Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights

by Leigh Greenwood

  Pamela allowed her horse to travel at its own pace. It was impossible to venture off the trail, and she needed all her concentration to find a place that looked safe enough to spend the night.

  Pamela pulled her horse to a stop between two huge pines. She looked around on all sides, but she saw nothing which could be used for shelter. Everywhere she looked she saw huge boulders and shelves of hard rock or hard-packed soil only very thinly covered with a carpet of needles. She didn’t even see an indentation in the canyon walls deep enough to cover her if it should rain. She didn’t want to continue. The fading light no longer reached under the trees. She would have felt safer if she could have returned to the desert floor, but she knew it was impossible. She would ride on a little farther, but she would have to stop soon, even if she had to sleep in the middle of the trail.

  She started her horse moving once again, silently praying she would find shelter soon. As she passed under a thick limb of the second of the two pines, the blood-curdling cry of a mountain lion shattered the night. Her horse screamed in panic and reared against the restraint of the reins. Pamela looked up at the limb and into the glowing red eyes of a huge male cougar, crouched and ready to spring.

  Pamela didn’t remember attaching the scabbard to the saddle, but instinctively she reached for her rifle, found it, and aimed as the cat sprang from the tree limb. The last thing she saw was the huge, gaping jaws as the cat sprang at her from above.

  * * *

  Slade was reaching out to take the coffee pot from the fire when he heard the mountain lion scream. It didn’t bother him, lions always avoided people whenever possible, but still he glanced over at his horse. The dun jerked up his head, pricked his ears, and sniffed the trail leading down out of the mountains. But he remained calm. The lion couldn’t be close by. Slade had reached for his coffee pot once more when the rifle shot reverberated through the hills.

  Moments later he heard the muffled sound of a galloping horse.

  Slade dropped his cup and threw the saddle on the dun. The horse sounded like it was galloping out of control, and that could either mean the man was injured or, more likely, down on the ground. Moments later Slade galloped down the trail as fast as he dared in the darkness, afraid of what he would find.

  He came upon the loose horse less than five minutes later. The blood on the saddle so preoccupied him he almost missed the brand. The Bar Double-B. It was Pamela’s horse.

  Slade had never known such fear. Even when he faced all three Briarcliffs, knowing there was virtually no way he could come out alive, it had been his cavalier disdain of danger that brought him through the gun battle without a scratch.

  But now he felt the icy cold fingers of sheer terror encircle his heart. Pamela was somewhere back on that trail. And so was the mountain lion.

  Heedless of the dark and the dangerous trail, Slade drove his heels into the flanks of the hammerhead dun, and the beast leapt away at a hard gallop. Pamela’s horse followed behind.

  Afterwards Slade couldn’t remember that wild ride down the mountain side, the agonizingly slow minutes of sickening fear, the horror that he would round a bend and see the lion standing over Pamela’s torn body. He was only aware of the need to find her no matter what the danger.

  The scream almost unmanned him.

  It was a woman’s scream, the terror in her voice almost tangible. He descended into the enveloping shadows of the pine forest without slackening his speed. Only a stray beam of moonlight filtering through the trees kept him from galloping over Pamela and the lion. She lay on the ground, the lion on top of her.

  Slade threw himself from his horse and drew his knife at the same time. Landing on the ground, he ignored the blood that covered Pamela’s clothes, ignored her frantic efforts to escape the lion. He attacked the beast, driving his knife deep into his heart time after time.

  Only when the lion failed to respond to his lethal attack did Slade realize it was already dead.

  Flinging the carcass aside, he knelt down and swept Pamela into his arms.

  “Dad’s dead,” she told him.

  And then, held securely in the arms she had been searching for all afternoon, she cried.

  Pamela lay near the fire, a cup of hot coffee in her hands. She had exchanged her blood-stained clothes for some of Slade’s. The blanket covering her hid the fact that they didn’t come anywhere near fitting.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t stay in one of the cabins,” she said. “Why would you want to sleep on the ground when you could be sleeping in a bed?”

  “For the same reason you set out not knowing where you were going instead of waiting until I got back. Blind, dumb, obstinate hardheadedness.”

  “I had to find you. I couldn’t stay in that house, not alone.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Belva to stay with you? Or you could have gone looking for Dave and the boys. Anything except take out across unknown desert and mountains. You could have died out there.”

  “I don’t need any more reminders,” Pamela said. Shivers of fright still racked her body. “I just had to find you. That’s all.”

  Slade set his cup of coffee on the ground and settled down next to her. “I’m glad, now that you’re here. But if you ever pull a crazy stunt like that again, I’ll…” Slade decided it would be better if he didn’t say what he would be tempted to do.

  “Did the marshall tell you how your father died?”

  “Just that it must have been some time ago.”

  “Somebody knew what he meant to do in Santa Fe, and they waited to kill him.”

  “He said they shot Dad from close range. Slade, who would do a thing like that? Dad must have known the man. He must have pulled up on the trail and waited for Dad to ride up, never guessing he meant to kill him.”

  The tears threatened to overwhelm her again, but she doggedly held them back. She had done little more than cry in the two hours since Slade had pulled her from under the mountain lion. She had even continued to weep uncontrollably while he changed her clothes. She couldn’t start again now. She needed to talk.

  “Who could have done it, Slade? How could anybody who knew Dad shoot him and hide his body in a ravine?”

  “The same man who’s been manipulating Mongo. He’s wanted your ranch all along, but he couldn’t find a convenient way to start trouble before Mongo’s herds arrived, at least not one which would also cover his tracks. Everyone had enough land for their needs. Then Mongo arrived and conflict became inevitable. When you decided not to marry Mongo, you gave the killer his opening. If he could eliminate your father and somehow prod Mongo into starting a general range war, several of the ranchers might be killed, and all of this would be here for the taking. My being here just happened to be a lucky break. He figured I’d kill Mongo in that fight over the maverick. Failing that, and it did fail because of you, Mongo would be shot and I would be blamed for it.”

  “But you never went anywhere alone, so no one could blame you when Mongo was shot.”

  “Jud Noble tried hard enough. That’s why I insisted you stay in camp. I already thought your father was dead. If anything happened to you—well, after that, it wouldn’t have mattered to me what happened to the ranch.”

  Slade put his arm around Pamela and drew her close. He kissed the top of her head. When Pamela tried nervously to pull her hair back from her face, Slade captured her hand in his. She had lost her hair pins in the confrontation with the lion, and she wanted to put it back up.

  Slade thought she’d never look more lovely, more approachable.

  “When did you start to care for me?” she asked. “I mean really care?”

  “When you took care of my blisters.”

  Pamela giggled. “That’s silly. If you could have seen your face.” She became serious. “You must have been in terrible pain all the time. Besides, I wasn’t very nice to you.”

  “But you were. I didn’t hear your words. I only saw that you were concerned for my feet. They were an ugly, bloody mess
, yet you got down on your knees to help me.”

  “Will you forget about that,” Pamela said impatiently. “I couldn’t very well do anything standing up.”

  “You remember it your way, I’ll remember it mine,” Slade said, settling Pamela more firmly into his embrace. “When did you start to love me?”

  Pamela didn’t hesitate. “When I poured whiskey all over your feet and you didn’t utter a sound. No, that’s when it started. I think I fell in love on the front porch, when you talked all that nonsense about the moon and then bamboozled me into teaching you how to kiss.”

  “I still haven’t completely mastered the technique. You got time for a lesson now?”

  “As I remember, you were a quick learner.”

  “I’m a quick forgetter, too.”

  Pamela laughed in spite of herself. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm,” she said, “but make it snappy. I want to talk to you.”

  Slade pounced on her with a deep-throated growl, and Pamela happily surrendered herself to his assault.

  Slade kissed her quite thoroughly. Then deciding he needed a bit more practice, he settled down to some serious work. Pamela found no fault with his efforts, but she was so afraid for him she couldn’t be still. No matter how seductive his lips, how comforting his arms, or how fulfilling his love, her fear for his safety remained uppermost in her mind.

  Pamela pushed his hand away when he attempted to unbutton her shirt. “There’s something we’ve got to talk about,” she said. She ducked her head when Slade tried to resume his attentions. “Come on, Slade. I need to talk to you, and I can’t concentrate when you’re kissing me.”

  “Wouldn’t I be a failure if you could?”

  “I guess so,” Pamela admitted, “but try to be serious for just one moment.”

  “I was never more serious about anything in my life. I adore you, and I can’t wait to make love to you.”

  “We can’t right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Jud Noble has accused you of killing my father. He said he saw you on the trail to Santa Fe the same day my father left.”

  Slade froze. It was as though his whole body had turned to cold stone. “Do you believe him?”

  “Of course not, but there are too many things about your life you haven’t told me about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Texas.”

  “What about it?”

  “You’re the man Marshall Alcott was talking about, aren’t you?”

  Abruptly Slade got up and walked over to the fire. He told himself he had to control his anger, that Pamela wouldn’t react like his mother or Trish, but he couldn’t keep the familiar feeling of helplessness from worming its way into his soul. He couldn’t ignore the fear that Pamela was going to reject him like everyone else.

  “As long as I don’t know anything about you, I can’t help you prove your innocence,” Pamela said when he didn’t speak. “I tried to think of a way after the marshall left, but I couldn’t. That’s part of the reason I came after you.”

  “So now you want to know where I was born, who my parents were related to, and whether or not I can trace my ancestors back to a signer of the Declaration of Independence? Or would you prefer the Mayflower.” He was angry and bitter, and it showed. Didn’t his helping her count for anything? Must people always insist upon knowing everything about him no matter how meaningless it might be to the man he had become? He had thought at least Pamela had finally understood, but now it seemed she was no more capable of accepting him on faith than anyone else.

  Pamela’s heart went out to Slade. His face was a handsome mask of indifference, but by now she knew him well enough to know when he was suffering. How could she explain she didn’t doubt him no matter what he had done when she didn’t understand it herself? She wanted to know so she could convince everybody else of his innocence, that he was the most wonderful person in all of Arizona. He had to tell her everything.

  “I don’t want to know anything like that, not anymore. I just want to know about you. Why did you kill those men? Why were they after you? The marshall said he thought they were after your money. Was that it?”

  “You don’t think I killed them just because I wanted to?”

  “I would never have thought that, not even the afternoon you walked in off the desert.”

  Slade felt some of the tension leave him. The fear that she would ultimately turn her back on him still lurked there, but he also began to hope that at last someone could see past his gun and the reputation that seemed to cling to him like an evil shadow.

  Slade squatted down next to the fire. “They wanted my money and didn’t care what they had to do to get it. I’d received an offer for my share of the carnival. I didn’t want to go to St. Louis, so I offered Joe Swift—he was a friend—a cut if he’d bring me the money. Their sister worked for the carnival, I’d gotten her the job. She told them about the money. They were supposed to bushwack Joe on the trail, but he was a smart kid. They didn’t catch up with him until he was almost home. They didn’t kill him, but he was badly wounded. He made it back to me. He died in my arms.”

  “Those bastards told me they only wanted the money, but from the start they intended to kill me. They shot our horses and tried to set fire to the cabin. Only it was a soddy. So they used dynamite. Only reason I’m alive is I hid in a kind of cellar. I left Joe buried there. I figured it was a fitting tomb.”

  “Who were those men?”

  “The Briarcliff boys, all three of them. They had me down a draw, and the only way to get out was past them. But they knew me and stayed out of sight. If they had to, they meant to starve me out. It took me four days to get the three shots I needed.”

  “But if you killed them in self-defense, why is anyone after you?”

  “The Briarcliffs are a powerful family. Their father’s a judge deep into politics and their uncle’s the sheriff. Between them, they can keep the law after me for years. They want me back in Texas, and they don’t care if I’m dead or alive. Either way they plan for me to end up six feet under.”

  “Why did you leave the carnival?”

  “You want answers to everything, don’t you?” He tried not to sound cynical, but it was hard. Explaining himself never provided any answers, only more questions.

  “I’ve always wanted to know everything about you,” Pamela answered simply.

  “Did anybody ever tell you if you keep nosing around a person, you’re bound to find out something you don’t like?”

  “My father.”

  “But you didn’t listen.”

  “What do you think?” She smiled, and Slade couldn’t help but smile back.

  “I didn’t leave, not completely. But after Trish threw me out, the carnival sort of lost its glamor. Trish turned me sour on people. I started hiring out to cattle outfits, but I kept going back during the carnival season. I was a popular attraction. Besides, I owned a part of it. I wanted it to do well.”

  “Will you ever want to go back?”

  “No. When I agreed to sell out, I knew I’d entered that ring for the last time.”

  “What were you going to do?”

  “I’d always wanted to go to California.”

  “Do you think you could consider stopping here?”

  “I don’t think I could work for Dave.”

  “What if I made you the boss?”

  “You can’t fire him. There’s no cause.”

  “I don’t mean to. There is one position above foreman.”

  “What?”

  “My husband.”

  It took a moment for Slade’s breathing to become regular once more. Pamela couldn’t know it, but what she was doing was worse torture than the smell of food to a starving man. It was the one thing he wanted most in the whole world.

  “Do you know what it means to be a hunted man?”

  “But you’re not guilty of anything except protecting yourself. You might even be able to convince them if you go back.�
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  “As long as Andy Briarcliff is sheriff and his brother Jim is the judge, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

  “We’ll hire a lawyer.”

  “You don’t understand, Pamela. Brazos is a closed town. I had been away for many years. I was a fool to go back.”

  “Slade Morgan, I’m not going to let you take a defeatist attitude. There has to be a way to prove your innocence, and we’ll find it.”

  “If you’re after all the truth, you might as well know my name’s not Slade Morgan. It’s Billy Wilson.”

  Pamela didn’t know how she managed to keep from showing the shock she felt at learning the man she loved, the man she hoped would become her husband, was not only an outlaw but was using an alias. “I prefer Slade to Billy. I don’t see much difference between Morgan and Wilson, but I don’t see any point in practically telling them where you are.”

  “Do you really mean that,” Slade asked, “that none of this matters?”

  “Of course it matters. I wish it hadn’t happened, but wishing’s not going to change anything. And I don’t care what you call yourself as long as I can be your wife,” Pamela said. “I’ll sell the ranch and move to California with you. We can even go to Montana if necessary.”

  “You don’t have to sell anything, my darling. I have enough money for both of us.”

  “You can’t know how expensive it is to live, even in Montana.”

  “I told you I sold my share on the carnival.”

  “But it couldn’t have been enough to live on.”

  “My dear, sweet, practical darling, we sold the carnival to P. T. Barnum because we created too much competition for him. My share came to something over one hundred thousand dollars.”

  Pamela gulped. “I guess you could afford to pay for a horse and saddle,” she said, breathless with the realization that not even Amanda could accuse Slade of marrying her for money.

  “That and a lot more,” Slade said sweeping Pamela up and swinging her around so hard she begged him to stop. “Where do you want to go? Between us, anything is possible.”