Mary Connealy (103 page)

Sid stirred the cool ashes and looked sideways at Boog. “It’s time we get that gold.”

Boog grunted as he sipped the last of his coffee.

Paddy couldn’t sit still. He was on his feet, moving, twitching, pacing. “Good, good, let’s go. I’m tired of sitting.”

“We can find the gold and get back to the ranch. With me out as foreman and so many of the men fired or new, Wade doesn’t seem to realize you and Harv are gone. Why would he? He never knew you were there.”

Harv sat forward with a groan. A lazy man, Harv. Never stood when he could sit. Never walked when he could ride. Sid would be glad to get rid of his edgy, bad-tempered, do-little saddle partner.

Boog froze, so suddenly, so completely, Sid was instantly alerted.

“What?”

Boog hissed at him and slashed a hand inches from Sid’s face. No one talked or moved. Finally, Boog said, “Someone’s coming.”

Sid grabbed for his gun.

Paddy let a tiny giggle escape. His eyes shone with a hunger to shoot someone.

Sid knew of the four of them Paddy was the one who had a real appetite for murder. The rest could kill and had killed their share. They were hard men in a hard land, and Sid prided himself on being willing do to what he needed to do. But only Paddy smiled while he emptied his gun.

They turned to cover all approaches, guns cocked, eyes peeled, every sense alert.

T
he sharp
snap
sounded loud as a gunshot.

Abby looked back and scowled at Wade’s clumsy foot, now square on a brittle stick. Then, on her belly on the ground in her foolish gingham dress, she continued sliding through the tall grass, hunting shadows to use like hiding places.

Thank heaven he’d let her go ahead. Abby stopped her forward progress when she caught herself falling back into that kiss. What had come over her? Why had she let Wade, a white man, hold her close and tempt her into believing she could be happy in his world?

He had let her go ahead with her sneaking, though. With a twinge of pleasure, she thought of how Wade had not only admitted she was better at sneaking; he’d admitted she was a master. She knew it chafed him to admit she was the better woodsman, but he’d done it. It filled up a strange, empty place in her heart to be respected like that.

Wild Eagle had certainly never conceded that she had skills superior to his. He had seen her ease her way up close enough to slap the children during games of hide-and-seek. When she was young, she was the best of all the children when they’d played at hunting. But older girls weren’t included in the hunts. She’d known she could help feed her family, but Wild Eagle’s pride had been too great to consider letting her come along. Instead he’d forbidden her to go along on the hunts. Ordering her to stay in the village where a woman belonged.

But truth was truth. Wade knew who was better in the woods. Now he stood there, not moving, and managed to be noisy. Abby wanted to growl at him through the knife she had clenched in her teeth. He grinned at her, apology and admiration in one sweet smile.

She looked away to keep her, attention on her sneaking. Easing forward, using swells in the ground and the waist-high prairie grass to conceal her as she inched forward.

That sound bothered her but she didn’t turn back. If there was anyone in the house, Wade had very possibly alerted them.

She heard another sound, much softer, the hush of iron on leather, and turned back to see Wade pull his Colt revolver and take careful aim at the house. Abby was approaching from the south. There were two windows on the ground floor and more on the second. She knew that if Wade saw someone at those windows, he’d cover her.

Protect her.

Kill for her.

Die for her.

Abby hesitated to admit it, even to herself, but she felt the same. She knew a fraction of how much Jesus must have loved her because of the determined look on Wade’s face and the deep resolve she felt in her heart to protect him.

God, please let me be worthy of his love. Please help protect us both. Please, please, please don’t make it necessary for either of us to kill or die.

Abby inched forward. The moving grass would hopefully be mistaken as the blowing wind. She prayed.

Wade aimed.

God, please hear the praying and forgive the aiming.

Nothing. No movement. No sound. Minutes passed. Then half an hour.

Sid could see Paddy twitching with impatience. Sid wasn’t far behind. He hadn’t heard a thing but that one snap of a twig. “There’s nothing out there, Boog.”

Boog turned narrowed eyes on him, and Sid froze as surely as if he’d been hit with a high mountain blizzard. Those eyes threatened slow, painful death, and Sid had no doubt Boog could deliver that death without a qualm if it meant protecting himself.

Sid hunkered down again. His partner was woods savvy, no doubt about it. But there were animals in the woods, the wind gusted, trees sometimes had a branch snap and fall to the ground. He dropped his own vigilance and let Boog play his game.

Suddenly Boog, already taut with acute attention to the area in front of him, stiffened even more, raised his gun, and took careful aim.

“Abby, get down!” Wade felt an icy chill of fear, and he had to stop her.

She dove low, invisible behind the waving grass.

Silence stretched.

Wade stared at the seemingly empty house. What had scared him? Had God Himself given that warning? Or was Wade reacting to some subtle movement at the window? A faint noise? Or was he scared of his own shadow?

There was nothing.

Then there was Abby. She hadn’t gotten down at all. She’d continued forward, so smoothly that Wade hadn’t noticed until she emerged from the grass right next to one of the south windows and pressed her back against the house. With a look at Wade, a smirk it had to be, she moved closer to the window as she silently took her knife from between her teeth and eased her head past the glass.

Wade couldn’t believe she’d ignored him.

No, no, no. Please, God, don’t let her die.

Waiting for a gunshot to end Abby’s precious life, Wade snapped. He screamed loud enough to impress Abby’s Flathead family at a medicine dance and charged from behind the tree. Waving his arms and shouting, he rushed the house. He could draw their fire if someone was inside.

“Wade, no!”

Boog, on his knees crouched low, suddenly reared up and brought his rifle to bear. Then he twisted his body. “Get down!”

His low, harsh order drove the three other men to the ground.

“Not a sound. Nothing! Flathead hunting party!” Boog had barely whispered, but the terror in his voice was enough to make Sid obey him without question. Boog was scared right down to his belly, and Sid had never seen the man scared before.

Not one of them moved. Sid didn’t think he even breathed.

Seconds passed. Minutes.

A whisper of noise reached Sid, and he stared through the grass that surrounded their camp.

They’d been riding since before dawn, pushing hard after the gold. He’d let Boog and Harv rest at the Griffin place while he’d ridden in for Paddy and made an excuse to Chester for why they’d be gone a couple of days.

Pushing as hard as four hardened men could, they’d brought spare horses and switched saddles to keep going. They’d made good time and now were near the mountain valley where they’d killed off those interfering Flatheads.

There shouldn’t have been anyone here. It had been long enough for the larger tribe to come, bury their dead, and return to the Bitterroot Valley. But Sid saw through the tall grass a group of warriors. These riders, ten in all, were armed with rifles as well as bows and knives, unlike those they’d attacked earlier.

If Boog had fired a shot, the Flathead warriors would have been all too ready to fight. It was one thing to come upon a sleeping village with only a few armed men, none of them bearing rifles. It was another to take on ten adult warriors. That was certain death.

The hunting party was far enough away and upwind. They didn’t notice Sid and his gang. Pure luck, because Indians were a noticing kind of people.

Each rider had a deer slung over his saddle as the group rode up the mountain, undeniably on their way into the valley Sid had just cleared of Indians.

His fury grew in direct proportion to the terror he’d felt a few minutes ago.

The Flatheads vanished into the trees that covered the mountainside most of the way to the top, before it dropped off into the lush green bowl of a valley that hid Harv’s gold.

Once they were gone, Boog turned to Sid as if he needed to work his fury off on someone. “Cleared out that valley, huh? It don’t look like they’re gone. It looks like there’re more of ’em than ever.”

“Just shut up! Give me a minute to think!” Sid saw Boog’s mouth close, but it wasn’t because Boog obeyed. No one ordered Boog around. So Boog must’ve decided to be quiet for reasons of his own. Probably doing some thinking for himself.

“Let me shinny up there,” Paddy offered, his eyes bright and sick to think they could massacre again. “I’ll find out how many there are. I’ll count ’em and come back and report.”

“They’ll have lookouts, you fool!” Harv sat up, looking after the hunting party. Then, as if he’d heard something, he began scanning in all directions.

Sid controlled a snort of disgust. Of course there might be more. He’d been scanning from the moment he’d spotted the riders.

Harv was a bigger fool than Paddy.

“Let him go.” Boog wasn’t suggesting; he was ordering.

Sid should have called him on it. Sid was the boss. But calling Boog on anything could lead to shooting trouble, and neither of them dared fire a shot. It’d bring those Indians right down on their heads. Sid jerked his head toward the upward slope. “Go scout, Paddy, but watch your back.”

Practically drooling with excitement, Paddy slipped into the heavy woods surrounding them and vanished.

Paddy was good, Sid had to admit it. If anyone could get up there, get the lay of the land and come back alive, it was the Irishman. But once he was there, if anyone was stupid enough to open fire on someone, it was Paddy. Then they’d all die.

“I’ve gotta make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.” Practically growling, Sid stood, crouched down, and headed after Paddy.