His belly full, he took a notion to lean out over the stream and stare at himself. He saw a dark-haired man who had a few days’ worth of beard on his face. Hair sticking up in all directions.
He had strange eyes, brown but with a funny golden glint to them.
His clothes were battered after his time in the water, though how did he know? Maybe he’d only barely been dunked in the water and he always dressed in rags.
Besides the clothes on his back, the only other thing he had was a small fur bag that had stayed strapped around him during his trip in the stream. But it only held a few supplies. No clues to who he was.
It was no use staring at himself, but it gave him some comfort to know his own face. It was a hot day, and he wandered away from the stream into the woods. The shade felt good. He found a clear spot that he stacked with dead leaves and tucked himself into. And he slept.
On the third day, the throbbing in his head eased off, except when he tried to dig out some memories. He still couldn’t remember a thing before he woke up hooked on a branch, being pounded on by the rushing stream trying to tear him loose from that snag. He ate more fish and nuts. Then he slept.
Hunt, eat, sleep, walk.
It surprised him that he could curl up and sleep several times a day. That couldn’t be how he normally went on. The head injury and near drowning must still be wearing on him and sleep gave him time to heal.
The fourth day he snared a bird. Then, when he got out his knife to get the bird ready for roasting, he studied that knife and had a bright idea.
The next time he went hunting, he used his knife strapped onto a pointed stick as a spear and got a rabbit.
After five days, he woke up with only a quiet ache in his head. He had leftover rabbit so hunting breakfast didn’t sap his strength. With steady hands and less wobble in his knees, he finally took to thinking of his troubles.
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of memory of who he was, where he was, or how he’d come to be here.
It didn’t seem to be coming back to him through rest and time. He thought of that stream. He had to’ve been swept down it, it stood to reason.
So he’d walk back up it and see where he’d come from.
He had been hiking along for most of the morning when he felt someone following him.
Cheyenne couldn’t get a look at him.
She’d been trailing him for two days when she realized he knew she was out here. A chill went down her spine. Like a slap across the face, she was hit with a knowing that he was now trailing her.
She’d seen enough signs to know he was there, but she’d never seen him. Once she knew he was aware of her, she decided to cut and run for home. It was one thing to scout around, track down an intruder. It suited her because she’d had plenty enough of intruders on her ranch.
But to be the hunted. To know you had a predator after you.
The woods, always a place she felt at home, now felt deadly. There were overlooks and hideouts everywhere. She knew them all, and she sensed that this man knew them, too.
She was too far from the RHR to get back in one day, and she had to rest eventually, or she’d make stupid mistakes and get herself caught. Finally, in the relative safety of darkness, she curled up to sleep against a stone wall, covered by a thicket. As she faded off, she decided putting up with the newcomers on her ranch might not be so bad after all.
Falcon looked in her little shelter and smiled. She slept like an innocent baby. Womenfolk who set out to wander the earth alone oughta sleep lighter.
From where he crouched behind a bush, so close he could have touched her, he studied the woman and wondered what she was doing out here.
She wore trousers, an improper thing to do, but he didn’t mind overly. She had on a shirt that looked like something a man would wear. But then Falcon didn’t remember much so how could he know for sure about what men and women wore?
Her head was resting on a bedroll. She was covered with a stretch of cloth that looked like it’d shed water. Her rifle was near to hand. He saw the bulge under the cloth that said she wore a six-gun. Her hair was dark and long, braided and hanging down her front while she lay on her side.
He thought she was about the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. And of course, with his mixed-up head, she amounted to the only woman he could remember seeing so that wasn’t that much of a contest. Still, she was mighty pretty.
He’d turned aside from following that stream to play with her. He’d made a game of leaving enough signs to keep her hunting but not enough to ever find him. He’d spent most of his time behind her, watching her.
Watching her sleep, he was struck by the notion that they might be the only two people in the world. He sure as certain hadn’t seen anyone else. He reckoned there were others, but a man couldn’t help but wonder. It niggled at something deep in his head. Something about a garden and two people alone.
The flicker of memory sent a shaft of pain through his noggin. He was feeling mostly better, but the cut on the back of his head still ached, and he was prone to stabs of pain as sharp as his knife.
Dodging any efforts for his brain to remember, he considered that he should stay with her. Wake her and talk to her. To walk away from the only other person he could find was foolish.
Or was it foolish to be playing games out in the wilderness when he should be following his own back trail?
The stars went out overhead, and the moon vanished under a cloud. A soft mist started falling. He was tempted, oh, mighty tempted, to crawl into that thicket and share her shelter, share her warmth.
A’course she’d probably shoot him. Though he had no trouble hiding from her, she was mighty good and seemed tough enough to draw that gun and protect herself.
And that got him moving. Leave the poor confused woman alone. He took one more look at her. At that long braid. It was a hard thing to slip back from her. Then again, if he wanted to look at her some more, he could hunt her up anytime he wanted to.
When he was back far enough that she couldn’t see him if she happened to wake up, he stood and, heading toward where he’d woken up that first day, started tromping upstream. As the sun rose, it only turned the black to gray. Fog rolled in so thick it was a wonder a man could breathe the air.
Taking it slow, not wanting to fall into the stream in the fog, he heard the storm coming louder, meaner. He knew he shouldn’t be out in the open when lightning struck. But neither should he be by the tallest tree around.
That left him with it being wise to find shelter. The thunder boomed and the lightning cracked, closer with each blast of light and noise. The rain turned from mist to slanting bullets of water. Then a lightning bolt hit an oak standing tall alongside that stream.
He saw a downed tree that looked to have a gap under it and dove for cover.
And by the time he was done diving, landing, and collecting himself, he saw that he wasn’t alone.
A man and woman sat together at the other end of the tree trunk.
They were both looking at him like he was a ghost come to sit down beside them.
Then the man said, “Falcon?”
That question made no sense. He’d heard of a falcon. A bird. What did this man mean? But the voice. To hear another voice after so long. It kept him from jumping right back out of the shelter.
“Falcon, we thought you were dead.” The man made a move toward him, and Falcon’s knife was in his hand before he gave it thought.
The man moved back. “What’s the matter?”
He thought to ask a whole lot of questions. “Can I . . .” then he thought better of it. To admit his head didn’t work right would put him in a weak position.
“Can you what?” The man waited.
Only silence.
The man all of a sudden burst into words. “We thought you were dead. You went over a waterfall, possibly shot.”
Waterfall, that could be right. Shot? The cut on his head?
The man said something about a hat, and
a flash of something went through Falcon’s mind. A hat. He remembered a hat. Maybe. Thinking of the hat brought a vision to his head. A memory. And with the memory came pain.
The man started into yammering, and Falcon tried to listen, tried to glean from this flood of words what was going on. At least the man didn’t start shooting. In fact, he seemed genuinely concerned.
It was a long chance, but Falcon didn’t see as he had much choice. “Who are you?”
The man shut his mouth. The woman hadn’t said a word yet.
They stared at him with eyes so wide he knew he’d thrown them. And then he really looked at their eyes. Especially the man’s. He’d just seen eyes like that, looking in a stream.
“He’s your brother.” The woman finally talked.
“My brother?”
“Yes, your brother, Kevin Hunt. And I’m his wife, Winona Hunt.” She seemed to collect all her nerve before she spoke again. “And you’re Falcon Hunt. You’ve come from Tennessee to Wyoming to claim an inheritance from your father.”
Falcon. The man, Kevin, had said that—Falcon.
He was named for a bird? It didn’t unlock any memories, not counting the hat, of all the stupid things to remember. But a falcon was a noble bird. And Tennessee? Wyoming? Father?
It was all new to him. He shook his head. A surge of relief at knowing his name twisted together with a deeper fear that it didn’t help. He could be told his name, but that wasn’t the same as remembering it.
“I’ve been wandering for days.”
“You disappeared a week ago, Falcon.” Kevin kept staring at Falcon with those eyes that matched his. “You must have been out here alone all this time.”
“First thing I remember is waking up on the banks of a stream and didn’t know nothing. Not a dad-blasted thing.”
“Not even your name?” Kevin asked.
Shaking his head, Falcon stared down at his hands, thinking on how he’d relied on them, as if they were his mind. “I didn’t know where I was . . . I mean, sure, in the mountains, but they didn’t look like anywhere I’d ever been, but then, I couldn’t remember being anywhere ever. I knew I should’ve had a gun. Why would I remember I’d normally have a gun, when I didn’t remember my own name?”
He touched that wound on his head. A gunshot wound? “I knew how to unravel the threads from my shirt and rig a snare to catch birds. I could start a fire using my knife and a flint I found in my pocket.”
“All that but not who you are.” Kevin sounded bewildered.
“I didn’t exactly remember how to do those things, I just knew how.” He looked at Kevin, then Winona, then he looked down at his hands. “It was like the knowledge just came out of my fingertips without me thinkin’ much about it.”
“I’ve heard of someone losing their memory.” Winona got his attention. “A sickness or a blow to the head can cause it. Amnesia—that’s the word I learned.”
“Amnesia?” Falcon tripped over the strange word. He’d never heard it before, except how could he know for sure? Maybe he knew it and had forgotten.
And his brother? That didn’t sound right at all. How could a man forget he had a brother?
All of a sudden he had a hundred questions. His brother could tell him everything.
A bullet blasted louder than thunder and wood exploded against the tree trunk.
Falcon launched himself out of that shelter and vanished into the fog.
Gunfire! And not one or two shots. A whole hail of bullets.
The only shooting around here lately was Win getting a bullet wound on her back.
Cheyenne launched herself out of her little shelter. She tugged the hood of her slicker low over her face and ran. She dodged behind a tree, listening, judging where those shots were coming from . . . and where they were aimed, and ran some more. Straight for a firing gun.
Not smart. But Win had been shot. What if that man who’d shot her was out here shooting at someone else she loved?
The gunfire kept up hard and steady as the rain—but not aimed in her direction. She moved quickly, keeping silent, though the rain and wind, the thunder and lightning, the gunfire for heaven’s sake, had to cover most any sound she made. No one was going to hear her coming.
And she was coming . . . fast.
Falcon might not know his name, but he knew how to fight.
Matter’a fact, from the excitement, even eagerness, he could tell he was a man who liked to fight.
Once he was away from that shelter, he listened for Kevin and Winona to get away and heard them running the opposite way. Heard ’em. Which meant these would-be killers could hear ’em, too.
He held his knife ready. Two guns blazed, and they aimed in the direction Kevin had gone. Drawing back, melting into the woods, Falcon considered how best to save his kin. The gunfire ended, and he made out the shadowy forms of two men following after Kevin.
Once they were past, Falcon fell in behind them and lost them in the fog. It was like walking in a sea of milk. Just as wet, just as white. He followed by sound.
He couldn’t hear Kevin anymore. His brother either got mighty quiet or stopped moving. Either was a big improvement.
And he only heard one of the shooters. It tickled in the back part of Falcon’s head that he should know something about these men. Kevin had done some talking about an attack. About thinking Falcon had been shot.
By these two men? If he could remember anything, maybe he’d know more about who he was.
He heard the sharp crack of a gun cocking straight ahead, took another step to make sure it wasn’t Kevin, and hurled his knife.
He saw Kevin jump on the man and go to whalin’ on him. The man was down and out though. A sick twist in Falcon’s stomach told him his knife had gone true, and the man was dead.
A sharp jab of metal poked him in the back.
Another metallic click. This one Falcon could feel as well as hear.
“Don’t move.”
Kevin’s head came around.
“Stand still, or I’ll kill all of you.”
Falcon had no knife. Nothing but his bare hands. He’d pick his time and take that gun away from this varmint.
“Get your hands up.”
He raised his hands high.
Falcon saw Kevin’s hands raise, too.
“Stand beside your brother.”
“Why are you doing this?” Winona sounded near panic. Falcon liked to see a woman keep her head, but this was a big ol’ mess, so he didn’t hold it against her.
“Did my father hire you to kill Kevin and Falcon? Does he want you to kill m-me?”
That’s when Falcon knew Winona was planning something. A distraction at the least, ’cuz no one pure afraid would ask such a clear question. He waited for his chance, ignoring the back-and-forth talk.
The man pointed his gun at Falcon. “We tried to kill you in Independence, Missouri.”
Kevin looked at Falcon. “Someone tried to kill you, too?”
A stupid question, and Falcon had no plans to admit his head wasn’t working right.
“Never figured it to have much to do with this.”
“You’re a hard man to kill, Falcon Hunt. You not only got past us, you stole our horses, guns, money, and supplies and headed on west. You’re a thief.”
Falcon stared at the man threatening to kill them—mighty bold of him to complain about another man being a thief—and said, “Sounds like justice to me.”
Cheyenne followed the sound of voices.
The fog was heavy enough she couldn’t see a thing beyond where she took her next step. Even with that, she moved as fast as she could.
“Stand still, or I’ll kill all of you. Get your hands up.”
Who was speaking? He sounded familiar, but she wasn’t quite sure why. She wasn’t about to start blasting until she knew what was going on.
Another step.
She could finally see past the man to Kevin Hunt. And two other people, one behind Kevin whom she couldn’t see and
the other . . . was a slap to the face.
Clovis Hunt. The man she wanted to kill until it gnawed on her guts was alive and well, and someone was getting ready to kill him for her.
No, not possible. He wasn’t old enough. This had to be the other brother. Falcon Hunt. But he couldn’t look so much like Clovis, could he?
If she stayed quiet, stayed back, whoever this was might just finish off something she was ashamed of wanting.
“Stand beside your brother.”
She knew that voice. Bern Tuttle from the Hawkins Ranch.
She should stop whatever Tuttle was up to.
Sidling around, wanting a better look, she heard a new voice.
“Why are you doing this?” Win.
Win was here.
Cheyenne finally got far enough to the side she could see Win hiding behind Kevin’s back. How in the wide world did Win get out here? And so early in the morning, this far from the ranch, she had to’ve been out here overnight. Win would never do something so improper. Had she been kidnapped?
“Did my father hire you to kill Kevin and Falcon? Does he want you to kill m-me?” Win’s voice broke. Cheyenne had seen Win cry before. She was more prone to it than Cheyenne, but knowing her friend well, it was clear Win was faking her fears and tears. Why else would she say something so awful about her own pa? Which meant she was getting ready to do something desperate and was trying to distract Tuttle.
Tuttle stood there, sneering and talking of a plan to kill Oliver Hawkins and force Win to marry him so he could take over the ranch.
A cold, ugly part of herself hadn’t minded overly if the new Hunt brothers died. Oh, she’d’ve never done it, never stood by for them being shot. But she was so twisted up inside that she’d thought it. But she couldn’t think it anymore. She had to save Win.
Not one speck of hesitation there.
While they talked, she got in position.
“And then what about Baker?” Win asked. “How was he going to profit from any of this?”
Baker? Cheyenne only knew one Baker. Ross Baker was the ramrod at the RHR. Ross Baker who’d claimed his pa was dying and asked to be allowed to ride for Texas to say goodbye. He’d come up with that right after they’d read Clovis’s will, but Cheyenne hadn’t connected one incident to the other.
A Man with a Past Page 5