Renegade Riders (7 page)

“You don’t owe me anything,” he returned, letting her go. “Are you crazy? Do you think for one minute I’d let you do a thing like that? And what would I do with Diablo, leave him out here to starve or run wild again? No. If Preacher hasn’t found out anything, I’ll take you up those mountains east of the Lazy C to a mesa I know where a small band of Hualapai Indians make camp this time of year. They’re a renegade bunch with an outlaw chief. White Eagle’s his name—an outcast, and one mean brave—but we’re friends. He owes me. He’ll keep you safe ’til I do what I came here to do. You can bank on that.”

“If you can leave me with this White Eagle, you can just as easily leave Diablo there. He’d be safe, and we could do like I said—”

“No! Damn it, Mae, I said no. That’s the end of it.
We wait for Preacher. Once I see what he’s got to say, I’ll know what to do next. If worse comes to worst, I’ll take you up the mountain. We can’t travel by day; it’s too risky, and I’ll have to tie burlap on Diablo’s hooves until we leave this sandy clay and hit red rock, or they’ll track us for sure. When we reach the Indian camp, I’ll leave you and Diablo there and—”

“And what?” Mae countered. “You can’t face Jared alone. What are you going to do, just ride on in like you did before? He kicked you off, remember.”

“Nobody kicked me off, Mae. I left so he wouldn’t suspect Preacher—so that the old codger would have a chance to find out something…and so as not to add to your troubles. I still hadn’t found out which way the wind was blowing with you and that outfit, if you recall.”

“You’re going to do this, aren’t you?” she shrilled. “You’re going to just…just…”

“You think I’m new at this—a greenhorn? Lady, you have a lot to learn about me. This is
what I do
, Mae.” He sighed, a mix of exhaustion and frustration.

“But if you take me back, he’ll never suspect you.”

“No!” Trace thundered. “It’s out of the question. Any man who’d do like Jared Comstock did to you is lower than a snake’s underbelly. I’d be lower than that if I put you in his way again. Now get some sleep. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, or when we’ll sleep again. You’ve got to trust me, Mae. Get some rest. I’ll turn in shortly, once I’ve seen to Diablo.”

She said no more. Trace was a stubborn man, used to dealing with life in his own fashion. There clearly wasn’t any use in arguing.

Mae sat for a bit longer, then did as told. Snuggling down into the bedroll he’d prepared for her, she watched Trace tend the horses. Pretending to be asleep, she watched as he slathered the ointment he’d prepared onto Diablo’s wounds. There was gentleness in his touch. It did her heart good to see the way he ministered to the horse, to know a man had such caring within him. She nearly spoke, watching Diablo respond, the mustang’s muscular flesh rippling, his bobbing head turned back as if to caress his master in appreciation. She couldn’t make out the words Trace whispered. She didn’t have to, though; there was genuine affection in the sound.

How Granddad would love this man, she reflected. Wistfully, she envisioned Trace on Foxtail caring for the broodmares and the young foals with the same tenderness. The images were so strong she could almost feel the warm Kentucky sun on her face, smell the bluegrass. Was there a chance they could turn their backs on this horrible place and fine a way back East? With Diablo, naturally. Granddad would welcome that horse with open arms. Oh, what a bloodline would come from a crossing his stock with the Kentucky Thoroughbreds!

The hauntingly beautiful daydream faded to mist as a twinge of guilt assailed Mae. Trace had been entirely open, and she hadn’t been totally honest. She shivered and pulled the blanket closer around herself. Should she throw caution to the winds and tell all? No. This was definitely not the time to share the rest of her story. She did trust Trace, but not with that. It would have to wait. She’d seen what was in his heart and eyes, felt it
in his kiss and the pressure of his strong, corded body that molded so perfectly to hers. The ghost of his arousal still lingered, holding sleep at bay. But soon. Maybe she would tell him soon.

The dwindling campfire flared up, crackling with yellow and orange flames as Trace added a few dead cedar branches; he was feeding the fire carefully, so no smoke or sparks danced in the air, nothing to reveal their hideaway. Mae couldn’t resist watching him. It was so easy to build castles in the air, dreams of them all together on a farm in Kentucky. Only, she had experienced too many disappointments this past month. It was better not to hope.

Her eyelids heavy, she closed them. Since she was a little girl, whenever she’d had a problem to solve, she always went to sleep with it on her mind and usually awoke with the answer. Once more, she drifted off praying for answers.

T
race
woke well before dawn and built the fire back up before he approached Mae. He put on some coffee, and divvied up the last of his hardtack and jerky for breakfast. Wasn’t much, but it was all he could offer. He couldn’t take time to hunt fresh meat.

The minute she opened her eyes, he was sorry he hadn’t just gone on and let her sleep.

He saw the fires of determination there; she wanted to help him by going back, the damn fool woman. Climbing the ridge was the only way he was going to keep her from pressing the case that he return with her to the Lazy C, which was the craziest plan ever hatched, as far as Trace was concerned, so he’d better hurry up and do it.

“Trace, I’ve been thinking. I have to go back. I am your only way back on the Lazy C. I have to find that deed to Foxtail. My granddad isn’t a young man; I don’t want him to have to face Jared trying to steal that farm from us. I mean, from him.”

“No. I won’t even discuss it, Mae.” He ignored that hopeful expression becoming a frown. “Now eat up. I’ve
got to get up on that ridge and keep an eye out for what ever’s going on down in the valley.”

“Trace, hear me out,” Mae begged. She clasped her hands in front of her, clearly desperate to make him understand. “I need to go back for that deed. If I go home to Kentucky without it, Jared Comstock will come after me and—”

“No!” Trace set about gathering up several supplies.

“Then take me with you. Please.”

“You’re safe down here,” he snapped.

She shook her head. “I’ll go crazy with worry.”

He sighed. “That fiery sunset of your hair would stand out for miles atop that ridge, shining in the sunlight, and you know it. Might as well wave a flag. No, you stay put, hang on to the Winchester, and shoot anything but Preacher that comes through that draw. Understood?”

“I’m afraid to stay down here alone,” Mae remarked.

“Just do as I say. I have enough worries with Preacher down there in the path of that killer husband—”

Mae snarled, “Don’t ever call him that. They spoke words over me, married me by putting a gun to my father’s head, but that vulture is not my husband.”

“Sorry,” Trace said. “I’ve got worries on my mind, Mae, and no time for chat. I should never have allowed Preacher to go down there. He’s doing my job while I’m standing around like a blamed fool. One misstep and that snake Comstock will kill him—which would ultimately be my fault for letting him talk me into his plan. I will
not
make the same mistake with you. Stay here. Put out the fire. Keep an eye peeled and the Winchester in reach, and stay away from Diablo. He needs
to heal.” Then, swinging himself up on Duchess’s back, Trace didn’t wait for a reply. He rode out through the sage and started the climb into the hills.

By the time he reached the flat table of rock below the summit, he was starting to feel bad for his shortness with Mae. She meant well. But that was the crux of the thing. She’d meant well in coming out to find her father, and look how that had ended! Fool woman had meant well when she stole away with some low-down, no-good varmint who only wanted to get his hands on her, and she’d meant well every time she’d stolen his horse. He needed to get her back to Kentucky. That farm she’d talked about sounded a little bit like heaven. She needed to be back there, sipping mint juleps on the veranda at sunset. Maybe with a kid or two at her knee. Talking about his sister, his mama said children always settled down high-spirited females. Poor Annelee had never had the chance. Trace would die to ensure that Mae did.

Feeling his belly grumble, he groped in his saddlebag. Jerky, that’s all he had, and he’d foregone the simple delight of roast rabbit, pan biscuits, and a pot of fresh brew. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d made do. Wouldn’t be the last, either.

Dropping Duchess’s lead rein down, he left her to graze on the few tufts of grass. She was a well-trained mare. Cowboys tended to teach their animals to stay wherever a rein was dropped, nothing being more deadly than getting tossed and having one’s fool horse run off with your weapons and grub. He patted her haunch. “Damn glad you’re not in season, Miss Duchess, or Diablo would be kicking up a fuss.”

Climbing to the summit, he flattened himself on a
rounded pinnacle of stone. His eyes trained on the dark S that was the trail winding through darker sage toward the Lazy C. The morning air was still cool, but he’d worked up a sweat. He stripped off his Stetson and wiped his brow. “Well, I don’t expect to find no burning bush up here, like Moses did, but Lord, I wouldn’t mind a few answers—just a little help,” he said to the sky.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. He always worked alone. Instead, through no fault of his own, he was no closer to getting those wild horses, he’d gotten off on the wrong foot at the Lazy C, and he’d spoiled his chances of ever being hired. And he certainly wasn’t
alone
. He was saddled with a fiery Kentucky woman who acted before thinking, and with a crusty old sourdough who was probably going to get himself killed.

“Not if I can help it,” Trace muttered.

He was uneasy that Preacher was involved at all. Almost as uneasy as Mae made him.

He was in a quandary over what to do with her until he could get her back to Kentucky. To be honest, he was having a damn hard time even thinking straight. He was falling for this woman. Yes, they had only seen each other a couple of times, yet she touched him in a manner he couldn’t explain—perhaps didn’t
want
to explain. So much of who he was and what he wanted out of life had died in that waste of a war. No one had expected the nightmare Mr. Lincoln’s army had unleashed. They talked bad about Nathan Bedford Forrest? Trace had nothing but respect for the man; he’d said what needed doing and got ’er done, as the saying went. And yet so many had died and suffered. The nation had been irrevocably changed.

Trace swallowed. That was a lifetime away. That was why he’d changed his name. Trevor Guilliard had died back there, five years ago; he’d been buried in the same grave as his sister. On that cold rainy day he’d returned from the prison camp and found his mother dead, his sister dying, Trace Ord had been born. And yet Mae reminded him that a bit of Trevor Guilliard still lived. She reminded him of a kinder time, of manners, of lace tablecloths and a mother telling him to keep his elbows off the table. He hadn’t been there to save Alicia Guilliard. He hadn’t been able to do more than hold his sister, Annelee, and cry, and then to offer her a proper burial. Scant comfort. But with Mae he had a second chance—a chance for atonement, redemption. Perhaps if he saved Mae, he might yet save himself.

Also…she awakened feelings in him, feelings the likes of which he’d believed himself unworthy to seek out for far too long. He’d never allowed himself to fall in love, never thought of planning a life with someone. For too long he’d just gone about being a renegade rider, no thoughts to a month ahead, or even a week. Mae was making him long for things he’d shunned. She made him remember he had a heart. He’d never been afraid of anything in his life, but he was afraid of this.

He imagined Mae below, clutching the Winchester, and considered the desperation that had driven her to risk fleeing the Lazy C a second time. There was no doubting her courage. But there was something else, too, and not just that she wanted back that deed to protect her grandfather. A couple of times he’d seen her biting the inside of her lip, as if trying to decide whether
or not to tell him something. But what was it? What was she too afraid to confess?

While his brain was filled with images of how it felt to hold her in his arms, he couldn’t dismiss the conviction that she hadn’t been completely truthful with him. That hurt. But then, it had hurt to see Diablo jerk his head away several times last night when he cared for him. The horse no longer trusted him. Trace would have to earn that trust again, just as he would have to prove to Mae he was worthy of her. Time was running out, though. He sensed it. There was danger in what ever she was hiding, and he would have to probe her soon to find out what it was. His instincts were too strong to resist, as they’d saved his life many times in the past.

By damn, just thinking about Mae set his pulse racing and blood surging into his groin. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, but…she hit him like whiskey. Trace snatched up his canteen to swish some water in his mouth, spat at a nearby lizard—damn lizard probably thought this was his lucky day. He’d even
dreamt
last night, dreamt of the rolling hills of Kentucky, of broodmares lazily grazing in white-fenced pastures. He’d been riding down a long road wending toward the main house, and Mae was running out to greet him. But he wasn’t sure he wanted such dreams. Wanting only opened him to hurt. And there was no question that what ever Mae was keeping to herself might sneak up and bite him. Nonetheless, he would do what he could to save her. She might be a horse thief and a bit of a liar, but she didn’t deserve the coming storm. His eyes looked out at the horizon: clear, not a cloud in sight. But a storm was a-coming.

Trace’s eyes narrowed as he held up a hand to shield them against the sun. “Well, by damn, maybe I got that sign from the Lord after all.” A dust cloud was racing along the trail. Too much for a horse to kick up, it had to be a wagon raising it. Trace grinned happily. “Right timely, old man.”

He scrambled down from his perch to the shelf below. Leaping upon Duchess, he and the horse descended the ridge, taking care not to come down in the same place where he’d made his ascent, not wanting to draw Mae’s attention… The last thing he needed just then was her showing up to press her case. Trace had a feeling Preacher would take one look at those doe eyes and storm back to the Lazy C singing “Marching Through Georgia.” What ever Mae wanted, the old man would do. Trace had trouble refusing her himself.

Preacher was traveling at such a breakneck speed that Trace had to drive his sorrel hard to catch up. The old man’s lack of caution was unsettling. Riding hell-bent? That bespoke trouble.

He wheeled Duchess around in front of the wagon and shouted, “Slow down, old-timer!” As the contraption rolled to a halt, Trace added, “You’re halfway to the Outpost already.”

“She’s lit out again,” the old man gasped, “and on that damn horse of your’n, too!”

“I know,” Trace said. “I’ve
got
her and my damn horse. We can’t talk here.” He grabbed the harness of the horse hitched to Preacher’s wagon and led him off behind a stand of rocks where their conference wouldn’t be in plain sight. It troubled Trace that other riders from the Lazy C hadn’t already appeared in hot pursuit.

“Where have you got her?” Preacher asked.

“Tucked away behind a crack in the ridge. I covered our tracks.”

“You better hope you did,” the old man groused. “That husband of hers gathered a bunch of his riders, pulled them out of the south range when he found out she was gone. They were all in the bunkhouse at breakfast, chowing down on the biscuits and redeye gravy I made, when Comstock comes in looking for Morgan. Not sure why, but he grabs the man by the throat, jerks him up from the table, and half strangles the jackass before the crew could pull him off. He seemed to blame Morgan for letting her get away, even claimed Morgan took her for himself. Either way, he was plumb loco. Then one of the stable boys came in and said Diablo was gone. They were so busy gathering horses and getting saddled up, they seemed to forget about me, so I figured I’d come warn you. He sent outriders to pick up the trail, so unless you covered her tracks straight back to the Lazy C, they’ll at least know which direction she headed.”

“Where are they now?”

“Don’t know. Comstock said she wouldn’t head to the Outpost, since she knew no one would help her there. Now…no one saw me leave, but they will see the wagon tracks.”

“We have to leave,” agreed Trace. “And I’ve got to cover these tracks. That won’t stop them, but it might slow them down long enough.”

“What are we going to do?” the old man questioned.

“I’m going to take Mae up the plateau on the other side of the Lazy C. There’s a mesa there, where a renegade
band of Hualapai camp. I know their chief, White Eagle. He’ll hide her. Then I’ll come down and deal with Comstock and Morgan.”

“Them Injuns might have come down out of there by now,” Preacher mused. “They do in the spring when the snow starts melting.”

“I’ll just have to take that chance,” Trace said. “I’ve got to hide her someplace safe while I settle the score with Comstock. Then I mean to see her safely home to Kentucky. Her granddad has a horse farm there she never should have left. Did you find anything out? Is Comstock rustling?”

“If he isn’t, I’ll eat this here wagon…but I’ve got no proof. Lord knows I tried, but they don’t make me privy to their goings-on, and keep me close to the bunkhouse. Can’t snoop around much. There’s
something
shady going on, though. I’d stake my life on it, and you’d best find out what it is right quick. They’re planning a drive in a couple weeks.”

“That soon?” Trace erupted.

“Yep. He’s hiring drovers in town. Was headed there when he found out Mae ran again.”

“With her hidden away, maybe he’ll hire me on. There ain’t many drover types around these parts. If he’s hard up for help, surely he’ll hold his nose and give me work, if only for a few weeks.”

Preacher shook his head. “Is that hellcat really going to stay put with old White Eagle? You can’t go back in there on Diablo. You leave her and that horse up in the hills, I’d be worried she might take off again. What’s she got to stick around for?”

“I trust her. She feels guilty. Hell, she even wants me
to take her back there. She wants me to tell Comstock I found her wandering out on the sage after Diablo threw her and took off. She wants to find a deed Comstock is holding.”

Preacher mused for a moment. “You ain’t going to like it, but I say she makes sense. It’d be a fine way to get on his good side. Comstock would be beholden to you for bringing her back, and you can bet he’d damn sure hire you. That’s one pretty brave lady.” He shook his head again. “But what would you do with that mustang of yours? You won’t want to let Comstock lay hold of him again. One’s sure to kill the other.”