Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights

by Leigh Greenwood

  “No. Except for ours, all the ranches are pretty much the same size. We were all getting along fine until Mongo brought his herds in.”

  “There wasn’t enough grass for his cows, so everything revolves around Mongo.”

  “What do you think will happen next?”

  “I don’t know. I was sure something would happen during the roundup—I don’t mean Mongo’s being shot. I never suspected that—but well be done tomorrow, and there’s no sign of trouble. In fact, I get the feeling the other ranchers even accepted my challenge about keeping their herds on the other side of the river.”

  “Dad will be pleased. He might not even need the new men. I miss him,” Pamela said quite unexpectedly. “I know he’s not back yet. He’d be out here in a flash if he were, but there’s bound to be a letter explaining why he’s taking so long. Dad always writes. He wrote me hundreds of letters when I was away at school.”

  With her father’s return, Slade’s reason for putting off his departure would be gone. He had been determined to live in a fool’s paradise for as long as possible, but it would be over soon, and he might as well face it.

  “Dave says his leg is just about healed,” Slade commented. “The end of the roundup will be a natural time for him to take over again.”

  Slade didn’t want to give up the job. He liked being responsible for the crew, being close to the land, making decisions. He also liked being close to Pamela.

  “What will you do?” She didn’t know how to ask without making him think she wanted him to leave, but she had to find out.

  “Drift I suppose. I may hang around a bit though. I’d like to meet your father. And I’d like a peek at the precious Frederick of yours.”

  “You needn’t say it like he’s a specimen to be kept under glass,” Pamela snapped.

  “I guess his coming to Arizona means he’s slipped his leash for a little while at least. I hope nothing big and bad gobbles him up before he gets here.”

  “Slade Morgan, you’re the most stubborn, opinionated, egotistical man I’ve ever met. Just because Frederick isn’t like you is no reason to disparage him. There are thousands of truly remarkable men all over the world, probably hundreds of thousands, who aren’t in the least like you.”

  Though I doubt any of them are as handsome, her heart cried. But Pamela turned deaf ears to her heart. Her heart had gotten her in trouble in the first place. And after her common sense had extricated her, her heart got her right back into trouble again. Never, in all her life, would she have believed she could be such a woolly-headed female. Never would she have believed that a handsome face could completely override her common sense.

  In all honesty, Slade wasn’t so terrible. But that didn’t matter. She simply wanted a different kind of man for a husband.

  “Maybe it would be a good idea for you to head on to California. With Dave taking over again, it could get a little awkward.”

  Strands of his blond hair escaping from beneath his hat caught Pamela’s attention. Straight as a stick and just as unruly, it was darker now, but she found him even more attractive when he was a little mussed. Not dirty, just a little untidy.

  And Slade was always a little untidy.

  “You firing me?”

  “No,” she hastened to add. They might be unable to agree on anything, but she didn’t want him to think she thought he had done a poor job. “I just think that, under the circumstances, you might want to leave now. I take it you wouldn’t accept a permanent job?”

  Now why did she have to go ask that question? Suppose he accepted? Suppose he decided he wanted to stay at the Bar Double-B for the rest of his life? She couldn’t stand the thought of that. Having Slade around the ranch every day, seeing his handsome face and disturbing body, knowing she only had to call his name and he would appear. No! She couldn’t stand it. She hated to admit it, but she might as well face facts. Where this man was concerned, she was nearly a functional idiot.

  “No, I wouldn’t accept a permanent job. I don’t think I was cut out to be a cowboy. Seems everywhere I go, trouble’s not far behind. You don’t need that. Nobody does.”

  Now he had her feeling sorry for him. Why couldn’t he stay the same? Why did he have to keep changing ail the time? It was like being around six people instead of one.

  “When you stop depending on your guns to solve your problems, you might find they’re all gone. You can sneer at Frederick and the other men you scorn as Easterners, but they know how to live without fighting, killing, or stealing. When I think of all that’s been going on these last few days, I don’t know how I’ve kept from heading straight back to Baltimore.”

  “Because however much you’re like your mother, you’re also your father’s daughter. You’re a fighter.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. For two cents, I’d give the Bar Double-B and every foot of land to anybody who wanted it.”

  “You’d fight tooth and toenail if anybody threatened to take away a single inch of what you think is yours,” Slade replied. “You talk about Baltimore and your friends all the time. Maybe you are like them, maybe you will be happy when you return, but you’re also a daughter of the West. You could no more give up your land than you can admit you’re wrong. Just what do you think you’ve been doing out here this last week?”

  “Putting up with an incredible amount of insolence from you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my father’s gone and Dave’s down with a bad leg.”

  “You’ve put up with me for the same reason you’d have put up with anybody else who took this job, because you were determined to hold onto everything you have. You can sell it, give it away, even destroy it, but you won’t let anybody take it from you.”

  “What makes you think you know me so well?” Pamela demanded. Her eyes flashed a message of anger, but Slade saw something else in their depths.

  “Because a wolf can always recognize its own kind, Pamela. And whether you believe it or not, you’re a wolf.”

  “Don’t you dare, Slade Morgan! Don’t you dare presume we’re alike.”

  “I presume more than that,” he said pulling her toward him. “I presume you want me as much as I want you, even though you’re too damned tied up in knots to know it, or admit it if you did.”

  “If I wasn’t so furious, I’d laugh in your face,” Pamela snarled. “I don’t want anyone.”

  “Deny you’re trembling because you’re in my arms …”

  “I’m trembling with anger.”

  “… or that your heart is beating wildly …”

  “With rage.”

  “… or that your lips hunger for mine.” Before Pamela could reply, Slade’s mouth came down on hers, claiming her lips in a deep, searing kiss.

  Oh God, Pamela groaned as she struggled to keep from throwing her arms around Slade’s neck, why can’t I make up my mind about this man? You have, her mind shrieked, you made it up almost the moment you set eyes on him. You want Slade. You want him more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life, but you don’t want what he stands for.

  Pamela gave up. Right now she couldn’t possibly think, not with Slade scrambling her wits with his kisses. They called forth a similar response from her, a response that seemed wonderfully natural for all its strangeness.

  Slowly, as the heat of his body invaded hers, her resistance weakened, and she molded herself to his frame, her sensitive breasts pressed hard against his chest, her leg captured between his thighs, the swell of his manhood pressing against the heat of her abdomen. Her arms encircled his neck and she yielded to his kiss.

  It felt so wonderful to be in his arms, to feel their strength surrounding her. She had never been held like this, no one she knew back East would have dared handle her so roughly, but she liked the way he touched her. His hands were strong and possessive, but they were gentle, too. She felt valued and protected. Her father had always made her feel that way, but Slade had found a much more appealing way of
showing it.

  Oblivious to the soft sound of rough fabric rubbing together as their bodies strained against each other, Slade kissed her ear and the side of her neck. Pamela let her head fall back so he could have uninhibited access to her throat. She didn’t want to do anything to stop him. All her life she had tried to behave according to her mother’s definition of a lady. Her behavior now could never qualify, but she didn’t care. She had never felt better in her life. If only the roundup could go on forever.

  She felt Slade stiffen. Turning startled eyes on his face, she started to speak, but he placed a finger over her parted lips. Then she saw the bush move. Someone was huddled in the brush about twenty yards away.

  “When I reach for my gun, drop to the ground,” Slade whispered in her ear as he continued kissing it.

  “Suppose it’s one of the boys?” Pamela could hardly believe that even danger didn’t have the power to take her mind completely off Slade’s kisses.

  “After that first night, I told them never to follow you if you were with me. I can take care of you myself.” Slade’s hands moved from the small of her back to her sides, closer to his guns.

  The bushes continued to move soundlessly. Whoever was hiding there was being extremely careful to make no sound. Could it be the man who had shot Mongo or the one who shot Dave and Jody? Were they one in the same?

  “Now!” Slade hissed imperatively. She dropped to the ground and rolled away to the cover of some low rocks which cut into the soft flesh of her side. At the same time, Slade sprang in the opposite direction, dropped to a crouch behind a tree, and drew his guns.

  “Throw down your guns and come on out,” Slade ordered.

  Being careful to remain behind the rocks, Pamela rolled up on her elbow so she could see. They could hear the scurry of feet in the dry leaves, but no one called out or emerged from cover.

  “You’ve got ten seconds,” Slade said, “before I spray the whole area with lead.”

  Silence.

  Slade put a bullet into the rocks behind the thicket. “Five seconds.”

  The bush gave one final, brisk shake and a white-faced maverick calf emerged from the dark green leaves. It looked at Slade with wide, frightened eyes before dashing between them and into another thicket down near the stream.

  After a moment of shocked silence, Pamela exploded with a peal of laughter. She pulled herself into a sitting position on the rock, but she laughed so hard she nearly tumbled off again.

  “It could have been a gunman,” Slade said, but he grinned too.

  They both heard the sound of running feet. Everyone in the camp was coming to investigate the gunfire.

  “You’d better think of something better than that. Once they find out you’ve mistaken a defenseless calf for desperate murderer, your reputation will be ruined.”

  When the cowhands came up, they found Pamela holding to her rock and Slade leaning against a tree, both the helpless victims of uncontrollable laughter. Nobody could get a word out of either one of them that made sense.

  Pamela couldn’t imagine why the marshall should be this far from town. Not that he had much in Maravillas to keep him busy. Still, she couldn’t remember seeing him at the ranch more than once or twice during the last year. She hurried over to where he stood talking to Walter Nilson, Hen McCafferty, and Thurston Peck.

  “Well howdy, Miss White,” Marshall Taylor Alcott said, turning quickly to greet Josh White’s daughter. “I didn’t expect to see you out here. “He winked. “Bet you wouldn’t be if your father weren’t away.”

  Pamela flushed in spite of herself. Marshall Alcott always made her feel like she ought to be home sewing samplers or doing something else conventionally feminine. A heavy-set man of medium height with thinning white hair, no one mistook the muscle for fat or thought his white hair meant his powers were diminishing. Still in his early forties, Taylor Alcott held this section of the Arizona territory under tight control the only way it could be held, with gun and muscle.

  “Daddy left me in charge,” Pamela explained, her chin rising just a mite as she spoke. “The roundup is just another part of the job. But it’s not part of yours. What are you doing out here? You’re not having trouble in Maravillas, are you?”

  “Naw, everything’s real quiet. In fact, with all the men away on roundup, it’s too quiet. I was just wondering when the boys would be coming back to town. Ain’t practically nobody got out of bed since they left.”

  “You mean the Wagon Wheel Saloon can’t find anybody foolish enough to buy their rotgut whiskey?”

  “Something like that,” the marshall said and winked at Pamela. “Sure does seem quiet though. My jail’s been empty for going on three weeks. I’m so lonesome I’ve started talking to my horse.”

  “You didn’t come out here just for company,” Pamela said. “Seems to me I remember you saying you didn’t like long rides through the desert.”

  “Can’t say as I do. Much nicer to sit in my chair in the shade.”

  “And let Junie Sykes bring you cold beer from the saloon.”

  “I can’t turn it down. Miss White, not after she’s walked all that way.”

  Pamela laughed, but she wouldn’t be put off. “Come on, Marshall, confess. What got you out of your chair and away from Junie Sykes?”

  The marshall’s expression remained relaxed and genial, but his eyes changed. They turned almost yellow, a color Pamela didn’t like.

  “I came because I heard Mongo Shepherd got shot. Didn’t like the sound of that. We ain’t had a rancher killed in some time.” His yellow eyes scanned the faces of the small gathering around him. “Have any idea who did it?”

  “No,” Thurston Peck said after a slight pause. “Nobody even heard the shot. Some of his boys found him several hours later.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jud Noble said as he broke into the circle. “He could have been shot right before we got there.”

  “Now take it easy, Jud,” Thurston said, looking uneasy. “You know Miss White said …”

  “I know what she said, but the only man who had a reason to want Mr. Shepherd dead is the Bar Double-B foreman.”

  “You’re crazy,” the marshall said, gaping in Jud. “Dave Bagshot wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  “I don’t mean Dave. Somebody shot him, too, and Miss White got herself a new foreman. Only this Morgan fella is trying to spark his boss, and he can’t stand the sight of Mr. Shepherd. They had another run-in a few mornings back. The boss promised they’d settle things that evening, but somebody shot him first.”

  Pamela couldn’t stop the flush that turned her crimson when Jud mentioned Slade’s courtship. Having nearly every eye in the group turn in her direction didn’t improve the situation either. It wouldn’t do her any good to try to explain her own confusion about Slade. If anybody had seen them kissing, and she could only assume now that someone had, they wouldn’t believe her. In fact, they’d think worse of her. Ladies didn’t go about kissing men they didn’t like a great deal. If they did, they weren’t considered ladies.

  “Pamela’s foreman was in camp all morning,” Walter Nilson said. “He didn’t leave until past noon. There’s plenty can vouch for that. We’re pretty sure somebody shot Mongo well before that.”

  “You can’t know that,” Jud insisted.

  “Slade wouldn’t shoot anybody in the back,” Pamela said, finding her voice. “He doesn’t have to.” The marshall’s gaze swung around to Pamela, his eyes more intensely yellow than ever.

  “You hire a gunslinger, Miss White?”

  “No, he used to be a trick shot in a carnival,” Pamela explained, fervently hoping she didn’t blush again. “He did a trick with some coins.”

  “He shot the hell out of six twenty-dollar gold pieces before they hit the ground,” Thurston Peck said. “Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “You say Dave was shot and this Morgan became your foreman?” the marshall asked Pamela, his mind obviously trying to digest this new information. “How di
d all this come about?”

  “Slade walked into the ranch a few weeks ago. His horse had broken a leg. His feet were in pretty bad shape so I let him steep in the bunkhouse. Someone tried to burn my barn that night and Slade stopped them.”

  “You didn’t tell us anything about your barn,” Thurston Peck said. “Who did it?”

  “We don’t know. They got away. Took all of us to put the fire out. We wouldn’t have been able to do it if Slade hadn’t been there. When they brought Dave in, he’d been shot in the leg, he remembered he had worked with Slade a time or two before he hired on with Dad. I hired Slade mostly on his recommendation.”

  “Wasn’t another of your men shot?”

  “Jody. That was after Dad left for Santa Fe.”

  “I heard about that,” the marshall said, allowing his gaze to slowly travel from one rancher to another. “It would be a shame to have a range war break out, especially after all these years of getting along so peaceably. I wouldn’t like that. I’d have to spend too damned much time in the saddle.” The ranchers’ gazes didn’t falter before the marshall’s warning, but Pamela knew none of them would willingly take on Taylor Alcott. There were too many gunhands buried in the graveyard at Maravillas to make it look like a bargain.

  “You keeping this Slade Morgan on after the roundup?”

  “I offered him a job, but he turned it down.”

  “Moving on?”

  “He wants to see California.”

  “Might be a good idea. People with a gun reputation attract trouble. There’s always some fool who wants to see just how good he is.”

  “It seems unfair to blame Slade for what other people do.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t seem very Christian, but then lots of things ought to be different from how they are. But I don’t try and change things. I just deal with them like they are.” Nobody seemed to have anything else to say. “I think I’ll mosey over and talk to Mongo before I leave.”

  “He’s in my wagon,” Pamela said. “Slade insisted I take care of him,” she added when the marshall looked a little surprised. “He also insisted one of Mongo’s men stay with him,” she said, pointedly looking at Jud.