The Loner (12 page)

He turned to The Cat as if this were a social occasion and someone else had suddenly inhabited his body.

“Miss O'Sullivan,” he said. “Deputy Fielding and Deputy Burke.”

Both men tipped their hats and repeated her name politely.

“Gentlemen,” she said, in a regally dignified tone.

Black Fox stared at her.

Her back straight and drawn up to her full height—which wasn't much more than five feet—her shoulders thrown back, and her chin up, as usual, she was sitting her horse looking at the deputies like a queen receiving her subjects. Her
hat was hanging down her back on its stampede strings so that her curly mass of hair caught the sunlight and sent it back into the air, dazzling red and gold.

But it was her manner that dazzled Black Fox. Suddenly, she was like an actress in a play; she was like a stranger.

Which she was. He did not know this child/woman at all, did he? Yet a minute ago he'd been inquiring about her suitors. He was the one who needed to be locked up—for his own protection.

Both the deputies had trouble taking their eyes off her but they finally focused on Black Fox, clearly wondering why the two of them, the girl and the loner, were traveling together. He pretended not to see the questions in their eyes. He didn't owe them any explanation.

“How long have you men been in the Nation?” he asked. “I hadn't heard you were here.”

“Couple of days in this part,” Fielding said. “Trailin' The Cat.”

Burke shifted in his saddle in a gesture that was both arrogant and confident. “And we'll have him in custody by sundown tonight,” he said.

“Oh?” Black Fox said, feeling a great relief at hearing the word, “him.”

“Damn straight,” Burke said, “if we don't burn too much daylight sittin' here jawin' with you.”

“The kid has got to be stopped or there won't be
a bootlegger left in this country,” Fielding said dryly. “Then all you Lighthorse will be out of a job.”

Burke grinned at the joke.

“Yep, he's thinnin' 'em out,” he said. “Shot another one last night.”

A strange, sharp lurch of excitement took Black Fox's stomach down into his boots and back up to his throat.

“You're sure it was The Cat?” he asked.

“His cat's paw sign was big there on the porch floor,” Fielding said. “Shot old Foster right through the window. Right through the left shoulder, too, but he missed his heart.”

“Hmm,” Black Fox said thoughtfully, “must be losing his aim.”

“I guess because he was in a tearing hurry to get to the next thing,” Burke said. “A couple of hours later, he robbed a wagon driver right back there at the Little Creek crossing.”

“You know it was him?”

“Yep. His mark was drawn on the sideboard of the wagon clear as you please.”

Black Fox frowned but his pulse was leaping with hope.

“Did the wagon driver see him?” he asked.

“No, he was gathering wood to make camp for the night,” Burke said. “The Cat made off with his moneybag and two cases of whiskey. Looks like the boy may be hooking up with some
partners—we found tracks of four horses leaving the crossing.”

“How'd you get word of all this since last night?”

“The wagon driver found us,” Fielding said. “And word of the shooting spread fast.”

“Anyhow,” Burke said, reining his horse around to get going again, “we're on his trail. We can't linger now.” He shot Black Fox a look back over his shoulder. “You Lighthorse have tried long enough,” he said sarcastically, “so we're gonna show y'all how to catch a Cat.” He laughed. “How to catch a Cat and skin it,” he said, and took off at a lope.

The man was an arrogant ass.

Black Fox smiled as he watched them go.

It would serve them right, Burke especially, to spend several more days riding around and around in the woods on a wild goose chase.

But that wasn't what was making him happy. He tried to hold the feeling back, but he couldn't.

Because he had hope again, too. Maybe Cathleen really
wasn't
guilty of murder. Maybe she'd been telling him the truth all along.

He watched the two deputies riding away—at a long, fast trot that meant business—until they disappeared behind a grove of blackjack trees that grew in a bend in the road. He couldn't turn and look at Cathleen until this wild uplift of excitement in him had subsided.

It
must
subside. A lawman made decisions based on facts, not feelings. He had to think.

Still
, he didn't know anything for sure. She could have been lying to him all along. He didn't know her—he'd been right about that—and even if someone else was using her sign now, that didn't mean that person was the one who had shot Donald Turner in the back.

He couldn't let himself believe in her innocence unless it
proved
to be true. He was a Lighthorse, the most respected one of them all. The one who had rid the Nation of more bad men than any other. That was who he was. A lawman had to have
facts
and proof.

“Well?” Cathleen demanded. “Do you believe me at last? There's somebody else running around this country using my sign! So you know I haven't killed anybody.”

She was still sitting straight in the saddle, alert now with eagerness instead of dignity, her rein hand lifted and ready to signal the dun to go again. Her face glowed, alive with a high excitement.

Black Fox could hardly bear to look at the light in her eyes. What if it wasn't true?

He had to keep his guard up, he had to hold his own hope under control, he had to keep his head now, of all times.

“I
want
to believe it,” he said.

Disappointment wiped the smile from her face.

“But you don't,” she said sarcastically, fighting
to keep her shoulders from slumping. “God help me, Black Fox, that's exactly what you said the first night you caught me.”

Her eyes blazed more but now it was anger that fired them.

Anger and panicky frustration.

“You heard those men,” she cried, leaning toward him and holding his gaze with the sheer passion in her will. “And they are
lawmen
, aren't they? Members of Judge Parker's court, where you tell me
justice
is served. So you know it's true that somebody else is out there pretending to be me.”

“If all their information is correct, I know that somebody was using your mark last night,” he said. “But last night has nothing to do with Donald Turner.”

She stared at him in disbelief for a second, then wheeled her horse around and took off. He set his heels to the gray and both horses raced down the road at a gallop, the dun's natural speed making up for the longer stride of the gray, Cathleen a half length ahead. Until they reached the creek, where he caught her.

Black Fox reached out and grabbed the dun's bridle.

“Don't try running away from me again,” he said, his eyes narrowed in anger. “Ever.”

She tossed her head defiantly.

“I'll run if I want to. You have no right to hold me now that you know I'm innocent.”

“Never mind whether you shot Donald Turner,” he said. “You've admitted to enough robbery and stealing to warrant a long stint in jail.”

“
Why
? Surely you aren't going to take me to Fort Smith for
stealing!
You know Tassel Glass deserves every grief I've ever given him…” Her voice tried to break on the last word but she wouldn't let it. “…because you know that they are
nothing
compared to the grief he has given me.”

Her face had gone pale and her eyes stared out of it, dark and huge. She was desperate now—everything about her demeanor told him that—and it was tearing him to pieces.

All he wanted was to lean from his horse and pull her into his arms, hold her close and comfort her.

But he couldn't accept her word for her innocence. He was a lawman. He needed to prove it. He
would
prove it, if it was so.

He forced his mind away from what Tassel Glass had done to her family and all the reasons she'd become an outlaw in the first place. He was not going to fall into sentimental sympathy for her because that would cloud his judgment.

What he should have done was turn her over to Burke and Fielding, who would've headed straight to Fort Smith with her. Then he would've been free to try to prove her innocence of murder without losing his mind.

But letting her go with
anyone
else—any
where
—was as unthinkable as considering the fact that he might be unable to prove she didn't kill Donald Turner. He didn't want to find out what he would do if that was how it all turned out.

What he ought to do right this minute was turn her loose, but that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Cathleen,” he said, speaking as calmly as he could with such crazy emotions surging through him. “Your word is not enough. I'm a lawman. The law demands proof and right now the only proof it has is that your sign was on the tree above Donald Turner's body.”

Her eyes flashed as they locked on his.

“Then I will have to find out and prove who did kill him,” she said flatly. “You say justice does exist—
I
demand proof of
that
. Prove it. Set me free to look for the real killer.”

He looked into the green blaze of her gaze and let it burn through to his heart.

“I can't set you free,” he said. “But I'll help you.”

She stared at him in shock. Tears sprang to her eyes but she didn't let them fall.

“Does that mean
you
believe I didn't do it?” she asked.

She spoke with such fervor, such hope, that he couldn't lie to her. His answer meant a great deal to her, for some reason he didn't quite understand, since he'd already said he would help her.

The only reason she wants you to believe her, Vann, is to keep her pretty neck out of the hangman's noose. You are not that important to her in any other way.

Maybe. But whatever the reason, her hand on the rein shook slightly and she held him with a look that wouldn't let him go. He had to be honest with her.

“Yes,” he said. “I believe you, Cathleen.”

It was the truth. It was the cold, hard truth living in his gut at that moment.

He only hoped, for his sake as well as hers, that it was more than wishful thinking.

He only prayed, for his sake and hers, that it was his trusty instinct talking to him and not his desire for her.

Because he did desire her and he had since that first sight of her as a woman—even if he had never admitted it in his deepest self until that minute. He desired her more than any woman he'd ever seen or known.

He kissed to his horse and started them moving, letting his mind wrap around that thought. Desire was one thing but acting on it was another.

This woman, by her own admission, was a virgin. She was also an outlaw who was his captive.

She was too vulnerable on both counts for a man of honor to touch her.

S
he reached out and touched him, laid her small hand on his arm. The shape of it burned into his muscles through his sleeve.

“Thanks, Black Fox,” she said, and even though he quickened the gray's trot, she held her horse right beside his until he turned his head and looked at her.

“It means a lot to me.”

Her face was luminous. She blinked away the tears.

Damn. Talk about raising the stakes.

“I haven't got it done yet,” he said.

And what if you can't do it, Vann? She won't be
looking at you the same way then. She'll still be on her way to hanging, then.

“You will,” she said, and her voice held all the faith in the world.

When she took her hand away, he could still feel it.

A rush of feeling came up in him, so deep and complicated he couldn't name all its parts. He tried to ignore it and concentrate on the task ahead.

It wouldn't be easy. But wasn't he known for getting his man? He'd tracked her for two weeks, hadn't he, when he thought she killed the deputy marshal?

But two weeks in the woods with her at his side, working with him, talking to him, looking at him—now that would be more than he could stand and keep his resolve not to touch her. That would make him crazy.

What would make him even crazier was if he had done nothing right now but to prolong her agony and give her false hope. His gut told him that she hadn't shot anyone in the back and that she had a good heart.

He would hate himself forever if he couldn't prove her innocent now.
Why
had he ever even suggested it? Everybody, lawman or not, knew that it was impossible to prove someone innocent.

They'd better find the guilty one and find him fast.

“Reckon we should turn around and go back to Foster's place and the Little Creek crossing to look at the trail for ourselves?” Cathleen asked.

His gut clenched. Maybe. That was just the first of many decisions he'd better get right. Time to stop thinking and start going by his instincts—if he could hear them past his awareness of her.

“Burke's an irritating son-of-a-gun,” he said, “and not the best tracker in the world, but he can generally tell which way his quarry's headed.”

“I wish we had asked exactly what makes him and Fielding think that my impostor and his friends are headed this way. They didn't give us any details.”

“Most likely they found a few tracks and some signs scattered here and there at the crossing and in the woods where the ground is moist enough to hold them.”

Cathleen considered that and nodded.

“The tracks were leading away from the crossing to the south. When they hit the road, they had to pick a direction, and they probably just took a chance that the thieves kept on going south.”

Black Fox thought about it a little more.

“Sequoyah's back north and—depending on who the false Cat is—maybe more people who know them. If they want to spend the money now, they'll not want to explain where they got it.”

“Right,” she said. “To the south, there's Salli
saw and Muldrow and the railroad and maybe more people who
don't
know them. They could also take a train and leave the Nation.”

“Or,” he said, “they could be anywhere east or south or north or west of here. They could've separated and scattered by now and disappeared into the hills.”

Cathleen nodded agreement.

“If they're old hands at being outlaws they could have hideouts already,” she said. “More than one, so well hidden that nobody can find them. Like I do.”

Like I do.

The careless remark cut at his heart. Didn't she know those days were over for her? Hadn't she realized yet that she didn't have anything at all anymore, much less hideouts and the freedom to use them—unless they could prove that someone else had shot Donald Turner in the back?

Damn!

Yet, somehow, just talking it over with her like this gave him a hopeful feeling. It was a new thing for him to have someone to partner with.

An ironic grin touched his lips with that thought. He was partnered up, all right—with an outlaw.

“Yes,” he said, talking to himself as much as to her, “and if Burke and Fielding couldn't pick up the trail after the fake Cat got to the road, then
they're doing the only thing they can do now: guess and hope they're guessing right.”

He caught her gaze and held it with his sharp, calculating one. She read his mind.

“They may not be quite so sure of their prey as they acted,” she said.

A warm satisfaction shifted through him.

“My thought exactly,” he said.

She nodded and smiled, then turned again to watching the ground ahead.

“I wish it wasn't so dry,” she said.

“Wouldn't help us any to have mud instead,” he said wryly, “since we don't know what we're looking for.”

She gave a wry laugh.

“No, we don't, do we? And here I am, watching for the right tracks as earnestly as if I'd seen them myself. We'll have to catch him drawing my cat's-paw sign to know him.”

Black Fox looked at her.

When her eyes looked so bright green like that, she was even more appealing. He wanted to touch her. Just to cup her face in his hand and, with his thumb, to trace the corners of her lips when they were upturned like that in fun.

She was gallant. Not many women, or men either, would be this undaunted in such a situation.

“Right,” he said.

“Oh, I know!” she said mischievously, like a
child playacting, “I'll ride up in front of him while he's drawing my sign and distract him and then you can slip up behind him and jerk him off his feet and up onto your horse.”

Those words conjured an image of Cathleen in danger that struck Black Fox with a chill.

Not only had he perhaps given her false hope, he might have drawn her into a bigger danger. What had he been thinking? She could get killed looking for a killer.

But what choice was there? He had to keep her with him, keep an eye on her. There was no other way to do this.

“Wherever we are, try not to attract attention,” he said. “And remember that there are four of them. At least. Maybe more. You watch yourself and stay close to me.”

Stay close to me.

Cathleen's whole body warmed to those words, including her heart. Her battered, stiff-frozen heart. Her lonely heart.

She'd better watch herself, all right. She knew that—after all, hadn't she survived alone in the woods for a year?

It was Black Fox that was the real danger. It would never do to start counting on him too much.

It would never do to get attached to him, either, just because he believed her now when she said she wasn't a murderer. Not just because he was
her companion now who said,
“Stay close to me.”

The wonderful, warm, insane
comfort
that she was taking from being with him now, riding beside him and having him believe in her and help prove her innocence could easily turn to more and deeper feelings, since she already knew and longed for his touch. She
ached
for it, for no more than just the thrill of his hands in her hair or on her skin.

That way lay huge danger. For not only did he attract her physically but he had a big heart and he believed in her and he was going to help her. All of that could make her love him.

Didn't everybody she loved vanish like smoke? The same would be true of Black Fox.

When they had caught the impostor and the job was done, he would either turn her loose or, since he was such a lawman, believing in justice, he would try to take her to jail because of the goods and money she had stolen. Probably, he would turn her loose.

Surely he would, wouldn't he?

Black Fox Vann was known far and wide as a tough but fair-minded man and he knew all her good reasons for tormenting Tassel Glass. She hoped he'd turn her loose.

Maybe he would.

And then, it wouldn't matter if she loved him or not or she admired him or not, or if he believed she was a murderer or not.

Because she intended to be the one to vanish. She would call Tassel Glass out and kill him honorably and then she would vanish. Even if a fair gunfight would keep her from being arrested again, she would have to disappear because Tassel Glass had bad men working for him who would want to avenge him.

Always, bad men wanted to make a reputation for themselves. But she wasn't going to think about that now.

And neither was she going to think about how strong and hard Black Fox's arms had felt around her, how they'd held her in a circle so safe no one could break it. Or about how his heart had been beating deep in his chest, beating sure and steady against her ear as he carried her on his lap to his house that time.

Absolutely, she was not going to think about how his hands had felt on her skin and in her hair and how his mouth had felt—and tasted—when he kissed her.

She wasn't going to think about anything except finding out and proving who killed Donald Turner. That had to be done quickly and then she had to get on with her real work.

Only when Tassel Glass was dead and she was in Texas or way out west could she think about a life in the future.

Only then.

 

Sallisaw was a railroad town and big enough that, unless Burke and Fielding had caught their man or picked up a sure trail leading away from it, that's where they would probably be. Black Fox stayed on the road as it approached the outskirts of town.

“Don't you think we should hide in the woods now?” Cathleen asked. “Just in case somebody
did
come in from Sequoyah who knows that The Cat is a girl with red hair. Those two federal marshals might not understand about you and me trying to prove my innocence.”

He glanced up. Now would be the test.

“You're right,” he said. “It'd be best for me to go into town alone. You won't try to run, will you?”

She eyed him solemnly.

“I'm not stupid,” she said. “I know my only chance of proving my innocence is if you help me.”

“You could decide not to even try to prove it and just leave the country instead.”

He held her gaze as they rode side by side.

“
You
could take the train, too,” he said. “The other Cat and his gang aren't the only ones with that choice.”

“I'm not leaving the Nation until I finish what I've started with Glass,” she said flatly.

The hooves of the horses plop-plopped on the dry ground. As Black Fox laid his rein against
Ghost's neck, they walked in step off the road. They had reached the grassy plain on the edge of town and were well in sight of the main street, so he guided the horses off into a grove of cottonwoods that grew in a bend of the winding creek called Long Turtle.

All the while, Black Fox was looking into her eyes. Trying to see into her soul.

She let him.

She had nothing to hide, at least as far as an attempt at escape was concerned. He believed that. All his instincts told him that she was telling him the truth.

“I believe
that
,” he said. “But what's to keep you from heading back to Sequoyah to do it now?”

“Finding my impersonator,” she said. “No telling who he might rob or shoot next. He's liable to stir the whole Nation up in arms, trying to lynch me—and now they know who I am.”

Relieved that she understood her situation, Black Fox smiled.

She smiled back, obviously happy that he trusted her.

They looked into each other's eyes and for a moment he couldn't resist teasing her.

“I don't know,” he said, “it's a shame to waste your horse's disguise…”

“Ha!” she said scornfully. “My poor horse looks like a yellow dun somebody tried to make into a
buckskin. Like the victim of a demented boot-black running amok.”

He grinned.

“I had to hurry,” he said. “I was afraid you'd wake up and take the boot polish to my face instead.”

“Which I may do yet,” she said. “Buy me a can of it when you go into town.”

“First I have to talk to the marshals if they're here,” he said. “Might as well find out if they've caught our man.”

“If not, get the details of what they found at the Little Creek Crossing—and at Foster's,” she said.

“Yes,
ma'am,
” he said, and stopped the horses in a grassy spot in sight of the creekbank. “Any other orders?”

“Candy,” she said. “I'd rather have candy than boot polish, to tell you the truth.”

They both dismounted. Black Fox took his canteen off his saddle and went to get Cat's.

“I'll get you fresh water,” he said, “then you stay out of sight while I'm gone.”

“I will,” she said.

She was standing so close to him that he could smell the scent of her hair—and the fresh-rain fragrance of her skin. His fingers trembled a little as he untied her saddle strings.

For an instant, he thought she wanted him to touch her. She was looking at him, and she didn't
move away when his arm brushed her shoulder.

Then she did. She turned and walked to her horse's head and looked through the screen of trees at the tumbling creek.

“You could throw a rock from here and hit the back of a building on the edge of town,” he said. “So you'll have to keep a lookout for somebody cutting through here or coming to the creek.”

“I will,” she said again.

He walked past her at an angle to get to the creek. He had an insane urge to take her in his arms.

Heedless of getting his boots wet, he went out to the fresh, fast-running water and filled both canteens, then he brought hers back to her. She looked up into his face. Their fingers touched when she took it.

He stood there without moving, thinking about the way she had looked at him out on his front porch, over his painted feather. He had wanted to kiss her then. Now, suddenly, he wanted that again.