of your friends to do . . . well . . . do Lord only knows what!”
Abigail’s voice was so loud, it carried like a bullet and drifted on the air for a good while after her mouth was closed. For a man who lived and died by keeping his head down and staying quiet enough to go unnoticed, such a display went against Gus’s grain bad enough to hurt.
Gus tapped his heels against his horse’s side and rode around to get in front of Abigail. When she turned on the ball of her foot and stomped in another direction, Gus cut her off again. When she picked yet another direction, he nearly drew his pistol to shoot at her feet. Since that wouldn’t have gone over too well, he settled for a sharp “Stop.”
Abigail didn’t listen.
“Will you stop?”
This time, she grimaced and turned her back to him in a spiteful display of how much she wasn’t listening to him.
Gus swung down from his saddle and said, “Please. Stop.”
Abigail stopped. Her arms hung down at her sides and she looked up to the light blue sky over her head. “Why should I?” she asked.
“Because of what I mentioned before. You know, about you dying and such?”
Slowly, Abigail turned. She crossed her arms in what had already become a familiar way and tapped her foot against the exposed rock she was standing on. “Who are you?”
“My name is Gus McCord and my partner is Doyle Hill. Have you heard of us?”
Her mouth twisted up a bit and she closed one eye in a contemplative squint. Before long, she replied, “No. Why would I have heard of you? Are you two famous?”
“To some folks, perhaps.”
“Are you outlaws?”
Gus nodded. “Yeah, you might say that.”
“So you do intend on ransoming me?”
“Actually . . . no. That was never my intent.”
“Liar,” she spat. “That other one seems just as bad as those kidnappers and he’s your partner.”
“It may have crossed my mind, but only as a second plan in case the first one doesn’t work out.” When he saw the appalled expression on her face, Gus smirked. Apparently, she appreciated that as much as she’d appreciated his little joke. “We ain’t gonna kill you,” he assured her.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Do you know why I bothered doing any of this?” Gus asked as he approached her.
Abigail tensed a bit, but she didn’t turn and run. For all intents and purposes, she was the fidgeting rabbit that was fixing to scoot away at its first chance. Her face even twitched as Gus got closer, but Abigail didn’t seem to have the strength she’d had only a few scant moments ago.
Gus reached out for her hands, but she pulled away. Rather than try again, he said, “I found some of your things that were taken by those men who had you. Some of your clothes and some jewelry too. There was a ring and a bracelet.”
Tears formed in the corner of her eyes, but Abigail swiped them away before they could fall. “Good Lord. When my father sees that . . . he’ll know . . . he’ll think .
. .”
“That was the idea. I saw the blood and it made me think whoever owned them put up a hell of a fight before letting them go. Now I can see I was right.”
“I didn’t let any of those things go,” Abigail said defiantly. “They were taken from me, and yes . . . I put up a fight.”
Gus reached out for her and was only able to feel her hair against his fingertips before she turned away and started walking again. “Don’t touch me,” Abigail warned.
Just then the wound on Gus’s face felt twice as deep and the gaping holes in his mouth where some of his teeth should be felt like a hideous crater. Shoving all that aside for the useless drivel it was, he caught up to her and pushed the hair away from where it hung over her neck. Part of him felt victorious for finding the fresh scars there. Most of him was ashamed for looking.
“I knew they hurt you,” he said. “I saw the blood and saw what they tore away from you and I couldn’t bear it.”
Abigail looked ready to pull away from him, but kept from doing so. There was a mix of fear and disgust in her eyes, but now there was also the resignation that came along with defeat. “You’re right. There’s nowhere for me to go and no way for me to survive out here on my own. I’ve got no choice but to go along with you, so spare me the sentiments.”
Gus kept his eyes level and locked on her as he went on. “I’ve killed more than my share: lawmen, other killers, men who just looked at me the wrong way. There were women who got on my bad side and maybe even a few young ones who got harmed on account of me and Doyle riding through without giving a damn what we left behind.
“It gets easy after a while you know. Killing, I mean. After so much of it, all that death is like rain fallin’ on your head after you’re already soaking wet. A little more on top of all the rest don’t seem to matter. When I saw them things of yours, it mattered. Even after all the rain that’s fallen, this was just too much. Maybe I just tasted so much blood that I’m startin’ to choke on it.”
“And you thought coming for me would redeem you?”
“No,” Gus replied with a definitive shake of his head. “There ain’t no redeeming me. I just . . . had enough. When I heard about you and seen those men’s eyes, I knew there wasn’t no way in Creation you’d get back to your family alive. Instead of be a part of more killing, I thought I’d do something else for a change.”
“Like what?” Abigail asked.
Gus dug into his shirt pocket, fished out the ring he’d been keeping and handed it over. “Like return somethin’ instead of steal it.”
While she took the ring, Abigail studied it as though she’d never seen it before. She held out her right hand and started to slip the ring onto a finger that was bruised, cut and swollen. Wincing a bit, she moved the ring to the finger beside it and eased it on. It wasn’t a proper fit, but she extended her arm and gazed upon her hand with a genuine smile. “This . . . is probably one of the sweetest things that’s ever happened to me.”
“Sweet?”
She shrugged and added, “Don’t get a swelled head. It’s been a while since I’ve had more than a few winks of sleep and a proper meal, so I may be delirious. Right now, though . . . yes.” She reached up to pat Gus’s face and didn’t even flinch when her hand brushed against the scar that ran over his eye and down to his mouth. After that, she walked past him toward the waiting horse. “When’s the other one coming back?”
“He’s expecting us to catch up.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Gus walked back to the horse and climbed into the saddle. The Abigail Swann in front of him now was a far cry from the one he’d practically dragged from Bateman Supply.
“If you don’t mind,” Abigail said as she reached up to him.
Gus took her hand and pulled her up to sit behind him.
“Thank you,” she chirped.
Gus kept his mouth shut. They had a long ride in front of them and he thought it better to quit while he was ahead.
Chapter 15
By nightfall, Gus and Doyle had covered several miles by leapfrogging the way they always did when on the run. One scouted ahead, waited for the other to catch up and then allowed that man to ride on to do some scouting of his own. A little while later, the first would catch up, ride ahead and then scout. It was a simple system and it worked beautifully. Since it was only broken up by the occasional stop for water or a bite to eat, they tended to go almost as fast as they would if they were able to ride at a gallop without a care in the world.
The spot they’d chosen for a camp was nestled among a group of rocks along a fork of the Salt River. Even though the sound of rushing water made it difficult for them to hear someone creeping up on them, it also allowed them to build their camp and cook their dinner without having to worry too much about keeping quiet. Normally, Gus and Doyle would have shared some whiskey to take the bite from the chill in the air. The moment Doyle took a pull from his whiskey bottle and offered it to Abigail, Gus could tell this wouldn’t be a normal circumstance.
“That’s disgusting,” Abigail said with a sneer etched into her face.
Doyle looked at her and then down at the bottle in his hand. “What’s the matter? You don’t like whiskey?”
“Not when you’ve already drooled all over it.”
“Pardon me?”
“You heard what I said,” she snapped. “I’d rather lick a rock from the bottom of that river than drink from the same bottle as you.”
“In case you ain’t realized,” Doyle snarled, “you’re only alive by our good graces. We can just as easily tie you up and drag you from one of the horses than let you ride proper.”
She sat up and curtly turned her head away from him. “Gus wouldn’t let that happen.”
Doyle looked over to Gus, who was prodding a few cuts of salted pork, which sizzled in a dented pan. When he noticed his partner’s scrutiny, Gus shrugged and said, “I just wanna cook this and eat it.”
Since Abigail was purposely not looking at him, Doyle reached out to grab her face and turn it toward him.
“Easy,” Gus snarled.
Hearing that brought a confident smirk to Abigail’s face.
Doyle leaned in to hiss, “Just ’cause you’re more valuable alive don’t give you cause to grin like that. There’s plenty we could do that’s only made better when you’re alive and kickin’.”
If there was any fear in her, Abigail hid it well. In fact, she hid it so well that a hint of frustration could be seen on Doyle’s face as he let her go.
Glancing over to Gus, Abigail asked, “Is my supper ready?”
“Yeah. Maybe if we get some food in our bellies we can all stop being so cross.”
Doyle settled back into the rut he’d made in the dirt. “Maybe it ain’t food I need to put a smile on my face.”
“Give it a rest, Doyle,” Gus said. “Have some beans.”
The pot of beans sat on the edge of the fire so the flames could lick the chipped surface. Having sat there while being occasionally stirred by Gus, the beans were hot enough to steam. Doyle spooned some out and dumped them onto a tin plate next to the hunk of pork Gus served him. After that, he sat back so Abigail could come for her own helping.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
When she looked at him, Gus saw the contented lady who had made her first appearance after their most recent conversation. To be fair, however, it was obvious that she was pouring it on extra thick just to get under Doyle’s skin, and doing a real good job of it, to boot.
Abigail took the fork she was given and examined it carefully. The utensil was missing only one and a half tines, but she held it as though it had just been coughed up by a goat. “Are we going to stop riding in circles tomorrow?” she asked.
“You’re a passenger,” Doyle told her. “Passengers don’t get to say where we go.”
“Do I at least get to say who I ride with? Because I’d rather get home bound, gagged or tossed from the saddle than spend any unnec
essary time with you.”
“You got a real smart mouth on you, lady. Maybe I should—”
“Doyle. Listen,” Gus said.
But Doyle didn’t take his eyes off of her. Instead, he leaned forward and locked eyes with Abigail. “I already heard more’n enough. She’s making me wonder if we’re better off ransoming her. Even if we take a loss, I’d be happy to—”
“No!” Gus snapped. “Listen.”
Doyle swung his head around to look at his partner. A string of choice words was perched upon the tip of his tongue, but he kept from saying them when he saw that Gus was staring toward the river and straining to hear every little noise being carried upon the passing breeze. Doyle looked in the direction of the river, as well.
“There,” Gus said softly. “You hear it?”
“Hear what?” Abigail whispered.
Both men turned to her as if they meant to bite her head off. Doyle gritted his teeth and Gus held out his hand to stop her from saying anything else. As much as she wanted to speak, Abigail bit her tongue.
Seeing that she wasn’t about to make another move for a bit, Gus shifted his focus back toward the river. The fire was giving off enough light to see the edges of the small clearing, but there were still too many shadows for him to get a look at the river. Suddenly, a splash that was just loud enough to be heard over the constant flow of water drifted through the air.
The splash might have come from a frog’s belly hitting the top of the water. It could have been a stone coming loose and falling in or some critter scampering across to the other side. None of those things would have been so heavy and there was even less of a chance of those sounds drawing steadily closer every time they were heard.
Gus looked over to Doyle and found his partner already nodding at him. He’d heard it too. Without speaking a word, Doyle eased the Smith & Wesson from his holster, tapped its barrel against his chest and waved to the right. Gus nodded, drew his Colt and pointed to the left. Then both men started moving in their chosen directions.
Before he left the camp, Gus turned to Abigail. Rather than say anything out loud, he stabbed a finger downward and mouthed the words, Stay here. She must have understood him, because she nodded and huddled against a tree. Just when he thought she would stay put, Gus saw her lean forward again and open her mouth to speak. He hurried over to her before she could make a sound.
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