Black Hills (9781101559116) (49 page)

That complicated matters. He dared not start shooting from where he was if he couldn't see everyone; there would certainly be a gunfight. Lainey might get killed. Cormac couldn't run, probably couldn't even walk, but he could sure as hell fall—and he could shoot. And if he could stay on his feet just fifteen seconds, he should be able to see all areas and get the job done. He looked up at the sky and said silently, “God, just help me stay on my feet long enough to get her out of this, please. Then I'm all yours,” after which he added, “if you want me.”

He probably didn't.

Cormac took a deep breath and, with the .44 Colt in his left hand and a .44 Smith & Wesson in the right, he slid off the edge of the shelf, firing twice on the way down.

Something had drawn Lainey's attention. She looked up just as he jumped. “No, don't!” she cried.

One of his bullets caught a man by the fire; the other bullet, which he had earmarked for Lambert, missed. Lambert was fast, Cormac would give him that, no slowpoke he. At the warning, Lambert had stepped to the side, two guns materializing in his hands while Cormac was still falling.

As Cormac landed, something slammed him backward against the stone wall supporting the above-shelf, and he heard Lainey scream. He brought both guns to bear on Lambert, wanting desperately to empty them both into him, but he dared not. He couldn't spare that many bullets. There were others to deal with; he would have to place his shots precisely, but he could sure as hell make sure that cold-blooded bastard died. Cormac fired both guns at the same time, one bullet going into Lambert's center chest, the other between his eyes. The force knocked him backward into the darkness.

The others were getting into action so there was no time to be selective. It was just pick a target and fire. Cormac had only twelve bullets to begin with and had used four of them getting two men. He knew where his bullets had gone and knew both to be dead.

Disappointingly, there had been three out of his sight. Sanderson was one of them. He went down as easy as any other. That left eight and Cormac figured he had maybe seven bullets left. If he never missed and hit every one of seven shots, which was a tall order, he would still come up one short. He felt more blows, but the wall held him upright, and he was able to keep firing. Lainey had gotten her hands on a gun from somewhere and was working it as fast as she could. Ah, they made a pair to draw to, Lainey and he did; they made a pair to draw to. Too bad they could never be togeth—

T
he voices were back, this time with no sound of urgency in them. A man and a woman were speaking softly.

“I don't understand what has kept him alive this long; he was leaking like a sieve.” The woman was speaking in a whisper. “He had been clawed by some kind of animal and had six wounds bandaged that he must have gotten while taking the dynamite away from them. Two of them looked like he had dug bullets out himself, and one of them he cauterized himself. He took seven more when he jumped off the ledge. God had to have been on his side; none of them hit any bones or anything critical.” She paused. “I'll never forget the mixture of fear and happiness I felt to look up and see him coming off that rock.”

“I bet that was somethin',” the man answered. “I would have paid money to see that. There was an outlaw not too long back named Cole Younger got himself eleven bullets put into him. Him and his gang tried to rob a small-town bank in Minnesota, and the townsfolk shot the stuffin's out of 'em. He lived to tell about it though, and to get sentenced to life in prison.”

Apparently, Cormac wasn't dead, but he had no idea of how he came to be wherever it was that he was. The bed he was in was very soft and comfortable, as was the pillow under his head, much the same as the down pillow his mother had made him for his eighth Christmas, a match for the down-filled blanket she had given him the year before. Unmoving, he listened to the conversation. The last time he remembered moving had not been a pleasant experience. He was not anxious to try again.

His eyes were working fine though; they verified what his ears had been telling him. That soft Irish lilt could only belong to Lainey. She was talking to the bowlegged fellow who had tried to get the drop on him. Cormac must have been unconscious for several days as the bruises on her face were mostly healed and barely noticeable. He had been right: all grown up, with the flickering light of the fireplace playing softly across her face and the red highlights in her hair, she was magnificent. But that didn't do her justice. His mind struggled for a description that would. He regretted not having studied harder and learned more words. The only words that came to mind were from a theatre poster he had seen in Denver: stunningly magnificent. In his own words: dynamite-blowin' beautiful. No . . . Lainey Colleen Nayle was another example of God's finest work: exquisite perfection.

Sven had said his girl was so beautiful it hurt his eyes to look at her. That was most certainly not the case with Lainey. Cormac's eyes were not bothering him one little bit. He would have been more than happy just to lie there looking at her forever. It occurred to him that he felt good—contented. Like the man called Rooster in the old-timer's story, Cormac's years of wandering had been a continuous search for what he had not known he was searching for, and, like Rooster, he had found it: feisty, redheaded, and Irish, Lainey Nayle. He was through wandering, and there was not one damned thing wrong with him. The other women he had met but couldn't get interested in before just weren't Lainey.

The man's voice took on an accusing tone. “But none of that would have happened at all if you wouldn't have lit out in such an all-fired damned hurry,” he said angrily.

Obviously, he cared for her, and then Cormac realized the tone in their voices said they cared for each other. Well and good . . . Well and good. At least she had found somebody. Cormac tried to be happy for her—it didn't take.

His feelings of contentment had been short-lived. He remembered how she was going to look at him when she realized he was awake; she had seen him kill more people. The coldness and hatred would again be in her eyes, her wrath would take control of her face, and venom would overwhelm her sweet Irish lilt.

For the first and only time in Cormac's life, he felt fear. He couldn't deal with her hatred and wished Lambert would have been a better shot. She couldn't know he was awake. Quickly, he closed his eyes before the tears escaped.

When he again came to, the light coming in the partially open door illuminated and created shadows on the lavender curtains and the picture on the wall. This was definitely a lady's room, most likely Lainey's. Cormac remembered that she had liked lavender. He was in her bed. Without success, he tried to remember how he had come to be there.

The last he remembered was jumping off the rock shelf, the sulphuric, acrid smell of gunpowder, and straining to see through the smoke. He had to get out of there. He had been shucked out of his clothes and the only thing he had on was the bottom half of his long underwear with one leg missing. It must have been cut off to treat a wound. Cormac did not even want to know how he had gotten that way.

His clothes had been washed, neatly folded, and stacked on the dresser; his boots were sitting on the floor looking clean and well oiled. He remembered one getting soaked with blood and thinking it would be ruined. Somebody had spent a great deal of time on them. It took a few minutes, but he got to his clothes and with one hand or the other on the dresser for support, managed to get them on. The shirt wasn't his and fit him before he had it all the way on, but it would do.

The window opened silently. With his stomach sickening from the effort, Cormac stumbled and fell his way over the sill and to the ground, sitting in the dirt and leaning back against the house, waiting for the nausea to pass. It took a while.

When it had, he gritted his teeth against the pain and staggered to his feet. There was something warm running down his side. He put his hand inside his shirt and it came out dark in the moonlight: most likely blood. Well, at least he had some left.

It would stop after he got up on Lop Ear and let him do the walking. Then Cormac remembered the mountain lion. Damn! Lop Ear and Horse were probably halfway back to Dakota by now. He forced himself erect once more and started slowly across the yard to the barn. There would be some horse there; it didn't matter whose. He could turn it loose after he found Lop Ear and Horse, and it would eventually find its way home.

In reality, after they had calmed down, they would most likely have returned to camp and were probably waiting there for him. He didn't doubt that wherever they were, they would be together.

He thought he was doing pretty well, until he realized that he was facedown in the dirt. He struggled to his knees and was trying to get to his feet again when the door burst open and Lainey rushed out.

“What in the Holy God damned hell do you think you're doing?” she called bitterly and explosively.

There it was: all the anger and rage he wanted so badly to escape. He wanted desperately to not be face to face with her. Cormac had never lost sleep worrying about what people thought of him, other than for Lainey.

She rushed to him and fell to her knees on the ground facing him and held his shoulders to keep him upright. The moonlight was bright, and he was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. Lainey was crying? With Lambert out of the way and the bowlegged fella to care for her, Cormac thought her life was once again in order.

“I'm sorry,” he said meekly, placing the first two fingers of his left hand on her lips, trying to stop her before she could say the words that were going to destroy him. “Please . . . I'm sorry. I was trying to leave so you wouldn't have to deal with me again, honest. So you could just enjoy your life here on the L-Bar N, your Lainey Nayle ranch. I just couldn't handle the thought of hearing the anger in your voice and seeing that hatred in your eyes again,” he said, shaking his head, “not from you, Lainey.”

Lainey removed his fingers and stared at him for a very long moment without speaking, processing what he had told her. Then her face got all twisted up, her lips started quivering, and more tears began flowing. Slowly shaking her head, she caught a ragged breath and murmured incredulously, “You ninny . . . you sweet, wonderful ninny. You came all the way here from wherever you came from, knowing you were putting your life on the line, and nearly lost it fighting for me, all the while believing that I hated you? My God!” she said, still shaking her head sadly. “My God! I am so sorry!”

She put her arms around him and began bawling, actually bawling, her face tucked deeply into his neck. Dumbfounded was another word from the book that he could never imagine anyone using, but here he was, totally dumbfounded. He never had been able to throw a noose around the thoughts in a woman's head.

Presently, her sobs subsided. Taking his hands in hers, she sat back on her heels and looked at him. Now that he was no longer trying to move, he had regained a little strength and was able to sit up on his own. She let go of his hands and used her apron to wipe her eyes. For a long moment, she just looked at him in silence, and then her eyes fell to the arrowhead hanging around his neck and again welled up with tears. She reached for the arrowhead she had given him so long ago.

Holding it in her two hands, she said softly, “I have always prayed for the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was for the way I acted. I've never had any interest in anyone else since the sleigh ride when I pretended to sleep on your shoulder. The L-Bar N does not stand for Lainey Nayle; it stands for Lynch and Nayle. The ranch is half yours. Your name is on the title right along with mine. It's only because of you that I have it. It's only because of you that I am even still alive. For as long as I can remember, whenever I have been in danger, somehow you have always been there.

“My dream has always been that someday you would ride through that front gate, and we would take the Bar out of the brand. I have always loved you, and have never been able to imagine you with anyone but me, and I certainly never wanted to be with anyone but you and never have been. I cried when I found the will in your pocket which proves that all the time you were gone, you were thinking of me, too.”

She paused to wipe her eyes again, and then looked straight into his. “Now, Mr. Cormac Lorton Lynch, I have waited so very long, and I would really like it, right here and right now, if you would wrap your arms around me. That is, if I am right . . . if you feel about me the same way as I feel about you . . . and if you have the strength.”

He did, and he had.

As he held her, a horse nickered in the darkness, quickly echoed by another, and Cormac could make out Lop Ear and Horse in the darkness, watching them with their heads over the top rail of the corral, as close to him as they could get. As the shadowy figure of a bowlegged cowboy walked past the corral gate, it swung open and Lop Ear and Horse trotted out to stand over Cormac.

His world was complete. He looked up into the heavens to say thank you and found a full moon smiling brightly down upon them. His mother, Pa, and Becky; and Connor and Jasmine Nayle came strongly to mind. He winked. He would have sworn they winked back.

“Look up,” Cormac Lynch told Lainey. “Your family and mine are all giving their approval.”

The soft glow of the moon reflected from the tears on her upturned face as she looked into the sky for a long and silent moment and then into Cormac's eyes and smiled.

“I know,” she said softly, happily snuggling her face gently against his chest, “I know.”

Martha Jane Cannary Burke, “Calamity Jane,” born May 1, 1852, was both famous and infamous. She bragged she had been able to cuss like a man at thirteen, and as the oldest of six children, took over as head of the family in 1867 at fifteen when her father died. In her own accounting, she joined General George Custer as a scout and Indian fighter at eighteen, was excellent with guns, drove mule teams, prospected for gold, and fell in love with Wild Bill Hickock. When she died at age fifty-one in 1903, she was buried next to him in Deadwood, South Dakota.