Prairie Song (24 page)

The overweight man dropped to his knees, blood flashing in the light as it dripped through his fingers onto the already damp floor. His eyes were wide with shock and unrestrained fear.

The blade struck again from behind. Cherish covered her ears as the metal hit his spine. When Westley slumped forward, a gloved hand gripped his hair and held his head back. Without hesitation, his killer slid the knife across his throat, plowing a deep row of crimson from ear to ear. Westley’s eyes screamed of pain, but sound could no longer pass his throat. As blood flowed like a waterfall, his eyes froze open in a death stare.

With a flick, the stranger wiped his knife on Westley’s shirt and replaced it in his boot. “I should have aimed for your throat the other night instead of your gut.”

For a moment his wrist flashed in the low lamplight. The scars of the boy betrayed the man.

Cherish stared at the scars crossing his wrist and fought back a cry that started so deep inside her it would have pulled out her heart if she released it.

With powerful grace and speed, the stranger was gone, taking the light with him. Cherish opened her mouth to scream, but Bar’s fingers closed over her lips in a firm grip. His hand was shaking with fear, but he held tight. “Don’t scream, Miss Cherish. Don’t scream or he’ll come back and kill us too.”

It was several minutes before they could make their limbs work to climb the rest of the stairs. They slipped through the door and locked it. Then they slid to the floor as if their backs would keep out the horror they’d witnessed.

Bar let out a long sigh. “I reckon he killed Westley.”

Cherish nodded, not trusting herself to speak. There was no reason to check the body. She’d seen men look into death’s face too many times for her not to know the stare from which no man ever blinked.

“You think if he’d found us, he’d have killed us too?”

She closed her eyes, not wanting to even imagine what would have happened it he’d seen them. With a jerk, she nodded, and suddenly they were hugging like two children sharing the same nightmare.

Bar finally whispered, “You know who it was, don’t you?”

Cherish looked at the boy and thought he looked older than he had at supper a few hours ago. “Yes.” She fought back the tears. “I know.”

It took Brant almost two weeks to get Grayson back to Fort Worth. The huge man was as hard to haul as a grizzly across a waterfall. He never complained about the pain he was in, but he yelled about everything else. Brant thought several times about slugging him again, but he knew part of the problem was simply that they were two loners accustomed to picking their own trail at their own speed.

When he finally succeeded in reaching the outskirts of Fort Worth, Brant said a silent prayer of thanks and decided that no matter what he’d heard about Maggie, she didn’t deserve a bear of a man like Grayson Kirkland. Brant vowed if he ever came upon the Yankee wounded again, he’d shoot Grayson and save himself a lot of misery.

Since there was no way Brant could get Grayson to Hattie’s place in broad daylight without being seen, he took the Yank to Holliday’s. He trusted Grayson as far as he trusted about any man, but not enough to show him the tunnel into Hattie’s.

Holliday welcomed them with her usual warm hospitality and open palm. It took her several minutes to get a room emptied out. With the men from a cattle drive in town, she was having to double up on every room’s activity. Brant could tell by the noise coming from below that they would be safe as long as he had money.

While Holliday got Grayson settled into a room, she sent word for Cherish to come. In less than an hour, Cherish was tapping on Holliday’s back door.

As she entered, Cherish smiled an honest greeting to the older woman. “‘Morning, Miss Holliday. How are you today?”

Holliday crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m as busy as a three-dollar whore during a half-price sale and now I got a man up there who’s been telling me there ain’t no woman that will suit his fancy but you.”

Cherish tilted her head. She’d known Holliday long enough to realize when she was kidding.

“He come riding in here telling me that it had been over a month since he’d seen the likes of you and he wanted to see his lady.”

“Brant?” Cherish shouted.

“And …” Holliday didn’t finish, for Cherish was already up the stairs.

She ran to the last room on the landing. When she flung the door open, she saw her outlaw standing by the window, watching the street. His hair was longer and in need of a trim and his clothes looked as if they had a pound of soil layered into them. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were hungry with need.

For a moment the nightmare from the night before flashed in Cherish’s mind. She saw the knife and the wrist with scars on it. Had it been the right or left hand? Brant or Daniel? Her fear and the horror of what she saw made her uncertain.

But when she looked into Brant’s warm brown eyes there could be no doubt of one thing, and that was her love for him. No matter who he was, or what he’d done, she loved him. She loved him totally, without reason. Right or wrong, good or bad, couldn’t color that fact. For the first time Cherish couldn’t stand watching, but had to feel.

Dropping her bag, she ran into his waiting arms. For one moment the world stopped and there was only Brant. All the nights of lying awake thinking of him disappeared as she clung to him. He’d opened the door to all her locked-up feelings, and with the pleasure had also come the pain of missing him. There were many fears and questions in her mind, but doubt that he loved her was not one of them.

He lifted her tiny body off the floor and swung her around, loving the way she came to him. Never had anyone opened her arms and heart to him. She’d been on his mind every minute of every day since he’d been gone. He pressed his lips against her ear and whispered, “I love you, baby. God help us both, I love you.”

She seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time as she held his face in her hands and kissed him. “I’m so glad you came back to me,” she whispered. “I was so afraid.”

“Afraid?” Brant laughed. “Not the girl who threatened to kill me if I didn’t make love to her.”

Cherish wrapped her arms around his neck. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back to me.”

Brant’s words were lost in their kiss. He knew that someday he wouldn’t return, but for now she was in his arms. For now, he’d live the dream of happiness, if only for a moment.

A loud baritone voice shook the couple back to earth. “I hate to interrupt this homecoming, but I’m dying over here.”

Brant didn’t release Cherish as he looked toward Grayson. “Hell, he’s too mean to die.”

Cherish pushed away from Brant, her cheeks red with embarrassment that someone had witnessed her show of emotion. She grabbed her bag and hurried to Grayson’s bedside. He had more dried blood and dirt on him than she’d ever seen on a man.

Holliday entered with a huge tub of water. She sat it down on one of the chairs and propped her bulk on another as if getting comfortable for the show she knew was going to take place.

Cherish checked his wounds and agreed with Brant that he was in little danger of dying. Both his leg and his shoulder needed to be cleaned and bandaged again, but neither showed any sign of infection. He had no fever and his color was good despite the loss of blood. She closed her bag and stepped back from the bed.

Grayson looked confused. “Aren’t you going to do something? I’ve had to put up with this madman’s doctoring for two weeks.”

“You put up with me!” Brant yelled. “I’d as soon bunk with a buffalo than spend any more time with you. You’re about the most ungrateful …”

“A blind, three-legged dog could pick a better trail than you,” Grayson interrupted. “We must have ridden over every ridge and through every tree line between here and Canada.”

“Well, at least I pick a trail and not just leave one. You had the thoughtlessness to bleed for ten miles.”

Suddenly both Brant and Grayson were laughing, a rich, full laughter that filled the room. They realized that they sounded like two children complaining to their mother. Cherish looked from one to the other and wondered if madness might be contagious. She wasn’t sure whether they were friends or bitter enemies.

Grayson finally stopped laughing and looked at her. “Can you get these makeshift bandages off? I think Brant used the horse blanket, the way they itch.”

Grateful that Grayson could take her mind away from her disturbing thoughts of Brant, mischief danced in Cherish’s green eyes. “Why should I, when you have a perfectly good nurse in Maggie to take care of you?”

Grayson rubbed his beard. “I don’t want Maggie nursing me. She’s so mad at me she’d probably cut a pound of hide right off me.”

Cherish folded her arms. “Well, I’m not nursing you, so that only leaves Brant or Maggie.”

Grayson growled like a bear. He’d already had all he wanted of Brant’s none-too-light touch. In fact, he’d had all he wanted of everyone and everything in Texas. General Sheridan was right when he’d said that if he owned Texas and all of hell, he’d rent out Texas and live in hell.

Before Grayson could finish telling everyone exactly what he thought, Holliday yelled out the door for two of the many drunks who always seemed to be at her place.

“These boys will deliver him right to the door of Hattie’s Parlor for a free drink.”

“Like hell!” the Yankee yelled.

With one mighty twist, Holliday covered Grayson in the quilt and motioned for the men to haul him off. They could hear Grayson cursing and threatening revenge as the drunks carried him down the stairs, bumping into about every third rail.

Holliday stepped to the doorway. “I’ll see that no one bothers you for a while. You two look like you might have a lot to visit about.”

Cherish started to say something, but the door closed before she could get a word out. A heartbeat later she was in Brant’s arms. His need for her was a liquid fire that flowed through his lips and into her veins. With him she was alive, completely alive. But her heart was slowly dying, inch by inch, as she tried to remember any detail that would make Westley’s killer Daniel and not Brant. The voice was Daniel’s, she kept repeating to herself as Brant held her, but logic told her that the whisper could have come from either man.

When he broke the kiss, she could see the need in his eyes. He knew nothing of her questions. “I want to love you,” he whispered against her mouth, “but not here. Not in this place.”

Cherish shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She knew she couldn’t stop loving him, even if he had been the one who killed Westley.

Brant pulled her arms away. “It matters to me. I need to clean up. The thought of lying with you in a bed that has been warmed by half the cowhands on the Chisholm Trail is not to my liking. I’ll come to you tonight, through the tunnel.”

He could feel her tense in his arms. “Not through the tunnel,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry. I’ve walked it a hundred times without a light. I know it by heart.”

Brant placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered her to sit on the bed. He knelt in front of her and took her hands. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Cherish fought back the tears. Then, like opening a window, something clicked in her mind. “What did you say?” She pushed the tears away with her palm.

“I said I know the tunnel by heart.”

“No. About the light.”

Brant looked confused. “I never use a light. Daniel is the one that always has to carry a lantern through the tunnel. He can’t stand to be in the dark.”

Now her tears were falling with relief.

“What is it?” Brant demanded.

“Last night …”

The door suddenly flew open and Holliday hurried in. “Sorry to have to cut this short, but Wart just found Westley Alexander’s body down by the river.” She smiled as if she’d just delivered grand news. “Someone said they saw you, Brant, dragging it there early this morning and everyone’s looking for you. You’d better get while you can. I don’t want no more bullet holes in my walls.”

Brant pulled Cherish to her feet. “I didn’t …”

“I know,” she answered, suddenly realizing she could never have loved a man who could have killed someone so callously. Tears ran down her face as she looked up at him, knowing that this might be the last time she saw him. “Take care, my love.”

Brant ran, more because he couldn’t face seeing the pain in her eyes than because of any posse chasing him. He knew she was afraid for him, but he’d also seen the trust. Somehow she’d known he hadn’t killed Westley.

Maggie sat on the porch with her gun across her lap. She’d decided Cherish and Bar had gone insane. They knew today was the day Westley had said he was coming, yet they acted as if it was just any ordinary day. Cherish had even trotted off to Holliday’s to help some poor injured drunk without even taking her gun. Bar had wandered off to the barn, even after they’d agreed yesterday not to go anywhere unless someone was with them.

Well, she wouldn’t let down her guard. She’d be ready when he came.

Maggie let out a long sigh and watched the sun touch the roofs of Hell’s Half-Acre. One good thing about today: Westley hadn’t shown his face. All her worry and dread would have to wait for another day. She had slept very little the night before and Cherish and Bar looked like they hadn’t slept at all. Now they’d face another night without sleep, dreading what the morrow would bring.

Maggie rested her rifle against the door frame. For a little while, she’d thought she’d travel down the hill and confront Westley before dark. She wanted to have it out once and for all and be done with him. But she wasn’t sure what she’d find down there. It was better to wait for him to show up here.

The quiet evening was shattered suddenly by two men heavy into drink. They lurched up toward her, carrying a load in a blanket. Maggie stood and watched them as they approached. She could only guess what kind of wild animal they carried in the quilt stretched between them.

Hearing a moan from beneath the blanket, Maggie quickly lifted her rifle and slid her finger over the trigger. This might be some kind of trick Westley was using to get near the house without being shot.

Grayson remained still for fear they’d drop him again. He’d decided he’d died and been left in hell with two of Holliday’s drunks. They’d twisted the blanket so tight he could hardly breathe, then they’d accidentally bumped into every post between Holliday’s and Hattie’s. Twice, the imbecile carrying Grayson’s feet dropped him, causing great pain to his wounded leg. By the time they pitched him onto the porch, Grayson was promising to murder them both slowly.

Neither man waited for him to untwist from the blanket, but ran as soon as he hit the wooden porch.

Grayson threw the quilt aside and tried to stand, wondering what he’d ever done to Holliday to make her hate him so much. Now, to add to the bullet wounds in his shoulder and leg, he had a bruise over one eye from where he guessed his head had collided with a hitching post, and a cut in his side where he’d scraped against something when one of the drunks stumbled.

When he turned toward Margaret, the murder in his eyes would have struck most women dead on sight. But Maggie simply stared at him as if disapproving of the fact that he was getting blood on her porch. She didn’t even bother to lower her gun, which was pointed at his middle. At this point, Grayson doubted if one more wound would add any more pain to what he was already feeling.

“You look like death warmed over in a dirty pot.”

He smiled despite the pain. “Hell, woman, you think I look bad on the outside. You should see what you’ve done to my heart since I’ve known you.”