Explaining Herself (34 page)

So? Laramie rode in the direction Victoria had gone, following Huck's tracks.

"Whoever you are," added Wright, pushing the matter.

Laramie scanned the ground, noticed a broken twig here, some fallen
leaves pressed into the dirt th
ere. "I'm Ross Laurence," he announced, distracted, and spurred Blackie in that direction.

Alden Wright said, "Oh my God."

"Some folks call me Laramie."

That Wright had been there when Poppa and Phil were lynched tickled another thought in the back of Laramie's mind, but he pushed it away. He would have time enough to hate the man. For now, he had more important matters to pursue. The most important matter in his life. Victoria.

Even before they reached the rocky overhang of the arroyo
—where the posse had gotten the drop on the Lauranovics, so long ago—Laramie knew something had gone wrong. He saw where Victoria had been walking her horse back from the canyon, saw that someone else's tracks intersected hers. He considered following the resulting pair, but then the breeze shifted, bringing with it familiar noise—words, cattle— and a burning stench.
Just like that night.

He changed his mind and headed for the overhang, listening. It
wasn't
just like that night at all.

He would recognize that voice anywhere.

"So you've been rustling quite some time?" asked Victoria. As the afternoon crept past, she'd decided that if she might die anyway, at the
very least she wanted answers.

It was either ask questions, or cry uncontrollably.

'You could say that," agreed Ward from where he kneeled by some bedrolls, packing what had clearly been a camp.

"Have you been working here all along?" she asked. "Since you helped lynch the Laurences, I mean. Wouldn't this be the first place anybody would look for rustlers?" She considered Alden Wright's earlier reaction. "Though I suppose bad memories might keep people away
—those who know how to find it in the first place. As if it were haunted."

The two men she didn't know looked quickly up from brand-blotting a large Circle-T steer with a piece of wool blanket, just the way Ross had described
—but smelling much worse.

"Finish the damned job!" bellowed Ward. Then he turned on Victoria. "And don't you go tryin' to spook my help."

"I didn't say it to frighten anybody," she protested. "Although if I were Mr. Laurence or his older son, and if I'd been unfairly hanged, this is where I would do my haunting."

"Unfair!" Ward spat. "They were murderin' rus
tl
ers."

"I've heard that they were stealing back their own cattle."

"Lyin' foreigners."

In the meantime, the two other rustlers were moving more clumsily, glancing occasionally toward the big oak tree. She wondered if they were new, since Harry Smith had died.

"Did Mr. Smith know about this place, Sheriff?" she asked. "I only ask because, if I were him, I might come back here to do my haunting, too."

Even Deputy Franklin looked nervous now.

Ward didn't. "Miss Garrison, if you don't shut your mouth right now, I'll gag it shut." He smiled, mean.

"At least until I want to hear you scream."

She pressed her lips tightly together, to show compliance. When the breeze shifted through the trees, sending another shower of red oak leaves down on the rustlers, they jumped.

"Good," Ward said, turning back to the cattle. From what she'd gathered, he meant to take a decent-sized herd of stolen livestock across the Montana line this evening.

"It's just," she added, and he turned back to glare at her. "It's just that it's all so interesting. That you've managed to run this whole operation, practically a syndicate, all these years and have never been caught. The sheriff! I just wish ..."

He waited, impatience playing across his pliant face.

"It must be fascinating," she flattered, whether she wanted him dead or not. She didn't know how to kill him. She knew how to get him talking. "I wish I'd known how clever you were, before now. How did you ever conceive of such a thing?"

He stared at her a moment longer, then shifted his weight
—and actually began to tell her. His father knew some rustlers. They'd made good money. The cattle barons monopolized the market. Between them and the foreigners, how else was a small rancher to earn a living?

It would have been fascinating, if she'd had hope of repeating it.

Then, as if at her wish, a disembodied voice interrupted Ward's. The voice said, "Victoria, duck."

And she must trust Ross Laurence implicitly, because she dove without question behind her rock
— just in time to miss the gunfire.

First, Laramie fired just to let the rustlers know he was there. Then he fired immediately in their path, to dissuade them taking cove
r themselves. His aim, with his
newest Winchester rifle, was perfect. "Hold it," he warned, loudly, and his voice echoed up at him.

To his relief, all four men fell still
—even the one standing on one leg, whose toe he'd apparently just shot.

Near to perfect, anyhow.

The damned lynch mob had been right about one thing, anyway. This was one fine place for an ambush.

"Toss your firearms toward the girl," he commanded, using the momentary lull to feed more cartridges into his rifle. He was older now, he reminded himself. He could control himself better. This time, nobody would die in the arroyo
—unless it was at their own insistence. "Carefully."

Deputy Franklin was the first man to comply. When one of the lesser rustlers followed suit, his pistol landed wrong and misfired. Its bullet ricocheted off the stone walls twice before spending itself into the oak tree
—too close to where Victoria was hiding. Far too close.

Everyone except Ward and Laramie ducked, even Alden Wright. And Alden was kneeling safely up top.

"Carefully,"
repeated Laramie, letting every killing he'd ever committed
—or partially committed— darken his voice. Then he noticed that Vic was starting to lift her curly dark head up over the rock. That she was still alive, and still curious enough to be interviewing the sheriff who held her hostage, had cheered him more than anything in his life—except maybe for some of the private moments they had already shared.

That she was still in danger terrified him. "Victoria Garrison, stay down!"

She ducked back down. Then she turned her face in his general direction, probably following his voice, and stuck out her tongue.

Laramie felt that tightness in his cheeks again, the one that beset him so often around Vic. At least she
was still safe, mere feet from him, even if most of those feet were down. Her nearness was what counted. That, and her continued breathing.

"You too, Sheriff," he called after the third man tossed his revolver in with the others. "The rest of you, lie on your bellies and put your hands behind your heads."

Only two of them did it.

Alden just kneeled there, holding Laramie's spare revolver, staring into the box canyon, and doing nothing to help.

"Who are you?" demanded Ward. From the way he was turning, craning his neck, he was having less luck in guessing just where Laramie stood than Victoria had.

Ross considered the question a moment, took more careful aim
—then shot off Ward's hat. "I said, drop it."

A third man quickly lay down on his belly and put his hands on his head.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Ward, glancing back toward Victoria's hiding place.

Laramie considered shooting off something else
— but he did not want to expose Victoria to either missing body parts or another ricochet. She was what mattered, nothing else.

Just her.

"I'll take any moves toward Miss Garrison as a personal invitation," he warned. There was one good way to prevent his next shot bouncing off rock, after all
— burying it in flesh.
"Now."

Laramie would have liked to feel relief when Ward lifted his revolver from its holster with two fingers and tossed it over with the rest. It would show he'd made progress.

Inst
ead, he felt disappointment.

"May I
please
look now?" demanded Victoria.

"If you're careful." Ross's voice sounded clearer. When she looked up, he was descending the arroyo wall in small, sideways steps, still pointing his rifle at
— she peeked—at Sheriff Ward.

Ward was still alive, but without his gun, she didn't want him dead quite so badly. As long as he didn't get hold of another one. And Ross wouldn't let him.

Ross wore a long, black duster that, with his black hat, made him look more dangerous than ever. And tall. And dark. She particularly loved the easy way he held that rifle.

"I'm always careful!" she protested, sitting up as he reached the canyon floor.

Ross gestured briefly with one spread hand at the arroyo around them and made a disbelieving sound.

"This was
not
my fault!" she protested, hurrying to his side. It took all her control not to dive onto him, clutch him, perhaps get them both ambushed. She refrained from grabbing anything he needed. But she stood close enough to feel his warmth, to smell his horse on his coat.

She stood close enough to feel, from his tension, that this wasn't close to over. But he was here. It was close enough.

"Well,
probably
not my fault," she admitted unevenly. "The deputy might have caught me anyway, but I guess we'll never know. I'm so glad to see you. What should I
—"

Ward interrupted her. "Laramie. You son of a bitch."

"Watch the lady," warned Ross, about Ward's language.

"He doesn't think I a
m
a lady." Safe behind him, Victoria found she could swallow again. "He said he would do rude things and make . . . me ..."

Then, watching Ross's profile, she stumbled into silence
—too late.

"Make you what?" he demanded. The way Ward paled confirmed that Ross was looking his most dangerous. She almost told him, like a child tattling.
He said he wanted to hear me scream.
And why not say so? It was the truth, and he should pay for it.

And yet, now that she was safe again, she wasn't so sure Ward should die. Maybe the important part was her life, not his death. Besides, she loved Ross too much to press him into doing that just because she was angry. Just because she hated.

"I'll tell you later," she promised.
When you're not holding a gun on him.

"Victoria," Ross said, sweeping her behind him as he edged toward where the rustlers had thrown their guns. "Can you use a pistol?"

"Of course I can! When Laurel was homesteading, we had to kill our own snakes. Well
—I think we scared more of them than we killed, but we did kill some. Once, Laurel forgot that she'd already loaded the shotgun, so she loaded it again. When she fired, she actually flew backwards—it was the oddest thing to see. We couldn't even find
pieces
of that rattler."

Was she babbling? The sheriff was staring at her, and so were two of the men from where they lay in the dirt, their hands still on their heads. Ross's vigilant gaze was still darting darkly between them and the sheriff. Unless she was mistaken, he was smiling his ghost smile.

She had to be mistaken, didn't she?

"Perhaps before we arm you," he suggested, an odd note in his voice, "you could go to the sheriff's horse and check his saddlebags for his handcuffs?"

She did so, found the metal circlets, and held them up. "Here."

"The key," instructed Ross of the sheriff.

His expression murderous, Ward dug into his pocket, then tossed the key to the ground at Ross's feet.

"Victoria," said Ross then, "please pick up the key and cuff the sheriff's hands behind his back. Take your time."

He was finding words just fine now, she thought proudly, quickly figuring out how the handcuffs worked. And if he meant to kill Ward, he wouldn't handcuff him, would he?

Then the sheriff widened his eyes and said, "Boo!"

Vic caught her breath, then spun to face Ross's approach.

Ross drew his pistol with one hand, slung his rifle over his back with the other, and came at the sheriff pistol-first. When he reached Ward, he yanked the sheriff's head back and shoved the muzzle of his revolver right into the man's mouth.

She was about to see a murder. And she didn't want to.

From the sudden, embarrassing smell of urine and the dark spot spreading into the man's pants, Sheriff Ward must have thought the same thing.

"Wright!" Ross called out, now that the sheriff was quiet. "Fire into the air so the others will know you're here."

Alden Wright was there?
Victoria didn't remember Al-den even carrying a gun. Ross probably had spares. Sure enough, a gun discharged from the ledge over the arroyo wall. Everyone flinched that direction except Ross and Sheriff Ward. Ross hardly seemed to hear, and the sheriff was standing very still, his mouth open painfully wide around the penetrating gun barrel.