Mary Connealy (96 page)

“Forget it.” Knowing he had to face a long day’s work without a minute of sleep, Boog’s wanting to quit fired Sid’s temper. “Come back from Griffin’s when you’re ready, but the plan doesn’t change.”

Sid spurred his horse toward the Sawyer place. As he rode alone toward the spread he planned to make his own, it occurred to him that Boog and Harv were free as birds. They could sleep the day away. They could even head out and collect that gold and make tracks for California.

Refusing to look back, Sid decided this whole plan had taken too long. Mort was supposed to die outright. Arrogance had goaded Sid into letting the fall and the long cold night kill the old man. Now he needed to finish off the old man and the son and deal with that wild woman.

He’d give Boog and Harv a few more days to heal up; then it was time to make his move.

I
have no wish to see your white village, Wade. I should have stayed with Gertie.”

“I’m sending a telegram to Helena asking about settlers named Lind, from back a few years. They can pass it on to land offices, and maybe we’ll find where your pa lived. Don’t you want to be there if we get an answer back?”

Abby scowled. She’d done more frowning since she’d come to live with the Sawyers than in her entire years with the Flathead. This long trail ride in the predawn darkness was unsettling. She’d smelled something back in the woods. Men. White men. Even riding with this group of them, she knew more were watching from the woods. But white men were always about. She’d learned to fear them, hate them, but mostly ignore them.

They’d taken everything from the Flatheads, all tribes in fact, but her people had found fertile valleys and lived in remote places. They were far from the whites who spread like a disease across this land. Until that massacre of her village, they’d left Abby’s people alone in their rugged mountain valleys.

Wade rode his horse a bit closer to Abby’s side and lowered his voice. “The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that arrow was aimed at you, not me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Or maybe they were going for both of us. If that arrow was shot by the same men that massacred your village, then they might count both of us as witnesses.”

“You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Maybe you need to be scared. If I’m right, Abby, then we’re dealing with the worst kind of yellow dog.”

“You’ve just described all white men.” Abby waited for Wade to defend his people. When he didn’t, Abby felt bad about it. Wade had been nothing but kind, even sweet, so all white men except Wade.

Instead of defending his honor, he went right on pestering her to be more cautious. “We’re talking about a man who’d shoot at a woman from cover. When you’re in the house with Gertie, I think you’re safe. A coward like that wouldn’t storm the house. But that’s with me and my best hands working close enough to be here in minutes. But today I have to go to town and I needed to take my best hands with me. I didn’t want to ride off and leave you and Gertie without any protection. If they’re really after you, then Gertie’s in danger, too, as long as you’re there. I couldn’t ride off to town without you, so you had to come.”

He’d used this same argument to nag her into going. She had agreed to come along and now she regretted it. Mainly because of that sense of being watched. “Fine, I will see this village and help drive your stolen cattle home.”

His eyes narrowed as if she’d insulted him somehow, but he didn’t say why, and she made no effort to coax his reasons from him or soothe his feelings.

“Let’s pick up the pace now that it’s light. We need to make a fast trip. The roundup is going well, but I want to get back.”

As she guided her pony with her knees, Abby looked at the men, loaded down with their iron guns and their heavy leather saddles, and wondered how the poor horses stood it.

“That’s Tom Linscott and his drovers.” Wade drew Abby’s attention toward a group coming into town the same time as the Sawyers.

He and Abby and his cowhands rode into Divide just as the sun finally cleared the horizon.

“Red must’ve sent word to him, too. Our range butts up against the Linscotts’. Pa and Tom have been wrangling over water holes and grazing land ever since Linscott came in here nearly eight years ago. The man isn’t an easy neighbor, but truth be told, Pa was always more at fault than Tom.”

Abby gave the riders a disinterested look and turned back toward the corral ahead of them. Wade saw the yard full of cattle standing quietly as if they hadn’t gotten out of bed for the morning yet, but he turned back to study Linscott. Wade had picked up his father’s attitude toward the stubborn Swede, but now Wade was determined to be friendly if Tom would allow it. There was considerable bad blood between the families.

It was easy to resent the blond giant because Wade knew Tom was the kind of man Mort wished Wade would be. Being a Christian now, Wade admitted that the hostility he felt toward Linscott had a lot to do with jealousy, and it wasn’t right.

Wade rode up to the corral just as Tom got there. Tom had a wary gaze on Wade. It was hard to look the man in the eye, remembering drunken insults Wade had hurled at him only a couple of years ago. Wade knew God had forgiven him, but he had no such hope about Tom.

“Morning.” Wade swung down off his horse and wrapped his reins around the hitching post. He noticed Abby swing one leg over her horse’s neck and drop lightly to the ground on her moccasin-covered feet. He saw her legs almost to her knees and looked away quickly just because he didn’t want to see any more. He could not convince the woman it was important to keep her ankles covered. But proper manners or not, all the gingham in the world wasn’t going to dull her skill as a horsewoman.

“Sawyer.” Tom looked at Wade; then his eyes were drawn on past.

Wade glanced behind him to notice Abby striding toward them. Abby was as white-blond as Tom, and it occurred to Wade that the two would make a likely pair. For some reason that reminded him of why he’d hated Linscott. “Looks like we’re on the same errand.”

Linscott rode a black thoroughbred with a white blaze and white stockings on his front feet. The animal was huge and feisty, rumored to be so dangerous no one went near him but Tom, and no one else had ever been on his back. He’d made Linscott a fortune as ranches paid top dollar for stud fees. And Linscott used that fortune to buy up land and build up his herd.

As Wade stepped close, the stallion snorted and shook his head, jingling the metal of his bridle. The bared teeth were ample warning for Wade to stay back.

Linscott rode the black to a hitching post well away from the other horses and lashed the reins tight.

“Can I talk to you for just a minute, Tom?” Wade knew Linscott was a brusque, short-tempered man, a good match for his horse.

“Make it quick.” Tom walked toward Wade, his spurs jingling, his stride long and impatient. He faced Wade almost as if squaring off for a shootout.

Wade couldn’t blame Tom for expecting the worst, but Wade wasn’t going to give the man trouble. “I spent most of the years since we’ve met being a first-class coyote and I’m sorry. There, that fast enough?”

Linscott’s shoulders slumped a bit, and his eyes narrowed. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yep, that’s it. I don’t expect you to trust me after some of the things I pulled, but I’ve changed. I quit drinking. I’m back on the ranch with Pa. I’d like there to be peace between us. No more pushing Sawyer cattle onto your range, no more fighting about those two water holes Pa liked to wrangle over. They’re yours and always have been. I’ll keep my cattle away.”

Linscott scowled. “I’ve wanted to put my fist through your face for years.”

“You have a few times, if I recall.”

“It wasn’t ever enough.” Linscott crossed his arms as if to keep his fists from flying.

“It’ll take time to prove to you that I mean what I say.” Wade made a point of looking Linscott straight in the eye. If there was anger, even fists, Wade intended to take it as his due. Linscott wasn’t an evil man, just a grouch with a short temper. “But I do. After a time, you’ll believe me, I reckon.”

A soft nicker from Linscott’s stallion drew Wade’s attention.

“Such a good boy.” Abby caressed the beast’s nose, standing directly in front of the horse.

“Get back!” Wade took one step.

Tom’s hand clamped on his arm like a steel vise. “Don’t move!” Releasing Wade, Tom eased himself the ten feet or so toward Abby. “Miss, step away.”

Abby looked up from the horse’s muzzle. “Why?”

“He’s dangerous. Step slowly back.”

Abby smiled then gave the stallion a kiss on his nose. “Dangerous, are you, boy? I’d say you’re just looking out for yourself. I know how you feel.”

She stepped away from the horse and walked toward Tom without a bit of fear or caution. She was easily within reach of the stallion’s iron-shod hooves.

Wade held his breath until she was far enough away from the horse to be out of biting and kicking range.

Tom took two long strides toward her, put that iron vise of a hand on her arm, and jerked her nearly off her feet. “Are you crazy?” He dragged her about half a step before she kicked him in the back of the knee, twisted her arm loose, and rammed a fist high into his belly. Tom was flat on the ground on his back, sucking in breath like a backward scream, with Abby kneeling on his chest with her knife pressed to his neck.

It all happened so fast Wade hadn’t even reacted before it was over.

“You put your hands on me again, white man, and I’ll see you don’t get your fingers back.”

Linscott was too busy trying to breathe to do much else.

Several of the Linscott drovers turned to defend their boss.

Wade was at her side and raised a hand to Linscott’s men. They might not obey a hand gesture from him, but they might hold off on shooting the woman who was threatening to slit their boss’s throat. “Don’t hurt him, Ab. Tom was afraid his horse would attack you. The animal’s got a reputation as a killer.”

“Hey, my stallion’s never killed anyone.” Linscott defended his horse from his position flat on his back.

“Not for lack of trying.” Wade prodded Tom with his toe, not too hard, to remind the idiot that he was one swift knife slash from death. Not that Wade thought Abby would kill him. Unless she really had to. Or Tom was really stupid in what he said in the next few minutes.

“The horse never put his hands on me.” Abby leaned forward and put all her weight on the knee she had rammed into Tom’s chest. “He never dragged me around or shouted at me. I’d say the stallion has better manners than his owner.”

“He was trying to save you.” Wade knew Abby was just having fun now. The time to cut was long past.

Abby gave him a look of such doubt that Wade added, “No, really, he was.”

With motions so quick the human eye couldn’t follow them, Abby whipped her knife away, back into its hidden pouch. Wade still wasn’t sure where exactly the woman kept the knife, and it was rude to study her skirt long enough to be sure.

Abby shoved off Tom’s chest far harder than necessary, and she dusted off her knee as if Linscott had gotten her dirty.

Wade reached down, and Tom, his eyes locked on Abby, didn’t notice. Wade kicked him, no gentle prod like last time.

That Tom noticed. He grabbed Wade’s hand to get to his feet.

Wade pulled maybe just a tad harder than was absolutely necessary, and Tom, back to looking at Abby, almost fell over forward.

“S–sorry, I didn’t mean to mistreat you…uh …” Linscott looked at Wade.

That wide-eyed fascination with Abby set Wade off. But he’d just told Tom about turning over a new leaf, so he refrained from gaining Tom’s attention with his fists. “It’s Abby.” Wade tried for a minimum amount of good manners. “Abby Lin—”

“What?” Tom reacted as if a lightning bolt had just landed slap on him. “Abby Linscott? That’s my sister’s name.”

“Not
Linscott.”
Wade resisted the urge to swat the man in the back of the head, just to see if he could make him blink. Tom was riveted by Abby. “Lind. Abby Lind, this is Tom Linscott.”

Tom moved closer to Abby.

Abby seemed to be focused unduly on Tom, too.

Wade needed his gun.

Suddenly Tom was fumbling with something on his shirt.

Wade stepped closer. He’d have stepped right between them if there’d been room.

“Linscott?” Abby paid rapt attention to the man. “Tom Linscott?”

Tom produced a large gold pocket watch and pressed the stem winder. The watch popped open to reveal a picture. “This is …” Tom looked from the picture to Abby and back. “This could be you.”

“Who is it?” Abby leaned close, studying the picture. She took it from Tom’s hands even though he tried to hang on, but he didn’t try hard. He tried like a man who was numb all the way to his fingertips. She lifted it close, and long seconds passed as she stared at the likeness. “Mama.”

Barely able to hear the words, Wade leaned closer. “You recognize this picture?” Wade looked, and there was no way to deny that the woman in the picture bore a stunning resemblance to Abby.