Autumn Lover (14 page)

There should have been more. Many more.

Unhappily Elyssa looked around, probing shadows and creases for cattle. She found nothing but the land itself.

The meadows and flats near the marsh were dry, with tall grass standing cured in the sun. Cattle could do very well on the dried grass, but they preferred the tender green variety.

Because of the small springs and seeps welling up from the land, many of the ragged gullies were thick with growing grass. Cattle came to those ravines like chunks of iron to a big magnet.

Cattle had been here. Elyssa could see the hoofprints and manure piles, the meandering trails and the muddy seeps where hooves cut deeply.

Yet, despite the signs, there were no cattle now.

It was as though somebody had been here before the Ladder S hands. Someone who knew all the creases and grassy ravines where cows ruminated in the cool shade.

Someone who had rounded up all the cows before their rightful owner could.

The chill in Elyssa’s stomach increased. It was a feeling that had become more familiar each day…a growing fear whenever she thought about the future of the Ladder S.

Don’t think about it
, she told herself.
Fretting until your stomach churns won’t help anything
.

Elyssa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then another. Then one more.

Hunter is doing everything anyone could
, she reminded herself.

She took another long breath, thinking of Hunter. He
was skilled, hardworking, intelligent, a born leader of men. Whatever could be done for the Ladder S, Hunter would do.

Hunter must have been a fine officer. The younger boys all but worship him, and the men respect him
.

The few who don’t respect anything are smart enough to fear Hunter
.

Even Mickey
.

A delicate shiver went through Elyssa as she remembered her dress caught on a nail and her breasts resting against Hunter’s strong forearm.

Another memory cascaded through her in a glittering stream of sensation. Hunter’s face in the moonlight, his lashes dark against his cheeks, his tongue hungry on her breast, his whole body hard with the intensity of his desire.

Then today, when she had measured the extent of his hunger with her own hands.

He can deny it until he’s blue in the face
, Elyssa told herself,
but he’s as involved as I am
.

Another shiver overtook Elyssa. If she hadn’t believed that Hunter was fighting an equally strong attraction to her, she would have been afraid.

Never had she been drawn to a man as she was to Hunter.

Her eyes followed him everywhere. She walked across the room to stand close to him. She asked him about the state of the land and the cattle and the men, anything to hear him talk, to be close enough to see the texture of his mustache and the movements of his lips.

I’ll keep prying beneath his reserve
, Elyssa promised herself.
I’ll get to the gentleness and the laughter
.

And the passion
.

Dear God, the passion
.

The sound of a horse coming down the draw toward Elyssa made her breath catch. Bugle Boy was cantering
toward her. Elyssa’s face flushed and her heartbeat quickened.

Hunter didn’t even look at her.

“Why did you fire the shots?” he asked Morgan.

“Found a branding fire.”

“Show me.”

Morgan kicked his tough little mustang into a canter. Hunter and Elyssa followed Morgan to the head of another draw. This one was part of a rumpled network of ravines and hillocks that unraveled into Wind Gap, which led to Bill’s small ranch.

Hunter and Morgan dismounted. Hunter stalked along the tracks that went from Ladder S land to the Bar B. In addition to the tracks there were the scattered remains of a small fire.

The kind that was used for unofficial branding.

“If I was a sporting man,” Morgan said, “I’d bet a Ladder S beef laid down here and got up as a Slash River beef.”

“Too bad we weren’t riding by here early this morning,” Hunter said. “We could have cooked the rustler over his own fire.”

Without another word both men mounted. Hunter shot Elyssa a hard glance.

“Where are the dogs?” he asked her.

“Don’t glare at me. Last time I saw them, they were chasing steers for you.”

Hunter started to whistle up the dogs, only to be stopped by a curt motion from Morgan.

Between the fitful gusts of wind came the clear sound of a horse running hard.

Hunter looked at Morgan.

“No, suh,” Morgan said. “I sent the men off south looking for mustangs and Ladder S ponies, like you said they should.”

“Get back into the ravine,” Hunter said to Elyssa. “We’ll be right on your heels.
Move
.”

She spun Leopard on his hocks and shot back into the mouth of the damp, brushy ravine. As Hunter had promised, they were crowding the spotted stallion’s heels every step of the way. Very quickly the three horses were under cover.

Before Elyssa realized what Hunter was doing, he turned Bugle Boy in to Leopard. The motion pressed Leopard back even farther into the shelter of a tall willow thicket.

“Get off,” Hunter said tersely. “You’ll show above the brush.”

While Hunter spoke, he kicked free of the stirrups and dropped to the ground. His repeating rifle was in his hands.

With no fuss at all Hunter went up the steep side of the ravine until he merged into the shadows of a piñon. The muted yet unmistakable sound of a shell being levered into the firing chamber came back down the ravine.

On an impulse Elyssa reached into Bugle Boy’s saddlebag and pulled out the spyglass.

“Don’t turn that in to the sun,” Morgan warned in a low voice. “Glass can flash like a beacon. Give us away sure as sin.”

She nodded, put the glass to her eye, and looked back down the ravine. The same willow, brush, and piñon that concealed the horses also kept her from seeing anything useful.

Elyssa turned and put the glass on Hunter. It brought him so close it was as though she was standing at arm’s length. The midnight shine of his hair and mustache intrigued her, as did the shape of his lips and the winter glint of his eyes.

As she watched, Hunter’s expression changed from alertness to a leashed savagery that chilled her. Smoothly
he raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel.

Whoever the approaching rider was, he was known to Hunter.

And hated by him.

The sound of more horses approaching at a gallop came on the wind.

Slowly, reluctantly, Hunter lowered the rifle.

“Watch that stud, ma’am,” Morgan said. “He catches scent of a lot of horses, he’s likely to whinny.”

Elyssa closed the spyglass, shoved it into Bugle Boy’s saddlebag, and went to Leopard’s head. She put one hand on the bit. The other settled on the horse’s nose. She murmured to him in a low voice.

“What about Bugle Boy?” Elyssa asked quietly.

“He knows better. So does my pony.”

Through the screen of willows Elyssa watched four horsemen ride by. They were perhaps three hundred feet away. They were joined by a fifth man, who was riding on a big sorrel mule.

Morgan took one look at the mule and began to speak so softly that Elyssa couldn’t hear individual words. The expression on Morgan’s face left no doubt that he was cursing.

Leopard’s barrel swelled as he sucked in air, preparing to whinny a challenge to the intruders.

Elyssa’s fingers clamped firmly down on the stud’s flaring nostrils. He shook his head. Her fingers stayed in place. Leopard settled back into silence.

After a few moments the five men rode off in the direction of Wind Gap.

Not until the last faint sound of hoofbeats faded did Hunter leave his vantage point and return to the bottom of the ravine.

“Culpepper,” Morgan said.

Hunter nodded curtly.

“Gaylord?” Morgan offered.

“No. Ab.”

The quality of Hunter’s voice chilled Elyssa.

“Ab,” Morgan muttered. “The head devil hisself.”

Hunter grunted.

“Well,” Morgan said, smiling coldly, “we’re getting close, then. A week, maybe two. Ab ain’t a patient kind of man.”

“Wonder where he’s been,” Hunter said.

Morgan shrugged. “Back and forth between here and the Spanish Trail, last I heard. Some of his kin was with him.”

“Which ones?”

Morgan shrugged again. “Don’t matter. You won’t need to worry about them. They’re chasing Spanish treasure. Digging for it, so I hear.”

Hunter shook his head at such foolishness.

“Ab don’t have much patience with anything like work,” Morgan said, “so he comes north every few weeks. Beau and his bunch are on the way, too.”

“Beau, Clim, Darcy, and Floyd won’t be joining Ab,” Hunter said with satisfaction.

“Heard something like that. Colorado, wasn’t it?”

Hunter nodded.

“Lot of Yankee dollars on those boys’ heads,” Morgan said to no one in particular.

“The folks who earned the reward money didn’t want it,” Hunter said.

Morgan looked surprised.

“I sent the money back to Alex,” Hunter said as he stepped into Bugle Boy’s stirrup.

“Too late,” Morgan said as he mounted.

Hunter nodded curtly and reined Bugle Boy around.

“Hope his mother gets it,” Hunter said. “Her husband came back from the war with one arm and no legs.”

Realizing that she was going to be left behind if she
didn’t move quickly, Elyssa scrambled onto Leopard with the help of a handy boulder. She thanked Penny’s scissors and thread every bit of the way into the saddle.

It was a lot easier to ride without a mass of cloth twisting around her legs every time she tried to mount or dismount.

“Are we going to track the men?” Elyssa asked.

Hunter shook his head.

“Why not?” Elyssa asked.

“They’re five to our two.”

“Three,” she corrected. “I can shoot.”

“Have you ever shot a man?” Hunter retorted.

“No, but I’ve been real tempted lately.”

Morgan hid his smile.

“Want me to track them, ramrod?” Morgan asked blandly.

“All right,” Hunter said. “But when you get on B Bar land, turn back.”

“
If
you get there,” Elyssa corrected instantly. “There’s no guarantee that’s where those men are going. They might just be passing through.”

“Where to?” Hunter asked sarcastically.

“The other side,” Elyssa shot back.

“
Adiós
,” Morgan said.

No one answered. Hunter and Elyssa were too busy glaring at one another to notice Morgan leave.

“Why is there bad blood between the Ladder S and the B Bar?” Hunter asked.

“What makes you think there is?” Elyssa countered.

“Two ranches cheek by jowl and no visiting between.”

Elyssa thought of the last time she had seen Bill, when she had refused to sell him the Ladder S.

“At least, no
formal
visiting,” Hunter added ironically, thinking of the web of ghost paths between the two ranches.

Elyssa’s stomach clenched, for she thought Hunter was referring to the rustlers who came and went from both ranches. She didn’t like to think about all the small bunches of cattle tracks she had seen heading through Wind Gap.

And no cow tracks returning.

Not even one.

Wind Gap led to Bill’s ranch, and from there to one of the passes over the Rubies.

But despite all evidence, Elyssa simply couldn’t believe that Bill was part and parcel of the naked rustling of Ladder S livestock.

He was like a father to me
, she thought sadly.

He can’t be destroying me. There must be another explanation
.

“It’s fall roundup,” Elyssa said tightly. “No one has the time for social visits.”

“Damned strange.”

“Why?”

“Good old Bill hasn’t even sent a rep to make sure we don’t round up any of his cattle along with ours.”

Hunter’s voice was as sarcastic as the thin white curve of his smile beneath his mustache.

Elyssa closed her eyes.

“Bill knows we won’t sell any cattle of his,” she said.

“At this rate we won’t be selling any Ladder S cows either,” Hunter said bluntly.

“What?”

“They’ve all been driven onto B Bar land, and from there to market.”

“No!”

“Hell,” Hunter said in disgust. “You’ve got eyes, Sassy. Use them!”

“I did. The first week after I came home, I back-tracked Ladder S cows from that damned whiskey peddler’s Dugout Saloon.”

Hunter became still. “What?”

“I knew from Mac that the peddler acted as an unofficial rendezvous point for people wanting to buy, sell, and swap animals,” Elyssa explained, “so I—”

“You went into that thieves’ den alone?” Hunter interrupted harshly.

“Not quite.”

“Not. Quite.” He bit off each word. “What in hell does that mean?”

“It means Mac told me to stay away from B Bar land. Period. He would handle whatever had to be done about stray cows.”

“Thank God,” Hunter muttered.

Elyssa ignored him.

“But I kept seeing cow tracks going through Wind Gap,” she said. “So I went to the Dugout Saloon and backtracked a bunch of cows.”

Hunter’s black eyebrows shot up in surprise at Elyssa’s ingenuity.

“Bet you tracked them right back to the B Bar,” he said.

“Wrong. The tracks came from the marsh northeast of here. It’s a dangerous maze of grassy hummocks surrounded by bogs and reeds.”

Hunter was impressed despite himself that Elyssa had had the idea of backtracking rustled cattle.

The fact that she also had the nerve to carry through her idea chilled him.

Elyssa could easily have been killed. Rustlers and other felons were notoriously touchy about people dogging their trail.

“The B Bar is north of here,” Hunter said.

“The tracks didn’t come from B Bar land. They came from Ladder S land.”

Hunter didn’t look convinced.

“Besides,” Elyssa said, “when our cows wander onto
B Bar land, Bill just hazes them back toward our land. Under all that gruffness and whiskey, he’s a good man.”