Kid Calhoun (7 page)

“You can’t stop me, Wolf.”

“We shall see.”

Anabeth heard the agitation in Wolf’s voice—and the determination—but there were no words of comfort she could give him. “I’ll miss you, Wolf.”

“I will come again,” he told her. “When I have had time to think on what you have said.” When he had come up with a way to convince her to stay.

“I won’t change my mind,” she warned. “I’m going to leave. I have to leave. I don’t have any choice!”

Anabeth stumbled away, unable to bear the stoic look on Wolf’s face any longer. They had been friends long enough, and she knew enough about him, to understand that his feelings ran deep. He would be back. Wolf never said what he didn’t mean.

During the next week, Anabeth couldn’t shake the fear that something would happen to wrest away her dream of a new life with her uncle in Colorado. Which was when she recalled her suspicions about Wat Rankin. She woke on the morning Booth was to meet the outlaws with the sure knowledge that she couldn’t let her uncle go back to face Rankin alone.

She called out to Booth from her bedroom, but he didn’t answer. When she padded barefoot across the wooden-planked floor from room to room, she discovered
that Booth had already gone. He had left a note for her.

For all of two seconds Anabeth considered waiting in the valley for Booth to return. Then she dressed as quickly as she could, saddled her horse, and headed for the line shack where Booth was meeting the outlaw gang. Her feelings of foreboding increased the closer she got to the shack. Something bad was going to happen. She just knew it. The dun was tired, but she urged him to a faster run. Time was running out on her dream.

As she approached the shack she could hear angry voices. Oh, God. Please, let her not be too late!

Anabeth slipped off her horse and kept herself hidden from view in the rocky terrain that surrounded the shack. All the members of the outlaw gang were visible. Except Wat Rankin. Where the hell was he?

“What took you so long!” Snake was demanding of Booth. “We been waitin’ here for hours.”

“Weren’t no posse come lookin’ for us,” Teague said. “Got away clean.”

“Where’s the gold?” Grier demanded.

“Rankin sure knew what he was talkin’ about,” Teague said, rubbing his hands together. “Good thing we hooked up with him in Santa Fe.”

“Where is Rankin?” Booth asked. “I’ve got something to say to him.”

“Here.” Rankin stepped into the doorway of the shack, his thumbs tucked into his belt. His lips were curved in a sneer. “Speak up, Booth. I’m listenin’.”

“I said there’d be no killing. I meant it. Get your things, Rankin, and clear out.”

There was a rumble of protest from the other six outlaws gathered around the front of the shack.

Booth stared them into silence. “Two men were shot and killed, and Rankin is responsible. As long as I’m boss, I’ll give the orders, and you’ll follow them.”

“So maybe you shouldn’t be boss anymore,” Rankin said.

Booth felt the hairs stand up on his arms. His hands slipped down to his sides where his two pearl-handled guns were holstered. He looked from one to another of the men ranged before him. “Any of the rest of you feel that way?”

Grier and Teague looked belligerent. Snake’s tongue slipped out to lick his lips. Whiskey took a drink from the jug on his shoulder. Reed coughed. Solano wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Booth’s gaze slid back to the yellow-haired man in the doorway. There was real danger here. He could feel it. Like wolves that turn on their own, he could be savaged by the same men who had ridden by his side.

“You planning to draw on me, Rankin?” Booth asked.

Wat held his right hand away from his revolver. “Wouldn’t think of it, Booth. By the way, where’s the Kid? Thought he’d be with you.”

“It’s none of your business where the Kid is,” Booth retorted. He watched Rankin’s eyes, but there was nothing to tell him one way or the other what the miscreant was thinking. If anything, he felt danger even more strongly.

“You gonna divvy up that gold now?” Whiskey demanded.

There was a look in Whiskey’s eyes, just a flicker of bloodlust that warned Booth how much trouble he was in. “Just let me get the gold and—”

Booth turned his back casually, as though he wasn’t aware of the slobbering fangs of the beasts that surrounded him. A movement at the corner of the shack caught his eye and distracted him for an instant.

Anabeth!

Booth grunted, shoved forward as a bullet slammed into his back. He whipped his head around and saw the gun in Rankin’s hand.

He never got his Colts out of the holsters before he was shot in the left arm by Snake and the right hand by Solano. Before he could move his wounded limbs, Grier and Teague plucked his pearl-handled guns from their holsters and threw them off into the bushes. He was totally at the gang’s mercy now.

“Your days of leadin’ this gang are over,” Wat said. “But if you wanta live, you better tell us where the Kid is.”

“Forget it.”

“He’s prob’ly in that secret valley,” Reed volunteered.

Wat’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Then maybe you better tell us where that valley is, Booth.”

“No.”

“Put a couple of bullets in his knees,” Wat said to Grier and Teague. “Maybe that’ll show him we mean business.”

Anabeth recoiled with each gunshot, and bit her lower lip until it bled to keep from crying out. Her whole body trembled with outrage. Tears welled in her eyes. Even if Booth lived now, he would most likely be crippled and never walk again. The next time she looked, her uncle was lying on his side on the porch, gripping his legs above the knees. He groaned once from the pain and then was silent.

Anabeth thought about jumping from the bushes and fanning her hammer, sending bullets flying. She
was lightning fast with a gun, but could she get seven of them before one of them got her? The answer to that question was no. And getting herself killed wasn’t going to help Booth.

“Where’s the Kid?” Wat demanded.

“Go to hell,” Booth said. He stared at the outlaws who had been his friends, but was met with merciless eyes.

Rankin rested his boot on one of Booth’s mangled knees and said, “Talk.”

“You’re one yellow-bellied—”

Rankin put his weight on the injured knee, and Booth screamed with pain.

“You got one last chance to talk,” Rankin said.

“You can kill me, but the Kid’s going to come after you,” Booth gasped. “I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for what your lives are going to be worth when he finds out what you’ve done.”

Booth watched the outlaws shift anxiously, saw the sweat break out as they nervously shuffled their feet. He wished there was some way of telling Anabeth to stay hidden. He was a dead man any way you looked at it. There was no sense in her getting killed, too. He hoped like hell she didn’t take his talk about revenge to heart. Those were words meant to keep the gang from going after her long enough for her to make her escape. He regretted not telling her exactly where the gold was hidden. Maybe, with luck, she would find it anyway and get herself to Colorado.

“Finish him off!” Rankin said.

Anabeth watched with horrified eyes as Reed and Whiskey put two more bullets in Booth. It was clear from Booth’s grunts, and the way his body flattened, that they were mortal blows.

Anabeth! Get the hell out of here! Run!

It was a warning shouted in Booth’s head, one that
never found voice as the muscles in his bullet-riddled body eased and slackened on the ground.

Anabeth ducked back completely behind the shack. Her stomach clenched and spasmed.
Booth was dead!
There had been nothing she could do to save him.

She slid down and hugged her knees, hidden by the bushes at the base of the shack. Maybe if she hadn’t come here her uncle would still be alive! She had distracted Booth with her appearance only moments before Wat Rankin had shot him in the back. Maybe if his attention had been on Rankin—

But Anabeth knew deep down that Booth hadn’t had a chance against Rankin. There was no defense against the sort of yellow-bellied cur who shot a man in the back.

Maybe, in that first instant, if she had pulled her gun, she might have helped Booth shoot his way free. But shock and fear had kept her frozen until it was too late. Until reason told her she would only get herself killed if she tried to help him.

Anabeth felt a sob rising in her throat and choked it back. If she made any sound at all the outlaws would surely find her. She pressed her face to her knees and held her breath. And prayed they wouldn’t discover her presence.

“Hey! He’s not wearing the money belt,” Snake said.

“Look in his saddlebags,” Rankin said.

“There is only a little here, señor,” Solano said, handing Booth’s saddlebags to Rankin.

“What the hell?”

Anabeth heard the outlaws’ disgust and dismay, their terrible outrage when they realized Booth had brought only a pittance of the stolen gold with him.

“We’ve got to find the Kid,” Rankin said. “He’ll know where the gold is.”

But I don’t!
Anabeth realized.

“We don’t know where to find the Kid,” Whiskey admitted. “Booth took the secret of that valley with him to the grave.”

Rankin swore again. “Then we’ll have to spread out and hunt for it. Even if we can’t find the valley, the Kid’ll have to surface sooner or later. When he does, we’ll be waitin’ for him.”

Anabeth hunched into as small a space as she could when the outlaws rode past her. They had been gone for several minutes before she could force her trembling legs to stand, and several minutes more before she could force herself to go to her uncle.

Booth was lying on the porch in a pool of blood. She put her hand over her mouth to force back the gag that threatened. She knelt beside him, afraid to touch him because he was wounded in so many places. “Booth.”

Anabeth had been so certain her uncle was dead that she gasped when his eyes fluttered open. “Booth! You’re alive!” Her heart leaped with joy that quickly turned to horror when she reached for his hand and encountered torn flesh instead.

“Booth, you need a doctor.”

“No doctor,” he rasped. “Too late for that.”

“Don’t say that!” Anabeth clasped Booth’s good hand in hers and brought it to her cheek. Booth couldn’t die! He was the only family she had left.

Anabeth saw the despair in her uncle’s eyes, the knowledge that the end was near. Booth’s face was ashen, his breathing shallow. Her uncle was right. It was too late for a doctor to do him any good now.

“I’m so sorry, Booth.”

“For what?”

“For being where I wasn’t supposed to be. If I hadn’t distracted you—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Kid. What happened was going
to happen whether you were here or not.” He saw the disillusionment, the loss of innocence in her eyes. “You take the gold and you go to Colorado. You hear me? You get away from here as quick as you can.”

His eyes dulled and Anabeth felt panic at the realization he hadn’t long to live.

“Watch out for Rankin,” Booth rasped.

The tears in her uncle’s eyes frightened her. “I promise you they’ll suffer for what they’ve done to you, Booth. Every single one of them. Especially Rankin. I swear it, Booth.
I swear it!”

“No, Kid! You have to get away!” A moan of pain was torn from his throat.

“Booth? What can I do? How can I help?”

He grasped her arm and she leaned down, putting her ear near his lips. He whispered something, words that made no sense.

“What did you say? I don’t understand.”

He whispered them again. The same meaningless words.

She wanted to shake him. It seemed so important to him for her to understand, but he wasn’t making any sense. “Booth, I don’t understand!”

“Kid …”

Anabeth stared at him for a moment before she realized he was dead. His eyes glazed. His thick black eyelashes looked unreal. His chest no longer rose and fell. His fingers went slack in hers.

“No.” Anabeth denied his death. “Please, Booth.” She felt anguish too painful to bear. “Noooooo!”

Later Anabeth was never sure how she got through the next several hours. She searched through the bushes until she found Booth’s two pearl-handled revolvers. She would use Booth’s own guns to wreak the vengeance she had sworn.

Somehow she managed to get Booth on his horse and back to the valley. There she dug a hole behind
the stone house and buried her uncle beside her father, covering the grave with stones to mark it well.

She sat beside Booth’s grave, refusing to give in to the grief, nursing the desire for revenge instead. Outlaw or not, her uncle hadn’t deserved such a gruesome death. And for what? For a cache of gold that Anabeth hadn’t been able to find in a very thorough search of the valley. The secret of Booth’s horde had died with him.

Anabeth vowed that Wat Rankin and the rest of Booth’s outlaw gang were going to pay for their treachery. She couldn’t go to the law. The law would only be glad to be rid of one more outlaw. So she needed a strategy, some cunning plan to avenge her uncle’s murder.

The answer came to her like a flash of lightning in a mountain thunderstorm. Crisply defined, overwhelming, and absolutely beautiful in its simplicity.

Booth’s gang would be looking for Kid Calhoun. But they knew nothing about Anabeth. Finally, she was going to realize her dream of becoming a lady. She would hide out in Santa Fe as prim little Anabeth “Smith” and watch the gang’s movements. Then, when they least suspected it, Kid Calhoun would swoop down and wreak awful vengeance for her uncle’s death.