Читать книгу: «Outlaw Hunter»

Chapter One

The Badlands, Nebraska

Hattie Travers had dreamed of her husband again last night. The fact that he had been dead for eight months didn’t make her any less fearful of him.

Even in the cold light of morning, with the children safe in the buckboard with her, his ghost had the power to put her into a cold sweat.

“Go away,” she whispered to the wicked-eyed vision haunting her mind.

She focused her attention on the US marshal sitting tall on his rum-colored horse, leading her, her children and the ranch orphans away from the cindered ruins of the Broken Brand Ranch.

The marshal’s carriage was straight, his shoulders broad and, from what she had seen so far, his honor incorruptible.

She owed him a great deal...her life, really, and more than that, her children’s lives.

If only she could take a deep cleansing breath and purge the stench of the outlaw ranch from her soul. If she could just relax and trust the marshal, but she had been wrong about a man before.

The marshal turned his head, peering out from under his Stetson at the flat, dry land, scanning it from horizon to horizon. His eyes were the only bit of green that she had seen in nearly three years.

He held her gaze for a long moment then nodded and set his face toward the east...toward home. The regular clop of his horse’s hooves made the fringe on his buckskin shirt dance and sway.

“You reckon he’s looking for stray Traverses?” Beside her, thirteen-year-old Joe Landon gripped the team’s reins in his fists. He sat tall, imitating the lawman’s erect posture.

Joe had to be cold but he didn’t shiver. The marshal didn’t, so he wouldn’t, either. It was chilly, though, even with the sun coming up over the ragged land.

“You shouldn’t worry, Joe.” She held her baby tighter, trying to follow her own advice. “Marshal Prentis will have us well away from here before any of them show up. The ranch is gone forever. Colt Wesson saw to that when he burned it down.”

Joe touched something in the pocket of his pants, tracing its shape with his thumb.

“There’s only Uncle Jack and Cousin Dwayne to worry about,” fifteen-year-old Libby said, clutching her little sister, Pansy, close for the warmth. She glanced toward the back of the wagon then suddenly lunged. “Come back here, you little wild man!”

Libby latched on to Flynn’s collar and hauled the toddler back from the edge of the buckboard.

“Noooo!” Flynn went limp-boned then kicked his heels. “Mama!”

“I’ll trade you my sweet baby Seth for my wild thing, Libby.”

“Are you sure your folks are going to welcome us?” Libby asked, taking the infant from Hattie.

Flynn rushed to fill his little brother’s place. Hattie hugged him close and kissed his cold, red nose.

Sometimes she wished she had never met Ram Travers. He had ruined her life. Without him, though, she would not have had her sweet babies. It was a trade she would make again in a heartbeat.

“With open arms and a big, hearty meal,” she answered Libby. “My folks have a huge old house and too many empty rooms.”

The one thing she knew for certain in this world was that her parents would welcome her home. They would weep for joy over their new grandsons and would take in Joe, Libby and Pansy as if they had been waiting for them all their lives.

Mama and Papa had always longed for more children, but after she was born, they hadn’t been blessed again.

“You sure you remember the way back?” Joe asked. “Uncle Ram kidnapped you to the ranch a long time ago.”

“There’s something about the road home that stays etched in your heart,” she said, ruffling Flynn’s hair.

“The Broken Brand won’t stay etched in my heart.” Joe’s fingers turned white, his grip around the reins tight with tension. “I’m never looking back, not even giving it a minute of my thoughts.”

“It’s a lucky thing for Pansy that Colt Wesson and the marshal rescued us in time that she won’t remember the place,” Libby said.

“Colt gave me something. It was when he was here to bury Pappy Travers. Reckon he sensed I didn’t hanker to be an outlaw like the rest of them. He asked if I wanted to leave with him. Couldn’t, though; there was more than myself to consider. So he gave me this.” Joe reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, sheathed knife. It was a pretty thing for a weapon, with an ornate handle bearing the initials CWT.

He held it in his hand for a moment, balancing the weight, then he put it back in his pocket.

“Thank you for staying, Joe,” she said with a lump swelling in her throat. “I’m certain that the marshal is competent, but you never can tell when another man might be needed.”

For all that Joe wanted to be a man, to keep everyone safe, he was still a boy. She wasn’t surprised to see relief wash through his posture, believing that she trusted Marshal Prentis.

Hattie took baby Seth back from Libby, who hugged the lapels of a deputy’s coat tight around her chest. Last night, before the deputies had begun the journey to take the captured Travers gang to jail, the marshal had strongly urged each of his men to donate their coats to the children.

Not one of them objected with so much as a frown. Apparently, Marshal Prentis’s word was law.

She lifted her gaze from her son’s soft, sand-colored curls to look, once again, at their leader. As big as he was, he ought to have been frightening, but somehow, he wasn’t. She felt safe in his presence, which was disturbing because there had been a time when Ram made her feel the same way.

Whether she fully trusted Marshal Prentis, or not, their fates were in his hands for the time being.

With the outlaw ranch a heap of smoking embers, she had been offered the choice of going with Colt Travers and his lady, Holly Jane, to begin a new life in some friendly place, or going home to her parents.

There had been no choice, really. She had longed for home ever since she’d run away from it. She had wept for her mother’s soothing embrace on more nights than she could count. A sun hadn’t set that she hadn’t watched for her father to come riding over the hill, even though he had no idea where she had gone—or why.

So, with the burden of five children’s safety on her shoulders, she had, once again, chosen to trust a man she didn’t know, to let him lead her across land so rough that, left on her own, it would eat her alive—her and the young ones with her.

One thing was certain, they could not be worse off than they had been at the Broken Brand, where food was scarce and degenerates plentiful.

The big lawman riding ahead of the wagon peered out from under his hat, scanning the land for danger. He didn’t seem like a degenerate.

Indeed, he was a United States marshal, appointed by the president himself.

Ram had been a false charmer, appointed to bring home a bride by no one but his own twisted kin.

For all of their sakes, she hoped that the president’s judgment was sound.

* * *

Reeve had pushed the widow hard, leading her and the children over inhospitable ground. The sooner they were away from this snake-infested, bone-dry land, the safer they would be.

He couldn’t recall ever seeing a place so barren, and he’d traveled over some of the sorriest country there was. It was no wonder the Travers gang had gotten away with their crimes for so long. The local law was more than a few days’ ride from the Broken Brand. They weren’t likely to leave their towns undefended for the time it would take to travel here.

Reeve had only heard of the outlaw family when one of their own turned on them.

Had it not been for Colt Travers wanting to rescue his woman, whom they had kidnapped, the gang would still be committing crimes.

Colt had demanded his conditions, though, for turning on his own. He wanted to be the one to burn the place to the ground, and he wanted to do it before the arrests were made.

That wasn’t the way Reeve liked to do things. There was an order to be followed, first the arrest then the justice.

It rankled to let Travers do it his way, but Reeve wanted those criminals. There had been no choice but to play Travers’s game.

It had been plain good luck that a man armed only with a long knife had been able to best that nest of vipers. The only reason Reeve had agreed to hold back until he saw the smoke was because the outlaws were Travers’s kin.

In spite of his misgivings, things had worked out. The outlaws were on their way to prison and the innocent on their way home.

He’d pushed his charges hard because the farther east of here he got them, the safer they would be.

The woman, especially. She looked worn to the bone...bone that he could nearly see through the thin cotton of her dress.

He figured she wasn’t as old as she looked, but he couldn’t be sure. With water out here as scarce as anything green, he doubted that she’d bathed in some time. Dirt coated her lank hair and dusted her face as it did the ground.

Even her expression seemed defeated.

Watching her sitting on the wagon bench with her wriggling son Flynn clutched in one arm while trying to soothe her infant in the other, he wished they could stop for an hour, to let the young ones stretch and play.

Six rattlers and several scorpions creeping over the ground, and all within the last mile, convinced him to press on to safer territory.

He couldn’t help but admire Hattie Travers, though. As haggard as she appeared, the woman had backbone. They’d been in the wagon for nine hours and he’d yet to hear her complain or speak harshly to the children.

What had she been like, he wondered, before she had become the unwilling bride of Ram Travers?

Her eyes might have sparkled instead of looking lined and defeated, as they did now. They might have been fire-warmed amber instead of muddy brown.

What Ram Travers had done to her was a crime. Reeve was half-sorry that the man had already faced the Ultimate Judge. It would have given him a good deal of pleasure to haul that lawbreaker before an earthly judge and have his sorry ass slammed into jail.

At least that miserable family wouldn’t continue their practice of kidnapping brides. By now the deputies would have the criminals halfway to their jail cells to await trial. In a few more days the men would begin rounding up the two who hadn’t been at home when Colt Travers served up his justice.

He escorted the wagon east for another hour before Hattie Travers called his name.

He turned in his saddle. “Yes, ma’am?”

“The children need a break from the travel.” With Flynn climbing her shoulder as if his mother was a ladder, Hattie looked small, frailer even than when they had begun the journey this morning.

“Give me a few minutes to check the area.” He didn’t like making the stop, but he could see that it was necessary. “We’ll take ten minutes.”

“Thank you, Marshal,” she said, and he watched the relief roll through her in a wave.

It took twenty minutes to make sure the ground was free of snakes and other creeping dangers. When he was assured that it was clear for a hundred feet all around, he waved his arm, a signal that all was safe.

Joe leaped from the wagon with a whoop, and Hattie climbed down with a suppressed groan.

The ladies led Pansy and Flynn several yards away to take care of their needs. He and Joe walked in the opposite direction to do the same. Since there was no privacy to be had, he kept his eyes averted from the women and he reckoned they did the same.

A few moments later, Hattie strode toward him, her back bent with hours of holding her infant.

She could only be five feet three inches to his six foot four, so she had to look up and shade her eyes from the sun’s glare in order to see his face.

He reckoned he looked as shaggy as an old bear, having been on the trail for a month or more. He’d lost count of the days.

“I haven’t had time to thank you, Marshal Prentis, for bringing us home. I’m grateful as can be.” She shifted the baby in her arms. “I’m sure you have more pressing things to do.”

“No need for thanks, ma’am.” He reached for the infant. “Do you mind?”

She hesitated, but not overlong. He snuggled tiny Seth in the crook of one arm and watched while his mother worked the aches out of her back. She twisted from side to side, then front to back. He couldn’t recall seeing her without one child or another in her arms since he met her yesterday morning.

“You reckon Flynn would like to ride with me for a while when we start up?”

She smiled up at him. Under her cracked, dry lips, her teeth were straight and white. He was just noticing a spark of animation in her eyes when Libby screamed.

“Mad dog!” the girl shouted, shrill and panicked. “Mad dog!”

It wasn’t a dog, but a coyote and as mad as they came. Its wild eyes settled on Flynn. Bandy-legged, it wobbled toward the boy, the foam coating its muzzle a sure sign of disease.

* * *

“Flynn!” Hattie screeched. She locked her knees so that panic wouldn’t knock her to the ground.

The marshal shoved Seth into her arms, then ran, eating up the ground in long powerful strides.

She raced behind. The breath wheezed in and out of her lungs. Her side cramped, but she was too frightened to care.

Somewhere along the way she shoved Seth at Libby. She shut out every thought but grabbing her son away from the coyote, who was one deadly leap away from him.

Dimly, she registered that the wagon horses pranced, nervous in the confinement of their tack. The marshal’s horse stood still, his ears pointed toward the danger but his training keeping him in place.

She wouldn’t make it in time. Not even the marshal, with a thirty-foot lead, would make it.

The beast, ravaged and skinny, hunched his legs for the jump.

She stopped and snatched up a rock. She wouldn’t be able to halt the animal, but maybe she could distract his attention for the seconds Marshal Prentis needed to reach Flynn.

She pitched the rock. Joe saw her and did the same, firing stone after stone in the coyote’s direction.

They might as well have been hurling feathers. The beast’s full attention was riveted on Flynn.

“Mama!” Flynn cried. He backed up, then he turned to run.

The coyote lunged. She screamed.

Marshal Prentis dove. Midair, he drew his gun. He snagged Flynn about the waist.

A shot exploded.

Dust clouded the ground where the marshal rolled with her son tucked close to his belly.

The coyote was propelled backward by the blast. It crumpled to the earth, a lifeless mound of filthy fur. A few feet away the marshal hovered over Flynn, clearly offering himself as a shield in case the shot had missed.

Hysteria and relief gripped her at the same time. She wanted to collapse where she stood, to cover her face with her hands and sob. Her little wild man had come within inches of death.

Even though the danger had passed, fear pumped her heart hard.

What if Libby had spotted the coyote a few seconds later? What if the marshal hadn’t been a quick runner? What if his shot had missed? What if he hadn’t been willing to shield Flynn with his own body?

She wasn’t sure she would ever purge this nightmare from her heart.

As much as she needed a moment to give in to her emotions, she couldn’t.

Flynn sobbed, “Mama! Mama!” Even the big solid hand of Marshal Prentis stroking his back could not calm him.

It did calm her, though, enough that her knees didn’t give out as she dashed forward. She plucked Flynn from the strong hands reassuring him, then pressed his small head to her breast.

She cooed over him for a moment, until his sobs turned to hiccups.

When she finally looked up, she saw Libby standing in the buckboard, hugging Seth to her chest and clutching Pansy’s hand tight.

Joe bent over the coyote, the marshal beside him.

“Got him straight between the eyes!” Joe said.

“Poor beast.” Marshal Prentis put his hand on Joe’s shoulder.

Hattie heard him talking to the boy while they returned to the wagon. “We’ll need to be on our way, and in a hurry. Coyotes stay in their packs even when they’re mad. Could be more of them.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do the driving so Hattie can tend to the little ones.”

Joe scrambled into the wagon.

Marshal Prentis slipped his wide hand under her elbow to help her up.

“We’ll need to travel late, get as far clear of here as we can,” he told her. Behind his back the sun had begun to set. “It’ll be rough travel for a while. We’ll have to sleep in the wagon tonight.”

That suited her fine. She was not about to allow any of the children on the ground until they were far away from this horrible, barren of anything gentle, land.

The marshal turned toward his horse. She tapped the shoulder of his buckskin shirt, halting him. He looked back, and up. For the first time she noticed how handsome he was, with a bold, square jaw dimpled with a slight cleft.

He clutched his hat in his hand, showing off hair that was very dark. Nearly but not quite black, it grew in close-cropped waves about his face.

In another lifetime she would have flirted with him. The young woman she had been before Ram would be dreaming of his kiss.

It was just as well that Ram had laid that girl to rest. She was a mother of two now...a guardian for three more. There was scarcely enough time to breathe, let alone go soft over a handsome face.

* * *

Hattie had been asleep in the wagon bed for only an hour when she woke suddenly. She tried to stifle her gasp but it escaped before she could call it back.

She willed her heartbeat to still. By breathing slowly, she pushed back the panic.

The jab to her back had been inadvertent, only someone’s knee. Sudden movements in the night still terrified her. How long, she wondered, would it take before she could truly put her memories behind her?

Fortunately, her outburst hadn’t wakened the children. Carefully, she moved Flynn away from where he had curled his small self against her bosom. She sat up slowly, dislodging Libby’s knee from her spine.

She groaned under her breath, stretching and easing the aches from her muscles. Sleeping on the hard wagon bed without enough room to turn was difficult.

But it was a difficulty she blessed with every heartbeat.

Anyplace, no matter how barren or dangerous, was preferable to the Broken Brand.

“Mrs. Travers, is something wrong?”

The marshal appeared at the side of the wagon, a frown creasing his brow and his breath puffing white in the cold. She couldn’t see lower than his chest, but from the position of his right arm, she guessed that he had his hand on his gun.

It alarmed her that he slept wearing his weapon. Perhaps he expected another mad animal to appear out of the dark. If so, he should not be sleeping on the ground under the wagon.

“I just need to get up and walk for a few minutes.”

“I’d advise against it, ma’am.”

So would she, but just the same she stood, careful not to wake anyone with her stiff-jointed maneuvers.

The marshal helped her down from the wagon with one hand under her elbow and another at her waist. She forced herself not to cringe.

A man’s touch was not something that she welcomed. Sadly, that was one more thing that Ram had ruined for her.

Perhaps with time that aversion would ease. She prayed that her dead husband had not cursed her soul forever.

He let go of her as soon as her feet were solid on the ground, and she took a quick step away.

She looked up at him. He hadn’t been sleeping with his hat on. The moon shone full on his face.

As handsome as it was, it made her nervous to make eye contact. It was just the two of them with the night so dark and still...and he was such a large man.

She walked in a circle about the wagon, stretching and breathing deeply. Her footsteps crunched soil and broke dried twigs. The marshal walked beside her with one hand at his waist.

As much as he tried to disguise his stance, he was ready to reach for his gun at the slightest sign of danger. It was kind of him not to want to frighten her by touching the weapon directly.

Kindness in a man was not something she was used to. She wished she could relax and trust that a man of the law would behave with honor.

He had certainly given her no reason to believe that he would not. He had saved her son’s life at the risk of his own. What further proof did she need of his high standards?

Unfortunately, what she believed and what she felt were not in alignment.

Curse you, Ram, she thought, but then, no... She cursed herself for allowing him into her life.

“Are you hungry?” Marshal Prentis asked. “I’ve got a bit of jerky in my saddle.”

Yes, she was! Hungry for food and hungry for a new life.

“No, but thank you. I’ll do.” The last thing she would do is take food that the children might eat.

“Come with me, but walk close, Mrs. Travers.”

Because he touched his gun while staring into the shadows, she did. Danger lay beyond the wagon.

Safety, she reminded herself, lay with the marshal.

He led her to where the horses were tethered. His saddle packs lay on the ground beside them. He lifted a leather flap, drew something out.

He escorted her back to the wagon, then with a nod of his head he indicated that she should sit under it. Because she was not ready to climb back into the cramped confines of the wagon bed, she did.

After a long, hard look at the surrounding area, the marshal crawled under and sat down across from her, his feet crossed at the ankle and his knees spread.

The fringe on the arms of his buckskin shirt swayed in the wind that shot up suddenly from the south.

“You need to eat,” he stated and pressed a slice of dried meat into her hand.

To satisfy him she took a bite. It was tough but surprisingly tasty.

“I’ll save the rest for the children.”

“No need...I’ll hunt some game in the morning.” In the dark shadow under the wagon he frowned. “I won’t let the young ones go hungry. Trust me, Mrs. Travers.”

And didn’t she want to? If ever she’d met someone who deserved trust, it was this man.

Perhaps her hungry days were over. Because of the marshal, she was going home. Once she got there she would never be hungry again...and neither would anyone who belonged to her.

She chewed on another bite of the jerky. The marshal sat silently watching her.

Strangely, she didn’t mind.

* * *

On the morning of the third day, Hattie spotted a tree in the distance. It grew alone on the top of a hill, its bare branches reaching toward the bright blue sky.

She had always loved trees, and it had been three years since she had seen one. It didn’t matter that this one’s leaves had gone for the winter. They would come back in the spring, green and full of life.

Maybe, she would do the same.

Just now, her spirit felt a hundred years old, but once she was back home, in the circle of her parents’ love, spring might come again for her. The dismal pall that Ram had cast over her life would lift.

“You always told us that trees were green and shady, Hattie.” Sitting beside her on the wagon bench, Joe frowned at the tree on the hill. “That looks like a bunch of sticks.”

“Didn’t you read the books that Great-Aunt Tillie told you to?” Libby asked. “Some were all about trees. They go dormant in the winter.”

“Well, except for the evergreens.” Joe turned to glance at Libby sitting in the back of the wagon. “I miss Aunt Tillie and Granny Rose. Things got worse at the Broken Brand when they went away.”

“They were better off with Colt Wesson,” Hattie reminded them, but Joe was right. Aunt Tillie had kept everyone in line, as much as was possible, with her firm spirit and her cane. She’d taught the ranch children to read even though their parents considered it a waste of time.

Hattie had cried for days when Colt Wesson had come home the first time, to bury Pappy Travers and bring the old ladies to their new home.

Maybe she ought to have asked to go with them, but Colt was a stranger to her, and she had been full-term with Seth.

Well, the past was the past. She would do her best to put it behind her. Ram was dead...and Mama and Papa were getting closer each day.

Soon their comforting arms would fold her up.

“I want to see me a leaf...grass, too.” Joe watched Marshal Prentis sitting tall in the saddle, trotting toward the wagon. “Do your folks really have shade all over the place?”

“Shade and a creek nearby.”

“I reckon I’ll need to learn to swim.”

A memory flashed in her mind and she nearly wept with the joy of it. Daddy, years ago when she wasn’t much older than Flynn, carrying her into the water and showing her how to waggle her arms and legs so that she wouldn’t sink.

It must have grieved him terribly when she ran off without a word. She would die of a broken heart if one of her boys grew up and did the same to her.

Her parents would forgive her—she knew it without a doubt—but how would she ever make it up to them?

Filling their home with children would be a start. At least she was coming home with more than her own sinful self.

“Come summer, you’ll all learn to swim.”

Imagining it, picturing the children in her mind while they splashed and laughed, made her smile.

Joy tickled her heart. She hadn’t felt that optimistic spirit in a good long while. “My daddy will enjoy showing you how.”

“If he takes to an outlaw’s brat.” Joe chewed his bottom lip, staring down at his knees. “He might toss me out.”

“Look at me, Joe.” She tipped his face up, his chin tucked between her fingers. Cold sunshine illuminated a dusting of blond fuzz on his upper lip. “What your daddy was or wasn’t has nothing to do with you. You are a good boy and someday you’ll be a fine man. My daddy will recognize that and be proud to have you in his home.”